Order, Concord, and Constituency

M
1'
5 ;
LINGUISTIC MODELS
■
Order, Concc
and
Constituency
Gerald Gazdar
Ewan Klein
Geoffrey K. Pullum
Order, Concord
and
Constituency
Order, Concord
and
Constituency
Edited by
Gerald Gazdar
University of Sussex
Ewan Klein
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Geoffrey K. Pullum
University of California, Santa Cruz
1983
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For Ed Keenan
Table of Contents
Preface
,
Gerald Gaidar Ewan Klein, and Geoffrey K. Pullum
1. Introduction. 1
James McCloskey
2. A VP in a VSO language?. 9
Robert D. Borsley
3. A Welsh agreement process and the status of VP and S. 57
Susan Stucky
4. Verb phrase constituency and linear order in Makua. 75
Geoffrey Horrocks
5. The order of constituents in modern Greek. 95
Ronald Cann
6. Raising in Latin: a phrase structure analysis of the accusative
and infinitive. 113
Michael Flynn
7. A categorial theory of structure building. 139
Greville Corbett
8. Resolution rules: agreement in person, number, and gender .... 175
References . 207
Indices
Index of languages . 215
Index of names . 216
Index of topics. 218
Preface
The varied contributions to the present volume are drawn together by a

number of common methodological strands. They are concerned with esta¬
blishing language universals using a data base that is not restricted to Eng¬
lish or a couple of the major languages of Western Europe, but draws in
languages from Europe that rarely figure in general linguistic discussions
(such as the Celtic languages Irish and Welsh) and from elsewhere (e.g. the
Bantu language Makua and the Uto-Aztecan language Hopi). The approach¬
es to syntax used by the contributors are ‘concrete’, tying the syntactic
and, especially, the semantic analyses of sentences close to their surface
structures rather than to abstract deep structures. Yet this attachment
to a broad data base and to concrete syntax in no way diminishes the in¬
tent theoretical orientation of the contributions.
In the early 1970s, the Research Centre at King’s College, Cambridge,
sponsored a linguistics research project, whose Senior Research Fellow for
the duration of the project was Ed Keenan. In his work then and since, Ed
emphasized precisely these three strands: a broad data base with no ne¬
glect of supposedly ‘exotic’ languages, a concrete approach to syntax, yet
coupled with a high level of theoretical orientation. I was privileged to be
a Junior Research Fellow on that same research project, and it is surely
no accident that the three editors of the present volume also attended the
seminars that Ed organized. The volume’s dedication to Ed Keenan is thus
a fitting tribute to his influence on the progress of linguistics.
The contributions to the present volume vary considerably in scope
and content. But while those looking for a new dogma to preach may be
disappointed, the volume will interest all those who are concerned with
syntax as a vital area of ongoing investigation. It is a pleasure to be able
to present the volume to this audience.
Bernard Comrie Los Angeles, September 1982

*
\
Chapter 1
Introduction
Gerald Gazdar, Ewan Klein, and Geoffrey K. Pullum
1. INTRODUCTION
The chapters of this book each deal with one or more of a family of closely
related issues: verb agreement, the order of constituents, and the categorial
status of verb phrases and sentences.*
Although theoretically linked in this way, they focus on a typologically
diverse range of languages from the Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Austro-
nesian, and Uto-Aztecan families. Specifically, the book contains analyses
of Irish in chapter 2, Welsh in chapter 3, Makua in chapter 4, Greek in
chapter 5, Latin in chapter 6, Hopi, Malagasy, and English in chapter 7,
and various Bantu, Romance, and Slavonic languages in chapter 8.
In this introduction, we shall focus on some of the topics that unite
subsets of the seven chapters that follow, and in doing so we shall attempt
to outline what seem to us to be important open questions in contemporary
syntactic theory. We will not attempt to provide answers to these questions,
or to take sides on matters of controversy. Our role will be simply to set
the scene for the contributions that make up the remainder of the book.
Chapter 2, by James McCloskey, and chapter 3, by Robert D. Borsley,
deal with languages from the two branches of the Celtic family: Irish
(Goidelic) and Welsh (Brythonic), respectively. The importance of the
Celtic languages for current syntactic theory is considerable. The VSO
order of major sentence constituents that all the attested Celtic languages
share sets them apart from all the other Indo-European languages typo¬
logically — as far apart as the Indo-Iranian subfamily, which is characterized
by verb-final sentence structure - despite the fact that their speakers live
in areas of Britain, Eire, and France that are fully accessible to speakers
of non-VSO languages (e.g. English and French) outnumbering them by
about a hundred to one. There has been an increasing amount of work on
Celtic syntax in recent years, resulting in a useful body of linguistic
literature.1
One of the things that makes the study of VSO languages important
is that it appears at first glance as if there could be no VP constituent in
such languages, given the non-tangling condition on trees (see Wall 1972,
2 Introduction
148)2 and the fact that VP is assumed to contain V and 0 but not S
(i.e. verb and direct object but not subject NP). Other types of language
have also given rise to doubts about whether VP is a universally instantiated
syntactic category. OSV languages in principle have the same property as
VSO languages in that the subject intervenes between the verb and the
object (though virtually nothing is known about them; see Derbyshire
and Pullum 1981); SOV languages are commonly felt to offer less support
for the postulation of a VP constituent than SVO languages despite having
a constituent order compatible with the presence of a VP (see e.g. Hinds
1974); and languages with very free constituent order are often regarded
as offering little support for constituent structure at all (cf. below for
more discussion).
In the 1970’s, papers dealing with the status of VP’s in languages of
the types just referred to would have revolved around whether they could
be taken to support the postulation of NP VP deep structures, and hence
perhaps a universal base. But today, essentially no one believes that the
correct way to deal with surface constituent order is to devise sets of
transformations that can derive them from distinct underlying orders of a
desired type. The authors of this book share the conviction that this is
not the way to handle order and constituency phenomena.
McCloskey identifies a class of constituents in Irish that he labels,
pretheoretically, “progressive phrases”. He develops lengthy and detailed
argumentation to show that these phrases are, in fact, verb phrases. Susan
Stucky, in chapter 4, also argues for the existence of VP, not in a VSO
language but in a free constituent-order language. She gives indirect but
nonetheless persuasive arguments pointing to the existence ofVPinMakua,
a Bantu language with strikingly liberal constituent order.
Borsley simply assumes that Welsh has VP’s rather than arguing for this
position. The issue he addresses is whether VP and S are the same syntactic
category in the sense of having the same bar level in terms of X-bar syntax.
He argues that S and VP are in fact the same thing in Welsh, except for a
feature distinction: S is [+SUBJ] and VP is [-SUBJ], the feature [SUBJ]
dictating the presence or absence of an extra (subject) NP. This is a fairly
radical proposal, and one which raises a nest of issues in X-bar syntax
which have not been properly resolved. Thus one conclusion of McCloskey’s
chapter is that VP is the maximal projection of V, VP and S being distinct
both in terms of bar level and in terms of major category features. Geoffrey
Horrocks, in chapter 5, notes that in modern Greek, VP has the same lack
of ordering constraints with respect to its sisters as do NP and PP, while
S’s are rigidly final in their immediately dominating category. And Ronald
Cann (chapter 6) concludes his discussion of constituency in the so-called
“raising to object” construction in Latin by pointing out that collapsing
the Latin V introduction rules, in a manner that Borsley’s proposal would
Gerald Gazdar, Ewan Klein, and Geoffrey K. Pullum 3
make very natural, has the unfortunate consequences of getting the facts
about Latin verb subcategorization wrong. Cann also notes in passing that
an equation of VP with S is potentially problematic from a semantic point
of view. It clearly cannot be maintained given the semantic assumptions
made by Michael Flynn in chapter 7, for example.
There have been nearly as many different proposals concerning the
status of VP and S in X-bar syntax as there have been linguists who espouse
it. The following chart summarizes some of the positions that can be
found in the literature. (The labels at the heads of the columns are taken
to be standard informal parlance: S' for a clause complete with comple¬
mentizer, S for a clause without complementizer, and VP for the phrase
that is sister to the subject NP under S. Thus the “Predicate-Phrase” of
Chomsky (1965, 102) is VP in this sense. The linguists whose positions
we are summarizing do not necessarily employ the informal labels that
we attribute to them. For X-bar notations like “V” or “V"”, we have
uniformly substituted the more easily typed and read “V2”, etc.)
S' S VP
a. Chomsky (1970) S s V2
b. Bresnan (1976) V5 V4 V3
c. Jackendoff (1977) V3 V3 V2
d. Hornstein (1977) SI S V3
e. Koster (1978), van Riemsdijk (1978) V3 V2 VI
f. Gazdar (1981) V2 V2 VI
g. Borsley (1983) V2 V2 V2
h. Bresnan (1982) S2 SI V2
It is surprising how few of these proposals allow one to express certain

generalizations in bar level terms (although of course the theories in which
the proposals were embedded may have expressed the generalizations in
some other way). Take “topicalization” in English, for example: VP and
S' can usually topicalize, but S never can. This is shown in (2) where the
topicalized constituents are bracketed.
(2) a. They said they would achieve the quadruple somersault, and
[achieve it] they did.
b. That they achieved the quadruple somersault is surprising
enough, but [that they did it in front of a paying audience] I
can hardly believe.
c. *The dangers of attempting the quadruple somersault we are
well aware of, but [we will succeed] we are convinced that.
4 Introduction
Only position h allows this to be expressed directly. However, VP, S, and

S' all appear to be capable of occurring as complements in English (VP
to verbs like help in Please help tidy up, S to prepositions like because in
I did it because (*that) I love you, and S' to nouns like rumor in There
is a rumor that digital records interfere with muscle activity). If this is
the correct generalization, then only position/ allows it to be expressed in
bar terms. But if it is not correct, and if apparent complement occurrences
of S are really always instances of S', then again only position# draws the
correct distinctions.
Nevertheless, there are suggestive analogies between VP and S to be
found in languages other than Welsh. Stucky (1981) has argued that Makua
has the two topicalization rules shown in (3).
(3) a. S -> NP S/NP

b. VP^ NP VP/NP
And Gunji (1981) proposed, quite independently, that Japanese required

exactly this pair of rules. Under Borsley’s proposal, the two rules can be
collapsed rather naturally.
Furthermore, consider the relation in English between verb phrases
and sentences that begin with an auxiliary verb. One possible analysis
could be expressed, given Borsley’s proposal, as follows.3
(4) V2 [aSUBJ] -> V[AUX] V2[aSUBJ]
That is, either (i) a sentence or (ii) a VP may expand as an auxiliary verb
followed by (i) a sentence or (ii) a VP.
Borsley’s main argument for identifying VP and S hinges on what he
takes to be the methodological undesirability of collapsing syntactic
operations via the expedient of a numerical variable ranging over bar
level. It is not necessarily the case that such rule collapsing is to be
eschewed, however. It is interesting that Keenan (1980) and Dowty (1982)
have both proposed language-independent theories of passives which
achieve their elegance and generality through the use of numerical variables.
These accounts do not employ X-bar syntax; they distinguish verbal
categories by the number of NP arguments they need in order to form a
sentence. For instance, in Dowty’s analysis, a sentence, which needs no
such arguments, is analyzed as a VO; a verb phrase or simple intransitive
verb needs one NP argument, so it is a VI; transitive verbs or verb phrases
(“TVP’s”) need two NP arguments, hence V2; and ditransitive verbs or
verb phrases (“DTVP’s”) need three NP arguments so they count as V3.
This enables Dowty to state his generalized passive rule as follows:
(5) PASSIVE(Vn) = Vn-1 [+PAS]

Gerald Gaidar, Ewan Klein, and Geoffrey K. Pullum 5
This says that the passive of some verbal constituent is a verbal constituent
with one less NP argument place and one that is featurally marked for
passive. The range of values that n can take will vary from language to
language. For many dialects of English, n can only be 2, and thus the
English passive maps TVP into VP [+PAS]. But for Chichewa, for example,
n can be 2 or 3. This sort of approach offers an intriguing way of thinking
about the Welsh agreement facts described in Borsley’s paper, and one
which may turn out to be well worth pursuing.
Languages with very few apparent constraints on the order of con¬
stituents have become a topic of concern to linguists in recent years.
There have been two methodologically quite distinct approaches to such
languages. The one that has been best publicized is one that we shall call
the neo-empiricist approach because it apparently derives from a feeling
that hypotheses about how to handle order should spring directly out of
the way the data initially look to the investigator. The neo-empiricist
approach notes that there are languages which appear to allow virtually
any order of constituents, or even of words regardless of their constituent
membership, and proposes to account for this state of affairs by post¬
ulating for those languages a special type of grammar that allows all possible
orders and assigns no constituency; call this a grammar of type A. Since
languages like English do not allow such anarchy in their sentence structures,
they are assumed to have a quite distinct type of grammar, of type B,
which does assign sequence and constituency. Thus the neo-empiricists
end up with a gross typological dichotomy that stands in a one-to-one
correspondence with the crude observation that there are languages like
English with ordering restrictions and constituency and there are languages
such as those in the Pama-Nyungan family in Australia with scrambled
constituents and word order. The neo-empiricist approach is associated
primarily with Hale and his students at MIT. Type A grammars are the
“W-star” grammars of Hale (1981), and the languages they are proposed
for are termed “non-configurational.” Surprisingly, the neo-empiricist
approach is partially endorsed by both Bresnan (1982) and Chomsky
(1981), despite the hesitance expressed even by Hale (1981, Appendix)
about the viability of the W-star/X-bar distinction and his characterization
of his own earlier analysis of Warlpiri as “too extreme”.
The alternative approach is argued for in Pullum (1982). It is developed
in some detail for two very different languages by Stucky(1981) andGunji
(1981, 1982). This approach denies the typological bifurcation of lang¬
uages entailed by neo-empiricist descriptions. Instead, it maintains that
languages differ only in the particular rules they employ, not in the type
of rule. Consider, as an abstract example, a language having the following
grammar.
6 Introduction
(6) i. a. S -> NP1, VP

b. VP-> V, NP2,VP
ii. a. V < NP
b. NP < VP
This is a phrase structure grammar expressed in the ID/LP format ofGazdar

and Pullum (1981) and Pullum (1982). (See chapter 5 for some discussion
and exemplification). The integers on the categories are simply to distinguish
them typographically for ease of reference here — they are not part of the
grammar. The grammar in (6) permits exactly one order of constituents,
namely that shown in (7).
(7) NP1 V NP2 VP
Now consider the grammar shown in (8).
(8) i. a. S -> NP1, VP

b. VP-* V, NP2, VP
ii. NP < VP
This is identical to the grammar in (6) except that it lacks the linear
precedence statement (6.ii.a). This grammar induces the following three
orders.
(9) a. NP1 V NP2 VP

b. NP1 NP2 V VP
c. NP1 NP2 VP V
If we now simplify the grammar again by dropping the remaining linear

precedence rule, then all the following orders get induced.
(10) a. NP1 V NP2 VP

b. NP1 NP2 V VP
c. NP1 NP2 VP V
d. V NP2 VP NP1
e. NP2 V VP NP1
f. NP2 VP V NP1
g- NP1 V VP NP2
h. NP1 VP V NP2
i. NP1 VP NP2 V
j- V VP NP2 NP1
k. VP V NP2 NP1
1. VP NP2 V NP1
Gerald Gazdar, Ewan Klein, and Geoffrey K. Pullum 7
Thus very small changes to the stock of rules in the grammar can make
rather large changes to the set of permissible orders.
The chapters by Horrocks and Stucky exemplify this more deductive
approach to capturing parochial ordering facts, as does that of Flynn,
from a rather different perspective. Flynn argues that ordering constraints
are best captured, not by reference to syntactic primitives like bar level
or major category type, but instead by reference to the semantically driven
internal structure of the categories of a categorial grammer. In doing so,
he follows suggestions by Venneman (e.g. 1973) and others, but the
principles he proposes make reference to much more subtle semantic
properties than a simple distinction between functions and arguments.
There are conceptual links here with recent attempts by Lapointe (1980)
and Sag and Klein (1982) to explain agreement phenomena by reference
to semantic properties of the constituents that agree.
Agreement is an issue that plays an important role in a number of
the chapters in this book. Stucky and Horrocks show that the existence of
object agreement in languages like Makua and Greek indicates the need
for verbal agreement features to have internal structure, an observation
that has important consequences for the theory of syntactic categories
since it suggests that the familiar phonological model of a segment as a set
of binary features does not carry over to the syntactic domain. Some of
the ramifications of this are explored in Gazdar and Pullum (1982).
Borsley and Stucky both make crucial use of fairly complex patterns
of agreement facts in their argumentation for particular syntactic analyses:
Borsley in his argument for the identification of S and VP, and Stucky in
her arguments for (a) the existence of a VP in Makua, and (b) the avail¬
ability of a topicalization structure within that VP.
Once agreement is confronted seriously as a syntactic phenomenon in
the context of a grammar that includes coordination in its scope, an
important but neglected problem emerges. It can be simply expressed:
given two noun phrases NP1 and NP2 which are conjoined to form a
noun phrase NP3, what principles decide the person, number, and gender
of NP3 on the basis of the person, number, and gender of NP1 and NP2?
Chapter 8, by Greville Corbett, is exclusively devoted to this problem.
Corbett shows that the principles governing the person and number
resolution are highly systematic, despite the fact that their implementation
can vary somewhat from language to language. Furthermore, these
principles are rather obviously bound up with the semantics of person and
number. He further shows that gender resolution behaves rather differently,
showing much greater diversity across languages.
Corbett does not embed his analysis within the context of a formal
theory of agreement features, but his generalizations are expressed so
precisely that they pose both a challenge and an invitation to any such
8 Introduction
theory. That, indeed, is intended to be the hallmark of the contributions

we have collected together in this book. They each present problematic
data from languages that differ from English in interesting ways, and
attempt to analyse the data in ways that offer various challenges and
invitations to any universal syntactic theory. The reason we have drawn
them together is that we believe each one introduces considerations that
present theories would profit from confronting and which future theories
would do well not to overlook.
FOOTNOTES
*The editors wish to thank the contributing authors in this volume for their prompt¬
ness in getting their manuscripts in and their responsiveness to suggested revisions,
and we are grateful to Aaron Sloman for the use of his indexing program.
Karen Wallace of the Syntax Research Center, University of California, Santa Cruz
played an invaluable role as research assistant while the work of preparing this
volume was going on, and is also warmly thanked. Financial support for the editors
was provided in part by the National Science Foundation (grant BNS 81-02406 to
Stanford University).
1. In addition to published works referred to by the authors in this volume, we
would cite the interesting recent work of Harlow (1982) on Welsh and Sells (1982)
on Irish.
2. Cf. McCawley (1982) for arguments that the non-tangling condition really
ought to be dropped.
3. The gist of this analysis is due to Alan Prince, in conversation.
Chapter 2
A VP in a VSO language?
James McCloskev
0. INTRODUCTION*
One question which has dominated research on the syntax of VSO languages
is the question of whether or not their VSO order should be derived trans¬
formationally from a structure like that of (1), containing a VP constituent:1
(1) S
V np2
Given the definitions of grammatical relations proposed in Chomsky

(1965), and given the availability of transformations as a descriptive device,
this is a natural question to ask. It was raised by Anderson and Chung
(1977) for a number of VSO languages including Breton.2 Emonds (1980)
argues in very general terms for such an analysis for VSO languages in
general. Within the terms of the government binding theory (Chomsky
(1981a, 1981b)), an analysis of VSO languages along these lines seems also
to be required. But it is not only within theoretical frameworks that admit
transformations as a descriptive device that this question can be raised.
Flat VP-less clause-structure can also be analyzed by means of a VP-
constituent in the version of context free phrase structure grammar which
was developed originally by Gazdar (1981,1982). Gazdar and Sag (1981),
building in part on earlier work of Dowty (1978), make specific proposals
along these lines for Irish and Breton.
The question I want to discuss in this chapter is not exactly the question
that has been posed in these papers — the question, that is, of whether or
not VSO order in clauses should be derived in some sense or other, from
a structure containing a VP. Rather I want to raise the distinct, though
clearly related, question of whether or not VSO languages can have surface
VP’s. I will maintain that they can, no matter how one chooses to analyse
the VSO order of clauses. What I will do is examine a particular phrase-
10 A VP in VSO language?
type in Irish - that involved in the progressive construction - and attempt

to demonstrate that it is most plausibly analyzed as a surface VP — as a
constituent, that is, that has V as its head, that includes all the arguments
of V except its subject, and includes also perhaps certain classes of adverb.
The chapter is organized as follows. In the first section, it is demon¬
strated that the VSO character of Irish is beyond question and therefore
that the question of whether or not it can have a VP is of some interest.
In section 2, some basic facts are presented about the internal structure
and distribution of the phrase-type in question. Finally in section 3, an
attempt is made to establish the syntactic character of the phrase-type,
given the general framework of assumptions that characterizes the X-bar
theory of phrase structure (Chomsky (1970), Bresnan (1976, 1982),
Hornstein (1977), Jackendoff (1977)).
1. IRISH AS A VSO LANGUAGE
Irish is as good an example of a VSO language as one could hope to find.

The unmarked order of elements in finite clauses of all kinds is VSOX,
where X covers prepositional phrases, adverbials of various kinds and so on:
(2) Thug me ull don ghasur sin inne

gave I an-apple to-that-boy yesterday
T gave that boy an apple yesterday.’
The order of objects with respect to other elements of the clause is a little
freer than is that of subjects. Under a variety of circumstances, objects
may appear to the right of prepositional phrases. Clausal objects, for
instance, and ‘heavy’ NP objects normally appear clause-finally:
(3) Duirt se liom inne go raibh se tinn

said he with-me yesterday that he was ill
‘He said to me yesterday that he was ill.’
(4) D’iarr se orm anuraidh adhul go Meiricea

asked he on-me last-year go(-fin) to America
‘He asked me last year to go to America.’
(5) Thug se dom gluaistean mdr ban a fuair se i Meiricea

gave he to-me car big white that he got in America
‘He gave me a big white car that he got in America.’
James McCloskev
More surprisingly perhaps, pronominal objects normally appear clause-

fin ally:
(6) Thug se dom inne e

gave he to-me yesterday it
‘He gave it to me yesterday.’
The subject has less freedom with respect to its ordering possibilities. It
almost always occurs immediately to the right of its verb (as in examples
(2)—(6)). There is a small group of parenthetical elements which may
intervene between the verb and its subject, as in (7), but constituents of
the clause proper may not.
(7) a. Tamaise go direach piochdn ionnam (CO 20)

is indeed hoarseness in-me
T am indeed hoarse.’
(UBh 153)
b. Ta ar nddigh saighdiuiri ar a’ bhealach on Chlochan Ghlas
are of-course soldiers on the road from Chlochan Glas.
‘There are, of course, soldiers on the road from Chlochan Glas.’
I know of two conditions under which a subject may be postposed to clause-

final position. One of the interesting differences between Irish and English
is that in Irish the rule of Heavy NP Shift may apply to subjects. It applies
to subjects less freely than it does to objects (cf. (5)), but nevertheless it
does apply:
(8) a. Ta againn anocht mar sin sioc sneachta agus galaigaoithe

is at-us tonight then frost snow and gales
‘We have tonight then frost, snow and gales.’
(ERON 108)
b. Bhiodh ann sealgaireacht a mb’fhiu tracht uirthi
used-to-be in-it hunting that would be worth talking about
‘There used to be hunting worth talking about.’
Secondly, a subject NP preceded by the particle cc/z(‘but’) in the only-

construction may be postposed:
(9) Ni raibh sa teach an oiche sin ach mo mhathair

NEG was in-the house that night but my mother
‘There was only my mother in the house that night.’
12 A VP in VSO language ?
Clearly however, all these are secondary effects, and do not in any serious
way threaten the conclusion that in Irish finite clauses, the order VSOX is
in some important sense most basic.
One finds nothing to threaten this conclusion either in an examination
of those aspects of syntactic structure that, since Greenberg (1963), have
been taken to be characteristic of VSO languages:
Irish has prepositions and no postpositions. (Universal 3)

The genitive follows the governing noun. (Universal 2)
There is a clause-initial question-particle. (Universal 9)
There is no question-particle specified in position by reference to a
particular constituent. (Universal 10)
Interrogative phrases are always placed clause-initially. (Universal 12)
Adjectives follow their noun. (Universal 17)
The only claim made with regard to VSO languages in Greenberg (1963)
that does not hold true of Irish is Universal (6), which maintains that all
languages which have dominant VSO order have SVO as an alternative
order.3 This possibility does not exist in Irish under any circumstances.
Examples like (10) are fully ungrammatical:4
(10) *Mo mhathair chonaic me

my mother saw me
‘My mother saw me.’
For discussion and illustration of these and other aspects of word-order

in Irish, see Sommerfelt (1965), Ward (1974), Stenson (1976), McCloskey
(1979, 1980a).5
The general conclusion must be that Irish is a VSO language par
excellence, and the question of whether or not it can have a VP will be
consequently controversial and of some interest.
2. THE PROGRESSIVE CONSTRUCTION
The progressive aspect in Irish is expressed by means of the structure

illustrated in (11) and exemplified in (12):
(11) Verb to be Subject Progressive Form of V Object PP.
(12) Ta se ag togail tithe i nDoire

is he build(PROG) houses in Derry
‘He is building houses in Derry.’
James McClosney 13
What I will call the 'progressive form’ of the verb is constructed from the
verbal noun (VN) by prefixing to it a particle represented in spelling as ag.
Orthographically and historically this particle is identical to the preposition
meaning roughly 'at’. Following the progressive verb, the order of elements
is as usual — that is, the direct object, if there is one, will normally
immediately follow the verb, and will in turn be followed by PP’s and
adverbials. The conditions that control the ordering of these elements
are exactly the same as those that hold in the case of a finite clause.
A turther characteristic of the construction should be noted. Pedagogic
grammars normally require that the direct object of a progressive verb be
in the genitive case. This rule is observed by more conservative speakers,
and in more formal registers, but is commonly ignored in normal colloquial
usage. So for an English sentence like (13) grammars will demand a trans¬
lations like (14), but one will more commonly hear (15):6
(13) When they were buying the house
(14) Nuair a bhi siad ag ceannach an ti

when COMP were they buy(PROG) the house (GEN)
(15) Nuair a bhi siad ag ceannach an teach

house (ACC)
We will return to this matter.
The description to this point is meant to be neutral as far as various
descriptive options are concerned, but it should be pointed out that it
already contains elements that are controversial — the assumption, for
instance, that the particle ag and the verbal noun form a unit (inherent in
the term ‘progressive form of the verb’ as we have defined it) is open to
question; for a different view see Stenson (1976), pp. 229-244. This too
is an issue to which we will return.
What other basic properties of the construction can we isolate? It
seems clear to begin with that the sub-sequence (16) of (11):
(16) ag VN (Direct Object) (PP) (Adverbial)
must be considered to be a syntactic constituent. This is indicated, for

instance, by the fact that this sequence can appear in the focus-position
of a cleft. The structure of cleft sentences in Irish is discussed in some
detail in McCloskey (1979) pp. 110-121, 90-93. The basic structure is a
familiar one:7
(17) (copula focussed phrase S' with gap)

The copula, as in other copular constructions, is subject fairly freely to

deletion.
For our present purposes, the only property of the cleft construction
which is crucial is that only single syntactic constituents may appear in
focus-position. Examples like those in (18) are ungrammatical:
(18) a. *Oll don ghasur a thug se

an-apple to-the boy COMP gave he
‘It was an apple to the boy that he gave.’
b. *Iad marbh a ba choir a bheith

them dead COMP would-be proper be(-fin)
‘It’s them dead that should be.’
These contrast minimally with the examples in (19) in which just one
constituent appears in the focus-position:
(19) a. Ull a thug se don ghasur

‘It was an apple that he gave to the boy.’
b. Don ghasur a thug se ull
‘It was to the boy that he gave an apple.’
c. Marbh a ba choir iad a bheith
‘It’s dead that they should be.’
d. Iad a ba choir a bheith marbh
‘It’s they that should be dead.’
The fact then that the sequence (16) can be the focus of a cleft, as is
illustrated in (20), indicates that this much is a single syntactic constituent:
(Omh 242)
(20) a. Ma’s ag cuartughadh leanbh do dhearbhrathra a ta tu
if+Cop seek (PROG) your brother’s child COMP are you
‘If it is seeking your brother’s child that you are . .’
(OMh 7)
b. ag magadh orm a bheadh an mhor-chuid acu
mock(PROG) on-me COMP would-be most-of them
‘It’s mocking me that most of them would be.’
(NBh 148)
c. agiarraidh an tarbh a philleadh a ta siad
try (PROG) the bull turn-back (-fin) COMP are they
‘It’s trying to turn the bull back that they are.’
James AlcCloskey 15
(SS 100)
d. Chan ag amharc go direach ardhuine a bhiodh
NEG+Cop look(PROG) directly on a-person COMP used-be
siad
they
‘It's not looking directly at a person that they’d be.’
The position that this much of the pattern (11) is to be considered a

constituent is further supported by the observation that it has a distri¬
bution quite independent of the other elements of the pattern. Its distri¬
bution is in fact very reminiscent of that of the progressive VP in English.
It occurs, for instance, in the complement of certain verbs — the verb
eaith (‘spend’), for example, or perception verbs generally:
(21) Chaith me dha bhliain ag scriobh gearr-scealtai

spent I two year write (PROG) short stories
‘I spent two years writing short stories.’
(22) a. Chonaic me mo mhdthair ag teacht ’nabhaile

saw I my mother come (PROG) home
‘I saw my mother coming home.’
b. Chuala me Liam ag bualadh ar na piobai
heard I play(PROG) on the pipes
‘I heard Liam playing the pipes.’
It can also be used as an adjunct:
(23) D’imigh siad uaidh ag gain

left they from-him laugh(PROG)
‘They went away from him laughing.’
The phrase also occurs in two adverbial constructions. The first is a

kind of absolute construction, in which the dative preposition do marks
the subject, and the PP consisting of do and subject NP occurs to the right
of the phrase we have been interested in:
(24) a. Chonaic me sibh .. ag teacht anios (MD24)

saw I you(PL) come(PROG)up
an dreimire domh
the ladder to-me
‘I saw you . . as I was coming up the ladder.’
b. Rinne se aithreaches ag fail bhais do
did he repentance get (PROG) death to-him
‘He repented as he was dying.’
The second adverbial construction tells us less about the phrase-type,

because it is clearly parasitic on the basic construction with the verb td
(cf. (11) and (12)) with which we began the discussion. This construction
is illustrated in (25):
(25) a. Agus me ag teacht isteach bhi mo mhathair

and me come(PROG) in was my mother
agdul a lui
go(PROG) to bed
‘As I was coming in, my mother was going to bed.’
(MD 29)
b. Bhi an briosca ina dhom aige ....
was the biscuit in-his fist at-him
agus e ag dioscamaigh lena char go feargach
and him grind(PROG) with-his teeth angrily
‘He had the biscuit in his first, . . grinding his teeth angrily.’
This construction is parasitic on (11) in the sense that the structure (26)
(of which the examples in (25) are instances) is grammatical just in case
the structure (27) is:
(26) [Agus NP XP]
(27) [Td NP XP]
So such examples will tell us little beyond what we can learn anyway from
an examination of the basic type (11).
These considerations would seem to make it clear that in the syntactic
pattern (11) we must recognize a constituent including everything but the
verb td and its subject. Let us, for the moment, call this constituent
ProgP (‘progressive phrase’). This means that the schematic syntactic
structure of our first example, (12), will be as in (28):
(28) S
ag togail tithe i nDoire
The paper will now be primarily concerned with identifying the syntactic
characteristics of ProgP and with determining the place that it has in the
inventory of syntactic categories.
There are other properties of ProgP and of the progressive construction
James McCIuskev 17
in which it appears which need to be discussed, but these are most con¬
veniently left to a later point in the discussion.
3. PROGP AND X-BAR THEORY
A basic assumption of all variants of X-bar theory is that syntactic

category-labels are not unanalyzable entities, but are rather to be decom¬
posed into two elements — a numeral representing the type, or level of
structure, to which the category belongs, and a feature-matrix represent¬
ing its categorial makeup. To fix a particular phrase-type then in the
hierarchy of related categories made available by the theory, one must
establish its type and its categorial make-up.
3.1. ProgP as a maximal projection
A way to approach the question of what type of category ProgP is, is to

try to establish what the properties are of categories that may legally
appear in the focus-position of a cleft. Since the category we are calling
ProgP is among those constituents, it should presumably fall under what¬
ever generalizations hold of the class.
The cleft construction in Irish is a good deal freer than is its English
counterpart with respect to the range of categories that it permits in the
focus-position. NP, PP and AP at least are allowed. This is illustrated for
NP in (29), for PP in (30) and for AP in (31):
(29) a. shil achan duine gur leannan no earn (MBhF 14)

thought every person COMP+Cop a-lover or a-friend
a bhi si a chaoi
COMP was she lament(PROG)
‘Everybody thought that it was a lover or a friend that she was
lamenting.’
b.eaglaroimh Thomas a bhi air (UBh 69)
fear before COMP was on-him
‘It was fear of Thomas that was on him.’
(30) a. ba ar chuid againn a bhi an deifir (GS 2)

Cop(PAST) on some of-us COMP was the haste
‘It was some of us that were in a hurry.’
(POC 21)
b. ba roimh na mairbh a bhi an eagla air
Cop(PAST) before the dead COMP was the fear on-him
it was of the dead that he was afraid.’
c. i ndiaidh theacht anios as faoin talarnh (SS 53)

after come(-fin) up from under-the ground
a bhi se
COMP was he
‘It was after coming up from underground that he was.’
(31) a. Fallsa a ta se ag eirghe (OMh 254)

lazy COMP is he become(PROG)
‘It’s lazy that he’s becoming.’
b. Chan sasta imeacht as an oilean (SC 92)
NEG+Cop happy leave (-fin) from the island
a bh v se
COMP was he
‘It wasn’t happy to leave the island that he was.’
c. niba mheasa na an chuid eile
worse than the others
ba duthcha do a bheith (UBh 186)
COMP+COP natural for-him be(-fin)
‘It was worse than the others that it was natural for him to be.’
Within the terms of X-bar theory, all of these categories are of course
analyzed as maximal projections of the lexical categories N, P and A
respectively. It seems then that one of the conditions that must be met by
the categories that may appear in the focus-position of a cleft, is that they
be maximal projections. Since, as we have seen, ProgP may appear in this
position, it seems reasonable to conclude that it too is a maximal
projection.8
This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that ProgP may be prefixed
with the particle ach (‘but’) in the on/y-construction. One forms only-
sentences in Irish in a way that is very reminiscent of the corresponding
French construction in ne . . . que — a phrase is prefixed with the particle
ach and the clause containing this phrase is negated in the usual way with
one of the clause-initial negative particles — ni, nior, nach or nar for
finite clauses, gan for non-finite clauses. The phrase to which ach is attached
is normally but not obligatorily placed in clause-final position:
(32) a. Ni raibh sa teach ach mo mhathair

NEG was in-the house but my mother
‘Only my mother was in the house.’
b. Ni fhacame ach Sean
NEG saw my but
‘I saw only John.’
James McCloskev 19
In clear cases, the constituent to which ach attaches is a maximal pro¬

jection — NP, PP, AP, S':
(33) a. AY bhfuair me ach corradlt beagle tri ahead

NEG got I but a-little-over three hundred
punt air
pound on-it
‘I got only a little more than three hundred pounds for it.’
b. AY raibh sa teach ach mathair bhean an ti
NEG was in-the house but mother woman the house (GEN)
There was in the house only the mother of the woman of the
house.’
(34) a. Nior theip ach ar an bheirt is dige

NEG failed but on the two youngest
‘Only the two youngest failed.’
b. Nior labhair me ach leis an chigire
NEG spoke I but with the inspector
‘I spoke only to the inspector.’
(35) a. Nil se ach beagan beag nios sine na me fein

NEG+is he but a-little older than myself
‘He is only a little older than I.’
b. Nil me ach og go fdill9
NEG+is I but young yet
‘I’m only young yet.’
(36) a. Nior dhuirt se ach go raibh se breoite

NEG said he but COMP was he ill
‘He said only that he was ill.’
b. an aoisnach mbionn daoine a iarraidh (DM121)
the age COMP+NEG be(HABIT) people want(PROG)
ach duine eisteacht leo10
but a-person listen(-fin) with-them
‘an age at which people want only for someone to listen to them’
The particle clearly cannot focus on categories ‘smaller’ than maximal

projections:
(37) a.*M7 se iontach ach og

NEG+is he very but young
‘He is very only young.’
b *Ni fhaca me triur ach fear
NEG saw I three but man
‘I saw three only men.’
But ach attaches perfectly freely to ProgP:
(38) a. Ni raibh me ach ag deanamh grinn

NEG was I but make(PROG) fun
‘I was only joking.’
b.Ni raibh siad ach ag siiil ’nabhaile
NEG were they but walk(PROG) home
‘They were only walking home.’
These facts then also suggest that ProgP is a maximal projection.

Finally, it is an assumption explicit or implicit in much recent work
that verbs may subcategorize only for categories that are maximal pro¬
jections. We have already seen that there are verbs that subcategorize for
ProgP. The verb ta (‘be’) in the basic configuration (11) is one such, as
is the verb caith, in one of its uses, as discussed earlier:
(39) a.*Chaith siad bliain

spent they a-year
‘They spent a year.’
b. Chaith siad bliain ag togail tithe
spent they a-year build(PROG) houses
‘They spent a year budding houses.’
Given these facts then, we will take it that ProgP is a maximal pro¬
jection. To be more specific, let us assume, following Bresnan (1981) and
many others, a system which distinguishes three levels of structure — X,
XI and X2, where X is the lexical level and X2 the maximal projection.11
A system of this kind is defined for a fragment of Irish syntax in McCloskey
(1979) pp. 176-183. Given such a system, ProgP wdl be X2 for X some
combination of categorial features.
Before taking this conclusion as established however, we should discuss
some facts that might appear to cast doubt on it. These facts have to do,
once again, with the interaction of the progressive with the cleft con¬
struction.
We have already seen that the entire ProgP may appear in the focus-
position of a cleft (see the examples in (20)). But there also exist cases in
James McCloskey 21
which the ProgP seems to be broken up — with only a fragment in the

focus-position. So beside examples like those in (40) in which an entire
ProgP is focussed, including a complement clause, there are examples like
those in (41) in which the complement clause is separated from the
progressive verb.
(40) a. a’maoidheamh nar choir dobhtha a (OMh214)

claim(PROG) COMP+NEG proper for-them their
muinighin a chur ionnat-sa at a me
trust put(-fin) in-you COMP+is 1
‘It’s claiming that they shouldn't put their trust in you that I am.’
b. an ag cur sios domhsa gur me (SC 67)
INTERR+Cop put(PROG) down to-me COMP+Copme
a thug arm iad ata se
COMP brought in them COMP+is he
‘Is it imputing (to me) that it was me that brought them in that
he is?’
(41) a. agduil a bhi se go ndeanfadh an chuid eile (CPh88)

hope(PROG) COMP was he COMPwould-do the others
aithris air
imitation on-him
‘It was hoping that he was that the others would imitate him.’
b. an ag ra Horn ata tu
INTERR+Cop say(PROG) with-me COMP+are you
nach bhfuil Gaeilge agat
COMP+NEG is Irish at-you
‘Is it saying to me that you are that you know no Irish?’
There is a similar effect to be observed in the case of PP’s. They may

appear either within the focussed ProgP ((42)) or at the rightmost position
in the clause (as in (43)):
(OMh 7)
(42) Acht ag magadh orm a bheadh an mhor-chuid aca
but mock(PROG)on-me COMP would-be most-of-them
‘It’s mocking me that most of them would be.’
(D 165)
(43) a’ tnuth mo chuid leighinn a bhi siad liom
envy(PROG) my-education COMP were they with-me
‘It’s envying me my education that they were.’
And the same effect can also be observed in the case of Adverbs:
(44) Chan ag imeacht go foill at a tu

NEG+Cop leave(PROG)yet COMP+are you
‘It’s not leaving yet that you are.’
(RgB 267)
(45) Chan ag imeacht ata tu go foill
NEG+Cop leave(PROG) COMP+are you yet
‘It’s not leaving that you are yet.’
One might want to maintain that in such examples as (41), (43) and (45),
what is happening is that some proper subpart of ProgP has been placed in
focus-position leaving behind S\ PP or Adv as a fragment. Such a proper
subpart would presumably not be a maximal projection, and therefore
this view of the matter would constitute a challenge to the claim that only
phrases that are maximal projections may appear in the focus-position.12
But in fact it seems fairly clear that this is not the correct approach to
the analysis of examples such as (41), (43) or (45).
Notice first that for the case of examples like (45) in which an Adv
appears in final position, there is an obvious alternative — namely that the
Adv in final position is adjoined to S, so that (45) will have the schematic
structure (46):
The case for such an analysis, clearly, is strongest for examples involving
adverbs, like go foill, which from the point of view of the semantics are
best interpreted as functors taking (the semantic values of) clauses as
arguments. I have not sufficiently studied what classes of adverbs may
appear in this configuration, nor understood sufficiently what criteria
distinguish between S-adverbs and VP-adverbs in a VSO language, to be
sure that this account will be available for all cases like (45). But cases
for which this analysis seems wrong will, I think, be amenable to a treat¬
ment along the lines discussed below for the S' and PP cases.
James McCloskey 23
This treatment takes as its starting-point the observation that the

categories that appear in final position in the crucial examples — S', PP
and Adv — are just the categories that are generally required to appear in
final position in simple clauses (see the discussion in section 1 above).
Categories that do not show this tendency in simple clauses do not
appear in final position in the kind of cleft example we have been con¬
sidering here. Object NP, for instance, normally must appear immediately
to the right of the progressive verb:
(47) a. An ag togail tithe a bhi siad

INTERR+Cop build(PROG) houses COMP were they
Ts it building houses that they were?’
b*An ag togail a bhi siad thithe
But if the object NP is sufficiently heavy, then it may appear in final

position. Contrast the ungrammatical (47b) with the grammatical (48):
(48) Ag leamh a ta me bailiuchan mor

read(PROG) COMP am I collection big
dena gearrscealtai is cailiula
of-the short stories most famous
dar seriobhadh sa Fhraincis 6 thus an cheid seo
that were written in French since the beginning of this century
‘It's reading I am a big collection of the most famous short stories
written in French since the beginning of this century.’
Thus the conditions that determine what categories may appear clause-
frnally in such examples and when, parallel exactly the conditions that
determine what categories appear clause-finally in simplex clauses. This
suggests strongly that the final position of these categories should be
accounted for by means of these general, and independently-needed,
principles rather than by the device of letting a subconstituent of ProgP
be placed in focus-position leaving S', PP or Adv as a fragment.
Can this proposal be made more concrete? We will approach the
question a little indirectly by first considering examples like (49) in which
we have a PP in final position in a simplex clause:
(49) Bhi eagla air roimh Thomas

was fear on-him before
'He was afraid of Thomas.’
(49) is a typical representative of a large class of collocations in Irish, in

which an abstract noun denoting a feeling has two prepositional phrases
dependent on it — one marking the experiencer of the feeling, the other
the object of the feeling. Despite the fact that the PP roimh Thomas
appears in final position in (49), it is clear that it forms a constituent with
the noun eagla. This is shown, for instance, by the fact that there exist
clefts like (50):
(UBh 69)
(50) eagla roimh Thomas a bhi air
fear before COMP was on-him
‘It was afraid of Thomas that he was.’
But the order represented in (49) is by far the most common. These
data suggest that the PP roimh Thomas originates inside a complex
NP [up eagla [pp roimh Thomas] ], and that there is a rule which removes
PP from inside NP and places it in clause-final position. The need for a
similar rule extraposing S from inside such a complex NP is illustrated by
exactly parallel data:
(51) Bhi eagla air go bhfeicfi e

was fear on-him COMP would-be-seen him
‘He was afraid that he would be seen.’
(52) Eagla go bhfeicfi e a bhi air

fear COMP would-be-seen him COMP was on-him
‘It was afraid that he would be seen that he was.’
The same extraposition effect can be observed when the NP in which the
S or PP originates is in the focus-position of a cleft:
(53) Eagla a bhi air roimh Thomas

fear COMP was on-him before
‘It was afraid that he was of Thomas.’
(54) Eagla a bhi air go bhfeicfi e

fear COMP was on-him COMP would-be-seen him
‘It was afraid that he was that he would be seen.’
There are two ways in which the extraposition rules in question might
apply in a cleft, such as (53) or (54). To consider them, let us fix some
terminology. The general structure of clefts is as in (55):
James McCIoskev 25
(55) S
We will call S in (55) the ‘clefted clause’, and S, obviously, the ‘matrix’;
we will continue to use the term ‘focus-position’ for the X2-position in
the matrix.
Then the extraposition rules might apply in the domain of the clefted
clause ‘before’ X2 is clefted; alternatively, they might apply in the matrix
‘after’ X2 (NP in the case of (53) and (54)) has been placed in focus-
position. In the first case, the extraposed element will be in final position
in the clefted clause; in the second, it will be in final position in the
matrix clause. There is, of course, no very obvious way of distinguishing
between these two alternatives, since the two positions — final in the
clefted clause, and final in the matrix clause — cannot be distinguished in
terms of precedence relations alone.
Nor for our purposes does it matter very much which choice is made,
or if (what seems more sensible) both are allowed. The rule of S' and PP
extraposition is clearly motivated by simplex clause examples like (49)-
(52). It extends without elaboration to deal with the cleft examples (53)
and (54).
But clearly the cases involving ProgP in focus-position, the cases in
which we are primarily interested, will also be handled straightforwardly
by these independently-needed rules. Examples (53) and (54) are exactly
parallel to the problematical examples we began with — (41), (43) and
(45) — in ah relevant respects. We will therefore analyze such examples
as involving extraposition of a PP, S' or Adv from ProgP. Whether this
extraposition takes place in the clefted clause or in the matrix clause is
a question we can leave open. The important properties of this analysis
for our purposes are (i) that it is independently motivated and (ii) that
the rule in question clearly will have no effect on the category-status
of the phrase from which the element is extraposed. Thus it implies no
threat to the claim that in such examples as (41), (43) and (45) the phrase
in focus-position is a full ProgP, and in turn no threat to the general claim
that only maximal projections may appear in the focus-position of a cleft.
We can continue to maintain then that the evidence from the interaction
of ProgP with the cleft construction suggests strongly that ProgP is to be
analyzed as a maximal projection, or, given the X-bar system we have
assumed, an X2 phrase.
This digression has taken us some distance from our central theme, so
it might be useful at this point to stand back a little and summarize what
has been established so far. We have established the existence of a
syntactic constituent which we have been calling ProgP. In this section,
we have presented a substantial body of evidence which suggests that
this phrase-type is a maximal projection, and we have also examined some
data which might have been thought troublesome for this conclusion but
which turn out not to be.
Having established what level of structure ProgP belongs to, the next
question to be addressed is what its categorial structure is.
3.2 The Categorial Makeup of ProgP
A basic assumption of all varieties of X-bar theory currently being in¬

vestigated is that higher-level categories, at least in the general case, are
constructed as projections of the lexical categories N, V, A and P. We are
taking it as established that ProgP is a level 2 category in a system in which
level 2 is the level of maximal projection. The purpose of this section is to
attempt to establish which, if any, of these lexical categories ProgP may be
taken to be a maximal projection of.
We may begin again with the fact that ProgP may appear in the focus of
a cleft. We have already seen that the maximal projections of N, A and P
may appear in this position. If ProgP can be identified as a nominal, ad¬
jectival or prepositional category, then the possibility of its appearing in
this position is explained. Can ProgP be plausibly analyzed as the maximal
projection of any of these categories?
Let us begin with the possibility that ProgP is PP, or more exactly, P2.
This is a good point at which to start because the view that ProgP is a pre¬
positional category is implicit in the view of the progressive construction
usually presented in reference or pedagogic grammars. Stenson (1976)
presents what could be seen as a formally worked out version of this
analysis within the terms of transformational grammar. The starting point
for this analysis is a certain view of the syntactic nature of the particle ag
which precedes the verbal noun in the progressive construction. As
mentioned before, this particle is orthographically and historically identical
to the preposition ag, meaning roughly ‘at’. If this identification is also
synchronically viable, then it would seem to be reasonable to take the
‘preposition’ ag to be head of the phrase, and therefore to identify the
whole phrase (ProgP) as a maximal projection of P - as P2. Presumably,
this means taking the structure of ProgP to be as schematized in (56) for
our original example (12).13
James McCloskev 27
(12) Tase ag togail tithe i nDoire

is he build(VN) houses in Derry
‘He is building houses in Derry.’
(56) FF
p"
ag
togail tithe i nDoire
There are in general two ways of approaching the problem of establishing

what category a given phrase-type belongs to. One can compare its distri¬
bution with that of a phrase-type whose category-status is known, or one
can compare its internal structure with that of a phrase-type whose
category is known. The main strength of the case for taking ProgP to be
P2 lies in the fact that the distribution of P2 and ProgP are largely parallel.
Its (in my view fatal) weakness lies in the matter of the internal structure
of the two categories.
There are a number of problems in this respect. First, the progressive
particle ag is almost certainly not to be identified with the preposition
ag. The only synchronic link between the two is a still controversial
decision about orthographic convention made by a Civil Service commission
in 1948, according to which the two particles were to be spelled in the
same way.14 The view that the two particles are quite distinct has been
argued forcefully by O’Brien (1956), and more recently by O Murchu
(1981) and McCloskey (1980). The two particles, to begin with, are quite
different phonetically. The progressive particle has three allomorphs, as
in (57) (see De Bhaldraithe (1953) p. 224, para. 414):
(57) ,. / a/ before consonants

ag — / g/ before a back vowel
""" / g / before a front vowel
(where /g / indicates a voiced palatal stop)
The preposition ag shows no such variation. It has one allomorph —

/eg'/ in most dialects, /ig'/ or /ag'e/ in Munster.15 O’Brien also demon¬
strates that the two items have had quite separate histories. The distinction
between them is an old one in the language — dating at least from some¬
time in the Early Modern Irish period (1200-1650). He demonstrates
that the progressive particle is a direct descendant of the canonical form
of the Old Irish preposition oc. Modern /eg7~/ig'/~/3g,e/, however,
derives from the old 3rd sg masc form of the same preposition. As
O’Brien points out, this is a quite general development. Most of the

modern prepositions in their canonical forms derive from older 3rd sg
masc forms, so in this, the preposition ag has simply followed the pattern
typical of prepositions. The fact that the progressive particle does not
participate in this development suggests that even at the period when this
shift began to take place (sometime in the Early Modern Irish period),
not only were the two elements — preposition and progressive particle —
quite distinct, but that the progressive particle was not a preposition at
all.16
There seems to be no reason at all then to believe that the progressive
particle is a preposition. If ag is not a preposition, there would seem to be
very little reason to analyze ProgP as being a prepositional category.
A further reason for doubting that ProgP should be identified with
PP is the fact that under a number of circumstances the particle ag, which
on this view should be the prepositional head of the construction, does not
appear at all.
For instance, pronominal objects of the verbal noun in ProgP may not
appear after the verbal noun:
(58) *Bhi siad ag bualadh me

were they beat(PROG) me
‘They were beating me.’
Rather, pronominal objects must appear before the verbal noun in the
form of possessive pronouns. In this circumstance, the particle ag never
appears in ProgP. The facts concerning what does appear in the position
before the verbal noun in such cases are complicated by much interdialectal
and intradialectal variation, but in no dialect is (59) well-formed:
(59) *Bhi siad ag mo bhualadh

were they my beat(VN)
Instead of (59) in Northern Irish, one has simply the possessive pronoun
in place of the progressive particle:
(60) Bin siad mo bhualadh

In other dialects one finds the possessive pronoun preceded by a particle

whose form varies depending on the person and number of the pronoun
in question, and on other variables. This particle is represented in the case
of 1st and 2nd pers sg pronouns by the orthographical cover-symbol do:
James McCloskey 29
(61) Bhi siad do mo bhualadh

(See De Bhaldraithe (1953), p. 155, para. 322 for a detailed presentation

of the various possibilities in a western dialect.) There is no corresponding
effect with the preposition ag.
(62) Thit siad ag mo chosa

fell they at my feet
‘They fell at my feet.’
Nor is there a corresponding effect even with those prepositions which

have an aspectual use. The preposition i ndiaidh (‘after’), for instance,
when it takes a non-fmite clause as object, expresses perfective aspect.
In this use it does not appear when confronted with a possessive pronoun
functioning as object of a verbal noun:
(63) Bhi siad i ndiaidh mo bhualadh

were they after my beat(VN)
‘They had just beaten me.’ (‘They were after beating me.’)
Under certain conditions too the particle ag is replaced by a different

particle a which induces the lenition mutation on a following verbal noun.
The lenition mutation is indicated orthographically by an h placed
immediately after the consonant lenited, so compare the (a) and (b)
examples below:
(64) a. Ta me ag togail teach iir

am I build(VN) house new
‘I am building a new house.’
b. Caide ta tu a thogail?
what are you build(VN)
‘What are you building?’
(65) a. Bhi se ag deanamh obair mhor

was he do(VN) work great
‘He was doing great work.’
b. an obair a bhi se a dheanamh
the work COMP was he do(VN)
‘the work he was doing.’
(66) a. Ta me agfagail cloch mhor anseo

am I leave(VN) stone big here
‘I am leaving a big stone here.’
b. Clock mhor a ta me a fhagail anseo

stone big COMP am I leave(VN) here
‘It’s a big stone that I am leaving here.’
An informal statement of the conditions that govern this alternation

would be this - if the direct object of a progressive verb is a trace, replace
ag with the leniting particle a. So all constructions that can be argued to
involve long-distance gap-binding (relative clauses, constituent questions,
clefts, free relatives, certain kinds of adverbial clauses) as well as at least
one rightward movement, trigger the alternation (cf. Clements et al. (1981)
for discussion). Again, there is no sign of a preposition in these cases,
and once again there is no corresponding effect with any preposition.
Most PP’s in thelanguage in fact are islands (McCloskey (1979) pp. 132-138).
Consider finally the following case. ProgP’s have passive forms. Clauses
containing passive ProgP’s show the kind of argument-reversal typically
found in passive structures — the notional object of the progressive verb
appears as surface syntactic subject. The notional subject (when it is
expressed) appears as a prepositional object — as object of the preposition
ag, in fact. One of the curiosities of this construction is that here too the
‘usual’ progressive particle ag does not appear. Instead there is a possessive
pronoun that agrees obligatorily with the surface subject. The actual form
taken by this possessive pronoun is the same as in the case discussed earlier
when the pronoun is a direct object. That is, depending on the dialect,
there may or may not be a particle preceding the pronoun. For Ulster, a
typical example would be (67):
(67) Ta tithe lira a dtogail acu i nDoire

are houses new their build(VN) at-them in Derry
‘New houses are being built by them in Derry.’
It seems that these phrases too must be instances of ProgP - ProgP [+PASS]
presumably. Apart from their formal and semantic similarities, ProgP
[+PASS] and ProgP [-PASS] have essentially the same distribution. Thus
any verb that takes an active ProgP as complement will also take a passive
ProgP. We have had three such examples — the verb ta. (‘be’), the verb
caith (‘spend’) and perception verbs in general. The case of ta has already
been illustrated:
(68) Chuala me beagan de a labhairt aige (WPP 49)

heard I a-little-of-it its speak(VN) at-him
‘I heard a little being spoken by him.’
James McCloskey 31
(69) Chaith me blianta fada (do) mo chra ag Hiiidai

spent 1 years long my torture(VN) at
1 spent long years being tortured by Hughie.’
Passive ProgP’s also appear in the adverbial construction withagns (‘and’):
(70) Agus deireadh dha chur aige leis an chruinniu

and end do + its put(VN) at-him to-the-meeting
‘As he was putting an end to the meeting
(‘As an end was being put by him to the meeting ...’)
So it seems that these phrases too should be taken to be instances of

ProgP.17 But they evidently contain no preposition.
The thrust of these arguments is to suggest that there are many
instances of the category ProgP which do not seem at least to contain any
preposition at all. It would seem to be mistaken then to take the presence
of a preposition to be the defining characteristic of the phrase. And this,
after all, is fundamentally what is claimed by the hypothesis that ProgP
is a PP. The force of the argument depends to some extent on the degree
to which transformations are tolerated in the theoretical framework. In
a framework that allows relatively unconstrained use of transformations,
one could always generate the phrases in question with prepositions at
deep structure and then delete them under certain conditions or substitute
other items for them. In frameworks that do not allow transformations
at all, the facts discussed here would seem to be fairly conclusive evidence
that ProgP cannot be PP, since these are all cases in which ProgP lacks
anything which could be plausibly analyzed as a preposition. But even in
transformational frameworks this class of facts indicates that the
‘preposition’ ag has some very unique unprepositional properties, and will
have to be distinguished from all other prepositions in the operations of
whatever rules account for these facts. This is a particularly telling
criticism when it is realized that many of the properties we have been
considering here, while very peculiar for a preposition, are in fact character¬
istic of non-finite verbs in Irish. We will return to this point.
Consider finally the matter of the internal hierarchical arrangement of
elements in ProgP. The view of the internal structure of ProgP diagrammed
as (56) takes ag to be a preposition which has as its object a constituent
which contains everything else in ProgP. I want here to argue for an
alternative view (implicit in the term ‘progressive form of the verb’)
according to which the particle ag and the verbal noun form a unit (a
V in fact as we will argue later).
What kinds of facts would distinguish the two alternatives? One obvious
possibility is evidence from conjunction-patterns. If the internal structure
of ProgP is as suggested in (56), then the conjunction pattern (71) should

be possible:
a& X Conj X
Such patterns do turn up with other phrases (NP, PP or S’) as prepositional

objects:
(72) a. tri shioc agus shneachta (CBG 25)

through frost and snow
b. 6 shagart no dhochtuir (CBG 25)
from a-priest or a-doctor
c. as faoin chir agus faoin rib in sroill( AtS 160)
out-of under-the comb and under-the ribbon satin(GEN)
‘out from under the comb and the satin ribbon.’
d. i ndiaidh e adhul ’nabhaile agus
after him go(-fin) home and
mo mhdthair e a fheiceail
my mother him see(-fin)
‘after he went home and my mother saw him.’
But there is no such pattern in the case of the progressive construction:
(73) *Bhi muid ag siul ar an tra agus

were we walk(VN) on the beach and
breathnu ar an ghealach
look(VN) on the moon
‘We were walking on the beach and looking at the moon.’
If, on the other hand, the sequence ag VN is, as I would have it, a syntactic
unit, then we would expect such sequences to be conjoinable. This is in
fact the case:
(74) Bhi siad ag leagan agus ag togail tithe

were they knock down(VN) and build(VN) houses
‘They were demolishing and building houses.’
This evidence suggests then that the internal structure of ProgP is as

suggested in (75) (based again on the original example (12)):
James McCIoskev 33
(75) ProgP
X NP PP
/
ag VN tithe i nDoire
tdgail
‘building houses in Derry’
To summarize: We have argued so far (i) that ProgP is not a PP, on the
grounds that it need not contain any element that is plausibly analyzed as
a preposition; in particular we have argued that the characteristic particle
spelled ag is not a preposition; and (ii) that the element ag does not govern
all the rest of ProgP (as is suggested by one variant of the prepositional
hypothesis) but rather forms a syntactic unit with the verbal noun.
If not PP, could then ProgP be identified with NP (N2)?
The principal difficulty with this identification is that ProgP has not at
all the distribution of NP. Consider, for instance, the basic context in
which ProgP appears — namely the pattern (11) in which it appears as
complement to the verb ta, illustrated again in (76):
(76) Ta Eoghan agimirt cartai

is Owen play(PROG) cards
‘Owen is playing cards.’
NP may not appear in this context. Examples such as those in (77) are
very ungrammatical:18
(77) a.*7tf Eoghan dlioddir

is Owen a-lawyer
‘Owen is a lawyer.’
b *Td Gaillimh an chathair is deise sa tir
is Galway the city nicest in-the country
‘Galway is the nicest city in the country.’
ProgP never appears as subject of a verb:
(78) a. Taitmonn ullai Horn

please apples with-me
‘I like apples.’
b *Taitnionn ag imirt cartai liom
please play(PROG) cards with-me
‘I like playing cards.’
That the ungrammatically of (78b) might be the result of some incom¬

patibility between the semantics of the progressive and the semantics of
the verb is made unlikely by the fact that if one makes a clausal comple¬
ment by adding the non-finite verb a bheith (‘to be’), the sentence, in
extraposition-form, is grammatical. The contrast with ProgP remains:
(79) a. Taitnionn sc Horn a bheith agimirt cartai

please it with-me be(-fin) play(PROG) cards
‘I like playing cards.’
(‘It pleases me to be playing cards.’)
b.*Taitnionn se Horn agimirt cartai19
please it with-me play(PROG) cards
Nor may ProgP appear as the object of a preposition:
(80) *Ta Eoghan i ndiaidh ag imirt cartai

is Owen after play(PROG) cards
‘Owen is after playing cards.’
Once again this example can be saved by creating a clause by inserting a

non-finite verb:
(81) Ta Eoghan i ndiaidh a bheith ag imirt cartai

is Owen after be(-fin) play(PROG) cards
‘Owen has just been playing cards.’
(‘Owen is after being playing cards.’)
NP may not appear in either of the two adverbial constructions in which

ProgP appears:
(82) *Agus Eoghan dliodoir phos se inion an Taoisigh

and Owen a-lawyer married he daughter the Prime Minister
‘While Owen was a lawyer, he married the Prime Minister’s
daughter.’
(83) * Dliodoir do Eoghan...

a-lawyer to Owen
‘While Owen was a lawyer ...’
Consider finally the case of ProgP as complement to a verb like caith

(‘spend’). If ProgP is NP in examples like (84):
James McCloskey 35
(84) Chaith mu id seachtain ag imirt carta i

spent we a-week play(PROG) cards
‘We spent a week playing cards.’
then we must recognize a phrase structure pattern like (85) in the language:
(85) [SV NPi NP2 NP3 ]
This configuration is otherwise unattested in the language. Verbs which

take three arguments always mark the third (the indirect object) with a
preposition (see McCloskey (1979) pp. 180-183), Stenson (1976) pp.
42-43 for some illustration and discussion).
In conclusion then, the hypothesis that ProgP is NP fails to account
for the distribution of ProgP in two ways — ProgP appears in positions
normally forbidden to NP, and fails to appear in positions where one does
find NP. There are, however, aspects of the internal structure of ProgP
which make the idea that the phrase is essentially nominal in character
more attractive. Some of these data have already been discussed:
A. The direct object of a progressive verb may appear, or in some
dialects and registers must appear, in the genitive case. This is also, of
course, a feature of NP dependents of NP:
(86) a. Ta se ag cuartu madaidh

is he seek(PROG)dog(GEN)
‘He is looking for a dog.’
b. ruball madaidh
tail dog(GEN)
‘a dog’s tail’
B. A pronominal direct object appears obligatorily as a possessive

pronoun preceding the verbal noun. This recalls the ordinary possessive
structures of the language:
(87) a. Bhi siad mo bhualadh

b. Mo theach
my house
This aspect of the syntax of ProgP also imitates the syntax of possessives
in nominal categories in another detail. Personal pronouns may have
suffixed to them certain particles to derive other classes of pronouns. The
particle fein, for example, may be added to make reflexive pronouns; or
any of the particles seo, sin, siiid or udai may be added to derive
demonstrative pronouns:
(88) me = I, me me fein = myself

sinn - we sinn fein = ourselves
i = her i seo = this (fern)
iad = them iad sin = those
iad seo = these
When the pronoun in question is possessive, the pronoun itself appears to

the left of N, the reflexive or demonstrative particle appears to the right:
(89) mo theach fein

my house ‘my own house’
dr dtir bheag fein
our country small ‘our own little country’
a hata seo
his hat ‘this one’s hat’
The verbal noun in a ProgP shows this same property:
(90) Ta me mo mharu fein ag obair

am I my kill(VN) work(PROG)
i am killing myself working.’
(91) An bhfuil tu a dheanamh sin le fada

INTERR are you its do(VN) for a long time
‘Have you been doing that for a long time?
How are we to reconcile on the one hand the fact that the distributional
characteristics of ProgP are so thoroughly not those of NP with, on the
other hand, the fact that the head of the construction seems to show certain
properties characteristic of N?
I will demonstrate later that in fact these noun-like properties are
characteristic of all kinds of non-finite verbs in the language, and that the
parallel behaviour of nouns and non-finite verbs in this respect can
perfectly well be accounted for using a proposal about the derivation of
non-finite verbs developed for quite independent reasons in McCloskey
(1980a). If this turns out to be the case, then it seems clear that there is
nothing to be gained and much to be lost in analyzing ProgP as a nominal
projection.
About the possibility that ProgP might be identified with AP I have a
great deal less to say, at least in part because it seems like a particularly
James McCloskev 37
implausible idea. There is no essential part of ProgP that remotely

resembles an adjective or adverb, and while there is a certain overlap
between the distribution of AP and ProgP, there are also certain important
ditferences. In the adverbial construction with the preposition do, for
instance, only ProgP and PP may occur:
(92) a. Ag pilleadh ’nabhaile dom choinaic me Ciardn

return(PROG) home to-me saw 1
'As I was returning home, I saw Caran.’
b. I ndiaidh pilleadh 'na bhaile do lab hair
after return(VN) home to-him spoke
se le Ciardn
he with
'After returning home, he spoke to Ciaran.’
c *Sinte ar mo leaba dom thit me imo chodladh
stretched on my bed to-me fell 1 in-my sleep
'As I lay on my bed, I fell asleep.’
To summarize what has been suggested until now, consider again a

simple instance of ProgP like ag imirt cartai - ‘playing cards’. So far I
have argued that it has the internal structure suggested by (93):
(93) ProgP
X NP
imirt
It has been further suggested that ProgP is a maximal projection. It has

also been argued that ProgP cannot be identified with the maximal pro¬
jection of N, P or A. This leaves an obvious alternative to be investigated.
3.3. ProgP as a verbal projection
It has been shown above that the categories NP, PP and AP may appear in
the focus-position of a cleft. Now as observed for instance by van Riemsdijk
(1978), one empirical prediction that is built in a fundamental way into
the feature-systems normally assumed for X-bar theory is that this is not
a natural class of categories. To complete the pattern and to allow an
economical statement of the conditions that govern what categories appear
in the focus-position, a verbal category is needed. ProgP, as already
indicated many times, may appear at this position. If ProgP is appro¬

priately analyzed as a verbal category, then this hole in the distributional
pattern will be filled. It is the purpose of this section to demonstrate that
the expectations encouraged by X-bar theory in this respect are in fact
realized.
To determine the categorial make-up of ProgP, it suffices to determine
the categorial make-up of its head. What is the head of ProgP? Clearly, it
is the sequence ag+VN — the X of (93). That this is the head of ProgP is
indicated by the fact that this is the smallest kind of ProgP there can be -
this is the case of intransitive verbs without adverbial modification:
(94) Td siad ag caint

are they talk(PROG)
‘They are talking.’
The properties of this syntactic unit seem to be exactly those of non-

finite verbs. To see this, let us examine the syntax of non-finite verbs in
Irish.
In McCloskey (1980a) I presented an analysis of infinitival clauses
and infinitival verbs in Irish, that is, an analysis of the kind of structures
exemplified in (95):
(95) a. ni bheadh se ceart duine a rd

NEG would-be it right a-person say(-fin)
nach bhfuil an sceal sin maith (POC 31)
COMP+NEG is that story good
‘it would not be right for someone to say that that story is not
good.’
b. gur mian leis tu a dhealbh a ghearradh (DD 36)
that he wants you his statue cut(-fin)
‘that he wants you to make a statue of him.’
The status of such phrases (duine a rd nach bhfuil an sceal sin maith
and tu a dhealbh a ghearradh) as clauses is uncontroversial and, I think,
indisputable. With respect to their distribution, their internal constituency,
their behaviour with respect to extraposition, their ordering with respect
to a governing verb, their behaviour in conjunction-patterns, they behave
like clauses (see McCloskey (1980a, 1981), Stenson (1976) pp. 89-98 for
detailed illustration and argumentation). It seems equally clear that items
like a rd in (95a) or a ghearradh in (95b) must be instances of V — more
specifically V[-fin], If the phrases containing them are clauses, then we
expect in general that those clauses will contain verbs. There is a con-
stituent-for-constituent correspondence between finite and infinitival
James McCloskey 39
clauses, and where a finite clause has a finite V, the corresponding infinitival
clause has a phrase like a ra or a ghearradh.
But these instances of V are constructed from verbal nouns. In general
a non-finite V in such an infinitival clause consists of a particle a (leniting)
followed by a verbal noun. Now the status of verbal nouns as nouns is
also undeniable. They decline like nouns, and they appear governed by
determiners, numerals and so on in ordinary NP:
(96) a. Nil ach innse amhain ar an sceal (C1M 185)

is-not but tell(VN) one on the story
‘There is only one telling of the story.’
b. Ag eiri ni ba soileire a bhi an cruthu (C1M 188)
get(PROG) clearer COMP was the prove(VN)
‘It was getting clearer that the proof was.’
To account for this duality I proposed that Irish has a class of rules (prob¬
ably best regarded as word-formation rules) which construct various kinds
of non-finite verbs from verbal nouns by prefixing to them various particles,
creating structures like (97) under the 0-level node V:20
(97) V
[-FIN]
VN we take not to be an unanalyzable category but rather a subcategory

of N, a subcategory defined by some arbitrary feature, say l+DEV]21
so that the following equation will hold:
VN =
-V
+DEV
Since VN is [+N, -V] it will appear in all positions in which N appears;

the feature [-DEV] will allow us to block the appearance of ‘ordinary’
nouns in (97); and since the dominating node is V, the whole complex will
be predicted, correctly, to have the distribution of verbs. So the first
motivation for these devices is to account for this syntactic schizophrenia
— the fact that ‘bare’ verbal nouns are clearly nominal in character, but
that in their use in examples like (95) the complex of which they form a
part is clearly verbal.
A number of such rules were proposed and motivated in McCloskey
(1980a). Apart from the rule to derive ordinary infinitives, unmarked
aspectually, such as are found in examples like those in (95), a rule was
proposed to derive what I called ‘aspectual’ infinitives. Phrases headed by
‘aspectual’ infinitives occur as complements to the class of ‘aspectual
verbs’ — ‘stop, start, continue’, verbs of motion etc. As far as its internal
syntax is concerned, this complement phrase is very like ProgP — subjects
never ever appear; apart from this, the order of elements is exactly that
of a corresponding finite clause. The verbal element that is head of the
construction though is different from both non-aspectual infinitives as
in (95) and from progressive forms of the verb. The general structure is
the same in that this form too consists of a verbal noun preceded by a
particle. The phonetics of this particle however is different from either
that of the progressive particle or that of the regular infinitive. It has the
forms in (98):
(98) / a / (+Lenition) before consonants

/®j / before front vowels
/s 7/ before back vowels
Orthographically, this particle is a before consonants, a dh ' before vowels.

Some examples are given in (99):22
(99) a. thoisigh an tOrd a bhisiu go tapaidh (DM51)

began the order improve(VN) quickly
‘the order began to improve quickly’
b. chuaigh me a chuartu bidh (MBhF 108)
went I seek(VN) food
‘I went to look for food.’
c. St ad me a dh' iascaireact
stop I fish(VN)
‘I stopped fishing.’
This verbal complex has the same general form as infinitives, so I take it
to be an instance of V [-FIN, +ASP] and to be constructed by a rule of
the same general form as that which constructs non-aspectual infinitives
such as those of (95).
What are the general properties of the non-finite V’s derived by this
class of rules?
A: Their general structure is: y
Ptc^ VN
B: Following NP-objects may, or depending on speaker and register

must, be marked with the genitive case. This is illustrated in (100)23 for
the case of the non-aspectual infinitive, and for the aspectual infinitive
in (101).
James McCIoskey 41
(100) a. Duirt sc Seamas a dhunadh an dorais (CBG 258)

said he James close(-fin) the door(GEN)
'He said for James to close the door.’
b. D'iarr se orthu gan aon duine aeu
asked he on-them NEG any-of-them
a iarraidh airgid ar Ghuaire (CBG 258)
ask(-fin) money(GEN) on
‘He asked them for none of them to ask Guaire for money.’
(101) a. Ghuaigh me a chuartii bidh (MBhF 108)

went I seek(ASP) food(GEN)
‘I went to look for food.’
b. Chan a dheanamh suaimhnis ar bith
NEG+Cop make(ASP) peace(GEN) any
a thainig se (DM 67)
COMP came he
It wasn't to make any peace that he came.’
C: Pronominal objects appear as possessive pronouns which replace

the expected particle.24 Depending on dialect, the pronoun may be preceded
by a particle spelled do (see CBG, p. 260, para 538):
(102) Bhi se i dtolamh ag iarraidh mo thabhairt

was he always try(PROG) my bring(VN)
isteach san IRA (MBhF 52)
in in-the
‘He was always trying to bring me in to the IRA.’
103) Thosaigh siad mo bhualadh

started they my beat(VN)
‘They started beating me.’
D: If the possessive pronoun in question has demonstrative or reflexive

particles, they remain to the right of VN:
(104) a. nuair a bhi me ag dul mo shineadh

when COMP was I go(PROG) my stretch(VN)
fein (RM 65)
REFLEX
‘when I was going to stretch (myself) out.’
b. Thosaigh me mo bhualadh fein
started I my beat(VN) REFLEX
‘I started to beat myself.’
Now this, of course, is just the collection of properties we have isolated

as being properties of the head of ProgP. So not only is the internal
structure of X in (93) exactly parallel to that of other non-finite verbs in
the language, but the peculiar properties of X are exactly the peculiar
properties of non-finite verbs in the language.25 The fact that a subcon¬
stituent of V [-FIN] is a subcategory of N should let us capture formally
the parallels between nominal and (non-finite) verbal structure observed
in these characteristics.26
All this suggests strongly that we take X — the head of ProgP in (93)
- to be an instance of V [-FIN] as well — say V [-FIN, +PROG], and that
we assume that it too is derived by one of the word-formation rules we
have been discussing:27
(105) Construct a word of category V[-FIN, +PROG] according to the

pattern below:
V ag VN ]
-FIN
+PROG.
This implies in its turn, of course, that ProgP is V2. In particular, if we

assume a verbal system in which VI includes only subcategorized comple¬
ments and V2 optional adverbs, then the structure of our original example
(12) will be as in (106).
(12) ag togail tithe i nDoire

build(PROG) houses in Derry
9
‘building houses in Derry.
(106) V2
-FIN
+PROG
ag VN
togail
James McCloskey 43
Is this conclusion compatible with what we know about ProgP? Notice

first what kind of features (on any view) must be marked on ProgP —
[PROG], [FIN], [PASS]. These, clearly , are features we expect to find on
verbal categories, but not on any other kind of category.
What about distributional properties?
In a sense, the person who argues for a VP in a VSO language gives
himself an unfair advantage in this respect. Since there will never be a
clear, uncontroversial case of VP in such a language, it will never be
possible to compare the distribution of a candidate VP with the distri¬
bution ot a clear instance of VP, and he is thus spared the risk of finding
no good parallells. However, the following points are perhaps worth
considering.
We have seen already that the only category whose distribution closely
resembles that of ProgP is PP. PP may appear in all the contexts noted for
ProgP in section 2 above. In particular, only these two categories are
permitted in the adverbial construction with do illustrated in (24) (see
(92)). But we have also seen that there are excellent reasons for believing
that ProgP is not an instance of PP. How then are we to account for the
parallels in their distribution? X-bar theory defines two ‘natural pairs’
of categories which include P:
[-V] P and N
[-N] P and V
As we have seen above, the distribution of NP is almost complementary to

that of ProgP, so there is no possibility of accounting for the parallel
distribution of ProgP and PP in terms of the feature [-V], We are left
then with [-N] as a way of stating the relevant generalization. But the
only [-N] category distinct from P is V. So by this (vaguely jesuitical)
line of argument we are led from facts about distribution to the con¬
clusion, once again, that ProgP is properly seen as a verbal category.
Presumably, on this account, the rule for adverbial constructions withcfo
is something like (107):
(107) [Adv [-NlMppdoNP]]
Notice too that the distribution and function of ProgP is very close
indeed to that of progressive VP’s in EngUsh, though of course one would
be wary of giving much weight to such considerations. But there is in fact
a clearer sense in which ProgP is identified with the category of progressive
VP in English. Hiberno-English — a cover-term for a large group of dialects
of English spoken in Ireland — in its syntactic structure is subject to a
great degree of substratal influence from the syntax of Irish. In the process
of matching and mixing that creates this dialect, it is clear that Irish progP
is identified with the English progressive VP. One of the structures in
which this identification is apparent is in the adverbial construction with
agus (‘and’) discussed a number of times earlier (cf. (25)-(27) above). This
construction has been taken into Hiberno-English to give examples like
(108) a. I had to walk to the hospital and me as sick as a dog

b. I had to walk all the way home and me in my stocking feet
In this construction where Irish has ProgP, Hiberno-English has a progressive

VP:
(109) a. Agus e ag ra nach raib se ciontach

and him say(PROG) COMP+NEG was he guilty
b. And him saying that he wasn’t guilty
It is interesting in this respect to compare ProgP with a PP that has an

aspectual use. The preposition /' ndiaidh (‘after’) when it takes a non-
finite clause as object expresses a recent perfective:
(110) Ta me i ndiaidh Eoghan a fheiceail

am I after Owen see(-fin)
‘I’m after seeing Owen’ = ‘I have just seen Owen.’
The syntactic properties of this construction are quite different from those
of ProgP - they are in fact the general properties of the construction (111)
(see McCloskey (1980a), (1981) for some detailed discussion of what
those properties are):
(111) PP
Prep S
[-FIN]
On the account proposed here then, the two categories will be quite
distinct - one a VP, the other PP. It is interesting to note then that in the
process of borrowing into Hiberno-English, the two constructions are
treated quite differently. ProgP is, as noted, taken in as a VP; the perfective
construction with the preposition i ndiaidh is borrowed as a PP:
(112) Ini after seeing Owen = I have just seen Owen
For a view which takes ProgP too to be a PP containing a clausal object

James McCloskev 45
and having an aspectual use (and this is the most plausible competitor
the VP-hypothesis has) this differential treatment is quite mysterious. If
progressive ag is a preposition, why does Hiberno-English not have ‘at’ in
the corresponding construction, just as it has ‘after’?
All these considerations, I think, make it plausible to believe that
ProgP is a verbal category — the maximal expansion of V in fact, and that
its head is the 0-level category V which dominates both the particle ag
and the VN which follows it.
3.4. The non-clausal character of ProgP
So far it has been argued only that ProgP is most plausibly analyzed as the
maximal projection of V in Irish. But it is probably true to say that the
single most controversial question in the X-bar framework is the question
of just how this category should be interpreted, and how it relates to the
traditional categories. There are two positions — the first holds that
clauses are verbal categories and that the maximal projection of V
corresponds to the traditional category S' (Jackendoff (1977), Kayne
(1981), Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982)); the second holds that the
traditional category VP is the maximal projection of V and either that
clauses are projections of some other category (Chomsky (1981a), Stowell
(1981)) or that they are projections of no category (Hornstein (1977),
Bresnan (1982)).
The purpose of this final section is to argue that ProgP is clearly not a
clausal category, but rather corresponds exactly to the traditional con¬
ception of the VP.
One fact that should be mentioned to begin with has to do yet again
with the class of categories which may appear as focus in a cleft. We
established earlier that NP, PP and AP may appear in this position. But so
may S:28
(113) (Deir siad) gur e a theacht is

say they COMP+Cop him come(-fin) COMP+Cop
ceart (CBG 189)
right
‘(they say) that it is for him to come that is right.’
If S' is verbal, and furthermore the maximal projection of V, then the

fact that ProgP (interpreted as a maximal projection of V) may also
appear in this position follows without elaboration once we have allowed
for cases like (113). We will return to this issue after some evidence has
been presented that ProgP cannot be identified with (a subcategory of) S
The first point to be made in this regard is that ProgP never ever exhibits
a subject. One way of accounting for this while still maintaining that
ProgP is clausal would be to maintain that it is a clause which is always
subject to control.29
But this is an implausible account because the subjectlessness of ProgP
is a very different kind of phenomenon from the kind of subjectlessness
that control gives rise to. Complement-types subject to control come in
two versions — one which generally (but by no means absolutely, see
McCloskey (1980b), (1981)) lacks a subject, and one that has a subject.
The only difference between the two types is the presence or absence of a
subject. The distribution of the two types is a function of context — the
type that lacks a subject appears of course as complement to a predicate
that requires control; the version with a subject appears in non-control
contexts.
(114) a. Thig leat Eoghan a fheiceail

you can Owen see(-fin)
‘You can see Owen.’
b. Nior mhaith Horn tu Eoghan a fheiceail
I-wouldn’t-like you Owen see(-fin)
T wouldn’t like you to see Owen.’
But ProgP differs in that there is no version which has a subject. That is,
the subjectlessness of ProgP is determined not (as in all other cases of
control) by the context in which the phrase appears, but is rather an
intrinsic property of the phrase itself, independent of the context in
which it appears. This absolute prohibition against the appearance of
subjects is untypical of clauses, and untypical of the phenomenon of
control in Irish.
So the simple look of the phrase — the fact that it can never under
any circumstances have a subject — leads one to think that this is not a
clausal category.
Certain of the properties of ProgP that have already been discussed
suggest the same conclusion. For example, the fact that ProgP cannot
be subject of a verb, or object of a preposition, argues as much against
its being S' as it does against its being NP. Clauses, finite and non-fmite,
appear freely in both positions. This has already been discussed; the
relevant examples are repeated here. (115) demonstrates first that
clauses may be prepositional objects and then that ProgP may not. (116)
demonstrates that clauses (in an extraposition structure) may be subjects,
and then that ProgP may not:
James McCloskev 47
(115) a. Bin' an Buffer buartha faoi go raibh Muiris

was the Buffer upset about COMP was
ag brath imeacht (SFh 110)
intend(PROC) leave(-fin)
'The Buffer was upset about that Muiris was thinking of leaving.’
b. Ta mu id i ndiaidh a bheith ag imirt fichille
are we after be(-fin) play(PROG) chess
'We have just been playing chess.’
c. *Td muid i ndiaidh ag imirt fichille
are we after play(PROG) chess
'We are after playing chess.’
(116) a. Thaitin se liom go dtainig tii ’na bhaile

pleased it with-me COMP came you home
‘It pleased me that you came home.’
b. Taitnionn se liom a bheith ag imirt fichille
pleases it with-me be(-fin) play(PROG) chess
‘I like (to be) playing chess.’
c *Taitnionn se liom ag imirt fichille
pleases it with-me play(PROG) chess
'I like playing chess.’
The facts about extraposition from subject-position in (116c) are par¬

ticularly revealing, since as demonstrated by Stenson (1976) pp. 91-96,
this is a clear diagnostic for clauses, both finite and non-finite, in Irish.
But there are a number of other considerations which suggest the same
conclusion — that ProgP is not clausal.
Negation-markers in Irish are restricted to a single position — clause-
initial position. In fact, the finite negative particles clearly belong in the
same syntactic class as that class of particles which were argued in
McCloskey (1979) to be COMP’s (McCloskey (1979) pp. 11-16, Stenson
(1976) pp. 27). The non-finite negative particle gan occurs in the corres¬
ponding position in non-finite clauses, so it seems reasonable to analyze
this too as a COMP, in a configuration like (117):
(117) S
[-FIN]
COMP S
-FIN '
+NEG
gan
But whatever one thinks about the details of this analysis, it is clear that
the possibility of a negative particle in initial position is a distinguishing
characteristic of clauses. ProgP allows no such particle. One case where
one might expect to find such a particle if ProgP permitted them is in the
o/r/y-construction. Recall that in this construction some phrase (a
maximal projection) is prefixed with ach and the clause containing the
ach-phrase is negated:
(118) a. Duirt me nach bhfaca me ach mo dhearthair

said I COMP+NEG saw I but my brother
‘1 said that I saw only my brother.’
b. Shocraigh me ar gan focal a ra ach
settled I on NEG a-word say(-fin) but
imo theanga fein
in-my language REFLEX
‘I decided not to say a word except in my own language.’
If ProgP were clausal, then one would expect examples like (119), con¬
structed on the model of (118), to be grammatical. They are not:
(119) a *Bhi siad gan ag ithe ach pratai

were they NEG eat(PROG) but potatoes
‘They were eating only potatoes.’
b .*Bhi siad ag gan ithe ach pratai
Negation must in fact be expressed on the matrix:
(120) Ni raibh siad a ithe ach pratai

NEG were they eat(PROG) but potatoes
‘They were eating only potatoes.’
A similar kind of argument is based on the distribution of interrogative

phrases. Irish, like English, permits infinitival questions.30 One of the
interesting differences, however, between the two languages is that Irish
allows both lexical and null subjects in this class of question:
(121) a. Nil fhios agam conas tabhairt faoi

I-don’t know how take(-fin) about-it
‘I don’t know how to go about it.’
b. ach ccn fath iad a bheith chomh deacair sin
but why them be(-fin) so-difficult
a fhoghlaim
learn(-fin)
‘but why are they so hard to learn?’
James McCloskey 49
c. cen fath gan iad a b licith i lathair

why NEG them be(-fin) present
‘Why aren’t they present?’
This constitutes clear evidence that in the rule proposed for questions in
McCloskey (1979):
Q^X2 S'
[+Q]
S' should be taken to include both finite and non-finite clauses. If ProgP
is a subcategory of S', then it too should appear in this construction. It
does not:
(122) a.*/Y77 fhios agam corns ag tabhairt faoi

I-don’t know how take(PROG) about-it
‘I don’t know how to be going about it.’
b. Nil ghios agam corns a bheith ag tabhairt faoi
I don’t know how be(-fin) take(PROG) about-it
‘I don’t know how to be going about it.’
There is another property that clearly is a property of clauses, but not

of ProgP — this is the property of being a bounding node with respect to
rightward movements. The easiest way to illustrate this property for Irish,
is to consider again clefts. If a category X in a cleft structure like (123) is
a bounding node for rightward movements, then movements to the right
of elements in X should stop at the right boundary of X. In particular, it
should be impossible for a constituent of X to move to the right boundary
of the matrix:
(123) S
Now we have already demonstrated that ProgP does not possess this
property. The kind of example that illustrates this point has already been
discussed in 3.1 above. Some of the examples are repeated here:
(124) a. ag duil a bhi se go ndeanfadh

hope(PROG) COMP was he COMP would-do
an chuid eile aithris air
the others imitation on-him
it was hoping he was that the others would imitate him.'
b. a tnuth mo chuid leighinn a bhi siad Horn
envy(PROG) my education COMP were they with-me
it was envying me my education that they were.’
c. ag leamh ailt a bhi me faoin toghachan
read(PROG) article COMP was 1 about-the election
it was reading an article that I was about the election.’
But this is not possible in the case of a non-finite clause in the focus-
position of a cleft:
(125) a. Mu id a ra go bhfuil muid ciontach

us say(-fin) COMP are we guilty
a ta se a iarraidh
COMP is he want(PROG)
‘It’s for us to say that we are guilty that he wants.’
b *Muid a ra a ta se a iarraidh
us say(-fin) COMP is he want(PROG)
go bhfuil muid ciontach
COMP are we guilty
The structure analogous to (125b) but involving a ProgP is clearly gram¬

matical:
(126) ag ra a bhi muid go raibh muid ciontach

say(PROG) COMP were we COMP were we guilty
it was saying that we were that we were guilty.’
Finally, recall that ProgP’s have passive forms (cf. (67)-(70)). Keenan
(1980) has argued that passive is a rule whose domain is not S or V, but
rather VP. We have seen that ProgP has a passive form, and further that
the formal differences between passive and non-passive forms are marked
entirely within the limits of ProgP itself. If Keenan is right in this then,
we have another reason here for taking ProgP to be VP rather than S or
S'.
This accumulation of evidence seems to me to be rather strong, and to
leave as most plausible the hypothesis whose plausibility we set out initially
to demonstrate - namely, that ProgP is a constituent whose properties
are exactly those of the traditional VP - a category V2, distinct from S
and S', whose properties are essentially those suggested by (106).
James McCloskev 51
What then, to turn finally to a question that has hovered behind the
discussion throughout, is the generalization concerning what categories
may appear in the focus-position of a cleft? If we are right in our main
conclusion, then the class of such categories is (127):
(127) N2, A2, P2, V2, S'
This is also the class of categories to which the particle ach can be prefixed
in the o/i/y-construction. What implications does this have for X-bar
theory? In recent work, Bresnan (1982) has suggested that S is different
from all other categories in being exocentric in all languages. She proposes
that S and S' are projections of no lexical category, and that there need
therefore be no categorial match between the features of S and the features
of its head. On this view S is a level-1 category, and S' — like NP, PP,
AP and VP — is a level-2 category. Within such a system, there is a very
simple answer to the question of how to characterize the class of categories
in (127) — it is simply X2.
As far as I can tell, there is no way to define this class of categories
as a natural class in a system which has the following properties:
(i) S and S' are taken to be projections of V

(ii) the difference between S' and VP is one of bar-level rather than
one defined by features.
As long as both VP and S' are verbal projections at different levels of

structure, there will be no way to include them both in a generalization
that is in essence one of level rather than of category.
FOOTNOTES
*An earlier version of this material was presented at an informal seminar held at the
University of Sussex in the summer of 1980. My thanks to those present on that
occasion for a useful discussion. I am grateful also to Donall O Baoill and Liam
Breatnach for some helpful suggestions. Finally, I want to thank Donall O Baoill,
Sean O Colla and Roise Ni Bhaoill for their patient help as native informants.
1. The dialect represented in this chapter unless otherwise noted is that of Ulster
Irish. I have no reason to believe, however, that the facts reported on here differ in
any substantial way in other dialects. Many of the examples given are taken from
modern published sources. When this is the case, it is indicated by abbreviations
which have the following interpretation:
AtS: Anton tSecobh, Gearr-Scealta, aistrithe ag Maighread Nic Mhaicin

CBG: Graimear Gaeilge na mBraithre Criostai
C1M: Cul le Muir agus Scealta Eile, Maire
CO: Caisleain Oir, Maire
CPh: Crathadh an Phocain, Seaghan Mhac Meanman

D: An Draoidin, Maire
DD: An Dochartach Duibhlionna, Seosamh Mac Grianna
DM: An Druma Mor, Seosamh Mac Grianna
ERON: Eoghan Rua O Neill, Seosamh Mac Grianna
GS: Gura Sian le M'Oige, Fionn Mac CumhaiU
MBhF: Mo Bhealach Fein, Seosamh Mac Grianna
MD: An Mairnealach Dubh, Joseph Conrad, aistrithe ag Seosamh Mac
Grianna
NBh: Nuair a BhiMe Og, Seamas 0 Grianna
OMh: O Mhuir go Sliabh, Maire
POC: Padraic O Conaire agus Aisti Eile, Seosamh Mac Grianna
RM: Rotha Mor an tSaoil, Mici Mac Gabhann
RgB: Na Rosa go Brathach, Fionn Mac CumhaiU
SC: Saol Corrach, Seamas 6 Grianna
SFh: An Sean Fhod, Fionn Mac CumhaiU
SS: Scealta Sealgaire, Turgenev, aistrithe ag Maighread Nic Mhaici'n
WPP: Willie the Plain Pint agus an Papa, Breandan O hEithir
Abbreviations used in the glosses are as follows:
COMP Complementizer
Cop = Copula
Dev Deverbal
Fin = Finite
GEN Genitive
HABIT Habitual
INTERR = Interrogative
NEG Negative
NOM Nominative
PASS Passive
PL Plural
PROG Progressive
Ptc = Particle
REFLEX = Reflexive
VN Verbal Noun
2. Much of the argument made for Breton, however, is withdrawn in Anderson

(1981).
3. Another of Greenberg’s universals ((16)) does not apply to Irish. This concerns
the relative order of inflected auxiliaries and main verbs. There is no class of inflected
auxUiaries in the language distinct from ordinary complement-taking verbs.
4. In the cleft construction, subjects may appear before the verb ‘accidentally’
as it were. This is not a fact about subjects - any NP bearing any grammatical relation
(and indeed many other constituent-types) may appear in this position. Clefts are
discussed below.
5. The order of elements in non-finite clauses is different in some respects -
subjects precede the verb, as do objects under certain conditions, which differ from
dialect to dialect. The matter is discussed in some detail in McCloskey (1980a),
where an analysis is presented which derives this alternative order from a VSO base.
6. Determining the status of this case-marking rule is complicated a little by the
James McCloskey 53
fact that a number of factors can inhibit application of genitive rules. A noun modified
by an adjective or relative clause, for example, will often resist being marked with the
case appropriate to its context (cf. DeBhaldraithe (1983) pp. 9-13). Therefore to test
the optionality of the rule for genitive following a progressive verb, one must be sure
not to use examples in which these factors are relevant. In fact the NIMype in (14)
and (15) l NPDet N ) is one that favours application of case rules (De Bhaldraithe
(1953) p. 11).
7. The ‘copula’ mentioned in (17) is not the same as the ‘verb to be’ mentioned
in (11). Two items in Irish correspond to the verb ‘be’ in English. One of them
ta - is clearly a verb. The other - the copula is - is equally clearly not a
verb (Ahlqvist (1972)) - though to say what its proper analysis is, of course, is more
difficult.
8. Adverbial phrases may also appear in the focus of a cleft. The formal differ¬
ences between adverbial and adjectival phrases in Irish are minimal, so 1 will make
the common assumption here that both categories can be subsumed under AP.
Adverbial clauses (when, where, because, since etc.) can also appear in this position.
These I will assume, following Emonds (1976), to be PP’s. The case for this is made
strong by the fact that many of the ‘conjunctions’ in question are homophonous with
prepositions (for clauses in focus-position, see section 3.4 below). As far as I know,
this is a complete list of the categories that may appear in this position.
9. (35a) is in fact ambiguous, depending on whether ach focusses on the NP
beagan beag (‘a little’), or on the AP of which beagan beag is the first constituent. It
is this second reading which is relevant for our purposes.
10. The progressive form a iarraidh in (36b) lacks the particle ag for reasons that
will be discussed briefly in 3.2 below, and at more length in Clements et al. (1981).
11. I make the common assumption here that the maximal level of projection is
the same for all categories. I think that none of the major conclusions argued for here
would be affected if a different assumption were made.
12. I have in mind here ‘small VP’ analyses, which might assume a structure like:
vn+2
13. This is the structure proposed by Stenson (1976), with X = [npS].

14. This convention is frequently ignored. Note that in many of the examples
quoted in this chapter, one will have a' VIV rather than ag VIV. See O Murchu
(1981).
15. The allomorphy illustrated in (57) holds for all dialects. See, for instance,
6 Cuiv (1944).
16. This split was certainly accomplished by the 16th century, since it appears
also in Scots Gaelic (where it has been given orthographical recognition). Most of the
distinctions that mark off Scottish from Irish dialects have their origin in the 13th
century, so perhaps the split is as old as this period.
17. There is one important difference between the distributions of active and
passive ProgP’s. The passive version may not appear in the adverbial construction
with do:
(i) A thogail agam do theach

its build(VN) at-me to a-house
‘as a house was being built by me
I have no explanation for this beyond having a suspicion that it has to do with the
disruption of the obligatory anaphoric relationship between subject (now object of
do) and the pronoun prefixed to the VN that is an essential element in the passive
ProgP construction. Note that in an example like (i) the subject teach no longer
c-commands the possessive pronoun.
18. The meaning of the translations in (77) can be expressed either with the
copula (cf. note 7) or with a PP complement rather than a NP complement:
(i) Is dliodoir Eoghan

Cop a-lawyer
‘Eoghan is a lawyer.’
(ii) Ta Eoghan ina dhliodoir

is in-his lawyer
‘Eoghan is a lawyer.’
19. (79b) has an irrelevant grammatical reading in which the subject pronoun is
referential rather than being a dummy, and in which ProgP is an adverbial adjunct:
T like it when I’m playing cards.’
20. Ptc in this can sometimes be null. The facts in this respect differ from dialect
to dialect. See McCloskey (1980a) for a discussion and analysis of the Ulster facts.
21. The name ‘deverbal’ should not be taken literally. There are many VN’s that
correspond to no finite verb - urnai (‘praying’), osnail (‘sighing’), caint (‘talking’)
in most dialects, for instance, have no corresponding finite verbs. There is one verb
that I know of which has no VN - feadaim (‘I can’), but even this verb has been
supplied with a new VN in at least one dialect — cf. De Bhaldraithe (1948).
22. This construction is found only in Ulster dialects. Other dialects have ProgP
in its place in examples such as (99). The complement phrase which is headed by this
infinitive is almost certainly also a VP, since its syntactic properties are exactly those
of ProgP.
23. Examples like (100) are available only for southern dialects. In northern
dialects, object NP’s are always to the left of V, so examples like (100) would always
appear with SOV order:
Duirt se Seamas an doras a dhunadh

said he James the-door close(-fin)
‘He said for James to close the door.’
Since the object NP in such dialects never follows V, the genitive rule will never have
a chance to apply (cf. McCloskey (1980a)).
24. In infinitival clauses subject pronouns may also cliticize to V if they appear
immediately adjacent to it (i.e. in the configuration
[sSubj V ....]).
[-FIN]
This possibility can never arise in the case of ProgP since it can never have a subject.
25. There is also an historical parallel, in that the particles of the other types of
non-finite V are also derived historically from older prepositions, in particular the
dative preposition do.
James McCloskey 55
26. I will not attempt to construct a detailed analysis of these properties here. To
make all the necessary correlations between the different kinds of non-finite V on
the one hand, and between all these and N on the other hand would involve us in a
long series of difficult questions about the internal analaysis of NP, and about the
best analysis of the word-order differences between finite and non-finite clauses. It
is enough for our present purposes to demonstrate that the analytical problems are
the same for ProgP as they are for clear instances of non-finite V, thus supporting the
conclusion that the head of ProgP is V. Whether or not a synchronic grammar should
or should not capture the parallels between non-finite V and N with respect to these
properties is a question that is open to debate. It is clear that the diachronic explan¬
ation for non-finite V having these properties is that the structures containing VN
derive from earlier structures whose syntax was purely nominal. Perhaps the modern
noun-like properties of non-finite V are an arbitrary loose end left by syntactic
change, and have the status merely of isolated peculiarities in a synchronic grammar.
27. This proposal is similar in essential respects to that made by Seamas O
Murchu (1981), approaching the matter in the context of ‘traditional’ grammar.
His conclusion is that the sequence ag VN is a ‘rangabhail leanunach’ (a present
participle) and he takes ag to be ‘a special particle that is placed before a noun to
make a present participle’ (my translation).
28. This is clear for non-finite S'. Speakers seem to disagree with regard to the
status of the examples in which finite clauses appear in focus-position.
29. This is essentially the proposal made by Nancy Stenson (1976). What I have
been calling ProgP is analyzed as (i)
(l) tpp [prep agJ W
and the subject of S is always deleted by Equi.

30. The construction is, however, subject to rather massive restrictions. Only inter¬
rogative adverbs (cen fath (‘why’), conas (‘how’)) may head infinitival questions, and
even then there seems to be a high degree of idiosyncratic and dialectal variation.
Chapter 3
A Welsh agreement process and the

status of VP and S
Robert D. Borsley
0. INTRODUCTION*
Welsh has a number of rather unusual agreement processes. Of particular

interest is an agreement process involving non-finite verbs. In this chapter,
I will consider the possibility of providing an account of this process
within the generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG) framework. I
will argue that quite a simple account is possible provided one treats VP
and S as the same basic category. I will argue that there are various kinds
of independent motivation for such a treatment and that it is in fact
preferable to the obvious alternatives. In short, this approach to VP and
S is not just an artefact of a GPSG account of the Welsh agreement
process but is a well motivated analysis.
The chapter is organized as follows. In section 1, I will present the
basic data and provide an informal characterization of the agreement
process. In section 2, I will consider and reject a possible objection to this
characterization. In section 3, I will argue that the agreement process is
somewhat problematic if one adopts the view of VP and S assumed in
Gazdar (1982) and Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982). I will then show, in
section 4, that there is no problem if one treats VP and S as the same basic
category. In section 5, I will present some further motivation for this
treatment. Finally, in section 6, I will consider two other views of VP
and S and argue that they are inferior to the proposed treatment.
1. THE BASIC DATA
The main data that is relevant here can be surveyed fairly briefly. There
are two classes of sentences that we need to consider. On the one hand,
there are sentences in which a non-finite verb is followed by a subject.
On the other, there are sentences in which a non-finite verb is followed by
an object.
The first class of sentences are equivalent to English sentences con¬
taining that clauses. The following illustrate:1
58 A Welsh agreement process and the status of VP and S
(1) Dywedodd Gwyn fod Emrys yn ddiog.

said Gwyn be Emrys in lazy
‘Gwyn said Emrys was lazy.’
(2) Credodd Emrys fod Megan yma.

thought Emrys be Megan here
‘Emrys thought Megan was here.’
In these examples, we have non-pronominal subjects. In the following, we

have pronominal subjects:
(3) Dywedodd Gwyn ei fod ef yn ddiog.

said Gwyn be he in lazy
‘Gwyn said he was lazy.’
(4) Credodd Emrys ei bod hi yma.

thought Emrys be she here
‘Emrys thought she was here.’
In these examples, the verb is preceded by what I will call a clitic. These
clitics are obligatory. This is shown by the following:
(5) *Dywedodd Gwyn fod ef yn ddiog.
(6) *Credodd Emrys fod hi yma.
The pronouns themselves are superficially optional, as the following

illustrate:
(7) Dywedodd Gwyn ei fod yn ddiog.
(8) Credodd Emrys ei bod yma.
I shall assume that these examples involve pronominal subjects that are
phonologically null. We can see, then, that a non-finite verb is preceded
by a clitic whenever it is followed by a pronominal subject.
The second class of sentences are sentences that would be analyzed in
terms of raising or equi in a classical transformational framework. The
following illustrate:
(9) Dylai Gwyn hoffi Emrys.

ought Gwyn like Emrys
‘Gwyn ought to like Emrys.’
Robert D. Borsley 59
(10) Ceisiodd Emrys weld Megan,

tried Emrys see Megan
‘Emrys tried to see Megan.’
In these examples, we have nonpronominal objects. In the following, we

have pronominal objects:
(11) Dylai Gwyn ei hoffi ef.

ought Gwyn like he
‘Gwyn ought to like him.’
(12) Ceisiodd Emrys ei gweld hi.

tried Emrys see she
‘Emrys tried to see her.’
As in (3) and (4), the verbs in these examples are preceded by clitics.
Again, the clitics are obligatory. The following illustrate:
(13) * Dylai Gwyn hoffi ef.
(14) *Ceisiodd Emrys weld hi.
Again, too, the pronouns are superficially optional.
(15) Dylai Gwyn ei hoffi.
(16) Ceisiodd Emrys ei gweld.
Again, I shall assume that we have phonologically null pronouns. We can

see, then, that a non-finite verb is also preceded by a clitic whenever it is
followed by a pronominal object.
Thus, non-finite verbs show agreement in the form of a preceding
clitic with both a following pronominal subject and a following pro¬
nominal object. It is fairly clear that there is a single process going on. In
both cases, the clitic is obligatory and the pronoun superficially optional,
and the same clitics appear in both cases. The examples in the preceding
paragraphs illustrate the third person singular masculine and feminine
clitics. They are identical in phonological form but differ in that the
former but not the latter triggers the phonological process known as soft
mutation. There are five other clitics as follows:
(17) fy l.sg.
dy 2.sg.
ein 1 .pi.
eich 2.pl.
eu 3.pl.
All of these clitics appear with both subjects and objects. The following
parallel (3) and (11):
(18) a. Dywedodd Gwyn fy mod i yn ddiog.

b. Dywedodd Gwyn dy fod di yn ddiog.
c. Dywedodd Gwyn ein bod ni yn ddiog.
d. Dywedodd Gwyn eich bod chwi yn ddiog.
e. Dywedodd Gwyn eu bod hwy yn ddiog.
(19) a. Dylai Gwyn fy hoffi i.

b. Dylai Gwyn dy hoffi di.
c. Dylai Gwyn ein hoffi ni.
d. Dylai Gwyn eich hoffi chwi.
e. Dylai Gwyn eu hoffi hwy.
It seems legitimate to conclude that we are dealing with a single agree¬

ment process. We can describe it informally as follows:
(20) A non-finite verb is preceded by a clitic whenever it is followed by

a pronoun, irrespective of whether the pronoun is a subject or an
object.
Shortly, I will consider the possibility of providing a formal account of

this process. First, however, I must consider a possible objection to this
informal description.
2. AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF THE DATA
In traditional Welsh grammar, what I have referred to as non-finite verbs

are known as ‘verb-nouns’. This terminology reflects the fact that these
forms resemble nouns in a number of ways. In view of this, one might
suggest that they are not members of V at all but members of N. Obviously,
if this suggestion were viable, the description of agreement that I have
offered would have to be abandoned.
The most important similarity between non-finite verbs and nouns is
that we appear to have the same agreement process with both.2 This can
be illustrated quite briefly. Welsh expresses possession with a bare post-

nominal NP. (21) illustrates
(21) ci Emrys
dog Emrys
‘Emrys’s dog’
In this example, we have a non-pronominal NP. In (22), we have a pro¬

nominal NP.
(22) ei gi ef
dog he
‘his dog’
Here, the noun is preceded by a clitic. The clitic is obligatory, as (23)

illustrates.
(23) *ci ef
Superficially, the pronoun is optional.
(24) ei gi
I shall assume, however, that this example involves a phonologically null

pronoun and that the following holds:
(25) A noun is preceded by a clitic whenever it is followed by a pronoun.
We have the same clitics here as with non-finite verbs. The following
illustrate:
(26) a. fy nghi i
‘my dog’
b. dy gi di
‘your (sg.) dog’
c. ei chi hi
‘her dog’
d. ein ci ni
‘our dog’
e. eich ci chwi
‘your (pi.) dog’
f. eu ci hwy
‘their dog’
It seems natural, then, to assume that there is a single agreement process

here. Obviously, this will be the case if what I have called non-finite verbs
are really nouns. So it looks as if there is some evidence for this view.
There is, however, an objection. If what I have called non-finite verbs
were really nouns, the phrases that they head would be NP’s, assuming a
reasonably restrictive theory of phrase structure. But they do not have the
distribution of NP’s. We can look first at phrases with subjects. Although
these phrases can appear in some of the positions in which NP’s appear,
they cannot appear in others. For example, they cannot appear in subject
position, as (27) illustrates.
(27) *Synnodd bod Emrys yn hwyr bawb.

surprised be Emrys in late everyone
‘That Emrys was late surprised everyone.’
When such a phrase functions as a subject, it appears in sentence-final

position. Thus, instead of (27), we have (28).
(28) Synnodd bawb fod Emrys yn hwyr.
We have similar data with finite S’s.
(29) *Synnodd y byddai Emrys yn hwyr bawb.

surprised that would be Emrys in late everyone
‘That Emrys would be late surprised everyone.’
(30) Synnodd bawb y byddai Emrys yn hwyr.
In the light of such data, it seems reasonable to conclude that these phrases
are not NP’s but S’s.
We can turn now to phrases without subjects. These phrases too appear
in some of the positions in which NP’s appear, but they also appear in
positions which NP’s cannot appear. For example, we cannot replace the
phrase in (9) with an NP.
(31) *Dylai Gwyn Megan.
A second context which allows these phrases and not NP’s is illustrated in
(32) .
(32) Dywedodd Gwyn i Emrys weld Megan,

said Gwyn to Emrys see Megan
‘Gwyn said Emrys saw Megan.’
Here, a subjectless phrase is preceded by a PP headed by the preposition

i ‘to’. (33) shows that we cannot have an NP in this position.
(33) *Dywedodd Gwyn i Enirys Megan.
It seems that these phrases are not NP’s either.

If the crucial phrases are not NP’s, what I have called non-fmite verbs
cannot be analyzed as nouns. I shall therefore continue to assume that the
description of agreement that I offered in section 1 is a sound one.
3. AN ANALYSIS
We can now consider the possibility of providing an account of agreement

with non-fmite verbs within the GPSG framework. I will show that this is
rather problematic if one adopts the view of VP and S assumed in Gazdar
(1982) and Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982).
We can look first at the first class of sentences that we considered in
section 1. As we have seen, these sentences involve non-finite S’s. In the
works just cited, S is V2. If we adopt this assumption, (1) will have the
structure in (34), and (3) will have the structure in (35).
(34) V2
[+FIN]
V N2 V2
[+FIN] [-FIN]
V N2 P2
dywedodd Gwyn [-FIN]
fod Emrys yn ddiog
(35) V2
[+FIN]
V N2 V2
[+FIN] [-FIN]
Cl V N2 P2
dywedodd Gwyn [-FIN]
ei fod ef yn ddiog
To generate these structures, we will need two separate rules for non-finite
S’s. For the non-finite S in (34), we will need the rule in (36), and for the
non-finite S in (35), we will need the rule in (37), where a is a variable
over permissable combinations of person and number features.3
(36) V2 [-FIN] -> V N2 [-PRO] P2
(37) V2 [-FIN] -> Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a] P2
There will, of course, be other rules for non-finite S’s. In fact, there will
be a set of rules of the form in (38) and another set of rules of the form
in (39).
(38) V2[-FIN] -> V N2[-PRO] ...
(39) V2[-FIN] -> Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a] ...
For every rule of the form in (38), there will be a parallel rule of the form
in (39). We can capture this generalization with a metarule of the following
form.
(40) < V2[-FIN] -> V N2 [-PRO] W)
( V2 [-FIN] -> Cl [a] V N2[-PRO,a] W)
Given such a metarule, we need not list rules of the form in (39) in the
grammar.
We can turn now to the second class of sentences that we looked at in
section 1. These sentences involve subjectless infinitives. Following Brame
(1975, 1976) and Bresnan (1971, 1978), Gazdar (1982) and Gazdar,
Pullum and Sag (1982) assume that subjectless infinitives are bare VP’s.4
They also assume that VP is V1. If we adopt these assumptions, (9) will
have the structure in (41), and (11), the structure in (42).5
(41)
V N2
dylai Gwyn [-FIN]
hoffi Emrys
(42)
V N2 VI
[+FIN] [-FIN]
Cl V N2
dylai Gwyn [-FIN]
ei hoffi ef
To generate these structures, we will need the following rules for VP’s:
(43) VI [-FIN] V N2[-PRO]
(44) VI [-FIN] -> Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a]
Again, there will be other rules. There will be a set of rules for VP’s with
non-pronominal objects and a set of rules for VP’s with pronominal objects
as follows:
(45) VI [-FIN] -> V N2[-PRO] ...
(46) VI [-FIN] -* Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a] ...
Clearly, we can derive the latter from the former with the following
metarule.
(47) (VI [-FIN] -» V N2[-PRO] W)
(VI [-FIN] -* Cl [a] V N2 [+PRO, a] >
Thus, rules of the form in (45) need not be listed in the grammar.
We have now sketched an analysis of the two classes of sentences that
we considered in section 1. A crucial feature of this analysis is that it
involves two separate metarules. Since there is a single agreement process
here, this is inadequate. There is, however, no very satisfactory way to
formulate a single metarule within this analysis. The only way to formulate
a single metarule is to invoke a variable ranging over projections of V. If
we represent this variable as Vn, we can formulate a single metarule as
follows:
(48) < Vn [-FIN] -> V N2 [-PRO] W)

A
{V" [-FIN] -» Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a] W>
It seems undesirable, however, to permit metarules to contain variables

over projections of specific lexical categories. Such variables have not
previously been invoked within GPSG. If one is seeking a restrictive theory
of metarules, it seems natural to rule out their use.6
4. A REVISED ANALYSIS
I want now to argue that the agreement process that we are concerned
with here poses no problems if we treat VP and S as the same basic category.
This is an extension of an idea that appears in Gazdar (1981). Unlike
Koster (1978) and van Riemsdijk (1978), who interpret S as V2 and S;
as V3, Gazdar suggests that S and S* are both instances of V2 and that
they are only distinguished by a feature ±C(omplementizer), S being
V2[-C] and S' being V2[+C] ,7 I propose to treat VP too as instance of
V. To distinguish it from S and S', I will employ the feature ±SUBJ(ect),
marking VP as [-SUBJ] and S and S as [+SUBJ]. I propose, then, to
interpret VP as V2[-SUBJ] (or more fully V2[-SUBJ, -C] and S as
V2[+SUBJ] (or more fully V2[+SUBJ, -C]).
With this interpretation of VP and S, (1) will have the structure in
(49) and (3) will have the structure in (50).
(49) V2
+SUBJ
+FIN
V N2 V2
[+FIN] +SUBJ
-FIN
dywedodd Gwyn
fod Emrys yn ddiog

(50) V2
+ SUBJ
+ FIN
V N2 V2
[+FIN] + SUBJ
-FIN
dywedodd Gwyn Cl V N2 P2
[-FIN]
ei fod ef yn ddiog
For (9), we will have the structure in (51), and for (11), the structure in
(52).
(51) V2
+SUBJ
+ FIN
V N2 V2 _
[+FIN] -SUBJ
-FIN
dylai Gwyn V N2
[-FIN]
hoffi Emrys
(52) V2
+SUBJ
+FIN
V N2 V2
[+FIN] -SUBJ
-FIN
dylai Gwyn Cl V N2
[-FIN]
ei hoffi ef
We will also, of course, have different rules. For non-finite S’s, we will
have two sets of rules of the following form.
(53) V2[+SUBJ, -FIN] V N2[-PRO] ...
(54) V2[+SUBJ, -FIN] -» Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a] ...
For VP’s, we will have two sets of rules as follows:
(55) V2[-SUBJ, -FIN] -+ V N2[-PRO] ...
(56) V2[-SUBJ, -FIN] -»■ Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a] ...
It is now quite easy to formulate a single metarule. We can propose the

following.
(57) < V2[-FIN] -* V N2 [-PRO] W)

4
< V2 [-FIN] -> Cl [a] V N2[+PRO,a] W)
This is formally identical to the metarule in (40) but it is functionally

quite different. Since both S and VP are instances of V2 in the present
analysis, it will apply to both S rules and VP rules. Its crucial feature is
that V2 is unspecified for the feature [±SUBJ]. It is worth stressing, there¬
fore that it is standard for terms in metarules to be unspecified for certain
features. The less specification, the greater the generality of the metarule.
Consider, for example, the following metarule, proposed in Gazdar,
Pullum and Sag (1982) to provide a set of rules that introduce null VP’s:
(58) < V1 [+AUX, -PRP, -GER] -> V VI >
(VI -> V VI [+NUL] )
An essential of this metarule is that the second VI in the structural

description is unspecified for any of the VI features that Gazdar, Pullum
and Sag assume. Thus (57) is a conventional metarule.
One objection that might be advanced against (57) is that it is
insufficiently general. As we saw in section 2, it looks as if the same
agreement process occurs with nouns. This suggests that we need a more
general metarule. It should be possible to formulate such a metarule as
long as V and N share a feature. I will not pursue this point, however, since
it falls outside the main concerns of this chapter. All I want to establish
here is that there is no difficulty in providing a unified account of agree¬
ment with non-finite verbs if VP and S are the same basic category.
5. FURTHER MOTIVATION FOR THE PROPOSED TREATMENT OF VP AND S
Although the proposed treatment of VP and S permits a unified account

of agreement with non-finite verbs, it implies that V has no intermediate
projection.8 Hence, it introduces a major asymmetry into the X-bar frame¬
work. One might, therefore, take the view that the more conventional
analysis assumed in Gazdar (1982) and Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982)
must be preferable. I will argue, however, that this is not the case. I will
show that there are in fact a number of reasons for preferring the proposed
treatment to the more conventional analysis.
Before we proceed, it is worth noting that McCawley (1970) proposes
within a transformational framework that a VP is simply an S without a
subject. This view is developed in some detail in Keyser and Postal (1976)
and Pullum and Wilson (1977). Thus, what I am proposing is not entirely
novel.
One reason for preferring the proposed treatment to the more con¬
ventional analysis involves sentences like the following:9
(59) They thought John had gone home, and gone home he had.
(60) They said Mary was writing poems and writing poems she was.
Such sentences are traditionally assumed to involve a process of VP-

fronting. Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982) suggest that VP-fronting is a
special case of topicalization. They assume that topicalization involves
the following rule schema:
(61) V2 a V2/a
This employs the slash category apparatus of Gazdar (1981, 1982). What it
says is that a sentence can consist of a constituent of category a followed
by a sentence that is missing a constituent of category a. Gazdar (1982)
presents this rule schema with the requirement that a be a maximal
projection. Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982) are forced to abandon this
requirement because they assume that VP is not a maximal projection.
Thus, their proposal is problematic given their view of VP. Within the
analysis I am proposing, VP is a maximal projection. Hence, it is possible
to maintain the original requirement. Here, then, we have one reason for
preferring this analysis.
A second reason for preferring the proposed analysis comes from
sentences involving VP complements.10 Such sentences are quite proble¬
matic if one assumes that VP is not a maximal projection. If one adopts
this view, the existence of VP complements necessitates the abandonment
of the otherwise well-motivated constraint that complements are either

maximal projections or grammatical formatives (Jackendoff (1977), Ch. 3).
Koster (1978) p. 90 and Koster and May (1982) present this as an argument
against VP complements. There is no problem, however, if VP is a maximal
projection. Again, then, the proposed analysis seems preferable to the
more conventional analysis.
A final reason for preferring the proposed analysis comes from non-
finite embedded questions such as those in the following:
(62) John wondered whether to get up.
(63) Mary didn’t know what to do.
Within the GPSG framework, it is natural to assume that such embedded

questions involve bare VP’s. Chomsky (1980) argues, however, that they
involve S’s with PRO subjects. This analysis, of course, requires some
mechanism to constrain the distribution of PRO, which is by no means
a simple matter. Chomsky argues against a bare VP analysis on the grounds
that it involves a complication of the base. There is no complication,
however, if one assumes the proposed analysis of VP and S. Within this
analysis, we can propose the following rules for finite embedded questions:
(64) V2[+Q] -> whether V2 [-Q, +SUBJ, + FIN]
(65) V2[+Q] -> N2 [+u7z] V2 [-Q, +SUBJ, +FINJ/N2
(64) will provide for examples like (66) and (65) for examples like (67).
(66) John wondered whether he should get up.
(67) Mary didn’t know what she should do.
For non-fmite embedded questions, we can propose the following rules:
(68) V2[+Q] -* whether V2[-Q,-SUBJ,-FIN]
(69) V2[+Q] -» N2[+w/i] V2[-Q, -SUBJ, -FIN]/N2
These will provide for examples like (62) and (63). Notice now that we
can collapse these two pairs of rules quite simply as follows:
(70) V2[+Q] -*
whether V2 [-Q, aSUBJ, aFIN]
(71) V2[+Q] -> N2[+w/2] V2 [-Q, aSUBJ, aFlNj/N2
Thus, within the proposed analysis of VP and S, a bare VP analysis of non-

finite embedded questions does not involve any undesirable complication.
Consequently, there is no need to assume an S analysis for such structures
with its attendant complications. Once again, the proposed treatment of
VP and S seems preferable to the more conventional analysis.
In conclusion, the analysis of VP and S that I am proposing has at least
three advantages over the more conventional analysis assumed in Gazdar
(1982) and Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982), even though it entails a less
symmetrical version of X-bar theory.
6. TWO OTHER VIEWS OF VP AND S
In this section, I want to consider two other views of VP and S. I will

argue that both are inferior, within the overall framework of GPSG, to
the analysis I am proposing and hence that this analysis is preferable to the
main alternatives.
The first view I want to consider is that assumed in Chomsky (1981).
Chomsky suggests that VP is the maximal projection of V and that S is a
projection of INFL, a node consisting of tense and, in finite clauses, agree¬
ment features. He assumes that S is either another projection of INFL or
a projection of COMP.11 Under this analysis, it is possible to maintain
the view that VP-fronting is a special case of topicalization without aband¬
oning the requirement that a in (61) be a maximal projection. It is also
possible to maintain the constraint that complements are either grammatical
formatives or maximal projections. But it is not possible to adopt a bare
VP analysis of non-finite embedded questions without significantly com¬
plicating the grammar.
There are a number of other objections to this view of VP and S. Firstly,
treating S as a projection of INFL entails postulating a movement rule to
attach INFL to the following verb as some (late) stage in the derivation.
GPSG rejects all such rules, and hence must reject this analysis. Secondly,
the assumption that S is not a projection of V is rather problematic. If it
is not, one cannot employ the Head Feature Convention to ensure that a
verb has the same features as the first S above it. Hence, one will need a
special stipulation to ensure this. Finally, the agreement process that was
the original focus of this paper poses the same problem for this analysis
as it does for that assumed in Gazdar (1982) and Gazdar, Pullum and Sag
(1982).
The second alternative view of VP and S that I want to consider is one
outlined in Sag and Klein (1982).12 Sag and Klein propose that VP is V2,
and S, V3. They assume that all the other lexical categories have double
bar maximal projections. Hence, their proposal, like mine, introduces an
important asymmetry into the X-bar framework. They suggest that a in
(61) should be restricted to double bar categories. Within this framework,
VP-fronting is quite straightforward. Sentences like (72), however, seem
problematic.
(72) That Kim sings, Sandy knows.
Sag and Klein suggest that such sentences are possible because object
clauses are immediately dominated by an N2 node. They assume that
‘extraposed’ clauses are not dominated by an N2 node. Together with
their other assumptions, this correctly predicts the ungrammatically of
sentences like the following:
(73) *That Kim sings, it is obvious.
Although this analysis permits a simple account of VP-fronting, and

predicts the contrast between (72) and (73), it faces a number of problems.
One is that it entails a less restrictive characterization of the notion possible
complement: complements are either grammatical formatives, double
bar categories or V3. Another is that it is again impossible to adopt a bare
VP analysis of non-flnite embedded questions without complicating the
grammar. A further important point is that it is impossible within this
analysis to incorporate Horn’s (1974) NP constraint into the GPSG frame¬
work since sentences like the following will be immediate counterexamples:
(74) What do you think Mary did?
It may be that there is a viable alternative account of the data which

motivates the NP constraint but there is at least a potential problem
here.13 A final objection to this analysis is that, like Gazdar’s and
Chomsky’s, it precludes a satisfactory account of the Welsh agreement
process.
7. CONCLUSION
My original concern in this chapter was with a Welsh agreement process

involving non-fmite verbs. I argued that this process poses a problem for
GPSG if one adopts the view of VP and S assumed in Gazdar (1982) and
Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982). I then showed that there is no problem if
one treats VP and S as the same basic category. Since it introduces a major
asymmetry into the X-bar framework, this analysis initially looks rather
dubious. 1 have argued, however, that there are a number of independent
reasons for preferring it to Gazdar’s analysis and that it is also preferable
to the analysis assumed in Chomsky (1981) and to an analysis developed
by Sag and Klein (1982). 1 conclude that there is a strong case for this
analysis.
FOOTNOTES
*The central ideas of this chapter were presented to the Autumn 1981 meeting of the
Linguistics Association of Great Britain in a paper entitled ‘On a Welsh agreement
process’. The present paper has benefited considerably from the comments of
Gerald Gazdar, Ewan Klein and Geoff Pullum. They should not, however, be assumed
to agree with the views expressed here. All errors and inadequacies are, of course,
my responsibility.
1. Throughout this chapter, 1 follow Awbery (1976) in citing data from standard
literary Welsh. A notable feature of Welsh is that initial consonants undergo certain
phonological processes known as mutations. Hence the same word can appear with a
number of different initial consonants. Since this is of no importance in the present
context, I will pass over particular instances of mutation without comment.
2. A second similarity between non-finite verbs and nouns is that both undergo
soft mutation when immediately preceded by an NP.
3. It is not necessary to mark the V in these rules as [-FIN] since a V that is
the head of a V2 [-FIN] will automatically be [-FIN] by virtue of the Head Feature
Convention of Gazdar (1982) and Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982).
4. For Chomsky, sentences like (9) and (11) would involve a sentential comple¬
ment whose subject is moved into matrix subject position leaving behind a trace and
sentences like (10) and (12) would involve a sentential complement with a PRO
subject. Borsley (in preparation) develops detailed objections to these analyses.
5. Harlow (1981) suggests that sentences like (9) have the more complex structure
in (i).
(i) V2
[+FIN]
V V2
[+FIN] [-FIN]
N VI
[-FIN]
In support of this analysis, he cites sentences like the following:
(i) Hoffai Sion ddod a Mair fynd.

would like John come and Mary go
‘John would like to come and Mary to go.’
It is not clear, however, that such sentences necessitate the more complex structure.
One might suggest that they involve conjoined clauses of the form in (41) with a null
V in the second clause. Moreover, agreement facts seem to argue against the pro-
posed analysis. The finite verbs in sentences like (9) show agreement with a following
pronominal subject just like finite verbs in other sentence types. It is not clear that it
will be possible to provide a unified account of this process if sentences like (9)
have the structure in (i).
6. If one assumed with Akmajian, Steele and Wasow (1979) that there are three
different types of VP’s labelled V1, V2, and V3, null VP’s would require a metarule
involving a variable over projections of V. It seems clear, however, that all VP’s
should be regarded as instances of the same basic category. See Gazdar, Pullum and
Sag (1982).
7. Jackendoff (1977) also assumes that S and S' are the same category. He seems
in fact to assume that there is no need to distinguish them. Clearly, however, this is
necessary.
8. However, V might have an intermediate projection as a ‘phantom category’,
a category which appears in rules but not in the structural descriptions of sentences.
See Gazdar and Sag (1981) for some discussion.
9. I am grateful to Gerald Gazdar for drawing the following point to my attention.
10. Chomsky assumes that there are no VP complements, but for verbs like try
and seem and the auxiliaries an analysis involving a VP complement is at the very
least rather plausible. Moreover, as noted earlier, such an analysis seems inescapable
for Welsh sentences like (9)-(12).
11. Emonds (1976) and Hornstein (1977) also assume that VP is the maximal
projection of V. They leave the status of S and S' rather obscure.
12. Iam grateful to Ewan Klein for bringing this analysis to my attention.
13. It is worth noting that it is by no means obvious that the contrast between
(72) and (73) supports a categorial difference between object clauses and ‘extraposed’
clauses. It is possible that it simply reflects a minor feature difference like the con¬
trast between (59) and (60) and the following:
(i) *They thought John would be going, and be going he would.
(ii) *They thought Mary would have left, and have left she would.
Chapter 4
Verb phrase constituency and linear

order in Makua
Susan Stucky
0. INTRODUCTION*
A general issue that must be addressed in the course of a syntactic analysis

of any language exhibiting a significant degree of order freedom is whether
the language in question provides evidence for syntactic constituents
smaller than the sentence but larger than the word. In particular, it is
important to resolve which, if any, of the various orders contain a syntactic
verb phrase. Note that of the six logically possible orders of a sentence
containing, for example, a subject noun, an object noun and a verb, two
of those orders, OSV and VSO, do not allow for an analysis in which there
is a continuous verb phrase containing a verb and its object. The remaining
four orders, SVO, SOV, VOS, and OVS do allow for a continuous verb
phrase. Yet there is no necessary reason why, a priori, a language should
show evidence of a syntactic verb phrase in any or all of those orders.
This question regarding the presence of a syntactic verb phrase is an
instance of a more general question raised by languages with fairly free
syntactic order. That is, do the same syntactic constituents appear in all
the possible orders in a given language? In this chapter, I will argue that
there is evidence, albeit indirect, of a syntactic verb phrase in Makua (a
Bantu language), which exhibits a considerable amount of order freedom.1
For example, all twenty-four logically possible orders of subject, verb,
direct object, and indirect object are attested.2 In general, two sorts of
evidence can be brought to bear on the presence versus absence of syntactic
constituents (see McCloskey’s chapter in this volume for a detailed
discussion of argumentation for syntactic constituents). One sort of
argument is more direct and usually theory-independent. The presence of
endocentric constructions, e.g. a construction whose distribution of one
(or more) of its parts is identical with the distribution of the whole con¬
stituent (such as a noun phrase in English), is generally taken to be evidence
of a syntactic constituent. The second sort of evidence is less direct, and
often theory-dependent, or at least analysis-dependent. This second sort
of indirect evidence is exemplified by the arguments for English verb
phrases. The phenomena of VP ellipsis and VP fronting have been taken as
76 Verb phrase constituency and linear order in Makua
evidence of a verb phrase in English since the grammar, it is argued, will

be simpler if there is a single constituent on which the grammatical state¬
ments in question can operate. The arguments in favor of a surface syntactic
verb phrase in Makua will be of this latter type and necessarily so. This is
because the very existence of all the above mentioned twenty-four orders
precludes there being a continuous (i.e. endocentric) verb phrase in all.
Two arguments are provided in the chapter. One is the analysis of a con¬
struction I have termed VP-Topicalization (i.e. fronting of an NP
unboundedly in a VP domain) which is intended to account for the
distribution, in part, of NP’s interclausally. The second argument is based
on verb agreement facts which can be shown to follow directly from the
analysis of the VP-Topicalization and the formalization of the agreement
analysis. The analysis which I provide here is cast in the framework of
generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG) as developed by Gazdar
(1981, 1982), Gazdar, Pullum and Sag (1982), and others. The adoption
of this formalism has some interesting consequences for the analysis of
Makua. Certain of those consequences will be commented on at appro¬
priate points in the chapters; however, one general comment is in order
here. Given the ultimate form of a GPSG, which amounts simply to a large
set of phrase structure rules, all the surface orders must be accounted
for directly. It is not possible to ignore some or all of the order variation
in a language as it is in a theory which has more than one syntactic level
at which linear order is defined (see Horrocks’ chapter in this volume for
further elaboration of this point).
The next section of the chapter includes a descriptive summary of facts
central to the discussion of linear order in Makua. The following two
sections contain the two arguments for the verb phrase and concluding
comments constitute the final section.
1. ORDER AND CONSTITUENCY: GENERAL COMMENTS
Given the working assumptions exemplified by the two sorts of arguments

for constituency given above, there is both direct and indirect evidence
for a noun phrase constituent in Makua. First, the relative order of nouns
and their modifiers is fixed: head first, followed by modifiers (including
adjectives and relative clauses).3 Secondly, the distribution of demon¬
stratives, suffixed to the end of a noun phrase or, alternatively, both
prefixed and suffixed to the noun phrase, indicates that the noun and its
modifiers is best treated as a syntactic unit. Finally, the noun together
with its modifiers behaves as a syntactic island. That is, extraction by
either relativization or topicalization out of such a configuration is not
permitted. Taken together, the non-separability of a noun and its modifiers,
Susan Stucky 77
the distribution of demonstratives and the islandhood facts provide

sound evidence of a syntactic noun phrase.
Noun phrases themselves, in contrast, are freely distributed within a
clause, as are prepositional phrases and either verbs or verb phrases
(leaving that latter distinction open for the moment). For example, all
twenty-four orders of the elements in the example in (1) below are attested.
A point worth noting here is that Makua has no case marking on nouns.4
S V 10 DO
(a) Araarima aho - n - ruw - el - a mwaana isi'ma
A sa/t-oa-prepare-app-t child porridge
‘Araarima prepared porridge for a child’
There is, however, a restriction on the distribution of both sentential

(tensed) complements and a subset of infinitival (untensed) complements;
these constituents may not precede the verb. Thus, in a sentence like that
in (2), any order of the noun phrase of the main clause, the verb, and the
sentential complement (here abbreviated as S') is acceptable so long as the
S' does not precede the verb. Unmitigated scrambling interclausally is not
permitted.
S(ubj) V S’
(2) Araarima aheeew - a wii'ra rit’u aho - thek - a iluwani
A sa/t/hear-t that s.o. sa/t-build-t fence
‘Araarima has heard that someone built a fence’
S V S'
*S S' V
V S S'
V S' S
♦S' s V
*S S' V
The distributional properties of noun phrases, sentential complements

(and prepositional phrases and adjective phrases, for which no evidence
was given here) suggest that these are the familiar syntactic constituents, and
will be abbreviated as N", S', P", and A". I now turn to the arguments
for the verb phrase.
2.1. Introduction to VP topicalization
The analysis put forth in this section is intended to account for, in part,
the distribution of displaced noun phrases. In other words, it accounts
for the distribution of NP’s which belong semantically to an embedded

clause but which are found in some position in a higher embedding clause.
In addition, the analysis proposed will also account for a subset of the
possible orders of elements within a clause.
Two observations in regard to the analysis of displaced NP’s are in
order. The first is that Makua allows only one NP at a time to be displaced
from the clause to which it semantically belongs. The evidence for it is
given in Stucky (1981). I will assume this generalization here. For present
purposes, it is worthwhile noting that in a sentence like that in (3a)
below, one finds a displaced NP, which belongs semantically to the
embedded clause, up in front of the matrix sentence. The NP could just
as well be found two clauses up, or three or more, with decreasing accept¬
ability of course, the farther away the displaced NP is from its own clause.
Crucially, as illustrated by the example in (3 b), the presence of two
displaced NP’s renders a sentence unacceptable. I will refer to this class of
patterns as S-Topicalization.5
(3) a. Mwaaan - ole Araarima a - ho - - minih - a mu
child - dem A sa-t-oa/convince me
wii'ra Asaapala aho

ah 6 -/ niw - el - a isi'ma
that A sa/t-oa -prepare-app-t porridge

‘that child, Araarima has convinced me that Asaapala prepared
porridge for (him)’
*b. Mwaari-ole isi'ma Araarima aho-kaaminih-a mil wii'ra Asaapala
aho-h-ruw-el-a
A second property of this topicalized structure in Makua is that the

verb in the sentence containing the extraction site must show verb agree¬
ment with the displaced NP. Thus, in example (3b) above, the lack of
agreement in the object agreement slot renders the sentence unacceptable.
Note also that the embedding verb agrees not with the displaced NP, but
with it’s own semantic object mii (‘me’).
So far, we have observed that a displaced NP may appear in front of
an embedding clause, potentially any number of clauses up. In addition,
a displaced NP may appear in between the subject and verb of an
embedding clause. This distribution is illustrated by the example in (4)
below. Note that the verb agreement facts are parallel to those in example
(3a). The displaced NP triggers agreement on the lower verb but not on the
embedding verb.
Susan Stucky 79
( kaa )
(4) Araarima mwaan -ole a-ho - - min ill - a mil
(*mwaa j
A child - dem sa-t - oa - convince-t me
wiira Asaapala aho - - ruw - el - a isima
that A sa/t-oa- prepare-app-t porridge

‘Araarima has convinced me of that child (as expected) that
Asaapala prepared porridge for (him)’
Again, two displaced NP’s in the embedding clause would be unaccept¬

able just as expected if only one gap per clause is allowed. The pattern
in (4) is that which I have termed VP-Topicalization. For both the S-
Topicalization and the VP-Topicalization it is possible to get displaced
subjects as well as objects (although I have given no examples here).
It would be misleading to claim that displaced NP’s only appear in
these two positions (immediately before the embedding verb and in
between the subject and verb of the embedding clause). There is a class
of verbs in Makua, intransitive verbs of perception and reporting, which
govern a kind of raising. As in the topicalized patterns, an NP from a
tensed lower clause is found in a higher embedding clause. Unlike topical-
ization, however, the displaced NP triggers object agreement in the embed¬
ding clause as well as the appropriate verb agreement (subject or object agree¬
ment) in the clause to which it belongs semantically. A displaced NP which
triggers verb agreement on the embedding verb is also not subject to the
distributional restrictions of topicalization, it being “freely” distributable
in that clause. For this class of raising verbs, agreement on the embedding
verb turns out to be optional, as illustrated by example (5) below. This
optionality can be attributed to a double analysis of the structure, topical¬
ization in one instance (in which there is no agreement allowed on the
embedding verb), and raising in the other instance (in which agreement
is obligatory).6
A child - dem sa-t/oa/said-t that
- a isima
sa/t-prepare-t porridge
‘Ararima said (of) the child that (he) prepared porridge’
2.2. Formalization
It is the formalization of the topicalization phenomena that makes clear

the value of a syntactic verb phrase for the analysis of Makua, hence the
indirect nature of the argument alluded to earlier. Generalized phrase
structure grammar, as implied by its name, ultimately consists simply of
phrase structure rules. Thus, what would be characterized by a movement
transformation in a transformational grammar is, in GPSG captured in the
definitions that provide for the set of phrase structure rules.7 Suppose for
Makua, the two rules in (6) are adopted. (In these rules, the symbols N2,
V2 etc. should be viewed as informal notation abbreviating bundles of
features including the category specification +N, -V etc. as well as
specification of bar-level. For the purposes of this analysis of Makua, assume
V2 (i.e. S) to be the maximal projection of V.)
(6) a. V2 -> N2 VI
b. VI -> V N2
The phrase structure rule in (6a) says that a partial tree in which V2
immediately and exhaustively dominates a N2 and VI (in that order) can
be admitted. (6b), in analogous fashion says that a VI can be admitted
just in case it immediately and exhaustively dominates a V and a N2. Now,
one of the more interesting facets of GPSG is its treatment of unbounded
dependencies, in particular, those of the sort found in patterns of topical¬
ization in Makua. There are two principled additions to the formalism of
phrase structure grammar in order to account for these phenomena: (i) a
set of derived categories such as V2/N2 which, intuitively, corresponds
to a sentence (V2) with a noun phrase (N2) gap in it someplace and
(ii) a set of derived rules to admit nodes with derived categories in them.
The schema which gives derived rules (Gazdar (1982)) pairs exactly one
gapped category (i.e. a slashed category) with exactly one gap of the same
category in the same rule. Based on the rules in (6), there will be, among
others, the derived rules in (7).
(7) a. V2/N2 -> N2 V1/N2

b. V1/N2 V N2/N2
We then state the S-Topicalization and VP-Topicalization rules as in

(8a) and (8b), respectively. These rules link displaced noun phrases to
sentences containing noun phrase gaps.
Susan Stucky 81
(8) a. S-Topicalization V2 a V2/a, where a e {N2 }

b. VP-Topicalization VI -> a V1 /a, where a e 1 N2 }
Together with other necessary rules, the rules in (7) and (8) will analyze
a partial tree like that in (9) which corresponds to VP-Topicalization.
(9) V2
V S'/N2
A
ahokaaminiha mil [comp] V2/N2
A
wiira N2 VI/N2
A
Asaapala V N2/N2 N2
A A A
ahonruwela t isima
This notation makes explicit a syntactic binding between the displaced

NP and the position in the embedded clause. The linked slashed categories
constitute the projection path. Note that the addition of (8b) in particular
predicts that we can find a topicalized NP between the subject and verb
in any clause. This result obtains because (8a) will admit a topicalized
structure at any point in a tree so long as the projection path is complete
in the tree. It is this part of the formalism which accounts for the unbounded
nature of topicalization in Makua. The fact that, in Makua, only one
displaced NP per clause is found in an embedding clause is guaranteed by
the definition of the slashed categories to admit only one syntactic gap.8
The rules for S-Topicalization and VP-Topicalization in (8) also will admit
structures in which the topicalized noun phrase is “displaced” within it’s
own clause, as illustrated roughly by the diagram in (10).
(10) V2
N2 VI/N2
V N2/N2 N2
Thus, one expects to find evidence of the hierarchical structures

induced by S-Topicalization and VP-Topicalization, for example, in the
orders 0 V S 10 and S DO V 10 respectively. Such evidence is argued
for in the agreement analysis in section 3. More generally, it follows from
the presence of the hierarchical structures induced by topicalization in
GPSG that the free order of noun phrases intraclausally is not due entirely
to flat structure in Makua. In fact, the argument for the topicalized
structures is an argument about the surface structure of Makua sentences.
The postulation of a syntactic verb phrase in Makua allows a formal¬
ization of the topicalization facts (as distinct from the raising facts) which
would otherwise be difficult to account for. The evidence in the next
section of this paper shows how verb agreement is different for the slashed
categories than for the non-slashed categories. In this way, the analysis of
verb agreement provides support for the analysis of topicalization just
proposed, and, indirectly, provides reinforcement for an analysis of Makua
in which there is a syntactic verb phrase.
3.1. Description of verb agreement
In Makua (as in most, if not all Bantu languages), verbs display morphology
which encodes agreement with the noun class prefixes of the arguments
of the verb. Makua has two such agreement slots, the first such slot is after
an optional negative marker and before everything else. The second
agreement slot is between the tense and aspect prefixes and the verb root
itself. The first slot is reserved for agreement with subjects and the second
for object agreement, roughly speaking. Consider the example in (11)
below. In this example the subject noun is nivaka (‘spear’) which is a class
5 noun. (The noun classes are traditionally given a number. Often there
are singular and plural pairs of prefixes, each with distinct agreement
forms.) In (11), the subject agreement prefix is ni-.9
(11) ni - vaka ni - ho - nth’ya - a

5 - spear sa - t - break - t
‘the spear is broken’
For noun class la and for third person singular personal pronouns, no
overt prefix appears. Such cases are glossed with ‘O' in the examples. The
prefix is required regardless of whether a lexical noun actually appears in
the sentence.10
Objects, like subjects, also trigger verb agreement. Again, the appearance
of the object prefix is obligatory, regardless whether an overt lexical noun
is in the sentence or not.11 Before defining what sort of thing counts as an
object for agreement purposes in Makua, there are several morphological
Susan Stucky 83
patterns that need to be pointed out. There are object prefix morphemes
only for personal pronouns and Class 1, la, and 2 nouns. There are no
overt morphemes for the rest of the eleven attested classes. This mor¬
phological gap has consequences for the agreement analysis (which will
become apparent as the discussion progresses).
Leaving aside cases in which no overt object noun appears, the facts
are that overt object nouns or personal pronouns will trigger obligatory
object agreement when the verb is transitive. This is true not only of
basically transitive verbs but of derived transitive verbs as well. Derived
transitive verbs are those verbs exhibiting one or two verbal suffixes, the
applied and the causative. The applied suffix increases the argument
structure of the verb by one. The thematic role of the argument added
(the applied object) is either a recipient, a beneficiary, a locative, or an
instrument. The causative suffix also increases the argument structure
by one, adding a causee. The example in (12a) illustrates object agreement
with a basic transitive verb; (12b) illustrates object agreement with a
derived transitive verb. These patterns obtain regardless of the six possible
orders of the three words in each sentence.
(12) a. Araarima a - ho - ri - th’um - a baasikeli

A sa - t - oa - buy - t bicycle
‘Araarima has bought a bicycle’
b. Araarima a - ho - ri - rith’eeh - a baasikeli
A sa -t-oa- be broken/caus-t bicycle
Araarima has caused a bicycle to be broken’
One generalization to be captured (with respect to object agreement)

is that an object of a transitive verb (regardless of whether it is a basically
transitive verb or a derived transitive verb) will trigger object agreement.
Agreement facts for the bitransitive verbs are more complicated.
Consider first the causee of a derived bitransitive verb and the applied
object of a derived bitransitive verb when that applied object is a recipient,
a beneficiary or a locative (but not when it is an instrumental).12
When an object of that group is of an agreeing class (i.e. of the class
that has overt morphemes) then verb agreement is with that object regard¬
less of word order. Thus, in the examples below, the subject noun is the
pronoun mii (T), the applied object is a beneficiary of Class 2 and the
direct object is of Class 1. In this case there is an object agreement form
for both the objects (e.g. -mu- for Class la and -a- for Class 2). When the
agreement prefix is that for Class la, only the reading in which the Class
la noun is the applied object is allowed, regardless of the order of the
objects postverbally. When the agreement is with the Class 2 noun, on the
other hand, the readings are reversed, again, regardless of postverbal order.
In this latter case the Class 2 noun is taken to be the applied object.
Compare the examples in (13) below.
(13) a. mil ki - ho - ri - th’um - el a amirawo baasikeli

1 sa - t - oa- buy -app -t boys bicycle
‘I have bought the boys for a bicycle’
b. mil ki - haa - th’um - el - a amirawo baasikeli
1 sa - t/oa - buy - app - t boys bicycle
‘I have bought a bicycle for the boys’
The facts represented in (13) above also hold for recipient applied
objects, locative applied objects and causees. The really tricky cases are
ones in which one of the objects is of an agreeing class but the other is
not.
One might expect, on the basis of the evidence in (13), that overt
agreement with one of the noun phrase objects would insure that the
reading is always one in which the object agreed with is the beneficiary,
since it is the case in examples like (13) that it is the applied object (and
not the direct object) which triggers agreement. This is not the case. In
the examples in (14) below, the noun baasikeli (‘bicycle’) is of Class la
and has associated with it the object prefix form mu- (which surfaces in
this example as a nasal consonant). Ntenga (‘messenger’), on the other
hand, is a Class 3 noun and it has no overt agreement prefix correlated
with it. It turns out that in a subset of the orders, the reading with object
agreement can be that of the direct object and not the applied object.
Compare the examples in (14). In (14) there is agreement with the Class
la noun, baasikeli (‘bicycle’) and the reading is the less likely one in which
the messenger was bought for the bicycle. In (14b), the word order is
different, the agreement facts are the same, but, importantly, the reading
is more likely to be one in which the direct object (and not the applied
object) triggers agreement.
(14) a. mil ki - ho - n - th’um - el - a ntenga baasikeli

I sa - t -oa - buy - app - t messenger bicycle
‘I bought a messenger for a bicycle’
b. baasikeli mil ki - ho - ri - th’um - el - a ntenga
bicycle I sa - t - oa - buy - app - t messenger
‘A bicycle, I bought for a messenger’
Thus, under certain conditions, either an applied object or a direct

object can trigger object agreement. We know from the examples in
(14) that the order of the objects is relevant to determining the patterns.
I will argue in the next section that this agreement pattern can be attri¬
buted to the orders induced by linking rules involving slashed categories.
Susan Stuckv 85
A full analysis of verb agreement in Makua, then, must account for

subject agreement in all clause types, object agreement with transitive
verbs, and object agreement of various types with bitransitive verbs.
3.2. Analysis
In this section, I will present an analysis of the verb agreement facts. It

is claimed that the agreement with the direct object occurs in those orders
induced by the S-Topicalization and VP-Topicalization. The formal
analysis in Appendix A provides the actual notation and shows how the
facts can be accounted for. Two alternative analyses, one based on discourse
function and the second based on a simple linear ordering are considered.
The analysis based on discourse function is shown to be, in principle,
compatible with the syntactic analysis. The second, linear ordering analysis
is shown to make some wrong empirical predictions.
One caveat, however, is in order. The analysis of verb agreement rests
on the analysis of syntactic order in Makua as a whole, not just with
respect to the rules motivated in this paper. Therefore, I will discuss the
clearest cases (i.e. those which can be motivated on the basis of the
discussion in this paper), discussing the ramifications for other orders
only generally.
If it is indeed correct to attribute the appearance of agreement with
direct objects (in double object constructions in which the indirect
object is of a noun class with no agreement prefix) to slashed categories,
then one expects that agreement should show up in the analogues to
examples (14a) and (14b) in which the displaced NP is the semantic
direct object belonging to the embedded clause. This is correct, as illustrated
by the examples in (15) below.
(15) a. baasikely-ule Araarima a - no - n - cuwel - a wiira

bicycle - dem A sa - t - oa - know - t that
Asaapala 0 - ho - ri - th’um - el - a ntenga
A sa - t - oa - buy - app - t messenger
‘the bicycle, Araarima knows that Asaapala bought (it) for a
messenger’
b. Araarima baasikely-ule a - no - n - cuwel - a wiira
A bicycle - dem sa - t - oa - know - t that
Asaapala 0 - ho - n - th’um - el - a ntenga
A sa - t - oa - buy - app - t messenger
‘Araarima knows of the bicycle that Asaapala bought (it) for
a messenger.’
One expects also to find clause internal evidence of the agreement

strategy attributed to the topicalization rules since orders like those in
(10) may be analyzed as topicalized structures. The data patterns in the
following way. When the order is either DO S V AO or S DO V AO, that
is, when the DO is the only object preceding the verb, agreement is clearly
preferred with that object. The agreement patterns in which agreement is
preferred are those induced by S-Topicalization and VP-Topicalization.
When the order is SO DO AO V, agreement with the DO is likewise
allowed (although it is not as strongly preferred as in the cases in which
only one object appears before the verb). Again, this order could be due
to the VP-Topicalization. One which cannot be attributed to a VP-Topical¬
ization is S AO DO V. In this order agreement is strongly dispreferred. Thus
there is clearly a preference for agreement with the DO in those cases in
which there is a possibility of attributing the order to topicalization rules.
The data are, in these clause internal tests, quite fuzzy. However, they,
together with the data from the unbounded dependencies, argue for an
analysis which attributes the presence of agreement with a direct object
in double object constructions to the slashed categories.
Before discussing one class of recalcitrant cases and proposing alternative
strategies, I would like to point out without an accompanying analysis
(but see Stucky 1981) the same pattern can be observed in relativization.
The relativization analysis has in common with topicalization the use of
the slashed category notation. Thus if it is truly the slashed categories, or
in slightly more theory independent terms, the presence of syntactic gaps,
that is related to the agreement pattern, one would certainly expect that
pattern to obtain in relative clauses. In Makua, the relative clause follows
its head. There are no relative complementizers of any sort (nor any special
tonal markings). And, as one expects, agreement with a relativized direct
object out of a double object construction in which the indirect object
does not have an overt marker is obligatory. This preference is as strong as
in the cases of the displaced noun phrases in (15) above.
(17) baasikeli aa - n - th’umenle Araarima nt’eng-ole ...

bicycle sa - oa - buy/app/t A messenger-dem
'The bicycle that Araarima bought for a messenger ...’
One class of cases remains to be looked at. While I haven’t discussed

whether or not there are any rules of the form which would allow
unbounded dependencies to the right (all of the above have been to the
left), in Stucky (1981) I did argue that such structures existed. Since such
structures would be analyzed in GPSG by the use of slashed categories,
one would expect similar options for agreement when the object noun
phrases follow the verb. However, I have no attested cases of agreement
Susan Stucky 87
with a DO in the class of cases we are considering here when that DO is to

the right of the verb. Note, however, that there is a gap in the data. Not
only are there no instances of such patterns, there are also no cases in
which the interpretation of these structures permits a DO reading of a
noun phrase that has overt agreement (cf. (13) above). In general, post¬
verbal position indicates new information of various sorts and readings on
ambiguous sentences drastically differ in these cases. The lack of expected
readings may be taken to be indicative of a resolution of this ambiguity
rather than as an argument against the proposed analysis.
Nevertheless, the fact that the cases in which the DO does trigger
agreement are all preverbal positions raises the possibility of alternative
analyses. One possibility is that it is primarily preverbal position that
triggers this sort of agreement. This analysis falters on two accounts. Such
an analysis would, presumably, have to make appeal to terminal surface
strings. It would have to pick out just DO’s, which, recall, are not marked
by any morphological means in Makua. Then, it would have to pick out
just those DO's which semantically belong to the appropriate clause.
The present analysis proposed does all of that automatically and also
provides some explanation as to why the varying degrees of acceptability
are found interclausally, an explanation which would not be forthcoming
from a simple surface linear analysis. Such an analysis would be cumber¬
some at best.13
A second sort of alternative analysis would be to make appeal to
discourse function. After all, it has been noted that object agreement in
Bantu languagues is, when optional, often tied to discourse function. And,
since much of Makua word order is determined by what sort of information
the speaker assumes the hearer already knows and whet it is that the
speaker wishes to assert, one might guess that this alternative agreement
pattern is reflective of some discourse function strategy. If such an explan¬
ation is at the heart of the matter, then it is clear that no simple syntactic
trick, such as an appeal to a definite marker (a medial demonstrative, in
Makua) would work, since the distribution of that sort of morphology is
not tied to word order in Makua. Also, there is a difference between the dis¬
course functions associated with DO’s in sentence initial position and, for
instance, between the subject and verb, so that whatever these orders may
have in common is not immediately clear. Certainly, there is no obvious
correlation between these discourse functions and that of relativization,
whatever its precise formulation will be. However, there is a syntactic
characterization which these phenomenon have in common, unbounded
dependencies, and that syntactic commonality is reflected in the formalism
ofGPSG. It may ultimately turn out that a precise formulation of discourse
functions would bring out that commonality, but such a solution would, I
think, fall short of predicting the syntax of the constructions.14
88 Verb phrase constituency and linear order inMakua
The analysis put forth, then, claims that verb agreement is obligatory
with slashed categories. The appendix to this chapter includes a precise
formalization of this phenomenon. As the analysis stands, it provides
additional support for the VP-Topicalization structure.
4. CONCLUSION
The answer to the question raised at the beginning of this chapter was
whether or not there was syntactic evidence for a verb phrase in Makua.
It was pointed out that the evidence, given the extent of order variation in
the language, would be, perforce, of an indirect nature. The answer given
was in the affirmative. There is evidence based on the account of displaced
noun phrases as formalized in GPSG of a syntactic verb phrase. The
analysis of this VP-Topicalization was supported by the verb agreement
analysis for Makua. Some otherwise unruly facts seemed to follow from
the analysis given.
More generally, the argument about Makua structure is also surface
true. That is, the analysis suggests that a surface syntactic structure of
Makua should provide evidence of these hierarchical structures.15 There¬
fore, any bi-level grammar which allows surface reordering would have to
be prevented from violating such structures on the surface. The analysis
also stands as an argument for constituent structure in a language which
displays relatively free ordering, and it stands as a caution against immed¬
iately assuming that because a language has order freedom syntactically it
must not have any hierarchical structure. The analysis also stands as a
caution against assuming that the hierarchical structure that can be moti¬
vated for a given language must be identical for all orders. Clearly this is
not so. Natural languages may provide evidence of different constituents
in different orders.
APPENDIX
This appendix includes part of the verb agreement analysis of Makua. It

is incomplete in the sense that the analysis I provided in my thesis accounts
for more of Makua syntax than has been presented in this paper. The
analysis provided here also differs in detail from that which I gave for the
slashed categories and, hence, supercedes the analysis in the thesis.16 Fam¬
iliarity with GPSG is assumed for purposes of the agreement analysis.
For the analysis, I am assuming a finite set of features on nouns which,
for their mnemonic value, are the numbers traditionally associated with
the noun classes, e.g. [la] for Class la nouns, [5] for Class 5 nouns. Such
Susan Stucky 89
features are associated with the lexical entry for nouns. In addition, a
syntactic feature for verbs will be employed. This feature is a singleton
set whose only member is an ordered pair. The first member of the ordered
pair will represent an agreement feature from the same set of numbers
used for the noun classes and it signals subject agreement. The second
member of the ordered pair is also a noun class feature from the same set,
but it corresponds to the object agreement prefix. Like the nouns, verbs
have associated with them these syntactic features. There will be, then,
features of the following sort: [<1, 2>] (where the verb agrees with a
Class 1 subject and a Class 2 object).
The analysis also makes use of the Head Feature Convention (HFC)
which insures that the features on a phrase level node are the same as those
on the head of that phrase. Its utility will become apparent in the course
of the analysis. (See Gazdar (1982) and Gazdar and Pullum (1981) for
details.)17 Finally, I assume that in the actual rules, variables which range
over the permissible features may be used.
Taking the features of the sort defined above for nouns and verb agree¬
ment, these are incorporated into two of the rules as in (1) below. These
rules taken together with the HFC will insure that the features postulated
for the N2 and VI will appear on their respective heads.
(1) a. V2 -> N2[a] Vl[<a,|3>]

b. VI -> V[(a, j3>] N2[j3] N2[T]
where a, (3,7 e ([1st], [2nd] etc.... [1], [la], [2]...}
The rule in (la) accounts for subject agreement, (lb) insures verb agree¬
ment with an applied object. Grammatical relations are defined derivatively
along the lines of Dowty (1982) and are not, therefore, indicated in the
syntactic rules shown here.
As Gazdar (1982) points out, this approach eliminates the need for
copying rules which involve hunting for the subject and the verb and then
copying the features. Instead, the features are already there as a reflection
of morphological processes in the language, and the categorial features
simply insure that these features match. It is worthwhile noting that the
incorporation of the features directly into the rules will make agreement
obligatory (because a sentence will be well-formed only if there is agree¬
ment and only if the features match) in just the way required. For instance,
the agreement schema in (1) will, together with the HFC, analyze a partial
tree like that in (2a) below because the features match. They will not
analyze a partial tree like that in (2b), because the features in that tree do
not correlate in the manner required by the agreement schemata. Circled
features indicate the non-matching features.
(2) a. V2
N2 VI
[1] [<1,2>]
V N2 N2
[<1,2>] [2] [3]
I now turn to defining agreement for the derived rules with slashed
categories and the linking rules in order to show that the analysis of
topicalization and agreement can actually be formulated. The analysis of
topicalization in Makua involves the use of derived rules (rules with slashed
categories derived from rules without slashed categories) and linking rules.
Consider first derived rules. Gazdar’s (1981) pp. 159-60 derived rule schema
relates basic rules and derived rules in such a way as to keep syntactic
features intact. Since agreement has been defined in terms of syntactic
features on basic rules, these features too will automatically be carried
over. Thus, for the basic rule in (3a) below, there will be the following
derived rule in (3b).
(3) a. V2 -+ N2 [a] Vl[<a,0>]

b. V2/N2[?] N2[a] V1 [<o;,/3)]/N2[?]
No agreement features in (3b) have been specified for the gapped category
itself. Note that the derived rule schema insures that both categories that
are slashed, i.e. N2 in the rule in (3b) above, will necessarily have the same
feature. Before explaining how this is to be resolved, I will develop one
other point. Linking rules such as the S-Topicalization and VP-Topical-
ization rules for Makua also insure that the features on the gaps are identical,
e.g. as in (4) below.
(4) V2 5 [a] V2/5[a], where 5 e { N2 }

Susan Stucky 91
By virtue ot the fact that the linking rules link up to derived rules, they
will insure that the same feature is passed down the tree. A simplified dia¬
gram will show how this is so.
(5) V2
N2 V2/N2
[la] [la]
N2 V1/N2
[2] [<2,0>] [la]
V S'/N2
[<2,0>] [la]
comp V2/N2
[la]
N2 VI/N2
[3] [<3,5>] [la]
V N2/N2 N2
[<3,5>] [5] [la] [6]
Thus far, the analysis makes two predictions. First, it predicts that an
embedding verb will not agree with a noun phrase gap that is passed up
through it. This is correct as exemplified by examples (3) and (4) in the
main body of the text.
As it stands, the analysis does not admit any well formed trees with
slashed categories at all because no terminal symbol has been given to
categories of the form a/a. The following metarule will provide such a
terminal symbol and will also predict that any object gap will trigger agree¬
ment just as the analysis in section 3 of the chapter requires. The metarule
is given in (6a) below and a tree corresponding to example (4) in the main
body of this chapter is given in (6b).
(6) a. <Vl[<a,j3>]/N2 [7] W N2 [0]/N2 [7] W')

'iy
< VI [<a,y>]/N2 [7] W t[K2,7] W')
b. V2
N2 VI
[la] [< 1 a, 1 st>]
/
N2 V'/N2
V/N2
[1] [<la,lst>] [1]
V N2 S'/N2
[< 1 a, 1 st>] [1st]
// EH
comp V2/N2
N2 VI/N2
[la] [<1 a, 1 >] [1]
V t N2
[<1 a, 1 >] N2 [9]
[1]
FOOTNOTES
*Special thanks to John Wembah Rashid, who provided the data included in this
chapter. I would also like to thank Chuck Kisseberth, Gerald Gazdar, Jerry Morgan,
Geoff Pullum, and colleagues at the University of Illinois and the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst for comments on my thesis and thus, indirectly on the
analysis presented in this chapter. The primary research on Makua was supported by
a grant from the University of Illinois Research Board, a University of Illinois Graduate
College Dissertation Research Grant, and University of Illinois Graduate Fellowships.
This chapter was written under the auspices of A.P. Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral
Fellowship administered by Stanford University.
1. The data on which this analysis is based come from native speaker elicitation
over a two year period at the University of Illinois. The data here are from the
Imit’upi dialect of Makua, spoken in Southern Tanzania. While it appears that the
other dialect that we have investigated, Ikorovere, shares many of the features that
Imit’upi exhibits, the particulars of this analysis should not be generalized beyond
the Imit’upi dialect.
2. I would like to stress that the use of the terms “free” or “freedom” in the
context of this chapter refer exclusively to syntactic phenomena. For Makua, at least, it
is clear that a speaker conveys by the use of a particular order of constituents certain
assumptions about the newness or oldness etc. of the information being conveyed. For
some discussion of the discourse functions related to word order and tense and aspect in
Makua, see Stucky (1979) and (1981). I am assuming, therefore, that there is a level
of grammar at which it is appropriate to state generalizations about the syntax of a
language independently of the discourse functions associated with a particular order
of constituents much in the same way that one can analyze the syntax of English as
separate from but related to intonational phenomena such as contrastive stress.
Susan Stucky 93
3. Cases in which the relative clauses and/or adjectives do not appear after the
noun which they modify have been elicited, however, these have the earmarks of
being parenthetical phrases rather than part of the sentence they are found in. See
Stucky (1981) for details.
4. The orthographic conventions are as follows. An apostrophe marks an aspirated
consonant. High tone is marked with an acute accent. Low tone is left unmarked.
The tone marking is not entirely phonetic. Some predictable information such as
phrase final lowering of high tones and penultimate fall is unmarked. See Stucky (1981)
for details. Abbreviations in the glosses include sa = subject agreement marker, t =
tense/aspect affixes, oa = object agreement marker, and app = applied suffix.
5. The term S-Topicalization (and the term VP-Topicalization to be introduced)
are somewhat misleading in that neither has associated with it exactly the discourse
functions associated with the analogous topicalization in English. The terms are
used primarily for structural reasons rather than functional ones.
6. An alternative account of the raising cases, suggested to me by Roger Higgins,
should be considered. It could be that these are anticipatory or proleptic constructions.
One sort of evidence for this latter analysis rather than a raising analysis would be if
the same sort patterns occur with intransitive verbs in the embedded clause. Then,
the downstairs NP could not have been raised. I have not been able to obtain gram¬
matical examples of this latter sort. Even if the analysis turns out to be better character¬
ized as a prolepsis rather than raising, the arguments in the present chapter remain
intact. In elicitation subsequent to the writing of my thesis, examples with object
“raising” were less acceptable than those in which subjects were involved. However,
this gradation of acceptability seemed to be strongly dependent on the embedding
verb.
7. In this chapter, I will be using only that part of the formalism deemed necessary
to make the argument clear. The reader is particularly encouraged to consult the
paper by Gazdar (1982) for details. Subsequent to the writing of my thesis, Gazdar
and Pullum (1981) proposed a revised way of defining phrase structure grammars
which separates out statements of linear order from Unear precedence. This redefin¬
ition has important consequences for the analysis of Makua in general. But since
little in this paper hinges on that redefinition, I will use phrase structure rules which
define linear order and dominance relations simultaneously. One may, in fact, view
these rules as those defined by the ID/LP format. The linearized versions serve to
make the points in this paper more explicit.
8. The restriction to only one syntactic gap per clause is clearly not universal.
Maling and Zaenen (1982) argued, for Swedish, for the necessity of multiple gaps in
GPSG. Detailed discussion of the phenomenon is found in Engdahl (1980). Engdahl
(1982) also outhned a class of cases of parasitic gaps in English which suggest the
presence of more than one syntactic gap in English. Sag (1982b) has recast most of
Engdahl’s analysis in GPSG. Makua seems not to have the sort of phenomena found
in Swedish. I have no idea whether or not parasitic gaps of the sort found in English
can be found in Makua.
9. While the agreement prefixes are often morphologically identical to the noun
class prefixes, this is not always the case. The existence of both null agreement markers
and non-phono logical identity precludes a simple morphological copying rule.
10. I have characterized this slot as subject agreement. This refers to the notion
grammatical subject. Grammatical subjects include, for instance, passive subjects.
Since they do not directly bear on the analysis in this paper, I will not discuss them
here.
11. Some Bantu languages have an asymmetry between subjects and objects in this
regard. Subject agreement may be obligatory under all circumstances while object
agreement is required only when there is a detinite object or when there is no lexical
noun.
12. The instrumental objects behave differently from the other applied objects.
See Stucky (1981) for details. This difference will not be discussed in this paper.
13. It is worth noting, in addition, that no surface terminal string analysis is in the
spirit of GPSG, and without substantially altering the theory, is not even a possibility.
1 simply raised the issue since it is an obvious first glance solution which turns out to
be very difficult to explicate in any theory when it is clear what such an analysis
would have to look like.
14. Certainly the commonality would not be incompatible with the syntax. Indeed,
it is the syntax that expresses the commonality of these constructions rather than the
commonality of discourse functions.
15. The analysis of S-Topicalization and VP-Topicalization precludes any simple
concatenation rule of the sort suggested by Hale (1981) or Lapointe (1981) since
their concatenation rules for free order languages necessarily concatenate categories
of the same bar level. See also Stucky (1981) for further arguments against concaten¬
ation rules for Makua syntax.
16. I thank David Dowty for pointing out a technical inadequacy of the analysis
in the thesis. That problem is, in the present analysis, solved.
17. The HFC insures that features are percolated down the tree. That is, features
only need to be specified on V2 (S), for example; they would subsequently appear on
VI and V categories by convention. In the present analysis, the verb agreement is
specified at the verb phrase level, even though the verb phrase could be taken to be
the head of the sentential category. For the most part, the reasons why this choice
has been made have to do with the part of the analysis of Makua which is not included
in this paper.
18. An additional metarule is needed for subject gaps, but since that phenomena
has not been discussed in this paper, I have not included it here. Note that this
metarule bears some resemblance to Sag’s (1982a) slash elimination metarule for
English. The motivation for the metarule in Makua is not based on coordination (as
it is for English), but, rather, on insuring that slashed categories trigger agreement
obligatorily.
Chapter 5
The order of constituents in modern

Greek
Geoffrey Horrocks
1. CONSTITUENT ORDER AND GENERATIVE GRAMMAR*
In unconstrained versions of a theory which recognizes deep and surface

structure as levels of representation it is possible in principle to use trans¬
formations to derive any surface order from any underlying order.1 For
analyses employing this apparatus to avoid charges of vacuousness, it is
clearly necessary to impose principled restrictions on transformational
permutation and so guarantee some limitation on pairings of deep and
surface orders. With respect to languages with fairly fixed constituent
order, Emonds (1980) argues that the only theoretically sanctioned and
empirically motivated derivations of basic surface orders from distinct
underlying orders are those of VSO from SVO and OSV from OVS by a
local movement of the verb over the subject.2 All other basic surface
orders are matched therefore with identical underlying orders. With
respect to languages with freer constituent order, Emonds takes the view
that since a fixed order base is needed for languages like English it is not
unreasonable to suppose that the grammars of all languages have fixed
order base rules. Given this assumption, together with the severe restrictions
on transformational permutation, it is possible to ignore the phenomenon
of free phrase order in the search for a universal formulation of syntactic
rules and principles.3 The essentially superficial differences between
languages with regard to the degree of constituent order freedom they
permit can be accounted for by the extent to which the grammars of
different languages make use of ‘stylistic rules’. These apply post-
syntactically to ‘scramble’ the fixed order output of the syntax (Emonds
(1980) pp. 39-40). Within the framework of generalized phrase structure
grammar (GPSG) this approach to free phrase order has been reinterpreted
as involving the operation of a set of metarules on a small set of basic rules
(Stucky (1981)).
The transformational view obviously presupposes that it is possible to
identify a ‘basic’ or ‘underlying’ order for free phrase order languages, and
that it is possible to distinguish grammatically conditioned variants from
purely stylistic reorderings. There is room for doubt on both counts.
96 The order of constituents in modern Greek
Grammar- and theory-internal factors, combined with considerations such

as frequency, markedness, pervasiveness, typological correlations and so
on, almost always lead to indeterminate and mutually conflicting results
(Stucky (1981) ch. 3). In any case the problem of arbitrary transformational
permutation has simply become one of arbitrary stylistic permutation.
Whichever order is selected as basic the remaining orders can in principle
be derived by stylistic rules, since their potential for reordering is only
very weakly constrained by Emonds’ listing of their properties.4 Further¬
more these properties do not effect a clear-cut grammatical/stylistic
dichotomy. For example, the ‘free’ inversion of subjects in several of the
Romance languages is stylistic by Emonds’ criteria. Yet Chomsky (1981)
240ff. treats the rule as a grammatical instance of ‘move NP’ since it is
one of the properties of the ‘pro-drop parameter’ which is said to be closely
connected with the theory of government and the operation of agreement
rules.5
The difficulties inherent in ‘scrambling’ theories can be avoided if
variations in freedom of phrase order between languages are accounted for
directly in terms of universally available but variable (i.e. more- or less-
restrictive) linearizing principles operating on syntactic rules.6 The gram¬
mars of languages where these principles are less restrictive will allow more
than one constituent order to count as ‘basic’. Gazdar and Pullum (1981)
make a proposal that has these consequences. They define a grammar as a
set of immediate dominance (ID) rules and a set of linear precedence (LP)
rules. The phrase structure grammar induced by such a grammar definition
consists of all the phrase structure rules (which express dominance and
precedence relations simultaneously) that are consistent with some ID rule
and all LP rules. This ‘ID/LP format’ proposal presupposes that grammars
have a particular property, which Gazdar and Pullum call exhaustive con¬
stant partial ordering (ECPO) — i.e. the LP rules (partially) linearizing the
right hand side of ID rules expanding any one category will also linearize
in the same way the right hand side of the ID rules expanding all other
categories. If the grammars of natural languages universally possess the
ECPO property the ID/LP format provides for a universal formulation of
syntactic rules without the loss of descriptive adequacy (and empirical
content) in the case of the grammars of free phrase order languages. The
ID rules of the grammars of different languages turn out to be very similar;
in many cases they may reasonably be expected to be identical.7 Languages
will differ, however, in the number (though not the type) of LP rules their
grammars employ. The more LP rules there are in a grammar, the greater
is the number of categories that are linearized with respect to each other.
Consequently, relatively fixed phrase order languages will have grammars
that employ a number of LP rules, and relatively free phrase order lang¬
uages will have grammars employing relatively fewer LP rules.8
Geoffrey Horrocks 97
In section 2 I show how the rather complex facts of phrase order

variation in modern Greek can be represented simply and compactly by a
context-free phrase structure grammar put into ID/LP format. I assume
the basic descriptive framework of GPSG as presented in Gazdar (1981,
1982) and many other works.
2. CONSTITUENT ORDER IN MODERN GREEK
I assume the ID rule (1) for sentences:9
(1) V2 ->• N2[a] VI [a]

(a = [+nominative|, together with a permissible combination of
person, number and gender features)
and the LP rule (2):
(2) a < HI
(where a is any category, and HI represents the head ot a phrase
at the first bar level - see Gazdar and Pullum 1981, section 2)
I now state some ID rules for VI:10
(3) VI ^ V fevyi
leaves
(4) Vi -» V, N2 aghorazi to dhoro

buys the gift
(5) VI -» V, P2 exartate apo ti yineka tu

depends from the wife of-him
(6) V1 -> V, VI [na] prospathi na sikothi

tries subj. get-up-3s
(7) VI V, V2 [pos] lei pos o Sokratis ine exipnos

says that the Socrates is clever
(8) VI -> V, V2[na] theli o Sokratis na yini

wants the Socrates subj. beconie-3s
filosofos
philosopher
(9) VI v, N2, N2[GEN] dhini to dhoro tu Sokrati

gives the gift the-gen. Socrates-gen.
(10) VI -> V, N2, N2[ACC] matheni arithmitiki tin

teaches aritmetic the-acc.
Afrodhiti
Aphrodite-acc.
(11) VI -* V, N2, P2 dhini to dhoro sto Sokrati

gives the gift to-the Socrates
(12) VI -*> V, N2, VI [na] pithi tin Afrodhiti na

persuades the Aphrodite subj.
aghorasi to dhoro
buy-3s the gift
(13) VI -* V, N2, V2[pos] pithi to Sokrati pos i

persuades the Socrates that the
Afrodhiti ine omorfi
Aphrodite is beautiful
(14) VI -> V, P2, P2[na] milai sto Sokrati ya tin

speaks to-the Socrates about the
Afrodhiti
Aphrodite
(15) VI -> V, P2, VI [na] iposkhete stin Afrodhiti

promises to-the Aphrodite
na fai to musaka
subj.eat-3s the moussaka
(16) VI -* V, P2, V2[pos] iposkhete stin Afrodhiti pos

promises to-the Aphrodite that
o Sokratis tha erthi
the Socrates will come-3s
(17) VI -» V, N2, P2, V2[pos] stikhimatizi ekato dhrakhmes me

bets 100 drachmas with
to Sokrati pos i Afrodhiti
the Socrates that the Aphrodite
tha kerdhisi to vravio
will win-3s the prize
(N2 unspecified for case is accusative.)

A few explanatory comments are in order here. Modern Greek has no

infinitives; where English would have an infinitive, Greek employs a
(finite) subjunctive verb marked by the proclitic particle na (which I
gloss as ‘subj [unctive] ’). If rule (8) is compared with rules (6), (12) and
(15), it will be seen that verbs may be subcategorized to take either
sentential or phrasal ‘subjunctive’ complements. The phrasal type obviously
involves control, but since the verb is finite, it must agree with its con¬
troller in person, number and gender. This could be represented by the use
of agreement features in a familiar way." It is important to note that only
the phrasal type is freely permutable with N2 and P2 complements (see
below). Sentences, whether they contain indicative or subjunctive verbs,
must come last in a string of complements (at least in non-dislocated
structures). Notice that this distributional difference provides one piece
of evidence that Greek has a category V1 distinct from V2 (see the chapters
by Borsley and McCloskey in this volume for further discussion of the
status of VP and S), and hence provides some evidence in favour of rule
(1). It has been argued that Greek sentences with SVO order are invariably
the result of topicalization operating on a basic VSO pattern, and that
therefore rule (1) makes false claims about Greek sentence structure (see
Warburton (1980), and cf. fn.9). Further evidence in support of rule (1)
will be pointed out as we go along. It is also worth stressing that if we were
to follow Chomsky (1981) pp. 24-5 et passim and insist that apparently
phrasal complements are in fact sentential in character, we would have
to argue that the positioning of complement sentences with respect to the
other complements of V with which they co-occur depends on whether or
not they have controlled PRO subjects. It is surely simpler to argue that
two distinct complement types are involved, permutable VI and non-
permutable V2. Given this, we can provide a very straightforward LP rule
schema for complements of a lexical head:12
(18) H < a < V2 (a e { N2, P2, VI ))
This states that the lexical head of a phrase precedes all its complements,
that sentences come last of a series of complements, and that other types
of complement are positionally free subject to these requirements.
Since Greek is a pro-drop language, we must also provide for subjectless
sentences. This can be achieved most simply by employing a metarule to
map VI rules into V2 rules:
(19) a. < VI [a] -> V, X>
<V2 V[a], X>

However, even such ‘flat’ sentences may have overt subjects, and we can
guarantee this by means of a further metarule:
(19) b. (VI [a ] -> V, X>

It
<V2 - V[ot],N2[a], X>
These two metarules can be collapsed into (20):
(20) < VI [a] -> V, X>
<V2 -* V[a], (N2[a]), X)
Notice that, given (18), we predict that subject N2 in ‘flat’ sentences

behave distributionally just like N2 subcategorized by V. Thus the free
inversion property of pro-drop languages (Chomsky (1981) p. 240) follows
automatically.
As an illustration, the ID and LP rules given so far induce a set of
context free phrase structure rules that will generate all the following
grammatical sentences:
(21) o Sokratis stikhimatizi dhyo lires me ton Aristoteli pos

the Socrates bets two pounds with the Aristotle that
tha vrexi
will rain
stikhimatizi o Sokratis dhyo lires me ton Aristoteli pos

bets the Socrates two pounds with the Aristotle that
tha vrexi
will rain
stikhimatizi dhyo lires o Sokratis me ton Aristoteli pos

bets two pounds the Socrates with the Aristotle that
tha vrexi
will rain
stikhimatizi dhyo lires me ton Aristoteli o Sokratis pos

bets two pounds with the Aristotle the Socrates that
tha vrexi
will rain
o Sokratis stikhimatizi me ton Aristoteli dhyo lires pos

the Socrates bets with the Aristotle two pounds that
tha vrexi
will rain
Geoffrey Horroeks 101
stikhimatizi o Sokratis me ton Aristoteli dhyo lires pos

bets the Socrates with the Aristotle two pounds that
tha vrexi
will rain
stikhimatizi me ton Aristoteli o Sokratis dhyo lires pos

with the Aristotle the Socrates two pounds that
tha vrexi
will rain
stikhimatizi me ton Aristoteli dhyo lires o Sokratis pos

bets with the Aristotle two pounds the Socrates that
tha vrexi
will rain
‘Socrates bets Aristotle two pounds that it will rain.’
They also allow for the permutation of VI but not of V2:
(22) episa ti mitera mu na ftiaxi musaka

persuaded-ls the mother of-me subj. make-3s moussaka
episa na ftiaxi musaka ti mitera mu
persuaded-ls subj. make-3s moussaka the mother of-me
‘I persuaded my mother to make moussaka.’
o Sokratis theli i Afrodhiti na ton filisi

the Socrates wants the Aphrodite subj. him kiss-3s
*theli i Afrodhiti na ton filisi o Sokratis
wants the Aphrodite subj. him kiss-3s the Socrates
‘Socrates wants Aphrodite to kiss him.’
stikhimatizi o Sokratis pos tha vrexi

bets the Socrates that will rain
*stikhimatizi pos tha vrexi o Sokratis
bets that will rain the Socrates
‘Socrates bets that it will rain.’
The starred examples are ungrammatical under normal stress and intonation.
They are acceptable only when the subject is identified by a marked stress
and intonation pattern either as a clarificatory topic or as a highly emphatic
focus (perhaps most naturally as the focus of an incredulous echo question).
The rules for this kind of topicalization and focalization involve the
introduction of derived categories (see below).
However, before discussing such ‘long-distance’ topicalization (and
focalization), we have first to allow for a process that might be called
‘local’ topicalization. It is possible in the case of direct and indirect objects
(inflected in the accusative and genitive respectively) to mark

these constituents explicitly as topics without recourse to ‘displacement.
The device employed for this purpose is ‘clitic doubling’, i.e. a clitic
pronoun is introduced that agrees with the object N2 in person, number
and gender. In the case of subjects, even though there is no overt marking
of topic status, it seems natural to assume that the features of subject N2
are copied onto V2 and interpreted as a ‘null clitic pronoun’. Suppose we
have a metarule like (23):
(23) <V2 -> X, N2[a] )
>1V
<V2[a] -> X, N2[a, +TOP] )
(a = a combination of [+DEFINITE] with case, person, number,
and gender)
This introduces ‘flat’ V2 rules where V2 agrees with subject or object N2,
and ‘configurational’ V2 rules where V2 agrees with subject N2. The
agreement features are carried down onto V by the Head Feature Con¬
vention. Subject features are realized as an inflectional suffix on the verb
in the usual way, and object features are spelled out as proclitic pronouns
by a rule such as (24):13
(24) V[a] cl[a]+V (a includes [+ACC] or [+GEN])
The phrase structure rules induced by the output of (23) and the LP
rules already given will generate sentences like (25):
(25) ti filise tin Afrodhiti[+TOP] o Sokratis[+TOP]

her kissed the Aphrodite the Socrates
‘Socrates kissed Aphrodite.’ (Where we already know that Socrates
did something to Aphrodite.)
We are now ready to introduce rules to handle topicalization and

localization proper. Consider the following examples, where one occurrence
of ti Maria must appear:
(26) (ti Maria,) su ipa pos (ti Maria,) pistevo oti

the Mary to-you said-1 s that the Mary believe-ls that
(ti Maria,) theli (ti Maria,) na ti filisi o Yanis
the Mary wants the Mary subj. her kiss-3s the John
‘Mary, I told you I believe John wants to kiss’
(ti Maria) su ipa pos (ti Maria) pistevo oti

the Mary to-you said-ls that the Mary believe-ls that
(ti Maria) theli (ti Maria) na filisi o Yanis
the Mary wants the Mary subj. kiss-3s the John
‘It is Mary that 1 told you I believe John wants to kiss.’
Apart from ditterences of stress and intonation between topicalizations

and focalizations, there is one important syntactic difference. Topical-
ization of a N2 is always associated with clitic doubling while focalization
never is. So in the hrst example in (26) we find the pronoun ti before
filisi; this is obligatorily absent in the second example. It is also important
to notice that when a constituent appears pre-verbally, as when ti Maria
occurs before na filisi in (26), it must be interpreted either as a topic or as
a focus. The only exception (other than clitics) is subject N2. This is made
clear by an example such as that in (27), which is the very first sentence
from a popular Greek novel:
(27) meta ta Khristuyena tu 1974 mnya palya ghnosti

after the Christmas of-the 1974 an old acquaintance-fem.
mu me plevrise
of-me me came-up-to
‘After the Christmas of 1974 an old acquaintance of mine came
came up to me.’
Since this is the first sentence in the book the preverbal subject cannot
be either a topic or a focus; it cannot be either ‘given’ (notice that it is
indefinite) or ‘emphatic/contrastive’. It is just a subject. This special
status of subjects is captured by rule (1). Subjects can, of course, be
‘displaced’ by long distance topicalization and focalization just like other
N2:14
(28) o Sokratis, thelo na dhi ti dhulya mu

the Socrates want-1 s subj. see-3s the work of-me
‘Socrates, I want him to see my work.’
To allow for the set of options illustrated in (26) we need a rule schema
for (non-local) topicalization and focalization of the form:
(29) V2 -* a, V2/a [±TOP]

(a = a variable over the set of topicalizable/focalizable constituents.)
The feature [+TOP] indicates that the missing constituent in V2 has been
topicalized, the feature [-TOP] that it has been focalized. It might seem
on the basis of the facts presented so far that these features are redundant.
For most values of a there is no syntactic difference at all between topical-
ization and focalization. Even when a = N2 the presence or absence of
clitic pronouns follows from the treatment of local topicalization; only
dependencies into locally topicalized positions (i.e. topicalizations) will
involve clitic doubling. However, as we shall see below, topicalization may
apply several times in succession within a single sentence while focalization
may not, and there are restrictions on the way in which the two rules
interact, so it is clearly necessary to draw a distinction between them. The
features [±TOP] provide a simple way of doing this without at the same
time losing the obvious generalization. But before pursuing these questions,
let us first take a few simple examples of structures generated by rules of
the type specified in (29) (together with the relevant derived rules):
(30) V2
VI V2/V1
[na] na
-TOP
V N2 V V2/V1
[na] f na
-TOP
na dhi ti dhulya me thelo

subj see-3s the work of-mewant-ls
N2 Vl/Vl
[na] fna
-TOP
o supervizor e
the supervisor
‘I want my supervisor to see my work.'

Geoffrey Hor rocks 105
V2
N2 V2/N2
[+TOP]
ti Maria V V2/N2
the Mary [pos| [+TOP|
pistevo
believe-Is
pos V2/N2
that [+TOP]
V N2/N2 N2
[+TOP] [+TOP]
V
ti filise e o Yanis
her kissed the John
‘Mary, I believe John kissed.’
There are two things to note here. First, focalization of VI in the first
example provides more evidence for VI as a category of modern Greek
syntax. Secondly, there is no LP rule relevant to the rules in the set defined
by (29). Consequently we get foci and topics ‘displaced’ to the right as
well as to the left:15
(31) episa na ftiaxi ti mitera mu kulurya

persuaded-ls subj. make-3s the mother of-me doughnuts
‘I persuaded my mother to make doughnuts. ’
episa na ta ftiaxi ti mitera mu, ta kulurya

persuaded-ls subj. them make-3s the mother of-me the doughnuts
‘I persuaded my mother to make them, the doughnuts.’
A subject, or indeed other constituents, may in these circumstances appear

to the right of a complement sentence (see (22) above and the associated
discussion).
There is an interesting issue that arises in connection with subject
dependencies. Gazdar (1981) explains the phenomena handled by the
-trace filter” of Chomsky and Lasnik (1977) in terms of a Generalized
Left Branch Condition, which prohibits dependencies into left branches,
and hence into subject position in languages like English. Where there
appears to be a subject dependency, this is accounted for by the intro-
duction of a tensed Vi which naturally explains the absence of a comple¬

mentizer in these cases. As far as Greek is concerned, the that-trace con¬
straint is apparently inoperative. Sentences such as those in (32) are well-
formed:
(32) pyos ipes pos irthe?

who said-2s that came-3s
‘Who did you say [that] came?’
o Yanis mu ipes pos ine exipnos

the John to-me said-2s that is clever.’
‘It is John that you told me [that] is cleaver.’
One might argue that the GLBC holds as much in Greek as in English, and
that these are examples of dependencies into post-verbal subject positions
(cf. Chomsky (1981a) p. 253ff.). However, it is clear that the GLBC does
not operate in Greek because of examples like:
(33) poso inepsiloso Yanis?

how-much is tall the John
‘How tall is John?’
There is, therefore, no reason to block dependencies into subjects on left

branches. The really interesting question is whether the fairly general
(genuine?) violation of the that-trace constraint in pro-drop languages can
always be explained in terms of the non-operation of the GLBC, and if so,
why the operation or non-operation of the GLBC should be connected
with pro-drop. Discussion of such issues is beyond the scope of this paper.
Returning now to the rule schema (29), it is clear that we must allow
for complex derived categories in Greek because, as was pointed out above,
there may be multiple application of the topicalization rule combined with
application of the focalization rule:16
Geoffrey Horrocks
107
(34) V2
N2 V2/N2
[+TOP]
o Socratis
the Socrates
N2 (V2/N2)/N2
[+TOP] [+TOP|
to vivlio
the book
N2 ((V2/N2)/ N2) / N2
[-TOP] [+TOP] [+TOP]
tu Aristoteli
to-the Aristotle N2/N2 N2/N2 N2/N2
V [+TOP] [+TOP] [-TOP] [+TOP] [+TOP]
to edhose e e e
it gave-3s
‘Socrates gave the book to Aristotle.’ (Where we already know that So¬
crates gave the book to someone.)
Notice that sentences with multiple localization are ungrammatical:
(35) *o Yanis ti Maria mu ipes pos idhe

the John the Mary to-me said-2s that saw-3s
‘You told me John saw Mary. ’
as are sentences in which a topicalization is contained within a focalization:
(36) *o Sokratis, to vivlio tu Aristoteli, tu edhose

the Socrates the book to-the Aristotle to-him gave-3s
‘Socrates gave the book to Aristotle.’ (Where we already know
that Socrates gave something to Aristotle.)
It is interesting to note that w/z-questions have a number of characteristics

in common with focalizations. They art never associated with clitic
doubling, there cannot be more than one ‘extraction’ of a w/z-phrase, and
a w/z-question cannot contain a focalization or a topicalization:
(37) *pyon ipes pos ton idhes?

whom said-2s that him saw-2s
‘Whom did you say that you saw [him]?’
*pyos ti mu ipes pos idhe?

who what to-me said-2s that saw-3s
‘Who did you tell me saw what?’
*pyos ti Maria mu ipes pos idhe?

who the Mary to-me said-2s that saw-3s
‘Who did you tell me saw Mary V
*pyos ti Maria, mu ipes pos tin idhe?

who the Mary to me said-2s that her saw-3s
‘Who did you tell me saw Mary?’ (Where we already know that
someone saw Mary.)
Suppose, then, that the rule schema for wft-questions is (38):
(38) V2 -* a[+wh], V2/a[-TOP]

(a = any category that can be the ‘focus’ of a constituent question.)
This ensures that we do not get dependencies into locally topicalized N2

positions, and so guarantees the absence of clitic pronouns (cf. the first
example in (37)). We can now formulate a very simple constraint that will
rule out the examples in (35) and (36) together with the last three examples
in (37), without blocking examples like (34):17
(39) *(a/(i)/y [-TOP]
The effect of this is to prohibit focalizations and w/z-questions that contain

other constructions involving long distance dependencies.
Finally, I must point out one further piece of evidence that the N2
introduced by rule (1) are simply subjects (and not topics or whatever).
While the sentences in (37) are clearly ungrammatical, the following
sentence is generally felt to be grammatical but (rather) unacceptable:
(40) pyon o Yanis sinandise?

whom the John met-3s
‘Whom did John meet?’
If o Yanis were a topic, this should be as bad as the sentences in (37)

because it would contain a derived category of the type prohibited in (39).
The different status of (40) follows automatically, given rule (1).
3. CONCLUSION
The rules and constraints that 1 have given account for all the possible
permutations of phrase order in declarative sentences of modern Greek.
This has been done in a framework that eschews both grammatical and
‘'stylistic’ transformations, and employs only the well-motivated apparatus
(slightly generalized to allow for complex derived categories and rules to
expand them) presented in Gazdar and Pullum (1981, 1982) and Gazdar
(1981, 1982). Furthermore, this highly restrictive framework has permitted
the facts to be described very straightforwardly in terms of simple linear¬
ization rules and a general schema for unbounded dependencies.
It is also worth adding one final, theoretical, point.18 Hale (1981) has
argued that some languages have a phrase structure component in their
grammars and that others do not. The former he calles ‘X-bar’ languages;
these are supposed to exhibit NP+VP sentence structure together with
(relatively) fixed phrase order, and to employ rules of the type ‘move a’.
The latter he calls ‘W(ord)-star’ languages; these are supposed to exhibit
‘flat’ structure under S together with very free constituent order, and not
to employ rules of the type ‘move a’. Against this view Lapointe (1981)
has argued not only that the W* theory gives no explanation of the
phenomenon of free constituent (rather than word) order, but also that
the supposedly discrete properties of W* and X' languages do not in fact
fall into two mutually exclusive sets. The analysis of modern Greek
presented here has provided further evidence of this. The language has a
NP+VP sentence rule in its grammar, but also has ‘flat’ sentence rules.
It allows long distance dependencies of the type that transformationalists
might analyze in terms of a rule of w/z-movement, but also exhibits very
free phrase order. It seems, then, that the X'/W* distinction lacks secure
empirical motivation. We might also conclude that it is theoretically
otiose, in that languages such as modern Greek can be analyzed success¬
fully in terms of exactly the same formal apparatus as that required for
the description of fixed phrase order languages.
FOOTNOTES
* I am extremely grateful to Melita Stavrou for the many hours she spent pro¬
viding me with information about her native language. Thanks are also due to Bob
Borsley, and to the editors of this volume, for much helpful comment and criticism.
I have not always followed the advice offe ed, and responsibility for any errors or
deficiencies that remain lies, of course, with me.
1. Ross (1970) treats Hindi (surface SOV) as an ‘underlying’ SVO language;
McCawley (1970) treats English as a ‘deep’ VSO language; Tai (1973) treats Mandarin
Chinese (surface order usually SXVO) as underlyingly SOV; and so on.
2. One advantage of this treatment is that it permits a strictly local account of
subcategorization. This locality is maintained within the framework of generalized

phrase structure grammar where VSO and OSV languages can be analyzed in terms
of a ‘phantom’ VP category, i.e. a VP whose internal structure is defined by the
grammar without there being a rule that makes VP a possible daughter of S (see
Gazdar and Sag (1981).
3. This theoretical decision has clearly been self-justifying: “It seems that very
little has been accomplished in the elaboration of linguistic theory by reference to
the properties of languages in which major constituents of a clause can be freely
reordered” (Emonds (1980) p. 39).
4. These are as follows: optional, clause-bound, incapable of producing ambiguity
with structures generated by non-stylistic rules, formulated without reference to
particular grammatical morphemes, often associated with structures that strike the
hearer as a turn of phrase used for emphasis or special effect (Emonds (1980) pp.
4044).
5. Cf. also the controversy surrounding the status of ‘Heavy NP Shift’ (Fiengo
(1974), Pullum (1979) pp. 142-6).
6. For a far less coherent approach to realizing the same ‘leading idea’ see Chomsky
(1981) p. 92ff.
7. Thus even VSO and OSV languages will have an ID rule for, say, transitive verb
phrases given the Gazdar/Sag approach (see note 2).
8. Gazdar and Pullum (1981) show how Makua, a very free phrase order language,
employs a proper subset of the LP rules of English, a relatively fixed phrase order
language.
9. This apparently uncontroversial rule is, in fact, quite controversial in the con¬
text of the grammar of modern Greek (cf. Warburton (1980). I shall take some care to
justify it as the discussion proceeds. See also Borsley’s and McCloskey’s chapters in
this volume, for a variety of interesting ideas concerning the status of VP and S.
10. This list is not exhaustive, but gives a representative sample of the types of
complement structure verbs may have in modern Greek.
11. The interesting possibility of a semantics based approach to feature distri¬
bution and feature transfer is raised in Sag and Klein (1982). Since I provide no
semantic rules here, this option will not be discussed further.
12. As one would hope, this makes correct predictions with respect not only to
complements of V but also to complements of N and Adj. I shall not tire the reader
with the relevant examples.
13. Since it is possible that projections of V will have to carry subject, direct
object and indirect object agreement features simultaneously, it is clear that these
will have to be structured in some way if they are not to be confused. One might
follow Stucky (1981) and treat combinations of subject and object agreement
features as ordered pairs (or triples) of the form < a, (3, (y) >.
14. Notice that SVO sequences may be generated directly by rule (1), or may
involve topicalization of localization of the subject N2. This explains why preverbal
subjects may be interpreted as topics or foci, but do not have to be. It is also worth
pointing out that in the case of topicalization this may involve either the ‘local’ rule
or the ‘long distance’ rule in its minimal application. Such multiple analyses are
harmless.
15. Gazdar (1981) explains the apparent ‘boundedness’ of rightward dependencies
of this sort in terms of performance considerations. Frazier (1979) and Frazier and
Fodor (1978) argue for a parsing model which attaches incoming material as low as it
possibly can on the parse tree. It the boundedness of rightward dependencies can be
explained in this way, there is no need to impose any special constraint on the syn¬
tactic rules that admit them.
Geoffrey Horrocks
16. The possibility of multiple dependencies is discussed in Gazdar (1982, section

10) with reference to work by Rizzi (1978) on Italian, McCloskey (1979) on Irish,
and Maling and Zaenen (1982) on the Scandinavian languages. Some might object
that what I have called topicalization here is in fact left-dislocation, and that really
there is no ‘hole’ in these cases but rather a resumptive pronoun. If this were so, it
might be argued that the issue of complex derived categories does not arise, since the
relationship between a left-dislocated N2 and its pronoun would be one of simple
‘anaphoric’ binding and there would be only one gap in sentences like (34) correspond¬
ing to the focalized N2. This approach runs into difficulties, however, when we
consider Greek f/?af-relatives, introduced by the complementizer pu. There may be
an across-the-board dependency into conjoined VI where in one conjunct there is
a pronoun and in the other there is a gap:
aftos ine o anthropos pu ton sinandisa kc edhosa ta lefta

this is the man that him met-Is and gave-ls the money
‘This is the man that I met [him] and gave the money.’
The main principle of the theory of coordination is that only like categories can be
conjoined (Gazdar (1981)). So, unless this is to be abandoned, both conjuncts in the
example above must be V1/N2. One might argue that syntactic binding was involved
in both cases, but that N2/N2 was realized variously as either a gap or a pronoun.
This would leave us with the problem of explaining why only relativization allows
this dual realization (and then not in all cases). Thus topicalizations require a pronoun,
while localizations and wh-questions require a gap. The simplest solution is to do as
I have done and argue that ‘syntactic’ binding is involved in all cases of unbounded
dependency, but that rules vary according to whether or not they permit depend¬
encies into locally topicalized positions. If they do, the gap will be associated with
clitic doubling, and if they do not, the gap will not be associated with clitic doubling.
Relativization, unlike topicalization or focalization, is presumably indifferent to the
status of the N2 positions involved, so that sometimes there is a pronoun and some¬
times there is not. In any case, it is obvious from the (grammatical example below
that the w/z-island constraint does not hold absolutely in Greek, and that ‘multiple
dependencies’ into a single constituent must be allowed for independently of the
topicalization/focalization facts:
aftos ine o anthropos pu anarotyeme pyon idhe

this is the man that wonder-Is whom saw-3s
‘This is the man that I wonder whom [he] saw.’
17. This constraint may turn out to be much more general in character, and may
need to be reformulated in semantic terms as a condition on operator binding based
on some notion of ‘accessible scope’. For the present (39) guarantees that topical¬
ization, wh -question formation and focalization interact properly.
18. The same point has been made independently by Pullum (1982) and Stucky
(1981).
.
.
Chapter 6
Raising in Latin: a phrase structure

analysis of the accusative and infinitive
Ronald Cann
0. INTRODUCTION*
The analysis of the accusative and infinitive (A & I, henceforth) in Latin

has long been a matter of debate amongst Latinists. The problem to be
confronted centres around the status of the accusative noun phrase and
the possible passives of sentences containing an A & I clause. The sentence
(a) can have either the two sentences (lb) or (lc) as its passive equivalent:1
(1) a. Omnes Belgas Caesarem necauisse

all(nom.pl) Belgae(acc.pl) Caesar(acc.sg) kill(prf.inf)
dicunt
say(3pl.pres.act)
‘Everyone is saying that the Belgae have killed Caesar’
b. Belgae Caesarem necauisse ab omnibus
Belgae(nom.pl) by all(abl.pl)
dicuntur
say(3pl.pres.pass)
‘The Belgae are said to have killed Caesar by everyone’
c. Belgas Caesarem necauisse ab omnibus dicitur
say(3sg.pres.pass)
‘It is being said by everyone that the Belgae have killed Caesar’.
How should we, then, analyse the accusative noun phrase ‘Belgas’ in (la)?
The existence of the sentence (lb), taken on its own, would seem to
indicate that it be analysed as the direct object of the main verb ‘dicunt’,
which has been preposed to subject position in (lb), in the normal way.
The structure of (la) would have to be something like (2):2
114 Raising in Latin: a phrase structure analysis
[+acc] [+INF]
However, the existence of sentences like (lc) would seem to be evidence

that the whole A & I clause is dependent on the main verb which can be
preposed to subject position in passive sentences, giving (la) the structure
in (3):
(3) V2
N2 VI
[+acc] [+INF]
To account for this data, some earlier analyses have made use of both
structures illustrated in (2) and (3), although giving them different
emphases. The usual traditional view, summarized in Bolkestein (1976,
1979), was that the accusative noun phrase was originally a simple direct
object, whilst the infinitive, being the dative/locative of a verbal noun, had
an adverbial function dependent on the main verb. In time the case ending
of this verbal noun became obscured, leading to the loss of recognition of
its adverbial nature. This, in turn, coupled with the habitual association
of the prolative infinitive with some finite verbs, led to those verbs losing
their ‘independence’ and becoming strictly subcategorized for infinitives
(to anticipate later terminology). With ordinary transitive verbs, so the
argument runs, this new infinitive was felt to be a simple direct object,
whereas with verbs that already had a noun phrase object, the infinitive
was regarded as a second object, rather than an adverbial. The next stage
in the formation of the A & I was for the infinitive to lose its dependence
on the main verb and become more attached to the accusative object, thus
creating a new constituent dependent on the main verb (cf. Woodcock
(1959) pp. 14-17).
The transformational account advanced in Pepicello (1977) is a syn¬
chronic description of the A & I, as opposed to the traditional diachronic
approach sketched above. However, the synchronic analysis owes much to
the historical one, retaining the dual structure approach while, in a certain
Ronald Cann 115
sense, reversing the order in which they appear. Briefly, then, Pepicello
assigns the A & 1 sentential status in deep structure, with the surface
accusative as subject of the infinitive, the whole clause being dependent on
the main verb. To this structure a transformational rule applies, raising the
subject of the embedded sentence into direct object position in the main
clause. Further rules apply to ensure that the verb of the embedded sentence
appears in its non-finite form. To this transformed structure the ordinary
passive transformation may apply to give the personal passive, as found in
(lb).3
Bolkestein (1979) is an extensive criticism of both the traditional view
of the A & I, and of Pepicello’s transformational analysis. She argues against
the accusative noun phrase being a direct object of the main verb, at any
time or at any stage of a derivation, and claims instead that the construction
should have the status of a non-finite sentence. Although in that paper
Bolkestein offers no account of the possible passives, she does hint that
perhaps some form of raising to subject (of the accusative subject of the
A & I) might be involved in the personal passive. In an earlier paper
(Bolkestein (1976)), she gives an analysis in terms of topic/focus distinctions.
Pepicello’s analysis has also been attacked from a transformational
point of view. In Pillinger (1980), arguments are brought forward against
any rule of Subject-to-Object raising for Latin, and consequently in favour
of the non-direct object status of the accusative. Pillinger himself prefers
a raising to subject analysis of the personal passive, whilst pointing to some
difficulties that might be encountered in dealing with the Latin A & I by
the extended standard theory or the theory of relational grammar.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to review earlier discussions of the
accusative and infinitive in Latin, beyond the brief mentions given above,
nor to argue specifically for or against them. Rather, I shall present an
analysis of the construction within the framework of generalized phrase
structure grammar (GPSG). This account will adequately cover all the data
found in (1) above, as well as certain other features of the non-finite verbal
complement system of Latin.
Although I shall not look at the Bolkestein or Pillinger papers in any
more detail, I shall assume, without further argument, one of their con¬
clusions, namely the analysis of the A & I clauses as a non-finite sentence
dependent on the main verb. Thus, the structure of (la) will be assumed to
be (3) rather than (2). The exact analysis of this sentence (la) will be
given in section 2.3., before which we must look at the notion of lexical
transitivity and introduce some simple rules.
1. PRELIMINARIES
In what follows I adopt the form of GPSG that is to be found in Gazdar

(1982). Any departure from the assumptions of this paper will be noted
in the text. I shall ignore for the purposes of this chapter the freedom
exhibited by Latin in the ordering of constituents. Thus, although examples
may show some variation in the order of subject, main verb and its
dependent complements, rules will be given for one order only, that of
subject-object-verb. I assume that the reordering of constituents could be
given simply enough, either by using a system of metarules as done by
Stucky (1981) in her analysis of Makua, or by using the ID/LP format of
Gazdar and Pullum (1981), Pullum (1982) and Horrocks’ chapter in this
volume.
1.1. Lexical transitivity
I present first a preliminary sentence expansion rule which, apart from

case and agreement marking, is identical to that given for English in
Gazdar (1982) p. 16:
(4) <1; V2 -» N2[+nom, a] VI [aj; Vl'(*N2')>

(where a is a combination of number and person features)
This rule will be amended in a later section to cover non-finite sentences.

A great deal of the following analysis will depend on a notion of
lexical transitivity. That is, transitivity is held to be an inherent feature of
a verb that remains constant (like all lexical features) no matter what
linguistic environment surrounds it. In this way, transitivity and strict
subcategorization for an NP complement must be distinguished. Chomsky
(1965) claims that marking a verb with the feature [Transitive] is notation-
ally equivalent to marking it with the strict subcategorization feature
+ [-NP], and, therefore, only one of these features need appear in
the lexical entry for a verb. However, in a discussion of ergative case
marking and passive in Hindi-Urdu, Amritavalli (1979) points out that
there are (at least) two problems that are encountered with this approach:
(i) transitivity is treated as a feature relevant to lexical insertion rather than

as a property relevant to the functioning of transformational rules, leading
to undue complication in the statement of rules;
(ii) each listed context of occurrence of the verb is allowed to impose a
corresponding subclassification on the verb, precluding the generalization
that a single subclass of verbs may appear in more than one context.
(Amritavalli (1979) p. 91).
Ronald Conn 117
Point (i), while not being directly relevant to a grammar that does not use
transformational rules, nevertheless does hold for different rule-types such
as are found in GPSG. We shall also see how the separation of transitivity
and subcategorization allows the generalizations mentioned in point (ii) to
be made.
Amritavalli concludes that, although the separation of the two notions
in question is desirable, it seems more than mere coincidence that there is
some connection between the two. He appeals to the ever popular, but
persistently elusive, notion of markedness, taking the context |-#]
to be unmarked for intransitive verbs, and [-NP] to be unmarked
for transitive verbs.4 1 have no intention of discussing markedness in detail,
but would just like to point out an inadequacy of the above statement, at
least as far as Latin is concerned. Thus, whilst, in Latin, many non-transitive
verbs may appear in the environment [-#], many more verbs must
be marked negatively for transitivity and yet do not appear in such an
environment. While it is not true that there are transitive verbs that do not
appear with NP direct objects, it is the case that some non-transitive verbs
may appear with a noun phrase object, albeit generally in a different case.5
I feel that all one can say at this stage is that if a verb appears with no
complements (i.e. is a number of the set V[2], see below) then, unless it
is associated with a special semantic rule, it is most likely to be non¬
transitive.6 Conversely, if a verb is transitive, then it may appear with a
noun phrase object in the accusative case. Only this second point will be
adopted formally here in a lexical redundancy rule to be given below. It
may well be possible to formalize the first observation in a grammar that
places more emphasis on the interaction of lexical semantic types and the
semantic types induced by the syntactic rules, as discussed in Klein and
Sag (1982). No attempt will be made along these lines in this paper but
see Cann (1982) for an analysis of the Ancient Greek verb system using
this method.
In accordance with the above discussion, no transitivity marking will
appear in the rule that introduces verbs with no complements at all:
(5) (2; VI -> V; V'>
Most members of V[2] will be ordinary intransitive verbs like curro (‘run’),
abeo (‘go away’), etc. However, as I mentioned above, there are transitive
verbs that may be members of this verb class as in English. One subset of
these were analyzed in transformational terms as having an unspecified
object that is deleted by a transformational rule. These verbs include the
Latin edo and its English counterpart eat. Obviously this is not a tenable
analysis for accounts that do not allow transformations, and lexicalist
approaches must look elsewhere. Some such attempts (e.g. Bresnan (1978))
assume two lexical entries for verbs of this sort, one for the transitive and
one for the intransitive use. These entries are then associated by
redundancy rule. I should prefer, however, that there be only one lexical
entry for such verbs (after all, historically and synchronically, there is
only one verb eat in English). To achieve this we need only have lexical
entries, such as that given in its partial form in (6) for edo, plus a lexical
semantic rule that binds the ‘missing’ object when the verb appears as a
member of V[2].
(6) edo: V[+TRN, 2,...],eat'.7
(7) SLR 1: If be V[+TRN] and 5 translates as 6', then 5 [2J translates

as 5'(X3xX(x)), where X is a variable of type < e,t >.8
It is this semantic difference between the transitive and non-transitive

usages of certain [+TRN] verbs that led me to say above that any transitive
member of V[2] will be associated with a semantic redundancy rule. The
marked/unmarked distinction may, therefore, be predictable in this way.
For verbs that take noun phrase objects we may use the rule given in
(8) below. The specification of case and transitivity that occurs in this
rule may, in fact, be otiose, since the case of the object will presumably
be predictable from the transitivity of the verb, at any rate within the
environment given by the rule (i.e. excluding non-transitive verbs that may
appear with accusative objects as a result of A & I replacement, see below,
and ignoring the possibility that transitivity and case may not match in
cases where there is a semantic rule that applies). However, since no
unified theory of case-government will be attempted in this paper the rule
will be left in its somewhat overspecified form.9
(8) <3; VI -* N2 [a acc, -adat] V[a TRN]; V'(*N2')>
The observation made earlier that any transitive verb may appear with a
noun phrase direct object may be handled by the lexical redundancy rule
in (9):
(9) LRR 1: V[+TRN] C V[3 j
This rule is to be read as indicating that the set of all transitive verbs is
a subset of the set of verbs that appear with noun phrase objects (i.e. the
set V[3]). The partial lexical entry for edo will not, therefore, have to
include indication of the membership of this set since it is predictable
from LRR 1. In this way we maintain Chomsky’s observation that tran¬
sitivity and strict subcategorization for a direct object noun phrase are
Ronald Cann 119
often equivalent, but we reverse the relative importance of these two

notions. Transitivity is, in some sense, held to be of more fundamental
importance than the ability of a verb to appear with a direct object.
Two examples of PS trees that are
far appear in (10), below.10
(10) a. i. V2
N2" "vi
Ilf HI
_sg _ _sg_
Marcus V
+TRN
edit
ii. eat' (X3xX(x))(XX(m))
ii. eat' ('apples')(XX(m))
1.2. The passive of transitive verbs
To give the passive of ordinary transitive verbs a metarule will be used

that, apart from case marking and the order of constituents, is identical
to that given for English in Gazdar (1982). If an ID/LP format were used
and a general theory of agreement were given, the passive rules for the two
languages could be brought into line.11
(11) <V1 -> W N2[+acc] V[+TRN]; 5r(N2')>

■4
< VI |+PAS] -* W (P21+AGT]) V; A 3'[jrd')('P2)] >
(where 5*" is some function over noun phrase translations, and (T is a variable
over noun phrase intensions, of type ( s (( e, t) t ) ). The optionality of
the agentive prepositional phrase (symbolized by the feature f+AGT]),
may be allowed with the assumption of the optional argument convention
of Gazdar (1982) p. 30.
The rules in (12) which expand the prepositional phrase are again similar
to those found in Gazdar (1982), with the exception that the preposition is
given a full lexical entry (12c) rather than introduced syncategorematically
as a terminal symbol feature.
(12) a. <4; P2 -> PI; Pi')

b. < 5; PI -> P N2[+abl]; P'(‘N2')>
c. ab: P[5,+AGT,...]; XO'CtT)
This is all the apparatus needed to generate simple passives of transitive

verbs such as appear below:
(13) a. Liuia a Iulia amatur

Livia(nom.sg) by Julia(abl.sg) love(3sg.pres.pass)
‘Livia is loved by Julia’.
b. malum editur
apple(nom.sg) eat(3sg.pres.pass)
The apple is being eaten'.
c. *equus curritur
d. *femina a senatu parcitur.12
The ungrammatically of the last two sentences results from the non¬
transitivity of the verbs curro and parco.
2. THE ACCUSATIVE AND INFINITIVE
2.1. Prolative infinitives
Before going on to discuss the A & I proper, a distinction has to be made

between verbs that take real A & I complements, and those that take
prolative infinitives, with or without noun phrase objects.13 The distinction
between the two verb-types is maintained in traditional grammars, even
where the analysis of the A & I is confused. To introduce prolative
Ronald Cann 121
infinitives without any noun phrase extension we may have a rule like
(14).
(14) <6; VI- V1[+INF] V; X 0'G'lXx[V'(‘Vl,(XX(x)))(XX(x))] }>
As might be expected, members of V[6] may be either transitive or non¬

transitive. The transitive subset includes the verb uolo (‘wish’) and its
derivatives nolo (‘not-wish’) and rnalo (‘prefer’). Non-transitive members
of V [6] include queo (‘be able’) and possum (‘be able’).
(15) a. uolo abire

wish( 1 sg.pres.act) go-away(pres.inf)
‘I wish to go away’.
b. Marcus mala mauult
Marcus(nom.sg) apples(acc.pl) prefer(3sg.pres.act)
c. queo abire
be-able( 1 sg.pres.act) go-away(pres.inf)
‘I can go away’.
d. *Marcus mala possit.
Those verbs that take a noun phrase as well as a prolative infinitive may
also be transitive or intransitive with the case of the noun phrase being
dative or accusative as for rule 3.
(16) (7; VI - N2[aacc, -adat] VI [+INF] V[a TRN]; V'(‘Vl'

CN2'))>
All members of V [7] may appear without the infinitive but with the noun
phrase alone. This is already guaranteed for transitive verbs by LRR 1,
but a separate redundancy rule is needed for the non-transitive verbs.
Since a significant generalization would be missed if this rule were restricted
to non-transitives (i.e. that all members of V[7] are also members of V[3]),
no [-TRN] specification will appear in LRR 2. For a short discussion of
the new redundancy that results with this and other lexical redundancy
rules, see the Final section.
(17) LRR 2: V[7] C V[3],
The following examples show the grammaticality pattern that is predicted

by rule 7 and LRR 2-
(18) a. te abire cogo

you(acc.sg) go-away(pres.inf) force(lsg.pres.act)
‘I force you to go away’.
b. te cogo
i am forcing you’.
c. abire cogeris
go-away(pres.inf) force(2sg.pres.pass)
‘You are being forced to go away’.
d. tibi respondere permittit
you(dat.sg) reply(pres.inf) allow(3sg.pres.act)
‘She allows you to reply’.
e. tibi permittit
‘She allows you’.
f. *respondere permitteris.
2.2. The categorial status of the accusative and infinitive
We must now turn our attention to the A & I clause itself. There are two
questions to be answered: what is the semantic status of the clause, and to
what syntactic category should it be assigned? That is, assuming that the
A & 1 is a simple non-finite sentence (evidence for this analysis is given
in Bolkestein (1979) and Pillinger (1980)), should it also have the status
of a noun phrase, either syntactically or semantically?
Firstly, of course, we need a rule to expand the A & I clause. This will
be a very slightly modified version of rule 1 given as (4) above. The mod¬
ification involves the case of the subject. As has been seen the subject of
finite sentences goes into the nominative, while the subject of non-finite
sentences is in the accusative case. This information I have included in the
rule below, but, as with the assignment of case to noun phrase objects, a
more general theory could give the cases of sentence subjects by general
principle rather than by fiat. A difference between the finite and non-
finite sentence constructions is not reflected in the rule. Non-finite verbs
do not show the same agreement properties as finite verbs. Specifically,
infinitives do not carry person and number features. However, we may
treat this as being a result of morphology rather than syntax and allow
infinitives to carry the agreement features which are simply ignored by the
morphological rules. Rule 1 may, therefore, be rewritten as (19).
(19) ( 1; V2[a INF] -> N2[-a nom, -a acc,0] VI [j3]; Vl'(*N2') )
As can be seen from the above rule, I am assuming that non-finite sentences
have the same semantic type as finite sentences; i.e. they denote truth
Ronald Cann 123
values. 1 am, therefore, rejecting the proposal that nominalized sentences

should denote sets of sets of entities, the type of noun phrases (cf. Thomason
(1976) and Klein (1979) for semantic analyses of English dependent
sentences). Although there may be fairly strong arguments in favour of
such a type assignment, the ascription of the type of noun phrases directly
to non-finite sentences would lead to greater complexity in the grammar
that would preclude the statement of generalizations that should be made.
However, non-finite sentences may be given noun phrase denotations
directly by generating them under a noun phrase node and using a semantic
function,3\ mapping V2 denotations into N2 denotations:
(20) <N2 -> V2[+INF]; J(V2'))
This is, in fact, how Pepicello and Pillinger would generate their A & 1
clauses, although in a different framework, of course. Indeed, Pillinger
(1980) pp. 75-78 is a detailed argument in favour of the generation of the
clause under a noun phrase node.
1 do not accept such an analysis. To begin with, the choice of GPSG
as the grammatical framework restricts the range of analyses available.
Given the context-free theory of lexical insertion ofGazdar(1982)pp. 18-24,
it is a consequence of the theory of grammar (rather than a stipulation
as in Chomsky (1965)) that lexical items may only subcategorize for their
siblings. This situation is shown in (21), where the lexical item/, can only
subcategorize for the constituents Y and Z, but not V or W.
*V X
z
*w
With a rule like that in (20), therefore, it would be impossible for any
verb to strictly subcategorize for an A & I clause, since these would
appear in the position occupied by W in (21). These verbs would simply
subcategorize for a noun phrase object that may or may not give rise to a
non-finite sentence. The free application of the rule in (20) would, of
course, lead to massive overgeneration which would necessitate the intro¬
duction of Chomsky and Lasnik (1977) type filters which, in effect, state
the subcategorization facts of each lexical item not in the lexicon but in
the syntax itself (see Brame (1980)).
Within GPSG it would be possible to overcome this problem by

assigning to the relevant^ noun phrases a special feature, say, [+A&I], which
would also mark the N node of the rule in (20). This should guarantee
that A & I clauses will appear only in the appropriate places (assuming, of
course, that all other noun phrase nodes are deemed to be marked [-A&I] ).
However, such a measure is otherwise unmotivated, and it seems to me
that a grammar that allowed the unconstrained generation of constituents
under nodes of a different category would lead to a situation where almost
any derivation of a constituent from any category would be possible. This
is in contradiction of the lexicalist spirit.
I prefer, therefore, to generate non-finite sentences directly where they
are required. Rule 8 introduces A & I clauses as complements to certain
verbs:
(22) <8; VI ^ V V2 [+INF]; V'CV2')>
Here, then, is the phrase structure tree for our first sentence, (la):
(23) V2
[-INF]
N2 VI
III III'
Pi Pi
+ nom
V2 V
Belgas [+acc] 3 "

+TRN
Caesarem
necauisse
Of course, if it could be shown that the arguments for the noun phrase
analysis of A & I clauses were unassailable, then we should have to adopt
the arbitrary feature marking sketched above; or even perhaps drop the
system ot context tree lexical insertion entirely, in favour of a system that
Ronald Cann 125
would allow reaching indefinitely far down a tree. But the arguments for
noun phrase status are not unassailable, which 1 shall show by looking at
the two strongest that Pillinger advances.
The first argument concerns the impersonal passive, which is illustrated
in (lc). Pillinger argues that in this construction the A& 1 clause is preposed
like an ordinary noun phrase object to form the subject of the passive
verb. According to Emonds (1972) this sort of behaviour is “diagnostic of
NP status" (Pillinger (1980) p. 78), so that the A & I should be assigned the
category noun phrase. 1 shall present in a later section an analysis of the
impersonal passive in which the A & I is not ‘preposed’, and is not inter¬
preted as the subject of the passive verb. This analysis, as we shall see, is
well motivated within Latin grammar and, if correct, completely undercuts
the argument advanced above.
Pillinger’s other main case for the noun phrase analysis has to do with
distribution. He points out (p. 76) that the “vast majority” of verbs that
take A & 1 complements may also appear with accusative noun phrases
instead. However, as is illustrated below, although many verbs may take
full noun phrase complements, as many can only take a very restricted set
of noun phrases, usually only neuter pronouns or a very small set of cognate
nouns. With the latter there is usually some alteration in meaning, thus
dico with a full noun phrase will mean ‘proclaim’ as in (24c).
(24) a. aliquid dixisti

something(acc.sg.n) say(2sg.past.act)
‘You said something’.
b. *equum dixisti
c. orationem dixisti
speech(acc.sg) say(2sg.perf.act)
‘You proclaimed the speech’.
d. haec putantur
this(acc.pl.n) think(3pl.pres.pass)
‘These things are tought’.
e. *equus putatur
f. uerba eius putantur
word(acc.pl) pronoun(3sg.gen) think(3pl.pres.pass)
‘Her words are being pondered’.
g. haec audita sunt
this hear(3pl.perf.pass)
'These things were heard’.
h. equum audimus
horse(acc.sg) hear( 1 pi.pres.act)
‘We hear the horse’.
It could be that the ungrammaticality accorded to (24b) and (24e) should

be weakened to unacceptability, and this should be accounted for by the
pragmatics rather than the syntax. I believe, however, that this grammat-
icality pattern results from the transitivity of the verbs involved; audio
being transitive and dico and puto being non-transitive. The transitivity
of these verbs will be made more apparent as this paper progresses. But if
we take as given that they have the transitivity marking given above, we
can allow for the appearance of neuter pronouns with verbs that take A & I
complements, regardless of their transitivity, using the following rule:
(25) <9; V2 [+INF] -> N2 [+acc,+PRO,+ntr]; / (N2')>
Here / is a function mapping N denotations into V denotations. As can be

seen this rule reverses the Pillinger/Pepicello derivation and ’S, I think, a
better analysis of the data. For the appearance of the full noun phrases
with non-transitive verbs (as shown in (24c) and (24f)), we may either
appeal to a second lexical item homophonous with the non-transitive verbs
but differing from them in transitivity. These transitive verbs will not be
members of V[8], and will differ from their non-transitive counterparts
also in meaning. Alternatively, it could be that rule 9 should be extended
to cover a restricted set of noun phrases which could be marked lexically
as being possible A & I replacements (possibly using the putative feature
[+A&I]). This restricted set will presumably be semantically restrained so
that they denote propositions or sets of propositions. I lean rather to the
second of these alternatives but will not attempt any further analysis
along these lines and leave the matter open.
I have shown here that there are respectable alternatives to the noun
phrase analysis of non-finite sentence complements. Although this
analysis has not been disproved, yet it cannot now be assumed without
further evidence in favour of the noun phrase status of A & I clauses. The
rest of this chapter will be an implicit defence of the non-noun-phrase
derivation of the A & I.
2.3. Verbs with accusative and infinitive complements
As with other verb phrase rules, rule 8 does not specify the transitivity of
the main verb. As we have seen in the last section the transitive verbs are
full members of V[3] that take direct objects, whereas the non-transitive
verbs may only take direct objects that denote (sets of) propositions,
although they may govern indirect objects, as credo (‘believe’).
Ronald Cann 127
(26) a. me abiturum esse credas

pronoun( lsg.acc) go-away(fut.inf) believe(2sg.pres.act)
‘You believe that 1 will go away’,
b *me credas
c. hoc credas
this(acc.sg.n)
‘You believe this’.
d. mihi credas
pronoun(lsg.dat)
‘You believe me’.
e. uolo te uenturum esse
wish(lsg.pres.act) pronoun(2sg.acc) come(fut.inf)
‘1 wish that you will come’.
f. te uolo
‘I want you’.
g. hoc uolo
‘1 want this’.
That the accusative in (27e) is not a direct object is shown by its failure to
passivize when the infinitive is present. If the accusative were the object
this should be allowed by the working of MR 1.
(27) a. equum uolo

‘I want a horse’.
b. equis uultur a me
‘A horse is wanted by me’.
c. equum abire uolo
‘I want the horse to go away’.
d. *equus abire uultur.
We shall see in the next section that for non-transitive verbs, the gram-
maticality for the constructions found in (27b) and (27d) is reversed.
Another set of verbs takes an A & I complement with a noun phrase
object as well. As before, the case of this object depends upon the tran¬
sitivity of the governing verb and the relevant rule is given in (28).
(28) (10; VI -> N2[aacc, -adat] V2[+INF] V[aTRNJ ;

V'(*V2')(“N2')>
All the members of V[9] may also appear with the noun phrase object or
the A & I alone.
(29) a. populo nuntiauit Caesarem Rubiconem

people(dat.sg) report(sg.perf.act) Caesar(acc.sg) Rubicon(acc.sg)
transisse
cross(pres.inf)
‘She reported to the people that Caesar had crossed the Rubicon'.
b. Liuiam Postumum necauisse nuntiat
Livia(acc.sg) Postumus(acc.sg) kill(perf.inf) report(3sg.pres.act)
‘She reports that Livia has killed Postumus’
c. senatui nuntiabunt
senate(dat.sg) report(3pl.fut.act)
‘They will report to the senate’.
d. admonuit me Marcum
warn(3sg.perf.act) pronoun(lsg.acc) Marcus(acc.sg)
abisse
go-away(perf.inf)
‘He warned me that Marcus had gone away’.
e. admonuit Marcum abisse
‘He warned that Marcus had gone away’.
f. populum admonuerunt
people(acc.sg) warn(3pl.perf.act)
‘They warned the people’.
The relevant generalizations can be captured by the following lexical

redundancy rules and their associated semantic rules that bind the missing
argument places:14
(30) a. LRR 3: V[10] CV[3]

b. SLR 3: If 5' is of type «s,rNp>.«s, f>,«s,rNp>, t))), then
5[3]' = X0'AJl3p [5' (p) (0*)(«ft) ]
(£T and ${. are variables of types (s, rNp> ).
(31) a. LRR 4: V[10] C V[8]

b. SLR 4: If S' is of type <<s,TNp>,<(s,r>,((s,TNp>, r»>, then
5 [8]' = S'(X3xX(x)).
There are, of course, other ways of showing the relationships between

these environments. For example in rule 10, either the noun phrase or the
A & I (but not both) could be made optional with the semantics being
provided by argument conventions. Alternatively, in a theory like that of
Klein and Sag (1982), one could exploit the clash between head type and
lexical type. I shall adopt the redundancy rule approach, however, but
with the reservations voiced in the final section.
Ronald Cann 129
The transitive members ot V[ 10], may also appear (with or without the
noun phrase object) with an infinitival verb phrase rather than an infinitival
sentence. The same is true for members of V[8, +TRN], as might be
expected.
(32) a. uolo abire

'I want to go away’.
b. te admoneo abire
‘I warn you to go away’.
c. admoneo abire
T warn that I am going away’.
d. *credo abire.
Notice that if there is an object then it controls the infinitive, whereas if

no object appears, there is subject control. Again we may postulate two
redundancy rules to show this. The membership of V[ 10] guarantees also
membership of V[6], by virtue of LRR’s4 and 5.
(33) a. LRR 5: V[8,+TRN] C V [6]

b. LRR 6: V[10,+TRN] C V[7]
2.4. The personal passive
Let us now return to the possible passives of sentences containing A & I

clauses. As we saw in (lb), there is a passive where the accusative subject
of the A & I appears as the subject of a passive main verb. Like all passive
sentences in Latin an agentive prepositional phrase may appear.
(34) a. equus abisse a me

horse(nom.sg) go-away(perf.inf) by pronoun(lsg.abl)
creditur
belie ve (3 sg.pres.pass)
b. The horse is believed by me to have gone away’.
b. Romam uenisse putati sumus
Rome(acc.sg) come(perf.inf) think(3pl.perf.pass)
‘We were thought to have come to Rome’.
c. Marcus dicitur Iulium amare
say(3sg.pres.pass) Julius(acc.sg) love(pres.inf)
‘Marcus is said to love Julius’.
There are two things to notice about this construction. First, only non¬
transitive verbs may have the personal passive construction. Thus, (35a)
is ungrammatical, and (35b) is grammatical only through the membership

of the main verb of V[7], as can be shown by the inclusion oi another
object (35c).
(35) a.*Caesar uultur a populo abire

b. admonitus es domum uenire
warn(2sg.perf.pass) home(acc.sg) come(pres.inf)
‘You were warned to come home’.
c. *me admonitus es domum uenire.
The second point to notice is that no second object is allowed to appear,

even though this is perfectly acceptable in the active:
(36) a. mihi Marcum Iulium amare

pronoun(lsg.dat) Marcus(acc.sg) Julius(acc.sg) love(pres.inf)
dicit
say(3sg.pres.act)
‘He says to me that Marcus loves Julius’.
b.*mihi Marcus Iulium amare dicitur
Thus, only the non-transitive subset of V[8] may take the personal passive.
We may, therefore, state another rule and another lexical redundancy rule
to give the correct distribution. Notice that since only one output is possible
metarules cannot be involved (or at least their use is redundant).15
(36) a. <11; V1[+PAS] -» (P2[+ACT]) VI [+INF] V;

A CT [V'(V1 '(0'))(P2')]>
b. LRR 7: V[8,-TRN] C V[11]
Here, then, is the phrase structure tree and translation of sentence (lb):
Ronald Cann 131
(37) a. V2
[-INF]
N2
III
/7i^i
Pi
+ nom
1
Belgae Wl' >2
[+INF] [+AGT| "l l
N2
/\ _-TRN
V ab omnibus dicuntur
[+acc] 3 ~
+TRN
Caesarem
necauisse
b. X (T [say' (‘kill' (XX(c))((T))(X3’’'(T(everyone'))](XX(b))

- say' (‘ kill'(XX(c))(XX(b)))(‘ everyone')
2.5. The impersonal passive
In a transformational account that assigns noun phrase status to the A & I,

the impersonal passive could simply result from the application of the
usual passive transformation to prepose the whole clause. This analysis
follows the pattern of traditional grammars in assuming that the A & I
does have subject status in this construction. As a noun phrase the A & 1
is given neuter singular status (i.e. the ‘unmarked’ gender and number) to
explain the form of past participles in sentences like (38).
(38) Marcum Iulium amare dictum est

say (past .part.part.sg.n) copula(3sg.pres)
‘It was said that Marcus loves Julius’.
However, Pillinger’s analysis misses a very important restriction in the

distribution of the impersonal passive. Like the personal passive it is
possible only with non-transitive verbs.
(39) a. Caesarem Rubiconem transisse putatur

‘It is thought that Caesar has crossed the Rubicon’.
b. *Caesarem abire a populo uultur
c. *te domum uenire admonetur
This distribution can be accounted for if a wider selection of data is

examined.
In Latin not only transitive verbs proper can have passives. There is
a perfectly general rule that allows an impersonal passive for any non¬
transitive verb. These impersonal passives are identical in form with third
person singulars and have a nominal type meaning:
(40) a. currit equus

‘The horse runs’.
b. curritur ab equo
lit. ‘There is a running by the horse’.
c. *equus curritur
d. Caesar Belgis pepercit
Belgae(dat.pl) spare(3sg.perf.act)
‘Caesar spared the Belgae’.
e. Belgis a Caesare parcitum est
spare(3sg.past part.n)
‘The Belgae were spared by Caesar’.
f. *Belgae a Caesare parciti sunt.
To derive the passives in (40), we may propose a metarule that gives

an impersonal passive sentence rule from any personal active verb phrase
rule that contains a non-transitive verb.
(41) MR 2: < VI [-IMP,-PAS] -» V[-TRN]; J )

<V2[+IMP, +PAS] -> (P2[+AGT]) V; & ('P2')>
The semantics of the output ensures that the agentive prepositional phrase,
if present, is interpreted as the subject of the sentence.16 A simple morpho¬
logical rule could then account for the isomorphism between the impersonal
and third singular forms of the verb.
Not only are rules 2 and 3 acceptable inputs to this metarule, but so
are the rules that introduce non-transitive verbs with A & I complements,
rules 8 and 10. The outputs will give impersonal passives of the form given
in (38) and (39) without any overt subjects and without assuming any
unnatural category assignments.17 Here, then, is the tree for sentence (lc).
Ronald Cann 133
(42) V2
-INF
+1MP
+PAS
V2 P2 V
[+INF] l + AGTI 8
-TRN
N2 VI ab omnibus
[+acc] dicitur
N2 V
Belgas [+acc] 3
+ TRN
Caesarem
necauisse
The above sentence may also appear with an extra noun phrase argu¬
ment giving evidence that it is a metarule that is at work here (i.e. there is
not a single output form as with the personal passives).
(43) Belgas Caesarem necauisse mihi dicitur

‘It is said to me that the Belgae have killed Caesar’.
MR 2 also predicts that the non-transitive members of V[6] and V[7] can
also appear in impersonal passive constructions, as in (44):
(44) a. potestur abire

‘It is possible to go away’.
b. tibi respondere permittitur
it is permitted for you to reply’.
c. *respondere permitteris
Now MR 2 gives rise to passive sentences for non-transitive verbs that

are identical in form with passive sentences for transitive verbs that are
given different structural analyses. This is so because of the existence of
rule 9 which generates neuter pronouns under an A & I node. Thus, the
sentences in (45a,b) are ordinary personal passives, whilst those in (45c,d)
are impersonal passives.
(45) a. aliquid auditur

‘Something is heard’.
b. hoc a senatu admonitum est
‘This was advised by the senate’.
c. aliquid mihi dictum est
‘Something was said to me’.
d. hoc a populo diu putabatur
‘This was thought by the people for a long time’.
The PS tree for (45c) is, therefore, as in (46) and aliquid is not a syntactic
subject as it is in (45a).
(46) . V2 .
-INF
+IMP
+PAS
V2 N2 V
[+INF] [+dat] 10
TRN_
N2 mihi
+acc dictum est
+ PRO
_+ntr _
aliquid
This aspect of the analysis is unproblematic but there is a residual issue.

When the pronominal object in impersonal passives like (45c, d) is plural
the main verb shows plural morphology as if the pronoun were actually
subject. Thus we have (47a) rather than (47b):18
(47) a. talia a barbaris creduntur

such(acc.pl.n) by barbarians(dat.pl) believe(3pl.pres.pass)
‘Such things are believed by barbarians’.
b.?talia a barbaris creditur
believe(3sg.pres.pass)
I suggest that the impersonal construction was readily analyzable as a

personal form in these circumstances. Parsing strategies could have had
an effect on this as well as the fact that for neuters the accusative and
nominative forms are identical. This reanalysis of the object as the subject
Ronald Cann 135
would lead to the ascription of agreement features to the verb to bring it

in line with other tinite sentence forms. Although this explanation might
seem a bit ad hoc, it does not seem to be implausible nor to present an
insuperable objection to the analysis of the impersonal passive construction
that I have presented.
3. A F-'INAL PROBLEM
Thus, with a set of eleven basic rules, two metarules, a transitivity feature
and a set of seven lexical redundancy rules, we can account in a fairly
elegant way with the very complex data surrounding the non-finite com¬
plement system in Latin. There is, however, one area in which the grammar
fails to capture some relevant generalisations.
The problem involves the set of redundancy rules. A system of such
rules that does not allow any more detail of environment than the state¬
ment of a rule number, imposes the restriction that environments common
to different rules cannot be stated within the lexicon. Thus, if there is an
environment which is common to a set of rules and conditions the appear¬
ance of a lexical item in another environment (that may or may not itself
range over a set of rules), the grammar as it stands cannot express this.
That there are such environments is shown by the grammar fragment
presented in this paper. The lexical redundancy rules, 5 and 6, allow
transitive verbs that take an A & I complement to appear with an infinitival
verb phrase instead. Two rules are needed because of the additional noun
phrase allowed by some verbs. That the conditioning environment is
common to both rules could be shown by a lexical rule such as the follow¬
ing, where indicates the position of the lexical category and the double
colon connects the two environment specifications with a transitive relation
that may be interpreted as “may also appear in a rule that includes the
following environment”.
(48) <V1 -* X *[+TRNJ V2[+INF]>:: < VI -* X <4[+TRN]

V1[+INF]>
It might be possible to make this rule even more general to give the personal
passives of non-transitive members of V[8]. This could be done by omitting
the transitivity specification from the left hand side of the rule and altering
the right hand side:
(49) < VI [a PAS] -* X $ [a TRN] VI [+INF]>

with a proviso that when a is + then X may only be an agentive pre¬

positional phrase.
Similarly, LRR’s 2, 3 and 4 can be reduced to a rule that allows any
verb that appears with a noun phrase object and an infinitival complement,
sentence or verb phrase, to appear in an environment with either, but not
both, of these complements.
(50) <V1 -» N2 0 Vn>:: < VI -* X2 0>
where n = 1 or 2, and X = N or V (Notice that I am assuming that, like

metarules these lexical rules have equivalent left hand and right hand sides
except where specified. This means that in (50) X2 on the right hand side
can only be V2 if the left hand side has V2).
It is possible that there is an alternative analysis of this data. It could be
argued that this is evidence for Borsley’s claim (see his chapter in this
volume) that verb phrases and sentences should be given the same category
status except for the specification of the feature [±SUBJ], Under this
view the syntactic sections of rules 6 and 8 could be collapsed as follows:
(51) < V2 [-SUBJ] -> V V2 [+INF, ±SUBJ]>
Likewise rules 7 and 10 could be collapsed, yielding a rule like (51) but
with the addition of N2 into the environment. This would eliminate the
need for my proposed lexical rules.
However, there are problems with Borsley’s approach, especially for
his semantics. Leaving general considerations aside, however, these revisions
fail to capture the Latin facts. This is because, although it is the case that
any transitive verb that takes an A & I may also take an infinitive verb
phrase, the converse is not true. The rule in (51), therefore, will not
sufficiently differentiate lexical items and will consequently lead to
ungrammatical sentences.
FOOTNOTES
*1 am grateful to Richard Coates, Gerald Gazdar, Ewan Klein, and Geoff Pullum for
invaluable comments and criticism. Errors are, of course, my own.
1. Morphological information in all the following examples is included in brackets
where it is considered of importance or where the form has not been met before.
The abbreviations used follow customary practise and should be self evident.
2. I am using a two level X-bar syntax as used in Gazdar (1982) and Gazdar,
Pullum and Sag (1982).
3. Pepicello does not actually discuss the impersonal passive, but since he generates
the embedded sentence under a noun phrase node, 1 presume he would want to use
some form of the ordinary passive transformation. There would be a problem for him
Ronald Cann 137
it he presumed extrinsic ordering, since for (lb) raising to object must precede
passive, whereas in (lc) the reverse is true.
4. For an attempt at a definition of transitivity that tries to incorporate these
remarks on markedness, sec Cann (1982).
5. But see section 2.2 where a rule gives rise to the possibility of non-transitive
verbs appearing with accusative objects.
6. 1 prefer to use the term “non-transitive” for members of V[-TRN|, rather
than “intransitive” which 1 associate with members of V[2, -TRN) only.
7. In this article semantic translations of lexical items will be given as primed
English words that roughly translate the Latin item.
8. Actually this rule may be more general than it appears, since it may apply to
any verb with a lexical type < < s, rjsjp >, < ( s, r^p >,/)>, wheter transitive or
nontransitive.
9. It is assumed in this paper that an item may be positively specified for one
morphological teature only, if the features in question belong to the same set (cf. Cann
(1981)). Thus, if an item is [+acc] then it is [-nom, -dat, -gen, -abl],
10. I shall make no attempt to analyze noun phrases in any detail, either syn¬
tactically or semantically, except for proper names which receive an extensional
version of Montague’s (1973) translation into intensional logic.
11. I am not completely convinced that this analysis of the passive, albeit a
common one, is correct. For an alternative analysis that dispenses with optional
agentive phrases see Cann (1982).
12. For a note on ‘intuition’ in a dead language and the difficulty of marking as
ungrammatical non-attested forms, see Pillir.ger (1980) pp. 55-56.
13. A prolative infinitive is simply an infinitive verb phrase for which verbs may
subcategorize.
14. The numbers of the SLRs are not consecutive but refer to their associated
LRR. This is a notational convenience only.
15. The [-TRN] specification seen in (36b) may appear either in the syntactic
rule itself or in the lexical redundancy rule as here. The two approaches are equivalent.
16. It is feasible that the [-TRN] specification in the metarule is otiose, if there is
a general principle that guaranteed that all impersonal passive verbs are non-transitive.
I suspect, however, that this is not the case.
17. Comrie (1982) points out the connection between the impersonal passives.
18. 1 have marked (47b) as questionable rather than as ungrammatical, as I do not
know enough about early Latin to say definitely that such sentences do not occur.
Although examples of this sort are found in later Latin they would seem to occur
under the influence of Classical Greek where neuter plural subjects regularly take
singular verbs.
Chapter 7
A categorial theory of structure building

Michael Flynn
0. INTRODUCTION*
In 1901 Bertrand Russell discovered the contradiction that was later to

become known as Russell’s paradox. It led him to formulate a theory of
logical types.1 Several years later Stanislaw Lesniewski, working in Warsaw,
decided that Russell's solution to the paradox was an ‘inadequate palliative’
and rejected it. He turned to Husserl’s theory of meaning and developed
what he called a theory' of ‘semantical categories’. His colleague Kazimierz
Ajdukiewicz then formulated an algorithm based on Lesniewski’s system
to determine the well-formedness of an arbitrary string in certain languages
(Ajdukiewicz 1935). It is Ajdukiewicz’s idea which forms a major part of
the conceptual core of the theory of language proposed in this paper.
To take an example from a propositional calculus, the sentence in (1)
with the indicated bracketing could be specified as well formed by the
formation rules in (2).
0) ts ^CON 13 1 [s [s [con A] [Sq] ts

or in more familiar notation, (p [d] (q a r))
(2) S -► p,q,r, ... (p,q,r, ... are sentences in L)

CON -> D, a (D, A are connectives in L)
S -*■ CON S S (If a, j3 are sentences in L, then
CON a P is a sentence in L)
Notice that the formation rules simultaneously specify the hierarchical

organization (i.e. the categorial assignments) of expressions in the language
and the order in which the constituents of complex (i.e. branching)
categories must appear. In Ajdukiewicz’s system, however, the formation
rules are replaced by (sometimes fractional) categorial assignments and a
method for checking order (called ‘cancellation’ for obvious reasons) as in
(3) and (4).
140 A categorial theory of structure building
(3) p,q,r, ... are each members of category S

s
D, A are members of category —
(4) Find a combination of categories with a fractional category in the

initial position, followed immediately by exactly the same cate¬
gories that occur in the denominator of the fractional category. If
one of these combinations is found, replace it with the category
which appears in the numerator of the fractional category.
Thus, (1) represented as (5), will be found to cancel to an S, which is to say

that it is a ‘syntactically connected’ expression of category S.
(5) 3 P a q r
S S _S_ S S
SS lSS_,
,_s,
s
If there is some reason to prefer a generator to a recognizer, (4) can easily

be reformulated as (6), which we will call A-concatenation (A for
Ajdukiewicz).
W
(6) If a is an expression of category —-— , and j3j ■■■ Pn are
11 ’' ‘ 1n
expressions of categories Y1 ... Yn respectively, then a Pl
Pn is of category W.
A-concatenation will generate the tree in (7).
This way of looking at things has two interesting characteristics. One is

that the assignment of expressions to categories suffices to determine the
hierarchical organization of phrases in the language, but says nothing
about ordering within constituents.2 In our artificial example, the assign¬
ment of a connective like O’ to the categorysays that it will combine
Michael Flynn 141
with two sentences to make a sentence. But it does not say how it will
combine. A-concatenation tells us that. Thus hierarchical organization can
be made independent of left-right order. Secondly, notice that A-con¬
catenation makes 'predictions’ about the rest of the syntax of the language.
For example, suppose we were to add names like John and Mary (in, say,
category NP) to the language and one-place predicates like runs and walks,
which combine with NPs to form sentences (category —). A-concaten-
ation already specifies the order. No new rules need to be added. This, of
course, would not be the case for the phrase structure rules in (2), at least
in the absence of a theory of phrase structure rules which could make the
prediction.
Though Ajdukiewicz clearly intended his system to apply to natural
languages, he was well aware that, as it stood, it did not work very well.
Nevertheless, it was very useful for logics and was employed by Carnap,
Bar-Hillel (see the papers in Bar-Hillel 1964) and more recently, Montague.
In the meantime, it became widely assumed in generative grammar that
a set of context-free phrase structure rules was a major subcomponent in
grammars of natural languages.3 As the notion that these rules are universal
and extremely simple was discarded, it became necessary to construct a
theory of phrase structure rules that incorporated sufficient constraints
to permit them to be acquired by learners. The most familiar theory of
this sort is the X-bar theory, in its many instantiations. But each of the
instantiations that I know of either encounters severe problems, is sub¬
stantially underspecified, or both. I do not think it would be fair at this
point to say that phrase structure rules, or the theories that employ them,
should be abandoned, but I do think it makes sense to consider a rather
different alternative.4
This chapter argues that one attractive alternative is a categorial grammar
of the sort proposed by Ajdukiewicz. Phrase structure rules are discarded
entirely. Categorial assignment determines hierarchical organization of
phrases universally, and specification of precedence relations (for languages
which have restrictions) is provided by a single, simple principle, called the
word order convention, which operates simultaneously across categories
and across levels. Word order conventions are very much like A-concaten¬
ation, in that by their very nature they make predictions language wide.
In this chapter, I will adduce word order conventions for three languages,
English, Hopi, and Malagasy, concentrating on English for the purposes of
illustration. Some of the categorial assignments are adapted from Montague
(1973) (hereinafter PTQ). Although a basic familiarity with Montague
grammar would be helpful to the reader, I have tried to state the main
ideas of the paper using a minimum of Montague’s terminology.5
Before we turn to details, let me try to articulate the approach from a
broader perspective. One goal of theoretical linguistics is to shed some
light on how a child abducts (in Peirce’s sense) a rather abstract system
which in part regulates linguistic behavior. From the point of view of the
X-bar theory, the idea is to constrain the possible sets of phrase structure
rules so that insight may be achieved into how a child adduces one set of
rules over another equally compatible with the accessible data. Or to put
this another way, to give some reason why, say, it so often happens that
languages do not have both the phrase structure rules in (8). (This is one
way of stating Greenberg’s (1963) universal 4.)
(8) VP -> NP V
PP P NP
From the point of view of categorial grammar, the nature of the problem
changes somewhat. The goal here is to explain why the child adduces one
word order convention over another equally compatible with the accessible
data. Or, how are we to construct a theory which yields the prediction
that so few word order conventions specify that NP objects precede the
verb, but NP objects follow their prepositions?
Serious empirical proposals about universal constraints on word order
conventions and the specification of a markedness theory of categories
would at this point be little more than hopeful speculation (though we
will see an example of the logic of the situation in the final section of this
chapter). Consequently, the hope for an illuminating comparison of the
categorial theory with phrase structure grammars is premature. The goal
of this chapter is more modest. It is to convince the reader that the wide¬
spread confidence in phrase structure rules just might be misplaced.
1. We begin by recursively defining a set of categories. This definition is

adapted from PTQ.6
(9) Let e and t be two fixed objects. The set of categories is the smallest
set CAT such that
1. e is in CAT
2. t is in CAT
3. whenever W,Y are in CAT — is in CAT
W wY
4. whenever — is in CAT, — a is in CAT. where a is N, A, or V.
The categories defined by clause 3 of (9) are called fundamental categories.

Those defined in clause 4 are called word class projections. N, A, and V
are called word class markings. These play a role similar to that played by
the multiple slash notation in PTQ. So, for example, intransitive verb
phrases are assigned to —V, intransitive nominal phrases to -N, and one
C P
Michael Flvnn 143
place predicate^ adjectives to i-A (=Siegel’s (1976) t///e). There are no

expressions in—(the fundamental of this category) in English (though
there may be in other languages).
As mentioned earlier, we will let the category assignments themselves
specity hierarchical organization, while a language particular word order
convention will determine left-right order. It is conceptually easier to
think of these two interacting specifications in two separate steps. So let
us first define categories of sets of expressions:
W
(10) It a is an expression of category — and (3 is an expression of
category Y, then ( a, (3 } is of category W.
To see an example of how this works, we will need some expressions.

We will follow Montague and assign all noun phrases to the category ——
(These will translate to expressions in the logic which denote set's of

properties of individual concepts. For discussion, see Lewis (1970),
Partee (1975), Dowty, Wall, and Peters (1981)). Notice that the argument
category of this category does not have a word class marking. By a general
interpretation of word class markings with respect to (10), this means
that this category can apply to the fundamental category (-) and not to
c
any of the word class projections of this category (-N, -V, —A). But
e e e t t
since, as we mentioned earlier, there will be no items in English in — —
will never take any arguments. We will therefore, for the sake of perspicuity^
abbreviate this category as ‘NP’. The reader should keep in mind that NP
is not, technically, a category symbol, but merely an abbreviation of a
category symbol.
Intransitive common nouns like man will be assigned to the nominal
t t
word class projection of— namely,—N. Now we may regard determiners
0 0
like every as being of a category which is a function from common nouns
to noun phrases, so determiners must be of category—. (10) then
-N
0
says that the set {every, man} is of category NP.
There are two things worth noting here. One is that the functor category
is always uniquely determinable; there is no category which both takes
and is taken by another category. This is an essential property of categorial
grammar and is what is behind the attempt to use it to resolve Russell’s
paradox. The second is that we have two ways of determining the category
of an expression. One is semantic. We followed PTQ in assigning man to a
category which guarantees that it will translate to an expression which will
denote a one place predicate. The other is syntactic. I doubt that anyone
has clear intuitions about the type of the expression every translates to,
but we can determine its category by noting that it combines with-N’s to

form NP’s. The motivation for assigning NP’s to—involves both methods
(see Lewis 1970). ^
For a second example, consider intransitive verbs like walk. We will
once again follow Montague and assign them to a category which will
map onto a type the meaningful expressions of which will denote one
place predicates (just like intransitive nouns): —V. We will also follow a
suggestion in Bach (1980b) and treat tenses as being of a category which is
a function from intransitive verb phrases to a function from noun phrases
to sentences:7 (10) now says that (PRES, walk} is of category — .
t .
-V
e
But now we can combine this set with the one from our first example
yielding (11).
(11) {{PRES, walk}, {every, man}} is of category t.
Consider a third case. We will regard transitive verbs like love as being
of a category which takes noun phrases as arguments and results in one
place predicates. In other words, love is assigned to —V. Hence, if Mary
e
t NP
is an NP, (10) specifies that {love, Mary} is a—V. Analogous to our second
example, we then have (12).
(12) (PRES, {love, Mary} } is of category—

NP
Finally, it is clear that we may then have (13).
(13) { PRES, { love, Mary}} , { every, man}} is of category t.
In this way, hierarchical organization is defined universally by the principle

in (10).
We can now state the principle in English that determines the left-right
order of constituents of phrases. First, it will be useful to introduce some
notation, originally due to Lambek (1961).
Consider an expression a which is of category ~ Suppose that 0
is an expression ot category Y. If o: and (3 are expressions in a language,
then three possibilities exist:8
(14) La: flfftlTa
Lt,: 0,0 a
Lc: a 0, *0 a
Michael Flynn 145
*a 0, *0 a is impossible by (10). For language L. we may write the cate-

w
gory ot a as — For L^, we may write the category of a as Y\W. This means
that the argument, i.e. 0, must appear on the left of the expression a in
the resulting expression. Another way of saying this is that a is ‘leftward¬
looking’. For Lc, we may write the category of a as W/Y. Here 0 must
appear to the right of a, or a is ‘rightward-looking’.
We also define the notion of major category as follows:
(15) A major category is any category whose resultant category is t.
Expressions ot these categories will always translate to expressions in the

logic which denote sets. Thus, so lar, we have seen these major categories:
e (and its word class projections),-^-(i.e. NP)~-(i.e. tensed verb phrase),
and t (sentence).9 Categories like — (TENSE), and — are not major

. NP t
categories. -
t e
—V
With Lambek's notation and the‘definition of major category in (15),
we can now state the word order convention for English.
(16) Word Order Convention for English

W
It some phrase ^ is of category — and ip contains an expression
Y W
assigned to a major category, then — is to be interpreted as Y\W.
W Y
Otherwise, — is to be interpreted as W/Y.
We can think of this procedurally. If, in English, one wants to combine

two phrases, the first thing to do is to locate the functor (recall that it is
always uniquely determined) and check to make sure that it and its
argument are of the proper category. Then if the phrase which is assigned
to the functor category contains a major category (we will regard a phrase
as containing itself), then the phrase which is of the functor category will
appear to the right of the phrase which is of the argument category.10 In
other words, phrases with major categories in them are leftward-looking.
Let us return to our examples above and see how this convention
works. Recall that we have the expressions in (17).
(17) (man, ~N >

e
(walk,-V)
e
NP
(every,-— )
-N
e
< Mary, NP >
< love,-V>
e
NP
(PRES,^p>
:V
We will follow Partee (1975, 1976b) and assume that expression are
bracketed, that brackets are labelled, and that the labelled bracketing is
preserved under concatenation (though we will often suppress such
bracketings for perspicuity). We can now construct analysis trees as
follows.
NP t
Since every is of category-, and man is of category—N, (10), as we
t e
-N
e
saw, specifies that {every, man} is of category NP. The word order con¬
vention for English specifies that since every does not contain a major
category, it will appear to the left of the common noun it applies to.
Thus we have the analysis tree in (18).
(18) [np tNp ev®rY ] [t man]]
[NP evefy ] [t man ]

- -N
t e
-N
e
Similarly, since PRES is of category (not a major category) and walk
is of category—V, we have (19).

e
Michael Flynn 147
(19)
t
-V
e
Now (19) can combine with (18). But since (19) is of a major category,
it will appear to the right of (18).
(20) [t [Np every man ] [t PRES walk ] |
NP
Notice that since all tensed verb phrases are of a major category, they will
all appear to the right of the subject. Hence, English is subject-initial.
To take the second case we considered, love is of category —V and
e
NP
Mary is an NP. Since love does not contain a major category, we have the
tree in (21).
Leaving verbs with multiple complements aside for the moment, it is plain
that all complements of verbs will follow the verb, since no verb which
takes a complement will contain a major category. Thus the word order
convention specifies that English is S V Complement.
Returning to our example, PRES may apply to (21) to get (22).
(22) [ [t PRESS ] [t love Mary ] ]

-- -V
NP NP e
t
-V
e
Of course it makes no difference here that the argument contains a major

category, since it is only the composition of the functor category that
matters. (22) may then apply to an NP like every man. Since it’s a major
category, it looks left.
(23) [{ [Np every man ] f( PRES love Mary ] j
~NP
We have, so far, shown that the generalizations in (24) are special

cases of the word order convention for English.
(24) a. determiners precede the noun

b. verbs precede their complements
c. subjects precede the verb phrase
We noted earlier that word order conventions make predictions language

wide. In the next section, we will look at how this convention for
English fares in other parts of the language. Then we will examine other
word order conventions and sketch a universal theory.
2. — is a rather important category in this theory. We might call it the

e
‘pivot’ category.11 Some categories combine with phrases to make —s
(or, as in English, some of its word class projections). These are phrases
that, in a theory which employs a phrase structure grammar, strictly
subcategorize nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Thus, the items in (25) each
combine with its argument to form a —V .
e
(25) (refuse, -V > as in refuse the offer

e
~np~
< decide,-V ) 12 as in decide to leave

e
INF
< claim, -V ) as in claim that ontogeny

recapitulates phytogeny
S
Since none of the categories in (25) are major categories, all the com¬
plements will appear to the right of the verb. The same is true for nouns.
Suppose we adopt (mutatis mutandis) the treatment of nominalizations
proposed in Chomsky (1970) and modified in Jackendoff (1975). (A
detailed exposition of this is given in Flynn (1981b)). We will have the
categories in (26).
Michael Flynn 149
(26) (refusal, In) as in refusal (of) the offer

e
NP
(decision,-N ) as in decision to leave

e
INF
< claim,-V > as in claim that ontogeny

e
recapitulates phytogeny
S
Again, since none of the categories in (26) are major categories, the com¬
plements appear to the right of the noun. Thus we see how one kind of
cross-categorial generalization is captured by the theory. The word order
convention cannot tell the difference between verbs and their nominal-
izations and will treat their complements the same way.
Jackendoff (1977) p. 61 suggests that 'semantically, restrictive modifiers
map predicates into predicates of the same number.’ We will say something
similar: restrictive modifiers map one place predicates into one place
predicates. Since the fundamental category for one place predicates is -,
t e
restrictive modifiers must be assigned to the fundamental category— •
e
t
e.
Consider now prepositional phrases. Jackendoff (1977) notes that they
appear as complements to nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and further, the
X-bar framework must provide a mechanism to generate an indefinite
number of them in the double bar level of these categories. In the categorial
theory, these generalizations are captured by assigning prepositional
phrases to-X, where X is a variable over N, A, or V.
e
t
-X
The internal structure of these phrases is transparent. Prepositions
which take noun phrases into prepositional phrases are assigned to lx
e
t
-X
c
NP
We therefore generate the phrases in (27). Notice that since prepositions
are assigned to a category which is not major, they will appear to the left
of their arguments.
(27) [ [t in] [Np the kitchen]]

-X -X
e e
e e
NP
i,-X i, with
lNP
Mary ]]
e
t t
-X -X
e e
NP
The prepositional phrases thus generated apply to all the word class
projections of Since these phrases contain a major category (NP),
they will appear to the right of their argument.
(28) [t [t child ] [t in the kitchen

-N -N -X
e e e
t
-X
e
[t lt run ] [t with Mary ] ]

-V -V -X
e e e
t
-X
e
We automatically get the correct relative order between subcategorizing

phrases and optional restrictive modifiers because -X cannot apply to any
e
t
-X
t e
other category besides-N,A,V. We generate kiss every child in the kitchen
as follows.
(29)
lt
-V
e
"nF
Michael Flynn 151
Notice that in the kitchen cannot apply to [ -V kiss]. The prepositional
NP
phrase requires that we apply kiss to its NP argument before it can apply
to the result. The same is true for all categories that take complements;
they must apply to their arguments before any restrictive modifiers can
apply to them.
We also get the structural ambiguity of kiss every child in the kitchen
straightforwardly. The reading in (29) is the one that indicates where the
kissing is to take place. But the other reading, where in the kitchen indicates
who is to be kissed, in generable as in (30).13
(30) [t kiss every child in the kitchen ]

-V
e
[t kiss ] [N every child in the kithcen ]

-V
e
NP
[Np every ] [t child in the kitchen ]

- -N
t__ e
-N
e
[t child ] [t in the kitchen ]

-N -X
e e
t
-X
e
We could, of course, add another prepositional phrase like in the living

room to (30) indicating where every child in the kitchen is to be kissed.
(31) [t [t kiss every child in the kitchen ] [t in the living room ] ]

-V -V -X
e e e
t
-X
e
As in the X-bar theory, the grammar will permit prepositional phrases to

pile up indefinitely, though in contrast to the X-bar theory, we require
no special notation to specify this.14
Interesting questions arise about other kinds of prepositional phrases,
which we put aside for now. But we are in a position to see that two
aspects of the syntax of prepositional phrases are special cases of the
word order convention. One is that, regardless of the complement, pre-
positions will appear to the left, since no preposition is of a major category.

Thus, English is prepositional. Secondly, prepositional phrases, since they
all contain major categories, will follow the phrases they modify.15
We can now see why —is so central. Some categories take complements
to make—’s. Then other categories apply to — to make new—’s. Then,
finally, some categories apply to — to make ethe major phrases of the
sentence, ‘capping’, in effect, the construction of the phrase:
(32)
t _t
e e
\_
e
- complement
complement
The position of the phrasal head and of determiners and tensing particles
is fixed by the word order convention to the left of the argument. But the
position of restrictive modifiers should vary depending on whether or
not they contain a major category. Prepositional phrases always have
major categories in them and always appear to the right (pace, note 15).
But adjectives are not so uniform.
Suppose we adopt, with some modifications, the analysis of adjectives
in Siegel (1976). Intersective adjactives are in—A. The copula, in—V,
e e
t
-A,
e
applies to them and appears to the left by the word order convention.
(33)
red j
t
-A
e
Michael Flynn 153
Some passives and progressives may fall under this case. Now, as Siegel
suggested, non-intersective adjectives like former are in-^-N. These apply
t
-N
to common nouns, and by the word order convention, appear to the left:
(34) [ former quarterback ]
This is so because former does not contain a major category. Now, inter-
sective adjectives appear in noun phrases as well. Suppose we posit the
following category changing rule. (A more detailed discussion of this rule
is given in Flynn (1981a)).
(35) If a e - A and translatates as a', then a e - N and translates

e e
t
APAx[P{x] Aa'(x)]. "eN
This rule can be thought of as having the same effect as a transformation.

It applies to anything in —A and ‘preposes’ it, leaving intact its inter-
e t
pretation as a one place predicate. Thus red will also be in-N, and will
t
-N
e
appear to the left of the common noun, just like former. Notice now that
any adjective which contains a major category ought to appear to the
right of the common noun. And this is correct:
(36) [Np a [( [t department] [t rife with [Np incompetents ]]] ]

-N -N -N
e e e
~t
-N
e
And if some passives and progressives are adjectives, they behave as

expected:
(37) [ [t stolen ] [{ book ]]

-N -N -N
e e e
[t [t book ] [t stolen by [Np John ]]j

-N -N -N
e e e
t
-N
e
[t [t sleeping [ [( child]]
-N -N -N
e e e
[ I child ] [t sleeping in [Np the living room ]]]

-N -N -N
e e e
t
-N
e
This analysis of adjectives in English, like all analyses of adjectives in

English that I know of, is not without its problems. For example, it is
unclear how to account for (38).
(38) a brightly shining light

a light brightly shining
*a shining brightly light
(Thanks to Edwin Williams for this example). And we also require a theory
of category changing rules. (For some initial steps, see Dowty (1981) and
Flynn (1981b)). But I think the analysis is suggestive, and it shows how
the word order convention can distinguish items that behave differently
but are of the same category. (For more on adjectives in the categorial
framework, see Flynn (1981a) and Barss (1981)).
Of course there is more to say about restrictive modification in English,
but I will restrain myself here to mentioning one other case. If relative
clauses are restrictive modifiers (as seems natural), they will be in -N
e
t
-N
Since they always contain major categories, they will appear to the ri|ht
of the common nouns they modify in English. Further, if we were to
analyze the complementizer position as combining with a sentence to
make a restrictive modifier, we might also have an explanation for why
Michael Flynn 155
English has a leftward COMP. (We also have to assume either that COMP
is empty at the relevant stage of the derivation or that its internal structure
is irrelevant to the word order convention.) COMP must be-N, which is
e
t
not a major category. Consequently, we have (39). eN
1 j
It actually is not necessary to assume that relative clauses are in—N. They
e
t
-N
NP NP e
may also be assigned to—, giving the structure (40), since-^-for COMP
t
is not a major category.
Of course, it doesn’t matter on either analysis whether or not the phrase

to the right of COMP is a t. This category plays no role in the argument, so
if further analysis were to show that it should not be regarded as a sentence,
the point here would not be affected.16 It can also be shown, giving some
natural assumptions, that the complementizer in the S complement to

verbs like claim is also predicted to be leftward by the word order con¬
vention. All that needs to be assumed is that that clauses are not themselves
sentences. Suppose we represent them simply as S, keeping in mind that
— c
S f t. The complementizer, then, is in—, which is not a major category
and hence will appear to the left of the sentence.
Before summarizing what we have said so far, it would perhaps be
worthwhile to mention one of the principal constituency tests used by
Jackendoff (1977): the do so test. Jackendoff calls do so a pro-V1 and
uses this to test for membership in V1. Strictly subcategorizing phrases
may not follow do so .
(41) Ken bought a house last year, and Bob did so last week.
*Ken bought a house last year, and Bob did so a car.
We can say what amounts to the same thing in the categorial theory by
assigning do so to -V (though we will not elaborate here on the anaphoric
mechanisms involved). Facts like those in (41) follow immediately, because
buy is not a —V, but buy a house is.
However, there is a difference between the two theories. There must be
some mechanism to move subcategorizing complements around restrictive
modifiers (example from Jackendoff):
in a loud voice
(42) John said suddenly that smoking was fun.
at 6:00
Said subcategorizes for S, in this case, that smoking was fun. Notice that
we cannot follow (42) by (43):
softly
(43) *but Susan did so in jest that it was bad for you
at 5:00
In Jackendoffs theory, (43) must be ruled out by some (unstated)17

independent mechanism, because the S is no longer in V1. In the categorial
theory, the ungrammaticality of (43) is expected. Recall that do so is in
-V. Restrictive modifiers are thus possible, but the following S is simply
ungenerable, because do so cannot take any arguments.
Let’s summarize what we’ve said so far. The word order convention for
English, repeated here as (44), has as special cases the generalizations in
(45).
Michael Flynn 157
(44) Word Order Convention for English
W
If some phrase ip is of category — and y contains an expression
assigned to a major caterogy, then is to be interpreted as Y\W.

W Y
Otherwise — is to be interpreted as W/Y.
(45) a. determiners precede nouns

b. verbs precede their complements
c. subjects precede the verb phrase
d. nouns precede their complements
e. English is prepositional
f. prepositional phrases follow the phrases they modify
g. adjective phrases that do not contain major categories precede
the noun
h. adjective phrases that contain major categories follow the noun
i. relative clauses follow the nouns they modify
j. English has a leftward COMP
We’ve also noted that prepositional phrases modify nouns, verbs, and
adjectives by virtue of the categorial assignment with a variable over word
class markings. The correct order of optional restrictive modifiers with
respect to strictly subcategorizing phrases falls out of the method of
hierarchical organization. And the do so test for constituency is easily
formulable in this framework, with perhaps even happier results than in
the X-bar theory. We turn now to verbs with multiple complements.
3. In this section, we will consider phrases which are often analyzed as

having a non-binary branching structure, such as those in (46).
(46) a. look the number up (V NP PRT)

b. put the pizza into the oven (V NP PP)
c. paint the room blue (V NP ADJ)
d. hammer the metal flat (V NP ADJ)
e. persuade Mary to leave (V NP S)
f. consider Harry incompetent (V NP ADJ)
g. elect John president (V NP Predicate nominal)
h. consider Harry a friend (V NP NP)
i. promise Sue to leave (V NP S)
j. strike Sam as crazy (V NP ADJ)
Essentially what we will do here is mimic the treatment of these expressions

given in Bach (1979). But since Bach’s theory contains rules that build
structure, we cannot use the same mechanism he does. First, let us review
his proposal.
Bach’s analysis takes advantage of the fact that in Montague’s theory
of categories there is no distinction between lexical and phrasal categories,
and it rests in part on the assumption that passive is a productive rule
which applies to all and only those items in category—V (in our terms).
e
NP
(For discussion, see Thomason (1976), Partee (1976b), Dowty (1978), and
especially Bach (1980a).) Since (46a-h) have good passives, the expressions
in (47) must be treated as phrases of category-V.
(47) a. look up
b. put into the oven
c. paint blue
d. hammer flat
e. persuade to leave
f. consider incompetent
g. elect president
h. consider a friend
So the category of the verbs here may be given as in (48).18
(48) a. (look, -V>

e
NP
PRT
b. < put, -V )
e
NP
PP
c. < paint, -V )
e
NP
ADJ
d. (hammer, —V >
e
~NP
ADJ
e. ( persuade, -V >
e
~NP
INF
Michael Flynn 159
f. ( consider, -V >
e
~NP
ADJ
g. < elect, -V >

e
~NP
Pred N
h. ( consider, 1y>
e
~NP"
NP
We return to (46i,j) in a moment. Two sorts of rules are necessary for the
generation of (46a-h) in Bach’s theory. First, simple concatenation is
needed to combine, say, look with its particle up to the right (and similarly
for the other cases). It appears that several different rules are necessary,
one for each category. Notice that in our theory, these phrases behave
exactly as expected. None of the categories in (48) are major categories,
so these items will appear to the left of their arguments.
The second kind of rule, which combines the phrases in (47) with
their argument NP's, makes use of a subfunction RWRAP (Bach (1979) p.
516):
(49) RWRAP: If a is simple, then RWRAP_(aT>) is a b. If a has the

form [xp X W ], then RWRAP (a,b) is X b W.
The rule for combining transitive verbs with their objects is then given as
in (50).19
(50) If a e -V and (3 e NP, then RWRAP (a, j3) e-V.

e e
~NP
The phrases in (46a-h) are now generable straightforwardly.

(46i,j) do not involve transitive verbs at all. Promise and strike are
assigned to the categories in (51) and the phrases are then generable by
rules of simple concatenation.
(51) (promise, -V) (strike, -V)

e e
INF AP
NP NP
In a theory like the one we are developing, we cannot appeal to sub¬

functions like simple concatenation and RWRAP because we do not have
the right kind of rules. But the effect of RWRAP is easily stateable in the
framework by means of the condition on the word order convention
stated in (52). (52) is to be regarded as a language particular condition.
We leave open for now whether or not it should be stated more generally
and also the role played by such conditions across languages.
(52) The WRAP Condition

If a is a phrase of the form [ [0] [7]]
-X
e
NP
then the result of applying a to its argument is [ /3 NP y].
-X
e
The phrases of (46a-h) are now straightforwardly generable, as for example,

(46e) in (53).
(53) [ persuade Mary to leave ]

-V
e
[ persuade to leave ] [NP Mary]

-V
e /
~NP /
[t persuade ] [INF to leave ]

e
NP
INF
Turning now to (46i,j), we see that these phrases are a problem for our
theory, and we have to treat them in an ad hoc way (like just about every¬
one else).20 To see the problem, consider the derivation of (46i). We follow
Bach and assign promise to-V , therefore getting (54).
INF
NP
Michael Flynn 161
INF
NP
But now promise Sue takes an INF, and the problem is clear, for promise
Sue contains an expression which is assigned to a major category (i.e. Sue)
and thus should appear to the right of its argument according to the word
order convention. But that would be wrong. We will have to state that
promise Sue ^is an exception to the word order convention by assigning
promise to -V/INF. (Recall that the right slash */’ indicates that the
NP
argument must appear to the right ot the functor.) The derivation is
as in (55).
(55) [ promise Sue to leave J
[ promise Sue ] [IMf7 to leave ]

-V/INF
e
We can summarize this section as follows. We have shown how verbs

with multiple complements can be treated in our framework. The
word order convention and the WRAP condition combine to give the
correct order for most of the relevant cases. Promise, as usual, has to be
treated as an exception in the case where it takes an infinitival comple¬
ment. For some discussion of a related phenomenon, in Irish, see
McCloskey’s chapter in this volume.
4. In this section, we extend the framework to some other languages

and take some tentative steps towards a universal theory of ordering
conventions. To recapitulate the basic idea of the theory, hierarchical
organization of phrases in natural languages is given by the assignment
of lexical items to categories and left-right order is determined by a
language particular principle which applies across categories. Thus the
child learning the language must discover at least three things: the lexical
items in the language with their category assignments, rules that relate
categories (such as the adjective rule and the nominalization relations).
and the word order convention. These are by no means independent of

each other, since category assignments influence the word order convention
and vice versa. Like every other tightly organized theory, an adjustment
in one part will have effects in every other. We will see in this section
that there are many places in the framework where an analysis is not rigidly
specified by the theory. Indeed, there are too many. One goal of this
section is to illustrate the framework’s flexibility, and then to mention
some ways in which this flexibility can be reduced.
As a working hypothesis, we will take an orthodox stance, for the most
part, on category assignments and attribute the diversity in word order
restrictions that languages exhibit to the adoption of divergent word order
conventions. Of course, it is not a logical necessity that this strategy is
correct, since different category assignments will give different word
orders under the same ordering convention. Though we will regard this as
a defeasible first assumption, we will see that it does yield encouraging
results.
English, as we saw in the previous sections, is a‘major category sensitive’
language, that is, its word order convention makes crucial mention of the
notion of ‘major category’. Hopi is quite different. Its word order con¬
vention does not appear to require reference to major categories at all.
Rather, this language relies on the fundamental category—to make the
0
relevant distinctions for determining word order. Our proposal for its
convention is (56).
(56) Word Order Convention for Hopi

W t
For categories where Y = -X (i.e. one of the word class pro-
Y e
t W W
jections of -). — is to be interpreted as W/Y. Otherwise, — is to be
e Y Y
interpreted as Y\W.
Another way of saying (56) is this: If a category takes a pivot category

as its argument, phrases of that category will appear to the left of the
argument. Otherwise, they will appear to the right.
The basic word order in Hopi is SOV.21 Verbs take a range of comple¬
ments:
(57) a. -V ni? mit tiyo? at tiva

e
I the boy see
NP
T see the boy’
b. lv
e
ni? ?itaniy ?aw yori
I our mother her-to see
PP
‘I saw our mother’
Michael Flynn 163
ni? Hotvel-pe tiikive-ni-qa-t navoti? yta

1 Hotevilla-at dance FUT OBV know
S
‘1 know that there is going to be a dance at llotevilla’
d. -V : n+? siivat Po?ky~yat ?aw maqa

e
1 money Po?kyaya him-to give
NP
‘I gave money to Po?kyaya’
PP
Since none of che complements are in -X, the word order convention
specifies that Hopi will be verb final. (57a) illustrates another property
NP
predicted by (56): determiners (——) precede nouns. (57c) shows that
—N
Hopi is postpositional, and this, too, follows from (56).

Turning now to the subject phrase, recall that in our analysis of English
we departed from PTQ and followed Bach (1980b) and regarded tensed
verb phrases as functions from noun phrases to sentences. However, in the
case of Hopi it is not so clear whether this kind of analysis is appropriate.
I do not have the relevant data on which to base a decision, and for that
matter, such data are rather hard to come by, even for English. It works
very nicely here, as far as the syntax is concerned, to allow NP’s to take
verb phrases into sentences, and so we will do it that way to illustrate the
alternative. What we may be seeing here is another way languages can vary,
though at this stage of research, this idea must be regarded as quite tentative.
At any rate, Hopi verbs are not overtly marked for present or past tense
or progressive aspect. They are simply entered in what I suppose might be
called the basic form. Jeanne (1978) glosses them variously, sometimes
present, sometimes past or progressive. Consider what happens when we
adopt an analysis along the lines of PTQ and have NP’s make sentences
out of —V’s:-. The word order convention then states that subjects
e t
-V
will appear to the left of the VP, and we’ve seen above that this is correct.22
There are auxiliary elements such as /-nil ‘FUTURE’ and /-nwi/ ‘NOMIC’.
We can treat these as sentence operators and assign them to , which
specifies that they will appear to the right of the sentence. This is correct:
(58) a. ni-7 pit nopna-ni

I him feed-FUT
‘I will feed him’
b. mi? tiyo warikn'vi
the boy run-NOMIC
‘the boy runs (habitually)’
Though the tense marker ends up as part of the phonological word that is
the predicate, Jeanne gives evidence that these suffixes must be regarded
as separate from verbs at some level of representation. Verbs can be
‘gapped’23 in Hopi, leaving the tense marker behind:
(59) a. ?im warikg p++? ni-? ti-wat warik-ni

you run then 1 also run-FUT
‘you run and I will run also’
b. ?kn warikg pi+? ni-? ti-wat-ni
you run then I also-FUT
‘you run and I will also’
Notice also that the word order convention specifies that if the language
has common noun modifying adjectives (-N), these will appear to the left
e
t
-N
Q,
of the common noun. I am uncertain about the data on this point. Jeanne
(1978) p. 316 remarks that ‘the class commonly called “adjective” mother
languages is not to be distinguished from the verbal part of speech’. How¬
ever Whorf (1946) cites the examples in (60) as cases of adjectives.
(60) a. pe-he voyo

new knife
b. qoca voyo
white knife
There may be a dialect difference involved here. At any rate, at least for
the data Whorf gives, the word order convention makes the correct pre¬
diction.
For our purposes here, we will consider one more example. Hopi makes
exuberant use of topicalization or, as Jeanne calls it, the pleonastic structure,
as in the following examples. (See also the discussion in Hale, Jeanne, and
Platero (1977)).
(61) mi? maana, pam paki-mi-ya

the girl she cry
‘the girl, she is crying’
Relative clauses also exhibit this structure:24

Michael Flynn 165
(62) a. ni? tiyo?yat (pain) pakmimiy-qa-t hoona

I boy him cry-qa-OBLIQUE sent-home
'I sent home the boy that is crying’
b. ni? tiyo? yat ?ita-ni- (pit) naawakna-qa-t
I boy our mother him like-qa-OBLIQUE
tiwi yta
know
‘I know the boy that our mother likes’
Possessive phrases, postpositional phrases, and verb phrases all have a

pleonastic variant:
(63) Possessive: mit tiyo?yat po? ko? at

mit tiyo? yat pit po? ko? at
the boy his dog
‘the boy’s dog’
PP : mit tiyo?yat ?amim
mit tiyo?yat p+t ?ami-m
the boy him him-with
‘the boy, with him’
VP : ni-? mit tiyo?yat ti-wi-?yta
ni-? mit tiyo?yat pi-t ti-wi-?yta
I the boy him know
i know the boy’
It seems that what’s going on here is reminiscent of the ‘derived VP rule’

proposed in Partee (1976b). In this case, a phrase can have some sort of
NP gap, optionally marked with a pronoun, and then add a full NP which
controls this position.
We want the pleonastic rule in Hopi to do something like this: if you
have a phrase with a pronoun in it, the rule will semantically bind the
pronoun with a lambda operator, and form an expression that is ‘looking
for’ an NP to fill the created gap. Consider a simple case like (64).
(64) mi? tiyo?yat, Taqa pit tiwi?yta

that boy Taqa him know
‘Taqa knows that boy’
Suppose we derive (64) as follows. We first construct the sentence (65).
(65) [t Taqa pit tiwi?yta]

translation: know' (PP { x7 } ) (t*)
(t* is the translation of Taqa)
Then we make this sentence into a phrase which is looking for an NP to

make a sentence.
(66) [t Taqa pit ti-wi?yta]
NP
translation: A (T(T { x7 (know' (PP { x7 }) (?*))}
Now the expression in (66) applies to an NP, which according to the word
order convention, appears to the left, giving (67).
(67) mi? t-i-yo? yat Taqa pit t+w-i-? ta

translation (assuming for convenience, but probably contrary to
the fact, that mil translates like the in English):
V y [ A x [ boy’ (x) <—> x = y ] A (know' (PP { y} ) (f*)) ]
In other words, there is a unique boy such that Taqa knows him. The trick
now is to write the rule so that it applies to several categories. We pro¬
visionally suggest (68).
(68) The pleonastic rule in Hopi

If a is a phrase with the form
[w ...PRO...)
and translates (...PP{xn ) ...)
W
than a is a phrase of category—p, where a translates as
a n\ xn (...pp(xni ...))
I don’t believe I have seen a rule like (68) anywhere in the literature, as
it may apply to any expression which has a pronoun in it. But it appears
that this is the correct generalization for Hopi. At any rate, I think this
rule gives the correct syntax (and semantics, as far as this can be determined
at this point) for the pleonastic construction in Hopi.25
Let us summarize what we have noted so far in this section. The Hopi
word order convention is (56), repeated here.
(56) Word Order Convention for Hopi

W t W
For categories —, where Y = -X, — is to be interpreted as W/Y.
W
Otherwise,— is to be intrepreted as Y\W.
Michael Flynn 167
The following generalizations are special cases of (56).
(69) a. complements precede verbs

b. subjects precede the verb phrase (i.e. Hopi is SOV)
c. determiners precede nouns
d. Hopi is postpositional
e. adjectives (if the language has them) precede the noun
f. the pleonastic noun phrase appears to the left of the phrase it is
associated with.
There is much more to be said about the syntax of Hopi in the categorial
theory (see Flynn (1981a) for a more complete discussion), and I don’t
want to suggest that this analysis is problem-free. But our principal goal
here has been to illustrate the potential of the framework. We have made
some initial steps towards Finding whatever universal principles may be
stateable within the theory. We have proposed that English is a major
category sensitive language and verb phrases apply to subjects, while Hopi
is a pivot sensitive language and NP’s apply to verb phrases to make
sentences. Do these characteristics correlate in the world’s languages? Are
there any other ‘sensitivities’ that word order conventions may have? It
would be premature to attempt to answer these questions conclusively,
but at least I believe we have reached the point where they can be asked.
In the next few paragraphs, we will briefly survey some other languages.
The categorial theory makes available languages which, in a sense, have
the mirror image of Hopi syntax, that is, languages with the word order
convention in (70).
W t W
(70) For categories —, where Y = -X, — is to be interpreted as Y\W.
W
Otherwise, — is to be interpreted as W/Y.
Languages with the word order convention in (70) would have the properties
in (71) among others.26
(71) a. VP + Subject
b. TVP + Object
c. Prep + NP
d. CNP + ADJ
e; CNP + Relative Clause
f. CNP + DET
As far as I know, there is only one language with all of these characteristics
(Batak, cited in Keenan (1978), though this conclusion must be regarded
as tentative). There are other which are close. One is Malagasy (also
discussed in Keenan (1978)). Its properties are those in (72).
(72) a. VOS
b. DET + CNP
c. Prep + NP
d. Subordinate Conjunction + Subordinate Clause
e. CNP + Relative Clause
f. CNP + ADJ
e. V + ADV
To see one way the theory can accommodate such a language, let us
propose a word order convention for it. First, we introduce some termin-
W
ology from Bar-Hillel (1953). A category — is endotypic if W = Y. Other¬
wise, it is exotypic. A word order convention that will account for all of
the data in (72) is (73).
(73) Word Order Convention for Malagasy

w w w
For categories— if — is exotypic,—is to be interpreted as W/Y.
Otherwise, it is to be interpreted as Y\W.
The low-level generalizations for Malagasy in (72) are rather similar to

those for English. The differences are those in (74).
(74) English: Subject initial

simple adjective + CNP
CNP + complex adjective
Malagasy: Subject final
CNP + ADJ
If one of the choices that languages are free to make is whether the subject
is a function or an argument, then a language with the Malagasy word
order convention but with subjects as functions would end up subject
initial like English. This language would still, however, have all adjectives
following the CNP.
The syntax of adjectives in English is a problem for every other theory
that 1 know of. AP’s in English appear on both sides of the head CN as in
(75) .
Michael Flynn 169
(75) proud man

man proud of his children
* Proud of his children man
* man proud27
The generalization, as we noted in section 2, seems to he that AP’s with

major categories appear to the right of the CN, but those without appear
to the left. It was in the light of tacts like these that we proposed that
English is sensitive to major categories and not to endotypicality. This
example shows that a small difference in word order may lead to a radically
different word order convention.
To conclude this section 1 will outline a theory of word order conventions
and show one way of having word order universal follow from more
general principles.
Of course, one of the principal sources of such generalizations is
Greenberg (1963). To begin, let us consider a VSO language with the
characteristics in (76). The number of the universal which specifies each
characteristic is given in parentheses.
(76) a. VSO
b. Prep + NP (Universal 3)
c. CN + Genitive NP (Universal 2)
d. COMP + S (Universal 12)
e. AUX + V (Universal 16)
f. CN +ADJ (Universal 17)
g. CN + Relative Clause
h. DET + N
All of the properties in (76) will follow from the word order convention
for Malagasy, with the addition of a ‘wrap’ convention along the lines we
gave for English in section 3 that specifies that the subject ends up between
the verb and the object.28
Recall our analysis of Hopi. It is an SOV language and it obeys Green¬
berg’s universal for such languages (in particular, universal 2, 4, 5
(vacuously), 13, 16, and 24). Most of Greenberg’s universals for syntax
are thus reduced to two word order conventions, and our problem now is
to specify a learning theory for word order conventions from which it will
follow that these conventions are selected and not others. At this time an
attempt to state such a theory would be premature since so few languages
have been studied from this point of view. But we can list some observations
about the word order conventions so far adduced, with the suggestion that
some of these observations may be regarded as preliminary constraints.29
(77) a. Word order conventions may be sensitive to only one of the

following: pivots, major categories, endo- or exotypicality.
b. VP’s take subjects into S’s in all languages except some pivot
sensitive ones.
c. Only phrases assigned to functor phrases wrap, and wrap only
with a phrase on their right. (In other words, there is no operat-
W
ion that takes some phrase a of category —, applies it to some
phrase [y 7] with the result [w0a^-)

d. Sensitivities are defined only on functor categories. For example,
there is no word order convention that says ‘if the phrase
assigned to the argument category contains a major category...’
The constraints in (77) have little empirical content without a marked¬

ness theory of categories. Certainly the details of such a theory are very
uncertain at this point. But to indicate a chain of inferences that such a
theory would make possible, consider (78), regarded as a subcase of a
universal theory of categories.
(78) a. All languages have the category -V

e
~NP
(i.e. the category of transitive verbs)30
b. All NP’s are assigned to — . (V is in parentheses because only

-(v)
e
languages in which NP’s take VP’s to sentences will have it.)
Suppose the language acquisition device is equipped with (77) and (78)
and further suppose that the child adduces that the language to be learned
is VSO. Here is what follows immediately, with no further evidence
necessary:
(79) VP’s apply to NP’s to make sentences (i.e. NP = - with no word

t
e
class marking) This follows directly from (77c).
From (79), (80) is deducible.
(80) The language is not a major category sensitive language. (There is

no way to write a word order convention meeting (77) to yield a
major category sensitive VSO language.)
Michael Flynn 171
Hence,
(81) The language is either

a. exotypic categories leftward
w
(i.e.—, exotypic => W/Y), or
b. pivot initial
, W t
(i.e.-, Y=-X=> Y\W).
i e
If (81a) is true, then DET + N. If (81b), then N + DET. In this way two
pieces ot information (VSO and the order of determiners with respect to
the noun) are sufficient to uniquely determine a word order convention.
The preceding remarks are, of course, quite speculative, but I hope the
method of our explanation of Greenberg’s generalizations is clear. The
reason why, say, there are no VSO postpositional languages is that there is
no word order convention which allows this combination.
FOOTNOTES
This chapter is a condensed version of portions of Flynn (1981a). I would like

to thank Barbara Hall Partee, Emmon Bach, Edwin Williams and the editors of this
volume for their suggestions and encouragement. I would also like to express gratitude
to my colleagues who attended my seminar at Reed College in the spring of 1980,
during which they were subjected to an early version of the theory presented here.
I am also grateful to the students in my advanced seminar at Hampshire College in
the fall of 1980, and to the students and faculty at the University of Groningen,
where I gave a series of lectures on some of the ideas in this paper. Everyone was
patient and perceptive. They, of course, cannot be held responsible for the errors
that remain.
1. See Russell (1908). Some elaborations on the remarks in these introductory
paragraphs can be found under the relevant entries in thz Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
2. Dowty (1981), recalling the terminology introduced in Curry (1963), refers
to this distinction as that between the tectogrammatics (i.e. what we might think of
the dominance relations which hold in the language) and the phenogrammatics
(i.e. left-right order). As we will propose below, Dowty suggests that the tecto¬
grammatics are essentially universal. For the deployment of this idea within a phrase
structure framework, see Gazdar and Pullum (1981).
3. Bar-Hillel, Gaifman and Shamir (1960) showed that categorial grammars
and context-free phrase structure grammars are weakly equivalent in generative
capacity. Categorial grammars have been rein trounced as tools for linguistic description
from time to time (Lyons (1966), Lewis (1970), Geach (1972)) but most ot the
proposals I am aware of do not attempt to exploit the notation to achieve explanation
in syntax. The work of Bartsch and Vennemann (Bartsch and Vennemann (1972),
Vennemann (1973, 1975)) appears to share a similar sort of intuition about the
structure of languages that I will deploy here. However, the systems are quite different.
A detailed comparison would take us too far afield, but see Koster (1975) tor remarks
about the Bartsch-Vennemann theory that do not apply to the one in this paper. More
recently there have been several studies which use a categorial syntax to explain syn¬
tactic phenomena. See Steedman and Ades (1981), Contreras (1981) and van der
Zee (to appear).
4. For an interesting recent modification of the theory of phrase structure, see
Stowell (1981). Some of the ideas presented there are quite similar in spirit to the
theory in these pages, but they are deployed in a substantially ditterent framework.
A thorough-going comparison of the two approaches is beyond the scope of this
chapter.
5. The theory 1 will explicate here departs, in a number of places and in varying
degrees, from common practice in Montague grammar. I will not pause to identify
each innovation. For a discussion of the Montague framework, see Dowty, Wall, and
Peters (1981).
6. Categories have direct and universal semantic import. I am assuming that
each category is mapped in a uniform way onto a type in an interpreted logic, along
the lines specified in PTQ. For further discussion, see Flynn (1981a).
7. Actually, Bach (1980b) follows Lapointe (1980) in regarding the tensed torms
of verbs as given directly by the lexicon, eliminating the need for abstract items like
PRES in the syntax. I believe that our framework is reformulable along these lines.
Walks, then, would be in-j^p, loves in —. There is no effect on the points made
NP
here, though we will continue to assume items like PRES for the sake ot discussion.
8. This is not quite right, but we will assume it here for the sake of exposition.
We will introduce a modification in section 3 that will account for discontinuous
constituents.
9. We will regard the category t to fall under this definition, though I do not
know of any cases where it makes a crucial difference.
10. It is unclear whether this convention is to be thought of as a rule for the
construction of phrases or as an output condition. For the present purposes, the
distinction will play no role and readers may have it as they wish. I believe that the
word order convention may also be formulable in terms of node admissibility con¬
ditions in the sense of Gazdar (1982). Thus we may interpret (16) as an instruction
to admit a node W under the conditions specified in the convention.
11. The terminology here was suggested to me by what I think is a similarly
revealing metaphor in the technical vocabulary of basketball and baseball. The notion
should not be confused with that of Braine (1963).
12. We beg the question of what categories INF and S abbreviate. Their exact
specification, though an interesting problem, is irrelevant to the point under discussion
here.
13. It is possible to formulate the principles of sentence parsing proposed in
Frazier (1978) in a rather natural way within the categorial framwork. Her late
closure principle can be stated as in (i) and her minimal attachment principle as in
(ii).
(i) If the parser encounters a word which is ambiguous with respect lexical
category, it will select a category which is a possible functor.
(ii) The parser checks the next item before making a category assignment.
If the next item has a category assignment that allows phrasal packaging
of already encountered items, that category assignment will be selected.
Michael Flynn 173
These principles predict that the reading in (29) is the preferred reading to that in
(30) just as Frazier’s principles do. For details and further discussion see Fpstein
(1980).
14. In fact, any restrictive modifier that does not iterate is a problem for the theory.
Ewan Klein has suggested to me that manner adverbs may be such a case.
15. Here we see one potential problem with our analysis: ‘bare’ prepositions as in
John walked in and the people here. If in and here are assigned to the prepositional
phrase category -X, the word order convention predicts *John in walked and *the
here people. I am uncertain right now what to say about this.

16. 1 want to make explicit the very tentative status of this treatment of COMP
in relative clauses. The relevant research on unbounded dependencies in a categorial
framework is only beginning, and hence the compatibility of the theory with others
such as that in Gazdar (1982) and Chomsky (1981) is unclear. See Steedman and
Ades (1981) and note 25 below.
17. He suggests it has something to do with the trace left by the extraposed con¬
stituent.
18. Notice that it we regard transitive verbs as being just those verbs in—V we do
Np
not encounter the problems noted and discussed in Gazdar (1982). We put aside the
category specitications of PRT, INF, ADJ, and Pred N. Phrases such as hammer flat
may be regarded as basic expressions. For discussion of this point, see Dowty (1976).
The important point here is that hammer flat has an internal structure like
flat]]
[ly [lv hammerJ UDJ
_e_ e__
NP NP
ADJ
regardless of whether or not this phrase is generated by a productive syntactic rule.

19. We have reformulated this rule slightly to make Bach’s notation similar to our
own. The point involved is not affected. Other writers who have appealed to a rule
like RWRAP include Thomason (1976) and Dowty (1978).
20. Bach’s treatment is ad hoc because there is no independent motivation for the
failure of phrases like promise Sue to wrap like persuade to leave. That is to say, we
need an explanation for why the category ^-V combines with its argument by simple
concatenation, while -V calls the subfunctior/RWRAP.

_e_
NP
21. Parts of the analysis and all of the data (except where noted) come trom
Jeanne (1978). I would like to express my thanks to Ken Hale for bringing Jeanne’s
work to my attention.
22. The reader can easily verify that Hopi would also be predicted to be subject
initial if tensed VP’s were assigned to — as w^ did for English.
23. The term here is Jeanne’s. It is unclear from the examples she cites whether
the rule involved is gapping or some sort of VP anaphora.
24. The relative clause marker -qa has very interesting properties which we won’t
go into here. For discussion, see Jeanne (1978). Flynn (1981a) suggests a treatment
in categorial grammar that makes those properties special cases of the Hopi word
order convention proposed here.
25. No doubt the reader will notice the provocative similarity between the Hopi
pleonastic rule and other rules which set up unbounded dependencies. What to make
of this is not clear yet.
26. We will assume that VP’s take subjects into sentences unless otherwise noted.
27. There are some instances where adjectives not containing major categories
may follow the noun, but these have a rather poetic feel:
(i) a melody sweet

the beer refreshing
the lion dying (from Shakespeare R2 5.1.29)
a dozen healthy infants well formed (from Watson’s famous boast about
behaviorism)
Cases of resistance to the word order convention show up in several places in English.
The ‘transportability’ of adverbs ( —V and—) may be related to this as well as object

c t
t
-V
e
inversion in poetry (see Austin (1977) for discussion).
(ii) the lonely man’s despair hunger overcame (Keats, ‘Adonais’)
When I a fat and bean-fed horse bequile (Shakespeare, MND 2.1.45)
28. One interesting question that we will not consider here is exactly how this
wrap convention is to be stated and why VSO languages are much more common
than VOS languages like Malagasy.
29. Notice that it is possible that a word order convention for a language may not
have an ‘otherwise case’. For example, suppose we had the convention in (i).
W t W .
(i) For categories —, if Y = -X, then — is to be interpreted as Y\W.
This would give us a language where all restrictive modifiers and determiners (in that
order) follow the head. But the distribution of NP’s would be free, since (i) does not
apply to categories which take NP arguments. Makua might be such a language. (See
Stucky’s chapter in this volume for discussion.) There are several ways to treat
languages with free or partially free order in this framework, but the pertinent
research has not been attempted yet.
30. Given other assumptions that we have made, this is equivalent to the claim
that all languages have a VP.
Chapter 8
Resolution rules: agreement in person,

number, and gender
Greville Corbett
0. INTRODUCTION*
When noun phrases are conjoined, they may carry feature combinations
which create a problem for the agreement rules as, for example, when a
verb agrees with coordinated noun phrases which differ in gender. The
rules which determine the form to be used are termed ‘resolution rules’
(Givon (1970, 1972); Vanek (1970) pp. 45-6 calls them ‘feature computat¬
ion rules’). The features which may require resolution are person, number
and gender (§ 1). Person and number show little variation in their resolved
forms; differences between languages are found mainly in the conditions
under which these rules apply (§2). Unlike person and number resolution,
gender resolution shows great diversity: some languages have rules which
are basically syntactic, others rely on a semantic principle and yet others
show interesting combinations of the two principles (§3). The difference
between person and number resolution on the one hand, and gender
resolution on the other, stems from their differing degrees of semantic
justification. As a consequence of the considerable differences in gender
systems between languages, gender resolution rules are language-specific.
They are, however, determined by common semantic and functional
considerations (§4). The degree to which these common requirements can
be met depends both on the gender structure and on the morphological
possibilities of a given language.
1. FEATURES REQUIRING RESOLUTION
The features which may require resolution are person, number and gender.
These will be discussed in turn.
1.1. Person resolu tion
The general principle of person resolution, stated in innumerable grammars,

is that the first person takes precedence over the second, and the second
176 Resolution rules: agreement in person, number, and gender
over the third. Consider the following examples from Czech, a West
Slavonic language (Travnicek (1949) p. 433, Bauernoppel et al. (1968) p.
164):
(1) ja a ty zustaneme (1st pi) doma

I and you will-stay at-home
‘you and I will stay at home’
In (1), one of the conjuncts is first person and this takes precedence over
the second person. In (2) it takes precedence over the third:
(2) bratr a ja se uci'me (1st pi) hrat na klavi'r

brother and I learn to-play on piano
‘my brother and 1 are learning to play the piano’
In (3) there is no first person conjunct and so the presence of a second

person determines the agreement form:
(3) tvuj otec a ty jste (2nd pi) si podobni

your father and you are to-each-other similar
‘your father and you are similar’
The resolution rules may be stated as follows:
1. if the conjuncts include a first person, first person agreement forms will
be used;
2. if the conjuncts include a second person, second person agreement
forms will be used.
(The default condition is that third person agreement forms are used.)
In Czech, these rules are ordered, the second applying only when the first
fails to apply. In languages which have an inclusive/exclusive distinction
in agreement forms, both rules can apply. Thus in Warlpiri, a Pama-Nyungan
language of Central Australia, if the conjuncts include a first person and
a second person, then the first person inclusive form is used (Hale (1973)
P-319):
(4) njuntu manu rjatju ka-li (present 1st dual inclusive) pula-mi
you and 1 shout
‘you and I are shouting’
It has been suggested that rules equivalent to those given above are universal.
The suggestion appears well-founded, not only because such rules are
reported frequently, but also because they match the hierarchy of reference
Greville Corbett 177
which constrains pronominal systems (see Zwicky (1977) pp. 718, 725).
First person pronouns can be used to refer to ‘speaker plus listener’ or
‘speaker plus other person’. These meanings are matched by the resolution
rule wliich determines that a first person conjoined with a second or third
person is resolved as first person. Similarly second person pronouns can be
used on their own to indicate ‘listener plus other person’; this is reflected
in the rule which resolves second and third persons conjoined into the
second person. Thus the person resolution rules have a clear semantic
basis. (While it may be possible to maintain that person resolution rules
always take the form given above, we shall see that they may be optional
(§2.1).)
1.2. Number resolution
The typical number resolution rule can be stated simply: conjoined

elements require a plural. The rules are a little more complicated in the
case of languages with more than two grammatical numbers. Slovene, a
South Slavonic language, has singular, dual and plural. If two singulars
are conjoined, then the verb stands in the dual (examples from Lencek
(1972)):1
(5) Toncek in Igor sta (dual) prizadevna (dual)

Toncek and Igor are assiduous
However, if there are more than two nouns, as in (6), or if one of the
nouns is in the dual (7) or plural (8), then a plural predicate results:
(6) Toncek, Igor in Marina so prizadevni (pi)

Toncek, Igor and Marina are assiduous
(7) Marta in njegova brata (dual) bodo prisli (pi)

Marta and his (Igor’s) brothers will come
(8) Igor in njegove sestre (pi) bodo prisli (pi)

Igor and his sisters will come
The number resolution rules are as follows:
1. if there are two conjuncts only, both of which are in the singular,
then dual agreement forms will be used;
2. in all other cases, providing there is at least one non-plural conjunct,
plural agreement forms will be used.
Of course, for languages with no dual category the first rule is not required.
At first sight the restriction on the second rule appears superfluous; why
should not instances where all the conjuncts are plural be covered by this
rule? There is no need for a resolution rule in such instances and, as we
shall see below, in some languages it is important to ensure that no resolution
rule operates in such cases (§3.2). The second complication with number
resolution is that it frequently does not apply. We discuss this problem
in §2. When it does apply, as was the case with person agreement, it
produces forms which are semantically justifiable.
1.3. Gender resolution
While person and number resolution rules are widespread, there are many
languages which do not require gender resolution rules. German and
Russian both have three genders, but there are agreeing forms for these
only in the singular. There is only one plural form, which serves for all
three genders. The other major difference between person and number
resolution rules on the one hand and gender resolution rules on the other
is that the former produce forms which are semantically justifiable, while
the latter often do not. Take the case of a language with two genders,
masculine and feminine, in which inanimates are distributed between the
two genders. If two inanimates are conjoined, one masculine and one
feminine, neither resolution will be semantically justified. As might be
expected, therefore, gender resolution rules show great diversity. We shall
describe the possibilities in §3 below; first it is essential to distinguish
genuine cases of resolution from instances where the problem is simply
avoided (because agreement is with one conjunct only).
2. THE APPLICATION OF RESOLUTION RULES
Even in languages where conjunction is generally acceptable, agreement

with conjoined structures may be barred under specific conditions. In
Luganda, agreement with conjoined structures is possible providing all the
conjuncts are human or none are human. Conjoining human and non¬
human nouns produces unnatural forms; the comitative construction is
preferred (as discussed in §3.1 below; for a comparable problem involving
agreement in Chippewa see Harries-Delisle (1978) p. 556). In Xhosa, a Bantu
language like Luganda, agreement with nouns of different genders is not
acceptable, unless the agreement morphemes required by the different
nouns are identical (Voeltz (1971)).
In languages which have no such constraints on agreement with con¬
joined noun phrases, the application of the resolution rules may still not
be automatic. Instead, it is usually possible for agreement to occur with

one conjunct only, thus avoiding the resolution rules. This raises the
question of which conjunct will control the agreement (§2.1). We must
also investigate the factors which favour resolution as opposed to agree¬
ment with one conjunct only (§2.2), and consider possible exceptions
(§2.3).
2.1. Agreement with one conjunct
When the resolution rules do not operate there is normally full agreement
with one ot the conjuncts. In Czech, person and number resolution regularly
do not apply, providing the predicate precedes the subject (Travmcek
(1949) p. 433):
(9) pujdu (lstsg) tarn ja a ty

will-go there I and you
‘you and I will go there’
In this example the verb agrees fully with the nearer conjunct. This situation
may be represented schematically as follows:
(10)
{ i
TARGET NP + NP
Agreement with the nearer conjunct may also occur, though this is less
usual, when the subject precedes the verb, as in the following Latin example
(Gildersleeve & Lodge (1948) p. 184):
(11) et ego et Cicero meus flagitabit (3rd sg)

and I and Cicero my will-demand
‘both my Cicero and I will demand it’
This example may be represented as (12):
(12) _
I I
NP + NP TARGET
Both these examples show the failure of person and number resolution to
operate, and both show full agreement with the nearer conjunct. Similar
examples could be given in which number and gender resolution do not
operate (for instance, see Brauner (1979) p. 424 for Swahili examples).
However, while agreement with the nearest conjunct is most frequently

found in such cases, it is not the only possibility. Agreement may also be
with the first conjunct which, when the subject precedes the verb, is not
the nearest; this type of agreement can be found in Slovene (Toporisic
(1972) p. 187):
(13) groza (fern sg) in strah (masc sg) je prevzela (fern sg)
horror and fear has seized
vso vas
the-whole village
Here neither gender nor number resolution has operated (the resolved
form would be the masculine plural) and the gender of the predicate
indicates clearly that agreement is with the first conjunct, as shown in
(14) :
i t
NP + NP TARGET
Note, however, that agreement with the nearer conjunct, as in (10), is

much more common. Serbo-Croat, a South Slavonic language like
Slovene, also shows the possibility of agreement with a more distant
conjunct:
(15) Ona stalna duboko urezana svijetla (neut pi)

Those constant, deeply cut lights
i sjene (fern pi) koje je naslikao
and shades which has painted
umjetnikov kist bila (neut pi) su jaca (neut pi)
the artist’s brush were stronger
od realne svijetlosti. (Desnica, quoted by Megaard (1976) p. 80)
than real light
Those constant, deeply cut lights and shades which the artist’s
brush painted were stronger than real light.’
Here the resolved form to mark agreement with both conjuncts would be
the masculine plural, as is illustrated in example (38) below. Similar
examples are found in Latin (Kiihner & Stegmann (1955) p. 53); while the
examples quoted above involve predicate agreement, it is interesting
to note that agreement with the more distant conjunct has also been found
in agreement of the attribute and of the relative pronoun in Latin (Kiihner
& Stegmann (1955) pp. 55, 58-9). We conclude that, when the resolution
rules do not apply, agreement is normally with the nearest conjunct, but
that this is not the only possibility.
2.2. Factors favouring resolution
The factors which make resolution more likely to operate are of two types:
those which involve the agreement controller (the element which governs
agreement) and those which concern the agreement target (the element
which marks agreement). Controllers which refer to animates, and con¬
trollers which precede their targets, are more likely to take resolved agree¬
ment forms (Moravcsik (1978) pp. 341-2, Corbett (1979) pp. 218-9). This
can be illustrated from number resolution in the predicate. Data on Spanish
(13th-15th centuries) have been derived from England (1976) pp. 813-20;
statistics on German are calculated from figures in Findreng( 1976) pp. 145,
165-6, 197; the Russian data are taken from modern literary texts (1930-
1979; for details see Corbett forthcoming: Chapter 7). In each category
we give the total number of examples and the percentage in which number
resolution was found. For example, in Medieval Spanish there were 288
examples of conjoined noun phrases which denoted animates and which
preceded the predicate; of these 96% had a plural predicate (thus number
resolution occurred in 96% of the cases).
TABLE 1
animate inanimate
% %
N plural N plural
Medieval Spanish 288 96 243 31

subject-predicate German 1095 96 1702 67
Russian 115 100 67 85
Medieval Spanish 318 69 239 6

predicate-subject German 379 93 925 40
Russian 89 84 114 28
It is evident that both factors favour resolution. When both are present,
all three languages give overwhelming preference to the resolved form.
When either one is present, the resolved form is found in a significantly
higher proportion of the cases than when neither is present. In Medieval
Spanish and German the animacy of the subject exerts a stronger influence
than its position, while in Russian the two factors are of about equal
weight. (In Spanish and German there is also evidence showing that
concrete subjects have plural predicates more often than abstract subjects
do.)
So much for controller factors;let us now consider the target. Resolution
as opposed to non-resolution is a particular case of semantic versus syntactic
agreement. It is therefore subject to the agreement hierarchy (Corbett

(1979)). The agreement hierarchy consists of the following syntactic
positions: attributive, predicate, relative pronoun and personal pronoun.
As we move rightwards along this hierarchy, the likelihood of resolved
(semantic) agreement increases monotonically. Data on number resolution
in Russian are given in the following Table (Corbett (forthcoming) Chapter
9).
TABLE 2
attributive predicate relative pronoun personal pronoun

N % plural N % plural N % plural N % plural
34 12 230 70 10 100 26 100
It can be seen that resolved forms show a monotonic increase. The fit is
actually better than figures from this corpus indicate, for singular relative
pronouns occur, if infrequently, and even a singular personal pronoun is
possible, though exceptionally rare. It can be shown that resolution is also
constrained by Comrie’s predicate hierarchy (Comrie (1975), see Corbett
(forthcoming) Chapter 9, for discussion).
2.3. Selective application of the resolution rules
When conjoined noun phrases show features which could trigger more than
one of the types of resolution rules (e.g. person and number), then the
normal choice is either to apply all the appopriate resolution rules, or to
apply no resolution rules and to do the agreements with one conjunct
only. However, exceptions have been found in German and French. In
his corpus of 20,000 pages of Modern German, Findreng found seven
examples of second and third persons conjoined (all singular). Of these,
four have the verb in the second person plural (as expected), while three
have a third person plural form, as in the following example (Findreng
(1976) p. 83):
(16) ...wenn du und deine Schwester eine tuchtige Portion

when you and your sister a good portion
mehr bekommen werden (3rd pi), ...
more get will
‘when you and your sister will get a good portion more’
(Informant tests also revealed variation, Findreng(1976) p. 385.) In exam¬

ple (16) number resolution has applied (the verb is plural) but person reso¬
lution has not and the default form, the third person, is found. A possible
explanation is that the ending -en (1st and 3rd pi) is a clear marker of
plurality, while the ending -(e)t (2nd pi) is in some instances indistinguish¬
able from the third person singular.
In French too, examples occur of third plural verbs with subjects con¬
taining a non-third person conjunct. The following example is quoted by
Grevisse (1969) p. 762:
(17) comme Font (3rd pi) montre Ferdinand Brunot et

as it have shown Ferdinand Brunot and
moi-meme
myself
‘as Ferdinand Brunot and myself have shown’
Here the probable explanation is that in conjoined structures the normal

clitic pronouns je and tu are replaced by the stressed forms moi, toi
(with meme in some instances); these do not regularly control verb agree¬
ment directly and so are not unambiguously marked for person as are the
normal subject pronouns.
As a working hypothesis we will adopt the position that the resolution
rules apply or fail to apply as a set, and that exceptions to this generalization
require specific explanations. However, the fact that the exceptions were
found in French and German, both of which have long grammatical
traditions, may indicate that exceptions are not so infrequent, but have
not been picked up in languages which have yet to be subjected to such
intensive study. Note that all the exceptions involve person resolution; no
examples have been found of number or gender resolution failing to apply
when another resolution rule has operated.
In this section we have investigated the application of the resolution
rules — whether they apply, the factors influencing their application
and the possibility of the operation of one resolution rule independently
of the others. For the rest of the paper we shall focus on those instances
where the resolution rules do operate (and as a set), in order to establish
what the resolved forms are and what rules are required to specify them.
We have seen that in the case of person and number these are relatively
straightforward. With gender resolution the situation is much more com¬
plex.
3. GENDER RESOLUTION SYSTEMS
Gender resolution may follow two distinct principles: the semantic principle
or the syntactic principle. Gender resolution by the semantic principle
involves reference to the meaning of the conjoined elements and disregard
for their syntactic gender. The syntactic principle refers to the syntactic
gender of the conjoined items, irrespective of whether the gender is
semantically justified. (Discussion of a case of gender resolution according
to a morphological or phonological principle is deferred to §4.3.) in this
section we shall first give examples of clear cases of semantic gender
resolution (§3.1) and of syntactic gender resolution (§3.2) and then
consider mixed types (§3.3).
3.1. Semantic gender resolution
Clear examples of this type can be found in Bantu languages. Most have
at least nine grammatical genders (in paired singular/plural classes). These
partly correspond to semantic classifications: nouns of the 1/2 gender are
human, but not all nouns referring to humans belong to the 1/2 gender
(Givon (1970) pp. 250-1, (1971)). For gender resolution, the important
thing is whether a noun refers to a human or to a noun-human, irrespective
of the gender class. This point is illustrated in data from Luganda, present¬
ed by Givon (1970) pp. 253-4,(1971) pp. 38-9:
(18) omu-kazi (1/2), es-sajja (5/6) ne olu-ana (11/10)

the-woman, the-fat-man and the-thin-child
ba-a-labwa (1/2)
were-seen
The resolved form for human conjoined nouns is the 1/2 form. In (18)
only one of the conjuncts belongs to that class. In (19) none of the con-
juncts belongs to the 1/2 class, but as all refer to humans the resolved form
is again the 1/2 marker:
(19) ek-kazi (5/6) aka-ana (12/14) ne olu-sajja (11/10)

the-fat-woman the-small-child and the-tall-man
ba-a-labwa (1/2)
were-seen
Example (19) proves that the use of the 1/2 form as the resolved form is
motivated by semantic considerations. If none of the conjuncts refers to a
human, then the 7/8 form is used, as in (20):
(20) en-te (9/10), oniu-su (3/4), eki-be (7/8) ne

the-cow, the-wild-cat, the-jackal and
ely-ato (5/6) bi-a-labwa (7/8)
the-canoe were-seen
As was mentioned above (§2), conjoining human and non-human forms

produces an unnatural result:
(21) ?omu-sajja (1/2) ne em-bwa-ye (9/10) bi-a-gwa (7/8)

the-man and dog his fell
‘the man and his dog fell down’
The result is unnatural providing the 7/8 (non-human) form is used; if the
1/2 form is used, an unacceptable sentence results:
(22) *omu-sajja (1/2) ne em-bwa-ye (9/10) ba-a-gwa (1/2)

the-man and dog his fell
The preferred alternative is the comitative construction:
(23) omu-sajja (1/2) y-a-gwa (1/2) ne em-bwa-ye (9/10)

the man fell and dog his
‘the man fell down as did his dog’
Example (23) has a simple subject, with which the verb can agree fully (in
the singular) and the problem of resolution is avoided. The resolution rules
can be stated as follows:
1. if all the conjuncts are semantically human, then the 1/2 form is used;
2. if one or more of the conjuncts, but not all, are semantically human,
then the comitative construction is preferable;
3. otherwise the 7/8 form is used.
The rules as stated allow for the 7/8 form to be used for mixed conjuncts
if Rule 2 is ignored. The same rules account for the Bemba data given by
Givon (1972) p. 82:
(24) im-fumu (9/10) na i-shilu (5/6) ba-aliile (1/2)

the-chief and the-lunatic left
(25) ici-tabo (7/8), ubu-sanshi (14/6) na ulu-balala (11/10)

the-book the-bed and the-peanut
fi-li (7/8) kuno
are here
The Bantu examples show that resolution may operate according to the
meaning of the conjuncts. We now turn to examples where semantic
considerations are apparently irrelevant.
3.2. Syntactic gender resolution
In French there are only two genders; if conjoined nouns are of the same
gender then that gender will be used (examples from Grevisse (1969) p.
314):
(26) un livre (masc) et un cahier (masc) neufs (masc pi)

a book and an exercise-book new
‘a new book and exercise book’
(27) la misere (fern) et la ruine (fern) generates (fern pi)

the poverty and the ruin general
‘the general poverty and ruin’
When the conjuncts include masculine and feminine nouns, then a masculine
form is used (the stylists insist that it should be placed next to the masculine
noun, but this requirement is not rigorously observed, as our examples
show):
(28) un pere (masc) et une mere (fern) excellents (masc pi)

a father and a mother excellent
‘an excellent father and mother’
(29) un savoir (masc) et une adresse (fern) merveilleux (masc pi)

a knowledge and a skill marvellous
‘a marvellous knowledge and skill’
Here the rules apply with the same effect to animate and inanimate nouns
(though the relative frequency may differ as discussed in § 2.3). The rules
can be stated in two different ways:
A. 1. if at least one conjunct is masculine (syntactically), the masculine

form is used;
2. otherwise the feminine is used.
Alternatively:
B. 1. if all conjuncts are feminine (syntactically), the feminine form is used;

2. otherwise the masculine is used.
For French either set of rules is adequate; indeed, the two formulations
are logically equivalent just in case there are exactly two genders. However,
we shall see that some languages require rules of Type A, in which one
conjunct of a particular gender is sufficient to determine the agreement
form, while others use Type B, in which homogeneous controllers are
distinguished.
An example of a language for which one rule type is clearly preferable
(Type B in fact) is Slovene, which has three genders and three numbers.
The predicate agreement forms are given in Table 3 (bil is the past active
participle of the verb 'to be'):
TABLE 3
masculine feminine neuter
singular bil bila bilo
dual bila b li
plural bili bile bila
The dual number can result from the operation of the resolution rules
only if two singular nouns are conjoined (§1.2), as in the following
sentences (from Lencek 1972):
(30) Toncek (masc) in Marina (fern) sta prizadevna (masc dual)

Toncek and Marina are assiduous
(31) Toncek (masc) in to dekletce (neut) sta

Toncek and that little-girl are
prizadevna (masc dual)
assiduous
A masculine noun conjoined with a feminine, as in (30), or a neuter,

as in (31) requires a masculine dual predicate. However when a feminine
and a neuter are conjoined, the masculine dual is still found:
(32) ta streha (fern) in gnezdo (neut) na njej mi

that roof and nest on it to-me
bosta ostala (masc dual) v spominu
will remain in memory
'that roof and the nest on it will remain in my memory’
Similarly, two neuter singular nouns take a masculine dual:
(33) to drevo (neut) in gnezdo (neut) na njem mi

that tree and nest on it to-me
bosta ostala (mascdual) v spominu
will remain in memory
The only way in which the feminine/neuter dual form can result from the
resolution rules is if two feminine nouns are conjoined:
(34) Marina (fern) in Marta (fern) sta prizadevni (fern dual)

Marina and Marta are assiduous
Clearly the most economical way to write the gender resolution rules is
to use the Type B formulation:
1. if all conjuncts are feminine, then the feminine form is used;

2. otherwise the masculine is used.
The number resolution rules determine when the dual and when the
plural form are to be used. As this is so, the rules just given will also
account for gender resolution in the plural in Slovene. Thus in (35), all the
conjuncts are neuter, but the masculine plural form is required:
(35) to okno (neut), drevo (neut) in gnezdo (neut) v

that window, tree and nest in
njem mi bodo ostali (masc pi) v spominu
it to-me will remain in memory
Again, the feminine is possible only if all the conjuncts are feminine:
(36) Marina (fern), Marta (fern) in Marjanca (fern) so

Marina, Marta and Marjanca are
prizadevne (fern pi)
assiduous
Note that in the rules given there is no recourse to semantic factors — the
syntactic gender is the determining factor.
The fact that the rules given for gender resolution apply equally well
for the dual and the plural suggests an interesting paradox. On the one
hand, the resolution rules are independent of each other. Thus we have no
rules which refer, say, to feminine plurals or neuter singulars. On the other
hand they are interrelated in that if one type of resolution rule operates
then all must operate where possible (cf. §2.3). Given a subject consisting
of a feminine singular and a neuter singular noun, it is not possible to
apply gender resolution (to give a masculine) but at the same time to fail
to apply number resolution, and so to have a masculine singular predicate.
This interrelation of the resolution rules helps explain the particularly
interesting situation seen in (33) and (35), where gender resolution lias
applied, giving a masculine predicate, even though all the nouns are of the
same (neuter) gender.2 Here number resolution is triggered by the presence
of singular conjuncts; if one resolution rule operates then all must operate
where possible; gender resolution does not include the possibility of
assigning neuter plural endings in Slovene (we discuss why this should be
so in §3.4 below), but specifies the masculine.
Similar gender resolution rules are found in Serbo-Croat (though there
the position is somewhat simpler as Serbo-Croat has lost the dual; at the
same time, there is an added complication in that the first rule allows
interesting leaks which we discuss in §4.3 below). Consider now the
situation when the subject consists of neuter plurals only, as in this Serbo-
Croat example:
(37) ...ta secanja (neut pi) i razmatranja (neut pi)

those memories and reflections
sve su vise ustupala (neut pi) mesto novim
ever have more yielded place to-new
utiscima ... (Andric, Travnicka Hronika)
impressions...
‘those memories and reflections increasingly gave way to new
impressions’
In this sentence the resolved form (the masculine plural ustupali) would be
ungrammatical. We can claim that number resolution does not apply in
this case (this is the reason for the restriction on number resolution in
§1.2) and so it does not trigger gender resolution. However, it would be
incorrect to claim that gender resolution can be triggered only by number
resolution as the following example shows:
(38) Sve njegove molbe (fern pi) i uveravanja (neut pi)

All his prayers and assurances
nisu pomagali (masc pi) nista. (Andric, Travnicka Hronika)
did-not help notning
‘All his prayers and assurances did not help at all.’
Here we find feminine and neuter conjuncts and a masculine predicate, as

required by the gender resolution rules. The correct generalization appears
to be as follows. Gender resolution in Serbo-Croat can be triggered in two

ways: either by the operation of number resolution (if one resolution rule
operates, all must operate if possible), or by the presence of different
genders in the conjuncts. Sentence (37) does not meet either condition,
and so gender resolution cannot operate. In this sentence the neuter plural
results from agreement with the nearer conjunct.
The languages we have just discussed discriminate against the neuter
plural, as it can arise only by agreement with the nearest conjunct and not
from the operation of the resolution rules. Icelandic, however, favours it:
the neuter plural is used for any mixture of genders (example (39) is from
Jonsson (1927) p. 14, and (40) from Einarsson (1949) p. 133):
(39) )>au (neut pi) (drengurinn (masc) og telpan (fern))

They (the-boy and the-girl)
eru {?reytt (neut pi)
are tired
(40) eg sa a (fern) og lamb (neut), boedi (neut pi)

I saw a-ewe and a-lamb both
svort (neut pi)
black
The resolution rules required for Icelandic are as follows:
1. if all conjuncts are masculine, the masculine is used;

2. if all conjuncts are feminine, the feminine is used;
3. otherwise the neuter is used.
In this section we have considered languages where the principle behind

gender resolution appears to be purely syntactic; we shall see in §4 that,
while in cases such as these the mechanism is syntactic, the motivation is
semantic. Let us first consider cases where the syntactic and semantic
principles are mixed.
3.3. Mixed semantic/syntactic gender resolution
In this section we analyze two languages in which the semantic and the
syntactic principles of gender resolution occur together. The first is
Polish, a West Slavonic language; the possibilities for predicate agreement
are given in the Table. Byl is the past tense of the verb bye ‘to be’.
TABLE 4

personal non-personal
singular byl byla byto
plural byli byty
Polish has three forms for gender agreement in the singular; in the plural
there is a division into masculine personal and the remainder. The masculine
personal category comprises nouns which are masculine and which refer to
humans: it does not coincide completely with the semantic class of male
human but it does so much more closely than do the gender classes in the
singular. When nouns are conjoined and none is masculine personal, then
the non-masculine personal/feminine/neuter form is used (Kulak et al.
(1966) p. 249):
(41) siostry (fern) i matka (fern) czyta+y (non-masc pers)

sisters and mother were-reading
If a masculine personal noun is present then the masculine personal form is

used:
(42) brat (rnasc pers), siostry (fern) i matka (fern)

brother, sisters and mother
czytali (masc pers)
were-reading
The resolution rules required appear to be as follows:
1. if at least one conjunct is masculine personal, then the masculine personal

form is used;
2. otherwise the non-masculine form is used.
These rules are of the form labelled Type A in §3.2: the first rule picks
out conjoined structures which include one conjunct of a particular type
(and therefore ‘mixtures’ will be included); in Type B rules, homogeneous
structures are isolated. Unlike the French situation, we cannot rewrite
these rules in the other form (1. if all nouns are non-masculine personal. . .)
because there is no other motivation for labelling nouns as non-masculine
personal in Polish. Rules like those given above can be found in numerous
sources; they also operate in other West Slavonic languages (Corbett
(1982)). However, Polish shows interesting exceptions. Consider the fol¬

lowing example, given by Doroszewski (1962) p. 237:
(43) Hania (fem) i Reks (masc) bawili (masc pers) si?

Hania and Rex played
piik?
with-a-ball
Reks is a dog (masculine but not personal). There is no masculine personal

conjunct in (43), but the predicate is masculine personal. The status of
sentences like (43) has been the subject of considerable debate (outlined
in Corbett (1982)). The most informative study of the question to date,
that of Zieniukowa (1979), describes responses to a questionnaire by 31
pupils in liceum classes II and III (in their upper teens). For a sentence
comparable to (43), only two informants used the non-masculine personal
form (and one used a different construction). The masculine personal
form, as in (43), is obviously the usual form. It cannot result simply from
the presence of the human noun Hania, because in (41) both conjuncts
referred to humans but a non-masculine personal form was used. We must
check whether the presence of a masculine animate is sufficient: in the
following example both conjuncts are masculine animate:
(44) pies (masc) i kot (masc) jedli (masc pers)

the-dog and the-cat were-eating
na podworzu
in the-yard
The masculine personal form (as in the example) was the majority choice,
but seven informants chose the non-masculine personal form. Thus
masculine animates are less likely to produce a masculine personal form
than masculine animate plus feminine human. Feminine human conjoined
with masculine inanimate can also result in a masculine personal form:
(45) Mama (fem), coreczka (fem) i wozek (masc)

Mother, daughter and the-pram
ukazali (masc pers) si? nagle
appeared suddenly
In this example informants were equally divided between the masculine

personal and the non-masculine personal: ukazaty (one informant chose
neither).
The rules required to cover these sentences (and other types described
in Corbett (1982)) are as follows:
1- if the subject includes a masculine personal conjunct, the predicate will

be in the masculine personal form;
2. (optional) if the subject includes the features masculine and personal,
whether these are syntactic or semantic, the predicate may be in the
masculine personal form;
3. (optional) if the subject includes a masculine animate conjunct, the
predicate may be in the masculine personal form;
4. otherwise the predicate will be in the non-masculine personal form.
The first rule, which accounts for the form used in (42), requires no
further comment. The optional Rules 2 and 3 both represent plausible
weakenings of Rule 1: in Rule 2 the conditions apply to the subject as a
whole rather than to a single conjunct and, more surprisingly, they allow
semantic or syntactic features or a combination of these. Rule 3, on the
other hand, retains the restriction to a single conjunct but reduces the
requirement from personal to animate. Rule 2 accounts for the form in
sentence (45) while Rule 3 has operated in (44). It is significant that
when both Rule 2 and Rule 3 can apply, as in (43), then for Zieniukowa’s
informants the masculine personal form is almost obligatory. When none
of these Rules apply, the non-masculine personal form is assigned by Rule
4, as in sentence (41).
The rules refer both to syntactic gender and to semantic features. Thus
Polish stands between the clearly semantic gender resolution found in
Bantu and the syntactic type documented in §3.2.
Latin shows a mixture of syntactic and semantic criteria of a different
type. Always providing resolution occurs (in many instances it does not,
see Lebreton (1901) p. 2, Ktihner & Stegmann (1955) p. 44), conjuncts of
the same syntactic gender take agreeing forms of that gender. However,
when conjuncts are of different genders, then the resolved form to be used
depends on whether the nouns refer to persons or not. For persons the
masculine is used:
(46) quam pridem pater (masc) mihi et mater (fern)

how long ago father to me and mother
mortui (masc pi) essent
dead were
'how long ago my father and mother had died'
For other conjoined elements the neuter is used:

(47) murus (masc) et porta (fern) de caelo tacta (neut pi)

wall and gate from sky struck
erant (pi)
were
‘the wall and the gate have been struck by lightning’
(These examples are from Kiihner & Stegmann (1955) pp. 44, 52. Kiihner
& Stegmann state that when humans and non-humans are conjoined
agreement is usually with the nearer noun, but resolution to the neuter
plural is possible ( 1955) pp. 49, 51.) The resolution rules are as follows:
1. if all conjuncts are masculine, then the masculine is used;

2. if all conjuncts are feminine, then the feminine is used;
3. if all conjuncts refer to humans, then the masculine is used;
4. otherwise the neuter is used.
These rules are ordered; there is no need, therefore, to stipulate that the
conjuncts in Rule 3 are of mixed gender. Similarly, Rule 4 will automatically
cover cases of mixed gender and those where all the conjuncts are neuter-
Thus Latin has two resolution rules based on the syntactic principle and
one on the semantic principle.
4. STRATEGIES FOR GENDER RESOLUTION
In the last section we observed that gender resolution rules may either
specify that at least one conjunct be of a particular sort (Type A, as also
found in person resolution), or that all the conjuncts be of a particular
sort (Type B). We found no examples of the logically possible type which
would refer to the majority of the conjuncts being of a certain sort. One
reason is that conjunction most often involves just two conjuncts; for
example, Findreng (1976) p. 196 gives separate figures for conjunction of
two abstract nouns or more than two: 87% of the cases (total 2277)
involved conjunction of two elements only. While Type A rules were
postulated for Polish and Type B for Slovene, the effect was the same: in
both languages the masculine or masculine personal form is used as the
dominant resolution form. How are we to explain why different languages
favour particular forms in their resolution rules?
4.1. Markedness: an inadequate motivation
One possibility is to appeal to markedness. There are problems in applying

markedness to areas other than phonology (Bierwisch (1967) pp. 267-70),
but Schane (1970) attempts to extend markedness into French morphology

and syntax, including gender resolution. His analysis appears attractive,
but there are difficulties when we try to extend it to languages with
more than two genders (though Lencek (1972) bases his explanation on
markedness). The phenomena discussed by Schane are taken from mor¬
phology, syntax and semantics; in each case the unmarked form is claimed
to correspond to the form used for gender resolution. We will attempt to
relate these claims to the other languages we have investigated.
The morphological argument runs as follows: the masculine singular
lorm of the adjective in French consists of the stem only, the feminine
singular is the stem plus feminine marker /a/; for the masculine plural
the plural marker /z/ is added, while for the feminine plural /a/ and /z/
are both added (various deletion rules then apply). Thus the masculine
plural torm is unmarked tor gender. In cases where gender resolution is
required, the neutralized form is used, and this is equivalent to the
morphologically unmarked form (1970) p. 291. Let us consider Slovene
in these terms (Table 3). Here the masculine singular is signalled by the
stem only, but the plurals cannot be derived from the singulars by the
addition of a plural marker. If we try to substitute a more general claim,
that the least complex form will be used (cf. Schane (1970) p. 292) then
Polish is a counter-example, the masculine personal form, used for
resolution, frequently requires a mutation of consonant, which is not found
in the other forms.
Schane also considers instances which are syntactic in nature. Impersonal
pronouns, which are neither masculine nor feminine, take masculine
agreements. It may be added that elements such as infinitives, which do
not bear a gender specification, take masculine agreements in French.
However in three-gender systems, like that of Slovene, such items are
assigned to the neuter gender (unless there is a special neutral form,
Corbett (1980)). Schane includes discussion of interrogative and indefinite
pronouns, which require masculine agreements in French. In a three-gender
system like that of Slovene, these also require masculine agreement forms
when they refer to humans, but neuter for inanimates. Thus the three-
gender system appears to have two unmarked forms — one for humans
and one for other elements.
Nouns and nominal adjectives referring to humans illustrate a further
type of markedness, which has a semantic basis. Schane points out that
les Americains (masc pi) ‘the Americans’ is unmarked in that it can refer
to both sexes, while les Americaines (fern pi) refers only to female
Americans. We might add that the phenomenon is not limited to the plural:
le professeur (masc sg) ‘the teacher’ may be a woman. There are many
such nouns, but there are few nouns of feminine gender which refer to
males. Moreover, it is not difficult to find similar examples in Slovene, and
other languages under discussion, of masculine nouns which may refer to

both sexes. Leaving markedness aside, we may argue that as there are
nouns in these languages which refer to both sexes and which are masculine,
this means that there is independent semantic justification for the use of
the masculine for gender resolution.
Of the criteria discussed, the only one which applies to all the languages
in question is the final point concerning semantic justification. We observed
that French uses the masculine to refer to humans of both sexes and that
this is the resolution form for conjuncts of different genders. Note that it
is semantically justified only for nouns denoting humans; when inanimates
are conjoined we cannot make the same claim. However, in such cases
gender has little or no semantic justification in any case. We claim, there¬
fore, that it is the instances where a semantically justifiable form is possible
which determine the resolution form. The remainder, for which neither
form is semantically justifiable, merely conform with the semantically
justified cases.
This appeal to a semantically justified form effectively excludes
markedness from the operation of the resolution rules. We shall discuss
justifiable forms for the different languages in turn. While we may view
French examples like les Americains as instances of semantic neutralization,
the important thing is simply that there are cases where the masculine
refers to both sexes. The resolution form is established on that basis and
need not refer to markedness, which thus determines the resolution form
only indirectly. This view enables us to avoid a contradiction inherent in
Schane’s approach; he claimed the resolution form for French was the
unmarked gender but the marked number. If markedness were indeed the
determining factor we would expect the unmarked number to be used.
Moreover he suggests tentatively that, as the first person is used when con¬
juncts of mixed person include a first person, then the first person should
be the unmarked person ((1970) p. 292). It is generally accepted, however,
that the third person is the unmarked person (it is used with items which
are not specified for person). As the unmarked form and the resolution
form do not coincide either for person or for number, it is not surprising
that there is no direct correspondence between the unmarked gender
and the gender resolution form.
4.2. Semantic justification and clear marking of plurality
We have claimed that the forms used for gender resolution are those which
have semantic justification in a given language. While this is indisputable in
the case of Bantu languages, which have semantic type gender resolution,
how does it apply to languages of the syntactic type? The division into
syntactic and semantic types of gender resolution is accurate insofar as
it refers to a ditterence in the way the rules operate in particular languages.

However, 1 suggest that in all instances, the motivating factor behind the
choice of the form to be favoured by the resolution rules is semantic;
this tactor is the use of semantically justified gender forms. In instances
such as the use ot the masculine in French, this basic principle of semantic
justification is clear enough. There is also a second motivating factor at
work, namely that the resolved form should bear a clear indication of
number. This factor, clear marking of number, is also based on semantics
because, as we discussed above, the use of a dual or plural with conjoined
elements is semantically justifiable (while it may be that none of the gender
forms would have any semantic backing). A form may be favoured either
because it is at least partially justified in semantic terms or because it is a
clear marker ot number. Thus gender may be made subservient to number
(a category which more closely corresponds to the real world). The extent
to which these two principles are observed depends on the morphological
possibilities of a given language. We will reconsider each of the languages
analyzed, bearing in mind that we must explain not only why certain
forms are favoured for resolution but also why the others are also used or
are excluded.
In Bantu, the morphological resources are considerable. Thus of the
plural predicate agreement forms in Bemba (Givon (1972) p. 17), all except
one are uniquely plural. Providing this form is avoided, then any resolution
rule will mark plurality clearly. Bantu can follow both principles absolutely:
the gender forms used are semantically justified (based on the human/
non-human distinction) and they mark plurality unambiguously. The rules
given for Bantu follow both our proposed principles and are relatively
simple. None of the other languages analyzed has the same lack of ambiguity
in its morphology. For this reason the two principles cannot operate with
the same consistency.
Let us consider how they apply to Slovene: in this language the
masculine is the favoured form, the feminine is used providing all con-
juncts are feminine, and the neuter is totally excluded. As mentioned
above, the use of the masculine is semantically justified when humans are
involved (the masculine gender is the one used for reference to both
sexes). When inanimate nouns are involved, then no gender would be
semantically justified and so these follow the animates where there is a
semantic motivation. When the subject consists of two nouns referring to
females, the use of the feminine is semantically justified, and this form is
also used by inanimates. How then is the exclusion of the neuter to be
explained? For this it is necessary to examine again the possible forms
for predicates which show gender agreement in Slovene, as given in the
Table.
TABLE 5
singular 0 a o/e
dual a
plural i e a
(This Table is slightly more complex than Table 3 above as we include

the neuter ending -e, which is taken by certain adjectives but which did
not appear in any of our examples.) Suppose the subject consists of two
inanimate singular nouns; the number resolution rules specify the dual.
The gender resolution rules cannot specify a form which would be seman¬
tically justified in terms of gender; we claim, therefore, that they will mark
number as clearly as possible. Neither dual ending is unambiguously dual:
the -a ending is found also in the singular, and the -/ ending in the plural.
However, the finite verb forms end in -a for all genders; for this reason
-a is a clearer marker of duality than -i and so is favoured by the resolution
rules (it is used except when there are two feminine conjuncts). Now let us
consider instances where the gender resolution rules are to mark the
predicate clearly as plural. Then the neuter ending -a would not be favoured
because it coincides with the feminine singular and, though this is probably
of less importance, with the masculine dual. Of the remaining alternatives,
the feminine plural -e also occurs in the singular while the masculine -i is
found in the dual as well as in the plural. In terms of marking plurality, a
case can be made for the masculine and for the feminine, but the neuter
ending would be avoided. We can now assess the relative merits of the
different forms. The masculine forms (dual and plural) are semantically
justified in some cases (when the conjuncts refer to male persons or to
persons of both sexes). In the dual, the masculine marks number more
clearly than the alternative, and in the plural it marks number as clearly as
or more clearly than the alternatives. As a result of these two factors, the
masculine is favoured by the resolution rules. The feminine is also seman¬
tically justified in some instances (when the conjuncts refer to female
persons); the feminine/neuter dual form marks number less clearly than
the masculine, but in the plural, the feminine form marks number more
distinctly than the neuter would. The feminine occurs as a resolution
form, but is more restricted than the masculine. The neuter has no semantic
backing and does not mark number clearly; it is therefore excluded from
the resolution rules.
In Polish there are only two agreement forms in the plural; both are
used in gender resolution, the masculine personal being the favoured form
as it is used when the conjuncts contain a mixture of masculine personal

and non-masculine personal forms. The use of the masculine personal as
the semantically justifiable gender can be explained on the same semantic
grounds as for French and Slovene. (Note too that the word panstwo 'Mr
and Mrs, ladies and gentlemen’, which refers to both sexes, takes masculine
personal agreement forms.) Similarly, the use of the non-masculine personal
forms is semantically justified when the conjuncts refer to female humans.
The forms used, therefore, are semantically justified in some cases; the
principle of clear marking of number also operates, though this is not
immediately evident from the Table oi agreement forms (which includes
alternative forms which did not occur in our examples).
TABLE 6

personal non-personal
singular 0/y/i a o/e
plural i/y y/e
Table 6 shows that the available plural endings are found in the singular
as well. However, the masculine personal ending is distinguished in an
important way: a mutation of consonant is required in the case of many
adjectives and in the past tense (byli~by4y). Thus the masculine personal
form is clearly marked for plurality; again our two principles point to the
same form. The West Slavonic languages are at different stages of losing
gender forms in the plural; in each case, the form which is gaining
ascendency is also the form favoured by the resolution rules (Corbett
(1982)). It is unlikely that conjoined structures are a sufficiently frequently
occurring construction to be the motivation for the change. It is more
likely that gender differentiation is being lost in the plural for independent
reasons; the form to survive is that which marks plurality clearly, which is
for that reason the one favoured by the resolution rules.
We have already discussed the semantic justification for the use of
masculine forms for gender resolution in French. The principle of marking
plurality also points to the masculine form, though the motivation is less
strong than in Polish. In French, singular and plural agreeing forms are
usually indistinguishable in speech. Some masculines are distinguishable,
e.g. adjectives of the type loyal, plural loyaux. Once again the principle
of using the gender form which is semantically justified (even though not
in all cases) and the principle of using forms which are clearly marked as
plural indicate the same form. (Recall too that the exception to the person
resolution rules in German (§2.1) produced a form in which plurality was

clearly marked.) We now turn to two examples in which the two principles
do not concur.
In the case of Latin we find the now familiar semantic justification for
the use of the masculine (thus liberi (masc pi) can refer to children of both
sexes) and for the feminine plural when all conjuncts refer to females.
There is, however, semantic justification for the use of the neuter plural
for inanimates: the neuter plural is used for abstract nominals, e.g. incerta
‘fickle things’. Our first principle would allow the use of all three forms.
To investigate the second, we must consider the actual forms available, as
given in the Table.
TABLE 7
singular us/0/is a/0/is um/0/e
plural i/es ae/es a/ia
The masculine and feminine plural forms are unambiguously plural; in

most instances the neuter plural coincides with the feminine singular,
though for some agreeing elements it is clearly marked as plural. As we
observed above, all three forms are used in gender resolution. While the
neuter plural is not favoured by the principle of clear marking of number,
it is a semantically justifiable gender in Latin; this ensures that it is used as
a resolution form in Latin, unlike Slovene, where it has no semantic
justification and is excluded.
In Icelandic the neuter plural is the major resolution form, used for all
gender clashes. This choice is semantically justified. First the neuter is
used for beings of unknown sex: afkvaemi ‘offspring’, barn ‘child’, folk
‘people, household’, kyn ‘kin, kindred, god ‘(heathen) god, idol’, folald
‘foal’. There is also the case of vif (poetic) ‘woman’. Thus the neuter does
not exclude humans. The most significant examples are hjon ‘man and
wife’ and its derivative bondahjon ‘peasants (husband and wife)’. Both
these nouns refer to persons of both sexes and both require neuter plural
agreement forms. There is evident semantic justification for the use of the
neuter plural to refer to humans of both sexes. Let us now consider the
neuter plural in terms of clear marking of number.
TABLE 8
singular ur/r/inn/ill 0/in/il t/tt/id
plural ir/nir/lir/dir ar/nar/lar/dar 0/in/il
The Table shows that for agreeing predicates, the neuter plural always
coincides with the feminine singular (it is, however, distinct in the personal
pronoun). On the other hand, the masculine and feminine are clearly
marked as plural. In this instance our two principles are in direct conflict:
the neuter plural is semantically justified while the masculine and feminine
are clearly marked as plural. The neuter plural is the favoured form, but
all three forms are used in gender resolution.
When the two principles are in harmony, this leads to a restriction of
the resolution forms used. In Slovene the neuter plural was excluded,
while in Polish we observed that the favoured resolved form is extending
its scope. More dramatically, in Bantu the majority of the classes are
excluded from the output of the resolution rules. When the two principles
conflict, this leads to the use of different forms, supported by one principle
or the other. The dominant factor appears to be that of semantic just¬
ification: the favoured resolution form is always the semantically justified
gender for conjuncts of at least one type (normally those referring to
humans). When this principle is supported by that of clear marking of
number, this may lead to a restriction of the forms available for gender
resolution. Thus gender resolution employs semantically justifiable forms,
as far as the morphology of a given language permits.
4.3. An apparent counter-example
We shall now examine a language where there appears to be a morphological

principle involved in gender resolution; we must demonstrate that even
here there is a semantic motivation behind the resolution rules. The
language involved is Serbo-Croat which, as we noted earlier, has rules
similar to its South Slavonic neighbour, Slovene. It differs from Slovene
in having lost the dual, so there are fewer agreement forms available.
These are illustrated by the past active participle of biti ‘to be’.
TABLE 9
singular bio bila bilo
plural bili bile bila
The resolution rules appear to be as in Slovene, that is to say: if all the

conjuncts are feminine then the feminine form is used and otherwise the
masculine form is used. When there is at least one non-feminine conjunct
there is no problem — the masculine form is the resolved form. In our
first example feminine and neuter are conjoined:
(48) Znanje (neut sg) i intuicije (fern sg) su kod njega

Knowledge and intuition have in him
saradivali (masc pi) i dopunjavali (masc pi) se...
worked-together and supplemented each-other
(Andric, Travnicka Hronika)
‘Knowledge and intuition worked together in him and supple¬
mented each other..
Similarly, when neuter nouns are conjoined we find a masculine plural

predicate:
(49) Njegovo mesto (neut sg) u razvitku kasabe i

His place in the-development of-the-town and
njegovo znacenje (neut sg) u zivotu kasabalija bili
his importance in the-life of-the-inhabitants were
(masc pi) su onakvi kako smo ih napred ukratko opisali.
such as have them before briefly described
(Andric, quoted by Gudkov (1969) p. 91)
‘His place in the development of the town and his importance in
the life of the inhabitants were such as we described them earlier.’
When all the conjuncts are feminine, then we would expect feminine
agreements, as we find in the following example:
(50) Opreznost (fern sg), suptilnost (fern sg) i pedanterija (fern sg)
The-discretion, subtlety and pedantery
tih bezbrojnih poruka zbunjivale (fern pi) su
of-these innumerable assignments perplexed
mladica ... (Andric, Travnicka Hronika)
the-young-man
The feminine nouns in this example are of two different types.Pedanterija,

like the majority of nouns in Serbo-Croat, ends in -a in the nominative
singular. There is also a sizable group of nouns like opreznost and suptilnost
which end in a consonant. These decline rather differently from nouns like
pedanterija (they also decline differently from masculine nouns, the
majority ot which also have no inflection in the nominative singular and so
end in a consonant). Though morphologically dissimilar, the two types of
teminine noun generally behave in the same way for agreement purposes,
which is of course why they are assigned to the same gender. However,
they are involved in a most interesting complication of resolution rules,
pointed out by Gudkov (1965). A masculine predicate is possible, even
though all the conjuncts are feminine, providing that at least one of them
ends in a consonant, as in the following example:
(51) Vredali (masc pi) su ga nebriga (fern) i

Offended him the-carelessness and
lakomislenost (fern) Tahir-begova. (Andric Travnicka Hronika)
capriciousness of-Tahir-beg
"The carelessness and capriciousness of Tahir-beg offended him.’
Agreement of this type is not obligatory, as example (50) shows: masculine

and feminine agreements are both found frequently. The gender resolution
rules are similar to those required for Slovene, but we must allow for the
first rule to be optional:
1. if all conjuncts are feminine, then the feminine form will be used; if
at least one of the conjuncts is a feminine ending in a consonant, then this
rule is optional;
2. otherwise the masculine will be used.
Examples like (51), which require the condition for making Rule 1
optional, are particularly interesting because agreement rules normally
refer to syntactic or semantic categories. The condition referring to a
feminine ending in a consonant is of a different sort. It can be viewed as a
morphological condition, referring to a particular declensional class; this
has the advantage of being the ‘next best thing’ to a syntactic condition.
Alternatively, one could consider it a phonological condition; this approach
has the advantage of linking the feminines of this type to the masculines
(both end in a consonant in the nominative singular), which is probably
part of the explanation for the phenomenon, but it has the disadvantage
of allowing phonology into syntax. There is no clear evidence to favour
one view rather than the other. However, we must in either case extend
the possible criteria for gender resolution proposed in §3. There we gave
examples of gender resolution according to a semantic or a syntactic prin¬

ciple, as well as mixed types. In Serbo-Croat we find a morphological or
phonological principle at work in the operation of the resolution rules.
In §4 we claimed that whatever the conditions on the resolution rules,
there was always a semantic motivation behind them. It appears that the
Serbo-Croat data are particularly damaging here. It is not the use of the
masculine as the favoured resolution form which is the problem: that can
be explained as for Slovene since it is the semantically justified gender;
and the functional argument, the fact that it marks number clearly, is
stronger than in Slovene as the complicating factor of the dual is not
present. The difficulty is the condition referring to feminine nouns which
end in a consonant: it is not obvious how this can be justified in semantic
terms. However, the declension includes a large proportion of abstract
nouns, and practically no animates. When one collects examples of con¬
joined noun phrases it is striking that the overwhelming majority involve
conjunctions of nouns of the same semantic type (all animate or all
inanimate). Thus when a feminine noun ending in a consonant is one of
the conjuncts then there will normally be no animates in the subject. This
means, in turn, that the use of the feminine agreement form will have no
semantic justification (unlike its use with animate conjuncts which refer
to females). What is happening, I suggest, is that Serbo-Croat is moving
from gender resolution rules operating on syntactic conditions towards a
completely semantic system. This new system would take the following
form:
1. if all the conjuncts refer to females, the feminine form is used;

2. otherwise the masculine form is used.
The fact that the feminines ending in a consonant are affected first is to
be explained, therefore, by the fact that the nouns involved are almost
exclusively inanimate. The suggestion that the language is moving towards
rules of the type just given is borne out by other data presented by
Gudkov (1974) p. 61. Occasional examples are found in which subjects
consisting entirely of feminine nouns in -a take masculine agreements:
(52) Stula (fern) i staka (fern) bili (masc pi) su sve sto je
A-wooden-leg and crutch were all that
tadasnja medicina mogla da mu pruzi. (Popovic)
of-that-time medicine could to-him offer
‘A wooden leg and a crutch were all that medical science of that
time could offer him.'
What is particularly significant is that 1 have found no examples of masculine

agreement with feminine nouns referring to persons.3
The rules required for modern Serbo-Croat show that gender resolution
rules may require conditions other than the more common syntactic and
semantic types. However, the motivation behind the rules is still semantic.
Serbo-Croat was previously similar to Slovene in that the masculine form
was favoured, the feminine also used and the neuter excluded in the resolut¬
ion rules; the factors at work were those of using the semantically justified
gender and of marking number clearly. These same motivating factors
remain in force. However, the language is moving to a position in which
operation of the resolution rules will be determined by a clearly semantic
principle (‘if all the conjuncts refer to females . . .’). This will have the
effect of making the favoured resolution form, the masculine, even more
dominant than it is at present.
CONCLUSION
Agreement is a complex phenomenon, as Morgan (1972) and many others

have shown (see, e.g., the chapters by Borsley and Stucky in this volume);
and agreement with conjoined noun phrases is a particularly interesting
part of the problem. While there are considerable differences between
languages, we have shown that there are certain constraints on the choice
between agreement with one conjunct or with all the conjuncts. These
factors relate both to the agreement controller and to the target. When
agreement is with all the conjuncts, then the rules for person and number
resolution are relatively straightforward and show little variety. However,
gender resolution rules are of different types and allow various conditions
on their operation. Thus gender resolution rules are language-specific;
the grammar of Serbo-Croat, for example, requires a gender resolution
rule with a condition that we have not found necessary anywhere else.
However, this does not mean that there is no pattern to gender resolution.
The need for language-specific rules is a direct result of the widely divergent
gender systems found in the languages of the world and of the differing
morphological possibilities associated with them. While the operation of
the gender resolution rules may be language-specific, the motivation
behind them is constant. The principles which dictate the agreement
forms to be used are semantic (use of the semantically justifiable form)
and functional (clear marking of number). While the interaction of these
principles with the morphological systems of particular languages may
produce rules of some complexity, the principles themselves are simple
and logical.
FOOTNOTES
* This chapter was written during the tenure of a Research Fellowship awarded
by the Council of the University of Melbourne. I am grateful to Bernard Comrie and
Alan Timberlake for comments on earlier papers which helped in the writing of this
one; to Wayles Brown, Talmy Givon and especially Roland Sussex for comments on
the draft, and to Maya Bradley, Jeri Jaeger, Anna Wierzbicka and Sonia Witheridge for
reactions to presentations of the paper. Errors are mine. Versions of the paper were
read in the Department of Linguistics (SGS), Australian National University, April
1981; at the Linguistics Symposium at the 51st Annual Congress of the Australian
and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, University of Brisbane,
May 1981; to Edinburgh University Linguistics Circle, December 1981; and at the
Spring Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, University of Reading,
March 1982.
1. Translations are not included when the meaning is evident from the glosses.
Articles have been added to the glosses in the examples from Bantu and Slavonic and
in the Icelandic examples. Note too that the auxiliary verb used in compound past
tenses in Slavonic examples such as (13) is in fact the verb be.
2. For discussion of an additional complication, see Corbett (1982) footnote 24.
3. It might appear that deca ‘children’ is a counter-example; however, in Corbett
(forthcoming) Chapter 5 I show that its predicate agreement forms are neuter plural.
When it is conjoined with a feminine, the masculine agreements found are therefore
as expected.
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Indices
INDEX OF LANGUAGES
Bantu 2, 75, 87, 93, 178,184-186. 193, Latin 2, 3, 113-137, 179, 180, 193-194,
196, 197, 201, 206 200
Batak 168 Luganda 178, 184-185
Bemba 185, 197
Breton 9,52
Makua 2, 4, 7, 75-94, 110, 116, 174
Chichewa 5 Malagasy 141, 168-169, 174
Chippewa 178 Mandarin 110
Czech 176, 179 Munster 27
English 1, 3, 4, 5, 11, 43, 48, 69-71, 72, Pama-Nyungan 5, 176

75, 94, 105, 110, 117, 199, 141,144- Polish 190-193, 194, 195, 198-199, 201
162, 167, 168-169, 173
English, Hiberno- 43^14 Romance 96
Russian 178, 181, 182
French 182, 183,186-187,191, 195-196,
197, 199 Scandinavian 111
Serbo-Croat 180, 189-190, 201-205
Gaelic, Scots 53 Slavonic, South 177, 180
German 178, 181-183, 200 Slavonic, West 176, 190-191, 199
Greek 7, 95-112 Slovene 177. 180, 187-189, 194, 195,
Greek, Ancient 117, 137 197-198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 205
Spanish, Medieval 181
Hindi 110, 116-117 Swahili 179
Hopi 141, 162-167, 169, 173 Swedish 93
Icelandic 190, 200-201,206 Ulster 30, 51, 54

Ikorovere 92
Imit’upi 92 Warlpiri 176
Irish 1, 2, 8, 9-55, 111, 161 Welsh 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 57-74
Irish, Early Modern 27
Irish, Old 27 Xhosa 178
Italian 111
Japanese 4
216 Indices
INDEX OF NAMES
Ades 172, 173 Fiengo 110

Ahlqvist 53 Findreng 181, 182-183, 194
Ajdukiewicz 139-41 Flynn 3, 6, 148, 153, 154, 167, 171,
Akmajian 74 172.173
Amritavalli 116-117 F'odor 111
Anderson 9, 52 Frazier 111, 172-173
Austin 174
Awbery 73 Gaifman 171
Gazdar 3, 6, 7, 9, 45, 57, 63, 64, 66, 68,
Bach 144, 157-161, 163, 171, 172, 173 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 80, 89, 90, 92,
Bar-Hill el 141, 168, 171 93, 96, 97, 105, 109, 110, 111, 116,
Barss 154 1 19, 120, 123, 136, 171, 172, 173
Bartsch 171-172 Geach 171
Bauernoppel 176 Gildersleeve 179
Bierwisch 194 Givon 175, 184, 185, 197, 206
Bolkestein 114-115, 122 Greenberg 12, 52, 142, 169, 171
Borsley 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 73, 99, 110, 136, Grevisse 183, 186
205 Gudkov 203, 204
Bradley 206 Gunji 4,5
Braine 172
Brame 64, 123 Hale 5, 94, 109, 164, 173, 176
Brauner 179 Harlow 8,73
Bresnan 3, 5, 10, 20, 45, 51, 64, 117 Harries-Delisle 178
Brown 206 Higgins 93
Hinds 2
Cann 2, 117, 137 Horn 72
Carnap 141 Hornstein 3, 10, 45, 74
Chomsky 3, 5, 9, 10, 45, 70, 71, 72, 73, Horrocks 2,6, 7, 76, 116
96, 99, 100, 105, 1 10, 116, 118,123, Husserl 139
148,173
Chung 9 Jackendoff 3, 10, 45, 70, 74, 148, 149,
Clements 30, 53 156
Coates 136 Jaeger 206
Comrie 137, 182, 206 Jeanne 163-164, 173
Contreras 172 Jonsson 190
Corbett 7, 181, 182, 191-192, 195, 199,
206 Kayne 45
Curry 171 Keenan 50, 168
Keyser 69
De Bhaldraithe 27, 29, 52, 54 Kisseberth 92
Derbyshire 2 Klein 7, 71, 73, 74, 110, 1 17, 123, 128,
Doroszewski 192 136.173
Dowty 4, 9, 89, 94, 143, 154, 158, 171, Koster 3. 66, 70, 172
172, 173 Kuhner 180, 193-194
Kulak 191
Einarsson 190
Emonds 3, 9, 53, 74, 95, 96, 1 10, 125 Lambek 144, 145
Engdahl 93 Lapointe 7, 94, 109, 172
England 181 Lasnik 105, 123
Epstein 173 Lebreton 193
Indices 217
Lencek 177,187,195 Schanc 195-196

Lesniewski 139 Sellis 8
Lewis 143, 144, 171 Shamir 171
Lodge 179 Siegel 152-153
Lyons 171 Sommerfelt 12
Stavrou 110
Maling 93, 111 Steedman 172, 173
May 70 Steele 74
McCawley 8, 69, 110 Stegmann 180, 193-194
McCloskey 1, 2, 12, 13, 20, 27, 30, 35, Stenson 12, 13, 35, 38, 47, 53, 55
36, 38, 39, 44, 46, 47, 52, 54, 75,99, Stowell 45, 172
110, 111, 161 Stucky 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 78, 86, 92, 93, 94,
Montague 137, 141, 143, 144, 158, 172 95,96, 110, 1 12, 116, 174, 205
Moravcsik 181 Sussex 206
Morgan 92, 205
Tai 110
6 Cui'v 53 Thomason 123, 158, 173
6 Murchu 27, 53, 55 Timberlake 206
O’Brien 27-28 Toporisls 180
Travmcek 176, 179
Partee 143, 146, 158, 165
Peirce 142 Vanek 175
Pepicello 114-115, 123, 126, 136 Vennemann 7, 171-172
Peters 143, 172 Voeltz 178
Pillinger 115, 122, 123, 125, 126, 131,
137 Wall 1, 143, 172
Platero 164 Wallace 8
Postal 69 Warburton 99, 110
Prince 8 Ward 12
Pullum 2, 5, 6, 7, 45, 57, 63, 64, 68, 69, Wasow 74
71. 72, 73, 74, 76, 89, 92, 93, 96, Whorf 164
109, 110, 112, 116, 136, 171 Wierzbicka 206

Williams 154, 171
Rashid 92 Wilson 69
Witheridge 206
Riemsdijk 3, 37, 66
Woodcock 114
Rizzi 111
Ross 110
Zaenen 93, 111
Russell 139, 143, 171
Zee 172
Zieniukowa 192-193
Sag 7, 9, 45, 57, 63, 64, 68, 69, 71, 72,
Zwicky 177
73, 74, 76, 93, 94, 1 10, 117, 128,
136
218 Indices
INDEX OF TOPICS
adverbials 10, 16, 22, 23, 43, 53, 55 lexical redundancy rules 117-118, 121,
agreement 5, 7, 57-74, 76, 78-79, 82-92, 128-130, 135-136
93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 102, 110, 116,
119, 135,175-206 markedness 117-118, 131,137,142,170,
agreement hierarchy 182 194-196
auxiliaries 52 mutation 29-30, 59, 73, 195
case marking 35, 52, 77, 102, 1 14, 1 18, negation 47-48
119,122,137 nominalization 148-149
categorial grammar 139-174 noun classes 82-85, 88-89, 184-186
clefts 13-14, 17, 24-25,45,49-50,52,53 noun phrase constraint 72
clitic doubling 102, 103-104, 107, 111 number 7, 64, 116, 122, 131, 134, 175,
clitics 58-61, 102, 104, 183 177-178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183,
concord 5, 7, 57-74, 76, 78-79, 82-92, 187, 189, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201,
93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 102, 110, 116, 202,205
119, 135,175-206
constituent order 6, 7, 75-94, 95-112, object agreement 7, 79, 82-92, 110
116, 119, 140-142, 144-171 OSV word order 2, 75,95, 110
control 46 OVS word order 75, 95
coordination 7, 31-32, 111, 175-206
copula 14, 53, 152 parasitic gaps 93
parsing 111, 134, 172
demonstratives 76-77 passives 4, 5, 30-31, 50, 54, 113, 115,
discourse 87, 92, 93 119-120, 125, 127, 129-135, 136,
duals 177-178, 187-188, 198 153,158
person 7, 64, 116, 122, 175-177, 179,
equi55,58 182, 183, 205
phantom categories 74, 110
focus 14, 17-18, 20-25, 50-51, 53, 101- progressive phrases 10, 12-55, 153
109, 111, 112 projection path 81
free word order 2, 5, 75, 82, 92, 95-96, pronouns 35, 41, 58-59, 61, 65, 74, 82-
110,174 83, 111, 125, 133, 134, 182, 183,
195
gender 7, 131, 175, 178, 179, 180, 183,
184-205 questions 48-49, 70-71, 107-108, 111,
generalized left branch constraint 105-6 112
generalized phrase structure grammar 57,
66, 70, 71, 72, 76, 80, 82, 86, 87,88, raising 58, 79, 93, 1 13-1 15, 120-137
93,94, 95,97, 1 15-116, 123-124 reflexives 35
grammatical relations 89 relational grammar 115
relative clauses 86, 87,154-156, 164, 173
head feature convention 71, 73, 89, 94, resolution rules 175-206
102 right wrap 159-161, 170, 173
heavy noun phrase shift 11, 110 rightward dependencies 111
ID/LP rule format 6, 93, 96-97, 116, 119 sentences and sentential complements 2,
infinitives 38-41, 48-49, 64, 77, 99, 113- 3, 4, 45, 51, 55, 57-74, 77, 99, 105,
1 15, 120-137, 161, 172 156
islands 29, 76, 111 SOV word order 75, 110, 169
Indices 219
subcategorization 3, 20, 110, 114, 116, verb phrase ellipsis 75

1 18,123, 150,156 verb phrase fronting 3, 69, 71, 74, 75
subjects 46-47, 48, 52, 58, 62, 74, 75, verb phrase topicalization 76, 77-82, 86,
102, 103, 105-106, 108, 111, 148, 88,90,94
170,173 verb phrases 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9-55, 57-74,
subjunctive 99 75-94, 99-, 105, 110, 136, 147, 170,
SVO word order 12, 75, 95, 99,110, 111 173,174
verbal nouns 13, 28, 29, 38-39, 45, 54,
that-trace facts 105-106 55, 60, 62-63, 1 14
tone 93 VOS word order 75, 168, 174
topicalization 3, 4, 69, 77-82, 86, 90, 94, VSO word order 1, 9-55, 75, 95, 99,110,
101-109, 111, 112, 164-166 169, 170-171, 174
transitivity 83-85, 114, 116-121, 126-
136,137,144,159, 173 word formation 39-40, 42
unbounded dependencies 30, 70-71, 78, X-bar syntax 2, 3, 10, 17-51, 53, 63-74,
80, 86, 87, 103, 109, 111, 173 109, 136, 141, 142, 149, 151
verb phrase complements 4, 69-70, 74,

77, 99
Gazdar / Klein/ Pullum
ORDER, CONCORD AND CONSTITUENCY
The papers collected in this volume deal with a family of

closely related issues: verb agreement, the order of
constituents, and the categorial status of verb phrases and
sentences. As well as focussing on a common body of topics,
the contributions are united by a commitment to a ‘concrete’
approach to syntactic phenomena.
A further shared element is that they all present problematic

data from languages that differ from English in interesting
ways, and develop analyses which offer challenges and
invitations to any universal syntactic theory.
A typologically diverse range of languages is examined,

including Irish, Welsh, Makua, Greek, Latin, Hopi,
Malagasy, and various Bantu, Romance and Slavonic
languages.
The authors represented are Robert Borsley, Ronald Cann,

Greville Corbett, Michael Flynn, Geoffrey Horrocks, James
McCloskey, and Susan Stucky. An introduction by the
editors traces some of the main theoretical threads which
link the papers together.
FORIS PUBLICATIONS
Dordrecht - Holland/Cinnaminson - U.S. A.
ISBN 90 70176 76 9 (Bound)
ISBN 90 70176 77 7 (Paper)
Coverdesign Hendrik Bouw

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ISBN 90 70176 76 9 (Bound)

© 1983 by the authors.

Printed in the Netherlands by ICG Printing, Dordrecht.

The varied contributions to the present volume are drawn together by a

Bernard Comrie Los Angeles, September 1982

It is surprising how few of these proposals allow one to express certain

Only position h allows this to be expressed directly. However, VP, S, and

(3) a. S -> NP S/NP

And Gunji (1981) proposed, quite independently, that Japanese required

(4) V2 [aSUBJ] -> V[AUX] V2[aSUBJ]

(5) PASSIVE(Vn) = Vn-1 [+PAS]

(6) i. a. S -> NP1, VP

This is a phrase structure grammar expressed in the ID/LP format ofGazdar

(7) NP1 V NP2 VP

Now consider the grammar shown in (8).

(8) i. a. S -> NP1, VP

(9) a. NP1 V NP2 VP

If we now simplify the grammar again by dropping the remaining linear

(10) a. NP1 V NP2 VP

theory. That, indeed, is intended to be the hallmark of the contributions

Given the definitions of grammatical relations proposed in Chomsky

type in Irish - that involved in the progressive construction - and attempt

1. IRISH AS A VSO LANGUAGE

Irish is as good an example of a VSO language as one could hope to find.

(2) Thug me ull don ghasur sin inne

(3) Duirt se liom inne go raibh se tinn

(4) D’iarr se orm anuraidh adhul go Meiricea

(5) Thug se dom gluaistean mdr ban a fuair se i Meiricea

More surprisingly perhaps, pronominal objects normally appear clause-

(6) Thug se dom inne e

(7) a. Tamaise go direach piochdn ionnam (CO 20)

I know of two conditions under which a subject may be postposed to clause-

(8) a. Ta againn anocht mar sin sioc sneachta agus galaigaoithe

Secondly, a subject NP preceded by the particle cc/z(‘but’) in the only-

(9) Ni raibh sa teach an oiche sin ach mo mhathair

Irish has prepositions and no postpositions. (Universal 3)

(10) *Mo mhathair chonaic me

For discussion and illustration of these and other aspects of word-order

2. THE PROGRESSIVE CONSTRUCTION

The progressive aspect in Irish is expressed by means of the structure

(11) Verb to be Subject Progressive Form of V Object PP.

(12) Ta se ag togail tithe i nDoire

(13) When they were buying the house

(14) Nuair a bhi siad ag ceannach an ti

(15) Nuair a bhi siad ag ceannach an teach

(16) ag VN (Direct Object) (PP) (Adverbial)

must be considered to be a syntactic constituent. This is indicated, for

(17) (copula focussed phrase S' with gap)

The copula, as in other copular constructions, is subject fairly freely to

(18) a. *Oll don ghasur a thug se

b. *Iad marbh a ba choir a bheith

(19) a. Ull a thug se don ghasur

The position that this much of the pattern (11) is to be considered a

(21) Chaith me dha bhliain ag scriobh gearr-scealtai

(22) a. Chonaic me mo mhdthair ag teacht ’nabhaile

It can also be used as an adjunct:

(23) D’imigh siad uaidh ag gain

The phrase also occurs in two adverbial constructions. The first is a