Matrix Predicate Research Articles

THETA-MARKING VIA AGREE

This paper investigates the mechanism of θ-marking. Given the feature approach to θ-marking that states that θ-marking is performed by the general mechanism of feature checking, I will propose that θ-marking takes place via Agree, and provide conceptual and empirical arguments in favor of this view of θ-marking, based on data from control constructions in English and Japanese that indicate that a controller is θ-marked in the embedded [Spec, C] (precisely, [Spec, Fin]) by a matrix predicate.

Inherent case as a licensing condition for A-movement: The case of hyper-raising constructions in Brazilian Portuguese

Assuming with Ferreira (2000, 2004, forthcoming) and Rodrigues (2002, 2004) that referential null subjects in (Colloquial) Brazilian Portuguese (BP) are traces of A-movement, this paper specifically focuses on hyper-raising constructions in BP. I argue that in impersonal constructions the embedded CP and the embedded subject (or an embedded topic) may compete for purposes of agreement with the matrix T. The embedded CP is generally the winner as it is more local. However, if it is assigned inherent Case by the matrix predicate, it becomes inactive and no longer competes with an embedded DP. In these circumstances, an embedded subject or topic can then move to the matrix [Spec,TP], yielding subject or topic hyper-raising constructions, respectively.

Interface vulnerability and knowledge of the subjunctive/indicative distinction with negated epistemic predicates in L2 Spanish

Much recent research in SLA is guided by the hypothesis of L2 interface vulnerability (see Sorace 2005). This study contributes to this general project by examining the acquisition of two classes of subjunctive complement clauses in L2 Spanish: subjunctive complements of volitional predicates (purely syntactic) and subjunctive vs. indicative complements with negated epistemic matrix predicates, where the mood distinction is discourse dependent (thus involving the syntax–discourse interface). We provide an analysis of the volitional subjunctive in English and Spanish, suggesting that English learners of L2 Spanish need to access the functional projection Mood P and an uninterpretable modal feature on the Force head available to them from their formal English register grammar, and simultaneously must unacquire the structure of English for-to clauses. For negated epistemic predicates, our analysis maintains that they need to revalue the modal feature on the Force head from uninterpretable to interpretable, within the L2 grammar.With others (e.g. Borgonovo & Prévost 2003; Borgonovo, Bruhn de Garavito & Prévost 2005) and in line with Sorace’s (2000, 2003, 2005) notion of interface vulnerability, we maintain that the latter case is more difficult for L2 learners, which is borne out in the data we present. However, the data also show that the indicative/subjunctive distinction with negated epistemics can be acquired by advanced stages of acquisition, questioning the notion of obligatory residual optionality for all properties which require the integration of syntactic and discourse information.

Appendix: questionnaire for complement control and control predicates

This questionnaire focuses on control structures that are instantiated by predicates that take a state of affairs (SOA) argument. Noonan (1985) has called these predicates 'complement-taking predicates'; I will use the notion of SOAAtaking predicates (SOAA = state of affairs argument).
 
 Prototypically, complement control is instantiated by certain classes of verbs; however, adjectives (be eager to) and nouns (e.g. nominalizations such as promise) may function as control predicates as well. 'Control' refers to the pattern of argument identification between an argument of the SOAA-taking predicate and an argument of the SOAA-head. In the literature the notion of 'equi deletion' or 'equi-NP deletion' has been used (following Rosenbaum 1967), which refers to structures in which an overt argument of the matrix predicate is identified with a covert argument of the embedded predicate. This questionnaire aims at a cross-linguistic application of the notion of control and thus uses a semantic definition of complement control. It extends the notion of control to other patterns of referential dependency between arguments of a SOAA-taking predicate and of the embedded predicate.

‘… That is the question': complementizer omission in extraposed that-clauses

This article investigates the omission of the that-complementizer in extraposed subject clauses (e.g. It is obvious (that) she did it), which has so far received very little attention in the literature. Using corpus data from the British component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB) various potential conditioning factors are analysed. Of these the following are found to have a major impact on the choice of zero that: informality of the text category, type of matrix predicate, and information value of the complement clause. On the basis of these corpus results the article then proposes a unified explanation for the use of that or zero by positing an underlying abstract feature of ‘distance’; for the that-complementizer, a semantic residue of its original demonstrative use, which gives rise to different pragmatic interpretations, depending on the actual use of that in context.

Extraction from adjuncts and the structure of events

This paper discusses a class of grammatical A ′ -extractions from untensed verbal adjuncts in English, which appear to contradict the generalisation that adjuncts are islands. Two subclasses are presented, one of wh-extraction from secondary predicates modifying accomplishments, and one from secondary predicates modifying certain classes of achievements. In the accomplishment case, the event denoted by the secondary predicate is interpreted as the cause of the matrix event, whereas in the achievement case, it is interpreted as an event immediately preceding the matrix event. In the corresponding declaratives, on the other hand, aspectual restrictions on the matrix predicate, and the interpretation of the relation between the two events, are freer. This provides evidence for a generalisation that extraction is permitted from a secondary predicate only if the event denoted by that predicate is identified with an event position in the lexicosemantic representation of the matrix verb. This condition predicts further restrictions on the telicity of the two events, and the directness of the causal and/or temporal relations holding between the two events.

Reported Discourse: A Meeting Ground for Different Linguistic Domains (review)

Reviewed by: Reported discourse: A meeting ground for different linguistic domains ed. by Tom Güldemann and Manfred von Roncador Timothy Jowan Curnow Reported discourse: A meeting ground for different linguistic domains. Ed. by Tom Güldemann and Manfred von Roncador. (Typological studies in language 52.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. xi, 423. ISBN 1588112276. $156 (Hb). This collection contains fifteen papers and a comprehensive bibliography on reported discourse within a linguistic framework, as well as indices of names and languages. The papers are divided into four groups. Part 1 deals primarily with issues of the classification of reported discourse. While more recent linguistic works on reported speech often accept that the traditional binary distinction between direct and indirect speech is insufficient to capture what languages actually do, these six papers clearly show the range of options for reporting discourse in genetically and typologically diverse languages and why the traditional binary division is inadequate. Winfried Boeder’s ‘Speech and thought representation in the Kartvelian (South Caucasian) languages’ focuses on Old Georgian, Modern Georgian, and Svan, and shows that different features, such as person, tense, and local and temporal expressions, may ‘shift’ in reported discourse. It becomes clear that a division between direct and indirect speech is not sufficient to account for the morphosyntactic possibilities, a theme that continues throughout the volume. Andrea Golato’s paper, ‘Self-quotation in German: Reporting on past decisions’, brings forth another theme, namely that even in a linguistic analysis of reported speech we must look beyond the morphosyntax and examine constructions in their discourse contexts. The remaining papers in Part 1 look at similar issues that arise in a range of other languages: ‘Direct and indirect speech in Cerma narrative’ by Ivan Lowe and Ruth Hurlimann; ‘Direct and indirect discourse in Tamil’ by Sanford B. Steever; ‘The acceptance of “free indirect discourse”: A change in the representation of thought in Japanese’ by Yasushi Suzuki; and ‘Direct, indirect and other discourse in Bengali newspapers’ by Wim van der Wurff. The two papers in Part 2—Gerda Haßler’s ‘Evidentiality and reported speech in Romance languages’ and Tomoko I. Sakita’s ‘Discourse perspectives on tense choice in spoken-English reporting discourse’—attempt to account for the range of ‘shift’ phenomena found in these languages using ideas such as evidentiality and point of view. In Part 3, Christopher Culy focuses on the use of logophoric marking with different matrix predicate types in ‘The logophoric hierarchy and variation in Dogon’, and Yan Huang’s ‘Logophoric marking in East Asian languages’ looks at Chinese, Japanese, and Korean long-distance reflexive use and attempts to account for their use in a neo-Gricean pragmatic framework. The five papers in Part 4 examine quotative constructions in a range of languages, focusing in particular on development and change over time. Many take up issues of grammaticalization of quotatives, complementizers, and the verbs ‘say’ and ‘do’, such as: ‘The grammaticalization of “say” and “do”: An areal phenomenon in East Africa’ by David Cohen, Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle, and Martine Vanhove; ‘When ‘“say” is not say: The functional versatility of the Bantu quotative marker ti with special reference to Shona’ by Tom Güldemann; ‘“Report” [End Page 776] constructions in Kambera (Austronesian)’ by Marian A. F. Klamer; and ‘All the same? The emergence of complementizers in Bislama’ by Miriam Meyerhoff. One general conclusion is that the development of verbs of speech into quotatives is by no means the only path of development, with verbs of speech developing into other grammatical elements, and quotatives and complementizers developing from different sources. Frank Kammerzell and Carten Peust’s ‘Reported speech in Egyptian: Forms, types and history’ follows the (often radical) changes in reported speech in Egyptian over time. While all of the papers in this part have slightly different foci, they each demonstrate the problem of treating reported discourse as direct versus indirect speech. I believe that this book will become a central reference for any descriptive or...

It-extraposition in English

This paper investigates the communicative use ofit-extraposition (e.g.It is surprising that John went to London) in texts, based on a corpus analysis of 1,701 instances in the British component of theInternational Corpus of English. Contrary to the wayit-extraposition is often treated in the literature, it does not represent a uniform functional category whose communicative purpose arises mainly from its status as the stylistically unmarked counterpart of non-extraposition. An analysis of the information status of the extraposed subject shows that it is possible to distinguish two basic types (Given Complement Extraposition and New Complement Extraposition) which differ fundamentally in their communicative potential and distribution in different (spoken and written) text types. For each of the two informational types a number of specific uses in texts are identified taking into account thematic structure (topic-comment) and the semantic nature of the matrix predicate.

Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XIII-XIV (review)

Reviewed by: Perspectives on Arabic linguistics XIII-XIV ed. by Dilworth B. Parkinson, Elabbas Benmamoun Andrew Nevins Perspectives on Arabic linguistics XIII-XIV. Ed. by Dilworth B. Parkinson and Elabbas Benmamoun. (Current issues in linguistic theory 230.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. 250. ISBN 1588112721. $102 (Hb). This collection represents a broad range of linquistic questions posed with respect to Arabic, including phonetic studies and experiments on L2 acquisition, that were presented at the thirteenth and fourteenth meetings of the Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics conference. The first four papers are phonetic and phonological studies. Ghada Khattab reports on ‘VOT production in English and Arabic bilingual and monolingual children’. The phonological categories of voiced and voiceless stops have different phonetic correlates in English and Arabic: While English contrasts short lag and long lag, Arabic contrasts long lead and short lag. Although the VOT range for English voiced stops overlaps with the range for Arabic voiceless stops, Khattab finds that bilingual children mostly acquire separate VOT patterns for each language, with exceptions explained through developmental patterns rather than language interference. Bushra Adnan Zawaydeh, Keiichi Tajima, and Mafuyu Kitahara, in ‘Discovering Arabic rhythm through a speech cycling task’, describe a task in which speakers repeat cycling-phrases in time with a metronome. The study attempts to determine which prosodic units occur isochronously and whether the classic categorization of languages as syllable-timed vs. stress-timed can be upheld. Results reveal that Japanese speakers tend to align the halfway point of the interval with the last syllable of the phrase while English and Arabic speakers align the halfway point with the last stressed syllable. Adamantios Gafos, in ‘An argument for a stem-based view of Arabic morphology: Doubled verbs revisited’, departs from the traditional view that reduced stem forms of biliteral roots (e.g. madd-a) are derived by syncope from extended forms (madad-tu) and suggests the reverse: that phonotactics demand epenthesis to syllabify maddtu. However, the explanation comes at a cost: A morphological stipulation must rule out otherwise licit maddatu. Though Gafos’s argumentation is interesting, some tableaux (e.g. ex. 6) omit plausible candidates, and one constraint (*Split, p. 76) is never defined. Robert Ratcliffe compares Classical and Moroccan Arabic plurals through an extended database classification of semipredictable and semiproductive patterns in ‘The broken plural system of Moroccan Arabic: Diachronic and cognitive perspectives’. He arrives at the conclusion that ‘speakers have no knowledge of rules—but that these systematic patterns facilitate memorization’ (94). The next four papers are on various topics. Frederick Hoyt, in ‘Impersonal agreement as a specificity effect in rural Palestinian Arabic’, notes the optionality of verbal agreement with indefinite subjects of unaccusatives. When verbal agreement occurs, the DP is interpreted as more specific. Hoyt proposes that nonspecific indefinites lack a determiner and hence do not participate in case and agreement relations. Readers should be alerted that some of the crucial glosses in Hoyt’s paper (e.g. ex. 2) are reversed. Fatima Sadiqi studies ‘The syntax of small clauses in Moroccan Arabic’ and finds that in constructions with glosses like ‘I considered [Leyla intelligent]’, the small clause behaves as its own constituent with respect to binding, coordination, and adverbial modification. In Sadiqi’s analysis, the embedded subject receives case from the matrix predicate, explaining the fact that it must precede the embedded predicate. In ‘Borrowing discourse patterns: French rhetoric in Arabic legal texts’, Ahmed Fakhri documents a change in Moroccan court decisions from a more narrative discourse to the syllogistic style of French decisions. In ‘What is a secret language? A case from a Saudi Arabian dialect’, Muhammad Hasan Bakall describes Misf, a Meccan secret language from the 1950s, the corpora of which reveal a pattern of -VVrb- infixation, for example, kul → kuurbul. The last three papers are experimental investigations of L1 and L2 acquisition. Adel Abu Radwan studies how L2 learners of Arabic interpret VNN structures in ‘Sentence processing strategies: An application of the competition model to Arabic’. In interpreting which noun is the agent, will subjects use word order cues...

“Measuring out” complement clause tenses

This article addresses the phenomenon commonly referred to as “the double access reading” (DAR) of complement clause tenses, which concerns a type of restriction on the reading of the complement in relation to a matrix tense. The restrictions in question have been analyzed previously as deriving from “double anchoring” of the complement tense, both by the matrix event and by utterance time. On the basis of evidence from Spanish and Italian, this article claims that only one of these relations is genuine tense anchoring: anchoring by utterance time. The other relation, “event anchoring” is shown to derive from the role of complement constituents in “measuring out” the aspect of the matrix predicate. Spanish and Italian provide evidence that the distribution of the DAR correlates with aspectual properties of the matrix predicate. This generalization is argued to derive from the capacity of complement clauses to express a temporal “Path” along which a Theme progresses, analogous to Paths expressed by other constituents such as PPs and DPs. Tense anchoring is simplified as a consequence.

On distribution of complementizers in contemporary Serbian

The paper investigates the principles governing the distribution of complementizers in contemporary Serbian. Evidence is presented that the distribution of da, sto, kako, gde, da li, and numerous interrogative pronouns and adverbials which may function as complementizers is determined not only by matrix-verb subcategorization properties and semantic co-occurrence restrictions which hold between the predicate and its complement, but by the lexical an syntactic properties of the particular verb class (or subclass) to which matrix predicate belongs as well. According to their ability to govern a particular complementizer, ten major verb subclasses are identified in contemporary Serbian, and their specific properties are signaled.

Concealed pseudo-clefts

This paper argues for a pseudo-cleft analysis of so-called clefts in Malagasy. Evidence is presented that the clefted element is in fact the matrix (copular) predicate and that the pre-suppositional clause is a headless relative in subject position. The proposed pseudo-cleft structure accounts for the focus interpretation of this construction, due to the underlying presence of a definite description in the subject position.

Semantic constraints on case assignment in secondary adjectival predicates in Russian

Adjectival secondary predicates can enter into two Case frames in Russian, the agreeing form and the Instrumental. The paper argues that these Case frames go together with two syntactic positions in the clause which are correlated with two different interpretations, the true depictive and the temporally restricted reading, respectively. The availability of the two readings depends on the houndedness of the secondary predicate. Only bounded predicates can enter into both Case frames and only partially non-bounded predicates can appear in the Instrumental. The paper therefore argues that the pertinent two-way SL/IL-contrast is to he replaced by a three-way distinction in terms of boundedness. The paper outlines the syntax and semantics of the true depictive and the temporally restricted interpretation and discusses how adjectival secondary predicates whose salient properties involve a cotemporary interpretation with the matrix predicate and a control relation of an individual argument, differ from temporal adjuncts as well as from non-finite clauses.

Sluicing phenomena

The paper shows that in various sluicing types, the wh-phrase in the sluicing sentence as well as its relatum in the antecedent clause must be F-marked, and it explains this observation with Schwarzschild's (1999) and Merchant's (1999) focus theory. According to the semantics of the wh-phrase, it will argue that the relatum of the wh-phrase is an indefinite expression that must allow a specific interpretation. Following Heusinger (1997, 2000), specificity will be defined as an anchoring relation between the discourse referent introduced by the indefinite expression and a discourse given item. Because specific indefinite expressions are always novel, contexts like the scope of definite DPs, the scope of thematic matrix predicates, and the scope of downward-monotonic quantifiers which all exhibit non-novel indefinites do not allow sluicing.

Extraposition in English: A Study of the Interaction between the Matrix Predicate and the Type of Extraposed Clause

Extraposition in English: A Study of the Interaction between the Matrix Predicate and the Type of Extraposed Clause

Multiple WH-Phrases and the WH-Scope-Marker Strategy in Hungarian Interrogatives

The paper assesses earlier analyses of the Wh-scope-marker/partial Wh-movement phenomenon and tests an alternative account developed on the basis of Hungarian in Horvath (1995; to appear) in light of novel types of evidence, involving scope-marker constructions with multiple contentive Wh-phrases in their embedded clause.Multiple Wh data in Hungarian are shown to offer an ideal testing ground, due to the variety of syntactic options they display. After reviewing the two major syntactically distinct types of multiple Wh-questions, we explore the adequacy of direct Wh-dependency/Wh-chain accounts and indirect Wh-dependency/CP-as-associate accounts of Wh scope-marking. We discuss three distinct sets of phenomena involving multiple Wh-phrases generated in the embedded CP of the scope-marker construction, which differ from each other in terms of having interrogative ([+WH]) vs. declarative ([-WH]) selecting matrix predicates, and in terms of the syntactic position of the multiple Wh-phrases within their embedded CP. The first two patterns analyzed will confirm Horvath's (1995; to appear) conclusion regarding the inadequacy of any direct dependency account, and the superiority of the indirect dependency approach for this empirical domain. The third pattern of data, involving split multiple Wh-interpretations, will be shown to provide (further) evidence in favor of a syntacticassociation between the scope marker and the embedded CP motivated in Horvath (1995; to appear), as opposed to Dayal's (1994) purely semantics-basedindirect dependency account.

Double-access sentences and reference to states

This article deals with the semantics of “double-access” sentences. They are defined as English sentences which have a past tense morpheme in the matrix clause and a present tense morpheme in a subordinate clause in the immediate scope of the matrix past tense. They receive a very peculiar interpretation, which we will refer to as a “double-access interpretation.” The episode described in the embedded clause makes reference to two times: the time referred to by the matrix predicate and the utterance time of the whole sentence. Previous studies on this construction are largely descriptive and do not attempt to analyze it formally, with one important exception. Abusch (1991) addresses the problems connected with the construction and proposes that double-access interpretations involvede re attitudes about intervals. Her proposal contains an important insight and provides one possible account of the double-access construction. My proposal was independently developed at approximately the same time as Abusch's and offers an alternative explanation for the phenomena. I consider a series of hypotheses and conclude that double-access readings involvede re attitude reports about state individuals. This account is couched in an eventuality-based framework and employs the techniques proposed by Cresswell and von Stechow (1982). In order to yield the desired reading, the tense must first adjoin to the complement S, then to the matrix S, leaving two traces in the process.

Extraposition in English

This paper, which is based on a corpus of contemporary Australian English, investigates the structural and communicative properties of extraposed clause constructions. Such constructions will often be superficially similar to right-dislocated constructions, but are generally distinguishable from these on structural, communicative and prosodie grounds. If there are no grammatical factors impeding extraposition (such as a matrix predicate containing a subordinate clause or an identified complement), then finite and infinitival clauses may be freely extraposed. Present-participials, which are more highly nominalised, extrapose less freely. The matrix predicate, which typically expresses an 'objectified epistemic or moral judgement, exhibits a variety of structural patterns. Dominant among these is the 'Subject~Predicator~Predicative Complement' pattern, with the complement most commonly realised as an adjectival phrase. Three communicative factors which influence extraposition may be identified: 'weight*, information, and theme. The data suggest that there is strong pressure in English to avoid sentences with a clause as subject in initial position and a comparatively light matrix predicate in final position. Non-extraposed sentences with a clausal subject in fact require special rhetorical and/or cohesive motivation, their infrequent occurrence reflecting the preferred 'given - before -new' ordering found in English. Just as important as the end-positioning of material in extraposition is the initialisation of an expression of the speaker's angle, enabling it to serve as the theme.

Une Assignation de Cas Assez Exceptionnelle

The goal of this paper is to give an answer to the following questions concerning the French de-existential construction as illustrated in (1): il y a une place de libre (often described as a 'gallicisme'): i) does the existential predicate govern a small clause (SC) of the form NP-de-AP? ii) which is the assigner of a 0-role to the NP: the AP within the construction or the existential predicate? iii) what Case-assigner licenses that NP? iv) what is the precise categorial status of the item de, and its precise role in the configuration? Our answer to those questions will be that: i) the NP-de AP string in (1) is an SC constituant functionning as an internal argument of the (inaccusative) existential predicate; ii) the AP is the 0-role assigner of the embedded NP; iii) the Case-assigner of that NP is de, which appears to be a (partitiive) quantifier; therefore de, and not the matrix predicate, is the Case licenser of the NP. De is the functional head of the SC, which has to be categorized as a QP. It is shown that the Case assignated by de to the Spec of the SC is Partitive, so that the 'gallicisme' supports a unification of the status of the SC subject and of the internal argument NP in the French existential construction. Other de-AP-constructions are then analysed as sharing basic licensing properties with (1).