Monoclausal properties of the modal constructions with behar

I will now show that the modal constructions formed by behar and its complement too can act like monoclausal constructions for a series of phenomena that are clause-bound.

One such clause-union phenomena is the possibility that the auxiliary of the construction agrees with the arguments of the uninflected verb. As shown in (47), the

90 There are other properties apart from clitic climbing we could look at to determine whether need-type predicates allow restructuring in other languages: (i) whether or not their complements exhibit CP-properties and (ii) whether they exhibit independent tense CP-properties. I do noy have data regarding the possibility of need-type verbs to take complements with overt complentizers in those languages that admit this type of complementizers. As for the presence of independent tense, it must be noted that, even if the complements of need-type predicates can admit an independent future interpretation, it may well be argued that the future orientation of the embedded infinitival comes as a consequence of the semantics of the verb verbs per se (which like modals in general contribute a future-shifed interpretation), rather than too syntactic tense projections (see above the arguments given for must by Wurmbrand 1998).

(i) Yesterday, John needed to come tomorrow.

(ii) Ayer, Juan necesitaba venir mañana.

Yesterday J. need.3s(imperf.) come tomorrow

It must also be noted that, although Wurmbrand (2001) includes need among restructuring predicates in her crosslinguistic classification, including German (Wurmbrand 2001; table 4.1: 342), in the classifications by authors she provides through tables 5.1 to 5.11, need is only listed once as a restructuring verb (concretely, it is included in Rutter’s (1991) classification of restructuring verbs in German).

121 modal constructions involving behar are transparent to agreement with the arguments of the uninflected verb.

(47) Transparency of modal constructions to the arguments of the uninflected verb a. Jon-ek etxerako lana-k bukatu behar ditu.

Jon.E home work.pA finish need HAVE.3pA.3sE

‘Jon needs to/must finish his homework.’

b. (Ni-k) Amari oparia erosi behar diot.

(1ps-E) Mother.D present buy need HAVE.3sD.1sE

‘I need to/must buy mummy a present.’

Under the view that transparency phenomena are a property of functional verbs (Cinque 1997 et seq.), this may well be taken to indicate that behar is a functional modal. However, as mentioned before, there are some problems with this assumption.

First, it has been argued that restructuring can not only occur with functional verbs (see Sections 3.2.2.6.). Some lexical verbs too have the ability to combine with reduced uninflected complement and exhibit clause-union phenomena (Wurmbrand 1998 et seq.). Second, as will be shown in the next chapter in more detail, in some varieties of Basque in which the complement can surface in an extraposed position to the right of the modal, the aforemetioned transparency property becomes optional; that is to say, the matrix auxiliary may or may not agree with the arguments of the complements, and in both cases, the sentence is grammatical. Consider for instance (48):

(48) Transparency with regards to agreement with embedded arguments: optional a. Jon-ek behar d-it-u /du etxerako lana-k bukatu.

Jon.E need HAVE.3pA.3sE / HAVE.3pA.3sE home-work.pA finish

‘Jon needs to/must finish his homework.’

b. (Ni-k) behar d-io-t /dut Amari oparia erosi.

(1ps-E) need HAVE.3sD.1sE/ HAVE.3sD.1sE mother.sD present buy ‘I need to/must buy mummy a present.’

122 Note that the auxiliary in (48a) can surface with the agreement morphology associated to the embedded 3^rd person singular absolutive argument (d-it-u ‘HAVE.3pA.3sE’) or not (du ‘HAVE.3pA.3sE’), and in both cases the sentences is judged correct. Likewise, agreement with the embedded 3^rd person dative argument in (58b) is optional (d-io-t

‘HAVE.3sD.1sE’/ dut ‘HAVE.3sD.1sE’).

Another restructuring property of behar is the possibility that the modal construction shows up with an auxiliary corresponding to the embedded uninflected verb; hence, the possibility of auxiliary switch. That is to say, as it was the case in Italian, the constructions involving the modal predicate behar and a –TU infinitival complement do sometimes exhibit ‘auxiliary switch-like’ phenomena; i.e. they exhibit the auxiliary selection properties of single verb constructions, in the sense that the verb that acts as the main (lexical) predicate for purposes of auxiliary selection is the embedded uninflected verb rather than the modal. In this context, the case assigned to the subject is also determined by the uninflected verb.

In order to understand this better, let us first briefly explain how case assignment and auxiliary selection take place in Basque.

In (Standard) Basque, unaccusative predicates take auxiliary izan (BE) and absolutive subjects, whereas transitive and unergative predicates take auxiliary *edun (HAVE) and ergative subjects. The different case assignment and auxiliary selection patterns are illustrated in the following examples (49-50).

(49) Case assignment and auxiliary selection of unaccusative predicates Jon- Ø etorri da

Jon-A comeUNACC BE.3sA

‘Jon has come.’

(50) Case assignment and auxiliary selection of transitive and unergative predicates Guraso-ek auto berria erosi dute.

Parents-E car new-A buyTR HAVE.3sA.3pE

The parents have bought a new car.

123 Going back to the modal constructions with behar, it can observed that, when behar takes an unaccusative verb as complement, most speakers admit the presence of an auxiliary BE determined by the unaccusative uninflected verb, as shown in (51a);

however, many of these speakers can also accept the constructions where the auxiliary is determined by the modal, rather than the unaccusative verb (e.g. (51b)).

(51) Auxiliary selection in the modal constructions involving behar

a. Bederatzietarako, ikasle guztiak ikasgela barruan egon behar dira.

Nine-by student all.pA classroom inside be need BE.3pA

‘By nine, every student must be inside his/her classroom.’

b. Bederatzietarako, ikasle guztiek ikasgela barruan egon behar dute.

Nine-by student all.pE classroom inside be need HAVE.3pA

‘By nine, every student must be inside his/her classroom.’

Note that, when behar is not present, the unaccusative verb etorri (‘come’) must necessarily occur with auxiliary izan (BE) and an absolutive case-marked subject (cf. the ungrammaticality of (52)). The auxiliary *edun (HAVE) and the presence of ergative subjects are absolutely ungrammatical in Basque in this context (cf. (49) above);

therefore, the presence of the transitive auxiliary in this context must be attributed to the presence of behar.

(52) *Ni-k etorri dut I-E comeUNACC HAVE.3sA

‘I have come.’

I will go back to the question concerning the transparency of the modal constructions with behar in Chapter 4, where I provide further evidence for the dual functional/lexical behaviour of this modal. For the time being, let us just bear in mind that the modal constructions involving behar (as well as those involving need-type modals in Spanish and Italian) do not always exhibit clause-union or restructuring phenomena, and this poses a serious problem for the view that modals (and

124 restructuring verbs) are always merged as functional heads (Cinque 1999, 2000, 2004, 20006). In Section 3.5, I will follow Cardinaletti & Shlonsky (2004) and I will assume that the optionality of restructuring with modals is one among the many reasons that allow us to conlcude that modals occur in two variants: as functional heads or as lexical predicates.