Thai Passives and the Morphology-Syntax Interface

Traditional research in morphology suggests that it is an unwarranted stipulation on grammatical theory to assume that words can only be encoded by synthetic forms, as in the Malayalam passive in (1). Following this tradition there is a burgeoning current literature arguing for the independence of functional-semantic content from its morphological expression: this permits the recognition of periphrastic morphological expressions for complex words, both inflectional and derivational. With respect to the latter, cross-linguistic research attests to the existence of periphrastic passive constructions, as in the Thai example in (2), where the discontinuous multiword expression (MWE) thuuk...tii determines a passive interpretation for the clause.

Passives, within LFG, are a grammatical function changing operation, and hence, lexical, in accordance with the PRINCIPLE OF DIRECT SYNTACTIC ENCODING. Schematically, the LEXICAL MAPPING THEORY representation for passive in both Malayalam and Thai is essentially identical:

The key difference between languages resides in the language particular exponence of the passive construction. Each language requires stipulations accounting for the surface expression of the passive predicate: in Malayalam this requires the presence of the suffix -appeT, realized synthetically on the verb, while in Thai it requires the presence of thuuk, which is c-structurally separate from the verb. On the face of it, the existence of lexical operations realized by MWEs in c-structure raises a paradox (T. Mohanan 1994): how can the lexicality of e.g., passive be maintained if its exponence is syntactic, rather than morphological? There have been two classes of proposals to address this. The first, and predominant, view is to permit syntax to effectuate function-changing operations when there is evidence for the syntactic independence of the relevant pieces of a complex predicate (e.g. Alsina 1994; Butt 1995, 2010). On this approach, referred to for convenience as the split domain approach, there are no periphrastic morphological/lexical expressions; instead, in instances of MWEs, lexical representations for the relevant verbs are provided with information appropriate for their syntactic combination in a manner that facilitates the alterations observed in function-changing operations. An advantage of this approach is that it straightforwardly addresses the syntax of the relevant constructions and avoids potential problems associated with the interface between periphrastic morphological expressions and c-structure. On the other hand, the split domain approach is not responsive to the substantive research motivating the existence of periphrastic morphological expressions. In line with this, proponents of this approach generally adopt a morpheme-as-sign view of morphology, facilitating the analogy between the compositional operations between morphemes and stems in morphology to words with other words in c-structure (see Ackerman, Stump & Webelhuth 2011).

The second approach, referred to as the morphological approach (e.g. Ackerman & Webelhuth 1998, Sadler & Spencer 2000, and Frank 1996 for an analysis in a similar spirit), is to restrict function-changing operations to the morphological/lexical component of the grammar, but to permit morphological/lexical representations to be associated with periphrastic expressions. In this presentation we develop the morphological approach applied to Thai thuuk passives, especially focusing on the morphology-syntax interface. For this implementation we follow a recent proposal for compound tense constructions by Bonami & Webelhuth 2010, and demonstrate that it applies equally well to derived predicates such as periphrastic passives.

Contrary to Sudmuk 2003, we show, using evidence from disjoint reference, gapping in coordination, and reflexive binding, that one variant of the 'thuuk construction'1 has the properties of a canonical passive construction: the sentence in (2) is a monoclausal construction whose patient/theme argument is the SUBJ of the passive predicate. A straightforward application of the principle of direct syntactic encoding entails that the passive predicate is a lexical item, and the discontinuous predicate thus represents an instance of periphrastic morphology, but with discontinuous syntactic exponence: it is the obligatory co-occurrence of thuuk and the verb that signals the passive. Before providing an analysis we will provide empirical evidence for the c-structure constituency in (4) in order to identify the specific syntactic expression for the MWE. This evidence is based on coordination and topicalization: in Thai, only constituents can topicalize or coordinate. Using these diagnostics, we show that thuuk, the L-SUBJ, and the verb form a single flat constituent.

We conclude by developing a formalization of the interface between the morphological periphrase and its c- structure exponence. This adapts the analysis of inflection for periphrastic morphology developed in Bonami & Webelhuth 2010 to a derivational relation that relates an active to a passive predicate. Formalized within Sign-Based Construction Grammar, our analysis treats thuuk as the head of the passive construction, which selects for a complement verb while attracting its complements. The basic intuition guiding this analysis is the following: Despite its appearance, thuuk is a form of the main verb that borrows its phonology from an independently occurring verb in the language. On this analysis, periphrasis is treated as lexicalized syntactic exponence (Bonami & Webelhuth 2010): on the one hand, the periphrase realizes the a-structure of the head verb through a syntactically- realized complement; on other hand, the passive predicate is really a single word, albeit a word that is constrained to select for another word instantiating the same lexeme.

In sum, this paper corrects a previous LFG proposal that conflates two distinct thuuk constructions, identifies a passive variant of this construction and argues for its periphrastic morphological status and specific c-structure expression. The results suggest that traditional assumptions concerning the domain of lexical operations are consistent with the results of recent research concerning periphrastic morphology. More generally, this analysis also raises questions concerning the morphological/lexical status of serial verb constructions in (Southeast-)Asian languages (c.f. Dai 1992).

References

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