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Person features and syncretism

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory volume 31, pages 901–950 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

Any theory of person features must account for known typological patterns (including the inventory of persons and generalizations about syncretism), but also provide a handle on the person morphology of individual languages. In this paper, we develop an analysis of person based on the following core assumptions. (i) Person features represent functions that operate on an initial set of possible discourse referents, or on the output of other person functions. Which combinations of person features are well-formed follows from the properties of the functions they represent (compare Harbour 2011b, 2011c). (ii) There are two such person features. Their semantic specification implies that one is shared by first and second person, while the other is shared by second and third person (see Kerstens 1993; Halle 1997; Bennis and MacLean 2006; Aalberse and Don 2011). (iii) Rules that operate on features (including rules of impoverishment and spell-out rules) are sensitive to the order in which the functions represented by person features apply. The main results of the proposed theory are (a) an explanation of the typological inventory of persons (first, second and third in the singular; first inclusive, first exclusive, second and third in the plural); (b) an explanation of the typological observation that syncretism between first and third person is much rarer than syncretism between either first and second, or second and third person (see Baerman et al. 2005; Baerman and Brown 2011); (c) a descriptively adequate analysis of person agreement in Dutch where two person endings arrange themselves in such a way that there is a 2-3 syncretism in the regular case, a 1-2 syncretism under subject-verb inversion, and an optional 1-3 syncretism with a particular lexical class of verbs (modals).

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Notes

  1. Unless stated otherwise, Dutch data are illustrative of the standard variant of the language. We will indicate explicitly where dialectal or historical variants are discussed.

    The polite pronoun u is characterized here as second person on semantic grounds. However, it can optionally trigger third person agreement and bind third person reflexives. We turn to this issue in Sect. 3.4.

    The alternation between lop and loop in (1) does not indicate a difference in the quality of the vowel, but is one of the vagaries of Dutch orthography: long vowels are written twice in closed syllables.

  2. Harley and Ritter consider [speaker] as the default interpretation of [participant], which implies that it may be absent in first person pronouns. We have placed the feature between parentheses to indicate this.

  3. The reviewer suggests that the asymmetry may be derived from the fact that [speaker] is the default interpretation of [participant], while [addressee] is a marked feature. However, this is unlikely to work. First, marked features tend to have specific realizations more frequently than unmarked features (see Sect. 2.2.3), which would suggest, if anything, that an opposition between 1/3 and 2 should be more common than one between 2/3 and 1, exactly the wrong result. Second, the implication of Harley and Ritter’s assumption that ‘speaker’ is the default interpretation of the participant node is that every language will have an [addressee] feature (given that, as far as we know, there is no language that lacks second person pronouns), while some may lack a [speaker] feature. This, too, would favour 1-3 syncretisms over 2-3 syncretisms.

  4. Kerstens’ proposal was adopted by Bennis and MacLean (2006) and Aalberse and Don (2011). These authors concentrate on patterns of syncretism, both diachronically and synchronically, in the regular paradigms of Dutch dialects.

  5. The names of these constants are simply a mnemonic based on their phonological similarity with English I and you.

  6. For ease of reference, we have compiled a complete list of rules and principles that are relevant to the account of person morphology, which can be found in an appendix at the end of the paper.

  7. Our proposal differs from standard feature-geometric approaches in rejecting the idea that there is a universal template that individual feature structures must adhere to. For example, features can attach to different hosts (both [prox] and [dist] attach to either φ or [prox]), and multiple occurrences of the same feature are admissible (in particular, [prox] can be applied twice). Rather, as discussed, feature structures reflect the order of function application, and grammatical feature structures are simply those in which each feature finds the input set it requires. Hence, we agree with Harbour (2011b, 2011c) that the interpretive properties of features are fundamental, while the inventory of feature structures, that is, the set of possible orders of function application, is derived from this. Notice, however, that we cannot assume that a feature structure only exists in the semantic representation, while in the syntax feature bundles are simply unordered sets. If this were the case, {[prox] [prox]} could not be distinguished from {[prox]} in syntax (by the axiom of extension). This is necessary, however, to account for languages in which the exclusive and inclusive first person plural pronouns have different forms (see below).

  8. Of course, languages that distinguish duals and paucals will have additional features that apply to the output of [pl]. We cannot discuss these here, but see Harley and Ritter (2002) and Harbour (2011a, 2011b) for discussion.

  9. As pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, Mühlhäusler and Harré (1990) and Cysouw (2003) argue that there are exceptions to this observation; for instance, the chorus in classical Greek drama could be regarded as consisting of a multiplicity of speakers. If this argument is correct, we can simply allow S i to contain more than one i, besides the one obligatory one. Nothing in the analyses below would need to be changed to allow this.

  10. The analysis sketched here is based on the hypothesis that plural in pronouns is identical to plural in regular nouns, that is, [pl] makes the same semantic contribution whether it attaches to nouns or pronouns, namely that the output set must have more than one member. This can be contrasted with the proposal in Daniel (2005), according to which the plural in nouns is (typically) additive, while the plural in pronouns is associative. One problem we see with this approach is that there are many languages that have plural pronouns, but do not permit associative plural readings of regular nouns. It is not obvious how this reading can be blocked if the language in fact has a designated associative plural feature for pronouns.

  11. Strictly speaking, in order to capture Zwicky’s generalization, not only the syntactic feature system, but also the system of morphological realization (spell-out) must be considered. In fact, there is a way of generating languages that violate the generalization in our system, namely by impoverishment of dist in the plural when it is a dependent of prox. In a language that has distinct spell-out rules for [prox] and [prox–prox], this will create a formal opposition between first person exclusive on the one hand, and first person inclusive and second person on the other. Interestingly, Simon (2005) discusses a few languages that appear to have a spell-out system of this type. In the absence of this particular impoverishment rule, however, we expect Zwicky’s generalization to hold, and we therefore expect it to be valid at least as a statistical universal.

  12. We abstract away here from languages that have a distinction between proximate and obviative third person forms (see Corbett 2012:124–125). We think that in order to deal with this distinction we do not need to expand the set of person features, but rather assume that some languages make an additional partition in the structured set of potential discourse referents in (8). However, we will not work this out here.

  13. This claim leads to the prediction that there should not be unambiguously syntactic phenomena affecting the first person plural that are found exclusively in languages that have the inclusive/exclusive distinction. ‘Unambiguously syntactic’ in this context excludes agreement, which is of course subject to morphological realization rules. We are not aware of such phenomena, but more research is necessary.

  14. Most strong pronouns have a weak counterpart. This distinction is immaterial to our analysis. We also do not discuss object pronouns, which are well behaved, but not relevant to agreement in Dutch. The spell-out rules for weak pronouns only differ from those in (19) in the phonological output they deliver. The spell-out rules for object pronouns only differ in mentioning an additional case feature in their input, and the phonological output they deliver.

  15. Maximal Encoding has a clear affinity with Grice’s (1975) Maxim of Quantity, which can be seen as an implementation of Maximal Encoding at the interface between pragmatics and semantics.

  16. On the definition given, associates of the addressee(s) are not marked as honorific through the application of [hon]. This explains the following observation by an anonymous reviewer. (The reviewer uses German examples, but the observation carries over to Dutch, with some qualifications we cannot discuss here.) If one addresses a friend and uses a second person plural pronoun to refer to that friend and his honourable but absent father, the familiar form will be used, without this implying any familiarity towards the father. However, if one addresses the father, using a second person plural pronoun to refer to him and his son, then the polite form must be used, without this implying any formality towards the son.

    Notice that this observation necessitates that S i+u −S i can contain associates of u. If all members of this set had to be addressees, it would be impossible to explain why use of the polite pronoun does not necessarily mark all of them as honorific.

  17. An anonymous reviewer suggests that underspecification for the spell-out rule for the polite pronoun (as in (25)) might be sufficient. However, this would not account for the fact that u does not trigger plural agreement, not even when it has a plural reference.

  18. Note that Dutch is unlike British English in that a plural interpretation of a collective noun does not trigger plural agreement on the verb.

  19. The proposal in this section may give a handle on ‘Watkins’ law’, according to which it is relatively common for third person endings of verbs to be reanalyzed diachronically as part of the stem, leading to a new base for attachment of first and second person endings (see Fuß 2005 for discussion and references). Given that third person endings can occur in the absence of syntactic agreement, it is easy to see how they are prone to reanalysis by subsequent generations.

  20. This entails that there can be no direct syntactic effects of having rich versus poor agreement, which appears to go against proposals by Rohrbacher (1999), Koeneman and Zeijlstra (2012), and others. However, one could imagine that there can be indirect effects on syntax. Suppose, for example, that T/Agr needs to be licensed at PF by being filled with a verb carrying the relevant morphology. One could then say that a verb with weak agreement is not a possible licenser, leading to the prediction that languages with poor agreement cannot have an independent T/Agr node in syntax (though compare Bobaljik and Thráinsson 1998).

  21. It is not obvious that such optionality is ruled out in alternative systems without the postulation of a similar arbitrating principle. Consider, for example, feature systems such as those proposed by Kerstens (1993) and Halle (1997) (see Sect. 2.1.1). In such systems, first person is characterized by a feature bundle like [+par(ticipant), +auth(or)], second person by a feature bundle like [+par, -auth] and third person by a feature bundle like [-par, -auth]. Such a system can account for the 2-3 syncretism in (31) by assuming the following two spell-out rules (compare Bennis and MacLean 2006):

    1. (i)
      figure p

    However, nothing in the system itself makes it impossible for a language to have two spell-out rules of the form in (ii). If nothing is added, this results in optionality in the realization of the second person, since this is characterised as both [+par] and [-auth]. Hence, some arbitrating principle seems necessary. This would be the counterpart to (34).

    1. (ii)
      figure q

  22. Within a different feature system, Frampton (2002) also argues that 1-3 syncretisms must result from a type of impoverishment that leaves the distinguishing property of the second person intact.

  23. The literature contains several proposals in which deletion of a feature automatically implies deletion of the dependent features (see Bonet 1991, 1995; Noyer 1998; Harley and Ritter 2002). If the Russian Doll Principle is correct, rules intended to have this effect must be reformulated in such a way that they mention the relevant dependent features. These may be mentioned as optionally present. Notice that this does not rob the Russian Doll Principle of content. The empirical effects of the rules [F1]→Ø and [F1−(F2)]→Ø are different in the context of [F2] if the Russian Doll Principle exists, since in that context it blocks application of the former, but not the latter.

  24. Matching two forms to two inputs requires consideration of two possible mappings; matching two forms to three inputs requires consideration of six possible mappings.

  25. Notice that this table suggests a further generalization, namely use of third person agreement markers before first person agreement markers. A possible explanation for this is that third person agreement can be a default form that can be used in the absence of syntactic agreement (see Sect. 2.1.4). We cannot explore this issue here.

  26. The order of acquisition of verbal agreement is unlikely to be a result of the order of acquisition of pronouns, given that the person system seems to be in place for pronouns before agreement endings are acquired (see, for example, Armon-Lotem 2006). A different matter is that the acquisition of nominative pronouns may coincide with the acquisition of agreement.

  27. Of course, something being prone to historical change does not imply that historical change is inevitable in individual languages. This also depends on the robustness of the relevant input, in the case at hand the phonological robustness of distinctive second person forms. Thus, the broad typological claim we make is not affected by cases in which a particular 1-3 syncretism persists over quite some time. (Possible examples are discussed in Frampton 2002.)

  28. An anonymous reviewer suggests an alternative account of neutralization of person in the plural. The idea is that there is a single spell-out rule mentioning the feature [pl], along with a single stipulation that in the relevant neutralizing grammars number features win in competition with person features during spell-out. This might work for Dutch (and is compatible with our general approach). The theory would be very attractive if neutralization always had the same ‘direction’: in that case there could be a universal hierarchy of features determining which feature wins in cases of competition. This approach is in fact advocated by Noyer (1997), who uses a hierarchy 1>2>⋯>pl>… to capture some clear typological tendencies in this domain. However, there is a certain degree of crosslinguistic variation incompatible with a universal hierarchy. The Dutch data, in particular, conflict with Noyer’s hierarchy, as (as noted) [pl] must win out over first and second person in this language. Replacing Noyer’s hierarchy by a universal hierarchy in which number outranks person cannot work either, not even if we restrict our attention to variants of Dutch. This is because of the pattern in (46), where second person wins out over [pl]. In other words, it must be stipulated as part of the grammar of Modern Standard Dutch (i) that person and number cannot both be realized, and (ii) that if both are present, number takes priority. This is of course exactly what the impoverishment rules in (49) express, making the two approaches equal in complexity.

  29. The fact that a plural form -en surfaces under inversion indicates that at this stage second person verbs with a plural subject were still marked [pl] at the point of spell-out. This means that the impoverishment rule that deletes [pl] in the context of [prox dist] (see (47)) is ordered after the agreement weakening rule that deletes [dist] in inversion contexts. Agreement weakening then destroys the context of application of (47), so that [pl] survives in the second person. In addition, rule (44a), which deletes [prox] in the presence of [pl] must also be ordered after agreement weakening, so as to ensure that at spell-out only [pl] survives. (Note that application of (44a) in the second person is no longer blocked by the Russian Doll Principle once (53) has removed [dist].) As we will see, an ordering in which agreement weakening precedes rules like (44) and (47) is as expected given the nature of these rules (see the discussion surrounding (72)).

    In an even older stage of the language, inversion led to complete loss of any marking in the second person plural (see Aalberse 2009:168), indicating that the agreement weakening rule targeted the entire φ-node, including its dependent [pl] feature, rather than just the [dist] feature.

  30. Given that the kun and zul forms result from agreement weakening under inversion (while as noted the kan and zal forms result from a derivation in which all features are already impoverished before agreement weakening applies), we predict that they should be blocked when the verb and inverted subject are not in the same prosodic domain (see Sect. 3.2). This is correct: fronted objects, for example, cannot appear between kun/zul and a following subject, see (i). Strikingly, it seems that an even stronger requirement holds, at least for some speakers, who do not accept intervention of a focus particle like zelfs, see (ii). (Google does give over 12,000 hits for the string kun zelfs jij, indicating that for many speakers this stricter requirement does not hold; that we are dealing with an intervention effect, rather than an effect of focus per se, is apparent from the grammaticality of kun in (iii).) Note, however, that some speakers also reject agreement weakening of regular verbs when just a focus particle intervenes (see Hoekstra 1996); for some discussion see Ackema and Neeleman (2004:195). We would expect that the behaviour of modals correlates with the behaviour of regular verbs, but at least for some speakers this appears not to be true (Marcel den Dikken, personal communication); this issue obviously requires further study.

    1. (i)
      figure al
    1. (ii)
      figure am
    1. (iii)
      figure an

  31. The rule in (78a) should perhaps be restricted to the context in (i). The reason for this is that there is further stem form wees, used in the imperative and in some non-finite forms. There is reason to believe that this is the basic stem form, but we cannot explore this matter here.

    1. (i)

      be ⇔ /ben/ / __-[φ φ–prox–F]

  32. Third person forms of be in polite contexts are considered old fashioned by many speakers. For these speakers, be must be marked as not being input to (81a).

  33. Notice that (81a) does not violate the Russian Doll Principle. Even though it deletes a feature that hosts two dependent features, its structural description mentions these dependent features, as required.

  34. This explanation may extend to an observation by Bennis (2006): in imperatives without an overt subject, polite reflexives cannot take a third person form. In our terms, they are protected from partial impoverishment in case their antecedent is not spelled out. We would argue that this is because in such a situation the hearer relies on the reflexive to recover the subject’s features (including [hon]). Bennis discusses subject-less imperatives (see (ia)), but the same effect can be observed if the antecedent of a polite reflexive has undergone topic drop (see (ib, c)). This indicates that an explanation should not be based on properties of the imperative.

    1. (i)
      figure bc

  35. This analysis of standard Arabic agreement weakening has been criticized by Benmamoun and Lorimor (2006). See Ackema and Neeleman (2012a) for a reply.

  36. Some varieties of Dutch allow heb u ‘have you.hon’. However, a number of varieties use heb instead of hebt ‘have-2sg’ and heeft ‘have-3sg’ as a general singular form, also in non-inverted contexts (u heb) and with third person subjects (hij heb). We would expect a correlation between the grammaticality of heb u and a general use of heb instead of hebt/heeft. (Similar observations hold for the irregular verb zijn ‘be’, where in some varieties ben is used as a general form instead of bent in the first and second person; the third person is unaffected by this.)

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Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of (parts of) this paper were presented at the Radboud University Nijmegen (Morphology Days 2011), the University of Tromsø (2011), the University of Edinburgh (2012), the University of Frankfurt (2012), the University of Amsterdam (Syntax Circle; 2012), the University of Brussels (BCGL7; 2012), the University of Olomouc (2013), and the University of California at Santa Cruz (2013). We thank the audiences for useful feedback. We also thank three anonymous reviewers, Suzanne Aalberse, Matthew Baerman, Pavel Caha, Michael Cysouw, Marcel den Dikken, Jan Don, Günther Grewendorf, Daniel Harbour, Shin Ishihara, Olaf Koeneman, Marika Lekakou, Jeffrey Lidz, Andrew Nevins, and Peter Svenonius for comments, suggestions and assistance.

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  1. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD, UK

    Peter Ackema

  2. UCL, London, WC1N 1PF, UK

    Ad Neeleman

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Appendix: A fragment of the grammar of Modern Standard Dutch

Appendix: A fragment of the grammar of Modern Standard Dutch

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Ackema, P., Neeleman, A. Person features and syncretism. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 31, 901–950 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-013-9202-z

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Keywords

  • Syncretism
  • Agreement
  • Person features
  • Impoverishment
  • Dutch