Linguistics Vn

8/13/2019 Linguistics Vn

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Abstract

In this paper, some data are presented from Vietnamese that provide significant

empirical support for the theoretical claims articulated in Klein (1998, in press): first,

that finiteness should be understood as a composite of tense and assertion, and that

assertion may be realized independently of tense marking; second, that the assertion

operator so realized has only partial scope over elements of the clause, so that fronted

elements may evade this scopal influence. Vietnamese is of special interest because it

expresses assertion quite independently of tense or aspect: it differs in this regard

from most Indo-European languages, as well as from other isolating East Asian

languages. The formal analysis of these data involves two further, quite unorthodox,

claims: that assertion is syntactically projected in a low functional projection

immediately above vP; here, the clear parallelisms between Vietnamese assertion

markers, and Englishdo

-support suggest that the latter is not a language-specificmechanism as usually supposed, but the reflex of a more universal rule. The second

claim developed here is that in Vietnamese the displacement of certain constituents is

explained by their requirement to come within alternatively, to evade the scope

of this assertion operator. That is, syntactic movement may be driven by

considerations other than purely formal feature-checking.


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Aspects of Vietnamese Clausal Structure: Separating

Tense from Assertion

1 Introduction*This paper has both descriptive and theoretical goals. Its descriptive purpose is to

present some theoretically relevant data from Vietnamese, a language that has

received scant attention in contemporary formal linguistics. In this context, the focus

is on certain formal features of Vietnamese, which distinguish it from some other

more familiar languages of the region. The theoretical focus is on the structural

expression of functional categories; specifically, on the expression of tense and

assertion. Since Vietnamese is almost completely devoid of inflectional morphology,

it should be an excellent candidate for the extremely spare approach to functional

categories proposed in Bare Phrase Structure and assumed in much subsequent work

in Minimalist Grammar (Chomsky 1995a, 1995b, 1998). I will show here that,

despite its morphological impoverishment, Vietnamese provides evidence for at least

two distinct functional categories, including Tense Phrase and Assertion Phrase.

The focus is principally on the syntactic expression of finiteness. Following the

conceptual lead of Klein (1998, in press), finiteness is construed as the merger of two

more basic notions: TENSEand ASSERTION. Vietnamese will be shown to represent

these notions separately, morphologically and syntactically; as such, it provides

particularly clear empirical confirmation of Kleins theoretical approach. In this

respect, this language contrasts not only with many Indo-European languages, where

such notions tend to be conflated, but also with many other South East Asian

languages, where one or other notion fails to be reliably structurally expressed.


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Theoretically, the paper relates and integrates insights from three distinct

approaches. First, as just mentioned, I adopt the leading conceptual-semantic idea of

Klein (1998, in press) concerning finiteness, namely, that it is decomposable into

more basic notions of temporality (tense and mood) and assertion. Kleins position is

articulated in some more detail directly below. Second, regarding the syntactic

implementation of this idea, I incorporate mechanisms originally due to Chomsky

(1957), intended to handle the related phenomena of emphasis, negation and do-

support in a transformational description of English. While some of these ideas have

been revised and extended in more recent versions of generative theory up to

Minimalism, others, including the treatment of contrastive intonation, have fallen into

neglect. In this paper, the Vietnamese data serve to resurrect two aspects of that

earlier work. The first of these is that the base position of assertion, and of modality

in general, is very low in the functional structure of the clause below Tense,

immediately above the lexical vP rather than in the extended CP or left periphery,

as is more commonly assumed.1 This claim is schematized in (1) below:

(1) TP4

4T AsrP

4Asr vP

Assertion/Modality = c

The second idea to be re-adopted from Chomsky (1957) is that English do-support

is a reflex of a core transformational operation, rather than being a peripheral

language-specific strategy to support stray tense and agreement morphology. (Again,

I take the latter to represent more current generative assumptions: see, for example,

Chomsky & Lasnik 1977; Pollock 1989; Chomsky 1989; Bobaljik 1995).


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Finally, the paper seeks to integrate a multifunctional approach to the varying

interpretations of functional elements in different positions.2 Following Lefebvre &

Massam (1988) and Travis, Bobaljik & Lefebvre (1998), I construe a multifunctional

functional category (MFC) as:

one that is inherently underspecified with the unspecified properties of the host

head...[where]...syntax can provide additional information not available in the

lexical entry of the item. The lexical entry encode[s] the INTERSECTIONof the

uses of the item...[d]ifferent senses [of a multifunctional item] follow from the

different head positions in which it occurs (Travis, Bobaljik & Lefebvre (1998:3,

emphasis in the original).

On this view, the syntactic position of a functional category influences in some

cases, fully determines the interpretation of that element. As an example of this

type of multifunctionality, consider the alternations in (2), involving the Vietnamese

element ai:

(2) a. Anh quen ai ? = IN-SITU WHPRN know ai

Who(m) do you know?

b. Toi khong quen ai. = NPI

I NEG know AI

I dont know anyone.


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c. Ai co ay cung quen. =UNIV. QUANTIFIER

ai PRN DEM also know

She knows everybody.

In (2a), aifunctions as a WH-element; the sentence is obligatorily interpreted as an

interrogative. Sentence (2b), which is otherwise identical to (2a), contains the

sentential negation element khng: here, aiis necessarily interpreted as a negative

polarity item (!English anyone). Where aiis fronted from its base-position and in

construction with cung, in (2c), it is interpreted as a universal quantifier.

This particular set of alternations finds direct parallels in varieties of Chinese that

have previously been analyzed by other researchers, including Li, (1992), Tsai (1994)

and Cheng (1997). I return to these analyses presently. Note that the principal

contribution of the present paper is not to demonstrate that the interpretation of MFCs

depends on their position something that Li (1992) and others have already shown

well for Chinese but rather to use these varying interpretations to pinpoint more

precisely the (low) position of the operators that have scope over these elements.

Thanks to the presence and distribution of the assertion marker cin Vietnamese, this

is a much more tractable task than in Chinese, and it is here that the main contribution

lies.

A less familiar alternation is illustrated in (3); to my knowledge, this is peculiar to

Vietnamese. This concerns the WH-adverbial element bao gi (when), whose

temporal interpretation varies according to its syntactic distribution: in its canonical,

post-verbal position (3a), bao gi is assigned a past-tense interpretation; in pre-


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verbal. or sentence-initial position, bao giis interpreted as referring to the present or

future (3b):

(3) a. Co ay i My bao gi?PRN DEM go America when

When did she leave for America?

b. Bao gi co ay i My?

when PRN DEM go America

When will she go to America?

It will be claimed that as with the alternations in (2), those in (3) should be

explained in terms of syntactic scope: the varying interpretations of bao gi are

determined by being within or outside the scope of some sentential operator.

While this general idea has certainly been advanced before, there is some originality

in the idea that the relevant operator in this case is an assertion feature projected

comparatively low in the phrase-structure, and perhaps less originally, but more

controversially from a formal perspective in the idea that MFCs may move for

negative reasons in order to evade scope. That is, MFCs may move to avoid being

assigned a particular interpretation rather than purely for feature-checking reasons.

A variant of this notion of scope evasion constitutes one of Kleins arguments for

structurally represented assertion, to which we turn directly.3

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. In section 2, I briefly outline Kleins

theoretical proposals for the separation of tense and assertion, as well as for the

(abstract) structural representation of assertion in different clause-types. Following

this, in section 3, I set out the varying distributions of the Vietnamese morpheme c,


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and provide an analysis of this element as a relatively pure instantiation of assertion

divorced from tense. In this presentation, explicit parallels will be drawn between c

and English do-support. Having set out the main analysis in section 3, section 4

revisits Chomskys original analysis: I also provide some additional supporting

evidence for low modality, this time from the Vietnamese imperative system. In

section 5, I explore some further consequences of the main analysis, and develop a

hypothesis about scope evasion that directly accounts for the bao gi alternation (just

introduced). Section 6 concludes the paper.

2 Finiteness: Separating Tense and Assertion in IE Languages (Klein 1998, in press)Klein (1998, in press) henceforth K. presents a number of arguments

motivating the decomposition of finiteness into two meaning components, separating

tense under a particular construal of this notion from what is termed assertion

(also, assertion-markedness).

Four of the arguments presented by K. are especially relevant to the present

discussion, having obvious exponents in Vietnamese: three of these, discussed in

sections 2.1-2.3 below, motivate a purely interpretive splitting of the notion of

finiteness into tense and assertion; the fourth argument, in 2.5, supports the claim that

assertion is not only an autonomous semantic notion (distinct from tense) but that it is

also structurally represented in a sentence-medial position. (In section 2.4, I briefly

sketch K.s own analysis of how finiteness might be syntactically represented).

2.1. The contrastive intonation argumentThe first argument concerns contrastive intonation on English verb forms. K.

points out an important distinction between auxiliary verbs including copular verbs

and do on the one hand, vs. lexical verbs on the other: whereas contrastive


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intonation on finite auxiliaries can function either to assert or deny the VALIDITYof a

prior claim or to contrast the TIME about which the assertion is made, the former

function is not available to lexical verbs, which can contrast only the relative time

value (or the semantic content of the lexical verb).4 This contrast is illustrated in (4)

and (5) below (K.s examples (1) and (2)):

(4) a. The book was on the table.b. The book is on the table No, the book WASon the table.

c. The book was not on the table. No, thats wrong, the book WASon the table.

(5) a. John LOVEDMary.b. John LOVEDMary, but he doesnt love her any longer.

c. John LOVEDMary, but he didnt ADOREher.

The availability of this validity function in (4c) provides prima facie evidence for

Kleins claim that:

the finite element wascarries at least two distinct meaning components: 1.

the tense component: it marks past, in contrast to present or future; 2. it

marks the claim the fact that the situation described by the utterance

indeed obtains, in contrast to the opposite claim. (K. in press,pn-pending).

K. goes on to observe that it is possible to mark the same function in sentences

containing lexical verbs, but ONLYby supplying do-support, as in (6):


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(6) The idea that he didnt love her is plainly wrong: John DIDlove Mary.

The contrast between the interpretations available to stressed lexical verbs vs. those

available to stressed do indicates that do-support really DOEShave a function other

than as a host for tense and agreement inflection (as usually supposed); in other

words, that do is neither a dummy host in morpho-syntactic terms, nor a true

pleonastic, semantically. As will be shown in the next main section, Vietnamese c

signals this pure validity function even less ambiguously.

2.2 (Non-relational) Marking of Topic Time

K.s second argument for tense being distinct from assertion concerns the

interpretation of English sentences containing simple past forms (as opposed to those

involving the present perfect). In question-answer pairs such as those in (7), K.

claims that the simple past simply marks the time-span for which an assertion is

made, rather than the relationship, contrastive or otherwise, between the utterance

time and the event time (which is the standard RELATIONALconstrual of tense). Thus,

(7ii), for example, is well-formed as an answer, even though the dog is (presumably)

still dead at the utterance time:

(7) Why didnt Mika/the dog come to the park this morning?i. Mika was sick.

ii. The dog was dead.

Regarding such sentences, K. writes:

What is meant by the simple past is the fact that at some particular time span

in the past, Mika was sick, and the dog was dead. An assertion is made only


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about this time in the past, and it is simply left open whether the state

obtaining then also obtains later or earlier. IT IS NOT THE TRUTH OF HIS BEING

SICK OR DEAD THAT IS CRUCIAL BUT THE FACT WHETHER (sic) SOMETHING IS

ASSERTED ABOUT SOME TIME. Such a time span for which an assertion is

made I will call Topic Time (TT) and it is the function of tense to mark

whether TT precedes, contains or follows the time of utterance. The time of

the situation itself may precede, contain or follow TT. I think it is this

relation between TT and the time of the situation which is traditionally called

Aspect (Klein, in press,pn-pending, emphasis in original).

That is to say, the English simple past signals two functions: it indicates tense

the temporal relation between Topic Time and Utterance Time and it

simultaneously marks the (non-relational) assertion that some state-of-affairs or event

obtains at the Topic Time in question. On this construal, the wellformedness of

sentence (7.ii) follows from the fact that the use of the simple past in contrast to

the more aspectual present perfect involves no claim whatsoever about the

relationship between Topic Time and the time of the situation; in other words, no

claim is made about the dogs health outside of the Topic Time.

Although the CONCEPTUAL distinction here is relatively clear, the obviousEMPIRICALproblem is that, in the English past tense forms, these two functions are

morphologically syncretic. As we shall see directly especially in the discussion of

responsive constructions Vietnamese c realizes the assertion function of

finiteness directly, unencumbered by any requirement to mark tense.


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2.3 Tense without assertion: non-declarative sentences

K. observes that non-declarative sentences, such as yes-no questions, imperatives,

and norm-creating sentences, can be tense-marked (in his sense) without expressing

an assertion.5 Of such sentences, K. remarks:

In all of these cases, there is a sentence baseit gives a description of what

should be made true (imperatives), is to be decided whether it is true (yes-no-

questions), or ought to hold (norm-creating sentences). There is also a

counterpart to the topic time. In the imperative, this topic time must be

after the utterance time. There is no difference for questions. Norm-creating

sentences also hold for the future; sometimes, they explicitly specify the

beginning time. So, the crucial difference seems to rely on the notion of

assertion (K. in press,pn-pending).

Now, if K. is correct in claiming that non-declaratives such as imperatives can betense-marked without expressing any assertion, then tense and assertion must perforce

be separable. However, what is perhaps most important in this discussion and

most relevant to Vietnamese is the idea that assertion as a structural notion is

intimately linked to illocutionary role; in other words, that assertion is simply one

formal value of a more general multi-valued structural operator. K. (1998) states this

idea quite explicitly:

It is plausible to assume that tense only marks that some arbitrary time span,

for which we keep the term TT, is placed somewhere on the time axis, and

that either ASS, OR , DEPENDING ON THE PARTICULAR ILLOCUTION, SOME

OTHER 'MODALITY MARKER assigns a special function to this time span. So,


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TT can be the time span for which a claim is made, but it can also be the time

span, at which some obligation is put into force (on in whichever way we

want to analyse the role of the imperative) (K. 1998, emphasis mine: NGD).

Thus, what is crucial here is not only the claim that tense and assertion are

separable components of finiteness, but also that ASS is only one possible value of a

more complex modality element, whose feature values determine illocutionary force.

Precisely these properties are clearly instantiated by Vietnamese c.

2.4 Kleins structural proposal

Thus far, the concern has been to motivate two semantic-conceptual ideas

concerning finite clauses: first, that finiteness FIN, in K.s terminology is

composed of two more fundamental elements, tense and assertion; second, that

assertion is only one value of a multi-valued semantic operator determining the

illocutionary force of an utterance. The question now is how these semantic notionsare structurally realized, and how they interact with other sentential material to yield

well-formed, interpretable utterances.

K. (1998, in press) is quite explicit that FIN is always syntactically realized in the

logical structure of the sentence (although the reader should be aware that Kleins

idea of structural realization is somewhat more abstract than the surface

representations to be presented in the remainder of this paper). For K., finite

sentences have, abstractly, a rigid tripartite structure. First, there is the TOPIC

COMPONENT. Minimally, this involves a Topic Time (and topic place), the time (and

place) to which the assertion, or whichever the illocutionary role is, is confined. The

topic component may also involve other constituents, including a TOPIC ENTITY,

typically realized by the grammatical subject. The second component of the tripartite


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structure is what K. terms the SENTENCE-BASE notated as INF* in K. (1998)

which conveys the content of the assertion: minimally, this consists of a non-finite

predicate and an appropriate filling of its arguments (K in press: pn). Finally, there

is the in IE languages composite finiteness element (FIN*) that relates the

sentence-base to the topic component. (The asterisk notation denotes the level of

representation of these elements: by hypothesis in all utterances, TOP, FIN and INF

will be represented at a level of logical structure corresponding to LF in Minimalist

terms (as FIN*, INF* and TOP*); however, all three components need not be

projected in the surface (PF) representation in every language.) K.s schematisation

of this tripartite structure is reproduced in (8) below:

(8) UTTERANCETOPIC COMPONENT FIN SENTENCE BASE

topic topic topic (topic Vs and arguments

time place world entity)

As we shall see directly, in Vietnamese as in some constructions in German

this tripartite structure is reflected directly on the surface, with the bonus that

Vietnamese overtly splits finiteness into its constituent parts (T and Asr).

2.5 On the partial scope of Finiteness

One potential consequence of this structural arrangement is that (the sub-

constituents of the finiteness operator) FIN* should only have partial scope over other

sentential material; specifically, they should have scope over material to their right,

but not to their left.6


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components is directly represented in Vietnamese phrase-structure, as diagrammed

in (11):

(11) Top TOPIC44

Top TP1 4th 4

T AsrP1 4se 4

ASR vP1 4c 4

vFOCUS

It should be noted in passing that the partial scope of assertion and of other

modality operators is directly predicted if assertion is projected low in the

structure, as schematized in (11); this interpretive effect would be much more

surprising if assertion were a property of CP, in which case no amount of leftward

movement would be sufficient to evade scope. Later, it will be shown that dependent

elements in Vietnamese need only be fronted to the immediate left of AsrP to evade

scope, providing further evidence for this comparatively low position.

3 Separating Tense and Assertion in VietnameseHaving set out a particular interpretation of Kleins proposals about finiteness, we

may now consider some Vietnamese data that support these.

For the purposes of this analysis, I make three other assumptions concerning

Vietnamese phrase-structure, as set out in (12) below. None of these is especially

controversial; all three are supported by rather obvious distributional evidence.


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(12)a. Subject arguments raise overtly to [Spec, TP]b. Lexical verbs do not raise overtly out of the maximal VP (vP).

c.

In matrix clauses, there is a distinguished initial position for topicalised

constituents (TopP); this projection is headed by the topic morpheme th.7

Given these assumptions, the data in the following sections can be shown to

provide clear evidence for the syntactic separation of tense and assertion.

3.1. Tense-marking

In order to show that tense and assertion are separated in Vietnamese, ideally BOTH

should be structurally represented; however, in more traditional treatments of

Vietnamese grammar, it is often denied that Vietnamese has tense at all. This is made

quite explicit in Nguyen c Dans assertion [T]rong tieng Viet khong co pham

tru th(There is no tense in Vietnamese.) (Nguyen c Dan 1998: 116).

Presumably, what is meant here is that tense-marking is almost always optional in

Vietnamese; this contrasts with its obligatory presence in independent clauses in IE

languages. Otherwise, the claim is plainly false, since there exist morphemes whose

sole function is to carry temporal information of one kind or another, and which have

the distribution of tense or (grammatical) aspect morphemes in more familiar

languages. A representative subset of these items is listed in (13); the sentences in

(14) and (15) illustrate the distribution of these elements with respect to temporal and

manner adverbials, respectively, showing that they are distributed to the right of the

former and to the left of the latter:


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(13)a. se; sap, sap sa future; near futureb. a ; va, mi, va mi, mi va past; recent past

c. ang progressive

(14)a.*Anh Lai a hom qua giup toi.PRN Lai ANT yesterday help me

Anh Lai helped me yesterday. (00/10)8

b. ?Anh Lai hom qua a giup toi.

PRN Lai yesterday ANT help me

Anh Lai helped me yesterday. (07/10)

(15)a. Toi se can than viet la th nay.I FUT carefully write letter DEM

I will write the letter carefully. (26/27)

b. *Toi can than se viet la-th nay.

I carefully FUT write letter DEM

I will write the letter carefully. (05/27)

The examples in (14) and (15) show exactly the distributions that would be

expected if these tense morphemes occupy the T node, with lexical verbs remaining in

vP in accordance with (12b) above and if adverbial expressions are immediately

left-adjoined to the syntactic projection that they modify.9


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While the principal focus of this paper is on assertion for a more complete

discussion of tense and aspect, see Duffield (in preparation) it is nevertheless

worth pointing out that these temporal elements do not have exactly the same values

as their English equivalents. In particular, the morpheme a, which is usually glossed

as past tense, appears to denote a more aspectual relationship between the Topic

Time and a preceding situation time, either of which may be independent of the

utterance time. Thus for example, in contrast to the English past tense, amay be

used in future-perfect contexts, such as that in (16):

(16)a. Ngay mai, neu anh en luc bay gi sang th toi a i hoc roi.tomorrow, if PRN go time seven hours a.m. TOP I ANT go.study already

If you come at seven a.m. tomorrow, I will have already gone to study.

b. en cuoi nam nay, toi a ra trng.

until end year DEM, PRN ANT graduate

I shall have graduated by the end of this year.

Such complications notwithstanding, it remains the case that these morphemes

have the same syntactic distribution as tense morphemes in IE languages, but are

apparently without the assertion component associated with IE finite auxiliaries. It isto the expression of this component that we now turn.

3.2. Distribution and function of c: parallels with English do-support

Setting aside its function as a morpho-syntactic host for tense and agreement

something that is clearly irrelevant for Vietnamese English do-support is observed

in five main contexts (or three, if negation and emphasis, and responsive and ellipsis


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constructions, respectively, are interpreted as different reflexes of common underlying

constructions):

(17) a.i dooccurs (in construction with lexical verbs) in negative clauses.a.ii dooccurs (in construction with lexical verbs) in emphatic clauses.

b.i dooccurs (in construction with lexical verbs in responsives.

b.ii. dooccurs (in construction with lexical verbs) in ellipsis constructions.

c. dooccurs (in construction with lexical verbs) in direct questions.

As we shall see directly, this way of describing English do-support characterizes

almost perfectly the distribution of Vietnamese c, the only difference being the

(phonetic) optionality of the latter in most contexts. When it ISrealized, however,

Vietnamese cfunctions just like English do-support, except that obviously it doesnt

support any bound morphology. Each of these contexts is presented in turn.

3.2.1. Negative Environments

The most common marker of lexical or sentential negation in Vietnamese is khng

(except when it appears in final position, where it indicates a question); other negative

elements with near-parallel distribution and function include (more literary) chang,

cha(no, not) and cha(not yet). As the examples in (17) illustrate, in contexts of

CONSTITUENT NEGATIONkhngmust immediately precede whatever constituent it

modifies in order to be interpreted as a negator of that constituent. Compare

especially (18c) and (18d), where the reversed scope of khngwith respect to the

adverbial hon tonradically alters the interpretation of the sentence:


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(18)a. Mon an nay khngngon.meal eat DEM NEG tasty

That dish is not tasty.

b. Mon an nay ngon khng?

meal eat DEM tasty NEG

Is that dish tasty? *That dish is not tasty.

c. Co ay hoan toan khong tan thanh.

PRN DEM completely NEG approve

She totally disapproved.

d. Co ay khong hoan toan tan thanh.

PRN DEM NEG completely approve

She didnt totally approve.

The close relationship between the syntactic position of khng and its scopal

interpretation is brought out clearly by the interpretation of indefinite subjects in (19):

where immediately preceded by khng, the subject argument ai is necessarily

interpreted as a polarity item (19a), otherwise it is treated as a WH-element (19b): cf.

(2) above, see also Li (1992), Tsai (1994).10

(19)a. Khong ai thay anh.NEG AI see PRN

No-one saw you.


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b. Ai khong thay anh?

AI NEG see PRN

Who didnt see you?

Given this rigid distribution for CONSTITUENTnegation, it is interesting to see

where khngappears in cases of SENTENTIALnegation. As the examples in (20) make

clear, khngobligatorily occurs immediately to the left of c: other positions either

to the left of the tense element (20c), or to the right of cbefore or after the lexical

verb (20d, e) are wholly ungrammatical:11

(20)a. Hom qua anh ay a khong co en nha ch.yesterday PRN DEM ANT NEG CO go house PRN

He didnt go to your house yesterday.

b. Hom qua anh ay a co en nha ch khong?

yesterday PRN DEM ANT CO go house PRN NEG

Did he go to your house yesterday?

*He didnt go to your house yesterday?

c. *Hom qua anh ay khong a co en nha ch.

d. *Hom qua anh ay a co khong en nha ch.

e. *Hom qua anh ay a co en khong nha ch.

This order is so fixed that, in colloquial spoken Vietnamese, khngand care

often treated as a fused element khng-ceven though cis always optional in terms

of phonetic realization, strictly speaking (Pham Hoa, personal communication).


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Now, given the parsimonious assumption that sentential negation is covered by the

same generalization as applies to constituent negation, the distribution of khng in

(20) provides prima facie evidence for one of the central claims of this paper, namely,

that the assertion phrase headed by c, rather than the higher tense projection, is the

head of the clause. This is diagrammed in (21); compare the structure in (11) above:12

(21) 5T AsrP

1 4(se/a) khng 4

Asr vP

1 4[+NEG] 41 vco

3.2.2. Emphatic assertion contexts

In addition to negative contexts, c may optionally appear in any declarative

clause. In this respect, it mirrors the use of do-support in earlier varieties of Standard

English (including Early Modern English) and in some current non-standard varieties:

see Ellegrd (1953); Visser (1963-1973); Warner (1993); also Schtze (2003). More

typically, however, cis realized in emphatic contexts (in conjunction with khng, in

negative emphatic contexts, and often also in conjunction with other emphatic

particles such as m). This emphatic function is exemplified by the sentences in (22):

(22)a. Anh (khong) co mua sach!PRN NEG CO buy book

He DID(did NOT) buy the book!


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b. Ch (khong) co i lam!

PRN NEG CO go work

She IS(is NOT) going to work!

c. Toi co gi th mi ong ay ma! (N:153)

I CO send letter invite PRN DEM EMPH

I DIDsend him an invitation.

With respect to emphasis, c or rather, the syntactic projection hosting c

shows two further parallels with do-support. The first of these interactions involves

the multifunctional WH-element au. In post-verbal argument positions, the latter

element is obligatorily interpreted as a locative expression (with verbs that select

locative arguments). Elsewhere, however, au functions as an emphatic negative

particle. In this latter function, auhas a quite different distribution, appearing either

preceding the assertion marker c, or in sentence-final position, following c or

khng. Nguyen nh-Hoa(1990: 59) provides the examples in (23) below.

Note that the order in (23a) and (23d) only permits the emphatic interpretation for

au: in its interrogative function, aumust always appear in a post-verbal argument

position. Notice also that emphatic au is always negative, even when khngis

unexpressed, as in (23a) and (23b):13

(23)a. Ong au co en!PRN DAU CO come

He did NOTshow up! (*Where did he show up?)


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b. Ong co en au!

PRN CO come DAU

He did NOTshow up!14

c. Ong khong en nha au!

PRN NEG come house DAU

He is NOTgoing to your house! (*Where did he come to the house?)

d. Ba au co phai la ngi Hanh-thien!

PRN DAU CO right COP person H.-T.

She is NOTa native of Hanh Thien, I tell you!

The phonetic optionality of khngin contexts that are nevertheless obligatorily

interpreted as negative suggests that emphatic aumodifies, and is in construction

with, a syntactic projection with negative features, rather than with a particular lexical

item. This claim is diagrammed in (24):

(24) 5 T AsrP

1 4(se/a) au 4

khng Asr vP

1 4[+NEG][+EMPH]

[-WH]1(co)

Such an analysis is supported by the fact that preverbal au and (sentential

negation) khng are in complementary distribution, illustrated in (25) below. This

indicates EITHERthat they compete for the specifier position of this projection, as


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shown in (24), OR that they are both head-adjoining adjuncts in the sense of Travis

(1988), attaching directly to the head of AsrP:

(25)a. Ong (*khong) au co en!PRN NEG DAU CO come

He did notshow up!

b. Ong (*au) khong co en!

PRN DAU NEG CO come

He did notshow up!

The analysis in (25) is further supported by some other facts about emphatic stress

in Vietnamese. Nguyen nh-Hoa (1990: 60) reports that, especially in womens

speech, pre-verbal WH-elements have a negative function if they are heavily stressed.

This is shown by the minimal contrast in (26):15

(26)a. AInoi.ai speak

No-one spoke.

b. Ai noi?

ai speak

Who spoke?

On closer examination, however, an alternative generalization here is that, for

negative emphasis, stress is placed on the first overt element to the left of the verb,


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since either khngor c, rather than ai, attracts stress whenever either of these other

elements are realized:

(27)a. Ai Cnoi!AI CO speak

No-one spoke/Who did speak?

b. Ai KHNGnoi!

ai NEG speak

No-one spoke/Who did not speak?

c. ?AIkhngnoi?

d. ?AI cnoi?

This distributional pattern finds immediate parallel with emphatic contexts

involving doin English, where once again it is the element to the immediate left of

the lexical verb that attracts emphatic stress:

(28)a. She DIDsay that!b. She did NOTsay that!

c. She did SOsay that! (*She DIDso say that!)

d. She did TOOsay that! (*She DIDtoo say that!)

In both English and Vietnamese, the distribution of emphatic stress can be

captured by the structural analysis in (24), where stress falls on the first phonetically

realized element to the left of the head of AsrP, if the head itself is not realized. On

this analysis, the only syntactic difference between English and Vietnamese would be


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that doraises to T to pick up Tense and Agreement features, whereas cremains in

situ. This difference is diagrammed in (29):

(29) 5 T AsrP1 4

VN. a khng 4Eng. didj not Asr vP

1 4[+NEG]

[+EMPH][-WH]1

VN. coEng. tj

As discussed in section 4.1 below, this analysis is essentially a minor revision of

Chomskys original (1957) proposal for handling emphatic assertion.16

3.2.3. Default Past Tense reading

The claim that cis a pure assertion marker immediately accounts for an additional

property of c mentioned in more several traditional sources namely, what may

be termed its default past tense reading. Ngo Nh Bnh, for example, notes

explicitly that c tends to be used to emphasize the fact that an action definitely

takes/took place... (Ngo Nh Bnh 1999: 176). Since one is generally only sure

about asserting past events, and since the optional tense markers seand aare nearly

always omitted in the spoken language, it is natural that the default interpretation of

assertion cis as a past tense marker since both pick out Topic Time in different

ways.17


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This is further evidenced by the fact that Vietnamese speakers often translate

sentences containing cusing English past tenses (unless another temporal reading is

forced by the context, or by the presence of an overt future morpheme). This default

past property of cforms part of the explanation of the instances of scope evasion

presented in section five below.

Notice that these two properties of c its association with specific Topic Times

and its default past tense interpretation highlight the special sense of assertion

proposed in K. (1998): assertion does not simply mean the speakers support for a

particular proposition otherwise ccould as well be used with generic statements

rather, it involves the linking of propositional material (K.s INF*) to a particular

Topic Time.

3.2.4. Vietnamese responsive constructions

The next parallelism between Vietnamese cand English doinvolves constraints

on responsive constructions. In common with many other languages, Vietnamese has

no specific words directly corresponding to English Yes and No. Rather,

Vietnamese speakers give assent to a prior Yes-No-question either by responding with

cor by repeating the predicate; speakers show dissent either by responding with

khng(c) (or again, with khng plus the repeated predicate). This is illustrated in

(30):


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(30) Anh (co) mua sach khong?PRN (CO) buy book NEG

Did you buy the book?

a. Co Yes, I did!

b. Khong (co)! No, I didnt!

What is of interest here are the constraints determining whether speakers employ

khng(c) or choose to repeat the predicate: it is these that would appear to expose c

as a pure assertion marker in K.s sense. Consider first the typical question-answer

pairs in (31a) and (31b), involving an active and a stative predicate, respectively.

(31)a. Ch Phng co mua nha khong?Phuong CO buy house NEG

'Did Phuong buy a house?'

A: Da, co! (10/10) A:??Da, mua! (02/10)

b. Co ay (co) ep khong?

PRN DEM (CO) beautiful NEG

'Is she beautiful?'

A:??Da, co! (03/10) A: Da, ep! (08/10)

In principle, a speaker can assent to the question involving the active predicate in

(31a) either by repeating the predicate or by using c; however, the latter is clearly

preferred where the question is interpreted as asking about a specific past event (see

below). In (31b), by contrast, the judgment is reversed: in response to the question


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about an individual-level property is she beautiful? the preferred response is ep

(beautiful) rather than c.

(32)a. Ch (co) ban khong?PRN CO busy NEG

Are you busy?

A: ?Da, co! (16/20) A: Da, ban! (18/20)

b. Ong (co) nh toi khong?

PRN DEM remember I NEG

Do you remember me?

A: ?Da co! A: Nh ch!

c. Em (co) hieu khong?

PRN CO understand NEG

Do you understand?

A: ?Da co! (14/21) A: Da, hieu! (21/21)

d. Anh am co li khong?

PRN Dam CO lazy khong

Is Dam lazy?

A: ??Da, co! (03/10) A: Da, li! (09/10)

As is further illustrated by the sentences in (32), this contrast is representative of a

more general split between typical uses of active vs.stative predicates, with active

predicates preferring cin the responsive clause, and statives preferring repetition of

the predicate in question. (These examples also indicate that it is more common to


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omit cin the question if a stative predicate is involved, a point we will return to

directly).18

However, non-typical uses such as those in (33)-(35) show that the correlation

between predicate-type and responsive is not necessary, and that the assertion

property of cis actually independent of predicate-type. So, in the generic questions

in (33), which make no reference to specific events, the preferred responsive is

predicate repetition (even though an active predicate is involved). This pattern

minimally contrasts with the sentences in (34): there, a specific event is referred to,

and cis once again strongly preferred over predicate repetition.

(33)a. Ngi Nhat (co) an ca khong?person Japan CO eat fish NEG

Do Japanese people eat fish?

A: ?Da, co. A: Da, an.

b. Anh (co) sa may.anh khong?

PRN CO repair camera NEG

Do you repair cameras?

A: ?Da, co! A: Da, sa.

(34)a. Tuan roi trong nha hang cua anh ngi Nhat o co an ca khong?last week in restaurant POSS PRN people Japanese CO eat fish NEG

Last week in your restaurant did Japanese people eat fish?

A: Da, co. A: *Da, an.


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b. Hom qua khi may.anh cua chung toi b h, anh co sa khong?Yesterday when camera POSS PL I PASS break, PRN CO fix NEG

Yesterday when our cameras broke did you fix the cameras?

A: Da, co. A: *Da, sa.

c. Bay gi anh co hoc khong?

now PRN CO study NEG

Are you studying now?

A: Da, co ! (20/22) A:??Da, hoc! (09/22)

Conversely in (35), typically stative predicates such as vui ve(cheerful) and t

tin(confident), which normally require repetition in the responsive clause, prefer c

as a response when embedded under a raising predicate such as trng (appear) that

refers to a specific time.

(35)a. Ho co trong vui ve khong?PRN CO appear cheerful khong

Did they appear cheerful?

A: Da, co. (10/16) A:??Da, vui ve (07/16)


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b. Ho co trong t tin khong?

PRN CO seem confident khong

Did they seem confident?

A: Da, co. A;?Da, t tin

To capture this set of contrasts across the two predicate types, the best

generalization seems to be that cis used to associate a predicate with a Topic Time

where there is one: that is to say, it is a pure assertion marker in K.s sense. Wherethere is no relevant Topic Time, as in typical stative clauses and with active predicates

in generic contexts, cis dispreferred.19

3.2.5. Ellipsis Contexts

Just as cmirrors the assertion component of English doin responsives, so it also

functions like doin ellipsis contexts more generally. This is of course to be expected

if responsives are simply a special case of VP-ellipsis; nevertheless, it is still of

interest given that VP-ellipsis is often treated as a language-particular property

peculiar to English do. Consider the examples in (36), showing ellipsis of the verb in

affirmative and negative contexts, respectively.

(36)a. Anh khong co mua xe, nhng ho co.PRN NEG CO buy car, but PRN co

He didnt buy a car, but they did.

b. Cau Charles co mua mu mi, nhng toi khong.

PRN Charles CO buy hat new, but I khong

Charles bought a new hat, but I didnt.


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c. Chng ti c lm bi nhng ho khng.

PL I CO do homework but PRN NEG.

We did our homework, but they didn't.'

The main point to observe here if the analysis proposed in (29) is correct is

that English and Vietnamese differ with respect to the strong head licensing VP-

ellipsis (in the sense of Lobeck (1995): in English, it is Tense or strong Negation,

whereas in Vietnamese, only Assertion licenses ellipsis. This difference is

diagrammed in (37), where Neg is construed as one value of AsrP:

English ellipsis head (affirmative contexts)

(37) 5 T AsrP

1 4 VN ellipsis headVN. a khng 4

Eng. didj not Asr vP1 4

[+NEG][+EMPH]

[-WH]1VN. coEng. tj

That Vietnamese T is not strong enough to license ellipsis is evidenced by the

ungrammaticality of the examples in (38); here, neither anor secan support ellipsis:


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(38)a. *Anh a khong mua xe, nhng ho sePRN ANT khong buy car, but PRN FUT

He didnt buy a car, but they will.

b. *Cau Charles a khong mua mu mi, nhng toi a.

PRN Charles ANT khong buy hat new, but I ANT

Charles didnt buy a new hat, but I did.

It seems reasonable to think that this difference is related to the claim, expressed in

(29), that the morpheme carrying assertion moves to T in English, but remains in situ

in Vietnamese: the common generalization would then be that VP-ellipsis is licensed

by whatever head hosts assertion features at Spell-Out.20

3.2.6. Questionformation

The last obvious parallelism between English do-support and Vietnamese c is

observed in Yes-No questions. As has already been shown, Vietnamese Y-N

questions are formed using cplus the negation element khng in sentence-final

position. As in the other contexts, cneed not always be overtly realized; I assume,

however, that the corresponding syntactic projection is always expressed.21

(39)a. Anh (co) mua sach khong?PRN CO buy book khong

Did you buy the book?

b. Chieu nay ch (co) i lam khong?

evening DEM PRN CO go work khong

Are you going to work this evening?


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c. Anh ay co phai la ngi viet khong?

PRN DEM CO right COP person viet khong

Is that person Vietnamese?

In analysing these interrogative constructions, two related questions arise: namely,

the proper analysis of cand that of sentence-final khng. Whether the presence and

position of c in Vietnamese Yes-No questions is surprising or predictable depends

on one's basic assumptions about the syntax of question formation more generally. It

is surprising if one adopts the (currently standard) assumption that WH-features are

an inherent property of the highest functional projection of the clause, namely CP.

On this view, in English question-formation the movement of dofrom T to C to pick

up or check features is accidental, and essentially unrelated to the base-position of

wh-features. Such an assumption is supported by languages such as Modern Irish, as

exemplified in (40), where the presence of an overt +WH morpheme already in Cappears to preclude any similar T-C movement. If, universally, +WH features are an

inherent property of CP, one would expect Vietnamese to show a morphological

reflex of such features in a much higherposition than that occupied by c.

(40)a. A-r ith s an t-ll?Q-PAST eat PRN DET apple

Did he eat the apple?

b. An bhfuil Cit anseo?

Q BE C. here

'Is Cit here?'


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Conversely, if one construes assertion as one of a broader set of modality features

as K. and others have proposed (see above) then the occurrence of cin this

medial position in Y-N-questions is completely natural. Notice that since Chomsky's

(1957) proposal, a series of generative analyses have treated WH as an underlying

INFL feature, rather than an inherent property of C. Such a view is expressed in

work by Rizzi (1990, 1996), Haegeman & Zanuttini (1991); see also Haegeman

(1995), and especially Laka (1990).

Here, I develop a revised version of Rizzis (1996) proposal that [wh] features are

base-generated in INFL and only subsequently moved to C; see Noonan (1989) for a

related idea, see also Aoun & Li (1993). For Rizzi, morpho-syntax provides the

motivation for this claim: referring to work by Chung (1982), Clements (1984),

Georgopoulos (1985) and Hak (1990), among others, Rizzi notes that several

languages exhibit special verbal morphology for interrogatives. By locating +WH

features in the main inflection (Rizzi 1996: 66), Rizzi accounts for the distribution

of this morphology and provides formal motivation for I-to-C movement, as well as

for its restriction to root clauses (by hypothesis, lexically-selected C nodes have

inherent WH features, and thus do not need to inherit them through movement).

Rizzis (1996) analysis comes close to the same structural association between

assertion and modality (more broadly construed) as the one advanced here. He

writes:

It is natural to assume that such a position [for +wh features] can be the main

inflection (or one of the main inflectional heads, if some version of the Split

Infl hypothesis is adopted, as in Pollock (1989)), THE HEAD THAT ALSO

CONTAINS THE INDEPENDENT TENSE SPECIFICATION OF THE WHOLE SENTENCE.


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I would like to propose that among the other autonomously licensed

specifications, the main inflection can also be specified as [+WH] (Rizzi

1996: 66, emphasis mine: NGD)

While endorsing Rizzis general proposal that WH features are generated in a

sentence-medial position, I suggest that the more specific claim namely, that the

WH feature is associated with the TENSE projection is incorrect. Instead, the

Vietnamese facts, where features of assertion, emphasis and modality are

systematically dissociated from tense features, all suggest an analysis that places WH

features one projection LOWER(in AsrP):

(41) 5 T AsrP

44Asr vP

1 4[NEG][EMPH][WH]1

VN. coEng. tj

That modality features, including WH features, are dissociated from Tense is

generally obscured in less isolating languages by the fact of verb-movement; in

Vietnamese, by contrast, the two always remain separate.

If this is the correct analysis of the position of cin Vietnamese interrogatives, the

remaining issue is the proper treatment of sentence-final khng. Three analyses

suggest themselves immediately: first, that khng is a sentential tag, roughly

equivalent to English isnt it/she/etc; second, that khngis in the head of a rightward


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C; finally, that khngis right-adjoined to vP within the syntactic scope of +WH c.

These options are schematized in (42) below:

(42)a. [[ .........TP........], khng]

b. CP5TP C

4 1T khng

3T AsrP

c. 5 T AsrP

44Asr vP1 4

[-NEG][EMPH][+WH]

1VN. co

Eng. tj

There are several reasons to reject the former alternatives and to adopt the third

(42c). With respect to the tag analysis, two points should be noted. First, in

Vietnamese Y-N questions, khngfails to show the comma intonation pattern typical

of sentential tags; instead, it is fully prosodically integrated into the vP. More

significantly perhaps, Vietnamese has an alternative tag strategy for forming Y-N

questions: this latter strategy, illustrated in (43) below, employs exclusively positive

rather than negative tags, and displays exactly the expected intonational pattern.

Taken together, these facts cast doubt on the idea that bare sentence-final khng

should be analyzed as a sentence-tag.


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(43)a. Anh ay khong (co) en, (co) phai khong?PRN DEM NEG CO come, CO right NEG

He didnt come, did he?

The rightward complementizer analysis in (42b) is somewhat harder to reject,

based as it is on a treatment by Cheng (1997) of similar sentence-final particles in

Mandarin Chinese. However, whereas this analysis is plausible for Mandarin, other

facts distinguishing the two languages suggest that it is not directly transferable to

Vietnamese. The first is a narrow typological fact: in contrast to Mandarin, which

displays more mixed word-order properties, Vietnamese is otherwise strictly head-

initial; if khngwere analyzed as occupying a rightward C position, it would be the

only syntactic head in the language projected to the right of its phrasal complement.22

More importantly, and again in contrast to Mandarin, Vietnamese has what appear

to be LEFTWARDcomplementizers in other syntactic environments. This set includes

the -WH complementizer rangin (44a) and the +WH complementizer neuin (44b),

corresponding to English that and if, respectively. Assuming that these latter

elements are indeed complementizers in C, the case for sentence-final khngas a

rightward complementizer would appear to be further reduced.

(44)a. Anh a noi (rang) co ta khong tin *(rang)PRN ANT say (that) PRN khong believe (that)

He said that she didnt believe (him).


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b. (Neu) ngi ta mang hang-hoa en tan nha *(neu), ...

(if) people bring goods go visit house (if)

If people bring goods to your house...

The alternative analysis proposed here is that given in (43c): sentence-final khng

is right-adjoined to vP, and derives its interpretation in virtue of being in the syntactic

scope of the assertion head specified with +WH features (the head that is optionally

phonetically realized by c).

3.3. Interim summary

The Vietnamese data presented in the preceding sections illustrate the strong

formal and functional parallelism between Vietnamese c and English do-support: all

of the functions served by one are served by the other, with the obvious exception that

English dohosts inflection, whereas cdoes not. The functional parallelism supports

the claim, made earlier, that English do-support does much more than rescue stranded

affixes it is no mere dummy or pleonastic element and that it is a reflex of a

much more general syntactic means of expressing assertion and related modality

features.

As important as the functional parallelism, however, are the formal distributional

parallels: the position of c in Vietnamese clauses sentence-medial and

syntactically separated from tense provides evidence for an independently-

projected assertion (modality) head rather low in the functional structure of the clause.

The evidence laid out above, from the position of sentential negation and of emphatic

negative and assertive modifiers, as well as the from the ellipsis and responsive

systems, all points to this head (AsrP) as the head of the clause, at least in


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Vietnamese. The analysis diagrammed in (29) above shows that such an analysis may

also be applied to English, modulo the effects of verb movement.

Moreover, the additional interpretive facts that have been presented, in particular,

the default past interpretation of c , and the typical interactions between the

realization of cin responsives and the type of lexical predicate involved, suggest that

the features of this head are intimately bound up with the syntax of what is termed

event representation in other formal analyses. I suggest that it is not coincidental

that AsrP occupies precisely the hierarchical position at which other researchers have

postulated some type of Event Phrase: see Travis (1994, 2000), Ritter and Rosen

(2000), and other contributors to Tenny & Pustejovsky (2000), amongst others; see

also Davidson (1967); Parsons (1990); and Kratzer (1996). Note that the main

difference between many of these accounts and that proposed here is that in the

former the head of the phrase typically serves to express an event, and is thus

dependent on the lexical semantics of the predicate, whereas on the present analysis

cserves to assert a Topic Time, which need not in principle make reference to any

specific EVENT: it could as well refer to a STATEat a particular time, as in (35).

Both syntactically and semantically, then, Vietnamese cand English auxiliary do

show rather striking parallels in those contexts where they share the clause with

another predicate. In fact, the only obvious point of divergence between these two

functional elements aside from morpho-syntactic support is in their

interpretation as main predicates: as a lexical predicate, Vietnamese c is translated as

have, possessor be in existential contexts (see below) rather than do. Even

here, though, both elements belong to the class of light verbs; see Jespersen (1965);

cf. Kearns (1989) and Grimshaw (1990).


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The data presented thus far therefore provide clear empirical support for Kleins

proposal, that Assertion is syntactically expressed, and that it can, in principle, be

dissociated from Tense: in Vietnamese, these two components of finiteness ARE

clearly separated, morphologically and syntactically.

In addition to motivating a low functional projection for modality immediately

above vP, the Vietnamese facts also provide evidence for the other leading idea in

Klein (1988), namely, that constituents can be placed inside or outside the scope of

this assertion head, and that this has immediate consequences for clausal

interpretation. In section five below, this notion of scope is shown to account for the

distribution and interpretation of several independent multifunctional elements in

Vietnamese: the analyses presented there further reinforce the idea that the relevant

scopal operator is projected in this low position below TP, and the subject position

in [Spec, TP] rather than in the highest functional projection (CP).

Before turning to these scope facts, however, it is worth drawing attention to the

similarities between the structural analysis proposed here for c and Chomskys

(1957) original analysis of the constructions involving do-support in English. Given

the parallelisms that have been reviewed here, it should not be surprising that

Chomskys analysis of do-support fits Vietnamese so well. The point here is that

subsequent developments in generative theory have so tended to marginalize English

do-support that such parallels in analysis become much less obvious.

4 Motivating AsrThe general idea that assertion, negation and modality are closely associated

syntactically is of course a classic notion in generative grammar: it pre-dates the split

between generative vs. interpretive semantics, informing both traditions,23 and


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provides the conceptual basis for the GB distinction between lexical and functional

categories, a distinction that drove nearly fifteen years of syntactic research.24

4.1. Chomsky (1957)

In Syntactic Structures, negation, modality (question formation), and emphasis are

analyzed in terms of three transformational rules: Tnot, Tq, and TA, respectively; cf.

Katz & Postal (1964), Baker (1970). The first rule derives negative sentences by

introducing the lexical item NOTinto a position immediately to the right of the base

position of verbal affixes (anachronistically, following Infl). Given the extrinsicordering of these rules, this results in the non-adjacency of Af and the main verb,

which in turn triggers do-support (to carry the affixes). The question formation rule,

Tqalso operates on the affixal position, interchanging this with the first element of

the sentence, that is, the subject. As with Tnot, this has the effect of triggering do-

support, since the subject now intervenes between the affix and its verbal host.

Finally, to handle emphatic constructions, Chomsky:

set[s] up a morpheme A of contrastive stress to which the following

morphophonemic rule applies:

(45) ..V..+A --> "V, where " indicates extra heavy stress.TAimposes the same structural analysis of strings as does Tnotand adds A

to these strings in exactly the position where Tnotaddsnotor n't. (Chomsky

1957:65).

In Syntactic Structures, Chomsky was insistent that the three rules were intimately

related: indeed, it was the feeding/bleeding relationship among them that provided the


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motivation for a transformational approach. The quotation above relates the negation

and emphasis transformations (Tnot and TA); a few paragraphs earlier, Chomsky

explicitly relates Tnotand Tq:

The crucial fact about the question transformation Tqis that almost nothing

must be added to the grammar in order to describe it. Since both the

subdivision of the sentence that it imposes and the rule for appearance of do

were required independently for negation, we need only describe the

inversion effected by Tqin extending the grammar to account for yes-or-no

questions. Putting it differently, transformational analysis brings out the fact

that negatives and interrogatives have fundamentally the same structure

(Chomsky 1957: 64-65).

There are several points to notice immediately about this analysis. First, though it

provides a parallel treatment of negation and assertion, it is just that, parallel: given

a strong transformational rule system (including ordered lexical insertion rules), it is

essentially an accident, albeit a convenient one, that the two rules Tnotand TAhappen

to apply in the same structural context. Furthermore, the analysis treats as accidental

the fact that the rule targets a functional category, as opposed, say, to a main verb.

Second, unlike Tq, Tnot and TA do not in fact target any constituent directly;

instead, they insert new material into space to the right of the Infl constituent (C, in

Chomsky 1957). This property, taken in conjunction with the fact that it was

obviously not a meaning-preserving operation, led to the abandonment of Tnot in

later, more representational, versions of the theory, especially those that assumed


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some version of the Projection Principle (Chomsky (1981). Once negation came to be

viewed as necessarily a d-structure property, parallels with TA were lost: in

subsequent treatments of do-support, emphatic do is either ignored entirely or

relegated to a footnote; see, for example, Chomsky (1989). As a result, most of the

extensive research on the NegP hypothesis following Pollock (1989) disregards the

fact that the same position that modulates negation also modulates emphasis (or

assertion).

Laka (1990, 1994) and Haegeman (1995) are notable exceptions to this; however,

these authors place the relevant functional head labeled "and [Pol] by Laka and

Haegeman, respectively above, rather than below, Tense. Only much more

recently, in Cormack & Smith (2002), has it been proposed for English that assertion

and negation are united in a low functional head: the proposals made here for

Vietnamese appear to be quite consistent with Cormack and Smiths analysis for

English, except that the present proposal would also include WH-features in the samehead.25

Of the three rules, only Tqis still considered a transformational operation: it is of

course the direct precursor of T-C movement. What is interesting to observe,

however, is that in Syntactic Structures the other two transformations were logically

prior to Tq. As the quotation above makes clear, Tq is an extension to the

transformational system set up for Tnot and TA. Without such a system as

importantly, without the associated extrinsic rule ordering Tqalone is insufficient

to derive all the properties of yes-no questions. This is brought out forcefully by the

sentences in (46), which involve both emphasis and T-C movement (small capitals

indicates emphasis):


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(46) She DIDNT say that whales were fish.a. Well, what DIDshe say, then?

b. #Well, what did she SAY, then?

Ignoring (phrasal) wh-movement momentarily, it is relatively straightforward to

derive (44a) under the (1957) analysis. First, the morpheme A is inserted. This

interrupts the adjacency between Af and V, blocking Affix-hopping, and triggering

do-support. TA Chomskys Rule (45) then applies, yielding emphatic do.

Finally Tqis applied to the output of the other rules.

Two points bear mention. First, the fact that examples (46a) and (46b) have

distinct interpretations again suggests that the morpheme A of contrastive stress

does more than affect the morpho-phonemics of the element it attaches to,

correspondingly, that auxiliary dois more than simply a dummy host for stray affixes;

if this were not so, (46a) and (46b) should be synonymous.

Second, the derivation only works if the transformational rules are extrinsically

ordered, since alternative orders of application yield the wrong results. Crucially, and

perhaps unexpectedly, do-support must be triggered BETWEENthe insertion of the

morpheme A and the application of TA, and TA must precede Tq; otherwise, it is

impossible for A to be carried along by Tq

. This extrinsic ordering is contrary to

Chomskys own proposal, which is for do-support to apply last (1957:63).

Of course, this difficulty does not arise if Asr, negation and other modality features

occupy the same distinguished base projection, and if the head of this projection is the

initial target of English Aux-to-Comp; that is to say, if Aux-to-Comp is really Asr-T-

C, rather than T-C movement (in current terms), as proposed in (29) above.26The fact

that such an architecture is required to account for cand related markers of emphasis


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and assertion in Vietnamese would seem to provide independent support for such a

claim.

4.2 Additional Evidence for Low Modality: Vietnamese imperatives

Vietnamese imperative constructions provide one further piece of evidence in

favour of a low base position for modality features. As the examples in (47) from

Ngo Nh Bnh (1999)illustrate, imperative morphemes are predominantly placed to

the immediate left of the verb: where the subject is overtly realized, these morphemes

always appear like c to the right of the subject. Note especially the

ungrammaticality of the clause-initial placement that would be expected if

imperatives occupied the left-peripheral CP projection (47d-f):27

(47)a. Cac anh HAY oc bai nay.PL PRN IMP read lesson this

Read this text!

b. Anh C hoi.

PRN IMP ask

Go ahead. Ask.

c. (Anh) NG noi to!

PRN NEG.IMP talk loud

Dont speak loudly!


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d. *HAYcac anh oc bai nay.

e. *Canh hoi.

f. *NGanh noi to!

5 Scope and Scope EvasionThe data presented thus far have provided evidence in support of the analysis of

Vietnamese clause structure diagrammed in (11) repeated below for convenience

in which modality features, including features of assertion, negation, emphasis and

WH, are all associated with a sentence-medial, functional category projected below

TP. By hypothesis, it is the features in the head of this projection that determine the

interpretation of multifunctional elements in positions lower than this head:

multifunctional elements placed ABOVE AsrP are outside of the scope of these

features.

(11) Top TOPIC4

4Top TP1 4th 4

T AsrP1 4se 4

ASR vP1 4c 4

vFOCUS

If this analysis is correct, then multifunctional elements are expected to display

two types of exceptional behavior: first, MFCS that would normally appear above

AsrP in terms of argument structure specifically, subject arguments might be

displaced so as to come within the scope of the Asr head; conversely, MFCSnormally


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projected to the right of Asr might raise to evade scope. As the following data shows,

both of these predictions are borne out.

5.1. Multifunctional elements in subject position: moving INTOthe scope of assertion

The first context to consider is the clausal subject position, which falls outside of

the scope of Asr, and where multifunctional elements nevertheless appear to receive

varying interpretations. Some relevant cases are those in (48):

(48)a. Toi khong thay AI.I NEG see AI

I dont/didnt see anyone.

b. Khong ai thay anh.

NEG AI see PRN

No-one sees/saw you.

c. Ai khong thay anh?

AI NEG see PRN

Who doesnt/didnt see you?

The sentences in (48) present two opposing challenges to the analysis developed

thus far. Consider first the MFCSthat are interpreted as negative polarity items, in

(48a) and (48b). The position of khngin (46a) is unproblematic if it is in [Spec,

Asr], as assumed in (11). In (48b), however, khngDOESpose a problem since it

appears to be in a pre-subject position; on the current analysis, khngshould not have

any negative force in this position, nor should it cause subject aito be treated as a

negative polarity item.


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However, things may not be as they seem. A consideration of Vietnamese

existential clauses suggests an alternative analysis of (48b) that is perfectly consistent

with the structure in (11). Given the discussion thus far, it should not be surprising

that Vietnamese existentials are expressed using the multifunctional element c; in

this usage, c corresponds to the English copular be. Some examples are given in

(48):

(49)a. Co tin-tc quan trong (ma) lam moi ngi xuc dong.CO news important REL make every person excited

There is such important news as to make everyone excited.

b. Khong co nhieu xe-la hoat-ong na.

NEG CO much train operate more

Theres not much train travel anymore.

What is immediately relevant about these constructions is that, just as in English

there-constructions, the subject (there-associate) obligatorily occurs in a lower

position following c; this order contrasts directly with all the other cases we have

seen involving a subject NP plus (emphatic or negative) c.28

If it is now assumed that c occupies the same position in all of these

constructions, namely, under Asr, it allows for an alternative analysis for (48b) in

which the subject ai occupies a position LOWER than the normal position of the

subject at Spell-Out, and where (negative) khng preceding this subject occupies

[Spec, Asr], as shown in (50):29


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(50) 4T AsrP

4khng 4

Asr vP

1 3[+NEG] ai thay anh[-EMPH][-WH]1(c)

Such a re-analysis makes two straightforward predictions, both of which are borne

out. First, c should optionally appear between (negative) khngand the subject ai,

as in (51); by contrast, if khngwere really an inherent constituent negation, negating

aiin subject position, then cwould appear in preverbal position FOLLOWINGai, as in

the ungrammatical (51b).

(51)a. Khong co ai thay anh.NEG CO AI see PRN

No-one saw you, there is no-one who saw you.

b. *Khong ai co thay anh.

c. Khong co ai ma thay anh.

d. Khong co co gai thong-minh nao lay ngi co ta khong phuc.

NEG co PRN girl smart which take person PRN DEM NEG admire

No smart girl gets married to a man whom she doesn't admire.

On the analysis in (50), sentences such as (48b) are really covert existentials,

parallel to those in (49). As such, the second prediction is that the clausal material

following the NP aishould be analyzed as a relative clause, with a phonetically empty

subject. This latter prediction is borne out by the fact that (48b) is understood as


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wholly synonymous with (51c), in which the (optional) relative clause-marker m

appears between the subject/associate aiand the predicate thay.

Therefore, there is good reason to think that khng can be given a uniform

treatment as an underspecified multifunctional item within the scope of Asr in its

Specifier position even where khngapparently precedes indefinite subjects.

The remaining, and opposing, challenge is (48a), where ai receives a +WH

interpretation even though it is outside the scope of a Asr[+WH] head. Unlike the NPI

case just discussed, there is no possibility here of analyzing these as post-verbal

subjects; all of the available distributional evidence, including c and khng

placement, indicates that in this example aioccupies the canonical subject position

[Spec, T], above Asr.

Here, the most reasonable alternative analysis is that the +WH feature of Asr itself

raises (covertly) to C, functioning as a +WH operator in C, and thus restoring the

scope configuration required to license a +WH subject. This analysis, diagrammed in

(52) below, is entirely consistent with standard treatments of wh-movement in WH-in

situ languages.

(52) CP4C TP

[+WH] 4ai 4

T AsrP4

khng 4Asr vP1 4

[+NEG] ai thay anh[-EMPH][+WH]

1(co)


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If these proposals are correct, then the appearance of multifunctional elements

apparently in subject position does not constitute a real challenge to the main idea

behind (11), namely, that the interpretation of preverbal multifunctional elements

including c, aig, au, and khng(chang) is determined exclusively by their

scopal relationship to the syntactic head Asr, and by the values of the feature-set of

Asr.

Rather than considering these elements massively ambiguous, the present proposal

makes it possible to reduce their lexical specifications to a minimum, explaining their

ambiguity directly in terms of their distribution. For example, aiinterpreted variously

as who, no-one and anyone, may be minimally specified with a single lexical

feature [PERSON]; au(where, nowhere, anywhere, at all) might be specified as

[LOCATION], assuming that at all is a covert locative; see footnote 13 above. The

most significant reduction is offered for c , which as we have seen, is variously

interpreted as an emphatic, negative, interrogative, and existential marker, and to

express possession (have). Given the present proposal, c can be minimally

specified as the lightest of light verbs, a pure assertion marker.

As was already noted in the introduction, it is not original to claim that MFCs are

lexically underspecified, or that they owe their interpretation to the features of some

c-commanding operator: these ideas have already been articulated and developed by

linguists working on Chinese, especially Li (1992), Tsai (1994) and Cheng (1997);

also Aoun & Li (1993). However, as should be clear from the preceding sections,

Vietnamese provides something extra: on the one hand, a clearer distinction between

Tense and Assertion; on the other, clearer evidence for a very low position for the

Assertion operator.


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5.2. Evading Scope

Having considered the case where an element is exceptionally moved into the

scope of Asr, we turn finally to examine two contexts, previewed in the introduction,

where multifunctional elements are moved leftward from their canonical position to

evade the scope of a particular head. Note that this movement is different from

standard instances of scope-related movement QR, and the like in that the

movement is not driven by a property of the raised constituent, but by properties of

the configuration it is moving out of: here, an element is moving, not to check formal

features or to TAKEscope, but to EVADEit.

5.2.1. Universal readings

The most striking case of scope evasion is provided by the multifunctional

elements ai, g, and no(which, any), when functioning as universal quantifiers.

As the preceding sections have shown, these elements are construed in other contexts

either as negative polarity items when in the scope of Asr[+NEG], or as [+WH ]

variables in the scope of a WH-operator (in C, by 51)). In conjunction with the

morpheme cung, standardly translated as also, however, these elements are

obligatorily interpreted as universal quantifiers. The examples in (53) below show ai,

noin subject position, outside the scope of Asr (assuming the analysis in (11)): the

examples (53a,b) show the interrogative function of ai,no, while those in (53c, d)

show their universal function.30

(53)a. Ai biet co ay au? ai know PRN DEM be where

Who knows where she is?


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b. Sinh-vien nao biet giao s ay.

student which know teacher DEM

Which student knows that professor?

c. Ai cung biet co ay au?

who also knows PRN DEM be where

Everyone knows where she is.

d. Sinh vien nao cung biet giao s ay.

student which also know teacher DEM

Every student knows that professor.

At a morphological level, there are obvious parallels with some North East Asian

languages, which also form universal expressions by combining WH-elements with a

morpheme meaning also (compare, for example, Japanese dare-mo, Korean nookoo-

to). This morphological parallelism might lead one to suppose that in Vietnamese ai

cungforms a syntactic constituent also, contrary to the proposed analysis in (11).

However, there is clear evidence that this is not the case. When positions other than

the subject position are considered, a striking pattern is observed: if any argument

other than the subject is expressed with universal ai, g, no, etc., then that argument

must be fronted to a position preceding the Asr head, typically preceding the subject.

In such cases, cung remains in the same immediately pre-verbal position. The

examples in (53), from Ngo Nh Bnh(1999), illustrate fronting of direct objects and

temporal adjuncts. What is of interest here is that the quantified expression must not

be left in its canonical object position, nor in any position following preverbal cung,

as evidenced by the ungrammaticality of the sentences in (55):31


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(54)a. T nao anh ay cung nh.word which PRN DEM also remember

He remembers every word.

b. Ai co ay cung quen.

ai PRN DEM also know


c. Bao gi anh ay cung en muon.

what time PRN DEM also come late

He is always late.

d. Ngay nao toi cung tap the thao.

day which I also practise exercise

I do exercises every day.

(55)a. *Anh ay cung nh t nao.b. *Co ay cung quen ai.

c. *Anh ay cung en muon bao gi.

d. *Toi cung tap the thao ngay nao.

Prima facie,the ungrammaticality of the examples in (55) could be taken as a sign

that Quantifier Raising (QR) in the sense of May (1977, 1985), and subsequent

work is an obligatorily overt operation in Vietnamese. If this were correct, these

examples would not speak directly to the issue of scope evasion, whatever their

interest might be from the point of view of comparative syntax. However, an

examination of INHERENTLY SPECIFIEDuniversal quantifiers shows that overt QR is


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not obligatory in Vietnamese. If underspecified elements such as aiand no are

replaced with the inherently specified moi (every), as in the examples in (56), no

such movement is observed; indeed, cungmay not even co-occur with such elements.

In other words, fronting is exclusively restricted to underspecified elements whose

canonical position is below Asr.

(56)a. Ai cung nh moi t.ai also remember every word

Everyone remembers every word.

b. Vai thay-giao biet moi sinh vien.

Some teachers know every student

Some teachers know every student.

c. Vai co gai cung tap the thao moi ngay.

some PRN girl also practise exercise every day

Some girls also do exercises every day.

The notion of scope evasion permits a reasonably direct explanation of this

restriction. On the analysis in (11), underspecified elements within the scope of Asr

must receive one of three interpretations depending on the values of the feature-set of

Asr: in the case of ai, for example, different specifications of Asr yield who [+WH],

no-one [+NEG] and the indefinite someone [-NEG, -WH]. If these interpretations are

obligatory WITHINthe scope of Asr, then the only way for these elements function as

universal quantifiers is if they are moved to a syntactic position beyond the scope of

Asr. I suggest that this is what obtains here: that underspecified elements are fronted

in order to avoid an unwanted interpretation.32


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Finally, consider the position of fronted objects and adjuncts in the grammatical

sentences in (57): in contrast to the pre-subject position in the sentences in (54), these

examples show that MFCS may be fronted to a position immediately following the

subject position, but still preceding and outside the scope of the assertion

head.33 Note that Vietnamese is generally a rigidly configurational language: other

than the very free movement of topicalized constituents to the designated clause-

initial topic position, there is no scrambling in Vietnamese, so that in contrast to

the MFCSin (57) inherently specified objects must not be placed in this position.

(57)a. Anh ay t nao cung nh.PRN DEM word which also remember

He remembers every word.

b. Co ay ai cung quen.

PRN DEM ai also know


The sentences in (57) thus provide further confirmation for the claim that the

active syntactic head (Asr) occupies a comparatively low position in Vietnamese

phrase-structure: if TP, rather than AsrP, were the head to be evaded, these MFCs

could only be adjoined in the higher clause-initial position (53) in order to be

interpreted as universal quantifiers.

5.2.2. Tense alternations

As already prefaced in the introduction, the second instance of apparent scope

evasion in Vietnamese is observed with certain +WH temporal adjuncts (bao gi, luc


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nao, khi nao); that is to say, with expressions corresponding to English when, what

time, etc. In Vietnamese, such expressions occur in one of two syntactic positions:

following vP-internal arguments and clause-initially. In both positions, the

expressions mean when. There is a crucial interpretive distinction, however: in

initial position, bao giis obligatorily interpreted with future time reference, whereas

in its (more canonical) sentence-final position, bao giis interpreted as referring to

past time. This minimal contrast is illustrated in (58):

(58)a. Bao gi co ay i My?when PRN DEM go America

When will she go to America?

b. Co ay i My bao gi?

PRN DEM go America when

When did she leave for America?

c. Luc nao anh xem cuon phim o?

when PRN watch CLS film DEM

When will you watch that film?

d. Anh xem cuon phim o luc nao?

PRN watch CLS film DEM when

When did you watch that film?

This pattern is noted in all standard Vietnamese reference texts and teaching

guides.34 This temporal contrast is apparently grammatical, as opposed to being a

(pragmatically determined) preference rule however that might be described. This


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is made clear by the fact that each order is compatible with only one or other tense

morpheme, whenever these are explicitly realized: clause-initial temporal expressions

are incompatible with the pre-verbal past tense morpheme a, but possible with the

future morpheme se; the opposite judgments hold of the same expressions in clause-

final position. Compare (58) with the examples in (59) below.

(59)a. *Bao gi co ay a i My?when PRN DEM ANT go America

When did she go to America? (07/25)

b. Bao gi co ay se i My?

when PRN DEM FUT go America

When will she go to America? (25/25)

c. Co ay a i My bao gi?

PRN DEM ANT go America when

Whe

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