Subextraction from DOM DPs: New evidence from Río de la Plata Spanish

ÁNGEL JIMÉNEZ-FERNÁNDEZ; SAAB, ANDRÉS

Ciudad de Buenos Aires

Workshop; Romania Nova VIII; 2016

1. The problem: On the basis of new empirical evidence, Jiménez-Fernández (2016) has challenged the accepted consensus that subextraction from differentially marked objects in Spanish (DOM) gives ungrammatical results (Torrego 1998, Gallego & Uriagereka 2007, Ordóñez & Roca in press, among others). As the grammaticality of in sentence in (1) shows, there are good reasons to call such a consensus into question: (1) ¿De qué partidoi crees que ha conmocionado [a muchos votantes ti] la nueva normativa? ?Of what party do you think the new regulations have shocked many voters?The puzzle then is accounting for the sharp contrast between (1) and examples likes (2), where extraction from DOM objects is clearly banned: (2)a. *¿[CP De quiéni has visitado [DP a muchos amigos ti]]? of whom have.you visited to many friends ?Who have you visited many friends of?? b. *¿[CP De quiénile diste los libros [DP a los padres ti ]]? of whom him.datgave.you the books to the parents ?Who did you give the books to the parents of?? [Ordóñez & Roca (in press)]The contrast in (1) and (2) runs against assimilating DOM objects with PPs (contra Ordóñez & Roca in press), which are always islands for extraction. For this reason, Jiménez-Fernández assumes a K(ase)P analysis for DOM objects in line with Zdrojewski (2008), López (2012) and Ormazabal & Romero (2013), among others. If KP, as opposed to PPs, are transparent for extraction, sentences like (1) are accounted for. The remaining question is how to explain the ungrammaticality of the sentences in (2). Following Haegeman et al?s (2014) approach to the Subject Condition, Jiménez-Fernández proposes that island effects in objects introduced by a in Spanish are multifactorial. Among the several conditions that affect the possibility of subextraction the following ones are especially relevant to explain minimal pairs like (1) and (2): (a) the Freezing Principle (A moved constituent is frozen for extraction) (b) the Specificity Condition (Specific nominals are opaque domains for extraction) (c) the D-linking Condition (Extraction is ameliorated when the extractee is D-linked). Thus, in the sentence in (1), unlike (2), both the properties of the extractee and the properties of the DOM object makes extraction possible. Two crucial consequences follow from this approach to DOM subextraction, namely, (i) DOM objects are not PPs, and (ii) DOM objects are not necessarily ex situ constituents (or, at least, DOM objects do not necessarily move to frozen positions; see Chomsky 2008). In this talk, we provide new evidence from Rioplatense Spanish that shows that these two claims are correct.2. New data: Río de la Plata Spanish has some particular properties that make it ideal for testing the multifactorial approach to subextraction from DOM objects. Concretely, this dialect has an extended accusative doubling system. Both third person indefinite and definite lexical DPs can be doubled by an accusative clitic (Suñer 1988, Zdrojewski 2008, among many others):(3)a. Juan (los) vio a tres vecinos míos. Indefinite doubling J. (CL.acc)sawDOMthreeneighborsmine?Juan saw three neighbors of mine.?b. Juan(la) vio a la vecina. Definite doubling J.(CL.acc)sawDOMtheneighbors?John saw the neighbor (female).?Saab & Zdrojewski (2012) also shows that contrastively focused objects can be doubled:(4)A MARÍA(la) vi, (noa ANA)DOMM.(Cl.fem.acc)sawnottoA.?Juan saw MARÍA, not ANA.?Yet, subextraction from doubled DPs is clearly disfavored in each of these environments. (5)Dequé división (*?los) desaprobaron a tres estudiantes?ofwhichclass(Cl.pl.acc)failedDOMthree students(6)De la división de JUAN (??los) desaprobarona oftheclass of J.(Cl.pl.acc)failedDOMtresestudiantes.Threestudents(7)a. ?De qué partidovan a sancionaratodosloscandidatos? ofwhichpartywill-sanctionDOMallthecandidatesb. *?De qué partidolosvan a sancionaratodosofwhichpartyCL.pl.accwill-sanctionDOMalllos candidatos?thecandidates3. Analysis: This set of contrasts receives a straightforward explanation if clitic doubling is the surface reflex of a movement underlying structure in which the DOM object vacates its base position, an idea in consonance with several approaches to clitic doubling in Spanish and other languages. In this respect, we contend that this entire set of facts follows from the Freezing Principle, even if the movements in each case have different motivations (A vs A?, a point to be elaborated during the talk). An alternative for (5) and (6) could make enter into the picture also the Specificity Condition, as it has been claimed that there is a close connection between doubling and specificity (Suñer 1988). However, we conjecture that at least in the case of DOM subextraction, specificity is a side effect of freezing (i.e., movement of the object, see Mahajan 1992). However, the Specificity Condition, we argue, does play a role in the pair in (7), where both sentences are degraded. Thus, our findings point out to the conclusion that DOM is not necessarily connected to specificity. If this were the case, even the non-doubled DOM objects in (5) and (6) would be deviant. That DOM is not connected to specificity is corroborated in Río de la Plata and Southern Peninsular Spanish by the fact that DOM is perfectly grammatical with subjunctive relative modifiers:(8)Juan quierea alguien quehable inglés. J.wantsDOMsomeonethatspeaks.subjEnglishIn summary, Rioplatense Spanish provides new evidence for the hypothesis that there is no ban for extraction from DOM objects per se; islandhood is the surface reflex of independent conditions that give rise to different degrees of grammaticality effects. Selected References: Chomsky, N. 2008. On phases. In Robert Freidin, Carlos Peregrín Otero & María Luisa Zubizarreta (eds.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory. Essays in honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press:134?166. Gallego, Á. & J. Uriagereka. 2007. Conditions on sub-extraction. In Luis Eguren and Olga Fernández-Soriano (eds.), Coreference, Modality, and Focus. 45?70. Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins. Haegeman, L., Á. L. Jiménez-Fernández & A. Radford. 2014. Deconstructing the Subject Condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation. The Linguistic Review 31(1): 73?150. Mahajan, A. 1992. The Specificity Condition and the CED. Linguistic Inquiry 23(3): 510-516. Ormazabal, J. & J. Romero. 2013. Differential object marking, case and agreement, Borealis 2 (2): 221-239. Saab, Andrés & P. Zdrojewski. 2012. Anti-repair effects under ellipsis: diagnosing (post)-syntactic clitics in Spanish. In Lusini S., I. Franco & A. Saab (eds.) Romance language and linguistic theory 2010. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 177-202. Suñer, M. 1988. The Role of Agreement in Clitic Doubled Constructions. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 6: 391-434.