(1)a. [TP T [vP [John-to Mary]-o [otagai-no sensei]-ga [VP t mita]]]. John-and Mary-ACC each other-GEN teacher-NOM saw 'John and Mary, each other's teachers saw.' b. [CP ½a lįsu [TP t T [vP [¼essar bękur] aldrei [neinir stśdentar] [VP t ķ fyrra]]]]. there read these books never any students last year 'No students ever read these books last year.'
Miyagawa (1997) points out that object scrambling is impossible when the subject both has inherent (genitive) case and fails to trigger subject honorification. I propose that in such cases, T has default case/agreement. Jonas argues that the O-S order is possible only in languages (like Icelandic, unlike English) where T is ³strong² enough to target the features of the subject across the intervening object. In Japanese, T can be strong, allowing O-S order as in (1a), or weak (default), preventing O-S order. Since the object in (1a) is the most local argument for v to attract, moving it into the second specifier of vP does not violate locality.
(2)a. [TP [Secili libėr] iu kthye [vP [VP2 tautorit tė tij [VP1 t ]]]]. each book.NOM CL returned.NACT author.DAT its 'Each book was returned to its author.' b. *[TP Drita iu tregua [vP [VP2 t vetes [VP1 t ]] prej artistit]]. Drita.NOM CL show.NACT self.DAT by the.artist 'Drita was shown to herself by the artist.'
(3)a. John-ga [VP2 [pen-o] Mary-ni [VP1 [t ni-hon] ageta]]. J.-NOM pen-ACC M.-DAT 2-CLS sent 'John gave two pens to Mary.' b.(???)Mary-ga [CD-o] [tomodati-ni futa-ri] (t) okutta. M.-NOM CD-ACC friend-DAT 2-CLS sent 'Mary sent two friends a CD.' (4) a. *[Gakusei-o] [otagai-no adobaizaa-ga] [VP2 sensei-ni futari] [VP1 t syookaisita]]. student-ACC each other-GEN advisor-NOM teacher-DAT two introduced 'The students, each other's advisors introduced to two teachers.' b. [Gakusei-o] [otagai-no adobaizaa-ga] [VP2 t sensei-ni [VP1 t syookaisita]]. student-ACC each other-GEN advisor-NOM teacher-DAT introduced 'Each other's advisors introduced the students to the teacher.'
The second argument for locality in A-scrambling arises from scrambling of idiom chunks. Since idiom chunks cannot long-distance scramble, it has been proposed that they can only undergo A-movement, which is local. Richards (1997) identifies an idiom in which both objects of a double-object construction are idiom chunks. Like (3b), this idiom requires the IO-DO base order. If only one object scrambles, it must be the more local IO (5a); the DO cannot be attracted nonlocally past the intervening DP (5b).
(5)a. Hi-ni Taroo-ga [VP2 t [VP1 abura-o sosoida]]. fire-DAT T.-NOM oil-ACC poured 'Taroo made things worse.' b. *Abura-o Taroo-ga [VP2 hi-ni [VP1 t sosoida]]. oil-ACC T.-NOM fire-DAT poured 'Taroo made things worse.' (ok on literal reading: 'Taroo poured oil on the fire.')
REFERENCES
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. Categories and transformations. In The minimalist program. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Frank, Robert, Young-Suk Lee & Owen Rambow. 1996. Scrambling, reconstruction and subject
binding. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 21:67-106.
Jonas, Dianne. 1996. Clause structure and verb syntax in Scandinavian and English. Ph.D.
dissertation, Harvard University.
Massey, Victoria Walker. 1992. Compositionality and constituency in Albanian. Ph.D.
dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. MITOPL 3.
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1997. Against optional scrambling. Linguistic Inquiry 28, 125.
Richards, Norvin. 1997b. What moves where when in which language? Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Evidence for feature-driven A-scrambling
About the PLC23 Committee
Previously held Penn Linguistics Colloquium: PLC22 (1998), PLC21 (1997)
Penn Department of Linguistics
University of Pennsylvania