This paper examines a factivity alternation in Barguzin Buryat (Mongolic) with the verb
Factivity alternation (
Barguzin Buryat has a verb
(1)
a.
Dugar
Dugar
[CP
mi:sgɘi
cat.
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:
eat-
/ɘdi-xɘ
/eat-
gɘžɘ]
han-a:
think-
‘Dugar
b.
The fish was missing. Dugar was wrong about who ate it.
Dugar
Dugar
[mi:sgɘi
cat.
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:
eat-
gɘžɘ]
han-a:
think-
xarin
but
mi:sgɘi
cat
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:-güi
eat-
‘Dugar
All (1) states is that in worlds compatible with Dugar’s thoughts, there is an event of a cat eating the fish. Thus, negating the proposition expressed by the complement is felicitous.
When
(2)
a.
Dugar
Dugar.
[NMN
mi:sgɘi-n
cat-
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ-n’]
eat-
han-a:
think-
‘Dugar
b.
The fish was missing. Dugar is wrong about who ate it.
#Dugar
Dugar
[mi:sgɘi-n
cat-
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ-n’]
eat-
han-a:
think-
xarin
but
mi:sgɘi
cat
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:-güi
eat-
#‘Dugar
I would like to argue that sentences like in (2) have a
The proposal advanced in this paper is different from the approaches that attribute factive inferences to definiteness (
In section 2 I argue that the inference that we observe when
In (1b)–(2b) we saw that denying the truth of the complement leads to a contradiction when
(3)
Bi
1
Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:
break-
gü
gɘžɘ
mɘdɘ-nɘ-güi-b…
know-
‘I don’t know whether Badma broke the cart…’
a.
# …(xarin)
(but)
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ]
break-
han-a:
think-
# ‘…(but) Sajana remembered that Badma broke the cart.’
b.
…(xarin)
(but)
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:
break-
gɘžɘ]
han-a:
think-
‘…(but) Sajana thought that Badma broke the cart.’
In (3) the speaker explicitly says that they are ignorant about the truth of the complement, which makes the
Consider (4). If the speaker says (4a), they can follow it up with (4b), but not with (4c). In other words, Sajana remembering on Tuesday Badma’s breaking the cart is compatible with Badma starting the breaking on Monday, but not on Wednesday (given that we are talking about the same week).
(4)
a.
Garag-ai
day-
xojor-to
two-
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ-n’]
break-
han-a:
think-
‘On Tuesday Sajana remembered Badma’s breaking the cart.’
b.
Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
garag-ai
day-
nɘgɘn-dɘ
one-
ɘmdɘlɘ-ʒɘ
break-
ɘxil-ɘ:
begin-
‘Badma began to break the cart on Monday.’
c.
#Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
garag-ai
day-
gurban-da
three-
ɘmdɘlɘ-ʒɘ
break-
ɘxil-ɘ:
begin-
‘Badma began to break the cart on Wednesday.’
(4b) specifies the beginning time of the breaking event which is before the time of Sajana’s thinking in (4a), while (4c) specifies the beginning time of the breaking event which is after (4a)’s matrix time. This example suggests that the
I would like to argue that the temporal inference that we see in (4) is not about temporal precedence, but about
That the left boundary of the time interval corresponding to
(5)
Sɘsɘg
Seseg
gar-ga-x-a:
go.out-
bai-ga:n
be-
üxibü-jɘ:
child-
han-a:
think-
‘Seseg remembered her future child.’
(lit. ‘her child that will be caused to go out of her’)
a.
b.
Seseg’s child exists in the actual world at the utterance time, but this is not enough for (5) to be felicitous: the child needs to have existed before the matrix time, which in this case is some contextually salient time 7 years ago. This suggests that
Another piece of evidence for the pre-existence inference comes from sentences where
(6)
a.
#Badma
Badma
naiman
eight
tarxi-tai
head-
mi:sgɘi-(ɘ)
cat-(
hana-na
think-
# ‘Badma is remembering an eight-headed cat.’
b.
Badm-ain
Badma-
tarxi
head
so:
in
naiman
eight
tarxi-tai
head-
mi:sgɘi
cat
or-o:
come-
‘Badma thought of an eight-headed cat.’
(lit. ‘An eight-headed cat came into Badma’s head.’)
In (6) the object which Badma’s thoughts are about has to not exist before his thoughts. This leads to an infelicitous sentence when such a fictional individual is the internal argument of
The fact that noun phrases ‘her future child’ and ‘an eight-headed cat’ are internal arguments of
(7)
a.
Sɘsɘg
Seseg
gar-ga-x-a:
go.out-
bai-ga:n
be-
üxibü-n
child-
tuxai-ga:
about-
hana-na
think-
‘Seseg is thinking about her future child.’
b.
?Badma
Badma
naiman
eight
tarxi-tai
head-
mi:sgɘi
cat
tuxai
about
hana-na
think-
‘Badma is thinking about an eight-headed cat.’
This suggests that being the topic/object of thoughts is not a sufficient requirement for being subject to the pre-existence inference; being the internal argument of the verb is a necessary condition.
When
Now let us consider how the right boundary of
(8)
Sajana
Sajana.
Badm-i:jɘ
Badma-
han-a:
think-
‘Sajana remembered Badma.’
Provided that when the time function takes an entity, it returns its life span — the time interval corresponding to the entity’s existence, (8) suggests that the temporal component does not require the right boundary of the Theme argument to precede the time of the thinking event.
Second, the placement of the right boundary of an event described by the
(9)
a.
b.
Ojuna
Ojuna
[Sajan-i:n
Sajana-
du:
song
du:la-ʒa
sing-
bai-x-i:jɘ]
be-
hana-na
think-
‘Ojuna is remembering that Sajana is singing a song.’
If the pre-existence inference required the right boundary of an event described by the nominalized expression to be before the matrix time, we would have expected interpretations like in (9) to not be possible.
Thus, I conclude that in sentences where
(10) | ||
(i) | The Theme of the event described by |
|
(ii) | The left boundary of the time interval that the time function |
I propose that the factivity inference that we saw in (2b) and (3) is a consequence of (10): if the left boundary of an entity/event in the matrix world that one is thinking about is before the thinking, that entity/event has to exist at the time of thinking.
Is this pre-existence presupposition responsible for turning ‘thinking’ into ‘remembering’? I would like to argue that
(11)
Üsɘgɘldɘr
yesterday
Sɘlmɘg
Selmeg
Badm-i:n
Badma-
hain
well
xüdɘl-dɘg-i:jɘ
work-
türü:∫ɘnxijɘ:
for.the.first.time
han-a:
think-
‘Yesterday Selmeg thought for the first time of Badma working well.’
If
While
An anonymous reviewer raises an alternative hypothesis that
(12)
Seseg:
Ju:
what
honin?
news
Ju:
what
xɘ-x-ɘ:
do-
bai-na-∫?
be-
‘How are you? What are you planning to do?’
Dugar:
Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ-n’
break-
han-a:-b.
think-
Tɘrgɘ
cart
zaha-lsa-x-u:
fix-
ali
ügi:-g
no-
hur-a:d
ask-
jɘrɘ-xɘ-m
go-
‘I remembered that Badma broke a cart. I plan to go ask whether he needs any help to fix it.’
In (13) Earth being flat is previously mentioned in the discourse. However, this is not sufficient for the nominalized clause
(13)
A:
Urdanai
former
grɘg-u:d
Greek-
gazar
Earth
xabtagar
flat
gɘžɘ
buru:
wrong
hana-dag
think-
bai-ga:
be-
‘Ancient Greeks mistakenly thought that the Earth is flat.’
B:
Gansa
only
greg-u:d
Greek-
bɘ∫ɘ!
not
#
Dugar
Dugar
gazar-ai
Earth-
xabtagar
flat
bai-ga:∫-i:jɘ
be-
hana-dag
think-
Intended: ‘Not only Greek people (had this opinion)! Dugar thinks that the Earth is flat.’
Thus, being previously mentioned is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for using a nominal as
The pre-existence inference behaves like a presupposition: it introduces backgrounded information which is common knowledge to the participants of the conversation, and it projects in questions and survives under negation, as illustrated in (14) and (15), respectively. This suggests that the inference at hand is a presupposition.
(14)
#Bi
1
Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:
break-
gü
gɘžɘ
mɘdɘ-nɘ-güi-b,
know-
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ]
break-
hana-na
think-
gü?
Intended: ‘I don’t know whether Badma broke the cart or not. Does Sajana think/remember that Badma broke the cart?’
(15)
#[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ]
break-
Sajana
Sajana.
han-a:-güi,
think-
Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:-güi
break-
Intended: ‘Sajana didn’t think/remember that Badma broke the cart, (and) Badma didn’t break the cart.’
The projection of the pre-existence presupposition is summarized in (16).
(16) | |
There is a |
The inference that projects in (14)–(15) is that there is an event of Badma breaking the cart in the actual world that started before the matrix time. If this inference is part of the common ground, then the speaker cannot be ignorant about it (14) or directly contradict it (15). The analysis of how the pre-existence presupposition is encoded should ensure that the empirical generalization in (16) is derived.
Factivity is one of the components of the presupposition under consideration. What part of the sentence contributes this inference? There are several hypotheses about the origin of factive presuppositions (see discussion in
First, the factive inference does not always arise when otherwise non-factive verbs combine with nominalized expressions. For example, when verbs
(17)
Sajana
Sajana
[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-tɘ-n’]
break-
ɘtig-ɘ:,
believe-
xarin
but
Badma
Badma
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:-güi
break-
‘Sajana believed that Badma broke the cart (lit. ‘in Badma’s breaking the cart’), but Badma didn’t break the cart.’
(18)
Sajana
Sajana
[Sɘsɘg-ɘi
Seseg-
xada
mountain
dɘ:rɘ
up
gar-a:∫a-da]
go.to-
naida-na,
hope-
xarin
but
Sɘsɘg
Seseg
xada
mountain
dɘ:rɘ
up
gar-a:-güi
go.to-
‘Sajana hopes that Seseg went up the mountain (lit. ‘in Seseg’s going up the mountain’), but Seseg didn’t go up the mountain.’
This suggests that the nominal status of the argument does not suffice for the factive inference to come about. Note that the nominalized expressions in (17)–(18) are the same as the ones we have seen with
Second, the nominalized expression under consideration can have indefinite uses, so the factive inference cannot be due to the definiteness of the complement (see
(19)
Darima
Darima
Sajan-i:n
Sajana-
Burjati
Buryatia
tuxai
about
du:
song
du:l-a:∫-i:jɘ
sing-
han-a:,
think-
Sɘsɘg
Seseg
Sajan-i:n
Sajana-
Burjati
Buryatia
tuxai
about
du:
song
du:l-a:∫-i:jɘ
sing-
han-a:,
think-
Narana
Narana
baha
also
Sajan-i:n
Sajana-
Burjati
Buryatia
tuxai
about
du:
song
du:l-a:∫-i:jɘ
sing-
han-a:
think-
‘Darima remembered Sajana’s singing a song about Buryatia, Seseg remembered Sajana’s singing a song about Buryatia, and Narana also remembered Sajana’s singing a song about Buryatia.’
a.
There were several performers at the concert, one of them was Sajana. She sang several songs about Buryatia and a few Russian folk songs. After a while I asked three women who were at the concert their impressions.
b.
There were several performers at the concert, one of them was Sajana. She sang only one song about Buryatia and a few Russian folk songs. After a while I asked three women who were at the concert their impressions.
The fact that three women could have each remembered different singing of a song about Buryatia by Sajana suggests that the
To sum up, the factive component cannot be attributed to the meaning of the nominalized clause: the fact that it is nominalized is not sufficient for the factive inference (
I propose that factivity alternations like the one we see in Buryat can arise due to attitude verbs having pre-existence presuppositions associated with their Theme arguments. The main intuition behind this proposal is the following. We know that verbs place restrictions on interpretations of their arguments. One such restriction is that some verbs require their Theme arguments to exist before the verb’s time of evaluation. This is the case with verbs of destruction, (20a), and verbs of use, (20b), but, for example, not with verbs of creation, (20c).
(20) | a. | Sue broke a vase. ⟹ There existed a vase before the time of the breaking event. |
b. | Mary read a book ⟹ There existed a book before the time of the reading event. | |
c. | Alice wrote a poem. ⇏ There existed a poem before the time of the writing event. |
What I would like to suggest is that attitude verbs can also place similar requirements on their arguments, and that these requirements can in certain cases lead to factive inferences.
If this intuition is correct, then analyzing the factivity alternation amounts to (i) making some assumptions about the semantics of attitude verbs and (ii) analyzing the argument structure of
As for the argument structure of
My proposal that nominals and CPs combine via different routes makes a prediction about their distribution (first discussed by Özyıldız (
(21)
Sajana
Sajana
[
Badm-i:n
Badma-
Xurumxa:n-ha:
Kurumkan-
jɘr-ɘ:d
come-
bai-ga:∫-i:jɘ-n’]
be-
[
gɘr-tɘ
house-
xulgai∫an
burglar
or-o:
go.in-
gɘžɘ]
han-a:
think-
‘Sajana recalled the/an event of Badma returning from Kurumkan, (thinking) that a burglar entered the house.’
In (21) the
Examples like (21) are also important in another respect: they allow us to refute the hypothesis that
There are many ways to implement the proposal sketched out above. One question that arises is how the Theme argument of
(22) | ⟦hanaxa⟧ |
As we see from (22), the attitude verb denotes a function that takes an event e as its argument, and returns true iff e is a thinking event in world w at time t (abbreviated as
According to the decompositional approach to attitude verbs, finite complement clauses denote functions that characterize sets of contentful events or entities. The details of proposals in this framework vary; here I will adopt the proposal in (
(23)
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:
break-
gɘžɘ]
han-a:
think-
‘Sajana thought that Badma broke the cart.’
(24) | ⟦that Badma broke the cart⟧ |
= |
(25) | ⟦ |
The LF for the sentence in (23) is in (26).
(26) | |
The CP combines with
(27) | ⟦hanaxa that Badma broke the cart⟧ |
Then Voice introduces the external argument, with the resulting one-place predicate of events getting existentially closed, and this proposition is combined by Intensional Functional Application
(28) | ⟦PAST t1⟧ |
(29) | ⟦Sajana thought that Badma broke the cart⟧ |
∃t’ < t ∧ t’ ⊆ g(1) [∃e [think |
This sentence is true relative to a world w, a time t and an assignment function g if there is a time within a salient time interval which is in the past relative to t at which there is an event of Sajana thinking whose Content is ‘Badma broke the cart’.
This analysis of sentences with CPs straightforwardly captures the absence of the pre-existence presupposition in them: since the pre-existence presupposition is introduced by
In this section I provide two arguments in favor of treating Buryat CPs with the complementizer
The first piece of evidence comes from the morphology of the complementizer. The complementizer
(30)
a.
Badma
Badma
bɘ∫ɘg
letter
bɘ∫ɘ-
write-
ɘxil-ɘ:
begin-
‘Badma began to write a letter.’
b.
[Ojuna
Ojuna.
üxibü:
child
türɘ-
give.birth.to-
Badma
Badma.
ɘsɘgɘ
father
bolo-bo
become-
‘As Ojuna gave birth to a child, Badma became a father.’
Converbial clauses like those in (30a) or (30b) can be plausibly analyzed as event modifiers (specifying, e.g., the nature of the beginning event in (30a) and the cause of the father-becoming event in (30b)). If the morphology (the suffix -
Additional evidence comes from proform substitution. Finite CPs can be substituted by the proform used for sentential adjuncts and restructuring clauses, (31a):
(31)
a.
Üsɘgɘldɘr
yesterday
Badma
Badma
bɘ∫ɘg
letter
bɘ∫ɘ-
write-
ɘxil-ɘ:,
begin-
ba
and
münödɘr
today
(Badma)
(Badma)
baha
also
ɘxil-ɘ:
begin-
‘Yesterday Badma began to write a letter, and today he also began to do so [= write a letter].’
b.
Badma
Badma.
[Sajana
Sajana.
bulj-a:
win-
gɘ-
say-
han-a:,
think-
Ojuna
Ojuna.
baha
also
/
*ti:-mɘ
do.so-ADJ
/
*tɘrɘn-i:jɘ
that-
han-a:
think-
‘Badma thought that Sajana won, Ojuna also thought so.’
The second piece of evidence comes from the syntactic distribution of CPs: they pattern with adverbs with respect to the positions in the clause they can occupy.
(32)
a.
<Sajana>
Sajana
[
Badma
Badma
jɘr-ɘ:
come-
gɘ-žɘ]
say-
<Sajana>
Sajana
mɘdɘ-nɘ
know-
‘Sajana knows that Badma came.’
b.
<za:bol>
certainly
Rinčin
Rinchin
<za:bol>
certainly
ajaga
dishes
<za:bol>
certainly
uga:-xa
wash-
‘Rinchin will certainly wash the dishes.’
Just like adverbs, non-nominalized CPs in Buryat cannot be subjects, (33). Noun phrases, including nominalized clauses, are different in this respect: they can occupy subject positions, (34).
(33)
*[
Badma
Badma
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-hɘn
break-
gɘ-žɘ]
say-
Sajan-i:jɘ
Sajana-
ga:r-u:l-a:
anger-
Intended: ‘That Badma broke the cart angered Sajana.’
(34)
a.
[
ɘnɘ
this
tɘrgɘ-n]
cart-
Sajan-i:jɘ
Sajana-
ga:r-u:l-a:
anger-
‘This cart angered Sajana.’
b.
[
Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫ɘ-n’]
break-
Sajan-i:jɘ
Sajana-
ga:r-u:l-a:
anger-
‘That Badma broke the cart angered Sajana.’
Under the assumption that syntactic distribution reflects the denotation of a constituent, we can conclude that finite clauses in Buryat, like adverbs, denote predicates of events.
The nominalized expression under consideration, (35), is built from the following morphological pieces: the verbal root, the participle suffix
(35)
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ-(n’)]
break-
han-a:
think-
‘Sajana remembered that Badma broke the cart.’
In place of
Participial suffixes add aspectual and temporal specification to the eventuality descriptions they attach to, such as information about (im)perfectivity, habituality, or temporal orientation. These specifications remain to be investigated, and they will not inform the proposed analysis. I make the simplifying assumption that participial suffixes combine with predicates of events and return predicates of events which are supplemented by some aspectual or temporal specification.
The participle
(36)
Bi
1
[Dugar-ai
Dugar-
Baigal-ha:
Baikal-
jɘr-
come-
mɘdɘ-nɘ-b
know-
‘I know that Dugar returned from Baikal.’
While this, again, might be a considerable simplification of
(37) | ⟦ |
When
(38) | ⟦break the cart by Badma |
= |
(39) | ⟦break the cart by Badma |
= |
(40) | ⟦Badma’s breaking. |
In order to simplify future derivations, I introduce the abbreviation in (41):
(41) | ⟦Badma’s breaking. |
The denotation in (40) does not specify how such a
For now, I would like to provide some arguments that this nominalized expression does not specify the propositional content of the thinking event (unlike CPs, see (24)). The denotation in (40) predicts that this
(42)
Badma
Badma
[Darim-i:n
Darima-
dɘn
too.much
türgö:r
quickly
ma∫ina:r
by.car
jab-a:∫-i:jɘ]
go-
hana-na,
think-
xarin
but
Badma
Badma
[ (Darima)
(Darima)
dɘn
too.much
türgö:r
quickly
ma∫ina:r
by.car
jab-a:
go-
gɘžɘ]
hana-na-güi
think-
Paraphrase: ‘Badma remembers an event of Darima’s driving too quickly, but he doesn’t think that Darima drove too quickly.’
In (42) we see two clauses with the verb
Another piece of evidence comes from the fact that nominalized clauses cannot report false memories. In the context in (43), while a CP can be used with
(43)
a.
Darima
Darima.
[gɘr-tɘ
house-
xulgai∫an
thief.
or-o:
enter-
gɘžɘ]
hana-na,
think-
xarin
but
tɘrɘ
that
axa-n’
brother-3.
Xurumxa:n-ha:
Kurumkan-
jɘrɘ-hɘn
come-
bai-ga:
be-
‘Darima thinks that a thief entered the house, but it was her brother coming back from Kurumkan.’
b.
#Darima
Darima.
[gɘr-tɘ
house-
xulgai∫an-ai
thief-
or-o:∫-i:jɘ]
enter-
hana-na,
think-
xarin
but
tɘrɘ
that
axa-n’
brother-3.
Xurumxa:n-ha:
Kurumkan-
jɘrɘ-hɘn
come-
bai-ga:
be-
Intended: ‘Darima thinks that a thief entered the house, but it was her brother coming back from Kurumkan.’
The infelicity of (43b) supports the claim that the nominalized expression cannot describe the Content of the thinking event.
My proposal that the
(44)
a.
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ]
break-
han-a:
think-
‘Sajana remembered Badma’s breaking the cart.’
b.
…
ɘnɘ
this
u∫ar
event
gaza:
outside
bol-o:
become-
‘…This event happened outside.’
Second, unlike CPs,
(45)
a.
Sajana
Sajana
aja:r
long.ago
xɘzɘ:-n-hɘ:
when-
xoi∫o
back
[Sɘsɘg
Seseg.
xada
mountain
dɘ:rɘ
to
gar-a:
go-
gɘžɘ]
arsald-a:
argue-
‘Sajana argued all along that Seseg went up the mountain.’
b.
*Sajana
Sajana
aja:r
long.ago
xɘzɘ:-n-hɘ:
when-
xoi∫o
back
[Sɘsɘg-ɘi
Seseg-
xada
mountain
dɘ:rɘ
to
gar-a:∫-i:jɘ]
go-
arsald-a:
argue-
Intended: ‘Sajana argued all along that Seseg went up the mountain.’
I propose that the reason for the ungrammaticality of (45b) is that verbs like
I would like to propose that
(46) | |
⟦ |
|
(where |
(47) |
This functional head takes a predicate P, an individual x and returns a predicate of events such that P is true of them and they are in an
The important contribution of
(48)
a.
#Sɘsɘg
Seseg
gar-ga-x-a:
go.out-
bai-ga:n
be-
üxibü-jɘ:
child-
hana-na
think-
‘Seseg remembers her future child.’
(lit. ‘her child that will be caused to go out of her’)
b.
Sɘsɘg
Seseg
gar-ga-x-a:
go.out-
bai-ga:n
be-
üxibü-n
child-
tuxai-ga:
about-
hana-na
think-
‘Seseg thinks about her future child.’
(lit. ‘her child that will be caused to go out of her’)
While NP ‘her future child’ in the object position of
A question that arises about the denotation in (46) is whether some verbs besides
I propose that
(49) | ⟦ |
⟺ |
|
⟺ |
|
(where R is some theta-role relation) | |
⟺ … |
To the right of each double arrow is the denotation that
Within Buryat, I think there are at least two other verbs which could be candidates for creating the same environment as
(50)
a.
Sajana
Sajana
Dugar-ha:
Dugar-
Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ
break-
du:l-a:
hear-
‘Sajana heard from Dugar about Badma’s breaking the cart.’
b.
# …
xarin
but
Badma
Badma
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:-güi
break-
‘But Badma didn’t break the cart.’
(51)
a.
Sajana
Sajana
Sɘsɘg-ɘi
Seseg-
xada
mountain
dɘ:rɘ
to
gar-a:∫-i:jɘ
go-
xɘl-ɘ:
say-
‘Sajana said (something) about Seseg’s going up the mountain.’
b.
#…
xarin
but
Sɘsɘg
Seseg
xada
mountain
dɘ:rɘ
to
gar-a:-güi
go-
‘But Seseg didn’t go up the mountain.’
Sentences (50a) and (51a) are incompatible with contexts in which an event described by the
I expect that other languages could also have allosemes for
In this section, I develop an implementation of my proposal and address the question of how the pre-existence presupposition projects. I focus on indefinite readings of nominalized expressions in order to guarantee that the pre-existence presupposition is derived with them as well. The general question of presupposition projection from quantificational sentences is an ongoing debate (
(52)
#[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ]
break-
Sajana
Sajana.
han-a:-güi,
think-
Badma
Badma.
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:-güi
break-
Intended: ‘Sajana didn’t think/remember that Badma broke the cart, (and) Badma didn’t break the cart.’
Nominalized clauses are bare noun phrases, and I will assume that they are predicates of events of type <e,t>. I propose that the existential quantifier corresponding to the indefinite does not combine with the
The LF for the sentence with a
(53)
Sajana
Sajana.
[Badm-i:n
Badma-
tɘrgɘ
cart
ɘmdɘl-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ-(n’)]
break-
han-a:
think-
‘Sajana remembered that Badma broke the cart.’
(54) |
I assume the standard view that presuppositions are encoded as partial functions (
In the light of the foregoing, the final meaning of
(55) | ⟦ |
The nominalized clause, (40), which is a predicate of events, is able to directly combine with
Note that the presuppositional component in this case is repeated in the assertion. This is just a way to write the truth-conditions that are more explicitly stated in (56).
(56) |
As the denotation in (56) shows, I assume a theory with three truth-values: 1 (true), 0 (false) and # (undefined). The sentences are undefined just in case they are neither true nor false. Thus, the presupposition of a given expression is a disjunction of the condition which makes it true and the condition which makes it false. Trivalent logic (strong Kleene logic) provides a general recipe for transforming bivalent semantic values to trivalent ones. Imagine that we have a complex sentence which contains an expression
(56) ensures that ∃
(57) |
This VoiceP combines with the existential closure, (58), which, being existential quantifier, has a disjunctive presupposition.
(58) | ⟦∃⟧ |
This, when simplified, results in (59).
(59) |
Finally, the proposition in (59) is combined with the contextually restricted tense, (60), by Intensional Functional Application, resulting in (61).
(60) |
(61) |
(61) states that the sentence is true iff there exists some past time interval t’ within a contextually salient time and there exist events e and e’ such that e’ is Badma’s breaking the cart and e is an event of Sajana thinking about e’, and the left boundary of e’ is before t’. This is the right meaning.
(61) also gives the correct falsity condition: in order for it to be met there needs to exist an event denoted by the
To sum up, we have seen that treating the nominalized expression as a predicate of events and having the existential quantifier introduced by
(62) | |
There is a |
However, this implementation raises the question of how
This analysis of the factivity alternation shares some similarity to the proposal in (
I have argued above that participle-based nominalized clauses like (2a) do not specify Content of events that are in their characteristic set. Barguzin Buryat also has a different kind of nominalized expressions: nominalized CPs (63).
(63)
[Badma
Badma
üstɘr
yesterday
nom
book
un∫-a:
read-
buru:
false
‘That Badma read a book yesterday is false.’
The
(64) | ⟦Badma read a book yesterday |
= |
Thus I make a prediction that when a
(65)
Dugar
Dugar
[mi:sgɘi-n
cat-
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:
eat-
g-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ]
say-
han-a:,
think-
xarin
but
mi:sgɘi
cat
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:-güi
eat-
‘Dugar remembered (the claim) that the cat ate the fish, but the cat didn’t eat the fish.’
The absence of a factive inference here is not surprising under my proposal. I assume that (64), just like other noun phrases, combines as the second argument of
This presupposition about the existence of an argument with Content is illustrated in (66): in a context where Dugar was the first person to think that the cat ate the fish, (66) is infelicitous.
(66)
#Mi:sgɘi
cat
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:
eat-
gɘ-žɘ
say-
xɘn-∫jɘ
who-
xɘzɘ:-∫jɘ
when-
han-a:-güi,
think-
(xarin)
(but)
dugar
Dugar
[mi:sgɘi-n
cat-
zagaha
fish
ɘdj-ɘ:
eat-
g-ɘ:∫-i:jɘ]
say-
han-a:
think-
# ‘Noone has ever thought that the cat ate the fish, (but) Dugar remembered (the claim) that the cat ate the fish.’
To sum up, the pre-existence presupposition is observed with all nominalized clauses, which combine with
Another prediction that the current proposal makes is that combining
(67) | ⟦ |
Testing this prediction turns out to be quite complicated. The main issue is that we need to find a morpheme that indeed sets the left boundary of an eventuality after the matrix time, and it is not obvious that a morpheme with exactly such meaning exists in Barguzin Buryat. The best candidate is the morpheme
(68)
Bi
1
jɘxɘ
big
bolo-xo-d-o:,
become-
tomo
huge
gɘr
house
aba-
buy-
‘When I will grow up, I will buy a huge house.’
In addition to future reference,
(69)
Tɘ:d-∫jɘ,
but-
∫i
you
ü∫ö:
still
baga-∫,
little-2
bu:
gun
ürgɘl-xɘ-∫ni
lift-
ü∫ö:
still
üdi:
NEG
‘Moreover, you are still little, you still can’t lift a gun.’
(
When
Consider the sentence in (70), in which
(70)
Badm-ain
Badma-
gurban
three
buti:lka
bottle
hü
milk
aba-x-i:jɘ
buy-
hana-n-u:-∫?
think-
‘Do you remember Badma’s buying three bottles of milk?’
The interpretation corresponding to context A seems to be the most prominent one, which is surprising given how
The second interpretation requires more support from the context, but seems to be generally available. When (70) is uttered in context B, the eventuality of buying three bottles of milk is in the future with respect to the matrix time, and what is being remembered, it seems, is the plan to buy three bottles of milk. As two anonymous reviewers point out, this pattern is similar to English
(71) | Pam remembered she would go to Boston in the morning. |
⟹ there is a plan for Pam to go to Boston in the morning. |
Does the existence of such an interpretation for the
While the question of why a plan could count as an early stage of an event is beyond the scope of this paper (see
(72)
Oi.
oh
Badm-i:n
Badma-
mjaxa
meat
aba-x-i:jɘ-n’
buy-
haja
just.now
hana-ba-b.
think-
Ba:rhan
poor
Badma,
Badma
mjaxa
meat
aba-xa-güi.
buy-
‘Oh. I just remembered (about) Badma’s buying meat. Poor Badma, he will not buy meat.’
In this example the speaker doesn’t think that Badma will buy meat at a future time, but the use of a
A similiar point is illustrated in (73), where the speaker recalls Dugar’s obligation, which they know he will not fulfill.
(73)
Bi
1
[Dugar-ai
Dugar-
Baigal-ha:
Baikal-
jɘrɘ-x-i:jɘ]
come-
hana-na-m,
think-
xarin
but
bi
1
Dugar
Dugar
Baigal-ha:
Baikal-
jɘrɘ-xɘ-güi
come-
gɘžɘ
mɘdɘ-nɘ-b
know-
‘I remember that Dugar should/is supposed to return from Baikal, but I know that Dugar will not return from Baikal.’
I would like to tentatively suggest that in cases like (72) and (73) the pre-existence presupposition applies to the modal statement that
One implication of my proposal is that some factivity inferences that we observe in sentences with attitude verbs are reducible to restrictions that predicates place on their internal arguments. This facilitates a view that unifies attitude verbs and predicates of events without propositional Content: both can presuppose that there is an individual described by their internal argument that pre-exists the event described by them. When the internal argument is a predicate of events, we get a factive inference.
Support for this view comes from languages which use non-attitude verbs in order to describe attitudes: we see that the restrictions these verbs place on their arguments carry over into their attitudinal uses. I will briefly discuss three such cases from different languages: Balkar (Turkic), Russian and Bangla (from
Here is an example of this from Balkar.
(74)
alim-de
Alim-
alma-la
apple-
zoqe-le.
exist-
#
alim
Alim
alma-nɨ
apple-
tü∫-ür-gen-di
fall-
‘Alim had no apples. # Alim dropped an apple.’
(75)
alim
Alim
[fatima-nɨ
Fatima-
sabij-i
child-3
eri∫ü-de
contest-
qat-xan-ɨ-n]
win-
es-i-ne
memory-3-
tü∫-ür-gen-di,
fall-
#
alaj
but
fatima-nɨ
F.-
sabij-i
child-3
eri∫ü-de
contest-
qɨtdɨr-ʁan-dɨ
lose-
‘Alim remembered that Fatima’s child won the contest (lit. ‘dropped Fatima’s child’s winning the context into his memory’), # but Fatima’s child lost the contest’.
Thus, it seems that the pre-existence requirement that we see in (74) with respect to the internal argument of ‘drop’ is retained when the internal argument is an event-denoting nominalized expression and the resulting meaning is that of an attitude report.
Here is another example. Russian verb
(76)
Sovsem
completely
iz
out.of
golovy
head
vyletelo,
flew.out
[čto
ja
I
obeščal
promised
vstretit’sja
to.meet
s
with
nim
him
v
in
sem’
seven
časov].
hours
‘I completely forgot (lit. ‘it flew out of head’) that I promised to meet with him at seven o’clock.’
Banerjee et al. (
(77)
Rahuler
Rahul.(
mone
mind.
hoy
happen.
/#pore
fall.
[je
that
Ram
Ram
mithye
lie
bolechilo],
tell.
kintu
but
Ram
Ram
mithye
lie
boleni.
tell.
‘Rahul thinks /#recalls that Ram lied, but he didn’t.’
(examples (1)–(2) from
Banerjee et al. (
While it is beyond the scope of this paper to conclude whether examples like (75), (76), and (77) all indeed involve the same alloseme of
In this paper I examined a case of factivity alternation in Barguzin Buryat: this language has an attitude verb
In the context of
The proposal advanced in this paper suggests that one source of factive inferences is presuppositions of verbs about their internal arguments, and one source of factivity alternations is the availability of several paths for combining with the verb.
The additional files for this article can be found as follows:
Fieldwork and methodology. DOI:
Indefinite
1 — 1st person, 2 — 2nd person, 3 — 3rd person,
This verb can also describe other mental attitudes — for example, desire (‘want’) — with the help of special verbal forms and/or particles in the embedded CP. I will not discuss such uses of
In the context of this paper, I will use the terms ‘the internal argument’, ‘the Theme argument’, ‘the
In Buryat the names of the days of the week are based on numerals, and in the literary Buryat Sunday is viewed as the first day:
I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for bringing up the question of how
I assume that
When used as a finite form, the combination of ‘be’ and a converb usually results in progressive and habitual meanings.
The sentence in (9) is also compatible with a context where Sajana was singing and stopped singing before the time of thinking.
I am grateful to Kai von Fintel for raising the question of whether
I hypothesize that the preference for using
The same has been observed for other languages too, e.g. for Turkish in (
(i)
I imagined her going to a restaurant with them.
⇏ She went to a restaurant with them.
I am grateful to Deniz Özyıldız for suggesting this diagnostic to me.
There is reason to think that these inferences are not just a consequence of our world knowledge about breaking, reading, and writing: Diesing (
It might be difficult to completely unify the pre-existence presupposition of
(i)
a.
Sue didn’t break a vase (because there were none). ⇏ There existed a vase before the verb’s evaluation time.
b.
Mary didn’t read a book (because there were none). ⇏ There existed a book before the verb’s evaluation time.
Adopting neo-Davidsonian representations allows me to avoid postulating pre-existence presuppositions in sentences with CPs, which we have no empirical evidence for. If the Theme argument was a true argument of the verb, then the pre-existence presupposition would always be part of the denotation of the verb, even in sentences with CPs. This would not lead to factivity, because CPs don’t combine as Theme arguments. A very weak presupposition, which is difficult to test for, would be predicted: ‘Something which the attitude is about pre-exists a thinking event with Content p.’
Note that under Elliott’s proposal the result of Cont applying to an event stands in the equality relation to the embedded proposition (see
(i)
⟦that Badma broke the cart⟧
=
A question that might arise is whether the same event could have different Content in different worlds and at different times. I am neutral on this issue, but will assume for convenience that Content of events cannot vary with worlds and times.
The intension of the proposition needs to be a function that has not only a world argument, but a time argument as well, (i). So in our case the intension of the proposition is in (ii).
(i)
⟦p⟧
(ii)
⟦Sajana thought that Badma broke the cart⟧
=
I am simplifying the meaning of tense by disregarding its presuppositional component.
I am simplifying the real facts by not discussing the contribution of aspect.
I use ‘converb’ as a descriptive notion: a non-finite verbal form that occurs in adverbial subordinate clauses (such as
An anonymous reviewer raises the question of whether
There is one difference between CPs and adverbs, however: while adverbs can never be used in the post-verbal position, CPs are in principle capable of occuring after the verb.
Capital letters represent vowels before harmony rules have applied to them.
Nominalized clauses can in principle also attach morphemes encoding valency alternations (passive, causative), and negation, which precede the participial suffix.
This is true only of its uses in nominalized expressions. In relative clauses, it is commonly used for describing “a permanent property of an individual” (
(i) [Manai 1 tai∫-a: taishi- tuxai about du: song garg-a:∫a] bring.out- xün human ɘnɘ-l this- da: ‘Here is that very person who composes songs about our taishi (a community leader in Mongolic culture).’ (
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for bringing up this question.
If my explanation is correct, it raises the question of which verbs
For eventualities the time interval is duration, and for entities, a life/existence span.
I acknowledge that there are bigger questions that arise with respect to an analysis that makes use of allosemy: e.g., why do different roots condition
For some consultants, this verb did not take nominalized expressions as complements at all. The judgments provided here are for those who did accept nominal complements with this verb.
Another tentative hypothesis is that
(i) Sajana Sajana [Badma Badma. / / tɘrgɘ cart ɘmdɘl-ɘ: break- gɘžɘ] han-a: think- / / mɘd-ɘ: know- / / xɘl-ɘ: say- / / oilg-o: realize- ‘Sajana {thought/found out/said/realized} about Badma that he broke the cart.’
If this hypothesis is correct, then the co-occurence of
I am grateful to Roger Schwarzschild for his suggestion to put the existential quantifier into the meaning of the thematic role head.
I leave it open whether other approaches to presupposition projection, e.g., dynamic semantics, could make the same predictions as the trivalent approach.
Here and in the discussion to follow I will sometimes use single-bracket notation for better readability.
Within trivalent logic, the existential quantifier can be treated as a form of disjunction (
(i)
Some student has stopped smoking.
a.
1 iff ∃x[student(x) ∧ x smoked before ∧ x doesn’t smoke now]
b.
0 iff ∀x[student(x) → x used to smoke before ∧ x still smokes]
c.
defined (≠#) iff it is 1 ∨ 0: [∃x[student(x) ∧ x smoked before ∧ x doesn’t smoke now]] ∨ [∀x[student(x) → x used to smoke before ∧ x still smokes]]
The sentence in (i) is true iff there is at least one student who smoked before and doesn’t smoke now. This sentence is false iff all students smoked before and still smoke. The third value is an elsewhere case: the sentence in (i) will receive it when neither the truth nor the falsity conditions are met. In other words, this sentence is defined and does not result in presupposition failure if it is either true or false, (ic). As one can see, the presupposition we arrive at for quantificational sentences is a disjunctive presupposition. I will assume that all existential quantifiers have such disjunctive presuppositions.
The simplification step uses the equivalence ∀x[
“Unwrapping” the meaning of
(i)
See (
Some other matrix verbs, e.g.
(1) Context: Dugar returned from Baikal yesterday. (1) #Bi 1 Dugar-ai Dugar- Baigal-ha: Baikal- jɘrɘ-x-i:jɘ come- mɘdɘ-nɘ-b know- Intended: ‘I know about Dugar’s returning from Baikal.’
A reviewer also points out that non-attitude verbs like
(i)
John bought three bottles of wine before the grapes were even harvested.
This is an intriguing parallel. It would be interesting to see if the analysis of (i), whatever it might be, could be also extended to attitude verbs like in (70).
See also (
Balkar (also known as Malkar) is a dialect of the Karachay-Balkar language (Kipchak branch of the Turkic family). I have elicited these Balkar data in the village Verkhnyaya Balkaria in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic of Russia.
For my consultants, both the inference in (74) and the inference in (75) project, and thus seem to behave like presuppositions.
The data reported here comes from judgment tasks with three native speakers of Russian.
I was made aware of Banerjee et al. (
Note that both in Russian and Bangla examples above, (76)–(77), the embedded clauses are finite CPs. It seems that these CPs combine with the predicate differently (as internal arguments/modifiers of internal arguments) from how Buryat non-nominalized CPs do.
I am very grateful to the language consultants of Barguzin Buryat that I had pleasure to work with. The paper has benefited a lot from discussions with Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten, Ömer Demirok, Patrick Elliott, Kai von Fintel, Danny Fox, Martin Hackl, Irene Heim, Sabine Iatridou, Deniz Özyıldız, Mitya Privoznov, Roger Schwarzschild, Sergei Tatevosov, the audiences of LFRG (MIT), WAFL14 and SALT29. Finally, I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers of Glossa and Min-Joo Kim, the editor for this paper, for their valuable feedback. All errors are my own.
This research was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant No. 19-012-00627 A).
The author has no competing interests to declare.