Derivational Relators in Italian

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Summary

The Authors propose in this contribution a connection between the syntax-semantics of noun>adjective derivational affixes and oblique prepositional case markers as di/a “of/to” in Italian. More specifically, they suggest that the derivational suffix -os-, as in fang-os-o “muddy”, and the likes are the counterparts of the oblique marker con “with” (includes), while the suffix -al-, as in cultur-al-e, and the likes are the counterparts of the oblique marker di/a “of/to” (is-included). The different realizations as case markers or derivational affixes are connected to the different syntactic context, in one case the is-included/includes semantics is in direct contact with the root (al/os, derivational), while in the other case it is in contact with an NP (di/a/con, case marker). They argue against a competing proposal by Fabregas, which takes relational and qualifying adjectives to be in a syntactic subset-superset relation, with relational adjectives being the subset of qualifying adjectives.

Before addressing the issues at stake, they also introduce their representational approach to morphosyntax, in which the universal semantic/syntactic space is cut by the lexicon of the different languages in a language specific way, accounting for variation.

 

General comment

The contribution is interesting and the proposal intriguing. Furthermore, it is well written and clear in the scope and objectives. They approach a very interesting and complex issue, the relation between “derivational” affixes and case markers, providing a novel and approach in which the two are bound together. I find no specific gaps in the review of the literature. Nonetheless, I think that the contribution could be improved addressing some issues mainly related to the inner mechanisms of the framework they adopt.

 

Specific issues to address

• The lexicon groups the universal concepts in different and language-specific ways. The patterns of syncretism arise from this different grouping. Is there a principled approach to be pursued in explaining this grouping? Is it the case that anything goes? Are there constraints on the patterns of syncretism that can be formalized in a predictive way?
• How does lexical selection work and based on what? We have both semantic-syntactic context influencing (57-58) and pragmatics influencing lexical selection (226). In both cases, the question is the same: how do you model the interaction between the different linguistic modules (which you assume, since you name lexicon syntax, pragmatics and so on)? More specifically, how does lexical selection work in this model? E.g., how do I select the right representation for inclusion if, apparently, the pieces I need for selecting it come after the selection itself? Do I go back in case I selected the wrong one? Is everything (pragmatics, semantics and so on) already at your disposal as a speaker before producing/deriving the sentence, contradicting thus the Y or T model?
• di “of” in verbal contexts (“parlo di te”). If the distinction is nominal vs. verbal for selecting di or a, how can you explain the uses of di in verbal contexts, as the one reported above? Is it a hidden nominal context?
• Natural classes and DM (145). While I am not directly working in DM, I think that most people working in this framework usually account for syncretism in terms of natural classes, intended as a set of feature bundles which have at least one common feature (as in phonology): natural class  {set1: xyz; set2: xz; set3: z}. It could be helpful if the Authors could bring an example of a non-natural-class-based account of syncretism in DM, that is a syncretism which is based on 0 common features between the feature bundles.
• The many semantics of -os- (363) and the other suffixes. While I agree that Fabregas’ proposal is too strong, it seems to me that the Authors do not provide a better predictive and formal approach to solve the issue, simply asserting that -os- can do both semantics and, thus, falling right back in the problematic issue they raise: why isn’t it the case that -os- (and all other qualifying suffixes) can do both with every noun and in every context?

It seems to me that a better approach to this issue needs a good coverage of the data, checking for the factors explaining why the same suffix has a relational semantics in one case and a qualifying in another case. Is it the case that it is an idiosyncratic property of the nominal √ the suffix attaches to? Is the external head noun relevant in this respect? If it is an idiosyncratic property of the nominal √, how can it be modeled in your framework? Is the same ambiguity attested with the prepositional case markers? If not, why?

 

Typos

• who argue that adjectival affix is actually used as a sort of case marking device
• Grimm 2011, among others)..
• we have seen that our morphosyntactic model do not substantially differ
• Namely, we argue that, for possessive adjectival items, we face with the same structure as the one in (9a).
• sistema nervosa
• bevanda (⊇) alcalcooolica
• for an entity which represent a whole

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We want to thank you teh reviewer for her/his precious feedback.

We answer to the main issues suggested by the reviewer.

 

• The lexicon groups the universal concepts in different and language-specific ways.

The patterns of syncretism arise from this different grouping. Is there a principled

approach to be pursued in explaining this grouping? Is it the case that anything

goes? Are there constraints on the patterns of syncretism that can be formalized in a

predictive way?

 

In footnote 2 and at page 3 we address the issue on the characteristics of syncretism in different approach, although the question is crucial we can not address properly (showing the variation across lexical categories which determine syncretism across languages)  in the manuscript since it woukld need a degression on the universality of grouping or in the laws of groupin in a DM approach which is aoutside the scope and the possibility of the present work. However we believe (following Manzini & Savoia) that there is a universal conceptual inventory (page 3)  which may determine,  in a lexical parametrization fashion (Wexler & Manzini), variation across languages on the categories that are recruited to be represented through a synchretism.

 

• How does lexical selection work and based on what? We have both semanticsyntactic

context influencing (57-58) and pragmatics influencing lexical selection

(226). In both cases, the question is the same: how do you model the interaction

between the different linguistic modules (which you assume, since you name lexicon

syntax, pragmatics and so on)? More specifically, how does lexical selection work in

this model? E.g., how do I select the right representation for inclusion if, apparently,

the pieces I need for selecting it come after the selection itself? Do I go back in case I

selected the wrong one? Is everything (pragmatics, semantics and so on) already at

your disposal as a speaker before producing/deriving the sentence, contradicting

thus the Y or T model?

 

This is a very interesting observation about general ]model, however what we are proposing is that while at syntax semantic interface languages may vary on the relation represented through a lexical (either content or functional lexicon) item  (something which works at syntax-semantic interface like gender and number specification in a language like  Italian as compared to classifier in bantu languages), pragmatic (as we overtly said in 226) is beyond syntax. The model we refer to is the model of Manzini Savoia 2007, 2011 (we have cited it in all the paper and I hope it is clear) which is based on the assumptions of Lexical Parametrization (Wexler & Manzini 1987) for which languages differ depending on the formal characteristics of the lexical items present in that language. 

 

we hace acknowledged it in the footnote 2 ‘This proposal also involves a Lexical Parametrization (Wexler & Manzini, 1987) approach in accounting for the difference in lexicalization depending on the presence of lexical items presenting some formal grammatical properties.’

 

As for  the Y/T modelling, although is out of the scope of the present work, but we obviously refer to a model in which the lexicon is projected into syntax while pragmatic is only an interface level (beyond syntax): in this respect with  T and Y model elk are compatible with our approach. We

 

• di “of” in verbal contexts (“parlo di te”). If the distinction is nominal vs. verbal for

selecting di or a, how can you explain the uses of di in verbal contexts, as the one

reported above? Is it a hidden nominal context?

 

We accounted for this adding the footnote 1 in which we explained:

[1]As an anonymous reviewer pointed out di can also be found with verb such as parlare (talk in Italian) in sentences like parlo di te (I speak of you= I talk about you). However, even in the case of the verb parlare a part whole relation is generally instantiated between a oblique argument introduced by a (parlo a te= I talk to you) or con = with (parlo con te = I talk with you) and the event represented by the verb: the oblique argument introduced by a or con represents the listener in the event of talking. Henceforth the argument introduced by di not involved in the part-whole relation neither with a theme nor the event of talking, but introducing an aboutness argument: what the event of talking is about

 

• Natural classes and DM (145). While I am not directly working in DM, I think that

most people working in this framework usually account for syncretism in terms of

natural classes, intended as a set of feature bundles which have at least one

common feature (as in phonology): natural class à {set1: xyz; set2: xz; set3: z}. It

could be helpful if the Authors could bring an example of a non-natural-class-based

account of syncretism in DM, that is a syncretism which is based on 0 common

features between the feature bundles.

 

We thank the reviewer for pointing it out, addressing the issue is outside teh scope of the present work (including applying  definition. of natural class), what we propose is that while DM refer to grammatical natural classes (speaker, listener etc….) which become really opaque due to the complex machinery  of rules (Fusion, Fission, Impoverishment) which does not allow to recognize a coherent natural class for the syncretism since allow extrapardigmatic syncretism, in our approach the morphosyntactic class can be recognized for some common features relavant for norpho-syntactic computation. 

An example of +/- augm as a 0 feature found for accounting  for synchretism between 1^st singular person [+speaker - augm ] and 1^st plural person  [+speaker + augn] in some clitic systems: first plural person is repaired through  1^st singular person because in some cases (I am referring to clitic in Calabrese 2008’s work) for a constraint on person hierarchy [+speaker +augm] can not be realized.

 

IN this approach in the same class found in the syncretism we have both value of + augn and – augm, that is ) identificative features. As for the binary status of feature of natural classes see footnote 3 and reference cited there. 

 

we rephrased paragraph at page 4  like that

In particular, Distributed Morphology provides a realizational model of the lexicon of natural languages, in which some abstract clusters of features can be rendered by some phonological exponents – with syncretism treated in terms of the rule of Underspecification or a set of other morphological reconstruction rules (e.g. Fusion, Fission, Impoverishment, cf. Noyer 1992; Harley 2008, among others) not as overt binary syntactic-semantic feature.

 

 

 

• The many semantics of -os- (363) and the other suffixes. While I agree that Fabregas’

proposal is too strong, it seems to me that the Authors do not provide a better

predictive and formal approach to solve the issue, simply asserting that -os- can do

both semantics and, thus, falling right back in the problematic issue they raise: why

isn’t it the case that -os- (and all other qualifying suffixes) can do both with every

noun and in every context?

It seems to me that a better approach to this issue needs a good coverage of the

data, checking for the factors explaining why the same suffix has a relational

semantics in one case and a qualifying in another case. Is it the case that it is an

idiosyncratic property of the nominal √ the suffix attaches to? Is the external head

noun relevant in this respect? If it is an idiosyncratic property of the nominal √, how

can it be modeled in your framework? Is the same ambiguity attested with the

prepositional case markers? If not, why?

 

We thank the reviewer for this comment. We do not have a definitive answer to that, we are sympathetic with the idea that some idiosyncratic properties of the root  may affect the operation of suffixazion in the same fashion for which stative event can not be found in progressive periphrases: it becomes more a factor of semantic representation which is beyond the morpho-syntactic derivation.  We will leave this for future development.

 

 

 

References

 

Calabrese, A. 2008. On Absolute and Contextual Syncretism. Remarks on the Structure of Paradigms and on how to derive it. In The bases of inflectional identity, Andrew Nevins and A. Bachrach (eds.), 156-205. Oxford: OUP.

 

Wexler, K., & Manzini, R. (1987). Parameters and learnability in Binding Theory. In T. Roeper & E. Williams (Eds.), Parameter setting (pp. 4 1 -76). Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The present paper addresses the categorial content of the affixes that forms a set of denominal adjectives in Italian supporting the idea that they act as elementary relators who characterize oblique cases and prepositions as general relators, expressing the relations is- included (⊆)/ includes (⊇). According to authors, this model is simple enough to allow to account in the same morpho-syntactic fashion both relational and qualifying possessive adjectives.

I really appreciated the analyses that authors make and the numerous example they give in support. There are also many interesting references.

I have few little comments that may be useful to authors.

Minor comments, correct before the final submission:

• Example in (10) - the bold is missing on relevant affixes
• Example in 12 - [ infl -a]]]] > [ infl -o]]]]
• Example in (14c) - sistema nervosa > sistema nervoso
• Check "Phrasal Spell-Out" because is written in different styles (be consistent, e.g., pp.8 and 9)
• Check the references because there is no internal consistency in the format.
• There are missing references, so please check (e.g., Grossmann (1999) is in the text but not in the references).

Author Response

We want to thank the reviewer for her/his advices and judgements.

We addressed all the signaled minor issues including the references (which have been adapted and made consistent).