Malagasy Adverbs Andrea Rackowski McGill University August 1996

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In The Structure of Malagasy, Volume II , ed. Ileana Paul, UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics, 1998. After foana, the post-verbal half of the framing pair tsy - intsony appears. (32) a. Tsy manasa lamba intsony Rakoto. Neg wash clothes anymore Rakoto b. Tsy manasa intsony ny lamba Rakoto. Neg wash anymore the clothes Rakoto "Rakoto does not wash (the) clothes anymore." (33) a. Tsy manasa lamba tanteraka intsony Rakoto." "Rakoto does not completely wash clothes anymore." b. *Tsy manasa lamba intsony tanteraka Rakoto. (34) a. Tsy manasa lamba tsara intsony Rakoto. "Rakoto does not wash clothes well anymore." b. *Tsy manasa lamba intsony tsara Rakoto. (35) a. Tsy manasa lamba foana intsony Rakoto. "Rakoto does not wash clothes well always." b. *Tsy manasa lamba intsony foana Rakoto. Mihitsy follows intsony, foana, tanteraka, and tsara. (36) a. Tsy manasa lamba mihitsy Rakoto. Neg wash clothes at-all Rakoto b. Tsy manasa mihitsy ny lamba Rakoto Neg wash at-all the clothes Rakoto "Rakoto does not wash (the) clothes at all." (37) a. Tsy manasa lamba tanteraka intsony mihitsy." "Rakoto does not wash clothes completely at all anymore." b. *Tsy manasa lamba mihitsy intsony tanteraka Rakoto. (38) a. Tsy manasa lamba tsara intsony mihitsy Rakoto. "Rakoto does not wash clothes well anymore at all." b. *Tsy manasa lamba intsony mihitsy tsara Rakoto. (39) a. Tsy manasa lamba foana intsony mihitsy Rakoto. "Rakoto does not always wash clothes anymore at all." b. *Tsy manasa lamba mihitsy intsony foana Rakoto. Other post-verbal adverbs are the speech-act adverbs ve and anie, which always occur just before the subject. (40) a. Efa nanasa lamba ve Rakoto? already wash-pst clothes ? Rakoto "Has Rakoto already washed clothes?" b. * Efa nanasa ve ny lamba Rakoto? (41) a. Tsy hanasa lamba intsony anie Rakoto! Neg wash-fut clothes anymore Hort Rakoto "May Rakoto not wash clothes anymore!" b. * Tsy hanasa anie ny lamba intsony Rakoto! 5. Order 8
In The Structure of Malagasy, Volume II , ed. Ileana Paul, UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics, 1998. Comparing Cinque’s predicted order with the one that actually occurs in Malagasy, it appears that the post-verbal adverbs are in the opposite order from the one expected of them. Cinque’s order is in (42) and Malagasy’s is in (43) 3 . . (42) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (speech act) > Generally> Neg> Already> Still> (at-all)> 7 8 9 10 Anymore> Always> Completely> Well (43) 2 3 4 5 (3) 10 Na(dia)> Matetika> Tsy> Efa> Mbola> Tsy> Verb> Tsara> ‘Even’> generally> Neg> Already> Still> Neg> Verb> Well> 9 8 7 6 1 Tanteraka> Foana> Intsony> Mihitsy> Aza> Ve> Completely> Always>Anymore> At-all> ‘though’> Speech Act> The comparison of these orders is intersting because of their apparent classification into three separate groups. Pre-verbal adverbs (with the exception of tsy, to which I return presently) follow Cinque’s order exactly. Post-verbal adverbs exactly reverse Cinque’s order, and Speech Act adverbs appear at the very end of the sentence, rather than at the very beginning. 5.1 Preverbal One explanation for the variability of adverb orders might be to suggest that languages treat their adverbs differently, according to a parameter. In Romance, where Cinque's theory seems to hold, languages would place AdvPs in the Specs of functional categories, while in Malagasy-type languages adverbs would be heads of their own phrases, or possibly be base-generated adjoined to a head, as proposed in Travis (1988). Clearly, however, it would be preferable to have one underlying explanation for all the adverb facts cross-linguistically, as this would form part of a desirably restricted system. Since this paper is about Cinque's theory, I will attempt to formulate a solution which fits into his framework. Malagasy’s pre-verbal adverbs exhibit several different orders. Efa and mbola occur both before and after tsy - a direct contrast with Cinque's theory which predicts that the order should be rigidly fixed cross-linguistically. Malagasy thus might present a problem for the universality of Cinque's theory. In terms of the pre-verbal scrambled 3 Although Cinque does not discuss Speech Act adverbs, they are usually determined to be high up in the tree in most structures, and so this is where I assume Cinque would also place them. He also classes ‘at all’ with ‘not’, which clearly is not possible in Malagasy, since they co-occur. I assume ‘at-all’ to be higher than ‘anymore’ because this is the order Cinque effectively gives them by classing them with the other adverbs which do have this order. 9
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Malagasy Adverbs Andrea Rackowski McGill University August 1996

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