Linguistic Cycles: Introduction

1
Linguistic Cycles Introduction

• Elly van Gelderen
• 19 September 2007 IHR cluster

2
Cycles

• Negative (neg)
• neg indefinite/adverb gt neg particle gt (neg
  particle)
• Definiteness
• demonstrative gt definite article gt
  Case/non-generic gt class marker
• Agreement
• emphatic gt pronoun gt agreement
• Auxiliary
• A/P gt M gt T gt C
• Clausal
• pronoun gt complementizer
• PP/Adv gt Topic gt C

3
One Macroparameter à la Baker? a Macro-Cycle or
Micro-Cycles?

• Synthetic Analytic/isolating

4
Background on the Cycle/Spiral

• de Condillac, Tooke, A.W. von Schlegel, von
  Humboldt, Bopp
• more recently Tauli 1958 and Hodge 1970
• Grammaticalization literature
• word gt clitic gt affix gt 0
• (from Hopper Traugott 2003)
• Formal approaches

5
Cognitive Economy (or UG) principles

• help the learner, e.g
• Phrase gt head (minimize structure)
• Avoid too much movement
• XP
• Spec X'
• X YP
• Y

6
The Subject Cycle

• (1) demonstrative gt third person pron gt clitic gt
  agrmnt
• (2) oblique gt emphatic gt first/second pron gt
  clitic gt agrmnt
• Basque verbal prefixes n-, g-, z- pronouns ni
  I, gu we, and zu you.
• Pama-Nyungan, inflectional markers are derived
  from independent pronouns.
• Iroquoian and Uto-Aztecan agreement markers
  derive from Proto-Iroquoian pronouns
• Cree verbal markers ni-, ki-, o-/ø pronouns
  niya, kiya, wiya.

7
Subject vs Agreement

• Theta XP/X fixed lang
• Full pron yes XP no Hindi/Urdu, Japanese
• Head pron yes X no French, (English)
• Agrmnt PAL yes X yes Arabic, Navajo
• Agreement no X yes Hindi/Urdu, English

8
English in transition

• (a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position,
  
• (d) doubling, (e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code
  switching
• Coordination (and Case)
• (1) Kitty and me were to spend the day.
• (2) while he and she went across the hall.
• Position
• (3) Shes very good, though I perhaps I shouldnt
  say so.
• (4) You maybe you've done it but have forgotten.
• (5) Me, I was flying economy, but the plane,
  was guzzling gas

9
Doubling and cliticization

• (1) Me, I've tucking had it with the small place.
• (2) Him, he ....
• (3) Her, she shouldnt do that (not attested
  in the BNC)
• (4) As for a dog, it should be happy.
• CSE-FAC
• uncliticized cliticized total
• I 2037 685 (25) 2722
• you 1176 162 (12.1) 1338
• he 128 19 (12.9) 147

10
Loss of V-movement and Code switching

• (5) What I'm go'n do?
• What am I going to do'
• (6) How she's doing?
• How is she doing
• (7) Hij went away Dutch-English CS
• (8) Die buren went away

11
Standard to Colloquial French

• (a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position,
  (d) doubling, (e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code
  switching
• (1) et c'est elle qui a eu la place.
• and it was her who has had the place
• (2) Je et tu ...
• (3) je lis et ecris
• (4) Moi, jai pas vu ça.
• (5) Et toi, tu aimes le rap?
• (6) on voit que lui il n'apprécie pas tellement
  la politique
• one sees that him he not-appreciates not so the
  politics (LTSN corpus, p. 15-466)

12
More doubling, loss of V-movement and code
switching

• (1) une omelette elle est comme ça Swiss Spoken
• an omelette she is like this
• (2) c'est que chacun il a sa manière de ...
  Swiss Spoken
• it is that everyone he has his way of
• (Fonseca-Greber 2000 335 338).
• (3) Alors pourquoi moi aussi je n'aurais pas le
  droit d'enfumer les autres quelques minutes
  dans un bar?
• Then why me also I not-have not the right to
  fill-with-smoke the others some minutes in a bar
• (4) tu vas où Colloquial French
• 2S go where
• (5) nta tu vas travailler Arabic-French
• you you go work
• (from Bentahila and Davies 1983 313).

13
French

• Old French Modern French
• Emph Regular Emph Regular
• Subject tu zero toi tu
• Oblique toi te toi te
• (from Harris 1978)

14
Source of renewals emphatic

• (1) añi añ s-babigi ñeok
• I 1S-IMPF slowly speak-IMPF
• I was speaking slowly. (Zepeda 1983)
• (2) shí éiyá Elly yinishyé
• I TOP Elly 1S-called
• I am called Elly'.

15
Italian

• Venice
• (1) Ti te magni sempre
• you you eat always
• (2) Nissun (el) magna
• Nobody he eats (both from Poletto 2004)
• Trentino
• (3) Nisun l'ha dit niente
• nobody he-has said nothing
• Nobody said anything'
• (4) Tut l'è capita de not
• everything it-has happened at night
• (both from Brandi Cordin 1989118)

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Why does person start the cycle?

• Definiteness Hierarchy
• 1/2 gt 3 gt definite gt indefinite/quantifier
• Another instance Mexican Spanish, overt
  Subject 1sg 24.4
• 2sg 12.5
• 3sg 8.2 (Lopez, 2007)
• Poletto (2000) SCL replaces features on a verb
  different positions.
• Or external/pragmatic?

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Subject Cycle

• TP TP (HPP)
• DP T DP T
• pron T VP pron pron-T VP
• Urdu/Hindi, Japanese Coll French, CVC
• TP
• DP T (LMP)
• pron pron-T VP
• Navajo, Spanish, Arabic

18
Negatives
19
Two Negative Cycles

• I Indefinite phrase gt negative Jespersens
  Cycle
• Negation weakens and is renewed. For instance
• (1) I cant do that gt
• (2) I cant see nothing
• II Verb gt negative
• (3) is-i ba-d-o
• she-NOM disappear-PF-PST
• She disappeared' (Binyam 2007 7).
• (4) is-i dana ush-u-wa-nni-ko
• she-NOM beer drink-PRES-not_exist-3FS-FOC
• She does (will) not drink beer. (Binyam 2007
  9).

20
Negative Cycle in Old English450-1150 CE

• a. no/ne early Old English
• b. ne (na wiht/not) after 900, esp S
• c. (ne) not after 1350
• d. not gt -not/-nt after 1400

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• Old English
• (1) Men ne cunnon secgan to soðe ... hwa
• Man not could tell to truth ... who
• No man can tell for certain ... who'.
• (2) Næron 3e noht æmetti3e, ðeah ge wel ne dyden
• not-were you not unoccupied. though you well not
  did
• You were not unoccupied, though you did not do
  well'.

22
Negative Concord is related

• (1) ænig monn ne mæg tuæm hlaferdum hera
• any man not may two lords serve (Northumbrian
  c950)
• (2) ne mæg ænig twæm godum ðeowigan
• not may any two gods serve (Mercian C10)
• (3) Ne mæg nan man twam hlafordum þeowian
• not may no man two lords serve (Corpus c1000)
• (4) Ne mayg nam man twam hlaferden þeowian not
  may no man two lords serve (Hatton c1150)
• Matthew 6.24

23
Indefinites gt Negatives in Scandinavian

• (1) er-at maðr svá góðr at galli né fylgi,
• is-NEG man so good that blemishes not belong
• né svá illr, at einugi dugi
• nor so bad that nothing is-fit-for
• Nobody is so good that he doesn't have faults
  nor so bad that he is not good for anything'
  (Hávamál, 133).
• (2) Þat mæli ek eigi
• that say-1S I not, I am not saying that'
  (Njalssaga, 219)
• Changes
• ne gt zero
• eigi gtikke gt ke

24
Weakening and Renewalin Modern Norwegian

• (3) Trøtt...jeg? Ha'kke tid
• tired ... me? have-not time,
• Me, tired? I don't have the time'. (website)
• (4) for jeg merket ikke aldri at noen hadde
  kjærestebesøk
• because I noticed not ever that someone had
  visitors (website)

25
The verbal negative cycle

• (1) wo mei you shu Chinese
• I not be book
• I don't have a book'.
• (2) Yao Shun ji mo ... Old Chinese
• Yao Shun since died
• Since Yao and Shun died, ...'
• (Mengzi, Tengwengong B, from Lin 2002 5)
• (3) yu de wang ren mei kunan, ... Early Ch
• wish PRT died person not-be suffering
• If you wish that the deceased one has no
  suffering, ...'
• (Dunhuang Bianwen, from Lin 2002 5-6).

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from V gt ASP

• Early Mandarin
• (1) dayi ye mei you chuan, jiu zou le chulai
• coat even not wear, then walk PF out
• He didn't even put on his coat and walked out'
  .
• Mei(you) is still aspectually marked since it
  marks bounded events unlike bu in Modern Chinese
• (2) wo bu jide ta
• I not remember he
• I don't remember him'
• (Li Thompson 1981 415).

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Yes/No markers

• (1) ta chang qu bu
• he often go not
• Does he go often?'
• (2) hufei kan-wan-le nei-ben shu meiyou
• Hufei read-finish-PERF that-CL book not
• Has Hufei finished the book?'
• (Cheng et al. 1996 43 41)

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Uralic languages

• The origin of the negative auxiliary "may well
  be related to the verb is' (i-)" (Simoncsics
  1998 594) and more precisely to a negative
  copula (Honti 1997 173).
• Southern Sami
• (1) Idtjim (manne) daejrieh
• NEG-PST-1S (I) know
• I didn't know (from Bergsland 1994 44).

29
Renewal N. Sami and Finnish

• (1) In leat goassege dahkan dan N. Sami
• NEG-S-1 be never do-PART it-ACC
• I have never done that' (Trosterud p.c.).
• (2) En ole koskaan maistanut sellaisia leipiä
• NEG have never tasted such bread
• I have never tasted such bread' (from Sollid
  2002).
• (3) e-i-kö Pekka ole kaupungi-ssa
• NEG-3S-Q P. be-PRES town-INE
• Isn't Pekka in town?' (Brattico
  Huhmarniemi 2006).

30
Arabic, Berber, and Amharic

• (1) lam yuhibba Zayd ?al qiraa St. Arabic
• NEG-PST 3MS-like Zayd the reading
• Zayd did not like reading' (Shlonsky 1997 95)
• (2) Omar ma-kteb-sh l-bra Mor. Arabic
• Omar NEG-write.PST.3M-NEG the-letter
• Omar didnt write the letter'. (Benmamoun
  2000 81)
• (3) ur ssex (sha) Tamazight Berber
• NEG drink-Perf.1S NEG
• I dont drink
• (4) ur kshimegh (ara) Taqbaylit
• NEG entered.past.1S NEG
• I didnt enter'. (Ouali 2003)

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Cycle

• Berber ur/wer and Arabic la are related and older
  (Lipinski 1997455)
• The renewed ma lt what
• and -sh lt shay'un thing'.
• and ara etc lt thing

32
The Linguistic Cycle, e.g. the Negative Cycle

• HPP
• XP
• Spec X'
• na wiht X YP
• not gt nt
• Late Merge

33
English relatives in OE and ME

• OE se þe gt þe or þæt
• (1) scyldwiga se þe wel þenceþ
• shield-fighter the that well thinks/judges
• (Every sharp) shield fighter, who judges well'
  (Beowulf 287-9).
• (2) as theo the duden with Godd al thet ha
  walden.
• as those who did with God all that they
  wanted.
• (Ancr. R. III 492)

34
New relatives

• (1) a laide de Dieu notre Seigneur, Qui vous
  douit bonne vie et longue.
• With the help of God, our Lord, who gives us
  a good and long life' (Bekynton, from Rydén, p.
  131).
• (2) be the grace of God, who haue yow in kepyng
• by the grace of God, who keeps you' (Paston
  Letters 410).

35
Wh-cycle

• a. CP b. CP
• þat C' (SIP) C (HPP)
• se/þam C TP C TP
• (þe/þat) ? that
• ?
• c. CP
• wh- C'
• C TP
• renewal that ...

36
From P gt C

• PP CP
• P DP gt C TP
• after after
• u-phi 3S (u-phi)
• ACC uACC
• In English, no phi, but Germanic C-agreement.

37
Demonstratives

• (1) demonstrative/adverb gt definite article gt
  Case/non-generic gt class marker gt 0
• (2) gife to þa munecas of þe mynstre
• give to the monks of the abbey (Chron. E 656)
• (3) To frowne vpon th'enrag'd Northumberland
  (2Henry4, Shakespeare)
• (4) Oh they used to be ever so funny houses you
  know and in them days They used to have big
  windows, but they used to a all be them there
  little tiny ones like that. (BNC - FYD 72)

38
DP Cycle

• a. DP b. DP
• dem D' ? D' (HPP)
• D NP D NP
• art N
• ? ?
• c. DP
• D'
• D NP
• N
• renewal

39
Perfective aspect

• Cycle
• (1) adverb gt affix gt 0
• One stage
• (2)a. Elizabeth's accession allowed him to
  receive back his wife (BNC-GTB938)
• b. a husband who changed his mind to receive his
  wife back without ceremony (BNC-HTX2122).
• - Pattern (a) has become more frequent in the
  recent period (Davies 2005), even with definite
  nominals
• In the 100-million British National Corpus,
  receive occurs nine times in constructions such
  as (2a) and four times in constructions such as
  (2b) (twice with a pronoun and twice with a DP)
• - The use of pronominal objects, typical for the
  first order, with these verbs has gone down too.

40
Other such adverbs

• evaporate out boost up
• dissipate away issue out
• spend down order up (from the library)
• receive in offer up

41
Aspect Cycle

• a. ASPP b. ASPP
• ASP ASP'
• ASP VP ? ASP VP
• up V AP up ...
• up
• ? ?
• c. ASPP
• ASP'
• ASP VP
• V AP
• up

42
Economy Principles, e.g. van Gelderen 2004

• Head Preference Principle (HPP)
• Be a head, rather than a phrase.
• Late Merge Principle (LMP)
• Merge as late as possible.
• Specifier Incorporation (SIP)
• Be incorporated if you are a phrase.
• Null hypothesis of language acquisition
  (Faarlund 2005)
• A string is a word with lexical content.
• UG Principles guidance to the child (in
  acquisition) and the adult (in the derivation)

43
Late Minimalism and Features

• Architecture
• Syntax is inert
• All is variation in the lexicon
• Approaching UG from below
• Computational Efficiency SM and CI interface
• Features
• uninterpretable unvalued in the lexicon
  (Chomsky 2006 12)
• probes value them removed before CI transfer

44
Feature Economy uF as SM perfection iF as CI
perfection

• Economy of Features (at Sensory Motor interface)
• Minimize the interpretable features in the
  derivation
• Spec gt Head gt zero
• semantic gt interpretable gt uninterpretable (ph
  i on N) (uphi on T)
• Cycle goes from (a) to (b) to (a)
• a) Movement links two positions and is thereby
  economical (synthetic) uninterpretable/EPP
  PHON Economy
• b) Avoid syncretism Iconicity is economical
  (analytic) semantic and interpretable features
  SEM Economy

45
and

• a. DP gt b. DP
• that/those D' D'
• u-phi D NP D NP
• i-loc N the N
• phi u-phi phi

46
From V gt AUX

• VP TP
• V DP gt T VP
• wolde uCASE would V DP
• ACC phi uphi
• uphi
• later loss of uphi

47
Renewal at the end of the cycle

• Newmeyer 2006 notes that some grammaticalizations
  from noun/verb to affix can take as little as
  1000 years, and wonders how there can be anything
  left to grammaticalize if this is the right
  scenario.
• Late Merge (Feature Economy), however, provides
  an answer for what the source of the
  replenishments are, namely lexical elements from
  lower in the tree. There are also borrowings and
  creative inventions through SIP.
• The Economy Principles do not provide a reason
  why certain languages/societies are more
  conservative than others, e.g. why the split
  infinitive has encountered such opposition by
  prescriptivists, and has kept to from
  grammaticalizing more.

48
Internal and External Change

• Jespersen "the correct inference can only be
  that the tendency towards ease may be at work in
  some cases, though not in all, because there are
  other forces which may at times neutralize it or
  prove stronger than it".
• Von der Gabelentz (1891/1901 251/256)
  "Deutlichkeit" ('clarity') and "Bequemlichkeit"
  ('comfort').
• Chomsky (2006 9) The conflict between
  computational efficiency and ease of
  communication appears to be resolved,
  universally, in favor of computational efficiency
  to satisfy the semantic (CI) interface, lending
  further support to speculations about its primacy
  in language design.

49
Feature Economy and the Subject Cycle

• emphatic gt personal gt agreement
• i-phi i-phi u-phi
• i-Case uCase

50
The loss of polysynthesis as a cycle?

• Old English
• Warlpiri
• Some Athabaskan

51
Pronominal Argument Languages, e.g. Navajo

• (a) optionality of nominals and sentences with
  more than one nominal are rare. Therefore
  nominals are adjuncts, sometimes with a different
  case system (e.g. Jelinek 1989)
• (1) bínabinishtin
• b-í-na-bi-ni-sh-tin
• 3-against-around-3-Q-1S-handle-IMPF
• I teach it to him' (YM 1987 223)
• (2) (Diné bizaad) yíníshta'
• Navajo language 1-study
• I am studying Navajo'.

52
(b) Absence of anaphors and non-referential
quantified DPs and (c) minimal embedding

• (1) má'ii altso dibé baayijah
• coyote all sheep 3-3-ran-away
• The sheep ran away from all the coyotes' or
• All the sheep ran away from the coyotes'.
• (Jelinek 2001 18).
• (2) honeesná-nígíí yoodlá 3.win-NOM
  3.believe
• He believes he won' or
• he believes the winner' (Willie 1991 178).

53
Loss of PAL-hood Warlpiri gt Dyirbal

• PAs in Warlpiri, marked on AUX
• (1) ngajulu-rlu ka-rna-ngku nyuntu-0 nya-n
• I-ERG PRES-1NOM-2ACC you-ABS see-Non.PST
• I see you' (Jelinek 1983 80 Hale 1973 328)
• Dyirbal marks the dependents
• (2) yabu numa-?gu bura-n
• mother-ABS father-ERG saw
• Father saw mother' (Jelinek 1987 102).

54
Old English gt Middle English

• Pro-drop and topics
• (1) ær ðon ðe hona creawa ðriga mec onsæcest
• before that that rooster crows thrice me-ACC
  deny-2S
• You will deny me three times before the rooster
  crows' (Lindisfarne Gospel, Matthew 26.75).
• (2) As for the secunde þinge wiche longith to a
  religious tree þat is plantid in religioun is
  watering

55
No clear reflexives/quantifiers

• (1) Ic on earde bad ... ne me swor fela
• I on earth was-around ... not me-DAT swore
  wrong (Beowulf 2736-8)
• (2) Ealle we sind gebroðra ... and we ealle
  cweðað
• All we are brothers ... and we all say
• (Aelfric Hom I 54.8, from Carlson 1978)

56
So far Subject Cycle HPP and LMP

• TP TP (HPP)
• DP T DP T
• pron T VP pron pron-T VP
• Urdu/Hindi, Japanese Coll French, CVC
• TP
• DP T (LMP)
• pron pron-T VP
• Navajo, Spanish, Arabic

57
The challenge the dual nature of N and V need
for /- interpretable f

• DP Theta gt discourse
• (position gt morphology)
• V Theta and TMA
• Cycle goes from (a) to (b) to (a)
• a) Movement links two positions and is thereby
  economical (synthetic) uninterpretable/EPP
• b) Avoid syncretism Iconicity is economical
  (analytic) semantic and interpretable features

58
Conclusions

• description of cyclical changes as Economy
• Negative, Demonstrative, (Agreement), and
  Perfective Cycles
• Clause marking through
• wh
• P
• VP adverb
• Reason
• HPP and LMP, or
• Semantic features are reanalyzed as grammatical
• Grammaticalization (SM Economy) vs renewal(CI
  Economy)