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Towards a Multidominant Theory of Movement Lecture One: Introduction Kyle Johnson University College London University of Massachusetts at Amherst 20 June 2016

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Towards a Multidominant Theory of Movement Lecture One: Introduction Kyle Johnson University College London University of Massachusetts at Amherst 20 June 2016 Towards a Multidominant Theory of Movement Lecture One: Introduction Kyle Johnson University College London University of Massachusetts at Amherst 20 June 2016 Movement has been used to model a variety of syntactic relations that, frankly, A. Diference in Semantic Displacement ofentimes look quite diferent. Here are some examples. a. Total Reconstruction: (1) a. ...að Mary kaupir ekki skó? (Icelandic) Mary kaupir ekki skó. ≡ ¬ Mary kaupir skó ...that Mary buys not shoes Head Movement b. Variable Binding: ! Which book Mary had read ≡ b. I asked which book Mary had read AMovement Tesetofpropositionssuchthat∃x Mary had read x, x a book. ! A guard stands before every bank ≡ c. A child seems to have lef.AMovement∀ ! x if x is a bank then a guard stands before x d. every bank adiferent guard stood before every bank. An argument that the semantic relationship between a moved verb and its under- ! lying position is diferent than a moved phrase and its underlying position can Quantifer Raising be made from their diferent behavior in ellipsis contexts. VP Ellipsis can leave behind an object DP or a verb in contexts where that DP or verb has moved out Why are we tempted to see each of these cases as special instances of the same of the VP. In English this is possible with a DP, in what goes by the name “pseu- relation? Perhaps because they (sort of) share these three properties. dogapping.” emantic isplacement (2)S D (5)Iknowwhatkindofriceshewilleatbutnotwhatkindofstarch she should. Some part of the meaning of the moved expression is applied to aposition diferent from where it is spoken. Te position vacated by the moved object must be semantically equivalent to the (3)Terseness matching position in the antecedent VP for the ellipsis to be licensed. Tat posi- Temoveditemsemanticallyoccupiestwopositions,butisspoken in only tion must be occupied by a variable. one of them. (6)Whatkindofrice she will [VP eat x ]butnot ! (4)Locality what kind of starch she should [VP eat x ] Tetwopositionsthatamoveditemisrelatedtoaresubjecttoalocality ! condition. Because [VP eat x]and[VP eat x]aresemanticallyequivalentforthepurposesof Tese properties don’t manifest themselves in exactly the same way across these ellipsis resolution, VPE is possible. Tesameisnotthecase,however, for (some) various kinds of movement, though, and so that’s a challenge to seeing these as situations in which a verb has moved out of a VP that elides. SeeGoldberg(2005). shared properties. Tefollowingareherexamples,inspiredbyDoron(1999). Kyle Johnson Towards a Multidominant Theory of Movement 20 June 2016 (7)Q:Ha’imMiryam hevi’a et Dvora la-xanut? C. Diferences in how Terseness is violated Q Miryam bring ACC Dvora to.the-store (9) ng¯On¯U `n w`a n¯a `n kaIJ ng´OnUIJ IJa (Vata) ‘Did Miryam bring-past Gvora to the store?’ sleep you want NA you FUT-A sleep Q Ai: Ken, hi hevi’a. ‘Do you want to sleep?’ yes, she bring-past (Koopman 1984,(2a): 154) ‘Yes, she brought.’ Aii: * Ken, hi lakxa. Here “ngOnU” (‘sleep’) has been clefed and is pronounced in both the clef po- yes, she take-past sition and the position inside its VP. Tis is probably movement since locality ‘Yes, she took.’ conditions are satisfed. Tis is derived if the movement in these cases doesn’t leave a variable, but is in- (10)*t¯ak¯a `n w`a f`otIJo` m¯UmU`IJ `n takIJ aIJ áIJO `ab`a stead, semantically vacuous. show you like picture ITIT you showed REL Aba ‘It’s show that you like the picture you showed Aba.’ (8)Q:Ha’imMiryamhevi’a[VP hevi’a Dvora la-xanut ] ! (Koopman 1984,(15): 159) A: Ken, hi lakxa [VP lakxa Dvora la-xanut] When a verb clefs in Vata, both copies must be pronounced. (9)isungrammati- ! cal if either verb isn’t pronounced. When nominal material clefs, by contrast, only the higher copy may be pronounced. (11)illustrates. Because the VPs in these examples aren’t semantically equivalent, VPE isn’t al- lowed. (But see Hartman (2011)forevidencethatsuggeststhatverb movement (11) ng´On´Ul`i m´i `n w`a `a does leave variables.) sleep-NOM IT you want Q ‘Is it sleeping you want?’ (Koopman 1984,(2b): 154) B. Diferences in Locality a. Head Movement Constraint: What we have in these examples is a kind of Amovementofaverb.Whenverbs, or predicates, move, we sometimes get violations of Terseness that involve two *HaveMaryshould read a book. ! pronunciations of the moved predicate, and that’s what Vata illustrates. b. Ross’s Islands Idon’tknowofanythingsimilar,though,whenaDPhasAmoved.Inthose cases, violations of Terseness take a diferent shape. Tey produce resumptive Which book has Mary shown [CP would change your life]? ! pronouns. For instance, in Lebanese Arabic there are resumptive pronouns that show Semantic Displacement efects when islands aren’t violated. (See Sichel *WhichbookhasMaryshown[DP the proof [CP that would change ! forthcoming and references therein.) your life]]? c. Tensed S Condition *Achildseems[CP (that) has lef]. ! * every bank adiferent guard showed [CP that the road stood before every bank]. ! 2 Kyle Johnson Towards a Multidominant Theory of Movement 20 June 2016 (12)t@lmiiz-a lk@sleen ma baddna nXabbi [wala mQallme] P@nno (15)Wenglaubst du, dass sie getrofen hat und dass sie liebt? student-her the-bad NEG want.1P tell.1P [no teacher] that who think you that she met has and that she loves huwwe zaQbar b-l-faès ‘Who do you think that she met and that she loves?’ he cheated.3SM in-the-exam˙ (Felser 2004,(37a): 560) ‘her bad student, we don’t want to tell any teacher that he cheatedon By contrast, a parallel across-the-board movement but with the wh-phrase pro- the exam.’ nounced in the lower positions as well – (16)isanexample–seems to assume (13)*t@lmiiz-a lk@sleen ma badkun tXabbro [wala mQallme] Qan that the answer will provide the identity of individuals thatmeetthedescriptions student-her the-bad NEG want.2P tell.2P [no teacher] about provided in each of the clauses separately. l-b@nt yalli huwwe zaQbar maQ-a b-l-faès the-girl that he cheated.3sm with-her in-the-exam˙ (16)Wenglaubst du, wen sie getrofen hat und wen sie liebt? (Her bad student, you don’t want to tell any teacher about the girlwith who think you who she met has and who she loves whom he cheated on the exam.) ‘Who do you think that she met and that she loves?’ (Felser 2004,(37b): 560) (Aoun, Choueiri, and Hornstein 2001,(25b) & (29b): 381–2) T I think, then, that there is a diference in how Terseness is violated depending on is diference in meaning suggests that there is a separate quantifcation, one for each of the lower wh phrases, in the copy construction that is absent in the the category of the thing being moved. Tere is a potential problem for this be- non-copy construction version. If that is correct, it will require that the copy con- lief in the wh-copying construction that colloquial German (and other languages) display. struction include more quantifcational expressions than are found in the simpler, single pronunciation, movement structure. (See Dayal 1994.) (14)German I’ll assume that there is a diference between moved DPs and moved other a. Wen glaubt John wen Mary getrofen hat? things that is responsible for how Terseness is relaxed in them. who thinks John who Mary met has Whatwewant,then,isatheoryofmovementthatexplainsthesethreeproper- ‘Who does John think Mary has met?’ ties: Semantic Displacement, Terseness and Locality. But that theory should also be fexible enough that it gives us a handle on why these three properties manifest b. * Wieviel Geld meint sie wieviel Geld das kostet? themselves diferently depending on the particulars of the movement operation. how-much money thinks she how-much money that costs I’m going to take a few, very small, steps in that direction, building on an idea ‘How much does she think that costs?’ about what movement is that was in an early unpublished manuscript by Stan- (Rett 2006,(1b): 355,(6): 358) ley Peters and Robert Richie, carried forward by Engdahl (1980)andhasnow ä It’s hard to say in these situations whether the intermediatecopyisaresumptive found many proponents, including G rtner (1997), Starke (2001), Nunes (2001), T pronoun or a copy. But there are certain properties of the copyconstructionwhich Frampton (2004), Citko (2005), Kobele (2006)anddeVries(2007). at idea is suggest that it is diferent from a “normal” movement construction with just a sim- that movement gives an expression two positions by re-merging it. ple violation of Terseness. Tere are interesting semantic diferences between the (17) merge(α,β)=def. γ ,wherethelinearorderofα and β is two constructions. A striking one is described in Felser (2004). She notes that in not determined. ö cases where a phrase has moved in across-the-board fashion outoftwoco rdi- α β nated clauses, as in (15), the question seems to assume that the answer will provide individuals that meet the descriptions provided by both of the clauses. 3 Kyle Johnson Towards a Multidominant Theory of Movement 20 June 2016 Aderivationthatinvolvesremerge: tions. Tat is going to be the focus of most of the seminar, I suspect, butwewon’t start that process until Wednesday. (18) (She asked) which book he knows. It’snotobviousthattheserepresentationsprovideanynew handle on the ques- tion why movement is subject to locality conditions. I’ve taken a very vague stab a. VP b. TP at trying to make that connection in a paper that was deliveredinthe2009 meet- ing of the Chicago Linguistics Society. Teideainthatpaperusesaconstraint V DP TVP on derivations that Chomsky proposed which, I think, he calledthe“extension condition.” knows which book V DP (19)ExtensionCondition merge knows which book ’s arguments must be root nodes.
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