Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Richard W]

I think that ultimately I was too uncomfortable with the idea of verbs having object agreement only when the full noun phrase is not present, [...]

I’m not sure why you say only here - in the French examples, you can analyse it as verbal agreement whether or not the explicit object is present. Just as Spanish still has subject agreement in both ayudo and yo ayudo, French object agreement is the same across je t’aide and je t’aide toi.

Ser's point is that the clear justification for treating je t’aide as having object agreement is the existence of je t’aide toi. Only agreeing with something if it is missing from the sentence is weird.

[caedes]

Generally speaking, are there any actual reasons why the pronominal object markers in Romance languages are so often called clitics and not affixes, if not for orthographic reasons only? A morpheme that always attaches to the same host looks quite like an affix to me.

[Kuchigakatai]

I’m not sure why you say only here - in the French examples, you can analyse it as verbal agreement whether or not the explicit object is present. Just as Spanish still has subject agreement in both ayudo and yo ayudo, French object agreement is the same across je t’aide and je t’aide toi.

Yes, that's what I originally said too, to steelman his example of French. But the interesting thing was that Zompist's argument didn't rely on this, but rather on a number of other behaviours about je t'aide itself, without even considering je t'aide toi at all. That's why we had a little argument and then he convinced me.

Ser's point is that the clear justification for treating je t’aide as having object agreement is the existence of je t’aide toi. Only agreeing with something if it is missing from the sentence is weird.

I thought calling it "object agreement" is weird, because it's not what we normally talk about when we say "object agreement", but there is merit for it in some languages. In French you can't coordinate verbs on them (*je t'écoute et aide should be the mannered je t'écoute et t'aide if not the more neutral je t'écoute et je t'aide [ʃtekut e ʃtɛd] 'I listen to you and I help you'). Meanwhile, English, unlike French and Spanish, even allows pronouns to coordinate on an unrepeated verb: "I thought I could save you, and you me".

Generally speaking, are there any actual reasons why the pronominal object markers in Romance languages are so often called clitics and not affixes, if not for orthographic reasons only? A morpheme that always attaches to the same host looks quite like an affix to me.

I'm only really familiar with Spanish and French, but I see various reasons for it in Spanish that likely apply to much of Romance as well, even if they don't in French (French being a more atypical kind of Romance).

In Spanish they have some freedom to hop up in "linked" finite+infinitive verbs. Quiero verte ~ Te quiero ver both mean 'I want to see you'; even though te modifies ver, it can jump up the syntax tree and superficially appear to modify quiero instead. They can also do so across links with the prepositions a and de too: Vuelvo a verte ~ Te vuelvo a ver 'I see you again', Dejas de llamarme ~ Me dejas de llamar 'You stop calling me', Tengo que verte ~ Te tengo que ver 'I have to see you', although not with con and por: Insisto en verte ~ *Te insisto en ver 'I insist on seeing you', Comienzo por hacerlo ~ *Lo comienzo por hacer 'I begin by doing it'. No such thing in French.

Spanish also allows coordinating verbs on pronouns: Te veo y oigo 'I see you and listen to you' (which French hardly allows), although more commonly we say Te veo y te oigo.

Phonologically and semantically, Spanish clitic pronouns are also completely stable. They have none of the odd phonetic irregularities you find elsewhere in the affixes of Spanish, such as the 2PL -ois of sois 'you guys are' (instead of would-be-regular *seis), or irregular plurals like carácter ~ caracteres [kaˈɾaɣteɾ kaɾaɣˈteɾes] (weird stress shift) and inglés ~ ingleses (instead of *los inglés; the derivational suffix -és presents a regularized exception to the exception of -s stems having identical plurals: el lunes, los lunes, el cumpleaños, los cumpleaños). Meaning-wise, they're also very predictable. French pronouns are completely stable too though.

Phonologically, though, French singular pronouns often reduce to a single consonant (also ils [z] before a vowel), even though French doesn't allow words to consist of a single consonant segment (unless they're interjections, which are a world of their own). Je l'aime [ʒlɛm] 'I love him', tu assumes [tasym] ("t'assumes") 'you assume', ils ouvrent [zuvʁ^ə] ("z'ouvrent") 'they open'. The Spanish clitic pronouns have shapes that are more adequate for words rather than affixes: me, lo, te, los.

There is very clearly a demarcation between verbs with affixes forming a word and any pronoun clitics attached to it, with the pronoun clitics being unable to go in between the affixes and the verb. It's lo rehice 'I re-did it', not *re-lo-hice, and lo deshice 'I undid it', not *des-lo-hice. Spanish and French are the same here though.

[akam chinjir]

In Spanish they have some freedom to hop up in "linked" finite+infinitive verbs. Quiero verte ~ Te quiero ver both mean 'I want to see you'; even though te modifies ver, it can jump up the syntax tree and superficially appear to modify quiero instead.

Ah, you can't do that in French? (I used exactly that as an example over in bradrn's ergativity thread, but using the wrong language, apparently.)

[zompist]

Meanwhile, English, unlike French and Spanish, even allows pronouns to coordinate on an unrepeated verb: "I thought I could save you, and you me".

Nice example! I am definitely opening a new file now for things to put in the next edition of my syntax book.

[Richard W]

Meanwhile, English, unlike French and Spanish, even allows pronouns to coordinate on an unrepeated verb: "I thought I could save you, and you me".

Nice example! I am definitely opening a new file now for things to put in the next edition of my syntax book.

I'm doubtful about the use of 'em in such a clause.

[bradrn]

Meanwhile, English, unlike French and Spanish, even allows pronouns to coordinate on an unrepeated verb: "I thought I could save you, and you me".

Nice example! I am definitely opening a new file now for things to put in the next edition of my syntax book.

I'm doubtful about the use of 'em in such a clause.

When did anyone use 'em? I can’t find that in any of the above posts.

[Kuchigakatai]

Meanwhile, English, unlike French and Spanish, even allows pronouns to coordinate on an unrepeated verb: "I thought I could save you, and you me".

Nice example! I am definitely opening a new file now for things to put in the next edition of my syntax book.

Just for completion, Spanish can do it with stressed pronouns though... It might also be possible in French somehow, but I don't know.

Creí que podía ayudarte, y tú también a mí.
'I thought I could help you, and [also] you me.'

For some reason, the sentence sounds a lot worse if I don't use también... Syntax is a strange land. Curiously, I do remember a certain infamous song where también is not used:

Te quiero yo, y tú a mí, somos una familia feliz...
'Í love yóu, and yóu love mé, wé're a háppy fámilý...'

...but normally this is not very felicitous. ?Yo te extraño y tú a mí sounds a lot worse than Yo te extraño y tú también a mí 'I miss you, and you miss me'.

I'm doubtful about the use of 'em in such a clause.

When did anyone use 'em? I can’t find that in any of the above posts.

Well, if you adapt it with "'em"... I think "them" would work ("I thought I could save you, and you them"), but I probably don't need to say it.

[zompist]

I assume he means that we can't say

*I thought they could save me, and me 'em.

Which I agree with, but I think it's a stress phenomenon. For me at least, the final word in the above construction is stressed, and stressed 'em becomes them.

Now, in a derivative of English, 'em might absolutely become cliticized, and separate from them. This happened in Tok Pisin, where -im has been reanalyzed as a transitive marker-- wok 'work' > wokim 'make, build'.

[akam chinjir]

Meanwhile, English, unlike French and Spanish, even allows pronouns to coordinate on an unrepeated verb: "I thought I could save you, and you me".

Nice example! I am definitely opening a new file now for things to put in the next edition of my syntax book.

Just for completion, Spanish can do it with stressed pronouns though... It might also be possible in French somehow, but I don't know.

The pronouns are also stressed in English, fwiw. (Maybe this explains the comment about "'em"? Edit: and of course zompist just said this, and I somehow didn't see the post.)

A corollary of that is that you'd normally use, say, "me" rather than "I" for the subject: "I thought you could same me, and me you."

[Whimemsz]

A corollary of that is that you'd normally use, say, "me" rather than "I" for the subject: "I thought you could same me, and me you."

I think this is probably due to the fact that this sort of construction is mostly literary and not spoken (and perhaps in some amount due to prescriptivism penetrating my brain), but I don't agree with that intuition. "...and I you" sounds much more natural to me than "...and me you".

[akam chinjir]

Ah, interesting.

I've actually been wondering recently how variable this is. There's a view, that's a bit appealing to me and might be right of my own English, that English is marked nominative language (in pronouns), more precisely that you only get "I" (etc) when it's the subject of a verb, and otherwise you get "me" (etc), with exceptions being mostly considered prescriptivist hypercorrection.

Though in this particular case, maybe there's an elided verb?

How do you feel about "Me and Sam went to the shop" vs "I and Sam went to the shop" vs "Sam and I went to the shop"? (The middle one seems definitely wrong to me.) "Me" vs "I" vs "I did" as an answer to a question like "Who went to the shop?"

[bradrn]

Ah, interesting.

I've actually been wondering recently how variable this is. There's a view, that's a bit appealing to me and might be right of my own English, that English is marked nominative language (in pronouns), more precisely that you only get "I" (etc) when it's the subject of a verb, and otherwise you get "me" (etc), with exceptions being mostly considered prescriptivist hypercorrection.

I mentioned much the same thing in my ergativity thread, although I was a bit cautious about concluding that English was definitely marked nominative:

Another ambiguous example is English, in which the accusative pronoun me is functionally unmarked relative to the nominative pronoun I — yet English is never termed a marked nominative. It appears that a language must have an accusative which is consistently and unambiguously both formally and functionally unmarked to qualify as a ‘marked nominative’

How do you feel about "Me and Sam went to the shop" vs "I and Sam went to the shop" vs "Sam and I went to the shop"? (The middle one seems definitely wrong to me.)

All of these are fine, but “Sam and I” seems best for me.

[akam chinjir]

I've definitely seen English classed as marked nominative, at least in Mark Baker, Case, but I'm sure I've also seen it elsewhere.

[Pabappa]

"me and Sam" is what little kids say. Still, the fact that they say it with "me" instead of "i" leads me to believe that the accusative has become the default form of the pronoun, just as we say "Me!", "Her!", etc in isolated speech.

[Moose-tache]

"me and Sam" is what little kids say. Still, the fact that they say it with "me" instead of "i" leads me to believe that the accusative has become the default form of the pronoun, just as we say "Me!", "Her!", etc in isolated speech.

I've heard this analysis before, but (with no disrespect intended to you) I think it fails on two levels. One, "me" is not strictly an accusative form. And two, there is no "default," nor any reason why "I" would normally be that default. this relates to the largest question of how we typologize English pronouns.

What kind of pronoun is "me?" Let's start with the use you mentioned. As you point out, "me" is used to mark topics. If you use a first person pronoun in isolation, it will be "me." If you establish yourself as a topic, you will also use "me:" "Me, I actually like licorice."

But is "me" always more topical? consider these possibilities:

“We went to Disney Land.”
“Who? Your family?”
A) “No, me and my husband.” B) "No, my husband and I."

“Sam bombed his interview.”
“How do you know?”
A) “Me and Sam went together.” B) "Sam and I went together."

"Disney Land is so much fun."
“How do you know about Disney Land? I thought you said Sam went there.”
A) "No, me and Sam went to Disney Land." B) “No, Sam and I went to Disney Land.”

These three examples form a gradient. The emphasis that the main speaker places on herself as a topic increases from top to bottom. But, for me at least, the viability of B increases and the viability of A decreases from top to bottom. In other words, there are situations in which a person will use "I" over "me" to establish themselves as the topic of an utterance. So we can't even isolate one usage of the pronoun "me" without encountering leaks in the system, and we haven't even gotten into the problem of "accusative" pronouns or "default" pronouns.

This is the same problem I have with people who say English is an ergative language. It's not. It just has a very leaky nominative-accusative system.

[bradrn]

"me and Sam" is what little kids say. Still, the fact that they say it with "me" instead of "i" leads me to believe that the accusative has become the default form of the pronoun, just as we say "Me!", "Her!", etc in isolated speech.

I've heard this analysis before, but (with no disrespect intended to you) I think it fails on two levels. One, "me" is not strictly an accusative form. And two, there is no "default," nor any reason why "I" would normally be that default.

Minor comment: there is indeed a ‘default’, or at least a formally and/or functionally unmarked form, and in a nominative-accusative system this default is almost always the nominative (except in marked nominative systems, of course). (In general, the case which covers the intransitive subject is usually the unmarked case.) But I think I do agree with the rest of your analysis.

[akam chinjir]

I can't speak for Pabappa, but the sort of analysis I've seen is precisely that "me" isn't accusative, strictly speaking, because it's the unmarked or elsewhere case; whereas you only get "I" for the subject of a verb. Topicality doesn't really have anything to do with it, except that a topic in something like "me, I don't like licorice" isn't the subject of the verb, so gets its elsewhere form.

Which all means that it's a mistake to expect a single unified, unleaky use of "me," it's used all over the place, precisely because it's a default or elsewhere form.

The conjunction cases are really interesting. For each one, though, you could add a (C) "X and me..."; in your third case, that's at least as good as (B) for me.

Also, for me at least, "X and me..." is always ok, whereas I'm pretty sure "I and X..." is always bad. A bit as if it's only the rightmost member of a conjunction that can get marked nominative. (I know there are patterns like that in some languages, not sure if I've read about that in English, though.)

For me, I think, "Me and her..." is fine, but "Me and she...", "I and her...", and "I and she..." are all pretty awful. (Though maybe I'd have to encounter them in a real context to be sure.)

(I see bradrn said some of this already while I was typing, oh well.)

[Nerulent]

I think this conversation needs to invoke register. I’ll use ‘Sam and I’ in a more formal register, but when speaking colloquially I almost always use the forms ‘me and Sam’ or ‘Sam and me’. It seems the rule is that I only use the nominative when the pronoun is on its own, as I’ll also use the accusative in the following: ‘us kiwis love a good pav’, rather than ‘we kiwis ...’.

"me" isn't accusative, strictly speaking

What would you call it then, if not accusative?

[akam chinjir]

What would you call it then, if not accusative?

Default or unmarked case or something like that.