Are multiple DPs in a single phase always distinct in Slovenian? Petra Mišmaš

Introduction Richards (2010) proposes the Principle of Distinctness in which he claims that phrases of the same type cannot appear close together. The goal of the paper is to test the proposed principle on different phenomena in Slovenian that could be problematic for Richards’ theory. My main data comes from an experiment with Slovenian speakers who judged sentences with multiple Wh-questions and multiple sluicing. The results show that the considered data behaves in accordance with the Principle of Distinctness and offers an argument for it. The evaluation of the data will show that Slovenian is not affected by homophony (unlike other South Slavic languages, such as Serbian) but is in fact sensitive to the set of grammatical features on lexical items – when the sets of features on the two adjacent phrases are distinct, the sentences are acceptable, even if the two phrases with the same label (such as DP) are in the same phase of the derivation. Nondistinct feature bundles however result in low grammatical acceptability. These results of the experiment confirm that Slovenian behaves in accordance with the Principle of Distinctness and show which are the restrictions on DPs in a single phase of the derivation (i.e. which features have a role in making DPs distinct). The paper proceeds as follows: The section 1 describes the Principle of Distinctness as proposed by Richards (2010). Section 2 presents some properties of multiple Wh-fronting, this is followed by Serbian and Croatian data from Richards (2010) and a small survey, in 2.2, section 2.3 considers Slovenian data, which confirm the Principle of Distinctness (Richards 2010). Section 3 is about multiple sluicing and is focused on Slovenian data. Section 4 is the conclusion.

I thank the audience at the IV. Austrian Students’ Conference of Linguistics (IV. Österreichische Studierendenkonferenz der Linguistik), which was held at the University of Innsbruck and where this paper was presented. For all the valuable comments special thanks go to Franc Marušič and Rok Žaucer. For her help with Serbian judgments I am grateful to Nataša Knežević.

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1 The Principle of Distinctness (Richards 2010) Richards (2010) bases his theory on the idea that some properties of syntax follow from the interaction between syntax and phonology, specifically on the bans which prohibit elements of the same type to be close together. In order to explain these bans, Richards assumes that Spell-Out occurs cyclically during the derivation after the completion of strong phases, where strong phases include vP, CP, PP, and KP (i.e. kase phrase, the highest projection of the noun phrase). After each strong phase the material is sent to PF through Spell-Out. Richards (2010) also assumes that the head of a phase and its specifier (i.e. edge) are a part of the following phase for the purposes of the calculation of distinctness since they are linearized with the material of the higher phase (Chomsky 2000). Following Chomsky (2000), he also assumes that trees generated by syntax do not contain information about linear order and that linearization of nodes is performed by the operation of Spell-Out. It is also assumed that linearization is performed after Spell-Out by a version of Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA) as proposed by Kayne (1994), by which a total order of terminals within a Spell-Out domain (phase) is established. Based on these assumptions Richards (2010) formulates the principle of Distinctness:

(1)

Distinctness: If a linearization statement <α, α> is generated the derivation crashes.

(Richards 2010: 5)

According to (1), a linearization statement is only interpretable when the nodes in the linearization statement are distinct from each other. Two nodes of the same type (i.e. <α, α>) in an asymmetric c-command relation cannot be linearized in the same Spell-Out domain. For example: the linearization statement , which comes from the linearization of the structure in (2), cannot be linearized and causes a crash (XP here is not a vP, CP, PP or KP): (2)

XP 3 DP X’ John 3 X DP Mary

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According to Richards not all languages behave the same with respect to the Principle of Distinctness. Languages can be divided into two groups, which are shown in the next section. 1.2 Two types of languages Richards (2010) divides languages into two groups with respect to the extent to which languages can make a distinction between projections with the same label. When no distinction can be made, two nodes count as being ‘of the same type’, that is, they cannot be linearized in a particular language when they occur in one phase. For languages such as English, being of the same type means having nodes with the same label (e.g. ), other languages however are sensitive to the value of features. Since we will be focusing on DPs, these features will include case, animacy and gender. Richards (2010) focuses mainly on the English type, while this paper looks into languages that are assumed to be in the second type, specifically into the importance of features. One example of a violation of the Principle of Distinctness in English is sentences with exceptives, shown in (3):

(3) a. Every man danced with every woman, except John with Mary. (Richards 2010: (6a)) b. *Every man danced with every woman, except John Mary. (Richards 2010: (7a))

In (3b) both remnants are DPs and both are in the same Spell-Out domain forming a linearization statement . The ungrammaticality of (3b) follows from the Principle of Distinctness – two nodes in one Spell-Out domain are of the same type, which means that they cannot be distinguished from each other. They thus cannot be linearized and the linearization statement causes a crash. Example (3a) however is acceptable – the Principle of the Distinctness is not violated since the two remnants are not of the same type – since PP is also a phase, linearization only sees a DP and a PP, which gives the linearization statement .

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Richards (2010) notes that there are languages that allow multiple DP remnants in multiple sluicing; an example of such a language is Japanese (other such languages include German, Dutch and Greek). He also claims that a language such as Japanese is sensitive to features other than labels (case, gender, animacy). Because these languages are sensitive to features, more than one DP can be located in a phase. This is shown below on Japanese multiple sluicing:

(4)

Watashi-wa dono otokonoko-ni-mo hoshigatteita subete-no hon-o I.TOP

every boy.DAT

ageta ga

dare-ni nani-o

wanted

every

book.ACC

ka wasureta

gave but who.DAT what.ACC Q

forgot

‘I gave every boy all the books he wanted, but I’ve forgotten who what.’ (Richards 2010: (88a))

According to Richards (2010) in (4) the two DP remnants of multiple Sluicing carry different case features and even if both Wh-phrases are in one Spell-Out domain, the linearization statement <[DP, DAT], [DP, ACC]> is distinct enough that linearization can proceed. (5) shows that when the case feature of the two Wh-words is the same, sluicing becomes impossible. For Richards this is because the two Wh-words are not distinct.

(5) a. [Sensei-o

hihansita] gakusei-ga

Teacher.ACC criticized student.NOM dare-o

koko-ni oozei iru kedo, dare-ga here.DAT many be but

who.NOM

ka oboeteinai

who.ACC Q remember.NEG ‘There are lots of students here who criticized teachers, but I don’t remember who who.’ b. *[Sensei-ga teacher.NOM

(Richards 2010: (89a))

suki na] gakusei-ga like

koko-ni oozei iru kedo, dare-ga

student.NOM here.DAT many be bu

who.NOM

dare-ga ka oboeteinai who.NOM Q remember.NEG ‘There are lots of students here who like teachers, but I don’t remember who who.’

(Richards 2010: (89b))

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In (5a) the DP remnants of multiple sluicing have different case marking. Richards (2010) claims that since the sentence is acceptable it can be assumed that different case features are enough for the two DPs to be distinct from each other, making it possible for linearization to proceed, since the linearization statement is <[DP, NOM] [DP, ACC]>. In (5b) there are again two DP remnants of multiple sluicing and the sentence is unacceptable. Following Richards’ Principle of Distinctness, the conclusion is that the two DPs cannot be distinguished from each other, since they both have the same nominative case feature, forming a linearization statement <[DP, NOM] [DP, NOM]>. Case however is not the only feature that can make Japanese DPs distinct – one other feature that has this ability is animacy, the effects of which can be observed in (6):

(6)

[Doobutsu-ga suki na] hito-ga Animal.NOM nani-ga

like

koko-ni oozei iru kedo, dare-ga

person.NOM here.DAT many be but

who.NOM

ka oboeteinai

what.NOM Q remember.NEG ‘There are lots of people here who like animals, but I don’t remember who what.’ (Richards 2010: (90))

Comparing example (6) to (5b) we can see that (5b) is unacceptable, while (6) is acceptable (at least for some speakers, Richards (2010)). The two sentences differ in animacy features – in (5b) both DP remnants have the same animacy feature ([+animate]), while in (6) one DP has a [+animate] and the other [animate] feature. Comparing the linearization statements, Richards (2010) concludes that (5b) has the linearization statement <[DP, NOM, +animate] [DP, NOM, +animate]>, while (6) has <[DP, NOM, +animate] [DP, NOM, -animate]>. Following the Principle of Distinctness, according to Richards (2010) the grammaticality of (6) can be explained by assuming that one different feature is enough for the two DPs to be distinguished from each other, making linearization possible, while in (5b) the DPs are indistinguishable from each other. In the following sections it will be explored whether the Principle of Distinctness can be used to explain the acceptability and unacceptability of Slovenian examples in which two DPs occur in a single phase of the derivation. It will be

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shown that Slovenian behaves like Japanese – in both Japanese and Slovenian, phrases are distinct with respect to features (and not labels).

2 Multiple Wh-fronting Richards (2010) claims that there seems to be some restriction on which DPs can appear within the same phase. One example that displays such restrictions is suggested to be multiple Wh-fronting in languages such as Serbian and Croatian, but the data Richards presents is based on only a few speakers and re-testing of the data shows that it is problematic. The theory must be tested on other examples, which is in this section done on Slovenian. If Slovenian follows the Principle of Distinctness, then multiple Wh-fronting sentences will be acceptable only if the two DPs in the same phase have distinct feature bundles (i.e. different in at least one feature). In this section we first look at some general properties of multiple Wh-fronting in the relevant languages, this is followed by reviewing the data in Richards (2010) and with the new data from Serbian. The section is concluded with a discussion of data from Slovenian. 2.1 Properties of multiple Wh-fronting Rudin (1988) divided languages with multiple Wh-fronting into two groups with respect to where languages move Wh-phrases. The first group, according to Rudin (1988), includes languages such as Bulgarian, where all Wh-phrases move in the SpecCP. The group is called languages with Multiply Filled Specifier, [+MFS]. The second group includes languages such as Serbo-Croatian, Czech and Polish (Rudin 1988). These are languages with no Multiply Filled Specifier, [MFS], in which not all Wh-phrases are in SpecCP. Golden (1997) observed that Slovenian has the properties of both groups of Slavic languages with multiple Wh-fronting. She proposed that Slovenian requires a [-MFS] CP structure, which Rudin (1988) proposed for languages like Serbo-Croatian:

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(7) a.

CP 3 SpecCP (wh-DP) C’ 3 C … IP 3 wh-DP I’ 6

(Golden 1997)

The proposed structure for Serbo-Croatian (but also other multiple Wh-fronting languages) was revised by Bošković (2002) and Stjepanović (2003), who claim that these languages have ‘real’ Wh-fronting (movement motivated by checking a [+wh] feature) only in some examples, but that in matrix covert C questions there is no Wh-fronting but rather focus movement to a position below C. This means that all Wh-DP are located in one strong phase (i.e. below CP):

(7) b.

CP 3 FocP 3 IP 6

In this paper we will be assuming the structure in (7b). 2.2 Data from Serbian and Croatian Bošković (2001) argues that in Serbian multiple Wh-questions two homophonous Wh-DPs cannot both front:

(8)

a.

Šta

uslovljava

šta?

(Bošković 2001: 102, (6))

what conditions what “What conditions what?” b.

*Šta

šta uslovljava?

(Serbian)

what what conditions

There are two competing explanations for the example in (8). One is the prohibition of fronting multiple homophonous Wh-words in the PF, which can be avoided if one of the Wh-phrases is left in-situ, as proposed by Bošković (2001).

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Another account was put forward by Richards (2010) with the Principle of Distinctness, in which two phrases of the same kind cannot form a linearization statement. Richards (2010) discusses the influence of Distinctness on multiple Wh-fronting in languages such as Serbian and Croatian, which are said to display differences with respect to which features in the two languages make fronted DPs distinct. In Serbian, case makes DPs distinct, but gender does not, as shown in the following examples:

(9) a.*Kojem

je

čovjeku kojem

dječaku mrsko pomogati?

(Serbian)

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.DAT boy.DAT boring help.INF “Which man doesn’t feel like helping which boy?” (Richards 2010: (106b)) b.*Kojem

je čovjeku kojoj

ženi

mrsko pomogati?

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.DAT woman.DAT boring help.INF “Which man doesn’t feel like helping which woman?” (Richards 2010: (106c)) c. Kojem

je

čovjeku kojeg

dječaka mrsko pozdraviti?

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.GEN boy.GEN boring greet.INF “Which man doesn’t feel like greeting which boy?” (Richards 2010: (106a))

In (9a) both fronted DPs are dative and both have the same gender feature (masculine). The sentence is, according to Richards (2010), ungrammatical and it seems that this is not because both gender features are the same, but rather because of the same case feature – we can conclude this by comparing (9a) to (9b), in which the DPs have the same case feature (dative), but different gender feature (masculine and feminine), which has no effect on the grammaticality.1 In (9c), on the other hand, the two DPs are both masculine, but have different case feature (dative and genitive) – the sentence is, according to Richards (2010), completely acceptable, which suggest that being distinguishable (or distinct) by case, but not gender, is enough to make two DPs distinct in Serbian.

1

The reason for the ungrammaticality of (9b) also cannot be homophony since the two DPs have different phonological forms.

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Croatian acts slightly different from Serbian and the judgments for examples which are comparable to the ones in Serbian are different:

(10)

a.??Kojem

je čovjeku

kojem

dječaku pomoči?

(Croatian)

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.DAT boy.DAT help.INF “Which man is to help which boy?” b. ?Kojem

je

čovjeku kojoj

ženi

(Richards 2010: (107a)) pomoči

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.DAT woman.DAT help.INF “Which man is to help which woman?” c. Kojem

je

čovjeku kojeg

(Richards 2010: (109))

dječaka pozdraviti?

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.GEN boy.GEN greet.INF ‘Which man is to greet which boy?’

(Richards 2010: (108))

The graded grammaticality of examples from (10a) to (10c) can be, according to Richards (2010), explained in the following way: In (10a) the two DPs have the same case and gender features (dative, masculine) and the sentence is almost unacceptable (the differences in the acceptability are very subtle). But as shown in (10b) the sentence improves if the two DPs differ at least in gender. Case seems to play a crucial role here too, since (10c), where the two DPs have different case but the same gender, is completely acceptable. Based on the examples in (10) we can observe that even in Croatian the label does not have an influence on the acceptability of examples with multiple Wh-fronting, since there are two Wh-DPs in the completely acceptable sentence, (10c). Also, it is more important to have different case than to only differ in gender in Croatian (since (10b) is less acceptable than (10c)). Comparing Richards’ (2010) data from Serbian and Croatian suggests that both languages are sensitive to the featural make-up of DPs rather than labels alone. These data also suggest that there is a difference between the two languages with respect to which features are important in making DPs distinct. For Serbian, the only feature that is important at linearization of multiple Wh-fronting sentences is case, while Croatian is sensitive to both case and gender (though case is more important). There are other languages that behave in the same way, for example: Richards (2010) discusses data from Russian, which is similar to Croatian.

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Before we turn to Slovenian, I will report on a small survey. Since the data presented from Serbian in Richards (2010) is based on judgments of just a few speakers, I rechecked these data with nine Serbian speakers. The judgments by the nine speakers are drastically different to the ones presented in Richards (2010), as shown below:

(11)

a.?Kojem

je čovjeku

kojem

dječaku mrsko pomogati?2 (Serbian)

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.DAT boy.DAT boring help.INF “Which man doesn’t feel like helping which boy?” b. ?Kojem

je čovjeku

kojoj

ženi

mrsko pomogati?

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.DAT woman.DAT boring help.INF “Which man doesn’t feel like helping which woman?” c. ??Kojem

je

čovjeku

kojeg

dječaka

mrsko pozdraviti?

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.GEN boy.GEN boring greet.INF “Which man doesn’t feel like greeting which boy?”

Comparing these grammaticality judgments to the ones in Richards (2010) we can see that the judgments collected from the nine speakers show a mirror image to the data from Richards (2010). Speakers find example (11a), in which the two DPs have the same case and gender features, and example (11b), in which the two DPs have the same case but different gender feature, more acceptable than example (11c), in which the two DPs have different case and gender feature. This contradicts Richards’ claim that DPs with different case features are more acceptable than the ones with the same features. The data collected from Serbian speakers has shown that multiple Wh-fronting does not necessarily behave as predicted by Richards (2010) and that Serbian might show that the effects of the Principle of Distinctness are problematic when we come to multiple Wh-fronting. However, the evidence from nine Serbian speakers is not enough to dismiss the Principle of Distinctness. In order to find additional evidence that would support (or discard) the claim that the Principle of Distinctness can explain the acceptability of multiple Wh-fronting sentences, Slovenian speakers were tested and the results of the experiment shows that

2

In the retested examples the verb 'pomogati' was changed into 'pomagati', which is the common form of the verb, as suggested by one of the speakers.

10

Slovenian is sensitive to case and gender features, as Croatian is, which supports the Principle of Distinctness. 2.3 Slovenian multiple Wh-fronting Slovenian is a multiple Wh-fronting language that does not seem to exhibit any effects of homophony, as shown in (12). This indicates that any restrictions on multiple Wh-fronting are not due to phonological form, but some other restriction – such as the Principle of Distinctness (Richards 2010).

(12)

Kaj

kaj

pogojuje?

what.NOM what.ACC conditions “What conditions what?”

In this paper the analysis assumed for multiple Wh-fronting will be the one proposed by Bošković (2002) in which Wh-words in Serbian and Croatian are contrastively focus marked and move to check the strong focus feature, as was shown in (7b) above. I assume the same holds for Slovenian. The Wh-phrases are moved to a projection, which in Slovenian seems to be below CP. If the Whphrases indeed move below CP, this would mean that they are linearized in the same phase (CP being the only strong phrase above vP) and should therefore be distinct if a sentence is to be acceptable. Slovenian acceptability judgments were gathered from fifteen speakers in a small experiment. The experiment included 37 examples of multiple Wh-fronting, 9 examples of multiple sluicing, which both had different case, gender and animacy combination, and 33 grammatical and ungrammatical fillers. Speakers were asked to judge the sentences using a 1 to 5 scale, 5 being completely acceptable and 1 being unacceptable. Examples were recorded and the speakers assessed the sentences after hearing them. They also had the sentences written down in the sheet on which they wrote down their judgments. As was reported for Croatian examples in Richards (2010), the differences in the acceptability are subtle but noticeable. From the results of the experiment we can first conclude that Slovenian is not sensitive to labels but to featural make-up of nodes. This can be concluded from examples such as (13) below:

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(13)

Kateri teti

je

kateri kolač

všeč?

[which aunt].DAT.F AUX [which cake].NOM.M likes “Which aunt likes which cake?”

The example is completely acceptable even if there are two DPs in a single phase of the derivation (between the vP and the CP). This means that if Slovenian can be explained with the Principle of Distinctness, then it is not in the same group as English but in the same group as Japanese, German. The acceptability of the example can be explained with the Principle of Distinctness: The two DPs have different case features, which makes them distinct, so the sentence is grammatical despite the two DPs being in the same phase (between the vP and the CP). Given that case and gender are the two features that make DPs distinct in Croatian (according to Richards) we can check if case and gender influence the acceptability of multiple Wh-fronting examples. Looking at the results, the first observation is that sentences with two Wh-DPs which have the same case feature (and same gender feature) are in general less acceptable than sentences with DPs which have different case features (and same gender feature). For example: double datives got average grades from 2.6 up to 3.3 while sentences with one dative DP and one genitive DP got responses from 3.2 up to 3.7.

(14)

??Kateri punci

kateri tetki

ni

zoprno

pomagati?

[Which girl].DAT.F [which aunt].DAT.F not-be annoying help.INF “Which girl is not annoyed to help which aunt?” (15)

?Kateri punčki

katere starke

ni

zoprno

narisati?

[which girl].DAT.F [which room].GEN.F not-be annoying draw “Which doctor does not like which room?”

Example (15) got an average grade of 3.5 and is thus more acceptable than (14), which got an average grade of 3. From the point of view of the Principle of Distinctness this is not surprising assuming that case is relevant in distinguishing DPs in Slovenian. The linearization statement of (14) is <[DP, DAT, F] [DP, DAT, F]>, while for (15) it is <[DP, DAT, F] [DP, GEN, F]>. In (15) the case feature is apparently enough to make the two DPs distinguishable from each other.

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After observing the general difference between examples with DPs with different case features and DPs which have the same case feature, we can turn attention to examples with the same case features to see if other features have an influence on the acceptability of Slovenian multiple Wh-fronting. Double accusatives in which both Wh-DPs have an inanimate grammatical feature (regardless of whether the two DPs were close or in different phases) were judged the worst with an average of 1.8:

(16)

*Kateri računalnik

uči

programer

kateri

[which computer].ACC.M.-AN teach programmer.NOM.M [which program? program].ACC.M.-AN “Which computer is being taught which program by the programmer?” (17)

*Kateri računalnik

kateri teorem

uči

[which computer].ACC.M.-AN [which theorem].ACC.M.-AN teaches programer? programmer.NOM.M “Which computer is being taught which theorem by the programmer?”

As both (16) and (17) were given comparably low grades, example (16) got an average 1.9 and example (17) 1.8; (17) seems to be unacceptable for reasons outside of the Principle of Distinctness: Double accusatives in Slovenian occur with the verb ‘učiti’ to teach and it seems that sentences where both the ‘what is being taught’ and ‘who is being taught’ are inanimate objects are fairly degraded. That the reason for the unacceptability is outside of the Principle of Distinctness can also be concluded based on example (16), in which the two DPs are not in one phase of the derivation and the sentence is still unacceptable. Sentences in which the two DPs have a different grammatical animacy feature are more acceptable, with an average acceptability of 3.3:

(18)

? Katerega učenca

kateri teorem

uči

profesor?

[which student].ACC.M.+AN [which theorem]. ACC.M.-AN teaches professor “Which student is the professor teaching which theorem?”

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Sentence (18) is more acceptable than (16) and (18), but it is not clear whether this is because of the reasons related to the verb ‘učiti’ to teach (one DP is naming the person who is being taught, the other the subject which is taught) or is it because of the Distinctness – since the two DPs have different linearization statements: <[DP, ACC, M, +AN] [DP, ACC, M, -AN]>. I was only testing for the effect of grammatical animacy, which can only be observed in Slovenian on masculine DPs in accusative singular (Toporišič 2004). Based on the examples in the experiment we therefore cannot make any conclusions about the influence of semantic animacy.3 Also, since examples (16) and (17) can be unacceptable and example (18) can be acceptable for reasons outside the Principle of Distinctness, no definite conclusions can be made on grammatical animacy based with respect to the data presented in this paper. There is, however, data from double accusatives that point towards animacy being a feature that has an influence on the acceptability, but we will not be considering double accusatives here. Looking at gender feature, we can observe that examples with the same case and different gender features seem to be slightly more acceptable than the ones with the same case and same gender DPs:

(19)

??Kateremu fantu

je kateremu dedku

zoprno

pomagati?

[which boy].DAT.M AUX [which grandfather].DAT.M annoying help.INF “Which boy dislikes by helping which grandfather?” (20)

?Kateremu starčku

se

kateri teti

ne ljubi

slediti?

[which old-man].DAT.M REFL [which aunt].DAT.F not feel-like follow.INF 3

Semantic animacy could be tested on examples like (i) and (ii). Since Principle of Distinctness applies to functional heads which are also determined by semantic features, semantic features could also influence the grammaticality. Assuming the Principle of Distinctness (Richards 2010) we could predict that (i) is less acceptable than (ii), since both DPs in (i) have the same values for all the features and (ii) has different values for semantic animacy. (i)

(ii)

Kateri punci kateri tetki ni zoprno pomagati? [Which girl].DAT.F [which aunt].DAT.F not-be annoying help.INF “Which girl is not annoyed to help which aunt?” Kateri punci kateri sobi ni zoprno pobarvati sten? [Which girl].DAT.F.+AN [which room].DAT.F.-AN not-be annoying paint.INF walls “Which girl is not annoyed to paint the walls of which room?”

I find example (ii) more acceptable but more speakers need to be tested to see if the prediction is borne out.

14

“Which old man does not feel like following which aunt?”

(20) got an average response of 3, while (19) got an average response of 2.6. If we compare the linearization statements of the two examples, we can see that in (16) the linearization statement is <[DP, DAT, M] [DP, DAT, M]>, while in (20) it is <[DP, DAT, M] [DP, DAT, F]>. This means that in (20) the gender feature is enough to make the two DPs distinguishable from each other.4 We can therefore conclude that gender is a feature makes DPs distinct. This difference in the acceptability of (20) and (19) suggests that Slovenian is the same type of a language as Croatian, shown in 2.2, and what makes DPs the most distinct from each other seems to be different case features of DPs; however, if two DPs have the same case feature and different gender feature the sentence is not as good, but still acceptable. From this we could conclude that there is a ranking of features in languages such as Slovenian and Croatian. The data on Serbian, section 2.2, is not conclusive since the data in Richards (2010) is drastically different from the judgments of speakers that were consulted for this paper. Slovenian on the other hand offers a confirmation for the Principle of Distinctness as proposed by Richards (2010). 2. 4 A note on the proximity of the two DPs One parameter that was tested with Slovenian speakers was if sentences with two Wh-DPs that have indistinguishable features are more acceptable if not all Wh-phrases are fronted. Sentences in which not all Wh-phrases are fronted are completely acceptable in Slovenian:

(21)

Kdo poje

kaj?

Who sings what Who is singing what? 4

The data from our acceptability judgment tests is also an argument against the structure of multiple Wh-questions which was proposed by Rudin (1988) for SerboCroatian and Czech and Golden (1997) for Slovenian, which was shown in (7a). Since we have assumed Richards (2010) Principle of Distinctness, the graded acceptability of Slovenian multiple wh-questions can only be accounted for if both Wh-phrases are in a single phase, which is not the case for the structure in (7a). The structure in (7b), however, can account for the data. This means that data from Slovenian multiple Whfronting is an argument for structure (7b), which was proposed in different works such as Bošković (2002) and Stjepanović (2003).

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According to Richards (2010) suppressing movement is one of the mechanisms used to avoid Distinctness violations, as shown for Croatian:

(22)

??Kojem

je čovjeku kojem

dječaku pomoči?

which.DAT AUX man.DAT which.DAT boy.DAT help.INF “Which man is to help which boy?” (23)

Kojem

je

čovjeku pomoči kojem

dječaku?

which.DAT AUX man.DAT help.INF which.DAT boy.DAT ‘Which man is to help which boy?’

Avoiding movement of the lower Wh-DP divides the two DPs in different phases of the derivation, which means they do not form a linearization statement and Distinctness is not violated (Richards 2010). This mechanism was re-tested on Slovenian in which not all Wh-phrases have to move and which acts like Croatian with respect to the influence of features. Again, Slovenian behaves similarly to Croatian, since examples with nondistinguishable DPs close together are judged slightly worse than examples in which only one DP is fronted:

(24)

??Katero punco

bkatero snov

uči

Božo?

[which girl].ACC.F [which subject].ACC.F teaches Božo (25)

?Katero punco

uči

Božo

katero snov?

[which girl].ACC.F teaches Božo [which subject]. ACC.F “Which girl is Božo teaching which subject?”

This suggests that avoiding movement can improve the grammaticality of Slovenian multiple Wh-questions with Wh-phrases that have indistinguishable features. Again, Slovenian behaves in accordance to the Principle of Distinctness (Richards 2010) and sentences are more acceptable when two DPs are not in a single phase of the derivation.

16

3 Multiple sluicing An environment similar to the one in multiple Wh-fronting examples can be found in multiple sluicing, which is another type of construction that helps us understand the influence of the Principle of Distinctness. Following the standard understanding of sluicing, I assume that the DP remnants of the sluiced clause are located in one phase of the derivation, just above IP, and provide an environment in which we can check the influence of features. Sluicing is an instance of clausal ellipsis – a sluice consists of a CP in which the sentential part (the IP) is elided (Merchant 2001 etc.):

(26)

John bought something. I wonder [

(27)

I wonder [CP what [IPJohn bought t]]

CP

what [

IP

John bought t]] (Grebenyova 2007: (3))

Assuming that Slovenian Wh-movement is an instance of focus movement (Bošković 2002; Stjepanović 2003), the Wh-phrases are moved to a position below CP. This means that sluicing is not licensed with the features on C0, but rather with [+focus] features (on FocP) which license the deletion of its complements (Grebenyova 2007). The assumed structure is presented in (28):

(28)

CP 3 FocP 3 IP 6

Given that Wh-phrases were assumed to be located in a single phase also in Whfronting, as discussed above, we can easily conclude that sluicing also involves Wh-phrases in the same phase. Richards' (2010) division of languages also holds for Sluicing. In English two phrases can appear together in sluicing as long as they have different labels. The ungrammaticality of (29b) can be explained using the Principle of Distinctness – there are two DPs in one phase of the derivation, while in (29a) the two sluicing remnants have different labels (DP, PP) and are therefore distinguishable from each other.

17

(29)

a. Everyone was dancing with somebody, but I don’t know [DP who] [PP with whom] b. *Everyone insulted somebody, but I don’t know [DP who] [DP whom] (Richards 2010: (87))

Richards (2010) also discusses languages which allow multiple sluicing with two DPs, such as German, Japanese (shown in section 1.1), Dutch and Greek. In these languages, multiple sluicing is allowed as long as the two DPs are distinct from each other, but the languages differ as to which features are relevant for the purpose of linearization. Greek, for example, distinguishes DPs on the basis of case and animacy (Richards 2010):

(30)

Kapjos

idhe kapjon,

alla dhen ksero

pjos

pjon.

(Greek)

someone.NOM saw someone.ACC but not I.know who.NOM who.ACC ‘Someone saw someone, but I don’t know who whom.’ (Richards 2010: (96))

The grammaticality of (30) is explained assuming the Principle of Distinctness as we can say that the two DPs in (30) are distinct enough to be linearized in one Spell-Out domain, because they carry different case features. Examples of Slovenian multiple sluicing will be presented below. 3.1 Slovenian multiple sluicing Assuming the structure in (28) to be the structure of Slovenian multiple Whexamples, we can check whether it is influenced by the Principle of Distinctness, and if so, which features are important for making two DPs distinct. Again, fifteen speakers were tested on examples with different combinations for grammatical features for case, gender and animacy, but also on examples in which the two remnants have different labels. Sentences in which the two sluices have different labels are unproblematic since they got an average grade of 4.7:

(31)

Neko punčko

smo

zamenjali

[DP Some doll] AUX switched

[z

drugo punčko], ampak ne vemo

[PP with another doll]

but

not know

18

katero

s

katero

[DP which] [PP with which] “We switched a doll with some other doll but we do not know which doll with which doll.”

Examples such as (31) show that just like English, Slovenian can easily linearize a DP and a PP even if the PP contains a DP that is (phonologically) identical to the DP with which the PP is linearized. The linearization only looks at the outermost label (also: a PP is a phase). However, the story is more complicated with multiple DP remnants. First, we can observe sensitivity to case and at the same time no sensitivity to phonological form (i.e. we are checking syncretic forms), which is shown in example (32).5 Sensitivity to case is also shown in (33), where the two Wh-words are also morphologically distinct:

(32)

Nekaj

pogojuje

nekaj,

pa ne vem

kaj

kaj.

Something.NOM conditions something.ACC, but not know what.NOM what.ACC “Something is conditioning something, but I don’t know what what.” (33)

Nečemu

smo nekaj

dodali, ampak ne

Something.DAT AUX something.ACC added, but čemu

spomnim

se,

not remember REFL

kaj

who.DAT what.ACC “We added something to something, but I don’t remember what to what.”

Sentences like (33) with different case features on the two DPs are judged as completely acceptable. This can be explained with the Principle of Distinctness if the two DPs, even though they share the same phase of the derivation are 5

There are languages, such as Greek, which are sensitive to syncretism, however, this, according to Richards (2010) is not because of the phonological form, but because “syncretism must involve manipulation of the syntactic representation prior to lexical insertion” (Richards 2010: 48): (i)

*Ksero oti kathe agori espase ena parathiro, alla dhen ksero pio I-know that every boy.NEUT broke one window.NEUT but not I-know which.NEUT pio which.NEUT ‘I know that every boy broke one window, but I don’t know which which’ (Richards 2010: (97a))

19

distinct

because

they

have

different

case

features

(the

unproblematic

linearization statement for (33) is <[DP, DAT] [DP, ACC]>. We can again see that case features are responsible for making DPs distinct, as was the case with multiple Wh-fronting. Judgments of examples in which the two DPs have the same case feature are presented below; in general these examples are less acceptable. Example (34) got an average response of 1.9; example (35) got an average 2.2; and example (36) got a response of 2.7:

(34)

*Nekemu moškemu smo pomagali podariti darilo nekemu fantu [some

man].DAT AUX helped

ne vemo kateremu

give

gift

[some

ampak

boy].DAT but

kateremu.

not know which. DAT.M which.DAT.M (35)

*/?Neki punčki [Some

smo pomagali pomagati neki

girl].DAT AUX

vemo kateri

helped

help.INF

starki

ampak ne

[some old lady].DAT but

not

kateri.

know which.DAT.F which.DAT.F (36)

?Nekemu stricu

se

ne ljubi

pisati

neki punci,

[Some uncle].DAT.M REF not feel-like write.INF [some girl].DAT.F ampak ne vemo kateremu but

kateri.

not know which.DAT.M. which.DAT.F.

Examples with two DPs with the same case feature, (34)-(36), are generally judged worse than examples with different case features, (32), (33). Examples that have the same case feature but different gender features, (36), are judged better than the ones that have the same case and gender features, (34) and (35). This can be accounted for once again by assuming the Principle of Distinctness: in the examples with the same case and gender features, the two DPs are indistinguishable from each other, for example the linearization statement for (35) is <[DP, DAT, F] [DP, DAT, F]>. In example (36), on the other hand, the two DPs are distinguishable by their gender feature, the linearization statement being <[DP, DAT, M] [DP, DAT, F]>. Gender is, once again, a feature that can make DPs distinct.

20

The experiment also checked the influence of grammatical animacy features in Slovenian multiple sluicing.6 Examples with same case, gender and animacy features were graded as completely unacceptable (average response 1.7):

(37)

*Tone uči

nek računalnik

nek program

Tone teaches [some computer].ACC.M.-AN [some program].ACC.M.-AN ampak ne vem but

katerega

katerega.

not know which.ACC which.ACC

The unacceptability of (37) could potentially also be explained with the Principle of Distinctness. The critical linearization statement for (37) is <[DP, ACC, M, AN] [DP, ACC, M, -AN]>, the two DPs are indistinguishable, they are both DPs, they have the same case feature, same gender and same animacy feature, but given that for comparable multiple Wh-fronting examples we said that their ungrammaticality cannot be attributed to the Principle of Distinctness, but rather to some lexical properties of the verb učiti 'to teach', we cannot conclude that the Principle of Distinctness was at play in (37). Changing the animacy feature of one of the two DPs results in an acceptable sentence. In terms of the Principle of Distinctness this would mean that the example (38) produces a linearization statement where the two DPs can be distinguished: <[DP, ACC, M, +AN] [DP, ACC, M, -AN]>.

(38)

Tone uči

nekega fanta

neki program

ampak

Tone teaches [some boy].ACC.+AN [some program].ACC.-AN but vem

katerega

ne not

katerega

know which.ACC.+AN which.AC.-AN “Tone is teaching some boy some program, but I don’t know which program to which boy.”

The data from Slovenian multiple sluicing can be explained with the Principle of Distinctness. Sentences that are acceptable have distinct DPs (DPs that differ in at least one feature), while unacceptable sentences have non-distinct DPs (both 6

Semantic animacy was not tested. Additional tests should be conducted in order to investigate the effect of semantic animacy on linearization.

21

DPs have the same feature bundle). This situation is exactly the same as the situation Richards (2010) describes for Croatian multiple Wh-fronting and Japanese or Greek sluicing. Since the acceptability of Slovenian examples can be explained with the Principle of Distinctness, this is an additional argument for the Principle of Distinctness. 4 Conclusion The Slovenian data presented in this paper includes examples from two constructions in which two DPs occur in the CP phase, which is a strong phase. The behavior of both sets of data offer a confirmation for the Principle of Distinctness as proposed by Richards (2010). Slovenian clearly behaves as one of the languages in which it is not the case that nodes are distinct only if they have different labels (such as English), but rather if they have different feature bundles. Based on the data from the experiment we can conclude that the set of features relevant for making DPs in Slovenian distinct includes case, gender (and possibly animacy). One feature from the feature bundle is enough that DPs can become distinct enough for them to appear in the same linearization statement. There are questions that arise from the comparison of Slovenian and English data. The first question is why the two languages are different. The second question is whether we can make any predictions based on the comparison of cross-linguistic

data.

One

possible

explanation

is

morphology.

Slovenian

(compared to English) has a rich morphological system and the influence of grammatical features can be seen in its morphology. If the explanation for the differences between English and Slovenian is in the morphological richness, than we would be able to predict that all morphologically rich languages would define distinctness based on features and languages with less overt morphology would make distinctions based on labels. However, additional work has to be done in order to confirm the prediction.

References Adger, David and Peter Svenonius (2011): Features in minimalist syntax. In The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism, (27-51). New York: Oxford University Press.

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Anagnostopoulou, Elena (2000): Two classes of double object verbs: The role of zero morphology. Paper presented at the 23rd GLOW Workshop on Null/Overt Morphology, Bilbao, April 19. Bošković, Željko (1999): On multiple feature-checking: Multiple Wh-fronting and multiple head movement. In Working Minimalism (159-187). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. —. (2001): On the nature of the syntax-phonology interface. Clitization and related phenomena. Amsterdam: Elsevier. —. (2002): On multiple wh-fronting. In Linguistic Inquiry, 33 (351-383). Chomsky, Noam (2000): Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik (89-155). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Golden, Marija (1997): Multiple Wh-questions in Slovene. In: Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Cornell Meeting, 1995 (240-266). MI: Michigan Slavic Publications, Ann Arbor. Grebenyova, Lydia (2007): Sluicing in Slavic. Journal of the Slavic Linguistic Society, 15 (49-81). Halle, Morris and Alec Marantz. (1994): Morphology.

Some key features of Distributed

In MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 21 (275-288).

Cambridge, MA: MIT, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. Kayne, Richard (1994): The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Merchant, Jason (2001): The Syntax of Silence. Sluicing, Islands, and the Theory of Elipsis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richards, Norvin (2010): Uttering Trees. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Stjepanović, Sandra (2003): Multiple wh-fronting in Serbo-Croatian matrix questions and the matrix sluicing construction. In Multiple Wh-fronting (255-284). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Toporišič, Jože (2004): Slovenska slovnica. Maribor: Obzorja.