Mood selection in complement clauses in Persian ...

Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

 

  Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian     Abstract:   There is a vast body of literature on semantic analyses of mood selection in complement clauses in Romance and Balkan languages (Giorgi & Pianesi 1997, Farkas 2003, Schlenker 2005, Villalta 2008, Siegel 2008, Giannakidou 2011 among others). Portner (2018) classifies the approaches into two major categories: truthbased approaches, and comparison-based approaches. According to the former, indicative is selected when the matrix predicate implies the truth of the complement clause in a designated set of worlds. Subjunctive is selected elsewhere. Schlenker (2005), Siegel (2008), Giannakidou (2011) belong to this group. In the comparison-based approaches, on the other hand, subjunctive is selected when the matrix predicate involves an ordering semantics, and indicative is selected elsewhere. Giorgi & Pianesi (1997) and Villalta (2008) fall into this group. There are also some studies which combine the two insights, e.g., Farkas’s (2003) analysis of emotive factives in Romance languages. In spite of this vast body of literature, mood selection in complement clauses in Persian, an Indo-European language which makes a three-way distinction between indicative, subjunctive and counterfactual has not received much attention yet. This study aims to fill this gap. Providing some syntactic and semantic diagnostics, we divide the matrix predicates in Persian into propositional vs. non-propositional groups, and observe that while all three moods are available for the former group, the latter group only selects subjunctive. We argue that the mood selection in the propositional group is based on the truth of the complement proposition, while in the non-propositional group, subjunctive is selected as the default mood. We then put our generalization in the context of the existing approaches in both truth-based and comparison-based theories, and show that while Schlenker’s theory best captures the facts in Persian, none of the approaches can fully account for the data. We conclude the paper by suggesting that at least in the case of Persian, which has very few cases of infinitival complements, any account of the mood selection in complement clauses needs to make references to both syntactic and semantic features of the complements.

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1. Introduction This paper explores mood selection in complement clauses in Persian, which makes a three-way distinction between indicative (1), subjunctive (2) and counterfactual (3). In spite of a vast body of literature on mood selection in Romance and Balkan languages, the Persian data has not received much attention in the literature yet, and this paper attempts to fill this gap. 1

midānam

fardā

bārān

miāyad 1  

 

Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

  2

3

I know tomorrow rain (will) come.IND.3SG “I know that it will rain tomorrow.” xeyli del-am mi-xāhad fardā bārān biyāyad very my heart wants tomorrow rain come.SUBJ.3SG “I really want it to rain tomorrow.” kāš diruz bārān mi-āmad I wish yesterday rain come.COUNT.3SG “I wish it had rained yesterday. ” Regarding the previous literature on mood selection in Persian, there are two recent studies on

Persian subjunctive which will be briefly discussed here: Darzi & Kwak (2015) argue that characterizing subjunctive clauses as non-veridical or irrealis does not account for the whole range of Persian data, because this correlation breaks at two ends: on the one hand, implicative and causative verbs are veridical/realis, and yet, they select subjunctive (4). On the other hand, counterfactual situations are irrealis, but they select indicative1 (5). 4

Ali movaffaq šod šerkat rā motaqāɁed kon-ad Ali managed.3SG company D.OM persuade.PR.SUBJ.3SG Ali managed to persuade the company (entails ‘Ali persuaded the company’)

5

bāyad must

  mirafti go.IND(?).2SG

unjā there

“You should have gone there.” (presupposes ‘you didn’t go’)

Darzi & Kwak then propose a syntactic description of subjunctive as follows: the common feature of subjunctive clauses is their tense dependency on the matrix predicate. When the matrix predicate is such that its complement clause is always either simultaneous with (e.g., complements to MANAGE) or posterior to (e.g., complements to

WANT)

the matrix event time, then the matrix predicate selects subjunctive.

Syntactically, such predicates select for a head C or T with a [-past] feature, which in turn triggers subjunctive morphology for the complement clause. The main problem with this syntactic account, as Darzi and Kwak also acknowledge, comes from sentences where an epistemic predicate selects perfect subjunctive, which has been traditionally called “past subjunctive” and consists of the past participle of the main verb plus the present subjunctive form of the copula: in (6) the complement is neither simultaneous nor posterior to the matrix predicate, and yet, subjunctive is selected. In solving this problem, Darzi & Kwak propose that in past epistemics such as (6), the temporal relation between the matrix clause and the complement clause is contributed by the use of the past participle. They do not, however, explain why the copula needs the subjunctive mood, and not the

1

Darzi and Kwak (2015) do not distinguish between indicative and counterfactual moods perhaps due to the similarity in form: in Persian the imperfective form in the past tense appears both in indicative and counterfactual situations. For example, the similar form mi-rafti as in (4) denotes both ‘used to go (indicative)’ and ‘would go (counterfactual)’. Following Windfuhr & Perry’s (2009) general description of verbal system in Persian, in this study we do distinguish between indicative and counterfactual moods even though counterfactual verbs do not have distinct forms.

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Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

  indicative, i.e., why we cannot have the indicative form rafte ast instead of the subjunctive form rafte bāšad. 6

šak dāram Golnāz diruz be kelās rafte bāš-ad doubt.1SG Golnāz yesterday to class go.PT.PTCPL be.PR.SUBJ-3SG “I doubt that Golnāz went to the class yesterday.” In response to Darzi & Kwak (2015), Ilkhanipour (forthcoming) argues that realis/irrealis

distinction does account for indicative/subjunctive selection in Persian. As we saw above, Darzi & Kwak’s main argument against the correspondence between irrealis situations and subjunctive mood is the case of implicative and causative predicates which mark realis situations, and yet select subjunctive. Ilkhanipour argues that the complements to implicative and causative predicates represent irrealis situations relative to the matrix predicate: implicative and causative predicates are achievement predicates, and the events described in their complements are not realized at the time of the matrix predicate, hence their relative irrealis feature. The use of subjunctive in the complement of these verbs does not, therefore, violate the mapping between irrealis and subjunctive. We note that beyond the general characterization of subjunctive complements as those that mostly feature [-past] relative to the matrix predicate2 or those that mark irrealis situations, we need a more detailed description of the predicates which universally select indicative, universally select subjunctive or afford both indicative and subjunctive in order to evaluate the existing semantic theories on mood selection against the data in Persian. This paper aims to accomplish this task. The road map of the paper is as follows: in section 2 we present some diagnostics which put the complement clauses in two groups: propositional complements of type , and non-propositional complements of type . We observe that while indicative, subjunctive (present and past subjunctive) and counterfactual moods are all available for complements of the former group, complement clauses in the latter group universally take subjunctive (only present subjunctive). In section 3, we present the data and argue that in the propositional group the degree of certainty of the attitude holder about the complement proposition determines the mood, but in nonpropositional group subjunctive mood is selected as the default mood due to lack of an argument of . In section 4, we put our generalization about the mood selection in Persian in the context of some of the prominent studies of mood selection in Romance and Balkan languages, and show that none of them can fully account for the data in Persian. Section 5 concludes the paper.

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2. Propositional vs. non-propositional predicates 2.1 belief reports vs. directive, causative and implicative predicates 2

As we saw in (6), epistemic predicates can select subjunctive in the complements that are [+past] relative to the matrix time.

3    

 

Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

  Based on the type of their complement clauses, we divide the matrix predicates into two groups: those predicates whose complements are world descriptions of type , and those whose complements are event descriptions of type . Adopting the general definition for propositions as things which denote a set of possible worlds, i.e., world-descriptions, the former group are called propositional predicates, and the latter non-propositional predicates. The standard possible-worlds semantics of BELIEVE, which is a typical predicate of propositional group, and that of CAUSE, which, adopting Parsons’ (1990) analysis, is a typical predicate of non-propositional group is shown below. (7) (8)

[[believe]]= λpλx.∀w ∈ x’s belief worlds [p(w)=1] [[cause]]=λqλxλe. Ag(e,x) ∧ ∃eʹ′ [q(eʹ′)=1 ∧ cause (e,eʹ′)]

In words, BELIEVE selects a proposition p of type and an individual x of type , and returns true iff in all worlds compatible with x’s belief-worlds, proposition p is true. CAUSE, on the other hand, selects an event description q of type , an individual x of type and an event e of type , and returns true iff the agent of e (=the causing event) is x, and there is a q event such that e causes q. Crucial to our study is the difference in the type of the arguments that

BELIEVE

and CAUSE select: the former selects a proposition

of type , while the latter selects an event description of type .3 In our analysis, we adopt the Davidsonian tradition (Davidson 1967) and assume a referential analysis of tense, where tenses are pronouns (cf. Partee 1973). In this setting, verb phrases are taken as predicates of events, i.e., of type which combine with the Aspect node. Aspects quantify over events and introduce the time argument. Tense then saturates the time argument introduced by Aspect, and returns a proposition. This proposition (of type ) is then evaluated true or false against the evaluation world. In (9a), for example, the complement to BELIEVE is a proposition which is evaluated against the world parameter introduced by the predicate, i.e., worlds compatible with the attitude holder’s beliefs. In the case of CAUSE, as (9b) shows, the predicate combines with VP of type , and it is only after it receives its agent argument that the entire causative clause (=John causes VP) is ready to combine with Aspect and Tense to form a proposition. (9)

3

Arguing against Dowty’s (1979) “bisentential analysis of CAUSE”, Parsons (1990:297) argues for a “bievent analysis of CAUSE” in which CAUSE is taken to “link two things that are intimately associated with simple sentences, but they do not require that the things linked be sentences (or propositions)”. Rather, Parsons takes them to be two events.

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Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

 

a. predicates of group 1 combine with propositions

b. predicates of group 2 combine with event descriptions

The semantic difference in argument type of the complements to BELIEVE vs. CAUSE is reflected in philosophical views on these predicates and correlates with some syntactic facts as well: in the philosophical literature, it is commonplace to say that the objects of

BELIEVE

are propositions, while that of CAUSE are

actions, which are identified in our framework with event descriptions (?). On the syntactic level also, we see that the complements to fekr kardan ‘believe’ afford different tenses, i.e., indicative past, indicative present and indicative future in (10a-c), while the complements of majbur kardan ‘force’ always appear in subjunctive present, no matter what the tense of the entire sentence is (11a-c). This observation can be explained as follows: complements to BELIEVE feature a tense node, as shown in (9a), which enables them to receive past, present and future interpretations relative to the matrix time. Complements to CAUSE, on the contrary, lack tense, and consequently do not afford an independent temporal interpretation. In the case of CAUSE, as Parsons (1990:110) argues, the caused event in the complement clause is always taken to immediately follow the causing event.4 (10) a.

b.

c.

Sām fekr mikon-ad diruz Sām think.PR-3SG yesterday “Sām thinks that it rained yesterday.” Sām fekr mikon-ad alān Sām think.PR-3SG now “Sām thinks that it is raining now.” Sām fekr mikon-ad fardā Sām think.PR-3SG tomorrow

bārān āmade (ast) rain.PR-PF.3SG dārad bārān miāy-ad rain.PR.PROG-3SG bārān xāh-ad āmad rain.FUT-3SG

4

Our classification of propositional vs. non-propositional predicates correspond roughly to Castañeda’s (1975) classification of predicates into PROPOSITIONAL THINKING vs. PRACTICAL THINKING predicates, and Bolinger’s (1968) REPRESENTATIONAL and NON-REPRESENTATIONAL attitude predicates. Clements (1992) applies Castañeda’s classification to Spanish predicates in order to give an account for similar phenomenon in Spanish, i.e., tense restrictions in the complements of practical thinking, and not propositional thinking predicates. Anand & Hacquard (2013), on the other hand, apply Bolinger’s classification to explain different behaviors of modals in the complements of the two classes of predicates.

 

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Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

  “Sām thinks that it will rain tomorrow.” (11) a. b.

c.

majbur=aš kard-and xāne force.PT-3PL=him house “They forced him to sell the house.” dār-and majbur=aš mikon-and xāne force.PR.PROG-3PL=him house “They are forcing him to sell the house.” majbur=aš xāh-and kard xāne force.FUT-3PL=him house “They will force him to sell the house.”

rā D.OM

rā D.OM

rā D.OM

beforuš-ad sell.PR.SUBJ-3SG beforuš-ad sell.PR.SUBJ-3SG beforuš-ad sell.PR.SUBJ-3SG

In order to decide about the type of the complements of other predicates in Persian, we apply Pesetsky’s (1992) test: the complements of predicates in propositional group are propositions of type , i.e., they are predicated true or false in a given world. Thus, sentences in this group afford the continuation with ke dorost ast/nist ‘which is/is not true’ in the intended meaning of confirming/denying the truth of the complement proposition in the evaluation world. Non-propositional complements, however, are event descriptions, i.e, they have not yet combined with aspect and tense to return a proposition. Thus, these complements cannot be predicated true or false, and sentences in this group do not afford the continuation ke dorost ast/nist ‘which is/is not true’ in the same intended meaning of confirming/denying the complement clause. Applying Pesetsky’s test, (12a-e) show that doxastic, assertive and perceptive predicates belong to group 1, while (13a-c) indicate the directive, causative and implicative predicates belong to group 2. Concerning the neutral factive predicates, e.g., dānestan ‘to know’, on the semantic level, we note that factive verbs feature the same semantics as

BELIVE

with the only difference that factive

additionally presupposes the truth of the complement proposition in the evaluation world, while

KNOW

BELIEVE

does not. On the syntactic level also, dānestan patterns like fekr kardan ‘to believe’ in that it allows all different tenses in its complement clause (we can easily replace fekr kardan with dānestan in (10a-c)). So based on semantic and syntactic grounds, we contend that neutral factive predicates fall in group 1, although Pesetsky’s test does not work for them, as shown in (14), the non-felicity of which is attributed to the observed phenomenon of non-felicitous repetition of presuppositions (in the same way that I know that it is raining, and it is raining is non-felicitous)                                  Group  1:  predicates  with  propositional  complements   (12) DOXASTIC

a

b

fekr mikon-ad tavallod-e man fardā ast, vali dorost think-3SG birthday me tomorrow is.IND.3SG but true “He thinks that my birthday will be tomorrow, but (it) is not true. ” šak dār-and re’is esteɁfā dāde bāš-ad, vali dorost ast doubt-3PL boss resign.PT.SUBJ-3SG but true is.IND.3SG 6  

 

nist be.NEG.IND.3SG

Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

  c

“They doubt that the chair resigned, but it is true.” šak dār-and re’is esteɁfā bedahad, vali dorost doubt-3PL boss resign.PR.SUBJ-3SG but true “They doubt that the chair would resign, but it is true.”

ast is.IND.3SG

ASSERTIVE

d goft

sāl-e gozašte sāl-e behtari said.IND-3SG year-EZ future year-EZ better “He said that last year was better, which is true. ”

bud, was.IND.3SG

ke which

dorost ast

true

is.3SG

PERCEPTIVE

e

ehsās mikon-and rābete=šān sard šode ast, feel.3PL relation=their cold has become.IND.3SG “They feel that their relationship has become cold, which is true. ”

ke which

dorost ast true is.3SG

Group 2: predicates with event complements (13) DIRECTIVE

a farmānde

dastur dād hame benešin-and, # ke commander ordered.3SG all sit.PR.SUBJ-3PL which “The commander asked everyone to sit, #which is true. ”

dorost ast true is.3SG

CAUSATIVE

b majbur=aš kard-and

xāne=aš rā beforuš-ad, forced=him-3PL house=his D.OM sell.PR.SUBJ-3SG “They forced him to sell his house, #which is true. ”

# ke

dorost

ast

which

true

be.3SG

IMPLICATIVE

c farāmuš kard

ketāb rā pas bedah-ad, forgot.3SG book D.OM back give.PR.SUBJ-3SG “He forgot to return the book, #which is true. ”

(14)

# ke which

dorost ast true is.3SG

FACTIVE PREDICATES

midān-am

ke

bārān

miāy-ad

know-1SG

that

rain

come.PR.IND-3SG

# ke dorost which true

ast

is.3SG

“I know that it is raining, #which is true.”

2.2 Desire predicates So far, we have identified three ways to distinguish propositional complements of group 1 from non-propositional complements of group 2: i) examining the semantic denotation proposed for the matrix predicate in the literature, if there is any, to see if the predicate is taken to select an argument of type or of type ; ii) examining the interaction of the complement clause and tense; if the complement clause affords independent temporal interpretation relative to the matrix time, it belongs to group 1, otherwise to group 2. iii) applying Pesetsky’s test because we established that predicates of group 1 and not group 2 pass 7    

Mood  selection  in  complement  clauses  in  Persian   Narges  Nematollahi,  [email protected]          

 

November  28,  2017  

  the test. Equipped with these three tools, we now examine three major desire predicates in Persian, i.e., xāstan ‘want’, xošhāl budan ‘to be happy’ and kāš ‘wish’ The semantics of desire predicates is well studied in the literature (cf. Heim 1992, von Fintel 1999, Levinson 2003, Condoravdi & Sauer 2016). We note that in all these treatments, desire predicates are taken to select an argument of type , which in our framework means that desire predicates belong to group 1. Simplified versions of Heim’s (1992) semantics for WANT, BE GLAD and WISH are given below. (15)

[[want]]w = λpλx. [(Dox(x,w) ∩ p)