Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T03:51:26.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Licensing null arguments in recipes across languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2021

ILEANA PAUL Open the ORCID record for ILEANA PAUL [Opens in a new window]  and
DIANE MASSAM Open the ORCID record for DIANE MASSAM [Opens in a new window]
ILEANA PAUL
Affiliation:
French Studies, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, ON, N6A3K7 Canada [email protected]
DIANE MASSAM
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, 4th floor, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3 Canada [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While much of the literature on recipe contexts has focused on English and the availability of null definite patients, this paper shows that both null agents and null patients are possible in recipes in a range of typologically and genetically diverse languages. It is proposed that null agents in recipes arise due to a variety of syntactic strategies, but null patients are uniformly licensed via a null topic in the left periphery in all the languages considered. These results indicate that while the recipe register does not directly dictate specific syntactic structures such as imperatives or null objects, the register can provide the pragmatic context necessary for certain syntactic processes, such as null topicalization.

Keywords

Malagasynull objectsnull topicalizationrecipe contextstopic-drop
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 815 - 839
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We would like to thank Henrison Hsieh, Eric Potsdam, Yves Roberge and Vesela Simeonova for helpful discussion, and Michelle Troberg for triggering this research. We are also grateful to Vololona Rasolofoson for her insights into the Malagasy data and to Ofania Ikiua and Lynsey Talagi for sharing their expertise in the Niue language. In addition, three anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees provided many helpful suggestions and questions. Any errors or omissions remain our own. This research was partially funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant to Ileana Paul (435-2019-0581) and by a SSHRC Insight Grant to Diane Massam (435-2015-1987).

References

REFERENCES

Arendholz, Jenny, Bublitz, Wolfram, Kirner-Ludwig, Monika & Zimmerman, Iris. 2013. Food for thought – or, what’s (in) a recipe? A diachronic analysis of cooking instructions. In Gerhardt et al. (eds.), 119–137.Google Scholar
Baltin, Mark. 2012. Structural signature of pronouns. Ms., New York University. lingbuzz/001598.Google Scholar
Barbiers, Sjef. 2007. On the periphery of imperative and declarative clauses in Dutch and German. In van der Wurff (ed.), 95–112.Google Scholar
Barbosa, Pilar. 2011. Pro-drop and Theories of pro in the Minimalist Program, Part 2: Pronoun deletion analyses of null subjects and partial, discourse, and semi pro-drop. Language and Linguistics Compass 5(8), 571–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Allan, Davis, Karen & Starks, Donna. 2000. The languages of the Manukau region (Woolf Fisher Research Report). Auckland: Woolf Fisher Research Centre, University of Auckland.Google Scholar
Bender, Emily. 1999. Constituting context: Null objects in English recipes revisited. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 6, 53–68.Google Scholar
Bianchi, Valentina & Frascarelli, Mara. 2010. Is topic a root phenomenon? Iberia 2, 43–88.Google Scholar
Bubel, Claudia & Spitz, Alice. 2013. The way to intercultural learning is through the stomach: Genre-based writing in the EFL classroom. In Gerhardt et al. (eds.), 157–187.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna. 1990. Subject/object asymmetries in German null-topic constructions. In Mascaró, Joan & Nespor, Marina (eds.), Grammar in progress: GLOW essays for Henk van Riemsdijk, 75–84. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cote, Sharon Ann. 1996. Grammatical and discourse properties of null arguments in English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Cotter, Colleen. 1997. Claiming a piece of the pie: How the language of recipes defines community. In Bower, Anne L. (ed.), Recipes for reading: Community cookbooks, stories, histories, 51–72. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Culy, Christopher. 1996. Null objects in English recipes. Language Variation and Change 8, 91–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Sarah & Roberge, Yves. 2004. Null objects in English and French. In Julie Auger, J. Clancy Clements & Vance, Barbara (eds.), Contemporary approaches to Romance linguistics, 121–138. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, Sarah & Roberge, Yves. 2005. A modular account of null objects in French. Syntax 8, 44–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi, Ibnbari, Lena & Taube, Sharon. 2013. Missing objects as topic drop. Lingua 136, 145–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Charles A. 1994. Dialect, register and genre: Working assumptions about conventionalization. In Biber, Douglas & Finegan, Edward (eds.), Sociolinguistic perspectives on register, 15–30. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, Kerstin. 2013. The addressee in the recipe: How Julia Child gets to join you in the kitchen. In Gerhardt et al. (eds.), 103–117.Google Scholar
Fisher, Mary Frances Kennedy. 1983. With bold knife and fork. New York, NY: Paragon.Google Scholar
Frascarelli, Mara & Hinterhölzl, Roland. 2007. Types of topics in German and Italian. In Schwade, Kerstin & Winkler, Susanne (eds.), On information structure, meaning and form, 87–116. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frascarelli, Mara & Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel L.. 2019. Understanding partiality in pro-drop languages: An information-structure approach. Syntax 29, 162–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frascarelli, Mara & Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel L.. How much room for discourse in imperative? The lens of interface on English, Italian and Spanish. Studia Linguistica, https://doi.org/10.1111/stul.12153. Published online 21 March 2021, Wiley Online Library.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerhardt, Cornelia, Frobenius, Maximiliane & Ley, Susanne (eds.). 2013. Culinary linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 1987a. Complement ellipsis in English: Or how to cook without objects. In Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie (ed.), Studies in honour of René Derolez, 248–261. Ghent: Seminairie voor Engelse en Oud-Germaanse Taalkunde R.U.G.: University of Ghent.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 1987b. Register variation in English: Some theoretical observations. Journal of English Linguistics 20, 230–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2012. Adverbial clauses, main clause phenomena and the composition of the left periphery: The cartography of syntactic structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2017. Unspeakable sentence: Subject omission in written registers. A cartographic analysis. Linguistic Variation 17, 229–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2019. Register-based subject omission in English and its implication for the syntax of adjuncts. Anglophonia French Journal of English Linguistics [online] 28. http://journals.openedition.org/anglophonia/2873.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinds, John. 1976. A taxonomy of Japanese discourse types. Linguistics 184, 45–53.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Nikanne, Urpo. 2002. Expletives, subjects, and topics in Finnish. In Svenonius, Peter (ed.), Subjects, expletives, and the EPP, 71–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15, 531–574.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1991. Remarks on the status of the null object. In Freidin, Robert (ed.), Principles and parameters in comparative grammar, 56–76. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel. 2020. Syntax–information structure interactions in the sentential, verbal and nominal peripheries. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel & Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2014. A feature-inheritance approach to root phenomena and parametric variation. Lingua 145, 276–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, Edward. 1976. Remarkable subjects in Malagasy. In Li, Charles (ed.), Subject and Topic, 247–301. New York: Academic Press,Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward & Manorohanta, Cecile. 2001. A quantitative study of voice in Malagasy. Oceanic Linguistics 40, 67–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koopman, Hilda. 2007. Topics in imperatives. In van der Wurff (ed.), 153–180.Google Scholar
Massam, Diane. 1992. Null objects and non-thematic subjects. Journal of Linguistics 28, 115–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massam, Diane. 2020. Niuean: Predicates and arguments in an isolating language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massam, Diane, Bamba, Kazuya & Murphy, Patrick. 2017. Obligatorily null pronouns in the instructional register and beyond. Linguistic Variation 17, 272–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massam, Diane & Roberge, Yves. 1989. Recipe context null objects in English. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 134–139.Google Scholar
Milambiling, Lareina. 2011. Null object constructions in Tagalog. In Lisa Armstrong (ed.), Proceedings of the Canadian Linguistics Association 2011. Canadian Linguistic Association. http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla-acl/actes2011/Milambiling_2011.pdf.Google Scholar
Noailly, Michèle. 1997. Les mystères de la transitivité invisible. Langages 127, 96–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, Ileana. 2000. Malagasy clause structure. Ph.D. dissertation, McGill University.Google Scholar
Pearson, Matthew. 2001. The clause structure of Malagasy: A minimalist approach. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA.Google Scholar
Pearson, Matt. 2005. The Malagasy subject/topic as an A’-element. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 23, 381–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, Matt. 2018. Predicate raising and perception verb complements in Malagasy. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 36, 781–849.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perez-Leroux, Ana-Teresa, Pirvulescu, Mihaela & Roberge, Yves. 2017. Direct objects and language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Potsdam, Eric & Polinsky, Maria. 2007. Missing complement clause subjects in Malagasy. Oceanic Linguistics 46, 277–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajemisa-Raolison, Regis. 1971. Grammaire malgache. Fianarantsoa: Librairie Ambozontany.Google Scholar
Randriamasimanana, Charles. 1986. The causatives of Malagasy. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Raposo, Eduardo. 1986. On the null object in European Portuguese. In Jaeggli, Osvaldo & Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (eds.), Studies in Romance linguistics, 373–390. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritter, Elizabeth & Wolf, Lavi. 2017. The information structure of imperatives. In Andrew Alexander Monti (ed.), Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association. https://cla-acl.artsci.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/actes-2017/Ritter_E.Wolf_L.2017CLAProceedingsPaper.pdf.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Haegeman, Liliane (ed.), Elements of grammar, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Ian & Holmberg, Anders. 2010. Introduction: Parameters in minimalist theory. In Biberauer, Theresa, Holmberg, Anders, Roberts, Ian & Sheehan, Michelle (eds.), Parametric variation: Null subjects in minimalist theory, 1–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ruda, Marta. 2014. Missing objects in special registers: The syntax of null objects in English. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics 59, 339–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruppenhofer, Josef & Michaelis, Laura. 2010. A constructional account of genre-based argument omissions. Constructions and Frames 2, 158–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold. 1974. Read at your own risk: Syntactic and semantic horrors you can find in your medicine chest. In La Galy, M., Fox, R. & Bruck, A. (eds.), Papers from the Tenth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 10), 599–607. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Saito, Mamoru. 2007. Notes on East Asian argument ellipsis. Language Research 43, 203–227.Google Scholar
Schulz, Barbara. 2003. Crossing the borders of functional and formal linguistics: An optimality theoretic account of German topic drop. In Ikeda, K., Robideau, J., Ballantyne, J., Garneau, T., Hall, S. & Lanz, L. (eds.), Selected papers from The Seventh College-wide Conference for Students in Languages, Linguistics and Literature, 188–201. University of Hawaii, Manoa.Google Scholar
Seiter, William. 1980. Studies in Niuean syntax. New York: Garland Press.Google Scholar
Shimojo, Mitsuaki. 2019. Topicalization in Japanese cooking discourse. Open Linguistics 5, 511–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 2011. Conditions on argument drop. Linguistic Inquiry 42, 267–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann & Maling, Joan. 2010. The empty left edge condition. In Putnam, Michael (ed.), Exploring crash-proof grammars, 59–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperlich, Wolfgang. 1997. Tohi Vagahau Niue: Niue language dictionary. Alofi & Honolulu, HI: Government of Niue & University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Thrift, Erica. 2003. Object drop in the L1 acquisition of Dutch. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Tomioka, Satoshi. 2003. The semantics of Japanese null pronouns and its cross-linguistic implications. In Schwabe, Kerstin & Winkler, Susanne (eds.), The interfaces: Deriving and interpreting omitted structures, 321–339. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trutkowski, Ewa. 2016. Topic drop and null subjects in German. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi-org.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/10.1515/9783110446173 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, Andrew. 2017. Object drop and article drop in reduced written register. Linguistic Variation 17, 157–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Wurff, Wim (ed.). 2007. Imperative clauses in generative grammar: Studies in honour of Frits Beukema. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Shi. 1990. The status of imperatives in theories of grammar. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Arizona.Google Scholar

ADDITIONAL DATA SOURCES

Haia: An Introduction to Vagahau Niue . 2009. Wellington: Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand.Google Scholar
LMR: Interviews from the Languages of Manukau Region (LMR) project (Bell, Davis & Starks 2000). [Courtesy of Donna Starks and Ofania Ikiua.]Google Scholar
Traditional Niuean Recipes . Compiled by Team EduKai, through The University of Canterbury, and the Pacific Islands Trade and Invest group through the 21 Day Pacific Challenge.Google Scholar
Boissard, Pierre. 1983. Cuisine malgache, cuisine créole. Antananarivo: Librairie de Madagascar.Google Scholar
Ravololomanga, Bodo. 1996. Le lac bleu. Paris: Harmattan.Google Scholar
Haia: An Introduction to Vagahau Niue . 2009. Wellington: Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand.Google Scholar
LMR: Interviews from the Languages of Manukau Region (LMR) project (Bell, Davis & Starks 2000). [Courtesy of Donna Starks and Ofania Ikiua.]Google Scholar
Traditional Niuean Recipes . Compiled by Team EduKai, through The University of Canterbury, and the Pacific Islands Trade and Invest group through the 21 Day Pacific Challenge.Google Scholar
Boissard, Pierre. 1983. Cuisine malgache, cuisine créole. Antananarivo: Librairie de Madagascar.Google Scholar
Ravololomanga, Bodo. 1996. Le lac bleu. Paris: Harmattan.Google Scholar