WSCLA 13 – March 28-30th, 2008 – Queens University - –Meagan Louie –

The Lack of Tense in Blackfoot and its Consequences for the Syntax-Semantics Interface

1.0 Introduction:
• The Anchoring Condition (cf. Enç 1987:642):
The events must be anchored to the utterance, or some other salient reference point

In languages like English, this is done by Tense, TP; events are anchored to the
utterance by stating when they occur wrt. the utterance time.

• Ritter & Wiltschko (2005) propose that Blackfoot differs from languages like English in that it
lacks the syntactic node tense TP, instead anchoring events to utterances through a parallel
(Speech-Act-)Participant node.

Events are anchored by stating to whom they occurred, wrt. the utterance participants.

(1) English Anchoring Phrase IP = TP (2) Blackfoot Anchoring Phrase IP = δP

Their paper deals mainly with the syntactic consequences of their proposal1.

I suggest that Blackfoot also exhibits semantic consequences.

2.0 A Puzzle: Blackfoot's Third Person Non-Affirmative Endings:

These pattern syntactically like NPIs:

 They are grammatical only in negative and interrogative contexts:

(3)
a. nimáátsinowawaatsiks
ni-maat-ino-a-waatsiks
1-neg-see.vta-dir-3:nonaff.sg
"I didn't see him." (licensed with negation)

1
eg. no obligatory tense marking, but obligatory SAP marking, no nominative case morphology or derived EPP subjects, no
case-driven A-movement like passive, etc.

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b. nitsinowa(*waatsiks)
ni-ino-a-(*waatsiks)
1-see.vta-dir-(*3:nonaff.sg)
"I saw him." (not licensed in positive contexts)

c. kikatai'nokaatsiks
ki-kata'-ino-ok-waatsiks
2-y/n-see.vta-inv-3:nonaff.sg
"Did he see you?" (licensed with questions)

 They are structurally sensitive to their licensors:

They are only licensed by negation realized as the form máát-, which I have argued to be structurally
superior to negation realized as the form sá- (pace Frantz 1991 and Taylor 1969).

(4) Blackfoot's non-affirmatives are licensed by máát- but not sá-

a. Niyookskaiiksistsikoists máátotootsiwaatsiks
Niyookskai-iksistsiko-istsi máát-oto-otsi-waatsiks
Three-day-0pl NEG-go.to-swim.vai-3:nonaff.sg
"He didn’t swim for three days"

b. Niyookskaiiksistsikoists itsáotootsi(*waatsiks)
Niyookskai-iksistsiko-istsi it-sa-oto-otsi-waatsiks
Three-day-0pl rel-NEG-go.to-swim.vai-3:nonaff.sg
"He didn’t swim for three days"

Negation in the form of maat generally has wider scope than negation in the form of sá

-máát negates independent clauses, sá negates dependent clauses

-sá used in independent clauses when negation does not have scope over the entire proposition

(5)
a. kikaahkama'psayinowa b. *kimaataahkama'pinowa c. *kitaahkama'p(a)maatsinowa
ki-aahkama'p-sa-ino-a ki-maat-aahkama'p-ino-a kit-aahkama'p-maat-ino-a
2-might-neg-see.vta-dir 2-neg-might-see.vta-dir 2-might-neg-see.vta-dir
"You might not see him."
≠"It is not the case that you might see him"

Assuming semantic scope correlates to structural position, máát is structurally higher than sá-,
suggesting that the non-affirmatives are sensitive to the structural position of negation.

This is another property associated with NPIs – NPIs are structurally sensitive in that they must be c-
commanded by their licensor.

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(6) English Polarity Item 'any(one)' is structurally sensitive

a. I didn't see anyone. b. #Anyone didn't see me

 Another property associated with NPIs is that they characteristically take narrow-scope
with respect to negation – i.e. they are non-referential.

This characteristic of NPIs is often analyzed as falling out from their structural requirements (i.e. the c-
command relation).

Because NPIs must always be structurally inferior to negation, they are said to be "narrow-scope" or
"in the scope of negation" –their existential properties are always negated.

(7) The existential property of English NPI 'anyone' is within the scope of negation

a. I didn't see anyone

= ¬∃x (PERSON(x) ∧ SAW(I, x)

"There does not exist an x, such that x is a person, and I saw x"

≠ ∃x (PERSON(x) ∧ ¬SAW (I, x)

"there exists an x, such that x is a person, and it is not the case that I saw x"

Problem: Blackfoot's non-affirmative endings are not narrow scope – they can refer.

-usually agree with some referential third person with respect to number and grammatical animacy.

(8) The existential property of the non-affirmatives is NOT within the scope of negation

a. nimáátsinowawaatsiks (όma nínaa)

ni-maat-ino-a-waatsiks (om-wa ninaa)
1-NEG-see.vta-DIR-3:nonaff.sg (that-3 man)
"I didn't see him (the/a man)"

= ∃x (MAN(x) ∧ ¬SAW (I, x) "there exists an x, such that x is a man, and I didn't see x"

≠ ¬∃x (MAN(x) ∧ SAW(I, x) "there does not exist an x, such that x is a man, and I saw x"

b. nimáátsinowawaiksaa (όmiksi nínaiks)

ni-maat-ino-wa-waiksaa (om-iksi ninaa-iksi)
1-neg-see.vta-DIR-3:nonaff.pl (that-PL man-PL)
"I didn't see them (those men)"
≠ "I didn't see anyone"

These seem syntactically, to be NPIs,

but they lack the core semantic property associated with NPIs (i.e. narrow-scope)…

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3.0 Proposal: Blackfoot's non-affirmative endings are NPIs; but the relevant semantic property within
the scope of negation is not an assertion of existence, but an assertion of speech-act-participancy.

Theoretical Motivation/Account:

• Assumption 1: In languages like English, truth-values are encoded on the syntactic node Tense
(TP) in the clausal domain:

"Semantic assertability, or the property of being a potential truth-value bearer, is coded syntactically as
what we call finiteness, which is realized as tense in English"(Kearns 2000:154)

(9) Non-finite clauses in English do not have truth-values (Kearns 2000:153)

a. He wanted [Marcia to give Peter a piano lesson]
b. Don't let [that cat scratch the furniture]

(10) Finite clauses in English have truth-values (Kearns 2000:154)

a. Marcia gave Peter a piano lesson.
b. That cat scratched the furniture.

• Assumption 2: The clausal and nominal domain2 are parallel in structure, and what type of
properties they encode (cf. Szabolcsi 1994, Bennis, Corver & Dikken 1998, Elouazizi &
Wiltschko 2006)

(11)
CP-DP Parallelism
(discourse domain)

TP/IP-φP Parallelism
(inflectional domain)

VP-NP Parallelism
(lexical domain)

• Assumption 3: The semantic parallel of an assertion of tense/truth on the clausal domain is an

assertion of existence on the nominal domain.

Asserting that a sentence is "true" is equivalent to asserting that the event "exists" and therefore can
be located temporally.

This is in tune with the idea suggested by Higginbotham (1985), that the Davidsonian event
variable e (the event denoted by the verb) is existentially bound by the syntactic node Tense.

But what if a language doesn't have the syntactic node Tense (TP)?

Recall Ritter & Wiltschko 2004, 2005:

2
See Déchaine & Wiltschko 2002 for an explanation of φP – it covers any functional projections between DP and NP that
encode φ-features such as number, gender, and person.
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(12) (13)
English Anchoring Phrase IP = TP Blackfoot Anchoring Phrase IP = δP

If Blackfoot's clausal anchoring node δP encodes (non)coincidence with Speech-Act-Participancy as

opposed to (non)coincidence with Utterance Time…

… you might expect Blackfoot's nominal parallel of δP to also encode different properties.

Assumption 3: The nominal equivalent of an assertion of truth/tense is an assertion of existence

Q: What would be the nominal equivalent of an assertion of speech-act-participancy?

The null-hypothesis would be an assertion of speech-act-participancy.

ENG: By encoding the features of T, you assert the existence of an event.

By encoding the features of φ, you assert the existence of an individual.

BF: By encoding the features of δclausal, you assert SAP properties wrt. an event.
By encoding the features of δnominal, you assert SAP properties wrt. an individual.

• Prediction: NPIs in a language like Blackfoot will not assert an existential property that would
be forced within the scope of negation, but instead assert a speech-act-participancy property
that would be forced within the scope of negation.

This appears to be the case: the third-person non-affirmatives are referential, however they cannot
refer to anyone within the deictic-context (i.e. can't refer to anyone that's part of the conversation).

(14) Blackfoot's non-affirmative endings cannot refer to a third person within the deictic sphere

a. kikatai'nowa(#waatsiks) ana Martina?

ki-kata'-ino-a-waatsiks an-wa Martina
2-y/n-see.vta-dir-3:nonaff.sg that-3 Martina
"Did you see Martina?" (where Martina is within the deictic sphere)

b. kikatainowawaatsiks annahk Martina?

ki-kata'-ino-a-waatsiks an-wa-hka Martina
2-y/n-see.vta-dir-3:nonaff.sg that-3-invis Martina
"Did you see Martina?" (where Martina is not within the deictic sphere)

Note: I've glossed –hka as 'invisible' following Frantz 1991, but he appends this footnote:

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"the apparent use of this suffix to mark words referring to entities which are not visible is a consequence of the discourse
function of this suffix, which has to do with saliency."

So a semantically anomalous property of BF's NPIs can be correlated w/ the lack of syntactic Tense.

4.0 Cross-linguistic Implications for NPIs (Still Tentative!)

(15)
Premise: The semantic properties of NPIs vary wrt. the
semantic properties of the language's IP3.

Salish

Ritter & Wiltschko 2005 argue that Upriver Halkomelem

(Salish) also lacks the syntactic node Tense, instead
anchoring events to utterances via a Location node.

• Prediction: Upriver Halkomelem NPIs should have

a narrow-scope "location" property.

Unfortunately: No relevant Halkomelem data!

However there may be evidence of a narrow-scope "location" NPI from other Salish languages.

• Non-deictic Polarity D-determiners in Salish (cf. Gillon 2006)

Gillon 2006 proposes that Skwxwú7mesh D-determiners4 differ according to whether they
i) have deictic properties, or
ii) don't have deictic properties

She provides evidence that this distinction shows up in several other Salish languages, and that in some
languages (Nlhe7kepmxcín, St'at'imcets, Nuxalk) the non-deictic D-determiners appear to be polarity
items as well.

eg. Nlhe7kepmxcín

(16)

"It appears that k is a non-assertion of existence D-determiner or polarity item, as it is almost

exclusively found in non-factive sentences (Karsten Koch p.c.)…it also appears to lack deictic
features, as in the examples above, the referents are not located." (Gillon 2006:200, my emphasis)

5.0 Unresolved Issues (Even More Directions for Further Research)

What other semantic consequences would there be for the lack of syntactic Tense in Blackfoot?

3
Martina Wiltschko pointed me towards Carrie Gillon's dissertation, to find possible candidates for narrow-scope "location"
NPIs in Salish.
4
Where D-determiners refer only to determiners that have traditionally been called "articles," excluding elements like
quantifiers, demonstratives and numerals.
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WSCLA 13 – March 28-30th, 2008 – Queens University - –Meagan Louie –

5.1 Consequences for Lexical Event Semantics and Quantization/Quantity

PESETSKY & TORREGO 2002 : Quest to reduce all types of structural case to instances of uT on D:
-Argue that there are two instances of Tense in English:

(17)
Ts – associated with nominative case
and situated between CP and vP

To – associated with accusative case

and situated between vP and VP

They suggest To is analogous to AspP (cf.Travis 1991)

Question
Are there two instances of δ (Participant) in Blackfoot?

(19) Semantic function of Lower TP, ToP : (18)

Relate time of vP subevent,

to time of VP subevent

(20) Semantic function of Lower δP, δoP

Relate participant of vP subevent,

to participant of VP subevent

Looking at English:

• Assuming that vP and VP introduce aspectual arguments (cf. Ramchand 2001, Tenny 1994), by
exhausting the parametric choices you can derive Vendler's aspectual verb classes:

(21) To encodes relationship between vP and VP: According to aspectual arguments introduced

4 kinds of verbs INITIATOR (associated with vP) MEASURE (associated with VP)
states - -
activities + -
accomplishments + +
achievements - +

State: know, love, possess

Activity: run, eat, swim,
Accomplishment: run a mile, eat a sandwich, draw a circle
Achievement: recognize, reach, win

Restriction
MEASURE VP argument must be count (mass or a bare plural don’t change verb class)

Sensitive to temporal elements (eg. progressive morphology, in/for time adverbials)

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Looking at Blackfoot:

• Exhausting the parametric choices can derive Bloomfield's II/AI/TI/TA verb classes

(22) δo encodes Relationship between vP and VP: According to participant arguments introduced

4 kinds of verbs external (sentient) argument Single (animate) argument

(associated with vP) (associated with VP)
II - -
AI - +
TI + -
TA + +

II (Inanimate Intransitive): iiyiko 'be difficult'

AI (Animate Intransitive): iiyikoosi 'be difficult'
TI (Transitive Inanimate): iiyiki'tsi 'find (it, inanimate) difficult'
TA (Transitive Animate): iiyikimm 'find (it, an., him/her/you/me) difficult'

Restriction
VP argument must be grammatically animate

Sensitive to elements that introduce participants (eg. causative morpheme, accompaniment

morphemes, cf. Frantz 1998:101-106)

(23) Table: Summary of Parallels with respect to Verb Classes

Verb Classes English (Vendler's Aspectual Classes) Blackfoot (Bloomfield's Classes)
Derivable according to:
vP Argument: whether present (and ???) whether present and sentient
VP Argument: whether present and singular count whether present and animate

Sensitive to: elements that introduce or extend elements that introduce

temporal bounds participants

UG:
VP IP CP
Event Roles → Grammatical Roles → Discourse Roles
(__, __) (__, __) (__, __)

English:
VP (temporal) IP (temporal) CP
Aspectual Roles → Case Roles5 → Discourse Roles
(initiator, measure) (subjectNOM, objectACC) (topic, focus)

Blackfoot:
VP(participancy) IP(participancy) CP
Event Participant Roles → Utt. Participant Roles → Discourse Roles
(agent, patient?) (+SAP, -SAP) (topic?, focus?)

5
Where I am assuming, following Pesetsky & Torrego 2002, that Case is uninterpretable Tense.
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 More questions for further research:

5.2 The telic/atelic distinction for clause= mass/count distinction for nouns

- semantic notion of quantization (cf. Krifka 1986) or quantity (Borer 2005).

If BF doesn't encode notions of quantization within events, does it encode it within individuals?

Is there a syntactic mass/count distinction in Blackfoot?

5.3 Are truth-values encoded in Blackfoot? And if so, are they somehow done so through δP,
related through the Participants, or are they encoded through other syntactic means?

Is it possible that the unmarked illocutionary act in Blackfoot is merely a presentation, as opposed to a
presentation of a proposition as true ? (cf. Blain & Déchaine 2007, for Cree)

5.4 Is existentiality ever encoded as an assertion in Blackfoot, or does existentiality only

occur in other ways, eg. through presuppositions? Does a notion of "speech-act-
participancy" show up in other parts of the language?

6.0 Recap

 Blackfoot shows semantic evidence for the proposal that Blackfoot anchors events via
Participants as opposed to Times (Ritter & Wiltschko 2005):

-wrt. semantic property of existence (shown by behaviour of its NPIs)

-and (perhaps) with respect to the semantic property of quantity/quantization

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References

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Enç, M. 1987. Anchoring Conditions for Tense. Linguistic Inquiry 18:633-657.

Frantz, D. G. 1991. Blackfoot Grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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