Chapter 1 Linguistic theory and language acquisition

Chapter 1 Linguistic theory and language acquisition

1.0.

Introduction

The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the problem of language learnability in relation to two different but related sets of structures in Spanish, both involving multifunctional clitic pronouns, that is, clitics which can appear in different functional projections. In each case the different position of the clitic leads to important differences in structure. The first of these is the reflexive clitic se which is used in impersonal and inchoative constructions. The second is the dative clitic le which appears in certain clitic doubling constructions. In both cases the structures exhibit subtle properties which cannot be readily inferred from the input. In the first place, this study provides a syntactic analysis of each of these structures which shows that the properties straightforwardly fall out if we assume that, as proposed by current linguistic theory, the learner has available a set of universal principles (UG) which, by constraining the possibilities to be considered by the learner, limits the acquisition task. This thesis defends the argument that UG is essential to solve the problem of language learnability. In the second place, the problem of learnability is investigated empirically in relation to second language acquisition (SLA) with experiments which look at the acquisition of properties pertaining to both the se and the le structures. The subjects included two groups of near-native Spanish speakers, that is, speakers who can pass or almost pass for native speakers, but who learned Spanish as a second language after puberty. One group was made up of English speakers, the other of French speakers. The reason for choosing nearnatives is that data from learners who appear to have reached a very high level of proficiency

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are crucial in determining whether adult learners can in fact acquire a grammar which is indistinguishable from a native speaker grammar (Borer, 1996, among others). The issue of whether L2 learners can attain native-like proficiency is central given that it directly relates to the availability of UG in SLA, a topic which is currently a matter of debate in the field. This question arises because, in the first place, the path of learning a second language seems to be different from the course followed in first language acquisition and, in second place, there is evidence that L2 acquisition, unlike L1 acquisition, does not necessarily lead the learner to converge on the target language. This lack of apparent success on the part of second language learners has lead some researchers (BleyVroman, 1990; Clahsen & Muysken, 1986, among others) to argue that UG becomes unavailable at a certain point in a person's development, probably around puberty in the case of syntax. As a consequence, the grammars of second language speakers' are significantly different from native speaker grammars. This position is referred to as the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (Bley-Vroman, 1989; 1990). Furthermore, Bley-Vroman (1996; 1997) and Liceras (1997) suggest that, not only is UG not available, but neither are the domain-specific learning procedures that allow mapping between the input and UG. In their place, Bley-Vroman suggests second language learners resort to learning patterns that they notice in the input. The present study will argue, following White (1989), Schwartz and Sprouse (1996), Epstein, Flynn and Martohardjono (1996), among others, that UG is available to adult learners. Furthermore, it will present evidence that performance by nearnative speakers can be comparable to that of native speakers, showing that learners are able to go beyond patterns found in the input to acquire very subtle properties of the L2. This is interpreted as evidence that pattern learning cannot account for successful L2 acquisition and therefore the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis cannot be correct. Recent work in linguistics has led to the theory that variation among languages is centered in the lexicon (Borer, 1984; Chomsky, 1995). In particular, attention has focused on functional categories, such as agreement and tense, and the features associated with

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them. Learning a first language requires learning the categories and features instantiated in that language. Learning a second language would require in some cases establishing a different value for the features and learning new categories. The question of UG availability in second language acquisition (SLA) revolves around the possibility of doing so. Some researchers argue that establishing a new value for features is possible because all facets of UG are unimpaired (Epstein, et al., 1996; Schwartz & Sprouse, 1994; 1996; White, 1996), while others believe there has been either partial or total impairment (Beck, 1998; Eubank, Bischof, Huffstutler, Leek, & West, 1997; Hawkins & Chan, 1997; Meisel, 1997), such that new categories and/or feature values are inaccessible. The constructions studied in this dissertation constitute an interesting area of study in relation to this issue because they involve the acquisition of clitics, which are associated with functional categories. The dative clitic involves agreement between the clitic and an NP. The impersonal passive construction with se involves verb agreement with an object. Object agreement is the direct result of a strong object agreement functional category (AgrO), which does not exist in either of the native languages studied, namely French and English. Although the reflexive and the dative clitics are related, the properties this thesis focuses on are very different. The study on the se constructions looks at the subject or object-like properties of the NP associated with se. In the case of the dative clitic le, the properties are those related to the prepositional phrase. Because of these differences, the studies will be treated as separate. First, I will look at the se constructions in Chapters 2 and 3, providing a syntactic analysis and reporting on an experimental study carried out with second language speakers. Then I will look at the dative le constructions in chapters 4 and 5, again providing a syntactic analysis and reporting on an experimental study. Finally, the sixth chapter will provide a summary and conclusions. In the rest of this chapter we will first briefly look at what constitutes knowledge of language and what is meant by the problem of learnability. Then we will examine the theoretical framework of the work reported on here. Finally, we will see how the learnability

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problem applies to second language acquisition, in particular in relation to the theory of grammar assumed here.

1.1.

Learnability and the nature of language

One of the problems which has puzzled people since antiquity is the problem of learnability. We ask ourselves how a human being internalizes information about the world, information which is obtained from data provided by the senses, data that is often a poor reflection of reality (Plato's problem). The science of linguistics is in an ideal position to contribute an answer to this question because, mainly through work done in the 20th century, and more precisely since what has been called the Chomskian revolution, we are closer to understanding what the nature of the object to be acquired, in this case language, is. According to Chomsky (1986a), linguistic theory, if it is to have any explanatory power, must focus on I(nternalized)-language or linguistic competence, that is, on the unconscious knowledge of language that individual speakers have. This unconscious mental representation constitutes the grammar of a language. This is in opposition to the actual speech events or 'E(xternalized)-language' (performance). The problem of learnability becomes a question of understanding how this mental state is arrived at, that is, how the mind moves from an initial state to the steady state or knowledge of a particular language. This problem would be of relatively little interest if the input the learner received were a clear representation of the grammar to be acquired. However, there is a great deal of evidence which shows that this is not the case. The grammar is severely underdetermined by the input. This is referred to as the logical problem of language acquisition (or the poverty of stimulus) (Baker, 1979; Hornstein & Lightfoot, 1981) and it has been the subject of a great deal of research. I will illustrate this problem for Spanish in (1) (examples from Alarcos Llorach, 1994).

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(1)

a.

-¿Se puede fumar? se can-sg smoke 'Can one smoke?'

-Sí, se puede. -yes, se can. -'Yes, one can.' -Sí, se puede fumar. yes, se can smoke 'Yes, one can smoke.'

b.

-¿Se debe discutir? se must-sg discuss? 'Must one discuss?'

-Sí, se debe. yes, se must 'Yes, one must.' -Sí, se debe discutir. yes, se must discuss 'Yes, one must discuss.'

c.

-¿Se puede fumar un cigarro? se can-sg smoke a cigar 'Can one smoke a cigar?

-Sí, se puede. yes, se can. 'Yes, one can.' -Sí, se puede fumar. yes, se can smoke 'Yes, one can smoke.'

d.

-¿Se debe discutir el problema? se must discuss-sg the problem? 'Must one discuss the problem?'

Sí, se debe. yes, se must 'Yes, one must.' -Sí, se debe discutir. yes, se must discuss 'Yes, one must discuss.'

e.

-¿Se pueden fumar cigarros? se can-pl smoke cigars? 'Can one smoke cigars?

*-Sí, se pueden. -yes, se can. -'Yes, one can.' -Sí, se pueden fumar. yes, se can smoke 'Yes, one can smoke.'

f.

-¿Se deben discutir los problemas? se must-pl discuss the problems? 'Must one discuss the problems?'

*-Sí, se deben. yes, se must 'Yes, one must.' -Sí, se deben discutir. yes, se must discuss 'Yes, one must discuss.'

The examples found in (1) show a clear pattern: the reflexive clitic se followed by a modal and an infinitive verb. In (1c, 1d, 1e, 1f) the infinitive has an object. A description of

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the facts would be as follows: in those cases in which the verb is singular, either because there is no NP (1a, 1b) or because the NP is singular (1c, 1d), the infinitive can be deleted, leaving only the modal, as seen in the answers given to the questions (1a) to (1d). However, if the verb is plural (1e, 1f), deletion of the infinitive verb phrase is not possible. According to Alarcos Llorach (1994, p. 262), this is because the infinitive is the subject of the sentence when the verb is singular, but the NP is the subject when the verb is plural. Presumably he infers this from agreement on the verb. How does the above example constitute a learnability problem? The descriptive rule as formulated does not seem to be very complex. However, knowledge of language consists of knowing the set of possible sentences, which implies knowledge of what is impossible or ungrammatical. In (1), the learner cannot acquire the knowledge that (1e) and (1f) are ungrammatical from the input alone. Although the learner will not hear the ungrammatical sentences in the input, it is not possible to infer from their absence that truncation is disallowed when the verb is plural because the gap may be due to chance, given that both truncated and non-truncated versions are possible in the sentences in which the verb is singular. One way in which it is possible to rule out the ungrammatical sentences would be if learners were given clear evidence that they are not possible in the language. This would constitute what is referred to as 'negative evidence'. There is some controversy as to whether certain types of input to children constitute the necessary negative evidence. Although children are not generally told that a certain structure is ungrammatical, some forms of interaction between the caretaker and the child have been taken to provide the necessary information on ungrammaticality. For example, it is claimed by Bohanon and Stanowicz (1988) among others, that expansions and recasting of the child's productions, by giving the child the correct form, indirectly provide negative input. Against this proposal, it has been argued, among other things, that this feedback is inconsistent, with expansions following correct utterances as well as ungrammatical ones, on the one hand, and some ungrammatical

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sentences passing uncorrected, on the other hand (Gordon, 1990). In the particular example given in (1), expansions would clearly lead to an incorrect rule, because generalization would lead the child to the conclusion that the truncated version was incorrect in all cases. Thus, it seems that, with the type of evidence that the child has available, ungrammaticality of the type described above cannot be learned. Furthermore, and just as importantly, both from a theoretical and from an empirical point of view the rule as formulated by Alarcos Llorach cannot be a true representation of the rule which the child must acquire. In the first place, it lacks explanatory power; that is, there is no explanation of why the NP would be the subject when the modal is singular while the infinitive is the subject when it is plural. There is no direct relation between subjecthood and number, so this is totally arbitrary. It also lacks generality, because there are a gamut of related properties, such as clitic placement, which this rule does not cover and which would have to be learned as separate and unrelated rules, making the task of learning even more difficult. Given that knowledge at the steady state includes knowledge that cannot solely be derived from the input, Chomsky has argued since 1957 that the initial state is not a tabula rasa, but rather it includes a biologically endowed innate language faculty. This language faculty includes abstract universal principles (UG) which are invariant across languages and which constrain the possible forms of all natural grammars and determine their structure. Variation between languages is also constrained by a limited set of open parameters. To see how this is played out we can turn again to the example in (1). There are in fact two different structures, one in which the modal verb and the infinitive have undergone restructuring, that is, they have become a structural unit or constituent, and one in which they have not. When restructuring has taken place the modal agrees with the NP, whether singular or plural. The learner has to deal with a language specific option which is licensed by UG, restructuring, and a universal constraint, which disallows moving or deleting a part of a constituent. Hence, if restructuring has taken place, deletion is impossible; if it has not,

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it is grammatical. The optionality of deletion of the infinitive in singular sentences is only apparent. The child learning the possibilities of verb deletion in Spanish exemplified in (1) would have to acquire from the input the fact that restructuring is possible with modal verbs in Spanish, although it may not be in all languages. Once the child recognizes that in examples such as (1e) and (1f) restructuring has taken place, the possibility of deleting the infinitive and leaving the modal is automatically ruled out by UG because it is a violation of a universal principle. Furthermore, the child would also automatically acquire a set of related facts, such as the placement of clitics. In sum, contrasts such as those exemplified in (1) cannot be learned from the input unless there is negative evidence, and this type of evidence appears not to be available to the learner. Experience is therefore not sufficient to lead the learner to capture the underlying simplicity and generality which constitute the grammar to be acquired. In order to solve this problem it is argued that the child is equipped with a language faculty which constrains possible grammars and limits the number of possible variants of language. Although it is clear that something along these lines must be the correct explanation for first language acquisition, it is not clear whether it also explains second language acquisition. Before turning to this problem, however, I will examine in greater detail the theoretical framework of this thesis.

1.2.

Theoretical assumptions

1.2.1. Derivations and constraints The present research is conducted within the generative theory of language and language acquisition (Chomsky, 1957; 1965; 1981a; 1986a). In particular, it assumes the Minimalist Program as put forward in Chomsky (1992). This proposal, without changing the basic tenets of generativism, differs in important ways from earlier approaches, such as Government and Binding (Chomsky, 1981; 1986) or, as it was later known, Principles and

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Parameters (Chomsky, 1992; Chomsky & Lasnik, 1993). The guiding idea behind the Minimalist Program is to establish a theory of grammar which makes the minimal number of assumptions, relying only on those which are conceptually necessary. The model of the grammar within this system is illustrated in (2). (2)

Model of grammar within the Minimalist Program (Marantz, 1995)

Lexical Resources

Computational ! System

"Spell-Out"

PF

LF

Interface Levels

As we see in (2), the Minimalist Program assumes only two linguistic levels of representation: Logical Form (LF), which is the interface between the linguistic module of the mind and the logical-conceptual system, and Phonetic Form (PF), the interface with the articulatory-perceptual system. There is also a single computational system for all languages, which maps the lexical choices of a particular language onto the PF and LF representation, each consisting of legitimate objects which can be fully interpreted. The computational system is strictly derivational, in that it involves successive operations. For example, Select is the operation which selects an item from the lexicon, Merge is the operation which takes a pair of syntactic objects which are already formed and combines them to form a new syntactic item and Move is the operation which moves an item to a targeted position. Each language determines the set of possible derivations in that language. A derivation must converge at PF and at LF, that is, it must satisfy the condition of Full

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Interpretation at each level. If it does not converge it crashes, that is, it is not grammatical in that particular language. At some point in the course of the derivation it is possible to submit the structure to LF and PF. This point is referred to as Spell-out. Only those elements relevant to PF will be submitted to this level, and only those relevant to LF will be mapped onto LF. Movement that takes place after Spell-Out is covert, that is, it will not be seen by PF. There is no direct relation between LF and PF. In the framework adopted here, lexical items are expanded by Projection in the sense of X-bar Theory (Chomsky, 1970). That is, a lexical item X projects to X', and X' in turn projects to the phrasal level XP. All operations carried out by the computational system before Spell-out, with the exception of head movement (Marantz, 1995) are expansions of the derivation. It is possible to project an empty node as sister to X, and this node must be filled, either by the addition of new structure (generalized transformation) or by movement of a component already part of the derivation. Movement is subject to universal constraints related to the basic idea of economy, which dictates that movement can only take place for a reason. The basic Economy principles are Shortest Move, Greed and Procrastinate. 'Shortest Move' replaces many previous constraints such as Subjacency and Relativized Minimality. It states that an element must move to the closest possible position to its place of origin. For example, a head may not skip over other heads. 'Greed' states that an element may not move to satisfy the requirements of any other element, it can only move because of its own requirements. It is possible that Greed can be derived from other principles (Marantz, 1995). According to 'Procrastinate', covert movement, that is, movement which takes place after Spell-Out, is preferable. However, if Procrastinate would result in a violation, then movement may take place overtly.

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1.2.2. Morphological Features The computational system and the principles of Economy apply in all languages. The source of difference between languages is to be found in the lexicon (Borer, 1984; Chomsky, 1992), namely in the set of morphological features which are encoded in lexical items. Items in the lexicon are fully inflected for features such as Tense, Agreement, and Case, and ƒ features such as Gender, Person and Number. These features are syntactic objects, accessible in the course of the derivation, but most of them play no role at LF or PF, so they must be checked or eliminated in order for the derivation not to crash. Functional categories, such as agreement (Agr) and tense (T) must contain the features corresponding to those found on the lexical categories, and it is in the domain of these categories that the features can be checked. In other words, a case feature on a DP, for example, must be checked against the case features in an Agr node which also has case. In order to check its features, the noun phrase (or determiner phrase (DP)) must move to the Spec. of Agr. Because of Procrastinate, this movement should be covert. However, features may be Strong or Weak. If the features are Weak, they may wait to be checked until after Spell-Out. If they are Strong, they must be checked before Spell-Out. In this case, Procrastinate must be violated in order to satisfy the checking condition. It is here that we find the locus of variation between languages. For example, if a language has Weak object agreement features, these features will not need to be checked off until LF. Because of this, it is not necessary to project the object agreement node (AgrO) until after Spell-Out, and the movement of the DP to this position to check features will never be visible in the word order of the utterance. However, if the object agreement features are Strong, then the DP must move before Spell-Out, and this movement will have an effect on the word order because it will be visible at PF.

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1.3.

The problem of learnability and second language acquisition

Assuming that the acquisition of a first language is constrained by principles of UG, the problem arises as to whether the same holds true for second language acquisition. Following White (1989) I will assume the input underdetermines the grammar in second language acquisition given that, as in first language acquisition, the subtle and complex properties of grammar cannot be inferred from the linguistic strings which constitute the L2 input. In consequence, the grammar of a second language is as unlearnable as the grammar of a first language if the possible set of grammars available to the learner is unconstrained. The problem of learnability could be solved, as we saw, if the learner had the appropriate negative evidence. It is possible that the L2 learner, unlike the L1 learner, does receive this type of input. As is well known, some second language learners may get some type of negative input in the form of either corrective feedback or grammar explanations, particularly in the case of learners who receive formal instruction. However, as White (1989) points out, this type of correction is not available to all learners, and the errors second language learners make do not generally seem to involve UG violations. Furthermore, in many cases, negative evidence of the type available in the classroom is often misleading. Recall the example in (1). The rule as formulated in a traditional grammar book simply indicated that truncation is not possible if the modal is plural (Alarcos Llorach, 1994). This rule is inadequate if the L2 learner is to acquire a mental representation similar to that of a native speaker. However, let us assume that the learner is given such a rule and is able to make use of it, which is by no means certain. Presumably, although the internal grammar of the speaker would be different from that of a native speaker, the learner would not make an error in this area. However, the learner's grammar would still be incomplete, so we could still expect mistakes in sentences such as those given in (3).

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(3)

a.

Se puede comprarles los libros. se can-sg. buy them the books 'The books can be bought for them.'

b.

Se les puede comprar los libros. se them can-sg. buy the books 'The books can be bought for them.'

c.

*Se pueden comprarles los libros. se can-pl buy them the books 'The books can be bought for them.'

d.

Se les pueden comprar los libros. se them can-pl buy the books 'The books can be bought for them.'

The pattern found in (3) is identical to the pattern in (1). The position of the clitic pronoun appears to be optional if the verb is singular, as shown in (3a,b), but it can only precede the main verb if the verb is plural. The learner guided by UG would not have to acquire anything new, restructuring plus a universal principle would account for these facts as well as the truncation facts. However, the learner who receives explicit grammar information would have to be given this rule as a separate rule1. When processing language in order to express himself, he would have to recall two different rules. This process multiplies exponentially, so that finally we come to the same conclusion, language is unlearnable with this type of evidence because the number of rules becomes unmanageable. Negative evidence will not solve the problem of L2 acquisition and we may conclude that UG is necessary in second language acquisition, in the same way as it is in first language acquisition2, if the learner is to acquire a native-like grammar. The second question, whether UG is available in second language acquisition, is one of the fundamental issues of second language research. If UG is not available we must necessarily conclude that the acquisition of a natural language grammar of the L2 is not

1As a matter of fact, this rule does not appear in any traditional grammar books that I know of. 2A related question is whether UG is sufficient for L2 acquisition. White (1991) suggests that negative

evidence may be necessary in some cases in order to reset parameters. If, as I argue here, negative evidence is not usable by the learner, we would be forced to conclude that some parameters cannot be reset (Schwartz, 1993).

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possible. However, there is at this point no consensus among scholars as to whether UG is available or not. We will briefly examine the different positions.

1.4.

Theories on the nature of L2 knowledge

1.4.1. The Full Access to UG Hypothesis A number of researchers defend the position that UG constrains child and adult second language learning. In current linguistic terms, this means L2 learners are able to acquire new functional categories and features which are not represented in the L1 and set the value of features to the appropriate L2 strength. Although these researchers agree that UG is available, they do not necessarily agree on a number of other issues. One of the most debated issues relates to the role of the L1 in SLA. On the one hand, it is argued that the L1 has no significant effect on the mental representation of the L2, which is directly the result of interaction between the L2 input and UG. This position predicts that not only will the L2 grammar be acquired successfully but also that the process of acquisition at every stage, including the initial state, will be very similar to first language acquisition and will be identical for learners of different linguistic backgrounds. The most notable paper defending this position is that of Epstein, Flynn and Martohardjono (1996). In this study, an elicited imitation task was used to test knowledge of functional categories such as CP and IP by Japanese speakers of English. CP and IP are present in English but they may not be present in Japanese (Fukui, 1988). Because of this, the authors argue that L1 influence can be ruled out. However, this paper is quite controversial (see commentaries to Epstein et al., 1996). Among other things, the linguistic analysis, the methodology and the interpretation of the results have been found to be flawed. Other studies in which the results seem to indicate that the L1 does not contribute to the L2 grammar are Grondin and White (1996), White (1996) and Duffield et al. (to appear). These studies involve, at least in part, the acquisition of clitics by English speakers.

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Because English presumably does not have clitics (but see Schwartz, 1999 for arguments to the contrary) transfer from the L1 cannot explain the learners' success. However, these authors do not rule out the possibility that transfer from the L1 may play a role in other circumstances. In opposition to the previous position, proponents of the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1994; 1996) claim that, although learners are in all cases constrained by UG, the initial state is the grammar of the L1 and learning is a process of restructuring in the face of L2 input interacting with UG. Under this view, in the initial stages the L2 will be different from a first language learner's initial state and learners of different L1 backgrounds will differ in the initial state and in the course of acquisition. However, there will be no 'wild' grammars, that is, grammars which are unconstrained by UG. The final state will necessarily be constrained by UG, but it will not necessarily be identical to the target language grammar. In some cases misanalysis of the input may lead to a grammar which differs from both the L1 and the L2. Besides Schwartz and Sprouse (1994; 1996), who looked at the acquisition of German word order by a Turkish subject, evidence for transfer from the L1 can be found in work by White (1991; 1992), Camacho (1999), Yuan (1998), among many others.

1.4.2. The No-access to UG Hypothesis The idea that second language learners differ in important ways from first language learners has a long history in SLA research. Penfield and Roberts (1959) and Lenneberg (1967) first put forward the claim that there was a critical period after which a first language could not be learned. This proposal has later been extended to second language acquisition. Although there has been disagreement as to at what precise age the critical period ends (see Long, 1990, for a comprehensive review of the literature) and furthermore it has been suggested that in fact there may be different cut off points for different parts of the grammar (Lamendella, 1977), the main idea remains the same: that there is a maturationally

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determined period during which human beings are particularly sensitive to linguistic input and after which there is a decline in language learning ability. The age most commonly put forward for a decline in ability regarding syntax and morphology is puberty. One of the intriguing facts about the Critical Period Hypothesis is that, although it is an idea borrowed from biology and purporting to be universal in nature, it is taken as fact by researchers who do not necessarily accept the biological basis of language. Long (1990) states that "while maturational constraints are certainly compatible with nativist accounts of learning, they do not entail such views" (p. 253). On the contrary, if language acquisition were part of general cognitive development, how would it be possible for there to be a biological process which targets language specifically but leaves all other areas intact? Nobody has suggested that there is a general decline in cognitive abilities around puberty, indeed, it appears that this is the time when the mind comes into its own with the development of formal operations. It seems that the idea of maturational constraints on language development is intrinsically tied not only to the theory of language as part of the biological makeup of human beings but also to the theory of mind which claims that language is separate from general cognitive abilities, such as is proposed by generative approaches to language acquisition. In other words, the idea that UG is not available after a certain age is a generativist formulation of a linguistic critical or sensitive period theory. The position that UG is unavailable after puberty predicts that the grammar of an adult L2 speaker will be qualitatively different from that of an L1 speaker at all points in the acquisition process. The final state, although it may mimic the target language, would be a grammar which differs from the native speaker grammar in essential ways. There are two main schools of thought regarding the unavailability of UG in SLA. On the one hand, it is argued that UG is only partially unavailable, or that parts of the grammar are impaired. Smith and Tsimpli (1995) suggest that the features associated with the functional categories cannot be changed from the L1 values. Because the principles of UG are unaffected, L2 grammars appear to be natural languages, constrained by UG.

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Hawkins and Chan (1997) apply this claim to a study on the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses by Chinese speakers. They find that the L2 speakers are able to improve over time regarding morphology and gapping, but their performance declines in relation to subjacency violations. They conclude this is because their mental representation of restrictive clauses does not include movement, which would be the case if they have not been able to change the F-features associated with complementizers from the Chinese to the English values. Beck (1998), Eubank and Grace (1998) and Eubank et al (1997) also argue that the locus of impairment in SLA lies in the morphological features. Their claim is that these features are inert, particularly in the case of features associated with the VP. As a consequence, overt movement of the verb is optional. Beck (1998) looked at the acquisition of word order in German, in which the verb must move before Spell-out, by speakers of English, a language in which there is no overt verb raising. Results of an on-line experiment showed that advanced speakers did not differentiate in response times between the raised and the non-raised verb. The author took this to be evidence for her hypothesis. There is, however, a theoretical problem with the proposal that the effect of inert features is optionality, as Robertson and Sorace (1999) point out. As we saw, the universal principle referred to as Procrastinate states that movement must take place as late as possible. Unless the features are strong, overt movement is disallowed. If the features are inert, that is, they have not been set at any value, movement should not take place. Optional movement would be a violation of a universal principle, which means that the impairment would not be as local as the authors suggest. In practice, it is difficult to tell the difference between 'inert' and 'weak' features, because in both cases the result should be the same, no movement in syntax . Other scholars argue that UG is totally unavailable and the learner must resort to non-linguistic types of learning in order to acquire the second language. We will now examine this position in greater detail.

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1.4.2.1. The Fundamental Difference Hypothesis The Fundamental Difference Hypothesis was developed by Bley-Vroman (1989; 1990) in order to explain differences between first and second language acquisition. In contrast to learning a first language, which seems to be a biological imperative given that all children, except under extreme pathological conditions, are able to learn their native tongue, adult second language learners seem to rarely attain complete mastery over the target language. In adult second language acquisition we find "ineluctable failure" (Bley-Vroman, 1989 p. 44). Furthermore, learners 'fail' to different degrees, and there is variability among L2 learners not only in the degree of success but also in the path of acquisition3. These differences have led Bley-Vroman to the conclusion that not only is UG not available but neither are the domain-specific learning procedures which allow mapping from the input to the grammar. He argues "that the domain-specific language acquisition system of children ceases to operate in adults, and in addition, that adult foreign language acquisition resembles general adult learning in fields for which no domain-specific system is believed to exist" (p. 49). According to the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis the difference between children and adult learners is internal, linguistic and qualitative. The role of UG is replaced by knowledge of the first language which will shape the learners' expectations about the second language. Although the grammar is not visible to the conscious mind, it interacts with the general problem solving module allowing the learner to reconstruct some of the information provided by UG in first language acquisition, creating a sort of 'surrogate' UG. In recent work Bley-Vroman (1996; 1997) suggests that the main strategy employed by second language learners is to notice patterns in the input. For example, the L1 learner of German acquires the verb second position in main clauses and the verb final position of 3Bley-Vroman (1989; 1990) lists many more differences between first and second language acquisition.

However, some of these are controversial at best and some can be easily accommodated or are simply orthogonal to the problem of UG. See Schwartz (1990) and White (1989a)

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dependent clauses as interrelated properties of German word order, both positions falling out naturally from the application of grammatical principles. In most standard analyses it is assumed that German is a verb final language and the verb must move to second position in final clauses, possibly because of a Strong tense node. This movement is blocked in embedded clauses because of the presence of the subordinating conjunction. Clahsen and Muysken (1986) found differences between children acquiring German as a first language and adults acquiring it as a second language. Children appear to prefer the verb final position in the first stages, and then they acquire the verb second position for finite verbs and verb final for non-finite. When they begin to produce embedded clauses they always place the verb at the end, never generalizing the verb second position to embedded clauses. In other words, they behave as predicted by a theory of acquisition guided by principles of UG. In contrast to children, L2 learners of German, again according to the same authors, start out with an SVO order even in cases in which the L1 does not exhibit this order, and arrive at the final placement of the verb in German by "elaborating a series of complicated rules to patch up this hypothesis when confronted with conflicting data" (p. 116), a series of rules which "is not definable in linguistic theory" (Clahsen & Muysken, 1986p. 116)4. Bley-Vroman suggests that children are acquiring the facts as interrelated properties, while adults are acquiring them as separate patterns which are unrelated to each other. That is, for second language learners there is one pattern for embedded clauses which is verb final and another pattern for main clauses which is verb second. There may be rules which apply to both, which Bley-Vroman calls megarules, but this does not mean that these patterns are in any way related in the L2 speaker's mind. Pattern learning may result in performance which correctly places the verb in German, but the underlying representation will be essentially different. Bley-Vroman therefore agrees with Clahsen and Muysken's interpretation that the grammatical representation of an L2 is qualitatively different from that of an L1. 4See

du Plessis et al (1987) for an alternate explanation.

19

A similar hypothesis is defended by Meisel (1997), who argues that second language learners 'rather than using structure dependent operations constrained by UG, resort to linear sequencing strategies which apply to surface strings' (p. 258). He looked at the acquisition of negation in French and German by Spanish L1 learners. In particular, he showed that for the L2 learners the position of negation did not depend on the features of the verb, as is the case for L1 learners. Therefore, even if second language learners learn how to express negation, their grammar is different from an L1 grammar. Liceras (1997) differs from Bley Vroman and Meisel in that she assumes some "secondary level domain-specific learning procedures" are unimpaired. These learning procedures, guided by previous linguistic experience, that is, knowledge of the first language and any other languages which may have been acquired, help explain why adult learners have intuitions about the target language, contra to what Bley-Vroman assumes. I will now turn to the types of evidence used to probe these theories of Second Language Acquisition and address the problem of ultimate attainment.

1.5.

Ultimate attainment in second language acquisition

Empirical evidence for the availability of UG in SLA can come from an examination of properties of the initial state, the path of acquisition and the final state. The course of acquisition of a particular language is determined by the interaction of UG and the input. If we assume that the relation between these two factors is similar for all learners, then we expect that the path followed for all learners of a particular language will also be similar. Within the linguistic framework assumed here, if a functional category and the features associated with it are set to a certain value, one should expect all the properties related to this feature node to be acquired at about the same time. A great deal of research into L1 acquisition is directed towards trying to establish that this is the case. There are, however, factors that can confound the issue. For example, if some properties are realized

20

in simple sentences while some other properties of the same parameter are realized only in embedded clauses, the latter properties would only make their appearance when the child is capable of processing complex sentences. Nevertheless, if it can be shown that the child never makes any relevant errors in the course of acquisition, researchers usually assume that the parameter has been set instantaneously and the time lag is due, for example, to processing or memory constraints. Within the field of second language acquisition the same reasoning applies. If learning a second language is in the main equivalent to learning a first language, that is, it results from the interaction of the input and UG, the path of acquisition should be similar not only among learners of the same L2 language, if for the sake of the argument we exclude possible differences due to the L1, but also between first and second language learners. With this in mind, researchers have usually interpreted both variability among L2 learners (Bley-Vroman, 1990; Johnson, 1988) and marked differences in the course of acquisition between children and adults (Clahsen & Muysken, 1986; Meisel, 1997) as evidence that learners are not resetting parameters but are rather learning in a piecemeal fashion. There are, however, several problems with evidence based on the path of acquisition. As Borer (1996) points out, 'UG is first and foremost a set of constraints on possible natural language grammars, and only secondarily, and not according to all models, a language acquisition device' (see also Felix, 1987; Hyams, 1986; 1991). The problem of language acquisition is different from the problem of language development. The problem of acquisition is to explain how language can be acquired at all given the poverty of the input. The problem of language development, on the other hand, is to explain why the child follows a particular sequence. This applies to second language acquisition as well (Gregg, 1996). In particular, the fact that the path followed by L2 learners may be different from L1 learners cannot be taken as evidence that UG is not available. Furthermore, if it is found that

21

at some point in the learners' development parameters have not been set to the L2 value, this does not necessarily mean that they will never be set. The other source of evidence used to examine the role of UG comes from studies on the final state of L2 speakers. In fact, if, as we suggested above, there are problems with considering divergent courses of development as evidence for or against UG availability, empirical evidence from the final state of L2 speakers or ultimate attainment as it is often called, becomes crucial. Borer (1996) states that 'Ultimately, the only true test of full UG accessibility is the degree to which the target language can be attained by L2 learners. Should it turn out to be the case that, given enough exposure, native-like grammar is possible... then the full accessibility of UG would become an inevitability.' (p. 719) (See also Smith & Tsimpli, 1995). However, it is important to note that, in view of the problem of the poverty of the stimulus, although 'inevitability' of UG availability follows from evidence for successful acquisition, the opposite is not true. It has become clear that, if it is found that the final state of L2 speakers diverges from the target language, this is not necessarily evidence that UG is not available (Lardière, 1998a; 1998b; Sorace, 1993; White, 1999, among others). The end state could be a grammar which is constrained by UG, but which differs in certain respects from both the L1 and the L2.

1.6.

Empirical evidence for age related effects in SLA

There are two types of studies which look for age related effects in second language acquisition and the issue of ultimate attainment, those that concentrate on parametric variation in relation to one particular principle such as subjacency, and those which have tested a variety of unrelated structures. One of the most influential of the latter type is Johnson and Newport (1989). They looked at 46 native Chinese and Korean learners of English who had been in the US for a minimum of 5 years. The test consisted of a

22

grammaticality judgement task made up of sentences representing different elements of grammar, some related to morphology and some to syntax. Results showed a decrease in performance depending on the age of arrival, with only the youngest subjects performing in a way comparable to the native speaker controls. Furthermore, age of arrival was a good predictor of performance in all the groups except for the late arrivals (those who had arrived after the age of 17), where accuracy showed a great deal of variance. The structures most affected for all the subjects were the plurals and determiners. Although many of these problems could be explained by L1 influence, the authors argue against this interpretation because other structures which are also missing in the L1, such as present progressive, were among the least affected by the decline in performance. Furthermore, none of the elements looked at was completely unaffected but none was completely absent either. Similar results were obtained by Flege et al (1999) who used Johnson and Newport's test in order to determine whether the critical period is different for phonology and for morphosyntax, as has been suggested. They also found that age of arrival was the most important variable. However, frequency of use of English and of the native language also played a role, as did level of education. In fact, the age of arrival was a more important factor in regards to pronunciation that morphosyntax. The results differed from Johnson and Newport's in that the correlation between age of arrival and proficiency continued after the critical period, which they interpreted as age 12. Furthermore, this study did find a few post critical period L2 subjects whose results were comparable to those of native speakers. Johnson and Newport's study was replicated by Birdsong and Molis (1998). They used the original test, but differed from Johnson and Newport in that the subjects were not Korean and Chinese but rather Spanish speaking. Their results agreed with those of the original study in that they found a strong correlation between age of arrival to the United States and accuracy. The decline in performance, however, began later, at 17 years. Furthermore, the age effects continued after puberty (see also (Bialystok & Hakuta, 1994).

23

This is a surprising result if the explanation lies in a critical or sensitive period. Furthermore, a few of their subjects obtained results suggesting native-like proficiency. In spite of the fact that the study of Johnson and Newport is one of the most often cited as bearing direct evidence for a critical period (see, for example, Gass & Selinker, 1994; Long, 1990; Pinker, 1994), it is not without its problems. Kellerman (1995) takes issue not only with the methodology (only responses to ungrammatical sentences were scored) but also with the stimuli, which in many cases do not seem to be testing what they were designed to test. Furthermore, the ages the subjects were grouped into was somewhat arbitrary. Coppieters (1987) was one of the first to look at the issue of ultimate attainment. His subjects were 21 Near-native speakers of French who were classified as such in part on the basis of the ACTFL oral interview guidelines. They were compared to 20 native speakers whose judgements were used to set the norm. If more than half the native speakers accepted an item it was considered grammatical, and if they rejected it, it was considered ungrammatical. Subjects and controls received a score on their rate of deviance from this norm. The test consisted of 107 items representing several structures. Unfortunately the number of tokens for each structure varied considerably. The sentences were presented either in a preference task or in a grammaticality judgement task. Subjects were also asked to comment orally on their judgements, explaining why they accepted or rejected each sentence. Results showed both quantitative and qualitative differences between the native speakers and the near-native speakers. None of the near-native speakers performed as well as the 'worst' native speaker. According to the author, the differences did not involve "the formal areas of grammar traditionally covered under the term UG" (p. 565). Nevertheless, the results of this paper cannot be taken at face value because, although it has a special merit as one of the first to broach the issue of near native competence, it suffered from a gamut of methodological problems. Birdsong (1992) presents a strong critique and an attempt to replicate some of the findings. Among other

24

things he argues that Coppieters' results point not so much to a difference between UG and non-UG related knowledge but to differences in the testing procedure, the preference task yielding much greater differences between the Near-natives and the Controls. Using similar methodology but with some improvements, Birdsong tested 20 Near-native speakers of French who had been in France at least 3 years, as well as 20 native speakers. Unlike Coppieters, this study did not find any great difference between the native subjects' commentary and the commentary of the Near-natives, nor between UG and non-UG related structures. Furthermore, although Birdsong found significant differences between the grammaticality judgements of the two groups, he also found a number of Near-native speakers who performed as well as the French native speakers. Out of 76 items, there were only 17 on which the Near-natives differed significantly from L1 speakers. Finally, there was a positive correlation between age of arrival in France and performance on the test, even though all the subjects in this study had begun to learn French at puberty or later. These results are more in accord with Flege's findings than with the Johnson and Newport study in which the correlation between performance and age disappeared at puberty. A study which seems to run counter to those seen so far is Ioup et al (1994) which examined two adult learners of Egyptian Arabic and found that they differed very little from native speakers. Nor did they differ from each other, in spite of the fact that one was untutored and the other had acquired the L2 mainly from formal instruction. Among other things, they were given an oral grammaticality judgement test on 11 structures, 4 of them related to UG and 5 presumably not, and a task on the interpretation of anaphora. In those areas in which their performance was not good there was not a consensus among the native speakers either. The authors suggest that the abilities shown by these two speakers are related to special linguistic talent. It is difficult, however, to understand what exactly a special talent might constitute, particularly when speaking about the availability of UG. Although some of the studies reviewed above have proved very influential in second language acquisition research, they suffer from a lack of explanatory power. As Bialystok

25

(1997) points out, if we are to argue for a critical period it is necessary to define the system which is affected. However, it is not clear what type of system would be affected in such a differential manner. Why is the plural more difficult for L2 learners than the present progressive? The authors themselves rule out the L1 as explanation. I will now turn to those studies which looked at specific grammatical properties in near-native grammars. I will look first at work on unaccusatives and turn then to the papers which deal with subjacency. Sorace (1991) argues that Near-native grammars may be different from L1 grammars in two ways. The L2 grammar may be incomplete or it may be divergent. An incomplete grammar lacks some of the properties of the L2 and this leads to random judgements regarding these properties. Divergent grammars, on the other hand, produce determinate judgements which are different from those of the native speakers. Sorace found evidence for both of these types in her studies on the acquisition of some of the properties of unaccusatives, in particular the choice of auxiliary. Unaccusatives are a subclass of the intransitive verbs (Burzio, 1986; Perlmutter, 1978), that is, verbs that have only one argument. However, unlike other intransitive verbs, the argument of unaccusatives is the theme. In some languages unaccusatives take the verb 'to be' as an auxiliary, instead of the verb 'to have'. Italian differs from French in that in French only the core cases of unaccusativity take the auxiliary être 'to be', while in Italian all unaccusatives take essere. Furthermore, Italian permits restructuring while French does not. As we saw, restructuring is a process which allows two verbal elements to function as one. The consequences of restructuring include a change in the position of clitics, which can appear to the left of the main verb, and a change in auxiliary. English differs from Italian in that it lacks both the distinction between auxiliaries and restructuring. In a first study (1991) Sorace found that both French and English learners of Italian were sensitive to the unaccusative hierarchy, which she proposes differentiates between core and peripheral cases of unaccusativity. However, the L2 speakers differ when it came to restructuring. French learners showed

26

determinate judgements, preferring the auxiliary avere in all cases. English speakers performed randomly. In a second study (1993), Sorace showed that both Italian learners of French and French learners of Italian accepted sentences with the correct auxiliary, but rejection of incorrect auxiliaries depended on where the verb lies along the unaccusativity hierarchy. The Italian learners of French had more problems than the French learners of Italian. Although these studies do not directly reflect on the question of UG, they do lead to some interesting questions. What, for example, is the status of the unaccusative hierarchy of verbs which Sorace proposes? If it reflects some basic difference between core and peripheral grammars, it seems that the greatest difficulty for the learners lies at the periphery. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that other papers have found learners to have problems with restructuring (Bruhn-Garavito & Montrul, 1996; Duffield & White, 1999), and this may be either because restructuring in Romance is optional or because restructuring leads to difficulties in processing. Of the researchers interested in possible effects of maturational constraints on UG in second language acquisition and/or near-native speakers, almost all have concentrated on the problem of subjacency. Subjacency is a universal constraint which, in general terms, restricts the movement of phrases such that they cannot cross more than one bounding node. These are nodes such as IP or NP which may act as a boundary to movement of constituents. It appears that this restriction is parameterized, in that languages may vary as to what constitutes a bounding node. Furthermore, those languages, such as Korean and Chinese, which do not have wh- movement, do not overtly show the effects of subjacency, although it has been suggested that it nevertheless applies at LF (Huang, 1982). Schachter (1989) conducted a study with learners of English who were native speakers of Chinese, Korean and Indonesian, languages which seem to behave differently from each other and from English in respect to subjacency. Results found an important number of subjects who did not show evidence of obeying subjacency. Johnson and Newport (1991; see also Johnson, 1988) looked at Chinese learners of English. Subjects

27

were selected on the basis of time spent in the US, with a minimum requirement of 5 years. The two experiments reported on were carried out along the same lines as the Johnson and Newport (1989) study. The objective for the first study, whose subjects were all postpuberty learners, was to ascertain if adult learners showed impairment in relation to universal principles such as subjacency. The second study, whose subjects came to the US at different ages, including late learners, aimed at determining whether the deterioration found in the first study was sudden or whether there was evidence for a linear decline. Results show an inverse correlation between scores on subjacency and age, which would suggest a linear deterioration of the principle of subjacency depending on the age of first immersion. Given that both the Schachter and the Johnson and Newport studies found that performance on subjacency was significantly below that of native speakers, the authors argue this is evidence of the unavailability of UG. However, a case could be made for the opposite position in both papers. In Schachter, many of the subjects in fact meet her criteria for knowing subjacency, that is, 5 out of 6 times they reject the subjacency sentences and accept the syntax sentences, which consisted of declaratives used to determine whether subjects could be expected to understand complex sentences. The performance of these subjects remains unexplained if UG is unavailable given that the theory of UG is about individual grammars, not group scores. Unfortunately, as Johnson and Newport (1991) point out, Schachter's test did not include any other wh- questions besides the subjacency cases, so it is impossible to determine whether the subjects who scored in a way comparable to native speakers knew subjacency or were simply rejecting wh-movement in general. In contrast to Schachter, Johnson and Newport controlled very strictly for several factors, including bias and a overall rejection of wh-movement. However, although scores were significantly lower for the late learners, Johnson and Newport admit that there is evidence that subjects do not accept the subjacency violations in the same measure as they do the

28

grammatical control sentences, correctly rejecting them at an above chance level, which would seem to indicate that they do have at least probabilistic knowledge of subjacency. Johnson (1988) also tested for performance on subjacency by a group of Spanish speakers whose L1 does obey subjacency but which differs parametrically from English in the bounding nodes. She found that Spanish speakers were considerably better than the Chinese and Koreans, but were still significantly worse than the native speakers. However, they did not differ in a way which would indicate transfer as a source of their problems, that is, they were not preferentially accepting subjacency violations in English which, according to the author, the theory predicts should be acceptable in Spanish. A problem here is that a translation of these specific sentences on the test into Spanish show them to be ungrammatical. The results of White and Genesee (1996) are in direct contrast to the above studies. They studied 89 subjects who came from a variety of language backgrounds. The test consisted of a timed grammaticality judgement task and a question formations task. No significant differences were found between the performance of the L2 subjects and the controls on any of the structures tested. The authors concluded that the L2 speakers obeyed subjacency. This study differed from others in that the criterion for participation in the test was not length of time spent in the target language environment. Rather, the subjects' spoken language was recorded and rated according to strict criteria and only those subjects who were judged to be near-natives or very advanced were included. The authors argue that this explains the different results they obtained. A further study by White and Juffs (1996) tested a group of Chinese speakers who had never left the People's Republic of China and a group which had lived in Canada for 3 years. They found, again contrary to the researchers seen above, that learners were accurate in rejecting violations of subjacency. However, as in Bley-Vroman et al (1988) the results for the grammatical sentences were mixed. The subjects did not perform as well as native speakers when the extracted element was the subject, but they were accurate when it was an object.

29

To summarize, the results of the studies on subjacency are contradictory. On the one hand, there is evidence that some learners, even after a long period of immersion in a second language, seem to violate subjacency at least part of the time. On the other hand, it is also clear that the deficit in performance is partial, that is, most of the learners performed above chance. Furthermore, it is also clear that some learners are able to perform as well as native speakers. One may therefore ask what type of language deficit could lead to these results. It does not seem possible, within current views on the nature of UG, to assume that UG can be partially available, leading to the probabilistic rejection of violations. It is far more probable that UG is available and the problem lies elsewhere. There have recently been several attempts to determine where the difficulties lie. One of the most interesting is the theory that the problem is related to processing, that is, to the mapping between the syntactic constituents and the input strings which constitute speech. Juffs and Harrington (1995), for example, look at subjacency in this light, attempting to ascertain why results seem to show that extraction of an object seems to be easier for subjects than extraction of a subject (see Bley-Vroman, et al., 1988; White & Juffs, 1996). In their study, 26 native speakers of Chinese who lived in the United States performed two on-line grammaticality judgement tasks with sentences similar to those used in White and Juffs. In the first task, the sentences were presented on the screen in a moving window, that is, the sentences were presented one word at a time, with the pacing controlled by the subject. A record of the reaction times was kept. This procedure allows the researcher to find the areas of difficulty, assuming that difficult will translate into longer processing time. In the second task, the subject was presented with full sentences. On the second task mean accuracy for the Chinese speakers on subjacency violations was 90%, as compared to 92% for native speakers. For the grammatical wh- extraction sentences the Chinese were less accurate, particularly in the case of subject extraction. They accepted grammatical object extractions, but the overall score for subject extractions was only 57%. Similar results were found for the moving window condition. Furthermore, reaction times constituted strong evidence that the gap in subject

30

extractions was more difficult to parse than the gap in object extraction, thus leading to the conclusion that the problem with subject extractions did not lie in a deficit in competence but rather in processing.

1.7.

Summary of the objectives of this thesis

One of the aims of linguistics is to understand how we know what we know regarding language. The objectives of research into second language acquisition must be, in a similar way, to establish what the mental representation of the learner is and how the learner arrives at that representation. As we have seen, some researchers have proposed that what the learner knows is qualitatively and quantitatively different from what a native speaker knows. They have suggested that the knowledge they have has been acquired mainly through applying problem solving mechanisms to language learning with, perhaps, some intuitions derived from their L1. Other researchers argue that the mental representation of second language speakers is constrained by UG, although it may differ from the mental representation of the native speaker in certain areas. Still others predict that the end state will be identical to the target language because L1 acquisition is identical to L2 acquisition. In this thesis I will argue that the adult L2 learner is constrained by UG and that the L2 grammar is attainable. I will examine L2 grammars at the end state, and will therefore have nothing to say about prior stages, including the possibility that the initial state may be the L1 grammar (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1996). In order to show that L2 grammars are similar to native speaker grammars, I have chosen two areas of Spanish which I believe to be particularly appropriate to search for the needed evidence. In the first place, I will look at different structures related to the clitic se. As we shall see in the next chapter, this clitic appears in impersonal constructions and in constructions which are usually considered unaccusatives. The interesting thing is that,

31

although underlyingly these constructions are different and they have different properties, on the surface they appear the same, as we see in (4): (4)

Se terminó el postre. se finish the dessert a. b. c.

'The desserts finished (ran out).' (Inchoative se) 'The desserts were finished.' (Impersonal passive) 'The desserts were finished.' (Impersonal reflexive)

The second structure I will look at is also related to a clitic, in this case the dative. It is well known that Spanish is a clitic doubling language. Dative clitic doubling constructions, as shown in (5a), alternate with sentences in which there is no clitic and the full preposition is present (5b). I will show that clitic doubling is the result of preposition incorporation. This process is constrained in very subtle ways, and therefore is ideal for testing the ability of second language learners to go beyond the input. (5)

a.

Felipe *(le) echó agua Phillip le threw water 'Phillip watered the plants'

a las matas. a the plants

b.

Felipe (*le) echó agua en las matas. Phillip le threw water on the plants 'Phillip threw water on the plants'

In the remainder of this dissertation I will provide an analysis of these two sets of constructions and then I will report on the experimental studies I carried out in order to determine whether Near-native speakers' performance is consistent with the availability of UG. As I noted above, the se and le studies will be treated as separate in most of the thesis. First I will look at the se constructions. In chapter 2, I will provide an analysis of the three impersonal se constructions, and in chapter 3, I will report on the se experiment. In Chapter 4, I will provide an analysis of the clitic doubling construction, and in Chapter 5, I will report on the experiment carried out on this structure. The 6th and last chapter will summarize the results and discuss some of the conclusion in light of different language acquisition theories.

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Chapter 2 Functional categories and Spanish se

2.0.

Introduction: reflexive clitics in Spanish

Because of the intriguing properties of the Romance se/si clitics, they have been the subject of a considerable amount of research both in theoretical and in descriptive linguistics. One of the interesting facts about these clitics is that they appear in a great many constructions with a wide variety of properties, and yet all these constructions seem to share some underlying similarities generally related to argument structure. Building on work begun with colleagues (Bonneau, Bruhn-Garavito, & Libert, 1995) I will compare several of these constructions in Spanish in order to show that the differences can be accounted for if we assume that the clitic se is a multifunctional element which can be generated as the head of different functional categories. In each case the ensuing structure will be the result of the interplay of the fundamental properties of the clitic and the position. The clitic se appears under many guises. Its basic function is that of an anaphor and as such it is in complementary distribution with object clitics, as shown in (1). In (1a) the clitic is obligatory and the action is interpreted as reflexive, in (1b) and (1c) it is disallowed and the patient is interpreted as distinct from the subject. (1)

a

Patricia *(se) sentó. Patricia reflx-3p-sg.-cl sat 'Patricia sat down.'

b.

Patricia (*se) sentó al niño. Patricia sat a the child 'Patricia sat the child down.'

c.

Patricia (*se) lo sentó Patricia him sat 'Patricia sat him down.'

Reinhart and Reuland (1993; see also Cole, Hermon, & Sung, 1990; Hellan, 1988; Pica, 1987; Yang, 1983)) divide anaphors into two types. On the one hand, long distance

33

anaphors such as those found in Japanese, Chinese, Dutch and Norwegian are universally simplex expressions. On the other hand, local anaphors such as those found in English are universally complex. According to the authors, Italian se is listed as a simplex expression (p. 658). However, Romance reflexive clitics seem to share properties of both types. They are strictly local, but, unlike English anaphors, they are only subject oriented. Furthermore, although it is clear they are not compounds, such as the English reflexives (myself, himself, etc.), they do have person and perhaps number features. Compare the 3rd person reflexive in (1a) with the examples in (2), in which we see a second person singular and a first person plural. Like the English reflexives, they appear to be marked with accusative case. The complete paradigm is shown in (3). (2)

(3)

a.

(Tú) te sentaste. (you) reflx-2p-sg.-cl sat 'You sat down.'

b.

(Nosostros) nos sentamos (we) reflx-1p-pl-cl sat 'We sat down.' me nos se

1st p.-sg. 1st p.-pl.. 3rd p.-sg. and pl.

te os

2nd p.-sg. 2nd p.-sg.

In conclusion, the Romance reflexive clitics share most of the properties of the local reflexives, except that they do not take object antecedents. In Reinhart and Reuland's analysis, they are SELF anaphors which function as reflexivizers, that is, anaphors which impose identity on two arguments of a predicate. Like the English reflexives, they share the accusative case features of the object position with the person features of the subject. Unlike the English reflexives, they are clitics. It is these characteristics which make it possible for the reflexive to be involved in argument structure changes such as those found in a series of different constructions in many languages. The use of the reflexive in sentences such as those given above makes up only a small set of the structures that are marked by the presence of the reflexive in Spanish. In the

34

first place, as in the other Romance languages, the reflexive clitic appears with verbs which are obligatorily reflexive, as in example (4a), in which its presence does not alternate with a direct object, as seen in (4b). In other instances the reflexive seems to be optional, in that the sentence is not ungrammatical without the clitic, as in (5). Finally, in the case of some intransitive verbs the clitic seems to license a specific direct object. In these cases the clitic seems to have an aspectual effect, as seen in (6). In this last, the verb, 'to walk'' is unergative. The clitic is only possible if the distance to be walked is specified and the action of walking is interpreted as completed. The clitic appears to be a telicity marker (Nishida, 1994). In all these cases the clitic exhibits the person features of the subject. (4)

(5)

(6)

a

Ernesto *(se) arrepintió. Ernesto reflx-3p.cl repented

b.

*Ernesto (se) arrepintió al niño. Ernesto reflx-3p.cl repented a the child 'Ernesto repented the child'

a.

Patricia (se) rió. Patricia reflx-3p.cl laughed 'Patricia laughed.'

b.

Patricia (se) tomó un poco de vino. Patricia reflx-3p.cl drank a little bit of wine 'Patrica drank a little bit of wine.'

c.

Patricia (se) habló con él ayer Patricia reflx-3p.cl spoke to him yesterday 'Patrica spoke to him yesterday.'

a.

Patricia (*se) caminó. Patricia reflx-3p.cl walked 'Patricia walked.'

b.

Patricia *(se) caminó la calle de arriba abajo. Patricia reflx-3p.cl walked the street from up down 'Patricia walked the street from one end to the other.'

Besides these uses, the reflexive clitic appears in a series of constructions which differ from the above in that the clitic is invariable. These are usually referred to as se impersonal constructions and they are the main topic of this thesis.

35

2.1.

se impersonal constructions in Spanish: an overview

The se impersonal constructions in Spanish are characterized by the absence of an overt agent and the obligatory presence of the third person reflexive se. The NP which is associated with se, if there is one, usually follows the verb. In each case we have a string which is roughly [se V (NP)]. In (7) we see an example of an impersonal passive. The verb agrees with the NP which follows it. In (7a), both the NP and the verb are in the plural, in (7b) both are in the singular. Example (7c) shows that the opposite word order, in which the NP precedes the verb, is also possible, although it is slightly marked. This structure is referred to as an impersonal passive because, as in passives, the verb agrees with the object NP. Impersonal passives (7)

a

Ayer *(se) vendieron los helados. yesterday reflx-3p.cl sold-pl the ice creams 'Yesterday the ice creams were sold.'

b.

Ayer *(se) vendió el helado. yesterday reflx-3p.cl sold-sg. the ice cream 'Yesterday the ice cream was sold.'

c.

Los helados *(se) vendieron ayer. the ice creams se sold-pl yesterday 'Yesterday the ice cream was sold.'

Sentences such as those given in (8) and (9) are similar to the impersonal passives (7) in that the agent is interpreted as impersonal. However, they differ from them in that the verb does not agree with the NP but rather appears always in 3rd person singular, probably a default agreement. Clearly, when the NP is singular it is impossible to distinguish between this structure and the impersonal passives. Traditional grammarians have usually assumed that structures such as those illustrated in (8) and (9) are basically the same, the only difference being the fact that (8) is transitive while (9) is not. Because the agent cannot be

36

overt and because of the presence of the reflexive clitic they are usually referred to as reflexive impersonals. Impersonal reflexives (8)

Ayer *(se) vendió algunos libros. Yesterday reflx-3p.cl sold-sg. some books 'Yesterday some books were sold.

(9)

Ayer *(se) bailó toda la noche. Yesterday reflx-3p.cl danced all night. 'Yesterday there was dancing all night.'

Both the impersonal reflexives and the impersonal passives are characterized by the presence of an implicit agent which cannot be expressed in most dialects (see, for example, de Molina Redondo, 1974, p. 16). Following Otero's (1984) suggestion, I would like to argue that this agent has the features [+HUMAN, +ARB]. Evidence for these features can be observed by comparing a 'be' passive with the se passive, as in (10). (10)

(11)

a.

Hubo un temblor. Las casas fueron destruídas. 'There was an earthquake. The houses were destroyed.'

b.

Hubo un temblor. *Se destruyeron las casas. 'There was an earthquake. se destroyed the houses ‘There was an earthquake. The houses were destroyed’ En esa finca, las vacas comen pasto. *Se come mucho pasto. In that farm, the cows eat grass se eat a lot of grass 'In that farm, all the cows eat grass. A lot of grass is eaten.'

In (10a) the sentence can be interpreted as having a [-human] causer such as an earthquake, but (10b) is ungrammatical if the interpretation is that the earthquake destroyed the houses. In order to be grammatical, the interpretation must be that the houses were destroyed by a [+human] agent. In (11), it is not possible to express with an impersonal passive an action which is carried out by animals. As Otero also pointed out, the implicit agent can control an embedded PRO, thus licensing a purpose clause, as seen in (12).

37

(12)

Se comen muchas verduras para vivir bien. se eat-pl many vegetables for to live well 'One eats a lot of vegetables in order to live well.'

The third impersonal structure is that of the inchoatives, as illustrated in (13). As in the impersonal passives, the verb agrees with the following NP. In (13a) the verb agrees with the plural NP, in (13b) it agrees with the singular. Furthermore, the NP can appear in pre-verbal position (13c). However, this structure differs from the two preceding mainly in that there is no implicit agent, although there can be a natural cause. This structure is often analyzed as unaccusative (Burzio, 1986), but I will continue to refer to examples such as these as inchoatives because it is not clear that the presence of the clitic is due to unaccusativity. Inchoatives (13)

a.

Ayer *(se) derritieron los helados. yesterday reflx-3p.cl melted-pl the ice creams 'Yesterday the ice creams melted.'

b.

Ayer *(se) derritió el helado. yesterday reflx-3p.cl melted-sg. the ice cream 'Yesterday the ice cream melted.'

c.

Los helados *(se) derritieron ayer. the ice cream se melted yesterday 'Yesterday the ice cream melted.'

Although these structures are similar in many respects, there are also important differences. I will turn now to an analysis which accounts for the differences.

2.2.

The structure of the impersonal constructions

In order to account for the different properties of the se (Italian si) structures we must assume either that the clitic se/si is different in each case or the differences fall out from something else. I will propose that se/si is the same in all three cases, the impersonal passive, the impersonal reflexive and the inchoative, and that the NP is generated in object position. However, se is a multifunctional clitic which can be generated as the head of

38

different functional categories. The NP must move to check its features in the functional category headed by se. This accounts for the different properties of these constructions. In the linguistic literature, the approach has usually been to assume that se can have different properties, generally related to theta role and case absorption. The best known accounts of se/si, those of Belletti (1982) and Burzio (1986) do not directly address the problem of the nature of the clitic. Belletti looks at the two impersonal constructions, the agreeing impersonal passive and the non-agreeing impersonal reflexive. She assumes that se/si is always generated in INFL and, as all clitics, must receive both case and theta role. According to Belletti, the agreeing se/si is simply a passive construction in which the clitic absorbs objective (accusative) case and is assigned the theta role normally assigned to the subject by the VP. The object NP is forced to move into subject position in order to get case, which explains the cases where the NP is in pre-verbal position. This is illustrated in (14). When the verb is in post-verbal position, it is an inverted subject. (14) IP ru NPi

I' ru

I se

[subj. q role] Acc. case

VP ru

V' ru V

Ti

Regarding the non-agreeing construction, Belletti argues it is a transitive sentence, in which the se/si clitic is assigned nominative case and again, as a pronominal INFL, receives the theta role normally assigned by the VP to the subject, as illustrated in (15).

39

(15) IP ru

I' ru

I se

VP ru V'

[subj. q role] Nom. case

ru V

NP

According to Burzio (1986), the post-verbal NP in all three impersonal constructions is a theme in object position, that is, it is an example of the non-application of move a which distinguishes unaccusatives in Romance. Evidence for this comes, among other things, from ne cliticization in Italian and the assignment of auxiliary essere, which is possible in all three constructions. Burzio's analysis of the non-agreeing impersonal reflexive is identical to Belletti's in (15). In the case of agreeing impersonal passives, the NP in object position is coindexed with an empty category, probably pro, in subject position. The NP transmits the necessary features to trigger agreement. The clitic se, which is again pronominal, in this case also receives nominative case but is not an argument, similar to English it and there. It 'withholds' subject theta role (p. 47). This is illustrated in (16). (16) IP ru ei

I' ru

I se nom. case [+pron., -arg]

VP ru V' ru V

NPi

In the case of the inchoative, the NP is also linked to the empty category in subject position but the clitic is not pronominal, it is simply an affix, with no syntactic reflexes. In all three structures, when the NP is pre-verbal, INFL is non-pronominal given that, according to Burzio, INFL is only pronominal in cases of pro-drop. The clitic se withholds (p. 48) the assignment of theta role to the subject so that when the object NP moves into the subject position it is an A' position.

40

As to the position of the clitic in these constructions, Burzio argues it can be inserted under any node as long as it cliticizes from subject position. However, this leads the author to a conflict with traditional views on theta role assignment, because the result is "two chains, each with one theta role, but intersecting in subject position" (p. 48). Raposo and Uriagereka (1990) studied the agreeing impersonal passives in Portuguese and take issue with the preceding accounts regarding the position of the NP. They argue that the post-verbal NP is in object position, contra Belletti, and that it is not linked to an empty category in subject position, contra Burzio. They show convincing evidence that the pre-posed NP is not in the specifier of IP, but rather it is in Topic position. Evidence for this is found, among other things, in the behaviour of se constructions in embedded clauses. Recall that in the impersonal passive constructions the NP can follow or precede the verb, as shown in (7a) and (7c). Raposo and Uriagereka show that a preverbal NP in a se impersonal passive in Portuguese is not possible in sentences such as (17) (Raposo & Uriagereka, 1990, p. 389)), in which the se construction is embedded, although a post-verbal one is. That the same applies in Spanish is seen in (18). (17)

(18)

a.

O guarda deixou [roubarem-se alguns automóveis] the guard let steal -se some cars 'The guard let some cars be stolen.'

b.

*O guarda deixou [os automóveis roubarem-se ] the guard let some cars steal -se 'The guard let some cars be stolen.'

a.

El guardia dejó [que se robaran algunos carros]. the guard let that se steal some cars 'The guard let some cars be stolen.'

b.

*El guardia dejó [que algunos carros se robaran]. the guard let that some cars se steal 'The guard let some cars be stolen.'

In both (17a) and (18a) the NP in the embedded se construction follows the verb, and in both cases the sentence is grammatical. When it precedes the verb, as in (17b) and (18b), the sentences are ungrammatical. As is well known, the Topic position is not available

41

in embedded clauses. Thus, the ungrammaticality of the (b) examples is to be expected if in fact the preverbal NP occupies a Topic position. In both Belletti and Burzio's accounts there are several types of s e clitics: pronominal, non-pronominal, nominative and accusative. Cinque (1988) agrees in part with this assessment, because he distinguishes between [+argument] and [-argument] se. He sets out to explain why in Italian all types of verbs, transitives, intransitives, unergatives, unaccusatives, psych and passives can appear in finite se constructions, but only transitives and unergatives can appear in non-finite structures. Cinque argues that what distinguishes transitives and unergatives from the other types is that they form the class of verbs which assigns an external theta role. Assuming se, which is associated in all cases with [NP, IP], absorbs the subject theta role, there must be a subject theta role to absorb. Hence, cases in which there is no external theta role assigned are ungrammatical. However, this leaves the question of why se constructions are possible in finite clauses with the class of verbs that does not assign an external theta role. According to Cinque, this is because in these cases se is not an argument, it is a form of agreement which serves to identify the pro in subject position. The clitic se in these cases does not need a theta role. The different possibilities are illustrated in (19) (based on Cinque, 1988. p. 234-235). (19)

a IP

ei

NP

I'

pro ei (no f feat.) I ty ei (Agr) se [+arg.]

VP V' |

V

42

(19)

b. IP

ei

NP pro [+arg.]

I' ei

I

VP

ty (Agr) [f feat.)

(19)

ei

se

V' |

V c. IP ei

NP

I' ei

I ty (Agr) [f feat.)

VP ei

se

V' ei

V

NP pro [+arg.]

Dobrobie-Sorin (1998) distinguishes between accusative s e and nominative. According to her, the cases which were problematic for Cinque are not nominative, as he argued, but rather they can be analyzed as accusative se. Assuming that, in Italian, impersonal passives are cases of accusative se, while the impersonal reflexives, including those in which the verb is intransitive, are nominative se, Dobrobie-Sorin must explain why Rumanian, which does not have nominative se, allows the se construction with unergatives. She argues that in fact these cases can also be analyzed as accusative se, if we assume that unergatives can universally take an object. Accusative se is, for Dobrobie-Sorin, a reflexive marker which does not receive a theta role. It is generated in its S-Structure position as Belletti (1982) and Cinque suggest (1988) and forms a chain such as that given in (20), in which NP is the subject and e is the object position. Both elements form one argument in the case of the impersonal, differing in this way from the true reflexives. However, se does not receive a theta role, and because it is not in an A position it is irrelevant to binding

43

(Reinhart & Reuland, 1993). Thus we avoid Burzio's problem. The empty category in (20) is not the trace of se, it is an NP trace which transmits its role to the subject. (20)

(NPi ei)

In this work, I will assume, following Dobrobie-Sorin, that se is a reflexive marker which forms a chain along the lines proposed by her. I also argue that the empty position is the result of movement and is therefore an NP trace. However, it does not transmit its role to the subject. I propose that both the accusative/nominative and the +argument/-argument distinctions can be preserved if we assume that se is generated in different positions in the structure. In particular, I suggest that se can be generated as the head of AgrO in its position above the VP and below Tense (Chomsky, 1991; Kayne, 1989) and as the head of the Inner Aspect phrase (Travis, 1991) above the lower VP shell. Because of the presence of se, AgrO and Aspect are interpreted as having [+strong] features. As a consequence, the theme NP in object position moves in syntax in order to check its case and f features in AgrO and Inner Aspect. When se is generated in AgrO the sentence is interpreted as an impersonal passive. When se is generated as the head of Inner Aspect, the sentence is interpreted as an inchoative. Because AgrO is associated with the object argument position, the clitic generated here is associated with both [+argument] and accusative characteristics. As I will show, the NP in the impersonal passive has the properties generally associated with objects. When the verb moves into AgrO, it can discharge its agreement features with the NP. The result is verb, object agreement. When the clitic is generated in the head of Inner Aspect it contributes to the change of state interpretation of the action. However, the verb cannot agree with the NP in Inner Aspect. I assume, therefore, that some of the features of the NP, notably case, cannot be discharged and the NP must move into AgrS. I assume AgrO is not available in inchoative constructions. The se in Inner Aspect can therefore be interpreted as [-argument] and

44

associated with [+nominative] features. As we shall see, the NP in the inchoative has subject-like properties. The analysis proposed here accounts for the differences between the behaviour of the NP in the impersonal constructions, as I will show. The different possibilities are illustrated in (21).

(21) Position of the clitic 'se' in the impersonal constructions AgrOP wo

AgrO' wo

AgrO se (Imp. passive) (Imp. reflex.)

VP wo

V' wo

V

AspP wo

Asp' wo

Asp. VP se wo (inchoative) NP

V' wo

V 2.3.

The impersonal passive

Following Bonneau et al (1995) I propose that the clitic se in the impersonal passive construction is generated as the head of AgrO. As a consequence, AgrO is interpreted as [+strong] and the theme NP moves overtly from the object position where it is generated to the specifier of AgrO, where it will appear in post-verbal position. This is the canonical word order for impersonal passives. Following Raposo and Uriagereka (1990), I will assume it is in Topic position when it appears pre-verbally, having passed through AgrO. In AgrO, the NP will check case. Furthermore, the verb moves through AgrO, where it will check its agreement features with the NP in Spec, head agreement. Agreement between the verb and the object can only happen if AgrO is strong and the NP moves in the syntax. This

45

is an exceptional case in Spanish, which is in all other respects an accusative type language, in which the object moves covertly and the verb agrees with the subject. As I showed above, impersonal passive constructions are interpreted as having an underlying agent with [+human] [+arb] features. I assume this agent is generated in the specifier of the higher VP, as expected. However, because the agent cannot be identified by agreement on the verb, it cannot be realized. The structure of the impersonal passive is illustrated in (22).

(22)

Impersonal passive 'se' TP

ei

T' ei

T se-Vk

AgrOP ei NPi

AgrO' ei

AgrO ty

se

VP ei

tk

V'

(agent) ei tk

ei ti

AspP ei

Asp tk

AspP' VP ei

V' ei

tk

ti

In (22) I assume the double VP shell (Larson, 1988). I will also assume the verb in Spanish moves up at least as far as TP. Se is generated in AgrO, which in consequence has strong features. The NP generated in object position will move into AgrO, forming the chain [NP ti]. This movement is licit in Spanish because of the movement of the verb (see Collins & Thráinsson, 1993 for a similar argument). Se cliticizes on to the verb on its way up. The result is the word order se V NP.

46

If this account is correct, we should expect to see evidence of movement. Furthermore, we would also expect the NP should behave as an object in many respects, but it should also exhibit the properties which are derived from agreement with the verb, such as pro-drop. In the following section we will look at the evidence that the NP has moved to AgrO overtly.

2.3.1. Evidence of overt movement in the impersonal passive Evidence of movement in the impersonal passive was provided in Bonneau et al (1995). A brief review follows. The first piece of evidence comes from the behaviour of floated quantifiers. As suggested in Sportiche (1988), floated quantifiers can be used to detect movement of an NP. Although they are rarely completely satisfactory in Spanish for independent reasons, there is, however, a clear distinction between a quantifier floated from a regular object and from the post-verbal NP in an agreeing se construction, as shown in (23). (23)

a.

(?) Se leyeron los libros todos. se read the books all 'All the books were read.'

b.

*Mis amigas leyeron los libros todos. my friends-fem read the books-masc all-masc 'My friends read all the books.'

c.

*Caminaron las mujeres todas. walked the women all. 'All the women walked.'

d.

*Fueron leídos los libros todos. were read the books all 'All the books were read.'

Sentence (23a) shows the floated quantifier todos 'all' is moderately acceptable following the NP in an impersonal passive se construction. This is to be expected if the NP has moved from its base object position into a higher position. This contrasts with the transitive construction seen in (23b) in which the quantifier has been floated from the object

47

NP. That the quantifier todos is associated with the direct object and not with the subject is clear from the fact that it agrees in gender with the object. We may assume this sentence is ungrammatical because, in order for the NP to precede the quantifier, it must have moved overtly over the quantifier from its base position, presumably into AgrO, a movement which is disallowed in Spanish because AgrO is not [+strong] under normal circumstances. Example (23c) shows floated quantifiers cannot follow a post-verbal subject, therefore we cannot assume the NP in the se construction is such a subject. Furthermore, it cannot follow a post-verbal subject of a passive construction (23d). This is evidence against accounts which assume the se constructions and passives are equivalent. The second piece of evidence comes from the distribution of the negative adverb nunca 'never' in post-verbal position, which shows that the NP moves over the negative adverb, in contrast to regular direct objects. Consider the examples in (24). (24)

a.

Yo no leo (nunca) los libros (nunca). I neg read (never) the books (never) ‘I never read the books.’

b.

Yo no le doy (nunca) los libros a Juan (nunca) I neg him give (never ) the books to John (never) ‘I never give the books to John.’

c.

*Yo no le doy a Juan nunca los libros. (Unstressed) I not him give to John never the books. ‘I never give John the books.’

d.

*Yo no le doy los libros nunca a Juan. (Unstressed) I neg him give the books never to John

As we see in (24) nunca 'never' may appear post-verbally in at least two positions, as shown in (24a) for a simple transitive sentence and in (24b) for a double object. It may precede the direct object NP or it may appear at the end of the sentence, after the direct and indirect objects. In what follows I will disregard the sentence final position, which is always possible and does not provide information about the position of the NP. An important restriction on the distribution of nunca is that it may never appear between the direct and

48

the indirect object, whether indirect object shift has taken place as in (24c) or not, as in (24d), unless nunca is stressed. Now compare (24) with (25). (25)

a.

No se le dan (nunca) los libros (nunca) a Juan. No se him give (never) (1) the books (never) (2) to John ‘The books are never given to John.’

b.

*No se le dan a Juan nunca (2) los libros. No se him give to John never the books ‘The books are never given to John.’

Sentence (25a) shows that nunca can precede or follow the object NP in the impersonal passive se construction. I will refer to the higher position as position (1) and to the lower as (2). Following Zanuttini (1994), I assume that negation involves two components, a Polarity Phrase which contains the negative marker no, and a neg phrase which will contain nunca. Furthermore, according to Collins and Thrainsson (1993), among others, the Neg phrase may appear outside VP (that is, above (AgrO), position (1), or inside the VP shell structure, position (2). Both these positions are seen in (25). Crucially, however, in (25a) we see that, unlike the case of the simple transitive, in the impersonal passive the negative nunca can appear between the object and the indirect object. This follows if we assume, as has been suggested, that the object has moved overtly into AgrO, over position (2), while the indirect object is still within the VP. This would place the object NP between position (1) and position (2). Example (25b) shows that the negative adverb cannot be found between the object and the indirect object if the indirect object precedes the direct. This is evidence that only the NP with which the verb agrees moves and not any NP in the sentence. The third fact that may be suggestive concerns modals such as poder 'to be able' and restructuring constructions. As we will see, agreement with the NP is possible under the same conditions as clitic climbing is. If we assume, following Suñer (1988) among others, that clitics are the realization of object agreement, the parallelism between clitic climbing and object agreement on the verb in the impersonal passive constructions is to be expected.

49

In restructuring, both the modal and the embedded verb behave as a constituent. As a result of restructuring a clitic associated with an NP in an embedded clause may climb to a higher clause, and appear above the modal. In the same way, in the case of impersonal constructions, verb agreement between the main verb and the object of the lower clause also climbs to the main verb. Furthermore, this agreement is blocked under the same conditions in which clitic climbing is blocked. The examples in (26) show the facts regarding clitic climbing. (26)

a.

Luisa puede/*pueden comer las manzanas. Luisa can-sg./*pl eat the apples. 'Luisa can eat the apples.

b.

Juan se las puede/*pueden comer. John-sg. SE them can-sg./*pl eat ‘John can eat them.’

In (26a) we find the modal, poder, 'to be able' and an infinitival comer 'to eat'. What is important is that in (26b), the direct object NP las manzanas 'the apples', has been replaced by the accusative clitic las. Furthermore, the accusative clitic appears above the main verb. This is evidence of restructuring. As is expected for transitive sentences in Spanish, the verb does not agree with the object, which in the examples is plural, but rather with the singular subject. This is so even when the clitic has climbed into the main clause. Restructuring in itself does not lead to object agreement between the verb and the object. According to Roberts (1997) restructuring is possible because modal verbs are within the extended projection of the infinitive verb, forming a single extended projection for the two clauses. The infinitive climbs as far as the higher AgrS and adjoins to the modal (see Kayne (1991) for a similar analysis). Now compare (26) with the sentence in (27) (27)

a.

Se pueden pintar las casas muy rápido. se can-pl paint the houses very quickly ‘The houses can be painted very quickly.’

b.

*Pueden pintar los estudiantes muy rápido. can-pl pain the students very quickly 'The students can paint very quickly.'

50

As (27a) shows, in the impersonal passive se construction the main verb may agree with the post-verbal NP. Assuming it is correct that both object clitics and agreement on the verb in se constructions are realizations of object agreement, it is to be expected that verb agreement in se constructions should raise to the main clause under exactly the same conditions as the object clitic is allowed to do so. Sentence (27b) is included to show that a post-verbal subject cannot appear in the same position as the object NP in the se constructions. If it is correct that clitic climbing and object verb agreement climbing are similar, it is also to be expected that the climbing of object agreement in the impersonal passive will be blocked in the same cases in which clitic climbing is blocked, and this is in fact what we find. The presence of an intervening negation blocks restructuring, and neither form of object agreement, the clitic or agreement on the verb, may climb to the main clause. In the first place, consider the examples in (28), which show the blocking effect with clitics. (28)

a.

Ellos pueden no divulgarlas They can no divulge them-acc-cl. ‘They can not divulge them.’

b.

*Ellos las pueden no divulgar They them-acc-cl can no divulge . ‘They can not divulge them.’

A comparison of (28a) and (28b) shows that the presence of negation between the embedded verb and the modal forces the clitic to stay in the lower clause. The sentence is grammatical in (28a), where clitic climbing has not taken place, and ungrammatical in (28b), where it has. This is identical to the behaviour of object agreement in impersonal passives, as shown in (29). (29)

a.

No se pueden divulgar las noticias. Not se can-pl divulge the news-pl ‘The news cannot be divulged.’

b.

*Se pueden no divulgar las noticias. SE can-pl no divulge the news-pl ‘The news can be not divulged.’

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c.

Se puede no divulgar las noticias. SE can no divulge the news. ‘The news can be not divulged.’

The sentence in (29a) shows that agreement between the modal and the post-verbal NP is grammatical in a negative sentence. However, it is ungrammatical when the negation appears between the modal and the embedded infinitive, as (29b) shows. This is so because the intervening negation blocks restructuring. The only option is for the verb to appear in the third person singular, probably a default agreement, as shown in (29c). Similar effects can be found with causative constructions. Following Li (1990), among others, I will assume the embedded clause in the causative construction is a VP and not a full CP. As (30) shows, clitic climbing is possible, and in many cases obligatory, in causative constructions. (30)

a. b.

(31)

Juan le hizo pintar las casas a Pedro. Juan dat-cl made-sg. paint the houses a Pedro. 'Juan made Peter paint the houses.' Juan se las hizo pintar a Pedro. John-sg. dat-cl acc-cl made-sg. paint a Peter ‘John made Peter paint them.’ Se hicieron pintar las casas. se made-pl paint the houses-pl ‘Somebody made the houses be painted.’

In (30a), there is a causative construction with an object. In (30b) this object has been replaced by the accusative clitic which appears to the left of the causative. In the impersonal passive (31), agreement between the object NP and the causative is also possible. Compare the sentences in (32) (from Mejías-Bikandi & Moore, 1994) and (33). (32)

a.

Ellos les hicieron no divulgar las noticias. They dat-cl made-pl not divulge the news ‘They made them not divulge the news.’

b.

Ellos les hicieron no divulgarlas They-pl dat cl made-pl. no divulge them-acc-cl ‘They made them not divulge them.’

c.

*Ellos se las hicieron no divulgar They-pl dat cl them-acc-cl made-pl. no divulge ‘They made them not divulge them.’ 52

(33)

a.

*Se hicieron no divulgar las noticias. se made-pl not divulge the news-pl. ‘Somebody forced the news not to be divulged.’

b.

Se hizo no divulgar las noticias. se made-sg. not divulge the news-pl ‘Somebody forced the news not to be divulged.’

Sentence (32a) shows a causative construction with an object NP in which the causative verb is separated from the embedded infinitive by a negative. In (32b) the object has been replaced by a clitic, which remains in the lower clause. This sentence is grammatical. However, it is ungrammatical for the clitic to climb to the left of the causative, as shown in (32c)5. In a parallel fashion, agreement between the verb and the NP is disallowed when there is an intervening negation, as the ungrammaticality of (33a) shows. Only the third person singular default is possible, as seen in (33b) Besides negation, an intervening NP can also block both types of agreement, object clitics and verb agreement in se constructions, as shown in (34) and (35). (34)

(35)

a.

Julia les hizo a los niños pintar las casas. Julia dat.cl made a the children paint the houses 'Julia made the children paint the houses.'

b.

Julia les hizo a los niños pintarlas. Julia dat.cl made a the children paint-them-acc.cl 'Julia made the children paint them.'

c.

*Julia se las hizo a los niños pintar. Julia to them-dat.cl them-acc.cl made a the children paint 'Julia made the children paint them.'

a.

*Se les hicieron a los niños pintar las casas. se dat-cl. made-pl a the children paint the houses-pl 'The children were made to paint the houses.'

b.

Se les hizo a los niños pintar las casas. se dat-cl made-sg a the children paint the houses-pl ‘The children were made to paint the houses.’

In (34a) the embedded verb has an object, las casas 'the houses'. The agent of the embedded clause is realized by an NP intervening between the lower and the higher verbs6. 5It is beyond the scope of this study to address the position of the dative clitic. 6Some speakers find this word order ungrammatical, preferring the NP in final

53

position.

In (34b) the object has been replaced by a clitic which remains in the lower clause. As expected, this sentence is grammatical. Clitic climbing to the higher clause over the intervening agent NP is, on the other hand, ungrammatical, as seen in (34c). In the same way, agreement of the causative with the embedded object in (35a) is disallowed when there is an intervening NP. Only the third person singular is possible (35b). I take this parallelism between clitics and agreement in se construction as evidence that in both cases we are dealing with the same phenomenon, object agreement. The final indication that the NP has moved to AgrO in the impersonal passive construction comes from passives. In Spanish, besides the impersonal passive, it is possible to construct verbal passives with the verb ser 'to be', as seen in (36). However, it is not possible to combine the two forms to make an agreeing impersonal passive with the verb 'to be', as seen in (37). The standard analysis of the 'be' passive is that the agent theta role is absorbed and the NP moves to subject position in order to get case. In the Minimalist Program as applied here, this last probably means that AgrO is not projected in passives. If it is correct that se in the impersonal passives is generated as the head of AgrO, it is evident why the 'be' passive, in which AgrO is not projected, is incompatible with it. (36)

Ayer fueron comprados esos libros. Yesterday were bought those books. 'Those books were bought yesterday.'

(37)

*Ayer se fueron comprados esos libros. Yesterday se were bought those books. 'Those books were bought yesterday.'

There is a problem that the above account leaves unresolved. There are se sentences which are not incompatible with the 'be' passive, as shown in (38). (38)

a.

Cuando no se es invitado (por un amigo)... when not se is invited by a friend 'When one is not invited...'

b.

Cuando no se invita al hermano... when not se invite the brother 'When the brother is not invited...'

54

c.

*Cuando no se es invitado el hermano. when not se is invited the brother 'When the brother is not invited...'

In example (38a) there is a grammatical combination of a 'be' passive and a se impersonal construction. However, unlike the examples seen above, it is possible for the agent to be realized in a 'by' phrase. Furthermore, also unlike previous examples, a comparison of the sentences in (38) shows that the object NP cannot be realized when the two passives are combined. In (38b) we find a simple impersonal passive with a [+human] theme NP, and this sentence is grammatical. In (38c), the impersonal passive and the 'be' passive are both used, and the sentence is ungrammatical because of the presence of the theme NP, as a comparison with (38a) shows. It is particularly intriguing that the unexpressed theme is interpreted in very much the same way as the agent is in the simple se impersonal passives. It refers to a [+human] [+arb] entity. I am not sure what the explanation is. I leave this issue for future research. To summarize, it seems that there is some support for the hypothesis that the NP in the agreeing se construction has moved into AgrO in the syntax because of the [+strong] features associated with it. Furthermore, assuming that Spanish agreement morphology on the verb is a reflex of the spelling out of strong features on the NP, it is clear that verb agreement is a consequence of this movement. We will now look at the properties of the NP in the impersonal constructions, in order to show that these properties reinforce the notion that the NP is an object and not a post-verbal subject. 2.3.2. Properties of the NP in the Impersonal Passive It has been proposed here that the NP in the impersonal passive has moved to AgrO and that this movement triggers agreement on the verb. Because of this agreement the NP exhibits some of the characteristics which are associated with subjects in Spanish. It can precede or follow the verb as seen in (39a) and (39b), although, unlike most subjects, the canonical position is post-verbal. Furthermore, the NP can be pro-dropped, as is generally

55

the case for subjects in Spanish, as shown in (40), and it cannot be replaced by an object clitic pronoun, as seen in (41). (39)

a.

Ayer se vendieron los helados. yesterday se sold-pl the ice creams 'Yesterday the ice creams were sold.'

b.

Ayer los helados se vendieron yesterday the ice creams se sold-pl 'Yesterday the ice creams were sold.'

(40)

¿Los helados? Se vendieron. The ice creams se sold-pl pro 'The ice creams? They were sold.'

(41)

¿Los heladosi? *Se losi vendieron. The ice creams? se themi sold The ice creams? They were sold.

Although the properties shown above are related to subjects, the NP in the agreeing impersonal passive has a number of properties which typically relate to objects. A well known asymmetry between subjects and objects is the possibility of extracting out of the NP (Huang, 1982; Torrego, 1986). As we see in (42a) and (42b), in Spanish subextraction is not possible out of a subject7. Example (42a) shows a declarative sentence with a post-verbal subject. Sentence (42b) shows that extracting from within this subject to make a wh- question is ungrammatical. The same applies if the post-verbal NP is the subject of a 'be' passive sentence, as shown in (42c) and (42d). (42)

7Post

a

Chocaron contra un árbol varios camiones de marca MB crashed against a tree several trucks of make MB 'Several MB trucks crashed against a tree.'

b.

*¿De qué marca chocaron contra un árbol varios camiones? Of what make crashed into a tree several trucks ' What make of trucks crashed into a tree?

c.

Fueron comprados varios camiones de marca MB were bought several trucks of make MB 'Several MB trucks were bought.'

d.

*¿De qué marca fueron comprados varios camiones? of what make were bought several trucks ‘Of what make were the trucks bought ?’

verbal subjects will be used in all examples to make the comparison clear.

56

In contrast to extraction from a subject, extraction from within an object is grammatical. In (43a) we see a transitive declarative sentence. Sentence (43b) shows that it is possible to move an embedded prepositional phrase from within the object NP to the front of the sentence to form a wh-question. (43)

a.

La compañía compró varios camiones de marca MB the company bought several trucks of make MB 'The company bought MB trucks."

b.

¿De qué marca compró la compañía varios camiones? of what make bought the company several trucks 'What make of trucks did the company buy?'

Example (44) shows that the NP in the impersonal passive construction patterns with objects. As in the case of the object of a normal transitive sentence, the prepositional phrase embedded in the object shown in (44a) can be wh-fronted, as seen in (44b). (44)

a

Se compraron varios camiones de marca MB se bought several trucks of make MB 'Several MB trucks were bought'

b.

¿De qué marca se compraron varios camiones? of what make se bought several trucks 'What make of trucks were bought?'

Another asymmetry between post-posed objects and subjects relates to secondary predication. Post-verbal subjects do not easily allow secondary predication as we see in (45). Example (45a) shows a post-verbal subject of a 'be + locative' construction8. The post-verbal subject is followed by a depictive secondary predicate and the sentence is ungrammatical. In a similar fashion, (45b) shows an unergative verb. The subject is again followed by a depictive predicate. This sentence is slightly better than the preceding one, particularly if the predicate is emphasized. It is not, however, totally grammatical. Example (45c) shows that the same applies to the post-verbal subject of a 'be' passive construction, which is ungrammatical with a secondary predicate. (45)

a

*Estaban en la sala las tazas ya desportilladas were in the living room the cups already cracked 'The cups already cracked were in the living room.'

8I have tried to avoid unaccusative verbs, which may behave differently.

57

b

*(?)Bailaron las mujeres todavía borrachas. danced the women still drunk. 'The women danced while still drunk.'

c.

*Fueron compradas las tazas ya desportilladas were bought the cups already cracked 'The cups were bought already cracked.'

In contrast to the ungrammatical sentences in (45), (46) shows an object NP modified by a secondary predicate. This sentence is grammatical. As we see in (47), the NP in the se construction patterns with the object NP in (46), and not with the subject NPs found in (45). (46)

Desafortunadamete compramos las tazas ya desportilladas. unfortunately bought-we the cups already cracked 'Unfortunately we bought the cups already cracked.'

(47)

Desafortunadamente se compraron las tazas ya desportilladas. Unfortunately se bought the cups already cracked 'Unfortunately the cups were bought already cracked.'

A third property relates to the possibility of bare nouns. In (48a) and (48b) we see that in Spanish bare nouns are disallowed in subject position. The post-verbal subject of the sentence cannot be a bare noun such as 'ice cream' or 'women'. This is also the case for post-verbal subjects of passives, as shown in (48c) and (48d). (48)

a.

Ayer estaba *(el) helado en la mesa. yesterday was *(the) ice cream on the table. 'Yesterday the ice cream was on the table.'

b.

Ayer bailaron la cumbia *(unas) mujeres. Yesterday danced the cumbia *(some) women 'Yesterday some women danced the cumbia.'

c.

Ayer fueron comprados *(unos) camiones. yesterday were bought *(some) trucks 'Yesterday some trucks were bought.'

d.

*Fueron vistas mujeres en ese bar . were seen women in that bar 'Women were seen in that bar.'

Compare the examples in (48) with those given in (49) and (50). In (49a) and (49b) we have transitive sentences with bare nouns in object position. The sentences are

58

grammatical, as is the se sentence with a bare NP in (50). In this case also, the NP in the se construction patterns with objects and not with subjects, including subjects of passive sentences. (49)

a

Pusimos helado en los platos. put ice cream on the plates 'We put ice cream on the plates.'

b.

Vimos mujeres por todas partes. (pro) saw women everywhere 'We saw women everywhere.'

(50)

Se sirvió helado. se served ice cream 'Ice cream was served.'

Note, however, that although bare plurals can appear in object position it is not the case that only bare plurals are allowed. It is clear, therefore, that there is no indefiniteness effect such as that found in partitive case constructions, as suggested by Belletti (1988). Another way in which the agreeing impersonal passive behaves like an object is in relation to what has been called differential object marking. Spanish, like many other languages (Bossong, 1991) does not mark all objects in the same way. When the object is both [+human] and [+specific] it is marked by the pseudo preposition a, often referred to as a 'personal a'. This is the same preposition which marks indirect objects9. An example of a direct object marked by a is given in (51a). In most cases in which the direct object is not [+human] or [+specific] the direct object is unmarked, as in (51b). (51)

a.

Veo *(a) las profesoras. see a the teachers 'I see the teachers.'

b.

Veo (*a) el helado. See-I a the ice cream 'I see the ice cream.'

This differential marking applies only to object NPs and in no way affects subjects, as shown in (52a) for an active verb with a post-verbal subject and in (52b) for a passive. Both of these are correct without the differential object marker a. 9For

a description of some of the uses of a in Spanish, see the Appendix at the end of Chapter 6.

59

(52)

a.

Bailan (*a) las mujeres. dance a the women 'The women dance.'

b.

Fueron vistas (*a) las mujeres. were seen a the women 'The women were seen.'

As in previous cases, the NP in the impersonal construction compares with object NPs in that the differential marking shows up in these structures. Whenever the NP in the impersonal passive is [+human +specific], it generally is preceded by the personal a. In the presence of this a agreement on the verb appears to be blocked in standard Spanish and instead the verb takes a default third person singular, as shown in (53a). For speakers of this dialect, only a non-agreeing se construction can take an NP marked by a. Furthermore, only in these cases can the NP be replaced by an object clitic and not by pro (53b). However, for some speakers, it seems that the presence of the a does not block agreement, as shown in (53c). What is crucial is that all dialects accept the a

marked NPs in

impersonal passives. (53)

a

Se despidió *(a) las profesoras. se fired a the teachers 'The teachers were fired.'

b.

Se *(las) despidió. se them fired 'They were fired"

c.

Se despidieron (a) las profesoras. se fired a the teachers 'The teachers were fired.'

The facts illustrated here suggest that the personal a has two interpretations in Spanish. In one dialect, it is simply a class marker which marks objects, without any important syntactic consequences. Perhaps it is a PF phenomenon. In the standard dialect, however, it blocks agreement under certain conditions. It is possible that it is involved in the assignment of case to the NP. This has been suggested by de Jong (1996). If this is so, it is possible that the a-marked NP does not have to move to AgrO in order to get case, which

60

would explain why the verb appears in the singular. I will return to differential object marking and lack of agreement in the section on the non-agreeing impersonal reflexives. To summarize the facts relating to the agreeing impersonal passive, it seems that the NP in this construction behaves as a subject in that it triggers agreement on the verb and it can be replaced by pro but not by an object clitic. However, the NP also differs in important ways from post-verbal subjects and more often patterns with objects, which lends credence to the argument that the NP is an object and not a post-verbal subject, as has been suggested. Furthermore, in all cases the properties of the NP differ from those of a postverbal subject of a passive sentence, which also leads to the conclusion that the name of passive is something of a misnomer for this construction. Taken in conjunction with the evidence of movement of the NP, these facts constitute evidence for the proposal defended here, that the NP moves to AgrO in syntax. Given that this movement only takes place in constructions in which the se is present, it is not implausible to suggest that it is the presence of the clitic which causes it, as has been hypothesized here. The properties of the impersonal passive are summarized in Table 1. TABLE 1 Properties of the NP in the impersonal passive Subject-like

Object-like

Agreement on the verb √

Subextraction

Pre- or post-verbal

√

Secondary predication √

Pro-drop

√

Bare nouns

√

No object clitic

√

Personal a

√

61

√

2.4.

Impersonal reflexives

As we have seen, the impersonal reflexive differs from the impersonal passive in that the verb does not agree with the NP which follows it, as shown in example (8), repeated here as (54) for convenience. (54)

Ayer *(se) vendió algunos libros. Yesterday reflx-3p.cl sold-sg. some books 'Yesterday some books were sold.

One of the most serious problems in studying this structure is the variation in judgements from speaker to speaker10. The grammar of the Royal Academy (Real Academia Española, 1978) considers impersonal reflexives ungrammatical, which probably can be interpreted to mean non-standard. Gili y Gaya (1961) says the use of impersonals in which the verb does not agree with the NP is spreading, with regional and even individual variation. Otero (1984), in contrast, asserts these are really the only grammatical impersonals. In view of this variation, it is plausible that we are dealing with different representations. In the first place, for some speakers the NP in the impersonal reflexive is a normal object. In these dialects, this object can often be replaced by a clitic (Silvina Montrul, p.c.). However, as we shall see below, there are other speakers, among which I count myself, for whom there are restrictions on the type of NP which may appear in this construction. Among other things, the NP must be indefinite and it cannot be modified by an adjective. This is reminiscent of Belletti's (1988) discussion of the characteristics of partitive case. Let us assume, then, that in these cases the structure is identical to the structure of the impersonal passives, except that the NP receives inherent partitive case from the verb. In other words, the clitic is generated as the head of AgrO. The NP, however, does 10According

to Belletti (1982), the non-agreeing construction holds for many Italian speakers the same marginal position which it holds for some dialects of Spanish.

62

not need to move to AgrO in order to check case features in AgrO and in fact Procrastinate forces it to wait until LF to do so. Therefore, there is no agreement triggered on the verb, which surfaces with a default third person agreement. I assume that the NP checks person features at LF in AgrO. Assuming AgrS is not projected in the impersonal passive constructions, the agent cannot check its own features, as in the case of the impersonal passive, and therefore it cannot be realized. There is a third group of speakers for whom the impersonal reflexive is ungrammatical. The explanation may lie in the fact that for these speakers partitive case is not available. I will now look at the properties of the NP in this construction which show, in the first place, that it is different from the NP in the impersonal passive, and, in the second place, that it meets the requirements for the assignment of inherent case.

2.4.1. Properties of the NP in the impersonal reflexive The lack of agreement between the verb and the NP in the impersonal reflexive entails a gamut of different properties which contrast with the agreeing impersonal passive. The NP in the impersonal reflexive se construction does not exhibit any of the subject-like properties which are derived from agreement with the verb. Example (55a) shows the NP cannot precede the verb, (55b) shows it cannot be pro-dropped and in (55c) we see that, unlike the agreeing passive (and the inchoative), it can be replaced by a clitic pronoun, at least in some dialects. (55)

a.

*Algunos helados se vendió. some ice creams se sold-sg. 'The ice creams were sold.'

b.

¿Algunos helados? *Se vendió. some ice creams se sold-sg. pro 'The ice creams? They were sold.'

c.

¿Algunos helados? Se los vendió. some ice creamsi se themi sold 'The ice creams? They were sold.'

63

However, as I mentioned, not all speakers treat the NP in this construction as a normal object either. As a consequence, it does not share some of the object-like properties of the agreeing form either. For example, the NP must be indefinite in many dialects (56a) and (56b) (for similar judgements see García, 1975). In these dialects the NP cannot be substituted for by a clitic, which is to be expected given that clitic pronouns always refer to [+specific] objects. (56)

a.

Se vende casas. se sell-sg. houses-pl ‘Houses are for sale.’

b.

Se vende unas/ *todas las/*las casas. se sell-sg. some/ *all the /*the houses-pl. ‘Some/all/the houses are for sale.’

In the second place, the NP in the impersonal reflexive cannot be modified, for example by an adjective, as seen in (57a). This is in contrast to objects in general and to the NP in the agreeing impersonal passive, as shown in (57b). (57)

a.

*Se vende hermosas casas. se sell-sg. beautiful houses-pl ‘Beautiful houses are for sale.’

b.

Se venden hermosas casas. se sell-pl beautiful houses-pl ‘Beautiful houses are for sale.’

A third contrast is found in the fact that the NP in the impersonal reflexive cannot take a secondary predicate, as the ungrammaticality of (58) shows. Nor does it allow subextraction (59), both characteristics of objects, as we have seen. (58)

*Se vende casas ya pintadas. se sell-sg. houses-pl already painted ‘Painted houses are for sale.’

(59)

*¿De qué marca se vende camiones? of what make se sell trucks "What make of trucks are for sale?

64

It is clear that, at least for some speakers, the NP in this construction is restricted in specific ways. This can be explained if, as I suggested, the NP receives inherent partitive case from the verb and therefore does not need to move, at least in syntax. A comparison of the properties of the two impersonal se constructions is found in Table 2.

TABLE 2 Properties of the NP in the impersonal reflexive Subject-like

Object-like

Agreement on the verb X

Subextraction

X

Pre- or post-verbal

X

Secondary predication X

Pro-drop

X

Bare nouns

√

Object clitics

√X

Personal a

√

I will now turn to look in depth at a special case of lack of agreement on the verb, that of differential object marking. 2.4.2. Differential object marking Recall that for some speakers the presence of differential object marking on the NP blocks agreement between the NP and the verb, as shown in (53), repeated here as (60) for convenience. The verb, therefore, always appears in the third person singular. (60)

Se despidió *(a) las profesoras. se fired a the teachers 'The teachers were fired.'

One of the first questions that must be addressed is what the status of differential object marking in Spanish is. An obvious possibility is that it is dative marking, given that, as we see in (61), the indirect object in Spanish is marked in the same way. (61)

(Les) hablo *(a) las profesoras. to-them speak a the teachers. 'I speak to the teachers. 65

The case for arguing that the a marked objects are all datives is made stronger by the fact that, as Bossong (1991) has shown, cross-linguistically, whenever a language exhibits differential object marking, the preference is to choose the dative to replace the accusative. Furthermore, one could make a case for claiming that the restriction of [+human] and [+specific] applies universally to indirect objects. In English, for example, sentence (62), in which the indirect object is realized by an indefinite, that is a [+human] [specific] entity, is not grammatical unless we somehow restrict the set of people, for example by saying 'to anyone who passed'. Furthermore, a comparison of (63a) and (63b) shows that when the goal is not human the dative alternation is ruled out. This might be an indication that the non-human goal, in this case the refrigerator, may not be an indirect object. One could argue, therefore, that indirect objects are in some languages semantically restricted to [+human] [+specific] entities. (62) (63)

*I gave flowers to anyone. a.

I bought a bulb for the refrigerator.

b.

*I bought the refrigerator a bulb.

Counter to the above arguments, de Jong (1996) claimed that the presence of a indicates overt movement to AgrO, and therefore the differentially marked NPs are distinct from datives. This would go against the argument put forward here, where I assume overt movement to AgrO automatically triggers agreement on the verb. Demonte (1987) also argued against interpreting the personal a marked objects as datives. She claimed that the application of several tests showed them to behave differently from indirect objects. In particular, she used the possibility of secondary predication and subextraction, tests which we also take to indicate the presence of a direct object as opposed to an indirect. If we apply Demonte's tests to the personal a sentences in the se constructions, we will be able to establish whether they are direct or indirect objects. As we see in the following examples, it seems clear that they are not direct objects (see Bonneau, et al., 1995). A first indication

66

comes from clitics. Examples (64a) and (64b) show that in nominative/accusative sentences the differentially marked direct object is replaced by an accusative clitic los

11.

Compare

with (65a) and (65b) for a se construction. In the se construction the a NP is replaced by a dative les. (64)

(65)

a.

Llevé a los estudiantes a la biblioteca. I took-sg. a the students-pl to the library 'I took the students to the library.'

b.

Los llevé a la biblioteca. I them-acc. took to the library. 'I took them to the library.’

a.

Se llevó a los estudiantes a la biblioteca. se took-sg. a the students-pl to the library 'The students were taken to the library.'

b.

Se les/(*los) llevó a la biblioteca12. se les-dat./(*los-acc) took to the library. 'They were taken to the library.’

A second test depends on subextraction. Sentence (66) shows that subextraction is not allowed from indirect objects. (66)

*¿De qué profesora hablaste a los estudiantes? Of what teacher spoke-you a the students 'You spoke to the students of what teacher?

Compare (66) with (67). In (67a) we see a differentially marked object in an impersonal passive. Sentence (67b) shows that wh-movement of the prepositional phrase embedded in the NP is disallowed. This is in contrast to non-marked objects, as we saw. The a NP in the impersonal passive again patterns with indirect objects. (67)

a.

Se llevó a los estudiantes de la profesora Martínez de paseo. se took a the students of the Prof. Martínez on a trip. The students of Prof. Martínez were taken on a trip.

b.

*¿De qué profesora se llevó a los estudiantes de paseo? Of what teacher se took a the students on a trip? 'The students of what teacher were taken on a trip?

11In

some dialects there is some confusion between dative and accusative clitics. However, in my dialect they are quite clearly separate. 12This sentence is correct with an accusative clitic if the se is not interpreted as an impersonal but rather as an indirect object.

67

Another test used by Demonte to differentiate the direct object from the indirect is the possibility of secondary predication. Direct objects can take secondary predication. Indirect object NPs, however, cannot, as shown in (68). and nor can a NPs in

se

constructions (69). In this instance also, the!personal a marked NPs in non-agreeing se constructions pattern with indirect objects and not with direct objects. (68)

*Les hablé a los soldados todavía borrachos. les-cl-dat spoke a the soldiers still drunk. 'I spoke to the soldiers who were still drunk.'

(69)

*Se vigiló a los soldados todavía borrachos. se guarded a the soldiers still drunk. ‘The still drunk soldiers were guarded.’

Given these facts, it seems clear that, although in normal transitive constructions the a NP may exhibit the properties of a direct object, in the impersonal se construction it does not. In other words, the a NP in the impersonal passive differs from the non differentially marked NP on the one hand and from the a NP in normal transitive sentences on the other. It appears to be some type of oblique, possibly a dative. If this is so, then these sentences are in fact intransitive and presumably AgrO is not generated, as in other se intransitive sentences. It is beyond the scope of this study to determine where se is generated in these circumstances. Nevertheless, we can straightforwardly account for the fact that the verb cannot agree with the a NP, as the NP does not check its features with se in AgrO. These facts contribute some additional evidence for the hypothesis that se forces movement of the NP to the Spec of AgrO. There is a problem, however, with those speakers who accept agreement between the a NP and the verb. I can only suppose that the a NP is interpreted in a different way. Perhaps, as I suggested, the a is a classifier with no syntactic effects. To summarize, it seems that for some speakers the a NPs in impersonal passives are datives. In this case, the sentence behaves as an intransitive. Presumably AgrO is not projected and the se is generated in some other position. The NP does not move, and as a consequence agreement on the verb is not triggered. However, for some speakers, the a

68

simply seems to be some type of classifier. For these speakers it does not block agreement on the verb, so presumably the NP moves to AgrO in syntax. Having accounted for the non-agreeing impersonal constructions, I will now turn to the inchoative in the next section.

2.5

Inchoative se constructions.

Since Perlmutter (1978) and Burzio (1986) linguists have known that the class of intransitives is made up of at least two different types of verbs. Both types allow only one argument but, whereas in the case of unergatives this argument is the agent, as we can see in (70), it is the theme in the case of unaccusatives, as in (71). The standard analysis for unaccusatives is that the NP is generated in object position. As in passives, the external theta role has been absorbed and accusative case is unavailable, hence the NP moves overtly to subject position to get case. In Spanish, however, the subject of unaccusatives can appear in pre- or post-verbal position, as seen in (71). (70)

Laura camina (*Laura) frecuentemente. Laura walks (Laura) frequently 'Laura walks frequently'

(71)

Todos los días (Laura) llega (Laura) tarde. every day (Laura) arrives (Laura) late 'Laura arrives late every day.'

Among the unaccusative verbs there is a subclass which alternates, that is, the verb can take both a theme and an agent like other transitive verbs, as we see in (72a) and (73a), or the verb can appear with only one argument which is the theme, as (72b) and (73b) show. In the latter case the agent has been suppressed and the theme NP is interpreted as undergoing a change of state. Examples (72b) and (73b) show that in the one argument version of these verbs the NP can follow the verb, and in (72c) and (73c) we see it can also precede it.

69

(72)

(73)

a.

Silvia quemó la carne. Silvia burned the meat 'Silvia burned the meat.'

b.

*(Se) quemó la carne. se burned the meat 'The meat burned'

c.

La carne *(se) quemó. the meat se burned 'The meat burned.'

a.

Rompí el vaso. broke-I the glass 'I broke the glass.'

b.

*(Se) rompió el vaso. se broke the glass 'The glass broke.'

c.

El vaso *(se) rompió. the glass se broke 'The glass broke.'

It is often the case that the one argument version of these alternating verbs is marked by the presence of se, as shown in (72) and (73). I have referred to these verbs as inchoatives, to distinguish them from the non-clitic unaccusatives such as the verb llegar 'to arrive', and it is this class which will mainly concern us here. Unlike in the impersonal constructions, in the inchoative version of alternating verbs there is no implicit [+human] agent and therefore the action is not incompatible with a natural cause, as shown in (74a) and (74b). Because there is no implicit agent, there cannot be a purpose clause, as shown in (74c). (74)

13This

a.

En el incendio causado por el temblor se quemaron las casas. in the fire caused by the earthquake se burned the houses ‘In the fire caused by the earthquake the houses were burned'

b.

Se derritió el helado por el calor/*por María. se melted the ice cream by the heat/*by María 'The ice cream melted because of the heat/*María.'

c

*Se derritió el helado para comerlo más fácilmente13. se melted the ice cream in order to eat it more easily 'The ice cream melted in order to eat it more easily.'

is grammatical if interpreted as an impersonal.

70

Based on the fact that the clitic appears on the unaccusative version of alternating verbs, it has been argued that the clitic is the morphological realization of the suppressed external argument (Burzio, 1986; Cinque, 1988). However, I will show that there is evidence that se in these construction is related to aspect, as is often the case in Spanish (Almagro, 1993; Nishida, 1994; see also Labelle, 1992 for French) and the reason it appears on the class of alternating verbs is that these verbs are usually change of state verbs. This explains why the clitic does not appear in other types of unaccusative verbs in Spanish. Furthermore, I will show that, unlike the NP in the impersonal constructions described above, the NP in the inchoative construction behaves as a subject, with no object-like properties. This is evidence that the NP, although generated in object position moves in syntax to subject position to get case. The structure I will defend is shown in (75).

(75) Structure of the Inchoatives AgrSP ru

NPi

AgrS' ru

AgrS se-Vk

TP ru ti

T' ru

T

AspP ru ti

Asp' ru

Asp

VP

ty ru

se

tk

ti

ru tk

V'

In (75) I assume there is only a monadic VP shell because the agent argument has been suppressed (Baker, 1994). The clitic se is generated in the head of the aspectual phrase. As a consequence, the NP generated in object position must move to Spec of Aspect, which explains the telic interpretation which I will show these sentences have. However, it seems that the NP cannot check all its features in Inner Aspect, although why

71

this is so is not certain. It may be that theme arguments can only check case in one of the agreement nodes, either AgrO or AgrS. Thus, the NP must continue into AgrS. As a consequence, the NP in the inchoative construction behaves as a subject. When it appears in post-verbal position it will be a post-posed subject. In order to see the evidence for this proposal I will look in more detail at the unaccusative verbs in Spanish.

2.5.1. Unaccusative and inchoative verbs in Spanish To begin with, there is very little evidence in Spanish as to which verbs are unaccusative. Some of the most common tests used, such as resultative constructions or auxiliary selection, do not work in Spanish. As a working hypothesis, I will assume that verbs which have commonly been found to be unaccusative in other languages are also unaccusative in Spanish. This being the case, we see that there are 4 main types of unaccusatives (see Montrul, 1997 for a comprehensive analysis): those that alternate between the transitive form (76a) and the inchoative (76b), in which case, as we see, the inchoative is often marked by the clitic se; verbs that do not alternate, that is, they only allow the theme argument and never appear with the clitic se, such as the verb llegar 'to arrive' (77); verbs that do not alternate but do optionally take the clitic se (78); and finally a group that does not alternate and obligatorily appears with the clitic (79). (76)

a.

Juan rompió la taza. John broke the cup 'John broke the cup.'

b.

La taza *(se) rompió. The cup se broke 'The cup broke.'

(77)

Ya (*se) llegaron los invitados. Already (*se) arrived the guests 'The guests have already arrived.'

(78)

El hombre (se) desapareció The man se disappeared 'The man disappeared.'

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(79)

El hombre *(se) arrepintió. The man se repented. 'The man repented.'

To begin with, I will look at the alternating class. One of the main controversies revolves around the question of whether one of the two forms, the inchoative or the transitive, is derived and if so, which one (see Montrul, 1997, and the references therein). Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995; see also Chierchia, 1989) argue that the transitive form is basic and the inchoative is the derived form. According to these authors, alternating verbs are characterized by the fact that they obligatorily involve an external cause. When it is possible for the external cause to be an 'unspecified Agent' the verb may detransitivize. At the level of Lexical Semantic Structure inchoatives are bi-eventive, projecting both a CAUSE and BECOME events. Each of the arguments of the verb is associated with one of these events, the agent with the CAUSE and the theme with the BECOME subevent. In the syntax, however, the inchoative alternate is monadic. This is because in the mapping from the Lexical Semantic Level to the Syntactic Level the CAUSE argument is bound and therefore the Agent cannot be expressed. In my opinion one of the problems with this analysis is precisely the fact that it assumes that at the semantic level there is an external cause and an agent which cannot be realized in the syntax. As evidence for the existence of this cause Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) argue that it can serve as an antecedent for the reflexive in sentences such as (80) (80)

a.

The plate broke by itself.

b.

*The plate was broken by itself.'

According to Levin and Rappaport-Hovav, the reflexive is bound by the underlying agent in (80a) and not by the theme in subject position, in this case 'the plate', as seen by the impossibility of the passive sentence in (80b). However, I am not sure this is a problem

73

directly related to binding. In Spanish the translation of 'by itself' is generally solo14

15,

which can be used to mean 'without outside help'. In French the expression is tout seul. However, although these expressions do not contain a reflexive, they are disallowed in the passive. (81)

a.

El plato se rompió solo. The plate se broke alone 'The plate broke by itself.'

b.

L'assiette s'est cassée toute seule. the plate se is broken all alone 'The plate broke by itself.'

c.

*El plato fue roto solo. The plate was broken alone. 'The plate was broken by itself.'

d.

*L'assiette a eté cassée toute seule. The plate has been broken all alone. 'The plate was broken by itself.'

French and Spanish allow the expression solo with the inchoative construction, as seen in (81a) and (81b), but not with the passive, as (81c) and (81d) illustrate. I believe the reason the passive is excluded in all three languages is not related to binding but rather to the fact that the passive, unlike the inchoative and counter to Levin and Rappaport-Hovav's argument, does have an unexpressed outside agent and the addition of the phrase 'by itself' or solo leads to a contradiction. Apart from these facts there does not seem to be any linguistic evidence for a cause or an agent in a sentence such as (76b). On the contrary, an internally bound agent would be a good description of the impersonal se sentences in which there clearly is a CAUSE and an agent which is suppressed. Therefore I will adopt the hypothesis that inchoatives do not have a CAUSE event or an agent, without touching on whether the inchoative or the transitive form is primary, which is orthogonal to our present purposes.

14You

can use 'por sí solo', but this is somewhat literary. The option of using a reflexive par soi même is not available in French in these cases. 15L. White (p.c.] pointed out to me that in English 'of its own accord' behaves in this way also.

74

What is the role of se in these sentences? It has been suggested that in languages such as English the inchoative involves the presence of a zero morpheme which is the head of the cause phrase. It is easy to assume, as some authors do, (Levin & Rappaport-Hovav, 1995) that the presence of se is the realization of this zero morpheme, that is, the presence of the se is directly related to the fact that the verb appears with only one argument. Montrul (1997) proposes that the clitic se is an anticausative morpheme which is "the overt manifestation of the BECOME subpredicate, base generated under the head of VP2". This captures in an interesting way the syntactic representation of the semantic fact that these verbs are indeed achievements or accomplishments (as noted also by Levin & RappaportHovav, 1995 among others). However, if it is the case that the presence of se is a direct result of the suppression of the external argument, then the prediction is that all alternating verbs are marked by se in the inchoative and that unergative verbs and transitive verbs cannot be so marked. This is not the case, as I will show in the next section.

2.5.2. Evidence for an aspectual interpretation of the inchoative se In this section I will provide some evidence that: (a) se can be omitted in the inchoative form of alternating verbs that are not telic and (b) that it appears in nonalternating transitive verbs and unergatives which focus on the end-point of the action. Evidence for (a), that se can be omitted in the inchoative version of alternating verbs because they are not telic, is not easy to find, but there are some cases. Consider the verb hervir 'to boil' in (82). (82)

a.

Silvia hirvió el agua. Silvia boiled the water 'Silvia boiled the water.'

b.

El agua (*se) hirvió. The water se boiled. 'The water boiled.'

c.

El agua se hirvió toda. The water se boiled all 'The water boiled down.'

75

In (82a) we have 'boil' in a simple transitive construction. In (82b) it appears in an inchoative structure, but se is disallowed. This is because the water may continue to boil, the fact that it boiled only marks the beginning of an activity. In (82c), however, the water has reached an end-point, in fact there is no more water left. This is an example of an alternating verb which normally does not appear with s e precisely because of its non-telic interpretation. Compare now the interpretation of the sentences in (83) with the alternating verb quemar 'to burn'. (83)

a.

Esa madera (*se) quema muy bien. that wood se burns very well 'That wood burns very well.'

b.

Esa madera (*se) quemó durante más de una hora. that wood se burned during more of an hour. 'That wood burned for more than an hour.'

c.

Esa madera *(se) quemó en menos de una hora. that wood se burned in less than an hour 'That wood burned in less than an hour.'

In (83a) we have the use of 'to burn' as a middle. Middles very often do not take the clitic se, and this is to be expected given that they express a possibility and not a completed action. In (83b) the phrase 'for an hour' has been added, a test for an activity as opposed to a result (Dowty, 1979). As we see, in this case the clitic is disallowed. In (83c), on the other hand, the phrase 'in less than an hour' has been added, which shows we are dealing with a completed action. In this case the clitic is obligatory. Further evidence for the aspectual role of the se comes from non-alternating unaccusatives, in which the se is usually assumed to be optional. I believe it is not optional, but rather depends on the aspectual interpretation given the sentence. For example, (84a) is interpreted as an ongoing action at a specific time, as the English translation shows. In this case, the clitic is ungrammatical. Compare with (84b), in which the action is interpreted as 'rolled away'. Here the clitic is obligatory.

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(84)

a.

La última vez que la vi, la botella (*se) rodaba calle abajo. the last time that it saw, the bottle se rolled street down 'The last time I saw the bottle, it was rolling down the street.

b.

La botella (se) rodó y no pude agarrarla. the bottle se rolled and no can catch it 'The bottle rolled away and I couldn't catch it.'

Another example is provided in (85). As with (84), when the action is interpreted as an ongoing activity (85a) the clitic is ungrammatical, when it is interpreted as a completed action, it is obligatory (85b). (85)

a.

Cuando vi al hombre, (*se) desaparecía por la puerta. when saw-I the man, se disappeared-imp. through the door 'When I saw the man, he was disappearing through the door.

b.

Cuando miré al hombre, (se) desapareció. when looked-I the man, se disappeared-pret. 'When I looked at the man, he disappeared.

Similar contrasts are very clear with the verb caer 'fall'. This verb does not alternate with a transitive, in fact in Spanish it is not possible to say 'drop', it is necessary to say 'let fall' (dejar caer). Note the contrast in (86). (86)

a.

Las hojas (*se) caen en el otoño. the leaves se fall in the autumn 'The leaves fall in the autumn'

b.

La taza *(se) cayó. the cup se fell 'The cup fell.'

Again we find se is disallowed in (86a), a continuous action taking place over time, and is obligatory in (86b), a completed action. In both cases we have an inanimate object in subject position, and yet in one case it needs the clitic and in the other the clitic is disallowed. We have seen many examples of cases in which the verb takes se, but they have all been examples of unaccusatives, whether alternating or not. If se only marks aspect, we should expect the possibility of it turning up with an unergative verb with this function. This is exactly what we find, in exactly the same circumstances where a resultative is allowed in English. Consider (87), (88) and (89).

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(87)

(88)

(89)

a.

Lucía (*se) bailó. Lucía se danced 'Lucía danced.'

b.

Lucía se bailó tres tangos en diez minutos. Lucía se danced three tangos in ten minutes 'Lucía danced three tangos in ten minutes.'

a.

Carlos (*se) caminó. Carlos se walked 'Carlos walked.'

b.

Carlos se caminó tres kilómetros. Carlos se walked three kilometers 'Carlos walked three kilometers.'

a.

Cristina subió las escaleras. Cristina climbed up the stairs 'Cristina went up the stairs.'

b.

Cristina se subió al tejado Cristina se climbed up to the roof 'Cristina climbed up on the roof.'

In these examples we find what are traditionally considered unergative verbs. In (87a) and (88a), the verb is used intransitively and it cannot take the clitic se. However, when a direct object is added in (87b) and (88b), se becomes possible and the action becomes telic: Lucía danced the tangos completely, Carlos walked to the end of the three kilometers. In (89a), the focus is on the activity of climbing the stairs. In (89b), the focus is on the point of arrival, the roof, and the clitic is possible. Finally, we also find transitive sentences such as (90) where the se is a marker of aspect. When the se is used the action is interpreted as completed, as indicated by the particle in the English translation. (90)

a.

Juan comió manzanas. John ate apples 'John ate apples.'

b.

Juan se comió una manzana. Juan se ate an apple 'John ate an apple up.'

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I have suggested that there is an alternative interpretation to the fact that we always find the clitic se in inchoative constructions: that it is an aspectual marker and not an anticausative. It is not obligatory in alternating verbs, on the contrary, alternating verbs may appear without it; it marks aspect on inchoative verbs in which it was traditionally considered optional; it marks aspect in unergative verbs provided they are used transitively; and, finally, it also marks aspect in transitive verbs. It is obligatory on alternating change of state verbs, such as 'sink', 'melt' and 'break' because these verbs must be interpreted as telic. I take this as evidence that my proposal is on the right track, and the se in the inchoative construction is related to aspect. Thus it is plausible to assume it is generated as the head of Inner Aspect. If this is so, it is probable that the suppression of the agent in the inchoative version of alternating verbs is derived in the same way as it is in English. How this process takes place is beyond the scope of this thesis. In the next section I will look at evidence that the NP in the inchoative construction is in subject position. 2.5.3. Position of the Inchoative NP We have established that the clitic in the inchoative constructions is an aspectual marker. We will now see that the NP in the inchoative contrasts with the NP in the impersonal construction it that it does not exhibit any of the properties of an object. From these facts it can be inferred that the NP is in subject position. It seems clear that when it is in pre-verbal position this is the case. Recall that Raposo and Uriagereka (1990) provided evidence that the pre-verbal NP in the impersonal passive is in topic position and not Spec of AgrS. In particular, they showed that in an embedded clause, in which the Topic position is not available, a preverbal NP is ungrammatical, as shown in (18), repeated here as (91) for convenience. Compare with (92). Impersonal passive (91) *El guardia dejó [que algunos carros se robaran]. the guard let that some cars se steal 'The guard let some cars be stolen.'

79

Inchoative (92)

El guardia dejó [que algunos carros se quemaran] the guard let that some cars se burn 'The guard let some cars get burned.'

In (92), the NP in the embedded clause is in pre-verbal position. However, unlike the impersonal structure in (91), this sentence is correct. This shows that, in contrast to the impersonal passive, the pre-verbal NP is in subject position when the verb is inchoative. It is not, however, easy to find direct evidence for the position of the clitic and the NP in post-verbal position. There are two rather intriguing facts which show that it is not associated with AgrO in the same way as the impersonal passive and which suggest it is higher on the structure, perhaps adjoined to IP. There is a (non-standard) variety of Spanish in which the verbal plural marker -n is sometimes attached at the end of the reflexive clitic, as shown for a reflexive verb in (93). (93)

¿Quieren sentarsen? want-you-pl (-n) sit-inf-se-n 'Do you want to sit down?

The interesting fact is that there are very clear judgements which contrast impersonal se and inchoative se, as seen in (94) and (95). (94)

(95)

a.

Empezaron a venderse. started-past-pl (-n) a sell-inf-se 'They started to be sold.'

b.

Empezaron a vendersen. started-past-pl (-n) a sell-inf-se-pl (-n) 'They started to be sold.'

a.

Empezaron a quemarse started-past-pl (-n) a burn-inf.se 'They started to burn.'

b.

*Empezaron a quemarsen started-past-pl (-n) a burn-inf.se-pl (-n) 'They started to burn.'

In (94a) the standard sentence shows the se at the end of the infinitive without agreement. In (94b) we see the non-standard in which the clitic is attached to the end of the infinitive followed by the plural marker -n. This has generally been assumed to be a

80

phonological copying. However, if this is so, we cannot explain (95). In (95a) we see the non-agreeing version of the infinitive, in which no plural marker is attached to the clitic. (95b) shows that attaching the clitic to the inchoative se is ungrammatical. This can be explained if we assume, as I propose, that the clitic in the impersonal passive is generated in AgrO. When agreement between the verb and the NP is established in AgrO, the agreement marker is also copied onto the constituent made of [inf+se +n]. However, in the case of the inchoatives, the se is generated in Aspect and agreement between the verb and the NP only takes place later, at AgrS. Therefore copying of agreement on to the se is not possible. This is only a tentative explanation, but it does seem to account for the facts. The second piece of evidence seems to indicate that the post-verbal NP in the inchoative is higher than the NP in the impersonal, as it would be if it were adjoined to IP. Recall that the NP in impersonal constructions could be preceded or followed by the adverb nunca 'never', as seen in example (25), repeated here as (96). Compare with (97). Impersonal passive (96) No se le dan (nunca) los libros (nunca) a Juan. no se him give (never)(1) the books (never) (2) to John ‘The books are never given to John.’ Inchoative (97)

No se le quema (*nunca) la comida (nunca) a Juan. no se him burn (never) (1) the food (never) (2) a John 'John never gets the food burned.'

In the case of impersonal se it was assumed that nunca could be either inside the VP (2), in which case the NP which moved into AgrO would precede it, or adjoined further up (1), in which case the NP would follow it, as seen in (96). It seems that in the case of inchoatives, the NP cannot be below nunca 'never'. The negative adverb can only appear between the object and the dative, in this case an ethical dative. The fact that the inchoative NP cannot be preceded by nunca suggests it is higher up in the structure. However, I do not have any evidence as to where exactly it may be. I will now turn to the properties of the NP in the inchoative se constructions.

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2.5.4 . Properties of the inchoative NP In the first place, the inchoative NP shares with the impersonal passive construction, in which the verb also agrees with the following NP, those properties which are the result of agreement and which are usually associated with subjects. As in the case of the impersonal passive, the verb agrees with the NP, which may precede or follow it, as seen in (98a), (98b) and (98c). Furthermore, the NP may be pro-dropped, as in (99), and it cannot be replaced by an object clitic (100). (98)

(99)

a.

Se derritieron los helados. se melted-pl the ice creams 'The ice creams melted.'

b

Se derritió el helado se melted-sg. the ice cream 'The ice cream melted'

c.

Los helados se derritieron . the ice creams se melted-pl 'The ice creams melted.'

a.

¿Los helados? Se vendieron. The ice creams se sold-pl pro 'The ice creams? They were sold.'

b.

¿Los helados? Se derritieron. The ice creams se melted-pl pro 'The ice creams? They melted..'

(100) a

b.

¿Los heladosi? *Se losi vendieron. The ice creamsi se themi sold The ice creams? They were sold. ¿Los heladosi? *Se losi derritieron. The ice creamsi se themi melted 'The ice creams? They melted.'

On the other hand, in contrast to the impersonal passive, the inchoative does not exhibit any object-like properties. It does not permit subextraction, as seen in (101). In (101a) I show a declarative inchoative sentence is correct. In (101b) we see that whmovement of the prepositional phrase embedded within the NP is ungrammatical. (101) a.

Se hundieron en un pantano varios camiones de marca MB. se sunk in a swamp several trucks of brand MB 'Several MB trucks sank in a swamp' 82

b.

*¿De qué marca se hundieron en un pantano varios camiones? of what make se sunk in a swamp several trucks 'What make of trucks sunk in a swamp?

In the second place, again in contrast to the impersonal passive, the NP in the inchoative construction does not allow secondary predication, as seen in (102). Nor can the NP in this construction appear without a determiner, as seen in (103). (102)

*Desafortunadamente se rompieron las tazas ya desportilladas. Unfortunately se broke the cups already cracked 'Unfortunately the cups were broken already cracked.'

(103)

*Se derritió helado. se melted ice cream 'Ice cream melted.'

Finally, the inchoative NP differs from objects and from the NP in the impersonal construction in that it does not show any personal a effects, that is, the NP is not marked by the accusative marker a when it refers to a [+human, +specific] entity, as seen in (104a). This applies whether we allow for agreement between the verb and the NP or we don't, as shown (104a) and (104b). This is expected if it is a subject. It is also expected that it will not be possible to replace a [+human] NP by a clitic, as seen in (104c), unlike the parallel impersonal sentence. (104) a.

Se enfermaron (*a) los niños. se sickened-pl a the children 'The children got sick.'

b.

*Se enfermó (a) los niños. se got sick-sg. a the children 'The children got sick.'

c.

*Se los enfermaron. se them got sick 'They got sick.'

To summarize, there is some evidence that the post-verbal NP in inchoative constructions is in a higher position in the structure than the NP in impersonal passive constructions. There is also evidence that it patterns with post-posed subjects which do not allow subextraction, secondary predication, bare nouns or differential object marking. In

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this, it is in contrast to the impersonal passive, which patterns with objects in these respects. A summary of the characteristics of the NP in this structure is found in Table 3.

TABLE 3 Properties of the NP in inchoatives Subject-like

Object-like

Agreement on the verb √

Subextraction

X

Pre- or post-verbal

√

Secondary predication X

Pro-drop

√

Bare nouns

X

No object clitic

√

Personal a

X

Before turning to the next chapter, I would like to briefly explore the idea that there are perhaps two other cases in Spanish in which the AgrO node is [+strong], namely certain psych verbs, such as gustar 'to like' and true unaccusatives, such as llegar 'to arrive'.

2.6.

Strong AgrO and psych verbs.

The structure of psych verbs has recently received a great deal of attention in the literature (Belletti & Rizzi, 1988; Pesetsky, 1995, among others). In the Romance languages, the most interesting type of psych verbs is perhaps the class of dative experiencer verbs ((Montrul, 1996; Parodi-Lewin, 1991 for Spanish). As we see in (105), the theme NP in these constructions seems to have some of the characteristics found in the se structures studied above: it can appear pre- or post- verbally (105a) and (105b), it can be pro-dropped (105d) and it cannot be replaced by an object clitic pronoun (105d). Furthermore, as these examples show, the verb agrees with the theme NP, no matter what the relative position is.

84

(105) a.

A Pablo le gusta el helado. a Paul le-dat please-sg. the ice cream 'Pablo likes ice cream.'

b.

El helado le gusta a Pablo. The ice cream le-dat please-sg. a Pablo. 'Pablo likes ice cream.'

.

c.

¿El heladoi? A Pablo le (*loi) gusta mucho. The ice cream? a Pablo le-dat it-acc please-sg. very much 'Ice cream? Pablo likes it very much.'

d.

A Pablo le gustan los helados de vainilla. a Paul le-dat please-pl the ice creams vanilla 'Pablo likes vanilla ice creams.'

One of the questions that comes to mind is whether the theme NP in these constructions is similar either to the NP in the inchoative or to the NP in the impersonal passive. As we see below, both subextraction (106) and secondary predication (107) are possible. Bare NPs are not grammatical in some cases (108) but they are in others (109). These properties characterize objects. However, differential object marking has no effect, with both [+/-human, +/-specific] allowed, as seen in (106) and (110). (106)

¿De qué sabor le gustan los helados? Of what taste le-dat please the ice creams 'What taste of ice cream do you like?'

(107)

A Jairo le gustan los helados bien fríos. a Jairo le pleas the ice creams well cold ' Jairo likes ice creams very cold.'

(108)

*A Jairo le gusta helado. a Jairo le please ice cream 'Jairo likes ice cream.'

(109)

A Jairo le queda helado a Jairo le left ice cream 'Jairo has ice cream left over.'

(110)

A Jairo le gustan los niños. a Jairo le please the children 'Jairo likes children.'

Given the many properties the theme NPs of dative psych verbs have in common with the theme NP in impersonal passives, it seems plausible to conclude that the analysis is similar: the theme NP moves to AgrO. There are, however, several problems which must be

85

addressed before we can conclude that this is the case. The first relates to the fact that, if we assume, as has been suggested earlier, that the reason AgrO is [+strong] in these cases is due to the fact that there is lexical material in the head, namely the clitic se, why is it in the case of psych verbs we find no such lexical material? I would like to propose that the head of AgrO it is in fact filled with a zero morpheme, and that it shows strong +N features, in a way similar to the [+strong] Wh- features in languages that have obligatory Whmovement. This explains the fact that you cannot have se impersonal passive psych verbs, as seen in (111). (111)

*En Colombia se gusta mucho el café. In Colombia se like a lot the coffee. 'Coffee is very much liked in Colombia.'

In (111) the clitic se is disallowed because it cannot be generated in the head of AgrO, as this position is already occupied by a null morpheme which makes AgrO [+strong]. To make a psych verb impersonal the agent, represented by the dative, is suppressed (112), but no other change is necessary. (112)

En Colombia (*le) gusta mucho el café. In Colombia le like a lot the coffee. 'Coffee is very much liked in Colombia.'

Another problem which must be accounted for is the fact that differential object marking has no effect here, unlike the case of impersonal passives. I tentatively suggest that this is because these verbs are stative and as a consequence they do not have a double shell VP. The theme NP, therefore, is generated in the SPEC of the higher VP. However, the a marking is only assigned in the lower VP. To summarize, if we assume that, as in the case of the impersonal passives, AgrO in the dative experiencer psych verbs is [+strong], we can account for the properties of the theme NP in these constructions.

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2.7. Strong AgrO and unaccusative verbs

In this study I have shown that the NP in the inchoative construction is not necessarily linked to the suppression of the external argument. Furthermore, in these constructions the NP has moved to the Spec of AgrS and is a true subject. However, most scholars assume se inchoatives represent a form of unaccusativity. In this section I will briefly look at clear cut examples of unaccusative verbs such as the verb llegar 'to arrive', in order to determine whether the argument behaves like the NP in inchoatives. I will show that, in fact, it behaves more like the NP in the impersonal passive than like the inchoative. It exhibits object-like properties. Thus, I assume that the NP in these sentences has also moved to AgrO in Spanish. Examine the following examples. (113) a.

Llegaron los estudiantes. arrived the students 'The students arrived.'

b.

Los estudiantes llegaron tarde. the students arrived late 'The students arrived late.'

c.

¿Los estudiantes? Ya llegaron. the students? already arrived. 'The students? They have already arrived.'

In (113) we see that, as in the inchoative and impersonal constructions, the argument of unaccusatives behaves like a subject in relation to word order and pro-drop. It shares these characteristics with both the inchoatives and the impersonal passives. However, consider the following examples. (114) a.

b.

¿De qué profesora llegaron ya los estudiantes? of what teacher arrived already the students? 'What teacher's students have already arrived?' ¿De qué autores llegaron ya los libros? of what authors arrived already the books? 'What authors' books have already arrived?'

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(115) a

b.

(116) a.

b.

Llegaron los estudiantes totalmente borrachos. arrived the students totally drunk 'The students arrived totally drunk.' Llegaron los libros totalmente arruinados. arrived the books totally ruined 'The books arrived totally ruined.' Solamente llegaron mujeres. only arrived women 'Only women arrived.' Solamente llegaron libros. only arrived books 'Only books arrived.'

In (114) we see that subextraction is grammatical out of the post-verbal NP of an accusative verb, both when the NP is [+human] (114a) and when it is [-human] (114b). Example (115) shows that secondary predication is also possible, and (116) shows that bare plurals are also grammatical. These are all tests which show that the NP behaves like an object. In particular, the NP which is the argument of unaccusatives seems very similar to the NP in the impersonal passive, and not to the NP in the inchoatives. There are, however, 2 differences. As the examples above show, there is no differential object marking in relation to the NP in these cases. In fact, a NPs are disallowed, as (117) shows. Furthermore, a preverbal NP in embedded clauses is grammatical, as seen in (118), evidence that the pre-verbal NP is in subject position and not in topic position. (117)

*Llegaron a los estudiantes. arrived a the students 'The students arrived.'

(118)

El profesor dejó que los estudiantes llegaran tarde. the teacher let that the students arrive late 'The teacher let the students arrive late.'

I am not quite sure why differential object marking does not apply. However, the fact that the pre-verbal NP is in subject position and not in Topic position, as it is in impersonal passives, can be easily explained. Impersonal passives have a double VP shell because they have an external agent. This external agent cannot be phonologically realized, but, as we saw, it is present in the syntax, given that it can control a purpose clause. It is not

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implausible to assume that Spec of AgrS is associated with the agent, and therefore it is not available for the object NP to move into. The only option is to move into Topic. However, in the case of unaccusatives, there is no external agent, and AgrS is therefore free. It looks, therefore, that the argument of llegar can move into AgrO or to AgrS. This analysis is only tentative, and further work is needed to understand the structure of unaccusative verbs in Spanish.

2.8.

Summary

In this chapter I have shown that se is a multifunctional head which can be generated in different positions. When it is generated as the head of AgrO this node is interpreted as being [+strong], which forces the object NP to move in the syntax. This in turn triggers agreement on the verb. The result is an agreeing impersonal passive. If the NP receives partitive case overt movement is not possible and the result is that the NP does not agree with the verb, as in the impersonal reflexives. Finally, the se may be generated in the Aspect phrase. The result will be to change an activity into a achievement or an accomplishment. Table 4 shows the differences between the different constructions. As we can see, both the impersonal passive and the inchoative are similar in that the verb agrees with the NP, the NP can precede or follow the verb and it can be pro-dropped. In neither case can the NP be replaced by a clitic pronoun. None of these characteristics apply to the impersonal reflexive. For some speakers the NP in the reflexive can be replaced by a pronoun. The NP in the impersonal passive differs from the inchoative in that it exhibits object-like properties. It allows subextraction from within the NP, secondary predication and it can consist of a bare noun. Furthermore, the NP can be differentially object marked, in which case agreement on the verb will be blocked for some speakers. The NP in the inchoative exhibits none of these characteristics. It behaves as a subject in all circumstances.

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TABLE 4 Comparison of properties of the NP in se impersonal constructions Subject-like properties

Agreeing se

Inchoative se

Non-agr. se

Agreement on the verb

√

√

X

Pre-or post-verbal

√

√

X

Pro-drop

√

√

X

Object clitic

X

X

√X

Subextraction

√

X

X

Secondary predication

√

X

X

Bare nouns

√

X

√

Accusative object marking effects

√

X

√

Agent, purpose clause

√

X

√

Object-like properties

In the next chapter I will apply the information gathered here to an experiment on the acquisition of these structures.

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Chapter 3 Near-native competence and the impersonal se constructions

3.0.

Introduction: Second language acquisition issues and se

In this chapter I will report on an experimental study on the acquisition of the three impersonal se constructions described in chapter 2 by two groups of near-native speakers of Spanish who started to learn Spanish after puberty. For comparison sake I also look at a group of Spanish speaker controls and a group of Advanced speakers who had not reached native-like proficiency at the time of testing. The purpose of this study is to examine the issue of ultimate attainment and the availability of UG. In particular, this study challenges two main hypotheses which predict that the grammar of second language speakers who have reached an end-state differs in significant ways from the grammar of the native speakers. The first of the hypotheses tested is Bley-Vroman's Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (Bley-Vroman, 1997), which, as we saw in Chapter 1, argues that neither UG nor the learning procedures specific to language are available in second language acquisition. In their stead, the second language learner must resort to learning patterns in the input. This hypothesis predicts that, as a consequence, the final state is fundamentally different from a first language grammar, and is only constrained by UG in the sense that knowledge of the first language leads the learner to have certain expectations about the second. The second hypothesis examined here is the Local Impairment Hypothesis (Beck, 1998; Eubank, Bischof, Huffstutler, Leek, & West, 1997), according to which the value of certain functional categories is inert (Eubank, et al., 1997), which leads to variability. Another related possibility is that UG is available but learners are either not able to change the feature values of functional categories which remain fixed at the value of the first

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language (Smith & Tsimpli, 1995). These hypotheses predict that the final state grammar of the second language will differ from the grammar of the first language in those aspects which rely on the features of functional categories. The se constructions are ideal for testing these two hypothesis. On the one hand, these constructions enable us to test the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis and pattern learning because the surface structure in the three types of se structures, the agreeing impersonal passive, the non-agreeing impersonal reflexive and the inchoative, is identical: se V NP. However, the NP in each of the three types exhibits different properties, and these properties are the consequence of differences in structure not evident in the data that the learner is exposed to. This makes se a prime example of the underdetermination problem. In particular, a system that learned patterns, as Bley-Vroman has suggested is the case for adult second language learners, would assume only one pattern for the three constructions. There is nothing in the input to tell the learner that, for example, in the impersonal passives the verb agrees with its object while in the case of the inchoatives it agrees with the subject. The acquisition by adult learners not only of the surface structure but also of the deeper properties of se constructions would strongly suggest that learners are able to go beyond the input to access the underlying structure, thus constituting evidence against the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis. The se constructions are also ideal for the testing of the Local Impairment Hypothesis, given that the differences found between the se constructions are related to the feature strength of particular functional categories. In this respect, the acquisition of the impersonal passive is crucial. As we have seen, it involves a strong AgrO and agreement between an object and the verb. Both English and French, the two L1s studied here, are nominative/accusative languages, in which AgrO is weak and AgrS is strong. Thus the subject in these languages moves to AgrS in the syntax, where it will receive nominative case and will check agreement features with the verb. The object cannot move until LF, when it will check its features in AgrO. In fact, Spanish, the L2 studied here, is also a

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nominative/accusative language. Therefore, the behaviour of the object NP in the impersonal passive construction, in which it moves overtly to AgrO and not to AgrS, triggering agreement with the verb in AgrO, is unexpected. The behaviour of this NP cannot be predicted from the input in general, which will mainly consist of sentences in which the verb agrees with the subject. Nor can acquisition of the behaviour of the NP be the result of transfer, given that neither French nor English have any cases of Strong AgrO. The acquisition of the properties of the impersonal passive will therefore constitute evidence against the Local Impairment Hypothesis. Thus, the nature of the se constructions in Spanish permits the testing of important hypotheses of second language acquisition research. Because this study included native speakers of two different languages it is possible to also test whether there is any indication that transfer still plays a role at the level of ultimate attainment. I will now look at the two languages in question, English and French, in relation to the se constructions.

3.1.

French and English and the se constructions

The Spanish L2 speakers who participated in this study spoke English or French as native languages. If it is assumed the L1 has an effect on the final state of Second Language Acquisition, one would predict differences in performance between these two groups. In particular, one would predict that the French speakers would have an advantage over the English speakers because the L1 could provide knowledge in two specific areas: knowledge of clitics and knowledge of the language specific properties of objects. Leaving aside the question of whether English has clitics in general, it certainly does not have a multifunctional reflexive clitic such as se, which can participate in different constructions. However, it has been suggested that particles are aspectual markers (Bonneau, Bruhn de Garavito, & Libert, 1995), in which case we may rule out surface

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transfer in the acquisition of the aspectual se and its properties, although we cannot rule out transfer of a deeper kind. French, on the other hand, does have a clitic similar to se and it is used for several purposes. In particular, it can be used in inchoative constructions and in non-agreeing impersonal reflexives. An example of the latter is given in (1). (1)

Il se vend des livres. subj-cl se sell-sg. det books 'Books are sold.'

In contrast, there is no agreeing impersonal passive, as shown in the ungrammatical sentence in (2). In other words, the clitic se cannot be generated in AgrO, thus triggering verb-object agreement. (2)

*Il se vendent des livres il-cl-nom sell-pl det. books 'Books are sold.'

The use of se in inchoatives in French is more complex. French does seem to use the clitic to mark aspect (Labelle, 1992). For example, the verb mourir 'to die' can occasionally be used with the aspectual marker to indicate the immediacy of the act (3). It also appears with some alternating verbs. Nevertheless, its use seems much more idiosyncratic than in Spanish. Compare the examples in (4). (3)

(4)

a.

Il se meurt! il-cl-nom se die 'He's dying!'

b.

Se muere. se die 'He's dying!

a.

Le dîner (*s)'est brulé. det dinner se is burned 'The dinner got burned.'

b.

La comida *(se) quemó. det dinner se got burned 'The dinner got burned.'

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c.

L'homme s'est brulé. det man se is burned 'The man got burned.'

d.

El hombre *(se) quemó. det man se is burned 'The man got burned.'

e.

Le miroir s'est brisé. det mirror se is broken 'The mirror broke.'

f.

El espejo *(se) rompió. det mirror se got broken 'The mirror broke.'

g.

Le miroir (*s)'est tombé. det mirror se is fallen 'The mirror fell.'

h.

El espejo *(se) cayó. det mirror se is fallen 'The mirror fell.'

i

La neige (*s)’est fondue. det snow se is melted 'The snow melted.'

j.

La nieve *(se) derritió. det snow se got melted 'The snow melted.'

In sentence (4a) the clitic is disallowed when the subject is the inanimate noun 'dinner', but it is allowed if the subject is animate (4c). In Spanish the corresponding sentences with animate and inanimate subject (4b) and (4d), are both grammatical. In fact, the clitic is obligatory. In (4e) we see that the French verb briser 'to break' needs the clitic to indicate the action of breaking, as in Spanish (4f), but the verb 'fall' does not, unlike the Spanish sentence (4h), which does. The same contrast is found with the verb 'melt', in which the clitic is not possible in French (4i) but is obligatory in Spanish (4j). It seems clear that the clitic se is used to express aspect in French in a way which is similar but not identical to Spanish. The use of se to indicate change of state is obligatory in inchoative constructions in Spanish but idiosyncratic in French. However, in the present study, the emphasis is not

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on the fact that se expresses aspect but rather on the subject-like properties of the NP. Therefore, the advantage of the French speakers over the English speakers would be mainly in the fact that they are familiar with the use of se to express a similar meaning. Both English and French speakers would expect the NP to be a subject, as it is in both languages in the inchoative construction. The problem for both groups would be related to the postverbal position of the verb. Regarding the acquisition of the impersonal passive, the French learners might have the advantage in their knowledge of the properties of clitics, but neither group would be able to transfer the properties related to object agreement. The study presented here examines the subject and object-like properties of NPs in the se constructions. However, what constitutes a subject or object-like property may be idiosyncratic to a particular language. For example, in Spanish, the possibility of placing the subject after the verb and pro-drop are subject-like properties, as shown in (5a). Neither property is available to English speakers (5b) and (5c). Pro-drop is available to French speakers if we assume the subject clitics in French are the realization of agreement, although knowledge of the surface properties of French may be misleading. It is not clear whether the position of the subject in post-verbal position works in French in the same way as it does in Spanish, given that a subject clitic must always precede the verb, as seen in (5d). (5)

a.

(*El) llegó el padre. he arrived the father 'The father has come.'

b.

*(He) has arrived.

c.

*He has arrived, the father

d.

*(Il ) est arrivé, le père. subj-cl is arrived, the father 'The father has come.'

Regarding the object-like properties, this study uses knowledge of secondary predication and differential object marking. Knowledge of this last is not available to either

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English or French speakers. Depictive secondary predication seems to behave in the same way in all three languages. To summarize, any theory which argues that second language learners are somehow limited by their L1 would perhaps predict differences in the performance of the English and the French native speakers in this test. If we argue, as this thesis does, that UG is available and learners are able to go beyond their L1, then we would predict no differences at the end state. (This does not mean, however, that we predict there are no differences in any other stage of the process of acquisition.) The se constructions in Spanish studied here can make an important contribution to second language acquisition research because, in order to acquire the properties associated with them, it is necessary to go beyond the input to the underlying structure. Assuming that fundamental differences between languages originate in the lexicon and parameter setting usually involves functional categories, and assuming the analysis of se presented in Chapter 2, then the acquisition of a [+strong] AgrO would involve the resetting of a parameter for both English and French speakers. Regarding the aspectual se, it would seem that French speakers would be able to transfer the properties of their own system with some slight alterations. English speakers would not be able to make any direct surface transfer between the L1 and the properties of se.

Finally, the properties associated with each of these

constructions are subtle and cannot be easily accessed from the input, which in each case will consist of identical surface structures. Therefore, if learners use a system of pattern learning, they should not be able to acquire these properties. Successful acquisition by adult learners would be strong evidence against the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis and pattern learning. The hypothesis of this dissertation is the null hypothesis, that is, that there will be no significant difference between the groups of near native speakers and the native speakers. However, in the case of advanced learners, that is, learners who did not qualify as near

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natives, the prediction is that learning may be incomplete and therefore that there may be some differences between them and native speakers.

3.2.

Review of the literature on the acquisition of se

There are only a couple of studies that have looked at the second language acquisition of one or more of the se constructions within a generative framework. Toth (1997) looked at the use and omission of se in impersonal constructions in relation to several teaching methods. The subjects, 91 in total, were divided into 6 groups. He tested 3 teaching methods, which were each used in two of the groups over a period of 7 days. In particular, he compared the use of se in cases in which it is ungrammatical with structures in which it is necessary. Among the ungrammatical, he looked at the rate of acceptance of the clitic with unergative verbs such as nadar, 'to swim'; unaccusatives such as llegar, 'to arrive'; transitives, such as ver, 'to see'; transitive versions of alternating verbs, such as romper, 'to break' and optional theme verbs, such as comer, 'to eat'. He compared these with the correct usage of the clitic in impersonal passives, impersonal reflexives and inchoatives. A pre-test showed marked underuse of the clitic by all the subjects, which the author takes to indicate L1 influence, given that English, the native language of the subjects in this study, does not have an equivalent to se. A post-test taken by the subjects immediately after the completion of the instruction period and a delayed post-test show an increase in the use of se in appropriate contexts as the result of the instruction. Unfortunately, it also showed an increase in overgeneralization to cases where it is inappropriate, particularly to unaccusative verbs such as llegar, 'to arrive'. Toth argues that overgeneralization is natural given the proliferation of uses of the clitic in Spanish. However, it could also be argued that in this case overgeneralization was the direct result of six days of intense practice on se. As part of a large study on the acquisition of the causative/inchoative alternation, Montrul (1997) looked at the acquisition of Spanish alternating and non-alternating verbs,

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including unergatives, unaccusatives and transitives, by a group of 19 Turkish L1 speakers and a group of 31 English L1 speakers. As we have seen, English does not overtly mark the inchoative form of alternating verbs. Turkish, on the other hand, in some cases marks the transitive version of alternating verbs, in others the inchoative form. Based on the fact that, in spite of the differences in morphological marking, the causativity alternation works the same in the three languages involved in her study, Montrul predicts that all the L2 learners, regardless of L1, will make errors in transitivity. This is expected if, assuming UG is available in SLA, we also assume learners will have the same problems as L1 learners, who have been found to make this type of error in several studies (Bowerman, 1974; Lord, 1979; Pye, 1991, Berman, 1982, among others). It has been suggested that these problems arise because learners, constrained by UG, are aware of the general meaning and argument structure of alternating verbs, but have not learned the appropriate narrow semantic constraints (Pinker, 1989). The prediction that learners would make errors was borne out by the results, although it is also the case that in general learners knew the appropriate distinctions. Montrul further predicts that English learners will have more trouble than the Turkish learners in acquiring the distribution of se in relation to the different types of verbs. This prediction was based on her assumption that Turkish has an anticausative morpheme equivalent to se. This prediction was also borne out. The English speakers tended to reject the se marked inchoatives and accept the non-marked ungrammatical inchoative sentences. The Turkish learners, in contrast, overgeneralized the use of se to unaccusative verbs. To summarize the results of these studies, they seem to show there is L1 influence at least in the beginning stages regarding the use of the clitic se, particularly in inchoative constructions. Furthermore, there is a tendency to overgeneralize at subsequent stages, as the different uses are acquired. This overgeneralization is considered developmental in nature. As far as I know, there is no study which looks at the final state regarding this structure.

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3.3.

Methodology of the present study

3.3.1. Description of the subjects In the present study, there were two groups of near-native speakers tested, one group of advanced learners and a group of Spanish native speaker controls. The first group of near-natives consisted of 10 speakers whose L1 was English, three of whom were tested in Madrid, Spain, and seven who were tested in Montreal, Canada. Their mean age was 48 years old, ranging from 30 to 62. The mean age of first contact with Spanish was 16.3, the earliest was 13, the latest was 22. For all of them first contact with the language consisted of formal classes in a foreign environment. The mean age at which they first spent some time in a Spanish speaking country was 23.2, ranging from 18 to 32, with the exception of one who went to Guatemala when she was 13. Their length of stay in a Spanish speaking country varied considerably. Three of the subjects tested in Spain had lived there for 16, 25 and 30 years respectively. The other subjects varied from two months to 3 years, although some went back for holidays with a certain regularity. All the subjects worked as Faculty at either the university or the college (CEGEP) level. The subjects tested in Montreal were in fact all Spanish teachers, while those tested in Madrid taught English and translation. All spoke other languages besides their native language but they had learned the other languages after age 14, although most had taken French lessons at school. The second group, consisting of 10 L1 French near-natives, was not very different. They were tested in Montreal, Canada. Their mean age was 41 years old, ranging from 26 to 60. The mean age of first contact with Spanish was 16.9, the earliest was 13, the latest was 22. For all of them, first contact with the language consisted of formal classes in a foreign environment. The mean age at which they first spent some time in a Spanish speaking country was 21.3, ranging from 14.6 to 29. Their length of stay in a Spanish

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speaking country also varied from two months to 3 years, although some went back for holidays with a certain regularity. One traveled every year to Spain for one month with a group of students. All worked as Faculty at either the university or the college (CEGEP) level and they were all Spanish teachers. All spoke other languages besides their native language but they had learned the other languages after age 14, although most had taken English lessons at school. There was also a group of 11 native English speakers who did not qualify as nearnative speakers of Spanish. Of these, one was subsequently excluded because of results on one of the tests, leaving a total of 10. They were younger than the near natives, their mean age 22 years old, ranging between 21 and 23 years, with one 27 years old. Three were tested in Barcelona where they were in an exchange program in a university in Catalunya and seven were tested in Montreal where they were also students. The mean age of first contact with Spanish was 17.2, range 13-20 years old. As with the near-natives, first contact with the language had been in the form of formal classes. One of these students had never visited a Spanish speaking county. The others had spent between 3 months and one year in a Hispanic country at an age which ranged between 19 and 22. Finally, the control group was made up of 13 Spanish L1 speakers who had no contact (apart from some classes in high school) with other languages before 14. Of these, two were excluded because of bias on one of the tests, leaving a total of 11. All of them had either learned other languages as adults or were still studying. They were students in Montreal. Two lived in Montreal permanently and spoke English relatively well, eight were there from their native countries in order to study English. Their mean age was 28.8, the oldest being 45, the youngest 18. They came from several Spanish speaking countries: Colombia (4), Mexico (3), Spain (1), Perú (1), El Salvador (1), Guatemala (1). In the next section I will look at the method used to determine the proficiency level of the L2 subjects.

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3.3.1.2. Classification of the subjects As we saw in chapter 1, when carrying out research into the ultimate attainment of L2 learners it is necessary to determine whether learners have indeed reached a point after which their grammars will not change. There are two principal methods of doing this. On the one hand, some researchers assume that a length of residence of 5 years in the country of the target language is sufficient. This is so because several studies have shown no correlation between length of stay after 5 years and performance on L2 tests (Johnson & Newport, 1989). Other studies have chosen to provide an independent measure of the learners' performance in order to determine whether they qualify as near natives (Coppieters, 1987; White & Genesee, 1996). This is the course taken in the present study. Learners were interviewed for between 20 minutes and half an hour following the ACTFL guidelines for oral interviews16. A recording was made of the interview and a decision was made as to the speakers' level. In order to verify this decision, a copy of a part of the interview17 was given to a native speaker from Mexico, who judged the different speakers following the guidelines set out by White and Genesee (1996). All the participants were judged on their fluency, pronunciation, syntax, morphology and vocabulary, as well as overall performance. Subjects who performed in a way comparable to native speakers on 4 out of the 5 categories were classified as near native. Those who did not pass this test were grouped under the Advanced category. These last were very fluent but were clearly not nearnatives.

3.3.2. Description of the tests The tests were designed to examine the knowledge the speakers had of the different properties of the NP in the se constructions described in Chapter 2, that is, the subject and

16I

have taken a course given by ACTFL on oral interviews. Furthermore, I have a long experience determining students' level of Spanish. 17Sections were excluded because the speakers often gave an indication of their place of origin or native tongue.

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object-like properties of the NP in the impersonal passive, the object-like properties of the impersonal reflexive and the subject-like properties of the inchoative. Subjects completed two tests. The main test was a grammaticality judgement task. A test similar to a truth value task based on stories served as a kind of pretest, as described below. 3.3.2.1. Story task A problem in testing the se constructions is that in many cases the surface string can be ambiguous between an interpretation as an impersonal or as an inchoative, as seen in example (6). (6)

Se quemaron los libros. 'The books were burned (by somebody)' 'The books got burned (in the fire)’.

This problem with the interpretation is extremely serious, because it is necessary to make sure that the subjects are interpreting the sentences correctly when they are giving their grammaticality judgements on the main test. In order to establish the subjects' interpretations it was decided to take advantage of one of the main differences between the inchoative and the impersonal constructions, namely the fact that the impersonals, both agreeing and non-agreeing, have an unexpressed agent, while the inchoative does not. The agent may license a purpose clause, as we see in (7). On the other hand, because there is no agent in the case of the inchoatives, they may take a natural phenomenon as causer, as seen in (8). (7)

Se quemaron los libros para evitar que se leyeran. 'The books were burned in order to avoid them being read.'

(8)

Se quemaron los libros en el incendio que causó el temblor. 'The books got burned in the fire the earthquake caused.'

While it was probably safe to assume that the subjects knew that a purpose clause has to have an agent and a natural cause is incompatible with a purpose or an agent, in order to make sure this was the case, subjects were given the story task. This task was designed to

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test the learners' knowledge of the fact that a se clause with an implicit agent, that is, an impersonal passive or reflexive, allows a purpose clause, and that a se clause without an agent, an inchoative, is impossible with a purpose clause but that it can take a natural cause. Unfortunately, I did not find a way to develop a grammaticality judgement test which would give me this information. However, I believe the weakness of this test does not greatly affect the value of the grammaticality judgement task, which is the main test of this experiment. The story task consisted of 50 stories in all, with 2 sentences to be judged in each story. Of these, 30 stories (60 sentences) tested se constructions18. In (9a) and (9b) you will find examples of stories for impersonal sentences, and (10a) and (10b) are examples of inchoatives. This task was always taken after the grammaticality judgement task so the stories would have no effect on it. As you can see in the following examples, for each story the subjects were asked to make a scaled judgement on two sentences. The scale ranged between +2 and -2. The subjects were instructed to judge whether the sentence was appropriate in the context of the story. It is obvious that this judgement can be made without much help from the grammar. This is therefore not a linguistic truth value judgement task and it was never intended as such. Nevertheless, it does demonstrate the point at issue, whether or not a purpose clause is permissible. This is crucial for the grammaticality judgement task. (9)

18The

a.

Fue una época de gran censura y se quemaron muchos libros en grandes hogueras en medio de la plaza. It was a time of censorship and many books 'se' burned in great fires in the middle of the square. Nadie quemó los libros. Nobody burned the books

-2 -1 0 1 2

Alguien quemó los libros. Somebody burned the books

-2 -1 0 1 2

remaining stories do not concern this study.

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b.

Estaba prohibido leer a muchos autores. Se quemaron muchos de sus libros en grandes hogueras enfrente de la iglesia. It was forbidden to read many authors. 'se' burned many of their books in big fires in front of the church. Los libros se quemaron para evitar que se leyeran. -2 -1 0 1 2 The books se burned in order to avoid them being read. Los libros se quemaron a propósito. The books se burned on purpose.

-2 -1 0 1 2

In (9a) the story brings together the idea of censorship and burning. The subject is then asked if it is appropriate to say that there is an agent performing the action in the sentence expressed with a se, in this case the burning of the books, or whether, in contrast, it was appropriate to say that nobody was the agent. A similar story (9b) asked whether it was appropriate to say that the action expressed by the se sentence, the burning of the books, had a purpose, in this case to avoid their being read. There were 20 stories, and 40 sentences, to test the impersonals. Of these, 10 sentences test the possibility of an agent, with an expected answer of +2; 10 test the possibility of no agent, with an expected answer of -2; 10 test a purpose clause, with an expected answer of +2 and, finally, 10 are distractor sentences. The crucial sentences are those with a purpose clause because it is a purpose clause which will be used in the grammaticality judgement task to insure subjects are interpreting the sentences as impersonal. The inchoative sentences were tested in a similar way, as seen in (10). (10)

a.

Hizo mucho sol y no llovió nada. La tierra se quemó por la sequía. It was very sunny and it didn't rain at all. The lands 'se' burned because of the drought. Nadie quemó la tierra. Nobody burned the lands

-2 -1 0 1 2

Alguien quemó la tierra Somebody burned the lands

-2 -1 0 1 2

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b.

Fue un verano muy caliente. No llovió. Los campos se quemaron por la sequía. It was a very hot summer. It did not rain. The fields 'se' burned by the drought Los campos se quemaron para preparar la tierra. The lands burned in order to prepare the land.

-2 -1 0 1 2

Los campos se quemaron por la inundación. The lands se burned because of the flood.

-2 -1 0 1 2

In (10a), the idea of burning, expressed with an inchoative se, is coupled with the idea of dry weather. As in the case of the impersonals, the subjects are asked to judge whether it is appropriate to say that an agent caused the burning, or whether it is appropriate to say that it was not caused by anybody. A similar story asked whether the action expressed by the inchoative se was carried out with a purpose (10b). There were 10 stories and 20 sentences of this type. In 5 of these, the subject is asked to judge whether the action is carried out by an agent. The expected answer is -2, that is, these sentences are not acceptable under the interpretation imposed by the story. In 5 sentences, the speaker is asked to judge whether the action was carried out by 'nobody'. The expected answer is +2. There were 5 sentences in which there is a purpose clause, and the expected answer is -2. There were also 5 distractor sentences. As we see in (9) and (10), the stories which test the purpose clause and those which test agentivity are very similar. The story task included 10 verbs testing se. Of these, 5 were alternating verbs which, without the context, could be interpreted as either inchoative or impersonal. They were used in both the impersonal and inchoative stories. Also included were 5 verbs which could only be interpreted as impersonal. This was in order to see if there were any effect of verb type. The alternating verbs were derretir, 'to melt'; secar, 'to dry'; quemar, 'to burn'; hundir, 'to sink'; and ensuciar 'to dirty'. The non-alternating verbs were lavar, 'to wash'; vender, 'to sell'; comprar, 'to buy'; preparar, 'to prepare'; construir, 'to build'. These verbs were also among those used in the grammaticality judgement task. The sentences and stories were presented in random order.

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Table 1 gives a summary of the conditions tested in this task.

TABLE 1 Summary of conditions tested in the Story Task Impersonals

Inchoatives

somebody √ (10) somebody X (5) nobody

X (10) nobody

√ (5)

purpose

√ (10) purpose

X (5)

Excluding the distractor sentences, there were 25 sentences which are considered possible and 20 which are impossible under the conditions of the story.

3.3.2.2 Grammaticality judgement task. The grammaticality judgement task consisted of 90 sentences of which 50 were grammatical and 40 were ungrammatical. The judgement was made on a scale ranging from +2, fully grammatical, to -2, fully ungrammatical. The sentences test 17 properties which serve to distinguish the 3 se constructions. There were 5 sentences in each condition. There was also a set of 5 distractor sentences. Each sentence included either a purpose clause, forcing an impersonal interpretation, or a natural cause, forcing an inchoative interpretation.

3.3.2.2.1. The impersonal passives and inchoatives vs. impersonal reflexives Recall that in both the impersonal passive and the inchoative the verb agrees with the NP, while in the impersonal reflexive it does not. The first set of sentences in the grammaticality judgement task was designed to test whether the speakers were aware of the basic verb agreement facts and the properties that derive from this agreement, namely pro drop and word order. Conditions A through C test basic agreement in sentences in which the NP is in post-verbal position, Condition A for impersonal passives (11), Condition B 107

for Inchoatives (12) and Condition C for impersonal reflexives (13). Sentences in condition D test knowledge of the fact that there is no non-agreeing version of inchoatives (14). Condition A: Impersonal passive, +agreement, V NP, grammatical (11)

Se construyeron unos edificios para vender. se build-pl some building in order to sell 'Some buildings were built to sell.'

Condition B: Inchoatives, +agreement, V NP, grammatical (12)

Se quemaron unos edificios en el incendio causado por el temblor. se burned-pl some building in the fire caused by the earthquake 'Some buildings burned in the fire caused by the earthquake.'

Condition C: Impersonal reflexive, -agreement, V NP, grammatical in some dialects (13)

Se construyó unos edificios para vender. se built-sg. some buildings in order to sell 'Some buildings were built in order to sell.'

Condition D: Inchoative, -agreement, V NP, ungrammatical (14)

*Se quemó unos edificios en el incendio que causó el temblor. se burned-sg. some building in the fire that the earthquake caused 'Some buildings burned in the fire that the earthquake caused.'

The second set of conditions established the reverse order, in which the NP is to the left of the verb. In the case of the agreeing impersonals the NP has probably moved into Topic position, as Raposo and Uriagereka (1990) suggest. The order is therefore slightly marked in that it may need a context to be completely acceptable, but it is grammatical. In the case of the inchoatives, the NP is in Spec of IP, as I have argued, and this word order seems perfectly natural. Finally, in the case of the non-agreeing impersonal, the order NP V is ungrammatical. The sentences in Condition E established the speakers' knowledge of the word order facts for the agreeing impersonal (15), Condition F for the inchoatives (16) and Condition G for the non-agreeing impersonals (17). These last are ungrammatical.

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Condition E: Impersonal passives, + agreement, NP V, grammatical. (15)

Unas casas se construyeron para vender. some houses se build-pl in order to sell 'Some houses were built to sell'

Condition F: Inchoatives, + agreement, NP V, grammatical. (16)

Unas casas se quemaron en el incendio causado por el temblor. some houses se burned-pl in the fire caused by the earthquake 'Some houses burned in the fire caused by the earthquake.'

Condition G: Impersonal reflexives, -agreement, NP V, ungrammatical (17))

*Unas casas se construyó para vender. some houses se build in order to sell 'Some houses were built to sell.'

The last set of conditions which included the non-agreeing impersonal reflexive looked at the availability of pro-drop. As a consequence of agreement, the NP in both the agreeing impersonal and the inchoative may realized as pro, unlike the NP in the nonagreeing impersonal. Condition H consisted of agreeing impersonals in which the NP has been dropped (18), Condition I consists of inchoatives (19), and Condition J consists of non-agreeing impersonals (20), establishing the learners' knowledge of

the

ungrammaticality of these sentences. Condition H: Impersonal passives, +agreement, pro-drop, grammatical (18)

¿Los vasos? Se guardaron en cajas para facilitar el transporte. the glasses? se put-pl away in boxes in order to facilitate transport 'The glasses? They were put away in boxes to make transport easy.'

Condition I: Inchoatives, +agreement, pro-drop, grammatical (19)

¿Las tazas? Se rompieron por el temblor de ayer. the cups? se broke-pl because of yesterday's earthquake 'The cups? They broke because of the earthquake yesterday.'

Condition J: Impersonal reflexives, -agreement, pro-drop, ungrammatical (20)

*¿Las tazas? Se rompió por el temblor de ayer. The cups? se broke-sg. because of the earthquake yesterday 'The cups? They broke because of the earthquake yesterday.

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3.3.2.2.2. The impersonal passives vs. the inchoatives In this section, we turn to that part of the test which looked at the learners' knowledge of some of the differences between the two agreeing structures, that is, the impersonal passive and the inchoative. In particular, this study looks at two of the properties of the NP in impersonal passives which pattern with objects, properties that do not apply in the case of inchoatives. Secondary predication was tested with Conditions K and L. Condition K (21) consists of agreeing impersonal sentences in which the NP is modified by a depictive secondary predicate. These sentences are grammatical. Condition L (22) consists of inchoative sentences with a similarly modified NP. These sentences are ungrammatical. Condition K: Impersonal passives, NP + secondary predicate, grammatical (21)

Se vendieron las casas recién pintadas para complacer a los clientes. se sold-pl the houses just painted in order to please the clients 'The recently painted houses were sold to please the clients.'

Condition L: Inchoatives, NP + secondary predicate, ungrammatical (22)

*Se quemaron las casas recién pintadas en el incendio de ayer. se burned the houses just painted because of yesterday's fire 'The recently painted houses burned in yesterday's fire.'

The final property studied relates to differential object marking. Recall that, in contrast to the inchoatives, the NP in the impersonal passives may be preceded by the differential object marker a when the NP refers to a specific human entity. The sentences in this section all contain an NP which is [+human] +[specific]. Conditions M and N look at impersonals with differential object marking. These two differ as to agreement. In Condition M (23), the verb does not agree with the object marked NP, as is the case for standard Spanish. In condition N (24), the verb does agree with the NP. These two types were included in order to cover the possibility of variation from the normative form.

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Condition M: Impersonals, -agreement, [+human] NP, +differential object marker, grammatical (standard) (23)

Se arrestó a los García para impedir nuevos crímenes. se arrested a the Garcías in order to impede new crimes 'The Garcías were arrested in order to impede new crimes.'

Condition N: Impersonals, +agreement, [+human] NP, +differential object marker, grammatical (non-standard) (24)

Se arrestaron a los Páez para impedir nuevos crímenes. se arrested a the Páez in order to impede new crimes. 'The Páez were arrested in order to impede new crimes.'

In contrast to the impersonal constructions, the inchoative never allows the presence of the differential object marker a. Conditions O, P and Q tested the learners' knowledge of the behaviour of inchoatives in relation to the personal a, again using [+human] +[specific] NPs. In Condition O (25), there is no object marker preceding the plural NP and the verb agrees with the NP. These sentences are therefore grammatical. In Condition P (26), the NP is preceded by the object marker and the verb agrees with the NP. These sentences are ungrammatical. Finally in Condition Q (27), the NP is preceded by a but the verb does not agree with it. These sentences are also ungrammatical. Condition O: Inchoatives, +agreement, [+human] NP, -differential object marker, grammatical. (25)

Se murieron los niños de María por la epidemia de tifo. se died the children of María because of the tyfoid epidemic 'María's children died because of the tyfoid epidemic.'

Condition P: Inchoatives, +agreement, [+human] NP, +differential object marker, ungrammatical. (26)

*Se murieron a los niños de María por la epidemia de tifo. se died a the children of María because or the tyfoid epidemic 'María's children died because of the tyfoid epidemic.'

Condition Q: Inchoatives, -agreement, +HUMAN NP, +differential object marker, ungrammatical. (27)

*Se murió a los niños de María por la epidemia de tifo. se died a the children of María because of the tyfoid epidemic 'María's children died because of the tyfoid epidemic.'

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The last type of sentences, condition R, consisted of a series of distractors which were ungrammatical because use of an incorrect clitic leads to errors in argument structure, as illustrated in (28). Condition R: Distractors, ungrammatical. (28)

*A nosotras las niñas se tiñeron el pelo para parecer modernas. a us the girls se colored the hair to appear modern 'The girls colored their our hair to appear modern.'

A summary of the different properties of the NP in the three se constructions tested in this study is provided in Table 2. TABLE 2 Summary of properties tested in the Grammaticality Judgement Task on se constructions Subject-like properties

Impersonal passive se

Inchoative se

Impersonal reflexive se

Agreement on the verb

√

√

X

Pre-or post-verbal

√

√

X

Pro-drop

√

√

X

Secondary predication

√

X

√

Accusative object marking effects

√

X

√

Subject-like properties

Object-like properties

To summarize, the Grammaticality Judgement Task is designed to establish whether the speakers are aware of the different behaviour of the NP in each of the constructions studied, the impersonal passive, the impersonal reflexive and the inchoative. First it establishes knowledge of the properties related to agreement on the verb, properties which are usually associated with subjects. The NP in both agreeing constructions, the inchoative and the impersonal passive, exhibit these subject-like properties. The NP in the nonagreeing impersonal reflexive does not. In second place, the task tests knowledge of the difference between the properties of the NP in the two agreeing constructions. The NP in the impersonal passive, because of its association with AgrO, exhibits object-like properties

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such as secondary predication and differential object marking. The NP in the inchoative does not have any object-like properties and in all cases patterns with post-verbal subjects in Spanish.

3.4.

Results

3.4.1. Results of the Story task Recall that the purpose of the story task is to make sure that the subjects make two associations which are presupposed in the grammaticality judgement task. The first of these is the association between a purpose clause and an impersonal construction in which there is an underlying agent. The second is the association between a natural cause and an inchoative, in which there is no underlying agent. The test consisted of three main types of sentences which were introduced by stories. The first type consisted of sentences in which the speaker has to judge whether the action is carried out by a human agent (by somebody), as shown in (29). An agent is grammatical in the case of the impersonals but not in the case of the inchoatives. The second type consisted of sentences in which the speaker is asked to judge whether it is possible to interpret the action as not having been carried out by a human agent, that is, whether it is correct to say that 'nobody' performed the action, as exemplified in (30). In the case of the inchoatives an answer of 'nobody' is correct, but not in the case of the impersonals. Finally, the third type was made up of sentences in which the speaker is asked to judge whether the action can be interpreted as having a purpose, as illustrated in (31). A purpose clause is appropriate with an impersonal but not with an inchoative. (29)

Alguien secó la ropa. 'Somebody dried the clothes.'

(30)

Nadie secó la ropa. 'Nobody dried the clothes.'

(31)

Los pañales se secaron para ponérselos al nene. 'The diapers were dried in order to put them on the baby.'

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Regarding the second type, in which the word 'nobody is used to indicate the lack of agent, many subjects gave a negative rating, both for the inchoative and the impersonal constructions. This is a problem particularly in the case of the inchoatives, for which, as we saw, a response of 'nobody' is appropriate. The problem with these sentences was found across the board with all the groups. Several of the subjects, including native speakers, told me they found the 'nobody' sentences very confusing, because they were asked to judge whether it was true or false that 'nobody' had carried out the action, leading to a negative within a negative. In short, results from these sentences are uninterpretable and are therefore excluded from the analysis. The discussion of the results is based on the responses to the +agent sentences (somebody) and the purpose clauses. As we saw above, there are 5 alternating verbs, which appear both in the impersonal and the inchoative constructions, and 5 non-alternating which only appear with impersonals. For purposes of the analysis, the set of 5 alternating verbs was kept separate from the nonalternating verbs in order to make sure that any effects were not due to verb type but to construction type. Figure 1 shows the mean responses for the Story Task. Responses near +2 indicate acceptance; responses near -2 indicate rejection.

sentence types

Figure 1: Story task results by sentence types 2 1

Controls

0 -1

NN Eng.

-2 Imp.+Ag. Imp.+Ag. (+alt) G (-alt) G (1) (2)

Imp.Prp. (+alt) G (3)

Imp.Prp. (-alt) G (4)

Inc.+Ag (+alt) U (5)

Inc.Prp. (+alt) U (6)

NN Fr. Adv.

mean responses

The first two sets of columns show the subjects' responses to those sentences which tested knowledge of the underlying agent (+Ag.) present in impersonal constructions

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(Imp.). In (1) we find the responses to sentences with alternating verbs (+alt), in (2) the responses to verbs which do not alternate (-alt). All the groups correctly interpreted these sentences as having an agent. The third and fourth sets of columns show that they also accept a purpose clause (Prp.) with impersonal constructions, responses in (3) for alternating verbs, responses in (4) for non-alternating verbs. However, the advanced group is less accepting of purpose clauses in sentences with alternating verbs than with nonalternating verbs. If we turn now to the inchoatives (Inc.), we see in the last two sets of columns that the rate of rejection for both an agent and a purpose clause is high in all the groups. It is clear that all the speakers tested make the appropriate distinction between inchoatives and impersonals. The results described above are confirmed by the statistical analysis. A 2-factor repeated measures ANOVA shows a significant effect for group (p=.0492), sentence type (p=.0001) and interaction (p=.0005). A post-hoc Scheffe F-test shows that the group responsible for the group significance is the Advanced group, whose responses differed significantly from the Near-native French L1 group and from the Native speaker controls only in the case of the purpose clause in impersonal constructions with alternating verbs. Furthermore, the significant interaction was due in part to the Advanced group's responses to these sentences and their responses to the non-alternating verbs. However, the fact that the Advanced group had trouble with the alternating verbs turns out not to be problematic because the Grammaticality Judgement task does not contain any alternating verbs. None of the other groups showed a significant difference between alternating and non-alternating verbs. Therefore, given that all the groups accept an agent and a purpose clause with impersonal constructions while rejecting it with the inchoatives, it would appear safe to use a purpose clause as a way of distinguishing the impersonals and the inchoatives in the Grammaticality Judgement task. In spite of the overall results showing a clear distinction between the two verb types, an examination of the individual responses led to the exclusion of three subjects because

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they gave negative responses to both inchoative and impersonal sentences. One of these was an advanced speaker and two were native speaker controls. It is possible that their rejection of purpose and +agent clauses is an indication of a negative bias. All the other subjects showed the appropriate contrasts on the +agent sentences and the purpose clauses.

3.4.2. Results of the Grammaticality Judgement Task 3.4.2.1. Grammaticality vs. ungrammaticality: overall results Figure 2 shows the mean responses overall for each of the groups on the grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. Throughout this test responses approximating +2 indicate acceptance, responses approximating -2 indicate rejections.

mean responses

Figure 2: grammatical vs. ungrammatical sentences 2 1

Span.

0

NN-Eng

-1

NN-Fr

-2 Gram.

Ungr.

Adv. Eng.

sentences

Figure 2 shows that all the groups are able to correctly judge grammaticality in relation to the three se constructions studied here. Furthermore, the performance of the two Near-native groups is indistinguishable from that of the Spanish-speaking Control group. The Advanced group is only slightly less accurate. That the performance of the different groups is very similar is borne out by the statistical analysis of the results. A two factor analysis of variance, repeated measures, between grammaticality and language groups, yields no significant difference by L1 group (F(3,37)=2.081, p=.1195). However, it does show a significant difference for grammaticality (F(1,37)=814.275, p=.0001) and for interaction between groups and grammaticality (F(3,37)=15.881,

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p=.0001). The subjects in this study clearly distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. I will now turn to the responses by the different groups to the specific contrasts between conditions which are related to the hypothesis of this study.

3.4.2.2. Performance on the distinctions between agreeing and non-agreeing impersonal constructions 3.4.2.2.1. Group results In this section I will compare the responses to sentences in which the verb agrees with the NP, namely impersonal passives and inchoatives, with those in which there is no agreement, the impersonal reflexives. Figure 3 shows the group results for the first of these contrasts, agreement.

Figure 3: V NP agreement

mean response

2 1

Span.

0 -1

NN-Eng

-2 imp. pas G (1)

inc. G (2)

non- agr inc. reflex. imp U. (3) G. (4)

NN-Fr Adv. Eng.

sentence type

The first two columns show the responses to sentences in which the verb agrees with the NP. Responses in (1) are those given on impersonal passives such as Se construyeron unos edificios para vender (se built-pl some buildings-pl to sell); responses in (2) are those given to inchoatives such as Se quemaron unos edificios en el incendio!(se burned-pl some buildings-pl in the fire). All the groups, including the Advanced speakers, accept both these agreeing structures. Furthermore, Column (3) shows all the groups reject the ungrammatical sentences, that is, the non-agreeing form of the inchoative in sentences

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such as *Se quemó unos edificios en el incendio (se burned-sg. some buildings-pl in the fire), although the Advanced group does so to a lesser degree. This is evidence that these speakers are using the purpose clause vs. the natural cause to differentiate the two types of sentences, the inchoatives and the impersonals, because the inchoative sentences judged in column (3) would be grammatical for some speakers if interpreted as impersonals. The columns in (4) show the responses to the impersonal reflexives such as Se construyó unos edificios para vender (se built-sg. some buildings to sell). The impersonal reflexive, as we have seen, is subject to dialect variation, and the results seen in (4) confirm this, not only for the Native speakers but also for the Near-natives and the Advanced group. Many of the subjects, although not all, treated these sentences as ungrammatical. A one factor ANOVA shows no significant difference between the groups for the two impersonal constructions shown in columns (1) and (4) ((F(3,37)=2.147, p=.11.9) for the impersonal passives, (F(3,37)=2.297, p=.0936) for the non-agreeing impersonal reflexives). There is a significant difference for the inchoatives ((F(3.37)=3.137, p=.037) for the grammatical inchoatives (2) and (F(3.37)=4.262, p=.0111) for the ungrammatical (3)). In the case of the grammatical inchoatives, significance is only captured by a post hoc Fisher PLSD test which points to the Advanced group as being different from the other groups. However, a Scheffe F test failed to find significance. In the case of the ungrammatical inchoatives, a post-hoc Scheffe F-test shows that the Advanced group is significantly different from the English Near-natives. Although it seems clear that all the groups distinguish the grammatical agreeing sentences, both the impersonal and the inchoative, from the ungrammatical inchoative, important distinctions are lost because so many of the subjects, including native speakers, consider the non-agreeing impersonal reflexive ungrammatical19. In other words, those subjects from all groups who reject lack of agreement cannot tell us anything about the distinctions based on agreement such as word order or pro-drop. Even the fact that they 19Recall

that this structure exhibits dialectal variation and for many native speakers it is ungrammatical.

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reject the non-agreeing inchoatives becomes uninteresting. In order to see if any of the subjects make the crucial distinctions, it is necessary to turn to individual scores.

3.4.2.2.2. Individual results Table 3 shows the number of subjects who did not reject the impersonal reflexives, that is, they gave either a positive or a marginal response to the word order [V NP] in each of the three constructions. A response was considered positive between +0.6 and +2.0. A response was considered marginal between -0.5 and +0.5. A negative response fell between -0.6 and -2.0. TABLE 3 Number of subjects who accept V NP word order in se constructions Judgements Controls French L1, English English NearL1, Near L1, natives natives Advanced Agr. impers. passive (G) 11/11 10/10 10/10 10/10 Agr. inchoative (G) 11/11 10/10 10/10 8/10 Non-agr. inc (U) 0/11 0/10 1/10 4/10 Non-agr. impers. (G,U) 6/11 4/10 2/10 7/10 All subjects accept the post-verbal NP sentences with the agreeing impersonal and the inchoative, as seen in the first and second rows. Furthermore, the data in the third row shows that all of the controls and the near-natives clearly reject the ungrammatical nonagreeing inchoatives, except for one English Near-native, who seems to have found these sentences marginal. Two of the Advanced subjects found them acceptable and 2 found them marginal. The crucial group of subjects are those in the fourth row who do not reject the non-agreeing impersonals, namely, 6 native speakers, 4 French Near-natives, 2 English Near-natives and 7 Advanced. In the rest of this section we will examine these subjects' responses to the relevant contrasts. Table 4 shows the number of subjects who provide a positive response to the NP in pre-verbal position.

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TABLE 4 Number of subjects who accept NP V word order in se constructions Judgements Controls French L1, English English NearL1, Near L1, natives natives Advanced n=6 n=4 n=2 n=7 Agr. impers. passive (G) 6/6 4/4 2/2 1/7 Agr. inchoative (G) 6/6 4/4 2/2 5/7 Non-agr. impers. (U) 0/6 0/4 0/2 0/7 In the first row of Table 4 we see the number of subjects who gave a positive response to impersonal passives such as Unas casas se construyeron para vender (Some houses se built-pl to sell), with the NP preceding the noun. In the second row, we see the number of subjects who accepted sentences such as Unas casas se quemaron en el incendio (Some houses se burned-pl in the fire). Both of these types are grammatical. The third row shows the ungrammatical sentences such as Unas casas se construyó para vender (Some houses se sold-sg. to sell), in which there is no agreement and the NP precedes the verb. Both the control and the Near-natives show the appropriate contrast with respect to word order, that is, they give a positive response to sentences with a pre-verbal NP in the case of agreeing impersonals and inchoatives, while rejecting them in the case of non-agreeing impersonal reflexives. Recall that these subjects did not reject the nonagreeing impersonal reflexives with the opposite word order. Although only one of the Advanced-group subjects gave a positive response (above 0.6) to the non-canonical word order for the agreeing impersonals, the other 6 did not reject these sentences either. Their responses ranged between +0.4 and -0.4. Their responses to the ungrammatical sentences, however, fall between -0.2 and -1.8, so it is likely that most do have the appropriate contrast. Table 5 shows the subjects who provide a positive response to sentences in which the NP is null.

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TABLE 5 Number of subjects who accept pro-drop in se constructions Judgements Controls French L1, English English NearL1, Near L1, natives natives Advanced Agr. impers. passive (G) 6/6 3/4 2/2 5/7 Agr. inchoative (G) 6/6 4/4 2/2 7/7 Non-agr. impers. (U) 1/6 0/4 0/2 2/7 In the first row of Table 5 we see the number of subjects who accept pro-drop with impersonal passives such as ¿Los vasos? Se guardaron en cajas para facilitar el transporte (The glasses? se put-pl away in boxes to make transportation easier). In the second row, we have the equivalent with inchoatives, such as ¿Las tazas? Se rompieron en el temblor de ayer (The cups? se broke-pl in yesterday's earthquake). Both of these are grammatical. The third row shows the number of subjects who give a positive response to sentences in which the verb does not agree with the NP, which is null, as, for example, ¿Las tazas? Se rompió por el temblor de ayer (The cups? s e broke-sg. in yesterday's earthquake). As predicted, both the Near-natives and the Control group accept pro-drop in the case of the agreeing impersonals and the inchoatives, while rejecting it in the case of the non-agreeing impersonals, although one of the controls gives a response of marginal to the ungrammatical sentences. Of the Advanced group, 2 considered the ungrammatical nonagreeing pro-drop sentences grammatical and two considered the grammatical agreeing impersonals marginal. To summarize, due to the fact that many of the speakers tested here spoke a dialect which does not allow impersonal reflexives, it was necessary to concentrate on the few subjects who did not reject this construction in order to see whether they made the relevant distinctions. Crucially, all the Near-native subjects who accept all three constructions with the surface pattern V NP make the appropriate distinctions regarding word order and prodrop. They strongly reject non-agreeing inchoatives. They also reject the pre-verbal position

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and pro-drop of the NP in just those cases where it is ungrammatical, namely the nonagreeing impersonal reflexive. In the next section we will look at the performance of all the subjects on the distinctions between the object-like properties of the impersonal passive and the subject-like properties of the inchoatives.

3.4.2.3. Performance on the distinctions between impersonal passives and inchoatives. 3.4.2.3.1. Secondary predication: group results The first difference tested between impersonal passives and inchoatives is secondary predication. Figure 4 shows the mean responses of the different groups.

mean responses

Figure 4: Secondary predication 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5

Span. NN-Eng imp. gram. (1)

inc. ungr. (2)

NN-Fr Adv. Eng.

sentence types

The first set of columns shows the responses to the impersonal sentences such as Las casas se vendieron recién pintadas para complacer a los clientes (The houses se soldpl just painted in order to please the clients), in which the NP is modified by a depictive secondary predicate. These sentences are grammatical. The columns in (2) show the corresponding inchoative sentences such as Las casas se quemaron recién pintadas en el incendio de ayer (The houses se burned-pl just painted in yesterday's fire), which are ungrammatical. Responses to the grammatical impersonal sentences seem unproblematic. The control group and the Near-natives accept secondary predication and so does the

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Advanced group, although less firmly. The three groups also reject secondary predication with the inchoative sentences, though less strongly than expected. A one factor ANOVA shows no difference between the groups for the inchoative sentences (F (3, 37)=2.414, p=.0821). However, there is a significant difference in the case of the impersonals (F (3,37)=9.359, p=.0001). A post hoc Scheffe procedure shows that this difference is due to the Advanced group, which differed significantly from the other three groups. Figure 4 suggests a difference between the treatment by these subjects of the impersonals and the inchoatives in relation to secondary predication. In order to show that the groups are in fact treating these sentences as different I also performed a one factor ANOVA, repeated measures, for each of the groups, with the relevant sentence types as variables (see the Appendix to this chapter, Table 8, for a summary of the results to the statistical analysis). For all of the groups there is a significant difference between sentence types, including the Advanced. As in the previous section we will now turn to the individual results, confirming that the subjects are able to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in relation to secondary predication.

3.4.2.3.2. Secondary predication: Individual results Table 6 shows the number of subjects who accepted secondary predication. TABLE 6 Number of subjects who accept secondary predication in se constructions Judgements Controls French L1, English English NearL1, Near L1, natives natives Advanced Impersonal (G) 11/11 10/10 10/10 6/10 Inchoative (U) 3/11 0/10 1/10 4/10 Most of the Near-natives and the Controls are able to correctly distinguish between these two constructions in relation to secondary predication. However, there are three native speakers and 1 English speaker who fail to reject secondary predication with the inchoatives. One of these subjects told me she had accepted them because she thought they

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were semantically deviant and the test was about grammar. A similar explanation may apply to the other subjects. Although the statistical analysis showed the responses of the Advanced group barely reached significance, the individual results confirm they did treat the two structures as different, although their judgments did not fall at the extremes of the scale (+2 and -2). Their judgements for the ungrammatical inchoatives ranged between +0.4 and -0.4, their acceptance of the grammatical sentences ranged between +0.6 and +0.8. 3.4.2.3.3. Differential object marking: group results Figure 5 shows the group results for differential object marking.

Figure 5: Differential object marking 2 1

Span. NN-Eng NN-Fr Adv. Eng.

0 -1 -2 -3 Imp pass -agr. +a gram (1)

Imp pass +agr. +a gram (2)

Inc. -agr +a ungram(3)

Inc. +agr. +a ungram (4)

Inc. +agr. -a gram (5)

sentence type

The first two sets of columns show the mean responses for the impersonal sentences regarding differential object marking. The first set of columns shows the responses to sentences such as Se arrestó a los García para impedir nuevos crímenes ('se arrested-sg. a the Garcías-pl in order to stop further crime'), in which the verb does not agree with the a marked NP. This is correct in standard Spanish. The second set of columns shows the responses to sentences such as Se arrestaron a los Páez para impedir nuevos crímenes (se arrested-pl a the Páez-pl in order to stop further crime), in which the

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verb agrees with the a marked NP. This is correct in some dialects. It is possible for subjects to accept both or prefer one to the other. The acceptance or rejection to differential object marking in impersonal passives does not seem particularly strong in any of the groups. This may be because the individual subjects are divided as to which of the two possibilities they prefer. It will be necessary to look at the individual results. All the groups show a relative acceptance to the standard, non-agreeing form, though this acceptance seems stronger for the control and the French Near-native group. Both the Near-native groups seem to reject the non-standard form. The final three columns in 5 show the responses to the inchoatives. The third column shows the responses to sentences such as Se murió a los niños de María (se diedsg. a María's children), in which the inchoative verb does not agree with the a marked NP. These sentences are ungrammatical and it is clear that all the groups reject them. A comparison of the responses to this set of columns (3) with the responses in the grammatical impersonals in (1) clearly shows that, as predicted, all the groups make the relevant contrast. The fourth set of columns shows the responses to sentences such as Se murieron a los niños de María ('se died-pl a the children of María'), in which the inchoative verb agrees with the a marked NP. Again, we find rejection of these sentences by all the groups, although the rejection by the Advanced group is less strong. This set of columns (4) contrasts with the responses to the impersonals (2). In spite of the fact that the impersonals in the second set of columns are ungrammatical in certain dialects, there is a clear awareness that the inchoatives and the impersonals are different. The fifth set of columns shows the responses to sentences such as Se murieron los niños de María ('se died-pl the children of María') in which the verb agrees with the post-verbal NP but there is no differential object marking. These sentences are grammatical, and the four groups show an awareness of this fact. In short, all the groups appear to show a distinction between the grammatical impersonals with differential object marking and the ungrammatical

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inchoatives, and also the contrast between the ungrammatical inchoatives with differential object marking and the grammatical inchoatives without it. A one factor ANOVA shows no significant difference between the groups for the two impersonal sets of sentences ((F (3, 37) =1.312, p=.2852) for the non-agreeing form (1); (F (3,37)=1.322, p=.2818) for the agreeing version (2)). However, there is a significant difference for all three inchoative constructions ((F (3, 37) =8.529, p=.0002) for the ungrammatical agreeing form (3); (F (3, 37) =6.1, p=.0018) for the ungrammatical nonagreeing form (4); (F (3, 37) =4.449, p=.0091) for the grammatical form, that is, agreement without object marking (5)). Post hoc Scheffe tests show that in all cases only the Advanced groups differed significantly from the other groups. In order to ascertain whether all the groups made the relevant distinctions between grammaticality and ungrammaticality, a one factor ANOVA, Repeated Measures was also conducted for each of the groups, with the relevant sentence types as variables (see the Appendix to this chapter, Tables 9 to 13, for a summary of the results to the statistical analysis). Results showed that all the groups treated the two grammatical impersonal constructions equally, that is, there is no significant difference in their responses to each type, the non-agreeing standard type (1) and the agreeing type (2). Furthermore, all the groups treated the two differentially marked inchoative constructions (3) and (4) as equally ungrammatical, showing no significant difference between the two. In contrast, the responses of all the groups showed a significant difference between the grammatical nonagreeing impersonals marked with personal a (1) and the ungrammatical non-agreeing inchoatives (3). Furthermore, all the groups except the Advanced group treated the nonstandard grammatical agreeing impersonal marked with a (2) as significantly different from the ungrammatical agreeing inchoative marked with a (4). Finally, all the groups show a significant difference in their responses to the grammatical, non-marked agreeing inchoatives (5), and the ungrammatical, a marked, agreeing inchoatives (4). As predicted, in all cases the Near-natives, like the Controls, make the appropriate distinctions. The

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Advanced group failed to make the appropriate distinction between differentially object marked agreeing impersonals and inchoatives. We will now turn to the individual results.

3.4.2.3.4. Differential object marking: individual results Table 7 shows the number of subjects who reject the se constructions when the NP is [+HUMAN], with and without differential object marking. TABLE 7 Number of subjects who reject differential object marking in se constructions Judgements Controls French L1, English English NearL1, Near L1, natives natives Advanced Imp. +agr +a (G) 0/11 0/10 1/10 0/10 Inc. -agr. +a (U) 11/11 10/10 10/10 5/10 Inc. +agr. +a (U) 11/11 9/10 10/10 3/10 Inc. +agr. -a (G) 0/11 0/10 0/10 1/10 In the first row of Table 7 we see the number of subjects who rejected impersonal passives in which the NP is differentially object marked, that is, they did not accept either the agreeing form or the standard non-agreeing form. There is only one subject who does not appear to accept any kind of differential object marking on impersonals, an English Near-native who firmly rejects both types (-2). This subject is problematic. There are also some subjects in each group whose acceptance of one or both is somewhat weak, around 0.6. This is particularly common in the case of the Advanced speakers. Regarding the inchoatives, both the Controls and the Near-natives clearly reject the ungrammatical sentences marked with a , although one French speaker does so marginally (-.4). All subjects clearly accept the grammatical sentences. Most of the Advanced speakers also make the correct distinctions, though their responses in this instance also are less firm. Two of the Advanced subjects clearly accept agreeing inchoatives with a (+1.2), and 3 of them do so weakly, responses ranging between 0.2 and 0.6. Furthermore, 3 of the Advanced subjects marginally accept the non-agreeing marked version of the inchoatives, responses ranging from 0.2 to 0.6. 127

3.5.

Discussion

3.5.1

The Near-native speakers This study was aimed at arguing against two SLA hypotheses. The first of these is

Bley-Vroman's (1989; 1990; 1996; 1997) hypothesis that there is a fundamental difference between adult SLA and L1 acquisition. In particular, he argues that the learning procedures used in learning a second language are different from those used in first language and can be described mainly as the learning of patterns. Furthermore, this being the case, the resulting underlying grammar is fundamentally different from the grammar of a native speaker. The hypothesis defended here is that adult second language learners are able to go beyond the input to acquire subtle properties which cannot be deduced from the surface patterns, and hence, UG must be implicated. The Spanish se constructions, used in this study, particularly lend themselves to the testing of this hypothesis because they have the characteristic of sharing the same surface pattern while at the same time exhibiting deeper differences, in particular regarding the NP which appears in these constructions. The reasoning which led to the choice of the se constructions is that a learner who is limited to learning surface patterns would have no way of knowing that these structures are indeed different and therefore would not be able to infer the properties. On the other hand, a learner who shows knowledge of the relevant properties cannot have been misled by the identical patterns. The second hypothesis tested was the Local Impairment Hypothesis (Beck, 1998; Eubank, et al., 1997) according to which the features related to functional categories are impaired in second language acquisition because the feature value is permanently inert. Again, the se constructions and, in particular, the impersonal passive, are appropriate to test this issue, because in order to acquire them it is necessary for English and French native speakers to change the strength of AgrO from the weak value of the L1 to a strong value.

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This is particularly interesting in this case, because the general L2 input received will consist of sentences which also have a weak AgrO, given that Strong Agr occurs in Spanish only in the specific case of impersonal constructions. Finally, this study looks at the possibility of detecting transfer at the level of ultimate attainment in that the two native languages involved differ from Spanish and from each other in particular ways. French shares with Spanish the fact that it has a reflexive clitic se which is used in non-agreeing impersonal constructions and to express aspect. French speakers may, therefore, have a certain advantage over English speakers in relation to these two structures. However, in both English and French the NP in inchoatives is a subject, although it usually appears in pre-verbal position, unlike Spanish, in which post-verbal subjects are common. Overall the performance of the Near-native subjects in this study strongly supports the position that UG is available and that pattern learning is an unlikely explanation for the performance of the subjects. We also find evidence against the Local Impairment Hypothesis, in that the acquisition of the impersonal passives also clearly shows that the learners have been able to change the value of AgrO to [+strong], as predicted. The performance of the Near natives was indistinguishable from the performance of the native speakers. Both the Near-natives and the Controls treated the three se constructions studied here as different. In the first place, they correctly identified both the similarities and the differences between the impersonal passive and the inchoative. As to the subject-like properties which are common to both constructions, they correctly accepted agreement on the verb, the word order possibilities and pro-drop. They also clearly treated the impersonals as different from the inchoatives, recognizing the object-like properties of the NP in the impersonals, namely secondary predication and differential object marking. In the case of the non-agreeing reflexive impersonal it was not possible to make all the relevant contrasts for all the subjects, although it is clear that none of these speakers confused this construction with the other two. Those few subjects who did accept the non-

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agreeing impersonal clearly had acquired the constraints on its use. Their performance shows that they know that, because the NP in the impersonal reflexive is an object, it cannot be moved to preverbal position, nor can it be pro-dropped, in contrast to both the impersonal passive and the inchoative. Furthermore, all of the subjects rejected a non-agreeing inchoative construction, which is ungrammatical since the NP in inchoative constructions cannot remain low in object position, but must move into Aspect Phrase and then AgrS. Although this group consisted of only 6 near-native speakers and 6 controls it is clear that their grammars contained all the relevant properties. In view of the results found here, it seems that the properties of the se constructions in Spanish are learnable by second language learners. The lack of difference between the performance of the L2 speakers and the L1 speakers, as a group and individually, can be taken as evidence that their underlying grammars are also similar. Crucially, the subjects' performance showed a strong sense of grammaticality, with almost unanimous rejection of ungrammatical sentences. Given that, as we have seen in Chapter 1, knowledge of ungrammaticality cannot come from the input, this is strong evidence that the learners were constrained by UG. Furthermore, they treated the NP in each of the three types of constructions as different, and this difference is not clear from the input, given the identical surface structure. This is strong evidence that the learning procedures are not based on pattern learning. In the circumstances, it is unnecessary to posit a learning mechanism different from that used in L1 acquisition20. The results found here also lead to the conclusion that L2 learners are able to change the strength of feature values related to functional categories. Evidence for this comes in particular from the results of the impersonal passive construction. The subjects' acceptance of verb agreement with an NP which they recognize as an object may be interpreted as knowledge of the [+strong] features of AgrO and the corresponding

20Thanks

to Nigel Duffield suggesting this to me

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movement of the NP to this position in order to check features. We can infer, therefore, that acquisition of strong AgrO has taken place for both the French and the English speakers. The lack of difference between the performance of the French L1 speakers and the English L1 speakers is also interesting, particularly so in the case of the inchoatives, which is where we would expect the French speakers to have a slight advantage, although, as we have seen, English also has inchoatives. Tentatively, however, these results suggest that, at the final state, the L1 does not play a significant part, at least regarding these structures. Further studies should be carried out with lower level learners in order to see if at some point there is a difference. To summarize, this study provides evidence against the hypothesis that after puberty the language learning faculty is somehow impaired. It provides evidence against a specific impairment related to the ability to set the strength of features at a value different from the L1 and also against a more general impairment such as is assumed by Bley-Vroman's Fundamental Difference Hypothesis.

3.5.2. The Advanced speakers The performance of the subjects in the Advanced group is not as homogeneous as the performance of the other groups. Three of the subjects performed as well as the native speakers, while at the other end of the scale 3 failed on 5 of the 17 categories tested. It is striking that the problem with these speakers often involved inchoatives. They accepted inchoative se in which the verb did not agree with the NP, inchoatives with differential object marking and with secondary predication. It would seem they treated the inchoatives as impersonals, which is somewhat unexpected. A theory based on transfer and overgeneralization would predict they would treat impersonals, which don't exist in English, as inchoatives, and not vice versa. Although the Advanced group's performance is not homogeneous they fail to show the variability that plagues L2 learners if variability is defined as judging some sentences in

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a given category as grammatical and others as ungrammatical. This did happen, but it was not the general tendency. Although the judgements of this group were often in the right direction, they gave an intermediate answer much more frequently than any of the other groups, 52% of the time versus 17% for the near-natives. I believe the results show that they felt unsure of their answers and not that they have variable grammars. Before concluding, I would like to address the problem of the non-agreeing impersonal reflexive. One may wonder if this construction, which appears either ungrammatical or marginal for so many speakers, is disappearing from the language. I believe the answer is negative. I think that there is evidence that this is not a case of language change, but rather that this variability has existed for at least the last century. Evidence for this comes from traditional grammar books, for which the status of the nonagreeing constructions seems to be a subject of debate (see, for example, Bello, 1928; Gili y Gaya, 1961, among many others). Grammarians would not be discussing its status if nobody used it. As far as I know, no sociological study has been done, most scholars assuming that it is correct or incorrect for normative reasons alone. However, the judgements of native speakers used in this study and in other related studies do seem to indicate that this is a regional variant. In Argentina it seems to be used commonly, with the NP behaving as a normal direct object, replaceable by an accusative clitic. In Colombia, it seems to be constrained in a way that suggests the NP receives partitive case. It cannot be replaced by a clitic, among other things. Its use is restricted to certain environments. Finally, in Spain it may be considered ungrammatical, and several Spanish grammarians have suggested it is restricted to the Americas (see, for example, Gili y Gaya, 1961). These are, however, only impressions which need to be more fully studied. It is interesting to note, however, that the second language learners seem to have picked up one or another variant and to have definite intuitions about them.

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3.6. Appendix to Chapter 3: Summary of statistical analyses TABLE 8 Secondary predication: Contrast between grammatical impersonal passives and ungrammatical inchoatives Results of a one factor ANOVA repeated measures Control Group

F(1,21)=51.861, p=.0001*

English Near-native Group

F(1,19)=63.078, p=.0001*

French Near-native Group

F(1,19)=124.854, p=.0001*

Advanced Group *indicates significance

F(1,19)=5.143, p=.0495*

TABLE 9 Differential object marking: Comparison of responses to agreeing impersonal passives and non- agreeing impersonals with differential object marking (both grammatical) Results of a one factor ANOVA repeated measures Control Group

F(1,21)=2.979, p=.115

English Near-native Group

F(1,19)=.523, p=.4881

French Near-native Group

F(1,19)=3.007, p=.1169

Advanced Group *indicates significance

F(1,19)=.256, p=.6248

TABLE 10 Differential object marking: Comparison of responses to agreeing inchoatives and nonagreeing inchoatives with differential object marking (both ungrammatical) Results of a one factor ANOVA repeated measures. Control Group

F(1,21)=.233, p=.64

English Near-native Group

F(1,19)=4.738, p=.0575

French Near-native Group

F(1,19)=1.769, p=.2163

Advanced Group *indicates significance

F(1,19)=3.419, p=.0975

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TABLE 11 Differential object marking: Contrast between responses to grammatical non-agreeing impersonal and ungrammatical non-agreeing inchoatives with differential object marking Results of a one factor ANOVA repeated measures. Control Group

F(1,21)=.106.401, p=.0001*

English Near-native Group

F(1,19)=15.188, p=.0036*

French Near-native Group

F(1,19)=34.651, p=.0002*

Advanced Group

F(1,19)=5.363, p=.0458*

TABLE 12 Differential object marking: Contrast between responses to grammatical agreeing impersonal passives and ungrammatical agreeing inchoatives with differential object marking Results of a one factor ANOVA repeated measures. Control Group

F(1,21)=26.563, p=.0004*

English Near-native Group

F(1,19)=10.613, p=.0099*

French Near-native Group

F(1,19)=5.673, p=.0411*

Advanced Group

F(1,19)=3.552, p=.0921

TABLE 13 Differential object marking: Contrast between responses to grammatical agreeing impersonal passives and ungrammatical agreeing inchoatives with differential object marking Results of a one factor ANOVA repeated measures. Control Group

F(1,21)=667.545, p=.0001*

English Near-native Group

F(1,19)=517.008, p=.0001*

French Near-native Group

F(1,19)=103.73, p=.0001*

Advanced Group

F(1,19)=12.555, p=.0063*

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Chapter 4 Functional categories and dative clitic doubling

4.0.

Introduction to dative clitic doubling in Spanish This chapter will provide a linguistic analysis of dative clitic doubling which, as was

the case with the impersonal structures, will serve for an experimental study on second language acquisition. As is well known, Spanish is a clitic doubling language, that is, an object clitic can appear in the same sentence with the full NP it represents. Although in some dialects, notably Río de la Plata Spanish (Argentina and Uruguay), it is possible for an accusative clitic to double the direct object, the most common form of clitic doubling involves the dative. In some instances this clitic doubling is optional, as seen in (1a), but in many others it is obligatory, as illustrated from (1b) to (1f). (1)

a

Felipe (le) dio el libro a Silvia Phillip dat-cl gave the book a Silvia 'Phillip gave the book to Silvia.'

b.

Felipe *(le) echó agua a las matas. Phillip dat-cl threw water a the plants 'Phillip watered the plants'

c.

Cecilia *(le) lavó las manos a la niña. Cecilia dat-cl washed the hands a the girl 'Cecilia washed the girl's hands.'

d.

A Felipe *(le) gusta el fútbol a Phillip dat-cl like (please) the football 'Phillip likes football.'

e.

Silvia *(le) tiene miedo a los leones Silvia dat-cl has fear a the lions 'Silvia fears the lions.'

f

Se *(le) cayeron los papeles a Luisa. se dat-cl fell the papers a Luisa 'Luisa dropped the papers.'

The dative clitic, realized in the examples as third person le, seems to be optional when it doubles an indirect object (1a), though even in this case it is preferred by many

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speakers, including myself. It is obligatory, however, when it doubles phrases representing a variety of different theta roles, including locatives (1b), possessors (1c) experiencers in frighten-type psych verbs (1d), the cause of some fear-type psych verbs (1e) and ethical datives (1f), among others. This variety of uses could lead to the conclusion that the dative is the default case in Spanish, as Tremblay (1991) proposes is the case in French. However, this is unlikely because there is some evidence that the default in Spanish is the nominative. For example, nominative appears as the predicate of the verb 'to be' which cannot assign accusative case, as seen in (2), and in some cases as subject of an infinitive (3). Note that in English in these circumstances the accusative is usually found, as seen by the translation, which suggests the accusative is the default in English21. (2)

Soy yo/*me/*mí am I-nom/*me-accus/mí-oblique It is me.

(3)

Explícamelo, para yo/ *me/ *mí poder comprender. Explain it to me, for I-nom/*me-accus/*mí-oblique to understand. Explain it to me, for me to understand.

In this study I argue that it is possible to unify these different uses of the dative if we assume that in the obligatory clitic doubled construction the doubled NP is licensed through spec, head agreement with the clitic. Masullo (1992) first proposed that preposition incorporation could account for the fact that obligatory clitic doubling of NPs in sentences such as (1b) seems to be in complementary distribution with sentences in which the NP is found in a prepositional phrase. Compare, for example, (4a)-(5a) with (4b)-(5b).

21It

is interesting to note that small children overuse the accusative case in English while Spanish speaking children overuse the nominative, which lends credence to the idea that these are default cases. In no language do they use the dative.

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(4)

(5)

a.

Felipe (*le) echó agua Phillip dat-cl threw water 'Phillip threw water on the plants'

sobre las matas. on the plants

b.

Felipe *(le) echó agua Phillip dat-cl threw water 'Phillip watered the plants'

a.

(*Le) Puse una cucharada de azucar en el café (Masullo, 1992) dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar in the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

b.

*(Le) puse una cucharada de azúcar al café dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar a the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

a las matas. a the matas

As we can see, in the (a) sentences the presence of the dative clitic le is ungrammatical, while in the (b) sentences it is obligatory. Furthermore, in the (a) sentences the prepositional phrase is introduced by a full preposition, while in the (b) sentences the preposition has been replaced in all cases by the pseudo-preposition a. As Masullo (op. cit.) pointed out, this alternation is found with many prepositions, some of which are illustrated in examples (6) to (9). (6)

(7)

(8)

a.

Pablo (*le) gastó la fortuna de su mujer. Pablo le spent the fortune of his wife 'Paul spent his wife's fortune'

b.

Pablo *(le) gastó la fortuna a su mujer. Pablo le spent the fortune a his wife 'Paul spent his wife's fortune'

a.

(*le) Consulté el problema con María. le consulted-1st p. the problem with María 'I consulted the problem with María.'

b.

*(Le) consulté el problema a María. le consulted-1st p. the problem a María 'I consulted the problem with María.'

a.

(El) (*le) compró un juguete para Juan. (he) le bought a toy for John ‘He bought John a toy’

b

(El) *(le) compró un juguete a Juan (He) le bought a toy a John ‘He bought a toy for/from John’

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(9)

a.

(*le) Jugué un partido contra Pablo (Masullo, 1992) le played-1st p. a game against Paul 'I played a game against Paul.'

b.

*(Le) jugué un partido a Pablo le played a game a Pablo 'I played a game against Paul.'

Following Baker (1988), Masullo (op. cit) suggested that in the second example of each pair the preposition has incorporated into the verb, and the presence of le and a are realizations of dative case. Dative case is assigned structurally, by coindexation with an Agreement node under government. The incorporated preposition itself is phonologically null. He argued, however, that although the alternation is very productive in Spanish regarding the type of preposition and its frequency, it is somewhat idiosyncratic, in that there are some cases in which incorporation is not possible, as seen in (10). (10)

a.

Juan espera una recompensa de María (Masullo (1992) Juan expects a recompense of María ‘John expects a recompense from Mary’

b.

*Juan le espera una recompensa a María Juan le expects a recompense a María ‘John expects a recompense from Mary’

Although Masullo looked at psych verbs, suggesting that the dative experiencer is in subject position, he did not try to unify all the cases given above in (1). I believe it is possible to do so if we examine the conditions under which this alternation is possible in Spanish. Not only will this permit a desired level of generality but it will allow us to explain those cases in which the preposition is disallowed, such as (10). In this thesis I will build on work by Baker (1988), Masullo (1992) and Bruhn de Garavito (1995), examining some of the properties of incorporation in Spanish. In order to explain why the dative clitic is obligatory in Spanish incorporation, I propose that after incorporation the NP can no longer check case and f features within the domain of the preposition. Therefore, it must move to check features via spec, head agreement with the clitic. Furthermore, as we shall see, the NP in dative clitic doubled constructions shows certain aspectual properties generally associated with objects, which

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leads me to argue, in part following Ramchand (1993), that the clitic is generated as the head of the Inner Aspect phrase in the sense of Travis (1991). Hence, the NP moves to the specifier of Inner Aspect to check its features with the clitic. Inner Aspect acts as a sort of internal Focus phrase, and, because of this, the NP is always interpreted as affected. In this chapter, I will first briefly look at the theory of preposition incorporation. I will then examine the role of the clitic in Spanish preposition incorporation in sentences such as (4) and (5). I will provide evidence to show that the NP of an incorporated preposition differs from an NP in a full prepositional phrase in its aspectual properties, which I take as evidence of association with the Aspect node. I will also examine some restrictions on incorporation, which follow naturally from the structure I propose. Finally, I will turn to other types of clitic doubled structures, such as possessors, psych verbs and ethical dative.

4.1.

Introduction to preposition incorporation

Baker (1988) proposed that complex predicates found in many languages could be accounted for as instances of head movement. Take the example in (11). (11)

Wa-hake-natar-a-kwétar-◊-'. (Mohawk) (Baker, 1996) FACT-MsS/IsO-bread-Ø-cut-BEN-PUNC 'He cut the bread for me.'

In the Mohawk example (11), the noun 'bread', the verb 'cut' and the benefactive 'for me' come together in what appears to be one word. According to Baker (1988), this is the result of the head noun and the benefactive incorporating into the verb via head movement. As such, this process of incorporation is subject to the constraints on this type of movement, notably the Empty Category Principle (Chomsky, 1986b), as stated in (12).

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(12)Empty Category Principle Traces must be property governed A properly governs B iff A theta-governs B or A antecedent-governs B A theta-governs B iff A governs B and A theta-marks B. A antecedent-governs B iff A governs B and A is co-indexed with B. In order to insure proper government of the trace of the moved element, Baker proposed the Government Transparency Corollary, as stated in (13). (13)Government Transparency Corollary 'A lexical category which has an item incorporated into it governs everything which the incorporated item governed in its original structural position.' (Baker, 1988, p. 65). Among the elements which can incorporate into the verb via head movement we find prepositions. According to Baker (1988; see also Marantz, 1984), preposition incorporation or applicative constructions are but one case among the more general processes of grammatical function change, which include, for example, passivization. Baker summarizes the change involved in the applicative in the following manner (p. 9): oblique indirect object null

Æ object; object Æ "2nd object" (or oblique)

This means that, in the applicative construction, an indirect object or an oblique becomes an object and the original object is demoted to second object or to oblique. One of the conditions on incorporation is that the verb has to be transitive, that is, it has to be able to assign accusative case. In the incorporated form, the verb assigns accusative case to the NP governed by the preposition, while the demoted object must receive inherent case. The most common categories involved in preposition incorporation are datives/goals, benefactives/malefactives, locatives and some types of instrumentals. Not all types are present in all languages and alternation between the full preposition and the applicative is not possible in all types either, that is, in some languages a particular type may have obligatory incorporation. The structure proposed by Baker (1988) is found in (14).

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(14)

He cut the bread for me IP

ei

NP |

I' ei

he Infl

VP V ty

ty Ni

| bread

V | V | cut

|

ty Pk

PP | P |

for tk

NP NP | me

N ti

In (14), the benefactive PP and the theme NP are generated as arguments of the verb. This is due to the fact that the benefactive morpheme extends the argument structure of the verb. Both the theme ‘bread' and the preposition 'for' incorporate into V. In subsequent work Baker (1996) has argued that this account is incorrect because it violates the Morphological Visibility Condition, as stated in (15), which only applies in polysynthetic languages such as Mohawk. (15) The morphological Visibility Condition (MVC) (Baker, 1996, p. 17) A phrase X is visible for theta role assignment from a head Y only if it is coindexed with a morpheme in the word containing Y via: (i) an agreement relationship (ii) a movement relationship In the phrase structure in (14), neither the PP argument or the theme violate the MVC, the PP because the preposition has incorporated into the verb (15ii), the theme because it can incorporate (15ii) or trigger agreement on the verb (15i). However, the NP which is the argument of the preposition does violate it, because neither of the conditions in (15) are met by it, that is, it can neither incorporate or trigger agreement. Baker proposes two possible solutions, both of which may be correct in some languages. In the first, the applicative morpheme is a predicate which takes the VP as a theme argument and the PP as a goal argument, as shown in (16).

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(16) VP ei

VP ty

NP | N | bread

V' ei

V' | V | cut

V

PP ty

|

ben

P | Ø

NP | me

The other option is for the benefactive to be the head of a prepositional phrase. However, instead of the preposition incorporating directly into the verb, the whole PP incorporates into the specifier of Inner Aspect. The preposition then incorporates into the head of Inner Aspect. The theme NP incorporates directly into the verb, which then incorporates into the head of Aspect. The structure is shown in (17) (17) AspP ei

PPk Asp' | ei P' Asp VP ty | ei me tx benx NP V' | ei N' V | ty | ti Ni V | | bread cut

PP tk

To summarize, Baker's position regarding applicatives in polysynthetic languages is that PPs are never arguments of the verb. However, when a preposition incorporates into the verb it extends the verb's argument structure. He has ruled out direct incorporation for these languages, but suggests that the benefactive in particular can either be a predicate or the whole PP can move into the specifier of the Aspect Phrase.

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4.2.

Preposition incorporation in Spanish

4.2.1. Differences between preposition incorporation in Spanish and other languages The examples in (5), repeated here as (18), show that, in Spanish, sentences with a full preposition, in which clitic doubling is disallowed (18a), are in complementary distribution with sentences in which the preposition has been replaced by a and the clitic is obligatory. The clitic agrees in person with the NP. The meaning in both cases is very similar. (18)

a.

(*Le) Puse una cucharada de azucar en el café. dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar in the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

b.

*(Le) puse una cucharada de azúcar al café dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar a the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

According to Baker's (1988) Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis, identical thematic relationships between items map onto identical syntactic relationships at Dstructure. In (18) and similar sentences the thematic roles of the different NPs are identical, although the structure seems somewhat different. It is safe to assume that one of the two forms, either the full preposition sentence (18a) or the clitic doubled sentence (18b), is derived from the other. Given the existence of preposition incorporation in many languages, the most obvious explanation seems to be that the full preposition in the (a) sentence incorporates into the verb by head movement and the clitic is somehow necessary to license the stranded NP. There are, however, some clear differences between Spanish and applicatives in most languages. In the first place, as we have seen, preposition incorporation is generally marked by morphology on the verb. In the Mohawk sentence given above (11), for example, the benefactive is realized as ◊. In Spanish, however, there is no morphology on the verb to signal the incorporation of the preposition in the clitic doubled sentences.

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In second place, in the applicative construction the direct object is usually demoted to oblique. However, this demotion does not take place in Spanish, as I will demonstrate. In the first place, the direct object continues to receive accusative case, as shown by the accusative clitic in example (19). (19)

a.

Patricia le pegó una etiqueta al frasco. Patricia le glued a label-fem a the jar-masc 'Patricia stuck a label on the jar.'

b.

Patricia se la pegó. Patricia dat-cl22 acc-cl. glued 'Patricia glued a label on the jar.'

c.

*Patricia lo pegó una etiqueta. Patricia acc-cl-masc. glued a label-fem

In (19a) we find a sentence in which the preposition has presumably been incorporated, as seen by the absence of a full preposition and the obligatory presence of the pseudo preposition a. The direct object, the feminine singular noun etiqueta 'label' is replaced in (19b) by the accusative singular feminine clitic la and not by an oblique. In (19c), we see that the dative object, the masculine singular frasco 'jar', cannot be replaced by the masculine singular accusative clitic, as is to be expected. Thus, it is clear that the direct object continues to receive accusative case, while the locative is not promoted to accusative. Furthermore, the direct object also continues to exhibit the properties of a normal object. For example, subextraction, secondary predication and passivization are all possible. In contrast, these processes are not possible with the dative a phrase, as seen in examples (20) through (22).

22The

dative clitic le is realized as se in Spanish when in the presence of an accusative clitic.

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(20)

(21)

(22)

a.

¿De qué sabor le compró Patricia un helado ti a Elvira? of what flavour le bought Patricia an ice cream a Elvira 'What flavour ice cream did Patricia buy for Elvira?'

b.

*¿De qué sabori le puso Patricia crema al helado ti? of what flavour le put Patricia cream a the ice cream? 'What was the flavour of the ice cream Patricia put cream on?'

a.

Ernesto le compró una casa pintada de azul a Lucía. Ernest le bought a house painted blue a Lucía 'Ernest bought Lucia a house painted blue.'

b.

*Ernesto le compró una casa a Lucía encinta. Ernesto le bought a house a Lucia pregnant 'Ernesto bought Lucía a house while she was pregnant.'

a.

La casa le fue entregada a Ernesto ayer. the house-fem le was handed-fem over a Ernesto yesterday 'The house was handed over to Ernest yesterday.'

b.

*A Ernesto le fue entregado la casa ayer. a Ernest-masc le was handed over-masc the house yesterday. 'The house was handed over to Ernest yesterday.'

Sentence (20a) shows wh-movement of the phrase 'of what flavour' from within the direct object NP. This sentence is grammatical. In contrast, it is ungrammatical to move a wh-phrase from within the dative clitic doubled NP, as shown in (20b). In (21a) we see that the direct object may be modified by a secondary predicate, in contrast to the dative NP, as shown in (21b). Finally, it is possible for the direct object to become the subject of the passive sentence. In (22a), the feminine object la casa 'the house' has moved into subject position, triggering agreement on the past participle. Compare with (22b), in which the agreement of the past participle with the dative NP is ungrammatical. Examples such as these provide strong evidence that the object NP has not been demoted, and nor has the dative NP been promoted to object. According to Masullo, this is due to the fact that in Spanish the verb is able to assign two structural cases, dative and accusative. This however, seems to be a stipulation with little evidence. Furthermore, it does not explain why the clitic is not always obligatory, whenever dative case is assigned. Besides the differences between prototypical incorporation and Spanish seen in the previous examples, there is, I believe, another serious difference. If the alternation found in

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(18) is due to head movement of the preposition into the verb, we would predict that the process would be subject to the Empty Category Principle. According to Masullo (op. cit.), Spanish in fact obeys this constraint. He provides the following examples (p. 28) to show that violations of the ECP are ungrammatical in Spanish. (23)

(24)

(25)

(26)

a

Vengo [a que me paguen] (PURPOSE ADJUNCT) Come-I [a that me pay] 'I come to be paid.'

b.

*Le vengo. le come-I

a.

Marcos cortó la soga con sus dientes (INSTRUMENT) Marcos cut the rope with his teeth 'Marcos cut the rope with his teeth.

b.

*Marcos le cortó la soga a sus dientes. Marcos le cut the rope a his teeth

a.

Marcos fue al cine con su amigo (COMITATIVE) Marcos went to the movies with his friend. 'Marcos went to the movies with his friend.'

b.

*Marcos le fue al cine a su amigo Marcos le went to the movies a his friend

a.

Adriana trabaja en su propio estudio (LOCATIVE/ADJUNCT) Adriana works in her own studio 'Adriana works in her own studio.'

b.

*Adriana le trabaja a su propio estudio. Adriana le works a her own studio

Although the above (b) sentences are indeed ungrammatical, it is far from certain that they are ungrammatical because they violate the ECP. Let us look at them in detail. In (23) we have a purpose clause with a subjunctive introduced by a . In fact, the full preposition para could have also been used, so we could argue incorporation has in fact taken place. Why is the clitic disallowed? Simply because the presence of the clitic is related to case assignment, and a clause does not need case. In (24) we find an instrumental. As Baker (1988b) demonstrates, instrumentals can incorporate in some languages, such as Chichewa, without violating the ECP. Furthermore, I will show below that in Spanish one of the properties of incorporation is that the clitic doubled NP must be interpreted as affected.

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Instrumentals violate this conditions and therefore are not possible applicatives in Spanish. In examples (24) and (25) the verb in intransitive. Recall that, according to Baker (1988b) , incorporation can only take place in transitive sentences. Besides the fact that the sentences above may be ruled out for other reasons different from the ECP, it is also possible to find in Spanish cases in which it is difficult to argue that the incorporated prepositional phrase is an argument of the verb, as shown below. (27)

(28)

(29)

(30)

(31)

a.

Bailé un tango para Carlos danced-I a tango for Carlos 'I danced a tango for Carlos.'

b.

Le bailé un tango a Carlos. le danced a tango a Carlos 'I danced a tango for Carlos.'

a

Trabajé tres horas para mi jefe. worked-I three hours for my boss 'I worked three hours for my boss.'

b.

Le trabajé tres horas a mi jefe. le worked-I three hours a my boss 'I worked three hours for my boss.'

a.

Me fui de la casa de mi madre. reflex-cl went from the house of my mother 'I left my mother's house.'

b.

Me le fui de la casa a mi madre. reflex-cl le went from the house a my mother 'I left my mother's house.'

a.

Me reí en su cara. reflex-cl in his face 'I laughed in his face.'

b.

Me le reí a la cara. reflex-cl le a the face 'I laughed in his face.'

a.

Puse un mantel en la mesa para mi mamá. put-I a tablecloth on the table for my mother 'I put a tablecloth on the table for my mother.'

b.

Le puse un mantel en la mesa a mi mamá. le put a tablecloth on the table a my mother 'I put a tablecloth on the table for my mother.'

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In examples (27) and (28) we find the verbs 'dance' and 'work', neither of which subcategorize for a benefactive, yet the clitic doubled construction is possible. In (29) we find the verb 'to go'. A clitic doubled possessor is possible. Finally, a sentence including the verb 'laugh' and a goal also allows the alternation between a full preposition and a clitic doubled construction, although 'laugh' does not subcategorize for a goal. In (31) we find the verb 'put' which subcategorizes for both a theme and a location, but not for a benefactive, and yet incorporation of the benefactive preposition seems possible. These examples look like violations of the ECP if preposition incorporation is to be analyzed in the terms of Baker (1988b). However, note that in all these cases, the preposition incorporates from a benefactive (or a malefactive, as may be the case of (29) and (30)). To summarize, the facts of Spanish clitic doubling constructions do not seem to accord with the basic properties of preposition incorporation. In the first place, there is no evidence of grammatical function change. In the second place, it seems that one of the most important constraints on preposition incorporation, that the PP has to be an argument of the verb to avoid a violation of the ECP, does not apply in Spanish.

4.2.2. The role of the clitic in the structure of preposition incorporation in Spanish The differences between the prototypical applicative construction and clitic doubled sentences in Spanish seem to lead to the conclusion that the alternation found in Spanish between full preposition and clitic doubled constructions may be due to some other process. I will argue that this is not the case. The differences can be explained in part if we examine the role of the obligatory clitic. Assuming for the sake of argument that we are dealing with applicatives, the most salient facts we must consider related to this construction in Spanish are that the preposition becomes null after incorporation and that the dative clitic is obligatory. First, let us consider the null preposition. It seems plausible to assume that the null preposition is able to assign a theta role to the NP it governs, either by itself or in conjunction with the verb, as suggested

148

by Stowell (1982). On the other hand, it is possible that the NP is not able to check its case and f features in the domain of the preposition after incorporation of the preposition. Although Baker's (1996) Morphological Visibility Condition is the main characteristic of polysynthetic languages, it is possible that something along these lines applies in this particular case in Spanish. Because the preposition is not visible, the NP which is the argument of the preposition is stranded and is no longer licensed. Therefore the NP must be licensed somewhere else, namely, by the clitic. The NP will move out of the PP to check case and f features by spec, head agreement with the clitic. This explains why the clitic is obligatory in these constructions. It also explains why the direct object is not demoted. The verb may still assign accusative case to the direct object because there is an alternative way to license the object of the preposition. In Minimalist Program terms, the direct object will check case and features in AgrO at LF, while the object of the preposition will do so with the clitic. I will show that there is some evidence that the clitic is generated as the head of Inner Aspect, and it is here that the NP will move. There still remains the problem of the possible violations of the ECP. I will set this aside for the moment and look only at those cases in which the PP is an argument of the verb and therefore the ECP is straightforwardly obeyed. One of the questions we must ask is which of the structures proposed by Baker (1996; 1988) is the correct one. Recall that there are 3 structures: in the first (Baker, 1988) the preposition simply incorporates into the verb. In the other two, (Baker, 1996) the preposition is either a predicate or the whole prepositional phrase moves into Inner Aspect. It is easy to discard the second hypothesis, that prepositions in Spanish may be predicates subcategorizing for an agent, a theme and a goal, as proposed by Baker, because it is not clear how such a predicate could be a null element. Furthermore, if this were correct, the NP governed by the preposition would not have to move but would be licensed in situ, and the clitic would not be necessary. The third structure, in which the whole PP moves into the specifier of Inner Aspect is a possibility. The preposition, instead of incorporating into the verb, may incorporate into the clitic, which,

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if what I suggest is correct, is in the head of Aspect. However, I do not see a motivation for this movement in Spanish. The PP does not have to move to satisfy any particular need. Therefore, I will assume the simpler solution: the preposition incorporates into the verb and the stranded NP moves to the specifier of Inner Aspect to check case and f features with the clitic le. The structure I propose is shown in (32). (32)

Le puse el azúcar al café e put the sugar a the coffee VP ru

V' le

ru pusej +Py

AspP ru

(al café)x

el azúcar

V'

Asp' ru

Asp l +V e j+ Py

VP ru ru

Vj+ Py

PP ru

P' ru

Py

NPx | (al café)

The structure in (32) is a Larsonian double VP shell (Larson, 1988), with Inner Aspect above the lower VP (Travis, 1991). The direct object 'sugar' is generated in the Spec of the lower VP, and will move at LF to check accusative case and agreement features with the head of AgrO. The prepositional phrase is the complement of the lower VP. The preposition moves to V, where it incorporates. Then the verb and the preposition complex move through the Spec of Aspect, where le cliticizes onto it, and continues up through the structure until TP, not shown here. The stranded dative NP23 moves to Aspect in order to check case and agreement features with the clitic. The movement of the NP is made possible by the movement of the verb. This is similar to what is proposed in Collins and Thráinsson

23I

will use the term NP for simplicity. In most cases the structure in question is a DP.

150

(1993) to explain object shift in Icelandic24, although in that case the indirect object moves much higher. Note that I include the a as part of the NP. As we shall see below (see also Appendix, Chapter 6). I am not sure what the identity of the a is. However, I am assuming by its behaviour that it is not a full preposition and therefore a NP equals NP. I have suggested that the dative le cliticizes onto the verb when the verb moves through Aspect. However, there may be a problem in the case of modals and auxiliaries, given that they may be generated higher up in the structure. The case of modals is easily solved. The clitic may follow the infinitive (33a) or precede the modal (33b). (33)

a

Puede ponerle azúcar al café. can put le sugar a the coffee 'You can put sugar in the coffee.'

b.

Le puede poner azúcar al café. le can put sugar a the coffee 'You can put sugar in the coffee.'

When the clitic follows the infinitive, the infinitive, which in Spanish moves high in the structure, picks up the clitic. When the clitic precedes the infinitive, restructuring has taken place, and the clitic is able to go above the embedded clause. Regarding the auxiliary haber 'have', one possible solution is to argue that the auxiliary itself is a clitic. In Spanish nothing can separate the auxiliary, which in most persons is monosyllabic, from the participle. Furthermore, it cannot be stressed. An example is given in (34)25. (34)

No le he puesto azúcar al café. no le have-I put sugar a the coffee. 'I haven't put sugar in the coffee.'

I will now turn to the problem of those cases which would seem to be a violation of the ECP. Recall that in all cases which appear to be violations of the ECP the clitic doubled phrase is interpreted as a benefactive. I would tentatively like to propose that benefactives are not really cases of incorporation, but are generated as defective prepositional phrases, that is, a NPs. As in the cases of incorporation, the pseudo-preposition a is not sufficient 24Collins and Thráinsson also propose an inner TP. 25I have no solution to the problem of the forms which

are polysyllabic.

151

to license the NP, and it must move to the specifier of the Aspect phrase to check case and features with the clitic. Therefore the clitic is obligatory in these cases also. However, a is able to assign a theta role. The base meaning of a

is that of goal (see Appendix, Chapter

6). I believe that, in the benefactive structures, it maintains this meaning, and assigns a goal theta role to the NP. Because the NP in these phrases is always [+human], it is always interpreted as a benefactive (or a malefactive). Possibly the meaning of the verb also contributes to the interpretation. Tentatively, I propose that the benefactive is generated in a position adjoined to VP. The structure I propose is shown in (35). (35)

Le puse a María el mantel en el la mesa 'I put the tablecloth on the table for Mary,' VP ru

V' ru

le pusej +Py

AspP ru

(a María)x

Asp' ru

Asp le +Vj

VP ru

PP VP (a María) ru el mantel ru Vj

V' PP ru

P' ru

P en

NP !

la mesa In (35), the benefactive is generated as a left branching adjunction to VP. There is some evidence from word order that this is correct. Consider the example in (36). (36)

a.

Puse el mantel en la mesa para María. put-I the tablecloth on the table for María 'I put the tablecloth on the table for Mary,'

b.

Le puse a María el mantel en la mesa. put-I a María the tablecloth on the table 'I put the tablecloth on the table for Mary,'

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c.

???Le puse el mantel en la mesa a María . le put-I the tablecloth on the table a María. 'I put the tablecloth on the table for Mary,'

d.

*Le puse el mantel a María en la mesa. le put-I the tablecloth a María on the table 'I put the tablecloth on the table for Mary,'

The sentence in (36a) has two prepositional phrases, one subcategorized for by the verb 'to put', the locative, and one which is not, the benefactive 'for María'. The presence of a clitic doubled benefactive, a María (36b) leads to a word order change, in which the dative NP is closer to the verb, as expected if the proposed structure is correct. The word order in (36c), in which the benefactive appears at the end of the sentence, is not totally ungrammatical. Perhaps under certain conditions the adjunction can be right branching. In contrast, the benefactive cannot appear between the direct object and the locative (36d). One may ask why the analysis provided for benefactives could not apply for all apparent cases of incorporation in Spanish. Why can't we assume there is never incorporation and the clitic doubled NP is always generated as a defective a NP phrase? The answer is that not all cases of clitic doubled NPs can be interpreted as benefactives. In fact, there is very little loss of meaning when other prepositions incorporate, as we saw in the examples (5) through (9). However, there is occasionally some ambiguity, notably with the verb comprar 'to buy', perhaps because this verb can optionally take either a source argument or a benefactive, as shown in (37). The incorporated form in (37) is interpreted, as the translations shows, as either a source or a benefactive. (37)

26Masullo

a.

Compré un libro para Miguel. bought-I a book for Miguel 'I bought a book for Michael.'

b.

Compré un libro de Miguel26. bought-I a book of Miguel 'I bought a book from Miguel.'

c.

Le compré un libro a Miguel. le bought a books a Miguel 'I bought a book for/from Miguel.'

suggests this example is acceptable only in Spain. It is marginal in my dialect.

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4.2.3.

Clitic doubled NPs and case Turning now to case, one may ask whether the dative case in Spanish is inherent or

structural. If my proposal, that case is checked via feature checking with the clitic, is correct, then it is clear that the dative, at least in the incorporated sentences, is structural. Masullo (1992) provides convincing evidence that this is so. In the first place, he argues the dative in Spanish is associated with too many theta roles to qualify as inherent case. This would lead to a violation of Chomsky's (1986a) Uniformity Condition, according to which only an element which theta marks an NP can inherently case mark it. Furthermore, structural case assigned by a verb cannot survive nominalization because a noun can only identify its complement inherently (Chomsky, 1986a). The Spanish clitic doubled datives cannot be nominalized, as shown in (38); examples from (Masullo, 1992, p. 74). (38)

a.

El albañil colocó azulejos en el baño. the mason placed tiles in the bathroom 'The mason put tiles in the bathroom.'

b.

La colocación de azulejos en el baño the placement of tiles in the bathroom 'The placement of tiles in the bathroom.'

c.

El albañil le va a colocar azulejos al baño. the mason le is going to place tiles a the bathroom 'The mason is going to tile the bathroom.'

d.

*La colocación de azulejos al baño. the placement of tiles a the bathroom 'The placement of tiles in the bathroom.'

In (38a), we find a sentence with a full preposition. The nominalization in (38b), is perfectly acceptable. In (38c), the preposition has been incorporated. The nominalization, as (38d) shows, is ungrammatical (or at least, considerably worse than (38b)). Unfortunately, not all examples work as well. Consider (39) (also from Masullo). (39)

a.

Compraron libros para los estudiantes. bought-they books for the students 'They bought books for the students.'

b.

La compra de libros para los estudiantes. the buy-noun of books for the students 'The purchase of books for the students.'

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c.

Le compraron libros a los estudiantes. le bought-they books a the students 'They bought books for the students.'

d.

*La compra de libros a los estudiantes the buy-noun of books a the students 'The purchase of books for the students.'

Recall that 'comprar', the verb used in (39), is the one verb which poses a problem for interpretation after incorporation. The incorporated form is ambiguous between the 'for' and the 'from' interpretation (37). In (39a) and (39b) we see that nominalization is permissible with the full preposition and the verb comprar, as expected. Sentences (39c) and (39d) show the expected contrast in grammaticality with the incorporated preposition. The problem is that (39d) is only ungrammatical if interpreted as 'for the students'. It is acceptable if interpreted as 'from the students'. I do not have a solution to this problem. In conclusion, there is some evidence that the case exhibited by the NP in the applicative construction is structural dative and not inherent. If we assume that the NP checks its case features with the clitic, there is no need to stipulate that in these cases only the verb can assign two cases in Spanish, as Masullo argues. Given that the NP agrees with the clitic in person, we can assume it also checks its person features. It is interesting to note, however, that the NP does not necessarily agree in number with the third person clitic, as shown in (40). Perhaps number is somehow redundant, and can be deleted at PF. (40)

Le di los libros a los estudiantes. le-sg. gave-I the books a the students-pl 'I gave the books to the students.'

In the next section I will look at the functional category which the clitic heads.

4.2.4. The clitic and Inner Aspect I have suggested the clitic is generated as the head of Inner Aspect. I will turn now to the evidence. In particular, I will show that the NP in the incorporated preposition structure is obligatorily interpreted as affected. Affectedness is a semantic property, difficult

155

to define. However, it is a well known fact that affected objects behave syntactically in a different way and have different properties than unaffected objects. Ramchand (1993) has shown that in Scottish Gaelic there is a direct relationship between perfectivity and affected arguments. She provides evidence that affected arguments appear in a different structural position and show different case markings from non-perfective or non-affected arguments. She argues that an affected object must be governed by the head of Aspect, which in Scottish Gaelic is filled with a perfectivity particle air. The contrast between affected and non-affected arguments is seen in (41). Examples from Ramchand (1993, p 420-421). (41)

a.

Tha mi ag iarraidh a'bhuill be-pres I-nom ag want-V-noun the ball-gen 'I want the ball.'

b.

Tha mi air am ball iarraidh. be-pres I-nom air the ball-Dir want-V-noun 'I have asked for (and got) the ball.'

Gaelic is a VSO language, and therefore the auxiliary 'be' is in first position, followed by the subject. In (41a), we find a sentence in the present progressive, as seen by the progressive marker ag. The object follows the verbal noun and is marked as a genitive. In (41b), the perfective marker air is present. The theme is now marked with objective case and precedes the verbal noun. As we see by the translation, in the perfective sentence the action is interpreted as telic and the object is affected. According to Ramchand, the theme is in the specifier of the VP, governed by the head of Aspect in the case of the affected object, while it is a complement of the verb when it is a genitive. As she says, Scottish Gaelic is a useful language in which to see a property which is systematically encoded across languages since it "wears its aspectual information on its syntactic sleeve" (p. 423). I believe that Spanish also behaves in this way in the case of clitic doubled dative NPs. Unlike Ramchand, however, I will propose, not that the stranded object is governed by Aspect, but rather that it moves into the specifier of Aspect to check features with the clitic. This is more in line with current thinking within the Minimalist Program.

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4.2.4.1. Clitic doubled NPs and affectedness As we saw above, the alternation between a full preposition and a clitic doubled a phrase is not always possible. In order to see why, compare (5), repeated here as (42) with (43). (42)

(43)

a.

(*Le) Puse una cucharada de azucar en el café. dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar in the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

b.

*(Le) puse una cucharada de azúcar al café dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar a the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

a.

Puse los libros en la mesa. put-I the books on the table 'I put the books on the table.'

b.

*Le puse los libros a la mesa le put the books a the table 'I put the books on the table.'

In (42) the alternation is possible. In (43), the clitic doubled construction is not acceptable. Why is this so? In both cases we have the verb 'to put', a direct object and a locative. The difference seems to be that when we put sugar in coffee, the coffee changes. However, if we put books on a table, the table is in no way altered. The action of putting the books on the table focuses on what happens to the books, the table is a simple location and is not affected. Now examine the example in (44). (44)

a.

Puse el mantel en la mesa. put-I the tablecloth on the table 'I put the tablecloth on the table.'

b.

Le puse el mantel a la mesa le put the tablecloth a the table 'I put the tablecloth on the table.'

In (44), the object of 'put' is a tablecloth. The action in (44a), with a full preposition, can be interpreted either as covering the table with the tablecloth or as putting it, folded, in one corner. This second interpretation is ruled out when the prepositional phrase is replaced by the clitic doubled construction. The table must be covered. In other words, the

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table may be affected by covering it with a tablecloth, but not by putting books on it or by placing a cloth in the corner. A further example can be seen if we compare (4), repeated here as (45), and (46). (45)

(46)

a.

Felipe (*le) echó agua Phillip dat-cl threw water 'Phillip threw water on the plants'

sobre las matas. on the plants

b.

Felipe *(le) echó agua Phillip dat-cl threw water 'Phillip watered the plants'

a.

Felipe echó el agua en la calle Phillip threw the water on the street 'Phillip threw the water on the street.'

b.

*Felipe le echó el agua a la calle Phillip dat-cl threw the water a the street 'Phillip threw the water on the street.' (This is OK if it means he wet or watered the street)

a las matas. a the matas

In (45), as the translation indicates, the agent has done something with the water, he has thrown it on the plants. However, in (46) it is understood he watered the plants, the plants have been affected. The alternation between full preposition and clitic doubled construction is ruled out in (46), because the focus is not on the street getting wet but rather on the water. Recall that Masullo (1992) argued that incorporation was idiosyncratic. As evidence he gave example (10), repeated here as (47). As we can see, this sentence is ruled out for the same reason as (46b) and (43b). The dative object, 'María', cannot be affected by somebody expecting something from her. She may not even be aware of the other person's expectations. (47)

a.

Juan espera una recompensa de María Juan expects a recompense of María ‘John expects a recompense from Mary’

b.

*Juan le espera una recompensa a María Juan le expects a recompense a María ‘John expects a recompense from Mary’

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In all these cases, preposition incorporation changes the focus of the action. In most transitive actions, it is the direct object bearing the theta role of theme or patient which is affected. In the applicative construction, it is the dative NP. This is unexpected if the dative is a normal prepositional phrase or if it is an indirect object. It is expected, however, if it is associated with the Aspect Phrase. Additional evidence that the dative NP is associated with Inner Aspect comes from the behaviour of oblique or prepositional pronouns.

4.2.4.2. Affectedness and the behaviour of prepositional pronouns. Ramchand (1993) shows that object pronouns in Scottish Gaelic always behave as if they were affected objects, that is, they always appear with the case reserved for affected objects, unlike Irish pronouns. She argues that Scottish Gaelic pronouns do not show distinctive case, while Irish pronouns do. She proposes that, because of the lack of distinctive case, the Scottish pronouns must be associated with Inner Aspect in order to be licensed. I believe that in Spanish oblique pronouns, that is, pronouns which may be the object of a preposition, behave very much like Scottish Gaelic pronouns, that is, they are underdetermined for case. The paradigm for oblique case pronouns is shown in (48). (48) Subject and oblique pronouns in Spanish Nom:

yo I

tú you

él he

ella she

nosotros/as we

vosotros/as you (pl)

ellos/as they

Oblique

mí

ti

él

ella

nosotros/as

vosotros/as

ellos/as

As we can see, only the first and second persons are differentiated from nominative pronouns. Furthermore, the nominative form of even these two appears in many cases in circumstances where one would expect an oblique case marked pronoun, for example after some prepositions, as seen in (49).

159

(49)

a

Todos van a la fiesta menos yo/*mí. 'Everyone is going to the party except me.

b.

Según yo/*mí, tienes razón. 'According to me, you are right.'

In the case of one preposition, namely con 'with', the oblique pronoun seems to have to be 'reinforced' by some sort of affix in the first and second person, as seen in (50). (50)

Todos van conmigo/*con mí. 'Everyone is going with me.'

I think it is safe to say that the pronouns in Spanish are not clearly marked for case. Furthermore, unless they are licensed by a full preposition, they must be obligatorily clitic doubled, including in the case of direct objects, as shown in (51). (51)

a.

Santiago vio a María. Santiago saw a María 'Santiago saw María.'

b.

Santiago (*la) vio a María. Santiago acc-cl saw a Mary 'Santiago saw her.'

c.

Santiago *(la) vio a ella. Santiago acc-cl saw a her 'Santiago saw her.'

d.

Santiago *(me) vio a mí. Santiago acc-cl saw a mí 'Santiago saw me'

In (51a) we see a transitive verb with the direct object 'María'27. Sentence (51b) shows that the sentence is ungrammatical if the object NP is clitic doubled28. In contrast, (51c) shows that in the case of an oblique pronoun, clitic doubling is obligatory for all speakers. The same applies in (51d), in which the oblique is a first person pronoun, which, as the pronoun paradigm given above (48) shows, is differentiated from nominative clitics.

27The a in this sentence is the differential object marker (see Chapter 28Accusative clitic doubling is possible in River Plate Spanish.

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2).

A similar situation can be seen with pronouns and preposition incorporation, as shown in (52). (52)

a.

Santiago compró un libro para mí. Santiago bought a book for me-obl 'Santiago bought a book for me.'

b.

Santiago *(me) compró un libro a mí. Santiago dat-cl bought a book a me-obl 'Santiago bought me a book.'

It seems clear that the pronouns are somehow defective and it is plausible to assume they are defective in the same way the Scottish Gaelic pronouns are: they are not distinctively marked for case. Within a full prepositional phrase they can probably check their features within the domain of the preposition, but this position may not be available if the preposition has incorporated, or, as in the case of the accusatives, if there is no preposition available. As a consequence they must move to check their case features with the clitic. This applies to both accusatives and datives. In these cases, therefore, they must be licensed in Inner Aspect. This brings us to the question of the role played by a in the structures in question29. There is convincing evidence that the a in (51), where it is used as a differential object marker, is not a preposition (Demonte, 1987). Regarding the dative a, there are conflicting views in the literature. On the one hand, scholars such as Zagona (1982) and Suñer (1988) have argued that the a NP phrase is not a prepositional phrase, but an NP. In contrast, Jaeggli (1982) argues the a! NP is a prepositional phrase. Masullo (1992) proposes that a, together with the clitic, is the realization of dative case when the preposition incorporates, but that a can also be a full preposition in indirect objects. This would account for the well known fact that in some dialects clitic doubling with indirect objects is not obligatory, as shown in (1a), while in others it is. However, if a is able to be a full preposition when marking indirect phrases, it is not clear why it cannot license pronouns. I do not have a full 29See

Appendix, Chapter 6 for a brief description of the uses of a.

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explanation. However, I adopt the position taken by Zagona (1982) and Suñer (1988) in view of the fact that a NPs contrast with full prepositions. Moreover, additional evidence that a is not a full preposition is provided by the fact that it does not constitute a barrier to movement, as is shown by the possibility of restructuring between a main verb and an infinitive in spite of its presence. Consider (53) and (54). (53)

(54)

a

Voy a verlo. Go-I a see-acc-cl 'I am going to see him.'

b.

Lo voy a ver. acc-le go-I a see 'I am going to see him.'

a

Voy para verlo go-I for see-acc-cl 'I am going in order to see to him.'

b.

*Lo voy para ver acc-cl go-I for see 'I am going in order to see to him.'

In (53a) we see the periphrastic future, which in Spanish must take a between the main verb and the infinitive. Given the contrast with (54), it is not implausible to assume that the origin of the obligatory a in the periphrastic future is obligatory incorporation of the preposition para. The clitic is not present because the infinitive does not need case. In (53a) the object clitic follows the verb. (53b) shows the object clitic is able to climb over the a into the main clause, where it appears preceding the main verb. The presence of a does not block restructuring, which in turn allows clitic climbing. In (54), with a full preposition, restructuring is not possible. This is because para heads a prepositional phrase which acts as a barrier, and therefore clitic climbing is ungrammatical. This is in contrast to a.

4.2.4.3. Inner Aspect, perfectivity and clitic doubled NPs If the dative NP in the applicative construction moves to Inner Aspect, besides affectedness one should find a perfective interpretation (Ramchand, 1993). This prediction

162

is realized, although the judgements are quite subtle. This is surprising, given that it is direct objects and not indirect objects which have an effect on aspect30. Consider the sentences in (55) (55)

a.

?Anoche leí un libro para Juan pero no alcancé a terminarlo. last night read-I a book for John but not manage-I a finish-acc-cl 'Last night I read a book for John but was not able to finish it.

b.

Anoche le leí un libro a Juan *pero no alcancé a terminarlo. last night le read-I a book a John but not manage-I to finish-acc-cl 'Last night I read John a book but was not able to finish it.

In the sentence in (55a) the benefactive is introduced by the full preposition para. The conjoined clause shows the action is not necessarily telic. This sentence is not totally acceptable because the full preposition is not usually used to introduce a benefactive. However, the non-telicity of the action is clear. In (55b), on the other hand, the action of reading must be completed, as shown by the fact that the conjoined clause induces a contradiction. A similar judgement can be seen in (56). (56)

a.

Por 20 minutos preparé la comida para la familia. for 20 minutes prepared-I the dinner for the family 'I prepared dinner for the family for 20 minutes.'

b.

*Por 20 minutos le preparé la comida a la familia. for 20 minutes le prepared-I the dinner a the family 'For 20 minutes I prepared the family dinner.'

In (56a), the simple past of the verb with an object and a benefactive introduced by a full preposition can be interpreted as an unfinished activity, as seen by the acceptability of the phrase with 'for x time' (Dowty, 1979). However, the judgment is the opposite when the clitic doubled construction is used instead of the prepositional phrase. There seem to be sufficient grounds, therefore, for suggesting that when the preposition is incorporated the clitic doubled dative phrase acquires some aspectual properties generally associated with objects. This is to be expected if the NP is associated with the Inner Aspect phrase.

30Baker

(1997) shows that the same facts seem to apply for English in the double object construction. He also proposes incorporation for this structure.

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2.2.3

NP movement and clitic doubled NPs One of the questions which I have not addressed is whether the movement of the

NP takes place in syntax or at LF. If it takes place overtly, the resulting word order would be V NP-dat NP-acc., as shown in (57). (57)

*Le puse al café el azúcar. Le put-I a the coffee the sugar. 'I put the sugar in the coffee.'

The word order given in (57) is ungrammatical for some speakers; for others it is marginal and definitely marked. However, there are other sentences which are considerably better, as shown in (58). This is particularly the case for double object verbs, such as 'to give' or 'to bring', in which it is grammatical for most speakers for the dative NP to appear between the object and the verb. This possibility is ruled out for full prepositional phrases, as shown in (58c). (58)

a

Le compré a los niños unos zapatos. le bought a the children some shoes. 'I bought the children some shoes.'

b.

Le traje a Juan un regalo. le brought-I a John a gift 'I bought John a gift.'

c.

*Compré para los niños unos zapatos. bought-I for the children some shoes 'I bought some shoes for the children.'

I will assume that the basic word order is that of V NP-acc NP-dat., given the marked nature of a great many sentences such as (57). If this is correct, the movement of the NP to check features with the clitic must take place at LF. However, the word order in (58) suggests that in some cases the NP can move in the syntax, although these cases are restricted. Perhaps the presence of the clitic makes the Aspect Phrase optionally [+strong] as is the case of double object construction in other languages (see Collins & Thráinsson, 1993, for Icelandic). Furthermore, Inner Aspect phrase may serve as a convenient landing site for movement in the syntax when the dative NP moves further up the structure. This

164

seems to be a possibility in at least one situation, that of passive questions. Consider the examples in (59) (from Torrego, 1989) and (60). (59)

(60)

a.

¿Por quién le fue a Rita entregado el diploma?31 By whom le was a Rita handed the diploma? 'By whom was the diploma handed to Rita

b.

???¿Por quién le fue el diploma entregado (a Rita)? By whom le was the diploma handed (a Rita)? 'By whom was the diploma handed to Rita?'

a

*¿Por quién fue para Rita comprado/a la camisa? By whom was for Rita bought-masc/fem the shirt-fem? 'By whom was the shirt bought for Rita?

b.

¿Por quién fue comprada la camisa para Rita? By whom was bought-fem the shirt-fem for Rita? 'By whom was the shirt bought for Rita?

c.

*¿Por quién fue la camisa comprada para Rita? By whom was the shirt-fem bought-fem for Rita? 'By whom was the shirt bought for Rita?

It is usually taken to be the case that in passive sentences the theme NP moves into subject position in order to get case. In Romance, this movement usually triggers agreement of the participle with the theme/subject. In (59) we have a passive wh-question and, as expected, the participle agrees with the masculine singular theme and not with the feminine singular clitic doubled dative a Rita. It therefore looks as if the theme has moved into subject position. If this is so, the word order is puzzling, because the clitic doubled dative appears to the left of the theme, above the past participle. In fact, as we see in (60b), placing the theme before the clitic doubled NP is quite bad. (60) shows that the full prepositional phrase cannot occupy the same position as the clitic doubled NP, above the theme. Example (60b) shows that the correct position is for the theme to precede the full prepositional phrase which appears in final position. However, as we see in (60c), the theme still cannot climb as high as the clitic doubled object in (59a). Torrego (1989) has suggested that in 31For

those who consider the separation of the copula and the past participle ungrammatical, the same judgement holds: i ¿Por quién le fue entregado a Rita el diploma? ii ???¿Por quién le fue entregado el diploma a Rita?

165

passives the theme does not in fact move to SPEC of IP. She argues "the indirect object 'a Juan' is in the specifier position of some intermediate XP. This must be so since the indirect object here is behaving like "a subject" for the purposes of Subject-Aux inversion" (Torrego, 1989). She takes this intermediate position to be the AgrP of the dative. I would like to argue that an Agr phrase for datives is not necessary. I believe there are two possibilities regarding the word order above. It may be that the dative is in Inner Aspect, because we do not really know where the participle is in passives in Spanish. Another possibility is that it is a quirky subject in AgrS32. If this is so it will have moved out of Aspect into the higher position. There is no agreement on the verb because quirky subjects never trigger agreement on the verb, as shown by frighten-type psych verbs (see below). To summarize this section, it seems from word order facts in declarative sentences that movement of the dative NP usually takes place at LF. It also seems that under certain conditions, such as passive wh-questions, the NP can avail itself of the Aspect Phrase to move in syntax. Before moving on to the next section, I will briefly look at a condition on incorporation which strongly suggests movement is involved. If it is correct that the NP in incorporation moves into Aspect to check features, we predict that only one NP may incorporate at a time, as mentioned above. This is in fact what we find, as shown in (61) (61)

32I

a

Cosí un adorno en el vestido para Carmen. sewed-I a decoration on the dress for Carmen 'I sewed a decoration on the dress for Carmen.

b.

Le cosí un adorno al vestido para Carmen. le sewed-I a decoration a the dress for Carmen 'I sewed a decoration on the dress for Carmen.

c.

Le cosí un adorno a Carmen en el vestido. le sewed-I a decoration a Carmen on the dress 'I sewed a decoration on the dress for Carmen.

d.

*Le cosí un adorno al vestido a Carmen. le sewed-I a decoration a the dress a Carmen 'I sewed a decoration on the dress for Carmen.

would like to thank Lisa Travis for this suggestion

166

In (61a) the sentence has two prepositional phrases. As expected, the examples in (61b) and (61c) show that the preposition of either prepositional phrase can incorporate, the locative 'on' or the benefactive, 'for'. However, both cannot incorporate, as seen by the ungrammaticality of (61d). This falls out straightforwardly from the proposal made here. Only one NP can move into the specifier of Aspect to check case with the clitic. In the next section I will look at an important constraint on incorporation: transitivity.

4.2.5. Transitivity and clitic doubled NPs Marantz (1984) provides evidence that one of the conditions for the applicative construction to be possible in many languages is that the verb must be transitive, that is, it must have an implicit or explicit object. According to Baker (1988), this is so because in these constructions the applied (dative) object must receive the structural case usually assigned to the regular object. If the verb cannot assign objective case, then the applied object would be left caseless33. As we see in the following examples, this condition is present in the applicative construction in Spanish, that is, the verb has to have a complement, implicit or explicit, in order for incorporation to take place. However, it is clear that the explanation cannot be the one given by Baker, given that the object in Spanish, as we saw, is not demoted and continues to receive accusative case. (62)

(63)

a.

Reí de María laughed-I of María. 'I laughed at María.'

b.

*Le reí a María. le laughed-I a María 'I laughed at María.'

a.

Caminé para la Cruz Roja. walked-I for the Red Cross 'I walked for the Red Cross.'

33Under

Baker's (1996) analysis, this condition does not apply, and, in fact in Mohawk and some other languages you do find unergative applicatives.

167

b.

*Le caminé a la Cruz Roja. le walked-I a the Red Cross 'I walked for the Red Cross.'

Examples (62) and (63) contain unergative verbs. In both cases, incorporation of the preposition is ungrammatical. Compare with the example given in (64). (64)

Me le reí a María. Me-refl le laugh a María 'I laughed for/at Juana.'

In (64) we find the same unergative verb as in (62). However, in this case a dummy reflexive has been added and incorporation is grammatical. It is well known that the presence of a reflexive can fill the role of an object. Levin and Rappaport (1995) show, for example, that an object is essential for the licensing of resultative secondary predicates in English, and a dummy reflexive can fill this role, as shown in (65). It is plausible to assume, therefore, that the dummy reflexive in (64) also fills the role of object and the presence or absence of an object is crucial to the possibility of incorporation. (65)

a. b.

* He laughed silly He laughed himself silly

A comparison of (66) with (63) leads to the same conclusion. Although incorporation is not possible with the verb 'to walk' when it is intransitive, it is possible in (66) because an object of measurement has been added, making the verb transitive. Incorporation is only possible when there is an object. (66)

Le caminé diez kilómetros a la Cruz Roja. le walked-I ten kilometers a the Red Cross 'I walked ten kilometers for the Red Cross.'

It seems from the above that Spanish obeys what appears to be a universal requirement on preposition incorporation, that the verb must have some sort of complement. This constraint in Spanish cannot be related to case, given that the NP is not dependent on the verb for case but will get it through spec, head agreement with the clitic.

168

Tremblay (1991) has suggested that there are two types of theta roles: monadic theta roles such as agent or theme, which do not need any other term to complete them; and dyadic theta roles, which essentially express a relation between two elements. For example, the theta role of possessor implies a possessed element; a locative implies a theme; etc. Following Dobrobie-Sorin (1998) I have suggested in Chapter 2 that the reflexive clitic se is a relational element which associates subjects and objects. I would like to suggest that the clitic le is also a relational element, which is dependent on two theta roles being assigned: that of theme/patient and that of path/location. Baker (1997) argues that theta theory 'reduces to two key oppositions: agent vs. patient/theme, with the agent external, and patient/theme vs. path/location..., with the theme external". I will assume this is correct, and the object of the verb in incorporated sentences behaves as a subject in relation to the dative NP. I would like to propose that, as a consequence, the requirement found in Spanish on incorporation can be related to a constraint similar to Burzio's (1981) generalization34, which states that objective case cannot be assigned unless there is an external theta role assigned as well. In the case of the applicative in Spanish, the generalization would state that, if the external theta role, in this case the theme, is not assigned, the dative cannot get case. How can this generalization be derived? It seems plausible that the projection of Inner Aspect is tied to the presence of an object. According to Tenny (1994), the object 'measures' the progress of the event named by the verb, in other words the object is involved in the telic interpretation of the sentence. Moreover, telicity has been associated to the Aspect phrase by many scholars, including Travis (1991), Slabakova (1996), Ramchand (1993) among others. According to Slabakova (1996), for example, in many languages, including English, telicity is derived both from the verb and the object NP. If this is so in Spanish, it is possible to argue that the Aspect Phrase is not projected unless there is an object. If we accept this as correct, then the fact that the clitic doubled NP cannot get case unless an external (to the dative) theta role is projected falls out straightforwardly: without the Inner 34I

would like to thank Mark Baker for this suggestion

169

Aspect node, there is no place for the dative clitic to be generated, and as a consequence the NP cannot check its case features. It is interesting to note that the condition on the presence of an external (to the dative) theta role is satisfied by unaccusatives, that is, verbs which assign only one theta role, a theme or patient, as shown in (67). (67)

a.

Ayer una visita le llegó a Clara. yesterday a visitor le arrived a Clara 'Yesterday Clara had a visitor.'

b.

Ayer le llegó una visita a Clara. yesterday le arrived a visitor a Clara 'Yesterday Clara had a visitor.'

In (67), the verb llegar 'to arrive' assigns only the theta role of theme, realized by visita 'visitors'. The verb agrees with this theme. It has usually been assumed that in sentences such as (67a) the theme has moved into subject position in order to get case (Burzio, 1986; Chomsky, 1981a). As (67b) shows, the NP can also remain below the verb in Spanish (see Chapter 2). What is important is that the theme, whether it is in subject position or not, satisfies the condition for incorporation, as seen by the grammaticality of these sentences. There are some apparent counter-examples to the condition on transitivity. The first of these involves verbs of communication. (68)

a.

Hablé con Juana. spoke-I with Juana 'I spoke with Juana.'

b.

Le hablé a Juana. le spoke-I a Juana 'I spoke to Juana.'

The other counter-example is illustrated in (69) (69)

a.

Canté para el público. danced-I for the public 'I sang for the public.'

b.

?Le canté al público. le sang a the public 'I sang for/to the public.'

170

In (68) the verb of communication hablar 'to speak' allows incorporation, as the sentence shows. However, there does not seem to be any theme. The same applies in (69), in which incorporation with the unergative verb cantar 'to sing' is also possible, although somewhat marginal. The explanation for both cases is probably the same: in both cases there is an implicit argument which is able to satisfy the requirement. These verbs differ, in this respect, from verbs such as reír 'to laugh', which, as we saw in (43) do not allow incorporation without the addition of a dummy reflexive. Compare (70) and (69). (70)

a.

Canté una canción sang-I a song 'I sang a song

b.

Hablé muchas tonterías. spoke-I many stupidities 'I said a lot of stupid things.'

c.

*Reí una risa laughed-I a laugh I laughed a laugh

As can be seen in (70a), the verb ‘sing’ can take an implicit argument in Spanish. The verb 'speak' can also take an argument (70b). In contrast, 'laugh' cannot, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (70c). We may assume that the arguments are implicitly present in both the grammatical sentences in which incorporation is grammatical. The marginality of (69b) may be due to the fact that the implicit argument should be expressed somewhere in the discourse. With verbs of communication, such as 'to speak' this argument seems to be always underlyingly present. To summarize so far, following Masullo (1992) and Baker (1988) I have suggested that the alternation between dative clitic doubled NPs and sentences with full prepositional phrases can be explained if we assume the clitic doubled NP is derived by the process of incorporation. However, there appear to be some differences and similarities between prototypical incorporation and incorporation in Spanish. In particular, the preposition

171

becomes null in Spanish. Moreover, the object NP is not demoted to an oblique, but rather continues to exhibit accusative case. I have suggested that these differences can be explained if we assume the NP receives its theta role from the incorporated preposition, but cannot check its case features within the domain of the preposition. Therefore it moves to check case with the clitic, which is generated as the head of Inner Aspect. As a result, the clitic doubled NP is invariably interpreted as an affected argument. Because of the unmarked word order, I have argued that the movement of the NP takes place at LF, although it seems that, in certain circumstances, the clitic doubled NP can make use in syntax of the Spec of Aspect, either as a final resting place or as a stepping stone to a higher position. Finally, I have shown that the applicative in Spanish shares with other languages some constraints, namely the fact that only one preposition may incorporate at a time and that the verb must have a direct object. In the next section I will turn briefly to incorporation and possessors.

4.3.

Clitic doubled possessors

4.3.1. Dative possessors: possessor raising or benefactives? In Spanish possessors can usually be expressed in one of two ways: by the genitive de or by a clitic doubled NP. This last is generally referred to as possessor raising. Consider the examples in (71). (71)

a.

(*Le) lavé las manos/la camisa de la niña. le washed-I the hands/the shirt de the child 'I washed the child's hands/shirt.'

b.

*(Le) lavé las manos/la camisa a la niña. le washed-I the hands/the shirt a the child 'I washed the child's hands/shirt.'

172

In (71a) the object of the verb 'to wash' is a noun phrase which includes a possessor of an inalienable35 NP. The possessor, as is common in Romance, is marked by what appears to be a preposition de 'of'. As we see in (71b), it is also possible, in fact it is very frequent, to express the possessor NP by way of a clitic doubled dative construction. Dative possessors exist in other Romance languages, for example French. However, Spanish differs from most of these in that the clitic is obligatory. Masullo (1992), following Baker (1988) suggests that 'possessor raising' is the result of noun incorporation. That is, the possessed noun moves into the verb, from where it assigns case to the possessor. The structure is illustrated in (72). (72) VP ei

V' ei

V+Nx

NP ei

Poss

N' ei tx

This analysis has come into some criticism. In particular, it has been argued that in the languages with what appears to be possessor raising there is no evidence that the possessor is not base generated as a benefactive. Baker (1996) argues that, in fact, raising of the NP in a structure such as (72) would not be possible, as the possessor acts as a barrier to government. The new structure proposed by Baker is illustrated, in a simplified version, in (73). (73)

Wash his hands (to him) AspP

ei

Asp.

VP ei

NP hands ei V wash

V' NP(Goal) him

35In

Spanish, as in other Romance languages, clothing is treated as an inalienable possession by the grammar.

173

In this section I will argue that this structure may also apply in Spanish. Following Torrego (1986) I will assume that the de!possessor (71a) is generated in the Spec of the head NP (the possessed object). This explains why possessors block whextraction of nominals from within the NP, as Torrego points out. I will also assume de is not a preposition, but rather that it is the realization of genitive case, which is assigned by the head noun. The structure of a de possessive is illustrated in (74)36. (74) NP ei

de NP

N' ei

N Assuming that a noun can only assign one case, genitive, the case of dative possessors must be assigned some other way. In view of the fact that in Spanish the clitic is obligatory, I will suggest that dative a NP possessors are licensed in the same way as other dative clitic doubling cases, that is, the possessor NP must move to the specifier of Inner Aspect to check case and agreement features with the clitic. In other words, the dative possessor, unlike the genitive, is structural and not inherent. The question which arises is whether we can adopt Baker's (1996) position in assuming that the possessor a! NPs are generated as benefactives in argument position. Clearly not all benefactives are possessors. For example, in (31b), repeated here as (75), the a NP is not necessarily interpreted as the possessor of the table. In (76), the benefactive a NP is clearly not the possessor, as is shown by the fact that the sentence includes another possessor.

36For

(75)

Le puse un mantel en la mesa a mi mamá. le put a tablecloth on the table a my mother 'I put a tablecloth on the table for my mother.'

(76)

Le robé la bicicleta de Pedro a Juan. le stole the bicycle de Pedro a John 'I stole Pedro's bicycle from John.'

simplicity I am omitting the DP level.

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Although not all benefactives/malefactives are possessors, it is possible that most cases of dative possessors can be interpreted as benefactives. For example, in (71b), repeated here as (77), the possessor of the clothing may be also interpreted as a benefactive. In other words, the interpretation may be that the clothing I washed is María's, but it could also be that I am helping María out by doing the washing. Naturally, this ambiguity does not generally carry over to body parts, but this could be explained by assuming that this is derived from the semantics. (77)

*(Le) lavé la camisa a la niña. le washed-I the shirt a the child 'I washed the child's shirt.'

I will tentatively assume that the dative possessor noun is generated as a benefactive in argument position, as Baker suggests. I will suggest that, because the a! is defective and the NP cannot check case in its domain, the NP must move to check case and agreement features with the clitic generated in the head of Aspect . The structure is illustrated in (78). (78)

Le lavé las manos al niño. 'I washed the child's hands.' VP ru

V' ru

le lavéj

AspP ru

(al niño)x

Asp' ru

Asp VP le +Vj ru las manos

V' ru Vj

PP ru

P' ru

P

175

NPx (al niño)

In (78) the possessed NP is generated as the object of the verb, as suggested in Baker (1996). The benefactive is generated as the complement of the verb and moves into the specifier of Inner Aspect. The verb moves up the structure picking up the clitic.

4.3.2. Movement of possessor 'a NPs' into the specifier of Aspect I have suggested that movement of clitic doubled NPs takes place at LF, but that the dative NP is able on occasions to move to the Spec of Aspect in syntax. I will show the same applies in the case of dative possessors, as expected. One of the properties of the dative possessors, in contrast to the genitive de phrases, relates to the possibility of wh-movement. Compare the sentences given in (79) (79)

a.

¿[A qué niña]i le lavaste las manos/la camisa ti ? a what child le washed-you the hands/the shirt 'What child's hands/shirt did you wash?'

b.

*[De qué niña]i lavaste las manos/la camisa ti ? de what child washed-you the hands/the shirt? 'What child's hands/shirt did you wash?'

Sentence (79a) illustrates the wh-movement of a dative possessor. This sentence is grammatical. This movement is blocked in the case of genitive possessors, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (79b). In other words, the dative possessor NP seems to be freer to move than the de phrase. This seems to be the case in many languages (see Szabolcsi, 1983 and Borer & Grodzinsky, 1986, for similar facts in Hungarian and Hebrew respectively). I believe this freedom of the dative falls out naturally from the fact that it receives structural case and that it is able to land on an intermediate position, Inner Aspect, on its way into the specifier of CP in wh-questions. Besides using Inner Aspect as an intermediate landing site, the dative possessor can also use it as a final position, as the word order in (80) shows. The dative NP can appear between the verb and the possessed NP (80a). This sentence is grammatical and very

176

natural. This is in contrast to the genitive NP, which cannot occupy this intermediate position, as the ungrammaticality of (80b) shows. (80)

a.

Le lavé al niño las manos. le washed a the child the hands 'I washed the child's hands.

b.

*Lavé del niño las manos. washed-I de the child the hands 'I washed the child's hands.

Before moving on to the next section, I will provide some evidence that the dative in the possessor phrases can only appear in sentences in which we may assume Inner Aspect is generated. Consider the sentences in (81) and (82). (81)

(82)

a.

Son las manos del niño are-3rd-p. the hands de the child 'They are the child's hands.'

b.

*Son las manos al niño are-3rd-p. the hands a the child 'They are the child's hands.'

c.

*Le son las manos al niño le are-3rd-p. the hands a the child 'They are the child's hands.'

a.

Las manos del niño the hands de the child 'The child's hands.'

b.

*Las manos al niño the hands a the child 'The child's hands.'

c.

*Le las manos al niño le the hands a the child 'The child's hands.'

When the possessor phrase is either part of the predicate of the verb 'to be' or of an independent NP, a clitic doubled dative is not possible. The only correct form to express a possessor under these circumstances is a de phrase (81a, 82a). An a phrase is ungrammatical, either with (81b, 82b) or without (81c, 82c) the clitic. If we assume that neither the verb 'to be' nor a DP project an Aspect Phrase, the fact that dative clitic doubled

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NPs are ruled out in sentences such as (81) and (82) is to be expected. The presence of an Aspect Phrase is crucial to the possibility of a clitic doubled possessor. I have shown that one of the properties of incorporation is that the dative NP is interpreted as affected. This is not obvious in the case of possessor NPs, as shown in (83) (83)

a.

Vi los ojos de Juana. saw-I the eyes de Juana 'I saw Juana's eyes.'

b.

Le vi los ojos a Juana. le saw-I the eyes a Juana 'I saw Juana's eyes.'

In (83b) it is difficult to argue that Juana is affected by the action. I believe that affectedness is related here to the fact that it is an inalienable possession. Though incorporation is possible with other types of possessions, the structure is marked and the possessed NP is always interpreted as somehow being very close to the possessor. To summarize this section, I have adopted Baker's (1996) suggestion that dative possessors are a particular case of benefactives. As such, they must be licensed in the same way as other a NP datives in Spanish, by moving into Inner Aspect to check features with the clitic. In the next section, I will briefly look at how incorporation can explain other types of structures.

4.4.

Clitic doubling psych verbs

There are two types of psych verbs that show clitic doubling, some frighten-type psych verbs and a small subset of the fear-type. I will show that clitic doubling in the frighten-type verbs can easily be explained by the proposal made here. The fear-type verbs are more problematic.

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There has recently been a great deal of work on psych verbs (see Belletti & Rizzi, 1988; Pesetsky, 1995), among others; for Spanish, see (Montrul, 1996; Parodi-Lewin, 1991)). Psych verbs are interesting because they participate in an alternation regarding the position of arguments. In English, it seems to be the case that the subject of the fear-type psych verbs is an experiencer and the theme is the object. In the frighten-type verbs, on the other hand, the theme is the subject of the sentence and the experiencer appears to be in object position. This is illustrated in (84). (84)

a.

Peter fears horses.

b.

Horses frighten Peter.

This seemingly arbitrary alternation between theta roles and syntactic structure is a problem because it is generally assumed that there is a principled way in which thematic roles map onto syntactic configurations (Baker, 1988; Perlmutter & Postal, 1984). In Spanish frighten-type verbs, such as the verb gustar 'to like/to please', the experiencer may surface as a dative with obligatory clitic doubling, as seen in (1d), repeated here as (85a), and (85b). In these examples the dative experiencer appears to the left of the verb while the theme NP follows it. As we see in (85c)-(85d), the opposite order is also possible, although the order found in (a)-(b) seems to be the unmarked case. (85)

a.

A Felipe *(le) gusta el fútbol a Phillip dat-cl like (please) the football 'Phillip likes football.'

b.

A Juan le molestaban los niños. a John le bothered the children. 'Children bothered John.'

c.

El fútbol le gusta a Felipe (= (a))

d.

Los niños le molestaban a Juan. (=(a))

In the clitic doubling fear-type verbs, such as temer 'to fear', the experiencer surfaces in subject position, as in English, and the cause appears optionally as a clitic doubled dative. This is illustrated in (86)

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(86)

a.

Felipe (le) teme a los leones. Felipe le fears a the lions 'Philip fears lions.'

As the examples make clear, the puzzling alternation found in many languages is present in Spanish also. On the one hand, the experiencer is expressed by a clitic-doubled dative in the case of the gustar-type verbs, and on the other hand, it is the cause which is expressed by a dative in the temer-type. I will first propose an explanation for the gustartype verbs.

4.4.1. Clitic doubling gustar-type psych verbs The one obvious difference between gustar-type psych verbs and the cases of preposition incorporation we have looked at so far is the different word order. As we saw in (85), the clitic doubled NP generally appears to the left of the verb, and not to the right, as in the case of locatives, goals, etc. I would like to suggest that the clitic doubled NP is also derived by preposition incorporation, but that in this case Inner Aspect is not involved. When the experiencer of gustar-type psych verbs is expressed by a clitic doubled NP the verb is interpreted obligatorily as stative (Parodi-Lewin, 1991). Inner Aspect is not projected by stative verbs. Thus, the clitic cannot be generated as the head of Inner Aspect but must be in some other position, which the word order suggests is above the VP. If it is correct that preposition incorporation is the explanation for the dative NPs in gustar-type verbs, one may ask which preposition incorporates, given that there is, in these cases, no alternation between an incorporated and a non-incorporated sentence, as we see comparing (85) and (87). (87)

a.

*Para Felipe gusta el fútbol. for Philip please the football 'Football pleases Philip.'

b.

*El fútbol gusta para Felipe. the football pleases for Philip 'Football pleases Philip.'

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Although the full preposition is not possible with the verb gustar, it is possible with the expression 'to be a pleasure', as seen in (88). (88)

El fútbol es un gusto para Felipe the football is a pleasure for Felipe 'Football is a pleasure for Felipe.'

It is not implausible to suggest that the verb gustar and verbs like it are formed by incorporation at the pre-syntactic level of the noun into the verb 'to be' (Hale & Keyser, 1993). This accords well with the idea that stative verbs are monoeventive, that is, they project only a simple VP shell headed by BE. If this is so, sentences such as (88) may be the prepositional counterparts of the dative experiencer sentences. By this account incorporation of the preposition is obligatory, which may mean that it also takes place at a pre-syntactic level (L-syntax). Another possibility is that the a

NP, as in the case of

benefactives and possessors, is generated as such, and there is no preposition incorporation. There does not seem to be evidence favouring one account over the other. The structure in syntax would be something like the VP illustrated in (89). (89) VP NP !

ei

ei

V'

el fútbol

V | gustar

PP ei

P' ei

P | Ø

NP !

a Felipe

In (89) the experiencer is generated as a prepositional phrase in complement position. The theme is in the specifier of the verb. However, the structure in (89) is problematic for some theories of argument structure. It is often assumed that there is a thematic hierarchy according to which the different arguments are mapped onto the syntactic positions. The more prominent theta roles map to the higher positions. In (90) we see the thematic hierarchy proposed by Jackendoff (1990). 181

(90)

Thematic Hierarchy (Agent (Experiencer (Goal/source/Location (Theme)))

According to (90), the experiencer should be projected higher in the structure than the theme, and this appears not to be the case in the structure in (89). The crucial question, however, is whether the dative NP a Felipe is in fact an experiencer. Baker (1997) suggests this is not the case. In his analysis of frighten-type verbs in sentences such as (84), he proposes that the [+human] NP is not an experiencer but rather a theme, and the [-human] NP is a cause, generated higher in the structure than the theme, namely, in subject position. Under this analysis, the dative NP a Felipe in (89) is a theme NP which undergoes a change of state, while the NP el fútbol 'football' is a cause. This analysis, although it produces the right word order, in that the cause is above the dative NP, cannot be accurate in Spanish, because clitic doubling gustar-typer verbs are stative, and the theme/experiencer does not undergo a change of state. I do not have a solution to the problem. I will simply assume that the [+human] NPs are types of goals in this type of structure. The cause, as expected, maps onto the higher position, the specifier of the single VP. The goal theta role, as in previous cases, is assigned by either the incorporated preposition or by a, depending on the analysis. Also as in the case of regular incorporation, the NP cannot check case within the domain of a and must move to check its case and person features with the clitic le. Regarding the position of the clitic, the structure in (89) shows that it must be above the VP. I am assuming the Inner Aspect node is not projected, given the stative interpretation of psych verbs in Spanish. The clitic is not generated in AgrO which, as we saw in Chapter 2, is [+strong] in clitic doubling psych verbs and associated with the cause NP. Therefore the clitic must be generated higher in the structure, in either Topic position or in AgrS, as suggested by Montrul (1996). The dative NP moves to this position to check features. Because of the canonical word order, in which the dative experiencer precedes the verb, it must be assumed that the preference is for movement in these cases to take place overtly. The final structure is illustrated in (91).

182

(91)

A Felipe le gusta el fútbol 'Felipe likes football.' AgrSP

ei

NP

AgrS'

1 ei

a Felipei 1 le gustax

AgrOP ei

NP 1

AgrO' ei

el fútbolz

VP ei NPz

V' ei

Vx

PP ei

P' ei

a NPi In (91) the clitic doubled NP a Felipe has moved from its position as complement of the verb to AgrS to check case and features with the clitic, which is generated as the head of AgrS. The cause el fútbol has moved to the specifier of AgrO to check case and person features with the head. Because the movement of the cause NP takes place in the syntax, it triggers agreement on the verb. The verb moves up (through TP, which is not illustrated), into the head of AgrS, as is the case for verbs in Spanish. This explains both the quirky, dative subject, and the object agreement on the verb. I will now turn to the fear -type verbs, such as temer.

4.4.2

Clitic doubling temer-type psych verbs Fear-type psych verbs which take a dative have not been as intensely researched as

frighten-type dative verbs. They pose a particular problem because it is not the experiencer which appears as a dative but rather the cause37. These verbs alternate between dative causers, as in (92a) and accusative causers (92b). However, not all fear-type verbs permit

37I

use the term 'cause' here in a general sense.

183

the dative. Furthermore, the word order is different from the frighten-type verbs insofar as the position of the dative is concerned: it generally follows the verb, as seen in (92a). (92)

a.

Juan le teme a los leones Juan cl-dat fears a the lions 'John fears the lions.'

b.

Juan teme (a) los leones Juan fears (a) the lions 'Juan fears the lions.'

As in English, verbs like temer are stative, as were the gustar-type verbs. According to (Baker, 1997) the [+human] NP in the fear-type verbs is a prototypical 'agent' or 'internal cause' in the sense of Levin and Rappaport-Hovav (1995) As such, it maps onto the specifier of the VP, in the same way as the [-human] cause does in frighten-type verbs. The second NP is, according to Baker, the theme. Assuming this is correct, it is necessary to explain what the origin of the dative is in this case. I would like to propose that (92) can be analyzed in the same way as other clitic doubling a NPs. However, the reasoning in this case has to be more subtle. I would like to propose that in (92) it is not the theme, 'the lions' themselves which are feared, but rather a quality of the lions, such as their ferocity (see Pesetsky, 1995, for a similar argument regarding frighten-type verbs and the TS/M restriction). Note the examples in (93). (93)

a.

Juan teme la ferocidad de los leones. Juan fears the ferocity of the lions 'Juan fears the ferocity of the lions.'

b.

Juan *(les) teme a los leones su ferocidad. Juan cl-dat fears a the lions their ferocity 'Juan fears the ferocity of the lions.'

Sentence (93a) is quite straightforward. There is a theme which is considered an inalienable possession or characteristic of the de NP phrase, 'the lions'. In (93b), the de NP phrase is no longer present. In its stead, we find an a NP phrase, and the clitic is now obligatory. There is also a change in word order. These properties lead to the conclusion that the possessor NP is no longer receiving inherent case from the head noun 'ferocity', but

184

rather appears as a prepositional phrase, similar to benefactives. The theme, 'ferocity' may remain implicit. The result is the clitic doubled fear-type verb in (92a). There is, however, a serious problem to this analysis. Given that these verbs are static, I must assume they are monoeventive, and the Aspect phrase is not projected. I therefore cannot say where the le is generated. I leave this for future research. I will now turn briefly to ethical datives.

4.5.

Ethical datives

In chapter 2, I proposed that the se in inchoative constructions is generated as the head of Inner Aspect. The only argument of the verb moves to Spec, Asp, where it acquires an aspectual interpretation. It then moves into Spec, AgrS. In a similar fashion, in this chapter I have suggested that the dative clitic le is also generated in the head of Inner Aspect. When a preposition incorporates, the stranded NP moves into Inner Aspect to check its case and person features. It does not move on to Spec, AgrS. In fact it cannot move to AgrS as these sentences, unlike the inchoatives, have subjects which will occupy this position. It thus seems as if the dative clitic is somehow more complete than the reflexive, in that it satisfies the requirements of an NP completely. This may be due to the fact that the dative clitic does have person and number features, while the se in the inchoative does not. However, one may wonder whether it is possible for both clitics, the inchoative se and the dative le, to appear at the same time. I am aware of only one case in which a clitic doubled a NP is paired with an inchoative. Consider the sentence in (94). (94)

A Juan *(se) *(le) rompió la taza. a John se le broke the cup 'The cup broke and John was affected.'

In (94) we have a basic inchoative 'the cup broke', but to this action has been added a benefactive/malefactive. The benefactive has to be interpreted as a clitic doubled a NP. Its

185

position is usually, though not always, above the verb. These constructions are usually referred to as ethical datives and they are quite common in Spanish. The action is interpreted as being involuntary. I believe the structure of the ethical datives can be understood if we assume that they are a combination of some of the properties of psych verbs, benefactives and inchoatives. The structure is illustrated in (95). (95)

A Juan se le rompieron las tazas. a John se le broke the cups 'John broke the cups' AgrSP

wo

NP a Juanz

AgrS' wo

AgrS sew le rompieroni

AspP wo

las tazasx

Asp' wo

Asp sew

VP wo

a NPz

VP2 wo tx

V' wo

V ti In (95) I am assuming that, because the structure is inchoative, only one VP shell is generated, but unlike in the case of psych verbs, it is not the higher VP but the lower (Baker, 1994). Inner Aspect is also generated, because these are change of state verbs. Thus, the inchoative se will be generated as the head of Inner Aspect, the dative le in the same position as it is in psych verbs, above TP, either AgrS or a Focus position. The dative a NP is a benefactive/malefactive is generated as adjoined to VP, as was assumed to be the case of benefactives in general. The theme moves to the specifier of Aspect to check features in this position, as we saw in the inchoative constructions. The se will cliticize onto the verb and move up with it. The benefactive/malefactive moves up to check features with the dative clitic above TP.

186

There is, however, a problem. The theme NP, I have assumed, must move into AgrS because it cannot check all its features in Inner Aspect. I have suggested the ethical dative also might move to AgrS to check features with le. It seems clear that both these NPs cannot move to the same position, so one of these assumptions must be incorrect. I will tentatively assume that the ethical dative in fact moves to a Focus position. This probably is the position of the quirky subjects of psych verbs as well. Assuming this is correct, we have accounted for both the structure of psych verbs and ethical datives using the proposals made in this thesis.

4.6

Summary and conclusions

In this chapter I have examined a series of different structures in which the clitic doubling of an NP is obligatory. I have shown that a unified account can be given if we assume the incorporation into the verb of a preposition, as proposed by Masullo (1992). A detailed examination of this process has shown similarities with the applicative construction as studied by Baker (1988), but has also found some differences. In particular, the preposition becomes null after incorporation. I have assumed that the null preposition is still able to assign a theta role but it is not possible for the stranded NP to check its features within the prepositional phrase, and therefore it must move to check them with the clitic. This movement seems to optionally take place in syntax. I have argued that the clitic is generated as the head of Inner Aspect in the case of incorporation within the VP. As evidence, I have shown that the incorporated NP is always interpreted as affected. I have also shown that Spanish instantiates a universal condition on incorporation, that the verb have a complement. Finally, this chapter has shown how the theory of incorporation can be used to explain other phenomena, such as possessor raising, dative experiencers in psych verbs and ethical datives.

187

Chapter 5 Second language knowledge of clitic doubled constructions

5.0.

Introduction

In this chapter I will report on an experimental study on the second language acquisition of preposition incorporation in Spanish, based on the analysis given in Chapter 4. As in the study on the acquisition of se, the main purpose is to look at ultimate attainment in order to ascertain whether second language learners are able to acquire the properties associated with the applicative construction in Spanish. This study includes the same groups of English, French and control subjects who participated in the impersonal se study. The main hypothesis of this study is that second language acquisition is constrained by principles of UG and as a consequence the final state will be a natural grammar, which differs in minimal ways from the grammar of a native speakers. In particular, this study provides evidence against Bley-Vroman's Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (1989; 1990), which predicts that the mental representation of second language learners differs in important ways from the grammar of first language learners. In second place, I will examine the role of transfer in the final state of second language acquisition. It has been suggested (Hawkins & Chan, 1997; Smith & Tsimpli, 1995), that the L2 learner's grammar is constrained by UG, but that the learner is not able to acquire properties not instantiated in the L1. This study shows that this position cannot be maintained. Preposition incorporation in Spanish allows us to test many fine-grained distinctions which are not obvious in the input. Dative clitic doubling is very common in Spanish. As we have seen in Chapter 4, a syntactic analysis reveals that clitic doubling is

188

the result of a process whereby a preposition is incorporated into the verb and is replaced by the dummy preposition a. The incorporated preposition assigns a theta role to the dative NP. The NP, however, can no longer check its case and f features within the domain of the prepositional phrase and as a consequence it moves to Inner Aspect to check case and person features by head, spec agreement with the clitic. If the above account is correct, the mental representation that a native speaker has of clitic doubling corresponds to the linguistic process of preposition incorporation, with its constraints and properties. The question which arises is whether this is the representation in the mind of an adult second language learner or whether the representation arrived at in non-primary acquisition is fundamentally different. Many researchers have argued that L2 grammars are fundamentally different from L1 acquisition. Bley-Vroman (1996; 1997) suggests that the difference between L1 and L2 is due to the fact that neither UG nor the domain-specific learning procedures are available in L2 (see also Liceras 1997 on the unavailability of the language specific learning procedures). Bley-Vroman further suggests that these procedures have been replaced by pattern learning mechanisms. If this is so, then what the learner would presumably notice in the input is that the indirect object clitic often appears in combination with NPs which are introduced by a, and that these NPs usually but, not always, refer to some sort of goal. Furthermore, the learner will notice that in many sentences a is present without clitic doubling, so a natural assumption would be that the clitic is optional. However, such a mental representation, unlike the grammar of preposition incorporation, would not carry with it knowledge of the constraints and limitations inherent to this process. In other words, the learner could not acquire knowledge of ungrammaticality in the domain of clitic doubling. One of the possibilities which may be available to learners is to rely on a comparison with their L1. At a superficial level, it seems that English will not be able to aid the learner, because English does not have clitics in any obvious way. It certainly does not have clitic doubling. French does have clitics and some clitic doubling, mainly in possessor

189

phrases. Therefore it is possible that French speakers would have an advantage, if knowledge of the first language can guide the learner at a superficial level. A far more interesting question relates to the possibility of transfer at a deeper level. If we assume that the L1 can serve as a surrogate for UG (Bley-Vroman, 1990) or that the L2 learner is not able to go beyond the features and feature values of the L1 (Hawkins & Chan, 1997; 1997; Liceras, 1997; Smith & Tsimpli, 1995; Tsimpli & Rousseau, 1991), then the L2 final state will differ from one group of speakers to the next according to their L1. This study addresses this issue in that there are two groups of L2 speakers from different language backgrounds tested, one whose L1 is English and one whose L1 is French. In order to determine their potential influence on the L2 grammar, I will briefly compare these two languages in relation to clitic doubling and preposition incorporation.

5.1.

Datives in French and English

5.1.1. French Recall that in Spanish it is possible for a preposition to incorporate into the verb. When this happens, the stranded NP must move to Inner Aspect to check case and person features with the dative clitic. The preposition is then replaced by a. The result is an alternation between sentences in which there is a full preposition and sentences in which the dative NP is doubled by a clitic and introduced by a. This is illustrated in (1). (1)

a.

(*Le) Puse una cucharada de azucar en el café dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar in the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

b.

*(Le) puse una cucharada de azúcar al café dat-cl put-I a spoonful of sugar a the coffee 'I put a spoonful of sugar in the coffee.'

At first sight, French has two elements which could be transferred into Spanish. There is in French a pseudo-preposition which is almost identical in form to the Spanish a. This preposition is used to mark certain datives, in particular the dative of possession.

190

French also has dative clitics which are involved in clitic doubling in certain circumstances. However, the use of the dative to express possession seems freer in French, while clitic doubling in general seems more limited than in Spanish. First, let us examine indirect objects (most of the French examples are from Tremblay, 1991). (2)

a.

Je (lui) ai parlé à Paul. I dat-cl have spoken a Paul 'Mary speaks to Paul.'

(French)

b.

(Yo) (le) hablé a Pablo. I dat-cl have spoken a Paul 'Mary speaks to Paul.'

(Spanish)

Example (2) shows clitic doubling is available in French optionally. However, most of the cases that are obligatory in Spanish do not take clitic doubling in French. Compare (3a) and (3b). (3)

a.

Je (*luii) ai mis du sucre au caféi. I cl-dat have put of sugar à the coffee. 'I put sugar in the coffee.'

(French)

b.

(Yo) *(lei) puse azúcar al caféi. I cl-dat put sugar a the coffee. 'I put sugar in the coffee.'

(Spanish)

(3a) shows that dative clitic doubling with a locative and an à NP is disallowed in French when the à NP is not a [+human] indirect object. It is obligatory in Spanish, as we see in (3b). In the Spanish example the clitic must refer to the coffee, in French the sentence is grammatical if the dative clitic refers to some person not mentioned in the sentence. Clitic doubling is also allowed with possessors in French, if we assume, following Tremblay (1991), that the possessive determiner in French is a dative clitic. (4)

a.

Sa mère à/*de Marie. her mother a /de Mary 'Mary's mother.'

(French)

b.

La mère à/de Marie. the mother a /de Mary

(French)

191

'Mary's mother.'

(5)

c.

*Su madre a María. her mother a Mary 'Mary's mother.'

(Spanish)

d.

*La madre a María. the mother a Mary 'Mary's mother.'

(Spanish)

e.

La madre de María. the mother de Mary 'Mary's mother.'

(Spanish)

a.

Ce livre est à/de Marie. this book is a/de Mary This is Mary's book.

(French)

b.

Este libro es *a/de María this book is a/de Mary This is Mary's book.

(Spanish)

Example (4a) illustrates a possessor NP which is clitic doubled by the possessive determiner in French. However, clitic doubling is not possible if the possessor de is used. Sentence (4b), shows that clitic doubling is not obligatory in French in this instance either. A non-clitic doubled sentence is grammatical both with à and de. Spanish seems to be in direct contrast with French regarding possessors. In the first place, doubling with a possessive determiner is not possible (4c). Furthermore, a noun phrase in isolation cannot take a to mark the possessor (4d), only de is possible (4e). The sentences is (5) show that a predicate of 'to be' can be a genitive or a dative possessor phrase in French, but only the genitive de is possible in Spanish. This is because, as you may recall, clitic doubling relies on Inner Aspect in Spanish, and this node is not projected either in DPs or by a copula. To summarize, clitic doubling in French is possible when the clitic doubled NP is an indirect object or a possessor, in which case the clitic is a possessive determiner. Tremblay (1991) provides evidence that the dative is not a structural case in French. It is an inherent case, and in fact it is the default. As we saw in Chapter 4, there is evidence that in Spanish the case of datives is structural. It is plausible to assume that, in French, clitic doubling is

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not due to incorporation. If this is correct, transfer from French would be helpful at a superficial level, given that both languages have clitic doubling and pseudo-prepositions. It would not, however, provide the knowledge of the different restrictions on incorporation. Instead, knowledge of the first language would be expected to lead the learner to assume clitic doubling is ungrammatical unless the clitic doubled NP is [+human], and it is always optional. Learners restricted to their L1 would reject sentences in which the NP does not refer to a [+human] entity. A final note of interest about French should be mentioned. Although French does have indirect objects with prepositional phrases, it does not have the equivalent of double object constructions, as seen in (6). (6)

*J'ai donné Jean un livre. I have given John a book 'I have given John a book.'

5.1.2. English At a superficial level, it is easy to say that transfer from English into Spanish in regards to preposition incorporation is impossible, given that English does not have clitic doubling of any sort. However, unlike French, English has an alternation between prepositional indirect objects and double object constructions, as seen in (7). (7)

a.

I gave a book to Mary.

b.

I gave Mary a book.

Double object constructions have been analyzed by Baker (1997) as examples of preposition incorporation in a way very similar to that proposed in this thesis. He suggests that the preposition incorporates into the verb and the NP moves up overtly into Aspect to check case. If this is correct, English speakers would be able to transfer from English the basic properties of the applicative. However, in English the double object construction is not as free as in Spanish. As in French, the dative has to be [+human], as the contrast in (8) shows.

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(8)

a.

I bought John a light bulb.

b.

*I bought the refrigerator a light bulb.

c.

I brought John new curtains

d.

*I brought the living room new curtains

There do seem to be some cases in which the double object construction takes nonhuman entities, particularly when the NP represents an institution (9). I assume an institution is treated as a human entity in these cases. (9)

I gave the library some books.

Furthermore, as is well known, the process in English is restricted to certain verbs. Verbs such as 'donate', for example, do not participate in the double object alternation. There is another alternation in English which may at first sight appear to be similar to the incorporation of locative prepositions in Spanish, the locative alternation, illustrated in (10). (10)

a.

I loaded hay onto the truck.

b.

I loaded the truck with hay.

Baker (1997) provides evidence that, in fact, properties of the locative alternation in English are in direct contrast to the properties of the double object construction. The corresponding sentences in Spanish (11) provide additional evidence that the locative alternation cannot be subsumed under the applicative construction. (11)

a.

Cargué el heno en el camión. load-I the hay on the truck 'I loaded the hay onto the truck.'

b.

Cargué el camión con el heno. loaded-I the truck with the hay 'I loaded the truck with hay.'

c.

?Le cargué el heno al camión. le loaded-I the hay a the truck 'I loaded the hay onto the truck.'

d.

*Le cargué el camión al heno. le loaded-I the truck a the hay 'I loaded the truck with hay.'

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As we see in examples (11a) and (11b), the locative alternation is grammatical in Spanish. This alternation takes place without clitic doubling. As expected, it is possible to incorporate the preposition of the locative 'on the truck' when it is realized as a prepositional phrase, as seen in (11c). The resulting sentence is slightly odd, I do not know why, but it is not ungrammatical. However, trying to incorporate the theme when it has been demoted to a prepositional phrase, as is the case of the phrase 'with the hay' in (11d), is totally ungrammatical. This is not because the preposition 'with' cannot incorporate, as seen in (12). In (12) we see the common alternation between a prepositional phrase introduced by the preposition 'with' and a clitic doubled phrase. (12)

a.

(*le) Consulté el problema con María. le consulted-1st p. the problem with María 'I consulted the problem with María.'

b.

*(Le) consulté el problema a María. le consulted-1st p. the problem a María 'I consulted the problem with María.'

Additional evidence that the locative alternation is different from the applicative can be inferred from the fact that in Spanish, as long as certain constraints are met, almost any locative with any verb can participate in the alternation between a full preposition and a clitic doubled construction. On the other hand, only a small subset of verbs can participate in the locative alternation, in both English and Spanish. In view of the above, it is safe to assume that knowledge of the locative alternation would actually be misleading to an English speaker of L2 Spanish if applied to incorporation of locative prepositions, because these two constructions are different in essence. However, as we saw, an English speaker could in general rely on the English double object construction, and would have to learn that incorporation is much freer in Spanish and that it is always marked by clitic doubling. Furthermore, movement in English seems to be obligatorily overt, while in Spanish the preferred case is for movement to take place at LF, perhaps because the presence of the clitic serves to identify the role of the NP.

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Some of the more specific properties associated with this structure, such as the freedom to wh-move a clitic doubled possessor, may cause problems to English learners since dative possessor phrases are not possible in English. In conclusion, the acquisition of the properties associated with the incorporation of a preposition may pose a different problem for both French and English speakers. In French we find both possessor datives and clitic doubling, although clitic doubling is limited. The dative is an inherent case. There is no evidence of incorporation or obligatory movement to Inner Aspect. If Baker's analysis of English is correct, English has preposition incorporation in the case of the double object construction, with movement of the stranded NP to Inner Aspect. Dative case is structural, as in Spanish. There are no clitics. In both French and English the dative seems associated with [+human] NPs, in contrast to the L2.

5.2.

Methodology of the present study

5.2.1. Description of the subjects The subjects in this experiment were the same as those who participated in the experiment on the acquisition of se. For a full description I refer you to Chapter 3. Briefly, there were three groups of L2 learners of Spanish, two groups of near-natives and one group of fluent speakers who did not qualify as Near-natives and who were placed at an advanced level. All the subjects had begun to learn Spanish in a formal setting after puberty. The first group of Near-natives consisted of 10 English L1 speakers and the second of 10 French L1 speakers. The Advanced group was made up of 10 English speakers. Besides the L2 speakers, there was a group of 11 Spanish controls from several Spanish speaking countries. The level of the L2 speakers was determines using an oral interview, following the ACTFL guidelines. The interview was taped. The judgements were later confirmed by a Spanish speaker from Mexico, who listened to a segment of each interview.

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5.2.2. Description of the test The purpose of this study was to examine knowledge of the different properties and constraints associated with incorporation in Spanish. The test was a written grammaticality judgement task which consisted of 82 sentences, 45 of which were grammatical and 37 ungrammatical. The judgement was made on a scale ranging from +2, fully grammatical, to -2, fully ungrammatical. There were 16 types of sentences, 5 tokens of each type (except on one type, in which there were only 4), and three distractors. Throughout the test, a variety of prepositions was used, including para 'for', con 'with', en 'in/on' de 'of'. I will turn to a description of each of the sentence types.

5.2.2.1. Testing knowledge of basic incorporation The first set of sentences in the grammaticality judgement task, Conditions A and B, tested knowledge of the basic preposition incorporation structure and the role of the clitic. The types of sentences used are illustrated in examples (13) through (15). Condition A: preposition incorporation, le...a, grammatical A1: NP is [+human] (13)

Le dejé los libros a Juan. le left the books a Juan 'I left John the books.'

A2: NP is [-human] (14)

Le puse el mantel a la mesa le put the tablecloth a the table 'I put the tablecloth on the table.'

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Condition B: preposition incorporation, no co-referent clitic, ungrammatical B1: NP is [+human] (15)

*Te dejé los libros a Juan. te left the books a Juan 'I left the books with John for you.'

B2: NP is [-human] (16)

*Te puse el mantel a la mesa. te put the tablecloth a the table 'I put the tablecloth on the table for you.'

Sentences such as (13) and (14) test the basic construction. They are both grammatical. The dative NP is doubled by a third person clitic which agrees with it in case and person, and the preposition surfaces as a. The difference between the two types is that in one case the dative NP refers to a human entity, while in the second incorporation of the preposition has taken place out of a PP with a [-animate] NP. It was necessary to make this contrast given that English and French seem to restrict similar structures to human entities. Acceptance by the speakers of the sentence type exemplified in Condition A tells us that they find these sentences grammatical, but it does not tell us if they know that the clitic doubles the dative NP. This problem is addressed with the sentences in Condition B, in which there is a clitic, but the clitic does not agree with the NP in person. If subjects know that the clitic doubled the a!NP and therefore must agree with it in person, they will rule these sentences out. They may initially assume that the clitic refers to some third person not mentioned. If they do so, then the dative NP will be stranded, and the sentence should still be judged ungrammatical. Condition B1 consists of sentences in which the NP is [+human] (15) and Condition B2 of sentences in which it is [-human] (16). Besides the clitic doubled sentences in Conditions A and B, included in the test were full prepositional phrases, Condition C. These were necessary to complete the paradigm. The prepositional phrases, both [+human] (17) and [-human] (18), are illustrated below. Condition C: full preposition, no co-referent clitic, grammatical.

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C1: NP is [+human] (17)

Dejé los libros con Juan. left-I the books with John 'I left the books with John.'

C2: NP is [-human] (18)

Puse el mantel en la mesa. Put-I the tablecloth on the table 'I put the tablecloth on the table.'

5.2.2.2. Constraints on incorporation: affectedness Because the clitic doubled NP in applicative constructions moves into Inner Aspect it is always interpreted as an 'affected' object. Knowledge of this fact was tested by Condition D, which consisted of 5 sentences in which the NP cannot be plausibly considered affected (19). In two of these sentences the dative object referred to a [+human] entity, in three to a [-human] NP. Condition D contrasts with the sentences in Condition A, in which the object can be interpreted as affected. Condition D: Incorporation, dative NP unaffected, ungrammatical. (19)

*Yo le esperaba una herencia a mi tía. I le expected an inheritance a my aunt. 'I expected an inheritance from my aunt.'

5.2.2.3. Constraint against double incorporation Because the dative NP must move into Aspect in order to check features, it is not possible for more than one preposition to incorporate at a time. Knowledge of this is tested by Condition E, which consisted of sentences with the correct clitic and two a phrases, as seen in (20). Because the clitic can only refer to one of them, these sentences are considered ungrammatical. Judgements on this part of the test reinforce the results of Condition B, because the ungrammaticality is due to the same fact: one of the a phrases will not be clitic doubled. However, the judgements here are more subtle. Unfortunately, there were only 4 of these sentences, due to an error.

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Condition E: Incorporation of two prepositions, ungrammatical. (20)

*Le puse agua a las matas a Sandra. le put water a the plants a Sandra 'I put water on the plant for Sandra.'

5.2.2.4. Constraint against incorporation in intransitive sentences An important restriction on the possibility of incorporation relates to the presence of a complement of the verb. I suggested in Chapter 4 that an Aspect Phrase is only projected in sentences in which the verb is transitive. Knowledge of this restriction was tested with several sets of sentences. In the first place, Condition F consisted of sentences which were intransitive. Speakers aware of the restriction against intransitivity were expected to judge these sentences ungrammatical. Condition F1, illustrated in (21), included sentences in which the dative NP was [+human], Condition F2, illustrated in (22), of sentences in which it was [-human]. Condition F: Incorporation, intransitive verb, ungrammatical F1: [+human] (21)

*El toro le vino a Pedro. the bull le came a Pedro 'The bull came at Pedro.'

F2: [-human] (22)

*Alicia le caminó a la playa. Alicia le walked a the beach 'Alicia walked on the beach.'

As in the case of secondary predication in English, it is possible to get around the restriction against intransitive sentences by including a dummy direct object, in this case the reflexive se. The result is marked. Because the dative NP is interpreted as affected, the sentence with the reflexive may take on an aggressive meaning, a little like the difference between 'came to X' and 'came at X'. Condition G consisted of sentences in which the verb is normally intransitive and a reflexive clitic has been added to take the place of an object.

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The same verbs were used as in Condition F1. These sentences, illustrated in (23) are grammatical but stylistically marked. Condition G: Incorporation, intransitive verb, dummy DO, grammatical (23)

El toro se le vino a Pedro. the bull se le came a Pedro 'The bull came at Pedro.'

In order to ascertain whether the speakers who participated in this test knew that the restriction on incorporation does not apply to prepositional phrases, the verbs in condition F1 and G were presented again in condition H, this time without the clitic and with a full prepositional phrase. An example is given in (24). Condition H: Full preposition, intransitive verb, grammatical (24)

5.2.2.5

El toro vino hacia Juan. the bull came towards John 'The bull came toward John.'

Incorporation and possessors In Spanish, it is possible for possessors to be expressed as clitic doubled NPs.

These sentences contrast with genitive de NPs. Knowledge of the availability of this option was tested in Condition I, which consists of sentences in which the possessor is expressed by way of a genitive NP (25), and Condition J, in which it is expressed by way of a clitic doubled construction (26). Condition I, genitive possessors, grammatical (25)

Sequé las manos del nene. Dried-I the hands de the baby 'I dried the baby's hands.'

Condition J, dative possessors, grammatical (26)

Le sequé las manos al nene. le dried-I the hands a the baby 'I dried the baby's hands.'

One of the differences between dative and genitive possessors is that the dative NP is freer to move than the genitive. Knowledge of this fact was tested with conditions K and

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L. Condition K consisted of sentences in which the genitive has been wh-moved to the front of the clause, as shown in (27). These sentences are ungrammatical. Condition L shows the corresponding sentences in which the possessor wh-moved is dative (28). These sentences are grammatical. Condition K: Wh-movement of possessor, genitive de, ungrammatical (27)

*¿De quién secaste las manos? de who dried-you the hands 'Whose hands did you dry?'

Condition L: Wh-movement of possessor, dative, grammatical (28)

¿A quién le secaste las manos? a who le dried-you the hands 'Whose hands did you dry?

Finally, there were 3 sentences which were distractors. These were ungrammatical because an uninterpretable clitic was used (29). (29)

*Se pegué una etiqueta en el frasco. se stuck a label on the jar

5.3. Results

5.3.1

Grammaticality vs., ungrammaticality: Overall results Figure 1 shows the mean responses overall for each of the groups on the

grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. Responses approximating +2 indicate acceptance, responses approximating -2 indicate rejections.

202

mean responses

Figure 1: grammatical vs. ungrammatical sentences 2 1

Span.

0

NN-Eng

-1

NN-Fr

-2 Gram.

Ungram.

Adv. Eng.

sentences

Figure 1 shows that all the groups are able to correctly judge grammaticality in relation to preposition incorporation. The performance of the two Near-native groups is indistinguishable from that of the Spanish-speaking Control group. The Advanced group is only slightly less accurate. The similarity between the groups in Figure 1 is borne out by the statistical analysis of the results. A two factor analysis of variance, repeated measures, between grammaticality and language groups, yields no significant difference by L1 group (F(3, 37)=1.508, p