voice morphology in the - uoc.philology · voice morphology in the ... for a more radical proposal...

Voice Morphology in the

Causative–Inchoative Alternation: Evidence for a Non-Unifi ed

Structural Analysis of UnaccusativesArtemis Alexiadou and Elena Anagnostopoulou

. .

e Unaccusativity Hypothesis, as formulated by Perlmutter () and later adapted by Burzio () and others, claims that the class of intransitive verbs is not homoge-

Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the Workshop on unaccusativity in Berlin, May ; at the Poster Session at NELS , Oct. ; at the University of Delware; at the CUNY Linguistics Collo-quium, October ; at the Linguistics Colloquium of the University of Princeton, November ; and at the applicative festival in MIT, January . We thank these audiences for their comments. We also thank Len Babby, Maggie Browning, David Embick, Martin Everaert, Christiane Fellbaum, Hans Kamp, Arnim von Stechow, Hubert Truckenbrodt, Edwin Williams, and two anonymous reviewers for their sug-gestions. Alexiadou’s research was partially supported by the DFG grant AL /- and a J. Seeger fellow-ship from the University of Princeton, which are hereby acknowledged.

A much condensed presentation of parts of the material discussed here is included in Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (). Apart from being more elaborate, the analysis presented here is also diff erent, as we no longer take transitivity to be a primitive.

Voice Morphology

neous, but consists of two subclasses—unaccusative verbs and unergative verbs. From a Principles-and-Parameters perspective (PP) (Chomsky and subsequent work), each class is associated with a diff erent underlying syntactic confi guration: an unerga-tive verb takes a deep-structure subject and no object, whereas an unaccusative verb takes a deep-structure object and no subject (cf. ):

() a. NP [VP V] unergative John dancesunergative John dancesunergativeb. [VP V NP] unaccusative John returnedunaccusative John returnedunaccusative

Early syntactic research on unaccusativity concentrated on the view that a D-struc-ture object is the complement of V (strictly), as depicted in (), thus expressing the distinction between the two classes in terms of the specifi er–complement asymmetry. More recent research, though, has abandoned this representation due to the impact of the structures proposed in Larson (), according to which internal arguments are not uniformly represented as complements of V strictly. In Hale and Keyser’s (, ) confi gurational theta theory, too, which takes thematic roles as defi ned in terms of the relations ‘specifi er’ and ‘complement’ of specifi c categories, theme arguments are also represented as either specifi ers or complements of heads.

A diff erent line of research, which also drops the specifi er/complement distinction, relates argument interpretation to the positions arguments occupy in the functional domain, in particular their placement with respect to Aspectual heads, rather than relying on lexical information to link arguments with particular X-bar positions in the VP domain (see, for example, Borer and in this volume and van Hout and in this volume). According to this proposal, arguments are interpreted as event-originators when they are specifi ers of high Asp and as event-measurers when they are specifi ers of low Asp.

e general idea that the various verb classes are distinguished syntactically through diff erences in functional structure is also pursued in the semantic proposals of, for instance, Kratzer (, ), von Stechow (). In these proposals the external argument is not an argument of the verb, but rather, it is introduced by a separate head Voice. In Kratzer, Voice adds an agent/causer when combining with action predicates and an experiencer/possessor when combining with stative predicates. In such views it is natural to propose that the presence or absence of Voice/v is the determining factor for the classifi cation of predicates into the unaccusative or unergative class (see also Chomsky , Collins , and section . for more discussion). While for Borer the diff erence between the two classes is the result of the presence of specifi c aspec-tual heads and how the argument moves to or through those heads, for an approach embedded within Kratzer’s assumtpions it is the presence vs. absence of v that would make predicates behave one way or another.

We will argue for an approach along the lines of Kratzer and von Stechow, but crucially we will not link unaccusativity to presence vs. absence of voice. Our con-

See also Marantz () for a more radical proposal along the same lines, according to which inter-nal arguments are always specifi ers.

Artemis Alexiadou and Elena Anagnostopoulou

tribution to this discussion comes from an examination of the distribution of voice morphology associated with detransitivization in transitivity alternations, and in par-ticular, the causative–inchoative alternation. e investigation of (a) the consistency vs. gaps in the distribution of this morphology and (b) the semantic/syntactic proper-ties such a marking correlates with, leads us to a picture of the structural reprsentation of unaccusativity which is more refi ned than the one sketched above in that we do not take anticausatives to have a unifi ed structure (a related view expressed in Borer and Bennis, in this volume). More specifi cally, we argue that the patterns of voice morphology can be accounted for if there are at least three structures involved in the formation of anticausatives. We propose that anticausatives are formed on the basis of an intransitive v / which embeds either an AdjectiveP, or a VoiceP or a possessive construction.

e chapter is structured as follows: in section . we present the factual back-ground for our discussion, namely the distribution of ‘special’ morphology on the intransitive variants of alternating verbs. In section . we present our theoretical assumptions, and an explanation that has been proposed in the literature for the distri-bution of this special morphology. In section . we turn to a discussion of the Greek verbal classes and consider the morphological patterns these exhibit. In sections and we discuss the regularities that emerge from the distribution of ‘special’ morphology in Greek and off er our explanation for the diff erences among the various patterns.

. . -- , ,

As is well known, across languages several verbs, depending on their semantic type, enter in transitivity alternations; see the examples in (). e intransitive/inchoative or anticausative counterpart of the alternation qualifi es as an unaccusative predicate.anticausative counterpart of the alternation qualifi es as an unaccusative predicate.anticausative

() a. e window brokeb. Mary broke the window

A pattern found in a number of unrelated languages involves the presence of morph-ology associated with de-transitivization of the intransitive member of the alternation. is morphology is shared by refl exive and/or passive predicates in the form of a pro-noun, a clitic, or verbal infl ection (Partee ; Reis ; Marantz ; Everaert ; Cinque ; Chierchia ; Klaiman ; Reinhart ; von Stechow ; Alsi-na , among many others). In () we illustrate this pattern on the basis of Greek. Greek has two sets of forms for active and non-active infl ection across two tenses and two aspects.

Voice Morphology

() a. Active forms of grafo (‘write’) Imperfective Imperfective Imperfective Perfective PN Non-past Past Non-past Past graf-o e-graf-a grap-s-o e-grap-s-a graf-is e-graf-es grap-s-is e-grap-s-es graf-i e-graf-e grap-s-i e-grap-s-e graf-ume graf-ame grap-s-ume grap-s-ame graf-ete graf-ate grap-s-ete grap-s-ate graf-un graf-ane grap-s-un e-grap-s-an

b. Non-active forms of grafo Imperfective Imperfective Imperfective Perfective PN Non-past Past Non-past Past grafo-me graf-o-muna graf-t-o graf-tik-a grafe-se graf-o-suna graf-t-is graf-tik-es grafe-te graf-o-tan graf-t-i graf-tik-e grafo-maste graf-o-mastan graf-t-ume graf-tik-ame grafe-ste graf-o-sastan graf-t-ite graf-tik-ate grafo-nde graf-o-ndan graf-t-un graf-tik-an

As is signalled by (b), non-active morphology occurs on the inchoative members of the causative inchoative alternation:

() a. O Janis ekapse ti supa. the John. burnt.Act the soup. ‘John burnt the soup.’

b. I supa kegete. the soup. burns.Nact ‘ e soup is burning.’

Other non-active morphology environments in Greek are passives, inherent refl exives, and refl exive constructions involving a transitive verb prefi xed with the marker afto(‘self ’) (Rivero ; Embick ; Anagnostopoulou and Everaert ):

() a. To vivlio diavastike ktes. (Passive) the book. read.Nact yesterday ‘ e book was read yesterday.’

ere is a fourth case involving the non-active form, namely, deponent verbs (Mackridge ; deponent verbs (Mackridge ; deponent verbsEmbick ), which are not part of an alternation. Deponents are transitive verbs which lack active forms altogether. Syntactically, deponent verbs behave exactly like all other transitive verbs: the deponent verb takes a nominative subject and an accusative object:

(i) metahirizome to leksiko. (Deponents)use-Nact the dictionary ‘I use the dictionary.’


b. I Maria htenizete. (Inherent refl exive) the Mary. combs.Nact ‘Mary combs herself.’

c. I Maria afto-katastrefeteafto-katastrefeteafto-katastref . (Self-refl exives) the Mary. self-destroys.Nact ‘Mary destroys herself.’

Table . (from Haspelmath : ) illustrates the systematicity of this syncretism for a number of typologically unrelated languages.

. .

What is the common property of anticausatives, passives, and refl exives which detran-sitivising morphology is sensitive to? One infl uential proposal suggested in the lit-erature is that the property in question is the absence of an external argument (see Marantz , for instance). Various formulations of this have been developed (see the discussion in Embick, in this volume). We concentrate here on a recent proposal for Greek which is embedded within the set of assumptions put forth in Kratzer () and Chomsky ().

As mentioned in section ., Kratzer () and Chomsky (), among others, have argued that a functional category Voice (or Event Phrase or little v Phrase) deter-mines the transitive vs. intransitive and the eventive vs. stative nature of a predicate. In () v introduces the external argument (Williams a).

T ..

Refl exive Aniticausative Passive

Tigre x x xMotu (x) x x’O’odham x x xModern Greek x x xKanuri x x xMargi x x xUigur x xWowora x x x xUdmurt x x xNimboran x xDanish (-s)-s)-s x x

Voice Morphology

DP

vP

v′

v VP

CompV°

()

A recent trend in the literature is to assume that v is always present in transitive and unaccusative constructions and may have the following properties (see, for example, Harley ; Collins ; Marantz ; Embick and in this volume; Arad ; Travis ; Alexiadou ).

() a. v is the locus of agentivity, i.e. of features relevant to the licensing and interpretation of external arguments.

b. v bears Case features for the object (Burzio’s Generalization results from a and b).

c. v bears features related to eventivity.d.d.d v bears features related to the licensing of a manner component (manner

adverbs)e. v comes in two types: one that introduces an external argument, and one

that does not.

In this approach, the diff erence between transitives, passives, refl exives, and unaccu-satives is analysed in terms of diff erences in the feature specifi cation of v and the pres-ence or absence of an external argument. Concerning voice morphology in Greek, Embick () argues that the presence of non-active morphology is sensitive to the absence of an external argument:

() V → V- V- V VOC[NonAct]/___ No external DP argument

In particular, Embick proposes that non-active morphology is the morphological refl ex of the absence of an external argument, where external argument is interpret-ed literally—that is, when v has no specifi er, then v bears non-active morphology. According to Embick, voice morphology does not correspond to any syntactically active element (for example, it is not a clitic-like element absorbing a θ-role, as sug-gested in, for instance, Baker, Johnson, and Roberts ). Nact is a morphological feature which is assigned in specifi c syntactic confi gurations, and refl ects properties

e formulation in () diff ers from the one adopted in Embick (this volume), where use of the term u-syncretism is made and the common morphological properties of passives, refl exives, and anticausa-tives is treated in terms of underspecifi cation. (i) illustrates Embick’s representation (in this volume):

(i) v ↔ v-X/__no external argument

By underspecifying −X, Embick off ers an explanation of the common morphological properties of the three classes.


of the syntactic environment, rather than itself aff ecting an alternation. e feature [nact] is assigned post-syntactically to the verb when it (or the v–V complex) is not in a local relationship with an external argument. On this view, voice features are prop-erties of morphology and thus, all occurrences of [nact] belong to the morphology component.

However, the actual distribution of voice morphology in anticausatives strongly suggests that this analysis is only partially correct. As we show in the following sec-tions, () accounts for some but not all the patterns to be discussed (see also eopha-nopoulou-Kontou ). We point out that the structure in (), with the external DP argument missing, is not suffi cient to account for the properties of unaccusative predi-cates and needs to be refi ned. To account for the distribution of voice morphology in Greek we propose that anticausatives are built on the basis of an operator denoting result (see Kratzer , ) which we will call here /. is / should be considered closely related to, but not identical to, Dowty’s () and Van Valin’s () operator which always yields achievements, according to the predicate decompositions in ():

() a. : predicate′ (x) or (x, y)b. : predicate′ (x) or (x, y)c. : (±agentive): (x))[predicate′ (x) or (x, y)]d.d.d : φ ψ where ψ where ψ φ is normally an activity predicate

and ψ an achievement predicateψ an achievement predicateψ

For the typology in (), accomplishments are possible only in the presence of a operator which embeds a operator. is entails that anticausatives with an accomplishment reading—such as many deadjectival verbs—must necessarily con-sidered to be underlyingly causative, as suggested by, for example, Chierchia (in this volume). However, we start from the assumption that deadjectival anticausatives are basic, and causatives are derived from the addition of a higher causative layer (see also Hale and Keyser ). us the aspectual properties of an accomplishment must be compatible with the operator we postulate, which should not be limited to achievement readings.

While we take v[/]—that is, a v type that does not project a speci-fi er—to be related to all the patterns we discuss, we propose that voice morphology is never associated with this head and it is alwayse associated with a seperated head Voice hosting agentivity and manner features (Hale and Keyser ; Levin and Rap-

e diff erence between deponent verbs (see n. ) on the one hand, and passives, refl exives, and anti-causatives, on the other hand, is that the former are specifi ed for this feature inherently, while the latter are assigned this feature in a particular syntactic confi guration.

Kratzer discusses at great length two types of ‘result’ states, namely, Parson’s target states and result states. She argues that diff erent types of participial construction belong to the former or the latter class as can be diagnosed by a series of criteria. Our use of the term is deliberately left vague, since we have not investigated in detail how change-of-state verbs would fit in Kratzer’s typology. The suggestion that the operator and Kartzer’s operator can be collapsed and can be employed in the analysis of change-of-state anticausatives is due to Arnim von Stechow (personal communication).

Voice Morphology

paport Hovav ; Alexiadou ). Since certain classes of anticausatives systemati-cally lack ‘special’ morphology, we must conclude that detransistivizing morphology is never associated with the ‘specifi er-less’ v [/] (contra Embick) but rather with Voice embedded under it in (b). We furthermore propose that there are three confi gurations that are involved in the formation of unaccusatives as shown in (); VoiceP is included in one of them.

() a.

v

vP

AP

b.

vP

voiceP

voice′

voice VP

vP

XP

the shirt

a wrinkle

c.

As shown in the structures in (), selects either an AP or a possessive con-struction—that is, it combines with a state which it brings into existence, as suggest-ed by Dowty (). On the other hand, selects a verbal phrase—it combines with an event and brings about its target/result state, as suggested by Kratzer (). We further argue that in Greek, voice can carry manner features without necessarily carrying agentivity features, and that ‘detransitivizing’ voice morphology is sensitive to manner rather than agentivity (see Zombolou, in progress). If we are right, then manner is the property unifi ying passives, unaccusative, and refl exives in Greek.

. .

... e general pictureAs in many other languages, non-active morphology in Greek is always used with passives/refl exives, but only sometimes with anticausatives. For example, the inchoa-tive in (b) surfaces with active morphology.

Potentially, this property diff erentiates a language such as Greek with syncretism in passives, unac-cusatives, and refl exives from a language such as English, where passives are distinguished from the other two categories. One could speculate that English voice necessarily combines agentivity with manner, while Greek voice can have manner without having agentivity.


() a. O Janis adiase ti sakula. the John. emptied the bag. ‘John emptied the bag.’

b. I sakula adiase. the bag. emptied–Act ‘ e bag emptied.’

Gaps of this type are never found in passives and refl exives, an asymmetry that is unex-pected by the condition () and should be explained.

A further complication concerning the distribution of voice morphology in anti-causatives is that there are many cases in which an intransitive alternating verb can surface with both active and non-active forms, as illustrated in ().

() a. O sismos gremise to ktirio. the earthquake. demolished the building.

b. To ktirio gremise apo mono tu. the building collapsed.Act by itself

c. To ktirio gremistike apo mono tu the building collapsed.Nact by itself

Given the morphological similarity between passives and anticausatives when the lat-ter have non-active morphology, a test which can successfully distinguish them is the type of optional prepositional phrase denoting the agent/causer licensed with them (see Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou and Mavromanolaki for a recent dis-cussion and further references). As the contrast in the examples in () illustrates, the preposition apo (‘from’) followed by a DP denoting the agent (corresponding to the English ‘by’-phrase) is licensed with passives but not with anticausatives.

() a. To vivlio diavastike apo ton Petro. (Passive) the book. read.Nact by the Peter ‘ e book was read by Peter.’

b. *To bukali adiase apo ton Petro. (Anticausative) the bottle.nom emptied.Act by the Peter ‘ e bag emptied.’

c. I supa kaike apo to Jani. (Anticausative) the soup burnt.Nact by the JohnNact by the JohnNact

On the other hand, apo followed by the anaphoric element mono to which a possessive clitic attaches (an expression corresponding to Italian da sé (Chierchia, in this volume) da sé (Chierchia, in this volume) da séor English by itself (Levin and Rappaport Hovav )) is not permitted with passives, by itself (Levin and Rappaport Hovav )) is not permitted with passives, by itselfbut is permitted with anticausatives (it is also not allowed with unergatives; see Levin and Rappaport Hovav ):

() a. To vivlio diavastike apo mono tu. (Passive) the book. read.Nact by itself

Voice Morphology

b. To bukali adiase apo mono tu. (Anticausative) the bottle. emptied.Act by itself

c. To pani skistike apo mono tu. (Anticausative) the cloth tore.Nact by itself

By this test, both Active (b) and NonActive (c) qualify as anticausatives, since both c) qualify as anticausatives, since both ccan co-occur with ‘by itself ’. And yet, only (c) is described by ().c) is described by ().c

In the following sections, we argue that the distribution of Act/NAct voice morph-ology shows certain regular patterns which lead to generalizations calling for an explanation. In our discussion we distinguish between two groups. e former group refers to patterns, which either straightforwardly fall under () or represent a double classifi cation of predicates in the unaccusative and unergative class, again conforming with (). e latter group refers to patterns that are not described by () and suggest that the structural analysis of these constructions is not as uniform as has often been assumed.

... e cases that fi t the condition [−external argument]In previous work (Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou ), we have identifi ed four classes of alternating verbs, depending on the type of morphology that occurs on the intransitive variant.

In the the fi rst class of verbal alternations, active morphology appears with the tran-sitive verb, while non-active morphology appears with the intransitive and the passive. is is summarized in Table and is illustrated in ().

() a. O giatros giatrepse to Gianni. (Causative) the doctor. healed the Giannis ‘ e doctor healed John.’

b. O Giannis giatreftikegiatreftikegiatref apo monos tu. (Anticausative) the Giannis healed.Nact by himselfcf. c. ?O Giannis giatreftike?O Giannis giatreftike?O Giannis giatref apo to giatro. (Passive) the Giannis healed.Nact by the doctor

e non-active form qualifi es as inchoative in (b) (the presence of a PP equivalent to the English ‘by itself ’ is all right), and as passive in (c) (the presence of a PP introduc-c) (the presence of a PP introduc-cing an agent is also all right). Other Greek verbs belonging to this class are komma-

Note though that the agentive phrase in (c) is somewhat deviant. It is certainly better with the c) is somewhat deviant. It is certainly better with the cverb therapevome (‘be healed’). For reasons that are not clear to us, this is often the case in Greek, where therapevome (‘be healed’). For reasons that are not clear to us, this is often the case in Greek, where therapevomethe passive is not as productive as in other languages.

T .. Class I

Transitive Intransitive

Active form Non-active form


tiazo (‘tear’), miono (‘decrease’), eksafanizo (‘diminish’), veltiono (‘improve’), diplasiazo(‘double’), singentrono (‘collect/gather’), dhiadhidho (‘announce/spread a rumour’), vithizo (‘sink’), and sindeo (‘connect’). Evidently, these verbs can be accommodated under ().

In the second class, active morphology generally appears with the transitive variant, while non-active morphology is used with the intransitive and with the passive—that is, they have the morphological pattern found with Class-I verbs. is is summarized in Table . and is illustrated in ()

() a. O Janis ekapse to vivlio/ti supa. the John. burnt.Act the book./the soup. ‘John burnt the book/the soup.’

b. To vivlio/i supa kaike. the book./the soup. burnt.Nact ‘ e book/the soup burnt.’

However, in a limited set of cases (with a restricted class of arguments), the pattern illustrated in Table . emerges—namely, a pattern in which the intransitive verb sur-faces with active morphology (). In this respect, Class II diff ers from Class I.

() I fotia kei/*kegete.the fi re. burns.Act/*NAct ‘ e fi re burns.’

Other verbs that behave similarly are katharizo (‘clean’), fotizo (‘lighten’), and psihreno(‘cool’) (verbs of light-emission and wheather verbs). e fi rst subcase of this class, (b), falls under (). As for the few cases where Active morphology appears (), they qualify as unergatives by at least three criteria:unergatives by at least three criteria:unergatives

(i) ey cannot undergo the causative alternation:

() O Janis ekapse ti fotia.the John. burnt.Act the fi re ‘John burnt the fi re.’

T .. Class IIa


Active Non-active

T .. Class IIb

Intransitive

Active

Voice Morphology

(ii) ey cannot form adjectival passives:

() a. *I fotia ine kameni. the fi re is burntvs. b. To vivlio ine kameno. the book is burnt

(iii) e active variant surfaces whenever the single argument, in () the fi re, has an inherent property that causes the eventuality expressed by the verb to happen. is can be identifi ed with Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s () notion of ‘internal causa-tion’, underlying the syntax of unergatives. Crucially, when the verb surfaces with the Active, the single argument does not undergo a change of state (unlike, for example, the soup or the book). We conclude that Class-IIb intransitives are unergatives. As the book). We conclude that Class-IIb intransitives are unergatives. As the bookpointed out in section ., unergative verbs include a v-marked [+external argument]. e absence of special morphology is expected, and thus this Class supports () rather than contradicting it, despite appearances to the contrary. Let us now turn to the sec-ond group of verbal alternations.

... e cases that do not fi t the condition [−external argument] e third class of alternating verbs exhibits active morphology both on the transitive and the intransitive variants of alternating verbs. is is summarized in Table . and illustrated in ().

() a. O Janis adiase ti sakula. (Causative) the John. emptied.Act the bag. ‘John emptied the bag.’

b. I sakula adiase. Anticausative the bag. emptied–Act ‘ e bag emptied’cf. c. I sakula adiastike apo to Jani. (Passive) the bag. emptied.Nact from the John

Many Greek verbs behave like this, including asprizo (‘whiten’), kokinizo (‘red-den’), mavrizo (‘blacken’) (all change of colour verbs), katharizo (‘clean’), stroggi-levo (‘round’), klino (‘close’), anigo (‘open’), plateno (‘widen’), stegnono (‘dry’), stenevo(‘tighten’), skureno (‘darken’), stenevo (‘narrow’), kathistero (‘delay’), alazo ‘change’, and ksepagono ((‘defreeze’)). ese verbs do not fall under ().

e fourth class of verbal alternations consists of two subcases again. When the

T .. Class III

Tranistive/Anticausative

Active Form


single argument is inanimate both forms are possible, as summarized in Table . and illustrated in () (a case of apparent ‘optionality’ to which we return).

() a. O Janis lerose to trapezomandilo. the John- dirtied.Act the tablecloth- ‘John dirtied the tablecloth.’

b. To trapezomandilo lerose/lerothike apo mono tu. the tablecloth dirtied.Act/Nact by itself ‘ e tablecloth got dirty.’

On the other hand, with animate arguments only the non-active form is possible, as summarized in Table . and illustrated in ().

() a. O Janis lerose ti Maria. the John. dirtied.Act the Mary. ‘John dirtied the Mary.’

b. I Maria lerothike/*lerose. the Mary. dirtied.Nact

Other verbs that behave similarly are zarono (‘wrinkle’), tsalakono (‘crumple’), zesteno(‘heat’), skizo (‘tear’), erimono (‘desert’), madao (‘pluck’), skorpizo (‘scatter’), gremi-zo (‘demolish/collapse’) stravono (‘bend’), ksekubono (‘unbutton’) dialio (‘dissolve’), ksediplono (‘unfold’), and tentono (‘stretch’). We will call these verbs the (‘wrinkle/crumple’) class.

In (b) both forms qualify as anticausatives, as is evidenced by the fact that ‘by itself ’ is possible with the Active and the non-active. e form with non-active falls under (), but the form with Active does not. e fact that non-active morphology is obligatory when the single argument is animate (b), shows that the morphology

We call them this because we first noticed the pattern with tsalakono ‘crumple’. Interestingly, Eng-lish does not seem to have unaccusative verbs of this type. It seems to us that this cross-linguistic diff er-ence follows from our proposal; see the comment on English in n. .

T .. Class IVa


Active Non-active/Active [−animate]

T .. Class IVb


Active Non-active [+animate]

Voice Morphology

is sensitive to the feature [+animate]. ese cases can be analysed as being refl exive predicates, which in Greek always have non-active morphology. In what follows we will not be concerned with the properties of these predicates (see Embick, Reinhart and Siloni, and Steinbach, all in this volume, for some discussion on refl exive predi-cates); we will concentrate on Class IVa.

Let us summarize the patterns presented so far; see Table .. To conclude, class III and the Active found with class IVa cannot be explained via (). In the following sec-tions we concentrate on exactly these cases.

. . /-

e question that naturally arises at this point is whether there are regularities behind the distribution of active morphology in the cases that do not fall under (). e answer to this question is ‘yes’. As we will show, it turns out that the distribution of the active form in Class III is systematic. Moreover, in the case of Class IV, where both forms are possible (the wrinkle/crumple class), the diff erence in form relates to a dif-ference in meaning.

Starting with Class III, it is striking that the verbs which systematically lack non-active morphology are those that belong to the class of deadjectival verbs (as fi rst pointed out in Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou ). In fact, we have not found any deadjectival verbs that show non-active morphology; we have found change-of-state verbs that show Active morphology and are not deadjectival, but not the reverse. A closer look into the morphological make-up of deadjectival verbs falling under Class III shows that they consist of a (usually adjectival) stem, to which affi xes such as iz-, -ev, -en, and -on attach, followed by the verbal infl ection. e corresponding adjectives consist of the same stem to which the adjectival endings attach:

() Class III: Deadjectival VerbsVerb Verb Verb Adjectiveaspr-iz-o ‘whiten’ aspr-os/i/o ‘white’kokin-iz-o ‘redden’ kokin-os/i/o ‘red’

T ..

Transitive Intransitive Described by ()

Class I Active Non-active YesClass IIa Active Non-active YesClass IIb Active Active Yes (unergative)Class III Active Active NoClass IVa Active Active/Non-active [−animate] Yes (Nact)/no (Act)Class IVb Active Non-active [+animate] Yes (refl exive)


mavr-iz-o ‘blacken’ mavr-os/i/o black’kitrin-iz-o ‘yellow’ kitrin-os/i/o ‘yellow’prasin-iz-o ‘green’ prasin-os/i/o ‘green’kathar-iz-o ‘clean’ kathar-os/i/o ‘clean’stroggil-ev-o ‘round’ stroggil-os/i/o ‘round’plat-en-o ‘widen’ plat-is/ia/i ‘wide’stegn-on-o ‘dry’ stegn-os/i/o ‘dry’sten-ev-o ‘tighten’ sten-os/i/o ‘tight’skur-en-o ‘darken’ skur-os/i/o ‘dark’

Following and modifying Alexiadou (), we propose that -iz, iaz-, -ev, -en, and -onare overt refl exes of /. On this view, the structural representation of the verbs listed in () contains a v, which embeds an adjectival stem. If the only overt refl exes of the v present in the structure are the verbal suffi xes listed above, then we have a representation compatible with the absence of non-active voice morphology.

Turning to the verbs of Class IV, which display optionality in their form, again we observe that the optionality is only apparent. It is important to note that there are meaning diff erences between the two forms (active vs. non-active), which are repeated again in ().

() a. O Janis lerose to trapezomandilo. the John. dirtied.Act the tablecloth. ‘John dirtied the tablecloth.’

b. To trapezomandilo lerose/lerothike the tablecloth dirtied.Act/Nact ‘ e tablecloth got dirty.’

While the active form denotes a partial change, the non-active form may denote a change of state that takes place completely. is can be seen on the degree to which

Our first intuition would be to propose that these affi xes are instantiations of a causative v. Given our analysis, these elements are instances of a change-of-state v. A plausible candidate for a causative v is the element -poiois the element -poiois the element - , as in megalo-poio (‘I exaggerate a situation’), which can never surface without car-rying voice morphology in the anticausative variant:(i) I katastasi *megalopoiise/megalopoiithike.

the situation exaggerated.Act/exaggerated.Nact Note that the label adjectival stem could be seen as a root not specifi ed for a lexical category (see

Embick this volume for a discussion on roots and the role of the lexicon). at such a diff erence might be expected was first pointed out to us by Bill McLure (personal com-

munication). Potentially, the active–non-active distinction in (b), which we describe as the diff erence between

partial and total change, can be stated in terms of the aspectual distinction between an achievement and accomplishment (Dowty ). Tests such as compatibility with the imperfective/progressive show that the active form qualifi es as an achievement, while the non-active form qualifi es as an accomplishment or, rather, what Dowty has called a degree achievement. In terms of aspectual properties, then, it seems that the non-active form behaves similarly to deadjectival verbs surfacing with active morphology which also qualify either as accomplishments or as degree achievements (see Mavromanolaki for discus-sion). Since we have not carefully looked into the aspectual properties of change-of-state verbs we prefer not to state the distinction in such terms.

Voice Morphology

the object is aff ected by the event. If it is completely aff ected, the non-active form must be used; if it is only incompletely aff ected (a change of state only of part of the object), then the active form can be used.

is diff erence is explicated in ()–(). In the fi rst conjunct, which states that the change of state is partial, the active form is comfortably used. In fact, the active entails and not simply implies ‘incomplete change’. is is shown in the second conjunct, where complete change is asserted by the adverb ‘completely’. Here only the non-active from is well-formed. e active is ruled out as a contradiction.

() to ktirio gremise se ena simio alla den gremistike/*gremisethe bulding collapsed.Act in one spot but collapsed.Nact/*Actentelos.completely

() To trapezomantilo lerose se ena simio alla den lerothike/*lerosethe table cloth dirtied.Act in one spot but dirtied.Nact/*Activeentelos.completely

() To pukamiso tsalakose s’ena simio alla den tsalakothike/*tsalakosethe shirt wrinkled.Act in one spot but wrinkled.Nact/*Actendeloscompletely

e reader should not be misled into thinking that the non-active form exclusively denotes complete change. e same examples show that the non-active form is also compatible with partial change. e non-active is well-formed in the fi rst conjunct which asserts partial change:

(′) to ktirio gremistike se ena simio alla den gremistike/*gremisethe bulding collapsed.Nact in one spot but collapsed.Nact/*Actenteloscompletely

(′) To trapezomantilo lerothike se ena simio alla den lerothike/*lerosethe table cloth dirtied.Nact in one spot but dirtied.Nact/*Activeenteloscompletely

(′) To pukamiso tsalakothike s’ena simio alla den tsalakothike/*tsalakosethe shirt wrinkled.Nact in one spot but wrinkled.Nact/*Actendeloscompletely

Of course, in order for the meaning of the whole sentence not to be a contradiction, negation needs to be introduced in one of the conjuncts; in ()–() the negation happens to be on the second con-junct, but it could also be on the first.


us, while the Active asserts incomplete change, the non-active is compatible with both total and partial change.

On the basis of the discussion in this section, we conclude that there are generaliza-tions to be made for the distribution of Active and non-active morphology in Greek anticausatives, namely:

i(i) Active Morphology systematically occurs on (a) deadjectival verbs and (b) wrinkle/crumple-verbs asserting partial change.

(ii) Non-active morphology occurs on wrinkle/crumple-verbs that may denote com-plete change.

In the next section, we propose that these generalizations can be captured through the postulation of distinct structures for each case.

. . (- )

... Deadjectival verbsStarting from deadjectival verbs, we analyse (a) as resulting from (b), as already anticipated in section . (see the discussion of examples ()). According to this analysis, deadjectival verbs are built upon a v which embeds an adjective. e presence of derives the change-of-state interpretation, as proposed by Dowty (), who builds on the generative semantics literature (Lakoff ; McCawley ). us, the structure (b) receives the interpretation in (). Assuming that predicate adjectives assign an external argument (Higginbotham among others), v is embedding a small-clause complement (b).

() whiten: become white

() a. To pukamiso aspr-is-e the shirt whitened

b.

viz

vP

AP

DPto pukamiso

A′

A

aspr-

It has been argued that the degree-achievement interpretation of ‘whiten’ results from an ambiguity between ‘become white’ and ‘become whiter’; see, for example, Abusch () and Borer ().

Voice Morphology

Causatives of deadjectival verbs are formed when (b) is embedded under a causa-tive v:

()

DP

vP

v′

vP

AP

... Non-active wrinkle/crumple verbsTurning to non-active wrinkle/crumple verbs, we propose that these also have a / component, similar to the deadjectival verbs discussed in the pre-vious section. Unlike deadjectival verbs, however, N-act wrinkle/crumple verbs are formed on the basis of v which takes as complement a Voice phrase lacking agentive features but containing manner features:

() a. Deadjectival verbs b. NAct-wrinkle/crumple

vP

AP

vP

voiceP

voice VP

e non-active morphology is associated with Voice. What the two classes have in common is that they both lack agentivity features.

e distribution of adverbials provides evidence that this analysis is correct. Man-ner adverbs are well-formed with verbs with the structure in (b), while they areruled out with verbs having the structure in (a), which lacks Voice and, by hypothesis, manner:

() a. to pani skistike prosektika the cloth tore- carefully

b. *to pukamiso asprise prosektika the shirt whitened carefully

Agentive features are not present in either of the structures in (), as is evidenced by the fact that the presence of agent oriented adverbs such as deliberately is impossible; deliberately is impossible; deliberatelysee ().

Kratzer (, ) argues on the basis of German adjectival passives that in German can-not combine with Voice. However, this is apparently open to parametric variation. In Greek, crucially, does combine with Voice in adjectival passives, as argued in Anagnostopoulou ().


() a. *To pani skistike epitides/me prothesi. the cloth tore.Nact deliberately/on purpose

b. *To pani asprise epitides/me prothesi. the cloth whitened deliberately/on purpose

Moreover, note that the presence of an agentive ‘by’-phrase is impossible in (a)—as shown in ()—which provides evidence for a separation of manner adverbs and agentive features:

() *To pani skistike prosektika apo ti Maria. the cloth tore-nonactive carefully from the Mary

e existence in Greek of a Voice head with manner features independently of agen-tive features is found in another empirical domain as well. As argued in detail in Alexiadou (), Greek event nominalizations have exactly the same internal make-up—they contain a voice head with manner features but they lack agentive features. Once again, adverbs discriminate the two types of feature:

() a. I katastrofi ton arhion prosektika. the destruction the documents. carefully

b. *I katastrofi ton arhion epitides the destruction the documents. deliberately

In conclusion, the following structures express the similarities and diff erences between transitives, passives, and unaccusatives with these verbs:

() a. Transitive skizo

DP

voiceP

voice′

voice+manner,+agent

VP

b. Passive skizo

voiceP

VPvoice+manner,+agent

c. Unaccusative skizo

vP

voiceP

voice′

voice+manner,+agent

VP

Voice Morphology

Note that in this analysis, anticausative skizo is more complex than causative and pas-sive skizo. On the other hand, we saw in () and () that in the case of deadjectival verbs, the causative is more complex than the anticausative.

is concludes the structural analysis of non-active wrinkle verbs, which diff er from deadjectival verbs in including a verbal layer. In the next section we turn to the Active Wrinkle verbs.

... Active wrinkle-verbsRecall the major diff erence between active and non-active wrinkle verbs, namely that the active form asserts partial change:

() To pukamiso tsalakose s’ena simio alla den tsalakothike/*tsalakose the shirt wrinkled.Act in one spot but wrinkled.Nactendelos.completely

If we were to represent active wrinkle-verbs as having an adjectival component (as assumed in Dowty for all anticausatives, despite the lack of evidence for many of them), we would not be able to accommodate the incomplete change entailments they bear. To capture the partial change interpretation of active-wrinkle verbs, we propose that they have a part–whole or possessive substructure as a component in their repre-sentation, as illustrated in ().

() e shirt has a wrinkle somewhere./ ere has a wrinkle somewhere./ ere has is a wrinkle somewhere is a wrinkle somewhere is in the shirt.

But this cannot be the whole story, as they are not stative predicates. Unlike statives, for example, they have a habitual interpretation in the simple present:

() a. O Giannis agapai ti Maria (sixna/efkola). the Giannis loves the Mary (often/easily)

b. To pukamiso tsalakoni sixna/efkola. the shirt wrinkles-Act often/easily

Moreover, they are incompatible with the progressive behaving like achievements:

() To pukamiso/*tsalakoni [no progressive interpretation] the shirt wrinkles-Act/wrinkles-Nact

Given our proposal in section ... that may embed / (cf. ()), and given our claim that / may embed VoiceP, we predict that the combination + / + Voice is possible. Potentially, this structure is instantiated in Greek through the periphras-tic causative construction in (i), under a monoclausal analysis of such structures (Cinque ; Wurm-brandt ).

(i) ta nea ekanan to Jani na stenahorithi.the news made the John- worry-Nact


e two components in the meaning of Active wrinkle are represented in ():

vP

XP

the shirt

a wrinkle

()

Here v embeds a possessive-construction. As with deadjectival verbs, there is no source for non-active voice morphology in (). As with deadjectival verbs there is no source for voice morphology and thus no source for manner modifi cation.

() a. To ktirio gremistike methodika. the building demolished-Nact meticilously

b. *To ktirio gremise methodika. the building demolished meticilously

In () a nominal is involved in the formation of the construction. And indeed nouns are systematically related to the active-wrinkle verbs, e.g. leroma (‘a dirty spot’), leroma (‘a dirty spot’), leroma tsala-koma (‘a wrinke’), koma (‘a wrinke’), koma gremisma (‘demolishion’), etc.gremisma (‘demolishion’), etc.gremisma

Note, fi nally, that the two components, and , are expressed in the possessive ‘get’ in e shirt got a wrinkle, for instance. If it is correct that the ‘maximal-aff ectedness’ reading in English is expressed in the get passive (Klaiman ), we could get passive (Klaiman ), we could getrelate the alternation of active and non-active in Greek Class IV to the alternation between e shirt got a wrinkle and e shirt got a wrinkle and e shirt got a wrinkle e shirt got wrinkled in English. e shirt got wrinkled in English. e shirt got wrinkled

... SummaryWe proposed that anticausatives generally have the structure in ():

/

vP

XP

()

ese two groups—the one with active and the one with non-active morphology—behave diff er-ently with respect to the tests diagnosing internal argumenthood (see the Appendix). They give worse results with the active form, though the contrast is not very sharp. This is expected if the two class-es do not receive a uniform structural analysis, and if active wrinkle verbs do not actually have inter-nal arguments.

e nouns involved belong to the ma/mo group. As Kolliakou () and Alexiadou () noted, these nouns have diff erent aspectual properties from other derived nominals. In principle the structure of these nominals could be further decomposed so that in the representation in () we could further analyse ‘a wrinkle’ according to Alexiadou ()—but we will not go into that here.

Voice Morphology

Depending on the type of XP embedded under /, there are at least three types of anticausative in Greek: (i) + predicate (deadjectival); (ii) + VoiceP (wrinkle-non-active); and (iii) + possessive construction (wrinkle-active). Non-active voice morphology is associated with voice embedded under , when this is present. us, non-active morphology is linked to Voice (or vs) yielding (i) passives; (ii) refl exives; and (iii) adjectival passives. It is sensitive to two properties unifying these three constructions, namely, absence of a specifi er (Embick , in this volume) and manner (see also Zombolou, in progress).

A

Interestingly, the active and non-active forms of ‘wrinkle’ verbs show a distinct behaviour in tests diagnosing internal argumenthood of the single argument, though the eff ect is not always very strong (Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou ):

Possessor sub-extraction

() a. Tinos diavases to vivlio. whose read. the book.acc ‘Whose book did you read?’

b. Tinos efi ge to pedi. whose left child ‘Whose child left?’

c. *Tinos etrekse to pedi. whose run the child

() a. ?*Tinos gremise to ktirio. whose collapsed the building.

b. ?Tinos gremistike to ktirio. whose collapsed.Nact the building.

Bare plurals in post-verbal position

() a. I Maria tiganise psaria. Mary. fried fi sh.

b. Irthan pedia. came children

c. *Gelasan pedia. laughed children

() a. *Gremisan ktiria. collapsed buildings

b. ?Gremistikan ktiria. collapsed-Nact buildings

Possessor clitics. Borer and Grodzinsky () argue that possessive datives can be used as an unaccusativity diagnostic because they can only be construed with a DP in a properly governed position (i.e. head–complement relation). e same test can be used for Greek.


() a. Mu skotose to pedi. my killed. the child. ‘He killed my child.’

b. Me efi ge to pedi. my left the child. ‘My child left.’

c. *Mu etrekse to pedi. my run the child.

() a. *Mu lerose i bluza. my dirtied the shirt.

b. ?Me lerothike i bluza. my dirtied.Nact the shirt. ‘My shirt got dirtied.’

is is refl ected in the structures proposed.

voice morphology in the - uoc.philology · voice morphology in the ... for a more radical proposal...

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