Quotation citations with the dummy verb are even possible without any other overt lexical verb. In these cases, the context determines how best to translate the sentences into English.
179 a. “B-eithoa” l-a.
you-know.self he-dummy
‘“Be careful” he saidthoughtshouted.’ b. L-a
“B-eithoa” he-dummy
you-know.self ‘He saidthoughtshouted, “Be careful”’
From the above evidence, the dummy verb, again, seems to be needed when some sort of fronting has occurred. It is not immediately obvious, however, that the quoted part of a cita-
tion can be related to the moved verbs or adverbials discussed in the previous section. One might think that a quotation should be the subcategorized sentential complement of a verb of
saying, and therefore a sister to the verb. If this were the case, dummy verb insertion would not be required by the ECP. For Arawak, however, verbs of saying like dain ‘to saytalk,’
onaban
‘answer,’ or simakan ‘to scream’ can be simple intransitive verbs and are therefore not necessarily subcategorized for a direct object NP or for a sentential complement.
180 Ly-dia-bo
he-speak-CONT ‘He is speakingtalking’
This may mean that the language treats the content of what is being said as somehow ad- verbial in nature.
31
One bit of evidence for such a hypothesis is that there are two types of appropriate answers to the question.
32
181 Halika
b-a dia-n
tho-myn? how
you-dummy speak-SUB
her-to ‘How did you speak to her?’
One can either reply with a manner adverbial, giving the manner of speaking, or with the content of what was said.
182 a. Ma-kanakyre d-a
tho-myn. PRIV-loudly
I-dummy her-to
‘Softly I spoke to her.’ b. “W-osa-the,”
d-a tho-myn.
we-go-BACK I-dummy
her-to ‘“Let’s go back,” I said to her.’
76 Noun Phrase and Sentence Syntax
31
There is evidence in other languages also, such as modern German, that direct quotations do not exhibit the behavior normally associated with complement clauses. Cf. Emonds 1976.
32
It is actually more common to question the content of a quotation with the question word ama ‘what’. However, even in this case, the dummy verb is required to frame the question.
Ama l-a
dia-n? what
he-dummy speak-SUB
‘What did he say?’
323232
In other words, it is possible to ask a question that elicits a quotation in the response by us- ing the same question word, as well as the same construction, that is used for asking a
manner question.
3.2.2.4 The subject of dummy verb sentences
The subject of dummy verb sentences in Arawak is restricted to being a morphologi- cally bound pronoun. Neither morphologically free pronouns nor full noun phrases with
lexical noun heads are acceptable. If the context in which the sentence is spoken makes the referent of the pronoun unclear, the only way to disambiguate the sentence is to use an ap-
positive NP at the end of the sentence.
183 a. Ma-siki-n l-a-bo
iniabo by-myn?
PRIV-give-SUB he-dummy-CONT
water you-to
‘Isn’t he giving you any water?’ b. Ma-siki-n
li a-bo
iniabo by-myn?
PRIV-give-SUB he
dummy-CONT water
you-to ‘Isn’t he giving you any water?’
c. M-siki-n li
wadili a-bo
iniabo by-myn?
PRIV-give-SUB the
man dummy-CONT
water you-to
‘Isn’t the man giving you any water?’ d. Ma-sikii-n
l-a-bo iniabo
by-myn, li
wadili? PRIV-give-SUB
he-dummy-CONT water
you-to the
man ‘Isn’t he, the man, giving you any water?’
This restriction is reminiscent of a general discourse restriction in Arawak on the use of full noun phrases. It seems to be the case, generally, that a full noun phrase in subject
position can only be used to introduce participants or inanimate referents into a discourse; all subsequent references to the same participant have to be made with a pronoun or a pro-
noun with an appositive phrase following the VP. Since the Left sentential adjunction posi- tion LSAP position seems to be used to highlight new information, then if the LSAP is
present, the subject of a dummy verb sentence is probably old information and therefore must be in the form of a pronoun.
This argument is not sufficient, however. It explains why full NP subjects are not ac- ceptable in dummy verb sentences, but does not explain why morphologically free pro-
nouns are not acceptable. The general discourse restriction mentioned above covers only the use of full NPs with lexical nouns as heads. In non dummy verb sentences, both free
and morphologically bound pronouns can be used to get around it. However, free pronouns cannot be used as subjects in dummy verb sentences.
An explanation for the unacceptability of morphologically free pronoun subjects for the dummy verb may lie in the nature of the dummy verb itself. In sentences without
dummy verbs, INFL is expressed as suffixes on the verb. As was mentioned in the discus- sion on basic- and a-stem verbs, the last vowel of a verb stem affects the aspect of the verb.
Since this alternation is also present in the dummy verb, it is not unreasonable to postulate that INFL, whether or not it has any tense affixes, contains at least an aspect marker. The
dummy verb might then be a lexicalization of the affix marker along with any other tense 3.2 Sentence Structure
77
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
33
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.
