scholarly journals The syntax of the addressee in imperatives: What Levantine Arabic attitude datives bring to the table

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Youssef A. Haddad
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Person Features ◽  
Levantine Arabic ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
Imperative Subject ◽  
Special Category

The imperative subject constitutes a special category compared to the subjects of other types of clauses in that it is required to be the addressee. Zanuttini (2008) argues that this requirement follows from a special syntactic status: imperative subjects enter the computation with gender and number but no person features. They acquire a second-person specification later by entering an agreement relation with the head of a jussive phrase, a functional projection that is unique for imperative clauses and that occupies the left periphery. This paper provides independent evidence from attitude dative constructions in Levantine Arabic in support of this approach. Attitude datives are optional pronominal elements that make pragmatic contributions to utterances without altering their meaning. The paper shows that attitude datives whose referent coincides with the referent of the subject are less restricted in terms of the interpretation they may receive in imperative versus other types of clauses. Imperative clauses are more permissive, a characteristic that follows from the special status of their subject.

On the left periphery of three languages of Northern Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-117
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola
Keyword(s):  
Northern Italy ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Simple Description ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pragmatic Interpretation ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb

Abstract Through a focus on the properties of subject-finite verb inversion and XP fronting in three relaxed V2 languages, namely Cimbrian, Ladin and Mòcheno, this paper aims to widen and refine our understanding of relaxed V2 languages, i.e. languages in which the V2 property should be understood in a technical sense as obligatory V-to-C movement, not as a simple description referring to linearisation (Benincà 2006, 2013; Ledgeway 2016). It will be shown that inversion differs across relaxed V2 languages in two ways. In a first subtype, inversion is not associated with any marked pragmatic interpretation of the lexical subject and the subject appears in an A position in the IP area: this type is instantiated by Old Italian (Benincà 2006, Poletto 2014). A second option, instantiated by the languages considered in this paper, is that the lexical subject receives a pragmatically marked interpretation which is encoded in a Functional Projection (FP) in the vP periphery (Belletti 2004, Poletto 2006). This paper confirms that V3/V4 word orders involve the presence of a double articulation for foci and wh-elements, which appear in different positions in the CP layer in relaxed V2 languages (Poletto 2002, Wolfe 2015 a,b). It also contributes to our understanding of the syntax of topics in relaxed V2 languages by showing that (i) topics can be moved to CP and (ii) the movement option is not restricted to main clauses lacking an XP in the left periphery; it also occurs in interrogative clauses (unlike in the relaxed V2 varieties considered in Walkden 2014, 2015).

Inverse agreement in Hungarian

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
András Bárány
Keyword(s):  
First Person ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Morphological Effect ◽  
Object A ◽  
Feature Sets ◽  
Explicit Analysis ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Agreement Morphology ◽  
Object Agreement

This chapter turns to object agreement with personal pronouns in Hungarian. Pronouns are interesting because they do not always trigger agreement with the verb: first person objects never trigger object agreement (morphology), and second person pronouns only do with first person singular subjects. It is proposed that the distribution of object agreement is a morphological effect and argues that all personal pronouns do in fact trigger agreement, but agreement is not always spelled out. This means that Hungarian has an inverse agreement system, where the spell-out of agreement is determined by the relative person feature (or person feature sets) of the subject and the object. A formally explicit analysis of the syntax and the morphological spell-out of agreement is provided.

On the Subject of Negative Auxiliary Inversion

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Blanchette ◽  
Chris Collins
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
West Texas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Scope Freezing

AbstractThis article presents a novel analysis ofNegative Auxiliary Inversion(NAI) constructions such asdidn't many people eat, in which a negated auxiliary appears in pre-subject position. NAI, found in varieties including Appalachian, African American, and West Texas English, has a word order identical to a yes/no question, but is pronounced and interpreted as a declarative. We propose that NAI subjects are negative DPs, and that the negation raises from the subject DP to adjoin to Fin (a functional head in the left periphery). Three properties of NAI motivate this analysis: (i) scope freezing effects, (ii) the various possible and impossible NAI subject types, and (iii) the incompatibility of NAI constructions with true Double-Negation interpretations. Implications for theories of Negative Concord, Negative Polarity Items, and the representation of negation are discussed.

Borrowing non-canonical inverse between Kabardian and Abaza

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-173
Author(s):  
Peter M. Arkadiev
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Close Relative ◽  
First Person ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Intransitive Verbs ◽  
Person Hierarchy ◽  
Distant Relative

Abaza, a polysynthetic ergative Northwest Caucasian language, shares with its neighbour and distant relative Kabardian a typologically peculiar use of the deictic directional prefixes monitoring the relative ranking of the subject and indirect object on the person hierarchy. In both languages, the cislocative (‘hither’) prefixes are used if the indirect object outranks the subject on the person hierarchy, and the translocative (‘thither’) prefixes are used in combinations of first person subjects with second person singular indirect objects. This pattern, reminiscent of the more familiar inverse marking and hence called ‘quasi-inverse’, is observed with ditransitive and bivalent intransitive verbs and is almost fully redundant, since all participants are unequivocally indexed on verbs by pronominal prefixes. I argue that this isogloss, shared by West Circassian (a close relative to Kabardian) but not with Abkhaz, the sister-language of Abaza, is a result of pattern replication under intense language contact, which has led to an increase of both paradigmatic and syntagmatic complexity of Abaza verbal morphology.

Punctual time adverbials in Italian

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-52
Author(s):  
Valentina Bianchi
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Intervention Effect ◽  
Reference Time ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Event Time ◽  
Compositional Semantic ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
The Subject

In past and future perfect sentences, punctual time adverbials like at five o’clock can specify either the Event Time or the Reference Time. In Italian, their interpretation is affected by syntactic position: a clause-peripheral adverbial allows for both interpretations, while a clause-internal adverbial only has the E-interpretation. Moreover, for clause-peripheral adverbials the presence of the adverb già (already) blocks the E-interpretation. It is shown that this pattern can be accounted for under a smuggling analysis, in which (i) the adverbial is merged as a DP in a functional projection intervening between T and the subject in the edge of v/VP, thus blocking Agree between them; (ii) smuggling of v/VP past the adverbial solves the intervention effect; and (iii) an E-adverbial originates in a projection below già (already), while an R-adverbial originates in a projection above it. A compositional semantic analysis is provided for the proposed syntactic structure.

The nominal system

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-101
Author(s):  
D. Gary Miller
Keyword(s):  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Nominal System ◽  
The Third ◽  
Case System ◽  
System P ◽  
Local Case ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Syntactic Status ◽  
The Third Person

Nouns are inflected for gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number (singular and plural), and case: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative. Except in -u- stems, the vocative has the form of the accusative and/or is syncretized with the nominative. Demonstratives and pronominals have a residual instrumental, e.g. þe (by this), and ablative, e.g. jáinþro (from there). Adjectives are similarly inflected but also have strong and weak forms. Comparatives and nonpast participles are weak. The precise syntactic status of D-words (demonstratives, determiners, and articles) is impossible to test. Personal pronouns of the first and second person are inflected for singular, plural, and dual, and have no gender distinction. The third person pronoun has all three genders but only singular and plural number. Interrogative and indefinite pronouns are morphologically identical. Gothic has a rich negative polarity system. Numerals are partly inflected and partly indeclinable. Deictic adverbs belong to an old local case system.

On the role of person in the mapping of syntactic features onto their interpretable counterparts

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 649-672
Author(s):  
Ivona Kučerová
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
Person Features ◽  
The Subject

AbstractPerson features play a role in narrow-syntax processes. However, a person feature is often characterized as [±participant], a characterization that suggests pragmatic or semantic features. Relatedly, person has been the subject of an ongoing debate in the literature: one family of approaches argues that 3rd person is an elsewhere case, while another argues that it is a valued interpretable feature. This article provides a programatic argument that this disagreement has a principled basis. I argue that the representation of the features we identify as person changes between narrow syntax and the syntax-semantics interface. The tests and empirical descriptions are incongruent because they target different modules of the grammar and in turn different grammatical objects. The article thus contributes to our understanding of the division of labour among the modules, with a special focus on the autonomous status of narrow syntax.

Some remarks on subject positions and the architecture of the left periphery in Spanish

2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Pöll
Keyword(s):  
Simple Rule ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Landing Sites ◽  
The Subject

AbstractThis article reexamines the puzzling issue of where subjects, lexical and null, are located in Spanish and offers a novel explanation for the incompatibility of preverbal lexical subjects with fronted focussed constituents. Both SpecIP and the left periphery appear to be potential landing sites for subjects, according to discourse-pragmatic factors. Assuming that pro is a clitic, it is argued that the aforementioned incompatibility can be captured by a simple rule: SpecIP must be empty for focus fronting to occur. This is the case with pro, which adjoins to Infl, or with postverbal subjects since they remain in SpecVP. From this analysis it follows that: 1) the subject field in Spanish is less articulated than is generally assumed, 2) the differences between Spanish and other null subject languages with respect to the availability of preverbal subjets can be reduced to this rule and a different ordering of focus and topic phrases, and 3) it is unnecessary to posit two different topic positions.

Let's talk about you and me

2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 465-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
HEDDE ZEIJLSTRA
Keyword(s):  
Blocking Effect ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
First Person ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Maximize Presupposition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cross

A recent development in Dutch concerns the deictic interpretation of the second-person singular pronoun je, which may refer to the speaker only. In such examples the subject refers to the speaker – not the hearer – but at the same time, these examples come along with an implicature stating that the hearer would have done the same thing if s/he were in the speaker's situation. Why is it the case that a second-person singular pronoun may refer to the speaker only? And why is it that when speaker-referring je is used, it always comes along with an implicature of the kind described above? In this article I argue that this behavior of Dutch je is a consequence of its semantically unmarked status with respect to the first-person singular pronoun ik. Along the lines of Sauerland (2008), I propose that Dutch je only carries one feature, [PARTICIPANT], whereas ik carries two features: [SPEAKER] and [PARTICIPANT]. Consequently, je may in principle refer to all participants in the conversation, enabling je to refer to the speaker as well. The fact that je does not normally refer to the speaker but to the hearer only then follows as some kind of blocking effect resulting from application of the principle of Maximize Presupposition. The paper concludes by spelling out the predictions that this analysis makes for the cross-linguistic variation with respect to the readings that participant and other pronouns may yield.

Subject expression in Spanish

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly L. Geeslin ◽  
Aarnes Gudmestad
Keyword(s):  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Single Category ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Subject Expression

Research on variation demonstrates that analyses of frequency and predictors of use contribute to our understanding of languages. Investigations of subject expression in Spanish in particular have identified differences across person and number of the verb that suggest that linguists should focus their analyses exclusively on a single category of that variable (e.g., Torres-Cacoullos and Travis 2010). The current paper examines the subject-expression forms produced in first- and second-person contexts in separate analyses, exploring the degree to which patterns of use generalize across verbal person categories. Data from 32 sociolinguistic interviews with native and non-native speakers of Spanish in the same speech community were coded for independent linguistic variables, such as switch reference, perseveration, tense, mood and aspect of the verb form, verbal negation, presence of object pronouns, specificity and reference cohesiveness. Separate multivariate analyses for first- and second-person referents show subtle differences between NSs and NNSs.

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