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6. The Structure of Camouflage DPs
- The MIT Press
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6 The Structure of Camouflage DPs 6.1 Imposters and Camouflage DPs The sort of duality shown in previous chapters to be manifested by imposters is also found in a distinct class of expressions we have called camouflage constructions in earlier work (Collins, Moody, and Postal 2008). These also arguably display a ϕ-feature value mismatch between a core pronominal and a shell parallel to that characteristic of imposters. In many cases, the mismatch shows up in the possibility of pronominals manifesting alternative ϕ-feature values under agreement with the DPs at issue. While this book focuses on imposters, at least an elementary account of camouflage DPs is warranted to show that the assumptions claimed to account for the duality of imposters have significant analogs in the analysis of camouflage DPs. Without this account, the parallelisms between the two constructions, which we document at multiple points below, would be mysterious. Moreover, these parallelisms offer some justification for a key controversial aspect of our view of imposters: the claim that their structure contains a covert pronominal. In the camouflage cases, the analogous pronominal is overt, so the overall parallelisms between imposters and camouflage cases support the idea of a covert pronominal in the case of imposters. One type of camouflage case, exemplified in (1), has been investigated in detail by Collins, Moody, and Postal (2008). (1) a. His ass ain’ going nowhere. ‘He is not going anywhere.’ b. Your ass in trouble. ‘You are in trouble.’ Collins, Moody, and Postal (2008), specifically investigating the African American English (AAE) version of this construction, call it the asscamouflage construction (ACC). Many other dialects of American English, 72 Chapter 6 especially those representing the informal speech of younger people, also admit the ACC. The word ass and others with similar functional behavior in the ACC, such as behind and butt, are called masks in Collins, Moody, and Postal 2008. Here, this term will be generalized to the analogs in other camouflage phrase types. Collins, Moody, and Postal take masks to be grammaticalized, semantically vacuous , light nouns. Given this bundle of characteristics, the denotational properties of the ACC are those of the possessor, yielding equivalent pairs like (2a,b). (2) a. They gon arrest you. b. They gon arrest your ass. Another English camouflage structure is illustrated in (3). (3) Your Excellency/Highness/Holiness/Honor/Ladyship/ Lordship/Majesty/Reverence We refer to this type as the social hierarchy camouflage construction (SHCC). In the SHCC, the masks are terms denoting high-ranking social, political, or religious positions. In contrast to ACC masks, SHCC masks lend some nonrestrictive substance, as, for example, Your Holiness is obviously not equivalent to Your Honor. But like the ACC, the SHCC manifests a possessor determining the denotational properties of the whole DP, and an outer shell DP determining the form of subject-verb agreement. The latter is illustrated for the ACC in (4) (see Collins, Moody, and Postal 2008, 43) and for the SHCC in (5). (4) a. I am dreaming. b. *My ass am dreaming. c. My ass is dreaming. (5) a. You are/*is certain to be criticized. b. Your Honor is/*are certain to be criticized. c. Your Excellency needs/*need to take better care of himself. Tricia Irwin (personal communication) notes the existence of a distinct instance of English camouflage in which expressions like Her Grumpiness, Her Snootiness (and more generally her X-ness, where X is an adjective) denote humans and not abstract properties. It is illustrated in (6). (6) a. How is Her Grumpiness this morning? b. How is she this morning? In the usage in question, (6a) does not query a person’s degree of grumpiness. Rather, it takes the person denoted to have a grumpy character or to have just [44.213.80.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 06:09 GMT) The Structure of Camouflage DPs 73 manifested grumpiness and asks how that person is in general, rendering (6a) on the relevant reading a paraphrase of (6b). This construction, hereafter the nominalized adjective camouflage construction (NACC) may be linked to younger speakers, although the author of (7a) is not young. (Thanks to Tricia Irwin for pointing out (7b).) (7) a. Norway has a king? How could Barack know? How do you address him? “Your blondeness?” (urgentagenda.com/) b. Well, your Grouchiness, what are you gonna do now? (www.fanfiction.net/s/5616656/1/The_Legendary_Saga_Plumber_ Meets_Hedgehog) c. Of course he spoke the most passionately about ‘the politics of Washington,’ by which he means criticism of...