Verb Movement and the Syntax of Kashmiri (review)

Research on verb-second (V2) phenomena has largely focused on European languages, in particular the Germanic languages but also the older Romance and the Celtic languages. Bhatt’s analysis of Kashmiri, an Indo-Aryan V2 language, uncovers a wealth of data and offers a new perspective.

Ch. 1 (1–21) outlines the book’s empirical scope and framework, a version of the principles-and-parameters theory. Ch. 2 (22–42) sketches Kashmiri sociolinguistics, history, and some aspects of its morphosyntax and syntax. In Ch. 3, ‘Configurationality and phrase structure’ (43–79), B argues that Kashmiri is not nonconfigurational and that, while lexical projections are head-final, functional projections are head-initial. He shows that finite complement clauses introduced by ki always occur after the verb.

In Ch. 4, ‘Verb-second phenomena’ (80–130), B argues that preverbal constituents other than subjects or adverbs receive a focus interpretation and must be stressed. Subordinate ki-clauses show the same V2 effects as main clauses. V3 order is possible in declaratives containing left-dislocated constituents and in unmarked constituent questions, where a topic phrase precedes the question word. As in other V2 languages, V1 orders can be found in topic-drop contexts, imperatives, and yes/no-questions. Adverbial, relative, and nonfinite clauses are V-final.

In Ch. 5, ‘Motivating verb movement’ (131–68), B argues that Comp encodes marking for mood and subordination and is not a unified category (related work on the structure of CP by Luigi Rizzi and others is not discussed). He assumes that ‘mood marking is required universally in all clauses’ (154). B proposes that in Kashmiri verb movement to the head of M(ood)P serves this purpose, but he does not deal with mood marking in a language like English. He argues that because the subordinator ki heads a projection above, or is adjoined to, MP (158 vs. 161), the V2 order of ki-clauses follows.

Ch. 6, ‘Subject position, object positions, and case’ (169–255), develops an eclectic theoretical apparatus to account for the distribution of arguments in many different constructions. For example, specific nominative objects move to Spec-AgrP to check case ‘and then move up to the adjoined AgrP position to check the specificity feature’ (185); accusative case is assigned to an unmoved object under c-command by V as ‘Last Resort’ (224) before it covertly moves to the specifier of a VP-internal AspP (230f). Ch. 7 is a brief ‘Epilogue’ (256–63).

While the choice of footnotes over endnotes, and helpful indices for languages, names, and subjects (279–91) is commendable, on the whole the editing is terrible. Typographical errors and inconsistencies in the discussion are numerous, and unfortunately this also appears to apply to the examples. To illustrate, the bibliographical entry of a paper by Robert Freidin and Rex Sprouse contains two spellings of the first author’s surname, ‘Frieden’ [sic] and ‘Freiden’ [sic]; on p.172 Kashmiri kar is glossed as ‘did’ in example (3a) while it is (incorrectly) glossed as ‘ate’ in (3b); on p.144 the author refers to ‘the facts of Korean discussed at the outset’, but Korean is not discussed until p.152. Such flaws are out of place in an expensive volume by a major publisher.