Mittwoch, 16.30
The question whether functional categories are universal was first asked by Iatridou (1990), followed by Bobaljik (1995) and Thráinsson (1994, 1996). Iatridou (1990) proposed that evidence for various functional categories will have to be found separately in each language. Thráinsson (1994, 1996) took a stand similar to that of Iatridou and argued more specifically that some languages like Icelandic or French may have a split IP (where AgrSP and TP are separate functional categories), whereas in languages like English and Mainland Scandinavian, it is assumed that the two functional categories AgrSP and TP have been fused (hence, do not exist independently from each other).
In this paper, I examine functional categories in Capeverdean and Haitian Creoles and argue that Capeverdean is endowed with a split IP, hence with TP, whereas Haitian is not. This is correlated with the fact that Capeverdean shows clear symptoms of V-raising, whereas Haitian does not (DeGraff, 1996). In this respect, this section of this presentation attempts to respond in part to the question of which functional categories are necessarily reconstituted, and here, I argue that TP is not necessarily reconstituted. More precisely, I examine functional categories in Capeverdean and argue not only that Capeverdean has a split IP but also that it is endowed with a biclausal structure, which makes the right predictions with regard to the distribution of adverbials and floating quantifiers. The clausal structure assumed supports the hypothesis that the verb moves to To , to check Tense. With regard to TMA markers in this particular Creole, it would seem that they represent functional categories which are LF-interpretable.
On this matter, a comparative analysis of Creoles such Capeverdean and Haitian sheds some new light on how important functional categories are in determining the structure of clauses (in the case of Capeverdean, they determine its bi-clausal structure).
This paper is organized as follows: In the first section, I give a brief overview of the arguments in favor of the non-universality of functional categories. In the second section, I give a comparative analysis of the clausal structures of Capeverdean and Haitian and argue that Capeverdean is endowed with a split IP whereas Haitian is not. Here, I attempt to build correlations between the reconstitution of TP in Capeverdean with the symptoms of V-raising to T in this particular Creole.
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