Abstract
Depictives are adjectival phrases that modify a participant without forming a constituent with it (1).
Semantics and morphological marking of depictives are well studied crosslinguistically, see e.g. Schultze-Berndt & Himmelmann (2004, 2005) and Schroeder et al. (2008). The question of what participants can be modified by a depictive has been studied much less. A number of proposals have been advanced, nevertheless, as to how the relationship is established between a depictive and a noun phrase it modifies (its host), see e.g. Rothstein (1985); Bowers (1993); Marušič et al (2003: 2008); Richardson(2007);Pylkkänen (2010); and You (2016).
In my talk, I will overview these proposals and present data from Ossetic (two closely related Iranian languages spoken in the Caucasus), where any verb argument, but no adjunct, can be modified by a depictive. I will show that the same constraints apply to DPs that are able to bind anaphors in Ossetic, and propose that the relationship between a host and a depictive in Ossetic is that of anaphoric binding.
I will proceed to argue that while it probably unrealistic to expect cross-linguistically uniform syntax of depictives, it is possible to find principled restrictions on cross-linguistic variation in this domain. I will propose that cross-linguistically, the relation between a depictive and its host can be established either by adjunction of the depictive phrase to the host DP or through anaphoric binding.
Semantics and morphological marking of depictives are well studied crosslinguistically, see e.g. Schultze-Berndt & Himmelmann (2004, 2005) and Schroeder et al. (2008). The question of what participants can be modified by a depictive has been studied much less. A number of proposals have been advanced, nevertheless, as to how the relationship is established between a depictive and a noun phrase it modifies (its host), see e.g. Rothstein (1985); Bowers (1993); Marušič et al (2003: 2008); Richardson(2007);Pylkkänen (2010); and You (2016).
In my talk, I will overview these proposals and present data from Ossetic (two closely related Iranian languages spoken in the Caucasus), where any verb argument, but no adjunct, can be modified by a depictive. I will show that the same constraints apply to DPs that are able to bind anaphors in Ossetic, and propose that the relationship between a host and a depictive in Ossetic is that of anaphoric binding.
I will proceed to argue that while it probably unrealistic to expect cross-linguistically uniform syntax of depictives, it is possible to find principled restrictions on cross-linguistic variation in this domain. I will propose that cross-linguistically, the relation between a depictive and its host can be established either by adjunction of the depictive phrase to the host DP or through anaphoric binding.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages | 1-19 |
Number of pages | 20 |
State | Published - 28 Feb 2020 |