Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses
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Mihaela Pirvulescu
Abstract
This article investigates the verbal agreement paradigms of the subjunctive and the imperative across Romance languages. The starting observation is that these paradigms seem to be always identical to an indicative agreement paradigm. The proposed generalization is the following: the morphological realization of agreement in subjunctive and imperative verbs is a consequence of the syntactic status of Tense in these two moods. This is illustrated with a morphological analysis of Romanian verbal agreement affixes. Syntactically, Tense is unspecified in subjunctives and absent in imperatives. This analysis makes specific prediction for the subjunctive and imperative morphology across languages. Subjunctive agreement paradigms a) will never show specific Tense-conditioned morphological operations and b) will not have a specific Tense affix. For imperatives, it is expected that a) morphological operations will never make appeal to a Tense feature in this mood; b) no Tense morpheme should appear in imperatives.
Abstract
This article investigates the verbal agreement paradigms of the subjunctive and the imperative across Romance languages. The starting observation is that these paradigms seem to be always identical to an indicative agreement paradigm. The proposed generalization is the following: the morphological realization of agreement in subjunctive and imperative verbs is a consequence of the syntactic status of Tense in these two moods. This is illustrated with a morphological analysis of Romanian verbal agreement affixes. Syntactically, Tense is unspecified in subjunctives and absent in imperatives. This analysis makes specific prediction for the subjunctive and imperative morphology across languages. Subjunctive agreement paradigms a) will never show specific Tense-conditioned morphological operations and b) will not have a specific Tense affix. For imperatives, it is expected that a) morphological operations will never make appeal to a Tense feature in this mood; b) no Tense morpheme should appear in imperatives.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
- A Polarity-Sensitive Disjunction 1
- Taking a Closer Look at Romance VN Compounds 13
- Beyond Descriptivism 27
- Do Subjects Have a Place in Spanish? 51
- On the Conceptual Role of Number 67
- The Diachronic Development of a French Indefinite Pronoun 83
- A Syntactic Analysis of Italian Deverbal-Nouns 97
- V-N Compounds In Italian 113
- A Reinterpretation of Quirky Subjects and Related Phenomena in Spanish 127
- Cognitive Constraints on Assertion Scope 143
- Avant que - or Avant de -Clauses 155
- Null Directional Prepositions in Romanian and Spanish 169
- A Unified Account for the Additive and the Scalar Uses of Italian Neppure 187
- Default Morphology in Second Language Spanish 201
- Early Object Omission in Child French and English 213
- Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses 229
- Italian Volerci 247
- Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicate 263
- Subject Index 279
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
- A Polarity-Sensitive Disjunction 1
- Taking a Closer Look at Romance VN Compounds 13
- Beyond Descriptivism 27
- Do Subjects Have a Place in Spanish? 51
- On the Conceptual Role of Number 67
- The Diachronic Development of a French Indefinite Pronoun 83
- A Syntactic Analysis of Italian Deverbal-Nouns 97
- V-N Compounds In Italian 113
- A Reinterpretation of Quirky Subjects and Related Phenomena in Spanish 127
- Cognitive Constraints on Assertion Scope 143
- Avant que - or Avant de -Clauses 155
- Null Directional Prepositions in Romanian and Spanish 169
- A Unified Account for the Additive and the Scalar Uses of Italian Neppure 187
- Default Morphology in Second Language Spanish 201
- Early Object Omission in Child French and English 213
- Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses 229
- Italian Volerci 247
- Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicate 263
- Subject Index 279
