Little v and Parametric VariationFeb3 2009bis Little v and Parametric Variation Kay E....
Transcript of Little v and Parametric VariationFeb3 2009bis Little v and Parametric Variation Kay E....
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Little v and Parametric Variation
Kay E. González-Vilbazo ([email protected]) Luis López ([email protected]
(University of Illinois at Chicago) _____________________________________________________________________
1. Esplugish and Code-Switching 2. The puzzle 3. Theoretical framework 4. The structure of hacer-periphrasis 5. Little v rules 6. hacer + VO 7 hacer + OV 8 Further predictions: Esplugish causatives 9. Conclusions 10. Literature
Abstract Much current works assumes that little v is a universal functional category directly
involved in the building of predicates. Recent research that explores the possibility of different types of little v implicitly assumes that also these “flavors” of little v are members of the universal lexicon. For instance, a v(init) has the properties of introducing the external argument, assigning accusative Case and triggering displacement of objects and/or ECM subjects in every language.
As a functional category, one would expect little v to be the locus of some parametric variation, as predicted by Hagit Borer’s (1984) original hypothesis. However, no analysis developing this possibility has been forthcoming, as far as we know. This article intends to fill this gap. We argue that little v is involved in three different features of cross-linguistic variation: the order of verb and complements, their prosodic structure and the expression of focus/background articulation.
Our data come from a code-switching variety called Esplugish, part and parcel of the I-language of a community of German/Spanish bilinguals. In Esplugish, as in other code-switching varieties, it is possible to switch between little v (L1) and its complement VP/RootP (L2). Surprisingly, we find that the above-mentioned grammatical properties of the VP/RootP are those of L1 and not those of L2, a fact that we account for by arguing that the source of those properties is the little v.
Key words
Spanish, German, Esplugish, little v, parameters, word order, prosody, information structure, lexical case
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Little v has been taken (correctly in our opinion) to be a universal functional category
and phase head, directly involved in the building of predicates. Further, the properties of little
v have also been regarded as universal, e.g. v (init)1 introduces the external argument, assigns
accusative Case and triggers displacement. Investigation into its properties has led to a sub-
categorization of little v. A type of little v introduces agents, while another one introduces
experiencers (Arad 2003). Moreover, there is also a type of little v that does not introduce
external arguments (Legate 2003). Cuervo (2003) presents what is in our view the most
detailed and well-supported exposition of the types and properties of little v.
As a functional category, one would expect little v to be the locus of some parametric
variation, as predicted by Hagit Borer’s (1984) original hypothesis. However, no analysis
developing this possibility has been forthcoming, as far as we know. This article intends to
fill this gap. We argue that little v is involved in three different features of cross-linguistic
variation within the phase that it heads: the order of verb and complements, their prosodic
structure and the expression of focus/background articulation.
These are our specific claims:
1. Languages are parameterized with respect to the order of verb and complement:
(1) a. v [VP V XP] b. v [VP XP V]
This variation has been attributed to an abstract parameter (Chomsky 1986), to movement
(Kayne 1994) or to a property of the Merge operation itself (Fukui and Saito 1998). Our
claim is the following: the order of V and XP is determined by v. Little v carries a binary
feature that decides whether XP should be linearized to the left or to the right of V (or the
v+V complex).
1 v (init) for initiator is the flavor of little v that introduces external arguments. See Ramchand (2008) for further details.
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2. Languages are parameterized with respect to how the verb and its complement erect
prosodic trees. In some languages, the verb and the object form a prosodic unit (an accentual
phrase, a prosodic phrase or a minor phrase) while some languages build two separate
phrases each with their own nuclear stress. Büring and Gutiérrez-Bravo (2001) have argued
that German belongs in the first category while Spanish exemplifies the second.
(2) a. (φ V XP) German b. (φ V ) (φ XP) Spanish
This variation has been attributed to different rankings of the constraints Wrap and
Align, as well as whether Align affects right or left boundaries (see Truckenbrodt 1999 for
definitions of these constraints). We argue that whether a language forms prosodic structures
as in (2)(a) or (2)(b) is also determined by little v.
3. Assuming an Information Structure that articulates the sentence into a focus and a
background, it has been noticed (Vallduví 1992) that in some languages a background
complement is expressed simply by means of deaccenting (German, English) while in others
backgrounded constituents are dislocated (Spanish), among other possibilities that we are not
be able to discuss here:
(3) XP : given a. v [VP V XP] b. XP … v [VP V t(XP)]
We are not aware of any attempt at providing a formal account of this cross-linguistic
difference. We argue, once again, that a feature in little v decides whether a background
constituent is deaccented or dislocated.
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The role of little v in setting up cross-linguistic parameters is opaque in monolingual
grammars. We cannot imagine how a monolingual grammar could tell us something about the
role of little v in, for example, the order of the lexical verb and its complements.
Code-switching data, on the other hand, reveals what would otherwise remain hidden.
This is because code-switching has two crucial properties that together allow us to inspect the
role of little v in cross-linguistic variation. First, little v can stand alone without incorporating
a lexical verb. Second, the little v and the lexical verb may belong to two different lexica. The
resulting structure is exemplified in (4)(a) and abstractly represented in (4)(b):2
(4) a Hizo nähen das Hemd Did sew the shirt (He/she) did sew the shirt. b.
It turns out that the morphosyntactic properties of V and XP are those expected of
their respective lexica, but the properties of the VP are governed by little v. Take word order
as an example again. If little v comes from the lexicon of an OV language, the order of
constituents of VP will be OV, even if the lexical items themselves come from the lexicon of
a VO language. If little v is extracted from the lexicon of a VO language, the constituents in
2All code-switching examples are Spanish/German unless otherwise noted. Following standard conventions, lexical elements of one language (Spanish) are italicized. Many of the examples in this article involve the Spanish verb hacer. Please note that hacer is an irregular verb with a stem hiz- for preterite tenses and hech- for participle.
vP
v L1 VP
V L2 XP L1/L2
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the VP will show up in the VO order, even if the lexical items themselves come from the
lexicon of a language that would linearize them as OV.
As a consequence of our investigation little v turns out to bear more grammatical
properties than hitherto assumed, and is shown to play a crucial role in language
parameterization within the domain of the phase that it heads. Borer’s (1984) argument that
all linguistic variation is based on features of functional categories receives renewed support.
Additionally Borer’s approach is shown to shed light on areas – such as prosody – that were
not expected to fall within the purview of parameter theory.
This article is organized as follows. Section 1 presents some general considerations
concerning the study of code-switching and section 2 introduces the data base. Section 3
presents our theoretical assumptions. Section 4 uses the framework presented in section 3 to
provide an analysis of the data presented in section 2. With these foundations laid out, we
present our central hypothesis in section 5 and test it against different types of data in sections
6, 7 and 8. Section 9 presents our conclusions.
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1. Esplugish and Code-Switching
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1.1 Code-Switching
When bilingual speakers talk to each other it is very common to hear them switching back
and forth between both languages, apparently without any effort or any unusual pauses at the
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switching sites. The following example was uttered by a Spanish/German bilingual code-
switcher at the German school of Barcelona (González-Vilbazo 2005):
(5) Wir utilisieren spanische Wörter, die dann alemanisiert werden y hacen klingen un poco raro. We use Spanish words that then Germanized are and do sound a bit strange. We use Spanish words, that are then Germanized and sound a bit strange.
Not all bilinguals code-switch but many of them do. And if they do, very often they
are able to code-switch within a sentence. We take code-switching to be an I-language
phenomenon – it is an expression of a type of linguistic competence. Code-switchers are able
to produce consistent grammaticality judgments on sentences such as (5), which reveal an
underlying linguistic system.
Our language consultants are highly competent bilinguals, by which we mean that
their grammaticality judgments in each language do not differ from those of monolingual
native speakers (more on this below in section 1.3).3
1.2 Syntax of code-switching
In this paper we are interested in the properties of little v and its role in grammatical
dependencies. Previous research on code-switching approaches it as a phenomenon that needs
to be explained.4 On the contrary, we take code-switching to be just another expression of the
language faculty – its interest lies in the fact, explained below, that it allows us to extricate
components that remain otherwise opaque in monolingual data.
Our approach to code-switching can be aligned with other generative studies on the
subject, such as Woolford (1983), Di Sciullo et al. (1986), Belazi et al. (1995), Mahootian
3 Of course this is an idealization. There has been ample debate about so called balanced bilingualism, i.e. if there are bilinguals with equal linguistic skills in both languages. This question, however, goes beyond what we need for our purposes. For us it is enough if the bilingual would be considered a native speaker by other speakers of the two languages. 4 "Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics" (Jakobson 1960: 20).
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and Santorini (1996), MacSwan (1999) and González-Vilbazo (forthcoming). As opposed to
some well known work like Joshi (1985) and Myers-Scotton (1993 et seq.), we assume that
there is no third grammar involved in code-switching, i.e. there are no specific rules,
structures, mechanisms or operations built into the language faculty in order to regulate code-
switching.
Within a minimalist framework, one is led to assume that the account of the I-
language of a bilingual speaker should not lie in the structure of the computational system,
which is expected to be universal (see MacSwan 1999 for a clear argumentation). Instead,
what is distinctive of bilingual speakers is that they have functional and lexical items
belonging to two different lexica.
Code-switching is often regarded linearly, as a performance phenomenon. Thus, code-
switching would be a literal back and forth between two languages. This view is best
represented by Poplack’s (1980) otherwise groundbreaking article “Sometimes I’ll start a
sentence in Spanish Y TERMINO EN ESPAÑOL” (sic).
(6) Linear representation: performance approach (‘>’ sequencing operator) L1>L1>L1>L1>L1/ L1>L1>L1>L1/ L2>L2/ L2>L2. Our own view is best represented in (7) where we can see that items from the two
languages contribute to the building of a linguistic structure.
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(7) Structural representation: competence
1.3 Data and methodology
The data we are using here are mainly taken from former students of the German School of
Barcelona. The school’s student population ranges between 1000 and 1400 students. Our
informants belong to a socially homogeneous socio-economic class: middle class with
college degrees. Most of the students are Spanish/German bilinguals, some of which are
trilingual (Catalan). The typical student’s parents are either Spanish/German mixed couples
or both German. There is a small population (about 10%) of students whose parents are both
Spanish. Thus, the students have a high exposure to both languages from an early age. The
consultants whose grammaticality judgments we use spoke German in class and at home and
Spanish in any other context. As a result of this fluid multilingual enviroment, the students of
the school code-switch often when talking to one another. The students are proud of their
CP
Spec C'
C°
L1
TP
Spec
L2
T'
T°
L1
vP
Spec
L2
v'
v°
L1
VP
Spec
DO L1
V'
V°
L2
XP
IO L2
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code-switching and have a positive attitude towards it as a badge of identity. They have even
given it a name, “Esplugish”, because the school is located in Esplugues del Llobregat, a
suburb close to Barcelona.5
Some of the data were gathered at the school in 1996 and 2003 by one of the authors.
Additional data was collected on an ongoing basis over the years by email. All consultants
filled out a social background questionnaire. The two groups interviewed at the school were
recorded while having a conversation in Esplugish, and were interviewed about their code-
switching (attitudes, context of use, etc.). Finally, they filled out questionnaires with
grammaticality judgment tasks. As we are only interested in competent bilinguals, we
statistically filtered out non competent bilinguals. In order to contrast the results with other
code-switching data we collected random samples from the German schools of Madrid,
Bilbao, Málaga, Tenerife, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires.
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2. The puzzle
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2.1 Light verb construction in code-switching
Consider the following sentence:
(8) Juan hizo nähen das Hemd. Juan did sew the shirt a=Juan sewed the shirt. b=Juan had the shirt sewn.
5 One of the authors attended himself this school and speaks Esplugish.
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As shown in the translations the sentence can have a causative reading (b) or a plain
transitive reading (a). We put aside the causative reading momentarily and discuss the
transitive (a) reading. We refer to this reading as the light verb construction.
The light verb construction is composed of a light verb meaning ‘do’ followed by a
VP, with the lexical verb V in the infinitive form. Many code-switching pairs exhibit a
similar light verb construction: Den Dikken & Rao (2003): Telugu - English, Joshi (1985):
Marathi/English, González (2005): Spanish/German, Ritchie & Bhatia (1996): Hindi/English,
Boeschoten & Verhoeven (1985): Turkish/Dutch, Canfield (1980): Navajo/English, Bavin &
Shopen (1985): Warlpiri/English, Annamalai (1978): Tamil/English, Stanlaw (1982):
Japanese/English, etc…
The following are examples of this construction from Telugu/English and
Marathi/English code-switching:
(9) vaadu nanni love cees-EEDu he-NOM me-ACC love do-PST-AGR He loved me. Telugu/English (Den Dikken and Rao 2003: 4)
(10) mula khurcyā paint kartāt. do(+ Tense) boys chairs paint do.TENSE Marathi/English (Joshi 1985: 194 (ex. 4 b))
We are not aware of any code-switching pairs that do not have a light verb structure,
so it might be a universal property of code-switching.6
In the Spanish-German pair, the complement of the light verb is an infinitive, as
indicated above. In this article we take the complement of the light verb to be a VP headed by
a lexical V. Maybe this is too much to assume: quite possibly, the light verb simply selects
6 Note that not all competent bilinguals code-switch and even among the code-switchers not all use the light verb construction. But for all code-switching pairs that we have looked into, there have been at least some speakers that use this construction.
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for a lexical root (Marantz 1997), which then adopts the most neutral morphology that the
language allows. In the case of German, one does not find pure roots, words must always
have some marking for category, thus the infinitive form.
While the lexical verb is barely if at all inflected, the light verb is fully inflected and
can even appear in analytic constructions with auxiliaries:
(11) ha hecho kaufen has done buy-INF she/he has bought.
This light verb construction has some peculiar properties that we will not have a
chance to discuss in this article. Most intriguing among them is that it is asymmetric: the light
verb can only be extracted from one of the involved lexica (see Den Dikken and Rao 2003 for
a proposal on this). In the Spanish/German pair, the light verb is Spanish (regardless of the
community of speakers investigated):
(12) hace kaufen’ *tut comprar buys
Another interesting property of the light verb construction is that it cannot be used in
the passive voice. We have included an analysis of this restriction in the appendix.
Let’s now turn to the causative reading of (8). This reading is most certainly built on
the Spanish causative construction, formed also with the verb hacer and an infinitive. Spanish
hacer + infinitive does not have a plain transitive meaning:
(13) Juan hace comprar casas Juan makes buy houses ‘Juan has houses bought’ *Juan buys houses As we shall see, the semantic difference between (8)(a) and (8)(b) parallels a
structural difference.
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2.2 Intriguing data
As mentioned, traditional accounts of code-switching view it as a literal “switch” from one
language to the other, as a performance phenomenon. This predicts that the different speech
strings will have the properties corresponding to one language or the other. In many instances
of code-switching we do see this:
(14) Juan cree dass Hans die Bücher verkauft hat / * hat verkauft die Bücher Juan believes that Hans the book sold has / * has sold the books ’Juan believes that Hans has sold the books’
The embedded sentence is German and thus follows the OV(T) order. In fact, every
feature of the subordinate clause that we may inspect, including word order, prosody and
information structure, reveals that it is a canonical German clause. The code-switching does
not modify the internal structure of the switched string.
But in the Esplugish light verb construction the VP is composed of German lexical
items, but its linearization, prosody and expression of focus/background follow Spanish
patterns:
-Linearization: We would expect German OV order: die Bücher verkaufen. Instead, we get
VO.
(15) Juan ha hecho verkaufen die Bücher. Juan has done sell the books Juan has sold the books.
Interestingly, note that in the code-switching examples (9) (Telugu/English) and (10)
(Marathi/English) which include a light verb from an OV language and a VP from a VO
language, the resulting order within the VP is OV. Similarly, see the following example from
Japanese/Braz.Portuguese code-switching (Kato 2003):
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(16) Segunda-feira-ni telegrama-o manda shimashita Port/Jap monday - ni telegram-o send did He/she sent the telegram on Monday.
-Prosody in a neutral context: In German the verb and the DO can be phrased within one
single prosodic phrase, while in Spanish they have to form two prosodic phrases. (see Büring
& Gutiérrez-Bravo 2001 for a detailed analysis):7
(17) ( x ) I ( x ) I ( x ) ( x ) ( x ) Φ ( x ) ( x ) Φ JUAN ha venDIdo los LIbros JUAN hat die BÜcher verkauft The loss of accent of the German verb does not depend on the OV order. It can also
show up in matrix sentences:
(18) ( x ) ( x ) Φ JUAN kauft BÜcher
In the Esplugish light verb construction the verb and the DO bear their own accent
and they are the nucleus of their respective prosodic phrases, just like in Spanish.
(19) Juan ha hecho (ΦverKAUfen) (Φdie BÜcher). Juan has done sell the books Juan has sold the books.
(20) #Juan ha hecho (Φverkaufen die BÜcher). Juan has done sell the books Juan has sold the books.
-Focus and Background: when we place hacer + infinitive sentences in different contexts, e.g.
making the subject or the object given or topical, the syntactic-prosodic structures are altered
following patterns typical of Spanish and not German. We exemplify this with the clearest
example: a backgrounded object.
7 Other authors do not assume that the Spanish verb forms its own prosodic phrase (see for instance D’Imperio et al 2005). It may be necessary to posit a level lower than the phonological phrase to account for the difference in accentual pattern between German and Spanish. This accentual phrase is in turn dominated by a regular prosodic phrase in which the verb is phrased together with the object. For our purposes, it suffices with one level beneath the intonational phrase.
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Let’s first see how German and Spanish treat a backgrounded object. In (21), we see
that German has two options. The most common one – at least in matrix clauses – is to
topicalize it, as shown in (21)(a). Topicalization is normally taken to involve movement to
Spec,C, accompanied by T-to-C (following the classic analysis of Den Besten 1977).
Alternatively, the object may simply appear deaccented, with the focus displaced to the main
verb, as shown in (21)(b). If there is an adverb, the object may scramble to the left of the
adverb, as in (21)(c):
(21) [Context: What happened to the books?] a. Die Bücher hat Juan verKAUFT (German) the books has Juan sold Juan sold the books. b. Juan hat die Bücher verKAUFT. Juan has the books sold Juan sold the books. c. Juan hat die Bücher gestern verKAUFT. Juan has the books yesterday sold Juan sold the books yesterday
Example (22)(a) shows that Spanish typically dislocates backgrounded objects. A
dislocated object appears in the left periphery and it is doubled by a clitic. As shown in
(22)(b), it is infelicitous to simply deaccent the backgrounded object – it is not
ungrammatical though, (22)(b) becomes perfect if there is contrastive focus on the verb. If
there is more than one object or an adverb, then short movement of the backgrounded object
over the other constituent becomes possible (Zubizarreta’s 1998 p-movement).
(22) [Context: What happened to the books?] a. Los libros los vendió Juan. (Spanish) the books them sold Juan Juan SOLD the books. b. #Juan VENDIÓ los libros. Juan sold the books
The following sentences are in Esplugish. (23)(a) is a grammatical and felicitous
sentence with the backgrounded object dislocated (note that there is number and gender
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agreement between the dislocated constituent and the clitic). (23)(b) and (23)(c) show that
German-style topicalization and deaccenting are not possible.
(23) [Context: What happened to the watches?] a. Juan die Uhren las hizo verKAUfen. (Esplugish: Spanish pattern Juan the watches, them did sell Spanish intonation + obl. Clitic) The watches, Juan sold them. b. #Juan hizo verKAUfen die Uhren. (*Esplugish: German pattern Juan did sell the watches German intonation) Juan sold the watches c. #Die Uhren hizo Juan verkaufen. (*Esplugish: German pattern the watches did Juan sell no clitic) The watches, Juan sold them.
It is worth insisting that, internally, the constituents of the VP remain purely German.
The verb bears German infinitival ending, so we have verkaufen and not *verkaufear with the
Spanish infinitive suffix. The structure of the DP is also German, so we have die Uhren and
not *die Uhros / Uhras or *los Uhros / las Uhras, with Spanish gender and number
morphology. Even word order, accent patterns and inflection of adjectives within the DP
follow German patterns. For instance, in the following example, the adjective obligatorily
precedes the noun (in Spanish the adjective normally follows the noun), and the determiner
and adjective inflect with German morphology in concord with the gender and number
features of the noun.
(24) Juan hizo verkaufen das schöne Buch / den schönen Tisch /die schöne Lampe. Juan did sell theneut niceneut bookneut/themasc nicemasc tablemasc/thefem nicefem lampfem Thus, the constituents within the VP are solidly German looking. However, when the
VP is selected by the light verb hacer the structure of the VP itself becomes Spanish.
The outcome of code-switching after hacer stands in stark contrast with what obtains
when we code switch after creer (see (14)). As we mentioned, the order of constituents,
neutral prosody and the expression of focus/background in the complement CP follow
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German patterns. Thus, the intriguing question is what makes code-switching after the light
verb hacer so different from code switching after a regular lexical verb.
Before we conclude this section, there is another datum that needs to be introduced.
For some speakers it is possible to accept the Spanish light verb with a German OV
complement:
(25) Juan hizo ... das Hemd nähen. Juan did ... the shirt sew Juan sewed the shirt.
However a stringent condition applies in this construction: there is a pause between
the light verb and the VP. As we will see later on in more detail the hacer + OV structure is
very different in many respects and seems not to be a case of intrasentential code-switching
proper.
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3. The theoretical framework
___________________________________________________________________________
The theoretical starting point of our analysis of the hacer-periphrasis construction is
Chomsky’s theory of phases. In traditional GB/Principles and Parameters theory, as in the
whole of the Western grammatical tradition, the basic unit of syntactic analysis is the
sentence. In this family of theories, a complete sentence needs to be formed before it can be
fed to the performance modules for semantic and phonetic interpretation. However, since the
1990s alternative approaches have gained currency, the most popular of which is, without
doubt, that of the phase (see Chomsky 2000 et seq).
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The notion of phase involves dividing the structure of the sentence in chunks, as
represented in (26).
(26) Phases: each box is a phase
Starting from the bottom up, the verb and its complement form a lexical verb phrase
(VP) which is selected by little v. If Little v is of the initiator type (Ramchand 2008) it
introduces the external argument into the structure (Chomsky 1995, Kratzer 1996). This
chunk forms a phase, the vP phase, with v as the head of the phase. The vP is in turn selected
by T, which is selected by C, forming the CP phase, with C as the head of the phase. In this
article we focus on little v and the vP phase.
Phases have been used in three empirical domains. First, the head of a phase has been
taken to be the locus of grammatical features. An early proposal along these lines is Marantz
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(1997). In this article, Marantz proposes that the lexical verb is nothing but an array of
semantic/conceptual features – in fact, purely a root without a mark for syntactic category.
The root becomes what we call a verb as the result of being selected by little v, which
additionally attracts the root, forming an incorporated structure. Likewise, Chomsky (2005)
and Richards (2006) put forth the idea that all the features that trigger syntactic dependencies
originate in v and C (although a somewhat mysterious mechanism of inheritance ensures that
T and V do the actual job of setting up dependencies).
The data that we are discussing in this article strongly support the hypothesis that little
v indeed regulates grammatical properties of the VP. On the other hand, our data do not
support or contradict the notion that little v selects for a root – the constituent that we see as
complement of little v exhibits morphology that could be considered to be verbal or,
alternatively, could be regarded as category-neutral. In this article we conservatively assume
that the infinitive is a verbal lexical head V.
A second area where the phase notion has stimulated significant research is the
interfaces with interpretive systems. Chomsky’s (2001) analysis of Icelandic object shift
explicitly links the position Spec,v with a certain type of interpretation (which he connects to
information structure in broad terms) and the culmination of a phase with a transfer of the
information contained in the syntactic structure to the interpretive systems. This
“interpretation by phase” hypothesis has been explored in several pieces of work, particularly
in the areas of information structure and PF (see López (2003, 2009), Fox & Pesetsky (2005),
Kratzer & Selkirk (2007) among many others). Since we show that some interface properties
such as prosody and the expression of focus/background are shown to be dependent on
properties of little v, this article provides further evidence that the phase is a unit that
interfaces with interpretive components (a conclusion further reinforced if linearization is
also an interface property, as often argued (Chomsky 1995).
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Finally, the notion of phase has also been argued to play a role in successive cyclic
movement (Chomsky 2001). This latter usage has been subject to criticism and alternatives
have been put forward (Boeckx 2007, Boeckx and Grohmann 2007, Boskovic 2007, López
2002, 2007). In this article we have nothing to add to this debate.
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4. The structure of the hacer-periphrasis
___________________________________________________________________________
As mentioned in section 2.1 the hacer+VP epiphenomenon has two possible interpretations in
Esplugish: either as a light verb or a as a causative verb. We discuss each in separate
subsections.
4.1 Light verb reading
When hacer is a light verb, we take it to be a phonetically overt version of little v (Den
Dikken & Rao 2003, González-Vilbazo 2005). The complement of hacer is a VP. The lexical
V stays in situ.
(27) [vP Juan hacev [VP nähen [DP das Hemd]]] Juan does sew the shirt Juan sews the shirt.
(28) Structure
vP
Spec v'
v
hace
VP
naehen das Hemd
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A direct prediction of the structure presented in (27) and (28) is that no constituent
can stand between the lexical V and the object, which indicates they are adjacent:
(29) *Juan hace nähen vorsichtig das Hemd. Juan does sew carefully the shirt ‘Juan carefully sews the shirt.’
Adopting the structure in (28) leads us to assume that code-switchers have an enlarged
lexicon (or two separate lexica), not only with respect to lexical categories but also with
respect to functional categories. Code-switchers have (at least) two instances of T, D and C
with different properties (for instance, they will have a T that expresses a distinction between
perfective and imperfective - call it Tsp - and a T that makes no such distinction - call it Tdt).
This assumption should be uncontroversial; it is simply the definition of being competent in
two grammatical systems.
Likewise, code-switchers must also have two little v’s, one from each language, with
distinct properties. In the case of Esplugish, we call these instances of little v vsp and vdt.
Further, code-switchers have the option of providing one of the two little v’s with a phonetic
matrix. In Esplugish vsp can be realized as hacer.
4.2 Causative reading
The Esplugish causative construction with hacer is apparently identical to the Spanish
causative structure. The Spanish/Esplugish/Romance causative structure comes in two
versions, exemplified in (30) and (31).
(30) Juan le hizo a Pedro construirse una casa. faire-infinitive Juan him made to-Pedro build-REFL a house Juan made Pedroi build a house for himselfi
p.21
(31) Juan hizo construirse una casa. faire-par Juan made build-REFL a house Juani had a house built for himselfi.
(30) exemplifies the so called faire-infinitive construction (terminology and original
description in Kayne 1975). The faire-infinitive construction includes a constituent usually
referred to as causée. In this example, a Pedro is the causée. Notice that the reflexive clitic
attached to the subordinate verb is bound by the causée.8 (31) exemplifies the faire-par
construction, identical in appearance to faire-infinitive but without an apparent causée.
Notice that the reflexive clitic is now bound by the subject of the matrix clause, which
indicates that there is no syntactic representation of a causée at all (López 2001).
We take it that the causative hacer is a regular lexical verb.9 Further, following López
(2001), we assume that hacer may select for a vP or a VP. If the former is selected, we obtain
the construction with a causée. If the latter is selected, we have the faire-par variety: 10
(32) a. hacer [vP causée v [VP …V…] faire-infinitive b. hacer [VP …V…] faire-par
Further details of the causative constructions are shown in (33) and (34). In both we can
see that the lexical verb hacer incorporates into v, as any other regular lexical verb. The verb
construirse incorporates into a little v in (33) but not in (34). The causée originates as an
external argument of the subordinate predicate and raises to the matrix predicate, where it
8 The cause can appear at the end of the sentence, apparently without changing the syntactic structure. We assume it is a linearization phenomenon and we abstract away from these word order alternatives. 9 Folli and Harley’s (2007) analysis of Romance causatives holds that the causative verb hacer is an expression of little v, not a matrix verb. This assumption leads to the awkward consequence that little v can select for a CP: (i) Juan hizo que Pedro le pagara la hipoteca. Juan did that Pedro Cl paid the mortgage ‘Juan made Pedro pay for the mortgage. We are not aware of any other example in the literature of a little v selecting for a CP – and indeed, the theoretical apparatus built around the “little v” construct is based on the idea that it selects a lexical verb (Chomsky 1995) or a label-less root (Marantz 1997). The apparent problem raised by (i) is easily avoided if the causative verb hacer and its equivalents in other Romance languages are lexical verbs or roots. Additionally, it will become clear in this article, particularly in section 8, that there is an important pay-off to assuming that the causative hacer is a lexical root while the Esplugish light verb hacer is a genuine example of v. 10 Folli and Harley (2007) also adopt the analysis of faire infinitive as selecting a vP and faire par as selecting a VP (unfortunately without attribution to the earlier work).
p.22
satisfies its Case requirement. The ultimate case morphology of the causée depends on the
transitivity of the subordinate verb: if the subordinate verb is intransitive, the causée appears
in accusative case, if the subordinate verb is transitive or ditransitive, the causée is dative.
(33) Juan [vP hizo+v [VP a Pedro t(hizo) [vP t(a Pedro) construirse [VP t(construirse) una casa]]]] Juan made to-Pedro build-REFL a house Juan made Pedroi build a house for himselfi
(34) Juan [vP hizo+v [VP t(hizo) [VP construirse una casa]]]] Juan made build-REFL a house Juani had a house built for himselfi.
The Esplugish causative construction is build on the Spanish causative verb hacer. It can also
select for a vP or a VP. (35) exemplifies hacer selecting vP.
(35) Juan le hizo a Pedro ein Haus bauen Juan him/her.CL. made to Pedro a house build =Juan made Pedro build a house. =Juan made him/her build a house for Pedro
In (35)(a) Pedro is the causée or an indirect object of the construction. Thus we propose the
same structure that we propose for regular romance causatives (notice that we assume that the German
little v is head final):
(36) a Pedro causée Juan [v’ lei v+hizo [VP a Pedroi t(hizo) [vP t(a Pedro)i [VP ein Haus t(bauen) [ v+bauen]]]]]
(37) a Pedro indirect object Juan [v’ lei v+hizo [VP t(hizo) [vP [e]i [VP ein Haus t(bauen) [ v+bauen]]]]]
(38) exemplifies hacer selecting a VP.
(38) Juan hizo bauen ein Haus a Pedro. Juan did build a house to Pedro Juan had a house built for Pedro
The structure is as follows:
(39) Juan [v’ v+hizo [VP t(hizo) [VP bauen ein Haus a Pedro]
p.23
___________________________________________________________________________
5. Little v rules
___________________________________________________________________________
Our central hypothesis is that little v is a phase head and as such it rules at least some
grammatical properties in its phase.
(40) Narrow hypothesis: Little v hypothesis Little v determines at least three crucial grammatical properties of the selected VP: linearization, Focus/Background and prosodic structure.
That is, little v decides the VO or OV order parameter, little v decides how
focus/background is expressed, it also decides how the lexical verb and its complement are
prosodically phrased in neutral contexts. This hypothesis is extremely difficult to test in the
grammars of monolingual speakers, since v and V belong to the same grammatical system.
The hypothesis can only be tested in the grammars of bilingual code-switchers if the two
languages involved are typologically distinct. As shown in section 4, we can have vsp with a
German lexical VP. It is this particular configuration that allows us to find out if the
grammatical properties of the VP are related to the lexical verb V itself or are in reality those
of the selecting little v.
The broad hypothesis we would like to entertain is the following:
(41) Broad hypothesis: The phase head hypothesis The phase head determines grammatical properties of its complement.
Testing (31) should in theory be easy: we would only have to look for code-switching
in the C-TP boundary. Something like the following:
(42) a. Cdt [TP Tsp ] b. Csp [TP Tdt ]
p.24
However, code-switching between the complementizer and TP is ungrammatical in
Esplugish and at least other code-switching pairs, for reasons that have been discussed in
Belazi et al (1993) and González-Vilbazo (2005), among others. In particular, González-
Vilbazo (2005) argues that there can be no code-switch between functional heads within the
same functional projection of a lexical head, i.e. no code-switch between C and T and D and
Q (if they are part of the same extended projection). Let’s take a look at some examples with
a Spanish C and a German T.
(43) El profe dijo que alle han suspendido in der Prüfung. The teacher said that all have failed in the exam The teacher said that they all failed the exam.
(44) ??El profe dijo que alle sind in der Prüfung durchgefallen. the teacher said that all have in the exam failed. The teacher said, that they all failed the exam.
(45) *El profe dijo que alle in der Prüfung durchgefallen sind. (Go) The teacher said that all in the exam failed are The teacher said that they all failed the exam.
Data such as (43),(44) and (45) above provides support for (41). As we can see in
(43), the complementizer of the subordinate clause is que and all the properties of the
subordinate clause are those of Spanish: linearization, neutral prosody and the expression of
focus/background. (44) shows that the Spanish complementizer triggers a Spanish word order
even if T is German. This example is, as mentioned above, ungrammatical because there is a
language switch between C and TP (see Gonzalez-Vilbazo 2005 for more details). However,
our informants agree that (44) is significantly more acceptable than (45), an example in
which the rest of the embedded sentence follows a German pattern instead of a Spanish
pattern.
Even though the data is delicate, we claim that the reason why (43)and (44) are better
than (45) follows from the broad hypothesis (41): Csp is a Spanish phase head and triggers the
rest of the phase to follow the Spanish pattern.
p.25
Code-switching within the DP could be another playground to test (41), but there
seems to be little agreement as to whether D or little n, or both, head a phase (see Boeckx and
Grohmann 2007 for discussion). Furthermore, we are not aware of any code-switching pair in
which little n (if this is the phase head) can be realized lexically (without incorporation) in the
way that little v is realized by hacer. Thus, we do not feel the ground under our feet is solid
enough at this point to make any firm proposals regarding nominal phases.
___________________________________________________________________________
6. hacer + VO
___________________________________________________________________________
In this section we discuss the data introduced in section 2 and show how it derives
from the narrow hypothesis in (40).
6.1 Linearization
Recall that the VP selected by hacer exhibits a VO order:
(46) Juan ha hecho verkaufen die Bücher. (see (15)) Juan has done sell the books Juan has sold the books.
This follows directly from (40): little v determines the order of constituents within the
VP. vsp requires the “Spanish” word order VO.
A possible tack to make sense of this is the following. Let’s assume that “syntax” is a
computational system sensitive only to hierarchical notions such as dominance and c-
p.26
command (Chomsky 1995). Let’s take linearization to be a requirement of PF, a prerequisite
to feeding linguistic constituents to the articulatory-perceptual systems. A natural
consequence of this assumption is that PF must include a computational system that translates
structures into order, call it Co. Finally, we assume that Co is called into action each time a
phase culminates (as in Chomsky 2000, Kratzer and Selkirk 2007, Fox and Pesetsky 2005,
among others).
Thus, once a vP phase has culminated, Co has to decide whether the lexical verb will
precede the object or vice-versa. Our hypothesis is that verb-complement order is a feature of
little v. Little v instructs Co to turn the set {V,O} into the pair <V,O> or <O,V>. The “head
parameter” is, in effect, a feature of little v: vsp determines <V,O> even if the V and O are
both drawn from the German lexicon, while vdt decides on <O,V>.
Further evidence for this approach comes from the double object construction.
German and Spanish differ in the neutral order of the direct and the indirect object. Take the
following examples in a neutral context:
(47) (Hans will) [VP dem Kind das Buch geben]. German (Hans wants)[VP the child a book give (John wants) to give the child the book.
(48) (Juan quiere) dar el libro al niño. Spanish (Juan wants) give the book to-the child (John wants) to give the child the book.
In German, the order of the objects is determined by several factors: animates precede
inanimates, definites precede indefinites, non-focus precedes focus etc… (see Lenerz 1977,
Büring 2001 among others). Given a neutral context and making both objects definite, the
animate object (indirect object) precedes the inanimate (direct object) one as seen in (47). In
Spanish, ceteris paribus, the direct object precedes the indirect object.
p.27
(49) a)... hace geben das Buch dem Kind. Esplugish ... does give the book the child ... give the child the book. b)#... hace geben dem Kind das Buch ... does give the child the book ... gives the child the book.
(49) shows that in an Esplugish sentence with hacer-periphrasis, the order of the
objects follows the Spanish pattern even if the objects are both German.
Our datum is compatible with an approach, like that of Kayne (1994) and Zwart
(1997) that takes the OV order to be the outcome of leftward movement of the object. Thus,
we can assume that vdt probes and triggers obligatory movement of the object while vsp does
not. Although object movement is documented to exist – Icelandic object shift and Spanish p-
movement are two examples that come to mind – it is always optional and alters the
information structure of the sentence. The regular German OV order, however, is obligatory
and neutral with respect to information structure. Thus, unless there are two types of object
movement, we find this approach less likely than the one discussed above.
In any case, our data is incompatible with an approach to order that builds it into the
construction of syntactic structures. A particularly sophisticated example of this line of
thinking is Fukui and Saito (1998), who argue that the outcome of the operation Merge is an
ordered pair – thus, linear order is built into Merge and the head parameter is a random
decision made when Merge takes place:
(50) a. Merge (α,β) = <α,β> b. Merge (α,β) = <β,α>
Our data, however, show that the merge of a lexical verb and its object yields no
particular linear order. Although this is never discussed explicitly, the family of approaches
that Fukui and Saito represent entails that the order of the lexical verb and its complements is
p.28
a property of the lexical verb V itself or the manner in which it interacts with the PF
interface. But Esplugish shows that order is only decided when little v merges with the VP.
6.2 Prosody in a neutral context
As discussed in section 2.2, in a neutral context, Spanish exhibits pitch accents on
both the verb and the object phrasing them in two separate ΦPs. German, typically, exhibits a
pitch accent on the object only, allowing the lexical verb to phrase with the object:
(51) ( x ) I ( x ) I ( x ) ( x ) ( x ) Φ ( x ) ( x ) Φ Juan ha vendido los libros Juan hat die Bücher verkauft
As mentioned, the loss of accent of the German verb does not depend on the OV
order. It can also show up in matrix sentences:
(52) ( x ) ( x ) Φ JUAN kauft BÜcher
In the Esplugish light verb construction the verb and the DO bear their own accent
and they are the nucleus of their respective prosodic phrases, just like in Spanish.
(53) Juan ha hecho (ΦverKAUfen) (Φdie BÜcher). Juan has done sell the books Juan has sold the books.
(54) #Juan ha hecho (Φverkaufen die BÜcher). Juan has done sell the books Juan has sold the books.
Cross-linguistic differences in intonation structure are well-known, but their source
has never, to our knowledge, been discussed. The Esplugish data allows us to make an
empirical hypothesis: the stress patterns exemplified in (51) and (52) are determined by v.
p.29
The difference between German and Spanish is discussed extensively in Büring and
Gutiérrez-Bravo (2001), who analyze it using constraint rankings. In particular, they argue
that two constraints account for the German-Spanish difference. The first constraint is of the
Wrap family and is shown in (55) (see Truckenbrodt 1999 for the original formulation of
Wrap). This constraint is formulated by Büring and Gutiérrrez-Bravo (2001) as two separate
statements: the first one forces predicates to phrase with one of their complements, the
second one forces a φP to contain an XP:
(55) XP=φP Align a (lexical) XP with a phonological phrase. a. PRED A predicate shares a φP with at least one of its arguments. b. XP A φP contains an XP. If XP and YP are within the same φP, one contains the other.
The second constraint requires the right boundary of a prosodic word to be co-
terminous with the right boundary of a φP. This constraint is violated whenever a lexical head
is not aligned with the right edge of a φP:
(56) PrW=φP Align the right edge of each prosodic word with the right edge of a phonological phrase.
Clearly, (55) and (56) are in conflict so they have to be ranked. In German XP=φP is
ranked higher, with the result that the verb and the object form one prosodic phrase:
(57) XP=φP PrW=φP
(φ Juan) (φ hat die Bücher gekauft) *
(φ Juan) (φ hat die Bücher) (φ gekauft) *
Spanish ranks PrW=φP higher than XP=φP, with the result that the verb and the object
form two phonological phrases.
p.30
(58) PrW=φP XP=φP
(φ Juan) (φ compro el libro) *
(φ Juan) (φ compro) (φ el libro) *
Let’s then assume that this type of approach is valid and that the difference between
German and Spanish prosodic phrasing can be described using ranked constraints (as is
standard nowadays, particularly under the influence of Truckenbrodt’s 1999 work). The
question we would like to ask at this point is what is the origin of this difference in constraint
ranking.
Our proposal then is as follows: the accent and prosodic structure of the VP is a
feature of little v: v includes instructions pertinent to the prosodification of its complement.
We articulate this proposal in terms similar to those employed above for linearization.
Assume that the mapping from syntactic structure to prosodic structure involves a
computational component, call it Cp. Cp is a component of what we call PF, just as Co is, and
intervenes each time a phase culminates and operates on instructions supplied by the head of
the phase, v. Thus, little v “decides” the accent structure and prosodic phrasing of its
complement. The presence of vsp in the input triggers a high position of the constraint
PrW=φP, while the presence of vdt triggers a preference for XP=φP. In (53) and (54), the v
that we have is vsp, and vsp provides an instruction to Cp to the effect that its complement V
must have its own stress and cannot be phrased together with the object.
6.3 Focus and background
We take the information structure of a sentence to be a syntactic structure augmented
with features relative to the insertion of that sentence within a discourse. In this article we
will use only the features [Background] and [Focus] as descriptive, intuitively understood
p.31
short-cuts of what is as a matter of fact a complex web of relations (for more detailed
analyses the reader is referred to the classic Lambrecht 1994 and the more recent Erteschik-
Shir 2007).
The features [Background] and [Focus] are assigned by an interpretational module
that we can call Pragmatics or Ipr. We assume that the way Ipr applies is universal, but the
actual linguistic expression of these features varies from language to language – for instance,
[Background] objects can simply be deaccented in German and English but this is not enough
in Spanish, where [Background] objects must be dislocated or, if the possibility arises, p-
moved.11
The question that arises is the same one as in the previous sections: where does this
different expression of information structure features come from? In the following, we show
that little v has a role to play and whether we choose vsp or vdt has consequences.
Let us summarize the facts of backgrounded objects as we presented them in section
2: (i) in German, given objects are deaccented and/or scrambled or topicalized, (ii) in Spanish
given objects are dislocated or p-moved if the VP includes two constituents. This is shown in
(59) and (60):
(59) [Context: What happened to the watches?] a. Die Uhren hat Juan verKAUFT. (German topicalization) the watches has Juan sold Juan SOLD the watches. b. Juan hat die Uhren verKAUFT. (German deaccenting/scrambling) Juan has the watches sold Juan SOLD the watches
(60) [Context: What happened to the watches?] Juan, los relojes los vendió. (Spanish dislocation) Juan, the watches them sold Juan SOLD the watches.
11 We also understand, although this is not relevant for our purposes, that the actual interpretation of Cpr features is the result of their interaction with other linguistic components yielding phenomena such as e.g. exhaustive focus in Hungarian, contrastive focus in English, etc.
p.32
Let’s now consider what happens in Esplugish, exemplified in (61). (61)(a) exhibits a
typical Spanish pattern: the backgrounded object is dislocated. In this particular example, we
have chosen to dislocate a German DP doubled by a Spanish clitic matching in φ-features –
the example would work equally well if the dislocated DP were Spanish, but there must be a
Spanish clitic.12
(61)(b) follows a typical German pattern, the main sentential accent falls on the verb,
the object is deaccented and phrased with the verb. This does not constitute a felicitous
discourse in Esplugish in this context. Likewise (61)(c) would be grammatical in Esplugish if
pronounced with prominence on the fronted object, but it would not be felicitous in the
context provided.
(61) [Context: What happened to the watches?] a. Juan die Uhren las hizo verKAUfen. Juan the watches, them did sell Juan SOLD the watches. b. #Juan hizo verKAUfen die Uhren. Juan did sell the watches Juan sold the watches c. #Die Uhren hizo Juan verKAUfen. the watches did Juan sell The watches, Juan sold them.
Thus, the linguistic expression of the focus/background articulation in Esplugish
follows once again a Spanish pattern – according to out hypothesis, vsp determines what
happens to the backgrounded object.
One possible technical implementation is the following. Assume that, once the vP
phase is built, the direct object is marked as [+background] by Ipr that we can call Pragmatics.
Features not marked as [+background] are simply focus by default.
12 Notice that die Uhren is not a topic in the German style because there is no V2 structure: there are two dislocated constituents (the object and the subject), which again is typical of Spanish – so either we have an un-German multiple Spec,CP structure or we have two Topic Phrases, which is just as un-German.
p.33
(62)
Although the rules for focus/background articulation are quite complex, here we
simplify radically and assume that Pragmatics assigns the feature [+background] randomly
and a filter at the syntax/discourse interface ensures that the resulting sentence fits a given
discourse.
We also propose that how the [+background] feature is expressed syntactically and
phonetically depends on the head of the phase. Since the head of the phase is in this case the
vsp hacer, the feature [+background] is expressed as it normally is in Spanish, by introducing
a clitic and dislocating the object.
It is possible to show that vsp is involved in left dislocation, a prima facie CP
phenomenon. Zubizarreta (1998:114-5) provides empirical evidence that dislocations in
Spanish stop at an intermediate position, lower than the preverbal subject but higher than the
in-situ subject. In (63)(a), the quantifier “ningún” in the preverbal subject position can bind
the variable “su”, yielding a reading in which no father wants to punish his own son. In
(63)(b), where the subject is in post-verbal position, this reading is not possible.
vP
EA v'
v VP
V IA
+background
p.34
(63) a. A su hijo, ningún padre lo quiere castigar. acc his son no father Cl wants punish.inf ‘No father wants to punish his son.’ b. A su hijo no lo quiere castigar ningún padre acc his son neg Cl wants punish.inf no father ‘No father wants to punish his son.’
Zubizarreta argues that this fact is evidence that the dislocated constituent reconstructs
to a position between Spec,T and the initial merge position of the external argument. López
(2003, 2009) identifies this position with Spec,v.
Thus, left dislocation is a two-step process. The first step, represented in (64)(1.2)
involves v actively. The second step, shown in (64)(2.2) displaces the internal argument to
Spec,C:
(64) Spanish dislocation: 1. vP phase: 1.1 [vP EA v+cl [VP V DO]] 1.2 [vP DO [ EA v+cl [VP V (DO)]]] 2. CP phase 2.1 [CP C [TP T [vP DO [ EA v+cl [VP V (DO)]]]]] 2.2[CP DO C [TP T [vP (DO) [ EA v+cl [VP V (DO)]]]]]
To the extent that vsp participates in dislocation, it seems clear that little v is involved
in the expression of information structure. The Esplugish data adds one more datum to the
picture. Recall that in Esplugish, when we have vsp, [+background] cannot be expressed by
deaccenting. We conclude that not only is v involved in dislocating [+background]
constituents in a language like Spanish, it is also involved in the phonetic operation of
deaccenting [+background] constituents in a language like German and, more generally, on
the linguistic expression of the focus/background articulation.
To conclude, the phenomena discussed in this section support the narrow hypothesis
proposed in (40). Little v determines the linearization inside the v-Phase: when little v is vsp
the word order follows the Spanish order. Likewise, vsp triggers a Spanish prosody in the
p.35
phase. And finally, the realization of focus/background is determined by little v: vsp triggers
the typical Spanish expression of information structure.
___________________________________________________________________________
7 hacer + OV
___________________________________________________________________________
Some Esplugish speakers both produce and accept hacer + OV.
(65) Juan hizo ... die Bücher verkaufen. Juan did ... the books sell Juan sold the books.
In the face of it, (65) looks like a counterexample to our theory, since hacer appears to
select a VP complement in the OV order. Moreover, the prosodic structure in a neutral
context is identical to that of a German VP, with accent on the direct object and the verb
phrased together with it (focus/background is not expressible as we shall see). Should we
then conclude that the light verb does not after all determine the structure of the following
VP? This conclusion would be unavoidable if the OV structure in (65) were indeed generated
by the regular German grammatical system. However, there are good reasons to assume that
this OV structure is not generated in the same way as a regular German VP. In the following
we show that its behavior is quite unlike that of a German VP.
In this section we argue that the OV phrase is a non-recursive orphan. Let us explain
what we mean by these two terms. We take orphans to be chunks of structure smaller than a
full sentence which can be used as complete, self-contained units in the assembling of
syntactic structures into discourses (for investigations of orphans, see Haegeman 1991 and
p.36
Shaer 2003).13 When we say that the OV expression is non-recursive we mean that once the
lexical verb V and its complement are merged no further applications of Merge, external or
internal, can apply.
The orphan and non-recursive properties lead us to another idea that we are going to
invoke in our description of the hacer+OV order: Jackendoff’s (2002) proposal that
fragments of protolanguage (in Bickerton’s 1990 sense) can be found shoulder-to-shoulder
with regular “normal language” forms.
7.1 Pause
(65) is clearly acceptable if pronounced with a pause between the little v and the VP.
Without such a pause, acceptability diminishes. The end result is that the VP forms an
intonational unit bigger than a prosodic phrase – maybe an intonational phrase, maybe some
sort of intermediate or major phrase.
(66) (IJuan hizo) (Idie Bücher verkaufen). Juan did the books sell Juan sold the books.
(67) ?? (I Juan hizo die Bücher verkaufen). Juan did the books sell Juan sold the books.
This behavior is markedly different from a regular German, Spanish or Esplugish VO
sentence. In any of these languages the VP is not separated from the rest of the clause by any
pause and it forms an intonational phrase with it.
13 We thank Guido Mensching for suggesting the orphan possibility to us.
p.37
7.2 Configuration
Further, the prosodic isolation of the OV VP reflects a syntactic isolation. As the
following examples show, the object cannot be an anaphor bound by the subject. Moreover, it
cannot contain a variable bound by a quantifier outside the VP. These propterties of hacer +
OV contrast with hacer + VO.
(68) Juan se ha hecho sehen sich selbst im Spiegel. VO Juan CL has done see him self in-the mirror Juan has seen himself in the mirror
(69) *Juan se ha hecho sich selbst im Spiegel sehen. OV Juan CL has done him self in-the mirror see
(70) Cada hombre ha hecho verkaufen seinen Hund. VO Each man has done sell his dog Each man has sold his dog.
(71) *Cada hombre ha hecho seinen Hund verkaufen. OV Each man has done his dog sell Each man has sold his dog.
The intonational and syntactic separation of the OV component of the hacer+OV
construction strongly suggest an analysis in terms of orphans suggested above.
7.3 Contexts and intonation
Additionally, the OV order is possible only in neutral contexts with neutral accent
pattern (i.e., on the object):
(72) [Context: What happened yesterday?] Ayer hice BÜcher kaufen. Yesterday did books buy Yesterday I bought books.
p.38
Thus, it is not possible to have this order either in contexts in which the object or the
verb are backgrounded or even in contexts in which the verb or the object is contrastively
focused:
(73) [Context: You sold the BOOKS] *No, yo hice die LAMpe verkaufen. No, I did the lamp sell No, I sold the lamp.
(74) [Context: You SOLD the books] *No, yo hice die Bücher KAUfen. No, I did the books buy No, I BOUGHT the books
This provides further evidence of the isolation of the OV construction from the rest of
the sentence. If the expression of the focus/background structures depends on little v, and if,
as we argue, the OV construction is separated from the rest of the clause, then it should be
expected that the OV construction cannot express the focus/background articulation.
Contrastive focus on the external argument presents no problem if it behaves as it
would in Spanish. The most natural position for the contrastive focus on the external
argument is final position or cleft:
(75) [Context: You sold the books] No, hizo die Bücher verkaufen mi NOvia/meine FREUNdin. No, did the books sell my girlfriend. No, it was my girlfriend who sold the books.
(76) No, fue mi novia/meine Freundin la que hizo die Bücher verkaufen. No, was my girlfriend who that did the books sell No, it was my girlfriend who sold the books.
This is unsurprising because the external argument is base-merged outside the lexical
VP and therefore it is fully integrated into a clause composed of Spanish functional
categories.
p.39
7.4 Ditransitive predicates
In this section we show evidence that the hacer+OV structure is not recursive, i.e., it
allows no further applications of Merge.
The hacer+OV periphrasis is incompatible with ditransitive verbs. The following
example is grammatical but only if it is interpreted as causative:
(77) Juan (le) hizo dem Kind ein Buch geben. Juan (him-CL) made the child a book give =Juan made the child give a book. ≠Juan gave the child a book.
The VO version has no such restriction. With the VO order we get the light verb
reading as well as the causative reading.
(78) Juan le hizo geben dem Kind ein Buch / ein Buch dem Kind. Juan him-CL did give the child a book / a book the child Juan gave the child a book / a book to the child.
The impossibility of having ditransitive predicates with the hacer+OV construction
follows directly from the hypothesis that the construction is not recursive. Whether one
adopts a traditional analysis of ditransitive predicates in which the two complements are
constituents of the same lexical category, as shown in (79), or one that takes them to be
arguments of different predicates, as in (80), ditransitive predicates necessarily imply at least
two applications of Merge:14
(79) [VP IO [VP DO V ]] Merge (DO, V) = {DO, V} Merge (IO, {DO,V}) = {IO, {DO,V}}
14 Unless one is prepared to give up on the binarity of Merge, in which case the lexical verb could take two complements in one application of Merge. However, the evidence for the binarity of Merge is substantial (see Larson 1988 and much subsequent work).
p.40
(80) [vP IO v [VP V DO]] Merge (DO, V) = {DO, V} Merge (v, {DO,V}) = {v, {DO, V}} Merge (IO, {v, {DO, V}} = {IO{v, {DO, V}}}
The following two subsections discuss data that could be approached as evidence of
orphanhood or lack of recursion.
7.5 Scrambling
In German, the object can scramble over VP adverbs thus obtaining the Obj-Adv-V
order and a given reading for the object:
(81) Johannes hat das Hemd [vorsichtig] genäht. Johannes has the shirt [carefully] sewed Johannes sewed the shirt carefully.
According to one line of thinking (see Diesing 1992, De Hoop 1996, among many
others), scrambling is the result of moving the direct object from its base-merge position to an
intermediate position, which we identify as Spec,v:15
(82) [TP T [vP DO EA v Adv [VP (DO) V]]]
In Esplugish OV we would expect a structure like the following, with the object in
Spec,v (see Diesing 1992), and the VP adverb stranded behind:
(83) Hypothetical scrambling of the Obj in OV Esplugish [TP hizo [vP DO (EA) (v) Adv [VP (DO) V]]]]
But in the Esplugish OV order, there can be no adverb between direct object and V or
after V.
15 Some specialists in Scrambling prefer to have the scrambled object base-merged in the position where it surfaces (Grewendorf 2005). If this approach ends up becoming mainstream, the significance of the Esplugish datum would be slightly different. Lack of scrambling would only indicate separation between the complement of hacer and the main clause, which would impede theta-role assignment.
p.41
(84) Juan hizo die Bücher (*ganz schnell) verkaufen. Juan did the books (*very fast) sell Juan sold the books very fast
(85) Juan hizo das Hemd (*vorsichtig) nähen. Juan did the shirt (*carefully) sew Juan sewed the shirt carefully.
Instead you can have an adverb in a position peripheral/outside/adjoined to the VP.
(86) Juan hizo [ganz schnell] die Bücher verkaufen. Juan did [very fast] the books sell Juan sold the books very fast
(87) Juan hizo vorsichtig das Hemd nähen. Juan did carefully the shirt sew Juan sewed the shirt carefully.
The impossibility of scrambling the object in hacer+OV structures can be taken to be
evidence of the orphanhood of OV: since the OV structure does not form part of the full
clause it is reasonable to assume that it should be an island for movement. Or it suggests that
this is a non-recursive structure to which further syntactic operations cannot apply.
7.6 Extraction
In German, you can extract out of unscrambled objects. This is exemplified in the
following examples:
(88) Über Illinois habe ich noch nie ein Buch gelesen. About Illinois have I still never a book read I have never read a book about Illinois.
(89) Worüber hast du ein Buch gelesen? Where-about have you a book read What have you read a book about?
In Spanish this extraction is possible as well:
p.42
(90) Sobre Illinois no he leído nunca un libro. About Illinois not have read never a book I have never read a book about Illinois.
(91) ¿Sobre qué has leído un libro? Where-about have read a book What have you read a book about?
In Esplugish, when the VP is in the VO order, extraction is also possible:
(92) Über Illinois nunca he hecho lesen ein Buch. About Illinois never have done read a book I have never read a book about Illinois.
(93) Worüber has hecho lesen ein Buch? Where-about have done read a book What have you read a book about?
However, when the order is OV, the result is ungrammatical.
(94) *Über Illinois nunca he hecho ein Buch lesen. About Illinois never have done a book read
(95) *Worüber has hecho ein Buch lesen. Where-about have done a book read
Again, this datum can be approached from an orphan or from a non-recursive point of
view. From an orphan point of view, it is not surprising that the OV construction is an island,
since it is not integrated into the structure of the clause. Additionally, if the OV is non-
recursive, it follows that internal Merge should not be able to affect it.
7.7 Conclusion
The evidence presented above shows that hacer + OV is not a regular German
construction, nor a Spanish one. The quasi-requirement of forming its own intonational
phrase and its inaccessibility to external (but still local) binders suggests that it is a structure
p.43
merged outside the clause proper and should therefore be considered an orphan. The
impossibility of ditransitive predicates suggests that it is a non-recursive structure. The
ungrammaticality of scrambling and extraction could provide evidence for either hypothesis.
In order to sketch the first foundation for an analysis of this structure we would like to invoke
the notion of Protolanguage.
Bickerton (1990) proposes that before full-fledged language appeared, our hominid
ancestors communicated by means of a system of symbols that would be combined by a
single application of Merge without recursion (we are updating Bickerton here). This
Protolanguage did not disappear with the evolution of human language – rather, it reappears
in situations of contact when two or more humans do not share a common language.
Jackendoff (2002) further argues that fragments of Protolanguage can show up inserted in
discourses together with regular sentences. Although we disagree with the list of
Protolanguage constructions that Jackendoff provides – for instance, absolute constructions
have a very definite grammar – we find it useful to apply the notion to the case at hand. In
effect, the OV portion of the hacer+OV construction looks like protolanguage, given its key
properties of isolation and non-recursion.
8. Further predictions: Esplugish causatives
Recall that we showed (section 4) that the hacer + infinitive periphrasis is ambiguous
between a causative and a light verb reading. Each reading corresponds to a different
structure. In the light verb interpretation, hacer is an expression of v, as shown in (96):
(96) Juan hizo bauen ein Haus. Juan did build a house ‘Juan built a house.’ Juan [vP (Juan) hizo [VP bauen ein Haus]]
p.44
In the causative interpretation hacer is a lexical verb that incorporates into its own v,
as shown in (97) and (98):
(97) Juan hizo bauen ein Haus. faire-par Juan did build a house ‘Juan had a house built.’ Juan [vP t(Juan) v+hizo [VP t(hizo) [VP bauen ein Haus]]
(98) Juan hizo a Pedro ein Haus bauen. faire-infinitive Juan did to Pedro a house build ‘Juan made Pedro build a house.’ 1. [vP Juan vsp [VP hizo [vP a Pedro [VP ein Haus bauen] vdt ]]] 2. Juan [vP t(Juan) vsp+hizo [VP a Pedro t(hizo) [vP t(Pedro) [VP ein Haus t(bauen)] vdt+bauen]]]
(97) is a causative faire-par construction. The causative verb hizo selects for a VP.
(98) is a faire-infinitive construction. The causative verb selects for a vP. The downstairs v –
in this case, a vdt - includes an external argument, the causée, as shown in (98)(1). This
external argument raises to the domain of the matrix predicate for Case reasons, as shown in
(98)(2). This example also shows raising of the lexical verbs into their respective little v
(López 2001).
In the previous sections we have only looked at examples in which the light verb
hacer selects for a switched VP complement. In this section we investigate the data that result
when the causative hacer selects for a code-switched complement – a faire-par or a faire-
infinitive. That is, we are now interested in examples of the following forms:
(99) a. vsp hacer(causative) [VP V (DO) (IO) ] faire-par b. vsp hacer(causative) [vP causée [VP (IO) (DO) V] vdt ] faire-infinitive
Our proposals make very specific predictions. In (a) hacer selects a VP. The
properties of this VP depend on the next v available – the vsp that selects for hacer. These
predictions are confirmed in a variety of intricate examples. In (b) hacer selects for a German
vdt. As a consequence, the VP selected by vdt must follow the German pattern.
p.45
The examples (97) and (98) exhibit the word orders that are to be expected from our
assumptions: the construction with the causée has an OV order, the construction without a
causée is VO. This follows if the construction with the causée, represented in (99)(a) includes
a German vdt. The construction without the causée has no vdt, as shown in (99)(b). It follows
that in (99)(b) the word order of the constituents in the VP should be dictated by the closest
little v, in this case vsp.
Let’s now look at the word order in a ditransitive examples to further confirm the
correlation between the presence/absence of the causée and word order. In (100), the
subordinate verb is ditransitive and the order of the predicates within the VP is V DO IO.
This order must be determined by a vsp:
(100) a. Juan hizo geben das Buch dem Kind. Juan did give.inf the.acc book the.dat child Juan had the book given to the child. ≠Juan made the child give the book. b. Juan [vP vsp+hizo [VP t(hizo) [VP geben das Buch dem Kind ]]]
Notice that (100) cannot be interpreted as ‘Juan made the child give the book’, with
dem Kind as a causée. dem Kind can only be interpreted as an indirect object. If causative
hacer selects a complement with a VO order, there can’t be a causée in the structure. This
follows directly from our proposals: we argue that the VO order surfaces when the properties
of the VP depend on a selecting vsp, which entails absence of vdt. If there is no vdt present,
there cannot be a causée.
We dwell a little longer on the properties of the causée in a faire-infinitive
construction. In the following abstract examples we number the vPs and VPs to facilitate the
discussion:
(101) 1 [vP1 vsp [VP1 hacer [vP2 causée [VP2 (IO) (DO) V] vdt ]]] 2 [vP1 vsp+hacer [VP1 causée t(hacer) [vP2 t(causée) [VP2 (IO) (DO) t(V)] V+vdt ]]]
p.46
(101)(1)represents the structure before movement, (101)(2) the structure after
movement. The causée, a constituent that ends up in Spec,VP2, is a satellite of the higher vsp.
We predict that it will exhibit Spanish grammatical properties. In particular, we show that the
morphological case of the causée has been assigned by a vsp. Consider the following example:
(102) Juan le hizo dem Kind das Buch geben. Juan Cl.dat made the.dat child the.acc book give ‘=Juan made the child give the book.’ ‘=Juan made someone give the child the book.’
This example is ambiguous: dem Kind could be the causée (coindexed with the clitic
le) or the indirect object of geben (with a covert causée). Let’s take dem Kind to be a causée.
Here is the interesting datum: the causée appears in dative case. This dative case is expected
in a Spanish causative: as mentioned in section 4, the causée is accusative if the subordinate
predicate is intransitive; it is dative if the subordinate predicate is transitive or ditransitive. In
German causatives the causée always appears in accusative case:
(103) Hans lässt ihn dem Mädchen das Buch geben. Hans made him.acc the.dat girl the book give ‘Hans made him give the book to the girl.’
The fact that dem Kind in (102) can be read as causée reveals the workings of a vsp. As shown
in (101) the causée raises to Spec,VP1, where it receives Case from vsp. Since vsp+hacer
require dative on the causée if VP2 is transitive or ditransitive, it follows that the causée must
be dative.
Let us now discuss prosody in neutral contexts. Once again, the facts follow our
predictions: when we have faire-par, the prosody of VP2 involves a Spanish pattern, with a
prosodic phrase for each lexical word. When we have faire-infinitive we have a German-style
Wrap in VP2:
(104) a. vsp hacer(causative) causée [VP (φ DO V) ] faire-infinitive b. vsp hacer(causative) [VP (φ V) (φ DO) ] faire-par
p.47
Finally, we discuss the focus/background articulation. As we saw above, German can
express the focus/background articulation by deaccenting the backgrounded constituent while
Spanish requires some alteration of word order. The examples in (105) illustrate this
difference between German and Spanish.
(105) [Context: Who did you give the book to?] a. Ich habe dem KIND das Buch geben. I have the.dat child the book given ‘I have given the child the book.’ b. #Yo le di al NIño el libro. I Cl gave to-the child the book c. Yo le di el libro al NIño. I Cl gave the book to-the child ‘I gave the child the book d. El libro, se lo di al NIño. the book Cl Cl gave to-the child
The context provided ensures that the indirect object in the answer will be focussed
while the direct object will be backgrounded. The German sentence (105)(a) would be
acceptable in the context provided, with an accented indirect object and a deaccented direct
object. The Spanish sentence (b) is unacceptable in the same context. Spanish needs to place
the focussed constituent at the end of the sentence, as in (c) or dislocate the backgrounded
object, as in (d).
Let us now turn to a Esplugish example:
(106) Juan le hizo dem Kind das Buch geben. Juan Cl.dat made the.dat child the.acc book give ‘=Juan made the child give the book.’ ‘=Juan made someone give the child the book.’
Dem Kind can be an indirect object or a causée. The indirect object dem Kind is in the
domain of vdt, so it should be possible for it to attract stress and focus in the German way.
However, the causée dem Kind is in the domain of vsp and should not be able to do the same.
p.48
These predictions are fulfilled. Consider first example (107). The context that precedes the
example ensures that dem Kind is an indirect object. The result is fully grammatical:
(107) [Context: Who is the person such that Juan made someone give a book to this person?] Juan le hizo dem KIND das Buch geben. Juan CL did the.dat child the book give Juan made him/her give the book to the child.
But if we set up the context so that dem Kind is a causée, the result is unacceptable:
(108) [Context: Who is the person such that Juan made this person give a book?] #Juan le hizo dem KIND das Buch geben. Juan CL did the.dat child the book give ‘Juan made the child give the book.’
Das Buch, on the other hand, always stays within vdt. Therefore, we should expect to
find a German-style focus/background structure on das Buch, independent of the
interpretation of the dative argument. Again, this prediction holds:
(109) Juan le hizo dem Kind das BUCH geben. Juan CL did the.dat child the book give =Juan made the child give the book. =Juan had the book given to the child.
The direct object can scramble over the dative argument if it is backgrounded. In that
case, only the indirect object reading for the dative argument is possible:
(110) Juan le hizo das Buch dem KIND geben. Juan CL did the book the.dat child give =Juan made him/her give the book to the child. ≠Juan made the child give the book.
Again, this follows from our analysis. If we take German scrambling to be clause-
bound in the strictest sense, then the causée is too high in the structure for the object to
scramble over it. We assume that in an example like (111) the scrambled object has made it
as far as Spec,vdt but cannot go any further:
p.49
(111) Juan vsp+hizo [VP causée t(hizo) [vP das Buch [v’ t(causée) [VP IO t(das Buch) t(geben)] vdt+geben ]]]
To conclude this section: we have tested our hypothesis that little v determines crucial
grammatical/interface properties within its phase against the complex data base supplied by
causative constructions. We have found that our predictions have been confirmed in a variety
of types of examples.
___________________________________________________________________________
9. Conclusion
___________________________________________________________________________
In this article we have proposed that phase heads determine grammatical properties of
their complements including parametric properties. We have developed this hypothesis in
detail the vP phase. We have shown that little v is directly involved in crucial grammatical
properties of its VP complement such as word order, prosody and information structure.
Thus, we have integrated little v into contemporary parameter theory by showing that it plays
a role in cross-linguistic variation concerning the above mentioned properties.
Code-switching has proven to be a rich database to develop and test theoretical
hypotheses. Thus, code-switching data opens a window to properties of the faculty of human
language that otherwise remain opaque.
Appendix
In our data gathering we have found that it is possible to have the light verb select for
transitive (112) , unergative (113) and unaccusative predicates (114):
p.50
(112) Juan hace lesen ein Buch. Juan does read a book Juan reads a book.
(113) Juan hace schlafen. Juan does sleep Juan sleeps
(114) La Vase se hizo zerbrechen. The vase CL. did broke The vase broke.
However, the light verb cannot be used in a passive construction:
(115) *Das Buch ha sido hecho verkaufen. The book has been done sold The book has been sold.
This phenomenon is general in the code-switching varieties that we have investigated.
Interestingly, it seems to be even more general: Karimi-Doostan (2004)’s study of light verb
constructions of the monolingual varieties Kurdish, Persian and Korean yields the same
restriction. In the following, we suggest an account.
Following Legate (2003) it is now commonly assumed that unaccusative and passive
predicates are also headed by a little v, one without (presumably) an external argument:
(116) [vP v [VP V DP]
It is well-known that there is an important difference between passives and
unaccusatives: in the former, the “absorbed” external argument makes its presence strong
enough to control a PRO (see Baker et al 1989, among many others).
(117) a. The boat was sunk to collect the insurance. b. *The boat sunk to collect the insurance.
We take it then that there is a remnant of an external argument in passive predicates,
which we represent as PRO:
p.51
(118) a. The boati was PRO sunk ti. b. The boati sunk ti.
For reasons that remain mysterious to us, this PRO seems to be unaffected by the Case
filter, which allows, or forces, the internal argument to establish a dependency with T. Hence
the well-known morpho-syntactic similarities between unaccusatives and passives which
obscure the argument structure difference.
The next question is how the internal argument can jump over the external argument.
Since the work of Holmberg (1986), Chomsky (1993) and, more recently, Kucerova (2007),
syntacticians have been aware that the ability of an argument to jump over another is
dependent on verb movement. To put it in Chomsky’s terms, movement of a head X into
position p renders the positions α, β and γ equidistant from δ:
(119) [pP α [β p [γ X […δ]]]
Without the proviso of equidistance, movement of an argument over another is
banned by relativized minimality/MLC.
We do not need to concern ourselves with position γ. For our purposes, what is crucial
is that raising the lexical verb to adjoin to the little v creates the space for a constituent in δ to
move to a specifier position higher than β. As a result, the internal argument (IA) of a passive
predicate can move into a new Spec,v:
(120) [vP IA [v’ PRO v+V [VP tv tIA ]]]
And now we are ready to account for the ungrammaticality of passives with overt
light verbs, whether they be in monolingual or code-switching varieties. In this construction,
the lexical verb does not adjoin to the little v, so the positions α and β are not equidistant
from a lower position. Raising of IA to Spec,v gives rise to a violation of minimality.
p.52
This problem does not arise if the predicate is unaccusative. Since there is not a trace
of an external argument in Spec,v, nothing prevents the internal argument to move to it,
regardless of V-movement.
___________________________________________________________________________
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