Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-fnpn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-25T06:06:19.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inflected Infinitives Revisited: Genericity and Single Event

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Manuela Ambar
Manuela Ambar*
Affiliation:
Universidade de Lisboa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues for a minimalist approach to the variation between Romance languages with respect to the generic interpretation associated with infinitival complements of epistemic verbs. It is proposed that epistemic verbs have inherent temporal features and that they assign a tense feature to their complement. These features are checked under a Spec-head relation through two temporal projections, related either to the object position or the subject position. The variation observed between Portuguese and French, Italian and Spanish with respect to the event interpretation of infinitives is formulated in terms of the strong/weak status of the [+specific] feature of Tense. The difference in the temporal interpretation of the inflected infinitives with respect to the presence or absence of the have + past participle sequence is derived from the hypothesis that the tense of the participle raises to the TP projection that c-commands it when it is morphologically invisible, the indicative present being visible in Portuguese, but not in the other languages.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article propose une approche minimaliste à la variation entre langues romanes en ce qui concerne l’interprétation générique associée aux compléments infinitifs des verbes épistémiques. Il y est proposé que les verbes épistémiques ont des traits temporels inhérents et qu’ils assignent un trait de temps à leur complément. Ces traits sont vérifiés sous la relation spécifieur-tête via deux projections temporelles, l’une reliée à la position objet et l’autre à la position sujet. La variation entre le portugais et le français, l’italien et l’espagnol en ce qui a trait à l’interprétation événementielle des infinitives est formulée en termes de force/faiblesse du trait [+spécifique] de la catégorie Temps. La différence d’interprétation temporelle observée dans les infinitives fléchies eu égard à la présence vs. l’absence du complexe avoir + participe passé est dérivée de l’hypothèse que le temps du participe monte à la projection TP qui le c-commande lorsqu’il n’est pas visible morphologiquement, le présent indicatif étant visible en portugais, mais pas dans les autres langues considérées.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 43 , Special Issue 01 1: Grammaire et variation , March 1998 , pp. 5 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambar, Manuela. 1988. Para uma sintaxe da inversão sujeito verbo em Português. Doctoral dissertation, Universidade de Lisboa. [Published by Colibri, Edicoes, Lisboa, 1992.]Google Scholar
Ambar, Manuela. 1992. Temps et structure de la phrase en portugais. In Structure de la phrase et théorie du liage, ed. Obenauer, Hans-Georg and Zribi-Hertz, Anne, 29–49. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.Google Scholar
Ambar, Manuela. 1993. Aux-to-Comp and lexical restrictions on verb movement. In Paths towards Universal Grammar: Studies in honour of Richard Kayne, ed. Cinque, Guglielmo, Koster, Jan, Pollock, Jean-Yves, Rizzi, Luigi, and Zanuttini, Raffaella. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Ambar, Manuela. 1994. The tense of past participles. Paper presented at Langues et Grammaire I, Université de Paris 8.Google Scholar
Ambar, Manuela. 1996a. Participles vs. infinitives. Paper presented at the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages 1996, University of Mexico.Google Scholar
Ambar, Manuela. 1996b. Aspects of focus in Portuguese. Paper presented at the International Workshop on the Grammar of Focus, Paris.Google Scholar
Belletti, Adriana. 1981. Frasi ridotte absolute. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 6:3–32.Google Scholar
Belletti, Adriana. 1990. Generalized verb movement. Torino: Rosenberg and Sellier.Google Scholar
Belletti, Adriana. 1993. Case checking and clitic placement. GenGenP 1(2). Université de Genève.Google Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan D. 1992. Nominally absolutive is not absolutely nominative. In The Proceedings of the Eleventh West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. Mead, Jonathan. CSLI, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1992. A minimalist program for linguistic theory. Ms., Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Déchaine, Rose-Marie, Hoekstra, Teun, and Rooryck, Johann. 1994. Augmented and non-augmented HAVE. Ms., University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Di Sciullo, Anne-Marie. 1996. Romance verbs and variation. Paper presented at the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages 1996, University of Mexico.Google Scholar
Duarte, Inês, and Matos, Gabriela. 1995. Clitics in the minimalist program. Ms., Universidade de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Enç, Murvet. 1991. The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22:1–26.Google Scholar
Friedemann, Marc-Ariel, and Siloni, Tal. 1997. Agrobject is not Agrparticiple. The Linguistic Review 14:69–96.Google Scholar
Giorgi, Alessandra, and Pianesi, Fabio. 1992. For a syntax of tense. Ms., University of Catania and IRST, Povo (Trento).Google Scholar
Guéron, Jacqueline, and Hoekstra, Teun. 1988. T-chains and the constituent structure of auxiliaries. Constituent structure: Papers from the 1987 Glow Conference. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene. 1982. The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Hernanz, Maria Lluisa. 1991. Spanish absolute constructions and aspect. Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics. Barcelona: UAB.Google Scholar
Higginbotham, James. 1985. On semantics. Linguistic Inquiry 16:547–593.Google Scholar
Jakubowicz, Celia. 1985. Do binding principles apply to Infl? In Proceedings of NELS 15, ed. Berman, Stephen, Choe, Jae-Woong, and McDonough, Joyce, 188–206. GLSA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard S. 1975. French syntax: The transformational cycle. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard S. 1989. Facets of Romance past participle agreement. In Dialect variation and the theory of grammar, ed. Benincà, Paola, 85–103. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard S. 1993. Toward a modular theory of auxiliary selection. Studia Linguistica 47:3–31.Google Scholar
Kampers-Mahne, Brigitte. 1992. The French subjunctive and the ECP. In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. Bok-Bennema, Reineke and van Hout, Roeland. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Laka, Itziar. 1990. Negation in syntax: On the nature of functional categories and projections. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Laka, Itziar. 1993. Unergatives that assign ergative, unaccusatives that assign accusative. In MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers on case and agreement I, ed. Bobaljik, Jonathan D. and Philips, Collin, 149–172. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT.Google Scholar
Martins, Ana Maria. 1994. Clíticos na história do Português. Doctoral dissertation, Universidade de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Meireles, J. and Raposo, Eduardo. 1983. Subjunctives and disjoint reference in Portuguese: Some implications for the binding theory. Ms., Universidade de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Miguel, Elena de. 1992. El aspecto en la sintaxis del español: Perfectividad e impersonalidad. Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.Google Scholar
Peres, João. 1993. Towards an integrated view of the expression of time in Portuguese. In Cademos de Semantica. Universidade de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, David. 1976. Evidence for subject downgrading in Portuguese. In Readings in Portuguese linguistics, ed. Schmidt-Radefeldt, J., 93–138. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1989. Verb movement, universal grammar and the structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20:365–424.Google Scholar
Raposo, Eduardo. 1985. Some asymmetries in the binding theory in Romance. The Linguistic Review 5:75–110.Google Scholar
Raposo, Eduardo. 1987. Case theory and Infl-to-Comp: The inflected infinitive. Linguistic Inquiry 18:85–109.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Rouveret, Alain. 1988. Temps et cliticisation en portugais. Ms., Université de Paris 8.Google Scholar
Rouveret, Alain. 1992. Clitics, morphological checking and the Wachernagel position in European Portuguese. Ms., Université de Paris 8.Google Scholar
Uriagereka, Juan. 1992. An F position in Western Romance. Ms., University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Zanuttini, Raffaella. 1994. Re-examining negative clauses. In Paths towards Universal Grammar: Studies in honour of Richard Kayne, ed. Cinque, Guglielmo, Koster, Jan, Pollock, Jean-Yves, Rizzi, Luigi, and Zanuttini, Raffaella. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar