Causative VP-omission in English Richard Stockwell ... - OSF

Causative VP-omission in English

Richard Stockwell & Matthew Tyler

Christ Church, University of Oxford; Christ’s College, University of Cambridge

NELS 52, Rutgers (online), 29-31 October 2021

Stockwell & Tyler NELS 52

1 Introduction• In English, some causation verbs take a [DP + uninflected VP] complement (1).

• Within this class, make and let allow the VP to be omitted:

(1) a. First I made John eat dinner, then I made Mary (eat dinner).b. First I let John play outside, then I let Mary (play outside).

• We make three empirical contributions:

1. ‘VP-omission’ (VPO) involves Null Complement Anaphora (NCA).

2. Agent Voice Uniformity: the thematic roles of the causer and causee are more restricted with VPO than when the VPis present – both must be agents.

3. Unlike make and let, causative have does not license VPO; though for some speakers, experiencer-have does.

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2 Analysis preview1. NCA: a null VP pro-form ‘ØVP’ is selected by a dedicated Voice head ‘VoiceVPO’.

2. Agent Voice Uniformity: VoiceVPO is Agentive, attempts to Agree with any higher Voice head (cf. Wurmbrand 2016).

3. Have: Agent Voice Uniformity + the monoeventivity of have clauses (e.g. Brugman 1988),

(2) VoiceP

DPCauser

VoiceAgent VP

Vmake/let

VoiceP

DPCausee VoiceVPO

Agent ØVP← null pro-form

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3 VP-omission is Null Complement Anaphora• VPO patterns with NCA and not Predicate Ellipsis (PE, a.k.a. VP ellipsis).

3.1 Overt A’-movement• A’-movement (3) is possible out of PE (a), but not NCA (b) (Depiante 2000, 2018):

(3) I remember what Mary was willing to watch, but I don’t remember . . .a. what she refused to watch t.b. *what she refused Ø.

• VPO patterns with NCA:

(4) I remember what Mary was willing to watch, but I don’t remember . . .*. . . what Bill made her Ø.

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Aside: PE is not completely incompatible with causation verbs• Predicate Ellipsis is possible above make:

(5) I remember what Mary made me eat t, and what JOHN did make me eat t, too.

• PE can also be induced below make, with constituent negation (6) and auxiliaries (7):

(6) I remember what Mary made me eat t, and what she made me NOT eat t. (cf. Williams 1994; Potsdam 1997)

(7) In my screenplay, I remember which monster I let Ed be eaten by t.?I just can’t remember which monster I let Mary be eaten by t.

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3.2 Covert A’-movement• Covert A’-movement (9) is possible out of PE sites (a) but not NCA sites (b).

• VPO (c) patterns with NCA.

(8) Baseline, surface scope context:A keen new doctor and a keen new nurse have just joined the ward. So. . .some doctor volunteered to visit every patient, and some nurse. . .a. . . . did volunteer to visit every patient, too. (PE)b. . . . volunteered Ø, too. (NCA)c. . . . made the radiographer Ø, too. (VPO)

(9) Covert A’-movement, inverse scope context:Each patient needed to be seen by some doctor or other, and by some other medic. So, fortunately, . . .some doctor volunteered to visit every patient, and some nurse. . .a. . . . did volunteer to visit every patient, too. (PE)b. *. . . volunteered Ø, too. (*NCA)c. *. . . made the radiographer Ø, too. (*VPO)

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3.3 A-movement• Raising is impossible out of VPO:

(10) It seemed that John was winning at that stage only because I made him Ø. Ø = be winning*Ø = seem t to be winning

→ The raising interpretation is unavailable because there is no elided structure for the causee to raise out of (pace Bruening2019).

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3.4 Selectional restrictions• Make takes VP/AdjP/DP/PP complements, but only VP complements can be omitted:

(11) a. Mary made John [VP audition], and his agent made him Ø, too. Ø = VPb. Bicycle Thieves made Mary [AdjP teary], *then Requiem for a Dream made her Ø, too. *Ø = AdjPc. Mary made John [DP a star], *and his agent made him Ø, too. *Ø = DPd. Mary made John [PP into a star], *and his agent made him Ø, too. *Ø = PP

• PE is not category-restricted:

(12) Mary is [VP crying] / [AdjP teary] / [DP a star] / [PP in LA], andJohn is [VP crying] / [AdjP teary] / [DP a star] / [PP in LA], too.

• NCA often is category-restricted (Haynie 2010):

(13) a. John couldn’t [VP win], but at least he tried Ø. Ø = [TP to win]b. *John wasn’t a fan of [DP the soup], but at least he tried Ø. *Ø = [DP the soup]

(14) a. It was suggested [CP that we should leave], and I agreed Ø. Ø = [TP to leave]/[CP that we should leave]b. *There was much disagreement [PP with the Council’s decision], but I agreed Ø. *Ø = [PP with the decision]

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4 VP-omission involves a null VP pro-form ØVP

• We have argued that VPO is a kind of NCA, and not PE.

• What is NCA? Two hypotheses considered here:

1. NCA as plain intransitivity(Shopen 1972; Grimshaw 1979; Napoli 1983)

→ For VPO, a parallel analysis takes the causativeverb to be a ‘plain transitive’ with no further com-plement.

(15) ...

... VP

Vmake/let

NPCausee

2. NCA as a pro-form(Hankamer and Sag 1976; Depiante 2000; Haynie 2010)

(16) ... ⇐ Analysis adopted here

... VP

Vmake/let

VoiceP

DPCausee VoiceAgent ØVP← null pro-form

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4.1 VPO is not just a ‘bare transitive’Problem #1: make/let+VPO have different meanings from their bare transitive counterparts:

• Transitive make is not causative – “I made the band” only means that you created it, not that you made it do something.

• The transitive counterpart of let is ‘lease’ (only in BrE): “She lets grotty flats.”

Problem #2: make+VPO is structurally like make+VP, and not like bare transitive make:

• Make/let+VP resist passivisation, and continue to do so with VPO:

(17) I didn’t want to eat the haggis, but . . .a. my hosts made me (eat the haggis).b. *I was made (eat the haggis) by my hosts.

• By contrast, bare transitive make happily passivizes:

(18) A cake was made for the occasion.

N.B. A ‘bare transitive’ analysis works well for help – see Appendix I.

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5 VP-omission requires agents• Causative make/let are compatible with inanimates (19):

(19) a. . . .b. Self-belief made Carol practice every day.c. I’ll make the brass shine.d. A good amount of polish will make the brass shine.

• But with VPO (20), both causer and causee must be agents (a).

• Inanimate DPs – which a priori cannot be agents – make VPO worse (b-d): (for (b), cf. Mittwoch 1990:113)

(20) a. I make Carol practice every day. You should make Emily.b. Self-belief made Carol practice every day. ?A strong work ethic made Emily.c. I’ll make the brass shine. ?*You can make the silver.d. A good amount of polish will make the brass shine. ?*A smaller amount will make the silver.

• The failure of VPO in (21), where ØVP is anaphoric on an experiencer-subject psych verb, further supports the claimthat VoiceVPO must be agentive:

(21) #The hypnotist made Sally fear spiders, and then he made Bill. cf. draw

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Results of a (very) informal survey• Hypothesis: VPO is best when subject and causee are agents. It worsens when either is a non-agent.

• We sent an informal judgment survey to 27 academic linguists who identify as first-language speakers of English.

• Participants judged 4 instances of each configuration (4 configurations × 4 blocks).

Results (averaging across items and participants):

(22) MeanAgent » Agent » Ø 4.01

NonAgent » Agent » Ø 3.65Agent » NonAgent » Ø 2.78

NonAgent » NonAgent » Ø 2.80

• Summary:

– “Agent»Agent” is best.

– Configurations where the causee is a non-agent are worst.

– “NonAgent»Agent” is somewhere in the middle.

• See Appendix II for survey materials.

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6 Analysis1. NCA: Causative make can select a dedicated Voice head, ‘VoiceVPO’, which in turn selects ØVP.

2. Agent Voice Uniformity: VoiceVPO is Agentive and attempts to Agree in agency with any higher Voice head, in themanner of Wurmbrand (2016).

(23) VoiceP

DPCauser

VoiceAgent VP

Vmake/let

VoiceP

DPCausee VoiceVPO

Agent ØVP← null pro-form

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7 Have• Causative-have takes a [DP + uninflected VP] complement, but does not allow VPO (24):

(24) *First I had a constable interrogate the suspects, then I had a detective. causer-have, BrE 3.9

• VPO with have improves for some speakers when the subject is an experiencer, rather than a causer, of the event (25):

(25) ?First I had a constable quit on me, then I had a sergeant. experiencer-have, BrE 5.0

• Full disclosure: in our pilot survey, this contrast came out only for British English speakers, and only for these items; cf.American English and (36/37a).

• For speakers who accept (25), have can select VoiceVPO. So why the contrast?

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7.1 Non-finite complements to have

• Unlike make, the complement of causer-have is not a separate modifiable event (26) (Bjorkman and Cowper 2013: 2):

(26) They made/*had the team throw the game on Monday by threatening them on Sunday night.

• Causer-have (27) involves a single event whose lone agent is the subject of have.

• So causer-have is incompatible with the requirement introduced by VoiceVPO that the causee be agentive.

• Experiencer-have (28) is similarly monoeventive; but agentivity, if present at all, is associated with the subject of theembedded predicate, not the subject of have.

• We tentatively suggest that in experiencer-have clauses, there is no Voice head at all above have.

• Thus Agent Voice Uniformity is vacuously satisfied by the lone VoiceVPO head in the clause, and VPO is licensed.

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• Causer-have: VoiceAgent above have; causee merged in low Spec-VP:

(27) VoiceP

DPAgent

VoiceAgent VP

Vhave

VP

DPCausee

V (DPobject)

• Experiencer-have: VoiceAgent below have; experiencer merged in high Spec-VP(similar to Kim 2012; Bjorkman and Cowper 2013; pace Myler 2016):

(28) VP

DPExp’er

Vhave

VoiceP

DPAgent

VoiceAgent VP

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7.2 The mechanics of Agent Voice Uniformity• Voice uniformity is satisfied when:

– VoiceVPOAgent is in the presence of a clausemate VoiceAgent head;

– or when VoiceVPOAgent is the only Voice head.

• We propose that when VoiceVPO’s Agree probe finds no higher Voice head with which to Agree in agency, there is noproblem – the derivation does not crash.

• In experiencer-have clauses, VoiceVPOAgent still necessarily introduces agentive semantics; hence VPO is degraded when

non-agentive events are embedded under experiencer-have (29):

(29) *Mary had her tent shake under her, while Sally had her yurt Ø.

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8 Conclusion• VP-omission:

1. involves Null Complement Anaphora – ØVP

2. is subject to Agent Voice Uniformity

3. is sometimes possible with experiencer-have, but never causer-have

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ReferencesBjorkman, Bronwyn M., and Elizabeth Cowper. 2013. Inflectional shells and the syntax of causative have. In Proceedings of

the 2013 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association, ed. Shan Luo.Bruening, Benjamin. 2019. Passive do so. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 37:1–49.Brugman, Claudia. 1988. The syntax and semantics of HAVE and its complements. Doctoral Dissertation, University of

California, Berkeley.Depiante, Marcela. 2000. The syntax of deep and surface anaphora: A study of Null Complement Anaphora and stripping/bare

argument ellipsis. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Connecticut, Storrs.Depiante, Marcela. 2018. Null complement anaphora. In The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis, ed. Jeroen van Craenenbroeck and

Tanja Temmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Grimshaw, Jane. 1979. Complement selection and the lexicon. Linguistic Inquiry 10:279–326.Hankamer, Jorge, and Ivan Sag. 1976. Deep and surface anaphora. Linguistic Inquiry 7:391–428.Haynie, Hannah. 2010. What is Null Complement Anaphora? A syntactic account can explain. Ms. University of California,

Berkeley.Kim, Kyumin. 2012. Argument structure licensing and English have. Journal of Linguistics 71–105. Publisher: JSTOR.Lobeck, Anne C. 1995. Ellipsis: functional heads, licensing, and identification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Mittwoch, Anita. 1990. On the distribution of bare infinitive complements in English. Journal of Linguistics 103–131.Myler, Neil. 2016. Building and interpreting possession sentences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Napoli, Donna Jo. 1983. Missing complement sentences in English: A base analysis of Null Complement Anaphora. LinguisticAnalysis 12:1–28.

Potsdam, Eric. 1997. NegP and subjunctive complements in English. Linguistic Inquiry 28:533–541.Shopen, Timothy. 1972. A generative theory of ellipsis: a consideration of the linguistic use of silence. Doctoral Dissertation,

University of California, Los Angeles.Van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen. 2017. VP-Ellipsis. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition 1–35. Publisher:

Wiley Online Library.Williams, Edwin. 1994. A reinterpretation of evidence for verb movement in French. In Verb movement, ed. David Lightfoot

and Norbert Hornstein, 189–205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Wurmbrand, Susi. 2016. Complex predicate formation via voice incorporation. In Approaches to complex predicates, ed. Léa

Nash and Pollet Samvelian, 248–290. Leiden: Brill.

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Appendix I: help• Help+DP does not involve NCA; rather, it is a simple lexical transitive.

→ Example (30b) cannot be interpreted as ‘...helped Labour lose the election’.

(30) A poor Brexit strategy helped Labour lose the election. . .a. An unpopular leader helped it lose, as well.b. #An unpopular leader helped it, as well.

• Help (by itself) does appear to involve NCA:

(31) ... an unpopular leader helped Ø, as well. Ø = Labour lose the election

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Appendix II: survey sentences(32) ‘Agent»Agent’ sentences

a. The teachers made Andy thrive. The coaches made Ben.b. A counsellor made Jenny open up. A therapist made Katie.c. I make Carol practice every day. You should make Emily.d. I made Tom resubmit his work. So you should make David.

(33) ‘NonAgent»Agent’ sentencesa. Talent made Andy thrive. Discipline made Ben.b. A mid-life crisis made Jenny open up. A near-death experience made Katie.c. Self-belief made Carol practice every day. A strong work ethic made Emily.d. Perfectionism made Tom resubmit his work. But only a bad grade will make David.

(34) ‘Agent»NonAgent’ sentencesa. The groundskeeper made the lawn thrive. The gardener made the flowers.b. I’ll make the tobacco plants open up. You can make the daisies.c. I’ll make the brass shine. You can make the silver.d. The magician made Sally fear spiders. The hypnotist will make Tammy.

(35) ‘NonAgent»NonAgent’ sentencesa. The rain made the lawn thrive. The sun made the flowers.b. Sunset makes tobacco plants open up. Sunrise makes daisies.c. A good amount of polish will make the brass shine. A smaller amount will make the silver.d. A bad dream made Sally fear spiders. But something worse made Tammy.

(36) Causer-have sentencesa. First I had John do my bidding, then I had Bill.b. First I had a constable interrogate the suspects, then I had a detective.

(37) Experiencer-have sentencesa. First I had John run out on me, then I had Bill.b. First I had a constable quit on me, then I had a sergeant.

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Appendix III: the role of contrast• To create balanced quartets, our VPO examples involve four different DPs: contrasting causers, and contrasting causees.

• In COCA, contrasting causees are unattested:

– i.e., zero examples of made NAME before punctuation, with VPO reading.

• Non-contrasting embedded agents are relatively common:

– many hits for made me, made you, made him, made her, made us before punctuation, with VPO reading.

(38) a. She didn’t want to come in today, but I made her. (The Night Shift, 2016)b. I had to do it! I didn’t want to do it. She made me. (Kindergarten Cop, 1990)

• With experiencer-have (39), contrasting embedded Agents are necessary for VPO (a); contrasting experiencers arewoefully insufficient (b):

(39) a. First Mary had John play a trick on her, then she had Bill.b. *First Mary had John play a trick on her, then Sally had him(, too).

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Appendix IV: previous claims of unacceptability• Van Craenenbroeck’s (2017: ex. 59h) (40); cf. (41):

(40) *Madame Spanella didn’t make me eat rutabagas, but Holly made me.(41) Madame Spanella didn’t make me eat rutabagas, but Holly DID make me Ø. Ø = eat rutabagas

• Lobeck’s (1995: 48, ex. 34c) (42):

(42) *Even though she should make John [e], Mary never tells him to clean his room.

• The ‘default’ way to pronounce (42) seems to be with stress on John, which then fails to contrast with him in the mainclause; try instead with stress on SHOULD or MAKE.

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