On children’s late acquisition of raising seem and control promise

The goal of this study is to address two questions: (i) whether the delays in the acquisition of subject-to-subject raising (StSR) seem and subject control (SC) promise are related, as would be predicted by various developmental accounts, and (ii) whether delays are due to limited processing capacity or immature grammatical abilities. Our two comprehension tasks reveal two groups of children: (i) a below-chance group; they have a non-adult grammar of StSR or SC, and processing capacity does not predict performance; and (ii) an at-/above-chance group: they have an adult-like grammar of StSR or SC, and processing capacity modulates performance. Importantly, we find no correlation between StSR and SC performance—some children have mastered StSR with seem but not SC with promise and some show the opposite pattern, suggesting a dissociation between the grammatical development of StSR and SC, specifically of the mechanisms required to circumvent intervention.

Punctual time adverbials in Italian

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.

Canonical and reverse predication in the syntax of the active/passive diathesis alternation

This chapter defends an analysis of the active/passive alternation sharing with Collins’s smuggling proposal the idea that the participial VP occupies a specifier position above the external argument, but base-generating it in this position rather than moving it there. In both the active and the passive, the VP and the external argument are in a predication structure, with a RELATOR mediating the predication relation. The active voice builds a canonical predication structure, with the VP in the RELATOR’S complement position and the subject of predication as the specifier. In the passive voice, the VP is externally merged in the specifier of the RELATOR and the external argument in its complement. This analysis provides an explanation for obligatory auxiliation, the unavailability of accusative Case for the internal argument, Visser’s Generalization (the ban on personal passivization of subject control verbs), and the restrictions on referential dependencies and depictive secondary predication in passives.

A smuggling approach to the dative alternation

This chapter proposes a smuggling approach to the dative alternation. On the basis of traditional c-command tests, it is argued that the prepositional dative example in (ii) is derived from the structure underlying the double object construction in (i). i. John gave Mary the car (Double Object Construction). ii. John gave the car to Mary (Prepositional Dative). A smuggling analysis is motivated for the derivation of (ii). Once the VP containing the theme is moved over the goal, the theme then moves to a higher A position c-commanding the goal. Lastly, it is shown how the distribution of particles provides support for the smuggling analysis.

Introduction

The introduction outlines the scope of the volume and defines smuggling as involving two steps (Step A is a pied-piping, and Step B is extraction). It is pointed out that in terms of the order of the steps involved, smuggling is the reverse of remnant movement. The possible range of smuggling operations is discussed, including a case of smuggling in the domain of A′ movement from Italian. Lastly, the contributions to the volume are summarized.

Smuggling, ergativity, and the final-over-final condition

This paper argues that the lack of SVO ergative languages (“Mahajan’s Generalization”; see Taraldsen 2017) can be explained by the combination of a smuggling analysis of ergative alignments and the Final-over-Final-Condition (FOFC), which bans orders where a head-final category has a head-initial category in its Specifier (the head-initial category may have moved there, given the prevalence of roll-up derivations in surface head-final languages). The smuggling derivation, when the smuggled category is internally head-initial, creates a configuration which violates FOFC. For this reason, SVO and ergativity do not combine in the world’s languages, a notable typological lacuna that has hitherto defied explanation. The implications of the analysis for V-initial ergative languages and for passives are briefly explored.

On the syntax of the can’t seem construction in English

/The properties of the English can’t seem construction call for a syntactic resolution of the syntax-semantics mismatch it exhibits. This chapter shows the can’t seem order must be derived from a [seem to [ . . . not can VP ] ] structure. Insights into the derivation come from verb clusters in Germanic OV languages, with complex verb formation and clustering verbs like can and seem playing a central role. Together with infinitival to, dative to, and downward entailing elements, these are instrumental in creating remnant constituents, triggering pied-piping and smuggling a remnant constituent up into the structure, until each element can reach its final landing site. Restrictions fall out from the particular sequence of merge which must hold for convergence, and from the role each element must play. The English derivation in turn sheds light on a potential syntactic resolution of a syntax-phonology mismatch with “displaced” zu in German verbal clusters.

Ways of smuggling in syntactic derivations

This chapter presents and discusses a number of derivations such as passive, causative, and passive in the causative voice / si-causative passive, which all involve movement of a chunk of the verb phrase containing the verb and its internal argument, yielding smuggling in Collins’s (2005) sense. The questions of what the engine of a smuggling derivation is and how the relevant chunk to be smuggled is identified guide the discussion. Evidence from acquisition is also considered where derivations involving smuggling appear to be at the same time more complex and more readily available to the developing child. The relevant chunks can be attracted by different types of heads in the clause structure, which all have the property of attracting syntactic movement into their specifier. Such heads may express features of different nature present in the clausal map, such as the passive and causative voice, as well as discourse-related features such as the (vP-peripheral) topic and focus features.

On measure phrase alternation and smuggling

This chapter examines the phenomenon of M(easure) P(hrase) alternation from a cross-categorial perspective. An illustration of this phenomenon is given by the minimal pair (i) John is two inches too tall; (ii) John is too tall by two inches. The former features a bare MP, the latter by+MP. Interestingly, clauses permit only one order: *Mary two years outlived her husband; (ii) Mary outlived her husband by two years. It is proposed that the pattern featuring the bare MP is the base order. The pattern featuring by+MP is the derived order. This derived order results from leftward movement of a phrasal constituent past MP. In clauses, this phrasal constituent is a VP which smuggles the subject across MP. The ill-formedness of the clause featuring a bare MP is due to a locality violation: a subject moves across an intervening MP. In non-clausal configurations, this violation does not occur since the (small clause) subject is located higher than MP.

Remnant movement and smuggling in some romance interrogative clauses

This chapter analyzes the syntax of interrogative clauses in French and in some Northern Italian dialects (NIDs), including so-called “wh-in-situ” configurations. It shows that their intricate properties can be derived from standard computations (“wh-movement” and remnant movement of vP/IP to a Top/ground slot) to either the vP Left periphery (“LLP”) or the CP domain (“HLP”). If so, it becomes necessary to raise the question of why some languages make use of the LLP or the HLP, or indeed both, like French, as argued in sections 2–7. In significant cases the morphological properties of the various Wh-words and the surface forms of the sentences provide all the clues required by the language learner and the linguist. In French, movement of interrogative pronouns to the HLP is actually movement to a free relative layer. This is an automatic consequence of the fact that, as in Germanic, most French and Romance wh-items are morphologically both (free) relative and interrogative pronouns. This will explain the distribution of French Quoi (what)—only an interrogative pronoun—and similar items in a number of NIDs (Che in Bellunese and Illasi, Què in Borgomanerese and Monese). In the same vein, sections 9–11 show that the fact that French Que is both an interrogative and relative element, in addition to being a clitic qua interrogative, will account for its properties in conjunction with a “smuggling” analysis of Subject Clitic Inversion (SCLI). Sections 14–16 show that many NIDs make use of both the LLP and the HLP and that smuggling is involved in deriving the form and interpretation of interrogative clauses in Bellunese, Illasi, and Monese. In addition to renewed empirical arguments in favor of remnant movement and smuggling, sections 2–7 argue that embedded interrogative infinitives in (at least) French are vPs and only have a (sometimes truncated) LLP. In addition to the fruitfulness of the “smuggling” idea for Romance, the main theoretical result of this chapter is that the interrogative syntax of the languages and dialects studied here supports the idea that “relative constructions” or “interrogative constructions” are not primitives of the language faculty, since in significant cases the derivation of questions activates both the interrogative side of the LLP and the (free) relative side of the HLP.