A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 101) [1st ed. 2022] 3031045394, 9783031045394

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Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 101

Lena Baunaz Genoveva Puskás

A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood

Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory Volume 101

Series Editors Liliane Haegeman, University of Gent, Gent, Belgium Maria Polinsky, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA Editorial Board Members Guglielmo Cinque, University of Venice, Venice, Italy Jane Grimshaw, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA Michael Kenstowicz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Hilda Koopman, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Howard Lasnik, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA Alec Marantz, New York University, New York, USA John J. McCarthy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA Ian Roberts, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Studies in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical research that pays close attention to natural language data, offering a channel of communication between researchers of a variety of points of view. Like its associated journal Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, the series actively seeks to bridge the gap between descriptive work and work of a highly theoretical, less empirically oriented nature. The series editors invite proposals for monographs and edited volumes. Publish an open access book with Springer: https://www.springer.com/gp/openaccess/books

Lena Baunaz • Genoveva Puskás

A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood

Lena Baunaz Romanisches Seminar University of Zurich Zürich, ZH, Switzerland

Genoveva Puskás Faculty of Letters University of Geneva Geneva, GE, Switzerland

Faculty of Letters University of Geneva Geneva, GE, Switzerland

ISSN 0924-4670 ISSN 2215-0358 (electronic) Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory ISBN 978-3-031-04539-4 ISBN 978-3-031-04540-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04540-0 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Our interest in the mysteries of subjunctive started some time ago, with discussions around the (other puzzling) phenomenon of wh-extractions in French. It was quickly fueled by exchanges with a number of our colleagues and led us to envisage launching into a cross-linguistic examination of what subjunctive was actually about. The subsequent years of research were supported by Swiss National Science Foundation grants # 100015_126861 and # 145313 for which we are particularly grateful. For the last 10 years, we have lived quite a lot in a subjunctive mood. We were graced with many helpful, interesting, challenging, and intriguing contributions from the linguistic research community. We are therefore deeply indebted to our colleagues in Geneva, Ghent, and Zurich: Adriana Belletti, Joanna Blochowiak, David Blunier, Giuliano Bocci, Karen de Clerq, Laure Ermacora, Ciro Greco, Cristina Grisot, Eric Haeberli, Liliane Haegeman, Tabea Ihsane, Christopher Laenzlinger, Eric Lander, Jacques Moeschler, Kevin Mulligan, Margherita Pallottino, Luigi Rizzi, Amélie Roquet, Giuseppe Samo, Louis de Saussure, Ur Shlonsky, Gabriela Soare, Elizabeth Stark, Aleksandra Vercauteren, Eric Wehrli, Andrew Weir. During these years, we also submitted various versions of our work in different conferences, gaining there as well valuable insights and suggestions. We would like to thank Valentina Bianchi, Anna Cardinaletti, Isabelle Charnavel, Guglielmo Cinque, Marie-Hélène Côté, Gréte Dalmi, Eva Dékany, Marcel den Dikken, Katalin E.Kiss, Anastasia Giannakidou, Laurent Gosselin, István Kenesei, Ilyana Krapova, Adam Ledgeway, Alda Mari, Eric Mathieu, Valeria Molnár, Shana Poplack, Eva-Maria Remberger, Alain Rhis, Ian Roberts, Anna Roussou, Dominique Sportiche, Michal Starke, Balázs Surányi, and Anna Szabolcsi. We have a particularly strong and emotive debt towards the participants in our Subjunctive Workshop Anna Roussou, Boban Arsenijević, and Josep Quer. They offered us with an extraordinary generosity their take and opinions on our various proposals, and have been, all along the years, faithful and reliable interlocutors.

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Preface

We would also like to thank very warmly linguist friends and non-linguist friends from all over the world, who have provided us with data, comments, suggestions: Boban Arsenijević, Andrea Cattaneo, Eric Lander, Tom Leu, Divna Petković, Tanja Samardzić, Tomislav Sočanac. We also thank Julien Deonna and Fabrice Teroni, as well as Constant Bonnard and Roberto Keller for extremely interesting and fruitful discussions on the notion of emotion. Special thanks go to Eric Lander for his constant support. We value his patience, his availability, his constructive and insightful comments, which all contributed to the building up of this book. We extend our thanks to the whole Lander family. We are particularly grateful to Tomislav Sočanac. He has, from the beginning of the project, invested his enthusiasm, time, and energy into sorting out some of the puzzles of subjunctives with us. His intelligent and methodical investigation of Slavic subjunctives has definitely been the biggest achievement of the project, and the on-going exchange, discussion, and support we received from him even after its completion meant a lot to us. Finally, like in any long-term project, this one required, at various stages, a great deal of patience and understanding from our friends and families. We would like to thank Klara, Luka, Mateja, Anja, Claire, and Notburga (for her wonderful apartment facing the Mont-Blanc), Marie-Claire and Michel, as well as Régis (for the bike tours), Andrea, Eric, Fred, Larissa, Tom, Eva, and Eleni for their unfailing support. Zürich, Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland

Lena Baunaz Genoveva Puskás

Contents

1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Goal of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 The Research Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 What This Book Is Not About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Empirical Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 A Few Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Organization of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

1 1 2 3 4 4 5 7

2

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Verbal Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Clausal Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Semantic Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Truth Value/Semantics of the Embedded Clause . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Comparison Based Semantics and Semantics of the Subjunctive Clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Take Home Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Syntactic Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Subject Obviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Speaker and Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Subjunctive Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.4 Variable Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.5 Subjunctive “Complementizers” and Clauses . . . . . . . . . .

.

9

. . . . . .

10 12 24 35 36 37

. . . . . . . .

42 44 46 46 47 49 49 49

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Contents

2.4

2.5 3

4

5

2.3.6 Take Home Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Cartography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Nanosyntax (NS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

What Subjunctive Is Not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Against a Pure Semantic Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Truth and Veridicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Refining Veridicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3 Objective and Subjective (Non-)veridicality . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Against a Syntactic Correlation Between Complementizers, (Non-)veridicality and Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52 53 53 57 65

. . . . .

67 68 68 69 72

. .

76 81

Subjunctive: A New Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Determining Subjunctive Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 Alternating Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 The Role of Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 More Features Are Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.4 Decomposing the Features of External Arguments . . . . . . . 4.1.5 And. . . What about Impersonal Constructions? . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Decomposing the Subjunctive Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 The Semantic Contribution of the Properties Associated with the External Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 A New Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Predicate Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Cognitive and Sentient Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 The Emotive Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.3 The Volitional Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.4 Verbs Alternating Between Subjunctive and Indicative . . . . 4.4 Summing up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83 84 85 87 91 92 97 102 102 108 111 112 113 114 115 117

Cross-linguistic Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Our Core Proposal: Mood as Feature-Based Selection . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 Where We Stand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 Potential Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Micro-variation in Romance Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Emotive Factives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Cognitive Non-factives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 Fiction Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Micro-variation in Balkan Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Verbs of Saying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Cognitive Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3 Emotive Factives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.4 Future Referring Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119 120 120 122 123 125 128 129 131 133 134 141 144

Contents

5.4

5.5 6

7

ix

Widening the Scope: The Case of Hungarian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 Verbs of Saying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 Cognitive Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.3 Emotive Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.4 Future-Referring Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.5 The Subjunctive Boundary and Alternating Verbs . . . . . . To Sum Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Subjunctive and Complementizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 The Empirical Problem: Subjunctive Marking, Complementizers and Morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Complementizers and Syncretism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Syncretism and Veridicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Syntactic Features of Complementizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.3 A Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.4 Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 The Puzzle of Balkan Emotive Factives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Factive Predicates and Complementizer Selection . . . . . . 6.3.2 Emotive Predicates Vs Emotive Complementizers . . . . . . 6.3.3 So Where Is the Subjunctive Mood? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.4 Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Subjunctive Marking in Hungarian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1 Factive Predicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.2 The Nature of hogy: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.3 Locating Subjunctive Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

148 149 149 152 154 156 162

. 163 . . . . . . . . . . . . .

163 164 164 170 172 173 174 174 176 179 186 187 187

. 189 . 191 . 193

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract The present monograph proposes a novel approach to the selection of embedded subjunctives. Our research emerges from several observations which led us to question the accuracy of some of the accounts available on the market. In addition, it intends to bridge the gap between semantic and syntactic accounts on the one hand, and main clause and embedded clause manifestations of subjunctive on the other hand. Our approach is an attempt at looking both at the small and the big picture of embedded subjunctive. The chapter presents the main research question, namely: Do languages have a common, principled process of subjunctive selection, and if yes, (i) what triggers it? (ii) how does it proceed? (iii) how local is it? It also introduces some caveats and gives an outline of the following chapters.

1.1

Goal of the Book

The present monograph proposes a novel approach to the selection of embedded subjunctives. As will be further detailed in Chap. 2, the semantics of subjunctive has extensively been discussed in the literature and provides interesting approaches to the interpretation of subjunctive mood. Similarly, various authors have suggested a number of syntactic analyses as to the form of the embedded subjunctive clause, focusing mostly on the functional projections involved in the process. It might therefore seem redundant to propose yet another take on the question of embedded subjunctive clauses. However, as it stands, our research emerges from several observations which led us to question the accuracy of some of the accounts. In addition, while most of the studies focus on one or another aspect of the problem, little has been done to bridge the gap between semantic and syntactic accounts on the one hand, and main clause and embedded clause manifestations of subjunctive on the other hand. Our approach is precisely an attempt at looking both at the small and the big picture of embedded subjunctive.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Baunaz, G. Puskás, A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood, Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04540-0_1

1

2

1.1.1

1 Introduction

The Problem

Our own research stems from several familiar observations. First, some languages appear to have overt (subjunctive) mood marking while others do not (1). Second, embedded subjunctive seems to be associated with specific (classes of) matrix predicates (2). Finally, as a counterexample to (2), some languages display optional subjunctive complements (3). (1) a. French Georges souhaite que Léon écrive un livre Georges wish.3SG that Leon write.3SG.SUBJ a book ‘Georges wishes that Leon write a book.’ b. Italian Giorgio vuole che Leon scriva un libro Giorgio want.3SG that Leon write.3SG.SUBJ a book ‘Giorgio wants Leon to write a book.’ c. English Georges wishes that Leon be more enthusiastic d. Hungarian Gyuri azt akarja, hogy Lajos egy regényt írjon Gyuri that want.3SG that Lajos a novel write.3SG.SUBJ ‘Gyuri would like Lajos to write a novel.’ e. Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017, p. 106, (139)) Iskam tja da dojde want.1SG she that come.3SG ‘I want her to come.’ f. Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009, p. 1887) Thelo na kerdisi o Janis. want.1SG na win.3SG the John ‘I want John to win.’ (2) French a. Georges a *clamé/*entendu/*décidé /souhaité/ que Léon soit célèbre. Georges has *claimed/*heard/*decided/wished that Leon be.3SG.SUBJ famous b. Georges *claimed/*heard/*decided/wished that Leon be famous (3) a. French Georges comprend que Léon est/soit inquiet Georges understands that Leon is.3SG.IND/SUBJ worried ‘Georges understands that Leon is worried.’ b. Italian Giorgio crede che Leon % è/sia contento Giorgio believes that Leon is.3SG.IND/SUBJ happy ‘Georges believes that Leon is happy.’

1.1 Goal of the Book

3

The properties in (1) have been addressed in terms of morphological/syntactic distinctions between “verbal mood” and “clausal mood”. The absence of morphological marking has also often been correlated with the presence of specific mood particles, with the argument that one or the other function as morpho-syntactic markers of subjunctivity. The properties in (2) have been dealt with in terms of the speaker’s/subject’s attitude toward the (semantic) content of the embedded clause. The properties in (3) have usually been discarded as either a consequence of (2) or as idiosyncratic properties. Taken individually, each of these questions has an answer (or several ones, depending on the approaches). While it is indeed clear that languages vary in terms of morpho-syntactic realizations, the question of why (and whether) verbal morphology can work in complementary distribution with external mood particles to express the same properties remains to be addressed. Similarly, if speaker’s attitude/ position with respect to the content of the embedded clause is determinant in mood selection, why is mood “selection” so rigid in some areas and cross-linguistically so stable, while being flexible in others? Finally, if subjunctive is a property of embedded clauses, where does the optional mood selection come from, and why does it appear in some languages and not others? No study has, to our knowledge, brought converging answers to all of these crucial aspects of embedded subjunctives.

1.1.2

The Research Question

Given the set of problems put forth above, the research question we seek to answer is the following: (4) Research question Do languages have a common, principled process of subjunctive selection? And if yes, (i) what triggers it? (ii) how does it proceed? (iii) how local is it? This book aims at providing a fine-grained analysis of the participants in subjunctive selection. We claim that these are (i) the matrix predicate, and more precisely a specific feature thereof, (ii) the “complementizer”, and (iii) the relevant portion of the structure of the embedded clause. We propose an account which integrates the syntax (i.e. the structure) of the clausal articulations, but also of its subcomponents, from the lexical to the clausal level. In other words, our analysis proposes an enlarged view of the structure of the articulation between the matrix predicate and the embedded clause.

4

1.2

1 Introduction

What This Book Is Not About

Given that there is already a large bulk of literature on the topic, and that we approach the question from a new perspective, it should be made clear from the beginning that the monograph is not about: (i) The semantics of subjunctive per se (ii) The structure of the (embedded) clause per se The research underlying this book focuses on the specific phenomenon of subjunctive selection, in an approach which aims at answering (a small part) of the more general question of how syntax and semantics contribute to a linguistic model of human language. While quite a number of researchers have lived with the idea that semantics accounts for meaning and that syntax, quite independently, accounts for sentence structure, we believe that the two are, at some appropriate level, interconnected in the way linguistic knowledge and linguistic output are built. The question of subjunctive selection is particularly relevant in this respect, since many researchers claim it to be a purely semantic phenomenon (in that it involves giving access to alternative worlds or to non-presupposed contents of various kinds). While we do integrate the semantic notion of access to “non-realistic” bases, we also question the exact role and nature of the selecting verbs. Our proposal is based on recent work in what has become known as Nanosyntax (Baunaz & Lander, 2018a; Caha, 2009; Starke, 2009, 2011, i.a.). Given that we assume a lexical decomposition that takes features to be atomic parts of the sentence, whatever surfaces in a sentence (including subjunctive marking) is the product of (iterative) syntactic operations on submorphemic units. Syntactic selection of subjunctive clauses fares along with other (syntactic) processes and is assumed to follow from (an ordered set of) features. It should be noted that while our approach is syntactic in essence, it does not bear on the structure of the embedded clause as such. Rather, we examine the atomic parts of what builds up as a predicate and what forms a complementizer, and explore the syntactic link between the two.

1.3

Empirical Coverage

The choice of language (families) is restricted to Romance (in particular French and Italian), Balkan (South Slavic and Modern Greek) and to Hungarian, a European language of the non-Indo-European Finno-Ugric family. While most (standard) Romance languages bear morphological marking on the embedded predicate and indicate subjunctive selection with a unique “complementizer”, the group of Balkan languages has a special “mood marker” distinct from the default complementizer, and lacks morphological marking on the embedded predicate. Hungarian behaves mainly like Romance languages in this respect. However, dialectal variation (e.g. in Romance languages) shows that the mood marker is not in complementary

1.4 A Few Caveats

5

distribution with subjunctive morphology, and some Italian dialects exhibit both, or none (cf. Ledgeway, 2013, i.a.). Similarly, some Slavic languages appear to have one complementizer for both indicative and subjunctive embedded clauses but lack dedicated morphological marking on the embedded predicate. Within the group of Balkan languages, varieties of Serbo-Croatian exhibit interesting features. We are thus led to discuss variations between Serbian, Croatian and Torlakian Serbian, a South-Eastern variety spoken in the area of Niš and spilling over the Bulgarian and the Macedonian borders. The language families discussed here display a representative array of the distribution of subjunctive marking devices. Our study thus integrates a minute scrutiny of the nature of the embedding predicate, but also of the way it is articulated with the complementizer and the mood marker, mainly within the Romance family, with the goal to identify the common core of properties of embedded subjunctives. With these common properties in mind, we also propose to account for the variation within the Romance group, as well as in the Balkan languages. Finally, we use Hungarian as a testing ground for our findings.

1.4

A Few Caveats

A few points need to be specified before we launch into the question. First, as was already hinted at, we restrict our study to selected subjunctives under given predicates. While we do believe that subjunctive is at work in other areas as well (such as optative and hortative constructions, see e.g. Puskás 2017, 2018), there is considerable overlap in unselected contexts with other mood manifestations (conditional, imperative) which would also need to be tackled separately. As was observed above, there is some variation in the mechanisms of subjunctive selection, but also in the environments in which subjunctive is selected. In order to sort out what the properties of subjunctive proper are, we start with clear cases of selection, moving gradually to the fuzzy areas. Second, the literature on Balkan languages has, to some extent, integrated embedded infinitives and control constructions into the bulk of subjunctive phenomena. Typically, most speakers of Croatian have one and only one marker, da, which occurs both in prototypical subjunctive environments, such as the ones illustrated in (1) above, and in control contexts under various predicates, including aspectuals and implicatives: 1 (5) Croatian (Sočanac, 2017, p. 145) Ivan pochinje da vozi auto.

1

The picture is not so clear, though. Some speakers may have and may even prefer the complementizer što with so-called ‘emotive factive’ predicates, showing that Croatian itself is not a uniform language.

6

1 Introduction

John begins SUBJ drive.3SG car ‘John begins to drive the car.’ Although the marker da is glossed as subjunctive, we consider that the construction does not belong to the subjunctive family, at least as a cross-linguistic phenomenon that we ground into our semantico-syntactic analysis. In other words, the expression of subjunctive will be argued to include more than the surface marker. Similarly, the Greek example given in (6) includes a marker na, again glossed ‘subjunctive’ but we will show that it does not, on its own, signal subjunctive: (6) Modern Greek (Roussou, 2009, p. 1815) O Kostas bori na odhiji. the Kostas can.3SG SUBJ drive.3SG ‘Kostas can drive.’ Given that the examples taken from the literature come with their own glosses, it might be the case that we retain these original ‘subjunctive’ labels, without adhering completely to them as exemplifying control constructions involving a bona fide subjunctive. Similarly, embedded clauses which are not subjunctive are, by default, labeled ‘indicative’. By extension, complementizers (such as Greek oti) may be glossed as ‘indicative’. We again consider that the complementizer itself is not necessarily an indicative marker and will prefer to gloss it with the neutral that, even if examples from the literature may retain the ‘indicative’ label. Moreover, it will turn out that what appears to be ‘indicative’ morphology may be a default morphology, which simply corresponds to ‘non-subjunctive’. Thus, while we discuss the role and particularities of the subjunctive mood, we do not explore the domain of ‘indicative’, a mood probably much more complex than what it seems, and where mismatch between surface form and meaning occurs as well. Third, given that our analysis builds on previous work, we will be referring to the notion of ‘factivity’ at length. We must therefore clarify the notion of ‘factive’. It was introduced by Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1971), who proposed that “a sentence with a factive predicate is said to presuppose the truth of its complement sentence” (Karttunen, 1971, p. 1). A distinction was then introduced, which led to the split between semi-factives, as identified in Karttunen (1971) and Kiparsky and Kiparsky’s factives, which came to be referred to as “factive emotives” or “emotive factives”. Typically, Sočanac proposes a reformulation of the definition as follows: “Such predicates introduce propositions that must be interpreted as true in the actual world and are hence entirely realis” (Sočanac, 2017, p. 35).

1.5 Organization of the Book

1.5

7

Organization of the Book

The book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 provides the background to our discussion of subjunctive. Section 2.1 gives a detailed presentation of the phenomenon of embedded subjunctive, drawing on examples from the language groups that we are targeting, namely Romance languages and Balkan languages, with additional comparative data from English and Hungarian when relevant. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 provide an overview of the semantic and syntactic literature on subjunctive, with a focus on the studies which are closest to our own approach and constitute the ground layer on which we build our own analysis. Section 2.4 outlines the theoretical framework within which we develop our proposal, with an overview of the cartographic approach and nanosyntactic theory. Finally Sect. 2.5. gives the outline of our own proposal. The core of Chap. 3 is a discussion of alternative approaches we do not adopt. Section 3.1 argues against a pure semantic approach in terms of veridicality (and factivity), showing that veridicality appears not to be involved in mood selection proper. We also show why a pure comparative approach as developed in Villalta (2008) needs to be enriched. Section 3.2 is a discussion of where veridicality stands. On the basis of a close study of complementizers in the Balkan languages, we show that (some version of) veridicality does play a role in the selection of embedded clauses, in terms of presupposition. However, ultimately, this is not related to subjunctive selection per se. Chapter 4 lays out our own proposal, based on Romance languages. We argue that predicates selecting the subjunctive involve an ‘emotive’ argument. Section 4.1 gives a detailed analysis of predicates selecting subjunctive embedded clauses, showing that they all have an emotive argument, and that they all include a hierarchically organized set of basic features related to their external argument. Section 4.2 gives a definition of the emotive feature and provides a new typology of subjunctive selecting predicates based on their featural composition. Section 4.3 discusses the syntactic implementation of such a proposal. Chapter 5 develops an implementation of our new system in the different languages of our study. Section 5.1 briefly restates our proposal based on French and addresses potential problems. Section 5.2 tackles variation within the group of Romance languages (focusing on Italian), examining the predicates in the light of our revised typology. Section 5.3 deals with Balkan languages, which, as we mentioned it, exhibit important surface differences compared to Romance languages. We show that our approach is able to account for the distribution and realization of embedded subjunctives in these languages as well. However, it appears that ‘emotive factives’ in Balkan languages resist our approach. A detailed discussion of these is postponed to Chap. 6. Section 5.4 turns to embedded subjunctives in Hungarian. We use the language as a testing ground for our system, and come to the conclusion that the Hungarian data, as the Balkan one, passes the test satisfactorily on most aspects, making thus an important step towards confirming the validity of

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1 Introduction

our approach. Again, we postpone the detailed analysis of the problematic cases to Chap. 6. Chapter 6 discusses the problematic cases in our language groups. We argue that (i) language variation boils down to lexico-syntactic differences and that (ii) given the right focus of our lens of analysis, the so-called problematic cases disappear. In order to do this, we propose a refining of the complementizer/subjunctive marker system in Modern Greek, which is transposable to other Balkan languages and Hungarian and is compatible with the Romance complementizer system. Chapter 7 is a brief conclusion summarizing our findings.

Chapter 2

Background

Abstract The chapter provides the background to our discussion of subjunctive. We first provide a detailed presentation of the phenomenon of embedded subjunctive and its typical environments, drawing on examples from the language groups that we are targeting, namely Romance languages and Balkan languages, with additional comparative data from English and Hungarian when relevant. We then turn to an overview of the semantic and syntactic literature on subjunctive, with a focus on the studies which are closest to our own approach and constitute the ground layer on which we build our own analysis. We also outline the theoretical framework within which we develop our proposal, with an short introduction to the cartographic approach and to the Nanosyntactic theory. We conclude the chapter by giving the outline of our own proposal.

There is no agreement on a universal definition of the subjunctive mood, as will be shown in this chapter. But cross-linguistic investigation shows that some properties emerge which broadly distinguish subjunctive from the indicative mood. In this chapter, we first lay out these properties (Sect. 2.1). We then provide a semantic (Sect. 2.2) and a syntactic (Sect. 2.3) state of the art. In Sect. 2.4, we introduce our frameworks and in Sect. 2.5 our proposal. As mentioned in the previous chapter, we restrict our attention to cases of mood selection in embedded clauses.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Baunaz, G. Puskás, A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood, Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04540-0_2

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2.1

2 Background

The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

This book focuses on embedded mood, or, more precisely, on mood appearing in complement clauses.1Authors have established various classifications of the types of predicates which select for clausal arguments. For instance, in her comparative study on the subjunctive mood in French and Romanian, Farkas (1992a) identifies the following types of predicates whose argument structure may include clausal arguments: (1) Farkas’ classification of predicates selecting clausal arguments desideratives (‘to want’, ‘to desire’), directives (‘to order’), modals (‘it is possible’, ‘it is necessary’), epistemic predicates expressing neutral/negative commitment (‘not to believe’, ‘to doubt’), factive-emotives (‘to regret’), categorical epistemics (‘to think’), declaratives (‘to say’), predicates of certainty (‘to be sure’), predicates of likelihood (‘it is probable’), commissives (‘to promise’), fiction verbs (‘to dream’, ‘to imagine’), control predicates (‘to try’). Based on Hooper (1975), and adding to Hooper’s classification volition verbs as well as fiction verbs, Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) establish the classification in (2): (2) Giorgi and Pianesi’s classification of predicates selecting clausal arguments volitionals, desideratives, directives, belief verbs, verba dicendi, factives, fiction verbs. Costantini (2004) integrates both Farkas’ and Giorgi and Pianesi’s classifications and proposes the following classification of predicates selecting clausal arguments in Italian: (3) Costantini’s classification of predicates selecting clausal arguments Volitional verbs, desiderative verbs, directive verbs, modal predicates, epistemic verbs, emotive-factive verbs, predicates of certainty, declarative verbs, fiction verbs, performative verbs. Giannakidou, 2009 (i.a.) distinguishes among the two following lists of verbs selecting for indicative (4) and subjunctive complements (5) in Modern Greek (MG):

1

We are excluding from our study polarity subjunctives. Therefore we do not include here three other factors which may affect mood choice in clausal complements and discussed in Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) , and Costantini (2004), namely negation, the interrogative operator, and dislocation. See for a brief discussion of some issues.

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

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(4) Indicative verbs assertives: leo ‘say’, dhiavazo ‘read’, isxirizome ‘claim’ fiction verbs: onirevome ‘to dream’, fandazome ‘imagine’ epistemics: pistevo ‘believe’, nomizo ‘think’ factive verbs: xerome ‘be glad’, gnorizo ‘know’, metaniono ‘regret’ semifactives: anakalipto ‘discover’, thimame ‘remember’ (Giannakidou, 2009: 1887, (11)) (5) Subjunctive verbs volitionals: thelo ‘want’, elpizo ‘hope’, skopevo ‘plan’ directives: dhiatazo ‘order’, simvulevo ‘advise’, protino ‘suggest’ modals: (invariant) prepi ‘must’, bori ‘may’ permissives: epitrepo ‘allow’; apagorevo ‘forbid’ (negative permissive) negative: apofevgho ‘avoid’, arnume ‘refuse’ verbs of fear: (verba timendi) fovame ‘to be afraid’ (Giannakidou, 2009: 1888, (12)) In this chapter, and later on, we will refer to the classification in (6), partly established in Baunaz and Puskás (2014) , and to which we add fiction verbs, cognitive non-factives and modals.2 (6) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h.

verbs of saying: cognitive non-factives: cognitive factives: fiction verbs: emotive factives: modals: future-referring: directives:

‘say’, ‘observe’... ‘think’, ‘believe’. . . ‘realize’, ‘remember’ ‘discover’... ‘imagine’, ‘dream’ ‘regret’ ‘be happy’, ‘be surprised’... ‘be necessary’, ‘be possible’. . . ‘wish’, ‘want’ ‘desire’, ‘expect’ ‘suggest’, ‘order’, ‘tell’ ‘insist’...

Most of the verbs included in the classifications presented above are covered in our classification as well. As the reader can observe, the labels correspond to rough semantic classes, which, for now, should be taken as purely descriptive. In order to help the reader throughout our discussion, we provide here the core of the data on subjunctive that is relevant both to our study and to the background. We first focus on the properties of embedded clauses in Romance languages (with French as the prototypical case exemplifying verbal mood), then turn to Balkan languages (and clausal mood). While we take these properties, which emerge from

2 We use the term cognitive to refer to both cognitive factives like realize, remember, discover and cognitive non-factives like think, believe. These verbs are sometimes referred to as epistemics. In Chap. 4 we discuss the case of modal adjectives with epistemic readings (cf. be possible). To avoid potential confusion between the modal (epistemic) and the non-modal (epistemic) reading, we choose to use the term epistemic to refer to the modal reading, and the term cognitive to refer to the non-modal reading only. Hence the distinct terminology.

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observations in the literature, as the basis for our own investigation of subjunctive mood and subjunctive clauses, we will later be led to refine and nuance some of the facts presented here.

2.1.1

Verbal Mood

Languages vary in the way they mark subjunctive and indicative mood. In the Romance languages, among others, mood marking appears on the verb, as a specific verbal morphology. This section provides an overview of the properties of subjunctive clauses and subjunctive clause selecting predicates in various languages exhibiting verbal morphology, and it is by no means exhaustive. Specificities pertaining to each language will be discussed in the next chapters.

2.1.1.1

Properties of Subjunctive Complements

There are famous dichotomies which are associated with the differences between subjunctive and indicative moods in languages like the Romance languages. These include (i) realis vs. irrealis; (ii) independent vs dependent mood; (iii) Tensedependency vs tense-independency; (iv) differentiated morphology; (v) Subject obviation vs. optional reference. (i) realis vs irrealis: Semantically the subjunctive mood tends to show up in irrealis propositions, i.e. in propositions that are to some extent remote from the actual world of the speaker. The indicative mood appears with realis propositions, that is with propositions interpreted with respect to the actual world. Typically, thus, the indicative appears in simple assertions, or as complement of assertive matrix predicates (7); the subjunctive occurs with verbs introducing non-realis situations or intentions (8), (see also examples (10) below, with matrix subjunctives). (7) French a. Léon est content. Léon is.3SG.IND happy ‘Léon is happy.’ b. Léon pense que Georges est arrivé. Léon thinks that G is.3SG.IND arrived.’ ‘Léon thinks that Georges has arrived.’ (8) French a. Léon craint que Georges soit mécontent. Léon fears that Georges is.3SG.SUBJ unhappy ‘Léon fears that Georges might be unhappy.’ b. Léon veut que Georges soit content. Léon wants that George is.3SG.SUBJ happy. ‘Léon wants Georges to be happy.’

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

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As will be shown throughout this chapter, the generalization offers many exceptions, both intra-linguistically and cross-linguistically. In French (and Romance languages more generally) for example, emotive factive predicates take the subjunctive mood, contrary to standard expectations (see Sect. 2.1.1.3 below): (9) French Léon est content que Georges soit/*est venu. Léon is happy that Georges be.3SG.SUBJ/IND come ‘Léon is happy that Georges came.’ (ii) (in)dependent mood: The subjunctive mood is often considered as a dependent mood, typically appearing in embedded contexts, whereas indicative is seen as an independent mood, appearing in both matrix and embedded clauses. (10) French a. Léon finit son livre. Léon finish.3SG.IND his book ‘Léon is finishing his book.’ a’. *Léon finisse son livre. Léon finish.3SG.SUBJ his book b. Georges dit que Léon est heureux. Georges say.3SG.IND that Léon is.3SG.IND happy ‘Georges says that Léon is happy.’ b’. *Georges dise que Léon est heureux. Georges say.3SG.SUBJ that Leon is.3SG.IND happy c. Georges veut que Léon soit heureux. Georges want.3SG.IND that Léon be.3SG.SUBJ happy ‘Georges wants Léon to be happy.’ c’. *Georges veuille que Léon soit heureux. Georges want.3SG.SUBJ that Léon be.3SG.SUBJ happy (11) Spanish a. Creo que llega hoy. Believe.1SG. that arrive3SG.IND today ‘I believe she arrives today.’ b. Ordenó que vengas. ordered.3SG. that come2SG.SUBJ ‘He ordered you to come.’ b’. *Ordenó que vienes. ordered.3SG that come.2SG.IND However, languages also allow for subjunctive clauses as independent clauses:

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(12) French a. Advienne que pourra! arrive.3SG.SUBJ that may.FUT ‘Come what may!’ b. Que le diable l’emporte! that the devil pro.take.3SG.SUBJ ‘To the heck with it!’ c. Qu’elle dise ce qu’elle pense vraiment pour une fois! That she say.3SG.SUBJ that what she thinks truly for one time ‘May she say what she really thinks, for once!-’ d. Qu’il revienne, et c’est moi qui pars! That he come-back.3SG.SUBJ and it is me who goes ‘If he comes back, I will go!’ Simple clauses with subjunctive mood on the verb convey different meanings, such as optative (12a, b), exhortation (12c), or a hypothetical action (12d). As we will see later, their interpretations are very close to those found with embedded subjunctive, i.e., they involve some kind of modal meaning. Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) report the following instances for Italian (13) and English (14), both yielding optative or command meanings: (13) Italian (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997: 195, (a, d)) a. (Che) Dio ci aiuti! (that) God ci help.SUBJ ‘God help us!’ (optative) b. (Che) Mario parta! (that) Mario leave.3SG.SUBJ Let Mario leave! (command) (14) English (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997: 195, (d)) God helpSUBJ us! Beyond Romance languages, similar contexts also trigger the subjunctive mood in matrix clauses. In Hungarian, for example, optatives (15a) or hortatives (15b) also require subjunctive marked predicates: (15) Hungarian (Puskás, 2018: 33) a. Isten éltessen! God live-cause.3SG.SUBJ ‘Bless you!’ [litt: may God make you live] b. Menjünk moziba! Go.1PL.SUBJ movies.INESS ‘let’s go to the movies!’

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

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(iii) Tense (in)dependency: The subjunctive mood is also said to be dependent on the tense of the matrix predicate (i.e. subjunctive clauses exhibit dependent tense); this is not the case with the indicative mood (see Landau, 2004; Manzini, 2000; Picallo, 1985; Quer, 2000; Raposo, 1985 i.a.): (16) French a. Georges dit que tu es venu/viens/viendras. Georges says that you are.2SG.IND come/come.2SG.IND/will come ‘Georges says that you came/are coming/will come.’ b. Georges a dit que tu es venu/viens/viendras. Georges has said that you are.2SG.IND come/come.2SG.IND/will come ‘Georges said that you came/are coming/will come.’ c. Georges veut que tu viennes/* sois venu. Georges wants that you come.3SG.SUBJ/be.SUBJ came d. Georges a voulu que tu viennes/*sois venu. Georges has wanted that you come.3SG.SUBJ/be.SUBJ came Typically, an embedded indicative clause may appear with past, present or future tense, independently of the matrix clause’s tense (16a,b). Embedded subjunctive clauses are restricted to non-past tense, even if the matrix clause is a past tense clause (16d). Again, there are exceptions: languages allow for tense mismatch with subjunctive, as shown in (17) for French: (17) Je regrette qu’elle soit venue hier/qu’ elle vienne demain. I regret that she is.3SG.SUBJ come yesterday/that she come.3SG.SUBJ tomorrow ‘I regret that she came yesterday/will come tomorrow.’ (iv) Differentiated morphology: some languages have a special verbal morphology to distinguish subjunctive from indicative, as is illustrated in (18) for French. (18) French a. Georges pense que tu viens. Georges thinks that you come.2SG.IND ‘Georges thinks that you are coming.’ b. Georges veut que tu viennes Georges wants that you come.2SG.SUBJ ‘Georges want you to come.’ The same is true of Italian (19), but also English (20) or Hungarian (21): (19) Italian a. Giorgio vuole che Leo sia felice. Giorgio want.3SG that Leo be.3SG.SUBJ happy ‘Georges wants Leon to be happy’

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Table 2.1 French verbal paradigm

b. Giorgio dice che Leo è felice. Giorgio say.3SG that Leo be.3sg.IND happy ‘Georges say that Leon is happy’ (20) English a. Georges wishes that Leon be happy/for Leon to be happy. b. Georges says that Leon is happy. (21) Hungarian a. Georges azt akarja, hogy Léon egy regényt írjon. Georges that.ACC want.3SG that Léon a novel.ACC write.3SG.SUBJ ‘Georges wants Léon to write a novel’ (lit. Georges wants that Léon write a novel) b. Georges azt mondta, hogy Leon egy regényt ír. Georges that said.3SG that Leon a novel.ACC write.3SG.IND ‘Georges said that Leon is writing a novel’. Mood morphology is often syncretic in French especially with verbs of the first conjugation. This is indicated with grey shading here. On the other hand, some verbs—such as être ‘be’ and savoir (‘know’)– retain distinct subjunctive morphology throughout the whole paradigm (Table 2.1). In Italian, on the other hand, the subjunctive morphology is almost never syncretic with the indicative mood (Table 2.2). English does not have any specific subjunctive morphology, i.e. subjunctive and indicative mood are mostly syncretic in this language. In constructions where it appears, that is, under verbs expressing a wish, an hypothetical state of affair (see below for details) in the 3sg of the present tense, the form of the embedded verb shows up without the 3sg ending typical of the present tense, i.e., without -s (George wishes that Leon wear his socks vs. George thinks that Leon wears his socks), i.e. it is identical to the non-finite root (and the imperative) of the verb. With the auxiliary be, the verb turns out to look like the non-finite root be (1c) (note that this is also the case with the imperative). Shading indicates mood syncretism here (Table 2.3).

Pers./num. 1psg 2psg 3psg 1ppl 2ppl 3ppl

essere (be) Ind. Sono Sei è Siamo Siete Sono

Table 2.2 Italian verbal paradigm

Subj. Sia Sia Sia Siamo Siate Siano

cantare (eat) (1er) Ind. Subj. Canto Canti Canti Canti Canta Canti Cantamo Cantiamo Cantate Cantiate Cantano Cantino

sapere (know) (2nd) Indi. Subj. So Sappia Si Sappia Sa Sappia Sapiamo Sappiamo Sapete Sappiate Sanno Sappiano

finire ‘end’ (3rd) Ind. Finisco Finisci Finisce Finiamo Finite Finiscono

Subj. Finisca Finisca Finisca Finiamo Finiate Finiscano

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages 17

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Table 2.3 English verbal paradigm

Finally, Hungarian has a full-fledged morphological distinction for all verbs, with suppletive forms for the verb be3 (Table 2.4): (v) Subject obviation vs. optional coreference: Indicative allows for the possibility of coreference between the matrix and the embedded subject, (22a, 23a). In contrast, the subject of subjunctive complement clauses must be referentially disjoint from that of the matrix clause, (22b, 23b). This is known as subject obviation in the literature (Bouchard, 1984; Everaert, 1986; Farkas, 1992a; Manzini, 2000; Picallo, 1985; Ruwet, 1984): (22) French a. Léoni dit qu’ili/j a fini son livre. Leon says that he has.3SG.IND. finished his book ‘Leon says that he finished his book.’ b. Léoni veut qu’il*i/j finisse son livre. Leon wants that he finish.3SG.SUBJ his book ‘Leoni wants him*i/j to finish his book.’ (23) Italian (adapted from Costantini, 2009: 11, (1), 2a)) a. Giannii ha detto che __i/j leggerà il libro. Gianni has said that pro read.3SG.IND the book ‘Gianni said that he will read the book’. b. Giannii vuole che _*i legga il libro. Giannii wants that _*i reads.3SG.SUBJ the book ‘Giannii wants him*i/her to read the book’. Note that infinitival clauses behave differently from subjunctive and from indicative clauses in that respect: the subject of the matrix and that of the infinitival clause obligatorily co-refer. This is known as subject-control:

3

Note that only the indefinite forms are given here. Definite forms also exhibit morphological distinction between the indicative and the subjunctive.

1psg 2psg 3psg 1ppl 2ppl 3ppl

Van (‘be’) Ind. vagyok vagy van vagyunk vagytok vannak

Subj. legyek légy legyen legyünk legyetek legyenek

Table 2.4 Hungarian verbal paradigm énekel (‘sing’) Ind. éneklek énekelsz énekel éneklünk énekeltek énekelnek Subj. énekeljek énekelj énekeljen énekeljünk énekeljetek énekeljenek

Tud (‘know’) Indi. tudok tudsz tud tudunk tudtok tudnak Subj. tudjak tudj tudjon tudjunk tudjatok tudjanak

befejez (‘finish’) Ind. befejezek befejezel befejez befejezünk befejeztek befejeznek

Subj. befejezzem befejezz befejezzen befejezzünk befejezzetek befejezzenek

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages 19

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(24) a. French Léon i veut __i/*j finir son livre. Leon wants finish.INF his book ‘Leon wants to finish his book.’ b. Italian (adapted from Costantini, 2009: 11, (3)) Gianni i vuole __ i/*j leggere il libro. Gianni wants read.INF il book ‘Gianni wants to read the book.’ As shown by Costantini (2009) , this pattern is widespread in Romance: Catalan, Italian, French and Portuguese appear to behave similarly. Subject obviation is governed by mood (but see Kempchinsky, 1987 for Spanish).4 Hungarian shows a similar pattern: (25) Hungarian a. Jánosi azt mondta, hogy proi/j elmenta. János that said that pro part-went.3sg.IND ‘Jánosi said that hei/j left.’ b. Jánosi azt követeli, hogy pro*i/j elmenjen. Jánosi that demands that proi part-went.3SG.SUBJ ‘Jánosi demands that he*i/j leave.’ c. Nem akar proi proi/*j elmenni. NEG want.3SG pro part-went.INF S/he doesn’t want to leave.’ a

Hungarian has a set of verbal particles with different directional and/or aspectual meanings. In the example here, the lexical verb is megy (tensed third person ment) and the particle el (directional ‘away’), glossed ‘part’ is attached to the verb. In some circumstances, the particle may occur stranded from the verb

2.1.1.2

Predicates Selecting the Subjunctive Mood

In languages with verbal mood, the set of predicates selecting the subjunctive mood appears to be rather small: in the three language families presented in this section, only three groups of verbs select for the subjunctive mood: directive verbs (suggest, order, insist...) (26), verbs of desire (prefer, wish, want...) (27), and some modal verbs in impersonal constructions (28).

4

Costantini (2009) discusses environments in which subjunctive obviation is weakened in Romance (see also Ruwet, 1984 about French and Raposo, 1985 about Portuguese). He shows that if the subjunctive morphology is attached to a tense, a passive auxiliary, or to a modal verb, coreference tends to improve in Romance. As this is not crucial to our analysis, the reader is referred to these works for more details.

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(26) a. French Jean exige que Marie parte/*part. Jeani demands that Marie leave.3sg.SUBJ/* IND ‘Jean demands that Marie leave.’ b. Italian (Costantini, 2004: 71, (7c)) Gianni ha ordinato che Maria partisse/*partirà. Gianni has ordered that Maria leave.3sg. SUBJ/*IND.fut ‘Gianni ordered Maria to leave’. c. English John demands that Mary leave/*leaves. d. Hungarian János azt követeli, hogy Mari elmenjen/*elmegy. János that demands that Mari part-go.3SG.SUBJ/*IND ‘János demands that Mari leave.’ (27) a. French Léon souhaite que Georges embellisse/*embellit les faits. Leon wishes that Georges embellish.3SG. SUBJ/* IND the facts ‘Leon wishes that Georges would embellish the facts.’ b. Italian (Costantini, 2004: 71, (7a)) Gianni vuole che Maria parta/*parte. Gianni wants that Maria leave.3SG.SUBJ/* IND ‘Gianni want Maria to leave.’ c. English Georges wishes that Leon be happy/for Leon to be happy d. Hungarian János azt kivánja, hogy Mari megvegye/*megveszi a könyvet. János that wishes that Mari buy.3sg.SUBJ the book-ACC ‘János wants for Mary to buy the book’. (lit: J. want that Mary buy the book.) Modal predicates may select for subjunctive complements, but only in impersonal constructions (note that the English version is tagged as “very formal” by our informants): (28) a. French Il est possible que Marie parte/part. expl. is possible that M. leave.3sg.SUBJ/IND ‘It is possible that Marie leave/is leaving.’ b. Italian (Costantini, 2004: 71, (7d)) È possibile che Maria parta/*parte domani. Pro is possible that Maria leaves.SUBJ/* IND tomorrow ‘It is possible that Maria will leave tomorrow’. c. English It’s necessary that you be/*are on time.

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2 Background

d. Hungarian Kell hogy Mari elmenjen/*elmegy. Proexpl must that Mari part-go.3SG.SUBJ/IND ‘Mary must leave.’(lit: it is necessary that Mari leave.) In personal constructions, the embedded clause must be infinitival in all four languages: (29) a. French Marie peut partir/* Marie peut que. . . Marie can leave.INF/Marie can that. . . b. Italian Maria può partire/*Maria può che. . . Maria can leave.INF/Maria can that. . . c. English Mary must leave/*Mary must that. . . d. Hungarian Jánosi el tud eci/*j menni/*János tud hogy . . . Janos part can leave.INF/János can that Romance languages differ from Hungarian and English in requesting the subjunctive mood after emotive factive predicates (regret, be happy, be surprised. . .), i.e., predicates which presupposes the truth of their complements56: (30) a. French Léon regrette que Georges écrive/*écrit des romans de gare. Léon regrets that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ./*IND de novels of station ‘Léon regrets that Georges writes dime novels’ b. Italian (Costantini, 2004: 71, (7f)) A Maria dispiace che Paolo sia/*è partito to Maria displeases that Paolo has.SUBJ/*IND left ‘Maria regrets that Paolo has left’. c. English Léon regrets that Georges *write/writes dime novels. d. Hungarian Léon sajnálja, hogy Georges verset ír/*írjon Léon regrets that Georges poem write.3SG.IND/*SUBJ ‘Léon regrets that Georges writes poems.’

5 In Chap. 5, Section 5.2.1, we show that this is not entirely true for Italian: depending on the context, some factive emotive verbs may favor the indicative mood. 6 Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) note that Catalan factive emotive verbs can take either mood.

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23

In addition, Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) (see also Portner, 1992, Costantini, 2004, i.a.) identify a class of cognitive non-factive verbs as subjunctive selectors in Italian (and in Portuguese) (31).7 These predicates obligatorily select for indicative mood in French, English and Hungarian, (32). (31) Italian (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997: 199, (19a)) Mario crede che Andrea abbia/%?ha mangiato. Mario thinks that Andrea has.SUBJ/IND eaten ‘Mario thinks that Andrea has eaten.’ (32) a. French Léon croit que Georges lit/*lise un livre. Leon thinks that Georges read.3SG. IND/* SUBJ ‘Leon thinks that Georges is reading a book.’ b. English Leon believes that Georges reads/*read [subj] books. c. Hungarian Léon azt hiszi, hogy Georges egy könyvet olvas/*olvasson. Léon that thinks that Georges a book.ACC read.3SG.IND/* SUBJ ‘Léon thinks that Georges is reading a book.’ Fiction verbs are also an area of divergence among languages, but also within one and the same language: sognare ‘to dream’ selects for indicative complements in Italian, according to Giorgi and Pianesi (1997), while French rêver may select for the two types of complements8: (33) a. Italian (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997: 202, (26a)) Gianni ha sognato che Pietro ha/*abbia ricevuto il premio Nobel. Gianni dreamed that Pietro has.IND/SUBJ received the Prize Nobel. b. French Georges rêve que Léon reçoit/reçoive le prix Nobel. Georges dreams that Leon receive.3SG.IND/SUBJ the Prize Nobel ‘Georges dreams that Leon is receiving/would receive the Nobel Prize.’ Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) report that Italian imaginare ‘imagine’ can select both the subjunctive and the indicative, unlike French, where only the indicative is attested (but see Chap. 5).

7

Although the indicative mood may be selected by some speakers, as the % diacritic indicates. Actually Italian sognare also may also select for subjunctive mood when the reading of the embedded clause is future-referring:

8

(i)

Georges sogna che tu venga al mare con noi Georges dreams that you come.3SG.SUBJ to.the sea with us

24

2 Background

Thus, the choice of the mood of the subordinate clause varies from one language to the next, but there appear to be core cases which behave alike cross-linguistically. Predicates which select unanimously for subjunctive mood are directive verbs, desire verbs and some modal verbs in impersonal constructions. Other predicates unanimously select for indicative mood, such as verbs of saying and cognitive factives. Cognitive non-factive verbs, as well as emotive factives and fiction verbs, vary as to the choice of mood. We come back to these predicates in more details in Chapters 4 and 5. Embedded subjunctive constructions thus seem to share cross-linguistically some core properties: subject obviation, tense dependency, some modality, a number of common selectors (with cross-linguistic variation). Paradoxically, while it often seems to be the most salient property, verbal morphology turns out to be the least significant one. Indeed, verbal morphology is not a necessary condition to distinguish between indicative and subjunctive moods, as many languages were shown to display syncretism between the indicative and subjunctive morphology. Moreover, languages may have all the characteristics of the subjunctive mood without having a special morphological marking on the verb (or anywhere else, for that matter), This is discussed in Sect. 2.1.2.

2.1.2

Clausal Mood

Even though Balkan subjunctive is not marked on the verb (except in Romanian), this section shows that Balkan languages include a clausal subjunctive complement that differs significantly from indicative complements.9 We first present the facts pertaining to Modern Greek, Bulgarian and Romanian, before turning to the special case of Serbian and Croatian.

2.1.2.1

Modern Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian

(i) Realis vs irrealis: Some Balkan languages (Modern Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian) express the distinction between complements of assertive matrix predicates like think and predicates expressing an intention, like want, by means of a so-called “subjunctive”-complementizer to indicate subjunctive mood (34b, 35b, 36b)10:

9

This section draws heavily on Sočanac (2017), but also on Todorovic (2012), Roussou (2000, 2009), Giannakidou (2009) i.a. 10 Following the usage of different authors, we gloss these “complementizers” as SUBJ, although, as we will see, we do not analyze them as pure subjunctive complementizers.

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

25

(34) Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009: 1887) a. Nomizo oti kerdizei o Janis. think.1SG. that win.3SG the John ‘I think that John is winning.’ b. Thelo na kerdisi o Janis. Want.1SG SUBJ win.3SG the John ‘I want John to win.’ (35) Romanian (Cotfas, 2011: 27) a. Maria crede ca Ion a plecat. Mary believe.3SG that John has.3SG left ‘Mary believes that John left.’ b. Maria vrea să plece Ion. Mary wants SUBJ leave.3SG John ‘Mary wants John to leave.’ (36) Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 106, (139)) a. Mislja che tja otide. think.1SG that she left.3SG ‘I think she left.’ b. Iskam tja da dojde want.1SG she SUBJ come.3SG ‘I want her to come.’ As is shown in bold in (34)–(36), these languages display different complementizers in contexts where Romance shows different mood morphology on the embedded verb. This parallelism between different complementizers and different mood morphology suggests that na, sa and da in Modern Greek, Romanian and Bulgarian respectively are mood particles (i.e. triggering a subjunctive meaning).11 (ii) (In)dependent clauses: the constraints on embedding suggest that the na
/da
/ să- particles are ‘selected’ or ‘licensed’ by the matrix predicate (see Sect. 2.1.1), and, as such, they introduce dependent clauses (on this, see Sect. 2.3), unlike indicative clauses. However, just like their verbal morphology counterparts in Romance, these particles can appear in simple clauses, triggering optative or exhortative mood interpretations of mild order, wish, non-affirmative illocutionary force (Sampanis, 2012: 74), identical to the subjunctive modality exhibited in Romance languages (see Sect. 2.1.1.1)12: (37) a. Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009: 1891, (22)) Na to ixes pi. SUBJ it had.2SG said ‘You should have said it.’ 11 12

The term particle is used here in a pure descriptive way, without any theoretical import. On an analysis of optatives and hortatives as dependent modal clauses, see Puskás (2018).

26

2 Background

b. Modern Greek (Roussou, 2010: 1811) Na extrexe. SUBJ run.3SG ‘I wish he were running.’ (38) Bulgarian (Laskova 2012 cited in Sočanac, 2017: 177) Ivan da dojde vednaga pri men! John SUBJ come.3SG. immediately to me ‘John should immediately come to me.’ (39) Romanian (Sampanis, 2012: 75, (12f)) Să te duci! SUBJ you go.2SG ‘May you go!’ (iii) Tense (in)dependency: An important property of subjunctive clauses is that they are dependent on the tense of the matrix predicate (as opposed to indicative complements). This is illustrated here with Bulgarian. (40) Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 60) a. Mislja, che toi otide vchera/otiva dnes/shte otide utre. think.1SG that he left yesterday/leaves today/will leave tomorrow ‘I think that he left yesterday/is leaving today/will leave tomorrow.’ b. Iskam toi da otide utre/* otide vchera. want.1SG. he SUBJ leave.3sg tomorrow/left.3SG yesterday (iv) Differentiated morphology: Despite the fact that Balkan languages do not have subjunctive verbal morphology per se (the subjunctive marking being, as we saw, associated with the “complementizer”), the verbs of embedded subjunctive clauses exhibit systematic morphological differences compared to verbs in indicative contexts (see Giannakidou, 2009 for MG; Sočanac, 2017 for South Slavic). In particular, the difference lies in the aspectual marking. As shown in (41), the embedded verb in indicative complements may show up with imperfective morphology, while it can only be marked with perfective aspect in subjunctive complements: (41) Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009: 1887) a. Nomizo oti kerdizei o Janis. think.1SG that win.3SG.IMPERF the John ‘I think that John is winning.’ b. Thelo na kerdisi o Janis. want.1SG SUBJ win.3SG.PERF the John ‘I want John to win.’

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

27

This is also the case in Bulgarian, as illustrated in (42): che-complements are incompatible with a perfective verb (42a-b) and da-complements occur only with perfective marked verbs (42c): (42) Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 120) a. Mislja che toi pishe pismo. think.1SG that he write.3SG.IMPERF letter ‘I think that he is writing a letter.’ b. *Toi kazva, che Ivan napishe pismo. he says that John write.3SG.PERF letter c. Iskam toi da napishe pismo. want1SG. he SUBJ write3SG.PERF letter ‘I want him to write a letter.’ The verb of a subjunctive embedded clause can only be marked for perfective aspect. As discussed above, it cannot appear with the past tense either. This reveals a double dependency. The morphology on Modern Greek kerdisi is known in the literature as perfective non-past (PNP, for short).13 An important property of PNP is that it cannot refer to an utterance time on its own, and, as such, is a dependent form. PNP thus does not show up in simple clauses, if no tense anchor is present (43a). In (43b), the future marker tha functions as a temporal anchor and PNP is licensed14: (43) Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009: 1898) a *Kerdisi o Janis. win.3SG.pnp the John b. Tha kerdisi o Janis. FUT win.3SG.pnp the John Bulgarian has similar constraints: (44) shows that perfective is not licensed in simple clauses in Bulgarian either, while imperfective is.15 (45) shows that PNP is

13

Sočanac (2017:120) notes that in the Bulgarian literature, the term PNP is not used. One usually refers to “present-perfectives” (Fielder, 1993; Maslov, 1959 i.a.). 14 It can also be licensed by as (‘hortative’), by temporal conjunctions like otan, afu (‘when’) and free relative pronouns. We thank a reviewer for these precisions. 15 Note that the ban on perfective aspect in indicative complements is only relevant in present (or non-past) tense. In the past tense, the restriction no longer obtains, so in (i), the embedded clause is fine with a perfective form: (i)

On kaže/je rekao da je Ivan napisao pismo. he says/has said that has Ivan written.PERF letter ‘He says/said that John wrote the letter.’ (T. Sočanac, p.c)

28

2 Background

licensed in simple clauses if it cooccurs with a tense anchor (such as the futurereferring shte particle). (44) Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 121, (167)) a. *Az napisha pismo. I write.1SG.PERF letter b. Az pisha pismo. I write.1SG.IMPERF letter ‘I am writing a letter.’ (45) Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 123, (171a)) Toi shte prochete kniga. he FUT read.3SG.PERF book ‘He will read a book.’ Crucially, PNP is not compatible with indicative oti-complements, unless a tense anchor (such as the future-referring particle tha for instance) is present in the embedded clause: (46)

Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009: 1887) *Nomizo oti kerdisi o Janis. think.1SG. that win.3SG.PNP the John b. Modern Greek (Staraki, 2017: 30 (2.26a)) Pistevo oti tha erthi o Janis mazi mas. believe.1SG that FUT come.3SG.PNP the John with us ‘I believe that John will come with us.’

There is thus a correlation between clausal complements introduced by na
/da and PNP morphology on the embedded verb in Modern Greek and Bulgarian.16 In the description given here, Romanian has been set aside. While it builds its subjunctive with the subjunctive particle să –, similar in that respect to Modern Greek and Bulgarian, it still retains some verbal morphology on the verb (albeit restricted to third person), yielding să + verb[subj] (Table 2.5). To sum up, in the Balkan languages, subjunctive morphology as such has been lost, resulting in an absence of morphological distinction between ‘indicative’ and ‘subjunctive’ mood. As proposed by Philippaki-Warburton and Veloudis (1994) , in

16

It seems that da-complements may also occur with imperfective verbs: (i)

Iskam Maria da pee. Bulgarian (Smirnova, 2012: (1a)) wan.1 SG. Maria SUBJ sing.3SG.IMPERF. ‘I want Maria to sing.’

PNP marking on embedded verbs under subjunctive complements is thus the preferred option in these languages, although “the imperfective is not banned outright” (Sočanac, 2017:150, fn.75).

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages Table 2.5 Romanian verbal paradigm

Pers./num. 1psg 2psg 3psg 1ppl 2ppl 3ppl

cânta ‘to sing’ SUBJ. să cânt să cânţi să cânte să cântăm să cântaţi să cânte

29

IND. cânt cânţi cântă cântăm cântaţi cântă

Greek, the semantic function of subjunctive is thus syntactically expressed by na + finite verbal form (PNP), which encodes tense and aspect but crucially not mood. PNP is not restricted to subjunctive complements, but in case it appears in indicative complements (or simple clauses), it must cooccur with a tense anchor. Given that subjunctive is a dependent tense, itself building on the tense introduced by the main clause, this is expected. Note that verbs marked with the imperfective may appear within subjunctive complements, but in such cases, an aspectual marker forcing an imperfective reading is obligatory. (v) Subject obviation vs. optional coreference: Another core feature of subjunctive marking is subject obviation. This is illustrated in (47) for Bulgarian and (48) for Romanian. (47) Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 285, (115)) Ivani zapovjada da __*i/j dojde. John orders SUBJ he come.3SG. ‘John ordered *(him) to come.’ (48) Romanian Ioni cere ca el*i/j să plece. Ion demands that he SUBJ leave.3SG ‘Ion asks that he leave.’ With directive verbs, such as to order or to demand, the subject of the embedded clause in Bulgarian, MG and Romanian must be referentially disjoint with the subject of the matrix clause. This pattern is shared with Romance languages, as was shown above in (26). On the other hand, Modern Greek, Bulgarian and Romanian differ from Romance languages in allowing for subject coreference in subjunctive contexts when the main verb is a volition verb, as is shown in (49): (49) a. Modern Greek (Roussou, 2010: 1812) O Kostasi theli na odhijii the Kostas wants SUBJ drive.3SG ‘Kostas wants to drive.’

30

2 Background

b. Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 85, (113)) Ivani iska da __i/j dojde. John wants SUBJ he come.3SG ‘John wants (him) to come.’ c. Romanian (Cotfas, 2011: 27) Ioni vrea să plecei John wants SUBJ leave.3SG ‘John wants to leave.’ The alternation between co-reference and obviation may be attributed to the loss of infinitive marking in these languages. Importantly, all the constructions in (49) involve the (subjunctive) mood particle. Sočanac (2017) (and others) have suggested that they are subjunctive structures, albeit of a different type (to be discussed below, see Sect. 2.1.2.3). As an effect, “the competition between infinitives and subjunctives is somewhat relaxed, or no longer in play” (Sočanac, 2017: 84). We will consider them as subjunctive structures. This property extends to other types of verbs selecting subjunctive predicates: modals (50), and implicatives/aspectuals (51) exhibit obligatory subject control, (50) a. Modern Greek (Roussou, 2010: 1815). O Kostas bori na odhiji. the Kostas can.3SG SUBJ drive.3SG ‘Kostas can drive.’ b. Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 161, (226) Ivan trjabva da dojde. John has-to SUBJ come.3SG ‘John has to come.’ c. Romanian (Baunaz et al., 2018) Ioni poate eci/*j să plece. Ion can SUBJ leave (51) a. Modern Greek (Roussou, 2010: 1815, (8a)) Arxizo na grafo. I begin SUBJ write.1SG. ‘I begin to write.’ b. Bulgarian (Sočanac, 2017: 144, (160) Ivan zapochva da kara kolata. John begins SUBJ drive.3SG. car-the ‘John begins to drive the car.’ c. Romanian (Baunaz et al., 2018) Mariai începe eci/*j să citească o carte Mary begins SUBJ read the book Importantly the modal, implicative and aspectual predicates introduce complements with “finite verbal morphology, where the control reading obtains due to the

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

31

relationship of agreement sharing that is established between the matrix and the embedded predicate” (Sočanac, 2017: 162). Note also that Romanian introduces a morphological subjunctive instead of an infinitive in such contexts.

2.1.2.2

Serbian and Croatian

(i) Realis vs irrealis: In his extensive study of Balkan and Slavic subjunctive marking, Sočanac (2017) argues that Serbian and Croatian pattern with Modern Greek, Bulgarian and Romanian, although subjunctive marking appears to be invisible. He shows that in these languages, the mood particle is identical to the complementizer that appears in non-subjunctive contexts. In other words, both clauses embedded under assertive or factive predicates, triggering a realis environment (52a) and clauses embedded under predicates of intentions or volition (52b) in a non-realis context are introduced by da: (52) Croatian (Sočanac, 2017: 133,) a. Znam da Ivan dolazi. know.1SG. that Ivan come.3SG ‘I know that Ivan is coming.’ b. Hochu da dodjesh. want.1SG. that come.2SG ‘I want you to come.’ However, Croatian and Serbian pattern with other Balkan languages with respect to the other features which distinguish indicative from subjunctive embedded clauses, leading Socanac to claim that these languages have actually two versions of da, an (indicative-selecting) complementizer and a subjunctive mood particle. (ii) (in)dependent clauses and modality: Just like Modern Greek, Bulgarian and Romanian, Serbian and Croatian da-clauses may be used as independent clauses. In this usage, the marker da contributes to a modal (optative and hortative) reading of the clause, as shown in (53). (53) Croatian (T. Sočanac, p.c.) a. Da vas nebesa čuvaju. SUBJ you.ACC heavens protect.3PL ‘May the heavens protect you.’ b. Da imate lijepo vrijeme. SUBJ have.2PL. nice weather ‘May you have nice weather.’ c. (Hajde) Da se prošećemo. (come-on) SUBJ refl. Perf.walk.1PL ‘(come om), let’s have a walk.’

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2 Background

(iii) Tense dependency: A second core feature of subjunctive marking shared by Serbian/Croatian with other Balkan, as well as Romance, languages is the fact that subjunctive clauses show tense dependency, unlike indicative clauses: (54) Serbo/Croatian (Sočanac, 2012: 8, (13)) a. Mislim da je dosao/dolazi/ce da dodje. think.1SG that past.aux.3SG came/come.3SG./FUT.AUX.3SG. SUBJ come.3SG. ‘I think he came/is coming/will come.’ b. Naredjujem da dodjes/* si dosao. order.1SG SUBJ come.2sg/PAST.AUX.2SG came ‘I order that you come/*came.’ (iv) Differentiated morphology: Another way to identify a subjunctive vs. indicative pair is to look at PNP-marking on the embedded verb. The distribution of PNP and imperfective in Croatian is similar to the other Balkan languages: PNP is favored under volition verbs, typical selectors of subjunctive mood in other Balkan languages, and cannot appear under knowtype verbs, typical selectors of indicative mood in MG, Bulgarian and Romanian, (55, 56): (55) Croatian (Sočanac, 2017: 133, (184b)) Hochu da dodjesh. want.1SG that come.2SG.PNP ‘I want you to come.’ (56) Croatian (Sočanac, 2017: 133, (183)) a. Znam da Ivan dolazi. know.1SG that John come.3SG.IMPERF ‘I know that John is coming.’ b. * Znam da Ivan dodje. know.1SG that John come.3SG.PNP ‘I know that John is coming.’ (57) shows that PNP is not licensed in simple clauses in Croatian, unless it cooccurs with a tense anchor, such as the future-referring chu particle (58). (57) Croatian a. Ja stizhem I arrive.1SG.IMPERF ‘I am arriving.’ b. * Ja stignem I arrive.1SG.PNP

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

33

(58) Croatian (Sočanac, 2017: 138, (193)) Ja chu da idem. I FUT SUBJ go.1SG ‘I will go’ Sočanac notes that the imperfective morphology on verbs can appear everywhere, but is degraded under volition verbs, (59a). The sentence improves if an imperfective aspectual marker co-occurs with it, as in (59b) (this is similar to the Bulgarian case in (45) discussed above): (59) a. Croatian (Sočanac, 2017: 133, (184a)) ? Hochu da dolazish. want.1SG. SUBJ come.2SG.IMPERF b. Croatian(Sočanac, 2017: 133, fn.67)) Hochu da dolazi svaki dan want.1SG SUBJ come.3SG.IMPERF every day ‘I want him to come every day’ (v) Subject obviation vs. optional coreference: subjunctive complements also show obligatory subject obviation, as noted by Sočanac (2017 for Serbian): (60) Serbian (Sočanac, 2017: 285, (114)) Ivani je naredio da __*i/j ode. John has ordered SUBJ he leave.3sg ‘John ordered *(him) to leave.’ Yet, Serbian, just like MG, Bulgarian and Romanian, also allows for subject coreference in subjunctive contexts when the main verb is a volition verb, (61): (61) Serbian (Sočanac, 2017: 85, (112)) Ivani hoche da __i/j ode. John wants SUBJ he leave.3SG ‘John wants (him) to leave.’

34

2 Background

Modals and aspectuals must also embed complements with co-referential subjects. Note that modals and aspectuals embed finite clauses associated with da.17 (62) a. Serbian Ivani moze da eci/*j dodje. Ivan can SUBJ leave ‘Ivan can leave’. b. Serbian/Croatian Treba da Jovan donese knjige. should SUBJ Jovan brings books ‘Jovan should bring (the) books.’ c. Serbian/Croatian Ivani je poceo da eci/*j vozi. Ivan has started SUBJ drive ‘Ivan started to drive.’ The examples above show that in the typical subjunctive contexts, Serbian/ Croatian behaves like the other Balkan languages presented in the previous section, and that the salient difference is the phonological realization of the subjunctive particle (da), which happens to bear the same form as the complementizer. Hence even though languages vary on the surface, especially in terms of how they realize subjunctive morphology, it appears that there is a set of underlying common properties distinguishing core subjunctive from indicative mood.

17

Croatian differs from Serbian as Croatian speakers are more reluctant to use subjunctive structures than Serbian speakers. As such, they employ the infinitive version of the constructions (i.e., without da and with non-finite morphology on the embedded verb): (i)

a.

b.

Croatian (Sočanac, 2017: 163, (236a,c) Ivan mora dochi. John must come.INF Pochinjem voziti auto. begin1.sg. drive.INF car

To cite Sočanac, 2017: 163: “On the whole, Serbian was affected by the infinitive loss in greater degree than Croatian, due to their different geographical position: Serbian is spoken more to the East of the Balkans and Croatian more to the West, which is why Serbian speakers tend to use subjunctives in control contexts much more often than Croatian speakers, who prefer to employ the infinitive in control structures such as those in [(i)], given that Croatian was less affected by infinitive loss.”

2.1 The Properties of the Subjunctive Mood in Romance and Balkan Languages

2.1.2.3

35

Predicates Selecting the Subjunctive Mood in Balkan Languages

Based on the data collected for his study on Balkan and Slavic languages, Sočanac delimits the following 6 classes of predicates selecting the subjunctive mood in Balkan languages: (63) a. b. c. d. e. f.

Directives (e.g. order, command, tell, beg) Future-referring predicates (e.g. want, prefer, suggest, expect, accept) Deontic modals: (e.g. must, should) Dynamic modals (e.g. can, know (how to)) Implicatives (e.g. succeed, manage, dare) Aspectuals (e.g. begin, continue) (Sočanac, 2017: 170)

The range of predicates selecting subjunctive mood is thus larger in the Balkan languages than in languages taking verbal mood. This is due to a lexical difference: Balkan languages, unlike Romance and Hungarian, are progressively losing their infinitival marking on V (with the exception of Croatian), favoring da-complements instead. These take over some of the functions of infinitives in other languages, and hence the distribution of da is wider, yielding a three-way split: firstly, we have complements selected by control verbs, which force a conjoined reading between subjects (. . .); then there are complements, selected by future-referring predicates (. . .), which allow for subject free reference; and finally, we have complements that force subject obviation (i.e. complements to directives). (Sočanac, 2017: 176)

Note that contrary to Romance, emotive factive verbs never select the subjunctive in Balkan languages (see also Giannakidou, 2009 (and subseq.), Sočanac, 2017 and many others).

2.1.3

Summary

We left Sect. 2.1.1 with the observation that cross-linguistically, embedded subjunctive constructions seem to share given core properties: subject obviation, tense dependency, some modality, and some core selectors (which vary, as we have just seen, cross-linguistically). Balkan languages pose an additional challenge with respect to the subjunctive mood. First, this mood is not morphologically marked on the verb, as in Romance, but rather appears to be signaled by a particle at the edge of the clause (i.e. clausal mood). Balkan subjunctive is selected by both non-control and control-verbs (the latter being unexpected, from a Romance point of view, since subjunctive is selected by non-control verbs only in Romance). This property leaves more room for semantic variation within the Balkan languages, and subjunctive appears to be less of a coherent semantic mood category. The detailed description of the manifestations of subjunctive in Romance and Balkan languages thus reveals a

36

2 Background

comparatively greater semantic diversity in the latter than in the former, adding to the challenge of identifying a common core definition of the subjunctive mood. Before launching into the heart of the matter, we give a brief overview of the main semantic and syntactic analyses which propose to account for the occurrence of the subjunctive mood intra-and cross linguistically.

2.2

Semantic Background

This section presents a brief review of current studies of subjunctive mood within the field of formal semantics. While a detailed discussion of semantic analyses is not relevant for our purpose, and is anyway available in the literature, we isolate salient studies, some of which contribute to our syntax-semantics construction, and others which need to be crucially distinguished from it in the perspective of subjunctive selection. Portner (2018) discusses in detail the semantics of sub-sentential modal expressions, of which verbal mood is an instance.18 However, as he also points out, the various analyses on the current market give only indirect evidence for a semantics of verbal mood, and the topic is still under investigation. Within the bulk of existing literature, one strong trend proposes an account of mood selection based on the selecting predicate’s properties, with the consequence that “verbal mood simply marks a feature of the clause’s semantic context, without contributing any relevant meaning of its own” (2018: 71). As we will show, this approach, which anchors selection into individual lexical properties of predicates, fails to account for the systematic distribution of subjunctive across languages, and appears to lack strong predictive power. Another trend rather defends the idea that the semantics of the embedded subjunctive (or indicative) clause contributes to the explanation of the mood distribution alongside that of the semantics of the selecting predicate (Portner, 1997; Schlenker, 2005; Villalta, 2008). Moreover, as emerges from the literature, most semantic perspectives present accounts in which the meaning of the predicate and the meaning of the embedded clause are independent. Portner notes that it would ideally be good to look for an approach in which “the dependency between complement clause and predicate could be captured by independently needed differences in meaning between indicative and subjunctive clauses and between those verbs which combine with one or the other” (Portner, 2018: 78). He himself sees two possible paths toward this objective. One option is to show how the modal parameters of the embedded clause are determined by the matrix verb, modal parameters being accessible by the application of semantic interpretation to the embedded clause. Another one is to build on context by

“Verbal mood can be understood as the subcategory of mood with the primary function of indicating how the proposition is used in the computation of subsentential modal meaning” (Portner, 2018: 48).

18

2.2 Semantic Background

37

incorporating into the analysis a dynamic semantics/pragmatics approach, with the idea that the mood of the embedded clause is determined by the context in which it is interpreted. As will become clear throughout the chapters, our own approach is in the line of Portner’s first option.

2.2.1

Truth Value/Semantics of the Embedded Clause

2.2.1.1

Farkas, 1992b: World Anchor

Farkas (1992b) develops her proposal within the framework which has emerged from the ground-breaking work of Hintikka (1961), Lewis (1970), Montague (1974), Kratzer (1977, 1981) on possible worlds. Farkas assumes that a proposition in the scope of a modal operator is in a modally non-specified environment and is “anchored to the set of worlds the operator quantifies over” (Farkas, 1992b: 216). The set of worlds W will then determine the domain of quantification, the modal domain. The modal base is the set of worlds to which the relevant proposition is anchored. She proposes that indicative mood is associated with the truth of the clause in a relevant (set of) world(s), that is, the modal domain forms a realistic modal base. Thus, indicative-selecting predicates introduce a single world, which functions as an extensional anchor for the embedded proposition. The latter is therefore entailed to be true. When a proposition is anchored to a set of worlds which lay outside what is known of the real world (hence cannot be assigned a truth value), the modal domain forms a non-realistic modal base and the embedded clause is realized as a subjunctive. Typically, directives are expressions of deontic modality, where the modal base is non-realistic, as the “deontic code is not a subset of what is known of the actual world” (Farkas, 1992b: 221). Similarly, desiderative predicates express some modality, and the proposition they embed is “not assumed to be realized in any specific world” (Farkas, 1992b: 224). Along very similar lines, Huntley (1984) had already noted that indicative is used when a situation obtains in the actual world while subjunctive expresses a possibility with “no commitment as to whether it obtains, in past, present or future, in the actual world” (1984: 109). Huntley proposes that indicative clauses are actually used as an indexical reference to a single world (world of evaluation), while subjunctive clauses do not make reference to the world of evaluation, and therefore, cannot be evaluated as true or false.

2.2.1.2

Giannakidou, 2009 (and beyond): Veridicality

Giannakidou’s (1998, 1999, 2009, 2011, i.a.) prolific work on subjunctive develops Farkas’ initial idea of anchor (for example, believe quantifies over a set of possible worlds compatible with the subject’s beliefs). For Giannakidou, the anchor is an individual model, that is, the set of worlds provided by applying an accessibility

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2 Background

relation to an individual. She proposes that selecting predicates come with a propositional operator F which is associated with individual models.19 This operator comes in two flavors: it may be veridical or non-veridical. The notion of veridicality is defined as follows: (64) Veridicality A propositional operator F is veridical if from the truth of Fp we can infer that p is true according to some individual x (i.e. in some individual x’s epistemic model). (Giannakidou, 2009: 1889) Epistemic models are sets of worlds anchored to an individual (Farkas’ anchor) which represent worlds compatible with what the individual knows/believes. When there is no embedded proposition, the speaker is the default individual whose epistemic model will be relevant. When there is an embedded proposition, the epistemic model of the subject of the matrix predicate must also be taken into account. Epistemic and cognitive predicates are veridical. Thus, a predicate like know is veridical because ‘A knows that S’ entails that S is true in every world compatible with what A knows. These predicates systematically select indicative embedded clauses. On the other hand, directive and desiderative predicates (which select for a subjunctive embedded clause) are non-veridical. A predicate like want is non-veridical because the individual model corresponds to future/possible realizations. Therefore, ‘A wants that S’ does not entail that S is true in every world which is a possible future realization in A’s epistemic model. On the basis of Greek data, Giannakidou draws a strict parallel between veridicality and indicative mood, and non-veridicality and subjunctive mood. Emotive-factive predicates (which include predicates like xerome ‘be happy’) are veridical and the prediction is that they select the indicative mood, a fact which holds in Modern Greek. The definition in (64) is given according to some individual x. Giannakidou (1998) suggests, without developing the idea further, that the truth of p may be relative to an individual which may be either the Speaker or the Subject. This more flexible view of veridicality is presented in more details in Giannakidou, 2009. The author proposes that in matrix clauses, the Speaker’s epistemic model (“set of worlds anchored to an individual (..) representing worlds compatible with what the individual believes” p.12) is the only relevant one. In embedded contexts, the epistemic model of the subject must also be considered. Giannakidou’s definition of veridicality thus introduces a divide within the class of intensional verbs: (. . .) based on the availability of at least one truth inference, i.e. on whether at least one epistemic agent (the speaker or the subject of the main verb) is committed to the truth of the complement. If a propositional attitude verb expresses such a commitment, it will be

Note that we use the neutral “come with”, as Giannakidou does not specify how the operator is actually linked to the predicate.

19

2.2 Semantic Background

39

veridical and select the indicative; if not, it will be nonveridical and select the subjunctive. (2009: 8, italics ours)

Giannakidou recognizes that Speaker or Subject may be committed to the truth of the complement but does not discuss whether this variation may have some impact on actual mood choice. As for the embedded clause, Giannakidou argues that Greek subjunctive clauses crucially contain (or, in her terms, are “headed by”) a particle na, as well as a verbal form which does not exhibit formal mood features, but a temporal-aspectual marking labelled Perfect non-past (PNP). PNP is a dependent tense, in that although it signals temporality (absence of past), it cannot have its own temporal specification, and hence cannot occur in independent clauses. Giannakidou argues that PNP forms are associated with a (future-referring) tense variable which needs to be bound by a tense operator. Given the tense deficiency of the PNP, Giannakidou claims that na provides the variable with default ‘now’ (or time of utterance) interpretation. This variable will then enable the temporal anchoring of the verb. In other words, na is introduced to provide n[ow], because PNP cannot. Subjunctive is thus the marking of a non-deictic time. In Greek, the PNP form realizes a dependent time variable (which cannot be interpreted deictically, and behaves thus like an anaphor), and it needs to be identified with another time as an antecedent. As they contain a futurereferring variable, subjunctive clauses correspond to a time which starts at the time of main clause and goes on afterwards. “This is consistent with the fact that embedded na is selected by the attitude verb: it is interpreted inside its scope as a well-behaved polarity item” (2009: 34). Therefore, Giannakidou claims, subjunctive is a polarity item.

2.2.1.3

Giannakidou & Mari, 2016a, b, 2021: Flexible Veridicality

While Giannakidou and Mari (2016a, b) propose a more fine-grained distinction, which modulates the notion of veridicality in order to make it flexible (a notion which echoes Giannakidou’s first intuition), in recent work, Giannakidou and Mari (2021) develop the proposal and offer a full-fledged theory of objective and subjective (non-) veridicality. The authors argue that what differentiates indicative from subjunctive mood is that the latter is epistemically weaker, in that the individual involved is not committed to the truth of the embedded proposition. Crucially, they propose a distinction in terms of objectivity vs subjectivity. Objective veridicality is formulated in the following way: (65) Objective veridicality: a propositional function F is veridical iff: F(p) - > p is valid In this sense, a propositional function F will be antiveridical if F(p) - > Ø p.

40

2 Background

Giannakidou and Mari (2021) argue that verbs like know are objectively veridical because, due to their factive nature, their complement will always be true. They also show that temporal operators (past, present) are objectively veridical. Crucially, the authors introduce a different kind of veridicality. Indeed, they observe that if objective veridicality builds on what is true in the world objectively, individuals vary in how they “anchor the propositional content to their own information spaces” (2021: 58). Indeed, the propositional content of sentences are interpreted in light of individuals’ knowledge or experience. This is where the notion of subjectivity come into play: truth is relative to an individual, the individual anchor i. For matrix sentences, the individual anchor is clearly the Speaker. Therefore, the truth of the proposition is evaluated against the knowledge or experience of the Speaker. In embedded contexts, the subject may endorse the role of individual anchor with respect to the embedded clause. The variation in the epistemic state of the relevant individual is defined in terms of an information state M, which includes mental states, memory, perception, awareness, emotions, etc. So M(i) will correspond to the experience and knowledge of i. Subjective veridicality is thus defined as follows: (66) Subjective veridicality: F(p) is veridical w.r.t an individual anchor i and an information state M iff F(p) entails p in M(i) This counts as an endorsement of p by i, where i may be distinct from the Speaker, and where the endorsement is built on i’s information state M. This is a reformulation of Giannakidou’s original idea of relative veridicality, as also extensively developed in Baunaz and Puskás (2014) . Since both objective and subjective veridicality entail that p is true is some individual’s information space, veridicality expresses (epistemic) commitment to p. (67) gives Giannakidou and Mari (2021) ‘s definition: (67) Epistemic commitment of i to a proposition p: An individual anchor i is epistemically committed to p iff M(i) contains worlds compatible with what i knows, and M(i) is veridical, i.e., if M(i) entails p. While know is an epistemic commitment, believe expresses a doxastic commitment. Giannakidou and Mari (2021) argue that a predicate like know is objectively (factive) veridical (due to its factive nature, as seen above) and subjectively veridical, in that it entails p in M(i). It is therefore strongly veridical. As a contrast, believe is subjective veridical, as it entails p only in M(i). Crucially, Giannakidou and Mari (2021) claim that indicative mood is licensed in objective or subjective veridical contexts. On the other hand, subjunctive mood is licensed in nonveridical contexts. Here is Giannakidou and Mari (2021)‘s definition:

2.2 Semantic Background

41

(68) Subjective non-veridicality F(p) is subjectively non-veridical w.r.t i and M iff F(p) does not entail p, i.e. There is at least one world in M(i) that is p and There is at least one world in M(i) that is Ø p Since M(i) will contain both worlds in which p is true and worlds in which p is not true, this leads to epistemic (or doxastic) uncertainty. Giannakidou and Mari (2021) observe that an uncertain propositional function F does not imply that i knows or believes that p is true. Rather, because of i’s information state, where both p and Ø p co-exist as possibilities, i is undecided. Therefore, (s)he is weakly committed to p. They conclude that a nonveridical space is epistemically weaker than a veridical space. They also argue that modals will introduce epistemic uncertainty. Hence the subjunctive in nonveridical contexts.

2.2.1.4

Quer (2000, 2001): Model Shift

Quer also builds his approach on Farkas’ idea of the anchor and Giannakidou’s individual model, implementing some of the ideas to subjunctive in Romance languages, and grounding the analysis in the semantic perspective of model shift. But he avoids the problem of determining what the individual model is for each predicate. He proposes that all embedding predicates give their complement an individual model based on the predicate’s accessibility relation. The main point of divergence with Giannakidou’s work is that Quer shows that mood is not closely tied to a specific reading, such as non-veridicality. Quer (2000) rather argues that subjunctive signals a shift in the model of evaluation of the truth of the proposition. In the case of matrix assertions, the individual anchor of the proposition is the speaker, and the relevant model is the epistemic world of the speaker. Intensional predicates have the property of introducing a set of future worlds which are anchored not to the speaker but to the subject of the matrix clause. Subjunctive thus signals a shift from the epistemic world of the speaker to a set of future worlds associated with the matrix subject. Quer argues that mood is determined by whether there is a model shift: subjunctive is licensed in contexts in which the individual model for the embedded clause is different from the individual model for the matrix clause.

2.2.1.5

Bianchi (2003): Logophoricity

With a slightly different terminology, Bianchi (2003) also makes a distinction between the perspective or cognitive state of the speaker and that of an “internal speaker”, the matrix subject. Subjunctive indicates a shift of perspective from the speakers’ point of view (the external logophoric center), which is the default cognitive state accessible in the common ground, to the perspective of the internal

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2 Background

speaker (the internal logophoric center) by introducing a new model of evaluation for the subordinate proposition, where the set of possible worlds has the matrix subject as its anchor.

2.2.1.6

Portner (1997): Modal Parameters

Finally, Portner (1997) argues that matrix predicates of the attitude verb class, as well as complementizers, encode in their meaning the shift of modal parameters which induces mood alternation. He also proposes that the modal parameters include not only accessible worlds, but also a modal force. In this view, indicative and subjunctive will realize the modal parameters of a clause. As opposed to e.g. Quer’s approach, he claims that there is actually no shift, and that “verbal mood marks intrinsic properties of modal parameters” (Portner, 2018: 100).

2.2.2

Comparison Based Semantics and Semantics of the Subjunctive Clause

We use Portner’s (2018) classification to group salient research on mood which focuses both on the semantics of the matrix predicate and on what the mood of the embedded clause actually contributes.

2.2.2.1

Villalta: gradability and Scalarity

Villalta (2000, 2006, 2008), argues, based on Spanish, that subjunctive selecting predicates are gradable predicates, and that subjunctive mood contributes to the evaluation of contextual alternatives on a scale introduced by the predicate. Her approach builds on two important components. The first component is related to the notion of ranking. Heim’s (1992) analysis of desire predicates, based on the insight by Stalknaker (1984) that desire predicates involve a hidden conditional, introduces the notion of ranking of desirability. In other words, a predicate like want introduces a set of belief worlds which are ranked according to desirability. The analysis extends to the class of desire predicates. Villalta observes that these predicates select the subjunctive in Spanish. She claims that what these predicates have in common is that they establish a comparison. All subjunctive selecting predicates introduce a scale, but not necessarily in terms of desirability, though. The lexical properties of each predicate will determine what kind of scale is involved and gives the basis for the comparison: “the semantics of the predicates under discussion involves comparison of p with the set of its contextual alternatives rather than with just Ø p” (2008: 477). But these alternatives

2.2 Semantic Background

43

have to be believed as possible, and must therefore be contextually relevant. She offers the following definition of subjunctive mood selecting predicates: (65) A proposition p that is the complement of the matrix predicate requires the subjunctive mood iff the matrix predicate introduces an ordering relation between propositions and compares p to its contextually available alternatives. (2008: 481) Her analysis can thus be extended to other types of predicates, such as modal predicates which introduce likelihood scales, and emotive-factive predicates. Second, Villalta observes that in embedded subjunctive clauses, different focus markings induce different truth conditions. She proposes that predicates which select subjunctive are focus-sensitive. This contrasts with sentences which contain an indicative embedded clause, confirming that indicative selecting predicates are not focus-sensitive. This leads her to propose that the actual semantic contribution of subjunctive mood, an operator labelled SUBJc, is to evaluate the alternatives. Such an evaluation occurs at the level of MoodP, a projection above IP. In order to exclude the occurrence of subjunctive with non-focus-sensitive predicates, Villalta adds a constraint, which requires that “SUBJc can only be licensed if it appears in the scope of a focus-sensitive operator” (2008: 507).

2.2.2.2

Portner and Rubinstein (2012): Comparison

In a similar vein, Portner and Rubinstein (2012) propose that mood selection is based on the principle that subjunctive mood is selected by modal or attitude predicates with a comparative semantics in a standard way. A comparison-based approach accounts for a reasonable bulk of subjunctives, with comparative semantics based on different ordering sources. However, they argue that not all cases fall neatly into the comparative/non-comparative divide. They show that indicative selecting predicates have a requirement of contextual commitment: their modal background must be “conversationally defensible” (2013: 10), a property subjunctive selecting predicates lack. They offer an analysis of the respective predicates which involve a feature [+ind] or [+subj], responsible for the selection of the embedded clause mood. The [+ind] feature also introduces a commitment requirement toward the predicate’s modal background, a requirement which is absent in the [+subj] feature.20 The feature [+ind] thus “introduces a presupposition to the effect that all individuals related by thematic roles to the event argument of that predicate are committed to all of the modal backgrounds associated with the predicate” (2013: 17). Because such a

20

The formal definition of commitment is as follows: “An individual a is committed to a modal background h in event e iff a is disposed/prepared in e to argue for h(e) in a conversationally appropriate way (e.g. by arguing that it is rational/proper/ sensible/wise) in any relevant conversation c.” (Portner & Rubinstein, 2012: 17).

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2 Background

requirement does not hold for subjunctive, the conclusion is that subjunctive is a default case. The notion of default subjunctive is also reminiscent of Schlenker’s (2005) approach. Schlenker proposes that indicative mood signals a clause whose world argument is presupposed to be in some actual, or reported, accessible context. French subjunctive lacks this presupposition and is therefore a default case.

2.2.3

Take Home Message

We conclude the section with an evaluation of the semantic contributions presented here in terms of their relevance with respect to our approach to subjunctive clauses. The various approaches all provide valuable contributions to the understanding of subjunctive mood. Essentially, their insightful analyses deal with: (i) the intuition that there is a difference between utterances describing some real, known, attested or factual situation and those expressing situations for which the speaker, and hence the hearer, has no direct evidence that they are actual or factual, and which then belong to the realm of possibilities (of various sorts). A possible worlds semantics approach, as developed by Heim, and more specifically for subjunctive, by Farkas, Giannakidou, Quer, etc. with various implementations of the notion of non-realistic modal base takes care in an elegant and economical way of this crucial distinction. Thus, the notion is essential in implementing the modal (i.e. quantificational) component of subjunctive clauses. (ii) the observation, quite salient in the case of predicates which allow both for an indicative and a subjunctive complement, that subjunctive is correlated with a shift from the speaker’s perspective to the subject’s perspective (or, as expressed in Bianchi, an internal logophoric center). Such a component, which is the cornerstone of Quer’s and Bianchi’s analysis, and which is partially integrated into recent work by Giannakidou and Mari, is essential in the understanding of what subjunctive is about. As we argue, not all modalities induce the subjunctive mood: it is the focus on (some property of) the subject’s perspective which does so. (iii) the innovative idea that predicates selecting the subjunctive have some special properties such as comparison inducing, as in Villalta (and, to some extent, Portner and Rubinstein) or (lack of) contextual commitment, as defended by Portner and Rubinstein. These properties are semantically built into the predicates, and provide a significant improvement over previous approaches, in that they do not require individual semantic specifications for each and every predicate which is involved in subjunctive licensing. They are a first project of generalization of what characterizes classes of subjunctive selecting predicates. However, as they stand, most of these analyses handle only one side of the problem. Typically, in a Farkas/Giannakidou approach, as the main question is the

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characterization of the meaning of the subjunctive (and indicative) clause, the theory makes no predictions as to which predicates will select indicative or subjunctive clauses. The veridicality approach requires that each predicate be specified with respect to the individual model of its complement. In terms of explanation, it overlooks some important intuition that there is somehow a coherence in mood selection. Even in terms of verb classes, a truth-based approach fails to account for particular cases. It is well-known that factive-emotives presuppose the truth of their complement, yet in some languages, including French, they select the subjunctive (see examples in 29 above). Similarly, Giannakidou and Mari’s approach assumes that subjunctive is in tight correlation with a lack of commitment to the truth of the embedded clause, a fact which does not resist crosslinguistic. A detailed discussion of our arguments in given in Chap. 3. The comparative approach seems to be more promising. Villalta (2008) proposes that subjunctive mood is the realization of an operator whose role is to evaluate alternatives. Since alternatives are typically introduced in Focus environments, she concludes that subjunctive is a focus-sensitive operator. Let us split the two proposals. First, Villalta proposes that subjunctive clauses, i.e. clauses marked with subjunctive mood, are the overt expression of the fact that there is an ordering relation between propositions. The matrix predicate introduces this relation and “compares p to its contextually available alternatives” (2008: 481). The role of subjunctive marking is thus to signal the presence of alternatives. Compared to indicative clauses, this suggests that the speaker/subject is entertaining (whether true or false, as discussed above) more than one (possible) proposition at the same time. In terms of epistemic model, it amounts to saying that the speaker/subject is undecided about the potential outcome of the situation or has a lack of what Portner and Rubinstein call contextual commitment. While p, the propositional content of the embedded clause is not at stake, the relation between the speaker/subject and p is weakened. Second, Villalta also claims that focus marking in embedded clauses induces different truth conditions. This leads her to propose that subjunctive embedded clauses are selected by “focus-sensitive” predicates. But in order to guarantee that only focus-sensitive predicates select subjunctive clauses, Villalta adds a constraint, which requires that “SUBJc can only be licensed if it appears in the scope of a focussensitive operator” (2008: 507). Unfortunately, such a claim comes as rather ad-hoc and leads to circularity, since defining focus-sensitive predicates requires identifying their embedded clauses, which are themselves selected under the condition that they are embedded under a focus-sensitive predicate. Moreover, the notion of focussensitive is here very vague. It is, for example, difficult to assess in what sense comprendre (‘understand’) + subjunctive (as in 20c above) is more focus-sensitive than its indicative-selecting counterpart (20a, 20b). Therefore, as will become clear, while we do not integrate the focus-sensitive approach, our own proposal also builds on the idea that the subject/speaker entertains a “subjective” relation to multiple possible eventualities, which are ranked (compared) according to some preference. We argue that this relation is syntactically encoded in the relation between the matrix predicates and the embedded clause and

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2 Background

has bearings on the highest layers of the embedded clause, essentially on the “complementizer” above the structure which corresponds to the propositional content.

2.3

Syntactic Background

From the syntactic point of view, studies on the subjunctive mood focus on various phenomena, as well as various languages (and language families). Again, without aiming at being exhaustive, we present here some of the most salient ones.

2.3.1

Subject Obviation

Subject obviation has been extensively studied since at least the 80s. It refers to the ban on co-referentiality between the embedded (overt or non-overt pronominal) subject of a subjunctive clause and the subject of the matrix clause. It has been widely described and analyzed for Romance (French, Italian, Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish). Some researchers have argued that the phenomenon is to be understood within Binding Theory, in particular in terms of Condition B. In this approach, the subjunctive mood is somehow considered as an ‘anaphoric’ mood. See i.a. Bouchard (1984), Farkas (1992a), Ruwet, 1984, Tsoulas (1996), Schlenker 2005 (for French); Picallo 1985 (for Catalan), Manzini (2000) and Rizzi (2000) for Italian, Raposo (1985) for Portuguese and Suñer (1986), Kempchinsky (1987, 1998, 2009) for Spanish. The phenomenon has also been studied for Dutch (Everaert, 1986) and Russian (Avrutin, 1994; Avrutin & Babyonyshev, 1997). Another approach is to discuss subject obviation in the light of its reverse phenomenon, namely control. Subjunctive clauses often appear in complementary distribution with non-finite clauses in Romance. From this perspective, the subjunctive form and the infinitive form are in competition (see Bouchard, 1983; Farkas, 1992a; Schlenker, 2005). In other words, when there is coreference (i.e. subject control) between the subject of the matrix clause and that of the embedded clause, it is expressed by a non-finite clause. And if this is the case, then a subjunctive clause cannot be licensed. Said differently, the infinitive and the subjunctive somehow exclude each other. However, Costantini (2004, 2009) i.a. shows that there are many contexts where this is simply not true. He shows that while subjunctive morphology on an embedded full verb forces an obviation reading, a tense auxiliary, a passive auxiliary, or a modal verb introduce contexts which preclude argument-obviation in subjunctive clauses. Also crucial in obviation situations, the argument in the matrix clause refers to the individual with some attitude toward the propositional content of the embedded clause (¼ bearer of attitude). To account for these facts, Costantini proposes that “an attitude is de se if the content of the attitude is unsaturated. The

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47

theta-role that remains unassigned via obvious theta-marking is theta-identified with the bearer of the attitude, giving rise to the de se interpretation.” (Costantini, 2009: 126). As such, only infinitivals are de se, while subjunctives are not. In subjunctive clauses with obviation, all positions are satisfied, and the de se reading is ruled out. In non-finite clauses, he argues, the lexical verb cannot theta-mark its external argument. The external argument thus needs to be satisfied. This will be done via theta-identification “either with a co-argument (pro, which cannot be de se)”, or with the bearer of attitude, i.e. the argument in the matrix clause. He argues that “this is exactly what happens in the instances of obviation ‘weakening’, which crucially involve nonfinite forms of lexical verbs.” (Costantini, 2009: 111). The two configurations are illustrated in (66): (66) a. DP1 . . . [MOODP [pro*1 V.SUBJ [pro1 V (¼ obviative subjunctive clauses) b. DP1. . . [MOODP [pro*1 F.SUBJ [x V.INF/PART/GER (¼ de se subjunctive clauses) (from Costantini, 2009: 111, (8)) Under Costantini’s analysis, thus, subjunctives and infinitivals are in competition only if the lexical verb carries the morphology of the infinitive/subjunctive. In case it is a functional verb (F), there is no competition any longer, and the de se reading is available. A different proposal is presented in Roussou (2000, 2009). In the languages of the Balkan, subjunctive clauses are often taken as encompassing infinitivals (see Sect. 2.1.2). Roussou, discussing mood selection in Modern Greek, argues that na-clauses may be split between “subjunctive” clauses, whose subject presents obviation effects, and “infinitive” clauses which are control environments. In the first case the embedded inflection decides on the reference of the embedded subject. In the second case, the main predicate is a control-verb, which selects a na-clause. Essentially, Roussou claims that na is associated with modality. It is a locative nominal morpheme belonging to the left periphery of the clause. As a nominal locative subject, it forms a chain with the agreement on the embedded verb. Crucially for her purposes, subjunctive na and infinitive na are similar items.

2.3.2

Speaker and Subjects

Giorgi and Pianesi (2001) observe that languages with Double Access Readings (DAR) exhibit the phenomenon in the indicative but not the subjunctive. The authors, focusing on Italian, show that when the embedded clause has access to the speaker’s coordinates (as well as, possibly, the subject’s coordinates), the embedded clause is in the indicative (examples from Giorgi 2009):

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(67) Italian Gianni ha detto che Maria è incinta. ‘Gianni said that Maria is pregnant.’ The pregnancy holds both for the time of the utterance by the speaker and of the time of Gianni’s saying the (content of the) embedded clause. The situation is different with embedded subjunctive clauses: (68) a. Gianni crede che Maria sia/*fosse incinta. Gianni believes that Maria be.PRES.SUBJ/*be.PAST.SUBJ pregnant ‘Gianni believes that Maria is/*was pregnant.’ b. Gianni credeva che Maria fosse/*sia incinta. Gianni believed that Maria be.PAST.SUBJ/*is.PRES.SUBJ pregnant ‘Gianni believed that Maria was/*is pregnant.’ The time of the embedded event shows simultaneity with the subject’s belief (Gianni’s) but does not have to coincide with the time of the utterance by the speaker. Giorgi and Pianesi also observe that embedded subjunctive clauses allow for optional complementizer deletion (in Italian). The authors argue that the property which can account for these phenomena is related to the syntax of the (embedded) CP layer. They propose that although the complementizer in both indicative and subjunctive clauses is che, it occupies a different syntactic position in each of these sentences, i.e. it heads two different functional projections. (69) Giorgi and Pianesi’s (2001) account: a. Indicative clause: [CP [C-utterance che] [AGRP [TP [T-attitude . . .] . . . b. Subjunctive clause: [MOODP [MOOD-attitude che] [AGRP [TP [T . . .] . . . (from Costantini, 2009: 108, (1)) The subjunctive che is actually an instance of discontinuous morphology. It is (a realization of) a part of the morphology of the embedded verb and is located in MoodP. LF movement of the verb associates verbal morphology with the Mood head. When the Mood head is not lexicalized by che, the verb itself raises to Mood. This accounts for the optionality of the complementizer. The authors argue that the embedded verbal morphology is a case of head-head agreement with the embedding verb, accounting for the simultaneous reading. As for the indicative che, it occurs in the embedded C head. The latter contains a feature which points to the speaker’s time, i.e. the time of the utterance. Thus, the verb moving up to T will guarantee co-temporeanity with the matrix verb (subject’s time) and then, when it moves (at LF) to C, it gives access to the speaker’s time. Hence the DAR.

2.3 Syntactic Background

2.3.3

49

Subjunctive Dependency

A second family of approaches is based on the observation that the subjunctive mood is dependent. As such, it is not referential. Tsoulas (1994) draws a parallel between the subjunctive mood and indefinite nominals and proposes that the subjunctive mood is a temporal indefinite, which must be licensed by a sentential operator, much like indefinite nominal expressions which have no intrinsic quantificational force and act as variables (Heim 1992). The syntactic consequence of this parallelism is that the indefinite temporality of the subjunctive mood must be licensed by an operator of the type negative, interrogative or conditional (see Manzini, 2000). The subjunctive mood is thus akin to a polarity item. An approach in these terms also makes the distinction among different types of subjunctives, namely strong intensional subjunctives (see Sect. 2.2) and polarity subjunctives, licensed by sentential operators (see also Farkas, 1992b). Recall that the notion of subjunctive mood as a polarity item has also been defended by Giannakidou (2009). Picallo (1985) proposes a slightly different approach, for a subset of cases at least, analyzing the subjunctive mood as a defective tense. For this author, the subjunctive does not involve the full temporal specification carried by the indicative mood. Hence the subjunctive and the matrix tense share some anaphoric relation: the embedded subjunctive complement receives its temporal interpretation from the tense of the matrix clause. Yet temporal dependencies are variable, and it has been noted (see e.g. Progovac, 1993), that volition verbs should be distinguished from epistemic verbs on that matter.

2.3.4

Variable Licensing

Another class of analyses revolves around the notion of subjunctive as an operator (Avrutin & Babyonyshev, 1997). In particular, these authors focus on the different properties of Russian subjunctive and propose that the subjunctive operator must move to the matrix verb in order to bind event variables pertaining to the matrix and to the embedded predicates. This is how the temporal arrangement is warranted.

2.3.5

Subjunctive “Complementizers” and Clauses

2.3.5.1

Modern Greek na: Mood Particle or Complementizer?

In Sect. 2.1.2, we showed that Modern Greek subjunctive clauses are introduced by the particle na and that the embedded verb has no independent modal morphology. There is a long-lasting dispute on the status of na in the syntactic literature: some linguists argue that it a mood particle (i.e. an inflectional head, see Philippaki-

50

2 Background

Warburton, 1994, 1998, among many others), others argue that it is a complementizer (Agouraki, 1991, Tsoulas, 1993, and Roussou, 2000, i.a.), and some others argue that it is a mix of both. Giannakidou (2009) proposes that na introduces a dependent temporal variable. Hence the subjunctive mood is here treated as a polarity item, that is, as a temporal dependency. From a syntactic point of view, Giannakidou adopts a cartographic approach. She refers to Rizzi’s (Rizzi, 1997) and Roussou’s works in which the left periphery combines three types of C heads.21 The CM(od) head is the relevant one in the context of subjunctive clauses: (70) [C pu [Topic/Focus [Cop oti/an/na/as [NegP dhen/min [CM tha/na [cl + V]]]]]] (Roussou, 2000: (19)) The head CM contains, among other things, the complementizer na. However na must move higher, in a ‘subordinator’ position. Essentially, the Modern Greek left periphery contains a syntactic position which encodes modality, but which is distinct from the position where clause typing is encoded (ie. Cop). This allows Giannakidou to treat the purely semantic functions and the discursive functions of the subjunctive mood as two distinct properties. But since the subjunctive mood encodes both information, Giannakidou proposes that na occupies the head of (CP-internal) MoodP (above Tense, i.a.) and is associated with “a null complementizer in C which gives directive illocutionary force in main clauses—but not in subordinate clauses (which remain assertions).” (Giannakidou, 2009: 1893). Giannakidou thus analyzes na as an element which has a double function. Roussou (2000, 2010) also observes that Modern Greek complementizers can lexicalize different information. While an (‘if’) introduces interrogative complements, pu introduces “factive”-type complements, and oti introduces “non-factive”-type complements. Following Manzini and Savoia’s work (Manzini & Savoia, 2003, 2011 i.a.), Roussou argues that complementizers are all nominal elements (¼N), but of different kinds: an is a polarity item, oti is an indefinite and pu is a definite nominal. Syntactically, nominal oti/pu/an are merged as internal arguments of the main verb and take CPs as complements. Semantically they all operate on propositions, with pu, being definite, operating on a single proposition and oti, as an indefinite, operating over an indefinite number of propositions. As for clauses headed by na, these are open propositions. Accordingly, na, as a nominal locative morpheme, merges within the embedded clause, but functions as a complementizer.

The complementizer pu ‘that’ occurs in emotive factives like lipame ‘be sad’, metaniono ‘regret’, xerome ‘be-glad’ (cf. Christidis, 1982; Varlokosta, 1994; Roussou, 1994, 2000) and the complementizer oti under assertive verbs (leo ‘say’, dhiavazo ‘read’, isxirizome ‘claim’), fiction verbs (onirevome ‘to dream’, fandazome ‘imagine’), cognitives (pistevo ‘believe’, nomizo ‘think’), factive verbs (gnorizo ‘know’) and semifactives (anakalipto ‘discover’, thimame ‘remember’). Some of these verbs may select either. See Giannkidou (2009), Roussou (2000, 2010) (i.a.) for detailed studies. See also Chapters 3 and 5 below. 21

2.3 Syntactic Background

2.3.5.2

51

Core Subjunctives Cross-Linguistically, Elsewhere and Subjunctive Scale

Sočanac (Sočanac, 2017) argues that core subjunctive is marked on CP: it is a clausal mood. He explores the syntax-semantic properties of subjunctive complements, as well as their interaction, in Slavic languages (including South-Slavic (Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian), East Slavic (Russian) and West Slavic (Polish and Czech) languages), with frequent references to Modern Greek and Romance languages. On the basis of a cross-linguistic survey he distinguishes two types of embedded syntactic clauses: Subj(unctive) 1 and Subj2. Subj1 is stable cross-linguistically (although it is semantically diverse within the Slavic languages) and is typically selected by intensional predicates such as directives and desideratives; Subj2 is unstable cross-linguistically and is generally selected by predicates like emotive factives and cognitives. Subj2 being highly unproductive in the Slavic languages, the work mainly focusses on Subj1. Slavic languages pose different challenges with respect to the subjunctive mood: first, this mood is not morphologically marked on the verb, as in Romance, but rather appears by means of a particle within the left-periphery of the clause (see Sect. 2.1.2.2). But even in this area, Slavic languages vary, and subjunctive complements show different patterns. On the one hand, Balkan Slavic Subj1 is selected by both non-control and control verbs (the latter being unexpected). On the other hand, non-Balkan Slavic languages resemble Romance languages in that Subj1 is selected by non-control verbs only. This distinction reveals that within Slavic languages, Subj1 is not a coherent semantic mood category. Subj1 turns out to show a great semantic diversity, greater than in Romance for instance, calling into question any global semantic definition of the Subjunctive mood. This second challenge leads Sočanac to an approach to subjunctive mood as an Elsewhere option.22 Couched within a World-semantics approach, Sočanac proposes that the indicative is a marked option, which is achieved via a W(orld) feature within the semantic composition of the selecting predicate. This feature is absent in subjunctive selecting predicated. More precisely Subj1 appears with subjunctive complements that are selected by a matrix predicated under a subjunctive CP,

22

Sočanac claims that the distribution of Subj1 is an Elsewhere option (as opposed to the distribution of the Indicative, which is marked). He reasons that declarative and indicative clauses are anchored in a specific world. In that sense, embedded indicative clauses are world-anchored, i.e. marked. This is not the case with embedded subjunctive clauses. This means that the subjunctive is an Elsewhere option. This is interesting in the context of Slavic languages, but actually outside the Slavic family as well. Sočanac notes that when Balkan languages (Slavic and non-Slavic) are considered, it is noticeable that the full distributional range of Subj1 clauses displays a much greater degree of semantic diversity than in non-Balkan Slavic languages (and Romance). The observation is related to the fact that Balkan languages show subjunctive morphology under control predicates (including aspectuals and implicatives), where non-Balkan languages (Russian and Romance) involve infinitive marking. On the basis of syntactic and semantic arguments, Sočanac actually subsumes the two types under the same Subj1 clause type in the two types of languages. Subj1 is thus a mood by default.

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2 Background

analyzed as an embedded CP equivalent to the matrix imperative CP (see also Han, 1998; Kempchinsky, 2009), i.e. embedded Subj1 are embedded imperative CPs. To solve these two problems, Sočanac resorts to a strict syntax-semantic mapping and proposes that each interpretation displays a different structure. In particular, he identifies different meanings related to the subjunctive mood, meanings that are shown to be semantically contained within each other, forming a subjunctivity scale, and syntactically relevant, as each meaning is encoded in a different projection in the left periphery of the clauses. Subjunctive complements vary as to which structure they exhibit, yielding different interpretations. The type of meaning displayed by a complement is crucially dependent on its underlying structural make-up.

2.3.6

Take Home Message

The section presented the most relevant syntactic accounts of embedded subjunctives. It has highlighted the following syntactic properties: (i) the temporal relation between the matrix and the embedded clauses lead researchers to propose that subjunctive is an anaphoric mood. Its syntactic licensing depends on the properties of a) the matrix predicate and b) the internal properties of the clause itself. The morphological marking on the subjunctive verb is viewed as determinant, in that it serves as a licenser for co-referential/ obviative subjects, as defended in Costantini’s work, or as being part of a discontinuous morpheme marking subjunctive, as proposed by Giorgi and Pianesi. (ii) the presence of a complementizer has also been examined. While some languages seem to exhibit syncretic forms (such as Italian, Giorgi and Pianesi), others have a dedicated subjunctive marker (Greek na, Slavic da as discussed by Roussou, Sočanac). The question of the origin of this marker is also discussed, among others in Roussou for Modern Greek na which merges as a subjunctive operator but functions as a complementizer. (iii) the syntax of subjunctive has also been examined from the perspective of the structure of the embedded clause itself. Most authors agree on the fact that the clause contains a Mood projection which hosts the subjunctive marker/complementizer. Sočanac provides an innovative contribution in proposing that different types of embedded clauses come with different structures, in a containment relation (the larger, richer structures including the smaller, impoverished ones). Again, none of these studies has taken the problem from both sides. For example, the licensing of an embedded clause is taken as an intrinsic, opaque property of predicates. The binding approach à la Avrutin and Babyonyshev (1997) is also problematic as it cannot account for the relative transparency of subjunctive clauses in long-distance wh-extraction (see in particular, work by Baunaz, 2015, 2016 on

2.4 The Frameworks

53

wh-extraction out of indicative vs. subjunctive clauses in Romance and Balkan languages). While quite a bulk of studies focuses on the internal structure of the subjunctive clause, at least in its relevant portions, no study has addressed the question of the role of the complementizer itself as a selector, nor of the consequences of the observation that one and the same complementizer seems to be able to license both indicative and subjunctive clauses. On the other hand, some studies defend the idea that some Balkan languages, such as Modern Greek, show a clear division of labour between ‘complementizers’ in terms of mood selection. In Chap. 3, we also develop an argumentation against this position, showing that the role and make up of complementizers is actually more complex. Our proposal, outlined in sect. 2.5 and developed through the next chapters, takes all these different factors into consideration and connects the role of the speaker/ subject, the semantics of the predicate and the role of complementation in the selection of subjunctive embedded clauses. It builds on the internal properties of selecting predicates, on the syntactic link between the matrix and embedded clause and on the role of the subjunctive markers (particles or complementizers).

2.4

The Frameworks23

Since our analysis of the subjunctive phenomenon involves both the sentence and the word-internal levels, our analysis is rooted within the more general cartographic framework (Rizzi, 1997, Rizzi, 2004a, b, 2013; Cinque, 1999, Cinque and Rizzi 2010, i.a.), and ventures into the world of its most direct descendant, anosyntax (Starke, 2009, 2011, Caha, 2009, Baunaz & Lander, 2018a, i.a.). In this section, we first briefly introduce our theoretical assumptions, as well as the methodology behind our analysis.

2.4.1

Cartography

2.4.1.1

The Architecture of Grammar

Cartography adopts the standard generative model of grammar, represented in (71) and standardly known as the inverted Y-model (see Chomsky, 1965 and subseq.). This model is composed of a pre-syntactic lexicon which feeds the syntactic module with lexical and functional features. The role of syntax is central in this model: it can be seen as a recursive engine, which computes grammatical representations to be interpreted at the interfaces with performance systems (the

23

This whole section is based on Baunaz and Lander (2018a).

54

2 Background

articulatory-perceptual systems on the sound side and the conceptual-intentional systems on the meaning side). These interfaces are called PF (Phonological Form) and LF (Logical Form) (see Chomsky, 1995 for details). (71) LEXICON

(Recursive) SYNTAX

PF

Articulary/perceptual Systems

LF

Systems of thought

(adapted from Rizzi, 2013: (22))

2.4.1.2

Goals, Methodology and Assumptions

The cartographic model advocates that syntax is composed of a limited set of atoms, organized in a universal and unique sequence, i.e. a (universal) functional sequence ( fseq). The goal of cartographic research is to map out this fseq and describe linguistic variation in the most detailed and thorough way or to draw “(...) maps as precise and complete as possible of syntactic configurations” (Rizzi, 2013, 1). Another goal is to “syntacticize” domains of grammar (see below). In order to achieve these goals, researchers in cartography adopt a comparative approach. An important outcome of the approach is the recognition that syntactic atoms are much smaller than what was previously thought, and syntactic representations must be much more articulated than expected. Research in cartography (Rizzi, 1997, Rizzi, 2004a, b, 2013; Cinque, 1999, 2002; Belletti, 2004; Kayne, 2005, 2007; Cinque & Rizzi, 2008, 2010; Haegeman, 2012 i. a.) assumes the following principles of syntactic cartography: (72) Principle of syntactic cartography (i) a strict syntax-semantics mapping (ii) simplicity of projections and antisymmetry (Kayne, 1994) (iii) “one feature—one head” (cf. (Cinque & Rizzi, 2008: 50, see also Kayne, 2005: chap. 12)

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55

(i) means that syntax is the vehicle for expressing (grammatical) semantics by means of a rigidly ordered structure of syntactico-semantic features (like tense, mood, definiteness, focus, topic, etc) (see Cinque & Rizzi, 2008, 2010). In some sense, semantic features like Aspect, Tense and Mood, which trigger a syntactic reflex, are syntacticized. Clearly, not all semantic properties can be syntacticized: “there is a fairly restrictive universal set of properties that can be expressed by the functional elements entering into the different hierarchies associated to clauses and phrases.” (Cinque & Rizzi, 2008: 53). In other words, the universal hierarchy cannot reduce to semantics. Rather, syntax dictates “the pattern and the seams which delimit meaning and use” (Shlonsky, 2010: 14). Simplicity requires that the mapping of UG (Universal Grammar, by which we mean the theory of the components of the Faculty of language which correspond to the initial state of linguistic knowledge every human is born with, see e.g. Chomsky, 1995) should be very simple from a structural point of view. First, structures are strictly binary and right branching (no multiple specifiers) (Kayne, 1984) and second, only leftward movements are allowed (see Kayne, 1994). Finally, the “one feature-one head” property expresses the fact that every syntactico-semantic feature is an independent head which projects, i.e., each feature corresponds to a head (Cinque and Rizzi 2008, 2010: 50; Kayne, 2005, Chap. 12). These properties are also at the basis of nanosyntax, as we will show in the next section.

2.4.1.3

Mapping out Syntactic Configurations

Until the beginning of the Principles and Parameters era (Chomsky, 1986; Chomsky & Lasnik, 1993; among others), linguists working in the generative framework assumed extremely basic clause and nominal structures shaped more or less as in (73) (Chomsky, 1981, 1986; Travis, 1984). In addition, the bulk of research focused on English. (73) a. syntactic structure of the clause: CP > IP > VP b. syntactic structure of a noun phrase: NP The Principles and Parameters approach opened the path for more comparative work, and it soon became clear that (73) was insufficient to handle all the data. This shift in the work methodology encouraged linguists to postulate more fine-grained structures for IP, VP, NP. (see Pollock, 1989, Belletti, 1990 on splitting IP into AgrP and TP; Abney, 1987, Szabolcsi, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1994 on splitting up NP into DP > NP). These types of work led to the emergence of the cartographic approach. Rizzi (1997), considered as the foundational work of the framework theorizing the approach, proposes to split the CP domain into discrete projections (74a), forming the left periphery of the clause. Cinque (1999) maps out the various positions occupied by adverbs cross-linguistically within the IP zone (74b). (74c) shows a decomposition of the verbal domain into various features (meant to identify sub-events, see sect. 2.4.2.5.2) (Ramchand, 2008a, b).

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2 Background

(74) a. [ForceP [TopP [FocP [TopP [FinP [IP]]]]] (Rizzi, 1997, 15, his (41)) b. [MoodP speech act frankly [MoodP evaluative fortunately [MoodP evidential allegedly [ModPepistemic probably [TPpast once [TPfuture then [ModPirrealis perhaps [ModPnecessity necessarily [ModPpossibility possibly [AspPhabitual usually [AspPrepetitive again [AspPfrequentative(I) often [ModPvolitional intentionally [AspPcelerative(I) quickly [TPanterior already [AspPterminative no longer [AspPcontinuative still [AspPperfect(?) always [AspPretrospective just [AspPproximative soon [AspPdurative briefly [AspPgeneric ¼ progressive characteristically [AspPprospective almost [AspPsg:completive(I) completely [AspPpl:completive tutto [VoiceP well [AspP celerative(II) fast/early [AspPrepetitive(II) again [AspPfrequentative(II) often [AspPsg:completive(II) completely]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] (Cinque, 1999, 106) c. [initP [procP [resP [XP]]]] (Ramchand, 2008a, b, 118 (3)) (73a) above is thus split up into many layers: (i) The CP-zone constitutes the locus of interface between the propositional content of the clause (the “IP”) and the superordinate structure (matrix predicate; discourse articulation). It encodes scope-discourse properties. As is shown in (74a), ForceP occurs as the topmost projection of the CP-zone. This projection encodes the force of the clause (i.e. interrogative, declarative, imperative, etc.). This projection hosts finite complementizers, such as declarative that or interrogative if. At the very bottom of the structure is located FinP, the projection encoding the finiteness of the clause. Complementizers like French de or Italian di occur under the Fin head, marking non-finiteness. The CP-zone hosts many other projections in between ForceP and FinP, encoding information ranging from Topic, Focus, Interrogation and Modality (Rizzi, 1997, 2001, Rizzi, 2004a, b, see also Aboh, 2004, Belletti, 2004, Haegeman, 2006, 2012, Puskás, 1997, 2017 i.a.) to quantification (see Beghelli & Stowell, 1997; Puskás, 2000; Szabolcsi, 1997). (ii) The IP-zone is essentially considered as the inflectional domain of the clause. Based on the distribution of adverbs in a wide range of languages, Cinque (1999) shows that this region ranges from mood, to modal, temporal and aspectual projections (Cinque, 1999, 2006). Crucially, the mood head(s) are quite high in the hierarchy, bridging the IP-domain with the CP-zone. (iii) Work on the decomposition of the VP has also been very productive: early work by Larson (1988), Hale and Keyser (1993), Chomsky (1995), has shown that it needs to be split into multiple projections encoding events ranging from causing/initiation (of the event) and process to the Result of the event (Ramchand, 2008a, b), as shown in (73c). The model thus assumes a tripartite clausal structure, with the left-periphery encoding discourse-related information, on top of the inflectional zone responsible

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57

for propositional content, which in turn dominates the VP-zone including eventrelated projections. The syntactic structure is organized around a universal hierarchy of functional heads. This tripartite organization has also been shown to be manifested in other domains, such as the nominal domain (Abney, 1987, Alexiadou & al., 2007, Cinque, 2005, Giusti, 1997; Ritter, 1991. Szabolcsi, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1994, i.a.), the adjectival domain (Laenzlinger, 2005, Leu, 2015, Scott, 2002, Svenonius, 2008, a.o) or the prepositional domain (den Dikken, 2010; Koopman, 2000; Noonan, 2010).

2.4.2

Nanosyntax (NS)

NS can be viewed as a radical implementation of cartography (see Baunaz et al., 2018:vii). It is based on the following reasoning: the increasing number of more and more specific syntactic projections in the cartographic approach and the idea that features are the atoms of syntax have important consequences for the boundaries between syntax and morphology, as well as for the architecture of grammar more generally. Caha (2009), Starke (2009, 2011) argue that morphemes are not atomic, but can be decomposed into further smaller primitive features, which are hierarchically ordered. This implies that the atoms of syntax are sub-morphemic entities. Morphemes are thus built by syntax. In other words, morphology is syntax (see also Sect. 2.4.2.3).

2.4.2.1

Goals and Assumptions

As a formal theory of grammar, NS is often viewed as the worthy heir of cartography (Baunaz & Lander, 2018a)24 and at various levels, NS can be considered as a radical implementation of the cartographic approach. Both share the same goals, namely to map out the unique and universal fseq, to describe and account for linguistic variation as thoroughly and carefully as possible and to radically “syntacticize” domains of grammar. In order to achieve these goals, both theories adopt a comparative approach. NS also shares with cartography the same general empirical and theoretical conception, which is that in order to map out UG, one needs to ‘decompose/split up’ syntactic projections into smaller discrete primitives. Therefore, syntactic atoms

24

It is also often viewed as the cartographic counterpart of Distributed Morphology (DM, Halle & Marantz, 1993; Marantz, 1997; Bobaljik, 2007, 2012, 2015; Embick & Noyer, 2007; Harley, 2014; Embick, 2015). These two frameworks are late insertion models. Both advocate for the idea that syntax is responsible for both sentence and word structure. They differ in that NS eliminates postsyntactic operations. They also differ on their take on the Lexicon: there are no pre-syntactic lists feeding syntax in NS (see Baunaz & Lander, 2018a; Caha, 2018a for deeper acconts on the differences between NS and DM).

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2 Background

are much smaller than what was previously thought, and syntactic representations must be much more articulated than expected. The two theories also share the same set of assumptions about the fine-grained nature of the functional projections, namely, (i) a strict syntax-semantics mapping, referring in particular to grammatical semantics (as discussed above); (ii) the one-feature one-head maxim (OFOH): the syntactic atoms are exclusively simple grammatical features. These constraints impose that each feature be individually merged as a head in the syntactic projection. Features are hierarchically ordered. Crucially the hierarchical order of features is rigid, unique and universal, according to the universal fseq; (iii) simplicity of syntactic structure: features are merged in a tree that is binary and right branching. In other words, the relation between features is asymmetric. On the other hand, NS and the cartographic approach differ on the way they conceptualize the grammar.

2.4.2.2

The Architecture of Grammar

(75) represents the nanosyntactic architecture of grammar: (75)

(from Baunaz & Lander, 2018a, Fig. 1.2) The main differences with standard Generative models of grammar are the following. First, the Lexicon is somehow placed “later” than Syntax in the representation (unlike the standard Y-model described above), suggesting that the Lexicon in NS is post-syntactic. Therefore, the atomic features of Syntax are not drawn from the Lexicon. Second Syntax is referred to as ‘SMS’ in the first box: NS takes syntax,

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59

morphology and grammatical semantics as being unified as one module, the computational system S(yntax)M(orphology)S(emantics) in Baunaz and Lander’s terms.25 Finally the spellout “loop” relating the Syntax box with the Lexicon box involves the process of lexicalization.26

2.4.2.3

The Process of Lexicalization

In this model, individual atomic features are the only entities which act as input to the syntactic computation. Syntax (SMS) merges them together iteratively as heads, according to a universal (and invariable) fseq. A structure that is generated by Syntax is called a syntactic tree. When these are stored in the Lexicon, that is, in lexical entries, they are called lexical trees.27 Within the Lexicon, a lexical tree is itself linked to phonological and CONCEPTUAL material, as in (76).

Syntactic trees are built in syntax. They are abstract and must thus be lexicalized. After each cycle of syntactic derivation, a syntactic tree will try to match with an appropriate lexical tree. If matching is unsuccessful, Syntax continues building up syntactic material, followed by another cycle of lexical access, until matching is successful. Only then is the syntactic structure lexicalized. This is what the ‘spellout loop’ between Syntax and the Lexicon in (75) represents. Note that since a lexical tree belongs to a lexical entry, matching implements a relation between a lexical structure and a syntactic structure, but it also links the syntactic structure with a phonological form and with a conceptual structure (which will be interpreted at PF and LF, respectively).28 In this model, the Lexicon is post-syntactic (and not presyntactic, as in cartography). The rationale is simple: a syntactic structure can only be stored in the Lexicon iff it has been computed.29 Also, lexicalization does not alter the order of heads (i.e., the universal, invariable and rigid fseq) inside the morpheme. In that sense, there is an exact matching between the fseq (syntax) and morphology (Starke, 2011). In other words, morphemes are the result of syntactic operations. Stored units are morphemes (or lexical trees) which spell out chunks of syntactic structures.

25

In other words, syntax, semantics and morphology share the same type of features, and the same structural rules. 26 Where “spellout” and “lexicalization” are synonyms. 27 Typically, the units that are lexicalized are morphemes. In other words, the term “morpheme” is used here as a synonym to “lexical entry”. 28 Note that in a specific language a syntactic structure does not need to exactly match a particular lexical tree: the existence of syncretism in languages argues in favor of the fact that one lexical structure can be associated to syntactic trees of various sizes. See sections 2.4.2.5.1 and 2.4.2.6.1. 29 Of course, the Lexicon has been built at some point during the acquisition process by SMS.

60

2.4.2.4

2 Background

Phrasal Spellout

Various important components of the NS theory arise from the assumptions discussed in Sect. 2.4.2.1–2.4.2.3, in particular from the assumptions about simplicity of projections and about the OFOH maxim, as well as the architecture of grammar and the lexicalization procedure. One of those is Phrasal Spellout. In NS, Lexicalization targets phrases. Since morphemes generally spell out more than one feature at once (see for example the French verbal ending which may encode features of tense and aspect, as in mang(e)-ais ‘eat-PAST.IMPERF’), heads must be submorphemic entities (i.e. the -ais suffix is a portmanteau morph composed of T (Past), Asp (imperfective) and P (Person)). So there are more feature discriminations than phonological realizations. Because features are merged in syntactic trees, if heads are sub-morphemic and if several heads may compose a phonological realization, spellout may also target phrases.30 In other words, NS allows phrasal spellout, that is, it allows to lexicalize several heads as a single constituent.

2.4.2.5

Tools

NS relies on a set of tools to discover the true nature of the universal, rigid and invariable fseq: (77) a. syncretisma b. morphological containmentb c. semantic containmentc a

For syncretism, see Caha 2009, 2010, 2013, 2018b; Taraldsen 2009; Pantcheva 2011; De Clercq 2013, 2018, 2020; De Clercq and Vanden Wyngaerd 2019; Lander 2015; Lander & Haegeman2018; Baunaz 2016, 2018; Baunaz & Lander, 2017, 2018b, c, d; Taraldsen, 2018; Vangsnes 2013; Vanden Wyngaerd 2018; Wiland 2018 i.a.; b See Bobaljik 2007, 2012; Caha 2009, 2018a, b; Lander & Haegeman, 2018; Baunaz & Lander, 2018c, 2018d; Wiland, 2018, i.a.); c See Ramchand, 2008a, b; Fábregas 2009; Pantcheva 2011, Baunaz 2017, a.o

In NS, syncretism is used to establish linear ordering, and containment to establish the hierarchy of functional features. In what follows, we go through each of them.

Syncretism Let’s start with a simple example from Russian (example from Caha, 2009). In (78), the case ending at the Accusative and Genitive is identical. Both have the form -ej.

30

In other words syntactic heads in NS do not lexicalize (see also Chomsky, 1995, Julien, 2005, i.a. for similar ideas).

2.4 The Frameworks

61

Put differently -ej stands for both Accusative and Genitive cases. When two (or more) forms are identical in a paradigm, we speak of syncretism. In (78), accusative and genitive markings are syncretic. (78)

Syncretism reveals identity of form but does not entail identity of meaning. Indeed, genitive case usually indicates a relation of possession, which is not triggered by the accusative case. So multiple grammatical distinctions are lexicalized by one phonological form. We assume that the two cases have different features, and thus different morphosyntactic structures (by the OFOH maxim). Syncretism is defined as follows: (79) Syncretism The surface conflation of two distinct morphosyntactic structures (Caha, 2009: 6)a a

See also Caha (2010, 2013); Taraldsen (2009); Pantcheva (2011); De Clercq (2013, 2018); Lander (2015); Lander and Haegeman (2016, 2018) a.o

Caha, 2009 shows that within a paradigm, syncretism is constrained by an adjacency requirement: two syncretic items must be adjacent in a paradigm. In other words, two non-adjacent forms cannot be syncretic in one and the same paradigm (one never finds ABA patterns in a paradigm, Bobaljik, 2007, 2012; Caha, 2009). This means that ACC and GEN are the closest to each other in the paradigm (in a table-like representation, we will say that their cells are adjacent). Table 2.1 shows that if we look at more data (from Caha, 2009, 12), Russian has actually case syncretism in NOM/ACC, ACC/GEN, and GEN/DAT/INS. Here again, syncretism involves only adjacent cells in Table 2.6, indicated by the shaded areas. Identifying the syncretic forms and assuming that they are next to each other provides a pattern of features. These patterns then indicate the linear ordering of an fseq. Syncretisms thus enable us to identify the atoms of syntax and how they are ordered in an fseq. Moreover, they reveal how this fseq is packaged into different lexical items across individual languages.31 Indeed, languages vary as to when/ where (in the fseq) syncretism appears. Case syncretism may appear with NOM and 31

See work on Case (Caha, 2009), Path (see Pantcheva, 2011), Spatial prepositions (Svenonius, 2010), negation (De Clercq, 2013, 2020; De Clercq & Vanden Wynegaerd 2017, 2019 i.a.), Complementizers (Baunaz, 2015, 2016, 2018), deixis (Lander, 2015; Lander & Haegeman, 2016, 2018), person and number (Vanden Wyngaerd 2018).

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Table 2.6 Case syncretism in Russian, from Caha, 2009

in language X, with ACC and DAT in language Y, and no syncretism in case in language Z. A crosslinguistic approach is thus essential. Since NS makes generalizations about language universals, it needs sampling diversity.

ACC

Containment If syncretism helps reveal the linear order of functional projection in the fseq, containment helps decide which projection is included in which other projection. In other words, it allows to establish a hierarchy. There are two kinds of containments which have proven efficient to this aim in NS: morphological containment and semantic containment. They are discussed below. Morphological Containment A hierarchy as in (80) combines discrete primitive features which are cumulatively built on top of each other, as heads, in the fseq. (80) F1 > F2 > F3 > F4 > F5 > F6 These features entertain superset-subset relationships: for instance, F6 is contained within F5, which is itself contained within F4 (so F6 is also contained within F4). An example of the process is provided here. Thanks to syncretism patterns, Baunaz and Lander (2018c) have argued for the linear sequence in (81) for ontological categories. (81)

THING

> PERSON > PLACE > MANNER > QUANTITY > TIME

However, the linear ordering in (81) does not tell us anything about the hierarchical order of the features implied: either (82a) or (82b) can be the correct hierarchical order: (82) a. b.

> PERSON > PLACE > MANNER > QUANTITY > TIME > QUANTITY > MANNER > PLACE > PERSON > THING

THING TIME

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Looking at a sample of 40 languages belonging to 23 language families, Baunaz and Lander identify the distributional patterns that enable them to propose a hierarchy: in Muna (Austronesian) and Amuecha (Arawakan), THING is morphologically contained within PERSON, suggesting that PERSON is bigger than THING, and thus that PERSON dominates THING. In Sanumá (Yanomami) and in Pipil (Ulto-Aztecan), PLACE morphologically includes PERSON, suggesting that PLACE is bigger than PERSON; in Danish and South Paiute (Uto-Aztecan), MANNER morphologically contains PLACE, suggesting the hierarchically order MANNER > PLACE. The whole set of features is thus minutely examined, leading to a hierarchy as in (82b) (the reader is referred to Baunaz & Lander, 2018c for the details of the discussion and the relevant data). Morphological containment thus allows us to conclude that the correct order of the fseq is (82b). Note that methodologically, only one containment example would have been sufficient to establish the conclusion. Semantic Containment Semantic containment (together with compositionality) is also a tool which allows us to identify in which direction the fseq is build. The idea is quite similar to morphological containment, but it involves meaning, which is built compositionally. An often-cited work building on this methodology is Ramchand (2008a, b). Ramchand argues that the VP of dynamic verbs can be decomposed into sub-events, where each sub-event is associated with a particular head, in a particular order, exemplified in (83): (83) [initP DP3 init [procP DP2 proc. [resP DP1 res [XP]]]] (Ramchand, 2008a, b, 118 (3)) This order is crucially (semantically) compositional: InitP contains a subject (DP3, an initiator) and the head init , encoding the meaning ‘initiation’. Initiation causes a sub-event, which can be associated with a Process feature. Process may in turn be associated with a Result feature, a syntactic manifestation of another sub-event resulting from the process. Structurally, this is represented with InitP be being higher than ProcessP, which in turn is higher than ResP. Containment is thus a crucial tool to help establish the hierarchical ordering of the fseq.

2.4.2.6

Principles of Lexicalization

Lexicalization builds on three principles: the Superset Principle, the Elsewhere Principle and Cyclic Override (Starke, 2009). We focus on the Superset Principle, as this principle will be the only crucial one for our approach to the complementizer fseq in Chap. 3 and our discussion on the different meanings of embedding predicates in Chaps. 4 and 5.

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The Superset Principle In a nutshell, the Superset Principle (SP) states that a lexical tree can lexicalize a syntactic tree if the lexical tree and the syntactic tree are of identical size (in which case, both trees are also identical in terms of the features which constitute them), or if the lexical tree is bigger (and thus contains the syntactic tree). This is spelled out as (84) by Caha 2009: (84) The Superset Principle (Caha, 2009: 67) A lexical tree L can match a syntactic tree S if L is a superset (proper or not) of S. L matches S if L contains a node that is identical to a node in S and all the nodes below are also identical. The SP accounts perfectly for syncretism. Consider the following case: Lakohta táku shows syncretism with different ontological categories, namely, it can mean: ‘something’, ‘what’, and ‘thing’. According to NS, táku can spell out an indefinite, an interrogative pronoun, or a generic noun. Its lexical entry can thus be schematized as in (85): (85) (from Baunaz & Lander, 2018b) (85) suggests that there is one lexical entry. By the SP, the lexical tree can lexicalize a syntactic tree of the same size, i.e. [Indef [Wh [THING]]] (¼ ‘something’). It can also spell out syntactic trees of smaller size(s), i.e., [Wh [THING]] (‘what’) and [THING] (‘thing’). In other words, a single lexical entry can, by the Superset Principle, apply in multiple syntactic contexts. We will come back to this principle in Chaps 3 and 5.

2.4.2.7

Linguistic Variation

Laid out as above, the basic claims of NS are that there is a universal merge order of functional features, the fseq, and that these features are packaged into lexical entries. Lexical entries being language-specific, each language has its own idiosyncratic inventory of lexical entries, mapping phonological, syntactic (SMS) and conceptual information. In this approach, language variation derives from the availability of lexical entries.

2.5 Our Proposal

2.5

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Our Proposal

Having given an overview of what is on the market in terms of semantic and syntactic analysis, as well as a short introduction to the theoretical apparatus we will use, we are now in a position to give an outline of our own proposal. In Chap. 1, we framed our research questions, repeated here for convenience’s sake: (86) Research question Do languages have a common, principled process of subjunctive selection? And if yes, (i) what triggers it? (ii) how does it proceed? (iii) how local is it? Based on the background presented in this chapter, we refine the questions as in (87i)-(87ii), adding the issue of cross-linguistic variation (87iii): (87)Research question (revised) (i) How does mood selection work in embedded clauses? This will answer (86i) (ii) How are mood and complementizers realized across languages? This will answer (86ii) and (86iii). (iii) Since we restrict our attention to Romance and Balkan languages (where by « Balkan » we mean MG and South Slavic) how come emotive factives in Balkan languages never select for subjunctive mood, contrary to Romance? The core of our proposal is a syntax-semantics interface account of the selection of subjunctive mood, anchored in a feature-based approach, where we claim that: (a) predicates can be classified according to the properties of their external argument (b) different external arguments are licensed by the presence/absence of a (set of) feature(s) on the predicates (c) (part of) the meaning of the predicate builds on the (cumulative) contribution of the features (d) the features stand in a containment relation and are hence hierarchically organized (e) when predicates are syncretic (same form), the meaning only shifts by one feature (minimally different meaning) along the scale provided by the feature hierarchy (f) crucially, mood selection occurs at the divide between two specific features, ‘cognitive’ and ‘emotive’. In other words, we argue that embedded subjunctive mood is the marking of the (modal) dependency of an embedded clause on modal properties encoded on the matrix predicate as syntactico-semantic features. This basic proposal is built up along the following lines:

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– subjunctive mood cannot be an expression of non-veridicality. We show that although veridicality plays a role in characterizing clauses and has interesting consequences on other syntactic properties of embedded clauses, such as opacity/ transparency with respect to movement, it is unable to account for the variability in subjunctive mood selection across languages. – The matrix predicate is the key to subjunctive mood. It encodes a set of organized semantico-syntactic features, which triggers the building up of the syntactic structure and semantic licensing of the components of the construction. – these properties include information about the arguments involved, most importantly the external argument, realized as the subject. – Crucially, the ‘emotive’ component of the predicate, built in as a modal feature, licenses that adequate external argument. – The subjunctive mood is not dependent on one specific complementizer. Although some languages like Modern Greek seem to build a one-to-one relation between some form of complementation and mood, this is by far not generalizable to other languages. Rather, we argue that some property of the complementizer, however it is lexicalized, stands in a selection relation with the matrix predicate, but not with the embedded clause. What licenses mood marking in the embedded clause is the modal property encoded in the matrix predicate. – Within the embedded clause, subjunctive mood is available not as a default mood, but as the realization of a smaller set of temporal-aspectual features than what the indicative encodes. It enables comparison (i.e. availability of alternatives) because of its non-propositional nature. – The subjunctive clause thus has an internal syntactico-semantic structure which crucially distinguishes it from indicative (and other) clauses. – We account for the fact that emotive factives in Balkan languages never select for subjunctive mood, contrary to Romance. We argue that they inherit their emotive property from a dedicated complementizer. In the following chapters, we develop these components of our analysis, basing them on French. We then show how the approach can account for mood selection in other languages, and for reputably difficult or marginal constructions. Ultimately, we provide an answer to our research question, arguing that the various realizations of subjunctive embedded clauses emerge from a common, principled process of subjunctive selection.

Chapter 3

What Subjunctive Is Not

Abstract In this chapter, we provide a more in-depth discussion of the reasons why we do not adopt, at least not fully, some of the previous proposals. We discuss and raise semantic objections against a veridicality approach to mood choice. While veridicality has unquestionable syntactic and semantic effects, as well as morphological reflexes, we defend the position that it plays no role in distinguishing between subjunctive and indicative mood. On the basis of a close study of complementizers in the Balkan languages, we show that (some version of) veridicality does play a role in the selection of embedded clauses, in terms of presupposition. However, ultimately, this is not related to subjunctive selection per se.

In the previous chapter, we gave a brief survey of the most salient studies on subjunctive, both in a semantic and a syntactic perspective. We also suggested that although these works contributed in significant ways to our understanding of what subjunctive is, none of them covered the whole range of phenomena in the scope of the present study. In this chapter, we go into more depth on the reasons why we do not adopt, at least not fully, some of the previous proposals. Essentially, we discuss and raise semantic objections against a veridicality approach to mood choice. While veridicality has unquestionable syntactic and semantic effects, as well as morphological reflexes, we defend the position that it plays no role in distinguishing between subjunctive and indicative mood. However, as will become clear in Chap. 6 below, veridicality is crucial in other respects. In particular we argue that the locus of veridicality (or its morpho-syntactic reflex) is the complementizer, which may lexicalize a smaller or bigger portion of a functional sequence ( fseq), composed of veridical features of different sorts.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Baunaz, G. Puskás, A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood, Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04540-0_3

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What Subjunctive Is Not

Against a Pure Semantic Approach

As was discussed in Chap. 2, many authors, especially in the realm of semantics, have proposed a characterization of subjunctive clauses. Mainly, two families of approaches were presented: the truth-value/veridical approach and the comparative approach. Both integrate the idea that embedded subjunctive clauses differ from indicative clauses in some major respect. We have already discussed some of the shortcomings of a strictly comparative approach. Here, we give additional arguments against a pure (non)veridicality approach to mood selection.

3.1.1

Truth and Veridicality

The truth entailing approach, first proposed in Farkas (1992a, 1992b, 1992c), finds one of its most developed implementations in Giannakidou (2000, 2009). Recall that for the author, veridicality as defined in (1) licenses the choice of mood in languages like Modern Greek: (1) Veridicality a propositional operator F is veridical iff from the truth of Fp we can infer that p is true according to some individual x (i.e. in some individual x’s epistemic model) (Giannakidou, 2009, p. 1889) (1) says that an embedded proposition has to be true for at least one individual (the Subject of the main verb and/or the Speaker), in all the worlds of a relevant model. The indicative mood is triggered by veridicality and subjunctive mood by non-veridicality. Subjunctive mood thus marks the fact that the clause is not assessed as necessarily true w.r.t the individual whose cognitive state is at stake. In the case of embedded clauses, this individual is, by default, assumed to be the Subject of the matrix clause. So in (2) below, the Subject is the individual whose epistemic state is relevant. In (2a) the sentence expresses that whatever p contains must be true for Pavlos, while in (2b), p is not (necessarily) true for him. The subjunctive mood is signaled by the mood particle na:1 (2) Modern Greek (adapted from Giannakidou, 2009) a. O Pavlos kseri oti/*na efije i Roxani. the Paul knows.3SG that /*SUBJ left.3SG the Roxani. ‘Paul knows that Roxanne left.’ 1

On the other hand, Giannakidou discards as non-subjunctive a range of constructions which also imply temporal dependency (and which, interestingly, occur with na in Greek) because they do not involve non-veridical selecting predicates

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b. O Pávlos thélei na/*oti kerdísi o Janis the Paul want.3SG SUBJ/*that win.3SG.PNP the John ‘Pavlos wants Janis to win.’ While the notion of veridicality is a powerful one (see Baunaz, 2015, 2018 for discussion of the syntactic effects of veridicality), we claim that it does not relate to subjunctive. Even if the correlation seems to hold, to a large extent at least, in Greek, (see Giannakidou, 2009, 2013; Giannakidou & Mari, 2021 i.a.),2 turning to other languages requires a considerable weakening of the truth conditions it comes with. Indeed, this correlation fails to apply to Romance emotive factive complements (Baunaz, 2015, 2017; Baunaz & Puskás, 2014; Quer, 1998, 2001, 2009). In the Romance languages, here illustrated with French, predicates like regretter ‘regret’, être content ‘be happy’, etc. unexpectedly trigger the subjunctive mood, even though they should occur in veridical contexts according to (1). Note that under the assumption that the veridicality operator is associated with the selecting predicate, we will by extension call these predicates veridical predicates: (3) French Léon est content que Georges ait fini son chapitre. Leon is happy that Georges have.3SG.SUBJ finished his chapter ‘Leon is happy that Georges finished his chapter.’ Similarly, cognitive non-factive predicates like credere ‘believe’, trigger the subjunctive mood in Italian, even though these predicates are veridical in Giannakidou (2009)’ terms: (4) Italian (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997, p. 199, (19a)) Mario crede che Andrea abbia/%?ha mangiato. Mario thinks that Andrea has.3SG.SUBJ/?IND eaten ‘Mario thinks that Andrea has eaten’. It thus appears that the definition of veridicality as provided in (1) above has some trouble accounting for cross-linguistic data such as these.

3.1.2

Refining Veridicality3

Baunaz and Puskás (2014) have tried to rescue the veridical approach to mood choice for French. The first attempt to solve the “Romance puzzle” was to refine the original definition, by focusing on the notion of ‘some individual’. In particular, it 2 3

This is also true for most of the Balkan Slavic languages (see Todorovic, 2012 in particular). This section is an extension of Baunaz and Puskás (2014).

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was argued that the definition of veridicality should be revised (or at least relaxed). The paper focused on five embedding verb classes in French, as presented here in (5): (5) a. b. c. d. e.

Verbs of saying: dire ‘say’, observer ‘observe’... Cognitive factives: réaliser ‘realize’, se rappeler ‘remember’... Emotive factives: regretter ‘regret’... Desire verbs: préférer ‘prefer’, souhaiter ‘wish’, vouloir ‘want’... Directives: suggérer ‘suggest’, insister ‘insist’...

Verbs of saying and cognitive factive verbs (5a,b) select for indicative embedded clauses; emotive factives, desire and directive verbs (5c,d,e) select for subjunctive embedded clauses. Recall that the only difference between indicative and subjunctive is the morphological mood suffixed onto the embedded verb. Let us first focus on cognitive factive predicates. In (6), se rappeler (‘remember’) embeds an indicative complement. Semantically se rappeler embeds a proposition which has to be true according to “some individual”: indeed if Leon remembers p, then p must be true in Leon’s epistemic model (similar results are found with other cognitive factive predicates): (6) Léon se rappelle que Georges a acheté une machine à écrire. Leon remembers that Georges has.3SG.IND bought a typewriter. ‘Leon remembers that Georges bought a typewriter.’ However, the facts are more subtle. Consider (7): (7) Léon se rappelle que George a acheté une machine à écrire, #mais c’est faux (Georges ne l’a pas fait) Leon remembers that Georges has.3SG.IND bought a typewriter, but it is false (Georges neg has it not done) ‘Léon remembers that Georges bought a typewriter, but it’s false, he didn’t’. (7) shows that p must also be true in the Speaker’s epistemic model. That is, cognitive factives require that p be true both from the point of view of the Speaker and from that of the Subject. These predicates are not problematic for Giannakidou’s veridicality approach, as cognitive factives are veridical and take indicative complements. Baunaz and Puskás (2014) call these predicates’ strong veridical’. Contrasting sharply with these, desire and directive predicates are typically non-veridical: (8) a. Léon veut/désire que Georges parte, mais Georges ne part pas Leon wants/desires that Georges leave.3SG.SUBJ but Georges does not leave b. Léon suggère/insiste que Georges parte, mais Georges ne part pas. Leon suggests/insists that Georges leave.SUBJ but Georges does not leave

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Desire and directive verbs embed propositions whose truth is inferred neither by the Subject nor by the Speaker. In (8), negating the complements does not yield contradictory statements. Accordingly, they embed subjunctive complements. The veridicality approach is challenged in several situations. First the well-known case of French (and Romance) emotive factive predicates. Indeed, while Greek ‘regret’ embeds, as expected in Giannakidou’s theory, indicative clauses, (9a), the fact that French (and other Romance languages) regretter ‘regret’ embeds subjunctive clauses (9b) has always been pointed at as an exception. Other emotive factive predicates, such as be sad/happy, be surprised, etc behave in a similar way (10): (9)

a. Modern Greek O Pavlos lipate pu/*oti/*na efije i Roxani. The Paul is-sad.3SG that/that/ SUBJ left.3SG the Roxani. ‘Paul regrets that Roxanne left.’ b. French Georges regrette que Léon n’ait pas terminé son livre Georges regret.3SG that Leon NEG.has.3SG.SUBJ not finished his book ‘Georges regrets that Leon has not finished his book’.

(10) a. Georges est triste que Léon soit lent. Georges is sad that Leon be.3SG.SUBJ slow ‘Georges is sad that Leon is slow.’ b. Georges est surpris que Léon soit lent Georges is surprised that Leon be.3sg.SUBJ slow ‘Georges is surprised that Leon is slow.’ Baunaz and Puskás (2014) claim that regretter selects the subjunctive because although the epistemic model of the Subject triggers the evaluation of p as true, it is possible that the Speaker’s model does not. In other words, the authors argue that even if the predicate, as an emotive factive, seems to entail the truth of its complement, this truth is relative to the Subject’s model, but not to that of the Speaker. Arguments in favor of this point of view come from examples discussed in Schlenker (2005): (11) [Jean est persuadé qu'il pleut, et] il regrette qu'il pleuve. (Mais bien entendu il ne pleut pas!) [Jean is convinced that it rains, and] he regrets that it rain.SUBJ (But of course it doesn't rain!) (adapted form Schlenker, 2005) Schlenker argues that ‘x regrets that p’ indeed presupposes that x believes that p.’ However, this has to be distinguished from the notion of ‘truth’, as believing p does not entail that p is true. So in (11), p is true with respect to the epistemic model of the Subject, but not (necessarily) from the point of view of the Speaker. Examples with other emotive factive predicates, such as be sad or be surprised show similar results:

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(12) [Georges est persuadé que Léon est lent, et] il est surpris qu'il soit lent. (Mais bien entendu Léon n’est pas lent.) [Georges is convinced that Leon is slow, and] he is surprised that he is.3SG. SUBJ slow. (But of course Leon is not slow.) (13) [Georges est persuadé que Léon est lent, et] il est triste qu'il soit lent. (Mais bien entendu Léon n’est pas lent.) [Georges is convinced that Léon is slow, and] he is sad that he be.SUBJ slow. (But of course Leon is not slow.) Emotive factive predicates entail the truth of p, at least in the Subject’s epistemic model: for Georges, Leon is slow, and he is sad/surprised about it. However, the embedded proposition is not necessarily true for the Speaker. In (14), adding the continuation in fact forces the reading which considers the epistemic model of the Speaker. As seen, denying p is acceptable with these verbs. (14) a. Georges regrette que Léon soit lent, mais en fait c’est faux, Georges regrets that Léon be.3SG.SUBJ slow, but in fact it is false Léon n’est pas lent. Léon is not slow b. Georges est triste que Léon soit lent, mais en fait c’est faux Georges is sad that Léon be.3SG.SUBJ slow, but in fact it is false Léon n’est pas lent. Léon is not slow Emotive factives thus require a relaxing of the conditions on veridicality, which is what Baunaz and Puskás (2014) propose. They introduce the term ‘relative veridicality’ which was also hinted at in Giannakidou’s early work but abandoned later on. Crucially, a relative veridical predicate will embed a proposition which is true according to the Subject, but not to the Speaker. Such a move seemed to salvage the relation between (non-)veridicality and subjunctive marking.

3.1.3

Objective and Subjective (Non-)veridicality

Recall that Giannakidou and Mari (2021) propose a revised version of veridicality, which argues that subjunctive is licensed in nonveridical contexts, that is, contexts in which the individual anchor i’s information space contains both p and Øp. This results, they argue, in situations in which i is weakly, or partially, committed to p. In addition, the authors implement the relative veridicality idea, providing a distinction between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ veridicality. This version provides the right kind of tool to account for the following facts. Example (15) is built on Schlenker’s original proposition in (11):

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(15) Léon est persuadé qu’ il pleut (mais il ne pleut pas). Leon is convinced that it rain.3SG.IND (but it neg rains not) ‘Léon is convinced that it is raining (but it is not)’ In (15), ‘Leon is convinced that p’ entails that Leon believes that p. So again, p is true from the perspective of the Subject (i.e. within Leon’s doxastic model) but not from the perspective of the Speaker. Accordingly, the predicate can be labeled subjective veridical, and implies that i is committed to p. As such, the predicate licenses an indicative embedded clause. However, the approach still seems to raise several issues. Let us first discuss the case of verbs of saying: (16) Léon dit que Georges a fini son chapitre. Leon says that Georges has.3SG.IND finished his chapter ‘Léon says that Georges finished his chapter.’ The felicitous continuation in (17) indicates that p needs not be true from the Speaker’s point of view: (17) Léon dit que Georges a fini son chapitre, mais nous savons tous qu’il ne l’a pas fini. Léon says that Georges has.3SG.IND finished his chapter, but we know all that he NEG it not finished ‘Leon says that Georges finished his chapter, but we all know that he didn’t.’ This is also Giannakidou and Mari (2021)’s position. The authors claim that say is veridical. They argue that in sentence like (18) below, the model of ‘reported conversation’ contains worlds which are compatible with what the individual anchor i believes (or knows) to be true with respect to the content of the reported conversation p: (18) Nicholas said that p They claim that “the speaker can believe or disbelieve the reported sentence, but the Subject of SAY has to accept it as part of the conversation. This renders [say] veridical and allows the indicative.” (2021, p. 217). In this perspective, we can adhere to the idea of commitment to p. However, it is perfectly conceivable that in (16), Leon says that p while knowing perfectly that p is not true. In other words, “nothing requires that p be true in the Subject’s cognitive model” (Baunaz & Puskás, 2014, p. 245). We can safely claim that if Leon is lying, Leon cannot be committed to the truth of p. Therefore, according to the definition of veridicality proposed in Giannakidou and Mari (2021), say should be both (or should alternate between) subjectively veridical and non-veridical. Despite this mixed behavior, predicates of saying always select the indicative. Next, and exactly in this perspective, example (11) turns out to be a problem. If, following Schlenker (2005), we assume that regret that p entails believe that p¸

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then the doxastic model of i (namely the subject of the matrix clause) can only be compatible with a subjectively veridical predicate. According to Giannakidou and Mari (2021), the embedded clause should be indicative, contrary to fact. This again suggests that what is at stake is not veridicality. Another sticking point emerges when it comes to predicates like deny. Giannakidou and Mari (2021) argue that verbs of negative assertion are veridical. Although deny p does not entail p, it asserts that (and hence expresses commitment to) Øp. Basically, “if i denies that p, then i knows or believes Øp to be true” (2021, p. 63). Hence the indicative, as is attested by the Greek example in (18): (19) Modern Greek (Giannakidou & Mari, 2021) O Nicholas arnithike oti/*na i Ariadne ton voithise the Nicholas denied.3SG that.IND/SUBJ the Ariadne him helped.3SG. ‘Nicholas denied that Ariadne helped him’. However, French démentir (‘deny’) selects the subjunctive: (20) Léon a démenti que Georges vende ses chaussettes sur internet. Leon has denied that Georges sell.3SG.SUBJ his socks on internet ‘Leon denied that Georges sells his socks on internet.’ The fact that démentir, as well as nier (‘deny’) or refuter (‘refute’), which are all negative assertion predicates, license subjunctive embedded clauses is not accounted for in Giannakidou and Mari’s veridicality approach. Finally, the case of alternating predicates in French also argues against a pure veridical approach to mood selection. Recall that a group of predicates presents alternation between indicative and subjunctive embedding. This is the case of the verb comprendre (‘understand’): (21) a. Léon comprend que Georges vend ses chaussettes sur internet (car il a trouvé l’annonce avec son nom et son adresse). Leon understands that Georges sell.3SG.IND his socks on internet because he has found the ad with his name and his address ‘Leon understands that Georges is selling his sock on internet (because he found the ad with his name and address). b. Léon comprend que Georges vend ses chaussettes sur internet (mais il se trompe, Georges ne les vend pas, il les expose). Leon understands that Georges sell.3SG.IND his socks on internet (but he self deceives George NEG them sells not, he them exhibits) ‘Leon understands that Georges is selling his socks on internet (but he is wrong, Georges is not selling them but showing them). c. Léon comprend que Georges vende ses chaussettes sur internet (# mais en fait, ce n’est pas le cas). Leon understands that Georges sell.3SG.SUBJ his sock on internet (but in fact it is not the case)

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‘Leon understands that George would sell/would be selling his socks on internet (#but in fact it is not the case)’ (21a,b) illustrate two cases of embedded indicative clauses. ‘x understands p’ entails that x has added to his epistemic model that p. However, it is also clear that believing p does not entail that p is true: while the context in (21a) supports an interpretation where p is true, (21b) supports the opposite. Hence the truth of the embedded proposition is not entailed, but merely inferred. In Giannakidou and Mari (2021), this is typically a case of subjective veridicality (which involves a doxastic commitment to p), and hence an embedded indicative clause is licensed. The problem arises with (21c). Again, ‘x understands p’ also entails that x believes p, a meaning compatible with subjective veridicality. However, this version of comprendre embeds a subjunctive clause. Examples with other alternating predicates are given in (22)–(23), with similar properties: (22) a. Léon admet que Georges a trop bu. Leon admits that Georges has.3SG.IND too much drunk ‘Leon admits that Georges drank too much.’ b. Léon admet que Georges ait trop bu. Leon admits that Georges has.3SG.SUBJ too much drunk ‘Leon admits that Georges would have drunk too much.’ (23) a. Léon conçoit que Georges a trop bu. Leon conceives that Georges has.3SG.IND too much drunk ‘Leon conceives that Georges drank too much.’ b. Léon conçoit que Georges ait trop bu. Leon conceives that Georges has.3SG.SUBJ too much drunk ‘Leon conceives that Georges would have drunk too much.’ Both admettre (‘admit’) and concevoir (‘conceive’) are subjectively veridical in Giannakidou and Mari’s (2021) sense, as in both (22a, 23a) and (22b, 23b), we can infer that p (‘Georges drank too much’) is true according to some individual x, namely Léon (the Subject) and/or the Speaker. In (22a), p must be true for both the Speaker and the Subject Léon, as explicitly shown by the context in (24a); on the other hand, in (22b, 23b), p is true according to the Subject Léon, but not necessarily to the Speaker (24b): (24) Léon (wrongly) thinks that Georges is an alcoholic. When he finds him lying on the floor, he... a. . . . # comprend/admet/conçoit qu’il a bu. [F for speaker, T for Subject] understands that he has.3..IND drunk b. . . . comprend/admet/conçoit qu’il ait bu. [irrelevant for Speaker, T for Subject] understands that he have.SUBJ drunk Recall that similar behaviours can be found with other classes of verbs, such as factives:

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Table 3.1 French mood and veridicality Predicate class Directives Desire Emotive factives Cognitive factives Verbs of saying/cognitive non-factive

Selects SUBJ SUBJ SUBJ IND IND

Embedded clause NonV NonV SubjV ObjV NonV

(25) Léon wrongly believes that Georges is an alcoholic and, finding him lying on the floor. . . a. . . .# se souvient qu’il a bu. remembers that he has.3SG.IND drunk b. . . .regrette qu’il ait bu. is sorry that he has.SUBJ drunk Although the alternation between the indicative and the subjunctive seems to be triggered by some property of the predicate comprendre (and other alternating predicates), it cannot be the veridical operator which would be arbitrarily associated with one or another version of it. We will therefore defend the idea that although ‘truth’ and ‘epistemic commitment’ are relevant, they are not (uniquely) what subjunctive clauses are about. We conclude that what governs the distribution of mood cannot be veridicality, neither in its old nor in its new version. Both some veridical and some non-veridical verbs select the subjunctive, while some veridical and some non-veridical verbs select the indicative. Table 3.1 gives a comparative overview of mood selection facts with respect to veridicality as defined in Giannakidou and Mari (2021). Clearly, a revised version of veridicality provides more flexibility. However, the downside of such a complexification is that it is more difficult to draw generalizations, especially in terms of what actually triggers the subjunctive mood. While this extended version of veridicality tries to account for variations in the licensing of subjunctives across (a small set of) languages using fine semantic distinctions, the approach does not identify any core subjunctive property related to the systematic occurrence of this mood across a wider range of languages.

3.2

Against a Syntactic Correlation Between Complementizers, (Non-)veridicality and Mood

In this section, we examine the syntactic reflexes of veridicality, and we come once again to the conclusion that veridicality does not show correlation with mood, even in the Balkan languages. Looking at complementizer selection in Balkan languages, Baunaz (2015, 2016, 2018) shows that the form of the complementizer in these languages varies depending on the type of veridicality associated with the matrix verb. Crucially

3.2 Against a Syntactic Correlation Between Complementizers,. . .

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certain verbs can switch from one veridicality category to the next, and this is directly reflected in the form of the (declarative) complementizer. Let us take as an example the Modern Greek predicate paraponoúmai ‘complain’. This verb can optionally select either oti or pu, two declarative complementizers equivalent to English that. (26) Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2015, (92)) a. O Janis paraponethike oti ton ksexasa; ala kani lathos: dhen ton ksexasa. The John complained.3SG that him forgot.1SG; but make.3SG. mistake: not him forgot.1SG b. O Janis paraponethike pu ton ksexasa; # ala kani lathos: dhen ton ksexasa. The John complained.3SG that him forgot.1SG ;but make.3SG. mistake : not him forgot.1SG ‘John complained that I forgot him; but he is wrong, because I didn’t.’ The predicate paraponoúmai ‘complain’ is a cognitive factive verb. Within the terminology used in this chapter, it is a veridical predicate. Authors have shown that when such verbs select pu, they trigger strong presupposition and when they take oti, they involve weak presupposition (see Roussou, 2010 and ref. cited there4). Baunaz (2018) qualifies the use of oti as involving some ‘factivity weakening’, expressing “truth commitment by the Subject exclusively (vs. speaker), i.e. the truth of the embedded proposition is relative to the speaker”, while “[T]he use of pu (. . .) commits the speaker to the truth of the embedded proposition. In [(15)], the continuation but he is wrong, because I didn’t forces a reading where the speaker’s point of view about the truth of the embedded proposition needs to be taken into account” (Baunaz, 2018, p. 155).

So just like French comprendre-type of predicates, these verbs can alternate in meaning between what Baunaz and Puskás (2014) defined as strong veridical (Subject and Speaker’s commitment) and relative veridical (Subject’s commitment) veridical or, in Giannakidou and Mari (2021)’s recent terminology, between objectively veridical and subjectively veridical. Baunaz (2018) gives similar data for Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian. The relevant examples are presented in (27) through (29). Cognitive factive verbs may select either da or što in Serbian (Croatian speakers highly favor da, Tomislav Sočanac, p.c). But the choice is not free: the selection of

4

Roussou (2010) gives an example with the predicate ‘remember’, i.e. a cognitive factive verb.

(i)

Thimame oti/pu dhjavaze poli. Remember.1SG that read.3SG much ‘I remember that he used to read a lot/I remember him reading a lot.’

Modern Greek (Roussou, 2010, p.590 (17))

This suggests that thimame is also a verb that alternates in meaning between relative and strong veridical, as is claimed at the end of this paragraph.

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da corresponds to strong veridicality, while selection of što involves relative veridicality.5 (27) Serbian/Croatian (Baunaz, 2018, p. 151, (4b)) Znam da/Sršto si bio u Gentu. know.1SG that AUX.2SG been in Ghent ‘I know that you've been to G./I'm familiar with the fact that you've been to G. ' Emotive factive predicates uniformly select što in SC, but (some) Croatian speakers may select da with these predicates (Tomislav Sočanac, p.c). Yet, again the choice is not free: for those speakers who allow both complementizers under these verbs, choosing što correlates with strong veridicality, while choosing da with relative veridicality (see Baunaz, 2018 for more details). (28) Serbian/Croatian (Baunaz, 2018, p. 151, (4a)) Žalim što/Crda si povrijedio Ivana. regret.1SG. that AUX.PAST.2SG. hurt.PAST.PTCPL John ‘I regret that you hurt John.’ Similarly Bulgarian emotive factives can select either deto or če (see Krapova, 2010), (29a). With cognitive factives, če is the preferred version, but some speakers accept če, (29b). Unsurprisingly, these options are not free: in both case the choice of če corresponds to relative veridicality, and the choice of deto to strong veridicality. (29) a. Bulgarian (Krapova, 2010, p. 26, (56a)) Naistina sazljavam, deto/če neotedlix poveče vnimanie na postrojkata. ‘I really regret that did not devote greater attention to the construction’ b. Bulgarian (Baunaz, 2018, p. 152, (5b)) Pomnja, %deto/če te sreštnax na pazara. ‘I remember that I met you at the market/meeting you at the market’ Modern Greek paraponoúmai ‘complain’, thimame ‘remember’, Serbo-Croatian žaliti , sjetiti se ‘remember’ ‘regret’ and znati ‘know’ (see fn.5), as well as Bulgarian pomnja ‘remember’ and saz aljavam ‘regret’ are all able to select dual complementizers, corresponding to strong veridical and relative veridical contexts. Crucially the shift in meaning correlates with the form of the complementizer in Balkan, suggesting that the veridical component in the predicate is tightly linked with complementizer selection. When it comes to verbs of saying (and cognitive non-factive verbs), Modern Greek, SC and Bulgarian embed nonveridical and/or relative veridical domains, introduced by oti in Modern Greek, da in SC and če in Bulgarian:

5

Having established the parallel between Baunaz and Puskás (2014)’s Strong and Relative veridicality and Giannakidou and Mari (2021)’s Objective and Subjective veridicality, we will from this point only use the terms Strong/Relative veridical.

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(30) a. Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009, p. 1886, (7)) O Pavlos ipe oti i Roxani efije. the Paul said.3SG that the Roxann left.3SG ‘Paul said that Roxanne left.’ b. Serbian/Croatian Pavao je rekao da je vidio Mariju. Paul AUX.PAST.3SG. said that AUX.PAST.3SG. see Mari ‘Paul said that he saw Mary.’ c. Bulgarian (Baunaz, 2018, p. 150, (2d)) Pavel kaza, če e vidjal Mary. Paul said that he.saw Mary ‘Paul said that he saw Mary’ With desire verbs and directive verbs, Balkan languages select for a special complementizer/particle (see Chap. 2), whose form may be similar (Serbian/Croatian) or different (Modern Greek, Bulgarian) from the complementizer used under verbs of saying/non-cognitive verbs.:6 (31) a. Modern Greek Thelo na fiji o Kostas. Want.1sg SUBJ leave.3SG the Kostas ‘I want Kostas to leave’. b. Serbian/Croatian Želim da Ivan ode. want.1SG. SUBJ John leave.3SG ‘I want John to leave.’ c. Bulgarian (Krapova, 1998, p. 86, (24b)) Iskam da ostanat decata want.1SG SUBJ stay.3PL children ‘I want the children to stay.’ A note on terminology: the fact that verbs can switch from one veridical class to another suggests that when it comes to veridicality, a traditional labeling (i.e. the one we used in (5)) is misleading here. Therefore, from now on, we use the (non)veridical terminology to refer to the verbs in (5), as well as to the complementizers they select (that is, to refer to the selector and the item selected). The relevant verbs studied in these works are illustrated in Table 3.2. Recall that some of these verbs may encode different properties within the same form, and we consider them as syncretic (that is why they appear in different cells in Table 3.2). The realization of complementizers with respect to veridicality in Modern Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian/Croatian is given in Table 3.3. French is added as a comparison here. Note that we extend the range of veridicality to 4 categories. Indeed,

There is a debate concerning the status of Serbo-Croatian da: either there are two da: ‘declarative’ da, and modal da, or only one da. See Todorovic (2012) and Sočanac (2017) for details.

6

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Table 3.2 Some (non-)veridical verbs in Modern Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian and French (adapted from Baunaz, 2018, p. 161, Table 6.7) Strong veridical

Relative veridical

Non-veridical

English translation ‘remember’ ‘regret’ ‘understand’ ‘remember’ ‘regret’ ‘understand’ ‘say’ ‘want’

MG thimame

SC s(j)etiti se % žaliti

Bg pomnja saz aljavam

Fr se rappeler comprendre

thimame lipame

%

s(j)etiti se žaliti

pomnja saz aljavam

regretter comprendre

leo thelo

reći željeti

kazvam iskam

dire vouloir

Table 3.3 (Non)-veridical complementizers in Modern in Modern Greek, Serbian/Croatian, Bulgarian and French (from Baunaz, 2018, p. 160, Table 6.6))

nonveridical verbs in Modern Greek and Bulgarian can take different complementizers under different predicates. We thus split the non-veridical group in two, labelled here “non-veridical1” (NV1) and “non-veridical2” (NV2). Chapter 6 provides a more detailed analysis of this. With this labeling in mind, the properties of predicates as detailed in Tables 3.2 and 3.3 can be summed up as Table 3.4. The Comp column is added to indicate the split between NV1 and NV2. The last column indicates the mood of the embedded clause. Table 3.4 reveals that there is no direct correlation between mood selection and veridicality. The reader will find a more fine-grained analysis of complementizers in Chap. 6, where we proceed to account for the relation between selecting predicates, complementizers and embedded subjunctive (and indicative) clauses.

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Table 3.4 Mood and veridicality

3.3

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have shown that while the (non)veridicality approach to mood selection is able to capture a well identified set of linguistic behaviors with respect to mood, it also shows important gaps. Crucially, it also fails to yield the expected results in Balkan languages. Although the prediction about mood selection may, at first sight, turn out to be correct for Modern Greek, emotive factive predicates in French embed subjunctive clauses. Therefore, veridicality appears not to be the right licenser to mood choice in Romance, questioning any one-to-one relation between mood selection and veridicality à la Giannakidou. We have come to the conclusion that such a correlation cannot hold in Romance and seems to be weakened in other languages (see e.g., Tóth, 2008 for Hungarian). As is also observed by Giorgi (2009) “Furthermore, as shown above (. . .), some factive verbs select the subjunctive mood. In these cases, (. . .)), the truth of the embedded clauses is presupposed. These facts point to the conclusion that the truth of a certain proposition is independent from the morphology on its predicate and it is not connected with the presence of a certain mood–i.e., indicative vs. subjunctive.” (2009, p. 1843).

In an attempt to rescue the veridicality analysis, we looked in more details at the predicates selecting embedded clauses (leaving aside, for now, modal predicates and impersonal constructions). We discussed the proposal, put forth in Baunaz and Puskás (2014), to adopt a tripartition of the notion of veridicality with, in addition to strong and non-veridicality, an intermediate relative veridicality. However, we showed that refining the veridicality definition does not help, though. The results were indeed proven worse, as Balkan languages also fall outside a strict veridicality—mood correlation. From this we concluded that veridicality is not related to mood. Yet it does not mean that veridicality is not active in syntax. In Chap. 6, we come back to the notion of veridicality, and we argue that it is directly related to complementation (and not to modality). In particular, we argue that veridicality (and the

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absence thereof) has clear morphosyntactic reflexes, visible on the form of complementizers in Balkan languages. This is a major move, thus, from current analyses. Our approach endeavors to tackle the problem from another angle, proposing an alternative account to mood selection, with the goal to fill the gaps that have been identified here. In the following chapters, we lay out the theoretical basis of this approach, and then proceed to show how it applies to subjunctive selection in the set of languages discussed here.

Chapter 4

Subjunctive: A New Proposal

Abstract In this chapter, we lay out our own proposal, based on Romance languages and French in particular. We argue that predicates selecting the subjunctive mood involve an ‘emotive’ argument. We first give a detailed syntactic and semantic analysis of predicates selecting subjunctive embedded clauses, showing that they all have an emotive argument, and that they all include a hierarchically organized set of basic features related to their external argument. We then provide a formal definition of our emotive feature and we introduce a new typology of subjunctive selecting predicates based on their featural composition. Finally, we discuss the syntactic implementation of such a proposal.

In this chapter, we propose that the key to mood choice lies in the (lexical) semantic decomposition of the selecting verb (see Baunaz, 2017; Puskás, 2013). We will show that the distinct semantics of verbs selecting the subjunctive and of those selecting the indicative coincide with systematic grammatical differences. We claim that the external arguments of matrix verbs embedding subjunctive clauses share some thematic features crucial to mood selection. Based on the distinct semantics of predicates which alternate between an indicative and a subjunctive complement, we claim that the external argument of verbs taking the subjunctive must include at least an emotive property. The emotive construal is licensed by the emotive feature, a property of a specific head which is part of the functional sequence ( fseq) of matrix predicates. External arguments of verbs taking the indicative lack this construal, because these verbs lack the emotive feature. As was discussed in the previous chapter, although veridicality is a genuine property of embedded clauses, it is not responsible as such for mood selection. We will therefore revise the verb classes previously considered and conflate some of them, creating a new typology relevant to mood selection.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Baunaz, G. Puskás, A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood, Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04540-0_4

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4.1

4 Subjunctive: A New Proposal

Determining Subjunctive Predicates

The sample of French verbs corresponding to the classes identified in Chap. 2 is given in (1): (1) a. Verbs of saying: b. Cognitive non-factives: c. Cognitive factives: d. Fiction verbs: e. Emotive factives: f. Modals: g. Future-referring: h. Directives:

dire (‘say’), observer (‘observe’)... penser (‘think’), croire (‘believe’). . . réaliser (‘realize’), se rappeler (‘remember’), découvrir (‘discover’)... imaginer (‘imagine’), rêver (‘dream’) regretter (‘regret’), heureux (‘happy’), surpris (‘surprised’)... nécessaire (‘necessary’), possible (‘possible’). . . souhaiter (‘wish’), vouloir (‘want’), désirer (‘desire’), espérer (‘expect’) suggérer (‘suggest’), ordonner (‘order’), dire (‘tell’)

Verbs of saying and cognitive verbs (1a,b,c) select for indicative embedded clauses in French (2); emotive factives, modals, future-referring and directive verbs (1e,g,h) select for subjunctive embedded clauses, (3). Recall that in French, the only difference between indicative and subjunctive embedded clauses is the morphological mood suffixed onto the embedded verb (indicative part vs subjunctive parte). (2) Léon réalise/dit que George part. Leon realizes/says that Georges leave.3SG.IND ‘Leon realizes/says that Georges is leaving.’ (3) Léon {ordonne/suggère}/regrette/veut que George parte. Leon {orders/suggests}/regrets/wants that Georges leave3SG.SUBJ ‘Leon {orders/suggests}/regrets that George leave/wants Georges to leave.’ Fiction verbs (1d) have the property of selecting either subjunctive or indicative complements: (4) a. Georges rêve que Léon reçoit/reçoive le prix Nobel. Georges dreams that Leon receive.3SG.IND/SUBJ the Nobel Prize ‘Georges dreams that Leon is receiving/receive the Nobel Prize.’ b. George imagine que Léon reçoit le prix Nobel. Georges imagines that Leon receive.3SG.IND the Nobel Prize ‘Georges imagines that Leon is receiving the Nobel Prize.’ c. Imagine que Léon reçoive le prix Nobel! Imagine. SG.IMP that Leon receive.3SG.SUBJ the Nobel Prize. ‘Imagine that Leon would receive the Nobel Prize!’

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Modal predicates (1f) may select for subjunctive complements, but only in impersonal constructions: (5) a. Il est nécessaire que Georges finisse/*finit son chapitre. It is necessary that Georges end.3SG.SUBJ/end.3SG.IND his chapter ‘It is necessary for Georges to complete his chapter.’ (Lit: it is necessary that Georges complete his chapter’) b. Il est possible que Georges dorme/dort. It is possible that Georges sleep.3SG.SUBJ/sleep.3SG.IND ‘It is possible for Georges to sleep/that Georges is sleeping.’ In this section we explore the differences between indicative and subjunctive selecting verbs. In order to do this, we first examine the properties of predicates with mood alternation (see (4) above). This will lead us to explore the lexical semantics of the verbs in (1). To achieve this, we start from Dowty’s (1991) work on the semantics of arguments (see Sect. 4.1.2). Section 4.1.3 discusses the emotive factive predicates in the light of the typology discovered in Sect. 4.1.2 and finally Sect. 4.1.4 introduces impersonal constructions and modality.

4.1.1

Alternating Predicates

Recall from Chap. 2 that some predicates, such as comprendre ‘understand’, exhibit mood alternation1: (6) a. Léon comprend que Georges écrit des romans de gare. Leon understands that Georges writes.3SG.IND dime novels ‘Leon understands that Georges writes dime novels.’ b. Léon comprend que Georges écrive des romans de gare. Leon understands that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ dime novels ‘Leon understands that Georges would write dime novels.’ As also discussed in Baunaz and Puskás (2014), and Baunaz (2017), the mood alternation comes with other syntactic properties. While the indicative selecting comprendre (comprendre1) can be felicitously modified by agent-oriented modifiers (7a), subjunctive selecting comprendre (comprendre2) is felicitous with a degree adverb (8a).

1

Alternating verbs are relevant because the alternation between indicative and subjunctive complements corresponds to relatively subtle differences. In the English translations that we give, we try to convey these differences. This might result in relatively free translations, where the two meanings of one verb may be rendered with two different lexical verbs in English.

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(7) a.

Léon comprend subtilement que Georges écrit la nuit. Leon understands subtly that Georges write.3SG.IND at night ‘Leon subtly understands that Georges writes at night.’ b. # Leon comprend subtilement que Georges écrive la nuit. Leon understands subtly that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ at night

(8) a.

Léon comprend tellement que Georges écrive des romans. Leon understands so much that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ novels ‘Leon understands so well that Georges would write dime novels.’ b. # Léon comprend tellement que Georges écrit des romans. Leon understands so much that Georges write.3SG.IND novels

First, mood alternation correlates with a difference in the meaning of the predicate: comprendre1 in (6a), which selects an indicative clause involves some cognitive exercise. In other words, the activity of understanding is an intellectual process, which requires cognitive abilities; (6b), the version which selects a subjunctive clause (comprendre2), contains in addition some kind of subjective position. Léon, the subject of the matrix clause, is emotionally involved in the process of ‘understanding’. Second, as will become clearer below, the type of modification illustrated in (7), (8) indicates that the external argument is strongly involved in the alternation. In (7a), the agent-oriented modifier clearly targets the external argument, and in (7b), the degree adverb is also to be interpreted as an expression of the external argument’s attitude towards the situation. French has a relatively small set of alternating predicates of this sort, among which rêver ‘dream’, espérer ‘hope’, accepter ‘accept’, admettre ‘admit’, which all exhibit the same behavior as comprendre. At this point, one might wonder whether alternating verbs belong to one (or more) class(es) listed in (1) or constitute a special class on their own. Consider (9): (9) a. Léon comprend que Georges a trop bu. Leon understands that Georges has.3SG.IND too much drunk ‘Leon understands that Georges drank too much.’ b. Léon comprend que Georges ait trop bu. Leon understands that Georges has.3SG.SUBJ too much drunk ‘Léon understands that Georges would have drunk too much.’ Although we have shown that comprendre1 and comprendre2 differ slightly in meaning (one is more ‘cognitive’, the other is more subjective in being more ‘emotive’), they are both factive, as in both (9a) and (9b), the embedded proposition p, namely the fact that Georges drank too much, is presupposed to be true:

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(10) a. Léon comprend que Georges a trop bu., # but he did not drink too much. Leon understands that Georges has.3SG.IND too much drunk ‘Leon understands that Georges drank too much.’ b. Léon comprend que Georges ait trop bu., # but he did not drink too much. Leon understands that Georges has.3SG.SUBJ too much drunk However, this is not the case for rêver: (11) a. Léon rêve que Georges a trop bu., but he did not drink too much. Leon dreams that Georges has.3SG.IND too much drunk ‘Leon dreams/is dreaming that Georges drank too much.’ b. Léon rêve que Georges ait trop bu., but he did not drink too much. Leon dreams that Georges has.3SG.SUBJ too much drunk ‘Leon dreams that Georges would drink too much.’ It turns out that some alternating verbs may behave like cognitive and emotive factive verbs (comprendre), while other ones resemble cognitive non-factive and future referring/desire predicates (fiction verbs like rêver ‘dream’). While in terms of presupposition of their complements, alternating verbs fall into one or another category, the alternation itself is in correlation with the Subject’s attitude. What emerges here is that the semantics of main verbs interacts with the state of mind of the individual corresponding to the external argument. In the subjunctive selecting version of the predicates, the external argument tends to be interpreted as experiencing some subjective/emotive state, a feature which is absent from their indicative counterparts. Therefore, identifying the common property shared by the external arguments of subjunctive selecting verbs and contrasting it with its counterpart in indicative selecting verbs will help isolate the mood-related core feature. In order to identify the relevant property, we investigate the properties of external arguments of predicates taking embedded finite clauses, building on Dowty (1991)’s work on the semantics of arguments.

4.1.2

The Role of Agent

Dowty (1991) argues that the semantic roles of arguments should be viewed as prototypical concepts, rather than discrete categories. The properties of what he labels Proto-AGENTS are given in (12) below. (12) Dowty’s (1991) categories of Proto-Agents Volition: volitional involvement in the event or state Sentience (and/or perception) Cause: causing an event or change of state in another participant Movement (relative to the position of another participant) (Dowty, 1991, 572 (27))

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Given that we are interested in a specific set of predicates, we will examine how Dowty’s categories of external arguments fit those of our target classes.

4.1.2.1

Sentience (and/or Perception)

“Sentience, which possibly should or should not be classed separately from perception, is found alone (. . .) with the classic propositional attitude verbs, the stative perception verbs, and the stative psych predicates (i.e. fear, be surprised at, etc.).” (Dowty, 1991: 573). In Dowty’s terminology, sentience is a cover term used for a cognitive state, emotion or perception, translating into “S is conscious of p”. We observe that verbs that do not select embedded clauses may, or may not, involve sentient Subjects. In (13), the predicate screech may have an external argument both of the inanimate and the animate kind. (13) a. The tire screeched loudly. b. John screeched loudly. However, embedding verbs seem to restrict the properties of their external argument: (14) a. # The tire screeched that the bend was too tight. b. John screeched that the bend was too tight. The inanimate external argument is not compatible with an embedded clause (14a). Only the animate and sentient external argument is felicitous in such a context (14b). The embedded clause expresses the content of the conscious mental process of the agent. It appears that predicates selecting embedded clauses, listed under (1) above (be they indicative or subjunctive) indeed license (only) sentient external arguments: while the examples in (15), with an animate and sentient argument are all felicitous, none of the predicates licenses an inanimate (and hence non-sentient) argument (16): (15) a. verbs of saying/cognitive non-factives/cognitive factives Léon dit/pense/réalise que Georges a fini d’écrire le chapitre. Leon says/thinks/realizes that Georges has.3SG.IND finished to write the chapter ‘Leon say/thinks/realizes that Georges has finished writing the chapter.’ b. Fiction verbs Léon rêve que Georges finit/finisse d’écrire le chapitre. Leon dreams that Georges finishes.3SG.IND finish.3SG.SUBJ to write the chapter ‘Leon dreams that Georges is finishing/would finish writing the chapter.’ c. emotive factives/future-referring/directives Léon est content/souhaite/ordonne que George finisse d’écrire le chapitre.

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Leon is happy/wishes/orders that Georges finish.3SG.SUBJ to write the chapter ‘Leon is happy/wishes/commands that Georges is finishing/finish writing the chapter.’ (16) a. verbs of saying/cognitive non-factive/cognitive factives # La porte dit/pense/réalise que Georges a fini d’écrire le chapitre. The door says/thinks/realizes that Georges has.3SG.IND finished to write the chapter b. Fiction verbs # La porte rêve que Georges finit/finisse d’écrire le chapitre. The door dreams that Georges finishes.3SG.IND/finish.3SG.SUBJ to write the chapter c. Emotive factives/future-referring/directives # La porte est contente/souhaite/ordonne que George finisse d’écrire le chapitre. The door is happy/wishes/ordersthat Georges finish.3SG.SUBJ to write the chapter All of these verbs involve some kind of consciousness/perception on the part of the Subject.2 They are therefore all associated with a sentient property.

4.1.2.2

Volition

We adopt Dowty’s definition of ‘volition’ as a “volitional involvement in the event or state” (1991: 572). The volitional component only appears with future-referring (aka desire verbs) and directive predicates (1g, h) as obviously, cognitive (non-) factive predicates, verbs of saying, fiction verbs and emotive factive predicates do not include this involvement. This suggests that there is a partitioning between predicates which belong to our classes (1a-f) and (1g–h).

2

Note that (i) below seems to provide counterexamples to our claim: (i)

Le protocole exige/demande/prévoit que tous les partenaires soient présents. The protocol requires/demands/stipulates that all the partners be.3PL.SUBJ present

To our knowledge, the only verbs which accept inanimate external arguments with embedded complements are directives and some future-referring verbs. However, as is the case with non-literal meanings of ‘say’ and other verbs of saying (see (ii) below), we contend that this is not part of the semantics of these predicates per se but is the result of some pragmatic accommodation. (ii)

Le texte dit que tous les partenaires doivent être présents. The text says that all the partners must be present.

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Cause

Finally, among the classes of predicates we are considering, only directives (1h) seem to involve a causing external argument. However, we consider that the causal relation expressed in Dowty’s typology rather targets predicates in which an agent is directly implicated in the causing of the event to be brought about. Dowty argues that causation is usually associated with movement. It is not clear whether directives fall into this category, as the agent of the directive predicate is (i) not initiating any movement (in that it does not actually lead to a necessary event or change of state in another participant), and (ii) the type of causation is itself indirect, since the agent is rather involved in a speech act which aims at initiating a change, but with no guarantee of an actual outcome (ordering x to do something does not come with the guarantee that x will be doing it). Along the lines of our analysis, directives are, at best, assimilable to desire predicates, and we will not consider them as a separate category here. We propose that directives differ from other future-referring predicates on another axis, not relevant to the licensing of subjunctive clauses. Table 4.1 shows the embedding verbs discussed in this section, together with the features constituting their external arguments, based on Dowty’s typology. Verbs of saying, cognitive verbs and emotive factive predicates take sentient external arguments, while future referring predicates (and directive predicates) are more complex and involve, in addition to the sentient feature, a volitional feature. In Sect. 4.1.1 we have shown that some alternating verbs behave like cognitive factives and emotive factives (comprendre ‘understand, realize’) and some others behave like cognitive non-factives and future referring verbs (rêver ‘dream, wish’, espérer ‘expect, hope’). Hence they should be classified accordingly in the table. In the next section we discuss the problems inherent to the typology presented here: namely that the present classification does not offer a sufficiently fine-grained system to (i) distinguish between some verbs/predicates that appear to belong to different semantic classes and (ii) distinguish between verbs/predicates selecting the indicative or subjunctive mood.

Table 4.1 Classes of embedding verbs, proto-agent licensing features

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More Features Are Needed

The typology presented in the previous section raises several salient problems at this point. First, Table 4.1 shows that verbs of saying, cognitive and emotive factive predicates share similar features, suggesting that they should be lumped together as one type of verb. Yet the properties of external arguments of emotive factives differ in important respects from those of cognitive verbs, for example: emotive factive predicates involve participants who experience/express some emotion/emotivity (hence the name emotive factive), while cognitive verbs involve participants with a cognitive faculty (i.e. undergoing some mental process/activity as it is the case with think, believe, realize, remember or being in a state of mind, know). Second, a similar issue arises with respect to the distinction between verbs of saying and cognitive verbs: in this typology, they seem to belong to the same category, since they have the same set of features. There are reasons to believe that this is not the case: cognitive verbs involve participants with a cognitive faculty undergoing a mental process of some sort, while verbs of saying are purely sentient. Indeed, verbs of saying involve a participant who uses a linguistic expression to convey the content of a proposition (the embedded clause), but she does neither need to be committed to it nor to activate some complex mental process. Finally (and most importantly for us), the issue of mood selection should be addressed: there seems to be no straightforward way to link Table 4.1 with mood selection. We know that verbs of saying and cognitive verbs take the indicative mood, and that emotive factive predicates, future-referring and directive predicates take the subjunctive mood. In Table 4.2, the vertical black line indicates this divide.3 As shown by the colored areas in Tables 4.2, mood does not correspond to a uniform set of features and no category can be associated uniquely with either indicative or subjunctive selection. Typically, Table 4.2 fails to account for mood selection with emotive factives.4 Verbs of saying, cognitive predicates and emotive

Table 4.2 Classes of embedding verbs, proto-agent licensing features and mood selection I

3

Note that given the discussion in the previous section, we will from now on ignore the cause property. 4 Recall that this category of verbs has already being proven to be problematic for other approaches to mood choice in Romance (see Chap. 3 in particular).

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factive predicates all share similar properties, so we expect them to select the same type of mood, contrary to facts. We thus need a more fine-grained distinction.

4.1.4

Decomposing the Features of External Arguments

Since Dowty’s distinction of the properties of (Proto-) Agents in terms of sentience, volition and cause is not sufficient to account for the distinction between the external arguments of subjunctive selecting verbs and indicative selecting ones, we need to refine our typology. Accordingly, we propose to add at least three categories to the typology of features presented in Table 4.2, two of which specifically distinguish between cognitive predicates and emotive factive predicates: the cognitive and the emotive categories. The cognitive category constructs more ‘epistemic’ external arguments, and the emotive category will help construct emotive external arguments. At this stage, we need to draw a crucial distinction. We have introduced the notion of ‘sentient’, ‘cognitive’ and ‘emotive’ features, and have rather loosely associated them both with the predicate and with the external argument of the predicate. As has become clear, the presence or absence of the property affects the semantics of the predicate. Therefore, we assume that it is a feature of the predicate itself. The argument, a DP, does not intrinsically bear such an emotive (or a cognitive) feature. Rather, as we show in Sect. 4.3, the DP realizing the external argument is licensed in a position associated with these different features and will hence be interpreted accordingly.

4.1.4.1

The Cognitive and the Emotive Features

In Sect. 4.1.1 we mentioned that verbs triggering mood alternation (such as comprendre, ‘understand’, accepter ‘accept’, rêver ‘dream’, etc.) come with different meanings. While they always license a sentient external argument, when they select the indicative, they only involve a cognitive exercise; when they select the subjunctive, they express, in addition to the cognitive content, an emotional attitude of the Subject toward the content of the complement clause.5 Additional evidence for this crucial distinction is provided in this section. Although we mainly use the verb comprendre ‘understand’ to illustrate our points, the reader should bear in mind that this applies to all the alternating verbs mentioned in this chapter. In (17) below, the meaning of comprendre (labelled comprendre1 in Sect. 4.1.1 above) corresponds to the English ‘realize’. Léon adds to his cognitive environment the fact that Georges is leaving. The external argument of comprendre1 is sentient, and the verb expresses the exercising of a cognitive activity. Under this reading,

5

As will become clear soon, we do not assume that they consist of different lexical entries, rather they stand in a subset-superset relation, the details of which are discussed in Sect. 4.2 (see also Baunaz, 2017).

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comprendre denotes “a cognitive activity which results in a change of a person’s epistemic state’ (Becker, 2010). The well-known “agent-oriented” adverbs, a subset of Subject-oriented adverbs, like objectivement ‘objectively, judicieusement ‘wisely’ can only be “modifiers in clauses which expect the subject referent to think something through” (Kelepouris, 2012). As such, we expect them to be compatible with cognitive Subjects This is confirmed by (17): (17) Léon comprend objectivement/judicieusement que Georges est parti. He realizes objectively/wisely that Georges has.3SG.IND left ‘He objectively/wisely understands that Leon left.’ Commenting thus on Leon’s intellectual abilities is fine. On the other hand, commenting on Leon’s emotive state is irrelevant: (18) Leon comprend que Georges est parti. Leon realizes that Georges is.3SG.IND left ‘Léon understands that Georges left’. (because Leon is smart / # because Leon is an understanding sweet guy) The predicate comprendre1 can thus be associated with two semantic features: a sentient feature and a cognitive feature. As discussed at length, comprendre may, in addition to being a cognitive process, also involve an emotive attitude of the Subject toward the complement and can be paraphrased as Léon empathizes with X that Georges has left (comprendre2). In a context which presents Léon as an understanding, sweet guy referring to his emotive experience, the sentence is fine. Under this reading, comprendre2 is an emotive verb (19). The smart—cognitive comment is not felicitous here, (unless the smartness corresponds to his emotive intelligence), as shown in (20). Note that emotive Subjects resist modification by objectivement/judicieusement (21). On the other hand, as also discussed in Sect. 4.1.1, they are fine with degree modification (22): (19) Léon is an understanding, sweet guy. Il comprend que Georges soit parti. Il understands that Georges is.3SG.SUBJ left ‘He understands that Georges left.’ (20) Léon is smart. # Il comprend que Georges soit parti. He understands that Georges is.3SG.SUBJ left (21) Léon is an understanding, sweet guy # Il comprend objectivement/judicieusement que Georges soit parti. He understands objectively/wisely that Georges is.3SG.SUBJ left (22) Léon is an understanding, sweet guy Il comprend tellement que Georges soit parti! He understands so much that Georges is.3SG.SUBJ left

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Emotive comprendre2 thus involves an external argument that bears the sentient, cognitive and emotive properties. This is also illustrated below with espérer and rêver. In (23)–(24), espérer has two readings corresponding to either to count on, consider, reckon (Trésor de la Langue Française, http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/ espérer) or to hope. In the former case, espérer governs the indicative mood, in the latter case, the subjunctive mood.6 The difference in meaning is again supported by adverbial modification: (23) a.

Léon espère consciemment que Georges écrit la nuit. Léon counts on consciously that Georges write.3.sg.IND at night ‘Leon consciously counts on the fact that Georges writes at night.’ b. # Léon espère consciemment que Georges écrive la nuit. Léon hope consciously that Georges write.3.sg.SUBJ at night

(24) a. # Léon espère tellement que Georges écrit des romans. Léon counts on so much that Georges write.3.sg.IND novels b. Léon espère tellement que Georges écrive des romans. Léon hopes so much that Georges write.3sg.SUBJ novels. ‘Leon hopes so much that Georges would write novels.’ While espérer1 involves a conscious cognitive activity, espérer2 also contains an emotive component, corresponding to the Subject’s desires. Similarly rêver ‘dream’ appears to have (at least) two different readings, correlating with differentiated mood marking in the embedded clause. As seen in (25)–(26), the cognitive reading corresponding to “seeing pictures in the mind, especially when asleep” takes an indicative embedded complement, while the emotive “(strongly) hope for something” reading commands the subjunctive mood. (25) a.

Léon rêve sans le savoir que Georges écrit la nuit. Léon dreams without it know that Georges write.3SG.IND at night ‘Leon dreams without knowing it that Georges writes at night.’ b. # Léon rêve sans le savoir que Georges écrive la nuit. Leon hopes without knowing that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ at night

(26) a. # Léon rêve tellement que Georges écrit des romans. Léon dreams so much that Georges write.3SG.IND novels. b. Léon rêve tellement que Georges écrive des romans. Leon hopes so much that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ novels. ‘Leon hopes so much that Georges would write novels.’ While the predicates described above may have an emotive feature on top of the sheer cognitive feature, the latter is not an exclusivity of alternating verbs. Predicates

6

Note that French speakers do not all agree on the status of examples with espérer taking subjunctivecomplements. In this book, we describe the variety spoken by speakers who accept it.

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like penser ‘think’, croire ‘believe’, which select only an indicative embedded clause, also contain the same cognitive meaning, since the external argument of these verbs is involved in a cognitive activity which results in the change of an individual’s epistemic state. Therefore, these verbs, albeit non-alternating, can also be decomposed into two semantic features: a [sentient] feature, and a [cognitive] feature. The relevant reading is also identified through modification with objectivement/judicieusement (‘objectively/wisely’) (27), referring to the Subjects’ intellectual/cognitive capacities. Note that the emotive reading is not available for these predicates, as confirmed by the fact that they resist modification by intensifiers (28).7 (27) Georges is smart. Il réalise/pense objectivement/judicieusement que Léon a menti. He realizes/thinks objectively/wisely that Leon has. 3SG.IND lied ‘He objectively/wisely realizes/thinks that Leon lied.’ (28) #Léon pense/réalise tellement que Georges écrit un papier. Leon thinks/realizes so much that Georges write.3SG.IND a paper Just as we argued that the cognitive feature is not limited to alternating verbs but may also be a property of other predicates taking indicative complements, we propose that the emotive feature is not limited to alternating verbs taking subjunctive complements. Recall that we showed in Sect. 4.1.1 that these verbs actually behave either like emotive factive or like future-referring verbs. In fact, future-referring verbs, emotive factive verbs (and directive verbs) also involve external arguments which come with an emotional dimension of varying intensity. These emotions may include volition, desire, sorrow, stress, fear, urge, sadness, happiness. . ., as paraphrased in (29). (29) a. Léon regrette que. . . (emotive factive) ¼ Emotion: x is sad that P b. Léon souhaite que . . . (future-referring) ¼ Emotion: x (weakly) wants that P As already noted by Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1971), emotive verbs “(. . .) express the subjective value of a proposition rather than knowledge about it or its truth value” (1971: 363). These predicates can be modified by intensifiers:

Croire ‘believe’ can co-occur with tellement but when it does, tellement has a quantity meaning (and not a degree one). See Villalta (2006) for discussion and for an account of the possibility of know very well in Spanish and English. 7

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(30) Léon désire/regrette tellement que Georges écrive le papier. Leon desires/regrets so much that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ the paper ‘Leon wishes/regrets so much that Georges would write the paper.’ Taking into account the emotive component of the external argument enables us to (i) distinguish emotive factives from cognitive verbs and verbs of saying and (ii) to make the correct mood partition: all predicates which license an “emotive” argument select the subjunctive mood. Predicates which are not associated with an emotive feature do not select subjunctive embedded clauses, but indicative ones.

4.1.4.2

The Sentient Feature

Finally, although the emotive feature allows us to make a formal distinction between subjunctive embedding verbs and indicative embedding verbs, no such distinction seems to arise between verbs of saying and cognitive predicates. Both are non-emotive, non-volitional and non-causal. But it seems intuitively obvious that the two types of verbs should be distinguished: verbs of saying—also known as communication verbs, are verbs of communication activities (e.g. say, shout, claim). They describe speech (and writing), and are often used to report, i.e. they are intrinsically not used as verbs of mental states and activities. Cognitive verbs are verbs of mental states and activities. We tentatively propose here that verbs of saying lack the cognitive feature. As such, these predicates are bare sentient, in our typology.8 Table 4.3 sums up our new typology. Each verb class discussed here is described with a different set of features. To summarize, cognitive arguments, which mainly denote individuals associated with some mental activity, but without any emotional component (cf. for instance, Table 4.3 Classes of embedding verbs, proto-agent licensing features and mood selection II

8

We are well aware that these predicates are lexically more complex than sentience. However, investigating the fine-grained lexical semantics of these predicates would go beyond the scope of this work and we leave this for further research.

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the argument of comprendre1) refer to entities with intellectual/logical/cognitive capacities in that they express knowledge or access to/loss of knowledge (Baunaz & Puskás, 2014). We argue that these external arguments cumulate the cognitive and sentient features. Cognitive arguments are licensed by cognitive predicates, which will select embedded indicative clauses. Emotive arguments, which refer to entities experiencing some emotive attitude towards the content of the embedded proposition, are licensed by what we label [cognitive] emotive predicates, such as comprendre2. These predicates will select embedded subjunctive clauses.9 A more formal correlation between the external argument and the predicate itself is discussed in Sect. 4.2. We have also shown that the expression of emotion and (pure) cognition have grammatical correlates: in addition to mood choice, the emotive reading coincides with systematic differences in adverb modification: (i) degree adverbs can only modify emotive verbs and (ii) agent-oriented adverbs can only modify the Subject of cognitive verbs.

4.1.5

And. . . What about Impersonal Constructions?

4.1.5.1

Propositional and Emotive Predicates (Léger, 2006)

So far, we have left aside a set of clause embedding predicates which includes a number of adjectival predicates, the so-called ‘propositional’ and ‘emotive adjectives’ among others.10,11 Propositional predicates (conscient ‘aware’), select for indicative complements (31), and emotive predicates (content ‘happy’, souhaitable ‘wishful’, regrettable ‘regrettable’ etc) for subjunctive predicates (32). Some of these predicates appear in personal constructions, some in impersonal constructions (i.e. with a matrix expletive subject, ilexpl), and some in both. (31) Léon est conscient qu’il a raison. Leon is conscious that he have.3SG.IND reason ‘Leon is aware that he is right’.

9

Such an approach to the subject’s emotional implication in subjunctive embedding contexts is also developed in Portner and Rubinstein (2012). 10 We borrow the terminology from Léger (2006). Both propositional and emotive predicates may select either finite or non-finite CPs. In this discussion, we focus on finite CPs. 11 Léger also studies a third type of matrix adjectival predicates: effective predicates, which only select for non-finite clauses. We won’t discuss these here and the reader is referred to Léger’s work for more details.

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(32) a. Léon est heureux que Georges finisse son chapitre. Leon is happy that Georges finish.3SG.SUBJ his chapter ‘Leon is happy that Georges is finishing his chapter’. b. Ilexpl est souhaitable que Georges finisse vite son chapitre. It is wishful that Georges finish.3SG.SUBJ quickly his chapter ‘It is desirable that George would finish his chapter quickly’. Adjectival predicates distribute over the various classes listed in (1) and discussed above. Predicates like conscient (‘conscious’) can be classified with cognitive predicates (i.e. 1c). Predicates like heureux (‘happy’) easily fit into the group of emotive factive predicates, i.e. as predicates of type (1e), and are traditionally classified as such (see Léger, 2006, for instance). Souhaitable (‘wishful’) can be classified as a future-referring predicate (1 g). Finally, predicates like (être) dit ‘(be) said’, observé ‘observed’ resemble verbs of saying (ie. (1a)). Given that we are building mood selection on the properties pertaining to the external argument of a predicate, the question of what triggers the subjunctive mood when these predicates appear in impersonal constructions becomes relevant. Personal and impersonal constructions are syntactically different: personal constructions involve two-place predicates, impersonal constructions typically lack an external argument. In (32b), there is no overt entity experiencing an emotive subjective reaction toward the event denoted by the CP complement (¼the object of emotion). We claim that these predicates may nevertheless involve some emotive dimension toward the embedded event, as attested by tellement modification: (33) Il est tellement souhaitable que Georges finisse son chapitre! Itexpl is so much wishful that Georges finish.SUBJ his chapter. ‘It is so desirable that Georges would finish his chapter.’ Based on Léger (2006), Baunaz (2017) argues that in the absence of an external argument, it is the Speaker who endorses the emotive role, in bringing in her personal attitude (evaluation) toward the embedded events. Consider the following examples: (34) a.

Il est triste (pour Jean) qu’il n’ait pas d’enfants. [Or, il n’a pas l’air de partager mon avis. Il dit être très heureux sans enfant.] It is sad (for J.) that he not have.SUBJ any children. Yet he doesn’t seem to share my opinion. He says to be very happy without children. b. # Jean est triste qu’il n’ait pas d’enfants. [Or il n’a pas l’air de partager mon avis/or il n’est pas triste.] Jean is sad that he doesn’t have.SUBJ any children. Yet he doesn’t seem to share my opinion/yet he is not sad. (from Léger, 2006: 219, (97–98))

(34a) is an impersonal construction. The situation depicted by the adjective involves a negative emotion: triste ‘sad’. The continuation reveals that the entity experiencing the emotion is the Speaker. (34b) is a personal constuction. As it

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stands, it is a contradictin: the Subject of predication (the external argument of be sad), Jean, experiences sadness, but the continuation attributes the emotion to the Speaker. Actually, Léger’s version does not show in a transparent way the interpretation of (34a), in that the material in the parentheses (i.e. pour Jean ‘for Jean’) does not correspond to the implicit argument of the impersonal construction. Indeed, the individual experiencing the feeling of sadness cannot be Jean without leading to a contradiction. Rather, (34a) is felicitous only if it expresses the Speaker’s subjective emotional position with respect to the situation, an information that can be made explicit, as in (34c), where the first-person pronoun refers to the Speaker(s).12 (34) c. Il est triste (pour moi/nous) que Jean n’ait pas d’enfants. [Or, il n’a pas l’air de partager mon avis. Il dit être très heureux sans enfant.] It is sad (for me/us) that Jean not have.SUBJ any children. Yet he doesn’t seem to share my opinion. He says to be very happy without children. Hence impersonal constructions confirm our approach to subjunctive selection: when no external argument is associated with the emotive component, the latter is relayed on to the “Speaker”. But it is still the emotive feature which licenses the embedded subjunctive.

4.1.5.2

Modal Adjectives (Léger, 2006)

The set of adjectival predicates includes a large number of modal adjectives, grouped under (1f) above. These modals include nécessaire ‘necessary’, possible ‘possible’, probable ‘likely’, permis ‘allowed’, certain ‘be certain’, susceptible ‘susceptible’, capable ‘able’, among others. Their syntactic distribution is rather heterogeneous. First, while some of them, like certain, alternate between a personal and an impersonal construction (35), most actually only license the impersonal version (36)13:

12

Many thanks to a reviewer for pointing this out. It should be noted, though, that (34a) as given in Léger (2006) is perfectly acceptable. However, the parenthetical pour Jean does not express the Speaker’s perspective, but merely comments on the target of the feeling of sadness. 13 Capable (‘able’), susceptible (‘susceptible’) are exceptions to this, however, as they only license the personal version. These predicates, just like modal verbs, only select for an infinitive embedded clause: (i)

a. b.

(ii)

a. b.

George peut finir son papier. Georges can finish his paper *George peut que il/Léon finisse/finit son papier. G. can that he/Leon finish. 3SG.IND/SUBJ his paper Georges est capable/susceptible de finir son papier. Georges is able/susceptible comp finish.INF his paper *Georges est capable/susceptible que il/Leon finit/finisse son papier. G. is able/susceptible that he/Leon finish. 3SG.IND/SUBJ his paper

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(35) a. Il est certain que la terre est ronde. It is certain that the earth is.3SG.IND round ‘It is sure that the earth is round.’ b. Georges est certain que la terre est ronde. Georges is certain that the earth is.3SG.IND round ‘Georges is sure that the earth is round.’ (36) a. Il est nécessaire que Léon parte en vacances. It is necessary that Leon leave.3SG SUBJ in holidays ‘It is necessary for Leon to go on holiday.’ b. *Georgesi est nécessaire qu’ ili/Léon parte en vacances. Georges is necessary that he/Leon leave.3SG.SUBJ in holidays Léger (2006) claims that modal adjectives which appear in both personal and impersonal constructions have different semantic properties. In personal constructions, adjectives like assuré, certain, sûr will describe the Subject’s mental state (for example ‘certainty’) with respect to the eventuality of embedded clause. In impersonal constructions, the same adjectives are used to evaluate with what degree of probability the proposition denoted by the embedded clause is true or false. A second, highly relevant property of these predicates is that some of them take indicative embedded complements, such as certain ‘certain’ (35), others, nécessaire ‘necessary’, select subjunctive complements (36), and some, such as possible ‘possible’, probable ‘likely’, alternate between indicative and subjunctive embedded clauses: (37) a. Il est probable que Georges écrit son article. It is likely that Georges write.3SG.IND his article ‘It is likely that Georges is writing his article.’ b. Il est probable que Georges finisse son article. It is likely that Georges finish.3SG.SUBJ his article ‘It is likely that Georges will finish his article.’ Léger (2006) proposes that modal adjectives that take indicative complements (as in (35)) are epistemic adjectives. Modal adjectives selecting subjunctive complements are, on the other hand, used to make subjective judgments rather than truth value judgements, as in (36). Léger (2006: 103) claims that they therefore tend to be interpreted as deontic. She notes, for instance, that the predicate nécessaire ‘necessary’ can only have a deontic reading of necessity.14 Finally, adjectives like possible,

14

In that respect, Léger (2006) refers to Palmer (2001:89): “The word necessary itself is not used in an epistemic sense in ordinary language (as opposed to logical terminology). It would not be normal to say *It is necessary that John is in his office, although it is possible to say, in semi-logical language, It is necessarily the case that John is in his office. There is no problem with [. . .] possible—It is possible that John is in his office is perfectly normal.”

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which embed either a subjunctive or an indicative CP vary in meaning. When possible selects an indicative clause, Léger argues that it has an epistemic modality reading, in the sense that it indicates the possibility of truth/falsehood of the proposition as being neutral (50%–50%): (38) a. Il est possible que la Terre est ronde. It is possible that the earth is.3SG.IND round ‘It is possible that the earth is round.’ b. Il est possible que Jean est à Paris. It is possible that Jean is.3SGIND in Paris ‘It is possible that Jean is in Paris.’ Léger contrasts (38) with (39): she claims that when the embedded complement is in the subjunctive mood, possible has a deontic interpretation of material possibility (39a) or permission (39b): (39) a. Il est possible que Marie vienne, car elle n’a aucun rendez-vous. It is possible that Marie come.3SG.SUBJ, because she NE has no appointment b. Il est possible que Marie vienne, car sa mère lui permet de le faire. It is possible that Marie come.3SG.SUBJ, because her mother her allows to it do (Léger, 2006: 67, (117)) Léger’s analysis offers interesting insights into the indicative-subjunctive alternation. However, as observed by Léger herself, possible + subjunctive does not obligatorily yield a deontic reading. Consider (40): (40) Il est possible que Georges soit fâché, [il ne répond pas à mes appels.] It is possible that Georges is.3SG.SUBJ angry he NE answers not to my calls ‘It is possible that Georges is angry [he does not answer my calls].’ Therefore, the distinction between indicative and subjunctive selecting predicates is not related to the type of modality involved. In Sect. 4.2.1, we argue against this approach and show that the modal component itself works on another axis, independently of mood selection. On the other hand, Léger offers interesting observations with respect to these classes of predicates. First, recall that Léger claims that emotive adjectives can attribute a property either to an individual capable of emotion (personal construction) or to an event (impersonal construction). We have argued above that impersonal constructions induce a shift from the individual denoted by the external argument/Subject to the Speaker. Similarly, the context shows that (40) is felicitous as an expression of the speaker’s epistemic position, confirming that the impersonal construction shifts the attitude-holder from Subject to Speaker. Second, with respect to mood selection, Léger proposes that these adjectives behave like their non-modal counterparts (i.e. propositional or emotive adjectives), depending on the mood selected. In particular, she observes that when possible takes a subjunctive CP, it expresses a subjective judgment from the Speaker: the deontic

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interpretation of possibility and permission are related to a subjective judgment towards an event: “using deontic possible, the Speaker makes a personal judgment on the possibility of realization of an event, or on its permission.” (Léger, 2006: 10, our translation). It thus appears that personal involvement is the core common property of subjunctive selecting predicates. We would like to propose that this personal involvement, which may yield “subjective judgement”, is related to the notion of emotive that we have introduced in this chapter. It may not seem straightforward to support the claim that possible with the subjunctive mood is associated with some identifiable emotion. The same applies to nécessaire, or to probable, both modal adjectives, but also, we contend, to préférable (‘preferable’). We therefore need to refine and develop the notion of ‘emotive’ that we are positing here.

4.2

Decomposing the Subjunctive Mechanism

We have come to the conclusion that the occurrence of the subjunctive mood in the embedded clause is in tight connection with the set of properties exhibited by the external argument of the matrix predicate (and the Subject of the matrix clause). We now need to discuss the nature of these different properties and identify how they relate to the predicate itself. Moreover, as our discussion in the previous section has shown it, these properties do not form disjoint sets and are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they appear to function incrementally, suggesting that they are hierarchically organized. This in turn calls for a structural organization of the properties. Before we proceed to implement this idea, we will examine each property individually.

4.2.1

The Semantic Contribution of the Properties Associated with the External Argument

4.2.1.1

The Emotive Feature

Formal semantic accounts associate subjunctive mood with a shift from the Speaker’s epistemic world to a set of possible worlds associated with the Subject (see e.g. Quer, 2000; Farkas, 1992b, 1992c i.a.). However, as discussed in Chap. 2, Sect. 2.2.3, the notion of a set of possible worlds does not explain how the Subject is actually involved. We claim that it is the focus on the Subject’s attitude towards this set of possible worlds which induces subjunctive. As was discussed at length in Sect. 4.1, some predicates alternate between indicative and subjunctive embedded clause complements, and the alternation is associated with a difference in the external argument’s/Subject’s attitude. We have informally associated this attitude with an ‘emotive’ property. But in order to

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account for the distribution of all the predicates, we need to give a formal account of what the “emotive” component is. A first distinction, which is crucial to the approach and which, to our knowledge, has not been clearly made, is the one between the nature of emotions as “bodily sensations or feelings” (Deonna & Teroni, 2012: 2) which might arise as a reaction to some situation and the linguistic property of emotion. The linguistic description of the feeling itself may be encoded lexically in various predicates: (41) a. Léon is angry at Georges [because he is lazy]. b. Leon feels anger towards Georges [because of his laziness]. (42) a. Georges is surprised by Léon’s reaction. b. Georges feels surprise at Leon’s reaction. Therefore, a feeling of surprise is, by definition, to be distinguished from a feeling of fear, or anger. As a linguistic property, however, ‘emotive’ is not directly related to the feeling as described above. Rather, we would like to propose, an emotive property denotes the relevant individual’s (Subject or Speaker) explicit attitude toward a situation. We build on the notion of ‘emotive’ as discussed in Blochowiak (2014). Blochowiak argues that “emotive propositional attitudes (. . .) provide information about the emotional state of the speaker towards the state of affairs described by the embedded proposition” (2014: 173). So we are not dealing with feelings, but with how these are linguistically conveyed. Crucially, such an approach cannot be equated with what is generally associated with e.g. ‘emotive factives’, nor with a psychological category of ‘emotion’. In other words, ‘emotive’ refers to a category of states that are described by a linguistic category of attitude denoting predicates.15 Blochowiak (2014: 173) adds that “[a]ny emotional state has its polarity (negative or positive). This polarity tells us something about the experiencer’s wishes, i.e. her b[o]uletic attitude, which inherits the polarity of emotional states (w.r.t. eventuality described by the embedded proposition).” A formal definition of the emotive attitude is given in (43). (43) a. b. c. d.

15

x is in an emotional state s towards some eventuality e eventuality e x wishes or not that e occurs (cf. bouletic Op) e is desirable or not w.r.t. some corpus of rules (cf. axiological Op) (Blochowiak, 2014: 177, (274))

We also provide here Kiparsky and Kiparsky’s (1970) insightful definition of the notion of ‘emotive’: “Emotive complements are those to which the Speaker expresses a subjective, emotional, or evaluative reaction. The class of predicates taking emotive complements includes the verbs of emotion of classical grammar, and Klima’s affective predicates (Klima, 1964: 35) but is larger than either and includes in general all predicates which express the subjective value of a proposition rather than knowledge about it or its truth value” (Kiparsky & Kiparsky, 1970: 169).

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The relation between ‘emotive’ attitudes and a bouletic operator needs to be clarified. Let us take some of our prototypical predicates, which alternate between indicative and subjunctive embedded clauses: (44) a. Léon comprend que Georges prenne des vacances. Leon understands that Georges take .3SG.SUBJ DE holidays ‘Leon understands that Georges would take a holiday.’ b. Georges rêve que Léon reçoive le prix Nobel Georges dreams that Leon receive.3SG.SUBJ the prize Nobel ‘Georges dreams that Leon would receive the Nobel Prize.’ c. Il est possible que Léon reçoive le prix Nobel. It is possible that Leon receive.3SG.SUBJ the prize Nobel ‘It is possible that Leon should receive the Nobel Prize.’ As was discussed above, (44a) contrasts with its indicative-selecting counterpart in that Léon has an empathic attitude: he understands the reasons and has a positive attitude towards the eventuality denoted by the embedded clause. Clearly, the understand component (i.e. the mental process which leads to acknowledging the eventuality, i.e. Georges’ taking a holiday) is part of the core lexical meaning of the predicate. In addition, the positive attitude, which leads to an interpretation in terms of empathy (i.e. judging the eventuality as positive) rests on another component. Léon must take into account a set of potential situations, among which the current eventuality (Georges’ taking a holiday) is evaluated as desirable from Georges’ perspective with which Léon associates, resulting in a positive bouletic attitude. Similarly, in (44b), the verb rêver (‘dream’) embeds a subjunctive clause. In addition to the mental process involved in dreaming (i.e. forming a mental representation of non-existing situations) which corresponds to the core lexical meaning of the verb, the Subject Georges is also associated with an ‘emotive’ positive attitude. Indeed, among possible situations, the eventuality described in the embedded clause is judged as positive by the Subject and evaluated as desirable. Finally, (44c) illustrates an impersonal construction. The possibility of the eventuality p denoted by the embedded clause is again subject to some evaluation. This is what possibility is about: among several scenarios, the likelihood that p occurs is evaluated as (at least) 50% (see also Léger, 2006 for such a proposal, Sect. 4.1.5.2). But the occurrence of the subjunctive in the embedded clause signals that the evaluation is not a pure statistical one. The Speaker commits herself to a positive value of the eventuality, she has a (positive) bouletic attitude towards it. Note that a predicate like possible, which precisely denotes a ‘neutral evaluation’ (see Léger, 2006) does not necessarily involve a positive bouletic attitude. (45) shows that the polarity of the emotive state may be contextually modified: in this case, the Speaker has clearly a negative bouletic attitude, an attitude of non-desirability, towards the event: (45) Il est malheureusement possible que Léon reçoive le prix Nobel. It is unfortunately possible that Leon receive.3SG.SUBJ the prize Nobel ‘It is unfortunately possible that Léon will receive the Nobel Prize.’

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Similarly, what Léger describes as a deontic modality associated with impersonal nécessaire ‘necessary’ is actually a complex expression combining the modal force encoded in the lexicon of necessaire (strong modality or necessity), and the Speaker’s bouletic attitude toward the modal force associated with the event described in the embedded clause (desirabilty, in view of the circumstances): (46) Il est nécessaire que Georges prenne des vacances. It is necessary that Georges take.3SG.SUBJ DE holidays ‘It is necessary that George take a holiday’ Non-alternating predicates, including the “emotive factive” regretter (‘regret’) or heureux (‘happy’) also fit into our definition of ‘emotive’: (47) a. Georges regrette que Léon soit parti. Georges regrets that Leon is.3SG.SUBJ left ‘Georges regrets that Leon left.’ b. Georges est heureux que Léon soit parti. Georges is happy that Leon is.3SG.SUBJ left ‘Georges is happy that Leon left.’ Regretter (47a) is described as an (emotive-)factive verb whose embedded proposition is deemed true by the Subject of the matrix clause. However, we propose that it still introduces a set of possible situations among which the current one is evaluated as non-desirable. Indeed, the verb regretter indicates that the Subject Georges has an emotive attitude with respect to p because p is evaluated against other situations q, r, etc. describing worlds in which, e.g., Léon has not left. In this sense, the Subject of regretter has a negative bouletic attitude (wishing that p had not been the case). Similarly, a predicate like heureux (‘happy’) takes an argument which will have an emotive attitude towards the eventuality of the embedded clause. In (47b), the Subject Georges has a positive bouletic attitude towards the eventuality described by the embedded clause, the latter being desirable along a scale which includes other, less desirable situations. Note that the value may be situated anywhere along a positive/ negative scale and is often lexically encoded. The predicate surpris (‘surprised’) may express a positive, neutral or negative value with respect to expectations, while déçu (‘disappointed’) lexically encodes the assignment of a negative value.16 ‘Emotive’ predicates are thus predicates whose external argument (realized as the Subject of the matrix clause) denotes an individual having an attitude of positive or

16

Note that Swiss French varieties have a positive-valued version of décevoir (‘disappoint’), indicating unexpected positive outcome: (i)

J’ai été déçue en bien que le maire ait voté pour les pistes cyclables. I have been disappointed in good that the mayor has.3SG.SUBJ voted for the lanes cyclable ‘I have been positively surprised that the mayor voted in favor of cycling lanes.’

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negative desirability, or expectation, with respect to an eventuality. We propose the following definition of emotive attitude: (48) Emotive attitude The holder of an emotive attitude has some (positive of negative) expectation with respect to an eventuality based on an evaluation of other comparable eventualities The desirability is measured or evaluated against other possible situations along various scales. We therefore need to say a word about this notion of evaluation.

4.2.1.2

Evaluation

First, evaluation requires access to a set of similar, comparable items. In that sense, in order to have some evaluative contribution, a predicate must introduce a set of items within which the evaluative operation may apply. Tappolet (2014) notes that “Evaluative concepts let us describe and compare different things around us according to a great variety of criteria, corresponding to our diverse affective reactions and allowing for all sorts of nuance” (2014: 44). From a different perspective, but ultimately with a similar outcome, Bianchi et al. (2016) note that “While the main purpose of informative commitments is to rule out certain possible worlds, the purpose of an evaluative commitment is to signal the (in)congruence between the described state of affairs and a given ideal (stereotypical, bouletic, or what have you)”. (2016: 3:29).17 The question we also need to address is related to the comparison operation itself. At first sight, evaluation as comparison involves reference to a value. The value may be ascribed by what Bianchi et al. call ‘a given ideal’, but it may also be based on ‘norms’. Martin (2014), building on Umbach (2014), observes that evaluative judgements come in two flavors: those labelled ‘universal’ strongly rely on norms shared by the relevant set of individuals or social group.18 They may be “debatable”, as they thus appear to be normative and can be subjected to debate, raising thus “genuine disagreement”. The evaluative judgements labelled as ‘subjective’ are by 17

Recall from Chap. 2, Sect. 2.2.2.1 that Villalta’s (2000 and subsq) approach also integrates the notion of comparison. However, while her analysis builds on the consequences of the comparison in terms of a focusing strategy within the embedded clause, we argue that the subjunctive is licensed under the condition that the matrix predicate itself encodes a given property, namely [emotive] which is associated with the external argument of the predicate. 18 This position may appear to blur the line between a deontic modal content and an evaluative one. However, as pointed out by Tappolet (2013), normative concepts fall into two distinct categories. Evaluative (or axiological) terms, as expressions of evaluative concepts, are usually used to assess the value of states of affairs, indicating thus the position of the Speaker/Subject in terms of approval, mostly in the line of what Bianchi et al. call a ‘given ideal’. Deontic terms, on the other hand, are used to indicate what must be done, without necessarily involving the Speaker/Subject’s position with respect to the norm.

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essence private. They correspond to the Subject’s attitude and are not intended to enter the common ground. We propose that these are the ones which enter into the components of emotive predicates. Working from a different angle with the purpose of investigating the nature of emotions, Deonna and Teroni (2012) propose that emotions feed on evaluative attitudes. They contend that “to each type of emotion, there corresponds a distinct type of evaluative attitude” (2012: 77). They argue that emotions may be deemed “correct” or “incorrect” as a “function of whether or not their object possesses the relevant evaluative property” (2012: 83). We can thus consider that emotive attitudes require evaluative attitudes. However, the reverse is not true, since, as Deonna and Teroni also recognize, evaluative attitudes need not be emotive: “Fortunately, we do not need to go through full-blown emotional experiences each time we make justified evaluative judgments” (2012: 121). We therefore propose that while emotive attitudes build on evaluative ones, the reverse is not the case, leading to an asymmetrical relation between the two. The axiological component proposed by Blochowiak in her definition of emotive turns out to be in perfect adequation with our own analysis. Although the scope of this study is the realm of subjunctive embedded clauses, we have proposed that indicative embedding predicates can also be grouped according to their various features. We bear at the back of our minds that subjunctive selecting predicates involve some evaluative property. However, predicates which do not select subjunctive might also resort to some kind of evaluation since, as Deonna and Teroni claim, not all evaluation requires to be emotion-driven. Typically, a predicate like possible + ind can be argued to have an evaluative feature (see Léger, 2006, and our discussion around example (46) above). While it has become clear that an evaluative feature is necessarily part of the feature composition of subjunctive embedding predicates because the emotive feature as we have defined it crucially builds on some axiological property, the evaluative property is not, per se, a crucial discriminating factor, and a full investigation of the matter is left for future research.

4.2.1.3

Volition

Finally, we also need to say a word about the notion of ‘volition’. The previous discussion may have introduced some potential misunderstanding, in that we have proposed that the emotive feature is actually an instantiation of desirability associated with a bouletic operator. Typically, the class of verbs which we proposed to be associated with the ‘volition’ feature borrowed from Dowty (1991) and which include ‘future-referring’ and directive predicates such as desirer (‘desire’) and ordonner (‘command’) may be argued to be the prototypical desirability denoting predicates. Recall however that the notion of emotive developed here adopts a very narrow definition of desirability, in that the Subject entertains some expectation with respect to an eventuality based on an evaluation of other comparable eventualities. We have shown that the eventuality may even be an actual one, but the expectation is based on what could or should have been the case. The class of future-referring

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predicates crucially needs the desirability component. However, we propose that in addition, predicates which include a volition feature introduce another component, namely a willingness of the external argument/Subject that the eventuality denoted by the embedded clause obtain. Compare (49a) and (49b): (49) a. Léon préfère que Georges écrive des poèmes. Leon prefers that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ de poems ‘Leon prefers Georges to write poems.’ b. Léon souhaite que Georges écrive des poèmes. Leon wishes that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ de poems ‘Leon wishes Georges to write poems.’ In (49a), Léon has what we have defined as an emotive attitude, in that he considers a set of possible eventualities, among which he ranks the one described in the embedded clause as the most desirable. Whether Georges actually writes poems or not is not clear and is not the object of Léon’s emotive state. In (49b), Léon similarly considers possible eventualities and ranks them according to his subjective evaluation. But in addition, he is also committed to some extent to making this happen. Typically, desiring, wishing or even commanding are different degrees in which the Subject of the matrix clause expresses a volitional attitude. Dowty (1991) introduces the notion of volition as acting (or refraining from acting) with a deliberate intention. While preferring is a matter of personal feelings, wishing involves a deliberate intention that p obtain. We contend that the emotive and the volitional features are two distinct properties, and that the volitional feature depends on the emotive one, but not vice-versa. Therefore, predicates like preferer (‘prefer’) come with the feature [emotive], while predicates like souhaiter (‘wish’) include the features [emotive] and [volitional].

4.2.2

A New Typology

In the previous sections, we have argued in favor of an approach to predicates as a collection of specific features. We have also shown that among these features, the one labelled ‘emotive’ appears to be determinant in the triggering of the subjunctive mood. That predicates are collections of properties is as such not new. However, given that these features seem to enter into asymmetrical dependency relations, in that some of them crucially build on other ones in a non-reciprocal way, we will develop an analysis of predicates as a hierarchical structure of features. We will propose that each predicate is syntactically built from its different features in a functional sequence ( fseq, see Chap. 2, sect. 2.4), and that the more features a predicate contains, the larger its fseq. Before launching into this enterprise, let us take stock and review our typology of predicates. Because, as was already observed in the previous sections, the current

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categories of predicates do not always present a homogeneous behavior with respect to clausal selection, we propose the following new classification19:

a

(50) New Typology of predicates CL1: dire ‘say’, informer ‘inform’, observer ‘observe’ CL2: savoir ‘know’, réaliser ‘realize’, se rappeller ‘remember’, possible + IND ‘possible’, penser ‘think’, croire ‘believe’, espérer + IND ‘count on, consider, reckon’, rêver + IND ‘dream’; imaginer + IND ‘imagine’; comprendre + IND (‘understand, realize’) CL3: regretter ‘regret’, content/heureux ‘happy’; comprendre + SUBJ ‘understand the reasons why, empathize’, espérer ‘hope’,a rêver + SUBJ ‘(strongly) hope’, préférer ‘prefer’, possible + SUBJ ‘possible’; étonnant ‘surprising’ CL4: vouloir ‘want’, désirer ‘desire’, souhaiter ‘wish’

Recall from Sect. 4.1.4.1 that espérer is one of these verbs with speaker variations. Many speakers prefer the indicative complements in all contexts

What the table generated by the feature-based typology also shows is that syncretic predicates exhibit a minimal difference in meaning, which corresponds to the addition/removal of one feature. Recall that NS uses syncretism as a tool to discover the atoms of syntax, and how they are organized with respect to each other in the fseq. Syncretism reveals linear order, as it is always constrained by adjacency in a paradigm (Caha, 2009) (Table 4.4). Tables 4.5a–c, illustrate how some of the predicates may be syncretic, exhibiting two slightly different meanings. We focus on possible, espérer and comprendre. Syncretic predicates vary by one feature and involve only adjacent cells in the paradigm. This shows that the set of features is organized: être possible ‘be possible’, as well as espérer and rêver, or comprendre can be cognitive or cognitive + emotive. Crucially, each meaning shift is achieved by a verb shifting from one cell to the next. This gives us clear indications about the sequence of features. Since a meaning shift occurs from one cell to the other, we are able to establish the (linear) ordering of the features within the paradigm. Because we have no instance of predicates which would shift from the features ‘sentient’ to ‘emotive’ ignoring ‘cognitive’, for example, or ‘cognitive’ to ‘volitional’ bypassing ‘emotive’, etc., we conclude that the linear ordering of the features is as given. In addition, the semantics associated with these features tell us that the set of features or properties is obviously organized in a containment relation. We have seen above a number of semantic arguments supporting the idea that the predicates belonging to CL4 are composed of volitional,

19

To avoid misunderstandings, we will not assign contentful labels to the categories, and will use a neutral “class” term.

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Table 4.4 New typology of embedding predicates, features and mood selection

Table 4.5a Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with (être) possible

Table 4.5b Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with espérer

Table 4.5c Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with comprendre

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emotive, cognitive and sentient features, predicates of CL3 exhibit the emotive, cognitive and sentient features and that predicates belonging to CL1 are only composed of the sentient feature. We conclude that the sentient feature, which is common to all the predicates under scrutiny here, occurs at the lowest end of the fseq. This is so because ‘sentient’ is unmarked, it is featurally the simplest (as opposed to ‘volitional’). Syncretism and semantic containment thus reveal the underlying fseq of the initiator part of embedding predicates. It is given in (51): (51) The fseq of CP embedding predicates volitional > emotive > cognitive > sentient The hierarchy in (51) consists of privative features which are built cumulatively on top of each other in the fseq. CL1–4 are in superset-subset relations with one another. Crucially, predicates may lexicalize different portions of the fseq (by the Superset Principle, see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.4.2.6.1). This is shown in (52).

4.3

Predicate Structures

The discussion of the previous section has led us to a typology of predicates based on the set of features they instantiate. We have proposed that in French, predicates which select a subjunctive clause contain at least the [emotive] feature. Table 4.4 in the previous section shows that predicates which have an emotive feature also have a cognitive feature and a sentient feature. In addition, a subclass of emotive predicates also encodes a volitional property. In order to establish a formal link between the properties of a predicate and the presence of an experiencer with the relevant features, we adopt an approach to event decomposition initiated by Ramchand (2008a, b). Ramchand argues for a strong isomorphism between syntax, semantics and morphology. She proposes that (dynamic) verbs are decomposed into subparts, where “each projection corresponds to a sub-event with its own predicational subject position, and linked by the generalized ‘leads- to’ or ‘cause’ relation” (Ramchand, 2008b, 118). She argues that the events denoted by a predicate can be decomposed into sub-events. Crucially each sub-event of a predicate is associated with a specific syntactic head, and the different heads build up to form a functional sequence (fseq).

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Among these heads, she identifies the Initiation, that is, the existence of a causing sub-event. The external argument of a predicate may be ‘agentive’, it is an initiator. (53) INITIATOR: entity whose properties/behavior are responsible for the eventuality coming into existence (Ramchand, 2008a: 31). Note that Ramchand’s definition enables to include various types of initiators, which may all be related to the notion of “agentive” in some flexible way. Ramchand also observes that stative verbs do not involve an initiator, but an argument which is the theme of predication. We adopt the spirit if not the letter of Ramchand’s approach, and we propose that arguments may realize other features. Since we are dealing with attitude denoting predicates, we will not expect any “causer” in the original sense. Rather, the predicational Subject positions will be occupied by the entity involved in various sub-parts of the predication, as the holder of the relevant attitude. In such a context, situations/eventualities may occur under the condition that the entity associated with their coming to existence has one or several of the properties described previously. In order to understand how they may be implemented, we have to decompose the predicate into its subparts.

4.3.1

Cognitive and Sentient Features

In Sect. 4.1, we argued that predicates selecting for an embedded subjunctive clause are necessarily cognitive and sentient predicates. Therefore, they necessarily contain the features [cognitive] and [sentient]. The structure thus builds upon the structure projected by these features. The sub-event associated with the [sentient] feature is an argument of the sub-event associated with the [cognitive] feature. Minimally, all cognitive verbs contain the two projections corresponding to the two sub-events (in other words, all cognitive predicates also involve sentience). The external argument will be licensed by the features, in that it needs to be a sentient entity, which enters into a cognitive activity.20 We propose that each of these features heads a little vP. The sub-event associated with each head will be a state, and the external argument of these predicates will not be an entity which “causes” an eventuality to come to existence, but an entity which “is affected by” an eventuality.

20

Note that it also has an evaluative attitude with respect to the event expressed in the complement clause. Indeed, in the previous section, we suggested that evaluation may also play a role in the semantics of cognitive verbs. However, the axiological component might not be a separate feature as such. We thus choose not to integrate this property in the fseq, leaving the issue for future research.

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(54)

4.3.2

The Emotive Feature

As was discussed above, emotive predicates contain a feature associated with the sub-event that we described as corresponding to the ‘desirability’ attitude. An ‘emotive’ participant will then have to be associated with a bouletic component. We propose that the bouletic operator is the head of a little vP. The sub-event associated with the head will be a state as well, and the external argument of these predicates will not be an entity which “causes” an eventuality to come to existence, but an entity which entertains some desire—or expectation—that an eventuality be the case. Such predicate structures will then come with a little v realising the [bouletic] part. (55)

The core of the bouletic sub-event predicate is the little v. Since embedded subjunctives occur with predicates whose external argument is not the direct causer of the eventuality but may experience it due to some emotive attitude, we propose that it is the bouletic component which licenses the subjunctive. Eventualities whose initiator is associated minimally with a bouletic component, syntactically expressed as an [emotive] feature, will thus select an embedded clause in which the Mood feature is licensed.

(56) Embedded subjunctive licensing Subjunctive mood is licensed by a predicate which is minimally associated with a bouletic operator, syntactically realized as a feature [EMOTIVE] As was also discussed in the previous section, the bouletic component builds on the cognitive component. The structure is therefore as follows, with the vP headed by the bouletic operator taking vPcogn as its complement:

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(57)

4.3.3

The Volitional Feature

Finally, we need to account for the differences between CL3 and CL4 predicates of our new typology (50). In addition to containing an emotive property, some futureoriented verbs include the idea of ‘volition’. The distinction between desire and volition was discussed in Sect. 4.3.3. Clearly our predicates here do not refer to actual actions but to attitudes. Therefore, we claim that desire predicates come with the requirement that their external argument have a volitional attitude (i.e. a position which shows the will to realize p). We propose that they encode yet another feature, [volitional], which heads another v layer and assigns its argument the relevant property: (58)

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Therefore, the external argument of the volitional sub-event will be the individual associated with the volitional attitude.21 The head v contains a volitional mood operator, which also appears in optatives and other related constructions (see Ammann & van der Auwera, 2004).

4.3.4

Verbs Alternating Between Subjunctive and Indicative

The prototypical French examples of verbs which alternate between indicative and subjunctive embedded clauses are repeated below for the reader’s convenience: (59) a. Léon comprend que Georges écrit des romans de gare. Leon understands that Georges writes.3SG.IND de novels of station ‘Leon understands that Georges writes dime novels.’ b. Léon comprend que Georges écrive des romans de gare. Leon understands that Georges write.3SG.SUBJ de novels of station. ‘Leon understands that Georges would write dime novels.’ While the external argument of the indicative selecting version cannot totally be associated with the notion of “active” (or “agentive”), it can still fit Ramchand’s definition of an initiator as given in (50). We will then consider that what makes the difference is the size of the fseq built by the various v levels. When vemot is not projected, the structure does not have a modal component. In other words, it will not give access to a possible set of situations which can be assessed as desirable by the participant corresponding to the external argument. Therefore, subjunctive is not licensed. When it contains a [emotive] feature, the predicate has additional properties which, we claim, lead to the selection of an embedded subjunctive. So the difference between the two versions of comprendre lies in the fseq of the predicate. (60a) corresponds to the cognitive, indicativelicensing version, and (60b) to the emotive, subjunctive licensing one:

That ‘volition’ is an individual component of the structure seems to be confirmed by languages which have a separate volitional affix. See e.g. Hindi, where volition is marked with an ergative case (Witzlack-Makarevich, 2001):

21

(i)

(ii)

Ram kʰãs-a Ram.MASC.NOM cough.PRF.MASC.SG [Involitive (NOM) Case] ‘Ram coughed.’ Ram -ne kʰãs-a [Volitive (ERG) Case] Ram.MASC -ERG cough.PRF.MASC.SG ‘Ram coughed (purposefully).’

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(60)

The two structures differ in terms of size: (indicative) comprendre1 is smaller than comprendre2. But crucially, as emerges clearly from our structures, comprendre1 is included in comprendre2. Therefore, we are not dealing with two completely different predicate structures, but rather with two versions of a predicate which stand in a containment relation. In Nanosyntactic terms, they are syncretic (i.e., they have the same form, but different features). The structures we are presenting here are based on the idea that (little) v, i.e. the initiation part of an event, can be decomposed into more atomic features, which are hierarchically organized. The decomposition we propose concerns only the initiator part, but we are aware of the fact that the other (ramchandian) sub-events may also undergo similar decompositions. We leave the question open for future research.

4.4 Summing up

4.4

117

Summing up

In this chapter, we explored the differences in the syntactic and semantic properties between indicative and subjunctive selecting verbs. This led us to revise the verb classes previously considered and conflate some of them, creating a new typology of four classes of predicates relevant to mood selection (50 above). The new classification enabled us to draw a clear line between indicative selecting (CL1, CL2) and subjunctive selecting (CL3, CL4) predicates. We crucially built our investigation of these properties on French embedding predicates involving mood alternation, such as rêver ‘dream’, accepter ‘accepter’, admettre ‘admit’ and comprendre ‘understand’. This led to the discovery that the alternation is associated with a difference in the external argument’s/Subject’s attitude. When they take the indicative mood, alternating verbs license an external argument involved in some mental activity requiring cognitive abilities. When they take the subjunctive mood, these verbs express some empathic attitude from the matrix Subject. We have associated this attitude with an ‘emotive’ property. Given that the cognitive and emotive properties are related to the external argument of the predicates, we further explored the relevant set of features which are associated with each class of predicates. We showed that verbs taking the indicative mood are sentient (CL1), or sentient and cognitive (CL2). Verbs taking the subjunctive mood have, in addition to the sentient and cognitive meanings, an emotive reading (CL3) and can also, in addition, encode a volitional meaning (CL4)). We proposed that sentient, cognitive, emotive and volitional are individual, primitive features, in semantic containment relationships (Table 4.4). Based on Ramchand’s (2008) initial approach to verbal decomposition, we proposed a hierarchical organization of the features (59), which corresponds to the structure of the fseq of the embedding predicates. Some of our predicates, typically our alternating verbs, are syncretic. With this featural approach in mind, we turn in Chap. 5 to the implementation of our analysis to Romance languages, focussing on micro-variations, and to Balkan languages. Finally, we apply the same approach to Hungarian, a non-Indo-European language which we use as a testing ground.

Chapter 5

Cross-linguistic Variation

Abstract In this chapter, we implement our analysis of subjunctive as the reflex of an emotive feature in the different languages of our study. We first focus on French, applying our theoretical framework to the various cases. We then tackle variation within the group of Romance languages (in particular French and Italian), examining the predicates in the light of our revised typology. We also deal with Balkan languages, which, as was mentioned previously, exhibit important surface differences with respect to Romance languages. We show that our approach is able to account for the distribution and realization of embedded subjunctives in these languages as well. However, it appears that ‘emotive factives’ in Balkan languages resist our approach. A detailed discussion of these is postponed to Chap. 6. Finally we turn to embedded subjunctives in Hungarian. We use the language as a testing ground for our system, and reach the conclusion that the Hungarian data, as the Balkan one, passes the test satisfactorily on most aspects, making thus an important step towards confirming the validity of our approach. Again, we postpone the detailed analysis of the problematic cases to Chap. 6.

In this chapter we examine how the approach presented in Chap. 4 can account for the manifestation of subjunctive cross-linguistically. In particular, we will show that both cross-linguistic variation and intra-linguistic micro-variation is determined by the way the functional sequence ( fseq) is packaged. After a brief reminder of our proposal, we focus on the relevant set of predicates in Romance languages (French and Italian) and on the syncretisms which will enable us to identify micro-variation (Sect. 5.2). We then examine in detail representatives of the Balkan languages, using the same methodology (Sect. 5.3). Finally, we turn to Hungarian, a language we claim is at the intersection between Romance languages and Balkan languages (Sect. 5.4).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Baunaz, G. Puskás, A Cross-linguistic Approach to the Syntax of Subjunctive Mood, Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04540-0_5

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5.1 5.1.1

5 Cross-linguistic Variation

Our Core Proposal: Mood as Feature-Based Selection Where We Stand

We have seen in Chap. 2 that French marks mood on the embedded verb. This is shown in (1) and (2) with the verbs être ‘be’. The embedded verb has indicative morphology in (1) and subjunctive morphology in (2). (1) Léon dit que Georges est à l’heure. Leon says that Georges is.IND on time (2) Léon ordonne que Georges soit à l’heure. Leon orders that Georges be. SUBJ on time Recall that there are several classifications for embedding predicates on the market. In Chap. 4, we have argued that a standard semantic classification of embedding verbs is misleading, as it makes distinctions which are irrelevant to mood selection. As an alternative, we showed that what is relevant to mood selection is the feature composition of these predicates on their initiator axis, i.e. on what type of external argument they license. We had already reached the conclusion that veridicality (or factivity) is not the crucial factor to mood selection in French. Therefore, this distinction does not appear in our feature set. We showed that: (i) verbs taking the indicative mood are bare [sentient] (dire ‘say’), or [sentient + cognitive] (savoir ‘know’, penser ‘think’, comprendre ‘understand, realize’, etc.). (ii) verbs taking the subjunctive mood have, in addition to their sentient and cognitive component, an emotive property. They can be [sentient + cognitive + emotive] (comprendre ‘understand, empathize’, espérer ‘expect, hope’, rêver + SUBJ ‘(strongly) hope’) or include a volitional feature and be thus [sentient + cognitive + emotive + volitional] (vouloir ‘want’, souhaiter ‘wish’). As directive predicates (ordonner ‘order’, exiger ‘request’) also express volition, they might not need to be distinguished as a separate category.1 We ended Chap. 4 with a new typology of predicates selecting embedded clauses, based on these features, which is presented in (3). The correlation between the feature set and subjunctive mood is repeated here in Table 5.1. 1

However, directives also include causation, which suggests that they may be more complex, but in a different, non-relevant dimension. It is clear that directives, the prototypical subjunctive selectors or ‘core subjunctives’ (see Kempchinsky, 2009; Sočanac, 2017, i.a.) are endowed with features that are relevant to our discussion. We nevertheless assume that from the subjunctive perspective, they do not differ from verbs like want or wish. Given that they appear to have other, non-relevant features, we decide not to focus on them in our analysis. However, whatever is said about the relation between a matrix predicate and its embedded clause in terms of subjunctive selection must necessarily be valid for directive predicates as well.

5.1 Our Core Proposal: Mood as Feature-Based Selection

121

Table 5.1 Classes of embedding verbs in French, features and mood selection CL1

CL2

CL3

CL4

Senent

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cognive

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Emove

No

No

Yes

Yes

Volional

No

No

No

Yes

Indicave

Subjuncve

(3) New Typology of predicates: French CL1: dire ‘say’, informer ‘inform’, observer ‘observe’ CL2: savoir ‘know’, réaliser ‘realize’, se rappeller ‘remember’, possible + IND ‘possible’, penser ‘think’, croire ‘believe’, espérer + IND ‘count on, consider’, ‘reckon’, rêver + IND ‘dream’; imaginer + IND ‘imagine’; comprendre + IND ‘understand, realize’ CL3: regretter ‘regret’, content/heureux ‘happy’; comprendre + SUBJ ‘understand the reasons why, empathize’, espérer ‘hope, expect’, rêver + SUBJ ‘(strongly) hope’, préférer ‘prefer’, possible + SUBJ ‘possible’; étonnant ‘surprising’ CL4: vouloir ‘want’, désirer ‘desire’, souhaiter ‘wish’ The investigation of French embedding predicates, summarized above, leads us to our core proposal, expressed in (4) below: (4) Feature-based mood selection (i) predicates can be classified according to the properties of their external argument (ii) different external arguments are licensed by the presence/absence of a (set of) feature(s) on the predicates (iii) (part of) the meaning of the predicate builds on the (cumulative) contribution of the features (iv) the features stand in a containment relation and are hence hierarchically organized (v) when predicates are syncretic (same form), the meaning only shifts by one feature (minimally different meaning) along the scale provided by the feature hierarchy (vi) crucially, mood selection occurs at the divide between two specific features, cognitive and emotive

122

5 Cross-linguistic Variation

This has led us to propose the following hierarchical organization of the features: (5) The fseq of CP embedding predicates volitional > emotive > cognitive > sentient

5.1.2

Potential Problems

Our proposal, with its strong predictions, appears to raise several potential problems related to the relatively flexible cross-linguistic variation in subjunctive embedding verbs. It has repeatedly been observed (cf. Quer, 2009) that some predicates, which do not select embedded subjunctives in French do so (at least to some degree) in other Romance languages. This is the case of verbs like croire vs credere ‘believe’ in Italian, for instance: (6) a. French Léon croit que Georges est le portier. Leon believes that Georges is.3SG.IND the doorman ‘Leon believes that Georges is the doorman.’ b. Italian Giovanni crede che Maria sia la presidente. Giovanni believes that Maria is. 3SG.SUBJ the president ‘Giovanni believes that Maria is the president.’ French croire selects an indicative embedded clause. In Chap. 4, we argued that Modern French croire actually corresponds to verbs like savoir ‘know’ in that it involves a cognitive rather than an emotive external argument. Italian has apparently a different behavior. Predicates like credere belong to the class of verbs, listed in Serianni (1972, cited in Stack exchange), which express desire, expectation, fear, etc. According to our analysis, it is expected to select a subjunctive clause. This suggests that in fact, the two predicates in the two closely related languages are not exactly equivalent. Alternating verbs may also vary from one language to the next. For instance, a verb like pensare ‘think’ exhibits the alternation described above for French comprendre: (7) a. Palazzeschi e pensare che erano costrette a cucir loro le camicie. and think that they were-IND constrained to sew their shirts b. Fondagni mi parve una sciocchezza pensare che qualcosa potesse andare male. to-me seemed a stupidity to think that something can.SUBJ go wrong [From Seriani 1972, glosses ours]2

2

Cited in http://italian.stackexchange.com/questions/6925/doescredere-che-need-alwayssubjunctive.

5.2 Micro-variation in Romance Language

123

In this chapter we show that just as a shift in meaning corresponds to moving from one cell to the other in French, similar switches appear cross-linguistically. More specifically we propose that these shifts in meaning always correspond to cases of syncretism, and that they involve adjacent cells in our table, both within one language and cross-linguistically. Crucially, we show that the divide in mood selection occurs at the border between the cognitive and emotive cells, confirming that subjunctive mood is licensed in emotive contexts. Section 5.2 focuses on the analysis of subjunctive selecting predicates in Romance languages. Section 5.3 focusses on Balkan languages and Sect. 5.4 discusses the case of Hungarian. We leave the complex issue of emotive factives for Chap. 6.

5.2

Micro-variation in Romance Language

In this section we discuss the case of Italian, and we show that appropriate contexts reveal that counterexamples are only apparent. Like French, Italian has alternating predicates such as capire ‘understand’, which can select for either indicative or subjunctive embedded clauses. Just like in French, the choice of mood correlates with a change in meaning in the matrix predicate. When capire selects an embedded tensed clause, it may be interpreted in three different ways, correlating, in part, with mood variation: capire + IND is interpreted as involving a mental activity, as in (8a). When capire takes the subjunctive mood, it is also interpreted as a mental activity, but in addition, it acquires an emotive reading (8b, c). Additional examples with the pure cognitive (9a) and the emotive reading (9b) are given below.3 (8) a. Giorgio non è stupido: capisce che la terra è / *sia rotonda. Giorgio not is stupid: understands that the earth is.3SG.IND/* SUBJ round ‘Giorgio is not stupid: he understands that the earth is round.’ b. Giorgio sa che Leo deve prendere l’ultimo treno : capisce che Leo parta adesso. Giorgio knows that Leo has take.INF the last train: understands that Leo leave. 3SG.SUBJ now

3

Note that the embedded verb in (i) can be marked indicative, as an informant tells us. But if it is the case, the emotive reading disappears, and only the cognitive reading shows up. In (8c) the context is richer than in (i) and the pure cognitive reading, with the indicative embedded verb, is degraded. (i)

Giorgio è una persona empatica : capisce che Leo abbia bisogno di sostegno. G. is an individual empathetic: he understands that L. have.3SG.SUBJ need of support. ‘Giorgio is an empathetic person: he understands that Leo needs support.’

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5 Cross-linguistic Variation

Table 5.2 Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with capire CL1 Senent

CL2

CL3

capire ‘realize’

capire

CL4

‘understand, empathize’

Cognive Emove Volional Indicave

Subjuncve

‘Giorgio knows that Leo has to take the last train: he understands that Leo would leave now.’ c. Giorgio è una persona empatica: capisce che Leo abbia/ ?? ha bisogno di tempo e gli offre tutto il sostegno possibile. Giorgio is a person empathetic: understands that Leo have. 3SG.SUBJ/IND need of time and to-him offers all the support possible. ‘Giorgio is an empathetic person: he understands that Leo needs time and offers him all the support possible.’ (9) a. Dopo averglielo spiegato per delle ore, Gianni capisce che Maria ha ammazzato il gatto con cattivieria. after have-to.him-it explained for hours, Gianni understands that Maria has.3SG.IND killed the cat with wickedness ‘After explaining it to him for hours, Gianni realizes that Maria has killed the cat with malice.’ b. Capisce che Gianni abbia voluto comprare una macchina cosi in fretta, ma sarebbe stato meglio non farlo. Understand that Gianni has.3SG.SUBJ wanted buy.INF a car such in hurry, but would have been better not do.it ‘She understands that Gianni wanted to buy a car so quickly, but it would have been better not to have done so.’ Capire, like comprendre, is thus syncretic between CL2 and CL3, as illustrated in Table 5.2 by the shaded areas. We now turn to the different categories of predicates, and examine how they behave with respect to mood selection. Crucially, our discussion will focus on predicates which exhibit mood alternation.

5.2 Micro-variation in Romance Language

5.2.1

125

Emotive Factives

Some other Italian emotive factive predicates behave like capire in optionally taking the indicative or the subjunctive mood. It is the case for dispiacere ‘regret’ and essere contento ‘be happy, be content’.4,5 By default, in out-of-the-blue contexts, the subjunctive mood is requested under these predicates (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997 i.a.). Yet, setting the adequate context can force the realization of the embedded clause as an indicative mood.6,7 We show that the two readings discussed so far (cognitive and emotive) are both available with these predicates, depending on the context of utterance. We attribute this to the fact that the two meanings are embedded one in the other. Starting with dispiacere, we see that the emotive reading makes it synonymous to be sad, as shown in (9a), where the be sad reading is highlighted by the continuation. The indicative mood is impossible in the complement clause:8

4

This fact has also been noticed by Giannakidou and Mari (2016b) for essere contento: (i) Sono contento che tu sia/sei qui. Be.1SG.PRES happy that you be.2SG.SUBJ/be.2SG.IND.here. ‘I am happy that you are here.’ (Giannakidou & Mari, 2016b, (12)). 5 Giorgi The and Pianesi (1997) note that Catalan factive emotive verbs can take either mood. 6 This is the case, even for Italian speakers from Roma. We thank Andrea Cattaneo for helping us with the data and with setting up the right contexts. 7 Note that emotive factives in French are usually described as incompatible with the indicative mood. As native speakers of the language, we both prefer the subjunctive mood under these predicates. But Siegel (2009) notes in passing that some speakers mildly accept the following examples: (i).

(ii).

Ça me plait que les étudiants soient venus en classe. It 1SG.DAT please.3SG that the students be.3PL.SUBJ came in class ‘It pleases me that the students came to class. ? Ça me plait que les étudiants sont venus en classe. It 1SG.DAT please.3SG that the students be.3PL. IND came in class ‘It pleases me that the students came to class.’ (Siegel, 2009, p. 1969, (32))

Among speakers consulted, there is no strong consensus. While one of the authors strongly rejects (ii), the other one does not completely exclude it. Speaker variations are indeed expected. 8 Dispiacere can actually come with a range of negative emotive readings equivalent to ‘be annoyed/saddened/disappointed’, as highlighted by the continuation: (i) A Giorgio dispiace che Leo abbia comprato una macchina, perché non sarebbe stato necessario. A Giorgio regrets that Leo has.3SG.SUBJ bought a car, because not would have-been necessary. ‘Giorgio is sorry that Leo bought a car because it wouldn't have been necessary.’

126

5 Cross-linguistic Variation

(10) a. A Giorgio dispiace che Leo abbia comprato una macchina senza riflettere, e in effetti ha pianto tutta la notte. To Giorgio regrets that Leo has.3SG.SUBJ bought a car without thinking, and in fact has cried all the night ‘Giorgio regrets that Leo bought a car without thinking, and in fact cried all night.’ b. * A Giorgio dispiace che Leo ha comprato una macchina senza riflettere, e in effetti ha pianto tutta la notte. To Giorgio regrets that Leo has.3SG.IND bought a car without thinking, and in fact has cried all the night In contrast, dispiacere has an apologize reading, made accessible through the continuation (11a). In this case, the emotive reading is absent and, as shown in (11b), the subjunctive is impossible. (11) a. ? A Giorgio dispiace che Leo ha comprato la macchina senza riflettere, ma non è colpa sua. A Giorgio regrets that Leo has.3SG.IND bought the car without thinking, but not is fault his ‘Giorgio regrets that Leo bought the car without thinking, but it's not his fault.’ b. * A Giorgio dispiace che Leo abbia comprato la macchina senza riflettere, ma non è colpa sua. a Giorgio regrets that Leo has.3SG.IND bought the car without thinking, but not is fault his Similar facts are found with essere contento, as presented in (12a, b) for the emotive reading and (12c) for the bare cognitive reading (where essere contento is translated as ‘be content’): (12) a. Giorgio è contento che Leo abbia comprato la macchina rossa, e in effetti fa i salti di gioia. Giorgio is happy that Leo has.3SG.SUBJ bought the car red, and in fact do the jumps of joy ‘Giorgio is glad that Leo bought the red car, and in fact is making leaps of joy.’ b. Giorgio è contento che Leo abbia comprato la macchina rossa, ma avrebbe preferito che l’avesse comprata gialla. Giorgio is happy that Leo has.3SG.SUBJ bought the car red, but would. have preferred that it would.have bought yellow ‘Giorgio is happy that Leo bought the red car, but he would have preferred for him to buy it in yellow.’ c. Giorgio è contento che Leo ha comprato la macchina, anche se non gli è stato chiesto il suo parere/anche se in realtà per lui non cambia niente.

5.2 Micro-variation in Romance Language

127

Giorgio is content that Leo has.3SG.IND bought the car, even if not to. him is been asked the his opinion/even if in reality for him not change anything ‘Giorgio is content/satisfied that Leo bought the car, even if he wasn't asked for his opinion/even if in reality nothing changes for him.’ At this point, the reader might ask what it means for an emotive predicate to be ‘non-emotive’, i.e. cognitive: indeed, ‘emotive factives’ being by definition ‘emotive’, the emotive reading is at the core of the conceptual meaning of these predicates, and the ‘cognitive’, non-emotive reading of dispiacere or essere contento seems rather counterintuitive. Recall that according to NS, a lexical entry pairs phonology, syntax (SMS), and conceptual (extralinguistic, pragmatic) information. Emotive factive predicates provide the presupposition that the embedded clause is true, but also express a variety of states within the family of ‘emotions’: REGRET, BE HAPPY, BE SURPRISED. We assume that these predicates always encode an emotive dimension, i.e., the intrinsic “emotive” reading of these predicates belongs to the conceptual side of the lexical item (see Chap. 2). In this sense, their emotive component is inherent and cannot be erased. But we propose that the notion of ‘emotive’ we have defended so far, is different. These predicates, like all the predicates we have discussed so far, may lexicalize an emotive feature, the syntactic instantiation of the bouletic operator, which describes an attitude of desirability of the external argument/Subject. As was also proposed above, this feature has a syntactic value, in formally licensing a given external argument. Typically, when dispiacere comes with the [emotive] feature, the emotive component has to be associated with the external argument/Subject, as in (9a), and provides the reading that the situation is non-desirable for the Subject. When the predicate lacks the emotive feature, as in (11a), it conveys an intrinsically emotive (lexical) meaning, but does not reflect any attitude of (non-) desirability of the Subject’s. This means that dispiacere is syncretic between CL2 and CL3, as illustrated in Table 5.3 by the grey zones. The same is true of (essere) contento (Table 5.4). Table 5.3 Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with dispiacere CL1

CL2

CL3

Senent

dispiacere

dispiacere

Cognive

‘apologize’

‘be sad’

Emove Volional Indicave

Subjuncve

CL4

128

5 Cross-linguistic Variation

Table 5.4 Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with essere contento CL1

CL2

CL3

Senent

essere contento

essere contento

Cognive

‘be content’

‘be happy’

CL4

Emove Volional Indicave

5.2.2

Subjuncve

Cognitive Non-factives

Let us now turn to cognitive non-factive predicates. In the literature, these verbs, e.g. credere ‘believe’ and pensare ‘think’, are subjunctive selecting predicates, unlike their French counterparts. (13) a. Italian (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997, p. 199, (19a)) Mario crede che Andrea abbia mangiato. Mario thinks that Andrea has.3SG.SUBJ eaten. b. Italian (Costantini, 2009, p. 20, (5a)) Gianni pensa che pro*1/2 legga molti libri. Gianni1 thinks that pro*1/2 read. 3SG.SUBJ many books ‘Gianni1 thinks that he*1/2/she reads many books’ However, it turns out that pensare allows for both indicative and subjunctive complements (see Costantini, 2009, for instance). As for credere it seems that subjunctive mood is favored, although the indicative mood can be promoted and accepted, as be will shown below (see Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997 for a discussion, see also Siegel, 2009, referring to Saltarelli, 1974). These verbs are thus mood alternating verbs which can switch from one cell to the other, as in French. According to our approach which associates mood selection with specific features, it is therefore predicted that these predicates will display at least two readings, correlating with mood selection. This prediction is borne out. Consider the two sentences in example (14): (14) a. Giorgio pensa/crede che Leo è partito alle otto, e infatti lo ha visto uscire dal garage con l’auto. Giorgio thinks/believes that Leo is.3SG.IND left at eight, and in fact him has seen leaving from the garage with the car ‘Giorgio thinks/believes that Leo left at eight, and in fact saw him leave the garage with the car.’

5.2 Micro-variation in Romance Language

129

Table 5.5 Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with cognitive non-factives CL1

CL2

CL3

Senent

pensare/credere

pensare/credere

Cognive

‘think, believe’

‘think, believe’

CL54

Emove Volional Indicave

Subjuncve

b. Giorgio pensa/crede che Leo sia partito alle otto, ma non può giurarlo. Giorgio thinks/believes that Leo is.3SG.SUBJ left at eight, but neg can swear it ‘Giorgio thinks/believes that Leo left at eight, but cannot swear it.’ For those speakers who accept indicative under credere/pensare, two concomitant facts emerge: (i) the embedded clause is presupposed to be true by the Subject of the matrix clause and (ii) the Subject is actively resorting to some mental activity to support the creed. The first fact is interesting in itself, and surprising, as pensare/ credere are not usually considered as factive verbs (in any languages we know of).9 As factivity is not our topic of study we leave this question aside for now (but see Siegel, 2009 for discussion, see also Baunaz & Lander, 2021b for an analysis). The second fact is in accordance with what is expected for cognitive verbs: the predicate has a cognitive reading. With a subjunctive embedded clause, the cognitive reading is still active. Yet, in addition to that cognitive meaning, there is an emotive reading: Giorgio has a certain number of alternatives which cause him to evaluate (and hence assign a ‘desirability scale’ to) why Leo left.10 Italian pensare/credere, which occupy the CL2 and CL3 columns, realize the sentient and cognitive features (CL2) and the sentient, cognitive and emotive features (CL3). This is indicated in Table 5.5 below.

5.2.3

Fiction Verbs

Fiction verbs in Italian and French diverge as to the mood they select: according to the literature, sognare ‘to dream’ only selects for indicative complements in Italian. Recall that French rêver may select either (see Chap. 4, Sect. 4.1 for details): 9

An informant tells us that this version is only possible if Giorgio is certain that Leo left. We assume that this account for the loss of the factive reading.

10

130

5 Cross-linguistic Variation

Table 5.6 Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with immaginare CL1

CL2

CL3

Senent

immaginare

immaginare

Cognive

‘think’

‘hope, esmate’

CL4

Emove Volional Indicave

Subjuncve

(15) a. Italian (Giorgi & Pianesi, 1997, p. 202, (26a)) Gianni ha sognato che Pietro ha/*abbia ricevuto il premio Nobel. Gianni dreamed that Pietro has.3SG.IND/SUBJ received the Nobel Prize. b. French Georges rêve que Léon reçoit/reçoive le prix Nobel. Georges dreams that Léon receive.3SG.IND/SUBJ the Nobel Prize Just as with French rêver (‘dream’), the emotive reading emerges when the embedded predicate expresses a future event with respect to the event of dreaming. In (15a), the predicate cannot convey the emotive meaning, because the embedded clause refers to a past event (which, by definition, cannot be hoped for). Giorgi and Pianesi (1997) report that Italian immaginare ‘imagine’ can select both the subjunctive and the indicative mood. In (16), we show that immaginare can have two readings, corresponding to the cognitive (immaginare ¼ ‘think’) and the emotive reading (immaginare ¼ ‘hope’), respectively. The two readings also correlate with two different temporal relations, the subjunctive embedded clause realizing a present tense with a futurate meaning. (16) a. Giorgio immagina che Leo si è alzato presto come tutte le mattine. Giorgio thinks that Leo refl. is.3SG.IND gotten up early as all the mornings ‘Giorgio imagines (¼thinks) that Leo got up early like every morning.’ b. Giorgio immagina che Leo venga in suo aiuto stasera, così da non dover affrontare i suoi genitori da solo. Giorgio hopes that Leo come.3SG.SUBJ to his help tonight, so that to not have to face his parents alone ‘Giorgio imagines (¼hopes) that Leo will come help him tonight, so that he does not have to face his parents alone.’ This reveals, once again, a case of syncretism: Italian immaginare can lexicalize the sentient and cognitive features (CL2), and the sentient, cognitive and emotive features (CL3). Table 5.6 shows the syncretism.

5.3 Micro-variation in Balkan Languages

131

Table 5.7 Classes of embedding verbs in French and Italian, features and mood selection CL1

CL2

CL3

CL4

Senent

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cognive

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Emove

No

No

Yes

Yes

Volional

No

No

No

Yes

Indicave

Subjuncve

The discussion above leads to the conclusion, based on syncretism and semantic containment, that Italian predicates selecting tensed embedded clauses can be reclassified as in (17). (17) New Typology of predicates: Italian CL1: dicere ‘say’... CL2: sapere ‘know’, realizzare ‘realize’, ricordarsi ‘remember’, pensare ‘think’, credere ‘believe’, immaginare + IND ‘imagine, think’, sognare ‘dream’, capire + IND, contento + IND ‘content’, dispiacere ‘displease, appologize’ CL3 contento + SUBJ ‘happy’, dispiacere ‘displease’, sperare ‘expect, hope’, capire + SUBJ ‘understand, empathize’, immaginare + SUBJ ‘imagine, estimate, hope’, credere + SUBJ, pensare + SUBJ, . . . CL4: volere ‘want’, desiderare ‘desire’. . . Italian and French predicates behave very similarly when it comes to mood selection: the CL1 and CL2 predicates select indicative complements, CL3–4 select subjunctive complements (see Table 5.7) : We note that syncretism always occurs between two adjacent cells, that is, predicates which exhibit a shift in meaning always do so because one feature is added/removed from their feature-set along the fseq established in Chap. 4 and repeated in (5) above. Linguistic variation with respect to mood selection thus boils down to lexical variation since it depends on how the (same) fseq is packaged, i.e. realized as one syncretic or two distinct lexical items.

5.3

Micro-variation in Balkan Languages

A close scrutiny of Balkan languages reveals that they pattern with the Romance languages discussed above. Crucially, verbs can be classified according to the features identified here, and meaning shifts result from the addition or deletion of

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features, one by one. Moreover, like in Romance languages, some verbs are syncretic and can switch from one meaning to the next, following the linear ordering established by syncretic patterns and semantic containment. For ease of exposition, we will use Modern Greek and Bulgarian as the prototypical cases for Balkan languages. Greek and Bulgarian display three so-called complementizers equivalent to English that, namely pu/oti/na (Modern Greek) and deto/če/da (Bulgarian), while Serbian and Croatian tend to have only da, with some varieties accepting što either with emotive factives (Torlakian Serbian, Croatian, Serbian) or with cognitive factives (Torlakian Serbian).11 When necessary, other languages will be used to illustrate the variation. The different types of Balkan predicates discussed here are given in (18) for Modern Greek and (19) for Bulgarian. In addition, we give the equivalents for Serbian (and Croatian) in (20). Note that we do not discuss ‘control subjunctives’ which occur with modal verbs, and aspectuals/implicatives, since these constructions may involve atypical syntactic and semantic patterns “in the context of the cross-linguistic properties of the subjunctive mood” (Sočanac, 2017, p. 162). Typically, Romance languages will have non-finite clause in these contexts.12,13 (18) A typology of Modern Greek predicates a. verbs of saying: leo ‘say’, dhiavazo ‘read’, isxirizome ‘claim’ b. cognitive non-factives: pistevo ‘believe’, nomizo ‘think’ c. cognitive factives: gnorizo ‘know’, anakalipto ‘discover’, thimame ‘remember’ d. fiction verbs: onirevome ‘to dream’, fandazome ‘imagine’ e. Emotive factives: lipame, metaniono ‘regret’, xerome ‘be glad’ f. future-referring: thelo ‘want’, elpizo ‘hope’ (19) A Typology of Bulgarian predicates14 a. verbs of saying: kazvam ‘say' b. cognitive non-factives: vjarvam ‘believe’, mislja ‘think’ c. cognitive factives: znam ‘know’, otkrivam 'discover, findout’, pomnja ‘remember’ d. fiction verbs: sanuvam ‘dream’, predstavja si ‘imagine’ 11

Torlakian Serbian is a variety spoken in the Niš area. Verbs of fear will not be discussed here either, because in both Modern Greek and Serbian, these verbs select for subjunctive complements with control (A. Roussou and T. Sočanac, p.c). The Croatian version of (ii) would involve the non-finite form of swim (T. Sočanac, p.c): (i) Fovame na ton antimetopiso (Modern Greek) fear.2SG NA him confront-1SG “I fear/am afraid to confront him”. (ii) Bojim se da plivam. (Serbian) fear1SG. DA swim.1SG. 13 We refer the reader to Chap. 2, Sect. 2.1.2.3 for more details, and to Sočanac (2017) and Todorovic (2012) for more recent analyses of these pattern in the context of subjunctive mood cross-linguistically. 14 The verbs in Bulgarian are given with their 1p morphology, since Bulgarian does not use the infinitive morphology (T. Sočanac, p.c.). 12

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e. emotive factives: sâžaljavam ‘regret’, tužno mi e ‘be sad’ (lit. sad to-me is), radvam se ‘be glad, happy’ f. future-referring: iskam ‘want’, nadjavam ‘hope’ (20) A Typology of Serbian (and Croatian) predicates15 a. verbs of saying: reći ‘say’, tvrditi ‘claim’ b. cognitive non-factives: v(j)erovati ‘believe’, misliti ‘think’ c. cognitive factives: znati ‘know’, otkriti ‘discover’, s(j)ećati se ‘remember’ d. fiction verbs: sanjati ‘dream’, zamišljati ‘imagine’ e. emotive factives: biti drago (be sad), žaliti ‘regret’, biti zadovoljan ‘be glad’, biti sretan ‘be happy’ f. future-referring žel(j)eti ‘want’, nadati se ‘hope’ Again, we will consider the different categories of predicates in turn. One major difference with respect to Romance languages lies in the fact that Balkan languages do not have ‘subjunctive’ morphology per se. Therefore, the diagnostics will be based on the form of the complementizer introducing the embedded clause, as well as on indirect semantic evidence.

5.3.1

Verbs of Saying

Verbs of saying in Balkan languages are similar to their Romance counterparts (and to the French ones in particular). They do not take subjunctive complements, as attested by the tense marking (past) and, in some languages, the choice of the complementizer (see Chap. 3): (21) a. Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009) O Pavlos ipe oti i Roxani efije. the Paul said.3SG that the Roxanne left.3SG ‘Paul said that Roxanne left.’ b. Serbian/Croatian (Baunaz, 2018, p. 217, (2c)) Pavao je rekao da je vidio Mariju. Paul AUX.PST.3SG say.PST.PART that AUX.PST.3SG see.PAST.PART Mary c. Bulgarian (Baunaz 2018, p. 217, (2d)) Pavel kaza, če e vidjal Mary. Paul said that he saw Mary ‘Paul said that he saw Mary.’ The verbs in Serbian and Croatian are given in their infinitival forms. Recall that “SerboCroatian” is split up into several varieties. One of the markers of distinction is the pronunciation of the jat phoneme (Old Slavic). It is pronounced / e / in Serbian and /je/ - /ije/ in Standard Croatian (T. Sočanac, p.c.). For instance, the verb ‘believe’ in (19b) is translated by ‘vjerovati’ in Croatian and by ‘verovati’ in Serbian (etc.). We give here the two variants, using parentheses where relevant. We thank T. Sočanac for helping us with these data.

15

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Table 5.8 Modern Greek CL1

Table 5.9 Serbian/Croatian CL1

Sentient Cognitive Emotive Volitional

Sentient Cognitive Emotive Volitional

Table 5.10 Bulgarian CL1 Sentient Cognitive Emotive Volitional

CL1 leo ‘say’

CL1 reći ‘say’

CL1 kazvam ‘say’

Verbs of saying, which involve sentient Subjects only, occupy the CL1 slot as in Romance. This is shown in Tables 5.8, 5.9, and 5.10 for the three Balkan languages under study here.

5.3.2

Cognitive Predicates

Balkan languages pattern differently from Romance languages, in that cognitive verbs (verbs of knowledge and verbs of belief), and fiction verbs do not take subjunctive complements, i.e. they are not alternating verbs. Giannakidou (2013) provides the following examples for Modern Greek (23–2). Additional examples from Bulgarian are presented in (25–26): (23) Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2013, p. 6, (16)) O Nicholas pistevi oti/*na efije i Ariadne. the Nicholas believes.3SG that/SUBJ left.3SG the Ariadne ‘Nicholas believes that Ariadne left.’ Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2013, p. 6, (17)) O Nicholas kseri oti/*na efije i Ariadne. the Nicholas knows.3SG that/SUBJ left.3SG the Ariadne ‘Nicholas knows that Ariadne left.’

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Table 5.11 (Some) Modern Greek CL2 predicates Sentient Cognitive Emotive Volitional

CL1 leo ‘say’

CL2 pistevo ‘believe’, nomizo ‘think’, gnorizo ‘know’

Non-subjunctive Table 5.12 (Some) Bulgarian CL2 predicates Sentient Cognitive Emotive Volitional

CL1 kazvam ‘say’

CL2 vjarvja ‘believe’, mislja ‘think’, znam ‘know’

Non-subjunctive

(24) Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2013, p. 6, (18)) O Nicholas onireftike oti/*na efije i Ariadne. the Nicholas onireftike.3SG that/SUBJ left.3SG the Ariadne ‘Nicholas dreamt that Ariadne left.’ (25) a. Bulgarian (Tomislav Sočanac (pc)) Ivan vjarva če/*da Marija e bremenna. Ivan believe that/SUBJ Maria is pregnant b. Bulgarian (Siegel, 2009, p. 1871, 39a) Mislja če/*da Paulina e izjala tortata. think.1SG that/SUBJ Paulina be.3SG eaten cake.DEF (26) Bulgarian (Smirnova, 2012, p. 1, (2)) a. * Znam [Maria da pee]. know.IMPERF.1SG.PRES Maria SUBJ sing.IMPERF.3SG.PRES Intended: ‘I know that Maria sings.’ b. Znam, [če Maria pee]. know. IMPERF.1SG.PRES that Maria sing.IMPERF.3SG.PRES ‘I know that Maria sings.’ These predicates all involve a cognitive exercise from a sentient Subject, suggesting that they belong to the CL2 class presented above for Romance. This is shown in Tables 5.11 and 5.12. Interestingly, in very restricted situations (1SG matrix Subject, non-negated context, present tense in the matrix), cognitive verbs may select for a subjunctive complement:

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(27) Modern Greek (Roussou, 1999, p. 173, (11a)) Pistevo na fiji. believe.1SG SUBJ leave.PNP.3SG ‘I believe that he will leave.’ (27) resembles the Italian subjunctive under pensare/credere discussed in the previous section, suggesting that Modern Greek pistevo may also come with an emotive semantics (an informant gets a ‘hope’ reading of pistevo in this context) and that it can thus be syncretic. Note that a similar pattern is found with Bulgarian vjarvja ‘believe’:16 (28) Bulgarian a. Iskreno vjarvam, če v tozi mač šte ima sportmenstvo. ‘I sincerely believe that that game will have sportsmanship.’ b. Bulgarian (Mitkovska & Bužarovska, 2015, p. 191, (4)) [Mnogo mi se iska da e taka] i iskreno vjarvam da se sluči v maksimalno kratki srokove! I really want this to be true and I sincerely believe SUBJ to happen in the shortest possible time.’ As Serbian/Croatian exhibit syncretic complementizers most of the time, cognitive factives are obviously allowed with da. Todorovic (2012) notes about Serbian that in cases where da takes a complement whose verb shows PNP marking (Perfective Non-Past, see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.1.2), one can safely conclude that there is a subjunctive meaning. This is the case in (29), where misliti ‘think’ is interpreted as plan, i.e. as a future-referring predicate: (29) Serbian (Todorovic, 2012, p. 106, (3a)) Mislim da napišem pismo. Think.1SG da write.PNP.1SG letter ‘I think (plan) DA write a letter.’ In other words, these verbs exhibit syncretism as CL2 and CL3 predicates, as illustrated in Tables 5.13 and 5.14. Cognitive factive verbs (i.e. gnorizo ‘know’, anakalipto ‘discover’, thimame ‘remember’, etc.) may also select for alternating complements with oti/pu. Some examples are given below: (30) a. Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2011, p. 3, (6))) O Janis paraponethike pu/oti /*na ton ksexasa. the John complained.3SG that/SUBJ him forgot.1SG ‘John complained that I forgot him.’

16

Although this is very restricted and Bulgarians do not readily accept the da-version, cf.(26a) above.

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Table 5.13 Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with Modern Greek pistevo CL1 Senent Cognive

CL2

CL3

pistevo ‘believe’, nomizo ‘think’

pistevo ‘believe’, nomizo ‘think’

Emove Volional Non-subjuncve

Subjuncve

Table 5.14 Syncretism in CL2–CL3 with Bulgarian pomnja and vjarvja CL1 Senent

CL2

CL3

vjarvja ‘believe’

vjarvja ‘believe’

Cognive Emove Volional Non-subjuncve

Subjuncve

b. Modern Greek (Giannakidou, 2009, p. 1887, (9)) Thimame pu/oti ton sinandisa sto Parisi. remember.1SG that him met.1SG in the Paris ‘I remember that I met him in Paris.’ However, the distinction does not appear along the mood axis as in Romance. Indeed, na is not acceptable in (30a).17 Rather, we observe an alternation involving the complementizers oti and pu. When pu is selected, there is a strong tendency to get a “strong subjective dimension” (Giannakidou, 2009), in that the sentence with the pu version has a “highly emotional flavor, as if one ‘recalls with the senses’ rather 17 Note that na may occur with thimame, as shown in (i), but crucially with Subject control. (i) is a case of control subjunctive, a construction we do not elaborate on in this book. (i) Eghó thimáme na se ghnórisa stin ekdhromí sto ghalaksídhi. I remember.PRS.1SG NA you.ACC know.PERF.PST.1SG at.DEF excursion to.DEF Galaxidi. ‘I seem to remember that I got to know you at the excursion to Galaxidi’ (Hedin, 2016, p. 160: (13)).

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than purely mentally” (Giannakidou, 2013, p. 17). More generally, thus, the content of pu-complements has been described as being directly perceived (Christidis 1982, see also Giannakidou, 1998; Siegel, 2009; Roussou, 2010, 2020 i.a.), as opposed to the one depicted by oti-complements. Christidis’ intuition is based on the type of examples in (31), featuring the cognitive factive predicate forget: (31) a. Modern Greek (Angelopoulos, 2019, p. 217, (60)) Ksehasa oti ton iha sinadisi s-to Parisi. forgot.1SG that 3SG.ACC had.3SG met in the Paris ‘I forgot that I had met him in Paris.’ b. Ksehasa pu ton iha sinadisi s-to Parisi. forgot.1SG that 3SG.ACC had.3SG met in the Paris ‘I forgot that I had met him in Paris.’ According to Christidis (1982), ksehno ‘forget’ is purely cognitive with oti, but emotive with pu. Another, more explicit example given by Christidis (1982) involves the perception verb idha ‘see’: when idha takes oti, the content of the clause does not need to be (directly) perceived. Idha has a cognitive meaning. When idah takes pu, the content of the pu clause must have been perceived directly, as in (32b), by the 1SG Subject: (32) a. Modern Greek (Angelopoulos, 2019, p. 218, (61)) Idha oti efighe. saw.1SG that left.3SG b. Ton idha pu efighe. 3SG.ACC. saw.1SG that left.3SG ‘I saw him leaving’ The direct (pu) vs. indirect (oti) distinction is also present with thimame ‘remember’ (see (30b) above). In (33a), the Subject is actively trying to find in her memory a recollection of the event depicted by the embedded oti-clause. Modification by after a lot of effort shows that the recollection requires thinking, and is thus indirect (or more remote). The Subject is prominently active in a mental activity. In (33b), recollection is direct, immediate and involuntary, hence the impossibility to modify the verb with the PP. (33) Modern Greek (Angelopoulos, 2019, p. 218, (62)) a. Thinmithika (istera apo poli prospathia) oti ton icha sinadisi s-to Parisi. Remembered.1SG after from a lot of effort that 3SG.ACC had.1SG met in the Paris. ‘I remembered after a lot of effort that I had met him in Paris.’ b. Thinmithika (*istera apo poli prospathia) pu ton icha sinadisi s-to Parisi. Remembered.1SG after from a lot of effort that 3SG.ACC had.1SG met in the Paris ‘I remembered after a lot of effort that I had met him in Paris.’

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To bring to light the different readings, Roussou (2020) applies a test similar to the one we used in Chap. 4 to highlight the cognitive reading of ‘cognitive’ verbs. In (34), modification with me dhiskolia ‘with difficulty’ is only possible with oti, not with pu:18 (34) Modern Greek (Roussou, 2020, p. 614, (7)) a. Thimame me dhiskolia, oti milises sti Maria. remember.1SG with difficulty that talked.2SG to the Mary ‘I remember, with difficulty, that you talked to Mary.’ b. # Thimame me dhiskolia, pu milises sti Maria. remember.1SG with difficulty that talked.2SG to the Mary ‘I remember, with difficulty, that you talked to Mary.’ Roussou (2020) notes that the meaning distinction is very thin, but highlights the fact that it corresponds to the distinction in English between that-clauses and Acc-ing infinitive clauses under remember, as in (35): (35) a. I remember Georges running around the house naked. b. I remember that Georges ran around the house naked. (35a) has a subjective meaning, à la Giannikidou (2013, p. 17, cited after (30b)), in that it presents the point of view of the Subject rather than describing a factual state of affairs in the world. It contrasts with (35b), a clause which denotes an independent proposition. On the basis of this parallelism, we tentatively propose that cognitive factive predicates selecting pu yield a reading parallel to the English -ing reading (we come back to this in Chap. 6). Importantly, the different readings do not correspond to a loss of “factivity”. As Roussou (2010) explains it: A verb like thimame (remember) can take either oti or pu as its complement. A factive reading can be available with oti presumably due to the semantics of the matrix predicate (we remember/recall events that have somehow taken place). However, while the content of the oti-complement can be denied, e.g. ‘I remember that he used to read a lot, but this may be a wrong recollection’, no such continuation is possible when pu is present, without yielding a pragmatically odd output. In the context of a verb like thimame, the distinction between an

18

Elaborating on an earlier proposal (Roussou, 2010) that complementizers are nominal element (internal argument of the matrix verb) selecting for CP, Roussou (2020) argues that Modern Greek distinguishes between two types of complement clauses: oti-clauses, which are ‘direct’ complement clauses, and pu-clauses, which are ‘oblique’ complement clauses. Roussou (2020) also shows that the distinction between pu and oti is not one of factivity, but rather of referentiality (see Haegeman & Ürögdi, 2010). This information is, according to her, located in a D-layer, above N. So when oti is selected under factive predicates, as in (35a) the structure includes a (presuppositional) D layer (factive oti ¼ D