The Mirror Principle and Morphosyntactic Explanation #
Formalization of [Bak85] (Linguistic Inquiry 16(3), 373–415): the Mirror Principle's predictions verified against the paper's data — Chamorro fan- agreement interacting with passive and causative (§§1, 3.1), the Agreement Restriction (§3.2), causative-reciprocal ordering in Quechua and Bemba (§4.1), and passive-applicative ordering in Huichol, Chi-Mwi:ni, and Kinyarwanda (§4.2).
Main declarations #
IsAttested: the Agreement Restriction as empirical data — of Baker's (27) table, only inner+semantic (27a) and outer+surface (27d) occur.isAttested_iff_deriveReference: the Mirror Principle derives the restriction — a pattern is attested exactly when its reference is the one derivational timing dictates for its position.chamorroPassiveAgreement,chamorroCausativeAgreement,chamorroCausativePassive: the fan- data instantiating both attested patterns and the intermediate-subject prediction.quechuaRecipInsideCaus…bembaCausInsideRecip: the §4.1 ordering pairs.huichol,chiMwini,kinyarwanda: the applied affix universally inner to the passive affix (§4.2).surface_sublist: the surface each derivation derives is a subsequence of its stimulus's segmentation.
The glossed stimuli live in Data/Examples/Baker1985.json (generated module
Data.Examples.Baker1985); each analysis below names its stimulus row.
The Agreement Restriction ([Bak85] §3.2) #
Of the four combinations of agreement position and GF reference, Baker's (27) records only two as attested: outer agreement referencing surface GFs (27d: by far the most common — Chamorro person-number agreement, Turkish, Sanskrit, Quechua) and inner agreement referencing semantic GFs (27a: Chamorro causative fan-, with Achenese agreement and Huichol verb suppletion consistent with it). No clear cases of (27b) or (27c) are found.
Achenese ((31)) is a defused near-falsifier, not an instance of (27a): its verbal agreement references semantic subjects under passivization, which would instantiate the starred (27b) if the passive were marked by a morpheme inner to agreement — but Achenese has no overt passive morphology, so no morpheme position exists and the restriction is vacuously satisfied.
The attested agreement patterns: exactly inner+semantic (27a) and outer+surface (27d) of [Bak85]'s (27).
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The Mirror Principle derives the Agreement Restriction: a pattern is attested exactly when its GF reference is the one derivational timing dictates for its position ([Bak85] (27)).
Every pattern the Mirror Principle derives is attested; no per-position stipulation is needed.
Chamorro ([Bak85] §§1, 3.1) #
Chamorro number agreement man- ~ fan- registers plurality of the subject; passive -in- promotes the object to subject; causative na'- adds a causer as subject (data from [gibson-1980]). Which "subject" fan- registers tracks its morphological position: outside the passive marker it references the surface subject, inside the causative marker the semantic subject.
Passive Para#u#fan-s-in-aolak 'The children are going to be spanked by their
father': fan- outside -in- ([fan [in [saolak]]]), so fan- was added after
passive and references the derived (surface) subject ([Bak85] (15b), (21)).
Stimulus row: Examples.chamorro_15b.
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Causative Hu#na'-fan-otchu 'I made them eat': fan- inside na'-
([na' [fan [otchu]]]), so fan- was added before causative and references the
semantic subject of 'eat' ([Bak85] (15c), (23)). Stimulus row:
Examples.chamorro_15c.
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The Chamorro passive pattern is the derived — hence attested — pattern for outer agreement.
The Chamorro causative pattern is the derived — hence attested — pattern for
inner agreement. Together with chamorroPassiveAgreement_isAttested, a single
language exhibits both attested patterns, so the Agreement Restriction is a property
of UG, not a language-particular parameter ([Bak85] §3.1).
Causative of passive Hu#na'-fan-s-in-aolak i famagu'un gi as tata-n-niha 'I had
the children spanked by their father': passive applies first, then causative; fan-
sits between the two GF-rule morphemes and registers the intermediate subject —
post-passive, pre-causative ([Bak85] (25), (26)). Stimulus row:
Examples.chamorro_25.
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Causative-reciprocal ordering: Quechua and Bemba ([Bak85] §4.1) #
Causative and reciprocal can attach in either order, and the morpheme order determines the interpretation: whichever rule applies first is computed on the pre-change grammatical functions. Quechua and Bemba show the same two orders; the caus-recip order is interpreted differently in the two languages — Quechua links the causer to the initial patient ((39b)), Bemba to the initial agent ((49b)) — because Bemba's causative is Chamorro-type: the initial agent, not the patient, occupies the object position Reciprocal Formation binds ((50)–(52)). Quechua data from [muysken-1981]; Bemba data from [givon-1976].
Maqa-naku-ya-chi-n 'He is causing them to beat each other': reciprocal -naku
inside causative -chi, so Reciprocal applies first, linking agent and patient of
the root; Causative then adds the causer ([Bak85] (39a), (45)–(46)). Stimulus
row: Examples.quechua_39a.
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Maqa-chi-naku-rka-n 'They let someone beat each other': causative -chi inside
reciprocal -naku, so Causative applies first; Reciprocal then links the causers to
the initial patients ([Bak85] (39b), (47)–(48)). Stimulus row:
Examples.quechua_39b.
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The two Quechua verb forms differ in rule order: the Mirror Principle ties the morphological contrast to the interpretive one.
Naa-mon-an-ya Mwape na Mutumba 'I made Mwape and Mutumba see each other':
reciprocal -an inside causative -ya — the same order and interpretation as
Quechua (39a) ([Bak85] (49a)). Stimulus row: Examples.bemba_49a.
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Mwape na Chilufya baa-mon-eshy-ana Mutumba 'Mwape and Chilufya made each other
see Mutumba': causative -eshy inside reciprocal -ana. Causative applies first
and — being Chamorro-type — puts the initial agent in object position, so Reciprocal
links causer and initial agent, unlike Quechua (39b) ([Bak85] (49b), (52)).
Stimulus row: Examples.bemba_49b.
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Bemba shows the same two rule orders as Quechua: the cross-linguistic difference lies in the interpretation of the caus-recip order, not in the available orders ([Bak85] §4.1).
Both Quechua orders are acceptable stimuli with distinct interpretations — the morphological contrast carries an interpretive one, as the Mirror Principle requires.
Both Bemba orders are likewise acceptable with distinct interpretations.
Passive-applicative ordering ([Bak85] §4.2) #
Applicative creates a new direct object ((53)); passive promotes a direct object to subject ((12)). When an applicative feeds a passive — the applied object becomes the surface subject — Applicative must apply first, so the Mirror Principle predicts the applied affix universally closer to the root than the passive affix. Attested: verb-appl-pass. Unattested: verb-pass-appl with oblique-to-subject promotion. Huichol data from [comrie-1982], Chi-Mwi:ni from [kisseberth-abasheikh-1977], Kinyarwanda from [Kim80].
Huichol Tiiri yi-nauka-ti nawazi me-puutinanai-ri-yeri 'Four children were
bought a knife': benefactive -ri inside passive -yeri ([Bak85] (55)).
Stimulus row: Examples.huichol_55.
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Chi-Mwi:ni Mwa:limu tet-el-el-a chibu:ku na Nu:ru 'The teacher was brought the
book by Nuru': applied -el inside passive -a, with aspect between them
([Bak85] (56c)). Stimulus rows: Examples.chimwiini_56c and the starred
Examples.chimwiini_56d.
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Kinyarwanda Ikaramu i-ra-andik-iish-w-a ibaruwa n'umugabo 'The pen was
written-with the letter by the man': instrumental applicative -iish inside passive
-w ([Bak85] (57c)). Stimulus rows: Examples.kinyarwanda_57c and
Examples.kinyarwanda_57d.
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All three languages place the applied affix before the passive affix, as the feeding order requires.
The Mirror Principle's negative prediction in Chi-Mwi:ni: goal-to-subject promotion under appl-inside-pass morphology is acceptable ((56c)); reading the same morphology with patient-to-subject promotion is starred ((56d)), since Passive would then have to precede Applicative syntactically while following it morphologically.
Kinyarwanda's counterpart of the starred Chi-Mwi:ni sentence is grammatical: Kinyarwanda passive independently promotes either postverbal NP of a double-object verb ((58)), so (57d) is not a Mirror Principle counterexample.
The derived surfaces #
A stimulus's morph segmentation.
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- Baker1985.segments ex = List.filterMap ex.feature? ["m1", "m2", "m3", "m4", "m5", "m6"]
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Each derivation's surface — the GF-rule affixes attached on their sides around the root — is a subsequence of the stimulus's segmentation: prefixal na'- outside the passive, suffixal reciprocal, causative, applied, and passive affixes in the order the rules applied, the non-GF morphemes interleaved.