Amalgamation in mitigator constructions JAMES GRIFFITHS CLCG, Groningen j.e.griffiths@rug.nl DGfS workshop on Parenthesis and Ellipsis, 14 March 2013 0. Overview Mitigators What are mitigators? Mitigators take three types of host Mitigators display dissimilar properties according to their linear position Accounting for dissimilar mitigators Sentence-initial clausal mitigators: subordinate constructions Interpolating clausal mitigators: paratactic constructions Fragment answer mitigators are, underlyingly, clausal mitigators. Amalgamation Horn-amalgams Mitigators in amalgamation: fragment amalgams Conclusion 1. Mitigators What s a mitigator? (1) I m told Pete and Lucy are coming to the party. (2) John will, Pete says, be late. (3) Pete will turn up drunk, I ll wager. Mitigators: A clause that may be interpreted as mitigating the speaker s commitment to the truth of the assertion denoted by a host clause. (see Schneider 2007) Subclass of Urmson s (1952) parenthetical verbs Functionally related to Reinhart s (1982) speaker-oriented parentheticals 1.1. Mitigators can be distinguished across two dimensions (A) Host type There are three host types: (i) clausal hosts (4) (ii) fragment answer (FA) hosts (5) (iii) subclausal constituent hosts (6) (4) I m told Pete and Lucy are coming to the party. (5) A: Who will be coming to the party? B: I reckon JOHN and LUCY. (where SMALL CAPS = nuclear prominence) (6) Pete and I ll wager LUCY will be coming to the party. 1
Clausal mitigators mitigate the assertion denoted by the host clause. (4) I m told Pete and Lucy are coming to the party. - told(i, x) - x = Pete and Lucy are coming to the party. FA mitigators mitigate the assertion denoted by the FA. (5) A: Who will be coming to the party? B: Mary reckons JOHN and LUCY. - reckon(mary, x) - x = John and Lucy are coming to the party. Constituent mitigators mitigate the assertion denoted by the host clause. (6) Pete and I ll wager LUCY will be coming to the party. - wager(i, x) - x = Pete and LUCY F will be coming to the party. (B) Linear position respective to the host clause There are three positions: (i) preceding the host sentence-initial (4) (ii) surrounded by the host Interpolating (5) and (6) (iii) following the host (4) I m told Pete and Lucy are coming to the party. (5) John will, Pete says, be late. (6) Pete will turn up drunk, I ll wager. 1.2. Sentence-initial and interpolating mitigators display dissimilar properties 1.2.1. Properties of interpolating mitigators (i) Obligatory subject-verb inversion in Dutch and German (7) Het boek, ({denk ik / * ik denk}), ligt op tafel, ({denk ik / * ik denk}). Dutch The book, I think, is on the table. (8) A: Waar is het boek? B: Tussen de tafel, ({denk ik / * ik denk}) en de kast, ({denk ik / * ik denk}). Dutch Between the table and the cupboard, I think. (9) Tussen Tilburg {dacht ik / * ik dacht} en Amsterdam wordt de weg opengebroken. Dutch Between Tilburg, I thought, and Amsterdam the road is broken open. (ii) Optional so/zo (10) Het boek, ((zo) denk ik), ligt op tafel ((zo) denk ik). The book, so I think, is on the table. 2
(11) A: Waar is het boek? B: Tussen de tafel, ((zo) denk ik) en de kast, ((zo) denk ik). Between the table and the cupboard, so I think. (12) Tussen Tilburg (zo) dacht ik en Amsterdam wordt de weg opengebroken. Between Tilburg, so I thought, and Amsterdam the road is broken open. (iii) Semantically vacuous not in English (13) Eve, (I shouldn t expect), won t be coming, (I shouldn t expect). (interpretation: [I expect [Eve will be coming]]) (14) A: Where on earth are my car keys? B: Not (I don t think) on the TABLE, (I don t think). (interpretation: [I think [not on the table]]) (15) John but not BILL I don t think are coming to the party. (interpretation: [I think [Bill]]) 1.2.2. Properties of sentence-initial mitigators (i) Cannot display subject-verb inversion in Dutch and German (16) {Ik denk / * denk ik} dat het boek op tafel ligt. Dutch I think the book is on the table. (17) A: Waar is het boek? Dutch B: {Ik denk / * denk ik} tussen de tafel, en de kast. I think between the table and the cupboard. (18) Tussen {ik dacht / * dacht ik } TILBURG en Amsterdam wordt de weg opengebroken. Dutch Between I thought Tilburg and Amsterdam the road is broken open. (ii) Cannot host so/zo (19) * Ik denk zo dat het boek op tafel ligt. I think the book is on the table. (20) A: Waar is het boek? B: * Ik denk zo tussen de tafel en de kast. I think between the table and the cupboard. (21) * Tussen ik dacht zo TILBURG en Amsterdam wordt de weg opengebroken. Between I thought Tilburg and Amsterdam the road is broken open. NB: (21a) is permitted, but here, zo (i) scopes over the entire clause (rather than just the mitigator), and is interpreted differently to the so/zo in (10) to (12). The zo in (21a) means thus or hence in English. It is discourse marker. (21a) Zo denk ik dat het boek op tafel ligt. Dutch (interpretation: thus, I believe the book is on the table.) 3
(iii) Semantically vacuous not in English (22) I shouldn t expect Eve won t coming. (interpretation: [I expect [Eve will be coming]]) (23) A: Where on earth are my car keys? B: I don t think NOT on the table. (interpretation: [I think [on the table]]) (24) John but I don t think NOT BILL are coming to the party. (interpretation: [I think [Bill]]) 1.2.3. Mitigators: a summary Position of mitigator Sentence-initial Interpolating Table 1: Properties of mitigators Host type Subject-verb Semantically So/zo? inversion? vacuous not? Clausal No No No Fragment answer No No No Subclausal constituent No No No Clausal Yes Yes Yes Fragment answer Yes Yes Yes Subclausal constituent Yes Yes Yes 1.3. Subordinate and paratactic clausal mitigators Accounting for the distribution in Table 1 An explanation for the dissimilar properties observed between sentence-initial and interpolating clausal mitigators already exists in the literature: - Sentence-initial mitigators subordinate their host clause - Interpolating mitigators are paratactically related to their host clause (following Bresnan 1968, Jackendoff 1972, Reinhart 1983, Corver & Thiersch 2001, Reis 1995, 2000, Steinbach 1999, 2007, Ackema & Neeleman 2004, Fortmann 2006, 2007, De Vries 2007, Kiziak 2007, Van Maastricht 2011) Interpolating clausal mitigators display the following internal syntax: (25) [ CP Op/zo 1 [ C denk 2 [ TP ik t 2 t 1 ] The mitigator verb selects for a host-denoting Op A -movement of Op triggers subject-verb inversion The operator is optionally spelled-out as so/zo (Corver & Thiersch 2001, Schelfhout et al. 2004, De Vries 2006, Van Maastricht 2011, Zwart 1997:252-255) 4
Evidence for A -movement: - island effects (26) * John will, [Op 1 Mary heard [ island the rumour that Pete says t 1 ]], be late. - parasitic gaps (27) John will, [Mary s implied without directly saying], be late. The paratactic nature of interpolating mitigators accounts for the properties listed in Table 1 because: With interpolating mitigators: there exists an operator to be realized as so/zo With sentence-initial mitigators: there exists no operator to be realized as so/zo With interpolating mitigators: A -movement of so/zo = subject-verb inversion With sentence-initial mitigators: no A -movement of so/zo = no inversion Question: why can interpolating mitigators host vacuous not, while sentence-initial mitigators cannot? Answer: I don t know. Thus, vacuous not must remain only a diagnostic of paratactic mitigators. 1.4. Interpolating clausal mitigators: external syntax Special adjunction: Potential ways to implement this: - De Vries (2007, 2008, 2012) par-merge; cf. Griffiths (2013) - Hornstein & Nunes (2008) labelless Merge - Potts (2005) CI logic 2. Fragment answer mitigators The clausal account sketched extends naturally to FA mitigators if one adopts the PF-deletion approach (Lasnik 2001, Merchant 2001) to fragment answers: Sentence-initial FA mitigators = embedded fragment answers (cf. Temmerman 2012, Griffiths 2013) (31) A: Who s done it? B: [ CP1 I assume [ CP2 [John s mother] 1 [ TP t 1 has done it]]]. 5
Interpolating FA mitigators (32) A: Who will be late? B: [ CP [ DP [ DP John and Bill] [ CP (so) I think]] 1 [ TP t 1 will be late]. Interim summary: Clausal and FA mitigators display the same properties because, modulo PF-deletion, they are the same construction. Big question: What about constituent mitigators? 3. Intermezzo: Horn-Amalgams (33) John is going to I think it s CHICAGO on Sunday. Terminology: CHICAGO I think it s CHICAGO John is going to Ø on Sunday = the content kernel = the interrupting clause (IC) = the host clause Paraphrase of (33): John is going to someplace on Sunday, and I think that place is Chicago. 3.1. Kluck (2011) Host clause: IC: John is going to e on Sunday I think it s CHICAGO that John is going to on Sunday. e = null existential indefinite (akin to someplace) IC = an it-cleft e and IC are parenthetically coordinated Step 1: IC is par-merged with Par 0 to create Par Step 2: Par is Merged with Par to create ParP, a coordination phrase Step 3: ParP is Merged to the spine of the tree Par ParP PP Par 0 IC e Par to ParP Par 0 IC e Par Par 0 IC 6
par-merge (cf. De Vries 2007, 2008, 2012, Kluck 2011, Heringa 2012): the output of par-merge α does not dominate its input β and γ. β and γ are not dominated by any nodes which come to dominate α. par-merge is permitted only when one of the inputs for par-merge is the functional head Par 0 (34) John is going to [ ParP e i < Parʹ Par 0 [ CP IP I think it s CHICAGO 1 i that John is going to t 1 on Sunday]>] on Sunday. Where < > and = par-merge strikethrough and = ellipsis 3.2. Horn-Amalgams vs. constituent mitigators (33) John is going to I think it s CHICAGO on Sunday. Horn-Amalgam (34) John is going to I think CHICAGO on Sunday. Constituent mitigator Similarity: In both cases, CHICAGO is interpreted both as an argument (of going to) and a proposition with the following focus-background structure: background = [John is going to x on Sunday] focus = CHICAGO (where CHICAGO = x) Difference: In Horn-amalgams, the syntax explicitly displays this focus-background structure, via the use of an it-cleft. This is not the case with constituent mitigators we only see the FOCUS. 3.3. Constituent mitigators as amalgamation An account of constituent mitigators: what s required Retain Kluck s (2011) account of how a subclausal constituent can appear to function as an argument and a proposition simultaneously. (i.e. by postulating that e and the IC are coordinated) Retain the intuitive idea that mitigators modify propositions, regardless of whether their host appears to be subclausal (in the case of FAs and constituent mitigators) Account for the sentence-initial vs. interpolating mitigator distinction already observed (i.e. Table 1) 7
How: Employ the fragment answers in (31) and (32) as ICs of amalgamations. The result: a fragment amalgam Deriving sentence-initial constituent mitigator constructions: Step 1: derive an embedded fragment answer (cf. (31)) (35) [ CP1 I think [ CP2 CHICAGO 1 [ TP John is going to t 1 on Sunday]]]. NB the embedded fragment answer provides us with the focus-background structure required Step 2: employ the embedded fragment as an IC of an amalgamation structure: (36) John is going to I think Chicago on Sunday CP TP TP John Tʹ I VP is VP think CP PP VP i CHICAGO 1 TP on Sunday going PP John is going to t 1 on Sunday to ParP CP IC e i Parʹ Par 0 an identical derivation to (31) Deriving interpolating constituent mitigator constructions: Step 1: derive an fragment answer with a paratactic mitigator attached to it (cf. (32)) (37) [ CP [ DP JOOP 1 [ CP denk 2 ik t 2 ] [ TP Jaap en t 1 komen uit Nederland]]]. 8
Step 2: employ the fragment answer as the IC of an amalgamation structure: (38) Jaap en JOOP denk ik komen uit Nederland. CP TP VP DP 1 &P i komen uit JOOP 1 CP &ʹ Nederland DP denk 2 ik t 2 en ParP Jaap e i Parʹ CP IC TP Jaap en t 1 komen uit Nederland Par 0 an identical derivation to (57Bʹ) 4. Conclusion Advantages of the fragment amalgamation approach: Accounts for the sentence-initial vs. interpolating mitigator dichotomy observed not only in constituent mitigator constructions, but in their clausal and FA counterparts Employs machinery already required extraneously Parenthetical coordination (for Horn-amalgams, see Kluck 2011) PF-deletion (for fragment answers, see Merchant 2004) Additionally, it explains why linear adjacency between modified constituent and mitigator is always observed (see (37)): they are phrase mates within the IC! (39) * That I guess book was written by Mary. (intended: That book was written by someone, and I guess that someone is Mary) Disadvantages of the fragment amalgam approach Requires redundant repetition of the entirety of the host clause as the IC. Requires obligatory deletion: (40) * John is going to [I think Chicago John is going to on Sunday] on Sunday. 9
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