Internally and externally headed relative clauses in Tagalog

Abstract

Head nominals in Tagalog relative clauses can surface in three distinct positions: preceding the clause, immediately following the embedded verb, and in argument position within the clause. This paper accounts for these possibilities by positing that the head nominal is base generated within the clause as a property-denoting NP rather than a full DP and identifying the gap position by means of complex predicate formation between this NP and the rest of the clause. If the head NP raises to [Spec, CP], it forms a complex predicate with the embedded TP in that position and is spelled out preceding the clause. If the head NP does not raise to [Spec, CP], it either remains in its base position in the embedded clause and undergoes complex predicate formation with the embedded verb in situ, or it undergoes head movement and forms a complex predicate with the embedded verb via incorporation. I also account for the distribution of linkers in Tagalog relative clauses by proposing that all unsaturated categories within a Tagalog DP are headed by linkers. Consequently, both the relative clause and the head nominal are preceded by a linker, accounting for the fact that a linker always appears between the clause and head NP, regardless of their relative order. Finally, analyzing the head nominal as an NP rather than a DP also accounts for the locality restriction in Tagalog relativization such that genitive DPs are ineligible for movement. This is prevented on my analysis by ensuring that the head NP is not merged in a position which would be assigned inherent case.

Finding your voice: Voice-specific effects in Tagalog reveal the limits of word order priming

“…This pattern of results would also be consistent with the residual activation account (Pickering & Branigan, 1998), as it would entail priming of word order from a patient voice prime to an agent voice target. It would also be consistent with unitary analyses of the Austronesian voice, where the claim is that the patient voice is the basic form from which the agent voice is derived (Aldridge, 2012(Aldridge, , 2017De Guzman, 1988;Mithun, 1994;Payne, 1982).…”

“…The pattern of results is thus consistent the suggestion that V-NP-NP sequences in the two voices constitute distinct transitive structures, as argued by symmetrical voice analyses of Austronesian (Chen & McDonnell, 2019;Himmelmann, 2002Himmelmann, , 2005Foley, 2008;Riesberg, 2014) and by Chang et al's (2006) learning-based computational model of production. They are inconsistent with the possibility that the different voices are linked in any important way, either through derivation from a basic form (Aldridge, 2012(Aldridge, , 2017De Guzman, 1988;Payne, 1982;Mithun, 1994) or from priming occurring at the level of uninflected verb lemmas (Pickering & Branigan, 1998).…”

“…There are indeed analyses of Tagalog voice which connect the structures in a unitary account (e.g.,Aldridge, 2012Aldridge, , 2017De Guzman, 1988;Mithun, 1994;Payne, 1982). However, it is unclear whether this account would make a directional prediction, since the argument is that the undergoer (i.e., patient) voice is syntactically basic.…”

L1 and L2 Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution of Relative Clauses

“…Instrument construction could also benefit from the guidance of linguistic typology as the likes of Tagalog, and many undertested languages have diverse morphosyntactic alignment systems and information structures that may likewise affect relative clause construction and processing (cf. Aldridge, 2017). These underexplored features might help us further understand syntactic ambiguity resolution and determine unique patterns and mechanisms.…”

The Predictive Value of Tagalog Voice Morphology in Filler-Gap Dependency Formation

“…Note that the term voice should not be conflated with the active-passive alternation in English and other more familiar languages (Ross and Teng, 2005;Foley, 2008). 5Adapted from Foley and Van Valin (1984, Voice morphology interacts with filler-gap dependency formation because only the noun that is cross-referenced by voice can be displaced (Keenan and Comrie, 1977;Schachter, 1977;Ceña, 1979;Kroeger, 1993;Aldridge, 2002Aldridge, , 2012Aldridge, , 2017Rackowski and Richards, 2005;Kaufman, 2009;Law, 2016). This interaction is often referred to as the restriction onĀ-extraction in the generative syntax literature.…”