Argument appositionin Pangasinan
Joey Lim

Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine

joey.lim@nus.edu.sg

mitcho@nus.edu.sg

AFLA 28, May 2021

Introduction
Today, we investigate the phenomenon described in the Benton 1971
grammar of Pangasinan (northern Philippines) as “apposition”:
An argument “may be pronominalized and followed by an appositive phrase marked as topic” (p. 154), “identifying the entity represented by the pronoun” (p. 145)
(1)

[may laki]i [su liham].
In-sulat =toi
pv-write gen.3sg dem man nom letter‘The man wrote the letter.’literally: ≈ ‘He wrote the letter, the man.’2

Introduction

 We argue that “apposition” is best analyzed as involving aclause-medial hanging topic which then gets linearised
postverbally.
• All uncredited data come from original elicitation work withnative speakers of Pangasinan residing in Singapore and thePhilippines.

3Roadmap§1 Basic characteristics§2 Possible analyses§3 Proposal§4 Conclusion4§1 Basic characteristics

5Voice and casePangasinan exhibits a familiar Philippine-type voice system:• The pivot, whose choice is cross-referenced by voice
morphology on the verb, is marked nominative;• Other arguments receive genitive or oblique case.
(2)a. Nan-basa su laki la libro.
read.pfv.av nom boy gen book
‘The boy read a book.’

Actor Voice (AV)b. B<in>asa la laki su libro.
read.pfv.pv gen boy nom book
‘A/The boy read the book.’

Patient Voice (PV)

Postverbal word order is subject to scrambling and thus generally
free.

6

Apposition

In Benton 1971, “apposition” refers to a pronoun with acorresponding “topic” NP, “identifying the entity represented by
the pronoun” (p. 145).
• We call the latter phrase the “associate.”• We follow Benton’s usage in referring to “apposition” here. This
construction should not be confused with so-called nominal
appositives (the linguist Benton) or appositive relative clauses.

7

Apposition and demonstratives

Associates do not bear a regular case marker such as su or la, but are
instead headed by a demonstrative article:

Unmarked
Proximate
DistalSingular

Plural(a)may(a)yay(a)tay(i)ra-may(i)ra-yay(i)ra-tay

We will now look at a few examples of argument apposition.

8

Non-pivot agent apposition
Apposition is quite productive and frequent for Non-Actor Voiceclause agents, which are in genitive case:(3) Baseline PV clause with genitive agent:In-sulat [la laki] [su liham].
pv-write gen man nom letter‘A/The man wrote the letter.’(4) Non-pivot agent apposition:
In-sulat *(=toi )[may/yay/tay laki]i [su liham].
pv-write gen.3sg dem(prox/dist) man nom letter‘The/this/that man wrote the letter.’9

Non-pivot agent apposition(5) Baseline PV clause with plural genitive agent:
S<in>aliw [la la∼laki] [su aso].
buy.pvgen pl-boy nom dog‘The boys bought the dog.’(6) Plural non-pivot agent apposition:
S<in>aliw =dai[ra-may la∼laki]i [su aso].
buy.pvgen.3pl pl-dem pl-boy nom dog‘The boys bought the dog.’

10

Pivot apposition

Apposition can also target pivots, which are in nominative case:(7) Baseline AV clause with nominative agent:Nan-puniti [la laki] [su bi∼bie].
av-hitgen man nom pl-woman‘The women hit a man.’(8) Pivot apposition:
Nan-puniti (=rai )[la laki] [ira-may bie]i .
av-hitnom.3pl gen man pl-dem woman‘The women hit a man.’11

Pivot apposition
We note two quirks of pivot apposition:
1. The third plural pronoun ra is optional for plural pivot
apposition as in (8), whereas the genitive pronoun for non-pivot
agent apposition was obligatory (4).
2. Pangasinan has no nominative third singular clitic pronoun(Benton, 1971; Rubino, 2001), and therefore no pronoun appears
in cases of third singular pivot apposition:(9)

Nan-puniti [la laki] [may bie].
av-hitgen man dem woman‘The woman hit a man.’ We argue below that, even when null, nominative 3pl and 3sg
clitic pronouns are present in apposition.
12

Possessor apposition
Apposition can also target possessors, which are genitive:(10) Baseline genitive possessor:
Nap-plag [su aso [la laki]].
fell.av
nom dog gen boy‘The boy’s dog fell.’(11) Possessor apposition:
Nap-plag [su aso *(=toi )] [may laki]i .
fell.av
nom dog gen.3sg dem boy‘The boy’s dog fell.’13

Apposition without clitic pronouns
So far, all examples of apposition have involved clitic pronouns.
 Clitic pronoun forms are only available for pivot and non-pivot
agent arguments (Erlewine and Levin, 2021) and possessors.
(12) Non-pivot theme apposition with full pronoun:
Akaneneneng su laki ed satani ,[may pusa]i .
see.av
nom boy dat obl.dem.dist dem cat‘The boy saw that cat.’(13) Inanimate pivot apposition with full pronoun:
Anengneng nen John tani ,[may aso]i .
see.pvgen John dem.dist dem dog‘John saw that dog.’
14

The status of the associate In each of these examples, the associate feels like a post-verbal
argument.
• Associates can be clause-medial, without obvious
comma/parenthetical intonation.
• A pause is natural in cases of apposition using a fulldemonstrative pronoun, rather than a clitic pronoun.
• In these cases, the pause might be in place to avoid having
two adjacent demonstratives.

15

The status of the associate

Associates do not have to remain in-situ; they can undergo
A’-movement (here, topicalization) to appear pre-verbally.
(14)[Amay laki]i , b<in>asa =toi
su librodem boy read.pfv.pv gen.3sg nom libro
literally ‘The boy, he read the book.’.

Examples that are structurally similar to (14) are attested in Tagalog,
Bikol, and Kapampangan and described as hanging topic left
dislocation in Erlewine and Lim 2019, but only with the associate inpreverbal topic position.
16

§2 Possible analyses

17Possible analyses

There are two ways “apposition” might be described formally:
1. A clitic doubling account, where the associate is in its normal
argument position, doubled by a higher (clitic) pronoun.
2. A hanging topic account, where the associate isbase-generated higher than the pronoun. Akin to hanging topic
left dislocation in some languages, except not to the left.

18

Clitic doubling
Under a clitic doubling account, the “associate” is in its normal
argument position (“true clitic doubling” in Harizanov’s terms).
• The associate DP is agreed with, or (partially) copied, resulting
in the corresponding (clitic) pronoun.
• See e.g. Anagnostopoulou 2006, Harizanov 2014, andcitations there for more specific analytic options.
• In addition, this process must have the effect of blocking theassociate DP from occurring with its expected case marker (i.e.
nominative or genitive), forcing it to be headed by ademonstrative.
19

Hanging topics
Under a hanging topic account, the “associate” gets base generated
in a high position, c-commanding and binding the pronoun.
• This analysis predicts that the pronoun, not the associate, isin the normal argument position.
• A separately generated associate predicts no case connectivity:(15)

Greek HTLD

(Anagnostopoulou, 1997: 154)

[I
Mariai ], tini ematha kala tosa
hronia.
the.nom Mary
Cl.acc knew.1sg good so many years‘Maryi , I have figured heri out after so many years.’
The hanging topic must be exempt from regular Case-licensing
requirements, and is limited to a default case or topic-marking.
20

Evidence from reflexive binding We argue in favour of the hanging topic account, using
evidence from reflexive binding in the language.
• Reflexive binding in Pangasinan behaves similarly to that inrelated languages such as Tagalog (Rackowski, 2002) andCebuano (Bell, 1976), following two conditions:
1. The antecedent must c-command the reflexive in theirbase positions.
2. The antecedent must precede the reflexive.

21

Evidence from reflexive binding
Condition 1: The antecedent must c-command the reflexive in theirbase positions.
(16)a. Agent binding into theme:
Anengneng [la laki]i [su sarili=to]i .
see.pvgen boy nom refl=gen.3sg‘The boy saw himself.’b. *Theme binding into agent:*Anengneng [su laki]i [la sarili=to]i
see.pv
nom boy gen refl=gen.3sg‘The boy saw himself.’
22

Evidence from reflexive binding

Condition 2: The antecedent must precede the reflexive.
(17)

a. Antecedent < reflexive:
Anengneng [la laki]i [su sarili=to]i .
see.pvgen boy nom refl=gen.3sg‘The boy saw himself.’b. *Reflexive < antecedent:*Anengneng [su sarili=to]i[la laki]i .
see.pv
nom refl=gen.3sg gen boy‘The boy saw himself.’

23

Reflexive binding with non-pivot apposition
When apposition applies to the non-pivot agent of a PV clause, theword order restriction does not hold between the antecedent‘boy’ (agent associate) and the reflexive (theme pivot):(18)

a. Antecedent associate < reflexive:
Anengneng =to[may laki]i [su sarili=to]i .
see.pv=gen.3sg dem boy nom refl=gen.3sg‘The boy saw himself.’
b. Reflexive < antecedent associate:
Anengneng =to[su sarili=to]i[may laki]i .
see.pv=gen.3sg nom refl=gen.3sg dem boy‘The boy saw himself.’
24

Reflexive binding with non-pivot apposition

This apparent insensitivity of reflexive binding to scrambling withrespect to the agent associate in (18)…
• is unexplained if the associate itself is the antecedent;• is explained if the clitic pronoun — preceding the reflexive inboth (18a,b) — is the actual nominal involved in binding.
 Scrambling of the associate is irrelevant for the conditions onreflexive binding.

25

Reflexive binding with pivot apposition

The same precedence requirement is observed in AV clauses:(19)a. Antecedent < reflexive:
Akanengneng [su ug-ugaw]i [ed sarili=da]i .
see.av
nom pl-childdat refl=gen.3pl‘The children saw themselves.’
b. *Reflexive < antecedent:*Akanengneng [ed sarili=da]i [su ug-ugaw]i .
see.avdat refl=gen.3pl nom pl-child‘The children saw themselves.’

26

Reflexive binding with pivot apposition
Likewise, when apposition applies to the pivot, the word order
restriction disappears:(20)

a. Antecedent associate < reflexive:
Akanengneng =ira[may ug-ugaw]i [ed sarili=da]i .
see.av=nom.3pl dem pl-childdat refl=gen.3pl‘The children saw themselves.’

b. Reflexive < antecedent associate:
Akanengneng =ira
[ed sarili=da]i [may ug-ugaw]i .
see.av=nom.3pl dat refl=gen.3pl dem pl-child‘The children saw themselves.’

 This similarly points to the clitic pronoun being the true
antecedent for the reflexive.
27

Reflexive binding with pivot apposition
Recall: The nom.3pl pronoun is optional with pivot apposition.
 Interestingly, even for pivot apposition without a clitic
pronoun, reflexive binding is insensitive to scrambling.
(21)

a. Antecedent associate < reflexive:
Akanengneng =∅∅ [may ug-ugaw]i [ed sarili=da]i .
see.avdem pl-childdat refl=gen.3pl‘The children saw themselves.’
b. Reflexive < antecedent associate:
Akanengneng =∅∅ [ed sarili=da]i [may ug-ugaw]i .
see.avdat refl=gen.3pl dem pl-child‘The children saw themselves.’
28

Reflexive binding with pivot apposition

The relaxed word order constraint can be explained if…
• Pivot apposition with and without an overt pronoun are
underlyingly structurally equivalent; and• The nominative 3pl clitic pronoun simply has a null variant.
We adopt these assumptions here.

29

§3 Proposal

30

Background

For our proposal, we follow and build on the widely adopted
phase-based accounts to Philippine-type voice systems; seee.g. Aldridge 2004; Rackowski and Richards 2005; Erlewine, Levin,and Van Urk 2017; Erlewine and Lim 2019; Erlewine and Levin 2021.
• The pivot is the highest DP in the vP phase.
• The pivot receives nominative case; non-pivots generally
receive genitive (see e.g. Erlewine, Levin, and Van Urk, 2020).
(See e.g. Sabbagh 2016, Collins 2019 on oblique case.)

31

Background• Following Fowlie 2013 and Erlewine, Levin, and Van Urk 2020,
we assume that everything within vP gets linearised freely, as
long as the verbal complex is leftmost. (See also Branan 2021 foranother approach.)• Clitic pronouns get linearised by their own second position
requirement (Kaufman, 2010; Erlewine and Levin, 2021).

32

Apposition

 We propose that “apposition” in Pangasinan resembles
hanging topic dislocation in other languages.
More specifically, apposition is a “low integrated dislocation”:• “Integrated” because the associate is adjoined within the clause,rather than somehow later interpolated (like a parenthetical);• “Low” because the point of adjunction must be at the vP phaseedge, rather than a higher-level CP projection, as in dislocationin other languages.

33

Proposal

Consider a typical PV clause with non-pivot agent apposition (=(4)):(22)

In-sulat *(=toi )[may laki]i [su liham].
pv-write gen.3sg dem man nom letter‘The man wrote the letter.’(22) can be derived in the following three steps:

34

Proposal
Step 1. Building the vP phase
In a PV clause, the theme pivot (pronoun) moves to the outerspecifier of vP:vP
DPth/piv
DPagnom=letter

v PV

VP

gen.pro.3sg
write t35

Proposal
Step 2. (Late) adjoin and coindex
The “associate” is adjoined (as low as possible; see Lim, block 5) into
the vP phase edge and coindexed with the pronoun in its scope:vP

DPth/piv
nom=letterDPDPagdem manigen.pro.3sgi

v PV

VP
write

t

The adjoined associate is exempt from regular Case-licensing andcase-marking, and thus must appear in a case-invariant form.
36

Proposal
Step 3. Linearise entire vP
The entire vP then gets linearised freely, with the verb leftmost.
vP

DPth/piv
nom=letterDPdem maniDPaggen.pro.3sgi

VP

v PV

write

⇒ “write.pv =gen.3sgi [dem mani ] [nom letter]” or⇒ “write.pv =gen.3sgi [nom letter] [dem mani ]” ort37

Movement evidence for low integration
Although we claim that “associates” are (akin to) hanging topics thatsemantically just bind a pronoun in its scope, the associate must be
introduced in the local vP edge.
 Evidence comes from Ā-movement of associates. Althoughassociates can be moved (e.g. via topicalisation), the path
between the associate and its pronoun is island-sensitive:(23)* [Amay laki]i , binmatek =ak[adjunct dahil
dem boy run.av nom.1sg
because].
pinuniti =toisu asohit.pv gen.3sg nom dog
literally: ‘The boyi , I ran [because hei hit the dog].’• Associates are therefore integrated low, at the local vP, andthen may optionally undergo Ā-movement higher. (See Iatridou
38
1995 for a similar facts in Greek clitic left dislocation.)§5 Conclusion

39

Conclusion

Today we described the phenomenon of argument “apposition” inPangasinan (Benton, 1971), where a pronoun is accompanied by acorresponding case-invariant “associate” DP.
• Associates are linearised and prosodified like any otherpost-verbal argument, without obvious commas orparenthetical intonation.
 We argue that “apposition” reflects a process of hanging topic
dislocation, where the associate (hanging topic) is adjoinedat the local vP phase edge and binds its pronoun.

40

Thank you!

Thank you! Questions?
We thank our speakers Jason Ocampo, Bianca Rodriguez, Michael
Macareg and Erwin Tolentino for sharing their language with us.
Thanks also to NUS syntax/semantics lab members, especially
Kenyon Branan and Henrison Hsieh. We also thank Dan Kaufman
for helpful comments and discussion.

41

References I
Aldridge, Edith Catherine. 2004. Ergativity and word order inAustronesian languages. Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell
University.
Anagnostopoulou, Elena. 1997. Clitic left dislocation and contrastive
left disclocation. In Materials on left dislocation, ed. Elena
Anagnostopoulou, Henk van Riemsdijk, and Frans Zwarts,
151–192. John Benjamins.
Anagnostopoulou, Elena. 2006. Clitic doubling. In Blackwell
Companion to Syntax, ed. Martin Everaert and Henk van
Riemsdijk, 519–581. Blackwell.
Bell, Sarah Johanna. 1976. Cebuano subjects in two frameworks.
Doctoral Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
42

References II
Benton, Richard A. 1971. Pangasinan reference grammar. Universityof Hawaii Press.
Branan, Kenyon. 2021. Domains of ordering. Manuscript, National
University of Singapore.
Collins, James N. 2019. Definiteness determined by syntax: A casestudy in Tagalog. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
37:1367–1420.
Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka, and Theodore Levin. 2021. Philippine
clitic pronouns and the lower phase edge. Linguistic Inquiry
52:408–425.

43References III
Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka, Theodore Levin, and Coppe Van Urk.
2017. Ergativity and Austronesian-type voice systems. In Oxford
Handbook of Ergativity, ed. Jessica Coon, Diane Massam, andLisa deMena Travis, 373–396. Oxford University Press.
Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka, Theodore Levin, and Coppe Van Urk.
2020. The typology of nominal licensing in austronesian voicesystem languages. In AFLA 27.
Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka, and Cheryl Lim. 2019. Bikol clefts andtopics and the Austronesian extraction restriction. Manuscript,
National University of Singapore.
Fowlie, Meaghan. 2013. Multiple multiple spellout. In Challenges tolinearization, ed. Theresa Biberauer and Ian Roberts, 129–169.
Mouton de Gruyter.
44

References IV
Guilfoyle, Eithne, Henrietta Hung, and Lisa Travis. 1992. Spec of IP
and Spec of VP: Two subjects in Austronesian languages. Natural
Language & Linguistic Theory 10:375–414.
Harizanov, Boris. 2014. Clitic doubling at thesyntax-morphophonology interface: A-movement andmorphological merger in Bulgarian. Natural Language &Linguistic Theory 32:1033–1088.
Iatridou, Sabine. 1995. Clitics and island effects. In Penn working
papers in linguistics, volume 2.
Kaufman, Daniel. 2010. The morphosyntax of Tagalog clitics: A
typologically driven approach. Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell
University.
45References V

Rackowski, Andrea. 2002. The structure of tagalog: Specificity, voice,and the distribution of arguments. Doctoral Dissertation,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rackowski, Andrea, and Norvin Richards. 2005. Phase edge andextraction: A Tagalog case study. Linguistic Inquiry 36:565–599.
Rubino, Carl. 2001. Pangasinan. In Facts about the world’s major
languages, 540–541. New York: H. W. Wilson.
Sabbagh, Joseph. 2016. Specificity and objecthood in Tagalog.
Journal of Linguistics 52:639–688.

46

Appendix: Double apposition

Apposition can simultaneously apply to two core arguments of aclause, leading to a clause with two associates.
When both demonstrative-marked arguments have the same formalfeatures, arguments become confuseable.

47

Word order restriction

 In specifically such situations, their word order gets restricted
to an “agent < pivot” order:(24)

P<in>uniti =to[may bie] [may laki].
hit.pvgen.3sg dem girl dem boya.
Ag < th: ‘The girl hit the boy.’b.

* Th < ag: ‘The boy hit the girl.’

Similar rigid “agent < pivot” order for confusable arguments isreported in the Tagalog recent perfective (Guilfoyle et al., 1992: 396).

48

Word order restriction

For two of our speakers, the word order restriction holds even whenworld knowledge might plausibly disambiguate:(25)

Anengneng =to[may bulag lalaki] [may bie].
see.pv=gen.3sg dem blind lnkr man dem woman
a. # Ag < th: ‘The blind man saw the woman.’b. % Th < ag: ‘The woman saw the blind man.’49

Word order restriction

Word order flexibility returns when the two associates become
formally distinguishable:(26)

a. Lu-luto-en =da[ra-may lakin ugaw] [may sira].
impf-cook-pv gen.3pl pl-nom male child nom fish
Ag < th: ‘The boys are cooking the fish.’b. Lu-luto-en =da[may sira] [ira-may lakin ugaw].
impf-cook-pv gen.3pl nom fish pl-nom male childTh < ag: ‘The boys are cooking the fish.’50