On the internal and external syntax of adverbial clauses in Faroese: causal and temporal clauses (original) (raw)
Related papers
On the Syntax of Adverbial Clauses in Icelandic
Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax, 2016
The goal of this paper is to provide a systematic overview and analysis of the syntax of Icelandic adverbial clauses in terms of the whether they do or do not allow so-called main clause phenomena. The classification of adverbial clauses follows the typology of Haegeman (2012) where adverbial clauses are divided into two classes: central adverbial clauses that resist main clause phenomena and peripheral adverbial clauses that may permit such phenomena (XP-fronting etc.). It turns out that fronting is possible in a subset of adverbial clauses exactly as predicted by Haegeman's typology and such examples are found in both in judgement data and written sources. Further, this initial work shows that there appears to be a distinction between argument fronting (less free) and adjunct fronting (more free) in Icelandic and this is a distinction that has not previously been systematically examined. It has long been observed that adverbial clauses exhibit variable word order. In English for example, some adverbial clauses allow argument and adjunct topicalization whereas other resist such fronting. Here, we are concerned with similar word order variation in adverbial clauses in Icelandic primarily and data from other Scandinavian languages is presented briefly for comparative purposes. This paper is largely descriptive, however it can be taken as a first step towards a typology of adverbial clauses in Scandinvian more generally. The framework adopted here is the typology of adverbial clauses set out in Haegeman (2012, and much previous work) where adverbial clauses are divided into two groups: those that allow main clause phenomena and those that do not. Further, Haegeman distinguishes between adverbial clauses that she terms 'peripheral' or 'central' to capture the degree of integration of adverbial clauses with respect to the clause that they modify. For Scandianvian verb second languages then, we might expect that adverbial clauses that are 'peripheral' in Haegeman's sense may allow main clause word order whereas such orders are resisted in central adverbial clauses. The second part of the paper presents an overview of Haegeman's typology as applied to adverbial clauses in English. The third part of the paper dicusses data from both written and spoken Icelandic. In the fourth section, we provide comparative data from other Scandinivian languages showing that adverbial clauses can be analyzed with respect to the possibility of main clause phenomena as predicted by Haegeman's typology. This is followed by a short discussion.
The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 2010
In this article we investigate the status of two different types of movement in subordinate clauses in Faroese: the movement of the finite verb to a position below the subject but above negation and medial adverbs (V-to-I), and the movement of some XP and the finite verb to positions above the subject (V2). The exact status of these phenomena in contemporary Faroese, a language that has been argued to be undergoing syntactic change, is a matter of dispute; we attempt to clarify this using the methodology of Magnitude Estimation (ME). We extend what is known by presenting the results of a systematic comparison of judgment data from Icelandic (where the finite verb obligatorily moves to a high position within the clause, and embedded V2 has been claimed to be possible quite generally), Danish (where the finite verb obligatorily remains in a low position, and embedded V2 has been claimed to be restricted), and Faroese (where the status of verb movement is precisely at issue, and the availability of embedded V2 has been little explored).
Temporal Adverbial Clauses in the Languages of the World: Clause-Linking Strategies
This dissertation advances our understanding of the cross-linguistic variation in the expression of temporal adverbial relations, the semantic polyfunctionality of temporal clause-linking devices, and the areality of temporal clauses in a variety sample of two hundred eighteen languages. The sample of the present study is based on the Genus-Macroarea method proposed by Miestamo (2005), in which the primary genetic stratification is made at the genus level, and the primary areal stratification at the level of macro-areas. I focus on five types of temporal adverbial clauses: (1) when-clauses, (2) while-clauses, (3) after-clauses, (4) before-clauses, and (5) until-clauses. With respect to the expression of temporal adverbial relations, it has been claimed that they tend to be signaled by free adverbial subordinators, such as English ‘after’, ‘before’, ‘until’, ‘since’ (Harder 1996; Kortmann 1997). However, I demonstrate that languages may also resort to other formal means, such as ‘and then’ coordinating devices, verb-doubling constructions, and correlative constructions. Furthermore, I show that in many languages of the world, temporal clause-linking strategies may make use of open class categories, such as temporal nouns used as clause-linking devices and verbs used as clause-linking devices. These temporal clause-linking strategies may be characterized as devices not (yet) fully grammaticalized. Regarding the semantic polyfunctionality of clause-linking devices, most studies that have addressed this domain have only taken into account a particular type of device (e.g. Kortmann 1997) or two types of devices (e.g. Hetterle 2015). Accordingly, it is not clear whether other devices that have been traditionally disregarded (e.g. ‘and then’ devices) will show polyfunctionality patterns not attested before. The semantic polyfunctionality patterns attested in the present study align for the most part with those documented by Kortmann (1997) and Hetterle (2015). However, I show that there are polyfunctionality patterns not addressed in their studies (e.g. the overlap between ‘while’ and ‘without’) that can inform theories of clause-combining and semantic change. I demonstrate that these rare patterns can be explained by various conceptual factors. As for the areality of temporal clauses, it has been proposed that rare linguistic patterns have high genetic stability and strong resistance to areal influence (Nichols 1992: 181). However, I show that even rare linguistic patterns may be diffused through language contact. Many temporal clause-linking devices that are cross-linguistically rare occur in areal clusters, suggesting that language contact has played an important role in their cross-linguistic distribution. In this dissertation, I develop a series of methodological steps for determining the directionality of spread of rare temporal clause-linking devices.
West Germanic Left-Dislocated Adverbial Clauses: The role of the semantic interface
International Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 18, 2013
In most Dutch and German complex constructions in which the embedded clause precedes the main clause, the finite verb of the main clause follows the embedded clause immediately, following the V2-rule. But in some cases the finite verb does not raise that far, creating a V3-construction. The reasons for this variation are explored here, leading to the conclusion that the V3-construction requires additional features from the semantic interface for meeting the interpretive requirements that distinguish the V3- from the V2-versions of the same construction. In some cases features representing a conclusion to a preceding conditional wenn-clause (‘if’-clause) understood in the discourse context must be inserted from the semantic interface. All of these V3-constructions provide evidence that an additional layer of meaning is added when elements are remerged at the left periphery, a process that requires additional features not present on the lexical items when initially inserted into the numeration.
Verb-second in embedded clauses in Faroese
Studia Linguistica, 2018
There has been considerable controversy in the linguistic literature about the nature of Vfin-Adv (V2) order in subject-initial embedded clauses in Faroese: Is it the result of a V-to-T movement, as is typically assumed for Icelandic, or is it a root phenomenon, i.e. V-to-C movement, as usually assumed for the standard Mainland Scandinavian languages. Heycock et al. (2012) argue that both kinds of Vfin-Adv order can be found in Faroese embedded clauses and this paper provides further evidence for that claim. On the assumption that V-to-T is still a possibility in Faroese, some versions of the so-called Rich Agreement Hypothesis (e.g. Bobaljik & Thráinsson 1998) predict that transitive expletives should also be possible in Faroese. This prediction is borne out. However, contrary to predictions regarding direct connection between verbal inflection on the one hand and verb movement and transitive expletive constructions on the other hand, it is demonstrated that speakers who distinguish tense and agreement morphemes most clearly in their speech are neither more likely to accept transitive expletives nor V2-orders in various types of embedded clauses than speakers who do not distinguish tense and agreement morphemes as clearly. It is maintained that while Vfin-Adv is on its way out in Faroese, presumably because of diminishing morphological support and partially ambiguous syntactic evidence, the language has not yet reached the Mainland Scandinavian state in this respect.
Antecedent-based approach to binding in Icelandic and Faroese
Nordlyd, 2011
This paper examines the standard approach to long-distance reflexives within the Lexical-Functional Grammar framework. This approach defines the binding relation between a reflexive and its non-local antecedent by prescribing the type of syntactic elements which must and must not occur along the path from the reflexive to its antecedent. However, evidence from the Insular Scandinavian languages suggests that the binding relation should be expressed as positive and negative constraints on the path from the antecedent to the reflexive. In other words, I suggest that long-distance reflexives in Icelandic and Faroese are governed by outside-in functional uncertainty, not inside-out functional uncertainty, as is standardly assumed.
On the Implicit Argument of Icelandic Indirect Causatives
Linguistic Inquiry, 2020
The goal of this article is to understand the syntax of Icelandic indirect causatives (ICs), especially with respect to the implicit causee. We show that the complement of the causative verb must be at least as large as a VoiceP, and that it shares some properties with active VoicePs and others with passive VoicePs. We make sense of this state of affairs by proposing that the causee, while phonetically silent, has an explicit syntactic representation, but as a φP rather than a DP. We further propose that ICs are built by stacking a second VoiceP on top of the lexical verb’s first VoiceP, and that this configuration, along with the underspecified interpretation of φP, leads to a special thematic interpretation of both the causer and the implicit causee. Our analysis suggests that there are certain core ingredients involved in building ICs—such as stacked VoicePs and an underspecified causee—but that the source of these ingredients can vary across languages and constructions, dependin...
Linguistics Vanguard, 2024
In many languages, causal clause markers can also function asor are formally identical tocomplement markers (e.g., Bulgarian če, Twi se, or Latin quod). This isomorphism is often explained as the result of independent developments from a common source (interrogatives, relativizers, etc.). By contrast, it is also frequently accepted that in some cases the aforementioned identity originates in a type of structural change by which causal clauses are eventually reanalysed as factive complements. However, the nature of the proposed CAUSE > COMPLEMENT development, involving both semantic adjustments and syntactic integration, is not yet fully understood, and it remains unclear how recurrent this phenomenon might be from a cross-linguistic perspective. This article aims to shed light on these questions by analysing diachronic and cross-linguistic data and assessing some of the evidence given for the development of complementation from causal adverbial clauses. The observations reveal significant documentation gaps for postulated models of the emergence of complement clauses and highlight methodological issues that qualify previous explanations about the diachronic relationship between causal and complement clauses.
Movement in adverbial clauses: Evidence from Akɔɔse wh-agreement
Beginning with Geis (1970), several authors have provided syntactic, semantic, and etymological arguments for analyzing adverbial clauses as free relatives, involving movement of an (often null) operator (see Haegeman 2010 for a review). This paper provides morphological evidence for this view while arguing for separate extraction sites for the moved elements in temporal and conditional clauses. The Bantu language Akɔɔse (Hedinger 2008) exhibits wh-agreement (see Reintges, LeSourd, & Chung 2006 for a typological profile); that is, it marks its verbs with respect to whether an element has been extracted to the left periphery. The extraction of subjects is marked differently on the verb than the extraction of non-subjects. This extraction marking occurs not only in canonical wh-movement contexts (Chomsky 1977), such as constituent questions, relative clauses, cleft questions, and topicalization, but also in temporal and conditional adverbial clauses, suggesting that a free relative analysis of these clauses is warranted. Verbs in central temporal clauses take the non-subject extraction morphology, while verbs in central conditional clauses show the morphology found in subject extraction contexts. As would be expected from Haegeman's (2007) claim that peripheral adverbial clauses do not involve movement, these clauses show no extraction morphology in Akɔɔse. In order to probe the question of where the relativizing operators in central temporal and conditional clauses originate, this paper offers a novel syntactic account for the morphological patterns found in Akɔɔse wh-agreement. According to this account, the temporal operator must originate within the VP layer, while the locus of extraction for the operator involved in central conditional clauses must be higher.
Morphological evidence for a movement analysis of adverbial clauses
Chicago Linguistic Society, 2011
"Beginning with Geis (1970), several authors have provided syntactic, semantic, and etymological arguments for a derivation of adverbial (subordinate) clauses that involves movement of an (often null) operator (see Haegeman 2010a for a review). This paper provides morphological evidence for this view while arguing for separate extraction sites for the moved elements in temporal and conditional clauses. The Bantu language Akɔɔse (Hedinger 2008) exhibits wh-agreement (see Reintges, LeSourd, & Chung 2006 for a typology); that is, it marks its verbs with respect to whether an element has been extracted to the left periphery. This extraction marking occurs not only in canonical wh-movement contexts (Chomsky 1977), such as constituent questions, relative clauses, cleft questions, and topicalization, but also in temporal and conditional adverbial clauses. Crucially, Akɔɔse wh-agreement encodes whether the extracted element originated above or below v. The distribution of wh-agreement morphology shows that the operator in central conditional clauses is extracted from a position above v (supporting Haegeman's (2010b) claim), the moved element in central temporal clauses originates below v (supporting Larson's (1987, 1990) position), and there is no extraction in peripheral adverbial clauses (as argued in Haegeman 2007). Wh-agreement provides compelling evidence for a movement analysis for both temporal and conditional central adverbial clauses. Due to its sensitivity to height of extraction, Akɔɔse lends insight into the question of where the moved elements originate, unlike languages like Irish (McCloskey 2001) where wh-agreement only registers the presence of movement."