Parameters of morphosyntactic change

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Lingua

IlO(2000)

141-146 www.elsevier.nl/locate/lingua

Book review Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent (eds.), Parameters of morphosyntactic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xi + 544 pp. ISBN 0 521586437 &18.95/W $27.95 (pb.), ISBN 0 521 58402 &55.OO/US$74.95 (hb.). Reviewed by Anna Roussou, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Cyprus, PO Box 20537, CY-1678 Nicosia, Cyprus. Language change has always been an important branch of comparative linguistics, which finds a natural account in the Principles and Parameters framework. Crosslinguistic variation is viewed as the result of adopting different parametric values; syntactic change then is the result of changing (resetting) parameters. The link with language acquisition as the process of parameter setting now becomes more straightforward. This is indeed captured in Lightfoot’s (I 979) claim according to which changes arise when a sufficient number of acquirers converges on a single grammar; in other words, when language learners converge on resetting some parametric values. Syntactic change has been looked afresh within the Principles and Parameters framework, offering new insights in the field. The series of conferences on Diachronic Generative Syntax (DIGS) is an important contribution to this research program. The present volume, edited by Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent, is the collection of 18 papers presented in the 3rd DIGS conference (Amsterdam, 30 March - 2 April 1994). This volume is substantially longer than the edited collection of the papers from the 1st DIGS (Battye and Roberts, 1995). The difference in quantity between the two volumes could be taken to reflect a growth of interest in syntactic change. The present book is very well presented and organised. The preface by the editors offers an adequate introduction to the current state of art in the field, presenting some of the basic issues and questions that have challenged researchers with respect to grammar in general and grammatical changes in particular. The papers included discuss old problems in historical linguistics from a new perspective. The book is divided into four main parts. Each part, with the possible exception of the second, also contains a commentary, allowing the reader to reflect upon the issues discussed in the individual papers. The papers in each part form a thematic unity, although in many cases the relevance to papers in other parts is apparent. Despite differences in (some) theoretical assumptions and technical implementations all papers have a common aim: to shed light on the relation between syntax and morphology and to 0024-384 1 /OO/$ - see front matter PII: SOO24-3841(99)00028-5

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show how this relation can be crucial for language change. However, the answers to these questions are not always clear or straightforward. The first part comes under the heading ‘Aspect, argument structure and case selection’ with contributions from Abraham, Philippi, Beninca and Poletto, Miller, and a commentary by Tomaselli. The first two authors discuss the development of determiners in Germanic in correlation with the loss of case and the requirement for argument licensing. Abraham relates this development to the loss of case and verbal aspectual morphology, while Philippi focuses on the definite/indefinite reading in connection to case, adopting a semantic view of verbal aspect. Beninca and Poletto discuss the development of the modal b&gnu in Modem Italian dialects. The change from a main verb to a modal is accompanied by the loss of argument structure. In a similar vein Miller discusses the development offuire from an auxiliary in Old and Middle French to a main verb with an argument structure in Modem French. The commentary by Tomaselli outlines the differences and similarities of the analyses presented and points out some problems, highlighting the need to consider data from primary sources. The second part is called ‘Clitics’ and it contains papers by Vincent, Rivero, and Fontana. Vincent discusses the development of determiners in Romance. In that respect his paper bears similarities to those by Abraham and Philippi in the previous part. However, unlike them, he also considers the indirect correlation of determiners with the development of clitics out of pronouns. River0 distinguishes between Cand I-oriented clitics, which can further be heads or maximal projections, arguing that Old Spanish shows a combination of all these four properties. Fontana, on the other hand, discusses the integration of second position phenomena regarding cliticisation and V2, arguing that it is possible to find grammars with both second position clitics and V2, as is the case in Old Spanish, Old French and some Germanic languages. Thus Fontana argues, contra Rivero, that Old Spanish is a V2 language. The paper by Fontana also offers an overview of some recent analyses of clitics in general. The third part, which is in fact the longest, focuses on ‘Verb second and camp’ and it has papers by Lightfoot, Henry, Kroch and Taylor, van Kemenade, Zaring and Hirschbtihler and a commentary by Warner. Lightfoot sketches a general approach to language change and discusses the loss of V-to-I movement and V2 in the history of English. Henry discusses change in progress by focussing on imperatives in Belfast English formed by three different generations: the oldest generation has unrestricted inversion (V-to-C), the middle has restricted inversion with unaccusatives and passives, while the younger generation has no inversion at all. Henry then argues that crucially change is restricted by UG. Kroch and Taylor discuss verb movement in Old and Middle English accounting for a substantial number of differences in the data in terms of a northern (Scandinavian V2-influenced) and a southern dialect. Van Kemenade argues that V2 in Old English does involve V-to-C movement, while the decline of V2 in late ME is linked to the decliticisation of subject pronouns, which trigger a fixed SVO order. Zaring and Hirschbuhler discuss a slightly different topic, considering the development of the ce que construction from a D+CP structure in Old and Middle French to a single CP structure in Modem French which takes ce

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que to be a single morpheme. Warner, in his commentary, discusses how change can be structured as a long-term case. To this end he reconsiders some of the issues discussed in the papers, focussing on V movement in the English (old and new) dialects. Finally, the fourth part on ‘Scrambling and morphological case’ has papers by Roberts, Weerman, Kiparsky, plus a commentary by Thrainsson. Roberts argues that OE can be analysed as a head initial language with the OV order derived by leftward movement of the object (cf. Kayne, 1995; Zwart, 1997). The loss of case in ME gave rise to the loss of object raising (the strong N-feature of AgrO became weak), yielding the VO pattern. Weerman considers word order variation in correlation with morphological case in Middle and Modem Dutch. While the head of the DP in Middle Dutch contains a case feature (the affixal correlate of a preposition), its counterpart in Modem Dutch has a gap subject to head government, hence its restrictive distribution. Kiparsky argues for a mapping theory of thematic roles into syntax: arguments are licensed by means of morphological case or by having a fixed position; these two options are made available by grammar. Change then follows in-built preferences and is constrained. In his commentary, Thrainsson overviews the above papers and points out their shortcomings. He also offers some solutions by considering functional heads as morphologically ‘split’ or ‘fused’; this distinction determines movement and can provide a natural account for syntactic change in connection with morphological properties. As the above brief overview shows, the papers included in the book consider a range of data, some of which have been discussed more in the literature than others. Abstracting away from differences, we could identify two main areas of interest that cover phenomena in the IP and the CP domain respectively. Consider first the 1P group: this includes papers on argument licensing (case, determiners, scrambling) and the category I (V-raising), addressing the question of how the predicate-argument structure relates to inflection in a synchronic and diachronic perspective. The papers by Abraham, Philippi, Beninca and Poletto, Miller. Vincent, Roberts, Weerman, and Kiparsky fall into this group. As Beninca and Poletto show the reanalysis of main verb bisogna as a modal (an I element) requires the loss of thematic structure. The opposite result is attested with Frenchfaire, as discussed by Miller. whose function is restricted to that of a main verb with argument structure. The first case is reanalysis from lexical to functional, while the second involves restriction of function to main verb only. Both cases could be treated as instances of grammaticalisation in the sense of Roberts and Roussou (1998). The rest of the papers focus on the next relevant point, namely the distribution of arguments in the clause structure. The picture that emerges is that two factors seem to be relevant: rich inflection on the nominal and/or rich inflection on the verb. Morphological marking on the nominal can be manifested on the DP (case, agreement) or on pronominals with fixed position in the clause structure such as clitics (see Vincent’s paper). Morphological marking on the verb may involve specification for aspect, tense, and usually subject agreement. The consensus in the literature seems to be that ‘sufficiently’ rich inflection allows for V-to-I raising. We therefore come across the situation where DP’s may move rather freely, or V may raise, or both. One way of accounting for varia-

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tion in structural terms is to postulate a rich functional structure with positions relating to nominal and verbal inflection accordingly, suggesting, contra Chomsky (1995, 1998) a proliferation of functional categories. Parametrisation then arises as the result of which features of functional heads are overtly realised and how (by merger of a free morpheme, or by movement of lexical material from another position, as in the case of V-to-I movement) (cf. Roberts and Roussou, 1998). In this framework, syntactic changes will be constrained along these options. For example, loss of morphology can imply loss of movement, restricting word order. Some of the papers discussed make use of various functional heads, while others don’t. Roberts exploits the role of inflectional positions associated with V and DP’s in the clause structure, by considering the feature specification of AgrO in particular. Weerman and Kiparsky, on the other hand, do not take this option. Weerman relies on proper government, which is not well justified in the current minimalist framework, while Kiparsky makes use of a level approach, which requires the postulation of mapping mechanisms. Abraham considers a rich functional structure inside DP, which does not follow standard assumptions regarding the position of determiners, while Philippi takes a less articulated structure which can be truncated, depending on how the nominal is interpreted in connection with the predicate. We thus see that there is no general agreement on the number as well as the type of functional heads used both in the nominal and the clausal domain. It seems that the adoption of a rather larger number of functional heads, which bear semantic content (i.e. are interpretable) can eliminate the postulation of technical machinery (e.g. government) which is not otherwise justified, offering a more restrictive theory of grammar (variation and change). Consider next the CP group, which includes papers on second position phenomena (V2, clitic2), and the properties of C. The papers by Rivero, Fontana, Henry, Kroch and Taylor, van Kemenade, Zaring and Hirschbtihler, and to some extent Lightfoot fall into this category. As the discussions show, C interacts with both V, triggering V2 for example, and D, given that weak pronouns or clitics are D(P) elements that can be realised in the CP. We see then that the correlation between V/I and DP’s that holds in the lower part of the clause is carried over to the CP level. River0 and Fontana focus on clitic2, Henry, Kroch and Taylor, van Kemenade and Lightfoot mainly consider V2, while Zaring and Hirschblhler consider the properties of CP as an argument. Starting with the latter, we note that argument CP’s are also subject to distributional restrictions. For example, CP extraposition may require chain formation with an overt pronominal (D) element, or the CP itself can be introduced by a D head which may further be reanalysed as part of the C system, as shown for ce que in Modem French. The next issue of (broadly speaking) second position effects has received lots of attention in the literature. The question here is what triggers V/I movement to C and what licenses pronominal elements in C. Moreover given that these two may interact, as the presence of pronominals in C may yield V3 orders, the formulation of a V2 constraint becomes even more challenging. Although the correlation with inflection turns out to be more direct for the IP-phenomena, it is less clear so for the CP-phenomena, as C is not the locus of inflection but of (propositional) operators which assign focus, topic, clause-typing,

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modality, etc. A more promising way to go is the one suggested for the IP part, namely to make use of more functional structure (see Rizzi, 1997 for a more recent ‘split’ C approach). Thus if clitics occupy a distinct C position, reserved for weak pronominals, they present no problem for V2, as the verb would still target a lower C accompanied by fronting of an XP to a higher CP projection. Rivero, to some extent, adopts distinct functional positions for pronominals, calling them TMP (for Tobler-Mussafia) and WP (for Wackernagel) depending on the clitics. With respect to the order of clitics is, resort to laws such as the Tobler-Mussafia or Wackernagel should be abandoned. As Fontana correctly points out, these laws are descriptive and not explanatory. As far as change is concerned, the usual questions arise, namely how second position systems are innovated and what leads to their loss. Unless we know what underlies the phenomenon, we will not be able to give a satisfactory answer. Language contact and competing grammars can turn out to be useful notions (see Kroch and Taylor) that describe the developmental pattern, but do not actually explain what leads to change as far as the grammar is concerned. In other words, they do not have to say anything about the mechanisms inside grammar. There is another caveat here: although the notion of competing grammars appears to be real, what is not so clear is which of these has the properties of a ‘native’ (LI) vs. a ‘learned’ (L2) grammar. A lot depends on what we think about L2 acquisition at this point, but this distinction may turn out to be crucial. Lightfoot, on the other hand, considers threshold frequencies to be relevant. Once again, changes in the input can be vital, but this cannot be the whole story. As Henry shows in her paper, language acquirers come up with grammars that are not in their parents’ input. It then seems that we need to invoke properties of UG as well to account for language change, in the same way that we do for language acquisition. The alternative presentation along the lines of the CP and IP split served the purpose of providing a unification of the various phenomena that have been challenging for variation, change, as well as acquisition. The main problem that research on change and acquisition faces is that it relies on corpora. In the case of diachronic research in particular, a fair amount of philological work is required to be done first to ensure the correct interpretation of the data and the elimination of extrinsic factors. The more conservative nature of written speech, the lack of adequate written sources, as well as stylistic variation are some of the problems that researchers have to overcome. The use of primary vs. secondary sources is also a factor that can affect the interpretation of data. Despite these problems, however, diachronic linguistics has received more attention in the recent years and the results seem to be promising. Before closing this review I would like to point out some shortcomings of current research on syntactic change as reflected in the papers of this book. The first point has to do with the languages under investigation. Very much as in comparative syntax the main focus seems to be on Romance and Germanic. In fact these are the only languages considered in this volume. It would be nice to see some more languages discussed. The second point has to do with the choice of themes, which is to some extent bound to the selection of languages. It is rather obvious that the phenomena discussed mainly revolve around the issue of V2, the VO-OV distinction. and to a

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lesser extent clitics (not so much their properties but their position). Undoubtedly these are interesting and challenging topics that have formed the focus of research more or less constantly. However, an investigation of some other phenomena (e.g. sentential complementation, relatives, binding, among others) would be more than welcome, as there is clearly no shortage of topics. This suggestion is meant to have a therapeutic value as well, since research on other phenomena may provide the missing links for a better understanding of the above topics. This brings us to the third point: old themes bring with them old, and sometimes conservative, analyses. In many cases diachronic work involves the application of old analyses on data coming from earlier grammars. It would be nice to use these ‘new’ data to modify our tools of investigation and not the other way round. One example that comes to mind is the directionality parameter, which to a very large extent has been an artifact of the theory. Current work (Kayne, 1995) has presented us with a challenging alternative. A worthwhile task is to see what solutions it offers to old problems (if it does). For example, Roberts in his paper adopts a Kaynean style analysis for OE based on Zwart’s (1997) work on Dutch. The result is interesting but not without problems. For example, Roberts’ analysis comes along with the implication that there must have been a point between OE and ME that V-to-I movement was innovated before disappearing. Problems like this are bound to arise, but at the same they can be positive steps towards a better analysis. After all, diachronic work serves a twofold purpose: to trace back the development of a given language, and to present us with new phenomena that can help us understand how Grammar works. The above comments, if justified, should be taken as suggestions for future research. In conclusion, I would like to recommend this book to anyone interested in diachronic work as well as in theoretical linguistics in general. It is no doubt an important contribution in the field and it hopefully marks a growing interest in diachronic research.

References Battye, A. and I. Roberts, 1995. Clause structure and language change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chomsky, N., 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chomsky, N., 1998. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. Ms., MIT. Lightfoot, D., 1979. Principles of diachronic syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kayne, R., 1995. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rizzi, L., 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In: Liliane Haegeman (ed.), Elements of grammar: Handbook of generative syntax, 281-337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Roberts, I. and A. Roussou, 1998. A forma1 approach to grammaticalisation. Ms., University of Stuttgart and University of Wales, Bangor. Zwart, C.J.-W., 1997. A minimalist approach to the syntax of Dutch. Dordrecht: Kluwer.