Practical Information - Generative Linguistics in the Old World
Practical Information - Generative Linguistics in the Old World
Practical Information - Generative Linguistics in the Old World
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lexical properties (i) basic lexical semantics: <strong>in</strong> spite of <strong>the</strong> bleached semanticsof (1), <strong>the</strong> verb kijk ‘look’ still reta<strong>in</strong>s its basic semantics of us<strong>in</strong>g one’s vision. As such itcontrasts with <strong>the</strong> use of kijk as a discourse particle:(9) Kijk, je moet dat doen zonder te kijken.look you must that do without to look‘Look, you have to do that without look<strong>in</strong>g.’(ii) secondary <strong>the</strong>ta-role: while kijk ‘look’ does not assign a <strong>the</strong>ta-role of its own, it doesimpose secondary <strong>the</strong>ta-restrictions on <strong>the</strong> DP it agrees with. In particular, this DP has tobe agentive:(10) Kijk-elook-pldie mensen / *die tafels es <strong>in</strong> de weg staan!those people / those tables prt <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> way stand‘Look at those people/ *tables stand<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> way!’<strong>the</strong> analysis This specific mix of functional and lexical properties is mirrored almostexactly <strong>in</strong> Card<strong>in</strong>aletti & Giusti’s (2001) discussion of semi-lexical motion verbs <strong>in</strong> Germanicand Romance. They focus on <strong>the</strong> construction illustrated <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> follow<strong>in</strong>g Sicilian example:(11) Vaju a pigghiu u pani.go.1sg to fetch.1sg <strong>the</strong> bread‘I go fetch <strong>the</strong> bread.’As po<strong>in</strong>ted out by C&G, <strong>the</strong> motion verbs found <strong>in</strong> this construction (i) belong to a closedclass, (ii) are morphologically defective, and (iii) take no arguments or adjuncts, while at<strong>the</strong> same time (i) <strong>the</strong>y reta<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir basic motional mean<strong>in</strong>g, and (ii) <strong>the</strong>y assign a secondary(agentive) <strong>the</strong>ta-role to <strong>the</strong>ir subject. We take this parallelism to be non-accidental andapply <strong>the</strong> basic <strong>in</strong>sight of C&G’s analysis to our data. They propose that <strong>the</strong> motion verbvaju ‘go.1sg’ is merged <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> first functional head higher than <strong>the</strong> position occupied by apigghiu ‘to fetch.1sg’, i.e. this is an <strong>in</strong>stance of a lexical vocabulary item that is merged <strong>in</strong>a functional head position. We propose <strong>the</strong> same analysis for <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>flected imperative <strong>in</strong> (1)and can even use <strong>the</strong> presence of <strong>the</strong> agreement end<strong>in</strong>g as a way to p<strong>in</strong>po<strong>in</strong>t where exactly<strong>the</strong> verb is merged. In particular, <strong>the</strong> dialects under consideration here all display so-calledcomplementizer agreement, whereby <strong>the</strong> complementizer of a f<strong>in</strong>ite embedded clause can agreewith <strong>the</strong> subject of <strong>the</strong> clause it <strong>in</strong>troduces, as <strong>in</strong> (12).(12) Ik v<strong>in</strong>d dat-e we toffe jongens zijn.I f<strong>in</strong>d that-pl we fun guys are‘I th<strong>in</strong>k we’re fun guys.’As argued by Van Craenenbroeck & Van Koppen (2012) (among o<strong>the</strong>rs), comp-agreementorig<strong>in</strong>ates on a low CP-head, say F<strong>in</strong>º. The fact that <strong>the</strong> exact same agreement shows up <strong>in</strong>(1) <strong>the</strong>n suggests that <strong>the</strong> verb kijk is base-generated <strong>in</strong> this position as well. Given that <strong>the</strong>reis no pro-subject <strong>in</strong> this construction, <strong>the</strong>re is also no accusative case (Burzio’s generalization)and as a result, <strong>the</strong> embedded ECM-subject has to raise to specTP to receive nom<strong>in</strong>ative case.It is <strong>in</strong> this configuration that <strong>the</strong> phi-features of F<strong>in</strong>º get valued and spelled out on kijk.More generally, <strong>the</strong> picture sketched here is one <strong>in</strong> which three ma<strong>in</strong> stages of grammaticalizationcan be discerned: <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> first one, <strong>the</strong> lexical verbs are simply <strong>in</strong>serted <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong>irlexical position (cf. Ik kijk televisie. ‘I’m watch<strong>in</strong>g television.); <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> second, <strong>the</strong> lexical verbis merged <strong>in</strong> a functional position (F<strong>in</strong>º to be precise); and <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> third, we are deal<strong>in</strong>g witha fully functional element merged <strong>in</strong> a functional position (cf. <strong>the</strong> particle <strong>in</strong> (9)). We haveargued that <strong>the</strong> microvarational data from Dutch provides crucial <strong>in</strong>sight <strong>in</strong>to <strong>the</strong> middle stageof this development.