Showing papers in "Morphology in 2011"

Affectedness and differential object marking in spanish

Abstract: In this study we investigate the impact of affectedness on the diachronic development of Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish. DOM in Spanish synchronically depends on (i) the referential features of the direct object, such as animacy and referentiality, and (ii) the semantics of the verb. Several studies have also shown that the diachronic development of DOM proceeds along the Animacy Scale and the Referentiality Scale, and some recent corpus studies have indicated an influence of the verb’s semantics on this diachronic process. This study presents new findings from a detailed analysis of extensive corpus research on the distribution of DOM with respect to affectedness, understood as “the persistent change of an event participant”. We use Tsunoda’s Affectedness Scale to order the verb classes under investigation. Our findings provide evidence that this scale can be partly correlated with the diachronic spread of DOM in Spanish which would tend to confirm the influence of verbal semantics on DOM in Spanish.

Lexical vs. structural case: a false dichotomy

Abstract: This article takes issue with the two dichotomies of structural vs. lexical case and thematic vs. idiosyncratic case, on the basis of their predictions on: (a) synchronic productivity, (b) language change, and (c) language acquisition. It is shown here that these predictions are not borne out in Icelandic. In fact, productivity data from Icelandic suggest that accusative objects to new verbs are assigned lexically and not structurally. Another problem is presented by different changes in case marking in the history of the Germanic languages, changes that can only be captured by two complementary approaches to structural case, which in turn severely undermines the general explanatory power of this concept. It turns out, moreover, that the case preservation property of lexical case, as opposed to structural case, in passives and raising-to-object constructions, is a construction-specific property, not generalizable to the language as a whole. An alternative approach is sketched in terms of a usage-based Construction Grammar where all case marking of core arguments in Icelandic is regarded as lexical, i.e. word-bound, and modeled in terms of lexicality–schematicity hierarchies which capture verb-specific idiosyncrasies, higher-level generalizations, as well as the default status effect found for the Nom-Acc Construction.

The redevelopment of Indo-Aryan case systems from a lexical semantic perspective

Abstract: The original case system found in Sanskrit (Old Indo-Aryan) was lost in Middle Indo-Aryan and then reinvented in most of the modern New Indo-Aryan (NIA) languages. This paper suggests that: (1) a large factor in the redevelopment of the NIA case systems is the expression of systematic semantic contrasts; (2) the precise distribution of the newly innovated case markers can only be understood by taking their original spatial semantics into account and how this originally spatial semantics came to be used primarily for marking the core participants of a sentence (e.g., agents, patients, experiencers, recipients). Furthermore, given that case markers were not innovated all at once, but successively, we suggest a model in which already existing case markers block or compete with newer ones, thus giving rise to differing particular instantiations of one and the same originally spatial postposition across closely related languages.

Borrowing contextual inflection: evidence from northern Australia

Abstract: Gurindji Kriol is a north Australian mixed language which combines lexical and structural elements from Gurindji (Pama-Nyungan), and Kriol (English-lexifier). One of the more striking features of the grammar of Gurindji Kriol is the presence of the Gurindji case paradigm including ergative and dative case-markers within a Kriol verbal frame. Given the fragility of inflectional morphology in other language contact situations, particularly contextual inflections such as structural case markers, this situation bears closer scrunity. This paper argues that the presence of Gurindji case morphology is the result of pervasive code-switching practices which immediately preceded the genesis of the mixed language. As the code-switching stabilised into a mixed language, case-marking was integrated into predicate argument structure of Gurindji Kriol via nominal adjunct structures. Yet, these case markers were not absorbed unscathed. Although the Gurindji Kriol case paradigm bears a close resemblance to its Gurindji source in form, these case markers have not been perfectly replicated in function and distribution. Contact with Kriol functional equivalents such as prepositions and word order have altered the function and distribution of these case markers. The last part of this paper examines the shift that has occurred in Gurindji-derived case morphology in Gurindji Kriol.

Descriptive and explanatory markedness

Abstract: The wide empirical coverage of two number features, [±singular] and [±augmented], is used to show that (Greenbergian) category-internal markedness, (geometric) feature markedness, and value markedness are, respectively, epiphenomenal, untenable, and too simplistically formulated to be currently evaluated.

Gender markedness: the anatomy of a counter-example

Abstract: The morphological expression of gender on nouns displays a puzzling behaviour under ellipsis of nominal predicates. In some instances, it appears that gender can be ignored in the calculation of the identity/parallelism requirement. With other nouns, gender seems relevant and mismatch engenders parallelism violations. With yet a third group of nouns, there is an asymmetry—an overt masculine noun licenses ellipsis of the corresponding feminine, but not vice versa. The difference between the last two groups is exemplified by the English contrast in: John is a {waiter/#prince} and Mary is too (compare #Mary is a waitress/princess, and John is too). We examine six languages, and show that nouns for nobility/titles and kinship nouns form a systematic exception to an otherwise stable marked: unmarked opposition, and that when this class of nouns is factored out, the remaining two classes reflect the inflection/derivation distinction in the morphological realization of gender.

Gender features and interpretation: a case study

Abstract: Are features on nouns associated with an interpretation? This is debated in the case of number, where some say that number features on nouns are interpreted, and others say that they are a mere reflex of an interpreted feature located elsewhere. This paper looks at gender features in Italian, where the gender a noun can have is not arbitrary, and it seeks to account for the restrictions that gender seems to impose on interpretation. It argues that gender features on Italian nouns are indeed associated with an interpretation. At the same time, however, there is a special process, subject to various conditions, that has the result that in certain contexts their contribution can be ignored. The paper thus defends a view on which interpretable elements can sometimes go uninterpreted. Gender features are among the elements that can do so.

On the relationship between morphological and semantic markedness

Abstract: This paper explores two possible connections between the diagnostics for morphological and semantic markedness. One possibility, a positive correlation, predicts that if a grammatical feature is diagnosed as being morphologically marked then it should also be semantically marked. This possibility follows from the assumption that features are interpreted as restrictions on denotations. The second possibility, a negative correlation, predicts that if a grammatical feature is diagnosed as being morphologically marked then it should be semantically unmarked. This systematic inconsistency follows from the assumption that features are interpreted as augmenting functions. In our exploration of number marking, we find that the negative correlation is not only theoretically consistent with the semantic literature (in particular Link, in: Bartsch et al. (eds.) Semantics and contextual expressions, 1983), but it is also more consistent with the empirical landscape (as noted by Sauerland, in: Young and Zhou (eds.) Proceedings of Semantics and linguistic theory SALT XIII 2008). As a result, the morphological diagnostics lend support to the view that plural features are interpreted as augmenting functions.

Investigations on markedness, syncretism and zero exponence in morphology

Abstract: The inventories of subject clitics in northern Italian varieties are affected by widespread morphological changes. One of these changes is syncretism. In addition, many dialects display defective paradigms where some of the clitics are missing. The clitics that undergo syncretism and the clitics that are missing tend to be the same: the first person singular and plural, the second plural, and, less frequently, the third plural. Working in the framework of Distributed Morphology, I argue that these clitics are the target of markedness constraints that trigger repair operations leading to either syncretism or the removal of forms from a paradigm. In particular, I propose two such operations: one is feature deletion, which deletes a marked feature specification. This operation is always followed by feature insertion, which inserts the opposite value of the deleted feature specification (this operation leads to syncretism). The other one is obliteration, which deletes a morphosyntactic node and leads to underspecified morphosyntactic representations (this operation leads to paradigmatic gaps). I investigate how these operations affect the morphological exponents in PF, creating syncretisms and gaps in exponence.

Semantics of case

Abstract: This paper presents a framework which connects case assignment with the semantics of argument realization. Broad notions of agency and affectedness are decomposed into more fine-grained semantic properties, loosely based on Dowty’s Proto-Role theory, but conceived in terms of privative opposition and organized into a lattice. This lattice provides a semantic space of participant properties and supports defining hierarchical relations among participant types, interpreted as semantic prominence, as well as topological relations such as ‘closeness’, interpreted as semantic similarity between participant types. Cases are defined as connected regions of this space, relating a given case to a structured set of semantic properties. A case system is represented as a semantic system, which embodies oppositions and contrasts, and operates against the backdrop of the general semantics of argument realization, where one can define notions such as maximal agents and maximal patients and represent generalizations from the research on transitivity. Core case markers (e.g. ergative, accusative) are represented as subspaces of the lattice spreading outwards from the maximal agent and maximal patient nodes of the lattice. Case alternations arise when the subspace of the lattice delimited by a predicate’s entailments for an argument is partitioned by different cases, exemplified with the genitive/accusative alternation in Russian occurring with direct objects of certain intensional predicates. This method also provides a treatment of case polysemy, viz. a single case subsuming multiple uses, by relating the diverse uses at the more abstract semantic level of the case’s region on the lattice, demonstrated with non-canonical uses of the dative.

The expression of person and number: a typologist’s perspective

Abstract: The categories of person and number have been analyzed extensively, both from a generative/structural perspective and from a typological/cross-linguistic perspective. The goal of both approaches is to account for the diversity of human languages, but in practice both have a rather different take on the subject. One major difference between these approaches is the relation between language-specific and cross-linguistic analyses. This paper argues that it is crucial to strictly distinguish between the two. However, this plea is at odds with the generative/structural perspective, which attempts to deal with both kinds of analyses at the same time. In contrast, it is of central importance from a typological/cross-linguistic perspective to keep the comparison constant across the wide variation as attested among human languages, thereby often ignoring many language-specific details (for the course of the comparison). The final section of this paper summarizes some major results of recent cross-linguistic comparisons of the person/number categories in the world’s languages.

The penumbra of morphosyntactic feature systems

Abstract: Often features are presented as clean, neat, simple. Indeed it is the contrast with the idiosyncrasies of lexical items which gives the intuitive justification for features. But reality is more complex. There are many instances where it is arguable whether we should postulate a feature (value), as with person in Archi. We must recognize that feature systems vary: (a) according to how well founded they are, and (b) in how they distribute across the lexicon. To analyse this difficult area, the penumbra of feature systems, I start from an idealized view, and then plot the deviations from that ideal. In other words, I take a ‘canonical’ approach. Having justified this approach in general terms, I propose a specific set of converging criteria for canonical features and values, concentrating on the genuine morphosyntactic features. In brief, the overarching principles are that a canonical morphosyntactic feature is constrained by simple rules of syntax (including the claim that syntax is ‘morphology-free’) and has robust formal marking. These give us a point in the theoretical space from which to calibrate the difficult instances which abound in feature systems. In accounts of particular features, various types of what we may call non-canonical behaviour have been pointed out: e.g., non-autonomous case values (Zaliznjak 1973), minor numbers, inquorate genders. We should ask whether these problems are feature-specific or whether they recur in the different morphosyntactic features. It turns out that, at the right level of abstraction, we find similar instances of non-canonicity with the different features. Let us concentrate on the criteria contributing to ‘robust formal marking’: Criterion 1: Canonical features and their values have dedicated forms. We find non-autonomous case values (violating criterion 1), in Classical Armenian, for instance (Baerman 2002); similarly we find non-autonomous gender values (as in Romanian). Criterion 2: Canonical features and their values are uniquely distinguishable across other logically compatible features and their values. Deviations give sub-genders (Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian), sub-cases (Russian) and sub-numbers (Biak). Criterion 3: Canonical features and their values are distinguished consistently across relevant parts of speech (word classes). In the easy examples, one part of speech has values which represent a collapsing of values available on another. More interesting are systems where combinations give additional values: combined gender systems (Mba), constructed number systems (Mele-Fila) and combined person (Maybrat). Criterion 4: Canonical features and their values are distinguished consistently across lexemes within relevant parts of speech. The basic deviation gives us a minor value: as in a minor number value (Bezhta), a minor case (Russian), a minor gender (Lelemi). This leads to the question of whether such deviations can co-exist. I give a striking example: the Russian second genitive exhibits all four types of non-canonical behaviour concurrently. Since it deviates from all four listed criteria this marks the extreme of the typological space. By investigating the penumbra of feature systems, including the possible and impossible interactions within the penumbra (which features are the context for the deviations of others), we put the theory of morphosyntactic features on a more realistic and hence firmer foundation.

A Construction Morphology account of derivation in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract: In the Chinese language, morphologically complex words have been attested since the remote past of the language, including both stem-modifying processes and agglutination of morphemes, mostly lexical and free in the classical language. However, in Chinese, grammaticalization typically entails no phonological alteration (Bisang, Studies in Language 20:519–597, 1996) and it is still a matter of debate whether compounding and derivation are two distinct phenomena in Modern Mandarin Chinese (see, among others, Pan et al, The research on word formation in Chinese, 2004). In this paper we shall tackle this issue in the framework of Construction Morphology (Booij, In: Dressler et al (eds) Morphology in demarcations, 2005; In: Montermini et al (eds) Selected proceedings of the 5th Decembrettes: morphology in Toulouse, 2007), also taking into account the diachronic perspective. Our proposal is that it is possible to analyse as instances of grammaticalized derivational formants the right-hand elements in word formation schemas such as [[X] x 性] n [[X] x xing] n ‘the quality of X/connected with X’ (抽象性 chōuxiangxing “abstractness”), which undergo processes of semantic shift analogous to those of e.g. English -hood.

Polite plurals and adjective agreement

Abstract: When an agreement controller such as a subject NP is a hybrid of contrasting syntactic and semantic features, the choice of syntactic versus semantic agreement depends on both the type of agreement target and the type of agreement controller. Two types of controller are contrasted: hybrid pronouns such as polite uses of the second person plural to refer to one addressee; and hybrid common nouns such as plurale tante. In some languages the pronoun type triggers singular on a predicate adjective and plural on the verb, while the common noun type triggers plural on both adjectives and verbs. The former pattern is explained in terms of underspecification of the pronoun: it is unspecified for the Concord number feature, to which adjectives are sensitive; but it carries a number feature on its referential Index, to which finite verbs are sensitive. An Agreement Marking Principle is proposed, according to which an agreement target checks the trigger for a syntactic phi feature, assigning that feature’s semantic interpretation to the trigger denotation if no syntactic feature is found.

Markedness and morphotactics in Kadiwéu [+participant] agreement

Abstract: We examine the realization of subject and object agreement in Kadiweu, where there is only one prefixal position, and neither subject nor object can consistently be said to win—rather, the person and number of the arguments matters. We argue for an analysis in terms of the markedness of the 1st person compared to the second, dispreferring 1st person realization. This analysis is complicated by the fact that 1st person plural does in fact win over 2nd person, but only when it is an object. This turns out to be a consequence of the fact that the 1st plural object prefix is a portmanteau fusing person and number. The properties of the exponent inventory, combined with the morphological resources of Kadiweu (understood here in terms of Trommer’s (2008) Coherence constraints) and its independent need for inverse marking thus conspire to yield the particular set of argument realization combinations. We argue that factoring out the analysis into feature-sensitive realization of the feature [+participant] and [+plural], dispreferred realization of marked [+author], and these morphotactic coherence constraints, provides a better analysis of crosslinguistic variation and language-internal facts than positing an autonomous language-specific hierarchy to encode the facts.

Changing semantic factors in case selection: Russian evidence from the last two centuries

Abstract: We present a corpus-based study of variation in case assignment of the direct object of negated verbs in Russian over the past 200 years. Superficially the system of case forms available over this relatively short period has remained largely the same, but the way in which certain cases are used has been radically altered. This is particularly apparent in the treatment of the direct object of negated verbs. We argue that various semantic factors have been involved in bringing about this change, and that the role and significance of these factors has been changing over the period under investigation. This has implications for our understanding of the role of semantics in case assignment.

Indeterminacy, complex features and underspecification

Abstract: At its simplest, morphosyntactic agreement may be viewed as involving linguistic objects which have the same values for a given feature. In contemporary constraint-based formalisms the relationship is usually modelled by structure sharing in the syntax; for predicate-argument agreement, most often it is assumed that the target and the controller provide compatible (complete or partial) specifications of features of the controller. This approach has much to recommend it, being based on the straightforward mechanism of combining information monotonically in the syntax. Additionally, it is often (but not invariably) assumed that (a subset of) these same morphosyntactic features are simply passed down to the morphology for spell out (Bresnan, In: Baltin and Collins (eds.) Handbook of contemporary syntactic theory, 2000; Lexical functional syntax, 2001) (but see e.g. Ackerman and Webelhuth (In: Butt and King (eds.) Online proceedings of the LFG96 conference, 1996); Sadler and Spencer (Yearbook of morphology 2002:71–97, 2001); Sells (In: Sadler and Spencer (eds.) Projecting morphology, 2004; In: Nikolaeva (ed.) Finiteness: theoretical and empirical foundations, 2007); Sadler and Nordlinger (In: Sadler and Spencer (eds.) Projecting morphology, 2004); Hinrichs and Nakazawa (Proceedings of HPSG2001, 2002) for approaches in lfg and other constraint-based formalisms which allow some further separation between these components). We discuss a range of cases of morphosyntactic agreement which are challenging in one way or another to this lean approach and explore how they may be modelled without adding any extra machinery, by using underspecified feature representations in the syntax, within one such framework, that of Lexical Functional Grammar lfg.

Person and number syncretisms in Dutch

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to make sense of the typologically quite exceptional pattern of person neutralization in the plural as we find it in Dutch verbal paradigms. We argue that Dutch, and most of its dialects, have a structural pattern of syncretism in their verbal paradigm: there are no person-distinctions in the plural. The main question of this paper is: where does this structural pattern of neutralization in Dutch come from, if we cannot explain it as a typologically wellattested pattern? As a first step, note that although the pattern is typologically quite odd, it conforms to another well-known generalization about paradigms: neutralization occurs in the marked half of the paradigm (see e.g. Nevins 2009). Further, we need to explain why this pattern occurs precisely in the Netherlands at this particular point in time. To this, we argue that this pattern arises as the result of a particular language acquisition strategy together with reduced evidence from the input for the fully inflected forms, probably as a result of dialect contact. This reduced evidence causes the third person, being the most frequent form, to dominate the other plural forms. In combination with limited paradigm splitting (Pinker, 1996), this explains the uniform plural that we find in most Dutch dialects.

Preface: on the morphosemantics of agreement features

Abstract: phological and typological research on the one hand, and formal semantic research, on the other, have both made significant progress in recent years. Nevertheless with a few notable exceptions (e.g., Schlenker 1999; Harbour 2007) there has been little systematic effort to date to integrate results from the morphology, typology, and formal semantics. For example, Cysouw (2003) constitutes the first major treatment of the range of variation in the morphological expression of person marking since Forchheimer (1953), and contains the most comprehensive array of morphological data available. Yet this work contains only a few paragraphs on the meanings assumed for the features, with no discussion of possible formalizations (a criticism raised in Schulze 2004). Similarly, Corbett (2000) contains a wealth of typological information on the representation of number, but only a very short discussion of the formal semantics, although this is a major topic of inquiry in that domain. On the other hand, work such as Heim (2008), Kratzer (2009), Sauerland (in progress), Schlenker (1999), and related papers present careful formal studies of the semantics of person features,

Base-dependence in reduplication

Abstract: Inkelas and Zoll (Reduplication: Doubling in morphology, 2005) designed Morphological Doubling Theory (MDT) to offer an alternative theory of reduplication that does not involve phonological copying. Contra theories of reduplication which assume that the morphophonological form of a reduplicative morpheme (a “reduplicant”) relies on the morphophonological form of some stem (its “base”), MDT disallows such “base-dependence”. Inkelas and Zoll account for many reduplication patterns without base-dependence by positing that reduplication constructions involve semantic identity, rather than phonological identity, between two stems in a compounding construction. However, we argue that certain patterns of reduplication require base-dependence. These include cases where reduplication targets the output prosodic structure of the stem, as in the “foot copy”’ reduplicants of Yidiny and “syllable copy” reduplicants of Hiaki (Yaqui). To account for these cases MDT must posit syllabic structure in the input, contra the Richness of the Base. Further, MDT cannot account for emergence of the unmarked (TETU) effects in reduplication. In Tawala, vowel-lengthening occurs in lieu of reduplication only in a predictable phonological environment: when a verb stem already contains two identical adjacent syllables at the left edge of the word. We argue that while such a pattern is a problem for MDT’s proscription against base-dependence, it can be accounted for as a simple case of TETU within Correspondence Theory, given a ranking of Faith-IO >> *Repeatσ >> Faith-BR. Thus, some of the major premises of MDT, which does not privilege a distinction between “reduplicant” and “base”, are challenged by such data.

Case and configurationality: Scrambling or mapping?

Abstract: Kanum, a language of southern New Guinea, displays nonconfigurationality only for arguments marked with an overt structural case. After examining a variety of constraints on scrambling, in main and subordinate clauses, I argue that nonconfigurationality is a process of scrambling, rather than independent mapping from functional structure to constituency, and further is dependent on features associated with overt morphological case, and that alternative accounts in terms of grammatical function identity cannot be sustained.

Historical gender change in West Frisian

Abstract: In Frisian, grammatical gender is an abstract lexical property, which is not spelled out on the noun. It manifests itself in an indirect way, through the agreement relations the noun enters into. It is, thus, understandable that phonological regularities and residual (abstract) case marking in a prepositional context can be crucial for two instances of historical gender change in Frisian. In the Dutch–Frisian language contact situation, however, factors which are strictly speaking non-linguistic in nature play a role as well. These are, first, the low degree of standardisation of Frisian at the time the gender change set in and, secondly, distancing from Dutch at the time when Frisian developed its own standard vis-a-vis Dutch, which implies the propagation of the gender which diverges from the Dutch one. It is the interplay between these factors which lends the case of gender change in Frisian an inherent linguistic significance. Not every Frisian de-word could become an it-word and vice versa, since the language system puts its limits here. For instance, all nouns ending in schwa are de-words, a formal regularity which prevented them from switching to it-words. Neither are there only regular patterns of gender change in Frisian. The general tendencies are clear, but as far as individual words are concerned, there is much which must be left unexplained.

Towards an understanding of dative objects in Basque: a logistic regression analysis

Abstract: Most work on case marking has focussed on the standard or ‘default’ case patterns, however more recent work has examined the marginal instances where non-standard cases are used to mark core grammatical relations. In this paper I investigate the use of logistic regression as a tool for validating competing analyses proposed to account for one such case pattern in Basque: transitive clauses where the object bears dative case. Several explanations for this dative marking have been proposed, appealing to notions such as telicity, animacy, and the ‘person’ of the subject/object. To evaluate these different proposals a database of naturally occurring sentences was created from existing corpora and coded for these different possible variables. Following Bresnan et al (In: Bouma G, Kraemer I, Zwarts J (eds) Cognitive foundations of interpretation. Royal Netherlands Academy of Science, Amsterdam, 2007) and others, a logistic regression model was fit to the data using these predictor variables to ascertain the most important factors determining the use of the dative case for Basque objects.