1Some Remarks on Austronesian Clause Structure: Implications from Malagasy Control Complements Maria Polinsky Eric Potsdam University of California, San Diego University of Florida Workshop on Austronesian syntax and semantics Stanford University, February 5, 2005 1 Introduction: The status of the external argument Many Austronesian languages favor just one syntactic argument (external argument, EA) in extractions and clause linkage. What is the status of this argument, and the general clausal architecture in Austronesian? Malagasy (the external argument is underlined) (1) a. nividy kadoa ny zaza bought gift DET child ‘The child bought a gift.’ b. ny zaza (izay) nividy kadoa DET child REL bought gift ‘the child that bought a gift’ c. *ny kadoa (izay) nividy ny zaza DET gift REL bought DET child (‘the gift that the child bought.’) Two main hypotheses concerning the status of the external argument: SUBJECT ANALYSIS: EA is subject, occurring in an A-position TOPIC ANALYSIS: EA is topic, occurring in an A'-position Goal of the talk:  present new evidence from Malagasy Control structures in support of the Topic Analysis Outline of the talk  overview of Malagasy structure and preliminary evidence in support of the Topic Analysis  two Malagasy Control structures and Control as movement  Theme Focus Control and its implications for Malagasy clause structure  Agent Focus Control and its implications for Malagasy clause structure  Control complement clauses in Malagasy and the Topic Analysis  conclusions and open questions 2 Malagasy: General information 2.1 Basics of Malagasy morphosyntax Austronesian language, spoken by about 14 million people in Madagascar VOS word order, accusative, impoverished case marking (2) a. n-i-vidy ny kadoa (omaly) ny zaza (omaly) PAST-AGENT FOCUS-buy DET gift yesterday DET child ‘The child bought a gift (yesterday).’ b. no-vid-in’ ny zaza (omaly) ny kadoa (omaly) PAST-buy-THEME FOCUS DET child yesterday DET gift ‘The gift, the child bought (yesterday).’ (‘The gift was bought by the child (yesterday).’) all verbs show morphological tense marking; there are no dedicated non-finite forms Table 1. Malagasy tense prefixes past present future /irrealis n(o)- ø-/m- h(o)- one element is the EA, which is encoded with position and verbal morphology; the verbal voice morphology indicates the external argument Table 2. Malagasy voice morphology Voice Agent focus, AF (“active”) Theme focus, TF (“passive”) Applied object focus, CF (“circumstantial”) Morphological marking i- an- ø- in- toa- voa- Active stem + suffix –an Example: vidy ‘buy’ -i-vidy -vid-in- ividi-an- (for details, see Keenan and Polinsky 1997) (3) a. Agent focus n-i-vidy ny kadoa ho an-dreni-ny ny zaza PAST-AF-buy DET gift for OBL-mother-3SG DET child ‘The child bought a gift for his mother.’2 b. Theme focus no-vid-in’ ny zaza ho an-dreni-ny ny kadoa PAST-buy-TF DET child for OBL-mother-3SG DET gift ‘The gift, the child bought for his mother.’ c. Applied object focus n-ividi-an’ ny zaza (ny) kadoa ny reni-ny PAST-buy-CF DET child DET gift DET mother-3SG ‘His mother, the child bought a gift for.’ 2.2 Root clause and arguments for the Topic Analysis Theme focus construction: (4) novidin’ ny zaza ny kadoa bought.TF DET child DET gift ‘The child bought the gift.’ (‘The gift was bought by the child.’) Subject Analysis (Guilfoyle, Hung, and Travis 1992) (5) novidin’ ny zaza ny kadoa PREDICATE SUBJECT Topic Analysis (Pearson 2001, 2005, and others) (6) novidin’ ny zaza ny kadoa PREDICATE SUBJECT TOPIC Table 3. Differences between Subject and Topic property Subject Topic specificity/referentiality 8 9 definiteness 8 9/8 mapping into focus 9 8 Arguments for the Topic Analysis (Keenan 1976, 1995, Manaster-Ramer 1993, Polinsky 1997, Pearson 2001, 2005)  no existentially quantified NPs as EA  no non-referential expressions as EA  formal marking of definiteness on the EA  no focus expression in the EA position (7) a. mihinany trondro fotsiny ilay zaza eat.AF [fish only] this child FOCUS ‘This child eats only fish.’ b. *mihinany trondro ilay zaza fotsiny eat.AF fish [this child only] FOCUS (‘Only this child eats fish.’) (8) a. nohanin’ ilay zaza fotsiny ny trondro eat.TF [this child only] DET fish FOCUS ‘Only this child ate fish.’ (lit. ‘The fish was eaten only by this child.’) b. *nohanin’ ilay zaza ny trondro fotsiny eat.TF’ this child [DET fish only] FOCUS (‘This child ate only fish.’)  reconstruction for binding (Pearson 2001, 2005) (9) a. nodiovin’ ilay zazai ny tena-nyi CONDITION A cleanse.TF this child DET self-3SG ‘This child cleaned himself.’ b. nobaben’ ny renin-dRasoai izyi CONDITION C carry.TF DET mother-Rasoa 3SG ‘Rasoai’s mother carried heri on the back.’ ) Root clauses are amenable to the Topic Analysis  What about more complex structures? 3 Control structures 3.1 Malagasy Control structures Control (Equi): an interpretational dependency between two argument positions in which the referential properties of an overt one, the controller, determine the referential properties of a non-overt one, the controllee. (10) The farmeri wanted ∆i to kill the chicken ↑ ↑ CONTROLLER CONTROLLEE Previous discussions of Malagasy control constructions: Keenan 1976, 1995, Law 1995, Paul and Ranaivoson 1998, Pearson 2001, Polinsky and Potsdam 2002a, 2003, 20053Control structures under discussion: (11) a. nanandrana [namono ny akoho __i] Rabei AGENT FOCUS try.AF kill.AF DET chicken Rabe CONTROL ‘Rabe tried to kill the chicken.’ b. nandraman-dRabei [novonoina __i ] ny akoho THEME FOCUS try.TF-Rabe kill.TF DET chicken CONTROL (lit. ‘The chicken was tried by Rabe to be killed.’) ‘Rabe tried to kill the chicken.’ 3.2 Control as movement Analysis of control as movement (O’Neill 1995, Hornstein 1999, 2003, and many others) derivational analysis of control (O’Neil 1995, Hornstein 1999, 2003): the