LISSIM 6

June 1-15, 2012@ Kangra

Selected Essays

Tamil Path Expressions and *ABA violation[*]

Gurujegan Murugesan
MPhil, JNU 

1. Introduction

In this essay, I will discuss the structure of Tamil Path expressions based on Nanosyntax theory. The appearance of dative case to encode Goal Path in Tamil poses a problem to the theory. I approach this problem by appealing to the syncretic nature of dative case which encodes both ‘to’ and ‘towards’ meaning.

 

2. Tamil Path Expressions

In Tamil, the case markers encode the Path expressions, where the locative case encodes the Place, dative case encodes the Goal and ablative case encodes the Source as shown in the examples below,

 

(1)	a.	banu	vitt-le		iru-kir-a:l
		banu	house-LOC		be-PRS-3SG.F
		‘Banu was in the house’
	b.	banu	vitt-ukku	o:di-n-a:l
		banu	house-DAT	run-PST-3SG.F
		‘Banu ran to the house’
	c.	banu	vitt-le	iruntu		o:di-n-a:l
		banu	house-LOC	from		run-PST-3SG.F
		‘Banu ran from the house’

 

These case forms that represents Place, Goal and Source can be summarized as shown below,

 

(2)		Path	Case	form	Pattern
		Place	LOC	le	A
		Goal	DAT	ukku	B
		Source	LOC + ABL	le+iruntu	A+C

 

 

3. *ABA violation

In accordance with the nanosyntax theory, let us assume that the lexical entry for each these case markers as the following,

 

(3)          Locative suffix:

  le             <  /le/, PlaceP    >

 

                              Place

 (4)          Goal suffix:

  ukku        < /ukku/, GoalP   >

 

                                        Goal             PlaceP
 
 
                                                             Place 

 (5)         Source suffix:

  iruntu       < /iruntu/, SourceP  >
 

                                    Source 

 With these lexical entry stored in the lexicon, syntax would proceeds in the derivation as shown in (6). The lexical entry in (3) would move the given NP to the position A in order to lexicalize Place. The lexical entry in (4) would move the NP to the position B in order to lexicalize Goal. Finally to lexicalize source, the lexical entry in (5) would move the whole Goal constituent to the position C as shown in the structure (7).

 (6)     

             C           Source

                                      B        Goal                     

                                                            A

                                                                       Place                NP

                                

 

 (7)

 

                       GoalP                  SourceP

                                Source                

                                                                              t_GoalP

B                                     

                       Goal

                                     A

                                                     Place                NP  

                

   The problem becomes acute in the lexicalization of Source. The Source expression comes with the overt locative suffix -le along with the ablative suffix -iruntu but whereas the structure in (7) would yield a spell-out of  Goal suffix -ukku occurring along with the ablative suffix –iruntu. This poses a problem to the theory. Note that this problem is unique to the A B A+C pattern and we wouldn’t expect such problem in the cases of A A A+C, ABB, ABC or A A+B A+C pattern. Now let us see the same problem from the light of Tamil Axpart construction, which also involves Path functions as shown in the examples below,

(8)	a.	banu	vitt-ukku		ul-le	tu:ŋgi-n-a:l
		banu	house-DAT		inside	sleep-PST-3SG.F
		‘Banu slept inside the house’ (Place)
	b.	banu	vitt-ukku	ul-le		po:n-a:l
		banu	house-DAT	inside		go-PST-3SG.F
		‘Banu went inside the house’ (Goal)
	c.	banu	vitt-ukku	ul-le		iruntu	po:-n-a:l
		banu	house-DAT	inside		from	go-PST-3SG.F
		‘Banu went from inside the house’ (Source)

 

If we just abstract PP from the above examples, then we get the following,

 

(9)		Path	postposition phrase	Pattern
		Place	NP-DAT inside-LOC	A
		Goal	NP-DAT inside-LOC	A
		Source	NP-DAT inside-LOC + ABL	A+C

 

Now if we compare the pattern in (9) with the pattern in (2) (repeated as (10)) below), then we find there is mismatch in the case form that represents a Goal.

 

(10)		Path	Case	form	Pattern
		Place	LOC	le	A
		Goal	DAT	ukku	B
		Source	LOC + ABL	le+iruntu	A+C

 

I assume that this mismatch is due to the syncretic nature of dative case in Tamil which encodes both ‘to’ and ‘towards’ meaning. Further, taking cue from the pattern in (10), if we assume that Place and Goal are represented by the same Pattern ‘A’ and the Source is represented by the pattern ‘A + C’, then we can deduce the lexical entries for each of the case markers as the following,

 

(11)        Locative and Goal suffix:

  le        <    /le/,        GoalP ,    >

 
                                                   Goal      PlaceP

 

                                                                 Place

 (12)        Source suffix:

  iruntu       < /iruntu/, SourceP,   >

 

                                     Source 

Now with these lexical entries stored in the lexicon, the derivation would proceed in the syntax as shown in (13). The lexical entry in (11) would move the NP to the position A in order to lexicalize Place. The same lexical entry would again move the NP to the position B in order to lexicalize Goal. The lexical entry in (12) would pied-pipe the whole constituent to the position C in order to lexicalize Source (as shown in (14)).

(13)   

 

       C
                Source    B

                                   Goal       A

                                                      Place                   NP          

                                

                                     

                                                    

    (14)   

 

     C

            Source    B 

                                          Goal   A

                                                            Place             NP

                                                     

                                                                          

                                

 Note that in this pied-piping movement, the Goal structure that has been already lexicalized is the overt locative case marker -le not the dative case marker -ukku. Therefore, the pied-piping would result in a correct sequence of structure, where NP is followed by locative and ablative case. In this analysis, there is no lexicalization problem because the structure in (14) yields correct sequence of case marker that marks the Source Path expression.

 One caveat is in order here: The dative case syncretism could solve just one part of the problem of the theory in explaining the mismatch in the Goal Path expression between (9) and (10). The other part of the problem, which is the bigger than this mismatch problem, lies in the lexical entry assumed in (11) (repeated as (15) below).

 

(15)        Locative and Goal suffix:

  le        <    /le/,        GoalP ,    >

                                                    Goal      PlaceP A

 

                                                                   Place 

What this lexical entry essentially suggests is that there is a syncretism between Place and Goal, which is encoded by the locative case. The possibility of locative case encoding the Goal Path is possible only in the case of postposition but not with the case markers in Tamil. Thereby the consequence of dative case syncretism to the nanosyntax theory could only explain the additional non-transitional Path function of dative case and the problem of lexicalization remains unsolved at the moment.

 4. Other theoretical implications of *ABA violation

Bobaljik (to appear) proposes following structure for the comparative morphology, A

 

(16)

[ [ [ADJECTIVE ] COMPARATIVE ] SUPERLATIVE ]

 

Given this structure, Bobaljik accounts for the absence of ABA pattern like *good-better-goodest using containment hypothesis, which states that the representation of the superlative properly contains that of the comparative.

 

What this suggest is that, the consequence of *ABA violations is not limited only to the morphology of Path expressions, it extends to other domain of comparative morphology as well. Therefore the question that I seek to work out in LISSIM 6 is ‘how to deal with *ABA violation in the light of containment hypothesis?’

 

References

Pantcheva, M. (2011). Decomposing Path- Nanosyntax of directional expression. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tromso.

Bobaljik. J. (to appear) Universals in Comparative Morphology: Suppletion, superlatives, and the structure of words. MIT press.

 

 

[*]  Some parts of this essay was presented in Glow in Asia workshop 2011.

For enquiries, write to secretary@fosssil.in

	Skype Interview
	Interview List
	Latest News
	LISSIM 6 Page
	Home