THE DRAVIDIAN EXPERIENCER CONSTRUCTION
AND THE ENGLISH SEEM CONSTRUCTION
K. A. Jayaseelan
CIEFL, Hyderabad

1. Introduction
In many languages – e.g. Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi – , the same verb is used in theExperiencer construction and what corresponds in these languages to the English seemconstruction. In Malayalam this verb is toonn- (‘feel’); in Tamil it is toonn- (‘feel’); and in
Hindi it is lag- (‘feel, seem’). Cf.
(1)(Malayalam)a. Mary-k’k’∂-DATweedana toonn-i
pain
feel-PAST‘Mary felt pain.’b. Mary-k’k’∂-DAT[John nallawan aaN∂ enn∂] toonn-i
good man is
COMP feel-PAST‘It seemed to Mary that John was a good man.’(2)(Tamil)a. Mary-k’k’∂-DATweli toonn-it∂
pain feel-PAST.AGR‘Mary felt pain.’b. Mary-k’k’∂-DAT[John nallawan enr∂ ] toonn-it∂
good man COMP feel-PAST.AGR‘It seemed to Mary that John was a good man.’(3)(Hindi)a. Mary-ko
bhuukh lag-tii
hai-DAT hunger seem-IMPERF.AGR be.PRES‘Mary is hungry.’b. Mary-ko-DAT

lag-taahai[kiJohn acchaa hai]seem-IMPERF.AGR be.PRES COMP
good is‘It seems to Mary that John is good.’

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In discussions of the seem-construction in English, the ‘(to) NP’ constituent has in fact beenreferred to as the Experiencer argument.
The point of saying this is that probably we have the same structure in the twoconstructions; or in other words, that they are the same construction. If we decide (then) toapply what we know about the Experiencer construction of Indian languages to the derivationof the seem-construction of English, we get an interesting result: in a sentence like (4), ‘Mary’(the Experiencer) originates within the complement of seem:(4)

John seems to Mary to be nice.

This is a departure from most current analyses which analyze ‘John to be nice’ as acomplement of ‘seem’ but generate ‘to Mary’ outside that complement.1
Let us now see in detail how we obtain the above-mentioned result.
2. An Analysis of the Experiencer Construction
Kayne (1993), echoing an earlier analysis of the Hungarian possessive construction in
Szabolcsi (1983), proposed that the English possessive construction – or the possessive
construction universally – has an underlying representation like (5):(5)… BE [DP Spec D/Pe0 [ DPposs [ AGR0 QP/NP ]]]There is an abstract verb ‘BE’, which takes a single complement. This complement is a DP,
headed by what Kayne (for reasons that we need not go into) claims to be a “prepositional
determiner” D/P; all we need to know about this element is that it assigns dative Case to an
NP in its Spec position. Thus in Hungarian, the possessive DP surfaces with a dative Case:‘To John is a sister’. In Dravidian too, the possessor has dative Case, cf.:
(6)

John-in∂oru kuTTi uND∂-DAT one child is‘John has a child.’ (Lit. ‘To John is a child.’)

However English has lost the dative Case; what happens in English (says Kayne) is that
the Case-assigner (D/P) adjoins to the verb BE and is realized as ‘have’:(7)

D/P + BE→

have 2

1

Chomsky (1995: 305) analyzes ‘to NP’ as an optional second argument of seem; but this again isdifferent from our analysis which claims that seem has only one argument, and that the experiencer NP
originates within that argument.
2

The idea that ‘have’ is an underlying ‘be’ into which a preposition has been incorporated, isoriginally due to Freeze (1992).

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The Dravidian Experiencer Construction and the English Seem Construction (K. A. Jayaseelan)

The possessor now moves to the subject position where it gets nominative Case; so we have asentence like ‘John has a child.’
In Amritavalli & Jayaseelan (2003), we proposed certain modifications to the structure
shown in (5). We claimed that the complement of BE was a Case Phrase (KP), not a DP. In
fact, the claim was that universally, the copula selected only a Case Phrase as its complement.
Also, in the spirit of distributed morphology, we assumed that there was no such operation as
Case “assignment”; a KP was headed by a Case morpheme, and an NP (or DP) got Case bymoving into the Spec of this Case morpheme.3
In (5), the Possessor and the Possessee are shown (respectively) in the Spec andcomplement positions of AGR0. Instead, we suggested that the two arguments were related
simply by an abstract head signifying ‘relation’, which we represented as ‘P’. The structure
we proposed was (8):4(8)

BE[KP Spec Kdat0[PP DPpossessor [ P0 NPpossessee ]]]The order of the Possessor and the Possessee may actually be freely variable, the morereferential phrase being always interpreted as the Possessor. Thus (8) may have a variant (9):(9)

BE

[KP Spec Kdat0[PP NPpossessee [ P0 DPpossessor ]]]At the point of the derivation where Kdat has been merged to PP, we assume that DPpossessor
moves into Spec, KP and gets dative Case:(10) [KP Spec Kdat0[PP NPpossessee [ P0 DPpossessor ]]]The derivation now proceeds with the merger of BE and Infl. The NPpossessee gets thenominative Case associated with T0 (possibly by means of a probe, see fn. 3). BE needs topick up its inflection; in order to enable this, first the complement of BE moves to the left of
BE (11), and then ‘complement + BE’ moves to the left of Infl (12):(11) [XP(12) [IP

X0 [VP BE[KP DPpossessor(i) K0 [PP NPpossessee P0 ti ]] ]]I0 [XP [KP(j) DPpossessor(i) K0 [PP NPpossessee P0 ti ]]X0 [VP BE tj ]]]3

The nominative Case, where there is no overt Case morpheme, may be differently realized – possibly
by means of a probe, without actual movement into the Spec of a KP.
4

The reader must see Amritavalli & Jayaseelan (2003) for a fuller discussion of this structure. It issuggested there that there might an optional DP and AGRP between the KP and the PP shown in (8),in a language like Hungarian.

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The resulting structure (13) has the right word order for SOV languages like Dravidian; cf. a
sentence like (14):(13) [XP(k) [KP(j) DPpossessor(i) K0 [PP NPpossessee P0 ti ]] X0 [VP BE tj ]] I0 tk(14) John-in∂
paNam uND∂-DAT money be.PRES‘John has money.’
In Amritavalli & Jayaseelan (2003) we suggested that the experiencer construction has
the same structure as the possessor construction. Thus (15) would be the structure of anexperiencer sentence like (16):(15) [XP(k) [KP(j) DPexperiencer(i) K0 [PP NPexperience P0 ti ]] X0 [VP BE tj ]] I0 tk(16) John-in∂-DATtalaweedana uND∂
headachebe.PRES‘John has a headache.’
3. Extending the Analysis to the Seem Construction
With this background, let us examine the seem-construction in Dravidian and in English.
The Malayalam verb toonn- (‘feel’) and the English verb seem, we assume, take a single
complement which is a KP – exactly like the copula in the Possessor or Experiencer
construction we illustrated earlier, cf. (9). Let us represent the underlying structure of asentence with seem as (17):(17) seem [KP Kdat0 [PP CP/IPexperience [ P0 DPexperiencer ]]]Note that the Experience theta-role, which was assigned to an NP in (15), is borne here by a
CP or IP. Taking ‘Mary’ to be the Experiencer, and ‘that John is nice’ as the Experience, we
can instantiate (17) as (18):(18) seem[KP Kdat0 [PP that John is nice [ P0 Mary ]]]In the Malayalam case, the Experiencer moves into the Spec of Kdat0 and gets dative Case.
But in English the dative Case has (for historical reasons) become either defunct or very
‘weak’; it can no longer “assign” a Case, i.e. attract an element into its Spec position. The
language has developed an alternative strategy for Case-marking that involves prepositions. If
we go along with the Kayne proposal (1999, 2003) that Prepositions – along with a “paired”
KP – are merged above VP and attract a DP to Spec,KP, then in the present case, ‘to’ ismerged above the VP headed by ‘seem’ and it attracts ‘Mary’ from within the complement of‘seem’ to a Case position below it:−4−

The Dravidian Experiencer Construction and the English Seem Construction (K. A. Jayaseelan)(19) [PP to [KP Maryi K0 [VP seem [KP Kdat0 [PP that John is nice [ P0 ti ]]]]]]
Now, since ‘seem’ must get rid of all material to its right if it is to take inflection, its
complement KP moves to the Spec of a null head X0 above PP (20); after which Infl ismerged and the VP – now containing only ‘seem’ as lexical material – moves into Spec,Infl(21):(20) [XP [KP(j) Kdat0 [PP that John is nice [ P0 ti ]]] X0 [PP to [KP Maryi K0[VP seem tj ]]]]
(21) [IP [VP(k) seem tj ] I0 [XP [KP(j) Kdat0 [PP that John is nice [ P0 ti ]]] X0[PP to [KP Maryi K0 tk ]]]]
With the insertion of pleonastic ‘it’ in the matrix subject position (which must be the Spec ofa higher head, possibly Topic0), we derive the sentence:(22) It seems that John is nice, to Mary.
It will be recalled that the two phrases related by the P0 signifying ‘relation’ – Possessor
and Possessee, or Experiencer and Experience – can be in either order, cf. (8) and (9).
Suppose now we start the derivation with the other order; i.e. suppose we have (23) in theplace of (18):(23) seem[KP Kdat0 [PP Mary [ P0 that John is nice ]]]Suppose (again) we move out – at this stage – the CP argument to the Spec of a null head X0(24), and then merge the Preposition and its paired KP above the resulting structure (25):(24) [XP [CP(i) that John is nice ] X0 [VP seem [KP Kdat0 [PP Mary [ P0 ti ]]]]](25) [PP to [KP Maryj K0 [XP [CP(i) that John is nice ] X0 [VP seem [KP Kdat0[PP tj [ P0 ti ]]]]]]]
If we now merge Infl and move the VP to the Spec of Infl:(26) [IP [VP(k) seem [KP Kdat0 [PP tj [ P0 ti ]]]] I0 [PP to [KP Maryj K0[XP [CP(i) that John is nice ] X0 tk ]]]]
we should derive – after insertion of ‘it’ in the subject position – the alternative order of (22),namely (27):(27) It seems to Mary that John is nice.

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4. Raising and a Minimality Violation: Exploring a Solution
The sentences we derived, (22) and (27), do not involve Raising. But if the Experiencer
argument is instantiated by an infinitival IP, we get Raising:(28) John seems to Mary to be nice.
Let us assume that at a certain stage of the derivation of this sentence we have the structure(29) – which is fully parallel to (26) but for the difference that we have an infinitival IP(instead of CP) as the Experience argument:(29) [IP [VP(k) seem [KP Kdat0 [PP tj [ P0 ti ]]]] I0 [PP to [KP Maryj K0[XP [IP(i) John to be nice ] X0 tk ]]]]The lexical string that we have generated in (29) is ‘seems to Mary John to be nice’. In orderto derive (28), we need to raise ‘John’ to the subject position of the matrix clause. This
movement will have to cross the Experiencer argument ‘Mary’.
As is well-known, this movement is problematic because it appears to violate
Minimality; for there is convincing evidence that the Experiencer argument c-commands all
the material to its right in the complement of ‘seem’ (see Chomsky 1995: 304ff.; also, theKaynian way of generating PPs predicts this c-command relation).
There have been a number of proposals about how to get around this problem. In a recent
proposal, Collins (2003) offers a solution in terms of a notion of “smuggling”. The steps of
his derivation can be summarized as follows:(30) (i) [VP Johni seem [IP ti to be nice ]] (by Raising)(ii) [XP [IP(j) ti to be nice ] [X’ X0 [VP Johni seem tj ]]] (by Extraposition of IP)(iii) [ApplP [to Mary] [Appl’ Appl0 [XP [IP(j) ti to be nice ] [X’ X0 [VP Johni seem tj ]]]]](by Merge of Applicative Phrase)(iv) [vP [VP(k) Johni seem tj ] [v’ v [ApplP [to Mary] [Appl’ Appl0 [XP [IP(j) ti to benice ] [X’ X0 tk ]]]]]] (by Merge of v, and Remnant Movement of VP to Spec,vP)(v) [IP Johni [I’ I0 [vP [VP(k) ti seem tj ] [v’ v [ApplP [to Mary] [Appl’ Appl0[XP [IP(j) ti to be nice ] [X’ X0 tk ]]]]]]]] (by Merge of Infl, and Raising (of‘John’) to Spec,IP)
The interesting step is (iv), the Remnant Movement of VP, in which ‘John’, being inside theVP, is “smuggled” across the Experiencer argument.
Observe that Collins does not generate the Experiencer argument ‘Mary’ inside thecomplement of ‘seem’; it is part of an Applicative Phrase merged later, see (iii). But if theunderlying structure we motivated were to be adopted, the raising of ‘John’ to Spec of ‘seem’(as in (i)) is not straightforward; cf.

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The Dravidian Experiencer Construction and the English Seem Construction (K. A. Jayaseelan)(31) [VPseem [KP K0 [PP Mary [ P0 [IP John to be nice ]]]]]

This movement would encounter the same Minimality problem that we are trying to avoid. If
we adopt the alternative order for the arguments of the PP:(32) [VPseem [KP K0 [PP [IP John to be nice] [ P0 Mary]]]]

the movement in question would still be difficult, because ‘John’ is now the Specifier of aSpecifier. (I.e., it is not on the line of complementation.) Also note that ‘seem’ is a bare verb
and has no EPP feature; therefore it ought not to be able to attract a DP to its Spec position.
Let us (however) adopt Collins’s essential idea, that it is remnant movement that is
responsible for the avoidance of a minimality violation here; and let us try a different
execution. Let us note that remnant movement is always from the bottom of the tree andtargets the top of the tree. Let us explore the possibility that many movements which are
currently taken to be NP movements may actually involve remnant movement. (Thus Collins(op. cit.) suggests the use of remnant movement in the derivation of the passive.) Consider theclause-internal movement of the subject NP from vP to Spec,IP. The subject NP or externalargument (we assume) is merged in the Spec of an abstract head v0, also called Voice0(Pylkkänen 2002). Let us suggest that there is a position above vP or VoiceP which isanalogous to the position occupied by a ‘verb modifier’ (VM) in Hungarian (see Koopman &Szabolcsi 2000, Brody 1990). Possibly this position is universal, and it is obligatorily filled(like in Hungarian). In English (let us say) this position is filled by the movement of VP, as
shown below:5(33) [XP

X0 [VoiceP NPsubject Voice0 [VP v ……..] ]It would then be from the clause-final position that the subject NP (strictly, the remnant‘[VoiceP NPsubject Voice0 tVP ]’ ) raises to Spec,IP (or a position immediately below it).
If this is granted, the structure we have in the place of (29) is (34). ((34) differs from (29)
only in the structure of the embedded IP.)(34) [IP [VP(k) seem [KP Kdat0 [PP tj [ P0 ti ]]]] I0 [PP to [KP Maryj K0[XP [IP(i) to be nice John] X0 tk ]]]]

5

In Hungarian this position is in fact sometimes filled by an infinitival VP (Koopman & Szabolcsi
2000).
The reader may wonder about the adjunction of V0 to v0 (which is commonly assumed). Let us
say that since v0 is not an affix in the real sense, this movement is optional or does not exist.

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Here ‘John’ – or rather, the structure ‘[VoiceP John Voice0 tVP ]’ – is not yet at the right
periphery of the structure. However if the trace of remnant movement, and the head X0 whose
only function is to provide a Spec position for remnant movement, can be deleted, thestructure ‘[IP to be nice John]’ can be treated as the direct complement of K0, and as being on
the line of complementation. Now ‘John’ – or rather the more complex structure aforementioned – can be moved by remnant movement to the subject position (which is above IP)
or to a position below it.6

References
Amritavalli, R. & K. A. Jayaseelan (2003) “The Genesis of Syntactic Categories and Parametric
Variation,” Paper presented at the 4th Asian GLOW, 20-23 August 2003, Seoul National
University, in Hang-Jin Yoon ed., Generative Grammar in a Broader Perspective, The
Korean Generative Grammar Circle & Institute for Cognitive Science, Seoul National
University, Hankook, 19-41.
Brody, M. (1990) “Some Remarks on the Focus Field in Hungarian,” UCL Working Papers in
Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, University College London, 201-225.
Chomsky, N. (1995) “Categories and Transformations,” in N. Chomsky, The Minimalist Program,219-394.
Collins, C. (2003) “Smuggling, Remnant Movement and Raising in English,” Paper presented at theWorkshop on Antisymmetry and Remnant Movement, New York University, October 31 November 1, 2003.
Freeze, R. (1992) “Existentials and Other Locatives,” Language 68, 553-595.
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.]
Kayne, R. (1999) “Prepositional Complementizers as Attractors,” Probus 11, 39-73. [Included in R.
Kayne, Parameters and Universals, Oxford University Press, New York, 282-313.]
Kayne, R. (2003) “Some Remarks on Agreement and on Heavy-NP Shift,” Ms., New York University.
Koopman, H. & A. Szabolcsi (2000) Verbal Complexes, The MIT Press.
Pylkkänen, L. (2002) Introducing Arguments, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Szabolcsi, A. (1983) “The Possessor that Ran Away from Home,” The Linguistic Review 3, 89-102.

6

Remnant movement does not seem to be possible out of tensed clauses. Therefore we will notgenerate an unwanted sentence like:(i) *John seems to Mary is nice.

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