Case Absorption and WH-Agreement

282 Pages·1996·14.14 MB·English

by  Akira Watanabe (auth.)

CASE ABSORPTION AND WH-AGREEMENT
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
VOLUME37
Managing Editors
Liliane Haegeman, University o/Geneva
Joan Maling, Brandeis University
James McCloskey, University 0/ CaU/ornia. Santa Cruz
Editorial Board
Carol Georgopoulos, University 0/ Utah
Guglielmo Cinque, University o/Venice
Jane Grimshaw, Rutgers University
Michael Kenstowicz, Massachusetts Institute o/Technology
Hilda Koopman, University o/California. Los Angeles
Howard Lasnik, University 0/ Connecticut at StO"S
Alec Marantz. Massachusetts Institute o/Technology
John J. McCarthy, University 0/ Massachusetts. Amherst
lan Roberts, University o/Waies, Bangor
The titles published in this series are listed at the end ofthis volume.
AKIRA WATANABE
Kanda University 0/ International Studies.
Chiba. Japan
CASE ABSORPTION
AND WH-AGREEMENT
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from.tbe Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-4744-1 ISBN 978-94-015-8615-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8615-3
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1996
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1996
No part ot-the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
TADLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi
Chapter 1: CASE CHECKING 1
1.0. Introduction 1
1.1. Minimalist Framework 2
1.2. Case Checking 9
1.2.1. Proposal 9
1.2.2. Northern ltalian Subject Clitic Doubling 15
1.3. Organization 17
Appendix. Case Checking Without Agr 17
Notes 22
Chapter 2: TNS -> AGR-S -> COMP 24
2.0. Introduction 24
2.1. The Distribution of PRO 25
2. 1. 1. Statement of the Problem 25
2.1.2. The Answer 28
2.1.3. Martin (1992) 30
2.2. NP Raising 35
2.2.1. English 35
2.2.2. Romaniansubjunctive 39
2.3. Explaining the TNS-COMP Relation 46
2.3.1. Morphological Correlation and ECM from Comp 46
2.3.2. MovementtoCO 48
2.3.2.1. Trigger Problem Resolved 48
2.3.2.2. Arbitrariness of Overt Movement 51
Notes 57
Chapter3: V ->AGR-O->TNS/ASP 64
3.0. Introduction 64
3.1. Passive 64
3.1.1. Morphological VarietiesofPassive 65
3.1.2. Case Absorption in Participial Passive 66
3.1.2.1. The Problem 66
3.1.2.2. Structure of Participial Passive 67
3.2. Participial Constructions 69
v
vi TABLE OF CONTENfS
3.2.1. Have and Be 70
3.2.2. Locus of Accusative Case Checking 75
3.2.2.1. MinimalityProblem 75
3.2.2.2. CliticMovement 79
3.2.2.3. Celtic 83
3.2.3. Parametric Variations in Participial Constructions 84
3.2.3.1. English Progressive 85
3.2.3.2. Breton 87
3.2.3.3. Hebrew 91
3.2.3.4. RomanceAgain 93
3.2.4. Aux Selection 95
3.2.4.1. Unergatives 96
3.2.4.2. AspectandAux Selection 97
3.3. Causative 99
3.3.1. Typology of Causative 99
3.3.2. CasePropertyofReducedCausative 103
3.3.2.1. The Embedded Object Raised to the Matrix Clause 103
3.3.2.2. Case Checking and Relativized Minimality 108
3.3.3. TransitivityRestriction 111
3.3.4. Structural Similarity of Passive and Reduced Causative:
Passive in Japanese 114
3.3 .5. Embedding of the Copula under Reduced Causative 118
3.4. Tightening up Some Loose Ends 125
3.4.1. ObliqueExtemalArgument 125
3.4.1.1. Argument vs. Adjunct 125
3.4.1.2. ObliqueMarking 132
3.4.1.3. Apparent lAEX Violations and Impersonal Constructions 136
3.4.1.4. Antipassive 138
3.4.2. Selection 140
3.4.2.1. TPComplementation: Japanese Causative 144
3.5. Conclusion 150
Notes 153
Chapter4: WH-AGREEMENT 170
4.0. Introduction 170
4.1. Three-way Distinction in Palauan 170
4.1.1. The Phenomenon 171
4.1.2. The Account 173
4.1.3. Zaenen's Generalization 177
4.2. Tense 180
4.2.1. Modalization 180
4.2.1. 1. Absence of the SubjectlNon-subject Asymmetry 180
4.2.1.2. English 183
4.2.2. IntermediateTraces 186
T ABLE OF CONTENTS vii
4.3. Co 188
4.3 .1. Morpho-Phonological Arbitrariness 188
4.3.1.1. Past Proposals 189
4.3.1.2. Further Arguments for Morphological Arbitrariness 191
4.3.2. V-RaisingtoCO 193
4.3.2.1. RootINon-root(A)symmetry 193
4.3.2.2. Asymmetry in English 199
4.4. Agr-s 200
4.4.1. Absence of Subject-Verb Agreement in Subject Extraction 200
4.4.2. Failure of Subject Raising in Overt Syntax 203
4.4.2. 1. The Syntactic Mechanism 203
4.4.2.2. Transitivity Restrietion in French Stylistic Inversion
and Japanese Nominative-Genitive Conversion 204
4.4.2.3. Oblique Insertion in Chamorro 212
4.4.3. Subject Extraction 217
4.4.3.1. Mayan Focus Antipassive 218
4.4.3.2. The Ban against Movement Which is Too Short 227
4.4.4. Other Phenomena 228
4.5. Conclusion 231
Notes 234
REFERENCES 244
INDEX OF LANGUAGES 261
INDEX OF NAMES 263
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 267
PREFACE
This book is an extensively revised version of the core part of my
1993 MIT doctoral dissertation, which seeks to provide a Minimalist
theory of Case absorption and support it through empirical
investigation. The central idea pursued is that impoverishment of
phrase structure is responsible for Case absorption and that the right
theory of Case checking should derive this property. Although the
basic line of research on Case absorption and wh-agreement remains
the same, this book incorporates a lot of new results. A principied
theory of Case checking and Case absorption has been worked out in
Chapter 1. Treatment of participial constructions in Chapter 3 and wh
agreement in Chapter 4 is far more systematic and comprehensive.
Chapter 2 is also streamlined, together with refinements of the analysis
of Romanian. The product, I hope, is a more convincing defe nse of
the strength of the Mi ni mal ist approach.
I would like to thank my thesis committee members Ken Haie,
Noam Chomsky, and Howard Lasnik, under whose guidance this
project started.
During the process of revision, I was fortunate to be helped by
many people. Noam Chomsky suggested that the follow-up to Case
checking can be made more princi pled by making use of the Case
feature of the original Case checker (V or Tns), instead of positing a
new feature, a suggestion which now appears in note 49 of Chomsky
(1995). The formulation of Ca se checking in this book develops this
suggestion. I would also like to thank Jun Abe, Chris Collins, Viviane
Deprez, Ken HaIe, Masa Koizumi, Kazuki Kuwabara, Howard
Lasnik, Junko Shimoyama, Tali Siloni, Dominique Sportiche, Hiroaki
Tada, Hiroyuki Ura, and Jan-Wouter Zwart for discussions of various
parts of the book. Jim McCloskey, Chris Collins, and two anonymous
reviewers have given me useful comments, for which I am very
grateful. My colleague Kazuki Kuwabara also deserves special thanks
for reading the final manuscript very carefully as weil as for other
inputs.
It is also a pleasure to work with the Kluwer editor Polly Margules.
In addition to the help by these people, the book owes a lot to
penetrating analyses in the literature cited, without which this book
could not exist.
March 1996
IX
List of Abbreviations
1, 2,3 person
A Absolutive R realis
Aoc Aocusative refl reflexive
aor aorist m relai tonal noun
apass antipassive (Mayan)
asp aspect Sbj-prt subjunctive particle
caus causative scl subject clitic
cl clitic sg singular
Dat Dative sp subjectagreennent
denn dennonstrati ve (Bantu)
dep dependent Top topic nnarker
dir directional VN verbal noun
ds directional suffix
E Ergative
f fenninine
Gen Genitive
IM innperfective
IR irrealis
LK linker
Loc locative
nn nnasculine
Nonn Nonninative
obi oblique
op object agreennent
(Bantu)
P preposition
pass passive
past past tense
Perf perfect
PF perfective
pI plural
pres present tense
Prog progressive
prt particle
Xl
CHAPfER 1
CASE CHECKING
1.0. INTRODUCTION
This book proposes to provide a Minimalist account of Case absorption
under the Agr-based Case theory put forward by Chomsky (1991,
1993). The classic instance of Case absorption is found in the passive
construction, where the Accusative Case feature of a verb becomes
unavailable. Although there are proposals to deal with Accusative Case
absorption in the passive in the pre-Minimalist literature (most notably,
Baker, Johnson and Roberts (1989)), it is not obvious how the Agr
based Case theory accommodates this phenomenon. This is a very
serious theoretica1 problem because Case absorption occupies a central
pi ace in the theory of A-movement. We cannot predict when we are
dealing with A-movement without an adequate account of how Case
absorption takes place. Furthermore, the pre-Minimalist mechanism of
Case absorption is not without problems, as we will see in Chapter 3.
There is therefore a strong need to provide an explanatory theory of
Case absorption. We will see that a simple modification of the Agr
based Case theory derives Case absorption from the categorial status of
well-motivated phrase structure alone, an account which is highly
desirable from the Minimalist point of view.
This book has another goal. Our modification of Case theory has a
consequence which enables us to account for so-called wh-agreement
as due to interaction of Case theory and A-bar processes. Since the
phenomena subsumed under the name of wh-agreement are realized in
various forms, one might wonder whether there is a theoretically
significant uniformity behind the entire set of the phenomena, other
than the fact that wh-agreement is induced by wh-movement. We will
see that a fairly straightforward explanation can be given, once we
abstract away from superficial morpho-syntactic multiplicity of its
real i zati on. It turns out that the scope of the phenomena that fall under
our account is far greater than considered to this day under the rubric of
wh-agreement'.
In addition to having some intrinsic interest, the account of wh
agreement proposed in this book is also an attempt to do away with the
structural relation 'government'. The Minimalist program tries to use
simpler theoretical relations and eliminate notions like government.
The Agr-based Case theory is such an attempt in the area of Case
theory. The notion of government, however, also played a central rote
1