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Butterpillar or Caterfly?
The Bangla Passive in a Minimalist Parser
Tanmoy Bhattacharya
Department of Linguistics
University of Delhi
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What is the talk about Passive template historically is a result
of a certain tension within the body of the clause
Incorporation, verb-shell, “smuggling”, of P&P can capture the tension
Invites treatment in a Minimalist Parser
Importing syntactic analysis as it is does not work
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The Place of Passive in the P&P Frameworks
Later GB: severance between the active and the passive form
Different derivational histories Misses the generalization about how
we think of passives not out of the blue
Passive is more ‘surfacey’Can we capture this in Minimalism?
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Evaluation Matrix and the Passive
Evaluation matrix (EM) is a collection of Economy Principles (Last Resort, Least Effort, Procrastinate, etc.)
Evaluation is of only convergent derivations
Passive and Active are comparable, passive ‘wins out’ later, iff speaker’s intention had dethematicization of subject
Passive/ active are one until EM acts
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The Passive in Bangla Very prolific Analytic Passive: pass ppl+aux v
a. ama-ke dEkha jay me-dat seen goesb. dEkha jay (impersonal)
Agent, if expressed, is marked by a P: jim dara bagh-Ta mar-a gEche Jim by tiger-cla kill-pass go.ppl.3
‘The tiger has been killed by Jim.’
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Idiomatic Passive forms
a. mar-a pOre hit-pass fall.3 ‘gets killed’ c. kha-wa cOle eat-pass
walk.3 ‘can be eaten’
b. mar-a gElo hit-pass went.3 ‘got killed’ d. ama-ke dEkh-a hOy I-dat see-pass be
‘I am seen’(=she/They see me)
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The Revised Passive Template
GEN subject:ama-r dara bagh mar-a hObeI-gen by tiger kill-pass be.fut‘Tiger will be killed by me.’
Revised Passive template: [(NP-gen by) NP V-a be V
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Similarity with the Gerund Gerunds have GEN subject too:
ama-r boi pOR-aI-gen book read-ger‘my reading book.’
The P dara in passive can be dropped:amar kOfi ken-a holoI-gen book read-pass became ‘Coffee was bought by me.’
Norwegian:Det vart kjøpte kaffeit became bought coffee‘There was bought coffee.’ (Åfarli 1992)
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LR Parsing and the Passive-Gerund Ambiguity
(1) a. (jOn dara) boi pORa hoecheJ-(gen) by book read.pass be.ppl.3
b. joner boi pORa hoeche .gen book read.pass be.ppl.3 ‘the book has been read by J.’
The VPs are identicalDifference: (i) Non-optionality of the subject (of the DP)in (b), and (ii) GEN on the subject in (b) GEN cased DP can’t be recovered
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First Parse of the Gerund/Passive (A) If GEN, mark –a on V as GER
Parsing Question: How is the next V analysed? (a) If zero N, select T and check [NOM] on N (b) When V is scanned, -a triggers a PASS vP (c) PASS selects an unaccusative VPRule: If 2 NPs, the V is not PASS, or if (A), then:?? (d) GEN triggers: (i) POSS DP, or (ii) GER (e) If the next V is –a, (i) is rejected, parser
backtracks to (ii) (f) When another V, (ii) is also rejected ??
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How to Recover the POSS DP
PASS with POSS DP:joner bagh mara gEcheJohn.gen tiger killed go.ppl.3‘John’s tiger has been killed.’
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Algorithm for both Types of Light Verbs
i. [joner bagh] ii. + mara
A: ger expects N/ø and main VB: pass expects LV
iii + gEche C: rejects (iiA)D: proceeds as pass
OR,Ifiii. + hoeche
then apply R1R1: [NP+gen… a]-> no pass
iv. reject (iiB) ger tree projected
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Algorithm for POSS DP But still no POSS DP parse!ii. + mara
A: as before B1:[joner bagh] ø maraB2: :[joner bagh]dat mara
iii. + gEche C: rejects (iiA)D: proceeds with B d1: rejects B1, apply R2: gEche takes nom d2: accept B2
ORiii. + hoeche
E: accept A generates poss treeF: reject B
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Algorithm for the PASS Parse
For this, we need yet another rule:Rule 3: ho can take NP-nom at [Spec,T] and NP-dat at
[Spec,v]Now, step (iii) above becomes:(iii) + hoeche
E: accepts A ger F: rejects B1G: accepts B2 apply R3 pass (23b)
We needed 3 ad hoc rules (Rule 1-3) to resolve the passive/ gerund ambiguity
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Butterpillar/ Caterfly Trapped energy, caterpillar waiting
to burst into a butterfly (CB) Opposite view: butterfly shrinking
to a caterpillar (BC) Both possibilities in Passive:
Clipping the wings of EA (BC) History and synchrony (CB)
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History of the Bangla Passive -a < denominative –aya Obscured by causative –aw
a. daMR ‘stick’ > daMRay ‘stands’b. tOl ‘bottom’ > tOlay ‘goes to the bottom’
Distinction between DENOM and CAUS is lost
Verbalise (NV) C B Both find syntactic analogues:
incorporation (shelf shelve) V v
feed (example par excellence)
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History of the Passive Agent N+Case P Loss of Case in MIA N+Aff P+Case Skt extended P-use to verbal forms (pass
ppl, prs ppl) influenced by Dravidian (IE regarding, during, concerning)a. kore ‘having done’b. diye ‘having given’c. dara inst of dvar ‘through the instrumentality of’
PV (a and b); PN (c) BC
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Syntax of the Caterfly Effect
Surfacing of v = Bypassing v Collins (2005) “Smuggling”
VoiceP
2 2
voice vP2
PP 2 v <PartP>
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Smuggling in Bangla TP
2 2
VcP T2
2 vP Vc
2 amar dara 2
PrtP v 2 hoeche
VP Prt 2 -a
boi V pOR-
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Minimalist Parser and Minimalism
Similarity: Incremental Processing Differences with Minimalism:
Unavailability of Lexical Array (LA) No place for Merge/ Move in a LR parser since
they are bottom up; ETs are the alternatives to them
Move Box to capture effects of -theory Probe Box to capture Case and PIC
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Lexicon of a MP
LI properties -intp features
phi-features other
v* (trans) select(V)spec(select(N))value(case(acc))
per(p)num(n)gen(g)
(epp)
v (unacc) select(V)
v(unacc) select(V)
v(unerg) select(V)spec(select(N))
PRT(pass) select(V) per(p)num(n)
case(_)
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Elementary Trees
v*/v/v# V(unerg)
V(trans/ Unacc)
v 1 v 1 v*
(e)
v 1
(f)
v 1 v 1 v#
(g)
V
(h)
V 1 V
(i)
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Move Box and Probe ox
Move Box Preference Rule When filling open positions, always prefer the
Move Box over the input Elements involving Agree are picked from
themost current Probe stored in the Probe Box:
Agree(p,g) ifa. Match(p,g) holds. Then:b. Value(p,g) for matching featuresc. Value(p,g) for property value(f)
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Parse
a. Given a category X, pick an ET headed by Xb. From the Move Box or input:
i. Fill in the Specii. Run Agree(p,g) if both p,g are non-emptyii. Fill in the Headiv. Copy h to Probe Box if h is a probeiii. Fill in the complement by recursively calling parse with X’ where X has lexical property select(X’)
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“Smuggling” in a Minimalist Parser?
Action Parse Input MBox
PBox
:select(T) [T_[T]] [joner dara] boi pORa hoeche
empty
empty
Fill Spec-T [T [joner dara][T]] boi pORa hoeche [Pn] empty
Fill Head-T [T [joner dara]
[T past(+)]]
boi pORa hoeche [Pn] [past+]
T:select(Vc)
[T[joner dara] [Vc_[Vc]] [T past(+)]]
boi pORa hoeche [Pn] [past+]
Fill Spec-Vc
[T[joner dara [Vc?? [Vc] [T past(+)]]
?? hoeche [Pn] Agree
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Failure of Pass Parse with/ without Smuggling
Agree(T,Spec-Vc) will not take whole PRT, but only the Obj
Obj wrongly valued nom If Obj moves alone, again Agree
will value Case as nom, wrongly Movement of Obj not possible Vc is not required
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Conclusions
A Minimalist Parsing algorithm cannot mimic syntactic object movement outside the VP shell
Voice Phrase is unnecessary Probe-Goal Syntax in Minimalist
Inquiries finds support from the Parser
Movement to any higher functional position (Agro) is unimplementable