Overt Nominative Subjects in Infinitival Complements Cross - NYU ...

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NYU Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 2: Papers in Syntax, Spring 2009 484.2 Finnish (thanks to Matti Miestamo, Arto Anttila, and Paul Kiparsky for data anddiscussion)According to Holmberg (2005), Finnish 1st and 2nd person pronouns are optionally null. Null3rd person pronouns need an antecedent in the discourse or in a higher clause. Finnish has aconstraint against verb initial orders when there is an element in the sentence that would beeligible for topicalization. Any nominative element is eligible; non-nominatives have to be,loosely speaking, referential, to be potential topics.4.2.1 RaisingThe LO reading is possible with the nominative subject in non-initial position:(225) Vain hän alko-i saa-da hyv-i-ä roole-j-a.only s/he begin-past get-inf good-pl-part role-pl-partHI: 'Something happened such that he started to get good roles'(226) Hyv-i-ä roole-j-a alkoi saada vain hän.good-pl-part role-pl-part begin-past get-inf only s/he.LO: 'Something happened such that as a result only he was getting good roles'(227) Vuonna 2006 alkoi vain Maria saada hyviä rooleja.year.ess 2006 begin.past.3sg only Maria get.inf good.pl.part role.pl.partLO: Ìn 2006 it began to be the case that only Maria was getting good roles'Vain hän ònly s/he and vain Maria on the LO readings may be infinitival subjects. Alternatively,they may be matrix subjects and other material, most crucially the aspectual verb, may havemoved to a yet higher position, in the manner outlined4.2.2 ControlNo LO reading is possible with an overt infinitival subject pronoun, whether it be in thenominative or in the genitive:(228) *En halunnut vain minä / minun mennä bussilla.neg.1sg want.pst.ptcp only I.nom / I.gen go.inf bus.adessReadings truth conditionally similar to the LO ones can only be expressed using the modifieryksin àlone’. (230) is judged to be outrageously bad.(229) a. Minä e-n halu-a men-nä yksin koulu-un.I not-1p want-inf go-inf alone school-illatÌ don’t want to go to school alone’b. Minä e-n halu-a men-nä koulu-un yksin.ìdem’
NYU Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 2: Papers in Syntax, Spring 2009 49(230) *E-n halu-a men-n koulu-un vain minä.not-1p want-inf go-inf school-illat only IThere seemed to be no need to investigate pronominal doubles.4.2.3 One finite verb – multiple subjectsThe LO reading is possible with a participial construction whose subject is in the genitive:(231) En halunnut vain minun menevän bussilla.neg.1sg want.pst.ptcp only I.gen go.ptcp.pres.gen bus.adessÌ didn’t want it to be the case that only I go by bus (whereas others walk)’However, an overt 3rd person pronominal subject in the participial clause would not becoreferential with the matrix subject (same with a matrix pronoun):(232) Mary ei halunnut vain hänen menevän bussilla.Mary neg.3sg want.pst.ptcp only (s)he.gen go.ptcp.pres.gen bus.adess'Mary didn't want it to be the case that only (s)he ( Mary) goes by bus.'4.2.4 Summary of the Finnish dataFinnish is capable of disambiguating HI and LO readings of raising examples by varying thepreverbal versus postverbal/final positions of the nominative DP. As of date I do not have proofthat in the orders that express the LO reading that DP is actually inside the infinitival clause.Finnish definitely does not have over subjects in control complements.4.3 Shupamem (thanks to Laziz Nchare for data and discussion)Shupamem is a Grassfield Bantu language spoken in Cameroon. Tense but not person/numberagreement is marked. Tantalizingly, Shupamem distinguishes HI and LO readings by word order– but I have not found evidence that in the latter case the subject is located inside the infinitive.(233) Nduu Maria ka yeshe inget ndaa liʔonly Mary past begin inf.have good rolesHI: Ònly Mary is such that she began to get good roles’(234) A ka yeshe nduu Maria inget ndaa liʔFOCUS past begin only Maria inf.have good rolesLO: Ìt began to be the case that only Mary got good roles’The difficulty stems from the fact that while on the LO reading ònly Maria’ follows `begin’, Ihave found nothing that can be inserted between them that could not come between the verb andthe postverbal subject in mono-clausal examples. On the other hand, the fact that the LO reading
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