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Title:
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Patterns of Object-Participle Agreement in Easter Ibero-Romance
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Author:
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Stanford Carmack
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of California, Santa Barbara
, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
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Degree Date:
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1996
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Syntax
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Subject Language(s):
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Basque, Souletin
Catalan-Valencian-Balear
Spanish
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Director(s):
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Giorgio Perissinotto
John Smith
Harvey Sharrer
Eduardo Raposo
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Abstract:
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This dissertation describes and accounts for patterns of (complex) object-participle agreement as attested in three medieval languages of the Eastern Iberian peninsula. This study has benefited from the availability of electronic transcriptions and text retrieval software; linguistic databases have thereby been created.
Object-participle agreement in the Cantar de Mio Cid (Old Spanish) turns on the categorial nature of the agreement controller and the position of the nonclitic controller vis-'-vis the target past participle (as well as assonance). In Metges Lo somni (Old Catalan), agreement rates are also affected by whether the controller is a clitic pronoun or full noun phrase, and whether the nonclitic controller precedes or follows the past participle.
If there is more than one potential controller of object-participle agreement, the closest conjunct normally triggers agreement. The first conjunct may also control agreement, but remote conjuncts cannot. While feature resolution is attested, it is uncommon in transparent cases. The greater frequency of resolution with preceding complex controllers is likely but generally indeterminable. Unambiguous singular to plural number resolution is rare; the sole witness predictably involves animate, pretarget controllers.
Past participle agreement with direct objects of embedded infinitives is as frequent in Old Catalan as agreement with embedded subjects. The absence of postinfinitival clitic-participle agreement in two documented cases is explained by the absence of a Spec-head agreement relation and a preference for upstairs cliticization in the face of monoclausality. In Martorells Tirant lo Blanch (Old Catalan), postinfinitival nonclitic-participle agreement rates are significantly lower than pretarget rates. This rate difference is understandable if syntactic realignment occurs only part of the time with posttarget controllers.
Grammaticalization and analogy explain the pan-Romance decay of agreement; the former feeds the latter. The argument that relates the strength of object-participle agreement to sentence processing from the point of view of the hearer is persuasive. Nevertheless, evidence from complex agreement structures involving multiple controllers and embedded infinitives suggests that production constraints also play a role in separating pretarget nonclitic-participle agreement rates from posttarget rates.
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