VP Ellipsis and Semantic Identity
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Animacy and Alienability: a Reconsideration of English
Running head: ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 1 Animacy and Alienability A Reconsideration of English Possession Jaimee Jones A Senior Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in the Honors Program Liberty University Spring 2016 ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 2 Acceptance of Senior Honors Thesis This Senior Honors Thesis is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Program of Liberty University. ______________________________ Jaeshil Kim, Ph.D. Thesis Chair ______________________________ Paul Müller, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Jeffrey Ritchey, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Brenda Ayres, Ph.D. Honors Director ______________________________ Date ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 3 Abstract Current scholarship on English possessive constructions, the s-genitive and the of- construction, largely ignores the possessive relationships inherent in certain English compound nouns. Scholars agree that, in general, an animate possessor predicts the s- genitive while an inanimate possessor predicts the of-construction. However, the current literature rarely discusses noun compounds, such as the table leg, which also express possessive relationships. However, pragmatically and syntactically, a compound cannot be considered as a true possessive construction. Thus, this paper will examine why some compounds still display possessive semantics epiphenomenally. The noun compounds that imply possession seem to exhibit relationships prototypical of inalienable possession such as body part, part whole, and spatial relationships. Additionally, the juxtaposition of the possessor and possessum in the compound construction is reminiscent of inalienable possession in other languages. Therefore, this paper proposes that inalienability, a phenomenon not thought to be relevant in English, actually imbues noun compounds whose components exhibit an inalienable relationship with possessive semantics. -
Modeling Scope Ambiguity Resolution As Pragmatic Inference: Formalizing Differences in Child and Adult Behavior K.J
Modeling scope ambiguity resolution as pragmatic inference: Formalizing differences in child and adult behavior K.J. Savinelli, Gregory Scontras, and Lisa Pearl fksavinel, g.scontras, lpearlg @uci.edu University of California, Irvine Abstract order of these elements in the utterance (i.e., Every precedes n’t). In contrast, for the inverse scope interpretation in (1b), Investigations of scope ambiguity resolution suggest that child behavior differs from adult behavior, with children struggling this isomorphism does not hold, with the scope relationship to access inverse scope interpretations. For example, children (i.e., : scopes over 8) opposite the linear order of the ele- often fail to accept Every horse didn’t succeed to mean not all ments in the utterance. Musolino hypothesized that this lack the horses succeeded. Current accounts of children’s scope be- havior involve both pragmatic and processing factors. Inspired of isomorphism would make the inverse scope interpretation by these accounts, we use the Rational Speech Act framework more difficult to access. In line with this prediction, Conroy to articulate a formal model that yields a more precise, ex- et al. (2008) found that when adults are time-restricted, they planatory, and predictive description of the observed develop- mental behavior. favor the surface scope interpretation. We thus see a potential Keywords: Rational Speech Act model, pragmatics, process- role for processing factors in children’s inability to access the ing, language acquisition, ambiguity resolution, scope inverse scope. Perhaps children, with their still-developing processing abilities, can’t allocate sufficient processing re- Introduction sources to reliably access the inverse scope interpretation. If someone says “Every horse didn’t jump over the fence,” In addition to this processing factor, Gualmini et al. -
Scope Ambiguity in Syntax and Semantics
Scope Ambiguity in Syntax and Semantics Ling324 Reading: Meaning and Grammar, pg. 142-157 Is Scope Ambiguity Semantically Real? (1) Everyone loves someone. a. Wide scope reading of universal quantifier: ∀x[person(x) →∃y[person(y) ∧ love(x,y)]] b. Wide scope reading of existential quantifier: ∃y[person(y) ∧∀x[person(x) → love(x,y)]] 1 Could one semantic representation handle both the readings? • ∃y∀x reading entails ∀x∃y reading. ∀x∃y describes a more general situation where everyone has someone who s/he loves, and ∃y∀x describes a more specific situation where everyone loves the same person. • Then, couldn’t we say that Everyone loves someone is associated with the semantic representation that describes the more general reading, and the more specific reading obtains under an appropriate context? That is, couldn’t we say that Everyone loves someone is not semantically ambiguous, and its only semantic representation is the following? ∀x[person(x) →∃y[person(y) ∧ love(x,y)]] • After all, this semantic representation reflects the syntax: In syntax, everyone c-commands someone. In semantics, everyone scopes over someone. 2 Arguments for Real Scope Ambiguity • The semantic representation with the scope of quantifiers reflecting the order in which quantifiers occur in a sentence does not always represent the most general reading. (2) a. There was a name tag near every plate. b. A guard is standing in front of every gate. c. A student guide took every visitor to two museums. • Could we stipulate that when interpreting a sentence, no matter which order the quantifiers occur, always assign wide scope to every and narrow scope to some, two, etc.? 3 Arguments for Real Scope Ambiguity (cont.) • But in a negative sentence, ¬∀x∃y reading entails ¬∃y∀x reading. -
VP Ellipsis: Strict and Sloppy Readings Alanah Mckillen Mcgill University
LING 484 16/02/15 VP Ellipsis: Strict and Sloppy Readings Alanah McKillen McGill University Today: • Strict and sloppy readings of pronouns and reflexives in VP ellipsis • Brief intro to the structural approaches to ellipsis (PF deletion, LF copy) • Binding theory • Interpreting anaphors (pronouns, reflexives) 1 VP Ellipsis • VP ellipsis involves two clauses where the VP of the second clause is phonologically missing, but is understood as if it was present. (1) John liked the movie but Bill didn’t. a. John [VP liked the movie] but Bill didn’t [VP ∅ ] = b. [VP ∅ ] like the movie (2) John loves Mary and Peter does too. a. John [VP loves Mary ] and Peter does [VP ∅ ] too. = b. [VP ∅ ] loves Mary • Ellipsis involves an identity condition. The elided VP cannot have just any interpre- tation and is interpreted as being identical to the another overt VP in the discourse context. (3) John loves Mary and Peter does too. a. John [VP loves Mary ] and Peter does [VP ∅ ] too. = b. [VP ∅ ] ate the pizza • Like other forms of ellipsis, VP ellipsis raises the question of how we get the intended meaning from something that is phonologically absent. 2 Structural Approaches • Structural approaches assume there is underlying syntactic structure at the ellipsis site, and it’s from this covert syntactic structure that we get the intended meaning. • In other words, while the structure is not there at the level of pronunciation, (PF), it is there at the level of interpretation (LF). 1 LING 484 16/02/15 • There are two main variants: PF-deletion (Ross, 1967) and LF-copying (Williams, 1977). -
Meaning and Linguistic Variation
i Meaning and Linguistic Variation Linguistic styles, particularly variations in pronunciation, carry a wide range of meaning – from speakers’ socioeconomic class to their mood or stance in the moment. This book examines the development of the study of sociolin- guistic variation, from early demographic studies to a focus on the construc- tion of social meaning in stylistic practice. It traces the development of the “Third Wave” approach to sociolinguistic variation, uncovering the stylistic practices that underlie broad societal patterns of change. Eckert charts the development of her thinking and of the emergence of a theoretical community around the “Third Wave” approach to social meaning. Featuring new material alongside earlier seminal work, it provides a coherent account of the social meaning of linguistic variation. PENELOPE ECKERT is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology at Stanford University. She is author of Jocks and Burnouts (1990) and Linguistic Variation as Social Practice (2000), co- editor of Style and Sociolinguistic Variation (Cambridge, 2002) with John R. Rickford and co- author of Language and Gender (Cambridge, 2003, 2013) with Sally McConnell- Ginet. ii iii Meaning and Linguistic Variation The Third Wave in Sociolinguistics Penelope Eckert Stanford University, California iv University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314– 321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06- 04/ 06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. -
An Asymmetry in Voice Mismatches in VP-Ellipsis and Pseudogapping
An asymmetry in voice mismatches in VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping Jason Merchant University of Chicago [email protected] Final revision for Linguistic Inquiry, March 29, 2007 VP-ellipsis and pseudogapping in English show a previously unnoticed asymmetry in their tolerance for voice mismatch: while VP-ellipsis allows mismatches in voice between the elided VP and its antecedent, pseudogap- ping does not. This difference is unexpected under current analyses of pseu- dogapping, which posit that pseudogapping is a kind of VP-ellipsis. I show that this difference falls out naturally if the target of deletion in the two cases differs slightly: in VP-ellipsis, a node lower than Voice is deleted, while in pseudogapping a node containing Voice is deleted. This analysis further- more accounts for a new observation concerning the distribution of floated quantifiers in these two constructions as well.1 1Thanks to Kirsten Gengel, Kyle Johnson, and the two LI reviewers for very helpful comments. 1 1 Voice mismatches It is well known that VP-ellipsis in English tolerates mismatches between the voice of the elided constituent and that of its antecedent, in both directions. Typical examples are those in (1) and (2) (the (a) examples from Kehler 2002:53; see also Sag 1976:17, 75, Dalrymple et al. 1991, Hardt 1993, Johnson 2001, and Arregui et al. to appear for further examples, discussion, and qualifications). (1) Passive antecedent, active ellipsis a. This problem was to have been looked into, but obviously nobody did. <look into this problem> b. The system can be used by anyone who wants to. -
What VP Ellipsis Can Do, and What It Can't, but Not Why*
What VP Ellipsis Can Do, and What it Can’t, * but not Why Kyle Johnson University of Massachusetts Amherst VP Ellipsis is the name given to instances of anaphora in which a missing predicate, like that marked by “)” in (2), is able to find an antecedent in the surrounding discourse, as (2) does in the bracketed material of (1). (1) Holly Golightly won’t [eat rutabagas]. (2) I don’t think Fred will ), either. We can identify three sub-problems which a complete account of this phenomenon must solve. (3) a. In which syntactic environments is VP Ellipsis licensed? b. What structural relation may an elided VP and its antecedent have? c. How is the meaning of the ellipsis recovered from its antecedent? These tasks tend to run together, as we shall see; but there is no immediate harm in treating them separately. 1. LICENSING THE ELLIPSIS The first of the problems presents itself with pairs such as (4). (4) I can’t believe Holly Golightly won’t eat rutabagas. a. I can’t believe Fred won’t ), either. b. *I can’t believe Fred ), either. These contrasts are typically thought to involve licensing conditions that the environment to the left of the ellipsis invoke. The contrast between (4a) and (4b), for instance, indicates that the ellipsis site must be in construction with, or perhaps governed by, a member of “Aux,” where these can be understood to be just those terms that are able occupy the highest of the functional projections which clauses are made up of. The modal, won’t, is an Aux, as is the infinitival to and the auxiliaries have, be and do in (5). -
Verb-Stranding Verb Phrase Ellipsis and the Structure of the Russian Verbal Complex
Nat Lang Linguist Theory (2013) 31:91–136 DOI 10.1007/s11049-012-9183-3 Verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis and the structure of the Russian verbal complex Vera Gribanova Received: 10 July 2009 / Accepted: 10 September 2012 / Published online: 12 December 2012 ©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2012 Abstract This paper investigates novel evidence from Russian Verb-Stranding Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VVPE), and argues for its use as a probe into the syntactic structure of morphophonologically inseparable but morphosyntactically complex verbs. The first step is to distinguish internal argument drop from VVPE,becausetheyappeariden- tical on the surface. I present novel evidence that Russian internal argument drop is illicit in syntactic islands, while VVPE is licit. Once this bifurcation is established, it allows us to explain previously obscured differences in the syntactic licensing of sub- ject vs.internalargumentdropinRussian.Thesecondstepusestheverb-matching requirement on the stranded verb in Russian VVPE to establish which parts of the ver- bal complex originate inside the domain of ellipsis, and which parts originate outside. Asurprisingfindingisthattheverb-matchingpropertiesoftheRussianVVPE con- struction do not align with what has been demonstrated to hold of other languages in which VVPE is available. Unlike the strict matching requirement of Hebrew (Gold- berg 2005a, 2005b)orIrish(McCloskey2011) VVPE,thematchingrequirementin Russian VVPE appears to be sensitive to discourse factors, at least for certain speak- ers. This last discovery results in a significant contribution to our understanding of the nature of the identity requirement in ellipsis licensing. Keywords Verb phrase ellipsis Verb-stranding Russian Verb movement Argument drop Clause structure· · · · · 1Introduction This paper develops the empirical and theoretical basis for the use of a particular phenomenon—Verb-Stranding Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VVPE)—as a diagnostic for the V. -
Donkey Anaphora Is In-Scope Binding∗
Semantics & Pragmatics Volume 1, Article 1: 1–46, 2008 doi: 10.3765/sp.1.1 Donkey anaphora is in-scope binding∗ Chris Barker Chung-chieh Shan New York University Rutgers University Received 2008-01-06 = First Decision 2008-02-29 = Revised 2008-03-23 = Second Decision 2008-03-25 = Revised 2008-03-27 = Accepted 2008-03-27 = Published 2008- 06-09 Abstract We propose that the antecedent of a donkey pronoun takes scope over and binds the donkey pronoun, just like any other quantificational antecedent would bind a pronoun. We flesh out this idea in a grammar that compositionally derives the truth conditions of donkey sentences containing conditionals and relative clauses, including those involving modals and proportional quantifiers. For example, an indefinite in the antecedent of a conditional can bind a donkey pronoun in the consequent by taking scope over the entire conditional. Our grammar manages continuations using three independently motivated type-shifters, Lift, Lower, and Bind. Empirical support comes from donkey weak crossover (*He beats it if a farmer owns a donkey): in our system, a quantificational binder need not c-command a pronoun that it binds, but must be evaluated before it, so that donkey weak crossover is just a special case of weak crossover. We compare our approach to situation-based E-type pronoun analyses, as well as to dynamic accounts such as Dynamic Predicate Logic. A new ‘tower’ notation makes derivations considerably easier to follow and manipulate than some previous grammars based on continuations. Keywords: donkey anaphora, continuations, E-type pronoun, type-shifting, scope, quantification, binding, dynamic semantics, weak crossover, donkey pronoun, variable-free, direct compositionality, D-type pronoun, conditionals, situation se- mantics, c-command, dynamic predicate logic, donkey weak crossover ∗ Thanks to substantial input from Anna Chernilovskaya, Brady Clark, Paul Elbourne, Makoto Kanazawa, Chris Kennedy, Thomas Leu, Floris Roelofsen, Daniel Rothschild, Anna Szabolcsi, Eytan Zweig, and three anonymous referees. -
Donkey Sentences 763 Creating Its Institutions of Laws, Religion, and Learning
Donkey Sentences 763 creating its institutions of laws, religion, and learning. many uneducated speakers to restructure their plural, It was the establishment of viceroyalties, convents so that instead of the expected cotas ‘coasts’, with -s and a cathedral, two universities – the most notable denoting plurality, they have created a new plural being Santo Toma´s de Aquino – and the flourishing of with -se,asinco´ tase. arts and literature during the 16th and early 17th Dominican syntax tends to prepose pronouns in century that earned Hispaniola the title of ‘Athena interrogative questions. As an alternative to the stan- of the New World.’ The Spanish language permeated dard que´ quieres tu´ ? ‘what do you want?’, carrying an those institutions from which it spread, making obligatory, postverbal tu´ ‘you’, speakers say que´ tu´ Hispaniola the cradle of the Spanish spoken in the quieres?. The latter sentence further shows retention Americas. of pronouns, which most dialects may omit. Fre- Unlike the Spanish of Peru and Mexico, which quently found in Dominican is the repetition of dou- co-existed with native Amerindian languages, ble negatives for emphatic purposes, arguably of Dominican Spanish received little influence from the Haitian creole descent. In responding to ‘who did decimated Tainos, whose Arawak-based language that?’, many speakers will reply with a yo no se´ no disappeared, leaving a few recognizable words, such ‘I don’t know, no’. as maı´z ‘maize’ and barbacoa ‘barbecue’. The 17th Notwithstanding the numerous changes to its century saw the French challenge Spain’s hegemony grammatical system, and the continuous contact by occupying the western side of the island, which with the English of a large immigrant population they called Saint Domingue and later became the residing in the United States, Dominican Spanish has Republic of Haiti. -
The Pragmatics of Quantifier Scope: ¦ Acorpus Study
THE PRAGMATICS OF QUANTIFIER SCOPE: ¦ ACORPUS STUDY ¦ SCOTT ANDERBOIS ¦¦ ADRIAN BRASOVEANU ¦¦ ROBERT HENDERSON ¦University of Connecticut, ¦¦UC Santa Cruz 1 Introduction One of the most well-studied phenomena in natural language semantics has long been the question of what readings are possible in various types of sentences with multiple quantifiers. Semanticists have generally been concerned with developing theories to capture the range of possible readings for such sentences. This is what Higgins & Sadock (2003) have dubbed the problem of scope generation. To take a simple example like (1), then, the job of semantics is (i) to argue that the sentence is truly ambiguous, i.e., it has two possible readings depending on which quantifier ‘we think of first’ (the need to postulate ambiguity is not immediately obvious, particularly for example (1)), and (ii) to capture the ambiguity by providing adequate representations for those readings. (1) Every doctor talked to a patient. a. every Ï a: every doctor is such that s/he talked to a patient b. a Ï every: a patient is such that every doctor talked to her/him While the semantic literature is rich with intuitions about the factors influencing the actual patterns of usage of sentences like (1), semantic theories are (quite rightly) not tasked with predicting which reading, (1a) or (1b), it has when it is used in a particular context. That is,semantics is generally not concerned with the problem of quantifier scope disambiguation (QSD) (scope prediction in Higgins & Sadock 2003’s terms). While QSD is generally agreed to be beyond the purview of ¦First of all, we would like to thank the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for access to the practice test materials used in the analysis. -
C-Command Vs. Scope: an Experimental Assessment of Bound Variable Pronouns
C-Command vs. Scope: An Experimental Assessment of Bound Variable Pronouns Keir Moulton & Chung-hye Han Simon Fraser University To appear in Language Abstract While there are very clearly some structural constraints on pronoun interpretation, debate remains as to their extent and proper formulation (Bruening 2014). Since Reinhart 1976 it is commonly reported that bound variable pronouns are subject to a C-Command requirement. This claim is not universally agreed on and has been recently challenged by Barker 2012, who argues that bound pronouns must merely fall in the semantic scope of a binding quantifier. In the processing literature, recent results have been advanced in support of C-Command (Kush et al. 2015, Cunnings et al. 2015). However, none of these studies separates semantic scope from structural C-Command. In this article, we present two self-paced reading studies and one off-line judgment task which show that when we put both C-Commanding and non-Commanding quantifiers on equal footing in their ability to scope over a pronoun, we nonetheless find a processing difference between the two. Semantically legitimate, but non-C-Commanded bound variables do not behave like C-Commanded bound variables in their search for an antecedent. The results establish that C-Command, not scope alone, is relevant for the processing of bound variables. We then explore how these results, combined with other experimental findings, support a view in which the grammar distinguishes between C-Commanded and non-C-Commanded variable pronouns, the latter perhaps being disguised definite descriptions (Cooper 1979, Evan 1980, Heim 1990, Elbourne 2005).