Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-7drxs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T13:32:52.877Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Non-canonical agreement in copular clauses1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2017

SUSANA BÉJAR  and
ARSALAN KAHNEMUYIPOUR
SUSANA BÉJAR*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
ARSALAN KAHNEMUYIPOUR*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto Mississauga
*
Author’s address:Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canadasbejar@chass.utoronto.ca
Author’s address: Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canadaa.kahnemuyipour@utoronto.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper we investigate cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntax of copular clauses, focusing on agreement patterns in binominal structures [NP1 BE NP2]. Our starting point is the alternation between NP1 and NP2 agreement, which arises both within and across languages. This alternation is typically taken to be confined to specificational (i.e. inverted) clauses, and previous analyses have strongly identified NP2 agreement with the syntax of inversion. However, we show that NP2 agreement is attested in a broader range of contexts, specifically in (assumed identity) equative structures, suggesting that it should not be correlated with specificational syntax. We present contrasting data from two languages – Persian and Eastern Armenian – for which the syntax of copular clauses is understudied. Whereas in Persian we see NP2 agreement in specificational structures but NP1 agreement in assumed identity equatives, in Eastern Armenian both types of structure yield NP2 agreement. We argue that the contrast between Persian and Eastern Armenian supports an approach that takes the NP1–NP2 alternation to arise as a phi-sensitivity in the probe–goal mechanics of Agree in a minimalist framework. Under this view, NP2 agreement is independent of syntactic inversion and is the result of the probe structure being articulated in such a way that certain NPs fail to Agree.

Keywords

agreementArmeniancopular clausesequativesspecificational clauses
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , 01 August 2017 , pp. 463 - 499
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[1]

We gratefully acknowledge funding from SSHRC grant # 410-2011-0975 and SSHRC grant #435-2013-1756. We would like to thank Caroline Heycock and Jutta Hartman for feedback and discussion, and four anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees for strengthening this work. We also thank present and past members of the Copular Agreement Project at the University of Toronto, including our co-investigator Ivona Kucerova and RAs Jitka Bartosova, Bronwyn Bjorkman, Cassandra Chapman, Julie Doner, Clarissa Forbes, Monica Irimia, Jessica Mathie, Kenji Oda, Will Oxford, Julia Su, Nicholas Welch, and Tomo Yokoyama. We also thank audiences at York University, the CLA, the Recife Agreement Workshop, the Bologna Workshop on Copular Clauses and the University of Toronto Syntax-Semantics Project. Finally, we are very grateful to the Persian and Eastern Armenian speakers who worked with us: Reza Savami (Persian), Ashot Karapet and John Nalbandyan (Eastern Armenian). Special thanks to Karine Megerdoomian for supplying Eastern Armenian judgments as well as additional help with transliteration.

Abbreviations used in the text are as follows: 1, 2, 3 $=$ 1st, 2nd, 3rd person; acc$=$ accusative; ez$=$ Ezafe; fut$=$ future; gen$=$ genitive; indef$=$ indefinite; loc$=$ locative; neg$=$ negation; nom$=$ nominative; pl$=$ plural; pres$=$ present; pst$=$ past; sg$=$ singular; sp$=$ specific; sup$=$ superlative. We capitalize ‘Agree’ when referring to the syntactic operation, but not when referring to the phenomenon.

References

Adger, David & Harbour, Daniel. 2007. The syntax and syncretisms of the Person Case Constraint. Syntax 10, 2–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adger, David & Ramchand, Gillian. 2003. Predication and equation. Linguistic Inquiry 34.3, 325–359.Google Scholar
Barlow, Michael & Ferguson, Charles A.. 1988. Agreement in natural language. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Béjar, Susana. 2003. Phi-syntax: A theory of agreement. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Béjar, Susana. 2008. Conditions on Phi-Agree. In Harbour, Daniel, Adger, David & Béjar, Susana (eds.), Phi theory: Phi-features across interfaces and modules, 130–154. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Béjar, Susana & Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan. 2014. Agree and the (in)visibility of intensional NPs. Presented at the GETEGRA Agreement Workshop, Recife, Brazil.Google Scholar
Béjar, Susana & Rezac, Milan. 2009. Cyclic Agree. Linguistic Inquiry 40.1, 35–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan David & Branigan, Phil. 2006. Eccentric agreement and multiple case-checking. In Johns, Alana, Massam, Diane & Ndayiragije, Juvenal (eds.), Ergativity: Emerging issues (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 65), 47–77. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Bondaruk, Anna. 2013. Copular clauses in English and Polish: Structure, derivation and interpretation. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL.Google Scholar
Bowers, John. 1993. The syntax of predication. Linguistic Inquiry 24.4, 591–656.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Martin, Roger, Michaels, David & Uriagereka, Juan (eds.), Step by step: Essays on Minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, 89–156. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Kenstowicz, Michael (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1984. Some formal properties of focus in Modern Eastern Armenian. Annual of Armenian Linguistics 5, 1–21.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 2003. When agreement gets trigger happy. Transactions of the Philological Society 101.2, 313–337.Google Scholar
Costa, João. 2004. Subjects in Spec,vP: Locality and agree. In Castro, Ana, Ferreira, Marcelo, Hacquard, Valentine & Salanova, Andres P. (eds.), Romance, Op. 47: Collected papers on Romance syntax (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 47), 1–15. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Cowper, Elizabeth & Hall, Daniel Currie. 2002. The syntactic manifestation of nominal feature geometry. In Burelle, Sophie & Somesfalean, Stanca (eds.), Proceedings of the 2002 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association, 55–66. Montreal: Université du Québec à Montréal.Google Scholar
Danon, Gabi. 2011. Agreement and DP-internal feature distribution. Syntax 14, 297–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Declerck, Renaat. 1988. Studies on copular sentences, clefts and pseudo-clefts. Leuven: Leuven University Press and Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 1997. Appraising The raising of predicates . Review article on The raising of predicates: Predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structureby Andrea Moro. Linguistische Berichte 174, 246–263.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 2006a. Specificational copular sentences and pseudoclefts. In Everaert, Martin & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. IV, 292–409. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 2006b. Relators and linkers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 2002. Copular clauses in Australian languages: A typological perspective. Anthropological Linguistics 44, 1–36.Google Scholar
Doron, Edit. 1988. The semantics of predicate nominal. Linguistics 26.2, 281–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geist, Ljudmila. 2003. Predication and equation in copular clauses: The syntax–semantics interface. In Comorovsky, Ileana & von Heusinger, Klaus (eds.), Existence: Semantics and syntax, 79–105. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth. 2001. Eccentric agreement. In Albizu, Pablo & Fernández, Beatriz (eds.), On Case and agreement, 15–48. Bilbao: Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris. 1997. Distributed morphology: Impoverishment and Fission. In Bruening, Benjamin, Kang, Yoonjung & McGinnis, Martha (eds.), PF: Papers at the interface (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 30), 425–450. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Ritter, Elizabeth. 2002. Person and number in pronouns: A feature-geometric analysis. Language 78.3, 482–526.Google Scholar
Heggie, Lorie. 1988. The syntax of copular structures. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Heller, Daphna. 2005. Identity and information: Semantic and pragmatic aspects of specificational sentences. Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Heller, Daphna & Wolter, Lindsey. 2008. That is Rosa: Identificational sentences and intensional predication. In Groen, Atle (ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 12, 226–240. Oslo: Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo. [http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/forskning/konferanser/SuB12/proceedings/, accessed 26 April 2016]Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 1994. Layers of predication: The non-lexical syntax of clauses. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 2010. Variability and variation in agreement in copular clauses: Evidence from Faroese. Presented at the 25th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop (CGSW 25), June 2010, University of Tromsø, Norway. [http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/∼heycock/papers/CGSW25.pdf, accessed 26 April 2016]Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 2012. Specification, equation and agreement in copular sentences. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 57.2, 209–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heycock, Caroline & Kroch, Anthony. 1998. Inversion and equation in copular sentences. In Alexaidou, Artemis, Fuhrhop, Nanna, Kleinhenz, Ursula & Law, Paul (eds.), ZAS Papers in Linguistics 10, 71–87. Berlin: Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline & Kroch, Anthony. 1999. Pseudocleft connectedness: Implications for the LF interface level. Linguistic Inquiry 30.3, 365–397.Google Scholar
Higgins, Roger F.1973. The pseudo-cleft construction in English. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Higgins, Roger F. 1979. The pseudo-cleft construction in English. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan. 2001. On wh-questions in Persian. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 46.1–2, 41–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan. 2009. The syntax of sentential stress. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan. 2014. Revisiting the Persian Ezafe construction: A roll-up movement analysis. Lingua 150, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan & Megerdoomian, Karine. 2011. Second position clitics in the vP phase: The case of the Armenian auxiliary. Linguistic Inquiry 42.1, 152–162.Google Scholar
Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan & Megerdoomian, Karine. 2017. On the positional distribution of an Armenian auxiliary: Second-position clisis, focus, and phases. Syntax 20.1, 77–97.Google Scholar
Kucerova, Ivona. 2014. Defective Agree Chains in Italian nominal inflection. Presented at the 44th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Western University, London, ON, Canada.Google Scholar
Laka, Itziar. 1993. Unergatives that assign ergative, unaccusatives that assign accusative. In Bobaljik, Jonathan D. & Collins, Chris (eds.), Papers on Case and agreement I (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 18), 149–172. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Macaulay, Monica. 1992. Inverse marking in Karuk: The function of the suffix -ap . International Journal of American Linguistics 58, 182–201.Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2005. Copular clauses: Specification, predication and equation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Moltmann, Friederike. 2010. Identificational sentences and the objects of direct perception. Ms., IHPST (Paris1/ENS/CNRS). [http://semantics.univ-paris1.fr/pdf/present-pronouns-2010-publ-2.pdf, accessed 16 December 2016]Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 1988. Per una teoria unificata delle frasi copulari [Towards a unified theory of copular clauses]. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 13.8, 1–110.Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 1997. The raising of predicates: Predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 2006. Copular sentences. In Everaert, Martin & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. II, 1–23. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 2013. The equilibrium of human syntax: Symmetries in the brain. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nichols, Lynn. 2001. The syntactic basis of referential hierarchy phenomena: Clues from languages with and without morphological case. Lingua 111, 515–537.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara. 1986. Ambiguous pseudoclefts with unambiguous be . Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 16), 354–366. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Pereltsvaig, Asya. 2007. Copular sentences in Russian: A theory of intra-clausal relations. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria. 2003. Non-canonical agreement is canonical. Transactions of the Philological Society 101.2, 279–312.Google Scholar
Pustet, Regina. 2003. Copulas: Universals in the categorization of the lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapoport, Tova. 1987. Copular, nominal and small clauses: A study of Israeli Hebrew. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Rezac, Milan. 2003. The fine structure of cyclic Agree. Syntax 6, 156–182.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized Minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Romero, Maribel. 2005. Concealed questions and specificational subjects. Linguistics and Philosophy 28, 687–737.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan. 1983. The syntactic form of predication. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan. 1995. Small clauses and copula constructions. In Cardinaletti, Anna & Guasti, Maria Teresa (eds.), Small clauses (Syntax and Semantics 28), 27–48. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan. 2001. Predicates and their subjects. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Sharvit, Yael. 1999. Connectivity in specificational sentences. Natural Language Semantics 7.3, 299–339.Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór A. 1996. Icelandic finite verb agreement. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 57, 1–46.Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór A. 2006. The Nom/Acc alternation in Germanic. In Hartmann, Jutta M. & Molnárfi, László (eds.), Comparative studies in Germanic syntax, 13–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 1976. Hierarchy of features and ergativity. In Dixon, R. M. W. (ed.), Grammatical categories in Australian languages, 112–171. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Stassen, Leon. 1997. Intransitive predication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tamrazian, Arminé. 1994. The syntax of Armenian: Chains and the auxiliary. Ph.D. dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar
Taraldsen, Knut T. 1995. On agreement and nominative objects in Icelandic. In Haider, Hubert, Olsen, Susan & Vikner, Sten (eds.), Studies in comparative Germanic syntax, 307–327. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Tragut, Jasmine. 2009. Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. 1977. Hierarchies of person. In Beach, Woodford A., Fox, Samuel E. & Philosoph, Shulamith (eds.), The Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 13), 714–733. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar