Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I: Clause Structure, Second edition
participant of ‘feel’. The complement of (74c) contains a transitive verb
Download 1.59 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
Lgg Typology, Synt Description v. I - Clause structure
participant of ‘feel’. The complement of (74c) contains a transitive verb am- ‘eat’ and its highest argument, the [ +a] eater (), is missing and obligatorily A typology of information packaging 389 controlled, i.e. construed as equivalent to the [ −a] of t- ‘feel’: the feeler is the one who wishes to eat. Both (74a, b) contain intransitive verbs, the unergative yampara- ‘stand up’ with a [ +a] argument and the unaccusative mal- ‘die’ with a [ −a] sole argument. In both cases, however, regardless of whether the argument is [ +a] or [−a], it is controlled by na- 3sg.s, the [−a] experiencer of t- ‘feel’, because, as sole arguments, they are necessarily the highest argument in their respective argument structures. Control in Yimas, as with clause chaining in Iatmul, is directly sensitive to argument structure and the precedence relations therein. 2.2 The notion of pivot Many languages – but, as we shall see, not all, nor perhaps most – have yet an additional level of syntactic organization beyond argument structure. This is the level of pivot organization. In a trivial sense, a pivot is any np type which is the controller or the target of a particular grammatical construction. Thus, nps which are realized through verb agreement in Iatmul, or controlled arguments in nonfinite complement clauses in Yimas, are pivots in this trivial sense. But this is not what we mean by a syntactic level of pivot organization. We follow Dixon (1979, 1994) in postulating the level of pivot organization in the grammar of a language, and thereby the syntactic notion pivot for it, only when the bulk of its grammatical constructions revolve around a particular np type. English is a clear example of a language which exemplifies a pivot level of organization, for most of its syntactic processes centre around a single np type, namely the subject, the np that normally precedes the verb in a basic clause. Grammatical properties targeted by or targeting subjects include: (75) verb agreement (a) Ian was (sg) killing those chickens ↑ ↑ (b) *Ian were (pl) killing those chickens ↑ ↑ (76) preverbal position (a) Elizabeth loves Mary (b) Elizabeth loves too much (c) *Loves Elizabeth too much (77) controlled np in nonfinite infinitive complements ↓ ↓ (a) Egbert wants [to take Mildred] 390 William A. Foley (b) *Egbert wants [Mildred to take ] ↑ ↑ (c) Egbert wants [to be taken by Mildred] ↑ ↑ Example (77a) is fine because the subject of the complement is controlled by Egbert, but (77b) is ungrammatical because it is the non-subject [ −a] partici- pant which is controlled. In order to say something like (77b) grammatically, a passive construction (see section 4.1) must be used to realize the [ −a] par- ticipant as subject, resulting in (77c). Similar considerations apply to other controlled nonfinite constructions like: (78) controlled np in nonfinite participial relativization ↓ ↓ (a) The guy [ kissing the bartender] is my brother ↓ ↓ (b) *The guy [the bartender kissing ] is my brother ↓ ↓ (c) The guy [ being kissed by the bartender] is my brother A final example of a construction targeting subjects concerns optional subject ellipsis of subjects of conjoined sentences with shared tense–aspect. The sentences in (79) demonstrate that only subjects may be elided in these conjoined clauses. ↓ ↓ (79) (a) Fred walked to the library and met Bill ↓ ↓ (b) *Fred walked to the library and Bill met ↓ ↓ (c) Fred walked to the library and was met by Bill (79b) is ungrammatical because a non-subject [ −a] has been elided; again, a passive construction, as in (79c) in which the [ −a] participant is realized as subject, restores grammaticality. English subjects are clearly pivots in the sense in which we are using the term, and for cross-linguistic and theoretical purposes we will henceforth dispense with the term ‘subject’ and consistently use the term ‘pivot’ for this and related notions in other languages for the rest of this chapter. As with earlier perspective choices, this pivot notion will be captured through the use of features; a pivot Download 1.59 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
Ma'lumotlar bazasi mualliflik huquqi bilan himoyalangan ©fayllar.org 2024
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling