Pragmatic Syntax Bloomsbury Studies in Theoretical Linguistics
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Pragmatic Syntax Bloomsbury Studies in Theoretical Linguistics Bloomsbury Studies in Theoretical Linguistics publishes work at the forefront of present-day developments in the field. The series is open to studies from all branches of theoretical linguistics and to the full range of theoretical frameworks. Titles in the series present original research that makes a new and significant contribution and are aimed primarily at scholars in the field, but are clear and accessible, making them useful also to students, to new researchers and to scholars in related disciplines. Series Editor: Siobhan Chapman, Professor of English, University of Liverpool, UK. Other titles in the series: Agreement, Pronominal Clitics and Negation in Tamazight Berber, Hamid Ouali Deviational Syntactic Structures, Hans Gotzsche First Language Acquisition in Spanish, Gilda Socarras Grammar of Spoken English Discourse, Gerard O’Grady A Neural Network Model of Lexical Organisation, Michael Fortescue The Semantic Representation of Natural Language, Michael Levison, Greg Lessard, Craig Thomas and Matthew Donald The Syntax and Semantics of Discourse Markers, Miriam Urgelles-Coll The Syntax of Mauritian Creole, Anand Syea Pragmatic Syntax Jieun Kiaer Bloomsbury Studies in Theoretical Linguistics LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © Jieun Kiaer 2014 Jieun Kiaer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978–1–6235–6021–8 ePDF: 978–1–6235–6114-7 ePub: 978–1–6235–6835–1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kiaer, Jieun. Pragmatic Syntax / Jieun Kiaer. pages cm. – (Bloomsbury studies in theoretical linguistics) ISBN 978-1-62356-021-8 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-62356-114-7 (epdf) – ISBN 978-1-62356-835-1 (epub) 1. Korean language–Syntax. 2. English language–Syntax. 3. Pragmatics. 4. English language–Grammar, Generative. 5. Korean language–Grammar, Generative. I. Title. PL923.K44 2014 415 – dc23 2013050512 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. “Don’t think, but look!” (Philosophical Investigations 66) – Ludwig Wittgenstein Contents List of Figures viii List of Tables x Acknowledgements xi Preface xii Abbreviations xvi 1 Perspective Shift 1 2 Economically Motivated Syntax 23 3 Expressively Motivated Syntax 45 4 Challenges of Incrementality in Verb-Final Languages 71 5 Formal Tools: Modelling Pragmatic Motivation in Syntax 119 6 Modelling Nominal Particles in Korean 149 7 Modelling Verbal Particles in Korean 165 8 Particle Doubling: Incrementality at Work 185 9 The Syntax of Spoken Dialogue 201 10 Conclusion 211 Notes 214 Bibliography 217 Index 224 Figures Figure 1.1. Incremental constituency via build-and-revise process 19 Figure 2.1. Matrix clause reading or embedded clause reading? 29 Figure 2.2. {Black {cab driver}} vs. {{Black cab} driver} 30 Figure 2.3. Preference to local structuring 31 Figure 2.4. Total/partial reading 42 Figure 3.1. Structural role of comma intonation 54 Figure 3.2. Comma intonation for the fronted expression (19) 57 Figure 3.3. Copied tone for (25) 59 Figure 3.4. One breath condition 62 Figure 3.5. Animacy in TUL attachment 63 Figure 4.1. Distribution of OV vs. VO languages (WALS, Map 81) 71 Figure 4.2. Prosodic break after the dative NP 75 Figure 4.3. Pitch track from Park (2003) 79 Figure 4.4. Listener or recipient? 82 Figure 4.5. Location of wh NP when matrix reading is induced (sentence- initial positions) 84 Figure 4.6. Location of wh NP when embedded reading is induced (just before a verb or post-verbal positions) 84 Figure 4.7. Evidence of early verb-less cluster formation 87 Figure 4.8. Matrix clause reading or embedded clause reading? 98 Figure 4.9. Interaction between grammatical components during the process 101 Figure 4.10. Listener or recipient? 106 Figure 4.11. Cluster formation via oblique movement 108 Figure 4.12. Unforced revision from a matrix into an embedded clause 109 Figure 5.1. Incremental constituency: Build-and-destroy approach 121 Figure 5.2. Predetermined type-raising 122 Figure 5.3. Binary, functor–argument relation 125 Figure 5.4. Simplified structure-building sketch in English 126 Figure 5.5. Bundle of information 127 Figure 5.6. Stepwise structure building via lexical projection of met 129 Figure 5.7. Defining locality 132 Figure 5.8. Defining non-locality 133 Figures ix Figure 5.9. NPI-Neg verb distance: The case of amwuto 135 Figure 5.10. Marrying the two nodes: Long-distance dependency resolution 142 Figure 5.11. Partial structures projected by (a sequence of) case particles (Korean) 142 Figure 5.12. Two at one go: Branching out from mother structure 146 Figure 6.1. Partial structures projected by (a sequence of) case particles 151 Figure 6.2. Prosodic structure of Korean 152 Figure 6.3. Structural discontinuity via prosodic break 153 Figure 6.4. Lexical action of intonational break 154 Figure 6.5. Step-by-step structuring 155 Figure 6.6. Set of meanings represented by nominative particles 158 Figure 6.7. Topic phrase: Intonationally set apart 162 Figure 6.8. Producing two types of LINKed structure 163 Figure 7.1. Prosodic realization of (4) 167 Figure 7.2. Prosodic realization of (5) 167 Figure 7.3. IP boundary tone at the final-ending kwu (reading of 6b) 168 Figure 7.4. IP boundary tone at the verb malhayssni (reading of 6d) 169 Figure 7.5. Tone and mood 170 Figure 7.6. Building dialogue structures by LINK relations 182 Figure 8.1. Copied tones: Korean 187 Figure 8.2. Right-to-left structure building 189 Figure 8.3. Copied tones: English 194 Figure 9.1. Interaction between grammatical components during the process 203 Figure 9.2. Updating trees for each other 208 Tables Table 1.1 Occurrence of indirect object: Ditransitive verbs 16 Table 1.2 Tests for degree of transitivity (among typical transitive verbs) 18 Table 2.1 Average syllable length of NP with nominative particle 26 Table 2.2 Average syllable length of NP (with -eykey, -hanthey (‘to’), -uro (‘towards’) particles) 27 Table 3.1 Number of words at left, medial and right periphery 61 Table 4.1 Early association at left periphery 84 Table 4.2 Pronominal subject realization 92 Table 4.3 Number of genders 114 Table 4.4 Word-order typology 117 Table 5.1 Types in dynamic syntax 125 Table 5.2 Set of information at each node in Figure 5.5 128 Table 5.3 Local and non-local ways of fixing to whom 138 Table 5.4 General way of fixing to whom 138 Table 7.1 List of connective/conjunctive particles (can also be used as final-ending particles) 169 Table 9.1 Dialogue fragments 207 Acknowledgements The core concerns in this book originally developed from my doctoral research. I am grateful to my tutors and colleagues who helped me begin to shape these ideas during those years. My special thanks go to Prof. Ruth Kempson, who introduced me to Dynamic Syntax and helped me to realize how, behind the scenes, pragmatic motivations indeed shape syntactic architecture. I also thank Prof. John Hawkins, who convinced me of the importance of processing and production in linguistic theory and in particular led me to look at the patterns and distributions in the corpus – especially in verb-final languages. I am also thankful to Prof. Carlos Gussenhoven, who helped open my ears to the world of speech sound. I have yet to meet Prof. Christopher Potts but I was introduced to his work through Prof. Peter Sells, and I am grateful to both of them for their unknowing input into this project. I am also grateful to my informants who participated in various psycholinguistic tests and interviews. Prof. Jiyoung Shin from Korea University not only allowed me to use her speech corpus but also gave many insightful comments. Tohru Seraku, my PhD student, was amazing in his editorial assistance. The John Fell Fund from Oxford University Press and the YBM Research Fund provided generous financial support throughout the project. I cannot name all, but I am immensely thankful to my colleagues and students who have encouraged this project from its inception and provided invaluable comments and feedback over these last years. Thank you all. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends in the UK and in Korea. Without their constant love and care, this project would never have begun. Preface The spoken, the unspoken and the unspeakable1 Why is it that a certain pattern of linguistic structure is speakable, yet never spoken? Why is it that only a very limited number of possible or speakable syntactic patterns are observed in our everyday communication? What is the fundamental cause of such linguistic choices? Until now, in theoretical syntax, very little concern has been given to asking why it is that only a very limited number of patterns out of numerous possible alternatives are so popular and spoken. This book seeks to answer these questions.