EXTENSIONS OF THE PRIMEVAL GENITIVE A REPLY TO PESETSKY (2013)
Andrew McKishnie & Paul B. Melchin University of Ottawa 9 th
Annual Meeting of the Slavic Linguistics Society Seattle, WA, USA
Sept. 20, 2014
Slide 2
PRELIMINARIES Pesetskys 2013 monograph, Russian Case Morphology
and the Syntactic Categories, provides a new and interesting
account of case assignment in Russian Though we agree in principle
with many of his claims, we feel that some aspects of the system he
proposes can be changed to account for the facts for a wider range
of data in a more uniform manner 2
Slide 3
OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION Introduction of Pesetsky (2013)
Primeval Genitive Conjecture Russian as a Case-Stacking Language
NUMBER Head The system in action: Depictives An outline of our
contributions to the system Div Head Discussion of our improvements
to Pesetskys system Adjective Case Mismatch Genitive of Negation
Conclusions 3
Slide 4
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) Pesetsky proposes that
different case endings are actually realizations of syntactic
categories that get passed onto other constituents in certain
conditions Genitive= NAccusative= V Nominative= DOblique= P Oblique
in this system includes every case except for nominative
(accusative, genitive, dative, locative/prepositional and
instrumental) 4
Slide 5
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) Falling out from this
hypothesis is his Primeval Genitive Conjecture which states : N GEN
categorizes a Russian root as a noun (in the lexicon). (Pesetsky
2013: 9) This means that nouns are born genitive so to speak- they
enter the derivation with genitive morphology Other cases are seen
as the N merges with other syntactic categories (D, V, P) 5
Slide 6
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) For this system to work, one
must assume that Russian is a case- stacking language; that is, a
language which allows multiple cases to be present on a single
nominal Evidence for case-stacking comes from Lardil (a Tangkic
language spoken in Northern Australia) 6
Slide 7
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) Ngada derlde marun-ngan-i
wangalk-I I break boy- GEN-ACC boomerang- ACC I broke the boys
boomerang Ngada latha karnjin-i marun-ngan-ku maarn-ku I spear
wallaby- ACC boy- GEN-INSTR spear- INSTR I speared the wallaby with
the boys spear 7
Slide 8
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) However, Russian never overtly
shows multiple case suffixes on a single nominal This is due to the
presence of the One-Suffix Rule in Russian: Delete all but the
outermost suffix (Pesetsky 2013) Suppression of N GEN and D NOM by
P DAT StemN GEN D NOM P DAT Surface stol-a--u stolutable lamp-y-a-e
lampelamp stol-ov-y-am stolamtables lamp--y-am lampamlamps 8
Slide 9
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) Russian poses an interesting
problem related to case and number when there is a paucal present
(2, 3 or 4) Number Mismatch: the noun is singular, the the
modifiers and demonstrative are plural Case Mismatch: the noun and
adjective that follow the paucal show genitive case, but the
paucal, along with the demonstrative and adjective that precede it,
show nominative case Previous accounts of these mismatches can be
found in Franks (1995) and the references cited therein. 9
Slide 10
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) et-i posledn-ye krasiv-ye
stol-y these- PL.NOM last- PL.NOM beautiful- PL.NOM table- PL.NOM
these last beautiful tables et-i posledn-ye dva krasiv-yx stol-a
these- PL.NOM last- PL.NOM two. M.NOM beautiful- PL.GEN table-
SG.GEN these last two beautiful tables 10
Slide 11
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) The number mismatch disappears
when there is a non-paucal numeral present (i.e. 5 or above);
however, the case mismatch remains et-i posledn-ye pat krasiv-yx
stol-ov these- PL.NOM last- PL.NOM five. NOM beautiful- PL.GEN
table- PL.GEN these last five beautiful tables 11
Slide 12
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) Pesetsky (2013) proposes that
number is assigned in two different ways in Russian: Synthetically
(singular or plural), or Periphrastically ( DUAL, TRIAL or QUADRAL
) Synthetically: N enters the syntax already bearing a number
feature, NUMBER (because the N GEN nominalizer that formed in the
lexicon bears NUMBER ) Periphrastically: N enters the syntax not
bearing NUMBER (because the nominalizer N GEN that formed the noun
does not bear NUMBER ) and immediately merges with an instance of
NUMBER In this system, the paucal numerals themselves are
realizations of the DUAL, TRIAL and QUADRAL features, and the noun
bears default singular morphology in their presence 12
Slide 13
INTRODUCTION TO PESETSKY (2013) This system presents conceptual
and empirical problems Conceptually, it seems odd that number would
be assigned in different ways; although the morphemes assigning
number differ morphologically (free vs bound), they perform the
same semantic function, and so should have the same syntactic
category Empirically, the Primeval Genitive could be used to
account for the Genitive of Negation, yet Pesetsky (2013: 150)
specifically states that Genitive of Negation is NOT an instance of
the Primeval Genitive, but rather a Null P assigning genitive case;
this does not explain with the semantic facts about Genitive of
Negation, namely its non-specific reading 13
Slide 14
OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION Introduction of Pesetsky (2013)
Primeval Genitive Conjecture Russian as a Case-Stacking Language
NUMBER Head The system in action: Depictives An outline of our
contributions to the system Div Head Discussion of our improvements
to Pesetskys system Adjective Case Mismatch Genitive of Negation
Conclusions 14
Slide 15
THE SYSTEM IN ACTION: DEPICTIVES One of the proposals from
Pesetsky is that all oblique cases (dative, locative/prepositional
and instrumental) are a realization of P, whether P is overt or
covert One area in which this can be seen is in Russian depictive
structures Past research, such as Richardson (2001; 2006) and
McKishnie (2013) (amongst many others) has noted that Russian has
two distinct types of depictives: Case Agreement Depictives (CADs)
and Instrumental Case Marked Depictives (ICMDs), illustrated on the
next slide 15
Slide 16
THE SYSTEM IN ACTION: DEPICTIVES CAD Structure Milicija privela
ego domoj pyanogo police. NOM brought he. ACC home drunk. ACC The
police brought him home drunk. ICMD Structure Milicija privela ego
domoj pyanim police. NOM brought he. ACC home drunk. INST The
police brought him home drunk. 16
Slide 17
THE SYSTEM IN ACTION: DEPICTIVES The proposed structure for
CADs in McKishnie (2013) fits perfectly with Pesetskys system of
case assignment; the DepP is assigned Accusative case, as is the
entire DP that is dominated by V 17
Slide 18
THE SYSTEM IN ACTION: DEPICTIVES However, the proposed
structure for ICMDs in McKishnie (2013) is incongruent with
Pesetskys system; the DepP, adjoined to the VP, must receive case
by default 18
Slide 19
THE SYSTEM IN ACTION: DEPICTIVES In Pesetskys system, there is
no case by default; the only way instrumental case can be assigned
is by a P, which in this case, must be null 19
Slide 20
THE SYSTEM IN ACTION: DEPICTIVES So, CAD-type depictives help
to confirm Pesetskys overall case system, while ICMD-type
depictives illustrate why it is necessary to have both overt and
null Ps to account for the oblique cases Next, we will discuss some
shortcomings of Pesetskys system, and how our proposed changes can
be used to account for a larger amount of data 20
Slide 21
OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION Introduction of Pesetsky (2013)
Primeval Genitive Conjecture Russian as a Case-Stacking Language
NUMBER Head The system in action: Depictives An outline of our
contributions to the system Div Head Discussion of our improvements
to Pesetskys system Adjective Case Mismatch Genitive of Negation
Conclusions 21
Slide 22
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SYSTEM The system in Pesetsky (2013)
is based on a fairly simple model of the nominal extended
projection. The only categories present are DP and NP However, much
work in the last 25 years has suggested that there are other
functional categories present. We propose that Pesetskys system can
be improved by considering a more detailed model of Noun Phrase
structure, following the model of Borer (2005). 22
Slide 23
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SYSTEM Borer (2005) proposes that
there are three functional categories dominating NP in the nominal
extended projection: Div: the division head, divides the denotation
of the noun, makes it a count noun. Home of plural marking and
numeral classifiers. #: the cardinality head, provides quantity.
Home of numerals and many quantifiers. D: the determiner head,
provides information on specificity and referentiality. Home of
definite determiners. 23
Slide 24
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SYSTEM Borers (2005) model of the DP
can be seen below: 24
Slide 25
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SYSTEM Using the case assignment
system of Pesetsky (2013), but the DP structure of Borer (2005), we
claim that the system can account for a wider range of facts, in a
more uniform way, than in Pesetsky (2013). We claim that all number
specifications are generated in Div, rather than having a divide
between synthetic and periphrastic number assignment. This has two
advantages: Number assignment is uniform, rather than split two
ways. There is no divide in number assignment between the syntax
and the lexicon, following Marantz (1997) and other recent work.
25
Slide 26
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SYSTEM As can be seen in the tree
above, all numbers ( SINGULAR, DUAL, TRIAL, QUADRAL and PLURAL )
are contained in the Div head The various mismatches result from
the fact that the paucals are free morphemes, whereas the SINGULAR
and PLURAL numbers are affixes, requiring the noun to move to the
Div head 26
Slide 27
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SYSTEM The presence of the Div head
allows for a uniform mechanism for number assignment, which is
preferred to the split mechanisms of Pesetsky Additionally, if we
assume that NOM case is absorbed by the # head, and that the
presence of a numeral (paucal or non-paucal) blocks the movement of
the N to that head, the presence of Genitive case on nouns
following a numeral is easily explained 27
Slide 28
OUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SYSTEM a/the table stol two tables dva
stola five tables p j at j stolov As you can see, anything below #P
retains its primeval genitive, as the NOM case assigned by D is
absorbed at the # head 28
Slide 29
OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION Introduction of Pesetsky (2013)
Primeval Genitive Conjecture Russian as a Case-Stacking Language
NUMBER Head The system in action: Depictives An outline of our
contributions to the system Div Head Discussion of our improvements
to Pesetskys system Adjective Case Mismatch Genitive of Negation
Conclusions 29
Slide 30
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM Does the addition of a Borer-like DP
improve Pesetskys system for case assignment? We believe that it
does. In addition to a unified system of number assignment, it also
accounts for various phenomena in Russian; the different case
marking we see in various types of adjective, as well as the
classic and well-described Genitive of Negation See Franks (1995)
again, and references therein, for previous accounts of the
Genitive of Negation 30
Slide 31
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM We now return to one of the puzzling
pieces of data from the beginning of the presentation: et-i
posledn-ye dva krasiv-yx stol-a these- PL.NOM last- PL.NOM two.
M.NOM beautiful- PL.GEN table- SG.GEN these last two beautiful
tables 31
Slide 32
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM There is a case mismatch between the
adjective last, which appears in Nominative case (like the
determiner these and the paucal two), and the adjective beautiful,
which appears in Genitive case, like the noun table This can be
explained by proposing that different classes of adjectives adjoin
at different points in the structure Adjectives like last, or
Ordinal Adjectives, adjoin to the #P, whereas most other adjectives
adjoin at the NP level 32
Slide 33
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM This improves Pesetskys system,
which postulated that case assignment had to do with timing of
movements with respect to satisfying selectional features, and that
Ordinal Adjectives adjoined at a different time than other
adjectives The presence of the #P and its nominative- absorbing
property explains the case mismatch (as well as the linear order
relative to the numeral) between the two types of adjectives This
is an instance of locality the probe agrees with the nearest case
features. 33
Slide 34
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM Now, let us consider the Genitive of
Negation: In the Genitive of Negation, internal arguments can
appear in genitive case (as opposed to accusative or nominative)
with a negated verb. Nouns bearing the Genitive of Negation are
interpreted as having a narrow scope with respect to negation and
are non-referential 34
Slide 35
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM Ja ne ital knig-i I. NOM NEG read
book- PL.ACC I didnt read the books Ja ne ital knig- I. NOM NEG
read book- PL.GEN I didnt read any books 35
Slide 36
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM Pismi ne prili letter. PL.NOM NEG
arrived.PL The letters did not arrive Pisem ne prilo letter. PL.GEN
NEG arrived.SG.NEUT No letters arrived 36
Slide 37
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM We propose that the
non-specific/non-referential properties of these nouns is due to
the lack of a DP projection in the structure This also accounts for
the presence of genitive case; since there is no D, V cannot assign
its Accusative case, due to its selectional requirements, thus the
N retains its primeval genitive case 37
Slide 38
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM The idea of having the option of
reduced structure for non-specific internal arguments is not new;
similar proposals have been made for structures in Turkish, French,
and other languages: In Turkish, specific (or definite, or
referential) objects receive accusative marking, while non-specific
objects are bare (ztrk 2009: 335): Ali kitap okudu Ali kitab- okudu
Ali book read Ali book- ACC read Ali did book reading Ali read the
book ztrk analyzes this as an NP without accompanying functional
material (D, Num, etc.) 38
Slide 39
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SYSTEM A similar construction occurs in
French, where a noun phrase can appear with the particle de and no
article, getting a non-specific, indefinite reading, which is
analyzed by Mathieu (2012) as lacking the DP projection: J ai lu de
bon-s roman-s. I have read DE good- PL novel- PL I read good
novels. 39
Slide 40
OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION Introduction of Pesetsky (2013)
Primeval Genitive Conjecture Russian as a Case-Stacking Language
NUMBER Head The system in action: Depictives An outline of our
contributions to the system Div Head Discussion of our improvements
to Pesetskys system Adjective Case Mismatch Genitive of Negation
Conclusions 40
Slide 41
CONCLUSIONS Although we agree with the core principles of
Pesetskys analysis, we have shown that many aspects of it can be
reworked and extended to account for a larger range of phenomena,
including: Tweaking NUMBER to provide a unified account of number
assignment through the introduction of a Div head to provide a
single syntactic location for all number features The introduction
of a # head to provide a place for the merging point of non-paucal
numerals and the absorption point of NOM Extending the Primeval
Genitive to the Genitive of Negation structure 41
Slide 42
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank various people for
their helpful comments and insights into this research, including
Robert Truswell, ric Mathieu, Maria Luisa Rivero, Kyumin Kim,
Brandon Fry, Nova Starr, Vesela Simeonova, Kate Riccomini, Daiho
Kitaoka, Bethany McKishnie and all the students from LIN 7912A
42
Slide 43
SELECTED REFERENCES Borer, H. 2005. Structuring Sense, Vol. I:
In Name Only. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. Carlson, G.
1977. Reference to Kinds in English. Ph.D. Dissertation, UMass
Amherst. Franks, S. 1995. Parameters of Slavic Morphosyntax.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marantz, A. 1997. No Escape from
Syntax: Dont try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own
lexicon. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics,
4(2), 201-225. Mathieu, E. 2012. Licensing by modification: The
case of French de nominals. Journal of Linguistics. 48, 2: 389-426.
McKishnie, A. 2013. Depictives in East Slavic: Two Cases, How Many
Structures? Paper presented at 2013 (International Typology of
Morphosyntactic Parameters Conference). Moscow, Russia. October 17,
2013. ztrk, B. 1999. Incorporating Agents. Lingua, 119 (2),
334-358. Pesetsky, D. 2013. Russian Case Morphology and the
Syntactic Categories. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. Richardson, K.
2001. What Secondary Predicates in Russian Tell Us About the Link
Between Tense, Aspect and Case. ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 26,
1-25. Richardson, K. 2006. Case and Aspect in Ukrainian Depictive
Secondary Predicates. Harvard Ukrainian Studies 28: 1-4, 245-257.
43
Slide 44
THE END/ Thank you for your attention! !! We welcome all
questions and comments! For further information please contact:
Paul: [email protected]@uottawa.ca Andrew:
[email protected]@uottawa.ca 44