Student-Led Reading Group Javier ernández CLT/UAB November 9th, 2012 Discussion: Ott, Dennis & Mark de Vries (2012). Thinking in the Right Direction: an ellipsis account of Right. 1 Data Two types of right dislocated (RDed) structures: backgrounding (1) and specificational afterthoughts (2), both displaying a structure illustrated in (3): (1) Joop heeft ze al gezien, die nieuwe tablet-pc s. Jooh has them already seen those new tablet-pc s Joop saw them already, those new tablet PCs. (2) Jooh Joop heeft has iets moois gezien: something beautiful seen: een a tablet-pc van 10,1 tablet-pc of 10.1 inch. inch Joop saw something beautiful: a 10.1 inch tablet PC. (3) [... correlate i... ] XP i Assumption: (1) and (2) are syntactically equivalent, even though prosodicwise as well as in terms of information structure they are different. Diagnosis: underlyingly biclausal structure and ellipsis in the second clause. (4) [Joop heeft ze al gezien] (and=:) [die nieuwe tablet-pc s heeft Joop al t gezien] 1
2 RD meets -Ellipsis (E) Sluicing (Merchant 2001; Lasnik 2005) (5) a. John bought something, but I don t know what. b.... but I don t know [ P what i [ [ ] [ John bought t i ]]] ragment answers (Merchant 2004; Brunetti 2003) (6) a. A: Wie dacht who thought Carl dat de wedstrijd zou winen? Carl that the contest would win B: Kim. b. [ P Kim i [ dacht Carl t i de wedstrijd zou winen]] Split questions (Arregi 2010) (7) a. Qué árbol plantó Juan, un roble? b.... [P [ DP un roble] k [ plantó Juan t k ]] Right (8) a. Joop heeft ze al gezien, die nieuwe tablet-pc s. Jooh has them already seen those new tablet-pc s b.... [P [ DP Die nieuwe tablet-pc s] [ [ ] [ heeft Joop al t i gezien] ] ] (Rather technical) questions a) What triggers ellipsis? As usual, mutual entailment of -type-shifted expressions (e-givenness, see Schwarzschild 1999; Merchant 2001) (9) e-givenness: an expression E counts as e-given iff E has a salient antecedent A and, modulo -type shifting, A entails -closure(e) and E entails -closure(a). (10) [ A [ John ] likes [ caviar ] ] and [ E [ Mary ] [ beans ] ] (11) a. -clo(a) = x y [x likes y] b. -clo(e) = x y [x likes y] b) How are clauses connected? Specifying coordination based on Koster (2000) s colon phrase: Javi ernández Student-led Reading Group 2
(12) :P specifier : : complement Therefore: (13) :P : Joop heeft ze al gezien : P DP i die nieuwe tablet-pc s [E] heeft Joop al t i gezien 3 Properties accounted for 3.1 Connectivity Case (14) Ich I habe have ihm geholfen, dem/ *der/ *den Peter. him.dat helped the.dat *nom *acc Peter (15) a. Peter hat angeordnet, PRO die Straße zu fegen Peter has ordered the street to sweep (*die Arbeiter). the.nom workers b. *die Arbeiter hat Peter angeordnet, t die Straße zu fegen Binding The anaphor (16-a) and the pronoun (16-b) are bound by material in the antecedent clause despite appearing as clause-displaced elements. The ungrammaticality in (16-c) arises from a violation of Principle C in the BT, obviously only if ze she c-commands Mieke. (16) a. Jan zag iemand in de spiegel: zichzelf. Jan saw someone in the mirror himself Jan saw someone in the mirror: himself. Javi ernández Student-led Reading Group 3
b. Die liebt doch jeder Lehrer i, seine i Schüler. Them loves PRT every teacher, his students I am sure every teacher loves them, his students. c. *Ze i heeft hem gisteren nog gezien, Mieke i. She has him yesterday still seen, Mieke *She did see him yesterday, Mieke. The logic is that there is no actual reconstruction between the antecedent clause and the displaced element, only run-of-the-mill reconstruction of Ā-movement within the second clause. 3.2 Scope (17) Jan heeft twee keer het eerste kievitsei gevonden. Jan has twice the first plover s egg found Jan twice found the first plover s egg. (twice>first, #first>twice). Meaning: it was the case twice (i.e. in 2 subsequent years) that Jan found the first plover s egg. 1 (18) Jan heeft het twee keer gevonden, het eerste kievitsei. Jan has it twice found the first plover s egg. Jan found the first plover s egg twice. (first>twice, #twice>first). Meaning: it was the (pragmatically odd) case that John found the same first plover s egg twice. In (18), het eerste kievitsei c-commands twee keer and thus takes wide scope. 3.3 Preposition stranding P-stranding generalization under sluicing: A language L will allow preposition stranding under sluicing if and only if L allows P-stranding under regular wh-movement. Sluicing: (19) a. Sie hat mit she has with *(mit) wem. with who jemandem someone geredet, spoken aber but ich I weiß nicht know not 1 According to Zwart: this refers to the risian springtime tradition of looking for the year s first plover s egg. Javi ernández Student-led Reading Group 4
b. Per har snakket med noen, men jeg vet ikke Per has talked with someone but I know not (??med) with Right : (20) a. Ich habe I have Peter. Peter b. Jeg I hvem. who den the krangler quarrel ganzen whole Tag day auf for ihn gewartet, *(auf) den him waited for the ofte med ho, (??med) søstera mi. often with her with sister my 4 Towards a E analysis of Romance RD? 4.1 Binding Principle A: Prediction (21) a. Karl Popper se preguntaba a sí mismo en Conocimiento Objetivo acerca de los métodos científicos de Albert Einstein. b. Karl Popper se lo preguntaba en Conocimiento Objetivo, a sí mismo. c. :P Karl Popper... : : P PP i a sí mismo Karl Popper... t i Principle B: Prediction In DatCl+V+IO+DO the IO asymmetrically c-commands the DO (ex. from López 2009, p.88) (22) a. Le entregué a cada autor su libro. cl.dat gave to each author his/her book Javi ernández Student-led Reading Group 5
I gave each author his/her book. bound reading b. Le entregué a su autor cada libro. cl.dat gave to its author each book I gave its author each book. *bound reading But RDed DO can c-command an IO in the presence of a dative clitic: (23) a. Se lo entregué a su autor, cada libro. b. :P P Se lo entregué... PP i cada libro Entregué a su autor t i Principle C We expect (24-b) to be ungrammatical because of reconstruction under Ā-movement, contrary to the fact: (24) a. *Le devolví a ella i el libro de [Anna Busquets] i. b. Se lo devolví a ella i, el libro de [Anna Busquets] i. c. :P P 4.2 P-stranding Se lo devolví... PP i el libro de A.B. Le devolví a ella t i (25) a. *Qui ha parlat en Joan amb? b. En Joan ha parlat amb algú, però no recordo (amb) qui. c. En Joan hi ha parlat, *(amb) algú. d. En Joan ha parlat amb algú: (amb) la Maria. 4.3 Scope (26) a. Juan ha encontrado dos veces el primer huevo del chorlito. Javi ernández Student-led Reading Group 6
b. Juan lo ha encontrado dos veces, el primer huevo del chorlito. 2>1,#1>2 c. Juan ha encontrado algo dos veces: el primer huevo del chorlito. 1>2,#2>1 (27) a. En Joan va presentar dues dones a tres homes. 3>2 b. En Joan els va presentar dues dones, als tres homes. 2>3 c. En Joan va presentar dues dones a qui ja sabeu: als tres homes. 2>3 4.4 Island repair (28) a. They hired someone who speaks a Balkan language, guess which! b. *[guess which] i they hired someone who speaks t i (29) a.??en Joan treballava mentre mirava la tele, en Pere. The John worked while was watching the TV, the Peter b. *[en Pere] i en Joan treballava mentre t i mirava la tele. References Arregi, K. (2010). Ellipsis in split questions. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 28, 539 592. Brunetti, L. (2003). Information ocus Movement in Italian and Contextual Constraints on Ellipsis. In Tsujimura, L. & Garding, G. (Eds.), WCCL 22 Proceedings, (pp. 95 108). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Koster, J. (2000). Extraposition as parallel construal. University of Groningen. Lasnik, H. (2005). Review of Jason Merchant: The Syntax of Silence. Language, 81, 259 265. López, L. (2009). A Derivational Syntax for Information Structure. Oxford: OUP. Merchant, J. (2001). The Syntax of Silence. Oxford: Oxford: OUP. Merchant, J. (2004). ragments and ellipsis. Linguistics and Philosophy, 27, 661 738. Schwarzschild, R. (1999). GIVENness, Avoid and other constraints in the placement of accent. Natural Language Semantics, 7, 141 177. Javi ernández Student-led Reading Group 7