This paper focuses on a type of direct address in Sason Arabic that fails to behave like a regular vocative phrase. In particular, unlike regular vocative phrases, this form of address spells out both the speaker and the addressee, and it is conditioned by the speaker’s expression of affection towards the addressee. A DP and its adjacent invariable clitic (i.e., a frozen 3rd person singular form of a possessive pronoun) are the constituents of this form of direct address, and either of them can equally spell out the speaker or the addressee; hence, the label
An increasing number of studies argue for a syntactic representation of discourse participants, as pragmatic roles (speaker and hearer/addressee) and their mapping in the derivation of the sentence (
In this paper, we examine a construction from Sason Arabic that challenges the expectation for a silent speaker. More precisely, this is a direct address where a common or a proper noun can spell out either the speaker or the addressee as long as it is related to a clitic that takes the form of a quasi-invariable possessive clitic pronoun. That is, the possessive clitic in Sason Arabic is routinely inflected for person, number, and partially, gender (3rd person singular forms). However, in the context of the direct address discussed here, the same clitic is obligatorily invariable for person and number (i.e., 3rd person singular) while still being inflected for gender.
What is interesting about this construction is that the clitic, despite its 3rd person form, is understood to be either the speaker or the addressee, and so is the related DP. That is, the DP and the clitic take turns for spelling, each, one pragmatic role. More precisely, if the DP refers to the addressee, the clitic refers to the speaker; vice versa, if the DP refers to the speaker, the clitic refers to the addressee. Consider the examples in (1): In (1a), the noun ‘brother’ refers to the speaker, whereas the adjacent 3rd person clitic stands for the addressee, his sister, as indicated by the feminine inflection of the clitic and the following sentence. On the other hand, in (1b) the noun stands for the addressee, whereas the 3rd person clitic stands for the speaker (the sister), as indicated, again, by its feminine form. This type of construction depends on affectivity; that is, the speaker intends to convey his/her affection for the addressee while making a request or a comment.
(1)
a.
[Context: The elder brother addresses his little female sibling]
Āx-
brother-3
tıtix-e
can.
tıcib-e
bring.
lastiy-ad-i?
shoe-
‘Speaking as your brother, sister, can you fetch my shoes?’
b.
[Context: The elder sister addresses her little male sibling]
Āx-
brother-3
tıtix
can.
tadi-ni
give.
bēs-i?
skirt-1
‘Speaking as your sister, brother, can you give me my skirt?’
The same phenomenon is illustrated in (2) for proper nouns. In (2a), the noun
(2)
a.
[Context: the husband addresses his wife, Layla]
[Layla
Layla
zıll-
ıbın-na
son-1
amma-ye?
where-
‘Speaking as your husband, my Leyla, where is our son?’
b.
[Context: Leyla addresses her husband]
?[Layla
Layla
zıll-
nısit
forget.2
ıçax
when
cawwıj-na?
married-1
‘Speaking as your wife, honey, did you forget when we got married?’
c.
[Layla
Layla
zıll-
nısit-e
forget-2
ıçax
when
cawwıj-na?
married-1
‘My Leyla, did you forget when we got married?’
Crucially, the two items can never concurrently denote the same discourse participant. For example, in (3), the context forces the DP and the clitic to pick out the same referent, because of the person/gender agreement on the verb, and the construction is ruled out.
(3)
a.
[Context: mother talking to her son]
*Imm-
mother-3
şıme
how
kıt?
be.2
Intended: ‘Speaking as your mother, how are you?’
b.
[Context: a male patient talking to their female doctor]
*Hekim-
doctor-3
şıme
how
kıt-te?
be-2
Intended: ‘Speaking as your patient, doctor, how are you?’
In light of these observations, we argue that the invariable 3rd person singular clitic in these examples indicates a discourse participant in direct addresses that involve the speaker’s affection towards the addressee. So a contrast arises between vocative phrases, as in (2c), with no bias for the affection contexts, and where the entire DP denotes the addressee, versus the constructions in (1) and (2a)–(2b), which obligatorily entail the speaker’s affection and spell out both discourse participants involved in the affectionate relation. Note that the speaker’s intention to convey affection is obligatory for this form of address to materialize, but it does not predict whether the DP or the clitic will spell out the addressee.
Formally, we argue that such constructions involve the projection of a Speech Act Phrase (SAP), such as proposed for other contexts where conversational pragmatics is mapped to syntax. The peculiarity of these forms of direct address consists in the way they exploit the derivational options available for the projection of SAP: while most addresses involve split SAP configurations, these particular forms of address involve the remerging of SAP into a collapsed field, where all the relevant pragmatic features are bundled on one head. The justification is the following: With split SAP structures, there is an underspecified [familiar] feature, uninterpretable and unvalued, which maps the social relation between speaker and addressee (as argued in
Along these lines, the analysis proposed in this paper supports the former studies that represent the syntactization of the discourse as a SAP field in clausal derivations (especially
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the problem and the information on data collection. Section 3 discusses the empirical data from Sason Arabic that indicate the pragmatic marker status of the invariable clitic. Section 4 introduces the theoretical background that allows us to provide a formal analysis for these constructions in section 5. The conclusions follow in section 6.
Constructions along the lines of (1) and (2a)–(2b) are traditionally included under the umbrella of
Mutable direct addresses (MDAs) are puzzling for two reasons: (i) the speaker can be spelled out through a DP in a direct address, which is cross-linguistically unusual; (ii) the clitic has an invariable 3rd person form but it receives set discourse values upon interpretation, for either speaker or addressee, instead of being associated with a non-discourse participant, as its inflection may suggest. Theoretically, the question revolves around the derivational mechanism that converges to an MDA rather than the garden varieties of direct addresses, which consist of vocative phrases, imperatives or injunctive particles, none of which allow for DPs that spell out the speaker. In this respect, we argue that an analysis in terms of Speech Act Phrase as in Haegeman & Hill (
So far, the theory predicts that a VocP merges with SA in order to check the pragmatic role of [addressee], whereas the pragmatic role of [speaker] is checked in relation to little sa by a null DP (i.e., the speaker is silent;
The derivation of MDAs concerns the clause structure (i.e. saP/SAP), not the internal structure of the DP. That is, the clitic is outside (i.e., in sa/SA) not inside the DP (as a possessive pronoun would be), and we treat it as a form of allocutive marker whose values for speaker or addressee are obtained from an imposter operator. The obligatory adjacency between the DP and the clitic of MDAs arises from their separate merge in a Spec-head configuration within saP/SAP.
The MDA is cross-linguistically rare because it involves a different feature distribution, namely one that triggers a remerged SAP structure versus the default articulated SAP structure. More precisely, default SAP structures have the pragmatic roles of speaker and addressee mapped to separate heads (i.e., sa for speaker vs. SA for addressee), whereas in MDAs these features are bundled on the same speech act head. The frozen clitic qualifies as an imposter in the collapsed SAP, so imposter operators are obligatory in this configuration in order to ensure full interpretation.
Sason Arabic is a peripheral, vernacular Arabic variety spoken in eastern Turkey (
Four of the consultants are bilinguals between Sason Arabic and Turkish. These are the younger speakers who moved to Istanbul in their early childhood. The fifth consultant is multilingual between Sason Arabic, Mutki Zazaki and Kurdish. However, he is also a near-native speaker of the local Armenian dialect, and quite proficient in Turkish since he learned Turkish in his late-20s. The other three consultants are bilinguals in Sason Arabic and Mutki Zazaki, but also proficient in Turkish. All these speakers regularly use Sason Arabic in their homes although code-switching with other languages is also quite common.
Elicitation work was mostly held over Skype or WhatsApp over weekends with several of the consultants together since they live in the same street or neighborhood in Istanbul. In addition to elicitation work, Faruk Akkuş spent the summer of 2018 in Istanbul, in which period he was able to ask for clarification or testing of predictions. We also have a couple of naturally occurring data, such as (10a) and (10c) from conversations.
MDAs are also present in Turkish, as mentioned in the footnote to this page.
In the first part of this section, we show that Sason Arabic uses regular vocative phrases, which spell out only one pragmatic role, i.e., the addressee. These constructions are cross-linguistically unexceptional and may contain a possessive clitic, which displays an inflected form and has a possessive meaning. In the second part, we return to MDAs, where the clitic is invariable and bleached of its possessive meaning. The main argument is that, in MDAs, the possessive is grammaticalized and reanalyzed as a pragmatic marker; that is, the MDA clitic is homophonous to the 3rd person singular form of the possessive clitic in DPs, but these two items belong to different grammatical categories (i.e., allocutive marker vs. pronoun).
This section provides data that indicate the contrast between vocative phrases and MDAs. The point is that although MDAs are direct addresses built around a noun and a clitic (originally pronominal), their structure is different from a vocative phrase.
We start by clarifying what a vocative phrase is. In line with current formal analyses (
(4)
a.
Bın-(ad)-i
daughter-(
koys-e/in,
beautiful-
şıne
what
ina
I
a-tix
1
a-si
1
mışa-nki
for-you.
/
/
mışa-nken?
for-you.
‘My beautiful daughter(s), what can I do for you?’
b.
Hekim-i,
doctor-1
qull-en
say-them
te-i-bqo
beyt.
house
‘My doctor, tell them to stay home.’
In (4), the vocative phrase indicates the addressee, on the same pattern as its English counterpart ‘my beautiful daughter(s)’ or ‘my doctor’. The entire phrase stands for one pragmatic role (i.e., addressee), and the noun can come in singular or plural. This vocative phrase can contain an attributive adjective and a possessive clitic. The possessive agrees in person and number with the possessor, but grammatical gender agreement is with the possessee DP and it is marked on the adjective. The point is that the possessive clitic is a regular possessive inflected for
The facts in (4) conform to any standard analysis of DPs. That is, the possessive merges within the DP structure, irrespective of whether this DP is used as a verb argument or as a vocative. Agreement relations within the DP force the possessive to spell out the person and number features of the possessor, and possibly the gender of the possessee as well, depending on the language (
Crucially, the examples in (4) are fundamentally different from those in (1) and (2a)–(2b), since in (4) the address is fixed, (i.e., the reference for the DP is the addressee only), not mutable (i.e., the reference for the DP cannot be the speaker, in alternation with the addressee). Furthermore, in (4), the possessive clitic is inflected for number (and person), whereas the clitic in (1) and (2a)–(2b) is invariable in this respect. However, the latter is inflected in a way that reflects the natural gender of one of the discourse participants, but, crucially, not the gender of the adjacent DP (no noun-possessive agreement). From these observations, we conclude that the direct addresses in (1) and (2a)–(2b) are fundamentally different from vocative phrases, in a way that allows the direct address to not only spell out two discourse participants instead of one, but also to by-pass the obligatory number and person agreement relations to which a possessive clitic would be submitted within a nominal phrase (be it vocative or not).
This section sums up the contrasts between the possessive clitic in DPs and the clitic used to derive an MDA, as well as the contrast between MDAs and vocatives as forms of address. The points of disparities are:
(5) a. Leyla Leyla zıll- ımbahaj-tu be.fed.up-1 mı-nki! from-2 ‘Leyla, I’m fed up with you!’ (spoken by a co-worker)
b. # Layla Leyla zıll- ımbahaj-tu be.fed.up-1 mı-nki! from-2 ‘Spoken by me, your co-worker, Leyla, I’m fed up with you.’
Therefore, the pragmatic context in which an MDA may be used is much more restricted than the one for VocPs, where an affection reading is possible but not obligatory.
(6)
a.
Hekim-i
doctor-1
şıne
what
n-ısi
1
war-ey?
with-2
‘My doctor, what do we do with you?’
b.
*Hekim-
doctor-2
şıne
what
n-ısi
1
war-ey?
with-2
Intended: ‘Doctor, what do we do with you?’
c.
Hekim-a/*
doctor-3
şıne
what
n-ısi
1
war-ey?
with-2
‘Speaking as your (female) friend, doctor, what do we do with you?’ versus
*‘His doctor, what do we do with you?’
In (6a), this construction yields a regular vocative, with a masculine possessee DP and the clitic in its 1st person form, and the entire VocP denotes the addressee. The same sequence rules out the sentence in (6b), where the clitic changes its inflection to 2nd person: the possessor and the possessee pick up the same reference, which is cross-linguistically anomalous. In (6c), the clitic takes the 3rd person form, and the masculine form is ruled out (since both the speaker and the addressee are feminine), whereas the feminine form of the clitic, which indicates the speaker, not the possessee, is ruled in. Note that possessive phrases containing possessive clitics in 3rd person may occur, cross-linguistically, as regular vocatives.
From a formal perspective, the examples in (6) indicate that as long as the clitic is inside DP/VocP, it functions as a regular possessive clitic. The fact that the same clitic switches to a discourse marker in MDAs indicates that MDAs cannot be configurationally equated to VocPs: although they are both forms of direct address, VocP has a nominal structure, as an extension of the DP, whereas the MDA is not derived on the nominal spine (or else, the clitic could continue to act as a possessive clitic).
This section verifies the clitic status of the allocutive marker in MDA. That is, considering the adjacency between the DP and the marker, the question is whether the latter is a suffix on the noun base or whether it encliticizes on the preceding lexical material. Etymologically, the marker is derived from the (possessive) pronominal markers through grammaticalization (e.g.
(7)
[Context: the husband addresses his wife, Leyla]
Layla
Layla
zıll-
ıbın-na
son-1
nihane
here
mou.
‘Speaking as your husband, my Leyla, our son is not here.’
The independence of the noun and the marker in relation to each other within the MDA, as in (7), indicates that the marker cannot be classified as an inflectional suffix on the noun base. Hence, we continue to refer to it as a clitic.
Further confirmation for the clitic status of the marker comes from word order, as in (8), where the MDA contains a coordination phrase.
(8)
a.
xalo
maternal.uncle
wa
and
amm-
paternal.uncle-3
‘Speaking as your nephew, uncles, …’
b.
Hekim
doctor
wa
and
hamşirı-
nurse-3
amma
where
baƔi-to?
remained-2
‘Speaking as a patient, doctor and nurse, where have you been?’
First, we have to mention that the possessive clitic systematically attaches to nouns, even in N-Adj sequences. That is, it does not attach to just any type of leftward host but only to nouns or nominal inflection. An example is available in (4a) above, where the clitic occurs between the noun and the post-nominal adjective.
Keeping this in mind, in (8) we look at the coordination of two DPs, where the clitic follows the entire coordination phrase. Irrespective of the level at which the coordination takes place (i.e., either DP+DP or NP+NP), if this item were a suffix on the noun root, it should have been obligatorily repeated with each noun.
To conclude, the allocutive marker in MDAs is a clitic. Its adjacency to the preceding DP must be accounted for by locality within an underlying configuration in which the clitic is outside the DP.
So far, the data have provided clues that the MDA clitic is merged outside the DP/VocP, by showing lack of
(9)
a.
Ma-adaş-tu
axt-
sister-
i: ‘I didn’t see his sisters.’
ii: ‘I didn’t see their sister.’
iii: ‘I didn’t see their sisters.’
b.
Axt-
sister-
sımo
listen.2
le-ni.
of-me
i: ‘Speaking as your brother, sisters, listen to me.’
ii: *‘Speaking as your brothers, sister, listen to me.’
In (9), the phrase
The restriction on pluralizing is verified in (10), where the examples switch between plural speakers paired with singular addressee, and singular speaker paired with plural addressees.
(10)
a.
[Context: two uncles addressing their only nephew]
Amm-ad-u,
uncle-
n-ımme
1
barra?
outside
Lit: ‘His uncles, shall we go outside?’
*‘Their uncle (s), …’
‘Speaking as your uncles, nephew, shall we go outside?’
b.
[Context: an uncle addressing his nephews]
*Amm-ad-u,
uncle-
n-ımme
1
barra?
outside
Lit: ‘*Their uncle, shall we go outside?’
Intended: ‘Speaking as your uncle, nephews, shall we go outside?’
c.
Amm-u,
uncle-3
n-ımme
1
barra?
outside
Lit: ‘Speaking as your uncle, nephews, shall we go outside?’
In (10a), the DP stands for the two uncles, whereas the clitic stands for the nephew they address. The DP displays the plural marker. In (10b), the speaker is a singular noun, whereas the addressees are more than one. Hence, the expectation is that the clitic should be pluralized, not the noun, but that is ungrammatical. The MDA clitic can only display gender agreement with the addressee, not number agreement. The MDA in (10b) is rescued when the plural marker
To conclude, when we see a plural marker in an MDA, it is because it inflects the noun, not the clitic, as summarized in (11). The ungrammatical use of this marker, that is, when it inflects the clitic, is shown in (12).
(11) | a. | [[ DP |
(with plural speakers; (10a)) |
b. | [[ DP |
(with plural addressees; (9b)) |
(12) | a. | *[ DP |
b. | *[ DP |
Therefore, the data indicate a sharp contrast between the use of the plural marker with nouns and possessive clitics on the one hand, as opposed to the MDA clitic on the other hand. That is, the former can associate with the pluralizing morpheme alternatively or may share it, whereas the MDA clitic does not have access to it.
Formally, possessive clitics are in the D domain, so the plural suffix can modify them on a par with the noun (
This conclusion predicts that the MDA clitic can cooccur with a DP that contains a possessive clitic. That is, the MDA clitic is not a possessive. It does not interfere with the DP internal elements, so it is merged outside the DP as a whole. This prediction is born out in examples as in (13).
(13)
a.
[Context: a woman addresses her husband]
fad-i-da
dear-1
‘Speaking as your wife, my dear, …’
b.
[Context: a boy addresses his friend]
Angir-i-du,
friend-1
şıne
what
tı-si?
2
‘Speaking as your mate, my friend, what are you doing?’
c.
*fad-a-di,
dear-3
// *angir-u-di,
// friend-3
In (13), the DP contains a noun or nominalized adjective and a possessive clitic, and the DP as a whole is treated in relation to the MDA clitic. The possessive is inflected for person and number, whereas the MDA clitic remains invariable in this respect. The cooccurrence of the two clitics cannot be justified by an analysis where both merge within DP. The domain independence is further confirmed by the fact that switching the order of these clitics, as in (13), yields ungrammaticality: the clitic denoting the discourse participant cannot intervene between the DP and the related possessive. These data and observations indicate that the MDA clitic is merged outside the DP.
MDAs are forms of address, and so are the VocPs. Although the two forms of address were shown to differ with respect to interpretation, agreement and context of use, one may still suppose that the clitic is merged in the VocP layer (which is above DP, but not outside it) and that the MDA is a different type of VocP (i.e., that the MDA still belongs to the extended domain of N). We test this hypothesis in this section and conclude that the MDA clitic is outside the VocP as well. First, we summarize the observations that indicate the pragmatization of the possessive clitic in MDAs:
semantic bleaching, by which the clitic lost the possessive lexical feature; instead, the clitic acquired an affection feature;
morphological bleaching, by which the pronoun lost its
syntactic displacement to a position from which the clitic cannot access agreement relations with the cooccurring DP.
The hypothesis we test (and reject) is that the possessive clitic might have been reanalyzed upwards in the hierarchy (along the lines of
In this respect, one may suppose that the MDA clitic may map a relational feature (in the spirit of
(14)
a.
yaa
bınt-i,
daughter-1
…
// yaa
//
Layla,…
Layla
‘my daughter, …’ // ‘Leyla, …’
b.
ey
hey
yaa
bınt-i,
daughter-1
…
//
//
*yaa
ey
hey
bınt-i,…
daughter-1
‘hey, my daughter, …’
c.
Yaa
abu-
father-3
dade
mom
amma-ye?
where-
i: ‘Speaking as your daughter, dear father, where is mom?’
ii: *‘Speaking as your father, dear daughter,…?’
Soltan (
Further examples on this restriction are given in (15).
(15)
a.
[Context: little son calling his mother for help in the bathroom]
Yaa
ımm-u,
mother-3
amma
where
baxit-e?
remained-2
‘Speaking as your son, mother, where have you been?’
b.
[Context: a mother addressing her little son]
*Yaa
ımm-u,
mother-3
atey
why
mı-tılle
mı
from
barra?
toilet
Intended: ‘Speaking as your mother, son, why don’t you come out from the toilet?’
In (15), the vocative marker
(16)
a.
[Context: The male teacher addresses his female student]
Oretman-
teacher-3
xallıs-te
finished-2
odav-ki?
homework-2
‘Speaking as your teacher, did you finish your homework?’
b.
[Context: The female student addresses her male teacher]
Oretman-
teacher-3
tıtix
can.
tadi-ni
give.2
odav-ma
homework-a
naxar?
different
‘Speaking as your student, teacher, can you assign me a different homework?’
The alternations between the two readings on the MDA in (16) indicate that a VocP is not obligatory for the MDA, but there is alternation between VocP and DP. When VocPs occur in MDAs, they restrict the reading because of the interpretable 2nd person feature they provide. Note, however, that the absence of
Finally, considering the mutable values of the clitic as either speaker or addressee, if it merged within VocP it should rule in the constructions in (17), contrary to the fact. These examples repeat the paradigm in (3).
(17)
a.
[Context: mother talking to her son]
*Imm-
mother-3
şıme
how
kıt?
be.2
Intended: ‘Speaking as your mother, how are you?’
b.
[Context: a male patient talking to their female doctor]
*Hekim-
doctor-3
şıme
how
kıt-te?
be-2
Intended: ‘Speaking as your patient, doctor, how are you?’
The construction in (17a) should be grammatical under the assumption that the speaker can be encoded as a DP within VocP, and the clitic can display
This information can now be combined with previous observations regarding the lack of person and number agreement on the MDA clitic, which indicated that this clitic does not have access to morpho-syntactic agreement with the DP. In the previous section, we concluded that the MDA clitic is merged outside the DP. Now, giving the alternation of VocPs and DPs, both of which are phases, in relation to the MDA clitic, we can further infer that the clitic is merged outside the VocP as well.
Formally, there are two left peripheric fields that map direct addresses and in which the reanalyzed clitic may merge directly as a marker: either above a DP (
Before proceeding to a formal analysis along these lines, we also mention the hypothesis that the reading alternations in MDAs may arise only in semantics/pragmatics, without involving the syntax. That is, they entail a
Let us explore this approach for (18), by presuming that the mother is simply putting herself in the shoes of her son.
(18)
a.
[Context: mother addresses her son]
Imm-u,
mother-3
i-xlo
3
ifi
there.is
beyt-ma
house-a
ıjdid.
new
‘Speaking as your mother, son, they say there is a new house.’
b.
[Context: mother addresses her sons]
*Imm-ad-u,
mother-
i-xlo
3
ifi
there.is
beyt-ma
house-a
ıjdid.
new
‘Speaking as your mother, sons, they say there is a new house.’
The problem in (18b) is that marking the plurality of the addressees on the clitic rules out the sentence, as discussed in the previous sections. This should not happen if only a shift of perspective were at work: the mother could put herself in the shoes of two sons as well as of one. The contrast of grammaticality in (17a)–(17b) forces us to look at the morphosyntax, to explain the restrictions on agreement. There is no doubt that a shift of perspective occurs in MDAs: with VocPs, the speaker’s point of view dominates the reading with no clue about the addressee’s interest in the matter, whereas with MDA, the speaker’s point of view caters to the addressee insofar as the affection signals the speaker’s willingness to take a back stage as needed. However, identifying this pragmatic switch is not sufficient to explain the morphosyntactic restrictions that make these constructions so different from vocative phrases within the same language, and also so rare cross-linguistically, although affection and empathy are universal.
There are three main issues for which we borrow analyses from current literature: (i) the clause structure that reflects the mapping of pragmatic roles (p-roles), as in SAP proposals; (ii) the concept of allocutive agreement within SAP; and (iii) the concept of syntactic imposters.
The syntactic mapping of speech acts has been debated since Ross (
For the purpose of this paper, we adopt the cartographic implementation proposed in Speas & Tenny (
The common highlights of these analyses are listed below, with no regard to MDAs:
The conversational set-up is mapped to a speech act phrase (SAP), where the SA head has pragmatic role features, i.e. [p-roles], in the way lexical categories (e.g. verbs) introduce theta-role features in syntactic structures.
SAP is an extension of the C domain (i.e., it belongs to the left periphery of clauses). In cartography: C = [SA > Force > Fin].
The [p-role] features are: [speaker], [addressee], [theme/patient].
The configuration that allows for the checking of p-role features is similar to the vP structure: SA selects a ForceP (the proposition) which checks the [theme/patient] p-role under sisterhood, whereas [speaker] and [addressee] are checked in the extended SAP projection; see (20).
On a par with theta-roles, p-roles trigger the projection of argument A-positions.
The arguments of a speech act cannot also be arguments of the verb (e.g., vocatives), although they may be coreferent with the arguments of the verb (intra-deictic addresses).
Optionally, SA is associated with discourse oriented features (in addition to p-roles), which trigger the projection of non-argumental A’-position; these features map the speaker’s point of view as a [p.o.v.] functional feature, and this has consequences for the word order of the sentence.
Following the arguments in Portner et al. (
An example of SAP structure is presented in (20), capturing the configuration underlying the sentence in (19).
(19) | The window, my dear colleague, should stay closed at all times. |
(20) |
First, we comment on the structure in (20) on the basis of the feature inventory established in SAP analyses. Then we expand this inventory with the [familiar] feature adopted from Portner et al. (
According to SAP analyses (starting with
Portner et al. (
While [familiar] requires feature checking on a par with any other formal feature, its valuation may vary cross- and intra-linguistically. That is, the value for [familiar] may arise from the syntactic configurations (e.g., in the presence of lexical items that come with inherent specification for familiarity) or from the pragmatic context. For example, in (19) there is no lexical item that would provide a clue about the degree of familiarity, so this relation is interpreted according to intonation and pragmatic context. Hence, in (20), [familiar] is mapped as an underspecified uninterpretable feature. SAP checks this feature (hence the change to interpretable) but does not value it. Notably, whether this feature receives pragmatic valuation (as in English) or morpho-syntactic valuation (as in Korean or Japanese; see also
In (20), the projection of multiple specifiers is not free or interchangeable: the Spec from which p-roles are checked is an argumental position and it is the closest to the head, whereas the higher Spec displaying the [pov] item is non-argumental. Crosslinguistic surveys within the same body of literature indicate that the inventory of features within saP/SAP is stable, but variation may arise in the feature checking options, which may trigger a further splitting of the hierarchy. For example, while Hill (
In this paper, we adopt the saP/SAP hierarchy in (20), and pay attention to the parameters for cross-linguistic variation this hierarchy allows for. In particular, we notice that so far the cross-linguistic variation discussed for SAP involves the further splitting of this field on the basis of the same feature inventory (i.e., for West Flemish). Hypothetically, the alternative would be that the same features may be bundled instead of being individually mapped (by remerging the split structure). The alternation between split and remerged options has been shown to apply to CPs (
This section summarizes the information on allocutive agreement markers available in the literature. The rationale is that the MDA clitic resembles an allocutive agreement morpheme insofar as it belongs to SAP and displays gender inflection that matches the natural gender of one of the discourse participants. We pay particular attention to Miyagawa’s (
As shown in (21), Basque has a dedicated verb suffix that spells out the addressee’s gender and entails familiarity.
(21)
Allocutive agreement in Basque (
a.
Pette-k
Peter-
lan egin
worked
di-
3.
‘Peter worked.’ (said to a male friend)
b.
Pette-k
Peter-
lan egin
worked
di-
3.
‘Peter worked.’ (said to a female friend)
The main point in Miyagawa’s study is that the allocutive agreement should be treated on par with morpho-syntactic agreement: the feature responsible for this type of agreement is located high in the left periphery of clauses, but the agreement suffix surfaces on the verb stem, as regular
Similar facts are reported for Jingpo (Tibet-Burman, in
(22)
Allocutive agreement in Jingpo (
a.
Jongma
students
du
arrive
hkum
complete
ma-s-ai.
‘The students have all arrived.’ (subject agreement, neutral)
b.
Jongma
students
du
arrive
hkum
complete
sa-
‘The students have all arrived.’ (speaker agreement, affection)
In light of this literature, we may say that the MDAs of Sason Arabic display allocutive agreement, insofar as the clitic is an element that spells out the gender of the addressee. However, there are also important contrasts: the p-role feature the allocutive agreement reflects has a pre-set value in Basque, for the addressee, and in Jingpo, for the speaker, but not in Sason Arabic, where it can be either speaker or addressee. Also, the location of the marker is different: in Basque/Jingpo, it surfaces as a suffix on the verb root,
The term
The mechanism by which an imposter achieves a different person interpretation than the one indicated through its form was identified, in the same studies, as involving the merging of a null operator, that is, an imposter operator. In a nutshell, imposter operators are computational devices used in syntax to manipulate the person reading of a noun or a 3rd person pronoun. That is achieved because the imposter operator introduces indexicality with the pragmatic context in a way that overrides the inflectional information of the nominal item.
Examples of imposters with either speaker or addressee readings are shown in (23), for English (23a) and Albanian (23b).
(23)
a.
Little Jonnie looks tired today. (addressee-imposter)
b.
Mami
mommy.the
shko
go.
/
/
shko
go.
tani.
now
‘Mommy is going (away) now.’ (speaker-imposter)
Importantly, imposters do not necessarily concern direct addresses, as they may also occur in statements (e.g., for
Podobryaev (
Podobryaev (
(24) | Myi university agrees that [the present authori’s results support hisi conclusion]. (adapted from |
(25) |
In (25), the speaker-operator, indicated as ①, scopes over the imposter ‘the present author’ and the 3rd person marked pronoun ‘his’, thus allowing them to be interpreted as the speaker (see
The relevant point for our data from this theory is that MDAs also display a pronominal element with a frozen inflection (i.e., 3rd person singular) whose interpretation is that of a discourse participant. Therefore, we take it that imposter operators apply in these constructions as well. Abstracting away from various aspects of this theory, which are not central to our discussion, we adopt this aspect of the imposter operators.
In section 5.1 we apply the saP/SAP hierarchy in (20) to the direct addresses that contain regular VocPs in Sason Arabic and show their compatibility. Section 5.2 repeats the exercise with MDA constructions, and finds that the saP/SAP hierarchy is inadequate for these constructions in its split pattern. In section 5.3 we remerge the two speech act heads, and find that such a configuration can rescue the SAP analysis while capturing all the properties of MDAs, including the imposter property of the invariable clitic. Before we present our analysis, a summary is in order to list the properties of MDAs pointed out so far throughout the paper:
The option for MDAs depends on the encoding of speaker’s affection.
MDAs display an obligatory cooccurrence of a DP and a clitic of pronominal origin, but the clitic is invariable for person and number.
The clitic qualifies as an allocutive marker merged outside the DP/VocP.
The DP and the clitic check a different p-role, and the checking task is interchangeable.
First, we verify that the hierarchy in (20) can be extended to direct addresses that contain regular VocPs in Sason Arabic. Consider the example in (26).
(26)
Hayde
Layla,
Layla
çax
time
le
of
maşu
going
ye!
‘C’mon Layla, it is time to go.’
In (25),
(27) |
The linearization arising from (27) captures the word order in (26), where the intonation is fluent, without breaks and pauses.
Now we apply the same hierarchy to the MDA in (1), repeated as (28).
(28)
a.
[Context: The elder brother addresses his little female sibling]
Āx-
brother-3
tıtix-e
can.
tıcib-e
bring.
lastiy-ad-i?
shoe-
‘Speaking as your brother, sister, can you fetch my shoes?’
b.
[Context: The elder sister addresses her little male sibling]
Āx-
brother-3
tıtix
can.
tadi-ni
give.
bēs-i?
skirt-1
‘Speaking as your sister, brother, can you give me my skirt?’
The linearization in (28a), where the DP is the speaker, could be derived from (29), if no lexical material intervenes between Spec,saP and SA.
(29) |
In (28),
A further problem arises from the manipulation of word order: Configurations as in (26) optionally allow for the intervention of lexical material between
(30)
a.
Hayde
mışi
go.2
daha
more
xıfef
quickly
ax-i.
brother-1
‘C’mon, go faster brother.’
b.
*Ax
brother
mışi
go.2
daha
more
xıfef-
quickly-3
Intended: ‘Speaking as your brother, go more quickly.’
c.
*(Ax)
brother
hayde-
(ax) …
brother …
Intended: ‘Speaking as your brother, c’mon, go more quickly.’
// ‘Speaking as your sister, c’mon brother,…’
In (30a), which conforms to (20), the items distributed in saP and SAP, respectively, can occur with a different linearization. The exact operation responsible for this variation is beyond the scope of this analysis (it could be CP adjunction to SAP or any sequence of phrasal and remnant movement that linearizes the vocative in clause final position). The important point is that MDAs do not allow for such word order variations, as shown in (30b)–(30c). If the only reason for the adjacency between DP and the clitic is the requirement for a lexical host for the clitic, then (30c) should be ruled in, since CP provides the lexical host as well as a DP. The same can be said about (30c):
The challenges extend to (28b), where
(31) |
For the flexibility of the clitic as the spellout of either the addressee, as in (28a), or the speaker, as in (28b), let us assume that the invariable form of this item allows it to freely merge in sa or SA. Then, in (31),
The questions arising from this analysis resume those pointed out for the configuration in (29): (i) why does the clitic behave as enclitic instead of proclitic; and (ii) if encliticization is obligatory because of some independent property of this language, why can’t it encliticize on a different XP or lexical head that precedes it. In this respect, Sason Arabic does not observe a rule on second position clitics; however, clitic pronouns are systematically enclitic within DP. Let us assume that encliticization is obligatory for these elements even when they occur outside the DP, as is the case with MDAs. Then if there is XP movement to a discourse Spec, saP in response to a [pov] probe, which is possible with MDA as well as with regular direct addresses, this XP should be able to support the clitic. Indeed, the example in (32a) shows an MDAs where XP movement applies to the A’ Spec, saP, in the same way it takes place in (20). However, the XP must precede the entire MDA, and cannot substitute for the DP as a host for the clitic, even when the clitic is in sa, above VocP, as shown in (32b). The ungrammaticality of (32b) cannot be justified on the basis of the hierarchy in (31).
(32)
a.
Cam
window
Layla
Layla
zıll-u
te-i-bqa
muqawwej!
closed
‘The window, Layla must stay closed.’
b.
*Cam-u
window-3
Layla
Layla
zıll
te-i-bqa
muqawwej!
closed
Intended: ‘Speaking as your brother, the window, Layla, must stay closed.’
Again, (32) shows that the obligatory adjacency between the DP and the clitic of MDAs is not a morpho-phonological matter, but it rather concerns a syntactic constraint that chains the two items together and prevents the clitic from taking a different host. Along these lines, (31) is not the adequate representation for (28b), as it cannot capture the sequential order, and reducing the reordering of these elements to a post-syntactic process is not warranted.
To sum up this section, split saP/SAP configurations successfully capture the word order and distribution of lexical elements within a regular direct address in Sason Arabic, where the speaker is silent but the addressee may be spelled out through a vocative phrase. However, when it comes to MDAs, the split saP/SAP configuration fails to account for the word order and for the free mutability of the two elements that spell out the speaker and the addressee. The tests showed that the clitic is restricted to a DP host (versus any XP or lexical head), and this restriction cannot be accounted for within a split saP/SAP hierarchy or on phonological grounds. Crucially, the functional features involved in the derivation remain the same for saP/SAPs and for MDAs. However, we presume that the way these features are distributed must differ. The next section aims to develop this hypothesis and to capture the points of variation in the SAP domain that result in an MDA.
In this section we propose that the configurational variation between a regular address, as in (26), and an MDA as in (28), can be captured by remerging the split saP/SAP configuration. That is, all the functional features pertaining to the speech act domain are bundled on a single head. This reconfiguration arises from the semantic specification that the [familiar] feature brings to the structure, namely, affectivity. In this respect, we relabel [familiar] as [affect], keeping in mind that we do not introduce a new formal feature; we only emphasize that, only in these constructions, [+familiar] maps not only an intimate social relation, but also the psychological state that supports that relation. The effect of this specific value for [familiar] is that speech act particles like
The analysis of MDAs on the basis of a split saP/SAP configuration produced the following result: Although all the formal features listed for saP/SAP are identifiable in MDAs, the split hierarchy fails to account for the strict DP-clitic adjacency (versus XP-clitic) and for the mutability of these two lexical items when it comes to spelling out the speaker and the addressee. Furthermore, the obligatory affectivity in MDAs escapes the syntactic representation. That is, the direct address may optionally have an affective reading when it is derived by the regular saP/SAP pattern, whereas for MDAs the affective reading is obligatory.
Technically, we propose that the configuration in (33) underlies an MDA as in (28). This configuration remerges the speech act heads, and this process is related to the specification of [familiar] as [affect]. This precise semantic specification requires the overt identification of both the source and the recipient of the affection, and this requirement is grammaticized.
(33) |
The configuration in (33) displays an imposter operator introduced in the structure by the invariable clitic that would otherwise not qualify to check the [speaker] or the [addressee] features. The argumental Spec, s/SAP is constantly occupied by a nominal phrase: If this phrase is a VocP, then it checks the [addressee] feature, while the clitic checks the [speaker/affect] feature under the scope of the imposter operator valued for ①. If the phrase is a DP, then it checks the [speaker/affect] feature, while the clitic checks [addressee] under the scope of the imposter operator valued for ②. In a split configuration as in (20), [familiar], a.k.a [affect] in (33), is checked separately from [speaker], via complement selection, by SAP. When the structure is remerged, as in (33), there is no relevant selection (i.e., CP is not relevant since it only checks [theme]), so the same feature bundles with [speaker] for syntactic checking. In fact, [affect] probes a DP or a clitic to identify the source of affection. Due to the bundling, the [speaker] feature gets checked as a free ride on [affect], since the DP or the invariable 3rd person clitic would otherwise not qualify to identify the speaker. In sum, remerging the speech act field as in (33) provides a structural account for the mutable spellout for speaker and addressee insofar as the items in the head and the Spec positions are equidistant in relation to the feature bundle.
The analysis in (33) helps us to better understand the status of the invariable clitic against the theoretical background for allocutive agreement as a cross-linguistic phenomenon. It also explains why some distributional predictions based on a split saP/SAP pattern do not obtain in MDAs.
Starting with the clitic, at first glance, it seems to qualify as an allocutive agreement marker, such as seen cross-linguistically: the clitic indicates the natural gender of a discourse participant. The fact that the Sason Arabic clitic does not surface on the verb, as in Basque, would be predicted by cross-linguistic variation. That is, a uniform cross-linguistic analysis can still be maintained under Miyagawa’s (
Nevertheless, there is an important contrast in the syntactic behavior of the MDA clitic and the allocutive agreement morpheme in Basque: the latter operates as an agreement marker in relation to a VocP (irrespective of whether the VocP is lexical or not), whereas the MDA clitic spells the addressee directly and cannot be used as an agreeing morpheme at all. Compare (34a) in Basque and (34b) in Sason Arabic.
(34)
a.
Miren,
Miren.
Jonek
Jon-
Bilbon
Bilbao-in
lan
work.
egiten
do-
di-
‘Miren, Jon works in Bilbao.’
b.
*Ax-
brother-3
Leylak,
Leyla
Kemal
Kemal
amal/-*e
worked.3
lome.
today
‘Leyla, speaking as your bother, Kemal worked today.’
In (34a), the Basque allocutive agreement morpheme agrees with the clause initial VocP. This is not possible in (34b), where the Sason Arabic clitic does not allow for coreference with the vocative noun (the vocative is appositive here, which should be allowed), neither does it agree with the DP it is adjacent to, nor does it allow for an agreeing ending on the verb. This is an indication that the MDA clitic is not an agreement morpheme but a thematic morpheme (i.e., it spells out a p-role and thus substitutes for a VocP/DP), in addition to its inherent affection feature. So we consider it an allocutive discourse marker, rather than an allocutive agreement marker.
The redefinition of the clitic as a pragmatic (allocutive) argument rather than inflectional allocutive agreement, together with the obligatory remerging of speech act heads, makes certain predictions on distributional constraints, which are borne out by the data, as follows:
If MDAs were derived through split configurations on the pattern in (20), then (35) should be possible, contrary to the fact. In (35), a VocP replaces the clitic that would have spelled out the addressee within the same prosodic unit.
(35) *Ax brother Layla, Layla cib-e-ni bring-2 lastiyad-i. shoes-1 Intended: ‘Speaking as your brother, Layla, bring me my shoes.’
The address in (35) should be possible if the underlying derivation were split:
The observations on the distribution of the clitic that we illustrated in (32b) also find a natural explanation in the pattern in (33). More precisely, (32b) shows that XP-clitic sequences are ungrammatical. A split hierarchy as in (20) cannot explain this restriction: in (20), XP moves to the highest, non-argumental Spec of saP to check [pov] and thus precedes the clitic merged in sa to check [speaker]. There is no reason why XP cannot serve as lexical host for the clitic. However, (33) naturally accounts for the ungrammaticality of XP-clitic sequences: since there is only one argumental Spec, which is always filled with a DP (either for speaker or addressee), an XP moved above this Spec cannot be adjacent to the clitic merged in the head of that structure. The same explanation applies to (30b).
The ungrammaticality of (30c), where the speech act particle
In sum, the remerged configuration in (33) captures all the properties we listed for MDAs throughout the paper, and it provides the most plausible representation of the structure that underlies these forms of address. In particular, (33) centers on the mapping difference that occurs in speech act fields when the [familiar] feature comes specified for affection: instead of treating [affect] as a selectional feature, in the way [familiar] behaves in split configurations, MDAs resort to a Spec-head structural agreement that overtly identify both sides concerned by the affective relation. This variation is minimal and predictable under the feature checking theory, since it switches from head-Complement (in split derivations) to Spec-head (in remerged derivations). All the illicit combinations pointed out in the tests on MDA are amenable to principled consequences arising from the contrast between split and remerged derivations.
Along these lines, the MDA configuration in (33) is consistent with observations on variability in feature mapping noticed for other types of phrasal domains, especially in cartographic analyses. Thus, split and remerged representation were proposed for TopP (
This paper focused on mutable direct addresses (MDAs) in Sason Arabic, where both the speaker and the addressee are spelled out, interchangeably, through a DP/VocP that is obligatorily adjacent to a pronominal enclitic. It was shown that these constructions occur in the language side by side with regular speech act structures (saP/SAP), where only the addressee is spelled out through a VocP, whereas the speaker is checked by a null pronominal. Unlike these default configurations, MDAs display a concurrent and overt representation of both the speaker and the addressee, either through a DP or an invariable clitic. The main aim of this paper was to understand the mechanism that allows for this contrast between obligatory silent speakers in regular direct addresses and obligatory lexical speakers in MDAs. The tests led us to the following findings:
The underlying structure of an MDA involves a remerged (versus split) speech act field.
Head remerging arises from the set specification of the [familiar] feature for [affect].
DPs qualify as goals for [affect], while [speaker] is checked as a free ride on [affect].
The clitic is an imposter that introduces imposter operators, which allow it to check a p-role feature; i.e., the invariable clitic is a p-argument.
The DP and the invariable clitic merge independently in the remerged speech act phrase: DP in Spec, s/SAP, and the clitic in the head s/SA. Obligatory adjacency follows from this local configuration.
The mutable pairing of pragmatic roles with either DP or the clitic is possible because of their equidistance to the probes, and it is constrained by the type of operator that binds the imposter clitic: when DP merges for [affect], the clitic is bound by an imposter operator with an addressee feature; when DP has a VocP shell, it merges for [addressee], whereas the clitic is bound by an imposter operator with a speaker feature, which is checked by free-riding on [affect].
The remerging structure underlying the MDA provided us with the opportunity to confirm that SAP projections behave on a par with any other phrasal domain insofar as the relevant formal features can be mapped either separately or bundled, and when bundling applies, it can be partial (for some features but not for others) or complete (i.e. all the features belong to the same bundle). So far SAP was shown to entail partial bundling and a double layered structure by default, cross-linguistically (
1 = first person, 2 = second person, 3 = third person,
Allocutive agreement is a morpho-syntactic device generally consisting of a morpheme (affix or clitic), which encodes a discourse participant by indicating some biological property of this person (e.g., gender or age bracket), as well as the social relation between speaker and addressee (e.g., formal or informal). The discourse participant made visible through allocutive agreement may or may not be coreferent with an argument of the verb, but, crucially, it is independent of the argument structure of the verb. For example, an assertion such as
We translate most of the examples in the format of “speaking as your NP1, NP2, …”, to reflect both the referents of the speaker and the addressee.
The example in (2b) was considered grammatical by our speakers. However, they found it pragmatically awkward insofar as people do not tend to refer to themselves by their name; hence, the question mark on the example. This awkwardness is restricted to the name of the speaker producing the direct address.
The Turkish constructions replicate the Sason Arabic MDAs shown in (1). We did not work with the Turkish data in this paper because the language lacks gender agreement, which makes it harder to explain the allocutive status of the invariable clitic. The tests we apply to Sason Arabic are all compatible with the Turkish MDAs.
(i) [Context: The elder brother addresses his little female sibling] Abi- brother-3 ayakkabılar-ım-ı shoes-1 getir-ir-mi-sin? fetch- ‘Speaking as your brother, honey, can you fetch my shoes?’ (from
(ii) %Leyla- Leyla-3 ne what yap-abil-ir-im do- sen-in you- için? for ‘Speaking as your husband, my Leyla, what can I do for you?’
E.g., Portuguese:
(i) Recomece, restart.2 seu his filho son da of.the puta. whore ‘Start again, you idiot.’
Of course 3rd person possessive clitics are allowed in any construction that does not qualify as a direct address.
The discussion about the origin and grammaticalization of these “agreement” markers harks back to the traditional Arab grammarians, e.g. Ibn S-sarraaj 10th c./1996: 115–116; Ibn Yaʕiš 13th c.: 87–88, 101–102).
Both
Of course we can also have coordination of two MDAs, in which case the clitic follows each DP, within its own MDA. The point is that the possibility in (8) also exists, and that would be ruled out if the marker were suffixal.
The analysis of the internal structure of DPs in Sason Arabic is beyond the scope of this paper, since it is not essential for the analysis of MDAs. In this respect, we rely on analyses of DPs in other Arabic dialects, which confirm the extension of the standard DP hierarchy to the Arabic, variation arising only from the feature checking options, i.e., either head-to-head or phrasal/roll-up movement (e.g.
The presence of the sound [d] in-between the two clitics is euphonic between two vowels and applies in other similar phonetic contexts as well (see
By pragmatization we understand a grammaticalization process whereby the item is merged higher in the hierarchy, in a functional head that belongs to the pragmatic field at the left periphery of DPs or CPs.
Soltan’s distribution of lexical elements within VocP:
(i)
[VocP Spec-
The compatibility between saP/SAP and cP representation is acknowledged in
The reason we adopt this analysis is that it provides a comprehensive account for the syntax of speech acts: it captures the nominal (VocP) versus clausal (SAP) encoding of direct addresses and formalizes the relation between VocP and SAP. Cf. Cinque (
For configurations with clause final vocatives, Haegeman & Hill (
Portner et al. (
However, Haddican (
Several details in the structure are not central to our discussion. For instance, Podobryaev (
For instance, the exact domain over which an imposter operator functions, dubbed as ‘impostrous domain’ in Podobryaev (
We thank Julie Anne Legate, Martina Wiltschko, Sam Alxatib for their feedback on various parts of the paper, as well as the three anonymous reviewers of
The authors have no competing interests to declare.