Transcript Formal Syntax and Language Change

Historical Generative Syntax:
What diachronic cycles tell us
Elly van Gelderen
Tempe, AZ, 9 November 2013
Western Conference on
Linguistics/Arizona Linguistics
Symposium
Outline
A.
B.
C.
D.
What is generative historical linguistics?
The Minimalist Program and how it is
conducive to looking at gradual,
unidirectional change.
Examples of Grammaticalization and
Linguistic Cycles
Explanations and some challenges.
Model of language acquisition/change
(based on Andersen 1973)
Generation n
UG
+
experience
=
I-language n
Generation n+1
UG
+
experience n
=
I-language n+1
E-language n
+ innovations
E-language n+1
Internal Grammar
Reanalysis is crucial
(1) Paul said, "Starting would be a good thing to
do. How would you like to begin?“ (COCA 2010
Fiction) (cartoon is on Handout)
Change was seen as “catastrophic”
Lightfoot (1979), for instance, argues that the
category change of modals is an abrupt one
from V to AUX, as is the change from
impersonal to personal verbs (the verb lician
changing in meaning from `please’ to `like’).
Newmeyer (1998: 237); Roberts & Roussou (2003:
2) and others argue that “grammaticalization is a
regular case of parameter change … [and]
epiphenomenal”, i.e. all components also occur
independently. That means it can change in
either direction.
Principles and Parameters of the
1980s/1990s
Headedness parameter
OV to VO
Inventory of Functional Categories
C-oriented (V2) to T-oriented
Verb-movement
Pro-drop
Current Minimalism: compatible
with unidirectional change
The role of UG
is minimized: third factor, economy, or prelinguistic. Economy predicts one direction!
The role of features:
The emphasis on features is favorable to
gradual change!
Minimalism of the1990s-2013
Parameters now consist of choices of
feature specifications as the child acquires
a lexicon (Chomsky 2007).
Baker, while disagreeing with this view of
parameters, calls this the Borer-ChomskyConjecture (2008: 156):
"All parameters of variation are attributable
to differences in the features of particular
items (e.g., the functional heads) in the
lexicon."
Shift in Generative Hist Ling as well
With the shift to parametric parameters, it
becomes possible to think of gradual
change through reanalysis as well (e.g.
Roberts 2009 and van Gelderen 2008,
2009, 2010).
Word order change in terms if features e.g.
Breitbarth 2012, Biberauer & Roberts
(2008).
Three factors, e.g. Chomsky 2007
(1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the
attainable languages, thereby making language
acquisition possible;
(2) external data, converted to the experience that
selects one or another language within a narrow
range;
(3) principles not specific to the Faculty of
Language. Some of the third factor principles
have the flavor of the constraints that enter into
all facets of growth and evolution, [...] Among
these are principles of efficient computation"
Economy
Locality = Minimize computational burden
(Ross 1967; Chomsky 1973)
Use a head = Minimize Structure (Head
Preference Principle, van Gelderen 2004)
Late Merge = Minimize computational
burden (van Gelderen 2004, and others)
The latter two can be seen in terms of
Feature Economy
Types of minimalist features
The semantic features of lexical items
(which have to be cognitively based)
The interpretable ones relevant at the
Conceptual-Intentional interface.
Uninterpretable features act as `glue’ so to
speak to help out merge. For instance,
person and number features (=phifeatures) are interpretable on nouns but
not on verbs.
Formal features are interpretable
and uninterpretable
(Chomsky 1995: 277):
airplane
Interpr. [nominal]
[3 person]
[non-human]
Uninterpr [Case]
build
[verbal]
[assign
accusative]
[phi]
Merge and AGREE
(1)
TP
T’
T
[u-phi]
[i-pr] DP
VP
many buffaloes V
[i-3] [i-P]
live
V’
PP
in this room
Semantic and formal overlap:
Chomsky (1995: 230; 381) suggests: "formal
features have semantic correlates and reflect
semantic properties (accusative Case and
transitivity, for example)."
I interpret this: If a language has nouns with
semantic phi-features, the learner will be able to
hypothesize uninterpretable features on another
F (and will be able to bundle them there).
Radford (2000): in acquisition from + > “[S]emantic features ..., are presumably drawn
from a universal ‘alphabet’” (Chomsky 1965:
142), “little is known about this today”.
If semantic features are innate,
we need:
Feature Economy
(a) Utilize semantic features: use them as
for functional categories, i.e. as formal
features (van Gelderen 2008; 2011).
(b) If a specific feature appears more than
once, one of these is interpretable and the
others are uninterpretable (Muysken
2008).
Grammaticalization
Grammaticalization is a unidirectional
change from semantic to formal
(=grammatical) features.
For instance, a verb with semantic features,
such as Old English will with [volition,
expectation, future], can be reanalyzed as
having only the grammatical feature
[future]. And a pronoun can be reanalyzed
as agreement on the verb.
Grammaticalization tells us
which features matter
Subject and Object Agreement (Givón)
demonstrative > third ps pronoun > agreement > zero
noun > first and second person > agreement > zero
noun > noun marker > agreement > zero
Copula (Katz)
demonstrative > copula > zero
third person > copula > zero
verb > aspect > copula
Noun (Greenberg)
demonstrative > definite article > ‘Case’ > zero
noun > number/gender > zero
And about processing/economy
Negative (Gardiner/Jespersen
see van der Auwera)
a negative argument > negative adverb > negative
particle > zero
b verb > aspect > negative > C
(negative polarity cycle: Willis)
CP
Adjunct AP/PP > ... > C
Future and Aspect Auxiliary
A/P > M > T (> C)
V > ASP
Cycle is an old idea: Bopp (1816) and
von der Gabelentz (1901)
The history of language moves in the diagonal of
two forces: the impulse toward comfort, which
leads to the wearing down of sounds, and that
toward clarity, which disallows this erosion and
the destruction of the language. The affixes
grind themselves down, disappear without a
trace; their functions or similar ones, however,
require new expression. They acquire this
expression, by the method of isolating
languages, through word order or clarifying
words.
The latter, in the course of time, undergo
agglutination, erosion, and in the mean
time renewal is prepared: periphrastic
expressions are preferred ... always the
same: the development curves back
towards isolation, not in the old way, but in
a parallel fashion. That's why I compare
them to spirals.
Comfort + Clarity =
Grammaticalization + Renewal
Von der Gabelentz’ examples of comfort:
the unclear pronunciation of everyday
expressions,
the use of a few words instead of a full
sentence, i.e. ellipsis (p. 182-184),
“syntaktische Nachlässigkeiten aller Art”
(`syntactic carelessness of all kinds’, p.
184),
and loss of gender.
Von der G’s examples of clarity
special exertion of the speech organs (p. 183),
“Wiederholung” (`repetition’, p. 239),
periphrastic expressions (p. 239),
replacing words like sehr `very’ by more powerful
and specific words such as riesig `gigantic’ and
schrecklich `frightful’ (243),
using a rhetorical question instead of a regular
proposition,
and replacing case with prepositions (p. 183).
Grammaticalization = one step
Hopper & Traugott 2003: content item >
grammatical word > clitic > inflectional affix.
The loss in phonological content is not a
necessary consequence of the loss of semantic
content (see Kiparsky 2011; Kiparsky &
Condoravdi 2006; Hoeksema 2009).
Kiparsky (2011: 19): “in the development of case,
bleaching is not necessarily tied to
morphological downgrading from postposition to
clitic to suffix.” Instead, unidirectionality is the
defining property of grammaticalization and any
exceptions to the unidirectionality (e.g. the
Spanish inflectional morpheme –nos changing to
a pronoun) are instances of analogical changes.
Renewal (of the lost features)
is the other step
In acknowledging weakening of pronunciation (“un
affaiblissement de la pronunciation”), Meillet (1912:
139) writes that what provokes the start of the
(negative) cycle is the need to speak forcefully (“le
besoin de parler avec force”).
Kiparsky & Condoravdi (2006) similarly suggest
pragmatic and semantic reasons. A simple negative
cannot be emphatic; in order for a negative to be
emphatic, it needs to be reinforced, e.g. by a
minimizer.
Three (four) cycles
I will look at (mention)
Negative Cycles
negative argument > negative adverb > negative
particle > zero
negative verb > auxiliary > negative > zero
Subject Agreement Cycle
demonstrative/emphatic > pronoun > agreement > zero
Copula Cycles
demonstrative/verb/adposition > copula > zero
CP Cycles
Argument/Adverb WH > Yes/No and Conj
PP/Relative > Conjunction
Two kinds of Negative Cycles
Indefinite phrase > negative = Jespersen’s Cycle.
See EyÞórrson (2002) about ON ne; Bondi Johannessen (2000)
and Sollid (2002) about modern stages.
(1)
er
hjör né
rýðr
Old Norse
that sword not
redden
`that do not redden a sword.' (Fáfnismál 24)
(2)
Þat
mæli
ek
eigi
that say-1S
I
not
`I am not saying that.’ (Njalssaga, 219, Faarlund 2004: 225)
(3)
Trøtt...jeg? Ha'kke tid
Norwegian
tired ... me? have-not time
`Me, tired? I don't have the time.’ (google)
(4)
USA bør ikke ALDRIG være et forbilde ...
’The US should not never be an example ...’ (google)
A second cycle involves a verb
(1)
(2)
(3)
'ele' k'e-s-t'aaz-e
Ahtna
NEG it-NEG-cut-NEG
`He isn't cutting it' (Kari 1992: 123)
nεzú-hílε
Chipewyan
be.good-not
`It is not good' (Li 1967: 420)
bebí nedá
yíle
Bearlake
baby 3.heavy
NEG
`The baby is light' (Rice 1989: 1101)
Verb > negative
Rice (1989: 1108, n. 1) suggests that the
negative yíle in Slave (48), i.e. Hare, Slavey,
and Bearlake, "may historically be an auxiliary
verb in the perfective aspect“.
Kari (1990) suggests that 'ele' in Ahtna is related
to the verb lae `to be'.
but also Chinese mei < `not exist’ ... and S Min
(Yang 2009)
Navajo and Apache
(1)
(2)
(3)
doo (bił)
hózhǫ/ǫ
da
NEG 3S-with
happy
NEG
`He isn’t happy'.
T'ah doo kwii nisháah
da ńt'éé'
Yet NEG here I-went
NEG PST
`I had never before been here‘.
(doo)
nchad
da
NEG
2S-cry
NEG
`Don't you cry' (Bray 1998: 109)
Negative Cycle in English
a.
no/ne
early Old English
b.
ne
c.
(ne) not
d.
not
(na wiht/not)
>
after 900, esp S
after 1350
-not/-n’t
after 1400
How renewed at the moment?
Fail to ... (in COHA)
But:
Register shows possible causes
Neg Cycle in terms of structure
NegP
Neg’
Neg
ne
VP
V
DP/AP
no thing
Please see (2) on Handout and then (1) for more
detail.
and in terms of features
DP in the VP
semantic
> Head Neg
> [u-neg]
>
>
Specifier of NegP
[i-neg]
>
negative affix
and then renewal is needed from another
lexical element
The Subject Cycle
A. demonstrative > third person pronoun >
clitic > agreement
B. noun/oblique pronoun > first/second pron
> clitic > agreement
"agreement and pronominalization ... Are
fundamentally one and the same
phenomenon“ (Givón 1978: 151).
Just a few examples
The Basque verbal prefixes n-, g-, z- are identical to the
pronouns ni ‘I’, gu ‘we’, and zu ‘you.’ (Gavel & HenriLacombe 1929-37),
As early as the 19th century, Proto Indo-European verbal
endings -mi, si, -ti are considered to arise from pronouns
(e.g. Bopp 1816).
Hale (1973: 340): in Pama-Nyungan inflectional markers
are derived from independent pronouns: “the source of
pronominal clitics in Walbiri is in fact independent
pronouns”.
Mithun (1991): Iroquoian agreement markers derive from
Proto-Iroquoian pronouns
Haugen (2004: 319): Nahuatl agreement markers derive
from pronouns.
Tunica prefixes:
Ɂi- [1S],
Ɂu- [3SM],
pronouns:
Ɂima,
Ɂu'wi,
wi-[2SM],
hi-/ he-[2SF],
ti- [3SF]
ma',
hɛ'ma,
ti'hči (Haas 1946: 346-7)
Donohue (2005): Palu’e, a Malayo-Polynesian language of
Indonesia: no agreement but the first person aku can be
cliticized.
(1) ‘úwa
>
‘úwa >
-‘ú
Ute
demonstrative
pronoun
article/agreement
invis-animate
(Givón 2011)
(2)
Shi diné bizaad
yíní-sh-ta'
Navajo
I
Navajo language
3-1-study
‘As for me, I am studying Navajo.’
Because of the cycle: pronominal
stages
Japanese, Mauwake, Urdu/Hindi: full pronoun
(1) watashi-wa kuruma-o unten-suru kara.
I-TOP
car-ACC drive-NONPST PRT
‘I will drive the car'. (Yoko Matsuzaki p.c.)
(2) Ni
fain=ke
ekap-eka!
2P
this-CFoc come-IMP.2P
`You here, come!’ (Berghäll 2010: 81)
(3) ham log `we people‘
(4) mẽy or merii behn doonõ dilii mẽy rehtee hẽ
I and my sister both Delhi in living are
French: Lambrecht 1981; Schwegler
1990; Fuß 2005
(1) Se je meïsme ne li di
Old French
If I myself not him tell
`If I don’t tell him myself.’ (Franzén
1939:20, Cligès 993)
(2) Renars respond: “Jou, je n’irai”
‘R answers “Me, I won’t go”.’
(Coronnement Renart, A. Foulet (ed.)
1929: 598, from Roberts 1993: 112)
Foulet (1961: 330): all personal pronouns can be
separated from the verb in Old French. Compare
Modern French:
(3)a. *Je heureusement ai vu ça
I probably have seen that
`I’ve probably seen that.’
b. Kurt, heureusement, a fait beaucoup d'autres
choses.
Kurt fortunately has done many other things
`Fortunately, Kurt did many other things’ (google
search of French websites)
(4) Où vas-tu
Standard French
where
go-2S
(5) tu
vas où
Colloquial French
2S go where ‘Where are you going?'
Loss of pre-verbal objects and ne
(6)
j'ai
pas encore démontré ça
I-have
NEGyet
proven that
‘I haven't yet proven that.’
Code-switching:
(7) nta tu vas travailler
Arabic-French
you you go work
‘You go to work.’ (from Bentahila and
Davies 1983: 313)
Subject Cycle
Full phrase move to Spec TP >
Head moves to T
Reanalysis as to what the head is: pronoun
or agreement.
Once the pronoun is agreement, a new
pro/nonominal is needed.
As tree
TP
T’
T
VP
V’
DP
D
a
b
V
DP
with features
Adjunct/Argument >
emphatic/noun
[semantic]
>
>
Specifier >
full pronoun
[i-phi]
Head
weak/clitic
[u-1/2] [i-3]
affix
agreement
[u-phi]
[u-#]
See (3) and (4) on handout for more detail.
English: start??
(a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position,
(d) doubling, (e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code
switching
Coordination (and Case)
(1) Me and Kitty were to spend the day.
(2) %while he and she went across the hall.
Position
(3) She’s very good, though I perhaps I
shouldn’t say so.
(4) You maybe you've done it but have
forgotten.
Doubling and cliticization
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Me, I've tucking had it with the small place.
(BNC H0M 1608)
Me, I think I'd like a change. (COHA 2001. fiction)
%Him/Her, s/he shouldn’t do that (not
attested in COCA or BNC; once in COHA)
What I'm gonna do?
`What am I going to do'
CSE-FAC:
uncliticized
I
2037
you 1176
he
128
cliticized
685 (=25%)
162 (=12.1%)
19
(=12.9%)
total
2722
1338
147
Problem in English: why so slow!
Really slow:
And genre-specific
Copula cycle, sources
Verbs
Demonstratives
= Reanalysis of
Prepositions/adverbs location, identity,
and aspect features
English flavors: be, become, go, fall, turn, seem,
appear, stay, and remain.
semantic features
be
remain, stay
seem, appear
[location] [duration]
[visible]
[equal]
Indo-European > English
No difference in NP, PP predicate (or but
inside the paradigm:
*es (< Dem)
*bheu `grow’ > Latin fui
> Old English `be, become’
*wes `remain, dwell’
*sta > estar (Spanish), tha (Hindi), tá (Irish)
*wert ‘turn’ > vartate (Sanskrit), wairþan
(Gothic), and weorðan (OE)
Old Egyptian (1) > Middle (2)
(1)
(2)
(3)
a.
rmt p-n
man MS-PROX `this man.’
b.
ntr-w
jp-w
god-P
MP-DIST `those gods.’
̩tmj-t
pw jmn-t
city-F
be west-F
`The West is a city.’
(Loprieno 1995; 2001)
p
-w
>
pw
[i-3MS]
[distal]
[loc]
[u-phi]
Demonstrative and adverbial
source of copulas
(1) a. Mi da i
tatá Saramaccan
I
am your father
‘I am your father.’ (McWhorter 1997: 87)
b. Hεn dà dí
Gaamá
he is
the chief
‘He's the chief.’ (McWhorter 1997: 98)
(2) Dí
wómi
dε a
wósu
the woman
is
at
house
`The woman is at home.’ (McWhorter 1997: 88)
Identification/classification
vs location
Saramaccan
equative
–
identificational da
class membership da/dɛ
locative
dɛ
(McWhorter 2005: 117-8; 171)
NigerianPidgin
be/na
(Mazzoli 2013: 91)
-
de
Structurally (see (6) on HO)
TP
T’
.
T
VP
DP
D
that V
V’
DP
CP Cycle
Skipped in the interest of time but see:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~gelderen/Oslo-CP.ppt
and Handout
The various cycles in terms of features
The cycle of agreement
noun > emphatic > pronoun > agreement >
[sem]
[i-phi] [i-phi]/[u-phi] [u-phi]
0
The cycles of negation
Adjunct/Argument Specifier Head (of NegP) affix
semantic >
[i-NEG]> [u-NEG]
>
-Modal Cycle
Verb
>
[volition, expectation, future]
AUX
[future]
Greenberg’s Demonstrative Cycle
and additions
Demonstrative
[i-phi]/ [loc]
article
[u-phi]
Dem
C
copula
[i-phi]
[u/i-T]
[u-phi]
[loc]
[loc]
Also: degree adverb and tense marker (TibetoBurman) and noun class marker.
Where do features come from?
Chomsky (1965: 142): “semantic features ...
too, are presumably drawn from a
universal ‘alphabet’ but little is known
about this today and nothing has been
said about it here.”
EvG: If a language has nouns with semantic
phi-features, the learner will be able to
hypothesize uninterpretable features on
another F (and will be able to bundle them
there).
How many?
Cinque and Rizzi (2008): the number of
functional categories is 32 in Cinque
(1999: 130) and around 40 in Kayne
(2005). Cinque and Rizzi, using Heine &
Kuteva’s 2002 work, come up with 400.
Benincà & Munaro (2010: 6-7) note that
syntax has reached the detail of
phonological features.
Pinker (1989/2013: 244-5) has 30 for verb
semantics.
Innate
semantic
shapes
negatives
real-unreal
+/-individuated
duration
vs
acquired
interpretable
grammatical number
negation
`if’
irrealis
mass-count
progressive
Explanations of the Cycle
Recent shift towards third factors and parametric
features: Minimize structure and movement.
This can be seen in terms of Feature Economy:
All change is in the lexicon: sem>i-F>u-F
Why?
– Maximize syntax?
– Keep merge going?
– Lighter?
Acquisition, Sign Language, ...
Unidirectional change in sign language
e.g. Aronoff et al; Fisher & Gough; Pfau &
Steinbach: V>ASP, N > AGR,
and L1 Acquisition
e.g. Brown (1973); Josefsson & Håkansson
(2000)
Interlanguage: debate as to features
Lardiere (2007), Hawkins (2005), Tsimpli et al
(2004)
Pre-human features: place, duration, negation ...
Conclusions
Generative/Formal Linguistics and Historical
Linguistics provide insights to each other
Unidirectional change provides a window
on the language faculty
We looked at four cycles: relevant to features
and economy
Role of UG determines what changes:
PS rules > parameters > features
More work: features!
New directions with cycles
25-26 April 2014
Linguistic Cycle Workshop II at ASU
Thank you!