Structure and Agreement in Ojibwe Transitive Verbs∗
Kate Riccomini
University of Ottawa
[email protected]
March 28, 2015
1
Introduction
• The Algonquian languages are known for their complex transitive verbal morphology
• A number of people have proposed ways of accounting for it (e.g. Bruening 2005; Béjar
& Rezac 2009; Lochbihler 2012; Oxford 2013)
• My eventual goal is to derive the transitive agreement morphology
• To come up with the most accurate derivation of agreement, it is necessary to know
what is going on in the rest of the verb phrase
Goals of this paper:
• Describe the structural template of the different types of Ojibwe verbs
– I will show that Ojibwe verbs may contain multiple vPs
• Examine Cyclic Agree, one of the most successful previous accounts of Ojibwe verbal
agreement.
– I will show that it cannot, in fact, work with the verbal structures I propose
• Outline my own proposal for Ojibwe verbal agreement
2
Ojibwe Data
2.1
Verbal Morphology
The Ojibwe verb is made of at least two parts:
• initial - verbal root with potentially nominal, adjectival, or verbal meaning
Special thanks to Éric Mathieu, Kyumin Kim, and the members of the U. Ottawa Syntax-Semantics
Lab for helpful comments on previous versions of this paper.
∗
1
• final - verbalising head, marks transitivity, animacy of transitive object/intransitive
subject, carries some semantic meaning
(Valentine, 2001, p333)1
Some example Ojibwe verbs, with initials and finals glossed separately:2
(1) a. mskozi
misko -zi
red
-vai
“be red (an.)”
b. mskwaa
misko -aa
red
-vii
“be red (inan.)”
(Valentine, 2001, p342)
(2) a. mnopaw
mino -ipw
good -taste.vta
“like the taste of X (an.)”
b. mnopdan
mino -ipid.am
good -taste.vti
“like the taste of X (inan.)”
(Valentine, 2001, p461)
(3) a. nokii
anok -ii
work -move.vai
“work”
b. nokiitoon
anok -ii
-it.oo
work -move.vai -cause.vti
“cause X to work” 3
(Valentine, 2001, p435)
Algonquianists break verbs down into four types based on their morphology (Valentine, 2001,
p132):
•
•
•
•
transitive animate (vta) - transitive verb, animate object
transitive inanimate (vti) - transitive verb, inanimate object
animate intransitive (vai) - intransitive verb, animate subject
inanimate intransitive (vii) - intransitive verb, inanimate subject
The category of each verb is determined by the verb final. (Valentine, 2001, p132)
2.2
Transitive Agreement
• Topicality hierarchy and direct/inverse morphology
• Hierarchy ranks participants by personhood
• Full hierarchy: 2 > 1 > X > 3 > 3′ > 0 (Valentine, 2001, p268)
– where X is an unspecified actor, 3′ is third person obviative, and 0 is third person
inanimate
Verbs may optionally contain a third part, a medial, an incorporated element, including classifiers or
nominals (not discussed here).
2
Note, despite the glosses, these examples are not infinitives; it is not possible to form infinitives in
Ojibwe.(Valentine, 2001, p648)
3
Abbreviations used in the glosses: an = animate, inan = inanimate, sg = singular, pl = plural, 1 =
first person, 2 = second person, 3 = third person animate proximate, 3′ = third person animate obviative,
0 = third person inanimate, > = acts on/does to, as in “X does verb to Y”
1
2
• The highest participant on the hierarchy will be spelled out as a proclitic
• Transitive verbs have a suffix called a theme sign; the vta theme sign, is a portmanteau
morpheme indexing both arguments
– See Example (4)
(4) a. Direct:
Nwaabmaa.
ni- waab -am -aa
1- see -vta -1>3
“I see him.”
3
b. Inverse:
Nwaabmig.
ni- waab -am -ig
1- see -vta -3>1
“He sees me.”
(Valentine, 2001, p287)
Verbal Templates
3.1
3.1.1
•
•
•
•
•
Theoretical Tools
The External Argument as Spec VoiceP
Kratzer (1996), building on Marantz (1984) and Hale & Keyser (1993)
The external argument (EA) is truly external from the verb, i.e. outside of vP
Voice, a head that introduces the EA and assigns accusative case 4
VoiceP appears in the derivation just above vP
Hirose (2001), for Plains Cree
– Multiple vP structures, where each vP introduces an argument in its specifier
– For Hirose, the external argument is the specifier of the highest vP (for verbs that
have an external argument); this high vP functions like Kratzer’s (1996) VoiceP
• Oxford (2013), for Proto-Algonquian, the reconstructed ancestor of the Algonquian
language family
– Voice hosts an agreement probe, as well as introducing the external argument in
spec-Voice.
– Oxford derives most of the Proto-Algonquian theme signs as Voice heads; in my
proposal, Voice is null, and the theme signs are portmanteau agreement morphemes
3.1.2
The Internal Argument as Spec vP
• In Distributed Morphology, lexical items are assumed to be made up of an acategorical
root, and a categorising morpheme (v, n, or a) (Halle & Marantz, 1993; Embick &
Noyer, 2007); a structure where first Merge is V and v captures this5
• v is a verbalising head as per Hale & Keyser (1993) and Marantz (1997)
4
5
Case assignment is not applicable to Ojibwe, which does not appear to have Case.
√
Where V and are both labels for the same head.
3
• Ditransitives introduce a second argument by introducing a second vP, something
which can be easily captured by assuming internal arguments are introduced as specvPs; Hirose (2001) had a similar idea about how arguments were introduced in Plains
Cree, although he explained it as a modification of the Theta Criterion
• A number of authors have equated the verb final with v, (e.g. Hirose 2001; Brittain
2003; Mathieu 2006; Ritter & Rosen 2010; Slavin 2012; Oxford 2013; Mathieu 2014)
• Both Hirose (2001) (for Plains Cree, as mentioned) and Oxford (2013) (for ProtoAlgonquian) propose structures in which the internal argument is introduced in specvP
3.2
Transitive Verbs
Transitive verbs:
• may have either vta or vti finals
• will therefore have either an animate or inanimate object
• one of the arguments, either the subject or the object, must be animate; only animate
subjects are extant in my available data (Valentine, 2001, p426)
• all transitive verb finals are followed by a theme sign
– vta theme signs constitute part of agreement morphology, and vary based on the
personhood of the subject and object
– vti theme signs are ornamental morphology added at PF (Embick & Noyer, 2007);
they are invariant and add nothing semantic or syntactic to the verb (Valentine,
2001, p306)
Example transitive derivations6 :
(5) a. Gwaabndaan.
gi- waab -andam -n
2- see -vti
-0.sg
“You see it.”
(Valentine, 2001, p311)
b.
VoiceP
DP
2
Voice′
∅
vP
DP
0.sg
v′
v
-andam
vti
6
√
waab
“see”
In the following trees, I am abstracting away from the agreement facts. I will return to them in Section
4
4
(6) a. Gwaabmaa.
gi- waab -am -aa
2- see -vta -2>3
“You see him/her.”
(Valentine, 2001, p287)
b.
VoiceP
DP
2
Voice′
∅
vP
DP
3.sg
3.3
v′
√
v
-am waab
vta “see”
Ditransitives
Ditransitive verbs:
• have vta morphology
• have a multiple vP structure
• show agreement with the subject and the Goal (not the Theme)
(Valentine, 2001, p136)
Example ditransitive derivation:
(7) a. ndazhtamaag
nid- izhi -it
-amaw
-ig
1- thus -cause.vti -for.X.vta -3>1
“she is making it for me.”
(adapted from Valentine 2001, p700)
5
b.
VoiceP
DP
3
Voice′
∅
vP
DP
1
v′
v
-amaw
“for X”
4
vP
DP
∅
0
v′
v
-it
“cause”
√
izhi
“thus”
Agreement Morphology
4.1
Agreement in the Syntax: Cyclic Agree
• Original proposed by Béjar & Rezac (2009)
• Agree checks the features of the complement; if unchecked features remain, it proceeds
to check features of the specifier
• For Ojibwe, v is a probe with a fully specified set of person features arranged in a
hierarchy of entailment relations
• Like Béjar & Rezac (2009), Lochbihler (2012) proposes there is a v head that agrees
cyclically, first with the internal argument, then with the external argument
• When a feature is checked, features entailed by it are made active, but not deleted
themselves
• In the direct, the external argument deletes inactive features, and in the inverse, it
deletes already active features
– See Example (8) and (9)
• When vocabulary insertion occurs, the proclitic is inserted for the argument with the
most highly specified features, and the theme sign for the other; the choice of theme sign
is further determined by whether the less specified argument has checked an inactive
or already active feature
(8) a. Direct:
Nwaabmaa.
ni- waab -am -aa
1- see -vta -1>3
“I see him.”
6
(Valentine, 2001, p287)
b. Cycle 1:
v
Cycle 2:
′
VP
v
uπ
u3
DP
‘him’
vP
DP
‘I’
V
waabm
v′
VP
v
uπ
u1
u3
u2
u1
DP
‘him’
V
waabm
u2
(adapted from Lochbihler 2012, p47)
(9) a. Inverse:
Nwaabmig.
ni- waab -am -ig
1- see -vta -3>1
“He sees me.”
(Valentine, 2001, p287)
b. Cycle 1:
Cycle 2:
v′
v
uπ
u3
vP
VP
DP
‘I’
DP
‘him’
V
waabm
v′
v
uπ
u1
u3
u2
u1
VP
DP
V
‘I’ waabm
u2
(adapted from Lochbihler 2012, p49)
• This version of Cyclic Agree has the major advantage that the inverse is not a more
marked case than the direct
• Also, it does not violate the Inclusiveness Condition by adding an extra v probe; consequently, no stipulation is needed to suppress spell out of an extra head, no extra head
having been created
4.1.1
Ditransitives and Other Multi-vP Structures
Both Béjar & Rezac’s (2009) and Lochbihler’s (2012) proposals have difficulty accounting
for ditransitive verbs, and other multiple vP structures.
7
For ditransitives:
• Cyclic Agree, as stated, specifies the probe searches all the way down through the
complement before searching upwards into the specifier
• This means that, for ditransitives, v should be able to Agree with both the Goal and
the Theme
• However, the verb Agrees with the Agent and the Goal, but not the Theme
• One way to repair this problem is to stipulate, as Hamilton (2014) does, that Cyclic
Agree only looks down one level into the complement, a locality condition we don’t see
in operation in other languages
For all multiple vP structures:
•
•
•
•
4.2
v contains the Agreement probe
Multiple vPs means multiple Agreement probes
Yet, only one instance of Agree appears to occur
Even if it is assumed that only transitive v contains a fully specified Agree probe,
ditransitives contain two transitive v heads
Towards a Better Explanation
• My own proposal for Ojibwe agreement morphology is partially based on Oxford (2013)
• Like Oxford (2013), I use multiple Agree (Hiraiwa, 2001) and multiple equi-distant
specifiers (Chomsky, 2001)
• Oxford (2013) was working with Proto-Algonquian, so parts of his analysis do not
apply to Ojibwe
In my proposal:
• The internal argument moves up to spec-VoiceP, making it equi-distant with the external argument for the purpose of agreement
• The theme sign is a portmanteau morpheme appearing above VoiceP that Agrees with
both the external and internal arguments
• Bliss, Ritter & Wiltschko (2014) argue that part of agreement, in the form of the nonlocal theme signs in Ojibwe and Blackfoot, is spelled out as Point-of-View aspect, on
a head above vP; more research is needed if this is the best analysis to describe the
Ojibwe data
• There is also the pronominal proclitic, which must move to attach to the verb above
T, in spec-TP
• As per languages like English, there is an EPP feature that causes one of the arguments
to move up to spec-TP
• However, because the internal and external arguments are equally far apart when this
EPP feature is triggered, the syntax needs a different way to choose which argument
moves
8
• Therefore, instead of the most local argument (the subject) moving up to spec-TP, the
highest argument on the hierarchy (regardless of whether it is subject or object) is the
argument that moves to spec-TP, and is spelled out as the pronominal proclitic
– See Example (10) and (11)
– Solid lines indicate movement
– Dashed lines indicate Agree
(10) Direct:
TP
DP
Subject
T′
T
FP
F
Agr
VoiceP
DP
Object
Voice′
DP
Subject
Voice′
∅
vP
DP
Object
9
v′
√
v
Final Initial
(11) Inverse:
TP
DP
Object
T′
T
FP
F
Agr
VoiceP
DP
Object
Voice′
DP
Subject
Voice′
∅
vP
DP
Object
v′
v
Final
5
√
Initial
Conclusion
In sum, this paper has:
• Explored the structure of Ojibwe transitive verbal morphology
• Discussed Cyclic Agree as a method of accounting for Ojibwe verbal agreement
• Used this understanding of Ojibwe verbal structure to motivate an approach to agreement using Multiple Agree and equi-distance of specifiers as theoretical tools
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