Mapping Linguistic Data
Essays in honour of Liliane Haegeman
Metin Bağrıaçık, Anne Breitbarth, and Karen De Clercq (eds.)

Cover image: The White Cat (F. Marc)Foreword
Liliane Haegeman’s oeuvre is characterised by the aim to advance syntactic theory based on strongly empirically informed research. A special interest of hers
is the syntax and morphology of dialects, in particular (West) Flemish. At thesame time, Liliane has worked together with an immense number of linguists
on phenomena in an even larger number of languages. Her knack for puzzling
data and rigid formal analysis have inﬂuenced the direction of research for many
years. She has shaped (and continues to shape!) the ﬁeld by her seminal workon verbal syntax, negation, adverbial clauses and main clause phenomena, andmany generations of students have grown up on a healthy diet of several editionsof the Introduction to Government & Binding Theory and, subsequently, Thinking
Syntactically.
With this WebFestschrift, that contains linguistic and non-linguistic contributions, we want to thank Liliane for what she did for us and means to us as her
students, colleagues and linguistic friends. We also want to wish her a very happy
65th birthday and a good retirement. Of course, we hope that Liliane will remain
active in the ﬁeld and that she will keep mapping linguistic data and astonish us
all.
All the best to you, Liliane, and a very happy birthday!
Metin Bağrıaçık
Anne Breitbarth
Karen De Clercq

3

Table of contents
Possessors, foci and topics in the Greek DP
Artemis Alexiadou & Melita Stavrou . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8A negative concord puzzle tied to French exceptives
J.-Marc Authier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

Subject relative clauses without a complementizer in a Modern Greek
dialect
Metin Bağrıaçık . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

Subjunctive selection in French vs. Balkan
Lena Baunaz & Eric Lander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35‘U is’ or ‘U bent’? Polite forms of address and verbal agreement inhistorical Dutch and Ibero-Romance
Miriam Bouzouita & Anne Breitbarth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

50

The Haegeman test: A′ -movement in the middle ﬁeld
Hans Broekhuis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

The Root where it should not be. On internal argument drop sentencesin Italian
Carlo Cecchetto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

68

A Note on Relative Clauses with Split Antecedents
Guglielmo Cinque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75

A dummy and a diminutive in Dutch verbal lore
Norbert Corver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

4

De kunst van de behoedzaamheid / The art of precaution
Karen De Clercq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97‘What would you rather me say?’Marcel Den Dikken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99

While we’re on the Subject...
Nigel Duﬃeld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105

Some thoughts on the early Dutch null subject
Maria Teresa Guasti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

114

Negative concord and Old English clause structure:some afterthoughts
Eric Haeberli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119

Mapping the speaker’s mind
Virginia Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

129

Some information-structure properties of Negative Preposing
in English and SpanishÁngel L. Jiménez-Fernández . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

136

Negative adjectives
Wim Klooster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

146

Fanbrief / Fan mailKaren Lahousse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

154

Morphology Driven by Syntax: XP Movement and Allomorphy
Tom Leu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

161

5

Multilingualism as the new comparative syntax
Terje Lohndal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

171

To Liliane, with appreciation
Shigeru Miyagawa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

179

Hoe cool is dat wel niet! How pseudo-questions and expletive negationin Dutch
Rachel Nye and Lieven Danckaert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

182

Polarity and other distributional properties of uitkijken / opletten /oppassen (‘look out’)
Albert Oosterhof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

200

The absence of classiﬁers in numeral classiﬁer constructions
in Vietnamese
Trang Phan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

208

Embedded interrogatives as free relatives
Cecilia Poletto & Emanuela Sanfelici . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

214

For Liliane: Friend, muse, linguist extraordinaire,
and world’s second most famous Belgian
Andrew Radford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

226

Left peripheral

as a discourse particle
Henk van Riemsdijk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

234‘Recycling’ evidentiality: a research program
Johan Rooryck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

242

6

An emerging veridical complementizer to čto in Russian
Alexandra Simonenko & Anastasiia Voznesenskaia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

262

Clause-initial subject doubling in Dutch dialects(Or: Liliane was right after all)Jeroen Van Craenenbroeck & Marjo van Koppen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

269

Here, there, and (every)where
Guido Vanden Wyngaerd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

280

Grammaticalisation processes in Flemish Sign Language
Mieke Van Herreweghe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

287“Stemmen uit het verleden”: Het transcriptieproject bij de Vakgroep
Taalkunde—Nederlands van de Gentse Universiteit
Jacques Van Keymeulen & Anne-Sophie Ghyselen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

296

Diary null subjects: an analogy with imperatives?
Andrew Weir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

306

Recording and explaining: exploring the German ditransitive
alternation
Klaas Willems, Ludovic De Cuypere & Hilde De Vaere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

313

7

Possessors, foci and topics in the Greek DP
Artemis Alexiadou & Melita Stavrou

1

Introduction

The position(s) and the status of the DP initial possessive genitive in Greek havebeen extensively discussed in the literature since the mid/late eighties. Although
not the principal focus of investigation in Horrocks & Stavrou’s work (1987), thenature of possessive genitive constituted their main argument for the existenceof a functional category above NP, namely DP, in Greek.
In this squib, dedicated with love and respect to Liliane and her extensive
work on possessors in West Flemish (and cross-linguistically), we return to theissue of the position and function of the possessive genitive and look with moredetail at the preposed genitive and its possible interpretations.
The squib is structured as follows. First, we brieﬂy summarize the basic facts
and argumentation of Horrocks & Stavrou (1987). The main points of this outline concern the parallelisms between D and I/C in the sentential domain andthe focus interpretation that both possessors and interrogative words get when
moved to the speciﬁer position of their respective functional categories. We also
relate the focus interpretation with the (im)possibility of the genitive being doubled by a pronominal clitic inside the DP. Building on an idea ﬁrst encounteredin Giusti & Stavrou (2008), we show that the prenominal (or preposed) possessor in Greek can only be stressed as focus and cases of apparent violation of thatgeneralization which have been brought up over the years (see Giusti & Stavrou
2008) are instances of either topicalization or of dislocation (as Hanging Topic)of the whole DP that contains the possessor. Closing our squib, we summarize
the functions and interpretations of the preposed genitive in Greek.

82

Horrocks and Stavrou (1987)

The point of departure of Horrocks & Stavrou were nominal phrases where thepossessor, in the form of a full DP whose lexical head (as well as other possible
material) bears morphological genitive case, is found in a position preceding thearticle:
(1)

a.

b.

tu
ﬁtiti
the.
. student.
‘the student’s book’tonpedjionthe.
. kids.
.
‘the kids’ room’to vivlio
the book
to domatio
the room

The position of the genitive in (1) is marked, since the intonation and interpretation it gets is that of a (contrastive) focus, in contrast to the neutral interpretation
it gets in its ‘base’ position, following the noun. The focus function of the preposed genitive automatically means that the possessor cannot be doubled by aclitic:1(2)

a. *Tuﬁtiti
to vivlio tu
the.
. student.
. the book .3 .
‘The student’s book was destroyed.’b. *tonpedjionto domatio tus
the.
. kids.
. the room
.3 .

katastraﬁke.
was destroyed

Horrocks & Stavrou (1987) put special emphasis on the fact that the same distributional pattern as in (1) is observed in interrogative DPs, in which the interrogative genitive also precedes the (deﬁnite) article (for more data and detailed
discussion see Horrocks & Stavrou 1987):(3)

tinos to aftokinito?
whose the car(from: to aftokinito tinos? ‘the car whose’)‘Whose car?’

There is a further eloquent parallelism between interrogative clauses and inter1

It must be noted that clitic doubling (of the possessor) is not attested inside the DP irrespectively of the position of the possessive genitive (Alexiadou & Stavrou 2000, Giusti & Stavrou
2008). The fact that it is predictably disallowed with focused genitives is independent and explained on the basis of the focus character of the genitive.

9

rogative DPs:
(4)

Ti ekane?
what did.3‘What did he do?’(4) is exactly parallel to (3), the former showing fronting of the interrogative pronoun in the sentence, the second in the nominal expression. This parallelism
led Horrocks & Stavrou to assume that within the nominal phrase there must
be a grammatical position for the interrogative possessive pronoun to land to(internal wh-movement) parallel to CP in clauses, where wh-constituents move
to. Such a position, a speciﬁer position by analogy to Spec,CP, must be in frontof the article, given the word order in (3). In that case, the article is the headof the projection at the speciﬁer of which constituents from a position lower in
the nominal phrase move to. Horrocks & Stavrou (1987) named that projection
Art(icle)P. It was the same projection that was labelled DP in Abney (1987). The
crucial fact underlined by Horrocks & Stavrou was that the pre-article position
is an A′ -position, similar to the Spec, CP. Thus, in Greek, in contrast to English,
the same relationship holds between DP and NP as between CP and VP. In bothcases, the speciﬁer position of the functional layer is an A′ -position and may
host constituents moved from within the lexical category they dominate (operator movement); in English, DP is parallel to IP. The status of Spec,DP as an
A′ -position is used in Alexiadou (2016) to explain the unavailability of possessor doubling with full DPs in Greek. Giusti & Stavrou (2008) note that in certain
cases involving pronominal possessors, the possessor can be clitic-doubled (see(5)). This is impossible when the possessor is a full DP (6):(5)

To vivlio mu
emena
den pulithike katholu.
the book .1 me.
.
not soldat all‘My book was not sold at all.’(6)

Petaxato vivlio-(*tu) tu ﬁtiti.
threw.1 the book-(*his) the student.
‘I threw away the student’s book.’

German and other Germanic languages have possessor doubling with full DPs,
as shown in (7):(7)

dem Vater
the father.

seine Katz
his cat10

According to Alexiadou (2016), Greek diﬀers from German(ic), which has possessor doubling (7), in that in Greek, the pre-determiner possessor occupies an
A′ -position, as argued by Horrocks & Stavrou (1987). By contrast, in German(ic),the prenominal possessor can be argued to occupy an argument position, as it
receives no particular focal or contrastive stress, see Corver (1990), Haegeman(2004), and Georgi & Salzmann (2011) among others. The latter type of possessor can be doubled by a clitic, which Alexiadou assumes, following Corver, thatoccupies D0 . This is not possible in Greek. In Greek, the possessive clitic is enclitic to the head noun and never realizes D0 . Evidence for this comes from theobservation that in German(ic) possessor doubling constructions, the pronoun
inﬂects like a determiner and not like an adjective, the possessive pronoun determines the inﬂection of a following adjective, and the possessive pronoun is incomplementary distribution with other determiners.

3

Possessors, foci, topics and the DP

However, Giusti & Stavrou (2008) make the following observation, which appears to weaken the generalization that the preposed possessor in Greek is always (contrastively) focused. There are instances of DP initial genitives that are
not focalized but look like (contrastive) topics (although such instances are muchrarer than the cases where the preposed genitive is focused):(8)

Tis Marias o petheros epathe egefaliko.
the.
Maria.
. the father-in-law underwent stroke‘Mary’s father-in-law underwent a stroke.’In (8) the preposed genitive is not focalized and does not get emphatic/contrastive
stress. The reading of (8) is something like ‘talking of Mary/As for Mary her…’.
Let us further consider the following context.
Context: Several of my former classmates face with health and other problems
in their families; in particular:(8)

Tis Marias o petheros…

(9)

Tis
Eleniso jos epathe atihima sti
thalassa.
the.
. Helen.
. the son had
accident in the sea‘Helen’s son had an accident in the sea.’

11

(10)

Tu
Kosta
o aderfos horise prin dio mines.
the.
. Kosta.
. the brother divorced before two months‘Kosta’s brother got divorced two months ago.’

In these cases, the preposed possessor is not the focus but has rather the ﬂavor
of a topic, probably a contrastive topic. Nonetheless, the clitic is not allowed insuch cases either:
(11)

*Tis
the.
.
thalassa.
sea

ElenisHelen.

.

o jos tisthe son .

.

epathe atihima sti
had
accident in the

Giusti & Stavrou (2008) hypothesize that rather than saying that the genitive
stands for a topic inside the DP, it is the entire DP that has this function, not justthe possessor. The topic character of the whole DP in cases such as (8)–(10) is
supported by the fact that it can be clitic doubled just like any other topicalized
object in Greek:
(12)

Tis
Mariaston petherotonskotosan ithe.
. Maria.
. the father-in-law . . killedthejermani ston polemo.
Germans in the war‘Maria’s father-in-law was killed by the Germans during the war.’

In isolation, the possessor may only be focused – the across-the-board case as
said above. If this line of thought is along the right track, it means that the
preposed genitive in (8) was originally focused within the DP, but when the DP
moved to a topic position in the clause, the focus status of tis Marias was cancelled or overriden by the topic status of the whole DP. Full assessment of nonfocused (preposed) genitives as in (8)–(10) requires a detailed examination of theinteraction of foci and topics in the clause and in the DP.
Let us next consider cases similar to those in (8)–(10) but with a clear pause
after the preposed genitive:
(13)

Tis
Marias,the.
. Maria.
.
me ton antratis.
with the husband hersi aderﬁ *(tis)the sister
.

12

.

exi megalo provlima
has big
problem‘Mary’s sister has a big problem with her husband.’ (Lit. ‘Let’s talk ofMary – she has…).’
In (13) the clitic inside the clause is required, in contrast with the previous case.
Giusti & Stavrou assume that the possessor occupies a topic position in the sentence, not within the DP. If we take into consideration Anagnostopoulou’s (1997)
distinction between Clitic Left Dislocation and Hanging Topic, the question iswhether in (13) the extraposed genitive DP is an instance of a hanging topic or(left) dislocation. As commented by Giusti & Stavrou (2008), both dislocationand HT represent exclusively oral (and often casual) speech, hence it is diﬃcult toobtain clear judgments from the speakers. Nonetheless, here we follow Giusti &Stavrou (2008: 419–421) and assume that (13) instantiates a case of dislocation.
There are two reasons for this: ﬁrst, the preposed genitive may not carry default
nominative, something that is usual with nominal hanging topics; second, thegenitive may not be co-indexed with an epithet or a demonstrative lower in theclause, something, again, typical of hanging topics. In (13) the genitive is adjoined (to the left, but it can also be adjoined to the right) to the IP (or CP) andfrom there it forms a chain with the clitic – an operator – that appears within theclause. The two share the same phi-features and (genitive) case.
In the light of the above discussion, we conclude that the possessive DP thatis found before the deﬁnite article in the Greek DP is a focused constituent which
has moved to Spec, DP attracted by the [+foc] feature on D. This movement
parallels the movement of wh-constituents in the clause. Apparent violationsof this generalization are instances of either topicalization of the whole DP that
contains the preposed possessor to a sentential topic position, or of dislocationof the possessor as Hanging Topic (along the lines of Anagnostopoulou 1997) toIP or CP.

4

Conclusions

In Greek, Spec, DP is A′ -position. It can host both foci, but not topics, comingfrom a lower position in the DP. In that case it bears a [+foc] feature. In the absence of such a feature, the possessor stays in its original merge position. Whenthe preposed genitive DP is not focused, then two things can happen: either itis the entire DP that has moved to a sentential topic position, most likely as acontrastive topic, (if it is an object of a verb it can be clitic doubled) after the possessor was moved to the spec, DP inside the DP. Alternatively, the possessor is13dislocated and adjoined to the IP (or the CP) with a clear pause separating it fromthe rest of the clause (doubling is then mandatory).

References
Abney, S.P. 1987. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Cambridge,
MA: MIT dissertation.
Alexiadou, A. 2016. Dp internal (clitic) doubling. In Proceedings of the vii nereusinternational workshop: Clitic doubling and other issues of the syntax/semanticinterface in romance dps, arbeitspapier 128. 1–10.
Alexiadou, A. & Stavrou, M. 2000. Adjective clitic combinations in the Greek
DP. In B. Gerlach & J. Grijzenhout (eds.), Clitics in phonology, morphology andsyntax. 63–84. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Anagnostopoulou, E. 1997. Clitic left dislocation and contrastive left dislocation.
In E. Anagnostopoulou, H. van Riemsdijk & F. Zwarts (eds.), Materials on left
dislocation. 151–192. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Corver, N. 1990. The syntax of left branch extraction: University of Tilburg dissertation.
Georgi, D. & Salzmann, M. 2011. DP-internal double agreement is not double
agree: Consequences of agree-based case assignment within DP. Lingua 121.
2069–2088.
Giusti, G. & Stavrou, M. 2008. Possessive clitics in the DP: Doubling or dislocation? In D. Kallulli & L. Tasmowski (eds.), Clitic doubling in the Balkan languages. 389–433. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Haegeman, L. 2004. DP-periphery and clausal periphery: Possessor doubling inWest Flemish. In D. Adger, C. de Cat & G. Tsoulas (eds.), Peripheries: Syntacticedges and their eﬀects. 211–240. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Horrocks, G. & Stavrou, M. 1987. Bounding theory and Greek syntax: Evidence
for Wh-movement in NP. Journal of Linguistics 23. 79–123.

14

A negative concord puzzle
tied to French exceptives
J.-Marc Authier

1

Introduction

Elaborating on ideas put forth in Baciu (1978), a number of researchers such as
O’Neill (2011), Homer (2015) and Authier (2018) have converged on the idea that
French (ne) ... que exceptives like (1) are hidden quantiﬁcational comparatives
that contain phonologically unrealized material. This material (capitalized in (1))
consists of a silent n-word rien ‘nothing’ and, as argued in Authier (2018), a silent
de plus ‘more’.
(1)Elle (n’) aime RIEN DE PLUS que les perles.
she NEG likes nothing of more than the pearls‘She only likes pearls.’

The evidence in favor of assuming the presence of the silent n-word RIEN ‘nothing’ is quite robust. Besides the fact that is can appear overtly in many varieties ofFrench, including colloquial standard French, Homer (2015) observes that whenan exceptive and an n-word are clause-mates, as in (2), they give rise to eithera negative concord (NC) reading or a double negation (DN) reading.1 This suggests that (ne)...que exceptives do indeed contain a covert n-word.2
1

As has been noted (cf. Corblin (1996: 251), stress on the ﬁrst (or the second) n-word seems
necessary to bring out the double-negative reading.
2
Additional evidence comes from the fact that an exceptive adverb like seulement ‘only’, notbeing an n-word, does not trigger negative concord readings. Thus, (i) contrasts with (2) in that
only (2) allows NC.
(i)

Personne ne porte seulement du bleu.
DN reading only: Everybody wears something besides blue.

15

(2)

Personne (ne) porte que du bleu.
NC reading: Nobody wears anything but blue.
DN reading: Everybody wears something besides blue.

As for the silent DE PLUS component, it too can appear overtly as long as overt
rien is used as well. This is illustrated in (3a)-(3b).
(3)

a.

On (n’) avu riende plus que quelques phoques.
we NEG have seen nothing of more than a-few
seals‘We only saw a few seals.’b. *On (n’) a vu RIEN de plus que quelques phoques.

Thus, a reasonable hypothesis seems to be that (4a) is the maximal phonologicalrealization of a quantiﬁcational comparative which can also be spelled out as thepartial realization in (4b) and the minimal realization in (4c). That is, (4a)-(4c)are syntactically and semantically equivalent and diﬀer only in terms of thosefeatures that are accessed by the phonological component.
(4)

a.

b.
c.

Je (n’) ai acheté riende plus que des tomates.
I NEG have bought nothing of more than some tomatoes‘I only bought tomatoes.’
Je (n’)ai acheté rien DE PLUS que des tomates.
Je (n’)ai acheté RIEN DE PLUS que des tomates.

This hypothesis immediately raises the question of whether the silent elements
represented in capital letters in (4b) and (4c) come to be silent in the same way
as lexical elements whose phonetic matrix is deleted at Spell-Out, instantiating
the phenomenon known as ellipsis (see e.g. Merchant 2001, 2004. To answer
this question, let us take as a point of departure the feature-based taxonomyof lexical items given in Her & Tsai (2015). This taxonomy assumes that canonical lexical items have formal features (FF), which are accessible in the courseof the narrow-syntactic derivation, as well as phonological features (PFF) andsemantic features (LFF). While all lexical items active in syntax must have FF,
non-canonical lexical items may lack PFF, LFF, or both. For example, overt expletives have no LFF, base-generated silent elements like PRO and pro have no
PFF and null expletives have neither PFF nor LFF. Further, lexical items with no
PFF, which we will simply call silent elements (SEs), diﬀer from elements whosesilence is due to ellipsis in that while the former have no PFF to begin with, thelatter enter the derivation with PFF (i.e. enter the derivation as canonical lex16

ical items) but their PFF are made invisible by ellipsis at the syntax-phonology
interface (so-called PF deletion). A second important diﬀerence between SEs
and elided elements has to do with the way in which they are subject to recoverability. That is, the meaning of SEs is recoverable from their pronounced counterparts, which means that SE do not require overt antecedents. PF-deleted elements, on the other hand, are recoverable through overt discourse antecedents.
Given this taxonomy, the silent components in (4a)-(4c) must be seen as SEs
rather than elided elements given that they are interpreted not via a discourse
antecedent but, rather, by accessing the meaning of their PFF-endowed counterparts in the lexicon. Keeping these characteristics in mind, I will devote theremainder of this squib to the issue of availability of partial and minimal exceptive ne…que realizations under prepositions. As I will show, while their syntactic derivation is consistent with the hypotheses formulated above, their semantic behavior as regards the availability of negative concord constitutes an unexpected puzzle which I will carefully lay out but for which I will oﬀer but speculative
remarks.

2

Deriving prepositional exceptives

Based on paradigms like (5), it has been widely assumed in the literature (see e.g.
Gross 1977: 90) that exceptive que can never follow a preposition.
(5)

Je (ne) compte que sur/*sur que son intégrité.
I NEG count than on/*on than his integrity‘I count only on his integrity.’

However, some have noted (e.g. Damourette & Pichon 1943: 220 and Gaatone
1999: 105) that this characterization does not always hold in colloquial registers,as (6) illustrates.
(6)a.

Faites trois séances si vous voulez, moi je ne viendrai à quedothree sessions if you wish me I NEG will-come to than
deux.
two
‘Organize three sessions if you wish; me, I’ll come to only two ofthem.’(M. ABA, July 2, 1919, recorded in Damourette & Pichon 1943: 220)

17

b.

[...] des ministres avec que des vraies factures [...]
some ministers with than some genuine bills‘[...] ministers with only genuine bills’(TF1, May 13, 1991, recorded in Gaatone 1999: 105)

On closer inspection, the full prepositional exceptive paradigm turns out to becomprised of three distinct cases. First, there are instances, illustrated in (7), in
which the que in minimal realizations not only may but must follow the preposition regardless of register. These typically involve PPs complement to N and do
not allow (optional) ne.
(7)a.

Ils ont un menu avec que des produits bio.
they have a menu with than some products organic‘They have a menu with only organic products.’
b. *Ils ont un menu qu’avec des produits bio.

Under the view adopted here, the maximal realization for a sentence like (7a) is
as in (8).
(8)

Ils ont un menu avec rien de plus que des produits bio.

The minimal realization and the partial realization of (8) are then obtained byusing the silent counterparts to the overt elements in bold, yielding (9a)-(9b).
Further, given the source in (8), there is no way to derive the ungrammatical (9c),in which que precedes the preposition.
(9)a. Ils ont un menu avec RIEN DE PLUS que des produits bio.
b. Ils ont un menu avec rien DE PLUS que des produits bio.
c. *Ils ont un menu qu’avec des produits bio.

Next, there are maximal realizations, such as the one in (10), in which the preposition introducing the phrase that is the object of the comparison must be repeated.
(10)

Ils (ne) causent de rien de plus que *(de) politique. they NEG talk of nothing of more than *(of) politics ‘They only talk about politics.’

Both the partial and minimal realizations of such sentences involve the overt realization of at least one of the two instances of the preposition. The ﬁrst instanceof the preposition can only be overt if rien is overt. Further, if only one instance ofthe preposition is overt, it must be the second one. This correctly rules in (11a)18

(11c), and rules out (11d)-(11f).
(11)a. Ils (ne) causent de rien DE PLUS que de politique.
b. Ils (ne) causent de RIEN DE PLUS que de politique.
c. Ils (ne) causent de rien DE PLUS que de politique.
d. *Ils (ne) causent de RIEN DE PLUS que de politique.
e. *Ils (ne) causent de rien DE PLUS que de politique.
f. *Ils (ne) causent de RIEN DE PLUS que de politique.

We are, however, left with the following questions, for which I have no answers
at this time: (a) why is the overtness/presence of the ﬁrst instance of the preposition contingent upon rien being overt; (b) why must it be the second instanceof the preposition that is overt when only one instance of the preposition is overt/ present; (c) is the ﬁrst instance of the preposition, crossed out in the representations in (11a)-(11b), simply omitted or is it syntactically present but phonologically silent and why?
The third and ﬁnal set of facts consists of maximal realizations like (12a)(12b), which feature one or two instances of the preposition being used.
(12)

a.

b.

Je (n’) ai cuisiné avec riende plus qu’avec desI NEG have cooked with nothing of more than-with someproduits frais.
ingredients fresh‘I cooked with only fresh ingredients.’
Je (n’)ai cuisiné avec rien de plus que des produits frais.

We thus have two possible sources for partial and minimal realizations. Stemming from the source in (12a), which contains only one instance of the preposition, are the partial and minimal realizations in (13), both of which are attested.
(13)

a.
b.

Je (n’)ai cuisiné avec rien DE PLUS que des produits frais.
Je (n’)ai cuisiné avec RIEN DE PLUS que des produits frais.

The source in (12b), which contains two instances of the preposition, additionallyallows us to generate the partial and minimal realizations in (14a)-(14d), which
are attested as well. Note, however, that, based on the data in (14), one mustagain assume, as we did for (11), that the ﬁrst instance of the preposition can
only be overt if rien is overt, i.e., not a SE (or a trace – cf. (14d) which diﬀers fromthe partial realization in (14b) only in that rien appears in pre-participial position,a case of so-called quantiﬁcation at a distance). Further, if only one instance of19the preposition is overt, it must be the second one.
(14)

a. ??Je (n’)ai cuisiné avec rien DE PLUS qu’avec des produits frais.
b. Je (n’)ai cuisiné avec rien DE PLUS qu’avec des produits frais.
c. Je (n’)ai cuisiné avec RIEN DE PLUS qu’avec des produits frais.
d. Je (n’)ai rieni cuisiné avec ti DE PLUS qu’avec des produits frais.
e. *Je (n’)ai cuisiné avec RIEN DE PLUS qu’avec des produits frais.

In sum, despite some needed stipulations concerning which instances of the preposition may or may not be overt, our general assumptions concerning the natureof the full realization of both partial and minimal realizations allow us to generate all of the attested syntactic realizations of these constructions. In what
follows, however, I will show that things are not as straightforward at the syntaxsemantics interface. Speciﬁcally, I will demonstrate that some partial and minimal realizations unexpectedly exhibit a behavior that diverge from that of theirfull realizations when it comes to the availability of negative concord readings.

3

A negative concord puzzle

As is well-known, in French, when two n-words are clause-mates (cf. Déprez
1999 among many others), they may (but need not) give rise to a NC reading.
Thus, a sentence like (15a), which contains the two n-words jamais ‘never’ andpersonne ‘nobody’, is ambiguous between a NC (single negation) reading (15b)and a DN (double negation) reading (15c).
(15)

a.
b.
c.

Il n’y a jamais personne sur cette plage.
there is never nobody on this beach
There never is anybody on this beach.
There is always somebody on this beach.

(NC interpretation)(DN interpretation)

The fact that the two maximal realizations in (16a)-(16b), which contain the twon-words jamais ‘never’ and rien ‘nothing’, are reported by a majority of speakers
to be similarly ambiguous between (16c) and (16d) immediately suggests thatthe two n-words are clause-mates.
(16)

a.

Je (n’) ai jamais cuisiné avec riende plus qu’avec desI NEG have never cooked with nothing of more than-with someproduits frais.
ingredients fresh
20

b.
c.
d.

Je (n’)ai jamais cuisiné avec rien de plus que des produits frais.
I’ve never cooked with anything more than fresh ingredients. (NCreading)
I’ve always cooked with something more than fresh ingredients. (DNreading)

This being the case, we then expect that adding the n-word jamais to the ﬁve partial and minimal realizations in (13) and (14), as in (17) and (18), should yield a similar ambiguity between a NC and a DN reading. This follows from our assumptions that (a) partial and minimal realizations are syntactically indistinguishable
from their maximal realization sources and (b) the SEs they contain are semantically recoverable by accessing the meaning of their PFF-endowed counterparts
found in their maximal realizations. This prediction, however, turns out to beincorrect. Although there is some variation in native speakers’ judgments, thegreat majority of my informants agreed on the following interpretations.
(17)

a.
b.

(18)

a.
b.
c.

Je (n’)ai jamais cuisiné avec rien DE PLUS que des produits frais.
Unambiguous: DN reading only
Je (n’)ai jamais cuisiné avec RIEN DE PLUS que des produits frais.
Unambiguous: DN reading only
Je (n’)ai jamais cuisiné avec rien DE PLUS qu’avec des produits frais.
Ambiguous: NC and DN readings possible (DN reading preferred)
Je (n’)ai jamais cuisiné avec RIEN DE PLUS qu’avec des produits frais.
Ambiguous: NC and DN readings possible (NC reading preferred)
Je (n’)ai jamais rieni cuisiné avec ti DE PLUS qu’avec des produits
frais.
Ambiguous: NC and DN readings possible (NC reading preferred)

While the interpretations tied to the partial and minimal realizations in (18) linked
to the maximal realization source in (16a) do conform to our predictions, those in(17), which stem from the maximal realization in (16b) do not. Speciﬁcally, while(16b) allows NC, its purported partial (17a) and minimal (12b) realizations do not.
Descriptively, the presence of one or more SEs preceded by an overt instance ofthe preposition somehow blocks NC. Explaining why this is so is not immediately
obvious. It seems clear, however, that what contributes to the unavailability of
NC in (17) is the combination of two factors; namely the use of SEs and the factthat the quantiﬁcational comparative is c-commanded by a phonologically overt
preposition.
21

Regarding the ﬁrst factor, one could conjecture that in particular syntactic
conﬁgurations, the use of phonologically unrealized material blocks NC readings. This is not an implausible assumption, given that a case can be made for
ellipsis having such a blocking eﬀect on NC. To explain, Merchant (2004) has argued, based on a range of connectivity eﬀects, that fragment answers are derived from full sentential structures, subject to ellipsis. If this is correct, then (19)should be assumed to have the representation in (19), where the crossed-out material represents syntactically present material that has undergone PF-deletion.
(19)

A:
B:
C:
D:

Qui n’a jamais pleuré?
Personne.
Personne n’a jamais pleuré.
Personne n’a jamais pleuré.

‘Who’s never cried?’‘Nobody.’

As pointed out in Corblin (1996: 251), while a non-elliptical answer like (19) is ambiguous between a NC and a DN reading, its corresponding fragment/ellipticalanswer in (19)/(19) cannot have a NC reading but must be interpreted in a binegative fashion (i.e., as meaning “Everybody has cried.”). Thus, fragment answer ellipsis is one environment in which the presence of phonologically silent
material negatively aﬀects the availability of NC.
In the case under consideration in (17), however, saying that the presenceof SEs blocks NC is insuﬃcient since failure to license NC only occurs if the SE
in question is c-commanded by an overt preposition (or, more simply, a preposition, if we assume that the crossed-out prepositions in cuisine6 are not syntactically represented). This has the ﬂavor of a locality condition but, unfortunately, locality conditions on NC are poorly understood and have yet to bespelled out beyond the widespread observation that NC appears to be clausebound. Indeed, while it seems accurate to assume that French n-words that are
not clause-mates fail to yield NC readings, it can be shown that n-words thatare clause-mates do not always participate in NC. For example, n-words complement to the preposition pour ‘for’ participate in NC with other clause-maten-words when pour is taken to mean ‘in favor of’ (20a) or introduces the stimulusof a psych predicate (20b), but do not participate in NC when pour expresses areason (20c).
(20)

a.

b.

Personne ne s’est prononcé pour rien.
Nobody claimed to be in favor of anything.
Everyobody claimed to be in favor of something.
Personne ne s’est inquiété pour rien.
22(ambiguous)
(NC)
(DN)
(ambiguous)

c.

Nobody worried about anything.
Everybody worried about something.
Personne n’a été puni pour rien. (unambiguous)
Nobody got punished for anything. (NC)
Everybody got punished for something. (DN)

(NC)
(DN)

These facts, which, to the best of my knowledge, have never been discussed in
the literature, would force proponents of the clause-bound characterization of
the locality conditions on NC to attribute a clausal structure to the complementof pour in (20c), but not in (20a)-(20b), a dubious move at best. A possibly morestraightforward interpretation of (20) is that the set of interpretative options
normally available to an n-word complement to a preposition can be reducedby the sort of thematic role that preposition assigns to it.
The thematic properties of prepositions have also been shown by Authier(2016) to play a role in the licensing of the SE pro in the context of orphan prepositions. For example, as shown in (21), the preposition dedans ‘in’ can license a
pro with deﬁnite interpretation if it takes a complement that denotes a material
entity with well-deﬁned boundaries (e.g., a package – cf. (21a)) but not if it takes
a complement that denotes a spatial entity with ill-deﬁned or unknown boundaries (e.g., the streets of Montmartre – cf. (21b)).
(21)

a.

Ce colis,ily a uncadeau dedans pro.
this package there is a present in(it)b. *Les rues de Montmartre, elle vend des crèpes dedans pro.
the streets of Montmartre she sells crepes in(them)

Returning to the interpretive contrast between the full realization of the prepositional exceptive in (16b) and its partial and minimal realizations in (17), we can
now reinterpret the facts in a similar light. That is, while the preposition avec
‘with’ licenses both the overt and SE versions of the exceptive, the latter are
more restricted in their interpretation or, to put it slightly diﬀerently, although
SEs are recoverable from their pronounced counterparts, they display a more restricted set of interpretations when they are complement to a preposition. Thisis, of course, rather speculative, but it does suggest that there might be a link
between the semantic properties of SEs and the selectional restrictions of the
prepositions that license them. I will leave this as an open question for future
research.

23

References
Authier, J.M. 2016. French orphan prepositions revisited. Probus 28. 231–270.
Authier, J.M. 2018. French (ne) …que exceptives at the syntax-semantics interface. Ms., The Pennsylvania State University.
Baciu, I. 1978. La négation restrictive. Le Français Moderne 46. 135–142.
Corblin, F. 1996. Multiple negation processing in natural language. Theoria 62.
214–259.
Damourette, J. & Pichon, E. 1943. Des mots à la pensée. Essai de grammaire de lalangue française [1911-1940] tome sixième. Paris: d’Artrey.
Déprez, V. 1999. The roots of negative concord in french and french based creoles. In M. DeGraﬀ (ed.), Language creation and language change: Creolization,
diachrony and development. 375–428. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gaatone, D. 1999. Réﬂexions sur la syntaxe de ne ... que. In M. Plénat, M. Aurnague & A. Condamines (eds.), L’emprise du sens. Structures linguistiques et interprétations. mélanges de syntaxe et de sémantique oﬀerts à andrée borillo par
un groupe d’amis, de collègues et de disciples. 101–115. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Gross, M. 1977. Grammaire transformationnelle du français. Syntaxe du nom.
Paris: Larousse.
Her, O.S. & Tsai, H.C. 2015. On silent elements: A case study of Grand and its
silent entourage. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 33. 575–605.
Homer, V. 2015. Ne … que and its challenges. In U. Steindl, T. Borer, H. Fang, A.G.
Pardo, P. Guekguezian, B. Hsu, C. O’Hara & I.C. Ouyang (eds.), Proceedingsof the 32nd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 32). 111–120.
Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.
Merchant, J. 2001. The syntax of silence: Sluicing, islands and the theory of ellipsis.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Merchant, J. 2004. Fragments and ellipsis. Linguistics and Philosophy 27. 661–
738.
O’Neill, T. 2011. The syntax of ne … que exceptives in French. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 17. 175–184.

24

Subject relative clauses without acomplementizer in a Modern Greek dialect
Metin Bağrıaçık
This short note is written in gratitude for Liliane Haegeman’s immense contributions to syntactic theory and to the life of many young scholars, including me, inso many ways. I hope that these few pages are worthy of her and of her insights
into the nature of many phenomena—among them subject contact relatives.1

1

Introduction

Restrictive subject and object relative clauses (hereafter RCs) in Pharasiot Greek(hereafter PhG) are ﬁnite clauses that are, in the unmarked case, introduced by
the complementizer tu ’that’.2 The head, external to the RC, can linearly precede(1a) and follow (1b) the RC (Bağrıaçık & Danckaert 2018).
(1)

a.
b.

Ídha [an gorítsi [tu kathéti ačí monaxó ts]].
saw.
a girlthat sit.3 there on-her-own
Ídha [[tu kathéti ačí monaxó ts] an gorítsi].
saw.
that sit.3 there on-her-own a girl’I saw a girl (who/that) was sitting there on her own.’

Andriotis (1948: 51) and Anastasiadis (1976: 248) claim that there exists a
third, marked, option for forming restrictive relative clauses in PhG: ”[RCs] inPharasiot Greek, especially the restrictive ones, are occasionally introduced into1

I thank Eirini P. and G. Theodoridis for the judgments of the Pharasiot Greek data, andLieven Danckaert for his helpful comments. This research is supported by the FWO post-doctoral
research grant (FWO18/PDO/016).
2
PhG is a Modern Greek dialect spoken today in Greece by about 25 people, who are (descendants of the) refugees relocated from Asia Minor after the Greek-Turkish population exchange
of 1923.

25

the discourse without a […] relative adverb [my translation]” (Anastasiadis 1976:
248).3 These authors illustrate both subject and object RCs without tu ’that’. In
this note, I focus only on subject RCs. Object RCs without tu ’that’ merit a proper
study on their own. (2) is an example of tu-less subject RC provided by Andriotis(1948: 51).
(2)Ídha [an gorítsi kathéti ačí monaxó ts].
saw.
a girl sit.3 there on-her-own’I saw a girl (who/that) was sitting there on her own.’

The aim of this note is to assess whether or not structures as (2), which lack tu’that’, do indeed qualify as (some sort of) RCs. To this eﬀect, I compare them toEnglish subject RCs with the null variant of the relative pronoun or with no overt
complementizer. I conclude that the existence of complementizerless subject
RCs in PhG should be recognized, verifying the claim by Andriotis (1948) andAnastasiadis (1976).
In the next section, I brieﬂy introduce English subject RCs that do not feature
an overt relative pronoun or a complementizer, and further summarize two main
analyses from a generative perspective.

2

Subject RCs without overt relativizers in English

In informal or colloquial speech, English allows subject RCs in which the relative pronoun or the complementizer can be omitted in certain syntactic environments. Such RCs are dubbed by Jespersen (1928: 143ﬀ) ’subject contact clauses’
and they are widely known as ’subject contact relatives’ today (Doherty 1994,
2000, Henry 1995; hereafter SCRs). As opposed to regular subject RCs, the distribution of SCRs is reported to be limited: some of the typical contexts in which
they are allowed are (i) existential copular sentences (3a), (ii) existential have sentences (3b), and complements of the predicates know, meet and invent, whenthese complements introduce a new referent into the discourse (3c) (Doherty
2000: 72, Henry 1995: 125).4
3
According to Anastasiadis (1976) tu is an indeclinable relative adverb, comparable to theModern Greek complementizer pu ’that’. In the rest of this note, I will refer to tu as a complementizer. See Bağrıaçık (2018) for discussion of the environments in which tu is used.
4
Doherty (1994) argued that in order for a SCR to be licensed, ”[the] noun phrase modiﬁed by[it] must be interpreted as non-referential.” See, however, Doherty (2000), where he no longer
maintains this and leaves the question of the precise conditions for SCR-licensing open.

26

(3)

a.
b.
c.

There’s something keeps upsetting him.
I have this friend lives in Dublin.
I know a smart Greek owns maybe twenty restaurants.

SCRs are claimed to be excluded from other grammatical positions, such as subject position (4a) or the indirect object position (4b) (Doherty 2000: 72-73, Henry
1995: 125-126).5(4)

a. *The man worked there was a friend of mine.
b. *I gave a ticket to a man comes every day.

SCRs have hitherto received two main types of analysis in the generative literature. According to one, which is advanced by Doherty (1994, 2000), SCRs area variant of true restrictive RCs. They diﬀer from regular RCs in one major respect: whereas regular RCs are standardly assumed to involve a full CP, SCRs
have a reduced internal structure; more speciﬁcally, they lack the CP layer. According to this account, the example (3a) has the (simpliﬁed) structure in (5).
(5)

There’s [ DP [ NP something [ TP e keeps upsetting him]]].

The reader is referred to Doherty (1994, 2000: 81-87) for the details of his analysis, which are immaterial for the current note. The important point is that thisapproach claims that an SCR is a genuine subordinate clause.
According to a second line of analysis, SCRs involve a topic-comment structure (Henry 1995: 131-135, den Dikken 2005). As a corrolary of this, what superﬁcially is a matrix clause hosting the SCR is analyzed as a topic clause, whosefunction is to identify one of its subconstituents, the head nominal in particular,
as a focus.6 In turn, what is taken to be a subordinate clause in Doherty’s (1994,
2000) analysis is identiﬁed by Henry (1995) and den Dikken (2005) as a root clause
which serves as the comment of the above-mentioned topic, and which provides
information about the focal element. This account assigns to (3a) the structurein (6) (cf. den Dikken 2005: 698). S1 in (6) is the topic clause harboring the focus
expression, something, and S2 is the root clause making a comment on the focus
expression in S1 .7
5
Certain English dialects, however, do allow SCRs in these positions; see Doherty (2000: 8789) on these varieties. See also Henry (1995: 125-126) for the distribution of SCRs in Belfast
English.
6
Note, however, that in den Dikken’s (2005) analysis, this focus is not represented as occupying a syntactic position.
7
Note, however, that according to den Dikken (2005: 700), not every SCR can be analyzed

27

(6)

TopP
Top′

S1
There’s something

Top

S2

Ø

keeps upsetting him

Syntactically, den Dikken (2005: 698, fn. 6) compares S1 to hanging topics,
whose function is also to introduce (the referent of) a nominal into the discourse(7). Hanging topics are not syntactically integrated in the root clause which provides the comment. Observe that the matrix in the comment clause can be omitted (compare (7a) with (7b), cf. Henry 1995: 132, Haegeman 2015), renderinghanging topic constructions structurally akin to SCRs.
(7)

a.
b.

As for syntax, I found it too diﬃcult.
As for syntax, Ø found it too diﬃcult.

The reader is referred to Henry (1995: 131-135) and den Dikken (2005) for further
details of this line of analysis. The relevant point to retain is that the modifying
clause (S2 ) does not form a constituent with the nominal head (or the ’focus expression’, according to den Dikken 2005), to the exclusion of the material which
occurs linearly to the left of the nominal expression, as shown in (6).
Recently, Haegeman (2015; see also Haegeman et al. 2015) has evaluated the
topic-comment representation of SCRs. By adducing a number of observations
on their internal and external syntax, she concludes that a topic-comment analysis of SCRs cannot be maintained. In what follows, I will list two of her observations on the internal syntax of SCRs, which are relevant for the initial analysis of
tu-less subject RCs in PhG.
First, Haegeman (2015) observes that, were a SCR to instantiate a topic-comment structure in which (S2 ) and the nominal head (focus) do not form a constituent (6), then the head and the modifying clause would not be expected toenter in a coordinate relation with a regular RC. However, she shows that thisprediction is not borne out: examples such as (8) are judged grammatical. This
provides evidence for Doherty’s (1994, 2000) analysis that the nominal head andthis way.

28

the RC form one structural unit.
(8)

I have [one colleague runs a sushi shop] and [another one who has a burger
restaurant].
(Haegeman 2015: 140, her (16a))

Second, she observes that, according to the conﬁguration in (6), any constituent contained within S1 is not expected to c-command (any material contained in) S2 ; however, this is not necessarily the case. In (9), for instance, thepronoun his, contained within the SCR, receives a bound-variable reading, whichis possible only if it is in the c-commanding domain of the quantiﬁed subject, every student, in S1 .
(9)Every studenti is looking for a teacher speaks hisi language.
(Haegeman 2015: 141, her (17a))

The availability of the bound-variable reading of the pronoun in (9) provides additional support for the RC analysis of SCRs, because this approach correctly predicts that the RC is within the c-command domain of the matrix subject.
Based on the above observations (among several others), Haegeman (2015)concludes that a topic-comment analysis of SCRs in English is not tenable, andthat her observations oﬀer support for any argument which recognizes SCRs as(some type of) RC.
In the next section, I return to PhG subject RCs without a complementizer.

3

Are there SRCs in PhG?

Unlike English, PhG is a consistent null-subject language (10): there are no expletives in existential clauses with a postverbal subject for instance (10a); similarly,
weather verbs never have overt subjects (10b). As expected, referential pronominal subjects can also be omitted (10c).
(10)

a.

Ísantidhíu néčis sin
stráta.
were.3 two women on-the road
’There were two women on the road.’b.

(*Ató) vrešízi.
It rain.3’It is raining.’c.

29(Até) kathéti ačí.
She sit.3 there’She is sitting there.’Given that pronominal subjects can freely be omitted (10c), it is at ﬁrst blush
diﬃcult to conclude whether (2) is a genuine RC, as Anastasiadis (1976) suggests,
or whether it involves two independent sentences with null subjects, as in (11).
(11)Ø ídhaan gorítsi. Ø kathéti ačí monaxó ts.
saw.1 a girlsit.3 there on-her-own’I saw a girl. She is sitting there alone.’(cf. (2))

Informants agree withAnastasiadis (1976) and accept (2) with a RC reading:they state that there is no intonation break between gorítsi ’girl’ and kathéti ’(she)is sitting’, contrary to the case in (11).8 Furthermore, for these informants, (12a)and (12b) are associated with distinct readings: (12a), where two sentences are
simply placed side by side, means there were two, and only two, women in the
car and they were both wearing necklaces. On the other hand, (12b), under a
RC reading, is reported to imply the existence of other women in the car as well,
who were, however, not wearing necklaces.
(12)

a.

b.

So
tomofíli ísantimo dhíu néčis. Forénkanti kerdanníxi.
in-the car
were.3 only two women wore.3
necklace.
’In the car, there were only two women. They were wearing necklaces.’Sotomofíli ísantimo dhíu néčis forénkanti kerdanníxi.
in-the car
were.3 only two women wore.3
necklace.
’In the car, there were only two women who were wearing necklaces.’

Structurally, the reading in (12a) suggests that the only focalized constituent
c-commanded by the focus sensitive exhaustivity operator mo ’only’ is the DP
dhíu néčis ’two women’; the second sentence forénkanti kerdanníxi ’they were
wearing necklaces’, however, is not in the c-commanding domain of mo ’only’ as
operator-focus dependencies do not cross sentence boundaries. As a result, inthe ﬁrst sentence, the number of the women that were in the car is strictly deﬁned as ”2” . The second sentence then merely provides additional informationon the only two women that were in the car. The reading in (12b), on the other
hand, suggests that the constituent forénkanti kerdanníxi ’were wearing necklaces’ functions as a restrictor of the set of referents for the DP dhíu néčis ’two8

See further Andriotis (1948: 51) and Anastasiadis (1976: 248), who do not put any punctuation mark (comma, period etc.) between the head noun and the associated modifying clause inexamples of SCRs, which would possibly mark an intonation break.

30

women’; in turn, the string dhíu néčis forénkanti kerdanníxi ’two women (who)were wearing necklaces’ is c-commanded by mo ’only’ as one single constituent.
Due to the existence of the restricting clause, the sentence receives a readingin which the number of women that were at the same time both in the car andwearing necklaces was only ”2”. This implies that other women might have also
been in the car, who were not wearing necklaces. Based on the evidence (12b)provides, we may preliminarily conclude that tu-less restrictive subject RCs exist
in PhG, as Anastasiadis (1976) suggests.9
The omission of tu ’that’ in subject RCs is not entirely free, however. The
environments which can harbor tu-less subject RCs are near-identical to those inwhich English SCR are tolerated: tu ’that’ omission is most naturally tolerated
in complements of the predicate thoró ’see’, when this predicate introduces a
new referent into the discourse (2), in copular existential sentences (12b), and inhave existential sentences (13a). Preliminary judgments suggest that, in thesecases, tu ’that’ can be deleted as long as the antecedent is indeﬁnite, cf. (13a)with (13b):10
(13)

a.

b.

Éxu
[a jos (tu) kamnóni saÁdhana].
have.1 a son that work.3 in-the Adana’I have a son who works in Adana’.
Dáma mu íxa[to jo mu *(tu) kamnóni saÁdhana].
with me had.1 the son my that work.3 in-the Adana’With me, I had my son who works in Adana.’

Speaker judgments reveal that subject RCs without the complementizer tu ’that’are severely degraded when in subject or indirect object positions:
(14)

a.

[An gorítsi *(tu) kathéti ačí monaxó ts] irévi
xalxás.
a girlthat sit.3 there on-her-own want.3 bagel’A girl who is sitting there on her own wants a bagel.’9

It should be noted that tu ’that’ omission is allowed only when the RC is a postnominal one,cf. (2) with (i):(i)*Ídha [kathéti ačí monaxó ts an gorítsi].
saw.
sit.3 there on-her-own a girl’I saw a girl (who/that) was sitting there on her own.’
10

The examples cited in Andriotis (1948: 51) and Anastasiadis (1976: 248) also verify thesegeneralizations.

31

b.

Pítaksa an xalxás s [an gorítsi *(tu) kathéti ačí monaxó ts].
sent.1 a bagel to a girlthat sit.3 there on-her-own’I sent a bagel to a girl who was sitting there on her own.’

When the distributional similarity between English SCRs and PhG RCs thatallow complementizer omission is taken into consideration, we can tentatively
conclude that a structure such as (2) can be referred to as a SCR.
There are three (additional) pieces of evidence that suggest that in PhG a SCR
forms a constituent with its associated nominal ’head’, which, in turn, suggestthat SRCs are structurally embedded, rather than independent sentences.11
First, a SRC can (marginally) occur as a left-peripheral topic, when the predicate of the matrix clause is thoró ’see’:(15)?[An av néka (tu) ifanéni
an t eséna]i , čo ídhatai soan other woman that weave.3 like you
not saw.1 her in.theómbri mu.
life my’Another woman who weaves like you, I have not seen in my life.’

Second, similar to Haegeman’s (2015) observation for English SCRs, a SCR in
PhG can also be coordinated with a regular relative clause, as shown in (16).
(16)

Éxu
[a jos (tu) kamnóni saÁdhana] če [an górituhave.1a son that work.3 in-the Adana and a daughter thatparedhóthin so
Everéki].
married.3 in-the Everek’I have a son who works in Adana and a daughter who is married in Everek.’

Finally, again similar to the case of English SCRs as observed by Haegeman(2015) (9), a quantiﬁcational element c-commanding the (head of) the SRC canbind a pronominal element inside the RC, giving rise to a distributive interpretation for the pronoun:(17)[Xer o mástrus]i éši
every the master have.3[a čiráxus(tu) katéši
an apprentice that understand.3

11

ti
the

The observations that follow also argue against a possible topic-comment analysis of SCRs
in PhG. Nevertheless, as I have not investigated all the possible predictions of such an analysis in
PhG, I do not want to make reference to it in the rest of this note.

32

gwósa tui ].
language his’Every master has an apprentice who understands his language.’
Under the reading in which (17) involves two independent sentences, the boundvariable interpretation of the pronoun tu ’his’ is no longer available, suggestingthat the pronoun is not c-commanded by the quantiﬁed subject of the ﬁrst sentence:(18)

4[Xer o mástrus]i éšia čiráxus. Katéšitievery the master have.3 an apprentice understand.3 the
gwósa tu∗ i/j .
language his’Every master has an apprentice. He understands his language.’

Conclusions

In this brief note, I have provided a preliminary analysis of subject RCs in PhG
which allow for complementizer deletion. Based on distributional evidence, I
concluded that the PhG structures under discussion are very similar to English
SCRs. In relation to the internal syntax of PhG complementizerless RCs, I concluded that the relevant structures form a constituent with their nominal head,much as is the case in canonical (head-external) RCs. The precise structure ofcomplementizerless RCs in PhG, the exact nature of the environments they aretolerated in, and how they diﬀer from RCs with an overt complementizer are issues that await further research.

References
Anastasiadis, V. 1976. I sintaksi sto Pharasiotiko idioma tis Kappadokias [The syntax of the dialect of Pharasa in Cappadocia]: University of Ioannina dissertation.
Andriotis, N.P. 1948. To glossiko idioma ton Pharason [The dialect of Pharasa].
Athens: Ikaros.
Bağrıaçık, M. 2018. Pharasiot Greek: Word order and clause structure: Ghent University dissertation.

33Bağrıaçık, M. & Danckaert, L. 2018. The origin of prenominal and postnominal
relative clauses in Pharasiot Greek. Ms., Ghent University and University ofLille.
den Dikken, M. 2005. A comment on the topic of topic-comment. Lingua 115.
691–710.
Doherty, C. 1994. The syntax of subject contact relatives. In K. Beats, G. Cooke,
D. Kathman, S. Kita, K.E. McCullough & D. Testen (eds.), Proceedings of CLS
29. 155–165. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Doherty, C. 2000. Clauses without ”that”. The case for bare sentential complementation in English. New York and London: Garland.
Haegeman, L. 2015. A note on English subject contact relatives. In A.J. Gallego& D. Ott (eds.), 50 years later: Reﬂections on Chomsky’s Aspects (MITWPL 77).
133–146. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Haegeman, L., Weir, A., Danckaert, L., D’hulster, T. & Buelens, L. 2015. Against
the root analysis of subject contact relatives in English. Lingua 163. 61–74.
Henry, A. 1995. Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect variation and parameter setting. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jespersen, O. 1928. A modern English grammar on historical principles. Part III,
syntax, II. volume. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

34

Subjunctive selection in French vs. Balkan
Lena Baunaz & Eric Lander*

1

Verbal and clausal mood

Languages vary as to how and where they mark subjunctive vs. indicative mood
(Sočanać 2017, among others). Whereas French marks the indicative vs. subjunctive mood on the verb (1), Balkan languages use a special (so-called) complementizer to indicate subjunctive mood (2) (see Giannakidou 1998, 2009 andsubseq. as well as Roussou 2000, 2009, 2010 and subseq. for Modern Greek; see
Sočanać 2017 for details on Slavic and Balkan labguages).
(1)

a.
b.

(2)

a.

b.

Mirka dit que Roger est prêt à l’heure.
M. says that R.
is ready on time
Mirka ordonne que Roger soitprêt à l’heure.
M. orders that R.
be.
ready on time

(French)Nomizo oti kerdizei
o Janis.
(MG)
think1 that win3 .
the John‘I think that John is winning.’
Thelo nakerdisio Janiswant1 that.
win3 .
the John‘I want John to win.’(Giannakidou 2009: 1887)

Most of the time, indicative and subjunctive mood morphology are syncretic
with one another in French, but certain verbs–such as être ‘be’–retain distinct
subjunctive morphology. In Modern Greek (MG) and Balkan more generally,*

We dedicate this paper to Liliane Haegeman, who among countless other good deeds is
directly responsible for our research partnership, which has continued to bear fruit ever since
our ﬁrst collaboration in 2014, and for this we couldn’t be more thankful. Each of us met Liliane
during our undergraduate studies, more than 23 years ago in Geneva for Lena and 10 years ago
in Ghent for Eric. She is a continuing source of inspiration for both of us.

35

subjunctive morphology has been lost altogether and been replaced by what is
known as perfective non-past (PNP) morphology, which encodes tense and aspect but not mood (mood being marked on the so-called complementizer).1 The
French strategy of marking subjunctive on the embedded verb is traditionallycalled verbal mood; the Balkan strategy of marking subjunctive on the complementizer may be referred to as clausal mood (see Sočanać 2017 and references
there).

2

Veridicality and Mood selection

It is generally accepted that the subjunctive mood is a dependent mood selectedunder verbs which are associated with some special semantic features (Quer
1998, 2001, 2009, Giannakidou 1998, 2009, among others). Giannakidou, using
MG data, argues that veridicality, as deﬁned in (3), licenses mood choice:(3)

Veridicality (Giannakidou 1998, 2009)
A propositional operator F is veridical iﬀ from the truth of Fp we can inferthat p is true according to some individual x (i.e. in some individual x’s
epistemic model).

According to (3), an embedded proposition has to be true for at least one individual (the subject of the main verb and/or the speaker), in all the worlds of a relevant model. Giannakidou claims that veridicality triggers the indicative moodin the embedded clause and non-veridicality triggers the subjunctive mood.
The correlation between mood and veridicality applies very well in MG andmost of the Balkan Slavic languages (see Todorovic 2012), but it fails to apply
to Romance’s emotive factive complements (Quer 1998, 2001, 2009, Baunaz &Puskás 2014, Baunaz 2015, 2017). In Romance, here illustrated with French, predicates like regretter ‘regret’, être content ‘be happy’, etc. unexpectedly trigger
the subjunctive mood, as seen in (4), even though these predicates are veridical
according to (3):1There is a long-standing debate on the status of na in the syntactic literature: is it a moodparticle (i.e. an inﬂectional mood head, see Philippaki-Warburton 1994, 1998, Giannakidou 1998,
2009 among many others), a complementizer (Agouraki 1991, Tsoulas 1993 and Roussou 2000,a.o.) or a hybrid, that is a mood head moving to C (Giannakidou 2009)? See Giannakidou & Mari
(2017) for a state of the art on this topic. See below for our take on the matter.

36

(4)

Mirka regrette que Roger ait
Mirka regrets that Roger has.

perdu.
lost(French)It appears that Giannakidou’s deﬁnition of veridicality cannot account for mood
distribution cross-linguistically.
Baunaz & Puskás (2014) reﬁne (3) by investigating the notion of “some individual”, as applied to six verb classes of embedding verbs in French. Baunaz(2018) extends their ﬁndings to Balkan languages. They argue that these predicates can be classiﬁed into three groups if one takes into account the idea thatthe truth of the embedded proposition can relate to both the subject and the
speaker (= strong veridicality), to either the subject or the speaker (= relative
veridicality), or to none of them (= non-veridicality). Note that verbs can be “ambiguous” in being either strongly veridical or relative-veridical (MG thimame ‘regret’ or French comprendre ‘understand’ are cases in point; see Table 1).

Strongveridical
Relativeveridical
Nonveridical

English tr.
‘remember’‘regret’‘understand’‘remember’‘regret’‘understand’‘say’‘want’

MG
thimamethimamelipame
leo
thelo

SC
sjetiti se%žalitiBg
Frpomnjase rappelersǎžaljavam
comprendre%
sjetiti se pomnjažalitisǎžaljavam regretter
comprendre
reći
kazvamdireželjetiiskam
vouloir

Table 1: Some (non-)veridical verbs in Modern Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarianand French (from Baunaz 2018)
The distinction between strong and relative veridicality is tracked by diﬀerent
complementizers in Balkan (see Table 3), or by subjunctive vs. indicative moodon the embedded verb in French (see Table 2).
The three-way distinction above does not provide an orderly way of accounting for mood selection in French, though: strong-veridical verbs and some nonveridical verbs select for indicative complements, whereas relative-veridical andsome non-veridical verbs select for subjunctive complements. This results in an*ABA violation, as indicated by shading in Table 2. In MG (and Balkan more generally), veridicality and mood-marking appear to be unrelated too: non-veridical
verbs can take an oti-clause with an indicative embedded verb, or they can ap37

pear with subjunctive na-complements. This is summed up in Table 2:Complementizer
Fr
MG
Strongly veridical que pu
Relative veridical que pu/oti
Non-veridical 1que otiNon-veridical 2
que na (subjunctive)
Main Predicates

Mood on V
Fr
MG
indicative
indicative
subjunctive indicative
indicative
indicative
subjunctive none (PNP)

Table 2: Mood and veridicality in French and Modern Greek
The tripartition does, however, show promise in terms of complementizer selection, especially by splitting the non-veridical group in two (an ‘indicative’ NV1
and a ‘subjunctive’ NV2). Table 3 illustrates complementizer selection under the
relevant predicates in the four languages at stake.
MG Bg
Strongly veridical pu deto
pu
Relative veridicalčeoti
Non-veridical 1
oti čeNon-veridical 2
na da

Serbian Croatian French
što
da
que
što

da

que

da
da

da
da

que
que

Table 3: Finite complementizers in Modern Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian,FrenchThere are no problematic *ABA violations in Table 3. In other words, veridicality
cleanly tracks complementizer selection in French and Balkan.
Focusing on Balkan languages, Baunaz (2015, 2016, 2018) argues that thecomplementizer morpheme has an internal functional sequence (fseq), and thatthe complementizer may lexicalize diﬀerently sized structures from this fseq.
She also claims that the distribution of complementizers is governed by veridicality and shows that veridicality plays a role in so-called factive islands, calledveridicality islands in Baunaz (2018). Based on syncretism patterns with complementizers and on wh-extractions out of (non-)veridical domains in four diﬀerent
languages, she argues that the predicates in Table 1 select for complementizers
of diﬀerent ‘sizes’. She claims that the size of the complementizer plays a rolein strong, weak, or non-island conﬁgurations. The basic complementizer-fseq
38

resulting from Baunaz’s work is illustrated in (5). Note that under this analysis,na (and its cognates in Balkan languages) is considered to be a complementizerof the smallest size, with distinct syntactic properties from, say, non-veridical
complementizers (see fn. 1).
(5)strong-veridical > relative-veridical > non-veridical 1 > non-veridical 2

Baunaz also adopts the idea from Manzini & Savoia (2011) and Roussou (2010)that complementizers may introduce a propositional operator (OPprop ). This operator closes oﬀ the clause and turns it into a proposition. Subjunctive clauses,
which are open propositions, do not involve such an operator.
In this paper, we would like to reconcile the theory of complementizer selection summed up in Table 3 with the way in which mood is realized (Table 2). We
will explain the apparent *ABA in French as well as some of the properties of the
MG mood complementizer na (and its Balkan cognates, as described in Sočanać
2017) by taking a nanosyntactic approach.

3

The analysis: Peeling and packaging

In our view, the apparent ABA in French, seen in Table 2, is only an illusion. It
is the result of unduly mixing up two independent processes: on the one hand,
the internal structure of complementizers in terms of veridicality, and on theother hand, the selection of embedded mood by certain matrix verbs. Taken on
its own, neither process violates the *ABA theorem. As we saw above in Table
3 that the veridicality domain does not show any complementizers in an illicit
ABA-type conﬁguration. And in Table 4 we see that mood is triggered by thekind of selecting predicate, i.e. the internal structure of the predicate.2
As seen in Table 4, indicative and subjunctive obey the adjacency requirement on syncretism, that is, they do not show any illicit ABAs.
The problem arises in the observation that a relative-veridical complementizer appears to ‘select’ a subjunctive embedded verb. However, the correct wayof framing this fact is not that the complementizer selects the embedded mood;rather, it is the higher matrix verb that is responsible for this. Veridicality is an (atleast partially) independent variable, with diﬀerent complementizer structures
being compatible with diﬀerent matrix verbs (6).
2

For reasons of space, we borrow Baunaz & Puskás’s (2014, under review) classiﬁcation ofembedding verbs without explanation. The reader is referred to their work for details.

39Predicate
Internal structureclass
Directives>
Desideratives
Emotivefactives
V. of saying/
epistemic

Selects>>>>>

Table 4: Matrix predicate classes and embedded mood
(6)

Directives(→)

SV-Comp

Desideratives(→)

RV-Comp

Emotive factives(→)

NV1 -Comp

Saying/epistemic(→)

NV2 -CompAs seen in (6), RV and NV2 complementizers are compatible with verbs taking
the subjunctive mood (directives, desideratives and emotive factive verbs); SV
and NV1 are compatible with verbs taking the indicative (verbs of saying andepistemic verbs).
We make two main assumptions in our analysis. First, selection is local. Second, the order in which the main elements of the biclausal conﬁguration are generated is not the following:(7)

Conventional ordering (not adopted here):i.
[embedded verb/clause]ii. [Comp [embedded verb/clause]]iii. [matrix verb/clause [Comp [embedded verb/clause]]]Instead we will assume that veridicality – the stance taken by some individualwith regard to a proposition – is in some sense the ‘core’ of the sentence; therefore we will hypothesize that the complementizer, as encoder of veridicality, isgenerated ﬁrst.
(8)

[

[

1[

2 [C]]]](relative-veridical Comp)In (8) we have provided the relative-veridical structure, but any complementizer
40

structure would also be available: strong-veridical [ [ [ 1 [ 2 [C]]]]], or
non-veridical [ 1 [ 2 [C]]] or [ 2 [C]]. We have chosen the relative-veridical
structure because it partakes in the problematic ABA pattern discussed above.
The next step, for our purposes, is external merge of the verb with inﬂectional layers above (TAM, where Subj stands for subjunctive mood; Prop stands
for proposition, which is also the feature yielding indicative morphology). Thisis seen in (9)).
(9)[Prop [Subj [T [Asp [V]]]]] + [[1[

2 [C]]]]

Following a ‘peeling’ approach to selection (unpublished work by Michal Starke,
Caha 2009: ch. 4; see Taraldsen Medová & Wiland 2018 for a recent implementation), we will take the full structure of the verb to be merged at this stage, withselection of a subset of this structure happening in a later step, leaving behind aso-called peel.
In the next stage of the derivation the matrix verb is merged. As discussed
above, it is the class of the matrix verb that determines whether the embedded
mood is indicative or subjunctive.3 In this case, with the relative-veridical Comp,
we have an emotive-factive matrix predicate.
(10)[Vmatrix P] + [Prop [Subj [T [Asp [V]]]]] + [here: [Vmatrix P] = [

[

[

1[

2 [C]]]][VP]]]At this stage of the derivation, the matrix VP is in a local relation to the embedded verb; we posit that this kind of relation makes it possible for the matrix verb
to select some subset of the verbal structure, which here would be a verb with
subjunctive inﬂection.
Selection involves movement of the subset to the left of the matrix VP, assketched in (11).
(11)[Subj [T [Asp[V]]]] + [Vmatrix P] + [Prop [O]] + [[

1[

2 [C]]]]

Importantly, removing the subjunctive structure leaves behind a Prop layer without its complement (since SubjP has been moved out); this Prop ‘peel’ can bespelled out as part of the complementizer itself, i.e. Fr. que, as seen here:3
See Baunaz (2017) and Baunaz & Puskás (under review) for arguments in favor of the ideathat what determines the subjunctive mood is the emotive feature in the fseq of the matrix verb.

41

(12)

SubjP
TP

Subj

AspP

T
Asp

⇒ que

VP
Vmatrix P
PropP
Prop

Comp
This means that the structure of French que as it is stored in the lexicon would
look like ((13)).

42

(13)

Lexical structure for Fr. queSVPque ⇔ PropP

RVP

SV
⟨

Prop

RV

NV1 P

⟩

NV2 P

NV1
NV2

C

In other words, the Prop peel encodes movement of a subjunctive verb out fromunderneath. However, it is not only in such cases that que can be spelled out.
Que can also be spelled out if an indicative verb has been selected/moved to theleft of the matrix VP, as seen in (14).

43

(14)

PropP
Subj

Prop

TP

Subj

AspP

T

Vmatrix P
Asp

VP

⇒ que
Comp

The lexical entry in (13) can still, by the Superset Principle, spell out the leftover
structure in (14) as que. That is to say, the lexical structure with the peel in (13) isstill a superset of [ [ [ 1 [ 2 [C]]]]] (or any subset of this structure). In otherwords, que is spelled out whether indicative or subjunctive has been selected by
the matrix verb.4
Thus the matrix verb does not directly determine the kind (size) of the complementizer. In other words, the complementizer grows and shrinks independently of the behavior of the matrix verb and the process of mood-selection happening above it. The lexical entry in (13) is able to accommodate this fact if we
adopt the Revised Superset Principle, given in (15).

4We assume that later reshuﬄing in the derivation will move [Vmatrix P [Comp]] to the left of. Furthermore,
the embedded verb/clause, giving us the order [matrix - Comp] embedded
within the V-zone, we assume that VP eventually moves up to the left of the layers above it,giving the expected order [verb] .

44

(15)

Revised Superset Principle (Vanden Wyngaerd 2018: 289, his. (6))
A lexical entry L may spell out a syntactic node SN iﬀ the features of L
are a superset of the features dominated by SN.

This relaxation of the ‘classical’ Superset Principle is required on independent
grounds (see Vanden Wyngaerd 2018 for more details). For our purposes here,(15) allows for the lexical structure of que in (13) to map, at least in principle, onto
all of the following syntactic structures:
(16)

a.

subjunctive verb selected[ [Prop][ [Prop][ [Prop][ [Prop

]

[

[

[

1

[

2

[C]]]]] ]

[

[

1

[

2

[C]]]] ]

[

1

[

2

[C]]]

]

[

1

[

2

[C]]

]

[

[

1

[

2

[C]]]]]

[

[

1

[

2

[C]]]]

[

1

[

2

[C]]]

[

2

[C]]

⇑
“shrinking in the middle”

b.

indicative verb selected[

In (16a) we indicate that the complementizer zone can shrink while still keeping the Prop peel in place at the top; this is a kind of “shrinking in the middle”(as Vanden Wyngaerd 2018 puts it), a feature of the Revised Superset Principle
which is absent in the traditional Superset Principle.
Turning now to Greek, it turns out that our analysis of French has some interesting consequences for the subjunctive non-veridical (=[NV2 [C]]) complementizer-like particle MG na. First of all, these kinds of complements are notpropositional and thus not expected to build all the way up to Prop, rather the
structure stops at Subj. Second, recall that the embedded verb does not display
a morphological subjunctive but rather perfective non-past inﬂection. For our
purposes, PNP corresponds to [Asp [V]].

45

(17)

AspP

Asp

VP

⇒ na
Vmatrix P
SubjP
TP

Subj

NV2

C

T

Crucially, once this part has been extracted from the verbal structure, we are left
with a peel made up of Subj and T. Thus the lexical entry for na is the one givenin (18).
(18)⟨ na ⇔ [Subj [T]] [2 [C]] ⟩This entry accounts for two major properties of na, namely that it is usually taken
as a marker of subjunctive and also that it is an inﬁnitival marker in T – a syncretism which is in fact widespread in Balkan.
Zeroing in on the C-zone, note that the lexical structure of na contains only
[ 2 [C]] and not a larger set of veridicality features (as in the lexical structureof Fr. que). The higher veridicality features are instead spelled out in MG by pu
and oti. Embedded verbs under pu and oti cannot take PNP but instead show
indicative morphology. Furthermore, contrary to na-clauses, pu- and oti-clauses46

are propositional. Thus we can assume for pu and oti that the full PropP structure
has been extracted in these contexts, leaving no peels behind. The lexical entries
we land on are:(19)a. ⟨ pub. ⟨ oti

⇔ [
⇔

[
[

[
[

1
1

[
[

2
2

[C]]]]][C]]]]⟩⟩The lack of peels in (19), then, encodes the fact that a larger verbal structure(namely indicative, requiring Prop in our analysis) occurs under pu and oti. The
bigger peel in the lexical structure of na, on the other hand, encodes the factthat a smaller verbal structure (PNP, basically just a species of aspectual marking)occurs under na.

4

Conclusions

Nanosyntax makes it possible to ‘package’ features (and then store them in thelexicon) in diﬀerent ways cross-linguistically. For us, it is crucial that Subj can bespelled out on the embedded verb in French, which has verbal mood, but as partof the complementizer na in MG, where na is a manifestation of clausal mood.
This general nanosyntactic strategy has in this paper been combined with a peeling approach to selection, whereby a leftover peel from the verbal zone implies
what kind of inﬂected verb has been extracted. We show that packaging andpeeling, combined with the assumption that the complementizer is built before
the embedded verb/clause, can be utilized to coherently account for the facts ofsubjunctive selection in French vs. Balkan.

References
Agouraki, G. 1991. A Modern Greek complementizer and its signiﬁcance for UG.
UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 3. 1–24.
Baunaz, L. 2015. On the various sizes of complementizers. Probus 27(2). 193–
236.
Baunaz, L. 2016. Deconstructing complementizers in Serbo-Croatian, Modern
Greek and Bulgarian. In C. Hammerly & B. Prickett (eds.), Proceedings of NELS
46 (1). 69–77. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistics Student Association.
Baunaz, L. 2017. French predicates selecting the subjunctive mood under the
microscope: The emotive factor. In S. Perpiñán, D. Heap, I. Moreno-Villamar47

& A. Soto-Corominas (eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 11. selected papers from the 44th Linguistic Sympositum on Romance Languages, london, ontario. 9–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Baunaz, L. 2018. Decomposing complementizers: The Fseq of French, Modern Greek, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian complementizers. In L. Baunaz,
K. De Clercq, L. Haegeman & E. Lander (eds.), Exploring nanosyntax Oxford
Studies in Comparative Syntax. 149–179. New York: Oxford University Press.
Baunaz, L. & Puskás, G. 2014. The selection of French mood. In M.H. Côté &E. Mathieu (eds.), Variation within and across Romance languages. 233–253.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Baunaz, L. & Puskás, G. under review. Complementizer functional sequence:
The contribution of Italo-Romance .
Caha, P. 2009. The nanosyntax of case: University of Tromsø dissertation.
Giannakidou, A. 1998. Polarity sensitivity as (non)veridical dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Giannakidou, A. 2009. The dependency of the subjunctive revisited: Temporalsemantics and polarity. Lingua 10. 1883–1908.
Giannakidou, A. & Mari, A. 2017. (Non)veridicality and mood selection incomplement clauses. Unpublished manuscript, University of Chicago andInstitut Jean Nicod, CNRS/ENS/EHESS/PSL. To be published as Chapter 3
of Non-verdicality in grammar and thought. http://home.uchicago.edu/~giannaki/pubs/subjunctive.Chapter3.book.june25.pdf.
Manzini, M.R. & Savoia, L.M. 2011. Grammatical categories. variation in Romance
languages, vol. 128 Cambridge Studies in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Philippaki-Warburton, I. 1994. The subjunctive mood and the syntactic status of
the particle na in Modern Greek. Folia Linguistica 28(3-4). 297–328.
Philippaki-Warburton, I. 1998. Functional categories and Modern Greek. The
Linguistic Review 15. 159–186.
Quer, J. 1998. Moods at interface: Utrecht University dissertation.
Quer, J. 2001. Interpreting mood. Probus 13. 81–111.
Quer, J. 2009. Twists of mood: The distribution and interpretation of the indicative and the subjunctive. Lingua 119. 1779–1787.
Roussou, A. 2000. On the left periphery: Modal particles and complementisers.
Journal of Greek Linguistics 1. 65–94.
Roussou, A. 2009. In the mood for control. Lingua 119. 1811–1836.
Roussou, A. 2010. Selecting complementisers. Lingua 120. 582–603.

48

Sočanać, T. 2017. Subjunctive complements in Slavic languages: A syntaxsemantics interface approach: University of Geneva dissertation.
Taraldsen Medová, L. & Wiland, B. 2018. Functional sequence zones in Slavic L >T > N participles. In L. Baunaz, K. De Clercq, L. Haegeman & E. Lander (eds.),
Exploring nanosyntax. 305–328. New York: Oxford University Press.
Todorovic, N. 2012. The subjunctive and indicative da-complements in Serbian. A
syntactic-semantic approach: University of Illinois at Chicago dissertation.
Tsoulas, G. 1993. Remarks on the structure and interpretation of na-clauses.
Studies in Greek Linguistics 14. 191–206.
Vanden Wyngaerd, G. 2018. The feature structure of pronouns: A probe into
multidimensional paradigms. In L. Baunaz, K. De Clercq, L. Haegeman &E. Lander (eds.), Exploring nanosyntax. 277–304. Oxford University Press.

49‘U is’ or ‘U bent’?
Polite forms of address and verbal agreementin historical Dutch and Ibero-Romance*
Miriam Bouzouita & Anne Breitbarth

1

Introduction

It is well-known that the (polite) forms of address in Dutch underwent a cyclic replacement by which the 2nd person nominative plural pronoun ghi/gij became theformal 2nd nominative singular pronoun (V(os)-form), and later the informal 2nd
nominative singular pronoun (T(u)-form), replacing older du, while the 2nd person accusative plural pronoun u ﬁrst became the accusative of the new singular
V-form, and later the nominative V-form. The developments are summarised inTable 1 (adapted from van Leuvensteijn 2002: 289 and Vermaas 2005).
Table 1: Cyclic shifts in 2nd person pronouns in the history of Dutch
Middle Dutch (c. 1150-1500)
1500-1700
17th/18th c.
today

Nom
du
du, ghigijje/jij
T: je/jij
V: uSg
Acc/Datdidi, uuje/jouje/jou
u

Pl
Nom
ghi
ghi
gij

Acc/Datuuujullie< gij liedenujullieu liedenu* We acknowledge invaluable input from our fellow ΔiaLing colleague Jacques Van

Keymeulen to earlier versions of this paper.

50

A question that has not received much attention at all in the literature is how
the verbal agreement with these pronouns evolved. There are two theories regarding the rise of nominative u that make diﬀerent predictions with respect
to this question. First, according to e.g. Vor der Hake (1911), the nominativeuse of u arose from the accusative one by semantic shift. Second, as proposed
by Van der Horst (2008: 1094), the nominative use of u arose via an intermediate step, namely the epistolary forms of address consisting of a (possessive)pronoun and a honoriﬁc noun, U.Ed., U.E. (uw edelheid, ‘your honour’) and U.L.
(uwe(r) liefde ‘your love / kindness’) used in letters from the 17th century onwards.
These were ﬁrst only used in writing, originally in chancery style for nobility, andthen oralised as uwé [uw’e:] / [’uwε], and spread top-town through social classes(Kern 1911, Heeroma 1934). The ﬁrst theory predicts that 2nd person agreementon the verb with subject-u should be older, as the accusative form of the 2nd person pronoun, when it is reanalysed as nominative, is still a 2nd person pronoun.
Under the second theory, one would expect that u(wé) should ﬁrst have occurredwith 3rd person agreement, as the form of address is a noun phrase.1 Van der
Horst bases this latter theory on a comparison with a similar development inGerman, where the new V-form Sie ‘they > you(V)’, argued to be a pronominalization of Ihro Gnaden ‘your mercies’ (e.g. Simon 2003), and goes with 3rd person
agreement on the verb.
Our paper departs from three observations. First, there is variation in presentday Dutch regarding the agreement morphology on the ﬁnite verb that goeswith the V-form u:2 where this morphology is not syncretic (as it is in most verbs),
it varies between 2nd and 3rd person agreement. In (1), this is illustrated for theverbs hebben ‘have’, zullen ‘shall’, and kunnen ‘can’.
(1)

2nd person: u hebt/zult/kunt
3rd person: u heeft/zal/kan‘you (V) have/shall/can’Second, the earliest (pre-1600!) occurrences of u used as a nominative pronounthat are reported in the literature occur with 2nd person agreement on the verb
(Paardekooper 1996). This is a problem for Van der Horst’s theory of the devel1“Als een briefschrijver de geadresseerde met Uwe Edelheid aanspreekt, gebruikt hij een substantiefgroep met Edelheid als kern. Hier horen de persoonlijke, bezittelijke en wederkerendevoornaamwoorden van de derde persoon bij.” (van Leuvensteijn 2002: 290)2
We are not considering the variation in colloquial Belgian Dutch regarding the use of u in thepresent paper.

51

opment of the verbal agreement with u.3(2)ende u hebt in dese wech al 7 vame 6 vame ende bij lant komende 5 vamen‘And you have in this way already 7 fathom, 6 fathom, and, coming onto
the shore, 5 fathom.’([1599] De tweede schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië [...])(3)

Wat belangt de regerijnge is oﬀ soude te lanck sijn te verhaelen, dat sult v
alles verstaen godt ons met lijﬀ in Nerlant helpende‘Concerning the government, it is or would be too long to tell (all), you
shall understand all of that, if God help us with life in the Netherlands.’([1599] B. Journaal van Reijer Cornelisz.)

The third observation comes from outside the Germanic sphere. To be more
precise, Lara Bermejo (2015, 2016a,b) observes that in some Ibero-Romance (IR)varieties, such as Western Andalusian Spanish, the plural V-form ustedes has replaced the plural T-form vosotros, but the agreement of e.g. the reﬂexive pronouns, object clitics (os > se) and the ﬁnite verbs lag behind, varying between
2nd and 3rd person agreement, as illustrated in (4). He also sketches a geographical diﬀusion pattern, whereby the centre of innovation is situated in the Cádiz
province, which has more of the innovative 3 features closer to the center (level4) than those areas that are further away from it (levels 1 (furthest away, least
advanced) to 3).
Sg
PlModern Peninsular Spanish
T Tú
Vos-otros
V Usted Ustedes
Modern Western Andalusian
T Tú
Vos-otros> Ustedes
V Usted Ustedes(4)

Ustedes sois hermanos.
‘You(3 ) are(2 ) siblings’(Lara Bermejo 2016b: 98)

As can be seen from Table 2, Lara Bermejo identiﬁes a cline following which theustedes phenomenon progresses from one syntactic context to another, whereby
3

Examples quoted after Paardekooper (1996: 70).

52

Table 2: Extension of the innovative 3(Lara Bermejo 2016a: 277)
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6

Stressedpronoun
3pl
3pl
3pl
3pl
3pl
3pl

Reﬂexive
pronoun
2pl
3pl
3pl
3pl
3pl
3pl

Verbs
2pl
2pl
3pl
3pl
3pl
3pl

in the ustedes phenomenon

Accusative
pronoun
2pl
2pl
2pl
3pl
3pl
3pl

Dativepronoun
2pl
2pl
2pl
2pl
3pl
3pl

Possessives
2pl
2pl
2pl
2pl
2pl
3pl

stage 6 sees full completion of 3 , which manifests itself in Canarian and Latin
American Spanish.
In the present paper, we report on a pilot study on the historical developmentof the verbal agreement going with the incipient use of epistolary forms of address and emerging nominative u in a corpus of letters (Letters as Loot from the17th and 18th c.; www.brievenalsbuit.nl), in order to determine how u could
become a subject pronoun, and how the verbal agreement evolved with it. We
argue that a very similar account to that proposed by Lara Bermejo (2016b) for
the southern IR varieties is justiﬁed for the historical Dutch data as well.4

2

Pilot study

2.1 Method
We searched the Letters as Loot corpus for forms of the verbs hebben ‘have’, zijn‘be’ and zullen ‘shall’ and a form of U, UE, or UL, both in straight and inverted
word order. In order to obtain clear results regarding the verbal agreement, weremoved all the plurals (e.g., ue. zijn ‘you(r honourables) are’) because they aresynchretic in all three persons. We further restricted the search to the verbs
hebben, zijn and zullen because they do not have syncretic 2 /3 forms, asother verbs do), as in (5). Morphologically heeft/zal is syncretic with 3 , whilehebt/zult is unambiguously 2 , as shown in (6).
(5)

jij loopt vs. hij loopt4

We only focus on the verbal agreement, but note that there are indications that the possessive agreement may be worth looking at at a later stage, cf. example (9).

53

(6)

jij hebt/bent/zult (dialectal gij hebt/zijt/zult) vs. hij heeft/is/zal

As we obtained too few data for all separate regions in corpus, we focused on thethree regions with most data, Zeeland, Noord- and Zuid-Holland, and recoded
the rest as “other”.
Diatopic and diachronic spread of 2 verbal agreement with U/UE/UL
17th c.
18th c.
region2
3
total %2
2
3
total %2
Zeeland
7
6
13
53.8
4
4
8
50.0
0
8
8
0.0
Zuid-Holland
4
7
11
36.4
Noord-Holland
5
17
22
22.7
8
41
49
16.3
other
1
10
11
9.1
4
10
14
28.6

2.2

Factors inﬂuencing the variation in verbal agreement

We analysed the data using multiple logistic regression in Rbrul (Johnson 2009)5 ,and found that region is the strongest predictor of verbal agreement with UE /UL / U, besides inversion (p = 0.0115). The model shows that Zeeland strongly
favours 2 agreement, while Zuid and Noord Holland prefer 3 agreement.
On the map, this results in a similar diﬀusion pattern to the one that Lara Bermejo(2015, 2016b) described for the agreement with ustedes in Western Andalusian
dialects. It appears that the use of u with 3 agreement was innovated in Holland and then diﬀused to Zeeland, where 2 was initially more frequent, but
is gradually replaced over time. Interestingly, this seems to suggest that in fact
both theories regarding the origin of the nominative use of u may at least partially be right: on the one hand, u became used as a subject due to the (crosslinguistically common) shift from accusative to nominative, but initially kept the
2 agreement. On the other hand, the 3 agreement may still have arisen under the inﬂuence of the epistolary forms.

5

Factor groups in the full model: region, period, gender, verb, inversion.

54

ﬁll

Input prob.
Total N
log-likelihood
regionZeelandZuid-Holland
Noord-Holland
other
inversion
straight
inverted

verbal agreement with U/UE/UL
0.102
136
-63.605
factor weight % (2 )N
p = 0.0115
0.805
52.4
21
0.341
21.1
19
0.390
18.3
71
0.423
20.0
25
p = 0.0443
0.723
26.2
122
0.277
7.1
14

There is a second factor in the regression model that is signiﬁcant at the p<0.05level, viz. inversion. 2 agreement is signiﬁcantly more frequent in subjectinitial V2 (“straight” contexts), as evidenced by the factor weight closer to 1 (0.723),
while 3 agreement much more likely in inversion contexts, as in (7) (factor
weight closer to 0, viz. 0.277). We will return to this in Section 2.3 below.
(7)

dat sulke gedagten sijn nog nooijt of sullen nooyt in myn opkomen daar voor
heeft Ue myn te veel goeds gedaan‘that such thoughts have never and never shall cross my mind, you have(3 )done too much good for me, for such a thing to happen.’(J.D. Piest to J.D. Praetorius, 1781/02/01)

The other factors (period, gender and verb) could not be shown to be signiﬁcant.6 However, adjacency between the verb and the form of address may possibly play a role, though we have not been able to test this yet, due to restrictions of the search interface. Early examples of nominative U (i.e., not UL/UE)
may indicate an inﬂuence, with non-adjacency correlating with 3 agreement.
Observe that in (9), there is even a 3 possessive pronoun (zijn), besides the 3verb agreement.
6

We observed that UL is the form that most frequently occurs with 2 verbal agreement,
and that it is mostly used by women, but disappears after 1700. The addressee of the women’s
letters is typically the husband or another family member, so the fact that 2 sticks here forlonger may indicate that despite the introduction of a new pronoun, the informal 2 agreement
remains used in informal contexts. UE is by far the most dominant form, and is most frequently
used with 3 verbal agreement.

55

(8)

want u zult hoope ik een wijf hebben voor mijne wederkompste‘For you shall(2 ), I hope, have a wife before my return.’(Maria van Reigersberch to Nicolaes van Reigersberch, 1624)(9)

Ik hoope u zijn geldt wel zonder verlies krigen sal‘I hope that you shall(3 ) receive back your(3 ) money without loss.’(Maria van Reigersberch to Hugo de Groot, 1627)(data from van Leuvensteijn 2002)

2.3

Sketch of an analysis

In generative approaches, subject-verb agreement is analysed as a local dependency between a functional head, normally T (assigning nominative case to thesubject), and the subject (checking T’s ϕ-features). Typically, this dependency
involves the subject moving to (or through) SpecTP. Assuming a symmetric viewof V2, there is a second position for subjects in Dutch, viz. SpecCP.7 This is where
the subject is found in subject-initial V2-clauses, while it remains in SpecTP in inversion contexts. In such contexts, SpecCP may be ﬁlled by a topic (amongst
others).
In order to account for the variation in IR dialects, Lara Bermejo (2016b) argues that the replacement of vosotros by ustedes proceeds in three steps: (i) 3
ustedes is merged as a topic (in SpecCP), doubled by the regular 2 subject in
SpecTP, (10); (ii) 3 ustedes in SpecCP is doubled by a covert 2 clitic in SpecTP,
triggering 2 agreement on the verb8 , (11); and ﬁnally, (iii) ustedes is reanalysed
as a subject, and triggers 3 agreement in SpecTP, (12).
(10)

Ustedes(,) vosotros no la conocéis.
‘You(3 ) you(2 ) do not know(2 ) her.’(Lara Bermejo 2016b: 101)

(11)

Ustedes ø sois hermanos.
‘You(3 ) ø(2 ) are(2 ) siblings.’(Lara Bermejo 2016b: 98)(12)

Ustedes me han pedido un crédito.
‘You(3 ) have(3 ) asked me for a credit.’(Lara Bermejo 2016b: 104)7

We assume a very simpliﬁed model here, with TP and CP serving as abbreviations for a possibly more ﬁne-grained structure as would be assumed under a cartographic analysis.
8
Lara Bermejo uses Uriagereka’s (1995) “big DP” hypothesis for this, which Rubio Alcalá(2014) proposes to extend to account for clitic doubling, with the head of DP being ﬁlled by theclitic, and the complement by the topic.

56

We argue that this proposal in terms of doubling of a topic by a covert pronouncan be transferred to account for the variation in verbal agreement with subject u in historical Dutch, as well. Our quantitative analysis suggested that 3 isgaining on 2 agreement, and that 2 agreement is preferred in straight V2clauses. Under our adaptation of Lara Bermejo’s proposal, 3 u is a full pronoun(in the sense of Cardinaletti & Starke) used as a topic in SpecCP in straight V2clauses, and the 2 agreement with the verb is mediated by a null pronoun in
SpecTP (13).
(13)[CP u[3] [C’ [C zulti [2] ] [TP ø[2] [VP een wijf hebben ] [T[2 ] ti ]]The assumption of a null doubling pronoun in this position is justiﬁed by the ample occurrence of overt pronouns in exactly this position, doubling a pronoun in
SpecCP in (Southern) Dutch dialects, like gie in (14).9(14)

Ge kent gie da.
‘You(2 /Pl) know you(2(Haegeman & Van de Velde 2008: 163)) that.’In inversion contexts, u appears in SpecTP, and triggers 3
verb, (15).
(15)[CP daarvoor [C’ [C heefti [3[T[3 ] ti ]]]] [TP Ue[3agreement on the] [VP myn te veel goeds gedaan ]Over time, the null pronoun in SpecTP (13) was lost, and u was reanalysed as a
subject, with a trace in SpecTP in straight V2. 3 agreement spread to someextent, helped along by the syncretism between 2 and 3 agreement foundin most verbs. It is possible that the fact that epistolary forms of address whenspelled out should trigger 3 agreement, added to this.
(16)[CP uj [3] [C’ [C zali [3] ] [TP tj [3] [VP een wijf hebben ] [T[3 ] ti ]]This proposal leads us to expect that embedded clauses, too, should show significantly more 3 agreement in sentences with subject u in 17th and 18th c. Dutch.
This hypothesis is corroborated by the diﬀusion of agreement patterns with ustedes in the southern IR varieties, where third person agreement is found in embedded before main clauses (Lara Bermejo 2016a: 266-7). We leave this for fu9

This example is from the West Flemish dialect of Lapscheure, which has been extensively
described and analysed by Liliane. Particularly the doubling of subject pronouns is one of her
long-standing research interests.

57

ture research. The fact that the variation between 2 and 3 agreement has
stabilised in the present-day language seems to reﬂect a certain degree of lexicalisation: 2 with zijn, (preferred) 3 with hebben, for instance.

Dedication
With this contribution, we would like to thank Liliane for everything she has done
for both of us, and keeps doing, for her generosity, always open door, and open
ears throughout the years, for being a wonderful colleague, a mentor, a second
mother, and a friend. Besides, she is one of the reasons there is an atmosphere
within our research group ΔiaLing that encourages fruitful collaborations suchas this one, across language and framework boundaries.

References
Haegeman, L. & Van de Velde, D. 2008. Pleonastic tet in the Lapscheure dialect.
Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7. 157–199.
Vor der Hake, J.A. 1911. Is de beleefdheidsvorm U ’n verbastering van UEd.? De
Nieuwe Taalgids 5. 16–24.
Heeroma, K. 1934. De beleefdheidsvorm u omstreeks 1800. De Nieuwe Taalgids
28. 328–332.
Van der Horst, J.M. 2008. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse syntaxis. Part 2. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven.
Johnson, D.E. 2009. Getting oﬀ the GoldVarb Standard: Introducing Rbrul for
Mixed-Eﬀects Variable Rule Analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 3.
359–383.
Kern, J.H. 1911. Is de beleefdheidsvorm U ’n verbastering van U.E.? De Nieuwe
Taalgids 5. 121–133.
Lara Bermejo, V. 2015. Los tratamientos de 2Pl en Andalucía occidental y Portugal:
Estudio geo- y sociolingüístico de un proceso de gramaticalización: Universidad
Autónoma de Madrid dissertation.
Lara Bermejo, V. 2016a. Spontaneous dubbing as a tool for eliciting linguistic
data: The case of second person plural inﬂections in Andalusian Spanish. In
M.H. Côté, R. Knooihuizen & J. Nerbonne (eds.), The future of dialects: Selected papers from Methods in Dialectology XV. 261–281. Berlin: Language Science Press.
58

Lara Bermejo, V. 2016b. When agreement is for covert but not for overt: Thecase of ustedes plus second person plural inﬂections in Peninsular Spanish.
Isogloss 2. 95–111.
van Leuvensteijn, A. 2002. Epistolaire aanspreekvormen in de correspondentie
van Maria van Reigersberch. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde
118. 288–298.
Paardekooper, P.C. 1996. U (ond.) ook voor 1600. Taal en Tongval 48. 70–71.
Simon, H. 2003. Für eine grammatische Kategorie ‘Respekt’ im Deutschen. Synchronie, Diachronie und Typologie der deutschen Anredepronomina. Tübingen:
Niemeyer.
Vermaas, J.A.M. 2005. Veranderingen in de Nederlandse aanspreekvormen van dedertiende t/m de twintigste eeuw. Utrecht: LOT.

59

The Haegeman test:
A′-movement in the middle ﬁeld
Hans Broekhuis

1

The test

As Liliane’s linguistic work is wide-ranging and of a uniformly high quality, I imagine that most linguists acquainted with it (and it is hard to conjure up any serious
syntactician who has not read at least some of her publications) would ﬁnd picking out a speciﬁc page from her work as their favorite an impossible task. However, I have one such page: page 179 of The Syntax of Negation (1995). This pageshows that Dutch is just like West Flemish in that it has obligatory movementof negative phrases expressing clausal negation into the speciﬁer of a NegP located in the middle ﬁeld of the clause. Establishing movement within the middle
ﬁeld of the clause is often extremely diﬃcult, as it can be and often is applied in astring-vacuous fashion; the two structures in (1), for instance, diﬀer in the structural position of the noun phrase niemand ‘nobody’ but will nevertheless giverise to the same linear order because there is no phonetically realized material
in between the two positions.
(1)

a.
b.

dat Jan [NegP [Neg ø] [VP niemand ziet ]].
dat Jan [NegP niemandi [Neg ø] [VP ti ziet ]].
that Jan
nobodysees‘that Jan doesn’t see anyone.’

Liliane demonstrates in a very simple and elegant way that movement of thenegative phrase is obligatory by means of what I have come to think of as The
Haegeman test: when we embed a negative phrase in the PP-complement ofa predicative AP, leftward extraction of the PP op niemand can be shown to be
obligatory because the PP must precede the adjective. The fact that the PP mustalso precede the modiﬁer erg ‘very’, which can be taken to be located in a high60

position within the AP, supports the claim that the PP must in fact be extracted
from the AP (2b); cf. *Jan is [AP erg op niemand dol].
(2)

a.
b.

dat Jan [NegP [Neg ø] [VP [AP erg dol [PP op niemand]] is ]].
dat Jan [NegP [PP op niemand]i [Neg ø] [VP [AP erg dol ti ] is ]].
that Janof nobodyvery fond is‘that Jan isn’t very fond of anybody.’

The Haegeman test is crucial for determining the internal structure of the middle
ﬁeld of the clause, as well as the types of A′ -movement available in this domainof the clause in the Germanic OV-languages. In other words, the test may help
us determining the values available for X in structure (3) besides “Neg”.
(3)

The Haegeman test has proved of great value in the Syntax of Dutch: the discussion in Broekhuis & Corver (2016: §13.3) on A′ -scrambling in the middle ﬁeldof the clause could probably not have been written without it. The examples in(4) ﬁrst show that Dutch has focus/topic movement within the middle ﬁeld of
the clause. Note that the use of italics indicates the so-called A-accent assigned
to contrastive foci and the use of italics with underlining indicates the B-accentassigned to contrastive topics; see Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008), Broekhuis& Corver (2016: §13.3.2), and references cited there for detailed discussions ofthese notions.
(4)

a.

b.

dat Marie [FocP [op P]i Foc [VP [AP erg dol ti ] is]].
that Marieof Petervery fond is‘that Marie is very fond of Peter.’Ik weet niet wat Marie van Jan vindt,
maar ik weet wel dat
I know not what Marie of Jan considers, but I know AFF thatze [TopP [op Peter]i Top [VP [AP erg dol ti ] is]].
sheof Petervery fond is‘I don’t know how Marie feels about Jan but I do know she’s very fond61

of Peter.’
It is sometimes argued that focus movement diﬀers from Neg-movement in that
it is not obligatory because leaving the PP in its AP-internal position is possible
if Peter is contrastively stressed: dat Marie erg dol op P
is; see Neeleman &Van de Koot (2008) and references cited there. There is, however, also evidence
that the speciﬁer position of FocP must be ﬁlled, based on the distribution of focus particles such as zelfs ‘even’. But ﬁrst consider the examples in (5); (6b) showsthat such particles may be left-adjacent to the focused phrase and (5b) showsthat the particle and PP must be analyzed as a constituent because otherwise
this example would violate the verb-second requirement on main clauses.
(5)

a.

b.

dat Marie [FocP [zelfs op P
]i Foc [VP [AP erg dol ti ] is]].
that Marieeven of Petervery fond is‘that Marie is even very fond of Peter.’[Zelfs op P
]i is Marie [AP erg dol ti ].
even of Peter is Marievery fond‘Marie is even very fond of Peter’

The crucial fact is that while the focused phrase may occur within its original APinternal position, the focus particle must be located in the speciﬁer of FocP: see
Broekhuis & Corver (2016: §13.3.2 sub IC2)) for a discussion of the question as towhether the focus particle is base-generated as part of the PP and moved into
SpecFocP by focus movement, or whether it is inserted in SpecFocP directly by
the merge operation; see Barbiers (2014) for independent arguments showingthat focus particles of the zelfs type can occupy SpecFocP.
(6)

a. *dat Marie [FocP Foc [VP [AP erg dol [zelfs op P
]i ] is]].
that Marievery fond even of Peter isb. dat Marie [FocP zelfs Foc [VP [AP erg dol [op P]i ] is]].
that Marieevenvery fond of Peter is‘that Marie is even very fond of Peter.’

The acceptability contrast in (6) suggests that some form of focus movement is
obligatory or, at least, that the speciﬁer of FocP must be ﬁlled by some focus
element. This of course raises the question why examples such as dat Marie erg
dol op P
is are acceptable as well. The answer may be that such examples do
not have an active FocP and thus should receive a diﬀerent interpretation thanexamples with focus movement; I hope to return to this question in future work.
62

2Intermezzo on the cartographic approach

Before continuing with the discussion of the Haegeman test, let me allow myself a brief cross-linguistic digression. Example (7a) shows that although English does not have focus movement of the kind found in Dutch, it does havea “low” FocP, the speciﬁer of which can be ﬁlled by a focus particle: (7a) is unacceptable with a neutral intonation pattern (that is, without backgrounding or
afterthought intonation). This is expected given that (7b) shows that the same
also holds for Neg-movement; see Broekhuis & Klooster (2010) for relevant discussion. The examples in (6) and (7) therefore suggest that the availability of a“low” FocP is not a language-speciﬁc property of the continental Germanic OVlanguages but a more general one.
(7)a. that Mary is even very fond of P.
′
a . *that Mary is very fond even of P.
b. that Marie is not very fond of anybody.

It is also worth pointing out that Broekhuis & Corver (2016: §13.3.2, sub IA1) provide evidence that the Dutch FocP is located in between the modal adverbs and
NegP and that TopP is located higher than (that is: precedes) the modal adverbs(which goes against Neeleman & Van de Koot (2008), who deny the existence ofsuch designated focus/topic positions). This would indicate that the Dutch middle ﬁeld is structured in a similar way as the Hungarian preverbal ﬁeld (cf. É. Kiss
2002). The fact that these genetically unrelated languages have the same linear order contrastive topic > contrastive focus > negation of course supports the
cartographic approach to syntax, which has been one of Liliane’s main researchinterests over the last two decades.

3

The test as a linguistic tool

The Haegeman test is not only a crucial tool for establishing A′ -movement in the
middle ﬁeld of the clause but can also oﬀer invaluable help in evaluating analyses
that avail themselves of such movements. A good example is the analysis of
so-called correlative coordinators such as zowel ... als ... ‘both ... and ...’, andof ... of ... ‘either ... or...’. The traditional analysis of such sequences is that
we are dealing here with complex coordinators. Larson (1985), for instance, has
proposed that either ... or ... originates as a single lexical head (Co) and thateither is moved into some position preceding the ﬁrst coordinand later in the63derivation, as illustrated in (8a). A useful piece of evidence in favor of Larson’s
account is that we can now also derive examples such as (8b) by assuming thateither may also target positions external to the coordinate structure.
(8)

a.
b.

that John ate [eitheri [CoP rice [Co′ [Co ti or] beans]]].
that John [eitheri [VP ate [CoP rice [Co′ [Co ti or] beans]]]].

It should be noted, however, that this argument does not immediately carry over
to OV-languages such as Dutch because the verb follows the coordinate structure in examples such as (9), so that the presumed head movement in (9b) would
apply string vacuously; the two structures therefore give rise to the same linear
order (although Broekhuis & Corver, in prep., discuss a number of more complex
Dutch examples illustrating the same thing). Note in passing that I assume thatall Dutch correlative coordinate structures have the same underlying structure,
an assumption that may not be true for English both ... and ... for reasons (related to the fact that it diﬀers from Dutch zowel ... als ... in that it triggers pluralsubject agreement) that I cannot discuss here.
(9)

a.
b.

dat Jan [zoweli [CoP rijst [Co′ [Co ti als] bonen]]] at.
that Jan bothrice
and beans ate
dat Jan [zoweli [VP [CoP rijst [Co′ [Co ti als] bonen]]] at].
that Jan bothrice
and beans ate

Larson’s complex-head analysis of correlatives is fraught with problems for various reasons: one important problem (not mentioned in the literature as far as Iknow) is that the structures in (8) and (9) violate the lexical integrity hypothesis,
which prohibits movement of a subpart of a lexical item: see Schwarz (1999) fora discussion of various other problems. An alternative approach to correlative
coordinators is provided in Hendriks (2001, 2004) and Johannessen (2005), whoargue that the initial part of a correlative coordinate structure is a focus particle.
One argument in favor of this proposal is that the initial part of the correlative
coordinate structure must have an emphatically accented phrase in its domain.
(10)

a.
b.

Peter heeft zelfs J ontmoet.
Peter has even Jan met
Peter heeft zowel J als E ontmoet.
Peter has both Jan and Els met

Another argument in favor of this proposal is that it immediately accounts for

64

Neijt’s (1979) generalization that the coordinands in a correlative coordinate structure are normally major phrases (clausal constituents and certain verbal projections).
(11)

a.

[Zelfs de mannen] waren aanwezig.
even the men
were present′
a . *[De zelfs mannen] waren aanwezig.
the even men
were present
b. [Zowel [de mannen als de vrouwen]] waren aanwezig.
both the men
and the women were present′
b . *[De zowel [mannen als vrouwen]] waren aanwezig.
the both men
and women were present

If correlative coordinate structures are indeed contrastively focused constituents,
our earlier conclusion that the speciﬁer position of FocP cannot remain empty
predicts that either the full correlative coordinate structure or its initial element
must be placed in SpecFocP. The Haegeman test shows that this prediction isindeed correct.
(12)

a. *Jan is [boos [zowel op Jan als op Marie]] geweest.
Jan is angry both at Jan and at Marie beenb. Jan is [zowel op Jan als op Marie]i [boos ti ] geweest.
Jan is both at Jan and at Marie angry been
‘Jan has been angry both at Jan and at Marie.’c. Jan is zowel [boos [op Jan als op Marie]] geweest.
Jan is both angry at Jan and at Marie been
‘Jan has been angry both at Jan and at Marie.’That the initial elements of correlative coordinate structures are focus particles
can also be motivated by examples such as (13b), taken from Hoeksema (1989),
in which a clausal correlative coordinate structure follows a clause-ﬁnal verb (cluster); the acceptability contrast between the two competing word orders in (13b)is similar to that found in the competing word orders in the run-of-the-mill focus
construction in (13a).
(13)

a.

Jan heeft <alleen> gezegd <*alleen> dat Marie komt.
Jan has only
said
that Marie comes‘Jan has only said that Marie is coming.’

65

b.

Jan heeft <zowel> gezegd <*zowel> dat Marie komt als dat
Jan has both
saidthat Marie comes and that
Els komt.
Els comes‘Jan has both said that Marie is coming and that Els is coming.’

The examples in (14) also bear out that the same can be observed in the case of
prepositional correlative coordinate structures (provided we do not use a backgrounding or afterthought intonation).
(14)

a.

b.

Jan heeft <alleen> gewacht <*alleen> op vader.
Jan has only
waitedfor father‘Jan has only waited for father.’
Jan heeft <zowel> gewacht <*zowel> op vader als op
Jan has both
waitedfor father and formoeder.
mother‘Jan waited both for father and for mother.’

As a bonus, observe that example (15) shows that it is also possible to split thepresumed correlative coordinate structure, which suggests that we are not dealing with coordination of clausal constituents at all; see Broekhuis & Corver (inprep.) for more discussion.
(15)

Jan heeft zowel op vader gewacht als op moeder.
Jan has both for father waited and for mother‘Jan waited both for father and for mother.’

The examples in (13) and (14) show that the Haegeman test is in fact applicable
to all structures in which some element has to cross over another element with aﬁxed position in the clausal structure in order to reach some designated landingsite. I am convinced that its scope will be expanded in future linguistic work andwill ultimately become one of the standard devices in the linguistic tool kit.
Acknowledgement: I would like to thank Frits Beukema for copy-editing thiscontribution and Liliane for the many pleasant, interesting discussions we have
had over the last two decades.

66

References
Barbiers, S. 2014. Syntactic doubling and deletion as a source of variation. In
M.C. Picallo (ed.), Linguistic variation in the minimalist framework. 197–223.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Broekhuis, H. & Corver, N. 2016. Syntax of Dutch. Verbs and verb phrases, volume
3. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Broekhuis, H. & Corver, N. in prep. Syntax of Dutch. Coordination. Amsterdam:
Meertens Institute.
Broekhuis, H. & Klooster, W. 2010. Merge and Move as costly operations. Revista
Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem (special issue on Optimality Theoretic Syntax)
8(4). 155–182.
Haegeman, L. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Hendriks, P. 2001. Either as a focus particle. Groningen: University of Groningen
Artiﬁcal Intelligence Prepublications.
Hendriks, P. 2004. Either, both and neither in coordinate structures. In A. ter
Meulen & W. Abraham (eds.), The composition of meaning: From lexeme to discourse. 115–138. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hoeksema, J. 1989. Only in Dutch: A comparison of three adverbs. Penn Reviewof Linguistics 13. 106–121.
Johannessen, J.B. 2005. The syntax of correlative adverbs. Lingua 115. 419–443.
Larson, R.K. 1985. On the syntax of disjunction scope. Natural Language andLinguistic Theory 3. 218–264.
Neeleman, A. & Van de Koot, H. 2008. Dutch scrambling and the nature of discourse templates. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 11. 137–
189.
Neijt, A. 1979. Gapping. A contribution to sentence grammar: Utrecht University
dissertation.

67

The Root where it should not be

On internal argument drop sentences in Italian*
Carlo Cecchetto
Early on in the generative literature some phenomena that were considered tobe limited to root clauses have been identiﬁed (cf. Emonds 1969 and Hooper& Thompson 1973). As Aelbrecht et al. (2012) note in their assessment of thisliterature, phenomena that have been traditionally analyzed as occurring only
in main clauses come in at least two varieties: those that are root phenomena
in a strict sense and those for which the characterization as root phenomena
might be questioned. For example, a phenomenon that was initially treated as
restricted to the root is argument fronting in English, based on contrasts like theone in (1)–(2):(1)

This book you should read.

(2)*It is impossible that this book he has read.

However, as already noted in the early literature cited above, argument fronting
is possible also in clausal complement of verbs of saying. Although these cases
might not be strong counterexamples since clausal complement of verbs of saying might be suﬃciently “root-like”; subsequent work by Liliane Haegeman (cf.
Haegeman 2012 for a systematic presentation) has shown that argument fronting
is possible also in certain types of adverbial clauses, those which Haegeman calls
peripheral adverbials (cf. Haegeman 2003). An example is (3).
* I am very happy to contribute this squib to Liliane’s Webschrift. Liliane, as a teacher and asa person, was crucial in getting me into linguistics. Before enrolling in her class on negation in
the Fall 1992 at the University of Geneva, linguistics, and syntax in particular, was just a small
curiosity in an agenda dominated by other interests. But everything changed during that year in
Geneva and Liliane, a wonderful teacher and an extraordinary researcher, played a big role in that(whether this was for better or for worse is a diﬀerent matter, but Liliane cannot be considered
responsible for that!).

68

(3)

While YOUR book they are using in two courses, mine they haven’t evenorder for the library.
(Haegeman 2003: 332)

For “root phenomena” like argument fronting, Haegeman developed an accountbased on intervention which does not make a crucial use of the distinction between root and non-root clauses. This seems a welcome fact given that these
phenomena do not occur only at the root, despite the initial characterization inthis direction.
However, there are genuine root phenomena. A well-known case is V2 in
Dutch and German. Less well-known cases include hanging topics in Italian (cf.
Cinque 1977) and right dislocation in “strict OV languages” like Japanese andTurkish (cf. Cecchetto & Donati 2015 for an account that uniﬁes these three phenomena and tries to explain why they are restricted to main clauses). My limited
goal in this squib is to discuss a new case of root phenomenon in Italian that, as
far as I know, has not been previously systematically studied. This can be illustrated by the question-answer pair in (4):(4)

E il ragazzo? Partito
And the boy?
Left
‘What about the boy?’ ‘He left.’

The answer in (4) is interpreted as a declarative tensed clause although it is very
reduced, the only overt element being the past participle partito. Neither theauxiliary nor the only argument of the verb are overtly expressed. For concreteness, I will use the label “internal argument drop sentences” to refer to the construction exempliﬁed in (4), but I want to stress that in addition to the internalargument the auxiliary is dropped as well. The choice of the label is motivatedby the fact that the construction is attested only with internal arguments. Thisis conﬁrmed by sentences (5) to (7). (5), which contains a passive, is fully acceptable, much like (4), which contains an unaccusative verb. However, (6), whichcontains an unergative verb, and (7), which contains a transitive verb, are sharply
ungrammatical.
(5)

E il dessert? Mangiato (da Leo)
And the dessert? Eaten(by Leo)‘What about the dessert?’ ‘Leo ate it.’(6)

E il ragazzo? *Pianto
And the boy?
Cried

69

(7)

E il ragazzo? *Mangiato la torta
And the boy?
Eaten
the cake

In Italian, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the internal argument of passive and unaccusative verbs. This extends to internal argument
drop sentences, where agreement is with contextually given internal argument.
While in (4) and (5) the make-up of the past participle is compatible with its default value (singular, masculine), (8) and (9) show that the past participle is inﬂected in gender and number.
(8)

E le torte?
Mangiate
And the cake? Eaten‘What about the cakes’. ‘Leo ate them.’(9)

E le ragazze?
PartiteAnd the girls? Left‘What about the girls?’ ‘They left.’(da Leo)(by Leo)Internal argument drop sentences are not restricted to question-answer pairs,
as long as the dropped argument is contextually salient. For example, imagine
a context in which I enter my oﬃce and I notice that the desk next to mine has
been fully emptied. A colleague might react to my puzzled look by uttering (10).
(10)

Licenziata
dal capo.
Firedby the boss
‘She has been ﬁred by the boss’

Internal argument drop is not allowed in a declarative with a fully-ﬂedged verb,
as shown in (11). For internal argument drop to be possible, the verb must be apast participle.
(11)*E quel ﬁlm? vedrò
(domani)
And that movie? (I) will-watch (tomorrow)

It should be clear that the internal argument drop construction is not a simple
case of ellipsis to be analyzed only at the discourse level but obeys very speciﬁc
syntactic constraints and thus require a syntactic analysis. In fact, the constraints
on the internal argument drop construction are reminiscent of those governing
another reduced construction in Italian, namely the one called absolute small
clause by Belletti (1990). An absolute small clause is an adjunct clause composedby a past participle which agrees with an internal argument DP, which can remain
70unexpressed:(12)

Partite(le ragazze),
restammo
Left(the girls) remain-1‘After the girls left, we remained alone.’

soli
alone

(13)

Mangiata
la torta,
facemmoEatenthe cakemake-1‘Having eaten the cake, we took a walk.’

una passeggiata
a walkAn obvious analogy between absolute small clauses and the internal argument
drop construction is that they are both restricted to past participles that combinewith an internal argument (also absolute small clauses are restricted to passive
and unaccusative verbs). But the analogies do not stop here. As Belletti (1990)
discusses, negation is not allowed in absolute small clauses (cf. (14)). (15) showsthat the same holds for the internal argument drop construction.
(14)

(15)

*Non mangiata
eatenpasseggiata
walk
E le ragazze?
And the girls-

la torta,
the cake--facemmomake-1-unaa*Non partite1?
Left-

Belletti (1990) also notices that, although ne-extraction is possible from the internal argument of a transitive verb (cf. (16)), ne-extraction is not possible inabsolute small clauses (cf. (17)). The same holds for internal argument drop sentences (cf. (18)).
1

There is just one context that licenses a negated past participle in isolation and this is enumeration in a list. For example, in the old days of the Italian weather broadcasting a list of cities
would be read and the minimum/maximum temperature registered in each city the previous day
would be given. In those radio broadcastings, the frozen expression non pervenuta (‘not arrived’)
was used, as shown in (i):
(i)

Bari
BolzanoMilano
Roma
Etc.

20-28
non pervenuta
18-28
20-30

71

(16)

(17)
(18)

(Di quei ﬁlm)
ne ho
visti
(Of those movies) ne (I) have seen‘I saw three of those movies.’*Vistine
Seen-

-

-

tre.
three

tre, mi stancai.
-ne three I got tired*E quei ﬁlm?
*Vistine
And those movies? Seen--tre.
-ne three

Despite these analogies, there is a striking diﬀerence between absolute small
clauses and internal argument drop sentences: absolute small clauses, being
adverbial clauses, need to be embedded, while the internal argument drop construction can never be embedded. We can check this by trying to embed it undera verb of saying. The result is ungrammatical (cf. (19))(19)

E quel ﬁlm? *Ha detto che già
visto.
And that movie? (he) said that already seen

The same ungrammaticality is observed when the internal argument drop construction is embedded in a peripheral adverbial clause (i.e., the structures that
Haegeman has shown to allow argument fronting). This is shown in (20) and(21). (21) is a telling case, as it contains a premise conditional, which is prototypical example of peripheral adverbials.
(20)

Vieni
a vedere quel ﬁlm? *No, perché già
visto.
(you) come to seethat movie? No, because already seen(21)

E quella torta? *Se vuoi
assaggiare, c’è
una pasticceria
And that cake? If (you) want to-taste
there is a bakery
sotto casa.
under house

We can conclude that internal argument drop is rigidly a root phenomenon. Aneven more striking observation is that internal argument drop sentences, despite being very reduced (in fact, they typically contain only a past participle)
have a full force speciﬁcation. They can be declaratives as in the example discussed up to now, but they can also be interrogatives (cf. (22)) or exclamatives(cf. (23)).
(22)

Licenziato?
Fired72

‘Has he been ﬁred?’Context: Leo enters his oﬃce, notices that the desk next to his has been
fully emptied and utters (22) to elicit information from a colleague.
(23)

Bruciata!
BurnedContext: Leo arrives next to the Opera House, notices that it has been
destroyed by a ﬁre and utters (23) to express his surprise/ disappointment.

Internal argument drop sentences raise several interesting questions. One is thenature of the dropped argument. A possibility is that it is pro, somewhat licensed
by the agreement morpheme on the past participle (cf. Rizzi 1986). A more complex issue is the following. On the one hand, internal argument drop sentences
share many properties with small clauses: they cannot contain an external argument, they are not compatible with a full verbal morphology (either in the formof an auxiliary or in the form of a ﬁnite verb) and they cannot be negated. In
structural terms, this seems to suggest that they are reduced structures, possibly smaller than vP (assuming that Spec,vP is where the external theta roleassigned, cf. Chomsky 1995 and Kratzer 1996). On the other hand, internal argument drop sentences have a full force speciﬁcation and the projection ForcePis taken to be the highest projection in the CP area (cf. Rizzi 1997 and much following work).
Confronted with this puzzle there are at least two ways to go. Either we assume that ForceP can be projected in the lower segment of the structure, say inthe VP periphery. Or we can assume that the intermediate projections between
VP and ForceP can be deactivated. It is not even clear that these two proposals
are not notational variants of each other, since they both boil down to sayingthat an extended middle portion of the structure can be absent under certain
conditions.
But the real issue is explaining why this middle portion can be missing in internal argument drop sentences and (apparently) only in them. Although I am
not in the position to answer this question, I hope to have shown that internalargument drop sentences are challenging enough to deserve a serious investigation.

73

References
Aelbrecht, L., Haegeman, L. & Nye, R. 2012. Main clause phenomena and theprivilege of the root. In L. Albrecht, L. Haegeman & R. Nye (eds.), Main clausephenomena: New horizons, vol. 190 Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today. 1–19.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Belletti, A. 1990. Generalized verb movement. Aspects of verb syntax. Turin:
Rosenberg and Sellier.
Cecchetto, C. & Donati, C. 2015. (Re)labeling. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cinque, G. 1977. The movement nature of left dislocation. Linguistic Inquiry 8.
397–412.
Emonds, J. 1969. Root and structure preserving transformations: MIT dissertation.
Haegeman, L. 2003. Conditional clauses: External and internal syntax. Mind andLanguage 18. 317–339.
Haegeman, L. 2012. Adverbial clauses, main clause phenomena, and compositionof the left periphery, The cartography of syntactic structures 8 Oxford Studies
in Comparative Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hooper, J.B. & Thompson, S.A. 1973. On the applicability of root transformations. Linguistic Inquiry 4. 465–497.
Kratzer, A. 1996. Severing the external argument from its verb. In J. Rooryck &L. Zaring (eds.), Phrase structure and the lexicon. 109–137. Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Rizzi, L. 1986. Null objects in italian and the theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry 17.
501–557.
Rizzi, L. 1997. The ﬁne structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (ed.),Elements of grammar: Handbook in generative syntax. 281–337. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.

74

A Note on Relative Clauses
with Split Antecedents*
Guglielmo Cinque
Since Perlmutter & Ross (1970), relatives with split antecedents have represented
an analytical problem for any theory of relative clauses. Two cases should in fact
be distinguished; one in which the split antecedents occur in two (or more) coordinated sentences, characteristically bearing the same grammatical function(subject, object, etc.) (see section 1) and one in which they bear diﬀerent grammatical functions in one and the same sentence (see section 2).

Split antecedents in coordinate sentences1

1

The examples in (1) illustrate the case of split antecedents in two coordinatedsentences:2* To Liliane with sympathy and admiration.
1

This construction must be kept distinct from the construction with coordinated antecedents
which has come to be known as the hydra construction Link (1984). The reason is that languages
with pre-nominal relatives have the latter but not the former
2
Note that (1)b., e., f. and g. have split antecedents in the object rather than in the subject
position of the coordinate sentences (pace Rochemont & Culicover 1990: 38f). More diﬃcult
seem cases where the split antecedents in the coordinated sentences have diﬀerent grammatical
functions. Baltin (2005: 255) gives an example like (i) as ungrammatical:(i)*A man entered the room and I saw a woman who were similar

Also see Moltmann (1992). Yet, as noted in Smits (1989), for some Italians the split antecedents
of a nonrestrictive relative need not have the same grammatical function. In fact I tend to accept
a sentence like (ii).
(ii)

Alla fermata è arrivato un uomo ed io ho visto anche un ragazzo, i quali si assomigliavano
molto‘At the bus stop a man arrived and I saw a boy too, who looked very much alike.’

75

(1)

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.

A mani entered the room and a womanj went out whoi,j were quite
similar.
(Perlmutter & Ross 1970: 350)
Every villager envies a relative of his and every townsman admires afriend of his who hate each other(Hintikka 1974: 172)
The girl left and the boy arrived who met in Chicago(Chomsky3
1975: fn.47)
It is obvious that a man came in and a woman went out who weresimilar(Andrews 1975: 119)John saw a man and Mary saw a woman [who were wanted by thepolice](Alexiadou et al. 2000: 14)
Kim likes muﬃns, but Sandy prefers scones, which they eat with jam(Arnold 2004: 274)
John noticed a man and Mary spotted a woman [who the police werelooking for –](Radford 2017: §5.2)

Our tentative interpretation of such cases is that they are possibly to be assimilated to those RCs that (marginally) receive a restrictive interpretation eventhough they enter a discourse grammar nonrestrictive structure like the restrictives with heavy pied piping in English (as in examples like every candidate thefather of whom Bill voted for —Jacobson 1998: 81) or the restrictives employing the art. + qual- paradigm in Italian (I soci i quali non abbiano ancora versato laquota annuale.. ‘The members who have not paid the annual fees.. ’— Cinque
1982: 264); constructions not derived by raising, in which the wh-pronoun is interpreted similarly to a pronoun or demonstrative.4 For additional discussion of
the discourse grammar non-restrictive construction, also arguably used for the
special restrictive construction examined here, see Cinque (2008, to appear).
This interpretation may be supported by the following three facts. First, replacement in English of a wh-relative pronoun with that (which is otherwise unChaves (2012: §3.4.3) notes that conjunction, but not disjunction, gives acceptable sentences:(iii)*A man entered or a woman left who were quite similar.
3

Chomsky (1975: 98) actually says “To me these examples seem at best quite marginal, andI would question whether anything can be based on them.” (fn.47). In fact not all languages
appear to allow for them. See Cardoso (2010: 191f) on European Portuguese.
4
Recalling the analysis of split antecedents of nonrestrictive relatives in Demirdache (1991:
116). Also see Yoshitaka Erlewine & Kotek (2015) and Webelhuth et al. (2013: 47), where suchcases as (1a) are suggested to be similar to A mani entered the room and a womank went out.
Theyi+k were quite similar.

76exceptionable with embedded and extraposed restrictives and marginal to impossible with nonrestrictives) leads for at least some speakers to much less acceptable sentences. Megan Rae (p.c.) ﬁnds (1)a with that replacing who muchworse (see (2a), with her judgment), and Arnold (2004: 30) marks the variant
with that in (2b) as unacceptable:(2)

a. ?*A mani entered the room and a womanj went out thati,j were quite
similar.
b. Kim likes muﬃnsi , but Sandy prefers sconesj , whichi+j /*thati+j they
eat with jam.

Second, an example like (3) in Italian is to my ear marginally possible even though
it apparently violates the Right Roof Constraint:(3)?[Che [qualcunoi ci abbia aiutato] e [un’altroj si sia aggiunto] è una fortuna]
senza i qualii,j tutto questo non sarebbe stato possibile.
‘That someonei i helped us and someone elsej joined in was a stroke ofluck without whomi+j this would not have been possible.’Third, as noted in Del Gobbo (2010: 406f, 2015: §2.2, 2017: §2.2) and Lin & Tsai
(2015: 105f) split-antecedent RCs parallel to (1) above appear not to be possible
in Chinese, even in nonrestrictive RCs, which are of the integrated type. This
may well be a general property of languages with pre-nominal RCs, which, asseen, do not dispose of non-integrated nonrestrictives (Jaklin Kornﬁlt, p.c., informs me that examples like (1) above are indeed impossible also in Turkish prenominal RCs, although examples of coordinated antecedents (hydras) are perfectly grammatical).
For further discussion and diﬀerent analyses of these split antecedent casesin terms of movement see de Vries (2002: 66ﬀ and Chapter 7,§5.2.12), Zhang(2007, 2010), Cecchetto & Donati (2015: §3.3.5), Overfelt (2015: §6.2)5 and Fox& Johnson (2016). Despite these attempts, it does not seems unreasonable toconclude, with Alexiadou et al. (2000: 14), that “[w]hile it is feasible for an RC
to be linked to multiple antecedents by a rule of construal, as in the standard
5

Overfelt notes that examples like (i) below suggest, contrary to these expectations, that anegative polarity item can be licensed in the extraposed material even given split antecedence:(i)[ DP Every intern ] 1 left and [ DP every employee ] 1 quit [ CP who were in any of the basement oﬃces]1.

77

approach, to claim that they are linked by a movement dependency is problematic. It seems rather far-fetched to suppose that the antecedents in [(1)]could have originated inside the relative clause (say, as a conjoined DP) to thenbe split and distributed across two clausal conjuncts after raising (a kind of ‘reverse’ Across-The-Board raising).”. Also see Andrews (1975) and McKinney-Bock(2013), McKinney-Bock & Vergnaud (2014), Radford (2017: §5.2) for non raising
analyses, and Baltin (2005).

2

Split antecedents with diﬀerent grammatical functions belonging to the same sentence

The cases of RCs with split antecedents belonging to the same sentence appear
to be possible in Italian and English as nonrestrictive RCs. See (4a) and (4b)), but
not as restrictives. See the ungrammaticality of (5a)-(5e):
(4)

a.

b.

(5)

Se Carloi non amava più Annaj , i qualii,j d’altra parte non si erano
mai voluti veramente bene, una ragione c’era.
‘If C. was no longer in love with A. that at any rate never really loved
each other, there was a motive.’
Se Pieroi non si trova più tanto bene con Idaj , tra i qualii+j d’altronde
non c’è mai stata una vera amicizia,..
‘If P. no longer likes to stay with I. between whom in any event there
never was a real friendship, ...’

a. *The dog is chasing the cat which were ﬁghting (Andrews 1975: 116)b. *A man met a woman yesterday who were similar(Guéron 1980:
648; credited to N.Chomsky)
c. *The boyi looked at the girlj whoi+j both like sports. (de Vries 2002:
67)
d. *A man visited a woman (yesterday) who were similar (Baltin 2005:
255)
e. *Il ragazzo guardava la ragazza che entrambi amano gli sport (sameas (5c))Yet to judge from Chomsky (1975: fn47) referring to what would later be published as ex. (26) in (Perkins 1982: 284) similar sentences are apparently possible
in Navajo (also see the discussion in Andrews 1975: 116ﬀ):

78

(6)

Łééchąą mósi yinoołchééłahigánę´ę´.
(Navajo;dogi
catj it-is-chasing-it-along theyi,j -are-ﬁghting-REL
Perkins 1982: 284)’*The dogi is chasing the catj , whichi,j were ﬁghting’.

In fact, they appear possible even in English, provided that the two antecedents
are related by a symmetric predicate. See Poschmann et al. (2016), citing an
example, (7), from Hoeksema (1986: 69):(7)

We always let those boysi play with those girlsj [whoi,j know one anotherfrom elementary school].

Once again, such cases of split antecedents are impossible in languages with prenominal relative clauses. See Del Gobbo (2010), Del Gobbo (2015) on Chinese.
A raising analysis for this second type of split antecedent relatives would
again seem to require special assumptions, while the same discourse grammar
analysis of nonrestrictives mentioned above appears to be able to provide ananalysis for this second type of split antecedent relatives.

References
Alexiadou, A., Law, P., Meinunger, A. & Wilder, C. 2000. Introduction. In A. Alexiadou, P. Law, A. Meinunger & C. Wilder (eds.), The syntax of relative clauses.
1–51. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Andrews, A.D.I. 1975. Studies in the syntax of relative and comparative clauses:
MIT dissertation.
Arnold, D. 2004.
Non-restrictive relative clauses in Construction-Based
HPSG. In S. Müller (ed.), Online proceedings of the 11th international conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. 27–47. Stanford, CA: CSLI
http://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/Publications.
cslipublications/HPSG/2004/abstr-arnold.shtml.
Baltin, M. 2005. Extraposition. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), The
blackwell companion to syntax. 237–271. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cardoso, A. 2010. Variation and change in the syntax of relative clauses. New
evidence from Portuguese: Universidade de Lisboa dissertation.
Cecchetto, C. & Donati, C. 2015. (Re)labeling. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Chaves, R.P. 2012. Conjunction, cumulation and respectively readings. Journalof Linguistics 48. 297–344.
Chomsky, N. 1975. Questions of form and interpretation. Linguistic Analysis 1.
75–109.
Cinque, G. 1982. On the theory of relative clauses and markedness. The Linguistic
Review 1. 247–294. (reprinted in Cinque 1995:54-103).
Cinque, G. 2008. Two types of nonrestrictive relatives. In O. Bonami &P. Cabredo Ho err (eds.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 7. 99–137.
Paris: CSSP. http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss7/index_en.html.
Cinque, G. to appear. The syntax of relative clauses. A uniﬁed analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Del Gobbo, F. 2010. On Chinese appositive relative clauses. Journal of East Asian
Linguistics 19. 385–417.
Del Gobbo, F. 2015. Appositives in Mandarin Chinese and cross-linguistically.
In A. Li, A. Simpson & W.T.D. Tsai (eds.), Chinese syntax in a cross-linguistic
perspective. 73–99. New York: Oxford University Press.
Del Gobbo, F. 2017. More appositives in heaven and earth than are dreamt of inyour linguistics. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 2. 49.1–38.
Demirdache, H. 1991. Resumptive chains in restrictive relatives, appositives anddislocation structures: MIT dissertation.
Fox, D. & Johnson, K. 2016. Qr is restrictor sharing. In K.m. Kim, P. Umbal, T. Block, Q. Chan, T. Cheng, K. Finney, M. Katz, S. Nickel-Thompson &L. Shorten (eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (wccﬂ 33). 1–16. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.
Guéron, J. 1980. On the syntax and semantics of PP extraposition. Linguistic
Inquiry 11. 637–678.
Hintikka, J. 1974. Quantiﬁers vs. Quantiﬁcation Theory. Linguistic Inquiry 5. 153–
177.
Hoeksema, J. 1986. An account of relative clauses with split antecedents. In
M. Dalrymple, J. Goldberg, K. Hanson, M. Inman, C. Piñon & S. Wechsler(eds.), Proceedings of the 5th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 5). 68–86. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Jacobson, P. 1998. Antecedent contained deletion and pied-piping: Evidence fora variable-free semantics. In D. Strolovitch & A. Lawson (eds.), Proceedings of
the 8th Semantics and Linguistic Theory conference (salt 8). 74–91. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University.
Lin, J.W. & Tsai, W.T.D. 2015. Restricting non-restrictive relatives in Mandarin

80Chinese. In A. Li, A. Simpson & W.T.D. Tsai (eds.), Chinese syntax in a crosslinguistic perspective. 100–127. New York: Oxford University Press.
Link, G. 1984. Hydras. On the logic of relative constructions with multiple heads.
In F. Landman & F. Veltman (eds.), Varieties of formal semantics. 245–257. Dordrecht: Foris.
McKinney-Bock, K. 2013. Deriving split-antecedent relative clauses. Universityof Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 19. 113–122.
McKinney-Bock, K. & Vergnaud, J.R. 2014. Grafts and beyond. Graph-theoretic
syntax. In K. McKinney-Bock & M.L. Zubizarreta (eds.), Primitive elements ofgrammatical theory. 207–236. London: Routledge.
Moltmann, F. 1992. Coordination and comparatives: MIT dissertation.
Overfelt, J. 2015. Extraposition of NPIs from Np. Lingua 164. 25–44.
Perkins, E. 1982. Extraposition of relative clauses in Navajo. International Journalof American Linguistics 48. 277–285.
Perlmutter, D.M. & Ross, J.R. 1970. Relative clauses with split antecedents. Linguistic Inquiry 1. 350.
Poschmann, C., Bargmann, S., Götze, C., Holler, A., Sailer, M., Webelhuth, G. &Zimmermann, T.E. 2016. Split-antecedent RCs and the symmetry of predicates. Paper presented at Sinn und Bedeutung 22, 7-10 September 2017,
Berlin/Potsdam.
Radford, A. 2017. Relative clauses in Real English. Ms., University of Essex,(forthcoming with Cambridge University Press).
Rochemont, M.S. & Culicover, P.W. 1990. English focus constructions and thetheory of grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smits, R.J.C. 1989. Eurogrammar. The relative and cleft constructions of the Germanic and Romance languages. Dordrecht: Foris.
de Vries, M. 2002. The syntax of relativization Utrecht. LOT.
Webelhuth, G., Sailer, M. & Walker, H. 2013. Introduction. In G. Webelhuth,
M. Sailer & H. Walker (eds.), Rightward movement in a comparative perspective.
1–60. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Yoshitaka Erlewine, M. & Kotek, H. 2015. The structure and interpretation of
non-restrictive relatives: Evidence from relative pronoun pied-piping. In Proceedings from the annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 51. 149–163.
Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Zhang, N.N. 2007. The syntactic derivations of split antecedent relative clause
constructions. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 5. 19–48.
Zhang, N.N. 2010. Coordination in syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
81

A dummy and a diminutive
in Dutch verbal lore
Norbert Corver

1

Introduction

In her study of subject omission in present-day written English, Liliane Haegeman draws our attention to the theoretical relevance of peripheral data for linguistic theorizing (see also Schmerling 1973, Thrasher 1977). Speciﬁcally, English(core grammar) does not allow subject omission in ﬁnite clauses, as shown in (1),but in speciﬁc written registers such as diaries, personal letters, e-mails or notes,
English does allow for a subject to be non-overt. This is exempliﬁed in (2); examples drawn from Haegeman (1990, 2007).
(1)

a. *Have bought a book.
b. I have bought a book.

(2)

a.
b.

∅Have done 110 pages. (Diary of Virginia Woolf, p. 33; 11 November)∅Dreamt that I picked up a New Yorker. (Plath 304)

In this article I discuss a peripheral phenomenon attested in Dutch nursery rhymes
and children’s songs (so-called verbal lore), namely the pattern van je XP, where
XP can be a linguistic expression that designates a sound-symbolic, sequential(e.g. counting) or repetitive activity. The Dutch children’s song in (3) displays
four instances of this phenomenon, each of which is marked in boldface. The
left part in (3) represents the Dutch nursery rhyme, while the right part gives the(literal) English translation for each line of the Dutch verse.1
1

The nursery rhymes and children’s songs can be found in the following data sources:
van Vloten & Brandts-Buys (1894), Abramsz (1911) and the following website: http://www.
overtuin.net.

82

(3)

Twee emmertjes water halen
Twee emmertjes pompen
De meisjes op de klompen
De jongens op hun houten been
Je mag niet door mijn straatje heen

two bucket- - water gettwo bucket- - pumpthe girls on the wooden-shoes
the boys on their wooden leg
you may not through my street-

Van je ras ras ras
rijdt de koning door de plas
Van je voort voort voort
rijdt de koning door de poort
Van je voort voort voort
rijdt de koning naar de kerk
Van je één, twee, drie!

of je ras ras ras
goes the king through the puddleof je ahead ahead ahead
goes the king through the gateof je erk erk erk
goes the king to the churchof je one two three

The article is organized as follows: Section 2 examines the grammatical natureof van in expressions such as van je ras ras ras, and section 3 does the same forthe element je. It will be proposed that van is a dummy (i.e., meaningless) element that spells out the categorial node no and that je is a diminutive morpheme,
which appears to be able to occur on its own; that is, it does not need a lexical
category – a noun – to which it can attach. Section 3 discusses a few other structural environments in which this “independent” diminutive morpheme possibly
is present. Section 4 concludes the article.

2

Van + XP in Dutch verbal lore

Before turning to the pattern van je XP, I discuss a diﬀerent but arguably related
pattern, viz. van + XP. Some illustrations are given in (4):

83

(4)

Daar ging een meisje over het land. there walked a girl across the land
Zij had een kor e al in haar hand.
she had a basketin her
hand
Daar was in van gladderdeglad.
there was in of smooth-er-desmooth
Daar was in van strijkerdestrijk.
there was in of pet-er-de-pet
Daar was in van kijkerdekijk.
there was in of look-er-de-look
Daar was in van krolderdekrol.
there was in of caterwaul-er-decaterwaul(riddle rhyme)
Twee kinderen zouden naar school two children would to school gogaan.
Ze waren zo vrolijk en blij.
they were so cheerful and happy
In de verte hoorden ze een orgeltje. in the distance heard they a barrelorganDaar moesten ze eventjes bij.
there had.to.stand they brieﬂy
En ’t orgeltje speelde van holie ha and the barrel-organplayed ofhij.
holie ha hij
En de kinderen dansten er bij.
and the children danced there with(= while the organ played)

The linguistic expression van gladderdeglad fulﬁlls the role of (argumental) subject of a clause. The sentence Daar was in van gladderdeglad can be paraphrased
as “something very smooth was in it, i.e. in the basket”. The other van+XP expressions fulﬁll the same role and have a similar meaning: van strijkerdestrijk
designates something strokeable, van kijkerdekijk something which is looking
around, and van krolderdekrol stands for something which can caterwaul. Arguably, the expression van holie ha hij in the second nursery rhyme fulﬁlls therole of direct object. The sentence containing it can be paraphrased as: “Andthe barrel-organ played this”, where this corresponds to “holie ha hij”.
The question obviously arises how to analyze van. What I would like to propose is that van ‘of’ is a minimal manifestation of the syntactic category ‘noun’. In
a way, it acts like a dummy noun, whose contents is provided by the expressionthat follows van (e.g., gladderdeglad). In what follows, I will brieﬂy give somebackground for this analysis of van, basing myself on earlier generative-linguistic
analyses of English of.
In Chomsky (1986), the element of is considered to be a manifestation of84

genitival case. As Chomsky (p. 194) notes, “Genitive Case is realized morphologically by aﬃxation of some element to the NP: of in complement position,
the possessive element POSS [= ’s; NC] in subject position.” These two modesof morphological realization are depicted in (5)
(5)

a.
b.

the [destruction [the city]] → the [destructionN [of + [the city]]][[the city] destruction] → [[the city] + ’s] destruction]

In Emonds (1985) and Pesetsky (2013), it is argued that Case is not a primitive
category but rather an aﬃxal realization of a Part-of-Speech. In other words,
Case is a part-of-speech-suﬃx, or in Emonds’s terms: an ‘alternative realization’of a categorial head. According to this approach, genitival Case is an aﬃxal realization of the category ‘noun’. More speciﬁcally, of and -s in (5) are nominalaﬃxes “assigned” by the noun destruction to the satellite constituent the city.
To phrase it diﬀerently, the nominal property (i.e., N) associated with destruction is realized alternatively (i.e. aﬃxally) on the satellite phrase. Schematically,
for a phrase like the destruction of the city:(6)

the [destruction [the city]] → the [destructionN [Naﬀ (= of) + [the city]]]

With Pesetsky (2013), I take there to be two ways in which Case can appear on aconstituent: (i) syntactic case assignment, as, for example, in (6), and (ii) Case asa lexical property. As regards this last way of Case appearance, Pesetsky (2013:8) makes the following statement:“[...] every element that comes from the lexicon as a noun, determiner, verb or preposition could equally well be described as coming from the lexicon assigned to the corresponding case-categories.
In other words, from the point of view of syntax, every noun canbe described as ‘born genitive’, every verb as ‘born accusative’, every determiner as ‘born nominative’, and every preposition as ‘born
oblique’.”According to this statement, one should be able to ﬁnd overt manifestations ofgenitival Case (i.e., aﬃxal N) on nouns. I will argue that this is exactly what we
ﬁnd with van in (3) and (4). That is, van is the manifestation (spell-out) of the“genitival property” with which N is born. In Pesetsky’s (p. 8-9) terms, van is asurface manifestation of “the noun’s primeval state – that is, the form in which itentered the syntactic derivation [...]”. But before elaborating on this, I would liketo make one more theoretical step. In line with Marantz (1997), Borer (2005) and85

others, I assume that lexical categories (nouns, verbs, et cetera) have the form
f-Root, where f is a categorial head and the Root (henceforth √) is unspeciﬁed as
to category. Thus, the English noun car and its Dutch counterpart auto have acomposite structure: [nP n◦ [√P √car/auto]]. For the above-mentioned approach
to Case, this means that genitival case is an aﬃxal no. This categorial aﬃx cansurface on a satellite constituent of the noun through case assignment, or it cansurface on no itself (the ”no-as-born-genitive” way; i.e. primeval genitive). The
latter strategy can be represented as follows: [nP n (= van) [Root]].
The question obviously arises whether there are any nominal expressions displaying the ”no-as-born-genitive” strategy. Notice that we do not ﬁnd van in
the following nominal expressions: [DP de [nP (*van) [√auto]]]; (the (of) car; intended meaning: ‘the car’). Possibly, this relates to the fact that the nominal
nature of the phrase is already clear from the presence of the deﬁnite article de.
Furthermore, raising of the Root auto to no yields the amalgam [√auto+n◦ ]. The
overtness of the Root may make the appearance of van superﬂuous and, for reasons of economy, impossible. That is, I take the surfacing of n◦ as van to be alast resort strategy, just like English do-support (Chomsky 1957, Lasnik 2000),
which is found, for example, in clausal environments featuring a silent verbal
complement of T (John did ∅ too) or an overt pro-form that substitutes for theverbal complement (John did so too). In short, van, just like the auxiliary to do, isa dummy element that surfaces in order save a structural representation.
I take the element van in (7)-B’ to instantiate the “born-genitive” strategy.
That is, van represents a nominal expression of the following type: [nP n (= van)[Root]]. More speciﬁcally, I take it to be an indeﬁnite pronominal phrase which,just like its deﬁnite counterpart ’t ‘it’ (i.e. [DP ’t [nP ∅]]) in (7)-B, has the proposition ‘Jan passes the exam’ in (7)-A as its antecedent.2(7)

A:

Haalt Jan het examen?
passes Jan the exam
‘Will Jan pass the exam?’
B: Ik denk [DP ’t]i wel/niet ti . (’t = proposition ‘Jan passes the exam’)I think [] it for.sure /not‘I think so / I don’t think so.’ti . (van = ‘Jan passes the exam’)
B’: Ik denk [nP van]i wel/niet
I thinkof for.sure/not
2

Interestingly, van in (7)-B’ requires the presence of the polarity marker wel/niet. Thus, thestring ik denk van is ill-formed. The pro-form ’t, on the contrary, cán occur without wel/niet, as
in: Ik denk ’t (I think it, ‘I think so’).

86

’I think so / I don’t think so.’Let us now return to the linguistic expressions van gladderdeglad and van holie
ha hij in (4). I propose that the element van is a surface manifestation of thecategorial head no. I tentatively propose that its appearance relates to the special status of the Root. That is, the Root designates something that is not directly associated with the conceptual meaning of a noun (say, denoting an entity or individual). For example, holie ha hij has sound-symbolic meaning, gladderdeglad designates an attribute (‘being smooth’), and kijkerdekijk designates
an event/activity (‘to look’). Possibly, the inner structure of these expressions –maybe, a coordinate structure consisting of coordinated roots; see Corver (2014,2015) – blocks raising of the Root to n◦ . As a result of the special nature of theRoot, n◦ surfaces as van in order to make the nominal nature of the entire expression recoverable. Thus, van gladder de glad and van holie ha hij have thestructures in (8):3
(8)

a.
b.

[nP n◦ (= van) [ConjP √gladder [Conj′ [Conj de] √glad]]][nP n◦ (= van) [ConjP √holie [Conj′ Conj∅ [ConjP ha [Conj′ Conj∅ hij]]]]]4

The next section discusses the pattern van je ras ras ras, which was introduced in(3). The question that needs to be answered is: what is the grammatical natureof je?

3

Van je XP

Before the question regarding the nature of je is addressed, it is useful to givesome additional examples of children’s songs containing the pattern van je XP.
3

I take de to be decomposable into -d and -e. The latter element is a minimal spell-out (viz.,schwa) of the Conj-head (see Corver 2014, 2015). The presence of d presumably results from aphonological rule: insertion of /d/ in the phonological environment r er. Compare insertion of /d/when the agentive suﬃx -er is attached to a verbal root: verhuur ‘to let’, verhuur-d-er ’landlord’.
4
The representation Conj∅ stands for a phonologically empty coordinate conjunction.

87

(9)

In Holland staat een huis (2x)
In Holland staat een huis, ja, ja.
Van je singela singela hopsasa
In Holland staat een huis (2x)in Holland stands a housein Holand stands a house yes yesof je singela singela hopsasa
In Holland stands a house

Drie schuintamboers die kwamen three drummers they came fromuit het oosten (2x)the east
Van je rom bom, wat maal ik erom? of je rombom why whine I about.it
Zij kwamen uit het oosten, rom- they came from the east rombombom
En van je hela hola,
houdt er de moed maar in! (3x)En van je hela hola
houdt er de moed maar in! (2x)and of je hela hola
keep there the courage PRT in (=stay positive)
and of je hela hola
keep there the courage PRT in

En van je hotsie knotsie knetter,van je jippie jippie jee.
Maar zijn paard was zeer vermoeid
en die wou niet verder mee.
Maar hij moest de boeven vangendus nam hij een ander beesten nu mag je zelf bedenken
wat voor beest dat is geweest

and of je hotsie knotsie knetterof je jippie jippie jee
but his horse was very tired and it
wanted not further PRT
but he had.to the bad-guys catchso took he a diﬀerent animal
and now may you yourself imagine
what kind.of animal that has been

The ﬁrst hypothesis that comes to mind with regard to je’s grammatical nature is
the following: je is a second person singular weak possessive pronoun (see Haeseryn et al 1997). Such a pronoun normally appears in possessive noun phrases
such as je adres in (10).
(10)

Is dit je adres?
is this your address‘Is this your address?’

The question obviously arises whether there is any support for such a possessive
pronominal analysis. If it is a second person pronoun, one might try to connect
its appearance to the availability of an addressee (the hearer/reader) in the dis-88

course context. The sequence En van je hela, hola, houdt er de moed maar in! isinteresting in this respect, since van je XP precedes an imperative clause. As has
been shown in the literature on Dutch imperatives, there is a silent pronominal
subject (say, YOU) present in the imperative clause; see e.g. Bennis (2006). It
is imaginable that je in van je XP is somehow connected to the second person
pronominal subject of the clause. Schematically:(11)

and of je hela hola keep there the courage PRT in
and of je hela hola keep there the courage PRT in‘And hela hola, keep it up! / stay positive!’

Clearly, this argument from imperative clauses does not have much strength,
since many other clauses preceded by van je XP do not contain a second person
subject, but rather a ﬁrst or third person subject.
(12)

a.

b.

Van je2P.SG rom bom, wat maal ik 1P.SG erom?
of je rom bom why whine I about.it‘Boom boom, why whine about it?’Van je2P.SG ras, ras, ras, rijdt de koning3P.SG door de plas.
of je ras ras ras goes the king through the puddle‘Go go go, there goes the king through the puddle!’

Notice also that the possessive pronominal analysis faces a number of problems:First of all, it is not clear at all what exactly the possessive relationship is between,
for example, je and the sound symbolic sequence hela hola. Secondly, the weakpossessive pronoun cannot be replaced by its strong counterpart jouw: *Vanjouw ras ras ras. If je is a second person possessive pronoun, it is unclear why
the strong pronominal form is impossible.
Instead of claiming that je is a possessive pronoun, I tentatively propose that
je is a diminutive morpheme. Thus, je corresponds to the element that we normally ﬁnd attached to a nominal host, as in (13)(13)

Ik heb vlecht-je-s
I have braid- -in mijn haar.
in my hair

At ﬁrst sight, this diminutive analysis does not seem very plausible. For one
thing, je cannot occur independently; that is, it needs a nominal host to which
it can be attached:

89

(14)

a. *Ik heb een je in mijn haar.
I have ain my hair
‘I have something small in my hair.’b. *Ik heb jes
in mijn haar.
I have- in my hair
‘I have small things in my hair.’Even though it is true that the diminutive morpheme normally needs a nominal host to which it can attach, there are structural environments in which thediminutive -je does not combine with a noun, at least not with an overt noun (cf.
Corver (to appear). Consider, for example, the italicized patterns in (15):
(15)

a.

b.

Jan reed [erg zacht-je-s]
Jan drove very slow- -s‘Jan drove very slowly.’[Hoe zacht-je-s] reed Jan?
how slow- -s drove Jan‘How slowly did John drive?’

In these examples, je is directly preceded by an adjective and followed by thebound morpheme -s. This -s must be present: *erg/hoe zachtje. The phrase
erg/hoe zachtjes in (15) has an adverbial function; it designates the manner inwhich Jan’s driving took place. Although an analysis according to which erg/hoe
zachtjes is an adverbially used adjective phrase is tempting, it faces the problem
that the diminutive -je normally does not attach to adjectives. It typically combines with nouns. Sticking to the generalization that -je only attaches to nouns,
I propose an alternative analysis for erg/hoe zacht-je-s, namely the one given in
(16):
(16)

[FP [erg/hoe zacht] [F′ F [ClasP -je [nP n◦ (= -s) [√P √]]]]]According to this analysis, erg/hoe zacht is an attributive adjective phrase contained within a nominal expression whose Root is silent. As indicated by WAY, I
take this silent root (Kayne 2003) to designate manner.5 Following Wiltschko(2005), I analyze the diminutive morpheme as a classiﬁer that conveys ‘small
piece’ (see also De Belder 2011). In informal terms, -je +designates “small
5
The silent noun TIME is also possible in this structural environment: even-tje-s (just‘just, a little while’).

90

-s,

manner”, which possibly is at the basis of the aﬀective ﬂavor of expressions suchas zachtjes. In the spirit of what was said about “genitival Case” in section 2,
the bound morpheme -s is analyzed as an aﬃxal manifestation of the categorial
head n◦ . The appearance of dummy -s has a last resort ﬂavor: it must appear to
make the nominal status of nP recoverable at the surface.6
Let’s return to expressions such as van je ras ras ras and van je hela hola. I
have just argued that je is the diminutive morpheme and, in section 2, I proposedthat van is a dummy element; more speciﬁcally, it is a surface manifestation of
the categorial head n◦ . These analyses of je and van bring me to the following
analysis of the pattern van je ras ras ras (and other instantiations of this pattern):
(17)

a.
b.

base structure:[ClasP -je [nP n◦ [ConjP √ras [Conj′ Conj� [ConjP √ras [Conj’ Conj∅ √ras]]]]]]
derived structure:[ClasP [n◦ (= van) + je] [nP n◦ [ConjP √ras [Conj′ Conj∅ [ConjP √ras [Conj′
Conj∅ ras]]]]]]As indicated in (17), the linear order van je results from head movement and adjunction of n◦ to the classiﬁer head -je. I tentatively propose that this movement
is triggered by the aﬃxal status of the diminutive morpheme -je; that is, je musthave a host to which it can be attached, quite analogously with the fact that thedummy verb to do provides a host for the Tense and inﬂectional features associated with the functional head T (cf. Lasnik 2000: 123) Stranded Aﬃx Filter: “A
stranded aﬃx is no good”).
6

If je in (16) is a classiﬁer that must be followed by -s, one would expect there to be otherclassiﬁers in Dutch displaying the same behavior. A plausible candidate is stuks (‘piece-s’) in an
utterance like (i)-B. Just as in zachtjes, -s must be present in this context. I propose stuks has the
structure in (ii).
(i)

A: Hoeveel broeken neem je mee? B: Twee stuk*(-s)
how-many pants take you withtwo piece-s‘A: How many pants do you take? B: Two.’(ii)[NumP twee [ClasP stuk [nP n◦ (= -s) [√P √∅ ]]]]

91

4

The most diminutive of words

7

In the previous section I tried to show that je can occur independently, in thesense that there is no overt noun to which it can attach. Occurring on its own
due to the absence of an overt noun, one might characterize this “independent”
diminutive as “the most diminutive of words”. A pertinent example was zachtjesin (15), where -s was analyzed as a dummy element that spells out the categorial
node n◦ . The question, obviously, arises as to whether there are more linguistic expressions featuring this “most diminutive” je. In what follows, I present
some potential candidates, but I emphasize that further research of these illunderstood patterns is deﬁnitely needed.
Consider the following pair:
(18)

a.
b.

Dit is een leuk adres-jevoor Spaanse wijn.
this is a nice addressfor Spanish wine
Dit is JE adres voor Spaanse wijn!
this is je address for Spanish wine
‘This isaddress for Spanish wine’ (pronounced with a longvowel)

In (18a), je is a diminutive morpheme attached to the noun adres. Just as zachtjesin (15), adresje has an aﬀective ﬂavor. It does not imply that the address is literally
small (e.g., a short street name). Rather, je contributes evaluative or expressive
meaning (in casu positive valence) to the noun. Thus, objects that are big (e.g. avilla or a big car) can be referred to by N+
when the diminutive carries evaluative meaning, as in: aardig huisje! (nice house- ) and leuk autootje! (‘nicecar- ’). In a way, the literal meaning of the diminutive (small size) is bleached
and an expressive-evaluative meaning is associated with it.
Consider next the expression adres in (18b), which has the characteristic
property that the element je, which normally is a phonologically weak element,
carries accent. The meaning associated with je can be paraphrased as“par excellence” (see Broekhuis & den Dikken 2016: 735). Traditionally, in (18b) isanalyzed as a possessive pronoun (see Haeseryn et al. 1997). Even though aparaphrase like “the address for you (= addressee)” is imaginable for adres,the question arises as to why je cannot be replaced by the strong possessive pro7

After Shakespeare’s ‘the most diminutive of birds’ (Macbeth, Act 4, scene 2, words spoken
by Lady Macduﬀ).

92

noun jouw: *Dit is jouw adres voor Spaanse wijn!. Instead of analyzing in (18a)
as a possessive pronoun, I tentatively propose that is a diminutive morpheme,
which, in line with Wiltschko (2005), I take to be a classiﬁer. More speciﬁcally,
I take it to be the same expressive-evaluative diminutive morpheme as in (15).
By using this aﬀective diminutive je, the speaker indicates that the referent ofadres is the representative par excellence of the total set of addresses.
One may wonder where the par excellence meaning ﬁnds its origin. Given
the fact that classiﬁers are often used to make things countable and therefore
modiﬁable by a numeral, one might hypothesize that the par excellence reading ﬁnds its origin in the (hidden, i.e. silent) presence of the Dutch numeral één‘one’. Thus JE adres has the representation in (19), where
represents a silent
numeral designating singularity (and uniqueness).
[NumP EEN [ClasP je [nP n◦ [P √adres ]]]]

(19)

Interestingly, this par excellence reading is also attested in sentences like (20a),where eentje consists of the numeral een ‘one’ and the diminutive morpheme(t)je. The element er is the so-called quantitative pro-form er, which arguably
substitutes for nP. (20b) gives the structure of eentje; see Barbiers (2005) for further discussion of the numeral ‘one’.
(20)

a.

Je bent me er
eentje!
you are me there one‘you are really something! / you are one-of-a-kind!’b.

Je bent me eri [NumP één [ClasP tje [nP ti ]]]Notice that just like zachtjes in (15) and adresje in (18a), eentje has an aﬀective ﬂavor: the speaker, whose “presence” is clear from the ethical dative me, qualiﬁes(and evaluates) the addressee as being unique in a certain sense.
I ﬁnish this section with another construction that possibly features the “independent” diminutive je.8 This construction is the italicized expression van je
8Other constructions with a par excellence reading that possibly feature diminutive (i.e., classiﬁer) je are je dát in (i) and jé van hét in (ii); the diacritic ´ designates that these words carryaccent. I leave the analysis of these constructions for future research.
(i)a.

Ik vond het niet [je dát]
I found it not je that
‘I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it.’93

welste in (21), which acts as a modiﬁer of krijste.
(21)

De baby krijste
van je wel-st-e.
the baby screamed of je considerable‘The baby screamed enormously.’-eObserve that, at the surface, van je welste looks a bit like the expression van jeXP, discussed in section 3; see also van je ras ras ras in example (3). In both constructions, the sequence van je occurs at the beginning of a phrase. In the spiritof the analysis given in (19) for van je ras ras ras, I tentatively propose that van jewelste has the base structure in (22a) and the derived structure given in (22b):
(22)

a.
b.

base structure:[ClasP -je [nP n◦ [FP welste [F′ F [nP n◦ [√]]]]]]
derived structure:[ClasP [n◦ (= van) + je] [FP welste [F′ F [nP n◦ [√]]]]]According to this analysis, welste is an attributive superlative AP that modiﬁes asilent manner noun (). The element van is analyzed as the surface manifestation of the categorial node n◦ . I assume that van surfaces due to the silence of
the Root; compare do-support in VP-ellipsis environments. The categorial noden◦ raises across the attributive AP and adjoins to the classiﬁer je. This yields theamalgam [n◦ (= van) + je].
b.

Ik vond het niet [jé van hét]
I found it not je of it‘I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it.’

Observe that besides je dát in (ia), we also ﬁnd the expression een datje (‘a that- ’) in ﬁxed
expressions such as (iia)-(iib). In these examples, diminutive je is attached to the demonstrative
pronoun.
(ii)

a.

b.

Hij heeft altijd wel een ditje
of een datje.
he has always
a thisor a that‘He has always something critical to say about it.’Zij spraken over ditjes
en datjes.
they spoke about this- -s and that- -s‘They made small talk.’94

5Conclusion

Haegeman’s (1990, 2007) study of subject omission in English ﬁnite clauses incertain written registers, draws our attention to the relevance of peripheral data
for linguistic theorizing. In this article I examined the grammatical behavior ofa peripheral construction (van je XP) found in Dutch verbal lore. I proposed ananalysis according to which van is a surface manifestation of the categorial noden◦ and je a diminutive, which was analyzed as a classiﬁer head. I hope to haveshown that, even though the van je XP pattern looks peripheral and “exotic” fromthe outside, the atoms and rules that underlie this construction are those thatare used for the formation of simple and more familiar constructions; see also
Chomsky (2015).

References
Abramsz, S. 1911. Rijmpjes en versjes uit de oude doos. Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoﬀ.
Barbiers, S. 2005. De syntactische atlas van de nederlandse dialecten. Taal en
Tongval (Themanummer) 18. 7–40.
Bennis, H. 2006. Agreement, pro and imperatives. In P. Ackema, P. Brandt,
M. Schoorlemmer & F. Weerman (eds.), Arguments and agreement. 101–127.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Borer, H. 2005. Structuring sense. vol.1, in name only. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Broekhuis, H. & den Dikken, M. 2016. Syntax of Dutch. Nouns and noun phrases,
volume 2. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
Chomsky, N. 1986. Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. New York:
Praeger.
Chomsky, N. 2015. Problems of projection: Extensions. In E. Di Dominico,
C. Hamann & S. Matteini (eds.), Structures, strategies and beyond: Studies inhonour of Adriana Belletti. 1–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Corver, N. 2014. Recursing in Dutch. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 32.
423–457.
Corver, N. 2015. Interjections as structured root expressions. In M. van Oostendorp & H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), Representing structure in phonology and syntax.
41–83. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Corver, N. to appear. Adverbial -s: So awks but so natural! In D.W. Lightfoot &J. Havenhill (eds.), Variable properties in language: Their nature and acquisition.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
De Belder, M. 2011. Roots and aﬃxes. Eliminating lexical categories rom syntax:
Utrecht University & HUBrussel dissertation.
Emonds, J. 1985. A uniﬁed theory of syntactic categories. Dordrecht: Foris.
Haegeman, L. 1990. Non-overt subjects in diary contexts. In J. Mascaró & M. Nespor (eds.), Grammar in progress. GLOW essays for Henk van Riemsdijk. 167–174. Dordrecht: Foris.
Haegeman, L. 2007. Subject omission in present-day written English. On thetheoretical relevance of peripheral data. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 32.
91–124.
Haeseryn, W., Romijn, K., Geerts, G., de Rooij, J. & van den Toorn, M.C. 1997.
Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunst. Groningen: Martinus Nijhoﬀ Uitgevers.
Kayne, R. 2003. Silent years, silent hours. In L.O. Delsing, C. Falk, G. Josefsson& H.A. Sigurdhsson (eds.), Grammar in focus: Festschrift for Christer Platzack.
vol. 2. 209–226. Lund: Wallin and Dalhol. Reprinted in Richard Kayne (2005).
Movement and Silence, 241-260. Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press.
Lasnik, H. 2000. Syntactic structures revisited. Contemporary lectures on classic
Transformational Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marantz, A. 1997. No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in
the privacy of your own lexicon. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in
Linguistics 4. 201–225.
Pesetsky, D. 2013. Russian case morphology and the syntactic categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schmerling, S. 1973. Subjectless sentences and the notion of surface structure.
In C. Corum, T.C. Smith-Stark & A. Weiser (eds.), Papers from the ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. 577–586. Chicago, IL: Chicago
Linguistic Society.
Thrasher, R. 1977. One way to say more by saying less. A study of so-called subjectless sentences, vol. 11 Kwansei Gakuin University Monograph Series. Tokyo:
The Eihosha Ltd.
van Vloten, J. & Brandts-Buys, M.A. 1894. Nederlandse baker- en kinderrijmen.
Leiden: Sijthoﬀ, A.W.
Wiltschko, M. 2005. Why should diminutives count? In H. Broekhuis, N. Corver,
R. Huijbregts, U. Kleinhenz & J. Koster (eds.), Organizing grammar. Linguistic
studies in honor of Henk van Riemsdijk. 669–678. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
96

De kunst van de behoedzaamheid
The art of precaution
Karen De Clercq*
Er zijn weinig mensen die zich dieper in het moeras van Taal durven wagen
dan Liliane. Er zijn ook weinig mensen die dat zo behoedzaam doen, zo beheerst
en met een nooit aﬂatende trefzekerheid, zich volkomen bewust van alle gevaar
dat op de loer ligt. Als daar zijn: onvermijdelijke focusgewassen, negatieve laaghangende takken, linksperifere stenen op het pad en onheilspellende expletievenin het soppende water. Liliane draait er haar hand niet voor om. Ze weet waar degevaren loeren en onverschrokken schrijdt ze verder, recht op haar doel af, terwijl ze haar volgers als een bedreven gids subtiel waarschuwt voor uitstekende
wortels op het pad.
Het soort behoedzaamheid dat Liliane aan de dag legt in haar taalkundig
werk werd al van in de vroege Oudheid als een deugd beschouwd. En terecht.
Het maakt Lilianes werk ﬁjnzinnig en gedetailleerd, anticiperend en voorspellend. Hip-ogende kompassen of appjes om de tocht doorheen het drasland tevereenvoudigen kunnen Liliane niet verleiden. Haar aanpak is daarom ook nooit
minimalistisch of vluchtig. Liliane vaart niet zoals Columbus zonder het te weten
naar Amerika, maar zoekt doelgericht zoals Livingstone naar de bron van de Nijl.
Gewapend met grondige kennis en analytische vaardigheden baant ze zich
een weg door het dichte veen en zoekt ze alternatieve routes naar meer kennis
van Taal. Op haar tocht werpt ze polders op om bedreigd land te beschermen en
ontdekt ze kreken met blauwgevleugelde libellen en witte waterlelies, verborgen tussen het riet. Haar expedities monden uit in gedetailleerde kaarten die
onvindbaar zijn op Google maps.
Ik wil je danken, Liliane. Om me te gidsen op mijn weg door het moeras.
Om me de vrijheid te geven te duiken naar de miniscule negatiemossen onderde mattenbies. Om me te vergezellen bij dat duiken. Om me op te vissen. Om*

English translation below

97

me watertorkruid te tonen, gele plomp en andere vegetatieve rijkdom aan dewaterkant.
Morgen trek je nieuwe laarzen aan, Liliane, begeef je je op een nieuw pad,maar er is nog veel te ontdekken en in kaart te brengen. Ik blijf je reisverhalenvolgen. Laat maar horen als je er nog eens samen op uit wilt. Mijn expeditiemateriaal staat alvast klaar.

[English translation]
Few people dare to venture deeper into the swamp of Language than Liliane. Few people do this so precautiously, with such mastery and unfailing accuracy, fully aware of all dangers lying ahead. As there are: inevitable focus crops,
negative low hanging branches, left peripheral stones on the path and ominous
expletives in the sopping water. Liliane can handle them. She knows where thedangers lurk and bravely strides on, straight towards her goal, while subtly warning her followers, as a skilled guide, for protruding roots on the path.
The kind of precaution that Liliane displays in her linguistic work has been
considered a virtue since early antiquity. And rightly so. It makes Liliane’s work
delicate and detailed, anticipatory and predictive. Hip-looking compasses orapps to facilitate the journey through the marshlands cannot seduce Liliane. Her
approach is therefore never minimalist nor superﬁcial. Liliane does not sail unknowingly to America like Columbus, but searches actively for the source of the
Nile like Livingstone.
Armed with thorough knowledge and analytical skills, she makes her way
through the dense peat bog and looks for alternative routes to a better knowledge of Language. On her journey she throws up polders to protect endangeredland and discovers creeks with blue-winged dragonﬂies and white water lilies,
hidden among the reeds. Her expeditions lead to detailed maps, untraceable on
Google maps.
I want to thank you, Liliane. For guiding me on my way through the swamp.
For giving me the freedom to dive to minuscule mosses of negativity under thelakeshore bulrush. For joining me in diving. For picking me up when I tripped.
For showing me ﬁne leaf water dropwort, yellow water-lilies and other riches on
the waterfront.
Tomorrow you’ll put on new boots, Liliane, you’ll be walking a new path, butthere’s still a lot to discover and map out. I will continue to follow your travel
stories and maps. Let me know if you want to go out exploring together again.
My expedition gear is already packed up.
98‘What would you rather me say?’Marcel Den Dikken
Abstract
In varieties of English, the combination of would and rather (also:
sooner/as soon/as well) can be followed not just by a bare inﬁnitive(as in they would rather leave) or by a ﬁnite clause (they would rather(that) I (would) leave), but also by an inﬁnitive with an accusative subject (as in they would rather me leave), which can even be coreferent
with the matrix subject (I would rather me leave). This short paper focuses on this AcI-inﬁnitival construction. It shows that the inﬁnitival
clause is a fully clausal complement of rather, capable of harbouring
sentential negation and constituting a local binding domain for its
subject, whose accusative is not an assigned case. The paper closes
on some remarks about the evolution of this construction, against
the background of the form and distribution of the subjunctive.
Sentences of the type in (1) feature a degree-modiﬁed dispositional adjective oradverb (rather, sooner, as soon, as well) followed by a bare inﬁnitival clause withan accusative subject.1
(1)

a.
b.
c.
d.

they would rather me leave
they would sooner me leave
they would just as soon me leave
they would just as well me leave

1

Though this construction seems particularly common with me (representing the speaker) as
the accusative subject of the inﬁnitive, it is not restricted to me, as witness sentences such as I
would rather him/her/us//them be happy. Though the initial exempliﬁcations in (1) are made-up
sentences to keep them simple and directly comparable, the bulk of the examples in this paper
are attested sentences culled from the internet, and checked with native-speaker linguists. In
what follows, exempliﬁcation will generally be conﬁned to rather.

99

The inﬁnitival clause is transparent for extraction of its object (as in (2a)), its subject (as in (2b)), and even a modiﬁer (as in (2c)).2
(2)

a.
b.
c.

what would you rather me say?
who would you rather kiss you like that?
how would you rather me do this?

The adjective cannot be wh-fronted, however, despite the fact that it can be intensiﬁed with much:(3)

a. you would much rather me do thisb. *how much rather would you me do this?

In precluding extraction of the adjective, the construction in (1) patterns like theone in (4), and unlike that in (5).
(4)

a. you would much rather that I do thisb. *how much rather would you that I do this?

(5)

a.
b.

you would much rather do thishow much rather would you do this?

In (5a), much rather is a modiﬁer of the projection of do, which is the main verbof a single clause. In (4a), we are evidently dealing with a biclausal construction,with the that-clause serving as the complement of rather. This straightforwardly
explains the contrast between (4b) and (5a) in the latter but not in the former,(how) much rather is a constituent. The fact that (3b) behaves the same way as(4b) suggests that in (3a) and (1), too, what follows rather is a clausal complement:(6)[AP A=rather []]The clausality of what follows rather is perfectly apparent for variants of (1) inwhich the inﬁnitive is adorned with the inﬁnitival marker to, as in (7a), which,like (1), allows extraction, as shown in (7b).
(7)

a.
b.

you would rather me to do thiswhat would you rather me to do?

2

Again, the pattern is not limited to me: sentences such as what would you rather him say?
(directly parallel to (2a)) and what would you rather him be to you? (with extraction of the predicate of a copular inﬁnitive) occur frequently as well.

100But for the bare inﬁnitive in (1) as well, there are clear indications that it is aclausal constituent. Thus, sentential negation is grammatical in the bare-inﬁnitival
clause, as shown by the fact that not in (8) licenses negative polarity items:(8)

you would rather/sooner/just as soon/just as well me not do anything

Since sentential negation is by consensus (see Zanuttini 1997, references there,
and work in its wake) dependent on T, the bare inﬁnitive in (8) must at a minimum
be a TP – i.e., a full clause.
The hypothesis that the bare-inﬁnitival constituent in (1) is a full clause helps
us explain the otherwise quite intractable fact that the subject of the bare inﬁnitive can be a pronoun coreferential with the matrix subject:3
(9)

a.
b.

I would rather me leave
I would rather me die than you

For (9b), the acceptability of me could perhaps be ascribed to the fact that thispronoun is a contrastive focus (contrasted with you). But in (9a) the subject of
the inﬁnitive is not contrastive. The fact that it allows itself to be coreferential
with the matrix subject indicates that the bare-inﬁnitival constituent is a local
domain for binding, just as in I would rather that I leave. The postulation of clausal
structure for the bare inﬁnitive contributes to making this understandable.
By itself, however, the clausal (i.e., TP) status of the complement of rather
does not immediately facilitate a coreference relation between the matrix andembedded subjects: for bare AcI-inﬁnitives embedded under causative or perception verbs, the grammaticality of clausal negation (as in (10a)) suggests fullclausality; yet coreference of the pronominal subject of the inﬁnitive with thematrix subject is impossible, as (10b) shows.
(10)a. I made/saw him not eat anythingb. *I made/saw me leave

The diﬀerence between (1) and causative and perception verb constructions liesin the category of the selector of the bare AcI-inﬁnitive: an element of category
A in the former and a verb in the latter. Thanks to the fact that in causative andperception verb constructions, the inﬁnitive’s selector is of the same category
as the head of the inﬁnitival complement, the two domains engage in what is3

Like (1) and (2), the pattern in (9) is attested with accusative pronouns other than me, as inhe would rather him be dead or they would rather them do work around the house.

101variably called ‘reanalysis’, ‘restructuring’ or ‘clause union’. In (1), where the categories of the bare inﬁnitive and its selector are diﬀerent, such integration is impossible. The inﬁnitival TP in (1) thus remains an independent binding domain,
making (9b) grammatical.
Though opaque for binding, the fact that the inﬁnitival clause in the complement of rather is a selected constituent renders it transparent to extraction: wesaw this in (2) for disjoint reference cases; (11) shows that in coreference contexts, though much rarer, wh-extraction is also possible — even for a predicate
nominal (what in (11) is a predicate), which strongly resists extraction from islands (*what don’t you know whether to call these linguists? vs. ? which linguists
don’t you know whether to call ‘generativists’?).
(11)

what would they rather them be named?

With respect to extraction, (1) and (9) are similar to likely+inﬁnitive constructions, in which the inﬁnitival complement to the adjective likely is likewise transparent to argument and non-argument wh-extraction (what is he likely to say?,
how is he likely to solve the problem?).
What could be the source of the accusative case of the subject of the AcIinﬁnitive? For causative and perception verb constructions, the answer is straightforward: the matrix clause contributes an accusative case feature, assignable tothe subject of the inﬁnitival clause. But in the construction in (1), the selector of
the inﬁnitival clause is of category A, incapable of assigning structural case.4 The
morphological accusative case of the subject of the inﬁnitival clause in (1) can be
dealt with in either of two ways. One would be to treat it as a manifestation of default case, which in English is indeed accusative. Alternatively, it may be possible
to invoke Marantz’s (1991) notion of dependent case: nominative case in the matrix domain is already used up by the matrix subject, so the subject of the inﬁnitival clause gets the dependent accusative instead. The feasibility of a dependentcase approach to the accusative in (1) will depend crucially on whether they andme in these sentences belong to the same local domain. Above, we saw that theinﬁnitival clause embedded under rather is an opaque domain for binding; yetat the same time it is a transparent domain for wh-extraction. If the inﬁnitive’scomplement status is suﬃcient to include it in same local domain as the matrix
subject for the purposes of dependent case assignment, it will be possible to get
4Though I’d rather me than you occurs as a complete utterance, it is arguably always elliptical: the syntax features a clause with a pronominal subject rather than just a pronoun in thecomplement of rather.

102

dependent accusative case assigned to the subject of the inﬁnitive. In view of thefact that passivisation (with concomitant promotion of the structural accusative
to subject) is independently impossible in the rather+inﬁnitive construction (because would rather does not passivise), it is diﬃcult to ascertain whether the caseof the subject of the inﬁnitive is structural (i.c., dependent) or default.
In closing, I would like to make a few speculative remarks about the evolution
and spread of the construction illustrated in (1). It seems to me likely that pairsof sentences such as the following play a major role in the development of therather+ + construction:
(12)

a.
b.

you would rather (that) I were more serious
you would rather (that) I be more serious

In (12a), we are dealing with a subjunctive subordinate clause, whence the nominative subject, I. On the surface (and perhaps also in a deeper sense), the subjunctive form of the English verb is indistinct from the bare inﬁnitive. So for theversion of (12b) lacking the complementizer that, the complement clause is easily reanalysed as an inﬁnitival clause. Such a reanalysis deprives the subject ofthat clause of its nominative case, and leads to a (default/dependent) accusative
case form, as in you would rather me be more serious – an instantiation of thepattern in (1).
Though the negation and pronominal coreference facts reviewed above haveled me to conclude that the bare inﬁnitive embedded under rather is fully clausal,
a logical next step in the development of the construction type would be for theinﬁnitival constituent to be analysed as a small clause. Once this happens, we expect to be able to ﬁnd bare non-verbal predication structures with an accusative
subject in the complement of would rather. Indeed, this seems to have become areality, judging from the occurrence of sentences such as the ones in (13a)–(13c)(with disjoint reference, à la (1)) and (13d) (with coreference of the matrix andembedded subjects, as in (9)):
(13)

a.
b.
c.
d.

AirTran would rather me stinky
he would rather them deadI would rather him sick now than when he is in school
I would rather me sick than you

The previous paragraphs paint a preliminary picture of a construction type which,as far as I am aware, has not received detailed attention in the theoretical literature to date. It goes without saying that much more could and should be said
103

about what would you rather me say? and its ilk. I hope that the honouree of
this webschrift will say that what these initial notes say is well-said. But perhaps
she would rather me say just simply: Thank you very much, Liliane, for all thewonderful linguist(ic)s that you have given the world, for the innumerable ways
in which you have contributed, empirically as well as theoretically, to the generative enterprise, and for all the great fun we’ve had.

References
Marantz, A. 1991. Case and licensing. In G.F. Westphal, B. Ao & H.R. Chae (eds.),
Proceedings of the 8th Eastern States Conference on Linguistics (ESCOL ’91).
234–253. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University.
Zanuttini, R. 1997. Negation and clausal structure: A comparative study of Romance languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

104

While we’re on the Subject...
Nigel Duﬃeld
In contrast to most of the other contributors to this webschrift, I have not known
Liliane Haegeman in any of the usual professional roles: she has never been mydepartment colleague, teacher or mentor (in the obvious sense); indeed, over
the years we have met in person no more than a handful of times. Yet for mostof my career Liliane has been a constant familiar, guiding and supporting my efforts to understand syntax and language acquisition better than would otherwise
have been possible. A ‘shoulder angel’ of sorts—always of the good kind. Why
she ever took on this role is not something I can explain, though I suspect I’m
not the only one to beneﬁt from her altruistic advice and generosity of spirit. In
gratitude, I oﬀer the following recollection of two early occasions where her interventions were most telling. As it turns out, neither of the questions that I wastrying to address received a satisfactory solution at the time. This most likely
reﬂects failures on my part, and since these shortcomings would have gone unnoticed but for her, perhaps I shouldn’t be so grateful. On the other hand—and
this is the justiﬁcation for this contribution—the two problems have remained
something of an embarrassment for standard versions of generative theory eversince, and it seems right that they should be dusted oﬀ in her honour. With luck,
this will encourage a new generation of linguists to ﬁnd more imaginative solutions, or at least not reinvent the wheel.

1

Subjects, Case and Negation in Hiberno-English

Almost exactly thirty years ago, I wrote my ﬁrst term paper in graduate school.
Titled A Case for Default Values, it examined the origins of certain constructions
found in Hiberno-English (HE), ﬁrst brought to general attention by P. L. Henry(1977).1 In the original paper, subsequently presented at WECOL (Duﬃeld 1989),
1

P. L. Henry is no relation of Alison Henry, as far as I’m aware. In his work, Henry (1977) uses
the term Anglo-Irish, which is now generally dispreferred: see Filppula (2002), for discussion. I

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the main concern was to account for the acceptability of HE examples such as
those in (1) and (2) below, all of which are grammatically unacceptable in standard varieties of English (on both sides of the Atlantic):
(1)

a.
b.
c.
d.

‘T’is an aise to the gate, they to be married.’‘T’was a loss to the country, Michael to die.’‘She to go and he to follow her, t’is the best anymore.’‘Typical,’ said Morrissey, as she walked away, ‘a female like that tospoil a funeral.’2

(2)

a.

‘...surely not knowing the way, they just give him a slap or something
like that and he, oh he to be afraid of the life of him.’‘D’you mind the day, and we in the old castle?’‘I heard the hens cacklin’, and I went over to see what it was, and here
it was a fox, and he with a hen.’b.
c.

As should be clear, the theoretical interest of such sentences lies in the nominative case-marking on non-ﬁnite subjects, most evident in those examples involving pronominal subjects (1a), (1c): then and still, these sentences oﬀer a prima
facie challenge to traditional generativist assumptions linking nominative caseto ﬁniteness (Chomsky 1981, Pesetsky & Torrego 2002; cf. Szabolcsi 2009, esp.
McFadden & Sundaresan 2011).3
The speciﬁc question I was concerned with at the time was whether theapparent ‘default subject case’ option had arisen in Hiberno-English throughcontact with Modern Irish; alternatively, whether the Hiberno-English inﬁnitival
construction was the vestige of a licensing option previously observed in ‘mainland’ Early Modern English. Both hypotheses are supported by circumstantial
evidence. On the one hand, as discussed in Chung & McCloskey (1987), Modern Irish freely allows overt subjects in small clauses in the absence of any obviremain indebted to Markku Filppula for giving me access to the data exempliﬁed in (5) below.
2
William Trevor, Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel (The Bodley Head, 1969).
3
A diﬀerent strand of the same thread, originating with Raposo (1987), linked nominative
case-marking to Agreement, rather than Tense: in Raposo’s work, inﬁnitival clauses in European
Portuguese were claimed to license nominative case just in case the non-ﬁnite verb was inﬂected
for person agreement. Subsequent work by Pires (2002), mentioned in Sundaresan & McFadden(2009), shows that varieties of Brazilian Portuguese without agreement nevertheless continue toallow nominative-marked subjects; see also Longa (1994), Landau (2004). These facts lead thelatter authors to conclude that person agreement is coincidental, rather than causal. However
this should be analyzed, it will be clear that morphological Agreement (with or without a capitalletter) is irrelevant to non-ﬁnite clauses in all varieties of Present Day English.

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ous licensor—albeit these are marked with accusative, rather than nominative,
case—see (3) below; on the other hand, Late Middle English and Early Modern
English apparently tolerated nominative subjects in the same non-ﬁnite contexts, as evidenced by the examples in (4) from Visser (1963), see also Sundaresan & McFadden (2009).
(3)

a.

b.

c.

(4)

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.

Bhuail mé leis,
agus [s édhá mhíle as baile ].
struck I with-him and him.ACC 2 miles from home
‘I met him, as he was two miles from home.’Tháinig sé isteach, agus [s é
iontach sásta leisféin].
came he inside, and him.ACC very
happy with-him self
‘He came in very happy with himself.’(Chung & McCloskey 1987)
Is mór an suaimhneas don gheata [s iada bheithis great the easeto-the gate s them-ACC to be-VN
pósta].
married].
‘T’is an aise to the gate they to be married.’ (Henry 1957; cf. (1a)above)
I to make me blith or glad ... [th]at nu mai be...
[14th C]A king to kepe his lygis in justice, Without doute that is his oﬃse...
[1385]
Men to seye to women wel, it is best, And nor for to despise hem nedepraue.
[1402]A preest for to freli take and chose of alle maidens to hem a wijf...wasallowed of Poul
[1449]
Thou to love that loueth not the, is but grete foly.
[1470]She to dy so dangerously ... that was the thing that greued me so.
[1570]

Partly due to the paucity of historical evidence, the provenance issue was not resolved, and this parochial phenomenon might have completely escaped further
attention, were it not for the availability of another non-standard subject typefound in (some of) the same HE varieties, namely, NPI-subjects in ﬁnite mainclauses, as shown in (5):(5)

a.

But from that day out, anyone that was on the meitheal, or anyone
in the parish never said a bit t’him, or never done…made a move tohave sport on him…
107

b.
c.

Aha. Although anybody don’ seem to like to live in Russia...They’re
all trying to get out of it…
you couldn’t pick a daisy but it was a sin. Now, anything is no sin...

In a follow-up conference paper, I sought to relate the grammaticality of thesetwo constructions to a third HE anomaly, namely, the phenomenon of Singular
Concord (SC) observed in Belfast English, discussed in A. M. Henry (1992, 1995),
whereby plural lexical NPs in canonical position can appear with default (singular) agreement—in contrast to pronominal and/or inverted subjects, which always require plural agreement. Compare the examples in (6):
(6)

a.
b.

Them eggs is cracked/*They is cracked/They are cracked.
Them ones wants more than them other ones/What do/*does themones want?

Extending Henry’s (1992, 1995) account of SC, it was proposed that matrix clauses in HE and Early Modern English varieties diﬀer(ed) from Standard varieties in containing a higher functional projection (AgrP) above TP(AgrP^NegP^TP), and in allowing default case to be assigned in (non-root) Spec,TP; cf. McCloskey (2001). Given this parametric option, underspeciﬁed DPs lacking person features (6: them eggs) need raise no higher than TP for Case, andneed not agree (is shows default singular agreement). Subject NPIs (5: anyone
was...) are then licensed in virtue of having a case-marked copy within the scopeof negation (Duﬃeld 1992/1993). On this approach, the diachronic loss of nominative subjects in inﬁnitivals in Standard English—as well as absence of the othertwo properties—was taken to stem from the loss of AgrP, and subsequent reanalysis of the root projection as TP, as diagrammed in (7); cf. Roberts (1993).
(7)[AgrP [NegP [TP [NOM] ... ]]] → [TP [NOM] [Neg [ ... ]]]The analysis is undoubtedly outdated, most notably in its construal of AgrP as
an autonomous functional projection, and in its appeal to Case as a licensor andas principal driver of syntactic movement to Spec, TP (Chomsky 2001, cf. Nevins
2004). Even at the time, the analysis was probably seriously ﬂawed. Yet it did
at least draw a connection between two kinds of anomalous subject that mostgenerative researchers had totally ignored up to that point. Just as importantly
from a personal point of view, the analysis apparently had suﬃcient merit to persuade Liliane to include it in a special issue of Rivista di Linguistica, on the syntax
of sentential negation (Haegeman 1993). Which in turn gave me my ﬁrst journal108

article and—I suspect (though cannot prove)—led to my ﬁrst job after graduate
school.4

2Pro-drop in Early Child German

If Liliane’s invitation helped me into my ﬁrst paid employment, as a post-doc inHarald Clahsen’s LEXLERN project on child German, her support of the research
begun there also helped me into the next position, at McGill.5 Once again, the focus of this work was on anomalous subjects: this time, however, on null-subjects
in German.
As is well-known—implicitly to native-speakers, explicitly to professional linguists and German language teachers—Standard German is not a pro-drop language: as in English, the subjects of ﬁnite clauses must be pronounced. Yet
viewed from the bottom up—which is to say, from the PLD perspective of thechild learner—this ban on null-subjects is quite unexpected. This is for threereasons that also distinguish German from English: ﬁrst, German is a ‘topicdrop’ language, allowing omission of initial topics (8); second, it allows nullexpletives (except in initial position) (9); ﬁnally, it has a relatively rich personnumber verb-agreement paradigm, something that is often considered key topro-identiﬁcation; Rohrbacher (1993), cf. Bobaljik (1997).
(8)

a.

b.

c.

(Ich) hab es gestern gekauft.
(I) have it yesterday bought‘I bought it yesterday.’(Er) sagt, daß *(er) es gestern gekauft hat.
(he) says, COMP (he) it yesterday bought has‘He says he bought it yesterday.’
Gestern hab’ *(ich) es gekauft.
yesterday have (I)it bought‘I bought it yesterday.’4

As hard as it is to believe now, having one journal article published before completing graduate school counted as a distinguishing achievement in the early 1990s.
5
Or it might have been my next job (University of Sheﬃeld). The lag between initial presentation of the data at acquisition conferences in 1992-93, submission of the initial draft of the paper,
hiatuses between revisions, and ﬁnal publication in 2008, spanned 15 years, during which time
Liliane’s support both as known commentator and as anonymous reviewer proved invaluable.

109

(9)

a.

b.

... daß ec dem Mann das Buch
geschenkt wurde.
that the. DAT man the-.NOM bookpresented[Biberauer 2008]
became‘... that the book was given to the man (as a present).
.. weilec ja
dochLinguisten
Kammermusik
because MOD.PART. linguists chamber-music playspielen‘... since there are linguists playing chamber music.’

So what do young German children think about null subjects? That was thefocus of my two-year study in Düsseldorf, which compared the Strong Continuity/Very Early Parameter Setting claims of Rizzi (1994, 2000), Wexler (1994,
1998) and others, with the Weak Continuity/Structure Building approach of the
LEXLERN project (Clahsen & Penke 1992, Clahsen et al. 1994, 1996); cf. Haegeman (1996). The two approaches to early syntax diverged most sharply on theissue of postverbal null-subjects in ﬁnite V2 clauses, termed ‘Rogues’ in Duﬃeld(1992/1993, 2008): whereas Strong Continuity approaches predicted their nonoccurrence—Root Inﬁnitive subjects aside, German children should never entertain the possibility of a null-subject grammar—the Weak Continuity predicted
the opposite, namely, it was expected that children should pass through a stage
after the development of an underspeciﬁed AgrP (but prior to the developmentof CP) during which Rogues should be a grammatical option. Data from fourout of six LEXLERN6 children whose transcribed corpus data I analyzed provide
rather clear support for the latter approach: not only did all of these children
produce Rogues, such as those illustrated in (10), but in each case, these were
only observed at signiﬁcant levels within one developmental window, just before their production of ﬁnite complement clauses.
(10)

a.

b.

6

Einen Strohhalm mach’ec jetzt. (Matthias.22: 089)
astraw
make-1now‘I’m making a straw now.’
So sieht ec das nicht. (Katrin.07: 021)
so see-3that not‘That way, he doesn’t see it.’

In fact, the study drew on data from three separate corpora, to which the project had access.

110

c.

Die Margot hab’ec gehört. (Svenja.06: 134a)the Margot have-1
heard‘I have heard Margot.’

Once again, my interpretation may be ﬂawed—the framework has surely beensuperceded, AgrP is so 1990s—but the data remain, as a thorn in the side of those
who reject parametric approaches, and who discount any signiﬁcant learningfrom the input. And once more, had it not been for Liliane’s support and encouragement, these data would likely never have seen the light of (theoretical)
day. Even with her help, the journey took ﬁfteen years!
Thus, I use this opportunity to thank Liliane for supporting research on things
that shouldn’t be present, but are, or should be absent, but aren’t, for being so.
While we are on the subject.

References
Bobaljik, J.D. 1997. If the head ﬁts: On the morphological determination of Germanic syntax. Linguistics 35. 1029–1055.
Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures. Dordrecht: Foris.
Chomsky, N. 2001. Derivation by phase. In M. Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A life
in language. 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chung, S. & McCloskey, J. 1987. Government, barriers, and small clauses in Modern Irish. Linguistic Inquiry 18. 173–237.
Clahsen, H., Eisenbeiß & Vainikka, A. 1994. The seeds of structure: A syntactic analysis of the acquisition of case marking. In T. Hoekstra & B. Schwartz(eds.), Language acquisition studies In Generative Grammar. 85–118. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Clahsen, H., Eisenbeiß, S. & Penke, M. 1996. Lexical learning in early syntactic
development. In H. Clahsen (ed.), Generative perspectives on language acquisition: Empirical ﬁndings, theoretical considerations and crosslinguistic comparisons. 129–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Clahsen, H. & Penke, M. 1992. The acquisition of agreement morphology and its
syntactic consequences: New evidence on German child language from theSimone-corpus. In J. Meisel (ed.), The acquisition of verb placement. 181–223.
Dordrecht: Kluwer.

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Duﬃeld, N. 1992/1993. Roots and rogues: Null subjects in german child language. University of Düsseldorf, McGill University.
Duﬃeld, N. 2008. Roots and rogues in German child language. Language Acquisition 15. 225–269.
Filppula, M. 2002. The grammar of Irish English: Language in Hibernian style. London: Routledge.
Haegeman, L. 1993. Introduction to the syntax of sentential negation. Rivista di
Linguistica 7. 183–214.
Haegeman, L. 1996. Verb second, the split CP and initial null subjects in Dutch.
GenGenP 4. 93–120.
Henry, A. 1992. Why we don’t agree: Singular concord in Belfast English. Ms.,
University of Ulster at Jordanstown.
Henry, A. 1995. Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect variation and parameter setting. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Henry, P.L. 1957. An Anglo-Irish dialect of North Roscommon. Zurich: Aschmann& Scheller.
Henry, P.L. 1977. Anglo-Irish and its Irish background. In D. Ó Muirithe (ed.), The
English language in Ireland. 20–36. Cork: The Mercier Press.
Landau, I. 2004. The scale of ﬁniteness and the calculus of control. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22. 811–877.
Longa, V.M. 1994. The galician inﬂected inﬁnitive and the theory of ug. Catalan
Working Papers in Linguistics 4. 23–44.
McCloskey, J. 2001. On the distribution of subject properties in Irish. In W.D.
Davies & S. Dubinsky (eds.), Objects and other subjects. 157–192. Dordrecht:
Kluwer.
Nevins, A. 2004. Derivations without the Activity Condition. In M. McGinnis &N. Richards (eds.), Perspectives on phases (MIT Working Papaers in Linguistics# 49). 287–310. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Pesetsky, D. & Torrego, E. 2002. Tense, case and the nature of syntactic categories. In J. Guéron, J. Lecarme & A. Lecarme (eds.), The syntax of time. 495–
538. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Pires, A. 2002. Cue-based change: Inﬂection and subjects in the history of portuguese inﬁnitives. In D. Lightfoot (ed.), Syntactic eﬀects of morphologicalchange. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Raposo, E. 1987. Case theory and inﬂ-to-comp: The inﬂected inﬁnitive in european portuguese. Linguistic Inquiry 18. 85–109.

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Rizzi, L. 1994. Early null subjects and root null subjects. In T. Hoekstra & B.D.
Schwartz (eds.), Language acquisition studies in generative grammar. 151–176.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rizzi, L. 2000. Remarks on early null subjects. In M.A. Friedemann & L. Rizzi(eds.), The acquisition of syntax: Studies in comparative developmental linguistics. London: Longman.
Roberts, I. 1993. Verbs and diachronic syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Rohrbacher, B.W. 1993. The germanic VO languages and the full paradigm: A
theory of V to I raising: University of Massachusetts Amherst dissertation.
Sundaresan, S. & McFadden, T. 2009. DP distribution and ﬁniteness in Tamil andother languages: Selection vs. Case. Journal of South Asian Linguistics 2. 5–34.
Szabolcsi, A. 2009.
Overt nominative subjects in inﬁnitival complements crosslinguistically:
Data, diagnostics, and preliminary
analyses.
NYU Working Papers in Linguistics: Papers in Syntax 2.
http://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/departments/linguistics/
graduate/nyu-working-papers-in-linguistics.html#vol2.
Visser, F.T. 1963. An historical syntax of the english language. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Wexler, K. 1994. Optional inﬁnitives, head movement and the economy ofderivations. In D.W. Lightfoot & N. Hornstein (eds.), Verb movement. 305–350.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wexler, K. 1998. Very early parameter-setting and the Unique Checking Constraint: A new explanation of the optional inﬁnitive stage. Lingua 106. 23–79.

113

Some thoughts on the early Dutch nullsubject
Maria Teresa Guasti
Between the age of 2;0-3;6, children speaking non-pro drop languages (English, Flemish, French, Danish) omit the sentential subject from their sentences.
This occurs more often if the verb is nonﬁnite, but it occurs with average percentages that go from about 50% to 20% in ﬁnite sentences as well. For example, aFrench-speaking child could utter (1).
(1)

est trop gros(he) is too big(Philippe, 2;2)

Italian-speaking children also omit the sentential subject, but this is not surprising since their grammar allows it. Dutch-speaking children omit the sentential subject. Although this should not surprise, as topic drop is licit in the target language, Haegeman (1995) has challenged the claim that children’s omissions were target-consistent and has convincingly shown that these omissions
had to be put in the same basket as subject omissions in English, French. She
has claimed that the early null subject of Dutch-speaking children is a root phenomenon. She has shown that omission occurs from matrix, but not from embedded clauses, that is, subject omission is limited to declarative sentences andnon-existent in wh-questions. However, these properties characterize Dutch
topic drop as well. To support her claim, Haegeman has provided data showingthat subject omission in early Dutch decreases between 2;0 and 3;0 years andthis decrease parallels that of root inﬁnitives, another phenomenon observed in
the early grammar of children speaking a wide varieties of languages. On this basis, she argues that the early Dutch null subject is a developmental phenomenon
that fades away as children’s grow older and their cognitive resources increase.
Speciﬁcally, Haegeman, following Rizzi (1994), has proposed that Dutch-speaking
children were applying clausal truncation to their sentences and produced null114

subjects in the Spec of the root. She has also shown that this phenomenon is
not only present in child Dutch, but in diaries written by several well renowned
adult writers (Haegeman 1990, Weir 2012), although adults’ null subjects may be
diﬀerent from children’s ones. Thus, in omitting the root subject children were
exercising an option available in Universal Grammar. Of course in the case ofwriters, it is not short of cognitive resources that is behind the phenomenon, butsomething else.
The phenomenon of subject omission has been extensively investigated sinceHyams (1986), but mostly in non-null subject or non-drop languages, with some
exceptions. When the productions of children exposed to null subject or topic
drop languages have been examined, it were to show that subject omission by
these children were qualitatively and quantitatively diﬀerent from those of children exposed to a language where omission was not target consistent. One example is Wang et al. (1992). Mandarin is a topic drop language, whereby bothsubjects and objects can be dropped under appropriate contextual conditions.
Wang et al. (1992) have shown that Mandarin speaking children drop subjects
and objects 46% and 22% of the time, respectively, at 3;0 years of age. Their
English-speaking peers do so much less, especially for objects, i.e., 33% and 4%.
It is clear that these ﬁgures tell us that the null subject phenomenon in child
Mandarin and in child English emanates from diﬀerent grammatical sources.
An important and disregarded ﬁnding from Wang et al. (1992)’s paper is that
Mandarin-speaking children omit in a similar way as adults, as far as the asymmetry subject vs. object is concerned. Adults drop subjects more often than objects, i.e., 36% and 10%, respectively. However, looking at Wang et al. (1992)’s
data, we can observe that during children’s development there is a decrease innull subjects: subjects are omitted 56% around age 2;0, 46% around age 3;0and 38% around age 4. In other words, it is around age 4;0 that children’s subject drop and adult subject drop quantitatively matches, as already observed in
Guasti (2017). Wang et al. (1992) did not look systematically at the pragmaticconditions of subject drop. They merely say that “the null subject was sometimes clearly related to an antecedent. . . In other cases, the referent of the nullsubject was not previously mentioned in the discourse, although it was usually
understandable from context”(Wang et al. 1992: 233). Therefore, we can inferthat most of the time the use was appropriate, but a more systematic analysis
would have been appropriate.
A developmental decrease in subject omission is also observed in early nullsubject languages. Valian (1991) reports that Italian adults omit the sentential
subject 64% of the time. Serratrice (2005) shows that, across four MLU stages,
115

omission of the the sentential subject decreases from 80% to 65%. At the sametime, she also demonstrates that Italian-speaking children from their earliest
multiword productions (around age 2;0) are sensitive to the pragmatic constraints
regulating subject omission (e.g., informativeness). They omit more 1st and 2nd
person subjects than 3rd person subject, as the former are always recoverablefrom context. They use overt subjects when it is needed because the antecedent
is not easily recoverable. However, we when look at the quantitative data she
provides, we realize that there is a certain amount of null subjects whose use is
not accounted for by her pragmatic constraints and in fact she recognizes that“. . . although children are sensitive to discourse-pragmatic features in their choiceof referential expressions, this sensitivity becomes more ﬁne-tuned over time”(Serratrice 2005: 457).
These ﬁndings invite us to think that subject omission in early Dutch (and inearly Italian as well) conceals two phenomena: the phenomenon found in otherearly non-topic drop or non-null subject languages and the adult topic drop option, as proposed in Guasti (2017). This would reconcile Hageman’s claim that
Dutch-speaking children are using the option exploited by English-speaking children with the claim by de Haan & Tuijnman 1988 and Verrips & Weissenborn
1992 that children are using the adult topic drop option. To further explore thishypothesis, one would also need to look more closely at the features of topic
drop in spoken Dutch. Trift (2003), through a judgement experiment with Dutchspeaking adults, has shown that dropping 1st person subjects is more tolerated
than dropping 2nd and 3rd person subject. One may wonder if this is the case inearly Dutch. Some other similar insights come from work by Frazier. Based on
adult data, Frazier (2015) has proposed a view that is diﬀerent from that taken
here. Acccording to her, subject omission is not a grammatical option, as assumed in Haegeman (1995), but it is due to a performance error that occurs when
the subject is highly predictable. She bases her claim on an experiment carriedout by Mack et al. (2012) combined with a second experiment she carried out.
In the ﬁrst experiment, English-speaking adults heard mini-dialogues, in which
the ﬁnal sentence had a 1st or 3rd person subject, and either it was in the present
or past tense. The subject was degraded, so that it was not clear whether it was
pronounced or not. Adults were invited to repeat the sentence. It was foundthat they restored the unheard subject more often with a 3rd person than with a
1st person verb and more often in the past than in the present tense. In the second experiment, the same result was obtained with non-sense verbs, supportingthe conclusion that the phenomenon is not lexically driven. Frazier interpreted
these ﬁndings as evidence that adults expect a subject and restore it more often116

in certain conditions than in others, speciﬁcally they restore it when it is less predictable. Frazier only used sentences with possible root null subjects. Therefore,
we cannot establish whether the accepted null subjects (i.e., those not restored)
emanate from a grammar that allows the root null subject or is really the expression of a speech error, as Frazier claims. It would be interesting to extend Frazier’study to contexts with highly predictable subjects in wh-questions or embedded
questions to establish whether adults restore the subject more often in thesecontexts than in root contexts, as our grammatical approach would suggest. It
would also be interesting to see what children would do in these same contexts,
if the experiment is feasible. This would give us some insights not only into theirsyntactic knowledge, but also into their pragmatic knowledge.
In conclusion, I have attempted to reconcile two opposing views concerning subject omission in early Dutch and suggested that Dutch-speaking children
know that their grammar allows topic drop, but at the same time they exercise
another option found in other grammars. Second, I have suggested a new pathof investigation which is concerned with the pragmatics of null subjects, i.e., theconditions that lead speakers of non-null subject grammars to tolerate omission.

References
Frazier, L. 2015. Do null subject sentences (mis-)trigger pro-drop grammars?
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 44. 669–674.
Guasti, M.T. 2017. Language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (2nd edition).
de Haan, G.J. & Tuijnman, K. 1988. Missing subjects and objects in child grammar. In P. Jordens & J. Lalleman (eds.), Language development. 101–122. Dordrecht: Foris.
Haegeman, L. 1990. Non-overt subjects in diary contexts. In J. Mascaró & M. Nespor (eds.), Grammar in progress. GLOW essays for Henk van Riemsdijk. 167–174. Dordrecht: Foris.
Haegeman, L. 1995. Root inﬁnitives, tense, and truncated structures in Dutch.
Language Acquisition 4(3). 205–255.
Hyams, N.M. 1986. Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Mack, J., Clifton, C.J., Frazier, L. & Taylor, P.V. 2012. Pragmatic constraints inﬂuence the restoration of optional subjects. Journal of Memory and Language
67(1). 211–223.
117

Rizzi, L. 1994. Early null subjects and root null subjects. In T. Hoekstra & B.D.
Schwartz (eds.), Language acquisition studies in generative grammar. 151–176.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Serratrice, L. 2005. The role of discourse pragmatics in the acquisition of subjects
in Italian. Applied Psycholinguistics 26(3). 437–462.
Trift, K.E. 2003. Object drop in the L1 acquisition of Dutch. Leiden: LOT.
Valian, V. 1991. Syntactic subjects in the early speech of American and Italianchildren. Cognition 40. 21–81.
Verrips, M. & Weissenborn, J. 1992. Routes to verb placement in early German
and French: The independence of ﬁniteness and agreement. In J.M. Meisel(ed.), The acquisition of verb placement: Functional categories and V2 phenomena in language acquisition. 283–331. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Wang, Q., Lillo-Martin, D., Best, C.T. & Levitt, A. 1992. Null subject versus null
object: Some evidence from acquisition of Chinese and English. Language
Acquisition 2. 221–254.
Weir, A. 2012. Left edge deletion in English and subject omission in diaries. English Language and Linguistics 16(1). 105–29.

118

Negative concord and Old English clausestructure: some afterthoughts
Eric Haeberli*

1Introduction

Old English (OE) has word order properties that are reminiscent of the modern West Germanic asymmetric Verb Second (V2) languages like Dutch or German. In main clauses, the ﬁnite verb tends to occur towards the beginning of theclause whereas placement towards the end of the clause is common in subordinate clauses. To capture this similarity, van Kemenade (1988) proposes that OE
can be structurally analysed like modern West Germanic. In basic X-bar theoretic
terms, this means that the ﬁnite verb moves to C in main clauses while it stays
in T in a head-ﬁnal TP in subordinate clauses.1 However, it has been shown insubsequent work that there is evidence for head-initial structure in subordinate
clauses and that therefore the headedness of TP may be variable in OE. Diﬀerent
types of evidence have been put forward to support the hypothesis that the verb
can occur in a head-initial projection in subordinate clauses, with the main data
being related to the distribution of particles, pronouns, stranded prepositions*

I am very happy to dedicate a second paper of mine to Liliane Haegeman. A single one would
simply not have been enough for someone special like Liliane. Here, I would like to express myparticular gratitude to her for getting me started in linguistics. Making use of further data andrecent theoretical proposals, the present trip down memory lane provides a short addendum toour joint work, which marked the beginning of the gratifying privilege I had of being Liliane’s PhD
student.
1
For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to structures here that include head-ﬁnal projections. However, this choice is not likely to substantially aﬀect the main points made in this paper. My main
focus will be an empirical generalization on OE and West Flemish syntax, and, as far as I can tell,there are no obvious advantages or disadvantages in capturing this generalization in terms of an
approach that includes head-ﬁnal structure and one that bans them (cf. Haeberli & Haegeman
1995: 103-107) for some discussion).

119

and negative objects (Pintzuk 1993, 1999, 2005) and to Negative Concord readings (Haeberli & Haegeman 1995). In this paper, I will reconsider the evidence
from Negative Concord by adding some quantitative data and by examining relevant word orders in light of the most recent proposals that have been madewith respect to the structural analysis of OE.

2

OE subordinate clause syntax

In OE subordinate clauses, the ﬁnite verb frequently occurs at the end of theclause. This is shown in (1).
(1)

swilce he wið his dohtor sume digle spæce sprecan woldeashe with his daughter some secret speech speak would‘as he would speak some secret speech with this daughter’ (coapollo,ApT:1.10.10)

In (1), the ﬁnite auxiliary is preceded by the subject pronoun, a PP, an object,
and a non-ﬁnite main verb. Both clauses can be analysed by assuming that the
subject is in SpecTP, the ﬁnite verbal element in a head-ﬁnal T and the other constituent(s) in the complement of T. As van Kemenade (1988) already points out,
however, the ﬁnite verb is not always in ﬁnal position in OE subordinate clauses.
This is illustrated in (2).
(2)

a.

b.

þæt ic mihte [God forbeodan]that I could God forbid‘that I could forbid God’(coaelive,+ALS[Peter’s_Chair]:186.2398)
ðæt se reccere ða ðeawas & ða unðeawas cunne [welthat the teacher the virtues & the vices
can well
toscadan]distinguish‘that the teacher can distinguish virtues and vices well’(cocura,CP:20.149.16.1019)

In (2), the ﬁnite auxiliary is followed by the non-ﬁnite main verb and its complement (2a) or an adjunct (2b). Given cases like those in (2), van Kemenade(1988) proposes a range of rightward movements for OE that derive word orders in which the ﬁnite verb is not at the end of the clause. For example the120subordinate clauses in (2) can be argued to involve movement of the bracketed
constituent from the left of the auxiliary to the right, a process that has been referred to as Verb Projection Raising (VPR) in the literature on varieties of modern
West Germanic.
If, in (2b), the subject is in SpecTP and the ﬁnite auxiliary in T, an analysis
in terms of VPR seems to be inevitable. The word order in (2a), however, could
be derived either through VPR or simply through a head-initial TP structure inwhich T selects a head-ﬁnal VP to its right. Strong evidence for the availability of the latter option, i.e. head-initial TP, in OE is provided by Pintzuk (1993,
1999, 2005). Her approach is to look at clauses that must clearly be head-ﬁnal
and then to examine what types of elements can and cannot undergo rightward
movement in such clauses. Under the assumption that with a head-initial TP
only one XP position is available before the verb in T (i.e. SpecTP), Pintzuk considers those subordinate clauses as unambiguously head-ﬁnal in which at least
two heavy constituents precede the ﬁnite verb. Focusing only on such clauses,
Pintzuk identiﬁes several elements that can generally not occur to the right ofthe verb: particles, object pronouns, stranded prepositions and negative object.
But in subordinate clauses with a single constituent before the ﬁnite verb, theseelements do occur after the verb. Pintzuk therefore concludes that particles,
object pronouns, stranded prepositions and negative objects are diagnostic elements for head-initial structure. Since the diagnostic elements cannot undergo
rightward movement in unambiguously head-ﬁnal clauses, their occurrence tothe right of the verb must be the sign of a head-initial TP structure. Pintzuk
therefore proposes that OE shows variation with respect to directionality: TP
can be both head-initial and head-ﬁnal (the double base hypothesis).

3

Negative Concord and OE clause structure

Haeberli & Haegeman (1995) (henceforth HH) provide independent cross- linguistically based evidence in favour of Pintzuk’s hypothesis that head-initial TP
structure can be found in OE. HH’s argument is similar to Pintzuk’s as it is basedon a phenomenon that does not seem to be possible with head-ﬁnal structure,
but nevertheless occurs in OE subordinate clauses. The empirical domain that
HH consider is Negative Concord (NC), the phenomenon whereby two or morenegative elements in a clause do not cancel each other out but together expressa single negation.
HH’s starting point is an observation made by Haegeman (1995) for West
121

Flemish (WF). WF has an asymmetric V2 syntax with verb-ﬁnal subordinate clauses
comparable to Dutch and German. But in contrast to those languages, WF also
has VPR and productive NC. An illustration of NC is given in (3) (from Haegeman
1995: 133):(3)

da Valère an niemand niets nie gezeid oatthat Valère to nobody nothing not said has‘that Valère had not said anything to anyone’

What is of interest for our purposes now is that a negative constituent contained
within a VP that has undergone VPR cannot enter an NC relation with an element
outside this VP. I will refer to this generalisation with the label *NC-VPR. It is
illustrated in (4), where only the Double Negation reading is possible.
(4)

dan-ze niemand nie willen niets zeggen
that-they nobody not want nothing say‘that they do not want to say nothing to anyone’ (Double Negation)‘*that they do not want to say anything to anyone’ (NC)As HH point out, *NC-VPR makes an interesting prediction for OE. Like WF, OE
is a NC language. Sentential negation is expressed by the preverbal negative
marker ne, which can co-occur with one or more other negative elements (threein (5)) to express a single negation.
(5)þe næfre nan man ne geseah ær
on nanum landethat never no man not saw
before in no
land‘that no man has ever seen before in any land’(cootest,Exod:34.10.3577)

The prediction then is the following: If *NC-VPR also holds in OE and NC is notpossible with a negative element occurring inside a VP that has undergone VPR,
the conﬁguration ‘Neg1-Aux-Neg2-V’ with an NC reading should only be foundwith clauses that can be analysed as involving head-initial TP as the relevant
word order could be obtained without VPR in such cases. As for clauses whichmust be analysed in terms of a head-ﬁnal TP, NC readings with a negative element between the ﬁnite auxiliary and the non-ﬁnite main verb should be ungrammatical and therefore not be found in OE.
HH claim that this prediction is largely borne out. Clearly head-ﬁnal subordinate clauses with VPR generally do not have a negative element in the VP moved
to the right. However, HH identify eight examples that could potentially be prob122

lematic. They propose an analysis for six of them and speculate on the status of
the remaining two. Overall, HH conclude that *NC-VPR also seems to hold in
OE, and that the regular occurrence of the order ‘Neg1 Aux Neg2 V’ can be related to head-initial TP, conﬁrming Pintzuk’s double base hypothesis.
In the remainder of this paper, I brieﬂy re-evaluate HH’s conclusions for two
main reasons. First, HH do not provide any quantitative evidence. This weakens
their claims somewhat as a crucial part of their argument is based on the hypothesized ungrammaticality of an option in OE (NC with VPR in clearly head-ﬁnal
clauses). Ungrammaticalities can never be conclusively established in corpus
data, but quantitative evidence is useful in that the likelihood that the absenceof an option in a corpus is a sign of ungrammaticality increases with the number of examples in which this option could have occurred but did not. A second
reason for reconsidering HH’s observations is that more work on OE syntax has
been carried out over the last 20 years, and we may wonder what the status of
the examples that HH have identiﬁed as potentially problematic is within more
recent analyses of OE.

3.1*NC-VPR: Quantitative evidence

My ﬁrst goal is to provide a quantitative analysis of the interaction between NC
and VPR. In contrast to HH, who used A Microﬁche Concordance to Old English(Healey & Venezky 1980), I will base myself on the YCOE (Taylor et al. 2003). The
main issue I will consider is the following: Under the assumption that *NC-VPR
holds for OE as it does for WF, HH propose that all subordinate clauses of thetype ‘Neg1-Aux-Neg2-V’ must be the result of head-initial TP. We therefore get
the following prediction P that needs to be tested quantitatively:(6)

P: The sequence ‘Neg1-Aux-Neg2-V’ does not occur in clearly head-ﬁnal
clauses in OE.

With respect to deﬁning “clearly head-ﬁna”, I will start with the minimal andmost constrained hypothesis (but cf. section 3.2 below for some further discussion). In a head-initial structure, the ﬁnite auxiliary is under T and the subject isin SpecTP. The minimal assumption is therefore that they are adjacent. Thus,
head-ﬁnal structure is required if one or more constituents intervene between
the subject and the ﬁnite auxiliary.
In order to test P, I have collected all OE subordinate clauses containing a ﬁnite auxiliary, a non-ﬁnite main verb and at least two negative items. In all cases,
123one of the negative items is the preverbal negative marker ne, which can express
negation on its own and is generally analysed as a preﬁx on the ﬁnite verb. An NC
relation is then established between ne and one or more additional negative elements in the clause. Overall, there are 631 clauses that meet the requirements
described before. However, not all of them are equally relevant for testing P. In
146 clauses, the second negative element is the subject occurring in SpecTP. In
these cases, a violation of *NS-VPR would not have been possible as the subject
in SpecTP could not have been included in a VP undergoing VPR.
This leaves us with 475 clauses containing ne plus one or more negative nonsubject XPs. But once again, not all of these could have given rise to a violationof *NS-VPR. For that to be possible, there has to be one additional non-subject
constituent which could intervene between the subject position and the auxiliary and thus indicate clear head-ﬁnal structure. Focusing then on all subordinate clauses that contain a negated auxiliary, a non-ﬁnite main verb, at least one
negative non-subject XP, and at least one other non-subject XP2 , we are left with
266 clauses that could potentially have given rise to a violation of *NC-VPR if thefour elements had been placed in the order ‘XP-neAux-NegYP-V’.
Thus, the pool of examples that allow us to test P is relatively substantial. If
we now examine it for the occurrence of ‘XP-neAux-NegYP-V’ order, we can ﬁnd
14 clauses of this type coming from 10 diﬀerent texts. An illustration is given in
(7).
(7)

þæt hy æt necstan ne magon nan land geseon.
that they at last
not canno land see‘that ﬁnally they cannot see any land’(cogregdH,GDPref_1_[H]:5.20.34)

The 14 examples of the type shown in (7) correspond to 5.3% of the 266 clauses
identiﬁed above and to 14.3% of all clauses with the order ‘neAux-NegYP-V’ (n =98; XP occurs in a position other than to the immediate left of neV in the remaining 85.7%). Although these frequencies are low, they are high enough to raisesome initial doubts as to whether *NC-VPR can indeed be maintained for OE.
A possible account emerges if we take a closer look at these 14 potentiallyproblematic examples. In 7 of these, the subject is a pronoun, and in the remain2

Not included here are object pronouns and subordinate clauses. The former are not likely
to be diagnostics for head-ﬁnal structure as they very frequently intervene between the subject
and the ﬁnite verb. As for the latter, they do generally not occur between the subject and theﬁnite verb even in clearly head-ﬁnal contexts.

124ing 7, there is no overt subject in SpecTP because of subject movement (relative clauses) or because of subject omission in a second conjunct. If we focus onclauses with full DP subjects only, the result is clear-cut. Among 54 clauses witha DP subject, a negated auxiliary, a non-ﬁnite main verb, one negative YP andat least one other XP, there is not a single one that has the order ‘Su-XP-neAuxNegYP-V’.3 Although the amount of data allowing us to test P with full DP subjects is not huge, the fact that 54 clauses would have the potential ingredients
to violate *NC-VPR but do not do so is nevertheless suggestive. HH’s conclusion
is therefore supported if an analysis for the 14 clauses with a pronominal subject
or no overt subject can be given in terms of a head-initial TP structure.

3.2 *NC-VPR: Apparent counterexamples
HH also identify examples with subject pronouns as the main source of potential
counterarguments against *NC-VPR in OE. They suggest that subject pronouns
can cliticize to C and that the element intervening between the subject and theﬁnite auxiliary in an example like (7) either occupies SpecTP (following Pintzuk’s(1993, 1999) hypothesis that OE is a symmetric V2 language with SpecTP as a
topic position) or is fronted through Stylistic Fronting. None of these assumptions is uncontroversial, however. There is no evidence suggesting that OE subject pronouns are true head clitics, the status of OE as a symmetric V2 language
has generally not been accepted in the literature, and whether there are independent reasons for postulating a process of Stylistic Fronting is by no means
certain.
In terms of recent approaches to the clausal syntax of OE, however, mostapparent counterexamples to *NC-VPR can be accounted for quite straightforwardly. It has been widely assumed in the literature that above TP there is asecond projection hosting subjects in the OE clause structure. Diﬀerent labels
have been given to this projection by diﬀerent authors. But what is common to
all these analyses is the assumption that subject pronouns always move to thehigher subject position whereas full DP subjects generally occur in the lower one
but can occasionally also move higher. The relevant part of the clause structureis shown in (8), which is based on the most recent version of this approach (Walkden 2017).
3

Interestingly, Haeberli & Haegeman (1995: 100, ex. 29b)) cite such a case, but the relevant
text is not included in the YCOE. Cf. fn. 5 below for a further observation concerning this example.

125

(8)

[ CP2 XP C2 … [ CP1 SU1(pro/DP) C1 [ TP SU2(DP) T ]]]Walkden uses the label CP1 for the higher host of subjects, where CP1 combines
the features Fin and Fam (familiar Topic) of a split CP structure. It is the Famfeature on C1 which triggers the systematic movement of subject pronouns to
SpecCP1. For subordinate clauses, it can be assumed that the complementizer
is merged in C1 but then raises to C2. With C1 containing a copy of the complementizer, the ﬁnite verb cannot move to C1 and remains in T. Together withthe assumption that adjuncts can occur between CP1 and TP (cf. e.g. Haeberli
2000, van Kemenade & Los 2006), we get the result that ‘Su-adjunct-V’ orders or‘adjunct-V’ orders with a no overt subject can be derived even if TP is head-initial(cf. Haeberli & Ihsane 2016: 506).4 An example like (7) can thus be analysed witha head-initial structure and without reference to VPR:5(9)[ CP2 þæt [ CP1 hy þæt [ æt necstan ] [ TP hy [ T’ [ T ne magon ] [ VP nan land
geseon ] .

13 of the 14 potential counterexamples identiﬁed earlier can be analyzed along
these lines as they involve AdvPs or PPs. The only example that remains problematic is the following:(10)þæt wæs ða ða he Iudeas nolde nan wuht læran hwæt hi don scoldenthat was when he Jews not-wanted no whit advise what they do should‘that was when he didn’t want to advise the Jews what to do’(cocura,CP:58.443.3.3159)

Here an argument occurs between the subject pronoun and the negated auxil4

van Kemenade & Los (2006) suggest that the position between CP1 and TP is a position
for discourse particles such as þa or þonne (‘then’). In the 14 examples with ‘XP-neAux-NegYPV’ order, there are indeed three in which þonne occurs in the XP position. However, Haeberli& Ihsane (2016: 506) show that other items can be found in this position as well (possibly as theresult of movement) and that more than one item can occur there at the same time. I will assume
here that the XP position is open to any type of adjunct, including PPs, but that it may initiallyhave been a particle position, the use of which was extended over time.
5
Note that, according to (8), a structure like (9) would also be possible with a full DP subject.
More precisely, if, as Walkden’s analysis suggests, Fam is the crucial feature attracting subject
pronouns to CP1, one would expect a familiar non-pronominal DP also to be able to occur in CP1.
This is indeed what could be argued for the example mentioned in fn. 3 above. The relevant
subject has a demonstrative determiner (‘these’) and refers to an entity that has already been
mentioned in the same paragraph a few lines before. However, given that full DP subjects tend
to remain in SpecTP, the rarity of such a word order (absent in the YCOE) would be expected.

126

iary. Iudeas cannot be argued to be a familiar topic as the referent is not mentioned before, so movement to CP1 is not an option. The only options seem tobe that the adjunct position between CP1 and TP can occasionally be targetedby an argument, or alternatively that TP allows multiple speciﬁers. It is not entirely clear how the viability of these options could be tested and I will therefore
have to leave this issue open.

4

Conclusion

HH put forward an argument in favour of the occurrence of head-initial structure in OE (or its equivalent in a system without variation in directionality) thatis based on the syntax of NC and more speciﬁcally on the observation from WF
that NC is not possible for a negative constituent contained within a VP that has
undergone VPR to the right of an auxiliary and that therefore sequences of thetype ‘Neg1-Aux-Neg2-V’ must involve head-initial structure. In this paper, I haveevaluated HH’s claims on the basis of a detailed quantitative analysis and recent
theoretical proposals. Among 631 subordinate clauses with at least two negative elements, a ﬁnite auxiliary and a non-ﬁnite main verb, there is only a single
one (0.2%; example 10) that cannot be straightforwardly accounted for in termsof HH’s hypothesis and recent analyses of the clausal syntax of OE. Even if wedeﬁne the set of relevant examples in a more restrictive way, the frequency of
exceptions remains extremely low. If we look at all subordinate clauses in which
a violation of *NC-VPR could have occurred (clauses with an additional XP), we
get a proportion of 1 out of 266 (0.4%). Or if we focus only on clauses with AuxNeg-V’ order and one additional XP, the rate is 1 out of 98 (1.0%). Even though
the complete absence of potentially problematic cases would have been preferable, the highly exceptional status of example (10) suggests that the argument
for a head-initial inﬂectional projection put forward by HH stands up to closequantitative and updated theoretical scrutiny.

References
Haeberli, E. 2000. Adjuncts and the syntax of subjects in Old and Middle English.
In S. Pintzuk, G. Tsoulas & A.R. Warner (eds.), Diachronic syntax: Models andmechanisms. 109–131. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

127

Haeberli, E. & Haegeman, L. 1995. Clause structure in Old English: Evidence
from negative concord. Journal of Linguistics 31. 81–108.
Haeberli, E. & Ihsane, T. 2016. Revisiting the loss of verb movement in the history
of English. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34. 497–452.
Haegeman, L. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Healey, A.d.P. & Venezky, R.L. 1980. A microﬁche concordance to Old English.
Toronto: Pontiﬁcal Institute of Medieval Studies.
van Kemenade, A. 1988. Syntactic case and morphological case in the history ofEnglish. Dordrecht: Foris.
van Kemenade, A. & Los, B. 2006. Discourse adverbs and clausal syntax in Old
and Middle English. In A. van Kemenade & B. Los (eds.), The handbook of thehistory of English. 224–248. Oxford: Blackwell.
Pintzuk, S. 1993. Verb seconding in Old English: Verb movement to Inﬂ. The
Linguistic Review 10. 5–35.
Pintzuk, S. 1999. Phrase structures in competition: variation and change in Old
English. New York: Garland.
Pintzuk, S. 2005. Arguments against a universal base: evidence from Old English. English Language and Linguistics 9. 115–138.
Taylor, A., Warner, A., Pintzuk, S. & Beths, F. 2003. The York-Toronto-Helsinki
parsed corpus of Old English prose. York: Department of Linguistics, University
of York. http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~lang22/YcoeHome1.htm.

128

Mapping the speaker’s mind
Virginia Hill
In this squib I share some thoughts about issues that need further investigation
when it comes to the mapping of conversational pragmatics. In particular, basedon my work with Liliane, I will point out some problems with the cartographyof evaluative, evidential and epistemic modals, for which I have no solution tosuggest at this time.
Haegeman & Hill (2013) and Haegeman (2014) argue for the mapping of speechacts in a separate ﬁeld above ForceP (as deﬁned in Rizzi 1997, 2004), which roughly
yields the hierarchy SAP > ForceP. Vocative phrases and injunctive particles areexamples of items that merge directly in the SAP area. This approach entails
that the speech act ﬁeld is a root clause phenomenon, since embedding occurs
only at the level of ForceP and/or lower structure (i.e., assuming that the clausetyping feature located in Force is the goal of the selection probe).
However, speech acts are not the only syntactic manifestations of speaker’s
point of view. As argued in Cinque (1999), speech act modality is at the highest
level of a hierarchy that further maps the speaker’s mind, as in (1), where othermodal phrases capture evaluations, evidentiality and epistemicity, to which I willrefer as the E-modal complex.
(1)

Moodspeech act > Moodeval > Moodevid > Modepistemic > TP

It is unclear how (1) can be converted to the cartographies of the left periphery proposed in Haegeman & Hill (2013), or in Rizzi (1997, 2004); see also Kidwai(2010) for a consideration of similar questions. Does the E-modal complex belong to SAP or to ForceP? The answer has consequences for understanding anddelimiting the root clause phenomena.
There are already studies on the status of the E-complex, which aim to deﬁne
the location of the relevant adverbs. In this sense, Haegeman (2010) points outthat certain conﬁgurations, such as root and selected clauses, are more favourable
to speech act adverbs and the E-modal complex, insofar as they avoid intervention eﬀects, such as noticed with adverbial and conditional clauses.
129

While this is true, there is also evidence that the distribution of E-adverbs is
not clear cut even when they merge in root and selected clauses. For example,
the English adverb clearly and the Romanian counterpart evident may occur either above the Force complementizer, as in (2a) and (3a), or lower, as in (2b) and(3b). The evidential interpretation is the same in either position.
(2)

a.
b.

(3)

a.

b.

Clearly that, for whatever reason, the information wasn’t getting
through on the ground. (from Radford 2013)
Tolkien’s way of thinking clearly spoke deeply to Lewis.
(McGrath 2013: 150)
Evident că pe Maria cu avionul o vom
trimite (nu cu
clearly that
Maria with plane.the her-will.1 send not withtrenul).
train.the‘Clearly, we’ll send Maria by plane, not by train.’
Pe Maria o vom
trimite evident cu avionul, nu cu
Maria her-will.1 send clearly with plane.the not withtrenul.
train.the‘Clearly, we’ll send Maria by plane, not by train.’

In (2a) and (3a), the adverb precedes not only the complementizer but also topic
and focus constituents, which makes very unlikely an analysis that would locate
the complementizer lower than Force (e.g., in Fin, as in Radford 2013 versus
Force in Hill 2007). The point is that the versions in (2b), (3b) are embeddable
under selection, whereas the versions in (2a), (3a) are not, as further shown in(4). Note that the evidential has a speaker oriented reading in (4a)-(4c), whilein (4b)-(4d) the reading can be either speaker oriented or subject oriented. Crucially, the speaker oriented reading is not lost.
(4)a. *He wrote that clearly that, for whatever reason, the information…
b. He wrote that, for whatever reason, the information clearly wasn’t
getting through.
c. *Ne-ascris că evident că pe Maria cu avionul au
to.us-has written that clearly that
Maria with plane.the havetrimis-o.
sent-her

130

d.

Ne-a
scris că pe Maria au trimis-o evident cu
to.us-has written that
Maria have sent-her clearly withavionul.
plane.the‘He wrote to us that they clearly sent Maria by plane.’

Such data are challenging for the current cartographic analyses, since it is notclear where the E-features are mapped (i.e., on SA, Force/Fin or T?).
This is not a problem only for cartographic analyses. Heavily semantic based
analyses also fail to grasp the contrast in (4). For example, Kri a (2017) argues
that the distinctions between the aspects involved in an assertion are not only
semantic but also syntactically mapped. This is not a new idea for those working
in cartography (it is, in fact, the driving principle for the development of clausal
hierarchies since Rizzi 1997), but it receives novel semantic justiﬁcation. Importantly, Kri a (2017) proposes a separate syntactic mapping of the semantic distinctions, as shown in (5). For a more detailed discussion of (5) see Frey (2018)
and subsequent work.
(5)

ActP > CmP/JP > TP

In (5), TP is the domain of the proposition, where the truth-value is established, and which would roughly correspond to ForceP in cartography (i.e., it includes contrastive focus). Beyond TP, we deal with non-at-issueness. JP (which
stands for judgment phrase) and CmP (commitment phrase) is the area where
main clause operations take place (e.g., merging E-adverbs, E-related discourse
particles, contrastive left dislocation). ActP (speech act phrase) also contains elements that qualify as main clause phenomena, but occur more peripherally (e.g.,
Hanging Topic, illocutionary particles, question tags).
In this framework, a clause is built bottom-up and may vary as to the levelattained beyond TP: the presence of elements relevant to speech acts triggers
the clausal projection up to ActP, while, in the absence of such elements, thederivation may stop either at CmP/JP (if material with features relevant to thisdomain is present in the clause), or at TP, if there is no appropriate trigger for the
projection of the not-at-issue area.
Crucially, the derivation in (5) predicts that the diﬀerent levels have a diﬀerent distribution, a hypothesis presently explored (and conﬁrmed) for German inFrey (2018). For example, Frey points out that a question tag can only appear
with an ActP, and when this ActP is adjunct, it falls outside the structure of the131clause it relates to, as shown in (6a) versus (6b).
(6)

a. *[Weil Maria sehr begabt ist, hab ich recht], wird sie schnell
since Maria very talented is have I right will she quickly
promovieren.
graduateb. Maria wird schnell promovieren, [ist sie doch sehr begabt, hab
Maria will quickly graduateis shevery talented haveich recht?]
I right‘Maria will quickly graduate, she is is very talented, isn’t she?’Along the same lines, a discourse particle like ja in (7b) demands that its hostbe at least a JP. JP has to be attached high in its host, therefore binding into an
adverbial clause which contains a discourse particle is not possible.
(7)

a.

Weil
er1 sehr erschrocken ist, wurde jeder1
bleich.
because he very frightened was became everyone pale
‘Because they were frightened, everybody turned pale.’b. *Weil
er1 ja sehr erschrocken ist, wurde jeder1
bleich.
because hevery frightened was became everyone pale

Romanian brings independent conﬁrmation for the hierarchy in (5), since thecomplementizer că ‘that’, obligatory with declarative complement clauses, mayalso occur, optionally, at the border between the ﬁelds above TP. For example, in(8), the speech act adverb ‘frankly’ and the promissive particle zău, which qualify as elements of ActP, embed a ‘that’ headed JP ﬁeld containing the adverb‘surely’, which further embeds a ‘that’ headed TP, the entire structure qualifying as a root clause (see Hill 2007 for tests verifying the mono-clausal versus biclausal status of such structures).
(8)

Cinstit zău (că) bineînt, eles (că) voi
franklythat surelythat will.1‘Frankly, I will surely arrive in time.’

sosi la timp.
arrive in time

So the sentence in (8) supports the ﬁeld separations in (5) by showing the possibility of ‘that’ insertion in-between these ﬁelds. However, the sentence in (8) is
unembeddable, as shown in (9), either as a complement or as an adjunct, as longas its level is ActP or JP, a conclusion that also follows, on independent grounds,132

from cartographic analyses.
(9)a. *A promis că cinstit zău (că) bineînt, eles (că) va
sosi lahas promised that franklythat surelythat will.3 arrive in
timp.
time
b. *Des, icinstit zău (că) bineînt, eles (că) va
sosi la timp…
although franklythat surelythat will.3 arrive in time

However, if we eliminate the ActP elements, we can get embedding on the condition that the E-adverb is somewhere lower in the structure (i.e., că is ruled out),
as in (10). As mentioned for (4), embedding, as in (10a), allows for a double reading, where the E-adverb may reﬂect either the point of view of the speaker or of
the grammatical subject (under a reportative structure), depending on the context. On the other hand, in the adjunct clause in (10b) only the speaker’s point ofview is a valid option.
(10)

a.

b.

A promis că va
sosi bineînt, eles (*că) la timp.
has promised that will.3 arrive surelythat in time
‘He promised to surely arrive in time.’
Des, iva
sosi bineînt, eles (*că) la timp…
although will.3 arrive surelythat in time
‘Although he will surely arrive in time…’

The contrast between (9) and (10) replicates the contrast signalled in (4). Crucially, Kri a’s (2017) proposal falls short of explaining why this would be so: Why
is embedding disallowed when E-adverbs are merged high but not when they
are merged low in the structure, since the mapping of the formal feature thattriggers this merge must be systematically associated with the same functional
head? In other words, the presence of the evidential adverbs should always signal the presence of JP, which is predicted in Kri a’s system to systematically ruleout embedding, contrary to the facts in (10).
A more promising approach seems to come from Miyagawa’s 2010 system,
where C is associated not only with phi-agreement features but also with discourse (δ) agreement features. Cross-linguistic variation follows from variationin the transfer of the δ-feature set from C-to-T. Along these lines, the contrast
between (2a), (3a) and (2b), (3b) would show unstable systems, where both options are in place in one single language, with δ-agr at C in (2a), (3a), and δ-agr
transferred to T in (2b), (3b). This would cover the grammaticality contrast seen133with embeddings, insofar as C with a speciﬁc set of discourse Agr is unembeddable, whereas structures where δ-Agr is transferred to T are embeddable.
Miyagawa’s system may seem instrumental for maintaining Cinque’s (1999)
hierarchy while also explaining the variation in the distribution of E-adverbs, aswell as the consequences of this distribution for the syntactic behavior of therelevant structure. However, the extension of Miyagawa’s analysis along theselines is problematic on other grounds: The δ-agr set at C is meant to capture
the relation between topic/focus and comment/presupposition, which concerns
truth value structures, not the non-at-issueness. Moreover, even if we include
the E-feature sets in the δ-agr set at C, it is not clear how the cross-linguistic variation arising from C-to-T transfer may be sorted out, since the transfer may concern one set of δ-agr features (e.g., E-features) but not the other (e.g., topic/focus).
This also leaves open the question of the speech act features set, which systematically blocks embedding.
I have no solution to suggest at this time for the apparently free distributionof E-adverbs as shown in (2) and (3), and their eﬀects on clausal embedding. I
only point out that this kind of data is worth investigating since it occurs quite
often cross-linguistically, especially within the Romance language group. Whoever takes on this task will further Liliane’s work and deepen its signiﬁcance forthe ﬁeld of syntax-pragmatics interface.

References
Cinque, G. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frey, W. 2018. Root clause phenomena may depend on a private act or on a
public act. Paper presented at the Workshop on Clause Typing and the Syntaxto-Discourse Relation in Head-Final Languages, 15-17 May, 2018, University ofKonstanz.
Haegeman, L. 2010. The movement derivation of conditional clauses. Linguistic
Inquiry 41. 592–621.
Haegeman, L. 2014. West Flemish verb-based discourse markers and the articulation of the Speech Act layer. Studia Linguistica 68. 116–139.
Haegeman, L. & Hill, V. 2013. The syntacticization of discourse. In R. Folli, C. Sevdali & R. Truswell (eds.), Syntax and its limits. 370–390. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

134

Hill, V. 2007. Romanian adverbs and the pragmatic ﬁeld. The Linguistic Review
24. 61–86.
Kidwai, A. 2010. The cartography of phases: Facts and inference in Meiteilon. In
A.M. Di Sciullo & V. Hill (eds.), Edges, heads, and projections: Interface properties. 233–261. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kri a, M. 2017. Assertions and judgments, epistemics and evidentials. Handout for the workshop on Speech Acts: Meanings, Uses, Syntactic and Prosodic
Realization. ZAS, Berlin, May 2017.
http://amor.cms.huberlin.de/~h2816i3x/Talks/CommitmentEpistemicsHandout.pdf.
McGrath, A. 2013. C. W. Lewis: A life. Carol Stream, ILL: Tyndale House Publishers.
Miyagawa, S. 2010. Why agree? why move? unifying agreement-based and discourse conﬁgurational languages. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Radford, A. 2013. The complementizer system in spoken English. In V. CamachoTaboada, A.L. Jiménez-Fernández, J. Martín-González & M. Reyes-Tejedor(eds.), Information structure and agreement. 11–54. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rizzi, L. 1997. The ﬁne structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (ed.),Elements of grammar: Handbook in generative syntax. 281–337. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Rizzi, L. 2004. Locality and left periphery. In A. Belletti (ed.), Structures andbeyond: The cartography of syntactic structures 3. 223–251. New York: Oxford
University Press.

135Some information-structure properties of
Negative Preposing in English and SpanishÁngel L. Jiménez-Fernández*

1

Introduction

In this squib I explore some discourse properties of a controversial operation,
namely Negative Preposing. My interest on this issue is clearly and cruciallymarked by Liliane Haegeman’s research on it.
Negative Preposing (hereafter, NPr) is open to discussion because there are
two main lines of research; for some linguists it is a subtype of Contrastive orCorrective Focus, whereas for others it is an instance of Verum/Polarity Focus
Fronting (VFF). While for English there seems to be some consensus on the phenomenon, in Spanish there is a hot debate as to the speciﬁc information-structure
status of this type of preposing. Based on the particular kind of focus of thefronted constituent, I hope to contribute to throwing some light on the topic.
In Section 2 I discuss some properties of English NPr, taken and implemented
from Haegeman (2000, 2012). In Section 3 I address the focus reading of Spanish NPr and suggest that in some discourse contexts Spanish is similar to English,
whereas in other contexts it is diﬀerent from an information-structure perspective.

2

English Negative Preposing

Negative Preposing has been deﬁned as a subtype of focus fronting in the English literature (Haegeman 2012, Emonds 2004, De Clercq 2010), which involves*

This research has been partially funded by research project PGC2018-093774-B-I00 of
Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. I would also like to thank Liliane forher work on fronting and root phenomena, which have always guided my own research.

136

movement of a negative or non-assertive constituent to the left periphery of thesentence, by means of which the polarity of the sentence is aﬀected yielding anegative sentence, as in (1):
(1)

a.
b.

[On no account] could she move to Paris.
[Not a bite] did he eat.

(De Clercq 2010)(Green 1976: 384)

Both adjunct PPs and argument DPs can be fronted in this type of constructions.
Among the deﬁning properties of English NPr are the subject-auxiliary inversion
attested in (1) and the emphasis on the negative polarity of the sentence. The
ﬁrst trait has been claimed to be common to all types of focus fronting, which
has led linguists to argue in favour of an analysis of NPr as triggered by a focus
feature. However, clear cases of focus fronting in English do not require subjectauxiliary inversion:(2)

THIS BOOK I don’t need (but that one I do).

(Haegeman 2012: 8)

Note that if no subject-auxiliary inversion takes place in NPr, the result is fully
ungrammatical (though see Haegeman 2000 for a topic reading of negative elements when they exhibit no inversion):(3)a. *[On no account] she could move to Paris.
b. *[Not a bite] he ate.

The second property that describes the phenomenon under study is the emphasis on the negative polarity of the relevant sentence caused by the frontingof the negative constituent. Sentence negation is involved in NPr. Haegeman(2000) and De Clercq (2010) argue that if a negative tag can be added to a sentence it is because this particular sentence is negative. If this is correct and sentences with NPr are negative, cases of NPr are expected to accept a neither-tag(since neither-tags are only compatible with negative clauses). This prediction isborne out in light of the data in (4):(4)

On no account could she move to Paris, and neither could Jane. (adaptedfrom De Clercq 2010)

Haegeman (2012) provides an analysis of NPr based on the movement of thenegative constituent to a designated Focus Phrase in the left periphery. This
movement is triggered by a focus feature. Since what is emphasized is the negative polarity, I assume for English that this focus feature is connected with a neg137

ative feature. In other words, the triggering featural array is [+focus, +negation],in the spirit of decomposition in features of discourse categories proposed in
Jiménez-Fernández (2015).
Support for the claim that English NPr involves focus comes from the factthat it can be used as an answer to a question satisfying its information request.
This is clearly stated in Culicover (1991) and Haegeman (2000), and illustrated in
(5):
(5)

A:
B:

Did you see anyone?
No, NOT A SINGLE PERSON did I see.

(Culicover 1991)

Note, however, that this is a polar question and the answer fulﬁlls the information request on the polarity, so it is interpreted as negative. A couple of examples
involving a wh-question follow, which can perfectly be replied by a NPr construction (Culicover 1991):
(6)

A:
B:

When did you ever see such a thing?
NEVER have I seen such a thing.

(7)

A:
B:

When would you ever have agreed to visit Robin?
AT NO TIME would I ever have agreed to visit Robin.

Importantly, what is clear is that the fronted negative constituent has some sortof focus interpretation, based on the licit marking of it as Information Focus (IF)in (6)–(7).
Alongside the IF reading, the relevant literature associates NPr with Contrastive Focus (CF) in English (Haegeman 2012). I have shown evidence that NPr
can be interpreted as IF. Next question is whether evidence can be found supporting a possible interpretation of NPr as CF. Since Jespersen (1937), it is widely
acknowledged that CF can be developed by means of clefting (É. Kiss 1999, Frascarelli 2000, Belletti 2005, Haegeman et al. 2014, Cruschina 2015). In some languages there is the option of developing CF either via fronting or via clefting,as illustrated for Italian, English and German (examples taken from Cruschina2015):(8)[Context: I have met Charles]
a. GIANNI ho incontrato / È GIANNI che ho incontrato.
(Italian)b. JOHN I met / It was JOHN that I met.
(English)c. HANS habe ich getroﬀen / Es war HANS, den ich getroﬀen. (German)

138

If NPr is a subtype of CF, the prediction is that the fronted negative element
should be possibly used in a cleft. Examples in (9) conﬁrm the contrastive ﬂavourof negative constituents, either adjuncts (9a) or arguments (9b)-(9c).
(9)

a.
b.
c.

It is AT NO TIME that I would ever have agreed to visit Robin.
It is NO INTEREST that they show in syntax.
It is NO ONE that I saw.

From this empirical reasoning it can be safely concluded that English NPr has
two possible interpretations, namely either that of purely information focus orthat of contrastive focus. Both interpretations favour an analysis in which thefronted element undergoes movement to the speciﬁer of the designated category FocP in the left periphery.

3

Spanish Negative Preposing

Next I turn to Spanish. NPr in Spanish has not been studied in depth. Bosque(1980) notices a type of fronting which yields a negative interpretation of polarity in Spanish. The author calls these fronting operations anteposiciones negativas ‘negative preposing’, which I illustrate in (10a) for adjuncts and (10b) forarguments, from Bosque (1980: 34–35):
(10)

a.

b.

En modo alguno se puede
tolerartal actitud.
in way somecan.3 to.tolerate such attitude‘By no means can such an attitude be tolerated.’
De ninguno de esos problemas trató
la reunión.
of noneof those problems treat.3 the meeting‘None of those problems did the meeting discuss.’

These are cases of adjunct or argument NPr, which clearly induce a negative interpretation of the sentence polarity, given the corresponding sentences in (11)with no fronting but with the explicit occurrence of the negative adverb no ‘not’:
(11)

a.

b.

No se puede
tolerartal actitud en modo alguno.
not can.3 to.tolerate such attitude in way some
‘Such an attitude cannot be tolerated by any means.’
La reunión no trató
de ninguno de esos problemas.
the meeting not treat.3 of noneof those problems‘The meeting didn’t discuss any of those problems.’
139This trait supports the idea that sentences involving NPr are marked as negativein Spanish. In the absence of fronting, some other mechanism such as insertionof the negative adverb is obligatory. The rule is known as Neg-shift (for discussion on this rule in diﬀerent views, see De Clercq 2010, Haegeman 2000, Bosque
1980, Tubau 2008, Zeijlstra 2004). The test of neither-tags provided by Haegeman (2000) for English is easily extended to Spanish, thereby showing that negation in NPr applies to the whole sentence:(12)

En modo alguno se puede
tolerartal actitud, ni
in way somecan.3 to.tolerate such attitude nottampoco tu respuesta.
neither your answer‘By no means can such an attitude be tolerated, and neither your answer
can.’

The fact that a but-tag can be added to a NPr construction also suggests that thesentence is negative, given that but-tags are only compatible with a previous
negative polarity sentence (Etxepare & Uribe-Etxebarria 2008); it may have abound focus reading, suggesting that this is a subtype of CF:(13)

A NINGÚN ESTUDIANTE me encontré
por la facultad, sino a
to nostudent
me ﬁnd.1 by the faculty but toprofesores.
professors‘I found no students at the faculty, but I found professors.’

Concerning the formal analysis of NPr in Spanish, there are two main lines ofresearch. On the one hand, Gallego (2007) and Battlori & Hernanz (2014) argue
that this type of fronting are cases of mild focalization or weak focus fronting,suggesting that there is a focus feature triggering movement of the negative
constituent and aﬀecting the sentence polarity. Properties such as obligatory
subject-auxiliary inversion are taken as evidence for their analysis.
On the other hand, Leonetti & Escandell-Vidal (2009, 2010) and EscandellVidal & Leonetti (2014) claim that NPr is a subtype of Polarity or Verum Focus
Fronting which makes polarity negative (illustrated in (14), alongside cases of
Quantiﬁer Fronting (Quer 2002), Resumptive Preposing (Cinque 1990), etc. (seeJiménez-Fernández 2015 for a classiﬁcation of types of foci in Spanish)).

140

(14)

Nada tengo
que añadir a lo que ya
dije
nothing have.1 that to.add to it that already saysu día.
its day‘I have nothing to add to what I said at the time.’

.1

en
in

For Escandell-Vidal & Leonetti there is no information-structure partition in these
constructions and no contrastive focus of the fronted element is involved. Rather,
it is the sentence polarity that is emphasized. In particular, NPr highlights thesentence negative polarity, whereas Quantiﬁer Fronting and Resumptive Fronting
makes aﬃrmative polarity more prominent (see also Hernanz 2006). This is why
I am taking the three phenomena as diﬀerent.
To throw some light on the possible solution for the type of focus which Spanish NPr instantiates, I will test whether it may have an Information Focus and/ora Contrastive Focus interpretation. Starting with the IF reading, Escandell-Vidal& Leonetti (2014) explicitly address the impossibility of using NPr as reply to
information-seeking questions, providing an example with QP-fronting:
(15)

A:

¿ Creesque tengo
interés?
think.2 that have.1 interest‘Do you think I have interest?’
B: #Mucho interés tienes
tú…
much interest have.2 you‘A great interest you have…’

Extrapolating the IF interpretation to NPr, note the following natural dialogue,suggesting that QP-fronting and NPr are distinct phenomena, sharing some properties such as the emphasis on the sentence polarity, but also showing distinct
features:
(16)

A:

B:

¿ Qué tienes
que añadir a lo que expusiste
what have.2 that to.add to the that present.2
ayer?
yesterday‘What do you have to add to what you presented yesterday? ’NADA tengo
que añadir.
nothing have.1 that to.add‘I have to add nothing.’

141

This conﬁrms that NPr may have an IF reading in Spanish as well, similar to English.
As regards the CF interpretation, let’s check whether NPr alternates withclefting. Clefting in Spanish has been held to express either IF or CF. Following
Moreno Cabrera (1999) and, more recently, Feldhausen & del Mar Vanrell (2015),
at least one of the interpretations of a cleft sentence is that of CF, as illustratedin (17), from Feldhausen & del Mar Vanrell (2015), adapted from Moreno Cabrera(1999: 4251):(17)

Es[ CF JUAN] el que viene
be-3
Juan the that come.3‘It is Juan that will come (and not Sebas)’.

(y no Sebas).
(and not Sebas)

The question is whether clefting or pseufo-clefting is possible with the constituents
which are fronted via NPr. It must be noted ﬁrst that clefts behave like monoclausal sentences as far as negation is concerned and the negative element requires the adverb no ‘not’ to be inserted in initial position (Bosque 1980). In doing
so, the results of clefting in Spanish are fully grammatical, conﬁrming the possible use of NPr with a corrective ﬂavour:
(18)

A:

B:

(19)

Seguro que te encontraste con algún vecino, ¿verdad?
Sure that you ﬁnd.2 with some neighbour true
‘For sure you met some neighbour, right?’
No fueA NINGÚN VECINO a quien me encontré
not be.3 to noneighbour to whom me ﬁnd.1
en la entrada, sino a tu novia.
in the hall,
but to your girlfriend.
‘It wasn’t any neighbour at all who I met in the hall, but your girlfriend.’

No fueDE NINGUNO DE ESOS PROBLEMAS de lo que
not be.3 of noneof those problemsof the thattrató
la reunión.
treat.3 the meeting‘It wasn’t any of those problems that the meeting discussed.’

Just in passing, Herrero (1992: 207) states that in contexts of special expressivity
such as replies or rejections negative elements can be focalized in a (pseudo)cleft. In this connection, correction and contrast also represent especially expressive discourse situations; note that the cleft alternates with NPr in (B-B’):
142

(20)

A:

Habrásaprobado todo, no?
have- .2 passed all, no?
‘You have passed all your exams, haven’t you?’
B: NADA eslo que heaprobado.
nothing be.3 the that have.1 passed‘It’s no exam that I have passed.’B’: NADA heaprobado.
nothing have.1 passed‘No exam that I have passed.’

From the discussion on Spanish NPr it can be drawn the conclusion that this phenomenon can be interpreted as either IF or CF, exactly as in English. This does
not mean an exhaustive list of interpretations. To the contrary, Spanish NPr may
also have a VFF reading. To accommodate the data, Spanish NPr involves movement of a negative element to the left periphery.
Escandell-Vidal & Leonetti (2014) mention the possibility that this movement
is not motivated by any triggering feature, but they do not elaborate on this. I
assume that there is a feature causing the fronting operation. This feature issimilar to the one proposed for English, but diﬀers in that the [+focus] feature isdiminished to just [+emphasis] in those cases where the NPr phenomenon is interpreted as VFF. Thus Spanish NPr displays a [+emphasis, +negation], a combination in charge of emphasizing the negative polarity of the whole sentence.
The precise syntactic position targeted by the negative element is a pending issue in my current research on the topic (see Jiménez-Fernández 2018).

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Jiménez-Fernández, A.L. 2018. Negative preposing: Intervention and parametric variation in complement clauses. ATLANTIS 40(1).
Leonetti, M. & Escandell-Vidal, V. 2009. Fronting and verum focus in Spanish.
In A. Dufter & D. Jacob (eds.), Focus and background in Romance languages.
155–204. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Leonetti, M. & Escandell-Vidal, V. 2010. Las anteposiciones inductoras de focode polaridad. In V. Castel & L. Cubo de Severino (eds.), La renovación de lapalabra en el bicentenario de la Argentina. los colores de la mirada lingüística.
733–743. Mendoza: Editorial de la U. Nacional de Cuyo.
Moreno Cabrera, J.C. 1999. Las funciones informativas: Las perífrasis de relativo. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua
Española. vol. 3. 4245–4302. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Quer, J. 2002. Edging quantiﬁers. on QP-fronting in Western Romance. In
C. Beyssade, R. Bok-Bennema, F. Drijkoningen & P. Monachesi (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory. 253–270. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Tubau, S. 2008. Negative concord in English and Romance: Syntax-morphology
interface conditions on the expression of negation. Utrecht: LOT.
Zeijlstra, H. 2004. Sentential negation and negative concord. Utrecht: LOT.

145

Negative adjectives
Wim Klooster

1

Introduction

Liliane’s work, especially her study of the syntax of negation (Haegeman 1995),
has been very inspirational to me. Also, her Introduction to Government and Binding Theory was for many years a useful and instructive guide for my students (andme!), thanks to its clarity of style and exposition.
I chose ‘negative adjectives’ as subject of this squib – based on Dutch andEnglish examples – because I believe it is one of the few not treated in her workon negation.
The term ‘negative adjectives’ may refer to either adjectives functioning as
Negative Elements (NEs), or to antonyms of positive adjectives. (There are adjectives without antonyms, but I will leave that point aside here.) In this contribution, I will attempt to challenge the idea that if an adjective acts as an NE, it
can’t be a positive antonym. I will concentrate on gradable adjectives.
Examples with adjectival NEs are given below (with Negative Polarity Items(NPIs) under-lined):(1)

Het is gevaarlijk er ook maar iets over los te laten.
‘It is dangerous to let on anything at all about it.’(2)

Hij vond het moeilijk ook maar iets toe te geven.
‘He found it hard to admit anything at all.

An adjective’s having a negative preﬁx (impolite, unpleasant) does not mean that
it is potentially an NE, nor that it is a negative antonym (henceforth, a ‘[−Pol]
adjective’). As illustrated in (1), it is gevaarlijk ‘dangerous’, not ongevaarlijk ‘safe’,lit. ‘undangerous’, that licenses NPIs. And, as will be argued below, dangerous
and hard are positive (henceforth, ‘[+Pol]’) adjectives.
Several tests have been suggested in the literature for determining which ofa pair of antonymous adjectives is [+Pol]:146

First, if a member of a pair of antonyms, e.g. lang/kort ‘long, tall’/‘short’,
takes measure phrases, it is positive: 1 meter lang vs. *1 meter kort.
Second, comparative constructions with inchoative copulas, like X gets/ becomes [Adj[±Pol] ]-er, have paraphrases with (synonyms of) stijgen ‘rise’ and dalen‘fall’, corresponding to [+Pol] and [−Pol], respectively. The adjectives in question (say, warm/cold, or expensive/cheap) should be linkable to objective parameter nouns, i.e. nouns referring to measurable properties (e.g. temperature or
price):(3)

X wordt warmer/kouder – De temperatuur van X stijgt (neemt toe)/daalt(neemt af)
X gets warmer/colder – X’s temperature rises (increases)/falls (decreases)(4)

X wordt duurder/goedkoper – De prijs van X stijgt/daalt
X is getting more expensive/cheaper – The price of X is rising/fallingThis test does not work for adjectives not related to objective parameter nouns.
For instance, the pair schadelijk/onschadelijk (harmful/harmless) lacks a corresponding objective parameter noun suitable for an unambiguous test. The ‘degree of harmfulness’ just as well as the ‘degree of harmlessness’ can be said toincrease or decrease.
Third, whereas speakers have little diﬃculty in interpreting expressions like‘zero fertility’ or ‘zero speed’, they ﬁnd it hard to make sense of ‘zero infertility’,or ‘zero slowness’. While many positive gradable adjectives can be associatedwith some ‘zero point’ (absence of any degree of e.g. fertility or speed), it appears diﬃcult to determine such a point for their negative antonyms. (But see
the proviso in the last section, in connection with the ‘black-and-white’ eﬀect.)
In Sassoon’s (2010) terms, while negative adjectives map entities to values thatare ‘linearly reversed’ and ‘linearly transformed’ in comparison with their values
in their positive antonyms, we do not know which linearly reversed function they
denote. Their ‘zero point’ is undetermined.
That an adjective licensing NPIs is not necessarily [−Pol] can be demonstrated with, for instance, moeilijk (hard, diﬃcult). As we saw above, it may occur asa (weak) NE. Still, it must be considered the positive antonym of makkelijk (easy):
zero easiness is puzzling at best, whereas zero diﬃculty is readily interpretable.
Not surprisingly, of the two parameter nouns moeilijkheidsgraad (degree/level/rate of diﬃculty) and (ge)makkelijkheidsgraad (ditto of easiness), the former ismore natural and common. In addition, a low degree of diﬃculty is applicable in147

cases where a thing can be qualiﬁed as easy – which is an indication of the ‘neutral’ character of degree of diﬃculty, even though there is no standard measureof diﬃculty. A low degree of easiness, on the other hand, apart from sounding
odd, does not appear to cover things that may be called diﬃcult.
In order to get a clearer view of what is involved in determining the polarityof gradables, it may be useful to consider their classiﬁcation into subsets. This
will be done in the next section.

2

A taxonomy of gradables

The following is a summary, with some slight adaptations, of a classiﬁcation into
subsets of gradables proposed in Klooster (1976).
Gradables can be either [+Pol] or [−Pol]. They are, furthermore, either ‘objective’, in the sense that they can be linked to objective (i.e measurable) parameters like length or luminosity, – or ‘subjective’. A subset of the objective
gradables consists of adjectives bearing the feature [+Oriented], while all others (whether subjective or objective) are [−Oriented]. (For the sake of convenience, I adopt Bierwisch’s terminology here.) [+Oriented, +Pol] adjectives allow equative constructions with half as, twice as etc., whereas their antonyms do
not; [−Oriented] adjectives on the other hand, whether [+Pol] or [−Pol], always
allow such constructions (Bierwisch 1967):[+Oriented]:(5)a. The table is twice/half as long as the bench.
b. *The table is twice/half as short as the bench.

(6)

a. He is twice/half as old as his brother.
b. *He is twice/half as young as his brother.

[−Oriented]:
(7)

a.
b.

John is twice/half as good at tennis as Bill.
John is twice/half as bad at tennis as Bill .

(8)

a.
b.

The room is twice/half as light as the corridor.
The room is twice/half as dark as the corridor.

The [+Pol, +Oriented] adjectives can all be used in a neutral sense, that is, without presupposing some subjective norm. A subset of these take measure phrases
148

(without requiring the comparative form, as in, for instance, 2 grams heavier, or
preceding too, as in 2 grams too heavy.)
To determine whether a given adjective is subjective, one can check if it ﬁts
in the context I ﬁnd X-er (more) than Y. here are subjective adjectives
for which this test is not suitable, such as dizzy or sick. However, these can betested in contexts like I feel-er (more) now than I did before. I will referto these tests as ‘subjective comparative tests’.
Objective gradables can be used in a subjective sense, presupposing somesubjective norm. Examples are John is old, You are still young, It’s warm/coldin here. They do not, however, pass the ﬁrst subjective comparative test mentioned above,1 and are always associated with some objective scale of measurement. Old, though allowing use in the subjective sense, may occur in the ‘neutral’, objective sense as a measure adjective or, for instance, in questions like
How old are these kittens? Young, presupposing a norm in the example above,
may also occur in the ‘objective’ sense: a few months too young. Similarly, subjective warm (warmS ) has an objective counterpart (warmO ). Like old, warmO canbe related to an objective scale of measurement. Its antonym cold, too, may occur in either sense: it’s cold outside vs. 20 degrees too cold for April.
The above is summarised in (9):
(9)

S
+P

good, beautiful, warmS , etc.

−Pbad, ugly, coldS , etc.

light,
warmO ,
etc.
dark,
coldO ,etc.

−OO
expensive,
heavy, etc.

tall,large, etc.

cheap, light, etc.;
short, small, etc.
+O

(Measure adjectives are in bold italics)

3

Subjectivity, negative antonyms

The meaning aspect shared by all objective gradables can be described by meansof a scale of indeterminate length, starting at a point 0, with points on the scale
1

They do pass the second one, but only when taken in a special sense, as in I feel (c)older now
than I did before.

149

representing certain values. In (10), the value p represents the height of, say,some poplar tree, and e the height of some elm tree, where the poplar is taller
than the elm.
(10)

0

e

(parameter of height)p

The scale being directional, we say that p is at positive distance from e, orD(p,e). For expressing the reverse, negative distance, we need the complementof D, D’: for all parameter values x,y (x̸=y), D’(x,y) is equivalent to D(y,x) as wellas to(D(x,y)). Thus, since e is at a negative distance from p (the elm is less tallthan the poplar), we can also represent the relation between e and p by writing
D’(e,p).2
One diﬀerence between objective and subjective gradables seems to be thatthe scales associated with the latter do not have a deﬁnite starting point or ‘zero’
point. The fact that the ‘zero point’ criterion mentioned in section 1 gives theclearest results with objective adjectives (e.g., ?? zero slowness vs. (?) zero carelessness) may well be related to this. According to Sassoon (2010: 176), “positive[objective, WK] adjectives tend not to have a maximal point (e.g., there is notallest point), a fact which renders the zero point of their negative antonym undeﬁned.”
For subjective gradables, as well as for [−Pol] objective ones like short ordark, we must introduce a norm N on the scale, the scale having, in the case ofobjective adjectives, a zero point, as in (10). N is not necessarily a point; it may
be a ‘grey area’ corresponding to notions like ‘average’ or ‘neither’ (e.g., ‘neither
beautiful nor ugly, but something in-between’). Thus, we can represent the relevant semantic properties of, say, beautiful/ugly as in (11), where x, y, u, v, w andz are ‘beauty values’ attributed to X, Y, U, V, W and Z, respectively.

2

The well-known fact that than-clauses contain an abstract negative operator can be accounted for in this approach by having the logical representation of comparative constructions
express that there are values v between the compared values, say, e and p, such that D(v,e) &D(v,p) (Klooster 2016). In terms of ‘extent’ this can be reformulated by stating that, for some extents ep,e , the poplar is tall to ep while it is not the case that the extent ee to which the elm is tallequals or includes ep .

150

(11)

x

y

u

v

w

z
(parameter of beauty)N‘X and Y are ugly’‘X uglier than Y’‘Y less ugly than X’‘W and Z are beautiful’‘Z more beautiful than W’‘W less beautiful than Z’

In (11), both x and y are at negative distance from N (‘X and Y are ugly’). Furthermore, x is at negative distance from y (‘X is uglier than Y’), and y is at positive
distance from x (‘Y is less ugly than X’). The relationships between w, z and N
can be stated analogously, with ‘negative’ switched to ‘positive’ and vice versa.
If two values in a comparison are within N, like u and v in (13), then, in myjudgment, something like ‘(both are average but) U is less beautiful than V’ would
seem more appropriate than ‘(both are average but) V is less ugly than U’. If thisintuition is correct, it is consistent with the idea that we are dealing with a ‘scaleof beauty’ rather than of ugliness, and hence, with the intuition that beautiful is[+Pol].
What if the compared values are each in a diﬀerent ‘subparameter’, ugly andbeautiful? In a context where, say, Snow White is beautiful and the queen (in disguise) ugly, The queen is less beautiful than Snow White would perhaps be acceptable as an understatement. Substituting less beautiful by uglier here, however,would produce a statement not applicable in such a context. I am not quite certain about Snow White is less ugly than the queen and Snow White is more beautiful than the queen. The former seems more comical than the latter.
Can there be a ‘zero’ beauty value? On the Web, occurrences – in the senses
intended – are scarce of zero beauty (three times), as well as of zero ugliness (justonce). It seems safe to assume that subjective adjectives do not have minimum
or maximum values. It could very well be, though, that whenever zero beauty,
zero diﬃculty etc. do occur, such expressions refer to the left hand boundary of N,
or to N itself, should N be a single point on the scale. The latter occurs in certain
contexts where N reduces to a sharp boundary between the two subparameters,
giving rise to the ‘black-and-white’ eﬀect, so that not beautiful comes to mean
‘ugly’ and not ugly, ‘beautiful’, etc. In such cases, expressions like zero uglinessdo make sense, contrary to what the third criterion mentioned in section 1 would
lead one to expect.
In any case, clearly the notion ‘norm’ must be present in some form or otherin lexical entries of subjective gradables and [−Pol] objective ones. The entriesof all [−Pol] adjectives, furthermore, should somehow express that they map
151some value x on the scale involved, such that, for some norm N, x is at a negative
distance from N, that is,D(x,N).
The fact that pairs like warm/cold, light/dark, or sharp/vague (said of images)
refer to sensory perceptions, which are in themselves subjective, may be related
to their sharing the feature [−Oriented] with subjective adjectives. At the sametime, like other objective adjectives, they are associated with objective parameters (temperature, luminosity, resolution).

4

Conclusion. Negative antonyms vs. adjectival NEs

Kennedy (1998) argues that there is a connection between a gradable adjective’s
being [−Pol] and its being monotone decreasing, that is, an NE. But as I argued
above, this connection does not seem to exist. Dangerous in (1) is [+Pol]: ‘zero
danger’ seems less odd than ‘zero safety’. (Occurrences of zero safety can befound on the Web, but never with the meaning ‘absence of safety’.) Diﬃcult in(2), as pointed out earlier, is also [+Pol]. The fact that nevertheless these adjectives license NPIs must mean that it is not the negative distance from somenorm N which somehow causes them to function as NEs. Rather, the evaluationof properties like ‘dangerous’ or ‘diﬃcult’ relative to what is desirable underlies
their being felt as negative.
Of the antonyms zwaar ‘heavy, hard’ and licht ‘light, easy’, the former is[+Pol]. Yet it can function as an NE, while licht cannot (cf. (12)). Similarly,ver ‘far’ is [+Pol] – for instance, it takes measure phrases – and dichtbij ‘close’is [−Pol]. But far licenses NPIs, whereas close does not (cf. (13)).
(12)

a.

Het viel hem zwaar om dat te verkroppen.
It fell him heavythat to swallow‘It was hard for him to swallow that.’b. *Het viel hem licht om dat te verkroppen.

(13)

a.

De hut was ver van (ook maar) enige bewoonde plek.
The hut was far from even just any inhabited spot
‘The hut was far from any inhabited place.‘b. *De hut was dichtbij van (ook maar) enige bewoonde plek.

The ‘negativity’ of zwaar ‘hard’ and ver ‘far’ in (12) and (13) may have an explanation similar to the one suggested above regarding dangerous and diﬃcult.
Concluding, I submit that the above observations in connection with criteria152

for determining whether an adjective is ‘negative’ (in the sense of [−Pol]) andthose regarding adjectival NEs, at least cast doubt on the idea that there areadjectives licensing NPIs by virtue of their being negative antonyms.

References
Bierwisch, M. 1967. Some semantic universals of German adjectives. Foundations of Language 3. 1–36.
Haegeman, L. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Kennedy, C. 1998. On the monotonicity of polar adjectives. http://
semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy/docs/monotonicity.pdf.
Klooster, W. 1976. Adjectieven, neutraliteit en comparatieven. In G. Koefoed& A. Evers (eds.), Lijnen van taaltheoretisch onderzoek. 229–259. Groningen:
Tjeenk Willink.
Klooster, W. 2016.
CPs and monotonicity. In A. Bannink & W. Honselaar(eds.), From variation to iconicity. festschrift for Olga Fischer on the occasion ofher 65th birthday. 221–248. Amsterdam: Pegasus.
Sassoon, G.W. 2010. Degree functions of negative adjectives. Natural Language
Semantics 18. 41–81.

153

Fanbrief
Fan mail
Karen Lahousse*
Beste Liliane,

Ik richt maar even het woord tot jou in onze moedertaal, hoewel… dat klopt
natuurlijk niet helemaal: allebei zijn we opgegroeid met de ronkende klanken
van ons heerlijke West-Vlaamse dialect, op de cadans van het alom tegenwoordige motto – de provinciale hymne zou je bijna kunnen zeggen – doe mo geweune
voart ‘doe maar gewoon voort’.
En ‘gewoon voortdoen’, dat heb je gedaan. . . en hoe! Je bent een van de allerbeste internationale taalkundigen, met een duizelingwekkende wetenschappelijke output op zoveel domeinen van de syntaxis en over zoveel talen. Het isdan ook niet makkelijk om alles wat je gedaan hebt en alles waar we je dankbaar voor zijn in één tekst te vatten. Toch zal ik hier een poging wagen, omdat
ik je graag mee wil geven hoezeer ik jou en je taalkundige werk apprecieer, en
hoezeer je mij en vele anderen inspireert.
Wat mij steeds opnieuw treft wanneer ik een artikel of boek van je lees, ishoe fundamenteel eerlijk je onderzoek is. Die eerlijkheid manifesteert zich eerst
en vooral in de stevige empirische basis van je analyses: generalisaties en claims
baseer je op reeksen van descriptieve argumenten, mooie minimale paren en
sprekende voorbeelden van authentiek taalgebruik uit verschillende registers. In
jouw artikels worden lastige of onverklaarbare gegevens niet in voetnoten weggestopt; in jouw artikels zijn er geen theorie-interne argumenten zonder onafhankelijke descriptieve staving. Deze empirische onderbouwing maakt je werk
tijdloos, zorgt ervoor dat het relevant is – en zal blijven – voor huidige en toekomstige taalkundigen van verschillende strekkingen.
*[English translation below]154

Je absolute en principiële eerlijkheid is daarnaast ook duidelijk voelbaar inde manier waarop je krediet geeft aan andere onderzoekers. De bibliograﬁeën
van je artikels en boeken zijn nagenoeg exhaustief, je verwijst steevast naar een
groot aantal eerdere werken over het onderwerp, of dat nu recente of oudere publicaties zijn, in grote of minder grote tijdschriften, van mensen uit je inner circleof van onderzoekers met een volledig andere achtergrond, van analyses waar je
het mee eens of niet mee eens bent. Je neemt iedereen serieus en behandelt
iedereen gelijk, of het nu gaat om een absolute beginner of een bekende naamin het wereldje.
Vanuit een meer theoretisch perspectief hou ik ook erg van de manier waaropje, met een hele rij aan glasheldere descriptieve en theoretische argumenten,
nagenoeg vastgeroeste hypotheses in de taalkundige literatuur aan het wankelen weet te brengen, of het nu gaat om de positie van links-perifere topics in het
Engels en de Romaanse talen, of de syntactische positie van de focus van een gekloofde zin, om er maar een paar te noemen. Als jij je licht hebt laten schijnen op
een of ander fenomeen, wordt er nadien niet meer geschreven ‘there is no consensus on. . .’: de argumenten die je aanbrengt zijn meestal zó overtuigend en
doordacht dat er nadien gewoonweg geen discussie over het onderwerp meerís.
Je onderzoek heeft veel andere taalkundigen geïnspireerd: je werk zet steeds
aan tot nadenken, het geeft de lezer zin om iets verder uit te spitten, te toetsen
aan een andere taal of dialect. Het is een grote verdienste van je onderzoek,
dat het tegelijk iets afrondt én opnieuw een opening creëert en toekomstig onderzoek initieert. Zo ben ik een hevige fan van je werk over gekloofde zinnen,
waar je onomstotelijk aantoont dat het gekloofde element zich niet in de linker
periferie van de zin bevindt. Dat is alvast één debat minder in de taalkundige
literatuur. Ook je vele onderzoek naar bijwoordelijke bijzinnen en hoofdzinsverschijnselen, waarin je de functioneel-taalkundige literatuur de erkenning geeft
die ze verdient in dit domein, en waarin je het verband legt met lokaliteitsrestricties, heeft mijn werk over het Frans erg beïnvloed. Verder hou ik van de manier
waarop je concepten uit Informatiestructuur gebruikt in je syntactisch werk: met
een grote omzichtigheid, en zonder ze volledig te herleiden tot een puur syntactisch kenmerk. Met je ideeën over voorwaardelijke bijzinnen heb ik tot nog toe
niets gedaan, maar dat zit er zeker aan te komen. Je blijft inspireren.
Zelf blijf je ook inspiratie vinden: je hebt een immense gedrevenheid, eenbijna buitenaardse of in ieder geval toch bovenmenselijke output (vergeef mij
deze adjectieven waarbij je – nuchter als je bent – wellicht je wenkbrauwen fronst).
In Leuven ging en gaat nog steeds het verhaal – ik vertelde het je al eens eerder –155dat er ooit een scatterplot werd gemaakt van de wetenschappelijke output van
Vlaamse taalkundigen, en dat jij daarin een heel extreme waarde innam. In die
zin hebben de adjectieven buitenaards en bovenmenselijk, die ik hierboven gebruikte, toch wel enige iconische waarde. . .
Het eerste dat ik van jou las, was je Introduction to Government and Binding
Theory, het boek met de grijze kaft dat ik na een tijdje bijna uit het hoofd kende,
een handboek van een ongekende helderheid, enorm aantrekkelijk voor de beginnende en hongerige taalkundige die ik was. Met dat boek heb je een hele generatie jonge mensen overtuigd van het belang van de generatieve taalkunde,
heb je glashelder uitgelegd wat de empirische basisvragen zijn van het model,
de explicative power ervan, de basismethodologie, de uitgangspunten. In naam
van al deze mensen: bedankt daarvoor!
Fantastisch is het hoe je de generatieve taalkunde weer helemaal binnenbracht in België. Ik weet nog goed hoe we, zo’n tien jaar geleden, hoorden vanje benoeming als Odysseus-professor in Gent. Het was alsof er plots weer een
toekomst was voor generatieve taalkunde in Vlaanderen: wij onderzoekers die
ons tot dan toe een beetje ‘verscholen’, of onderdak zochten in het buitenland,
mochten plots weer gewoon generatieve-taalkundige-in-Vlaanderen zijn . . . zo
voelde het toch aan. Met jouw aanstelling was er in Vlaanderen plots weer openlijk erkenning van de generatieve taalkunde; plots was er weer bedrijvigheid, waren er conferenties, contacten en mogelijkheden, en werden er weer heel wat
jonge mensen aangetrokken om hier taalkundig onderzoek te doen over fascinerende syntactische onderwerpen. Bedankt ook daarvoor!
Je hebt ook het West-Vlaams op de taalkundige kaart gezet: je artikels overcomplementizer agreement, negative doubling, possessor relations en pronomina in het West-Vlaams zijn pareltjes die – voor wie er nog aan zou twijfelen– aantonen hoe schijnbaar kleine observaties op een micro-niveau implicaties
kunnen hebben voor taalvergelijking op een macro-niveau en taalkundige theorie in het algemeen. Dankzij jou is ‘West-Flemish’ een begrip geworden in degeneratieve taalkunde: hoe vaak heb ik niet op een of ander diner van een conferentie, waar iemand me vroeg naar mijn moedertaal, zonder veel verdere uitleg
kunnen antwoorden: “Liliane’s dialect”.
Bedankt, Liliane, dat je met zoveel zorg zetelt in wetenschappelijke commissies. Voor veel mensen, ook niet-generativisten, is het een geruststelling dat
iemand met zo’n principes, iemand die zo objectief en eerlijk is, waakt over deingediende dossiers.
Bedankt, voor de kansen die je me hebt gegeven, bijvoorbeeld om te spreken
op de Subjects Workshop in 2012. Bedankt ook voor de kleine babbeltjes die we156

zo nu en dan hadden, meestal in de marge van een lezing, doctoraatsverdediging
of congres, soms via de telefoon, en waarbij het me meer dan eens opviel hoe jeterecht verontwaardigd blijft over bepaalde situaties, zonder na een tijdje overte gaan tot gelaten schouderophalen.
Het is erg moeilijk om voor te stellen dat jij op emeritaat gaat, en stiekem
denk (en hoop) ik dan ook dat je gewoon even productief zult blijven als voordien, omdat je je nu helemaal kunt wijden aan de kern, het taalkundig wetenschappelijk onderzoek, zonder alle administratieve rompslomp die een academische carrière ook met zich meebrengt. Als dat is wat je wil, dan wens ik het jevan harte toe!
Maar toch hoop ik dat je daarnaast ook substantieel meer tijd zult krijgen
én nemen voor al het niet-taalkundige dat je graag doet, voor alles wat je rust en
warmte brengt, voor de kleine dingetjes die het leven zo mooi maken, van frozen
yoghurt en poezengesnor tot intense momenten met wie je lie ebt. Bedanktvoor alles! Toet in’ droai!

Karen Lahousse (KU Leuven, België)157

Dear Liliane1 ,I’ll address you in our mother tongue, although… that’s not exactly true, isit? Both of us grew up with the throbbing sounds of our delightful West-Flemish
dialect, on the cadence of the omnipresent motto – the provincial hymn, one
could say – doe mo geweune voart ‘just keep going’.
And ‘just keep going’, you’ve certainly done that… and how! You are one ofthe very best international linguists, with a dazzling scientiﬁc output in so many
areas of syntax and about so many languages. This makes it quite hard to summarize in a small text like this one everything you’ve done and all that we’re so
grateful for. I will nonetheless give it a try, because I would really like to show you
how much I appreciate you and your linguistic work, and how much you inspireme and others.
What strikes me time and again when I read one of your articles or books is
how fundamentally honest your research is. That honesty manifests itself ﬁrst
and foremost in the thorough empirical basis of your analyses: you base your generalizations and claims on descriptive arguments, elegant minimal pairs and vivid examples of authentic language use from diﬀerent registers. In your articles,
tricky or inexplicable data are not hidden in footnotes; your articles don’t containtheory-internal arguments without independent descriptive support. This empirical foundation makes your work timeless and assures that it is – and will remain– relevant for contemporary and future linguists with diﬀerent backgrounds.
Your absolute and principled honesty is also illustrated by the way in which
you give credit to other researchers. Your articles’ and books’ bibliographies arepractically exhaustive, you consistently refer to a large number of previous works
on the topic, whether they be recent or older publications, in bigger or smaller
journals, written by people from your inner circle or by researchers with a completely diﬀerent background, whether you agree with the analysis or not. You
take everyone seriously and you treat people equally, regardless of whether they
are absolute beginners or well-established names in the ﬁeld.
From a more theoretical perspective, I also really like the way in which you
manage to undermine long-standing, rusty hypotheses in the linguistic literature by means of a whole number of crystal-clear descriptive and theoretical arguments. These hypotheses cover a range of subjects, such as the position of1[Dutch (original) version above]158

left-peripheral topics in English and Romance languages and the syntactic position of the focal element of cleft sentences, to mention but a few. Once you
have shed your light on some phenomenon, people no longer write “There isno consensus on…”: the arguments you present are usually so convincing andthought-through that a discussion about that phenomenon is simply no longer
possible.
Your research has inspired many other linguists: your work always provides
food for thought, it makes the reader want to delve into the matter, to check it
in a diﬀerent language or dialect. One of the great merits of your work is thatit rounds oﬀ things, but at the same time it creates new starting points for future research. For instance, I am a huge fan of your work on clefts, in which you
indisputably show that the clefted element is not located in the left periphery.
One issue linguists don’t have to worry about anymore. Other analyses you haveconducted and which have largely inﬂuenced my own work on French are yourmany papers on adverbial clauses and main clause phenomena, in which you
give the functional linguistic literature the credits it deserves in this area, andin which you demonstrate connections with locality and relativized minimality. I
also very much appreciate the way you use notions related to information structure in your syntactic work: with great caution and without reducing them entirely to syntactic features. I haven’t put your ideas about conditional clauses into
practice yet, but that’s bound to happen soon. You keep inspiring me.
You also keep ﬁnding your own inspiration: you are immensely driven andyour output is almost extraterrestrial or at least superhuman (forgive me for theseadjectives that may make you frown, given your sober nature). In Leuven there’s
this rumor (I’ve told you about it before) that they once generated a scatterplotof the scientiﬁc output of Flemish linguists and that you were an absolute outlier. In this sense, the adjectives extraterrestrial and superhuman, which I used
above, do have some iconic value . . .
I was ﬁrst introduced to your work when I read Introduction to Government
and Binding Theory, the book with the grey cover that I almost knew by heart, amanual of unprecedented clarity, extremely attractive to a beginning and hungry linguist such as myself at the time. With this book, you have convinced awhole generation of young linguists of the importance of generative linguistics,
you’ve explained in a crystal-clear manner what the main empirical questionsof the model are, what its explicative power is, what its basic methodology andpremises are. On behalf of all these people: thank you!
It’s also fantastic how you were able to bring generative linguistics back to
Belgium. I remember very clearly how we heard about your nomination as Odys159

seus professor in Gent about 10 years ago. It was as though generative linguistics
in Flanders suddenly had a future again: we, researchers who had thus far been
more or less “in hiding” or had sought refuge abroad, could all of a sudden be
generative linguists in Flanders out in the open. . . or at least that’s how it felt.
With your appointment, Flanders suddenly acknowledged generative linguistics
again; there was activity again, there were conferences, contacts and possibilities, and quite a number of young people were compelled to do research aboutfascinating syntactic subjects again. Thanks for that as well!
You’ve put West-Flemish on the linguistic map: your papers on complementizer agreement, negative doubling, possessor relations and pronouns in WestFlemish are pearls that – should anyone still have doubts about this – show how
apparently small observations on a micro-level can have implications for linguistic comparison on a macro-level and for linguistic theory in general. Thanks toyou, “West-Flemish” has made a name for itself in generative linguistics: it has
happened so often at conference dinners that I was asked about my mother tongue, and without further explanation, I could answer: “Liliane’s dialect”.
Thank you, Liliane, for participating in scientiﬁc committees with your care.
It’s a great comfort for many people, generativists and non-generativists alike,that such a principled person, someone who is that objective and honest, watches over the submitted applications.
Thank you for the chances you have given me, for instance the opportunity to
speak at the Subjects Workshop in 2012. Thanks also for the short chats we’ve had
every now and then, usually at some lecture, doctoral defense or conference,sometimes on the phone. It struck me more than once how genuinely oﬀended
you still are about certain situations, without shrugging your shoulders about itafter some time.
It’s very hard to image you retiring, and I still secretly think (and hope) thatyou will simply remain as productive as before, because you will be able to dedicate all our time to the core, scientiﬁc linguistic research, without the administrative burden that also comes with an academic career. If that’s what you
want, I hope with all my heart you will achieve it!
But I also hope that you will have (and take!) a lot more time for all the nonlinguistic things you like to do, everything that brings you peace and quiet andwarmth, all the small things that make life so beautiful, from frozen yoghurt tocats snoring to intense moments with your loved ones.
Thank you for everything! Toet in’ droai! ‘See you later’!

160

Morphology Driven by Syntax:
XP Movement and Allomorphy
Tom Leu*

1

Introduction

In the introduction to syntax class I took with Liliane Haegeman in 1994 in
Geneva, I sure learned that syntax was driven by morphology. This was primarilyreferring to head movement (Pollock 1989), as I recall. Later that decade comingback from the GLOW meeting in Berlin, I had the pleasure of bringing Liliane ahandout by Matt Pearson on X(P)-movement which she seemed interested in.
Now, two decades later, the relation between syntax and morphology is still on
many a syntactician’s daily mind, and (even) the head vs XP-movement issue
doesn’t seem to have been decisively settled on all battle grounds. Therefore
I will address, in this short paper, how some aspect of morphology is driven bysyntax, and more concretely, how an XP movement analysis of verb movement
makes more interesting predictions for allomorphy than a head movement analysis, exempliﬁed for one particular kind of case. I do so by adding to Merchant’s(2015) discussion of Greek verb stem allomorphy an analytical option which was
not considered by Merchant. I will show how my proposal is able to capture thefact that although four feature (value)s are among the conditioning factors, theresultant allomorphy patterns are systematically limited to a maximally threeway variation.

*

I’m very grateful to Arhonto Terzi, Jason Merchant, Heather Newell, and Lena Baunaz for
helpful feedback on an earlier version of this paper.

161

2

Merchant (2015): Spanning allomorphy

Merchant discusses locality constraints on the conditioning context for suppletive allomorphy as exempliﬁed by the voice-aspect system of Greek verbal morphology. The backdrop to his discussion is work by Bobaljik (2000, 2012) andEmbick (2010) from which Merchant distills the following proposals:1
(1)

a.
b.

Lexical insertion proceeds bottom-up / root-outward.
Contextual allomorphy requires linear adjacency.

Merchant calls (1b) the Node Adjacency Hypothesis. The assumed syntactic ((2)a)
and corresponding synthetic ((2)b) structures for the clause and verb, respectively, express the semantic composition of Aspect with a previously formed
VoiceP.
(2)

a.

b.

Tense

Tense
AspectVoice

Aspect

Tense

v VP
Voice
v

Aspect

Voice

Verb v

2.1 Merchant’s explicit problem
Modern Greek verb morphology, as discussed by Merchant, exhibits stem allomorphy sensitive to the combination of Voice and Aspect speciﬁcations, which,in some relevant cases, are individually realized/lexicalized, as illustrated in (4d)below. Of particular (though not exclusive) gravity are three verbs which exhibita three-way stem suppletion pattern that is sensitive to a combination of (thefeatures of) Voice and Aspect.2 (3) gives the three stems (with the non.active
suﬃx -θ-) for the three suppletive verbs with a description of the relevant conditioning environments (Merchant 2015: p.277, 11).
1

For fuller discussion, obviously, see the sources cited, among others.
A larger set of verbs raises the same locality issue for non-suppletive allomorphy, all of which
also show at most a three-way allomorphy pattern, cf. (Merchant 2015: 281).
2

162

(3)
a.
b.
c.

‘eat’
tro(ɣ)fa(ɣ)faɣó-θ-‘see’vlepðiðo-θ-‘say’le(ɣ)plex-θ-/ipo-θ-.

.
.

The categories that determine the context for allomorph selection are sometimes not overtly realized. This fact has some systematicity to it, to which I will
return.
(4)

a.

b.

c.

d.

tróo
tró -Ø -Ø
eat tróɣometróɣ -Øeat .
fáo
fá -Ø -Øeat faɣóθikafaɣó -θ
eat .

-o
-

.

-Ø
-o
-ik
-

.1.
-ome
.

.

.1.

.1.
-a
-

.1.

I will, for the sake of argument, assume Merchant’s morphological segmentation
to be correct. Since Greek (4d) has overt exponents in both (non-active) Voiceand (perfective) Aspect, pruning (i.e. structural annihilation of heads) is not an
option. And since Voice and Aspect are individually targeted by VI (Vocabulary
Insertion) in (4d), they clearly are not fused.
In [+active] Voice, vocabulary insertion needs to know perfective from imperfective contexts, (4a) vs (4c). And in [-active] Voice, vocabulary insertion, too,needs to know perfective from imperfective contexts, (4b) vs (4d). Hence, assuming ((2)b), there is a locality problem: Allomorph selection for the stem issensitive to features of a non-adjacent head. In Merchant’s words: “The form of
the stem is determined by the aspect of the verb, but by hypothesis, this aspectual
node is not adjacent to the stem in the non-active” (p.281).
The vocabulary items (lexical insertion rules) in (5) capture the right distribution. As Merchant points out (p.280), making stem-allomorph selection sensitive to the presence of /θ/ (which would correctly register non-active perfective)
would violate inside-out lexicalization, and is, therefore, on standard assump-163tions not available.
√(5)a. √EAT → fa(ɣ) /Voice[+act] Aspect[+perf]
b. √EAT → faɣo /Voice[-act] Aspect[+perf]c.
EAT→tro(ɣ)(elsewhereform,[±active].[imperfective])

found

in

Of particular relevance to the proposal I will develop in section 3 is that in theimperfective, (5c) is used irrespective of the Voice speciﬁcation. Hence it is theperfective Aspect that correlates with the more speciﬁc allomorphy, where allomorph allomorph selection diﬀerentiates Voice speciﬁcation.

2.2

Merchant’s proposal

Keeping to the structure in ((2)b), Merchant loosens the locality requirementson allomorphy to a suﬃcient degree by calling upon the notion of span (Abels& Muriungi 2008, Taraldsen 2010, Svenonius 2012) which has been formulated
in some of the nanosyntactic literature. Merchant (p.288) mentions Svenonius’(2012) formulation of a span as “a complement sequence of heads ... in a single
extended projection.” This shall be suﬃciently precise for our purposes. His proposal now consists of two claims, which can be informally rendered as follows.
(6)

a.
b.

Only a span can be targeted by vocabulary insertion.
Allomorphy can be conditioned only by an adjacent span.

(6a) is standard in the spanning literature.3 (6b) is Merchant’s replacement of(1b), which he calls the Span Adjacency Hypothesis. Note that whether the headsof a span are lexicalized individually or in a portmanteau fashion is immaterial totheir involvement in allomorph-selection in a subjacent node.4 This is, of course,
expected (for inside-out sensitivity) given inside-out lexicalization.

2.3

Merchant’s (implicit) prediction

Of interest to my contribution here is the prediction, implied in Merchant’s proposal, regarding the variety of allomorphy patterns allowed and hence expected.
3This allows an X-bar friendly variant of aspects of Brody’s (2000) mirror theory proposal.
“Allomorphy is […] conditioned locally […] by features in adjacent spans, whether or not thosespans are themselves lexicalized by Vocabulary items.” (Merchant 2015: 294)
4

164

In the empirical domain of Modern Greek verbs considered by Merchant, we observe three allomorphy patterns: (a) lack of allomorphic variation (e.g. enθarin‘encourage’, p.283, 20, 15); (b) two-way allomorphy (e.g. din- / di- ‘dress’, p.283,
20, 12); and (c) three-way allomorphy (e.g. empne- / empnef- / empnefs- ‘inspire’,
p.283, 20, 3). The latter pattern constituted the crucial cases for his proposal.
Interestingly, though, Merchant’s proposal would also allow a four-way
allomorphy pattern in which diﬀerent stem variants would be used in active.imperfective vs. nonactive.imperfective. This, however, does not seem to
be attested in Modern Greek. In other words, his proposal may be too permissive. More speciﬁcally, not only is there maximally three-way stem allomorphy,
but all such cases exhibit the same conditionning contexts. Furthermore the conditioning contexts in the two-way allomorphy cases forms a subset of the threeway pattern. In particular, there is no case of sensitivity to [±active] in the imperfective. On Merchant’s account, there is no reason to expect this asymmetry.
In the next section, I will brieﬂy outline an alternative which allows only up toa three-way allomorphy pattern, excluding the unattested fourth case.5

3

An XP-alternative

Key to the limitation to a three-way allomorphy pattern is, I believe, the observation that, while indeed stem selection shows sensitivity to both Aspect (perfective vs imperfective) and Voice (active vs nonactive), the Voice-sensitivity is limited to one of the values of the aspectual contrast. Concretely, stem selection issensitive to the [±active] Voice distinction only in the perfective. On Merchant’s
analysis this is accidental. I will try to provide a rationale for it.
I will, without discussion, adopt Merchant’s (and hence indirectly Rivero’s
1990) data structural lay of the land, in particular, the syntactic hierarchy in((2)a), the treatment of perfective and imperfective as the two values of the same
syntactic head Aspect6 , and the overt morphological segmentation (i.e. the proposal that -ik- spells out [perfective] in [-active][+past] environments, andthat -θ- spells out [-active] in [perfective] environments7 ).
5Christopoulos & Petrosino (2017) propose another account of the Merchant facts, respecting
strict adjacency by making use of post-syntactic re-bracketing. Their proposal is, however, inert
relative to the limitation to the three-way allomorphy pattern I observe.
6
Abandoning this assumption might allow for a more elegant variant of my alternative, but
it would also require a more spacious elaboration.
7
These relevant contexts are all linearly adjacent to the lexicalisation target on my proposal,

165

What I crucially reject from his proposal is the idea that the inﬂected verb
corresponds to a complex syntactic head derived by head-movement. Instead I
assume verb movement to be XP-movement (Koopman & Szabolcsi 2000, Mahajan 2003). More concretely, the verb moves qua vP or VoiceP (or...), i.e. in a
successive-cyclic or a roll-up fashion (Cinque 2005).8
Let me propose that Modern Greek distinguishes perfective and imperfective in its syntactic derivation: Aspperfective attracts Voice(P), but Aspimperfective attracts vP, rather than Voice.9
(7)

a.

AspP
VoicePb.

Asp[V-v]-±active
AspP
vP
V-v

[perf]

tVoiceP

Asp[imperf]

VoiceP
tvP±active tvP

Furthermore, Aspimperfective seems to have the property of hiding from PF everything its mother dominates (i.e. itself and its complement), cf. Merchant (2001)
on sluicing.10
On this proposal, out of the four logically possible feature combinations (asignoring traces.
8
For the present discussion, the crucial diﬀerence between XP-movement and head movement emerges on the standard assumption that head movement disallows excorporation. If thatassumption is abandoned, my proposal can be mimicked in head movement terms.
9
It may not be accidental that it is the imperfective - aspect which references “the internal
temporal structure of the [event]” (Comrie 1976: 24) - that requires a closer syntactic relation
with vP, i.e. with the event.
10
An eﬀect being that there is no overt mirror principle violation. The fact that the relevant
heads are non-overt in the conﬁguration in which their overtness would violate the mirror (i.e.
imperfective everywhere and voice in the imperfective) may well suggest a more principled analysis of this correlation, perhaps in terms of phrasal spellout (cf. Starke 2009, Caha 2009). I will
leave this for other (occasion)s.

166

suming, as Merchant does, a binary Voice and a binary Aspect opposition) exactly three strictly linear stem adjacency possibilities are derivable (8). The linearly adjacent environment of the verb stem is identical in (8c) and (8d):
(8)

a.
b.
c.
d.

[V+v] - [Voiceactive ] - [Aspectperfective ][V+v] - [Voicenon−active ] - [Aspectperfective ][V+v] - [Aspectimperfective ] - [Voiceactive ][V+v] - [Aspectimperfective ] - [Voicenon−active ]Therefore at most a three-way allomorphy pattern is admissible under strict linear adjacency.
√(9)a. √EAT → fa(ɣ) /Voice[+act]
b. √EAT → faɣo/Voice[-act]c.
EAT → tro(ɣ)(elsewhere)
In the imperfective, the stem is not adjacent to Voice and hence the elsewhereform is used. To enhance clarity, please consult the tree diagrams for the
1. .
.
.
form faɣó-θ-ik-a (8b)=(9b) in (10),(10)

faɣó-θ-ik-a

(1.

.

.

.

)

TP

T

AspP
[1
VoiceP
vP

Asp

Voice

faɣó

[-

tvP

[

tVoiceP

.

]

-a

]
-ik

]
-θ

and for the 1.

.

.

.

167

form troɣ-ómun (8d)=(9c) in (11).

(11)troɣ-ómun

(1.

.

.
TP

.

AspP

T
[1

vP
Asp

troɣ

)

]

tvP

Voice

tvP

-Ø
[-

]

-ómun

VoiceP[.

]-ØThis analysis makes a second prediction, essentially a ﬂip-side prediction of the
ﬁrst: Given that T is linearly adjacent to Aspect in the perfective, and linearly adjacent to Voice in the imperfective, it seems natural to expect the possibility of allomorphy in T (tense-agreement) to be sensitive to a [±active] Voice contrast in
the imperfective but not in the perfective. This is illustrated here by the 1 .
forms of the verb tróo ‘I eat’ in (12)–(13), comparing the tense-agreement forms(following Merchant taken as fusional, which may be too simplistic) across thefour cells of the ±active and ±perfective dimension.
(12)

Imperfective (1 .
, ‘eat’)a.
:é-troɣ-ab.
: troɣ-ómun

(13)

Perfective (1
a.
:
b.
-

.
:

, ‘eat’)é-faɣ-afaɣó-θ-ik-a

The non-active imperfective (12b) is the odd one out. Since only in the imperfective is T linearly adjacent to Voice on my proposal (cf. (11)), this can be suppletion conditioned by [-active] Voice, assuming that the morphosyntactic features
stick around for another while after VI. The pattern seems to be rather pervasivein Greek verbal morphology across diﬀerent conjugation classes and diﬀerent168tenses.11 Whether this prediction withstands more detailed scrutiny, only such
scrutiny will be able to tell.

4

Conclusion

Modern Greek verb stem allomorphy shows sensitivity to perfective vs imperfective Aspect, and within perfective Aspect to the [±active] Voice distinction.
On the assumption that Verb, Voice, and Aspect are individuel syntactic heads inthat (hierarchical) order, the sensitivity to both Voice and Aspect has been taken
argued, by Merchant, to show the need to loosen the locality restrictions on theconditioning of vocabulary insertion from strict linear node adjacency to span
adjacency.
Observing that the observable allomorphy patterns do not exploit the fullpotential of diversity allowed under Merchant’s approach, but instead systematically fail to distinguish [±active] Voice in the imperfective, I propose an analysis
in which the verb stem is linearly adjacent to Voice only in the perfective, and isadjacent to Aspect in the imperfective. On this analysis, strict linear adjacency
in allomorph selection without reference to spans can be maintained.
The contrast in linear adjacency is derived on the assumption that word formation is accomplished syntactically, by XP-movement, in conjunction with theproposal that Voice attracts vP, perfective Aspect attracts VoiceP, and, crucially,
imperfective Aspect attracts vP.
The proposal may catch a second ﬂy on the same boat, providing the beginning of a principled approach to the generalization that the tense-agreement
exponent shows sensitivity to nonactive in the imperfective but not in the perfective.

References
Abels, K. & Muriungi, P. 2008. The focus particle in Kîîtharaka: Syntax and semantics. Lingua 118. 687–731.
Bobaljik, J. 2000. The ins and outs of contextual allomorphy. In K. Grohmann &C. Struijke (eds.), University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 10.
35–71.
11

I’m grateful to Arhonto Terzi for very helpful conﬁrmation of this prediction.

169

Bobaljik, J. 2012. Universals in comparative morphology. Suppletion, superlatives,
and the structure of words. Cambridge, Mass.: MITPress.
Brody, M. 2000. Mirror theory 31(1). 29–56.
Caha, P. 2009. The nanosyntax of case: University of Tromsø dissertation.
Christopoulos, C. & Petrosino, R. 2017. Greek root allomorphy without spans. In
Proceedings of WCCFL 35.
Cinque, G. 2005. Deriving Greenberg’s Universal 20 and its Exceptions 36. 315–
332.
Comrie, B. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge University Press.
Embick, D. 2010. Localism versus globalism in morphology and phonology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Koopman, H. & Szabolcsi, A. 2000. Verbal complexes. MIT Press.
Mahajan, A. 2003. Word order and (remnant) VP movement. In S. Karimi (ed.),Word order and scrambling. 217–237. Oxford: Blackwell.
Merchant, J. 2001. The syntax of silence: Sluicing, islands and the theory of ellipsis.
Oxford University Press.
Merchant, J. 2015. How much context is enough? Two cases of spanconditionned stem allomorphy. Linguistic Inquiry 46(273–303).
Pearson, M. 1999. X(P)-movement and word order typology. ‘direct’ vs. ‘inverse’languages. GLOW handout.
Pollock, J.Y. 1989. Verb movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP.
20(3). 365–424.
Rivero, M.L. 1990. The locatio of nonactive voice in Albanian and modern Greek.
Linguistic Inquiry 21. 135–146.
Starke, M. 2009. Nanosyntax. A short primer to a new approach to language.
Nordlyd 36(1). 1–6.
Svenonius, P. 2012. Spanning. Ms. Tromsø.
Taraldsen, T.K. 2010. The nanosyntax of Nguni noun class preﬁxes and concords.
Lingua 120. 1522–1548.

170

Multilingualism as the new comparativesyntaxTerje Lohndal

1

A model of a linguist

Liliane Haegeman has made groundbreaking and lasting contributions to thestudy of grammar, and it is a great pleasure to be able to honor such a wonderful linguist and friend by way of a small contribution in the present festschrift.
Her work is characterized by its focus on argumentation, rigor, and theoreticalperspicuousness. During her career, she has covered a range of areas in addition
to ’core’ syntax, as also emphasized in another festschrift (Aboh et al. 2017: 3):
Dialect variation, register variation, ﬁrst and second language acquisition. Her
work on comparative syntax can be characterized as she herself characterizes
the ﬁeld, where emphasis should be put on the very last sentence in the quote.
An important development in generative syntax over thelast ﬁfteen years is the revival of the interest in the comparative study of language. In fact, a major criticism leveled against early generative grammar concerned its central interest for conceptual problems often to the detriment of the empirical study of language. When empirical
data were considered, this was often only to serve a theoretical point, and in the analyses a small range of data of
only a handful of languages was taken into account, standard English occupying a central position among the languages under examination. Over the past twenty years,
we have witnessed a surge of comparative work along
various dimensions. In this new comparative syntax, careful study of empirical data takes a central position with a171

stimulating two-way interaction between theoretical developments and empirical study. (Haegeman 1997: 1)
This quote highlights the importance of a close interplay between description and theory as they both depend on each other. This interdependence has
always been crystal clear in Liliane’s work as she has worked to identify the linguistic properties that can vary across languages and those that are constant.
This puts her work ﬁrmly into the generative tradition trying to unearth whatknowledge of language is and how this knowledge can be acquired. As she continues in her already quoted chapter, ”The question of acquisition focuses on theissue of how much of our linguistic knowledge is due to experience, the linguistic
input provided by the environment we are exposed to, and how much is due toa predetermined mental faculty” (Haegeman 1997: 1).
Methodologically, her work has made use of several diﬀerent methods. Since
her earliest work (Haegeman 1983), she has been a keen consumer of naturally
occurring data, which she has either accessed through corpora or gathered herself. She has of course also relied heavily on acceptability judgments both ininvestigating her native West Flemish but also in her investigations of English.
Liliane’s work has always highlighted how linguistic competence needs to
be investigated broadly, and how diﬀerent sources of data speak to diﬀerent
aspects of this competence. And she has set a high standard for the tight relationship between empirical generalizations and theoretical analysis. With thatin mind, the next section will try to say something about one aspect of current
developments, which in many ways can be viewed as an integral part of the workon comparative syntax that the quote from Haegeman (1997) highlights.

2

The formal grammar of multilingualism

Comparative syntax has been the zeitgeist of formal grammar since the early
1980’s. In recent years, we may say that a new zeitgeist has emerged. It is not
the only zeitgeist, but it is one of several, and it is the formal study of multilingual
data. Traditionally, multilingualism has not been at the core of formal generative
studies. This is among others made clear in the following famous quote:
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speakerlistener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community,
who knows its language perfectly and is unaﬀected by such172

grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations,distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance (Chomsky 1965: 3).
It was always clear that this was an idealization - no one thought that such an
ideal speaker-listener or such a speech-community actually existed. However, it
was a very useful idealization as it made it easier to develop theories of complex
empirical phenomena. It enabled the grammarian to abstract away from issues
that would make it hard to extract generalizations and then start to develop descriptively adequate grammar fragments.
It took some time, but eventually work on second language acquisition wasestablished within a generative frame. Whether the logical problem of language
acquisition applied to the acquisition of an additional language in adulthood,
was one of the main goals of the early research in this area, see e.g., Clahsen& Muysken (1986), Flynn (1987), Schwartz (1987), Bley-Vroman (1989), White(1989), Schachter (1990). Put diﬀerently, do language-speciﬁc constraints reduce the hypothesis space in learning a second language, similarly to what isargued to be the case for ﬁrst language acquisition? Textbooks such as Hawkins(2001), White (2003) and Slabakova (2016) document the success of this approach, and (Rothman & Slabakova 2017) is a state-of-the-art paper outlining
the changes in generative approaches to second language acquisition over theyears and connecting them to the current prominent approaches and trends.
Recently, third language acquisition has also become a produtive area of investigation within formal models, cf. e.g., Rothman (2011, 2015) and Westergaard
et al. (2016) and references therein for discussions and comparisons of diﬀerent
models.
Another area which departed from the idealization, focused on whether or
not there are formal constraints on code-switching or language mixing (e.g.,
Pfaﬀ (1979), Poplack (1980), Sankoﬀ & Poplack (1981), Woolford (1983), Di Sciullo et al. (1986), Belazi et al. (1994), MacSwan (1999, 2000, 2005), Muysken(2000, 2015), Myers-Scotton (2002), van Gelderen & MacSwan (2008), GonzálezVilbazo & López (2011, 2012), see MacSwan (2014) for a review and see Riksem(2018) for additional discussion). Studying language mixing may provide us witha typology of what elements are possible to mix and which are resistant (to various degrees) to mixing across languages. The following quote from Riksem(2018: 43) emphasizes this point:173

In general, language mixing may constitute a potential window
into our language capacity; the conditions and restrictions on
language mixing can tell us which linguistic elements are possible to mix, and whether some are more available or resistantto mixing than others. Thus, studies of language mixing may
reﬁne and deepen our understanding of grammatical theory(Muysken 2000, Gardner-Chloros 2009, González-Vilbazo et al.
2013).
By way of illustration, let us consider mixing between English and Norwegian. I will use examples from the heritage language American Norwegian spoken in the USA (see Haugen (1953) for an extensive presentation of the language
and its background). The speciﬁc examples here are drawn from the Corpus ofAmerican Nordic Speech (CANS; Johannessen (2015)). Consider ((1)) ﬁrst.
(1)

a.

b.

Jeg teach-a# føgrad[e]-en
I teach# ﬁrst
# grade- . .
‘I taught the ﬁrst grade.’Så kan du mow-e litt lawn
then can you mow- some lawn.
.
‘Then you can mow some lawn.’ (coon_valley_WI_07gk)

These examples illustrate a typological generalization (see also Åfarli (2015) andRiksem et al. (In press) on American Norwegian): One of the language is thelanguage providing the grammatical structure, whereas lexical items can comefrom either language. This can be seen clearly in ((1)b), where the structure of
the sentence exhibits Verb Second (V2; see Eide & Hjelde (2015) and Westergaard & Lohndal (2018) for more on V2 in American Norwegian). There are also
additional examples showing that English lexical items can appear in structuresthat are clearly Norwegian.
(2)

a.

b.

hennesÅ celebrat[e]-e birthday-en
to celebratbirthday- . . her‘To celebrate her birthday.’ (coon_valley_WI_06gm)
etter middag-en# vi # satt på deck-en
hans
after dinner- . . # we # sat on deck- . . his‘After dinner, we sat on his deck.’ (westby_WI_01gm)

In both of the examples in ((2)), the speakers are clearly using a Norwegian struc174

ture for possessives: The possessive is post-nominal, and the nominal, even if
the lexical item is English, has the Norwegian deﬁniteness marker. A syntactic
theory needs to be able to account for this, and a theory assuming that the syntactic structure is based on the lexical items itself would not be a descriptively
adequate theory as it would predict that the structure should be English, notNorwegian. Space does not allow me to elaborate on what such a theory could
look like, the reader can consult Grimstad et al. (2014), Riksem (2018), Grimstad
et al. (In press) and Riksem et al. (In press) for one alternative.

3

Conclusion

Work on second language acquisition and aspects of language mixing shows thatformal approaches also have a lot to contribute when it comes to multilingual
data. In many ways, they complement more traditional work focusing on variation between varieties, but instead of looking at variation between individuals,
they look at variation within individuals. They help us to create better models of
our language competence and its scope. As such, they may constitute the newcomparative syntax in the years to come, trying to follow the very high standards
set by Liliane Haegeman and others.

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Perspectives and Empirical Findings. 64–101. Leiden: Brill.
Flynn, S. 1987. Contrast and Construction in a Parameter-Setting Model of L2
Acquisition. Language Learning 37. 19–62.
Gardner-Chloros, P. 2009. Code-switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
van Gelderen, E. & MacSwan, J. 2008. Interface conditiond and code-switching:
Pronouns, lexical DPs, and checking theory. Lingua 118. 765–776.
González-Vilbazo, K., Bartlett, L., Downey, S., Ebert, S., Heil, J., Hoot, B., Koronkiewicz, B. & Ramos, S. 2013. Methodological Considerations in CodeSwitching Research. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 6. 119–138.
González-Vilbazo, K. & López, L. 2011. Some properties of light verbs in codeswitching. Lingua 121. 832–850.
González-Vilbazo, K. & López, L. 2012. Little v and parametric variation. Natural
Language & Linguistic Theory 30. 33–77.
Grimstad, M.B., Lohndal, T. & Åfarli, T.A. 2014. Language mixing and exoskeletal
theory: A case study of word-internal mixing in american norwegian. Nordlyd
41. 213–237.
Grimstad, M.B., Riksem, B.R., Lohndal, T. & Åfarli, T.A. In press. Lexicalist vs.
exoskeletal approaches to language mixing. The Linguistic Review .
Haegeman, L. 1983. The semantics of will in present-day English: A uniﬁed account. Brussels: Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Belgium.
Haegeman, L. 1997. Introduction: on the interaction of theory and description
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178

To Liliane, with appreciation
Shigeru Miyagawa
I ﬁrst met Liliane in Japan when she came to give a talk at Kanda University ofInternational Studies. With Memo Cinque and others, we toured Tokyo together
and quickly became friends. And the friendship blossomed into professional collaboration, including co-organizing a LSA panel on MCP and jointly giving a plenary talk at GLOW.
Around the time that we met, I had completed the manuscript for Why Agree?
Why Move?, which was published as a Linguistic Inquiry monograph in 2010. I
proposed Strong Uniformity, an instantiation of Chomsky’s (2001) Uniformity
Principle; SU states that every language shares the same set of grammatical features, and each language manifests these features in some fashion. When one
makes a sweeping proposal of this sort, one quickly digs holes to fall into; a signof a promising theory is that you can dig out of at least some of them.
A particularly embarrassing hole that I dug for myself was the prediction that
Strong Uniformity made that a language such as Japanese has ϕ-feature agreement at C. This is embarrassing because Japanese is known as a prototypicalagreementless language. Everyone knows this! But predictions are predictions –I either show that it is borne out despite all appearance to the contrary, or abandon the project. In attempting to address this problem, Liliane’s work on the
MCP came into sharp focus. I was trying to argue that the politeness marking inJapanese (-mas-) is second-person agreement at C, because it “agrees” with thehearer, and it occurs at C Miyagawa (1987). The politeness marking is an MCP.
But it is one thing to stipulate that the politeness marking is ϕ-feature agreement, something else altogether to show that it is a credible way to view it assuch. The big breakthrough came when Liliane invited me to give a presentation
at the 2010 Ghent workshop on clause-typing and main clause phenomena. In
searching for a topic to discuss, I discovered data from Basque (courtesy of Karlos
Arregi) that gave credence to the idea that the politeness marking in Japaneseis 2nd person agreement, and it is at C.
The so-called allocutive agreement in certain Basque dialects agrees with the179hearer, thus it is always 2nd person, despite the fact that there is no 2nd person entity in any of the argument positions Oyharçabal (1993). The allocutive
is a regular form of agreement, as shown by the fact that it competes for position with the “regular” 2nd person agreement. Its function is politeness (formal/colloquial), and it occurs at C. In fact, Oyhara̧abal, who wrote the article on
allocutive agreement, refers to an earlier article of mine (Miyagawa 1987) andobserves that the allocutive agreement in Basque has essentially the same distribution as the politeness marking in Japanese. I remember that Liliane was quite
excited about the data, which gave me conﬁdence that I’m onto something. I
got to publish this work in the collection of papers from the workshop (MainClause Phenomena: New Horizons, 2012) that was co-edited by Liliane. The phenomenon of allocutive agreement is novel in generative grammar, and a numberof linguists picked it up after the publication of the book and produced interesting studies using a variety of languages. One of them was Vera Zu, who completed a Ph.D. dissertation on the topic in 2017 that substantially extended theidea of allocutive agreement beyond Basque and Japanese. Encouraged by thediscovery of allocutive agreement, I myself went on to write a second LI monograph, Agreement beyond phi, which was published in 2017.
Liliane and I collaborated on two big projects, both stemming from our mutual interest in main clause phenomena. We co-organized a Linguistic Societyof America panel in 2013 which was held in Boston, and invited Jim Huang, Luigi
Rizzi, and Raﬀaella Zanuttini to join us. In 2016, we gave a joint plenary talk at
GLOW 39 held at the University of Göttingen. In that talk, Liliane went over someof the major achievements of her enormous project on main clause phenomena
dating back to the early 2000’s, while I introduced the notion of allocutive agreement and its implications for linguistic theory. It was one of the most enjoyabletalks I’ve ever given, and certainly one that I learned a great deal from thanks to
Liliane.
I cherish my friendship with Liliane, and I am deeply grateful to her for bringing me into her world of linguistic study that she helped to pioneer. It has certainly been rewarding for me, not the least of which is because I got to work withher.

References
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180

agreement. In J.I. Hualde & J. Ortiz de Urbina (eds.), Generative studies in
Basque linguistics. 89–114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Zu, V. 2017. Discourse participants and the structural representation of the context:
New York University dissertation.

181

Hoe cool is dat wel niet!
How pseudo-questions and expletive negation in Dutch
Rachel Nye and Lieven Danckaert*

1

Introduction

This paper focuses on the Dutch equivalents to structures such as (1), referred
to by Nye (2009, 2011) as how-pseudo questions (HPQs). On the surface, HPQs
resemble how degree questions (HDQs) (2), but combine the surface word orderof a matrix question with an interpretation more usually associated with exclamative structures.1(1)

How cool is that!

HPQ

(2)

How old is he?

HDQ

As shown in (3) and (4), very similar structures are also available in Dutch:(3)

Hoe cool is dat!
how cool is that

HPQ*

There is much that we could – and would like to – say in tribute to Liliane, both in terms of her
contribution to the ﬁeld of linguistics, and regarding the support that she has provided us bothwith. Taking the saying “actions speak louder than words” to heart, a revival for this particularoccasion of the former ‘PhD student + Postdoc buddy’ team established by Liliane during theearly GIST days seemed the most suitable way to convey these sentiments. The connections
this paper shows to Liliane’s work, in terms of the languages studied, the linguistic topics touched
upon and the approach taken to the data should be apparent throughout.
1
Throughout this paper, in constructed examples or examples from a spoken language
source, we punctuate HDQs with a question mark and HPQs with an exclamation mark. In attested written examples, there is considerable variability in how HPQs are punctuated (as discussed by Nye (2009) for English), and the original punctuation is maintained when such examples are reproduced. Punctuation proves an equally poor indication for determining the HPQ vs.
HDQ status of a given string in Dutch as it does in English.

182

‘How cool is that!’(4)

Hoe oud is hij?
how old is he‘How old is he?’HDQ

HPQs are common in contemporary English and Dutch, and they diﬀer fromwhat one could call ‘standard exclamatives’, such as English (5) and Dutch (6), in
two important respects. First, HPQs are more colloquial, whereas the exclamatives in (5) and (6) are primarily associated with a more formal register. Second,
only HPQs have a string-identical interrogative counterpart.
(5)

a.
b.

How tall that building is!
What a tall building that is!

(6)

a.

Wat is dat gebouw hoog!
what is that building highWat is dat een hoog gebouw!
what is that a high building‘How tall that building is!’b.

Our ﬁrst aim is to oﬀer a description of the Dutch HPQ pattern exempliﬁed in(3). Concretely, we show that Dutch and English HPQs have very similar properties: in line with Nye (2009, 2011) we argue that despite the apparent surface
resemblances, HPQs do in fact diﬀer structurally from HDQs, in Dutch as wellas in English. On the basis of this we conclude that the interpretive properties of
HPQs cannot be explained as a pragmatic eﬀect arising from the use of a HDQ in
a particular context. Rather, the diﬀerence in interpretation of HPQs and HDQs
results from a diﬀerence in the underlying syntax of these two structures. As a result, despite the presence of subject-auxiliary inversion in both (1) and (2), HPQs
are best categorised as a type of exclamative, rather than as interrogatives.
Secondly, on the basis of the Dutch data we develop a new argument for theclaim that HPQs should be distinguished structurally from HDQs, which goesbeyond those already put forward by Nye (2009). In particular, we demonstratethat in Dutch HPQs it is possible for the sentential negator niet ‘not’ to occur,
without any of the negative force with which it is typically associated. The factthat this type of ‘expletive negation’ is not available in Dutch HDQs again suggests that HPQs and HDQs do not have the same syntactic structure, despite
typically having the same word order.
Section 2 of this paper brieﬂy recapitulates the main arguments put forward
183

by Nye (2009, 2011) on the basis of English HPQs for the claim that HPQs are
structurally distinct from HPQs, and applies these to Dutch HPQs. In section 3,
the phenomenon of expletive negation in Dutch HPQs is discussed and in section
4, HPQs and other inverted exclamatives are compared to rhetorical questions.
Section 5 suggests directions for future research and section 6 concludes.

2

Distinguishing HPQs from HDQs

Nye (2009) provides evidence to show that although HPQs can be string-identical to HDQs, HPQs diﬀer from HDQs both in interpretation and, in some cases,
in form. Three key properties identiﬁed by Nye (2009) as distinguishing HPQs
from HDQs are applied to the Dutch data, with the same results shown to holdfor Dutch as for English.

2.1 QuestionsFirst, HDQs introduce a question into the discourse, whereas HPQs do not. For
example, a HDQ can felicitously be used in the exchange in (7), where A’s utterance is a genuine information-seeking question, to which the B’s reply constitutes a pragmatically appropriate answer.
(7)

A:

B:

Signalen worden door de satelliet verstuurd met de snelheid vansignals become by the satellite sentwith the speed ofhet licht.
the light
Hoe snel is dit (uitgedrukt in km/sec)?2
how fast is this expressed in kilometres per second
300.000 km
per seconde.
300,000 kilometres per second‘300,000 kilometres per second.’

In contrast, as shown in (8), HPQs are incompatible with an answer that provides a piece of new information. This is of course not to say that they cannot
2

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=
30&ved=0ahUKEwisrKbn3vvbAhVEZVAKHdYLDlw4FBAWCF0wCQ&url=https%3A%2F%
2Fwww.uhasselt.be%2FDocuments%2Fuhasselt%40school%2Flesmateriaal%
2Fverkeerskunde%2FGPS_stellingenspel.ppt&usg=AOvVaw3a4QEUghfeLUlfnDcyrZyQ.
Last accessed 30.06.2018.

184

be replied to at all. A response indicating agreement with the speaker’s assessment, such as the one in (8B’), is typically felicitous.
Wow hoe snel is dit!3
wow how fast is this‘Wow, how fast is this!’
B: #Wel, het heeft precies 2 uur en 5 minuten geduurd.
well it has precisely 2 hours and 5 minutes lasted‘Well, it took exactly 2 hours and 5 minutes.’
B’: Ja, inderdaad, dat was echt snel.
yes indeed
that was really fast‘Yes indeed, that was really fast.’

(8)

A:

We can conclude that while HDQs have interrogative illocutionary force, HPQs
do not. However, on a par with bona ﬁde exclamatives (cf. Portner & Zanuttini2000), nor do HPQs have the same distribution as declaratives, as attested toby the fact that they cannot felicitously be used to answer a question, a point
exempliﬁed by the dialogue in (9):(9)

A:

Werd het pakket snel afgeleverd?
became the parcel quickly delivered‘Was the parcel delivered quickly?’
B: #Hoe snel was dat!
how fast was that
‘How fast was that!’
B: #Wat was dat snel!
what was that fast
‘How fast that was!’
C: (Ja,) de levering was echt snel.
yes the delivery was really fast‘(Yes,) the delivery was really fast.’

Question

HPQ

Wh-exclamative

Declarative answer

This suggests that the HPQ pattern is in fact a type of exclamative.
3

https://www.agrolingua.com/nl/klanten-over-ons?pagenr=11.
30.06.2018.

185

Last accessed2.2

Evaluativity

Another property shared by genuine wh-exclamatives and HPQs is the fact thatboth show polarity-insensitive evaluativity, which HDQs do not. The conceptof evaluativity (in the realm of adjectival constructions) is deﬁned in Rett (2015:1) as follows: “[an] adjectival construction is evaluative iﬀ it makes reference toa degree which exceeds a contextually valued standard”. Adjectival predicatesin HPQs do seem to qualify as evaluative expressions: whereas HDQs ask about
the extent to which the property expressed by the adjective holds, HPQs exclaim
about the fact that this property holds to a great extent. For example, in the example in (10) it is presupposed that the Herengracht is beautiful; what is asserted
is that it is indeed very beautiful, prettier than other parts of Amsterdam at thesame time of year, for instance.
(10)

Maar kijk eens aan: hoe mooi
is de Herengracht in de
but look once
how beautiful is the Herengracht in thezomermaanden.4
summermonths‘But just look at that: how beautiful is the Herengracht during the summer months!’

In contrast, no such eﬀects are present in a regular HDQ such as (11) (which is
the title of a government brochure about spatial planning). Not only does thisquestion lack the presupposition that The Netherlands will be beautiful in thenear future, given the interrogative semantics there is also no assertion that thecountry will score high on a scale of beauty.
(11)

Hoe mooi
is Nederland
morgen?5
how beautiful is the.Netherlands tomorrow‘How beautiful will The Netherlands be tomorrow?’

Following Rett (2011), we can conclude that Dutch HPQs behave like structures
whose status as exclamatives is not debated in relation to the property of evaluativity.
4

https://docplayer.nl/43797578-Olf-jacobs-en-liesbeth-smits-wonen-in-een-fraai-verbouwde-villa.html. Last accessed 30.06.2018.
5
http://www.henkbouwmeester.com/?portfolio=hoe-mooi-is-nederland-morgen.
Last accessed 30.06.2018.

186

2.3

Intensiﬁers

Third, as observed in Nye (2009), HPQs – like exclamatives and in contrast to
HDQs – can contain intensiﬁers such as totally and incredibly which modify theadjective in the how-phrase. The same holds for Dutch. Intensiﬁers such as bangelijk ‘scarily’, kei- ‘very’ (lit. ‘boulder’), verdomd ‘damn’, vet ‘fat’, vreselijk ‘terribly’ and fucking (borrowed from English) can modify the adjective within the
hoe-phrase in Dutch HPQs. Crucially, this is also the case for exclamatives, incontrast to HDQs, where such intensiﬁers are typically excluded.
(12)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

WTF hoe vet cool is da!!!6
WTF how fat cool is that
‘WTF, how very cool is that!’
Die blauwe op 1’50; hoe bangelijk goed ziet die der uit zeg!!!7
saythat blue at 1’50 how scarily
good sees that
‘The blue one at 1:50; how scarily handsome does he look!’
Hoe vreselijk erg is het om het WEL te doen??8
how terribly bad is it to it
to do‘How terribly bad is it to actually do it!’
En hoe keicool is je poncho geworden […].9and how very.cool is your poncho become‘And how cool has your poncho turned out to be!’Hoe verdomd geil kan je worden van sushi?10
how damn
horny kan you become of sushi‘How damn horny can you get from sushi!’
HOE FUCKING COOL IS GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2?!?11
how fucking cool is Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2‘How fucking cool is Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2?!?’

6https://twitter.com/ruytersg/status/743023125420507136.
Last accessed
15.01.2018.
7https://forum.alfaclub.nl/viewtopic.php?t=44903&start=270. Last accessed
15.01.2018.
8https://www.ikenmama.nl/forum/forums/topic/je-kind-in-de-winkel-lateneten/page/2/. Last accessed 15.01.2018.
9
http://moos-moosies.blogspot.be/2014/01/een-nieuw-jaar-een-eerste-creatie.html. Last accessed 15.01.2018.
10
http://www.clint.be/entertainment/sexpiratie-nodig-hoe-verdomd-geil-wor
den-sushi/. Last accessed 15.01.2018.
11
http://vertigoweb.be/recensie-guardians-the-galaxy-2/.
Last accessed187

As shown in (13), none of the strings given in (12) can plausibly be coerced into aquestion (i.e. HDQ) interpretation:(13)

a. *Hoe vet cool is da?
b. *Hoe bangelijk goed ziet die der uit?
c. *Hoe vreselijk erg is het om het WEL te doen?
d. *En hoe keicool is je poncho geworden?
e. *Hoe verdomd geil kan je worden van sushi?
f. *HOE FUCKING COOL IS GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2?

In other words, there are contexts in which HDQs and HPQs are in fact formally
non-identical, which strongly suggests that the diﬀerence between the two patterns is not a matter of pragmatics alone. In the following section, we discuss anadditional phenomenon which also diﬀerentiates Dutch HPQs from HDQs on
formal grounds.

3

Expletive negation in exclamatives

Both Dutch and English are known to permit expletive negation – alternatively
referred to as ‘pleonastic negation’, and deﬁned as ‘a lexically present but semantically vacuous negation’ (Dinković & Ilc 2017: 159) – in certain structures (cf.
Haegeman 1995: 160–161 for varieties of East and West Flemish, Espinal 2000:
65–66 for Standard Dutch, and Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 845–846, Horn 2010:
123–124, Collins & Postal 2014: 228, Dinković & Ilc 2017: 162 for English), including exclamatives. The presence of expletive negation in exclamative structures
speciﬁcally has been observed in the literature for a range of languages (Portner & Zanuttini 2000, Espinal 2000, Andueza & Gutiérrez-Rexach 2010, Delﬁtto& Fiorin 2014, Biberauer & Potgieter 2017), though at present it is not yet fully
understood what determines whether or not a particular exclamative structure
licenses expletive negation.
For English, the observation that exclamatives can permit expletive negation
dates back to Jespersen (1924: 323) who states that “in exclamations […] very
often it does not matter whether not is added or not”, providing the example
given here as (14) by way of support:(14)

How often have I (not) watched him!

15.01.2018.

188

However, it is by no means the case that expletive negative is productively available in all present day English exclamatives (Jespersen’s example is characterisedby Horn (2010: 123) as “now somewhat quaint-sounding”).12 In the non-inverted
equivalent (15), for instance, not seems to be excluded (at least when it is interpreted as expletive negation).
(15)

How often I have (*not) watched him!

The availability of expletive negation in Dutch exclamatives has been noted by
Espinal (2000: 66), among others, who gives the following examples (her (32a,b)):
(16)

a.

b.

Wat heeft hij niet een vragen gesteld!
what has he not a questions raised‘He raised so many questions!’
Wat heeft hij niet een ellende veroorzaakt!
what has he not a mess caused‘He created such a mess!’

The examples in (16) do not involve HPQs but rather ‘standard’ wh-exclamatives(see also (6)). Note that the (invariant, but possibly discontinuous) string wat een(sg. or pl.) NP (lit. ‘what a NP’) cannot be used in interrogative contexts, which
disambiguates the structures in (16) from interrogatives.13
Let us now turn to negation in HPQs. For English, Nye (2009: 18) provides
the attested example presented here as (17). To the extent that such marginalcases are accepted, not has the expected force of sentential negation, negating the propositional content: (17) is an exclamation about the lack of vigilance.
The interpretation and acceptability of negation in canonical non-inverted exclamatives seems to be similar (18). Sentential negation not seems even moremarginal in HDQs (19).
(17)?How vigilant are they not!

12

Inverted exclamatives such as (14) are diﬀerentiated from HPQs in terms of both prosody
and register: inverted exclamatives such as (14) seem out-dated, formal and literary, much as thenoninverted equivalent in (15) does, while HPQs, in contrast, are characteristic of contemporary,
informal, colloquial speech. The possibility of expletive negation in inverted exclamatives but
not HPQs in English, as discussed in this section, provides another piece of evidence in favour ofthe view that these structures should be distinguished.
13
As such, although the English translations Espinal (2000) provides for (16a) and (16b) are
declaratives, these could perhaps more accurately be rendered as ‘What a lot of questions heraised!’ and ‘What a mess he caused!’ respectively.

189

(18)

?How vigilant they are not!

(19) ??How vigilant are they not?
Although in many cases Dutch HPQs are string-identical to their English equivalents, one striking diﬀerence is the ease with which niet ‘not’ can occur: somespeakers in fact have a preference for it to be present in HPQs. What is important to note is that what we are dealing with here is expletive negation, that it is
to say ‘the negation is not interpreted according to its canonical logical meaning’(Delﬁtto & Fiorin 2014: 284). In fact, only on this interpretation are such cases
grammatical. Two attested examples are given in (20):
(20)

a.

b.

Ik heb geen kind en ik wil ook Disney. Hoe erg is dat niet?!14
I have no child and I want also Disney how bad is that not‘I don’t have a child and I also want Disney. How bad is that!’
Een boek dat zich om laat bouwen tot een ﬂipperkast,a book which
let’s build to a pinball.machine15
hoe leuk is dat niet?
how cool is that not‘A book which can be transformed into a pinball machine, how coolis that?

In these examples niet does not negate the truth of the propositional content
of the sentence, but rather appears to have an intensifying function (if any). The
crucial observation is that niet in Dutch HDQs – to the extent that it is acceptable
at all – can only be interpreted as conveying canonical sentential negation, on apar with what can be observed for English.
(21)

a. ??Hoe erg is dat niet?
how bad is that not‘How bad is that not?’b. ??Hoe leuk is dat niet?
how nice is that not‘How nice is that not?’Observe that Dutch HPQs are fully disambiguated from HDQs on formal grounds
14

https://www.bigcitylife.be/2016/11/23/die-pressdays-wat-is-dat-eigenlijk/.
Last accessed 29.06.2018.
15
https://www.kimcrabeels.be/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/
GVA-20161104-00026001.pdf. Last accessed 29.06.2018.

190

when expletive negation is accompanied by the positive polarity particle wel,with which it can (and readily does) occur in combination. Some attested examples are given in (22):
(22)

a.

b.

Elektriciteit, hoe belangrijk is dat wel niet16
electricity how important is thatnot
‘Electricity, how important is that!’Sinds mijn kindertijd – hoe lang is dat wel niet geleden? –since my childhood how long is thatnot past
hanteer ik even vlot
het Nederlands als het West-Vlaams
handle I equally ﬂuently the Dutch
as the West.Flemish
17
en het castellano […].
and the Castellano‘Since my childhood – how long ago is that! – I’ve been equally ﬂuent in Dutch, West Flemish and Castellano.’

The elements wel and niet can also occur in combination with a seemingly
similar function and interpretation in other exclamative clauses (cf. (23a)), but
crucially not in interrogatives with question force (cf. (23b)).
(23)

Wat er allemaal wel niet gedaan is.18
what
all.
not done is‘How many things have been done!’b. *Wat is er allemaal wel niet gedaan?
what isall.
not donea.

To conclude, we now have another argument in favour of the claim that – at leastin Dutch – HPQs diﬀer structurally from HDQs. Under purely pragmatic accountsof their diﬀerences in interpretation, the diﬀering distribution and interpretationof the negator niet (and the positive polarity particle wel) in the two contexts
remains unexplained.
16

http://nlcm.nl/elektriciteit-hoe-belangrijk-dat-wel-niet/. Last accessed
29.06.2018.
17
http://uilenvlucht.jotemo.be/?m=201212. Last accessed 29.06.2018.
18
www.dutchdesignonabudget.nl/2015/06/wat-er-allemaal-al-wel-niet-gedaanis.html. Last accessed 01.07.2018.

191

4

HPQs, inverted exclamatives and rhetorical questions

Cases such as the short attested exchange in (24) might at ﬁrst sight appear tocontradict the claim made in section 2.1 above to the eﬀect that while HPQs canbe responded to, they are incompatible with an answer that provides a piece of
new information. As A’s utterance in (24) contains the string wel niet, shown
above to be incompatible with HDQs (cf. (23b)), this must be a HPQ rather thana HDQ and indeed, under the most natural interpretation of this statement, A
wishes to convey the message that it has indeed been a very long time since they
played this particular board game. Nevertheless, B’s response appears to constitute an answer which provides a rough indication as to when they last played
this game.
(24)

A:

B:

“Pim-pam-petten? Hoe lang is dat wel niet geleden?”19
pim-pam-pet.
how long is thatnot passed‘Pim-pam-pet [a board game, rn & ld], how long ago is that’“Een jaar of dertien.” zei ik droogjes.
ayear or thirteen said I dryly‘About thirteen years, I said dryly.’

We see two possible ways to account for such cases. The ﬁrst is to follow
Delﬁtto & Fiorin (2014) who claim that while exclamatives and rhetorical questions have essentially the same (Boolean) semantics (regardless of whether an
expletive negator is present), the two structures are diﬀerentiated by – among
other things – the fact that only the latter can be answered in a pragmaticallyfelicitous manner (see in particular Delﬁtto & Fiorin 2014: 293, fn. 2). If this is indeed the case, then considering HPQs to be rhetorical questions potentially accounts for the fact that HPQs pattern with exclamatives rather than with HDQs
in the ways described above, and yet nevertheless permit a contentful answer
like HDQs and other questions, and unlike canonical non-inverted exclamatives.
Note however that – as shown by the constructed dialogue in (25), where A
is Jespersen’s example of an English exclamative structure involving expletive
negation (discussed above, where it is provided as example (14)) – it is also possible for an interlocutor, B, to provide a pragmatically felicitous answer that provides new information, something which is impossible in response to the corre19

https://mijn.editio.nl/schrijfwedstrijd/schrijverij/.
01.07.2018.

192

Last

accessedsponding non-inverted exclamative in the parallel dialogue in (26).
(25)

A:
B:

How often have I (not) watched him!
I don’t know. 3 times maybe?

(26)

A: How often I have watched him!
B: #I don’t know. 3 times maybe?

Should the label ‘rhetorical question’ thus be extended to all inverted exclamatives? This seems undesirable, in the ﬁrst instance as not all rhetorical questions
can have exclamative interpretation, and so the aﬃnity which HPQs and otherinverted exclamatives show to non-inverted exclamatives is obfuscated undersuch an approach. On the contrary, canonical rhetorical questions are rather understood as ‘an assertion of opposite polarity’ (Sadock 1971: 224), such that (27)and (28) are interpreted as meaning roughly ‘No-one still uses Facebook’ and‘Everyone likes chocolate’ respectively.20(27)

Who still uses Facebook?

(28)

Who doesn’t like chocolate?

Similar examples of canonical rhetorical questions which systematically resist
exclamative interpretation can be found in Standard Dutch (where such rhetorical questions can be diﬀerentiated from questions with interrogative illocutionary force by the addition of the unstressed discourse particle nou (in Northern
Dutch varieties), or nu (which is more idiomatic in Southern Dutch)). A relevant
example is given in (29) (from Dik 1997: 244, his (30b) (our translation rn & ld,
emphasis in original21 )), which again has opposite polarity interpretation (‘Noone would want to be chairperson’):(29)

Wie wilernou
zitter worden???
who wants there
chairperson become‘Who on earth would want to beperson?’As Nye (2009: 26 fn. 11) observes for English, the same applies to certain structures involving how, such as (30), which are interpreted as meaning ‘It can’t be sovery diﬃcult!’ and can thus also be classiﬁed as rhetorical questions. Similarly,
20

As Delﬁtto & Fiorin (2014: 296) observe, “Typically, negative rhetorical wh-questions express some sort of universal quantiﬁcation.”21
As suggested by the capitalisation, (29) is most naturally pronounced with heavier-thanneutral stress on the predicate voorzitter ‘chairperson’.

193the Dutch rhetorical question (featuring the particle nu) in (31) has very much thesame meaning as its English counterpart in (30).
(30)

How diﬃcult can it be?

(31)

Hoe moeilijk kan dat nu zijn, cijfers met elkaar
verbinden
how diﬃcult can thatbe. numbers with each.other connect.
22
tot een tekening.
to a drawing‘How diﬃcult can that be, connecting numbers to make a drawing?’

As neither HPQs nor inverted exclamatives of the type illustrated in (25) are interpreted as assertions of the opposite polarity, there seems little motivation oninterpretive grounds for categorising these together with core rhetorical question cases such as (27)–(31). Similarly, in the absence of any clear deﬁnition which
identiﬁes and characterises properties common to all of the many structurally
and interpretively heterogeneous structures to which the term ‘rhetorical question’ has been applied (for various approaches, see e.g. Han 2002, Caponigro &Sprouse 2007, Sprouse 2007, Delﬁtto & Fiorin 2014, and references cited therein),extending the reach of this label to cover HPQs (and potentially other inverted
exclamatives too) currently oﬀers little by way of explanatory advantage.23
A starting point for a second – and in our view more convincing – approachto accounting for cases such as (24) and (25) is the fact that what these examples hold in common is that in both cases B wilfully misconstrues what A intends
to be an inverted exclamative as a degree question. B’s characterisation of theirown manner of responding in (24) as droogjes ‘dryly’ is telling in this regard, andB’s response in (25) comes across as equally ﬂippant. We suggest that in (24) and(25), the interlocutor B is in eﬀect providing an answer to the HDQs ‘How long
ago is that?’ and ‘How often have I watched him?’ respectively, rather than an
appropriate response to the HPQ ‘How long ago is that!’, in (24), and the inverted
exclamative ‘How often have I watched him!’ in (25). Thus we can maintain theclaim made in section 2.1 that HPQs, like exclamatives, do not introduce a question into the discourse and are thus incompatible with an answer that provides
a new piece of information. Speakers can, however, knowingly play upon thesurface similarities HPQs show to HDQs and choose to treat HPQs as HDQs, to22

https://twitter.com/jookjev/status/546651519287042048.
Last accessed
12.07.2018.
23
Delﬁtto & Fiorin (2014: 293, fn. 2) themselves “leave the distinction between exclamatives
and rhetorical questions to the reader’s intuition”.

194

(intended) comic eﬀect.24
Thus, whilst recognising the properties which (certain types) of rhetoricalquestions seem to share with (certain types of) exclamative structures (as identiﬁed by Delﬁtto & Fiorin 2014), pending a clear deﬁnition of the term ‘rhetoricalquestion’ and a thorough exploration of the intersection of this category withthat of (inverted) exclamatives, we continue to treat HPQs as a particular subtype of inverted exclamative, on the basis of their syntactic and interpretive similarities to canonical members of the category ‘exclamative’, illustrated and discussed in sections 2 and 3 above.

5

For future research

Many questions remain concerning the speciﬁcs of the structure of HPQs, inparticular how to encode structurally not only the syntactic and semantic differences they show to the sometimes string-identical HDQs, but also the more
subtle interpretive diﬀerences they show to canonical exclamatives, to other inverted exclamatives, and to certain types of rhetorical questions. As discussed
in section 4, a starting point for this would be a detailed taxonomy of the various structures labelled as ‘rhetorical questions’ and ‘inverted exclamatives’ in theliterature, with particular attention paid to any potential intersection between
these two categories.25
It also remains to be determined what the precise function and interpretationof (wel) niet is in Dutch HPQs, in comparison to those Dutch HPQs in which expletive negation is not present. A broader question in relation to expletive negation concerns the range of structural environments in which this is licensed. It iscurrently unclear why expletive negation in Dutch is permitted in HPQs as wellas other canonical exclamatives, while in English it is excluded from HPQs andthe majority of other exclamative structures, but permitted in some other con24

In the case of (24), this relies on the respondent overlooking the presence of wel niet, which,as discussed in section 3, disambiguates HPQs from HDQs. Even though the surface string of (25)
is identical to that of the corresponding interrogative How often have I watched him?, the two
structures are diﬀerentiated in speech by prosody, which the respondent must again disregard.
In this respect, (25) is reminiscent of exchanges in which requests such as Can you pass the salt?
are met with the response Yes, I can. rather than with the action required to fulﬁl the request. In
such instances, the respondent similarly has to – wilfully or otherwise – ignore the diﬀerence inprosody between the request and the information-seeking question.
25
The proliferation of labels is greater still, with Andueza & Gutiérrez-Rexach (2010) making
use of the term ‘rhetorical exclamatives’ for the Spanish structures they discuss.

195

texts, including at least marginally in exclamatives such as (14) (repeated aboveas (25A)).26
At least in Dutch, it does seem to be the case that expletive negation in exclamatives is parasitic on the presence of one crucial ingredient, namely whmovement to the clausal left periphery. In wh-exclamatives lacking wh-movement, expletive negation is totally unacceptable. One such type of exclamative
is found in the native variety of Dutch of one of the authors of this squib, which
is a variety of East Flemish from the region of Ghent. The relevant structure features an invariable (and typically phonologically reduced) wh-word wa(t) ‘what,
which is not located in the left periphery of the clause, but rather sits in the TP.
Consider the examples in (32):
(32)

a.

b.

c.

d.

Gent is wa de max!27
Ghent isthe max‘Ghent is SO cool!’
Oostende is wa de max!28
Ostend isthe max‘Ostend is SO cool!’dat is wa schoon!29
beautifulthat is‘That’s SO beautiful!’
Wajoooooo da is wa lang geleden!30
that islong passed‘Woah, that’s SUCH a long time ago!’

26

The structure illustrated in (i) (see Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 845–846 is another context
where expletive negation is possible in English. Both interpretations (a) and (b) are available
for the string in (i): reading (a) results from interpreting (did)n’t as having negative force, while
reading (b) results when (did)n’t is interpreted as expletive negation.
(i)

I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t get the job.
a.
I would not ﬁnd it surprising if they did not get the job.
b.
I would not ﬁnd it surprising if they did get the job.

196

Crucially, although the negator nie(t) can be added to these structures, it always has to be interpreted as inducing canonical sentential negation:
(33)

a.

b.

c.

d.

Gent is wa nie de max!
Ghent isnot the max‘Ghent is SO not cool!’
Oostende is wa nie de max!
Ostend is
not the max‘Ostend is SO not cool!’dat is wa nie schoon!
that isnot beautiful‘That’s SO not beautiful!’
Wajoooooo da is wa nie lang geleden!
that islnot ong passed‘Woah, that’s SO not a long time ago!’

To conclude this section, while wh-movement may be a necessary condition forthe licensing of expletive negation, the presence of wh-movement alone cannot
be a suﬃcient condition for this, given that canonical interrogatives – both inStandard Dutch and in the colloquial variety from Ghent in which structures like(32) are productive – also involve wh-movement and yet fail to allow expletive
negation, as example (23) above shows.
Providing an answer to the questions raised in this section goes well beyond
the scope of our contribution here, which hopes to serve as the impetus for further research in these areas.

6

Conclusion

In the course of this paper, we have not only demonstrated that Dutch HPQs
pattern alike with exclamatives rather than HDQs on the tests proposed by Nye
27

https://twitter.com/genteswademax. Last accessed 09.07.2018.
https://www.visitoostende.be/nl/oostende-wa-de-max.
Last accessed
01.07.2018.
29https://www.facebook.com/JPBauwens/posts/1052229218190696?comment_id=
1052428764837408&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D.
Last accessed
01.07.2018.
30
mc.sk5.dev.sk-gaming.com/member/579687-kersjeee/guestbook. Last accessed
01.07.2018.
28

197

(2009) for English but, more signiﬁcantly, have shown that the Dutch data reveals an additional similarity between HPQs and exclamatives to the exclusion of
HDQs, namely the ability for expletive negation to occur in the former two structures, but not the latter. This provides additional support for an analysis whereby
HPQs diﬀer structurally from HDQs, as opposed to the alternative in which theinterpretation of a single interrogative structure is determined by pragmatic context. Hoe cool is dat wel niet!

References
Andueza, P. & Gutiérrez-Rexach, J. 2010. Negation and the interpretation of
Spanish rhetorical exclamatives. In C. Borgonovo, M. Español Echevarría &P. Prévost (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 12th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. 17–25. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Biberauer, T. & Potgieter, J.M. 2017. Negative exclamatives in Afrikaans: Someinitial thoughts. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics 48. 17–33.
Caponigro, I. & Sprouse, J. 2007. Rhetorical questions as questions. Sinn und
Bedeutung 11. 121–133.
Collins, C. & Postal, P. 2014. Classical NEG raising: An essay on the syntax ofnegation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Delﬁtto, D. & Fiorin, G. 2014. Negation in exclamatives. Studia Linguistica 68.
284–327.
Dik, S. 1997. The theory of functional grammar, part 2: Complex and derived constructions (ed. by Kees Hengeveld). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Dinković, I.Z. & Ilc, G. 2017. Pleonastic negation from a cross-linguistic perspective. Jezikoslovlje 18. 159–180.
Espinal, M.T. 2000. Expletive negation, negative concord and feature checking.
Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 8. 47–69.
Haegeman, L. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Han, C.h. 2002. Interpreting interrogatives as rhetorical questions. Lingua 112.
201–229.
Horn, L. 2010. Multiple negation in English and other languages. In L. Horn (ed.),
The expression of negation. 111–148. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Huddleston, R. & Pullum, G. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Jespersen, O. 1924. The philosophy of grammar. London: Allen & Unwin.
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Nye, R. 2009. How pseudo-questions and the interpretation of wh-clauses in English: University of Essex MA thesis. http://www.gist.ugent.be/file/236. (Last accessed 09.07.2018).
Nye, R. 2011. Competing analyses for ‘how’ pseudo questions in English. Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 17. 131–153.
Portner, P. & Zanuttini, R. 2000. The force of negation in wh exclamatives andinterrogatives. In L. Horn & Y. Kato (eds.), Negation and polarity. 193–231.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rett, J. 2011. Exclamatives, degrees, and speech acts. Linguistics and Philosophy
34. 411–442.
Rett, J. 2015. The semantics of evaluativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sadock, J. 1971. Queclaratives. In A. Douglas, M.A. Campbell, V. Cohen,
J. Lovins, E. Maxwell, C. Nygren & J. Reighard (eds.), Papers from the seventh regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. 223–232. Chicago, IL:
Chicago Linguistic Society.
Sprouse, J. 2007. Rhetorical question and wh-movement. Linguistic Inquiry 38.
572–580.

199

Polarity and other distributional properties ofuitkijken/opletten/oppassen (‘look out’)
Albert Oosterhof

1Introduction

This short article presents and discusses some results of a corpus investigation
into the use and distribution of the verbs uitkijken, opletten and oppassen (‘watch
out, look out, take care’). The study focuses on some aspects of the distribution of these verbs which are relevant to the study of negative polarity items. I
will show that the verbs under consideration can be described as negative polarity items which are licensed or triggered by conditions that are applied cumulatively.1
Hoeksema (1999) argues that for some negative polarity items, the conditions which “license” or “trigger” polarity items are applied cumulatively. He discusses the properties of the verb wijsmaken (‘deceive’) and argues that this verb
shows a special type of sensitivity to negation. Hoeksema makes a distinction
between two uses of this verb wijsmaken. First, there is a so-called neutral use,
as illustrated in (1). In this use, the verb refers to a situation in which someone
really deceives someone into thinking something. We can add a negative adverb
to such sentences, as is illustrated in (1b) and the two sentences in (1) are both
acceptable.
(1)a.

We hebben hem wijsgemaakt dat het feest is uitgesteld.
‘ We have deceived him into thinking that the party has been postponed.’1

An earlier version of this material was presented on July 9 2018 as part of an informal
colloquium series during the academic year 2008-2009, organized by Liliane Haegeman at
Ghent University. Some of the results were published in an article written in Dutch (Oosterhof & Hoeksema 2008). Author’s address: KU Leuven, Sint-Andriesstraat 2, 2000 Antwerp,
albert.oosterhof@kuleuven.be.

200

b.

We hebben hem (toch maar) niet wijsgemaakt dat het feest is uitgesteld.
‘We have not deceived him into thinking that the party has been postponed.’

Secondly, the verb can be used in counterfactual environments as illustrated in(2). The relevant reading is available in sentences containing a negative element,
like (2b). Hoeksema (1999) observes that this counterfactual use does not seemto be available if the adverb of negation is absent, as in (2a).
(2)

a. #Je maakt mij wijs dat het feest is uitgesteld.
(Suppose someone tried to deceive me into thinking that the party
has been postponed, then I would believe it. ≈ ‘I do believe that the
party is postponed.’)b. Je maakt mij niet wijs dat het feest is uitgesteld.
(Suppose someone tried to deceive me into thinking that the party
has been postponed, then I would not believe it. ≈ ‘I do not believethat the party is postponed.’)Hoeksema (1999) concludes from such observations that wijsmaken can be described as a negative polarity item with triggering conditions that can be applied
cumulatively. This item is not a “standard polarity item”, but in a certain environment, in this case in counterfactual contexts, it requires the presence of negation.
My corpus research presented here focuses on the distribution of the verbs
uitkijken, oppassen and opletten and on similarities with the distribution of wijsmaken. The sentences presented in (3) are corpus examples taken from the
Spoken Dutch Corpus, a corpus of some ten million words with spoken Dutch
material.
(3)

a.

b.
c.

en als je dan niet uitkijkt dan uh dan gaat ‘t één ten koste van ‘t ander.
(CGN)‘if you do not look out, then one thing is at the expense of anotherthing.’
nou je kan er ruzie om krijgen als je niet oppast. (CGN)‘in fact there will be a row if you do not look out.’
en dan uh uh mmm dan wordt ‘t uh al gauw een puinhoop als je niet
oplet. (CGN)‘it all becomes a mess quickly if you do not look out.’201

In these sentences, the verbs under consideration are used in a conditional clause
and accompanied by an adverb of negation. Intuitively, such conditional sentences with verbs like uitkijken are less natural without the adverb of negation.
The pattern in (4a), in which an adverb of negation is used, is a more natural typeof conditional sentence than (4b).
(4)

Intuition:a. Als je niet uitkijkt/oppast/oplet, dan X‘If you do not look out, then X’ (= a very ‘natural’ type of sentence)b. Als je uitkijkt/oppast/oplet, dan X‘If you look out, then X’ (= a less ‘natural’ type of sentence)

I do not claim that there is a strict diﬀerence in grammaticality or acceptability between the patterns in (4). I will carry out a corpus investigation to verify
the introspection-based pattern in (4). This method is in line with current research into negative polarity items, in which claims about the polarity sensitivityof items are based on such corpus data.

2

CorpusTable 1 presents an overview of corpus material used in my corpus study. The
material consists of various types of texts, spoken as well as written material;formal as well as informal texts and Flemish as well as Dutch texts. The relevant
information can be found in the table.

3

Results

The results of the corpus study are presented in Table 2. Only occurrences wherethe verb has the desired meaning are taken into account. For example, uitkijken
has an alternative meaning under which the verb can be translated in English as‘look forward to’. We are only interested in cases where the verbs under consideration can be translated as ‘watch out’, ‘look out’ or a similar expression.
The three verbs under consideration have a relatively similar distribution. For
each verb the occurrences in modal contexts and imperatives correspond to twothirds or more of the total number of sentences.
Each verb occurs in combination with a ‘nonveridical’ (cf. Zwarts 1995) trigger in more than 90% of the total number of cases. In the literature, such items
202

CorpusNumber ofWords

INL 27 million
and 38 million
words corpora(1995-1996)

65 million

CGN (2004)

10 million

CONDIV-corpus 4.8 million
Mediargus(online digitalarchive ofarticles from
Flemishnewspapers
and magazines)

PeriodMaterialmaterial from Dutch andFlemish newspapers,
1970-1995 books, speeches,
articles, journalistic
and legal texts
Dutch and Flemish spokenmaterial: dialogues, otherconversations, interviews,
1998-2004
lessons, speeches, news
bulletins, live coverages
and (other) spoken texts
material from Dutch
1998
newspapers

relevant
number ofwords
1990-2008
cannot be
determinedmaterial from Flemish
newspapers andmagazines

Table 1: Overview of the corpus material
which show a (strong) tendency to occur in nonveridical environments are referred to semi-NPI’s or weak NPI’s (see Hoeksema 1994, van der Wal 1996, Oosterhof 2003-4). On the basis of our results, we could draw the conclusion thatuitkijken, oppassen and opletten are polarity sensitive items on the basis of theirgeneral distribution. The question is of course whether this is the desired result,but I will return to this question in the discussion section.
Now that we have discussed the general distribution of the three verbs, wewill now consider some more detailed results with regard to conditional sentences. Table 3 shows a comparison between the use of the verbs in conditional
sentences and other contexts. The table provides for each case the number ofoccurrences in combination with an adverb of negation niet and the number ofoccurrences without such an adverb of negation.
203environments/triggers

modal
contexts

modal
auxiliary

moeten (‘must, have to’)mogen (‘may, be allowed to’)kunnen (‘can’)zullen (‘shall’)otherimperatives
negativecontexts

conditional
sentences

niet (‘not’)niet goed (‘not well’)other
als…niet…(‘if…not…’)with
als…niet goed (‘if…not well…’)
negationwanneer + niet (‘when + not’)withoutals…(‘if…’)
negation mits…(‘only if…’)
zonder (‘without’)
alleen (‘only’)

inherently
negative
futurequestionscombination of two ‘nonveridical’ triggers
other ‘nonveridical’ triggers
without any trigger

uitkijken oppassen opletten‘look/watch out, take care’
137
213
133
3
10
3
1
1
1
17
28
24
55
94
117
13
36
4
18
1
1
2
22
24
12
2
1
1
1
6
1
8
1
1
3
11
1
2
2
3
2
6
4
7
9
14
1
34
281
384
419

Table 2: Distribution of the three verbs

with neg.
(niet)
without neg.
(niet)

uitkijken
conditional
sentences
39
91%
4
9%
43

other
contexts
18
7%
247
93%
265

oppassenconditional
sentences
102
96%
4
4%
106

other
contexts
1
0%
358
100%
359

oplettenconditional
sentences
98
80%
24
20%
122

other
contexts
56
14%
339
86%
395

Table 3: The occurrence of niet in the protasis of conditional sentences and othercontexts
There is a signiﬁcant diﬀerence between the use of these three verbs in conditional sentences and other contexts. In conditional sentences, by far most occurrences of the verbs are accompanied by the adverb of negation. In other con204

texts, most sentences in which one of the verbs is used do not contain an adverbof negation

4

Discussion

More than 90% of the occurrences of the verbs uitkijken, oppassen and opletten can be identiﬁed as occurrences in nonveridical contexts, which implies thatthese verbs can be described as weak negative polarity items. However, this conclusion is in a sense counterintuitive: there is only a small proportion of the total
number of occurrences in which an adverb of negation is used (cf. Table 2). The
nonveridicality hypothesis leads to a situation where an item can be identiﬁed
as a (weak) negative polarity item, even though the percentage of occurrenceswith negation is low. If we accept the nonveridicality hypothesis, the relation between the set of items identiﬁed by using the relevant criterion and the conceptof polarity sensitivity is lost. The criterion of nonveridicality provides us with avery broad deﬁnition, as a consequence of which even items not especially sensitive to polarity end up as polarity sensitive items.
In earlier work on negative polarity items other logical properties were usedin order to describe the distribution of negative polarity items. In publications
from the eighties and the nineties by people like Ladusaw, Zwarts, Hoeksema
and van der Wouden the assumption was made that negative polarity items are
sensitive to downward entailment and related properties. Modal contexts andimperatives do not have the property of downward entailment. Under such ahypothesis, uitkijken, oppassen and opletten would not be labelled as negative
polarity items, which seems to be a more desired result.
Let us now consider the relation between the use of uitkijken, oppassen andopletten in conditional sentences and the presence of an adverb of negation.
We have observed that there is a clear tendency that in most cases such conditional sentences contain an adverb of negation. These verbs are polarity sensitive when used in conditional sentences. This leads to a confusing situation. The
claim that the verbs uitkijken, oppassen and opletten are negative polarity items
in conditional sentences suggests that they must be used with an appropriate
trigger. However, the protasis of a conditional sentence is assumed to be an appropriate trigger for negative polarity items itself. This implies that the claimthat uitkijken, oppassen and opletten are negative polarity items in conditional
sentences is tautologically true (i.e. it cannot be falsiﬁed).
This illustrates that there is a complex relation between the sensitivity of so205

called polarity items and their licensing environments. This point can be further
demonstrated by referring to another item, iemand gegeven zijn (‘be granted tosomeone’). This item is included by Hoeksema (2013) in his lexicon of polarity
items. Hoeksema (2013: 42) writes that this item is fairly common in conditional
sentences (5% of total number of attestations). We can conclude that the protasis of a conditional sentence is an example of an environment which plays a different role with regard to diﬀerent polarity items. It is part of the set of licensing
conditions of an item like iemand gegeven zijn (‘be granted to someone’), but foruitkijken, oppassen and opletten, it is part of the deﬁnition of the relevant item.
As a conclusion, note that we can describe the restrictions on the verbs uitkijken, oppassen and opletten as a special kind of collocational behaviour. A collocation can be deﬁned as an idiosyncratic restriction on the compatibility of lexical
items. In our data, there seems to be collocational behaviour as well, but in thiscase there is an idiosyncratic restriction on the compatibility of environments inwhich items occur. The three verbs under consideration in our study provide an
example of the fact that description of concrete behaviour of lexical items is amore complicated task than expected from the perspective of straightforward
logical notions like nonveridicality.

References
Hoeksema, J. 1994. On the grammaticalization of negative polarity items. In
S. Gahl, A. Dolbey & C. Johnson (eds.), Proceedings of the 20th annual meetingof the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General session dedicated to the contributions of Charles J. Fillmore. 273–282. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Hoeksema, J. 1999. Iemand iets wijsmaken: irrealis en negatieve polariteit. TABU
29(1). 37–42.
Hoeksema, J. 2013. De negatief-polaire uitdrukkingen van het Nederlands. Unpublished manuscript, University of Groningen.
Oosterhof, A. 2003-4. Polariteitsgevoeligheid van doorgaan (‘gehouden worden’). TABU 33(1/2). 131–150.
Oosterhof, A. & Hoeksema, J. 2008. Uitkijken, oppassen en opletten: Een corpusonderzoek naar polaire gevoeligheid en andere distributionele eigenschappen. TABU 37(1/2). 79–110.
van der Wal, S. 1996. Negative polarity items and negation: Tandem acquisition:
University of Groningen dissertation.
206

van der Wouden, T. 1997. Negative contexts. Collocation, polarity, and multiple
negation. London: Routledge.
Zwarts, F. 1995. Nonveridical contexts. Linguistic Analysis 25(3/4). 286–312.

207

The absence of classiﬁers in numeral classiﬁer
constructions in Vietnamese
Trang Phan*

To Liliane, who inspires me to always look beyond assumptions
Vietnamese is a so-called obligatory numeral classiﬁer language. Nevertheless
it is possible to have direct combination between a numeral and a bare noun in
the absence of a go-between classiﬁer. The goal of this squib is to investigate
the seemingly unusual cases of such Numeral-N phrases.
In Gil’s (2008) typology of numeral classiﬁers, the world’s languages are divided into three types on the basis of whether classiﬁers are absent, optional or
obligatory in numeral constructions. Vietnamese is considered as belonging to
the third type in which a numeral cannot quantify a noun without the presenceof a classiﬁer based on examples like (1):(1)

hai *(con) chó
two
dog‘two dogs’(Gil’s example 2008: 4)

Gil notes, though, that in Vietnamese there is a specialised style of speech, namely
food ordering at food stalls and restaurants, in which numeral classiﬁers are frequently omitted, as seen in (2).
(2)

Context: At the noodle bar where there is a choice between two kinds ofnoodle soup (chicken or beef), a group of 5 customers might simply order
as follows:Bagàhai bò
Three chicken two beef
‘Three bowls of chicken soup and two bowls of beef soup.’*

My special thanks go to Eric Lander for proofreading and commenting on the earlier versionof the squib. Needless to say, all errors are mine

208

(Gil’s example 2008: 5)
Gil excludes those speciﬁc contexts and still classiﬁes Vietnamese as an obligatory numeral classiﬁer language (Gil 2008: 5).
In this squib, I take issue with Gil’s classiﬁcation by showing that the optionality of Vietnamese classiﬁers in numeral constructions is not limited to thosespecial contexts, rather the optionality of classiﬁers in Vietnamese numeral constructions can be understood in a systematic and productive way. More precisely, there is in fact a large group of Vietnamese nouns which do not need aclassiﬁer in combination with a numeral.1
In the literature on Vietnamese, it has been proposed that Vietnamese nouns
can be divided into two main types: classiﬁed nouns that require a classiﬁer to bequantiﬁed (as in (1)), and non-classiﬁed nouns that can be counted directly in theabsence of classiﬁers (Emeneau 1951, Thompson 1965, Nguyễn 1975, Nguyễn
2002, Tran 2011, a.o.), as illustrated by the Numeral-N phrases in (3).
(3)

a.

b.

Hai ngày/ tỉnh/bàn/ túi/ bạn/ sinh-viên/vận-động-viên
two day/ province/ table/ bag/ friend/ student/athlete‘two days/provinces/tables/bags/friends/students/athletes.’
Một-trăm
ngày/ tỉnh/bàn/ túi/ bạn/one-hundred day/ province/ table/ bag/ friend/sinh-viên/vận-động-viên
student/athlete‘one-hundred days/provinces/tables/bags/friends/students/athletes.’

This phenomenon is not novel cross-linguistically. The same Numeral-N pattern
is found in Korean (Hwang 2012) but with two restrictions:2 Numeral-N is only
possible if the NP (i) refers to common human nouns and (ii) is combined withnumerals below ﬁve, as seen in (4).
(4)

a. *tases kapang
ﬁve bag
1

See Gil (2008), Aikhenvald (2000) and Greenberg (1974) for similar phenomena crosslinguistically.
2
Her et al. (2015) also observes that Numeral-N phrases can be licensed in Chinese in limited
contexts, in an idiom for instance:(i)wu ma huan liu yang
5 horse trade 6 goat
‘Trading 5 horses for 6 goats.’

209

‘ﬁve bags’
b. *ney wuntongsenswu
four athlete‘four athletes’
c. *payk
haksayng
one-hundred student‘one hundred students’(Hwang’s examples: 2012: 65–66)

Unlike in Korean, Numeral-N phrases in Vietnamese are productive regardless ofthe noun type and the numeral type, as shown in (3), which clearly suggests that,
contra Gil’s classiﬁcation, Vietnamese seems to better ﬁt with optional numeralclassiﬁer languages.
In fact, a Numeral-N phrase can appear as the object or the subject of sentences, and can be interpreted as indeﬁnite or deﬁnite in Vietnamese:(5)

Tôi vừa viết thư giới-thiệu cho hai sinh-viên. Hai sinh-viên đều
1 just write letter recommend give two student. Two student bothhọc ngôn-ngữ-học.
study linguistics‘I have just written recommendation letters for two students. The two
students both study linguistics.’

That is to say, a Numeral-N phrase can have the same distribution and interpretation as a fully-ﬂedged Numeral-CLF-N phrase:(6)

Tôi vừa viết thư giới-thiệu cho hai bạn sinh-viên. Hai bạn
1 just write letter recommend give two
student. Twosinh-viên đều học ngôn-ngữ-học.
student both study linguistics‘I have just written recommendation letters for two students. The two
students both study linguistics.’

This seems to suggest that a Numeral-N is indeed a Numeral-CLF-N underlyingly. The question is where the covert CLF component resides: in the Numeral
or in the N?
One account is proposed by Nguyễn (2002) in which the numeral in NumeralN phrases is considered as a ‘zero classiﬁer’ (in his terminology) carrying the individuating function.3 Consider Nguyễn’s minimal pair in (7):3

In order to account for the optionality of the classiﬁer in numeral constructions, Borer (2005:

210

(7)

a.

b.

Người đã lên mặt-trăng.
Personup moon‘Human beings went to the moon.’
Hai người đã lên mặt-trăng
two person
up moon‘Two people went to the moon.’(Nguyễn’s examples: 2002: 17)

In the absence of the numeral, the bare noun in (7a) is interpreted as generic,
whereas the addition of the numeral hai ‘two’ in (7b) forces a speciﬁc reading.
Putting it diﬀerently, the absence of a classiﬁer in Numeral-N phrases, according
to Nguyễn (2002), results from the fact that the numeral serves two functions at
the same time: to individuate and to count.
A scrutiny of the Vietnamese data, however, reveals that this analysis cannot
be true since apart from numerals, the bare noun can also co-occur with a number of other elements in the absence of classiﬁers: it can immediately follow aquantiﬁer (8a) or a plural marker (8b), and can directly precede a demonstrative(8c) or a relative clause (8d).
(8)

a.

b.

c.

d.

Mọi sinh-viênEvery student‘Every student’Các/những sinh-viên
student‘The students.’
Sinh-viên này
Student this‘This student.’
Sinh-viên mà tôi vừa viết thư giới-thiệu
student
1 just write letter recommend‘The student that I have just written a recommendation letter for.’That is to say, the absence of the classiﬁer in the Vietnamese Numeral-N construction is derived from the fact that the bare noun is underlyingly a CLF-N
phrase (along the lines of Cheng & Sybesma’s 1999 proposal for Chinese). Thatis, rather than assuming that numerals, quantiﬁers, plural markers, demonstratives and the RC marker all individually combine with a zero classiﬁer, we cantake the much simpler approach that it is just the noun that combines with the
117–118) also suggests that in such languages, numerals can function as dividers.

211

individuating classiﬁer.
This account is further supported by the fact that the bare noun indeed canfunction as either the object or the subject of the sentence, and can obtain either
indeﬁnite (underlying bare N) or deﬁnite (underlying CLF-N) readings, as in (9):(9)

Tôi mời cả sinh-viên và giáo-viên đến dự
tiệc. Sinh-viên thì
1 invite all student and teacher come attend party Student
say bí-tỉ, giáo-viên thì còn tỉnh-táo.
drunkteacher
still awake‘I invited both students and teachers to come to the party. The students
were very drunk, the teachers were still awake.’

To conclude, in this squib, I have contested Gil’s 2008 classiﬁcation of Vietnamese
as an obligatory numeral classiﬁer language based on a wider range of empiricalpatterns in which the overt classiﬁer is absent. I further put forward the idea thatthe absence of the classiﬁer in Numeral-N constructions is indicative of the factthat the bare noun is not so bare in Vietnamese.

References
Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2000. Classiﬁers: A typology of noun categorization devices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Borer, H. 2005. Structuring sense. vol.1, in name only. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Cheng, L. & Sybesma, R. 1999. Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of
NP. Linguistic Inquiry 30. 509–542.
Emeneau, M. 1951. Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) grammar. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Publications.
Gil, D. 2008. Numeral classiﬁers. In M.S. Dryer, D. Gil & B. Comrie (eds.), The
world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://wals.info/feature/55.
Greenberg, J. 1974. Studies in numerical systems I: Double numeral systems.
Stanford Working Papers on Language Universals 1. 75–89.
Her, O.S., Ching-Perng, C. & Hui-Chin, T. 2015. Justifying silent elements in syntax: The case of a silent numeral, a silent classiﬁer, and two silent nouns in
Mandarin Chinese. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 2. 193–216.

212

Hwang, S.H. 2012. The acquisition of Korean plural marking by native English
speakers: Georgetown University dissertation.
Nguyễn, P.P. 2002. Những vấn đề ngữ pháp tiếng việt: loại từ và chỉ thị từ [Issuesof Vietnamese grammar: Classiﬁers and demonstratives]. Hà Nội: Nhà Xuấtbản Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội.
Nguyễn, T.C. 1975. Từ loại danh từ trong tiếng việt hiện đại [The word class ofnouns in modern Vietnamese]. Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất bản Khoa học xã hội.
Thompson, L. 1965. A Vietnamese grammar Mon-Khmer Studies XIII-XIV. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
Tran, J. 2011. The acquisition of Vietnamese classiﬁers: University of Hawaii at
Manoa dissertation.

213

Embedded interrogatives as free relatives
Cecilia Poletto and Emanuela Sanfelici

1

Introduction

In this work we intend to show that a typical property of North-Eastern Italian dialects (NEIDs) namely the sequence wh-complementizer in embedded interrogatives (which in some dialects also extends to non-standard (under the deﬁnition
by Obenauer 2006) and even standard main questions originally developed outof a free relative structure where the complementizer is actually not a complementizer but part of the internal structure of the wh-item heading the relative
clause. The structures we are going to investigate are illustrated in (1), where
we see that the wh-item is followed by the item che, which has always been interpreted as a complementizer.
(1)

No so
cossa che el gabia dito.
Not know what that he has said
‘I do not know what he said.’

If we consider this phenomenon in traditional terms, it looks like an apparent
violation of the traditional “doubly ﬁlled comp ﬁlter”, since the C0 head is occupied by the complementizer and speciﬁer of the CP by the wh-item. Even under a more restricted view, namely that the doubly ﬁlled comp ﬁlter can only
be violated if the head and the speciﬁer agree (see Koopman 1996), there is nomorphological hint of an agree operation between the wh and che that might
justify the violation. This structure is problematic even in a more modern framework: for instance the exceptionality of these structures has been noted (seePoletto & Vanelli 1995 and Poletto 2000) within the cartographic framework ascases in which the complementizer does not sit in its usual Force0 position as
it does in declaratives (see Rizzi 1997), but as a case of a low complementizer
probably located in the low Fin/Focus area. Even assuming that the complementizer is ﬁrst merged in the Fin0 , since it has [+ﬁniteness] features and then214raises to Force0 , we have a case in which the complementizer does not reach theForce0 position. Alternatively, we have to assume that the Force0 of interrogatives is lower than the Force0 of declaratives, which conceptually empties thenotion of Force0 as marking sentence type. Furthermore, the possibility to haveat the same time high and low complementizers occurring after left dislocateditems and wh-items has been identiﬁed as a weakness of the cartographic approach (see van ?), where ideally every element should have its own position.
Furthermore, che is usually the complementizer of declarative clauses, while interrogative clauses (at least yes/no interrogatives use se ‘if’). Here we intend to
explore an alternative which only recently became available since Poletto & Sanfelici (2015) have argued that the “complementizer” che found in relative clauses
in Italian is actually a determiner-like portion of the internal head of the relative
clause. We will argue that the ﬁrst instances of wh-che structures in embedded
interrogatives are actually free (or light headed) relative clauses, so that the element che found in these cases is not a complementizer at all, but is part of theinternal structure of the wh-item. In order to show how this might work, we willtake various NEIDs into consideration.

2

Venetian

In Venetian, and in the majority of Veneto dialects, the sequence [wh-che] isobligatory with all wh-items in embedded interrogatives with no exception. The
lack of che results into ungrammaticality. We provide here some examples to illustrate the point. These structures are so stable that they can occasionally leek
into the regional standard Italian of native Veneto speakers:
(2)

No so
dove *(che) el sia ’nda.
Not know where that he is gone

(3)

No so
chi *(che) legabia visto.
Not know who that them have seen

(4)

No so
come *(che) el lo gabia fato.
Not know howthat he it have done

(5)

No so
parcossa *(che) el sia ndá via.
Not know whythat he be gone away

(6)

No so
quantipomi *(che) el gabia comprá.
Not know how many apples that he have bought
215

(7)

No so
che zente *(che) el gabia visto.
Not know which people that he have seenInterestingly, Old Venetian does not possess this property in the same way themodern variant does. The following examples are all extracted out of the Tristano Veneto, a medieval text dating around the end of the XIII or the beginningof the XIV century. They show that in Old Venetian it is indeed possible not tohave che after then wh-item in embedded interrogatives:(8)çerchando qui novelle li
savesse dir del chavalier che
looking for which news them could say of.the knight thatpersegiva la Bestia Gladisschantechases the Bestia Gladisschante(370, 32)

(9)

domandé in que logo dieeser questa bataia.
asked
in which place should be this battle(69, 45)(10)

Ma atanto
me dixé in qual parte se va li cavalieri.
But in.as.much to.me said in whichgo the knights (145, 23)(11)

et se algun me domandasse de qui era la nave
and if some to.me askof whom was the ship

(168, 8)This is generally true of complex wh-phrases but also of bare wh-items:(12)

Lo re domandà Tristan qui era lo chavalier che chavalchava
The king asked
Tristan who was the knight that was riding
sì soloalone(89, 47)(13)

Et ello li
domandá donde elli era
And he to.them asked
where he was(14)(165, 13)

io non soqui elli sia questi tre cavallieri deque le letre
I not know who they are these three knights about whom the letter
parla
talks
(22, 14)

Notably, the element meaning where, besides the form in (13), also has a diﬀerent structure, which looks like a free relative clause with a light head, like thepronoun ‘there’ lá. The same is true of the item ‘why’, which displays the structure of a relative with the light noun ‘reason’ chasion:
216

(15)
(16)

e domandava láo’ch’elo sia lo re
and asked
there where that he was the king(42, 3)ela a lor domandà la chasion perché eli gera vignudi
She to them asks
the reason why they were come (407)

The same can also occur with the wh-item qui, ‘who’, which has no pronoun orlight noun, but can (though it need not, cf. (12)) be followed by que:(17)

voleva saver qui qu’ello era
wanted to know who that he was

Notice that these cases have to be analyzed as embedded interrogatives, since
they are selected by the verb domandar ‘ask’ and saver ‘to know’. However, thecase in (18) shows that the light head represented by the deictic pronoun lá is notnecessary to have the structure o-que. This pattern resembles that exhibited byfree vs. light-headed relative clauses: a free relative clause can have a null headas in (18) or a light-headed one as in (15) (Poletto & Sanfelici 2015, 2018).
(18)

ma molto elo se maravegiava o’qu’ella podeva eser andada
but much he
was amazed where that she could have gone
(368, 28)

The phenomenon wh-che in Old Venetian is thus found primarily with ‘where’,‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘why’, and in this last case only with a light headed relative
clause, while the other wh items can also have a free relative tout court. The sequence is not found with ‘how’, and ‘from where’ or with complex wh phrases in
the Tristano Veneto. We can conclude that Old Venetian displays the ﬁrst stageof the phenomenon which then extends to all wh-items, i.e. embedded interrogatives actually display the structure of a free relative clause with a light headnoun and the following che.

3

Trentino

One further dialectal area that presents this phenomenon, although in a more
limited way, is Trentino: here not all wh-items have to be followed by che, but
only some of them. Garzonio (2007) already notices this fact on the basis of thesurvey of the ASIt database:

217

(19)

a.
b.
c.
d.

Voi saver ndo che i ènadi i to amizi.
want know where that were gone the your friends[Trento]No socosa la mama l abia comprà per zena.
Not know what the mother cl has bought for dinner
Di-me ci che as vist ieri.
tell-me who that you have seen yesterday[Val di Non]
Di-me cando torna
el Giani.
Tell-me when comes back the Gianni

The realization of che is indeed variable, since the same speaker translates sentences with and without che for the same wh-item in the prompt.
The same observation is proved by a further investigation based on her own
ﬁeld work by Polonia (2014) for the Trentino dialects spoken in Val di Sole, Val di
Cembra and Val di Non. She notices that the occurrence of wh-che is not obligatory with various wh items, but there is a clear tendency to use che with thefollowing wh-items:
(20)
(21)

Dime kel che le teadit le tosorele.
Tell-me that that to.you have said your sisters
No so chi che lava
giò i piatti.
Not know who that washes down the dishes[Tassullo][Stedron, Segonzano]

Notice that the structure with the wh-item corresponding to ‘what’ in (20) is thesame used in French embedded interrogatives where there is no wh-items but alight headed relative clause whose head is still clearly the distal demonstrative(ce que). Polonia (2014) provides a hierarchy of wh-items which can more frequently be doubled by che, although she also notes that the same speaker varies
in using che after the very same wh-item or not. A simpliﬁed summary of theimplicational scales she reports for the three valleys she investigates is reported
here:
(22)

What/where whomany X why/how

how many

which

when

which Xhow

The data from Old Venetian and those from Trentino only partially overlap. We
can recognize some tendencies, since in all the varieties the elements which display the doubling are where, who, what but Old Venetian also tolerates why(with the light noun chasion) while complex wh-phrases are clearly at the rightedge of the spectrum and the element corresponding to ‘how’ is also generally218not doubled.

4

Preliminary notes for a syntactic analysis

Poletto & Vanelli (1995) propose the following generalization:(23)

If a dialect displays wh-che in main interrogatives it does also in embedded interrogatives.

Here we propose that this generalization can also be read in terms of diachronic
development, such that wh-che starts out in embedded interrogatives and then
expands into main interrogatives. Poletto & Vanelli single out the last step of thedevelopment of this structure, namely the point when it extends from embedded to main interrogatives, which we will not deal with here (see Poletto 2000
for an analysis in cartographic terms). At this point two questions arise: (i) how
do these structures start out in embedded interrogatives?; (ii) When we take into
consideration the data presented in the previous section where we showed thatthe presence of the wh-che in embedded interrogatives depends on the type of
wh items introducing them, how can the generalization in (23) be implemented.
Addressing the ﬁrst question, we propose that the trigger for the rise of whche is the semantic ambiguity which can arise between free and interrogative
clauses under certain predicates (see Caponigro 2003). Parry (2003) shows thatin Old Piedmontese the ﬁrst attested cases of wh-che are precisely ambiguous
between a free relative and an interrogative reading. One might thus simply saythat there was a semantic ambiguity between a free relative and an embedded
interrogative (along the lines of Cecchetto & Donati 2015) and this is the reason
why the structure wh-che could be extended from free relative clauses to embedded interrogatives. However, we think that the question is more complex
than that, and that the ﬁrst link towards the intrusion of a relative structure in aninterrogative one is not between embedded interrogatives and free relatives altogether but between embedded interrogatives and light headed free relatives.
Free relatives can either be expressed by a simple wh item, as shown in (24),
but Italian varieties (as other Romance languages) have the tendency to realize
light heads, especially with the element corresponding to what, which, just likein French, is utterly impossible as a free relative (25) and requires a light head(26) (see Munaro 2000).

219

(24)

Chi ha detto questo, ha sbagliato.
‘Who said thiswas wrong’(25)*Cosa hai detto, é sbagliato.
‘What you said is wrong’(26)

Quello che hai detto, é sbagliato.
‘The thing that you said is wrong’

As predicted under our proposal, if wh-che embedded interrogatives are free/light-headed relative clauses, we expect the embedded interrogative with theelement corresponding to ‘what’ to be impossible at least in certain varieties.
This prediction seems to be born out: in certain Trentino dialects the embedded interrogatives on ‘what’ cannot have the wh-item for ‘what’, but require thelight-head quello che “that that” as they do in real free relatives (Garzonio 2007).
Poletto & Sanfelici (to appear) attribute the spell out of a light head to the fact
that, as assumed by Cinque (2013) and originally proposed by Sauerland (1999,
2003), all relative clauses are double headed: they all have an external head located in the DP spine and an internal one located inside the relative clause. Languages diﬀer with respect to the head they lexically spell out, and free relatives
can be analyzed as restrictive relatives where neither head is lexically realized.
Notice however that there is an “intermediate stage” between real free relatives
and headed restrictive relative clauses, namely light headed relatives, which areexactly the type of relatives that ﬁrst manifest themselves in embedded interrogative contexts. We surmise that the variation found in Old Venetian attests
precisely this: the ﬁrst relative structures to be found in interrogative domains
are light headed relatives as the ones found with lá o que and la chasion que. The
fact that the ﬁrst step of the evolution of the wh-che structure is a light headed
relative clause is shown by the fact that these are the only possible structureseven in languages, like French, where no other wh-item presents this possibility.
If French represents the ﬁrst stage of the development of this structure, NEIDs
represent the second one: the usage is extended to wh-pronouns, where there
is no lexical light head. If this were the end of the story, we would expect that
all wh-items should allow for doubling except for the complex ones already containing a lexical head. However, when we take into consideration the data presented in the previous section where we showed that the presence of the wh-che
in embedded interrogatives depends on the type of wh items introducing them,this expectation is not fully fulﬁlled. The stage depicted by Polonia (2014) andGarzonio (2007) for Trentino dialects only partially matches this expectation: we
220ﬁnd that the wh-items that tolerate the wh-che structure are a) those that still
display the light head (like the case of kel che in (20)); b) those that allow for a null
free relative head are not all possible wh-items, but there is a second hierarchy
even if we exclude light headed relatives. The implicational scale in (23) showsthat elements like why and how are much more resistant, even more that complex wh-items. We are forced to assume that there is one more factor at playhere. If we leave complex wh-items aside, the hierarchy in (23) partially looks
like the Keenan and Comrie’s case hierarchy, which goes from the less complex
to the most complex cases: here evidently what, where and who are less complex than why and how, which are at the rightmost edge of the scale. It is wellknown that the Keenan and Comrie’s hierarchy is at play in relative clauses in thephenomenon that is known as the case containment condition, i.e. the condition
ruling which case is spelled out on the lexical relative head when the case of themain clause and the case of the relative clause do not match. Poletto & Sanfelici (to appear) show that modern Italian generally resolves case mismatches infavor of the external case:(27)

Partirócon chihai incontrato ieri.
‘I will leave with whom you met yesterday’(28)*A chihai telefonato é partito.
‘To whom you phoned left’

This is the case also for the NEIDs we are considering, as the translation in modern Venetian shows:(29)

Ndaró via co chi che te ga visto jeri.
‘I will leave with whom you met yesterday’(30)*A chi che ti ghe ga telefoná el ze partio.
‘To whom you phoned
left’

Suppose that embedded interrogatives in these dialects have the structure offree relative clauses (as the light headed cases overtly show). This means thatthey have two heads, a relative internal one, and an external one, which is the(null) DP that is the complement clause of verbs like ‘ask’. If we apply the doublehead idea to embedded interrogatives, we immediately explain the ﬁrst step ofthe evolution, i.e. light headed relatives, which spell out both the external lighthead and the internal wh head: in la chasion perché, la is the determiner of thewhole DP, chasion is the external head and perché represents the internal head221

by means of a relative pronoun. Cases like lá o che display the external head (thedeictic pronoun lá) and the internal one, which is made up of two components[o che]. This means that at the successive stage of development, i.e. the one ofa real free relative with no lexically spelled out external head, we only have theinternal one [o che]. One might wonder why an element like che intrudes into
a wh-item and what portion of its internal structure it spells out. The fact thatche can be part of a wh-item is actually straightforward if we consider the form
corresponding to ‘what’ in standard Italian, namely che cosa. Poletto & Pollock(2009) propose the following internal structure for wh-items:(31)[DisjP[ExistP[RestrictorP]]]Suppose that in Italian cosa represents the restrictor, since it literally means ‘thing’and che the existential component as in (32):(32)[DisjP[ExistP che [RestrictorP cosa ]]]This structure immediately explains the complex nature of wh-pronouns and theordering of the elements we observe. An independent argument in favor of theidea that wh-pronouns have the complex structure illustrated in (32) is that there
are dialects where two components, i.e. the restrictor and the disjunctive as in(33) and (34) can occur separately giving rise to doubling structures (see Obenauer 2006, Munaro & Poletto 2018):(33)

Cossa inviti-to chi?!
invite-you who(m)‘Who (the hell) are you inviting?!’(34)

Cossa ve-to dove?!
go-you where‘Where (the hell) are you going?!’[Paduan (Central Veneto)]

Notice that our free relative/interrogative case represents the third logical possibility besides the combinations of existential plus restrictor and restrictor plus
disjunctive:(35)[DisjP o [ExistP che [RestrictorP]]]

Notice that also this combination is found in doubling structures:

222

(36)

Che ‘ncontre-t chi?
Wh meet-you who‘Whom are you meeting?’(37)

Ch’ ö-tqual?
Wh want-you which‘Which one do you want?’[Malonno (Eastern Lombard)]

On this basis we can conclude that the structures [wh che] in embedded interrogatives is not a case of low complementizers but the spell out of the ExistentialP,
one of the internal projections of the wh-item. In this sense interrogative andrelative pronouns are the same, i.e. they contain at least three layers, which canbe lexically spelled out or not. The reason why the ﬁrst embedded interrogatives
to manifest the spell out of the existential component che are actually ambiguous with free relative clauses has to do with the fact that in general in relative
clauses ExistentialP is always spelled out by che in Italian varieties.

5

Concluding remarks

In this work we have entertained the hypothesis that the occurrence of che after
wh-items found in NEIDs is not a case of violation of the doubly ﬁlled comp ﬁlter, where the complementizer che sits in a low C0 head. We have proposed thatthese structures, just like relative clauses, are the spell out of more than one internal projection of the wh-item. This explains why the ﬁrst attested historicallycases are indeed free relative clauses, since relative clauses generally spell out
the existential portion of the internal relative head. It can also explain well known
cases of wh-doubling in simple wh-questions, which are rather rare even in languages like colloquial German and non-standard Dutch varieties which display aso called scope marker wh- doubling the actual wh-item in long extractions.

References
Caponigro, I. 2003. Free not to ask: On the semantics of free relatives and whwords crosslinguistically: UCLA dissertation.
Cecchetto, C. & Donati, C. 2015. (Re)labeling. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cinque, G. 2013. Typological studies. Word order and relative clauses. London:
Routledge.
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Garzonio, J. 2007. Complementatori nelle interrogative delle varietà trentine:
Variazione diatopica e generazionale. In G. Marcato (ed.), Dialetto, memoria efantasia. Atti del convegno, Sappada 28 giugno-2 luglio 2006. 179–183. Padova:
Unipress.
Koopman, H. 1996. The spec head conﬁguration. Syntax at Sunset, UCLA Working Papers in Syntax and Semantics 1. 37–64.
Munaro, N. 2000. Free relative clauses as defective wh-elements: evidence fromthe northwestern Italian dialects. University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics 10. 89–120.
Munaro, N. & Poletto, C. 2018. Pattern of wh-in-situ and wh-doubling in the
Northern Italian dialects. Paper presented at the Geneva Workshop on optional wh-in-situ, January 2018.
Obenauer, H.G. 2006. Special interrogatives – left periphery, wh-doubling, and(apparently) optional elements. In J. Doetjes & P. Gonzalves (eds.), Romance
Languages and Linguistic Theory 2004 – selected papers from ‘Going Romance2004’. 247–273. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Parry, M. 2003. Cosa ch’a l’é sta storia? The interaction of pragmatics and syntax
in the development of WH-interrogatives with overt complementizer in Piedmontese. In C. Tortora (ed.), The syntax of Italian dialects. 152–174. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Poletto, C. 2000. The higher functional ﬁeld: Evidence from Northern Italian dialects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Poletto, C. & Pollock, J.Y. 2009. Another look at wh-questions in romance: Thecase of Mendriosiotto and its consequence for the analysis of French in situ
and embedded interrogatives. In D. Torck & W.L. Wetzels (eds.), Romance
Languages and Linguistic Theory 2006 – selected papers from ‘Going Romance2006’. 199–258. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Poletto, C. & Sanfelici, E. 2015. On demonstratives in relative clauses. In M.G.
Busà & S. Gesuato (eds.), Lingue e contesti. Studi in onore di Alberto Mioni. 561–
571. Padua: CLEUP.
Poletto, C. & Sanfelici, E. 2018. Demonstratives as relative pronouns: New insight from Italian varieties. In M. Coniglio, A. Murphy, E. Schlachter & T. Veenstra (eds.), Atypical demonstratives. Syntax, semantics and pragmatics. 95–
126. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Poletto, C. & Sanfelici, E. to appear. On relative complementizers and relative
pronouns. Linguistic Variation .
Poletto, C. & Vanelli, L. 1995. Gli introduttori delle frasi interrogative nei dialetti
italiani settentrionali. In E. Banﬁ, G. Bonfadini, P. Cordin & M. Iliescu (eds.),224

Italia settentrionale: crocevia di idiomi romanzi. Atti del convegno internazionale
di studi. Trento, 21-23 ottobre 1993. 145–158. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Polonia, K. 2014. Wh + che: Die komplexe Struktur einer Interrogativstrategie am
Beispiel der Trienter Varietäten: Goethe University Frankfurt MA thesis.
Rizzi, L. 1997. The ﬁne structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (ed.),Elements of grammar: Handbook in generative syntax. 281–337. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Sauerland, U. 1999. Total reconstruction, PF-movement and derivational order.
Linguistics 7. 1–38.
Sauerland, U. 2003. Unpronounced heads in relative clauses. In K. Schwabe &W. Susanne (eds.), The interfaces. 205–226. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

225

For Liliane:
Friend, muse, linguist extraordinaire, andworld’s second most famous Belgian
Andrew Radford*
Liliane’s academic career and mine have been intertwined for decades. We
both have a common obsession with collecting ‘real’ data on English usage. I
must admit, however, that Liliane’s method of collecting data is far more rigorous than mine: she collects examples of interesting structures in written English
while reading the Guardian (etc.) on her exercise bike; I collect data on unusual
structures in spoken English while lying prostate on a sofa (sporadically dipping
into a pot of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate ice-cream) and listening to live commentary on the latest football or cricket matches on radio or TV. We exchange data
regularly, as you’ll see from numerous footnotes in her excellent (2012) monograph Adverbial Clauses, Main Clause Phenomena, and Composition of the Left
Periphery citing weird structures that I’d collected (or dreamed up), and from thefrequent mentions of her in my forthcoming CUP monograph on Colloquial English: Structure and Variation.
Liliane once told me that her interest in generative syntax had been sparked
by reading my 1981 Transformational Syntax book as a student, and that she’d always wanted to write a joint article with me. Together with a Spanish colleague(Ángel Jiménez-Fernández from Sevilla), we worked on a paper on extraction out
of subjects in English and Spanish, which was eventually published with the title‘Deconstructing the Subject Condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation’ in The Linguistic Review (2014, vol. 31, pp. 73–150). The paper combines
Minimalist, Cartographic and processing perspectives, and was well received:
Chomsky is reported to have liked it, and (at the time of writing) it is the tenthmost frequently downloaded article on LR’s website.
*

The most famous being ... no, not Poirot but rather Kevin de Bruyne. After all, he has his
own wallpaper!

226

Over the years, each of us has provided inspiration for the other. For example, in my 2004 Minimalist Syntax book (p. 429), I reported the sentence ‘Whatis thought has happened to him?’ to have been produced by a reporter on BBC
Radio 5. This observation prompted Liliane to take a deeper look at this typeof structure (in which a wh-subject is raised out of a ﬁnite clause), culminating in
the publication in 2017 of her article on ‘Syntacticizing blends: the case of English
wh-raising’, written jointly with Lieven Danckaert.
Conversely, Liliane has made numerous insightful remarks which have guided
and inspired my own research. For example, my forthcoming CUP monographon Colloquial English has a lengthy chapter on non-canonical uses of the complementiser that in spoken English, and includes an appendix on the use of that inadverbial clauses in present-day English in structures such as the following (1b-hbeing taken from recordings I have made of live, unscripted radio broadcasts):1
(1)

a.
b.

c.

d.
e.
f.
g.
h.

They got wet [because that it was raining](Alison Henry, pc)
The reason that England won’t win the world cup is [because thatthe younger players coming through are too spoiled](Andy
Goldstein, Talksport Radio)
Some people were talking about it as some sort of race riot, [as ifthat the Dutch team was split along racial lines](Andy Brassell,
BBC Radio 5)[Although that they won the title], they ﬁnished on something of alow(John Cross, Talksport Radio)[Even though that we lost], I’d still put that down as one of my favourite
games(Brett Lee, BBC Radio 5)
And [when that we were 71 for none], there was a chance to sort ofclose the game out(Peter Moores, BBC Radio 5)
For many it was inevitable, [once that David Hay walked into theroom] (Mike Costello, BBC Radio 5)
That’s been the dominant philosophy in Brazil, [ever since that theylost to Holland](Tim Vickery, Talksport Radio)

Such structures were found in Chaucer, and thus may well be an archaic feature
which has gradually been dying out over the centuries, but which has survived ina minority of speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds: Andy Brassell, John
1

I’m grateful to Cambridge University Press for allowing me to present this short summaryof part of the discussion of adverbial clauses in §3.8 of my forthcoming monograph on Colloquial
English.

227

Cross, Andy Goldstein, Matt Scott and Tim Vickery are Londoners, Mike Costello
was born in Bromley, Peter Moores was born in Macclesﬁeld, Graham Beecroftcomes from Merseyside, Brett Lee was born in Wollongong (Australia), and Alison Henry comes from Belfast.
Given that much of Liliane’s (2012) monograph was devoted to adverbial clauses,
I discussed the data with her. She drew my attention to Lieven Danckaert’s excellent book on Latin Embedded Clauses: The Left Periphery (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2012), and he kindly sent me a copy of the book, and discussed the datawith me. Danckaert argues that in adverbial clauses, there is parametric variation in respect of the position of subordinating conjunctions, with some occupying a high position in the periphery, and others a low position. This raises thepossibility that the subordinating conjunction/SUB in the adverbial clause in a
sentence like (1a) above could occupy a high position in the periphery in minority
varieties which allow the use of that in adverbial clauses, along the lines shown
below:(2)

They got wet [ SUBP [ SUB because] [ FORCEP [ FORCE that ] [ FINP [ FIN ø ] it was
raining ]]]By contrast, in majority varieties which don’t allow that in adverbial clauses, theconjunction may occupy a lower position in the periphery — perhaps FIN, as below:(3)

They got wet [ SUBP [ SUB ø ] [ FORCEP [ FORCE ø ] [ FINP [ FIN because ] it was raining ]]]This would mean that there is no peripheral head position after because for thatto occupy in (3), so accounting for why mainstream varieties don’t allow that after conjunctions.
However, there is evidence against analysing conjunctions like because as FIN
heads. For one thing, a key deﬁning property of low subordinating conjunctions
identiﬁed by Danckaert (2012) is that they allow fronted constituents to precedethem within the periphery of the adverbial clause containing them. However,as and though seem to be the only two subordinating conjunctions which potentially allow this kind of fronting in English, e.g. in structures such as the following:
(4)

a.
b.

[Hard though he tried —], he could not open the door
[Try as he might —], he could not open the door

By contrast, other subordinating conjunctions don’t allow periphery-internal fronting228

–– as we see from the ungrammaticality of the adverbial clauses bracketed below:(5)a. *[His passport because he had forgotten —], he had to return homeb. *[Harder if you try —], you will surely succeedc. *[Hot when you feel —], you should take oﬀ your jacket

Thus it seems clear that while (some variant of) the analysis in (3) might be appropriate for though/as, it would not be appropriate for other subordinating conjunctions (like because, for example), since they do not allow this kind of fronting.
Still, one way of modifying the analysis in (3) in such a way as to account for
because-type conjunctions not allowing fronting might be to suppose that they
have a reduced periphery which contains only FINP. On this alternative view, in
place of (3) above we would have (6) below:(6)

They got wet [ FINP [ FIN because] it was raining]

An analysis along the lines of (6) would account both for the absence of fronting
in because-clauses (since there is no position in the periphery above because tohouse the fronted constituent), and for absence of that in mainstream varieties(since there is no position in the periphery below FIN to accommodate that).
However, the claim embodied in analyses like (3), (6) that the subordinating
conjunction is positioned in FIN in adverbial clauses which don’t contain that isundermined by the observation that subordinating conjunctions used withoutthat can be followed by a range of peripheral constituents which are typicallyfound in clauses containing FORCEP, including (as in the examples below) peripheral exclamative, interrogative, imperative, negative and topical constituents:
(7)

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.

It’s easy to forget about Everton, [because what a good run they’rehaving!](John Cross, Talksport Radio)
We puzzle over it a bit, and then brush it oﬀ and go on with our daily
lives [because what can we do?](steamcommunity.com)
I’m telling you [because please don’t let the rain deter you] (tripadvisor.com)
That is why I want a united Europe [because never again should wehave wars amongst ourselves ...]
(otib.co.uk)
I’ve gotta see what I can do moving forward, [because the past, I can’tchange](Paul Stewart, Talksport Radio)
That’s [because Smalling and Jones, neither of them have made it for229

this match](John Murray, BBC Radio 5)

Given the assumption that only FORCEP constituents can contain topicalised,focused or fronted constituents, it follows that adverbial clauses without thatmust contain a FORCEP projection. This conclusion is reinforced by the observation that the bracketed adverbial clause can have its own force, and hence be
exclamative in (7a), interrogative in (7b), imperative in (7c), and declarative in(7d)-(7f).
What this suggests is that a co-ordinating conjunction like because is a causal
subordinator which can have as its complement a clause which is interrogative,
imperative, exclamative or declarative in force.2 A straightforward way of capturing this insight is to treat because as a SUB head which selects a FORCEP
complement that can be interrogative, imperative, exclamative or declarative
in type. On this view, the subordinate clause in (1a) above would have the peripheral structure shown below:(8)

They got wet [ SUBP [ SUB because] [ FORCEP [ FORCE ø/%that] [ FINP [ FIN ø] it was
raining]]]

In most varieties of English, the declarative FORCE head in a structure like (8)would receive a null spellout; but in a minority of varieties, it could be spelled
out as that. However, this raises the question of why use of that in adverbial
clauses should be allowed in some varieties but not in others.
One possible answer is that the use (or non-use) of that after a subordinating conjunction reﬂects a low-level diﬀerence in the PF spellout conditions forthat. One implementation of this idea would be to suppose that minority varieties which allow SUB+that structures permit non-initial peripheral heads to bespelled out as that in appropriate kinds of embedded clause (including in clauses
introduced by a subordinating conjunction/SUB) whereas mainstream varieties
which don’t allow SUB+that structures only permit a peripheral head to be spelled
out as that when it is the highest head/ﬁrst word in its containing clause. This
would mean that most speakers will not allow the FORCE head in (8) to be spelled
out as that because it is not the ﬁrst word in the periphery of the adverbial clausecontaining it (the ﬁrst word being the SUB constituent because), but a minorityof speakers will allow such structures.
2
I set aside here what Liliane (in her 2012 monograph, ch.4) calls ‘central adverbial clauses’,
which she argues to be closely integrated into the matrix clause, and to have a reduced peripheral
structure.

230

Speakers of the minority variety which does not require that to be clauseinitial would also be expected to allow the complementiser that to be used noninitially in other types of clause, like those below:
(9)

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.

I think, [as expected, so far that the Greeks are not showing any real
ambition](Danny Mills, BBC Radio 5)
I think [Bayern Munich that they are a team to really watch in theﬁnal stages](Andy Brassell, BBC Radio 5)
I just think [Arsenal, honestly, that they are gonna fall behind if they
don’t sign a striker](John Cross, Talk Sport Radio)
The fact that he’s been around for so long, I think, is testimony to[just what a good player that he is](Tim Vickery, BBC Radio 5)
It’s unbelievable when you think what a big city Paris is and [what apotentially big club that PSG are](Andy Brassell, BBC Radio 5)
It’ll be interesting to see [what sort of game that he puts on] (John
Cross, Talk Sport Radio)
We’re hoping JLo will come into the studio, just so she can show us[what moves that they make](Andy Goldstein, Talk Sport Radio)
I just don’t understand [why that you would present a fatted calf tosell](John Cross, Talksport Radio)
I’m aware of the speed [with which that they work](Tim Vickery,
BBC Radio 5)

Here we ﬁnd non-initial that preceded within the bracketed clauses by italicised
peripheral constituents which include in situ adjuncts or dislocated topics, andfronted exclamative, interrogative or relative wh-constituents. As will be apparent, there would seem to be an overlap between speakers who allow use of thatin adverbial clauses like those in (1), and speakers who allow that in the typesof embedded clauses bracketed in (9): for example, Andy Brassell, John Cross,
Andy Goldstein, and Tim Vickery use that in both types of structure. Such speakers do not restrict that to spelling out a periphery-initial head.
An alternative approach to accounting for the use of that in adverbial clauses
would be to treat use or non-use of that as a matter of selection, and supposethat in standard varieties, subordinating conjunctions select a FORCEP complement with a null head, whereas in some minority varieties they can select a FORCEP complement whose head can either be spelled out as that, or receive a nullspellout. However, this would raise questions about the nature of the relevant231selection restrictions.3 One possible answer would be to posit that an overt complementiser like that has to be licensed by an immediately adjacent superordinate constituent of an appropriate kind, and that standard varieties of presentday English impose the following constraint on complementiser licensing:(10)

Complementiser Licensing Constraint/CLC
In standard varieties of English, the complementiser that cannot be licenced by a peripheral head.

CLC would allow superordinate lexical heads like the verb think, the adjective
sure and the noun claim to license use of that in complement clauses like thosebracketed below:
(11)

a.
b.
c.

I think [that you are right]
I am sure [that he will come]Your claim [that he lied] is preposterous

At the same time, CLC would rule out a structure such as that below, so preventing the interrogative complementisers whether/if from licensing that:(12)

I wonder [ FORCEP [ FORCE ø ] [ INTP Op [ INT whether/if ] [ FINP [ FIN ø/*that ] it
will rain ]]]More relevant to our present discussion is the observation that CLC would alsorule out the use of that in adverbial clauses like that below (cf. (8) above) in standard varieties of English:(13)

They got wet [ SUBP [ SUB because ] [ FORCEP [ FORCE that ] [ FINP [ FIN ø ] it was
raining ]]]This is because CLC bars that from being licensed by a peripheral head like theSUB(ordinating conjunction) because. By contrast, in minority varieties in which3

We might try to derive the relevant selectional properties from independent properties of
the conjunction and/or the complementiser. For example, in her 1992 CUP book Theory and Description in Generative Grammar: A Case Study of West Flemish, Liliane relates the obligatorinessof the complementiser datthat in adverbial clauses (and other embedded clauses) in West Flemish to the observation that the complementiser inﬂects for agreement with the clause subject,and suggests that the complementiser has to be overt in order to spell out the agreement features which it carries. However, as Liliane herself notes (pc), such an analysis would be diﬃcult toextend to English, given that the complementiser that in English is generally optional and does
not inﬂect for agreement.

232

CLC is inoperative, structures like (13) are permitted. Indeed it would seem fromexamples like those below that structures like (12) are also permitted by somespeakers:
(14)

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

f.

I just don’t know [whether that they will have the same attitude](Mark Saggers, Talksport Radio)
It’s just a question of [whether that Liverpool can get their money
back](John Cross, Talksport Radio)
I’m not sure [whether that Spurs fans will accept him] (John Cross,
Talksport Radio)
I do wonder [whether that their squad lacks the depth of City’s] (Dominic Fyﬁeld, Talksport Radio)
England have enforced the follow-on. [Whether that they could
have done it had it not been raining], I’m not sure (Jack Bannister,Talksport Radio)
It’s not clear, though, [if that they’re just infecting the microbes thatmake us sick](Carl Zimmer, BBC Radio 5)

However, speakers who treat that as inherently non-interrogative would be expected to reject sentences like (14), even if they accept the use of that in adverbial clauses like that bracketed in (13).
Clearly, there is much more to be said about the use of the complementiserthat in adverbial clauses, but I shall not attempt to delve further into the matter
here, since the point of this brief excursus into adverbial clauses is that it illustrates many of Liliane’s ﬁnest qualities. Firstly, she is an enormously productive and perceptive linguist: her book on Adverbial Clauses amply illustrates thedepth of her scholarship, and the insights of her analysis. Secondly, she is always willing to help, whether by providing copies of articles which nobody else
seemed to be able to ﬁnd (including on one occasion an article by Jim McCloskey
which Jim himself had lost!), or by delving into her archives of non-canonicalstructures in written English to ﬁnd analogous structures, or by asking questions
which nobody had previously thought to ask (e.g. when I was working on how
come questions, she asked whether they allow Subject Drop, and that set me
oﬀ on a new stream of thought). Enjoy your retirement, Liliane, free from theshackles of bungling bureaucrats, and from their mindless metrics which reduce
evaluating the work of distinguished staﬀ and their students to mind-numbing
number-crunching.

233

Left peripheral

as a discourse particle

Henk van Riemsdijk
The present little article is in reality only a footnote.1 But it is a footnote to several topics. First it is a side remark on the use of sentence-initial negative markers in older versions of the Germanic languages, in particular Gothic, Old English
and Old High German. Second, it shows that there are instances of sentence initial negative markers also in modern varieties of German, and furthermore thatthese cases are best treated as instances of discourse particles. These are all
topics that I have never before worked on, but they do ﬁgure prominently in thework of Liliane Haegeman.
It is generally believed that sentence initial particles, which used to be quite
frequent in older varieties of German, have been lost. See, for example, Petrova(2017), particularly section 4 entitled “The loss of left-peripheral sentence particles and the rise of modal particles in German”. In the few pages below I willargue that while there may not be many, there deﬁnitely are modal particles (ordiscourse particles) at the left edge in at least some varieties of present day German.
In some modern varieties of German, sentence initial occurrences of the negative particle (‘nicht’) can be observed. The phenomenon is primarily limited toAustrian German but is marginally also present (or at least perceived as ‘something that some people say’) in other southern varieties of German, see for instance the example (5) from Zurich German (Züritüütsch) below. The meaningof this sentence initial negative marker (henceforth
1) is, however, quite distinct from ‘normal’ sentence negation.
1 roughly expresses something rang1

This squib is dedicated to Liliane Haegeman, who spent a short but memorable time in
my department at Tilburg University in the early 80s and has remained a friend ever since andwhose productivity has never ceased to impress me. Thanks are due to Josef Bayer and Martin
Prinzhorn for valuable comments as well as to Elisabeth Kriechbaum for her native judgments.
Thanks also to the participants at the memorial meeting of the Models of Grammar Group of
Tilburg University in September 2017 in Arezzo for commenting on an earlier version of this contribution.

234

ing from great surprise to indignation about the (non-negated) state of aﬀairs
described in the sentence. Here are some examples with various paraphrases:(1)

Nicht kommst Du jetzt mit noch einer Fussnote!
not come you now with yet another footnote‘Don’t tell me you are coming up with yet another footnote!’‘It just cannot be true that you are presenting another footnote!’(2)

Nicht habt ihr die Kekse schon alle gegessen!
not have you the cookies already all eaten‘Don’t tell me that you have eaten all the cookies!’‘I cannot believe that you have eaten all the cookies.’‘You have already eaten all the cookies? – You must be kidding!’

Sometimes there is a similar alternative with
(3)

a.

b.

1 followed by a that-sentence:

Nicht kommt mir der Kerl noch einmal ins Haus!
not comes me that guy another time in the house‘It just is not going to happen that that guy comes into my houseagain!’
Nicht dass mir der Kerl noch einmal ins Haus kommt!

Note that (1), (2) and (3a) have V2 and not VFinal as in (3b). This is reminiscent of
Swiss German wäisch (‘you know/know you’), cf. van Riemsdijk (2001b), which I
called a wh-preﬁx. Here’s an example:
(4)

a.

b.

Wäischwänn de Hans geschter häi choo isch?
do-you-know when the Hans yesterday home come has‘Do you know when Hans came home yesterday?’
Wäisch wänn isch de Hans geschter häi choo?
know-you when has the Hans yesterday home come‘You won’t believe what time Hans came home yesterday!’(4a) is a real question, but (4b) is something like a rhetorical question: the speakerknows the answer and is so horriﬁed by the answer (sc. 4am) that he wants totell the listener. (4a) has a wh-question embedded under the question introducing verb wäisch (‘do you know’), which is also a yes-no question. Accordingly theembedded verb is in the ﬁnal position. In (4b) the wh-question is the main clause(V2) in which wäisch is preﬁx to the wh-word, comparable to wh-suﬃxes like the235hell.2The
1 examples, while predominantly found in Austria do not seem completely out in other German-speaking areas. Here is a Swiss German example I
ﬁnd acceptable:(5)

Nöd häsch
scho alles
ggässe.
not have-you already everything eaten‘Don’t tell me you have already eaten everything!’

But for me the VFinal version is ungrammatical.
(6)*Nöd dass du scho alles ggässe häsch.

There are other variants that are clearly similar but have a diﬀerent use, definitely not as discourse particles, and are, as far as I can tell, much less common.
The Austrian daily Der Standard, for example, has a column called(7)

Ned sei deppert!
not be stupid‘Don’t be stupid!’

The question arises as to what the origin of
1 construction is. Old English
did have initial negation, as the following example shows:3(8)

Nat may the woful spirit in myn herte Declare o point of alle mynot can the woeful spirit in my heart declare one bit of all mysorwes smerte
sorrows painful‘The woeful spirit in my heart cannot clarify one bit of all my painful sorrows’(ca. 1385, Chaucer CT.Kn. A.2765: MED)

But examples of this sort can also be found in Old High German, as shown in thefollowing examples from Migdalski (2016: 117, ex. (53c); 120 ex.(60)):(9)Ni liugu ih dauid.
lie I David‘I will not lie to David’(OHG, Isidor, 612, (Axel-Tober 2007: 62))2

See van Riemsdijk (2001b). I am, of course, tempted to consider the preﬁx wäisch a graft,just like, e.g. far from in a far from simple question, cf. van Riemsdijk (2001a).
3
The example is taken from Koike (2016: 251, ex. (170a)).

236

(10)

Ni-santa got sinan sun.
-sent God his son‘God did not send his son’ (OHG, Tatian, 407, 30, (Axel-Tober 2007: 61))

Breitbarth (2013) lists also some examples of initial negation from Old Low German (her example (1a): Old Saxon) and Old Dutch (her example (2a): Old Low
Franconian).
(11)

(12)

‘Ni bium ic’, quað he, ‘that barn godes…’
am I spoke he the child god.
‘I am not the child of God, he said’
Ne farlātu tu mi!
forsake you me‘Do not forsake me!’(Old Saxon. Heliand, 915)

(Old Low Franconian. WP LXX.9.2)

Other, later, examples are found in certain Bible or Torah translations of commandments. Here are a few cases I found:4(13)

Aber wenn ist an ihm ein Makel, lahm oder blind, irgendeinen
but ifis on it a ﬂaw lame or blind, anyschlechten Makel, nicht sollst Du es schlachten für JHWH, deinenbad
ﬂaw not should you it slaughter for JHWH, your
Gott.
God
‘But if it has a ﬂaw, being lame or blind, any bad ﬂaw, do not slaughter it
for JHWH, your God!’(14)

Nicht sollst du ehebrechen,nicht sollst du töten, nicht sollst
not should you commit-adultery, not should you kill, not should
du begehren, etc.
you covet‘Not shalt thou commit adultery, not shalt thou kill, not shalt thou covet,…’(Romans chapter 13)(15)

Nicht darf er sichlaben an Bächen, ﬂutenden Strömen von Honig
not may he himself refresh at creeks, ﬂowing riversof honeyund Milch.
and milk

4

The examples in (13) to (16) are from Paganini (2009), example (17) is from Krüger (2001).
The glosses and translations are mine.

237

(Job chapter 20)(16)

Aber die Nichtswürdigen, wie geﬂohene (d.h. verabscheute) Dornen
but the worthless-ones, like detested
horns
sind sie alle, denn nicht werden sie mit der Hand gefasst.
are they all, for not are
they by the hand taken(2. Samuel chapter 23 v. 6-13; Luther translation)(17)

Viele wirst Du lenken, wenn die Vernunft Dich lenkt: von ihr wirst
many will you guide, if
the reason you guides: from her will
du lernen, was und wie du es anpacken musst: nicht wirst du den
you learn what and how you it tackle
must: not shall you theDingen anheimfallen.
things fall-prey-to(Krüger 2001: Seneca Epistles 37,4)

Turning now to the syntactic position and semantic role of1, observeﬁrst, that it’s interpretation is, essentially, extraclausal. This is easily seen fromthe ample translations provided above for the examples in (1)-(3). This observation is further strengthened by the fact that the
1 element is itself often
paraphrased by some short sentence such as ‘don’t tell me’ or ‘it just cannot be
1 is also evidenced by the fact thattrue’ in example (1). The special status of
the negative marker induces a clear meaning contrast with the clause internal
negation. Consider the following triple of examples:
(18)

a.

b.

c.

Nicht kommst Du morgen wieder zu spät.
not come you tomorrow again too late‘Don’t tell me you are going to be late again tomorrow!’
Du wirst morgen nicht wieder zu spät kommen.
you will tomorrow not again too late come‘You will not be late again tomorrow!’
Du wirst doch nicht etwa morgen wieder zu spät
you will surely not perhaps tomorrow again too latekommen?
come‘Surely you will not be late again tomorrow – don’t you dare!’(18a) is the typical case of
1: the speaker expresses great dismay if the hearer
were to repeat being late tomorrow. It is a thinly veiled threat of blame or evenpunishment. (18b) is a bland statement: you will not be late tomorrow. Of course238

it could, given the right pragmatic circumstances be used as dismay or threat,but it can just as easily mean something like it will not be snowing tomorrow, so
the train will be on time and there is no reason why you should be late. (18c),
however, shows that standard discourse particles (or modal particles as they aresometimes also called) such as doch and etwa can achieve an eﬀect quite similar
to the one caused by
1.
In Bayer & Struckmeier (2017), one of the properties of discourse particles
they stress is that they are similar to ‘high adverbs’ (see in particular Cinque 1999).
There are indeed good reasons for equating
1 with high adverbs, however
I will not venture into the morass of the complex structure of the left periphery. See Rizzi (1997) for inﬂuential proposals and Haegeman & Lohndal (2017)
for some critical discussion.
In view of the fact that you cannot be higher than the leftmost element in a
sentence, it is, therefore, important to ask if there are any other potential casesof leftmost adverbs, under which I would subsume adjectives that are neither attributive nor predicative in relation to some element within the sentence. Martin
Prinzhorn (p.c.) has pointed out to me a term paper by a student of his, David
Diem, who has observed that a relevant construction can be found in Swiss German with certain adjectives, in particular schön (‘nice’), guet (‘good’) and schad(‘shame, pity, too bad’). Here are some examples that Diem found in the SwissSMS Corpus (Stark et al. 2009-2015).
(19)

Schön gits di min schatz!
nice exist you my treasure‘Nice that you exist, my dear!’(20)

Guet bisch früe ufs
fäscht choo!
good are-you early to-the party come‘A good thing you came early to the party!’(21)

Schad häsch du morn
nöd frei,…
pity have you tomorrow not free‘A pity you are not free (sc. from work) tomorrow…’

One possible hypothesis might be that the adjective is really a predicate adjective in a structure like ‘it is A’, in Swiss German ‘s isch A’, with the ‘it is’ part
elided (or silent). Indeed such predicative adjective constructions can be construed with either V2 or with complementizer and VFinal. The VFinal variant of(21), for example, would be (22).

239

(22)

Schad dass du morn nöd frei häsch,…

Recall that we observed above that the NEG1 is often best paraphrased by a sentential expression as was mentioned between the examples (17) and (18) above.
Future research will have to show whether left-peripheral discourse particles arelimited to these instances of reduced mini-clauses.
To conclude, here is a particularly nice example of a Swiss German adjectival
adverb in ﬁrst position.
(23)

Schön isch-s hüt schön!
nice is-it today nice
‘It’s nice that it’s nice today!’ (= It is a pleasant fact that the weather is
nice today)

References
Axel-Tober, K. 2007. Studies on Old High German Syntax: Left periphery, verb
placement and verb second. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Bayer, J. & Struckmeier, V. 2017. The status quo of research on discourse particles in syntax and semantics. In J. Bayer & V. Struckmeier (eds.), Discourse
particles: Formal approaches to their syntax and semantics. 1–14. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Breitbarth, A. 2013. Negation in the history of Low German and Dutch. In
D. Willis, C. Lucas & A. Breitbarth (eds.), The history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. Volume I case studies. 190–238. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cinque, G. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haegeman, L. & Lohndal, T. 2017. Be careful how you use the left periphery.
In T. Lohndal (ed.), Formal grammar: Theory and variations across English andNorwegian. 203–228. London: Routledge.
Koike, K. 2016. Synchronic and diachronic aspects of locative inversion and negative inversion in English: Nagoya University dissertation.
Krüger, G. 2001. Seneca über das rechte Leben / ausgewählt, übersetzt, zusammengestellt mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen. Heidelberg: Müller.
Migdalski, K. 2016. Second position eﬀects in the syntax of Germanic and Slavic
languages. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.

240

Paganini, S. 2009. Nicht darfst du zu diesen Wörtern etwas hinzufügen. Die Rezption des Deuteronomiums in der Tempelrolle: Sprache, Autoren und Hermeneutik. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Petrova, S. 2017. On the status and interpretation of the left-peripheral sentence
particles inu and ia in Old High German. In J. Bayer & V. Struckmeier (eds.),
Discourse particles: Formal approaches to their syntax and semantics. 304–331.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
van Riemsdijk, H. 2001a. A far from simple matter. Syntactic reﬂexes of syntaxpragmatics misalignments. In I. Kenesei & R.M. Harnish (eds.), Perspectives
on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse: A festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 21–41.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
van Riemsdijk, H. 2001b. WH-preﬁxes: The case of wäisch in Swiss German.
In C. Schaner-Wolles, J. Rennison & F. Neubarth (eds.), Naturally! Linguistic
studies in honour of Wolfgang Ulrich Dressler presented on the occasion of his
60th birthday. 423–431. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Rizzi, L. 1997. The ﬁne structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (ed.),Elements of grammar: Handbook in generative syntax. 281–337. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Stark, E., Ruef, B. & Ueberwasser, S. 2009-2015. Swiss SMS coprus. Zurich:
University of Zurich. https://sms.linguistik.uzh.ch.

241

‘Recycling’ evidentiality: a research program
Johan Rooryck
Abstract
In this paper, I challenge the idea that evidentiality constitutes a grammatical category of its own. I propose that it should be viewed as a grammatical mechanism that creates evidential meanings by recombinations of features ’recycled’ from other, more basic grammatical categories.

1

Evidentiality as a grammatical category

The languages of the world display a wide variety of grammatical markers to
express evidentiality, ranging from dedicated morphemes to adverbs and parentheticals. Despite this expressive variety, evidentials form a closed class system of mutually exclusive markers.1 The range of evidential meanings that isexpressed is limited to 3 or 4 in most languages. There is also a striking consistency across languages in the types of evidence expressed by these markers.
Many authors have proposed a basic distinction between direct and indirect evidence types (see Table 1) which can be further subdivided into at least hearsay
and quotative on the one hand, and inference/ conjecture on the other (Givón
1982, Bybee 1985, Willett 1988: 57):
Table 1: Principal types of evidential markers
Direct evidence
Indirect evidence

Personal experience of the speaker:
visual/ auditory/ other sensory
Reported to the speaker: hearsay/ quotative
Inference/ conjecture by the speaker.

1

I dedicate this article to Liliane Haegeman on the occasion of her retirement, with respect,admiration, and gratitude for her impressive work in linguistics.

242

These evidence types can be illustrated by Faller’s (2002) data on Cuzco Quechuain (1), a language that features dedicated morphemes for three types of evidential meaning:
(1)

a.

b.

c.

Para-sha-n-mi
rain-3-BPG
p=’It is raining.’
EV: speaker sees that it is raining
Para-sha-n-chá.
rain-3p=‘It is possibly raining.’
EV: speaker conjectures that it might be raining.
Para-sha-n-si.
rain-3p=‘It is raining.’
EV: speaker was told that it is raining([Cuzco Quechua], from Faller 2002)

According to Faller (2002), the morpheme -mi in (1a) indicates that the speakerclaims to have direct, visual evidence (BPG = best possible grounds) for the factthat it is raining. By contrast, the morpheme -chá in (1b) expresses the speaker’s
conjecture, and -si in (1c) reﬂects hearsay (reportative) (Faller 2002).
The organization of evidence types in Table 1 suggests that evidentials constitute a cross-linguistically homogeneous grammatical category. The evidence
types are not only constant across languages, they are also limited in terms of
their semantics. In principle, the number of evidence types could have beenmuch higher. As Speas (2008) notes, it is easy to imagine additional indirect
evidence types, such as divine revelation, custom, legal edict, or parental authority. No language has such indirect evidentials: there are just the subcategories of direct and indirect evidence, with indirect evidence dividing further
into hearsay/quotation and inference/ conjecture. The limited nature of this setof subcategories is then implicitly taken as evidence for the idea that evidentials form a closed class of mutually exclusive functional elements that exhibit aparadigmatic pattern of oppositions, just like other grammatical categories. The
data from Cuzco Quechua, where dedicated evidential morphemes function as
mutually exclusive elements of a closed class paradigm, seem to conﬁrm suchan analysis.

243

2

‘Splitters’ and ‘recyclers’

A major discussion regarding evidentiality revolves around the question whether
evidentiality should be ‘split oﬀ’ as a grammatical category in its own right, or
whether it is a grammatical notion that ‘recycles’ existing grammatical categories
for its own purpose.2 ‘Splitters’ argue that the speciﬁc range of evidential meanings in paradigmatic opposition militates in favor of a separate grammatical status for evidentiality, on a par with categories such as tense, aspect, modality,or person. Evidence types such as witness, hearsay (reportative), and inference
are then viewed as universal, elementary features of human language. Just likeother functional categories, evidentiality is assigned a speciﬁc functional head in
the left periphery of the functional domain of the clause (Cinque 1999, Rooryck
2001a,b).3 The view that evidentiality is a full-ﬂedged grammatical category in
its own right is implicitly or explicitly adopted by linguists of various theoreticalpersuasions (Hardman 1986, Cinque 1999, de Haan 1999, Lazard 2001, Aikhenvald 2004, Davis et al. 2007, Aikhenvald 2018). It is fair to say that it reﬂects thedominant perspective.
‘Recyclers’, by contrast, seek to relate evidential meanings to the interactionof more elementary grammatical categories, such as tense, aspect, modality,
sentence-type, and person. In many languages, evidential meanings do not involve dedicated morphemes at all. Rather, speciﬁc evidence types are parasitic
on tense, aspect, modality, sentence-type, and person. In these languages, evidential meanings can be analyzed as the result of ‘recycling’ these more basic
categories.4 In what follows, I will reinterpret analyses of evidentiality that relate it to other categories in terms of ‘recycling’. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the authors of these analyses see themselves as ‘recyclers’ inthe sense that I am proposing here.
2

This article owes an important intellectual debt to Peggy Speas’s work on evidentiality in thelast 15 years. To a large extent, the present article does not do much more than taking further
some of Peggy’s positions and radicalizing them.
3
See Speas (2008) for a critical analysis of this position.
4
The idea of ‘recycling’ as a general grammatical mechanism has recently been given a more
solid theoretical footing by Biberauer (2017) as an instance of her Maximize Minimal Means(MMM) principle.

244

3

Two sources for reportatives

Let me illustrate this with the example of reportative evidentiality. It is wellknown that the German modal sollen ‘should’ does double duty as a reportative
evidential (Schenner 2008, Faller 2017):(2)

Hubert sollin Berlin sein
Hubert should in Berlin bei. ‘Hubert should be in Berlin (given his obligations)’ (deontic modal)ii. ‘Hubert is said to be in Berlin’ (reportative) [German]

Faller (2017) analyses reportative sollen ‘should’ in terms of extending themodal base of deontic sollen ‘should’ to an information modal base. This change
in the modal base can be interpreted as an instance of the reportative ‘recycling’
the deontic modal for its own purposes. Other languages recycle diﬀerent categories to build reportative meaning. Bruil (2014, 2015) shows that in Ecuadorean
Siona, reportative evidentiality is part of the clause-typing system of the language, alongside declarative and interrogative:
(3)

a.

b.

c.

Aibi nëcaji.
Ai-i-bi nĩh ka-hi. (declarative)
old: stand-3 . . .
‘The old man is standing.’ (Bruil 2014: ch6, 11a)
Aibi nëcaquë ?
Ai-i-bi nĩh ka-ki ? (interrogative)
old: stand-2/3 . . . .
‘Is the old man standing?’ (Bruil 2014: ch6, 11b)
Jao ti co’meco beocoña.
Hã-õ ti ko’mẽ-ko beo-ko-jã. (reportative)
dem.dst-ncl:f ana row. . neg.exist-2/3 . . . . ‘She doesn’t have gas.’ (I am told). (Bruil 2014: ch6, 19) [Ecuadorean
Siona]

Bruil (2014) analyses this integration of the reportative in the clause-typing system in the following way. She observes that in the declarative and the interrogative, epistemic authority for the proposition lies respectively with the Speaker
and the Addressee. The Ecuadorean Siona reportative ﬁts into this system bycombining epistemic authority with a non-speech participant. Epistemic authority for the proposition is attributed to a third party that is neither Speaker nor Ad245

dressee. In this way, the essential meaning of reportative is derived (Bruil 2014).
Importantly, the reportative functions entirely within the paradigmatic oppositions aﬀorded by the grammatical category of sentence-type, rather than as a
subcategory of evidentiality in the sense of Table 1.
The interest of the examples from German and Ecuadorean Siona lies in thefact that reportative meaning in either language is built from very diﬀerent ingredients: in German, the reportative recycles deontic modality, while in Ecuadorean
Siona, it is parasitic on the clause-typing system. These examples suggest that
it is unlikely that ‘reportative’ is a primitive of the grammar, i.e. a particularparadigmatic exponent of an overarching and independent grammatical category ‘evidentiality’. Rather, it suggests that such evidential meanings arise fromrecombinations of more abstract ingredients that are made available by morebasic grammatical categories.

4

More examples of evidential ‘recycling’: tense
and aspect

The reportative is not the only evidential meaning that can be derived from
more basic grammatical categories. Nikolaeva (1999) observes that evidentials
in Ostyak (Finno-Ugric, Siberia) interact with present and past tense. She derives the evidential meanings of hearsay and inference in terms of equivalenceor overlap between situation types. Chung (2005) shows that Korean evidentials
are homophonous with aspect and mood morphemes, and develops an analysis
in which these interact with the location of the (1st person) speaker to derive evidential meanings. Lau & Rooryck (2017) argue that abstract properties of event
structure, more speciﬁcally the event stages in accomplishments and achievements, are recycled in terms of information stages for the purposes of evidentiality. A semantic analysis in terms of stages allows them to bring out the close
relation between aspect, indirect evidentiality, and mirativity in languages from
Turkish and Bulgarian to Washo (Hokan, USA) and Hare (Athapaskan, Canada).
For instance, the Turkish morpheme -miş can express perfect aspect, indirect evidentiality, and mirativity:(4)

Kemal gel-mIş[Turkish]
Kemal come‘Kemal came.’(a): The Speaker sees Kemal’s coat hanging in the front hall,246but has not yet seen Kemal.
(b): The Speaker has been told that Kemal has arrived, but has
not yet seen Kemal.
(c): The Speaker hears someone approach, opens the door, andsees Kemal—a totally unexpected visitor.”(?: 187)
In terms of Lau & Rooryck (2017)’s analysis, this is possible because -miş is underspeciﬁed in terms of the nature of the stages involved. Informally put, -mişdoes not care whether its stages are of the event type (aspect) or of the information type (evidentiality/ mirativity). The morpheme -miş is primarily sensitive tothe presence of a ﬁnal stage holding at utterance time, regardless of its status
as an information stage or an event stage. Once again, it looks like the more basic category of aspect is ‘recycled’ – bleached in this case – to express evidential
meanings.
Such analyses suggest that evidentiality is not a grammatical category on apar with tense, aspect, modality, or sentence-type, but that it rather is a grammatical mechanism that is able to exploit these more primitive categories for its
own purposes. This observation makes it very unlikely that evidentiality should
be assigned its own functional category in the left periphery, in the sense of
Cinque (1999).5 For all intents and purposes, it is probably suﬃcient to syntactically represent Speaker and Addressee in the left periphery (Garrett 2001, Speas& Tenny 2003, Haegeman & Hill 2013), since speech participants play an important role in ‘building’ evidential meanings. Note that Speaker and Addresseein this sense are just special instances of the more abstract features 1P and 2P.
Following Rooryck (2001a,b) and Speas (2004b,a) among many others, I would
argue that syntactically represented speech participants are part and parcel ofthe elementary syntactic categories that are ‘recycled’ by evidentiality.
The idea that evidentiality does not occupy a well-deﬁned, single positionin the functional domain as other grammatical categories do is corroborated
by Blain & Déchaine (2007). On the basis of various dialects of Cree, Blain &Déchaine (2007) argue that evidentials diﬀer from each other as a function of thesyntactic domain where they are introduced (their Evidential Domain Hypothesis). While this analysis does not call into question evidentiality as a separate
category, it suggests that evidentiality arises at various levels of the functional
spine, and need not be assigned its own morphosyntactic representation.
5

Speas (2008) also questions the evidence for an evidential head. However, she does argue
in favor of evidentiality as a distinct functional category on a par with tense (see Speas (2010).

247

5

Evidentiality as a closed class?

The analysis of evidentiality as a distinct grammatical category is further called
into question by the fact that its boundaries are not very well established. Moreprecisely, it does not constitute as much of a closed class with well-deﬁned
paradigmatic oppositions as the example of Quechua in (1) and the categorization in Table 1 would suggest. There are many instances of vaguely related andoverlapping notions that are hard to reduce to strong paradigmatic oppositions.
Even in Table 1, the distinction between inference and conjecture is not an immediately obvious one. Anderson (1986) provides a map of mental space for evidential meanings that includes diﬀerent types of inferentials, as well as a categoryof expectation (as in English to be supposed to). In Carib, Hoﬀ (1986) argues that
introspective evidentials (knowledge through inference) should be distinguishedfrom extraspective evidentials (culturally available knowledge).
More generally, the distinction between evidentiality and modality is notoriously diﬃcult to establish (see Speas (2008, 2018) for an overview). Note also
the overlap between indirect evidentiality and mirativity in Turkish and other languages mentioned above in the discussion of (4). The notion of mirativity does
not even occur in Table 1, while it can be linked to indirect evidentiality. Buildingon earlier work by Adelaar (1977, 2013) on mirativity in Quechua, Mexas (2016)
argues that mirativity should be understood as ‘sudden realization’: a punctual
transition from the epistemic state of ignorance to that of awareness.6 That redeﬁnition brings mirativity much closer to the indirect evidentiality expressedby inference. As Lau & Rooryck (2017) argue, inference can be viewed as a nonpunctual process towards an epistemic transition, and thus only diﬀers in termsof the stages leading to the transition. However, this diﬀerence between mirativity and inference is in fact not a properly evidential distinction, but one that isbased on notions of the succession of stages that are originally aspectual in nature. Although further study is needed, it is my contention that all oppositions in
the evidential domain can ultimately be reduced to properties that are provided
by other, more basic grammatical categories.
Assuming that evidential meanings are indeed based on ’recycled’ featuresfrom more basic grammatical categories, the question arises how languages
with designated evidential morphemes, such as Quechua, should be dealt with.
This is an important question, since languages in which dedicated evidential
6

Mirativity is sometimes argued to be entirely distinct from evidentiality (see Hengeveld &Olbertz 2012, Aikhenvald 2012.

248

morphemes are obligatorily expressed are often set apart from languages without such evidentials (Aikhenvald 2004, 2018). My proposal here would be that
dedicated evidential morphemes are the result of grammaticalizing the properties of more basic grammatical categories into speciﬁc markers. de Haan (1999)shows that the diachronic sources of evidentials involve verbs of speech, vision,and inference; spatial expressions, and tense and aspect. However, the ’standalone’ nature of a set of dedicated evidential morphemes is not enough to provide them with their own dedicated grammatical label. Rather, they are often
morphosyntactically dependent on other categories in the functional domain.
It is well known that the exact morphosyntactic position of dedicated evidential morphemes diﬀers widely across languages, a point also made by Blain &Déchaine (2007). This positional variability is another argument against assigning them a speciﬁc position and label in the functional domain.
Despite the fuzziness of a number of evidential meanings, the fact remainsthat evidential morphemes often appear to function as if they were part of aclosed class as in Table 1. However, from the perspective of ‘recycling’, this apparent paradigmatic organisation should be viewed as a consequence of the limited number of categories that are available for evidential ‘recycling’. A limited
variety of recycled categories can yield the circumscribed set of evidential meanings illustrated in Table 1. What remains surprising is that ingredients that are so
diﬀerent at the outset result in the same evidential outcomes, as in the case ofreportatives discussed in section 3 above. A research program into the ‘recycling’ nature of evidentiality should explore the constraints on the type of categories that can be recycled for evidential purposes. The categories that canbe recycled must have a set of abstract features that are compatible with evidential meanings. In the next section, I will examine Speas’s (2010) proposal forsuch an abstract analysis of evidentiality, evaluate to what extent it ﬁts ‘recycling’ purposes, and formulate a proposal of my own that complements Speas’(2010) approach.

6

Analyzing the basic features behind evidentiality:
Speas (2010)

Speas (2010) develops a theoretical approach to evidentiality that aims at deriving speciﬁc evidential meanings from more abstract features and mechanisms.
She argues against the notion of ’evidence’ as a grammatical primitive, and pro249

poses an analysis of direct and indirect evidentiality in terms of the accessibilityof situations, much inspired by Kratzer’s (1977) analysis of modals in terms of amodal base of accessible situations, and a Reichenbachian approach to tense.
Speas (2010) proposes three types of situation:
(5)

a.
b.
c.

Evaluated Situation (ES): The situation of which p is true
Reference Situation (RS): A situation or set of assumptions relevant
to ES and DS
Discourse Situation (DS): The situation in which the sentence is being
uttered

Between these Situations, two types of relations can hold: inclusion or accessibility. Indirect evidentiality involves a context in which the Reference Situationis accessible from the Evaluated Situation, while in direct evidentiality, the Reference Situation includes the Evaluated Situation. Further distinctions within
direct and indirect evidentiality are made possible by the notion of Discourse
Situation. In Hearsay, RS is not only accessible from ES, but RS is in turn accessible from DS. In other words, an ES in which ‘Kim saw a bear’ is true, is accessible
to an RS where Kim tells the speaker that she saw a bear, and this RS is in turnaccessible to the Discourse Situation where the speaker tells the hearer ‘Kim saw
a bear’, while including into that statement an evidential expressing that this information was made accessible through Kim’s telling the speaker. By contrast,
in indirect evidentials (inferences), RS includes DS.
Direct evidentials can likewise be further divided into ‘internal’ situations
only the speaker can know (personal experience), and situations external to the
speaker that are directly perceived through other senses. This is for instance thecase in Eastern Pomo:
(6)

a.

b.

bi.Yá pha.bé-kh-ink’e
hand burn-PUNCTUAL-SENSORY‘I burned my hand’ (I feel the sensation of burning in my hand)mí.-p-alpha.bé-k-a
3.sg.-male-PATIENT burn-PUNCTUAL-DIRECT‘He got burned’ (I have direct evidence, e.g., I saw it happen)[Eastern
Pomo]

Speas (2010) analyses personal experience as a context in which RS includes both
ES and DS. By contrast, direct evidentiality through other sensory perception isdeﬁned as a context in which RS not only includes ES, but is also accessible from250

DS. In other words, Speas (2010) reanalyzes the labels for evidential meanings
in terms of the relations between the Evaluation Situation and a Reference Situation, and the Reference Situation and the Discourse Situation.
“Personal experience”“Direct ”“Indirect”“Hearsay”

RS includes ES
RS includes DS
RS includes ES
RS is accessible from DS
RS is accessible from ES
RS includes DS
RS is accessible from ES
RS is accessible from DS(7)
The aim of this analysis is of course very close to the one I am trying to defend
here: evidentiality is analyzed in terms of more abstract features and relations
that are shared with other categories. As Speas (2010) notes, the notions of Evaluation, Reference, and Discourse situation are very close to the notions Eventtime, Reference time and Discourse time from tense and aspect. Similarly, theinclusion and accessibility relations are very close to inclusion and precedence intense and aspect. This closeness allows for a better understanding of the manycases in which tense and aspect morphemes are ‘recycled’ with evidential meanings.
However,Speas (2010) analysis also has a number of drawbacks. Just like in
Reichenbachian approaches to tense and aspect, many more relations between
RS, ES, and DS are possible in principle than those described in (7), and it is notclear why these are excluded or unattested. In (7), RS always enters an inclusionor accessibility relation with either DS or ES, but this asymmetry does not seemto derive from anything within the evidential system. It is also not clear whether
indirect (inference) and hearsay are characterized with suﬃcient detail in thissystem. Speas (2010) states that the inference relation is characterized by an inclusion relation of DS in RS, because when making an inference, a speaker takes
into account the current state of aﬀairs. While that may be true, this inclusion
does not capture the essence of what an inference is. An inference is a processof deduction on behalf of the speaker, who considers various types of contextual
information to draw the conclusion that is likely that something is the case. The
description of inference in terms of accessibility and inclusion does not take into
251

consideration that inferentials are always related to the speaker: the inference
must be drawn by the speaker. Nothing in this description precludes an inferential evidential that would express an inference made by a third party, with the
speaker simply reporting that this counts as the knowledge source of the statement. In other words, the description of inference in terms of accessibility andinclusion is compatible with the notion of inference, but it does not describe it
precisely enough. Similarly, the description for hearsay does not include reference to the fact that the source of the hearsay always must be a third party. In
other words, there are no hearsay evidentials dedicated to information provided
by the hearer. Again, this does not quite follow from the description in (7).

7

Evidentiality and the proximal–distal distinction

However, I do believe that the analysis in (7) is on the right track, and rather thanreplace it I would like to propose an alternative perspective on the direct/ indirect evidentiality distinction that constrains Speas’s (2010) approach further. My
proposal will perhaps also make it easier to evaluate which criteria basic grammatical categories have to fulﬁll to be able to be recycled into evidential meanings.
I will ﬁrst examine the distinction between direct and indirect evidentiality in
Table 1. Direct evidentiality signals that the speaker was present at the event,since they experienced the event by seeing, hearing, or even smelling it. Indirect evidentiality, whether by hearsay or inference, signals that the speaker was
not present at the event. This direct/ indirect distinction closely resembles theuniversally attested spatial distinction between proximate and distal, a distinction that can be observed in many grammatical categories. As is well known, theproximate–distal distinction diﬀerentiates what is spatially close to the speaker
to what is further away from the speaker. The distinction also often separates
the visible from the invisible. This spatial distinction appears most clearly in the
opposition between the English demonstratives this and here (proximate), andthat and there (distal) (Diessel 2014). Proximal and distal demonstratives areused to establish a joint focus of attention between speaker and hearer (Diessel 1999).
This is of course also what evidentials do: they establish a joint focus of attention between speaker and hearer on the way in which the speaker obtained
the information expressed in the statement presented to the hearer. Direct evidentiality can be viewed as proximal: it indicates that the event described in the252proposition was close to the speaker, and thus sensorily accessible (e.g. visible).7
Indirect evidentiality is distal: it indicates that the event was far away from the
speaker, and sensorily inaccessible (hence often invisible). An indirect/ distal evidential thus implies that the speaker indirectly obtained information about theevent. So while this and that oppose proximal and distal objects, and here andthere proximal and distal locations, direct and indirect evidentials can be characterized as referring to proximal and distal events. Under this view, the linguistic
representation of knowledge and truth has a spatial basis. However, this spatial
nature should not be viewed in terms of physical location but in terms of how
events are presented as directly (proximal) or indirectly (distal) accessible to the
speaker.8 This entails that markers for direct/ proximal evidentiality can be derived from verbs of seeing, since what is visible to the speaker is proximal in therelevant evidential sense.
The proximate–distal distinction is also fundamental in nonlinguistic cognitive capacities such as spatial navigation (e.g. Tommasi et al. 2012). A similar distinction is present in the two core cognitive systems for geometry distinguished by Spelke et al. (2010): a system for analyzing nearby visual forms is
opposed to a system for navigating larger spaces. In other words, the way inwhich humans present the reliability and source of their statements may reﬂect
a deep-seated capacity shared with cognitive systems beyond language. I believe this connection needs to be further explored to better understand the relation between intra- and extralinguistic constraints on linguistic representations.
This program is in line with the ‘three factors’ model for language of Chomsky(2005), who proposes that the faculty of language is composed of (a) a universal blueprint for language (Universal Grammar), (b) experience and usage, and(c) general cognitive factors. The proximal–distal distinction may well be sucha general cognitive factor, and the exact nature of its interaction with language
remains to be investigated.
Linguistically, this approach makes strong predictions for the way in whichevidentials develop diachronically across languages, and for their interaction
7

There are many antecedents for the relation between direct/ indirect evidentiality anddeixis. Schlichter (1986) treats the Wintu evidential system in terms of a deictic opposition between unmarked visible events versus nonvisible events. Garrett (2001) argues that the direct
evidential in Tibetan is a demonstrative assertion marker. Chung (2005) refers to ‘spatial deictic
tense’ to derive direct evidentiality.
8
Note that even demonstratives do not always refer to deictic locations, as in expressions
like There was this man I knew, where proximal this does not refer to a person who is locatively
or contextually close to the Speaker.

253with other categories: only grammatical categories that are compatible with aproximate–distal distinction can be recycled as direct–indirect evidentials. Thisstrong ‘recycling’ hypothesis of course needs to be tested against a wide arrayof languages with evidential systems.
In addition to the proximal–distal dimension that translates the direct–
indirect distinction in evidentiality, I would like to discuss another dimensionthat crosscuts the ﬁrst one, and allows to describe the same four-way distinction that Speas (2010) had in mind. As mentioned before direct evidentiality canbe further subdivided into situations that are only known to the speaker (something the speaker feels), and situations that are external to the speaker but directly perceived by them. Direct evidentials can be speaker-internal or speakerexternal. Interestingly, Lau & Rooryck (2017) make a similar reference to theinternal–external distinction in their analysis of inference and hearsay as directly
related to the Aktionsart category of accomplishment. They analyze hearsay
as an evidential with which the Speaker signals that the information presented
in a proposition p was arrived at by a Speaker-external information update process of a source external to the speech situation informing them that p. By contrast, inferentials are minimally diﬀerent from hearsay in that they refer to a
Speaker-internal information update process using a variety of sources available
to them. Evidentials expressing inference involve a Speaker-internal mental process of gradual ’building up’ of the information that culminates in the Speakerpossessing the relevant information expressed in p. With hearsay evidentials,
the speaker is the recipient of external information, and is therefore positioned
at the ﬁnal stage of a process of transfer of information initiated by a third party.
In both hearsay and inference, the speaker lacks direct access to the information.
The dimensions of proximal/ distal and Speaker-internal/ Speaker-external
are suﬃcient to describe the same set of evidentials as those distinguished by
Speas (2010), as shown in the following table:

Speaker-internal accessSpeaker-external access

Proximal situation
Personal experience
Sensory

Distal situation
Inference
Hearsay(8)
Note that both of these dimensions are ultimately spatial in nature. While theproximal–distal distinction is well anchored in various other grammatical categories and processes, the nature of the Speaker-internal vs Speaker-external254distinction seems much less clearly related to existing categories, and requires
more investigation. In any case, I believe that this ‘spatial’ analysis of the abstract features underlying evidential categories provide a concrete set of criteriathat more basic categories have to comply with in order to be eligible for their‘recycling’ as evidentials.

8

Extending the Speaker internal/ external distinction

The Speaker-internal/-external dimension may also allow for a new understanding of the relation of evidentiality with egophoricity and allophoricity (see Tournadré 1991, Hargreaves 2005, Widmer 2017 and references cited therein). Following Hargreaves (2005), Widmer (2017) views the egophoric/ allophoric distinction as one that distinguishes between privileged vs non-privileged accessto knowledge of a situation. On the basis of data from Tibeto-Burman languages, Widmer (2017) distinguishes egophoric markers that express ‘actional
involvement’ of the speaker from from egophoric markers that express ‘epistemic involvement’. Egophoric markers expressing actional involvement markthe Speaker as a participant in a situation, while egophoric markers of epistemic
involvement only indicate knowledge or experience of a situation.
This distinction is very similar to the one I made above between Speakerinternal and Speaker-external access to a situation. In other words, the actional/
epistemic involvement distinction within egophoricity looks like another recombination of more basic primitives of the grammar. The notion of ‘privileged access’ does not seem to involve the proximal/ distal distinction. By contrast, theallophoric (non-privileged access) system does seem to interact with evidential
markers: allophoric markers can also express direct and inferential evidentiality
in Bunan (Widmer 2017: table 2). In terms of the system developed in (8) above,
this would mean that allophoricity does make use of the proximal/ distal distinction as applied to situations. Widmer’s (2017) observations about Bunan could
therefore be reinterpreted along the lines of the table in (9):Speaker-internal accessSpeaker-external accessPrivileged access (egophoric)
situational involvement
actional involvement
epistemic involvement255

Non-privileged access (allophoric)proximal situation distal situation
DirectInference

(9)Once again, I hope to have shown that the relations between these various
notions can be rethought in terms of diﬀerent primitives: privileged access/egophoricity can be viewed as a non-spatial type of access of the Speaker to asituation.

9

Quotatives and reportatives

The table in (8) refers to hearsay as a context that involves speaker-external access to a distal situation. Throughout this paper, I have used the terms hearsay
and reportative interchangeably, but I have not discussed quotatives. Note however that Table 1 puts hearsay and quotative on the same level, as part of indirect evidence. In terms of the table in (8), that cannot be quite right: quotatives
are markers that attribute a sentence to a diﬀerent speaker, and involve quoted
speech. By contrast, reportatives only indicate that the speaker was informed
about the situation described in the sentence by someone else, but the speakeruses their own words to do so.9 If quotatives do not ﬁt in with reportatives, thenwhere do they go in the table in (8)? I would like to propose that quotatives diﬀer
from reportatives in terms of the proximal-distal dimension. That is, quotatives
are a special instance of speaker-external access to a situation that can be viewed
as proximal in two ways. The Speaker not only indicates that they were present
at a speech act by someone else, but they also present the quoted speech act inthe (proximal) common ground between speaker and hearer. By contrast, using
a hearsay/ reportative marker would indicate that the situation described in thesentence is situated outside of the proximal space between speaker and hearer:
the user of a reportative marker was neither present at the situation described,
nor was there necessarily a speech act involved. This analysis places quotatives
and witness markers in the same box in the table: sensory evidentials only indicate that the Speaker was present at the situation (sensory/ witness), while
quotatives indicate more speciﬁcally that the Speaker was present at a speech
act that they reproduce in their own speech act.
The observation that quotative and reportative diﬀer along the proximaldistal dimension can be most easily seen in direct and indirect speech in English.
In (10a), direct speech can only be referred to by the proximal demonstrative
9

The evidential status of reportatives and quotatives has been extensively discussed by e.g.
Faller 2002, Anderbois 2014, Korotkova 2017.

256

this, but not by the distal demonstrative that. By contrast, the complementizer
for indirect speech in (10b) is based on the demonstrative distal that, rather thanon proximal this.
(10)

a.
b.

Sue said (this/ *that): “It is raining.”
Sue said (that/ *this) it is raining.

The relation between reportative and quotative is however not always deﬁned
along the proximal-distal dimension. In some languages, like Cuzco Quechua,there are markers that do double duty as quotatives and reportatives. Korotkova(2017) proposes to treat these as homophonous markers, but that seems unfortunate, as its treats the relation between reportative and quotative as entirely
accidental. Under the analysis presented here, it is suﬃcient to say that theQuechua reportative/ quotative marker –si is underspeciﬁed for the proximaldistal distinction.

10

Conclusion

Summing up, I have called into question the status of evidentiality as an autonomous grammatical category. I propose a programmatic alternative in whichevidentiality arises as a result of the recombination of abstract properties ofother, more basic grammatical categories. Since such recombinations often
carry the ’baggage’ of the original grammatical categories, a certain overlap andvagueness in evidential meanings is to be expected, in addition to the core setof evidential meanings expressed in Table 1.
Speas (2010) was the ﬁrst to propose that evidential meanings can be reduced to more abstract primitives of the grammar, even though she still grant
evidentiality the status of a separate grammatical category. I have tried to complement and constrain Speas’s (2010) analysis by a ‘spatial’ analysis of evidentiality that appeals to the dimensions of proximal/ distal and Speaker-internal/
Speaker external.
The ‘recycling’ perspective on evidentiality should be seen as an applicationof Occam’s razor: an analysis that manages to derive evidentiality with a moreparsimonious set of elementary categories should be viewed as superior to an
analysis that needlessly adds taxonomic distinctions.
More broadly, a ‘recycling’ perspective on evidentiality could provide us withinformation on the limits and organization of the functional domain, a program257

akin to that of Wiltschko (2014). If evidentiality recycles independently motivated, more basic categories of human language, such a result would illuminate our understanding of the elementary categories of language as grammatical tools for representing the origin and reliability of our statements. Such a
program would allow us to distinguish the elementary categories of grammarfrom categories that are derived from these. Moreover, it would illustrate thesurprisingly versatile uses to which these elementary categories can be put. Thisapproach would aﬀord a new window into the way in which the language faculty
accommodates the diversity of the world’s languages in terms of a limited set of
abstract elementary categories that can be put to a variety of uses.

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An emerging veridical complementizer to čto
in Russian
Alexandra Simonenko & Anastasiia Voznesenskaia

1

A new complementizer

This squib1 explores an innovation in the complementizer system of Modern Russian: a form to čto. The new form is illustrated in (1), which contrasts with thestandard čto in (2) by the presence of the to element.
(1)

mne govor’-at, to čto eto zakrytyj jamajskij kvartalv centreI.
say- .3 to čto this closed Jamaican neighbourhood in centre“they tell me that this is a closed Jamaican neighbourhood in the center”
Pharaoh in an interview to Yurij Dud’, 5:542(2)esli imnrav-it-s’a,
govor’-at, čto nravyts’aif they.
please-3 say- .3 čto please-3 “if they like it, they say that they like it”
Pharaoh in an interview to Yurij Dud’, 31:06

Complementizer to čto is string identical to a construction involving a demonstrative introducing a subordinate clause. Speciﬁcally, the new complementizer
is homographous with a combination of a demonstrative pronoun to “that” anda standard complementizer čto “what”, as in (3).3(3)

Menya udiv-ilo(to), [čto ey
bylo vsego dva god-a]I.
suprise- .3 thatshe.
was only two year.
“I was surprised that she was only two years old.” lit. “That she was only
two years old surprised me.”4
1

This is a small token of deep gratitude for the inspiration Liliane gives on the academic, professional, personal, aesthetic, and joie de vivre level.
2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXK12Uaxt9M
3
This also may be precisely the construction that gave rise to the new complementizer.
4
The use of a demonstrative with free relatives in Russian is contingent on contrastive inter-262

Similar constructions seem to be found in German and English, as (4) illustrates.
(4)

Wir bedauern es, dass die Schwimmer nicht bereit sind, die
We regretit that the swimmers neg willing are thekonzeptionellen Dinge mitzutragen.
conceptual.issues share“We regret it that the swimmers are not willing to share the conceptual
Schwabe (2016: 212)
issues.”In this squib we summarize what is already known about the new phenomenon
and make some novel observations based on the analysis of recent interviews
and speaker judgements. We also sketch a way to approach its analysis, arguing that the new complementizer signals the truth of the embedded proposition
with respect to the beliefs of one of the speech act participants or of a third-party.

2

Not a demonstrative to followed by a complementizer čto

The distribution of to čto as a complementizer only begins to be studied as theinnovation seems to have emerged during the last decade. In the literature, theclaim that we are witnessing the emergence of a new complementizer was ﬁrst
made by Korotaev (2016), who observed that to and čto in this case form an intonational unity and that to čto can combine with a wider class of matrix predicatesthan a demonstrative followed by čto.
As noticed by Korotaev (2016), another hallmark of to čto that sets it apartfrom demonstratives with subordinate clauses is the insensitivity of to in to čto
to the selectional properties of the main predicate. While in (5), which features
a new complementizer, the form to stays invariable, in (6) to is a demonstrative
obligatorily introduced by a preposition and taking a prepositional case, as required for non-propositional arguments by the predicate uveren (“sure”).
(5)

ya uveren to čto Timur rukovodstvov-al-sya tvorčesk-imi
I sure to čto Timur direct- creative.

pretation: for a felicitous use of a demonstrative, the proposition denoted by the free relative
should be part of a set of contextually relevant alternatives (Kobozeva 2013). For instance, a natural continuation for (3) can be the following: (I was surprised that she was only two years old)
not that she could sing so well.

263

zadač-ami
goal.
“I am sure that Timur was motivated by creative goals.”

Yuriy Dud’ in an

5interview with BadComedian, 28:19(6)

Ya uveren v tom,čto Timur rukovodstvov-al-sya tvorčesk-imi
I sure in that.
Timur direct- creativezadač-ami.
goal.
“I am sure that Timur was motivated by creative goals.”

We notice that the two constructions contrast with respect to a number of otherproperties as well. In particular, unlike the new complementizer, demonstratives
introducing subordinate clauses are syntactically mobile and can occur before
the main predicate, as (7) shows.
(7)(To,) [čto ey
bylo vsego dva god-a],menya udiv-ilo
that
she.
was only two year. I.
suprise- .3“I was surprised that she was only two years old.” lit. “That she was only
two years old surprised me.”

In contrast, the complementizer in question, just as the standard complementizer čto, has to be postverbal. Consider the ungrammatical (8) (cf. (1)).6(8)*to čto eto zakrytyj jamajskij kvartalv centre mne govor’-at
to čto this closed Jamaican neighbourhood in centre I.
say- .3
Intended: “they tell me that this is a closed Jamaican neighbourhood in
the center”

Another striking illustration of the complementizer function of to čto are cases
where it appears in a clause introduced by an unrelated demonstrative pronoun,
as in (9).
uveren-y v tom,to čto my pobed-im?
vse
everybody surein that.
to čto we win- .1“Is everyone sure that we are going to win?” From “Vozrast nesoglasiya” episode 4,

(9)

10:19

7

5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bag-O-KrswA
We are very thankful to Anton Simonenko for his help with grammaticality judgements.
7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDTVNd4e8M

6

264

3

Not an equivalent to the complementizer čto either

Although we fully agree with Korotaev (2016) that to čto should be analyzed as
a complementizer, we argue that this is not a full parallel to the standard čto.
First, unlike čto, to čto can be used to embed partial questions, as in (10),where to čto combines with počemu “why”.
(10)ivot on vyš-eli
mne govor-yat to čto počemu
and here it come.out- .3 and I.
say- .3 to čto why
oni pohoži?
they similar“and here it [the album] comes out and they tell me why are they similar?”
Pharaoh in an interview to Yuriy Dud’,
25:30

This is completely out for the standard čto, (11).
(11)

ivot on vyš-eli
mne govor-yat, (*čto) počemu
and here it come.out- .3 and I.
say- .3
why
oni pohoži?
they similar“and here it [the album] comes out and they tell me why are they similar?”

Second, not all matrix predicates that embed clauses headed by the standard
čto, are compatible with to čto. For instance, to čto is unacceptable with mečtat’(“to dream”), (12), pridumat’ “make up, invent”, (13), spasibo “thank you (that)”,(14), orat’ (“to yell”), (15), razočarovan (“to be disappointed”), (16).
(12)

ya konečno mečt-al, (*to) čto mama kogda-nibud’ menya
I of.course dreamto čto mom some.time I.
voz’m-et,otved-etv futbol’n-uyu škol-u
take- .3 lead- .3 in footballschool“I of course dreamt that my mom will take me to a football school”. Yuriy
8Dud’ in “Večerniy Urgant”, 3:48

8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBXGvCvECIg. The grammaticality judgement forto čto is added by our consultant.

265

(13)

Ja pridum-al (*to) čto u mašin-y bud-et gibridnaya korobka.
I inventto čto at carwill-3 hybridtransmission“I made up that the car will have a hybrid transmission.”(14)

spasibo tebe bol’šoe (*to) čto ty ne vzj-al
menya v sportivnyj
thank you big
to čto you not takeI.
in sport
perekursmoking.pause“A big thanks to you that you did not hire me for the “Sport break”. Yuriy
Dud’ in “Večerniy Urgant”, 14:41

9

(15)

ona ora-la (*to) čto pol tol’ko čto pokrasi-l-i.
she yell-past to čto ﬂoor justpaint- “She yelled that the ﬂoor has just been painted.”(16)

ya razočarovan (*to) čto lekciju otmeni-l-i
I disappointed to čto class cancel- “I am disappointed that the class has been cancelled.”(17)

Danil požalova-l-sja(*to) čto ya pro nego zab-yl
Danil complain- to čto I about him forget“Danil complained that I forgot about him.”

The distribution of the two complementizers with respect to a sample of matrix
predicates is summarized in table 1.
9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBXGvCvECIg. The grammaticality judgement forto čto is added by my consultant.

266

bojat’sja “to be afraid”
dumat’ “to think”
videt’ “to see”
volnovat’sja “to worry”
govorit’ “to say”
žalet’ “to be sorry”
znat’ “to know”
kazat’sja “to seem”
mečtat’ “to dream”
orat’ “to yell”požalovat’sya “to complain”
ponimat’ “to understand”

to čto
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
7
7
7
3

čto
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

ponravit’sja “to be pleased”
pridumat’ “to invent”
rad “glad”
razočarovan “to be disappointed”
skazat’ “to say”
sluhi “rumours”
snit’sja “to see dreams (that)”sovrat’ “to lie”
soglasen “to agree”
spasibo “thank you (that)”telegramma “a telegram”
uveren “to be sure”

Table 1: Distribution of to čto vs. čto4A relative veridicality marker

We make the following descriptive generalizations about the use of to čto basedon table 1. First, to čto is not used with predicates which do not attribute theembedded proposition to anyone’s beliefs. Such are orat’ (“to yell”) and spasibo(“thank you that”). Second, it is not used with predicates of creation (of propositional content or possible worlds), such as mečtat’ (“to dream”) and pridumat’(“to invent”). Third, it is out with emotive predicates which appear to trigger apresupposition that the proposition denoted by the subordinate clause is part ofthe common ground and asserts an emotional attitude towards that proposition,such as razočarovan “to be disappointed” and požalovat’sya “to complain”.
In view of these generalizations, we suggest that čto signals veridicality, whereveridicality is understood as in (18).
(18)

A propositional operator F is veridical iﬀ from the truth of Fp we can inferthat p is true according to some individual x (i.e. in some individual x’s
Giannakidou (2009: 1889)
epistemic model).

Speciﬁcally, we propose that to čto signals that the proposition denoted by thecomplement clause is entailed by the belief worlds of a contextually determined
belief source (not necessarily identical to the agent of the main predicate). Thismeans that its use requires that it be contextually possible that there is an epis267

3
7
3
7
3
3
3
3
3
7
3
3

3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

temic source relative to the proposition in question. This condition is violated
by predicates of mental creation, in which case propositions are “generated” byan epistemic source rather than being entailed by belief worlds. This also explains the incompatibility of to čto with strongly factive emotive predicates razočarovan “to be disappointed” and požalovat’sya “to complain”. Factivity, understood as veridicality relative to the belief’s of the speaker and the hearer at
the same time, is arguably more relevant than veridicality relative to a given epistemic source. Therefore marking the latter with factive predicates is infelicitous,
as its use may trigger an implicature that factivity does not hold.
In future work we hope to link these observation with the structural and semantic typology of complementizer types (Baunaz 2018) as well as to position
to čto in a bigger picture of Russian complementizers (Hansen et al. 2016).

References
Baunaz, L. 2018. Decomposing complementizers: The fseq of French, Modern Greek,
Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian complementizers. Exploring Nanosyntax 149–179.
Giannakidou, A. 2009. The dependency of the subjunctive revisited: temporal semantics
and polarity. Lingua 120. 1883–1908.
Hansen, B., Letuchiya, A. & Błaszczyk, I. 2016. Complementizers in Slavonic (Russian,Polish, and Bulgarian). Complementizer semantics in European languages Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 175–223.
Kobozeva, I.M. 2013. Conditions on the use of a correlative pronoun “to” before complement clauses with “chto”-complementizer [uslovja upotreblenija “to” pered pridatochnym iz’jasnitel’nym s sojuzom “chto”]. In O. Inkova (ed.), Du mot au texte, Études
slavo-romanes. 131–150. Bern: Peter Lang.
Korotaev, N.A. 2016. Soyuz to čto v ustnoy russkoy reči. Russian State University for the
Humanities.
Schwabe, K. 2016. Sentential proforms and argument conditionals. Inner-sentential
propositional proforms. Syntactic properties and interpretative eﬀects 211–240.

268

Clause-initial subject doubling in Dutch dialects(Or: Liliane was right after all)Jeroen van Craenenbroeck & Marjo van Koppen
Abstract
This paper revisits the debate between van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen (2002, 2007)
on the one hand and Haegeman (1990, 1992, 2004) on the other regarding the status ofclause-initial subject doubling in Dutch dialects. Contrary to our earlier work, we conclude
that Haegeman (2004) is right in drawing a principled distinction when it comes to this typeof doubling between the dialect of Lapscheure and that of Wambeek. Stronger still, we
argue that Haegeman (1990, 1992)’s original position, whereby the ﬁrst subject element inclause-initial subject doubling is a clitic (rather than a weak pronoun) is indeed the correct
analysis. After presenting some arguments—both old and new—in favor of this position,
we conclude by considering the broader theoretical implications of this analysis.

1 Introduction: the bone of contention
This paper revolves around a particular conﬁguration of pronominal subject doubling which
is attested in various Dutch dialects.1 It is exempliﬁed in (1) and (2).
(1)

(2)

Ze
gui zaai.
she.
goes she.
‘She’s going.’

Wambeek Dutch

Ze
goa zie.
she.
goes she.
‘She’s going.’

Lapscheure Dutch

In both these examples the subject pronoun is expressed twice, but interpreted only once.
As such, they represent cases of pronominal subject doubling. Two further characteristics
will play a central role in the remainder of this paper. First, one instantiation of the subject
is a strong pronoun (zaai and zie), while the other is deﬁcient (ze). Second, these examples
display what one could call clause-initial subject doubling, in that the ﬁrst subject pronoun
is also the ﬁrst element of the clause. Subject doubling is by no means restricted to thissentence type, though: both in the dialect of Wambeek and in that of Lapscheure, subject
1 It gives us great pleasure to be able to dedicate this paper to Liliane. Her contributions both to the ﬁeld atlarge and to dialect syntax more speciﬁcally simply cannot be overstated. Without Liliane’s inspiring work our own
linguistic careers probably would have taken a diﬀerent turn as well.

269

doubling also occurs in embedded clauses (the a-examples in (3) and (4)) and inverted mainclauses (the b-examples in (3) and (4)).
(3)

a.

b.

(4)

a.

b.

da se
zaai
that she.
she.
‘that she’s going.’zaai?
Gui segoes she.
she.
‘Is she going?’

guit.
goes

da se
zie
that she.
she.
‘that she’s going.’
Goa sezie?
goes she.
she.
‘Is she going?’

goat.
goes

Wambeek Dutch

Lapscheure Dutch

One of the main bones of contention between Haegeman (2004) (henceforth H) and van
Craenenbroeck & van Koppen (2007) (henceforth VC&VK) concerns the question of whether(1)–(2) and (3)–(4) represent a uniﬁed phenomenon or not. VC&VK claim that they don’t:
while (3)–(4) are representative of a phenomenon they call clitic doubling, the doublingin (1)–(2) is of a fundamentally diﬀerent nature, which they call topic doubling. H, on theother hand, contends that for the Lapscheure data, this split is uncalled for and hence that
(2) and (4) represent the same type of doubling, in particular clitic doubling. Closely related
to this analytical diﬀerence is the question of the pronominal status of the ﬁrst subject element in (1)–(2). VC&VK argue that while clitic doubling (the examples in (3)–(4)) always
involves the combination of a clitic and a strong pronoun (in the sense of Cardinaletti &Starke (1999)), topic doubling never contains a clitic. This means that the deﬁcient pronoun at the beginning of the clause in (1)–(2) is a weak pronoun. Haegeman (1990, 1992),
on the other hand, claims that the deﬁcient pronoun in all the examples in (2) and (4) are
subject clitics. The only diﬀerence is that while in (4) the clitic cliticizes onto C in narrowsyntax, in (2) it does so at PF.2 A central argument in this debate comes from examples like(5) (van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen 2007:157).
(5)

a.

b.

{ We
/ * Me} komme waaile
mergen.
we.
we.
come we.
tomorrow‘We are coming tomorrow.’da { * we/ me} waaile
mergen kommen.
that we.
we.
we.
tomorrow come‘that we are coming tomorrow.’

2 The reason for this diﬀerence is the Verb Second requirement, which regulates that specCP should be ﬁlled

in a declarative main clause in Dutch (dialects), so the clitic can only move to C at PF, after it has satisﬁed V2 atSpell-Out. Haegeman (2004:132–133) reinterprets this diﬀerence as a diﬀerence in pronominal status: ze is a cliticin (4), but a weak pronoun in (2). As van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen (2007:157) point out, however, this claim
risks undermining the uniﬁed account of clitic doubling in (2) and (4). Moreover, given that we will argue that ze isin fact a clitic in both (2) and (4), we will stick with Haegeman (1990, 1992)’s original analysis in the remainder ofthe paper and not follow Haegeman (2004)’s reinterpretation.

270

c.

Mergen komme { * wetomorrow comewe.
‘Tomorrow we are coming.’

/ me
we.

} waaile.
we.
Wambeek Dutch

In the ﬁrst person plural the dialect of Wambeek makes a morphological distinction between its clitic and its weak pronoun, and as the examples in (5) make clear, it is the clitic
pronoun that shows up in embedded clauses and inverted main clauses (clitic doubling
contexts according to VC&VK), whereas the weak pronoun appears in subject-initial mainclauses (topic doubling). According to VC&VK, exactly the same distribution underlies theexamples in (1)–(4), save for the fact that the deﬁcient form ze is homophonous betweena clitic and a weak pronoun. In a sense, then, those examples are less informative that theones in (5). H, on the other hand, contends that within Lapscheure (where no minimal pairs
like the ones in (5) can be constructed) there is no evidence in favor of a diﬀerent status ofze and so the conclusion drawn on the Wambeek data does not carry over to Lapscheure.
In this paper we revisit this debate, and conclude, contrary to our earlier work, that
Haegeman (1990, 1992, 2004) is right, and that the type of doubling illustrated in (2) isof a fundamentally diﬀerent nature than the one in (1): while the latter is a case of topic
doubling, the former represents clitic doubling, exactly like the examples in (3)–(4).3 In
support of this position, we present four arguments, which we lay out in detail in the next
section.

2 Arguments for a clitic doubling analysis
2.1 Introduction
In this section we present four arguments in favor of the hypothesis outlined in the previous section. Some of these arguments are known from the literature (though not always
explicitly acknowledged as such), others are new.

2.2 Coordination
As pointed out by (Cardinaletti & Starke 1999:169), weak pronouns diﬀer from clitics inthat the former can but the latter cannot be a shared subject of a predicate coordination.
If the two dialects under consideration here diﬀer in the pronominal status of clause-initial
deﬁcient pronouns, we expect that diﬀerence to be manifested there as well. As the examples in (6) (van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen 2000:12) and (7) show, this expectation isborne out.
(6)

*’k
I.

Spelen op de piano en zingen altijd geweldig.
play on the piano and sing always great: ‘I play the piano and always sing wonderfully.’

Lapscheure Dutch

3 Fortunately, we have not always been wrong-headed: in van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen (2000:40) we con-clude, partly based on data from the Lapscheure dialect, “that West Flemish does not have [topic] doubling”. Weshould have stuck to that initial position.

271

(7)

’k
Guin nuir ojs en zeg em wa da ’k erva
paus.
I.
go to home and tell him what that I there.of think‘I’m going home and will tell him what I think.’
Wambeek Dutch

While in Lapscheure Dutch the deﬁcient pronoun ’k cannot occur as the shared subject ofa predicate coordination, its identically sounding counterpart in the Wambeek dialect can.
This suggest that there is a diﬀerence in pronominal status between these two elements:’k is a clitic in (6), but a weak pronoun in (7). This is consistent with a clitic doubling analysisof (2) and a topic doubling analysis of (1).

2.3 Geographical distribution
A second way to distinguish clitic doubling from topic doubling concerns their geographicaldistribution. As discussed in detail by de Vogelaer & Devos (2008), clitic doubling and topic
doubling are typically found in diﬀerent geographical areas. First consider the map they
provide of clitic doubling:

Figure 1: Geographical distribution of clitic doubling (de Vogelaer & Devos 2008:256)
There is a core clitic doubling area, which consists of the provinces of French Flanders,West Flanders, and East Flanders. In addition, there appear to be remnants of a clitic doubling system, where we ﬁnd what looks like ﬁrst and second person doubled pronouns.
Following Pauwels (1958), Nuyts (1995), de Schutter (1994) and de Vogelaer (2005), we assume that these are not actual cases of (clitic) doubling, but that they involve reanalysis oforiginally clitic doubled forms as non-doubled, positionally restricted strong pronouns. As
such, we will not discuss these forms any further in the rest of the paper.
The distribution of topic doubling can be represented as follows:
Topic doubling is concentrated in the provinces of Flemish Brabant and Antwerp, withextensions into the northeast of East Flanders. When comparing Figure 1 with Figure 2,272

Figure 2: Geographical distribution of topic doubling (de Vogelaer & Devos 2008:257)

it becomes clear that the geographical distribution of clitic doubling and topic doubling isquite distinct—nearly complementary even. This means that we can use the distributionof the phenomena to shed light on the status of the examples in (1)–(2): if they pattern as
in Figure 1, we are led to an analysis in terms of clitic doubling, while if they show the distribution in Figure 2, we are dealing with topic doubling. Interestingly, de Vogelaer & Devos(2008) do precisely this. Their ﬁndings, as well as their interpretation of these ﬁndings, canbe found in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Geographical distribution of the pattern ‘deﬁcient+verb+strong’ (de Vogelaer & Devos
2008:262)

273

The combination of a deﬁcient pronoun followed by the ﬁnite verb followed by a strong
pronoun occurs in a geographical area that includes both the clitic doubling area in Figure
1 and the topic doubling area in Figure 2. When faced with this distribution, de Vogelaer& Devos (2008:262) conclude that “a non-uniform analysis may actually provide a better
understanding of the data”. In other words, the pattern ‘deﬁcient pronoun + ﬁnite verb +strong pronoun’ should be analyzed as clitic doubling in the area marked in black in Figure
3 and as topic doubling in the area marked in grey. Given that Lapscheure belongs to theblack area and Wambeek to the grey one, these ﬁndings support the hypothesis that theexamples in (1)–(2) should receive a non-uniform analysis.

2.4 Tripling
If the Lapscheure data in (2) and (4) both represent clitic doubling, then this dialect has only
one mechanism for doubling a subject.4 Wambeek Dutch, on the other hand, has two suchmechanisms: topic doubling in (1) and clitic doubling in (3). This opens up the possibilityof these two mechanisms co-occurring in a single sentence. Speciﬁcally, while the clauseinitial subject is doubled by a strong pronoun (topic doubling), that strong pronoun couldin turn be doubled by a clitic (clitic doubling), thus leading to a three-fold instantiation of
the subject, or tripling. As pointed out by (Haegeman 1992:66) and shown in (8), tripling is
disallowed in the dialect of Lapscheure. In Wambeek Dutch, on the other hand, tripling is
ﬁne (see (9)).
(8)

(9)

*Ze
she.

goa zegoes she.
: ‘She’s going.’

zie.
she.

Ze
gui zeshe.
goes she.
‘She’s going.’

zaai.
she.

Lapscheure

Wambeek

The contrast between these two examples suggests that while Wambeek Dutch has two
doubling mechanisms at its disposal and hence allows for their co-occurrence, Lapscheure
Dutch only has one. In van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen (2006) we explore this contrast fora slightly larger number of dialects and arrive at the same conclusion. The dialects underinvestigation there are represented in Figure 4.
The group of dialects uninspiredly referred to as “A-dialects” in Figure 4 are like Lapscheure Dutch in that they disallow pronominal tripling, while the so-called “B-dialects”
are like that of Wambeek in allowing the subject to be doubled twice within one sentence.
Like the map in Figure 3, then, these facts suggest that the contrast between Lapscheure
and Wambeek under investigation in this paper is part of a larger generalization, whereby(roughly) the provinces of French Flanders, West Flanders, and East Flanders behave like
Lapscheure Dutch in disallowing topic doubling, while Flemish Brabant and Antwerp arelike Wambeek Dutch in having this construction.
4 We’re abstracting away from so-called topic marking here, as this is not really a doubling phenomenon. See

van Craenenbroeck & Haegeman (2007), de Vogelaer & Devos (2008), and Haegeman (2008) for discussion.

274

Figure 4: Two dialect groups according to van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen (2006)

2.5 Meaning diﬀerences
Van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen (2002) coined the term ‘topic doubling’ for the example
in (1) (and—wrongly—also for the one in (2)) to highlight the fact that the ﬁrst subject element occupies a position in the CP-domain, a region typically associated with informationstructural eﬀects. One of the examples they present in support of this position is the minimal pair in (10) (van Craenenbroeck & van Koppen 2002:295).
(10)

a.

b.

Een vrou komt a kaﬀee binn.
a woman comes a bar in‘A woman enters a bar.’
Een vrou komt zaaia kaﬀee binn.
a woman comes she.
a bar in
‘Women usually enter a bar.’#‘A woman enters a bar.’

Wambeek Dutch

In (10a) the indeﬁnite subject is not doubled and a non-speciﬁc indeﬁnite reading is possible, while in (10b) this reading is absent and only a generic interpretation is available. Thisshows that topic doubled subjects behave like topicalized constituents: both are incompatible with a non-speciﬁc indeﬁnite reading.
If the Lapscheure example in (2) represents a case of clitic doubling, not topic doubling,
we expect this type of doubling not to be sensitive to information-structural considerations. As far as we know, this has not been looked into in any detail for the Lapscheure
dialect (though see Haegeman (1990:335n2) and (Haegeman 2004:127) for occasional remarks about the meaning of this type of doulbling), but Uittenhove (2015) examines pre-275

cisely this issue for the closely related dialect of Bredene.5 Through an extensive questionnaire, he examines whether information-structure has an eﬀect on the use of subject
doubling in the dialect of Bredene. He distinguishes between four contexts—new information focus, givenness topic, contrastive focus, and contrastive topic–and examines to what
extent these contexts favor subject doubling. The main ﬁnding of his research is quite unequivocal: “De zwak-sterkverdubbeling (..) wordt in alle contexten aanvaard. Zowel als
focus als als topic krijgt de zwak-sterkverdubbeling van het subject hoge scores”6 (Uittenhove 2015:68). This is exactly what we would expect in the context of this paper: if West
Flemish lacks topic doubling altogether, then there should be no interaction between subject doubling—i.e. clitic doubling—and the information-structural properties of the subject.

2.6 Conclusion
We have just reviewed four pieces of evidence that all point to the same conclusion: thedata in (1) and (2) should not be given a uniﬁed account. More speciﬁcally, while in Wambeek
Dutch topic doubling as in (1) contrasts with the clitic doubling examples in (3), the Lapscheure data in (2) and (4) seem to uniformly point towards a clitic doubling analysis. In
addition, we have also shown that there are reasons to think that this interdialectal diﬀerence is symptomatic of a larger split, which (roughly) contrasts the Flemish dialects with
the Brabantic ones.

3 Conclusion and broader implications
The one-sentence summary of this paper is clear and easy: we were wrong and Liliane
was right in the analysis of the Lapscheure data in (2). More generally, it looks like topic
doubling, while a real phenomenon, does not extend all the way into the Flemish dialects,
but is stopped in its tracks at the Flemish-Brabantic border. The broader implications of
this regional divide are, we believe, well worth exploring (see van Craenenbroeck & van
Koppen (2016) for relevant discussion).
Another consequence of the proposal developed here relates to Haegeman (1990)’s
original analysis of subject doubling in Lapscheure Dutch. Recall from footnote 2 abovethat the analysis of an example like (2) diﬀered from those in (4) in that the clitic only
cliticized to C at PF. The reason for this diﬀerence was the V2-requirement of Lapscheure
Dutch: the preverbal position has to be ﬁlled by an XP at the point of spell-out. However,
if we are right that the preverbal subject element in (2) is a true clitic, then the preverbal position is occupied by a head, not an XP in this example. The key to understanding this conclusion, we believe, lies in Jouitteau (2010)’s reclassiﬁcation of V2-, SVO- andVSO-languages into one single category of X(P)-VSO. The V2-constraint—however implemented and probably more aptly called the X(P)-VSO-constraint—prohibits the ﬁnite verb
5 Both the Lapscheure dialect and the Bredene one are part of so-called coastal West Flemish, see Taeldeman(2013).
6 “Deﬁcient-strong subject doubling is accepted in all contexts. Both as focus and as topic this type of doublingreceives high acceptability ratings.”276

from being leftmost in the clausal phase (Jouitteau 2011:10), and one of the ways in which
this constraint can be respected is by merging a head to the left of the ﬁnite verb. Lapscheure Dutch can do this in a context like (2), but Wambeek Dutch cannot. While this
distinction might seem far-fetched or arbitrary at ﬁrst, van Craenenbroeck (2011) argues
that there is another context in which the clause-initial position is occupied by a head in
Lapscheure Dutch, namely in expletive constructions (see Haegeman (1986), Grange &Haegeman (1989) for extensive discussion):(11)T

zyn gisteren drie studenten gekommen.
are yesterday three students come‘Three students came yesterday.’

Lapscheure Dutch

Van Craenenbroeck (2011) argues that the expletive element t should not be analyzed asa reduced form of the third person neuter personal pronoun het ‘it’, but rather as a West
Flemish analogue to Welsh or Breton clause-initial particles, with which they share manymorphosyntactic properties (Jouitteau 2008, 2010, 2011, Borsley et al. 2007, Willis 1998,
2007). Viewed from this perspective, both the expletive example in (11) and the clitic doubling example in (2) are representative of the X-VSO-nature of Lapscheure Dutch. Working
out this connection in more detail is a topic for further research, though.

References
Borsley, R.D., Tallerman, M. & Willis, D. 2007. The syntax of Welsh. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Cardinaletti, A. & Starke, M. 1999. The typology of structural deﬁciency: a case study ofthree classes of pronouns. In H. van Riemsdijk (ed.), Clitics in the languages of Europe.
145–233. Berlin: Mouton.
van Craenenbroeck, J. 2011. Germanic expletives revisited. In pursuit of Kayne’s dream.
Handout for an invited talk at the 26th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop.
van Craenenbroeck, J. & Haegeman, L. 2007. The derivation of subject-initial V2. Linguistic
Inquiry 38(1). 167–178.
van Craenenbroeck, J. & van Koppen, M. 2000. On the pronominal system of Dutch dialects. Unpublished ms. University of Leiden.
van Craenenbroeck, J. & van Koppen, M. 2002. Pronominal doubling and the structureof the left periphery in southern Dutch. In S. Barbiers, L. Cornips & S.v.d. Kleij (eds.),
Syntactic microvariation. http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/books/synmic/.
van Craenenbroeck, J. & van Koppen, M. 2006. Clitic doubling and coordination. Towards
a micro-typology of pronominal doubling in Dutch dialects. Handout of a talk presented
at the Workshop Syntactic Doubling in Dutch Dialects.
van Craenenbroeck, J. & van Koppen, M. 2007. Theorie, empirie en subjectverdubbeling:
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Handout of a talk presented at CGSW 31, December 1-2, 2016. Stellenbosch University,
South Africa.
Grange, C. & Haegeman, L. 1989. Subordinate clauses: adjuncts or arguments: the status of het in Dutch. In D. Jaspers, W. Klooster, Y. Putseys & P. Seuren (eds.), Sentential
complementation and the lexicon. studies in honour of wim de geest. 155–171. Dordrecht:
Foris publications.
Haegeman, L. 1986. Er-sentences in West-Flemish. Ms. Université de Genève.
Haegeman, L. 1990. Subject pronouns and subject clitics in West Flemish. The Linguistic
Review 7. 333–363.
Haegeman, L. 1992. Theory and description in generative syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Haegeman, L. 2004. Verdubbeling van subjectpronomina in de Zuid-Nederlandse dialecten: een reactie uit Lapscheure. Taal & Tongval 56. 119–159.
Haegeman, L. 2008. Pleonastic tet in West Flemish and the cartography of subject positions. In S. Barbiers, O. Koeneman, M. Lekakou & M. van der Ham (eds.), Microvariationin syntactic doubling, vol. 36 Syntax and Semantics. 277–300. Bingley: Emerald.
Jouitteau, M. 2008. The brythonic reconciliation: from verb-ﬁrst to generalized verbsecond. In J.v. Craenenbroeck & J. Rooryck (eds.), Linguistic Variation Yearbook, vol. 7.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Jouitteau, M. 2011. Epp inquiries: the Late Expletive Insertion Trigger. Ms. CNRS UMR
7110.
Jouitteau, M. 2010. La syntaxe comparée du Breton. Une enquête sur la périphérie gauche dela phrase bretonne. Sarrebruck: Éditions universitaires européennes.
Nuyts, J. 1995. Subjectspronomina en dubbele pronominale constructies in het Antwerps.
Taal & Tongval 47. 43–58.
Pauwels, J. 1958. Dialect van Aarschot en omstreken. Belgisch Interuniversitair Centrum
voor Neederlandistiek.
de Schutter, G. 1994. Voegwoordﬂectie en pronominale clitisering: waarin Vlaams en Brabants bijna elkaars tegengestelden zijn. Taal & Tongval 46. 108–131.
Taeldeman, J. 2013. The southwestern dialect area: phonology. In F. Hinskens & J. Taeldeman (eds.), Language and Space. An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation. Volume 3: Dutch. 150–173. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.
Uittenhove, T. 2015. De relatie tussen subjectsverdubbeling en informatiestructuur. Een casestudy van het Bredens: KU Leuven MA thesis.

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de Vogelaer, G. 2005. Subjectsmarkering in de Nederlandse en Friese dialecten: Ghent University dissertation.
de Vogelaer, G. & Devos, M. 2008. On geographical adequacy, or: how many types ofsubject doubling in Dutch. In S. Barbiers, O. Koeneman, M. Lekakou & M. van der Ham(eds.), Microvariation in syntactic doubling, vol. 36 Syntax and Semantics. 251–276. Bingley: Emerald.
Willis, D. 1998. Syntactic change in Welsh. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Willis, D. 2007. Speciﬁer-to-head reanalysis in the complementizer domain: evidence from
Welsh. Transactions of the Philological Society 105. 432–480.

279

Here, there, and (every)where
Guido Vanden Wyngaerd

1

Introduction

The words here, there, and (every)where (henceforth HTW) are traditionally taken
to be adverbs. Evidence discussed in Burton-Roberts (1991), however, showsthat they behave distributionally like PPs. For reasons of space, I do not recapitulate this evidence here, but summarise it schematically in (1):(1)
complement of V
modify Adj/Adv
postmodify N
complement of P
take PP complementtake right, straight, justlocative inversion

Adv

PP

HTW

7
3
7
7
7
7
7

3
7
3
3
3
3
3

3
7
3
3
3
3
3

Burton-Roberts (1991: 171) concludes from these data that HTW are prepositions. In terms of their meaning, however, HTW do not just correspond to simple prepositions, but are richer semantically. This is seen in the analysis of Katz &Postal (1964), who argue that HTW derive from an underlying PP-like structure:1
(2)

here
: at this place
there : at that place
where : at what place1

See also Kayne (2005), who argues that here and there are licensed in a structure with silent
nouns (
here
,
there
). The list in (2) may be extended with complex expressions like everywhere and somewhere, as well as other expressions of direction and/or location,
like back, away, home, upstairs, downstairs, abroad, aboard, apart, aside, together, which behave
like HTW. I shall not further discuss those here, however.

280

Aarts (2013) takes HTW to be PPs, which is more in line with their semantics. The
conclusion that HTW are PPS is still too general, however: HTW correspond witha subclass of the PPs, namely those with a locative or directional meaning. The
locative meaning in particular appears from the fact that some of the environments in (2) require a locative PP, such as the complement of go or put, or thephenomenon of locative inversion.
The conclusion that what look like single words in fact correspond to complex structures, viz. PPs of the type in (2), provides an interesting case for thenanosyntactic mechanism of phrasal spellout, by which a syntactically complex
constituent can be spelled out by a single lexical item. At the same time, there
is also some evidence for decomposing HTW. Again looking at both the forms
and the meanings in (2), we see that there is also a deictic (this/that) or a whelement (what) present. This element is responsible for the semantic diﬀerences
between here (deictic proximate), there (deictic distal), and where (interrogative,
or indeﬁnite in complex forms like somewhere, everywhere; see Haida 2007). The
forms also suggest a decomposition of the type {h/th/wh}-ere, with on the one
hand an exponent h-/th-/wh-, which is responsible for the deictic/wh part of their
meaning, and an exponent -ere on the other, which spells out a diﬀerent set offeatures relating to location and direction. The spatial triplet h-ere/th-ere/wh-ere
has a temporal cognate in the triplet now/th-en/wh-en, which (except for now) is
subject to a similar decomposition, with the second part (-en) referring to timerather than to location/direction. In this short paper, I focus on the second part ofHTW (-ere), which for convenience I continue to refer to as HTW. I argue that -ere
realises the locative/directional part of the meaning of here, there, and where. I
defer a further discussion of h-/th-/wh- to another place and time.

2

Movement, Direction and Location

Before proceeding with the analysis of HTW, I need to discuss prepositional expressions of location and direction. Certain types of P only have a locative meaning (e.g. in), while others are directional (e.g. to). The diﬀerence shows up mostclearly in stative predications, such as postnominally or with be (Déchaine et al.
1995):(3)a.
b.

a train in /to Paris
This train is in /to Paris.

French à ‘at’ only has a locative sense:
281

(4)

a.
b.

un train à /*Ce train est à

Paris
Paris.
/*

Numerous authors have argued that directions are more complex than locations(Koopman 2000, Van Riemsdijk & Huybregts 2002, Kracht 2002, Zwarts 2005,
Den Dikken 2010, Cinque 2010, Svenonius 2010, Caha 2010, Pantcheva 2011).
Takingandto stand in a containment relation (withcontaining),
the diﬀerence between locative in and directional to can be conceived of as adiﬀerence in size, as shown in (5):
(5)
in
to

Paris
Paris

This approach allows an account of the otherwise surprising fact that, combinedwith certain types of motion verbs, both English in and French à seem to express
direction:
(6)

a.
b.

She went/came/fell/jumped/ﬂew in the water.
Ce train va à Paris.
this train goes at Paris‘This train goes to Paris.’

This fact can be explained by assuming that theelement can be realised by amotion verb (Fábregas 2007, Caha 2010), allowing a locative preposition to spellout the remainder of the functional sequence. This is shown schematically in (7):
(7)
be
go
aller

in
in
à

Paris
the water
Paris

Not all motion verbs are able to spell out: English walk, run or dance, whencombined with in, only have a locative, and no directional, sense, because neither the verb nor in can realise . A directional preposition like to is needed, as
shown in (8) and (9).
(8)

She walked/ran in/tothe park.

282

(9)
run
run

in
to

Paris
Paris

Following Levin et al. (2009), I call verbs like go/fall/jump verbs of directed motion(or directional verbs for short), and verbs like walk/run/dance manner of motion
verbs (see also Talmy 1975, 1985 on path-framed vs satellite-framed languages).

3

AnalysisWith this in mind, let us return to HTW. This section aims at demonstrating that
English HTW can occur in all the slots where locative and directional PPs can occur. This distributional pattern is accounted for by assuming that HTW are thephrasal spellout of a constituent corresponding to a locative/directional PP.
The locative sense of HTW appears in stative predications like (10a) and (10b),and it also appears in sentences where HTW combine with directional verbs, like(10c). Under the analysis developed in the previous section,is realised by theverb in such a case. As a result, HTW shrink to realising only
, in spite of thedirectional sense expressed by (10c). This is shown schematically in (11).
(10)

a.
b.
c.

The pharmacy is there.
They live here.
She came here ﬁrst and then went there.

(11)
be
be

in
go

Paris
there
there

The directional sense of HTW becomes apparent from (12), with manner of motion verbs.
(12)

She walked/ran there/.

This sentence is in fact ambiguous, in a manner which is reminiscent of (8) above:
there, withleft unexpressed andexpressed by in, the sense was locative,
but with+
realised by the preposition to, the meaning was directional.
In this case, the ambiguity of (12) suggests that there is a syncretism between
directional and locative HTW. In line with our earlier assumptions, we assume283

that directional HTW spell out a larger constituent than locative HTW, as shownin (13):
(13)
walk
walk

there
there

Standard Superset Principle logic accounts for this syncretism: the lexical entryfor HTW contains the features++, and given that there is no competing lexical item that just spells out+, the larger lexical item may spellout the smaller syntactic structure that is contained in its lexical entry. Finally,observe that in addition to the features
and, HTW also spell out an abstract noun meaning. In this respect, HTW diﬀer from now/then/when,
which realise an abstract noun.

4

Conclusion

I have argued that HTW are not adverbs, nor prepositions, nor PPs, but are decomposable into a deictic/wh part h-/th-/wh- and a locative/directional part -ere.
The -ere part is the phrasal spellout of an abstract set of features expressing direction and location, and the abstract noun
. How the two parts of HTW
and their corresponding feature sets connect with each other is a matter which I
hope to return to in future work.

References
Aarts, B. 2013. English syntax and argumentation. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Burton-Roberts, N. 1991. Prepositions, adverbs, and adverbials. In I.T.B. van
Ostade & J. Frankis (eds.), Language: Usage and description. 159–172. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Caha, P. 2010. The German locative-directional alternation: A peeling account.
The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 13(3). 179–223.
Cinque, G. 2010. Mapping spatial PPs: an introduction. In G. Cinque & L. Rizzi(eds.), Mapping spatial PPs (The cartography of syntactic structures 6). 3– 25.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

284

Déchaine, R.M., Hoekstra, T. & Rooryck, J. 1995. Augmented and nonaugmented HAVE. In L. Nash & G. Tsoulas (eds.), Proceedings of langues etgrammaire I. 85–101. Paris: Université de Paris VIII.
Den Dikken, M. 2010. On the functional structure of directional and locative
PPs. In G. Cinque & L. Rizzi (eds.), Mapping spatial PPs (The cartography ofsyntactic structures 6). 74–126. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fábregas, A. 2007. An exhaustive lexicalisation account of directional complements. In M. Bašić, M. Pantcheva, M. Son & P. Svenonius (eds.), Nordlyd, special issue on space, motion, and result (Tromsø Working Papers on Language
and Linguistics 34.2). 165–199. Tromsø: CASTL, University of Tromsø.
Haida, A. 2007. The indeﬁniteness and focusing of wh-words. Berlin: HumboldtUniversität dissertation.
Katz, J. & Postal, P. 1964. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Kayne, R. 2005. Here and there. In Movement and silence. 65–84. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Koopman, H. 2000. Prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions, and particles.
In The syntax of speciﬁers and heads. 204–260. London: Routledge.
Kracht, M. 2002. On the semantics of locatives. Linguistics and Philosophy 25.
157–232.
Levin, B., Beavers, J. & Tham, S.W. 2009. Manner of motion roots across languages: Same or diﬀerent? Paper presented at Roots Workshop, Stuttgart.
Pantcheva, M. 2011. Decomposing path: The nanosyntax of directional expressions. Tromsø: University of Tromsø dissertation.
Svenonius, P. 2010. Spatial P in English. In G. Cinque & L. Rizzi (eds.), Mapping spatial PPs (The cartography of syntactic structures 6). 127–160. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Talmy, L. 1975. Semantics and syntax of motion. In J. Kimball (ed.), Syntax andsemantics, vol. 4. 181–238. Academic Press.
Talmy, L. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In
T. Shopen (ed.), Grammatical categories and the lexicon, vol. 3 Language Typology and Syntactic Description. 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Van Riemsdijk, H. & Huybregts, R. 2002. Location and locality. In M. van Oostendorp & E. Anagnostopoulou (eds.), Progress in grammar: Articles at the 20th
anniversary of the comparison of grammatical models group in Tilburg. 1–23.
Amsterdam: Meertens Instituut.

285

Zwarts, J. 2005. The case of prepositions: Government and compositionality inGerman PPs. Paper presented at IATL 21, Haifa.

286

Grammaticalisation processes
in Flemish Sign Language
Mieke Van Herreweghe
Following Hopper & Traugott (2003 [1993]: 232), grammaticalisation can be deﬁned as “the change whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain
linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions and, once grammaticalized,
continue to develop new grammatical functions.” Grammaticalisation processes
have not been studied very extensively in sign languages yet. Pfau & Steinbach(2006) give a very interesting survey of studies that have focused on grammaticalisation processes in sign languages, but Flemish Sign Language (VGT) was not
one of them. Within the Deaf community in Flanders about 5000 - 6000 people(Loots et al. 2003) claim to have Flemish Sign Language as their ﬁrst or principal language. After lengthy negotiations, VGT was oﬃcially recognized by the
Flemish Parliament in April 2006. VGT clearly is a fully-ﬂedged sign language
in its own right, and is genealogically related to amongst others French-Belgian
Sign Language (LSBF), French Sign Language (LSF), American Sign Language(ASL) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). The common ancestor ofthese daughter sign languages is Old French Sign Language (OFSL). However,
it is impossible to use historical data to look at grammaticalisation paths since
there simply are very few historical grammatical data as OFSL was never written
down. Consequently, the method to be used is that of internal reconstruction
which is a procedure for inferring part of the history of a language from material
available for a synchronic description of the language on the basis of paradigmatic allomorphy.

1

Grammaticalisation clines

For spoken languages, grammaticalisation processes have been described along
a number of structural changes or clines. The following examples will show thatthese clines can be found in VGT as well.
287

1.1

Morpho-syntactic fusion

According to Bybee (1985) morphosyntactic fusion treats the relationship between syntax (or sentence structure) and morphology (or internal word structure) or to put it in Givón’s (1971: 413) terms “Today’s morphology is yesterday’s syntax”. Pfau & Steinbach (2006: 87) state that “sign languages only havevery few (if any) instances of type 2-grammaticalization (i.e. from free to boundgrammatical morpheme)”. I would like to argue that at least one example can befound in VGT (and probably also in other sign languages) with respect to negative aﬃxation. Clearly, certain negative verb signs in VGT have developed froma combination of a positive sign and the negative adverb NOT (see Figure 1) resulting in a positive verb stem followed by a negative aﬃx which consists of atwisting movement of the wrist.

Figure 1: Negative adverb NOT (with a left to right horizontal sweeping movement) (picture
taken from Van Herreweghe & Vermeerbergen 2006: 245)

Examples are for instance the verb signs BELIEVE-NOT, WANT-NOT (see Figure 9), CAN-NOT (see Figure 10) and the deverbal adjective sign UNKNOWN
which is the same as the noun STRANGER (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: UNKNOWN or STRANGER (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=23011)

Figure 2. UNKNOWN or STRANGER (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=23011)
2) Decategorialisation

Decategorialisation refers to the evolution of open class lexemes in a primary or major category to cl
288
class lexemes in a secondary or minor category. As has been described for other sign languages V
also has instances of the evolution of the gesture for “strong” being lexicalised into the (ad)nominal
STRONG/POWER (with an upward movement) and then grammaticalised into the modal verb C(with a downward movement).

1.2

Figure 2. UNKNOWN or STRANGER (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=230
Decategorialisation

2)theDecategorialisation
Decategorialisation refers toevolution of open class lexemes in a primary or
major category to closed class lexemes in a secondary or minor category. As has
Decategorialisation refers to the evolution of open class lexemes in a primary or majo
been described for other sign
languages VGT also has instances of the evolution
class lexemes in a secondary or minor category. As has been described for other siof the gesture for “strong” being
lexicalised into the (ad)nominal sign STRONG/
also has instances of the evolution of the gesture for “strong” being lexicalised into th
POWER (with an upward movement)
and then(withgrammaticalised
into theand
modal
STRONG/POWER
an upward movement)
then grammaticalised into th
verb CAN (with a downward(withmovement).
a downward movement).

Figure 3: STRONG/POWER (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=18674)

Figure 3. STRONG/POWER (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=18674)

Figure 4: CAN (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=22028)

Figure 4. CAN (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=22028)

Since a similar path has been described for ASL (Janzen & Shaﬀer 2002) and
Since a similar
path2004)
has beenfor ASLother OFSL related sign languages(Wilcoxthedescribedassumption
can(Janzen
be thatand Shaffer 2002) and othelanguages
the assumption alreadycan be thatat least the lexicalisation but
maybe (Wilcox,
also the 2004)
grammaticalisation
tookat least the lexicalisation b
grammaticalisation already took place in OFSL. Another example of decategorialis
place in OFSL. Another example of decategorialisation in VGT is the evolution
evolution of the adjectival/adverbial sign READY into an aspectual marker READof the adjectival/adverbial sign
an aspectual
markerREADY,
what READY
has beeninto
described
for FINISH
in ASL(Janzenquite
1995).
similar to what has been described for FINISH in ASL (Janzen 1995).
Furthermore it would appear that the subordinating conjunction BECAUSE hasdeveloped from the nominal sign REASON, which may be similar to its NGT
counterpart (Pfau & Steinbach 2006: 40).
However, in VGT the following paths can be discerned which have not (yet)been described for other sign languages:• lexical verb GIVE → light verb GIVE → auxiliary/preposition GIVE functioning as recipient marker (see below)
Figure5. READY (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=22239)• nominal sign EXAMPLE→ conjunction
introducing a conditional clause

Furthermore it would appear that the subordinating conjunction BECAUSE has d289
nominal sign
REASON, which may be similar to its NGT counterpart (Pfau & Stein

Figure 4. CAN (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=22028)

Since a similar path has been described for ASL (Janzen and Shaffer 2002) and otherlanguages (Wilcox, 2004) the assumption can be that at least the lexicalisation b
grammaticalisation already took place in OFSL. Another example of decategorialisa
evolution of the adjectival/adverbial sign READY into an aspectual marker READ
what has been described for FINISH in ASL (Janzen 1995).

However, in VGT the following paths can be discerned which have not (yet) been desc
sign languages:• lexical verb GIVE -> light verb GIVE -> auxiliary/preposition GIVE functioni
Figure 5: READY (http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=22239)
marker (see below)
Figure5. READY(http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=22239)• nominal
sign EXAMPLE-> conjunction introducing a conditional clause• verb sign “get the door slammed in one’s face” -> conjunction introducing• verb sign “get the door
slammed
in
face”
→that
conjunction
introducing
Furthermore
it one’swould
appearthe subordinating
conjunction BECAUSE has dclause (Huys
2008:94-97)
94–97) which may be similar to its NGT counterpart (Pfau & Steinan adversative clausenominal(Huys 2008:
sign REASON,

Figure 6: get the door slammed in one’s face (picture taken from Huys 2008: 94)

Figure 6. get the door slammed in one’s face (picture taken from Huys 2008:94

3) Phonological reduction

1.3

Phonological reduction

The grammaticalised element is frequently phonologically reduced compared

The grammaticalised element
is frequently
phonologicallycompared
to reduction in for instan
grammaticalised
counterpart.
For VGTreduced
we can findphonologicalmentioned
above.
is the sign
GIVE which in its full lexic
its non-grammaticalisedaffixation
counterpart.
For VGT
weAnothercan ﬁndexample
phonologicalreducsigned witha horizontal
movement
fromAnotherthe agentexample
to the recipient.
It is usually (but notion in for instance the negativeaﬃxation
mentioned
above.
isformedwith
spatialagreement,i.e.
themovement
of
the
sign
startsatthe locus of the ag
the sign GIVE which in its full lexical verb form is signed with a horizontal movethe locus of the recipient.
ment from the agent to the recipient. It is usually (but not compulsory) formed
with spatial agreement, i.e. the movement of the sign starts at the locus of theagent and ends at the locus of the recipient.
In its reduced form, when used as a preposition functioning as recipient marker(see below), it is formed with a short horizontal forward wrist-ﬂipping movement
starting from the signer without any spatial agreement.

290

Figure 7. GIVE (in its citation form) - 2GIVE3 (= you give me) - 3lGIVE3r (= s/he gives him/taken from Van Herreweghe & Vermeerbergen 1998:88)

In its reduced form, when used as a preposition functioning as recipient marker (see below
with a short horizontal forward wrist-flipping movement starting from the signer withagreement.

3) Phonological reduction

The grammaticalised element is frequently phonologically reduced compared togrammaticalised counterpart. For VGT we can find phonological reduction in for instance theaffixation mentioned above. Another example is the sign GIVE which in its full lexical versigned with a horizontal movement from the agent to the recipient. It is usually (but not com
formed with spatial agreement, i.e. the movement of the sign starts at the locus of the agent an
the locus of the recipient.

Figure 7: GIVE (in its citation form) - 2 GIVE3 (= you give me) - 3l GIVE3r (= s/he gives him/her)(drawings taken from Van Herreweghe & Vermeerbergen 1998: 88)

Figure 7. GIVE (in its citation form) - 2GIVE3 (= you give me) - 3lGIVE3r (= s/he gives him/her) (taken from Van Herreweghe & Vermeerbergen 1998:88)

In its reduced form, when used as a preposition functioning as recipient marker (see below), itwith a short horizontal forward wrist-flipping movement starting from the signer without anagreement.

Figure 8: GIVE as recipient marker (pictures taken from Devriendt 2009)

1.4

Figure 8.
as recipient
marker (pictures taken from De Vriendt 2009)
Reduction
ofGIVE
syntactic
freedom4) Reductionof syntactic
freedom
Heine et al. (1991)
and Lehmann(1985)
claim that grammaticalisation entails
a limitation of syntactic freedom since a lexical element can be moved around
Heine et al. (1991) and Lehmann (1985) claim that grammaticalisation entails a limitation of synta
more freely whilea grammaticalised element is more limited in its syntagmatic
freedom since a lexical element can be moved around more freely while a grammaticalised elemen
relation to othersentence
In VGTrelation
GIVE astoanotherauxiliaryor preposition
more
limited elements.
in its syntagmatic
sentenceelements. InisVGT GIVE as an auxiliar
again a good example
ofisthis
structuralchange since
are always
preposition
again
a good exampleof thisboth
structuralchangepositioned
since both are always positioned righright in front frontof theobjectThisisisquite
quite
striking
since
for it is frequently very diffi
of indirect
the indirect
objectororrecipient.
recipient. This
striking
sincefor VGTto detectclear
word toorder
rules,
since
there
are mostly
only word
VGT it is frequently
very
diﬃcult
detect
clear
word
order
rules, since
thereorder
are tendencies (Vermeerber2004).
mostly only word
order tendencies (Vermeerbergen 2004).

2

Principle of divergence
Principleof divergence

Following the principle of divergence (Hopper 1991:24) it is possible that the different forms that

Following thebeprinciple
divergence (Hopper
1991:
possiblethat
found onofa grammaticalisation
cline
exist 24)nextittoiseachother atthethesame time while the variants
diﬀerent forms
found ona grammaticalisationcline exist
next
to eachbethatput canin a behierarchy
fromless to more grammaticalised.
One
suchexample is the variety with resother at the samewhile
the variants
can be put infrom less toThe examples can all be foto thetime
verb sign
GIVE(itself a lexicalisationof a hierarchyclassifier construction).
in De Vriendt(2009)
theyisaremorerespectelaborately.
more grammaticalised.
One
suchwhere
examplethediscussed
variety withto the verb
sign GIVE (itself a lexicalisation of a classiﬁer construction). The examples can(1) Classifier construction or incorporated classifier: SOMEONE BOOK GIVE-classifier for book
BOY. In this construction a classifier handshape or book is incorporated in the verb sign GIVE
(2) Conventionalised sign291
GIVE: SOMEONE BOOK 1GIVE3l TO BOY. Here the citation form ofverb sign GIVE is a conventionalized form although it is possible (but not compulsory) that spa
agreement is applied.
(3) GIVE in a verb sandwich construction (Fisher & Janis 1990): WOMAN GIVE PRESENT TO B
1GIVE-classifier for present3r . In this example the first GIVE is the conventionalised citation f
without any spatial agreement and the second one has an incorporated classifier handshapepresent and there is spatial agreement.
(4) Light verb (cf. Butt 2004) GIVE: GIRL GIVE BOY STROKEself STROKE3. Here again the cita

all be found in Devriendt (2009) where they are discussed more elaborately.
1. Classiﬁer construction or incorporated classiﬁer: SOMEONE BOOK GIVEclassiﬁer for book TO BOY. In this construction a classiﬁer handshape orbook is incorporated in the verb sign GIVE.
2. Conventionalised sign GIVE: SOMEONE BOOK 1 GIVE3l TO BOY. Here thecitation form of the verb sign GIVE is a conventionalized form although it
is possible (but not compulsory) that spatial agreement is applied.
3. GIVE in a verb sandwich construction (Fischer & Janis 1990): WOMAN GIVEPRESENT TO BOY 1 GIVE-classiﬁer for present3r . In this example the ﬁrst
GIVE is the conventionalised citation form without any spatial agreement
and the second one has an incorporated classiﬁer handshape for pre- sent
and there is spatial agreement.
4. Light verb (cf. Butt 2004) GIVE: GIRL GIVE BOY STROKEself STROKE3 .
Here again the citation form of GIVE is used, without any spatial agreement and with a certain level of semantic bleaching since a stroke cannot
be handed over from one person to another.
5. Auxiliary GIVE: INDEXm RABBIT 1 GIVE3l MAN SHOOTml . In this example(in which the rabbit is shooting the man) again the citation form of GIVE
(with spatial agreement with the locus of the recipient) is used followed by
the recipient. The label auxiliary is used here since its use seems to be very
similar to the NGT auxiliary ACT-ON (Bos 1994).
6. Preposition GIVE: RABBIT GIVE MAN SHOOTml . The label preposition is
given here since contrary to the auxiliary GIVE there is no spatial agreement and there is a strong phonological reduction (as described above).

3

Unidirectionality?

Most researchers would claim that grammaticalisation paths are unidirectional,
i.e. that there is development from a full lexical element into a functional grammatical element. It appears that at least some counterexamples to this generalrule can be found in VGT. For a more detailed description of these signs we refer
to Huys (2008).
There is a possible development of the negative modal auxiliary WANT-NOT
into a full lexical verb “cannot be bothered”. Both signs are formed in exactly
the same way, but the non-manual part of the sign diﬀers because the latter has
a compulsory mouth gesture (i.e. not referring to any Dutch word) while theformer can be accompanied by the mouthing “wil-niet” (want-not).
292

Most researchers would claim that grammaticalisation paths are unidirectional, i.e.
developmentfrom woulda full lexical
into a functional grammaticalelement. It appea
Most researchers
claim elementthat grammaticalisation
paths are unidirectional,
i.e.
some
counterexamples
tothisgeneral
rule
can
be
found
in
VGT.
For
a
more
detailed
descr
development from a full lexical element into a functional grammatical element.
It appea
signs
refer to Huys (2008).
some wecounterexamples
to this general rule can be found in VGT. For a more detailed descr
signs we refer to Huys (2008).
There is a possible development of the negative modal auxiliary WANT-NOT into a fu
“cannot
bothered”.
Both signsofarethe
formedin exactly
the same WANT-NOT
way, but the non-manu
There is bea possible
development
negativemodal auxiliary
into a fu
sign
differs
becausethelatterhas
acompulsory
mouthgesture(i.e.
notbutreferringto any“cannot be bothered”. Both signs are formed in exactly the same way,
the non-man
while
the
formercanbeaccompaniedbythemouthing“wil-niet”(want-not).
sign differs because the latter has a compulsory mouth gesture (i.e. not referring to any
while the former can be accompanied by the mouthing “wil-niet” (want-not).

Figure 9: WANT-NOT or “cannot be bothered” (pictures taken from Huys 2008: 66)

Figure 9. WANT-NOT or “cannot be bothered” (pictures taken from Huys 2008:66)
Figurebe
9.the
WANT-NOTor “cannot be bothered”(picturesmodal
taken from Huys 2008:66)
Another example could
possibleofdevelopment
the negative
Anotherexamplecoulddevelopment
be the possibleof the negative modal auxiliary C
auxiliary CANNOT plusMORE
MORE intoa fulllexicalverb meaning“cannottake it Again the latter has to ba fulllexicalverb
take it anymore”.
Anotherinto
examplecould bethemeaning
possible“cannot
developmentof the negative
modal auxiliary C
anymore”. Again the latter
has
toabe
formedwithwhile
a compulsory
gesture Again
aMORE
compulsory
mouthgesturethe “cannot
former mouth
canby theinto
full
lexicalverb
meaning
takebeit accompanied
anymore”.
the mouthings
latter has to“kbnotmore).
while the former can be(canaccompaniedbythemouthings
“kan
niet
meer”
(can
not
a compulsory mouth gesture while the former can be accompanied by the mouthings “kmore).
(can not more).

Figure 10: CANNOT MORE or “cannot take it anymore” (pictures taken from Huys 2008: 59)

Figure 10. CANNOT MORE or “cannot take it anymore” (pictures taken from Huys 2008
Figure 10. CANNOT
MORE or “cannot astake challenge
it anymore”to(picturesfrom Huys 200
Some researchers would
thesewould
counterexamples
theas ataken
Some regard
researchers
regard these acounterexamples
challenge to theprinciple of unidirectionality,
while others wouldtakea morestand.stand.
unidirectionality,
othersregard
wouldtake acareful
more
carefulSome researcherswhile
would
these
counterexamples
as a challenge to the
In conclusion, Pfauunidirectionality,& Steinbach (2006:
state
“that
languages
emwhile 87))
otherswould
takesign
a morecareful stand.
ploy exactly the same In
grammaticalizationpaths
as do spoken
languages.
conclusion, Pfau &Steinbach(2007:87)
state “thatThat
sign languages employ exac
grammaticalization
paths
as
do
spokenlanguages.
Thatis,the pathways
proposed
theis, the pathways proposedintheliteraturearemodality-independent”.
From
the
In conclusion, Pfau & Steinbach (2007:87) state “that sign
languages
employinexac
modality-independent”.
Fromthesmall-scale
study
on
VGT
which
has
been
reportedongrammaticalization
as do onspokenthe pathways proposed in thesmall-scale study on VGT
which has beenpaths
reported
here,languages.
it seems Thatto beis,able
be ableto corroborateFrom
this foras well.study on VGT which has been reported onmodality-independent”.
theVGT
small-scale
to corroborate this for to
VGT
as well.
to be able to corroborate this for VGT as well.
References
References

293

References
Bos, H.F. 1994. An auxiliary verb in sign language of the Netherlands. In
I. Ahlgren, B. Bergman & M. Brennan (eds.), Perspectives on sign language
structure. 37–53. Durham: International Sign Linguistics Association.
Butt, M. 2004. The light verb jungle. In G. Aygen, C. Bowern & C. Quinn (eds.),
Papers from the GSAS/Dudley House workshop on light verbs. 1–50. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics.
Bybee, J.L. 1985. Morphology: A study of the relation between meaning and form.
New York: John Benjamins.
Devriendt, T. 2009. Vlaamse gebarentaal (VGT): De grammaticale functie van het
werkwoord GEVEN en de voorzetsels OP, AAN, NAAR en TEGEN: Ghent University MA thesis.
Fischer, S. & Janis, W. 1990. Verb sandwiches in american sign language. In
S. Prillwitz & T. Vollhaber (eds.), Current trends in european sign language research: Proceedings of the 3rd European Congress on Sign Language Research.
279–293. Hamburg: Signum Press.
Givón, T. 1971. Historical syntax and synchronic morphology: An archaeologist’s
ﬁeldtrip. Chicago Linguistic Society 7. 394–415.
Heine, B., Claudi, U. & Hünnemeyer, F. 1991. Grammaticalization: A conceptual
framework. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Hopper, P.J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticization. In E.C. Traugott &B. Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization. 17–35. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Hopper, P.J. & Traugott, E.C. 2003 [1993]. Grammaticalization. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 2nd edn.
Huys, E. 2008. Idiomatisch taalgebruik in de Vlaamse gebarentaal: Ghent University MA thesis.
Janzen, T. 1995. The polygrammaticalization of FINISH in ASL. Unpublishedmanuscript, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.
Janzen, T. & Shaﬀer, B. 2002. Gesture as the substrate in the process of ASL
grammaticization. In R.P. Meier, K. Cormier & D. Quinto-Pozos (eds.), Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages. 199–223. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lehmann, C. 1985. Grammaticalization: Synchronic variation diachronicchange. Lingua e Stile 20. 303–318.
Loots, G., Devisé, I., Lichtert, G., Hoebrechts, N., Van De Ginste, C. & De Bruyne,
I. 2003. De gemeenschap van doven en slechthorenden in Vlaanderen. Com294

municatie, taal en verwachtingen omtrent maatschappelijke toegankelijkheid.
Ghent: Cultuur voor Doven.
Pfau, R. & Steinbach, M. 2006. Modality-independent and modality-speciﬁc aspects of grammaticalization in sign languages. Linguistics in Potsdam 24. 6–
98.
Van Herreweghe, M. & Vermeerbergen, M. 1998. Thuishoren in een wereld vangebaren. Ghent: Academia Press.
Van Herreweghe, M. & Vermeerbergen, M. 2006. Interrogatives and negatives
in Flemish sign language. In U. Zeshan (ed.), Interrogative and negative constructions in sign languages. 225–256. Nijmegen: Ishara Press.
Vermeerbergen, M. 2004. The quest for basic word order in Flemish sign language. In A.M. Bertonneau & G. Dal (eds.), La linguistique de la LSF: recherches
actuelles. Silexicales 4. 257–267. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Université de Lille 3.
Wilcox, S. 2004. Gesture and language. Cross-linguistic and historical data fromsigned languages. Gesture 4. 43–73.

295

“Stemmen uit het verleden”
Het transcriptieproject bij de Vakgroep
Taalkunde—Nederlands van de Gentse
Universiteit
Jacques Van Keymeulen & Anne-Sophie Ghyselen

1

InleidingProf. Lilianne Haegeman is een internationaal gereputeerde syntactica, diemeermaals het West-Vlaamse dialect van het dorp Lapscheure, haar moedertaal, als onderzoeksobject gekozen heeft. Syntactisch onderzoek van de oraal
overgeleverde traditionele taalvariëteiten is echter niet makkelijk, mede doordat syntactische constructies via opvragingen lastig te eliciteren zijn. Syntactische constructies zijn, in tegenstelling tot bijvoorbeeld lexicale items, weinig
saillant en bovendien zijn ze dikwijls optioneel en geconditioneerd door situationele context. In de huidige tijd kan men bij opvragingen ook de invloed van
de standaardtaal hoe langer hoe minder uitsluiten. Nagenoeg elke veldwerker
heeft ondervonden dat een respondent bij een expliciete vraag een bepaalde
constructie als ongrammaticaal kan beoordelen en die dan – op een minder bewaakt ogenblik – toch zelf gebruikt. De Syntactische Atlas van de Nederlandse
Dialecten (SAND) legt getuigenis af van een complexe opvragingsmethode invier rondes, met een inventarisatieronde, schriftelijke en mondelinge vragenlijsten, gecomplementeerd met telefonische navraag (zie Barbiers 2005). Blijkbaar moest een en ander dikwijls gecontroleerd worden.
De bovengemelde problematiek is natuurlijk al lang geleden ingezien. De
professoren W. Pée (1903–1986) en V.F. Vanacker (1921–1999), die – als student! – de eerste syntaxis voor een Vlaams dialect schreef (namelijk dat van
Aalst; Vanacker s.d.), vatten begin jaren 60 van de vorige eeuw het plan op om
voor elke gemeente in Nederlandstalig België (+ Zeeuws- en Frans-Vlaanderen)296een geluidsopname te maken van een goede dialectspreker. Vooral Vanacker
wou syntactisch onderzoek baseren op niet-geëliciteerd, spontaan gesproken
basismateriaal. De onderneming werd opgevat als een aanvulling bij de Reeks
Nederlandse Dialectatlassen, opgestart door E. Blancquaert (1894–1964), waarin
dezelfde 141 zinnetjes in een plaatselijk dialect werden vertaald en nauwkeurig
fonetisch werden genoteerd (zie www.dialectzinnen.ugent.be). In wat volgt,
wordt in het kort een overzicht geboden van de ontstane verzameling geluidsopnames en de huidige pogingen tot ontsluiting ervan.

2

De verzameling dialectbanden aan de Vakgroep
Taalkunde—Nederlands van de UGent

Het idee om systematisch dialectische geluidsfragmenten te verzamelen heeftveel te maken met de popularisering (en goedkoper worden) van de bandopnemer.1 Het Dialectenbureau in Amsterdam (nu Meertens Instituut) begon al in1952 op instigatie van Jo Daan met het systematisch registreren van dialectische geluidsopnames (zie Rensink 1962 en https://www.meertens.knaw.nl/
soundbites/). Pée en Vanacker volgden dat voorbeeld in de jaren 60, nadat
men erin geslaagd was (in 1962) om een subsidie los te krijgen van het toenmalige Fonds voor Kollektief en Fundamenteel Onderzoek (FKFO, naderhand opgegaan in het FWO-Vlaanderen) (Vanacker & De Schutter 1967).
Het idee was om via een zgn. “vrij gesprek” voor elke gemeente ongeveer
45 minuten spontaan gesproken dialect te verzamelen bij een goede dialectspreker. Die dialectspreker moest voldoen aan een aantal objectieve criteria:
hoge ouderdom, lage geletterdheid en honkvastheid. Daardoor kwam men
in de praktijk vaak bij de boerenbevolking terecht. Elke bandopneming wordt
begeleid door een ﬁche (in A4-formaat), met de biograﬁsche metadata van despreker.2 Er werd dikwijls gebruikt gemaakt van studenten om geschikte infor1
Aan de zgn. Seminarie voor Nederlandse Taalkunde en Vlaamse Dialectologie van de toenmalige Rijksuniversiteit Gent (RUG) werd door prof. Blancquaert een Laboratorium voor Experimentele Fonetica opgericht. De sectie Nederlands beschikt nog steeds over een – nu erg ouderwetse – geluidloze kamer. Blancquaert heeft ongetwijfeld in de jaren 20 en 30 dialectischegeluidsopnames gemaakt, maar daarvan zijn we het spoor bijster geraakt – als ze tenminste nog
ergens bestaan.
2
Het is jammer dat die metadata niet ingesproken werden op de band zelf (die bevat enkel
plaats en datum van opname), zodat men telkens de ﬁche erbij moet nemen om de opname goedte kunnen evalueren.

297manten te zoeken – meestal werden mannen uitgekozen. De opnames gebeurden bij de zegspersoon thuis, dikwijls met een dialectsprekende tussenpersoon –in die tijd konden de meeste studenten nog vrij goed een lokaal dialect spreken.3
De collectie bevat momenteel 783 banden voor 550 plaatsen, vooral uit het
Vlaamse dialectgebied (= Frans-, West-, Oost- en Zeeuws-Vlaanderen).4 Naarhet oosten toe (provincies Antwerpen, Vlaams-Brabant en Limburg) neemt het
aantal geluidsopnames af - uit die provincies komen gemiddeld minder studenten naar de Gentse universiteit.5 Voor sommige dorpen zijn er verschillende opnemingen, vooral voor die die aan de basis van een syntactische licentiaatsverhandeling hebben gelegen.6 De meeste opnames zijn gemaakt bij mensen die
tussen 1885 en 1910 geboren zijn; de oudste spreker (uit Bossuit) is geboren in
1871. In veel gevallen werd een zegspersoon uitgekozen die een zeldzaam traditioneel ambacht had uitgeoefend. Voor Frans-Vlaanderen werd een speciale
inspanning gedaan: daar heeft men een opname gemaakt voor élke gemeente
waar nog inheemse Vlaamssprekenden aangetroﬀen konden worden.
De verzameling had in de eerste plaats een taalkundig oogmerk: hoewel op
de begeleidende ﬁche plaats was ingeruimd voor notities omtrent “Onderwerp
van het gesprek”, werd de inhoud van het gesprek niet of maar heel gebrekkig
aangeduid. Toch is het zo dat het geluidscorpus de grootste verzameling levensverhalen uitmaakt van zeer laag geschoolde mensen, die niet alleen het begin van de ‘moderne tijd’ hebben meegemaakt (aanleg van elektriciteit, eerste
ﬁets, eerste auto ...), maar ook twee wereldoorlogen hebben doorstaan. Vele
verhalen leggen getuigenis af van de grote armoede en onwetendheid waarmee
een groot deel van de Vlaamse plattelandsbevolking zo’n honderd jaar geleden
heeft moeten leven.
3
Meestal werd met een Telefunken M 25 of met een Revox-toestel opgenomen (BASFbanden, type LGS 35, op spoelen van 18 cm diameter met snelheid 19 = 48 minuten geluid).
De sectie Nederlandse Taalkunde heeft nog steeds een gebruiksklaar Revox-toestel waarmeede originele banden beluisterd kunnen worden.
4
De verdeling per provincies / streek was in 2009 als volgt: Frans-Vlaanderen: 113, WestVlaanderen: 188, Oost-Vlaanderen: 285, Antwerpen: 85, Vlaams-Brabant: 47, Limburg: 29,
Henegouwen: 5, Zeeland: 31.
5
Het is erg jammer dat men voor de verzameling niet met de KULeuven heeft kunnen samenwerken.
6
Zie bijvoorbeeld Van Keymeulen (1975).

298

Figure 1: Overzicht van de dialectopnames in Nederlandstalig België, Frans- en
Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (situatie in 2009)

3 www.dialectloket.be
In 2009 werd, mede dankzij rector Paul Van Cauwenberge, aan de UGent een
wetenschapspopulariseringsproject goedgekeurd, waarmee een website werd
gemaakt over taalvariatie in het algemeen en dialecten in het bijzonder. In 2012
werd daaraan een apart project toegevoegd, nl. “Stemmen uit het verleden. Digitaliseren en ontsluiten van dialectopnames gemaakt in de jaren 60 en 70 door
het Seminarie voor Nederlandse Taalkunde en Vlaamse Dialectologie”. Beide
ondernemingen werden naderhand ook gesteund door aanvullende subsidies
van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap en van de provincies Oost- en West-Vlaanderen,
Vlaams-Brabant, Antwerpen en Limburg (zie http://www.dialectloket.be/geluid/stemmen-uit-het-verleden/).7
De digitalisering hield volgende zaken in. Allereerst werden de 783 geluidsbanden gedigitaliseerd. Een technisch medewerker van de toenmalige vakgroep Nederlandse Taalkunde, Rieke Willems, heeft ongeveer 500 banden op
zeer professionele manier naar wav-bestanden omgezet. Toen mevr. Willems
wegens een reorganisatie naar een andere sectie van de vakgroep werd gemuteerd, is de rest van de banden gedigitaliseerd door een gespecialiseerde ﬁrma.
7

Die subsidies werden verworven via de organisatie “Variaties vzw. Koepelorganisatie voor
Dialecten en Oraal Erfgoed in Vlaanderen”.

299

Op de tweede plaats werden alle metadata in een database ondergebracht. Op
de derde plaats werd door vrijwilligers van de meeste banden korte inhouden
gemaakt, voorafgegaan door trefwoorden, zodat de verzameling inhoudelijk
ontsloten werd. Momenteel zijn er ongeveer 700 korte inhouden in de databaseingebracht. Op de vierde plaats werden alle transcripties (typoscripten) – voor
zover aanwezig – ingescand en in de database ingevoerd; het zijn er 318 in totaal. Die transcripties zijn niet fonetisch, maar ‘woordelijk’, d.w.z. dat de dialectische uitspraak in een vernederlandste vorm is weergegeven. De typoscripten werden in de jaren 60 en 70 gemaakt door jobstudenten aan de handvan een aantal richtlijnen – die met wisselende ijver en kunde werden opgevolgd.
De verzameling originele banden is bij het universiteitsarchief ondergebracht;
kopieën van de digitale versie ervan (+ kopieën van de ﬁches met metadata) zijn
gedeponeerd zowel bij de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde (KANTL) in Gent als bij het Meertens Instituut in Amsterdam.8

8Voor het verkrijgen van een kopie van een opname moet contact opgenomen worden
met de sectie Nederlandse Taalkunde van de UGent. Elke gebruiker moet dan een gebruiksovereenkomst ondertekenen waarin hij de aansprakelijkheid opneemt voor het vrijwaren
van de privacy van de zegslieden.

300

4

Het transcriptieproject

Naarmate de traditionele dialecten verdwijnen, verhoogt de waarde van deverzameling geluidsopnames. De speciﬁeke waarde ervan heeft vooral te maken
met de spontaneïteit van de gesprekken, hoewel ook daar met de ‘observer’s
paradox’ rekening gehouden moet worden.9 In de huidige digitale tijden, heeft
men echter nood aan een ander type transcripties dan een (beperkte) aantal typoscripten, die niet digitaal doorzoekbaar zijn.
In het academiejaar 2016-2017 werd daarom aan de sectie Nederlandse
Taalkunde voor de bachelorscripties een onderzoekslijn opgestart met als bedoeling digitaal doorzoekbare transcripties te maken, die gealigneerd blevenmet het geluid.10 De bedoeling is ervaring op te doen en een transcriptieprotocol
te verﬁjnen dat dan in de toekomst gebruikt kan worden bij wetenschappelijke
projecten. Die ervaring heeft in elk geval al geleerd dat de transcriptie van deverzameling erg dringend is: jonge mensen hebben al heel wat moeite om het
ouderwetse dialect te begrijpen en ook hebben ze geen voeling meer met degespreksonderwerpen, zoals bijvoorbeeld de manier waarop vlas werd geoogst,
of hoe eertijds palingen werden gevangen. Ook wordt getracht de verzamelinguit te breiden – vooral naar het oosten toe: de studenten werd gevraagd een
bandopneming te maken voor een plaats waarvoor er nog geen bestond. Het isimmers nog steeds mogelijk honkvaste mensen te vinden met een lage opleiding die talig gesocialiseerd zijn vóór de jaren 60 van de vorige eeuw, toen door deveralgemeende toename van de mobiliteit, de verhoging van de scholingsgraaden de introductie van de massamedia een massale taalverandering is op gang
gekomen. De zegsman/zegsvrouw moet nu dus vóór 1940 geboren zijn, zodat
de kans vrij hoog is dat de zegspersoon nog een traditioneel dialect als primairemoedertaal heeft verworven.11
De studenten maken voor de transcripties gebruik van het programma ELAN
en transcriberen het dialect op twee niveaus: licht vernederlandst en zwaar vernederlandst. Met lichte vernederlandsing wordt bedoeld dat enkel de fonologie
naar het Nederlands wordt aangepast, d.w.z. dat de morfologie en syntaxis van
het dialect ongewijzigd blijft, maar dat alle woorden worden neergeschreven alsof ze in het Nederlands bestonden. Clitische vormen worden aan het grondwo9

De observer’s paradox valt voor de banden goed mee omdat de meeste zegspersonen
werkelijk niets anders dan dialect kόnden spreken.
10
In het academiejaar 2016-2017 en 2017-2018 gingen er telkens een viertal studenten aan deslag.
11
Een zegspersoon is momenteel idealiter dus ongeveer 80 jaar of ouder.

301

ord geschreven, maar gescheiden door een #. De transcriptie met zware vernederlandsing is op die lichte vernederlandsing gebaseerd. Hier worden de functiewoorden – ook die in de clitische vormen – vertaald naar het Nederlands. Die
zware vernederlandsing is nodig om achteraf softwaretools te kunnen gebruikenvoor (semi-automatische) Parts of Speech-tagging, lemmatisering, en andere
vormen van annotatie. Het transcriptieprotocol voor een dergelijke manier vanwerken is vrij complex; de studenten hadden gemiddeld ongeveer een uur tijd
nodig om 5 minuten geluid te transcriberen.
Om het onderscheid tussen de lichte en zware vernederlandsing te illustreren, geven we hieronder een stuk van een transcriptie uit Ieper weer. In deopname, die dateert uit 1967, vertelt een toen 62-jarige vrouw (die we het label
N72 sp1 geven) over de oorlog, haar carrière en pensioen, het leven in Ieper en dejeugd van tegenwoordig. Het excerpt is kort, maar getuigt meteen van een aantal interessante syntactische dialectverschijnselen, zoals dubbele negaties met
het partikel en, variaties op het introducerende er en subjectverdubbelingen.
(1)

ja a#je#t nu ingaat
N72 sp1
N72 sp1 ndl ja als je het nu ingaat
N72 sp1
wuk zit er nu veel in de jongheid?
N72 sp1 ndl wat zit er nu veel in de jongheid?
N72 sp1
zeg mijn dat.
N72 sp1 ndl zeg mij dat.
Int VV ze zijn allema...
N72 sp1
allemale nie nee#s. allemale nie wi. ke zeggen dat op
N72 sp1 ndl allemaal niet nee ze. allemaal niet wi. ik zeg
dat opjou nie wi jongen.
jou niet wi jongen.
Int V ja ja m...
maa algelijk vele.
N72 sp1
N72 sp1 ndl maar algelijk veel.
Int VV t#is toch veel veranderd.
je zout#ier moeten zijn in de zomer eni meneer.
N72 sp1
N72 sp1 ndl je zou hier moeten zijn in de zomer eni meneer.
N72 sp1
op de Remparden.
N72 sp1 ndl op de Remparten.
Int VV ja.
ze komen van t#schole met under carnassière. ze
N72 sp1
N72 sp1 ndl ze komen van de school met hun carnassière. ze
302staan en likken en frikkelen.
staan en likken en frikkelen.
N72 sp1
en ze moeten nie peinzen dat ze nunder generen wi.
N72 sp1 ndl en ze moeten niet peinzen dat ze zich generen wi.
N72 sp1
ze generen under nie wi.
N72 sp1 ndl ze generen zich niet wi.
N72 sp1
en sommigste mensen en durven me nunderN72 sp1 ndl en sommige mensen en durven met hun
kinders... kleine kinders op de vestingen nie meer gaan.
kinderen... kleine kinderen op de vestingen niet meer gaan.
Int VV ja ja.
N72 sp1
voilà.
N72 sp1 ndl voilà.
da... da betaamt algelijk nie.
N72 sp1
N72 sp1 ndl dat... dat betaamt algelijk niet.
Int VV ja ja betaamt nie...
N72 sp1
da#ze doen da ze willen. ze zijn jong.
N72 sp1 ndl dat ze doen dat ze willen. ze zijn jong.
maa da#ze#t doen waa da ze nie ezien en zijn.
N72 sp1
N72 sp1 ndl maar dat ze het doen waar dat ze niet gezien en zijn.
Int VV voilà. andere mensen...
m#en wijder ook jong eweest.
N72 sp1
geweest.
N72 sp1 ndl we hebben wij ook jong
N72 sp1
m#en
wijder ook evrijd.
N72 sp1 ndl we hebben wij
ook gevrijd.
N72 sp1
is#t geen waar?
N72 sp1 ndl is het geen waar?
N72 sp1
maa me deden#t algelijk nie in de presentie vanN72 sp1 ndl maar we deden het algelijk niet in de presentie vanalleman.
alleman.
Int VV ja ja ja.
Int VV ja ja da#s just.
N72 sp1
maa nu... ze zijn nie meer beschaamd voo nie...
N72 sp1 ndl maar nu... ze zijn niet meer beschaamd voor nie...
tot op strate.
N72 sp1
N72 sp1 ndl tot op straat.
303

N72 sp1
ze... ze staan daa e... en t#moogt passeren wie dat
N72 sp1 ndl ze... ze staan daar en... en het mag passeren wie dat
er wilt.
er wil.
N72 sp1
ze staan daa. en... en... en z#angen aan mekanders
N72 sp1 ndl ze staan daar... en... en... en ze hangen aan mekanders
nunder mond en xxx.
hun
mond en xxx
Int VV ja t#is xxx.
N72 sp1
da gemene...
N72 sp1 ndl dat gemene...
N72 sp1
k#zijn pertang ook nie heilig maa ke zien dat al nie
N72 sp1 ndl ik ben pertang ook niet heilig maar ik zie dat al niet
gaarne.
gaarne.

5

Toekomstige projecten?

De onderzoekslijn voor de bachelorscripties heeft als bedoeling wetenschappelijke projecten voor te bereiden. Gelukkig zijn er nu in principe ook wetenschappelijke fondsen beschikbaar om databases aan te leggen voor toekomstig onderzoek. Daarom is het zaak om transcripties te maken en publiek beschikbaar
te stellen die een zo ruim mogelijk onderzoeksveld kunnen bedienen. De transcriptie van de volledige verzameling van 780 banden – of een representatieve
selectie ervan – zou in elk geval een taalmonument tot stand brengen waarmee
onverschillig welke onderzoeker van dialecten of historisch Nederlands zijn voordeel zou kunnen doen.
Prof. Anne Breitbarth (sectie Duitse taalkunde UGent) is erin geslaagd FWOﬁnanciering te verwerven voor een pilootproject met de transcriptie van 30
opnames (+ annotatie daarvan), netjes verdeeld over de verschillende dialectgroepen in Nederlandstalig België en Frans- en Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. Ook hopen
we het beste van een andere aanvraag voor de transcriptie van alle FransVlaamse opnames. De bewerking van Frans-Vlaanderen is uiteraard het dringendst; het Vlaams in Frankrijk is zeer op de terugweg; de oude dialecten zijn
hoe langer hoe moeilijker te begrijpen. Er is ook aan andere universiteiten (o.a.
Leuven en Antwerpen) grote belangstelling voor de Gentse verzameling. Het
is de bedoeling binnen afzienbare tijd een zgn. Herculesproject in te dienen bij
304het Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen om de verzameling– meer dan een halve eeuw jaar na het ontstaan ervan – deﬁnitief te ontsluiten.

References
Barbiers, Sjef. 2005. De syntactische atlas van de nederlandse dialecten. Taal en
Tongval (Themanummer) 18. 7–40.
Rensink, W. G. 1962. Dialecten op de band. Taal en Tongval 14. 184–196.
Van Keymeulen, Jacques. 1975. De syntaxis van het Wichelse dialect. Onuitgegeven licentiaatsverhandeling, Universiteit Gent.
Vanacker, Valeer F. & Georges De Schutter. 1967. Zuidnederlandse dialekten op
de band. Taal en Tongval 19. 35–51.
Vanacker, V.F. s.d. Syntaxis van het aalsters dialect. Werken uitgegeven door deKoninklijke Commissie voor Toponymie en Dialectologie 4.

305

Diary null subjects: an analogy withimperatives?
Andrew Weir
Liliane and I ﬁrst met at the LAGB meeting in 2008. I wasn’t presenting; I was
there to meet her. Caroline Heycock had sent Liliane my undergraduate dissertation, about null subjects in spoken and written English, which had naturally
drawn heavily on Liliane’s work on diary drop (Haegeman 1990, 1997, 2007, 2013,2018, Haegeman & Ihsane 1999, 2001); and we talked for some time about mydissertation and about the possibility of my coming to Ghent for doctoral study.
Well, I took a detour via Massachusetts to get to Ghent, but I got there eventually; and can honestly say that my year there with Liliane as my supervisor was
one of the most enjoyable I have had as a linguist. Liliane was and is a fantastic
mentor, co-author, and friend. However, when I was in Ghent, we got distracted
by the properties of response particles in West Flemish, and never actually returned in a systematic way (though we’ve exchanged a lot of emails about it) to thephenomenon that ‘got us together’ in the ﬁrst place – diary drop. This squib is anattempt to remedy that – and an invitation to Liliane for us, as we have thought
we should for a while, to join forces and solve this knotty problem for good.
We start with an empirical question: are there person restrictions on null subjects in ‘reduced written register’ (RWR)? First-person null subjects are indubitably OK, and third-person null subjects also are given an appropriate discourse(cf. e.g. Haegeman 2007: 96), but this is somewhat diﬃcult to determine for second person; diary context does not lend itself to second-person subjects, andinterrogatives (which might more naturally have second-person subjects) are independently ruled out with null subjects (in any person) in English diaries (Haegeman 1997 a.o.). Berthelot (2017: 88) states that second-person singular nullsubjects are ruled out in diary contexts in French, but in Weir (2018: 159), I suggested that null second-person pronouns were grammatical in English RWR, on
the basis of the below example.

306

(1)

(comments on a student’s essay)∅[2p] Don’t need to go into so much detail here.

But I should have been more careful. The problem is that (1) is grammatical in
spoken register too, something which is the result of a quite diﬀerent process,a prosodically-governed operation that can target a wide range of deaccented
utterance-initial material (Napoli 1982, Weir 2012). That raises the possibility
that (1) is simply a rendering in text of that spoken string. To check if diary drop
per se can delete second-person pronouns, one needs to check examples like (2),which are ungrammatical in speech (see Weir (2012) for why). And interestingly, in my judgment, they are also degraded in written register (e.g. text messaging1 ), even if the ‘topic’ of the utterance is plausibly the addressee. For me, theexamples in (2) contrast fairly sharply with ﬁrst-person dropped subjects (3).
(2)

You shouldn’t have done that. ??∅[2p] Are going to regret it. / ??∅[2p] Will
regret it. / ??∅[2p] Have been reported to the police.

(3)∅[1p] Am going to regret this. / ∅[1p] Will regret this. / ∅[1p] Have been reported to the police.

If this is right – and I should caution here that I have not done any corpus work
to back up my intuitions – then it seems that second-person subjects can notundergo diary drop. This distinction between ﬁrst- and second-person does not
immediately fall out from extant analyses, as far as I can see. (I’ll return to third
person brieﬂy below.) I want to sketch here an alternative line of attack. Consider the below properties of diary drop (from Haegeman 2007: 102):(4)

Diary null subjects are almost always root subjects: they are marginal inembedded contexts without a complementizer, and ruled out under complementizers or in adjunct or relative clauses.2
a. ∅ Am going to the gym later.
b. ??∅ Think ∅ will go to the gym later.
c. *∅ Think that ∅ will go to the gym later.
d. *∅ Was sore after ∅ had gone to the gym.
1

I am assuming here that the grammatical properties of e.g. text message register are fundamentally the same, at least when it comes to subject drop, as diary register. This might not
be a safe assumption.
2
Modulo the more liberal, ‘Bridget Jones’ dialect described in Haegeman & Ihsane (1999,
2001). The properties of that dialect remain to be accounted for. The marginality (as opposed
to complete ungrammaticality) of (4b) represents my judgment.

307

(5)

Diary null subjects are strongly ungrammatical in construction with subjectauxiliary inversion or with wh-fronting.
a. *Am ∅ just going mad?
b. *What was ∅ thinking?
c. *Only then will ∅ do that.

(6)

Diary null subjects are degraded in construction with argument topicalization – although (in my judgment) the degradation is not as strong aswith SAI or wh-fronting.
a. ??More problems, ∅ don’t need. (Thrasher 1977: 83)(7)

Diary null subjects are however permitted in construction with left-peripheral
adjuncts, or with left-dislocation.
a. Tomorrow ∅ will go to gym.
b. If you are hungry, ∅ have left some biscuits in the cupboard.
c. ?More problems, ∅ don’t need ’em. (cf. Haegeman 2007: fn. 8)

A fact that I don’t believe has previously been noted is that this constellationof facts lines up nearly perfectly with constraints on (English) imperatives.3(8)

Only permitted in root contexts (marginally in certain complementizerless embedded clauses)
a. Fix the problem.
b. ?He said ﬁx the problem. (Crnič & Trinh 2009)c. *He said that ﬁx the problem.
d. *I demand that ﬁx the problem.

(9)

No wh-fronting/auxiliary fronting
a. Don’t touch! – Don’t touch what?/*What don’t touch?4
b. Never eat this./*Never do eat this. (cp. negative inversion/do-support
in declaratives: Never do I eat this, Henry 1995: 68f.)

3

Not constraints on imperative null subjects – the grammaticality of the examples in (9)–(11)does not change if the subject is overt – but constraints on the syntax of imperatives generally.
4
One might wonder if don’t has in fact undergone subject-aux inversion here (with the unpronounced subject), but Zhang (1991), Henry (1995), Rupp (2007), Weir (2013) give reasons tobelieve that imperative don’t is base-generated above the subject.

308

(10)

Argument topicalization marginal (but better than wh-movement/SAI)5
a. ??These instructions, read carefully.
b. ??These cookies, don’t touch.

(11)

Adjunct topics and left-dislocation OK
a. Tomorrow, go to the gym.
b. If you’re hungry, eat some biscuits.
c. ?These cookies, don’t touch ’em.

We might hope to capitalize on these similarities, and on the fact that imperatives, exceptionally among clause types in English, allow null (second-person)
subjects. One common way of understanding, or encoding, this latter fact isto propose that some functional head is – in imperatives only – endowed withsecond-person ϕ-features (see recently e.g. Jensen (2003), Bennis (2006), Zanuttini (2008)). These features can enter in to some (obligatorily very local) relationship (such as Agree) with a pro subject with the same features, licensing its
non-pronunciation. Such a representation ‘encodes the addressee in the syntax’,
as Zanuttini (2008) puts it. Authors diﬀer in where they put the ϕ-features, but it
seems plausible to me that a construction restricted to imperatives should haveits etiology localized to the head that encodes the force of the clause (cf. Bennis
2006: sec. 3.1), so this is where I propose the ϕ-features are in (12).
(12)[ ForceP Force[imp],[2p] [ vP pro[2p] [ VP eat your dinner]]]

Suppose, now, that just as imperatives encode the addressee in the syntax, writtenregister declaratives encode (or can encode) the speaker.6 That is, these registers allow a declarative Force head to (optionally) be endowed with ﬁrst-person
ϕ-features. This Force head can enter into the same (obligatorily local) relation
with a pro subject and license its non-pronunciation.
(13)[ ForceP Force[decl],[1p] [ TP pro[1p] [ TP am going to the gym later]]]

One might speculate that these ϕ-endowed Force heads are highly restricted intheir distribution (only to root or perhaps certain ‘embedded root’ environments,
5
Though the data are variable here. Potsdam (1998: ex. 82) states that sentences like Thetie, give to Bob; the aftershave, give to Don! are fully grammatical. They do sound considerably
better than those in (10), for reasons I don’t understand.
6
It needs to be worked out how this aligns with proposals that both speaker and addressee
are always encoded in the left-peripheral layer, e.g. Speas & Tenny (2003), Sigurðsson (2004),
Sigurðsson & Maling (2010), Haegeman & Hill (2013).

309

cf. Portner et al. (2014) on embedded imperatives); that the relevant relationshipbetween the Force head and the pro subject would be disrupted, in both imperatives and diary sentences, in cases where material has moved to the left periphery; and that the obligatory localness of the relation between Force and pro
rules out e.g. null objects. Together, then, this is what leads to the correlation
between diary null subjects and imperatives shown in (4)–(11).7 One might also
speculate that the diary context provides a ‘natural’ environment for something
like this, a declarative Force head endowed with [1p] features, to develop; diaries are prototypically sequences of declaratives where the speaker (writer) is recounting their actions. Once this head was independently available in speakers’
lexicons for the diary register, it might also be plausible to assume that it could
easily ‘jump’ to other written registers, such as text message register.
All of the preceding paragraph is highly speculative, and much remains to beworked out. One glaring lacuna is the handling of dropped third-person subjects:
(14)

a.
b.

∅[1p] Saw Bill yesterday. ∅[3p] Was absolutely furious about the billhe’d received.
∅[3p,expl] Is raining. (Haegeman & Ihsane 1999: 121)

To explain (14a), we might appeal to Weir (2018)’s proposal for (third-person)
object drop, which proposes the existence of a null D in reduced written register, giving rise to completely silent third-person pronouns. In principle this could
be independent of the licensing of null ﬁrst-person pronouns. However, I crafted that system speciﬁcally to exclude the possibility of null expletive pronouns(which I argue do not occur in object position in RWR); so (14b) remains an issue.
And there are several other places where the basic idea needs to be ﬂeshed out.
This squib, then, shouldn’t be taken as anything deﬁnitive. It’s rather something
on the order of a tentative proposal – and an invitation to Liliane that, if she ﬁnds
the ideas here intriguing, we might think about developing them together, andsolving the problem of diary drop for good, or at least for a while.
7

If this is right, it would imply that, if a structure includes ϕ-endowed Force, the relevant relationship between Force and the subject must be established whether or not the subject is pronounced (because the imperative examples in (9)–(11) have the same status whether or not the
subject is pronounced). On my reading of Zanuttini (2008) (who puts the action in a Jussive headrather than Force), this is true for the abstraction relationship that Jussive establishes over the
subject, but Zanuttini also discusses (in her section 4) cases where she argues that the Agreerelationship between Jussive and the subject can be blocked (without leading to ungrammaticality). Working out if what I am saying is compatible with what Zanuttini says is one of many areas
where the present proposal will have to be developed.

310

All the very best, Liliane – ∅1p hope ?*∅2p have enjoyed reading this squib asmuch as ?*/%∅1p enjoyed writing it!

Referenties
Bennis, H. 2006. Agreement, pro and imperatives. In P. Ackema, P. Brandt, M.
Schoorlemmer & F. Weerman (eds.), Arguments and agreement, 101–23. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Berthelot, F. 2017. Movement of and out of subjects in French: Université deGenève dissertation.
Crnič, L. & Tue T. 2009. Embedding imperatives. In S. Lima, K. Mullin & B. Smith(eds.), Proceedings of NELS 39, 227–39. Amherst, MA: GLSA.
Haegeman, L. 1990. Understood subjects in English diaries. Multilingua 9(2).
157–199.
Haegeman, L.. 1997. Register variation, truncation, and subject omission in English and in French. English Language and Linguistics 1(2). 233–70.
Haegeman, L. 2007. Subject omission in present-day written English: On thetheoretical relevance of peripheral data. Rivista di grammatica generativa 32.
91–124.
Haegeman, L. 2013. Diary subject omission and the privilege of the root. Lingua
130. 88–110.
Haegeman, L. 2018. Unspeakable sentences: Subject omission in written registers: a cartographic analysis. Linguistic Variation 17(2). 229–50.
Haegeman, L. & V. Hill. 2013. The syntactization of discourse. In R. Folli, C.
Sevdali & R. Truswell (eds.), Syntax and its limits, 370–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haegeman, L. & T. Ihsane. 1999. Subject ellipsis in embedded clauses in English.
English Language and Linguistics 3(1). 117–145.
Haegeman, L. & T. Ihsane. 2001. Adult null subjects in the non-pro-drop languages: two diary dialects. Language Acquisition 9(4). 329–346.
Henry, A. 1995. Belfast English and standard English: dialect variation and parameter setting. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jensen, B. 2003. Syntax and semantics of imperative subjects. Nordlyd 31(1).
150–65.
Napoli, D J. 1982. Initial material deletion in English. Glossa 16(1). 85–111.

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Portner, P., M. Pak & R. Zanuttini. 2014. The addressee in embedded imperatives. Handout. https://raffaella-zanuttini-irqo.squarespace.com/
s/Addressee_in_embedded_imperatives__Rutgers_.pdf.
Potsdam, E. 1998. Syntactic issues in the English imperative. New York, NY: Garland.
Rupp, L. 2007. ‘Inverted’ imperatives. In W. van der Wurﬀ (ed.), Imperative clauses in generative grammar: Studies in honour of Frits Beukema (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 103), Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sigurðsson, H.Á. 2004. The syntax of Person, Tense, and speech features. Italian
Journal of Linguistics/Rivista di Linguistica 16. 219–51.
Sigurðsson, H.Á. & J. Maling. 2010. The Empty Left Edge Condition. In M T.
Putnam (ed.), Asymmetry in grammar (Language Faculty and Beyond 3), 315–
43. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Speas, P. & C. Tenny. 2003. Conﬁgurational properties of point of view roles. In
A.M. Di Sciullo (ed.), Asymmetry in grammar, 315–43. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Thrasher, R. H. 1977. One way to say more by saying less: A study of so-called subjectless sentences (Kwansei Gakuin University Monograph Series 11). Tokyo:
The Eihosha Ltd. Non vidi.
Weir, A. 2012. Left-edge deletion in English and subject omission in diaries. English Language and Linguistics 16(1). 105–29.
Weir, A. 2013. The syntax of imperatives in Scots. In J. Cruickshank & R. M. Millar(eds.), After the storm: papers from the Forum for Research on the Languagesof Scotland and Ulster, 261–85. Aberdeen: FRLSU.
Weir, A. 2018. Object drop and article drop in reduced written register. Linguistic
Variation 17(2). 157–85.
Zanuttini, R. 2008. Encoding the addressee in the syntax: evidence from English
imperative subjects. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 26. 185–218.
Zhang, S. 1991. Negation in imperatives and interrogatives: arguments against
inversion. In CLS 27: The Parasession on Negation, 356–73. Chicago: Chicago
Linguistic Society.

312

Recording and explaining: exploring theGerman ditransitive alternation
Klaas Willems, Ludovic De Cuypere & Hilde De Vaere
1. In the introduction to Thinking Syntactically (2006), Liliane Haegeman
writesthat the goal of scientists is not merely taking note of and recording
certain phenomena and thus ‘knowing’ about them: scientists want
to explain the phenomena they have observed.
The argument that in linguistics, too, the ultimate goal is to explain linguistic
phenomena rather than to merely record them, is particularly pertinent since the‘quantitative turn’ in modern linguistics. In the wake of this turn, many scholars
have laid great emphasis on amassing data, according to some critics – not only
generative linguists – to the detriment of ‘real’ explanations. In this discussion
note, we oﬀer some thoughts on the relation between explanation and the extensive recording of data from a ‘moderate’ functional point of view. The paper
takes the form of a case study in which we consider the variation in form andfunction of sentences with the ditransitive verb geben in present-day standard
German. This is the subject matter of an ongoing corpus-based research projectin the General Linguistics section of the Linguistics Department at Ghent University.
2. Our starting point is the common assumption that the only ditransitive
construction in which geben occurs in the standard language is the Indirect Object Construction (henceforth: IOC) with thecoded in the dative andthecoded in the accusative, e.g.:1(1)

Diese Kommunikation gibt den Bürgern
ein Gefühl derSicherheit.
‘This communication gives the citizens a sense of security.’1

All example sentences are drawn from the 42-billion-word corpus DeReKo (Deutsches Referenz korpus, Mannheim) available at http://www.ids-mannheim.de/cosmas2/.

313

However, corpus research reveals that geben also occurs in the Prepositional
Object Construction (henceforth POC): while theis still coded in the accusative, theis headed by the preposition an, which in this construction governs the accusative:(2)

Kronauer will eine Liste mit allen Teilnehmern
an die Stadt
geben.
‘Kronauer wants to give a list of all participants to the city.’(3)

Der Bund muss nicht direkt das Geld
an die Familien
geben.
‘The federal government does not have to give the money directly to thefamilies.’

This ﬁnding contravenes the commonly held view that the IOC/POC alternation
does not exist with geben in German, whereas the so-called ‘dative alternation’is common with the corresponding verb in many Germanic languages (cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2008, Haspelmath & Baumann 2013). Note, moreover,that the IOC/POC alternation is well-attested with other ditransitive verbs in German such as übergeben ‘hand over’, zurückgeben ‘give back’, abgeben ‘pass, handover’, schicken ‘send’, ausleihen ‘lend (out)’, senden ‘send’, übersenden ‘send’, andso on. As a matter of fact, with morphologically complex geben-verbs there is noempirical evidence that one variant outnumbers the other.
In the last two decades a great number of formal, functional and cognitive
studies have been devoted to the English dative alternation or ‘dative shift’, as
it is commonly called in formalist scholarship. The focus has been on such verbs
as give, send, throw and sell, which in English either occur in the ‘double-object
construction’ (He gave his 24-year-old son an allowance for spending money) orthe ‘to-construction (He gave the newspaper to his 24-year-old son). Research
into the corresponding alternation in present-day German has been lagging behind (cf.Matzel 1976, Wegener 1985, Proost 2015). In this contribution we discuss some preliminary ﬁndings based on ongoing corpus-based research. We
limit ourselves to observations on the simplex verb geben. Our study is conﬁned
to written language (DeReKo).
3. We conducted random searches in DeReKo in order to acquire suﬃcient
data for a comparison of IOC and POC with geben, but because POC turned out
to be much less frequent than IOC with this particular verb (approximately 4%of the occurrences), we turned to speciﬁc queries with the preposition an to arrive at a balanced data set. All sample sentences were annotated for a numberof factors along the lines of existing corpus studies of the English dative alter314

nation (e.g. Bresnan 2007, Bresnan & Ford 2010). The factors in our study are:length diﬀerence (heaviness) and order ofand, voice, pronominality, animacy, concreteness, speciﬁc verb sense (concrete, propositional, abstract, cf. below), idiomaticity, deﬁniteness, discourse-givenness. The investigation follows up on previous research, which relates the alternation primarily
to two well-established types of motivation: universally applicable processing
constraints, in particular heaviness considerations (cf. Hawkins 1994), and information structure preferences (Thompson 1995, Bresnan 2007, Bresnan & Ford
2010, Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2008). According to Hawkins’ principle of early
immediate constituents, the orders ()- () and - are determinedby the relative weight of both objects, the heavier one tending to be placed after
the lighter one (one of ‘Behaghel’s Laws’). Thompson’s principle of ‘topicworthiness’ adds to this that more ‘topicworthy’ objects tend to be placed before
less ‘topicworthy’ ones, with topicworthiness deﬁned as ‘a cluster of properties’
that inﬂuence the packaging of information with regard to the likelihood of anoun phrase being the topic of discussion (Thompson 1995). Thus, pronominal,
animate, deﬁnite, speciﬁc, identiﬁable, given and short objects are taken to be
associated with referents that are more topicworthy than inanimate, indeﬁnite,non-speciﬁc, non-identiﬁable, new and long objects. Based on this topicworthiness principle, IOC with - order is expected to occur mainly with topicworthys whereas POC with - order mainly with topicworthys.
The analysis of N = 1341 sentences with the verb geben reveals that 95,5% of
the IOC sentences have - order and 4,5% - order (712/33) while 99,5% of the
POC sentences have - order and 0,5% - order (594/2). Although German has
a relatively free word order compared to English, the correlation between eachvariant and a speciﬁc order of the two objects is nevertheless very similar for giveand geben. Logistic regression analysis further shows that the IOC/POC alternation is signiﬁcantly associated with multiple factors in German (cf. De Vaere
et al. 2018). POC is positively associated withs that are longer than the, collectives (e.g., Familie ‘family’, Präsidium ‘executive committee’, Chor ‘choir’) ands that can designate both concrete locations andinstitutions in the abstract (e.g., Polizei ‘police’, Ministerium ‘government department, ministry’) while thes are generally discourse-given or at least accessible, often pronominal and they tend to designate concrete objects or propositional contents. There is also a signiﬁcant correlation of POC with passive voice.
Conversely, IOC is positively associated with discourse-new and abstracts
and with pronominal, discourse-given and animates that are shorter
than the. Representative corpus-extracted examples of IOC and POC are315

(4) and (5), respectively:(4)“Der Sieg gegen Tim Henman hat mirviel Selbstvertrauenr
gegeben”, sagte Schüttler.
“The victory over Tim Henman gave me a lot of conﬁdence”, Schüttler
said.’(5)

Wir werden unseren Bericht
in der ersten Januar-Hälfte an das
Präsidiumgeben.
‘We will deliver our report to the Bureau in the ﬁrst half of January.’

We also found that one particular use of geben in combination with an (occasionally also in, auf or über) is strictly conﬁned to POC, viz. when it is used as a phrasal
verb in the sense ‘add an ingredient to’ in the context of preparing food, but inthis case the prepositional phrase is not aargument; (6) is an example:(6)

Gewürfelte Zwiebeln können roh oder mit heißer Brühe übergossen anden Salat gegeben werden.
‘Diced onions may be added to the salad raw or doused with hot broth.’Overall, the ﬁndings for German geben show interesting parallels with the English dative alternation. Predictions in terms of the traditional heaviness considerations and information structure preferences are largely borne out by thegeben data. Hence, an appropriate quantitative approach, which is able to uncover correlations between various factors, already goes beyond the stage ofmere data recording. It supplies us with explanatory clues which are not readily accessible to introspection, bringing to light regularities that would otherwise for a large part remain hidden. Furthermore, given that the research results for geben partly match those for give (similar results have been obtainedfor other Germanic languages, e.g. Dutch, Danish and Swedish), the outcome ofthis part of the study points to fairly strong general tendencies across Germanic
languages with regard to the alternation at hand.
4. It would however be premature to conclude that the above quantitative analysis, indispensable though it may be, provides a full explanation of thedata. Not surprisingly, a number of functionally oriented approaches to the English dative alternation, which have gained widespread recognition in recent
decades, have sought to determine speciﬁc semantic and/or pragmatic diﬀerences between the two variants. For instance, in Goldberg’s Construction Grammar approach the alternation in English is analyzed in terms of two diﬀerent argument structure constructions and three diﬀerent senses. The double-object
316

construction is assigned the construction meaning ‘successful caused possession’ (Y, e.g., John gave Mary an apple). It is contrasted
with the ‘transfer-caused-motion construction’ (e.g., John gave an apple to Mary)
which Goldberg calls a ‘prepositional paraphrase’ of the double-object construction but semantically a metaphorical extension of the ‘caused-motion construction’ (, e.g., Joe kicked the bottle into the yard) (Goldberg
1995, 2006). An alternative account is proposed in Rappaport Hovav & Levin(2008)’s verb-sensitive approach. They argue that with a verb such as give both
the double-object construction and the to-construction convey ‘successful caused
possession’ because of the verb’s inherent meaning. By contrast, verbs such as
send and throw convey ‘caused possession’ in the double-object construction but‘caused-motion’ in the to-construction. Moreover, any successful transfer inference is not determined by the meaning of the construction but by the meaningof the verb (e.g., by give and sell but not by send, throw, kick or teach).
It is not possible within the conﬁnes of this contribution to expound in detail to what extent these accounts of the English alternation can be applied toGerman. However, careful analysis of the data shows that this is possible only
to a very limited extent. It is imperative that due attention be paid to languagespeciﬁc properties of the alternation, for the following reasons. First, German
possesses a fully-ﬂedged system of morphological cases, which are found only
in remnants in English. Note that the double-object construction also exists inGerman but it occurs with only a handful of verbs that take two objects in the accusative (e.g., lehren ‘teach’) and the construction is not conﬁned to ditransitive
verbs (compare nennen ‘call someone something’). Moreover, in German various prepositions (in, auf, nach, zu, an) are used to designate places in POC, often
corresponding to the single preposition to in English. Second, while in English
the dative alternation is co-extensive with - order and - order, this is different in German. Above we pointed out the strong correlation of IOC with order and POC with - order in sentences with geben, but it appears that geben
is rather exceptional in this respect among German ditransitive verbs. (This isperhaps less surprising in view of the fact that the morphosyntactic behaviourof ‘give’ is notoriously special from a cross-linguistic and typological point ofview, cf. Kittilä (2006)). In a random sample of 3353 sentences with 10 alternating ditransitive verbs other than geben, IOC is attested with - order in 67% of
the cases against 33% for - order (1094/533). With POC, - order accounts
for 96%, - order for 4% of the occurrences (1663/63). Thus, IOC regularly
occurs with both object orders, unlike POC. Thirdly, while in English not only
give-type verbs and send-type verbs but also throw-type verbs (throw, shoot,317

kick, slap etc.) partake in the alternation, the corresponding verbs in German(schmeißen, werfen, schießen, treten, stoßen etc.) occur in POC but not IOC.
Only few morphologically complex throw-type verbs such as zuwerfen ‘throw at,
pass’ and hinwerfen ‘throw at’ occur in IOC (cf. Croft et al. (2001)). Finally, withEnglish give-type verbs the preposition to only takes animate complements but
not inanimate complements that designate places (give something to Berlin/thechurch/the bureau etc. are acceptable only metonymically, cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2008). By contrast, with German geben-verbs (geben, übergeben,
zurückgeben, abgeben, weitergeben etc.) an can take animate or inanimate complements. It is obvious that these diﬀerences between the two languages haveto be taken into account when considering functional contrasts between IOC and
POC in German.
5. The results of our case study can be summarized as follows. The IOC/POC
alternation in German (with whatever verb) is clearly situated at the syntax/ semantics/ pragmatics interface, with ramiﬁcations into language processing. It istherefore necessary, both with regard to the alternating constructions and theverbs that instantiate them, to distinguish ‘encoded’ meanings from senses thatare not encoded but ‘inferred’, including those senses that obtain by default innormal language use (for the distinction between ‘encoded’ meanings and ‘inferred’ senses, including generalized conversational implicatures, cf. Coseriu(1975), Grice (1989), Levinson (2000), among others).
Under this view, a ﬁrst conclusion is that the IOC/POC alternation in German
cannot be explained in terms of a dichotomy between two independent constructions with contrasting encoded meanings. The analysis of the data showsthat it is not an encoded semantic property of POC to convey ‘caused motion’,nor of IOC to convey ‘(successful) caused possession’. In this respect, the resultsof our study square with Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2008)’s view that the dative
alternation in English does not alter the ‘caused possession’ reading if the verb
itself, e.g. give, lexicalizes ‘caused possession’. However, on the basis of the German data we have to go one decisive step further.
On the one hand, the encoded lexical meaning of geben appears underspeciﬁed with regard to the three major conventionalized senses (concrete, propositional and abstract transfer, cf. Bresnan et al. (2007)) and any speciﬁc subsenses
that occur in the data (e.g., ‘hand over’ is a subsense of the concrete sense, ona par with ‘administer’, ‘transmit’, and so on). Geben does not express concrete
transfer in the majority of the occurrences. Propositional and abstract transfer
are equally frequent, but the concrete sense is more often attested in POC, asin (7), whereas the abstract sense is favoured in IOC, as in (8); the propositional318

sense regularly occurs in both variants, (9).
(7)

Sie können die CD dann vervielfältigen und an die Schulen geben.
‘You can then make copies of the CD and give them to the schools.’(8)

Hier wird den Schülern die Gelegenheit gegeben, mit Zeitzeugen zu diskutieren.
‘Here the students are given the opportunity to discuss with eyewitnesses.’

(9)

a.
b.

Ein Zeuge beobachtete ihn und gab der Polizei Tipps.
‘A witness watched him and gave tips to the police.’
Hier konnte Hebisch einen guten Tipp an die Kameraden geben.
‘Here Hebisch was able to give a good tip to the comrades.’It would be begging the question to construe the uses of geben in the abstract (8)and propositional (9) senses from a putative concrete ‘core sense’ (7). However,‘caused possession’ is no encoded feature of geben either. A state of ‘possessing
something’ is not necessarily intended in ditransitive uses of geben, compare:(10)

Der Kartensitz und Spielverlauf geben dieser Hoﬀnung keine Chancen.
‘The hand of cards and the course of the game give this hope no chance.’(11)[Ich] sehe gute Chancen, der Wirtschaft die dringend benötigten Impulse zu geben.
‘I see good opportunities to give much-needed impetus to the economy.’

Rather than invoking ﬁgurative extensions on apriori grounds (cf., e.g., Newman(1996)), which have little support in the data, we argue that the underspeciﬁed
encoded meaning of geben is best paraphrased as a general three-place ‘transfer’ meaning with no speciﬁcation as to the features ‘possession’, ‘path’, and‘transfer modality’, in contrast to other core three-place verbs such as schicken,
senden, liefern, schenken, and complex geben-verbs.
On the other hand, the corpus investigation also shows that in German, IOC
and POC are not exclusively dedicated to their functions in the ditransitive alternation. ‘Antransferring an entity to a
’ is but one event type bothvariants can designate, which we take as evidence that this three-participant
frame is not their encoded meaning but one of their possible senses. Building
on typological research of the ditransitive construction (Kittilä 2006, Malchukov
et al. 2010, Bickel 2011, Haspelmath 2013 among others), we therefore stress theneed to analyze the alternation in terms of a more general conﬁguration (cf. Stefanowitsch 2011) on the systemic level of German grammar. This schematic con319

ﬁguration combines three semantic roles, viz. an,a, and a,to a three-argument pattern. IOC and POC have the status of ‘allostructions’ (cf.
Cappelle (2006)) that instantiate this conﬁguration rather than being independent constructions in the grammar (unlike the English double-object construction, which has an encoded ditransitive meaning, if previous analyses are correct); nor can one allostruction be considered more ‘basic’ than the other. The
two allostructions are moreover partly in complementary distribution in German: give-type verbs and send-type verbs occur both in IOC and POC but throwtype verbs occur in POC (with the exception of a small number of morphologically complex verbs such as zuwerfen, hinwerfen etc.). Furthermore, whereas theis a spatial goal () with throw-type verbs, it is either a spatial
goal or a possessional goal () with give-type verbs and send-type verbs.
Importantly, the occurrences of IOC and POC are no realizations on a oneoﬀ basis. Their uses reﬂect the pervasive role of a handful of conventionalized
senses, which in turn correlate with various morphosyntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors as well heaviness constraints. These correlations concur to establish observable, albeit non-exclusive, tendencies in language use which, although no rules of grammar, are indispensible to understand why on a particular occasion of language use one variant is likely to be chosen whereas the otherone is more or less strongly dispreferred. For instance, the tendency for IOC tooccur with the abstract transfer sense of geben in combination with an abstract
and an animate
contrasts with the no less notable tendency
for POC to occur with the concrete or propositional transfer sense of the verb in
combination with athat either designates a collective entity or allows
for both a concrete locative or an abstract institutional reading (e.g., Ministerium‘government department, ministry’.).
6. In conclusion, the level of normal language use, situated in between thelanguage system and actual instantiations of language use, is key to a layered
account of the alternation (cf. Coene & Willems 2006). This level straddles thestringent dichotomous competence-performance distinction and accounts forobservable tendencies in the data which can neither be fully explained in termsof lexico-grammatical rules nor be reduced to mere performance phenomena. It
is only by charting their always dynamic but partly conventionalized features in a
representative set of naturally occurring sentences that the complex functional
interplay of IOC, POC and verbs such as geben can be explained in a comprehensive way.

320

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