Aspect and Argument Licensing in Neo-Aramaic

230 Pages·2014·1.48 MB·English

University of California
Los Angeles
Aspect and Argument Licensing in Neo-Aramaic
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction
of the requirements for the degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics
by
Laura Mennen Kalin
2014
(cid:13)c Copyright by
Laura Mennen Kalin
2014
Abstract of the Dissertation
Aspect and Argument Licensing in Neo-Aramaic
by
Laura Mennen Kalin
Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics
University of California, Los Angeles, 2014
Professor Anoop Mahajan, Chair
This dissertation explores interactions between grammatical/viewpoint aspect and argument
licensing in several endangered Northeastern Neo-Aramaic languages. The most pervasive of
these interactions are the aspect-based agreement splits attested across Northeastern Neo-
Aramaic (Doron and Khan 2012), where the agreement pattern of the imperfective is par-
tially or completely reversed in the perfective. There are two language types that are of core
interest in the dissertation, which form a natural class in that they have a consistent nomina-
tive/accusative alignment across aspects and have a restriction on objects in the perfective:
(i) partial agreement reversal, with objects that are specific banned in canonical perfective
aspect (Senaya), and (ii) complete agreement reversal, with objects that are non-third per-
son banned in canonical perfective aspect (Christian Barwar, Jewish Zakho, Telkepe, i.a.).
The dissertation includes novel data and novel observations from languages of both types,
namely Senaya (fieldwork by Laura McPherson, Kevin Ryan, and myself) and Jewish Zakho
(my own fieldwork).
The two aspect splits described above are the topic of Chapter 2, where it is argued that
such splits arise because imperfective Asp (in addition to finite T) can license an argument,
while perfective Asp cannot (Kalin and van Urk To Appear); additionally, it is argued that v
is not an argument licenser in these languages. There is therefore a fundamental distinction
between the argument-licensing capacity of canonical perfective aspect (all licensing must
come from T) and canonical imperfective aspect (licensing comes from both Asp and T).
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The ban on specific objects in the perfective in Senaya (partial reversal) is a result of there
only being one argument licenser in canonical perfective aspect, T, which will always license
the higher argument, the subject. The ban on non-third person objects in the perfective in
complete reversal languages is a result of person and number on T probing separately, with
only the number probe reaching the object; this induces a Person Case Constraint effect: the
object must be third person, because first/second person nominals require agreement with
a person probe (Béjar and Rezac 2003). The analysis is couched in a Minimalist framework
(Chomsky2000,2001),withargumentlicensing(Casevaluation)resultingfromϕ-agreement.
In Neo-Aramaic, argument licensing is spelled out on the probe as morphological agreement,
not as morphological case on the nominal.
Having a complete picture of how these Neo-Aramaic aspect splits work depends also
on understanding the languages’ secondary strategy for expressing perfective aspect (whose
argument-licensing pattern looks like that of the imperfective), which is taken up in Chapter
3. I propose that there are two adjacent high aspect projections in the clause. The Neo-
Aramaicsecondaryperfectivestacksperfectiveaspectontopofimperfectiveaspect, andthus
has the additional licensing capacity of imperfective aspect (lower Asp is a licenser) while
ultimately being perfective semantically. The lower aspect head, which is imperfective, com-
bines with the verb root todetermine the root-and-pattern verb base, while the higher aspect
head, which is perfective, is spelled out as the prefix qam-. I propose a compositional se-
mantics for the secondary perfective and draw, in particular, parallels with the affixal aspect
‘stacking’ that is seen in Slavic languages (Babko-Malaya 2003, Svenonius 2004, Ramchand
2008, Gribanova 2013, i.a.).
A final crucial component of understanding these Neo-Aramaic aspect splits, taken up in
Chapter 4, involves characterizing the pattern of Differential Object Marking (DOM) that
arises in these languages—only specific objects trigger/require ϕ-agreement. I propose that
differentialmarkingarisesfromtheinteractionoftwofactorsthatcanvarycrosslinguistically:
(i)whereinnominalstructureuninterpretableCasemerges, and(ii)whereinclausestructure
argumentlicensers(obligatorilyoroptionally)merge. Iassumethatunvaluedfeaturesdonot
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need to be valued in the course of a derivation (contra Chomsky (2000, 2001) and following
Preminger (2011)), and further, that it is possible for a feature to simply be unvalued (and
not uninterpretable) (Pesetsky and Torrego 2007). I maintain (with Chomsky (2000, 2001)
and Pesetsky and Torrego (2007)) that uninterpretable features do need to be valued in the
course of a derivation.
My novel proposal for accounting for DOM is that (unlike in existing proposals) all nomi-
nals bear unvalued Case, but only some nominals additionally bear uninterpretable Case; all
nominals, then, can be valued for Case (all have a Case feature), though only nominals with
uninterpretable Case require licensing, i.e., Case valuation. In the Neo-Aramaic language
Senaya, uninterpretable Case is introduced inside nominals on the projection that encodes
specificity. In imperfective aspect, Asp is the obligatory Case locus (i.e., the obligatory
argument licensing locus), while in perfective aspect, the obligatory Case locus is the one
and only Case locus, namely, T. Nonspecific nominals in Senaya do not bear uninterpretable
Case, and therefore only have their Case feature valued when they are the closest nominal
to an obligatory Case locus, i.e., in subject position. Nonspecific nominals in object position
do not get their Case feature valued, because they are not in the scope of an obligatory
Case licenser, and can in fact surface in a position where Case/licensing is never available,
namely, as the object in a canonical perfective. My claim, then, is that unmarked objects in
DOM languages are unmarked precisely because their Case feature is unvalued (which does
not cause a crash).
Overall, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of argument licensing and the
aspectual middlefield: aspectual heads are potential argument-licensing loci and can effect
agreement/Case-based aspect splits; aspect-based splits need not involve any ergativity;
there are two high aspectual projections; and finally, all nominals have a Case feature, but
not all nominals require licensing.
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The dissertation of Laura Mennen Kalin is approved.
Yona Sabar
Carson Schütze
Tim Stowell
Anoop Mahajan, Committee Chair
University of California, Los Angeles
2014
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For my mom and my dad
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Overview of the dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Neo-Aramaic languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 The puzzles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3.1 Chapter 2: Aspect splits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3.2 Chapter 3: Secondary perfective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.3 Chapter 4: Differential Object Marking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.4 Overall picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Two Aspect Splits in Neo-Aramaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1.1 Overview of the phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1.2 Overview of the analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.3 Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Agreement and verbal bases in Neo-Aramaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.1 Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.2 Aspectual bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3 Partial agreement reversal: Senaya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.1 The data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.2 Agreement in the perfective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.3 Agreement in the imperfective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4 Complete agreement reversal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
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2.4.1 The data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.2 The perfective and the PCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4.3 Agreement in the imperfective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.4.4 Independent evidence for this account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.4.5 Doron and Khan (2012) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.4.6 Interim summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.5 Relating Neo-Aramaic to split ergativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.5.1 A universal structure for tense and aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.5.2 The directionality of aspect splits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.5.3 Implications for Neo-Aramaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3 A Secondary Perfective in Neo-Aramaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.1.1 Overview of the phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.1.2 Overview of the analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.1.3 Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.2 The Neo-Aramaic verbal complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.2.1 A review of verbal morphology in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic . . . . . 79
3.2.2 Perfective aspect in NENA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.3 Syntactic analysis of the secondary perfective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.3.1 The basic syntax of NENA agreement reversal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.3.2 Qam- as high(est) aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
3.3.3 Against other positions for qam- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.4 Slavic aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
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3.4.1 The data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.4.2 Syntactic accounts of Slavic aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.5 Semantic analysis of the secondary perfective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
3.5.1 Semantic background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
3.5.2 The qam-perfective: Informal semantic account . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
3.5.3 The qam-perfective: Formal semantic account . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.5.4 Interim summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
3.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
4 Differential Object Marking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.1.1 Overview of the phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.1.2 Overview of the analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.1.3 Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.2 Assumptions about nominals and licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.2.1 Case and agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.2.2 Feature sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
4.2.3 Nominal structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
4.2.4 Interim summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.3 Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.3.1 Part 1: Extending Danon (2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.3.2 Part 2: Distribution of Case inside the nominal . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
4.3.3 Part 3: Obligatory Case loci . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
4.3.4 Interim summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
4.4 Accounting for DOM in Senaya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
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