Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
examine in detail the syntactic variation related to the position of the evidential in
Evidential Configurations in Basque
eastern and central dialects. In Part II, I provide a syntactic analysis of those
Ricardo Etxepare (IKER, UMR5478)
differences, and suggest a reason why they differ in the way they do. Section 6
concludes.
0. Intro
The present work has as its aim to describe and account for the syntactic
PART I: BASIC FACTS AND VARIATION
and semantic variation affecting the hearsay evidential particle omen in Basque.
1. Omen: some basic elements
The hipothesis I will advance is that evidentiality, and in particular hearsay
1.1. Evidence and truth
evidentiality, is syntactically expressed by means of a constellation of syntactic
(1)
a. Etorri da
structures. Two main hypothesis are discussed in the context of this paper: (i) on
Come is
the one hand, Cinque’s idea (1999) that hearsay evidentiality occupies a
“He/she came”
designated syntactic position in the Left Periphery of the clause, by means of a
b. Etorri omen da
particular category we will call Evidential Head; (ii) on the other, the view that
come evid is
“He/she came, they say”
hearsay evidentiality is, or can be, a subspecies of epistemic modality. I will try to
show that the dialectal variation in the syntactic expression of omen can be seen to
The meaning contribution of (1) can be stated as follows (adapted from Zubeldia
instantiate those two possibilities, and that furthermore, a third one must be
2008:12). Let S be a sentence, p the proposition expressed by it and Somen a
proposed: for some varieties of Basque, the hearsay evidential can also occur as an
sentence containing omen:
independent noun. This independent nominal can merge with different portions of
(2)
Somen (p)-> someone who is not the speaker has said that p
the clause structure, resulting in different interpretations. In Aikhenvald’s
Omen is an instance of what typologists call evidentiality. A quarter or so
description of evidential systems (Aikhenvald, 2004), the latter would correspond
of the languages of the World (according to Aikhenvald, 2004) have the obligation
to an evidential strategy, rather than to an evidential category. The conclusion of
of representing grammatically the source of information that grounds an assertion.
examining in detail the variation related to the hearsay evidential in Basque is that
Tariana, for instante, a language of the Arawak family spoken in the north East of
we must adopt a “pluralistic” approach to evidential coding, much along the lines
the Amazonia (Aikhenvald, 2004: 2-3), must obligatorily mark all assertions with
of McCready (2008) and Blain and Dechaine (2008), even when particular
a grammatical category that encodes the kind of evidence for that assertion:
evidentials are involved.
(6)
The paper is organized as follows: in Part I, I provide some basic
elements concerning the meaning and the syntactic distribution of omen, and I
a. Juse irida
di-manika-ka
Jose football 3sg-play-Eseeing
“Jose played football (I saw it)”
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
b. Juse irida
di-manika-mahka
Xabier ill evid is
Jose football 3sg-play-Eperceptual-but-not-seeing
b. *Xabier eri diotenez da
“Jose played football (I heard it)
c. Juse irida
Xabier ill, according to what they say, is
di-manika-nihka
d. *Xabier eri, bistan da, da
Jose football 3sg-joka-Einferred-from-seen-evidence
Xabier ill, it is evidente, is
“Jose played football (I infer from what I saw)
It is not on the other hand easy to decide on the optional status of omen. On this,
d. Juse irida di-manika-sika
the Arawak languages are not an appropriate point of comparison. The evidentials
Jose football 3sg-joka-Einferred-from-what-I-know
are numerous and can encompass all possible evidence types. Basque omen can
“Jose played football (I infer)
only be used to refer to an unspecified saying. The thing is, thus, whether when a
e. Juse irida di-manika-pidaka
basque speaker wants to convey the saying of an unspecified someone, he or she
Jose football 3sg-play-Ehearsay
“Jose played football (they told me)”
must use omen or not. That’s the only question that the basque evidential system
allows. Within those limits, I don’t see any reason not to include basque omen
Seemingly, the particles marking the source of evidence are obligatory in Tariana,
among the class of evidential morphemes.
part of the morphologically realized sentence structure. On this side, they are
1.2. Variation
unlike the Basque evidential system.
Following Aikhenvald (2004:3), I will assume that evidentiality is a
For Aikhenvald, the evidentials which are not obligatory do not constitute true
linguistic category, whose basic meaning is “source of evidence”. In order to be
evidential systems, but what she calls evidential strategies. She includes in this
classified as an evidential, a gramatical formative must have “source of
category adverbs and parentheticals expressing source of information:
information” as its fundamental meaning. That linguistic category is obligatorily
(7)
realized in the clause structure (at least in those languages that have rich evidential
a. Diotenez,
Xabier eri da
According to what they say, Xabier ill is
b. Xabier, bistan da,
eri da
Xabier, it is evident, ill is
paradigms). For Aikhenvald, this linguistic category does not have a single and
fixed position in the clause. Her definition of the category is functional; not
structural. For Cinque (1999) on the other hand, evidentials have a fixed position
It is not easy to classify basque omen under such a category: Basque omen has a
in the clause structure: the one illustrated in the following Turkish example
fixed position in the sentence, unlike adverbs and parentheticals. In fact the
(Cinque, 1999: 71):
position occupied by omen cannot be occupied by adverbs or parentheticals:
(9)
(8)
a. Xabier eri omen da
a. [SA Speech Act [EM Evaluative mood [EvidP Evidential [EpisMP EpistM…
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
In the syntactic side, all dialects share the following two sequences:
(12)
b. Mary simdi ev-de ol-mali-ymis ama ben san-mi-yor-um
b. Verb Omen Aux
Mary now home-loc be-must-Evid but I think-neg-prog-I
(13)
“Reportedly, Mary must be at home now, but I don’t think so”
How flexible
should be
the
a. Pol Omen Aux
a. Ez omen da deus
Neg evid is anything
syntactic representation of evidentiality?
Microvariation studies can shed some light on this issue. The basque dialectal
“Reportedly, there is nothing”
spectrum presents a certain degree of variation concerning the meaning and the
b. Etorri omen da
come evid
syntactic behavior of the hearsay evidential. In the meaning side, the eastern
is
“Reportedly he/she has come”
varieties accept the combination of hearsay evidentiality and epistemic modality.
(10b) is impossible in central dialects, but perfectly possible in eastern ones (10d):
Eastern dialects are more flexible in the syntactic realization of the evidential:
(10)
(14)
a. Ikusita zein nekatuta dabilen, bere apetitu falta etabar, gaiso egon
Seeing how tired I am; my lack of appetite etc,
behar du
ill
a. Protestanteen komentu batean omen eskolarazi zuen
Protestant-gen convent one-loc evid scholarized aux
be
“He/she scholarized him in a protestant convent, they say”
(epistemic)
b. Eüskaldüna zen lehenago omen popülü ez ikasia
must aux
basque
“Taking into account how tired I am, my lack of appetite etc, I must be
was before
evid folk
not learned
“The basque folk was ignorant then, so they say”
ill”
b. *Gaiso egon behar omen du
Ill
be
c. Joanes XXIII garrenak hori bezalako hitzak erran eta manatu txi omen
(epistemic, central dialects)
John 23’rd-erg
must Evid aux
“Pope John the 23rd said and ordered to say those words, reportedly”
“He/she must be ill, they say”
d. Eri izan behar omen dut
ill be
those like words say and commanded aux Evid
(epistemic, eastern dialects)
must evid aux
“He/she must be ill, they say”
Thy all add up to the following set of sequences (with Pol a polarity head, see
Laka, 1990):
(15)
a. Omen Verb Aux...
(10b, d) are intended as follows::
b. Aux… omen...
(11)
According to what they say, and taking into account how tired he/she is,
c. Verb Aux... omen
his/her lack of appetite, etc, he/she must be ill
d. Pol Omen Aux
This possibility is only realized in Eastern dialects.
e. Verb Omen Aux
CENTRAL DIALECTS
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
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e. Handik zonbeit egunen buruan, bera mintzatu da telebixtan, garbitasun
1.3. Claims
there-from some days in
I will make the following specific claims: (i) omen is a head in central
he
talked aux TV-loc, explanation
varieties, and it belongs in the category of epistemic mood in those varieties; (ii) in
bat eman beharrez omen
eastern varieties, we have two different evidential subsystems: one in which omen
one give have-to-instr Evid
is realized as the Specifier of an independent Evidential head, and one where it
“After a few days, he showed up in TV to reportedly give an explanation”
also merges with a VP-external polarity projection and a quotative clause. This
f. Ehortzetara joan zen emaztearen ixilik
burying –all go aux wife’s
latter configuration is a XIXth century innovation, and capitalizes on the presence
omen...
silent-part Evid
“He went to the burying without her wife knowing...”
of a noun omen in those same dialects, with the meaning of “rumor” or “general
saying”. This innovation can be qualified as an evidential strategy, in
That does not mean that central dialects may not appear without an overt auxiliary.
Aikhenvald’s sense.
Here are some cases :
2. The syntactic variation of omen
(17)
a. Bere bertsoak rimadun prosa omen, ez giar, ez gazi-gezik, ez bizi
His verses
2.1. Omen and the inflected verb/auxiliary
rhyme-having prose Evid, neither force, not grace, nor life
In central varieties, omen always shows up together with the inflected auxiliary.
“His verses (were) mere prose with rhyme, they (had) neither force, nor
This is not the case in eastern varieties:
grace, nor life”
(16)
a. Aldiz
Euskal Herrian
ere gazte batek
omen
on-the contrary, Basque Country-loc too young-person one-erg Evid
b. Donibanez bildu lorak tisanan artu ezkero,
St John-time collected flowers infusion-loc have-after, better
gauza bera eginik, amanda eta presondegia ukan zituen
ezin obeak omen zenbait eritasun sendatzeko
thing same done-partc-part, billed and imprisoned was
no better Evid some illness recover-purpose
“On the contrary, a basque young person having reportedly done the same
“If you take flowers collected during St John’s time, they (are) reportedly
thing, he suffered imprisonment and had to pay damages”
great to recover from some illnesses”
b. Denbora batez, balearen mihia, hura izanki omen haragi hoberena,
that time-inst
whale’s tongue that being
Baionako apezpikuari
Evid meat
best
oparitzen zen ardurenik…
Bayonne-gen bishop-dat offered
aux often
“At that time, the whale’s tongue being reportedly the best piece of meat,
it was often offered to the bishop of Bayonne”
There is however an important difference between central and eastern varieties:
the former cases can be trivially accounted for in terms of the elision of an
auxiliary. The latter cannot. Whatever the nature of the evidential in eastern
varieties, it cannot be part of the extended projection of the auxiliary; whereas that
seems to be the case for the central evidential.
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
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“Reportedly, there is paper and other stuff”
2.2. The clitic status of the auxiliary
(Ortiz de Urbina, 1994, among many others):
(18)
a. *Dator
b. Badator
comes
already comes
2.3. Compatibility with other evidential strategies
d. Ez dator
neg comes
e. Norbait dator
(21)
a. Medikuek diotenez,
golpean zendu omen ditaike Mayi
Doctors-erg say-according-to suddenly died evid aux-epistemic Mayi
someone comes
The hearsay evidential omen cannot save the auxiliary in initial position in central
“According to what the doctors say, Mayi would have died [serait
dialects (19a) eta (19b-e):
décedé] in a sudden fashion”
(19)
b. ...erran dutenaren arabera, ba omen litazke
a. *Omen du zakur bat
Evid
said
has dog one
aux-gen according yes evid aux-epistemic 200 at least
“Reportedly, he/she has a dog”
desagertuak
b. Ez omen du zakurrik
disappeared
“According to what they say, there would be [il y aurait] 200 lost people”
neg evid aux dog-part
d. Xerto baten laguntza beharrezkoa ez omen litake
“He/she does not have a dog”
vaccine one-gen help necessary neg evid aux-epistemic
d. Ba omen du zakur bat
Yes evid has dog one
ezin aurkitua luze gabe
“He/she does have a dog”
non foundable long less
e. Zakur bat omen du
“The necessary vaccine would not be impossible in a short time,
reportedly”
dog one evid has
Those constructions (that do not exist in central varieties) have their origin in the
“He/she has a dog”
In at least some varieties of eastern basque, the evidential omen can satisfy the
so-called epistemic conditionals of French:
clitic status of the auxiliary:
(22)
(20)
200 bat bederen
a. Behin gizon batek omen zuen bele bat ttipitik
etxean
hazia
Le premier ministre serait souffrant
Forms such as (22) (see Ducrot, 1984; Korzen and Nölke, 1990; Dendale, 2003)
Once man one-erg evid had raven one child-from home-loc raised
combine two perspectives: the one of the speaker, who says that “the prime
“Once, a man had reportedly a raven raised in his house from the time he
minister is ill”, and another one which has its origin in someone else’s saying, and
was a child”
which assigns its evidential meaning to those forms. Similarly in Spanish:
b. Omen da paper, eta bertzerik
(23)
Evid is paper and other stuff
Según un rumor, el monarca habría sufrido un infarto
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
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This construction is relatively common in Romance (see Squartini, 2004, for
“And everyone was enchanted with that place”
Italian), and it is paralleled by special modal auxiliaries in other languages
c. Eüskaldüna zen lehenago omen popülü ez ikasia
(German sollen, Schenner, 2008). The thing is that, if we look at some cases in the
Basque-people was earlier evid folk uneducated
“The basque people were reportedly an uneducated folk earlier”
corpora, the evidential strategy in Basque, even when it reflects hearsay evidence,
does not necessarily require omen:
It is not clear in principle how to deal with those cases. If we consider them as an
(24)
Ez da oraino jakina nork erosiko duen
extension of the previous ones, then we would say that the evidential has been
neg is still known who buy-fut aux-Comp
merged above the auxiliary, but that some displacement strategy involving it has
(Donapaleuko herria erosletarik litaike)
left the evidential in a position after the auxiliary. I will first explore this
StPalais-gen village buyers-part aux-epistemic
possibility, since eastern dialects have a very prominent strategy of that sort in
“We don’t know yet who will buy it (the village of StPalais would be
focal constructions. In those varieties, the focal operator can trigger the
among the buyers) [serait parmi ceux qui voudraient l’acheter]
displacement of the auxiliary to a peripheral position next to the focus (see
How should we express this combination in formal terms? On the one hand, both
Etxepare and Ortiz de Urbina, 2003). The classical analysis of that phenomenon
items (the modal evidential and the evidential particle) are independent of each
involves the displacement of the auxiliary to either Comp or a dedicated focal
other. On the other hand, the two elements, the evidential and the epistemic modal
head (Duguine and Irurtzun, 2008):
are not separable by anything else. A simple way to accommodate those two facts
(27)
a. Jonek egin du
is to propose a sequence of functional heads à la Cinque (1999), for those
Jon-erg done aux
varieties:
“Jon did it”
(25)
...[EvP Omen Evid0 [EpistModP Mood0…]]
b. Jonek du egin
Jon-erg aux done
“It is JON who did it”
c. ...[FocP Jonek du+F0 [IP ...(Jonek) egin (du)]]
This is not possible in central dialects.
In this analysis, the evidential merges in a position above the inflected verb, and
2.4. Omen after the inflected verb
the displacement of the auxiliary to a focus position leaves the evidential in situ. A
A subset of the eastern speakers consulted also allow omen to come after AUX:
superficial representation of the resulting structure would be (28):
(26)
(28)
a. Langonen zen omen bizi Hipokrataren alaba bakarra…
Langon-loc aux Evid live Hipocrates’ daughter single
a. Langonen da omen bizi
b. [FocP Langonen da+F [EvidP omen [IP ...(Langonen) bizi (da)]]
“It was in Langon that used to live Hipocrates’ single daughter”
If the evidential is in a position above the auxiliary and the auxiliary has raised to
b. Eta denak loriatuak zauden omen leku goxo hartaz
adjoin to a focus head, we may inmediately ask questions about the syntactic
And all
enchanted were evid
place beautiful that-instr
status of the evidential: if it is a head, then it should block such movement, if
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
anything like the Head Movement Constraint exists (and it is doubtful that it does).
be forced to conclude that there is a merging position for the evidential below the
Under this analysis, the impossible configuration would be the following:
auxiliary in eastern varieties.
(29)
0
...[FocP XP[FocP’ Lag+F [EvdP omen [IP ...(XP)...(Lag)...]]
\________ *____________/
Since the sentence is grammatical in eastern varieties, we conclude that the
2.5. Parenthetical omen
All eastern varieties share the parenthetical use of omen:
(32)
a. Erdi aroan, omen, Nafarroa osoa hona etortzen zen debozioz
Middle Age-loc, reportedly, Navarre whole here come aux devotion-ins
evidential omen is not a head, but a complex entity.
To exclude another possible analysis: another possible derivation would take the
“During the middle ages, all of Navarre used to come here, by devotion”
auxiliary to adjoin first to the evidential head, and then raise to the focal head.
b. Organo barrokoa ikustekoa da, omen
organ
What raises in that case is the complex head aux+omen. That that cannot be the
barroque seeing
is, evid
“The barroque organ is, reportedly, worth seeing”
case is shown by examples like (11b), repeated here as (30), where the auxiliary
and the evidential are separated by a temporal adverb.
The corpus I employed does not have a single case of that sort in the central
(30)
Eüskaldüna zen lehenago omen popülü ez ikasia
varieties.
Basque
2.6. Omen with CPs
was
before
evid
folk
uneducated
“The basque people was before an uneducated folk”
Even if the head movement account resolves the syntactic puzzle concerning the
Eastern varieties also show the evidential preceding full clauses:
(33)
a. Omen gizon zuhur horrek zuela gero gobernuaren mandua
position of the evidential after the inflected auxiliary, there are other cases that this
Evid man cautious that-erg had-Comp then government-gen power
hypothesis does not properly address. Omen, in eastern varietes, can also show up
hartu
after the lexical verb, that does not undergo any raising of the focal sort.
take
(31)
Joanes XXIII garrenak hori bezalako hitzak erran eta manatu txi omen
“They say that later on that cautious man took the government’s lead”
John 23rd
b. Jazdanik,
that like
words said and ordered aux evid
“Pope John 23rd said and ordered (to say) such words, reportedly”
omen aurpegiz eta gorputzez aldatu
last year-from evid
Omen, in this case, is added without an intonational break. We have reasons to
dela
face-instr and body-instr changed aux-Comp
“They say that since last year, his/her face and body changed”
think that the position of omen in those cases and in the previous ones is the same.
Omen is not necessary to convey someone else’s saying. The structure with which
If that is the case, then the analysis suggested, and involving the merger of the
it merges is a quotative one (see Güldemann, 2001; Etxepare, in press) (example
evidential in a pre-auxiliary position plus head movement is not correct. We will
from Sallaberry, 1978:67):
(34)
Goiz batez mahastiko landan ginen lanean.
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Morning one vinyard-gen field-loc we-were working
(35)
a. Irisarriko
jendarma jin
da. Gerla dela.
Irisarri-gen policeman come is. War is-Comp
Hil-zeinuak hasten dira ortzia bezala burrunban.
Death tolls start-prog aux thunder like sounding
“The policeman from Irisarri has come. He says that there is war”
Eta ari, eta ari.
b. Irisarriko
jendarma jin
da. Omen gerla dela.
Irisarri-gen policeman come has evid war
And on and on
is-Comp
“The policeman from Irisarri has come. They say that there is war”
Landa batetik bertzerat oihuka hasi ziren gizonak:
Field one-from other-all yelling start aux men-erg
2.7. Synthesis
“norbait hil dea?
If we compare eastern omen with central omen, we find the following differences
–Ez dugu aditu.
Someone dead is-ptc Neg aux heard
(in a corpus based survey): (i) central omen does not obligatorily accompany the
Gerla ditake”
inflected auxiliary or verb; (ii) it can occur in several places in the clause structure;
War must-be
(iii) saves the auxiliary from clitic position; (iv) it is compatible with other
Eta tenore
baten buruan:
evidential strategies; and (v) it is optionally a parenthetical. Compared to eastern
And moment one-gen head-loc
omen, central omen shows the opposite properties in virtually all respects: (i) it is
“Gerla dela.
associated to the inflected auxiliary; (ii) it has a fixed position vis-à-vis the
War
grammatical formatives of the clause; (iii) it does not save the auxiliary from
it-is-Comp
Irisarriko jendarmak hor direla,
initial position; (iv) it is not compatible with other evidential strategies, and (v),
Irisarri-gen pólice-pl there are-Comp
cannot occur as a parenthetical. I think that together, those properties give us the
berriaren jakinarazteko etorriak”
picture of a syntactic head.
news-of communicate come-pl
(36)
“One morning we are working in the vinyards. Suddenly, the bells start
Infl-dep
Fixed p.
CL
+Evid
CP
Parenth
tolling a death toll. Anf they go on and on. The men start yelling at each
Central
+
+
---
---
---
---
other from one field to the other. “Is anyone dead? –We did not hear
Eastern
---
---
+
+
+
+
about it” Ans after a moment: (lit.) That it is war. That the policemen
from irisarri have come to tell us the news”.
The presence of omen preceding the CP contributes the reading that the saying is
performed by an unidentified someone:
This table provides a clear separation between central and eastern varieties.
2.8. Speaker variation in the eastern area
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“Reportedly, he/she must be ill”
Eastern speakers consulted on corpus examples seem to divide in two groups: (i)
those who seem to accept all the sequences represented in (36), and those who
Finally, whatever functional projection omen is merged with, it is internal to the
only accept a subset of the cases attested in the corpus. The two groups can be
CP, to judge from the impossibility of CP-related omen in those varieties. Eastern
represented by the following two tables:
2 is I think a good candidate for the Evidential Projection proposed by Cinque
(37)
(1999) in his comparative work:
Infl-dep
Fixed p.
CL
Eastern1
---
---
+
Eastern2
---
+
---
+Evid
(38)
[EvidP Omen Ev0 [EpistMP Mood0 […]]
CP
Parenth
+
+
+
For the absence of rescuing effects on the clitic auxiliary, see Elordieta (1997,
+
---
+
2008).
4. Central dialects: omen as an epistemic modal head
The two groups seem to be geographically well defined: Eastern2 seems to gather
Central omen shares some properties with Eastern 2: fixed position in the clause
speakers on the labourdin dialect. Eastern2 is rather composed by speakers of the
structure, no rescuing effect for the auxiliary, not being related to CP. On the other
bas-navarrais and souletin dialects. Diachronically Eastern 1 develops later than
hand, central omen is incompatible with any other evidential strategy at the modal
Eastern 2.
level, and more generally, with epistemic modality. The central equivalent of
PART II: ACCOUNTING FOR THE DIFFERENCES
(10d) above is ungrammatical:
3. Eastern 2: Omen as Spec of Evidential Head
(39)
*Gaiso egon behar omen du
ill
Eastern 2 presents at the same time properties that we would attribute to a head
be
(epistemic)
must evid aux
“Reportedly, he/she must be ill”
(fixed position in the clause structure, as in central dialects), and those of a
maximal projection, such as its parenthetical use. The two properties can be
How should we formalize the differences between eastern and central dialects?
straightforwardly combined if omen is in those varieties a Specifier associated to a
We find the following differences between the two dialects:
given functional head. This functional head on the other hand does not belong in
(40)
a. Omen is necessarily associated to the inflected verb in central varieties
the extended projection of the auxiliary (it is not dependent on the presence of
b. It is incompatible with epistemic modality
Infl), and is compatible with other evidential strategies that occur at the modal
c. It is incompatible with modal evidential strategies
level. In those varieties, the hearsay evidential is compatible with epistemic
The inflected verb in Basque includes affixes for modality (including epistemic
modality in general, as seen in (10d), repeated below:
modality). The incompatibility of omen and modality in central basque would
(10)
show that epistemic modal inflection and omen are in complementary distribution:
d. Eri izan behar omen du
ill be
must evid aux
(epistemic, eastern dialects)
(41)
[MoodP Omen/Mood [InflP …]]
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This places central omen in the domain of epistemic modality (see Ehrich, 2001;
“It is in Langon that reportedly, used to live Hipocrate’s single daughter”
Garrett, 2000; Izvorski, 1997; Kratzer, 1991; Palmer, 2001). Epistemic modality
c. Joanes XXIII garrenak hori bezalako hitzak erran eta manatu txi omen
John 23rd
is incompatible with the speaker’s certainty about p’s truth:
(42)
a. #It may/must be raining, but it is not raining
b. #Jonek
etxean
Jont-erg home-loc must aux by-now, but neg is home-loc
“Jon must be home by now, #but he is not home”
words said and ordered aux evid
“Pope John 23rd said and reportedly ordered to say those words”
(Faller, 2002:191)
behar du honez gero, baina ez dago etxean
that like
Those uses of the evidential are not parenthetical, as we said. Omen does not have
an independent intonational contour. Things being this way, we may be tempted to
conclude that the use of omen has no particular restriction, and that it can spread
Central Basque:
all along the clause in whatever position we want. The postauxiliary and
(43)
a. Euria ari omen du, #baina ez du ari
postverbal position of omen however, has an intriguing restriction: it only happens
b. Ez omen du euria ari, #baina ari du
with positive clauses. In those varieties that allow the free positioning of omen,
Central omen being an epistemic head, we don’t expect it to have parenthetical
omen has a fixed position when the sentence is negative:
uses. For further discussion of the epistemic status of omen in central varieties see
(45)
a. Ez omen zuen erosi
(Pol omen aux)
neg evid aux buy
Etxepare (in press b).
5. Eastern 1: an independent nominal
“Reportedly, she/he did not buy it”
5.1. Postverbal Omen
b. *Ez zuen omen erosi
(*Pol aux omen V)
5.1.1. Omen and polarity
d. *Ez zuen erosi omen
(*Pol aux V omen)
Some of the positions occupied by omen in Eastern 1 have a relatively clear
The position of the evidential therefore is somehow related to the expression of
analysis as a specifier or head of an evidential marking projection. But we have to
polarity. How do we account for this?
address the postverbal positions that omen can occupy: before the lexical verb and
5.1.2. The place of negation
The placement of negation in Basque shows some unexpected properties.
the auxiliary (44a), in between the auxiliary and the lexical verb (44b), and after
the lexical verb (44c):
Unlike what we would expect from a head final language, the auxiliary occurs in
(44)
the left in negative clauses:
a. Protestanteen komentu batean omen eskolarazi zuen
Protestant
convent one-loc evid scholarize aux
“Reportedly, he scholarized him in a protestant convent”
b. Langonen zen omen bizi Hipokrataren alaba bakarra
Langon-loc aux evid live Hipocrate’s daughter single
(46)
a. Etorri da
b. Ez da etorri
come is
Neg is come
“He/she came”
“He/she did not come”
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
In Laka’s classical analysis, the auxiliary starts up to the right of the verb phrase
In this case, ellipsis applies after the auxiliary has raised to neg
and is displaced to a negation head in the syntax: This movement was at the time
(51)
semantically motivated (1990):
There is nothing that can prevent (51), but (51) is impossible. Haddican (2001,
(47)
At LF, the temporal head must c-command all other operators of the
2004, 2008) has detected other problems in the position of the auxiliary, some of
clause
them related to the scope of the evidential. Omen as we saw, is located between
Mikel [SigP ez+da [INFL pro (da) etorri]]
The condition in (47) triggers the displacement of the auxiliary (da, above) to
negation and the auxiliary in negative sentences:
negation (invariably ez, in Basque):
(52)
(48)
SigP
/
Ez omen da etorri
neg evid is come
\
Ez+da
“Reportedly, he/she did not come”
TP
/
In a non-antisymmetrical, traditional analysis, Elordieta (2001) proposes the
\
following:
VP
/…etorri…\
T
(52)
InflP
(da)
/
Laka provides some arguments in favour of the IP-external position of negation.
/
a. Xabier etorri da, baina Mikel ez
Xabier come is, but
Infl0
MoodP
One of the clearest cases is IP-ellipsis:
(49)
\
/
“Xabier came, but Mikel didn’t”
DS
‫׀‬
0
VP
Mikel neg
\
(Mod ) [Mod+Aux]
\
V0
b. [DenbS Xabier etorri da], baina Mikel [EzeztS ez [DenbS pro etorri da]
In Elordieta’s analysis, the modal heads and the evidential are merged as a head
In (49), the whole IP disappears by parallelism with the previous IP. Since
final term, in between the VP and the Inflected auxiliary. Those particles undergo
negation is not among the things that disappear, it must be outside the IP. The fact
head raising, and adjoin to the auxiliary. When the auxiliary raises to neg, it
is clear, but it also brings a problem for the analysis of ellipsis, when it is coupled
carries the evidential with it. This provides the right order:
with Laka’s analysis of the position of the auxiliary. Why, if the auxiliary raises to
(53)
Ez omen da etorri
neg, is the following impossible?
neg evid is come
(50)
“Reportedly, he/she did not come”
*Xabier etorri da, baina Mikel ez da
Xabier
come is, but Mikel neg is
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
b. [ Mikel TopO [PolP ez Pol0 [IP da [PolP2 ez Pol0 [VP… etorri]]]]
This analysis does not capture the scope properties of neg and the evidential. The
evidential always takes high scope with regard to negation. This suggests that the
5.1.3. The base position of postverbal omen
merge position of the evidential is higher than that of negation, according to
Let us now come to the eastern varieties. Omen can show up after the auxiliary
Haddican. This would give us the right scope relations (54a), but the wrong order
and the lexical verb, but only when the sentence is positive. In negative ones, it
(54b):
has a fixed place: the same that central dialects show, in between negation and the
(54)
a. [EvP omen [PolP ez [InflP Aux...
auxiliary. That the issue is related to polarity is shown by the fact that the presence
b. *Omen ez da etorri
of the affirmative particle ba- triggers the same effect:
Haddican proposes the following alternative hypothesis: the position of negation
(57)
in Basque is below the auxiliary, in a position inmediately external to the VP. The
a. Ba omen dira ikasle ainitz bertan
Yes evid are student many there
auxiliary is itself to the left. The negative head ez is merged in the periphery of the
“There are many students there”
VP, but raises to a higher Polarity Phrase in the Higher Left Periphery, as in other
b. Badira (*omen) ikasle ainitz (*omen)
cases of split negation (see Zubizarreta, 1997). Negation however, is interpreted in
yes-are evid
student many evid
its merge position, below the evidential. I will adopt Haddican’s suggestion that
A straightforward way to analyse those paradigms is to consider that the evidential
negation is merged below the auxiliary (see also Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria, in
and the polarity particles occupy the same position in the sentence. In other words,
press). The negative head is merged in a lower Polarity Phrase and raises overtly
that one of the realizations of the lower polarity phrase involves the presence of
to a higher one, placing negation above the evidential (55a). In positive clauses,
omen. If that is the case, omen and polarity particles are in complementary
the lower Polarity Phrase is headed by an empty positive head, and it is the whole
distribution, and they cannot occur together. The position of postverbal and post-
PolP that raises to the higher one (55b)
auxiliary omen is thus the following:
(55)
0
0
a. [PolP ez Pol [EvP omen [IP da [PolP2 ez Ezez [VP… etorri]]]]
(58)
b. [PolP [PositiveP Ø [VP …etorri]] Pol0 [EvP omen [InflP da [PolP Ø Baiez0 [VP…
etorri]]]]
in Basque. The auxiliary remains inside the IP, while negation raises to the higher
Polarity Phrase:
(56)
a. Protestanteen komentu batean omen eskolarazi zuen
[ omen Verb Aux]
b. Langonen zen omen bizi Hipokrataren alaba bakarra
[ Focus Aux omen V...]
a. …baina Mikel ez [InfP_]
but
Let us see how the hypothesis fares with the noted cases:
(59)
The derivation in (55a) explains why ellipsis cases of the (50) sort are impossible
…[IP Aux [PolP2 Omen Pol0 [VP… V]]]]
Mikel neg
c. Joanes XXIII garrenak hori bezalako hitzak erran eta manatu txi omen
[Verb Aux... omen]
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
(59a) is inmediately explained by the movement of the (Positive) Polarity Phrase
b. …[EvidP Omen Ev0 [EpistMP Mood0 […]]
proposed by Haddican. Omen is the specifier of that projection:
c. …[TopP Omen Top0 [CP[InflP etorri da]-ela]]
(60)
...[PolP [PolP2 omen Pol0 [VP eskolarazi]]i Pol0 [IP zuen ti ]]]
I propose the following generalization for omen in eastern 2:
In the second case (59b), omen is in-situ, in the specifier of the Polarity
(67)
projection, and the auxiliary has undergone raising to a focus head:
(61)
[FocP Langonen zen+Foc [IP (zen) [PolP omen Pol [PartS bizi Ø [VP
Place omen in the domain of any functional head encoding a
propositional operator
This includes polarity (yes/no), quotative constructions and evidential heads. This
...Hipokrataren alaba bakarra...(Langonen) (bizi)]
also raises an issue regarding epistemic modals that I leave aside.
(61) has, when compared with the previous case, an extra projection: an aspectual
5.5. The hearsay evidential as an independent noun
head, well established for Basque, to which the lexical verb raises. The subject is
Why should Eastern 2 differ from Eastern 1 in this way? What is it that restricts
in-situ, that accounts for its postverbal position.
the occurrence of omen to EvidP in Eastern 1 but not in Eastern 2? I will briefly
The last case also has omen in-situ, and it is the complement of the Polarity Phrase
introduce a suggestion elaborated in Etxepare (in press b). Omen, in those eastern
which raises to the higher PolP:
dialects that show the “free” distribution of the evidential, is also an independent
(62)
0
0
[PolP [VP manatu] Pol [InfS txi [PolP omen Pol (manatu)]]]]
5.1.4. The syntactic place of postverbal omen
noun meaning “rumor”. This is an illustrative case:
(68)
0
(63)…[InfS Aux [PolP2 omen/neg/aff Pol [VP ...]]]
engoitik/ ixtripu horren omena
heard you-have by-now accident that-gen rumor-D
“You heard already the rumor of that accident”
5.2. Omen and CP
For CP-related omen, I will propose that omen sits in a topic head above CP:
(64)
Entzun duzue
[TopP Omen Top0 [CP[InflP etorri da]-ela]]
I suggest that the free distribution of omen across the clause structure is an
evidential strategy, in the sense of Aikhenvald (2004). That is, a strategy that uses
5.3. Preverbal omen
a noun meaning “rumor” to adverbially modify portions of the clause structure
We must distinguish preverbal from postverbal omen. The latter, unlike, the
encoding propositional operators. In this sense, they are not very far from NP-
foirmer, is incompatible with negation and affirmation particles. For preverbal
adverbs modifying times and events (Larson, 1985; MacCawley, 1988; Haegeman,
omen in Eastern 1 I adopt the same analysis as for Eastern 2:
2003):
(65)
0
0
[EvidP Omen Ev [EpistMP Mood […]]
a. We met [NP last Tuesday]
b. I told him that [QP several times]
5.4. Synthesis and a generalization
Here’s the set of syntactic configurations where omen is possible in eastern 2:
(66)
(69)
0
a. …[IP Aux [PolP2 Omen Pol [VP… V]]]]
d. [DP That time], it was awful.
6. Conclusions of the paper
Workshop on Clause Types 2009
Fédération TUL, Paris 13-14 November
There are three hearsay evidential systems involving omen in the basque dialectal
Chomsky, N. (2000) “Minimalist inquiries” In R. Martin; D. Michaels and J.
continuum:
Uriagereka (eds) Step by step. Essays in Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard
(70)
a. A modal one, in which omen constitutes an epistemic modal head
Lasnik. Massachusetts, CA: MIT Press.
b. A specific one, where omen constitutes the specifier of an Evidential
Cinque, G. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads. A Crosslinguistic Perspective.
Head
Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
c. An evidential strategy, where a noun meaning “rumor” homophonous
Dendale, P. and Tasmowski, L. 2001. Introduction: Evidentiality and related
with the evidential particle, can merge with any constituent denoting a
notions. Journal of Pragmatics 33:339-48.
propositional operator.
Dendale, P. eta D. Collier. 2003. « Point de vue et évidentialité » Cahiers de
The Basque dialectal data support a view where the function of hearsay
Praxématique 41 :105-130.
evidentiality is performed either via a designated independent position or via a
De Haan, F. 1999. Evidentiality and epistemic modality: Setting Boundaries.
synchretic modal category combining properties of epistemic modals and
Southwest Journal of Linguistics 18:83-102.
evidentials. Hearsay evidentiality can also be expressed via an independent noun
Ducrot, O. (1984) Le dire et le dit. Paris: Les editions de Minuit.
that merges with those functional projections in the clause structure that can be
Duguine, M. eta A. Irurtzun (2008) «Ohar batzuk nafar-lapurterazko galdera eta
taken to encode propositional operators. The latter can be considered an evidential
galdegai indartuez » In X. Artiagoitia eta J. A. Lakarra (arg) Gramatika Jaietan.
strategy, in Aikhenvald’s sense.
Patxi Goenagaren Omenez. Julio Urkixo Euskal Filologi Mintegiaren Urtekariaren
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