Optionality and variation in agreement in some participles in Hindi-Urdu
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Tanmoy Bhattacharya
Abstract
Optionality in participial agreement in Hindi was noted in Kachru (2006: 163), where an adverbial participle may optionally agree with the subject NP in number and gender if the NP is in the direct case. For the present paper, I expand this observation further and demonstrate the existence of extensive (syntactic) variation in participial agreement in Hindi with data that has not been reported or analyzed in the literature. In the case of relative participles, where Kachru did not report any variation, the range of judgments indicates a general reluctance of the number feature to be available too low in the structure; this becomes apparent if we use an object relative in these constructions; the optionality in participial subject agreement that Kachru captured seems to take place in the case of participial object agreement as well. For the complex adjectival/ adverbial adjuncts, though Kachru (2006) reported variation by one factor, the extent of variation is found to be much wider. The judgments on these variants indicate that the feature of person seems to be available high up in the clause and gender lower down but it is number that hovers in between. This is in line with the general observation that participle agreement is with number and gender and never with person, unlike subject agreement in general - another reason why this type of agreement should be seen as different from (subject) argument agreement on verbs. Theoretically, the findings indicate that the trigger for the number agreement cannot be lower than at least the main clause aspectual head. The paper proposes three distinct syntactic operations - valuation, relaying, and copying which, together with standard Agree applying top-down, derive the full range of the results obtained.
Abstract
Optionality in participial agreement in Hindi was noted in Kachru (2006: 163), where an adverbial participle may optionally agree with the subject NP in number and gender if the NP is in the direct case. For the present paper, I expand this observation further and demonstrate the existence of extensive (syntactic) variation in participial agreement in Hindi with data that has not been reported or analyzed in the literature. In the case of relative participles, where Kachru did not report any variation, the range of judgments indicates a general reluctance of the number feature to be available too low in the structure; this becomes apparent if we use an object relative in these constructions; the optionality in participial subject agreement that Kachru captured seems to take place in the case of participial object agreement as well. For the complex adjectival/ adverbial adjuncts, though Kachru (2006) reported variation by one factor, the extent of variation is found to be much wider. The judgments on these variants indicate that the feature of person seems to be available high up in the clause and gender lower down but it is number that hovers in between. This is in line with the general observation that participle agreement is with number and gender and never with person, unlike subject agreement in general - another reason why this type of agreement should be seen as different from (subject) argument agreement on verbs. Theoretically, the findings indicate that the trigger for the number agreement cannot be lower than at least the main clause aspectual head. The paper proposes three distinct syntactic operations - valuation, relaying, and copying which, together with standard Agree applying top-down, derive the full range of the results obtained.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Preface vii
- Contents xi
- Acknowledgements xiii
- On the syntax of comparative clauses in Vedic Sanskrit … like someone eating the foam off the water 1
- Some questions about yád in Vedic 23
- A statistical model of syntactic and nonsyntactic factors affecting relative clause placement in Hindi 43
- Optionality and variation in agreement in some participles in Hindi-Urdu 77
- A cross-linguistic approach to sentential subjects in Kannada 119
- Relation between animacy and case marking in Eastern Indo-Aryan languages 173
- Participles with a semantic void in Koints 191
- Competition between vectored verbs and factored verbs in Hindi-Urdu, Marathi and Gujarati 207
- How similarly do Hindi rakhnā and Japanese oku PUT behave as a V2? A corpus-based comparative analysis 243
- The use of vector verbs in early modern Tamil 261
- Reflexive and reciprocal marking in Mising 291
- Reciprocals in Kokborok — A Case of Syntactic Convergence 311
- A cognitive semantic analysis of locative and spatial constructions in Bangla 339
- Revisiting Pāṇini’s generative power 361
- Hindi root allomorphy: Insights from phonological and morphosyntactic theory 381
- Lexeme and speech syllables in English and Hindi. A case for syllable structure 415
- List of contributors 463
- List of contributors 469
- Index of languages 477
- Index of subjects 479
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Preface vii
- Contents xi
- Acknowledgements xiii
- On the syntax of comparative clauses in Vedic Sanskrit … like someone eating the foam off the water 1
- Some questions about yád in Vedic 23
- A statistical model of syntactic and nonsyntactic factors affecting relative clause placement in Hindi 43
- Optionality and variation in agreement in some participles in Hindi-Urdu 77
- A cross-linguistic approach to sentential subjects in Kannada 119
- Relation between animacy and case marking in Eastern Indo-Aryan languages 173
- Participles with a semantic void in Koints 191
- Competition between vectored verbs and factored verbs in Hindi-Urdu, Marathi and Gujarati 207
- How similarly do Hindi rakhnā and Japanese oku PUT behave as a V2? A corpus-based comparative analysis 243
- The use of vector verbs in early modern Tamil 261
- Reflexive and reciprocal marking in Mising 291
- Reciprocals in Kokborok — A Case of Syntactic Convergence 311
- A cognitive semantic analysis of locative and spatial constructions in Bangla 339
- Revisiting Pāṇini’s generative power 361
- Hindi root allomorphy: Insights from phonological and morphosyntactic theory 381
- Lexeme and speech syllables in English and Hindi. A case for syllable structure 415
- List of contributors 463
- List of contributors 469
- Index of languages 477
- Index of subjects 479
