LAGB Annual Meeting 2005
University of Cambridge, 3.9.05
Ethnic Adjectives as pseudo-adjectives: a case study in syntax-morphology
interaction and the structure of DP
Artemis Alexiadou and Melita Stavrou
University of Stuttgart & University of Thessaloniki
[email protected], [email protected]
1. Introduction
1.1 The problem
Ethnic adjectives (EAs) are a subclass of the category of so-called pseudo-adjectives,
which in turn are a subclass of denominal adjectives, first studied in detail by Bartning
1976/80; Levi 1978.
(1)
(2)
a. the Italian invasion (to Albania)
b. the Persian application for membership (example from Postal 1969: 219)
c. i Italiki isvoli (stin Alvania)
Greek
the Italian invasion (to Albania)
a. Gruzki otgovor
Greek answer
b. Italiansko napadenie
Bulgarian
Italian attack
►
Nouns, but: islands to bound anaphora, unlike ordinary NPs.
Adjectives in their form and distribution, but: lack basic properties of
attributive adjectives, primarily occurrence after the copula.
EAs modify event (event in Grimshaw’s 1990 terms) nouns. Homophonous adjectives
that modify common nouns are not ‘ethnic’ in the intended sense but descriptive
adjectives which are property denoting (provenance, origin etc.)
(3)
a.
b.
Her Italian bag cost her a fortune
Their house is full of Persian carpets
Table 1: (adapted from Bartning 1980: 21)
NON-PREDIC
presidential
governmental
electric
popular
French1
Greek1
DENOMINAL ADJECTIVES
PSEUDO-ADJECTIVES
PREDIC
industrial
miserable
mensual
miraculous
French2
Greek2
1.2 Aim of the present study
To account for the nature of EAs as a hybrid category between noun and adjective.
Proposal:
The ‘surface’ position of EAs in the DP is linked to their morphological
formation/derivation by highlighting the ‘opacity’ of EAs with respect to (intra)sentential
anaphoric relationships.
•We argue that these adjectives have a nominal source, which is visible at the level of
interpretation and this explains some of their properties. The derivational history of EAs
and their guise as adjectives accounts for the lack of anaphoric properties that
characterizes them.
• Homophonous descriptive adjectives on the other hand, being completely opaque to
semantic-syntactic processes, are 'deep' adjectives.
2. EAs are not predicative adjectives
ÂThey cannot appear in predicative position, they cannot be co-ordinated with
predicative adjectives, they cannot be modified, and in Greek they cannot appear in the
determiner spreading construction:
(4)
(a) * i epemvasi stin Kipro itan amerikaniki
the intervention in Cyprus was American
(b) * i [{amesi, grigori, pithani}] ke amerikaniki anamixi
the immediate/quick/possible and American intervention
(c) *i [{poli, pio}] amerikaniki epemvasi
the very/more American intervention
(d) ? i amerikaniki i epemvasi
the American the intervention
(e) *i grigori/amesi ke amerikaniki epemvasi
the quick/immediate and American intervention
EAs thus differ from predicative gradable adjectives.
(5)
(a) to vivlio itan endiaferon
the book was interesting
(b) ena {[poli, pio}] endiaferon vivlio
a much/more interesting book
(c) to endiaferon to vivlio (to endiaferon)
the interesting the book
(d) i politelis ke endiaferusa ekdosi
the illustrated and interesting edition
2
Homophonous descriptive As differ from EAs:
(6)
(a)
to palto tu
ine egleziko
the overcoat-his is English
(b) to palto tu to egleziko /
to egleziko to palto tu
the overcoat-his the english / the english the overcoat-his
(c) ?to oreo, zesto, malino ke
egleziko palto tu
the nice warm woolen and
English overcoat his
3. The ‘thematic’ nature of EAs
EAs modify deverbal active nouns (Bosque & Picallo 1994, Alexiadou 2001). In
particular they bear the role of the external argument of the noun:
(7)
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
i germaniki [{epivuli, kritiki}]
the German /plot/criticism
the American threat
the European reaction
the German retreat
3.1 The modified noun is an ‘event ’ noun but not of the ‘complex event’ type
As has been shown in the literature (Grimshaw 1990 and subsequent work), complex
event nominals license aspectual PPs and manner adverbs like the verbs they are related
to. The (aspectual) adverbials are licensed only in the presence of the internal argument,
suggesting that the derived noun involved is of the complex event type:
(8)
(a)
(b)
(9)
(c)
*i afixi/ i katastrofi se mia ora
the arrival /the destruction in an hour
i [{afixi ton Amerikanon , i katastrofi ton isvoleon }] se mia ora
the arrival the Americans-gen/the destruction the attackers-gen in an hour
i katastrofi ton egrafon [{prosektika, me prosohi}]
the destruction the documents-gen [{carefully, with care}]
EAs do not co-occur with such adverbials:
(10)
*i amerikaniki
the American
(11)
*i (varvari) amerikaniki epithesi sto Irak mesa se mia nihta (complex event)
the brute american attack to-the Iraq in one night
(12)
{apohorisi, afixi} se mia ora
{departure, arrival} in an hour
*Italian invading in Albania
Picallo (1991), Bosque and Picallo (1996), Alexiadou (2001) claim that all adjectives that
absorb a theta role (including EAs) are only licensed by result nominals .
3
Conclusion: EAs modify nominals of the simple-event/result type.
3.2 The agent-like interpretation of EAs
Core fact: EAs appear to be assigned uniformly an external th-role.
(13)
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
the application for membership by the Persians (from Postal 1969)
the Persians’ application for membership
the Persian application for membership
*the Persian application for membership by Iran
*Persia’s Persian application for membership
(14)
(a) i turkiki isvoli stin Kipro
the Turkish invasion in Cyprus
(b) i isvoli ton Turkon stin Kipro
the invasion the Turks-gen of Cyprus
(c) i eliniki apantisi stis proklisis
the Greek reply to the provocation
(d) i apantisi ton elinon stis proklisis
the reply the Greeks-gen to the provocation
(e) i apantisi stis proklisis apo tus Elines
the reply to the provocation by the Greeks
Postal (1969): the distributional and interpretational parallelism between EAs and agents
(subjects) is manifested by:
(15)
(a)
(b)
(c)
(16)
the existence of exactly parallel selectional restrictions:
*the American meeting with Betty Jones/*America’s meeting with
Betty Jones
the complementary distribution of referential adjectives with genitive
DPs and by-phrases:
*the French invasion of America by Portugal/*France’s French
invasion of America
‘deletion’ of a complement sentence subject when coreferential with a
subject in a higher construction runs in parallel with genitive DPs and
referential adjectives:
America’s attempt to attack Cuba at night
the American attempt to attack Cuba at night
(from Postal, op.cit.).
Kayne (1984): EAs can only encode an unlinked theta-role; adjectival modification is
precluded if the role encoded in the adjectival form is linked to that of an internal
argument (cf. 17):
(17)
*the Austro-Hungarian disappearance from the political scene
4
Evidence from possessive adjectives in other languages (see Appendix):
(18)
(a)
(b)
(19)
(a)
(b)
(20)
(a)
(b)
(c)
(21)
Petino
ispolenenie Šopena
Russian
Petja-PA-N performance Chopin-gen
Petja's performance of Chopin/*Chopin's performance of Petja
Rembrandov(ijat) portret
(agent, *theme)
Bulgarian
Rembrand’s portrait
Peters Behandlung seiner Mutter
Peter's treatment of his mother'
Jans behandling van de arts
Johns' treatment of the doctor
German
*i eliniki kataktisi
the Greek conquest
*i eliniki kataktisi apo tus Germanus
the Greek conquest by the Germans
*i eliniki kataktisi ton Germanon
the Greek conquest the-gen Germans-gen
Greek
Dutch
*prezidentsko paraženie
presidential defeat
Bulgarian
The association of EAs with an ‘external’ role is further transparently seen in Hebrew,
where it is exactly the presence of the EAS that licenses accusative case (from Siloni
1997: 94):
(22)
(a)
(b)
*ha-s’ixzur
‘et
the-reconsrtuction ACC
ha-s’ixzur
ha-sini
the-reconsrtuction the Chinese
ha-xoma
the wall
‘et
ha-xoma
ACC the wall
G&L (1989) and Kayne (1984) connect the ‘deficit’ of the EAs to receive an internal role
with its inability to bind an anaphor or, more generally, to serve as the antecedent of an
anaphoric expression (data from G&L: 126):
(23)
(a)
(b)
*the Albanian destruction of itself/themselves 1
*le opinioni americane su se stessi/di se
the American opinions about themselves/self
¾How can we account for the typical agentive reading of EAs?
● Answer: It emerges from a combination (of aspects) of DP structure, the lexical
1
But see Baker 2003 who accounts for the ungrammaticality in terms of APs being incapable of carrying
an index—see also below.
5
properties of the head (: the modified) noun and the thematic hierarchy in (24):
(24)
POSS<AG<THEME
(25)
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
Petino
ispolenenie Šopena
Petja-PA?-N performance Chopin-gen
The German occupation of Greece
l' invasio iraquiana de Kuwait (Picallo 1991)
Gebauerova znalost staré češtiny
Gebauer’s knowledge of-Old Czech
Ivanovata interpretacija na teksta
Ivan’s interpretation of the text
*prezidentsko paraženie
presidential defeat
Russian
Czech
Bulgarian
In the presence of a postnominal genitive the adjective (ethnic or possessive) is
interpreted automatically as agent according to (24), cf. (25a-b). If it appears without
another DP, two cases arise: (a) next to a common (: non deverbal) noun it gets the
possessor meaning according to (24) (but with a ‘picture’ noun the agentive); (b) next to a
deverbal noun it can only get the agentive reading according to (24).
4. On the anaphoric properties of EAs
The nominal underlying EA is not accessible to rules of outbound anaphora. Postal
(1969), Levi (1978) and Bartning (1976).
•Lexical items (: words) are anaphoric islands.
(26)
*the American proposal to the UN reveals its/her rigid position (ex.from Postal 1969)
Baker (2003) discusses similar cases and accounts for this ungrammaticality by proposing
that adjectives lack a referential index—in contrast with the category ‘noun’.
(27)
(a) America’s proposal to the UN reveals its/her rigid position
(b) Albania’s destruction (of itself) grieved the expatriot community
EAs cannot bind an anaphor (cf. (23)):
(28)
(29)
the Albanian destruction (*of itself) grieved the expatriot community
(a) *i germaniki katastrofi tu eaftu tus
the German destruction the self (gen)-their (cl. gen)
(b) ??i amerikaniki epemvasi sto Kosovo tus exethese
diethnos
the American interference to Kosovo them exposed
internationally
(c) *i elinikii adinamia
na
paradexomastei ta lathi mas
the Greek weakness SUBJ. admit-1PL
the faults our--1cl. gen
6
EAs may provide the antecedent of a personal pronouns (but judgements vary
considerably crosslinguistically):
(30)
(31)
(32)
(a) I epemvasi ton amerikanoni sto Kosovo
tusi eksethese diethnos. (Cf. (27a))
the interference of the Americans to Kosovo them exposed globally
(b) i katohi tis
Elladas
apo tus Germanus
the occupation of the Greece by the Germans
*Distihos tora
den boruni
na stamatisun
unfortunately now not can-3SPL (: the Americans) to stop
tin amerikanikii epemvasi
the American intervention
Unfortunately, now they cannot stop the American involvement
*i amerikaniki epithesi sti Servia egine gia na epidiksun ti dinami tus
the American attack to Serbia was done in order to show off-3PL their
strength
??The American attack took place for them to show their forces
Neither can they control a relative pronoun:
(33)
*Oli katadikasan tin Amerikaniki epithesi sti Servia, i opii fisika
all condemned the American attack to Serbia, who, of course,
ehun parelthon se tetjes energies
have a long history with such activities
Everybody condemned the American attack to Serbia, who, of course, have a
precedent in such activities
(OK: oli katadikasan tin epithesi ton Amerikanon sti Servia, i
opii fisika........'all condemned the attack of the Americans to Serbia,
who, of course,......')
Summing up
▪EAs lack the basic referential properties (binding abilities) of argumental DPs. For this
reason they must be considered as deficient referring elements, despite the fact that their
nominal ‘base’ refers to (human) entities.
▪EAs are not completely ”atomic”/opaque, as their nominal part is available for
interpretation--albeit not for rules of anaphora. It is interpreted as the agent of the action
denoted by the modified noun.
7
5. Towards an analysis of EAs
Properties to be accounted for:
(a) the nominal nature of these adjectives in conjunction with their agent-like
interpretation,
(b) the defective anaphoric/argumental character of EAS,
(c) their position in the general nominal structure, and
(d) the fact that in Greek they don’t co-occur with an internal DP object.
•
DP structure (for non eventive nominals)
Event/action nouns modified by an EA are not of the complex event type, since they do
not share the characteristic properties of this nominal group. This suggests that these must
have a structure of the type in (34), as has been argued for by a number of researchers
(Alexiadou 2001, a.o.).
(34)
DP
3
D°
the
FP (NumbP/AgrP)
3
FP
3
F°
nP
3
NP
n'
3
n
√
°Following Marantz (1997, 2001), we assume that
¾ Words can be built either in the domain of a root, by attaching a morpheme to
the root before attaching the functional head that determines the syntactic
category of the word (N, V, Adj).
¾Or outside the domain of functional head that determines syntactic category –
the little v’s, n’s, and a’s.
(35)
root-cycle
3
morpheme
outer-cycle attachment
3
morpheme
functional head
root
8
(36) a.
n
3
a
n
3
ity
v
a
3 abil
√BREAK
v
b.
n
3
√ATROC
n
ity
Finally, following Alexiadou (2005), building on Embick (2003), we take (37) to
represent the internal structure of all adjectives:
(37)
ASP (= a)
3
ASP
√GERMAN
ik
On the basis of this, we propose that (38) is the overall structure containing an EA
adjective: 2
(38)
D
DP
3
FP/AGRP
3
spec
F’
4
3
a(sp)P F
nP
3
a(sp)’
a(sp)0
3
german
a(sp)0
(German)
-ik
NP √EPITH(attack)
german
We take -ik- to be the overt exponent of the category a/ASP which creates an adjective
out of a noun. -ik- selects for a particular set of Ns and the spell-out of this combination is
interpreted as an adjective:
(39) Spell-out a/ASP
ASP
↔
-ik/
{√GERMAN...}
–ik- is merged directly under spec, FP, heading an aP. aPs are standardly taken to
2
Our analysis has been inspired by Borer’s (1991) basic assumptions concerning Parallel Morphology.
9
occupy the spec position of functional categories intermediate between D and N (Cinque
1994, and others). The noun underlying the EA moves (from nP) to the higher specifier
from where it adjoins, as a head, to a, headed by a bound morpheme.
This movement of the noun in spec, NP parallels the movement of clitics which move as
heads and as maximal projections at the same time (Chomsky 1995; Cardinaletti 1998);
alternatively, we could assume that it is the whole NP that moves, but this NP contains
just an N. The agent theta role surfaces as an ‘adjunct’ (see Grimshaw 1990 for the
closely related view that group adjectives are a-adjuncts denoting suppressed arguments),
in particular as an adjective.
‘Transformation’ of the agent noun into an adjective is forced once moved to the
nominal functional domain, from where morpho-syntactic agreement with the noun is
imposed. The role the noun was assigned in its ‘deep’ position is still visible, because it
participates in the chain formed by the moved category and its trace.
However, the new category A now is deprived of typical nominal anaphoric properties
(Baker 2003), as expected.
“The differences between EAs and homophonous descriptive adjectives is accounted for
under the assumption that the formation of the latter takes place prior to insertion in the
syntactic structure. This amounts to saying that EAs and their homophonous counterparts
interact with syntax at different points of the derivation.
(40)
i italiki [{ tsanda, moda, karekla, hersonisos}]
the italian [{bag, mode, chair, peninsula}]
6. EAs and internal arguments
¾A cross-linguistic asymmetry: no internal arguments with EAs in Greek
When EAs in Greek are compared with their English, Romance and Slavic counterparts,
we observe that in Greek, but not in English/Romance, Slav(on)ic (Corbett, op.cit.; also
De Wit & Schoorlemmer 1996; Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2000; Dimitrova-Vulchanova &
Giusti 1999 for Bulgarian), EAs cannot co-occur with a postnominal genitive that stands
for an internal complement of a noun.
(41)
a. *i eliniki kataktisi tis Persias (vs. i kataktisi tis Persias apo tus Elines)
the Greek occupation of Persia (vs. the destruction of Persia by the Greeks)
b. *i germaniki katohi tis Eladas (vs. i katohi tis Eladas apo tus Germanus)
the German occupation of Greece (vs. the occupation of Greece by the
Germans)
(42)
a. l' invasio iraquiana de Kuwait (Picallo 1991)
the Iraq invasion of Kuwait
b. l’ invasione iraquiana de Kuwait
Italian
10
This property of Greek EAs cannot be seen independently of the fact that in general two
(argument) genitives are not licit in Greek (44), while this is possible in e.g. English, and
Slavic:
(42)
Petino
ispolenenie Šopena
Petja-PA-Neut performance Chopin-gen
'Petja's performance of Chopin'
Russian
(see Appendix )
(43)
(a) the barbarian's destruction of the city
(b) Rembradovijat portret na Aristotel
Bulgarian
Rembrandt’s portrait of Aristotle
(c) Ivanovoto unistozavane na documentite (cf. also 21e)
Ivan-gen destruction to documents-the (from Dimitrova-Vulchanova, op.cit.)
(44)
(a) *ton varvaron katastrofi tis polis
the barbarians the destruction the-gen town-gen
Only one (thematic) genitive is licit within the Greek DP (Horrocks & Stavrou 1987).
English permits structures like (43a) because it can license arguments/possessors in
Spec,DP, which functions like an A-position (ibid., Abney 1987, Alexiadou 2001).
On the other hand, Spec,DP is an A'-position in Greek, the language lacking a structural
subject position (Horrocks & Stavrou op.cit.) hence examples like (44) are
ungrammatical.
The issue is linked to differences in the internal structure of DPs in the languages under
discussion.
7. Conclusion-theoretical implications
Our talk explored the advantages of an analysis which accounts for the properties of EAs
in terms of their derivation in syntax. Such an analysis echoes Postal (1969: 223-224):
″…the implications are clear. The transformational part of the grammar, that which
derives Surface Structures from more abstract representations, must have both the power
to form Pseudo-adjectives out of NP and ‘simultaneously’ as it were to mark certain
structures as being anaphoric islands″.
References
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Baker, M. 2003. Lexical categories. Verbs, Nouns, and Adjectives.
Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
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APPENDIX: Possessive Adjectives (PAs )
Possessive Adjectives in Slavic: their morphosyntactic properties and distribution are
very close to those of EAs .
(1)
a. Šekspirovite tvorbi
Shakespeare’s works
b. Penkainijat otgovor
Penka’s answer
Bulgarian
PAs ( as discussed in detail by Corbett (1987) display a nominal behaviour, albeit at
varying degrees in the languages of this family. This nominal behaviour lies mainly in the
availability of the ‘hidden’ noun for syntactic processes (: the PAs act as controllers of
pronouns or anaphors) and in the inherent capability of the PAs to act as agents.
▪ They share with EAs basic properties—nominal origin (in both there is an underlying
noun), the morphological make up (both are formed by means of a productive
morphological/syntactic process) and (to a varying extent) syntactic properties (both are
interpreted as possessors and/or agents found in a complementary distribution with the
latter.
▪ They differ basically in the type of the underlying noun which constitutes the base of
their formation, as well as the featural constitution of the affixes (derivational?
inflectional?) involved in their formation.
Key Question: do PAs have something to tell us about the properties and nature of EAs ?
Corbett (1987): in many Slavonic languages the noun underlying a PA can serve as the
antecedent of a personal pronoun.
Corbett’s (1987: 318) typological generalization:
(2)
(3)
The PA can control attributive modifiers only if it can also control relative
pronouns, and it can control relative pronouns only if it can control personal
pronouns.
(a) Human>Animate>Inanimate
(b) Specific>Non-Specific
EAs, like PAs in Slavic languages, can in general control personal pronouns in the
same sentence or in neighbouring sentences.
13
EAs, when compared with PAs, display a reduced ability to participate in what are
standardly taken to be syntactic/semantic processes.
Corbett (op.cit.) takes the anaphoric abilities of PAs to point to the inflectional, as
opposed to the derivational, nature of the process responsible for their formation.
Analysis:
PAs have an internal structure which, broadly speaking, parallels that of Greek EAs, thus
pointing to a similar derivation. They further display a behaviour that led Corbett to
suggest that they are formed according to inflectional processes.
Noun stem + -ow-/-ov-, -in is an expression for possessor. To this new stem agreement
morphology is added. The –ow/v- suffix can be seen as having function roughly similar
with the suffix –ik- found in Greek EAs (or the suffix –sk- forming EAs in Bulgarian).
Both suffixes can be taken to encode the function of a genitive DP (possessor).
But there are differences too. The fundamental difference between Greek EAs and
PAs in Slavonic lies in the fact that in the latter the underlying noun can refer to a
specific individual (i.e. is a proper human name or a kinship noun), whereas in the former
it only refers to groups of individuals, not to specific persons. Equally crucially, PAs
modify common nouns, whereas EAS deverbal ones. PA in Slavonic are alternative
forms of possessive genitives. A difference also in the category/nature of the suffix: [+N]
in Slavonic, [+A] in Greek.
14