Clause-final particles and focus in Eastern Cham

Kenneth Baclawski Jr

doi:10.3765/plsa.v2i0.4066

Abstract

We demonstrate that clause-final particles in Eastern Cham (Austronesian: Vietnam) are right-branching syntactic heads that trigger predicate raising. This provides support for Simpson (2001)’s analysis of a clause-final modal found in Vietnamese, Thai, and other Southeast Asian languages, and militates against a mixed-headed analysis (pace Kayne 1994). Evidence for predicate raising comes from a novel diagnostic: the interaction between focus-driven object shift and multiple clause-final particles in one clause. Finally, we propose that clause-final particles are VP-level focus phrases, which divide a sentence into a focus and presupposition (cf. Rizzi 1997) and incidentally contribute modal or aspectual semantics.

Highlights

Eastern Cham (Austronesian: Vietnam), like many Southeast Asian languages, has a set of clause-final particles that typically mark mood or aspect, such as hu ‘ROOT MODAL’
We propose that Eastern Cham clause-final particles must involve a right-branching, predicateraising structure, given evidence from the cooccurrence of multiple particles in one sentence
Object shift is clearly related to focus in Eastern Cham: it is infelicitous for object shift to occur when the subject is focussed (14a), but it is preferred if the object is under focus (15a)

Summary

Introduction

Eastern Cham (Austronesian: Vietnam), like many Southeast Asian languages, has a set of clause-final particles that typically mark mood or aspect, such as hu ‘ROOT MODAL’. In unmarked contexts, these particles follow the verb and its arguments (1a), though they may be followed by discourse-level particles, like the polar question marker hlɛj. The predicator test applies in languages where polar questions can be answered by a single verb or auxiliary. Thompson (1987) describes “predicative fragments”: modals and aspect markers that may answer polar questions (e.g. được ‘root modal’, rồi ‘perfective’) It is attested in Indonesian (Austronesian), a language closely related to Eastern Cham. The modal hu and the progressive tɔʔ are the only felicious answers in (9b,10b), as they outscope v ʔ and the main verb

PROG ITER eat

1SG eat ROOT CLF mango

1SG eat ROOT little CLF

1SG give banana ROOT to only person that EMPH

Conclusion