Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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The facility of modeling both repairs by ℜ contrasts with the conspicuous
absence of the analogues of tavization in other languages such as Basque. In order
for a pronoun to avoid the PCC, ℜ needs the potential Agree/Case licenser δ, and
the activation of δ must result in a pronoun that can value the clausal Agree/Case
number probe that reaches it in the PCC context. In Georgian these are the
properties of 3SG X's tav forms. In Icelandic, Finnish, and Basque, such pronouns
should not to exist. That appears to be the case. As discussed in section 5.2, in
agreeing contexts their 1 st /2 nd person pronouns are 1 st /2 nd person in need of external
licensing, even when strong. In nonagreeing contexts, their strong pronouns
seem to have their own Agree/Case licenser, but perhaps not the 3SG phispecification
that would let them serve as the goal of the probe of an agreeing context.
Basque does have 3SG X's head/self where X=1 st /2 nd /3 rd person, but only as
reflexive, so its active δ may be presumed to have additional lexical content that
requires an antecedent. The availability of tavization in Georgian alone may thus
follow from the independent availability of pronouns with a 3SG N core, 1 st /2 nd
person phi-features, and the potential Agree/Case locus δ that can be activated to
license those features. 166
Nevertheless, matters are not so straightforward. It has been discussed in section
4.3 that French may have a PCC repair using accusative strong pronouns in
one context: when the dative is an inherent clitic, (346).
(346) (*)Je me rappelle vous (*dans un beau costume de bain).
I SE(INH) remember you in a beautiful bathing suit.
(French, section 4.3)
Intuitively, the accusative repair is limited to the context of an inherent clitic
because inherent clitics are idiom chunks without further structure, including an
activable PDAT. Under this description, ℜ in French targets the accusative only if
there is no PDAT (without paying attention to the availability of applicative interpretation
for the PPDAT, as modularity requires). Technically, the right result
would be achieved if ℜ were to operate not on the numeration, but on the structure
built from it, and proceed top-down, since the dative clitic c-commands the direct
166 French has focused 1 st /2 nd person pronouns that may not need Agree, but several properties
bar them as repairs: their δ may be lexically focused, they may not be 3SG, and they require clitic-doubling
if 1 st /2 nd person which is unavailable in a PCC context (Kayne 2000: chapter 9
shows the pronouns are unavailable when clitic doubling is impossible). Arabic might have a repair
on the direct object in ditransitives by a special strong pronoun (Bonet's 1991: 206f., citing
Fassi-Fehri 1988). However, Fassi-Fehri's (1993: 3.1.2) discussion indicates that the strong pronouns
in question are available for a number of other uses, leaving it unclear if and when they are
repairs. Rosen (1990: 692-7) extends tavization to an apparent PCC repair in Southern Tiwa. The
reflexive of a plain transitive looks like an intransitive. When an applicative object is added, the
PCC would block reflexives for 1 st /2 nd person, as for intransitives generally. An otherwise unavailable
reflexivization steps in, which Rosen analyzes a regular transitive with O coded as the
3 rd person noun 'self'. This might fit if the language has self/head-type reflexives like Basque and
Georgian, but their δ is not an active Agree/Case locus so they do not surface ordinarily; the PCC
repair activates it and lets them emerge.