Anna-Lena Wiklund, The Syntax of Tenslessness. Tense, Mood, Aspect - Agreeing Infinitivals

8/12/2019 Anna-Lena Wiklund, The Syntax of Tenslessness. Tense, Mood, Aspect - Agreeing Infinitivals

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The Syntax of Tenselessness


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The Syntax of TenselessnessTense/Mood/Aspect-agreeing Infinitivals

by

Anna-Lena Wiklund

Mouton de GruyterBerlin New York


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Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

The series Studies in Generative Grammar was formerly published byForis Publications Holland.

Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelinesof the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wiklund, Anna-Lena.The syntax of tenselessness : tense/mood/aspect-agreeing infinitivals /

by Anna-Lena Wiklundp. cm. (Studies in generative grammar ; 92)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-3-11-019043-41. Swedish language Verb. 2. Swedish language Tense.

I. Title.PD5301.W55 2007439.75 1 62 dc22

2006039481

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

ISBN 978-3-11-019043-4ISSN 0167-4331

Copyright 2007 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin.All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this

book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permissionin writing from the publisher.Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin.Printed in Germany.


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This book is dedicated to my in nite source of inspiration, Tycho.


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Acknowledgements

This book is a slightly revised version of my doctoral dissertation. I am in-debted to Jan-Wouter Zwart for suggesting that I submit my work for publi-cation and for insightful comments and discussion.

I take the opportunity to reiterate my thanks to everyone who have sup-ported me during my thesis writing. I owe special thanks to Grel Sandstrmand Michal Starke for scrutinizing my work both contentwise and formwise.Helpful discussions with these two persons have had a great in uence on thematerial that has resulted in this book. I wish to thank Lars-Olof Delsing andAnders Holmberg for valuable comments and suggestions at various stagesin my work with this book. For helpful comments on an early outline, I thank

Idan Landau. I am indebted to Gillian Ramchand for reading and commentingon an earlier version of Chaper 6. Needless to say, none of the above personscan be held responsible for any shortcomings.

I am grateful to many fellow linguists and friends for inspiring discus-sions, fruitful comments, and native language intuitions. To mention but afew: Mark Baltin, Kristine Bentzen, Marcel den Dikken, Elisabet Engdahl,Vivienne Fong, Stephanie Harves, orbjrg Hrarsdttir, Aniek IJbema, Jg-van Lon Jacobsen, Gunlg Josefsson, Marit Julien, Richard Kayne, MarthaLarson, Thomas Leu, Line Mikkelsen, Max Muzi, Gunnar Nystrm, HjalmarPll Petersen, Carmen Picallo, Christer Platzack, Halldr rmann Sigurs-son, Peter Svenonius, Anna Szabolcsi, Knut Tarald Taraldsen, Bo Westling,

Mikael Vinka, Hedde Zeijlstra, Mark de Vos, and an anonymous reviewer(who later became onymous, thank you).Parts of this work were presented at the Workshop Syntactic Doubling in

European Dialects, Meertens Institute, Amsterdam, Department of Linguis-tics/CASTL, University of Troms, Dpartement de Linguistique, Universitde Genve, Institutionen fr nordiska sprk, Lunds Universitet. I thank theaudiences there for fruitful comments.

Jag r ondligt tacksam fr all hjlp och all uppmuntran jag ftt underde mest hektiska mnaderna i mitt arbete med denna bok frn mina frl-drar Hkan och Birgitta, mina brder Lars och Hans och sist men inte minstGunnar Hrafn som ocks hjlpt mig med bokens formatering.

Jag vill ocks tacka Tycho fr vlbehvda pauser frn skrivbordet. Denhr boken r till dig.


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Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 TMA-copying constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Participle copying constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Pseudocoordinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Overview of book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Properties of TMA-copying and participle copying . . . . . . 151 TMA-copying does not involve coordination . . . . . . . . . 162 TMA-copied morphology is vacuous . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Participle copied morphology is vacuous . . . . . . . . . . . . 203.1 Participle copying can not be reduced to ha-drop . . . . . . . 203.2 Copied participles are not counterfactuals . . . . . . . . . . . 213.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Copying is top-down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Copying is not phonological . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Copying is local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276.1 Relativized minimality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276.2 Copying is island sensitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286.2.1 Non-canonical complements and adjuncts . . . . . . . . . . . 286.2.2 Subject in nitivals and extraposed in nitivals . . . . . . . . . 29

6.2.3 Subparts of complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Copying survives movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 Copying and tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 Properties of in nitival complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371.1 Tensedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381.2 Propositionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391.3 Factivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401.4 Raising, ECM, subject-, object control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411.5 Non-bare vs. bare in nitivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422 In nitivals in Swedish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

2.1 The pst/anse class [+ Tns, + Prop, Su/ObC, + B] . . . . . 442.2 The skmmas ver class [+ Tns, + Fact, + SuC, B] . . . . . 462.3 The frvnta class [+ Tns, Prop, Fact, Su/ObC, + B] . . 472.4 The besluta class [+ Tns, Prop, Fact, + SuC, B] . . . . . 47


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x Contents

2.5 The vertala class [+ Tns, Prop, Fact, + ObC, B] . . . . 48

2.6 The sluta/kunna class [

Tns, + Rais, + /

B] . . . . . . . . . . 492.7 The f/lta class [ Tns, + ECM, + / B] . . . . . . . . . . . . 532.8 The glmma/tras class [ Tns, + SuC, + / B] . . . . . . . . . 542.9 The hjlpa/lta class [ Tns, + ObC, + / B] . . . . . . . . . . 563 Copying is restricted to tenseless in nitivals . . . . . . . . . . 574 Predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595 Apparent counterexamples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615.1 Desideratives the vilja class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615.2 Absence of copying the se class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635.3 Partial copying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

4 Copying as a restructuring effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671 The C-domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681.1 The complementizer att . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691.2 The complementizer o(ch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711.3 Copying C-features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742 The T-domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742.1 Copying T-features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772.2 T-Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783 The Asp-domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794 The structure of copying in nitivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814.1 The copying dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814.2 Desideratives revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 834.3 Perception verbs revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 834.4 Partial copying revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845 Copying is a restructuring effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 865.1 Restructuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 865.2 Arguments in favour of restructuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 875.3 Restructuring is not restricted to mono-clausal con gurations . 896 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 915 Pseudocoordination is TMA-copying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 931 Towards a uni ed analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

1.1 Aspectual properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 941.2 In ectional forms shared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951.3 T-adverbs are impossible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 962 Properties of pseudocoordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96


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Contents xi

2.1 Restricted set of verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

2.2 Prosody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1002.3 Anaphoric reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012.4 Non-islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1032.5 Commutativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1072.6 One overt subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1092.7 Negation placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102.8 Adverb placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1112.9 The linking element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113 Intermediate conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1124 Vacuous in ection in nitival counterparts . . . . . . . . . . 1134.1 Progressive pseudocoordinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

4.2 Inceptive pseudocoordinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1175 Restrictions on copying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1205.1 Top-down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1205.2 Locality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1205.3 Tense sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1216 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1226 Pseudocoordinating verbs are light verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251 Semantic classi cation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251.1 The progressive reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261.2 The inceptive reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1271.3 The distal reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1271.4 Classi cation arrived at . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292 Pseudocoordinating verbs and event structure . . . . . . . . . 1292.1 The lightness of the matrix verb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1302.2 Event structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1313 Posture verbs in progressive pseudocoordination . . . . . . . . 1343.1 Simple position (locative) vs. maintain position SIT . . . . . . 1353.2 Progressive pseudocoordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1383.3 Bleaching manner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1413.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1424 Posture verbs in inceptive pseudocoordination . . . . . . . . . 142

4.1 Assume position vs. transitive causative SIT . . . . . . . . . . 1424.2 Inceptive pseudocoordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1444.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1515 Intermediate conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151


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6 Pseudocoordinating verbs as light verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

6.1 Light verbs do not coordinate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1516.2 Coordination pseudocoordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1537 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1557 Copying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1571 Copying as Agree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1572 Restructuring revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1643 Unvalued functional heads do not license modi ers . . . . . . 1654 O(ch)- vs. att -in nitivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1705 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1748 The syntax of tenselessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1751 Tenselessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1761.1 Tenselessness does not imply absence of T . . . . . . . . . . . 1781.2 Two types of tenseless T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1792 A typology of tenseless in nitivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180Appendix I: Less clear-cut cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183Appendix II: Copying in Scandinavian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187Appendix III: Selectional restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193Appendix IV: Spelling out copied in ection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223


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Chapter 1

Introduction

This book investigates the construction-types exempli ed by the Swedishsentences (1a-c) below.

(1) a. Hanhe

frsktetry.PAST

o&

skrevwrite.PAST

ett a

brev.letter

He tried to write a letter.b. Han

hehadehad

kunnat can.PPC

skrivit .write.PPC

He had been able to write.c. Han

hesatt sit.PAST

o&

skrevwrite.PAST

dikter.poem.PL

He was writing poems (in a sitting position).The above sentences share three basic properties. First, the verbs involved dis-play identical in ectional morphology. The morphology on the second verbdepends on that of the rst, and as is evident from the translation, it appearsnot to have the same semantic properties as the in ection on the rst verb. Iwill pretheoretically refer to this phenomenon as copying. Secondly, only oneovert subject is licensed, restricted to the matrix clause. Less evident from thesurface appearance is the third property; the class of rst (matrix) verbs thatmay participate in these constructions is restricted.

Despite these similarities, (1a-c) also differ with respect to three proper-ties. (1a) and (1b) differ from (1c) in alternating with in nitival constructions;i.e. the second verb may be replaced by an in nitival form of the verb. (1b)differs from (1a) and (1c) in two ways. First, copying in (1b) is restricted tothe past participial form, contrasting with copying in (1a) and (1c), wherealso the present, past, and imperative forms can copy. Secondly, whereas theverbs sharing in ection in (1a) and (1c) are separated by an element o(ch)(homophonous to the conjunction element och and), this element may notappear in (1b).

The above differences would appear to justify analyzing (1a-c) as exempli-fying three different phenomena, a common claim in the literature. To give afew examples, Josefsson (1991) claims that sentences like (1c) exemplify VP-coordinations. de Vos (2005) proposes that the English counterpart of (1c)


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2 Introduction

Table 1. Copying constructions

In nitival alt. Copy all forms Linking element1a + + +1b + 1c + +

exempli es a complex head, contrasting with the English try & V construc-tion (they try and read ), related to (1a), which is taken to involve a specialtype of in nitival complementation. Wiklund (1996), following the approachof Anward (1988) to (1c) and (1b), is an early attempt to unify all three undera subordination/agreement approach, whereas Julien (2003) argues that (1b)is unrelated to (1a) and (1c) and involves an expression of counterfactuality.

The main claim of the present book is that the three copying constructionsexempli ed in (1) instantiate three surface variants of one and the same phe-nomenon. They all involve involve complementation and semantically vac-uous tense/mood/aspect in ection on the embedded verb(s). Thus, they allmerit the label of Tense/Mood/Aspect-agreeing in nitivals. To distinguish be-tween them, I will use the following labels:

TMA-copying constructions (TMA: Tense/Mood/Aspect) (1a) Participle copying constructions (1b) Pseudocoordinations (1c)

The differences between these will be argued to be derivable from indepen-dent factors. (1a) and (1c) will be shown to differ from (1b) with respect toamount of functional structure present in the embedded clause. Matrix verbsin (1c) will be shown to involve light verb uses of otherwise lexical verbs.

Copying, I will argue, is a surface re ection of (Agree-type) dependen-cies between functional heads of the same label; features of the embeddedfunctional heads copy values from the corresponding functional heads in thematrix clause. The possibility of copying a particular morphosyntactic formis thus contingent on the presence of the corresponding functional projectionin the embedded clause.

I will claim that the relevant in nitivals involve subtypes of tenseless in- nitivals (in nitivals whose tense orientation fully overlaps with that of thematrix clause), characterized by an underspeci ed functional domain. Argu-ments in favour of taking all agreeing in nitivals to involve restructuring will


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TMA-copying constructions 3

be presented. The principal arguments are based on their distribution and ev-

idence of deciency in the functional domain of the in

nitival. The set of re-structuring verbs and the set of copying verbs are identical. Both phenomena

display tense sensitivity. Neither restructuring nor copying turn up in niteenvironments. Agreeing in nitivals, just like restructuring in nitivals, showa limitation in capability of licensing sentential adverbs (and other material)in both clauses. It will be argued that the facts regarding copying suggest thatrestructuring may involve bi-clausal con gurations (even two CPs) and thatthe category selected by the matrix verb may remain constant regardless of whether restructuring is present or not.

I will put forth the hypothesis that agreeing in nitivals differ from the cor-responding standard in nitivals in being subject to external valuation (from

the matrix functional domain). If this is correct, an important aspect of (possi-bility of) restructuring is alternation between unmarked (negatively speci ed)features and unvalued varieties of the same features, capturing properties suchas nitelessness, tenselessness, etc., of restructuring in nitivals. I will beled to conclude that there are three ways of being tenseless (or niteless, etc.):(i) the relevant domain (the T-domain in case of tenselessness) is missing; (ii)the domain is externally valued (tense restructuring); the domain is internallyvalued (no tense restructuring).

This book offers a detailed case study of agreeing in nitivals in Swedishand although other languages displaying the phenomenon are not discussedin detail, the spirit of the present work is that the crucial properties extend to

these as well. An overview of the distribution of copying in the other Scan-dinavian languages is provided in Appendix II. Below, the three constructiontypes are introduced in more detail, followed by a brief overview of the book.

1. TMA-copying constructions

In variants of spoken Swedish, verbs like brja start, sluta stop, and fort-stta continue participate in a construction type characterized by what lookslike spreading of in ectional morphology:

(2) a. Hanhe

brjar start.PRES

o&

skriver write.PRES

dikter.poem.PL

He starts writing poems.b. Hanhe

brjadestart.PAST

o&

skrevwrite.PAST

dikter.poem.PL

He started writing poems.


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4 Introduction

c. Brja

start.IMP

o

&

skriv

write.IMP

dikter!

poem.PLStart writing poems!d. Han

hehadehad

brjat start.PPC

o&

skrivit write.PPC

dikter.poem.PL

He had started writing poems.e. Han

heskullewould

brjastart.INF

o&

skrivawrite.INF

dikter.poem.PL

He would start writing poems.Use of the construction type is widespread, found in northern as well as insouthern parts of Sweden. The full range of verbal forms may copy. (2a)illustrates copying of the present tense (PRES), (2b) the past tense (PAST),

(2c) the imperative mood (IMP), and (2d) the past participle (PPC).1

Verbsdo not in ect for person and number in Swedish.2 Since we can not tell a(vacuously) copied in nitival form (INF), (2e), from its standard in nitivalcounterpart, we disregard the potential existence of in nitival copying fornow.

This construction has never been investigated in detail. It is often men-tioned in passing as related to or belonging to pseudocoordination (Teleman1976; Josefsson 1991; Wiklund 1996; Teleman et al. 1999), see 3 below. InTeleman et al. (1999) different TMA-forms are discussed in separate sectionsand are partially treated as separate phenomena. It is suggested that exampleslike (2a-e) can be treated as pseudocoordination ( pseudosamordning), which

is taken to be a special type of coordination (Teleman et al. 1999: III; 902-909). However, in the absence of the element o, examples like (2c) and (2d)are referred to as double imperatives (dubbelimperativ) and double participles(dubbelsupinum), respectively (Teleman et al. 1999: IV; 707-709; 273-274).3

I will here refer to the phenomenon as TMA-copying, where TMA standsfor tense (present and past), mood (imperative), and aspect (perfect, in thiscase the participial form of the main verb in the perfect construction).

TMA-copying is subject to some variation. Part of the variation concernsthe class of verbs that may copy, another part concerns forms that may copy.Since the construction type has not been studied in detail before, we will forthe most part not be concerned with this variation here. TMA-copying data

are based on my own intuition (Jmtland Swedish) and consultations withspeakers that are from the same area or from Vsterbotten. I refer the readerto Hagren (2005) for a preliminary picture of the geographic distribution of the phenomenon.


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TMA-copying constructions 5

Despite the presence of tense morphology, the second clause in the TMA-

copying construction is unable to license an overt subject:4

(3) LarsLars

brjadestart.PAST

o&

(*han)he

skrevwrite.PAST

dikter.poem.PL

The element linking the agreeing verbs is homophonous to the conjunctionelement och and, the reduced form of which is pronounced /O/ (used incasual speech). In the written examples of this book, this element will berendered as o, translated as &. It can be dropped in the context exempli ed in(2) in my variant. Standard Swedish has in nitives in all cases:

(4) a. Han

he

brjar

start.PRES

att/o

to/&

skriva

write.INF

dikter.

poem.PLb. Hanhe

brjadestart.PAST

att/oto/&

skrivawrite.INF

dikter.poem.PL

c. Brjastart.IMP

att/oto/&

skrivawrite.INF

dikter!poem.PL

d. Hanhe

hadehad

brjat started.PPC

att/oto/&

skrivawrite.INF

dikter.poem.PL

In nitival counterparts comewith either the in nitival marker att , pronounced/A t/ (characteristic of more careful registers) or the element o(ch) mentionedabove. Thus, o is not a marker of copying. Att , however, is impossible incopying environments.5

Since TMA-copying belongs to non-standard Swedish, it rarely occurs inprinted text, where it is considered incorrect language and the standard in ni-tival forms are used, as in (4). It is not unattested, however, as the followingexamples from Swedish newspapers show:6

(5) ... harhas

MadonnaMadonna

nunow

ocksalso

lyckatsmanage.PPC

frolmpat offend.PPC

hinduer.Hindus

... Madonna has now also managed to offend Hindus.(6) ... samtidigt

whilesomas

honshe

sjlvself

brjar start.PRES

fr get.PRES

vrkar.contractions

... while she in turn is starting to have contractions.

Variants of Danish, Faroese, and Norwegian display TMA-copying as wellalthough appear more restricted regarding forms that may copy (see Ap-


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6 Introduction

pendix II). We nd imperative copying in Danish (Line Hove Mikkelsen, Sten

Vikner, Bodil Kappel Schmidt, p.c.), see (7), imperative and participial copy-ing in Faroese (Hjalmar Pll Petersen and Jgvan Lon Jacobsen, p.c.), see(8) (from Lockwood 1964), imperative and participle copying in Solr Nor-wegian (see Julien 2003), and copying of all forms in Gudbrandsdalen andRomsdal Norwegian (Helge Sandy, p.c.), see (9), exemplifying copying of present tense.

(7) Begynd start.IMP

og&

ls !read.IMP

(Da.)

Start reading!(8) Teir

They

hava

have

alt

always

duga

be-able.PPC

at

to

arbeitt

work.PPC

vl

well

... (Fa.)

They have always been able to work well ...(9) Jeg

Ibegynner begin.PRES

og&

leser .read.PRES

(Gudbr./Roms.-No.)

I start reading.

Also outside of the Scandinavian languages, we nd constructions that seemrelated; e.g. double imperatives in Frisian (Wiklund 1998: 75), the try &V construction in English (see e.g. Pullum 1990; Yuasa and Sadock 2002;de Vos 2005), and preterital assimilation in Afrikaans (Robbers 1997).

2. Participle copying constructions

At rst sight, the construction in (10a) looks similar to the TMA-copyingconstruction presented above.

(10) a. Hanhe

hadehad

kunnat can.PPC

lst .read.PPC

b. Hanhe

hadehad

kunnat can.PPC

lsa.read.INF

He had been able to read.

However, it differs from it in two respects. Other forms than the participialform can not copy, see (11), and the conjunction-like element is impossible,see (12).(11) a. * Han

hekundecan.PAST

lste .read.PAST


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Participle copying constructions 7

b. Han

he

kunde

can.PAST

lsa.

read.INFHe could read.(12) Han

hehadehad

kunnat can.PPC

(*o)&

ls t.read.PPC

He had been able to read.

I will refer to this construction as the participle copying construction. LikeTMA-copying, participle copying is not frequent in printed text. For a corpusbased study, see Nordberg (2001). Although this copying is studied in moredetail, no principled distinction is made in the literature between construc-tions where copying of the participial form is the only possibility and con-structions where copying may involve other forms (TMA-copying) as well inmany variants. The traditional Swedish name for the construction is dubbel-supinum double supine, see e.g. Ljunggren (1934), Teleman et al. (1999:III: 273-274), and Wiklund (2001a). Detailed overviews of earlier analysescan be found in Ljunggren (1934) and Julien (2003) and will not be reviewedhere. Hagren (2005) presents a preliminary picture of the geopgraphic distri-bution of the phenomenon.

Participle copying is not a recent phenomenon in the Swedish language.In Wiklund (2001b: 308) I give examples of participle copying from as earlyas the 14th century. The example below is from The revelations of Birgitta.7

(13) ... vmif

thuyou

hafdehad

mat be-able.PPC

moteagainst

standit stand.PPC

minnemy

pinopaine

...

...if you had been able to endure my suffering...

According to the investigation, the construction increases in frequency inEarly Modern Swedish texts until it suddenly ceases to exist in the 18th cen-tury texts. This disappearence is arguably correlated with the standardisationof written language, visible in other contexts during that period, see e.g. Lars-son (1988) on number agreement on verbs.

Participle copying is also widespread in variants of Norwegian, see Julien(2003), and Faroese, see (14) (from Lockwood 1964: 141), cf. Appendix II.The phenomenon is also attested in Fenno-Swedish, see Ivars (to appear).

(14) Hannhe

hevihad

viljawant.PPC

lisiread.PPC

bkina.book.DEF

(Fa.)

He had wanted/would have wanted to read the book.


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8 Introduction

Copying of the participial form in similar environments is also attested in

Dutch, Frisian (den Dikken and Hoekstra 1997), and Serbo-Croatian (Bokovic1999).

3. Pseudocoordinations

The posture verb sitta sit and other verbs of (manner of) posture are frequent rst verbs in a construction referred to as pseudocoordination in the literature,see e.g. Josefsson (1991) and Teleman et al. (1999: III: 902-909):

(15) a. Hanhe

sitter sit.PRES

o&

skriver write.PRES

dikter.poem.PL

He sits and writes poems.b. Han

hesatt sit.PAST

o&

skrevwrite.PAST

dikter.poem.PL

He sat and wrote poems.c. Sitt

sit.IMPo&

skrivwrite.IMP

dikter!poem.PL

Sit and write poems!d. Han

hehadehad

suttit sit.PPC

o&

skrivit write.PPC

dikter.poem.PL

He had been sitting and writing poems.

In parallel with TMA-copying, the second verb may appear in the full range

of verbal forms (present, past, imperative, and participial) and an elementhomophonous to the conjunction element separates the verbs involved. Thiselement can not be dropped. Also in parallel with TMA-copying, an overtsubject is not licensed in the second clause:

(16) Vad what

satt sit.PAST

hanhe

o&

(*han)(he)

lsteread.PAST

(*han)(he)

_?_

Pseudocoordination, however, differs from TMA-copying in being part of standard Swedish. The construction does not alternate with in nitival com-plementation:

(17) a. * Hanhe sittersit.PRESatt to skrivawrite.INFdikter.poem.PLb. * Han

hesatt sit.PAST

att to

skrivawrite.INF

dikter.poem.PL


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Pseudocoordinations 9

c. *Sitt

sit.IMP

att

to

skriva

write.INF

dikter!

poem.PLd. * Hanhe

hadehad

suttit sit.PPC

att to

skrivawrite.INF

dikter.poem.PL

Pseudocoordination is a construction with many and varied uses. This andthe above fact concerning lack of in nitival counterparts contribute to thedif culty in determining whether pseudocoordinations share basic structuralproperties with TMA-copying constructions or not, and hence in deciding be-tween coordination and subordination analyses, see e.g. Josefsson (1991) andWiklund (1996) for a coordination and a subordination analysis, respectively.

Other names than pseudocoordination for these and what appear to berelated construction types in various languages include double verb construc-tion, fake coordination (Carden and Pesetsky 1977), subcoordination (Johnsen1988), verb-verb agreement , agreeing complements (Anward 1988), quasi-serial verb construction (Pullum 1990), asymmetric coordination (Dchaine1993), verbal hendiadys (Donaldson 1993), the in ected construction (Car-dinaletti and Giusti 2001), and contiguous coordination (de Vos 2005).

In this book, I focus on aspectual pseudocoordinations involving postureverbs like sitta sit, st stand, and ligga lie (exempli ed above by sitta),motion verbs like g walk, and springa run, see (18a), the verb vara (be),and the verb ta take, exempli ed in (18b) below.

(18) a. Vad what

gick

go.PASThanhe

o&

handlade ?buy.PASTWhat did he go and buy?

b. Honshe

togtake.PAST

och&

lsteread.PAST

ena

bok.book

He read a book.

These yield various types of aspects depending on properties of the matrixverb, including progressive-like and inceptive-like aspects. Pseudocoordina-tions involving politeness phrases, (19a), and verbs of communication, (19b),see Teleman et al. (1999: III: 908-909), share some properties with aspectualpseudocoordinations but will not be dealt with here.

(19) a. Honshe

var be.PAST

snllkind

och&

gavgive.PAST

migme

enan

glass.ice-cream

She was kind and gave me an ice-cream.


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10 Introduction

b. Hon

she

ringde

call.PAST

och

&

berttade

tell.PAST

om

about

operationen.

operation.DEFShe called and told me about he operation.

The pseudocoordinations relevant here are also found in standard Norwe-gian, see (20a) from Ldrup (2002: 122) (see also Johnsen 1988; Johan-nessen 1998; Tonne 2000; Vannebo 2003), Danish (see Josefsson 1991; L-drup 2002), and Faroese (Hjalmar Pll Petersen, p.c.), see (20b). Contra Josef-sson (1991), the construction is also attested in Icelandic, see Appendix II.

(20) a. Hvawhat

sitter sit.PRES

hanhe

og&

skriver ?write.PRES

(No.)

b. Hvat what

liggur lie.PRES

hannhe

og&

lesur ?read.PRES

(Fa.)

What is he reading?

Outside of the Scandinavian languages, we nd related constructions in En-glish (see e.g. Shopen 1971; Schmerling 1975; Carden and Pesetsky 1977;Quirk et al. 1985: 507-508, 978-979; Pullum 1990; Dchaine 1993: 184-197;Jaeggli and Hyams 1993; de Vos 2005), Afrikaans (Donaldson 1993: 220-221; Robbers 1997; de Vos 2005), the Italian dialect of Marsalese (Cardi-naletti and Giusti 2001), Bulgarian (Kuteva 1999), and Manam (Lichtenberk1983).

Tatake (together with some other verbs) is used also in another construc-

tion in variants of the Scandinavian languages, which will not be dealt withhere. It differs from the pseudocoordinations discussed here in that it mayinvolve object sharing between the conjuncts involved; the object of the verbin the rst conjunct is coreferential with a phonologically empty object of theverb in the second conjunct, see farli and Creider (1987), Johnsen (1988),and the more recent work by Larson (2005) for overviews of the propertiesof that construction:8

(21) Honshe

togtake.PAST

bollenball.DEF

och&

kastadethrow.PAST

__

iin

korgen.basket.DEF

Another seemingly related construction that I will leave aside here is exem-pli ed in (22) from Nordberg (1977: 118) (see also Anward 1988).(22) Var

wherehadehave.PAST

duyou

cykelnbike

stod ?stand.PAST


24/241

Overview of book 11

The construction is limited to a few central Swedish dialects and the rst

verb is restricted to ha have. In contrast with TMA-copying, no conjunctionelement is present and the choice of embedded verb is restricted; only postureverbs plus some other stative verbs are possible.

4. Overview of book

Step by step, I will show that the TMA-copying construction, the partici-ple copying construction, and the pseudocoordination construction can be re-duced to one and the same phenomenon.

In Chapter 2, I argue that some surface differences between TMA-copying

constructions and participle copying constructions (some of which have beenused to argue for their being two distinct phenomena) are only apparent. Ishow that TMA-copying involves complementation, just like participle copy-ing, thus is not a special type of coordination. I present evidence that the mor-phology of the embedded verb is semantically vacuous in both constructiontypes. In particular, I show that participle copying can not be reduced to drop-ping of the auxiliary ha have, nor to an expression of counterfactuality. Therelation behind copying is identi ed as being syntactic, top-down, and localin both construction types. The only two differences between the two con-structions are those noted in Table 1 above: TMA-copying in nitivals copythe full range of verbal forms, whereas participle copying in nitivals restrict

copying to participial form (aspect copying only). The former, but not thelatter, involves the conjunction-like element o(ch).In Chapter 3, I examine which of the in nitive selecting verbs are capable

of selecting TMA-copying and/or participle-copying in nitivals. The investi-gation leads to three conclusions. First, TMA-copying in nitivals and partici-ple copying in nitivals are tenseless. There can be no mismatch in temporalproperties between the matrix clause and a copying in nitival. Secondly, theclass of verbs that select TMA-copying in nitivals is distinct from the class of verbs that select participle copying in nitivals. Thirdly, TMA-copying in ni-tivals correspond to tenseless in nitivals that are introduced by an in nitivalmarker, whereas participle copying in nitivals correspond to tenseless bare

in nitivals in standard language.In Chapter 4, I show that the last two ndings of Chapter 3 ultimately leadto an explanation of the two differences between TMA-copying and partici-ple copying complements that we were left with in Chapter 2. At this point,


25/241

12 Introduction

our default expectation is that the conjunction-like element o(ch) introducing

a TMA-copying in

nitival should be of the same category as att /o(ch) intro-ducing the corresponding standard in nitival. I present evidence in favour of taking both to be complementizers. If I am correct, the category selected bythe matrix verb remains constant between copying (agreeing) in nitivals andthe corresponding standard non-copying in nitivals. TMA-copying in niti-vals are introduced by a complementizer, just like their non-copying coun-terparts. Participle copying in nitivals are bare, just like their non-copyingcounterparts.

I propose that copying of a given form is possible only in case the embed-ded clause contains the corresponding functional projection. That is, copyingis proportional to the number of functional projections present in the embed-

ded clause. On this hypothesis, the difference between the two types of copy-ing in nitival with regard to number of forms copied follows. This ndingsuggests that copying is a re ex of dependencies between functional heads of the same label. In the remaining part of the chapter, I present arguments infavour of taking copying to be a surface re ex of restructuring/clause union.If this hypothesis is correct, restructuring is not restricted to mono-clausalcon gurations, but may also involve bi-clausal con gurations, even two CPs.

In Chapter 5, I put forth the hypothesis that pseudocoordinations involveTMA-copying in nitivals. On this hypothesis, the pseudocoordinating ele-ment o(ch) is a complementizer and we correctly predict all forms to copybetween the verbs involved. I present extensive arguments in favour of tak-

ing the second conjunct in the relevant pseudocoordinations to be selectedby the rst verb. Thus, pseudocoordinations do not involve a special type of coordination, nor adjunction, nor complex heads. Conforming to our expec-tations, pseudocoordination involves semantically vacuous in ection in theembedded clause. The relation behind pseudocoordination is demonstratedto be top-down, local, and sensitive to tense. Thus, in all relevant respects,pseudocoordination behaves like TMA-copying.

In Chapter 6, I investigate more closely the matrix verbs involved in pseu-docoordination (TMA-copying with motion/posture verbs). I present evidencein favour of taking pseudocoordinating verbs to involve light verb uses of (otherwise) lexical verbs. In addition to ridding us of an apparent support in

favour of a coordination analysis, these ndings throw light on the semanticproperties of this particular type of copying construction. Using the frame-work of Ramchand (in press), I propose that pseudocoordination involves thefollowing two characteristic traits. First, the matrix verb associates to struc-


26/241

Overview of book 13

ture via only a subset of the features in its lexical speci cation (underasso-

ciation). Secondly, the pseudocoordinate clause is merged within the eventstructure of the matrix predicate (as rhematic material).In Chapter 7, I sketch an approach to derive the results obtained. I present

arguments in favour of taking the dependency behind the surface re ex of copying to be Agree and I brie y discuss the theoretical implications of thisproposal for Agree, for restructuring, and for in nitivals. In the context of re-structuring, my proposal is essentially a resurrection and extension of analy-ses of restructuring in terms of INFL (or tense) raising. In the remainder of thechapter, I present an analysis of Swedish o(ch)-in nitivals and att -in nitivalsthat captures the properties described.

Chapter 8 is a concluding chapter that attempts to focus on the property of

tenselessness found to be characteristic of all three types of copying in

niti-vals. The data presented in this book, I will demonstrate, suggest a typologyof tenseless in nitivals that includes two major classes, one of which subdi-vides with regard to restructuring:

1. T-domain is missing. (trivially tense restructuring)2. T-domain is present:

a. T is internally valued (no tense-restructuring)b. T is externally valued (tense restructuring)


27/241


28/241

Chapter 2

Properties of TMA-copying and participle copying

In this chapter, I show that TMA-copying and participle copying constructionsare underlyingly similar and can be uni ed under this scheme:

Subject...Verb-INFLECTIONi ...Verb-INFLECTIONi...

First, I argue that some surface differences between the two constructions(some of which have been used to argue for their being two distinct phenom-ena) are only apparent. I show that:

TMA-copying constructions do not involve coordination. The copied morphology of TMA-copying complements is vacuous. Participle copying cannot be reduced to auxiliary ha-drop. Copied participial morphology does not express counterfactuality.

Thus, the only two differences between the two are the ones noted in Chapter1, see table 2 below. These will later on be shown to follow from independent

factors.Table 2. TMA-copying and Participle Copying

TMA-copying Participle copyingRestriction on forms +Linking element + In nitival counterparts + +

Then, we go on to identify the relation behind the copying phenomenon itself.I show that restrictions on copying are the same in TMA-copying and partici-ple copying constructions, the relation behind being top-down, syntactic, and

local.


29/241

16 Properties of TMA-copying and participle copying

1. TMA-copying does not involve coordination

The fact that the TMA-copying construction involves in ectional parallelismbetween the verbs involved and an element homophonous to the conjunctionelement has led to its being treated as a special type of coordination in someof the literature, see e.g. Teleman et al. (1999: III: 902-909).

The clearest argument that the construction does not involve coordinationcomes from extraction tests. Conjuncts in coordination structures are strongislands: An argument can not be extracted from one conjunct, unless coin-dexed with an extracted argument in the other conjunct(s), cf. (1) below. Thisis the Across-The-Board (ATB) extraction exception to the so-called Coordi-nate Structure Constraint , see Ross (1967).

(1) *Vad whatsovsleep.PASThanhe ochandskrevwrite.PAST_?_

In contrast, nothing prevents arguments from being extracted out of comple-ments. The extraction out of the TMA-copying complement in (2a) below isthus an argument for the construction type involving complementation, justlike the in nitival counterpart in (2b). Notice that (2a) does not involve ATB-extraction.

(2) a. Vad what

brjadestart.PAST

hanhe

o&

skrevwrite.PAST

_?

b. Vad what

brjadestart.PAST

hanhe

att to

skrivawrite.INF

_?

What did he start writing?

The second argument concerns fronting of the second conjunct itself, impos-sible in coordination structures (3) (see Ross 1967) but allowed in TMA-copying structures (4a), where the second clause can be fronted, just like thestandard in nitival counterpart (4b), modulo insertion of a dummy verb. Thisfact follows from a complementation analysis of TMA-copying structures butnot from a coordination analysis without additional stipulations.

(3) *Skrevwrite.PAST

brevletter

sovsleep.PAST

hanhe

ochand

gjorde.did

(4) a. [Skrevwrite.PAST

brev]letter

brjadestart.PAST

hanhe

o&

gjordedid

ilast

lrdags.Saturday


30/241

TMA-copying does not involve coordination 17

b. [Skriva

write.INF

brev]

letter

brjade

start.PAST

han

he

att

to

gra

do

i

last

lrdags.

SaturdayThe third argument concerns dropping of the conjunction element. In ordi-nary coordinations involving more than two conjuncts, the element linkingthe conjuncts can be dropped in all but the last coordination, see (5a). Drop-ping of the conjunction element in all but the rst coordination results inungrammaticality, see (5b).

(5) a. Hanhe

mlarpaint.PRES

skriverwrite.PRES

ochand

lser.read.PRES

b. * Hanhe

mlarpaint.PRES

ochand

skriverwrite.PRES

lser.read.PRES

He paints, writes, and reads.In the variants where the conjunction element can be dropped in TMA-copyingcomplements, on the other hand, the distribution of the non-overt element pat-terns with the null in nitive marker and not with the null conjunction elementin coordinations like the one above. All but the rst element can be dropped:

(6) a. * Hanhe

prvar try.PRES

brjar start.PRES

o&

lser .read.PRES

b. * Hanhe

prvartry.PRES

brjastart.INF

att to

lsa.read.INF

c. Hanhe

prvar try.PRES

o&

brjar start.PRES

lser .read.PRES

d. Hanhe

prvartry.PRES

att to

brjastart.INF

lsa.read.INF

He tries to start reading.

Based on these three arguments, (7a) below involves complementation, justlike (7b).

(7) a. Hanhe

prvadetry.PAST

o&

sjngsing.PAST

hgt.high

b. Han

he

prvade

try.PAST

att

to

sjunga

sing.INF

hgt.

highHe tried to sing high.


31/241


Nor can we analyze TMA-copying constructions as involving adjunction,

witness (8a). Adjuncts do not allow free extraction in Swedish, cf. (9).(8) a. Hur

howhgt high

prvadetry.PAST

hanhe

o&

sjngsing.PAST

_?_

b. Hurhow

hgt high

prvadetry.PAST

hanhe

att to

sjungasing.INF

_?_

How high did he try to sing?(9) * Hur

howhgt high

vadepractice.PAST

hanhe

frfor

att to

kunnacan.INF

sjungasing.INF

_?_

Intended reading: He practiced in order to be able to sing how high?

Participle copying constructions involve complementation by the same tests;they allow extraction, (10a), and fronting, (10b) (conjunction test obviouslynot applicable).

(10) a. Hurhow

hgt high

harhas

LarsLars

kunnat can.PPC

sjungit sing.PPC

_?_

How high has Lars been able to sing?b. [Sjungit ]

sing.PPCharhas

LarsLars

kunnat can.PPC

gjort.do.PPC

2. TMA-copied morphology is vacuous

Although a literal translation may lead one to suppose otherwise, the pres-ence of tense in ection on the embedded verb in TMA-copying constructionsdoes not affect the interpretations of the complement; (11a) like (11b) carriesno implication that the frying event was completed. The two sentences haveidentical truth conditions, cf. Carden and Pesetsky (1977) for a similar ober-vation with regard to the try & V construction in English.

(11) a. Hanhe

prvadetry.PAST

o&

stektefry.PAST

ena

sk. sh

b. Hanhe

prvadetry.PAST

att to

stekafry.INF

ena

sk. sh

He tried to fry a sh.Thus, in both cases the subject referent has to engage in actions associatedwith that of frying a sh; e.g. taking out the frying pan, adding butter, turning


32/241

TMA-copied morphology is vacuous 19

on the stove, and placing the sh in the pan, etc. Despite the presence of past

tense in

ection in the complement of prva (try) in (11a), however, there isno implication that the subject referent actually succeeded in frying the sh.The sentence only implies that he tried to do so, just like in the in nitivalcounterpart.

Another way of showing this is to add the tag men han lyckades inte buthe did not succeed to the sentences. Whenever the in ection is interpreted,this tag yields a bad result, as in (12).

(12) Hanhe

stektefry.PAST

ena

sk sh

#menbut

lyckadessucceed.PAST

inte.not

He fried a sh #but did not succeed.

As shown in (13a), adding the tag to the TMA-copying construction in (11a)yields a fully acceptable result. The sentence has a meaning identical to thein nitival counterpart in (13b). This is an additional argument against a coor-dination analysis of TMA-copying constructions.

(13) a. Hanhe

prvadetry.PAST

o&

stektefry.PAST

ena

sk sh

menbut

lyckadessuceeded

inte.not

b. Hanhe

prvadetry.PAST

att to

stekafry.INF

ena

sk sh

menbut

lyckadessuceeded

inte.not

He tried to fry a sh but didnt suceed.

An example involving the verb forget below shows the same point. Both theTMA-copying complement in (14a) and the standard in nitive in (14b) im-ply that the subject referent did not write the letter (since he forgot to do so),hence the pragmatic oddity of the sentence It (the letter) was mailed imme-diately following the examples:9

(14) a. Hanhe

glmdeforget.PAST

o&

skrevwrite.PAST

brevet.letter.DEF.

#Det It

skickadesmail.PAST.PASS

omedelbart.immediately.

b. Hanhe

glmdeforget.PAST

att to

skrivawrite.INF

brevet.letter.DEF.

#Det It

skickadesmail.PAST.PASS

omedelbart.immediately.He forgot to write the letter. #It was mailed immediately.


33/241


TMA-copying complements therefore involve semantically vacuous in ec-

tional morphology. They are agreeing complements in the terminology of Anward (1988).

3. Participle copied morphology is vacuous

3.1. Participle copying can not be reduced to ha-drop

In Swedish, under some circumstances, the auxiliary ha have of an embed-ded clause can be dropped (see e.g. Platzack 1986; Holmberg 1986; Hedlund1992; and more recently Julien 2000 and references cited there):

(15) a. Lars

Lars

skulle

would

ha

have

lst

read.PPC

boken.

book.DEFb. LarsLars

skullewould

lst read.PPC

boken.book.DEF

Lars would have read the book.

As a result, copied participles such as the one exempli ed by the TMA-copying complement in (16a) are prima facie ambiguous between an un-derlying ha-drop structure, analogous to (16b), and an underlying in nitivalstructure, analogous to (16c).10

(16) a. LarsLars

hadehad

brjat start.PPC

oo

lst read.PPC

boken.book.DEF

b. LarsLars

hadehad

brjat start.PPC

oo

hahave

lst read.PPC

boken.book.DEF

c. LarsLars

hadehad

brjat start.PPC

oo

lsaread.INF

boken.book.DEF

There is straightforward evidence that copied participles cannot be reducedto ha-drop structures (see also Anward 1988 and Julien 2003 for the sameconclusion). The interpretation of (16b), literally Lars had started havingread the book, is that he was getting close to nishing the book (i.e. to thepoint where it would be possible to say that he had read it). Let us refer tothis reading as the perfect state reading. This reading is different from the

in nitival reading present in (16c): Lars had started reading the book. Thecopied participle in (16a) can only have the meaning of the in nitival (16c).Since (15b), which has no copying analysis (since only one past participle

is present), does not introduce an in nitival reading but rather inherits (some


34/241

Participle copied morphology is vacuous 21

of) its interpretation from the ha-source, the embedded participle in (16a)

cannot be derived from (16b) by ha-drop. It can only be derived from (16c)by copying. The same argument can be replicated for a copied participle in aparticiple copying complement, exempli ed in (17a):

(17) a. LarsLars

harhas

kunnat can.PPC

skrivit .write.PPC

b. ?? LarsLars

harhas

kunnat can.PPC

hahave

skrivit.write.PPC

c. LarsLars

harhas

kunnat can.PPC

skriva.write.INF

Lars has been able to write.

In the example above, insertion of an auxiliary in front of the embedded par-ticiple yields a pretty bad result, cf. (17b), making the argument still sharper.The copied participle in (17a) has the same interpretation as the in nitivein (17c).11 We may safely conclude that sequences of participles cannot bereduced to ha-drop structures.

3.2. Copied participles are not counterfactuals

The active past participial in ection (supine in ection) in Swedish can beused to express counterfactuality (for similar facts concerning its Norwegiancounterpart, see Eide 2006; Julien 2003; for cross-linguistic observations, see

Iatridou 2000).12

Thus, the difference between (18a) and (18b) below is thatthe former sentence implicates that you will not come tomorrow (counterfac-tual to the future), whereas the latter sentence does not (the same differencein interpretation is found in the English counterparts). Thus, (18a) is possiblein a context like: ... and I am so sad that you changed your plans.

(18) a. Duyou

skulleshould

kommit come.PPC

imorgon.tomorrow

You should have come tomorrow.b. Du

Youskulleshould

kommacome.INF

imorgon.tomorrow

You should come tomorrow.

The counterfactual use of the past participle merits a discussion for the fol-lowing reason. Julien (2003) reports variants of Swedish and Norwegian whereparticiple copying is restricted to counterfactual environments. Since the par-


35/241


ticipial form can express counterfactuality in environments where copying is

absent, as in (18a), she proposes that the participial in

ection of what we hererefer to as copied participles is not semantically vacuous but expresses coun-terfactuality. Thus, semantically vacuous participles do not exist. However,this does not follow.

First, the participle and the in nitive are not interchangeable in environ-ments like (18). The participle in (18a) expresses - as mentioned - a meaningdifferent from the in nitive in the same environment, cf. (18b), which is ex-pected given that the participle is not copied in that context. It is a contentfulparticiple in the sense that it expresses a meaning associated with the par-ticipial form (relevantly counterfactuality to the future), not merely agreeingwith another participle in form. Like most (if not all) contentful participles

in Swedish, it can be selected by an auxiliary ha have. Thus, (18a) sharesone reading with (19) below (contra Julien 2003), namely the counterfactualreading, and it is therefor reasonable to analyze the former example as aninstance of ha-drop, cf. (15) above.13

(19) Duyou

skulleshould

hahave

kommit come.PPC

imorgon.tomorrow

You should have come tomorrow.

Participles in the environment exempli ed above contrast with participles incopying environments in that the latter participles are dependent in form onanother participle, cf. the contrast between (20a) and (20b) below.

(20) a. * Hanhe

villwant.PRES

kommit come.PPC

hit.here

Intended meaning: He wants to come here.b. Han

hehadehad

velat want.PPC

kommit come.PPC

hit.here

c. Hanhe

hadehad

velat want.PPC

kommacome.INF

hit.here

He had wanted to come here.

Secondly, the latter participles can be replaced by in nitives without a change

of meaning. Thus, there is one reading of (20b) above that equals that of thenon-counterfactual in nitive in (20c) where it is not implicated that the subject referent did not or will not come here (so you can go on to say: ...and he nally did come). From the fact that (20b) shares one reading with the non-


36/241

Participle copied morphology is vacuous 23

counterfactual in nitive in (20c), we may infer that the embedded partici-

ple in (20b) need not express counterfactuality. Therefore, participle copyingcomplements cannot be reduced to counterfactuality and semantically vacu-ous participles are in evidence.

Notice further that another de nition of the licensing context - irrealisinstead of counterfactuality - also makes the wrong predictions. If an irre-alis environment would be all that is needed to license participles, we predictthe sentence in (20a) above to be possible, contrary to fact. The irrealis en-vironment is created by the verb vilja want. But even though the sentenceimplies that the subject referent does not come at the time of his wanting tocome, participial morphology is clearly not licensed.14

A third piece of evidence against the counterfactuality approach to par-

ticiple copying complements includes examples like (21), where at least inSwedish a counterfactual reading of either of the two participles is impos-sible to arrive at.

(21) JagI

harhave

hunnit manage.PPC

lst read.PPC

helawhole

boken.book.DEF

I have managed to read the whole book.

The situation turns delicate when the matrix participle (as in one reading of (20b) does express counterfactuality. This is an expected possibility given thatthe matrix participle is not copied but contentful and given that participlescan express counterfactuality. This reading is best translated as He would

have wanted to come and carries the implicature that he does/did not want tocome. On this reading, the embedded event inherits the counterfactual impli-cature by being in the scope of the matrix counterfactual participle. But eventhis does not imply that the embedded participle expresses counterfactuality.The decisive fact is that it is still possible to replace the embedded participleby an in nitive without any change in meaning. Therefore the counterfactu-ality of the embedded event is not derived from the participial morphology of the embedded verb in such cases, but instead from the fact that the embed-ded event is in the scope of a counterfactual feature in the matrix clause. Theembedded participial in ection may thus be copied from the rst (counter-factual) participle also in counterfactual environments, instantiating what wehere call a participle copying complement. Thus, even variants that restrictparticiple copying complements like (20b) to counterfactual environmentsmay exhibit semantically vacuous participles.


37/241


3.3. Conclusion

TMA-copying and participle copying constructions both involve complemen-tation structures where the embedded verb carries semantically vacuous in- ection. The embedded verb agrees with the matrix verb, cf. Anward (1988)and Sells (2000). Thus, so far there are no more than the two differences il-lustrated in Table 2 above between the two construction types. These will beshown to follow from independent factors. We now turn to restrictions on thecopy-relation itself.

4. Copying is top-down

There are three arguments in favour of taking the relation behind copying tobe top-down and not bottom-up. The rst argument builds on a conclusion tobe drawn in Chapter 5, where I show that the in nitival form may be copied.Consider (22) and (23).

(22) a. JagI

harhave

frskt try.PPC

att to

lsa.read.INF

b. * JagI

harhave

frskatry.INF

o&

lsa .read.INF

I have tried to read.(23) a. Jag

Iharhave

velat want.PPC

lsa.read.INF

b. * JagI

harhave

viljawant.INF

lsa .read.INF

I have wanted to read.

If in ection could be determined by the embedded verb and consequently becopied onto the matrix verb in a bottom-up fashion, we would expect to nddouble in nitives of the type exempli ed in the b-examples above, contraryto fact.15

We have, in fact, already become familiar with semantic facts that indicatetop-down directionality of copying (3.1 above), even if the argument wasnot made explicit. Since we concluded that copied in ection is semantically

vacuous in both TMA-copying complements and participle copying comple-ments, the matrix clause must host the contentful (or interpretable) variety of the relevant feature. It follows that copying is top-down in the sense that thein ection is determined by the matrix verb.


38/241

Copying is top-down 25

The third argument comes from selectional restrictions. (24a) and (24b)

below are minimal pairs in that the matrix verbs prva try and besluta de-cide both select in nitival complements and nothing more than the in nitivemarker intervenes between the matrix verb and the embedded verb in the twosentences. As seen in (25), however, only prva may select a TMA-copyingcomplement.

(24) a. Hanhe

prvadetry.PAST

att to

stekafry.INF

ena

sk. sh

He tried to fry a sh.b. Han

hebeslutadedecide.PAST

att to

stekafry.INF

ena

sk. sh

He decided to fry a sh.(25) a. Han

he prvadetry.PAST

o&

stektefry.PAST

ena

sk. sh

He tried to fry a sh.b. * Han

hebeslutadedecide.PAST

o&

stektefry.PAST

ena

sk. sh

He decided to fry a sh.

This is an argument against a bottom-up directionality of copying. It is the na-ture of the matrix verb that determines the nature of the complement, and notvice versa.The same argument can be replicated for participle copying com-plements. Whereas lta let and anse consider both select (ECM-)in nitivalcomplements (26), only the former may select a participle copying comple-ment, cf. (27).16

(26) a. Hanhe

hadehad

ltit let.PPC.

henneher

varabe.INF

hemmahome

sjlv.alone

He had let her be home alone.b. Han

hehadehad

ansett consider.PPC.

henneher

varabe.INF

vacker.beautiful

He had considered her to be beautiful.(27) a. Han

hehadehad

ltit let.PPC.

henneher

varit be.PPC

hemmahome

sjlv.alone

He had let her be home alone.b. * Hanhe

hadehad

ansett consider.PPC.

henneher

varit be.PPC

vacker.beautiful

He had considered her to be beautiful.


39/241


5. Copying is not phonological

The above contrasts are by themselves conclusive arguments against a phono-logical approach to copying. If the copying mechanism targeted a phonolog-ically de ned af x, we would expect copying to be possible into any type of in nitival complement. For the sake of completeness, we provide two morepieces of evidence that copying is syntactic.

If copying were phonological, we would expect the verbs involved todisplay phonologically similar in ectional forms. Phonological similarity,however, is not required. An embedded verb with irregular or strong in ec-tion takes on the expected form from its paradigm, and not a form that isphonologically similar to the matrix verb (P-AFX stands for phonological af-

x). Copying can thus not be explained by some kind of phonological af

x-hopping:

(28) a. Hanhe

prvadetry.PAST

o&

sprangrun.PAST

hem.home

b. * Hanhe

prvadetry.P-AFX

o&

springderun.P-AFX

hem.home

He tried to run home.(29) a. Han

hehadehad

vgat dare.PPC

sprungit run.PPC

hem.home

b. * Han

he

hade

had

vgat

dare.P-AFX

springt

run.P-AFX

hem.

homeHe had dared to run home.

Moreover, if copying were phonological, we would not expect the mechanismto be selective with respect to forms copied. In the following examples, pas-sive in ection is not shared between the verbs, although the participial formis:

(30) a. Ltensong.DEF

hadehad

brjat start.PPC

o&

spelats .play.PPC.PASS

The song had started being played.b. Han

he

hade

had

hunnit

manage-in-time.PPC

antagits

accept.PPC.PASS

13

13

gnger.

timesHe had managed to be accepted 13 times.


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Copying is local 27

The next section provides additional evidence that copying is syntactic. Copy-

ing is subject to syntactic locality constraints.6. Copying is local

6.1. Relativized minimality

Syntactic locality effects are in evidence in both TMA-copying complementsand participle copying complements. In multiple embeddings, either all verbsagree in in ectional morphology (a-sentences below) or all but the most em-bedded verb(s) (b-sentences). Long-distance copying leads to ungrammat-icality; an intervening verb in in nitival form breaks the copy relation (c-sentences).17

(31) a. JagI

prvadetry.PAST

o&

fortsattecontinue.PAST

o&

gick go.PAST

lngsalong

stigen.path.DEF

b. JagI

prvadetry.PAST

o&

fortsattecontinue.PAST

att to

ggo.INF

lngsalong

stigen.path.DEF

c. * JagI

prvadetry.PAST

att to

fortsttacontinue.INF

o&

gick go.PAST

lngsalong

stigen.path.DEF

d. JagI

prvadetry.PAST

att to

fortsttacontinue.INF

att to

ggo.INF

lngsalong

stigen.path.DEF

I tried to continue walking along the path.(32) a. Han

he

hade

had

velat

want.PPC

hunnit

manage.PPC

kommit

come.PPC

hit.

hereb. Hanhe

hadehad

velat want.PPC

hunnit manage.PPC

kommacome.INF

hit.here

c. * Hanhe

hadehad

velat want.PPC

hinnamanage.INF

kommit come.PPC

hit.here

d. Hanhe

hadehad

velat want.PPC

hinnamanage.INF

kommacome.INF

hit.here

He had wanted to come here.

Notice that the conjunction-like element o may intervene between the verbsinvolved in TMA-copying. Thus, the locality can not correspond to a rigid

Head Movement Constraint, as de ned in Travis (1984). Instead it looks likea minimality condition of the Rizzian type (Rizzi 1990), relativized with re-spect to feature/head type (see Chapter 7 for a discussion of the complemen-tizers o(ch) and att ).


41/241


6.2. Copying is island sensitive

This section investigates the con gurational distribution of copying comple-ments in Swedish in more detail. We have seen that copying of in ectionalfeatures is possible into the complement of certain verbs. To get the full pic-ture of the distribution, we need to know whether spreading of features oc-curs into non-complement positions. As we will see, copying is disallowedwherever the corresponding standard in nitive shows island effects. In theexamples that follow, I restrict copying to participial form for the followingreasons. Apart from the imperative, the participial form is the most widelyaccepted form to copy. If a speaker rejects copying of participial in ection,that speaker also rejects copying of tensed forms (present and past forms),making examples of the latter sort super uous.

6.2.1. Non-canonical complements and adjuncts

Non-canonical direct objects often corresponding to non-accusative case incase-languages are frequently expressed by prepositional phrases in Swedish.18Some of these can involve in nitives. In these cases, availability of copyinggoes hand in hand with ease of extraction. Where adjunct extraction is bad ordeviant out of the in nitive, copying yields a bad result:19

(33) a. Honshe

hadehad

lst read.PPC

omabout

att to

resatravel.INF away

incognito.incognito

She had read about travelling incognito.b. * Hur

howhadehad

honshe

lst read.PPC

omabout

att to

resatravel.INF

_?_?

c. * Honshe

hadehad

lst read.PPC

omabout

o&

rest travel.PPC

incognito.incognito

Where adjunct extraction is possible, copying is possible:

(34) a. Honshe

hadehad

knt feel.PPC

frfor

att to

resatravel.INF

incognito.incognito

She had felt like travelling incognito.b. Hur

how

hade

had

hon

she

knt

feel.PPC

fr

for

att

to

resa

travel.INF

_?.

_?c. ? Honshe

hadehad

knt feel.PPC

frfor

o&

rest travel.PPC

incognito.incognito


42/241

Copying is local 29

Purpose clauses pattern with (33):20

(35) a. Hanhe

hadehad

kommit come.PPC

frfor

att to

betebehave.INF

sigREFL

illa.badly

He had come in order to behave badlyb. * Hur

howhadehad

hanhe

kommit come.PPC

frfor

att to

betebehave.INF

sigREFL

_?_?

c. * Hanhe

hadehad

kommit come.PPC

frfor

o&

betett behave.PPC

sigREFL

illa.badly

He had come in order to behave badly.

In nitives constructed with auxiliary-adjective predicates, on the other hand,pattern with (34):21

(36) a. Honshe

hadehad

varit be.PPC

rdd afraid

frfor

att to

betebehave.INF

sigREFL

konstigt.weirdly

She had been afraid of behaving weirdly.b. Hur

howhadehad

honshe

varit be.PPC

rdd afraid

frfor

att to

betebehave.INF

sigREFL

_?_?

c. ? Honshe

hadehad

varit be.PPC

rdd afraid

frfor

o&

betett behave.PPC

sigREFL

konstigt.weirdly

I conclude that copying into non-canonical complement in nitivals and adjunct in nitivals is limited to cases where adjunct extraction is possible.

6.2.2. Subject in nitivals and extraposed in nitivals

Copying into the subject position of the matrix verb yields a bad result. Verbswhich allow copying into their complements rarely take in nitival subjects.But examples can be constructed with f get (causative) and lr teach.Thus, (37b) below yields a bad result, contrasting with copying into comple-ment position, cf. (37c).22

(37) a. O&

bolive.INF

iin

tlt tent

hadehad

fttnaget.PPCher

att to

meditera.meditate.INF

b. *O

&

bott

live.PPC

i

in

tlt

tent

hade

had

ftt na

get.PPCher

o

&

meditera.

meditate.INFc. O&

bolive.PPC

iin

tlt tent

hadehad

ftt naget.PPCher

o&

mediterat .meditate.PPC

To live in a tent had made her meditate.


43/241


Copying into an extraposed position yields a better result but is less good than

copying into complement position:(38) a. Det

EXPLhadehad

fttnaget.PPCher

o&

mediterameditate.INF

o&

bolive.INF

iin

tlt.tent

b. ?? Det EXPL

hadehad

ftt naget.PPCher

o&


o&

bott live.PPC

iin

tlt.tent

c. Det EXPL

hadehad

ftt naget.PPCher

o&

mediterat meditate.PPC

o&

bolive.INF

iin

tlt.tent

It had made her meditate to live in a tent.

Again, copying and extraction go hand in hand:23

(39) a. * Hurhowhadehad att to bolive.INF__ fttnaget.PPCheratt to meditera?meditate.INFb. ?? Hur

howhadehad

det EXPL

fttnaget.PPCher

att to


att to

bolive.INF

_?_

6.2.3. Subparts of complements

Copying is thus limited to (verbs inside the) complement of the predicatefrom which the in ection is copied. However, being inside the complementis not enough. An in nitival subject inside the complement is unreachablefor copying. An example with a matrix verb that otherwise allows copying

into complement position can be constructed with the verb corresponding tocausative f get. Whereas copying into the complement in nitive is pos-sible, witness (40b), copying into the subject in nitive of the complementclause selected by the causative yields a bad result cf. (40c):24

(40) a. Hanhe

hadehad

ftt get.PPC

att to

rkasmoke.INF

att to

blibecome.INF

olagligt.illegal

b. ? Hanhe

hadehad

ftt get.PPC

att to

rkasmoke.INF

o&

blivit become.PPC

olagligt.illegal

c. * Hanhe

hadehad

ftt get.PPC

o&

rkt smoke.PPC

att to

blibecome.INF

olagligt.illegal

He had made to smoke to become illegal.The in nitival complement of an object noun is also unreachable, see (41b).Glmma forget can otherwise copy, cf. (14a) above.25


44/241

Copying is local 31

(41) a. Han

he

hade

had

glmt

forget.PPC

rdet

advice.DEF

att

to

ka

go.INF

hem.

homeb. * Han

hehadehad

glmt forget.PPC

rdet advice.DEF

o&

kt go.PPC

hem.home

He had forgotten the advice to go home.

Likewise, an in nitival relative inside the object is unreachable:26

(42) a. JagI

harhave

hyrt rent.PPC

ena

lm lm

att to

sesee.INF

ikvll.tonight

b. * JagI

harhave

hyrt rent.PPC

ena

lm lm

o&

sett see.PPC

ikvll.tonight

I have rented a movie to watch tonight.(43) a. JagI

harhave

ftt get.PPC

ena

soffasofa

att to

hahave.INF

iin

kket.kitchen.DEF

b. * JagI

harhave

ftt get.PPC

ena

soffasofa

o&

haft have.PPC

iin

kket.kitchen.DEF

I have got a sofa to have in the kitchen.

There are however apparent counterexamples, brought to my attention byMarit Julien (p.c.):27

(44) ? Han

he

hade

had

vl

probably

inte

not

tagit

take.PPC

sig

REFL

tid

time

o

&

sett

see.PPC

efter.

afterHe had probably not taken the time to look.

Additonal examples are:

(45) a. ? Hanhe

hadehad

haft have.PPC

lust lust

o&

kt go.PPC

hem.home

He had felt like going home.b. ? Han

hehadehad

ftt get.PPC

tillstnd permission

o&

kt go.PPC

hem.home

He had got permission to go home.

Two crucial requirements seem to be met in (44), (45a) and (45b) that are notmet in examples like (41b), (42b), and (43b) above: (i) The nouns embeddingthe copying complement are bare, i.e. they do not involve a determiner. (ii)The matrix participles are functional or semantically "light" (have, take, get ,


45/241


and similar verbs), a fact also re ected in prosody. I follow Delsing (1998)

in analyzing the bare noun as part of the matrix predicate in these cases, thusnot an argument DP. Therefore these do not constitute examples of copyinginto subparts of complements. On that analysis, we predict extraction out of the embedded clause in (45a) to yield a better result than extraction out of theembedded clause in (43b). This is borne out, cf. (46a) and (46b).28 I concludethat copying is island sensitive.

(46) a. Vart where

hadehad

hanhe

haft have.PPC

lust lust

att to

kago.INF

_?_

b. *Varwhere

harhave

duyou

ftt get.PPC

ena

soffasofa

att to

hahave.INF

_?_

7. Copying survives movement

Fronting (topic or focus) of an in nitive along with its arguments is possiblein Swedish, see (47a) and (47b). Fronting of a TMA-copied complement islikewise possible, with the proviso (for some speakers) that a dummy verb isinserted in the position of the trace, see (48a) and (48b). The same facts holdfor participle copying complements, cf. (49).

(47) a. [Skrivawrite.INF

brev]letters

glmdeforget.PAST

jagI

(att to

gra).do.INF

Write letters, I forgot to do.b. [Lsa]

read.INFlrdelearn.PAST

jagI

migREFL

(att to

gra)do.INF

iin

ettan. rst-grade I

Read, I learnt to do in rst grade.(48) a. [Skrev

write.PASTbrev]letters

glmdeforget.PAST

jagI

*(o&

gjorde ).do.PAST

Write letters, I forgot to do.b. [ Lste ]

lste.PASTlrdelearn.PAST

jagI

migREFL

*(o&

gjorde )do.PAST

iin

ettan. rst-grade

Read, I learnt to do in rst grade.(49) a. [Lsa]

read.INF

har

have

jag

I

kunnat

can.PPC

(gra)

do.INF

sedan

since

i

in

ettan. rst-gradeb. [ Lst ]

read.PPCharhave

jagI

kunnat can.PPC

*( gjort )do.PPC

sedansince

iin

ettan. rst-grade

Read, I have been able to do since rst-grade.


46/241

Copying survives movement 33

Facts concerning A-movement are dif cult to access since judgements here

are very subtle. As far as we can test this, judgements seem to follow thegeneral pattern described here. There are at least two relevant contexts: In- nitives under adjectives and in nitives in the context of object experiencerpsych predicates. In nitives that are arguments of adjectives (50a) patternwith object in nitives w.r.t. copying, see (50b), and extraction, cf. (51):29

(50) a. Det it

hadehad

varit be.PPC

kulfun

att to

springarun.INF

lngt.far

b. ? Det it

hadehad

varit be.PPC

kulfun

o&

sprungit run.PPC

lngt.far

It had been fun to run far.

(51) Hurhowlngt far hadehad det it varit be.PPCkulfunatt to springarun.INF_?_

Moving the copied in nitive to the subject position of the matrix yields amore deviant structure (52b), again correlating with the bad status of extrac-tion out of subject position (52c).

(52) a. Att to

springarun.INF

lngt far

hadehad

varit be.PPC

kul.fun

b. ??O&

sprungit run.PPC

lngt far

hadehad

varit be.PPC

kul.fun

To run far had been fun.

c. * Hurhowlngt far hadehad att to springarun.INF__ varit be.PPCkul?fun

Embedding the copy-sentences under the raising verb verka seem, does notchange their grammatical status, cf. (50b) vs. (53a) and (52b) vs. (53b). Thus,A-movement of a copied verb does not cause any degradation.

(53) a. ? Det it

verkarseem.PRES

hahave

varit be.PPC

kulfun

o&

sprungit run.PPC

lngt.far

It seemed to have been fun to run far.b. ??O

&sprungit run.PPC

lngt far

verkarseem.PPC

haha

varit be.PPC

kul.fun

To run far seemed to have been fun.In a similar fashion, copying in contexts with object experiencer psych pred-icates is possible. Relevant predicates include roa amuse, skrmma scare,

8/12/20

Anna-Lena Wiklund, The Syntax of Tenslessness. Tense, Mood, Aspect - Agreeing Infinitivals

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Transcript of Anna-Lena Wiklund, The Syntax of Tenslessness. Tense, Mood, Aspect - Agreeing Infinitivals