The Syntax and10hnBowers Semantics of Nominals Cornell University
Thoughsyntacticians have devotedconsiderable effortto elucidating the mapping between S-structure relatively little attention bas been paidto themapping between S structure/LFand andLF, (=logical fonn, i.e. truth conditional semantics or semantics). It will be argued in Ifthis paper thatrecent extensions of standardX' theory'real'to so-called 'functional' (non-lexical) categoriesprovide the linkbetween - the syntactically motivatedrepresentations and thesemantically crucialmotivated representations of Specifically, it willbe claimedof thatLF thereis a small set functional categoriesin nominals,If. parallel tothosethat have beenposited for sentences, whichof are strongly motivatedon both syntactic andsemantic grounds Whatthis meansis thatgiven a semantically motivated logic fornatural language, positing. thesefunctional categories provides, on the one hand, syntacticrepresentations that com:ct1y acco untfor the syntacticproperties nominals and, on the other hand, a universal and maximally 'transparent' compositional mappingof of syntacticrepresentations onto therepresentations of using only a limitedrange of semantic operations such as functionalapplication andIf,type-shifting. Thelogic assumed here is a property theoryof a kindthat has beenargued for on independent linguistic grounds by (1984, 85, 89) andCbiercbia and Turner (1988). It is a multisorted first-orderChiercbialanguage"with four basic sorts p, U, 1t,e (the universal sort), standing for propositions, individuals,properties and entities, respectively, plus the predication relation U: 1t ->
1 2 Beforediscussing and justifying theseclaims in detail, it is fust necessary to summarize the results ofmy previous workon predication andthe structure ofpropositions (B owers (1991». The analysis of nominals proposed in this paperis tightly integrated with the analysis sentencesproposed there. Indeed,the strongparalle lism between sententialand nominalofstructure thatresults from my analysisof nominals constitutes a crucial piece of evidence in its support.
The Syntax Sentences 1. of It is claimedin Bowers (1991) thatthe universal canonicalD-structure of sentences (apart is thefollowing: from onJer) (1) IP (noifi'mabve)
I subJecOagent (nominative) Pi Pi'objecflUleme yP (or (accusative) iO� mplement/obliqueV') indirectV' 06jCCtJgoal V (dative)
Embodiedin this structurea are number of claims havingto dowith (1) predication; (2) direct objects; (3) indirectobjects and complements. I discuss each these topics in tum. of 1.1. Predication
A major unresolvedquestion in the generativeframework is whether main clause (MC) and smallclause (SC) predicationcan be unified in purely SbUctural tenDs. In (2) are e�mplifieda range conSbUctions that might reasonably becharacterized as 'small clauses', some with PofRO subjects, others analogous to ECMconstructions:
(2) a.I consider [John crazy]. b. We regard [them as fools]. c. She put the book[pRO on the table]. d. The lions eat the meat [pRO raw]. e. With sick] , nothing is getting done. f. f. John[Mary ate breakfast [PRO naked].
In (3) areillustrated a number ofproposed s tructures forSCS: (3) a. 'SC' b. (Stowell) c. (Williams) xp i V NP XI> i Pi NP XP V" Clearly, none of these SbUctureS have anything in common with the standard SbUCture for main clauses, regardless of whether the internal subject hypothesis is assumed ornot: 3 (4) a. b. IP Ir NP" r NP r VP r --V' Suppose, however, there is a functionalcategory 'Pr' intennediate�YPbetween I andV, which projects its own phrasalcategories just otherlexical andfunctional categories. Predication can thenunif onnly representedlike as follows:
(5) (subject) ..... (predicate) NP Pr'-=---.XP::-=. x=e:-p_ {V,A,N,P} therhave we MC orSC predication simply depends on whether categoryPr P is a Whecomplement orV: the ofl
(6) MC: b. SC: __ a. Y",-_ V PrP -_-w� �=-.,.".. NP pf NP, AP ,PP, VP VP Not only does hypothesizing the categoryPr unify MC and SC predication,providing a purely structural characterization predicationrelation but it solves a related problem,namely, what categoryto of assign the SCS to: it is simply, thealso maximal projection Pr. Moreoever, it does so within the limitations of a uniform 2-level version of X-barof theory,unlilce otherproposals such asFukui (1986), andwithout invokingthe use of base generated adjuncts,as in Stowell (1981) (illustratedin (3) b.) andKoopman and Sportiche (1985, 87). A further bonus of this theoryis that it solves a minorbut significant mystery of English grammar,namely, how tocategorize the elementas, which in SC constructions such as (2) b. It can simply beregarded as a visiblerealization appears of the categoryPr. Finally,as willbe discussed in 12, thecategory Pr provides the syntactic basis foruniform semantic theory of predication. I now summarize briefly some empirical arguments thatsupport positing a universal syntactic categoryPr. One such argumentcan be derivedfrom the fact that constituents consisting of a directobject andcomplements of can,quite generally,be conjoined: variouskinds
(7)a. Mary considers John a fool and Bill a wimp. b. John regards professors as strange andpoliticians as creepy. c. Sue put the bookson table and the recordson the chair. Harriet gave a mug tothe John anda scarf toVivien. de. I expectJohn to win HaITyand to lose. f. We persuaded Maryto leave andSue to stay. g. You eat the fISh raw and beef cooked. h. I convinced John that it wasthe andBill that it was early. i. They told Sue who totalk to andlate Virginia when to leave.
Clearly,such Sb'Uctures are impossible to generate underthe standard analysis In thetheory proposed here, on the other they are easilyanalyzable as instancesofVP. of hand, 4 across-the-boardextraction of V from a conjoinedVP:
'Pfp
� NFl" P NP the .loks i on J�ble the lnus Ii on �rchair r vS yP We know on the basis of comparative evidence thatnon-auxiliary verbs don't raiseto 1 in English (Emonds (1978), Pollock(1 989». Hence, the ATB extraction of V in required these structures is onlypossible if there is an xOposition between 1 and V which the extracted verb can be located in. The neededhead position is, 1 suggest, Pr.l Independent evidence forthis conclusion can be derived from sentences (Larson (1990» such as the following in which theraised constituent mustRNR be a containinga V trace: VP
(9) a. Smith loaned, and his widowlater donated, a valuablecollection ofmanuscripts to the library. b. Sue moved, and Mary also transfeITed, her business to a different location. c. 1 succeededin convincing, even though John had failed to persuade,Mary not to leave. d We didn'tparticularly but nevertheless ate, the fish raw. e. Most people probably consider,like, even though the courts didn't actually find, Klaus von Bulow guilty of murder. f. Flo desperately wants, though she doesn'treally expect, the Miami Dolphins to be in the Superbowl.
Furtherevidence for the existence of Prcan bederived from thefam iliar observation that predicative expressionsof different syntactic category canbe conjoined:
(10) a. 1 considerJohn crazyand a fool. b. Billis unhappy andin trouble. c. 1 regardJohn as crazyand as my best friend d *1 regard John as crazyand my bestfriend Inthe theoryproposed here, such sentences are analyzable as conjoinedPrP complem ents:
(11) [Pr 1 [Pr' consideq [vp Johnj [PrPlPrp tj crazy] and lPrP � my bestfriend]]]]]
Inany theory thattreats SCs as projections oflexical categories (e.g. Stowell (1981», on the other hand, P such exampleswill inc orrectly be ruledout as instances of thegeneral prohibitionagainst conjoiningphrases of differentcategories. Notice, incidentally, thatthe contrast between (10) c. and provides furtherevidence thatas is a lexical realization of d PJO,the fonner beingexactly parall el to(1 1), the latterruled out as a violation of the constraint on conjunction just mentioned. 1.2. Subjects andObjects 5
Modernre search revealedmany fonnal syntactic similaritiesbetween subjects and objects, a numberhasof which arelisted below:
(12) i. Thesubject c-commands everythingelse in clause; the objectc-commands everythingbut the subject (Barss and (1986». ii. Both subject and object are assigned structuralLasnik case (Chomsky (1981». Bothsubject and objectcan can agreewith theverb. iii.iv. Both subject and object controlPRO subjects of infmitive andSC complements. v. Both subject andobject arepo ssible non-9 positions(postal and Pullum (1988», hence landing sites for NP-Movement.
To accountfor this parallelism, I follow a line of thought that goes backto at least Chomsky (l9SSnS), Dowty (1982), Jacobson (1983) and Bowers (1983), namely, that the verb and its complements form a D-structureconstituent which is predicated of the directobject. Thisnotion is furtherdeveloped in workssuch as Jacobson (1987), Bowers (1988, 89), andLarson (1988), which claim specifically thatdirect objects are generated in [Spec, parallel tothe position of subjects in [Spec,Pr j. Accordingto this view, a sentenceV),such as John willput the bookon the tablewould be represented as follows: (13) ___IP=---c r NP
J. I V" e Jo eI the� pdt Y'on tit!pptable Pi000k I yP :;t' If' I assume that O-roles are assigned� locally to that theverb M-commands,where by XPs 'assignedlocally' I mean assigned within the maximalprojection of thexO category containingthe verb. It follows thatV -to- Prmovement is obligatory. I also assume that roles areassigned compositionally (Fukui (1986), Grimshaw (1990» , going from 0- innennost to outermostconstituents. Theargument structure associatedwith verbsis thus representedas follows:
where 93 is assignedto the complementof V in V'; 92 tothe argumentin [Spec, and V); 91 to the argument in [Spec,Pr j. With regardto case theory, I assume that case is also assigned locally underM command by xOcategories. In languages such as English the Agrelement of I (or possibly a higher Agrcategory, but in any case not Pr)assigns nominative case to the NP in [Spec, Hence movement of the 'internal'subject in [Spec,Pr j to [Spec, I] is,in effect, obligatory,1]. as proposedby Kuroda(1 986), Fukui (1986), and others. Accusative case assignedby V tothe NP in [Spt:c, V) and dativecase to NPs in complement positiison. It has been shown by Bailynand Rubin (1990) thatinstrumental case in Russian 6 is assigned by PrO· If objectsare generated in [Spec, V], then allmovement operations apartfrom adjunctioncan be restricted to just two (i) head-to-head; (il) spec-to-spec. Movement is thus structure-preservinginkinds: the extremely strong sense thatnot only are categories onlypennitted to move to positions where categories of the sametype are permitted,but categories canonly move between functional positions of the same kind I tum now toempirical arguments that demonstrate the needfor thecategory Pr, togetherwith the assumption thatobjects originatein [Spec, Modifying Travis (1988) somewhat, let us make thefo llowingfairly restrictiveassumptions VJ. concerningthe structure and licensingof adverb phrases: (i) AdvPs areX'-adjuncts licensedby anxO head; (il) each headlicenses one and only one type AdvP. If it could be shown thatthere was an adverb type in the appropriateposition for of which therewas no licensinghead, andif it could beshown that Prwas a plausible licenser foradverbs of this type then it could reasonablybe concluded that Pr exists. Consider in this lightthe fact that, certainmanner adverbs inEnglish can only occur in post-verbal position: (15) a. John learnedFrench perfectly. b. Billrecited his Jines poorly. c. Mary plays the violinbeau tifully.
(16) *John perfectly learnedFrench. a.b. *Bill poorly recitedhis lines. c. *Marybeautifully plays the violin.
while othermanner adverbs occurin bothpositions:
(17) a. Johnlearned French immediately. b. Billrecited his Jines slowly. c. Mary willplay the vioJin soon. (18) Johnimmediately learned French. a.b. Bill slowly recited his Jines. c. Mary willsoon play the vioJin. Thesetwo types cancooccur with oneanother, but cannot beinterchanged: (19) John immediatelylearned French perfectly. a.b. John learnedFrench pelfectly (almost) immediately.
(20) a. *John perfectlylearned French immediately. b. *Johnlearned French immediately perfectly. (moduloHeavy-Constituent Shift) This strongly suggests thatthey arelicensed by different categories. Theproblem is that there are at leasttwo further distinct adverb typesin English (makinga totalof four), none which canbe interchanged: of (21) Oearly,John willprobably immediately learnFrench perfectly. a.b. *Oearly, John willimmediately probably learnFrench perfectly. c. *Immediately,John willprobably clearlylearn French perfectly. *Oearly, Johnwill pelfectly immediately learnFrench probably. d etc. 7 Since the only threecategories available as licensersare V, I andC, either anotherlicenser is neededor we must assume that thetwo types of manneradverb discussed above are both licensed by V. It is shownin Bowers (1991) thatthe latterassumption is untenable. But if adverbs such as perfectlyare licensedby V andadverbs such as immediatelyby Pr, then theirbehavior fo llows immediately,as canbe seenby examiningthe following structures:
(22) IP NP l' Pi'P r NP AcIVP Pr' (AdvP)
Yf NP ' (AdvP) : . I Johni will cpricldy j FrenchI (perfectly)(quickly) Ci l Thefact that perfectly can only appearin post-verbalposition is now explained automatically by virtueof V -raisinginto Pr, which ensures thatthe verb is always tothe left of theadverb, regardless of whereit is generatedin D-structure. Adverbssuch as quickly, in contrast,can appear either asleft Pr' adjunctsor as rightPr' adjuncts,hence either to the left orto theright ofVP. Thefact thatthe two adverb types can't exchange positions follows from thefact they arelicensed by differentheads. This analysisalso makes that a furtherCOITeC t predictionconcerning the distribution of perfectly,namely, that it canappear either to the leftor tothe right of a complement:
(23) John spoke French intimatelyto Mary . a.b. John spokeFrench to Mary intimately.
(24) a. Maryjumped the horse perfectly over the last fe nce. b. Maryjumped the horseover the last fence perfectly.
This fact alsorules out the possibility of analyzingperfectly-type adverbs as complements, sincethey wouldthen beunable tocooccur with PP complements. Consider,finally, the well-knownfact that adverbs in Englishresist being placed between a verband its direct object, though notbetween a verb and a PP-complement:
John spokeFrench intimately to Mary . (25) a.b. *John spokeintimately French to Mary. c. Johnspoke to Mary intimately. Johnspoke intimately to Mary. d FollowingStowell (1981), thisrestriction on theplacement of adverbsin Englishis usually accountedfor in theliterature by meansof the so-called"adjacency requirement" on case assignment,which stipulates basically that accusativecase can only be assigned by the verb to a NPthat it is adj acentto. Apartfrom theinherent implausibility of restrictingcase assignment thisin way, there areatleast two empirical arguments against such an approach. First, adj acency is not a generalrequirement for case-assignment, even in English, since adverbscan occur quite freely betweenthe subject and the headthat assignsit nominativecase: 10
(26) John certainlywill thewin race . 8 Second, the adjacency requirement simply doem't holdin manylanguages, even in typologically quitesimilar languages such as French (seeBowers (1991), §3.2.1., for furtherdiscussion):
(27) Jeanparle souvent Ie francais.
Hence thatremains of the adjacencyrequirement is a language-specificcondition on assignmentall of just a single case, namely, accusative, hardly an explanatorytheory. In the theoryhere, proposed in contrast,this restriction on theoccmrence of adverbs can beexplained in pmelystructural tenn s. Fmt of thefact that V-licensed adverbs suchas pe1/ectly cannot occur between the verb andall,its direct object followsimmedia tely fromassumption the that these adverbs areV'-adjuncts, togetherwith the linked hypotheses thatdirect objects arein [Spec, andthat the verbraises obligatorily into PrO. These assumptions jointly ensure that thereV] is simply no way of generating an adverbof this type between the verband itsobject in English. Second, these same assumptions ensure that it isimpossible to generate adverbslicensed by anyother head between the verb and itsobject Thus a Pr-licensedadverb, for example, will be generableeither to the left of theraised verb or to the right of the whole VPcomplement of PrO, but not in anyother position. Thepossible positionsfor adverbs pennittedby theoryindicated are in the following structure for(2 1) this a.: (28)
AdVP (AdvP) c IP �_v--�r�_:t�------�(A�dv� NP P r NP e( ------__���-- � :::J � T cl JOM probably will e quO y learnFrench y : Y ��Y : FInally, the fact that othercomplements of the verbcannot beordered between the verband thedirect object:
(29) a. *John spoke toMary French. b. *Marypersuaded toleaveJohn. c. *The lions ate rawthe meat. d. *Sue gave to Billa book. e. *Marypersuaded that he should restBill.
is explainable in pmely structural tenns, given the analysis proposedhere. In fact, all thealsoordering properties attributed to theadjacency condition on caseassignment to a single structuralproperty of English, namely, that it is Spec-initial. reduce significantconsequence of the claim that subjects andobjects arestru cturally Another parallelis the following. Since Specpositions can in general be e'-positions, it should be the case that object position, as well as subject position, is a possible e'-position. In fact, 9 Postal andPullum (1988) have argued thatone of thecrucial tests fora a'-position, namely,occ urenceof expletives, holdsfor ob ject positionas well as subjectposition. This in t1mlmakes it possible, tothe cmrent VIeW, tohave raising-to-object(RO), as well as raising-to-subjectcontrary without violating the a-Criterion. Animportant empirical argumentin supportof RO(RS), canbe derived from the facts of so-called"quantifier floating" in English andother Thebasic observation, due originallyto Maling (1976), is that certainquantifiers languages.can "float" tothe right the NPthey modifyunder two condition s: (i) ifthe NPis a subject; if it anobject that of a predicativecomplement following it. Crucially, quantifierfloating (ii) notis possible from hasob jects that lacka predicative complement: is
a. Themen willall leave. (30)b. We considerthe men all fools/totally c. *1 saw the men all. crazy. d. *The men werearre stedall. e. *The men arrived all.
Thesefacts can be elegantly explained under the following assum ptions: (31) i. quantifiersproduced by leftwardmovement of NP (Sportiche(1 988». FloatedRaising to ob ject (RO) exists. iii.ii. Qis adj oined only toPrP and IP . As shown in (32) a strandedquantifier is always possible in subjectposition, since subjects always movea., from [Spec, to [Spec, Pr]; more importantly, the possibility of a strandedquantifier in object positionV] follows if RO exists, as shown in (32) b.: also (32) a. [IPthe menl [r will [PrPall [PrP t11Pr' leave2 [YP tV]]]]] b. [IP•.. [PrP we [pt consider1 [vp the men2 [V t1 [PrP all [PrP t21Pr' e fools]]]]]]]]
Floating from anobj ect whichlacks a complement, as in example (30) c., is ruledout, becausethe object notbeen moved. The thatfloated quantifiers are prohibited in post-verbal positionhas in passives andunacc usatives,fact as shown by examples d. and e., followsfrom assumption(3 1) which prohibits Q frombeing adjoined to (30)VP. Fmally, thisanalysis correct,iii., thenwe would floatingquantifiers to OCClD" with PRO asif well as trace , isas is indeedthe case: expect
(33) 1 persuaded1 [vp themen 2 [V' t1 [IPall IIpPR � toresign ]]]] a.b. Theteacher ordered the two topay closeattention. c. We put1 [vp the students2 [boysV t1 [PrP both each [PrPPR02 [pt e in separate desks]]]]] TheyretlD"Ded the all totheir owners. e.d. We paintedthe chairs books all red. f. Thetrainer fed thesteaks all to the lions.
These observations leadto the conclusion goalphrases anddative expressions such as thosein (33) c., andf. must in generalbethat SC complements witha PRO subject. d., 10 1.3. IndirectObjects and Complements
It bas often been noted that there is a small class of verbs in English which, though transitive inform, cannotbe passivized:
John went home/*Homewas gone by John. (34) a.b. Mary leftthe room angry/*The room was leftangry (by Mary). c. John resemblesBill/*Bill is resembled by John. Thepackage weighed 10 IbsJ*lO Ibs was weighed by thepackage. d.e. This book cost $10/*$10 was cost by this book. f. The book cost John $10/*John was cost $10 by the book.
A related phenomenon (commonly toin theliterature as "Visser's generalization", though thestandard account is Bachrefem:d (1979» is thefact that transitivesubject-control verbs lackpassives:
*John is impressed (by Bill) as pompous. (35) a.b. *The boys were madea goodmother (by Aunt Mary). c. *The kids werefailed(by as a father. *The men were struck by Max)theidea as nonsense. d.e. *The men werepromised (by toleave. Frank) Interestingly,it has been observed by Maling (1976) thatthe very sameverbs that don't passivizealso don't pennit floated quantifiers associated with theirobjects:
(36) a. *Heim presses his friends all as pompous. b. * Aunt Mary made theboys a goodmother. c. *Maxfailed thekids all as a allfather. d. *The idea struck the men all as nonsense. e. *Frankpromised the men allto leave.
Clearly, thiscan't be an accident,suggesting that there is a structw'al difference between direct objects and indirect objects. Let's assume the followingstructures sentences with persuatk andpromise, respectively: for
a. (3 ) __-Pr---_� 7 NP PrP ..... W NY Y'_--..!. JoIm; �j ;_p_I PRof'lOlea .. b. -L NP � Vl V' � IP r; I Jolini pronuseI. r Jgj PROj to leave Recalling fromthe previous sectionthat only spec-to-spec movement is pennit1ed, Visser's generalizationfollows immediately, since only inthe case of perSUlJl1e therean NP in is 11 [Spec, V]. This analysis can alsobe used to explain the control properties of these verbs:
(38) Johni persuadedMary j [pRO*i/j to leave] a. b. Johni promisedMary j [pROiJ*j toleave]
Supposethat the basic constrainton controlis simply that PRO must becontrolled by the nearestc-commanding NP. Thecontrol properties indicated in (38) follow at once. Maling'sobservation concerning quantifier floating is simply a corollary of thissolution to thecontrol problem, since only in (37) a. does the apparentobject c-commandthe floating quantifierin the complement clause. Theremaining examples in (35) areexactly like (37) b. in structure except that theycontain a SC complement with a PRO subject. Anexample such as (36) would thereforebe represented as follows: d. (39)
NP h'
Vi
e mef PRO as nonsense f>fIri . At this pointwe have prettymuch deducedthe generalargument structure (1) (repeated below), proposed at the outset:
objec erne V") (accusative) y' (orcomplement/oblique indirectY' object/goal V (dative)
Furthersupport for the correctness of this structurecan be derivedfrom thefact thatthere aresentences containingall three arguments, a object, indirect object and SC or sentential complement: direct
(41) a. Theyfeed the meati to the lions PROi raw. b. Johnput the patienti in bedPROi (citedin Roberts (1988, 708, n. 3) drunk. c. I sent Johni tothe storePROj toget the paper.
As predicted, thedirect object, rather the indirectobject, controls the PRO subject of thecomplement. than I conclude by discussing the interaction of RO withdative argumentsand V-licensed adverbs. It been arguedthat the latterboth occur in positions subordinate to, and to the right of, thehas direct object. Therefore,if RO exists, the order of these elements must be as follows:
(42) V -Object-(Adverb)- (Dative)- Complement
Remarkably,this prediction is borne out by thefacts, as the following data shows: 12 (43) a. *We proclaimed tothe public John to be a hero. b. We proclaimedJohn tothe public to be a hero. c. *We proclaimed sincerely John to bea hero. We proclaimedJohn sincerely to bea hero. e.d *We proclaimedsincerely to the public John tobe ahero. f. We proclaimedJohn sincerely tothe public tobe a hero.
(44) a. *They represented tothe Mary as a genuine linguist. b. They represented Mary toDeanthe as a genuine linguist. c. *They represented seriously MaryDean as a genuine linguist. They represented Mary seriously as a genuine linguist. e.d *Theyrepresented seriously tothe Dean Mary as a genuine linguist. f. Theyrepresented Mary seriously tothe Dean as a genuine linguist.
(45) a. *We provedto the authorities Smith tobe the thief. b. We proved Smith tothe authorities to be the thief. c. *We provedconclusively Smith to be the thief. We proved Smith conclusively to bethe thief. e.d *We proved conclusively tothe authorities Smith to bethe thief. f. We proved Smith conclusively tothe authorities tobe the thief.
Historically, one of themain objections toadmitting RO as a possible operation in the theoryof grammar was thefact that it appearedto be string vacuous. As the following derivation shows, thisparticular objection toR O no longercarri es any force:
NP a genuirlelinguist
Returningfinally tothe impassivizable verbs in D01e thatin eachcase there is at leastsome independent evidence in supportof the view(34),that the apparentdirect object is reallyunderlying an dative argument. The apparentobject in examples( 34) andb. is clearly a directionalcomplement that idiosynaa ticallylacks a preposition, as a.revealed by relatedexamples such as John wentto his/the home(n.b. *John went his/the Marywent out of/awayfrom room, etc. Thedative character of theappare Iwme),nt object in (34) c. shows up in relatednominal the forms such as John's resemblance toBill /the resemblance of John to Bill. In the case ofexamples ( 34) e. seems more plausible tosuppose thatthe measure expressions lbs. d and areit predicates of a SC complement andexam ple f. furthersupprts this 10 hypothesis, and$10 since the(impassivizable) dativeobject optionally occurs (34) tothe leftof the measure expression.
2. The Semantics of Sentences
Classical theoriesof logical semantics assumejust twobasic types: thetype of entities, designated by the symbol 'e', and the type of propositions, designated by thesymbol 't'. All othertypes arederivedfrom these two. Propertiesnot are primitivesin such a theory, 13 but ratherare reconstructedas propositional functions(I-place predicates, or intransitive verbs), typeof (46) a. S -> NP VP b. VP -> V c. -> V NP VP How dothe typesof classicalsemantics relate to the categories provided by theserules? The category S obviouslycorre sponds toexpressions oftype while VP-expressions are uniformly of type universal sort),plus the predication relation u: 1t -> entities: e basic entities: u predication (U): <11:, S<-> t PrP<-> p intrV<-> 7t <-> complement A dittansitivesentence such as John willgive a book toMary will therefore have the following structure,ttanslations and type assignments: (49) IP r �p, U[(give(m»(b)]G), p �, U[(give(m»(b)](x), e will Jolin eI Ifany relationis semantic, it is surelythe predication relation. Almost without exception, modeltheoretic acco untsof predicationhave adoptedthe ''Fregean''view that the actof predicationconsists of "saturating"or "completing" structuresthat are inherently "unsaturated" or "incomplete". (But see e.g. Aczel (1980), Bealer (1982), Jubien (1985), for analternative, non-"Fregean" approachto predicatio n.) At thesame time, there appears to bestrong semanticevidence (Chierchia(1984, 1985, 1989), Chierchiaand Turner (1988) that propertiesin naturallanguage cannotsimply beidentified with propositional functions, but must beable to function as individuals, as well. Ifthe argumentsdiscussed so far arecorrec t, then itturns out, quiteremarkably, that the syntacticallymotivated structuresrequired to supporta structuraltheory of predicationmatch up in a simple, "transparent"fashion withthe types of entitiesand operations required in a logical language of the sortenvisioned by Chierchia. It willbe demonstratedshortly richerthat similar resultscan be achievedin the case of nominal structures,a remarkable,though surelynot surprisingresult A priori,it seemsquite unlikely that the structuralrepresentations requiredto represent the syntactic phenomena of naturallanguage will outturn to be related in randomand essentially unpredictable ways tothe types and operations required to supportan explicit semanticsfor naturallanguage. Probably, everyonewould assent to the assumption that adequatean semantictheory must becompositional. Therequirement of compositionalityensures that each syntacticrule or substructure be matchedby a correspondingsemantic rule or type. However, asChierchia and Turner(1988, 277) note, "everythingelse being equal. one wouldprefer not tohave to specifyfor any given grammar, the pairingof syntacticrules with thecorre spondingsemantic one , on a case-by casebasis. One would like such a pairingto fo llow fromgeneral principl es." The considerationsput forward thus far strongly suggest thatthe pairing of syntactic and semanticrules is infact quite general and universal. I haveargued, in particular, that the basic structuralrelations in sentencesare univ ersallyspecifiable by applyingan extremelyrestricted version of X'_theoryto a smallnumber of lexicaland fu nctional categories. Thepairing of syntacticcategories withsemantic types andof syntactic relationswith semanticoperations is, I claim,fixed within very nanow limits by the principles of universal grammar. Specifically, I have triedto show that the category 'Pr', whose translationis simply alongwith its phrasalproj ections,provides a uniform accountof thesyntax andsemantics 'v, everyof kind of predicationrelation encountered in 16 naturallanguage. Given thiscategory and its ttanslationin the structul'eand interpretation ofthe phrasal categories it can projectcmnpletely are If, determinedby the principles of X'-theory in the syntax and by the principle of functional application in the semantics. Similarly, I have shown thatexpressions of thecategory VP, unifonnly pairedwith properties (expressionsof type have an asymmetrical structure, mirroredin the corresponding logicalrepresentations, 'It), which is preciselyparallel to the structureof PrP. In particular,the so-calleddirect ob jectasymmetrically c-commandsthe cmnplementsof the verb. Semantically, the V' constituentis anunsaturated expression (as is Pr') which yields a propenyexpression when applied to the directobject constituent. Ihave triedto show that thisremarkable parallelism betweenthe internal structureof PrP VP is empirically supported by a widerange of syntactic andsemantic considerations. and Theremainder of this paper willbe devoted to demonstrating a similartransparency in themapping between the syntacticrepre sentation of nominals andtheir ttanslations in At the same time, it willbe shown that thereis a close parallelism between sentences andIf. nominals, bothin theirsyntax in theirsemantics. Theidea thatsentences andnominals arefundamentally similar in underlyingand fonn beenof importance in the generativettadition from its inception. Theresults has of thiscentral paperconfinn the in sttongest possible way theessential c mrectnessof thatcon jecture. The Syntax of Nominals 3. Recentwork by Abney (1987), Bowers(1987), andothers clearlyestablished the necessity for a functionalcategory O(et) in the nominalsystem. has as has beenclaimed in thispaper (and in more detailin Bowers(1991», thereis a functionalH, categoryPrP in sentences, intermediate between IP andVP, then one might expectto finda corresponding intennediatecategory in nominals. siderin this lightgerundive nominalsof the following sort: Con (50) p John's [a drivingcars so recklessly] is terrifyingeveryone] a. [ b. [p This [a singingsongs] must stop at once] It has been demonstrated byAbney (1987) and Bowers (1987), following Chomsky (1970) Jackendoff(1977), that the a-phrases in (50) areverbal rather thannominal in nature.and It fol lows, given the analysis of directob jectsproposed in this paper,that there must be somehead position for the verbto move to, if the cmrect orderof theverb and secondary subjectis to be generated. This position cannotbe 0, becausein examples such as (SO) b., 0 is alreadyoccupied by a demonstrative. It must be the case, therefore, that0 the ofoption selectinga PrPas its complement: has singing songs q.1]]]] (51) [OP this [PrPP RO [Pr' i [vp [V' Consider next example (50) a. The possessive NPJohn's is theprimary subject of singing, hencemust originatein [Spec,Pr]: (52) [OP[NP eUo' [0 e]£Prp John £Pc' singingi [vpsongs til]]]] Obviously subjects of gerundives donot remainin thisposition, since they cannot fo llow demonstratives,articles and other realizations of thecategory 0 in S-structure. Funhermore, wealready know that [Spec,Pr] is not a positionto which case is assigned Hence a NPin thatposition must move toa position whereit canreceive case . Theonly 17 possibleposition it can moveis to [Spec,DP], whereit will, we assume, beassigned genitive case,thereby satisfying the Filter. Notethe parall el betweenthis movement andmovement from [Spec, Pr]to [Spec,Case I].2 3.1. Thecategory Nm. Having establishedthat D is capableof selecting the intermediate levelfunctional category PrP andthat theremust bemovement from [Spec, Pr]to [Spec,D], let us considerwhether theremight bea correspondingintermediate level functional category in pure nominal fanns. Thenull hypothesis is thatthe SbUctme ofnominals precisely is parallelthat to of sentences. Let us assume therefore that there is anintermediate functionalcate gory'Nm' whoseSpec position cmre spondsto the primuysubject positionin sentencesand which takes as itscomplement the category NP. We then have thefo llowingcanonical D structurerepresentation for nominals: would (53) possessor: NP subject: NmP NP Nfif Bin' object: NP NP complement N' XP It was shownin § 1.2 thatthe existence of a specialclass of modifiers,licensed neither by V nor by I, couldbe used to justify positing theintermediate categoryPr. I shall now show thatthe class of weakde terminers, in the sense ofMilsark (1974) and Barwise and Cooper(1981), providesa similarargument in supportof the existence of Nm. It been arguedon syntacticgrounds Bowersin (1975, 1987) that thereare two classeso f has quantifiers inEnglish. Thefirst class, among which areall, every, each,both, some, neither andany , cannotcooccur with a genitiveNP, unless it is postposed. Theseare the elements, I hypothesize,that belong tothe category D. The second class, among which are the numeralsand the quantifiersmany, few, several andmuch, cooccur bothwith membersofD and with genitive NPs: (54) a. those three books b. this one book c. themany boo ks thesefew books d.e. John's threeboo ks f. all ten books g. everythree days . h. anyfive chairs Remarkably, themembership of thesetwo classes conesponds almostprecisely to the class of strong and determiners,weak respectively, suggestingthat are there systematic differencesin syntactic SbUctme cmresponding to thesemantic nces differe betweenthem The observationsin Bowers(1987) provideindependent support thisview. Thereit . was shown theclass of elements characteristicallyexhibit forSlH:alled "specificity effects"are thatjust the determinersClass of that I, i.e. the strong determiners, while the members of typicallydo notexhibit such effects. It was arguedthat this difference canbe explainedClassin n tenns f o the "Barriers" theoryif it is assumedthat the ClassI, but not the Class determinersbelong to thecategory D. n, 18 two typesof detenninerer diff syntacticallyin otherways as well. Membersof the firstTheclass can never be modified the by specialelements degree that modifyadj ectives and adverbs, whilemembers of thesecond class (wheresemantically interpretable) can be: (55) a. • so everythat .. b. ·very each c. ·tooall to ••• (56) a. so many that. .. b. very few c. too much to ... In addition,determiners of the firstclass cannever beused predicatively, whereas detenninersthe of secondclass typically can: (57) a. *Themen wereevery. b. ·The bookswere all. c. ·John is each. (58) a. The soldiers werefew (in number). b. The books were many (in number). c. The carswere (in number). three Allof thesefacts canbe explained if it is assumedthat theClass II determinersare simply APmodifiers. Categorizing the weakdeterminers as adj ectives also theadvantage that virtuallyall of thecomplex derived quantifiers discussed in Keenan (1has988) will automatically begenerated in the syntaxunder standard assumptions concerning the structureof AP: (59) infinitely/countably/just finitelymany, more male female,at leastas many maleas female, at least n, fewer thann, approximatelythan n, more•.. than ..., at least as many... as ... , etc. InBowers (1987) it wassuggested that these determiners were attributivesimply APs, hence modifiers of N'. However, thisfails to account forthe fact that they must always occurfm t in a sequence of APs: a. themany polite young men (60)b. ·thepolite many youngmen c. ·the polite youngmany men If,on theother hand,weak determiners are assumed to beNm' modifiers,parallel to the modifiers discussedin § 1.2., this resultfollows automatically. Anotherargument Pr'against my earlieranalysis can bederived from the fact thatattri butive adjectives generally pennitreplacement of thefol lowing N' constituentwith thepro-form one, whereas weak detenniners don't: (61) a. John has goodstudents, whileBill has lousy ones. b. John has many students, whileBill has few (·ones). Stillanother observation which supportsthis analysis is thefact thatdeterminers licensed by Nm cannot occurin gerundivenominals: 19 (62) *These three (many, few, etc.) singing songs (of John's) must cease. whereasthey can occur in derived nominals: (63) Those three proofs of the theorem of John's are world famous. If, as proposedabove, the intennediate categmyin gerundives is PrP, while derived nominals a NmP complement to0, thisresult follows automatically.3 Finally, a containstrong argument for distinguishing attributivealso APs weak detenniners structurally can be derived from Chinese. In Chinese, attributiveand APs occurwith the modification marlcer -de, while weak determiners must occurwith a special class of elements traditionally called "classifiers": nei san-ben/*de hen hao-del*ben shu (64)those three-cl very good-mod books As shows, theposition of the modification marker theclassif lCl'cannot be interchanged.,(64) whicha fact canbe explained underthe proposedand analysis if it is assumed that theclassifiers arephonetic realizations of Nm, while themodification marlcer-de is generally associatedwith X-modifiers,and specificallywith N'-modifiers.4 We may tentatively conclude thatthen thehypothesized intenn ediatecategmy Nm exists and that the weakquantifiers are beto analyzedas APmodif lCl'S of Nm', licensed by Nm. Hence the structure ofa phrase such as these three goodbooks would be represented as follows: (65) � D" �� N' liP IrQ!' 11 :; J\P these three eI gok 1k s 3.2. Argumentpositions in the nominal Now let's consider the argument positions that areavailable in structuresof thesort we have posited nominals. Again, the null hypothesis is thatthe structure of sentences and nominals is preciselyfor parallel Let us assume therefore, as already beenindicated in (53), thatthe primary subject position is [Spec, Nm), the secondaryhas subject position is [Spec, N] andthat possessiveN Ps arebase generated in [Spec, 0). Obviously the subject and object arguments of NPnever occurovertly in S-structure in these positions. This resultcan be derived by assuming that neither [Spec,N] nor [Spec, Nm) is a case-marlced position in English. Thus structures ofthe *[NmP John three [NPthe theorem proofs)) willnever be generatedin the formin S-Str'Ucture. How can subjects and objects berealized in S-Str'Ucture in nominals?S)'Dtax Intwo ways: as genitive in [Spec, 0) NPs and as objects ofthe prepositionof. 5 Thus it is a well-known factthat a nominal such as John's picture is three-ways ambiguous, meaning either (i) 'thepicture of John'; 'the picture by John'; 'thepicture that John This follows from ourassumptions. (ii) or (iii) has'. 20 tobe grammatical, a OP with a base-generated subject objectwill have tomove toIn [Spec,order 0] (ifit not already filledwi th apossessive) tobe case-marked.or Since there is only one case-markedis position in nominals, thefact that only oneargument can be overtly realizedin S-structurefo llows immediately. Note the parallel betweenobligatory movement arguments to[Spec, IP] in sentences and obligatory movement to [Spec, OP] in nominals,of in both instancesfor case-theoretic reasons. Whichpositions in the nominal arepotential non-thetapositions? Obviously [Spec, 0] is. Apparently [Spec, Nm] is also a possiblenon-theta position, since the internal argument of unaccusatives also shows up in the genitive case: ball'smovement, Mary's appearance, etc.: the [OP Mary's [NmP t' Nm [NP t appearance]]] (66) The Specposition in NP, on the otherhand, is evidently not a non-9 position, as is shown by the well-known observation « Chomsky (1971» thatraising constructions are impossible in derived fonns: nominal (67) a. *[op John's [NmP ttl Nm £Np t' appearance [t to have left]]]] b. *Mary'sbelief [t tohave disappeared] whereas the correspondingconbOl constructions are fine: (68) [OP John's [NmP t Nm [NP attempt [PRO toleave] ]]] Notice thatexplanation this for the of raising constructions in is only available if we extend the 'unaccusative'lack derivation of RS constructionsnominalsproposed in Bowers (1991) tonominal structures as well. If Johnin (67) a. were moved directly from the complement to [Spec, Nm], no violation of the 1beta Criterion wouldreswL The offending trace in (67) a. must therefore be t'. other words, RO is not permitted in nominals. contrast, raising possible in gerundives,In as expected, since gerundives containPrP Inrather than NmP: is a. Mary'shappening tostumble across the truth was fortunate indeed. (69) b. I doubtwhether Mary'sbeing believed to have disappearedmade much difference. The secondway in which the arguments of a noun can be expressed overtlyin English is in a PP complemenL Typicallyob jects occurwith of and agents either by orof, the fonner beingpreferab le, especially ifthere is more thanone PP-argument, with though in otherlanguages such as Spanish any number of phrases withde (the equivalent of English of) arepossible (cf. Mallen (1989), forextensive discussion). yieldsdata such as the following: This (70)a. the enemy's destructionof thecity b. the destructionof/by the enemy c. ?the destruction of the enemy of the city the destruction of the city by the enemy de. the movementof/*by the ball down the hill Note thatthe subjects of unaccusative nouns can optionally appear with of. also 21 \I 1) theappearance of Mary a.b. the movement of the ball It been suggestedthat theof the object in these examplesis insertedto satisfybas the Filter,assuming that that Nouns marks are notcase-assigners. argumentin supportof thisCaseview is thattogether with assumption that [Spec, isAn an obligatory theta position, it explains why thereare no ECMcomplements of theraising N] typein nominals: (12)a. *my beliefof John to bethe culprit b. *John's belief to be the culprit Ifthis analysis is correct, then of cannotitself be aprepositional case-assigner, since PPs only occurin complementposition. I assumetherefore, followingLamontagne and Travis (1987), thatthere is a functionalshall category K (=case),whose head can be optionall y as of in English in [Spec, realized N]: (13) DP NP the enemy's Ifobject NPs arecase-marked in [Spec, then it follows that Nouns must raise toNm, precisely parallelthe to raising of Verbs toN],Pr in sentences. This analysis is quiteappealing, though thereare somepotential problems. Notefirst thatan AP modifier of N' must somehow beprevented frombeing strandedby the raising of thehead Noun, since unm cannever occur to theright of anobject PP: *the enemy's destructionof the cityodified violent/the APs enemy's violentdestruction of the city. Second,there is a mass ofempirical evidence (seeRadford (19 88), for anextensive summaryof the arguments) suggestingthat PP -arguments ofthe noun must be generated withinN', while PP adj uncts must beadj oined toN'. One major piece of evidence in supportof thisconclusion is the factthat P P-arguments must precedePP-ad juncts: (14) a. studentof P hysics with long hair b. *a studentwith long hairof Physics However, thisobservation isperfe ctly consistentwith the tenceof N-Raising, since an NPin [Spec, willalways precede an N' adj unct in anyexiscase. As for the firstproblem , I will careN] of it by showing that therearetwo oftypes Nouns: those thatraise and those that don'ttake Nouns of the first type takea realobject and only occurwith Nm' modifiers, while nouns of the secondtype take an of phrasewhich isreally a-com PP plement and can occur with bothNm' and N' modifiers. Fornouns of the first type, the correctsurface orderis derived byN-to-Nm movement For nouns ofthe type, the problem simply doesn't arise. second 3.3. Action nominals vs. resultnominals The that some nouns whileothers don't arise is suggestedby thefamiliar observationidea that theraise secondarysub jectsof action nominalscan generallyoccur as genitives, 22 while thesecondary subjectsof resultnominals can't: (75) a. destruction of the city/the city's destruction b. the publication of articlein theTimeslthe article's pUblication in the Tun es the (76) a. the studentof Chemistryl*Chemistry's student b. theproof of the theorem in thejourna1/*the theorem's proofin journal the This contrastcan beexplained if we assume thatthe object of anaction nOOlinalis a real secondary subject, generatedin [Spec,NJ, while the apparent object of a resultnominal is actually a SC PP-cOOlplement of N. Example (75)b. would thenbe derived as follows: (77) Of NP' D' D N""mP N"m' NP Nfu' lie NP N' PP I e e e e th e artIC. 1 e publi catton in the Times I 1 f.I 4' If' �I I Ifthe secondary subject the article fails to becase-marked by of, then it must move successively into [Spec, Nm] and [Spec, D], producing the second phrase in (75) b. The structure of (76) b., in contrast, is as follows: (78) OP 0' NP D N:mP N"m ' NP Nm 1l 1 H' PP e die eI �f PRO of !'J:th eorem in the'journal As is immediatelyapparent, NP-movement is impossible in this structure. I shallreturn shortlyto question of why the noun fails tomove toNm. Now the adjectivalmodifiers head alsoarepossible with considerthe that thesenomina Jizations: (79) Therapid/* interestingpublication of article in Tun es. a.b. The *rapidlinterestingproof of the ththeeorem in thethejournal. The adjective interesting in (79)b. is anN-modifier, as shown by the fact thatit permits one-pronominalization: (80) John an interesting proofof the theorem in thisjournal, but Mary has an even morehas interesting one in thatjournal. The adj ectiverapid in (79) a., in contrast,does notpermit one-pronominalization of any kind: (81) a. *We prefer rapid publication of the articlein Times to slow onein the 23 Herald. the b. *We were disappointed by the rapidpublication of Mary's article and the slow one of John's. As was shown earlier, one-pronominalization is a property of N'-modifiers, but not of Nm'-modifiers. Hence it canbe concluded that AP modifiers of action nominals are Nm' modifiers, whereas APmodifiers of result nominalsare N'-modifiers. This analysis is confirmedby thefact thatin thecorres ponding sentences Nm'-modifiera of anaction nominal translates naturally into a adverbial modifier, whereas the same is not true for resultnom inals: Pr' (82) a. Theyrapidly published John's articlein theTimes. b. *John interestinglyproved the theorem. One crucialquestion remains: why does head nounraise to Nm in actionnominals but not in resultnominals? Suppose thataction the nominals assign 9-roles in exactly the same way that verbs do,while basic nouns and result nominals simply do not assign 9-roles at all.6 The result would bethat action nominals would have to raiseto Nm for exactlythe same reason thatverbs obligatorilyraise to Pr, namely, to assign a 9-role to the primary subject in [Spec, and [Spec, respectively. Basic nouns andresult nominal s, on the other hand, wouldN] not raise becauseV], they don't have any a-roles to assign. This proposal predicts correctly some furtherdiff erences between action nominals andresult nominals. First,action nominals should be able to OCCurwith PRO subjects,while resultnominals should not. As Williams (1985) notes, presence of a PRO subjectin nominals can be tested forby seeingwhether a purposeclause is possible, since purposeclauses are known to becontrolled by SUbjects. Theresult, as predicted,is thataction nominals canoccur with purposeclauses, hence must have PRO subjects: (83) theP RO destructionthe of city [pRO toprove a point] whereas result nominalsand basicnouns cannOt: (84) a. *those/John's proofs of the theorem [pRO to prove a point] b. *those/John's pictures of MaryPRO [ to prove a point] Second, since PRO isnot case-marked, it canremain in [Spec, Nm], leaving the possessive position in [Spec,D] free to takea lexical NP. Theexistence ofsuch phrases hasbeen notedby Williams (1985): (85) yesterday'sPRO destructionof thecity [pRO toprove a point] Finally, as Roeper (1987) observes,presence of a PRO subject blocks preposing of objects in action nominals: (86) *the city's destruction toprove a point Ifthis analysisis correct, thenit canbe concluded, not surprisingly perhaps, that action nominals arecloser in structure to sentences (and hence to gerundive nominals) thanresult nominalsare . Theirinterpretation is different Actionnominals refer toevents, also 24 whereas resultnominals refer toclasses of individuals. How torepresent this differencein fonnal semanticterms will discussedbe in next section. the 4. The Semantics of Nominals Ifthe syntacticanalysis of therevious p section is correct,then there are three kinds of nominalswhose semanticsmust beaccou ntedfor: (i) nominals withCass quantifiersbasic only; nominals with Class I quantiflers (with orwithout Class quantifiersn in addition);(ii) actionnominals Cases (i) and which apply tobasic n nouns andresult nominals, (iii)I discuss together; case. I discuss(ii), separately. (iii) 4.1. Strong andweak determiners As a first approximation, Cass I determiners have beenidentified as strong, in the sense of Milsark(19 74) andBarwise an d Cooper (1981), and Class as weak. Milsark's original observation(the "deflniteness restriction", orDR) was thatn NPs with weak determinersoccur in post-copular in position this with anexistential interpretation, while NPs with strong constructiondeterminers, possible at donot have an existentialinterpretation, but rathera "listing"in terpretationif else or all,one just identical to correspondingnon-existential sentence with thequantified NP in subject position: the (87) There aremany/few/two men in the ganien. a.b. Thereis/are everylthat/mostman in the ganien. c. Every/that/mostman is/are inthe ganien. Thus (87) is interpretedexistentially, while b. is eitherdeviant or else interpreted just (87)a. c. Barwiseand Cooper (1 981) tried(87) to show thata determineris weakjust in caselikethere are propertiespand inq its such thatdet p' s are p's is trueand det q's are q is false. A determineris strong domainit is nonweak: it is positive strong if detp' s are p's is truefor all p in of ifdeterminer, negative strong detp' s are p's is false for all such p. However,the domain the(1 988) argues thatthe semantic if properties of those quantifiersthat can occur in existential Keenancontexts shouldbe derived from a basicproperty thathe termsexistentiality, since there aretrivial determiners thatare positive strong(e.g. at least zero, zero or more, irifinitelymsny or finitelymany, etc.)and negative strong(e.g. fe werthan zero, betweenseven andfive, neitheril'ffi nitely many norfinitely many,etc.), but which neverthelessoccur in existential contexts. A detenniner(e.g. some) is existential sentences ofthe fonnDet-N-that-be-Pred have thesame truthconditions as sentencesof if the fonnDet-N-that-be -Pred-exist. example,some is existential because the followingpair of sentences has the sameForconditions: truth (88) a. Some studentis avegetarian. b. Somestudent who is a vegetarian exists. A strongdeterminer such asevery, on the hand, is not existentialbecause (89) b. is always true,while (89) canbe false: other a. (89) a. Everystudent is a vegetarian. b. Every studentwho is a vegetarian exists. apparendytakes existentiality tobe a property f determiners. Ifexistentiality Keenan were anindeed inherent property basic determiners,o individualthat is tosay � the propertyof existentialitycould be shown tobe an ofintrinsic weak of lexicalcontent of if part the quantifiers such as many,/ew, and the cardinal numbers, then we could justifiably 25 conclude thatthe explanationfor the DR is purely semantic. This however, is not the case, as is shownby anotherobservation due originallyMilsark to , ( 1974). Milsarknoted that NPs with weak:detemliners in subject position areambiguous between a quantificationalreading and a cardinalreading. Thus the sentence: (90) Many men arein the garden. can eithermean : (i) 'of the existing men, a large proportion arein the garden', or ·there aremany men in the garden'. Thelatter interpretation is identical tothat of the existential(ii) sentence (87) a. The fonner is quantificational, similarto (87) c., andin this interpretation manyis not existential. This shows that the propertyof existentiality is not somehow intrinsicto the concept of"many-ness". Rather, it appears to be asem anticproperty that some determiners (the weak:ones) canoptionally acquire in theright context, but which otherdetemliners (the strongones) cannot There are,then, two questions thathave to be answered: (a) how doesthe propertyof e xistentiality arise?; why can some determiners, but notothers, acquire it? (b) According to the theoryhere, proposed weak: detemliners arecategori7ed as adj ectives, while strongdetenniners belong to the functional category D. Henceall we needin order toans wer is to suppose that some detemlinersbelong eitherto the category Aorto the category D,(b) while others only belong tothe categoryD. I retmn tothis point shortly (There could bedetenniners only belong to thecategory A; a good candidate might bethe indefalso mite determinerthata.) To answer (a), wehave to show thatthe of existentiality arises somehow from structures containingadj ectival quantifiers andpropertynot from structures containingD quantifiers. I shallnow to show that theproperty of existentiality, hence the DR, canbe derived tty from assumptions (1')-(5') (cf. p. 1), repeatedhere forand convenience: (1') NPsdenote properties aretherefore assigned the type in If; (2') the semanticfunction of NmO I¥»is and to tmnproperties into 11: (like propositional functions, andhence it istranslated as the predication operator; (3') X' adj uncts areuniformly translated as modifiers,from which ·v, it follows thatweak: determiners donot change the typeof the expressions they modify; (4') the members ofD, in contrast, following the theory of generalizedquantifiers (Montague (1970), Barwiseand Cooper (1981», mapproperties onto setsof properties, therebychanging the type ofthe NmP complements they select; (5') if thereno is lexicaldetenniner in D, then itis obligatorily interpretedas theexistential quantifier , as a defaultvalue. Simply stated, theidea is that every nominal isnot a predicate nominal of course) tobecome a generali7ed quantifier. Ifno (that overt quantifier is available in, D, thenthe has propositional function created byNmP is turnedthe into existential generalizedquantifier as a default value. The nominals all menand two men would thus be derived as follows: (90) p ___....' all_ x ["'man(x» = y \1'x['lman(x) ->V y(x» = Ilall{men)II, < all, 26 (9 1) 3 �� lx[ two(v man(x)) = y x[two(vman(x» -> two(V y(x») = {two (men» )II, < e In supportof this analysis,note firstthat the fact that weak, but not strong, determiners have propertyof existentiality (from which propertiesof intersectivity symmetry and followthe (Barwise andCooper ( 1981), Keenan (the1988» ) is derivedfrom assumptions (3') and (5'). Weakdeterminers are,by hypothesis, syntactically Nm'-adjuncts. Therefore by (3') they don't change thetype of the propositional function they modify,but ratherjust specifycardinality the of the setin question. By (5'), the empty D must beinterpreted as the existentialquantifier in orderto tum its Nm P complement intoa generalizedquantifier. Strong determiners, in contrast, aremembers of D; by hypothesis,they are generalized quantifiers,bence in complementary distributionwith the existentialquantifier. Second, the DR follows direcdy from (5'). By hypothesis, Nm converts a NP (of type into a propositional function(of type (92) a. Two men arein the garden. '3(Y)(Y = ((x)lman(x) x in the garden) IYI = 2' b. Maryknows two men. & & = «x)lman(x) Maryknow x) IYI = 2' '3(y)(y & & Finally, returningto Milsark'sobservation that certainquantifiers weak as such many canhave eithera quantificational oran existentialinterpretation , canbe explainedby assumingsimply that such quantifiersare dually categorized as either this A orD. the first case, a quantifier suchas many receivewill an existential interpretation; in the secondIn it willreceive a quantificational interpretation. , 4.2. semanticsof action nominals. The Theresults of §3.3. show thataction nominals are syntacticallyparallel in structureto sentences. Ifthe thegeneral approachdeveloped hereis c orrect, wewould na turallyexpect to findan equallyclose parallelbet ween semanticsof sentences andaction nominals. Let us assume therefore that action nounsthe are expressions of type 11:, " U[destroy(c)], destroy(c), 7t c, e NP. " destroy, Not es 1 See Bowers (1991) Larson (1990) for argumentsagainst Jackendoffs (1990) suggestionthat such examplesand might be instances of gapping. I show therethat the neededin tennediate categorycannot be Ay/J (Pollock (19 89». also 2 D is non-empty, thenan English-specific constraint requires that the possessiveNP moveH into a postposedof-phrase, asin the followingexample: (i) Thissinging songs of John's must cease. I shallnot attemptto analy:re the structureof such postposedgenitives in thispaper, simply notingthat inmany languages possessives can cooccur with elements ofD without having tobe postposed (cf. Abney (1987), fordiscussion). 3 Thisanalysis is also consistentwith the claim of Chomsky(19 71) thatgerundives are verbs ereaswh derivednominals arenouns. 4 SeeTang (1 990) for detailedarguments in supportof this analysisand for manyother arguments from Chinesein supportof the proposed analysis of clause structure and nominal structure. 5 I assumewithout argument anagentivc by-phrase is anoptional, base-generated PP adj unct, as it is in sentences.that 6 It is interestingto note in thisconnection that in Chinese Tang( 1990» all (see 28 argumentsof nouns arecontained in phraseswith the generalmodification marker that is usedfor ad jectivemodifiers, relative clauses and so forth, suggesting onceagain -tkthat basicnouns do nottake arguments per se,though theycan assign theta-roles indirecdyto NPs in non-argumentpositions. 7 Action nominalsare similarto gerundives in thatthey may occurwith demonstrativesbut not withalso strong quantifiers: (i) a. 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