2-4 april 2006mspil06, iit mumbai1 butterpillar or caterfly? the bangla passive in a minimalist...

2-4 April 2006 MSPIL06, IIT Mumbai 1

Butterpillar or Caterfly?

The Bangla Passive in a Minimalist Parser

Tanmoy Bhattacharya

Department of Linguistics

University of Delhi

[email protected]


What is the talk about Passive template historically is a result

of a certain tension within the body of the clause

Incorporation, verb-shell, “smuggling”, of P&P can capture the tension

Invites treatment in a Minimalist Parser

Importing syntactic analysis as it is does not work


The Place of Passive in the P&P Frameworks

Later GB: severance between the active and the passive form

Different derivational histories Misses the generalization about how

we think of passives not out of the blue

Passive is more ‘surfacey’Can we capture this in Minimalism?


Evaluation Matrix and the Passive

Evaluation matrix (EM) is a collection of Economy Principles (Last Resort, Least Effort, Procrastinate, etc.)

Evaluation is of only convergent derivations

Passive and Active are comparable, passive ‘wins out’ later, iff speaker’s intention had dethematicization of subject

Passive/ active are one until EM acts


The Passive in Bangla Very prolific Analytic Passive: pass ppl+aux v

a. ama-ke dEkha jay me-dat seen goesb. dEkha jay (impersonal)

Agent, if expressed, is marked by a P: jim dara bagh-Ta mar-a gEche Jim by tiger-cla kill-pass go.ppl.3

‘The tiger has been killed by Jim.’


Idiomatic Passive forms

a. mar-a pOre hit-pass fall.3 ‘gets killed’ c. kha-wa cOle eat-pass

walk.3 ‘can be eaten’

b. mar-a gElo hit-pass went.3 ‘got killed’ d. ama-ke dEkh-a hOy I-dat see-pass be

‘I am seen’(=she/They see me)


The Revised Passive Template

GEN subject:ama-r dara bagh mar-a hObeI-gen by tiger kill-pass be.fut‘Tiger will be killed by me.’

Revised Passive template: [(NP-gen by) NP V-a be V


Similarity with the Gerund Gerunds have GEN subject too:

ama-r boi pOR-aI-gen book read-ger‘my reading book.’

The P dara in passive can be dropped:amar kOfi ken-a holoI-gen book read-pass became ‘Coffee was bought by me.’

Norwegian:Det vart kjøpte kaffeit became bought coffee‘There was bought coffee.’ (Åfarli 1992)


LR Parsing and the Passive-Gerund Ambiguity

(1) a. (jOn dara) boi pORa hoecheJ-(gen) by book read.pass be.ppl.3

b. joner boi pORa hoeche .gen book read.pass be.ppl.3 ‘the book has been read by J.’

The VPs are identicalDifference: (i) Non-optionality of the subject (of the DP)in (b), and (ii) GEN on the subject in (b) GEN cased DP can’t be recovered


First Parse of the Gerund/Passive (A) If GEN, mark –a on V as GER

Parsing Question: How is the next V analysed? (a) If zero N, select T and check [NOM] on N (b) When V is scanned, -a triggers a PASS vP (c) PASS selects an unaccusative VPRule: If 2 NPs, the V is not PASS, or if (A), then:?? (d) GEN triggers: (i) POSS DP, or (ii) GER (e) If the next V is –a, (i) is rejected, parser

backtracks to (ii) (f) When another V, (ii) is also rejected ??


How to Recover the POSS DP

PASS with POSS DP:joner bagh mara gEcheJohn.gen tiger killed go.ppl.3‘John’s tiger has been killed.’


Algorithm for both Types of Light Verbs

i. [joner bagh] ii. + mara

A: ger expects N/ø and main VB: pass expects LV

iii + gEche C: rejects (iiA)D: proceeds as pass

OR,Ifiii. + hoeche

then apply R1R1: [NP+gen… a]-> no pass

iv. reject (iiB) ger tree projected


Algorithm for POSS DP But still no POSS DP parse!ii. + mara

A: as before B1:[joner bagh] ø maraB2: :[joner bagh]dat mara

iii. + gEche C: rejects (iiA)D: proceeds with B d1: rejects B1, apply R2: gEche takes nom d2: accept B2

ORiii. + hoeche

E: accept A generates poss treeF: reject B


Algorithm for the PASS Parse

For this, we need yet another rule:Rule 3: ho can take NP-nom at [Spec,T] and NP-dat at

[Spec,v]Now, step (iii) above becomes:(iii) + hoeche

E: accepts A ger F: rejects B1G: accepts B2 apply R3 pass (23b)

We needed 3 ad hoc rules (Rule 1-3) to resolve the passive/ gerund ambiguity


Butterpillar/ Caterfly Trapped energy, caterpillar waiting

to burst into a butterfly (CB) Opposite view: butterfly shrinking

to a caterpillar (BC) Both possibilities in Passive:

Clipping the wings of EA (BC) History and synchrony (CB)


History of the Bangla Passive -a < denominative –aya Obscured by causative –aw

a. daMR ‘stick’ > daMRay ‘stands’b. tOl ‘bottom’ > tOlay ‘goes to the bottom’

Distinction between DENOM and CAUS is lost

Verbalise (NV) C B Both find syntactic analogues:

incorporation (shelf shelve) V v

feed (example par excellence)


History of the Passive Agent N+Case P Loss of Case in MIA N+Aff P+Case Skt extended P-use to verbal forms (pass

ppl, prs ppl) influenced by Dravidian (IE regarding, during, concerning)a. kore ‘having done’b. diye ‘having given’c. dara inst of dvar ‘through the instrumentality of’

PV (a and b); PN (c) BC


Syntax of the Caterfly Effect

Surfacing of v = Bypassing v Collins (2005) “Smuggling”

VoiceP

2 2

voice vP2

PP 2 v <PartP>


Smuggling in Bangla TP

2 2

VcP T2

2 vP Vc

2 amar dara 2

PrtP v 2 hoeche

VP Prt 2 -a

boi V pOR-


Minimalist Parser and Minimalism

Similarity: Incremental Processing Differences with Minimalism:

Unavailability of Lexical Array (LA) No place for Merge/ Move in a LR parser since

they are bottom up; ETs are the alternatives to them

Move Box to capture effects of -theory Probe Box to capture Case and PIC


Lexicon of a MP

LI properties -intp features

phi-features other

v* (trans) select(V)spec(select(N))value(case(acc))

per(p)num(n)gen(g)

(epp)

v (unacc) select(V)

v(unacc) select(V)

v(unerg) select(V)spec(select(N))

PRT(pass) select(V) per(p)num(n)

case(_)


Elementary Trees

v*/v/v# V(unerg)

V(trans/ Unacc)

v 1 v 1 v*

(e)

v 1

(f)

v 1 v 1 v#

(g)

V

(h)

V 1 V

(i)


Move Box and Probe ox

Move Box Preference Rule When filling open positions, always prefer the

Move Box over the input Elements involving Agree are picked from

themost current Probe stored in the Probe Box:

Agree(p,g) ifa. Match(p,g) holds. Then:b. Value(p,g) for matching featuresc. Value(p,g) for property value(f)


Parse

a. Given a category X, pick an ET headed by Xb. From the Move Box or input:

i. Fill in the Specii. Run Agree(p,g) if both p,g are non-emptyii. Fill in the Headiv. Copy h to Probe Box if h is a probeiii. Fill in the complement by recursively calling parse with X’ where X has lexical property select(X’)


“Smuggling” in a Minimalist Parser?

Action Parse Input MBox

PBox

:select(T) [T_[T]] [joner dara] boi pORa hoeche

empty

empty

Fill Spec-T [T [joner dara][T]] boi pORa hoeche [Pn] empty

Fill Head-T [T [joner dara]

[T past(+)]]

boi pORa hoeche [Pn] [past+]

T:select(Vc)

[T[joner dara] [Vc_[Vc]] [T past(+)]]

boi pORa hoeche [Pn] [past+]

Fill Spec-Vc

[T[joner dara [Vc?? [Vc] [T past(+)]]

?? hoeche [Pn] Agree


Failure of Pass Parse with/ without Smuggling

Agree(T,Spec-Vc) will not take whole PRT, but only the Obj

Obj wrongly valued nom If Obj moves alone, again Agree

will value Case as nom, wrongly Movement of Obj not possible Vc is not required


Conclusions

A Minimalist Parsing algorithm cannot mimic syntactic object movement outside the VP shell

Voice Phrase is unnecessary Probe-Goal Syntax in Minimalist

Inquiries finds support from the Parser

Movement to any higher functional position (Agro) is unimplementable

2-4 april 2006mspil06, iit mumbai1 butterpillar or caterfly? the bangla passive in a minimalist...

Documents

v slide

bangla passive

passive wins

place of passive

blue passive

igen book

pass vp c pass

passivegerund ambiguity