Table Of Content

Bavarian Syntax Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/la General Editors Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen Universität Wien / Arizona State University Ludwig Maximilian Universität München Advisory Editorial Board Josef Bayer Christer Platzack University of Konstanz University of Lund Cedric Boeckx Ian Roberts ICREA/UB Cambridge University Guglielmo Cinque Lisa deMena Travis University of Venice McGill University Liliane Haegeman Sten Vikner University of Ghent University of Aarhus Hubert Haider C. Jan-Wouter Zwart University of Salzburg University of Groningen Terje Lohndal Norwegian University of Science and Technology Volume 220 Bavarian Syntax. Contributions to the theory of syntax Edited by Günther Grewendorf and Helmut Weiß Bavarian Syntax Contributions to the theory of syntax Edited by Günther Grewendorf University of Frankfurt Helmut Weiß University of Frankfurt John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of 8 the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bavarian Syntax : Contributions to the theory of syntax / Edited by Günther Grewendorf and Helmut Weiß. p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 220) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. German language--Dialects--Bavarian. 2. German language--Dialects--Germany- -Bavaria. 3. German language--Syntax. 4. German language--Grammar. I. Grewendorf, Günther. II. Weiß, Helmut. PF5314.B38 2014 437’.9433--dc23 2014030020 isbn 978 90 272 5703 1 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 6935 5 (Eb) © 2014 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa Table of content Aspects of Bavarian syntax 1 Günther Grewendorf & Helmut Weiß part 1. COMP Phenomena Syntactic and phonological properties of wh-operators and wh-movement in Bavarian 23 Josef Bayer Complementizer agreement (in Bavarian): Feature inheritance or feature insertion? 51 Eric Fuß The rise and fall of double agreement: A comparison between Carinthian and Kansas Bukovina Bohemian 83 Melani Wratil part 2. Extraction Phenomena Structures of ‘Emphatic Topicalization’ in Bavarian 113 Uli Lutz Gaps and parasitic gaps in Bavarian 145 Günther Grewendorf Observations on relative clauses in Bavarian 183 Dalina Kallulli part 3. Non-clausal Phenomena Really weird subjects: The syntax of family names in Bavarian 203 Helmut Weiß Austro-Bavarian directionals: Towards a bigger picture 223 Bettina Gruber IPP-constructions in Alemannic and Bavarian in comparison 247 Oliver Schallert  Contributions to the theory of Syntax Bavarian Syntax part 4. The Topography of Southern German Dialects The Upper German differential: Main Austrian-Bavarian vs. (High) Alemannic differences 305 Werner Abraham Index 337 Aspects of Bavarian syntax Günther Grewendorf & Helmut Weiß University of Frankfurt 1. Dialect syntax and Universal Grammar Dialects are a linguist’s best friend for various reasons. It was presumably no accident that generative syntacticians already began to systematically study dialect syntax at a time, when dialectologists still neglected this field. According to Chomsky (2000b: 4), “each language is the result of the interplay of two factors: the initial state” – or Universal Grammar (UG) – “and the course of experience”. Each child acquires its language on the basis of an innate language faculty and the language s/he is exposed to. The phylo- and ontogenetic development of dialects, i.e. their history and acquisition, is mostly determined by these two forces – in contrast to standardized languages which have undergone externally motivated interventions in the course of their standardization. For this reason, dialects are more natural than standard languages and they provide a much more privileged access to UG (Weiß 1998, 2001, 2004). Dialectal data have played an important role in generative syntax at least since the 1980s. Bayer (1984) on doubly filled COMP in Bavarian and Haegeman and van Riemsdijk (1986) on verb (projection) raising in West Flemish and Zurich German are just two prominent early examples for this claim. Later, in the 1990s, Poletto’s (1999) study on Northern Italian dialects provided the main empirical evidence for Rizzi’s (1997) hypothesis that the C-domain consists of several functional projections. In the 1990s Kayne (1994) introduced the powerful and fruitful theoretical concept of microvariation, aiming at “the minimal units of syntactic variation” (Kayne 1996: xiii). To investigate microvariation, Kayne suggested “[c]omparative work on the syntax of a large number of closely related languages” (Kayne 1996: xii), i.e. dialect syntax. In the wake of Kayne, generative syntacticians began to study dialect syntax in an extensive and systematic way (cf. Brandner 2012; Weiß 2013). Projects on dialect syntax were ini- tiated and conducted in several European countries, of which ASIt on Italian Dialects, SAND on Dutch Dialects, and NORMS on Scandinavian dialects may be the most important ones which were settled within the Kaynian framework of microvariation. 2 Günther Grewendorf & Helmut Weiß In Germany, there are currently two projects with syntax- theoretical implications: SyHD (Syntax Hessischer Dialekte) and SynALM (Syntax der alemannischen Dialekte). These projects and studies on dialect syntax have gathered an astonishing amount of data which are highly relevant for linguistic theory. To give just one example: one characteristic trait which is present in dialects to a much greater extent than it is in ‘languages’ like English or German are doubling phenomena (cf. Barbiers et al. 2008). These phenomena are interesting because they seem to contradict basic assumptions like the principle of compositionality or the economy principle according to which a linguistic string should not contain superfluous or semantically vacuous expressions. However, the study of syntactic doubling “provide[s] us with a window on pure syntax” (Barbiers et al. 2008: 2) showing, e.g. that doubling reflects the various steps of movements of a single item or that it is an instance of the operation Agree in the sense of Chomsky (2000b). Therefore, doubling is at least syntactically by no means redun- dant, but plays an important role in the derivation of syntactic structures (Barbiers et al. 2008; Brandner 2012; Weiß 2013). Bavarian is probably the German dialect with the greatest presence in theoretical syntax. It began with Bayer’s (1984) seminal study on COMP in Bavarian syntax, which made a first essential contribution to a theoretical issue. Furthermore, Weiß (1998) presented the first systematic and comprehensive study of the syntax of a G erman dialect within a theoretical framework. There are a number of additional phenomena occurring in Bavarian whose investigation has increased our understanding of how syntax works: for example, complementizer agreement, pro-drop, extraction phenomena (e.g. parasitic gaps), or negative concord. The following sections contain short descriptions of these phenomena, highlighting their relevance for theoretical issues. The papers collected in this volume have grown out of talks at the Workshop Syntax des Bairischen (‘Syntax of Bavarian’), held at the Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, June 29–30, 2012. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support for the conference from the Vereinigung von Freunden und Fördereren der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität (Frankfurt am Main). 2. Specific properties of Bavarian syntax 2.1 Doubly filled COMP Bavarian syntax differs from the syntax of Standard German in a number of ways. A prominent difference concerns what in traditional generative grammar has been referred to as “Doubly-filled COMP” phenomena. Unlike Standard German, Bavarian shows the obligatory presence of a complementizer in embedded wh-interrogatives as well as in relative clauses. While the complementizer in embedded wh-i nterrogatives Aspects of Bavarian syntax 3 is dass ‘that’, as shown in (1), the complementizer in headed relatives is wo ‘where’, as shown in (2): (1) a. I mecht wissen, [wer dass des gsogd hod]. I want to-know who that this said has “I want to know who has said this.” b. I mecht wissen, [wem dass da Hans Geld gebn hod]. I want to-know to-whom that the Hans money given has “I want to know to whom Hans has given money.” c. I mecht wissen, [wann dass da Hans des Geld I want to-know when that the Hans this money zruckgebn kon]. return can “I want to know when Hans can return the money.” d. I mecht wissen, [welcha Trottel dass des gsogd hod]. I want to-know which jerk that this said has “I want to know which jerk has said this.” (2) a. dea Mo [dea wo des gsogd hod] the man who where this said has “the man who has said this” b. dea Mo [dem wo I des Geld gebn hob] the man to-whom where I this money given have “the man to whom I have given this money” c. des Haus [in dem wo I aufd Welt kemma bin] the house in which where I born am “the house in which I was born” Although the word “wo” literally means “where” and usually functions as a wh- pronoun introducing wh-questions in Bavarian as well as in Standard German, there is no doubt that in Bavarian it also acts as a true complementizer introducing relative clauses. Unlike headed relatives, free relatives require the complementizer dass ‘that’ if they are introduced by a wh-pronoun: (3) a. [Wea dass des gsogd hod] hod koa Ahnung. who that this said has has no clue “Whoever has said this, has no clue.” b. [Wem dass-a a Auto kafft hod] werd-a To-whom that-he a car bought has will-he a a Geld gebn. also a money give “To whoever he has bought a car, he will also give money.” 4 Günther Grewendorf & Helmut Weiß The generalizations illustrated in (1) and (2) are in need of several modifica- tions. While Bayer (1984) claims that presence of the complementizer is a general property of embedded wh-questions, the more recent literature on Bavarian syntax draws a more refined picture of this phenomenon. Bayer and Brandner (2008), Bayer (2012), and Bayer (2013) show that it makes a difference whether the embedded interrogative is introduced by a bare or a complex wh-element. Their crucial claim is that embedded wh-questions show a gradiency in the licitness of the Doubly-filled COMP phenomen: while complex wh-elements require the presence of the complementizer, the wh-pronoun was ‘what’ disallows it. Other bare wh-elements such as wie ‘how’, wer ‘who-nom’, wen ‘who-acc’, wo ‘where’, wem ‘who-dat’, warum ‘why’ and prepositional wh-pronouns are located in between these extremes, with the acceptability of complementizer presence increasing from “wie” to prepositional wh-pronouns. On the basis of these generalizations, they argue that those wh-elements that cannot co-occur with a complementizer have to be analyzed as complementizers themselves which undergo head movement to the complementizer position. Although this analysis is not without theoretical problems (Grewendorf 2012), the generalizations are based on extensive empirical evidence, which, however, also shows that the Doubly-filled-COMP phenomenon is subject to considerable regional variation. The Doubly-filled-COMP phenomenon has also been observed with adverbial expressions such as “obwohl” (‘although’), “trotzdem” (‘even though’), “nachdem” (‘after’) (cf. e.g. Zehetner 1985; Lühr 1989; Weiß 1998), as in (4): (4) a. [Trotzdem dass-a so vui garbat hod] even though that-he so much worked has ham-s-n nausgschmissn. have-they-him fired “Although he has worked so hard, they have fired him.” b. [Obwoi dass-a so a Depp is] ham-s-n eiglodn]. although that-he such a jerk is have-they-him invited “Although he is such a jerk, they have invited him.” c. Er is nach Minga gfahrn [nachdem dass-a mitn he is to Munich gone after that-he with-the Essen fertig war]. dinner done was “He has gone to Munich, after he was finished with the dinner.” Weiß (1998) points out that in Early High German, many of these adverb-like expressions had the status of true adverbials and co-occurred with the complementizer