Robin Schafer, UCSC/UCSD
Nahuatl, an Aztecan language of Mexico, appears to allow all possible orders of the basic meaningful elements, verb (V) subject (S) and object (O). Possible permutations of a single sentence of the North Puebla dialect are given in (1).
(1) a. no ikni'meh kichihchiwa'tih se kali'
my brothers 3SU-3OBJ-build-FUT a house
S V O
My brothers are going to build a house.
b. no ikni'meh se kali' kichihchiwa'tih
c. kichihchiwa'tih no ikni'meh se kali'
d. kichihchiwa'tih se kali' no ikni'meh
e. se kali' kichihchiwa'tih no ikni'meh
A house, my brothers are going to build.
f. se kali' no ikni'meh kichihchiwa'tih
A house, my brothers are going to build.
Data such as these are the reason Nahuatl is sometimes considered a non-configurational language (Hale 1983, Jelinck 1984). Despite the fact that there are six attested orders for sentences containing subject and object phrases, researchers on the many dialects of Nahuatl report preferred orders for neutral sentences which generally include only one or two of the following three orders: VSO, SVO, VOS. These three orders are described as neutral with respect to sentences in which subjects and objects occur as separate phrases. Since Nahuatl is a subject and object pro-drop language, the most common and least marked sentences consist of VO or simply an inflected predicate. Nonetheless, data such as (1) together with indications of topic, focus and neutral interpretations clearly indicate the word order flexibility of Nahuatl. This paper begins by exploring possible accounts of these facts within a version of Principles and Parameters syntax (Chomsky 1991, Chomsky and Lasnik 1991, Chomsky 1992). This approach to syntax is known for the proliferation of syntactic positions that it permits in an analysis, and so might be thought to have little to say about word order. In fact, a larger number of positions alone do not provide a satisfactory account of the type of word order flexibility found in Nahuatl.
The data to be examined are from fieldwork on the North Puebla dialect, plus the published grammars collected in Langacker 1979 on the Tetelcingo, North Puebla, Huasteca and Michoacan dialects. I pay particular attention to topic and focus interpretations and to interrogative and negative elements which have fairly fixed positions (Langacker 1977). Crucially, I assume three aspects of the Principles and Parameters approach which I will justify in the presentation: the Internal Subject Hypothesis according to which subject and object arguments are generated within the VP; the analysis of fronted interrogative elements as positioned with a functional specifier; and the proposal that negative elements originate in their own projection, NegP.
In order to account for the facts in (1), certain restrictions which are part of general Principle and Parameters approaches must be weakened. One alternative is to widen the function of various positions, removing, for example, the restriction that the specifier of INFL contain only subjects, contra Chomsky 1992 among others. This option is discussed in Aissen 1992 and Diesing 1990. A second possibility is to assume syntactic movements are optional, contra Chomsky 1991, 1992. I show that an approach that adopts either one of these changes can account for the word order facts in affirmative clauses. However, negative clause data differentiates between the two. Consider the negative clause data in (2) under the two alternatives. According to the first, the verb movement to INFL necessary to derive the (2a) is conceived of as a regular rule that always applies. Thus (2b) has the analysis provided, with subject and verb in IP. Furthermore, because the specifier of IP is not restricted to subjects, (2c) is provided with a similar analysis (which may be problematic given its interpretation). These examples lead us to conclude that NegP containing `amo' dominates the IP projection. However, if this were the case, than the subject in examples such as (2d) must be analysed in a topic position, e.g. the specifier of CP. This does not accord with the neutral interpretation of the sentence. This alternative, in effect, requires two possible positions for NegP, one above IP and one below it.
(2) a. amo kitak in xwan in kowat
NEG 3SU-3OBJ-see-PAST the Juan the snake
NEG IP[ V VP[ S O]]
Juan didn't see the snake.
b. amo in mariah kinmaka 'at a in tapialmeh
NEG the Maria 3SU-3OBJ-give water to the animals
NEG IP[ S V VP[ O ]]
Maria isn't giving water to the animals.
c. amo se kali' kichihchiwa'tih xwan wan nik ikni'meh
NEG a house 3SU-3OBJ-build-FUT Juan and his brothers
NEG IP[ O V VP[ S ]]
It isn't a house that Juan and his brothers are going to build.
d. in miakten amo oya'keh
the much-PL NEG PERF-go-PL
S NEG IP[ V ]
Many did not go.
Under the second alternative, non-subjects are excluded from the specifier of IP but V-to-INFL movement is characterized as optional. The data in (2) can be analysed using a single instance of NegP: NegP occurs as the sister to INFL. This is shown in (3). The additional (object) AgrP projection which appears here is also required under the first alternative, though not in the clauses in (2).
(3) a. amo kitak in xwan in kowat
NEG 3SU-3OBJ-see-PAST the Juan the snake
NEG AgrP[ V VP[ S O]]
Juan didn't see the snake.
b. amo in mariah kinmaka 'at a in tapialmeh
NEG the Maria 3SU-3OBJ-give water to the animals
NEG VP[ S V O ]
Maria isn't giving water to the animals.
c. amo se kali' kichihchiwa'tih xwan wan nik ikni'meh
NEG a house 3SU-3OBJ-build-FUT Juan and his brothers
NEG AgrP[ O V VP[ S ]]
It isn't a house that Juan and his brothers are going to build.
d. in miakten amo oya'keh
the much-PL NEG PERF-go-PL
IP[ S NegP[ NEG VP[ V ]]]
Many did not go.
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