ComSyn Lectures

Speaker: Jemes Griffiths (Utrecht University)
Title: The syntax of reformulative appositions 
Date: Thursday 5 November
Venue: Van Wijkplaats 3/006
Time: 15.15-16.30 hrs

Abstract:

Reformulative appositions (RAs) are appositions that provide alternative and often more informative names for the referents (1a) or concepts (1b) that their anchors denote. (In (1), appositions are italicised and anchors are boldfaced.)

(1)         a.       The Big Apple, or New York, is a huge city.

b.       Bren confusticates, i.e. perplexes, Swantje.

I claim that reformulative appositions are coordinated with their anchors in a ‘regular’ manner. In other words, I claim that (1a) fits the coordination schema in (2), which is identical to the schema for an utterance such as Bill and Ben slept.

(2)         [[The Big Apple], or [New York]], is a huge city.

I use a variety of arguments to support this claim. To provide two here: (i) I show that RAs are not opaque to c-command, as is typically assumed (for instance see (3), where ATB-movement is observed), and (ii) I show that an understudied subset of RAs that permit ellipsis license gapping, which is reserved for coordinative environments (see (4), where chevrons denote ellipsis).

(3)         [Which country]₁ do you hate the motorways of t₁, or as the Americans say the highways of t₁, the most?

(4)         He went there last month, Sting <went> to New York, I mean.

I also show that this analysis of RAs is superior to the ‘orphanage’ analysis, according to which RAs are remnants of elliptical clauses that are derived in syntactic isolation to their host clauses (5).

(5)         The Big Apple, [New York <is a huge city>], is a huge city.

Speaker: Mark de Vries (University of Groningen)
Title: The Proleptic accusative as an exceptional Exceptional Case Marking construction
Date: Thursday 29 October
Venue: Van Wijkplaats 3/006
Time: 15.15-16.30 hrs

Abstract
This talk (representing joint work with Marjo van Koppen and Lucas Seuren) is about the so-called proleptic accusative. This construction type is relatively rare, but attested in a number of different languages (e.g., Latin, German, Nahuatl). I will discuss data from Middle Dutch in particular, which enables us to shed new light on the matter. An example is the following:

Maer  die         serjanten       sijn     kenden          den     coninc            van         Israël,

but   the         sergeants         his      knew             the_acc    king              of        Israel

dat        hi        niet     was   harde   fel.

that       he_nom   not      was   very    fierce

lit. ‘But his sergeants knew the king of Israel, that he wasn’t very fierce.’ (Rijmbijbel,      v.12643, translation ours)

What is interesting is that there appear to be too many arguments in the main clause, one of which is thematically related to the subordinate predicate. It can be shown that the proleptic accusative is crucially different from complex cases of raising. Instead, we explore two novel and competing hypotheses about its structural properties. We first suggest that an analysis in terms of clausal coordination and ellipsis straightforwardly solves a number of syntactic complications, but this leads to problems with semantic interpretation in various cases. We then propose that the seemingly additional accusative argument in the matrix can be base-generated as an embedded hanging topic of the complement clause involved. This requires exceptional accusative case marking across a clause boundary by the matrix verb. The necessary combination of various prerequisites explains why the proleptic accusative is only sporadically found across languages. Importantly, however, it is now clear how this complex construction type can be decomposed into more basic syntactic ingredients without additional stipulations.

Speaker: Melissa Farasyn  (University Gent)

Title: Agreement patterns in Middle Low German non-restrictive relative clauses

Date: Thursday 15 October

Venue: Lipsius 235B

Time: 15:15 – 16:30 hrs 

Abstract

In this talk I will focus on agreement patterns in Middle Low German (MLG) non-restrictive relative clauses, particulary in relative clauses with a first or second person antecedent. This implies the following kinds of structures, in which some kind of agreement has to be achieved between antecedent, relative pronoun and VfinRel:

            O here de du my geschapen hefst

            O lord REL you me created have-2SG

‘O lord who has created me’

(Ey(n) Jnnige clage to gode, Münster, 1480)

            dat=tu mijn vader woldest wesen de mijn schepper bist

that=you my father would be REL [ ] my creator are-2SG

‘that thou wouldst be my father, who [thou] art my creator’

(Dat myrren bundeken, Münster, 1480)

The establishment of agreement between these elements can result in different agreement types, which will be called agreement patterns or agreement chains (Kratzer 2009). Starting point of detecting these patterns will be the ones found in High German (HG), since these were already largely described (f.e. Ito & Mester 2000, Kratzer 2009, Trutkowski & Weiß to app.). I will use the constraints for detecting the phenomenon in HG to explain how we can find these – not that common – patterns in a MLG corpus. Based on a focused corpus study, I will give an overview of the syntactic distribution of the agreement patterns and I will focus on the patterns themselves. Using a privative feature system, a preliminary analysis of the agreement chains and the mismatches in MLG will be given. Further evidence for this analysis will be shown by looking at a former pilot study about null pronominal subjects in MLG (Farasyn & Breitbarth to app.), revealing some remarkable similarities to phenomena found in this study as well, as for example a strong influence from the discourse and the frequent occurrence of deficient pronouns (Cardinaletti & Starke 1999) in the Wackernagel position .

Speaker: Seid Tvica (University of Amsterdam)

Title: Rich Agreement Hypothesis beyond Indo-European

Date: Thursday 1 October

Venue: Wijkplaats 3/ room 006

Time: 15:15 – 16:30 hrs 

Abstract

It is well-established in the literature that many Germanic and Romance languages differ in the placement of adverbs, appearing either before or after the finite verb. This typological distinction is standardly accounted for via v-to-I⁰ movement, arguably triggered by the subject agreement features that are assumed to be located at I⁰ (cf. Roberts 1985; Kosmeijer 1986; Rohrbacher 1994; Vikner 1995; Bobaljik and Thráinsson 1998; Koeneman and Zeijlstra 2014, among many others). The observed correlation between the properties of agreement morphology and verb movement gave rise to the so-called “rich agreement hypothesis” (RAH) which, in its strong version, states that in controlled environments the finite verb moves to a vP-external position if and only if the agreement morphology is rich (cf. Koeneman and Zeijlstra 2014).  Building on the work done so far in this talk I present the results of a typological investigation of RAH, showing that RAH holds across many languages, well beyond the Indo-European family. In particular, I will discuss verb movement in three unrelated non-Indo-European languages.

Speaker: Hadas Kotek (McGill University)
Title: Pervasive intervention and the architecture of grammar
Date: Wednesday 23 September
Venue: De Vrieshof 4/010
Time: 13.30-14.45 hrs (NB. Different day and time than the other lectures)

Abstract
I propose a new theory of so-called ‘intervention effects’ in wh-questions which views intervention as a systemic problem that results from an attempt to compute λ-abstraction inside regions where focus alternatives are being used. That λ-abstraction is not well-defined inside regions of focus alternative computation is a known property of simple-typed semantic systems, such as the one in Heim and Kratzer (1998), dating back to the very origins of the focus system in Rooth (1985). However, until now, this problem has been ignored by most major work in semantics, or has prompted researchers to adopt a variable-free semantics or a higher-typed semantic system (e.g. Shan, 2004; Novel and Romero, 2009).

I show instead several novel patterns of intervention effects in English that suggest that intervention effects surface precisely when movement must target a position inside a region where focus alternatives are being computed, and is avoided whenever this configuration can be undone. This sheds light on the architecture of grammar: to explain intervention, we must posit a simple typed system that allows overt and covert movement alongside the projection of focus alternatives, with movement as the default mode of scope-taking in English.

Speaker: Luis Vicente (the University of Potsdam)
Title: ATB extraction without coordination
Venue: Wijkplaats 3/006
Time: 15:15 – 16:00

Abstract
A substantial portion of the literature treats Across-the-Board (ATB) extraction as a process restricted to coordinate structures. However, our best accounts of ATB extraction (Citko 2003, 2005; Bachrach and Katzir 2007) make no special reference to coordination; rather, ATB extraction is simply a way of enabling linearization of trees containing multidominated constituents, regardless of whether extraction takes place from within a coordinate structure. The goal of this talk is to convince you that the lack of reference to
coordination is actually a good feature of these analyses. We will see that sentences like (1) and (2), which have been traditionally treated as instances of parasitic gaps, show a number of properties that point instead towards an analysis in terms of non-coordinate ATB extraction.

(1) This is the book that everyone who reads [__] raves about [__].
(2) Where did this train run to [__] from [__]?

Title: Romanian linguistics afternoon

Date: Thursday May 28^th

Venue: Van Eyckof 3/005

Time: 14:30 – 17:00 hrs

Speakers:

Dana Niculescu (U of Amsterdam) – tba

Alexandru Nicolae (U of Bucharest) – “Modal Verb Configurations in Romanian”

Valentina Cojocaru  (U of Bucharest/Leiden U) – “A socio-pragmatic analysis of oricum  and poliubomu: two discourse markers in spoken Romanian from Moldova “

Roxana  Dincã (U of Bucharest/Leiden U) – “The modal verb of necessity a trebui in Old Romanian”

Speaker: Aliza Glasbergen-Plas (Leiden University)

Title:Het/er gaat eraan vooraf: adjunction of an apparent complement clause

Date: Thursday May 7　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Venue: Huizinga 4

Time: 15:15 – 16:30 hrs

Abstract

In Dutch, when a lexical head takes a CP-complement, sometimes a pronoun needs to be added. This pronoun is het ‘it’ if the head is a verb (1) and er ‘there’ if the head is a preposition (2) (Van Riemsdijk 1978). With most lexical heads there is no added pronoun.

Ik betreur het [ dat… ].

I   regret   it    that…

‘I regret [ that… ].’

Ik vertrouw erop [ dat…. ].

I   trust   there:on that…

‘I trust [ that… ].’

The form er is used much more frequently in this construction than het. With most heads that use either het or er, the pronoun is obligatorily inserted, but with some it can be left out.

In this talk I address the following questions: Why is the pronoun added? Why with some heads and not with others? Why is this strategy for er more frequent than for het? Why is insertion sometimes obligatory and sometimes optional?

I propose that insertion of het/er offers a solution for those lexical heads that are semantically compatible with, but do not C-select for a CP. The head selects the DP het/er, with the CP as an adjunct rather than an extraposed clausal complement. The CP is coindexed with the pronoun for the desired interpretation (cf. Doetjes et al. 2004 for clefts).

I show that the predictions made by this proposal are largely borne out. The lexical heads that take het/er can also take another DP-complement. The difference in frequency of the structures with het and er will be shown to follow from independently motivated properties of verbs and prepositions. Optionality of the pronoun results from a change in the valency of some heads (cf. Vandeweghe & Devos 2003). Finally, extraction facts (Bennis 1986) support the idea that the embedded clause is an adjunct.

Speaker: Milan Rezac & Mélanie Jouitteau (CNRS,IKER)

Title: Anaphoric relationships of phi-deficient pronouns

Date: Thursday April 30^th

Venue: Huizinga 4

Time: 15:15 – 16:30 hrs

Abstract

We investigate the remarkable relationship French impersonal pronoun on has to anaphoric pronouns. On the one hand, like the implicit agent of the passive (1) and unlike definites, indefinite (2) or quantifiers, on mostly cannot antecede anaphoric personal pronouns at all, as in (3)b. Remarkably, there is one exception where impersonal on patterns with other DPs against the implicit agent: on can antecede s-pronouns (possessives son, sa, ses; strong pronoun soi) but only under c-command and locality to on (as in (3)a).

(m, n, possibly m=n: ≈ his/her, not one’s)

(1)   Ici    quand je suis invité_Agent=i dans sa_*i/m       maison,

here when   I  am   invited        in     his/her    house

        …je rencontre ses_*i/n      amis.

I   meet         his/her   friends

(2)  Ici    quand une personne_i nous invite     dans sa_i/m    maison,

here  when     a       person        1p     invites     in  his/her house

        … je rencontre ses_i/n    amis.

I   meet        his/her friends

(3)  a. Ici    quand   on_i  nous  invite  dans   sa_i/m    maison,

here  when   man  1p     invites   in     his/her house

b. … je rencontre ses_*i/n     amis.

I   meet         his/her  friends

(4)  On_j   n’     est  jamais trop  fier     de { ses_i/j/m idées  / soi_i/j/*m}

one   neg   is   never   too   proud  of    his      ideas / himself

        quand  ses_i/*j/n  projets   échouent.

when    his       projects  fail

That seems to have no parallel outside idioms: in English or French there is, to a first approximation, no other DP, definite, indefinite, or quantifier, that is restricted to local anaphora, nothing that would behave in the manner of a hypothetical one* in (4): One_i* is never too proud of {one_i‘s ideas, oneself_i} when one_*i‘s projects fail. The s-pronouns themselves are otherwise anaphoric to 3^rd person DPs, and when they have independent uses they are 3s, not at all comparable to the meaning of on. We present an account of this relationship in terms of the phi-deficiency of impersonal on that restricts it to anteceding phi-deficient pronouns. We cast our analysis in the ‘minimal pronoun’ proposal of Kratzer (2009), where pronouns can be born phi-less, but when phi-less need to establish a syntactic dependency to an antecedent to repair the deficiency for interface reasons, and that dependency is necessarily interpreted as λ-binding.

Speaker: Marjo van Koppen (Universiteit Utrecht) and Jeroen van Craenenbroeck (KU Leuven)
Title: Identifying Parameters
Date: Thursday April 16

Venue: Huizinga 4
Time: 15:15 – 16:30 hrs

Abstract

This talk (i) explores a new tool that offers a unique window into microparameters, namely variation in transition zones between dialects areas, (ii) identifies the microparameters that are at work in the dialect Dutch C-domain, (iii) shows that these microparameters conspire, rendering certain combinations of paramater settings highly infrequent and others very common, and (iv) provides an in-depth analysis of the attested parameter interaction.

The central data are from the C-domain of two major Dutch dialect areas: Brabantic and Flemish, and the transition zone between these dialect areas, the Dender region. We focus on the interaction between complementizer agreement, clitic doubling, short do-replies, agreement and clitics on `yes’ and `no’, and negative clitics.

We show the variation between Flemish and Brabantic and show that the picture becomes more complicated as soon as the transition zone in between these dialects is taken into account. We then analyze the variation within these three dialects by formulating three microparameters. We then extend our analysis to the variation found in the Dutch dialects more in general, showing how these parameters interact.