Proceedings of the 2007 Workshop in Greek Syntax and Semantics at MIT

MIT Working Papers in Linguistics #57

Proceedings of the 2007 Workshop in Greek Syntax and Semantics at MIT

Editor: ed. C. Halpert, J. Hartman and D. Hill, Year:2009

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Agent, Causer and Instrument PPs in Greek: Implications for Verbal Structure, Artemis Alexiadou and Elena Anagnostopoulou: In this paper we investigate the distribution of PPs related to external arguments (agent, causer, instrument, causing event) in Greek. We argue that their distribution supports an analysis, in which agentive/instrument and causer PPs are licensed by distinct functional heads. We argue against a conceivable alternative analysis, which links agentivity and causation to the prepositions themselves. We furthermore identify a particular type of Voice head in Greek anticausative realised by non-active Voice morphology.
Further Explorations of the Landscape of Causation: Comments on Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou, Beth Levin: These comments address two facets of Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (this volume). The first part takes as its starting point their assumption that internally caused change of state verbs are causative and reexamines two putative diagnostics for causativity in light of further empirical evidence. The second part examines the nature and distribution of the Greek preposition me and asks why it can be used to introduce both indirect causers and instruments, even if these semantic notions might not seem to fall into a natural class.
Binding Illusions and Resumption in Greek, Theodora Alexopoulou: The paper focuses on some apparent exceptions to the generalization that quantifiers resist CLLD in Greek. The main body of exceptions involves generic statements. Following Fox and Sauerland (1996) I argue that the Generic Operator, by involving quantification over situations, allows a trivialization of quantifiers like kathe (= each). Thus, in sentences with a generic operator the pronominal resumes the single individual involved in each situation the generic tense quantifies over, rather than the quantified phrase. Pronouns in CLLD are— thus—treated as E(/D)-type pronouns.
On Greek Illusions: A Semantic Account of Alexopoulou’s Generalization, Uli Sauerland: Alexopoulou (this volume) argues that Greek provides new evidence for the concept of binding illusions that was hypothesized by Fox and Sauerland (1996). Of special interest from my perspective is Alexopoulou’s argument that binding illusions arise not only with existential and universal quantifiers, but also with negative and interrogative quantifiers. The purpose of this note is to speculate on how to account for these kinds of binding illusions semantically building on Alexopoulou’s argument.
On Metalinguistic Comparatives and Negation in Greek, Anastasia Giannakidou and Melita Stavrou: In this paper, we identify a paradigm of metalinguistic comparatives in Greek headed by the preposition para. Para clauses are lexically distinct from other comparative clauses in Greek (headed by apo, apoti). Building on earlier intuitions, we propose a semantics of metalinguistic MORE as a contrast between two propositions in terms of how appropriate or preferred they are by some individual. Syntactically, metalinguistic comparison appears to behave like a coordinate structure with ellipsis in the para clause. Our account is extended to metalinguistic negation, lexicalized by oxi in Greek, which, on a par with metalinguistic comparison, is defined as a binary operator, also contrasting two propositions.
Metametacomparatives: Comments on “Metalinguistic Contrast in the Grammar of Greek”, Winfried Lechner: Giannakidou and Stavrou (this volume) base their analysis of metacomparatives on the proposition that the construction is derived by TP ellipsis of the comparative complement. It is argued that although a deletion account appears to be correct, the specific implementation in terms of TP ellipsis delivers inaccurate results. An alternative is presented, which admits a wider variety of conjunction reduction operations. Independent support for the proposal is supplied by the fact that it also derives surface syntactic disparities between metacomparatives and regular comparatives. Finally, it is demonstrated that the semantics of the construction cannot involve embedding under an indexical I believe operator, as in Giannakidou and Stavrou (2007).
Comparative Correlatives in Greek: The Syntax of oso, Konstantia Kapetangianni and Heather Lee Taylor: Comparative correlatives in English and Greek appear to consist of different lexical items. Yet their semantic interpretation appears to be identical. By analyzing comparative correlatives in both languages, we address three questions: (a) What is the structure of comparative correlatives crosslinguistically? (b) What is the semantic interpretation of the morpheme oso that appears in the first clause of Greek comparative correlatives? (c) How does oso function in the syntax? We demonstrate that a unified account for English and Greek accounts for the empirical phenomena and we provide evidence from both languages for the existence of null morphemes in the grammar of comparative correlatives.
Comments on “Comparative Correlatives in Greek: The Syntax of oso”, Rajesh Bhatt: The commentary argues that while den Dikken’s (2005) analysis extends naturally to Greek comparative correlatives, Kapetangianni and Taylor’s (this volume) proposal requires additional motivation both for English and for Greek. Greek is shown to have both equative and comparative correlatives and an argument is made that the surface distinction should be retained in the analysis. Finally a semantics is proposed for comparative correlative structures that attempts to maximize their parallels with ordinary correlatives. It is shown that this assimilation requires a generalization of the standardly assumed semantics for correlatives.
Greek Generic Noun Phrases Involving the Free Choice Item opjosdhipote and the Definite Article, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga: In this paper I study the Greek construction [definite article + F(ree) C(hoice) I(tem) opjosdhipote + Noun] in generic contexts, and on the basis of its distribution and characteristics I make the following claims: The NP as a whole contributes a variable that must be assigned quantificational force as in Heim’s theory of indefinites, opjosdhipote is a domain widener and the definite article involved in this construction acts as a slack regulator in the sense of Lasersohn (1999), operating on the GEN operator.
C-T and the EPP: Deriving Enclisis in Modern Greek, Marios Mavrogiorgos: In this paper I discuss the proclisis-enclisis alternation in Greek and other languages in which the alternation is sensitive to finiteness. I argue that enclisis is subject to two conditions: (a) V-movement across/to the cliticization site is A- /V-related movement, in the sense that it involves EPP checking of an inflection marker on the verb; (b) There is no EPP/person checking by the subject verbal agreement in (the person slot in) T. I show how these two conditions interact in order to yield the empirical correlations between proclisis-enclisis, verb position and the finiteness properties of the host.
Comments on Mavrogiorgos’ “C-T and the EPP: Deriving Enclisis in Modern Greek”, Roumyana Pancheva: Modern Greek has variable clitic placement dependent on clause type. Mavrogiorgos attributes the relative order of clitic and verb to a difference in the height of verb movement, triggered by a difference in the position of a person feature in either the T- or the C-domain. I propose some modifications to his theory that sharpen his insight into the role of person, provide a more straightforward mapping from syntax to morphology and to prosodic structure, and strengthen the cross-linguistic predictions.
Verbal Dvandvas in Modern Greek, Nick Nicholas and Brian D. Joseph: While Greek is rich in compounds, one familiar type from Indo-European, namely dvandva compounds meaning ‘X and Y’, is essentially nonexistent in Ancient Greek. However, such compounds start occurring in post-Classical Greek and are fairly productive by early Modern Greek. The innovative dvandvas involve nouns, a type well attested elsewhere in Indo-European, but also verbs, such as anigo-klino ‘I open and close’, a rarer and possibly unique type within Indo-European. We here place Modern Greek verbal dvandvas in the larger context of verbal combinations (ranging from true complementation to serialization), arguing that these are true compounds, created in the morphological component. We classify them by their morphology and their semantics and offer some remarks on their historical development.
Verbal Co-compounds and Subcompounds in Greek, Paul Kiparsky: The properties of Greek verbal compounds follow from morphological principles and independently motivated constraints on Greek compound formation. Verbal compounds originate in postclassical Greek as the result of the introduction of a new morphological category, the VERBAL STEM. The new verbal compounds have the same semantic and morphological properties as their previously existing nominal counterparts. Verbal stems also underlie the new class of secondary deverbal derivatives, which enter the language hand in hand with verbal compounds.
Deponents and Non-finite Constructions in Greek, Dimitra Papangeli and Nikolaos Lavidas: Deponent verbs are specified as an idiosyncratic group that requires exceptional syntactic structure. These verbs may appear in middle or passive morphological form and take an object in the accusative case, thus behaving as a transitive construction. We concentrate here on the interaction of deponents with issues of Tense, observed across the Greek data of different periods of the language. The availability of deponents in tensed constructions but not in tense-less elements (adjectival participles and compounds in Greek) leads towards the suggestion that deponency is a syntactic notion rather than a lexical property; a generalization with interesting implications for the theory of grammar.
Passive, Deponency, and Tense: Comments on the Paper by Papangeli and Lavidas, David Pesetsky: Papangeli and Lavidas call attention to certain correlations between tense and deponency. In this paper, I suggest a possible approach to both passive voice and deponency that takes this observation as central. The analytic morphosyntax characteristic of many passives and deponent constructions is conjectured to reflect absence of T-features: a consequence of object agreement in the case of passive, and of lexical defectiveness in the case of deponents.
Control in Greek and Its Implications for Empty Categories, Anna Roussou: The present paper reconsiders control in Greek, arguing that the element na, which introduces finite (control) complements, subsumes the EPP of the clause it embeds. Finiteness is relevant to the extent that na forms a chain with the embedded agreement, abstracting over a single argument interpretation. Control arises when the na-clause is further embedded under a certain class of predicates (restructuring). Event unification gives rise to argument composition between the two predicates; thus, the embedded EPP becomes identified with one of the matrix arguments (subject or object control accordingly).
Commentary on Anna Roussou’s Paper “Control in Greek and Its Implications for Empty Categories”, Maria Polinsky: This commentary focuses on the categorial and semantic status of the Greek particle na. Many previous accounts, including Roussou’s (this volume), suggest that na has readily identifiable semantics; this commentary proposes that na lacks coherent semantics and should be analyzed as an underspecified counterpart of the indicative. Underspecification accounts for the frequent use of na as a subjunctive marker, without limiting it to that function. This approach to na is similar to the approach to Romance irrealis, and the current proposal builds on the existing analyses of Romance (Quer 1997, 1998; Portner 1997; Schlenker 2005).
Control into CPs: When Finiteness Does Not Matter, Christina Sevdali: This paper focuses on the alternation between controlled and overt subjects in Ancient Greek infinitives and Modern Greek finite na clauses. We will focus on discourse properties of these clauses and how they interact with the existence and the form of their subjects. In particular we will argue that finiteness of the embedded clause does not seem to matter in issues of control or overt subjects: what seems to be more relevant is whether the C that heads each clause is a strong or a weak phase. We argue that phasehood at the C level depends on discourse properties and this has a crucial effect on the form (including the case) and interpretation of the embedded subject.
Commentary on Sevdali’s Paper, Idan Landau: Sevdali’s analysis assumes that (i) in AG, controlled PRO has no independent case (i.e., it must inherit its case from the controller); (ii) Overt DPs must be licensed by Case (The Case Filter); and (iii) Control in MG does not depend on semantic tense but on contrastiveness of the embedded subject. In fact, (i) is false, as AG features ACC-marked PRO controlled by a DAT/GEN object; (ii) is dubious in light of much recent work on seperation of Case from DP-licensing; and (iii) is non-explanatory, failing to provide an independent criterion for the licensing of [+contrast].
Interpreting Gender on Bound Pronouns, Giorgos Spathas: In languages with grammatical gender like Modern Greek, it is possible for bound pronouns to not agree in gender with the DPs that bind them. This paper explores the consequences of such cases for the interpretation of gender features on bound pronouns. It is argued that an analysis that captures the distribution of sloppy readings in examples with ellipsis and focus-sensitive particles must include i. an agreement mechanism that regulates the presence/absence of gender features at LF, ii. a semantics for focus that ignores the presuppositional content of gender features, and iii. a strict identity condition on ellipsis.
Subject Chains in Greek and PF Processing, Vassilios Spyropoulos and Anthi Revithiadou: In this paper, we challenge the left-dislocation analysis of preverbal subjects in Greek on the basis of interpretative, syntactic and prosodic evidence. We propose that the derivation of subjects in Greek involves a movement operation which targets an EPP Spec,TP position. This movement operation creates a sequence of copies, the pronunciation and interpretation of which hinges on certain PF and LF requirements. Crucially, the linearization of this sequence of copies on the basis of independently existent PF principles derives the surface distribution of Greek subjects and accounts for its possible patterns of variation.
Commentary on Spyropoulos and Revithiadou “Subject Chains in Greek and PF Processing”, Esther Torrego: Spyropoulos and Revithiadou approach the distribution of lexical subjects in Modern Greek (henceforth Greek) from the pronunciation patterns of a single syntactic output: a two-member chain. The leading syntactic assumption is that T requires subjects to internally merge in Greek, a Null Subject Language, which gives rise to a single chain with two copies. PF-constraints such as sentential stress, phonological phrasing, ranking strategies and so forth determine which copy is pronounced. In this commentary I will discuss this view within the larger context of the distribution of overt subjects in NSLs.
Pseudo-Doubling Constructions, Vina Tsakali: This paper is a study of the interaction between clitics and floating quantifiers. The aim of the paper is a crosslinguistic examination of the dependencies that floating quantifiers seem to trigger in clitic-languages. By shifting the perspective to the crosslinguistic variation of these constructions, this paper addresses and attempts to answer two questions: first, to what extent do constructions with clitics and floating quantifiers resemble the clitic doubling constructions; and second, to what extent do these dependencies enlighten us with respect to the role/syntactic properties of floating quantifiers.
On the Grammar of Number and Mass Terms in Greek, George Tsoulas: This paper examines the status of mass terms in Greek, focusing specifically on the fact that they seem to pluralise quite freely, unlike what happens in most languages. I examine the distribution of pluralised mass nouns and suggest an account that is based on the interaction of number qua syntactic head and the lexical specifications of mass nouns, which, following Harbour (2007), I characterise as [+ augmented]. It is also suggested that the [± augmented] feature on mass nouns carries a quantity implicature.
Mass, Non-singularity, and Augmentation, Daniel Harbour: Tsoulas’ (this volume) findings on the grammar of number and mass terms in Greek show that what at first appear to be redundancies in a broader program of research are in fact exploited by natural languages to real morphological and semantic effect. This commentary aims to place Tsoulas’ findings in a broader theoretical context and to explain how these seeming redundancies arise and how Greek, on his account, exploits them.
Indefinite Free Choice Items in Necessity Modal Contexts, Evangelia Vlachou: The majority of recent theories on Free Choice Items (FCIs) focus on the semantics of the context in order to account for their distribution. In this paper, a different path is followed. It is argued that an indefinite FCI is grammatical in a given context if and only if its reading, or at least one of its readings, is compatible with both the semantics and the pragmatics of the context. Evidence is mainly drawn from the behavior of three morphologically different Greek FCIs in necessity modal contexts.
Universal Free Choice Items in Greek and Spanish, Paula Menéndez-Benito: This paper deals with the semantics of universal Free Choice (FC) items like Spanish cualquiera or Greek o-dhipote. These items can be characterized as follows. First, they have a restricted distribution: they are licensed in possibility sentences and ruled out in episodic and (some) necessity sentences. Second, they express ‘freedom of choice’ (e.g., Juan puede coger cualquier carta conveys that Juan can pick whichever card he wants.) Both of these features are accounted for by proposing that universal FC items are associated with an exclusiveness requirement. This proposal is implemented in the Hamblin semantics developed in Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002.
Universal Free Choice Items in Greek and Spanish, Alexandra Ioannidou and Marcel den Dikken: This paper addresses Modern Greek P drop, D drop, and D spread and investigates their interaction. P-drop constructions involve a null P taking a complement whose D domain is subject to restrictions that follow from null P’s inability to check Case and the concomitant need to check N’s Case feature via NP-to-Spec,DP movement. Our copying approach to Modern Greek D spread has the definite article originating under Dx, T’s counterpart in the DP; raising the article to D results in multiple surface spell-outs unless independent considerations prevent lexicalisation of an article in Dx.
PEPPER and PF Movement: Reactions to Yamashita, Kyle Johnson: In a couple of papers, Nevins and Anand have proposed a relationship between the EPP and how the movement-chain that is formed to satisfy the EPP is semantically interpreted. Hideaki Yamashita takes up this proposal and applies it to a variety of cases, including one interesting one in Greek. The relationship is this: if the EPP is the only cause for the movement, then the movement must be semantically vacuous. I present problems for this relationship that arise when some of the details of semantically vacuous movement are considered.