Embedded jussives as instances of control : the case of Mongolian and Korean

This dissertation is an investigation into the semantics of imperatives and imperative-like forms (collectively referred to as jussives) in embedded contexts. The long-held view that imperatives are confined to root (matrix) contexts has been challenged by recent findings of counterexamples from a variety of languages. This thesis contributes to the debate by introducing novel empirical evidence from Mongolian confirming that the restriction on imperative embedding is not universal: Mongolian is shown to allow for embedding of a a speaker-directed jussive form voluntative and a hearer-directed imperative. The empirical domain is widenend to include data from jussive embedding in Korean (drawing on Madigan 2008, Pak et al. 2008b, a.o.). This thesis takes special interest in the complex combination of properties characterizing the subjects of embedded jussives in Mongolian and Korean, to wit, (i) their dependence on an antecedent in the embedding clause, (ii) the requirement to be interpreted de se, and (iii) the presence of [phi]-features. These properties are used to make a case for an analysis of jussive subjects as instances of Obligatory Control PRO, and against an analysis as indexical pronouns. In particular, it is demonstrated how a view of PRO as a syntactically and semantically complex unit closely resembling de re expressions in attitude reports (Percus & Sauerland 2003a) provides an elegant way of accounting for the combined characteristics of jussive subjects. Set against the background of a Neo-Davidsonian event semantics, this thesis puts forward the idea that jussive clauses denote sets of events whose propositional content amounts to a desire statement. An analysis of jussives as sets of events is shown to afford a natural extension to matrix occurrences on the assumption that the content denoted by matrix jussives is anchored to the speech event. Finally, this thesis proposes to bridge the gap between jussive reports and canonical Obligatory Control constructions and demonstrates how the presented account can be generalized to provide a novel perspective on Obligatory Control constructions as well.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Sisovics, Milena

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Martin Hackl, Irene Heim and Norvin Richards.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120681

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/120681