Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

Workshop 1 – Abr 137
Chomsky, Noam (1981): Lectures on government and binding : the Pisa lectures. Mouton de
Gruyter, Berlin , New York [Studies in Generative Grammar ; 9]
Haider, Hubert (1993): Deutsche Syntax - generativ: Vorstudien zur Theorie einer projektiven
Grammatik. Narr Tübingen [Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik ; 325]
Lehmann, Christian (1995): Thoughts on grammaticalization. Revised and expanded version.
Lincom Europa, München (LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics ; 01)
Ross, John R. (1969): Auxiliaries as main verbs. In Studies in Philosophical Linguistics I.
William Todd. 77-102.
Wurmbrand, Susi (2001): Infinitives. Restructuring and Clause Structure. Mouton de Gruyter,
Berlin, New York, [Studies in Generative Grammar ; 55]
Mood-aspect interaction:
felicitous and infelicitous combinations
Malchukov, Andrej L.
U Nijmegen & Institute for Linguistic Research, St. Petersburg
A.Malchukov@let.ru.nl
As indicated in the Call for Papers, interaction between aspect and modality is a complex
issue which is not well-understood. I attribute this complexity to the fact that different factors
are involved here. On the one hand, the correlation between imperfectivity and negation, may
be explained in terms of clustering of transitivity features, along the lines of Hopper and
Thompson (1980) and Tsunoda (1981). The correlation between deontic meaning and nonfiniteness,
on the other hand, may be related to the fact that different modal categories differ
with regard to their scope/embedding in the clause structure, and thus are prone to be lost on
non-finites to different degrees (see Malchukov 2004 on functional constraints on
transcategorial operations; cf. Borsley & Kornfilt 2000 for a similar proposal in a generative
framework). Some other peculiarities of mood-aspect interaction, can arguably be explained
through general rules of grammeme interaction (as proposed in Malchukov, forthcoming).
These rules, inasmuch as they are cross-linguistically consistent, result from interaction of
different functional motivations. In particular, some grammeme combinations are known to
be more harmonic (felicitous), while others are less so (cf., e.g., an infelicitous present
perfective combination). In the latter case an infelicitous grammeme combination, if available
at all, may result in reinterpretation of one of the respective grammemes (the “recessive”
grammeme, in terms of Xrakovsky 1996).
In this talk I will discuss examples of mood-aspect interaction, in particular, cases of
interaction between imperative and aspect (which may also cast some light on interaction
between deontic moods with aspect, mentioned in the Call for Papers; see also Abraham
2005). It will be argued that for functional reasons the imperative universally aligns with the
perfective rather than imperfective, which would account why in some languages (e.g.
Pa’anci) the imperative is restricted to the perfective aspect. It will be shown that in cases
where neutralization goes in the opposite direction, that is, when imperatives are found only
in imperfective, the imperfective is an unmarked aspect. This account explains, for example,
why the aspectual opposition is partially neutralized in imperative forms in Russian, as well
as why imperatives invariably appear in the passive form in Maori. The talk will discuss
further examples of mood-aspect interaction from a wide range of languages, showing how a
competing motivations approach to grammeme interaction (which is compatible with the
functional optimality-theoretic approaches), can account for restrictions on combinability
between certain mood and aspect grammemes.