DOCSLIB.ORG

Bare Argument Ellipsis and Information Structure

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Bare Argument Ellipsis and Information Structure Bare Argument Ellipsis and Information Structure Marina Kolokonte Submitted to the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Newcastle University December 2008 NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 207 32561 0 IMAGING SERVICES NORTH Boston Spa, Wetherby West Yorkshire, LS23 7BQ www.bl,uk ORIGINAL COpy TIGHTLY BOUND· Bare Argument Ellipsis and Information Structure This dissertation presents a cross-linguistic study of three elliptical predicate constructions: (a) stripping, (b) negative-contrast, and (c) yes/no ellipsis, which are all argued to fall under the scope of a more general type of ellipsis, Bare Argument Ellipsis. From an interpretive point of view, in all three constructions, thc constitucnt that is present in the second conjunct ('the remnant') has a characteristic information role. In yes/no ellipsis, the remnant functions as a contrastive topic whereas in stripping and negative-contrast the remnant is a focused constituent. The latter two constructions are further differentiated with regard to the semantic characteristics of Focus. Based on the assumption that Focus is not uniform, it is shown that stripping involves narrow information focus whereas negative-contrast involves contrastive focus. From a syntactic point of view, I argue that Bare Argument Ellipsis involves overt movement of the remnant to the left periphery of the clause, followed by IP deletion. The PF­ deletion approach is extended to all three constructions. Following Rizzi's (1997) split-CP hypothesis, it is proposed that the remnant in yes/no ellipsis moves to TopP, a functional projection in the left periphery of the clause that encodes contrastive topics, by the process of Clitic Left Dislocation. Contrastive topicalization of the remnant forces narrow focus on the polarity marker. Regarding stripping and negative-contrast, it is argued that the semantic difference between narrow information and contrastive focus is directly related to the focus projection that hosts the remnant. Following recent proposals that Focus should be split into several projections, I show that the remnant in negative-contrast ends up in F I P, a focus projection marked for contrastiveness whereas the remnant in stripping moves to a lower F2P, which simply encodes new information. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration and statement of copyright vi Acknowledgments vii Chapter 1: Overview of the dissertation 1 1.1 Traditional views on ellipsis 2 1.1.1 Previous analyses of stripping, negative-contrast and yes/no ellipsis 4 1.1.2 Ellipsis and Information Structure 5 1.2 Goals of the dissertation 6 1.2.1 Structure of the dissertation 6 Chapter 2: Previous approaches to Bare Argument Ellipsis 8 2.1 Introduction 8 2.2 Description of the data 9 2.2.1 Stripping and Negative-Contrast 9 2.2.2 YeslNo Ellipsis 11 2.3 Previous accounts ofstripping, negative-contrast and yes/no ellipsis 13 2.3.1 Non-elliptical approaches to stripping and negative-contrast 13 2.3.1.1 Hudson (l976a, b)/ McCawley (1988,1991) 13 2.3.1.1.1 Problems 15 2.3.1.2 Reinhart (1991) 17 2.3.1.2.1 Problems 20 2.3.2 Elliptical approaches to stripping, negative-contrast and yes/no ellipsis 23 2.3.2.1 Lopez (1999, 2000) 23 2.3.2.1.1 Problems 24 2.3.2.2.Depiante (2000) 26 2.3.2.2.1 Problems 28 2.3.2.3 Winkler (2005) 30 2.3.2.3.1 Problems 32 Chapter 3: Bare Argument Ellipsis and Information Structure 34 3.1 Introduction 34 3.2 Description ofthe data 36 3.3 Information Structure and stripping/ negative-contrast 37 3.3.1 The notion of Focus 37 3.3.1.1 A further distinction: Identificational versus contrastive focus 40 3.3.2 Focus, stripping/negative contrast 41 3.4 Information Structure and yes/no ellipsis 48 3.4.1 The notion of Topic 49 3.4.1.1. A further distinction: contrastive topic 50 111 3.4.1.2 Contrastive topic versus contrastive focus 53 3.4.2 Contrastive topic and yes/no ellipsis 54 3.5 Summary 58 Chapter 4: Arguments for a PF-deletion approach to yes/no ellipsis, stripping and negative-contrast 59 4.1 Introduction 59 4.2 Arguments for internal structure 60 4.2.1 Case Parallelism 61 4.2.2 Missing Antecedents 62 4.2.3 Extraction out of the ellipsis site 63 4.2.4 Indirect evidence for internal structure 64 4.2.4.1 Islands 64 4.2.4.2 Preposition Stranding requirements 67 4.2.4.3 Syntactic Identity 68 4.2.4.4 Internal Argument Alternations 73 4.2.4.5 Binding Effects 74 4.3 More Arguments against the pro-form theory 76 4.3.1 The Pro-Form Theory 77 4.3.2 Pragmatic Antecedents 81 4.3.3 Ellipsis across sentence boundaries 82 4.3.4 The Backwards Anaphora Constraint 83 4.4 Summary 86 Chapter 5: A Minimalist analysis of yes/no ellipsis 84 5.1 Introduction 87 5.2 Yes/No Ellipsis involves CLLD 88 5.2.1 Excluding Clitic Doubling and Clitic Right Dislocation 95 5.2.1.1 Clitic Doubling 95 5.2.1.2 Clitic Right Dislocation 98 5.2.2 CLLD as movement to TopP 100 5.3 A movement approach to CLLD 103 5.3.1 Cecchetto (2000) 104 5.3.2 Extending the analysis to yes/no ellipsis 106 5.3.3 Free recursion of topics 109 5.4 Polarity Focus and IP deletion 112 5.4.1 Contrastive topics and polarity focus 113 5.4.2 The negative polarity marker as an adverb 115 5.5 Summary 117 IV Chapter 6: A Minimalist analysis of stripping and negative-contrast 118 6.1 Introduction 118 6.2 The ",ynllLt: of FOCliS 119 6.2.1 Contrastive Focus 119 6.2.1.1 Contrastive Focus in Greek 122 6.2.1.2 Focus Preposing in English 123 6.2.2 Narrow focus 126 6.2.3 IP Remnant Movement 129 6.2.4 Multiple Focus projections 131 6.3 The analysis 135 6.3.1 Non-uniformity of Focus, stripping and negative-contrast 137 6.4 The role ofnegation 137 6.4.1 Obligatory deletion 142 6.4.2 Not as a focusing adverb 143 6.4.3 Double negation 148 6.5 Summary 150 Chapter 7: Conclusions 151 7.1 Limitations ofthe present study and future research 152 References 154 v Declaration and statement of copyright Declaration No part of the material contained within this thesis has been previously submitted for a degree at Newcastle University or any other university. Statement of copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without her prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. vi Acknowledgements 1\ lot of rcople havc contributed in different ways to my finishing this dissertation. First and foremost, my gratitude goes to my supervisors, Anders Holmberg and Dimitra Kolliakou, who have been the best advisors that any PhD student could ask for. I would like to thank them for their continuous support, their invaluable advice, and their trust in me. They have been a great inspiration. I would also like to thank all the members of staff in the Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics for helping me throughout the period of this PhD and making me feel very welcomed from the very first day I arrived in Newcastle. Special thanks go to Vivienne, Clare and Rola with whom I have shared three years of this 'linguistic' journey, Michelle, David, Lucy, Lieve, Aarti and Makkiko for giving me the opportunity to be part of the Newcastle and Durham linguistic community. Outside the department, I would like to thank Patty, for the great conversations over many cups of coffee and Tuzo, for being the best flatmate that anyone could have and who often had to suffer my 'PhD depression'. I strongly believe that in the front page of this thesis I should also include the names of all the friends back home, Marina, Yannis, Kyriakos, Viky, Faye, Maria, Mara, Xristos, Katerina, for always being there, offering their love and support at a very long-distance. The friendship of these people is very valuable to me and I will never forget them. A big thanks goes to my family, Mum, Dad, Faye, aunt Vivi, for their unconditional love and support at all times and also my extended family for all the happy moments that made this task easier. This work is dedicated to my uncle, Lampis, who has never stopped being with me. The biggest thanks for all goes to Dimitris. Thank you for all your love and support and most of all, for your faith in me. I feel blessed that you are in my life. Last but not least, I would like to thank my examiners, Dr. Tsoulas and Prof. Tallerman for the valuable corrections and advice. vii Chapter 1: Overview of the dissertation Ellipsis is the phenomenon where canonical sentences lack one or more syntactic constituents, whose meaning is fully interpreted by the speaker either by the use of previous linguistic material or previous discourse context. This mismatch between form and meaning has been central to the investigation of elliptical phenomena, as it is used to bring empirical weight to important issues of linguistic theory, such as the precise definition of syntactic identity, the relation of syntax and semantics and the abstractness of grammar. Different types of ellipsis have been under the realm of investigation, the most important of which is verb-phrase ellipsis (henceforth VPE) where the VP of a clause is missing under identity with a previous parallel clause (Fiengo & May 1994, Hankamer & Sag 1976, Lobeck 1995) (1) Mary loves her new job and Sarah does too [loves her new job].
Load more

Recommended publications
  • VP Ellipsis Without Parallel Binding∗
    Proceedings of SALT 24: 000–000, 2014 The sticky reading: VP ellipsis without parallel binding∗ Patrick D. Elliott Andreea C. Nicolae University College London ZAS Berlin Yasutada Sudo University College London Abstract VP Ellipsis (VPE) whose antecedent VP contains a pronoun famously gives rise to an ambiguity between strict and sloppy readings. Since Sag’s (1976) seminal work, it is generally assumed that the strict reading involves free pronouns in both the elided VP and its antecedent, whereas the sloppy reading involves bound pronouns. The majority of current approaches to VPE are tailored to derive this parallel binding requirement, ruling out mixed readings where one of the VPs involves a bound pronoun and the other a free pronoun in parallel positions. Contrary to this assumption, it is observed that there are cases of VPE where the antecedent VP contains a bound pronoun but the elided VP contains a free E-type pronoun anchored to the quantifier, in violation of parallel binding. We dub this the ‘sticky reading’ of VPE. To account for it, we propose a new identity condition on VPE which is less stringent than is standardly assumed. We formalize this using an extension of Roberts’s (2012) Question under Discussion (QuD) theory of information structure. Keywords: VP ellipsis, strict/sloppy identity, pronominal binding, focus, Question under Discussion 1 Introduction It has been famously observed by Sag(1976) that pronouns give rise to an ambiguity in a VP Ellipsis (VPE) context. An example such as (1) is claimed to be ambiguous between so-called strict and sloppy readings. (1) Jonny totaled his car, and Kevin did h...i too.
    [Show full text]
  • Minimal Pronouns, Logophoricity and Long-Distance Reflexivisation in Avar
    Minimal pronouns, logophoricity and long-distance reflexivisation in Avar* Pavel Rudnev Revised version; 28th January 2015 Abstract This paper discusses two morphologically related anaphoric pronouns inAvar (Avar-Andic, Nakh-Daghestanian) and proposes that one of them should be treated as a minimal pronoun that receives its interpretation from a λ-operator situated on a phasal head whereas the other is a logophoric pro- noun denoting the author of the reported event. Keywords: reflexivity, logophoricity, binding, syntax, semantics, Avar 1 Introduction This paper has two aims. One is to make a descriptive contribution to the crosslin- guistic study of long-distance anaphoric dependencies by presenting an overview of the properties of two kinds of reflexive pronoun in Avar, a Nakh-Daghestanian language spoken natively by about 700,000 people mostly living in the North East Caucasian republic of Daghestan in the Russian Federation. The other goal is to highlight the relevance of the newly introduced data from an understudied lan- guage to the theoretical debate on the nature of reflexivity, long-distance anaphora and logophoricity. The issue at the heart of this paper is the unusual character of theanaphoric system in Avar, which is tripartite. (1) is intended as just a preview with more *The present material was presented at the Utrecht workshop The World of Reflexives in August 2011. I am grateful to the workshop’s audience and participants for their questions and comments. I am indebted to Eric Reuland and an anonymous reviewer for providing valuable feedback on the first draft, as well as to Yakov Testelets for numerous discussions of anaphora-related issues inAvar spanning several years.
    [Show full text]
  • Pronouns, Logical Variables, and Logophoricity in Abe Author(S): Hilda Koopman and Dominique Sportiche Source: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol
    MIT Press Pronouns, Logical Variables, and Logophoricity in Abe Author(s): Hilda Koopman and Dominique Sportiche Source: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 555-588 Published by: MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178645 Accessed: 22-10-2015 18:32 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Linguistic Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.97.27.20 on Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:32:27 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hilda Koopman Pronouns, Logical Variables, Dominique Sportiche and Logophoricity in Abe 1. Introduction 1.1. Preliminaries In this article we describe and analyze the propertiesof the pronominalsystem of Abe, a Kwa language spoken in the Ivory Coast, which we view as part of the study of pronominalentities (that is, of possible pronominaltypes) and of pronominalsystems (that is, of the cooccurrence restrictionson pronominaltypes in a particulargrammar). Abe has two series of thirdperson pronouns. One type of pronoun(0-pronoun) has basically the same propertiesas pronouns in languageslike English. The other type of pronoun(n-pronoun) very roughly corresponds to what has been called the referential use of pronounsin English(see Evans (1980)).It is also used as what is called a logophoric pronoun-that is, a particularpronoun that occurs in special embedded contexts (the logophoric contexts) to indicate reference to "the person whose speech, thought or perceptions are reported" (Clements (1975)).
    [Show full text]
  • Centering in Dynamic Semantics
    Centering in Dynamic Semantics Daniel Hardt Department of Computing Sciences Villanova University Villanova, PA 19085 hardt@vill, edu Abstract of phenomena involving sloppy identity in ellipsis and "paycheck pronouns". Since Montague, a major goal of semantics has been to describe a compositional method for con- verting a syntactic representation of a sentence into a logical representation of the sentence mean- Centering theory posits a discourse ing, and dmn to evaluate that representation with respect to a given context. A primary insight of center, a distinguished discourse en- dynamic semantics is that sentences have a sys- tity that is the topic of a discourse. tematic relation to context in two ways: not only A simplified version of this theory are they evaluated with respect to the current con- is developed in a Dynamic Seman- text, but they also systematically change that con- text. This insight has particular relevance ['or the tics framework. In dm resulting sys- apparent puzzle presented by sloppy identity and tem, the mechanism of center sh/ft related phenomena. While anaphoric expressions allows a simple, elegant analysis of are normally thought to be identical in meaning to a variety of phenomena involving dmir antecedents, they receive a different interpre- tation than their antecedents in these cases. Given sloppy identity in ellipsis at~d "pay- the dynamic perspective, the puzzle evaporates: check pronom~s". the anaphoric expression and its antecedent might represent exactly the same meaning, since mean- inn is fundamentally a potential to be evaluated with respect to some context. What changes is tile context, in the discourse intervening between antecedent and anaphoric expression.
    [Show full text]
  • Situations and Individuals
    Forthcoming with MIT Press Current Studies in Linguistics Summer 2005 Situations and Individuals Paul Elbourne To my father To the memory of my mother Preface This book deals with the semantics of the natural language expressions that have been taken to refer to individuals: pronouns, definite descriptions and proper names. It claims, contrary to previous theorizing, that they have a common syntax and semantics, roughly that which is currently associated by philosophers and linguists with definite descriptions as construed in the tradition of Frege. As well as advancing this proposal, I hope to achieve at least one other aim, that of urging linguists and philosophers dealing with pronoun interpretation, in particular donkey anaphora, to consider a wider range of theories at all times than is sometimes done at present. I am thinking particularly of the gulf that seems to have emerged between those who practice some version of dynamic semantics (including DRT) and those who eschew this approach and claim that the semantics of donkey pronouns crucially involves definite descriptions (if they consider donkey anaphora at all). In my opinion there is too little work directly comparing the claims of these two schools (for that is what they amount to) and testing them against the data in the way that any two rival theories might be tested. (Irene Heim’s 1990 article in Linguistics and Philosophy does this, and largely inspired my own project, but I know of no other attempts.) I have tried to remedy that in this book. I ultimately come down on the side of definite descriptions and against dynamic semantics; but that preference is really of secondary importance beside the attempt at a systematic comparative project.
    [Show full text]
  • German Free Datives and Knight Move Binding Daniel Hole/Universität Stuttgart
    German free datives and Knight Move Binding Daniel Hole/Universität Stuttgart 1. Introduction This paper is concerned with German free datives and their peculiar binding behavior. * I ar- gue that free datives are best described in terms of voice. The free dative voice turns out to be very similar to run-of-the-mill cases of reflexivity, which must likewise be modeled as a kind of voice under the theoretical assumptions of Kratzer’s (1996) agent severance. The free da- tive, just like a reflexive antecedent in German, binds a variable in the local tense domain. What is highly peculiar about the free dative voice is the tree-geometrical requirement that goes along with it. The variable that free datives bind must be at the left edge of a clause-mate coargumental possessum phrase or purpose phrase (‘Knight Move Binding’). Standard im- plementations of binding don’t include requirements of this kind. The argumentation strives to show that the requirement of Knight Move Binding really exists, and that this kind of bind- ing is a privileged configuration in the grammaticalization of reflexive pronouns crosslinguis- tically. The paper delimits the empirical domain of free datives in sects. 2 and 3. Sect. 4 estab- lishes the parallel locality restrictions of dative binding for “possessor” and “beneficiary” da- tives. Sect. 5 establishes the Knight Move Binding requirement of free datives. Sect. 6 devel- ops the semantic implementation of free dative binding with a large detour via semantic theo- ries of reflexivization. Competing proposals are briefly discussed in sect. 7. Sect. 8 concludes the paper.
    [Show full text]
  • Demonstrative Pronouns, Binding Theory, and Identity
    University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 7 Issue 1 Proceedings of the 24th Annual Penn Article 22 Linguistics Colloquium 2000 Demonstrative Pronouns, Binding Theory, and Identity Ivy Sichel Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl Recommended Citation Sichel, Ivy (2000) "Demonstrative Pronouns, Binding Theory, and Identity," University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 22. Available at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol7/iss1/22 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol7/iss1/22 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Demonstrative Pronouns, Binding Theory, and Identity This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol7/iss1/22 Demonstrative Pronouns, Binding Theory, and Identity' Ivy Sichel 1 Introduction Standard Binding Theory assigns distinct binding conditions to three classes of nominal expressions, anaphors, pronominals. and R-expressions. implying that BT-relevant categories are sufficiently defined and unproblematically recognized by language users. Pronominals. for example. are understood as nominal expressions whose content is exhausted by grammatical fealUres. This paper compares two Hebrew pronominal classes. personal pronouns and demonstrative-pronouns (henceforth d-pronouns). given in (I) and (2): (I) a. hu avad b. hi avda H-rn.s worked-3.m.s H-f.s worked-3.f.s He I it worked She I it worked (2) a. ha-hu avad b. ha-hiavda the-H-m.s worked-3.m.s the-H-f.s worked-3.f.s That one worked That one worked c.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections on the Use of the Pronoun Ale in Jula
    Another perspective on logophoricity: reflections on the use of the pronoun ale in Jula Alassane Kiemtor´e [email protected] University of Stuttgart TripleA 7 July 20, 2020 1 / 75 The starting point Two ambiguities A pronoun within an embedded report can be in two ways ambiguous. 1 referential ambiguity 2 perspectival ambiguity 2 / 75 The starting point Referential ambiguity The pronoun can refer to the reported agent or not. (1) Peteri said that hei =j is clever. (a) Peter said that Peter is clever. (b) Peter said that someone else (John) is clever. 3 / 75 The starting point The notion of perspective An expression E is from the perspective of an individual X when E is interpreted relatively to X ´s judgments (attitudes) or when X is responsible for the content of E (cf. Reinhart 1983, Sanders and Redeker 1996, Sanders and Spooren 1997). 4 / 75 The starting point Perspectival ambiguity Under coreference with the reported agent, the pronoun can indicate either the perspective of the reported agent or the perspective of the (reporting) speaker (cf. Reinhart 1983, Oshima 2006). * de se vs. non de se ambiguity (see Casta~neda1968, Lewis 1979, Perry 1979, and many others.) (2) Peteri said that hei is clever. (a) de se context (* Peter´s perspective) Peter is proud of his academic achievement and says: \I am clever." (b) non de se context (* Speaker´s perspective) After reading an old paper of himself, amnesic Peter comes to say: \This guy is clever." 5 / 75 The special case of logophoric pronouns The notion of logophoricity referential dependency that holds between a special class of pronominal forms, e.g., logophoric pronouns (LPs) and a sentence-internal antecedent that represents the person whose speech, attitude or other mental state is being reported (cf.
    [Show full text]
  • Lecture 15. Null Anaphora, Ellipsis, and Fragments
    Formal Semantics and Anaphora, Lecture 15 Formal Semantics and Anaphora, Lecture 15 Barbara H. Partee, RGGU, May 27, 2008 p. 1 Barbara H. Partee, RGGU, May 27, 2008 p. 2 Lecture 15. Null Anaphora, Ellipsis, and Fragments 2003) does.) But since he gets into some difficult issues and controversial judgments, I won’t follow his handout to the end. 1. Null anaphora and bound variables ..........................................................................................................................1 1.1 Background: Deep and surface anaphora (Hankamer & Sag 1976)...................................................................2 1.1 Background: Deep and surface anaphora (Hankamer & Sag 1976) 1.2. Sloppy identity in deep anaphora......................................................................................................................3 (Hankamer and Sag 1976:392) 1.3. The interpretation of null pronouns...................................................................................................................3 (1) A: I’m going to [VP* stuff this ball through this hoop] 1.4 The Zero Pronoun Hypothesis ...........................................................................................................................5 B: It’s not clear that you’ll be able to [ ]. 2. Ellipsis issues: on what level(s) is what kind of structure present? ..........................................................................6 VP* 2.1. Analyses of VP Ellipsis in English ...................................................................................................................6
    [Show full text]
  • Long-Distance Reflexivization and Logophoricity in the Dargin Language Muminat Kerimova Florida International University
    Florida International University FIU Digital Commons MA in Linguistics Final Projects College of Arts, Sciences & Education 2017 Long-Distance Reflexivization and Logophoricity in the Dargin Language Muminat Kerimova Florida International University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/linguistics_ma Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Kerimova, Muminat, "Long-Distance Reflexivization and Logophoricity in the Dargin Language" (2017). MA in Linguistics Final Projects. 3. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/linguistics_ma/3 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts, Sciences & Education at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in MA in Linguistics Final Projects by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida LONG-DISTANCE REFLEXIVIZATION AND LOGOPHORICITY IN THE DARGIN LANGUAGE A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in LINGUISTICS by Muminat Kerimova 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS LONG-DISTANCE REFLEXIVIZATION AND LOGOPHORICITY IN THE DARGIN LANGUAGE by Muminat Kerimova Florida International University, 2017 Miami, Florida Professor Ellen Thompson, Major Professor The study of anaphora challenges us to determine the conditions under which the pronouns of a language are associated with possible antecedents. One of the theoretical questions is whether the distribution of pronominal forms is best explained by a syntactic, semantic or discourse level analysis. A more practical question is how we distinguish between anaphoric elements, e.g. what are the borders between the notions of pronouns, locally bound reflexives and long-distance reflexives? The study analyzes the anaphora device saj in Dargin that is traditionally considered to be a long-distance reflexivization language.
    [Show full text]
  • Lecture Notes on Ellipsis Irene Heim [email protected] M.I.T
    Lecture Notes on Ellipsis Irene Heim [email protected] M.I.T. 24.956, Spring 1996 I. Sag's recoverability condition for VP ellipsis 1. Background: Deletion under identity Under what conditions is a sentence with a deleted VP interpretable, and how is it interpreted? The simplest guess would be that a deleted VP is interpretable whenever it is possible for the listener to guess which property the speaker intends to refer to. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be sufficient. (1) * The garbage can is full. I hope that YOU will [VP ], for a change. Compare: (2) The garbage can is full. I think it's YOUR turn. (3) It's time to take out the garbage. I hope that YOU will [VP ], for a change. It seems that a deleted VP can only be interpreted if it has an antecedent: another VP in the surrounding discourse from which it gets to pick up its content. How exactly does this work? How does the antecedent VP contribute to and constrain the interpretation of the deleted VP? When VP ellipsis began to be studied by generative grammarians, the first hypothesis they explored was that a VP was optionally deleted under identity with another VP. This deletion was assumed to take place after the stage in the derivation which feeds semantic interpretation. For instance, to obtain the surface form and meaning of (4), (4) John didn't go out. He wasn't allowed to. we can first generate the corresponding non-elliptical text (4') and its semantic interpretation: (4') John didn't go out.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Possession Type Affects Resolution of Possessive Pronouns in English VP Ellipsis Jesse Storbeck & Elsi Kaiser* Abstract. T
    2018. Proc Ling Soc Amer 3. 52:1-14. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v3i1.4346 Possession type affects resolution of possessive pronouns in English VP ellipsis Jesse Storbeck & Elsi Kaiser* Abstract. The sentence “Bill washed his car, and John did, too” has two possible interpretations if the overt his refers to Bill: (i) a coreferential interpretation, in which John washed Bill’s car, or (ii) a bound variable interpretation, in which John washed his own car. What guides comprehenders’ selection of one over the other? Previous research has identified factors such as processing economy (e.g. Reuland, 2001) and lexical semantic properties of the verb and possessed noun (e.g. Foley et al., 2003; Ong & Brasoveanu, 2014). We extend research on the contribution of possession type to resolution of this type of ambiguous VP ellipsis. We hypothesize that the range of possession types found in natural language varies in the extent to which the possessum is processed as an independent discourse referent or as dependent on the discourse representation of its possessor. Moreover, we expect that such differences modulate the possessum’s availability for coreference and, therefore, affect ambiguity resolution. We conducted an experiment testing how different possession relations modulate adult L1 English speakers’ interpretational preference. Inanimate nouns favored bound variable interpretations more than animates did, supporting our hypothesis that the overt possession’s animacy and its resultant discourse status are important factors in the resolution of the elided possessive pronoun. Follow-up experiments confirmed these results and ruled out nouns’ real-world plausibility of possession as a determinant of interpretational preference.
    [Show full text]