• The Aux in the Guipuzkoan Dialect of Basque

      Martin-Callejo, Esmeralda (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      This paper addresses the problem of what has traditionally been labelled Aux in Basque. The Guipuzkoan dialect of Basques has, in statements, a particle sequence which occurs to the right of the verb, in sentence final position. Two examples are given in (la) and (lb): (1) a. Miren itzultzen d a; Mary:abs pass:by:asp PART-Aux; 'Mary passes by.' b. Mirenek sagarrak jan z - it - u - (e) n; Mary:erg apples:the:abs eat PART -PARI -Aux –PART; 'Mary ate the apples.' The first particle in (la) marks the person of the subject of the sentence, and the first and second particles in (ib) mark respectively person and number of the object of the sentence; the last particle marks tense. According to the traditional analysis, the 2 particle complexes not only include person and tense markers, but above all the root of 2 verbs labelled Aux by reference to the notional category of help - ing verb. In (la) and (lb), the vowel labelled Aux is respectively identified with the root of the verbs izan and ukan. The root of izan is considered to be equivalent to 'be' when used as helping verb of intransitive verbs, like in (la); on the other hand, the root of ukan corresponds to 'have' when used with transitive verbs, like in (lb). Further, these 2 verbs are characterized as the necessary tools for indicating temporal distinction -under the label conjugation- as in jan ditu 'he has eaten them', and jan zituen 'he ate them'. Moreover, the traditional analysis only recognizes these 2 auxiliary verbs, which, by the way, also function as main verbs. For instance, (2) Mikelek katuak d - it –u; Mike:erg cat:the:abs PART-PART-V; 'Mike has cats.' However, this analysis fails to explain particle sequences in which the verbal root necessary for identifying the helping verb never appears. For example, the particle complex dizkiot 'I (have) them for him' does not contain the verbal root of the auxiliary verb ukan 'have'. In. fact, ukan never appears within particle sequences in which a double objective relationship shows up. The purpose of this paper will be to give an account of the vowel variation in (la) and (ib) conjointly with an explication of those cases which indicate a double objective relationship. In doing so, we will simply label Aux by means of a variable2 X. To illustrate, notice the change in the particle complexes of (la) and (ib): (1) a. d –a (PART-X) b. z - it -u-(e)n (PART--PART-X-PART) We shall argue that this segment does not correspond to an auxiliary verb form. It will be identified as an element whose formal properties depend upon the subcategorization of the verb. Furthermore, this paper meets another goal: it will provide evidence for identifying these particle sequences as an instantiation of the cross-linguistic category AUX as defined in (3): (3) Given a set of language internal analyses, in terms of constituents, those constituents which may contain only a specified (i.e., fixed or small) set of elements, crucially containing elements marking tense and /or modality will be identified as non-distinct. (Steele et al., (1981)) Furthermore, the AUX category has the following set of properties: 1. AUX is a constituent, 2. which occurs in first, second, or final position, 3. AUX contains a specified, i.e., fixed and small, set of elements, 4. which occur in a fixed order within the AUX constituent, 5. the membership of which set must include elements marking tense and /or nodality, but 6. it may include, as well, elements marking subject marking, subject agreement, question, evidential, emphasis, aspect, object marking, object agreement, and negation. The first 2 properties will not be discussed. From the outset, we assume that AUX is a constituent which may occur in initial, second from the beginning and final positions. In conclusion, we shall claim that the whole set of particles is to be called AUX, and not some part of it. Section 2 is concerned with the internal organization of the particle sequence. It must be stressed that this analysis is carried out on strictly synchronic grounds. Maybe, Section 2 will seem overemphasized. However, it is a logical consequence of the analysis being presented in this paper. The set of particle sequences identified with AUX are too easily treated as mere idiosyncratic forms no longer analyzable into smaller units. In this section, particle sequences in intransitive and transitive sentences will be first analyzed; then the analysis of the unlabelled segment X will be dealt with. In Section 3, we will point out the problems that the traditional auxiliary verb hypothesis poses. Given these problems, we will see how our approach solves them. Finally, in Section 4, a recapitulation of the argumentation will be presented which will require a revision of 2 empirical generalizations made in the Encyclopedia of AUX: the status of person marking as a non -definitional property must be reevaluated, and the particle sequence can contain indirect object markers for person and number. From this discussion, we can forsee the reason why the AUX identification in Basque is important. It will allow to establish a significant corelation between sentential constituents marked for case, and the markers which are part of AUX.
    • Predicate as a Universal Syntactic Category

      Jelinek, Eloise (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      Relating categories across languages is the crucial question in the study of language universals.) It will be argued here that the syntactic categories (primary sentential constituents) of a language are not projections of lexical categories, and that identifying categories across languages as equivalent, as Steele (1981) has for instantiations of the category AUX, does not rest upon a language internal correspondence between these syntactic categories and particular lexical categories. A set of language independent definitions of the syntactic categories SUBJECT, AUX, PREDICATE and ADVERBIAL in terms of the functional properties (role in function/argument structure) of sentential constituents is proposed, and the instantiation of these categories in the unrelated languages Egyptian Arabic and English is shown. This set of category definitions suffices for an economical account of sentence structure in these configurational languages, and the definitions are shown to be useful in cross-language comparisons. The claim is made here that PREDICATE is a universal syntactic category: that is, all (complete) sentences of all languages necessarily have some constituent that we may label PREDICATE. This is not true of the other syntactic categories to be identified here, nor is it true of any lexical category, including verb.
    • Desiderative - Causatives in Papago

      Zepeda, Ofelia (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      This paper is concerned with the analysis of what I will term "desiderative- causative" sentences in Papago. (1) is an example.1 (1) s- ñ- ko:sin 'at.; s ñ ko:s-im-c 'at; prefix-prefix- sleep- suffix -suffix Aux; 'I am sleepy.' (1) contains the causative suffix c and the desiderative suffix -im (which also requires the prefix s -), hence, the term desiderative- causative. Desiderative- causative sentences have characteristics which distinguish them both from the simple desiderative sentences, as in (2), and simple causatives, as in (3). (2) Mali:ya 'at s-ko:sim. Mary Aux s ko:s -im Mary Aux s: sleep:DESIDERATIVE 'Mary is sleepy' or more literally 'Mary desires to sleep.' (3) Mali:ya 'at ko:sc g 'ali.; Mary Aux ko:s -c g 'ali; Mary Aux sleep-CAUSATIVE determiner baby; 'Mary made the child go to sleep.' First, the subject possibilities in desiderative- causatives are exceedingly limited and distinct from those allowed in either simple desideratives or simple causatives. Second the semantic conditions which the verbs places on its associated arguments in desiderative- causative sentences must be distinguished from those in simple desideratives or simple causatives. An examination, therefore, of the simple desiderative and the simple causative on the one hand and the desiderative- causative on the other will suggest the idiosyncracies of the latter, However, I will argue that the properties of the desiderative- causative, in regard to the subject possibilities and the conditions on arguments, is a natural consequence of the combination of the requirements imposed in the simple desiderative and the simple causative.
    • Referential Use and Polysemy

      Larson, Thomas G. (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      What is the relationship between the meaning of a word and its referential uses? Katz (1979) argues that a word's meaning determines its referential uses--but only in "the null context ". Putnam (1977), on the other hand, denies that meaning determines referential use. The present paper will focus on a third, and somewhat different, attempt to answer this question: namely, that of Nunberg (1978, 1979). Nunberg (1979, p. 177) espouses a relationship between meaning and referential use that results in the conclusion that it is possible for linguistics to give a proper account of the way language is used and understood "without having to say that speakers know what words mean." This conclusion is equivalent to the claim that there can be no coherent semantic theory because, as Nunberg puts it, "The semantics /pragmatics distinction cannot be validated even in principle; there is no way to determine which regularities in use are conventional, and which are not." (Nunberg (1979), p. 143) Nunberg calls this position "radical pragmatics" and it is clear that much of contemporary speech act theory would have to be drastically revised if Nunberg's claim about ward meaning were valid. Nunberg also claims that his arguments for this conclusion are based, in part, on arguments to be found in Wittgenstein. In Section 2 of this paper, we will sketch Nunberg's arguments. In Section 3, we will show that these arguments are not valid, and that, therefore, his conclusion regarding knowledge of word meaning is false. In Section 4, we will briefly discuss Wittgenstein on this and a related matter. We do so partly to clear up misunderstandings of Wittgenstein to be found in Nunberg, but more importantly to lay the foundation for our own outline of the relationship between meaning and referential use to be found in Section 5.
    • Navajo Verbal Prefixes in Current Morphological Theory

      Speas, Peggy (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      During the last few years, there has been increasing interest in the principles of word formation and structure, which are thought to be "distinct and separate from the principles of sentence formation." (Allen 1978:2) The earlier of the proposals for the organization of the morphological component (eg. Allen (1978), Siegel (1974), Aronoff (1976)) dealt only with derivational morphology? Inflectional morphology was presumed to fall within the domain of syntax, and therefore was not expected to adhere to the same principles or utilize the same machinery as derivational morphology. Recently, several morphological theories have been proposed which provide a uniform set of machinery for accomplishing all inflectional and derivational morphological processes within the lexicon. These theories, in which words "emerge" from the lexicon fully formed, can yield interesting results for syntax, as illustrated in Farmer (1980). The majority of these modals of word formation within a generative grammar have been based on English or other (rather closely related) Indo-European languages. In this paper, we intend to investigate the claims of some recent morphological theories using facts from Navajo, an Athabaskan language with a rich polysynthetic system of morphology. In particular, we will investigate the applicability of the theories of Lieber (1980) and Williams (1981) to Navajo's elaborate verbal prefix system. In Section 1, we will outline the facts of Navajo verbal morphology which must be dealt with in a morphological theory. We will show that the Navajo verbal prefixes display a striking pattern of internal organization that has not been noticed before. In Sections 2 and 3, we will outline the proposals of Lieber and Williams, respectively, discussing the applicability of each to Navajo. In Section 4, we will describe the type of system which would be appropriate for the Navajo verb. In this regard we will address the question of hierarchical structure in Navajo verbal morphology. In Section 5, we will address the general questions which our study of Navajo raises for general morphological theory: 1) How are the differences between derivational and inflectional morphology to be characterized? and 2) How does this characterization bear on the possible parameters of a typology of morphological structure?
    • Analysis of Quantifier in Japanese

      Tomoda, Shizuko (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      Quantifier Floating (henceforth QF) in Japanese has been discussed in the literature by several linguists ( Okutsu 1969, Harada 1976, Kamio 1977, Shibatani 1977, Kuno 1978, Inoue 1978). Their analyses have focused on two issues. One issue concerns whether QF should be considered in terms of grammatical relations; subject, direct object and indirect object, or grammatical surface cases; nominative case GA, accusative case O, and dative case NI. The other issue concerns whether QF phenomenon is to be accounted for by virtue of a transformational rule or by virtue of an interpretive rule. This paper consists of two sections. In the first section, I will present a review of previous analyses of QF in the literature, ultimately questioning any transformational account of QF. In the second section, I will examine sentence structures containing quantifiers.
    • Analysis of Clause as V⁴

      Nakajima, Heizo (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      Jackendoff (1977) makes an assumption that a clause is a projection of the lexical category V, and he analyze the traditional category S as the major phrasal category of V, i.e., V3 . Such an analysis is necessary in order to capture, for example, the parallelism in the grammatical relations between clause and noun phrase. He furthermore proposes that the major phrasal category, V3, dominates sentential adverbs, sentential appositive relatives, parenthetical clauses, subject NPs, and auxiliaries. Syntactically, however, these constituents do not seem homogeneous. Section 1 of this paper shows that sentential adverbs (S-adverbs, henceforth), not being homogeneous, must be divided into two syntactically different groups, and claims, on the basis of this distinction, that it is necessary to add one more layer, V4, to Jackendoff's maximum layer, V32, so as to put one group of S-adverbs, as Jackendoff claims, under V3, and the other group (in addition, some other kinds of constituents) under V4. Section 2 discusses that these two and some other groups of adverbs occur in different environments: some groups of adverbs, but not others, may occur in given types of clauses. The discussion about which group of adverbs occurs in which type of clauses will give a crucial clue for deciding internal structures of each type of clauses. Section 3 extends the V4 system to the analysis of adverbial subordinate clauses, and, in passing, refers to the relation of the V4 system to "a bounding category" in the sense of Chomsky (1979) and the notion of "command." The argument on the bounding category leads us to interesting phenomena concerning WH-Movement, which will be dealt with in Section 4.
    • Acknowledgement, Preface, and Introduction (Coyote Papers 3, 1982)

      University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982
    • On the Internal Organization of Syllable Constituents

      Davis, Stuart (University of Arizona Linguistics Circle (Tucson, Arizona), 1982)
      This paper challenges the notion that the rhyme (or "rime") is an obligatory constituent in a theory of syllable -structure.' According to this theory, the syllable is divided into an onset (the syllable - initial consonant or consonants), a peak (the peak of sonority in a syllable), and a coda (the syllable -final consonant or consonants). The peak and the coda are analyzed as forming a unique constituent, the rhyme. Here, however, I will argue against the rhyme as a universal syllable -constituent, and I will propose that, in universal grammar, the syllable has the following "flat" structure. The arguments previously adduced for the constituency of the rhyme seek to demonstrate that peak and coda have a privileged status; there are dependencies (e.g. cooccurrence restrictions) between them, as well as certain (language specific) rule-environmental conditions where both are mentioned. These arguments take such phenomena to be indicators of constituency. However, looking at a wider range of evidence (as will be done in the following sections) reveals that similar relationships hold between other parts of the syllable besides peak and coda. This would lead to a situation of "double-motherhood" where onset and peak, as well as onset and coda, comprise a constituent, since there can also be similar relationships between them. The implausibility of this structure is a serious flaw in the arguments that the peak and the coda together form a constituent, but avoiding it entails rejecting the claim that dependencies and environmental mentionings indicate constituency. But this, in turn, further entails that peak and coda do not have a privileged status as a constituent. In fact, rejecting that claim eliminates all the evidence heretofore adduced in support of the rhyme. Now, the level at which both Selkirk (1978) and Halle & Vergnaud (1980) argue for the obligatoriness of the rhyme is that it is a universal in the strong sense: it is a constituent in all languages. Selkirk argues for its universality by appealing to the existence of phonotactic constraints between peak and coda. This argument for the rhyme as a universal makes an implicit prediction that can be shown to be false (namely, that no phonotactic constraints occur between onset and peak or coda.). Halle & Vergnaud's argument for the rhyme can likewise be invalidated. They argue that all languages have a syllable - constituent, and that the rhyme is a constituent within the syllable. Their justification for the rhyme's universality is that: "... in all languages known to us [them], stress assignment rules are sensitive to the structure of the syllable rime, but disregard completely the character of the onset" (1980:93). Thus, they essentially claim that the rhyme is an obligatory universal. I will show, however, that their argument for the rhyme is likewise invalid, because of the nature of additional evidence that they did not consider. Although the arguments for the constituency of the rhyme as a universal in the strong sense fail, one still can make a weaker claim about the universality of the rhyme: that it is not an obligatory constituent but an available one, that a language can "choose" to use. I will look at some of the evidence from the recent literature that can be construed as supporting the constituency of the rhyme in the weak sense, and I will show that this evidence for the rhyme is not convincing. If the rhyme, then, is an available universal, the case for it still has to be made. After showing the weaknesses of the various arguments for the rhyme (and for non - terminal subconstituents of the syllable in general) I will present the evidence for my claim that the syllable is flat - that no hierarchical relationships exist between onset, peak, and coda.