Generative Historical Syntax and the Linguistic Cycle

1
Generative Historical Syntax and the Linguistic
Cycle

• Elly van Gelderen
• ellyvangelderen_at_asu.edu
• 29 March 2013
• Harvard Linguistic Circle

2
Outline

• A. What is Generative Historical Linguistics?
• B. The healthy tension between generative grammar
  and historical linguistics, in both directions
  and how the current Minimalist Program is
  conducive to looking at gradual, unidirectional
  change.
• C. Examples of Linguistic Cycles and how they can
  be explained and some challenges.

3
Model of language acquisition(based on Andersen
1973)

• Generation n Generation n1
• UG UG
• experience experience n
• I-language n I-language n1
• E-language n E-language n1
• innovations

4
Internal Grammar
5
Reanalysis is crucial
6
As for the tension Introspection vs text

• Generative syntax has typically relied on
  introspective data.
• For historical periods, such a method of data
  gathering is obviously impossible.
• Generative grammar places much emphasis on the
  distinction between competence and performance,
  i.e. on I(nternal)- and E(xternal)-language.

7
Use (of texts and) corpora

• Finding a pattern in a (spoken) corpus shows that
  there is something systematic going on
  repeatedly finding shouldof and shoulda indicates
  that something interesting is happening with
  modals and perfect auxiliaries
• (1) I should of knew this was too good to be
  true.
• (2) There xuld not a be do so mykele.
• There shouldnt have been done so much.
  (Margaret Paston a1469)

8
That-trace

• (1) Ac hwaet saegst ðu ðonne ðaet hwaet sie
  forcuðre ðonne sio ungesceadwisnes?
• But what say you then that -- be wickeder
  than be foolishness
• But what do you say is wickeder than
  foolishness?' (Boethius 36.8, from Allen 1977
  122)

9
Parsed Corpora

• Since the 1990s, a group of generative linguists
  has worked on the creation of parsed corpora (see
  http//www.ling.upenn.edu/histcorpora/).
• Result much better descriptions of changes in
  the word order (e.g. work by Pintzuk, Haeberli,
  Taylor, van Kemenade and others), changes in
  do-support (e.g. Kroch and Ecay), Adverb
  Placement (Haeberli, van Kemenade, and Los), and
  pro drop (Walkden).
• Corpus work has reinvigorated Historical
  Linguistics.

10

• Other historical (parsed) corpora have appeared
  or are appearing and spurring much work among
  generative and non-generative linguists
• the Tycho Brahe parsed corpus of historical
  Portuguese, o corpus do Português,
• the Corpus del Español,
• the Regensburg Russian Diachronic Corpus,
• a Hungarian corpus is under construction,
• and COHA with a very helpful interface!

11
Some other issues of discussion

• Change is unidirectional or not
• and gradual or not
• Current theory-internal questions
• The role of UG
• Language-specific or third factor
• The role of features

12
The role of grammaticalization and
unidirectionality.

• Is grammaticalization epiphenomenal or real?
• Newmeyer (1998 237) Roberts Roussou (2003 2)
  and others grammaticalization is a regular case
  of parameter change and epiphenomenal all
  components also occur independently.
• Others, e.g. van Gelderen (2004 2011), argue
  that the unidirectional patterns that are shown
  by grammaticalization can be explained the
  child reanalyzes the input in a certain way. This
  is where cycles come in!

13
Is change gradual or abrupt?

• Most functionalist explanations assume it is
  gradual whereas many formal accounts think it is
  abrupt.
• Early generative approaches emphasize a
  catastrophic reanalysis of both the underlying
  representation and the rules applying to them.
  Lightfoot, for instance, argues that the category
  change of modals is an abrupt one from V to AUX,
  as is the change from impersonal to personal
  verbs (the verb lician changing in meaning from
  please to like).

14
How to see the role of UG?

• In the 1960s, UG consists of substantive
  universals, concerning universal categories (V,
  N, etc) and phonological features, and formal
  universals relating to the nature of rules. The
  internalized system is very language-specific.
• Semantic features ..., are presumably drawn
  from a universal alphabet (Chomsky 1965 142),
  little is known about this today.

15
1990s-2013

• Parameters now consist of choices of feature
  specifications as the child acquires a lexicon
  (Chomsky 2004 2007).
• Baker, while disagreeing with this view of
  parameters, calls this the Borer-Chomsky-Conjectur
  e (2008 156)
• "All parameters of variation are attributable to
  differences in the features of particular items
  (e.g., the functional heads) in the lexicon."

16
Shift

• With the shift to parametric parameters, it
  becomes possible to think of gradual change
  through reanalysis as well (e.g. Roberts 2009 and
  van Gelderen 2009).
• Word order change in terms if features e.g.
  Breitbarth 2012, Biberauer Roberts.
• The set of features that are available to the
  learner is determined by UG.

17
Features and word order

• Biberauer Roberts (2008) in examining the shift
  from OV to VO crucially rely on a EPP-feature. If
  T bears an EPP feature, a D head will adjoin to T
  or a DP will move to the specifier of the TP in
  Modern English. Languages can also have a VP or
  vP satisfy the EPP feature rather than just the
  DP contained in the VP or vP.

18
Features and grammaticalization

• Another minimalist approach using features, not
  concerned with word order, can be found in van
  Gelderen (2004 2010) who argues that
  grammaticalization can be understood as a change
  from semantic to formal features.
• For instance, a verb with semantic features, such
  as Old English will with volition, expectation,
  future, can be reanalyzed as having only the
  grammatical feature future.

19
A second shift

• Faculty of Language is determined by
• (1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the
  attainable languages, thereby making language
  acquisition possible
• (2) external data, converted to the experience
  that selects one or another language within a
  narrow range
• (3) principles not specific to FL the Faculty of
  Language. Some of the third factor principles
  have the flavor of the constraints that enter
  into all facets of growth and evolution.... Among
  these are principles of efficient computation.
  (Chomsky 2007 3)

20
Third factors

• We need more on third factors not well defined
  and invoked to account for a number of phenomena,
  e.g. pro-drop (Sigurðsson 2011), phrase structure
  (Medeiros 2012), and language change (van
  Gelderen 2011).
• Constraints on word learning, such as the shape
  over color bias (Landau et al 1992), would also
  be third factor. Like UG before it, third factor
  reasons would remain stable and not responsible
  in language change.

21
Cycles tell us which features matter

• Subject and Object Agreement
• demonstrative/emphatic gt pronoun gt agreement gt
  zero
• Copula Cycle
• a demonstrative gt copula gt zero
• b verb gt aspect gt copula
• Case or Definiteness or DP
• demonstrative gt definite article gt Case gt zero
• Negative
• a negative argument gt negative adverb gt negative
  particle gt zero
• b verb gt aspect gt negative gt C
• Future and Aspect Auxiliary
• A/P gt M gt T gt C

22
Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyers 3 types

• 1. isolated instances of grammaticalization, as
  when a lexical item grammaticalizes and is then
  replaced by a new lexeme. For instance, the
  lexical verb go (or want) being used as a future
  marker.
• 2. subparts of language, for example, when the
  tense-aspect-mood system of a given language
  develops from a periphrastic into an inflexional
  pattern and back to a new periphrastic one or
  when negatives change.

23
and

• 3. entire languages and language types but
  there is more justification to apply the notion
  of a linguistic cycle to individual linguistic
  developments, e.g. the development of future
  markers, of negatives, and of tense, rather than
  to changes in typological character, as in from
  analytic to synthetic and back to analytic.

24
Caution about the third kind

• Heine et als reasons for caution about the third
  type of change, i.e. a cyclical change in
  language typology, is that we dont know enough
  about older stages of languages.
• Most linguists are comfortable with cycles of the
  first and second kind but they are not with
  cycles of the third kind, e.g. Jespersen (1922
  chapter 21.9).

25
Macroparameters and microparameters

• Baker (2001) and, more recently, Biberauer
  Roberts (2012) have formulated macro and micro
  parameters.
• Macroparameters for Baker define the character of
  a particular language, e.g. polysynthetic or not,
  whereas microparameters for BR may involve the
  features of a particular lexical item.

26
Macrocycles and microcycles

• In the same vein, it is possible to distinguish
  two kinds of cycles, a macrocycle and a
  microcycle.
• A microcyle involves just one aspect of the
  language, for instance, negatives or
  demonstratives being reinforced by adverbs, as in
  English those people there. They include Heine et
  als first and second kind.
• Macrocycles, more controversially, concern the
  entire linguistic system, i.e. Heine et als
  third kind.

27
von der Gabelentz 1901

• Nun bewegt sich die Geschichte der Sprachen in
  der Diagonale zweier Kräfte des
  Bequemlichkeitstriebes, der zur Abnutzung der
  Laute führt, und des Deutlichkeitstriebes, der
  jene Abnutzung nicht zur Zerstörung der Sprache
  ausarten lässt. Die Affixe verschleifen sich,
  verschwinden am Ende spurlos ihre Funktionen
  aber oder ähnliche drängen wieder nach Ausdruck.

28
ctd

• Diesen Ausdruck erhalten sie, nach der Methode
  der isolierenden Sprachen, durch Wortstellung
  oder verdeutlichende Wörter. Letztere unterliegen
  wiederum mit der Zeit dem Agglutinationsprozesse,
  dem Verschliffe und Schwunde, und derweile
  bereitet sich für das Verderbende neuer Ersatz
  vor ... immer gilt das Gleiche die
  Entwicklungslinie krümmt sich zurück nach der
  Seite der Isolation, nicht in die alte Bahn,
  sondern in eine annähernd parallele. Darum
  vergleiche ich sie der Spirale. (von der
  Gabelentz 1901 256)

29

• The history of language moves in the diagonal of
  two forces the impulse toward comfort, which
  leads to the wearing down of sounds, and that
  toward clarity, which disallows this erosion and
  the destruction of the language. The affixes
  grind themselves down, disappear without a trace
  their functions or similar ones, however, require
  new expression. They acquire this expression, by
  the method of isolating languages, through word
  order or clarifying words. The latter, in the
  course of time, undergo agglutination, erosion,
  and in the mean time renewal is prepared
  periphrastic expressions are preferred ... always
  the same the development curves back towards
  isolation, not in the old way, but in a parallel
  fashion. That's why I compare them to spirals.

30
Comfort Clarity Grammaticalization Renewal

• Von der Gabelentz examples of comfort
• the unclear pronunciation of everyday
  expressions,
• the use of a few words instead of a full
  sentence, i.e. ellipsis (p. 182-184),
• syntaktische Nachlässigkeiten aller Art
  (syntactic carelessness of all kinds, p. 184),
• and loss of gender.

31
(No Transcript)
32
Von der Gs examples of clarity

• special exertion of the speech organs (p. 183),
• Wiederholung (repetition, p. 239),
• periphrastic expressions (p. 239),
• replacing words like sehr very by more powerful
  and specific words such as riesig gigantic and
  schrecklich frightful (243),
• using a rhetorical question instead of a regular
  proposition,
• and replacing case with prepositions (p. 183).

33
Grammaticalization one step

• Hopper Traugott 2003 content item gt
  grammatical word gt clitic gt inflectional affix.
• The loss in phonological content is not a
  necessary consequence of the loss of semantic
  content (see Kiparsky 2011 Kiparsky Condoravdi
  2006 Hoeksema 2009).
• Kiparsky (2011 19) in the development of case,
  bleaching is not necessarily tied to
  morphological downgrading from postposition to
  clitic to suf?x.
• Instead, unidirectionality is the defining
  property of grammaticalization and any exceptions
  to the unidirectionality (e.g. the Spanish
  inflectional morpheme nos changing to a pronoun)
  are instances of analogical changes, according to
  Kiparsky (2011).

34

• In acknowledging weakening of pronunciation (un
  affaiblissement de la pronunciation), Meillet
  (1912 139) writes that what provokes the start
  of the (negative) cycle is the need to speak
  forcefully (le besoin de parler avec force).
• Kiparsky Condoravdi (2006) find no evidence for
  phonetic weakening in Jespersens Cycle in Greek
  and similarly suggest pragmatic and semantic
  reasons. A simple negative cannot be emphatic in
  order for a negative to be emphatic, it needs to
  be reinforced, e.g. by a minimizer. When emphatic
  negatives are overused, their semantic impact
  weakens and they become the regular negative and
  a new emphatic will appear.

35
Main question

• How does the child respond to these fast changes?
• Feature-spread through the clausal skeleton is
  reanalyzed.

36
Microcycle

• (1)a. Im gonna leave for the summer.
• b. Im gonna to Flagstaff for the summer.
• Nesselhauf (2012) identifies three features,
  intention, prediction, and arrangement, in the
  change of shall, will, ll, be going to, be to,
  and the progressive) in the last 250 years as
  the sense of intention is lost and replaced by
  the sense of prediction, new markers of intention
  will appear
• want has intention in (4a) and it is starting to
  gain the sense of prediction, as in (4b).
• (2)a. The final injury I want to talk about is
  brain damage ... (Nesselhauf 2012 114).
• b. We have an overcast day today that looks like
  it wants to rain. (Nesselhauf 2012 115).

37
Going to

• Nesselhaufs data on BE going to show that its
  use as a future marker has increased, both in the
  intention and prediction sense, and that the
  proportion of pure prediction is increasing.
• Once the sense of prediction prevails, another
  verb may be taking over to compensate for the
  feature of intention.

38
Macrocycles

• Hodge (1971)
• Proto-Afroasiatic analytic Sm
• Old Egyptian synthetic sM
• Late Egyptian analytic Sm
• Coptic synthetic sM
• Huang (to appear)
• Chinese, from moderately synthetic to analytic to
  moderately synthetic.
• August Wilhem von Schlegel 1818 for the use of
  analytic and synthetic.

39
Attachment Type Cycle

• Isolating
• Inflectional Agglutinative
• Morphemes per word?

40
Four (micro)cycles I will look at

• Negative Cycles
• negative argument gt negative adverb gt negative
  particle gt zero
• negative verb gt auxiliary gt negative gt zero
• Subject Agreement Cycle
• demonstrative/emphatic gt pronoun gt agreement gt
  zero
• Copula Cycles
• demonstrative/verb/adposition gt copula gt zero
• Demonstrative gt article/copula/tense marker

41
Two Negative Cycles

• I Indefinite phrase gt negative Jespersens
  Cycle
• Negation weakens and is renewed. For instance
• (1) I cant do that gt
• (2) I cant see nothing
• II Verb gt negative
• (3) is-i ba-d-o Koorete
• she-NOM disappear-PF-PST
• She disappeared' (Binyam 2007 7).
• (4) is-i dana ush-u-wa-nni-ko
• she-NOM beer drink-PRES-not_exist-3FS-FOC
• She does (will) not drink beer. (Binyam 2007
  9).

42
Negative Cycle in Old English450-1150 CE

• a. no/ne early Old English
• b. ne (na wiht/not) after 900, esp S
• c. (ne) not after 1350
• d. not gt -not/-nt after 1400

43

• Old English
• (1) Men ne cunnon secgan to soðe ... hwa
• Man not could tell to truth ... who
• No man can tell for certain ... who'.
• (2) Næron 3e noht æmetti3e, ðeah ge wel ne dyden
• not-were you not unoccupied. though you well not
  did
• You were not unoccupied, though you did not do
  well'.

44
Weakening and renewal

• (1) we cannot tell of (Wycliff Sermons from the
  1380s)
• (2) But I shan't put you to the trouble of
  farther Excuses, if you please this Business
  shall rest here. (Vanbrugh, The Relapse1680s).
• (3) that the sonne dwellith therfore nevere the
  more ne lasse in oon signe than in another
  (Chaucer, Astrolabe 665 C1).
• (4) No, I never see him these days (BNC - A9H
  350)

45
Negative source is a verb

• (1) wo mei you shu Chinese
• I not exist book
• I don't have a book.
• (2) Yao Shun ji mo ... Old Chinese
• Yao Shun since died
• Since Yao and Shun died, ...'
• (Mengzi, Tengwengong B, from Lin 2002 5)
• (3)yu de wang ren mei kunan, ... Early Mandarin
• wish PRT died person not-be suffering
• If you wish that the deceased one has no
  suffering, ...'
• (Dunhuang Bianwen, from Lin 2002 5-6)

46
One Negative Cycle, e.g. English, French, Arabic

• XP
• Spec X'
• na wiht X YP
• not gt nt

47

• And a second
• According to Lin, mei went through a perfective
  stage, so
• (4) dayi ye mei you chuan, jiu zou le chulai
• coat even not PF wear, then walk PF out
• He didn't even put on his coat and walked out.'
  (Rulin Waishi, from Lin 2002 8)
• (5) NegP
• Neg ASPP
• mei
• ASP VP
• mei
• V ...
• mei

48
The Subject Cycle

• A. demonstrative gt third person pron gt clitic gt
  agreement
• B. oblique gt emphatic gt first/second pron gt
  clitic gt agreement
• noun gt
• (1) Shi diné bizaad yíní-sh-ta'
• I Navajo language 3-1-study
• As for me, I am studying Navajo.

49
Brazilian Portuguese

• (1) Vossa mercê gt Vosmecê gt (V)ocê gt cê
• your favor/mercy you you-indefinite
• (see Mattoso Câmara 1979 Gonçalves 1987 Dutra
  1991, cited in Vitral Ramos 2006)
• (2) cê only in subject position and pre-V
• (3) ele(s) gt el, es
• ela(s) gt éa, éas
• (4) es inventa um bocado de coisa / eles inventam
  
• they invented (S)

50
Some stages

• Japanese and Urdu/Hindi full pronoun
• (1) watashi-wa kuruma-o unten-suru kara.
• I-TOP car-ACC drive-NONPST PRT
• I will drive the car'. (Yoko Matsuzaki p.c.)
• (2)a. m?y nee us ko dekha
• 1S ERG him DAT saw
• b. aadmii nee kitaab ko peRha
• man ERG book DAT read
• (3) ham log we people
• (4) m?y or merii behn doonõ dilii m?y rehtee h?
• I and my sister both Delhi in living are

51
English in transition

• (a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position,
  
• (d) doubling, (e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code
  switching
• Coordination (and Case)
• (1) Me and Kitty were to spend the day.
• (2) while he and she went across the hall.
• Position
• (3) Shes very good, though I perhaps I shouldnt
  say so.
• (4) You maybe you've done it but have forgotten.
• (5) Me, I was flying economy, but the plane,
  was guzzling gas

52
Doubling and cliticization

• (1) Me, I've tucking had it with the small place.
• (BNC H0M 1608)
• (2) Him, he ....
• (3) Her, she shouldnt do that (not attested
  in the BNC)
• (4) As for a dog, it should be happy.
• CSE-FAC
• uncliticized cliticized total
• I 2037 685 (25) 2722
• you 1176 162 (12.1) 1338
• he 128 19 (12.9) 147

53
Loss of V-movement and Code switching

• (5) What I'm gonna do?
• What am I going to do'
• (6) How she's doing?
• How is she doing
• (7) He ging weg he went away Dutch-English CS
• (8) The neighbor ging weg

54
French

• (1) Se je meïsme ne li di Old French
• If I myself not him tell
• If I dont tell him myself. (Franzén 193920,
  Cligès 993)
• (2) Renars respond Jou, je nirai
• R answers Me, I wont go.
• (Coronnement Renart, A. Foulet (ed.) 1929 598,
  from Roberts 1993 112)

55

• (1)a. Je heureusement ai vu ça I I probably
  have seen that
• Ive probably seen that.
• b. Kurt, heureusement, a fait beaucoup d'autres
  choses.
• Kurt fortunately has done many other things
• Fortunately, Kurt did many other things
  (google search of French websites)
• (2) Où vas-tu Standard French
• where go-2S
• (3) tu vas où Colloquial French
• 2S go where Where are you going?'

56
Subject Cycle

• Full phrase move to Spec TP gt
• Head moves to T
• Reanalysis as to what the head is pronoun or
  agreement.
• (Economy agreement uninterpretable and then
  this needs an interpretable feature as well)

57
Copula cycle, sources

• Verbs
• Demonstratives
• Prepositions etc
• Reanalysis of location, identity, and aspect
  features

58
Copulas in English

• The flavors e.g. English be, become, go, fall,
  turn, seem, appear, stay, and remain.
• semantic features
• be remain seem, appear stay
• location duration visible duration
• equal

59
Demonstrative and adverbial source of copulas

• (1) a. Mi da i tatá Saramaccan I am your
  father
• I am your father. (McWhorter 1997 87)
• b. Hen dà dí Gaamá
• he is the chief
• He's the chief. (McWhorter 1997 98)
• (2) Dí wómi de a wósu
• the woman is at house
• The woman is at home. (McWhorter 1997 88)

60
Demonstrative to article cycle

• (1) demonstrative/adverb gt definite article gt
  Case/non-generic gt class marker gt 0
• (2) gife to þa munecas of þe mynstre give to
  the monks of the abbey (Peterborough Chron. 656)
• (3) the

61
Reduction of the article and renewal

• (3) Morret's brother came out of Scoteland for
  th'acceptacion of the peax
• (The Diary of Edward VI, 1550s)
• (4) Oh they used to be ever so funny houses you
  know and in them days They used to have big
  windows, but they used to a all be them there
  little tiny ones like that. (BNC - FYD 72)

62
Around 1200 a reanalysis

• (1) gaddresst swa þe clene corn
• and so you gather the clear wheat. (Ormulum
  1484-5, Holt edition)
• (2) 3ho wass Elysabæþ 3ehatenn
• She was called Elisabeth. (Ormulum 115)
• (3) swa þe33 leddenn heore lif Till þatt te33
  wærenn alde
• and so they led their lives until they were
  old. (Ormulum 125-6)
• (4) þin forrme win iss swiþe god, þin lattre win
  iss bettre.
• Your earlier wine is very good, your later wine
  is better. (Ormulum 15409)

63
Demonstratives, pronouns, and pro-drop in Old
English

• (1) þæt fram ham gefrægn Higelaces þegn, god mid
  Geatum, Grendles dæda se wæs moncynnes mægenes
  strengest on þæm dæge þysses lifes, æþele ond
  eacen.
• Hygelacs thane heard about Grendels deeds
  while in Geatland he (Hygelacs thane) was
  mankinds strongest man on earth, noble and
  powerful.

64
Old English ctd

• Het him yðlidan godne gegyrwan, cwæð, he
  guðcyning ofer swanrade secean wolde, mærne
  þeoden, þa him wæs manna þearf. ðone siðfæt him
  snotere ceorlas lythwon logon, þeah he him leof
  wære.
• (He) ordered himself a good boat prepared and
  said that he wanted to seek the king over the sea
  since he (the king) needed men. Wise men did not
  stop him (Hygelacs thane) though he was dear to
  them. (Beowulf 194-98)

65
Traugott (1992 171)

• (2) Þa clypode an ðæra manna Zebeus gehaten and
  cwæð to ðam cyninge
• Then cried one of-the men Zebeus called and
  said to the king
• Eala ðu cyning þas fulan wuhta þu scoldest
  awurpan of ðinum rice.
• Oh you king the foul creatures you should
  throw-out of your kingdom
• ðylæs ðe hi mid heora fylðe us ealle besmiton
• in-case that they the foul creatures with
  their filth us all affect
• Hi habbað mid him awyriedne engel. mancynnes
  feond.
• They the foul creatures have with them
  corrupt angel, mankinds enemy
• and se hæfð andweald on ðam mannum ðe heora
  scyppend forseoð.
• and he the angel has power over those men that
  their creator despise
• and to deofolgyldum bugað
• and to idols bow.
• (DOE Segment 8 Ælfrics Catholic Homilies,
  second series M. Godden 1979, p. 283. 110 115)

66
What happens?

• Externally a strengthening of the third person
  features in the pronoun and a shift in the
  relationship with the demonstrative.
• This reinforcement through external pronouns, she
  and they, brought about a reanalysis of the
  features of the pronoun as deictic.

67
Internal External

• se --gt the seo --gt she
• that --gt that hi --gt they
• him/her --gt himself/herself
• a. se/that gt the
• i-loc/i-phi u-T/u-ps ( -Ps)
• b. he/hi is replaced by he
• heo/ha is replaced by she (possibly via seo)
• hi/hie is replaced by they
• i-phi i-phi/i-loc

68

• Demonstrative
• i-phi/ i-loc
•  article Dem C copula
• u-phi i-phi u/i-T u-phi
• i-loc i-loc
• Also degree adverb and tense marker
  (Tibeto-Burman)
• Feature Economy
• Utilize semantic features use them as for
  functional categories, i.e. as formal features.

69
Types of minimalist features

• The semantic features of lexical items (which
  have to be cognitively based not UG)
• The interpretable ones relevant at the
  Conceptual-Intentional interface.
• Uninterpretable features act as glue so to
  speak to help out merge. For instance, person and
  number features (phi-features) are interpretable
  on nouns but not on verbs.

70
The importance of features

• Chomsky (1965 87-88) lexicon contains
  information for the phonological, semantic, and
  syntactic component.
• Sincerity N, -Count, Abstract...)
• Chomsky (1995 230ff 236 277ff)
• semantic (e.g. abstract object),
• phonological (e.g. the sounds),
• and formal features
• intrinsic or optional.

71
Formal features are interpretable and
uninterpretable (1995 277)

• airplane build
• Interpr. nominal verbal
• 3 person assign non-human
  accusative
• Uninterpr Case phi

72
Simplifying checking

• He reads books
• before
• checking i-3S u-phi i-3P
• after
• checking i-3S u-phi i-3P
• Thats why me sees him is ok!

73
Major Issues

• Where do features come from?
• Cartography vs Bare Phrase Structure
• (1) Tpast Tfut Moodir Modnec Modpos
  ASPhab ASPrep ASPfreq
• once then perhaps necessarily possibly
  usually again often
• (from Cinque 1999 107)

74
Semantic and formal overlap

• Chomsky (1995 230 381) suggests "formal
  features have semantic correlates and reflect
  semantic properties (accusative Case and
  transitivity, for example)."
• I interpret this If a language has nouns with
  semantic phi-features, the learner will be able
  to hypothesize uninterpretable features on
  another F (and will be able to bundle them
  there).

75
Feature Economy

• (a) Utilize semantic features use them as for
  functional categories, i.e. as formal features.
• (b) If a specific feature appears more than once,
  one of these is interpretable and the others are
  uninterpretable

76
Innate vs acquired

• shapes grammatical number
• negatives negation
• if
• real-unreal irrealis
• /-individuated mass-count
• duration progressive

77
Loss of semantic features

• Full verbs such as Old English will with
• volition, expectation, future features are
  reanalyzed as having only the feature future in
  Middle English.
• And the negative
• OE no/ne gt ME (ne) not gt -nt
• gt ModE nt ... nothing, never, etc

78
The various cycles in terms of features

• The cycle of agreement
• noun gt emphatic gt pronoun gt agreement gt 0
• sem i-phi i-phi/u-phi u-phi
• The cycles of negation
• a Adjunct/Argument Specifier Head (of
  NegP) affix
• semantic gt i-NEGgt u-NEG gt --
• b. Lexical Head gt (higher) Head gt (higher) Head gt
  0
• neg i-NEG/F F

79
Verb and demonstrative to copula

• Assume copulas have
• be remain seem
• i-loc i-loc i-loc
• i-ASP i-M
• Source for loc? Verbs and demonstratives
• D gt copula gt zero
• i-loc gt i-loc gt --
• i-phi gt u-phi
• u-T

80
Demonstrative gt article

• a. DP gt b. DP
• that D' D'
• i-ps D NP D NP
• i-locu- N the N
• i-phi u-phi i-phi
• Hence (1) I saw the
• (2) I saw that/those.

81

• Demonstrative
• i-phi
• i-loc
•  
• article pronoun C copula
• u-phi i-phi u/i-T i-loc
• u-T

82
A possible Feature Macro-Parameter

• Phi-features Case'
• (for head-marking) (for dependent-marking)
• yes no yes no
• Japanese Japanese Navajo
• u-F i-F English
• English Navajo
• Phi-T no
• English Bantu (EvG to appear)

83
Explanations of the Cycle

• Recent shift towards third factors and parametric
  features we need to be careful how many
  mechanisms we allow.
• Therefore, Feature Economy makes sense
• All change is in the lexicon semgti-Fgtu-F
• Why?
• Maximize syntax?
• Keep merge going?
• Lighter?

84
Summary

• Review of GG and HL
• Introspection vs corpora/texts
• Gradual, unidirectional change
• Role of UG determines what changes
• PS rules gt parameters gt features
• Challenges

85
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