Unmarked Locatives in Western Armenian: A Linguistic Analysis
Explore the phenomenon of Unmarked Locatives in Standard Western Armenian, discussing the external and internal structure, syntactic distribution, and the absence of overt marking. Examples highlight the unique features and contrast with Standard Eastern Armenian.
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Unmarked Locatives in Western Armenian Peter Ara Guekguezian, University of Rochester peter.guekguezian@rochester.edu XI International Conference of Armenian Linguistics Yerevan, AM 4 October 2017
Overview of Talk Unmarked Locatives: Data External Structure of Unmarked Locatives Internal Structure of Unmarked Locatives Next Steps
Unmarked Locatives (UL) Standard Western Armenian (= SWA): typologically rare pattern of Unmarked Locatives (= UL) UL: noun phrase denoting location but not marked by postposition or overt case ending Nominative and accusative case: also not overt Apparent form/meaning mismatch Form: not marked by overt morphology Meaning: location at/in which predicate occurs
UL: Main Questions and Issues External Structure: Where is UL allowed in the clause? Limited syntactic distribution: UL reading positionally determined Proposal: Adjunct to Verb Phrase (VP) Internal Structure: What is allowed inside a UL phrase? Cannot occur with certain modifiers Proposal: No structure below Determiner Phrase (DP-)level
UL: Phenomenon No overt marking of UL (1) - Bedros- Bedros-DEF Armenia Bedros is in Armenia Contrast with Standard Eastern Armenian (SEA) Location marked by overt Locative Case /-um/ (2) - - Petros- Hayastan-um Petros-DEF Armenia-LOC Hayasdan e be.3S.PRES e be.3S.PRES
UL: Phenomenon UL: Both Proper (3) and Common (4) Nouns (3) - Knar- Glendale Knar-DEF Glendale Knar is in Glendale e be.3S.PRES - Yevnige-n Yevnige-DEFschool Yevnige will be at school t brots - bid FUT (4) ll-a be-3S.PRES
UL: Phenomenon UL: with copula / llal/ (3-4) and lexical verb (5-6) (5) - - Bedros- dun- Bedros-DEF house-DEF Bedros sleeps at home - g -k nan-a INDIC-sleep-3S.PRES - Hovanes- Hovanes-DEF Hovanes is eating in the city - ka ak- city-DEF - g-ud-e INDIC-eat-3S.PRES (6)
External Structure: Clausal Syntax
Clausal Syntax of SWA Basic clausal syntax of SWA: (Sigler 1996) SOV order: information-structure neutral Other orders possible due to topic and focus movement Bare object (no article or plural suffix) left-adjacent to verb = inside VP Pseudo-incorporation? (Massam 2001) Subject = specifier of TP TP = Tense Phrase; VP = Verb Phrase
Clausal Syntax of SWA (7) [ - Armen- Armen-DEF Armen ate bread [ - ]VP]TP hats ger-av bread eat-3S.AOR TP qp DPSubj g Armen qp T qp VP T DPObj g V g hats gerav
UL Clausal Syntax UL: positionally determined UL only possible in certain linear positions UL can appear between subject and bare object: (8) - - Anahid- t brots- Anahid-DEF school-DEF piano Anahid plays the piano at school ta nag - g -n vak-e INDIC-play-3S.PRES
UL Clausal Syntax UL can appear after verb (9) - Anahid- - g -n vak-e - t brots- ta nag
UL Clausal Syntax However, UL cannot appear between bare object and verb (10) (10) * - *Anahid- ta nag - t brots- - g -n vak-e Bare objects = VP-internal (10) suggests UL not VP-internal
UL Clausal Syntax UL cannot precede the subject, unless for reasons of information structure (11) Topic material can move to left edge, needs specific intonation (11) * - - *t brots- Anahid- ta nag - g -n vak-e Subject in TP (11) suggests UL below TP
UL Clausal Syntax Linear Position Availability Possible Syntactic Position Between Subject + Bare Object (8) VP-adjunct After Verb (9) VP-adjunct or TP-adjunct Between Bare Object + Verb (10) VP-internal Before Subject (11) TP-adjunct UL can be VP-adjunct (8) but not TP-adjunct (11) (9) must be VP, not TP-adjunct Adjunct: merges with a phrase without changing it Other VP-adjuncts: manner adverbs, instrumental nouns
UL = VP Adjunct Proposal: UL = VP Adjunct (12) TP [ VP VP Anahid Anahid [ [ g n vake plays ] ] ] (t brots ) (school) ta nag piano (t brots ) (school)
UL = VP Adjunct Proposal: UL = VP Adjunct TP qp VP wo (t brots ) DP ta nag g n vake DP Anahid qgp DP g T g T VP DP ei g V (t brots ) g g
UL = VP Adjunct VP Ellipsis possible with UL Lower than subject (TP), can be elided with VP More evidence for VP-adjunct position (13) - - Knar- yege etsi-n e Knar-DEF church-DEF be.3S and Yevnige-DEF Knar is at church, and Yevnige too yev Yevnige-n - al too
Summary: External Structure UL reading positionally determined Allowed: between subject & bare object (8), after verb (9) Not allowed: between bare object & verb (10), before subject (11) Proposal: UL = VP adjunct Further evidence: VP ellipsis
Internal Structure: Nominal Syntax
Nominal Syntax of SWA Basic nominal syntax of SWA (Donab dian 1993, Sigler 1996, cf. Bale and Khanjian 2014) Demonstrative Numeral Adjective Noun-Plural-Article Demonstrative + Definite article: DP Numeral, Plural suffix, Indefinite article: NumP = below DP Adjectives = AdjP, below DP DP = Determiner Phrase; NumP = Number Phrase
Nominal Syntax of SWA (14) [ ays yerek b zdig this three small these three small dogs [ - un -er dog -PL ] - - -DEF DP NumP ] Suffixes/enclitics may be heads or agreement markers
Nominal Syntax of SWA Dem ays yerek b zdig DP qp NumP qp NP qp D g D qp # g g Num - Num qp Adj g g N un -er g
UL Nominal Syntax UL reading lost if modified by adjective (15) (15) - #Armen- Armen-DEF Armen is the beautiful city NOT Armen is in the beautiful city ke etsig beautiful - ka ak-n city-DEF e be.3S.PRES Adjective = below DP
UL Nominal Syntax UL reading lost with indefinite article (16) (16) - #Armen- Armen-DEF Armen is a house NOT Armen is in the house / Armen is at home dun=m n home=INDEF e be.3S.PRES Indefinite article = below DP (Sigler 1996)
UL Nominal Syntax No UL reading with plural suffix (17) (17) - - *ye payr-ner- s (darper) ka ak-ner- g-abri-n brother-PL-1S different city-PL-DEF My brothers live in (different) cities ( ) - - - - INDIC-live-3P.PRES No alternative reading available with this predicate Plural suffix = below DP (Sigler 1996)
UL Nominal Syntax UL reading possible with demonstratives (18) and definite article (5-6, 8-9) (18) - - Armen- ayt yege etsi-n Armen-DEF that church-DEF Armen is at that church e be.3S.PRES Demonstratives + Definite article = in (or agreeing with) DP
UL Nominal Syntax Nominal Element UL Availability Position Adjective AdjP (below DP) Indefinite Article NumP (below DP) Plural NumP (below DP) Demonstrative DP Definite Article DP
UL = Nothing below DP Proposal: UL has no structure below DP (19) [ [ ayt *ke etsig yege etsi *-ner/*=m -n this beautiful church ] DP NumP/AdjP - / ] - -PL/=INDEF -DEF
Summary: Internal Structure UL only possible with certain modification UL allowed with DP-level material Demonstratives Definite article UL not allowed with material below DP Adjectives Indefinite article Plural suffix Proposal: UL = no structure below DP
Definite Article Definite article sometimes present in UL (20), sometimes not (21) (20) contrasts with non-UL, where proper nouns take definite article (20) - Knar- California Knar-DEF California Knar is in California e be.3S.PRES - Yevnige-n Yevnige-DEF mountain-DEF Yevnige is in the mountains - ler-n e be.3S.Pres (21)
Semantics UL do not refer to kinds (Carlson 1977) Subject not necessarily performing typical function at location (22-23) (22) - - Anahid- t brots-n e Anahid-DEF school-DEF be.3S.Pres Anahid is at school (not necessarily a student or teacher) (23) Hovanes- Hovanes-DEF Hovanes is in the hospital (not necessarily a patient or doctor) hivantanots hospital e be.3S.PRES
Pronominal Reference Pronouns referring back to unmarked locatives must be locative E.g., [hon] there or [ur] where (24), not [an] or [ink] s/he/it (25) (24) - Armen- Fresno e Armen-DEF Fresno be.3S there/where hot Armen is in Fresno. It is hot there / , where is it hot / *(hon/ur) dak e be.3S (25) - #Armen- Fresno Armen-DEF Fresno Armen is in Fresno. He is hot NOT It is hot e be.3S s/he/it / an/ink dak e hot be.3S
Summary of Proposal Unmarked Locatives in Standard Western Armenian Nominals interpreted as locative No overt marking with case or postposition External Structure = VP-Adjunct UL = Positionally determined Can occur (1) between subject and bare object, (2) after verb Cannot occur (3) before subject or (4) between bare object and verb Internal Structure = No heads/modification below DP UL reading lost with adjectives, indefinite article, plural suffix
References Bale, Alan and Khanjian, Hrayr. 2014. Syntactic complexity and competition: The singular-plural distinction in Western Armenian. Linguistic Inquiry 45:1, 1-26. Carlson, Greg. 1977. Reference to Kinds in English. PhD Dissertation, Umass Amherst. Donab dian, Ana d. 1993. Le pluriel en arm nien modern. Faits de langues, vol. 2. Paris. Guekguezian, Peter. 2017. Prosodic Recursion and Syntactic Cyclicity inside the Word. PhD Dissertation, University of Southern California. Massam, Diane. 2001. Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Nieuan. NLLT 19:1, 153-197. Sigler, Michele. 1996. Specificity and Agreement in Standard Western Armenian. PhD Dissertation, MIT.
