Non-verbal Predication and Head Movement
A. Carnie, 1995
This thesis surveys the interaction between non-verbal predication in matrix clauses and processes of head-movement. Focusing mainly on the syntax of Modern Irish nominal predicates, it is claimed that matrix non-verbal predication can occur without any verbal support. When this happens, non-verbal predicates bear inflectional features directly and behave just like verbs with respect to processes of head-movement. In particular, it is claimed that non-verbal predicates raise through the inflectional complex to the highest inflectional head, just like verbal predicates in matrix VSO clauses.
It is also claimed that complex phrasal predicates are allowed to undergo head-movement, contra many standard assumptions. A new theory of phrase structure is proposed, where phrasal status (i.e. X-bar status) is determined by behavior of the phrase-marker involved, rather than the status determining the behavior. This derived notion of X-bar status is shown to account for a variety of phenomena from a variety of languages (such as construct state nominals in Celtic and Tagalog clitic placement).
The thesis also argues that the distribution of word order types from Irish copular clauses argues against a unified or single be analysis. It is claimed that at least two types of copular construction: a one placed predicative construction, and a two placed equative contstruction are present in the grammar. Structural assymetries between the two arguments in equative constructions are shown to follow from their behavior with respect to theta marking.
Finally, a new analysis of Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) order is presented which accounts for a wide variety of phenomena, including non-verbal predicates, in the syntax of Modern Irish. This analysis makes use of verb raising, a split VP structure, and a new view of clausal architecture.
Dissertation Committee: Kenneth Hale (chair)
Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Languages and Linguistics
Morris Halle
Institute Professor of Linguistics
Alec Marantz
Associate Professor of Linguistics
David Pesetsky
Professor of Linguistics
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. The Problem and Initial Assumptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
1.1 The problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.2 Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3 Some Initial Assumptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3.1 Minimalism and the Minimalist Program. . . . . . . . 22
1.3.2 Phrase structure: a starting point. . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.3.3 Movement as feature checking: a starting point. . . . . . 25
1.3.4 Predication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.4 Now let’s get on with it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Part 1. Head Movement in Irish Syntax
Chapter 2. A short history of VSO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.0 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.1 Flat structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2 Subject lowering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.3 Verb raising analyses I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.3.1 Irish ellipsis as evidence for raising. . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.3.2 Raising to Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.3.2.1 McCloskey (1992b): evidence against raising to Co 61
2.3.2.2 Old Irish: a language with raising to Co. . . . . 66
2.4 Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Chapter 3. Modern Irish VSO order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.0 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.1 Verb Raising Analyses II: Raising to INFL/AGR/T. . . . . . . . 81
3.1.1 VP internal subjects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.1.2 The Great Irish Infinitive dialect debate. . . . . . . . . 85
3.1.2.1 The facts of Irish infinitives. . . . . . . . . . 87
3.1.2.2 Chung and McCloskey/McCloskey and Sells. . . 90
3.1.2.3 Duffield (1990, 1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.1.2.4 Noonan (1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.1.2.5 Bobaljik and Carnie (1992, forthcoming). . . . . 98
3.1.2.6 Guilfoyle (1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.1.2.7 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.2 A Theory of Irish VSO order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.2.1 The issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.2.2 A revised system of functional categories. . . . . . . . 111
3.2.3 Recent Perfectives, and Infinitives. . . . . . . . . . . 116
3.3 Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Part 2. Head-Movement and Non-Verbal Predication in Irish
Chapter 4. The Verb to be in Irish. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.0 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.1 Is is not a verb. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.1.1 Is is a particle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.1.2 Morphological Evidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
4.1.3 Phonological Evidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.1.4 Evidence from language shift. . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.1.5 Evidence from language acquisition. . . . . . . . . . 136
4.1.6 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.2 Where Is and Ta are found. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.2.1 The distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.2.2 Doherty 1992. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
4.2.3 Carnie 1993. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
4.3 Why the apparent stage/individual level split? . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Chapter 5. Accounting for Word Order Alternations. . . . . . . . . . . . 151
5.0 Introduction: The three Is orders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
5.1 Two types of Nominal predicates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
5.2 The Predicative and Equative constructions in Irish. . . . . . . . 157
5.3 Case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.4 The agreement morpheme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.5 Pronominal Subjects of COP: rightwards movement. . . . . . . . 168
5.6 Reciprocal binding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.7 The Highest Subject restriction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
5.8 Conclusion and Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Chapter 6. What’s a phrase like you doing in a head like this?. . . . . . . . 183
6.0 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
6.1 The status of the notions Head and Phrase. . . . . . . . . . . 184
6.1.1 A short history phrase structure. . . . . . . . . . . . 186
6.1.2 The Bare Theory of phrase structure. . . . . . . . . . 188
6.2 Evidence for the Xo status of nominal predicates. . . . . . . . . 191
6.2.1 Evidence from wh-extraction. . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
6.2.2 Evidence from the responsive system. . . . . . . . . . 195
6.2.3 Section Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
6.3 The Mechanics of an XP that behaves like an Xo. . . . . . . . . 198
6.4 What does the morphology do with these complex Xos. . . . . . . 205
6.5 How the theory explains a problematic Irish construction. . . . . . 207
6.6 Extensions of the bare theory approach to Xo and XP. . . . . . . 210
6.6.1 Tagalog Clitic Placement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
6.6.2 Construct State Nominals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
6.7 A few potentially related phenomena. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
6.7.1 Dutch Resultatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
6.7.2 Yiddish Periphrastic Verbs, the Stem construction and the Particle
construction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
6.7.3 Yoruba derived phrasal nominals. . . . . . . . . . . 223
6.7.4 The Modern Persian Ezafe Construction. . . . . . . . . 226
6.8 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Chapter 7. Other theories of be word order alternations. . . . . . . . . . . 233
7.0 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
7.1 “Unified” Theories of copular constructions. . . . . . . . . . . 237
7.1.1 Heggie (1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
7.1.2 Moro (1991, 1993), Heycock (1991, 1992). . . . . . . . 239
7.2 Against a UBA account of Irish. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
7.2.1 Why the Irish word alternations are not canonical/inverse
distinctions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
7.2.2 Evidence in favor of the MBA. . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
7.2.3 Accounting for the English inverse canonical assymmetries. 247
7.3 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Chapter 8. Other theories of be-less copular sentences. . . . . . . . . . . 251
8.0 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
8.1 ECP accounts of be-less sentences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
8.1.1 Heggie (1988, 1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
8.1.2 DeGraff (1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
8.1.3 Section Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
8.2 Doherty (1992, forthcoming) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
8.3 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Chapter 9. Concluding Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Appendix. The morphology of be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271