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Predication and equation
(2001)
English is one language where equative sentences and non-equative sentences have a similar surface syntax (but see Heggie 1988 and Moro 1997 for a discussion of more subtle differences). In this paper we address the fact that many other languages appear to use radically different morphological means which seem to map to intuitive differences in the type of predication expressed. We take one such language, Scottish Gaelic, and show that the real difference is not between equative and non-equative sentences, but is rather dependent on whether the predicational head in the structure proposed above is eventive or not.
We show that the aparently odd syntax of “equatives” in this language derives from the fact that they are constructed via a non-eventive Pred head. Since Pred heads cannot combine with non-predicative categories, such as saturated DPs, “equatives” are built up indirectly from a simple predicational structure with a semantically bleached predicate. This approach not only allows us to maintain a strict one-to-one syntax/semantics mapping for predicational syntax, but also for the syntax of DPs. The argument we develop here, then, suggests that the interface between the syntactic and semantic components is maximally economical— one could say perfect.
In this work, I provide an analysis of adjectival depictive constructions which accounts for most of their fundamental properties. First, I focus on the restrictions having to do with the integration of the depictive and the verbal predicate: they are based on aspectual compatibility between the two predicates, which, in turn, will depend on the ability, on the part of the depictive, to make reference to some (sub)event in the event structure of the verbal predicate. Facts not captured by previous approaches in the literature will be straightforwardly accounted for, among them the possibility to have I-L depictive constructions, and the impossibility to combine a depictive with some non-stative verbal predicates. Second, it will be shown that the informational import of the depictive in the sentence can be equivalent to that of the verbal predicate: both can be the primary lexical basis of predication. This is reflected in the sentence in various ways, having to do with aspectual modifiers, and in the properties of the sentential subject. In this connection, we will reconsider the notion of subject, arguing that no subject-predicate relation takes place in the lexical domain of sentences, and hence that the argument the depictive is oriented to, the common argument, cannot be a subject of the depictive. Finally, a minimalist analysis is proposed for the syntax of the construction, in terms of direct syntactic merge of predicative constituents and sidewards (q-to-q) movement for the common argument, from the lexical domain of the depictive to the lexical domain of the verb. As to morphosyntactic properties, a syntactic Double Agree relation is assumed to hold between T/v, as probes, on the one hand, and the common argument and depictive, as simultaneous goals, on the other, which would allow for the deletion of Case features on both goals. The assumed presence of Structural Case on the adjectival depictive will be responsible for the well-known restriction on the orientation of depictives to the sentential subject or object.
Dynamic semantic accounts of presupposition have proven to quite successful improvements over earlier theories. One great advance has been to link presupposition and anaphora together (van der Sandt 92, Geurts 95), an approach that extends to integrate bridging and other discourse phenomena (Asher and Lascarides 1998a,b). In this extended anaphoric account, presuppositions attach, like assertions, to the discourse context via certain rhetorical relations. These discourse attachments constrain accommodation and help avoid some infelicitous predictions of standard accounts of presupposition. Further, they have interesting and complex interactions with underspecified conditions that are an important feature of the contributions of most presupposition triggers.
Deictic uses of definites, on the other hand, seem at first glance to fall outside the purview of an anaphoric theory of presupposition. There seems to be little that a discourse based theory would have to say. I will argue, however, that a discourse based account can capture how these definites function in conversation. In particular such accounts can clarify the interaction between the uses of such deictic definites and various conversational moves. At least some deictic uses of definites generate presuppositions that are bound to the context via a rhetorical function that I'll call unchoring, which if successful entails a type of knowing how. If this anchoring function is accepted, then the acceptors know how to locate the referent of the definite in the present context. I'll concentrate here just on definites that refer to spatial locations, where the intuitions about anchoring are quite clear. But I think that this view extends to other deictic uses of definites and has ramifications for an analysis of de re attitudes as well.
The syntactic structure of predicatives : clues from the omission of the copula in child english
(2001)
This paper explores the syntax of main clause predicatives from the perspective of trying to account for an asymmetry in copular constructions in certain languages. One of the languages in which we find such an asymmetry is child English (around age 2). Specifically, new results show that children acquiring English tend to use an overt (and inflected) copula in individual-level predicatives, but they tend to omit the copula in stage-level predicatives. The analysis adopted to account for this pattern draws on evidence from adult English, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese that stage-level predicates are Aspectual (they contain AspP) while individual-level predicates are not (they involve only a lexical Small Clause predicate). Children's omission of the copula in structures with AspP is linked to the fact that at this stage of development, children fail to require finiteness in main clauses. In particular, Asp0 is temporally anchored in child English, thereby obviating the need for a finite (temporally anchored) Infl, i.e. an inflected copula.
Generative grammar
(2001)
Generative Grammar is the label of the most influential research program in linguistics and related fields in the second half of the 20. century. Initiated by a short book, Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures (1957), it became one of the driving forces among the disciplines jointly called the cognitive sciences. The term generative grammar refers to an explicit, formal characterization of the (largely implicit) knowledge determining the formal aspect of all kinds of language behavior. The program had a strong mentalist orientation right from the beginning, documented e.g. in a fundamental critique of Skinner's Verbal behavior (1957) by Chomsky (1959), arguing that behaviorist stimulus-response-theories could in no way account for the complexities of ordinary language use. The "Generative Enterprise", as the program was called in 1982, went through a number of stages, each of which was accompanied by discussions of specific problems and consequences within the narrower domain of linguistics as well as the wider range of related fields, such as ontogenetic development, psychology of language use, or biological evolution. Four stages of the Generative Enterprise can be marked off for expository purposes.
Eine wesentliche morpho-syntaktische Eigenschaft pronominaler Formen ist ihre Kongruenz mit dem Nomen. In den Grammatiken werden die pronominalen Paradigmen deshalb anhand der Kategorien des Nomens konstruiert. So wird traditionellerweise im Deutschen für all die verschiedenen pronominalen Elemente wie bestimmter/unbestimmter Artikel, Negationsartikel, Possessiv- und Demonstrativpronomen, starke/schwache Adjektive ein und dieselbe Struktur des Paradigmensystems zugrundegelegt. Die 3 Genusklassen konstituieren je ein Paradigma im Singular sowie ein gemeinsames Pluralparadigma. Jedes dieser 4 Paradigmen hat 4 Kasuspositionen, Nom., Gen., Dat., Akk. Dies ergibt ein Paradigmensystem mit 16 Paradigmenpositionen. Jede Position beschreibt eine der möglichen syntaktischen Umgebungen von nominalen Einheiten auf der Äußerungsoberfläche. Nicht nur im Deutschen existiert nun aber keineswegs für jede dieser Positionen auch eine eigenständige pronominale Form. Die Diskrepanz ist bekanntlich beachtlich. Das Paradigmensystem des bestimmten Artikels - das hier exemplarisch diskutiert werden sol1 - weist mit 6 Formen noch den größten Formenreichtum auf. Das Demonstrativpronomen dies und der Negationsartikel kein z.B. haben 5 distinkte Formen, die schwachen Adjektive schließlich nur 2.
Die Frage, die sich unmittelbar aufdrängt, ist, welche (grammatische) Ratio steckt hinter diesem hohen Maß an Formidentitäten. Inwieweit haben wir es hier mit motivierten Synkretismen, d.h. auf inhaltlich begründeten Neutralisationen beruhenden Formidentitäten, und/oder zufälligen Homonymien zu tun?
In the following, we will discuss the acquisition of plural forms in German from the unified perspective of the two, in our opinion compatible, approaches, on the basis of a longitudinal data sample of eight children. There are at least six recordings of each child, all of whom are girls. Together, the data cover the acquisition period from 1;11 to 2;10. One may thus anticipate that the data sample under investigation reflects the transition from purely lexical memorization to the acquisition of regularities or patterns.
The effects of different forms of predication have been insightfully (and almost exclusively) studied for 'simple' cases of predication, of which the 'presentational sentence' is maybe the paradigm instantiation. It is the aim of this paper to show that thc same kind of effects as well as in fact the same kind of structures are present at embedded levels in thematically and otherwise more complex structures. Beyond presentational sentences, 'unaccusative' experiencing constructions involving a dative subject, 'double object constructions' and - to a lesser extent - spraylload constructions are discussed. For all of these, it is argued that they comprise a predication encoding the ascription of a transient temporal property to a location. On this basis, a proposal is made as to how the scope asymmetry between the two arguments involved in the colistructions can be explained. Furthermore, a proposal is made as to how what has been called 'argument shift' is motivated.
Many authors who subscribe to some version of generative syntax account for the two readings of [...] sentences [...] in terms of LF-ambiguity. There is assumed to be covert quantifier raising (QR), which results in two distinct possibilities for the indefinite quantificational expressions involved to take scope over each other [...] In this paper, an alternative account is proposed which dispenses with the idea that there are different scope relations involved in the readings of […] sentences [...] and, consequently, with QR as the syntactic operation to be assumed for generating the respective LFs. I argue that it is rather focus structure in connection with type semantic issues pertaining to the indefinite quantificational expressions involved which result in the different readings associated with [...] sentences.