Helen de Hoop

Scrambling in Dutch

Research group Optimal Communication: www.ru.nl/optimalcommunication/

ESSLLI, Hamburg 2008

Overview

• True optionality? Scrambled definites• Scrambled and unscrambled pronouns• Acquisition of the interpretation of scrambled indefinites

Scrambling in DutchTwo positions for the direct object:

/ \ / \

/ \ OBJ / \

ADV / \ ADV / \

OBJ V V

unscrambled scrambled

Scrambling in Dutch

Scrambling in Dutch

• #We moesten eerst hem voeren we had to first him feed

“We had to feed him first.”

• We moesten hem eerst voerenwe had to him first feed

Scrambling in Dutch

Pronouns move ‘upwards’ in the sentence.

‘short before long’ ‘unstressed before stressed’ ‘high-prominent before low-prominent’ ‘topic before focus’

Anaphoricity = scrambling scale:

Pronouns – Definites - Indefinites

What about definites?

• We moesten eerst de kat voerenwe had to first the cat feed

“We had to feed the cat first.”

• We moesten de kat eerst voerenwe had to the cat first feed

Scrambled definites

• NEW: Anaphors scramble.• STAY: No scrambling.• Sc1: Definites scramble?

Problem

Anaphoric definite that does not scramble:

‘En wordt de poes uit de brand gered?’ vroeg Otje. ‘Dat weet ik nog niet,’ zei de schrijver. (...) ‘Ik mag alles verzinnen wat ik wil.

Ik wou eigenlijk de kat laten omkomen bij de brand.’

I would actually the cat let die in the fire

“‘And is the cat saved from the fire?’ asked Otje. ‘I don’t know that yet,’ said the writer. (...) ‘I can make up anything I want. I would actually let the cat die in the fire.’”

Problem

Non-anaphoric definite that does scramble:

‘Denk erom dat je de muizen nooit los laat lopen,’ zeiden de tantes telkens weer.

think about-it that you the mice never freely let run said the aunts again and again

“‘Make sure that you never let the mice run freely,’ said the aunts again and again.”

Scrambled definitesSC1 NEW STAY

Anaphoric definite

+ scr *

- scr * *

Non-anaphoric definite

+ scr *

- scr *

Scrambled definites

• If indeed definite NPs are free to scramble or not, only partly dependent on their anaphoricity, then how come hearers/readers in Dutch never interpret these definites wrongly? Hearers are able to correctly assign anaphoric interpretations to definites in both scrambled and unscrambled position.

Scrambled definites

• Word order conditions such as Sc1 and STAY are not relevant conditions in OT semantics, since they are violated or satisfied already at input level.

• NEW: Anaphors scramble.• DOAP: Don’t Overlook Anaphoric Possibilities• DOAP >> NEW

Scrambled definitesDOAP >> NEW

Hij (...) greep de agent bij z’n das en zou stellig de arme man gewurgd hebben als niet...

he (...) grabbed the officer by his tie and would certainly the poor man strangled have if not

“He (...) grabbed the officer by his tie and would have certainly strangled the poor man, if not for...”

Optimal scrambling

OT analysis of truly optional scrambling of definites (de Hoop 2000, 2003):

- Does not predict random distribution scrambled definites- Explains why optional scrambling does not affect the

interpretation of anaphoric definites- Captures the general tendency of anaphoric definites to

scramble…- But see recent corpus study of Geertje van Bergen & Peter

de Swart:- Definites are almost like indefinites: they don’t scramble,

not even when they are anaphoric.

Optimal scramblingExtend the analysis to indefinites and pronouns?

- Problem: “Indefinites don’t scramble” and “Pronouns scramble” do not account for the fact that these constraints are hardly ever violated

- Problem: if “Pronouns scramble” >> STAY, then we would predict obligatory scrambling

- Problem: same but reverse problem for indefinites- Problem: we do not account for the special meaning effects

of scrambled indefinites and unscrambled pronouns

Next: adopt a bidirectional perspective to account for scrambled indefinites and pronouns.

Optimal scrambling

• The markedness principle: Marked forms are used for marked meanings (and unmarked forms for unmarked meanings) (a.o., Horn 1984)

• The markedness principle can be proven to result from (weak) bidirectional OT (Blutner 2000)

Scrambling in Dutch

Pronominal objects

Unscrambled : • marked position• marked reading (deictic or contrastive)

Scrambled: • unmarked position• unmarked reading

Contrast

• En in-eens, daar kreeg de dolheid ook hèm goed te pakken; hij rende rond, en greep, greep maar; af en toe had-ie twee, drie mutsen tegelijk in z’n handen, hij strooide ze in ’t rond.

• And at once, the craziness also really got to him; he ran around and grabbed, just grabbed, every once and a while he had two, three caps in his hands at the same time, he scattered them around.

Unscrambled pronoun, contrastive reading

A bidirectional OT analysis

Pronominal object Pronouns scramble *Contrastive pronouns

scrambled,

non-contrastive

unscrambled,

non-contrastive *

scrambled,

contrastive *

unscrambled, contrastive * *

Problem

• Maar, niemand wat geven, en háár alleen wel wat?

• But to give no one anything, and only her something?

Contrastive reading, but still scrambled

Problem

• Zou Rosa Overbeek natuurlijk hem opstoken: “Laat je je dàt doen? Je bent gek, het is gemeen.”

• Then Rosa Overbeek had to provoke him of course: “Are you going to let that be done to you? You’re crazy, it’s mean.”

Unscrambled, but no stress and no contrastive reading!

A bidirectional OT analysis

Pronominal object Pronouns scramble *Contrastive pronouns

scrambled,

non-contrastive

? unscrambled,

non-contrastive *

? scrambled, contrastive *

unscrambled, contrastive * *

A bidirectional OT analysis

• F1: Pronouns scramble.• F2: No stress on pronouns.• Stay: Don’t scramble.

• M: *Contrastive pronouns

• Marked form – marked meaning: violation of F2 + violation of M

• F2 >> {F1, Stay}

A bidirectional OT analysis

Pronominal object F2 F1 Stay M

[- stress +scr; - contr] *

[- stress - scr; - contr] *

[+stress +scr; - contr] * *

[+stress - scr; - contr] * *

[- stress +scr; +contr] * *

[- stress - scr; +contr] * *

[+stress +scr; +contr] * * *

[+stress - scr; +contr] * * *

Escape from stress

Problem:

• Why is the marked form (=stressed pronoun) not identical to the marked position (=unscrambled)?

• Usually, position and stress go hand in hand: scrambling in order to avoid stress

(Neeleman & Reinhart 1998)

Escape from stress

Solution: there are two ways to escape from stress

1. Scrambling: no stress on pronoun

2. Stress on adverb: no stress on pronoun

• *CLASH: Equally strong accents are not adjacent (a.o., Féry 2005)

• See also Bouma & de Hoop (to appear in Linguistic Inquiry)

Escape from stress

There are two ways to escape from stress:

• We moesten hem eerst VOEREN.

we had to him first feed• We moesten hem EERST voeren.

we had to him first feed• We moesten eerst HEM voeren.

we had to first him feed• We moesten EERST hem voeren.

we had to first him feed

Escape from stressThere are two ways to escape from stress:

• Usually, F2 & F1 go hand in hand: scrambling in order to avoid stress

• But F2 is also satisfied if stress is on the adverb because of *CLASH

• In that case F2 can be satisfied without satisfying F1 and since F1 and STAY are tied constraints, we get an unstressed pronoun in unscrambled position.

Conclusions

• Pronouns almost obligatorily scramble in Dutch. Exceptions are pronouns that are stressed and get a contrastive (or deictic) reading.

• But even for stressed pronouns the scrambled position is preferred.

• This can be accounted for in bidirectional OT: a marked form (stressed) goes with a marked meaning (contrastive).

• Usually, stress and position go hand in hand, but not necessarily.

Scrambling of indefinites in Dutch

• We moesten eerst een kat voerenwe had to first a cat feed

“We had to feed a cat first.”

• #We moesten een kat eerst voeren we had to a cat first feed

Acquisition of indefinite objects (and subjects)

Unscrambled: non-referential, non-specific (<e,t>)

Scrambled: referential, specific (e)

Based on joint work with Irene Krämer (De Hoop & Krämer 2006)

Indefinite Subjects

Existential construction, non-referential (<e,t>)• Er klimt een meisje op de schommel

there climbs a girl on the swing

Standard subject position, referential (e)• Een meisje klimt op de schommel

a girl climbs on the swing

Indefinite Objects

• English: – You may roll a marble twice

1 marble (referential)

2 marbles (non-referential)

Wil je een knikker twee keer rollen ?

Would you roll a marble twice ?

Scrambled indefinite objects

• Adults (100%):

Referential reading of indefinite object NP (1 marble)

• 4-6 year-olds (65%):

Non-referential reading of indefinite object NP (2 marbles)

(Krämer 2000, Unsworth 2005)

Scrambled indefinite objects

Het meisje heeft een appel niet geplukt

The girl has an apple not picked

• Adults (100%):

Referential reading of indefinite object (‘wide scope’)

• Children 4;0-7;7 (85%):

Non-referential reading of indefinite object (‘narrow scope’)

Indefinite objects in L1 acquisition

• Children prefer non-referential interpretations of indefinite object NPs (also in English, Mandarin Chinese, Kannada, etc.).

• They ignore the syntactic cue in Dutch.

Indefinite subjects

Een meisje ging twee keer van de glijbaan af

A girl went down the slide twice

Referential reading (1 girl):• Adults: 90%• Children 8;4 – 10;3: 85%

(Flobbe 2006, Klein 1996)

Indefinite subjects

Er ging twee keer een meisje van de glijbaan af.

Twice, a girl went down the slide.

Non-referential reading (2 girls):

Adults: 100%

Children 8;4-10;3: 40%

(Flobbe 2006, Termeer 2002)

Indefinite subjects in L1 acquisition

• Children prefer referential interpretations of indefinite subjects (also in English, Kannada, etc.)

• They ignore the syntactic cue (an existential construction) in Dutch

Subject-object asymmetry

• Indefinite subjects: When adults get a non-referential interpretation, children deviate.

• Indefinite objects: When adults get a referential interpretation, children deviate.

Meaning constraints

• M1: Objects are non-referential

• M2: Indefinite NPs are non-referential

Form constraints

F: Indefinite objects don’t scramble

Indefinite objects

Indefinite object M1 M2 F

[+scrambling, e] * * *

[+scrambling, <e,t>] *

[-scrambling, e] * *

[-scrambling, <e,t>]

Meaning constraints

• M1: Subjects are referential

• M2: Indefinite NPs are non-referential

Form constraints

F: Subjects occur in standard subject position ([Spec, IP])

Indefinite subjects

Indefinite subject M1 M2 F

[[Spec,IP], e] *

[[Spec,IP], <e,t>] *

[[Spec,VP], e] * *

[[Spec,VP], <e,t>] * *

The claim

• Children’s interpretations are unidirectional• Children do not compare form-meaning pairs• They fail to take into account the hearer’s and the speaker’s

perspective simultaneously