Abstract
Chapter 3 uses the modular signature of syntax to show that some phi-agreement dependencies belong to syntax rather than realizational morphology. They are interactions between the transitive subject and object according to their person features, or person (hierarchy) interactions, in Algonquian, Mapudungun, and Arizona Tewa. The key finding is that the interactions are visible to other syntactico-semantic phenomena, unlike the morphological phenomena of Chapter 2. Other aspects of their ‘modular signature’ agree, notably operation across phrase-structurally unbounded domains. The person interaction of Arizona Tewa introduces the notion of a syntactic repair of a person (hierarchy) constraint for the subsequent chapters: the emergence of an otherwise unavailable syntactic structure in response to the impossibility of the regular one by a person constraint.
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Notes
- 1.
The term O is intended to mean the lower agreement controller in the agreement domain of EA, rather than its thematic co-argument, and so includes the embedded subject of cross-clausal agreement and raising-to-object (as in Algonquian below, or Picurís, Nichols 2001: 523, 531).
- 2.
- 3.
The 3.PROX > 3.OBV hierarchy is actually 3 topic > 3 nontopic, which determines the former whenever one of the arguments is proximate because the proximate must be the unique topic, but also encompasses 3.OBV↔3.OBV that may be direct or inverse (Dahlstrom 1986: 53f., Klaiman 1992: 247; cf. Rhodes 1974: 211 note 5, Bruening 2001: 124).
- 4.
Rhodes (1994: 443) notes that some speakers pick the EA as the pivot of cross-clausal obviation and/or cross-clausal agreement, rather than the winner of EA-O PH interaction (some picking EA for one diagnostic but the PH winner for the other). Dahlstrom (1986) finds that cross-clausal agreement in Plains Cree is not affected by the 3.PROX > 3.OBV hierarchy.
- 5.
I do not add glosses to Rhodes's translations; the discussion below should clarify the examples.
- 6.
The same Ban constrains 3↔3 contexts on the hierarchy 3.PROX→3.OBV. They are not illustrated here in detail, but they provide supporting evidence for the syntactic status of obviation. The tree (inanimate) hit John (animate) requires by the Ban that John be the winner on the hierarchy and thus proximate, giving an inverse configuration where O outranks EA. By contrast, John hit the tree is fine only if John is proximate, a direct configuration. These direct/inverse contrasts obtain reflected in the morphology in both the independent and conjuncts orders (Rhodes 1994: 433f.).
- 7.
At issue is whether the pivot can reconstruct, which it should not be able to do via PRO unlike via A-movement (Burzio 1986). Bruening (2001: 131) does demonstrate for the Algonquian language Passamaquoddy that the inverse of 3EA→3O combinations not only allows O > EA scope, but also reconstructed EA > O scope, while the direct only allows EA > O.
- 8.
Ini is optional when possible in these sentences, because all are also compatible with a matrix 3rd person animate non-topic pivot which would not trigger it, as well as a topic one. This is not relevant to the argument, which turns on the possibility of ini.
- 9.
See further Bruening (2001), Mühlbauer (2008) on obviation. Superficially, the alternation in the obviation of the adjunct subject is reminiscent of that between anaphor types in sentences of the type Lynn i found Kate k tired when x i/k came home, in languages like Spanish, Finnish, or German. If x i picks up the subject, it tends to be pro rather than a pronoun, or a pronoun rather than a demonstrative, and inversely if x k picks up the object (Turan 1996, Arnold 1998, Kaiser 2003).
- 10.
The 3.PROX > 3.OBV PH-interaction, which applies in the conjunct as well as independent order, matters both for determining α in the lower clause and for Bruening's generalization.
- 11.
More precisely, the 1/2 > 3 portion of the hierarchy does. (12)b shows that in the 1EA→2O, O wins and creates an inverse, but there is no data on 2EA→1O (Bruening 2001: 277 note 10).
- 12.
The 3.PROX-3.OBV distinction is inferred solely from the existence of two agreement patterns for 3↔3 interactions. The 1EA→2O combinations are special; Arnold calls them ‘middle'. Historically and in the Huichille dialect, there are transparent inverse forms, pe-e-ymi-Ø 'see-INV-2SG.SU –1.O' ‘I see you'. However, modern Mapudungun forms in the Tables ‘opaquely' express ‘I see you (SG)' by ‘We (two) see you', and ‘I/we see you' (total number of participants grater than two) by ‘We (plural) see each other' (see Chapter 2).
- 13.
In 1↔2 scenarios, Arnold (1994: 38, 1997) observes that the EL-forms choose 2nd person in 1EA→2O and 2EA→1O, which Zuñiga (2002: 235) qualifies. Other syntactic correlates of the EA-O interaction in Mapudungun bear on or have only been tested for 3.PROX > 3.OBV. For instance, wh-movement applies to the O of morphologically direct and to the EA of morphologically inverse clauses, recalling the cross-linguistically common ban on ergative extraction and its repair in some Mayan languages by demotion to absolutive (Berinstein 1985, 1990, Davies and Sam Colop 1990, Hale 2001, Aissen 1999, Béjar and Rezac 2007: Appendix).
- 14.
The inverse e is missing by assimilation to a (Arnold 1994: 40 note 10, 1997 note 14). The gloss of mün has been changed from you to your on the basis of Arnold's discussion.
- 15.
I am grateful to A. Guillaume for discussion of Cavineña and providing me with his work.
- 16.
For instance, in Movima, Haude (2006: 7.1–5), the winner of EA-O PH interaction must be overtly expressed and enclitic to the verb, with direct/inverse verbal markers indicating whether it is the EA or the O, according to the hierarchy 1SG > 1INCL/EXCL > 2SG > 2PL > 3 human > 3 non-human. This constraint ranges over both enclitics and full 3rd person DPs, making it appear syntactic rather than morphological. Moreover, the generalization has exceptions where the 2nd person in 1↔2 combinations is enclitic, but then the 1st person must still obey the constraint by being overt as a free pronoun, also suggesting a generalization going beyond clitics (Haude 2006: 278). In syntactic terms, the winner of the PH-interaction might move to a designated subjecthood position, which must be overt and control enclisis. Fascinating PH-interactions that fail to be clearly syntactic include Lakämper and Wunderlich (1998) for Quechua, and Dixon (2000), Farell (2005: 77ff.) for Jarawara; an example of a PH-interaction that has turned out to be spurious is Nichols' (1998: Chapter 2) reanalysis of Zuni from Nichols (1996), Albizu (1997b).
- 17.
For other types of syntactic theories where phi-feature distinctions condition movement, see Laka (1993a), Johns (1993), Nash (1997), Hale (2001), Béjar (2003), Béjar and Rezac (2009), Baker (2008). Reference to phi-features may be under other terms. For Bruening (2001: 2.4.5), A-movement occurs through the feature [+P], but the 1st/2nd-3rd person distinction governs the distribution of [+P]: 1st/2nd person is inherently [+P], a 3rd person must not be [+P] if coargument of 1st/2nd person, while for two 3rd person coarguments one and one only is [+P].
- 18.
The same issues appear to be reflected in the following claim for postsyntactic, realizational approaches to phi-agreement and case, which would be undermined by a PF principle like (15) to PH-interactions: “Syntactic ungrammaticality will not result from the realization of case and agreement. In particular, there is always a default case realization.” (Marantz 2000: 20)
- 19.
3→3 combinations might reflect direct 3.PROXEA→3.OBVO vs. inverse 3.OBVEA→3.PROXO, as in Arnold (1994) for Mapudungun (cf. Kroskrity 1985: 315f.). Applicative constructions might shed more light on this. They treat the applicative object IO like the direct object of plain transitives (Allen and Frantz 1983: 308, Allen et al. 1990: 347). However, while 3EA→3O combinations can be direct or inverse and 1/2EA→XIO→3O are direct, 3EA→3IO→3O can only be inverse in Southern Tiwa (Rosen 1990: 2.3). This is consonant with person-like properties of even 3rd person applicative objects discussed in Section 5.2. (The IO prevents O from being 1st/2nd person in Southern Tiwa and Algonquian by the Person Case Constraint of Chapter 5, even when it is 3rd person and loses the PH-interaction to a 1st/2nd person EA; see Béjar and Rezac 2009: 46 note 6 for one approach, as well as Albizu 1997b, Lochbihler 2008, Boeckx 2008b.).
- 20.
- 21.
See Medová (2009), Caha (2009) for work developing the idea that unmarked structural Case is due to movement from richer PP-like structures. The story can equally be explored in reverse according to another view of the ergative: the EA is base-generated bare, T attracts all EAs unless a 3rd person O intervenes, and it is movement to T that results in the assignment of an ergative oblique-like case (cf. Rezac 2003).
- 22.
A PF mechanism that would then lend itself well to Arizona Tewa is lower-copy spell-out due to a PF constraint, along the lines developed by Bobaljik and Branigan (2006) for Chukchi (cf. Section 4.4). Both direct and inverse configurations would involve the same structure, (ia). The fully agreeing bare EA of direct combinations is the spell-out of the copy of the EA in [Spec, TP], (ib), forced when possible. A morphological constraint like (16) that the person of AGREA outrank AGRO prevents this in 3EA→1/2O and 1/2EA→2/1O combinations. It is resolved in (ib) by impoverishing AGREAwith consequent lower-copy spell-out of the EA in [Spec, vP], di-marked.
(i)
a [EA O V+T [EA … O …]]
Syntax
b [EA O AGREA+AGRO+V+T [
… 
…]]Spellout AGREA > AGRO
c [
O AGREA+AGRO+V+T [EA … …]]Spellout otherwise
where top-copy EA spell-out is bare, lower-copy di-marked, and AGREA is impoverished if lower copy spell-out of EA occurs
- 23.
For instance, both relativization and conjunction reduction might need PRO rather than a gap in Arizona Tewa, and there might not be an oblique PRO in the language.
- 24.
Even so, the status of many hierarchies would remain unclear, for instance the rather natural classes defined by the interaction of person and number in Dummi (Trommer 2006).
… 
…]]References
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Rezac, M. (2010). Person Hierarchy Interactions in Syntax. In: Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of Language. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9698-2_3
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