The Distribution of Functional Projections in ASL

The distribution of functional projections in ASL: Evidence from overt expressions of syntactic features Plan for this talk: I. Introduction I. Introduction II. Background about ASL •Phonology •Morphology •Syntax: the state of the art - Particular challenges for linguistic research - Sociolinguistic considerations III. Mapping the functional architecture •Basic sentence structure •Non-manual syntactic markings as expressions of syntactic features •Functional structure - Tense - Agreement ♦ Spatial representation of φ-features ♦ Non-manual expression of φ-features ◊ within DP ◊ within the clause - Aspect IV. Conclusions DP CP TP D' DP C' Spec D/AGR S C AGR O P T' AGR O T ' NegP AGR O Neg' Neg Figure 2: Structure of a possessive DP AspP Asp' Asp NP AGR S P AGRS ' AGR S AGRO P AGRO ' AGRO Figure 1: Structure of a transitive clause VP II. Background about ASL Phonology and Morphology Equivalents of phonemes: particular hand shapes, hand orientations, places of articulation relative to the body, and movement characteristics. Minimal pair: Figure 3: FATHER vs. FINE Syntax: the state of the art Disagreements about data with respect to the most basic syntactic constructions Particular challenges for linguistic research: Lack of written representation Reliance on English glosses (deficient in many respects; difficult to reconstruct signed sentence) Lack of access to video data Lack of tools for analysis of video data Difficulties in data collection related to sociolinguistic factors Figure 4: SignStream See http://www.bu.edu/asllrp/SignStream. Sociolinguistic context - ~10% of deaf children are born to Deaf signing parents (--> native signers) - education: oral approach, English-based artificial sign systems - stigmatization of ASL Challenges for data collection - to isolate language used by Deaf signers among themselves - to minimize influence from English p. 2 III. Mapping the functional architecture Basic sentence structure SVO; other surface word orders attributable to prevalence of topicalizations, left dislocations, null arguments, right dislocations, and sentence-final tags. Non-manual markings Linguistic vs. non-linguistic functions of non-manual expressions Neurolinguistic research: affective expressions processed in right hemisphere; linguistic expressions processed in left; differential impairment of affective and linguistic non-manual expressions (Corina 1989; Kegl & Poizner Non-manual syntactic markings Negative constructions • Non-manual syntactic markings are frequently associated with syntactic features residing in the heads of functional projections (e.g., +neg, +y/n, +wh, φ-features). • The non-manual marking may spread over the c-command domain of the node with which it is associated (reflecting relations at Spell-Out). This spread is optional if manual material is available locally (e.g., in head or specifier position). However, if no manual material is available locally, then the marking spreads obligatorily so that it may be coarticulated with manual material. • The intensity of the non-manual marking is greatest at the node of origin, and decreases as distance from the source increases. Optional spread over c-command domain: neg (1) JOHN NOT BUY HOUSE ‘John is not buying a house.’ neg (2) JOHN [ NOT [ BUY HOUSE]VP ]NegP ‘John is not buying a house.’ Obligatory spread (no manual material available locally): neg (3) JOHN BUY HOUSE ‘John is not buying a house.’ Intensity: greatest at Neg node. 1991, 1997, Poizner & Kegl 1992). Acquisition research: linguistic and affective expressions acquired differentially (McIntire & Reilly 1988, Reilly & Bellugi 1996, right HEAD SHAKE neutral left Reilly, McIntire, & Bellugi 1990) neg JOHN NOT BUY HOUSE Figure 5: Intensity of negative headshake p. 3 Wh-constructions Wh-phrases in Spec, CP Wh-phrases in situ Spread of non-manual material over IP is optional wh (4) [ ti HATE JOHN ]IP WHOi (5) [ ti HATE JOHN ]IP Spread of non-manual material over IP is obligatory wh (6) wh WHOi [ WHO HATE JOHN ]IP wh (7a) * [ WHO HATE JOHN ]IP (7b) * [ WHO JOHN ]IP wh ‘Who hates John?’ HATE ‘Who hates John?’ wh (8) [ JOHN SEE ti YESTERDAY ]IP WHOi wh (10) [ JOHN SEE WHO YESTERDAY ]IP (9) [ JOHN SEE ti YESTERDAY ]IP WHOi (11a) * [ JOHN SEE wh WHO YESTERDAY ]IP ‘Who did John see yesterday?’ (11b) * [ JOHN SEE WHO YESTERDAY ]IP wh wh ‘Who did John see yesterday?’ Distribution: Spread is obligatory when there is no manual material available locally with which the non-manual wh-marking associated with the +wh feature in C can be expressed. Intensity: Intensity is greatest near the source of the +wh feature, i.e., at the end of the sentence. p. 4 Functional Structure Tense Adverbial: in the (distant) future Many tense markers are related to adverbial forms. Nonetheless there are differences in articulation and distribution. Adverbials frequently occur sentence-initially or sentence-finally, while tense markers occur between the subject and negation (if present, and with which the tense marker may contract), in complementary distribution with modals. (12) JOHN WILL GO ‘John will go.’ (13) JOHN #EX LIKE CHOCOLATE ‘John used to like chocolate.’ Adverbial: in the (near) future (14) JOHN SHOULD GO ‘John should go.’ (15) JOHN SHOULD neg GO NOT ‘John should not go.’ (16) JOHN SHOULD^NOT neg GO ‘John shouldn’t go.’ Tense marker: WILL (frozen articulation) (17) JOHN WILL^NOT neg GO ‘John won’t go.’ (18) JOHN EAT ‘John eats/is eating.’ (19) Tomorrow John goes to Venice. (English) (20) Demain, je pars pour Paris. Figure 6: Articulation of adverbial vs. tense marker (French) ‘Tomorrow, I leave for Paris.’ p. 5 Agreement Manual agreement inflections ♦ Spatial representation of φ-features Verbs: different morphological classes Agreeing verbs: GIVE, SHOOT Plain verbs: LOVE (21) JOHNi iSHOOTj FRANKj ‘John shoots Frank.’ (22) JOHN LOVE [IX WOMAN]DP ‘John loves the woman.’ Figure 7: Determiner / pronominal Figure 10: Manual expression of verb agreement: beginning and end point of GIVE Nouns show similar distinctions Agreeing nouns: Plain nouns: HOUSE BOY Phi-features expressed spatially Person features primary distinction: 1st vs. non-1st multiple distinct non-1st persons Non-manual expressions of agreement Like the syntactic features +neg and +wh, φ-features have nonmanual expressions: Figure 8: Possessive head tilt eye gaze These non-manual agreement markings are optional. Figure 9: Reflexive/emphatic Figure 11: Non-manual expressions of subject agreement (head tilt) and object agreement (eye gaze) with the verb GIVE p. 6 ◊ Non-manual expression of φ-features within DP ◊ Non-manual expression of φ-features within the clause Non-possessive DPs Intransitive clauses Without spread With spread egi egi (23) IXi OLD MAN (24) IXi hti OLD MAN (26) IXi hti egi OLD MAN (28) IXi OLD MAN BATHE egi (33) JOHNi BATHE egi OLD MAN ‘the old man’ hti (34) JOHNi (29) BATHE ‘John bathes’ hti egi Obligatory spread if no lexical (manual) determiner is present: OLD MAN Possessive DPs Transitive clauses hti JOHN (32) JOHNi hti egi ‘the old man’ (30) hti hti (25) IXi OLD MAN (27) IXi Spread obligatory POSSi hti egj egj FRIENDj (35) JOHNi iSHOOTj FRANKj Figure 12: example 30 (head tilt does not spread) ‘John shoots Frank.’ hti egj (31) JOHN POSSi hti egj FRIENDj (36) JOHNi ‘John’s friend’ LOVE MARYj ‘John loves Mary.’ Figure 13: example 31 (head tilt spreads) (see Figure 11 on previous page) p. 7 Licensing of null arguments A null argument is licensed by an overt expression of subject or object agreement. ASL allows null subjects and objects, with both plain and agreeing verbs. With verbs that have overt agreement morphology, null subjects and objects are licensed regardless of whether the optional non-manual agreement markings are present. However, with plain verbs, null arguments are allowed only in the presence of non-manual expressions of agreement. (37) proi iSHOOTj FRANKi iSHOOTj proj hti egj proi [ ]AGR-Si [ ]AGR-Oj LOVE JOHNi [ ]AGR-Si [ ‘John loves (him/her).’ (41) * pro LOVE Clause DPi [ ]AGRi hti egi egj NPi DPi [POSS]AGRi [ ]AGRj NPj hti hti egi egj V DPi [ ]AGRi [ ]AGRj V DPj Consistent with similar crosslinguistic findings (see Abney 1987:chapter 2 on Yup'ik, Bergsland & Dirks 1981 on Aleut, Bittner & Hale 1996:60 on Inuit and other ergative languages, e.g.). MARYj Relative ordering of TP and AgrP ‘(He/she) loves Mary.’ (40) [IXdet]AGRi hti Note: Difference in obligatory spread of head tilt within transitive clause vs. optional spread of head tilt in DP follows from existence of manual material within the agreement head of DP. ‘Frank shoots (him/her).’ (39) DP Transitive Figure 14: Parallelisms between transitive/intransitive noun phrases and clauses FRANKj ‘(He/she) shoots Frank.’ (38) Intransitive ]AGR-Oj LOVE hti egj proj neg (44) JOHNi WILL hti egj NOT [ ]AGR-Si[ ]AGR-Oj VISIT MOTHER MARY We conclude that tense and agreement projections are distinct (42) * JOHN LOVE pro (43) MARY JOHN LOVE and that TP dominates the agreement projections. ‘John loves Mary.’ p. 8 • Status of agreement projections Aspect - modulation of the verb examples: predispositional, susceptative, continuative, incessant, frequentative aspect (see Klima and Bellugi 1979) - lexical ‘perfect’ marker: FINISH (45) JOHNi FINISH [ ]AGR-Si [ ]AGR-Oj head tilti eye gazej VISITj MARYj ‘John has visited Mary.’ (46) neg JOHN NOT FINISH READ BOOK ‘John hasn't read the book.’ We conclude that the (perfect) aspect projection is distinct from and dominates the agreement projections. IV. Conclusions Conclusions based on the distribution and intensity of non-manual expressions of syntactic features (which provide evidence of the boundaries of functional projections and the location of functional heads): Agreement features head functional projections distinct from tense and aspect. • Dual representation of agreement features There is evidence for morphological agreement features associated with lexical items (manifested by manual agreement inflection) as well as agreement features in functional heads. • Parallels between transitive/intransitive DP and TP With respect to the expression and distribution of non-manual agreement markings, possessive DPs pattern with transitive clauses while non-possessive DPs pattern with intransitive clauses. The one difference between DP and TP is that DP may have manual material in its highest agreement head, resulting in optional spread of the associated non-manual agreement marking. • Relative ordering of functional projections in the clause See figure 1. • Status of agreement features TP > NegP > AspP > AgrSP > AgrOP > VP Agreement features are like other syntactic features in having non-manual correlates that obey the same generalizations about distribution and intensity. p. 9