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

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Combinations of two 3rd person arguments behave differently. They will not
themselves be the focus here, but they provide an important tool. Each 3rd person
argument is inherently lexically either animate or inanimate. Each is also either
proximate, reserved for the most 'prominent' (topical, central) 3 rd person, or obviative.
Combinations of two 3 rd person EA and O are governed by the hierarchies 3
proximate > 3 obviative and 3 animate > 3 inanimate. They have no bearing on the
agreement prefix, but they are relevant for the suffixes, and unlike the 2 > 1 > 3
hierarchy, in the conjunct as well as the independent order (Rhodes 1994: 432).
Obviation and the 3↔3 interactions based on it are important here because they
are well established to be syntactic rather than morphological phenomena. Evidence
for this is rehearsed below, but one striking result of Bruening (2001) for
the Algonquian language Passamaquoddy may be mentioned immediately:
3.OBVEA→3.PROXO but not 3.PROXEA→3.OBVO combinations allow O to
scope over EA, an unambiguously syntactico-semantic property. This is not evidence
for PH-interactions in syntax because obviation is not known to be a phifeature.
However, clear PH-interactions will turn out to affect obviation, and thus
syntax. 29
The literature on Algonquian PH-interactions splits on whether they are syntactic
or morphological. To the former view belong Rhodes (1976, 1994) for
Ojibwa, LeSourd (1976) for Fox, Béjar (2003) for Nishnaabemwin; to the latter,
Anderson (1992) and Halle and Marantz (1993) for Potawatomi. Rhodes (1994)
demonstrates that for some Ojibwa varieties, the PH-interactions seen in verbal
morphology have syntactic correlates. Their winner is not only relevant for control
of the agreement prefix and for suffixal morphology, but also the pivot of unambiguously
syntactic phenomena like control. This evidence is reviewed next. Not all
Ojibwa varieties have all the syntactic correlates discussed below, and other Algonquian
languages differ as well. Thus either a uniform syntactic system underlies
their PH-interaction with the potential to have or not certain syntactic consequences,
as in Béjar and Rezac (2009: 68), or for some languages the PHinteractions
occur in syntax while for others in morphology (see section 3.5). 30
Among the syntactic phenomena of Ojibwa, some are not sensitive to PHinteraction.
For instance, the shared argument in the constructions as stop (preverb)
+ V-ing must be the EA, as in English, suggesting the same thematic structure.
However, the phenomena resumed in (89) and taken up below refer to the
winner of the EA-O PH-interaction. Their pivot is the EA in 1/2EA→3O combinations,
the O in 3EA→1/2O – in the independent order. Rhodes remarkable conclu-
29 The 3.PROX > 3.OBV hierarchy is actually 3 topic > 3 nontopic, which determines the former
whenever one of the arguments is proximate because the proximate must be the unique topic, but
also encompasses 3.OBV↔3.OBV that may be direct or inverse (Dahlstrom 1986: 53f., Klaiman
1992: 247; cf. Rhodes 1974: 211 note 5, Bruening 2001: 124).
30 Rhodes (1994: 443) notes that some speakers pick the EA as the pivot of cross-clausal obviation
and/or cross-clausal agreement, rather than the winner of EA-O PH interaction (some picking
EA for one diagnostic but the PH winner for the other). Dahlstrom (1986) shows that crossclausal
agreement in Plains Cree is not affected by the 3.PROX > 3.OBV hierarchy.