Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

88 Sections
Scrambling in the AP and the Fractal Nature of Language
Structures
González-Vilbazo, Kay E. / Struckmeier, Volker
University of Illinois at Chicago UIC / Universität zu Köln
kay.gonzalez@uni-koeln.de;volker.struckmeier@uni-koeln.de
The question of universalism and relativism in language is one that cannot be fully resolved
with our present-day knowledge. However, it is possible to point out seemingly universal
principles of language, with superficial complexities arising from recursive operations
yielding fractal structures. The talk presents new evidence for the fractal nature of language.
The operation of scrambling refers to changes in the order of constituents in the so-called
Mittelfeld of the German sentence. The phenomenon has received ample discussion. We show
that it is not restricted to the sentence level but recurs in another, seemingly unrelated
structure. In the German AP, arguments of the head place variably vis-a-vis adjuncts:
(1) [DPder [AP [DPihr] [immer] treue] Max]
the her-DAT always faithful Max
(2) [DPder [AP [immer] [DPIHR] treue] Max]
the always to-her faithful Max
'Max, who is always faithful to her'
This closely resembles scrambling at the sentence level: unstressed pronouns are basegenerated
inside the VP but have to be moved to the so-called Wackernagel position, crossing
the VP-adjunct. Pronouns can be left behind only when they receive contrastive stress.
Treating the inversion of adjunct and pronoun in (1, 2) as scrambling explains further effects
found in the pronominal AP which are well-known from scrambling:
(3) der [DP einer Frau] [Adv immer] treue Max
the women-DAT always faithful Max
(4) der [Adv immer] [DP einer Frau] treue Max
the always a woman faithful Max
With normal intonation, the preferred reading of (3) is that Max would be always faithful to
any generic woman. In (4), on the contrary, Max is always faithful to a specific woman. The
effect becomes even more distinct when the attributive head is a participle:
(5) der [DP einem Feuerwehrmann] [Adv immer] helfende Mann
the a fireman-DAT always helping man
(6) der [Adv immer] [DP einem Feuerwehrmann] helfende Mann
the always a fireman-DAT helping man
The man is helping any generic fireman in (5) but a specific fireman in (6). We will show that
Givenness, theme-rheme and focus interpretations seem to parallel the sentence level, too.
Furthermore, the observations will be carried over to relevant Code-Switching data and will
be explained by a sentential analysis of prenominal attributes in German.
Thus, if syntactic structures (CPs) show properties recurring in their substructures (e.g. DPs,
and, in turn, APs) a fractal system displaying simple and robust principles seems at hand. It
would not seem very plausible for such a system to arise easily from the infinitely variable
contingencies implied in linguistic relativism. The fractal nature of linguistic structures might
hence be taken as subtle evidence for a universalist position.