Modelling the syntax-discourse interface: a syntactic analysis of please Rebecca Woods, University of York Following Speas and Tenny (2003), generative linguists have recently put forward a variety of evidence for a speech act projection in the left periphery. The head of this projection selects for arguments which represent the discourse participants (Hill 2007, Miyagawa 2012) and interacts closely with the clause type of the utterance to syntactically encode the illocutionary force of the utterance (Coniglio and Zegrean 2012). However, questions remain over the characteristics and potential identity(-ies) of the speech act head itself. Hill (2007) suggests that the Romanian particle hai, which is verb-based and carries inflection, is a candidate for the lexicalisation of the speech act head. This is due to its position in the clause, interaction with other clause-peripheral elements and its interpretation in different clause types. It is proposed here that overt speech act heads also exist in English, and that the discourse marker please is such a head. This analysis provides cross-linguistic support for Hill (2007), brings together various strands of work in current speech act theory and provides a formal syntactic analysis of an aspect of English long only treated by pragmaticists. The pragmatic tradition considers please a “basic pragmatic marker” which turns sentences into requests (Fraser 1996). However, there are restrictions to the distribution of please which suggests that it interacts closely with the clause type of the utterance and other elements in the left periphery, thus meriting a closer detailed syntactic analysis. Please occurs sentence-initially, -medially and -finally in interrogatives and sentence-initially and -finally in imperatives, as seen in (1). It is only available in declaratives when they are responses to a question, and even then only in sentence-final position (2, compared with 3): (1) (2) (3)

(a) Please can I have a beer? (b) Can I please have a beer? (c) Can I have a beer, please? (d) Please get me a beer (e) Get (*please) me (*please) a beer (f) Get me a beer, please Context: Friend offers to buy a drink in a bar (a) I’ll have a beer, please. (b) *Please I’ll have a beer. (No context) *There is a mouse there please.

Focusing on sentence-initial and –medial please, Hill and others note that discourse markers such as hai cannot occur in embedded contexts. This also holds true of please in standard dialects of English: (5) *He asked me whether please I would go to the dance with him. However, it is permitted in dialects which have been shown for independent reasons to embed full speech acts (cf. McCloskey 2006, Krifka 2014), such as embedded inverted questions in Irish English: (6)

(a) He asked me please would I go to the dance with him. (b) He asked me would I please go to the dance with him.

Please also displays other characteristics of a high functional head, for example its inability to be modified (*very please, *huge please) and cannot be co-ordinated with other similar markers: (7) *Please and fine, fetch me the bucket.

It is therefore proposed that sentence-initial please is the functional head of SpeechActP, the highest projection in the clausal spine, which merges with interrogative or imperative sentences whose clause type is determined by the features on ForceP. This is illustrated in (8): (8) [SAP1 SPEAKER [SA’1 [SA1 ] [SAP2 ADDRESSEE [SA’2 [SA2 please {iF intent, uF type<>}] [ForceP [Force {uF intent<>, iF type ] [CP… ]]]]]] Please probes the Force head to check its uninterpretable [clause type] feature, while Force probes SA head please to value its [intent] features (see Coniglio and Zegrean 2012 for the terms used) as shown in (8). Such a configuration provides a new, more complete response to the oft-debated question of whether embedded clauses have ‘Force’ – in standard English cases it is clear that ForceP is present as embedded clauses are still typed, but the [intent] feature is left unvalued, meaning that the clause is unspecified for the original speaker’s intentions (cf. Krifka 2014). However, in the case of dialects with embedded speech acts both Force and Intent are represented, because the embedded clause is not simply a reported sentence radical but a reperformed speech act, and as such the commitments of the original speaker are conveyed along with their proposition. Hence please is possible in the context of embedded speech acts. As for sentence-medial please, which carries the same requesting force as sentence-initial please, this is found at the vP-edge: (9) Will you please hand me a tissue? This please receives a similar analysis to sentence-initial please, except that it is first merged in the left periphery of the vP-edge in the same way of German Mittelfeld particles (cf. Struckmeier 2014 inter alia). This accounts for sentence-initial and –medial please having the same connection to Force, but sentence-medial please receives a stronger emphatic interpretation than sentence-initial please which is reminiscent of the emphatic nature of the German modal particles. In contrast, sentence-final please is an adverb-like particle element in the vein of Cardinaletti (2011), which does not enter into any kind of Agree relationship, is merged in IP not CP, and contributes a different meaning (that of a politeness marker) to the sentence, reflecting the findings of pragmatic surveys such as Sato (2008). Hence adverbial please may appear in declaratives, given the correct context, but speech act head please cannot. Also, sentence-final please can marginally appear in embedded non-speech act contexts, where speech act head please cannot. The postulation of two different pleases is neither stipulative nor superfluous as it explains the different distributions of sentence-initial/-medial and sentence-final please and their different interpretations, the latter in particular being unlikely to derive simply from the different position of the rest of the sentence. The account sketched above for please furthers our understanding of the relationship between speech act projections and the clause, our perception of what a speech act head is or could be, and is a step towards accounting for the principled distribution of English discourse markers in a principled way. References Cardinaletti, A. (2011). German and Italian modal particles and clause structure • Coniglio, M. and I. Zegrean (2012). Splitting up Force: Evidence from discourse particles • Hill, V. (2007). Vocatives and the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface • Krifka, M. (2014) Embedded Illocutionary Acts • McCloskey, J (2006). Questions and questioning in a local English • Miyagawa, S. (2012). Agreements that occur mainly in the main clause • Sato, S. (2008). Use of ‘please’ in American and New Zealand English • Speas, P. and C. Tenny (2003). Configurational properties of point of view roles • Struckmeier, V. (2014). Ja doch wohl C? Modal particles in German as C-related elements.