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Deletion and Logical Form DELETION AND LOGICAL FORM by IVAN ANDREW SAG B.A., University of Rochester 1971 M.A., University of Pennsylvania 1973 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June, 1976 Signature of Author.../.. a Dep r n9fFrg Literatures and y .inguist cs Certified by....... ................. Thesis Supervisor Accepted by........ ...-.. ..................... Chairman, Departmental Committee on Graduate Students JUN 25 1976 2 Deletion and Logical Form Ivan Andrew Sag Submitted to the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics on June 22, 1976 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ABSTRACT This thesis incorporates a detailed study of two deletion rules in English: Verb Phrase Deletion and Gapping. It establishes a fundamental connection between the familiar notion of the recoverability of deletion and matters of logical form. Chapter One is an investigation of the syntax of Verb Phrase Deletion. Previous proposals for the constituent structure of VP and AUX are examined and rejected in favor of one that accommodates a proper formulation of that rule. In the second chapter, it is argued that logical considerations play an important role in determining the applicability of such rules as Verb Phrase Deletion. A theory of logical form is sketched, as well as a theory of the recoverability of deletion. Those theories are justified on the basis of many new facts about the interaction of deletion and quantifier interpretation and certain well-known facts such as the problem of "sloppy identity". Chapter Three concerns the rule of Gapping. A reformulation of that rule is offered in light of various inadequacies of previous proposals that are observed. A revision of the A-over-A Principle is also proposed, as well as a rather novel proposal for its interaction with the principle of the recoverability of deletion. The logical form of Gapped sentences is also examined. The last chapter justifies the basic approach of the first three. A "mixed" theory of anaphora utilizing both deletion rules and interpretive rules is seen to be preferable to recent proposals which have attempted to treat all anaphoric processes interpretively. Thesis Supervisor: Noam Chomsky Title: Institute Professor of Linguistics 3 To My Parents for both love and friendship 4 Preface This all began, strangely enough, as an investigation of English pro- sody and its relation to syntactic structure. Very early on, it became clear that a chapter would have to be set aside to study the relation between prosody and ellipsis. For some reason that still remains a mystery, I decided to write that chapter first. The most interesting thing about ellipsis, I soon discovered, was not its prosody, but rather its interaction with matters of syntax and matters of logical form. That, therefore, is what this essay is primarily about. A have assumed the framework of transformational grammar as it has been developed by Noam Chomsky and others. I'd like to think, however, that most of the observations and even the conclusions will be of interest to those who do not embrace that framework. My primary concern in this thesis is to raise certain fundamental questions about the nature of ellipsis. I hope it will not seem that I am overly concerned with purely notational matters. I am very fortunate to have had a thesis committee consisting of Noam Chomsky, Ken Hale, and Hans Kamp. Each of them has provided careful guid- ance, sound criticism, and constant encouragement. To my thesis supervisor, Noam Chomsky, I am particularly indebted for his extreme patience and his willingness to discuss things with me for hours on end. Few, if any, of the ideas contained herein would have ever been developed were it not for him. I am also extremely grateful to Jorge Hankamer. Without the benefit of the many hours spent with him discussing the nature of deletion rules and other anaphoric processes, I surely would have been in no position to even 5 begin this investigation. His detailed comments on Chapter Four were also of extreme value to me. Others who have given freely of their time, and who I have profited oreatly from discussions with, include Sylvain Bromberger, Larry Horn, Susumu Kuno, Phil LeSourd, Mark Liberman, Haj Ross, and Erich Woisetschlaeger. In addition, a week in Vermont, spent discussing the contents of my thesis with Geoff Nunberg proved to be extremely valuable. After many of my ideas had crystallized, I benefited greatly from conversations with Edwin Williams, who had independently come up with many of the same ideas. Without Barbara Partee's 1974 Linguistic Institute course in Montague Grammar, I don't think I could have undertaken the topic that I did. A better thesis would have no doubt resulted, had I discussed it with her as I went along. Occasional conversations with the following people were also crucial in making this enterprise a reality: Barbara Abbott, Guy Carden, David Duncan, Bob Fiengo, Lee George, John Goldsmith, Morris Halle, Ray Jackendoff, George Lakoff, Terry Langendoen, Barbara Lust, David Nash, David Perlmutter, Tanya Reinhart, and Annie Zaenen. There are still others who provided necessary encouragement before I came to MIT. These include George Cardona, Henry Hii, Antanas Klimas, Bill Labov, and Arnold Zwicky. In addition, I am grateful to O.L. Chavarria- Aguilar, who is the one who got me interested in theoretical linguistics in the first place. Without his prodding, I would probably still be hustling rock gigs in upstate New York. I am indebted for personal support and encouragement to Lois Betz. My 6 debt to her for that far exceeds the one accrued for her technical assistance in preparing and typing the final draft of this thesis. Mary-Louise Keanwas kind enough to read the final draft and provide further editorial assistance. Thanks go to her for enjoyable conversations as well. Perhaps my greatest debt, however, is the one I owe my friends who put up with me and my state of mind as I actually wrote this thing. If I had been in their position, I would have tolerated far less. They are: Annie, Ava, Barbara, Betsy, Carol, Fran, Jill, Judy, Jim, Margie, Norma, Peter, Ronnie and Wilson. Any similarity between these names and those that appear in the example sentences of this thesis is not surprising. 7 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................... 2 Dedication ............................................................. 3 Preface ................................................................ 4 Table of Contents ...................................................... 7 Table of Abbreviations ................................................. 8 Chapter One: The Syntax of Verb Phrase Deletion 1.1 Syntactic Overview ........ ............................. 10 1.2 Theories, Objections, and a Proposal ......................... 15 1.3 Semantic Problems for the Syntactic Theories ................. 57 1.4 Summary of Chapter One ....................................... 74 Footnotes to Chapter One .......................................... 75 Chapter Two: Verb Phrase Deletion and Logical Form 2.0 Recoverability of Deletion ................................... 85 2.1 Logical Form ................................................. 96 2.2 The Problem of "Sloppy Identity"......................... 122 2.3 Residual Matters ........................ .................... 142 2.4 Summary of Chapter Two ....................................... 178 Footnotes to Chapter Two ................................... 179 Chapter Three: Gapping 3.1 Syntactic Overview ........................................... 189 3.2 Previous Proposals and Problems .... ..................... 201 3.3 RAOAP Reconsidered .............. ............................ 229 3.4 A Formulation of Gapping ................................... .260 3.5 Gapping and Logical Form ................. ................... 279 3.6 Summary of Chapter Three .................................... 295 Footnotes to Chapter Three ...................................... 296 Chapter Four: A "Mixed" Theory of Anaphora 4.0 Introduction ..... .................................... ..... 301 4.1 Interpretation vs. Deletion .................................. 304 4.2 Deep and Surface Anaphora ................................... 315 4.3 The Non-Unity of Anaphora ................................... 329 4.4 Summary of Chapter Four ...................................... 351 Footnotes to Chapter Four ..... ............................. 353 Inconclusion ................... ... .......... .................... .356 Bibliography ......... .. ................ ........................ 359 Biographical Note ....... ...... .. ......................................373 8 Abbreviations AE Auxiliary Ellipsis 1.2 A + W Akmajian and Wasow (1975) 1.2 BAC The Backwards Anaphora Constraint a 4.2 CD Comparative Deletion 2.3 CE Comparative Ellipsis (1 and 2) 2.3 ESH (Wasow's) Empty Structures Hypothesis 4.0 IP The Immediate Domination Principle 1 3.3 MDP The Minimal Distance Principle 3.2 NAC (Hankamer's) No-Ambiguity Condition S 3.2 NCA (Sag and Hankamer's) Null Complement 4.2 Anaphora NLPNPC (Langendoen's) Non-Left-Peripheral 3.2 Noun Phrase Constraint N 2PHA Null NP-Head Anaphora 4.3 PRO -)o BV (name of a rule which converts) Pronouns 2.2 (into) Bound Variables Q quantifier S 1.2 RAOAP (Bresnan's) Relativized A-over-A Principle 1.2 RSSR (Kuno's) Requirement for Simplex-Sentential 9 3.2 Relationship
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