Ra + more on OBJ(theta)

[Siamak Rezaei]

Hi,

bresnan at Turing.Stanford.EDU wrote in LFG list:

> ....
> In her recent msg to this list, Lori Levin notes that "the property
> which [OBJ(theta)] shares with OBL(theta) is its restrictions in
> linking only to specific semantic roles" and observes that this
> characterization need not prevent functional control by OBJ(theta).
> Her proposal can be interpreted in two different ways: (i)
> restrictedness means having a specified or fixed semantic role; (ii)
> restrictedness means having *some* semantic role (i.e. not being
> athematic, as are expletives, raised subjects, etc.).  Given her
> proposal under either of these intepretations, the failure of obliques
> to be functional controllers would still have to be attributed to
> something else--perhaps the role restrictions of their adpositional or
> case markers, she suggests.
> ... 
[ I have included all the message at the end]

I haven't been closely following these discussions. But there is this
marker "ra" in Persian which case marks specific objects, obliques
(non-subject [-NOM])  and in cases topics. I am including some examples of
these:

SPECIFIC OBJ:

\begin{examples}
  \item
     \begin{gloss}
          ket\v{a}b  r\v{a} Ali   x\v{a}nd. \\
          book     SPCF     Ali read-3S
     \end{gloss}

       `Ali   read   the   book.'
\end{examples}


NON-SPECIFIC  OBJ:

\begin{examples}
  \item
     \begin{gloss}
        ali  ket\v{a}b  x\v{a}nd. \\
        Ali book   read-3S
     \end{gloss}

       `Ali   read=book.'
\end{examples}

Note that there is this restriction on non-specific objects that they
come normally before the verb (Like  non-specific objects in
Turkish).  But in Persian there are still cases where the non-specific
object doesn't come immediately before the verb  (unlike Turkish). 
This restriction is not on the ra-marked specific objects (again
like -i marked objects in Turkish).

topic + SPECIFIC OBJ

\begin{examples}
  \item
     \begin{gloss}
hasan r\v{a}, [ket\v{a}b-e\v{s}] r\v{a}  xund-am. \\
Hassan SPCF    [book-his]        SPCF read-1S
     \end{gloss}

`As for Hassan, I have read his book.'
\end{examples}

In addition to the specific obj marking, "ra" marks
oblique (-NOM) topicalised elements. [In Turkish it is not the case].
There is this restriction that the oblique marked elements must
precede the ra-marked objects.

\begin{examples}
  \item
     \begin{gloss}
hasan r\v{a}, ket\v{a}b ra [be-e\v{s}]  d\v{a}d-am. \\
Hassan SPCF    book    SPCF to-him      gave-1S
     \end{gloss}

`As for Hassan, I gave him the  book.'
\end{examples}

These examples suggest that  we  need 3 different object/obliques in 
Persian. Two for syntactic (object 1 and object 2) and the third for 
the oblique/topic one, Or the 2 objects and one Topic in LFG.

There are still more examples of "ra" that I haven't included. "ra"'s
role is different there.

My main references are:

Simin Karimi,  Obliqueness, Specificity, and Discourse functions: 
r\v{a} in Persian ", Linguistic Analysis, vol 20, Number 3-4,
1990, pp 139--191.  (A GB approach)

Siamak Rezaei, Syntactic and Computational analysis of Scrambling in 
Persian. (to appear), PhD thesis, Centre for Cognitive Science, 
University of Edinburgh.

- siamak

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 _`\<,_  ---Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place --  _ \<,_
(*)/ (*)  -- Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK, Tel: +44 131 650  4421 --  (*)/ (*)



> The meaning of the "restrictedness" property of secondary or
> restricted objects (OBJ_theta) has always evoked questions when I have
> presented it, and the several recent messages on OBJ(theta) by Helge
> Lodrup, Alex Alsina, and Lori Levin have been very helpful and
> clarificatory to me.  I would like to add a couple of observations to
> the discussion.
> 
> There is a *syntactic* distinction between primary and secondary
> objects that has typological validity across many languages; it
> differs from the indirect/direct object contrast (see, e.g. Matthew
> Dryer's 1986 Lg article, "Primary Objects, Secondary Objects, and
> Anti-Dative").  As Alex Alsina notes, this syntactic difference was
> designated by OBJ and OBJ2 for primary and secondary object in early
> LFG.  Secondary objects share properties with objects, as Lori Levin
> notes: e.g. they are syntactically encoded without semantically
> restricted adpositions or case markers; they are generally excluded as
> the complements of Adjectives and Nouns; thay may be the subjects of
> (i.e. functionally control) secondary predicates, at least arguably in
> English depictives ("he served them the meat raw")--Norwegian differs
> in this last respect, according to Helge Lodrup.  But secondary
> objects also differ from primary objects in a number of respects that
> need to be explained.
> 
> In her 1986 dissertation Lori Levin first proposed eliminating the
> primitive syntactic distinction between primary and secondary objects
> by reducing it to an independently motivated property of semantic
> restrictedness.  A bonus is that the property of semantic
> restrictedness would immediately allow multiple secondary objects
> (since restricted objects would now be indexed by role), and this
> certainly occurs in many languages.  The property of semantic
> restrictedness had been used in my 1982 "Control..." paper for the
> somewhat different purpose of distinguishing direct functions
> (subjects and objects) from obliques.  It was Levin's original
> contribution to reinterpet this feature as part of a system for
> functional underspecification and linking.  The lexical mapping theory
> grew out of this innovation.
> 
> In her recent msg to this list, Lori Levin notes that "the property
> which [OBJ(theta)] shares with OBL(theta) is its restrictions in
> linking only to specific semantic roles" and observes that this
> characterization need not prevent functional control by OBJ(theta).
> Her proposal can be interpreted in two different ways: (i)
> restrictedness means having a specified or fixed semantic role; (ii)
> restrictedness means having *some* semantic role (i.e. not being
> athematic, as are expletives, raised subjects, etc.).  Given her
> proposal under either of these intepretations, the failure of obliques
> to be functional controllers would still have to be attributed to
> something else--perhaps the role restrictions of their adpositional or
> case markers, she suggests.
> 
> Alex Alsina refutes Lori Levin's proposal by mentioning the evidence
> from the Bantu languages Gitonga (Firmino) and Kitharaka (Harford)
> showing that both OBJ and OBJ(theta) can be goals or patients.  This
> is an excellent point, showing that it would be incorrect to interpret
> Levin's proposal as in (i).  But the interpretation in (ii) remains
> untouched by this evidence: secondary objects and obliques still
> differ from subjects and primary objects in not occurring athematically
> (ie. as expletives, etc).  
> 
> Alsina also argues that by admitting restricted objects into the
> theory we are parochially assuming that what appears in English is
> universal, and are leaking illicit semantic information into the
> syntax in the form of thematic role labels.  In view of the
> typological generality of the concepts of primary and secondary
> object, I don't think we need worry about the first point.  Concerning
> the second point, we shouldn't be mislead by the *name* for the
> primitive feature "restricted", whose history I outlined above.  Like
> any primitive, its actual content is given by its various roles within
> the axioms of the theory, e.g. lexical mapping theory, the theory of
> functions, etc.  Moreover, "restricted" can be defined without
> any reference to thematic roles:  for example,  in the interpretation
> suggested above, it simply means that the function must be indexed to
> a lexical role within the argument list brackets.  This of course has
> empirical content when coupled with the semantics, as in the recent
> work of Dalrymple, Lamping, Pereira, and Saraswat.  
> 
> Joan Bresnan
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------       ______     __o       __o
> Joan Bresnan	bresnan at csli.stanford.edu     ______     _`\<,_    _`\<,_
> ----------------------------------------     ______   (*)/ (*)  (*)/ (*)
>