ComSyn Lectures

Speaker: Bettina Gruber (Universiteit Utrecht)
Title: The Spatiotemporal Dimensions of Person
Time: 13:15-14:30
Venue: Eyckhof 1/003C

Abstract
In this talk, I will take a closer look at the deictic and grammatical category person and its associated linguistic expressions: indexical, i.e. first and second person, pronouns. I argue that person is derivative of spatiotemporal information: Firstly, temporal information is argued to restrict the interpretation of indexical pronouns to a contextually relevant temporal stage. Secondly, spatial information contributes the necessary contextual anchoring. In other words, indexical pronouns are defined by the where and when of their referent. Based on data from Dutch, English, German, Italian, Armenian (Indoeuropean), Turkish (Turkic), and Blackfoot (Algonquian), it will be shown that these spatiotemporal components are also encoded morphosyntactically in the internal structure of indexical pronouns.

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Speaker: Sjef Barbiers (Universiteit Utrecht)
Title: Landing sites and stranding sites
Time: 13:15 – 14:30
Venue:Eyckhof2/004

Abstract
There is a growing body of evidence for Chomsky’s claim (Chomsky 1986 and subsequent work) that vP is an intermediate landing site for long distance (LD) movement, cf. Barbiers (2002) for Dutch, Rackowski and Richards (2005) for Tagalog, Den Dikken (2009) for Hungarian and Koopman (2010) for West Ulster English and Dutch. Traditionally, embedded SpecCP is taken to be an intermediate landing site as well. The first claim of this talk, extending Barbiers (2002), is that these two types of intermediate landing sites behave categorically distinct on a series of stranding tests (P-stranding, Dutch floating quantifier zoal ‘so all’, Dutch floating quantifier allemaal ‘all’, focus particle maar ‘only’, wat voor ‘what for’ split and remnant indefinite DP). Stranding is never possible in embedded SpecCP and always possible in vP, both embedded and matrix. With doubling we find the opposite pattern: doubling is possible in embedded SpecCP but never in vP (cf. Barbiers, Koeneman and Lekakou 2009). I argue that (sub-)extraction from embedded SpecCP of propositional clauses is impossible because there is no selectional relation between the matrix verb and the embedded interrogative clause. (Sub-)extraction from embedded SpecCP can only give rise to a converging derivation if the offending copy in SpecCP is spelled out, yielding doubling (cf. Boef 2013 and van Craenenbroeck and van Koppen 2008). The second claim of this talk is that the picture according to which vP is a landing site of intermediate movement steps is too simple. Using the hierarchy of projections as proposed in Cinque (1999) I show that at least 4 different intermediate landing sites have to be distinguished. Which one is chosen depends on the type of constituent that moves through it, as can be made visible with stranded material.

Speaker: Phoevos Panagiotidis (University of Cyprus)
Title: Lexical categories: roots and domains of interpretation
Time: 15:15 – 16:30
Venue: Eyckhof 3/005

Abstract
In this talk I will make three claims:

a. That roots in isolation, i.e. outside grammatical structure, are pure lexical indices, devoid of any interpretation, semantic or phonological (Borer 2009, Acquaviva & Panagiotidis 2012, Harley 2012). This claim, leading us to Late insertion for roots and to the structural base of all meaning, will be backed by a wealth of cross-linguistic evidence.
b. That what we call nouns and verbs are not necessarily word categories. However, as evidence from Greek, Farsi and Jingulu suggests, they are necessarily syntactic structures built around an n or a v (Marantz 1997, 2000, Panagiotidis 2014).
c. That the domain for the so-called lexical interpretation can hardly be made to coincide with the first phase — despite our best hopes and expectations. In this I have to side with Borer (2009) and Acquaviva & Panagiotidis (2012), contra ideas in Marantz (2012).

The next Comparative Syntax Meeting will take place on Thursday 17 October.

Speaker: Dafina Ratiu (University of Nantes)
Topic: Sharing at the syntax-semantics interface
Time: 13:15 – 15:00
Venue: Huizinga/023

Abstract
I discuss coordinated questions in Romanian, where two selected WHs (a subject & an object) appear coordinated in clause-initial position and I argue for a multidominant analysis I further address the question of the interpretation of multidominant structures. I propose that the shared material is interpreted in both conjuncts simultaneously ultidominance changes what counts as a constituent  I argue that, once we allow two rooted constituents and on the assumption that the interpretation feeds on the syntax then we need a step in the semantic interpretation which interprets a two rooted constituent as such.

Speaker: James Griffiths (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
Title: Comment clauses and Turkish ki
Date: Thursday 10th October
Venue: Eyckhof 1/003C
Time: 13:15-15

Abstract
Both hypotactic (1b) and paratactic accounts (1c) of how comment clauses such as I reckon and their hosts in (1a) are related have been advanced in the previous literature.

(1) a) John will be late, I reckon.
b) [[John will be late]1 [I reckon t1]]
c) [John will be late]i [I reckon Øi]

In the first half of this talk, I review some evidence in favour of adopting (1c) over (1b) for English comment clauses. In particular I introduce the par-Merge approach to parataxis (De Vries 2007), which utilises a novel functional head called Par0. Par0 is the locus for Potts’ (2005) COMMA feature and for parenthetical coordinators such as those in (2).

(2) a) John has – (and) it won’t be the last time – stolen a car.
b) John likes music, (but) especially Jazz.

I also show that, while the par-Merge approach offers conceptual advantages and a locus for coordinators, prime facie its extension to comment clauses is not well-motivated from an empirical perspective.
In the second half of this talk, I examine Turkish ki-clauses like (3), which are typically understood as finite subordinate clauses (Underhill 1976, Erguvanlı 1981, Göksel & Kerslake 2005, a.o.): an unexpected structure in a head-final language that otherwise nominalises non-root clauses.

(3) Hasan san-ıyor [ki Ali Bey Mine-yi taciz et-ti].
Hasan believe-PROG ki Ali Mr. Mine-ACC harassment make-PST
‘Hasan believes that Mr. Ali harassed Mine.’

I argue that the purported matrix clause in (3) equates with an English comment clause, and that ki is not a complementizer (as is usually assumed), but a morphological spell-out of Par0. If this is true, Turkish ki-clauses provide indirect evidence from an unrelated language for the adoption of the par-Merge approach to English comment clauses.

References
Erguvanlı, E. 1981. A Case of Syntactic Change: ki constructions in Turkish. Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Beşeri Bilimler Dergisi Cilt 8:111-140.
Göksel, A. & Kerslake, C. 2005. Turkish: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.
Kornfilt, J. 1997. Turkish. Routledge.
Potts, C. 2005. The Logic of Conventional Implicatures. OUP
Vries, M. de. 2007. Invisible Constituents? Parentheses as B-Merged Adverbial Phrases. In Parentheticals, ed. by Dehé, N. & Kavalova, Y,. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 203-234.

Speaker: Jean Crawford (University of Connecticut)
Title: Verbal passives in child English: Evidence from judgments of purpose phrases
Venue: Huizinga/o25
Time: 15:15-16:30

Abstract
Most maturational accounts for passive acquisition claim that the passives seen in early child speech are not adult-like verbal passives, but rather an adjectival construction with a simpler syntax (Borer and Wexler 1987, Babyonyshev et al. 2001). The Universal Phase Requirement (UPR, Wexler 2004) assumes children use resultative adjectival passive syntax (Embick 2004). The Argument Intervention Hypothesis (AIH, Orfitelli 2012) must assume that children’s good performance on short and long actional passives is due to a syntax that does not have an intervening agent argument. Alternatively, Snyder and Hyams (2008) argue that children’s syntax for verbal passives is intact, but passive movement will violate relativized minimality unless the context adds discourse features to one of the arguments to distinguish the chains (Rizzi 2004).
Verbal and adjectival passives in English can be disambiguated with purpose phrases (PPs). Verbal passives contain a syntactically represented implicit argument (IMP), which can license a PP (Roberts 1987). PPs are allowed with actives and verbal passives, but not with middle/inchoative constructions.

(1) a. John is breaking the candy bar to share with friends
b. The candy bar is being broken IMP PRO to share with friends
c. *The candy bar is breaking to share with friends

PPs are also not acceptable with adjectival passives because they do not have IMPs to control PRO:

(2) *The candy bar is unbroken to share with friends

If young children’s passives are verbal, they should judge passives with PPs like (1b) as acceptable, just like they do (1a). If children’s passives are adjectival and do not contain an intervening IMP, they should judge (1b) to be as unacceptable as (1c). As PP acceptability among the constructions is based on grammaticality judgment (GJ) data from adults, it seems appropriate to evaluate children’s knowledge with a similar judgment task.
Twenty-one 4-6-year-olds participated in a targeted GJ task (Stromswold 1990, McDaniel and Cairns 1996, Hiramatsu 2000). After a training and pretest which focused on judging active and inchoative forms, children provided judgments for 5 verbs (bake, break, grow, light, sink) in 4 different constructions (active progressive, passive progressive, inchoative progressive, inchoative present). Each item was presented with a story emphasizing the object. Passives were the critical items. Paired t-tests showed children judged passives differently from both types of inchoatives (progressive inchoative: t(1,20)=3.25, p=.004, present inchoatives: t(1,20)=5.59, p<.001). A repeated measures ANOVA on all 4 constructions reveals a main effect of verb type (Greenhouse-Geisser F(2.202,43.663)=33.660, p<.001). Post-hoc pairwise comparisons (with Bonferroni correction) showed passives varied significantly from both types of inchoatives. The inchoatives did not vary significantly from one another. Like adult controls, passives also varied significantly from actives.
The results show that children use verbal passive syntax to comprehend passives, providing evidence against the UPR and AIH. The results provide preliminary evidence for Snyder and Hyams’ proposal, though this account faces other challenges (Crawford 2012). Following Grillo (2008), I propose children’s difficulties with passives may stem from constructing the complex event structure required for passives of activity and stative predicates.

Speaker: Ekaterina Chernova  (Universitat de Girona)
Title: On the typology of (multiple) wh-fronting from a Q-based perspective
Venue: Lipsius/235b
Time: 15:15-16:30

Abstract
In this talk, I will try to account on the nature of multiple wh-fronting (MWF) in Slavic languages, where all wh-items overtly move to the edge of a clause. However, although superficially very similar, MWF languages behave differently in numerous ways regarding wh-movement: while Bulgarian shows Superiority effects and forces the intervening material to be placed after the whole set of fronted wh-items, Russian behaves just the other way round. Thus, Russian has been claimed to be in its core a wh-in-situ language where wh-fronting is [focus]-driven, while Bulgarian has been argued to exhibit true [wh]-driven movement (see Stepanov 1998; Bošković 2002). However, I will try to show that there is an alternative way to explain this complex set of data withoutappealing to the weak focus- vs. wh-movement distinction. Following Cable (2010), I argue that what has been analyzed as wh-/focus-movement is in fact a secondary effect of Q-movement, when a Q-particle merged with a wh-item first takes it as its complement projecting a QP; then attraction of Q’s features into CP triggers movement of the whole QP, no wh-feature-percolation being necessary. I will propose some minimal, yet significant, additions to the original Cable’s Q-theory arguing that it cannot capture the MWF phenomenon in its current formulation.

In the second part of the talk, I will try to present a more general picture of Q-movement patterns observed in multiple wh-questions across languages. I will briefly consider Spanish, which apparently contradicts Cable’s generalization on a correlation between Superiority and Intervention effects, since it can violate both, and propose a syntactic account. Finally, a tentative parametrical hierarchy of crosslinguistic variation with respect to Q-movement will be offered.

Title: Complementizer-trace effects: a crosslinguistic perspective
Speakers: E. Boef  (ZAS Berlin) & Irene Franco (LUCL Leiden)
Venue: Lipsius/235b
Time: 15:15-16:30

Abstract
In this talk we present ongoing research on the well-known complementizer-trace (COMP-t) effect in the lower clause of long-distance A-bar dependencies (specifically relative clauses and wh-questions). The COMP-t effect, by which a finite declarative complementizer cannot be directly followed by a trace is illustrated in (1) for standard English.

(1)       a.         I know the man that you said  (*that) t came here.
b.       I know the man that you said (that) Mary will meet t tomorrow.

The COMP-t effect is certainly not a universal phenomenon, and its absence has traditionally been related to the availability of null subjects in a language. However, such a generalization does not hold universally, as can be seen in Icelandic in (2).

(2)      a.         Ég þekki manninn sem þú   sagðir %(að) kom   hingað.
I    know man.the  sem you said that came here
b.         Ég hata manninn sem þú sagðir %(að) María ætlar að hitta t á  morgun.
I  hate man.the sem you said that Maria is.going to meet  tomorrow

We provide a cross-linguistic typology of the COMP-t effect starting from Germanic, and extending to Romance. We show that besides the null subject parameter, other morphosyntactic properties play a role as well, such as the presence of V-to-C movement in embedded extraction contexts and D-morphology on the declarative complementizer.

We propose that the lowest C-head in the left periphery (Fin⁰) encodes a D-feature that requires checking in order to make the subject interpretable: in Germanic this checking requires move or merge to FinP, whereas in (some) Romance languages D can be checked by the subject in IP.

In extraction contexts (where COMP-t effects emerge), there are several ways to check D on FinP: (i) expletive/resumptive pronoun insertion;  (ii) V-to-Fin movement; (iii) D-morphology on the complementizer. If none of these strategies are available in a language, the complementizer needs to be dropped in order for the D-feature to be checked higher up the A-bar chain. Put differently, the complementizer in this case acts as a sort of intervener.

Speaker: Sjef Barbiers (Meertens Instituut and University of Utrecht)
Title: Landing sites and stranding sites
Venue: Lipsius/235B
Time: 15:00 – 16:30

There is a growing body of evidence for Chomsky’s claim (Chomsky 1986 and subsequent work) that vP is an intermediate landing site for long distance (LD) movement, cf. Barbiers (2002) for Dutch, Rackowski and Richards (2005) for Tagalog, Den Dikken (2009) for Hungarian and Koopman (2010) for West Ulster English and Dutch. Traditionally, embedded SpecCP is taken to be an intermediate landing site as well. The first claim of this talk, extending Barbiers (2002), is that these two types of intermediate landing sites behave categorically distinct on a series of stranding tests (P-stranding, Dutch floating quantifier  zoal ‘so all’, Dutch floating quantifier allemaal ‘all’, focus particle maar ‘only’, wat voor ‘what for’ split and remnant indefinite DP). Stranding is never possible in embedded SpecCP and always possible in vP, both embedded and matrix. With doubling we find the opposite pattern: doubling is possible in embedded SpecCP but never in vP (cf. Barbiers, Koeneman and Lekakou 2009). I argue that (sub-)extraction from embedded SpecCP is impossible because CP is dominated by the phase vP. Subextraction from this position can only give rise to a converging derivation if the offending copy in SpecCP is spelled out, yielding doubling (cf. Boef 2013 and van Craenenbroeck and van Koppen 2008). The second claim of this talk is that the picture according to which vP is the landing site for an intermediate movement step is too simple. Using the hierarchy of projections as proposed in Cinque (1999) I show that at least 4 different intermediate landing sites have to be distinguished. Which one is chosen depends on the type of constituent that moves through it, as can be made visible with stranded material.