RoLinC: Xavier Villalba, Mirative markers

On May 7, Xavier Villalba (Autonomous University of Barcelona) will be giving a talk entitled, ​Mirative markers in Romance exclamative sentences. 

Abstract:

Exclamative sentences in Romance involve a rich set of markers whose syntactic position and semantic/pragmatic meaning is unclear. Consider the markers (mrk) in boldface in the exclamative sentences in (1):

(1) a.  Si      (que) n’és,       de bo!                                                               (Catalan)

mrk  mrk  of.it-is    of good

‘How good it is!’

1.  Ma  que   és bonic això!                                                                 (Valencian Catalan)

mrk  mrk  is  nice   this

‘How pretty this is!’

1. ¡Vaya,   qué    delirio!                                                                      (Spanish)

mrk       what  delusion

‘Wow, what a delusion!’

The hypothesis we will defend is that the meaning encoded by each of these particles, while contributing to creating an exclamation speech act, is neatly different, and spreads across Rizzi’s left periphery (Rizzi 1997) and Krifka’s Speech Act Layer (Krifka 2021).

Sentence-type. At the lower level we find the marker que, encoding the exclamative sentence-type (Villalba 2003), not only in (1)a-b, but in wh– and definite exclamatives as well (2):

(2) a.  Que   bo     que   és!     b.  ¡Las/Menudas cosas      que       come!

how   good mrk  is           the.f.pl/small things     mrk      eats

‘How good it is!’               ‘The things she eats!’

This marker is homophonous with optative and interrogative que (Prieto & Rigau 2007; Sánchez López 2017a), so I will suggest that it encodes sentence-type, and generates in the head of ForceP. We will discuss the consequences of such a move for analyses of exclamatives following (Benincà 1996), who argues this element is focus marker.

Degree quantification. Exclamative sentences must include a degree operator creating the necessary domain extension which surpasses the speaker’s expectations (Zanuttini & Portner 2003; Rett 2011; Castroviejo 2021): this is the case of si (1a) (cf. si in Spanish exclamatives (Sánchez López 2017a)), the null operator (1b), the wh-words qué (+N) (1c) and que (+A) (2a), and the definite DP las/vaya cosas (2b). All these elements move to the Spec of ForceP. Schematically:

(3) a. [ForceP si/OP [Force’ que [FinP [TP n’és de bo ]]]]

1. [ForceP que bo[Force’ que [FinP [TP és ]]]]

Mirativity. In a higher position than ForceP we find mirative markers, like Catalan mira/ma, goita, òndia, Italian guarda, Portuguese olha, nossa, or Spanish mira and vaya. These elements modify the whole proposition, marking that the information is unexpected for the speaker, and can appear either at the beginning of the utterance, or at the end:

(4) Tu,    goita les          pentinetes del       monyo!            Ma!

you    mrk  the.f.pl  combs       of.the   bun                  mrk

‘Look at the bun’s combs! Wow!”

Here, the proposition is modified by both initial goita and final ma. For final mirative markers, we follow (Espinal, Real-Puigdollers & Villalba 2022) in considering that a propositional anaphor bound by the previous proposition is involved. Since mirative markers encode the speaker’s surprise towards the situation expressed by the proposition they modify, we will generate them in the layer devoted to the speaker’s epistemic states by (Krifka 2021), namely J(udge)P.

(5) [JP [Jº ma] [ForceP que bo [Force’ que [TP és ]]]]]]

We consider mirative markers in exclamative sentences only, but note that they may occur in declaratives or interrogatives as well (6) (Olbertz 2012; Cruschina, Giurgea & Remberger 2015; Sánchez López 2017b):

(6) a. O João, nossa, eu não sabia que ele era tão esperto. (Br. Port. (Moreira 2017))

‘John, wow, I didn’t know he was so smart.’

1. Nossa, mas o que aconteceu?

‘Wow, but what happened?’

Hence, we will treat mirativity and exclamativity as two distinct categories (cf. (Michaelis 2001; Unger 2019)).

Proposal. We obtain the following typology of markers:

These elements are distributed in the left periphery of sentence as follows:

(7) a. [ActP [Act ! ] [ComP [Comº ⊢ ] [JP [Jº ma] [ForceP que bo [Force’ que [TP és ]]]]]]

1. [ActP [Act ! ] [ComP [Comº ⊢] [JP [Jº ma] [ForceP OP/si [Force’ que [TP és bo ]]]]]]

The illocutionary operator ! in ActP converts the proposition into an exclamation (these are exclamative sentences, but the same analysis would apply to declarative sentences).

The placement of mirative markers above ForceP is confirmed by their interaction with vocatives. As argued by (Slocum 2016; González López et al. 2023), utterance initial vocatives typically fulfill a call role. Hence, they precede mirative markers (ex. (4) above), so we will suggest this vocative projection (Voc(call)P) is above ActP:

(8) [Voc(call)P tu [ActP [Act ! ] [ComP [Comº ⊢ ] [JP [Jº goita ] [ForceP … ]]]]]

In contrast, lower vocatives are typically used for maintaining contact between speaker and listener, and appear typically after mirative markers, but before degree operators:

(9) a.  Ma,   chica,    quina falla      més      bonica.

mrk   girl         what  bonfire so        pretty

`Wow, girl, what a pretty bonfire!’

1. Bueno,   hombre,     vaya  genio…

well       man            what  temper

‘Ok, man, what a bad temper…’

Accordingly, these vocatives will appear in a Voc(addr)P just above ForceP (as suggested by (Hill 2007; Espinal 2013)):

(10)   [Voc(call)P [ActP [Act ! ] [ComP [Comº ⊢ ] [JP [Jº ma ] [Voc(addr)P chica [ForceP quina falla…]]]]]

The global picture shows that markers in Romance exclamatives have a strict division of labor in creating an exclamation speech act, which syntax reflects transparently.

Link: Please register via the following link: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctceuqqzwuHdO35qkvGR6o24YtmijIXxwK.