Beyond Cyclical Change: Implications for the Minimalist Program
Elly van Gelderen
Explaining Language Change, Tucson, 26 March 2011
I will review examples of major linguistic cycles, the head marking cycle (e.g.
from subject and object pronoun to agreement) and the dependent marking, and
explain what insight they give to current syntactic research. I then list some
challenges the cycles present for the Minimalist Program.
What is the linguistic cycle?
Examples of major linguistic cycles: the head marking cycle (from subject and object
pronoun to subject and object agreement and copulas) and the dependent marking cycle
Pronoun > agreement
(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)
a.
Je lis et j'écris
French
I read and I-write `I read and write.’
b.
*Je lis et écris
I read and write
(3)
Moi je suis pour un impôt sur les sociétés qui taxerait … French
`Me, I am for a tax on companies that would tax …’
(http://www.metrofrance.com/info/francois-hollande-aujourd-hui-je-suispret/mkco!Uh9yvIt3B7cL2)
Demonstrative > article > Case
König (2008: 117) for West Nilotic, Sasse (1984) for Berber, Kulikov (2006: 29-30) for
Kartvelian, Georgian, and Caucasian, McGregor (2008) for Australian languages and
Mithun (2008) for Wakashan.
Examples of minor cycles: future and aspect cycles and the negative cycle.
(4)
a.
I told Cowslip we were going before I left the burrow. (BNC-EWC 3181)
b.
Anne can HAVE her Mini....Cause I's gonna get me a BMW
(http://www.inkycircus.com/jargon/2006/09/anne_can_have_h.html)
One way of thinking about this is:
a.
ep
Spec
XP
b.
XP
ei
X'
X
ei
YP
YP
ei
Y
X
ZP
ei
Z
Figure 1:
The Linguistic Cycle
...
Earlier work on the cycle:
de Condillac (1746), Tooke (1786-1805), Bopp (1816), von Humboldt (1822), and then
Tauli (1958), Hodge (1970), Greenberg (1978), Givón (1978), and Katz (1996).
However:
Robin Lakoff wrote that "there is no mechanism within the present theory of
transformational grammar that would allow an explanation" (1972: 173-4) and even
outright rejection of the idea of linguistic cycles, e.g. Newmeyer (1998: 263-275; 2001)
and Lightfoot (e.g. 2006a: 38).
My aim: examine examples and explore what the typical steps in the cycles are, where
they start, and how they renew themselves:
a.
b.
The subject cycle is driven by phi-features; it starts with first and second person.
The object cycle does not start as uniformly as the subject cycle. It is driven by
animacy and or deictic features.
c.
Polysynthetic languages do not employ uninterpretable phi-features which
distinguishes them from others
d.
Copulas consist of locative features. They therefore grammaticalize from three
sources, demonstrative, locative verbs, and adpositions.
e.
Dependent marking of grammatical roles is definiteness marking.
f.
Differential Object Marking is (still) a mysterious phenomenon. There is some
evidence that it is really definiteness marking.
g.
Inherent Case is represented by interpretable features such as time and place.
Structural uninterpretable Case on subjects is checked by T (as in Pesetsky &
Torrego 2001) and on objects by ASP/v.
h.
The position of the NegP is variable. Cyclical change indicates that there is
perhaps always a Pol(arity)Phrase in the expanded CP since negatives are often
reanalyzed as very high elements.
i.
TMA cycles are very varied. Sources: adverbs, PPs, demonstratives.
Table 1:
Some conclusions from looking at cyclical change (van Gelderen in press)
What happens?
Feature change:
(5)
semantic
(Adjunct
>
[iF]
Specifier
>
[uF]
Head
>
[uF]
affix)
Loss of semantic features occurs when full verbs such as Old English will with features
such as [volition, expectation, future] are reanalyzed as having only the feature [future] in
Middle English. The features can then be considered grammatical rather than semantic, as
in (6) with for:
(6)
a.
hlynode
for
hlawe
made-noise before mound
‘It made noise before/around the gravehill.' (Beowulf 1120).
b.
I would prefer for John to stay in the 250 class. (BNC-ED2 626)
I build on Chomsky's (1995: 230; 381) insight that "formal features have semantic
correlates and reflect semantic properties (accusative Case and transitivity, for example)."
(7)
Subject Agreement Cycle
emphatic
>
full pronoun
[i-phi]
[i-phi]
>
head pronoun >
[u-1/2] [i-3]
agreement
[u-phi]
Some conclusions:
Agreement seems to be central (although a few languages show no signs of
grammaticalizing their pronouns).
Case is much more of a mix of dependent marking for semantic, grammatical, and
pragmatic reasons.
Features matter and change is (mostly) uni-directional.
Challenges for the features of the Minimalist Program:
I.
Languages that may not have u-phi: PALs (as in Jelinek’s and Willie’s work) and
highly analytic languages.
II.
No necessary connection between Case and agreement.
Case
no Case
Table 2:
Agreement
Yaqui, Amis, Urdu, Basque
Navajo , Zulu, Lakhota, Ainu
no Agreement
Japanese, Korean, Khoekhoe
Sango, Haida, (French), Thai,
Haitian Creole
Languages with and without Case and agreement
Baker expresses this as:
(8)
The Case Dependence of Agreement Parameter (CDAP)
F agrees with DP/NP only if F values the Case feature of DP/NP (or vice versa).
(Baker 2008: 155)
III.
If all parameters are restricted to the lexicon, i.e. to the features postulated, the
child will need some guidance as to what to pay attention to. What?
- Feature parameters and an inventory
Phi-features (for head-marking)
`Case' (T/ASP) (for dependent-marking)
ei
ei
yes
no
yes
no
ei
Chinese
English
Navajo
u-F
i-F
Chinese
English
Navajo
Figure 2:
Feature Macroparameters
Semantic:
[loc], [time], [ps], etc
Formal:
u-phi, i-phi, u-T, i-T, u-ASP, i-ASP, u-NEG, i-NEG, u-Q, i-Q
[Phi] on English heads:
(9)
T [u-phi] [i-T] D [u-phi] [u-T] v [u-phi] [i-ASP] N [i-phi]
(10) NEG and C heads in English: NEG [u-NEG]; Cwh [u-Q]; C [u-T]
[uF] and [iF]:
Semantic
features as source:
Table 3:
[T] on C + T [T] on D
[loc] [time]
[phi] on T, V, and N
[loc]
[person, number,
gender]
Grammatical features and their sources
[Q]
[NEG]
[wh] [negative]
[negative]
What’s next?
- Irregularities in the Cycle
Isolating
Inflectional
Figure 3:
Agglutinative
Attachment type (Crowley 1992: 170)
- Role of phonology in grammaticalization
Some References (I can e-mail further ones)
Baker, Mark 2008. The syntax of Agreement and Concord. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Crowley, Terry. 1992. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Auckland: Oxford
University Press.
Gelderen, Elly van in press The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language
Faculty. Oxford University Press.
Hodge, Carleton 1970. The Linguistic Cycle. Linguistic Sciences: 13: 1-7.
Tauli, Valter 1958. The Structural Tendencies of Languages. Helsinki.