affixes in INFL. However, all the material in INFL seems to be morphologically depend- ent—perhaps including the dummy verb. If the dummy verb is morphologically dependent,
it must attach to something. Fully specified NP’s are not available
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because of the dis- course considerations mentioned above. Morphologically free pronouns are not available
because they can never receive verbal suffixes. The only class of nominals available is that of morphologically bound pronouns.
Alternatively, there may be an explanation for the above phenomena based on Case Theory. In the theory of Government and Binding, Chomsky 1982 proposed that the pro-
hibition of lexical NPs in, for example, the subject position of an infinitive construction is based on a case filter which says that every NP with a phonetic matrix must have Case. Put
negatively, this means that a lexical NP is prohibited if it does not receive Case.
184. Case Filter Chomsky 1982:49
NP
if NP has phonetic content and no Case If one argues backward from this principle, one might suppose that the reason lexical NPs
are prohibited from being the subject of the dummy verb is that the dummy verb or INFL does not assign Case to its subject in a dummy verb sentence. However, there is no evident
reason why the dummy verb should not assign Case to its subject, so a stipulation would apparently be required.
3.2.3 Stative sentences
Arawak stative sentences are those sentences which do not describe an event. They seem to fall into three groups. The first two each contain two noun phrases in an equative
or attributive relation, respectively, and the third has a stative verb with a single noun phrase as subject.
3.2.3.1 Equative and attributive sentences
Equative sentences consist of a noun phrase followed by the copular verb to, followed by another noun phrase.
185 a. Nederland khondo
to de
ojo. Netherlands
inhabitant is
my mother
‘My mother is Dutch.’ b. Bylhyta-alhin
ron to
da-thi. scratch-one.who.habitually.does
only is
my-father ‘My father is only a writer i.e. has no other profession.’
c. De to
bylhyta-alhin. I
am write-one.who.habitually.does
‘I am a writer.’ Attributive sentences are like the above in that they contain two noun phrases, but are un-
like them in two ways: the noun phrases are associated by simple juxtaposition without a verb; 78
Noun Phrase and Sentence Syntax
33
Nouns sometimes appear to be able to receive some verbal suffixes. However, when they do, they are behaving as stative verbs.
and one of the noun phrases, generally the first,
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consists of a free relative clause. It could be argued that such a clause has a true relative clause construction with an empty head position,
since its head would, in all cases, be identical to the second NP of the sentence. 186 a. Kydy-tho
to. heavy-WH.SUBJ
it ‘It is heavy.’
b. Kydy-tho to
siba. heavy-WH.SUBJ
the stone
‘The stone is heavy.’ c. Firo-thi
li wadili.
big-WH.SUBJ the
man ‘The man is big.’
d. Wakhai-tho kho
to hala.
bad-WH.SUBJ not
the bench
‘The bench is very good.’ Although several of the above attributive sentences contain the form to, this to is the
article ‘the’ and is not the same as the copular verb to found in equative sentences. Unlike the copular verb, the article must agree with the gender and number of the head of the
noun phrase, i.e. to ‘the non-masculine’, li ‘the masculine singular’ na ‘the human plu- ral’. Furthermore, equative sentences are divided into three intonational units, with poten-
tial hesitation points before and after the copula. Attributive sentences are usually spoken with a single intonation contour, and one cannot pause between the article and the rest of
the noun phrase.
3.2.3.2 Stative sentences with stative verbs
