Slocum 2016 Dissertation
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SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... The Syntax of Address A Dissertation Presented by Poppy Slocum to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Stony Brook University May 2016 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Poppy Slocum We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Daniel L. Finer – Dissertation Advisor Professor, Department of Linguistics John F. Bailyn - Chairperson of Defense Professor, Department of Linguistics Richard K. Larson Professor, Department of Linguistics Raffaella Zanuttini Professor, Department of Linguistics Yale University This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Charles Taber Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation The Syntax of Address by Poppy Slocum Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Stony Brook University 2016 This dissertation examines the role of the addressee in syntax, focusing on nominals that refer to addressees: vocatives (calls and addresses) and imperative subjects. Beginning with Moro (2003), generative analyses of vocatives have proposed that they are associated with functional projections at the left edge of or above CP. Such analyses are unable to account for the existence of mid-sentential addresses. I propose that vocatives (specifically addresses) are merged into the specifier of a functional projection, AddrP, which is located in the topic field of the CP domain (specifically between the highest TopP and FocP). This position correctly reflects that mid- sentential vocatives delineate an information structure boundary between old information (topics) and new information (focus). I show that the derivation of mid-sentential vocatives is sensitive to syntactic islands, supporting their treatment in the narrow syntax. I also propose that AddrP bears an allocutive feature, which in some languages is realized as non-argument iii addressee agreement in the inflectional domain. I next turn to the internal structure of vocatives, starting by rebuking the claim that vocative case is a variant of nominative. I propose that vocative is an inherent case associated with an additional layer of functional structure. This layer surfaces in adjective initial vocatives in Italian, Romanian and Slavic, which I argue are the result of N-to-D movement of the nominalized adjective. I also propose a new condition for predicting the distribution of overt imperative subjects in English, based on the observation that they require the presence of a non-null set of contextually defined alternatives. Finally, I examine the claim that vocatives are parenthetical, and consider the consequences of such a statement. I find that a subset of other elements which are described as parenthetical also mark information structure boundaries, and may also be associated with a functional projection in the topic domain of CP. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 Introduction: Calls, Addresses, and Imperative Subjects .................................. 1 1.1. Calls, Addresses and Imperative Subjects ........................................................................... 3 1.2. Prosody ................................................................................................................................ 5 1.3. Morphology and Form ......................................................................................................... 6 1.3.1. Imperative Subjects....................................................................................................... 7 1.3.2. Distinctions between addresses and calls ................................................................... 10 1.4. Reference ........................................................................................................................... 12 1.4.1. Addressees are a Subset of Hearers ............................................................................ 13 1.4.2. The Reference of Calls................................................................................................ 14 1.4.3. The Reference of Addresses........................................................................................ 14 1.4.4. The Reference of Imperative Subjects ........................................................................ 15 1.5. Structural Position.............................................................................................................. 17 1.5.1. Ordering restrictions on addressee referring nominals ............................................... 18 1.5.2. Iterativity ..................................................................................................................... 20 1.6. The Functions of Addresses ............................................................................................... 22 1.6.1. The Relevance of the Addressee ................................................................................. 23 1.6.2. Descriptive addresses .................................................................................................. 24 v 1.6.3. Relationship Establishment......................................................................................... 25 1.7. Roadmap ............................................................................................................................ 26 Chapter 2 Overt Imperative Subjects .................................................................................... 31 2.1. Past Proposals .................................................................................................................... 34 2.2. The Set of Potential Protagonists ....................................................................................... 36 2.2.1. The Control Relationship ............................................................................................ 37 2.2.2. The Speaker as a Potential Protagonist ....................................................................... 39 2.3. OSIs and the Set of Potential Protagonists ........................................................................ 40 2.3.1. Existential Quantifiers and Indefinite DPs ................................................................. 40 2.3.2. Definite Expressions .................................................................................................. 42 2.3.3. Modified DPs .............................................................................................................. 46 2.3.4. The Universal Quantifier ............................................................................................ 47 2.4. Imperative Predicates as Subsets of the Set of Tasks......................................................... 49 2.5. Imperatives and second person .......................................................................................... 51 2.6. Pragmatics or Syntax?........................................................................................................ 53 2.7. Exhaustivity ....................................................................................................................... 56 2.8. Summary ............................................................................................................................ 58 Chapter 3 The internal structure of vocative phrases ......................................................... 60 3.1. Vocative Case ..................................................................................................................... 62 3.1.1. The Vocative Case Debate .......................................................................................... 62 vi 3.1.2. The Myth of Nominative/Vocative Syncretism .......................................................... 64 3.2. Definiteness and person in vocative DPs ........................................................................... 67 3.2.1. Vocatives and Second Person...................................................................................... 70 3.2.2. Vocatives are Ostensive .............................................................................................. 72 3.3. The Structure of Vocative DPs ........................................................................................... 74 3.3.1. Hill 2014 ..................................................................................................................... 76 3.3.2. Slocum & Taylor 2010 ................................................................................................ 79 3.3.3. A modified analysis ..................................................................................................... 83 3.4. Summary ............................................................................................................................ 89 Chapter 4 The Syntax of Addresses........................................................................................ 91 4.1. AddrP ................................................................................................................................