In English existential constructions, the verb be agrees with the following nominal in number, as can be seen in (27) and (28).13 However, in standard Spanish, the verb
haber in existential constructions does not agree with the following nominals.
14 As we can see in (29) and (30), the present tense verb hay does not change its form no matter what entity it precedes, e.g. a singular nominal in (29) and a plural nominal in (30).
13 However, note that FCA is obligatory when the verb be precedes a conjoined NP.
14 According to Rodríguez-Mondoñedo (2005), Spanish can be grouped into two dialects based on the agreement in existential constructions with haber ‘to be’. In the first type, the existential verb haber has a default agreement, i.e. third person singular. As for the second type, the verb haber agrees with the internal nominal. In this study I only investigate the first type since the no agreement dialect is the standard one.
This phenomenon can also be observed in French. From (31) and (32), the present tense existential verb a does not show agreement with the following entities.
(27) There is a shining star in the sky. (singular, English)
(28) There are ten koalas in the zoo. (plural, English)
(29) Hay
un niño en el parque. (singular, Spanish)
have.PRES.IND a.SG.M boy.SG.M in the park
‘There is a boy in the park’
(30) Hay
diez árboles en el parque. (plural, Spanish)
have.PRES.IND ten trees in the park
‘There are ten trees in the park’
(31) Il y
a un garçon dans la rue. (singular, French)
it there have a.SG.M boy.SG.M on the street‘There is a boy on the street.
(32) Il y a six personnes
dans la maison. (plural, French)
it there have six persons in the house
‘There are six persons in the house.’
Based on the facts provided above, we assume that there is no Agr projection associated with the existential verb haber, as opposed to regular sentences. As a result, probe-goal agree between haber and the following nominal does not apply, so no agreement can be observed. In this case, if we are to observe the FCA phenomena in such constructions, there should then exist other elements that exhibit partial agreement with the coordinate structure. In this study I place a participle between the existential verb and the coordinate structure; therefore, the structure of the sentence is as follows:
[TP haber [AP participle] [DP1 DP1 and DP2]], where the participle is the probe, which agrees with the first conjunct in number and gender. (33a) is a sentence with such structure. In (33a) the participle colgada ‘hung’ agrees with the first conjunct una
lámpara ‘a lamp’ in number (singular) and gender (feminine), showing the FCA
phenomenon. In addition, the sentence with full agreement between the participle and coordinate structure is also presented here as (33b), where we can see the participle with the plural and default masculine markings.15
15 Notice that the optionality between the two patterns, i.e. FCA and full agreement, is not on FCA itself but on the timing of the adjunction of the &P. For the transitive and non-finites constructions that will be discussed in Chapter 3.3 and 3.4, this is the same case.
(33) a.
Hay colgada una lámpara y un
have.PRES.IND hung.SG.F a.SG.F lamp.SG.F and a.SG.Mcandelabro juntos en el techo.
(FCA)chandelier.SG.M together in the ceiling
‘There is a lamp and a chandelier hung in the ceiling.’
b.
Hay colgados una lámpara y un
have.PRES.IND hung.PL.M a.SG.F lamp.SG.F and a.SG.Mcandelabro juntos en el techo.
(Full agreement)chandelier.SG.M
together in the ceiling
‘There are a lamp and a chandelier hung in the ceiling.’
In (33a), one thing worth noting here is the use of juntos ‘together’. Aoun, Benmamoun and Sportiche (1994, 1999, henceforth ABS) and Camacho (2003) propose that partial agreement involves ellipsis as I mentioned in the previous chapter.16 According to ABS and Camacho, partial agreement constructions appear due to the ellipsis of the predicate of one of the conjuncts. Hence, in (33a) above the sentence would have been like (34) originally.17
16 Partial agreement includes first conjunct agreement and last conjunct agreement.
17 Notice that example (34) is not grammatical.
(34) *Hay
colgada una lámpara y hay colgado un
have.PRES.IND hung.SG.F a.SG.F lamp.SG.F and have hung.SG.M a.SG.Mcandelabro
juntos en el techo.
chandelier.SG.M together in the ceiling
Intended meaning: ‘There is a lamp and a chandelier hung together in the ceiling.’
Later the existential verb hay and the masculine participle colgado ‘hung’ in the second conjunct are elided. However, according to Bošković (2009), the elements being
coordinated under this analysis are clauses instead of traditional conjuncts. Not convinced with the ellipsis analysis mentioned above, Marušič, Nevins, and Saksida
(2007, MNS henceforth) incorporate some plural predicates such as collide and
together in their Slovenian data (see (35) below) to argue that partial agreement in terms
of ellipsis is not applicable to conjunct-sensitive agreement since plural predicates treat a coordinate structure as a single entity.18 Therefore, if partial agreement is still possible in the presence of such predicates, it is not an outcome of ellipsis. With the help of juntos in (33a), we can rule out the ellipsis analysis.
18 Aljović and Begović (2016) also provide arguments against an ellipsis analysis with the data from Bosnian/ Croatian/ Serbian (see also Johannessen 1996, Munn 1999, Harbert and Bahloul 2002, Soltan 2007, and Demonte and Pérez-Jiménez 2012 among many others).
(35) Krava in njena
teleta so se pasla skupaj
cow.SG.F and her calves.N are refl graze.PL.N together
‘A cow and her calves were grazing together.’ (MNS 2007)
In order to know the internal structure of the sentences (33a) and (33b), I provide the tree diagrams in (36) and (37).19 In both of the tree structures, we can see that the existential verb haber raises from V to v and from v to T.20 The v in Spanish existential constructions is defective since it cannot host an external argument. As the sentence
*La clase hay un alumno ‘Intended meaning: There is a student in the class.’ shows, the external argument la clase ‘the class’ results in the ungrammaticality of the sentence.
However, if no external argument exists in the sentence, e.g. Hay un alumno en la clase
‘There is a student in the class’, the sentence would be grammatical. As a result, the
ungrammaticality of the sentence with an external argument suggests that the v in Spanish existentials is defective. One main difference between the derivations of (33a) and (33b) is that for (33a) the operation Agree between the participle and the first conjunct applies before the adjunction of the &P, i.e. acyclic adjunction as mentioned in the first chapter, yielding FCA; whereas, for (33b) adjunction of the &P applies
19 Notice that the sequence juntos en el techo ‘together on the ceiling’ is not presented in the tree because the position of these phrases is irrelevant to the current study.
20 The morphology of the verb hay is also presented in the tree.
before the operation Agree between the participle and the coordinate structure, showing full agreement. The derivations are shown in (36) and (37) respectively.21
(36)
21 Notice that in this study I treat the AP colgada ‘hung’ as an adjunct to vP. The position of the AP is not important to the current study.
TP
T vP
vdef
T AP vP [pres] colgada
V vdef
y
vdef VP
ha
V DP1
<haber>
DP1 &P
una lámpara & DP2
y
un candelabro
(37)