Irish syntax

Abstract: This paper characterises complex predicates and light verb constructions in Modern Irish. Light verbs are attested in many of the world’s languages (Alsina, Bresnan & Sells, 2001; Butt, 1995, 2003). Cross linguistically, there appears to be a common class of verbs involved in these constructions and generally there is agreement that light verbs contribute to the formation of complex predicates. Light verbs seem have a non-light or ‘heavy’ verb counterpart. In this paper we discuss the light verb constructions (LVC) as found in modern Irish and how they form complex predicates. We claim that the light verb (LV) encodes the event process initiation (or cause) and the matrix verb indicates the bounded component or result. In light verb constructions, the matrix verb appears in Modern Irish syntax as a verbal-noun form. The function of light verbs in these constructions is to modulate the event and sub-event semantics. We distinguish between auxiliary verbs constructions (AVC) and those constructions involving complex predicated and light verbs (Aikhenvald & Dixon, 2006; Anderson, 2006). We provide evidence based on an analysis of Irish data that shows how aspect and argument structure considerations are resolved for the complex predicate within the light verb construction via the linking system between semantics and syntax. We motivate a functional account, based on Role and Reference Grammar (Nolan, 2012; Nolan & Diedrichsen, 2013; Van Valin, 2005; Van Valin & LaPolla, 1997), that appeals to the analysis of complex predicates within a consideration of the layered structure of the clause.

Abstract: Analyses of Irish phonological phrasing (Elfner 2012 et seq.) have been influential in shaping Match Theory (Selkirk 2011), an OT approach to mapping syntactic to prosodic structure. We solve two constraint ranking paradoxes concerning the relative ranking of Match and StrongStart. Irish data indicate that while XPs with silent heads can fail to map to phonological phrases in certain circumstances, overtly headed XPs cannot. They also indicate that rebracketing due to the constraint StrongStart occurs only sentence-initially, contrary to predictions. We account for these puzzles by invoking Van Handel's (2019) Match constraint which sees only XPs with overt heads, and by positing a new version of StrongStart which only applies to material at the left edge of the intonational phrase. Our analysis is developed using the Syntax-Prosody in Optimality Theory application (SPOT) and OTWorkplace.

Abstract: A recent proposal (Pollock 1989) within the framework of Government and Binding (GB) grammatical theory has been that the members of INFL Agreement and Tense should be given full constituent status as maximal projections in their own right. This idea has been applied to the syntax of Modern Irish in order both to test the universality of the expanded INFL proposal and to investigate what new perspectives it might have to offer on some remaining problems of Irish syntax. The results are presented in the following paper along with discussions of the direction they suggest for further research. INTRODUCTION Using data from mostly English and French, J.Y. Pollock argues in a recent proposal (1989) that if the usual members of INFL, Agreement and Tense, are included in the syntax as full maximal projections, many of the phenomena surrounding auxiliaries, negation, and verb movement can receive straightforward explanations. The proposal seems readily adaptable for other SVO languages which are generally accepted as showing evidence of verb movement, notably the so-called Verb Second (V2) languages. In order to test the universality of the expanded-INFL proposal, an expandedINFL syntax has been applied to the model VSO language Modern Irish. The result has been a quite promising new syntactic structure for Irish which seems to confirm the universality of expanded-INFL. While it is fully compatible with existing analyses for Irish word order in which V S O is derived from SVO, the new expanded syntax is equally adaptable to an account deriving VSO from SOV. Such an account is suggested by the Irish infinitive clause, which is built around the verbal noun (VN), and which regularly shows surface SOV order. The new syntax provides an attractive solution for the placement of preverbal particles (interrogative, relative, negative, and copula), which are the only elements regularly allowed to precede the verb in Irish. It also suggests some interesting perspectives for the analysis of copula constructions, an area which remains an open question in Irish syntax. 58 SHEILA DOOLEY COLLBERG Expanded-INFL syntax I would like to begin by defining exactly what is meant here by an expanded-INFL syntax. This is my own terminology for the kind of structure proposed in Pollock 1989. It is probably easiest to see what is new about this structure if we compare it to earlier models of universal syntax. Through the years, the 'basic' syntactic tree structure assumed within the G B theoretical framework has steadily grown more complex and abstract. The first tree structure (a) above shows a pre Barriers (Chomsky 1986) type of syntax with really the bare essentials. The S portion of the tree is the area which undergoes the most change. In the second tree (b), after Barriers, we have a new level of constituent structure introduced: INFL (inflection). It corresponds roughly to the S level of the previous structure. We also see that there is an abstract element Agr (Agreement) which is assumed to be generated in INFL. The whole tree shows consistent 2-level expansion of X-bar syntax for each phrasal projection. The last tree above (c) is an example of the expanded-INFL syntax: The IP of (b) has grown into two fully expanded phrasal projections in their own right: AgrP and TP (Tense). This of course gives us a lot more 'room' in the syntax to propose analyses for grammatical phenomena involving the abstract (or AN EXPANDED-INFL SYNTAX FOR MODERN IRISH 59 overt) elements Agr and Tense, namely things like the behavior of auxiliaries, subject-verb inversion, negation, quantifiers, and verb movement. As Pollock demonstrates, this kind of structure can be used to explain many of the word order details of the SVO languages French and English — details which otherwise seem unexplainable except by recourse to ad hoc stipulations. B A S I C I R I S H S Y N T A C T I C S T R U C T U R E Can the kind of structure pictured in (lc) say anything new to us about Irish? Can we implement such a structure at all for a V S O language like Irish? The answer depends in part upon how one decides to analyze the surface V S O order of Irish. There are two possible analyses, both represented in the existing literature. V S O is base-generated Stenson 1981 and Chung 1983 are two studies which represent the view that the V S O order in Irish is base-generated. This implies that the syntactic structure is a flat, one-level tree with all constituent phrases placed as sisters to the initial verb and no verb movement involved. It accurately represents the observed surface word order of Irish and is thus descriptively adequate, but it offers little explanation for the verb-initial order. Chung attempts to give a possible theoretical defense of the flat structure by appealing to the observation that VSO languages seem to lack the subject-object asymmetries with regard to extraction properties that one usually finds in S V O languages. However, this is not quite correct. The subject NP in Irish is much more closely tied to the verb than the object NP. While nothing can ever intervene between the subject and the verb, there are times when the object is in fact forced to move away from its canonical position. This occurs when the object is pronomimal. It must, appear in absolute final position in its clause, and it apparently reaches this position by means of some sort of a rule of Pronoun Postposing (Chung & McCloskey 1987). These facts suggest that the relationship of the subject and object NP to the verb is not simply one of equal sisterhood. The S V O Analysis If the VSO order of Irish is not base-generated, then it must arise through some sort of derivational process from a different underlying word order. This view is implicitly supported in an article devoted to establishing the 60 SHEILA DOOLEY COLLBERG existence of a V P in Irish (McCloskey 1983). The existence of a V P entails at least two hierarchical levels of sentence structure, with the verb originating in a V O or OV constituent and obligatorily fronted to some other position. Sproat 1985 builds on the work of McCloskey to develop a full SVO Analysis for Welsh, arguing that the same analysis may be applied to Irish. The underlying structure for the two languages is argued to be SVO, and the obligatory fronting of the finite verb is made to follow from the requirements of case theory. Sproat maintains that while INFL in SVO or SOV languages may assign nominative case either to the left or the right, INFL in VSO languages is restricted to assigning case rightward. The verb lexicalizing INFL is thus forced to appear to the left of the subject NP in order to assign nominative case successfully. Sproat's SVO Analysis is a step in the right direction in that it gives a theoretically attractive explanation for the obligatory fronting of the verb, but it is incomplete in that Sproat does not specify any landing site for the conjoined verb and INFL. Without going into any more detail, it may be said that the arguments for the SVO Analysis are quite attractive, and the general consensus among Celtic syntacticians seems to be that Irish is SVO underlyingly. In general, a derivational account like this for verb-initial languages is pretty much the norm now, as can be seen in recent works of a typological, nature such as Koopman & Sportiche 1988. EXPANDED-INFL FOR IRISH Obviously, it should be possible to adapt the Pollock type of syntax for Irish if we accept that Irish VSO order is derived from SVO. So let us assume that for the moment. Then, of course, there are plenty of language-specific details to work out, and the following sections contain suggestions for handling these. My proposal for the full syntactic structure of Irish is given in (2) and wil l be referred to throughout the ensuing discussion. Principles and parameters according to Pollock Given in (3) is a very brief summary of the most important points that Pollock argues for in his article. These can be reduced to a pair of universal principles (I and II) and a set of parameters (III) which vary from language to language. AN EXPANDED-INFL SYNTAX FOR MODERN IRISH 61