The Syntax and Semantics of Free-Choice Items in Hungarian. Tamás Halm Budapest

The Syntax and Semantics of Free-Choice Items in Hungarian

Tamás Halm 2016.02.05. Budapest

Making Sense of Linguistic Data: Raw Data *Meghívtam bárkit. Meghívhattam bárkit.

*'Bárkit nem hívtam meg. √Bárkit 'nem hívtam meg.

*Nem hívtam meg 'bárkit. Nem hívtam meg 'senkit. Nem hívtam meg bárkit.

Bárki jön meg, engedd be. (Whoever comes, let them in.) Bárki megjön, engedd be. (If anyone comes, let them in.)

Bárki (*is) meglátogathatja a barátait. Any owl hunts mice. √Bárkit (*is) nem hívott meg János. *Bármelyik bagoly egerészik. Megérkezett bárki (is)? CSAK JÁNOST látogathatja meg 'bárki. (bárki>fókusz) CSAK JÁNOST látogathaja meg bárki. (fókusz>bárki)

Making Sense of Linguistic Data: Data and Model

Data – NonHungarian Data – Hungarian

Model

Making Sense of Linguistic Data: Data and Model Data should cover wide range of environments and constructions:


Model

Making Sense of Linguistic Data: Data and Model Data should cover wide range of environments and constructions: modal/non-modal topic

focus


weakly and strongly non-veridical negative concord

stress patterns generics contrastive topic Model

scope phenomena

Making Sense of Linguistic Data: Data and Model Data should cover wide range of environments and constructions: modal/non-modal topic

focus


weakly and strongly non-veridical negative concord

stress patterns generics contrastive topic Model

scope phenomena

Model should fit the data closely and make robust predictions.

Making Sense of Linguistic Data: Theories


Model

Making Sense of Linguistic Data: Theories General theories


Model


FCIs


Genericity

Model


FCIs

Syntax/semantics of Hungarian


Genericity

Model


Syntax/semantics of Hungarian Quantification

FCIs

Data – NonHungarian

Negative concord

Data – Hungarian Genericity Focus

Model

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing



FCIs


Negative concord


Model

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing



FCIs


Negative concord


Model

Model should build upon current theories (general FCI and Hungarian syntax/semantics).

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing



FCIs


Negative concord


Model

Current theories help us to organize and segment the raw data to help with modelling.

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing

Segment Raw Data *Meghívtam bárkit. Meghívhattam bárkit.





Segment Raw Data FCIs

*Meghívtam bárkit. Meghívhattam bárkit.






Contrastive topic

*Meghívtam bárkit. Meghívhattam bárkit.






*Meghívtam bárkit. Meghívhattam bárkit. Quantification *Nem

hívtam meg 'bárkit. Nem hívtam meg 'senkit. Nem hívtam meg bárkit.

Negative concord

Contrastive topic

*'Bárkit nem hívtam meg. √Bárkit 'nem hívtam meg. Bárki jön meg, engedd be. (Whoever comes, let them in.) Bárki megjön, engedd be. (If anyone comes, let them in.)





Negative concord

Contrastive topic


Focus

FCIs





Negative concord

Contrastive topic


Focus

FCIs

Bárki (*is) meglátogathatja a barátait. Any owl hunts mice. √Bárkit (*is) nem hívott meg János. *Bármelyik bagoly egerészik. NPI licensing Megérkezett bárki (is)? CSAK JÁNOST látogathatja meg 'bárki. (bárki>fókusz) CSAK JÁNOST látogathaja meg bárki. (fókusz>bárki)




Negative concord

Contrastive topic


Focus

FCIs

Bárki (*is) meglátogathatja a barátait. Any owl hunts mice. √Bárkit (*is) nem hívott meg János. *Bármelyik bagoly egerészik. NPI licensing Genericity Megérkezett bárki (is)? CSAK JÁNOST látogathatja meg 'bárki. (bárki>fókusz) CSAK JÁNOST látogathaja meg bárki. (fókusz>bárki)


Contrastive topic



Negative concord


Focus

FCIs

Bárki (*is) meglátogathatja a barátait. Any owl hunts mice. √Bárkit (*is) nem hívott meg János. *Bármelyik bagoly egerészik. NPI licensing Genericity Megérkezett bárki (is)? CSAK JÁNOST látogathatja meg 'bárki. (bárki>fókusz) CSAK JÁNOST látogathaja meg bárki. (fókusz>bárki) Quantification

Focus



Giannakidou 2001 Kratzer & Shimoyama 2002 Chierchia 1995 Kratzer 1995

FCIs


É. Kiss 2010 Brody & Szabolcsi 2003

Negative concord

Surányi 2006 É. Kiss 2009

Focus

Szabolcsi 1981 Brody 1991 É. Kiss 1998 Horváth 2004

Data – Hungarian Genericity

Model

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing

É. Kiss & Gyuris 2003 Gyuris 2009 Tóth 1999




FCIs



Negative concord


Focus



Model

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing





FCIs



Negative concord


Focus



Model

Model should help us corroborate or refute competing existing theories.

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing





FCIs



Negative concord


Focus



Model

Model should help us challenge and refine existing theories.

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing





FCIs



Negative concord


Focus



Preexisting models Hunyadi 1991, 2002 Abrusán 2007 Szabó 2012

Model

Contrastive topic

NPI licensing

Model should provide better fit than preexisting models.





FCIs



Negative concord


Focus



Preexisting models

Model

Contrastive topic

Hunyadi 1991, 2002 Abrusán 2007 Szabó 2012

Model may incorporate parts of/refute existing models.

NPI licensing


Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 1) A model for the syntax and semantics of FCIs in Hungarian with very good empirical coverage, based on standard assumptions about the syntax of Hungarian and the dependent indefinite analysis of FCIs (Giannakidou 2001). Wide range of environments and constructions such as modal, non-modal and generic environments, strongly and weakly non-veridical environments, FCIs in contrastive topic and focus positions. Corroboration of dependent indefinite analysis and underlying models for Hungarian.

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 2) FCIs in Hungarian are dependent indefinites. FC phrases are represented as intensional indefinites, which are grammatical only in contexts providing alternatives (worlds or situations). FCIs are thus licensed in non-veridical and non-episodic contexts (e.g. modals, generics), and ungrammatical in extensional veridical contexts (e.g. episodic sentences, negation, interrogatives). More formally, FC phrases are represented as: (38)

[[any student]] = student(x)(w) (or: student(x)(s))

The world/situation and individual variable(s) are to be bound by an appropriate Q-operator (i.e. generic, habitual, modal, intensional) in order for the FC phrase to be licensed.

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 3) In straight modal sentences, FCIs occupy quantifier position. Corroboration of É. Kiss (2009, 2010), with some modifications.

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 4) In terms of universal vs. quantificational force, FCIs display a quantificational plasticity standardly associated with indefinites, including dependent indefinites. test almost-modification modification by exceptive phrase donkey anaphora predicative use is-modification incorporation split reading with modals

result universal universal universal universal (?) existential existential existential

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 5) FCIs participate in negative concord, akin to universals and existentials.

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 6) Analysis of the behaviour of FCIs in contrastive topic position. To our knowledge, the first account for FCIs in contrastive topic position in any language. (173)

√Bárkit

\nem hívott

meg János.

anyone-ACC not invite-PAST-3SG PRT John ʻAnyone, John did not invite.ʼ (John did not invite just anyone.) ʻOf a set of currently relevant properties, the property of being referentially vague with regard to the individual variable x and the world variable w is under consideration. It is stated about the property of being referentially vague with regard to the individual variable x and the world variable w that the person that John invited is not a representative of it. For at least one other member of the set of currently relevant properties, an alternative statement holds (the person that John invited is a representative of it).ʼ

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 7) Model of the co-occurence of FCIs with the particle is ‘too, also’, consistent with the analysis of FCIs as dependent indefinites. [[valaki]]

= one(x)

[[valaki is]]

= one(x) + weak negative polarity dependency

[[bárki]]

= one(x,w)

(248) a.

Nem hiszem,

hogy bárki

is

el

jön.

b.

Nem hiszem,

hogy valaki

is

el

jön.

c.

Nem hiszem,

hogy bárki

el

jön.

d.

*Nem hiszem,

hogy valaki

el

jön.

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 8) FCIs in focus position: we identify two cross-linguistic strategies to encode the meaning associted with FCI free relatives: either to have a separate lexical item (e.g. wh-ever in English) or to utilize the interplay of the standard FCI (such as bárki ‘anyone’ in Hungarian) and a specific syntactic construction (such as the identificational focus construction) in a compositional manner. (270) BÁRKI jön

meg, üdvözöld

anyone come-3SG PRT

őt.

greet-IMP-2SG him

‘Whoever comes, greet him.’ Paraphrase: ‘There are several possible courses of events, but what is certain is that a ‘coming’ event shall take place, and that it is the person or sets of persons satisfying this event that I want you to greet.’

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 9) Detailed account for the puzzling observation that a generic environment does not license FCIs in Hungarian (in contrast to several other languages). Based on the nature of genericity (semantic vs. pragmatic) and the formal semantics of individual-level predicates (Kratzer (1995) vs. Chierchia (1995)). LANGUAGE

FCI-LICENSING IN GENERICS

NATURE OF GENERICITY

Catalan, Greek, …

Strong

Syntactic/semantic

Hungarian w/o verbal p.

Weak

Pragmatic

Hungarian with verbal p. Strong

Syntactic/Semantic

Main empirical findings and theoretical contributions 10) We show that the two paradigms of FCIs in Hungarian (bárki ‘anyone’ and akárki ‘anyone’) behave identically in terms of their syntactic behaviour, with any superficial differences being due to the slow demise and resultant slight markedness of akárki as an FCI and the existence of a (diachronically related) common noun akárki ‘nondescript, insignificant person’. frequency

frequency

bárki

4.640.000

kis akárki

9.000+

akárki

387.000

kis bárki

<10

ha bárki

148.000

kis valaki

<500

kis senki

13.000+

ha akárki 25.900

The Syntax and Semantics of Free-Choice Items in Hungarian. Tamás Halm Budapest

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