YPL2 - Issue 6

Issue 6 (May 2006)

(including papers from the Fourth York-Holland Symposium on the History of English Syntax)

Editors: Tim Guy and Chris Harris

Two Have or Not Two Have: The Multiple Realisation of Auxiliary Have in British English Dialects

1–26

Joanne Close

Abstract

This paper presents Double Have Constructions in two varieties of English, Scottish English in Fife and Durham English, and concludes that dialects that have similar characteristics may be significantly different in other areas of the grammar, in this instance the structure of the lexicon. Based on inversion facts, this paper argues that the Scottish dialect differs from many varieties of English, including the Durham dialect, in its lexical array where it has an additional modal verb, coulduf, which contains the perfective element uf. A characteristic that unites the two double have dialects and divides double have from non-double have dialects is that in the former a moved copy of have is reanalysed as a morphological word with the negative marker not which renders this copy of have invisible to the Linear Correspondence Axiom (Kayne 1994), allowing Multiple Spell Out (Nunes 2004) of have.

The Structural Development of the Verb-Particle Combination in the History of English

27–56

Marion Elenbaas

Abstract 

While verbal particles are often presented as markers of the underlying position of the verb, the question of their structural status and exact synthetic position is generally avoided. In this paper, I discuss the structural development of the English Verb-Particle Combination (VPC), providing evidence from data collected from the York-Toronto-Hesinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE; Taylor, Warner, Pintzuk and Beths 2003) and the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English (PPCME2; Kroch and Taylor 2000b). I show that the transparent semantics and separability of Old English (OE) particles (among other things) warrant an analysis in which they are unambiguously secondary predicates and represent syntactic phrases. I argue that decreasing evidence for phrasal status increasingly led to an analysis of particles as heads. This development resulted in a growing morphological unity between verb and particle, though the particle can still also function as a secondary predicate. I propose that this is reflected by a structural change which entails that particles no longer always project a phrase, but are ambiguous between a phrase and a head. This hybrid status accounts for the word order alternation of Present-Day English (PDE) VPCs.

Complex Syntax in High Functioning Individuals with Down Syndrome

57–67

Alice Eriks-Brophy, Helen Goodluck and Danijela Stojanović

Abstract

This paper reports data from part of a larger project examining knowledge of complex syntax in individuals with Down Syndrome. The chronological age of subjects ranged from eight to 33 years. We report here data from an act-out comprehension task, which was used to test knowledge of simple active and passive sentences as well as a number of constructions with embedded clauses that have a phonetically null (PRO) subject and (in two cases) a null object. The results show that some subjects have knowledge of the rules governing these constructions in English. The degree of difficulty of the constructions parallels the order in which the constructions are mastered by typically developing children. Overall levels of performance are, however, lower than for typically developing children.

The Structural Deficiency of Pro-forms

69–76

Bill Haddican

Abstract

This squib discusses two verbal pro-forms in British English, do and do so. In the spirit of Cardinaletti and Starke's (1999) typology of strong, weak and clitic pronouns, this squib argues that do is a structurally deficient relative of do so. In particularly, while both of these pro-forms are headed by v, do but not do so, lacks a VP complement. This approach is shown to account for certain prosodic and semantic differences between these forms.

Revisiting Verb (Projection) Raising in Old English

77–94

Eric Haeberli and Susan Pintzuk

Abstract 

In this paper we present a descriptive overview of the word order variation found in verb clusters in Old English. We show that the frequency of verb raising (VR) and verb projection raising (VPR) varies by author, text and finite verb type, as in other Germanic languages that show clustering effects. We demonstrate that the frequency of VP/VPR in Old English is higher than has been previously suggested, indicating that these processes must be taken into account when measuring quantitatively the structural changes that occurred during the Old English period.

The Binding Theory Doesn't (Have to) Apply at LF

95–114

Glyn Hicks

Abstract

This article argues that the Minimalist relation of the binding theory to the Logical Form interface (LF) is at best neither desirable nor empirically necessary. While no particular analysis of Condition A and Condition B effects is proposed here, I show that a variety of evidence can be adduced in favour of viewing the binding theory as based on the application of operations in the computational component of the grammar, a view supported recently in Minimalist theory by Epstein, Groat, Kawashima, and Kitahara (1998), Hornstein (2001), Kayne (2002), Zwart (2002). I deal with potentially powerful empirical counterarguments to narrow-syntactic analyses of Condition A, in particular the putative interaction between anaphor binding and other interpretive phenomena assumed to hold at LF (scope, idiom, and bound variable interpretation). The narrow-syntactic approach to Condition A is shown to be empirically at least as good as (and almost certainly better than) the LF-approach, and is shown to be far more desirable from a theoretical perspective.

Argument Structure and Case in the Nominal Domain: An Old English/Serbo-Croat Perspective

115-142

Marijana Marelj and Tanja Milićev

Abstract

This paper deals with NP–PP sequences like those in (1) from Old English.

1. 1. And þurcytel  eorl hine gesohte him     to hlaforde

and Thurcytel eorl him sough  him-DAT to lord
'And earl Thurcytel tried to get him to be his ruler'
(cochronC,ChronC_[Rositzke]:915.1.27.1103)

1. 2. and geoffrodon ealle heora lac       pam deoflicum godum, golde ælmihtigan   to teonan

and offered      all     their  offering the  devilish    gods     got    almighty-DAT to injury
'and gave all their offering to the devilish gods in order to injure God'
(coaelive,ÆLS_[Maurice]:23.5698)

Although the examples in (1a–b) look the same—they both have a dative NP with the thematic role of Goal/Benefactive and a PP consisting of the preposition to (or on) and a relational noun—they significantly differ in one respect: the dative NP in (1a) is optional, whereas in (1b), it is obligatory. For ease of reference, the example in (1a) is referred to as Type 1 and the one in (1b) as Type 2.

To account for the difference, we propose the hypothesis in (2).

2. Complements of prepositions in Type 1 have no argument-taking capacity, whereas those in Type 2 are argument-taking nominals.

Under (2), the nominal in Type 1 has only the external non-thematic R argument (cf. Williams 1981; Higginbotham 1985; Grimshaw 1990). Type 2 nominals, however, retain the argument structure of the verb they are derived from (cf. Grimshaw 1990), hence requiring the obligatory presence of their complements. The hypothesis in (2) allows us to account for the obligatory possessive reading, restricted binding possibilities, and the bareness of Type 1 nominals (following Roeper 1993, 2000, 2003, and the references there), as well as the fact that Type 2 nominals are always abstract nouns.

Speed and Reduction in Postpositioned Self-initiated Self-repair

143–161

Leendert Plug

Abstract

This paper presents phonetic observations on a collection of Dutch prepositioned self-initiated self-repair sequences. Unlike most previous work on the phonetics of repair, it considers the phonetic characteristics of the repair stretch as a whole, focussing on the extent to which a high speaking rate and articulatory reduction are associated with the practice of repairing an aspect of own prior talk. The paper suggests that 'speed' is indeed an important aspect of doing repair and discusses some implications for our understanding of the relationship between phonetic reduction and information structure.

From 'self' to 'x-self': The Change in the Form of the English Intensifier

163–184

Beck Sinar

Abstract

A major development in the intensifier between Old English and Present–Day English concerns its morphological form; Old English monomorphemic self changes to the complex form, x-self. On the basis of distributional evidence, this paper proposes that this change began in late Old English with the fusion of a non-argument coreferential pronoun to a particular type of intensifier. This fusion, which occurred due to semantic similarity, creates ambiguity in certain contexts between the different types of intensifier, allowing learners to reanalyse all types of intensifier as a complex form.

Fragments

185–195

Hidekazu Tanaka

Abstract

Ellipsis phenomena provide us with an interesting and almost unique opportunity for the investigation of the initial state of our language faculty. Since primary linguistic data cannot be responsible for acquiring internal syntax of ellipsis (since what is elided is, after all, elided), it is expected that syntactic properties displayed by elliptical constructions, if there are any, directly reflect our innate language faculty, a component of our mind dedicated to language acquisition. In this paper, I will show that the so-called fragmentary utterances are best analysed as Phonetic Form (PF)-deletion, and contrast with sluicing and comparative deletion, which are derived through Logical Form (LF)-copying of the ellipsis. I will do this by re-evaluating evidence for the PF-deletion account of fragmentary utterances listed in Merchant (2004), and articulating an alternative analysis of the elliptical constructions.