The Syntactic Recoverability of Null Arguments

228 Pages·1990·9.65 MB·English

by  Yves Roberge

The Syntactic Recoverability of Null Arguments
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The Syntactic
Recoverability of
Null Arguments
YVES R O B E R GE
McGill-Queen's University Press
Kingston & Montreal • London • Buffalo
© McGill-Queen's University Press 1990
ISBN 0-7735-0732-9
Legal deposit first quarter 1990
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a
grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humani-
ties, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Roberge, Yves
The syntactic recoverability of null arguments
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7735-0732-9
1. Romance languages - Clitics. 2. Romance lan-
guages - Topic and comment. 3. Romance languages
- Grammar, Generative, 1. Title
pc:191.C4R63 1990 440 089-090336-0
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 3
1 SYNTACTIC THEORY AND NULL ARGUMENTS
1.0. Introduction 10
1.1. Variation and Learnability 10
1.1.1. The Government and Binding
Framework 12
1.1.1.1. System of Rules 12
1.1.1.2. System of
Principles 14
1.1.1.3. Interactions 18
1.2. Null Arguments 20
1.2.1. Previous Analyses 23
1.2.2. Zero-Topic Languages 26
1.2.3. A Theory of pro 29
1.3. On Empty Categories 31
1.4. Summary 34
2 NULL ARGUMENTS IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES
2.0. Introduction 35
2.1. A Generalization 36
vi Contents
2.2. Pro and Clitics 38
2.2.1. On pro 39
2.2.2. On Agreement 47
2.2.3. Subject Clitics and Object
Clitics 52
2.2.4. Base Ceneration of Clitics 55
2.2.5. Case and -Role 65
2.3. On the Non-Existence of the Null
Subject Parameter 67
2.4. Free Inversion 69
2.5. Causatives 78
2.6. Summary 83
3 ON CLITIC DOUBLING
3.0. Introduction 85
3.1. Subject Doubling 86
3.1.1. Northern Italian Dialects 86
3.1.2. Previous Analyses 87
3.1.3. French Dialects 90
3.1.3.1. Colloquial French go
3.1.3.2. Pied Noir French 97
3.1.4. Analysis 98
3.2. Object Doubling and Subject
Doubling 103
3.2.1. Structures 104
3.2.2. Case Assignment 106
3.3. Extractions 117
3.3.1. The Facts 117
3.3.1.1. River Plate
Spanish 117
3.3.1.2. Colloquial
French 118
vii Contents
3.3.1.3. Pied Noir
French 119
3.3.1.4. Trentino 121
3.3.1.5. Florentine 123
3.3.1.6. Romanian 124
3.3.1.7. Standard French 127
3.3.2. Summary 128
3.3.3. Previous Accounts 129
3.3.4. C-Chains 133
3.4. A Note on Complex Inversion 139
3.5. A Note on Reflexive se 145
3.6. Summary 150
4 CLITICS AND AGREEMENT MARKERS
4.0. Introduction 152
4.1. Subject Cliticization 153
4.1.1. Internal Structure of
INFL 154
4.1.2. Verb Raising or INFL Lower-
ing? 155
4.1.3. Coordination 158
4.2. Agreement Markers vs. Clitics 167
4.2.1. Coordination 169
4.2.2. Doubling 170
4.2.3. Extractions 172
4.2.4. Obligatoriness 172
4.2.5. Morphology 173
4.2.6. Conclusion 173
4.3. Historical Speculations 174
4.4. Summary 175
Conclusion 176
viii Contents
Notes 181
Bibliography 201
Index 211
Preface
This book studies the syntactic properties of subject and object clitic
pronouns in several Romance languages and dialects from the per-
spective of the Principles-and-Parameters framework in generative
grammar, developed in recent work by Noam Chomsky and others.
It analyzes the properties of languages with subject clitics, such as
Standard French, and those with no subject clitics, such as Standard
Italian, in a homogeneous way. It generalizes the same treatment to
object clitics and to clitic-doubling constructions, achieving a unitary
solution for many aspects of the syntax of Romance constructions
which are at the center of recent debates.
A comparative study of various, rarely discussed French dialects
(Quebecois, Algerian), Italian, and Spanish dialects allows central
claims to be made specifically concerning the null subject phenom-
enon but also more generally with respect to syntactic theory. The
inclusion of a wider range of data leads to the conclusion that French
should be analyzed as a null subject language like many of its sisters
in the Romance family and to a better understanding of the nature
of the parameters responsible for the cross-linguistic variation found
in syntactic constructions insolving clitic pronouns.
This book is a revised version of my doctoral thesis written at the
University of British Columbia. Revisions were also made based on
the comments from three anonymous reviewers for the Aid to Schol-
arly Publications Programme and McGill-Queen's whom I would like
to thank.
The work presented here has benefited from the contributions of
many people. I would first like to express my gratitude to Michael
Rochemont who has been of invaluable assistance for the two years
I have worked on this book. I am also indebted to Guy Garden,
David Ingram, Richard Kayne, Robert Levine, and Herve Curat for