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Werner Abraham
The base structure of the German clause under discourse functional weight:
Contentful functional categories vs. derivative functional categories
'[...] if you want to be meaner than everybody else without dying young,
you have to be smarter than everybody else.'
Tony Hillerman A Thief of Time
Abstract
The present paper pursues the question whether the 'derivational' functional categories and other alleged universal restrictions, as posited in the most recent stages of the theory of modern syntax (of the Chomsky an/Kay nian
type, but not necessarily of Chomsky 1995 himself!), can be retained under close investigation in a number of
languages, among which foremost German and Icelandic. It will be held that not only is there no need for such
'derivational' functional categories for the purposes of licensing and assigning nominal case and verbal agreement
with the subject, but, rather, that such an assumption would be wrong given the impact of discourse-functional
properties also to be accounted for. For this domain of the argument, pronominals and their threefold distinction
as well as their category-inherent discourse weight of themas will be adduced and investigated in some detail.
All this has a lot to do with the following alternative: Is the movement of the verb triggered for purposes of licensing and assigning nominal case and verbal agreement with the subject (thus, grammatically necessary 'derivative movement')? Or does such movement have a universal status, or can it be abandoned, as an automatic derivational mechanism, at least for certain languages? It will be shown that under the force of the standard argument, i.e. that rich morphology triggers overt movement of the verb, facts of linear ordering due to clause type
in languages such as German take this theoretical argument to the absurd.
Under a more general and methodological denominator, the discussion centers around the question whether
arguments of a conceptual sort pertaining to the all-integrity of the theoretical structure should be given priority
over empirical insights and hard linguistic facts. Both editors of the present collection of essays take a clear position in favour of the latter criterion - albeit with an identically firm position vis-ä-vis systematic formal syntax
(and semantics) and its methods of evaluating distributional facts, as developed in the past 30 years: i.e. that today's linguists cannot fall back behind horizons reached in the discussion of empirically sound distributional facts
and that Ockham's Razor Principle be heeded. By the same methodological token, it is believed, as the discussion will demonstrate, that many positions reached nowadays have been retained uncontested without sufficient
empirical and methodical legitimacy and that, under a Popperian view, one or more (but as few as appear necessary) steps back in the development of the theory need to be taken.
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1 V-movement under the 'derivational' mechanism licensing case and
agreement
Under one of the central assumptions in the Minimalist framework (cf. Chomsky 1995, Abraham et al. (eds) 1996), the derivational movement of the clausal predicate, v, is forced under
the mechanism of case and agreement licensing, v, in this terminology, must raise from its
base position in VP to be licensed and assigned the required inflection for person and number
under Agrs and further under C. Any structural case-bearing nominal (subject as well as object) is likewise seen to raise to the functional domain specified by AgrSP, AgrDOP and AgrlOP
(see Vanden Wyngaerd 1995, 1996). Non-structural case, so it appears, or the distinction of
structural and inherent case, play no role any longer (which they still did in the framework
of Government and Binding, Chomsky 1981).
The first section of this contribution will address the first of the two mechanisms, i.e. vmovement to license subject agreement on the verb. One of the fundamental assumptions is
that, provided a language has strong features for agreement inflection, it will feature overt
movement of v to Agrs and further on to C.1 The hidden premiss for this assumption is that
the inflection on Agrs and s is no less apparent than in the base position of V within VP. In
what follows, I shall demonstrate that this premiss is not warranted in two concrete cases: in
imperatives; and with conjunction inflection. The conclusion will be, logically enough within
the array of Minimalist premisses, that a language like German cannot be subject to the overt
obeisance of the Minimalist systematics. Since the inversion of the strength parameter for inflection features (strong features force movement only at LF, while weak ones entail movement at both levels, counter to current assumptions) would lead to a severe undermining of
the whole Minimalist setup, there remains only the conclusion that German (and, plausibly,
also Dutch and Frisian) does not feature any v-movement for agreement at all.2
Take agreement inflection in German, which distinguishes throughout all tenses and modi
between 4 person endings (out of a possible 6) and two numbers: -e, -(e)st, -(e)t; -en, -(e)t,
and -en (1st to 3rd, singular to plural); not much different in the past and other modi than the
indicative modus. However, under movement of v to C or Agrs, as in the case of the imperatival v in topical position, the inflection reduces not only to the two second persons (2nd
This, in fact, is not Chomsky's position in Chomsky (1995). Nevertheless, it has become the standard
assumption in most work done in the aftermath of Chomsky's Minimalist framework. See also Chomsky
(1993) as well as Abraham/Epstein/Thräinsson/Zwart (eds. 1996, introduction).
This is independent from the fact that, for more general methodological reasons, I decry the assumption
that covert v-movement takes place at LF to satisfy licensing prerequisites. See the introduction.
Functional Nodes for German ?
171
sing./pi.), but gets further reduced to a minimal 01-e (unlike the indicative final form -(e)st;
cf. above!) and -(e)t (identical to the finite form; cf. above). The history of German confirms
that never in the diachronical path did German ever provide a fuller form than the reduced
one under v-topicalization (although up to Middle High German, the distinction of inflective
forms was even a sixfold one, distinguishing without exception each of the bound grammatical
morphemes for person and number). Notice that the second plural has shown formal identity
all along lending the non-identity of the singular form an even weightier argumental status.
The ancient languages Greek and Latin, richer yet in inflective morphology, confirm this picture.
The second case involves what is called 'conjunction inflection' in the grammatical traditional terminology. German dialects (Bavarian, Austrian) would invariably inflect the embedding (subordinate) c-lexeme for verbal person and number morphology (cf. Bayer 1983/84
as the first linguist to introduce this phenomenon into the theoretical linguistic discussion).
In Minimalist terms this means that there is head-chain formation between v in clause final
position (strict v-last in embedded clauses, likewise in Dutch, Flemish, (partly) Yiddish, and
Frisian, where c is occupied by a category other than finite v! Cf. Den Besten 1983). The
following examples demonstrate the pervasiveness of this phenomenon in several types of
embeddings (from Abraham 1995: 590f.). See the copies of the verbal suffixes on the
embedding c below.
(1) a wenn-st pro/'du kumm-st
2ND SG.
if-2ND-SG pro/you come-2ND-SG
b wenn-ts pro/es kumm-ts
2ND PL.
if-2ND-PL pro/you come-2ND-PL
c [Wia schnö]-st pro/du fahr-st
2ND SG.
[how fast]-2ND-SG pro/you drive-2ND-SG
d [Wia schnö]-ts pro/« fahr-ts
[how fast]-2ND-PL pro/you-dual
2ND PL.
drive-2ND-PL
What is to be noticed, despite this convincing reflection of verbal morphology on the embedding C, is the fact that conjunction inflection is restricted to the two second persons, singular
and plural. Except for an occasional 1st plural in Carinthian (which not a safe example), 1st
and 3rd persons are not represented among this otherwise general phenomenon. Notice that
this is counter to expectation, according to conceptual Minimalist assumptions. If v moves
to a topical position it should be 'lured' to do just that by a like, if not higher, morphological
wealth. The contrary, however, is the case.
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The conclusion is inevitable, under this scenario, that, if inflection-rich languages such
as German reduce the verbal finite morphology in CP (and/or AgrSP), German has no movement of v in the first place. In the next two sections, the same conclusion will be reached for
movement of case bearing nominals.3
2 To which extent are 'derivational' functional categories superfluous:
arguments and goals
In recent discussions based on Chomsky's Minimalist program (Chomsky 1993) it has been
held occasionally that agreement as a common property of the inflectional system need not
be represented invariably for the description across languages, see van Gelderen (1993; to
appear) and Thräinsson (1996). Thus, while for Chomsky languages are claimed to differ not
with respect to the set of functional categories they have but with respect to the point in
which features are assigned or checked (e.g. before or after spell-out in the Minimalist approach of Chomsky (1992)),4 van Gelderen as well as Thräinsson hypothesize that individual
languages can differ with respect to the particular subset of functional categories made
available by Universal Grammar in the first place. It is to be noted that what we speak about
are functional positions/categories needed for no other purpose than satisfying a purely
mechanical process, i.e. that of the assignment of case and agreement - with the further
concession that, simultaneously, the v-second positions to be reached in svo-languages are
accounted for. Our claim is that the two processes are independent of one another and that
the assignment of verbal morphology and legitimizing overt verbal positions are not to be
handled under one single derivational process. It is this 'derivational' movement that we claim
is not required in a number of languages and, therefore, should not be taken to be universal
in the first place. Note that this position leaves open the question whether or not other
Notice that scrambling involving operators and their scope under weak cross-over characterizes German
(and Dutch and West Frisian) as strongly violating c-command relations, at least in their straightforward
format, and elicits reconstruction to preserve the required semantic readings. While this would seem to have
to do with another motivation for expanding CP, above AgrSP or IP, to provide the required landing sites,
it signals also a possibility to exploit reconstructability for typological purposes of a formal sort. This
channel of research, to all appearances, has not been pursued so far.
See, however, Chomsky (1993: 09), who seems to leave open the option advocated by van Gelderen en
Thräinsson: "The structure of CP is largely forced by [...] properties of UG, assuming the minimalist
program with Agr abstracted as a common property of inflectional systems, [...]. Suppose that VP contains
only one NP. Then one of the two Agr elements will be 'active' (the other being inert or perhaps missing)."
Functional Nodes for German?
173
derivational processes presuppose movement, i.e. movement under discourse-functional
weight (THEMA vs. RHEMA). It is precisely this distinction between two fundamentally
different derivational processes that we target in this essay.5
While the two authors mentioned pursue the idea that specific functional categories can
be claimed to exist only if there is empirical evidence for the presence of that category in that
language and, in terms of an alternative, would go no further, if at all, than that case can be
checked through a Spec-head relation (as in Chomsky 1993) or also through verbal government, the present paper investigates in some detail a third possibility for German, viz. that
the assignment of morphological case does neither require functional projections such as
AGROP (AGRDOP, AGRIOP), nor that, as a consequence, the assumption of case checking
through a Spec-head relation is seen to be sufficient. This argument will be extended to the
function of the subject in the nominative case. Rather, much like it has been argued for for
Icelandic (Moorcroft 1995), morphological case can be thought of being assigned by the verb
within vp, i.e. in the positions where theta roles are assigned by the verb anyway and in the
first place. It will then have to be shown that raising to any projections outside of VP does
not render the licensing relation thought to be required for case assignment. It will be shown
that theta roles cannot in any case be sidestepped as syntactic triggers anyway and that the
distinction of old, i.e. between structural and inherent case, has no role to play in the
grammar of German in the first place. To all appearances, no special stance with respect to
the basic order of elements in German need be taken (cf. Kayne 1995, Zwart 1993) for the
purposes pursued here.
Essentially, the present argument is akin to Haider's (1993; section 3.4, 58-66). Haider
argues against simply transferring the functional category of IP from English and French onto
German. His main argument is that, if any clause, whether embedded or independent, is a
CP, with SPEC,CP hosting any clausal constituent and C as the position for the finite predicate
(see, for good empirical arguments, Vikner/Schwartz 1991), then it would remain unexplained
that I in an embedded sentence in German (and Dutch and West Frisian) does not attract the
finite verb to raise from its head-final position. In essence, Haider's argument carries over
to the split-IP assumption in the Minimalist Theory: if we take [c ... [AGRS ... [T ... [AGRO
. . . [ . . . v]]] to be the basic structure for German this can explain, at best, that the finite verb
The whole issue around the strength of morphological features seems to me ill-fated, since not decidable
on empirical grounds. See, for example, Rohrbacher (1994/96) vs. Vikner (1995). Crucially, what is
required appears to be a far stronger restricted distinction, e.g. some such position as taken by Chomsky
(1995: 277ff.), where only categorial features can be taken to be strong, with the pertinent consequences
within the Minimalist framework.
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is not raised to C (because, according to Zwart 1993, the strong features of C are already
checked due to cOMP-inflection observed in the dialects of Dutch and German). But this
leaves unexplained, and would have repercussions on the initial assumption, why the finite
verb should not find I as a landing site - which, in fact, is out on all counts in the three
continental West Germanic languages. Note that there is little plausibility to be adduced to
the fact that a functional head serves as a transit position for head-movement, but cannot host
the moved head (Haider 1993: 65).
In the present essay additional arguments will be raised. First the crucial question will
be discussed whether the distinction of structural vs. inherent case has solid empirical
motivation for German. Second, empirical material will be presented to show that it is
implausible for Icelandic to assume functional nodes outside of VP for case checking. Finally,
the mechanism will be sketched which replaces the various raising mechanisms to functional
case assigners. The central idea behind this "conservative" view is that, unless we preserve
a VP non-emptied for pure theoretical reasons, we will not be able to account for the distribution of thematic and rhematic clausal elements which (albeit under recourse to specificity and
discourse thematicity; see Abraham 1992) mimicks Heim's partition of the clausal structure
into a restrictive and a nuclear component, see Heim (1982).
2.1 The argument: interdependency between case, grammatical function and theta role
The distinction of structural and inherent case, the necessity of which is taken for granted in
modern syntax, appears to be mirrored by the distinction between raising to AGRSP and
AGROP
nodes and the accompanying checking mechanism through the [Spec, head]-relation, on the
one hand, and case assignment through government, on the other hand. From this follows it
that, given that the distinction between structural and inherent case turns out to be superfluous, the checking mechanism through raising to functional categories may turn out to be
redundant, too - no doubt supported under Minimalist assumptions.
It is a truism in the traditional and modern linguistic grammar writing of German that
passivization is triggered exclusively through agentivity of the predicate. In particular and by
contrast, transitivity as a verb-object relation plays no grammatical role. We shall come back
to this issue. Czepluch (1987, 1988) has drawn our attention again to the fact, known of old
in the tradition of German grammar writing and focussed repeatedly in Haider's modern
discussions of the grammar of German (Haider 1983 passim up to 1993), that there is a
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principled asymmetry between clausal relational functions and case realizations in German.
Czepluch took this to imply that there are two types of case: overt ones anchored in their
paradigmatic morphologies, and covert ones distinguished syntactically. In particular, there
is no case such that from its appearance, any unambiguous conclusion can be drawn as to the
clause-relational status of the case-bearing NP. In other words, accusatives just as well as datives and nominatives can acquire a number of clause relations none of which are in a one-toone relation to their case morphology. Concretely, the accusative can bear the function of the
passivizable direct object, a non-passivizable object, a time span adverbial, a place span adverbial, and, mediated by an otherwise dative governing preposition, a directional P-object.
Similarly, the nominative by far characterizes not only the subject, but also stands for a number of other clausal relations. Thus, in order to be structural as opposed to lexical, any NP
in the nominative would have to have additional characteristics beyond those of case. It is not
clear, however, what these would have to be, outside that of thematic agency, compare (2a-h)
below.
(2) a Er trägt den Strumpfbandorden Erster Klasse
he wears the-ACC order-of-the-garter first order
b Es regnet Strumpfbandorden Erster Klasse
it rains orders-ACC-of-the-garter first class
c Er findet ihn einen Lumpen
he considers him a-ACC crook
d Er springt nur ein Strumpfband (weit)
he jumps only one-ACC garter (long)
e Er springt eine Stunde (lang) Trampolin
he jumps one-ACC hour (long) trampoline-ACC
f Er schlüpft in das Strumpfband (hinein)
he slips into the-ACC garter (there into)
g Das ist ein Strumpfband
this is a garter
h Ein Strumpfbandorden behagt ihm
a order-of-the-garter pleases him
ACC of the direct object
non-direct accusative object
non-direct accusative object
ACC of place span
ACC of time span
ACC governed by both P and V
non-subject NOM within the predicate
NOM non-passivizable (non-structural?)
In principle, morphological case is to be thought of as linked to one of the theta roles
assigned by the verb in the lexicon and assigned side by side with the theta role; or, alternately, case can be thought to be assigned by the verb in the syntax to some theta role unlinked
to morphological case. The fact that, beyond empirical doubt in German, passivization
depends on the agentivity of the verb-governed subject (see Abraham 1995, ch.4) - and not
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in the least on the occurrence of some direct (accusative) object as in English -, is indication
enough that theta roles play an important, if not encompassing, structural part in the grammar
of German. Note that such a theory of morphological case assignment, which presupposes no
status of clausal relations as subject and object in the mechanism of case assignment, accounts
for the distribution of case in a simple and unified way. In what follows, section 2.1, the
issue is taken up whether grammatical functions need to be seen as correlating unambiguously
with one single morphological case in German. The second argument in 2.2 takes up the issue
that anyway morphological case is not sufficient to license any clausal relation, as indicated
above in (2a-f) and (3a,b). Third, it will be seen in 2.4 that the verb can assign nominative
case to an object in Icelandic (Moorcroft 1995). This bases the general assumption contra
functional case positions on more general grounds and solidifies conclusions drawn by
Thräinsson (1996) and van Gelderen (1993, (to appear)) by independent reasoning. Needless
to say that this type of reasoning has nothing to do with the conceptual argument raised
against positing agreement categories in Chomsky (1995).
2.2 Case and grammatical functions: necessity of the condition
Icelandic has been shown to foster subjects in any of the the four available morphological
cases (Zaenen et al. 1985). The same holds for direct objects which may turn up as nominatives. Subjects, while not exclusively in the nominative, are characterized by their ability to
occupy some exclusive subject slot. The same holds for nominative objects, which need to
satisfy their syntax by checking their object status in a position preempted for the object in
question. So far, this has forced the conclusion among linguists that the nominative does
correlate in a significant way with the finiteness or tense of the clausal predicate. However,
in German this is far from obvious since non-finite verbals may take nominatives as well, see
(3) below.
(3) Ha, der Werner einen Strumpfbandorden kriegen, daß ich nicht lache!
Ha, the-NOM Werner to merit-iNFiNiTiVAL an order-ACC of the garter - this makes me laugh!
Note that, under the envisioned VP-internality of all arguments of the predicate, agreement
on the verb need not be 'checked' on any functional category outside of VP. Rather, assigned
in the lexicon all along, all it needs to do for the syntax is to find itself a subject, as in the
typical SPEC,VP position. As to more general as well as conceptual arguments in favor of
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nominative case in German without recourse to clausal relations, and, consequently, anything
such as AGRSP, see Reis (1982). Notice also that this step leads directly to abandoning the
status of 'subject' as an autonomous, non-derived syntactic category. Indirect objects,
furthermore, can appear either in the accusative or the (traditionally canonic) dative. Notice
that this renders absolutely indecisive whether AGROP or AGRIOP would have to be appealed
to for licensing the indirect object dative or the direct object accusative.
2.3 The distinction between structural case and inherent case
Minimalism provides two paths to assign case: via lexical government through the governing
predicate (as the Spec-head transfer of case features) as well as through raising to one of the
functional case-checking nodes outside of vp. Dismissing as unnecessary (under the viewpoint
of an optimally economical grammar) functional categories for case assignment and verbal
agreement outside of vp (more precisely, for the checking procedure of lexically assigned
case feature, which needs to be eliminated before spell-out, according to the basic idea of
Minimalism; cf. Chomsky 1993; see also Zwart 1993) suspends the force of the conclusion
that the special status of structural case (as opposed to inherent case) be represented in terms
of functional categories. It is held here, to the contrary, that no special distinction for casebearing verbal arguments is made.6 While no exhaustive discussion is intended here, let us
take up the conditions of passivization. It has been a standing argument that only the NP bearing structural case can undergo thematic absorption. See, among others, Baker, Johnson and
Roberts (1989). To the extent that this holds true empirically nothing special needs to be said
about passivization under the denominator of Minimalism. Notice, however, that given the
profound differences between German and English passivization it appears premature, to say
the least, to assume a grammatical mechanism for passivization in German identical to that
in English. German passivization is triggered exclusively by the agenthood of the lexicallydesignated external argument position, while in English a position of direct object (or, more
precisely, an NP under sisterhood to v) is required. Since Modern English, which is devoid
of any paradigmatically aligned nominal case, can hardly be said to require a functional node
in the visible representation to check the 'nominative', the other function to be checked
outside vp on good empirical grounds appears to be that of DEFINITENESS (irrespective of the
I leave open the question whether or not this requires functional categories in the level of LF, as has been
argued for verbal agreement in English.
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Werner Abraham
subject or other topicalized clausal constituents), cf. Jonas (1995). Notice that such an
assumption is empirically well-founded (on grounds of clitic movement as well as linear
restrictions extended between specific (definite) and non-specific (indefinite) NPS. See already
Heim (1982), Abraham (1992), and Diesing (1992). The passive mechanism in German (and
a number of other languages including Latin and Ancient Greek), then, does not need to
presuppose more than the absorption of nominative case, with the possibility of an unabsorbed
'direct' accusative object maintained. The SPEC,vp (subject) position may remain empty.
Notice that the position taken here is just a step wide of Thräinsson (1996), van Gelderen
(1993) or, even more radically so, Sola (to appear). First, take the course set out by Thräinsson and van Gelderen to the extent that, under adherence of the Strict Lexical Hypothesis that
underlies the motivation of functional case-checking nodes under Minimalism, functional
nodes meant to safeguard case will be represented only if there is a full-fledged case paradigm
in the language under inspection. This would qualify German as a language with functional
nodes. The next step will take us to check whether there is any good empirical argument in
favour of the structural vs. lexical distinction of case types. If this leads to no good argument
in favour of this distinction, there is then a good reason for dismissing functional nodes to
do this job. All that remains, then, is case assignment by verbal government. This appears
to be a good policy to pursue under the overall economy strategy outlined in Chomsky
(1993). Notice that further arguments displayed in what follows are in support of this line of
argument: passivization and middle formation of German agentive intransitives (ungrammatical in English under any count; for middle formation see Abraham 1995); clitic climbing;
German intransitives without any nominative (or subject). Let us just briefly exploit the data
on clitic climbing in German.
2.4 Clitic climbing: to which functional end?
To which functional node?Pronominal clitics 'climb' because they need to move into the
discourse functional area of the THEMA. Pronominals other than the weak ones (among which
the clitics), on the other hand, remain in situ, i.e. within vp, where they are 'assigned' their
thematic roles and, according to our assumptions, also their case under verbal government
and the Spec-head mechanics, see (4) below for illustration of these distributional characteristics, [angled brackets for optional positions].
(4)a
179
Es läuft sich < *oft > diesen Schuh < oft > schnell ab
EXPL runs REFL this-ACC shoe quickly off often
'This shoe often wears off quickly'
b *Es läuft diesen Schuh sich oft schnell ab
c Es läuft-n/ihn sich oft schnell ab
EXPL runs it-ACC REFL often quickly off
d
e
f
g
'It often wears off quickly'
Es läuft sich oft-n/ihn schnell ab
Auf dem extremen Rauhasphalt lief-s/es sich gestern Schuhe schnell ab
on this roughly tarred road ran EXPL REFL shoes-ACC quickly off yesterday
Auf dem extremen Rauhasphalt lief Schuhe sich-s/es gestern schnell ab
Auf dem extremen Rauhasphalt lief Schuhe gestern-s/es sich schnell ab
The middle reflexive, sich, represents no case. It has been assumed that, under the absorption
thesis developed by Baker, Johnson and Roberts (1989), it has absorbed the agent role
(Abraham 1995). Notice that, if the clitic in (4b) were assumed to occupy the SPEC,AGROP
position, the assumption that caseless sich is an affix of v loses its plausibility. Moreover,
comparison of (4a) and (4c) forces the conclusion that the rhematic bare plural object
accusative, Schuhe, is assigned inside VP. This, in turn, forces the conclusion that the
accusative of the clitic pronominals in (4b) are not assigned through movement into a casechecking functional node. Rather, they had to move there because of the need to signal their
categorially inherent discourse-thematic status (in a similar vein, Uriagereka 1995).
2.5
Licensing morphological case: sufficiency of the condition
See the examples in (5) below.
(5) a Mir graut davor (, dies zulassen zu müssen)
I gruel (to have to admit)
b Mir schwant *(, daß es keinen Strumpfbandorden mehr gibt)
I have the faint feeling (that there is no longer any order of the garter)
c Mich schaudert/ängstigt PRO dies zu erwägen/dem zu vertrauen
I shudder/I am afraid to assume this/to trust this
If we take the only NP in the examples in (5) to mark something like the logical subject, and
in the absence of any other subject and, notably, a nominative, we cannot but conclude that
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morphological case is not sufficient to license a lexical subject. Rather, what appears to be
the case is that the morphological case of non-nominative subjects is inherently assigned by
the verb. Yet, such a non-nominative (subject) licenses PRO-subjects in infinitival clauses. See
(5a,c) above. If that is the case, however, inherent morphological case can license only the
thematic role of the subject. If what Sigurosson (1992) has claimed is correct, namely that
PRO can have nominative case, then nominative case can be taken to license only the theta
role of a subject. This has been claimed before, for control infinitives, also on quite independent grounds, by Haider (1983, 1993) for German.
There is good indication that the embedding verb assigns nominative case to an object in
ECM-complements in Icelandic (compare the Latin
(NCI),
as opposed to the
'N(OMINATIVUS) C(UM) I(NFINITIVO)'
'A(CCUSATIVUS) C(UM) I(NFINITIVO)' (ACI)).
See (6a,b). Notice that
this falls in place directly without any further stipulation under the present theory of case
assignment, particularly when we also notice that ECM-complements do not appear to have
a tense projection (examples provided by Moorcroft 1995). [CONTR. INF.: control infinitival]
(6) a Peir telja mér lika pessir hilar
they believe me-DAT like these-NOM cars-NOM
'They believe me to like these cars'
b Peir segja mér leiöast Haraldur
they say me-DAT bore Harald-NOM
'They declare me to be bored by Harald'
(7) a Risarnir lofa [aö PRO étav [VP aldrei t v rikisstjórnir]
giants-the-NOM promise to eat never governments
b Risarnir lofuöu [aö PRO étay rikisstjórnirna^ [VP ekki t v tT ]]
giants-the-NOM promised to eat governments-the-ACC not
(8) a Ég tel stüdentana [Vp aldrei/sjaldan lesa baekur]
I believe students-the-ACC never/seldom read books
b *Ég tel stüdentana lesa^ [VP aldrei/sjaldan t v baekur]
I believe students-the-ACC read never/seldom books
NCI
NCI
CONTR. INF.
CONTR. INF.
ACI
ACI
Negation, just like temporal adverbials such as aldrei and sjaldan, is usually taken to be a vpadjunct; it marks the left edge of the true VP in Icelandic. While in control complements as
in (7a,b), the predicate and the object may leave the VP across such left-edge adjuncts,
according to (8a,b) this movement proves to be ungrammatical. This is accounted for in a
straightforward way if the ECM control complement does not contain TP, but does not reach
further than a bare vp without tense features (which are canonically believed to be provided
by nodes higher than vp). Whatever the place of nominative assignment, i.e. whether in TP
181
or lower, as long as it is assigned by [+ finite] Tense or Mood, the fact that (8a,b) distribute
as they do would not receive a straightforward explanation. Also, we would expect the NCI
in (6a,b) to be ungrammatical, which is counter to fact. From this it follows that the verb
assigns all morphological case, which in turn is linked to the thematic characterization
provided also by the verb exclusively.
None of the Icelandic NCI-versions in (6a,b) above have counterpart constructions in
German. What makes sense, however, and what can be shown to hold in German as well,
is the assumption built upon the Icelandic facts above, namely that tense or finiteness do not
bear on the assignment of the nominative. This can be shown along two paths of argumentation. Notice, first, that infinitivals governing subjects can be mimicked in German, albeit
under marked conditions. See (3) above as well as (9a,b) below. Second and further reaching,
it will be seen that the periphrastic perfect infinitive in German is triggered not by Tense, but
by aspect or aktionsart on the verb.
(9) a Die Riesen [niemals [Regierungen verschlungen zu haben]]: da glaube ich nichts davon!
the giants never governments eat-PAST.PART. to have: there believe I nothing there-of
b Die Riesen die Regierungen^ [niemals [tj verschlungen zu haben]]: da glaube ich nichts davon!
the giants governments-the never eat-PAST.PART. to have: there believe I nothing there-of
Notice that the assumption that these periphrastic infinitives are aspect or aktionsart is
supported by the fact that the future time periphrastic with werden is ungrammatical - werden
has proven to be something like an infallible identifier for the perfective verbal gender
(*essen zu werden 'eat to have'). That being the case there is no need to assume anything but
perfective aspect to be involved in the otherwise identical infinitival periphrastics in (9).
It is concluded from the examples in Icelandic and German that not only are finiteness
or tense not necessarily triggers for the the nominative case, but any assumption to this extent
would make the grammatical structure of case assignment unneccessarily complex.
2.6
Conclusion
It has been propounded by Haider (1983; see specifically Haider 1993: 75ff. and 142ff.)
stubbornly stemming more fashionable tides within our trade, that German case be lexically
Rögnvaldsson (1996), investigatng Old Icelandic, comes to the same conclusion on the basis of quit different empirical evidence.
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selected and/or syntactically assigned on the basis of the individual theta grid for each single
verb. What safeguards the correct input to the computational machinery are two components
of this lexical grid: the designation of the external argument; and the theta properties of the
arguments represented in this lexical representation. See Haider (1993: 106ff. et passim) for
a detailed presentation. Notice that this lexical representation provides a formal, licensing link
between the single arguments represented in the verbal grid in that the order of the gridarguments is a function of the embedding depth formalized in terms of c-command. Thus, the
order of, and the precedence between, the arguments already mirrors structural relations in
a unique and explicit way. This may suffice as an alternative to the clausal universal structure
under ideas of the Minimalist Theory.
Let us briefly see how this carries over to the empirical phenomena discussed above. The
input to passive derivation (in a non-formal sense) in German (and, as I would claim in Dutch
and West Frisian just as well) is contingent on the occurrence of agentivity of the designated
(external) argument in the lexical grid of the verb. Notice that it is not even necessary to
make an appeal to the status of argument externality, since, according to some typological
principle, any agent in a argument grid is external by implication. Unaccusatives cannot serve
as input to passivization since they lack an agent (irrespective of whether an external or only
an internal argument is provided in the verbal argument grid). Both positions of the pronominal clitics and those of weak-operator (non-specific) NPS are accounted for by the partition
of the clausal structure into a thematic and a rhematic domain (mirroring analyses in the spirit
of Heim 1982 and Diesing 1992). Whatever the denomination of the syntactic positions
between c and VP, what the illustrations in section 2.4 on material from Icelandic and
German indicates beyond doubt that these have something to do with definiteness and
specificity, or discourse functional thema, rather than the assignment of the nominative or any
object case. All arguments are generated within VP such that the designated argument is
mapped to SPEC,VP. The direct argument is mapped onto v'; no double object shell for io as
well as DO is foreseen. Rather, IOS are given the status of VP-adjuncts (Abraham 1995, ch.4).
The verb assigns nominative to the structurally highest NP in vp without inherent case, and
accusative or directional PP to the next highest (Abraham 1995, ch.4). What this mechanism
takes care of in a minor number of German cases is that, if the subject has inherent case, as
in (5a,b), the verb could in principle assign the nominative to the object. Notice that in
German we do not require a nominative to realise agreement on the finite predicate. While
we would want to say that assigning nominative to an object is an option open to Icelandic
(quirky subjects), but not to German, no provision for German can be maintained that there
183
are only structural, non-inherent, subjects. See (10 a-c) where grauen 'gruel' governs both
the dative and the accusative of the involved experiencer, compare with (9) and (3) above.
(10) a *Mir (davor) grauen: das kann ich mir nicht vorstellen!
me-DAT (there before-PP) gruel: that can I me-DAT not imagine
b Das mir grauen: das kann ich mir schon vorstellen!
that-NOM me-DAT gruel: that can I me-DAT well imagine
c [Mich davor grauen]j, das; kann ich mir schon vorstellen!
me-ACC there before-PP gruel, that can I me-DAT well imagine
Note that all that is different between (10c) and (10a) is the case in the non-finite first clause.
We conclude from this that it is neither case nor agreement features that plays the crucial role
to satisfy the Full Interpretation Principle, but rather the thematic information attached
generally to
DATIVE
as opposed to
ACCUSATIVE.
If that is so, however, we do not need
functional nodes to serve the purpose of getting the case and agreement features checked for
their appropriateness before spell-out.8
Needless to say that this case assignment mechanism provides the required case morphology without recourse to an unambiguous mapping between theta roles and morphological
cases. This is the methodological simplicity argument. If, on the other hand, we assume the
array of functional nodes above VP, and, furthermore, that nominative is assigned under
Tense (i.e. outside of VP, in TP), it has to be stipulated for Icelandic that any verb with an
inherent subject case cannot assign accusative to its object. And for German, with structural
subjects only, but in addition with subjectless verbs, this would enforce any non-nominative
to move further to TP to pick up finiteness and Tense. This is clearly not only an inelegant
solution, but it is counter to the facts of grammaticality. This is the empirical argument.
Note that the assumption that AGRO can assign nominative case to its specifier is an option
to the variant developed above, since it is the verb that determines whether
AGRS
or
AGRO
9
assign nominative case. This would maintain the functional nodes alright. However, if we
can achieve the same result without appeal to any such functional nodes this is clearly of
higher simplicity. This is probably an argument akin to the general reach-out behind chapter
four in Chomsky (1995).
Note that it is but a short step from here to reach the conclusion drawn by Groat & O'Neill (to appear) to
assume that the same phrase structure that is 'spelled out' is fed into the LF interface. See Chomsky (1993:
24) who seems to leave open this option under a strict, and extended, notion of the economy of grammar.
Notice that this is not touched by the question whether the nominative object in Icelandic is checked in
AGRSP or AGROP.
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Werner Abraham
Note that this position in no way diminishes the value of Vanden Wyngaerd's important
(but not uncontestable) finding that there are argument positions to be identified outside, i.e.
to the left of, VP (Vanden Wyngaerd 1989a,b). However, the identification of argument
positions outside of VP does not force us to postulate functional domains as the only structural
loci where case assignment has to take place. For example, if scrambling of object NPS is
identified with refocussing in terms of thema and rhema, then it is plausible that two argument positions have to be provided for each argument anyway: one for the rhematic core
clause where (according to Heim 1982 and others, among which Diesing 1992) non-specific
nominal elements have to appear, and another, contextually more restrictive one (Heim 1982)
where specific material has to surface carrying identical case. In other words, Vanden
Wyngaerd's finding about argument identifying positions outside of VP does not force one to
assume that all nominal material has to leave VP in order to get its case assignment.10 This
seems to relate directly to, and confirm, Haegeman's claim (Haegeman 1995) of a separate
functional domain for the placement of pronominal clitics in West Flemish. All of this, to all
appearances, is not only a possible variant of the IP-proposal, but need truly be seen to abide
by the principles of grammatical adequacy and economy.
3 The illicitness of 'derivational' functional categories in German: setting
and goal
Let us assume that a language provides indisputable evidence that it can do, albeit within
certain lexical limitations, without nominative subjects; then, theoretical linguistics working
with any of the conceptualizations ever since GB (Chomsky 1981) will not be able to evade
the conclusion that [Spec, AgrSP] is not necessary to host, at some point of the derivation, and
license the structural subject of that language. This holds independent of the fact that an
oblique "subject" constituent may otherwise betray subjectlike behavior. See the recent
surveys of equivalent constructions in all Germanic languages by Vikner (1995), Haeberli
(1995), or Rohrbacher (1994/1996) for such a conclusion within the Minimalist framework,
with respect to German and Icelandic. If, furthermore, scrambling between subject and object
Notice that this makes immaterial the otherwise unwelcome result that the facts about parasitic gaps
contradict Vanden Wyngaerd's conclusions about the argument status of these vp-external case-checking
positions (Vanden Wyngaerd 1989a).
185
in this same language turns out to modify the semantic (scope) structure (not that of stress or
discourse-function!) fundamentally, as Bayer (1990, 1996) has shown convincingly on a wide
number of counts, the conclusion is forced that such "scrambling" at least is not among those
movement phenomena that qualify as derivational from a clause structure providing a
structural subject position in UG-terms (much less in Minimalist terms!). The later conclusion
makes IP disfunctional, no doubt, for the purpose of licensing the subject as the structural
nominative. In Abraham (1995) it was argued that, on the basis of case relational considerations, the so-called functional categories postulated in the Minimalist framework for the licensing of both verbal subject agreement (Agrs) and NP-case (Spec,AgrSP; Spec.AgrDOP; Spec,
AgrlOP) is unnecessary. There is, furthermore, reason to assume that German does not foresee
a link between subject-verb agreement and case assignment of the subject such that any of the
postulated links between the two mechanisms and its inventory of functional identifiers is
rendered superfluous.
In the present paper this thread is taken up again and extended by considerations involving discourse-functional facts. The argument will be pursued that according to the sensical
distribution of topical and rhematic constituents in the clause (based essentially on Cinque
1995), not only are no functional nodes necessary to describe the basic structure of German,
but it will be claimed that taking the most explicit syntactic framework of Minimalism,
accounting for verbal agreement, case assignment, and the distribution of Thema and rhema
within the simple clause, functional categories lead to conceptually undesired structures as
well as empirically inadequate results.
In what follows we assume first that there is indeed something like a systematic functional
domain of categories. We then present empirical material which is to be accommodated
within this framework. What is new about this empirical material is that a fresh view is taken
on discourse-functions and clausal focus/stress and what this means for scrambling.
3.1 Modification of discourse function and refocussing
Modification of discourse function as well as refocussing can be achieved in the German
clause in two ways: either by displacement of constituents or elements thereof from other
positions in the clause (see Abraham 1993/1995); or by inherent categorial belonging, such
as weak and clitic personal pronouns. Other than the strong (stressed) personal pronouns, the
weak and clitic forms cannot occur within the direct governing domain of the verb, but have
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Werner Abraham
to occupy positions in the "functional" domain, between CP and [Spec,VP] or an adjunction
position of VP (see Abraham/Wiegel 1993, Cardinaletti 1992). See the following distributions
(with but rough derivations reflecting assumptions made in Minimalist syntax: cf. Chomsky
1995; Introduction to Abraham/Epstein/ Thräinsson/Zwart 1996). [CAPS stand for constituents
under clausal default stress; more precisely: CA = contrastive clausal accent, GA = grammatical (non-contrastive) clausal accent; see Abraham 1995, ch. 11).] Notice the distributional
shibboleth function of the VP-adverb gestern/yesterday. (11) distributes NPS, while (12)
provides the same examples with pronominals.
Categorially determined definiteness distinctions (weak and clitic pronouns):
(u)a
b
c
d
e
f
[AgrSP t s P e c Wirj[+def] [AgrS habei^ [tp tz] [Agr0P [Spec die Mädchenj [+def]]]
[VP gestern [VP tj tj GESEHEN tz]]]]]
we have the girls yesterday seen
"We saw the girls yesterday"
Wir haben gestern Mädchen[-def] gesehen
we have yesterday girls seen
Wir haben Mädchen[-def] gestern gesehen
Wir haben gestern die MÄDCHEN gesehen
we have yesterday the girls seen
Die MÄDCHEN haben wir gestern gesehen
*Die Mädchen haben wir gestern gesehen
...
GA
... GA
... CA
... CA
Weak and clitic pronouns are inherently thematic. Their position, thus, is categorially thematic. They can never occur as rhemas. See (12) below for another distinction, i.e. not an
category-inherent one, but one determined by overt clausal position.
Positional and accentual distinctions (N as well as strong pronouns):
(12)a Wir haben si e gestern gesehen
we have them yesterday seen
"We saw them yesterday"
b Wir haben gestern sie gesehen
c Wir haben gestern SIE gesehen
d SIE haben wir gestern gesehen
e *Sie haben wir gestern gesehen
... GA
... CA
... CA
Let us abstract from the question which text links exactly those sentences marked with CA
would presuppose. Let us focus on those lexical categories which are discourse-sensitive in
their own right: weak and clitic vs. strong personal pronouns as in (12) above. Notice the
187
striking parallel in (11)-(12) between the definite full NPS and the unstressed pronouns, on the
one hand, and the indefinite full NPS and the stressed (strong) pronouns, on the other. Cf.
(13) for what appear to be the correct general correlations between relative position and the
distribution of clausal focus. Obviously, the generalization reaches beyond, but includes
personal pronouns.
(13) a Lexically definite object categories bear grammatical (default) accent (GA) if outside of VP,
while they bear contrastive clausal accent (CA) if inside of VP.
b Lexically indefinite object categories, while inside of VP, are bearers of GA; placed outside of
VP, however, they are bearers of CA.
Notice that definite object-NPs correlate with complementary clausal accent and focus. Notice
further that definite full NPS share positional and stress characteristics with personal pronouns.
Cf. (14) as a summary of this.
(14)
Weak (unfocussed) personal pronouns are discourse functional themas. Strong (contrastively
focussed) personal pronouns are rhemas.
From (14) follows that there are no strong pronouns in the discourse function of themas; likewise, there are no weak pronouns in rhematic discourse function. This confirms the generalization made in (13) on a purely categorial basis. There are indisputable connections
between category-inherent properties and syntactic positions as well as focus distributions.
3.2
German clauses between CP and IP
There is a longer history to the conclusion that the clause structure in German may not be homogeneous, but, rather, changing systematically between CP and IP. While probably correct,
this conclusion has not been reached by one single strand of arguments (and maybe not even
the best arguments in each single case; cf. Travis 1984, Zwart 1993, 1996). In the present
discussion I relate to the following data and the conclusions which are trivial if drawn in the
framework of Minimalist syntax (Chomsky 1995, Abraham/Epstein/Thräinsson/Zwart (eds)
1996).
(15)a
(Es) schwinden mir die Sinne
= Mir schwinden die Sinne
it-EXPL fade-PL away me-DAT the senses
= me-DAT faint the senses
"I am fainting"
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Werner Abraham
b daß (*es) mir die Sinne schwinden
that it-EXPL me-DAT the senses fade away
(16) a *(Es) ging ihm schlecht/*(Es) regnete Bindfäden =
= Mir geht *(es) schlecht/Heute regnet *(es) Bindfäden
it-EXPL went him-DAT badly/it-EXPL rained cats and dogs = him-DAT
b daß *(es) ihm schlecht ging/daß (es) Bindfäden regnete
that EXPL him-DAT badly went/that it-EXPL cats and dogs rained
'*(xy)' means that 'xy' cannot be deleted; '(*xy)' means that 'xy' cannot occur. Assume the
minimal set of functional domains: a split IP, but no functional category beyond what is
necessary for the assignment for the subject congruency (agreement). Under conventional
Minimalist assumptions, the nominative of the subject is assigned (licensed and technically
"checked") under AgrSP (while the subject plus the finite verb raise further to Spec,CP and
C, respectively. This takes the subject expletive es in (16) into Spec,Agrsp in order to receive
its nominative case. By contrast, the expletive non-subject es in (15) has to avoid this
functional AgrSP, which is reserved for lexicals with verbal argument status. Its recipient
category has to be higher, outside of the argument chain, which is Spec,CP. TP, between
AgrSP and AgrOP, is out as a landing position for this non-argumental es.
Let us further assume on the basis of this structural sketch that the overt positional
movement of any element (by scrambling, topicalization, extraposition, hanging topics) results
in refocussing and, consequently - notice that we go strictly by the Focus Null Hypothesis,
which leaves no other option! - the asignment of contrastive phrasal accent (CA). With no
systematic observations to support this, it has to remain an open question whether this is
tenable in this generality. To weaken this expectation in some guided way one might depart
further from the assumption that non-argument positions are not amenable generally to refocussing other than true argument positions. This also leaves open the particular status of adverbials and clausal operators (where one has to account for changes as well as preserved
scope functions under movement of operator elements; see e.g. Bayer (1996) for minute observations across an array of languages). It is striking to see that (rightward) extrapositions
189
leave intact the discourse-functional status of the element extraposed irrespective of where this
movement originated.
3.3 Projection and structural-linear position of the three pronominal categories
Following Cardinaletti (1992) I distinguish three syntactic positions for personal pronominals:
those of strong ones, of weak ones, and of cliticized ones. For the distributional identification
between strong and weak ones cf. (12a-e).
(17) a Den Frühling wenn=s (= sie) doch einläuten könnten - das wäre schön!
the spring-ACC if=CL (they-NOM) PART invoke could- that would be nice
b Wenn=s=n (= sie ihn) doch einläuten könnten, den Frühling ...
if=CL-NOM=CL-ACC (they him) PART invoke could, the spring-ACC ...
c Wenn sie doch-n einläuten könnten, den Frühling!
d Wenn-n SIE doch einläuten könnten, ...
e Wenn-n doch SIE einläuten könnten, ...
f *Wenn-n doch-s einläuten könnten, ...
(17c, f) demonstrate that pronominal CLs cannot obtain a position to the right of the VPdelimiting particle doch. What is more, the position of the clitic-weak personal pronoun is
restricted to the conjunction in COMP, as opposed to the strong pronoun; see (17d, e). Strong
pronouns are always inside VP; see (12) above. They are in rhematic function, because it
carries full stress. Thus, we have to distinguish three positions for the three pronominal
categories: the VP-internal one; the COMP-clitic (cluster); and the position between the latter
two for the weak pronoun. See (17d) for the third category. Notice that clitic pronominals in
German have to cluster; i.e. they cannot be separated by a non-clusterable full nominal.
Notice further that the order within the cluster is not arbitrary: the subject always has to go
first, while the relative order between the objects is the inverse to that between the default
order of full nominal objects (Abraham 1995: 535 ff., Laenzlinger 1996: 192 ff.).
What would the structural position for weak pronouns be? The structural position of full
nouns as well as strong pronouns is inside VP, to the right of the discourse particle doch.
Their case is assigned in their base positions within VP. The weak pronouns, by contrast,
move out of VP into the functional domain for agreement, thus in AgrSP or AgrOP (see Vanden
Wyngaerd 1995, who extends this to full nominals), respectively. Weak pronouns are
specifier categories just as strong pronouns, i.e. in Spec,Agrsp or Spec,Agrop, respectively.
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Werner Abraham
Cliticized pronominals, on the other hand, are zero projections, since they are carried by
conjunctions such as wenn "if; when" in the embedded clause or by the inflected predicate
in the independent matrix clause. Viz. (18a, b).
(18) a [ cp [s c Den Frühling [c wenn=s] doch einläuten könnten - das wäre schön!]
the spring-ACC if=CL-NOM PART invoke could - that would be nice
b [ cp [s c Den Frühling [c könnten-s] doch endlich einläuten!]
the spring-ACC could=CL-NOM PART at last invoke
If pronominal CLs are constrained to attach to x°-positions (c or v, respectively) their own
projection has to be the same in accordance with a general structure preserving principle.
Since, at the same time, its categorial status is not nominal, but 'definite article', we take it
to be in D° (with the NP-complement remaining empty). Furthermore, since weak personal
pronouns share with CLs the discourse function of the THEMA, but occupy positions reserved
for full nouns otherwise, they are rated to be maximal projections, thus Spec,DP. By
contrast, the rhematic (deictic-contrastive), vp-internal personal pronouns have nominal status
(with an empty D-domain). See (19a, b) for an overview.
(19)a
discourse-functional status
thema
rhema
X°
D°: pronominal clitics
—
XP
Spec, DP:
Spec,NP:
weak personal pronouns
strong perspron
(19)b
191
DP
A
Spec
D'
A
|
D
NP
!
i
A
I
!
!
!
A
A
CLITIC
STRONG
WEAK
PERSPRON
PERSPRON
According to (19a), the structural D-domain is thematic, whereas the N unless an element involved relinquishes its basic position and occurs under refocussed (contrastive, non-default)
weight. This is in line with the Focus Null Hypothesis: the main default accent within a DP
is on the complement of D, N; default ('grammatical'; GA) and non-default ('contrastive'; CA)
accent are systematically predictable within DP (Cinque 1993, Abraham 1993/1995). The dividing line between discourse-thematic and rhematic material ius constituted, to all apearances,
by the position of the VP-delimiting adverbial (modal particle): to its right, everything is rhematic, unless in a refocussing (derived) position; to the left, the material in basic, underived
position is thematic provided the default distributions according to the Focus Null Hypothesis.
See (20).
(20)
th/rh
A
CP
VP
I
I
I
I
TH/RH
TH/RH
A
Spec,CP
A
c
Spec,VP
Obj
Notice that definite full nouns, which are clearly discourse-thematic like clitic and weak pronominals, can take a position inside the rhematic (VP-) domain; weak preonouns never can,
however, although their position is not attached to any other category (as that of CL is). The
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Werner Abraham
inverse holds for strong persprons: once their position is to the left of VP, they cannot be
strong (focussed, stressed) any longer, other than indefinite full nouns (at least to some
extent). Thus, there obtain categorial differences of a strong sort: while both definite full
nominals and weak/CL persprons pair with respect to their accent-default position, just as
strong persprons and non-specific full nominals do, their scrambling charactersitics are
critically different: persprons cannot move without changing their categorial status, whereas
full nominals preserve that in the process of swapping discourse-functional status.
3.4 The enigmatic inversion of weak object pronominals
The linear sequence of strong (focussed, VP-internal) perprons as well as full object nouns
is
(SU)-IO-DO,
that of weak (unfocussed, vp-external) ones is the inverse:
(SU)-DO-IO
.
Whether or not the linear sequence between the clitic pronouns shares the ordering criteria
with syntagmatically free morphemes cannot be said with full certainty, since it cannot be
excluded that phonotactic criteria play a crucial role. See the order of the CL-elements in (11)
taken from Lanthaler (1996: South Tyrol of Merano, Southern Bavarian, politically the
Northernmost of Italy). Compare also Viennese and Alemannic (Abraham/Wiegel 1993) with
DO-io. [1= nominative, 3= dative, 4= accusative].
(21)
Merano
basic dialect
wen-r-n-se gip =>•
1-3-4
Merano
Standard German =
colloquial
= received city vernacular
wen-er-si:n gip =>•
wenn er sie ihm gibt
1-4-3
1-4-3
Generally, the observations regarding the inversion of pronominal clitics are not shared
without reservations (Lenerz 1992). However, the inversion of the weak, free perspron morphemes has been observed to also hold outside of German. Its empirical status can be held
to be methodologically ascertained.
In Abraham/Wiegel (1993: 38ff.) it was argued that a systematic account of this inversion
can be derived from the assumption that dative objects are not directly verbally governed and,
This applies to most of the accusative-dative governing verbs (of the geben type), but it cannot be generalized across all German verbal classes. There is a small class with a distinct inverse linear behaviour comprising vorziehen "prefer". It is to be noted that for this class of verbs the order of the weak pronominals
agrees with the that for all other classes. In other words, what remains unchanged is the ACC-DAT order
of pronouns irrespective of the order of the full nominal objects.
193
consequently are not in argument positions. Rather, they are seen as adjunctions of VP (Abraham 1995a: 530f.). Notice that beyond what are positive empirical intuitions, this assumption
meets with minimal conceptual difficulties within the framework of Minimalist syntax since
the dative remains to the right of those functional categories assigning, or 'checking', the
accusative and the subject-nominative. The weak pronominal accusative object has to
relinquish vp leftward to reach the thematical structural domain. In doing so it passes the adjoined dative object in the adjunction position and, consequently, the A'-chain, inaccessible
as a landing site for the structural accusative. See (22).
(22) a [AgrSP Er [AgrS hat [TP e [AgrOP [Agr0 ihn [VP ihr [VP e e gewidmet]]]]]]]
he has HIM HER dedicated
"He dedicated him to her"
b [AgrSP Er [AgrS hat [TP e [VP ihr [VP e IHN gewidmet]]]]]]]
c Er hat IHR IHN gewidmet
d *Er hat ihr ihn gewidmet
Now, let us mark an element (remaining) inside its basic chain with the feature marker
[+base]; one that swaps its chain (from A to A' or inversely) as [-base]. Departing from a
Minimalist framework as well as the positional generalizations drawn for the three pronominal
case positions, we arrive at the following structural constraints.
(23)
CP
A
Spec
c'
[+TH]
A
[-BASE]
Vfin
AgrSP
[+th]
[-BASE]
A
Spec
VP
Subj
A
[-TH]
Spec
[ + BASE]
[-TH]
Simultaneously, let us presuppose the following redundancy rules for the assignment of focus
and clausal accent.
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Werner Abraham
Redundancy rules for the distribution of clausal accent for Spec-positions:
(24) a [ + TH], [-BASE]
=
CA
b [-TH],
[-BASE]
=
GA
C [-TH],
[+BASE]
=
GA
where GA is assigned based on Cinque's Focus Null Hypothesis (deepest clausal embedding
carrying default stress)
Let us now check the assumptions in (23)-(24) against general Minimalist principles.
(25)a AgrSP and AgrOP would have to be the vp-external positions for full nouns and strong
persprons, i.e. as structural case positions. Notice that these positions have the feature
[-BASE],
while still being [-TH].
b If weak persprons are to reach positions higher (i.e. more 'thematic') than the argument positions under governance, the rhematic ones, another thematic domain must be
opened which is higher than AgrSP, but still lower than C°. Such a domain would have
the feature structure [-BASE], [ + T H ] (cf. Uriagereka 1995, Haegeman 1996, Abraham
1995).
c The observed inversion with weak persprons (and clitics of persprons just as well; see
Abraham 1995, Abraham/Wiegel 1994) is to be accounted for, in the absence of a
better derivation, that the weak perspron-dative is adjoined to AgrSP and consequently
moves along an A'-chain, while the weak, but structural accusative hooks up to an Achain position to the left of this adjunction position.
The structural domain expanded above AgrSP, but below Comp refelects the Agr- and TPdomain for the assignment (check) of structural case and of verbal agreement, with the only
distinction that the higher domain hosts purely thematic elements. Notice that this, to all appearances, provides extra arguments, from the point of view of German (as well as Dutch and
West Frisian), for an expansion of the structural domain between IP and CP, much in the
sense of Rizzi 1995. As we shall see in the following section, however, it is this very
expansion which yields a conceptual aporia, which is not to be solved other than dropping the
whole idea of providing FC-domain in the first place.
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3.5 Scrambling, the assignment of nominal c, and the assignment of clausal accent
The question now is: how is phrasal accent on NPS in TopP to be accounted for? Notice, first,
that full nominals and strong perpronal subjects in Spec,AgrSP carries the feature [-BASE] and
[-TH]. However, this is all counter-intuitive since the subject is prototypically [+TH] - unless
it carries non-default contrastive accent. On the other hand, the claim to distinguish the
thematic ([+TH]) and the rhematic ([-TH]) domains will lead to the implausible conclusion
that the separating line is to be drawn between AgrSP and AgrOP. How is this aporia to be
solved?
In Abraham (1995), totally independent empirical arguments have lead to the conclusion,
left as an option in Chomsky (1995), that the systematic description of German (and Dutch
and West Frisian) not be subjected to the Minimalist postulate of a VP-external Agr-domain,
but, rather, to seek the assignment of case under direct verbal governance in VP. If we depart
from this conceptual position, then all vp-internal positions carry the feature characterization
of [-TH, +BASE], whereas those outside of VP will bear the cluster [+TH, -BASE]. Under this
grammar-conceptual scenario, no FCs are provided outside of VP and, consequently, no Vmovement needs take place to 'pick up' and/or 'check/satisfy' its case features on any FC
outside the governing domain of VP. In particular, no AgrSP or AgrOP are required. Leaving
aside for the time being (but see below for a brief comment) the question how agreement
between the verb and the subject is to be accounted for, what is common to the whole
domain above AgrSP, i.e. the topicalisationposition, [Spec,CP], carries the discourse-functional feature [+TH]. However, the categories carrying this feature also share A'-chain positions
and, with [-BASE], feature as landing sites for arguments under [+focus]. This characterization meets with our linguistic intuition. See (26).
(26) a [CP [Spec Den AUGUST [c habe [Agrp [Spec ich [VP da [VP e e gesehen]]]]]]]
the August have I there seen
"It is August who I have seen there"
b Den August habe ich da gesehen/GESEHEN
The categorial feature [+TH] for den AUGUST in (26a) accounts for the referential definiteness
(article) character of the proper name; cf. (26a). On the other hand, the contrastive accent
accounts for the rhematic discourse status (isolation from the set of presupposable individuals). The unfocussed position of topicalized NP in (26b) is ungrammatical: its place in an A'-
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Werner Abraham
chain qualifies it as carrying the feature [-BASE], which would have to carry contrastive accent
- which it does not, however, counter to our linguistic intuition.
Clitic and weak forms of perspron are always [+thema] on account of their left movement; simultaneously they are in A-positions, preserving therefore the feature [+BASE] and
also as a consequence, are not focussed. Their place in a Topp-position can be obtained only
under contrastive stress (such as a full noun or a strong perspron). Clitics cannot occur in this
position since they are not free morphemes with x°-status, which cannot occur in Spec.
To satisfy the prerequisites of the Minimalist framework we shall have to attach the discourse-functional feature of [+TH] to the FCS outside of VP, which have to be checked by elements characterized either by clause-internal, text-related thematicity or by category-inherent
thematicity (as in the case of weak and clitic persprons). This is in line with assumptions
made by Bobaljijk/Jonas (1993), i.e. to locate to clitic and weak pronouns the feature of
[+definit] in AgrSP. What we have done in the present context goes beyond Bobaljijk/Jonas
(1993), however, to the extent that a higher status of generalization and systematization is
attained. Notice that the feature of [+TH] is the only one to characterize the structural domain
outside of VP; no other grammatical feature is located in this domain: neither one of agreement between the predicate and the subject, nor one for the assignment of nominal case.
Agreement, in particular, is accounted for in terms of a merger of v and its projections and
I, with the basic position in v-last (head-final, counter to Kayne 1993 or Zwart 1995 and
countless followers).
3.7 Conclusion
It is almost needless to point out that the clausal structure aimed at in the present approach
is fundamentally distinct from that within Minimalism. We have dropped completely the idea
to account for the assignment of case and verbal agreement on the subject in terms of FCs
outside of the primary verbal government domain, VP. Neither has it been assumed that
movement of v takes place to satisfy the mechanics of case assignment and agreement satisfaction. What we postulated, on the other hand, is a structural domain to the left of VP to
accommodate lexical elements in the discourse-function of the THEMA. We have argued that
such positions have to be provided in a UG-technical clause structure for both scrambled
elements under refocus and inherently thematic categories such as weak and clitic pronouns.
The yield reached thereby was that an empirical domain totally neglected so far, i.e. that of
197
clausal default and contrastive accent and discourse-function, can be accounted for in a simple
fashion. The route to achieve this has led through the attempt to account for the specific
behaviour of personal pronouns and their threefold categorization in discourse-functional
terms: the THEMATIC ones (weak and clitic) and the RHEMATIC (strong) ones. It is to be
noticed that the very classification of three sorts of personal pronouns with fundamentally
distinct discourse-functional properties is a novelty in the traditions of grammatical description
probably in any language - let alone the conceptual conclusions to be drawn from this distinction.
4 CP-expansion in German
4.1 Rizzi's distributional criteria for Italian
Taking the expansion of IP, in the sense of Minimalism (see Chomsky 1993, 1995; Abraham
et al. 1996, Introduction) as an instantiation of a more general methodology in the conceptual
framework of grammar writing we might speak of THE CONCEPT OF LAYERING CLAUSAL OR
PHRASAL STRUCTURE (see Rizzi 1995: 1): there would be a lexical layer, where theta
assignment takes place under verb headedness (possibly, if we follow Larson (1988) and
Kayne (1994) with multiple vp-layers in dependence of the valency of the predicate); there
would be an inflectional layer headed by functional heads (Agr, T, Asp, etc.; see Pollock
1989) with the task of specifying verbal morphology and case government; and there would
be the complementizer layer specifying the over-all characteristics of the sentence and hosting
operators - and, typically, topics. It is to be noticed that the last category, viz. topics, is an
exotic element in an otherwise functional projection hosting clause-characterizing features in
operator function. Topics cannot be readily accommodated as such elements, which are free
functional morphemes: topics, for one, do not have the property of 'free' morphemes, nor
are they 'functional'. This conceptual diversity has led Rizzi to further expand CP.
The split of CP into several independently motivated subcategories follows two main
semantic and functional considerations: first, that the sentence is a question, a declarative,
an exclamative, an imperative, an adverbial of a certain type, etc. - in brief, a sentential type
operator. This motivates what Rizzi (1995 following Chomsky 1995) calls the specification
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Werner Abraham
of FORCE as a functional category within CP (Rizzi 1995: 3). Second, following traditional
obsertvations and conclusions with respect to apparent agreement features between v and C,
a FiNiTE-category is assumed, under which the properties of person and number are subsumed. Tense, voice, and mood will then reside under IP, to be selected by FINITE (see
Holmberg/Platzack 1988).
What interests us more, however, is the domain of the FOCUS-TOPIC system, which is
independent to the extent that it does not appear to be selected by any of the aforegoing, or
any other, functional domain. Rather, this discourse-functional domain refers to contextbinding properties of the sentential meaning sec. Let us take a few illustrations to see exactly
what this function is. [CAPS for clausal stress, both default and contrastive]
(27) a
b
(28) a
b
c
Your book, you should give t to PAUL (not to BILL)
II tuo libro, lo ho LETTO
Your BOOK you should give t to Paul (, not your UMBRELLA)
YOUR book you should give t to Paul (, not MINE)
II TUO libro ho t letto (, non il suo)
(Rizzi 1995: 4f.)
The preposed NPS in (27) and (28) are topics. By means of topics one expresses that an element, phrase or lexeme, is mentioned in the present clause that can be presupposed from
previous discourse. What appears common to both (27) and (28) is that something is presupposed: in (27) it is the topicalized NP, while in (28) it is the open sentence you should give
to Paul (x). Where (28) differs from (27), though, is through the contrastive stress on the
topicalized element giving it an extra discourse meaning: viz. the presupposition of a
predication over the topicalized and stressed constituent other than the one mentioned in the
open sentence (e.g. the one in parenthesis). See Wiltschko (1996) for a more precise representation in terms of DRS.
Cinque (1990) introduced the terminology Clitic left dislocation (CLLD) for the Italian
examples such as in (27b), with a resumptive clitic coreferential to the topic. Notice that
English cannot render directly the clitic status of Italian in this example - although, at least,
it is similar to Italian to the extent that it totally drops the lexical representation of this clausal
function. See (27a). It will always involve the so-called 'comma intonation' in both English
and Italian. The second type illustrated in (2) is called Focus-presupposition articulation
(Rizzi 1995: 5). It has no comma intonation.
From examples like the above ones Rizzi concludes that the following topic-comment
structure for Italian and other languages is motivated. See (29).
(29)
199
TopP
A
XP-TOPIC
Top'
A
0
Top
YP
A Top0 head belonging to the c-system projects its own X-bar schema in the following sense;
its specifier is the topic, its complement is the comment, thereby specifying a 'higher
predication' within the C-system. It has in common with AgrS that it establishes a connection
between an argument type (subject, in the case of AgrS; new information, in the case of Top)
with a predicate (finite v in the former case, open clause in the latter, discourse functional
case). One further contrast is that Agrs is part of an argument chain, while Top is in an A'chain. Analagously to (29), the structure of Focus takes the focus as its specifier and the
presupposition as its complement. See (30) (from Rizzi 1995: 6).
(30)
FocP
A
xp-FOCUS
Foe'
A
0
Foe
WP
Notice that the null projections of Foe and Top are phonetically null in many languages. Other
languages, however, do have extra Top- and/or Foe-morphemes. Since Topic and Focus are
both optional and cyclically recursive in Italian, the structural relation to
FORCE
and
FINITE
is as follows (Rizzi 1995: 7; 15):
(31)
... Force...(Topic)...(Focus)...(Topic)...Fin...IP...
4.2 The case of German
The main tenet of the present essay is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to show that the
C= expansion of CP in Rizzi's sense can be taken to reflect structural properties (distributions, restrictions) that bear on German in any interesting fashion. The conclusion will be that
no such expansion is warranted for German and Dutch, and it will be claimed that a different
structure of optional landing sites is to be assumed to accommodate facts of scrambling and
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Werner Abraham
raising phenomena of clitics/weak pronominals. The order of our arguments will be as
follows: first, we shall demonstrate that none of the facts reflecting istributional properties
in Italian have a bearing on German; second, we shall briefly mention important facts,
different from those in Italian and other Romance languages, that will have to receive a
structural legitimation in terms of an expansion of the 'middle field'. What this boils down
to is that in German, other than in Romance and in English, the traditional topological notion
of 'middle field' plays a generative role. See Abraham (1995, 1996a,b) for further arguments
in detail.
4.2.1 CP-expansion: its non-validity for German
Rizzi's (1995) line of argument bears on the two major distributional phenomena in Italian
introduced in the preceding section: the TOPIC-COMMENT construction (typically,
DISLOCATION
in Italian), and the
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS
CLITIC LEFT
construction. Only the first of the two
presupposes scrambling, or topicalization. The second provides contrastive (or semantic)
stress distribution, apparently in situ. We will argue that this is only apparently so, and that
each contrastive stress distribution will be expressed by a syntax distinctly different from the
default stress syntax.
4.2.1.1 Contrastive focus constructions
Take again Rizzi's (1995: 6) (7), which is (32) in the present essay.
(32)
Ho letto IL TUO LIBRO (, non IL SOLO)
(I) have read YOUR BOOK (, not HIS)
In German, the discourse-linked/evoking meaning of this would be (33a), but not (33b,c) each of which would also be a possible contrastive stress distribution.
(33) a Ich habe dein BUCH gelesen/Ich habe DEIN Buch gelesen (, nicht deinen AUFSATZ/nicht DEREN
Buch)
I read your BOOK/YOUR book (, not your ESSAY/not THEIR book)
b ICH habe dein Buch gelesen (, NIEMAND ANDERS)
I read your book (, NOBODY ELSE)
c Ich habe dein Buch GELESEN (, nicht nur ANGESCHAUT)
I have READ your book (, not only BROWSED THRU) (it)
Notice what the discourse-meaning distribution of (a)-(c) is: covert FOC
(BUCH)
over TOP
(ICH) IN (A), overt FOC over TOP in (b). (c) is a special case in the sense that, to all appear-
201
ances, the predicate remains in situ. However, see (33d) below, which is in conflict with the
conclusion that the predicate under clausal stress is in VP, i.e. in situ.
(33) d */?Ich habe Bücher GELESEN
e Ich habe Bücher */?gestern GELESEN
(33d) only allows the conclusion that the predicate under contrastive stress has undergone
movement to the left, outside of VP, since the place of the unstressed indefinite direct object
can only be inside VP; viz. (33e). See Abraham (1995: 140f.). The main conclusion to be
drawn from this distribution is this: in German, (33a-c) can be generalized over by assuming
an optional pair of (CP-)
*{TOP
-
FOC}
(-VP), where '*' stands for recursivity. Below, we
shall adduce additional support for this preliminary assumption.
4.2.1.2
The Topic-comment structure in German
Hanging topicalizations of the sort sported by Italian are principally out in German. Whatever
renders the discourse-functional equivalence in German, it would have to be something that
is still inside clausal CP or IP; if something like the Italian thema pendens is mimicked, this
topic is clearly outside of the clausal structure and is not under the weight of any case- or
number inducing relation according to the clausal predicate (see already Altmann 1981,
naturally, at that time, without any further conclusions on the clausal structure of German).
See (34a,b) below, where (34a) repeats (27a) above, and (35) for German. See also the extraclausal hanging topics in (34b) - which appear utterly uninteresting in German due to the fact
that no intra-clausal grammatical relation can reach out to it.
(34) a
b
(35) a
b
Your book, you should give t to PAUL (, not to BILL)
II tuo libro, lo ho dato a PAOLO (, ma non a BILL)
Dein Buch-DO mußt du-suBj PAUL-IO t geben (, nicht WILHELM-IO)
Dein BuchrDEFAULT NOMINATIVE -/, daSj-DO mußt du-SUBj PAUL-IO tn/j geben (, nicht
WILHELM)
Compare (35b) with (36), the construction type under
focussed topic inside the clausal relations.
(36)
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS,
Dein BUCHj mußt du Paul ^ geben (, nicht deine TASCHE)
your BOOK must you Paul give (, not your BAG)
which retains the
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Werner Abraham
(35a,b), just as (34a,b), presupposes a context other than any neutral one, viz. that 'out-ofthe-blue' as in (37). ['#' for contextual non-accommodation]
(37) a Was hast du GELESEN?
b #Dein Buch - das habe ich GELESEN.
c #Dein BUCH habe ich gelesen.
Things are different in German under the FOCUS-PRESUPPOSITION articulation, whether or not
with a focussed element in topicalized position, as in (38a) below ((2c) above) and in (38b).
See the (38a,b) for what German makes ofthat rendering identical context links. (38c,d) vary
the stress position beyond (38a,b).
(38) a
b
(39) a
b
c
d
II TUO libro ho t letto (, non il suo)
Ho letto il TUO libro (, non il suo)
(also Rizzi's (7))
Ich habe < gestern > dein BUCH < gestern > [ vp 11 gelesen] (, nicht deinen AUFSATZ)
Dein BUCH habe ich gestern gelesen (, nicht deinen AUFSATZ)
ICH habe dein Buch [vp 11 gelesen]
Ichj habe dein Buch: GELESENk [ vp t; t- tk]
As argued above, (39c,d), in addition to (39a,b), demonstrate that if landing categories are
to be assumed for German, it would have to be the pair TOP - FOC, in this order. In other
words, if an element is scrambled (=partially topicalized) from its original position it will
acquire contrastive, non-default focus (Abraham 1995a, b).
4.2.2 FinP: its status as a functional category in German
We recall that the category FinP relates (Focus) with IP or its subcategories under IP-split.
One of the traditional ways to provide clues as to the language-specific legitimacy of this
functional category is the status of the infinitival preposition, Italian di, German zu. They are
usually considered to be non-finite counterparts of the fmite complementizer che (Rizzi 1982,
Kayne 1984) or German zu (see Reuland & Kosmejer 1988, Grewendorf 1994, von
Stechow/Sternefeld 1988).
Rizzi (1995: 7ff.) provides valuable insight for the assumption of Topp relative to the
infinitival preposition di, which is supposed to obtain the Fin-position. The insight stems from
the validated evidence that the complementizer che always precedes, and the infinitival
preposition di always follows, a left-dislocated phrase. The following examples are all taken
from Rizzi (1995: 7f.).
(40) a Credo che il tuo libro, loro lo apprezzerebbero molto
(I) believe that (the) your book, they it would appreciate a lot
b *Credo il tuo libro, che loro lo apprezzerebbero molto
(I) believe (the) your book, that they it would appreciate a lot
(41) a *Credo di il tuo libro, apprezzarlo molto
(I) believe 'of' your book, (to) appreciate=it a lot
b Credo, il tuo libro, di apprezzarlo molto
(I) believe, your book, 'of /to appreciate=it a lot
Notice that, concluding from the evidence that (40)-(41) are hardly consistent with an unsplit
CP domain, this is in line with che obtaining the position of Force 0 , while di manifests the
Fin-position, either on different sides of the Top-position. Identical evidence for Italian is
provided on the basis of relative operators (preceding topics) and interrogative operators
(following topics in main questions). Cf. Rizzi (1995: 7f.).
Such evidence, as valuable as it may prove to be for Italian12, has no reflex in German,
due to its compact CP disallowing expansion. See the following evidence. Notice that we
depart from an underived version such as (42).
(42)
Ich hoffe dein Buch SCHÄTZEN zu können
I hope your book appreciate to can
(43) a *Ich hoffe, daß dein Buch; - sie würden eSj sehr mögen.
I hope that your book - they would it a lot like
b *Ich hoffe dein Buchj, esj schätzen zu können
c *Ich hoffe, dein Buchj, daß es; ihnen gefällt
This should suffice to demonstrate that none of the Italian evidence can be adduced to show
that German has Topp-FocP between CP and IP. The test fails not only because it cannot be
shown that there is something between FinP and CP - in other words, that the CP-domain
needs to be expanded. Beyond that, there is also doubt whether FinP needs to be installed as
a separate category, i.e. beyond IP - with specific arguments taking care of the latter category
for German. See the contribution by Abraham (in this volume).
I dare offer the opinion that Rizzi's TOPIC-COMMENT ARTICULATION constructions be explained as truncated
clauses in the following sense: NP##CP, where ## for clausal boundary. The reason why this appears to
offer itself lies in the fact that each of Rizzi's examples presumes reference to the topicalized element(s)
in left-dislocation by means of a weak pronominal or pronominal clitic. Rizzi's suggestion that there is only
one CP hinges crucially on the test to the contrary: i.e. whether any of the clausal portions subsequent to
the topicalized and dislocated NPS can occur without the resumptive pronominal. No such test has been
undertaken in Rizzi (1995).
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Werner Abraham
Are there additional reasons to believe that the 'prepositional infinitive' in German does
not make use of IP in the first place? I believe there is such evidence. Notice, first, that zu
never reaches beyond VP, at the most, and is probably better placed right inside V° (Abraham
1995b).
(44) a Er ist nicht [ vp t AUFzuhalten]
»
b daß er nicht AUFzuhalten ist
that he not up-to-hold is
"that he is not to be withheld"
c daß er zu nicht [VP t AUFhalten ist]
In other words, there is no complementary relation of infinitival zu with verbal inflection and,
thus, with IP. If it were to be part of IP, then, at the least, such an IP in German would not
be outside of VP. Notice, second, that it hard to appeal to reconstruction if such infinitival
zu were to be regarded as selecting
[DO+V],
as in (45).
(45) a Dieses BUCH zu lesen ist völlig sinnlos
this book to read is totally none-sensical
b zu dieses BUCH lesen ist völlig sinnlos
Reconstruction appears unmotivated in the light of the following examples, which are not only
wholly acceptable in colloquial German, but even more idiomatic than the infinitival clauses.
In fact, infinitivals are ungrammatical and simply not found in most conservative (thus,
trustable) dialects of German (Abraham 1995b). Cf. (46).
(46) a Dieses BUCH zum Lesen ist völlig sinnlos
b Zum ein BUCH Lesen komme ich jetzt NICHT mehr
to-DAT-N a book read-DAT come I now no longer
"I cannot spare time any longer to read a book"
c Zum's BUCH Lesen komme ich jetzt NICHT mehr
to-DAT-N=the book read-DAT come I now no longer
"I cannot spare time any longer to read the book"
(46b,c) are prepositional gerunds in colloquial (optional, under the influence of Standard German, with high normative pressure) and dialectal (obligatory, eliminating the infinitive totally
in all Bavarian-Austrian conservative dialects) vernaculars (cf. Bayer 1993). Notice that if
(46a) and (46b,c) should both be possible, this would force the conclusion that (45b) should
be possible, or at least reconstructable, also. But this runs counter to evidence. It has been
205
argued elsewhere (Abraham 1995b) that German 'infinitival' zu is in fact no more than the
usual preposition selecting [NP infinitival-v]. This would seem to hold for Dutch and Frisian,
too.
The conclusion, then, is that nothing speaks in favor of CP-expansion in German (as well
as in Dutch and Frisian). We have argued that the distributional properties of topicalized
constituents do not allow anything in terms of CP-expansion. And we have adduced additional
arguments that FinP in Continental West Germanic is neither an Archimedial fix-point for the
purpose to argue for some Topp/FocP below CP, nor that it is a plausible functional category
in its own right. What remains are arguments in favor of CP-expansion in order to accommodate morphological features, much in the sense of constitutivistic Minimalism and its apparatus of legitimizing case and agreement. However, if morphological characteristics are to be
introduced into syntax along with the verbal and nominal stems (an assumption that is
explicitly made in Chomsky 1993, 1995), then it would not appear necessary to assume such
an apparatus in the absence of distributional motivation. We have shown that such motivation
is totally absent for the German.
What remains of Rizzi's proposal in the light of UG is a thesis represented by van
Gelderen (1993, to appear) and Thräinsson (1996), viz. the relativization of a split-CP for
those languages that provide distributional motivation for it.
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