THE ORIGINS OF FUNCTIONAL AND LEXICAL CATEGORIES:TENSE-ASPECT AND ADJECTIVES IN DRAVIDIAN
R. Amritavalli
The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad

1. Functional Features and Functional Categories
Let us assume the lexical categories to be N, V, A and at least some occurrences of P,
and the functional categories to be at least C(omplementiser), I(nflection) and D(eterminer).
Cinque (1999) has argued for a much larger universal set of at least 32 functional heads in IP.
The functional projections of these heads are argued to be present even in languages where
there is no lexical material in the head – there may be empty heads for these projections. We
shall return to this proposal a little later.
An earlier proposal of interest to us is Grimshaw (1991). Grimshaw noticed that certain
functional categories typically pair up with certain lexical categories. They take only theselexical categories as complement. For example, D takes N complements and I takes V
complements, and not vice-versa. Lexical categories are much freer in the choice of (lexical
category) complements: e.g., V takes NP, PP, IP or CP. Grimshaw therefore seeks to express
the intuition that “a functional category is a relational entity. It is a functional category by
virtue of its relationship to a lexical category.” She tries to capture the intuition that DP is thefunctional category “for N,” and IP the functional category “for VP,” by allocating common
categorial features to certain pairs of functional and lexical categories. Functional projections“extend” the projection whose category they share: they are Extended Projections. Lexicaland functional categories within an extended projection differ only in functional level (whichis zero for lexical categories, and one for functional ones.)
I have earlier (Amritavalli 2004) used data from the recent history of Kannada to argue
that extended projections, i.e. functional projections, develop out of lexical features.
Functional projections in fact start out as features at the lexical level of the lexical categories
they extend. They start out at the functional level of zero, and that is why they inherit or retain
the lexical categorial feature. On this analysis, the content of a functional category must insome way be semantically coherent with its lexical category (it must be capable ofinstantiation in it). This analysis adds content to Grimshaw’s original proposal, which does
not address the logic of the initial assignment of common categorial features only to certain
pairs of lexical and functional categories, and not to others.
Roberts and Roussou (2003:6) make the assumption that “functional categories arepresent as features in the lexicon.” The question I raise is whether such features inevitably
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find expression only in functional projections, in particular as clausal projections, with eachfeature housed in its functional category in the clause. I suggest that functional features can berealized at least three levels: the lexical level, the morphologically identifiable but subclausal
level, and the clausal level. At the subclausal levels, we see feature syncretism – i.e. morethan one feature expressed at a single position or head – of the sort proposed by Giorgi andPianesi (1997:13 ff.). To make this argument, I shall take you through some facts about the
Kannada clause and its history.
In the first part of this paper, I shall be concerned with I and C, and in the second withthe lexical categories of A and P, drawing on the work mentioned in the references.
What is the nature of I in Kannada? Let us first look at the current language. The
affirmative verb is a stem followed by a tense/aspect marker followed by agreement:
Agr
Tense/ Aspect
Verb
(1)

bar - utt - aane
come nonpst 3msg‘(he) comes’(2)ba(r) -nd -anu
come past 3msg‘(he) came’Now let us try to introduce negation into this structure. We find (3) and (4) as thenegative counterparts of (1) and (2):(3)

bar -uva -du illacome nonpst ger. neg‘does not come’ (lit. ‘coming not’)(4)

bar -Ø -al illacome past inf. neg‘did not come’ (lit. ‘come not’)Comparing (3) and (1), we find a shared specification in their verbal complexes for non-past.
But what looked like non-past Tense in (1) cannot be Tense in (3). We may consider theTense node to be a specification for two kinds of features: finiteness, and time or temporalfeatures. Finiteness we take to be a feature that “anchors the sentence in time,” relating it to-2-The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)

the moment of speech. But in (3) we have a form of the verb that is a gerund, and gerunds are
not finite forms (the gerund John’s falling in love…is not anchored in time, so it can haveoccurred yesterday: …surprised me, or it can occur tomorrow: …will surprise me, or right
now: …surprises me). So the node we labelled “Tense/Aspect” must really be an Aspect node,
if (1) and (3) are not to be radically different in clause structure. Gerunds can have aspectual
specification, as John’s having fallen in love shows.
Similarly, in (4) we have a non-finite verb form, an infinitive, which we shall assume isspecified for perfect aspect. (We can show that the case-marked infinitive is specified for
future aspect; and infer that the non-case-marked infinitive, which occurs in contexts like thepassive, is perfective.) We now have a fragment of a tree:(5)

AspectVerb

where the verbal complex is a gerund in (3), an infinitive in (4), and in (1-2), we shall say that
it is a participial form – a present participle in (1), a past participle in (2), without going into
the details of the motivation for this.
What about the node above Aspect? This is agreement in the affirmative forms; let us
assume that agreement is a reflex of finiteness. But in the negative forms there is noagreement. There is only the negative word itself. Comparing the affirmative and negative
sentences, the affirmative sentences each have a time-indicator and a finiteness indicator. In
the negative sentences, we have an Aspect node, giving us the time-features. We need afiniteness indicator. Let us say then that here the negation itself, like agreement, serves toindicate finiteness:(6)

Finiteness{Agr / Neg}
AspectVerb

We can add one more “value” to the finiteness head: the modal. Modal sentences in thecurrent language consist of a (bare) infinitive verb complement to the modal:(7)

bar - (al) bahudu / beeku
come inf. may
must‘may come / must come’We may propose that the finiteness head is actually a “MoodP,” which can host negation,
modality, and – as a reflex of indicative mood – agreement. Thus we revise (6) to (8):-3-Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

(8)

MoodP
{Agr / Neg / Modal}
AspectVerb

2. Finite and Non Finite Neg in Kananda
To say that Neg illa is a possible value of the finiteness head is to say that it carries afiniteness feature. Then it should not occur in non-finite complement clauses. So it cannot
occur to indicate negation in (9):(9)* avanui [Øi bar -al illa ] prayatnisidanu
hecome-inf. neg tried‘He tried not to come.’

Indeed, illa cannot occur within its own complement, which is a non-finite verb (cf. 3-4).
Thus double negatives cannot be formed with two illas in Kannada, and contrast in thisrespect with English not…not constructions:(10) * avanu bar -uva -du illa illahecome nonpst ger. neg neg‘He doesn’t not come.’(11) * avanu bar -Ø -al illa illahecome past inf. neg neg‘He didn’t not come.’
The Neg licensed in non-finite contexts is an (infixed) element -a, seen in the non-finite
complement in (12), and the double negations in (13-14).
(12)

avanui [Øi bar- a -dee ira- lu ] prayatnisidanu
hecome-neg part. be- inf. tried‘He tried not to come.’ (lit. ‘to be without coming’)(13)

avanu bar- a -dee ir- uva -du illahecome neg part. be- nonpst ger. neg‘He doesn’t / won’t not come’ (lit. he doesn’t be without coming)-4-

The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)(14)

avanu bar a -dee ir- -Ø -al illahecome neg part. be- past inf. neg‘He didn’t not come.’ (lit. he didn’t be without coming)

So Kannada has two negative forms, one in finite contexts, another in non-finite contexts, assome other languages also do.
The interesting point is that the finite Neg illa is a relatively recent innovation in thelanguage. At an earlier stage, the Neg -a used to occur as main clause negation, and as thecomplement of agreement (cf. 15-16). (Recall that Neg is now in complementary distribution
with agreement.). (In (15), the negative morpheme occurs inside the stem bar- ‘come’. But
this might be a peculiarity of the verb bar- ‘come;’ the negative -a occurs outside of otherverb stems, cf. (16).)(15)

ba- a- r- anu
come neg
3msg‘(he) not come’(16)

maaD-a- nu
doneg 3msg‘(he) not do’

We notice that there is no specification for time – tense or aspect – in these verb forms.
Indeed, such negative forms were completely free with respect to tense interpretation. (Theycan be translated as a set ‘did not come, does not come, will not come ….’ A better way tounderstand them is to compare their freedom of time interpretation to participial negation:‘unseen by anyone, John tries/ tried/ will try to …’)
We can also see that the position of Neg in the verbal complex (16), taking the verb stem
as its complement, is the position where Aspect occurs in the current language in (1-4).
Indeed, at this earlier stage of the language, negation and aspect were competing for the same
position in the verbal complex, as (17) shows:(17)

maaD-id- anu
doperf. 3msg.

maaD- uvanu
doimperf. 3msg.

maaD- a- nu
doneg 3msg‘(he) did’‘(he) does’‘(he) not do’

Since aspect provides the time specification features in the Kannada clause, negatives such as(16) were not marked for time; and negation cooccurred with agreement.
Modality also co-occurs with agreement at this stage of the language. The modal
construction (18) is now archaic, the preferred construction being (7) above, repeated here as
(19):

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maaD-i- aa -nu
doperf may 3msg‘(He) may do’(19)bar- (al) bahudu / beeku
come inf. may
must‘may come / must come’(In (18), the verb stem occurs in an invariant perfect form, which does not contribute to theinterpretation.)
3. The Emergence of MoodP
How do we describe these historical changes, and what do they tell us about the nature oflanguage change?
Consider first finiteness marking. Earlier, every finite clause had overt agreement
morphology; currently, negative and modal clauses are not overtly marked for agreement.
Suppose we represent the earlier structure as in (20), comparing it with the current (8),repeated here as (21).
(20) Fin.feature: Agreement
Modal
Aspect {temporal aspect, negation, …}
Verb
(21)

MoodP
{Agr / Neg / Modal}
Aspect (temporal)
Verb

Informally, the possibilities for finiteness marking have widened or expanded in someway. But this cannot be simply a result of a change in the Finiteness/Agreement projection in(20). For if the finiteness projection continues in the same position as in (20), and the onlychange is that it becomes “more expansive” such that it is satisfied by a modal or Neg element
as well as by agr, we should expect the language to permit just the minimal change, and to let
the Neg and modal elements “move over” and up into the position occupied by agr in (20).
That is, agr would become “optional” in (16) to yield (22i), and instead of (18) we would-6-

The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)

expect (22ii). But these forms are never attested.
(22)i. * maaD-amake negii. * maaD -i-aa
make ‘may’*‘not make’* ‘may make’A stronger inference is necessary: that the finiteness feature has relocated itself further“up” the clause. The migration of the finiteness feature out of AgrP into a new functional
projection explains why finiteness is no longer identified exclusively with agr. Upward
movement is in line with Roberts and Roussou’s (2003) observations (pp.36, 74) that thediachronic movement of a morpheme is always upward, and grammaticalization is always
upward, “in such a way that certain features (e.g. mood features) formerly associated with alower head become associated with a higher position.”1
Indeed, what we are witnessing is the creation of a MoodP. Simultaneous with therelocation of finiteness is an expansion in the range of elements that signal finiteness, and areinvention of the lexical forms of modal and Neg, which now become free, lexical forms (inan instance of grammaticalization), different from the earlier bound forms. Why should thesedevelopments have followed the relocation of finiteness?
It seems that (with the moving up of finiteness) Neg and modal also need to relocate
upward, perhaps because these elements are generally attracted to “Tense,” which for
Kannada we shall interpret as “Finiteness.” Modals are merged directly into T in languages
like English; and we recall that Laka (1990) codified the observation that Neg is generally inthe c-command domain of Tense as the Tense C-command Condition.
Now in (23) below, which is the development that we propose from (20), we observethat the head agr of AgrP can straightforwardly move up into the head of MoodP, which isadjacent to it. It is possible that the relocated finiteness feature belongs to the CP domain
while the AgrP and its complements are in the IP domain. This would explain a puzzle in thepattern of complement selection in the current language by the three elements in MoodP.
While agr takes the regular perfect and imperfect participial verb forms as its complement,
Neg and modal take infinitive complements (and Neg takes gerundive complements as well).
This suggests that agr is still generated as the head of IP, as a reflex of Indicative Mood, andmoves to MoodP in an I-to-C movement. Whereas Neg and modal, which pattern in theircomplement selection with higher predicates that subcategorize clausal complements, are now
merged in the CP domain. These have to be new forms that are merged rather than the oldforms that are moved, because the movement of the erstwhile Neg or modal into the MoodP isblocked by the presence of the intervening projection of AgrP.

1

However, Platzack (1995) explains the loss of verb second in English and French in terms of thelowering of an abstract finiteness operator from C to I.
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(23)
Mood P
[+F]

AgrP
agr

ModalP
AspectPneg / temporality
V

In short, with the relocation of the finiteness feature in a higher projection in the CP
domain, it became necessary for Neg and modal also to relocate. But this could not be
achieved through movement of the existing categories, across AgrP. Thus in the new clausestructure, negation and modality had to be instantiated by the insertion of new lexical material
into the MoodP by merge, rather than by move.
We propose that in the current language, AgrP is still the head of IP. We have reasons tobelieve that this head of IP in Kannada is categorially nominal. It is occupied by agr when the
MoodP is specified as indicative; when the MoodP is occupied by Neg or Modal, the IP
complement to these elements is a non-finite complement with a gerundive or infinitive head,
both of which we surmise to be nominal functional categories.
4. Sub-clausal Levels of Functional Features
With the relocation of finiteness in C, and with Neg moving up into C, a distinction
developed in the language between finite and non-finite negation that had not existed earlier.
Our account of this development has a bearing on the debate whether a full set of universal
functional projections is always present in all languages, irrespective of whether theseprojections are lexicalized or not. Our evidence may favour a modification of the proposals of
Cinque (1999). Strictly speaking, our data do not directly impact Cinque’s proposals, which
do not include any reference to the functional projection of Neg; but the absence of Neg froma putative set of universally ordered functional projections is in itself puzzling, given thatnegation is such a common and ubiquitous functional projection. We therefore shall take itthat evidence from negation does bear on this debate. One issue (we have said) has been theoccurrence of a set of projections with null functional heads in all languages, regardless oflexical evidence. Our concern however is slightly different. We question whether functionalfeatures must inevitably be realized as the heads of their projections, at a clausal level.
Languages differ, it appears, in the levels at which functional features are realized in theirclause structures. We propose (thus) that the existence of a full set of universal functionalfeatures in all languages does not entail the presence of a full set of functional projections-8-

The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)

headed by these features.
It is uncontroversial that “functional categories are present as features in the lexicon”(Roberts and Roussou (2003:6). That the sets of features and projections may not be
coextensive, because bundles of features may be realized “syncretically” in a more inclusivefunctional head, and because there may be hybrid heads, has also been proposed by Giorgio
and Pianesi (1997:13 ff.). We now suggest that syncretism may be typical of sub-clausal
functional projections. An extreme manifestation of syncretism in a projection might be alexically-fused feature at a lexical node, such as a negative feature in the words seldom or
regret, or a dubitative “modal” feature in doubt. It is in terms of such alternative levels of
realization of functional features that we propose to explain the change from non-finite
negation to a combination of finite and non-finite negation in Kannada.
We are looking at two differences in negation between earlier and current stages in
Kannada: the differentiation of Neg into finite illa and non-finite -a-; and the co- occurrenceof negation with temporal aspect. Both these are features of the current language. Looking at
the earlier verb forms in (17), the simplest description is that negation and temporal aspectoccur in a shared clausal projection, which is why they are complementary distribution – they
are in competition for a single position. What is the category in which these elements are
instantiated? We shall maintain that it is the category of Aspect. One current definition of
Aspect is that it is the internal temporal contour of an event; but “internal contours of events”
need not be restricted to the temporal. In present-day Kannada, the participial and gerundive
forms are specified with internal contours not merely for temporality but also for negativity;
suggesting that negation in these nonfinite verbs continues to retain a categorial specificationcomparable to temporality.
Let us list current forms of the verbal participle, the gerund, and the relative participle, toillustrate this claim about negation and temporality. The temporal feature or morpheme in(24) must be for aspect; and it is a reasonable conjecture that this is the categorial
specification for the negative feature or morpheme as well.
(24)
imperfect
perfect
negativeverbal participle
maaD-utta‘doing’maaD-i‘done’
maaD-a-dee‘not do(ing)’

gerundmaaD-uv-udu‘the doing’
maaD-id-du‘the done’
maaD-ad-du‘the not do(ing)’

relative participle
maaD-u-va‘which (I/ …) do’
maaD-id-a‘which (I/ …) did’maaD-a-da‘which (I/ …) not-do’

If negation is an aspect in (24), it is a reasonable conjecture again that this was also thecategory of the negative morpheme in the earlier language. The parallelism between temporaland negative elements now seen in the participles obtained earlier in finite clauses, wherethese participles occurred as complements to agr. Recall that the current language still has atemporal participial complement to agr; this has been a stable feature of the language.

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To understand how participial negation could have had sentential scope, we may turn toEnglish data such as the following:(25)

This feature is unmarked.

(26)This feature is not marked.

Although (25) and (26) are “cognitively synonymous,” the functional positions of un- and not
are clearly very different in the syntax. Not is an IP-level projection; un- must occur perhaps
within the VP, with a participial verb as its complement, even if we assume all morphology tobe syntactic.
English participial negation is of course specified for aspect, while the Kannada
participle is not. Thus the flavour of the Kannada participial negation is better illustrated withEnglish sentences with adjectival predicates.
(27)

He felt / seems / appears / is unwelcome.
(= he does / did not feel / seem / appear to be …)

Thus the syntactic position at which sentential negation is instantiated depends on thenature of the predicate. Kannada clause structure historically consists of a participial
complement to agr, and this clause structure does not host a Neg projection in the I system.
Rather, there is a Neg projection “within” the participle, which is shared by temporal aspect.
Aspect is fundamentally a feature of lexical semantics; there are predicates that are inherently
durative or completive, for example. Our suggestion is that lexical semantic features include
functional features such as negative (and ‘modal’ features such as dubitative). Beginning withcases of fully lexicalized aspect, then, we may have at the other end of the spectrum a seriesof functional categories, specialized for and headed by negation, modality, or temporal aspect.
At these functional positions in the clause, negation and modality are commonly considered tobe realizations not of aspect, but of mood. What the traditional nomenclatures such as moodreflect (thus) may not be the substance of features, but the positions or domains of theirrealization. Mood appears to be a sentential, perhaps CP-level, category. Aspect is perhaps a
VP category, an extended projection of V within the VP, when it is not just a lexical feature.
What we see is that between fully lexicalized functional features and individualfunctional projections for them is an intermediate level, illustrated in Kannada in (16-17), andin English in (25) and (27). At this level, features are located in their own particular,
identifiable morpheme, but these morphemes are not located in functional projections in theIP.
5. A Relocation of the Temporal Aspect Feature
We can ask one additional question about the historical change by which an aspectual
position shared by temporal aspect and negation “unravelled.” Negation and modal, we have- 10 -

The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)

said, moved up into the CP. Was temporal aspect not affected in any way? We suggest that it
indeed was.
Historically, the temporal aspect morpheme was inseparable from “its” stem. This is why
it could not occur in conjunction with negation: both the negative and the temporal aspect
morphemes needed to take the verb stem as their immediate complement. But currently, themorphemes for temporal aspect can occur separated from the verb. Consider again the double
negative constructions (13-14), and the negated infinitival (12), repeated below as (28-30).
(28) avanui [Øi bar- a -dee ira- lu ] prayatnisidanu
hecome-neg part. be - inf. tried‘He tried not to come.’ (lit. ‘to be without coming’)(29)

avanu bar- a -dee ir- uva- du illahecome neg part. be- nonpst ger. neg‘He doesn’t / won’t not come.’ (lit. ‘he doesn’t be without coming’)(30)

avanu bar a -dee ir- -Ø -al illahecome neg part. be- past inf. neg‘He didn’t not come.’ (lit. ‘he didn’t be without coming’)

In (29-30), negation occurs on the verb stem, which is “closed off” by participial morphology.
The temporal aspect morphemes -uv- (a complement of the gerund morpheme in (29)) and Ø(a complement of the infinitive morpheme in (30)) occur “supported” by a verb stem ir- ‘be.’This very familiar phenomenon of a “stranded” affix requiring “support” is the expected andtypical indication of an extended projection, and argues that the Aspect projection is now partof the I-system, a complement to Agr and “outside” the VP unlike earlier. This is how
temporal aspect now co occurs not only with finite Neg illa but also with nonfinite Neg aa. In
this re-articulation of aspect into the I system from the VP we are perhaps witnessing the firststep towards the development of Tense in this language.
6. Roots, Functional Structures and Lexical Categories
In the second section of this paper, I turn to an old question in Dravidian linguistics – arethere adjectives in Dravidian? This question is actually part of a larger current debate, cf.
Baker (2003). Arguments in this debate often point to the existence of words that function as
adjectives, in languages that putatively lack this category. They also sometimes reduce to aclaim like: “(Chichewa) … has approximately six words that behave like true adjectives…”(Baker 2003:247). But the attempt to “prove” that all languages have the lexical category“adjective” seems to us to be beside the point. The fact is that the existence of adjectives
appears to be susceptible to debate in a way the existence of nouns and verbs is not. Thus
Hale and Keyser note (2002:13-14) that the adjectival and prepositional functions may be- 11 -

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performed in some languages by V or N, citing the examples of Navajo and Warlpiri.
Suppose, therefore, we begin our inventory of lexical categories with the features [+/substantive], [+/-predicative] of Chomsky (1970). If we then take an approach in the spirit ofDistributed Morphology, that lexical category is not anteriorly specified, but that a stem
acquires a category by virtue of the functional category that it is a complement of, we can ask:
What functional structures must occur to allow us to recognize the lexical category“adjective”? What nodes of lexico-functional structure are lexicalized to yield an “adjective,”
and what observable consequences in sentence structure follow from such a lexicalization?
(The hypothesis of Distributed Morphology (Marantz 1997, and others) is that thetraditional terms noun, verb, adjective have no universal significance, and are derivable fromsyntactic configurations. The different “parts of speech” can be defined as a single “Rmorpheme” type, Root, in certain local relations with category-defining “f-morphemes.” Thus
a noun or a nominalization is a Root whose nearest c-commanding f-morpheme or licenser isa Determiner; a verb is a Root whose nearest c-commanding f-morphemes are v, Aspect andTense; without Tense, a Root is a ‘participle.’)We shall argue that an adjective is a noun that incorporates a preposition; and that
prepositions arise in the course of the destabilization of case systems. Thus we suggest an
implicational relation between the lexical categories “adjective” and “preposition.” We shallalso see that the notions “predicative noun” and “adjective” appear to be morphologically – orfunctional-categorially – signalled in a unified way in Kannada, and perhaps in English aswell.
7. The Kannada ‘Adjective’
Adjectives in Kannada are syntactically and morphologically difficult to distinguish fromnouns. They take the same range of specifiers yeSHTu/iSHTu/ aSHTu ‘how much/ this much/that much’ and intensifiers (bahaLa ‘very much,’ svalpa ‘a little,’ tumba ‘a lot,’ saakaSHTu‘enough, quite a few’).
(31)

yeSHTu /iSHTu /
aSHTu
mane -(gaLu)
how many / these many / those many house (pl.)‘how many / these many / those many houses’(32)

yeSHTu / iSHTu /aSHTu
doDDa / oLLeya
how much / this much / that much big
good‘how / this / that big’

In the comparative construction, there is no inflection on the adjective. The adjective(moreover) can only occur within a noun phrase, or with a nominal inflection (that must
appear also on predicative adjectives).

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idu ad -akke inta
doDDa mane / doDDa -duthis that dat. Compar. bighouse big
3n.sg.
‘This is a bigger house than that / (a) bigger (thing) than that.’Indeed, Bhat (1994: 26) notes an interesting dialectal fact. In (34) below, there is no adjectiveat all in the comparative construction:(34)

avanu nana -g -inta
tamma
he
I
dat. Compar. younger brother‘He is younger than me.’ (lit. ‘he is a younger brother than to me’)We may contrast (34) with (35), where the noun has its usual nominal interpretation in thesame dialect.
(35)

avanu nana -ge tamma
heI
dat. younger brother‘He is my younger brother.’ (lit. ‘he is a younger brother to me’)

(Bhat’s data here argue against his own claim that the comparative construction is possible
only if an adjective occurs within the noun phrase: i.e. that the construction somehow makes
reference to the category “adjective,” even though its structural expression is purely throughmorphological marking of the noun.)
8. Deriving the Category ‘Adjective’
Suppose (thus) we entertain the idea that Kannada has no adjectives, but only nouns.
What consequences would this have for the grammar? Our claim (Amritavalli and Jayaseelan2003) is that it leads to the occurrence of dative case-marked experiencers. Consider thesentences (36-37).
(36)

nana -ge koopa ide
Idat. anger be 3n.
‘I have anger.’ (lit. ‘to me anger is’)(37)

ida -kke ondu muccaLa ira-beeku
this dat. one lid
be -must(i) ‘This must have a lid.’ (lit. ‘to this a lid must be’)(ii) ‘There must be a lid to this.’

The dative case on the experiencer in (36) or possessor in (37) has received much attention in
the literature. But note that there is another interesting property of this construction: theexperience in (36) is a noun and not an adjective. The Kannada example (36) thus contrasts- 13 -

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with the English (38), where the predicate is an adjective.
(38)

I am angry.

Considering now (37), a second point to notice is that the English possessive construction, astranslated in (37i), has a verb have where Kannada has the verb be. There is no verb have in
Kannada. Interestingly, there is a vestigial possessive construction in English with the verb be,which mimics the dative possessor construction: cf. (37ii).
We thus see that languages have three ways of expressing the experiencer/possessor –experience/possession relation:(39)

Dative noun phrase – BE – experience noun : ‘…is a pleasure to me …’(40)

Nominative noun phrase – BE – adjective: ‘I am happy …’(41)

Nominative noun phrase – HAVE – noun

: ‘I have pleasure in …’

Noticing both that English has a vestigial dative of possession, and that Kannada lacks theverb have, we drew on an analysis of Kayne (1993) that the verb have is a be that incorporates
a preposition. (Kayne’s proposal was itself grounded in work by Freeze (1992) and Szabolcsi(1983).) The Hungarian possessive construction has a verb that can be translated as be. It
takes a single DP complement, which contains the possessive DP. The possessive DP occurs
lower than the D-zero head of the complement of be. The full structure is (42):(42)… van [DP Spec

D0 [DPposs[AGR0

QP/NP]]]

If DPposs stays in situ, it has nominative case, licensed by AGR0. But it can move to Spec D0.
The moved DPposs gets dative case. When D0 is indefinite, DPposs must obligatorily move (ifD0 is definite, DPposs may or may not move). The dative-marked possessive DP can also move
entirely out of the larger DP.
Kayne proposes that the English possessive construction has a similar structure. There isan abstract copula BE that takes a DP complement. He assumes the head of this DP to be a
non-overt “prepositional” D, represented as D/Pe0. The structure is:(43)… BE [DP SpecD / Pe0 [DPposs[AGR0

QP/NP]]]In English, AGR0 cannot license nominative case on the possessive DP, which moves to Specof D/ Pe0. But English having lost dative case, the latter cannot license case, so the possessive
DP moves further up to get nominative case in Spec, IP. The “prepositional” D/Pe0 adjoins toBE, and is spelt out as have.
The Amritavalli and Jayaseelan (2003) analysis was the following. Suppose we recast
Kayne’s analysis in terms of the proposals of Hale and Keyser (1993) regarding lexical
relational structures (LRSs), wherein thematic functions are defined by configurational- 14 -

The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)

positions in the LRS. Let us assume that functional projections are not part of the LRS. Then
we omit the projections AGR0 and D/ Pe0, and represent the possession or experience relation
as holding between two entities that occur as the Spec and complement of a ‘relational’ head,notated here as Prel:(44)… BE … [RelP DPposs/exp[ Prel

QP/NP]]

This structure must occur in the context of functional categories AGR0 and D/ Pe0. Suppose
we separate the D and P heads, with D standing for definiteness and P assigning dative case.
(Recall that dative case must occur even when D may not even be projected, i.e. when the DP
is indefinite.) We may then linearize these heads above the LRS in the following way. Fromthe Hungarian word order, we know that the possessive DP gets nominative case in situ.
When the DP is indefinite, it must move, and must receive dative case when it moves. We canthus order the functional projections in the order AGR0, D0 and P0 from right to left (werename P0, for clarity, Pdat0):(45)

BE [PP Spec Pdat0 [DP Spec D0 [AGRP Spec AGR0 [RelP DPposs/exp [ Prel QP/NP]]]]]We have suggested above that the D0 need not be generated if the possessed entity isindefinite (as it is in the Experiencer Dative construction). The AGR0 might also be optional(in the absence of nominative possessors). Thus we obtain the structure (46):(46)

BE [PP Spec Pdat0 [RelP DPposs/exp [ Prel QP/NP]]]In languages where Case is active, Pdat0, which “licenses” a dative Case in its Spec position in
Kayne’s analysis, is probably a Case element (K); it is the head of a Case Phrase KPdat0.
Regarding Kayne’s proposal that this element adjoins to BE to yield have, we suggested that
this kind of “absorption” takes place only when Case is destabilized in the course of syntacticchange (op. cit.: 66ff):“…when Case is destabilized, two things tend to happen. One is the creation of a newsyntactic category P(reposition). We can conceive of this development as follows:when the head of the Case Phrase (KP) becomes null (‘ø’), the language develops ahigher projection headed by P, which is “paired with” the KP (see Kayne 2003: ex.
(57)). (footnote omitted)”- 15 -

Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008(47)(= A&J 2003, example 14)
PP
P

KP
DPi

K’
K

XP

Ø

ti

A second thing that can happen when Case is destabilized (we said) is the “absorption” ofCase into existing lexical categories. Consider (48), which is a diagrammatic representation of(46), but with the change that Pdat has been replaced by Kdat:
(48)

VP
V
BE

KPdat
DPposs(i)

Kdat’

Kdat

RelP
ti

Rel’
PRel

QP/NP

The Kayne claim is that in English, the dative Case assigning element – his D/P0, which for us
is Kdat0 – adjoins to BE and we get have. We suggested that something else can happen in(48): when NP consists of only an N, it may adjoin to Kdat (“picking up” the intervening head
P on the way) and be realized as an adjective. (Thus what we call Adjective is Noun
incorporated into Case.)
Recent work suggests that whether dative case is absorbed into BE to yield have – thepossessive construction; or N absorbs into dative case – the adjective formation, depends onwhether or not we generate the D-head and its “pair,” a NumP. Evidence from languages withdative Experiencers but genitive Possessors, such as Hindi, suggests that these thematicfunctions should be differentiated; and that Possessors differ from Experiencers in requiring a
Number projection. If so, the Kaynean structure (43) is essentially correct for Possessor NPs:
with the modification that the generation of a D/P0 as a complement to BE would also
generate a NumP complement. This structure would incorporate the dative into BE to yieldhave.

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The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)

But the structure for Experiencer datives would be (48), as suggested in our earlier work.
It would not project D0, and the indefinite noun would incorporate into the prepositional case.
(49)

VP
V
BE

KPdat/ Pdat
DPi exp
Kdat

RelP
ti

Rel’
N

The hypothesis that the incorporation of a noun into a prepositional dative case yields anadjective explains a fact noted in Kayne (1993:112), namely that have cannot take anadjectival complement:(50)

John was / *had unhappy.

If have is derived from be, it is prima facie surprising that it cannot take an adjective as its
complement. But now we see that it is the same case feature that incorporates into BE to yield
have, or into a noun to yield an adjective.
We can shore up this account with facts such as the following. There are in Kannada a
few adjectives where the dative morphology on a nominal base is transparent. (Kannada
appears to have vestigial adjectives, just as English has a vestigial experiencer dative
construction.) These adjectives occur (as predicted) with nominatives, whereas thecorresponding nominals occur with datives.
(51) idu
udda -kke / yetra -kke id-e
this-nom. long -dat. height-dat be-3nsg‘This is long / high.’ (lit. to a height; cf. English ‘at a height’)(52) ida -kke udda / yetra saaladu
this -dat. length height not enough‘This lacks length / height.’
We can also point to predicative adjectives in English like asleep deriving from the P-NP “atsleep,” a relation still manifest in doublets such as grow high/ grow to a (great) height or behigh/ be at a height.

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Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

But an interesting way to view this claim (that an adjective is a noun that incorporates acase or preposition) is to consider the converse proposition: that an “oblique” noun is in some
way an adjective.2 Consider now the following “predicate nominals” in English:(53)

We elected John president.

(54)

We consider John a genius.

(55)

John acts as / is a villain in this movie.

It is often possible to optionally mark these predicate nominals in English with as. In Kannada,
such nouns are obligatorily marked with -aagi, historically the perfect participle of the verb
aagu ‘happen, become.’(56)

naavu John-anna president-aagi kuurisidevu.
we John-acc. president-aagi made-sit‘We elected John (as) president.’(57)

naavu John-anna genius-aagi tiLididdiivi.
we John-acc. genius-aagi have thought‘We consider John a genius.’(58)

John ii sinima -dalli villan -aagi akT maaDiddaane
John this cinema -loc. villain-aagi act has done
‘John has acted as a villain in this movie.’

The interesting fact is that -aagi is a productive derivational suffix in Kannada that derives
adjectives or adverbs from nouns. Thus consider the following data:(59)

avaru sukha-vaagi iddaru.
they happiness-aagi be 3m/fpl‘They were happy.’ (lit. they were happiness having-happened)(60)

id- anna bhadra-vaagi iDu.
bhadra-vaagi hoogu.
this acc. safety -aagi keep imp. safety -aagi go imp.
‘Keep this safe. Go safely.’2

The observation that the Amritavalli and Jayaseelan (2003) claim amounts to saying that an
adjective is an oblique noun is due to Vineet Chaturvedi (p.c.).
- 18 -

The Origins of Functional and Lexical Categories (R. Amritavalli)(61)

idu nija.
this truth

idu nija -vaagi
this truth -aagi

chenn -aagi ide.
heNN -aagi huTTi …
goodness-aagi be 3nsg female-aagi born

‘This (is the) truth. This is truly good. Born a woman, …’
In the light of these data, it is interesting that the English preposition as, which optionallyappears with predicate nouns, appears also in the English comparative construction (as) Adj
as Noun. I.e. the same P takes as its complement A and N, highlighting the predicative statusof the N.

References
Amritavalli, R. (2004) “Some Developments in the Functional Architecture of the Kannada Clause,”in V. Dayal and A. Mahajan, eds., Clause Structure in South Asian Languages, Kluwer
Academic Publisher, Boston, 13-38.
Amritavalli, R., and K. A. Jayaseelan (2005) “Finiteness and Negation in Dravidian,” in G. Cinqueand R. S. Kayne, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax, Oxford University
Press, New York, 178-219.
Amritavalli, R., and K. A. Jayaseelan (2003) “The Genesis of Syntactic Categories and Parametric
Variation,” in H. Yoon, ed., Generative Grammar in a Broader Perspective: Proceedings ofthe 4th GLOW in Asia 2003, Hankook, Seoul, 19-41.
Baker. M. C. (2003) Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns and Adjectives, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Bhat, D. N. S. (1994) The Adjectival Category: Criteria for Differentiation and Identification, John
Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Chomsky, N. (1970) “Remarks on Nominalization,” in R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum, eds., Readings in
English Transformational Grammar, Ginn, Waltham, Mass, 184-221.
Cinque, G. (1999) Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-linguistic Perspective, Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
Emonds, J. E. (1985) A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories, Foris, Dordrecht.
Freeze, R. (1992) “Existentials and Other Locatives,” Language 68, 553-595.
Giorgi, A. and F. Pianesi (1997) Tense and Aspect: From Semantics to Morphosyntax. Oxford Studies
in Comparative Syntax, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Grimshaw, J. (1991) “Extended Projection,” ms., Brandeis University.
Hale, K. and S. J. Keyser (2002) Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. MIT Press,
Cambridge, Mass.
Kayne, R. (1993) “Toward a Modular Theory of Auxiliary Selection,” Studia Linguistica 47, 3-31.
[Included in R. Kayne Parameters and Universals, Oxford University Press, New York,107-130. Page references to this volume.]Laka, I. M. (1990) Negation in Syntax: On the Nature of Functional Categories and Projections, Ph.D.
dissertation, MIT.

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Nanzan Linguistics 4: Research Results and Activities 2006 ~ 2008

Marantz, A. (1997) “No Escape from Syntax: Don’t Try Morphological Analysis in the Privacy ofYour Own Lexicon,” in A. Dimitriadis, L. Siegel et al., eds., University of Pennsylvania
Working Papers in Linguistics Vol. 4.2, 201-225.
Platzack, C. (1995) “The Loss of Verb Second in English and French,” in A. Battye and I. Roberts,
eds., Clause Structure and Language Change, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 200-225.
Roberts, I. and R. Anna (2003) Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization,
Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 100, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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