On Directionality and the Structure of the Verb Phrase: Evidence from Nupe

Kandybowicz, Jason; Baker, Mark C.

doi:10.1111/1467-9612.00058

Cited by 40 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…For example, it has been proposed that languages have a single head-directionality parameter and that this accounts for the Greenberg correlations (17,57). As an explanation of correlations, this idea turns out to overpredict correlations (13,19), and more recent research in syntactic theory has provided evidence against it (58)(59)(60). Nevertheless, future research should examine whether there are more principled connections between communicative efficiency and grammar simplicity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universals of word order reflect optimization of grammars for efficient communication

Hahn

Jurafsky

Futrell

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The universal properties of human languages have been the subject of intense study across the language sciences. We report computational and corpus evidence for the hypothesis that a prominent subset of these universal properties—those related to word order—result from a process of optimization for efficient communication among humans, trading off the need to reduce complexity with the need to reduce ambiguity. We formalize these two pressures with information-theoretic and neural-network models of complexity and ambiguity and simulate grammars with optimized word-order parameters on large-scale data from 51 languages. Evolution of grammars toward efficiency results in word-order patterns that predict a large subset of the major word-order correlations across languages.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universals of word order reflect optimization of grammars for efficient communication

Hahn

Jurafsky

Futrell

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…8 An alternative to remnant VP-movement for SOXV is to have O move past X by itself. Kandybowicz and Baker (2003) argue specifically that both options are made available by the language faculty. While remnant VP-movement is appropriate for Nweh and for Lokạạ, movement of O by itself is called for in Nupe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Are There No Directionality Parameters?

Kayne¹

2013

Theoretical Approaches to Disharmonic Word Order

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Such movement differences will in turn be related, under a familiar view, to differences in the properties of functional heads. 2 A strong position, but one that is not central to what follows and that I will not pursue here, would be: 3 (1) Movement differences exhaust the universe both of word order differences and of morpheme order differences. 2. Movement leading to OV order Let us take OV as a test case. Antisymmetry as in AS has the following immediate consequence: (2) OV can never be associated with a structure in which O is sitting in the complement position of V. 4 It seems completely clear and undeniable that there exist languages or subparts of languages in which OV-order is produced by movement. It is hard to see how anybody could disagree with that, if it is stated as an existential. One easy example in English would be: (3) They're having their car washed. in which object their car comes to precede via movement (of the sort found in passives) the verb wash that it is the object of. Even more telling are examples of OV order involving movement of O where OV order is 'canonical' or 'neutral', 5 i.e. does not involve what one might think of as 'special' movements like the one found in (3). One such type of case is found in languages of a sort studied by Dryer (1992), with SONegV as a possible canonical order (as in Korean). As argued by Whitman (2005), on the assumption that Neg is merged outside VP, and therefore above O, the pre-Neg position of O in SONegV sentences must have been produced by movement. 6 In a SONegV sentence, O can clearly not be occupying the complement position of the pronounced V. Whitman argues more specifically that SONegV is produced by remnant VP-movement. The verb moves out of the VP by head movement; subsequently the entire (verbless) VP containing O moves past Neg, much as in Nkemnji's (1992; 1995) analysis of one word order pattern in Nweh. 7 A similar argument in favor of remnant movement carrying an object to the left of V is made by Baker (2005) for Lokạạ. One such case in Lokạạ is that of SONegV, matching Whitman, but Baker's 2 See, for example, Borer (1984, 29). 3 Cf. Cinque (1999). 4 More specifically this follows from the claim in AS and in Kayne (2003a) that specifier, head and complement are always found in the order S-H-C. (In bare phrase structure, this translates into the order 'second-mergedphrase H first-merged phrase'.) A number of authors have jumped from S-H-C to SVO. This follows only if what we call objects are invariably complements of their verbs, which is certainly not always the case-see Kayne (1981a) and Larson (1988). 5 Erdocia et al. (2009) argue that canonical SOV order in Basque is processed faster and more easily than noncanonical orders. They plausibly relate that to the canonical order involving less syntactic computation than noncanonical orders. At certain points, though, they seem to draw the further conclusion that canonical order involves no movement at all, which does not follow. In addition to the text discussion of canonical SOXV orde...

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“…It is less certain theoretically that they couldn't check an EPP feature, but there is no evidence that non-NPs can do this in Lokȧȧ. Lokȧȧ, for example, does not have a "locative inversion" construction in which a PP satisfies the clause's need for a subject in lieu of an NP: OV orders in Lokȧ ȧ are sharply different from OV orders in (for example) Nupe and Gungbe in this respect; only nominal expressions come before the (im)perfect or nonfinite verb in these languages (Kandybowicz andBaker 2003, Aboh 1998: 193-195), unlike in Lokȧȧ. 8 The second argument that tells in favor of remnant VP fronting rather than NP fronting is the fact that more than one phrase can appear before the verb in the negative or gerund clause.…”

Section: Vp Movement Vs Np Movement: Vp Integritymentioning

confidence: 96%

“…clause. This is a common analysis of agreed-with subjects in Bantu (see, for example, Kinyalolo (1991) on Kilega, Demuth and Johnson (1989) on Setswana, Letsholo (2002) on Ikalanga, andBaker (2003) on Kinande, among others). This means that the full structure of a typical negative example is approximately that shown in (61) An implication of this is that the position of the subject is not rigidly fixed by X-bar theory in Lokȧ ȧ.…”

Section: Implications For the Position Of The Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, V-O order could be basic, with the object moving leftward, to some kind of pre-verbal specifier position in negative and gerundive clauses. Derivations of this sort have been proposed by Koopman (1992) for Bambara, by Aboh (1998) for Gungbe, and by Kandybowicz and Baker (2003) for Nupe. These various derivations are sketched in a cursory way in (4) In this article, I argue that none of these fairly simple, one-step movements is adequate to account for the Lokȧȧ facts.…”

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On verb-initial and verb-final word orders in Lokạạ

Baker¹

2005

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics

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Verb phrases seem to be head initial in affirmative sentences in Lokȧ ȧ (a NigerCongo language of the Cross River area of Nigeria) but head final in negative clauses and gerunds. This article aspires to give a comprehensive description of this phenomenon, together with a theoretical analysis. It considers how a full range of grammatical elements are ordered in both kinds of clauses -including direct objects, second objects, particles, weak pronouns, complement clauses, serial verbs, adverbs, prepositional phrases, tense/mood particles, and auxiliary verbs. The pattern that emerges is a bit different from the one found in some superficially similar languages, such as Vata, Bambara, Nupe, and Nweh. I argue that the details are correctly explained by a "remnant movement" theory in which the Lokȧ ȧ verb first moves out of the verb phrase to combine with tense/agreement inflection, and then the rest of the verb phrase moves as a unit into a specifier position at the top of the clause. This position is available because the notional subject undergoes dislocation in Lokȧ ȧ , as has been claimed for many of its Bantu kin.

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On Directionality and the Structure of the Verb Phrase: Evidence from Nupe

Cited by 40 publications

References 25 publications

Universals of word order reflect optimization of grammars for efficient communication

Universals of word order reflect optimization of grammars for efficient communication

Why Are There No Directionality Parameters?

On verb-initial and verb-final word orders in Lokạạ

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