Diane Massam

Pseudo Noun incorporation in Niuean

This paper examines a phenomenon of Niuean (Oceanic) often called Noun Incorporation(NI). It is shown that, since the nominalelement in these constructions is a phrase(NP) rather than a head (N0), this phenomenondoes not in fact constitute NI in the normalsense of the term. Instead, it is termedPseudo Noun Incorporation, or PNI. An analysisis presented in which an object NP (rather thanDP) is generated adjacent to a verb. Since NPcannot check absolutive case, it fails to moveout of VP, hence it undergoes predicate frontingalong with the verb to derive the ‘incorporated’ order V-O-PARTICLES-S-X: the normal order isV-PARTICLES-S-O-X. The properties of threesubtypes of PNI are examined in some detail:general PNI, existential PNI, and instrumentalPNI, and the analysis is developed to accountfor their properties. General PNI involves thegeneration of an NP object, in which thereferential position remains open, resultingin a habitual reading for the sentence.Instrumental PNI is similar, except it doesnot have the same aspectual consequences.In existential PNI, on the other hand, anexistential verb (fai ‘have/be’, muhu ‘haveplenty/be plentiful’) binds the positionin NP, thus allowing the NP to be referentialand to be modified by a relative clause.Existential PNI thus results from a hybridV/DET category (such as fai) whichsimultaneously binds the open position in NP and acts asthe head predicate of the sentence. Wesee that the properties of Niuean PNI donot fit into the various typologies of NIavailable in the literature, hence a novelanalysis is required, such as the one proposed in this paper.

Multiple Case Checking

This paper examines Multiple Case Checking (MCC) in raising constructions in light of minimalist Case theory and an interpretive view of vocabulary insertion. In general, Case theory excludes the option of a chain receiving more than one Case. However, certain constructions arguably demonstrate that this is possible. We present a range of MCC phenomena, showing that they are incompatible with early insertion models. Inherent Case examples, such as in Icelandic, are accounted for by markedness. For structural Case examples we present an analysis in which both Case assignment and Case checking are utilized. We account for aspects of English, Norwegian, and Niuean MCC using two parameters: whether or not Case features move along with NPs, and whether or not PF accesses whole chains.

Null objects and non-thematic subjects*

This article analyses middle constructions in English, accounting for their key syntactic and semantic properties. The analysis rests on the observation that there are certain similarities between middle, tough and recipe-context null-object constructions, such as in (1a–c). (1) (a) This bread cuts—easily. (b) This bread is easy to cut—. (c) Take bread. Cut—carefully (and arrange—nicely).

On Predication and the Status of Subjects in Niuean

This paper explores the issue of subjecthood in an attempt to ascertain if the grammatical function subject has any application in Niuean, an Oceanic language of the Tongic subgroup (Pawley 1966, 1967). Various views of subjecthood will be discussed, and various asymmetries among arguments in Niuean will be examined. The claim will be that in Niuean there is no grammatical division of a sentence into subject and predicate, but rather into core predicate and arguments, with predicate fronting rather than subject externalization satisfying the Extended Projection Principle (EPP: Chomsky 1981, 1995). This predicts that there should be no grammatical subject in Niuean, and it is shown that this prediction is upheld. Among the verbal arguments, agent and patient behave identically for raising and deletion. One argument is distinguished as thematically highest for binding and control, and one case - absolutive - is distinguished as obligatory, but neither the highest argument, nor the one with absolutive case actsas grammatical (EPP) subject.

Count and mass across languages

1. The Count Mass Distinction: Issues and Perspectives 2. Lexical Nouns are Both +MASS and +COUNT, but They are Neither +MASS nor +COUNT 3. Aspects of Individuation 4. Collectives in the Intersection of Mass and Count Nouns: A Cross-Linguistic Account 5. Individuation and Inverse Number Marking in Dagaare 6. General Number and the Structure of DP 7. Plural Marking Beyond Count Nouns 8. Aspectual Effects of a Pluractional Suffix: Evidence From Lithuanian 9. Decomposing the Mass/count Distinction: Evidence from Languages that Lack it 10. On the Mass/count Distinction in Ojibwe 11. Counting and Classifiers 12. Countability and Numeral Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese 13. Semantic Triggers, Linguistic Variation, and the Mass-Count Distinction 14. Classifying and Massifying Incrementally in Chinese Language Comprehension References Index

Instrumental aki and the nature of Niuean transitivity

This paper examines the lexicosyntactic properties of the Niuean instrumental element aki. This particle can be used as a preposition or it can appear as a clitic within the sentence-initial verbal complex. The cliticization of aki has interesting consequences for transitivity that will be explored in this paper. It is shown that the previous claim (Seiter I980) that aki cannot attach to an intransitive verb is misleading. Rather, aki cannot attach to a semantically nonagentive verb, although the resulting clause may or may not contain an ergative NP, depending on whether or not the agent is syntactically expressed. The examination of aki leads us to conclude that the Niuean transitive clause, defined by the presence of an agentive external argument, is determined by the saturation of the VP. Another goal of this paper is to determine whether the clitic aki functions as an incorporated preposition (i.e., in conjunction with the verb as a case and thematic role assigner) or as some sort of anaphoric clitic, coreferential with an element in the discourse. This question arises because, in other Polynesian languages such as Tongan and Samoan, aki has been said to have an anaphoric use (Chapin I974, Clark I976, Hovdhaugen I985). Little has been said specifically about Niuean aki, though Chapin (I974) states that aki is not anaphoric in languages other than Tongan and Samoan, and Seiter (I98o) considers Niuean aki in all cases to be an incorporated preposition. Our conclusion in this paper is that, while in the most commonly cited examples aki has prepositional properties, in certain circumstances (i.e., when operator bound), it acts anaphorically, in that it needs an antecedent in the preceding clause. We show that in this use, Niuean aki, like aki in the languages discussed by Clark, Chapin, and Hovdhaugen, is similar to another verbal clitic, the locative or temporal ai that has been discussed by Chapin (I974) and by Massam and Roberge(I997).

Elmo's Sister's Ball: The Problem of Acquiring Nominal Recursion

Recursion is the ability to iterate syntactic constituents inside constituents. Experimental and corpus literature indicates that comprehending recursive structures is difficult for children. Since recursion is a fundamental property of language, the result of the application of core minimal tools (merge, label, and select), why does it present an acquisition challenge? We propose that while Merge itself is universal, its application is determined by selection, which is extensively parameterized. We investigate whether childrens difficulties can be defined in terms of the complexity of the selectional demands involved. This investigation leads to three empirical questions: i. How does NP recursion compare to NP coordination in acquisition? ii. Do children acquire each level of recursion independently or is recursion triggered automatically once the initial selectional requirements are acquired? iii. Are there differences in the acquisition of different types of nominal recursion? We compare the selectional requirements of English genitives, PPs, and NP coordination. Our syntactic analysis suggests that genitive recursion has more complex selectional demands than PP recursion. We designed a study eliciting production of two level embedded prepositional and genitive NPs. Preschool-aged English-speaking children (n = 46) and adults (n = 11) participated in an elicitation study. Children were comparable to adults in their ability to produce three coordinated NPs, but had substantial difficulty linking three NPs using recursion. First- and second-level embedding were clearly distinct steps in development. These findings have implications for the independence of phrasal and selectional development in children and for our understanding of structural complexity in child language and in theory.

On the Edge of Grammar: Discourse Particles in Niuean

This paper provides a first examination of discourse particles in Niuean, a Polynesian language of the Tongic subgroup, using data from interviews from the Pasifika Languages of Manukau project. Although there has been some research on grammatical particles in Niuean, there has been little or no reference to the structure and function of discourse particles. We provide an initial framework for categorizing the various types of discourse particles in the language, and give a preliminary account of the function of two affirmative discourse particles, haia and mitaki.