JSLS 2023 Handbook

The 24th Annual International Conference ofthe Japanese Society for Language Sciencesゝㄒ⛉Ꮫ఍➨ 24 ᅇᖺḟᅜ㝿኱఍

July 8-9, 2023

Chuo University୰ኸ኱Ꮫከᦶ࢟ࣕࣥࣃࢫ

The Japanese Society for Language Sciences

JSLS 2023 Conference Handbook

On the scope and position of Tagalog clitic adverbs
Henrison HSIEH (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), Michael Yoshitaka ERLEWINE(National University of Singapore)
Abstract
We investigate the scope-taking behavior of second-position clitic adverbs in Tagalog. As second-position clitics, these adverbs
always linearly appear following the first element in a clause, and therefore do not immediately reflect their interpreted (LF)
structural positions. We show that many of these clitic adverbs exhibit rigid scope relative to other scope-taking elements,
reflecting fixed LF positions for each adverb.

1 Background
Austronesian languages of the Philippines, including Tagalog, are well-known for their inventoryof second-position clitics, which include both pronouns and adverbial particles. These clitics linearly
appear following the first element of the clitic placement domain that they appear in, which we canassume to be the clause for current purposes (see Kaufman 2010 for further discussion). Example (1)illustrates with the clitics ka, na, rin, and daw. In (1), these clitics appear in a cluster following theclause-initial verb umiinom ‘drink (IPFV)’. However, when the clause is negated as in (1), all of theclitics must instead follow the preverbal negator hindi.
(1) a. Umi~inomAV.IPFV~drinkkana

rin

daw

2SG.NOM already also EVIDng

alak.

GENalcohol‘You’re also drinking alcohol now (somebody said).’b. Hindi kaNEGnarin

daw umi~inomng

alak.

2SG.NOM already also EVID AV.IPFV~drink GEN alcohol‘You’re also no longer drinking alcohol (somebody said).’
The linear order of clitics within the cluster is partially fixed, based on phonological size andsyntactic factors: monosyllabic pronouns come first, followed by monosyllabic adverbs, adverbs withtwo (or more) syllables, and finally bisyllabic pronouns; see e.g. Schachter 1973, Schachter & Otanes
1972 (pp. 411–414). Work such as Richards (2003), Kaufman (2010), and Anderson (2009) haveproposed that the linear position of these clitics (both their second-position placement as well as theirrelative ordering within the cluster) are determined through post-syntactic processes. We therefore
cannot rely on the linear positions of clitics adverbs as transparent evidence for their structural positions.
2 The scope of clitic adverbs with respect to negation
Against this background, here we propose to investigate the semantic scope of clitic adverbs asevidence for their logical structural positions. We begin by considering their scope-taking with respect
to negation. In this paper, we discuss the clitics listed in (2), which also provides informal translations.
(2) a. na ‘already, now, as of now’b. pa ‘still’c. din/rin ‘also’d. lang109

‘only, just’([r] appearing intervocalically)Of these adverbs, na, pa, and din obligatorily scope over negation. Na and pa are aspectual particles
with semantics that appear to closely match those of similar, well-studied aspectual particles in otherlanguages. Na corresponds to German schon, Mandarin sentence-final le, and certain uses of English
already (see e.g. Löbner 1999, Krifka 2000, Soh & Gao 2008). We hypothesize that na introduces apresupposition that its prejacent proposition was false at a prior time, thereby indicating a change ofstate: na(p) presupposes recently ¬p and asserts now p. Now consider the interpretation of na withnegation as in (3) below, a simplified form of (1b). (3) expresses that the addressee used to drink but
now does not, reflecting na taking scope over negation. If na took scope under negation, we predict (3)to deny that the addressee has started drinking, but such an interpretation is unavailable.
(3) Hindi kaNEGnaumi~inomng

alak.

2SG.NOM already AV.IPFV~drink GEN alcohol‘You’re no longer drinking alcohol.’(already > not, *not > already)In contrast, we hypothesize that pa introduces a presupposition that its prejacent was true before,
similar to German noch and English still (see e.g. Löbner 1999 and Krifka 2000). When pa co-occurs
with negation as in (4), we convey that the described negative proposition (here, Gina being unhappy)
was true before and persists now; in other words, that pa takes scope over negation. The example cannot
be used to convey that a previous state no longer holds, as expected from negation taking scope over pa.
(4) a. Masaya pa
happysiGina.

b. Hindi pa

still NOM GinaNEG‘Gina is still happy.’

masayastill happy‘Gina is still not happy.’

si

Gina.

NOM Gina(still > not, *not > still)

For the additive focus particle din, (5) shows that combining with negation results in a reading where
the subject not buying eggs is asserted to hold in addition to another, previous proposition (= also > not).
That the reverse scope is not possible can be seen in (5), where the intended interpretation is that theadditional proposition of him buying eggs does not hold; compare with (5).
(5) a. Hindi rin
NEGsiyab<um>iling

itlog.

also 3SG.NOM <AV>buy[PFV] GEN egg‘He also did not buy [eggs]F.’b. #B<um>ilisi

Juan ng

isda, pero [hindi rin siya bumili ng itlog (5)].

<AV>buy[PFV] NOM Juan GEN fish but…

Intended: ‘Juan bought fish, but he did not also buy [eggs]F.’
c. Hindi b<um>iliNEGsi

Juan ng(*not > also)

isda, at [hindi rin siya bumili ng itlog (5)].

<AV>buy[PFV] NOM Juan GEN fish and…

‘Juan didn’t buy fish, and he also didn’t buy [eggs]F.’(also > not)Lang ‘only’ shows different behavior from the other three adverbs in that it allows for variable scopewith respect to negation, as shown in (6). (6) shows that lang behaves like English only in that itpresupposes its prejacent p while asserting that all relevant focus alternatives to p are false. Combining
lang with negation as in (6) results in a scope ambiguity. With the low scope reading (not > only),drinking coffee (p) is presupposed, and we assert that not all alternatives to p (e.g., drinking water, wine,110etc.) are false. With the high scope reading (only > not), not drinking coffee (¬p) is presupposed, and all
focus alternatives to ¬p are asserted to be false, resulting in the reading that all alternatives to p are true.
(6) a. Umi~inomAV.IPFV~drinklang si[kape]F.

Juan ng

only NOM Juan GEN coffee‘Juan only drinks [coffee]F’ (he doesn’t drink anything else)b. Hindi lang umi~inomNEGsi

Juan ng[kape]F.

only AV.IPFV~drink NOM Juan GEN coffee‘Juan doesn’t only drink [coffee]F.’ (he drinks other things too)(not > only)‘Juan only doesn’t drink [coffee]F.’ (he drinks everything else, though)(only > not)These observations regarding the scope-taking behaviors of different second-position clitic adverbs
highlight a number of facts that will inform our analysis. First, echoing earlier observations regarding
the relative linear position of clitics within a clitic cluster, we confirm that the linear position of clitic
adverbs do not transparently indicate their logical scope, here demonstrated in relation to the positionand scope of negation. Second, the scope-taking behavior of clitic adverbs is not free, and in fact
generally quite restricted. Third, scope-taking possibilities are different between different clitic adverbs,
again in a manner that is not transparent from their surface positions.
3 Proposal
To account for the properties of Tagalog clitic adverbs highlighted above, we hypothesize that clitic
adverbs are each associated with particular fixed positions in the clausal spine, with some lexicalvariation, in the spirit of works such as Cinque (1999). In particular, we propose that the logicalstructural positions for na, pa, din are necessarily above negation, whereas lang may be above or below
1negation. We sketch this analysis in (7), with the two structural positions for clitic adverbs labeled ○2 . At this point, we remain agnostic regarding the exact position of the high clitic adverbs ○1 , soand ○long as it is above negation (though see section 4 for further discussion).
1 ) … [ Neg … [ (lang ○2 ) [ VP …
(7) … (pa / na / din / lang ○From this logical structure, we follow Richards (2003) and Kaufman (2010) in assuming that the clitic
adverbs lower or raise postsyntactically to appear in second position and correctly linearly ordered withrespect to the clitic pronouns, such as ka ‘2SG.NOM’ in (1) and (3). Alternatively, we might posit covert
operators in the clausal spine with placement as in (7), which then must cooccur with the pronounced
second-position clitic particles, with the particles being semantically inert and the null operators
contributing their corresponding semantics; see Branan & Erlewine (to appear) and citations there for ageneral theory of this form for the syntax of focus particles, including motivation from the focus
association behavior of Tagalog lang.
4 Scope of multiple clitic adverbs
Our evidence and proposal above underdetermines the relative scope of clitic adverbs in the high domain
1 in (7)) with respect to one another. We conclude here with an observation that suggests that these(○111scope relations are also lexically restricted as well. Consider the interpretation of examples (8a) and (8b),which convey that an individual speaks English, with the clitic adverbs na ‘already’ and lang ‘only.’((8a) involves a predicate English inflected with imperfective aspect, whereas (8b) involves focus
fronting the English theme of ‘know,’ but their interpretational range is equivalent.) Both examples areungrammatical with the clitic adverbs in lang na order.
(8) a. Nag-i-English
AV.IPFV-English

nalang siya.

b. English na

already only 3SG.NOM

lit. ‘He only Englishes now.’lang angalam niya.

English already only NOM know 3SG.GENlit. ‘It’s only English that he knows now.’

Examples (8a,b) are both felicitous and true in the context in (9a), which supports their interpretation
with na ‘already’ taking scope over lang ‘only’: it’s true now that he speaks only English, but it wasfalse before. In contrast, if lang ‘only’ took scope over na ‘already’ while associating with the focused‘English,’ we predict (8a,b) to be able to convey that he now speaks English but did not speak English
before, and did not speak other languages before as well. Examples (8a,b) are judged as false in thecontext in (9b), which should support the truth of such an only > already interpretation.
(9) a. Context supporting na ‘already’ > lang ‘only’ construal:This person used to speak several languages, but was in an accident and suffered a brain
injury. Because of this, he’s forgotten all those languages except for English.

(8a,b) trueb. Context supporting lang ‘only’ > na ‘already’ construal:This young child is growing up in a multilingual environment. After some time, he is able
to speak English, but not yet able to speak any other language.

(8a,b) false

We conclude that na necessarily scopes over lang when in the same clitic cluster. In the framework
1 is necessarily higher than theof our proposal above, this suggests that the logical position for na in ○1 . We explore additional evidence of this form in the talk and in our future work.
position for lang in ○References
Anderson, S. R. (2009). Second-position clitics in Tagalog. In Hanson, K. and Inkelas, S., editors, The Nature of the Word:
Studies in Honor of Paul Kiparsky, pages 549–566. MIT Press.
Branan, K. and Erlewine, M. Y. (to appear). Anti-pied-piping. Language.
Cinque, G. (1999). Adverbs and functional heads. Oxford University Press.
Kaufman, D. (2010). The morphosyntax of Tagalog clitics: A typologically driven approach. PhD thesis, Cornell University.
Krifka, M. (2000). Alternatives for aspectual particles: Semantics of still and already. In Proceedings of BLS 26, pp. 401–412.
Löbner, S. (1989). German schon - erst - noch: An integrated analysis. Linguistics and Philosophy, 12(2):167–212.
Richards, N. (2003). Why there is an EPP. Gengo Kenkyu, 123, 221-256.
Schachter, P. (1973). Constraints on clitic order in Tagalog. In Andrew Gonzalez, editor, Parangal kay Cecilio Lopez: Essays
in honor of Cecilio Lopez on his seventy-fifth birthday, pages 214–231. Linguistic Society of the Philippines.
Schachter, P. and Otanes, F. (1972). Tagalog Reference Grammar. University of California Press.
Soh, H. L. and Gao, M. (2008). Mandarin sentential le, perfect and English already. In Dölling, J., Heyde-Zybatow, T., andSchäfer, M., editors, Event structures in linguistic form and interpretation, pages 447–473. Walter de Gruyter.

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