The Syntax of Givenness Ivona KucerovÃ¡

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Consider first English examples with the modifier ‘again’. Certain verbs (according to Bale, non-stative verbs) allow again to combine with the VP without giving rise to a presupposition containing the subject. Thus, as in the example in (30), it is enough that someone hugged Esme to license again in ‘Jon hugged her again.’ For this sentence to be felicitous there is no requirement on Jon to have hugged Esme before. Thus, the subject is not part of the relevant presupposition otherwise the sentence with Jon would not be felicitous (unless there was an event in the past in which Jon hugged Esme). (30) simplified after Bale’s (28): a. Jon and his wife love their daughter Esme, and Esme is reassured by overt expression of their love. For example, yesterday Esme felt reassured when her mother gave her a hug. The effect was doubled when. . . b. Jon hugged her again. In contrast, other verbs (according to Bale, stative verbs) can combine with again at the VP level only if the relevant presupposition contains also the subject. As we can see in the example in (31), for someone to love Frank again, the person must have loved Frank before. The (c) example is here as a control to show that if the subject is not present in the structure there is nothing wrong with the presupposition triggered by ‘again’. (31) simplified after Bale’s (47): a. Seymour’s mother loved Frank, although she was the only one who did. After a while she no longer cared for Frank. However, Seymour became attached to the man, and developed strong feelings for him after his mother’s love subsided. So. . . b. #Seymour loved Frank again. c. Frank was loved again. Czech exhibits the very same cut as we can see in the Czech equivalents of the English examples, given in (32) and (33). (32) a. Petr and his wife love their daughter Lucie, and Lucie is reassured by overt expression of their love. For example, yesterday Lucie felt reassured when her mother gave her a hug. The effect was doubled when. . . b. Petr zase objal Lucii. Petr.Nom again hugged Lucie.Acc ‘Petr hugged Lucie again.’ (33) a. Petr’s mother loved Martin, although she was the only one who did. After a while she no longer cared for Martin. However, Petr became attached to the man, and developed strong feelings for him after his mother’s love subsided. So. . . b. #Petr zase miloval Petr.Nom again loved ‘Petr loved Martin again.’ byl zase was again c. Martin Martin.Nom Martina. Martin.Acc milován. loved 96
‘Martin was loved again.’ The cut in Czech is identical to the morphologically marked difference between perfective and imperfective verbs. 5 Thus, while imperfective verbs do obligatory give rise to a presupposition containing the subject, perfective verbs are compatible with subject-less presuppositions. Since most Czech verbs have both imperfective and perfective stems we can test the difference on minimal pairs. (34) Imperfective version of kick: a. Marie was kicking Petr for half an hour and then she stopped. Petr got relieved but then. . . b. #Jana zase kopala Petra. Jana.Nom again kicked.Impf Petr.Acc ‘Jana kicked Petr again.’ c. Petr byl zase kopán. Petr.Nom was again kicked ‘Petr was kicked again.’ 6 (35) Perfective version of kick: a. Marie kicked Petr once and then she left. Petr got relieved but then. . . b. Jana zase kopla Petra. Jana.Nom again kicked.Perf Petr.Acc ‘Jana kicked Petr again.’ We can see the morphological difference more clearly in the future tense because imperfective verbs form the analytical future in contrast to perfective verbs which form the synthetic future. (36) Imperfective version of kick – future: a. Marie was kicking Petr for half an hour and then she stopped. Petr got relieved because he didn’t know that. . . b. #Jana bude zase kopat Petra. Jana.Nom will again kick.Impf Petr.Acc ‘Jana would kick Petr again.’ (37) Perfective version of kick – future: a. Marie kicked Petr once and then she left. Petr got relieved because he didn’t know that. . . b. Jana zase kopne Petra. Jana.Nom again will-kick.Perf Petr.Acc 5 I believe that Bale’s conclusion that the relevant partition of verbs with respect to their propositional properties is not correct. I think that even in English, the relevant difference is between perfective and imperfective verbs. The difference is, however, not so easily detectable because English does not have any overt morphological marking that would give a clear cut for Bale’s cases. Bale lists several counterexamples to his proposal. They all fall under the perfective/imperfective distinction. 6 In fact, the passive form is slightly awkward but this is for independent reason: there is a lexical ambiguity involving (‘kick’ and ‘dig’) because of which a native speaker prefers an impersonal passive to a regular passive. 97
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The Syntax of Givenness by Ivona Ku
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Acknowledgments Two things were dif
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A.4 A note on base generation . . .
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(2) a. SVO: Chlapec našel lízátk
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accent on the auxiliary did in (4-a
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Pitch (Hz) 500 400 300 200 100 0 ch
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(6) Petr řídil včera rychle auto
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phrases are required to undergo G-m
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. A entails (α,U) where (α,U) is
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(23) What can be understood as new?
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(28) Derivation of [Subject]-G verb
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functionalist tradition there has b
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c. ?P v-V vP Subject vP v-V VP V Ob
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(40) What happened to the antique c
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movement is possible. (47) a. Why d
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TP Aux vP money vP gave VP t money
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TP Aux TP T vP t Aux VP money VP gi
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c. #Jeho viděla Marie na nádraž
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(63) a. #Diskuse proběhla bez věd
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(70) a. #Žáky a učitelku to pře
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Chapter 2 G-movement In chapter 1,
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asic word order cases we expect wor
Page 45 and 46: (9) a. What happened? b. #[Vlak př
Page 47 and 48: . ?P DO vP subject vP v VP V VP IO
Page 49 and 50: . vP subject vP v VP V ?P DO VP IO
Page 51 and 52: . Marie [ vP včera dala [ V P rych
Page 53 and 54: vP Marie vP yesterday vP gave VP qu
Page 55 and 56: list reading. No such requirement e
Page 57 and 58: poskytovat jídlo. provide food.Acc
Page 59 and 60: a. X X X Z X X α b. X α X X X Z X
Page 61 and 62: existing Agree relation in case it
Page 63 and 64: 2.4 Summary In this chapter, I have
Page 65 and 66: 3.1 Deriving the verb partition In
Page 67 and 68: We will see in the next section how
Page 69 and 70: e. vP subject vP DO vP v VP v V DO
Page 71 and 72: If more than one given element may
Page 73 and 74: c. TP VP book give to-Peter t book
Page 75 and 76: (20) a. Marie otevřela zase dveře
Page 77 and 78: cause she was interrupted by her mo
Page 79 and 80: . TP T-v-V vP Marie vP again vP t v
Page 81 and 82: move again, (38-b). When the given
Page 83 and 84: Since the subject is new, the deriv
Page 85 and 86: stituent containing several given e
Page 87 and 88: 4.1 Where we stand In the previous
Page 89 and 90: differently. As we have seen in (2)
Page 91 and 92: on the semantic component, more pre
Page 93 and 94: 4.2 Marking givenness by an operato
Page 95: a. What happens with all the money
Page 99 and 100: Furthermore, I assume that if there
Page 101 and 102: lexical head. In a way, we want the
Page 103 and 104: (54) a. VP Petr VP V t Petr b. vP P
Page 105 and 106: c. TP VP book give to-Peter t book
Page 107 and 108: In the same way that there can be t
Page 109 and 110: (70) st terminating point object e,
Page 111 and 112: c. G-operator and local G-movement:
Page 113 and 114: Mary managed chair G to-burn d. G-o
Page 115 and 116: well. Recall that there are two rel
Page 117 and 118: There is simply no way the G-operat
Page 119 and 120: (97) a. And what will he read and t
Page 121 and 122: In this case, the given part is ‘
Page 123 and 124: To sum up, we now have in place a f
Page 125 and 126: Generic indefinites behave slightly
Page 127 and 128: . #Porsche má kamarád mojí ženy
Page 129 and 130: The position of the sentential stre
Page 131 and 132: is whether English givenness is rea
Page 133 and 134: Appendix A G-movement is A-movement
Page 135 and 136: . Svoji kočku má ráda Marie. her
Page 137 and 138: with movement of a pronoun over a c
Page 139 and 140: Petr’s friends.Acc saw Marie.Nom
Page 141 and 142: A.5 Summary To conclude, we have se
Page 143 and 144: Biskup, Petr. In preparation. The p
Page 145 and 146: Dotlačil, Jakub. 2004. The syntax
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Junghanns, Uwe. 1999. Generative Be
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Neeleman, Ad, and Tanya Reinhart. 1
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Selkirk, Elizabeth O. 1995. Sentenc
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Zikánová, Šárka. 2006. Slovosle
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The Syntax of Givenness Ivona KucerovÃ¡

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