Journée d’études – DeLPaSiMo Des langues pas si mortes / 2

Université de Tours / site Tanneurs / salle Léon Nadjo / 9h30 – 17h45

Journée d’études DelPaSiMo Des langues pas si mortes coorganisée par la filière lettres de l’UFR L&L, le laboratoire SFL de Paris 8 et le CeTHiS (Richard Faure) intitulée Des langues pas si mortes 2 : langues anciennes et linguistique formelle/Inside VP – une première journée ayant été organisée l’an passé à Paris.

⇒To attend online, request the link to/Pour assister en ligne, demander le lien à rfaure@univ-tours.fr

Programme de la journée

09:30-09:45   Accueil

09:45-10:30   Alain Rouveret, Paris-Cité

Un alignement ergatif dans une langue non-ergative: le cas des constructions indépendantes verbe-nominales du moyen gallois.

On peut donner de l’ergativité deux définitions assez différentes: une définition étroite dans laquelle la notion réfère à un système de marquage casuel, disjoint du marquage nominatif-accusatif, dans lequel le sujet des verbes transitifs porte la même marque morphologique que l’objet des verbes transitifs, le sujet des verbes transitifs étant marqué différemment; une définition large dans laquelle la notion fait référence à un fonctionnement syntaxique dans lequel le sujet des verbes intransitifs est “traité” comme l’objet des verbes transitifs et différemment du sujet des verbes transitifs. Adoptant ici la seconde définition, on étudiera un ensemble de constructions verbo-nominales en moyen gallois (propositions complétives non-finies, phrases indépendantes du type infinitif historique) dans lesquelles l’alignement argumental observé est un alignement de type ergatif, comme l’ont déjà proposé Willis (2007), (2009) et Tallerman & Wallenberg (2012) (voir aussi Gagnepain (1963) pour le vieil irlandais). On démontrera que, contrairement à ce qu’avance l’analyse traditionnelle, ces constructions n’ont pas une syntaxe nominale. On tentera aussi de proposer une caractérisation formelle de l’ergativité en cause dans ces structures (l’ergativité connaît de multiples variantes). Quatre facteurs jouent un rôle déterminant: le fait que, dans les structures observables, l’argument direct et l’argument externe du prédicat coexistent au sein du complexe verbal (c’est là une caractéristique définitoire des constructions ergatives, cf. Nash 2017), le fait que la forme prédicative ne possède pas tous les attributs verbaux et soit de type inaccusatif, cf. Torrego (2012) (les structures étudiées ne sont pas verbales, mais verbo-nominales), le fait que le Temps nul en MG reçoive une interprétation référentielle, dépendante du discours, non une interprétation anaphorique, le fait que les classes lexicales en lesquelles se répartissent les prédicats intransitifs soient contextuellement, plutôt que lexicalement, déterminées, cf. Ramchand (1997).

 

10:30-11:15   Richard Faure, Université de Tours

How to Case-mark Ancient Greek caseless argument clauses

In Classical Greek, any DP is morphologically case-marked and case morphology is the exact reflex of abstract case. There is one exception to this fact: Finite complement clauses. Whereas they feature most of the trappings of DPhood, they escape case-marking (Faure 2021). Classical Greek however developed strategies to remedy this situation (using a proxy: demonstrative, extracted DP, covert expletive; substituting the finite for a nominalized nonfinite clause). I will examine all these points in turn in the light of various theories of Case that are on the market (Caha 2009; 2023; Chomsky 1981; 1995; 2000; 2001; Marantz 1991; Schütze 2001) and propose a weak version of Chomsky (2000) to account for them.

 

11:15-11:45   Pause-café

11:45-12:30   Bernard Bortolussi, Paris Nanterre

Retour sur l’accusatif d’objet interne en latin

Les différentes études sur l’objet interne en latin (Bortolussi 1988, Rosén 1981, 1996, de la Villa & Polo 2014) présentent des approches différentes et des classements variables. L’expression la plus partagée pour le définir est celle de « pseudo-argument », que l’on retrouve par exemple dans Pinkster (2015) : ce serait un objet présentant certaines propriétés caractéristiques de l’objet (assignation du cas accusatif, passivation occasionnelle), sans être véritablement un argument du verbe (simple réduplication sémantique du verbe). Nous proposons de revenir sur le statut de l’objet interne dans le VP et sur ses propriétés en tant que DP. La discussion sera essentiellement menée à partir des verbes présentant un nombre significatif d’occurrences avec objet interne et une certaine variété de réalisations :

• seruitutem seruire « être en esclavage »
• pugnam pugnare « livrer une bataille »
• iter/uiam ire « faire route »

Nous essaierons de situer les données du latin dans le débat plus général concernant les cognate objects, avec une attention particulière pour les autres langues anciennes, grec et hébreu biblique : quels types de verbes les admettent, quelle forme ils prennent, etc.

 

12:30-14:30   Déjeuner

14:30-15:15   Laura Grestenberger, Institut für Iranistik Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften

Early Indo-Iranian passives: how many are there and how can we tell?

The earliest attested languages of the closely related Indic and Iranian (Iranic) branches of Indo-European present a number of puzzles in their v/Voice system. Specifically, at least four different constructions have been discussed under the label “passive”, some of which are restricted to particular tense-aspect stems (imperfective vs. perfective):

1. Inflectional/synthetic I: nonactive/“middle” endings
2. Inflectional/synthetic II: perfective “passive aorist”
3. Derivational/synthetic: imperfective “passive” suffix *-yá-
4. Analytic/“periphrastic passive”: Verbal adjective *-tá- + AUX

The focus of this talk is on the synchrony and diachrony of constructions a.-c. in (Rig)Vedic Sanskrit (Old Indic, ca. 1400-1100 BCE) and Avestan (Old Iranian, ca. 1200-600 BCE). While the first strategy represents inherited syncretic voice marking, b. and c. instantiate two different versions of the INCHOATIVE > PASSIVE reanalysis path discussed in the literature (Haspelmath 1990; Fleisher 2006; Grestenberger & Kamil forthcoming). I discuss previous treatments of these constructions (e.g., Jamison 1979; Kulikov 2006, 2012; Kulikov & Lavidas 2013; Hock 2022) and their problems with respect to terminology and the definition of passive voice (vs. diathesis?) as well as strategies for identifying “canonical passive” readings in corpus languages with voice syncretism and for distinguishing them from inchoatives (as in strategies a. & b.) and resultatives (as in strategy d.). Based on the analysis in Grestenberger (2021), I argue that a theoretical approach in which voice alternations depend on whether an external argument is merged in Voice (Kratzer 1996, Alexiadou et al. 2015, Wood & Marantz 2017, Wood & Tyler forthcoming) can account for the variety of apparent “passive” constructions in ancient Indo-Iranian and solve the puzzle of the unexpected active inflectional endings that show up in some of these constructions (strategies b. & c.).

 

15:15-16:00   Chiara Gianollo, Université de Bologne

Mediopassive voice in Late Latin

In Late Latin the functional distinctions in the voice system of the Classical stage are overall preserved, but a re-organization of the function-form mapping is observed. In particular, changes affecting the –r conjugation result in a re-distribution of functions: functions that were once expressed by the same morphosyntactic strategy (the mediopassive voice) are re-distributed across new forms. In my talk I will explore in particular the role of two innovative formal strategies in the encoding of anticausativity and unaccusativity: lability, whereby a morphologically active form of a transitive predicate expresses patient-preserving intransitivity, and the use of reflexive pronouns. These strategies are attested at all stages of Latin and are not innovative per se, but result in innovative distributional patterns in Late Latin, and show sensitivity to factors at the syntax-semantics interface, such as affectedness, control, actionality. I will focus on data from Merovingian Latin (PaLaFra corpus), in the attempt to single out, in particular, factors that are relevant for the later Old French developments.

 

16:00-16:30   Pause-café

16:30-17:15   Lieven Danckaer, CNRS-Université de Lille

Voice morphology and the structure of the Latin verb phrase

In Latin verb forms like ‘ama-ba-tur’ (love-IPFV-NACT.3SG, ‘(s)he was (being) loved’), the morphological exponence of non-active Voice (-r) sits further away from the root than the Tense morpheme ‘-ba-’. This morpheme ordering is typologically highly irregular and an apparent exception to the otherwise cross-linguistically robust generalization that functional heads in the clausal spine come in a universally fixed order (Cinque 1999). Adopting the labeling framework from Chomsky (2013, 2015), and drawing a parallel with the properties of the T-node in English, I propose that in Latin, the category of Voice is weak, and that as a result, the head Voice is unable to label its mother node. I further explore the implications of this state of affairs for the internal structure of the Latin verb phrase, and for the positional behaviour of subjects in the history of Latin.

 

17:15-17:45   Discussion générale

> Télécharger le programme : JE DeLPaSiMo 2

♦♦♦    Bibliographie

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• Caha, Pavel. 2009. “The Nanosyntax of Case.” PhD Dissertation, Tromsø: University of Tromsø.
• Caha, Pavel. 2023. “A Default Theory of Default Case.” Ms. https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/007310/current.pdf
• Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on the Theory of Government and Binding : The Pisa Lectures. Dordrecht: Foris.
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• Chomsky, Noam. 2001. “Derivation by Phase.” In Ken Hale : A Life in Language, edited by M. Kenstowicz, 1–52. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
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• Grestenberger, Laura. 2021. Two types of passive? Voice morphology and “low passives” in Vedic Sanskrit and Ancient Greek. In Passives crosslinguistically: Theoretical and experimental approaches, eds. Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Akemi Matsuya, and Eva-Maria Remberger, 210–245. Leiden: Brill.
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