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A Cross-linguistic Perspective on the DP-Cycle Elly van Gelderen ESSE, Aarhus, 23 August 2008

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Presentation on theme: "A Cross-linguistic Perspective on the DP-Cycle Elly van Gelderen ESSE, Aarhus, 23 August 2008"— Presentation transcript:

1 A Cross-linguistic Perspective on the DP-Cycle Elly van Gelderen ESSE, Aarhus, 23 August 2008 ellyvangelderen@asu.edu

2 Earlier work on the DP-Cycle Greenberg 1978 Harris 1977 Vincent 1997 Diessel 1999 Lyons 1999 van Gelderen 2007

3 Framework Well-known DP-structure, e.g. Julien 2005 Chomsky’s 3 factors in Language Design: 1.Genetic endowment = UG 2.Experience 3.Principles not specific to language (Chomsky 2005: 6).

4 The third factor The third factor includes principles of efficient computation, which are "of particular significance in determining the nature of attainable languages" (Chomsky 2005: 6)

5 Some third factors Strong Minimalist Thesis Language is a perfect solution to interface conditions (Chomsky 2007: 5) Head Preference Principle (HPP): Be a head, rather than a phrase. `analyze something as small as possible' Late Merge Principle (LMP): Merge as late as possible (van Gelderen 2004)

6 DP Cycle (old way) a.DPb.DP demD'  D'(=HPP) DNPDNP artN  c.DP D' DNP -n>0N renewal through LMP

7 or through Feature Economy: a.DP>b.DP thatD'D' [i-ps]DNPDNP [i-loc][u-#]N…theN [i-phi][u-phi] [i-phi] Hence (1)*I saw the (2)I saw that/those.

8 Runic Old Norse (1)watehalihinoOld Norse wetstone this `Wet this stone' (Strøm stone; Antonsen 1975: 54-55) (2)warait runazþaiazOld Norse wrote runesthese, `wrote these runes' (Istaby stone; Antonsen 1975: 84)

9 Status of D (4)Sá ersællOld Norse `He ishappy' ( Edda, Hávamál 9) (5)inn vari-W gestrOld Norse `the wise/knowing guest' (Edda, Hávamál 7) (6)þatithelgasætiOld Norse thattheholyseat `The holy seat' (Gordon 1956: 312)

10 Doubles in Later Old Norse (1)þauinstoruskip thosethebigships `Those big ships‘. (2)þitthittmilda andlit yourthemildface `your mild face' (3)féþatallt moneythatall `all that money'

11 More change (Swedish etc) (1)bok-enbook-the (2)handengamlevaktmäster-en hetheoldjanitor-DEF (2)dendärbok-en theherebok-DEF `that book'. (3)dennabok-(en) thatbook-DEF

12 Changes DP PossD' NPDnP Demþaun’ `that’ nskip in[3NeuP] `the' DEM is spec or head in is in n head/ hinn in Spec

13 Add the adjective: (1)nP nNP hinnnPN nAvetr -asiðasta

14 in words At some point, let's say Proto-Old Norse, a locative adverb hinn/hitt `here' is incorporated as part of the nP, as in hali hino above. Then, it is reanalyzed as a head/nominal marker. The latter is the origin of the Modern Norwegian and Swedish -en/-et (Faarlund (2007ab). Old Norse then renews its locative marker through a demonstrative, such as sa, þat, or þann, possibly appositive initially. Since these are deictic elements, a DP is triggered and they are incorporated as specifiers of the DP.

15 Features The uninterpretable phi-features on D probe the noun's interpretable features. Hence, there has to be a noun. If a demonstrative with interpretable locative/deictic features is used, the D can be empty, or the n head may move there. As to the features of the n probe, they probe for phi-features (in fact before D does) to ensure the root is a noun.

16 The History of English Dem in Spec/ with Interpretable features: (1)se wæs Wine haten & se wæs in Gallia rice gehalgod. he was wine called and was in Gaul consecrated (2) hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon how those-NOM.P nobles-NOM.P courage did 'how the nobles performed heroic acts' (Beowulf 3)

17 loss of iF (1) gife to … þa munecas of þe mynstre give to … the monks of the abbey (Peterborough Chron 1150) (2) *the (Wood 2003: 69) (3) Morret's brother came out of Scoteland for th'acceptacion of the peax (The Diary of Edward VI, 1550s)

18 Renewal (1) It was just I I was just looking at there them down there (BNC FME 662). (2) Oh they used to be ever so funny houses you know and in them days … They used to have big windows, but they used to a all be them there little tiny ones like that. (BNC - FYD 72)

19 The difference/similarity between Old Norse and Old English ON incorporated a locative (h)inn/(h)itt as n; both used a demonstrative in the Spec of the DP. In both, the demonstrative was reanalyzed as a D head whose locative character is being renewed.

20 Dutch-Afrikaans (1)die man daar that man there (2)Daardie teenstrydighede was egter nie those contradictions were however not

21 Romance: Latin demonstrative ille = French head le/la (1)*Je pratique leFrench `I play the' (2)Je pratique le tennis, le badminton, le squash, la natation.French `I play tennis, badminton, squash, and swimming'. (Kate Beeching's corpus)

22 ecce ille `see that' = cel/cet Harris 1977: #/genderdef articleproximity marker Cl Latin--hic, iste, ille Vulgar Latin-illeecce iste, ecce ille Old French-lecest, cel Mod Frenchlecece... ci, ce... là = renewal

23 Comparison Modern French MSle2556ce231 FSla2804cette195 MFSl'1234 cet31 Ples2790ces139 Total9384596= 9980

24 C 17 no real difference: DiscoursL'Avare MSle272ce31le330ce46 FSla407cette31la316cette48 MFSl'234 cet8l'274cet12 Ples597ces57les215ces28 Total15101271135134

25 Percentages C17(Academic) 8% Dem/dem+articles (Theatre) 11% C20(Spoken) 6%

26 Change in deictic marker: Only 1 DP has -là in Descartes and 5 have -là in Molière, whereas of the 596 instances of ce(t), cette, and ces in the Modern French spoken corpus, 45 are accompanied by là, as in () above. The respective percentages are 0.8%, 3.7%, and 7.6%. This may indicate that ce(t), cette, and ces were not reanalyzed as demonstratives but that -là and -ci are.

27 St'át'imcets: all stages (1)c  ati=sxwápməx-a thisART-Shuswap-REF `This Shushap' (van Eijk 1997: 169) (2)DP c  aD' DnP tin' nNP -asxwápməx (3) l-č  a visible, proximal `here'.

28 Feature Economy LocativeSpecifierHead affix semantic>[iF]>[uF]>-- Head>(higher) Head>0 [iF] / [uF][uF] uF is a Probe

29 Conclusions Change is from the `inside’: the child analyzes something according to UG/third factor Principles The mechanisms behind the cycle can be seen in terms of Economy = third factor Further work: Dependent Marking Cycle


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