Antonio Fábregas (Universidad de Tromsø), Ángel L. Jiménez-Fernández (Universidad de Sevilla) & Mercedes Tubino (Western Michigan University)
Deriving information structure from convergent derivations THE PROBLEM. Dative experiencer (DE) psychological predicates have an unmarked, thetic ordering Dative-Verb-Nominative, as in (1), cf. Campos (1999), JiménezFernández & Rozwadowska (2014): (1)
¿Qué pasa? What’s up? a. Que a María le gusta Juan. that to María her.DAT likes Juan b. #Que Juan le gusta a María. that Juan her.DAT likes to María
Note that there are arguments that the DE is not in subject position (Gutiérrez-Bravo 2006, Tubino 2008) in these cases. In accusative eventive predicates, in contrast, the thetic ordering is with the nominative in preverbal position. (2)
¿Qué pasa? What’s up? a. Que Juan ha atacado a María. that Juan has attacked ACC María b. #Que a María la ha atacado Juan. that ACC María her.ACC has attacked Juan
There are even minimal pairs with the same verb in the two construals (Campos 1999): (3)
¿Qué pasa? What’s up? a. Que a María le molesta Juan. that to María her.DAT bothers Juan a’. #Que Juan le molesta a María. b. Que Juan molesta a María. that Juan bothers ACC María b’. #Que a María la molesta Juan.
[stative, DE]
[eventive, acc.]
The problem is the following: why is the thetic ordering of these verbs radically different with DE stative construals and with accusative eventive construals? DEFECTIVE INTERVENTION AND LABELING. We motivate the order in (4) as the base structure for a DE verb (1). Following Chomsky’s (2000: 123) Defective Intervention, the dative blocks the checking relation between T and the subject, preventing agreement and thus creating a non-convergent configuration. (4)
*[T... [DatDP VP
Nom
DP]]
From (4), the alternative configuration in which Dat internally merges above T is convergent, as it no longer is an intervenor. We assume that the landing site of Dat in (5) is a functional head immediately dominating T (Uriagereka 1995).
(5)
[DatDP
FP
[T
___ [VP NomDP]]]
In the case of an accusative eventive verb, the configuration is (6). (6)
*[T
[NomDP vP [VP
Acc
DP]]
This derivation is non-convergent: the nominative DP is a phrase merged with another phrase (vP), without agreement between them. This precludes labeling of the set formed by them (Chomsky 2013); the solution is to internally merge DP with TP, with subsequent agreement that solves the labeling problem. (7)
[NomDP T [______ vP [VP
Acc
DP]]
INFORMATION STRUCTURE. The question is, then, why the movement of the DE in (5) and that of the nominative in (7) do not break the thetic ordering of the clause. Following the spirit of Reinhart (2007), we propose that movement is only interpreted as having an impact on information structure if there is an alternative derivation which does not involve this particular movement and which is also convergent. In the case of (4)-(5), movement of DE is not informationally relevant because the alternative without movement is non- convergent. In the case of (6)-(7), the same happens. The configuration in (1b) is not thetic because there is an alternative derivation not involving movement that is also convergent, so movement of Nom has information structure consequences: (8)
COMPARE: a. [DatDP T [____ VP NomDP] b. [NomDP ... DatDP T [____ VP ____]]
The configuration in (2b) involves, with respect to (7), movement of AccDP above TP, so it will also have information structure repercussions. CONSEQUENCES FOR INFORMATION STRUCTURE. This account suggests that information structure does not need to be built by endowing syntactic constituents with specialised features (topic, focus...) that trigger movement to designated positions. Its effects can be obtained as an epiphenomenon from internal merge operations that are allowed by the system (cf. Chomsky 2013, Epstein, Kitahara & Seely 2014) but are not required in order to obtain convergent derivations. References Campos, H. 1999. Transitividad e intranstividad. In I. Bosque and V. Demonte (eds.) Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española. Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, pp. 1519-1574. Chomsky, N. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: the framework. In R. Martin et al. (eds.), Step by step. Cambridge, MIT, pp. 89155. Chomsky, N. 2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130, 33-49. Epstein, S., H. Kitahara & D. Seely. 2014. Labeling by minimal search. LI 45, 463-481. Gutiérrez-Bravo, R. 2006. A reinterpretation of quirky-subjects and related phenomena in Spanish. In J.P. Montreuil & C. Nishida (eds.), New Perspectives in Romance Linguistics. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp. 127-142. JiménezFernández, Á.L. & B. Rozwadowska. 2014. An information structure-based approach to psych constructions, paper presented at Various Dimensions of Contrastive Studies, U. of Silesia, 26-28 October. Reinhart, T. 2007. Interface strategies. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT. Tubino, M. 2008. Preverbal datives are not quirky subjects. Ms., University of Arizona. Uriagereka, J. 1995. Aspects of the theory of clitic placement in Western Romance. LI 26, 79-123.
