Cover not available
Part of
Finiteness Matters: On finiteness-related phenomena in natural languages
Edited by Kristin Melum Eide
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 231] 2016
► pp. 47–78

Finiteness and Pseudofiniteness

| University of Toronto

I argue that finiteness is a purely syntactic property, licensing case on the subject and agreement on the verb. Semantic properties associated with finiteness follow from the position of Finite in the geometry of clausal interpretable features. Considering possible counterexamples from Romance languages as well as West Flemish, modern Greek, and Turkish, I show that Romance personal and inflected infinitives are characterized by a pseudofinite Infl, available only in null-subject languages, which lacks Finite, but bears an unvalued case feature. Pseudofinite clauses, including the Southern Calabrian modo construction, must be assigned case externally. West Flemish personal infinitives are finite, headed by a hybrid Comp/Infl head. Turkish agreeing gerunds have nominal syntax, and Greek subjunctive clauses are either finite or nonfinite, depending on their case-assigning properties.

Keywords: agreement, case, clause structure, feature geometry, finiteness
Published online: 25 August 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.231.02cow
References
Alboiu, Gabriela & Motapanyane, Virginia
2000 The generative approach to Romanian grammar: An overview. In Comparative Studies in Romanian Syntax, Virginia Motapanyane (ed.), 1–48. Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis & Anagnostopoulou, Elena
1999a EPP without Spec,IP. In Specifiers: Minimalist Approaches, David Adger, Susan Pintzuk, Bernadette Plunkett & George Tsoulas (eds), 93–109. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
1999b Raising without infinitives and the nature of agreement. In WCCFL 18 Proceedings, Sonya Bird, Andrew Carnie, Jason D. Haugen & Peter Norquest (eds), 14–26. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
2002 Raising without infinitives and the role of agreement. In Dimensions of Movement: From Features to Remnants [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 48], Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, Sjef Barbiers, & Hans-Martin Gärtner (eds), 17–30. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Avery, J. Peter
1996 The Representation of Voicing Contrasts. PhD dissertation, University of Toronto.
Béjar, Susana & Hall, Daniel Currie
2000 Marking markedness: The underlying order of diagonal syncretisms. In Proceedings of ESCOL 99, Rebecca Daly & Anastasia Riehl (eds), 1–12. Ithaca NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
Bélanger, Suzanne
2002 A derivational relationship: The subjunctive-infinitive alternation in French. Ms, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Binnick, Robert I
1991 Time and the Verb. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1981 Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
1982 Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
1995 The Minimalist Program. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
2000 Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Step by Step, Roger Martin, David Michaels & Juan Uriagereka (eds), 89–155. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
2001 Derivation by phase. In Ken Hale: A Life in Language, Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), 1–52. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, Sarah
2013 Aspectual Scope and Contrast in English and Japanese. PhD disssertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard
1976 Aspect. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Cowper, Elizabeth
2005 The geometry of interpretable features: Infl in English and Spanish. Language 81(1): 10–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cowper, Elizabeth & Hall, Daniel Currie
2007 The morphosyntactic manifestations of modality. In Proceedings of the 2007 CLA, Milica Radišić (ed.). Canadian Linguistic Association.Google Scholar
Dyscolus, Apollonius
1981 The Syntax of Apollonius Dyscolus. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farkas, Donka F
1982 Intensionality and Romance Subjunctive Relatives. PhD dissertation, University of Chicago.
George, Leland & Kornfilt, Jaklin
1981 Finiteness and boundedness in Turkish. In Binding and Filtering, Frank Heny (ed.), 105–127. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane
1985 INFL, COMP and nominative case assignment in Flemish infinitivals. In Features and Projections, Peter Muysken & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds), 123–137. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris & Marantz, Alec
1993 Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds), 111–176. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harbour, Daniel & Elsholtz, Christian
2012 Feature geometry: Self-destructed. Ms, Queen Mary University of London and Technische Universität Graz.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Ritter, Elizabeth
2002 Person and number in pronouns: A feature-geometric analysis. Language 78(3): 482–526. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hornstein, Norbert
1990 As Time Goes By. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
1995 Logical Form: From GB to Minimalism. Oxford: Blackwells.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto
1924 The Philosophy of Grammar. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Koopman, Hilda
1984 The Syntax of Verbs. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Kornfilt, Jaklin
2001a Case and agreement: Morphology and its syntactic effects in Turkish. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Society of Germany.
2001b Subjects and their case in Turkish/Turkic embeddings. Paper presented at the Workshop on Altaic Languages, MIT.
Kyriakaki, Maria
2006 The Geometry of Tense, Mood and Aspect in Greek. MA thesis, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Ledgeway, Adam
1998 Variation in the Romance infinitive: The case of the southern Calabrian inflected infinitive. Transactions of the Philological Society 96(1): 1–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luján, Marta
1999 A unified approach to control and obviation. In Grammatical Analyses in Basque and Romance Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 187], Jon A. Franco, Alazne Landa & Juan Martin (eds), 105–130. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mailhac, Jean-Pierre
2000 Sens, choix et subjonctif. French Language Studies 10: 229–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pesetsky, David & Torrego, Esther
2001 T-to-C movement: Causes and consequences. In Ken Hale: A Life in Language, Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), 355–426. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
2004 Tense, case, and the nature of syntactic categories. In The Syntax of Time, Jacqueline Guéron & Jacqueline Lecarme (eds), 495–537. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
2007 The syntax of valuation and the interpretability of features. In Phrasal and Clausal Architecture: Syntactic Derivation and Interpretation: In Honor of Joseph Emonds [Linguistik Akuell/Linguistics Today 101], Simin Karimi, Vida Samiian & Wendy K. Wilkins (eds), 262–294. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Platzack, Christer
1983 Germanic word order and the Comp/Infl parameter. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax (Trondheim) 2.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana
1991 The inherent variability of the French subjunctive. In Theoretical Analyses in Romance Linguistics: Selected Papers from the Nineteenth Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 74], Christiane Laeufer & Terrell A. Morgan (eds), 235–263. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pountain, Christopher J
1995 Infinitives with overt subjects: A pragmatic approach. In Portuguese, Brazilian and African Studies: Studies Presented to Clive Willis on his Retirement, Tom Earle & Nigel Griffin (eds), 11–25. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.Google Scholar
Quicoli, A. Carlos
1996 Inflection and parametric variation: Portuguese vs. Spanish. In Current Issues in Comparative Grammar, Robert Freidin (ed.), 46–80. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raposo, Eduardo
1987a Case theory and Infl-to-Comp: The inflected infinitive in European Portuguese. Linguistic Inquiry 18: 85–109.Google Scholar
1987b Romance infinitival clauses and case theory. In Studies in Romance Languages, Carol Neidle & Rafael A. Nuñez Cedeño (eds), 237–249. Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1989 Prepositional infinitival constructions in European Portuguese. In The Null Subject Parameter, Osvaldo Jaeggli & Kenneth J. Safir (eds), 277–305. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roussou, Anna
2001 Control and raising in and out of subjunctive complements. In Comparative Syntax of the Balkan Languages, María Luisa Rivero & Anna Ralli (eds), 74–104. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Sagey, Elizabeth
1986 The Representation of Features and Relations in Nonlinear Phonology. PhD dissertation, MIT.
Schütze, Carson T
1997 INFL in Child and Adult Language: Agreement, Case, and Licensing. PhD dissertation, MIT.
Sitaridou, Ioanna
2009 On the emergence of personal infinitives in the history of Spanish. Diachronica 26(1): 36–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soames, Scott & David M. Perlmutter
1979 Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of English. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Subirats-Rüggeberg, Carlos
1990 The relation between infinitival and sentential complements in traditional grammar. Lingvisticæ Investigationes 14(1): 81–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thiébault, Dieudonné
1802 Grammaire philosophique, ou la métaphysique, la logique, et la grammaire réunies en un seul corps de doctrine. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Cowper, Elizabeth & Daniel Currie Hall
2017. The rise of contrastive modality in English. Linguistic Variation 17:1 ► pp. 68 ff. DOI logo
Haegeman, Liliane & Andrew Weir
2016. Finiteness and response particles in West Flemish. In Finiteness Matters [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 231], ► pp. 211 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.