Case, Referentiality and Phrase Structure (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today, LA 77)

279 Pages·1999·1.3 MB·English

by  Balkiz Ozturk

<DOCINFOAUTHOR""TITLE"Case,ReferentialityandPhraseStructure"SUBJECT"LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday,Volume77"KEYWORDS""SIZEHEIGHT"240"WIDTH"160"VOFFSET"4">
Case,ReferentialityandPhraseStructure
LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday
LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday(LA)providesaplatformfororiginalmonographstudies
intosynchronicanddiachroniclinguistics.StudiesinLAconfrontempiricalandtheoretical
problemsasthesearecurrentlydiscussedinsyntax,semantics,morphology,phonology,and
systematicpragmaticswiththeaimtoestablishrobustempiricalgeneralizationswithina
universalisticperspective.
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UniversityofVienna ArizonaStateUniversity
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HarvardUniversity CambridgeUniversity
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UniversityofLund
Volume77
Case,ReferentialityandPhraseStructure
byBalkızÖztürk
Case, Referentiality
and Phrase Structure
Balkız Öztürk
Bog˘aziçiUniversity
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany
Amsterdam(cid:1)/(cid:1)Philadelphia
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BalkızÖztürk
Case,ReferentialityandPhraseStructure / BalkızÖztürk.
p. cm.(LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday,issn0166–0829;v.77)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindexes.
1.Grammar,Comparativeandgeneral--Case.2.Casegrammar.3.
Roleandreferencegrammar.4.Phraseology.5.Functionalism
(Linguistics)
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Table of contents
Acknowledgements xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction 1
1. Th eoretical Background 2
1.1 Case and Visibility Condition 3
1.2 Referentiality 6
2. O verview of the Proposal 11
3. O utline of the Book 14
CHAPTER 2
Referentiality in Turkish 17
1. P roblem 17
1.1 There are no morphological determiners in Turkish 18
1.2 Turkish is problematic for Nominal Mapping Parameter and the DP-
Hypothesis 21
1.3 Case interacts with the referentiality of the noun 25
2. Immediately Preverbal Bare Nouns and Complex Predicate Formation in
Turkish 31
2.1 P se udo-incorporation 32
2.1.1 Previous accounts of the data 32
2.1.2 P roblems with the Head Incorporation Analysis 38
2.1.3 Massam (2001)
2.1.4 Immediately Preverbal Bare Nouns as Pseudo-incorporated
NPs 44
2.1.5 Syntactic Status of Pseudo-incorporated NPs 46
2.1.5.1 Pseudo-incorporation of Themes 46
2.1.5.2 Pseudo-incorporation of Agents 48
2.1.5.3 Summary 50
2.2 Im mediately Preverbal Bare Nouns as Complex Predicates 50
2.2.1 Id io m s 53
2.2.2 Light verb constructions withet- “do” 55
2.3 Complex Predicate Formation in Syntax 56
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. C a se-checking and Type-shifting 59
4. C o nclusion 63
5. Appendix: Indefinites and Case 64
5 .1 Non-specific Indefinites 65
5.2 Specific Indefinites 77
CHAPTER 3
Case, Referentiality and Non-configurationality 93
1. Argument Structure in Turkish 95
1.1 T he Neo-Davidsonian Model 95
1.2 C ase-checking and Theta Role Assignment in Turkish 100
1.2.1 T ransitive and Intransitive Construction in Turkish 101
1.2.2 Im mediately Preverbal Bare Nouns in Turkish 107
1.3 S ummary 126
2. Functional Categories and Case-checking in Turkish 127
2 . 1 v P in Turkish 127
2.1.1 Burzio’s Generalization and Turkish 128
2.1.2 Alexiadou and Anagnastopoulou (2001) 130
2.1.3 vP Fronting 132
2.1.4 Legate (2003) 135
2 .2 T P in Turkish 138
2.3 Double-object Constructions in Turkish 150
3. Summary 162
4. Non-configurationality 162
4.1 Turkish and Non-configurationality 166
4.1.1 Properties of Scrambling in Turkish 167
4 . 1.2 Why is scrambling possible in Turkish? 184
4.2 A Typology Based on Case and Referentiality 188
4.2.1 Hu ngarian 191
4.2.2 J ap anese 194
4.2.3 C hi nese 202
4.2.4 S u mmary 209
4.3 Null Arguments 210
4.4 An Overall Look at (Non-)configurationality 222
5. C onclusion 225
6. A ppendix: Case-driven Agree and Language Acquisition 226
CHAPTER 4
Concluding Remarks 241
References 244
Preface
This book investigates the interaction between the two independent conditions
on argumenthood, namely, case and referentiality and proposes that they are
strongly correlated and have to be associated with each other in syntax as
syntactic features. The variation languages exhibit in the association of these
features in return explains the differences observed in their phrase structure in
terms of (non-)configurationality. In the chapters to follow, my main goal was
not only to flesh out the technical details of this theoretical account of case and
referentiality, but also to provide the reader with carefully defined empirical
generalizations and rich comparative data from typologically different lan-
guages, which, I hope, would open up new research venues and thus contribute
to have a better understanding of the language faculty.
This book is mainly a revision of my doctoral dissertation submitted to
Harvard University in May 2004. The main proposal of this study was
structured thanks to the graduate seminars I attended at the Linguistics
Department of Harvard University and MIT, as well as thanks to the
discussions I had with the distinguished faculty of both departments. Some
portions of the material covered here were presented at the Light Verb
Workshop at Harvard University (November 2002), LASSO 32 at University
of Texas, Pan American (October 2003), CASTL at University of Tromsø
(October 2003), MLS at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (October 2003),
Penn Linguistics Colloquium 28 at University of Pennsylvania (February
2004), ECO5: Syntax Workshop at University of Maryland, College Park
(March 2004), GURT 2004 at Georgetown University (March 2004), CLS 40
at University of Chicago (April 2004), ICTL 12 at Dokuz Eylül University
(August 2004), WAFL 2 at Bo(cid:247)aziçi University (October 2004) and WECOL
2004 at University of Southern California (November 2004). I am grateful to
the participants of these workshops and conferences for their invaluable
comments and suggestions, which unerringly helped me to refine my analysis.
I am indebted to my dissertation committee members, C.-T. James
Huang, Shigeru Miyagawa and Cedric Boeckx for all the excellent support and
guidance they have given me over the years. I am grateful to C.-T. James
Huang not only for teaching me how to see beyond data and ask deeper
questions, but also for his immeasurable contributions to the field of
linguistics. I am indebted to Prof. Shigeru Miyagawa for sharing his generous
time and expertise with me. I must acknowledge that many findings of this
study are inspired by the excellent work he has contributed to the field of
Japanese syntax. Words would fall short of expressing my gratitude to Cedric
viii PREFACE
Boeckx for his invaluable contribution to my dissertation and to this book, as
well as to my academic career. Thank you for being such an inspiring role
model and for clearly illustrating me what it means to be a successful linguist,
a brilliant teacher and an exceptional advisor.
I also want to acknowledge the unwavering support of Jay Jasanoff
both at the academic and personal levels all throughout my graduate study at
Harvard. I would also like to thank Susumu Kuno for generously sharing his
exceptional expertise and immense knowledge of the field with me. I also give
my thanks to Engin Sezer, Veneeta Dayal, Norvin Richards, Hajime Hoji,
Heidi Harley, Henrietta de Swart, Alan Munn and Lynn Nichols. I benefited
immensely from the discussions I had with them. I also thank the graduate
students - my friends and colleagues - at the linguistics programs at Harvard,
MIT, USC, Bo(cid:247)aziçi University and University of Maryland for all their
generous help at various stages of my dissertation and this book.
I am grateful to my former professors and current colleagues at
Bo(cid:247)aziçi University. I pay my deepest gratitude to Sumru Özsoy for her
everlasting support and encouragement, since the day I chose to become a
linguist. I am indebted to Eser Erguvanl(cid:213)-Taylan for inspiring me to start
studying linguistics, when I was a freshman. I am grateful to Asl(cid:213) Göksel for
teaching me how to ask questions. I also thank Sabahat Sansa-Tura for her
deeply insightful comments for my work. I also give my thanks to all the
members of the Department of Western Languages and Literatures at Bo(cid:247)aziçi
University, in particular to Cevza Sevgen, for welcoming me into their
program and for offering me a great academic environment to work on this
book.
I would like to express my gratitude to Elly van Gelderen for the
encouragement she has given me to publish this work in the LA series since
LASSO 2003. I am also indebted to Werner Abraham for his support to my
work. I also thank Kees Vaes for his patience and assistance during the
concrete production of this book.
Finally, I would like to thank the members of my family. I especially
thank my aunt, Prof. Türkan Kutluay Merdol for inspiring me to become a
member of the Academia. But above all, I thank my parents, Ayten and Haluk
Öztürk, and my brother, Mustafa Kemal, for their unconditional love and
support throughout my life. This book is dedicated to them all.
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This book presents a detailed investigation of the interaction between case and
referentiality features through certain functional categories in syntax. It aims to
show that case and referentiality as syntactic features are strongly correlated,
however, languages exhibit a variation in terms of the means, i.e., the func-
tional categories, they have associated with case and referentiality. This varia-
tion is the underlying reason for the differences that surface in their phrase
structures.
In the literature two conditions have been proposed for a predicative NP
to become a syntactic argument: (i) assignment of referentiality by a functional
category, e.g. by overt or covert Ds (Longobardi 1994, among others); and (ii)
case assignment to make an NP become visible for theta role assignment by a
functional category e.g. by T or v (Chomsky 1995, among others). Hence, to
become an argument an NP should be checked both for case and for re-
ferentiality. These two conditions have been proposed independently in the
literature. This raises two questions:
(i) Why are there two independent requirements for predicative NPs to
become arguments?
(ii) Is there a correlation between these two conditions? If so, what is its
nature and what implications does it have for phrase structure?
It is a well-known fact that there are many languages without overt
determiners where case morphology imposes certain interpretations for NPs,
such as definiteness and specificity. One such language is Turkish as illustrated
by example (1) below (cf. Enç 1991). These data imply a direct correlation
between referentiality and case.
(1) a. Ali bir kitap okudu. (non-specific indefinite)
Ali a b ook read
“Ali read a book.”
b. Ali bir kitab-(cid:213) okudu. (indefinite specific)
Ali a book-acc read
“Ali read a certain book.”