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Antecedent-Contained Deletion and the CopyTheory of Movement Danny Fox Antecedent-containeddeletion poses a problemfor theories of ellipsis, aproblemthat, according to much literature, is solved by Quantifier Raising.The solution, however, conflicts with the copy theory of movement.This article resolves this new conflict with the aid of a theoryof extraposition and covert movement proposed by Fox and Nissenbaum(1999), together with certain assumptions about the struc- tureof relativeclauses and the way chains are interpreted. The resolu- tionmakes various new predictions and accounts for a rangeof other- wisepuzzling facts. Keywords: antecedent-containeddeletion,copy theory, extraposition, heavyNP shift,adjunction, late merger, covert movement, Quantifier Raising,Trace Conversion, conservativity Structureswith antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) havefigured prominently in attempts to understandthe mechanisms that account for theinterpretation of quantifiers in natural language. Theinterest in thesestructures stems from thefact that they provide one ofthe strongest arguments thatcovert movement is anecessarypiece of theaccount (Sag 1976, Larson and May 1990, and manyothers). However, the argument turns out to conflict with a fairlywell motivated idea regardingthe nature of movementrules, namely, that movement is acopyingoperation that does noteliminate an element from itsbase position (the copy theory of movement). Inthis article I arguein favorof aspecificresolution for theconflict. I beginby introducing someassumptions about the interpretation of chains and the structure of relative clauses. Once theseassumptions are in place, the conflict is resolvedwith the aid of Lebeaux’s (1988)proposal thatmovement can be followed by ‘ ‘latemerger’ ’ ofan adjunct, extended to covert movement byFox and Nissenbaum (1999, in preparation). In other words, the resolution turns out to have afamiliarlogic: the conflict is very similar to the one that Chomsky (1993) notes between the copytheory of movement and the observation that movement can sometimes obviate Condition C,andthe resolution in bothcases is basically identical. Furthermore, the resolution accounts for Thisarticle was presentedat McGillUniversity, MIT, the Kaken Project in Kyoto, and UCLA. I thankthe audiences at these institutionsfor valuable comments. Iwouldalso like to thank the LI reviewers, MichaelBrody, Kai vonFintel, Irene Heim, PollyJacobson, Chris Kennedy, Jason Merchant, David Pesetsky, Tanya Reinhart, Bernhard Schwartz, and especially JonathanBobaljik, Noam Chomsky,Kyle Johnson, Jon Nissenbaum, and Uli Sauerland. Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 33, Number 1,Winter 2002 63–96 q 2002 bythe Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology 63 64 D A N N Y F O X awiderange of otherwise puzzling facts, thus supporting the assumptions that it utilizesas well asthosethat enter into the formulation of theconflict itself. 1TheProblem It iswell known that VP-deletion is possible only if theelided VP bearssome resemblance to anantecedentVP. Iwillstate this parallelism requirement in the simplest possible way, ignoring interestingquestions that arise from variouscounterexamples. 1 (1) Parallelism Anelided VP mustbe identical to an antecedent VP atLogical Form (LF). 2 Parallelismcan be used to investigate the nature of LF structures.In particular, ACD suggests thatquantificational phrases are sometimes not interpreted in their base position. To see this, considerthe sentence in (2). If theuniversal quantificational phrase were interpretedin its base position,the antecedent VP wouldcontain the elided VP, andconsequently the two VPs would notbe identical.This means that if Parallelism is tobe satisfied, the object in sentencessuch as (2) cannotbe interpreted in its base position. elided VP (2) John [VP likes every boy Mary does k likes tl ]. antecedent VP If, however,the object is interpretedin a VP-externalposition, the structure satisfies Parallelism. (3) [everyboy Mary does k likes tl ] John likes t Thisobservation argues that there is a covertoperation that can move a DP from itsbase position withoutaffecting the phonology of asentence(Quantifier Raising, QR). Theargument has been reinforcedby the corroboration of various intricate predictions regarding the scope of aDPthat hasto move for ACD resolution.(See Sag1976, Larson and May 1990; see also section 5.1.) 1 One (potential)counterexample, which bears onthe issues discussedhere, has todo with the fact thatsome propertiesof DPs thatare relevantfor binding theory do not seem tohave effects inthe elided VP (vehiclechange, VC). Brody(1995) and Vanden Wyngaerd and Zwart (1991)argue that VC resolvesthe conflict between thestructure in (2) andParallelism. However,this is notobvious. There are manyways tothink of VC underwhich the conflict is not eliminated.It is possible,for example, that VC shouldbe dealt with not by relaxing Parallelism, butby revisingcertain assumptionsabout the way bindingtheory should apply to elided material. (See Fox1993 and Williams 1995for proposals alongthis line.) One problemwith the idea thatVC resolvesthe conflict is that(in and of itself) itdoes not account for Sag’ s (1976) correlationbetween ACD andscope (section 5; butsee Brody’s proposal,which deals withthis problem), or foradditional evidencethat ACD resolutionrequires QR (Pesetsky2000). My hope is thatthe results of this article willprovide further evidencefor a definitionof Parallelism thatrules out LF structuressuch as (2). 2 Throughoutthis article Iwillpretend that variable names donot matter forParallelism. Thetruth is, however, thatthey do matter: variablesthat bear differentnames mustbe boundfrom parallel positions(see Rooth1992 for an accountof this generalization). Nevertheless, ignoringvariable names willnot have harmful effects since thevariables willalways beboundfrom parallel positions(but see footnotes33 and 34). ACDANDTHECOPYTHEORYOFMOVEMENT 65 Inmy view the argument is quite impressive. A syntacticoperation, which is neededunder whatis arguably the simplest theory of semantics(of thetype developed, for example,in Heim andKratzer 1998),seems to provide a simpleaccount of ACD thatgenerates nontrivial yet correctpredictions. However, the account of ACD (andconsequently the argument) relies on the assumptionthat traces are fairlyimpoverished in theirrepresentations, and as aresultit conflicts withthe copy theory of movement. 3 Underthe copy theory of movement traces are copies of theirantecedents, as in (4), andit istherefore far from obviousthat (covert) movement can account for thefact that ACD constructionssatisfy Parallelism. (4) [everyboy Mary does k likes tl ] John likes[every boy Mary likes t] 4 Tofurther appreciate the conflict, let us consideran argument for thecopy theory of move- mentthat relies on ConditionC ofbindingtheory. The argument is based on theobservation that certaintypes of movementdo notaffect Condition C, anobservationthat is mysteriousif traces areinformationally impoverished but is expectedunder the copy theory of movement. In(5a), for example, wh-movementremoves the name John from thec-command domain ofthe pronoun he. Nevertheless,coreference between the two elements is impossible (but see footnote10). Similarly, in (5b) QR canmove the universal DP outsidethe c-command domain ofthepronoun him. (Noticethe availability of inversescope in Someoneintroduced John i to every friendof his i.)Onthe simplest assumption that binding theory applies to interpretedstructures, QR shouldallow coreference between the pronoun and a namecontained within the DP, butit does not. (5) a.??Guess [which friend of John’s i ] hei visited t. b.??/ *Someoneintroduced him i toeveryfriend of John’s i . [everyfriend of John’s i ] ! someoneintroduced him i to t Neither wh-movementnor QR canreverse the verdict of Condition C. This observation is mysteriousif tracesare informationally impoverished as in (6) butis expected under the copy theoryof movement,which postulates the structures in (7). (6) a.[which friend of John’ s i ] hei visited t b.[every friend of John’s i ]someoneintroduced him i to t (7) a.[which friend of John’ s i ] hei visited[which friend of John’s i ] b.[every friend of John’s i ]someoneintroduced him i to[every friend of John’s i ] 3 Thisconflict was notedin Fox 1995. There theresolution was basedon an economy condition that allowed the copyat thetail of the chain to be eliminatedwhen needed for ACD resolution.(See alsoFox 1999b, 2000, Sauerland 1998,and Merchant 2000.) Here Idemonstratethat the approach to extraposition developed in Fox and Nissenbaum 1999 allowsus toeliminate theeconomy condition with some empirical advantages(see footnotes9 and42). 4 One mightwonder about how t shouldbe representedunder the copy theory of movement.To answer thisquestion, certain assumptionsabout the structure of relative clauses needto be made precise. Specifically,one needs to be precise aboutthe nature of thephrase that undergoes wh-movementin relative clauses. See section3.2. 66 D A N N Y F O X Theargument for thecopy theory of movement is based on theobservation that movement cannot changethe verdict of ConditionC. Thisargument is in conflictwith the argument for movement basedon ACD. Thelatteris based on the ideathat movement can change the verdict of Parallelism andcrucially depends on representingtraces as simple variables (as intherepresentation in (3)). If tracesare copies as in (4),it isnot clear that the output of QRcanyield structures that satisfy Parallelism. Whyare Condition C andParallelism so different? Why is movement incapable