Discourse Expectations and the Grammar of Ellipsis
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Gapping: in Defense of Deletion
Gapping: In Defense of Deletion Elizabeth Coppock Northwestern University 1 Introduction Gapping refers to the following type of construction: (1) [α John likes caviar] and [γ Mary beans]. Typically, Gapping involves two such conjoined clauses, where the second clause contains no pronounced verbal material, as in (1). Following usual terminology, I call the missing material the Gap, the first clause (e.g. α) the antecedent clause, the second clause (e.g. γ) the gapped clause, and the pronounced elements of the gapped clause remnants. Assuming that the Gap is present somehow in the syntax, we have three potential analyses, depending on the nature of the Gap. We may interpret it as (i) a null pro-form, (ii) a deleted element, or (iii) a trace of movement. I immediately rule out possibility (i), following Hankamer and Sag (1976), who argue that Gaps are Surface Anaphors as opposed to Deep Anaphors (i.e. null pro-forms), based on their Island sensitivity and the fact that they require a linguistic antecedent. The second idea (deletion) is as old as the term Gapping. The first detailed investigation of the phenomenon was in Rosss 1967 dissertation, where he coined its name, and gave a deletion analysis. In 1976, Sag suggested that the remnants A'-move out of the gapped clause before deletion, preserving the hypothesis that operations (such as deletion) affect entire constituents. My proposal is essentially Sags, differing significantly only in the assumption that remnants adjoin to VP, rather than at the sentence level, as in (2).1 (2) John likes caviar, and [VP Mary1 [VP beans2 [VP t1 likes t2 ] ] ]]. -
Implicitness of Discourse Relations
Implicitness of Discourse Relations F atemeh T orabi Asr and V era Demberg Cluster of Excellence Multimodal Computing and Interaction (MMCI) Saarland University Campus C7.4, !"# Saarbrüc&en, Germany [email protected], [email protected] Abstract The annotations of explicit and implicit discourse connectives in the Penn Discourse Treebank make it possible to investigate on a large scale how different types of discourse relations are expressed. Assuming an account of the Uniform Information Density hypothesis we expect that discourse relations should be expressed explicitly with a discourse connector when they are unexpected, but may be implicit when the discourse relation can be anticipated. !e investigate whether discourse relations which have been argued to be expected by the comprehender exhibit a higher ratio of implicit connectors. !e "nd support for two hypotheses put forth in previous research which suggest that continuous and causal relations are presupposed by language users when processing consecutive sentences in a text. !e then proceed to analyze the effect of Implicit Causality (IC) verbs (which have been argued to raise an expectation for an explanation) as a local cue for an upcoming causal relation. Keywords: Causality Continuity Discourse relations, Discourse cues Implicit discourse relations, Corpus study Uniform Information Density. Proceedings of COLING 2012: Technical Papers, pages 2669–2684, COLING 2012, Mumbai, December 2012. 2669 1 Introduction David Hume in his prominent work “An enquiry concerning human understanding” proposed that ideas in the human mind were associated according to at least three types of relations: resemblance contiguity in time or place, and causality (Hume, 1784). -
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. -
Discourse Relations and Defeasible Knowledge`
DISCOURSE RELATIONS AND DEFEASIBLE KNOWLEDGE* Alex Lascarides t Nicholas Asher Human Communication Research Centre Center for Cognitive Science University of Edinburgh University of Texas 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9LW Austin, Texas 78712 Scotland USA alex@uk, ac. ed. cogsc£ asher@sygmund, cgs. utexas, edu Abstract of the event described in a, i.e. fl's event is part of the preparatory phase of a's: 2 This paper presents a formal account of the temporal interpretation of text. The distinct nat- (2) The council built the bridge. The architect ural interpretations of texts with similar syntax drew up the plans. are explained in terms of defeasible rules charac- terising causal laws and Gricean-style pragmatic Explanation(a, fl): For example the event de- maxims. Intuitively compelling patterns of defea,- scribed in clause fl caused the event described in sible entailment that are supported by the logic clause a: in which the theory is expressed are shown to un- derly temporal interpretation. (3) Max fell. John pushed him. Background(a, fl): For example the state de- The Problem scribed in fl is the 'backdrop' or circumstances under which the event in a occurred (so the event and state temporally overlap): The temporal interpretation of text involves an account of how the events described are related (4) Max opened the door. The room was pitch to each other. These relations follow from the dark. discourse relations that are central to temporal import. 1 Some of these are listed below, where Result(a, fl): The event described in a caused the clause a appears in the text before fl: the event or state described in fl: Narration(a,fl): The event described in fl is a consequence of (but not necessarily caused by) (5) Max switched off the light. -
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). -
Negation Markers and Discourse Connective Omission
Uniform Information Density at the Level of Discourse Relations: Negation Markers and Discourse Connective Omission Fatemeh Torabi Asr & Vera Demberg Saarland University fatemeh|[email protected] Abstract About half of the discourse relations annotated in Penn Discourse Treebank (Prasad et al., 2008) are not explicitly marked using a discourse connective. But we do not have extensive theories of when or why a discourse relation is marked explicitly or when the connective is omitted. Asr and Demberg (2012a) have suggested an information-theoretic perspective according to which discourse connectives are more likely to be omitted when they are marking a relation that is expected or pre- dictable. This account is based on the Uniform Information Density theory (Levy and Jaeger, 2007), which suggests that speakers choose among alternative formulations that are allowed in their lan- guage the ones that achieve a roughly uniform rate of information transmission. Optional discourse markers should thus be omitted if they would lead to a trough in information density, and be inserted in order to avoid peaks in information density. We here test this hypothesis by observing how far a specific cue, negation in any form, affects the discourse relations that can be predicted to hold in a text, and how the presence of this cue in turn affects the use of explicit discourse connectives. 1 Introduction Discourse connectives are known as optional linguistic elements to construct relations between clausal units in text: in the Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB Prasad et al. 2008), only about half of the annotated discourse relations are marked in the text by a discourse connective. -
Obligatory Presupposition in Discourse
Obligatory presupposition in discourse Pascal Amsili1 & Claire Beyssade2* 1Université Paris Diderot & Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle, CNRS/2Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS Paris Some presupposition triggers, like too, seem to be obligatory in discourses where the presupposition they induce is explicitely expressed. We show that this phenomenon concerns a larger class than is usually acknowledged, and suggest that this class corresponds to the class of presupposition triggers that have no asserted content. We then propose a pragmatic explanation relying on the neo-gricean notion of antipresupposition. We also show that the phenomenon has a complex interaction with discourse relations. 1. Introduction The starting point of this work is a number of situations where some presupposition triggers seem obligatory in discourse. Here are two examples. (1) a. Jean est allé il y a deux ans au Canada. Il n’ira plus là-bas. John went to Canada two years ago. He won’t go there anymore b. #Jean est allé il y a deux ans au Canada. Il n’ira pas là-bas. John went to Canada two years ago. He won’t go there c. Léa a fait une bêtise. Elle ne la refera pas. Lea did a silly thing. She won’t re-do it. d. #Léa a fait une bêtise. Elle ne la fera pas. Lea did a silly thing. She won’t do it. *This article benefitted from comments from the audience at CiD’06 (Maynooth), and particularly from discussion with Henk Zeevat. We are also very grateful to an anonymous reviewer who provided very detailed and constructive comments. -
The Syntax of Comparative Constructions : Operators, Ellipsis
Julia Bacskai-Atkari The Syntax of Comparative Constructions Operators, Ellipsis Phenomena and Functional Left Peripheries Universitätsverlag Potsdam Julia Bacskai-Atkari The syntax of comparative constructions Julia Bacskai-Atkari The syntax of comparative constructions Operators, ellipsis phenomena and functional left peripheries Universitätsverlag Potsdam Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de/ abrufbar. Universitätsverlag Potsdam 2014 http://verlag.ub.uni-potsdam.de/ Am Neuen Palais 10, 14469 Potsdam Tel.: +49 (0)331 977 2533 / Fax: 2292 E-Mail: [email protected] Zugl.: Potsdam, Univ., Diss., 2014 Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Gisbert Fanselow, Department Linguistik, Universität Potsdam Prof. Dr. István Kenesei, Department English Studies, University of Szeged Datum der Disputation: 25.02.2014 Dieses Werk ist unter einem Creative Commons Lizenzvertrag lizenziert: Namensnennung 4.0 International Um die Bedingungen der Lizenz einzusehen, folgen Sie bitte dem Hyperlink: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/de/ Online veröffentlicht auf dem Publikationsserver der Universität Potsdam URL http://pub.ub.uni-potsdam.de/volltexte/2014/7125/ URN urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-71255 http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-71255 Zugleich gedruckt erschienen im Universitätsverlag Potsdam ISBN 978-3-86956-301-5 Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been written without the funding pro- vided by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) through the Collaborative Research Centre SFB-632 (Information structure: The linguistic means for structuring utterances, sentences and texts) at the Linguistics Department at University of Potsdam, where I held a short- term PhD scholarship in 2012/2013 (working in project A1 in Potsdam and partially also in B4 at the Humboldt University of Berlin), and where I am currently employed as a research fellow (project Z). -
Gapping and Stripping
Gapping and Stripping Gapping and Stripping Kyle Johnson The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis Edited by Jeroen van Craenenbroeck and Tanja Temmerman Print Publication Date: Dec 2018 Subject: Linguistics, Morphology and Syntax Online Publication Date: Jan 2019 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198712398.013.24 Abstract and Keywords The chapter looks at the main attempts to model two constructions: gapping and strip ping. It reviews the ways in which these constructions are similar, exploring the thesis that they both stem from the same underlying process. One of those shared properties is their restriction to coordinations—a restriction that is not found elsewhere in the menagerie of ellipsis constructions. Methods of tying this restriction to the similarly gap ping/stripping-specific constraint against embedding the ellipsis or its antecedent are ex amined. The chapter focuses on the shortcomings of previous attempts to explain these conditions, and their counter-examples, and points to new directions of analysis that seem promising. Keywords: gapping, stripping, ellipsis, coordination, movement, small conjuncts, large conjuncts 23.1 Introduction THIS chapter looks at two constructions which are sometimes characterized as involving ellipsis. One is known as gapping, a name Ross (1970) suggested. And the other is vari ously known as stripping or Bare Argument Ellipsis.1 An example of gapping is (1), and stripping is illustrated by (2). (1) (2) The second conjunct of (1) is understood to have the same verb that the first conjunct has: likes. Similarly, in the second conjunct of (2), there is understood to be both a verb and a subject, each identical to those found in the first conjunct: Jones likes. -
8 Ellipsis in Construction Grammar 8.1 Introduction
8 Ellipsis in Construction Grammar Adele E. Goldberg and Florent Perek 8.1 Introduction Ellipsis constructions are formal patterns in which certain syntactic structure that is typically expressed is omitted. Some of the most commonly discussed ellipsis constructions along with an attested example of each are provided in Table 8.1. All examples in quotes within and following Table 8.1 come from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) (Davis 2008). Table 8.1 Commonly discussed constructions that involve ellipsis Verb phrase ellipsis ‘French kids eat spinach and ours can too.’ Sluicing ‘He said that I was “different.” He didn’t say how.’ Gapping A: ‘You made me what I am today.’ B: ‘And you me.’ Stripping ‘George Greenwell was a patriot but not a fool.’ Comparatives ‘His front teeth seemed to protrude more than Henry remembered.’ Every language balances the need to be expressive with the need to be sufficiently easy to produce. These two major functional principles (described by Goldberg 1995: 67 1 as Maximize Expressive Power and Maximize Economy) give rise to different networks of learned constructions in different languages via general processes of grammaticalization or constructionization (Paul 1889; Hopper and Traugott 2003; Traugott 2014; Bybee et al. 1994; Fried 2009). This chapter emphasizes the shared communicative motivation of ellipsis constructions that leads to cross-linguistic similarities and certain predictable functional constraints (section 8.2), while we also emphasize the fact that ellipsis is licensed by a system of motivated constructions; i.e., learned pairings of form and function. Specific constructions readily capture a range of restrictions on form and function, including those related to semantics, discourse context, register, genre, and dialect. -
Discourse Relation Sense Classification with Two-Step
Discourse Relation Sense Classification with Two-Step Classifiers Yusuke Kido Akiko Aizawa The University of Tokyo National Institute of Informatics 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo, Japan Tokyo, Japan [email protected] [email protected] Abstract introduction of a new evaluation criterion based on partial argument matching in the CoNLL- Discourse Relation Sense Classification is 2016 Shared Task. On the other hand, the the classification task of assigning a sense sense classification components, which assign to discourse relations, and is a part of a sense to each discourse relation, continue to the series of tasks in discourse parsing. perform poorly. In particular, Non-Explicit sense This paper analyzes the characteristics classification is a difficult task, and even the best of the data we work with and describes system achieved an F1 score of only 0.42 given the system we submitted to the CoNLL- the gold standard argument pairs without error 2016 Shared Task. Our system uses two propagation (Wang and Lan, 2015). sets of two-step classifiers for Explicit In response to this situation, Discourse Relation and AltLex relations and Implicit and Sense Classification has become a separate task EntRel relations, respectively. Regardless in the CoNLL-2016 Shared Task (Xue et al., of the simplicity of the implementation, 2016). In this task, participants implement a it achieves competitive performance using system that takes gold standard argument pairs and minimalistic features. assigns a sense to each of them. To tackle this The submitted version of our system task, we first analyzed the characteristics of the ranked 8th with an overall F1 score of discourse relation data. -
Three Types of Ellipsis∗
Three types of ellipsis∗ Jason Merchant Abstract The term ‘ellipsis’ can be used to refer to a variety of phenomena: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. In this article, I discuss the recent comprehensive survey by Stainton 2006 of these kinds of ellipsis with respect to the analysis of nonsententials and try to show that despite his trenchant criticisms and insightful proposal, some of the criticisms can be evaded and the insights incorporated into a semantic ellipsis analysis, making a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy to the properties of nonsententials feasible after all. 1. Introduction A character in Carlos Fuentes’s 2002 novel The Eagle’s Throne (trans. Kristina Cordero; Random House: New York, 2006) says with self-disdain and melan- choly (p. 93): Did you know I’ve learned to speak like an Anglo-Saxon, without articles or context? “Exactly.” “Done.” “Nothing.” “Careful.” “Perfect.” ∗This paper owes an enormous debt to a large number of people over the years since I first began working on it, but special mention must be made of Rob Stainton, whose work was the original impetus for it and whose comments at Rutgers and in Paris in 2007 led to numerous improvements. Thanks also to Ernie Lepore, François Recanati, Jason Stanley, and the participants in the Leverhulme Foundation workshop organized by Laurence Goldstein at Canterbury in 2008. “Warned.” “Face consequences.” I say these things, nothing else. As it turns out, such seemingly telegraphic speech is by no means limited to the Anglo-Saxon world. The question is just what such utterances could and do mean ‘without context’ and with, and what exactly a speaker who utters such phrases says, means, and conveys.