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  • Unaccusativity and the VP node in Cayuga
  • Michael Barrie

1. Introduction

In this squib, I discuss the iterative marker in Cayuga (Northern Iroquoian) and how it helps us to understand VP structure and unaccusativity in that language. This discussion bears directly on the issue of configurationality and clausal structure (Hale 1983, Jelinek 1984, Baker 1996, Legate 2002). A fundamental question about discourse-configurational languages1 is whether they have a distinct VP node or a flat structure. I show that the iterative marker takes scope over objects but not over subjects, supporting the notion that a distinct VP node is present in this language. Furthermore, I show that the iterative marker also takes scope over the subjects of unaccusatives, thus distinguishing unaccusatives from unergatives.

Discourse-configurational languages have the appearance of free word order (see fn. 1), leading Hale (1983) to posit the flat sentence structure in (1a) as opposed to the articulated structure in (1b), with a distinct VP node. The lack of subject–object asymmetries such as weak crossover and coreference effects between subject and object led Baker (1991) to a similar proposal (although Baker did assume a distinct VP node).

  1. (1).

[End Page 235]

Since Hale’s proposal, mounting evidence has been adduced to suggest that discourse-configurational languages have the same kind of articulated structure as more familiar languages. In particular, Baker (1991) has demonstrated that certain subject–object asymmetries do appear in Mohawk (closely related to Cayuga), but manifest in ways different from those observed in languages like English. Notably, noun incorporation targets the object position, not the subject position. This squib introduces data from the iterative marker in Cayuga, which also exhibits a subject–object asymmetry.

The core property of the iterative marker that informs the current analysis is the fact that it can take scope over the object but not the subject. Consider the examples in (2).2

  1. (2).

    1. a. John s-a-há-hya-k-ø         swahó:wa?

      John iter-fact-3.sg.masc.ag-fruit-eat-punc apple

      ‘John ate an apple again.’ [a different apple]         iter > apple

    2. b. s-ha-hsdá:h-a?     owí:ya?

      iter-3.sg.masc.ag-cry-hab baby

      ‘A baby is crying again.’ [same baby]         baby > iter

The most natural interpretation of (2a) involves a narrow scope reading of the indefinite object. That is, what John did again is eat an apple. In (2b), however, the subject cannot be understood as taking scope under the iterative marker. That is, this sentence cannot have the meaning in which what happened again is that a baby cried. It can only mean what the baby did again was cry. I show below that the single argument of an unaccusative predicate, like the object of a transitive, can take scope under the iterative marker. These facts clearly suggest that the articulated structure in (1b) is called for.

The remainder of this squib is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the background of this study. Section 3 contains brief comments on the methodology. Section 4 presents the properties of the iterative marker in Cayuga. Section 5 presents the discussion on unaccusativity and VP structure. Section 6 is a brief conclusion.

2. Background

Cayuga is a Northern Iroquoian language spoken in southern Ontario by fewer than one hundred people. Like other discourse-configurational languages, Cayuga, and Northern Iroquoian in general, fail to show many of the traditional subject–object asymmetries (see Baker 1991 for Mohawk). This putative lack of such asymmetries suggests a flat sentence structure in Northern Iroquoian languages (in the sense of [End Page 236] Hale 1983). This flat structure was challenged by Baker (1988, 1996) on the basis of noun incorporation, where he showed that only objects, but not subjects, can incorporate (see also Rice 1991).

Unaccusativity can be defined as the tendency for the single argument of an intransitive verb to behave as an internal argument rather than as an external argument. This property was famously illustrated for Italian with ne-cliticization (Perlmutter 1978). Unaccusative verbs typically indicate change of state (break, melt, etc.) or movement (come, go, etc.), although there is cross-linguistic variation in the exact set of unaccusative verbs. Unergative verbs typically indicate...

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