ROA 867-0906
Doubling and resumptive pronouns in Tyrolean wh-extraction
Birgit Alber <birgit.alber at univr.it>
Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=867
Abstract:
This paper analyzes long extraction of relative and interrogative
pronouns in the Tyrolean dialect of Meran, a Southern Bavarian
variety. In this variety, long extraction is characterized
by the presence of doubling of pronouns in intermediate
[Spec,CP] positions both in relatives and interrogatives
(1), and apparent optionality between the doubling structure
and a resumptive pronoun structure limited to relatives
in certain contexts (s. (1a). vs. (2); cf. McCloskey 1990,
2002, Rouveret 2002 and Adger & Ramchand 2005 for the discussion
of similar structures in the Gaelic languages):
(1) a. I kenn es Haus, DES1 wos du glapsch, DES1 wos
I know the house, Relpron1 C-rel you think, Relpron1 C-rel
die Maria t1 gekaaft hot
the Mary t1 bought has
'I know the house, which you think Mary bought'
b. WOS glapsch du, WEN1 dass die Maria t1 onruaft?
Scope marker think you, who1 C the Mary t1 calls?
'Who do you think Mary called?'
(2) I kenn es Haus, DES1 wos du glapsch,
I know the house, Relpron1 C-rel you think,
dass die Maria 'S1 gekaaft hot
C the Mary it1 bought has
'I know the house, which you think Mary bought'
Doubling of this type is an instance of repetition of a
semantically superfluous element. In particular, it cannot
be reinterpreted as a 'spare-movement' strategy, as an instantiat
ion of two items with different function, or as agreement
(cf. other phenomena discussed at the Workshop on Syntactic
Doubling in European Dialects, March 16 - March 18, 2006,
Meertens Institute, Amsterdam). The existence of doubling
structures in wh-movement thus shows that doubling as the
repetition of semantically empty elements does exist as
a phenomenon in need of explanation.
The core of my proposal, cast in the framework of Optimality
Theory, (Prince & Smolensky 1993, Legendre et al. 1995,
Grimshaw, J. 1997, Legendre, G., P. Smolensky & C. Wilson
1998) is that doubling is triggered by a constraint requiring
the base position of extraction to be traceable. This constraint
is best understood as a processing-optimizing strategy.
When other constraints force a violation of the constraint,
the resumptive pronoun strategy is employed, as in (2),
where the verb introducing the lower clause selects the
complementizer dass, which is incompatible with a relative
pronoun in [Spec, CP].
Interpreting doubling in wh-movement as triggered by a functional
requirement of this type explains why doubling does not
occur in A-movement: A-movement chains are short and no
long-distance processing is required. An analysis along
these lines furthermore explains why doubling is found extensivel
y in dialect systems, though much less so in standard languages.
Standard languages are to a large extent, sometimes exclusively,
used as written languages, whereas dialects are almost always
used oraly. Processing a complex sentence is arguably more
difficult in oral than in written parsing, hence the predominance
of structures facilitating processing in dialect systems.
Finally, the factorial typology of the proposed constraints
shows that a structure where both doubling and a resumptive
pronoun cooccur is harmonically bounded, a welcome result
since there are no languages exhibiting this pattern, as
far as I know.
A final piece of data discussed in the present paper concerns
the extraction of full XPs. In relatives or interrogatives
where a whole phrase has been extracted, the preferred structure
is one where neither doubling nor resumptive pronouns occur.
I attribute this fact to a constraint banning the repetition
of whole phrases. When dominant, the constraint will ban
both doubling structures and resumptive pronoun structures
since in both types of structure semantically empty elements
are repeated.
Comments: Paper will be submitted to the Proceedings of the Workshop on Syntactic Doubling in European Dialects, March 16 - March 18, 2006, Meertens Institute, Amsterdam.
Keywords: wh-extraction, doubling, resumptive pronouns, relatives, interrogatives
Areas: Syntax
Type: Manuscript
Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=867