Plural Marking in Argument Supporting Nominalizations Artemis

12 Pages·2007·0.11 MB·English

by  Soare Elena

International Workshop on Nominal and Verbal Plurality
9th-10th Nov. 2007, Paris

Plural Marking in Argument Supporting Nominalizations

Artemis Alexiadou Gianina Iordăchioaia Elena Soare
University of Stuttgart University of Stuttgart/Tübingen University of Paris 8
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

1. Introduction

• Grimshaw (1990): Argument Supporting Nominalizations (ASNs) do not pluralize, while Result
Nominals (RNs) do:

(1) a. The assignments were long. [RN]
b. *The assignments of the problems took a long time. [ASN]
[Grimshaw (1990), p. 54]

• Roodenburg (2006, French and Italian): language variation: Romance ASNs pluralize (vs.
Germanic):

(2) a. De fréquentes destructions de quartiers populaires pour y ériger des tours staliniennes.
"Frequent destructions of popular areas in order to construct Stalinist towers.“
b. *the destructions of the city by the soldiers

• Romanian displays both patterns with infinitive and supine ASNs:

(3) demolările/ *demolaturile frecvente ale cartierelor vechi de către comunişti
demolish-Inf-Pl/ demolish-Sup-Pl frequent-Pl of quarters-Gen old by communists
“The frequent demolitions of old quarters by the communists.”

• Iordăchioaia & Soare (2007):
- ASNs which pluralize (i.e. infinitives) express bounded events, and project NumP;
- ASNs which do not pluralize (i.e. supines) express unbounded events, and project
AspP[imperfective]

Our Claims:

1. Pluralization of ASNs is not subject to variation: ASNs generally pluralize across languages;
2. Pluralization is related to aspectual properties such as (a)telicity, (im)perfectivity and/ or
(un)boundedness
3. Empirical domain: comparison between a Romance (Romanian) and two Germanic languages
(English and German)

2. The case of Romanian
2.1. The two nominalization patterns

In Romanian, there are two types of deverbal nominalizations, both of them productive, deriving
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from the (long) infinitive (-re), and from past participle (-t/s, for supine):

(4) a. Infinitive: b. Supine:
cînta – cînta- r - e/ cîntă -r -i cînta – cînta-t/ *cînta -t - uri
sing – sing-Inf- Fem.Sg/ sing-Inf-Pl sing – sing- Sup/ sing -Sup-Pl
citi – citi –r -e/ citi –r -i citi – citi -t/ *citi –t -uri
read – read-Inf-Fem.Sg/ read-Inf-Pl read – read-Sup/ read-Sup-Pl

A note on morphology:
-RE affix selects morphological (+fem) gender; -T/S is a genderless stem.

Pluralization:
- only infinitive displays morphological plural both as ASN and as RN (4(a-b) and (5)); it
combines with discrete quantifiers whereas supine takes massive quantifiers (cf. (6)):

(5) a. interpretările acestui actor sînt memorabile [RN]
interpret-Inf-Pl this-Gen actor are memorable
b. interpretările acestui rol de către diverşi actori i-au schimbat stilul [ASN]
interpret-Inf-Pl this role-Gen by different actors Cl-have changed style
(6) a. prea multe spălări/ o spălare a(le) rufelor distrug(e) ţesătura
too many wash-Inf-Pl/ one wash-Inf of clothes-Gen destroy(s) fabric-the
b. prea mult/ *un spălat al rufelor distruge ţesătura
too much/ one wash-Sup of clothes-Gen destroys fabric-the

2.2. Aspectual properties
2.2.1 Telicity

Cornilescu (2001): infinitive is telic, while supine is atelic - 3 main arguments:

ι. Theme projection (following Borer (1994))
- the theme argument identifies the culmination of an event
- if a transitive ASN can project the agent as its only argument -> [- Telic]
- if a transitive ASN cannot project its agent instead of the theme -> [+Telic]

(7) a. Infinitive + Subject: * b. Supine + Subject: OK
*citirea lui Ion (only RN) cititul lui Ion
read-Inf-the John-Gen read-Sup-the John-Gen

The supine can incorporate its prototypical object, but the infinitive obligatorily projects it.
(cid:1) infinitive = telic; supine = atelic

ιι. R(esult)- readings
- the resulting state is absent in atelic events, and present in telic ones;
- infinitives can develop R-readings, supines cannot:

- locative prepositions modifying R-nominals in Romanian contain the adjectival preposition “de”
(of):
(8) a. cântatul lui Ion (*de) la baie b. interpretarea de la Paris a operei Oedip
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sing-Sup-the John-Gen of in bathroom perform-Inf-the of in Paris of opera-Gen Oedip
iii. Selection of unergative verbal bases
- only the supine is compatible with unergative verbs known to express activities:

(9) Unergative verb Infinitive Supine
a locui (to live) *locuire locuit
a munci (to work) *muncire muncit
a rîde (to laugh) *rîdere rîs

2.2.2 Boundedness

Supine (as opposed to infinitive) cannot express a single (bounded) event, located in space and
time:

(10) Citirea/ #cititul cărţii a avut loc ieri/ în sala de lectură.
read-Inf-the/ read-Sup-the book-GEN has taken place yesterday/ in the reading room.

In Jackendoff's terms, the [-bounded] feature of the supine is confirmed by the combination with
until, a function that bounds an unbounded event with a time producing a bounded event
(Jackendoff (1991)):

(11) a. cititul benzilor desenate (de către Ion) pînă la vîrsta de 16 ani
read-Sup-the comics-Gen by John until at age of 16 years
b. arestările frecvente ale / #arestarea lui Miron Cozma pînă la schimbarea guvernării
arrest-Inf-Pl frequent of/ arrest-Inf-the M.C.Gen until at changing government-Gen

- supine behaves like a [-b] event;
- infinitive - like a [+b] event; only its plural form is [-b].

2.2.3 Aspect Shift

The supine maps [+b] events into [-b] events, and thus introduces aspect shift: see interaction with
verbal roots:

• States are [-b]
- supine of states: *

(12) *statul lui Ion la Maria/ *dormitul lui Ion
stay-Sup-the John-Gen at Mary’s/ sleep-Sup-the John-Gen

- if the state is made [+b] by until, supine is fine, and expresses habituality:

(13) statul lui Ion la Maria/ dormitul lui Ion pînă după-amiaza tîrziu
stay-Sup-the John-Gen at Mary's/ sleep-Sup-the John-Gen until afternoon late
"John's (habit of) staying at Mary's/ sleeping until late in the afternoon"

• Activities are [-b]: the same situation as with states;
- supine: *

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International Workshop on Nominal and Verbal Plurality
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(14) *muncitul/ *învăţatul lui Ion
work-Sup-the/ learn-Sup-the John-Gen

- if the activity is bounded, supine is ok:

(15) muncitul/ învăţatul lui Ion pînă la miezul nopţii nu este un secret
work-Sup-the/ learn-Sup-the John-Gen until midnight not is a secret
"John's (habit of) working/ studying until midnight is not a secret."

• Accomplishments are [+b]:
- supine: ok - habituality:

(16) mîncatul micului dejun pe terasă
eat-Sup-the breakfast-Gen on terrace
“(the habit) of having breakfast on the terrace”

• Punctual events [+b] and Semelfactives [+/-b]
- supine: ok - iterativity:

(17) clipitul Mariei în acest moment e enervant
blink-Sup Mary-Gen in this moment is irritating
"Mary's blinking in this moment is irritating"

(18) săritul lui Ion într-un picior / chicotitul lui Ion
jump-Sup-the John-Gen on one leg/ giggle-Sup-the John-Gen
"John's jumping on one leg / John's giggling"

• I-level predicates: impossible to locate in space and time (Kratzer (1995))
- supine excluded:

(19) *ştiutul/ *cunoscutul limbilor străine/ *descinsul omului din maimuţă
know-Sup-the languages-Gen foreign/ descend-Sup-the man-Gen from monkey

• The supine introduces aspect shift ([+b] events become [-b] under supine);
• The infinitive does not introduce aspect shift (it selects telic roots -cf. (9)), and it is [+b]

2.2.4 The Pluractional Operator (PO) in the Supine

The semantics of the supine contains a pluractional aspectual operator which correlates with its [-b]
property, and the aspect shift it triggers.

POs indicate a multiplicity of events as involving multiple participants, times or locations
(Lasersohn (1995), Van Geenhoven (2004)).

- Van Geenhoven (2004), Laca (2006): POs display no multiplicity effects with indefinites (20), but
exhibit distribution effects with plurals (21):
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(20) *ucisul unui jurnalist
kill-Sup-the a-Gen journalist
(21) ucisul jurnaliştilor
kill-Sup-the journalists-the-Gen

The PO in the supine turns the aspect of the root into [imperfective].

3. The Functional Structure of (Romanian) ASNs

Two structural means of expressing event plurality in Romanian ASNs, clearly connected to the
opposition Number vs. Aspect:

• Infinitive ASNs: project a mainly nominal structure with NumP
• Supine ASNs: project a mainly verbal structure with AspP

3.1. The Nominal Pattern

The functional structure of infinitive ASNs:

(22) DP

D NumP

Num NP/ ClP

N/ Cl VP

-a [sing] -re[fem] citi

1. RE is a nominalizing suffix (cf. Soare 2006)
2. Infinitive ASNs project NumP:
- they display morphological plural
- Gender: Picallo (2006) - Gender acts like a Cl(assifier) and feeds Number
- infinitive ASNs are specified as [feminine] (the ending -e in (4))- they carry Gender features
3. AspP is not projected: infinitive ASNs are ungrammatical with the adverb constantly argued by
Cinque (1999) to indicate projection of AspP:

(23) a. ??omiterea (constant) a unor informaţii (constant)
omit-Inf-the constantly of some information constantly
b. omiterea constantă a unor informaţii
omit-Inf-the constant-Fem of some information

3.2. The Verbal Pattern

The functional structure of supine ASNs:

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International Workshop on Nominal and Verbal Plurality
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(24) DP

D AspP

Asp VP
PO → [Impf]
-(u)l citit

1. T/S is not a nominalizing (but a perfective) suffix - a stem-based nominalization (Soare 2006)
2. Supine ASNs do not project NumP:
- no morphological plural marking
- unspecified Gender (see Iordăchioaia & Soare 2007)
- defective case declension: no Genitive-Dative form (vs. infinitive):

(25) a. Alunecările de teren au apărut din cauza tăierii/ *tăiatului pădurilor.
earth flows-the have occurred because of cut-Inf-Gen/ cut-Sup-Gen woods-Gen
b. Tăierea/ Tăiatul pădurilor provoacă alunecări de teren.
cut-Inf-Nom/ cut-Sup-Nom woods-Gen brings about earth flows

3. AspP is projected:
- supine triggers aspect shift on the root (due to the PO)
- expresses plurality via Aspect (atelicity/ unboundedness/ imperfective)
- can be modified by constantly:

(26) cititul (constant) al ziarelor (constant)
read-Sup-the constantly newspapers-Gen constantly

4. The Germanic languages
4.1 English

Contra Roodenburg (2006)'s claim, Mourelatos (1978), Borer (2005) show that telic ASNs do
pluralize in English:

(27) a. There were three arrivals of a train
b. There was a capsising of the boat by Mary
c. *There was a pushing of the cart by John (atelic)
d. There was at least one pushing of the cart to New York by John (telic)

- (27d) patterns like the ASN pluralization patterns identified for Romanian infinitive ASNs.

Different patterns for the formation of nominals in English.

1. Verbal Gerund -ing ACC
2. Nominal gerund -ing of
3. Other affixes (-ation etc) of

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(1) differs from (2-3) in that it contains a verbal internal structure.

Evidence for a verbal internal structure:

I. Verbal gerunds license adverbial modifiers and disallow adjectival modifiers.

(28) a. Pat disapproved of me/my quietly leaving the room before anyone noticed
b. *Pat’s fortunately collecting the money rescued the operation
c. *the carefully restoring of the painting took six months

(29) a. His prompt answering of the question nominal gerund
b. *His prompt answering the question verbal gerund

Under the standard assumption that adverbs are (at least) VP modifiers, while adjectives are noun
modifiers, this contrast suggests that the verbal gerund contains a verbal internal structure (Abney
1987, Kratzer 1994, Borer 1993 and others), while the nominal gerund has a nominal internal
structure. In addition the observation that higher adverbs are not licensed within verbal gerunds
(28b) suggests that the internal structure of the gerund cannot be as 'big' as an IP (assuming that
sentence adverbs attach to IP or other high functional heads).

II. The subject DP, cannot be replaced by any determiner in the case of the verbal gerund, while this
is possible for the nominal gerund (30b):

(30) a. *that/ the criticising the book annoyed us
b. the destroying of the manuscript annoyed the author

• The verbal gerund cannot form the plural, while the nominal gerund can:

(31) a. many readings of the poem b. *Emma’s readings the poem

Functional structure:
• nominal gerunds contain NumberP (Alexiadou 2001, 2005).
• verbal gerunds are AspPs (Borer 1993, 2001, Alexiadou 2001, 2005) but lack Number
(Alexiadou 2001, 2005):

(32) a. DP verbal gerund

D AspP

Asp VP
ing

b. DP nominal gerund

D NumberP

Number N/nP

ing VP

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International Workshop on Nominal and Verbal Plurality
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4.2 German

Turning to German “–ung” nominals, note that these are the only ones that can pluralize, infinitival
ASNs do not pluralize in German (Ehrich (2002)).

Unlike Romanian infinitives, -ung nominals project either the theme or the agent of an activity verb
(33a), so they are not necessarily telic. In this case, a plural under the R-reading is possible (33b).

(33) a. die Beobachtung des Verdächtigen/ der Polizei
the observe-UNG the-Gen suspect/ the-Gen police
b. die Beobachtungen der Polizei (R-plural)
the observe-Ung-Pl the-Gen police

Roodenburg (2006): German ASNs do not exhibit plural - since the plural form does not maintain
the argument structure:

(34) a. die Beobachtung von Vögeln .
Theme
the observing of birds
b. die Beobachtungen von Vögeln . [after Alexiadou 2001]
*Theme
the observings of birds
- this situation is due to the aspectual ambiguity of -ung nominals - the examples above
are atelic, and atelic ASNs do not pluralize; the plural form is an R-nominal without AS;

However, with telic verbs, “-ung” nominals project the theme obligatorily, and plural ASNs can
occur just like in Romanian and English:

(35) a. die Tötung des Feindes/ des Verbrechers(Th/*Ag)
the kill-UNG the-Gen enemy-Gen/ the-Gen criminal-Gen
b. die gezielten Tötungen der politischen Führer durch die Armee (ASN plural)
the targeted kill-UNG-Pl the-Gen political leaders via the army

5. Inner vs. Outer Aspect?

Coming back to Romanian and English ASNs, on the view expressed above, verbal gerunds have a
structure similar to that of Romanian supines, while nominal gerunds resemble Romanian
infinitives. One should expect the two patterns to show a similar behavior in connection with
Aktionsart. But the interaction between Aktionsart and nominalizing affixes in English is a bit more
complex.

To begin with, Borer (2005: 239ff.) notes that the affix used for the formation of nominal gerunds,
nominalizer -ing, as she labels it, is sensitive to the Aktionsart of the VP involved:
- it is out with e.g. achievements (36) but OK with non-culminating events (activities and
semelfactives in (37)):

Nominal gerund (Nominalizer -ing), from Borer (2005):

(36) a. *the arriving of the train
b. *the erupting of the Vesuvius
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International Workshop on Nominal and Verbal Plurality
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c. *the exploding of the balloon

(37) a. the sinking of the ships
b. the falling of the stock prices
c. the jumping of the cows

• Other affixes, the verbal gerund as well as the progressive do accept achievements:

(38) a. the arrival of the train other affix
b. The train arriving at 5 pm is unlikely verbal gerund
c. The train is arriving progressive

• However, a number of grammatical examples involving achievements and nominal gerunds
can be found:

(39) a. the arriving of the yuan
b. a range of events such as, the erupting of Vesuvius and the spreading of Dutch Elm
disease
c. .. suppose that the exploding of dynamite..
d. There was a capsizing of the boat by Mary [Borer (2005), p. 78]

• What is going on here?

A possible scenario:
The affix for the progressive as well as the verbal gerund are oblivious to the Aktionsart of the
predicate, they are equally fine with telics, atelics, and at least some statives.

• Progressive/ verbal gerund operate on what has been labelled Outer Aspect (Verkuyl
1972).
These affixes are located in AspP in (32a) and realise [-b].

(cid:2) the affix of the nominal gerund is sensitive to the properties of the predicate. It interacts
with what has been labelled Inner Aspect (following Borer 2005).

Layers relevant for introducing (un)boundedness (see also Engelhardt 2000):

(i) Plural (inflectional plural, nominal structure)
(ii) Aktionsart (inner Aspect)
(iii) Morphological Aspect (outer Aspect) – aspect operators

Operations at the level of Outer Aspect do not alter the event type of the predicate, but do interfere
with unboundedness.

Operations at the level of Inner Aspect do affect the event type of the predicate.

• What is the relationship between Number and outer vs. inner Aspect?

1. outer Aspect and Number exclude each other
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International Workshop on Nominal and Verbal Plurality
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- see supine and verbal gerunds which contribute Aspect, and lack Number

2. Number indicates a nominal structure with a Classifier projection instead of inner Aspect (see
Fassi Fehri (2005) for the correlation between inner Aspect and Classifier)
- a Classifier is unmarked for Number, it just indicates nominal character, and it is by default
singular (i.e. non-plural – see also Kratzer 2005), plural is added under NumP
→ the projection of the Classifier can only be equivalent to telic inner Aspect (since this is
singular);
(cid:1) this is the origin of nominal pluralization with (telic) infinitive ASNs (Romanian) and nominal
gerunds (English):

(40) a. There were at least three pushings of the cart to New York by John. (Borer (2005))
b. arestǎrile lui Miron Cozma sub luminile reflectoarelor
arrest-Inf-the-Pl of M.C.–Gen under the spotlights
„M.C.’s arrestings under the spotlights”

3. Borer (2005) places atelic PPs (for X-time) on outer Aspect, and telic ones (in X-time) on inner
Aspect (Asp ):
Q
- outer Aspect hosts the pluractional operator of the supine and verbal –ing: it can clearly be
atelic1
- we propose that inner Aspect can be either telic or atelic: in Romanian supine, we find
scope interaction between atelic PPs and the PO:

(41) plantatul de copaci timp de 3 ore/ 3 ani
plant-Sup-the of trees for 3 hours/ 3 years
plant> 3 hours: "a plurality of planting trees events, each of them taking 3 hours"
3 years> plant: "3 years covered with (a plurality of) planting trees events"

- in (41) the narrow interval PP „for 3 hours” modifies the inner Aspect (the basic event);
outer Aspect hosts the PO and expresses a plurality of these basic events; „for 3 years” modifies
outer Aspect and thus can outscope the PO;

4. Neither –re nor –ing of introduce anything about the aspect: they are just sensitive to a particular
aspect: telic, atelic, respectively (-re disallows unergatives; -ing of disallows achievements);
- they are not operators on outer Aspect, so if there is Aspect it is the inner Aspect
contributed by the VP;
- -re can also participate in atelic constructions with the argument expressed by de ‘of’ +
bare plural; these constructions cannot pluralize:

(42) a. scrierea de scrisori b. *scrierile de scrisori
write-Inf-the of letters write-Inf-the-Pl of letters

- (42a) is similar to atelic constructions with –ing of like (27) repeated below:

(43) the pushing(*s) of the cart by John (Mourelatos (1978))

1 We make no commitment as to its possibility of being also telic.
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