Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
José Camacho, Liliana Sánchez
Rutgers University
Abstract
We test adverb-verb word orders in Peruvian Spanish against analyses of verb movement
(Pollock 1989, Embick & Noyer 2001). While the preferred order is V-Adv-O, the alternative
Adv-V-O is also possible. We propose that the verb raises in overt syntactic and
morphological insertion targets either the higher or the lower position. In the latter case,
morphological requirements force the more computationally costly option of T-to-V
lowering. We analyze the ungrammatiality of neg-Adv-V as a blocking of the selectional
restriction requirements of neg (the extended verbal projection, including T) by the
intervening adverb. This distribution is parallel to English do-insertion in negative contexts (I
don’t frequently eat vs. *I not frequently eat), where neg selects for a -T category, (cf.
Williams 1994).
Keywords: Word order, adverbs, raising, negation, morphological merger
1.
Introduction1
Ever since Emonds (1978) and Pollock (1989), the prevailing theory of head-movement as it
relates to verbs is founded on the assumption that adverb position can serve as a diagnostic
for verb position (cf. also Belletti 1990; Cinque 1999), and languages show a parametric
difference between verb-raising (V-to-T) and non-raising languages. In Pollock’s initial
analysis, French belongs to the first type, whereas English belongs to the second type.
Spanish is problematic in this respect. On the one hand, many analyses of verb-movement in
declaratives extrapolate evidence from questions (cf., for example, Suñer 1994), and
generally assume V-to-T movement (cf. Suñer 1994; Ordóñez 1997; Benedicto 1998; Zagona
2002; Goodall 1999; Toribio 2000). On the other hand, as Ayoun (2005) notes, tests based on
adverb placement are not conclusive. This leads her to classify Spanish as a hybrid language.
A separate issue that questions the classical V-to-T analysis emerges from theoretical
considerations. To the extent that verb movement has no other obvious consequences than
altering word order, one may wonder whether it is a core syntactic process. In this sense,
proposals such as Embick and Noyer (2001) argue for postsyntactic movement proposals
regulated by principles of Distributed Morphology.
Of course, a footnote cannot do justice to Violeta Demonte’s trajectory. We hope this article and the volume
are a simple window to a deeply felt gratitude for her years of support and encouragement. We would like to
thank the audience of CCG 24, two anonymous reviewers and the editors of the volume for their insightful
comments.
1
In Boundaries, Phases and Interfaces. Olga Fernández-Soriano, Elena Castroviejo Miró and Isabel
Pérez-Jiménez (eds.), pp 47-63. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 2017.
José Camacho & Liliana Sánchez
In this paper, we attempt to establish some solid empirical generalizations about adverb-verb
word orders in Peruvian Spanish by testing five VP-oriented adverbs (cuidadosamente
‘carefully’, completamente ‘completely’, perfectamente ‘perfectly’, frecuentemente
‘frequently’ and siempre ‘always’), in conjunction with negation and verb movement.
2.
On V-to-T movement
Pollock (1989) argued that the contrast between (1a)-(1b) follows from whether the verb
raises from V-to-T (in French) or the affix is lowered from T-to-V (in English), as in (2).
(1) a. Jean mange souvent des pommes.
Jean eats
often
DET
(French)
apples
‘Jean often eats apples.’
b.
Jean often eats apples.
(English)
(2) a. [TP Jean [T′ mange + T [VP souvent . . . tv]]]
b
[TP Jean [T′ tT
[VP often . . . eat + T]]]
(French)
(English)
Negation placement yields similar results, as illustrated in (3). This analysis assumes that
negation in French is represented by pas, which surfaces to the right of main verbs, as seen
in (3a). This contrasts with not in English, which cannot surface to the right of a main verb
(cf. (3b)), triggering do-insertion (cf. (3c)).
(3) a. Jean ne mange pas des pommes.
Jean NEG eats
NEG DET
(French)
apples
‘Jean doesn’t eats apples.’
b.
* Jean not eats apples.
c.
Jean doesn’t eat apples.
(English)
With the advent of the Minimalist Program, the status of verb-movement becomes less
obvious. On the one hand, it is not obvious what triggers such movement. In versions of
Minimalism that assume the notion of strong (rich) and weak features, overt movement is
triggered by strong features (cf., for example Koeneman and Neeleman, 2001; Biberauer
and Roberts, 2010). Biberauer and Roberts (2010, 267-8) propose that rich tense means that
finite Vs are compound elements made up of V+T. This means that this compound element
must be inserted in V (to form a VP) and in T (to form TP). The way this happens is by raising
Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
from V-to-T. In English, on the other hand, they argue that there is no affix lowering, but an
agreement relationship between the auxiliary in T and finite V.
Matushansky (2006) proposes that head-movement is the result of two independent
operations. The first one is c-selection, a search procedure that seeks a feature in the sister of
the probe head (cf. (4)a), triggering movement (re-merge) of the goal head (cf. (4)b). The
second operation, m-merger, is a morphological mechanism that adjoins the two heads, as in
(4c).
(4) a. [XP X0[uF] [YP [Y′ Y 0 [iF] WP ]]]
C-selection
b.
[XP Y 0 i [X′ X0 [YP [Y′ ti WP ]]]]
Movement
c.
[XP [X0 Yi0 + X0] [YP [Y′ ti WP ]]]
m-merge
A separate problem relates to the syntactic motivation for verb-raising, which has no obvious
interpretive consequences. For example, as Matushansky (2006, 104) notes, the scope of
negation over a modal is different depending on the modal, as seen in (5). However, the relative
positions of negation and the modal are the same in (5a) as in (5b), showing that different
scopes for negation and the modal do not correlate with differences in verb movement.
(5) a. Yolanda can’t leave.
b. Yolanda shouldn’t leave.
(Neg > Mod)
(Mod > Neg)
In a similar vein, it is hard to find interpretative differences between V-to-T movement in
French and affix-lowering (T-to-V) in English. This kind of argument has led to considering
head-movement as a PF operation (cf. Chomsky 2000). In Embick and Noyer’s (2001)
analysis, the postsyntactic nature of verb movement is reflected in the morphological merger operation
formulated in (6). The parametric difference between French and English arises from the different
locality conditions that regulate Morphological Merger depending on where it applies.
(6) Morphological Merger: At any level of syntactic analysis (D-Structure, SStructure, phonological structure), a relation between X and Y may be replaced
by (expressed by) the affixation of the lexical head of X to the lexical head of Y.
(Embick and Noyer 2001, 561)
If Morphological Merger takes place before lexical insertion, it operates on a hierarchical
syntactic representation, and for this reason it may be non-local. Lowering, specifically Tlowering is an example of pre-lexical insertion merger: T is an affix that must merge with a
V root; when it does so before insertion, it relies on hierarchical structure and may therefore
skip intervening adverbs.
If Morphological Merger takes place after lexical insertion, it is constrained by linear
adjacency. In the case of French, V has moved to T (syntactically), when Morphological
Merger applies, linear adjacency is respected, and as a consequence, nothing can intervene
between V and T.
José Camacho & Liliana Sánchez
Williams (1994) questions whether the contrasts between French and English adverb-verb
placement reflect the output of verb movement. Rather, he suggests these differences stem
from a set of independent properties, among them the subcategorization frames for adverbs
and negation in each language, as well as principles that determine how heads take
complements in each language. Specifically, Williams notes that adverbs differ in French and
English with respect to what they can subcategorize (adapted from (Williams 1994, 192, ex.
7, 11):
(7) a. English adverbs: ___VP
(V[+aux] ____)
b.
French adverbs: ____V[-tense]
V___
In English, adverbs can occur before a VP or after an auxiliary, in French, they cannot occur
before a tensed projection, but they can occur between V and O. With respect to negation,
Williams suggests the subcategorization frame in (8) for English, whereas for French pas, he
assumes it can be subsumed under the frame for adverbs in (7b) above.
(8) English negation: __XP[-tense]
(V[+aux,+tense] )
(Williams 1994, 192, ex. 8)
William’s more general point relates to the fact that given the independently needed
subcategorization frames for adverbs and negation, verb movement becomes a redundant
mechanism to account for word orders.
2.
Verb-raising in Spanish
Spanish is usually considered a verb-raising language (cf. Zagona 2002, among others).
Suñer (1994), for example, argues for V-to-T movement in Spanish based on the following
data. VP adjectival adverbials like limpio/sucio ‘clean/dirty’ in (9a) form a ‘set phrase’ with
the verb (cf. Bosque 1980), and although they are optional, when they appear, they do so
after the verb. At the same time, the only element that can intervene between the verb and the
adverbial is the subject (cf. (9b)). Thus, neither an adverb (cf. (9c)) nor an object (cf. (9d))
can break the adjacency. Suñer argues that the word order in (9b) results from the subject
remaining inside VP and the verb moving to T, as in (10).2
(9) a. Juan juega limpio/sucio a las cartas (todos los días)
Juan plays clean/dirty
to the cards every the day
‘Juan plays clean/dirty cards every day.’
b.
2
Aunque
jugaba Juan/é1 limpio a
even though played Juan/he clean at
las cartas,
the cards
(Spanish)
siempre ganaba.
always won.
An anononymous reviewer, speaker of Peninsular Spanish, finds example (10b) absolutely odd.
Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
‘Although he used to play fairly, he would always win.’
c.
*Juan
Juan
juega constantemente limpio/sucio a las cartas.
plays constantly
clean/dirty to the cards
d.
Juan juega
John plays
a
to
las cartas
the cards
(*limpio/sucio) (todos los dias).
clean/dirty
every day
I’
(10)
jugaba
Vmax
Juan
VP
V’
PP
jugaba limpio a las cartas
Suñer’s conclusions rely on two pillars: first, the VS-Adv-O word order attested in (9b)
requires the verb to be at least higher than the lowest subject position (Spec, Vmax in (10),
plausibly Spec, vP in current terms), and second, the adverbial limpio sets the lower VPinternal boundary for the verb, hence the verb must raise above Vmax. It is unclear, from this
analysis, why (9c) is ungrammatical, since the verb raises above Vmax, and the adverb is
presumably adjoined to one of the intermediate positions. Along the same lines, the analysis
would seem to predict that other adverbs should be able to intervene between the verb and
the lower, fixed adverbial.
(11) a. *Aunque
even though
ganaba.
won.
jugaba constantemente Juan/é1 limpio a las cartas, siempre
played constantly
Juan/he clean to the cards always
b. * Aunque
jugaba Juan/é1 constantemente limpio a las cartas, siempre
even though played Juan/he constantly
clean at the cards always
ganaba.
won.
Rather, it would seem that the facts in (9)-(11) have to do with adjacency requirements of
the verb and the selected adverbial. In any case, they do not provide compelling evidence
for verb-raising in Spanish.
Inconclusive word order facts lead Ayoun (2005) to argue that Spanish is a hybrid language
from the point of view of verb movement. For example, the verb always follows negation, as
illustrated in (12a). This word order may stem from lack of raising of the verb (cf. (13a)), or
from negation being higher than TP, as in (13b) (cf. Zagona 2002, 196). This last option
contradicts Laka’s (1990) contention that T generally c-commands Neg, which would mean
José Camacho & Liliana Sánchez
that the verb must be lower than T in Spanish as in (14). That structure still leaves open the
possibility that V raises to Neg. Alternatively, if negation dominates T, then the data in (12)
do not provide evidence for or against verb raising in Spanish.
(12) a. Mara no come
verduras.
Mara not eats
vegetables
‘Marta doesn’t eat vegetables.’
b.
(Spanish)
* Mara come no verduras.
Mara eats not vegetable
b.
(13) a. IP
Juan
I'
no
NegP
Juan
vP
Juan
Neg'
no
VP
come verduras
TP
Juan
T'
T
vP
come
Juan
VP
come verduras
(14) [TP Juan [NegP no come . . . ] ]
Adverbs tend to have a flexible V-Adv/Adv-V order in Spanish, as seen in (15) for finite
clauses and in (16) for infinitival clauses. According to Ayoun, nonfinite verb movement
depends on the adverb, as illustrated in (17) (her judgments). We don’t happen to share these
particular judgments, which suggests that the finite/non-finite distinction is irrelevant in the
distribution of adverb placement in our dialect. However, in general, we agree that adverbtype makes a difference with respect to verb movement, although as we will see, other patterns
seem to go in the opposite direction (i.e. lack of raising is worse than raising).
(15) a.
b.
Juan siempre lee libros.
Juan always reads books
‘Juan always reads books.
Juan lee
siempre libros.
Juan reads always books
‘Juan always reads books.
Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
(16) a. Salir
a menudo is divertido.
go-out often
is fun.
‘To often go out is fun.’
b. A menudo salir
es divertido.
often
go-out is fun
‘To often go out is fun.’
(17) a. Apenas dormir es extraño.
barely sleep
is strange.
‘To barely sleep is strange.’
b.
*Dormir apenas es extraño.
sleep barely is strange.
‘To sleep barely is strange.’
The apparent flexibility in the order of V-Adv illustrated in (15)-(16) raises a general problem
for the overall theory of verb-raising. If adverb positions are fixed, as this theory assumes,
then Spanish has optional verb raising. This, in turn, raises questions as to what triggers such
movement, and why it seems to be obligatory in languages like French but optional in
Spanish. Notice, by the way, that English could be seen as involving similar patterns to (15)(17) if one looks at the relative position of verbs and adverbs with and without do support.
Alternatively, these paradigms could be explained if adverbs can appear in different
positions (cf. Cinque 1999), but then they are no longer reliable indicators of verb position.
Furthermore, the question becomes why other languages don’t display such apparent
flexibility for adverbial position. Finally, the fact that some adverbs seem to be more flexible
than others perhaps allows us to maintain the general theory of verb-raising, where adverbs
delimit verb position, but certain specific adverbs can appear in more than one position for
reasons to be determined.
3.
Experimental data from Spanish
3.1. Tasks
In order to obtain a clearer picture of the situation of verb raising in Spanish, we conducted
an experimental study that included two tasks to elicit judgements on word order with
adverbs. 31 college-age students, native speakers of Peruvian Spanish, participated in both
tasks.
The first one tested the adverbs cuidadosamente ‘carefully,’ completamente ‘completely,’
perfectamente ‘per- fectly,’ frecuentemente ‘frequently,’ siempre ‘always.’ These adverbs
were tested in four different conditions: Adv-V-O, V- Adv-O, Neg-Adv-V-O and Neg-V-AdvO. Each condition included 3 tokens, yielding a total of 60 test items (5 adverbs x 4 conditions
x 3 tokens). Additionally, we included 15 distractors. Sentences were presented in writing as
part of three different stories. For example, (18)-(20) illustrate part of one story. After reading
José Camacho & Liliana Sánchez
the context given in (18a), participants were asked to judge the sentence in (18b) on a Likert
scale of -5 ("It sounds very odd/bad"), -3, 0, 3, 5 ("It sounds very good"). Participants were
instructed to judge whether the sentence was grammatically adequate (whether they would
say it or whether people they know would say it and accept it), regardless of whether
individual words might sound from a different dialect.
(18) a. Ayer Mariana y Valeria decidieron hacer una torta de chocolate.
‘Yesterday Mariana and Valeria decided to make a chocolate cake’
b. Ellas siempre preparan postres juntas.
they always prepare
deserts together
‘They always prepare deserts together.’
(19) a. Se reunieron en la casa de Mariana y uno de los ingredientes era vainilla, así
que
‘They got together at Mariana’s house and one of the ingredients was vanilla,
so’
b. Valeria cuidadosamente buscó
Valeria carefully
looked-for
‘Valeria carefully looked for vanilla.’
la vainilla.
the vanilla
(20) a. Leyó los otros ingredientes de la receta, y resultó que . . .
‘She read the other ingredients in the recipe and it turned out that . . .’
b.
Mariana no tenía en su casa
huevos.
‘Mariana not had
in her house eggs
‘Mariana didn’t have eggs in her house.’
In the second task, we wanted to see if participants had a strong preference for any given word
order when negation was present. Participants were given a sentence like the one in (21) and
asked to choose among four options, as in (21a-d). There was an affirmative and a negative
counterpart for each of the same adverbs tested in task 1, and the possible answers included
the word order variations shown in (22).3 Thus, participants judged 10 testing conditions (5
adverbs x 2 polarity options) and 4 distractors.
(21) Todo el mundo sabe que los impuestos son muy complicados.
‘Everyone knows that taxes are very complicated’
a. Obviamente, la gente
completamente no rellena los formularios.
obviously, the people completely
not fills-out the forms
‘Obviously, people don’t completely fill out the forms’
b.
3
Obviamente, la
gente
no rellena
completamente
los formularios.
The subject only appears in this table when it overtly separates the adverb from TP, as in Adv-S-V-O.
Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
obviously,
the people not fills-out completely
the forms
‘Obviously, people don’t completely fill out the forms’
c.
Obviamente, la gente
no completamente rellena los formularios.
obviously, the people not completely
fills-out the forms
‘Obviously, people don’t completely fill out the forms’
(22)
Word order variations tested
Affirmative
Adv-V-O
V-Adv-O
Adv-S-V-O
S-V-O-Adv
Negative
Neg-Adv-V-O
Neg-V-Adv-O
Adv-S-Neg-V-O
S-Neg-V-O-Adv
3.2. Results
Figure 1 presents the average overall ratings from task 1 for V-Adv vs. Adv-V word order.
Participants preferred V-Adv (M = 2.6, SE = .2) versus Adv-V (M = .6, SE = .24, t(29) =
-9.1, p = < .001). The first average suggests an overall preference for verb raising, assuming
that V-Adv should be analyzed as verb-raising. More interestingly, overall rating for
affirmative clauses is substantially higher than for negative ones, an issue we will return to.
5
*
4
3
2
1
0
-1
V-Adv
Adv-V
-2
-3
-4
-5
Figure 1: Mean overall ratings for Adv-V and V-Adv (range: -5 to 5)
Figure 2 breaks down results by word order and polarity. As expected, the most highly rated
order is V-Adv-O order, but we find an unexpected asymmetry with respect to polarity:
whereas V-Adv-O is highly rated (3.3), Neg-V-Adv-O is substantially lower (2.1). Another
interesting fact is the relative acceptability of Adv-VO (2.3) and the clear unacceptability of
Neg-Adv-VO (-1). In general, then, examples containing negation were rated much lower
than all affirmative counterparts.
José Camacho & Liliana Sánchez
A 2 x 2 (order x negation) repeated measures ANOVA found a significant main effect for
Word Order (V-Adv versus Adv- V, F(1, 29)=83.6 at p < .01), for Polarity (yes/no, F(1,
29)=124.8 at p < .01) and for an interaction between Word Order and Polarity (F(1, 29)=68.3
at p < .01). In other words, the speakers rated alternative word orders and affirmative versus
negative clauses significantly differently, and word order and polarity significantly interact.
5
*
4
*
3
*
2
1
0
-1
-2
*
-3
-4
-5
Mean
V-Adv-O
Neg-V-Adv-O
Adv-VO
Neg-Adv-VO
3.3
2.1
2.3
-1
Figure 2: Mean ratings for word order and polarity
Finally, results for individual adverbs are presented in Figure 3. The most outstanding fact
from this table is that siempre ‘always’ is rated positively for the order Neg-Adv-V (2.5) in
contrast to all other adverbs, which range between -0.9 and -2.5.
siempre
cuidadosament
frecuentemente
e
perfectamente
completamente
Mean
Adv-V-O V-Adv-O Neg-Adv-V Neg-V-Adv
4.3
3.2
2.5
1.6
2.6
3.8
-2.5
2.6
3.2
3.3
-0.9
2.1
0.2
3.8
-2.1
2
1.2
2.6
-2
2
2.3
3.3
-1
2
Figure 3: Average acceptability by construction
Task 2 differed from task 1 in two ways: first, it included the option of clause-final position,
and second, it allowed speakers to choose among more than one alternative. The average
number of times each option was selected is presented in Figure 4 (the maximum times an
answer could be selected was 5). From this graphic, we can see that V-O-Adv and V-Adv-O
were the most selected answers on average (3.3), followed by Adv-V-O (1.5) and Adv-SV. In
the conditions with negation, Neg-V-Adv-O and Neg-V-O-Adv were selected equally, on
Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
average 3.77 times.
Adv-V
NegAdv-V
V-Adv Neg-VAdv
AdvSV
AdvNeg-V
VO-Adv
Neg-VOAdv
Mean 1.5
.73
3.3
3.77
.5
.27
3.3
3.77
SD
1
.5
1.2
1.2
.5
.5
1.3
1.2
N
31
31
31
31
31
31
31
31
Figure 4: Average number of times options were selected
A 4 (Word Order) x 2 (Polarity) repeated measures ANOVA yielded significant main effects
for Word Order (F(3, 90)=112.95, p < .001), but not for Polarity (F(1, 30)=.52, p = .47).
Word Order and Polarity had a significant interaction (F(3, 90)=7.2, p < .001).
In sum, the generalizations from these results are the following:
(23) a. The preferred word order in Peruvia Spanish is V-Adv, but Adv-V is also
possible.
b. Negation lowers the acceptability of Neg-Adv-V in both tasks
c. Siempre shows a systematically higher acceptability in Neg-Adv-V contexts
than the other adverbs
4.
Discussion and analysis
Results from the preceding section seem to confirm that Spanish has a flexible word order
for verbs and adverbs, although the preferred order is V-Adv, indicating verb raising.4 The
analysis we will pursue to account for the alternative word orders involves a unified syntactic
structure that has different morphological realizations.
From a syntactic point of view, we assume that V raises to T, and that adverbs are located
somewhere between VP and TP (whether adjoined to other projections, or in their own
projection, as in Cinque 1999). For the order V-Adv, we assume the syntactic structure in
(24a), with V head-adjoined to T. The verbal complex is mapped to the morphology through
two rules of lexical insertion, one for terminal node V and one for T (cf. (24b-c) respectively).
Finally, those nodes are merged, as in (24d).
(24) Juan frecuentemente come
Juan frequently
eats
4
manzanas.
apples
An anonymous reviewer points out that these generalizations are parallel in Brazilian Portuguese and
European Portuguese, cf. Galves (1994) and Costa (1998).
José Camacho & Liliana Sánchez
‘Juan frequently eats apples.’
a.
[TP V+T [AdvP Adv [VP V ]]]]
b.
c.
d.
V → com- ‘eat’
T[pres,3.sg] → -e \ V
M-merger: V+T → come ‘eats’
In the case of Adv-V, the situation is slightly different. The syntactic structure is similar to
(24a), as represented in (25a), but morphological rules are different. We assume that syntactic
raising involves copy of the terminal node that is raised, and that both terminal nodes remain
in principle available for lexical insertion. Other independent properties may favor lexical
insertion at one or another position. In fact, for the Adv-V order, we argue that lexical insertion
targets the lower terminal node, rather than the higher copy of V. (25b) will insert the root
into the terminal node V, but (25c) cannot apply because the context requires selection by a
verbal stem (since T is an suffix). In order for the rule to apply, T must lower to V (cf. (25d)),
a purely morphological requirement triggered by T’s affixal properties. This idea follows
Embick and Noyer’s (2001) analysis of affix lowering in English.
(25) Juan come frecuentemente manzanas.
Juan eats
frequently
apples
‘Juan frequently eats apples.’
a. [TP V+T [AdvP Adv [VP V ]]]]
b.
c.
d.
V → com- ‘eat’
T[pres,3.sg] → -e \ V
[TP V+T [AdvP Adv [VP V+T ]]]]
e.
M-merger: V+T → come ‘eats’
The proposed analysis assumes that Spanish always has syntactic V-to-T movement, but that
word order will depend on which terminal head is spelled out: if the lower V is spelled out,
then T will be forced to lower to V, if the higher V+T compound is spelled out, then no
further morphological operations are necessary. The fact that lower V spell-out involves one
additional computational operation may explain why it is dispreferred in Spanish.
If we turn to the negation data, we find the following situation. Recall that the order neg-AdvV is not acceptable, as opposed to Adv-V (cf. (26a-b)). These results are in fact reminiscent
of the distribution in English (cf. (27)): not-Adv is ungrammatical in both languages (cf.
(26b) and (27b)), but whereas in Spanish this results can only be alleviated through
alternative word orders, such as (26c), in English, it triggers do-support.
(26) a. Marta frecuentemente visita a su familia.
Marta frequently
visits to her family
‘Marta frequently visits her family.’
b. ?? Marta no frecuentemente visita a su familia.
Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
Marta not frequently
visits to her family
‘Marta doesn’t frequently visit her family’
c.
Marta no visita frecuentemente a
su familia.
Marta not visits frequently
to her family
‘Marta doesn’t frequently visit her family’
(27) a. Marta frequently visits her family.
b. *Marta not frequently visits her family.
c. Marta doesn’t frequently visit her family.
If we assume a sentence structure in (28), the generalization in (29a) captures the relevant
patterns, as illustrated in (29b).
(28) [TP T [NegP Neg [AdvP Adv [VP V ]]]]
(29) a. Generalization: When T and V are separated by Neg and adv, T-to-V
movement is blocked.
b. [TP T [NegP Neg [AdvP Adv [VP V ]]]]
In fact, the situation is slightly more complicated for English: whereas neg by itself blocks
T-to-V lowering (cf. (30a)), an adverb does not, as seen in (30b). In Spanish, on the other
hand, neither negation nor an adverb by themselves block T-to-V movement, as seen in (26c)
above.
(30) a. * Marta not visits her family
b. Mary [TP t1 [vP loudly play-ed1 the trumpet]] (Embick and Noyer 2001, 562)
We propose that the ungrammaticality of (27b) and (25) follows from the selectional
restrictions of negation in each language (cf. Williams 1994). Specifically, we argue that
negation has the properties in (31).
(31) a. Spanish: Neg → no \
+V
b. English: Neg → not \ ___XP[-tense] (Williams 1994)
(31) entails that negation in Spanish selects for an extended projections headed by a verb.
Assuming that selectional restrictions are locally restricted to the sister of the head, the
prediction for Spanish is that neg should always be adjacent to a verb or a verbal auxiliary,
as illustrated in (32a)-(33a), with the structures in (16b)-(33b). However, negation cannot be
adjacent to an adverb if it has clausal scope (cf. (34)). In this case, the only available
alternative involves V-Adv, as in (35).
(32) a. No llegó
not arrived
‘S/he didn’t arrive.’
b. No [VP [V+T llegó]]
(33) a. No ha llegado
(Spanish)
José Camacho & Liliana Sánchez
not has arrived
‘S/he hasn’t arrived.’
b. No [AspP ha [VP [V+T llegado]]]
(34) a. ?? No frecuentemente llega
not frequently
arrives
b. No [AdvP frecuentemente [VP llega]]
(35) a. No llega frecuentemente
not arrives frequently
‘S/he doesn’t frequently arrive’
b. No [V llega [AdvP [VP t]]]
In English, on the other hand, the prediction is the opposite: negation cannot appear adjacent
to a verb if it is tensed, seen in (36)-(37).
(36) a.
b.
(37) a.
b.
* S/he not arrived.
S/he not [VP [V+T arrived]]
S/he did not arrived
S/he [TP did [NegP not [VP [V arrive]]]]
(English)
In the case of adverbs like siempre ‘always’ which can appear adjacent to negation (cf. (38)),
what seems clear is that negation only has scope over the adverb, not over the verb; and we
assume that this option entails different selectional restrictions than clausal negation.
(38) [no siempre] llega
not always arrives
‘S/he doesn’t always arrive.’
5.
Conclusion
In conclusion, results from an experimental study suggest that Spanish has two word order
V-Adv and Adv-V with a preference for V-Adv. We have argued that this alternation results
from raising from V-to-T in syntax, followed by two possible outcomes determined by
morphological rules: if the higher V+T terminal is the target for lexical insertion, the
corresponding morphemes are morphologically merged, and the result is V-Adv. If the
lower V copy is targeted for lexical insertion in conjunction with the higher T head, a
problem arises because T is an affix that requires a stem, and V is not locally available for
morphological merger, hence T lowers to V, resulting in Adv-V. Because this involves an
additional computation, it is the less-preferred option. In cases involving negation, we
observed that *Neg-Adv-V is ungrammatical, and we derived this result from the selectional
restrictions of negation in Spanish, which selects for an extended verbal projection.
Because the adverb intervenes between negation and V, the selectional restrictions of neg are
not satisfied. In English, on the other hand, we assumed with Williams that negation selects
for an untensed complement, which explains why the order *Neg-V[+tense] is
ungrammatical: if T lowers to V, negation will select for a tensed projection. On the other
hand, if T is realized as a separate auxiliary above Neg (do-Neg-V), the selectional
Does the verb raise to T in Spanish?
restrictions for Neg are respected.
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