The content of Voice: evidence from corrective contexts
Giorgos Spathas
University of Stuttgart
1 Goals
•
Investigate Voice in intransitive Naturally Reflexive
Verbs (iNRVs) in English and Greek and argue that
A. English and Greek iNRVs are syntactically and
sematicallydistint.
[1]
B. Neither employs Reflexive Voice (or any other
syntactic or semantic reflexivization operation),
C. but rather existentially bound implicit external (Greek)
and internal (English) arguments.
[1,2]
D. Greek employs no Passive but Middle Voice.
3 English naturally reflexive verbs
4 Greek naturally reflexive verbs
•
•
•
In the same context, iNRVs make no felicitous Corrective Claims.
(2)
•
A: John dressed Mary.
B:#?No, he DRESSED.
(5) A: I
Maria entise ton Jani. (6) A: I Maria nti-thike.
the Mary dressed the John
the Mary dressed-NACT
‘Mary dressed John.’
‘Mary dressed.’
B: Oxi, i Maria nti-thike.
B:??Oxi, tin entise o Janis.
no the Mary dressed-NACT
no her dressed the John
‘No, Mary dressed.’
‘No, John dressed her.’
Existing analyses: (2B) undergoes a reflexivization operation so
that its meaning is as in (3).
[e.g.,5]
(3)
•
[[ (2B) ]] = λe. dress(e) & theme(john)(e) & agent(john)(e)
Wrongly predicts (2) to be felicitous: John dressing John is
incompatible with John dressing Mary.
[2]
• (5) shows that English and Greek iNRVs are sematically
distint.
• (5) is predicted if iNRVs are reflexivized.
[6,7]
• But, then, (6) is not: IC would be respected since Mary
dressing Mary is inconsistent with Mary dressing John.
• Alternative: the implicit theme is existentially bound.
(4)
2 Corrective contexts
•
(1)
Corrective Contexts
[3,4]
A: John dressed Mary.
B: No, he dressed HELEN.
•
•
•
Antecedent
Marker of CC
Corrective Claim
John dressed Mary
No
he dressed HELEN
•
Context Update
First, update the context with ¬Antecedent.
Then, update with the content of the Corrective Claim.
•
Felicity condition: Corrective Claim must be
inconsistent with the Antecedent in the context of
interpretation.
•
Incompatibility Condition (IC)
([4], informal)
The context resulting from updating C with a Corrective
Claim must entail the denial of the Antecedent.
•
•
Presupposes that Antecedent and Corrective Claim are
rival descriptions of the same (minimal) topic
situation. In (1), IC is respected since John dressing
Helen is inconsistent with John dressing Mary.
Through the Incompatibility Condition, Corrective
Contexts allow us to determine the patterns of
entailment between sentences with different Voice
construals by observing the felicity of corrective claims.
References
[[ (2B) ]] = λe∃x. dress(e) & theme(x)(e) & agent(john)(e)
• Correctly predicts (2) to be infelicitous: John dressing someone is
not incompatible with John dressing Mary, a violation of IC.
• Alternative: the implicit agent is existentially bound.
(7)
• iNRVs in English are, thus, analyzed as Non-Core Transitives that
license object-drop, as in John ate. The reflexive interpretation of
(2B) is an enrichment of (4) based on the encyclopedic information
associated with NRVs.
[1]
•
•
Greek NACT morphology is not Passive Voice.
Passive Voice exhibits Disjoint Reference Effects (DRE); the
implicit external argument cannot be identical to its theme argument.
Greek NACT is the exponent of Middle Voice: a Passive without
DRE.
[2]
Evidence from Corrective Contexts.
(8) A: Mary was accused.
(9) A: I Maria katijorithike.
the Mary accused-NACT
‘Soemone accused Mary.'
B: No, she accused hersSELF.
B:#Oxi, i Maria katijorise ton eafto tis.
no the Mary accused the self her
'No, Mary accused herself.'
• (8) respects IC because of the DRE: Mary washing Mary is
inconsistent with someone other than Mary washing Mary (and not
with simply someone washing Mary).
• The Greek equivalent in (10) is infelicitous since there is no DRE:
Mary washing Mary is not inconsistent with someone washing Mary, a
violation of IC.
[[ (5B) ]] = λe∃x. dress(e) & theme(mary)(e) & agent(x)(e)
• Correctly predicts (5) to be felicitous: Someone dressing
Mary is incompatible with Mary dressing John.
• Correctly predicts (6) to be infelicitous: John dressing Mary
is not incompatible with someone dressing Mary, a violation of
IC.
• iNRVs in Greek are, thus, analyzed as Passive-like
structures. (7) is true of both reflexive and non-reflexive
events. As in English, in out-of-the-blue contexts (5B) is taken
to be a description of a reflexive event, because of the
encyclopedic information associated with NRVs .
5 Passive vs. Middle Voice
•
•
iNRVs appear with non-active morphology (NACT).
The Greek equivalent of (2) is a felicitous CC., but (6) is not.
6 No focus effect
•
•
•
A possible objection: e.g. (2) is infelicitous because it requires
focus on the object of dress.
But the condition on focus licensing (e.g. [8]‘s Givenness) only
requires that the Antecedent is a member of the Focus Semantic
Value of the Corrective Claim, which is licensed in all examples
above with VP-level focus.
Also, consider a morphological reflexivization strategy in Greek,
afto-prefixation. Although focus on afto- is possible, it is not
necessary to license the CC in (10).
(10) A: I xunta eksorise ton Jani. B: Oxi, [afto-eksoristi-ke]F.
the coup exiled
the John
no self-exiled-NACT.3SG
‘The coup exiled John.’
‘No, he exiled himself.’
[1] Alexiadou, A. F.Schäfer, and G.Spathas. 2013. Delimiting Voice in Germanic. NELS28. [2] Spathas, G., A.Alexiadou & F.Schäfer. Middle Voice and reflexive interpretations: afto-prefixation in Greek. Ms, [3] Asher, N. and A.Lascarides. 2003. Logics of Conversation. CUP. [4] van
Leusen, N. 2004. Incompatibility in context: a diagnosis of correction. JS 21: 415-441. [5] Reinhart, T. and T.Siloni. 2005. The lexicon-syntax parameter: reflexivization and other arity operations. LI 36: 389–436.[6] Embick, D. 2004. Unaccusative syntax and verbal alternations. In The Unaccusativity Puzzle: Explorations
of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface, eds. A. Alexiadou et al., 137-158. OUP. [7] Papangeli, D. 2004. The Morphosyntax of Argument Realization : Greek Argument Structure and the Lexicon-Syntax Interface. LOT dissertation series. [8] Schwarzschild, R. 1999. GIVENness, AvoidF and other constraints on the
placement of accent. NLS7:141-77.