Transformational Grammarians and Other Paradoxes Abstract Keywords
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Syncom.Sluicing
SynCom Case 98 Sluicing Jason Merchant University of Chicago August 2003 Contents 1. Introduction 2. Movement vs. non-movement approaches 3. Theoretical consequences 3.1. Non-movement approaches 3.2. Movement approaches 4. Puzzles and prospects 4.1. Sluicing-COMP generalization puzzles 4.2. Sluicing in non-wh-in-specCP languages 4.3. Multiple sluicing 4.4. Swiping 5. Conclusion References Glossary 1. Introduction Sluicing is the ellipsis phenomenon illustrated in (1), in which the sentential portion of a constituent question is elided, leaving only a wh-phrase remnant. (1) a. Jack bought something, but I don’t know what. b. A: Someone called. B: Really? Who? c. Beth was there, but you’ll never guess who else. d. Jack called, but I don’t know {when/how/why/where from}. e. Sally’s out hunting — guess what! f. A car is parked on the lawn — find out whose. The sluices in (1) should be compared to their non-elliptical counterparts in (2), with which they are synonymous. (2) a. Jack bought something, but I don’t know what he bought. b. A: Someone called. B: Really? Who called? c. Beth was there, but you’ll never guess who else was there. d. Jack called, but I don’t know {when/how/why} he called. e. Sally’s out hunting — guess what she’s out hunting! f. A car is parked on the lawn — find out whose is parked on the lawn. Sluicing appears to be widespread cross-linguistically (unlike VP-ellipsis), and may in fact be found in some form or another in every language (like nominal ellipses, 1 gapping, stripping, and fragment answers). -
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 ] ] ]]. -
Treatment of Multiword Expressions and Compounds in Bulgarian
Treatment of Multiword Expressions and Compounds in Bulgarian Petya Osenova and Kiril Simov Linguistic Modelling Deparment, IICT-BAS Acad. G. Bonchev 25A, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria [email protected] and [email protected] Abstract 2012)), we will adopt the Multiword Expressions The paper shows that catena represen- classification, presented in (Sag et al., 2001). They tation together with valence information divide them into two groups: lexicalized phrases can provide a good way of encoding and institutionalized phrases. The former are fur- Multiword Expressions (beyond idioms). ther subdivided into fixed-expressions, semi-fixed It also discusses a strategy for mapping expressions and syntactically-flexible expressions. noun/verb compounds with their counter- Fixed expressions are said to be fully lexicalized part syntactic phrases. The data on Mul- and undergoing neither morphosyntactic variation tiword Expression comes from BulTree- nor internal modification. Semi-fixed expressions Bank, while the data on compounds comes have a fixed word order, but “undergo some degree from a morphological dictionary of Bul- of lexical variation, e.g. in the form of inflection, garian. variation in reflexive form, and determiner selec- tion” (non-decomposable idioms, proper names). 1 Introduction Syntactically-flexible expressions show more vari- Our work is based on the annotation of Multi- ation in their word order (light verb constructions, word Expressions (MWE) in the Bulgarian tree- decomposable idioms). We follow the understand- bank — BulTreeBank (Simov et al., 2004). We ing of (O’Grady, 1998) that MWEs have their in- use this representation for parsing and analysis of ternal syntactic structure which needs to be rep- compounds. BulTreeBank exists in two formats: resented in the lexicon as well as in the sentence HPSG-based (original - constituent-based with analysis. -
Interpreting and Defining Connections in Dependency Structures Sylvain Kahane
Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures Sylvain Kahane To cite this version: Sylvain Kahane. Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures. 5th international conference on Dependency Linguistics (Depling), Aug 2019, Paris, France. hal-02291673 HAL Id: hal-02291673 https://hal.parisnanterre.fr//hal-02291673 Submitted on 19 Sep 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures Sylvain Kahane Modyco, Université Paris Nanterre & CNRS [email protected] Abstract This paper highlights the advantages of not interpreting connections in a dependency tree as combina- tions between words but of interpreting them more broadly as sets of combinations between catenae. One of the most important outcomes is the possibility of associating a connection structure to any set of combinations assuming some well-formedness properties and of providing a new way to define de- pendency trees and other kinds of dependency structures, which are not trees but “bubble graphs”. The status of catenae of dependency trees as syntactic units is discussed. 1 Introduction The objective of this article is twofold: first, to show that dependencies in a dependency tree or a similar structure should not generally be interpreted only as combinations between words; second, to show that a broader interpreta- tion of connections has various advantages: It makes it easier to define the dependency structure and to better under- stand the link between different representations of the syntactic structure. -
Some Observations on the Hebrew Desiderative Construction – a Dependency-Based Account in Terms of Catenae1
Thomas Groß Some Observations on the Hebrew Desiderative Construction – A Dependency-Based Account in Terms of Catenae1 Abstract The Modern Hebrew (MH) desiderative construction must obey four conditions: 1. A subordinate clause headed by the clitic še= ‘that’ must be present. 2. The verb in the subordinate clause must be marked with future tense. 3. The grammatical properties genus, number, and person tend to be specified, i.e. if the future tense affix is underspecified, material tends to appear that aids specification, if contextual recovery is unavailable. 4. The units of form that make up the constructional meaning of the desiderative must qualify as a catena. A catena is a dependency-based unit of form, the parts of which are immediately continuous in the vertical dimension. The description of the individual parts of the desiderative must address trans-, pre-, and suffixes, and cliticization. Catena-based morphology is representational, monostratal, dependency-, construction-, and piece-based. 1. Purpose, means and claims The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the Hebrew desiderative construction. This construction is linguistically interesting and challenging for a number of reasons. 1. It is a periphrastic construction, with fairly transparent compositionality. 2. It is transclausal, i.e. some parts of the construction reside in the main clause, and others in the subordinated clause. The complementizer is also part of the construction. 3. The construction consists of more than one word, but it does not qualify as a constituent. Rather the construction cuts into words. 4. Two theoretically 1 I want to thank Outi Bat-El (Tel Aviv University) and three anonymous reviewers for their help and advice. -
Clitics in Dependency Morphology
Clitics in Dependency Morphology Thomas Groß Aichi University, Nagoya, Japan [email protected] tured in much the same fashion as sentences was Abstract proposed first in Williams (1981), and further discussed in the famous “head-debate” between Clitics are challenging for many theories of grammar Zwicky (1985a) and Hudson (1987). In contem- because they straddle syntax and morphology. In most porary morphological theories that attempt to theories, cliticization is considered a phrasal pheno- inform syntax (predominantly within the genera- menon: clitics are affix-like expressions that attach to tive framework) such as Di Sciullo (2005) and whole phrases. Constituency-based grammars in par- the theory of Distributed Morphology (Halle and ticular struggle with the exact constituent structure of such expressions. This paper proposes a solution Marantz 1993, Embick and Noyer 2001, 2007, based on catena-based dependency morphology. This Harley and Noyer 2003, Embick 2003), words theory is an extension of catena-based dependency are now seen as hierarchically structured items. syntax. Following Authors et.al. (in press), a word or Seen in the light of this development, it is time a combination of words in syntax that are continuous for dependency grammar (DG) to make up for its with respect to dominance form a catena. Likewise, a neglect of morphological matters. The assess- morph or a combination of morphs that is continuous ment by Harnisch (2003) that the development of with respect to dominance form a morph catena. Em- a dependency-based morphology requires imme- ploying the concept of morph catena together with a diate attention is accurate. -
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. -
Interpreting and Defining Connections in Dependency Structures
Interpreting and defining connections in dependency structures Sylvain Kahane Modyco, Université Paris Nanterre & CNRS [email protected] Abstract This paper highlights the advantages of not interpreting connections in a dependency tree as combina- tions between words but of interpreting them more broadly as sets of combinations between catenae. One of the most important outcomes is the possibility of associating a connection structure to any set of combinations assuming some well-formedness properties and of providing a new way to define de- pendency trees and other kinds of dependency structures, which are not trees but “bubble graphs”. The status of catenae of dependency trees as syntactic units is discussed. 1 Introduction The objective of this article is twofold: first, to show that dependencies in a dependency tree or a similar structure should not generally be interpreted only as combinations between words; second, to show that a broader interpreta- tion of connections has various advantages: It makes it easier to define the dependency structure and to better under- stand the link between different representations of the syntactic structure. We will focus on the possible syntactic combinations (what combines with what), without considering the fact that combinations are generally asymmetric, linking a governor to a dependent. We use the term connection to denote a dependency without the governor-depen- dency hierarchy. Section 2 presents the notions of combination and connection, which are based on the notion of catena (Osborne et al. 2012). The properties of the set of catenae are studied and used to define an equivalence relation on the set of combinations, which is used to define the connections. -
On Pseudogapping in HPSG*
On Pseudogapping in HPSG* Dong-woo Park Department of Laguage and Literature, Seoul National University 599 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Korea [email protected] Abstract. This study investigates the constraints imposed on the pseudogapping in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Based on the existing schema to account for coordination and gapping, a new pseudogapping schema in coordination structures is proposed in this paper. In the process of capturing the constraints, new DOM lists are added and an existing DOM list is divided into two DOM lists depending on the feature of elements in each domain. Furthermore, new features SEP and INC are introduced. SEP is used for distinguishing prepositions which should be located in the same domain with the following NPs from those which can be separated from the following NPs. INC feature determines whether overlapping adverbs are in non-empty lists or not. Pseudogapping occurs not only in coordination structures, but in comparative or subordination structures. Thus, this paper introduces a pseudogapping schema that can be applied to all structures mentioned above. Keywords: DOM lists, SEP feature, INC feature, pseudogapping schema. 1 Introduction English has ellipsis like these examples. (1) a. Sluicing: She read something, but she won’t say what [vP ]. b. Verb Phrase Ellipsis: She read something and he did [vP ] too. c. Pseudogapping: She’ll read something to Sam, but she won’t [vP ] to Billy. d. Gapping: Some read something to Sam and others [vP ] to Billy. e. Right Node Raising: She deliberately [vP ], and he accidentally, read something. -
By Nayoun Kim 2019
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Hold, Release, and Retrieve: The Study of Wh-Filler-Gap Dependencies and Ellipsis A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Linguistics By Nayoun Kim EVANSTON, ILLINOIS September 2019 2 © Copyright by Nayoun Kim 2019 All Rights Reserved 3 Abstract This dissertation is concerned with how components in memory structures and online structure building processes interact by investigating the online processing of Wh-Filler-Gap Dependencies (WhFGD) and ellipsis constructions. Resolving long-distance dependencies involves linking the dependent element to the controlling element. In the case of Wh-gap dependency formation, the wh-element is linked to the gap. In the case of ellipsis resolution, the ellipsis site is linked to the antecedent. In the processing of long-distance dependency resolution, I point out that two component processes are involved: the storage/maintenance component and the retrieval component. A series of studies on WhFGD formation reveal that the sentence processing mechanism involves the maintenance component on top of the retrieval component. Studies on ellipsis constructions further reveal that when the antecedent is retrieved, detailed grammatical structural information should be retrieved, thus grammatical and structural information must be encoded in memory. Based on the results of these studies, I specifically argue for the following points: (i) the filler is released from memory, depending on the grammatical requirement of the filler; (ii) given that information associated with the filler being retrieved reflects the extent to which the filler is maintained, the parser retrieves grammatical information associated with the wh- filler; and (iii) the parser is sensitive to grammatical distinctions at the ellipsis site in contrast to the processing of Anaphoric one and Pronoun it. -
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). -
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.