In this talk, we propose an account of this split based on independently observable properties of agreement in YM together with the Movement Theory of Control (Hornstein 1999, Hornstein and Polinsky 2010 inter alia). First, we develop a clausal syntax for a variety of YM clauses in which absolutive arguments, including intransitive subjunctive subjects, remain low in the clause. Second, we show that this independently motivated syntax together with a particular approach to control predicts the ungrammaticality of intransitive subjunctive control complements. Finally, we argue that the attested bare forms are in fact nominalizations and therefore have a quite different syntax than the transitives.
LingLang Lunch (10/29/2013): Scott AnderBois (Brown University)
While this expectation is consistently borne out for most evidentials, we show that reportative evidentials – i.e. those which indicate that the speaker’s source is what some second or third party has told them – consistently do allow for exactly this. Whereas previous authors have proposed semantic accounts for such data, we argue that these exceptional cases are due to pragmatic perspective-shift. Such shifts are only readily possible in the case of reportatives since they introduce another perspectival agent, whereas other evidentials (even including intuitively ‘weaker’ ones like conjecturals) do not. Beyond explaining the cross-linguistic behavior of reportatives, I argue the proposal also makes correct predictions for languages like Bulgarian where a single evidential form has both reportative and inferential uses.
LingLang Lunch (1/29/2014): Anna Shusterman (Wesleyan University)
LingLang Lunch (11/19/2014): Scott AnderBois (Brown University)
LingLang Lunch (4/1/2015): Junwen Lee (Brown University)
LingLang Lunch (4/30/2015): Eladio Mateo Toledo (B’alam) (CIESAS-Sureste, México)
(1) A monkey picked leaves or fruit in order to eat them, but it never ate them,
though that was certainly its intention.
Q’anjob’al has two purpose constructions: motion-cum purpose and a finite purpose clause. In this talk, I present a related construction that I call the destinative construction (2).
(2) a. Max-ach y-i-teq ix s-q’ume-j
com-abs2sg erg3-bring-dir clf erg3-talk-tv
‘She brought you to talk to you.’
b. Ay-ach ek’ j-ante-j
exs-abs2sg dir erg1pl-cure-tv
‘You are here for us to cure.’
Analyzing this construction as a purpose clause is problematic because intentionality is not necessary, as in (2b). Furthermore, person inflection is rigidly transitive or intransitive in Q’anjob’al but this construction violates it as the second verb, otherwise transitive, lacks a second person argument. However, this inflectional pattern also occurs in complex predicates like the ditransitive one in 3).
(3) Ch-ach ul hin-say w-il-a’
inc-abs2sg come erg1s-look.for erg1s-see-tv
‘I come to look for you (for myself).’ {txt062}
I have three goals in this talk. Following Simonin’s (2011) work on English and that of Polian et.al. (2015) on Maya, I firstly show that (2) is a destinative construction and not a purpose clause (‘the construction denotes a situation where the matrix verb makes available an entity that is earmarked for a particular use, specified by the second verb’). Second, I show that the Q’anjob’al destinative and the English weak purpose clause, with different syntax, are licensed by the same types of predicates. I finally show that the Q’anjob’al destinative clause has features of both complex clauses and complex predicates; this makes it unique in Q’anjob’al and Maya.
LingLang Lunch (12/2/2015): Wilson Silva (RIT)
LingLang Lunch (3/14/2018): Susan Kalt (Roxbury Community College)
Acquisition, loss and change in Southern Quechua and Spanish – what happened to evidential marking?
Please note that this LingLang Lunch will take place in the McKinney Conference Room (353) at the Watson Institute (111 Thayer Street), at the regular time.
LingLang Lunch (11/1/2017): Laura Janda (Universitetet i Tromsø)
What happens to a language under pressure: discriminatory language policy and language change in North Saami
(Sponsored by Slavic Studies, CLPS, and the C.V. Starr Foundation Lectureship fund through the Dean of the Faculty’s Office.)