Elizabeth Pearce

Irrealis and Indefinites in Unua

This paper presents an account of the uses and functions of irrealis morphology on quantificational expressions in noun phrases in Unua, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu. I will show that, when present on such quantificational expressions, the irrealis morphology encodes two distinct semantic functions for the arguments so quantified. In the context of negation and/or of irrealis modality, the irrealis-marked argument identifies a low-scope existential. In contexts in which the irrealis-marked argument is the argument of an individual-level predicate, it identifies a high-scope universal.

Functional Predicates in Unua

In Unua, an Oceanic language of Malakula, Vanuatu, there are predicates which can occur as the fully inflected verb of a clause or, in quasi-bare forms, they occur in non-main predicate functions in association with a main predicate verb. This paper investigates the functional roles of such ‘reduced’ predicates and sketches out an analysis of how their surface linear orderings are derived. Reduced predicates with Continuative and Terminative roles are found to occur as part of the functional layering of the IP structure in accordance with the kind of schema proposed by Cinque. Other predicates with Directional and Resultative semantics have surface forms and locations which suggest that they are merged as part of the vP structure.

Non-Causative Pro-MV-Inf Constructions

In this chapter I propose that the noncausative Pro-MV-Inf constructions of Italian, like the infinitival complements of fare, can be base generated as complex [+V] projections. We begin by briefly reviewing the implications of the proposed treatment.

Non-Causative Infinitival Complements in Old French

In Chapter 4, I proposed that noncausative Pro-MV-Inf constructions in modern Romance languages should be analyzed as including basegenerated [+V] infinitival complements. I will now argue that a similar analysis applies to comparable infinitival complement constructions in OF.

Causatives in Old French

Chapter 2 set forth evidence suggesting that the major diagnostics for reduced forms of infinitival complementation in modern Romance languages were to be found also in earlier stages of French. In chapters 3 and 4, the two major types of reduced infinitival constructions in Modlt were analyzed in order to identify the kind of descriptive apparatus that could appropriately be applied to the analysis of the comparable constrctions in OF. This chapter will examine evidence pertaining to causative constructions in OF in order to determine to what extent that analysis of the reduced causative constructions in Modlt will carry over to the analysis of the OF data.

Romance Infinitival Complements

Before approaching the analysis of the infinitival complement system of OF, I undertake a brief description of some parallel phenomena in modern Romance languages. If we are interested in the properties of universal grammar and in how these properties are manifested in particular languages, then the most coherent analyses of languages of the Romance family will be those which succeed in locating both differences and similarities in the grammars of the respective languages within a general framework which must include the Romance group as one of the many clusters over which the framework is viable. Thus, if, as I propose in this chapter, certain structural characteristics that do not appear in ModF are observed in both OF and in Modlt and ModSp, then the descriptive apparatus to be applied to the modern languages should be applied, albeit with modifications, to OF. Since, also, we have at our disposal a considerable store of information concerning phenomena in the modern Romance languages, both data and, importantly, analyses of the data, then it should be obvious that an analysis of constructions in OF cannot disregard parallels in Modern Romance.

The Romance Causative

Although, in Chapter 2 (Section 2.2.2.1), I have characterized the approach of Burzio (1986) as belonging to the A modification type, it is also the case that Burzio analyzes a subset of the infinitival complements as derived by the base generation approach B. A subset of infinitival complements of causative fare are directly generated as fare VP. In Section 3.1 I propose a modification of Burzio’s partitioning of fare S and fare VP and, following on from this, in Section 3.2 I argue that the fare S/VP distinction can be integrated into a generalized subcategorization as: fare [+V].