UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Syntax & Information Structure: The Grammar of English Inversions Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2sv7q1pm Author Samko, Bern Publication Date 2016 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ SYNTAX & INFORMATION STRUCTURE: THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH INVERSIONS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LINGUISTICS by Bern Samko June 2016 The Dissertation of Bern Samko is approved: Professor Jim McCloskey, chair Associate Professor Pranav Anand Associate Professor Line Mikkelsen Assistant Professor Maziar Toosarvandani Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Bern Samko 2016 Contents Acknowledgments x 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Thequestions ............................... 1 1.1.1 Summaryofresults ........................ 2 1.2 Syntax................................... 6 1.3 InformationStructure . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 7 1.3.1 Topic ............................... 8 1.3.2 Focus ............................... 11 1.3.3 Givenness............................. 13 1.3.4 The distinctness of information structural notions . ....... 14 1.3.5 TheQUD ............................. 17 1.4 The relationship between syntax and information structure ....... 19 1.5 Thephenomena .............................. 25 1.5.1 ParticiplePreposing. 25 1.5.2 VPpreposing ........................... 30 1.6 Themethodology ............................. 37 2 Participle preposing 39 2.1 Introduction ................................ 39 iii 2.2 Comparisontootherphenomena . 41 2.2.1 Locativeinversion. 41 2.2.2 Sententialsubjects . 44 2.3 Aminimalistanalysisofparticiplepreposing . ...... 46 2.3.1 Syntacticpropertiesofparticiplepreposing . ..... 46 2.3.2 Thederivationofparticiplepreposing . .. 54 2.4 Featuralmotivationforparticiplepreposing . ....... 60 2.4.1 Discoursepropertiesofparticiplepreposing . ..... 60 2.4.2 Marking topics in participle preposing: Evidence from a corpus study ............................... 61 2.4.3 Implementation .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 64 2.5 Predictions................................. 68 2.5.1 Whichphrasescanandcannotmove . 68 2.5.2 Be versus have .......................... 70 2.6 Conclusion: Movementandinformationstructure . ...... 72 2.6.1 The content of the FAM feature.................. 73 2.6.2 Thetypologyofinversion. 74 3 VPP and verum focus 76 3.1 Introduction ................................ 76 3.2 ThesyntaxofVPP ............................ 79 3.2.1 Previousapproaches . 85 3.3 AntecedenceconditiononVPP . 92 3.3.1 Theroleoftopicality . 94 3.4 (Verum)focusmarking . .104 3.4.1 What is verumfocus?. .. .. .. .. .. .. .105 iv 3.4.2 Historicalbackground . .106 3.4.3 Implementing verum focus in alternative semantics . .118 3.4.4 VPPexpressesVF . .129 3.4.5 ImplementingVFinVPP. .133 3.4.6 Against prosodic and pragmatic accounts of verum focus . .139 3.5 Summary .................................141 4 The pragmatics of VPP 143 4.1 Introduction ................................143 4.2 Theantecedencerequirementrevisited . .144 4.3 TheQUD .................................148 4.3.1 AccommodatinganimplicitQUD . .153 4.3.2 Areturntod-trees. .159 4.4 Theemphaticinterpretation. 161 4.4.1 The emphatic interpretation is not part of the at-issuemeaning . 167 4.5 Theroleofintonation . .171 4.6 Conclusion ................................176 4.A The information structure of postverbal material . ........177 4.A.1 Corpusexampleswithpostverbalmaterial . 179 5 Derivational mechanisms 187 5.1 Participlepreposing . .187 5.2 VPP ....................................188 5.3 ParticiplepreposingandVPpreposingcompared . .198 5.4 The syntactic representation of information structure ..........201 6 Conclusion 205 v 6.1 Openquestions ..............................205 6.2 Thebroadview ..............................206 References 208 vi Abstract Bern Samko Syntax & Information Structure: The Grammar of English Inversions This dissertation examines the relationship between form and function in VP-initial word orders in English. While the questions at its core are old (questions of the inter- action between syntactic form and discourse context), they are addressed here with the aid of tools only recently made available. Those tools are in the first place theoretical— the Minimalist framework for syntax and a Question Under Discussion framework for formal pragmatics, but in the second place also methodological. The ability to search large electronic corpora for naturally produced data in full discourse context massively expands our ability to explore subtle interactions between syntactic form and discourse context. The goal of this dissertation is to exploit these new opportunities and in so doing to combine a technically sophisticated syntax with an equally sophisticated prag- matics in a way that gives serious consideration to both components of the grammar and, especially, to the often subtle ways in which they interact. The empirical focus is on Participle Preposing, as in (0.1a), and on VP Preposing, as in (0.1b): (0.1) a. Topping the list for least affordable communities were Laredo, San Fran- cisco and Manhattan. b. ...but criticize him they did. Much existing work on these constructions incorporates a more or less sophisti- cated elaboration of the Minimalist model of syntax, but is largely silent on the impor- tant question of what effect such complex syntactic mechanisms have on an unfolding discourse. The analyses developrd here aim to be serious about the syntax, but equally serious about developing a pragmatic (and semantic) analysis that is not tailored to the problem at hand but that rather has some independent grounding. The analysis is in turn built on a close examination of patterns which are instantiated across hundreds of vii inversions in hundreds of contexts. The combined approach leads to several important insights into the relationship between syntax and pragmatics and the overall picture that emerges is one in which the syntax makes both direct and indirect reference to discourse context. viii For Phil, who might have read this ix Acknowledgments This dissertation didn’t write itself. I may have been responsible for putting the words on the page, but the ideas those words convey and the order in which they appear owe a substantial debt to the linguistics community I’ve been fortunate to be a part of for the past seven years. My advisor, Jim McCloskey, exhibited remarkable patience and support as I came to the slow realization that I was not writing a syntax dissertation after all. His comments and professional guidance remained invaluable, even when he didn’t share my judgments. The other members of my committee—Pranav Anand, Line Mikkelsen, and Maziar Toosarvandani—provided substantial feedback and asked probing questions. The lively discussions that ensued when they found themselves in the same room were a major source of inspiration. While Amy Rose Deal was not officially a member of my dissertation committee, her perceptive influence can be seen in Chapter 2 of the current work. More generally, the linguistics community at UCSC has been more welcoming than I could have dreamed when I arrived. A number of faculty members and grad students supported me and my work as I abandoned my initial dreams of being a morpholo- gist, spent a year working on theoretical phonology, and stumbled through syntax on my way to information structure and pragmatics. Judith Aissen, Adrian Brasoveanu, Sandy Chung, Donka Farkas, Jorge Hankamer, Junko Itô, Armin Mester, Jaye Pad- gett, Nate Arnett, Karl DeVries, Boris Harizanov, Mark Norris, Oliver Northrup, Deniz x Rudin, and Anie Thompson all influenced me and my work (probably more than they know). I’m also indebted to the community of grad students who shared their work and their space with me: Jeff Adler, Scott AnderBois, Jenny Bellik, Ryan Bennett, Nate Clair, Karen Duek, Judith Fiedler, Steven Foley, Nick Kalivoda, Kelsey Kraus, Margaret Kroll, Filippa Lindahl, Lauren McGarry, Ben Meriçli, Chelsea Miller, Maho Morimoto, Kelsey Sasaki, Clara Sherley-Appel, Tom Roberts, Paul Willis, and Erik Zyman. The year I spent with the SFB 632 at Universität Potsdam was deeply formative for my outlook on information structure and on life. I’m grateful to Gisbert Fanselow, Luis Vicente, Malte Zimmermann, Jana Häussler, Júlia Bácskai-Atkári, Laura Bos, Claudius Klose, Jiríˇ Kašpar, Pat Littell, Anne Mucha, Agata Renans, Nele Salveste, Radek Šimík, Upsorn Tawilapakul, and Marta Wierzba for fruitful discussion and lots of espresso. A large thanks is also owed to the people who made sure I had hobbies in grad school. Andrea Aquino, Andrew Malcovsky, Thomas Todd, and Phil Waddell for the Monday night trivia. Ian Hall and Nikki Salica for the Tuesday night dinners. Robin Phillips, Kevin Osborn, Bob Bailey, Kim Bolin, Sydney Gellner, Kaelyn Leake, Dave Mulligan, and Mike Ody for the Thursday night fencing. Members of UAW 2865 for the activism (and the beer). SC Sharks for the Sunday afternoon soccer. Of course, I wouldn’t be here at all without my family. Cathy Samko and Sophie Lacouture have been unwavering soucres of support throughout my life, even after I moved 3,000 miles away from them. Matt Tucker has been a friend, a role model, the best husband I could ask for, the person who keeps me going,