Lecture 3: The EPP, Agreement and Focus I

On the EPP I (1) “Agreement” and “Non-agreement” Languages: Focus, broadly conceived, is computationally equivalent to agreement. (2) (i) (ii) (3) Why is there this Agreement – Focus parameter? They originate on the same head: C EPP and Agreement: EPP and Focus: e.g., Indo-European e.g., Japanese (4) Agreement-prominent (e.g., most of Indo-European) CP C’ TP CFOCUS AGREEMENT percolate down TEPP (5) Focus-prominent (e.g., Japanese) CP C’ TP CAGREEMENT FOCUS percolate down TEPP (6) Simpson and Wu (2001): Historically, agreement/concordance may sometimes be traced back to a focus structure. 1. Focus and EPP 1.1. A-movement scrambling and A’-movement scrambling (Mahajan 1990, Webelhuth 1989, Saito 1992, Tada 1992, Yoshimura 1989). 1.1.1. A-movement: suppression of weak crossover (7) ??/?*Whoi does hisi mother love ti? (8) Whoi seems to hisi mother ti to be a genius? 1 (9) *[Soitui-no hahaoya]-ga darei-o aisiteiru no? [hei-Gen mother]-Nom whoi-Acc love Q ‘His mother loves who? = Who does his mother love?’ (10) ?Darei-o [soitui-no hahaoya]-ga whoi-Acc [hei-Gen mother]-Nom ‘Who, his mother loves?’ ti aisiteiru ti love no? Q Long-distance scrambling: cannot suppress WCO: only A’-movement (11) ?*Darei-o [soitui-no whoi-Acc [hei-Gen hahaoya]-ga [CP Hanako-ga ti aisiteiru to] itta no? mother]-Nom [CP Hanako-Nom ti love C] said Q ‘Who, his mother said Hanako loves?’ (12) Summary Local scrambling: A-scrambling LD scrambling: A’-scrambling 1.1.2. Confirmation: anaphor binding (13) Local scrambling: can create a new binder through A-movement Karerai-o [otagaii-no sensei]-ga ti hihansita. they-Acc [each otheri-Gen teacher]-Nom ti criticized ‘Theyi, each other’s teachers criticized ti.’ (14) LD scrambling: cannot create a new binder because it is solely A’-movement Karerai-o [otagaii-no sensei]-ga [CP Hanako-ga ti hihansita to] itta. they-Acc [each otheri-Gen teacher]-Nom [CP Hanako-Nom ti criticized C] said ‘Theyi, each other’s teachers said that Hanako criticized ti.’ 1.1.3. Further confirmation: idiom chunk (Miyagawa 1997) Idiom chunks may scramble only by A-movement (15) Idiom: kosi-o orosu ‘lower hip’ Kosi-oi Taroo-ga ti orosita (isu) hip-Acci Taro-Nom ti lowered (chair) ‘(the chair that) hip, Taro lowered (Taro sat down)’ (16) ?*Kosi-oi Hanako-ga [Taroo-ga ti orosita to] itta (isu) hip-Acci Hanako-Nom [Taro-Nom ti lowered C] said (chair) ‘(the chair that) hip, Hanako said that Taro lowered (Hanako said that Taro 2 sat down) 1.1.3. A’-scrambling: reconstruction (17) Himselfi, John likes ti. (18) LD scrambling: reconstruction possible Zibunzisini-o [Taroo-ga [Hanakoi-ga [Taro-Nom [Hanakoi-Nom selfi-Acc ‘Selfi, Taro said that Hanakoi criticized ti.’ ti hihansita ti criticized to] C] itta. said (19) Local scrambling: may also be A’-movement — reconstruction possible Zibunzisini-o Hanakoi-ga ti hihansita. selfi-Acc Hanakoi-Nom ti criticized ‘Selfi, Hanakoi criticized ti.’ (20) Summary: Local scrambling: may be A- or A’-movement LD scrambling: solely A’-movement 1.2. EPP and Scrambling (Miyagawa 2001, 2003; cf. also Collins 1997, Kitahara 2002) Miyagawa (2001, 2003) (21) Taroo-ga subete-no-kodomo-o Taro-Nom all-chidren-Acc 'Taro didn't scold all children.' not > all (all > not) sikara-nakat-ta. scold-Neg-Past (22) Subeten-no-kodmo-ga yasai-o tabe-nakat-ta. (cf. Kato 1988) all-children-nom vegetable-Acc eat-Neg-Past 'All the children did not eat vegetables.' *not > all, all > not (23) Yasai-oi Subete-no-kodomo-ga green-Acc i all-children-Nom 'All the children didn’t choose green.' not > all, all > not ti ti tabe-nakat-ta. (Miyagawa 2001) eat-Neg-Past (24) A quantifier is in the scope of negation iff it is c-commanded by negation (cf. Klima 1964) The position of negation is roughly as proposed by Laka (1990), Pollock (1989). 3 (24)=(21) TP alli T' T vP Neg v' ti VP v ...Object... (25)=(22) TP vegetables i T' T vP all Neg v' VP v ti (26) Something must move to the Spec of TP (e.g., subject, object): EPP (27) LD scrambling: does not count as EPP movement to Spec, TP (Miyagawa 2001). Syukudai-oi subete-no-gakusei-ga [sensei-ga ti dasu to] homework-Acci all-students-Nom [teacher-Nom ti assign C] omo-wanakat-ta. think-Neg-Past ‘Homework, all the students did not think that the teacher will assign.’ *not > all, all > not (28) A-movement = “EPP” movement to Spec of TP 4 A’-movement ≠ “EPP” movement; possibly to Spec of CP? 2. A Focus-prominent Language: Japanese (29) Two Types of Focus (É. Kiss 1998) (i) Informational focus: what is not presupposed in a topic-focus structure. (ii) Identificational focus: expresses exhaustive/contrastive identification. (30) Informational Focus: John bought a BOOK. Nuclear stress assignment (31) Identificational Focus: JOHN bought a book. Identificational focus: exhaustive listing Szabolcsi (1981) (32) It was a hat and a coat that Mary picked for herself. Szabolcsi (1981) (33) #It was a hat that Mary picked for herself. Identificational Focus and the EPP indeterminate pronoun (34) Taroo-ga nani-mo kawa-nakat-ta. Taro-Nom what-MO buy-Neg-Past ‘Taro didn’t buy anything.’ As is well known, the wh-phrase portion and mo can be separated (Kuroda 1965, Nishigauchi 1990). (35) Taroo-ga nani-o kai-mo Taro-Nom what-Acc buy-MO ‘Taro didn’t buy anything.’ sina-kat-ta. do-Neg-Past 5 (36) Kishimoto’s (2001): mo must m-command the indeterminate pronoun vP v’ VP V-mo-v nani-o tV (37) Indeterminate pronoun in the subject position is ungrammatical *Dare-ga piza-o tabe-mo sina-kat-ta. who-Nom pizza-Acc eat-MOdo-Neg-Past ‘Anyone didn’t eat pizza.’ Kishimoto assumes the EPP here, and argues that the subject indeterminate pronoun dare ‘who’ raises to the Spec of TP to satisfy the EPP of T, and this takes it outside the scope of mo, which is on v. According to the analysis I’m pursuing, the relevant portion of the structure of (37) is the following. (38) CP C’ TP C FOCUS dare-ga [focus] percolate T’ vP tSUB TEPP v’ VP V-mo-v The same as subject-verb agreement (39) CP C’ TP SUB [phi] C AGREEMENT percolate T’ TEPP vP tSUB v v’ VP Scrambling the object does not help if the indeterminate pronoun is in the subject 6 position. It necessarily gets picked out by the EPP because it has (identificational) focus. (40) *Piza-oi dare-ga ti tabe-mo sina-kat-ta. (Kishimoto 2001) pizza-Acci who-Nom ti eat-MO do-Neg-Past ‘Pizza, anyone didn’t eat.’ Indeterminate pronoun in the object position: long-distance “agreement.” (41) Taro-ga nani-o kai-mo sina-kat-ta. Taro-Nom what-Acc buy-MO do-Neg-Past ‘Taro didn’t buy anything.’ (42) There walks a boy (into the room). If the “agreed-with” phrase is moved, it must move to Spec of TP due to the EPP. (43) *Nani-oi Taroo-ga ti kai-mo sina-kat-ta. what-Acci Taro-Nom ti buy-MO do-Neg-Past ‘Taro didn’t buy anything.’ Cannot take the A’-movement option, which should in principle be possible. (44) [TP A boyi Ti [VP walks ti (into the room)]] In a focus-prominent language, the EPP can be met with, for example, the subject, in a long-distance agreement environment. (45) Taro-ga nani-o kai-mo sina-kat-ta. Taro-Nom what-Acc buy-MO do-Neg-Past ‘Taro didn’t buy anything.’ (46) LD scrambling of indeterminate pronoun: A’-movement a. Taroo-ga [CP Hanako-ga nani-o katta to]-mo Taro-Nom [CP Hanako-Nom what-Acc bought C]-MO ‘Taro didn’t think that Hanako bought anything.’ omowanakatta. thought.not b. Scrambling of object indeterminate pronoun nani is fine: Taroo-ga [CP nani-oi Hanako-ga ti katta to]-mo omowanakatta. Taro-Nom [CP what-Acci Hanako-Nom ti bought C]-MO thought.not c. LD scrambling also fine, showing that an indeterminate pronoun can undergo A’-scrambing and reconstruct. Nani-oi Taroo-ga [CP Hanako-ga ti katta to]-mo omowanakatta. what-Acci Taro-Nom [CP Hanako-Nom ti bought C]-MO thought.not 7 Focus particle and scope (47) Dareka-ga daremo-o aisiteiru. someone-Nom everyone-Acc love ‘Someone loves everyone.’ some > every, every > some (48) Daremo-oi dareka-ga ti aisteiru. everyone-Acci someone-Nom ti love ‘Everyone, someone loves.’ every > some, some > every Focus particle ‘also’ (Lee 2004) (49) Subete-no-otoko-no-ko-ga Hanako-mo suki da. all-Gen-boy-Nom Hanako-also like ‘All the boys like Hanako also.’ (i) For each boy x, there is someone other than Hanako who x likes. (all > also) (ii) There is someone other than Hanako who every boy likes. (also > all) (50) Hanako-moi subete-no-otoko-no-ko-ga ti suki da. Hanako-alsoi all-boys-Nom ti like ‘Hanako also, all the boys like t’ (i) *For each boy x, there is someone other than Hanako who x likes. (all > also) (ii) There is someone other than Hanako who every boy likes. (also > all) 4. Informational Focus and Nuclear Stress Two types of focus: Identificational: Informational: topic-focus In the absence of identificational focus, “focus” on T picks out an XP and marks it as “topic”. This XP moves to Spec of TP for the EPP. This creates the topic-focus structure. In the absence of identificational focus, the focus stress rule is nuclear stress. Nuclear Stress Rule: nuclear stress falls on the phrase located lowest on the syntactic tree (Cinque (1993), cf. Chomsky and Halle (1968) and Halle and Vergnaud (1987)) (51) Mary read a book yesterday. Identificationa focus: anywhere 8 (52) John read a book yesterday. Neeleman and Reinhart (1998) point out that scrambling allows a given phrase to move away from the position of nuclear stress. In the following Dutch example, the phrase that bears the nuclear stress is in bold. (53) Dat that Jan John langzaam het slowly the (54) Dat that Jan John het the boek book las read boek langzaam las book slowly read The following are taken from Ishihara (2000) (Ishihara assumes V-raising to T). (55) a. Taroo-ga Taro-Nom [VP [VP hon-o tv] katta. book-Acc tv] bought b. Hon-oi Taroo-ga book-Acci Taro-Nom (56) a. Taroo-ga Taro-Nom kyoo today [VPti tv] katta [VPti tv] bought hon-o katta. book-Acc bought b. Hon-oi Taroo-ga book-Acc Taro-Nom kyoo ti katta. today ti bought (57) Focus Rule The focus of IP is a(ny) constituent containing the main stress of IP, as determined by the stress rule (=nuclear stress rule). (58) Taroo-ga Taro-Nom [VP hon-o tv] katta [VPbook-Acc tv] bought (59) a. What happened? (focus on IP) b. What did Taro do? (focus on VP) c. What did Taro buy? (focus on object) (60) Hon-oi Taroo-ga book-Acci Taro-Nom [VP [VP ti tv] katta ti tv] bought No focus on VP, hence cannot answer “What did Taro do?” 9 5. Formal Feature Issue: All Formal Features Are Merged at the Phase Heads 5.1. Agreement does not require tense Modern Greek (Iatridou 1993) (61) vlepo ton Kosta na tiganizi psaria (ECM, no active tense on embedded S) see DET Kostas/ACC fries fish ‘I see Kostans fry fish.’ (62) elpizo o Kostas na tiganizi psaria(tensed embedded S) hope DET Kostas/NOM fries fish ‘I hope Kostas fries fish.’ 5.2. Complementizer agreement with subject, Case I (Turkish, Kornfilt 2004) (63) a. subject as the target of relativization — no agreement on the lower verb; agreement blocked by the subject e agreeing with C. [[ei geçenyaz ada -da ben-i gör-en] kis¸i-leri] [[ last summer isalnd-Loc I-Acc see-(y)An] person-Pl] ‘the people who saw me on the isalnd last summer’ (No φ-feature morphology; special nominalization form on predicate) b. a non-subject as the target of relativization — agreement on the lower verb [[pro geçenyaz ada-da ei gör-düg˘-üm] kis¸i-leri] [[ last summer island-Loc see-DIK-1.sg] person-Pl] ‘the people who(m) I saw on the island last summer’ (φ-feature morphology; general indicative nominalization form on predicate). 5.3. Complementizer agreement, Case II: agreement on both C and T (West Flemish (Carstens 2003, referring to Haegeman 1992) (64)a.Kpeinzen dan-k (ik) morgen goan. I-think that-I (I) tomorrow go ‘I think that I’ll go tomorrow.’ b. Kpeinzen da-j (gie) morgen goat. I-think that-you (you) tomorrow go ‘I think that you’ll go tomorrow.’ c. Kvinden dan die boeken te I-find that-PL the books too ‘I find those books too expensive.’ diere zyn. expensive are (65) The agreement features gets merged on C, and copied on T (Carstens 2003). 10 CP C’ CAGREEMENT TP T 11