Socanac (2011) vs. Todorovic (2012): Different theoretical

The analysis of the syntactic properties related to the subjunctive marker da that I just proposed, which is primarily based on Socanac (2011), is broadly similar to the one put forward in Todorovic (2012), but our approaches also differ in some important aspects. The main common thread between our analyses is the fact that we both view the subjunctive da as a particle, which is associated with a lower structural position than the indicative Comp da. The main difference between our approaches pertains to the analysis of the syntactic behavior of the subjunctive particle da after it has been inserted in the structure (specifically its behavior with regards to movement). In the following paragraphs, I will explain this difference in more detail, as well as argue that my analysis of the syntactic properties of da allows to account for the Serbian/Croatian subjunctive data in a more comprehensive manner.

First of all, before I compare our two approaches, I will begin by briefly sketching out the main outlines of the theoretical perspective put forward in Todorovic (2012). Todorovic based her analysis on Giannakidou’s semantic (non)veridicality approach to mood distinctions, proposing to develop a syntactic application of this approach in the context of subjunctive and indicative complementation in Serbian. The main claim that Todorovic made in this context was that indicative complements are introduced via a veridical da, whereas subjunctive complements are introduced via a non-veridical da, with the two items exhibiting different structural properties. Here I will briefly focus specifically on the syntactic analysis that Todorovic proposed in the context of the non-veridical da.

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Todorovic adopted a somewhat different overall structural perspective in her analysis than the one I am assuming here. Her account was based on the syntactic system developed in Progovac (2005), which distinguished between the higher subject layer and a lower object layer.

In this context, Todorovic claimed that the veridical, indicative da is inserted under a higher, subject-related polarity projection, while the non-veridical, subjunctive da is inserted under a lower, object-related polarity projection. I will not introduce this syntactic system in more detail, since I will not be using it here, but the syntactic distinction that Todorovic made between the higher domain of insertion of the indicative veridical da and the lower domain of insertion of the subjunctive non-veridical da is broadly reminiscent of my own syntactic analysis. Even though I did not deal with the properties of the indicative-related da per se in much detail, since the latter is not my primary concern here, I did claim several times that, unlike the subjunctive da, the indicative da should be seen as a classical Comp, which implies that it must be inserted in a high left-periphery C-projection reserved for Comps. Subjunctive da, on the other hand, was claimed to be merged lower down, under the T-head, which is similar to the claim Todorovic made in the context of her non-veridical da.

While my analysis broadly agrees with Todorovic’s account as I described it so far, modulo some theoretical distinctions regarding our view of the structural make-up of the clause, the most important difference between our two perspectives concerns the analysis of the syntactic behavior of the subjunctive (non-veridical) da after its insertion in the structure.

Todorovic explicitly stated that the latter never moves from the lower to the higher clausal domain, which is contrary to the syntactic analysis I am proposing here. In the following paragraphs, I will show that Todorovic’s analysis is not able to account for the full range of syntactic data that we observe in relation to Serbian/Croatian subjunctive distribution, which my analysis based on da-movement will be better able to do (as I will briefly explain here and then in much more detail later on in 3.3).

The analysis put forward by Todorovic does not account for the full range of syntactic data related to subjunctives in Serbian because she focused primarily on subjunctive complements introduced under control predicates, a few of which we briefly observed earlier on as well.⁷⁶ As we will see later on in 3.3 once I focus in more detail on such controlled subjunctives, the complements of this type indeed do not exhibit da-movement, and therefore Todorovic’s account is not strictly speaking wrong in this context. However, Todorovic argued that the conclusions she reached on the basis of data that only pertain to controlled subjunctives

76 See the Bulgarian example in (160) or the Serbian example in (201), for instance.

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should be seen as valid for all cases of subjunctive complementation in Serbian, which is an overgeneralization. For instance, it is difficult to reconcile her claim that the subjunctive da never moves up from the lower clausal domain where it was inserted with some of the data we previously observed, such as the fact that this item can precede the embedded subject (202) or fronted focus in (203), pattering in both cases with the indicative-related da. Here we will observe some additional data that argue against Todorovic’s claim that the subjunctive da does not move to the higher clausal domain.

The main syntactic effect of this assumed lack of movement, according to Todorovic, is that the subjunctive non-veridical da, unlike the indicative veridical da, never creates a clausal boundary between the embedded and the matrix clause, rendering all subjunctive complements syntactically transparent domains. When translated to the more contemporary phasal approach to syntax that I am assuming here (outlined in 1.3.3), this would mean that all subjunctive complements in Serbian constitute non-phasal domains. While earlier on in 2.3 we could observe that subjunctives in general do cross-linguistically exhibit some non-phasal properties and do not adhere as strictly to Chomsky’s PIC constraint when it comes to binding phenomena as indicatives do, I also showed that subjunctives, including specifically some Serbian/Croatian subjunctives, exhibit a number of phasal properties as well, and hence should not be analyzed as non-phasal domains. For instance, subjunctive complements in this language were shown to manifest the same type of anti-locality constraints in the context of possessive pronoun vs.

anaphor binding as those we observed in indicatives (the relevant examples are reproduced below):

(211) a. Ivani voli svojui / ?* njegovui zhenu.

John loves his / his wife

b. Ivani hoche da *svojai / njegovai zhena dodje.

John wants SUBJ his / his wife come3.sg.

c. Ivani misli da je * svojai / njegovai zhena najljepsha.

John thinks that is his / his wife most-beautiful

Todorovic’s claim that subjunctives in general constitute syntactically transparent, non-clausal domains would predict that the clause in (211b) should pattern with the one in (211a), not the one in (211c), with the subjunctive complement exhibiting local anaphor binding from the matrix clause in accordance with the condition A of GB theory, which is contrary to facts.

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In fact, even some of the syntactic evidence that Todorovic herself used in her dissertation in order to prove that subjunctive complements introduced under a non-veridical da in Serbian constitute non-clausal domains do not apply to the full range of subjunctive distribution in this language. For instance, Todorovic claimed that Serbian subjunctives differ from indicatives when it comes to their clausal status because, unlike the latter, they can allow certain types of clitics (namely pronominal clitics) to climb from the embedded to the matrix clause, or because they do not allow narrow negation scope over the embedded clause, all of which was meant to demonstrate the syntactically transparent nature of subjunctive complements in Serbian (as well as the lack of da-movement in this context).⁷⁷ The problem, however, is that Todorovic’s predictions only apply to subjunctives associated with subject control, but not to non-control subjunctives (i.e. most of the subjunctive complements we looked at so far in this dissertation). Just as when it came to pronoun vs. anaphor binding, non-control intensional subjunctives pattern with indicatives when it comes to these phenomena as well. As we can observe by comparing indicative and subjunctive complements in (212-213), the latter pattern with the former in that they ban all types of clitic climbing from the embedded to the matrix clause (including the one involving pronominal clitics) (212), and in that they are compatible with narrow negation scope over the embedded clause (213):

(212) a. Ne (*ga) tvrdim da ga poznajem.

not him claim1.sg. IND him know1.sg.

‘I don’t claim that I know him.’

b. Zhelim (*ga) da ga pozovesh.

want1.sg him SUBJ him invite2.sg.PNP

‘I want you to invite him.’

(213) a. Mislim da ne dolazi.

think1.sg. IND not come3.sg.

‘I think that he is not coming.’

b. Zahtijevam da ne ode.

demand1.sg. SUBJ not leave3.sg.PNP

‘I demand that he not leave.’

77 See Todorovic (2012: 131-141).

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The fact that the particle da scopes over negation in (213), as well as the fact that it presents a clausal boundary to clitic climbing in (212), is best analyzed under the approach that I developed here earlier on, which argued that this item moves up to C.

Once again, though, it should be noted that all of these tests related to syntactic transparency do function in accordance with Todorovic’s predictions when it comes to control-type subjunctives that she looked at in her thesis (including the test based on possessive anaphor binding in (211), which did not feature in her dissertation), as we will see in more detail later on in 3.3 once I turn my attention to this type of complements. This is what I meant when I said that Todorovic’s syntactic analysis is not strictly-speaking wrong in the context of her dissertation, given that the latter primarily focused on control complements, but the claim that her account is applicable to all cases of Serbian subjunctive complementation is incorrect. The analysis of the latter requires a more fine-grained approach, which I will develop in the remaining parts of this chapter, where I will focus on the issues related to BlkS distribution.