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Lowe University of Oxford 1 Introduction The synchronic syntactic analysis of the PresentDay Engli sh PDE possessive s has been the subject of considerable debate most recently B57590rjars et al 2012 with earlier references Some scholars eg Zwicky 1 ID: 34832 Download Pdf
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Presentation on theme: "English Possessive s Clitic and Ax John J"â Presentation transcript
EnglishPossessive's:CliticandA xJohnJ.LoweUniversityofOxford1.IntroductionThesynchronicsyntacticanalysisofthePresent-DayEnglish(PDE)possessive'shasbeenthesubjectofconsiderabledebate;mostrecentlyBörjarsetal.(2012)withearlierreferences.Somescholars,e.g.Zwicky(1987),Lapointe(1990),Miller(1991),Payne(2009),seektoanalysetheEnglishpossessiveasan`edgea x',i.e.ana xattachednottowordsbuttosyntactic constructionexistingsidebyside.Morphologically`irregular'(i.e.lexicallyspeci c)genitiveformsarestillfound,butallornearlyallnounshavetheoptionofusing-(e)s.Atthesametimethephrasalgenitivebecamefullyestablishedasapossibility(thoughitremainedrare).Whatmany(includingAllen)assumewasareanalysisofa xascliticmusthaveoccurredgraduallyoveralongperiodoftime;betweenthe14thcenturyandtheearly17thcenturybothphrasal(i.e.clitic)andcombined(i.e.a xal)possessivesexistsidebyside.Evenmoretellingly,thephrasalpossessiveoriginatedincertainsyntacticcontexts,andlaterspread,asdiscussedbyRosenbach(2004).Itoriginatedincontextswherethepossessor`phrase'wasmosteasilyanalyzableasasinglesyntacticunit,namelywithappositionalphrases,coordinatedphrasesand xed,lexicalizedexpressions(esp.ofthetype[TITLEofPLACE]'sX).Itisclear,then,thatwecannottalkaboutanabsolutechangefroma xtoclitic,butmustacknowledgeagradualprocessofchangeovertime.Assuming,therefore,thattheexistenceofthephrasalpossessiveissu cienttoadmitaclitic-s,therewasastageinearlyMiddleEnglishwherethepossessiveexistedbothasacliticandasana x.Thatis,therewasatimewhenthephrasal(clitic)possessivecouldbeusedincertainsyntacticcontexts,whileinothercontextsthenon-phrasal(a xal)formwasrequired.IfthiswaspossibleinMiddleEnglish,itstandstoreasonthatthesameisatleastpossibleinPDE.3.LFGand`LexicalSharing'TreatingthePDEpossessiveasbothcliticanda xcouldbeconsideredtheoreticallyundesirable.Ifthepossessiveisbothcliticanda x,notonlyisitlessclearhowacoherent,uni edanalysiscouldbeundertaken,buttherearealsopracticalproblems,suchashowtopreventacliticfromappearingwhenthea xappears,orviceversa.ByutilizingLexical-FunctionalGrammar(LFG;Bresnan,2001;Dalrymple,2001;Falk,2001),andinparticularthetheoryof`LexicalSharing'developedbyMichaelWescoat(2002,2005,2007,2009)inthisframework,boththetheoreticalandtechnicalproblemsoftreatingthepossessiveasbothcliticanda xcanbeovercome.InthefollowingIadaptWescoat'sLexicalSharingmodelinvariouswaysto tmoremainstreamLFGarchitecturalassumptions;spacedoesnotpermitmetoexplaintheseadaptionsinanydetail,butthefundamentalsofWescoat'sapproacharepreserved.LFGassumesaseparatelevelofgrammaticalrepresentationbesidesthehierarchicalconstituentstructure(andbesidesthefunctionalstructure),thes-string(Kaplan,1987),whichessentiallyrepresentsasequenceofwordsasastring,i.e.asetofsyntacticelementslinearlyorderedinaccordancewiththeir`surface'order.Theconstituentstructureisthenprojectedfromthes-string,informaltermsbymeansofaprojection.Usually,oneiteminthes-stringmapstooneiteminthec-structure.Wescoatshows,however,thatcertainsetsofwordsinsomelanguagesarebestanalysedbyassumingthatoneiteminthes-string(Wescoat's`l-structure')correspondsrathertotwonodesinthec-structure.Thisisthecase,forexample,withpronoun-auxiliarycontractionsinPDE,andpreposition-determinercontractionsinFrenchandGerman.Bypermittingaone-to-twocorrespondence,aconsistenthierarchicalrepresentationcanbeobtained,forexample,forallFrenchprepositionalphrases,despitethefactthatinsomeofthesephrasestheprepositionandfollowingdeterminerareclearlyseparatewords(e.g.àla),whileinotherstheyareclearlyasinglelexicalitem(e.g.au,du).(4)PP P DP D NP N auto.thegarçonboy(5)PP P DP D NP N àtolathe llegirl4.TheLexicallySharedPossessiveWenowhavethreepossibilitiesforthePDEpossessive,inrelationtowhichtheregularpossessiveformation(1)isinprincipleambiguous:2 (6)Clitic:DP DP D" NP D NP N N Henry'scars(7)LSa x:DP DP D" NP D NP N N Henry'scars(8)A x:DP DP D" NP NP N N Henry'scarsWehaveseenthatsomecontextsprovideclearsupportforacliticpossessive,whileothersprovidegoodsupportforana x,suchthatwecanassumethatbothformationsexistsidebysideinPDE.Aphrasalpossessivesuchas(3b)requiresthecliticanalysis(9),sinceotherwisewewouldhavetoassumethatevery niteverbform(etc.)hasana xal`possessive'formusedonlyinthesecontexts.Sincethephrasalpossessiverequiresaclitic,itismostparsimonioustoassumethecliticconstructionalsoforallregularpossessives,i.e.(6)inpreferenceto(7)or(8).Incontrast,nounswiththea xal`zero'possessive(2c)utilizeLexicalSharing(10)suchthat,whilethesepossessiveformsaresinglelexicalitems(sincethepossessivemarkerisana x),theirsyntacticparallelismwiththetwoword(nounpluspossessiveclitic)sequencesispreserved,yieldingaconsistentsyntacticanalysisofPDEpossession.(9)SomeoneIknow'sbrother.DP DP D" D" D NP D CP N IP SomeoneIknow'sbrother(10)Thespecies'immunity.DP DP D" D" D NP D NP N N thespecies'immunitySimilarly,whenthelastwordofaphrasalpossessiveisanounthattakesana xal`zero'possessive,lexicalsharingisutilizedinpreciselythesameway(11).(11)Thefemaleofthespecies'deadliness.DP DP D" D" D NP D NP N N" N PP P" P DP D" D NP N thefemaleofthespecies'deadliness3 In(11)thelinearsequenceofnounspeciesfollowedbypossessiveDsurfacesasthelexicallyidiosyncraticpossessiveformofthenoun,species',eventhoughspeciesitselfisnotthepossessornounandhasnodirectsyntacticrelationwiththepossessiveDnode.Wecanassumethatthe`possessive'formofthenoun,species',islistedinthelexicon.However,thisformisnotusedwhenthenounisitselfthepossessor,butratherwhenthenounappearsattheendofapossessorDP,directlypreceding,inlinearterms,theheadDnode,i.e.whenthe`next'nodeinlineartermsistheD0nodeofthesuperordinateDP.Thiscanbespeci edalongthelinesofWescoat'slexicalinstantiationrules,whichinourtermscanbeincludedinthelexicalentryinthefollowingway.(12) species':=NDN(#PRED)=`species'D"POSS Thepartiallexicalentryin(12)statesthatthewordspecies'mapstoasequenceofNfollowedbyDinc-structure,themeaningoftheNis`species',andtheDmusthaveapossessoratf-structure.Thisissu cienttoensurethatlexicallyspeci edpossessiveslikespecies'areusedonlywhen nalinthepossessorDP(whethertheheadofthatDPornot).SothePDEpossessiveexistsinbothclitic(6)andLSa x(7)forms,butthereisnoevidencefora`simple'a xal(8)possessive.Spacedoesnotpermitfurtherdiscussion,butitispossibletotreatallthedata,muchofwhichhasnotbeenmentionedhere,inthismodel.5.ConclusionLinguisticcategorizationisrarelyneat,insofaraslinguisticphenomenararely tabsolutelyintotheboxesweconstructforthem.WhilethereissomethingtheoreticallyelegantaboutbeingabletosaythatthePDEpossessiveispurelyaclitic,orpurelyana x,theevidencedoesnotsupporteitherabsoluteanalysis.Ihave,Ihope,shownthatitisinfactpossibletoprovideacoherent,consistentanduni edanalysisofthePDEpossessive,whileatthesametimerecognizingthatitdisplayspropertiesof,andtoanextentis,bothcliticanda x.TheLexicalSharingLFGanalysisutilizedherepermitsamore 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