Secondary predication in Irish and the syntax-prosody interface

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, secondary predicates may be distinguished from event-modifiers (e.g. adverbs or converbs) and individual-modifiers (e.g. attributive adjectives, participles, or prepositional phrases) via the presence or absence of prosodic processes and phonetic cues. This paper examines the prosodic behavior of secondary predicates in Modern Irish, which can form bare adjectival depictive and resultative secondary predicates. We show that Mod. Irish bare AP secondary predicates are distinguished from surface distributionally equivalent attributive modifiers through the morphophonological system of initial mutation and cues such as phrase-final lengthening and pauses. These facts support an analysis of secondary predicates as extraposition structures that project to a φ-max/ι-boundary, mapping to complex syntactico-semantic representations. Evidence from Italian consonant gemination (raddoppiamento sintattico) and Georgian boundary tones are likewise discussed under the proposed analysis.