Focus Structure in Generative Grammar
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Volume 68 Focus Structure in Generative Grammar: An integrated syntactic, semantic and intonational approach by Carsten Breul
Focus Structure in Generative Grammar An integrated syntactic, semantic and intonational approach
Carsten Breul University of Duisburg-Essen
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
8
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Breul, Carsten Focus Structure in Generative Grammar : An integrated syntactic, semantic and intonational approach / Carsten Breul. p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166–0829 ; v. 68) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Focus (Linguistics) 2. Generative grammar. 3. Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax. 4. Semantics. 5. Intonation (Phonetics) I. Title. II. Linguistik aktuell ; Bd. 68. P299.F63B74 2004 415’.0182-dc22 isbn 90 272 2792 6 (Eur.) / 1 58811 503 8 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
2004041135
© 2004 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Abbreviations ix Chapter 1 Introduction and overview
1
Chapter 2 The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis 2.1 Basic assumptions about phrase and clause structure 11 2.1.1 Phrase structure 12 2.1.2 Clause structure 17 2.2 The FocP-hypothesis 29 2.2.1 The syntactic and semantic-pragmatic perspectives 2.2.2 The intonational perspective 38 2.2.3 Where do the [±foc]-features come from? 41 Chapter 3 A review of previous work 3.1 On information structure 45 3.2 On fronting (preposing, ‘topicalisation’)
11
29
45 60
Chapter 4 Information structure and focus structure 4.1 Focus structure as a component of information structure 75 4.2 Constraints on focus structure 96 4.2.1 A discourse constraint 96 4.2.2 A processing constraint 103 Chapter 5 Features, checking theory and semantic implications 5.1 Features and checking theory 109 5.2 Semantic implications and applications 119
75
109
Table of contents
Chapter 6 Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis 6.1 The principles of i-focus projection 130 6.2 Supplementing the principles of i-focus projection 141 6.3 Pitch accents 147 6.4 Conclusion: The relation between i-focus and [±foc]-features 154 Chapter 7 FocP-related English syntax 7.1 Introductory remarks 157 7.1.1 What is meant by ‘FocP-related syntax’? 157 7.1.2 Remarks on conditions of movement 158 7.1.3 Remarks on binding and co-reference 162 7.2 XP-movement to spec-Foc of root clauses 166 7.2.1 Declarative root clauses 166 7.2.2 Interrogative root clauses 184 7.2.3 Aux-support for downward-entailing fronted XPs in root clauses 193 7.2.4 Full inversion in root clauses 195 7.2.5 Multiple fronting in root clauses 199 7.2.6 Movement to root spec-Foc from an embedded clause 205 7.3 XP-movement to spec-Foc of embedded clauses 206 7.3.1 Embedded clauses and focus structure 207 7.3.2 Embedded declarative clauses 215 7.3.3 Embedded interrogative clauses 216 7.3.4 Relative clauses 221 7.3.5 Aux-support for downward-entailing fronted XPs in embedded clauses 223 7.4 XP-movement to both root and embedded spec-Foc 225 7.5 Mitigated that-trace effects 228 7.6 Conclusion 231 Chapter 8 Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis 8.1 The syntax-semantics/pragmatics interface 233 8.1.1 Context-dependent truth conditions 234 8.1.2 The (basically) Montagovian perspective 239 8.1.3 A (basically) Davidsonian revision 245
129
157
233
Table of contents
8.2 Conceptual and type-semantic considerations 247 8.2.1 Referentiality, (in)definiteness, and (non-)specificity 8.2.2 Type-semantic issues concerning non-nominal expressions in spec-Foc 256 8.2.3 Ambiguity and vagueness 262 8.3 Semantic effects of focus structure 264 8.3.1 Some more ‘plain’ cases 265 8.3.2 Focus structure instead of QR 268 8.3.3 Some more cases with quantificational expressions involved 273 8.3.4 Weak crossover effects 279 8.4 Conclusion 284 Chapter 9 Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English 9.1 Other languages in general 287 9.1.1 Constituent order variations in general 287 9.1.2 Cross-linguistic variations concerning topic and identificational focus XPs 298 9.2 German 302 9.2.1 Clause structure 302 9.2.2 Scrambling 307 9.2.3 Some specifically German types of XP-fronting (and related issues) 312 9.2.4 Some remaining problems and questions 328 9.3 Conclusion 330 Chapter 10 Summary and general conclusion
247
287
333
Notes 339 References 393 Appendix Schematic F0 contours Name index 419 Subject index 425
417
Abbrevations
ANTAV(-layer/-domain)
the layer/domain of functional projections comprising the agreement, negation, tense, various aspect and voice projections AS alternative semantics BNC British National Corpus BPIFP (the principles of) base position i-focus projection CPP complement priority principle CRD constituent recognition domain copular verb and its projections cv, cv , cvP ECC extra clausal constituent EIC early immediate constituents FANTAV(-layer/-domain) the layer/domain of functional projections comprising the focus, agreement, negation, tense, various aspect and voice projections respectively: complement feature, formal head fea[fc ], [fh f ], [fh s ], [fs ] ture, semantic head feature, specifier feature FHG Fokus-Hintergrund-Gliederung (focus-background articulation) FI full inversion a ‘light’ head and its projections h, h , hP a (non-light) head and its projections H, H , HP i-focus intonational focus ILP individual level predicate MP the minimalist program direct object head and its projections as part of the Od , Od , Od P layer of functional case projections indirect object head and its projections as part of the Oi , Oi , Oi P layer of functional case projections Q interrogative head Q-Op yes/no-question operator subject head and its projections as part of the layer of S, S , SP functional case projections
Abbrevations
SE SLP SMS TC TDM TKG WCO X, X , XP Y, Y , YP Z, Z , ZP
standard English stage level predicate structured meaning semantics topic-comment type determination mechanism Topik-Kommentar-Gliederung (topic-comment articulation) weak crossover some arbitrary head X and its projections some arbitrary head Y and its projections some arbitrary head Z and its projections
Chapter 1
Introduction and overview
The notion of focus structure underlying the present work is essentially that of Lambrecht (1994), who distinguishes what he calls the predicate focus, argument focus and sentence focus types of focus structure. He illustrates this distinction by the A-utterances in (1), where the word in small capitals is the carrier of the primary sentence accent (see Lambrecht 1994: 223): (1) a.
predicate focus structure Q: What happened to your car? A: My car/It broke down. b. argument focus structure Q: I heard your motorcycle broke down? A: My car broke down. c. sentence focus structure Q: What happened? A: My car broke down.
Predicate focus and sentence focus correspond to the more widely known distinction between categorical and thetic sentences (or judgements, statements), which goes back to the philosopher Brentano (1874/1924ff., Vol. 1: 200f., Vol. 2: 38ff., 183ff., pass.). Categorical (or predicate focus) sentences have a topic expression of which something is predicated. According to Sasse (1987: 558), [t]he thetic statement forms a unit with respect to what it contributes to the discourse at a given point. It expresses a pragmatically unanalyzed state of affairs and presents it as a piece of complex information. [...] Thetic statements are thus uttered at those points of the discourse when compact information is required. This is not the case with the categorical statement. It presents a state of affairs as something analyzed, dissected into different information units. It selects one of the participants of the state of affairs in order to present it as a predication base and arranges the rest in such a way that it forms the predication about the selected predication base. We thus utter categorical statements at those points of the discourse when information is built up in successive bits.
This dichotomy is re-interpreted as a focus-structural distinction by Lambrecht (1994), to which he adds the argument focus (or identificational) type as a third one. An identificational sentence serves to assign a denotation to a variable which
Chapter 1
ranges over potential denotations for what corresponds to a syntactic argument or adjunct in a contextually salient open proposition (see also Drubig & Schaffar 2001: 1079).1 The table on the following page serves to make clear right from the start the conceptual correspondences between the categorical/thetic distinction and Lambrecht’s (1994) three types of focus structure on the one hand and the terminology used in the present work on the other hand. (They will be elaborated on in Sections 3.1 and 4.1.) Note that the expression which Sasse (1987) calls predication base in the quotation above corresponds to what is called topic expression in Lambrecht 1994 as well as in the present work.2 The expression which is a syntactic argument in focus for Lambrecht will be called identificational focus expression in the present work. For the distinctions as such I will use the terms ‘categorical/thetic/identificational focus structure’ and ‘categorical/thetic/identificational sentence/utterance’. It will be argued in the present work that the categorical/thetic/identificational distinction has a syntactic reflex. Many languages provide evidence for this more readily than English. There is a steadily growing number of works which identify morphologically manifest topic and focus markers in the languages of the world. According to Siewierska (1998: 484), there are “topic or focus particles which in subject-first languages often accompany fronting of the object (e.g. in Hausa, Efik, Yoruba, Sentani, Chavante) and in verb-first languages the fronting of both the subject and object (e.g. in Nandi, Yapese, Ixil)”.3 The association of the marking of constituents as topic or focus expression by topic or focus particles with the categorical/identificational distinction and the lack of topic and focus expressions in thetic sentences is emphasised by the following quotation from É. Kiss. Note that the article from which this passage is quoted belongs to the documentation of the constituent order research project (Siewierska (Ed.) 1998) which also contains Siewierska 1998 just referred to as well as several other contributions in which the notions ‘topic’ and ‘focus’ figure prominently. I tentatively assume that sentences form not two, but three logical-semantic types. (i) They can be categorical: expressing an overt predication relation between an initial constituent functioning as a notional subject, and the subsequent sentence part functioning as a notional predicate. (ii) They can be thetic, consisting overtly of a mere Predicate Phrase; in fact, expressing predication about an empty event argument bound deictically by the situation, or anaphorically by the context. (iii) Finally, sentences can be non-predicational, expressing quantification (universal quantification, contrastive focussing, or interrogation) which is not subordinated to a predication relation. Of the three logical-semantic sentence types established above, only the categorical sentences contain a constituent in topic function. An NP functions as a topic, or notional subject, if it is predicated about in a categorical judgment. (É. Kiss 1998a: 686f.)
characteristics ↓
– has a predication base
– lacks a predication base
—
types ↓
categorical sentence
thetic sentence
—
categorical/thetic (e.g. Sasse 1987)
argument focus
sentence focus
predicate focus
types ↓
– has a syntactic argument in focus
– lacks a sentence topic (expression) – does not have an argument in focus
– has a sentence topic (expression)
characteristics ↓
focus structure (Lambrecht 1994)
identificational sentence
thetic sentence
categorical sentence
types ↓
– has an identificational focus expression
– lacks a topic expression – lacks an identificational focus expression
– has a topic expression
characteristics ↓
focus structure (present work)
Table 1. The categorical/thetic distinction and focus structure: conceptual and terminological correspondences
Introduction and overview
Chapter 1
This may suffice to show that the notions of topic and focus, their morphosyntactic manifestation, and their relation to a differentiation of sentences along the lines of the categorical/thetic/identificational distinction have enjoyed much interest among linguists in recent years. The present work elaborates on this relation with respect to English. In generative grammar such an enterprise has not been undertaken so far. Although some authors acknowledge the existence of functional topic and focus phrases (TopP, FocP; see e.g. Rizzi 1997; Haegeman & Guéron 1999; Grewendorf 2002) into whose specifier positions topic and focus constituents are said to move in sentences where there is visible fronting (traditionally called ‘topicalisation’), no attempt has so far been made to explore in detail the relation of this kind of movement with the distinction between categorical/thetic/identificational sentences. Moreover, there has so far been no serious attempt of entertaining the idea that there is a TopP or FocP also in those sentences where there is no visible fronting. That is, the existence of TopP/FocP as well as of the features associated with these functional phrases has not been posited for sentences with the canonical SVO-constituent order in English. However, there is no reason to assume that subjects may not be assigned the respective feature and that TopP/FocP may not be present in canonical constituent order sentences. By contrast, the present work defends the hypothesis that the existence of a FocP distinguishes categorical and identificational sentences on the one hand from thetic, FocP-less ones on the other hand, independently of whether there is visible fronting or not. Moreover, the distinction between categorical and identificational sentences is claimed to be related to different feature specifications associated with the Foc-head of FocP. In English there are no morphological topic and focus markers. However, the role played by morphology in one language may be played by phonology in an´ other language. Wilder & Cavar (1994: 12), for instance, conclude from an investigation of Croatian data that not only morpho-syntactic but also phonological properties of lexical elements may trigger syntactic movement operations. Ladd (1996: 7) observes that “many languages use segmental morphemes to convey the kinds of meanings that in other languages can often be signalled intonationally.” Conversely, Spencer (1991: 18, 163ff.) refers to work which shows how tones or tone patterns realise morphemes in various African languages. Specifically with respect to focus expressions, Drubig & Schaffar (2001: 1080) point out that crosslinguistically intonation often supports the syntactic or morphological marking of focus. The present work will show how topic and identificational focus expressions and thus the distinction between categorical and identificational sentences are signalled intonationally in English. In the version of generative grammar which has become known in the last decade as the minimalist program (MP), morphological markers have been interpreted as the formal, i.e. perceptible, manifestations of abstract syntactic features. And these abstract features play the decisive role in determining where in the syn-
Introduction and overview
tactic structure a constituent is located and thus also where it is located in linear order.4 Thus it is reasonable to assume that topic and focus markers – be they of morphological or phonological/intonational nature – are the manifestations of abstract syntactic topic and focus features. It will be argued in the present work that these features can be interpreted as the two values of a binary feature in English, i.e. [–foc] for a topic expression and [+foc] for an identificational focus expression. It is one of the virtues of the MP that the movement operation Move α (‘move something’), which is the residual of the transformations of earlier stages of generative grammar, is required to be triggered by some feature whose postulation is based on a formal opposition. While in earlier versions of generative grammar it has often remained mysterious why some constituent has to move in the derivation of a sentence in the first place – only to reach the result one wanted to have, so it often seemed – the MP invites us to submit ourselves to the constraint of admitting the postulation of an abstract syntactic feature only if it can be motivated by a formal opposition.5 It is clear that morphology and phonology/intonation are two domains where perceptible, formal oppositions can be established. The methodological constraint of allowing for abstract syntactic features only if they have a morphological or phonological/intonational reflex somewhere in the grammar has the wholesome effect of preventing completely arbitrary assumptions about the existence of abstract syntactic features. Apart from the general attractiveness of generative grammar as a principled theory of linguistic competence, which to defend is not the intention of the present work, it is this minimalist idea of an interaction of formal opposition and syntactic movement operation which motivates my choice of the MP as the syntactic framework for an investigation of the relation of the syntactic, intonational and semantic aspects of focus structure. For it is clear that there are syntactic movement operations which bear on focus structure (see e.g. the remark about object fronting in the quotation from Siewierska 1998 on p. 2 above) and that intonation plays an important role in signalling focus structure. As we will see, fronting, i.e. the movement of a constituent to clause-initial position, is indeed the central syntactic phenomenon related to the different types of focus structure, not only visible fronting operations like object fronting or, more generally, non-subject fronting, but also non-visible subject fronting. There are other constructions which have been associated with the notions of topic and focus and thus focus structure, such as left dislocation, free topic construction, clefting, pseudo-clefting, extraposition, heavy (DP/NP) shift. These will not be discussed here. My approach is rather foundational and integrative in that it intends to show that and how focus structure is syntactically manifested not only in special constructions of the type just mentioned, but also and specifically in rather ‘normal’ ones. It may form the basis of a framework within which syntactic, semantic and pragmatic insights about constructions of the more ‘special’ kinds can be accommodated in an illuminating way as well.
Chapter 1
There is the question of why we should try to integrate focus structure into syntactic representations in the first place. It could be argued that focus structure should exclusively be part of a theory of performance and that trying to integrate focus structure into syntax only blurs the very important and useful distinction between competence and performance and between the cognitive module that operates with purely syntactic expressions and those cognitive systems that are concerned with aspects of language use. I will argue, however, that focus structure as conceived of in the present work is semantically, that is, truth-conditionally, not neutral. And if different truth conditions can be associated with two utterances which differ only in the type of focus structure of the root clauses used in making them, then we have to conclude that focus structure has to be represented at the level of representation that we call logical form (LF). As LF is a syntactic level of representation (and the only one in the MP; see Chomsky 1995b: 219), there is no other way than to consider focus structure a genuinely syntactic phenomenon. In this context I may mention that a distinction of focus structure types correlates with a semantic insight concerning the variability of what is the semantic subject and predicate in a ‘sentence’. Consider the following observation by Cook Wilson: [S]uppose instruction was being given in the properties of glass, and the instructor said ‘glass is elastic’, it would be natural to say that what was being talked about and thought about was ‘glass’, and that what was said of it was that it was elastic. Thus glass would be the subject and that it is elastic would be the predicate. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol. 1: 117f.)
What Cook Wilson discusses here is a categorical sentence. The next two quotes are concerned with an identificational sentence. [I]n the statement ‘glass is elastic’, if the matter of inquiry was elasticity and the question was what substances possessed the property of elasticity, glass, in accordance with the principle of the definition, would no longer be subject, and the kind of stress which fell upon ‘elastic’ when glass was the subject, would now be transferred to ‘glass’. [. . .] Thus the same form of words should be analyzed differently according as the words are the answer to one question or another. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol. 1: 119f.) When the stress falls upon ‘glass’, in ‘glass is elastic’, there is no word in the sentence which denotes the actual subject elasticity; the word ‘elastic’ refers to what is already known of the subject, and glass, which has the stress, is the only word which refers to the supposed new fact in the nature of elasticity, that it is found in glass. Thus, according to the proposed formula, ‘glass’ would have to be the predicate. [. . .]
Introduction and overview
But the ordinary analysis would never admit that ‘glass’ was the predicate in the given sentence and elasticity the subject. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol. 1: 121)
Translated into the terminology introduced so far for the approach taken in the present work, what Cook Wilson is discussing here is a compositional semantic difference between the categorical and identificational interpretations of the orthographic sentence (2a), the former interpretation being licensed by the intonation signalled in (2b), the latter by that in (2c). (2) a. Glass is elastic b. Glass is elastic c. Glass is elastic While glass is the semantic subject and elastic the semantic predicate in the categorical reading, elastic is the semantic subject and glass the semantic predicate in the identificational reading. At the same time it can be maintained that glass is the syntactic subject in both cases, if one wishes to have a term for what makes it syntactically identical in the two cases. In this way the ‘ordinary analysis’ mentioned by Cook Wilson in the last sentence of the above quotations is transcended. (The question about semantic subject and predicate in the thetic reading is not raised by Cook Wilson.) In an earlier stage of generative grammar, Chomsky (1965: 163) referred to the above passages from Cook Wilson 1926/1969 and concluded that “[w]hatever the force of such observations may be, it seems that they lie beyond the scope of any existing theory of language structure or language use.” As pointed out by Gundel (1999b: 2), “[a] few years later, Chomsky (1971) [= the present work’s Chomsky 1970/1971], (and around the same time Jackendoff 1972) opens the way towards bringing such issues within the scope of generative grammar.” Since then a vast amount of work has been devoted to these issues in the more formally orientated varieties of research into grammar. In fact, it seems to me that this field of investigation has been enjoying a high level of interest for some years now. Building on this work, the present book provides an integrated and in some respects innovative approach to focus structure within the framework of a more recent version of generative grammar. The integrative aspect results from my taking a broad perspective which comprises syntax, intonation and semantics-pragmatics. As one of the innovative aspects, for generative approaches at least, I would like to mention here the idea that focus structure (in terms of categorical/thetic/identificational) is manifested syntactically in every sentence and thus has to be represented in a model of the syntactic derivation of every sentence, not just in those where we are confronted with special or ‘marked’ constructions of the kinds mentioned above. Syntactically speaking, and in opposition to the view expressed in one of the most influential
Chapter 1
works that seek to incorporate such notions as topic and focus into generative syntax, Rizzi 1997, I argue that the presence of a FocP in categorical and identificational sentences does not depend on the presence of a ‘marked’ construction or intonation.6 A couple of pages ago I suggested that the MP “invites us to submit ourselves to the constraint of admitting the postulation of an abstract syntactic feature only if it can be motivated by a formal opposition”. I use the verb invite rather than force deliberately in this sentence, for the MP has not been interpreted by every author to impose a strict methodological constraint on the motivation of abstract features by formal oppositions. The existence of this less restrictive interpretation and the problem ensuing from it is addressed in the following quotation from Culicover & McNally (1998: 7): Clearly, then, in post-Government-Binding approaches to syntax (Principles and Parameters and the Minimalist Program), a theory-internal issue arises of whether the syntactic structures needed to trigger “optional” movements can be independently motivated, for example, in the case of such syntactic phenomena as Heavy NP Shift, extraposition, scrambling, and topicalization. Each one presents a slightly different problem, but all share the characteristic that there is limited independent evidence either for the crucial feature or for the syntactic triggering configuration that is required if we maintain the notion of obligatory triggering in its strongest form.
The technique sometimes applied to ‘solve’ this problem, hinted at in this passage by Culicover & McNally, is to postulate abstract (covert) features. However, this procedure runs the risk of explaining away the phenomenon one sets out to explain (surface constituent order in our case), if the postulated machinery (abstract features) is motivated only by accounting for the phenomenon to be explained. In the words of Culicover (1998: 51): Crucially, if the feature is purely a formal one, with no morphological or semantic correlate in a given language, then the introduction of α[[F]] [i.e. an element α with the feature F] into the derivation is nothing other than a way of saying what the surface word order is.
The present approach does not run this risk. My account of fronting, i.e. of movement of a phrase to the specifier position of the Foc-head, is different from the ones suggested so far in that I do not postulate the presence of the feature [–foc] or [+foc] only in case fronting is visible. I claim that a [±foc]-feature7 is always present in the derivation of a categorical or identificational sentence respectively and that there is always fronting of some XP to spec-Foc in sentences of these types of focus structure. Visible non-subject fronting is not optional; it is an instantiation of the generally obligatory movement to spec-Foc in categorical and identificational sentences. The syntactic implementation of focus structure which
Introduction and overview
I propose can be brought in line with intonational as well as semantic-pragmatic phenomena. In turn, intonation – and perhaps semantics(-pragmatics) as well, as Culicover (1998) seems to suggest in the passage just quoted – can be viewed as playing just that role for the postulation of the [±foc]-features and the corresponding functional projection in English which morphology plays for the motivation, theoretical and language acquisition-wise, of other features and functional projections.8 My theory affects the syntactic system as a whole. As far as I can see, it does so without doing damage to what has already been achieved while it is able to account for syntactic phenomena which have so far posed problems, as we will see especially in Chapter 7 devoted to syntax. The argumentation in the current work focuses on present-day standard English in all but the last chapter, with other varieties or languages mentioned only sporadically.9 The last chapter is devoted more extensively to how some aspects of the theory developed applies to other languages, especially German. In the first section of the next chapter I will sketch the essentials of the syntactic framework in which the work is set, namely a version of the minimalist program (MP). The second section presents the work’s guiding idea, the FocP-hypothesis, from the syntactic, semantic-pragmatic and intonational perspectives, elaborating the preceding remarks of the present chapter. The FocP-hypothesis embodies my essential claim. That is, the line of argumentation is designed so as to present the main claim rather early in the form of a hypothesis and to elaborate on and corroborate it in the course of the work. In Chapter 3 I will review related work, comparing and contrasting my own perspective as well as terminological usage with that of other authors. The first section of Chapter 4 is devoted to a more detailed discussion of the notion of focus structure as conceived of by Lambrecht (1994), which, as already pointed out, forms the background of my understanding of focus structure. The second section of Chapter 4 discusses two types of constraints which restrict the realisation of topic expressions and identificational focus expressions by non-subjects. Chapter 5 is concerned with the theory of feature checking in the MP. The intonational perspective on the manifestations of focus structure will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6. The following Chapter 7 is the longest. In its many sections and subsections, numerous aspects of the syntactic manifestation of focus structure are elaborated on. As the manifestation of focus structure involves essentially the checking of features in spec-Foc, which is tantamount to overt movement to spec-Foc in English, i.e. visible fronting where non-subjects are concerned, this chapter is largely a syntactic discussion of fronting in English. Although the second longest, Chapter 8 on semantic aspects of focus structure is preliminary. The range of data investigated is relatively small compared to that in the syntax chapter. The emphasis is more on the argumentative development of my approach to the semantic issues involved than on the actual analysis of many examples. As already pointed out above, the final Chapter 9 is devoted to the syn-
Chapter 1
tax of other languages against the background of the syntactic ideas advanced with respect to English. Its second subsection concentrates on some aspects specific to German (specific if compared to English). Finally in this introductory chapter I want to make some remarks on the form of presentation. I will quote many examples from other sources, either linguistic or literary or from the British National Corpus (BNC). The manner of presenting these examples is often notationally modified, for example by using small capitals where the source has none, by leaving out punctuation marks, or by italicising the relevant sentence in order to highlight it in its context, without there being italics in the original. Highlighting apart, these modifications mainly serve to signal a specific intonation by the notational conventions employed in the present work (small capitalisation) or to prevent suggesting a specific intonation (deletion of punctuation). I will usually not make these modifications explicit. I will make them explicit, though, if I am certain or aware of the possibility that the modification (may) distort(s) a point made by the author from whom the example is taken. Note also that angled brackets in quoted passages may not always indicate omissions from or modifications of the source. Angled brackets belong to the notational inventory used by linguists for delimiting constituents, representing features (e.g. [Agr]) or positions in the syntactic structure (e.g. [spec,CP]). All translations into English, both of quotations from the linguistic literature and of examples, are mine. In the translations of examples I attempt to simulate the information structural properties of the original only in so far as the result does not become awkward. Such an awkwardness may occur if the respective language allows for a syntactic construction associated with specific information structural properties which cannot be readily simulated in English. In such cases the translation given only informs about the propositional content of the original. This implies that the points of analysis to be made with respect to the non-English examples cannot generally be transferred to their English translation.
Chapter 2
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
The first section of this chapter sketches the syntactic framework in which this work is set. The second section presents the FocP-hypothesis, which reflects the guiding idea of the present approach to the syntactic incorporation of focus structure, by concentrating on syntactic-semantic issues in the first subsection and on intonational ones in the second subsection. Subsection 2.2.3 addresses the question of where the [±foc]-features, which play a key role in the FocP-hypothesis, come from. Recall from Chapter 1 that Section 2.2 is essential for the line of argumentation in the present work. It contains the core claim in the form of the FocP-hypothesis right after the syntactic framework has been described in Section 2.1. The bulk of the subsequent chapters serves to elaborate on and defend the FocP-hypothesis.
. Basic assumptions about phrase and clause structure The theoretical background of the present work is generative grammar along the lines of the minimalist program (MP; see Chomsky 1991/1995, 1993/1995, 1995a, 1995b; Chomsky & Lasnik 1993/1995). It is the minimalist concept of feature checking and the idea that all movement is driven by the need to check features with respect to which the present work is most significantly orientated towards the MP. The broad empirical and technical background underlying it is represented by such books as Culicover 1997; Grewendorf 2002; Haegeman 1991/1994; Haegeman & Guéron 1999; Radford 1997; Roberts 1997 as well as the articles collected in Webelhuth (Ed.) 1995. Most of these document primarily the transitional phase between the late stage of the so-called government and binding (GB) framework and the early stages of the MP, while Grewendorf 2002 takes also more recent developments into account (such as those discussed in Chomsky 2000, 2001a, 2001b).
Chapter 2
.. Phrase structure The building blocks of phrases are fully inflected lexical items. A lexical item is a set of syntactic, semantic and phonological features. Lexical items are combined (merged) in binary fashion according to the requirements and options determined by their syntactic features so as to result in larger units called phrases. One of the two lexical items which merge determines the syntactic properties (and thus the label) of the phrase formed; it is said to be the head of the phrase and to project the phrase. (3) below exemplifies a simple phrase with feel as head. (3)
feel pain
feel
Phrases merge with lexical items or with other phrases so as to form larger phrases. In (4) below, the lexical items animals has merged with the phrase from (3).10 The head of this larger phrase is feel. (4)
feel3 animals feel1
feel2 pain
Unlike earlier frameworks, in Chomsky’s theory of bare phrase structures (1995a, 1995b: 241ff.) a lexical item is not said to project categories such as N, V, A, P.11 Rather, a lexical item either is a non-projecting head (informally notated X0 and, quite confusingly, also called ‘minimal projection’), or it is a head (notated X) which projects X and XP categories.12 Consider the following passage, which I am going to disentangle and exemplify afterwards. There are no such entities as XP (Xmax ) or X0 (Xmin , terminal element) in the structures formed by CHL , [i.e. the computational system for human language] though we may use these as informal notations, along with X (X-bar) for any other category. Given a phrase marker, a category that does not project any further is a maximal projection XP and one that is not a projection at all is a minimal projection X0 ; any other is an X , invisible at the interface [i.e. logical form (LF), the interface to the conceptual-intentional system] and for computation. (Chomsky 1995a: 396)13
In ‘informal notation’, feel1 in (4) above is an X, i.e. a projecting head; animals and pain are both X0 categories, i.e. categories that do not project at all (but, recall, which are also called ‘minimal projections’); feel3 is an XP, i.e. a maximal
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
projection; feel2 is an X , i.e. a projection which is neither X0 nor XP. Note especially that insofar as a lexical item qua ‘minimal projection’ (X0 ) “does not project any further” (see above quotation) it is by definition a maximal projection (XP) at the same time.14 Thus, the familiar X-bar format of phrases in (5), of which (4) is an instantiation, turns out to follow from the ‘informal notation’ of a bare phrase structure approach (for the use of the subscripts, see n. 10, which applies here as well). (5)
XP3 X'
XP2 X
XP1
Recall that XP1 and XP2 in (5) can be instantiated by maximal projections which either are or are not minimal projections (X0 ) at the same time. I will use the expression maximal phrase or simply phrase as an equivalent for maximal projection (XP), thereby allowing for the case that a phrase consists of a single lexical item (if an XP is simultaneously an X0 ). For an X I will also use the term intermediate projection. A phrase which combines with a head such that the resulting projection can or has to be projected further is a complement of the head. If in a given case a head-complement complex is not projected further, then it constitutes a maximal projection (XP); if it is projected further, then it constitutes an intermediate projection (X ). In other words, a complement is an XP whose combination with a head does not exhaust the head’s potential to project. By contrast, an XP which combines with a head or with an X such that the head’s potential to project is exhausted is a specifier of the head.15 Consider the projection of the head professor in (6). (6)
professor (XP3) new (XP2) professor (X') professor (X)
of law (XP1)
The head professor may or may not be complemented by of law; and it may or may not be specified by new, as shown in (7). (7) a. b. c. d.
I met the [XP professor] I met the [XP professor of law] I met the [XP new professor of law] I met the [XP new professor]
Chapter 2
In (7a) professor is an X0 and an XP at the same time. In (7b) professor is a projecting head X; of law is a complement, since it has merged with the head without exhausting the head’s potential to project; nevertheless, professor of law is an XP in this structure, since it is not projected further. The head’s potential to project is exhausted by merging the specifier new with professor of law in (7c), the latter expression now being an intermediate phrase (X ). (7d) shows that a projecting head may be merged with a specifier without having a complement. Being a complement or a specifier, then, are two different kinds of relation of an XP with respect to a head. In addition to the combinations of a head with a complement and of a specifier with a head or with an intermediate phrase Chomsky (see e.g. 1995a, 1995b) allows for another operation, adjunction, which “forms a two-segment category rather than a new category.” (Chomsky 1995a: 402.) Head-head adjunction can be ignored for the purposes of the present work. I illustrate XP adjunction with (8) where the XP quite often merges with the XP angry with Richard thus forming a two-segment category as indicated. (8) John is [XP quite often [XP angry with Richard]] The existence and/or the proper mechanism of adjunction is under debate (see Chomsky 1995a: 402, 1995b: 248), but it is standardly assumed to exist, essentially in the form hinted at here. I will follow this tradition. It has been discussed whether the sequential relation between head, complement and specifier is universally as given in (9), such that their linearisation is specifier-head-complement throughout, not necessarily on the surface but underlyingly (see e.g. Kayne 1994; Chomsky 1995a: 413ff., 1995b: 334ff.; Zwart 1997; for an introduction to this issue see Roberts 1997: Ch. 1). (9) [spec(ifier) [head comp(lement)]] I adopt the more conservative theory according to which the relation between head, complement and specifier is parameterised, such that the structures given in (10) are all possible in principle. (10) a. b. c. d.
[spec [head comp]] [spec [comp head]] [[head comp] spec] [[comp head] spec]
When in the following I give structures in tree form or bracket notation which instantiate only one of these possibilities without mentioning a specific language, then it is the configuration assumed for present-day English, which I take to be (10a).
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
It is standardly assumed (see e.g. Chomsky 1995a: 394, 1995b: pass.) that among the syntactic features (or formal features in Chomsky’s terminology) there are the categorial features [±N, ±V], whose four possibilities of combination are considered to form the main lexical categories N(oun), V(erb), A(djective), P(reposition). Rauh (1999, 2000a, b) shows that this conception cannot be maintained. For example, she points to the following problems relating to a feature specification which involves categorial features for nouns and verbs. According to this suggestion, formal features, i.e. categorial features on the one hand and intrinsic as well as optional morphosyntactic features on the other, are relevant for the specification of categories. Different morphosyntactic features may be relevant for different languages. As far as English is concerned, N is specified by a combination of the categorial feature [nominal] and the intrinsic features for person, e.g. [3 person], and gender, e.g. [–human], as well as the optional features for number, e.g. [–plural], and case, e.g. [accusative]. The category V is specified by a combination of the categorial feature [verbal] and an intrinsic case feature, e.g. [assign ACCUSATIVE], optional φ-features, and an optional feature tense, e.g. [+past]. It remains unclear on what basis the categorial features [nominal] and [verbal] are identified. If it is on the basis of intrinsic and optional features, then the categorial features are redundant. On the other hand, intrinsic and optional features will not identify, for example, infinitives of intransitive verbs as elements of the category [verbal]: Infinitives of intransitive verbs are specified neither by case features nor by φ- or tense features. (Rauh 2000a: 3)
More generally Rauh argues that the – very traditional – assumption of the existence of lexical categories in this sense is ultimately incompatible with the principles of generative grammar. These principles presuppose Aristotelian categories (see also Newmeyer 1998: Ch. 4), whereas traditional lexical categories turn out to be prototypically structured, i.e. are categories as conceived of in prototype theory based on the concept of family resemblance.16 For the kind of categories that are needed in generative grammar Rauh suggests a ‘grammatical categorisation’ of lexical items, which is equally rooted in the idea that lexical items are sets of features but dispenses with categorial features: In the case of lexical categorisation a lexical unit as a whole, i.e. with all its characteristics, is assigned to one category, and thus the ‘type’ of a ‘word’ is determined. By contrast, grammatical categorisation takes place on the basis of identical subsets of characteristics of lexical units so that normally each lexical unit is assigned to several categories. Such a categorisation presupposes that in the lexical entries of lexical units individual sets of characteristics be specified as category labels instead of categories such as N, V, A etc. These sets are to list those individual grammatical
Chapter 2
characteristics of lexical units which are relevant for their syntactic distribution. (My translation from Rauh 2000b: 496)
Notice now that we have two issues concerning the use of the X-X -XP notation familiar from X-bar theory which have to be kept apart: As mentioned above, Chomsky (1995a) accepts X, X0 , X , XP only as informal, abstract and general labels for, respectively, a projecting head, a non-projecting head (or minimal projection), a projection which is neither maximal nor minimal, and a maximal projection. The point here is that it is not assumed any more (as it was in traditional X-bar theory) that a lexical item projects a category such as N, V, A, P which functions as head in an X-bar structure; the lexical item itself is the head. However, categorial features like [±N] and [±V] are still assumed to exist as belonging to the feature inventory of lexical items and to determine the categorial status of heads and their projections. By contrast, I assume with Rauh (1999, 2000a, b) that categorial features do not exist. Accordingly, I will use X, X , XP in Chomsky’s sense for unspecified projecting heads, intermediate phrases and maximal phrases respectively, without implying that the class of specific lexical items which may instantiate the X in a given structure forms a lexical category in the sense of the N, V, A, P inventory. This combination of Chomsky’s theory of bare phrase structure (which makes an independent X-bar theory superfluous; see Chomsky 1995a: 395ff.) with Rauh’s (1999, 2000a, b) insight that we must and can dispense with categorial features is straightforward in theory. However, it is difficult in practice to dispense with familiar abbreviations such as DP, NP, VP, AP, PP etc. in a work such as the present one which is not primarily concerned with the question of what the feature specification of concrete lexical items and their projections is. Thus, when I use abbreviations such as DP, NP, VP, AP, PP etc. in the following despite Rauh’s insights, it is because I surrender to the technical difficulty mentioned by Rauh (2000a: 18) of using “complex feature representations instead of using simple category names like N, V, etc.” in tree diagrams or labelled bracket notation. Consequently, the use of such labels based on lexical categories in the examples and analyses presented in this work can only be meant to invite the reader to associate central exemplars of the respective lexical categories (in Rauh’s prototype theory informed sense) or to conceive of a given expression labelled in such a way as a central exemplar of a lexical category. It does not imply that the exemplification or analysis under discussion holds in parallel for all members of the respective lexical categories. The maximal projection of lexical category heads such as V, N, A, (Adv,)17 P may be dominated by a layer of functional projections so as to form an extended projection.18 Syntactic features which have a phrase-internal function, i.e. which do not contribute to determining the potential of combination of the respective phrase with other phrases, are checked within this functional domain. Thus, certain prepositions are traditionally said to govern certain cases in certain languages
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
(e.g. English, German), which leads to the postulation of a case projection within the extended projection of these prepositions in such languages. Similarly, agreement phenomena between nouns and adjectives of the kind to be found in French, for instance, (garçon intelligent (‘intelligent boy’) vs. fille intelligente (‘intelligent girl’) leads to the assumption of an agreement phrase within the extended projection of nouns in the respective languages. The extent to which Vs, Ns, As and Ps build extended projections differs from language to language, differs between lexical categories and between individual instances of lexical categories. I will discuss the functional domain associated with Vs in the next subsection on clause structure, a clause being an extended projection of a V. I will not elaborate on extended projections of other lexical categories. I may mention, though, that the widely used label DP refers to what is currently considered to be the maximal projection of the highest functional head (whose morphological manifestation is called determiner) in the layer of functional projections above NP (see e.g. Grimshaw 1991, 2000; Haegeman & Guéron 1999: Ch. 4).
.. Clause structure For a start I make a distinction between clauses which have a (quasi-)copular verb plus a nominal, adjectival, or prepositional predicate on the one hand (as in (11a– c)) and those which contain a non-copular verb and thematic (theta-/θ-) role carrying arguments on the other hand (as in (11d–h)). I call the former copulative clauses; the latter I call non-copulative clauses. (11) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h.
The girl seemed restless John {is / became} my friend The doctor is {in / in the lab / downstairs} Billy (agent) kicked Richard (patient) John (experiencer) felt the heat John (agent) got Nelle (recipient/benefactive) a present (theme) The police (agent) searched the office (location) Ally (theme) went home (goal)
A copulative clause may be said to have an argument as well, namely the constituent to which the predicate applies.19 Some authors claim that this argument is different from the argument(s) of a non-copular main verb in that it is not assigned a thetarole by the copular verb.20 Löbel (2000), however, suggests that copular verbs and verbs such as weigh, last, Germ. heißen (‘be called’) in sentences like John weighs 200 pounds, The opera lasted four hours, Er heißt Hans (‘He is called Hans’) do have a theta-grid and assign a participant role Theme to its external argument and a non-participant role Property, Measure, Duration, or Name respectively to their
Chapter 2
internal argument. On a third view, not the copular verb but the nominal, adjectival or prepositional predicative phrase in a copulative clause assigns a thematic role. For Kratzer (1988/1995: 136), for instance, altruistic in a copulative sentence like Firemen are altruistic takes a theme argument.21 Let us concentrate on non-copulative clauses first. There is a projecting lexical verbal head (V), which determines the number of its arguments and their thematic roles. These arguments are base-generated as complement and/or specifier of V and/or as specifier of a verbal shell head (v), as illustrated in (12), which represents the maximal extension and maximal potential of a non-copulative clausal base (that is, not all of the specifier and complement positions have to be realised in a specific clause).22 (12)23
vP spec
v' v
VP spec
V' V
comp
V and its complement and specifier is usually called ‘core’, and v and its specifier is called ‘shell’. The core is the complement of v. Core and shell form the clausal base.24 The presence of a shell is postulated for all verbs which take an agent argument. Agent arguments are base-generated in the specifier position of v, the shell verb v being an abstract, i.e. morphologically null, agentive ‘light’ verb in English. If an agent argument and thus the agentive light verb is present, then there is assumed to be movement of the lexical (main) verb from its original position V to v; that is, the lexical verb adjoins to the light verb. The postulation of a shell is compatible with the assumption of binary branching and provides a way of accommodating the uniform theta assignment hypothesis (UTAH; see Baker 1988) for all kinds of verbs.25 In addition it neatly accommodates Wunderlich’s (1997: 50) observation that “no verb can distinguish more than three structural arguments”. Arguments are considered to be base-generated as complements or specifiers in the base according to their thematic roles. Very roughly, I assume that theme (including patient) and source arguments are base-generated in the complement position of V (comp-V). Recipient (including benefactive), experiencer, goal and location arguments are base-generated in the specifier position of V (spec-V).26 Agent arguments are base-generated in the specifier position of v (spec-v).27
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
For copulative clauses I assume a base of the form (13) [spec [cv comp]] with ‘cv’ being the copular verb (a head). In one class of copulative clauses (on the relevant distinction between two classes see below in this subsection), exemplified by John is {a lawyer / intelligent} or Aberystwyth is in Wales, comp is the position for a predicative nominal, adjectival or prepositional phrase being the complement of cv, and spec (the cv’s specifier) is the position for the argument of the predicative phrase. Note that the structure in (13) can be conceived of as parallel to the one in (12) if spec-cv in (13) is seen as corresponding to specv in (12), cv in (13) as corresponding to v in (12), and comp-cv (13) as corresponding to the core in (12). This conception is perfectly compatible with assumptions about copula-like verbs like seem or appear as raising verbs (see Haegeman 1991/1994: 313ff.; Radford 1997: 334ff.). Raising verbs lack an argument in their base spec-position and allow for the subject of their non-finite clause complement to move into spec-positions of the matrix clause headed by the raising verb. This is informally exemplified in (14). (14) [seems [to [he understand her]]] → [hei seems [to [t i understand her]]] The point of raising constructions is that the embedded subject cannot get its subject case and agreement features checked in the non-finite embedded clause, but may get them checked in the matrix clause headed by the raising verb. In more detail, the derivation based on the structure in (13) is as shown in (15) (as concerns the finiteness phrase FinP, in this case headed by the non-finite head to, see p. 27 below). (15) cvP cv' seems
FinP to
VP he understand
V' her
Now, it is often assumed that such a raising mechanism is also involved in simple sentences such as She {is / seems} intelligent, with she then originating in the
Chapter 2
specifier position of the AP headed by intelligent (see e.g. Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 298). (16) [{is / seems} [AP she intelligent]] → [shei {is / seems} [AP t i intelligent]] Under this analysis, the natural assumption that it is the adverbial very which is base-generated in the specifier position of intelligent in a sentence like She is very intelligent cannot be maintained, though. This problem does not arise if we assume that the respective verbs are not raising verbs in such cases and that the clausal subject is base-generated in the position of cv in (13). The comp-position in this structure would be filled by the AP very intelligent, in which very occupies its natural position in spec-A. (17) [cvP he {is / seems} [AP very intelligent]] Hence, the proposal made here accommodates raising verb constructions in a straightforward manner, but it does not assume a raising analysis for simple copulative sentences and thereby avoids a problem resulting from such an analysis.28 Thus it seems that we can generalise the structure of the base of both copulative and non-copulative clauses by (18) below, with h being instantiated by a copular verb in copulative clauses and by an abstract agentive verb in those non-copulative clauses in which an agent theta-role is assigned, and with H being instantiated by the head of the nominal, adjectival, or prepositional predicative phrase in copulative clauses and by the non-copular verb in non-copulative clauses.29 (18), then, represents the maximal extension and the maximal potential of a copulative or non-copulative base. (18)
hP spec
h' h
HP spec
H' H
comp
The notions of core and shell can now be transferred and generalised to the structure in (18) by saying that HP constitutes the core while h and spec-h constitute the shell. If H is a nominal, adjectival or prepositional predicative head, then HP must be thought of as potentially constituting not the maximal, but an extended projection of such a head. If H is a verb, then the extended projections associated with it are situated above hP.30
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
Both the predicative XP in copulative clauses and the verb in non-copulative clauses may be stage level or individual level predicates.31 A stage level predicate (SLP) is a predicate of a stage and an individual level predicate (ILP) is a predicate of an individual.32 According to Carlson (1977/1980: 68), who introduced the terminology, “[a] stage is conceived of as being, roughly, a spatially and temporally bounded manifestation of something. [...] An individual, then, is (at least) that whatever-it-is that ties a series of stages together to make them stages of the same thing”. The distinction correlates with grammatical and semantic effects, some of which Kratzer (1988/1995: 125) illustrates with the following three examples. (19) a. There are firemen available a . *There are firemen altruistic b. Firemen are available b . Firemen are altruistic c. Standing on a chair, John can touch the ceiling c . Having unusually long arms, John can touch the ceiling Kratzer (1988/1995: 125) explains: Altruistic and having unusually long arms are typical individual-level predicates. Available and standing on a chair are typical stage-level predicates. The contrast between [(19a) and (19a )] is a contrast in grammaticality. The contrast between [(19b) and (19b )] and between [(19c) and (19c )] are contrasts in interpretation. [(19b)] can mean that there are available firemen, but [(19a )] cannot mean that there are altruistic ones. [(19c)] can mean ‘If John stands on a chair, he can touch the ceiling’, but [(19c )] cannot mean ‘If John has unusually long arms, he can touch the ceiling’.
The distinction does not seem to be lexically determined. That is, although some predicates tend to be predominantly used as either SLP or ILP, most predicates can be used as SLP or ILP depending on the syntactic and/or discourse context. According to Fernald (2000: 142), “[t]he ILP/SLP distinction is a conglomerate of dichotomies that overlap almost completely. Several of these dichotomies are subject to pragmatic influence.” The ILP/SLP distinction has syntactic implications. Consider Drubig’s (1992b) observations on the copulative clauses in (20), which are originally from Schmerling 1976: 91. (20) a. The statue’s head is missing b. The statue’s head is missing33 [(20a)] may report the result of a vandalistic act, for example, whereas [(20b)] ascribes a characteristic to the statue: the head is missing, which may for example mean that it was found in this condition, never had a head, or the like.
Chapter 2
[(20a)] deals with a currently given state, [(20b)] with a permanent characteristic. (My translation from Drubig 1992b: 161)
In Drubig’s two readings missing is an SLP in (20a) and an ILP in (20b). This difference in intonation and interpretation corresponds to a difference in syntactic structure: The subject the statue’s head is base-generated in different positions in these two clauses. While this is commonly considered to be the case in syntactic discussions of the SLP/ILP-distinction, the more specific question of where exactly the respective subjects are generated may be answered differently by different authors. In the hP-shell framework suggested for the clausal base in the present work, the natural assumption is as follows: In (20b), where missing is an ILP, the subject is base-generated in spec-h of the general structure of a clausal base given in (18) above. In a copulative clause spec-h is the position that corresponds to the position for ‘external’ arguments in the syntactic framework in which Kratzer (1988/1995: 137) argues that the subject of ILPs which are not unaccusative are ‘external’. In contrast to subjects of non-unaccusative ILPs, all the arguments of SLPs, including the subject, are said to be ‘internal’ (see Kratzer 1988/1995: 136).34 Consequently, the position where the statue’s head is base-generated in (20a), in which missing is an SLP, cannot also be spec-h. Given that missing here is an unaccusative predicate and that the subjects of unaccusative predicates have traditionally been analysed as originating in the predicate’s complement position, I assume that the statue’s head in (20a) is base-generated in comp-H.35 The difference in intonation between (20a) and (20b) follows from this syntactic difference, as will be shown in Chapter 6. As just pointed out, all arguments of SLPs have been said to be ‘internal’. With respect to copulative clauses, we have found ‘internal’ to mean ‘base-generated not in spec-h’. Consequently, subjects of SLPs in copulative clauses are not basegenerated in spec-h. They are base-generated in comp-H if the SLP does not take another complement than the subject, that is, if the SLP is unaccusative; and they are base-generated in spec-H if the SLP is not unaccusative. Only the subjects of ILPs are base-generated in spec-h in copulative clauses. Thus, the two classes of copulative clauses mentioned at the beginning of my discussion of their structure (above, p. 19) are those with ILPs on the one hand and those with SLPs on the other hand. The former have their subjects base-generated in spec-h, the latter in either comp-H or spec-H.36 Let us now turn to the clausal structure above the base. The syntactic features of the base heads H and h are responsible for the existence of a domain of functional projections headed by functional heads (such as agreement, tense, aspect, case) above the base. The morpho-syntactic oppositions displayed by a language determine the extension of the functional domain and thus the number and nature of functional heads.37 The features functional heads consist of attract corresponding features of XPs from the base into their respective specifier
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
position. Attracting and attracted feature are in a spec(ifier)-head configuration for the purpose of mutual checking. Depending on the type of attracted feature, the phonological form of its associated XP is carried along (pied-piped) or not. That is, depending on the type of attracted feature, the respective XP is pronounced in the position where the feature is checked or where it is located before its respective feature has moved. We talk of ‘overt movement’ if pied-piping of a phonological form by a syntactic feature takes place. When I speak of the movement of a phrase or head in the following, this has to be understood as a shorthand version for saying that a syntactic feature of the phrase or head moves and that this feature pied-pipes its associated phonological form.38 What does the functional domain above the base look like? I will give an answer to this question on the following pages, but will leave the technical details of how the functional domain is built up for Chapter 5. As a consequence, some remarks made here will be elaborated and modified there. I assume the base to be dominated first by a layer of functional case projections. The case projections are linked by some mapping principles – partly universal, partly language specific – to the complement and specifier positions in the base and thus indirectly to theta-roles.39 For example, in English non-copulative clauses, a DP argument base-generated in comp-V, spec-V or spec-v is associated with the subject phrase (SP) if there is no other argument. A DP argument base-generated in comp-V is associated with the direct object phrase (Od P) if there is another argument base generated in spec-V or spec-v. A DP argument in spec-V is associated with Od P if there is an argument base-generated in spec-v but no argument base-generated in comp-V; a DP argument base-generated in spec-V is associated with the indirect object phrase (Oi P) if there are arguments base-generated in both spec-v and comp-V. In English copulative clauses a DP argument (base-generated in spec-cv, or comp-cv; see above in this subsection) is associated with SP. Languages may have default morphological cases associated with the functional case projections. Thus in English SP is associated with subjective, and both Od P and Oi P with objective, a morphological distinction which is visible only in the pronominal system. In German SP is associated with nominative by default, while Od P is associated with accusative and Oi P with dative by default. There may be deviations from what is the default association between morphological and functional case and thus between morphological case and argument positions in the base. These deviations, which may even be sensitive to different inflectional forms of one and the same lexical item, have to be indicated in the lexical entry of the respective argument-taking head.40 The number and identity of case projections which are realised in a specific language is determined by the existence of formal indicators, primarily of morphological nature. In English there is a morphological case opposition between subjective and objective case in the pronoun system, which allows us to postulate
Chapter 2
the existence of a functional subjective and of an objective case head (S, O) and their projections. In addition, it makes sense to distinguish two functional objective cases, traditionally called direct (Od ) and indirect (Oi ). Although there is no morphological evidence for this distinction in English, pairs such as in (21) below allow the assumption that two functional objective case projections are present whose morphological reflexes have merged by syncretism.41 (21) a. She kicked him b. She gave him a kick Thus, I assume the structure given in (22) for the layer of case projections above the base in its maximally extended form. SP
(22) spec
S' OiP
S spec
Oi' OdP
Oi spec
Od' Od
hP(base)
I conceive of S, Oi and Od as feature sets containing functional case checking features carried by the head H in the base which move up and merge with syntactic structure already formed in the order indicated (see p. 113f. for a graphical illustration of how this looks like). The structure in (22) indicates the maximal extension and the full potential of the functional case layer thus projected in English. In the concrete case of a specific base only a part of this full potential may be exploited, that is, only one or two of the case projections may be present or even none (the latter in the case of weather clauses like It snowed, It was raining etc.). The case features of nominal argument DPs have to be checked in the specifier position of the respective case projections, where they move to. There may be differences between languages with respect to the principles which map positions in the base to functional case positions. The mapping prin-
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
ciples for English DP arguments seem to contain statements of the following kind, for instance: If there is only one argument α in the base, irrespective of where exactly, then the case of α has to be checked in spec-S (subjective = ‘nominative’). b. If there is an argument α in spec-v and another argument β in compV, then the case of α has to be checked in spec-S (subjective = ‘nominative’) and the case of β has to be checked in spec-Od (objective = ‘accusative’).
(23) a.
By comparison, the corresponding set of principles for so-called ergative systems are different.42 (24) is a candidate. If there is only one argument α in the base, irrespective of where exactly, then the case of α has to be checked in spec-S (absolutive). (= (23a), except for the fact that the morphological case is called absolutive rather than nominative.) b. If there is an argument α in spec-v and another argument β in compV, then the case of β has to be checked in spec-S (absolutive) and the case of α has to be checked in spec-Od (ergative).
(24) a.
If something along these lines is correct, then there is no difference between nominative and absolutive and between accusative and ergative with respect to where in the layer of case projections the corresponding features are checked. Both nominative and absolutive are checked in spec-S; both accusative and ergative are checked in spec-Od . This is supported by Primus (1999: 20): On morphosyntactic grounds, the absolutive is the exact correlate of the nominative and the ergative that of the accusative, despite the fact that the cases of the ergative system denote, as a preference, other thematic relations. As to their morphological overt form and their grammatical behaviour, there is a clear affinity between nominative-absolutive on the one hand, and accusativeergative on the other.
Of course, under this view the traditional association of ‘subject’ and ‘agent’ (or ‘actor’) as well as that of ‘direct object’ and ‘patient’ (or ‘undergoer’) cannot be maintained with respect to ergative systems. ‘Subject’ and ‘object’ become strictly formal notions for XPs whose case features are checked in certain specifier positions within the functional case layer. But this dissociation of ‘subject’/‘agent’, ‘direct object’/‘patient’ in ergative systems is also acknowledged by non-generative syntacticians such as Van Valin & LaPolla (1997: 176) when they write that “in a syntactically ergative language, the unmarked choice for syntactic subject of a tran-
Chapter 2
sitive verb is the undergoer, with the actor being a marked choice possible only in an antipassive construction.” Above the layer of functional case projections there is another layer of functional projections in root clauses,43 namely that of agreement, negation, tense, and various aspect projections plus a voice projection (to be abbreviated as ANTAVlayer or ANTAV-domain in the following). Again, the evidence for the existence of the corresponding functional heads and their projections is primarily morphological.44 There are bound morphemes in opposition, such as the tense morphemes, for instance, which indicate the existence of a tense phrase (TP) whose head may take the feature value [–past] or [+past]. I assume a maximally extended cascade of functional projections above the layer of case projections for the root clause structure of English as displayed in (25).45 (25)
AgrSP spec
AgrS'
AgrS [±3sg]
NegP
Neg TP [±neg(ative)] T [±past]
PerfP
Perf ProgP [±perf(ective)] Prog VoiceP [±prog(ressive)] Voice [±passive]
SP
I conceive of AgrS , Neg, T, Perf, Prog and Voice as features carried by the finite verb. These features move up to merge with the syntactic structure already formed in the order indicated (recall my reference to p. 113f. for the graphical illustration of how this looks like in principle). As a central tenet of the present work I will argue that in every categorical and identificational root clause there is an additional FocP on top, dominating AgrS P. The domain of functional projections comprising FocP and the ANTAV-layer will correspondingly be called the FANTAV-layer (or FANTAV-domain).
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
I assume that non-finite embedded clauses are characterised by lacking TP and by having a ‘defective’ SP. The fact that to infinitive and participle clauses may be said to be morphologically marked (by to and the present or past participle morphology) for non-finiteness suggests positing a finiteness phrase (FinP). The head of FinP would then carry a [+fin]-feature in finite clauses and a [–fin]-feature in non-finite clauses, a [–fin]-featured Fin-head being morphologically realised by to. However, as the presence of TP entails the presence of [+fin] and the absence of TP entails the presence of [–fin] in English, I may do without FinP in finite clauses for the sake of simplicity of exposition, thereby avoiding to have to decide where exactly FinP is located. The SP in non-finite clauses is ‘defective’ in that it does not generate a specposition.46 Consequently, an embedded subject DP cannot move there to check its case feature. The lack of spec-S forces a lexically manifest DP whose case would have been checked there in a corresponding finite clause to move to the next available case projection in the matrix clause, i.e. to spec-Od of the matrix clause. This accounts for the need of lexically manifest subjects in non-finite clauses to be marked objective in English (traditionally called exceptional case marking (ECM)). It accounts also for the position of adverbs belonging to the matrix clause between subject and base of non-finite clauses in sentences like the following (from Radford 1997: 439). (26) a. b. c. d.
The DA proved the witness conclusively to have lied I suspect him strongly to be a liar I’ve believed Gary for a long time now to be a fool I have found Bob recently to be morose
While a morphologically overt DP in a non-finite embedded clause, such a the witness, him, Gary, Bob in (26a–d) respectively, moves to the specifier position of its respective case projection and the non-finite verb moves to its S-position (see also shortly below), the morphologically null subject PRO of non-finite clauses such as those in (27) (from Haegeman 1991/1994: 275) remains in its base position (see Baltin 1995; Radford 1997: 318f., 332f.).47 The index i in (27) signals control. Observe that the labelled brackets refer to projections within the respective non-finite embedded clause; irrelevant bracketing for the point to be made is ignored. Poiroti remembers [SP abandoningj [Od P [the investigation]k ] [vP PROi t j t k ] b. Ii left without [SP givingj [Od P [an explanation]k ] [vP PROi t j t k ] c. Poiroti arrived [PROi angry] d. Johni promised Mary to [SP behavej [Od P himselfk ] [vP PROi t j t k ] e. John told Maryi to [SP behavej [Od P herselfk ] [vP PROi t j t k ]
(27) a.
Chapter 2
My assumptions concerning clause structure differ from standard ones within the generative framework in one major respect. While it is standardly assumed that the functional subjective case feature is part of the AgrS -head, I conceive of it as projecting a functional phrase of its own. With respect to English, this step has the following advantage: The somehow unattractive assumption that the phrases in whose specifier positions the direct and indirect objective case features are checked are located between the VP-core and the vP-shell can be avoided.48 It is unattractive because it prevents a neat distinction of a domain which expresses thematic and/or predicative relations on the one hand (the clausal base) and a functional domain on the other hand. Yet, the syntactic facts which are adduced to motivate this conception are captured by my suggestion as well. The surface word order of the sentences in (28) below, for instance (see Radford 1997: 431ff.), can be equally well derived by assuming that subjective case bearing DPs move to spec-S, objective case bearing DPs move to spec-Od and main verbs to S; see (28a , b , c ), where further subject movement from spec-S to spec-AgrS is not indicated, but does not alter the surface order. (28) a. a . b. b . c. c .
He reported the robbery to the police [SP hei reportedj [Od P [the robbery]k [vP ti t j [VP [to the police] tj tk ]]]] He plays chess well [SP hei playsj [Od P chessk [vP ti t j [VP well [VP tj tk ]]]]]49 I suspect him strongly to be a liar [SP Ii suspectj [Od P himk [vP ti t j [VP strongly [VP tj [tk to be a liar]]]]]]
Moreover, having a layer of functional case projections is also terminologically advantageous over the alternative of postulating functional objective case features in AgrO -heads. For in languages such as English and German (in contrast to those like Basque, Hungarian and Warlpiri, for instance; see e.g. Fanselow & Felix 1987/1993: 212; Grewendorf 2002: 36) there is no evidence of morphological agreement between verbs and objects. Notice also that postulating an SP distinct from AgrS P does not essentially interfere with the traditional analysis of subject movement to spec-AgrS . For when subjects wind up in spec-AgrS , they can always be said to have moved there because of the checking requirement for the subject agreement features for person and number. The only difference to the traditional assumption then is that the subject case feature is not checked in spec-AgrS but in spec-S, through which the subject has to move on its way to spec-AgrS . Some more comments on the structure given in (25) are in order. In contrast to Chomsky (1995b: 349ff.) and in accordance with Haegeman & Guéron (1999) and Roberts (1997), for example, I do not conflate AgrS and T, one reason being that if we assume NegP to dominate TP, as do Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 314ff.) as well, AgrS and T and thus their projections have to be distinct.50 As regards
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
TP, PerfP and ProgP, it is not clear whether they have specifiers or not.51 The TP appears with specifier in Culicover 1997, Haegeman & Guéron 1999 and Roberts 1997 for instance, while Chomsky (1993/1995: 173) presents a clause structure with a specifierless TP (being dominated by AgrS and dominating AgrO ). He comments: “Omitted here are a possible specifier of TP [...] and a phrase headed by the functional element Neg(ation)”. PerfP and ProgP appear without specifiers in Radford 1997. Anyway, this problem plays no role in the present work. It is common in the literature to refer to AgrS P also as IP, especially when the internal structure of the ANTAV-layer is irrelevant for the point to be made.52 I will also often use IP, since the basic and central hypothesis of the present work does not concern the internal structure of the IP, but the structure above it (as I will begin to explain in the next subsection). Finally in this subsection a few words on non-arguments. There can be found various suggestions in the literature as to how and where non-arguments are located within the structure of a clause and how their (more or less considerable) positional variability can be explained.53 Basically, non-arguments can be thought of as adjuncts of projections of lexical or functional heads (e.g. Ernst 2002) or as specifiers of specific functional phrases (e.g. Alexiadou 1997; Cinque 1999). In addition, a combination of these two basic conceptions in which different types of non-arguments are distinguished is conceivable.54 The issue of the positional variability of non-arguments is very much complicated by potential differences in meaning of a potentially very subtle nature. Also, the position of non-arguments on the surface is not only dependent on what is assumed to be their own structural position and possibilities/necessities of movement, but is also dependent on what is assumed to be the position and possibilities/necessities of movement of the arguments. The range of data to be considered in this area of research is vast, and the debate about how to deal with it most appropriately is a widely open one. If necessary, I will make idiosyncratic use of other authors’ suggestions or assumptions with respect to the role of non-arguments in syntax and semantics, without pretending to be consistent here. I believe, though, that these issues are not essential for the line of argumentation to be pursued in the present work.
. The FocP-hypothesis .. The syntactic and semantic-pragmatic perspectives The notion of focus structure in the title of this work refers to focus structure as conceived by Lambrecht (1994), who deals with it in the larger context of information structure.55 Despite many overlaps in the range of phenomena involved, his theory differs from other conceptions of focus structure where this term refers to structural descriptions supplied with F(ocus)-labels (see e.g. von
Chapter 2
Stechow 1991b: 39; Erteschik-Shir 1997: 3). While Lambrecht sees his “research as located somewhere in between the ‘formal’ and the ‘functional’ approaches to syntax” (Lambrecht 1994: 11), the bulk of my own ideas and work are clearly on the formal side – generative grammar, to be specific. Indeed, the fact that Lambrecht’s syntactic background is construction grammar (see Lambrecht 1994: 33f.) is likely to cause suspicion among linguists working within this syntactic framework towards the approach taken in the present work. Nevertheless, I hope that my generative syntactic and formal semantic(-pragmatic) perspective on what Lambrecht understands by focus structure can “help reduce the gap between ‘formal’ and ‘functional’ approaches to the study of language” (Lambrecht 1994: 2) in a way similar to what his book has achieved – at least for me. Interestingly, almost contrary to what Polinsky (1999) seems to imply in the last sentence of her review of Lambrecht 1994 – “Linguists seeking the integration of information-structural categories into syntax have a serious challenge to face and a number of strong arguments to counter in order to maintain the viability of their program” (Polinsky 1999: 580) – I feel that one of the central aspects of Lambrecht’s theory, his distinction of three focus structure types, is especially apt to be integrated into syntax. In suggesting such an integration, I may earn the merit of taking away a little bit of the force of Polinsky’s (1999: 579) rightful complaint that “the generative side has been rather neglectful of L[ambrecht]’s work”. Lambrecht (1994) distinguishes three focus structure types, which he calls predicate focus, argument focus and sentence focus.56 A sentence with predicate focus structure corresponds to what is also known as a categorical sentence; a sentence with sentence focus structure corresponds to what is also known as a thetic sentence. As the thetic/categorical terminology has a longer tradition than Lambrecht’s, I will use this terminology and say that a categorical sentence has categorical focus structure (instead of Lambrecht’s predicate focus structure) and that a thetic sentence has thetic focus structure (instead of sentence focus structure). Sentences with argument focus structure in Lambrecht’s sense will be called identificational sentences (a term used by Lambrecht (1994) as well), which will be said to have identificational focus structure. The line of argumentation in the present work is to elaborate the following hypothesis with respect to the feature checking mechanism implied and to explore its consequences for and interrelation with various aspects of syntactic, intonational as well as semantic-pragmatic theory and analysis: (29) FocP-hypothesis Every root clause manifests syntactically one of the focus structure types postulated by Lambrecht (1994), i.e. in my terminology, categorical, identificational or thetic focus structure. If there are [–foc]-features in the set of features entering the derivation of a root clause, then the root clause has categorical focus structure. If there are [+foc]-features involved, then the
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
root clause has identificational focus structure. If there are neither [–foc]nor [+foc]-features involved, then the root clause has thetic focus structure. Correspondingly, the syntactic representation of every categorical and identificational root clause contains a functional phrase FocP which immediately dominates IP. In a thetic root clause IP is the topmost node. The Foc-head of FocP contains [–foc] in categorical sentences and [+foc] in identificational sentences. [±foc]-features have to be checked in specFoc against corresponding features carried by some phrase within the IP. (I call the XP which checks its [–foc]-feature in spec-Foc topic expression and the XP which checks its [+foc]-feature in spec-Foc identificational focus expression.) Languages differ with respect to whether the [±foc]carrying XP moves to spec-Foc overtly or not and with respect to whether or not the [±foc]-features involved have a morpho-phonological reflex. In English [±foc]-features cause an XP to move to spec-Foc overtly. [±foc]features have no morphological, but an intonational reflex in English. For a language like English this hypothesis is illustrated in (30). (30)
categorical
identificational
thetic
FocP
FocP
IP
Foc' Foc [–foc] XPi [–foc]
Foc' IP
(...) ti (...)
Foc [+foc] XPi [+foc]
IP (...) ti (...)
The existence of a FocP is strongly suggested by the fact that many languages show overt morphological requirements for fronting operations (see above, Ch. 1, p. 2). Morphological topic and focus markers may merit an investigation as to whether they can be analysed as morphological reflexes of either the [±foc]-features of the Foc-head or of the corresponding [±foc]-features on the topic or identificational focus expression. In English there is obviously no morphological motivation for the assumption of a FocP. As already pointed out in Chapter 1, the restriction to morphology as evidence for the existence of functional heads and their projections – for the child in the process of language acquisition as well as for the linguist – is too narrow. Phonological and intonational oppositions as well may motivate the assumption of a functional head and its projection – for the child as well as the linguist. I will now elaborate on some implications of the FocP-hypothesis.
Chapter 2
We may have movement of an XP into spec-Foc not only in those cases where fronting is noticeable on the surface as in usual cases like (31) a. Beans he doesn’t like b. [Beansi he doesn’t like t i ] but also in cases where fronting is not noticeable on the surface (string vacuous), as in (32) a. Peter doesn’t like beans b. [Peteri t i doesn’t like beans] (31) and (32) are each associated with different types of focus structure. With (31) we have the following possible intonational realisations (with small capitals indicating the words which carry the nuclear pitch accent):57 (33) a. b. c. d.
Beans he doesn’t like Beans he doesn’t like Beans he doesn’t like Beans he doesn’t like
(33d) is the case where the DP beans is [+foc]-featured and has moved to specFoc. (33a–c) display various intonational realisations – with, respectively, different information-structural and/or semantic-pragmatic characteristics apart from focus structure proper – where beans is [–foc]-featured and has moved to spec-Foc. Similarly, we have the following possible intonational realisations with (32): (34) a. b. c. d.
Peter doesn’t like beans Peter doesn’t like beans Peter doesn’t like beans Peter doesn’t like beans
(34d) is the case where the DP Peter is [+foc]-featured and has moved to spec-Foc. (34a–c) are various intonational realisations where Peter is [–foc]-featured and has moved to spec-Foc; but (34a) may also reflect thetic focus structure, where there are no [±foc]-features and no FocP. The preceding remarks make clear that the present work aims at the general account called for by Drubig (1997: 13) when he writes: “[W]e must try to develop a more general account which allows us to derive categorical sentences, i.e. sentences with topic-subject, from the same principles that we can use in accounting for sentences where constituents with other functions (especially objects) are topicalised.”58 The examples just discussed show that the usual orthographic notation of a sentence as a string of orthographic words is usually ambiguous with respect to focus structure types. For example,
may represent or-
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
thographically categorical or identificational or thetic focus structure. Similarly, may represent orthographically categorical or identificational focus structure. Let us establish the terminological convention of calling those focus structure types which are not distinguished by the usual representation of an orthographic sentence ‘corresponding focus structures’.59 Similarly, let us call a categorical or identificational or thetic sentence whose orthographic representation is identical to that of at least one other sentence of a different focus structure type the ‘corresponding categorical/identificational/thetic sentence’. For example, the identificational sentence (33d) has (33a–c) as corresponding categorical sentences; the thetic sentence Peter doesn’t like BEANS has (34a–c) as corresponding categorical sentences and (34d) as the corresponding identificational sentence. Recall from the FocP-hypothesis that I term the [–foc]-featured XP in a categorical sentence topic expression (or topic XP) and the [+foc]-featured XP in an identificational sentence identificational focus expression (or identificational focus XP). Some constituent within the IP from which the topic XP has been extracted in a categorical sentence is also a kind of focus expression. Consider the following dialogue: (35) Q: When will John arrive? A: He will arrive at 10 o’clock. According to what has been said so far, (35A) has categorical focus structure with he as topic XP. The utterance seems to have a focus expression as well, namely the PP at 10 o’clock. This kind of focus expression is different from an identificational focus XP in the sense of ‘XP[+foc] having moved to spec-Foc’ in that it is neither [+foc]-featured nor, consequently, has moved to spec-Foc. Borrowing a term from É. Kiss (1998a, 1998b, 2001), I call it an informational focus expression. In a thetic sentence the whole root clause constitutes an informational focus expression. Moreover, while an informational focus expression is not necessarily an identificational one, every identificational focus expression is an informational one at the same time. É. Kiss’s own understanding of the difference between identificational and informational focus expression is described in the following two passages. An identificational focus represents a subset of the set of contextually or situationally given elements for which the predicate phrase can potentially hold; it is identified as the exhaustive subset of this set for which the predicate phrase actually holds. (É. Kiss 1998b: 245)60 If a sentence part conveys new, nonpresupposed information marked by one or more pitch accents – without expressing exhaustive identification performed on a set of contextually or situationally given entities, it is not an identificational focus but a mere informational focus. An information focus is
Chapter 2
present in every sentence, but not every sentence contains an identificational focus. (É. Kiss 1998b: 246)
I am going to discuss two points related to this distinction. É. Kiss (1998b) explicitly denies that fronted XPs in English may be identificational focus expressions; according to her, only the XP following the form of be in cleft constructions (It is/was XP that ...) are identificational focus expressions in English.61 This has to do with the issue of exhaustiveness mentioned in the two passages from É. Kiss just quoted. A fronted focus XP, according to her, does not necessarily identify the exhaustive set “for which the predicate phrase actually holds” (see above), whereas the focus XP of a cleft construction does. If this were true, an object DP[+foc] having moved to spec-Foc would not be an identificational focus XP. This assessment by É. Kiss is based on a very subtle test and on intuitions which are not entirely convincing and clear. She claims (1998b: 250f.) that the incoherence of the dialogue in (36b) below is due to the fact that the fronted XP in (36bA) does not express exhaustiveness. (36) a.
A: It was a hat that Mary picked for herself B: No, she picked a coat, too (É. Kiss’s judgement) b. A: A hat Mary picked for herself B:%No, she picked for herself a coat, too (É. Kiss’s judgement)
She argues (1998b: 251) that “[s]ince the dialogue in [(36)] describes a situation in which Mary did pick a hat for herself, the negation of Mary picking a hat for herself can only be interpreted as the negation of exhaustivity. This interpretation is available only in the case of [(36a)]”, but not in (36b). However, the judgement that (36a) is coherent is not shared by all native speakers of English. According to Graham Isaac (p.c.), in BOTH cases [of (36)], speaker B must AGREE with speaker A (‘Yes’) before going on to add further information. The denial (‘No’) would mean that, while A suggests that [Mary] picked only a hat for herself, B is saying that [Mary] didn’t pick a hat at all. B’s ‘No’ [. . .] contradicts the core proposition. So if B wants to say that [Mary] did not ONLY pick a hat, then he has to first agree (‘Yes’) that [Mary] picked a hat, and then go on to add that she picked something else as well.
This observation casts doubt on the reliability of the test for exhaustiveness based on constructed dialogues like those in (36). Actually, exhaustiveness may not be the decisive criterion for identificational focus XPs. With respect to the example
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
(37) Q: Who went to school? A: The children went to school. Lambrecht explains: [The communicative function of (37A)] is to provide the referent solicited by the word who in the preceding question. In [the given context], the reply pragmatically presupposes the proposition that “someone went to school” and it asserts that this “someone” is “the children.” I will call sentences such as [(37A)] identificational sentences, since they serve to identify a referent as the missing argument in an open proposition.[...] The subject NP the children is not a topic but a particular type of focus expression (to be called “argument focus” [. . .]), i.e. its referent is not in the domain of the presupposition. (Lambrecht 1994: 122) The characterisation of sentences such as [(37A)] as “identificational” does not embody the claim that the identified referent must be unique, i.e. that it must be the only one to fit the open argument position (see the discussion of the so-called “exhaustiveness condition” in Horn 1981). Sentence [(37A)] is compatible both with a situation in which the children exhaust the number of individuals that went to school and with a situation in which the children went to school among other individuals. (Lambrecht 1994: 123)
This in conjunction with the assessment that a fronted (“‘topicalized”’) object may stand “either in a topic relation or in a focus relation to the proposition expressed by the sentence” (Lambrecht 1994: 31) entails that É. Kiss’s (36bA) would be called identificational sentence by Lambrecht and the fronted DP a hat would consequently be an identificational focus XP (argument focus in Lambrecht’s terminology). Thus, according to Lambrecht, the difference between identificational and informational focus is not necessarily captured by the exhaustiveness criterion, but by the specific type of pragmatically presupposed proposition associated with identificational sentences.62 That an identificational focus expression cannot be said to be necessarily exhaustive in a language like English is also argued by Vallduví (1990/1992: 139ff.) and de Swart & de Hoop (2000: 107). The latter authors point out that if it were, then (38a) and (38b) should be equivalent, contrary to fact. (38) a. Susan is in Groningen b. Only Susan is in Groningen “For instance, one could utter [(38a)] as a reason for a visit to Groningen, but [(38b)] does not seem quite felicitous in such a context” (de Swart & de Hoop 2000: 107). In conclusion, exhaustiveness is a semantic characteristic which may or may not be part of identificational focus expressions cross-linguistically; in English it is not.
Chapter 2
As already pointed out in Chapter 1, focus structure may have truthconditional effects. That is, we may get different truth conditions if the type of focus structure of a given sentence is changed while everything else is held constant. Consider for example the following utterances, which are, slightly (but insignificantly) modified,63 from Sgall & Hajiˇcová & Panevová (1986: 62). (39) a. English is spoken in Australia b. English is spoken in Australia The authors claim, correctly in my view, that “the truth-conditions [of such utterances] are different” (Sgall, Hajiˇcová & Panevová 1986: 62; likewise Hajiˇcová, Partee & Sgall 1998a: 110, 1998b: 115). To illustrate in my own words:64 (39a) can be appropriately and truthfully uttered as a reply to the question (40) What do you know about the regional spread of English? By contrast, (39b) can be appropriately uttered as an answer to the question in (41), but would not be true. (41) Exactly which language or languages are spoken in Australia? (39a) as a reply to (40) has categorical focus structure, whereas (39b) as an answer to (41) has identificational focus structure. Note especially that it would not make much sense to argue that (39b) is truth-conditionally equivalent to (39a) while the difference between them is pragmatic in that (39b) generates an infelicitous conversational implicature.65 Indeed, identificational focus expressions, which are not necessarily exhaustive (see above in this subsection), may very well generate an implicature of exhaustiveness, such that an utterance like ENGLISH is spoken in Australia may be said to often generate the implicature that only English is spoken in Australia. And, since this is ‘only’ an implicature, a person who makes such an utterance cannot in principle be claimed to have asserted that only English is spoken in Australia, that is, to have made an utterance which is truth-conditionally equivalent to the utterance Only English is spoken in Australia. However, by asking the context question (41) in the way she does, especially by using the word exactly, the communicator of (41) makes clear that she refuses to take the domain of implicatures relating to this issue into account. She explicitly asks for a complete (possibly one-member) list of languages spoken in Australia, thus forestalling potential implicature generation, implicature recovery and implicit implicature cancelling.66 That is, (39b) is truth-conditionally equivalent to an utterance of Only English is spoken in Australia in the context of question (41), but not in other contexts, such as in reply to a context question like Which language is spoken in Australia?, for instance. Of course there is a certain theoretical stance with respect to the relation between pragmatics and semantics associated with this way of analysing the two ut-
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
terances in (39). Notice that the questions in (40) and (41) provide a different context for the utterances in (39) and that (39a) cannot be appropriately uttered as an answer to (41), nor can (39b) as an answer to (40). The stance I take is similar to that proposed by Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000: 343), for example, who maintain that “we must relativize our definition of truth for a sentence to a context (as well as to an LF that disambiguates it).” In other words, the truth conditions of an utterance, which are propositions held as assumptions by an interlocutor about the world the utterance is set in or refers to, are a subset of the assumptions which constitute the context of the utterance.67 And the truth conditions may change if any context-constituting assumption changes, such as the one derived from the fact that question (41) rather than (40) has been asked. A sentence (root clause) whose truth conditions have been relativised to a context is a potential utterance under the view that utterances are “the contextdependent forms of particular sentences.” (Lyons 1995: 36.) I make the assumption that the sentences which I present as examples or whose syntactic structure I analyse are (potential) utterances in this sense. I trust the reader will supply disambiguations and reference assignments for herself/himself and in a way compatible with my intentions. Contexts will be created, mentioned or referred to only in those cases where the point I want to make presupposes the generation of specific aspects of context. As regards my terminological usage, I tend to use sentence or root clause in connection with syntactic analyses, while I tend to use utterance in discussions of semantic-pragmatic aspects. As already pointed out in Chapter 1, there are no levels of syntactic representation other than LF within the conception of the MP (no D- and S-structures), and LF constitutes the syntactic interface with the conceptual-intentional system (see Chomsky 1995b: 219). Focus structure as conceived of in the present work is an aspect of a syntactic representation which is interpreted (computed) by the semantic-pragmatic (or conceptual-intentional) system(s) of cognition.68 If there is no S-structure, then we cannot say that (42) English is spoken in Australia has one S-structure corresponding to more than one LFs. Strictly speaking, a string like (42) without an indication of focus structure has no status at all in the syntactic theory presented here. The following statement by Reinhart (1981: 55f.) may be taken as representative of the ‘usual’ view on ‘sentences’, which is slightly but significantly different from the one I propose: Unlike other relational terms (i.e. terms defined by the relation they bear to the sentence, like grammatical subject) [the term sentence topic] cannot be defined directly on syntactic structures since different expressions of the same sentence can serve as topics in different contexts of utterance.
Chapter 2
In my view, a sentence has or does not have a sentence topic, i.e. an XP[-foc] in spec-Foc, and dependent on whether it does have one or not, it can be used in certain contexts and not in others.69 (42) is nothing but an orthographic string which collapses three different (but corresponding) root clauses (categorical, identificational, thetic) which use the same lexical material, but differ in regard to the presence or absence of [±foc]-features, and/or the value of these features (+/–).
.. The intonational perspective Constructions with expletive there and it subjects in clause initial position apart, focus structure is reflected only by intonation in English, that is, by characteristic distributions of pitch accents.70 I assume a notion of intonational focus projection along the following general lines:71 Exactly one of the lexical items which form the lexical material for the derivation of a root clause is assigned an abstract Fmark. Depending on which syntactic function (head, complement, specifier) this lexical item w has within the next higher maximal phrase XP1 (if there is one) and depending on the syntactic functions of XP1 within the next higher maximal phrase XP2 (if there is one) – and so on for XP2 and higher syntactic projections, if there are any – the F-mark on w may be restricted to w or may be projected to the next higher XP1 or to still higher phrases according to some set of principles of F-projection.72 Each XP F-marked by F-projection is a potential intonational focus constituent, that is, each such XP is licensed as an intonational focus constituent. When the syntactic representation containing the F-mark on lexical item w is fed into the phonological component, the metrically strongest syllable of w is assigned a pitch accent. Precisely which pitch accent it is that reflects the F-mark is dependent on whether there are other pitch accents on lexical items in the clause. And in case there are other pitch accents, their type as well may have an effect on the realisation of the F-marking pitch accent. Other pitch accents than the one which reflects the F-mark have other functions, such as signalling contrast or non-accessibility of the denotation or referent of the respective expression in the interlocutors’ mental representation of the discourse. The most typical pitch accent reflecting an F-mark is, in terms of the autosegmental-metrical theory of intonation (see Ladd 1996), H*+L, which corresponds to a falling tone in the British tradition of intonation research (on which see e.g. Couper-Kuhlen 1986, Cruttenden 1986/1997, Quirk et al. 1985: Appendix II).73 So far in the present work the presence of an F-marking pitch accent on a lexical item has been signalled by small-capitalising it. This usage will be maintained in the sequel, with an occasional addition of a superscript F , which results from a point to be made below in this subsection (and repeated in more detail in Section 6.3).
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
One possible way of expressing in descriptive terms the relation between intonational focus on the one hand and the three types of focus structure is the following: (43) a.
In a categorical sentence the complement of the Foc-head contains or is an XP licensed as an intonational focus constituent. b. In an identificational sentence the specifier of the Foc-head contains or is an XP licensed as an intonational focus constituent. c. In a thetic sentence the IP is licensed as an intonational focus constituent.
This is illustrated in (44), where the superscript ‘i-focus’ means ‘contains or is an XP licensed as an intonational focus constituent’. (44)
categorical
identificational
thetic
FocP
FocP
IPi-focus
Foc' Foc [–foc] XPi [–foc]
IPi-focus (...) ti (...)
Foc' Foc [+foc] XPii-focus [+foc]
IP (...) ti (...)
If a thetic sentence has corresponding categorical and identificational sentences,74 then it is intonationally always identical to either one. This is because such a thetic sentence cannot be distinguished on the surface from the corresponding categorical or identificational sentence whose subject has string vacuously moved from spec-AgrS to spec-Foc and whose F-mark (and thus the pitch accent reflecting it) is in the position which corresponds to that of the corresponding thetic sentence. For example, the thetic sentence Peter likes SNAKES is intonationally identical to the corresponding categorical one which has Peter as topic XP; and the thetic sentence My CAR broke down is intonationally identical to the corresponding identificational sentence which has my car as identificational focus XP. While every thetic sentence which has a corresponding categorical or identificational sentence is intonationally ambiguous in the way just explained, only some categorical and some identificational sentences are intonationally identical to the corresponding thetic sentence. For example, the categorical sentence My car broke DOWN is not intonationally identical to the corresponding thetic one, nor is the identificational sentence PETER likes snakes.
Chapter 2
As already pointed out, the utterance of a root clause may show more than one pitch accent. Only one of them reflects the F-mark which is the source of Fprojection. Taking this distinction among pitch accents into account, we can make the following statement about the relations depicted in (44). (45) a.
The intonational realisation of the [–foc]-featured specifier of the Foc-head does not contain a pitch accent which manifests an F-mark (but may contain pitch accents with other functions). b. The intonational realisation of the [+foc]-featured specifier of the Foc-head contains a pitch accent which manifests an F-mark. c. The intonational realisation of the IP in a thetic sentence contains a pitch accent which manifests an F-mark.
To illustrate: A natural utterance of Beans they don’t like as a reply to (46Q) below may be pronounced either with no pitch accent on beans or with a rising accent (L+H*), while like gets the H*+L pitch accent (fall). (46) Q: What about steak with beans for the kids today? A: a. Beans they don’t likeF . H*+L b. Beans they don’t likeF . H*+L L+H* Like is the F-marked head of VP and can be shown (in terms of Selkirk’s (1995) or Winkler’s (1997) theories, for instance) to F-project in both cases of (46A). By contrast, beans is not F-marked in either case, although it carries a pitch accent in (46Ab).75 F-marked like licenses VP and the higher functional projections of the FANTAV-domain as intonational focus constituents, but it does not license the subject DP they, nor the object DP beans as intonational focus constituents. Thus the fact that the object (beans) turns out to be the [–foc]-featured specifier of the Foc-head in (46A) conforms to (45a). Due to the fact that an F-marked word may license more than one XP as intonational focus constituents (itself as X0 /XP and one or more higher XPs) and that there may be other pitch accents which do not reflect an F-mark, it is obvious that (45) can only express a necessary, but not a sufficient relation between pitch accents on the one hand and being the [+foc]- or [–foc]-featured XP on the other hand: (47) a.
An XP’s being or containing a licensed i-focus is necessary, but not sufficient for being the [+foc]-featured XP. b. An XP’s not being or containing a licensed i-focus is necessary, but not sufficient for being the [–foc]-featured XP.
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
Accordingly, the fact that the subject they in (46Aa) is equally not licensed as an intonational focus constituent, but is obviously not the [–foc]-featured XP, does not pose a problem for the statements in (47a, b).
.. Where do the [±foc]-features come from? In the MP the features which are responsible for the projection of the functional case and ANTAV-layers and those which are checked in the spec-positions of the functional case and ANTAV-layers are inherent to word forms qua elements of a numeration of word forms from which the syntactic derivation of a sentence is conceived to be starting off. The elements of the numeration are drawn from the lexicon: We can, then, think of CHL as mapping some array A of lexical choices to the pair (π, λ).[76] What is A? At least, it must indicate what the lexical choices are and how many times each is selected by CHL in forming (π, λ). Let us take a numeration to be a set of pairs (LI, i), where LI is an item of the lexicon and i is its index, understood to be the number of times that LI is selected. Take A to be (at least) a numeration N; CHL maps N to (π, λ). (Chomsky 1995b: 225)
Lexical items enter the numeration from the lexicon supplied with all the features lexically intrinsic to them, i.e. phonological features, semantic features and certain syntactic features (such as, for example, the person feature [3 person] and the gender feature [–human] for the lexical item airplane; see Chomsky 1995b: 231ff.). Somewhere in between the processes of entering the numeration and leaving it for syntactic merger the items are supplied with lexically non-intrinsic (‘optional’) syntactic features (e.g. the features [objective] and [plural]; see Chomsky 1995b: 236). Thus, by the time the word forms are extracted from the numeration to be syntactically combined (merged) they are fully specified for their specific phonological, semantic and syntactic features. It is obvious that word forms are generally not lexically specified for being either [–foc] or [+foc]. Whether a word form becomes the head of an XP which moves to spec-Foc as topic or focus expression is clearly not encoded in the lexicon in principle. If specification for either [–foc] or [+foc] were lexical in principle, then we could have either (48a) or (48b), but not both, contrary to fact.77 (48) a. [Beans][–foc] I don’t like b. [Beans][+foc] I don’t like Of course, it is conceivable that the lexicon provides for word forms getting into the numeration supplied with both [–foc] and [+foc], with subsequent elimination of one of them, or both in the case of a thetic sentence. The point however is that lexical items do not enter the numeration specified for [–foc] or [+foc]. (Strictly
Chapter 2
speaking, we should employ different terms for items drawn from the lexicon into the numeration (‘lexical item’) and items qua output of the numeration (‘word form’), as done in the present and previous paragraphs. In the chapters to come this distinction will not be of importance, and I will continue to refer to items which are syntactically merged as lexical items.) Do lexical items become specified for [±foc] in the numeration then? This seems conceivable if, as far as the [±foc]-features of topic or identificational focus expression are concerned, we provide for a mechanism which projects a [±foc]feature on a word form to phrases. For it is phrases that are topic or identificational focus expressions, not word forms (see also p. 78f. below). One may even entertain the idea that a (certain type of) pitch accent on a word form is a direct formal reflex of the [+foc]-feature of an identificational focus expression and that some version of the intonational theory of focus projection (see Ch. 6) provides us with the required mechanism of [±foc]-projection from word forms to phrases. This, however, is not possible within the framework of the present theory based on the FocP-hypothesis. For, as we saw in the previous subsection, many thetic utterances are intonationally identical to their corresponding identificational utterances, but whereas the derivation of an identificational sentence involves [+foc]-features, that of the corresponding thetic sentence does not. Although I do not want to exclude the possibility of developing a theory similar to the one presented in the current work in which all [±foc]-features are assigned to items in the numeration, I prefer to pursue a different line here for those [±foc]-features which make a phrase a topic or identificational focus expression respectively (i.e. not for those which end up in the Foc-head position and are the checking partners of the former). In principle there are three steps to be taken in [±foc]-specification. First, it has to be determined if [±foc] is to be involved in the first place, i.e. whether a thetic sentence on the one hand or a categorical or identificational sentence on the other hand is to be syntactically derived. In the latter case a decision has to be made between [–foc] and [+foc] as second step, i.e. a decision between a categorical or an identificational sentence. Third, it has to be determined which phrase is topic or identificational focus expression, i.e. which constituent is to be specified for [–foc] or [+foc] respectively. I assume that these decisions are taken in the conceptual-intentional system of the speaker’s mind (see Chomsky 1995a: pass., 1995c: pass.).78 As concerns the [±foc]-feature which ends up in the Foc-head position, i.e. the one which is checked against the matching [±foc]-feature of the topic or identificational focus expression, I do assume that it is assigned to an item in the numeration, namely the finite root verb.79 As concerns the [±foc]-feature which makes a phrase a topic or identificational focus expression, it is straightforward to think of it as being assigned at some point of the derivation after the clausal base has been built up. Given that this [±foc]-feature is not assigned to an item in the numeration, this is a natural assumption to make. For only if all thematically
The syntactic framework and the FocP-hypothesis
relevant constituents have been syntactically integrated does it make sense to assign it. Otherwise it may happen that the conceptual-intentional system attempts to assign [±foc] to a constituent which does not yet exist as a structural part of the clause. On the other hand, it does not seem to be possible to say that [±foc]assignment has to take place immediately after the clausal base has been built up. For, as we will see during the discussion of vP/VP-fronting in Subsection 7.2.1, there is also VoiceP-fronting. Thus we may conclude that, in principle, the assignment of [±foc] to the topic or identificational focus phrase may be delayed at least as long as VoiceP has been projected.
Chapter 3
A review of previous work
The first section in this chapter surveys work related to such concepts and dichotomies as thetic and categorical, topic and comment, focus and background, theme and rheme, given and new information, contrastiveness, that is, notions which can be subsumed under the heading ‘information structure’, of which ‘focus structure’, the central concept in the present work, is an essential part (see Lambrecht 1994 and the next chapter). This section will not (and is not intended to) mention, let alone discuss, all the strands and stances involved in the research on information structure. Rather than presenting a comprehensive survey, it aims at giving the reader an idea of how my understanding – strongly influenced by Lambrecht’s (1994) – of concepts which are generally associated with the notion of focus structure relates, compares and contrasts to other approaches taken in the literature.80 The second section of this chapter surveys work on fronting (‘topicalisation’, preposing). As explained in Subsection 2.2.1, fronting is conceived of as overt XPmovement to the specifier position in a functional phrase, FocP, which is topmost in categorical and identificational root clauses. This movement operation is triggered by the need to check features associated with FocP. And it is this operation which syntactically manifests categorical and identificational focus structure in contradistinction to thetic focus structure. Traditional ‘visible’ fronting of a nonsubject XP in languages like English is conceived of in the present work as the ‘visible’ instances of a general overt movement operation to spec-Foc, which comprises the invisible movement to spec-Foc of the subject as well.81 This relation between focus structure, movement to spec-Foc and traditional ‘visible’ fronting (‘topicalisation’, preposing) calls for the survey in Section 3.2.
. On information structure Phenomena related to information structure were pointed out and investigated by 19th century scholars such as Weil (1844/1879), von der Gabelentz (1868, 1891/1984: 365ff.), Paul (1880/1970: 282ff.; see also 1919/1968: Ch. 2), Wegener (1885: 29ff.) and Marty (1897). Early 20th century linguists who concerned them-
Chapter 3
selves with these issues were Jespersen (1924: 145ff.), Ammann, who introduced the German terms Thema and Rhema (see Ammann 1928: 141), and Mathesius (e.g. 1929). The line of investigation of Mathesius’s work was taken up by his followers in the Prague school, notably Daneš (see e.g. 1964/1966, 1970, 1974; (Ed.) 1974), Firbas (see e.g. 1974, 1975, 1992) and, up to the present day, Sgall and Hajiˇcová and their co-workers (see e.g. Sgall, Hajiˇcová & Benešova 1973; Sgall, Hajiˇcová & Panevová 1986; Hajiˇcová, Partee & Sgall 1998a, 1998b).82 ‘Functional sentence perspective’ and ‘communicative dynamism’ are key concepts from the Praguean approach to information structure. Halliday 1967–1968 caused an increased interest in such phenomena among anglophone linguists and within English linguistics. Chomsky 1970/1971 was consciousness-raising with respect to these issues among generative linguists. From the early 1970s onwards a vast number of articles and books have been devoted partly or wholly to phenomena relating to focus structure, introducing a number of technical terms and dichotomies of technical terms (focus, topic, theme/rheme, given/new, foreground/background, contrastivity etc.) whose delimitations and proper domains of application it is often difficult to identify. I start the discussion by addressing again the traditional thetic/categorical distinction – which was brought back to the awareness of linguists by Kuroda (1972a, b) after Marty (1897) had imported it into grammatical theory from philosophy – and its relation to Lambrecht’s (1994) three types of focus structure. As pointed out before (Ch. 1 and Subsection 2.2.1), what Lambrecht calls an utterance with sentence focus structure can be identified with a thetic utterance; an utterance with what he calls predicate focus structure can be identified with a categorical utterance (recall p. 3, Table 1). Ladusaw (2000: 236) summarises the conceptual foundation of the distinction as follows: The basis for a thetic judgement is a presentation of an object: an entity or eventuality. An affirmation of such a presentation commits the judger to the existence of something which satisfies the presentation; a denial by contrast expresses a negative existence judgement. The basis for a categorical judgement is compound: first a presentation which is clarified into a particular object satisfying the description, and then a property to be affirmed or denied of the object.
Sasse (1987: 558) highlights the relation of the thetic/categorical distinction to discourse: The thetic statement forms a unit with respect to what it contributes to the discourse at a given point. It expresses a pragmatically unanalyzed state of affairs and presents it as a piece of complex information. [...] Thetic statements are thus uttered at those points of the discourse when compact information is required. This is not the case with the categorical statement. It presents a state
A review of previous work
of affairs as something analyzed, dissected into different information units. It selects one of the participants of the state of affairs in order to present it as a predication base and arranges the rest in such a way that it forms the predication about the selected predication base. We thus utter categorical statements at those points of the discourse when information is built up in successive bits.
But the distinction has been considered relevant on both the sentence (utterance) level and the discourse level, as can be inferred for example from Ladusaw’s (2000: 241) remark about “the Kurodian assumption that the thetic/categorical distinction should be imported directly into the semantics, rather than considered only an aspect of discourse information packaging”.83 The influence of the thetic/categorical distinction on the postulation of two of his focus structure types is acknowledged by Lambrecht (see 1994: 137ff.). The parallelism between the two distinctions also with respect to the view that they are to do with mental states of the interlocutors, including assumptions by the communicator about the mental state of the addressee, which is an essential ingredient of Lambrecht’s theory of information structure, is revealed by the following quotation from Sasse (1987: 528f.). [T]he choice between a thetic and a categorical statement can often be explained in terms of the expectation of information on the hearer’s part or, more exactly, on the speaker’s assumptions about what kind of information his addressee expects, in particular whether or not he expects information about an entity, no matter if this entity is known, previously mentioned, situationally present etc.
This passage provides me with the opportunity to make an important terminological point which, going unnoticed, may be misleading. As is implied in the last part of this quote and made explicit elsewhere, Sasse (1987: 516f., pass.) criticises previous approaches to the thetic/categorical distinction in terms of the given/new contrast. This argument reappears in Lambrecht 1994 (see also below, Section 4.1). Now, Sasse’s term for an analysis in terms of given/new information is information structure, i.e. precisely the term that Lambrecht uses for his much more comprehensive conceptualisation of the relations between sentence form and mental states of interlocutors, which comprises besides focus structure and other dimensions that of ‘activeness’. And the latter notion in turn comes close to the given/new distinction. Thus it is necessary to keep Sasse’s and Lambrecht’s uses of the term information structure apart. An important difference between Lambrecht’s (1994) theory of focus structure and the thetic/categorical distinction, as represented by Sasse (1987), is this: The latter assumes that the type of utterance which the former calls argument focus and which I call identificational is a subtype of the categorical class. Referring to the example
Chapter 3
(49) Q: Who died? A: My father died Sasse (1987: 572) writes “sentences including constituent focus must necessarily be categorical because they represent underlying identity statements whose predication base is the nonfocalized part of the sentence”. If (49A) is categorical and died its predication base, then my father must be the predicate effecting the predication. In the sense of semantic predication alluded to in Chapter 1 and to be elaborated on again below (Section 4.1, Ch. 8) this is indeed true, but it sits uneasily with Sasse’s own definition, according to which a “predication is a statement about an entity, that is, a statement which does not merely assert some fact as such but presents some fact as a property ascribed to an entity” (Sasse 1987: 554).84 It is odd to say that died is an entity, about which the property my father is predicated. Talking in these terms seems possible only in those cases where we have what Lambrecht (1994) calls predicate focus structure and what I call categorical focus structure in a more restricted sense than Sasse’s use of the term categorical – more restricted in that precisely such cases as (49A) are excluded.85 With Lambrecht and in contrast to Sasse, I propose to consider examples like (49A) as essentially different from categorical utterances, reserving the term identificational for them. In contrast to categorical utterances, identificational utterances cannot be said to be predicating in the traditional sense as defined above by Sasse, since they do not have a topic expression about which something can be predicated.86 With respect to the notion of focus Molnár (2000) distinguishes two basic conceptions. In the first conception focus is an expression which is highlighted or foregrounded, which carries the “main burden of the message” or presents the new (centre of) information (see e.g. Halliday 1967–1968). In the second conception focus is an expression which establishes a relation or contrast to alternative expressions (see e.g. Jackendoff 1972; Jacobs 1988; Rooth 1985, 1992, 1996). Lambrecht’s (1994) and my own conception belong with the second group. Note that this conception is not at all incompatible with the observation that a focus expression often – though not necessarily – presents ‘new information’, that it carries the “main burden of the message” or presents the centre of information in some sense. With respect to ‘topic’ Molnár (2000) distinguishes three conceptions. In the first conception ‘topic’ is that which the sentence or utterance is about. Here ‘topic’ is the ‘notional subject’ of the predication expressed in the sentence or utterance. According to the second conception the ‘topic’ sets the frame of interpretation. Thus, according to Chafe (1976: 51), “‘real’ topics (in topic-prominent languages) are not so much ‘what the sentence is about’ as ‘the frame within which the sentence holds”’, or, more specifically, the “spatial, temporal, or individual framework within which the main predication holds” (Chafe 1976: 50). For Chafe, actually, this kind of frame topic, which is typical of Chinese, for instance, “does not coincide
A review of previous work
with anything available in English” (Chafe 1976: 50). In Jacobs 1984, however, a frame setting function is taken as definitional for the notion ‘topic’ in general: “The topic is an element (mostly sentence initial) which sets up a frame for the interpretation of the remainder of the sentence.” (My translation from Jacobs 1984: 46.) Free topics (hanging topics, “freies Topik”), as in (50a), and left dislocations, as in (50b), are seen as typical subtypes of topic conceived as frame topic. (50) a.
Was Peter betrifft, so wird er dieses Jahr wohl kaum verreisen (‘As far as Peter is concerned, he will hardly go on a journey this year’) (from Jacobs 1984: 46) b. Die Gerda, die mag ich wirklich sehr (‘Gerda, I really like her’) (ditto)
In Jacobs 2001 frame topics are distinguished from aboutness topics. With respect to the German examples in (51), (51) a. Körperlich geht es Peter gut (‘Physically Peter is fine’) b. Im Falle eines Sieges wird die Mannschaft eine Belobigung durch den Staatspräsidenten erhalten (‘In case of a victory the team will receive a commendation by the president’) Jacobs comments: However, [(51a)] is clearly not about ‘physical’. Rather, körperlich seems to restrict the application of the proposition expressed by the rest of the sentence to a certain domain. Similarly, to say that [(51b)] is about the case of a win would miss the fact that the initial constituent of this sentence restricts the application of the proposition to certain possible situations, namely those in which the team wins. (Jacobs 2001: 655f.)
I am inclined not to put too much emphasis on a distinction between a frame topic as exemplified by (51) and an aboutness topic. For the notion of restriction invoked by Jacobs here can be re-interpreted in terms of aboutness. We could say that the proposition expressed by geht es Peter gut in (51a) is about the physical domain rather than the mental or the financial one; and wird die Mannschaft eine Belobigung durch den Staatspräsidenten erhalten in (51b) is about the possible situation in which the team wins. This step of subsuming frame topic as exemplified by (51) under aboutness topic is supported by Jacobs’s assessment (based on work by Maienborn (e.g. 1996)) that, just like the latter, the former is always a semantic subject, i.e. a notional subject according to the first conception of topic mentioned above.87 [S]entence-initial frames are generally frames in virtue of specifying a domain variable coming from the semantic valency of another element, and therefore they are always semantic subjects. Thus, sentence-initial frame-setting may be
Chapter 3
a form of predication. (But, of course, not all semantic subjects are frames [. . .].) (Jacobs 2001: 658)
A ‘topic (expression)’ according to the third conception presents ‘given’ or ‘familiar’ or ‘identifiable’ information. Lambrecht’s (1994) and my own concept of topic is that of an aboutness topic. This concept does not exclude at all the idea that topic expressions often have referents which are assumed to be given or familiar from the discourse situation or verbal context.88 I assume that aboutness topic XPs have properties which are to be represented in syntax (as indicated in my FocPhypothesis, Subsection 2.2.1). By contrast, such notions as ‘new/given information’ are to be dealt with in a model of discourse and they are essentially and criterially independent of the notion ‘aboutness topic’. I turn now to the notion of contrastiveness. Since they are defined as being related to a set of alternatives, focus XPs – of the broader informational kind and thus also identificational ones – are inherently contrastive. As pointed out by Bolinger (1961: 87): “In a broad sense every semantic peak is contrastive.” By contrast, topic XPs are not inherently contrastive. But if associated with a specific intonational pattern, they can be contrastive, either implicitly (see (52a)) or explicitly (see (52b)). (52) a.
Q: What did the pop stars wear? A: The female pop stars wore caftans. L+H* H*+L (from Büring 1999: 149) b. If one is not a subject or an object, one must be a helper or an opponent. You I help. Professor Zapp I oppose.(from Lodge 1984/1985: 266)
There is an issue whether contrastiveness presupposes a limited (closed) set of alternatives or whether it may be unlimited (open). For Chafe contrastiveness presupposes a limited number of alternatives. The speaker is said to assume “that a limited number of candidates is available in the addressee’s mind [...]. Often the number is one, often it is larger, but when it is unlimited the sentence fails to be contrastive” (Chafe 1976: 34). Consequently, Chafe sees an essential difference between contrastive sentences and direct answers to wh-questions. For the utterance of a wh-question does not presuppose that its speaker has a limited set of expressions in mind which correspond to the open position created by the wh-XP in the question and thus count as potential answers. It needs to be mentioned that contrastive sentences typically appear on the surface to be indistinguishable from answers to so-called WH questions, in those cases where the latter are spelled out in complete sentences. Thus Rónald made the hamburgers need not be contrastive, but might be the answer to the question Who made the hámburgers? But the context and intent of a contrastive
A review of previous work
sentence is different, and the surface convergence with WH answers should not be interpreted as indicating an identity of function. (Chafe 1976: 36)
Seeing an essential difference between contrastive sentences and answers to whquestions as resulting from the issue of a limited or unlimited set of alternatives may be appropriate or not. Quite independently of this issue I would claim that an identificational sentence can be used both as an answer to a wh-question and as a contrastive sentence in Chafe’s (1976) sense. That is, the issue of a limited or unlimited set of alternatives is not criterial for identificational sentences. Let us now turn to another dichotomy related to focus structure. ‘Theme’ and ‘rheme’ in Halliday’s (1985/1994) sense are structural notions defined in functional terms – as is characteristic of his model of systemic functional grammar. The structural aspect of the organisation of a clause as a theme-rheme structure is that the theme comes first and the rheme second.89 In speaking or writing English we signal that an item has thematic structure by putting it first. [...] The Theme is the element which serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that with which the clause is concerned. The remainder of the message, the part in which the Theme is developed, is called in Prague school terminology the Rheme. As a message structure, therefore, a clause consists of a Theme accompanied by a Rheme; and the structure is expressed by the order – whatever is chosen as the Theme is put first. (Halliday 1985/1994: 37)
The functional aspect of theme and rheme is hinted at in this passage as well, by Halliday calling the former “that with which the clause is concerned” and by pointing out that the latter is “the part in which the Theme is developed”. The function of a theme is elaborated on in the following passage. Within [the Theme–Rheme] configuration, the Theme is the starting-point for the message; it is the ground from which the clause is taking off. So part of the meaning of any clause lies in which element is chosen as its Theme. There is a difference in meaning between a halfpenny is the smallest English coin, where a halfpenny is Theme (‘I’ll tell you about a halfpenny’), and the smallest English coin is a halfpenny, where the smallest English coin is Theme (‘I’ll tell you about the smallest English coin‘). The difference may be characterised as ‘thematic’; the two clauses differ in their choice of theme. By glossing them in this way, as ‘I’ll tell you about ... ’, we can feel that they are two different messages. (Halliday 1985/1994: 38)
This characterisation of a theme sounds similar to how other authors characterise an aboutness topic and how the discourse function of a topic XP in a categorical utterance may be described.
Chapter 3
This similarity breaks down with identificational sentences, though. In the example (53) You were to blame which is an identificational utterance with you as identificational focus XP, you is analysed as a theme presenting new information by Halliday (see 1985/1994: 301). Thus, a Hallidayan theme can also be an identificational focus XP. It may seem strange, though, that Halliday considers you to be an expression which presents new information. A closer look at his definition of the given/new dichotomy is necessary here. ‘Given/new information’ are defined by Halliday (1985/1994: 298) as information presented by the speaker as recoverable (Given) or not recoverable (New) to the listener. What is treated as recoverable may be so because it has been mentioned before; but that is not the only possibility. It may be something that is in the situation, like I and you; or in the air, so to speak; or something that is not around at all but that the speaker wants to present as Given for rhetorical purposes. The meaning is: this is not news. Likewise, what is treated as non-recoverable may be something that has not been mentioned; but it may be something unexpected, whether previously mentioned or not. The meaning is: attend to this; this is news. One form of ‘newness’ that is frequent in dialogue is contrastive emphasis such as that on you and I in the following: // you can / go if you / like // I’m not / going //90
Indeed, with such a broad definition of the given/new dichotomy it is conceivable to characterise the you in (53) above as “something unexpected” and thus as new. But notice that the notion of recoverability does not seem to fit this broad and rather diffuse understanding of the dichotomy and that it is not obvious how a sentence like (53) above with you as theme is compatible with the characterisation of theme as “that with which the clause is concerned” and as that which may be glossed as I’ll tell you about ... (see the block quotation from Halliday (1985/1994) before the last one). It is hardly possible to gloss (53) as I’ll tell you something about you: YOU are to blame. It seems to me that assigning a general, unique, functional characterisation to theme in the sense of “that element which comes in first position in the clause” (Halliday 1985/1994: 38) either turns out to be incompatible with one part of the relevant cases or has to suppress essential differences between different types of such elements, namely – if we disregard thetic focus structure – those that are characterised as topic XPs as opposed to identificational focus XPs in the present work. Consequently, the notions ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’ will play no role in the present work. In very general terms, ‘focus structure’ is usually conceived of as a functionally defined or discourse-based articulation of sentence structure which is superim-
A review of previous work
posed upon its syntactic structure proper. The complexity of the issues involved has led some authors to assume that there is more than one such level of articulation. Jacobs (1992) advocates a distinction between a focus-background articulation (Fokus-Hintergrund-Gliederung, FHG) and a topic-comment articulation (Topik-Kommentar-Gliederung, TKG). There is a large consensus today that these are actually two different phenomena. [. . .] FHG and TKG have neither the same functional characteristics nor the same manifestations in the linguistic form. Thus the background part of an FHG is bound to the respective context of an utterance in a completely different way than the topic within a TKG. For the former that type of contextual givenness is characteristic which is simulated by the well-known question test. In the context of the question [(54A)] the complex Mein Mann ist auf . . . eifersüchtig [‘My husband is jealous of . . .’] forms the background within the answer [(54B)]; meinen Hund [‘my dog’] is the focus. [(54)] A. B.
Auf wen ist dein Mann eifersüchtig? [‘Who’s your husband jealous of?’] Mein Mann ist auf meinen Húnd eifersüchtig. [‘My husband is jealous of my dog.’91 ]
By contrast, the topic of [(54B)] – the entity about which a statement is made – is only Mein Mann, not the whole complex Mein Mann ist auf ... eifersüchtig. Moreover, the type of context constraint effected by the preceding question is not decisive for the topicality of the subject of [(54B)]. (It can also be topic in the context of the question Was gibt’s Neues? [‘What’s new?’].) – Where the two types of articulation manifest themselves in the linguistic form, they usually do so in a different way. (My translation from Jacobs 1992: 7)92
There is one point made in this passage which, at first sight, seems incompatible with the conceptualisations based on Lambrecht (1994), namely the statement that Mein Mann can also be topic expression in an utterance of (54B) as a reply to the question Was gibt’s Neues? In Lambrecht’s framework and in that of the present work such a question is said to establish a typical context for an utterance with thetic focus structure, where there is no topic. The referent of the DP mein Mann can hardly be said “to be presently under discussion” and to “have a certain degree of activeness” in such a discourse, as required by Lambrecht (1994: 335). Of course it is conceivable that there have been previous conversational exchanges in which the referent of mein Mann has been activated. But it can be argued that by a question like Was gibt’s Neues? a new discourse is started, which means that an utterance intended as a reply to that question is characterised by the absence of what Lambrecht (1994) calls a pragmatic relevance presupposition (see below, Section 4.1) and thus by the absence of a topic. This is indirectly confirmed by Jacobs’s
Chapter 3
(1992: 12) own reference to the thetic utterance in (55A) below, which he considers to be characterised by the absence of both FHG and TKG. (55) Q: Warum weinst Du? (‘Why are you crying?’) A: Heino ist gestorben. (‘Heino has died.’) In view of this, the claim that (54B) as a reply to Was gibt’s Neues? contains mein Mann as topic (expression) can only be maintained if we assume that (54B) is not a thetic utterance in the context of Was gibt’s Neues? or that the absence of TKG does not imply the absence of a topic. The second of these assumptions is clearly absurd, so only the first one remains as a possibility. Indeed, pragmatically there is no necessary relationship between a question like Was gibt’s Neues? and a thetic reply.93 A speaker is free to use (54B) as a categorical utterance (which is intonationally indistinguishable from a thetic one). But if she does so, she behaves as if the context question had been Was gibt’s Neues über deinen Mann? (‘What’s new about your husband?’). But this poses no pragmatic problem at all. For a relevant answer to Was gibt’s Neues über deinen Mann? is a relevant (in the technical sense of Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995) answer to Was gibt’s Neues? by implication. This argumentation may seem sophistical given that (54B) is intonationally ambiguous between being thetic and categorical. But it can also be applied to cases where an utterance is unambiguously categorical and nevertheless used in a context in which its topic has a zero degree of activeness. Consider the following German example from Molnár (1993: 167): (56) a.
Q: Steht was Neues in der Zeitung? (‘Is there anything new in the newspaper?’) A: In Bayern werden jetzt auch studentische Hilfskräfte auf ihre politische Gesinnung hin überprüft. (‘In Bavaria student assistants are also checked with regard to their political views now.’)
(56aA) is a categorical utterance with the PP in Bayern as topic expression. In being a relevant (in the technical sense) utterance about the socio-political space called Bavaria, it is a pragmatically appropriate reply to the context question at the same time. The topicality of Bavaria is pragmatically accommodated by Q. I propose this analysis of (56aA) as an alternative to Molnár’s (1993: 167) in terms of TKG and FHG as given in (57). (57) [[In Bayern]F ]T [[werden jetzt auch studentische Hilfskräfte auf ihre politische Gesinnung hin überprüft]F ]K This discussion suggests that TKG is not a structural dimension of root clauses/ utterances, but rather a specific manifestation within such a dimension. The dimension corresponds to that which is called focus structure by Lambrecht (1994)
A review of previous work
and in the present work, and the manifestation is categorical focus structure. The characterisation of FHG as presented by Jacobs (1992), on the other hand, tends to correspond to the manifestations of the information-structural dimension which Lambrecht (1994) refers to as activeness of the mental representation of denotata or referents in the interlocutors’ minds. Recall Jacobs’s (1992: 7) notion of “contextual givenness [. . .] simulated by the well-known question test” from the context of his discussion of (54); note that givenness (“Vorgegebenheit”) is usually conceived to be the complementary term to newness and that the dichotomy given/new is what Lambrecht (1994) attempts to capture by the more cognitively orientated notion of activation. Molnár, on the other hand, detaches FHG from given/new, by reserving theme-rheme structure as a third level of structural articulation for it: Focusing is considered to be relatively independent of the newness – the theme-rheme status – of the referents in so far as its main function is to signal the sender’s intended relevance of the segment within the utterance. This correlates with either the “newness” of the segment itself, or only with its “new” relation to its environment. Thereby the relevance of “newness” as regards the pragmatically defined focus is not denied; but in assessing this factor the following has to be noted: (i) The focus, i.e. the relevant segment from the sender’s point of view, cannot be defined on the basis of the “newness” from the addressee’s point of view. (ii) The lawlike correlation of the focus with the newness factor is to be restricted to the relation of the respective segment with the remainder of the utterance; newness (i.e. “rhematicity”) of the entity is only a preferred, but not an obligatory correlate. (My translation from Molnár 1993: 172)
In Jacobs 2001 “topic-comment” (TC) is viewed not primarily as a dimension of structural articulation, but as a class of functionally characterised types of constructions such as ‘categorical sentence’, ‘left dislocation’, ‘free topic’, for instance. Jacobs asks whether “these sentences have a common semantic or pragmatic feature that justifies putting them into the same functional class, namely the class of TC constructions?” (Jacobs 2001: 642). His answer is no, there is no common functional feature (nor a common set of functional features) that justifies this classification. Rather, what is behind the intuition of linguists that all these constructions are instances of TC is the fact that they all sufficiently resemble prototypical examples of TC. With these prototypical cases they share some salient semantic attributes, but not necessarily the same semantic attributes and not necessarily all of the relevant attributes. (Jacobs 2001: 642)
This result leads Jacobs to the conclusion that “with respect to the grammatical analysis of linguistic constructions my answer to the question whether we still need the notion of topic is ‘no.’ However, I do not think that this notion is of no use at all
Chapter 3
in linguistic theory, provided that we interpret it as referring to a prototype.” (Jacobs 2001: 675.) In the present work sentences involving constructions such as left dislocation and free topics will not be investigated. And the same is true for constructions such as clefting and pseudo-clefting, extraposition and heavy (DP/NP) shift, which have been associated with the notion of focus. Of course, they all do figure prominently within a comprehensive picture representing the relation between syntax and information structure. However, as already pointed out in Chapter 1, the perspective taken in the present work is in some sense the reverse of that which focuses on such ‘special’ constructions or takes them as a starting point for the investigation. I try to demonstrate that and how one of the dimensions which are discussed under the comprehensive headword of information structure, namely that which has been called focus structure by Lambrecht (1994), is manifested in the syntax of sentences which are ‘normal’ in the sense that they do not show constructions such as left dislocation, free topic, clefting, pseudo-clefting, extraposition, heavy (DP/NP) shift and the like. Compared to Jacobs’s (2001) conclusions about the notion of topic, the position taken in the present work may seem conservative. Rather than conceiving of ‘topic’ as a notion structured by prototypicality effects, I think of it as a concept which could be expressed in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, namely as the referent or denotatum of the XP which has moved to spec-Foc in a categorical sentence. What a topic in this sense has syntactically, semantically and/or pragmatically in common and not in common with the referents or denotata of left dislocated expressions or those which have been characterised as ‘free topics’, are questions which may stimulate further work on the foundation laid here. The theory of focus structure presented in the current work is not a theory of focus in the sense of, most notably, structured meaning semantics (SMS) and alternative semantics (AS), despite many overlaps and similarities with respect to phenomena analysed and some theoretical concepts used in the analysis.94 SMS and AS deal with intonational focus constituents and focus sensitive constituents (e.g. focus sensitive particles and adverbials) with respect to the semantic-pragmatic effects they involve. More specifically, they aim at modelling the truth-functional and presuppositional/implicatorial effects of the presence, absence and interaction of focus sensitive constituents in otherwise identical sentences, of the variation of the position of focus sensitive particles and adverbials in a given sentence, and of the variation of intonational focus constituents in a given sentence. This predominantly semantic perspective and motivation contrasts with my rather syntax orientated and motivated approach, despite the discussion of some semantic implications and applications of my syntactic theory in Section 5.2 and Chapter 8. However, as far as I can see, both types of approaches do not exclude each other in principle; they rather complement one another. The syntactic structures that I suggest need to be semantically interpreted just like any other syntactic structure,
A review of previous work
and the semantic module that does this job may contain concepts, principles and techniques of interpretation along the lines proposed by SMS or AS. A few comparative remarks with respect to some concrete examples are in order. I restrict myself to AS. In Rooth 1992: 82 we find the following passage. My roommates Steve and Paul and I took a quiz in our self-paced calculus class, which was graded right away by the TA. Afterwards, George asked me how it went. My answer was: [(58)] Well, I [passed]F .
With this focus marking (perhaps together with a particular type of accent, which I will not be talking about[. . . ] ) the answer tends to suggest that I did no better than passing, that I did not, for instance, ace the exam. Suppose I had said instead: [(59)] Well, [I]F passed.
This would have suggested that my roommates did not pass. In contrast, [(58)] seems to suggest nothing about whether or not my roommates passed.
Essentially, the difference between (58) and (59) in terms of AS is that the former is related to the set of alternative propositions represented in (60a) while the latter is related to the set of alternative propositions represented in (60b) (see Rooth 1992: 82f.).95 (60) a.
{ace(m), pass(m)} pass(s), pass(m), pass(p), b. pass(s ⊕ p), pass(s ⊕ m), pass(m ⊕ p), pass(s ⊕ p ⊕ m)
I agree that the semantic-pragmatic difference between (58) and (59) is appropriately captured by alternative sets such as in (60). But I would insist that (58) and (59) are also syntactically different in that the former has categorical focus structure while the latter has identificational focus structure. (58) may also be thetic in the context of a question like How did the quiz go?, but then we would expect the set of alternatives to contain also propositions like, for example, fail(s), pass(s ⊕ p), fail(s ⊕ m ⊕ p), ace(m) etc. With respect to the syntax-semantics interface the discussion of the above passage quoted from Rooth 1992 allows the following conclusion: What is submitted to the semantics module in the cases of (58) and (59) in Rooth’s approach seems to be syntactic representations which differ minimally in that the former has an F-labelled passed while the latter has an F-labelled I. In my approach by comparison there is a syntactic difference in the representations of (58) and (59) in
Chapter 3
that the former has I [–foc] in spec-Foc (if categorical) and the latter I [+foc] in specFoc. And this syntactic difference has a semantic-pragmatic effect along the lines sketched by Rooth. The next pair of examples is from Rooth 1996: 272. (61) a.
Q: A: b. Q: A:
What is Ede doing? He’s [buying coffee]F What is Ede buying? He’s buying [coffee]F
According to him, (61aA) and (61bA) “have different syntactic representations – since the F feature is in different places” (Rooth 1996: 271). I would claim that there is no need to postulate different syntactic representations for (61aA) and (61bA). Both (61aA) and (61bA) have categorical focus structure with he being topic XP. The intonational F-mark on coffee licenses the constituents coffee, buying coffee and he’s buying coffee as intonational focus constituents and thus as potential informational focus expressions. The semantic module generates alternative sets for each of these three cases while the pragmatic module chooses as relevant the alternative subset associated with the informational focus expression buying coffee in the case of (61a) and that associated with the informational focus expression coffee in the case of (61b). There is no doubt, by contrast, that examples like those in (62) (from Rooth 1985: pass., Rooth 1992: pass., 1996: 272) have to be represented differently in the syntax, for they have distinct truth conditions. (62) a. John only introduced Bill to Sue. b. John only introduced Bill to Sue The syntactic representations have to encode that only relates to Bill in (62a) and to Sue (or to Sue) in (62b) so that different alternative sets are generated:96 (63) a. {x ∈ D : ((introduce(x))(to Sue))(John)} b. {x ∈ D : ((introduce(Bill))(to x))(John)} One may refer to the differences involved here as ‘focus structure’ phenomena. However, this usage reflects an understanding of this term which is not the same as the one relevant in the present work. The connection between these two conceptions of focus structure seems to be that focus particles like only, even, also etc. are semantically sensitive to the F-marking pitch accent, which also plays a role in determining focus structure in terms of categorical, identificational and thetic focus structure. And with respect to these there is equally no difference between (62a) or (62b). Both may have either categorical focus structure with John as topic XP or thetic focus structure.97
A review of previous work
There are examples discussed in the literature which seem to suggest that a mere variation of the position of the primary pitch accent within an informational focus expression may have a truth-conditional effect as well. Gundel (1999a: 301f.), for instance, referring to Partee 1991, claims that (64a) and (64b) are truth-conditionally different. (64) a.
The largest demonstrations took place in Prague in November (in) 1989 b. The largest demonstrations took place in Prague in November (in) 1989
Her explanation is this: “[(64a)] would be false if the city with the largest demonstrations of all in November 1989 had been Budapest. However [(64b)] would still be true in this situation as long as the largest demonstrations in Prague took place in November 1989.” A close reading of this quotation reveals a problem:98 As regards (64a), Gundel refers to “the largest demonstrations of all in November 1989” (emphasis added), not simply to the largest demonstrations of all as such. But the referent of the largest demonstrations (of all) may not be the same as that of the largest demonstrations (of all) in November 1989. Gundel’s interpretation refers to a sentence structure of (64a) in which the PP in November (in) 1989 originates within the subject DP (the largest demonstrations (of all) in November 1989) but has been extraposed. Similarly, as regards (64b), Gundel refers to the largest demonstrations in Prague, whose referent may be different from both the referents of the largest demonstrations (of all) and the largest demonstrations (of all) in November 1989. Gundel’s interpretation refers to a sentence structure of (64b) in which the PP in Prague originates within the subject DP (the largest demonstrations (of all) in Prague) but has been extraposed. But under these analyses (64a) predicates something of the referent of the largest demonstrations (of all) in November 1989, while (64b) predicates something different of the referent of the largest demonstrations (of all) in Prague. That is, we are confronted with completely different categorical sentences. On the other hand, given that the largest demonstrations is topic expression with the same referent in both (64a) and (64b) – the set of demonstrations per month in Eastern European capitals during 1989–90 whose added number of participants is largest, say – then (64a, b) actually do have the same truth conditions: Both (64a, b) are true if the largest demonstrations took place in Prague; they are both false if the largest demonstrations took place in Budapest, for instance. The variation in the placement of the pitch accent under this analysis is triggered by contextual differences. (64a) may be uttered as a contradiction to the claim that the largest demonstrations took place in Budapest, (64b) may be uttered as a contradiction to the claim that the largest demonstrations took place in October 1989, for instance. Information-structural differences like these are truth-conditionally
Chapter 3
neutral; they are triggered by intonational modifications within the informational focus expression and, I would maintain, do not cause examples like (64a, b) to be different categorical sentences. In sum, I would hypothesise that, all other things being equal, intonational modifications within an informational focus expression may trigger truth-conditional effects only if there are focus sensitive constituents involved.99 Apart from a few remarks in Section 5.2 I will not concern myself with the syntax and semantics of focus sensitive constituents in the present work. I may point out, however, that there is nothing in my approach to focus structure which is incompatible with the essential ideas developed in AS and SMS about what the semantic contribution of focus sensitive constituents is. The specific implementation of the respective semantic mechanisms, i.e. the way in which they are applied to the focus-structured LFs generated as a consequence of my syntactic approach in general and the FocP-hypothesis in particular, may have to differ in the details from what has been suggested so far, though. This I must leave to further investigation.
. On fronting (preposing, ‘topicalisation’) It has been quite a long tradition within generative grammar to think of preposing and/or ‘topicalisation’ – as fronting with the effect of topicalisation or focalisation has been infelicitously called most frequently – as optional movement to some position at the root node of sentences (see e.g. Ross 1967/1986; Jackendoff 1972; Chomsky 1973: 270, N. 50, 1977; Bowers 1976; Emonds 1976).100 It has been observed that fronting is a syntactic phenomenon which behaves like whmovement in interrogative and relative clauses. It is a movement operation which is upwardly unbounded in the sense that in principle it may target a position in a clause arbitrarily higher up than the clause from which the movement started: (65) a.
Beans I don’t think that you’ll be able to convince me Harry has ever tasted t in his life (from Ross 1967/1986: 182) b. Q: Do you think you’d be more nervous in a job talk or a job interview? A: A job talk I think you’d have somewhat more control over t. (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 101)
However, fronting is nevertheless restricted by some of Ross’s constraints,101 notably those which were reduced to the subjacency condition, i.e. to the requirement that movement cannot cross more than one bounding node (see e.g. Chomsky 1973, 1977, 1981), ‘bounding node’ being a notion which, after the refinement of bounding theory in Chomsky 1986, became replaced by ‘barrier’. The following
A review of previous work
list (compiled from Fanselow & Felix 1987/1993: 156 and Culicover 1997: 203) illustrates the parallelism between fronting and wh-movement in interrogative and relative clauses with respect to violations of various of Ross’s constraints now subsumed under subjacency. The list is supplemented by two pairs of examples which show that fronting is also parallel to wh-movement with respect to the subject condition (see Chomsky 1973) (which was later subsumed under the subjacency condition too) and to the that-trace effect (see Chomsky & Lasnik 1977), a phenomenon which later became accounted for in terms of the empty category principle (ECP). (66) a. *A big car John bought a red bicycle and t (fronting; coordinate structure constraint) a . *What did John buy a red bicycle and t? (interrogative wh-movement; ditto) b. *Bill I believe the report that John met t (fronting; complex NP constraint) b . *Who do you believe the report that John met t? (interrogative whmovement; ditto) c. *This guy I know a plan which pleases t (fronting; ditto) c . *Who do you know a plan which pleased t? (interrogative whmovement; ditto) d. *Such a car I wonder who will (ever) buy t (fronting; wh-island constraint) d . *What do you wonder who bought t? (interrogative wh-movement; ditto) e. *John I never liked the people who believed t (fronting; complex NP constraint) e . *John is the person who I never liked the people who believed t (relative wh-movement ditto) f. *John I was wondering who liked t (fronting; wh-island constraint) f . *John is the person who I was wondering who liked t (relative whmovement; ditto) g. *John that Susan saw t surprised me (fronting; sentential subject constraint) g . *John is the person who that Susan saw t surprised me (relative whmovement; ditto) h. *John an expensive picture of t would surprise me (fronting; subject condition) h . *John is the person who an expensive picture of t would surprise me (relative wh-movement; ditto)
Chapter 3
i. John I believe (*that) t just left (fronting; that-trace effect) i . John is the person who I believe (*that) t just left (relative whmovement; ditto) These characteristics of fronting make it very probable that it is a core grammatical operation just like wh-XP movement. Precisely how the position to which fronted constituents move is to be characterised has been a matter of debate (see e.g. Baltin 1982). Two basic facts, the ones mentioned in (67) and (69), have to be taken into account in any approach to fronting. (67) Fronting in root interrogatives is not possible:102 (68) a. *To whom the books did John give away? / *Whom the books did John give away to? (example and judgement from Chomsky 1977: 92) b. *Can this kind of behaviour we tolerate? (ditto from Radford 1997: 312) c. *Does John Mary like? (ditto from Rochemont 1989: 148) d. *Has to Bill Mary said anything? (ditto) e. *Will Bill I give a book to? (example and judgement from Delahunty 1983: 387) f. *Must the book I give to Cynthia? (ditto) g. *To whom a book will you give for Christmas? (example and judgement from Delahunty 1983: 385) h. *On which shelf the pots will you put? (ditto) i. *For whom a fur coat will you buy? (ditto) j. *The book to whom did you give? (example and judgement from Baltin 1982: 17) k. *What did, to Lee, Robin give? (ditto from Culicover 1991: 5) l. *Which dishes are, on the table, you going to put? (ditto) m. *Robin {who will talk to / what wants to do / why will leave early / how fixed the car}? (example and judgement from Culicover 1991: 32) n. *Robin {will who talk to / does what want to do / will why leave early / did how fix the car}? (ditto) o. *{Which book / What} to Robin did Lee give? (example and judgement from Culicover 1991: 35) p. *{Which books / What} on the table did Lee put? (ditto from Culicover 1991: 36) q. *{In which town / Where} last year were you living? (ditto) r. *{In which town / Where} were last year you living? s. *{Which car / What} in those days did you drive? (ditto) t. *{Which car / What} did in those days you drive?
A review of previous work
u. *How that book by Chomsky are we going to understand? (example and judgement from Kuwabara 1990: 150) v. *On that subject, who should I consult with? (ditto from Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 226)103 w. *Who on that subject should I consult with? (ditto) One possible interpretation of these data (the one I am going to argue for) is that the ungrammaticality is due to the fact that both an interrogative wh-XP or an (abstract) yes/no question operator and a fronted XP target the same position (spec-Foc in my theory), but cannot both be accommodated there. (69) A fronted XP follows the complementiser that: (70) a. b. c.
d.
e.
You know that this kind of behaviour we cannot tolerate (from Radford 1997: 312) She found that certain kinds of things she just couldn’t recognize (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 102) We decided that money we don’t have too much control over, but we will argue to not have to have those stupid pedagogical seminars twice a month (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 104) Q: Don’t you want any cheese [in your omelet]? A: I have a feeling that the types of cheese they put in them I’m not gonna like. (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 104) *Carol told us this book that we had better read (example and judgement from Kuwabara 1990: 158)
These data suggest that the projection headed by that is different from the one into whose spec-position a fronted XP moves and that the former projection dominates the latter. Radford (1997) gives an overview of three theories that have been suggested in connection with fronting:104 “One possibility is that the topicalized expression moves into the specifier position of a CP whose head C contains a null Top (= topic) particle as represented below” (Radford 1997: 312):
Chapter 3
(71) (from Radford 1997: 312)105 CP DP This kind of behaviour
C C Top
TP D
T
we T
VP
cannot V tolerate
DP t
With respect to the fact that both interrogative wh-XPs and fronted XPs target the same landing site in the domain of the complementiser, this analysis can be said to be a more recent version of the ‘topicalisation as COMP-substitution’ analysis proposed by Higgins (1973) and Emonds (1976). It implies that if we have fronting in an embedded clause with a complementiser (that) present, the fronted constituent will appear to the left of the complementiser. This, however, is incompatible with cases like those in (70), where we have the fronted constituent of the embedded clauses to the right of the complementiser.106 This problem does not occur on the present approach. As we will see in Section 7.3, in an embedded clause which shows fronting and which is introduced by the complementiser that, we have a CP dominating FocP. The fronted XP moves to spec-Foc where it is still to the right of that in C. A second suggestion, made for example in Chomsky 1977: 90ff. with respect to its essential idea but with a different terminology, assumes a functional phrase TopP immediately dominating TP/IP (S in Chomsky 1977) and potentially (i.e. in interrogative and embedded clauses) immediately dominated by CP:
A review of previous work
(72) (from Radford 1997: 313; the intermediate projection of Top should of course read Top instead of TopP .) TopP TopP
DP This kind of behaviour
TP
Top ø
D
T
we T
VP
cannot V tolerate
DP t
This suggestion remedies the problem pointed out in connection with the first proposal. But it has to provide for an explanation of the ungrammaticality of fronting in root interrogative clauses as in (68) above. The usual assumption is that in the derivation of interrogatives the auxiliary moves to the C-head of the highest projection CP while a yes/no question operator is located in spec-C in yes/no interrogatives and a wh-XP moves to spec-C in (non-subject) wh-interrogatives (see e.g. Radford 1997: Ch. 6, 7).107 If the projections which accommodate auxiliaries in interrogatives on the one hand and fronted phrases on the other hand are different, that is, if there is potentially a CP above a distinct TopP, why then is it not possible to front an XP by moving it to spec-Top, to move an auxiliary to C, and to generate a yes/no question operator in spec-C or to move a wh-XP to spec-C in the formation of interrogatives? There may be a subjacency violation at issue here – not, indeed, in terms of Chomsky’s (1986) barrier theory, according to which only one barrier would be crossed, namely TopP, which dominates IP and becomes thus a barrier by inheritance. But in Lasnik & Saito’s (1992) barrier theory, both IP and TopP would constitute barriers so that movement to spec-C crossing both IP and TopP would violate subjacency.108 Haegeman & Guéron, who themselves propose that wh-XPs in root interrogatives do not move to spec-C but to spec-Foc of a FocP which dominates a distinct TopP (see Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 351, 526f.; see also below in this subsection), implicitly provide another potential explanation for the ungrammaticality of such cases. With respect to the interaction between subject-auxiliary inversion and fronting in embedded clauses such as in
Chapter 3
(73) *I promise that on no account will during the holidays I write a paper they argue that “the auxiliary will would have to move across the head Top. Since Top already contains a topic feature [top] and so cannot host the auxiliary, will in fact would have to skip Top. It is this movement which violates the HeadMovement Constraint.” If this is a valid explanation, then it will be difficult to decide on empirical grounds whether there is only one or whether there are two different functional phrases involved in the derivation of interrogatives on the one hand and fronting on the other hand. For then the fact that interrogative formation and fronting are complementarily distributed in root clauses may be explained by the observation that wh-XP movement or yes/no question operator generation target the same position as XP-fronting in the first case, or by the head movement constraint in the second case. In sum, then, an analysis along the lines of (72) with a potential root CP above TopP remains an option. I suggest, however, that there is no CP in root clauses (see also Ch. 7). That is, the role played by CP in root clauses according to the traditional approach is performed by FocP. There is no need for a CP in root clauses and thus, for reasons of theoretical parsimony, it should not be postulated. A CP-recursion structure of the form in (74) below is characterised by Rochemont (1989: 146) as a variant of the analysis suggested in Chomsky 1977. (74) [CP TOPICi [CP Opi [C’ . . . t i . . .]]] In such a structure, “[t]he operator binds a variable in the argument position and is presumably also bound to the topic.” (Rochemont 1989: 146.) However, as pointed out by Rochemont (1986: 148), this analysis predicts “either that a topic and an overt complementizer cannot co-occur (in virtue of a Doubly Filled COMP Filter of sorts) or that an overt-complementizer must follow, not precede, the topicalized phrase.” Both of these predictions are not borne out, as we have seen in (70) (but recall also N. 106). According to the third suggestion mentioned by Radford (1997: 313), of which an early supporter is Baltin (1982), fronted constituents are supposed to be leftadjoined to TP/IP:109
A review of previous work
(75) (from Radford 1997: 313)110 TP DP This kind of behaviour
TP D
T
we T
VP
cannot V tolerate
DP t
But this suggestion is problematic too. First, in contrast to the proposal illustrated by (72), where we did find a possible explanation for the ungrammaticality of fronting in interrogatives, there is no such explanation available in the adjunction analysis. Consider once again some of the examples in (68), here repeated as (76). (76) a. *Can this kind of behaviour we tolerate? b. *Does John Mary like? c. *Has to Bill Mary said anything This time, in contrast to the suggestion in (72), there is no reason why the auxiliary should not be able to move to the head C of a CP dominating the higher segment of TP/IP. There is no head which intervenes and which would have to be skipped. Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 337f.) make a similar point with respect to the ungrammaticality of sentences where fronting interacts with negative inversion in embedded clauses, such as in (73), here repeated as (77). (77) *I promise that on no account will during the holidays I write a paper They argue that “[i]f topicalization is analysed in terms of adjunction to a maximal projection, it is hard to see how to exclude the ungrammatical example [(77)]” (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 338). Moreover, it remains mysterious what could motivate the movement of the fronted constituent in the first place if there is no corresponding feature available (and thus no corresponding spec-position in a functional phrase) which drives movement via the checking requirement. Of course, this second argument holds only if the checking domain of a head such as T in (75) above does not extend to the XP adjoined to its maximal projection, i.e. TP in (75). That this is indeed the case is a conclusion reached by Chomsky (1995a: 423ff., 1995b: 319, 325f.), after he had held a different assumption in
Chapter 3
Chomsky 1993/1995: 177f. Under the later, more restricted view of the checking domain, movement of a maximal phrase to a position adjoined to another maximal phrase is ruled out in general as a core grammatical operation, since such a movement could not be driven by the need to check a feature. That fronting could be a ‘stylistic’ operation is hardly conceivable in view of the fact that it shows the same core grammatical characteristics as does the clearly non-stylistic wh-movement, as we have seen above.111 However, the analysis of fronting along the lines indicated by (75) could be modified so as to think of the fronted XP not as having moved to a position adjoined to IP/TP, but as having moved and created another spec-position in addition to the spec-position occupied by the subject. Multiple specifiers in the sense of structures such as (78) are allowed for in the MP (see Chomsky 1995a: 432). (78)
XP spec2
X' spec1
X' X
comp
In this conception both the AgrS -features and the features responsible for fronting are part of the head corresponding to T in (75), which check against the matching features of two specifier phrases. However, if for the derivation of interrogative clauses we allow for a CP dominating such a multiple-specifier phrase, we are again confronted with the problem that the ungrammaticality of sentences like (76) remains unexplained. As a solution to this problem, it might be suggested that there is no CP and that the respective features of a wh-XP or a yes/no question operator are also checked in a specifier position of such a multi-purpose head. The case that both wh-XP or yes/no question operator and fronted XP appear as specifiers alongside the subject might be ruled out by some co-occurrence restriction. While I think that a multiple-specifier analysis along these lines may be possible in principle, I have nevertheless objections against it. These objections are due to observations from other languages than English in which the head that contains the features responsible for fronting is morpho-phonologically manifest. Thus, Rochemont (1998: 351f.) refers to work by Biloa (1995) on the Bantu language Tuki: In Tuki, a focused phrase may appear in sentence (not necessarily clause) initial position, followed by an agreeing head that marks it as a focus, as illustrated below (Biloa 1995: 51). (Biloa glosses these as clefts to bring out the focus reading, though Tuki has an independent cleft construction.)
A review of previous work
[(79)] a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Abongo a-ma-kos-en-a agee waa yendze idzo Abongo SM-p2-buy-appl-FV wife his house yesterday ‘Abongo bought his wife a house yesterday.’ Abongo odzu amakosena agee waa yendze idzo Abongo FOC . . . buy . . . wife his house yesterday ‘It is Abongo who bought his wife a house yesterday.’ yendze aye Abongo amakosena agee waa idzo house FOC Abongo . . . buy . . . wife his yesterday ‘It is a house that Abongo bought his wife yesterday.’ agee waa odzu Abongo amakosena yendze idzo wife his FOC Abongo . . . buy . . . house yesterday ‘It is his wife that Abongo bought a house yesterday.’ owu Abongo amakosena agee waa yendze idzo wife his house yesterday FOC Abongo . . . buy . . . ‘It is yesterday that Abongo bought his wife a house.’
In Biloa’s analysis, the underscored element glossed FOC is a functional head whose specifier is occupied by the agreeing phrase. Tuki, under Biloa’s analysis, provides a focus counterpart to Japanese wa Topicalization.112
Unless it is the subject (Abongo) that is analysed as being in the spec-position of the FOC-head (example (79b)), the FOC-head always precedes the subject (examples (79c–e)). Moreover, FOC-head and inflected verb are separated by the subject in the latter cases. This is incompatible with the multiple-specifier analysis of fronting considered above, where both the fronted XP and the subject necessarily precede the head that contains the relevant features. While this is no argument against multiple specifiers in the sense of (78) as such, it is an argument against the claim that Foc (or Top, for that matter) and AgrS form a single head with multiple specifiers. Rather it suggests that Foc and AgrS are distinct heads. Zubizarreta (1998) as well suggests an analysis in which topic/focus features are contained within the head which is also responsible for the checking of features relating to the subject, but not simultaneously. Her analysis is geared especially to Spanish: I argue that the specifier of the functional category that contains the tensed verb in [Modern Spanish] can contain phrases other than the subject, and that such phrases may be either focused, emphatic, or topic phrases. I suggest that this functional category is the T(ense)P. [...] I will refer to [this analysis] as the generalized TP analysis. Within a view of syntactic structure in which heads consist of features that need to be checked against other heads, languages with a generalized TP may be said to allow a certain amount of feature syncretism. More precisely, in these languages a discourse-based functional feature, such as “topic,” “focus,” or “emphasis,” may combine with the feature T(ense), giving rise to the syncretic categories T/“topic,” T/“focus,” T/“emphasis.” [...] A
Chapter 3
topic, focused or emphatic phrase may therefore be moved to [Spec, T] for feature-checking purposes [...]. This of course is possible only to the extent that the nominative subject can be licensed in these languages in some way other than via specifier-head agreement with T. (Zubizarreta 1998: 99f.)
This approach seems plausible with respect to Spanish, for in this language subjects and topic- or identificational focus-XPs do not simultaneously appear preverbally. Object fronting with the subject in spec-I (spec-T) is not possible according to Zubizarreta (1998: 103, 110):113 (80) a. *Las espinacas, Pedro trajo (y no las papas) the spinach Pedro bought (and not the potatoes) b. *Con María, Pedro habló (y no con Marta) with María Pedro spoke (and not with Marta) c. *Esta ciudad, los bárbaros destruyeron this city the barbarians destroyed d. *A su madre, María regaló un libro to her mother María gave a book Zubizarreta (1998) does not explain how her assumptions about clause structure may have to be parameterised in order to accommodate the basic facts of fronting in languages like English, where constructions like those in (80) are possible. Within the theory to be developed in the present work the Spanish data can be accommodated in the following way: Spanish subjects do not leave their base position in order to check their AgrS - and case features; these features are weak (of type γ, as I will say from Ch. 5 on). The checking of the subject’s AgrS - and case features is done covertly. The only XP which may ultimately be located in front of the verb is the [±foc]-featured XP. Structures like those in (80) are consequently ruled out. An articulated layer of functional projections comprising distinct topic and focus phrases into which fronted XPs move has been suggested by Rizzi (e.g. 1997) and taken over by Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 520ff.) among others. According to this analysis, the structure above AgrS P (IP) is as shown in (81) below (see Rizzi 1997: 297), in which the stars (*) to the right of the higher and lower TopPs are meant to indicate that TopPs can be iterated.
A review of previous work
(81)
ForceP spec
Force' Force
TopP*
spec
Top' FocP
Top spec
Foc' TopP*
Foc spec
TopP' Top
FinP spec
Fin' Fin
IP
ForceP, called CP by Haegeman & Guéron (1999), is where declarative, interrogative or exclamative force is assumed to be encoded; FinP encodes finiteness. While I am sympathetic to a finiteness phrase above AgrS P (see above, Section 2.1.2), I do not think that it is relevant for the purposes of this work, and I proceed without mentioning it. What I must address are the issues of the splitting up of TopP and FocP and the presence of ForceP/CP and its distinctness from TopP/FocP in root clauses, for it is here where my own proposal differs from Rizzi’s (1997) and Haegeman & Guéron’s (1999) theory. The latter issue has already been discussed above in this section. As pointed out there, the fact that fronting in interrogative root clauses is not possible may be explained by assuming that the position into which a fronted XP moves and that into which a wh-XP moves or where a yes/no question operator is located are identical. This is the assumption I make in the present work. However, it is not a necessary one, for the co-occurrence of fronting and interrogative formation may also be ruled out by the head movement constraint. The distinctness of TopP/FocP and ForceP/CP in root clauses cannot be excluded. On the other hand,
Chapter 3
there does not seem to exist a compelling motivation for their distinctness either so that theoretical parsimony favours the assumption of their non-distinctness. Rizzi (1997) derives the motivation for the articulated TopP*-FocP-TopP* structure mainly from Italian. I cannot discuss the strength of this motivation in the present work.114 What I want to do is to examine the arguments from English presented by Haegeman & Guéron (1999) in support of it. These authors use the following example to argue for the existence of more than one functional projection between embedded CP and IP (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 337ff.). (82) I promise that during the holidays on no account will I write a paper In their analysis during the holidays has moved to the specifier position of a TopP dominating a FocP (see also Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 347); the latter’s specposition is occupied by the negative constituent on no account. They point out that ¯ “[t]his is in itself surprising, as the topic is a maximal projection moving to an A¯ position across another maximal projection in an A-position. It is not clear why the negative constituent should not block the preposing of the topic in [(82)]” (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 341). Their suggestion for a solution to this problem is “that the topicalized constituent during the holidays and the negative constituent on no account are distinct constituent types, and that one type of constituent does not intervene for movement of the other type” (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 341). To back up their suggestion, the authors point out that negative XPs such as on no account in (82) license polarity items (such as anyone in I swear that on no account will I tell anyone about this), a characteristic not shown by “preposed topics” (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 341). They conclude that “[n]egative constituents are operators; topics are not operators”. (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 342.) It seems that Haegeman & Guéron are discussing a potential relativised minimality (see Rizzi 1990) problem here; their conclusion, though, is that there is actually no such problem for (82).115 This argument crucially rests on the precise definition of ‘operator’ (which is not provided in the book) and – given that negative XPs are operators and fronted topics are not – on the assumption that operators and fronted XPs do not interfere with each other with respect to movement or interpretation of traces left behind by movement. It is not in general true, however, that fronting of a negative constituent which triggers so-called negative inversion and fronting of another non-negative XP can happily co-occur in a clause. As pointed out by Haegeman & Guéron themselves earlier in their book (1999: 226), “[f]or most speakers, topicalization of VPconstituents is incompatible with inversion structures triggered by wh-movement or by negative proposing [sic; preposing is intended]”. They give the following examples and judgements involving negative inversion, where the constituent order in (83a), with the fronted non-negative phrase preceding the negative constituent, corresponds to the one in (82).
A review of previous work
(83) a. *On that subject under no circumstances will I consult with John b. *Under no circumstances on that subject will I consult with John This undermines Haegeman & Guéron’s account of (82). The questions for me to answer, then, are: Why is (82) grammatical and which position does the PP during the holidays occupy? My suspicion is that the PP in that sentence is a parenthetical, extra-clausal constituent, which does not occupy any position within the syntactic structure proper of the clause. This is supported by the following line of argument: Movement of the PP during the holidays in (82) from a position within the IP to spec-Foc across a TopP would violate subjacency in terms of Lasnik & Saito (1992), according to whose barrier definition (see Lasnik & Saito 1992: 87, 102) both IP and TopP are barriers. That is, if Lasnik & Saito are right, then during the holidays in (82) could not have moved, for the sentence does not seem to violate subjacency. Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 338) present the following sentence, including its judgement, in order to argue that “the preposed topical PP during the holidays does not block movement of the negative constituent on no account.”116 (84) %??I promise that on no account during the holidays will I write a paper This is a strange argument in view of the claim, explicitly stated a few pages later (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 347ff.), that a CP in English dominates a TopP and a FocP in that order and a negative constituent in inversion structures targets the specifier of FocP while the auxiliary moves to Foc. Where does on no account move to under this analysis so that it appears to the left of during the holidays in (84)? Note that the question after the landing site of on no account in (84) is not answered by the structure proposed for embedded clauses in a later chapter of the book (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 520), in which there is a (potentially iteratable) TopP above and below a FocP (as proposed in Rizzi 1997): (85) [CP [TopP* [FocP [TopP* [IP ]]]]] (the ‘*’ signifying potential iteration) This structure still gives us no possibility of accounting for the non-adjacency of the negative XP and the auxiliary, which is supposed to be in the Foc-head. The marginal acceptance of (84), then, does not support the structure in (85). It supports, rather, the assumption that during the holidays is not an integral part of the syntactic structure proper, but is parenthetical, as proposed for (82). The marginality of (84) may be due to a performance constraint on the placement of parentheticals which disfavours inserting them between overt specifiers and overt heads. In sum, for English the assumption that there are two distinct functional phrases TopP and FocP potentially dominating IP seems to be at least problematic and not well motivated. I propose alternatively that there is only one FocP dominating IP in categorical and identificational root clauses and that there is no CP. The role played by root CP in interrogative root clauses in the traditional approach
Chapter 3
is taken over by FocP in the approach presented here. The details of this theory will be elaborated in Chapter 7, which will also include an analysis of the roles of FocP and CP in embedded clauses.
Chapter 4
Information structure and focus structure
This chapter discusses Lambrecht’s (1994) theory of focus structure in more detail, thus providing more background for the remarks relating to it from the previous chapters. The first section is concerned with how focus structure is set within the wider framework of information structure, what relations and differences there are between Lambrecht’s conception of focus structure and that of other authors, and in which respects my own view differs from or modifies that of Lambrecht. A number of important concepts from the domain of information structure are thereby mentioned, explained and distinguished one from another. The second section discusses some important aspects of how the realisation of a specific type of focus structure in an utterance is conditioned by its context. The main purpose of the second section is to show how movement to spec-Foc of non-subjects is constrained in a different way from that of subjects in terms of discourse and processing factors, while there is no difference between them in terms of syntactic constraints.
. Focus structure as a component of information structure For Lambrecht (1994) focus structure is a part of information structure, which he defines as follows: information structure: That component of sentence grammar in which propositions as conceptual representations of states of affairs are paired with lexicogrammatical structures in accordance with the mental states of interlocutors who use and interpret these structures as units of information in given discourse contexts. (Lambrecht 1994: 5)
Information structure is conceived of by Lambrecht as belonging to sentence grammar. “It is not concerned with discourse, but with the organization of the sentence within discourse” (Lambrecht 1994: 7). In accordance with Lambrecht, I take ‘sentence’ – or rather ‘root clause’ – to be the linguistic form used for encoding a nonembedded proposition; my use of ‘utterance’ is to be understood as a short form for ‘utterance of a linguistically encoded non-embedded proposition in a communicative situation (authentic or constructed)’.117 Utterances are made by commu-
Chapter 4
nicators and communicated to addressees.118 Information structure represents, on the one hand, the communicator’s assumptions about certain aspects of the mental state of the addressee(s) and, on the other hand, certain aspects of the communicator’s aims with respect to how the addressee’s mental state is to be manipulated by the utterance. These assumptions and aims are reflected in two basic categories of Lambrechtian (1994) information structure: The first category comprises two aspects which relate to the communicator’s assumptions about the addressee’s ability to form a mental representation of referents and denotations of the discourse world (‘identifiability’) and to the communicator’s assumptions about the degree of activeness of such referents and denotations (i.e. the discourse entities) in the addressee’s consciousness at the time of utterance (‘activeness’).119 The second category refers to the relation between the discourse entities and the proposition of which they form a part. This relation can be either a topic relation or a focus relation. The topic relation is the relation of aboutness between a proposition and a discourse entity. A proposition is interpreted as being about an entity if it is understood as conveying relevant information with respect to this entity, i.e. as increasing the hearer’s knowledge of it. (Lambrecht 1994: 335)
Topic relation on the one hand and identifiability and activation of discourse entities on the other hand correlate in the following way: For an entity to be construed as having a topic relation to a proposition it must also be taken to be presently under discussion, i.e. it must not only be identifiable for the addressee but it must have a certain degree of activeness in the discourse. [...] Fully active referents are the cognitively preferred topics. (Lambrecht 1994: 335)
Yet, as Lambrecht points out more than once in the course of his book, topicality and identifiability/activeness are inherently different aspects of information structure – despite this correlation (see e.g. Lambrecht 1994: 160ff.; see also Polinsky 1999: 571). Especially important is it to realise that active referents need not be topical.120 This is obviously true, for instance, for the referents of the object pronouns in A’s utterances in the following discourse (modified from Reinhart 1981: 72; see also Gundel 1999b; Lambrecht 1994: 260): (86) Q: Who did Felix praise? A: a. He praised himself. b. He praised you.121 Likewise, “[f]ocus and inactiveness are independent information-structure parameters and their grammatical manifestation must be carefully distinguished”
Information structure and focus structure
(Lambrecht 1994: 261). This is because “[n]ot knowing which referent fits a given argument position in an open proposition is an entirely different mental state from not being familiar with the referent or from not thinking of it” (Lambrecht 1994: 261). “A constituent is a topic expression if the proposition expressed by the clause with which it is associated is pragmatically construed as being about the referent of this constituent” (Lambrecht 1994: 131). Thus, a ‘topic’ is the referent of a ‘topic expression’. The rather traditional characterisation of the notion of ‘topic’ basically in terms of aboutness (see also e.g. Gundel 1974/1988; Reinhart 1981) is criticised by Jacobs (1984) for being imprecise and incapable of providing a reliable criterion for the proper identification of topic expressions. Thus, if someone is asked to provide information on what was said about Petra in a conversation K, he may truthfully report that it was said about Petra in K that she had not voted for Franz-Josef, even if this was stated by uttering Den Franz-Jósef, den hat Petra nicht gewählt [‘Franz-Josef, him Petra did not vote for’], a sentence, that is, in which every linguist would identify Franz-Josef as topic expression, not Petra. (My translation from Jacobs 1984: 57, N. 60)122
While this criticism is justified in general terms – with an important reservation to be made shortly – it is not well supported by the example given. For in the communicative situation described by Jacobs the referent of Petra is the discourse topic rather than the sentence topic, while it is the latter notion that is relevant in the present context of discussion.123 It is very well possible for a sentence topic not to be the topic of the discourse in which it is uttered, and vice versa. However, Jacobs’s criticism seems to hold even if we concentrate on sentence topics. For example, the initial sentence in the following discourse fragment activates the referents of both John and Mary and confers to both of them the status of being “presently under discussion” (see above, last block quotation from Lambrecht). What reason then do we have, on the basis of the criterion of aboutness, to designate either of them as the sentence topic to the exclusion of the other? (87) Yesterday I met John and Mary. Mary is John’s girl-friend. The second sentence in (87) can be claimed to provide as much information about John as about Mary and to be about either of them to the same degree. Hence, Jacobs’s criticism is surely valid. Note, however, that in the present work, a topic expression is defined syntactically, i.e. as a [–foc]-featured XP having moved to spec-Foc, and that Lambrecht’s statements about what a topic (expression) is are not taken to encapsulate criteria for unambiguous identification but rather serve as a general characterisation. In other words, the aboutness relation is assumed to be a necessary feature of topic, but cannot be taken to be a sufficient criterion for the identification of topics.124
Chapter 4
In contrast to the topic relation the focus relation is characterised as follows by Lambrecht (1994: 336): The relation between a focus denotatum and a proposition is taken to be nonrecoverable and unpredictable at the time of an utterance. Hence, while a topic element is often unaccented or phonologically null, a focus element is always accented and overtly expressed. The focus of a proposition is that semantic element whose presence makes the proposition into an assertion, i.e. into a potential piece of information. Unlike a topic, a focus denotatum does not have to exist in the universe of discourse independently of its role in a given proposition, i.e. it does not have to be referential.125
This characterisation contains a definition of ‘focus’ (“semantic element whose presence makes the proposition into an assertion”) which is more fully expressed by the following formulation, in which the relation between ‘focus’, ‘assertion’ and ‘presupposition’ is highlighted (Lambrecht 1994: 213): “focus: The semantic component of a pragmatically structured proposition whereby the assertion differs from the presupposition.” Lambrecht’s ‘assertion’ and ‘presupposition’ are short forms for ‘pragmatic assertion’ and ‘pragmatic presupposition’, which are defined as follows (Lambrecht 1994: 52). pragmatic presupposition: The set of propositions lexicogrammatically evoked in a sentence which the speaker assumes the hearer already knows or is ready to take for granted at the time the utterance is uttered.126 pragmatic assertion: The proposition expressed by a sentence which the hearer is expected to know or take for granted as a result of hearing the sentence uttered.
Making an assertion means expressing a pragmatically structured proposition, “i.e. a proposition which reflects not only a state of affairs but also the speaker’s assumptions about the state of mind of the hearer at the time of utterance, by indicating what is assumed to be already given and what is assumed to be new” (Lambrecht 1994: 52f). From what has been said so far it is clear that Lambrecht’s notion of focus comprises both identificational and informational foci as discussed above (Section 3.1). This lack of a distinction which is made in the present work constitutes the most significant aspect in which Lambrecht’s and my own conception of focus structure differ. The “syntactic domain in a sentence which expresses the focus component of the pragmatically structured proposition” (Lambrecht 1994: 214) is called the focus domain. A focus domain is a phrasal category and may contain non-focal material. For example, in A’s utterance in
Information structure and focus structure
(88) Q: Which shirt did you buy? A: The green one. the DP the green one is the focus domain containing the non-focal element one. For Lambrecht this non-focal element is a “topic expression with an active referent” (Lambrecht 1994: 216). While I certainly agree that such a non-focal constituent has an active referent, I would not call it a topic expression. My syntactic implementation of Lambrecht’s theory entails that only [–foc]-featured XPs in spec-Foc can be topic expressions. I cannot detect a damaging effect to Lambrecht’s theory as a whole if we refrain from calling non-focal active expressions that are not [–foc]-featured XPs topic expressions. In any case, focus domains are not lexical items. This is so because information structure is not concerned with words and their meanings, nor with the relations between the meanings of words and those of phrases or sentences, but with the pragmatic construal of the relations between entities and states of affairs in given discourse situations. Entities and states of affairs are syntactically expressed in phrasal categories, not in lexical items. (Lambrecht 1994: 215)
(88A) can be used to clarify the distinction between Lambrecht’s (1994) idea’s of ‘focus’, ‘focus element’ and ‘focus domain’ that may have produced confusion above. The DP the green one is the focus domain in (88A), with a certain denotatum, the ‘focus denotatum’, as its semantic counterpart. Thus, ‘focus denotatum’ and ‘focus’ are virtually identical, so that instead of saying that ‘focus’ is “the semantic component of a pragmatically structured proposition whereby the assertion differs from the presupposition”, as quoted above (p. 78), we could also take this to be the definition of ‘focus denotatum’. Now, the focus domain the green one contains an element, green, which is the ‘focus element’. This follows from Lambrecht’s statement that “a focus element is always accented” (see above, p. 78). It would not make sense to say this about a focus domain. There are two differences between Lambrecht’s (1994) terminology as explained above and theories that have originated with Chomsky’s (1970/1971) and especially Jackendoff ’s (1972) observations on and analyses of focus. The first difference concerns the notion of focus domain. In order to explain it I have to recapitulate the basic line of thought according to the Chomsky-Jackendoff tradition: There is a F(ocus)-feature which is phonetically manifested in terms of stress or pitch accent on a lexical item in the sentence. The F-feature can be projected, according to certain principles, to constituents that dominate the lexical item which carries it. The constituents that are thus affected by projecting the F-feature are potential foci (or ‘focus constituents’) for the respective sentence: “A focus is [...] a constituent with the F-feature” (von Stechow 1991a: 806). ‘Focus domain’, then, is defined as “the highest node having the F-feature” (von Stechow 1991a: 806). In
Chapter 4
this conception the structure generated by the syntax is associated with a number of representations based on this structure which differ only with respect to which constituent within the focus domain carries the projected F-feature, i.e. which constituent is the actual focus constituent. Given an F-marked lexical item, the focus domain represents the range of potential focus constituents, one of which is realised in the use of the respective sentence in a concrete communicative situation. This notion of focus domain, then, refers to the hierarchy of potential focus constituents associated with a given syntactic structure and a given source of F-projection. ‘Focus structure’ in the Chomsky-Jackendoff tradition is simply a structural description supplemented with F-labels (see von Stechow 1991b: 39). This is the second difference to Lambrecht 1994, to whose notion of focus structure I will turn now. According to Lambrecht (1994), topic relation and focus relation manifest themselves in three types of focus structure: the former as predicate focus structure and the latter as either argument focus structure or sentence focus structure. The three focus structure types correspond to three basic communicative functions: that of predicating a property of a given topic (predicate-focus: topic-comment function); that of identifying an argument for a given proposition (argument-focus: identificational function); and that of introducing a new discourse referent or of reporting an event (sentence-focus: presentational or event-reporting function).[127] Sentences can express several of these functions at once [...]. (Lambrecht 1994: 336)
As already explained and motivated several times, I will use the terms categorical, identificational and thetic focus structure instead of Lambrecht’s predicate, argument and sentence focus structure respectively. The following utterances by A are examples of the three structures and of the fact that one sentence “can express several of these functions at once” (examples from Lambrecht 1994: 223): (89) a.
categorical focus structure Q: What happened to your car? A: My car/It broke down.128 b. identificational focus structure Q: I heard your motorcycle broke down? A: My car broke down. c. thetic focus structure Q: What happened? A: My car broke down.
As noted by Lambrecht in the preceding block quotation, thetic sentences can be of two types: “The difference between the presentational and the event-reporting type is that in presentational sentences proper the newly introduced element is an
Information structure and focus structure
entity (a discourse referent) while in event-reporting sentences it is an event” (Lambrecht 1994: 144). A’s utterance in (89c) above is event reporting, as is the utterance of The PHONE’s ringing! (from Lambrecht 1994: 143) in a situation where there has not been preceding talk about or a preceding question after things that are ringing. A typical example of the presentational type are expletive there-sentence like Once there was a wizard, (see Lambrecht 1994: 177), where the referent of the expression a wizard is introduced into the discourse.129 It is now in order to recall my FocP-hypothesis, in which I claim that each root clause syntactically manifests one of Lambrecht’s (1994) three types of focus structure in one of the ways displayed in (90). This is the central claim in the present work. (90)
categorical
identificational
thetic
FocP
FocP
IP
Foc' Foc [–foc] XPi [–foc]
Foc' IP
(...) ti (...)
Foc [+foc] XPi [+foc]
IP (...) ti (...)
A categorical sentence has a clause structure in which Foc contains [–foc]. In order for the derivation of the clause to converge, a correspondingly [–foc]-featured XP in the structure of IP has to move to spec-Foc to check its [–foc] against the corresponding [–foc] in the Foc-head. This [–foc]-featured XP is the topic expression in terms of Lambrecht (1994), that is, it refers to the topic. The rest of the root clause apart from the topic expression, the IP, is or contains an informational focus XP (not an identificational focus XP). In an identificational sentence a [+foc]-featured XP from the IP, the identificational focus expression, moves to spec-Foc to check its [+foc] against the corresponding [+foc] in the Foc-head. In a thetic sentence there is no FocP above IP. When Lambrecht (1994) talks about the focus as that element “whose presence makes the proposition into an assertion, i.e. into a potential piece of information” (see above, p. 78), we may conceive of the proposition alluded to here in three different ways depending on the type of focus structure. In the case of categorical focus structure we are confronted with an entailed open proposition whose variable is instantiated by the denotatum of an expression which is not identical to and not contained in the topic expression. In the case of identificational focus structure we are confronted with an entailed open proposition whose variable is instantiated
Chapter 4
by the identificational focus denotatum. In the case of thetic focus structure we are confronted with an entailed ‘radically’ open proposition which as a whole is a variable ranging over the class of all relevant propositions in a given communicative situation; this variable is instantiated by a thetic sentence. The specific entailed open proposition associated with a specific sentence is what Lambrecht conceives of as ‘(pragmatic) relevance presupposition’ (see Lambrecht 1994: 54, 150f., 226ff., pass.).130 This ‘relevance presupposition’ is identical to one of the “grammatically specified entailments” in terms of Wilson & Sperber (1979).131 The interesting aspect of Lambrecht’s notion of relevance presupposition is that it is not necessarily identical to the “first background entailment” in terms of Wilson & Sperber (1979), but may be a ‘later’ entailment. In order to explain which one exactly it is, I have to sketch certain aspects of Wilson & Sperber’s theory. According to Wilson & Sperber (1979), the sentence (91) You’ve eaten all my apples is said to entail the grammatically specified propositions in (92) (see Wilson & Sperber 1979: 311–314). (92) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j.
You’ve eaten all my apples You’ve eaten all someone’s apples You’ve eaten all of something You’ve eaten something You’ve done something You’ve done something to all my apples You’ve eaten some quantity of my apples You’ve eaten all of something of mine Someone’s eaten all my apples Something’s happened
This set results from substituting a variable for a “particular surface syntactic constituent” (Wilson & Sperber 1979: 312) of (91) whereby the variable is represented “for convenience by an indefinite phrase: someone, something, do something”; “all such truth preserving substitutions have been listed in [(92)]” (Wilson & Sperber 1979: 311).132 These entailments form a logically structured set in that each of them “either entails, or is entailed by, one or more members of the set” (Wilson & Sperber 1979: 311). The logical structure of this set is illustrated by (93) (from Wilson & Sperber 1979: 312).
Information structure and focus structure
(93)
You’ve eaten all my apples. (1) You’ve eaten all of something of mine.
You’ve eaten all of someone’s apples.
(1) You’ve eaten some quantity of my apples.
You’ve eaten all of something. (1)
You’ve done something to all my apples.
You’ve eaten something. (1)
Someone’s eaten all my apples.
You’ve done something. (1)
Something’s happened.
The first background entailment is defined by Wilson & Sperber (1979: 314) as “the entailment obtained from a sentence by variable substitution on its focus”, with ‘focus’ being what I refer to as intonational focus (constituent) (see above, Section 2.2.2 and below, Ch. 6). It is the first background entailment in the sense that potentially there are further background propositions entailed by it. Each downward path through the diagram in (93) along the arrows defines a scale of grammatically specified entailments. According to Wilson & Sperber, the path indicated by the label ‘(1)’ on the arrows specifies that scale whose entailments are obtained by substituting a variable for those constituents which are licensed as (intonational) foci by primary pitch-accented (‘stressed’ in terms of Wilson & Sperber) apples. If the DP (‘NP’ for Wilson & Sperber) all my apples is taken as the (intonational) focus actually associated with (91) from the range of possible (intonational) foci licensed by the intonation indicated in (91), then (92d) is the first background entailment. There are other propositions entailed by (92d), namely (92e, j). The “foreground” in this case is constituted by the entailments above the first background entailment within the scale, i.e. (92a, b, c). The Lambrechtian (1994) relevance presupposition of categorical, identificational and thetic sentences can be identified with precisely determinable entailments within the set of grammatically specified entailments as conceived of by Wilson & Sperber (1979). For thetic sentences it is that open proposition which is entailed by every other entailment in the set; I will call it the ultimate entail-
Chapter 4
ment.133 For categorical and identificational sentences it is one of the two open propositions in the set which entail only the ultimate entailment; I will call them the penultimate entailments.134 I present two more examples to show how the algorithm for the identification of the ultimate and the two penultimate entailments works. Each of (94a) below generates the set of grammatically specified entailments presented in (94b–i); their logical structure is represented in (95). (94) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.
My elder sister sang / My elder sister sang / My elder sister sang / My elder sister sang my elder sister sang my elder sister x (‘my elder sister did something’) my elder x sang (‘an elder sibling of mine sang’) my x sister sang (‘some sister of mine sang’) x elder sister sang (‘someone’s elder sister sang’) my x sang (‘some relative/acquaintance of mine sang’) x sang (‘someone sang’) x (‘something happened’)
(95)
my elder sister sang my elder sister x
my x sister sang
my elder x sang
x elder sister sang
my x sang x sang x
The ultimate entailment (94i), the ‘radically’ open proposition x (‘something happened’), is the Lambrechtian (1994) relevance presupposition associated with the thetic sentence My elder sister SANG. The penultimate entailment (94c), the open proposition my elder sister x (‘my elder sister did something’) is the relevance presupposition associated with the categorical sentence My elder sister SANG. The penultimate entailment (94h), the open proposition x sang (‘someone sang’), is the relevance presupposition associated with the identificational sentences My elder SISTER sang, My ELDER sister sang, and MY elder sister sang. Each of (96a) below generates the set of grammatically specified entailments presented in (96b–i); their logical structure is represented in (97). Note that ‘she did something’ is not among these grammatically specified entailments, since met
Information structure and focus structure
his elder sister is not a surface constituent (recall p. 82) in his elder sister she met which could be substituted for by x so as to get she x. (96) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j.
His elder sister she met / His elder sister she met / His elder sister she met / His elder sister she met / His elder sister she met his elder sister she met his elder sister she x (‘his elder sister was involved in something she did’) his elder sister x (‘his elder sister was involved in something’) his elder x she met (‘she met some elder sibling of his’) his x sister she met (‘she met some sister of his’) x elder sister she met (‘she met someone’s elder sister’) his x she met (‘she met some relative/acquaintance of his’) x she met (‘she met someone’) x (‘something happened’)
(97)
his elder sister she met
his elder sister she x
his elder x she met his x sister she met x elder sister she met
his elder sister x
his x she met x she met x
Obviously, the sentences of (96a) can only be categorical or identificational, for there has been visible fronting, i.e. non-subject movement to spec-Foc. The penultimate entailment (96d), the open proposition his elder sister x (‘his elder sister was involved in something’), is the relevance presupposition associated with the categorical sentences His elder sister she MET and His elder sister SHE met. The penultimate entailment (96i), the open proposition x she met (‘she met someone’), is the relevance presupposition associated with the identificational sentences His elder SISTER she met, His ELDER sister she met, and HIS elder sister she met. The first background entailment (or ‘background’ for short) is considered to be “a necessary condition for establishing relevance” by Wilson & Sperber (1979: 317). More specifically:
Chapter 4
The general point of the utterance will be seen as lying in the increment of information which has to be added to the background to obtain the proposition as a whole. The point will be structured by the order of entailments in the foreground. The increment of information needed to obtain a foreground proposition from the one immediately below it in the scale will be a distinct part of the point. In other words, each proposition in the foreground will have to be more relevant (that is, bring about more consequences when added to shared assumptions) than the one immediately below it. (Wilson & Sperber 1979: 316)
That is, for an utterance to be relevant the scale of grammatically specified entailments associated with it, i.e. the specific path associated with it from the top to the bottom along the direction of the arrows in representations such as (93), (95) and (97), has to contain the background. For example, the relevant path for the utterance His ELDER sister she met is the one given in (98), where the bold printed entailment is the background. (98) his elder sister she met → his x sister she met → his x she met → x she met → x While the background and thus the relevant path may differ for various categorical sentences that share the same set of grammatically specified entailments, they all have the penultimate and the ultimate entailment in common. And the same holds for identificational sentences: While the background (the first background entailment) and thus the relevant path may differ for various identificational sentences that share the same set of grammatically specified entailments, they all have the penultimate and the ultimate entailment in common. But categorical and identificational sentences never share the same penultimate entailment. That is, the ‘categorical entailment’, as I would like to call the penultimate entailment of categorical sentences, can be uniquely identified as that of the two penultimate entailments in the set of grammatically specified entailments which lies on the relevant path which comprises the background of the respective categorical sentence as well. Analogously, the ‘identificational entailment’ can be uniquely identified as that of the two penultimate entailments in the set of grammatically specified entailments which lies on the relevant path which comprises the background of the respective identificational sentence as well. (In simple cases like She SANG versus SHE sang the respective background and penultimate entailment are identical, she x and x she respectively, but it is still true that the path which comprises background and penultimate entailment distinguishes the categorical from the identificational entailment.) The ‘thetic entailment’ is of course identical to both the background and the ultimate entailment and is thus trivially part of the relevant path. Lambrecht’s (1994) choice of the term ‘relevance presupposition’ can thus be motivated by saying that
Information structure and focus structure
this presupposition is both a well-defined presupposition and a well-defined entailment – the categorical or identificational or thetic entailment – which lies on the path (or is a member of the scale) of grammatically specified entailments which establishes the relevance of a given utterance. Those components of information structure that determine the focus structure of the Q-utterances in (89) above can be represented in the formats exemplified in (99) and (101) below, which are inspired by Lambrecht (1994: 226ff.). The λnotation, which is not used by Lambrecht, expresses relevance presuppositions as open propositions, more specifically, as functions over syntactic predicates, or over syntactic arguments, or over root clauses.135 That is, a relevance presupposition is conceived of as a set of closed propositions (the values of the function) each of which determined by a value for the syntactic predicate, syntactic argument or root clause respectively (the variable values). (99) a.
categorical: relevance presupp.: assertion: b. identificational: relevance presupp.: assertion: c. thetic: relevance presupp.: assertion:
My car broke DOWN λx . (my car)(x) “x = broke down” My CAR broke down λx . (broke down)(x) “x = my car” My CAR broke down λx . x “x = my car broke down”
In (89) it is a syntactic subject which moves to spec-Foc in the categorical and identificational structures. The formats corresponding to (99a) and (99b) for the examples in (100aA) and (100bA), which show non-subject XPs in spec-Foc, are those in (101) below. (100) a.
(101) a.
Q: Do you want to keep this stuff? A: All that stuff you can throw away. (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 144)136 b. Q: Did you want tea? A: Coffee I ordered, I think. (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 114)
categorical: relevance presupp.: assertion: b. identificational: relevance presupp.: assertion:
All that stuff you can throw AWAY λx . λy . ((all that stuff)(x))(y) “x = can throw away”; “y = you” COFFEE I ordered λx . ((ordered)(x))(I) “x = coffee”
Chapter 4
Recall from Chapter 1 Cook Wilson’s (1926/1969) observation that under certain discourse conditions and in connection with certain intonational contours one orthographic sentence can be associated with two expressions which differ with respect to what is considered to be the semantic subject and what the semantic predicate (Glass is ELASTIC vs. GLASS is elastic). I claim that the specific discourse conditions which effect this difference are those which determine what is relevance presupposition and, concomitantly, assertion. This allows for a clear definition of the notions of semantic subject and semantic predicate, and for a clear distinction between semantic subject and syntactic subject: The syntactic subject is the XP whose case feature is checked in spec-S (recall Subsection 2.1.2). The semantic subject is constituted by those expressions which correspond to the constants in the λ-terms for the respective relevance presupposition: my car in (99a), broke down in (99b), all that stuff in (101a); in (101b), the semantic subject is composite, consisting of an inner one (ordered) and an outer one (I). The semantic predicate is constituted by those expressions which correspond to the instantiations of the variables in the λ-terms for the respective relevance presupposition (these instantiations being effected by the assertions): broke down in (99a), my car in (99b), coffee in (101b); in (101a), the semantic predicate is composite, consisting of an inner one (can throw away) and an outer one (you).137 The thetic sentence has neither semantic subject nor semantic predicate. Only in categorical sentences with their syntactic subjects in spec-Foc are syntactic and semantic subject identical and do semantic subject and predicate correspond to what has traditionally been conceived as such. I will come back to the semantic issues involved here in Chapter 8. There are cases in which more constituents than one seem to be topic expressions. Consider (102). (102) Q: What shall we cook for the children today? Steak with beans? A: a. They don’t like beans. b. Beans they don’t like. In Lambrecht’s (1994) theory, both they and beans are topic expressions in (102Aa) and (102Ab).138 Indeed, in terms of the pragmatic aspects of his characterisation of the notion of topic, both the referents of they and of beans can be described as such. Both can be said to instantiate “the relation of aboutness between a proposition and a discourse entity”, and both are “presently under discussion” (see above, p. 76). And this is reflected by the fact that both A’s utterance alternatives (a and b) are equally felicitous. Lambrecht (1994: 149f.) explicitly rejects Reinhart’s (1981: 56) claim that there can be only one sentence topic. Yet, Reinhart’s intuition is matched by the theory presented here so that intuition and theory, since they have come about independently, mutually support each other: There is only one sentence topic (expression) in the sense that there can only be one constituent which is [–foc]-featured and moves to spec-Foc. This is they in (102Aa) and beans
Information structure and focus structure
in (102Ab).139 It seems that a Lambrechtian (1994) ‘secondary topic expression’ (see N. 138) is nothing else but an expression with an active referent. The fact that, typically, topic referents are active or accessible (see above, p. 76) seems to be the reason for Zubizarreta (1998: 10) to say that the beans is the topic (rather: topic expression) in the following utterance in the given context: (103) (What about the beans? Who ate them?) Fred ate the beans By contrast, I maintain that the beans is simply an expression with an active referent in this discourse, while the utterance is identificational with the DP Fred as the [+foc]-featured XP having moved to spec-Foc. Despite having “essentially the same basic concepts as f-structure” (ErteschikShir 1997: 56), Lambrecht’s (1994) theory of focus structure differs in an important respect from Erteschik-Shir’s (1997, 1998, 1999). In the latter’s theory, where an fstructure is an “annotated structural description (SD) in which topic and focus constituents are marked” (1997: 3), utterances necessarily have topics. Differing in this respect also from Strawson (1964/1971) and Reinhart (1981), from whom she derives her understanding of what a topic is, Erteschik-Shir (1997: 9f.) argues that the assessment of an utterance with respect to its truth depends on the presence of a topic: “every sentence must have a topic since if topics are the pivots for assessment it is crucial that every sentence have one.” In Lambrecht’s framework, by contrast, there are no topics in either of A’s utterances in (89b) (My CAR broke down; identificational) or (89c) (My CAR broke down; thetic), for instance; yet, both utterances are obviously truth-evaluable. With respect to utterances that Lambrecht regards as being identificational he is closer to Strawson and Reinhart than Erteschik-Shir is – and rightly so, I believe. For Strawson (1964/1971: 96f.) makes it very clear that a sentence like the famous (104) The king of France is bald may be either truth-evaluable or not, depending on the context in which it is uttered. The latter case (not being truth-evaluable) obtains for example when the sentence is uttered as an answer to the questions What is the king of France like? or Is the king of France bald?, whereas the former case (being truth-evaluable) obtains when it is uttered as an answer to a question like What bald notables are there? There is a truth value gap for (104) in contexts such as What is the king of France like? or Is the king of France bald? precisely because here the king of France is a topic expression. A topic expression is necessarily referential (see further below in this section and Ch. 8 below), but a referent for the king of France does not exist. It follows that the king of France in (104) uttered in contexts where it does not give rise to a truth value gap is not a topic expression (since otherwise it would give rise to such a gap). In the context of the question What bald notables are there? it is, in terms of Strawson (1964/1971: 96), “an instance or example of an antecedently introduced
Chapter 4
class”, namely the class of bald notables. In other words, this question enquires about expressions with a denotation that makes the open proposition ‘x is bald’ (with x ranging over notables) true. As it happens, the king of France is no such expression, and so the utterance The king of France is bald given as an answer to the question What bald notables are there? “can, without too much squeamishness, be simply marked as wrong” (Strawson 1964/1971: 96).140 The open proposition ‘x is bald’ has precisely the form of a pragmatic relevance presupposition which is associated with identificational focus structure (λx . bald(x)). Hence, in contrast to Erteschik-Shir’s claim that a topic is necessary for truth-conditional assessment, I would argue that it is the association with the appropriate pragmatic relevance presupposition which is necessary for and enables truth-conditional assessment. Erteschik-Shir (1997: 26f.) considers the “‘here-and-now’ of the discourse situation” to be the topic of all ‘out-of-the blue-utterances’.141 Considering that only stage level predicates can have such topics, she calls them stage topics in order to retain “the connection between stage-level predicates and stage topics” (ErteschikShir 1997: 27). Out-of-the-blue utterances are to be classified as thetic in Lambrecht’s (1994) framework, and Erteschik-Shir (1997: 27) as well maintains that “[i]n this case the whole sentence is taken as a focused event predicated of a stage topic.” She certainly has a point in postulating a stage topic, but such a one is different from a topic expression within clauses as conceived of in the current work precisely in that it is not a linguistic expressions, i.e. not a syntactic constituent subject to syntactic operations. I would like to reinterpret Erteschik-Shir’s stage topic as the set of stage-setting presuppositions, i.e. all presuppositions evoked by an utterance except for the pragmatic relevance presupposition, the specific form of which distinguishes between the three focus structure types, as we have seen. Hence, in contrast to Erteschik-Shir (1997) and in accordance with Strawson (1964/1971), Reinhart (1981) and Lambrecht (1994), for instance, I would maintain that it is not the case that every utterance has a topic. Only those utterances have a topic which are categorical. Comparing Lambrecht’s (1994) and Erteschik-Shir’s (1997, 1998, 1999) theories of focus structure on a very general level, we may say that the former’s distinction of activeness and topicality as well as his recognition of identificational and thetic focus structures, i.e. those which do not have a topic, is traded for the postulation of stage topics and subordinate focus structures including potential subordinate topics and foci alongside an obligatory main topic by the latter. To illustrate the notion of subordinate focus structure: The question What is John and Mary’s relationship? makes both John and Mary potentially available as topic expressions. The reply (105) John loves Mary
Information structure and focus structure
is assigned the following f-structure by Erteschik-Shir (1997: 45), which characterises John as the main and Mary as a subordinate topic expression: (106) TOPi-sub [Johntop [loves Maryi ]foc ]foc-sub The fact that John and not Mary is characterised as main topic expression is explained by the operation of a topic constraint, which requires “that the subject be selected as the main topic [expression]” whenever it qualifies as a potential topic expression (Erteschik-Shir 1997: 47). By contrast, I would suggest that John is indeed the topic expression in (105), whereas there are no subordinate focus structures and no subordinate topic expression, and that Mary is consequently no subordinate topic expression but one with an active referent (see also my discussion of example (102)). Of course, Mary is a potential topic expression in the context of the question What is John and Mary’s relationship?, but this potentiality is not realised in (105), where John is [–foc]-featured and has moved to spec-Foc. The differences just indicated between Erteschik-Shir’s conception of focus structure and the one maintained in the present work lead to substantial differences in the analysis of specific cases and the account given of specific phenomena. When Lambrecht (1994: 336) writes “[u]nlike a topic, a focus denotatum does not have to exist in the universe of discourse independently of its role in a given proposition, i.e. it does not have to be referential” (contained in the block quotation on p. 78 above), he implies that topic expressions are necessarily referential. According to Gundel (1999b: 10): “If topic is what the sentence or proposition is about, a definition assumed by virtually all researchers, then referentiality would have to be a minimal semantic restriction on topics. There would have to be an individuated entity in order for truth value [sic] to be assessed in relation to that entity.”142 As pointed out by Erteschik-Shir (1997: 40f.), a referential expression is either generic or speaker specific (speaker referential). Consider the following utterances containing specific indefinite topic expressions: (107) a.
A guy I work with says he knows your sister (from Prince 1981b: 233) b. A boy in my class is really tall (from Lambrecht 1994: 167)
Indeed, such utterances are used by speakers who possess a mental representation of the referent of the topic expression but assume (rightly or wrongly) that the hearer does not. According to Lambrecht (1994: 80f.), “[o]ne way of describing the specific/non-specific distinction in pragmatic terms is to say that a ‘specific indefinite NP’ is one whose referent is identifiable to the speaker but not to the addressee, while a ‘non-specific indefinite NP’ is one whose referent neither the speaker nor the addressee can identify at the time of utterance.” Note that it is necessary to somehow indicate the specificity of an indefinite topic expression for the utterance to be acceptable. This is done by the postmodifying relative clause and
Chapter 4
PP in (107a) and (107b) respectively. An indefinite DP without such an indication of specificity, such as in A boy is tall, is not acceptable as a topic expression (see Lambrecht 1994: 165ff.; see also Gundel 1999b).143 So far my examples have been declarative sentences only. What can be said about the focus structure of interrogative sentences? With respect to whinterrogatives like (108) a. Who ate the cookie? b. Who’s that? Lambrecht (1994: 283) says that “the only constituent [...] which qualifies as the focus domain is the question word who. WH-questions are thus a particular type of argument-focus structure.” Correspondingly, Haegeman & Guéron (1999), who differentiate between a TopP and a FocP, “assume that in root questions wh-movement targets [Spec,FocP] and the head Foc hosts the interrogative feature.” (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 527.)144 The focality of an interrogative wh-XP is, although taken for granted by most researchers who have ventured an opinion on this issue (see also Culicover & Rochemont 1983: 140; É. Kiss 1995a: 23f., 1998a: 721f.; Erteschik-Shir 1997: pass.; Kidwai 1999: 220; Motapanyane 2001; Rochemont 1978/1985: 36, 1986: 19ff.; Zubizarreta 1998: 92), not an undisputed assumption. Hajiˇcova (1999), for instance, claims that it is the respective accented word in the following sentences, not the wh-expression, which manifests the focus:145 (109) a. Why did Clyde marry Bertha? b. Why did Clyde marry Bertha? c. Why did Clyde marry Bertha? Lambrecht’s (1994) position is that the accents in such examples are not focus related accents. For him, “[s]ince the presuppositional structure of WH-questions is marked constructionally, i.e. by the form and position of the question word, the accent does not need to mark the focus and can be used for its other main function, the coding of inactiveness of a denotatum” (Lambrecht 1994: 285). Hence, the accents in utterances like (108)–(109) are non-focus related “activation accents” (Lambrecht 1994: pass.), and an argument for the view represented by Hajiˇcova based on them does not go through.146 I will come back to this issue in Subsection 7.2.2. It seems that in many cases communicators have a choice between using a sentence in which the syntactic subject XP has moved to spec-Foc and one in which a syntactic non-subject XP has moved to spec-Foc. In (110a) and (110b), for instance, A could have felicitously selected either of the versions mentioned.
Information structure and focus structure
(110) a.
Q: Do you want to keep this stuff? A: i. You can throw away all that stuff. ii. All that stuff you can throw away. b. Q: Did you want tea? A: i. I ordered coffee. ii. Coffee I ordered.
This may appear to create a problem for my theory. For the DP all that stuff may be thought to be topic expression in (110aAi) just as it is in (110aAii), but has obviously not moved to spec-Foc. How then could its [–foc]-feature be checked? Analogously, the DP coffee may be thought to be identificational focus expression in (110bAi) just as it is in (110bAii), but has obviously not moved to spec-Foc. How, then, could its [+foc]-feature be checked? In other words and more generally: If we have a non-subject XP in spec-Foc, it seems always possible to have alternatively chosen a corresponding sentence in which the respective XP is left unfronted, i.e. not moved to spec-Foc. If it is not fronted, how is the requirement that a [±foc]featured XP moves to spec-Foc for checking purposes met? The solution to this problem lies in a revision of its assumptions: We are not compelled to assume that (110aAi) and (110bAi) are utterances in which all that stuff is a [–foc]-featured topic expression and coffee a [+foc]-featured identificational focus expression. It can be argued that (110aAi) is a categorical utterance with you as topic expression, while (110bAi) is not an identificational utterance like (110bAii), but a categorical utterance with I as topic expression.147 But there are other cases in which it may seem rather arbitrary or wilful to claim that an utterance which shows an unfronted non-subject XP containing the F-marked lexical item does not have identificational focus but categorical focus structure. What about question-answer pairs like (111)? (111) Q: What did you read? A: I read a novel. Actually, question-answer pairs such as these, where the question contains a wh-XP, are standardly provided in explications of the notion of focus (expression). Almost all authors concerned with focus structure assume that the expression corresponding to the wh-XP in an answer to a wh-question is necessarily a focus (expression). However, I would deny that the XP corresponding to the wh-XP in an answer to a wh-question is necessarily an identificational focus expression. Conceptually there is nothing which forces us to assume that a reply to a wh-question such as in (111) is an identificational utterance. Consider how Higginbotham (1996) conceives of the denotation of an interrogative as a space of possibilities and of a relevant response to a question as any utterance which narrows down this space:
Chapter 4
Suppose that with an interrogative we associate, not a single set of propositions, but rather a space of possibilities, having the property that its elements are mutually exclusive (so that no two elements of the space can both be true), and (in the normal case) jointly exhaustive (so that one element must be true). A person who asks a question wanting to know an answer to it wishes relief from ignorance as to which element of the space of possibilities set up by the question actually obtains. Such a person cannot but be satisfied if a response is forthcoming that narrows the space down to a single element; but the degree of information obtained may vary all the way from complete satisfaction through partial relief from ignorance (when the space is not reduced to a single element but as a result of the response anyway diminished) down to no information at all, as when the response does not eliminate even a single possibility. From this point of view, the complete answers to questions will be responses that (whether true or false) limit the space of possibilities most severely; but there is room for partial answers as well, namely responses that eliminate, by being incompatible with, some of the possibilities that were left open in the question. (Higginbotham 1996: 371)
Of course, this function of narrowing down the space of possibilities performed by relevant responses to questions is independent of its type of focus structure. The strongest claim we may want to make is that a wh-question elicits an utterance with identificational focus whose relevance presupposition contains a variable which corresponds to the wh-XP in a wh-interrogative (see also Drubig & Schaffar 2001: 1087). But this does not mean that the interlocutor necessarily uses an identificational sentence in her reply.148 Thus, I would indeed claim again that A’s utterance in (111) has categorical focus structure (with I as topic expression and a novel as informational focus expression) – by which she supplies the information requested by Q just as well as if she had used an utterance with identificational focus structure. But note that answering in the way A does in (111) is slightly untypical of natural speech. In natural conversation we would rather expect an utterance like (112) A novel instead of a complete clause (see also Höhle 1982: 91; Thein 1994: 104; Vallduví 1993: 4f., N. 4; Vallduví & Engdahl 1996: 511, N. 1). This slight unnaturalness is the effect of answering a question that elicits an identificational utterance by a categorical utterance. I propose that structures like (112) in the context of (111Q) are derived by a discourse rule that allows (or even strongly suggests) deletion of the IP (or I ; see (114b) below) after the syntactic movement of the [+foc]-marked XP to spec-Foc: (113) [FocP A novel [Foc Foc [IP I read]]] –→ [FocP A novel [Foc Foc]]149
Information structure and focus structure
With Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995: 211) we can explain such a rule as the effect of minimising processing effort. Their example is (114) Q: Who is the greatest English writer? A: a. Shakespeare is the greatest English writer. b. Shakespeare is. c. Shakespeare. They comment: “Each of these responses has the NP ‘Shakespeare’ as focus and the assumption Someone is the greatest English writer as background. Only in [(114Aa)] is this assumption made fully explicit, and here it follows the focus, acting merely as a reminder, a confirmation of an interpretation which the hearer should have been able to arrive at unaided.” Thein (1994: 104) considers (115). (115) Q: What’s your name? A: a. Jim b. Jim my name is She suggests: “[(115Ab)] may have to be interpreted as the result of the intention to speak in complete sentences. [(115Aa)] is the form which one would normally find in informal speech.” (My translation from Thein 1994: 104.) Consider the following contrast pointed out by Lambrecht (1994: 216): (116) a.
Q: A: b. Q: A:
Which shirt did you buy? {The green one / *green} What colour is your shirt? green
I have just argued that elliptical replies to wh-questions as in (116aA) and (116bA) are derived by a discourse rule that allows (or even strongly suggests) deletion of the IP in an identificational utterance such that only the identificational focus XP in spec-Foc remains. (117) exemplifies this discourse rule for the grammatical replies of A in (116). [FocP the green one [Foc Foc [IP I bought]]] –→ [FocP the green one [Foc Foc]] b. [FocP green [Foc Foc [IP it is]]] –→ [FocP green [Foc Foc]]
(117) a.
This assumption explains why the reply Green is not possible in the context of (116aQ). The point is that, for syntactic reasons (ECP), the AP green could not have moved to spec-Foc out of its DP the green one within the IP I bought the green one; consequently there is no source for the application of the IP-deletion discourse rule. (118) *[FocP greeni [Foc Foc [IP I bought the t i one]]]
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From the discussion so far it follows that a string like (119) My car broke down (usually called a ‘sentence’) is an ambiguous orthographic representation of three syntactically different root clauses: –
one in which the DP My car is [–foc]-featured and has moved to spec-Foc (categorical focus structure): (120) [FocP [My car][–foc] broke down]
–
one in which the DP My car is [+foc]-featured and has moved to spec-Foc (identificational focus structure): (121) [FocP [My car][+foc] broke down]
–
one in which there is no FocP and no [±foc]-featured XP (thetic focus structure): (122) [IP My car broke down]
With the exception of a couple of specific cases (sentences with expletives in clause initial position) this observation of a three-way ambiguity between categorical, identificational and thetic focus structure can be generalised to all sentence strings.150 In the next section I will discuss constraints which are responsible for the fact that there are significantly less sentences in text production in which a non-subject argument has moved to spec-Foc than sentences in which the subject has moved to spec-Foc.
. Constraints on focus structure .. A discourse constraint XP movement to spec-Foc in the syntactic manifestation of categorical or identificational focus structure is syntactically constrained by no other and no more principles than the ones which are assumed for any other kind of core grammatical XP movement operations. It is clear, however, that discoursal use of clauses which differ minimally with respect to which XP has moved to spec-Foc is constrained by factors pertaining to the context. Biber et al. (1999: 900), for instance, claim that “an unstressed object pronoun (e.g. it, him, them) never occurs in initial position”. There cannot be a syntactic reason for this assessment since pronouns can be fronted, as the following examples show (more examples can be found in Thein 1994: 15, 107).151
Information structure and focus structure
(123) a. b.
c.
d. e. f.
g. h.
Some coffees you sample. Ours you love (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 15) If one is not a subject or an object, one must be a helper or an opponent. You I help. Professor Zapp I oppose (from Lodge 1984/1985: 266) But it’s not just Sufi, there’s so much of this music crossing frontiers now, music from all over, Yoruba drumming, the old songs of the expelled Jews of Spain, Persian-Iraqi maqam concerts using mystical poems, Shinto drumming, gospel, Buddhist chants, and do you know the work of Arvo Pärt, sort of minimalist meets New Age? Have you heard of Fatty Ahmed, he’s played with the Ruby Goo? Yeah, him I’ve heard of, I say laughing openly now (from Rushdie 1999/2000: 553) Except maybe Mahatma Gandhi. And him they shot (from DeLillo 1997/1998: 29) There were many rare birds, too, on the hills near Malvern, and these he would point out to Stephen (from Hall 1928/1982: 22) Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she slights (Joyce 1922/1986: 12) People choose who they want. This they had tried to instill in her in their unobtrusive way (from Biber et al. 1999: 153) Me he didn’t like to be alone at night (from Quirk et al. 1985: 1062, N. a.)
But cases with visibly fronted pronouns are certainly rare (see also Ward 1985/1988: 165) and subject to very specific semantic-pragmatic constraints. Such constraints on visible fronting have been studied in detail especially by Prince and Ward (see e.g. Prince 1981a, 1984; Ward 1985/1988; Birner & Ward 1998; see also CasiellesSuárez 1998). According to Ward (1985/1988) and Birner & Ward (1998), who use the term preposing for constructions in which an expression is visibly fronted (preposed), a felicitously preposed expression has to be licensed as a ‘link’ to the prior discourse. The characterisation of such a link makes essential use of the notion of partially order set (or ‘poset’) (see Hirschberg 1985/1991). It is defined as “any set defined by a transitive partial ordering relation R such that R is either reflexive and antisymmetric, or irreflexive and asymmetric” (Birner & Ward 1998: 17; see also Ward 1985/1988: 51ff.). The ‘≥’ relation, for instance, is transitive, reflexive, and antisymmetric; the ‘>’ relation, for instance, is transitive, irreflexive, and asymmetric. Consider (124) in connection with Birner & Ward’s (1998: 18) explanation below.152
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(124) a.
‘≥’ transitive: reflexive: antisymmetric: b. ‘>’ transitive: irreflexive: asymmetric:
(x ≥ y ∧ y ≥ z) → (x ≥ z) x≥x (x ≥ y ∧ y ≥ x) → (x = y)
is true is true is true
(x > y ∧ y > z) → (x > z) ¬(x > x) (x > y) → ¬(y > x)
is true is true is true
A reflexive relation is one that always holds between an element and itself, as in [(124a)], whereas an irreflexive relation is one that never holds between an element and itself, as in [(124b)]. An antisymmetric relation is one that cannot hold bidirectionally between two distinct elements (thus, if it holds between X and Y, they must be the same element), whereas an asymmetric relation is one that cannot hold bidirectionally between X and Y, regardless of whether they are distinct. Thus, the difference between the two types of poset relation is that in one case the relation may (and indeed must) hold between an element and itself, as in [(124a)], and in the other it may hold only between one element and another. Neither type of relation is symmetric; that is, in neither case may it hold bidirectionally between distinct elements. Finally, in both cases the relation is transitive – that is, if it holds between A and B, and between B and C, then it holds between A and C.
Poset relations comprise relations between the values on scales defined by entailment as well as such relations as part/whole, entity/attribute, type/subtype, set/subset and identity (equality) (see Birner & Ward 1998: 19). A preposed expression, then, has to be a link in the following sense, where the notion of poset plays the crucial role: The link within an utterance is the linguistic material representing information which stands in a contextually licensed [i.e. contextually salient or inferrable] poset relation with information evoked in or inferrable from the prior context, and serves as a point of connection between the information presented in the current utterance and the prior context. (Birner & Ward 1998: 20)
In the preposing construction in (125A) below, for example, it is the ‘is-part-of ’ relation which orders the elements in the poset {album parts}. The referent of preposed this song is an element in this set which stands in a transitive, irreflexive and asymmetric relation to the referent of this album and thus licenses the preposing.153
Information structure and focus structure
(125) Q: Do you like this album? A: Yeah, this song I really like. (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 56; see also Birner & Ward 1998: 18) The ‘anchor’ poset {album parts} in this example is a multiple-member set. The poset in which the link is anchored need not be as directly evoked in the prior discourse as in (125), where album is mentioned in the utterance preceding the preposing construction. Anchors may be only inferrable, the necessary inference being triggered by some expression (the ‘trigger’) in the prior discourse (see Birner & Ward 1998: 21). It seems that the more inferencing is involved in determining the poset, the less felicitous the preposing becomes (see Ward 1985/1988: 147). If the anchor is a one-member poset, then the relation between link and anchor is necessarily one of identity.154 Identity between link and anchor manifests itself by co-referentiality of the linguistic expressions involved or by denotational identity. But this does not mean that, conversely, we are confronted with an identity relation between link and anchor whenever the link is referentially or denotationally identical to some expression (possibly the trigger) in the prior discourse. This point is illustrated by Birner & Ward (1998: 33) with the dialogues in (126a) (attested), and (126b) (constructed). (126) a.
A: B: b. A: B: A: B:
Can I get a bagel? No, sorry. We’re out of bagels. A bran muffin I can give you. Can I get a bagel? Sorry – all out. How about a bran muffin? A bran muffin I can give you.
[In (126a)], the link (a bran muffin) and trigger (bagels) stand in a poset relation as alternate members of the inferred anchor set {breakfast baked goods}. [. . .][In (126b)], although the link a bran muffin is coreferential with the trigger explicitly evoked in A’s second query, the salient linking relation is not identity. Rather, the link is related via a type/subtype relation to the anchoring set {breakfast baked goods}, of which both bagels and bran muffins are members.
Another example which is presented by Ward (1985/1988: 169) in order to make the same point is (127), which is from a novel by Philip Roth. (127) “Who is she?” “Her last name is Patimkin.” “Patimkin I don’t know,” Aunt Gladys said, as if she knew anybody who belonged to the Green Lane Country Club.
Chapter 4
As Ward (1985/1988: 169) points out, “Roth’s interpretation of Aunt Gladys’s preposing suggests that a non-identity relation is involved here, even though the BLC is coreferential with a member of the {FLC}, and no other scalar values are explicitly evoked.”155 (See Ward 1985/1988: 162ff. for more discussion of this point.) In fact, it seems that preposings of the type which are characterised in the present work as categorical clauses with visible movement of a non-subject XP to spec-Foc[–foc] are felicitous only under exceptional and very specific circumstances if it is the identity relation which underlies the anchor.156 Consider first some cases where such fronting constructions are not felicitous. (128) a.
A: Listen, I want to ask you something which is totally unrelated to what we’ve been talking about. Have you ever seen “The Americanization of Emily”? B: #“The Americanization of Emily” I’ve seen (example and judgement from Ward 1985/1988: 164)157 b. After much debate, Congress passed a controversial bill yesterday which would drastically reduce veteran medical benefits. #The bill President Reagan is expected to sign (ditto from Ward 1985/1988: 172) c. I have a recurring dream in which . . . I can’t remember what I say. I usually wake up crying. #The dream I’ve had maybe three, four times (ditto from Birner & Ward 1998: 226; see also (129c) below) d. Mary and Peter have split up. #Her he beat e. Mary and Peter have split up. #Him she bored
In contrast to these, the following examples involving visible movement of a nonsubject XP to spec-Foc[–foc] are felicitous. (129) a.
Facts about the world thus come in twice on the road from meaning to truth: once to determine the interpretation, given the meaning, and then again to determine the truth value, given the interpretation. This insight we owe to David Kaplan’s important work on indexicals and demonstratives, and we believe it is absolutely crucial to semantics. (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 170) b. The only time the guy isn’t a failure is when he resigns and announces his new job. That’s a tipoff, “John Smith resigned to accept the position of president of X company” – then you know he resigned. This little nuance you recognize immediately when you’re in corporate life (ditto) c. I have a recurring dream in which . . . I can’t remember what I say. I usually wake up crying. This dream I’ve had maybe three, four times
Information structure and focus structure
(ditto from Prince 1981a: 252; used also in Ward 1985/1988; Birner & Ward 1998: 226)158 It may seem as if it is the deictic demonstrative this which is responsible for the felicitousness of the preposings in these examples. Indeed, Birner & Ward (1998: 226) vaguely suggest that the fact that the identity relation is established deictically here may play a role. They point to the felicitousness of (130) below and supply the following comment: “Thus, it is not the demonstrative per se that accounts for the difference; the addition of the deictic adjective in the link of [(130)] is sufficient to render the preposing felicitous.” (130) I have a recurring dream in which . . . I can’t remember what I say. I usually wake up crying. The aforementioned dream I’ve had maybe three, four times. This, however, is all they say about the problem under which discourse conditions visible fronting of a topic XP is licensed if the identity relation is involved in establishing the link to the prior discourse. In Ward 1985/1988 as well this issue remains “an unsolved problem” (Ward 1985/1988: 173), but Ward elaborates a little more on it. He points out that in the examples he finds in his corpus of preposings of the relevant type (see (129a, b)), the link is typically a “summary or description of the relevant member of the {FLC} with which it stands in an identity relation.” (Ward 1985/1988: 173.) That is, the link expression typically adds aspects of meaning to the expression which evokes the anchor. This makes it questionable whether we must assume an underlying identity relation here. Indeed, the referent of this insight in (129a) is identical to the referent, a certain idea entertained and made manifest by David Kaplan, of the trigger, i.e. the preceding sentence. But it is conceivable that someone may not want to call this idea entertained by David Kaplan an insight at all, but, rather, a delusion. Thus, taking Frege’s (see e.g. 1892/1994) distinction between sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung) into account, there may be said to exist reference identity between link and anchor in this case, but not necessarily sense identity. With respect to sense we may say that the link actually used in (129a), this insight, picks a value on a scale of expressions used for ideas and ordered in terms of increasing or decreasing appreciativeness. Under such an interpretation we would have a non-identity relation underlying the relationship between link and anchor. A parallel argument can be constructed with respect to (129b) and similar examples. In addition I would claim that a similar argument can also always be constructed when the link picks its referent deictically, as in (129c) or (130), irrespective of the sense/reference distinction. For picking a referent deictically can always be construed as picking a referent from a poset whose members are all the other referents which are contextually accessible and could be deictically referred
Chapter 4
to instead (given an adequate and salient or at least inferrable relation between the members of the set so as to constitute a poset).159 Thus, the respective referents of this dream in (129c) and the aforementioned dream in (130) can be interpreted as referents deictically picked from the poset of referents evoked in the prior discourse, ordered (transitively, irreflexively, asymmetrically) in terms of the relation ‘was-evoked-earlier-than-in-the-discourse’, for instance.160 In any case, it is not necessary to assume that it is identity which underlies the relation between deictic link and anchor in a categorical clause with non-subject topic XP. Actually, it is my claim that deictic reference is principally not based on the identity relation, in contrast to anaphoric co-reference by a pronoun, repetition of an expression, or use of a synonymous expression, which may very well be and in fact often are based on it. Deictic co-reference always takes the roundabout way by picking its referent from a poset defined by a non-identity relation in the way just explained. Thus, instead of Ward’s (1985/1988: 173) conclusion that the fact “that there are so few instances of [+IDENTITY]TOP with NPs in the corpus suggests that TOP is becoming more and more limited to non-identity scalar relations”,161 I propose that in general and in principle a non-subject topic XP can only be licensed by a non-identity relation. This entails that an XP link which is related to an anchor on the basis of identity, i.e. an anaphorically used pronoun or a repeated or synonymous expression, is discourse-licensed as topic expression only if it is subject.162 The felicitousness paradigm displayed in (131) below is then explained by a discourse constraint to the effect that non-subject topic XP fronting is only acceptable if the fronted topic XP can be interpreted as a link which is related to an anchor on the basis of a non-identity relation. (131) a.
Mary and Peter have split up. You won’t believe it: {Peter / He / The bastard / This bastard} beat her b. Mary and Peter have split up. You won’t believe it: {# Mary / # Her / # The angel of a woman / This angel of a woman} he beat c. Mary and Peter have split up. You won’t believe it: {Mary / She / The snooty goose / This snooty goose} pressurised him into the managerial career d. Mary and Peter have split up. You won’t believe it: {# Peter / # Him / # The modest and unpretentious guy / This modest and unpretentious guy} she pressurised into the managerial career
It is an interesting question to ask why there is such a discourse constraint which allows a subject XP link but not a non-subject XP link to be related to an anchor by identity. This I must leave to investigation which cannot be undertaken in the present work.
Information structure and focus structure
Why are there so (relatively) few visible frontings in performance, i.e. so (relatively) few sentences used in which non-subjects have moved to spec-Foc compared to subjects in spec-Foc?163 If we concentrate on categorical sentences, then this question amounts to asking why the topic expression is most often identical to the subject? The explanation usually given is along these lines: “[S]peakers prefer the strategy of describing situations as statements about their human participant. The grammatical subject (usually an agent or an experiencer) is the most common topic because it is the argument most likely to have the feature [+ human].” (É. Kiss 1998a: 683.) I do not think that this is the whole story. For there are many statements in linguistic performance that do not describe situations in which there are human participants involved. Moreover, if we go through the authentic examples of visible fronting of a topic expression given in the present work, we realise, first, that there are quite a few cases in which both the subject and the fronted non-subject have human referents and, second, that there are also quite a few cases where the fronted non-subject topic expression has a non-human referent whereas the subject has a human referent. Another aspect of an explanation for the strong quantitative association between topic expressions and subjects results from the discourse constraint just discussed on the basis of Ward (1985/1988) and Birner & Ward’s (1998) work: Under the reasonable assumption that identity is the most common type of relation between link and anchor, a discourse constraint which allows a subject XP link but not a non-subject XP link to be related to an anchor by identity discoursally precludes a non-subject in spec-Foc in the most frequent cases where cohesion and coherence between utterances is established on the basis of the identity relation. An additional factor to be taken into account will be discussed in the next subsection.
.. A processing constraint According to Hawkins (1990, 1992, 1994, 1998), the constituent order actually used in linguistic performance in those cases where the grammar provides for options is determined most importantly by the processing principle of early immediate constituents (EIC).164 The basic idea underlying EIC is that “words and constituents occur in the orders they do so that syntactic groupings and their immediate constituents (ICs) can be recognized (and produced) as rapidly and efficiently as possible in language performance” (Hawkins 1994: 57). As optionality of constituent order is restricted to ‘stylistic’ operations in the minimalist framework of generative grammar (see above, p. 68), a processing account along the lines of EIC cannot be directly and straightforwardly applied to the question of why it is the subject which moves to spec-Foc in a large majority of cases rather than a non-subject. For whether it is the subject or a non-subject which is topic or identificational focus ex-
Chapter 4
pression of an utterance depends on the text producer’s communicative intention. And as soon as her intention is fixed in this respect, there is no syntactic option any more.165 However, it may be the case in many contexts that it does not make a big difference for the communicator whether one or another referent is chosen as topic expression. Consider the first two utterances (Mary and Peter have split up. You won’t believe it:) of the examples in (131), for instance. They may be taken to contribute to a context in which it is irrelevant for the speaker whether they are followed by an utterance in which Mary is topic or Peter. In such cases communicators have the option of constructing an utterance in which a subject or a non-subject is moved to spec-Foc as topic expression. Moreover, in many cases communicators have the option of expressing an event by using a passive construction rather than an active construction in which a non-subject is moved to spec-Foc. Thus, although movement to spec-Foc is by no means a stylistic operation, performance factors may nevertheless play a role in the choice between syntactic structures which are, albeit derivationally independent, communicatively equivalent for a text producer in a given situation. In fact, utterances in which a non-subject is moved to spec-Foc fare principally worse in terms of EIC compared to communicatively equivalent sentences of the kind just mentioned. In order to show this, I will briefly present the core aspects of Hawkins’s (1990, 1994, 1998) EIC-theory and apply them to a simple example. The insight gained on the basis of this example will be shown to carry over to all relevant cases. The central claim of EIC-theory is as follows: Early Immediate Constituents (EIC) The human parser prefers linear orders that maximize the IC-to-non-IC (or IC-to-word) ratios of Constituent Recognition Domains. Orders with the most optimal ratios will be preferred over their non-optimal counterparts in the unmarked case; orders with non-optimal ratios will be more or equally preferred in direct proportion to the magnitude of their ratios [. . .]. (Hawkins 1998: 734)
An IC-to-non-IC ratio, or its more easily calculable (but less fine grained) IC-toword ratio alternative, is calculated over a constituent recognition domain, then, which is defined in the following way: Constituent Recognition Domain (CRD) The CRD for a phrasal mother node M consists of the set of terminal and nonterminal nodes that must be parsed in order to recognize M and all ICs of M, proceeding from the terminal node in the parse string that constructs the first IC on the left, to the terminal node that constructs the last IC on the right,
Information structure and focus structure
and including all intervening terminal nodes and the non-terminal nodes that they construct. (Hawkins 1998: 733)
Let us compare the IC-to-word ratios of the following sentences, whose syntactic structures reduced to the relevant nodes are given in (132a , b ). (132) a. They shot him a . [FocP they [Foc shot him]] b. Him they shot (cf. (123d)) b . [FocP him [Foc they shot]] Both sentences are FocPs with the ICs spec-Foc (they and him respectively) and Foc . What is the CRD of the FocPs in these sentences? The “terminal node in the parse string that constructs the first IC on the left” is they in (132a ) and him in (132b ). In order to determine “the terminal node that constructs the last IC on the right”, the following principle and axiom for mother node construction have to be taken into account. Mother Node Construction (MNC) In the left-to-right parsing of a sentence, if any word of syntactic category C uniquely determines a phrasal mother node M, in accordance with the PS rules of the grammar, then M is immediately constructed over C. (Hawkins 1998: 733) Axiom of Constructability For each phrasal node P there will be at least one word of category C dominated by P that can construct P on each occasion of use. (Hawkins 1998: 733)
In generative syntax it is the phrasal head which “uniquely determines the phrasal mother node”. This is acknowledged by Hawkins (1994: 62) when he writes: “Heads are now consistently the categories that construct their respective mothers”. Although it is not true for generative syntax that there is always a word heading a phrase – there being functional phrases headed by abstract heads – this does not seem to pose a principal problem for applying Hawkins’s idea to syntactic structures from a more recent framework of generative grammar than the more traditional ones used by Hawkins. For such functional projections are in any case extended projections of a lexical head (word). Thus the word which uniquely determines the phrasal mother node in the case of a functional projection headed by an abstract functional head is the respective lexical head of which the functional projection is an extended projection. This is the finite verb shot for the intermediate projection Foc , which is the right(most) IC of FocP, in both (132a) and (132b).166 While there is no other word in between they (“the terminal node in the parse string that constructs the first IC on the left”) and shot (“the terminal node that constructs the last IC on the right”) in (132a), there is the additional they between him and shot in (132b). That is, the CRD of the FocP in (132a) in terms of words
Chapter 4
is the set {they, shot}, whereas it is the set {him, they, shot} in (132b). Consequently the IC-to-word ratios for (132a) and (132b) are as given in (133). (133) a. (132a): 2 ICs / 2 words = 100.0% b. (132b): 2 ICs / 3 words = 66.7% According to EIC, then, (132a) is preferred over (132b) by the parser. It is clear that the presence of an overt subject in spec-AgrS always leads to a lower IC-to-word ratio for the CRD of a FocP compared to the case where there is a trace in spec-AgrS . For the number of ICs is always 2 (see N. 166), and the numbers of words in the respective CRDs, i.e. the denominators in the fractions which give the respective IC-to-word ratios, always differ by at least 1, the variant with the overt subject in spec-AgrS always having the larger figure as denominator. The same reasoning can be applied to passive sentences, which also always result in a better IC-to-non-IC ratio than a corresponding active sentence with non-subject fronting. a . [FocP he [Foc was shot]] b . [FocP him [Foc they shot]]
(134) a. He was shot b. Him they shot
In these kinds of pairs too an overt subject in spec-AgrS in the b-alternative increases the number of words in the CRD of FocP, i.e. delays its construction via the finite verb in comparison to the a-alternative. Thus, if there is no communicative reason for a text producer to front a nonsubject or if there are no communicative and syntactic reasons which prevent the choice of a corresponding passive sentence instead of an active one with a fronted non-subject, then one of these alternatives is preferred over non-subject fronting for more efficient parsing. But note that we do have examples like (123d), here repeated as (135), where the parsing disadvantage is overridden by the communicative intention which requires a specific sentence, namely an active, categorical one with him as topic expression. (135) Except maybe Mahatma Gandhi. And him they shot167 It is clear that the alternatives for (135) which are ‘better’ in terms of processing, do not have the same communicative effect and force as the one actually chosen. (136) a. Except maybe Mahatma Gandhi. And they shot him b. Except maybe Mahatma Gandhi. And he was shot (by them) * After having provided enough background for the pragmatic and informationstructural aspects of the FocP-hypothesis in Section 4.1 and after having provided in Section 4.2 two answers to the question of why non-subject XPs as topic and
Information structure and focus structure
identificational focus expressions are relatively rare in performance, it is now time to turn to the intonational, syntactic and semantic aspects of the FocP-hypothesis in detail. I will start off with the feature and checking theory in the next chapter. Although this is a predominantly syntactic topic, it is separated from the main syntactic Chapter 7 by Chapter 6 on intonation. This is because the best place to explicate the relation between the syntactic [±foc]-features and the notion of intonational focus is within the chapter on intonation while having a good idea of the intonational aspects of focus-structured sentences is necessary to appreciate the analysis of some syntactic constructions in Chapter 7. At the same time the discussion of features and checking in Chapter 5 is self-contained and does not presuppose anything from what is to be presented in Chapter 7. Conversely, though, Chapter 5 is crucial for an understanding of Chapter 7.
Chapter 5
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
In current generative theory it is syntactic features and the need to check them in the specifier positions of functional heads which are responsible for the movement of constituents away from their base positions. The present chapter discusses the feature checking mechanism and develops a version of checking theory which will underlie much of the discussion of syntactic details in Chapter 7. In the second section of this chapter some semantic aspects of the checking theory developed are addressed which may open a new line of investigation for some vexing semantic problems. The discussion here is suggestive and preliminary.
. Features and checking theory The basic idea of checking as conceived of by Radford (1997) is neatly summed up in the following quotation: The morphological properties of lexical items can be described in terms of sets of head-, complement- and specifier-features: uninterpretable features need to be checked in an appropriate domain. Checking involves either a local specifier-head relation whereby the specifier-features of a head are checked against the head-features of its specifier, or a local head-complement relation whereby the complement-features of a head are checked against the headfeatures of its complement. [...] Checking erases features which are uninterpretable – hence, it erases all specifier- and complement-features, along with those head-features (e.g. case-features of pronouns and inflectional features of nonfinite [sic; ‘finite’ is probably intended] verbs) which play no role in semantic interpretation. Any uninterpretable features which are not erased by checking cause a derivation to crash. (Radford 1997: 187)
It is important to note in addition that the “head-features of a head are shared by all projections of the head” (Radford 1997: 179). That is, the head features of a head are projected to the intermediate, maximal and extended phrases headed by it. Thus, the projecting source of a head feature on a phrase is a head. Conse-
Chapter 5
quently, all kinds of features – head features, complement features and specifier features – are features belonging to a head. The terminology, which is not optimal here, should not be allowed to distract us from this fact. Radford’s (1997) conception of checking, which is based on Chomsky 1995c, obviously involves the idea that it is the complement/specifier features of a lexical head which determine its distribution with respect to phrases that function as complement and specifier of it. That is, complement and specifier of a head are licensed to the extent that their head feature(s) match(es) corresponding complement/specifier features of the head.168 Complement/specifier features have solely this function of syntactic licensing, and they are to be erased after having fulfilled it. They play no role in the further processing of the structure. They are formal features. Of head features, however, there are two types. The first type is formal as well. It determines or contributes to the determination of the syntactic ‘nature’ of a head H1 and its projections; it has to match a complement/specifier feature of another head H2 of which a projection of H1 is to function as complement or specifier respectively. The second type of head feature is semantic in nature, that is, it expresses semantic information. A head contains obligatorily a formal head feature, but not all heads contain a semantic head feature. For example, the tense head T contains a semantic head feature which expresses that the clause is either present or past. The agreement head AgrS , however, does not contain a semantic head feature,169 nor does the Foc-head.170 Whereas semantic head features have to remain for the conceptual-intentional cognitive system to operate on, formal features have to be erased from the derivation of a sentence. A formal feature is uninterpretable, and its survival after the completion of the syntactic derivation results in an ill-formed expression. The purely syntactic function of the formal features is effected by the checking mechanism, which can be schematised as in (138) below, where the lines connect features to be checked against each other and to be erased after checking. Note that not those features are checked against each other and erased which bear the same indices, but those which match one another: A formal head feature on a phrase which is complement of a head matches the corresponding complement feature of the head; a formal head feature on a phrase which is specifier of a head matches the corresponding specifier feature of the head. Semantic head features ([fh s ]) are left out in (138); as just pointed out, they are only potentially present on functional heads and, as I will argue in the next section, they remain in situ, i.e. are not moved.
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
(138) W XP [f hf] [f s] X' YP [f c] [f h ] f X [f hf] [f s] [f c]
[f hf]: formal head feature [f s]: specifier feature [f c]: complement feature ZP [f hf]
Note that one formal head feature [fh f ] is represented to reside in a head (X) and two others in a phrase (YP and ZP) in (138). This is a reflection of the fact (already mentioned above) that the head features of a head are projected to the intermediate, maximal and extended phrases headed by it in combination with the assumption that the actual checking relation is either local spec-head or local head-comp. The point is that the checking of a head’s [fs ] or [fc ] against a phrase’s [fh f ] erases the source of the feature projection, i.e. [fh f ] in the head. Potentially present interpretable features in complement or specifier phrases (ZP and YP in (138)) such as person and number features of DPs in spec-AgrS will not be checked and erased by this mechanism, as desired.171 In Subsection 2.2.3 I pointed out that, in contrast to the features associated with the functional case and ANTAV-layer, the [±foc]-features do not originate in the lexicon, but in the conceptual-intentional cognitive system. They are not yet present in the lexical items when they enter the numeration which feeds the syntactic derivation. This entails a difference between the [±foc]-feature on the XP which is topic or identificational focus expression to be checked in spec-Foc on the one hand and all the other features on XPs to be checked in spec-positions in the functional case and ANTAV-layer on the other hand: Clearly, the former is not a head feature, for it is assigned to a phrase by the conceptual-intentional system. I will not terminologically allude to this difference any more in the following text. Actually, I will be talking of [±foch f ] on the XP which is topic or identificational focus expression regardless of the point just made. The reason for this is that I prefer to emphasise the analogy between the movement and checking procedures associated with the functional case and ANTAV-layer on the one hand and that associated with FocP on the other hand rather than to employ a more correct but also more cumbersome terminological distinction. The reader is asked to keep this point in mind and to bear with it. It is the verbs (lexical and, if present, auxiliary) which are responsible for the building up of the functional domain (functional case layer and (F)ANTAV-layer) above the base. The maximal extension of the functional domain is repeated in (139) for the reader’s convenience.
Chapter 5
FocP
(139) spec
Foc' Foc
AgrSP spec
AgrS'
AgrS
NegP Neg
TP PerfP
T Perf
ProgP Prog
VoiceP
Voice
SP spec
S' S
OiP O i'
spec Oi
OdP Od'
spec Od
A functional head is a set of at least a formal head feature plus, potentially, semantic head features as well as complement/specifier features. Such a set is part of the lexical verb or an auxiliary. Each functional head (Od , S, T, AgrS , Foc, etc.) expresses a grammatical category whose presence or absence or whose specific value is determined by the respective verb. Those features which expand the functional
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
case layer are carried by the lexical verb; those features which expand the FANTAVlayer are carried by the inflected verb – which may of course be identical with the lexical verb – and, possibly, auxiliaries. As auxiliaries do not assign thematic roles, it is reasonable to assume that they are not merged in the clausal base (which is the domain where thematic relations are established; see Subsection 2.1.2), but at the location for the lowest functional head whose grammatical category the respective auxiliary manifests. It is a specific characteristic of those functional heads which construct the functional domain (in contrast to para-functional heads to be mentioned shortly below) that they contain complement features, such that they must move and arrange themselves above the base in the order which satisfies the checking requirements of their complement features. To exemplify in more concrete terms: Consider a clausal base with a patient argument DP which is to become the direct object and an agent argument DP which is to become the subject. After the clausal base (the vP) has been built, the set of verbal direct object features, which form the Od -head, moves out of the lexical verb and merges with the vP. The set of verbal direct object features becomes the head of a newly formed structure in which the vP is the complement of the Od -head. That it cannot be but the set of Od -features which merges with the vP is determined by the fact that the complement feature in this set needs to check against the formal head feature projected to vP by the v-head. The presence of a specifier feature in the set of Od -features causes the spec-Od position to come into existence. This process is re-iterated in analogous fashion for the other functional heads. The four figures in (140) illustrate it. (140) a.
b.
vP v'
DP2 v
Od í
Od DP2
VP V [Od hf] [Od s] [Od c] ...
vP
DP1
v' v
VP V ...
DP1
Chapter 5
c.
d.
Od P Od'
spec Od
Od P Od'
spec vP
DP2
Od DP2
v' v
VP V ...
vP v' v
DP1
VP V ...
DP1
I assume that there may be other, para-functional heads which do not contain complement features. The interrogative head Q in languages like English and German, which is morpho-phonologically null, is a case in point. Its lack of a complement feature results in its not being an integral part of the functional domain. The features associated with a (full) functional head can be checked only in its proper spechead configuration. For example, AgrS -features can only be checked between the AgrS -head and the XP in spec-AgrS . That is, the AgrS -features are active for checking only after the set of features which forms the AgrS -head has merged with NegP (or TP, if we ignore NegP). This holds analogously for the other full functional heads. By contrast, the features associated with a para-functional head are checked as soon as they enter a spec-head configuration anywhere in the structure.172 Features are commonly said to be either strong or weak. Basically, a strong feature is associated with overt movement of a lexical head or of an XP; a weak feature is associated with covert movement. Essentially following Groat & O’Neil (1996), I interpret ‘overt’ movement to mean that the moving feature carries along (pied-pipes) both the set of syntactic features and the phonological form of the respective lexical head or XP. A weak feature fails to pied-pipe the phonological form of its lexical head or XP, and feature movement is ‘covert’.173 It seems necessary, however, to make a finer distinction of feature types, a distinction which results in three types. According to Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 322), [a]uxiliaries are semantically ‘light’ and hence can be attracted by a weak inflectional head. Lightness was interpreted in terms of the absence of argument structure: auxiliaries do not assign thematic roles. English AGR and T are too weak to attract the ‘heavy’, i.e. theta-role assigning, lexical verbs, but they are strong enough to attract the ‘light’ auxiliaries.
Note that in Haegeman & Guéron’s view Agr and T are not created by feature movement from the inflected verb, but are present in the structure of a clause ‘right from
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
the start’. Consequently, they conceive of verb movement as head-to-head movement triggered by an attracting functional head. As explained above, I prefer the view that the features associated with the functional domain are verb components which move up and merge with the structure already formed as illustrated in (140), pied-piping or not pied-piping the phonological form associated with them. Now, if the standard English (SE) feature which is responsible for subject-aux(iliary) inversion in English interrogatives is strong enough to pied-pipe the phonological form of the finite auxiliary to which it is attached as an abstract bound morpheme to a functional head position higher than AgrS , then it is stronger than the interrogative feature that fails to trigger subject-aux inversion in French interrogatives of the following kind, which are said to be colloquial, but are nevertheless found in rather formal, written texts as well:174 (141) a.
Qui tu as rencontré? who you have met ‘Who did you meet?’ (from Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 173) b. Où donc je l’aurais prise? where then I it-should-have taken ‘Where then should I have taken it?’(from Grevisse 1936/1993: 612)175 c. Comment Dieu et les hommes pourraient pardonner une how God and the people could pardon a si criminelle négligence? such criminal neglect ‘How could God and the people pardon such a criminal neglect?’ (ditto) d. Pourquoi tu ris? why you laugh ‘Why do you laugh?’ (ditto) e. Combien de temps cela durerait? how-much of time that would-last ‘How long would that last?’ (ditto)
Note, however, that the respective feature of the SE type is not just like the one of the colloquial French type plus the additional strength to pied-pipe the phonological form of an auxiliary. While the latter is capable of leaving behind the phonological form associated with it, be it auxiliary ((141a–c)) or lexical verb ((141d–e)), the former is not. That is, the SE type is not capable of dissociating itself from the phonological form with which it is associated. Consequently, a feature of the SE type is successful in moving up only if it belongs to an auxiliary. A feature of the colloquial French type, in contrast, is always successful in moving up, if without any visible effect. Hence, I propose the following feature distinction:
Chapter 5
An α-feature pied-pipes the phonological form associated with it irrespective of the type of head or XP. b. A β-feature pied-pipes the phonological form associated with it only if it belongs to specific types of head or XP; feature movement fails with other types of head or XP. c. A γ-feature never pied-pipes the phonological form associated with it, irrespective of type of head or XP.
(142) a.
It should be kept in mind that when I talk of overt head or phrase movement in the following this is to mean movement of the phonological form of the respective head or phrase. Although I will often use the longer and more explicit form of expression, I will not always do so. With respect to β-features, I leave it for future research to investigate if they play a role in cases other than the triggering of auxiliary movement. In the context of the present work β-features will be relevant only if they are part of the feature set forming auxiliaries. I assume that all functional head feature movement and thus the building up of the complete functional domain above the clausal base takes place first and that XP-movement to the specifier positions in the functional domain takes place only after the complete functional domain has been expanded. The specifier positions in the functional domain are moved into step-by-step from bottom to top. Because of the checking requirement a formal head feature of a phrase (e.g. [fh f ] of YP in (138)) is attracted into an appropriate specifier position by the corresponding specifier feature of a functional head higher up in the clause structure. We may also have the situation, though, where an unchecked formal head feature of a phrase in a specifier position of a functional head attracts the corresponding specifier feature of a head lower in the structure. As I will argue in detail in Subsection 7.2.2, this is the case with the interrogative formal head feature of a wh-phrase in spec-Foc, which attracts the specifier feature of the (para-functional) interrogative head Q if it is part of an auxiliary in AgrS . Generally, then, features higher in the syntactic tree attract matching features lower in the syntactic tree into a checking relation. An attracted and moving feature pied-pipes all purely syntactic features which are associated with it – ‘associated’ in the sense of ‘belonging to a specific head or XP’ – and which have not yet been checked and erased. This means that the α/β/γ/type distinction of features is relevant only for the respective attracted feature. It entails that an attracted feature of type α potentially pied-pipes other β- and/or γ-type features in addition to its associated phonological form. In such a case the phonological form moves together with features of type β and/or γ; but the movement of the phonological form is triggered by the α-type feature. The point of a feature of type γ is that it never pied-pipes any phonological form associated with it if it is the attracted feature. The point of a feature of type β is that it pied-pipes the phonological form of specific constituents (notably auxiliaries) if it is the at-
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
tracted feature, but fails to move if it is the attracted feature and associated with constituents whose phonological form it cannot pied-pipe. For English I assume that all the features associated with the functional case layer are of type α, including the formal case head features of the argument DPs from the base which are to be checked in the respective spec-positions. Thus, the phonological form of the lexical verb is pied-piped by its verbal case features to the position called S. The phonological form of nominal arguments from the base, which have to check their nominal case features, moves to its respective specposition. Both types of movement are thus overt in English. The situation in the FANTAV-layer is as follows: All the verbal features of Voice up to AgrS are of type β such that the phonological form only of auxiliaries is pied-piped. That is, only auxiliaries, but not lexical verbs, move to Voice, Prog, Perf, T, AgrS overtly. The nominal AgrS head features of a subject DP are of type α such that subject DPs move to spec-AgrS overtly. The verbal Foc features are of type γ, that is, the phonological form of a verb does not move to Foc unless it is carried along by some other feature. The Foc-feature which makes a phrase a topic or identificational focus expression is of type α. I assume a good deal of cross-linguistic syntactic variation to result from two factors. First, one and the same feature may differ with respect to its classification as type α, type β or type γ in different varieties and languages. Second, individual syntactic features or sets of syntactic features may be associated with a phonological form or not, that is, they may have an overt morphological manifestation or not. This second point seems to go against the idea that functional heads are to be postulated only if there are concrete, perceptible formal oppositions to be found in the linguistic material which motivate the postulation of such functional heads. There are two things which can be mentioned in response to this objection. First, intonational evidence is as concrete and perceptible as morphological evidence and may play the same role as the latter for the motivation of functional heads and their projections. Second, due to the interaction between head, complement and specifier as modelled by the checking mechanism, the formal evidence for the existence of a functional head may be indirect in that the existence of a functional head is motivated by morpho-phonological oppositions between phrases that function as complement or specifier of a head which itself lacks a morpho-phonological manifestation. For example, the fact that a form of be may be complemented by a lexical verb in its present or past participle form, (e.g. was watching vs. was watched), yielding the two radically different interpretations which we associate with differences in respect to the categories aspect and voice, may be interpreted as evidence for the existence of two distinct functional heads incorporated in the inflected forms of be which themselves are not morpho-phonologically differentiated. (143) below repeats the by now familiar structures which represent the syntactic manifestation of the three types of focus structure supplemented by informa-
Chapter 5
tion about some of the features involved and their checking. The asterisk indicates features which are erased by checking. Recall (from p. 110 and the figure in (138)) that not those features are checked against each other which bear the same indices, but which match one another. (143) categorical
identificational
FocP
FocP Foc'
Foc [–foc s]* [–foc hf] XPi [–foc hf]*
thetic IP
Foc' IP
(...) ti (...) [–foc hs]
Foc [+foc s]* [+foc hf] XPi [+foc hf]*
IP
(...) ti (...) [+foc hs]
Ignored are the formal head feature of the IPs and the complement feature of the Foc-heads in the categorical and identificational structures of (143), which check against each other and are erased. I did insert the formal head feature of the Focheads, thereby choosing the option that the formal head feature of the highest functional head is the only formal head feature which must remain (i.e. which must not be erased) within a structure in order to provide information about the formal nature of the structure as a whole (recall N. 171). Semantic head features are represented as remaining in situ (as suggested and discussed in the next section). They provide semantic information and must not be checked and erased. They identify an XP whose [±foch f ] is checked in spec-Foc as a topic or identificational focus expression respectively. The Foc-head itself does not contain a semantic head feature, just like AgrS and different to the tense, aspect and voice heads. There is the question of whether syntactic feature checking can take place only in the functional domain or also in the base. According to Ura (2000: 17) syntactic feature checking cannot take place in the base.176 I would agree with respect to those features which I consider to be part of full functional heads, i.e. those which expand the functional domain. But there seem to be syntactic features for which we cannot escape the conclusion that they are checked in the base. Consider the feature (or set of features) which makes a clause interrogative. As already pointed out above, it is common to think of this feature (set) as forming an interrogative head Q, which is abstract in English and which heads an interrogative clause (see e.g. Radford 1997: 245ff.). In sentences with embedded interrogatives like those in (144) we have matrix verbs (WONDER, ASK etc.) which select embedded interrogative clauses.
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
(144) a. I wondered which dish they picked b. He asked whether I was leaving
(from Radford 1997: 287) (from Radford 1997: 289)
It is reasonable to think of interrogative clause selection as a by-product of feature checking: The respective matrix verb has an interrogative complement feature [intc ] which must check against a clausal phrase’s interrogative formal head feature [inth f ], thereby selecting it. Where, if not in the base, should this feature checking take place? The embedded interrogative will never be complement of the matrix verb again after the latter left the base for the functional domain. Moreover, the presence of an indirect object between verb and interrogative clause as in (145) entails that this feature checking can only take place in the base where the interrogative clause is complement of the matrix verb. (145) He asked me whether I was leaving Thus, I assume that some syntactic feature checking takes place in the base as well. What kind of features are involved here and under which conditions these can or must be checked in the base is a problem which cannot be investigated any further in the present work. Apart from the cases of syntactic feature checking just alluded to I conceive of the merging of constituents which result in the formation of the base to be determined by semantic criteria and principles, notably those of theta-theory. It seems possible to express these semantic principles in terms of features and the checking of features as well. Ultimately, ‘features and feature checking’-talk seems to be only a terminological variant of ‘argument and argument saturation’-talk, as used by Rothstein (1985) and Higginbotham (1985), for instance. However, the features involved in such a potential terminological variant of argument and argument saturation theory are semantic and thus distinct from the syntactic features checked in the functional domains of (clausal and phrasal) bases.
. Semantic implications and applications What happens to the purely semantic features of lexical items when the set of syntactic features moves? It is conceptually straightforward to think of the semantic features as staying in situ, i.e. in their respective base position with both overt and covert movement. I suggest to talk of the ‘semantic form’ of a constituent in contrast to its phonological form, and of a ‘semantic constituent’ as opposed to a ‘phonological constituent’. Overt movement, then, is movement of the phonological form of a constituent, i.e. of a phonological constituent. The semantic form of a constituent remains in situ, i.e. in its base position; semantic constituents never move. This distinction between phonological and semantic constituents can be eas-
Chapter 5
ily represented and built into phrase markers, for example by putting phonological slanted brackets (/.../) around phonological constituents which have moved away from their associated semantic constituent, as illustrated in (146). (146) [FocP [DP /The children/] Foc [IP t [SP t/laughed/ [vP [DP The children] laughed]]]] This conception has an important effect. If semantic constituents can be assumed to stay in situ, some problems relating to the semantics of tense and sentential negation evaporate. For example: It is a common assumption that the projections of sentential negation and tense are integrated in the structure above the base in the following hierarchical order (see e.g. Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 320, 529). (147) [AgrS P [NegP [TP [vP/VP ]]]] A structure, however, in which both the phonological and the semantic constituents forming the subject are in spec-AgrS while the negation and tense operators are in their respective functional projections could hardly be semantically interpreted. For then tense and negation would not operate on logicosemantic formulas (“things that are true or false”; Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 1990/2000: 281), i.e. clause-like expressions (see Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 1990/2000: 279ff., 289ff.). To solve this problem, it is proposed that negation and tense undergo LF-raising to a pre-subject position. This, however, has the unwelcome effect that a negated clause generates always two readings that reflect the two scopal orders between negation and tense, while one of them is intuitively not supported.177 This is illustrated by Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000: 291) in the following passage. When it comes to tenses, however, we find an unexpected restriction. Consider sentence [(148a)]: [(148)] a. b. c.
Lee didn’t kill Kim. neg [past [Lee kill Kim]] past [neg [Lee kill Kim]]
Sentence [(148a)] is predicted to have two readings, corresponding to the two Logical Forms in [(148b)] and [(148c)]. According to the first, sentence [(148a)] says that there is no time that precedes the evaluation time at which Lee kills Kim. This is indeed how [(148a)] is interpreted. However, this sentence is also predicted to have the reading in [(148c)]. The latter LF says that there is a time in the past at which Lee did not kill Kim. This is not a sensible reading. It’s too weak. For any activity, there are always going to be infinitely many instants at which one is not engaged in it. Hence any sentence with a logical form parallel to [(148c)] expresses a trivial truth. This runs against our
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
intuitions on sentences like [(148a)], which do not appear to have such an interpretation.
This problem does not appear if we assume that there is neither negation nor tense raising, provided that the semantic form of the subject is still in its original position in the base. For a base with all the semantic constituents of the predicates, arguments and modifiers in situ is clause-like, corresponding to a logico-semantic formula that negation and tense can operate on; and in the order assumed in (147), negation and tense generate precisely the reading required. Of course, this assumption also obliterates the need that gave rise to the idea of tense and negation raising in the first place. This idea of leaving the semantic forms in situ is very similar to the one hinted at by Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000: 282) in the following passage: “Yet another strategy is to adopt the so called VP-internal-subject hypothesis, i.e., the idea that the subject originates within the VP and is then moved up to the specifier position of TP. At LF, the subject would be ‘reconstructed’ in its base position for interpretative purposes.” However, instead of first moving the subject – or any XP, for that matter – and then reconstructing it in its base position, I suggest that the semantic form of the subject (or respective XP) actually remains in the base position. The process parallel to reconstruction, then, is ‘connecting the moved phonological constituent to its associated semantic constituent’. The requirement that non-overt elements, notably traces left behind by movement, must be identified (identification; see Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 398, pass.) may then be understood as saying that it has to be possible to connect a moved phonological constituent to its associated semantic constituent. The specific conditions imposed by the empty category principle (ECP; see e.g. Rizzi 1990) and economy requirements on movement such as emerge from work done in the minimalist program may be conceived of as enabling and minimising the effort involved in the cognitive procedure of establishing the connection between phonological and semantic constituents. Yet, generalising this in situ proposal with respect to semantic constituents amounts to dispensing with both LF quantifier raising (QR) along the lines of e.g. May (1977/1990, 1985) and QR-less analyses of so-called LF-phenomena along the lines of Hornstein (1995, 1999), for which we then have to find a different account. The theories of both May and Hornstein rely crucially on movement of the semantic forms of quantificational XPs in order to represent what is usually thought to be ambiguities due to differences in scopal relations between such XPs (see N. 177). There is certainly a big difference between May (1985) and Hornstein (1995), for example, in that the latter dispenses with QR (see especially Hornstein 1995: Ch. 8, 9). However, in order for Hornstein’s theory to work it has to be assumed that movement of quantificational XPs for reasons of case checking does not only imply movement of the respective case feature plus the phonological form, but that
Chapter 5
of the semantic form as well. For example, in his theory of movement as “copying and deletion” (Hornstein 1995: 155), the phrase marker of (149a) after movement for reasons of case is (149b) (cf. Hornstein 1995: 155): (149) a. Someone attended every seminar b. [AgrS P Someone [TP Tns [AgrO P every seminar [VP someone [VP attended every seminar]]]]] Licit deletion operations applied to the chains created by movement (copying)178 result in two phrase markers, one of which has the someone > every seminar scopal order (reflecting the reading with the existential quantifier having wide scope) and the other the every seminar > someone scopal order (reflecting the reading with the universal quantifier having wide scope). If it was assumed that only the case feature plus the phonological form of someone and every seminar move, the latter could never take logico-semantic scope over the former. Hence, in a checking theory in which it is assumed that the semantic form does not undergo movement at all, we will never be able to derive scopal relations different from those that exist in the base. Nevertheless, I would like to entertain such a theory in the present work. And I will present (in Ch. 8) some arguments and ideas about how one might think differently about the traditional LF-scope phenomena on the basis of the theory of focus structure presented in the current work. To account for such phenomena without assuming semantic constituent movement will then be the crucial problem. Assuming that the semantic form of constituents remains in situ seems also to suggest a straightforward line of analysis for the syntax of focus particles such as only or even. According to Bayer (1999; see also 1996), we may think of a focus particle as something like a minor functional head (MFH) in the sense of Rothstein (1991). Rothstein (1991: 102) characterises MFHs in the following way. Having complements and specifiers, they project syntactic structure but they do not determine the categorial properties of the constituents they project. Instead the category is determined by the complement. It is not difficult to see this because this kind of head tends not to be restricted to complements of a single type, and therefore the same element will head constituents of different categories on different occasions. These heads have no theta-grids which need saturating, nor do they bind argument positions in the grids of their complements. We are therefore forced to assume that their complements are licensed through subcategorisation.
That focus particles take complements cross-categorially has also been suggested by König (1993: 984): “[T]here is [. . .] good evidence for an analysis of the core class of focus particles as a kind of cross-categorial operator that combines with all kinds of maximal projections and also with at least some lexical categories” (see
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
also König 1991). Let us assume that this property is one that applies at the point of the derivation where the focus particle is merged with the phrase over which it has semantic scope. That is, let us assume that the cross-categoriality of the focus particles is first and foremost a reflection of the semantic fact that they can be semantically combined with constituents of various kinds. The source complement of a focus particle, i.e. its complement at the point of merger and its semantic scope domain, is the phrase which determines the set of alternatives in an alternative semantics (AS) approach to the interpretation of focus particles (see above, Section 3.1).179 The following examples, in which the phrases over which the focus particle has scope are bracketed, are supposed to give an idea of how this determination of alternatives looks like (‘a-set’ means ‘alternative set’). (150) a. I saw only [John] (a-set: {John, Richard, Billy, ...}) b. I saw even [John’s sister] (a-set: {John’s sister, John’s brother, Richard, ...}) c. I saw only [John’s sister] (a-set: {John’s sister, Richard’s sister, Billy’s sister, ...} d. I saw even [his younger sister] (a-set: {his younger sister, his older sister, his twin sister}) e. I saw only [the man in the grey shirt] (a-set: {the man in the grey shirt, the man in the grey trousers, the man with the black hat, the man who was limping, ...}) f. I saw even [the man in the grey shirt] (a-set: {the man in the grey shirt, the man in the grey trousers, the woman in the grey shirt, John’s sister, Richard, ...}) g. I saw only [the man in the grey shirt] (a-set: {the man in the grey shirt, the woman in the grey shirt, the boy in the grey shirt, ...}) h. I even [prepared dinner] (a-set: {prepared dinner, prepared lunch, fetched the children from school, took a nap, sang, ...}) Compositional semantic processing of the focus particle and its complement operates over the semantic form of the constituents involved which are located in the position in which they are merged (in situ). The constituent orders given in (150) reflect not only the orders at the point of merger but also possible surface orders after movement of phonological forms to the functional domain of the clause. It is well known, however, that on the surface a focus particle may be non-adjacent to the phrase over which it has semantic scope, as in the example already quoted (Section 3.1 above) from Rooth (1985, 1992, 1996), here repeated as (151). (151) a. John only introduced Bill to Sue. b. John only introduced Bill to Sue
Chapter 5
I assume that the constituent order in (151) results, among other movements, from movement of the focus particle to a higher position than its position adjacent to its source complement. That is, I assume a source structure for (151a, b) as in (152a, b) respectively. (152) a. [vP John [v v[VP to Sue [V introduced [only [Bill]]]]]] b. [vP John [v v[VP [only [to Sue]] [V introduced Bill]]]] The pitch accent plays the decisive role in signalling the phrase, or the range of phrases, which may potentially be the source complement of the focus particle.180 In line with the general thrust of the present section, the aim of the theoretical move just made is to be able to say that the mechanisms of semantic interpretation apply to the structure consisting of the semantic form of the focus particle combined with the semantic form of its complement. The possibilities of positioning a focus particle at different places should then be accounted for by differences in the details of the feature equipment of the particle in question. Such differences are lexical ones, and the optionality in constituent order variations resulting from them are thus no problem for the minimalist principle that movement only occurs if forced by the requirements of feature checking. For it can very well be argued that a speaker may have more than one lexical entry for a lexical item at his/her disposal such that these entries differ with respect to the details concerning the syntactically relevant features. Depending on which entry the speaker chooses for a given derivation, lexical items may behave differently in the syntax.181 For example, the difference between (153a) and (153a ) and between (153b) and (153b ) can be reduced to a difference concerning the type of the complement feature of the respective lexical entry of only. (153) a. a . b. b .
John introduced Bill only to Sue John only introduced Bill to Sue John introduced only Bill to Sue John only introduced Bill to Sue
Let us assume that only contains a complement feature which requires a TP as complement.182 This complement feature, then, has to move to a position within the FANTAV-layer of the functional domain where it can take TP as complement. (In this respect the focus particle is not cross-categorial at all.) Depending on whether the lexical entry for only registers type α or type γ for this complement feature, the phonological form of only is pied-piped or not. If it is pied-piped, we get such sentences as (153a , b ); if not, we get such sentences as (153a, b). Speakers may have both lexical entries at their disposal so that the two versions are optional variants. This kind of constituent order optionality does not contradict minimalist principles of generative syntax.183
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
The line of analysis I have so far suggested will also have to cope with the following observation, which is due to Taglicht (1984: 150) and which has since been repeated by many authors. It is claimed that (154a, c) are ambiguous, while (154b, d) are not ambiguous. (154) a. b. c. d.
They were advised to learn only Spanish They were only advised to learn Spanish We are required to study only syntax We are required to only study syntax
In the words of Bayer (1996: 30f.), for example: [(154b, d)] are not ambiguous. They mean something like They were not advised to learn any language other than Spanish and We are required not to study any subject other than syntax. [(154a, c)], however, are ambiguous. They can mean what the examples in [(154b, d)] mean, but they can also mean They were advised not to learn any language other than Spanish and We are not required to study any subject other than syntax. [(154a)] is not only compatible with the weak advice that allows also the study of other languages, but it is in addition able to express the more restrictive advice according to which no other language than Spanish should be learned. The shift in [(154c, d)] is the other way around: [(154d)] is a strict requirement in that it is forbidden to study, say, semantics or phonology. [(154c)] is compatible with this reading, but it provides for the weak-requirement reading as well according to which the requirement concerns syntax, but leaves open the possibility of studying semantics and phonology as well.
I must admit that I can think of no satisfactory way of analysing these phenomena on the basis of the ‘semantic form in situ’ idea.184 Drubig (1997: 11, N. 14) refers to work in which it is suggested that an identificational focus expression such as John in (156Aa) below is generally “accompanied by a silent counterpart of only”.185 This would entail that (156Aa) and (156Ab) are semantically equivalent. (156) Q: Who came in? A: a. John came in. b. Only John came in. I do not agree with this view, for it would make it difficult to explain why (157Ab) is distinctly odd whereas (157Aa) is perfectly fine. (157) Q: Who came in? A: a. John for example came in. b. # Only John for example came in.
Chapter 5
It may very well be that an identificational focus expression like John in (156Aa) triggers a pragmatic implicature to the effect that it is assumed that only John came in. But only in (156Ab) is this meaning aspect a part of the semantic representation. It can be felicitously cancelled by the use of the expression for example in (157Aa), but not so in (157Ab). Consider next the following German example, which serves Jacobs (1997) to exemplify his notion of I-topicalisation (“I-Topikalisierung”). (158) Q: Kann man denn alle Romane von Grass empfehlen? (‘Can one recommend all novels by Grass then?’) A: Na ja, alle kann man sicher nicht empfehlen. L+H* H*+L (‘Well, all one can certainly not recommend.) ‘I-topicalisation’ refers to an intonational contour consisting of two prominent pitch accents, the former fall-rising or simply rising and the second falling.186 The semantically interesting point of I-topicalisation is that the negation has semantic scope over alle, although the latter c-commands the former on the surface. As pointed out by Jacobs (1997: 92f.), (158A) has to be interpreted as saying that not every novel by Grass can be recommended, not as saying that no Grass-novel can be recommended. Ignoring the adverbial sicher (which does not contribute to the point of (158A) and can actually be left out), I propose (159) to be the in situ configuration of the semantic forms involved. (159) [man [kann empfehlen [nicht [alle]]]] Assuming (159) as the structure underlying semantic interpretation makes the negation a constituent negation (see Molnár & Rosengren 1997: 222). The expression alle can be interpreted as the collection of all discourse salient entities, i.e. the collection of all Grass-novels in (158A). A collection of entities is a referential entity and thus a potential topic expression. Qua topic expression its phonological form moves to spec-Foc while that of the negation particle moves to the Neg-head position. In this way one can account for both the topicality of alle and for the fact that the negation has semantic scope over it. There are overwhelmingly more and very intricate questions and problems involved in the study of the syntax and semantics of focus particles which may be studied along the lines sketched above (see the works mentioned in N. 94). As already pointed out above (p. 56ff.), these issues are not inseparably linked with the main subject of the present work. I must leave their investigation for future research.
Features, checking theory and semantic implications
* The view presented in Section 5.1 of the manner in which the functional case layer and the FANTAV-layer are built up and especially of the mechanism by which uninterpretable features are checked and erased is crucial for an understanding of the FocP-related syntactic analyses in Chapter 7. The conception of semantic features remaining in situ, some favourable and problematic implications of which have been discussed in Section 5.2, will have to be defended in the semantic Chapter 8 against arguments which suggest semantic feature movement after all, i.e. notably the type of movement known as quantifier raising (QR). We turn now to the chapter on intonation, whose placement between the present chapter and the main syntactic Chapter 7 has been motivated on page 107 above.
Chapter 6
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
As already pointed out several times, only in sentences with expletive there or it in clause initial position is there an unambiguous morpho-syntactic indication of a specific type of focus structure, namely the thetic type. In all other cases a sentence string, i.e. the surface reflection of morpho-syntactic structure under abstraction from phonological and thus intonational information, is either three-way or twoway ambiguous between types of focus structure. It is three-way ambiguous if there is no visible fronting and two-way ambiguous (between the categorical and identificational types) if there is visible fronting. Intonation reflects focus structure in the sense that it disambiguates between categorical and identificational focus structure in the latter case and in that it rules out either categorical or identificational focus structure in the former so that the three-way ambiguity is reduced to a two-way one between categorical or identificational focus structure on the one hand and thetic focus structure on the other hand. If we make the assumption that thetic focus structure is restricted to discourse-initial utterances,187 then we can say that intonation reflects focus structure in all those cases where it is not determined by a specific morpho-syntactic constellation (expletives in clause initial position) and/or by a specific context (initiation of discourse). It is the purpose of this chapter to discuss the relation between the notion of focus in terms of intonation and focus structure as conceived of in the present work in more detail. Recall that I assume the relation between the syntactic manifestation of focus structure and the presence of an intonational focus constituent (i-focus) to be as illustrated in (160) below, where I indicate the i-focus as in the phrase markers in (44) on page 39 and represent the interpretable semantic head Focfeature [±foch s ] as remaining in situ as discussed in Section 5.2.
Chapter 6
(160) categorical
identificational
FocP
XPi
IP i-focus
FocP Foc'
Foc
thetic
Foc' IPi-focus
(...) ti (...) [–foc hs]
Foc
XPii-focus
IP
(...) ti (...) [+foc hs]
The verbalisation of what the structures in (160) are supposed to express is given in (161) (which is a modified version of (45) from p. 40). (161) a.
In a categorical sentence the complement of the Foc-head contains or is an XP licensed as i-focus. b. In an identificational sentence the specifier of the Foc-head contains or is an XP licensed as i-focus. c. In a thetic sentence the IP is licensed as i-focus.
The notion of i-focus is essentially that of ‘focus’ as discussed in works which are concerned with intonational ‘focus projection’ (e.g. Rochemont 1986; Selkirk 1984, 1995; Uhmann 1991a; Winkler 1997). Section 6.1 of this chapter deals with focus projection on the basis of Selkirk’s (1995) concise formulation of its principles but also very much in the spirit of Winkler (1997). Section 6.2 presents a principle which has to be added to the principles of focus projection in order to account for intonational phenomena of a certain type. In Section 6.3 I will elaborate on different types of pitch accent and their interaction in the determination of i-foci. The relation between i-focus (and the underlying notion of F-marked XP) and [±foc]-featured XP will be discussed in Section 6.4.
. The principles of i-focus projection According to Selkirk (1995: 555), “the Focus of a sentence [...] is defined as an Fmarked constituent not dominated by any other F-marked constituent.”188 The notion of F-marking is defined by the basic focus rule, which makes reference to pitch accents: “An accented word is F-marked” (Selkirk 1995: 555). The relation between F-marking and Focus is determined by the principles of Focus Projection (Selkirk 1995: 561):
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
Focus Projection [...] (a) F-marking of the head of a phrase licenses the F-marking of the phrase. (b) F-marking of an internal argument of a head licenses the F-marking of the head. (c) F-marking of the antecedent of a trace left by NP- or wh-movement licenses the F-marking of the trace.
What Selkirk calls Focus is essentially what I have called i-focus so far. I will retain the latter term. I use the term Focus Projection when I want to refer exclusively to Selkirk’s (1995) definitions and theory while I write i-focus projection when I refer to a more general concept not necessarily as defined by Selkirk. Consider the following example, which is adapted from Selkirk (1995: 555) by indicating only the F-mark on the DP bats produced by pitch accenting the lexical item bats and the highest F-marked constituent, i.e. the one that is not dominated by any other F-marked constituent and is thus the i-focus; intermediate F-marked constituents are not indicated. (162) a. b. c. d. e.
Mary bought a book about i-foc [F bats] Mary bought a book i-foc [F about [F bats]] Mary bought i-foc [F a book about [F bats]] Mary i-foc [F bought a book about [F bats]] i-foc [F Mary bought a book about [F bats]]
The point of calling the DP bats an internal argument of the preposition about and the PP about bats an internal argument of the noun book (see principle (b) of Focus Projection) may not be obvious. It may seem that it would do no harm to Selkirk’s (1995) intention and be more acceptable terminologically if ‘internal argument’ were replaced by ‘complement’ in her formulation of the principles of Focus Projection. We will see below, however, that Selkirk deliberately uses ‘internal argument’ rather than ‘complement’, as she intends to capture the i-focus projection capacity of a subject which originates as an ‘internal argument’ in the sense that it is base-generated in the specifier position of a VP. Yet, I will argue that the relevant cases of these subjects are more appropriately analysed as originating in the complement position of a VP-core rather than the specifier position. Thus, it does make sense to talk in terms of ‘complements’ rather than ‘internal arguments’ right from the start in this discussion. The examples in (162) show that the formulation of the principles of Focus Projection in terms of ‘licensing’ determines the range of potential i-foci given an F-marked word. While an utterance of Mary bought a book about BATS is structurally ambiguous with respect to the identity of the i-focus, the utterance MARY bought a book about bats is not structurally ambiguous. Here the only possible structure is this:
Chapter 6
(163)
i-foc [F
Mary] bought a book about bats
It may seem that Selkirk’s (1995) principles of Focus Projection are in need of being supplemented by a restrictive statement with regard to the types of head that may i-focus-project (that is, to license an i-focus). D-heads, for example, do not appear to i-focus-project (but see shortly below). Pitch accenting and thus F-marking of the D-head a of the DP a book in (164) Mary bought a book about bats does not seem to license the DP as i-focus – nor consequently the VP and the IP.189 It may be hypothesised that functional heads in general do not i-focus-project, while only lexical heads do. And one may be led to consider cases where phonologically manifest functional heads are pitch-accented as having some kind of metalinguistic function independent of i-focus projection, such as correcting a previous utterance or ‘insisting’ (with ‘counterpresuppositionals’ as the most common type of insists; see Cruttenden 1986/1997: 85f.). The following examples present some cases in point. (165) a.
(Why didn’t you see your supervisor?) But I did see my supervisor (from Cruttenden 1986/1997: 85) b. (When was Catharin of Aragon executed?) She wasn’t executed (ditto) c. (Why are we having meat for lunch?) We’re not having meat for lunch (ditto) d. ‘[. . .] In a day or so, there’ll be something else for them to joke about, and it’ll all be forgotten.’ ‘There’s nothing to forget!’ (from Rankin 1990/1997: 192) e. I’m going. But we’ll talk again. And you will talk. (from Rankin 1998/1999: 224)
However, in Selkirk’s (1995) theory every utterance has to contain one pitch accent that projects and licenses an i-focus. Thus, although the respective pitch accents in such examples as in (165) may be characterised as having some kind of metalinguistic function as well, they are nevertheless F-marking pitch accents playing the decisive role in i-focus projection. Moreover, there are attested examples with single pitch accents on functional heads for which a metalinguistic function is not obvious. (I assume the italics used by the author in the following examples to indicate pitch accents.) (166) a. You will remember us all to Nell, won’t you? (Rankin 1990/1997: 186) b. The student at the study desk was no longer looking through him. He was looking at him. (Rankin 1990/1997: 187)
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
While it may be possible to argue that (166a) is counterpresuppositional after all, I do not see how the respective utterance in (166b) could be said to be metalinguistic in any sense. (Note that it is clearly no correction of the previous utterance.) This suggests that pitch accents on phonologically manifest functional heads are not principally devoid of the capacity to i-focus-project and thus to license i-foci. Selkirk (1995: 557) makes this point with respect to the example (167)
FOC [Mary
did buy a book about bats]
She explains (Selkirk 1995: 557): “As a head of an inflectional projection [. . .], accented did licenses sentence Focus. Employing the accented auxiliary do solves the problem of how to focus a sentence when everything in it is old information.”190 And indeed, we can construct a context in which even F-marking the determiner of a direct object DP as in (164) above produces a felicitous categorical utterance: (168) A: Mary bought a book about bats. Q: Which one? A: I don’t know. She bought A book about bats; that’s all I know. While the mechanism of principles (a) and (b) of Selkirk’s (1995) Focus Projection (see above, p. 131) are straightforward, principle (c) needs some explanation. First, that part of principle (c) which refers to wh-movement is supposed to account for the following observation (Selkirk 1995: 561), which amounts to saying that a moved wh-XP passes its capacity to i-focus-project on to its trace(s): The question Which BOOK did Helen review? can be appropriately uttered in a discourse where Helen is given in the discourse, but reviewing is not. That Helen is interpreted as old follows from its lack of accent, since the subject NP could not have F-marking licensed by anything else. But the accentless verb review can get F-marked, through the trace of the wh-moved NP[...].
In other words, the intonation of Which BOOK did Helen review? does not only license the DP which book as i-focus but also the constituent [review t] with t being the trace left by movement of which book. Translated into the syntactic framework set up in the preceding chapters of the current work this means that F-marks of lexical items remain in their base positions, i.e. in the position where lexical items are semantically interpreted; the pitch accent which manifests an F-mark on a lexical item is part of its phonological form and may move. This applies analogously to the second part of principle (c) which refers to NP-movement. The second part of principle (c) of Focus Projection is supposed to account for cases like the following “‘out-of-the blue’ responses to ‘What’s been happening?”’ (Selkirk 1995: 559), where the IP is i-focus (thetic utterance):191
Chapter 6
(169) a. b. c. d.
Johnson died The sky is falling The sun came out The baby’s crying
Principles (a) and (b) of Focus Projection alone do not allow for the whole IP to be i-focus if the F-marking pitch accent responsible for Focus Projection is within the subject, contrary to the facts. Selkirk’s (1995) principle (c) overcomes this problem by using the observation that “[c]urrent syntactic analysis understands the surface subject in the sentences in [(169)] to be generated within the verb phrase in deep structure” (Selkirk 1995: 559). The idea, said to be influenced by Diesing 1992, is that the subject’s originating VP-internally makes it an internal argument of the verb at D-structure and provides thus, via principles (b) and (c), the required constellation for licensing the IP as i-focus.192 This reasoning applies also to German examples of the following type (from Uhmann 1991a: 199, 201), which can also be thetic. (170) a. Ein Müllwagen kommt (‘A dustcart is coming’) b. Ein Kind ist hingefallen (‘A child has fallen down’) Notice that sentences superficially similar (in that they are all ‘intransitive’ in traditional terms) to those of (169) and (170), such as those in (171), are not possible as thetic utterances. (171) a. The employees protested b. The president lied c. A young man overdosed Here the F-marking pitch accent responsible for i-focus projection does not license the IP as i-focus. This is because the verbs in (171) belong to the class of unergative verbs, whose subjects originate in the specifier position of the abstract shell verb v which heads the vP-shell that dominates the VP-core (see Radford 1997: 399). Hence, when Rochemont (1998: 345) writes “that only derived subjects permit F-projection to the verb” we can think of such ‘derived subjects’ as those which originate as the verb’s complement within the VP-core. What Selkirk (1995) refers to in her formulation of Focus Projection as ‘internal argument’, then, is in more precise terms a phrase which originates as complement in a VP-core (i.e. in comp-V). There are some verbs which appear to be unergative but which nevertheless allow their F-marked argument to license the IP as i-focus. The verb cry of (169d) above is a case in point and so are the verbs in the following utterances, which can all be thetic.
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
(172) a. b. c. d.
A train whistled (from Faber 1987: 346) The neighbours’ll object (from Faber 1987: 350) The local shopkeepers’ll complain (ditto) My dog barked (from Faber 1987: 356)
Göbbel (2003) assumes that these verbs are unergative (see e.g. Göbbel 2003: 301) and suggests, following Faber 1987, that it is a semantic feature [±control] in the argument which is responsible for its (non-)capacity to license the IP as i-focus if F-marked.193 If the argument is [+control]-featured, then its being F-marked does not license the IP as i-focus. If it is [–control]-featured, as in (172), its being F-marked does license the IP as i-focus. “An argument has control properties if it effects the initialisation and determines the temporal extension of the situation described by the predicate.” (Göbbel 2003: 288.) The feature [±control] is intended to capture Faber’s (1987) observation that if the referent of the argument phrase is conceptualised as an intentional being in control of the action designated by the predicate (typically humans, except babies), then the respective predicate does not allow the F-marked argument to license the IP as i-focus. This is said to underlie the contrasts in (173), which are again to be conceived of as thetic utterances.194 The dog’s farted / Moleworth’s fartedF / *Moleworth’s farted (cf. Faber 1987: 245) b. The baby’s crying / Mary’s cryingF / *Mary’s crying (cf. Göbbel 2003: 301)
(173) a.
Göbbel (2003: 282ff.) makes a strong case for the role of [±control] in grammar. However, I would like to suggest, alternatively, that we can also deal with the class of cases exemplified by (172) if we maintain that the verbs involved are unaccusative (originating in comp-V) rather than unergative (originating in spec-v). This is not the place to discuss and compare these alternatives in detail (but see Göbbel 2003: 301ff. and the literature mentioned there). I would like to make one point, though: Faber (1987) repeatedly denies that the referent of the F-marked argument of a supposedly unergative predicate which licenses the IP as i-focus is a thematic agent. With respect to (172c, d) above he writes: Objecting and complaining would generally, one supposes, be classed as actions, and one might therefore assume that these predicates must be agentive. Thus the fact that they need not be accented in these sentences needs explaining. The truth of the matter, once again, is that (whatever we might think when we look at the sentences cold on the page) these predicates are not primarily meant to specify actions, and that they are not, therefore, ‘agentive’ in the sense in which I am using the term. Rather, their main function is to describe the feelings, or reactions, of the argument. The meaning of [(172b)] is roughly The neighbours won’t be very pleased/won’t like it, while the speaker of [(172c)]
Chapter 6
could have made much the same point by saying The local shopkeepers’ll be unsuited/’ll take umbrage. (Faber 1987: 351)
If the respective argument is indeed not a thematic agent, then there is no agentive light verb v in whose specifier position it is base-generated. Consequently, under our assumption (following Radford 1997: 399; see above) that unergatives crucially involve an agentive light verb, the respective predicates are no unergatives in these cases. Actually, Faber (1987) interprets several examples with supposedly agentive predicates where the F-marked argument licenses the IP as i-focus in a way essentially similar to those where clearly unaccusative predicates of (dis)appearance are involved. Consider his account of the thetic utterances in (174). (174) a. Your mother telephoned b. Jill’s written c. One of the croupiers butted in “The appearance on the scene of a person should not be taken as having to mean a physical appearance. A person may well ‘appear’, in the sense of ‘becoming present to the observer’, by speaking, or, by extension, via the telephone or the post.” (Faber 1987: 348f.) I would hold that the lack of agentivity in such examples corresponds with a lack of an agentive (light) verb and thus with a lack of spec-v. And by definition those bases which lack a vP-shell cannot be headed by an unergative predicate. Hence, I assume the single argument of all one-argument verbs except for unergative verbs (whose argument originates in spec-v) to be base-generated in comp-V. Following Perlmutter (1978), the class of one-argument verbs which are not unergatives are summarily called unaccusatives (or ergatives) by many authors (see also Culicover 1997: 108 and the references given in N. 35). Radford (1997: 367ff.), however, distinguishes verbs like roll, break, close as a separate class of nonunergative one-arguments verbs and calls them ergatives. For him it is the PP down the hill which is base complement of the verb in (175), while the ball is base-generated as spec-V. (175) The ball rolled down the hill Note, however, that a thetic reading of (175) requires ball to carry the primary pitch accent, whereas a primary pitch accent on hill is only compatible with a categorical reading: (176) Q: What happened? A: The ball rolled down the hill (thetic) A’: #The ball rolled down the hill195
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
That is, roll patterns with the verbs in (169) in this respect, and so do the Radfordian ergatives break and close, as shown in (177). (177) a. The vase broke into pieces (thetic) b. The store closed down (thetic) Moreover, in terms of thematic roles, the arguments of roll, break and close are clearly themes, so that we expect them to be base-generated in comp-V anyway (see Subsection 2.1.2 above). Hence, with respect to the question of where in the base the single argument of a one-argument verb is generated, I do not follow Radford (1997) in distinguishing ergatives as a separate class from unaccusatives, although there may be other criteria for doing so. Under this view then, the capacity of all one-argument verbs except for unergatives to license a thetic reading if their argument carries the primary pitch accent can be associated with the argument’s being base-generated as complement of the verb.196 The preceding discussion suggests that we may replace Selkirk’s (1995) principle (c) of Focus Projection, which confers the capacity to F-project of F-marked and moved NPs (DPs) and wh-XPs to their traces, by the assumption that Fprojection applies to the constituents in their base position. In particular, an Fmarked constituent which is a base complement of a head licenses F-marking of the head (cf. principle (b)) and thus F-marking of the projections of the head (cf. principle (a)). Movement of such a complement to a position in which it is not complement of its base head any more does not cancel its capacity to license the F-marking of its base head. We expect that what is true for an XP originating in comp-V of a noncopulative clause to be generally true for an XP originating in comp-H of copulative and non-copulative clauses (recall the general structure of the base of copulative and non-copulative clauses discussed in Subsection 2.1.2). Thus, we need to show that an F-marked XP originating in comp-H of a copulative clause is capable of licensing the IP as i-focus, i.e. to allow for a thetic interpretation. This is indeed the case, as (178) below shows, where the predicates are unaccusative stage level predicates (SLP) occupying the position H of the base as described in Subsection 2.1.2 and whose subject originates in the predicate’s complement position. Consider the examples in (178) as out-of-the-blue utterances, i.e. in a context which suggests a thetic interpretation. (178) a. b.
i-foc [John i-foc [Die
is {here / ill / dead}] Bären sind los] (‘The bears are loose’)
If in contrast the SLP head H in a copulative clause is clearly not unaccusative, then F-marking of the subject does not license the IP as i-focus. This is shown by the examples in (179), where the fact that the predicative adjectives take complements in (179a) makes sure that we are not confronted with unaccusative predicates, i.e.
Chapter 6
that the subject cannot originate in comp-H. Recall from Subsection 2.1.2 that I consider the subjects of non-unaccusative SLP heads in copulative clauses like those in (179) to originate in spec-H. (179) a. *i-foc [John is {worried about Nelle / angry at Nelle / proud of Nelle}] b. *i-foc [John is {worried / angry / proud / tired / furious}] I consider the subjects of individual level predicates (ILP) to originate in spec-h, independently of the unaccusative/non-unaccusative distinction. Consequently, Fmarking of the subject of an ILP head ought never to license the IP as i-focus. This seems to be correct, as suggested by such examples as (180). (180) *i-foc [John is {intelligent / uneasy with women / a lawyer / a professor of English}] With respect to the clausal base hP, we can now reformulate Selkirk’s (1995) principle (b) of Focus Projection along the following lines: (181) In a clausal base hP F-marking of an XP which originates in comp-H licenses the F-marking of the head H. Gussenhoven (1999: 48f.) criticises Focus Projection for not being able to discriminate “between cases like [JOHNSON died answering What happened?] in which a simple argument projects focus to its predicate, and cases like [MARY bought a book about bats, which is impossible as an answer to What happened?], where in addition to the argument in subject position, there is an argument in object position.” In fact, discrimination between these two cases is unproblematic on the basis of the preceding discussion. Died in JOHNSON died is an unaccusative SLP whose subject originates in comp-V (= comp-H) and thus licenses the IP as i-focus by (181) and principle (a) of Focus Projection. By contrast, the subject of buy in MARY bought a book about bats originates in spec-v. Its F-marking does not license the IP as i-focus. To give some further examples which support the principle in (181): An Fmarked passive subject as in (182A), which is generally assumed to originate in comp-V, also licenses the IP as i-focus. (182) Q: Any news? A: Some new legislation was announced today. (from Rochemont 1998: 344) Analogously the following German example from Uhmann (1991a: 200): (183) Q: Was ist das für ein entsetzlicher Krach? (‘What horrible noise is that?’) A: Der Rasen wird gemäht. (‘The lawn is being mown.’)
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
The following contrast (see Uhmann 1991a: 202) is again due to the syntactic difference between SLPs and ILPs. (184) a.
Q: A: b. Q: A:
Warum guckst du so entsetzt? (‘Why are you looking so shocked?’) Annas Auge ist ganz rot. (‘Anna’s eye is all red.’) Warum strahlst du so? (‘Why are you beaming that way?’) Annas Augen sind ganz blau. (‘Anna’s eyes are all blue.‘)
The predicative head rot in (184aA) is an unaccusative SLP, whereas the predicative head blau in (184bA) is an ILP. The subject of the former originates in comp-H and its F-marking thus licenses the IP as i-focus. The subject of the latter originates in spec-h. Licensing of the IP as i-focus can only be achieved by F-marking the predicative head in this case. The following example confirms that the capacity to license the F-marking of a V in a VP is confined to an F-marked XP in comp-V and does not extend to an F-marked XP in spec-V. (185) John gave Mary the book. F-marking Mary, which originates in spec-V, neither licenses gave Mary the book nor the whole sentence as i-focus (see also Erteschik-Shir 1997: 162). This is why it is misleading to talk of ‘internal arguments’ in the formulation of the principles of i-focus projection. If ‘internal argument’ means ‘either specifier or complement of V in a VP-core’, then it is not generally true that the F-marking of an internal argument licenses the F-marking of V. The principle of i-focus projection formulated in (181) above is restricted to the relation between complement and head in the clausal base. But Selkirk’s (1995) principles (a) and (b) of Focus Projection are of course supposed to apply to all kinds of heads and their complements. We have seen in connection with the examples in (162) above that complements of nouns and prepositions do indeed appear to license their heads (i-foc [ about [F bats]], i-foc [ a book about [F bats]]). And the same seems to be true for complements of adjectives as well: (186) Q: What’s the matter with John? A. a. He is i-foc [angry [at Nelle]]. b. He is i-foc [surprised [that Ling agreed]]. c. He is i-foc [determined [to fight]].197 d. He is i-foc [busy [preparing the case]]. By contrast, F-marked specifiers of nominal, adjectival or prepositional heads do not seem to be capable of licensing the F-marking of NPs/DPs, APs or PPs: (187) a.
Q: What did Billy do? A: #He invited the new secretary. (assumption: no secretary mentioned in the preceding discourse)
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b. Q: Do you know anything about our new colleague? A: #He is happily married. (assumption: no talk about being married in the preceding discourse) c. Q: When did John and Richard arrive? A: #They arrived right after midnight. Thus, it seems that we can generalise (181) by simply eliminating the restrictive initial phrase In a clausal base hP such that the principle applies to all kinds of heads and their complements in their base positions.198 (188) F-marking of an XP which originates in comp-H licenses the F-marking of the head H. Summarising these modifications and adaptations to the present syntactic framework of Selkirk’s (1995) principles of Focus Projection, I suggest the following version, which I would like to call the principles of base position i-focus projection (BPIFP), as i-focus projection is assumed to apply to heads and phrases in their base positions. (189) Base position i-focus projection (BPIFP) a. I-focus projection applies to heads and phrases in their base positions. b. i. F-marking of a head H licenses the F-marking of H’s projection(s). ii. F-marking of the complement C of a head H licenses the Fmarking of H. Consider the following examples (from Rochemont 1998: 343): (190) a. Mary [F ate the cake slowly] a . *Mary [F ate the cake slowly] b. Bill [F is jogging in the park] b . *Bill [F is jogging in the park] c. John [F quit because he was tired] c . *John [F quit because he was tired] d. [F A refugee looking for work] came into the office d . *[F A refugee looking for work] came into the office In cases such as these we need a second pitch accent in addition to the one we may expect to be able to license F-marking of the bracketed phrase on the basis of BPIFP. The part which falls outside the phrase licensed as i-focus by the first F-marking pitch accent alone is an adjunct in each of these examples. As pointed out by Drubig (1992b: 150, 156) and Winkler (1997: pass.), adjuncts have to be F-marked on their own and independently of the phrase to which they are adjoined if this phrase
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
as a whole, i.e. containing the adjunct, is to be licensed as i-focus. According to Winkler (1997: 236f.), “adjuncts are not provided for in the lexical representation of the main predicator of the sentence and are therefore exempt from rules such as [. . .] the focus projection principles applying at D-structure.” And: [I] assume that those elements that are not provided for in the theta-grid of their head are generated in separate substructures at D-structure. Each substructure must be individually focus-assigned, and may not be adjoined to the kernel sentence until later in the derivation, when the focus assignment processes at D-structure are already concluded. (Winkler 1997: 252)
The question of where and when adjuncts are generated has not been conclusively answered yet. But this problem does not seem to be essential for my purposes here, for which Winkler’s account is absolutely sufficient. I just point out that her reference to D-structure would have to be replaced by reference to base positions in the syntactic framework of the present work.
. Supplementing the principles of i-focus projection F-marking and thus pitch accents also play a role in the marking of what is – or is assumed to be, by the speaker – “new in the discourse” (e.g. Selkirk 1995) or “cconstruable” (i.e. “construable from the context”; Culicover & Rochemont 1983: 153; Rochemont 1986) or “inactive” (e.g. Lambrecht 1994). To quote from Selkirk (1995: 556): “It appears to be the case that F-marked constituents which are not a Focus are interpreted as new in the discourse, while a constituent without Fmarking is interpreted as given.” For the reasons given by Lambrecht (1994: pass., esp.: 257ff.; see also above, Section 3.1) I prefer to refer to this function of pitch accents in terms of the activation states of mental representations of referents (see also N. 119) rather than in terms of the ‘new/old (given)’ dichotomy. Consider the following examples from Rochemont (1986: 56ff., 1998: 342). (191) a.
A: Where’s the cat? B: John is beating it. b. A: I hear there was a party at John’s house. B: Yeah. The party was raided last night. c. I ran into John this morning
We may interpret (191aB) and (191c) as being either categorical or thetic while (191bB) is categorical rather than thetic. The F-marking of the predicative head in (191aB) and (191bB) and of the complement of the predicative head in (191c) licenses the F-marking of all the projections of the respective predicative head up to the IP. In any case the phrases licensed as i-foci contain the complement in (191aB)
Chapter 6
(it) and the adjuncts in (191bB) and (191c) (last night, this morning). However, in contrast to the examples in (190), the adjuncts must not be F-marked; and F-marking of the complement is equally ruled out. This is because the (mental representations of the) denotata of the complement and of the adjuncts are active or accessible and, consequently, the respective phrases must not be F-marked independently (see also Ladd 1996: 175ff.). It might be thought that, as pronouns are always used for active or accessible referents and never for inactive referents, they are never F-marked. This is by no means true. If there is no other way of licensing an i-focus except by F-marking a pronoun, this has to be done. Lambrecht (1994) presents the following examples to make this point: (192) Q: Who did they call? A: a. Pati said shei was called. b. Pati said they called heri . (from Lambrecht 1994: 115) (193) Q: Who did Felix praise? A: a. He praised himself. b. He praised you. c. He praised noone. (from Lambrecht 1994: 260)199 The denotatum of a co-referring ((192Aa, b), (193Aa)) or deictic ((193Ab)) pronoun is by definition active or accessible. Some more attested examples of this kind are the following ones, for which I assume that the italics used by the author indicate pitch accenting. (194) a. We can press charges. (Rankin 1998/1999: 200) b. You sent Candice back to them. You did that. (Rankin 1998/1999: 224) c. The hunched man pulling off his lumberjack hat, the man with bad teeth and a blunt razor, he was in charge. (Rankin 1998/1999: 264) These examples clearly support Lambrecht’s (1994: 323) assessment that the function of prosodic prominence on a pronoun cannot be that of referent ‘activation’ proper, if activation is understood [. . .] as the cognitive process whereby a previously inactive discourse referent is ‘lit up’ in the consciousness of an addressee, as Chafe puts it. Since pronouns by their nature are assumed to have active referents, independently of their prosodic manifestation, the function of an accent on a pronoun cannot be to activate the referent in the hearer’s mind. [. . .] [. . .] The function of an accent on constituents with active referents, whether pronominal or nominal, is then to establish the role of a given referent as a topic or a focus argument in a pragmatically structured proposition.
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
Pitch accents and thus F-marks on constituents whose denotata are active or accessible are avoided in English as long as they are not needed for licensing the required i-focus or for expressing contrastiveness (on the latter function see below). But pitch accents may be rather freely assigned for the purpose of marking inactive denotata. This explains the following contrasts pointed out by Bolinger (1972: 633f.). (195) a. a . b. b .
I have a point to make I have a point to emphasise The end of the chapter is reserved for various problems to solve The end of the chapter is reserved for various problems to computerise c. (I can’t finish in an hour) – there are simply too many topics to cover c . (I can’t finish in an hour) – there are simply too many topics to elucidate
The pitch accents on emphasise, computerise, and elucidate in the primed versions of (195) are activation accents. Corresponding pitch accents on make, solve, and cover in the unprimed versions would be inappropriate as the denotata of these items are accessible in the sense that they strongly collocate with the pitch-accented preceding ones and have thus a high degree of predictability. After having addressed the role of pitch accents and F-marking for the determination of constituents with inactive denotata, I am now in a position to turn to the discussion of a principle which seems to be needed in addition to those of BPIFP as formulated in (189) above. Gussenhoven (1999: 48) observes that F-marking the head of VP, does not license i-focus projection of higher constituents than the verb itself in examples like (196). (196) She sent a book to Mary Thus (196) cannot be used to answer the context question What did she do?, for instance. The same is true for She SENT Mary a book.200 This is clearly incompatible with Selkirk’s (1995) Focus Projection and my modified version of it (i.e. BPIFP). In order to accommodate such cases I suggest the following complement priority principle (CPP) supplementing BPIFP. (197) Complement priority principle (CPP) F-marking the complement C of an i-focus projecting head H has priority over the F-marking of H itself, unless the complement has an active or accessible denotatum (and H does not have an active or accessible denotatum).201
Chapter 6
In many cases the CPP has the same effect and makes the same predictions as the nuclear stress rule (NSR) of Chomsky & Halle (1968: 17ff.), which amounts to the rightmost non-functional lexical item in any phrasal structure being assigned primary stress. If we ignore the terminological and substantial difference between stress and accent, this is because the complement is rightmost in the spec-headcomp linearisation of a phrasal structure in a language such as English.202 To assume some principle of this kind, possibly parameterised across languages, seems to be unavoidable after all. Ladd (1996: 193f.) proposes “that there is a basic division between languages that normally require the main accent to occur on the rightmost content word and those that allow the main accent to be placed earlier in the sentence.” BPIFP supplemented by the CPP makes the correct predictions with respect to many cases which have been pointed out as being incompatible with Selkirk’s (1984, 1995) Focus Projection. Recall, especially with respect to the German examples which follow, that BPIFP states that i-focus projection applies to the constituents in their base position. The F-marking of sent for licensing a higher constituent than the verb as ifocus, as in (196) above, violates the CPP since there is a complement of sent, the DP a book, which should be F-marked instead. The difference in the i-focus projection potentials of Haus and gekauft in Hetland’s example mentioned in note 200 is due to the fact that ein Haus is complement of the head gekauft in the VP-core. (198) [VP Peter [V ein Haus gekauft]] The unacceptability of (199A) below (from Uhmann 1991a: 199) is also due to the fact that the head of the PP rather than its complement is F-marked. (199) Q: Und warum hat sie ihn nicht schon lange verlassen? (‘And why didn’t she leave him much earlier?’) A: *Natürlich wegen der Kinder. (‘Because of the children of course.’) (200a) below (from Jacobs 1991: 22) is fine since ein Loch is base complement of geschlagen as shown in (200b). (200) a.
Er hat ein Loch in die Wand geschlagen (‘He’s knocked a hole in the wall’) b. [vP er [v [VP in die Wand [V ein Loch geschlagen]]]]
The CPP provides a solution for a problem mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. There I pointed out that (morpho-phonologically manifest) functional heads seem to be able to i-focus-project only very rarely. Yet, there are cases where they do have this capacity (as in the spoken version of the sentence just written). Now we can confirm that such functional heads, just like lexical heads, indeed have the capacity to i-focus-project. But a functional head always has a complement,
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
and in most cases it is the F-marking of the complement which takes priority over the F-marking of the functional head for the purpose of i-focus licensing according to the CPP. It is clear that we need to postulate the capacity of heads to project i-foci after all. That is, it is obviously not possible to restrict this capacity to complements alone, as cases where there is no potentially i-focus projecting complement show immediately. (201) Q: What happened? A: John lost. Nor can we dispense with i-focus projection in favour of some principle along the lines of the NSR alone, as the following examples show, where the pitch accent is not on the rightmost non-functional lexical item within the i-focus. (202) a.
Q: What have you found out about his relationship with Holmes and Watson? A: Well, he introduced Watson to Holmes (that’s the only thing I’m sure of). b. People who grow rice generally only eatF rice. (from Rooth 1992: 109)
Thus, the principles of BPIFP in combination with the CPP accounts for the effect that the pitch accent responsible for F-marking is shifted from the complement to the head if the former has an active denotatum. But note that this shift is not universal. According to Vallduví & Engdahl (1996: 506), it does not take place in Catalan, for instance. Consider next the following example from Uhmann (1991a: 201). (203) Q: Warum streiten sich Klaus und Maria denn schon wieder? (‘Why are Klaus and Maria quarreling again?’) A: Klaus will einen ToyotaF kaufen, aber Maria möchte lieber ein deutschesF Auto. (‘Klaus wants to buy a Toyota, but Maria prefers a German car.’) I am not interested in the pitch accents on Klaus and Maria for the moment.203 I am interested in the question whether the pitch accent on the adjective deutsches i-focus-projects beyond the AP which it heads, that is, whether it licenses the NP deutsches Auto or the DP ein deutsches Auto or the VP möchte lieber ein deutsches Auto as i-foci. With the AP being the specifier of the NP, this should not be possible. In order to investigate this problem, consider the following variations of (203A), which are both fine.
Chapter 6
(204) Q: Warum streiten sich Klaus und Maria denn schon wieder? A: a. Klaus will einen 500er MercedesF kaufen, aber Maria verabscheut deutsche NobelkarossenF. (‘Klaus wants to buy a Mercedes 500, but Maria loathes posh German limousines.’) b. Klaus will einen 500er MercedesF kaufen, aber Maria verabscheutF deutsche Nobelkarossen. The fact that both are fine is due to a certain vagueness in which denotata may be assumed to be – or may be presented as – accessible to the hearer by the speaker. In (204Ab) both the denotata of deutsche and of Nobelkarossen are presented as accessible, whereas in (204Aa) only the former is. Note that independently of this accessibility aspect of Nobelkarossen, in both utterances of Maria verabscheut deutsche Nobelkarossen the VP verabscheut deutsche Nobelkarossen is licensed as i-focus – in (204Aa) because of the F-marking of the verb’s complement deutsche Nobelkarossen, in (204Ab) because of the F-marking of the V-head verabscheut. The point now is that precisely this licensing of the VP as i-focus is not possible when deutsche is pitch-accented. (205) Q: Warum streiten sich Klaus und Maria denn schon wieder? A: #Klaus will einen 500er MercedesF kaufen, aber Maria verabscheut deutscheF Nobelkarossen. If F-marking the specifier AP by pitch accenting its head deutsche were capable of licensing the NP deutsche Nobelkarossen as i-focus, then it would also be capable of F-marking the DP deutsche Nobelkarossen and the VP verabscheut deutsche Nobelkarossen. As this is not the case, we may conclude that also in the original (203A) pitch accenting deutsches does not license an i-focus higher than the AP deutsches, as predicted by the principles of BPIFP. The following apparent problem for the theory of i-focus projection is noted by Hetland (1993) with respect to the German examples in (206): “The fact that an seine FRAU is an argument of the verb and carries the main accent is not sufficient to trigger focus projection in sentence [(206Ab)]” (my translation from Hetland 1993: 110). (206) Q: Was hat Peter gemacht? (‘What did Peter do?’) A: a. Peter hat einen Brief an seine Frau geschrieben204 (‘Peter wrote a letter to his wife’) b. #An seine Frau hat Peter einen Brief geschrieben The problem is only apparent, for (206Ab) is unacceptable not because of some i-focus projection issue, but because it has a focus structure incompatible with the context question. Among many other possibilities, (206Q) is compatible with a categorical response with Peter or he as topic expression or with a thetic utterance,
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
i.e. those interpretations licensed by the intonation indicated in (206Aa). But it is not compatible with an identificational utterance with a DP as identificational focus expression. And this is precisely what we have in (206Ab). Here the phonological form of the beneficiary or recipient argument PP an seine Frau has moved from its base position in spec-V to spec-Foc. In combination with the fact that Frau carries the pitch accent which licenses the PP as i-focus this means that we are confronted with an identificational utterance with an seine Frau as identificational focus expression. Finally in this section I note that what has been said so far and will be said in the following sections about the principles of i-focus projection applies to the utterance of declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences (the first type of which we have concentrated on), but not to exclamative utterances. As pointed out by Höhle (1992: 117), pitch accenting of the subjects of the following German examples of exclamative utterances does not correspond to their being focus expressions under any definition. (207) a. Bist du aber braun! (‘What a tan you have!’) b. Hat der aber große Füße! (‘What big feet he has!’) “It actually looks as if there are, in part, completely idiosyncratic rules for the position and effect of accents in exclamative utterance types” (my translation from Höhle 1992: 117). Exclamative utterances are ignored in the present work.
. Pitch accents Recall that according to Selkirk (1995: 555) “[a]n accented word is F-marked.” By “accented word” Selkirk means a word which carries a pitch accent in terms of the autosegmental-metrical theory of intonation (see e.g. Beckman & Pierrehumbert 1986; Ladd 1996; Pierrehumbert 1980/1987; Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg 1990). The essential terminological and notational ingredients of this theory are given in the following passages from Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg (1990) (in the original, the tones are given in bold print, which is not reproduced here): Pitch accents mark the lexical item with which they are associated as prominent. There are six different types of pitch accent in English [. . .]: two simple tones – high and low – and four complex ones. The high tone, the most frequently used accent, comes out as a peak on the accented syllable. It is represented as H*. The “H” indicates a high tone, and the “*” that the tone is aligned with a stressed syllable. L* accents occur much lower in the pitch range than H* and are phonetically realized as local f0 minima. The other English accents have two tones, of which one is selected to align with the stress. Using the dia-
Chapter 6
critic “*” to indicate this alignment, these accents can be represented as L*+H, L+H*, H*+L, and H+L*. Accents with two like tones do not exist. (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg 1990: 275) [T]wo levels of phrasing in English are involved in the specification of tune. These are the intermediate phrase and the intonational phrase. A well-formed intermediate phrase consists of one or more pitch accents, plus a simple high or low tone (either H or L), which marks the end of the phrase. [. . .][W]e will refer to this tone as the phrase accent. An important phonetic property of the phrase accent is that it controls the f0 between the last pitch accent of the intermediate phrase and the beginning of the next intermediate phrase – or the end of the utterance. [. . .] (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg 1990: 277) Intonational phrases are composed of one or more intermediate phrases. The end of an intonational phrase is marked with an additional H or L tone, which we will refer to as the boundary tone and indicate with the diacritic “%”. This tone falls exactly at the phrase boundary. Since the end of every intonational phrase is also the end of an intermediate phrase, there are altogether four ways that a tune can go after the last pitch accent of an intonational phrase: L L%, H L%, L H%, and H H%. A phrase’s tune or melody is defined by its particular sequence of pitch accent(s), phrase accent(s), and boundary tone. Thus, an ordinary declarative pattern with a final fall is represented as H* L L%, a tune with a H* pitch accent, a L phrase accent, and a L% boundary tone. A typical [yes/no (my addition)] interrogative contour is represented as L* H H %. (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg 1990)
Stylised f0 contours for different combinations of pitch accent, phrase accent, and boundary tone are reproduced from Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg (1990: 281) in the Appendix of the present work. The pitch accent H*+L (or H* as part of the tune H* L)205 is a good candidate in a number of utterances for the type of pitch accent on a word that realises F-marking and i-focus projection via the principles discussed in the preceding section (see e.g. Selkirk 1984: 251ff.; Selkirk 1995; Uhmann 1991a, b; Winkler 1997; Steedman 2000a, 2000b). We will see later in this section though that this is not the only possibility. Taking the example (208) Mary bought a book about bats in the context of the question Who bought a book about bats?, Selkirk (1995: 556) posits the following relation between F-marking, i-focus and the given/new articulation (the first sentence of the following passage from Selkirk was already quoted in the preceding section):
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
It appears to be the case that F-marked constituents which are not a Focus are interpreted as new in the discourse, while a constituent without F-marking is interpreted as given. A Focus constituent, on the other hand, may be interpreted as either given or new in the discourse. For example, every constituent making up the verb phrase in [(208)] is interpreted as given in the discourse, while the Focus subject Mary may be either given or new.
As already pointed out several times, I prefer to refer to this function of pitch accents in terms of the degree of activeness of denotata rather than in terms of the given/new dichotomy. But if we abstract away from this issue, this quotation from Selkirk can be taken as a starting point for a discussion of the relation between multiple pitch accents in an utterance. The passage just quoted immediately precedes the following comment by Selkirk (1995: 556), which relates to utterances with two F-marking accents: Compare the dual-accented sentence MARY bought a book about BATS, uttered in response to the question ‘What’s been happening?’, which calls for the entire sentence to be the i-focus. Accented Mary must be interpreted as new in this discourse. This would follow from the F-marking of Mary since it is not itself a Focus in this context.
Thus, we have pitch accenting and F-marking of both Mary and bats in this example. But only one pitch accent projects the i-focus, for there is only one F-marked phrase not dominated by another F-marked phrase in the clause.206 This is the pitch accent on bats. I will refer to the projection which determines the i-focus as ‘F-projection (by the primary or nuclear pitch accent)’, reserving ‘Φ-projection (by a secondary or non-nuclear pitch accent)’ for projections which do not determine the i-focus.207 Thus, the pitch accent on the lexical item bats in Selkirk’s example F-projects and licenses F-marks on higher constituents, while the pitch accent on the lexical item Mary in that example Φ-projects and licenses Φ-marks on the projections that form the subject DP Mary. This distinction between primary and secondary accent is also in line with Ladd’s (1996) theory of prosodic structure, in which focus is “signalled by primary accent; secondary accents are distributed according to other criteria.” (Ladd 1996: 225.)208 Note that this distinction requires Selkirk’s (1995) basic focus rule (see above, p. 130) to be reformulated in the following way: (209) Basic i-focus rule A pitch-accented word is F-marked or Φ-marked. As we have seen, a Φ-mark on a constituent may indicate that its denotatum is (presented by the speaker as) inactive. How does this observation tie in with the following example discussed by Lambrecht (1994: 332), in which the alternative
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responses (210Aa) and (210Ab) are considered to be equally possible (with the latter perhaps being “more natural” (Lambrecht 1994: 332)): (210) Q: What are you going to do with the dog and the cat while you’re away? A: a. I’ll leave the dog with my parents and the cat can stay outside. b. The dog I’ll leave with my parents and the cat can stay outside. Although the dog and the cat in A’s responses are clearly active, they “must be accented” according to Lambrecht (1994: 332). How can this contradiction be solved? The solution, I believe, lies in the observation that not every type of pitch accent can perform every function of F- or Φ-marking. Drawing on examples by Uhmann (1991b) and Steedman (2000a, 2000b), I assume that the appropriate pitch accent on dog and cat in (210Aa) and (210Ab) is either L*+H or L+H*. Uhmann (1991b: 227) assigns L*+H as (non-nuclear) pitch accent to Mutter in (211A), whose referent is clearly active (see also Uhmann 1991a: 253f.). (211) Q: Wie geht es deiner Mutter? (‘How is your mother?’) A: Meiner Mutter geht es gut, aber mein Vater ist sehr krank. (‘My mother is fine, but my father is very ill.’) Steedman (2000b: 98) assigns L+H* as part of an L+H* L H% tune to Anna in (212A), for instance, whose referent is equally active. (212) Q: Well, what about Anna? Who did she marry? A: Anna married Manny. Given that L+H* and L*+H are “hard to tell apart, both subjectively and instrumentally” (Steedman 2000a: 667), we may hypothesise that both Uhmann’s and Steedman’s analyses refer to the same intonational phenomenon and that the respective pitch accent (whether L+H* or L*+H or both) is indicative of a function of Φ-marking which Lambrecht’s, Uhmann’s and Steedman’s examples have in common and which is not that of indicating an inactive denotatum. Actually, whatever the intended pitch accent in Selkirk’s reference to the pitch accent on Mary in (213) below “uttered in response to the question ‘What’s been happening?’, which calls for the entire sentence to be the Focus” (already quoted above, p. 149), it or the tune it initiates clearly has to be different from the one to be used for the constituents with active denotata in the examples from Lambrecht, Uhmann and Steedman just discussed.209 (213) Mary bought a book about bats The function of the non-nuclear pitch accent in the Lambrecht/Steedman/Uhmannexamples seems to be that of contrasting expressions with active referents (the dog
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
vs. the cat, Mutter vs. Vater, Anna vs. Alice). More specifically in terms of focus structure, they signal contrastive topic expressions in categorical utterances.210 This assessment ties in very well with early observations by Jackendoff (1972) about the intonation of the classic Fred ate the beans example. Jackendoff introduces his analysis of the intonational realisation of this sentence depending on different context questions by fixing the following communicative situation: “We presuppose [...] that there were a number of people and a number of different things to eat, and that various people ate various things.” (Jackendoff 1972: 261.) Thus, in the dialogue (214) Q: Well, what about Fred? What did he eat? A: Fred ate the beans. we have Fred as a contrastive topic expression and beans as the F-projecting word. Jackendoff (1972: 261) assigns the former the B accent and the latter the A accent.211 The former accent has been identified with L+H* (in a L+H* L H% tune) and the latter with H*+L (in a H*+L L L% tune) (see e.g. Büring 1999; Steedman 2000b: 111; Gundel 1999a: 297; Vallduví & Engdahl 1996: 473), which corresponds exactly to the examples discussed above. Another point made by Jackendoff (1972), which connects to what has just been said and which is relevant for my purposes, can be derived from the following quotation: “[T]he idea of the B-accented focus as topic accords with the intonation on preposed (or ‘topicalised’) phrases, which almost always receive a B accent.” Jackendoff ’s conception of topic diverges significantly from the one used in the present work. For him, “we can take the subject to be the traditional ‘topic”’ (Jackendoff 1972: 262). That the identification of subject and topic (expression) can hardly be maintained needs no further comment here. On the other hand, Jackendoff ’s concept of focus as an expression that replaces a variable in the open proposition (the pragmatic relevance presupposition in terms of Lambrecht 1994) that underlies the utterance is essentially what I have been calling an identificational focus expression.212 If we re-interpret Jackendoff ’s ‘topic’ as topic expression in the sense used here and if we just leave out “focus as” in the above quotation so as to get ‘the idea of the B-accented topic’, then the intonational point made by Jackendoff is pertinent. It can be illustrated by the following example (from Jackendoff 1972: 263), in which bagels, a topic XP having moved to spec-Foc, has the B accent and eat the A accent: (215) Bagels I don’t like to eatF According to the terminological convention introduced above, eat carries the primary/nuclear/F-projecting pitch accent, while bagels carries a secondary/nonnuclear/Φ-projecting pitch accent. (215), a categorical utterance with bagels as
Chapter 6
topic expression, has to be distinguished from the following one in which bagels is the F-projecting lexical item and eat is Φ-projecting. (216) BagelsF I don’t like to eat In this case the DP bagels is identificational focus expression in an identificational utterance. Small-capitalisation of a lexical item in most of the examples of Chapters 1–5 of this work (namely those examples where there is only one small-capitalised word) refers to the presence of an F-projecting pitch accent on this item. Lack of small-capitalisation does not mean absence of a pitch accent but absence of an F-projecting pitch accent. And this convention of indicating F-projecting lexical items by small-capitalisation will also be applied in the following chapters, unless a distinction between F-projecting and Φ-projecting lexical items is explicitly indicated by the use of superscript F . We have seen that the L+H*/L*+H pitch accent is typical of contrastive topic expressions, both subject and non-subject. A non-contrastive topic expression gets no pitch accent. According to Gundel (1999a: 300), coat in (217A) below, which is clearly not the Φ-projecting word of a contrastive topic expression, may also carry an L+H* pitch accent. (217) Q: What do you think I should take on the camping trip? A: That coat I bought you, I think you should take. She writes: “[Q]’s question here can be answered with two different intonation patterns: coat can receive a simplex H* tone, characteristic of semantic focus, or a complex L+H*, characteristic of contrastive focus. [...] In both cases, however, the coat is part of the semantic focus.” To understand this statement, a brief explanation of Gundel’s distinction between ‘contrastive focus’ and ‘semantic focus’ is in order: By the former she means intonational prominence with a purely contrastive function. The latter is essentially the same as what is understood by identificational focus expression in the present work. To give her definition (Gundel 1999a: 295): “Semantic focus is the part of the sentence that answers the relevant wh-question (implicit or explicit) in the particular context in which the sentence is used.”213 A ‘semantic focus’ is inherently contrastive; and this contrastiveness must not be mixed up with that of ‘contrastive focus’: Whenever information is predicated of some topic, it is inherently in contrast with everything else that might be predicated of that topic, and the narrower the focus (comment/predication) the more salient the contrast. Thus, elements within the scope of operators like only and even are always part of the semantic focus, and they also have a highly contrastive interpretation. [...] My intent in using the term ‘contrastive focus’ here is to distinguish linguistic prominence, [i.e. having “a prominent pitch accent” (Gundel 1999: 298)]
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
which has a purely contrastive function, from semantic focus, both narrow and broad. (Gundel 1999: 303, N. 6.)
That is, the DP that coat I bought you in (217A) is the semantic focus in Gundel’s sense and the identificational focus expression in an identificational utterance in my sense. If Gundel is right in saying that coat in (217A) may carry L+H*, then we have to conclude that the L+H* (or L*+H) pitch accent may indicate contrastive topic expressions or identificational focus expressions. To me it seems that if L+H* (or L*+H) licenses an identificational focus expression, then it has to be the only pitch accent in the utterance. Thus, if another pitch accent is added in Gundel’s example (217A) then the L+H* pitch accent on coat will be interpreted as indicating a contrastive topic expression, and the dialogue becomes incoherent, as illustrated by (218A). (218) Q: What do you think I should take on the camping trip? A: a. #That coat I bought you, I think you should take. L+H* H*+L b. #That coat I bought you, I think you should take. L+H* H*+L c. #That coat I bought you, I think you should take. L+H* H*+L d. #That coat I bought you, I think you should take. L+H* H*+L e. #That coat I bought you, I think you should take. L+H* H*+L This suggests that the specific function of a specific pitch accent – F-marking or Φ-marking, and if the latter, signalling an inactive denotatum or an active and to be contrasted one – may depend on the presence and type of other pitch accents in its vicinity. I would like to present two more examples in which L+H*/L*+H is the only and thus the nuclear, F-projecting pitch accent. Steedman (2000a: 662) compares (219A) with its minimally differing counterpart in which musicals carries an H* L L% (H*+L L L%) tune instead of L+H* L H% and concludes that their difference in meaning is probably of implicatorial nature (see also Steedman 2000b: 101ff.). (219) Q: Does Mary love opera? A: Mary likes musicals L+H* LH% The next example has been discussed by several authors (see Steedman 2000a: 666f.).
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(220) A: Harry’s such a klutz. B: He’s a good badminton player. L+H* LH% or: L*+H LH% Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg (1990: 295), for instance, who assign L*+H to badminton, characterise the information conveyed by the use of this specific pitch accent in this utterance as follows: “B expresses uncertainty about whether being a good badminton player provides relevant information about degree of clumsiness.” It seems, then, that if there is no H*+L pitch accent in the utterance, then L+H*/L*+H may be used as primary pitch accent. If L+H*/L*+H is so used, then it appears to be associated with a specific communicative effect. Given that there are six pitch accents and quite a number of different tunes (whose identification is not at all easy), it is obvious that a theory about the interaction between two or more pitch accents in an utterance has a wide and intricate range of data to cope with. Much more cases would have to be studied in order to put the association of pitch accents and F- or Φ-marks as sketched in this section on a more solid basis. Yet, I find the idea that an F-mark on a lexical item is manifested by a specific primary pitch accent whose nature may vary with the number and types of potentially present secondary pitch accents very promising. Its plausibility with respect to a few examples has been demonstrated in the present section.
. Conclusion: The relation between i-focus and [±foc]-features In Subsection 2.2.3 I explained that the [±foc]-specification of an XP by the conceptual-intentional cognitive system takes place after the clausal base has been built up. In Section 6.1 of the present chapter we saw that the principles of i-focus projection apply in the base of phrases (according to the principles of BPIFP), including the clausal base. This suggests the following simple relation between [+foc]-feature assignment to a phrase and the intonational licensing of a phrase as i-focus: At the point of the derivation where a phrase XP is assigned the [+foc]feature, XP has to be licensed as i-focus by F-marking some item contained in it which is capable of F-projecting and thus F-marking XP. But things are a bit more complicated. Consider (221), where the F-marking of green does not license the phonological form of the DP the green one as i-focus. (221) Q: Which shirt did you buy? A: The green one I bought.
Intonational aspects of the FocP-hypothesis
In the preceding section I have presented only examples of identificational sentences in which the identificational focus XP actually is licensed as i-focus by the principles of i-focus projection. But on the basis of what has been said so far the DP the green one is not F-marked nor consequently licensed as i-focus by the F-mark on green. F-marking the lexical item green licenses an F-mark on the AP green, but the F-marked attributive AP is neither a head nor a complement capable of F-projecting up to the DP in which it occurs.214 Notice, however, that the relevant class of examples does not contradict the descriptive statement about the relation between an XP being i-focus and its being an identificational focus expression in an identificational sentence, which I formulated in the following way (see above, p. 130): “In an identificational sentence the specifier of a Foc-head contains or is an XP licensed as i-focus.” Indeed, the AP green is licensed as i-focus and it is contained in the DP the green one which is in spec-Foc as an identificational focus expression. The issue raised here is the relation between an XP’s being licensed as i-focus, which entails its being licensed as an F-marked XP, and its being [+foc]-featured. It shows that we cannot simply say that being licensed as i-focus is the intonational manifestation of being [+foc]-featured. The more general reason why this cannot be the case in the theory developed in the present work is that categorical and thetic sentences have i-foci as well but do not involve any [+foc]-features. The precise relation between an XP’s being [+foc]-featured and i-focus projection is as expressed in (222), in which clause (b) provides for the point just made. (222) A [+foc]-featured XP α has to fulfil either condition (a) or (b): a. α is licensed as i-focus and is syntactically licensed to move to specFoc; b. α dominates an XP β which is licensed as i-focus, and α is the first XP above β which is syntactically licensed to move to spec-Foc. I illustrate the functioning of (222b) with an example analogous to (221). (223) Q: Which bike would you want? A: The red one I’d prefer. The lexical item red is F-marked. This licenses the AP red as i-focus, but it does not license the NP red one nor the DP the red one as i-focus. Neither the AP nor the NP are syntactically licensed to move to spec-Foc. The first XP dominating the i-focus AP which is syntactically licensed to move to spec-Foc is the [+foc]-featured DP. As pointed out above, having a phrase which is licensed as i-focus does not entail that it is [+foc]-featured. In (223A) the DP the red one does carry [+foc], but in (224A) below, which is a categorical sentence with I as topic expression, it does not. Still the AP red is i-focus in this case.
Chapter 6
(224) Q: Which bicycle would you want? A: I’d prefer the red one. The precise relation between an XP’s being [–foc]-featured and i-focus projection is as expressed in (225). (225) A [–foc]-featured XP α has to fulfil condition (a): a. α is syntactically licensed to move to spec-Foc, but is neither licensed as i-focus, nor does it dominate a phrase licensed as i-focus. Recall that having a pitch accent somewhere in a topic expression does not contradict (225). Such a pitch accent is the manifestation of a Φ-mark, which plays no role in the projection of F-marks and thus of i-focus. * Having explained what the relation is between the syntactic [±foc]-feature and the intonational notion of i-focus constitutes a major step for the elaboration of the syntax-intonation interface of the current integrated theory of categorical, identificational and thetic sentences on the basis of the FocP-hypothesis – with one important caveat: It has to be shown that the FocP-hypothesis actually stands on firm grounds also with respect to the details of syntactic analysis. This is the aim of the following chapter. Only afterwards can the elaboration of the syntax-intonation interface of the theory be claimed to be complete.
Chapter 7
FocP-related English syntax
This chapter provides a detailed and broad discussion of issues of English syntax against the background of the syntactic framework involving FocP as presented so far. As we will see, the introduction of a FocP with the discourse-related, pragmatic and intonational background and implications as discussed in the previous chapters on the one hand and also for sentences which do not show visible fronting on the other hand constitutes a substantial modification of conventional syntactic assumptions in a number of places and has to be defended against competition from alternative analyses. I will start with a brief explanation of what is meant by ‘FocPrelated syntax’ and with some remarks on conditions of movement and on binding as well as co-reference in the introductory Section 7.1. The points addressed in these remarks will become relevant at various places in subsequent sections of the present chapter as well as in Chapters 8 and 9. Section 7.2 investigates cases where a phrase moves to root spec-Foc; Section 7.3 discusses movement to embedded spec-Foc. Examples where phrases move to both root and embedded spec-Foc are considered in Section 7.4, while Section 7.5 accommodates the discussion of the phenomenon of mitigated that-trace effects.
. Introductory remarks .. What is meant by ‘FocP-related syntax’? As follows from the FocP-hypothesis (see Section 2.2.1) and the discussion so far, the general root clause structure is assumed to be either (226a) or (226b). (226) a. [FocP [Foc [IP . . .]] b. [IP . . .] The head Foc of FocP is a set of features of type γ which originate as components of the finite verb, whose phonological form they do not carry along to the Focposition in present-day standard English (SE).215 In addition to a complement feature which selects a finite AgrS P the Foc-head of a root clause hosts either the formal head/specifier feature pair ([–foch f ]X , [–focs ]) for categorical sentences or
Chapter 7
([+foch f ]X , [+focs ]) for identificational sentences. (In order to notationally distinguish formal head features of a head from those of an XP against which they check in the head’s specifier position, I will from now on supply the former with the subscript X and the latter with the subscript XP .) The specifier feature [±focs ] must check against [±foch f ]XP carried by some XP from within the IP. XP-movement to spec-Foc is overt in SE, since [±foch f ]XP is of type α, that is, [±foch f ]XP piedpipes the phonological form associated with it. This is, of course, also true for [±foch f ]XP -featured subjects, whose movement to spec-Foc is overt but invisible (since string-vacuous). By ‘FocP related syntax’ in the title of this chapter I mean the analysis of clauses in which there is overt movement to or through spec-Foc (or where movement to or through spec-Foc may be thought to be involved). This excludes thetic sentences. Actually, there is nothing new, different or specific to be added to what has already been said in the previous chapters about the syntax of thetic sentences. And there is nothing specific following from the FocP-hypothesis about the internal structure of the IP of thetic sentences in addition to what has been discussed in the generative literature in general. The FocP-hypothesis makes a difference in those cases where the derivation results in a categorical or identificational sentence. Overt XP-movement to spec-Foc is assumed to be subject to conditions of movement just like any other XP-movement operation. Therefore, I turn now to a brief discussion of those conditions of movement which I take to be relevant and which will play a role at several points in the sections to come.
.. Remarks on conditions of movement The empty category principle (ECP) is a condition on traces (or ‘non-pronominal empty categories’) created by movement.216 It started off in Chomsky 1981 as a principle which comprises either a purely formal aspect (c-command of trace by a head) or a mixed formal and content related aspect (c-command of trace by a coindexed element) (see Chomsky 1981: 250). In the formulation of the ECP in Chomsky 1986 a mix of formal and content related aspects is given involving both the notions of theta and antecedent government: “[t]he ECP states that a nonpronominal empty category must be properly governed [. . .]. α properly governs β iff α θ-governs or antecedent-governs β” (Chomsky 1986: 17). Rizzi (1990) reduces the ECP to the formal aspect: “A non-pronominal empty category must be properly head-governed” (Rizzi 1990: 87), with proper head government being understood as government by a head X within its immediate projection X . The content related aspect, that is, the intuition that the content of a trace must be identified, is separated from the ECP as such and conferred to either binding or antecedent government as identificational licensing conditions which license the relation between
FocP-related English syntax
a moved XP and its trace (see Rizzi 1990; Haegeman 1991/1994: Ch. 12). More recently, Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 398) formulate the ECP as a purely identificational principle: “Non-overt elements must be identified.” The prohibition on that-trace (that-t) sequences in SE,217 which served as the essential paradigm for seeing a purely formal aspect involved in conditions on traces for Rizzi (1990), is indeed mentioned by Haegeman & Guéron (see e.g. 1999: 180ff.), but is not associated with a specific principle of grammar any more. This is probably to do with the fact that complementiser-trace sequences are known not to be ruled out universally. Even in English, examples such as Who did you say that actually kissed Harriet are accepted by a number of native speakers (see e.g. Sobin 1987). A definition of proper head government in Rizzi’s (1990) sense which accounts for the fact that that-t effects are found in some languages and varieties but not in others seems hard to find – unless we allow for a complementiser to be a proper governor in some varieties or languages but not in others (see e.g. Cinque 1990). Anyway, I believe that there is some purely formal condition on traces at work, independently of identification, for the following reason: Why, if not for such a purely formal condition, should there be a contrast such as that in (227)? (227) a. [For her job]i she has always shown a great passion t i b. *[Great]i she has always shown a t i passion for her job The DP a great passion for her job does not constitute a barrier for extraction, as shown by (227a). However, the AP great cannot be extracted from it, as shown by (227b). (The same argument would hold for an NP-node in various possible theories according to which both great and for her job are dominated by NP.) The reason, it seems, can only be that the trace left behind by moving great is not properly governed. By contrast, the trace left behind by moving for her job is properly governed by the head passion. Thus, I will assume the existence of a formal licensing condition on traces along the lines of the ECP as formulated by Rizzi (1990).218 It applies to movement to spec-Foc just as it applies to any kind of XP-movement. From this it follows immediately that Foc is a proper head governor, for a trace in spec-AgrS left behind by a subject XP having moved to spec-Foc can only be governed by the Foc-head. The necessity for traces to be identified, that is, the necessity that the semantic form of a constituent can be connected to its phonological form which has moved, is a different requirement and subject to specific conditions as well. Such conditions have been discussed under the headwords of minimality (relativised and rigid) and locality.219 The essential insight resulting from this discussion is this: A constituent which intervenes between a trace and its antecedent (i.e. between a semantic form and its associated phonological form) and which could also be an antecedent of this trace blocks identification; the connection between antecedent and trace cannot be established. This blocking of identification may be the reason
Chapter 7
for the unacceptability of the following sentences, in addition to the problem of having a FocP in both the root and the embedded clause.220 (228) a. *The money I think that Terry Lee gave to (example and judgement from Culicover 1996: 453) b. *Our group I think that sociolinguistics Terry was talking to about (ditto from Culicover 1996: 455) c. *Sociolinguistics I think that our group Terry was talking to about (ditto) Culicover (1996) argues that if two DPs (NPs in his terminology) are fronted, then they interfere with each other with respect to the identification of their respective thematic roles and syntactic functions.221 Whether this is an aspect having to do with processing (as suggested by Culicover; see N. 221) or a violation of a syntactic principle along the lines of relativised minimality (see Rizzi 1990), I cannot decide. Subjacency, which has already been mentioned a couple of times in Section 3.2, is a condition on movement in the definition of which the notion of barrier plays the key role. Lasnik & Saito (1992), discussing and revising Chomsky’s (1986) barrier theory, propose the following definitions. α L-marks β iff α is a lexical category that θ-governs β. (Lasnik & Saito 1992: 70; Chomsky 1986: 15) α θ-governs β iff α is a zero-level category that θ-marks β, and α, β are sisters. (Lasnik & Saito 1992: 70; Chomsky 1986: 15) γ is a barrier for β if a. γ is a maximal projection, b. γ is not L-marked, and c. γ dominates β. (Lasnik & Saito 1992: 87) β is subjacent to α if for every γ, γ a barrier for β, the maximal projection immediately dominating γ dominates α. (Lasnik & Saito 1992: 87)
In the course of Chomsky 1986 the definition of L-marking is extended: “a lexical category α L-marks a category β that it θ-governs as well as the head of β, and also the specifier of β if β is IP or CP” (Chomsky 1986: 70). That is, if IP/CP is L-marked, then the specifier of I/C is also L-marked.222 The point of subjacency is that movement of an XP across one barrier must start off from a position which is subjacent to the (ultimate or intermediate) landing site. In terms of the tree diagram in (229) below, where X2 P is a barrier and X1 P is not a barrier, this means that spec-X1 is subjacent to spec-X3 so that the phrase X4 P in spec-X1 may move to spec-X3 . But it may not move higher up than spec-X3 in one step. And, considering the extension of L-marking just mentioned, if X1 P is IP or CP L-marked by X2 , then X4 P does not constitute a barrier for movement out of X4 P.223
FocP-related English syntax
X3P
(229) spec
X3' X2P (not L-marked, i.e. barrier)
X3 spec
X2' X2
X1P (L-marked, i.e. barrier) X4P
X1' X1
comp
In the context of the present work subjacency is conceived of more specifically as a condition on movement of the phonological form of some phrase. The clausal base is not L-marked, but does not constitute a barrier for movement. Lasnik & Saito (1992: 184) circumvent this problem in the following way: Note that L-marking distinguishes between NPs that are or are not θ-governed (complements vs. subjects) and similarly between CPs that are or are not θgoverned (complements vs. adjuncts). If it is the case, as hinted above, that VP is never θ-governed, then for this category, there is no such distinction to be made.[. . . ] That is, L-marking is simply irrelevant for VP. Suppose, then, that lack of L-marking results in barrierhood only for those categories for which L-marking is relevant. By hypothesis, VP would thus never be a barrier.[. . . ] Given the lack of an alternative, we will tentatively adopt this hypothesis.
I will follow Lasnik & Saito here, although their solution is (as admitted by the authors themselves) not particularly convincing.224 I am additionally forced to assume that all the projections of the functional case layer as well as those of the FANTAV-layer from AgrS P downwards do not constitute barriers for movement. This is a necessary premise, for otherwise movement to spec-Foc of any XP but a subject in spec-AgrS would result in a strong subjacency violation, contrary to fact. I consider this to be a stipulation or hypothesis in the same sense and subject to the same kind of reservations as is Lasnik & Saito’s story about the non-barrierhood of VP.225 Usually a distinction is made between weak and strong subjacency violations. According to Chomsky (1986: 28), “[o]ur intuitive idea is that movement should become ‘worse’ as more barriers are crossed, the best case being the crossing of zero barriers.” This has been interpreted to mean that the crossing of one barrier is often felt to produce “a slight reduction in acceptability; we will say that when one barrier
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is crossed [. . .] there is a weak subjacency violation” (Haegeman 1991/1994: 564). Typical examples which are commonly presented to illustrate such cases of reduced acceptability are those given in (230), where the embedded wh-XP is supposed to be extracted over one barrier, the embedded CP in the theory of Chomsky 1986, with embedded spec-C being occupied (by how, whether) and thus not available as intermediate landing site. (230) a.
?Which problem do you wonder how to solve (example and judgement from Rizzi 1990: 2; likewise Haegeman 1991/1994: 648) b. ?Which problem do you wonder whether he would solve? (ditto from Haegeman 1991/1994: 657) c. ??Which problem do you wonder how John could solve? (ditto from Haegeman 1991/1994: 401) d. ??What did you wonder whether John bought? (ditto from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 72)
However, under the notion of subjacency just discussed it is not the crossing of one barrier as such which produces the reduction in acceptance, but the movement across one barrier to a position to which the starting position is not subjacent. Thus, movement from a subjacent position across one barrier is perfectly fine while movement from a non-subjacent position across one barrier elicits judgements which have been interpreted as weak subjacency violations. Strong subjacency violations are those where there is movement across more than one barrier, which is always movement from a non-subjacent position. It is also important to note in this context that many speakers feel movement from a non-subjacent position across one barrier to be not only slightly reduced in acceptability, but plainly unacceptable. For example, of the American English native speakers from the Midwest questioned by Sobin (1987), 78.6% rejected the sentence Who do you wonder whether Tina saw? while 76.2% rejected Who do you know whether Mary likes?
.. Remarks on binding and co-reference A common formulation of the principles A, B, and C of the binding theory is as given in (231) (e.g. Chomsky & Lasnik 1993/1995: 96), where the term ‘anaphor’ comprises reflexives and reciprocals and the term ‘r-expression’ means an inherently referential expression such as a name or a definite DP: (231) A. An anaphor must be bound in a local domain. B. A pronoun must be free in a local domain. C. An r-expression must be free.
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An expression E is bound if and only if it is co-indexed with a c-commanding antecedent. The local domain (binding domain, governing category) of E is delimited by the closest c-commanding subject and is maximally the first finite IP which contains E and its antecedent.226 As pointed out by Heim & Kratzer (1998: 269), syntactic binding or the absence thereof has nothing to do with allowing or prohibiting co-reference. If a DP is not syntactically bound, it is not interpreted as a bound variable. But how else it is interpreted in that case depends solely on its lexical content (if it is a non-pronominal DP) or on the assignment contributed by the utterance situation (if it is a pronoun). There is nothing in the theory which predicts that any of the following examples should be ungrammatical or require disjoint reference between the italicised DPs. [(232)] a. b. c. d.
My father voted for my father. I hurt me. Bill Clinton overestimates him. She sold Ann’s car.
Bound-variable interpretations are precluded, but co-reference is allowed by the theory (provided suitable utterance contexts), and in some cases even necessitated by the DPs’ inherent meanings (including feature-related presuppositions).
Examples which make it immediately clear that co-reference does not depend on syntactic binding are identity sentences of the kind She is the boss (from Heim & Kratzer 1998: 270). Heim & Kratzer make a strict, mutually exclusive distinction between variable binding and co-reference: “[T]wo expressions (or occurrences of expressions) co-refer iff they refer to the same individual. It follows that if two expressions co-refer, then each of them refers to something. A bound-variable pronoun therefore cannot possibly co-refer with any expression. Co-reference implies reference.” (Heim & Kratzer 1998: 242.) If we follow this usage, it would be good to have a way of distinguishing in a notationally clear way between binding and co-reference. I propose to signal binding by using co-indices as usual (see (233a)) and to use parenthesised co-indices to signal co-reference (see (233b, c)). If there is co-reference between two items one of which is itself a variable binder, then the binder and its bindee get unparenthesised co-indices while the co-referring item gets a parenthesised co-index (see (233d)). (233) a. b. c. d.
[The boss]i is in heri office She(i) is [the boss](i) Ally(i) cannot believe that she(i) is [the boss](i) Ally(i) cannot believe that shei has seen herselfi on TV
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Co-indexation with a c-commanding antecedent in an expression E’s local domain, by which binding is defined, will then have to be specified as unparenthesised coindexation. On the basis of the distinction between binding and co-reference it is possible to argue that contrasts like the following ones (from Guéron 1984, mostly quoting examples from other authors) have nothing to do with the binding theory, but with a theory of co-reference (as suggested by my using parenthesised co-indexation). Near him(i) John(i) saw a snake (from Guéron 1984: 139) *Near John(i) he(i) saw a snake (ditto) In John’s picture of Mary(i) she(i) looks good (ditto) *In John’s picture of Mary(i) she(i) found a scratch (ditto) *John(i) he(i) thinks Mary likes (ditto) The article John(i) just wrote he(i) thinks Mary likes (ditto) *He(i) spends a lot of time in John’s(i) appartment (from Guéron 1984: 148) h. *In John’s(i) appartment he(i) spends a lot of time (from Guéron 1984: 145) i. *He(i) spends a lot of time in the apartment John(i) just rented (from Guéron 1984: 149) j. In the apartment John(i) just rented he spends a lot of time (from Guéron 1984: 145)
(234) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.
These examples involve referential expressions and pronouns, which may be bound or free and which, if they are free, may nevertheless co-refer under certain conditions. The only binding theoretic statements about referential expressions and pronouns are that the former must not be bound (principle C) and the latter must not be bound in a local domain (principle B). Whether and under which conditions free referential expressions may co-refer is a question of a theory of co-reference, which may involve pragmatic and processing factors rather than syntactic ones. It seems, then, that a discussion of the interaction between fronting and co-reference between referential expressions and pronouns must be led independently of the binding theory. Taking Heim & Kratzer’s (1998) strict distinction between binding and co-reference seriously, I do not think that the many interesting phenomena and problems raised by Guéron (1984) and the authors she refers to can be solved within binding theory. As I am not familiar with an elaborated theory of co-reference strictly independent of binding, nor knowing whether one exists, I will not pursue these issues any further. That is, the problems of the interaction between fronting and co-reference must remain open here. There being only one level of syntactic representation in the minimalist approach to generative grammar, LF, it is reasonable to pursue the idea that the
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binding principles apply at LF. Thus, according to Chomsky (1993/1995: 211), “[t]hough numerous problems remain unresolved, there seem to be good reasons to suppose that the binding theory conditions hold only at the LF interface.”227 For the present work, in which the semantic forms of the constituents are said to remain in the position where they are base-generated while all purely syntactic (formal) features are erased in the course of the derivation, LF is made-up of the semantic forms of the constituents in situ. It seems that under this approach the operation of the binding principles cannot be restricted to LF. Consider the following examples: (235) a. [Ally and John]i were assigned to [each other]i (as dance partners) b. Johni was referred to himselfi (when, using a pseudonym, he phoned his firm for information about Richard) In the clausal base of (235a), the DP Ally and John originates as the complement of the passive verb while the reciprocal is contained in the phrase to each other generated in the specifier position of the verb; analogously in the clausal base of (235b), John originates in comp-V while the reflexive is contained in the phrase to himself generated in spec-V. In the base, then, the anaphors are not c-commanded by their antecedents. C-command is established only after the antecedents have moved outside the base, ultimately to spec-Foc. Consequently, under the notion of LF being the configuration of semantic forms in their base position, binding principle A cannot be said to have to be observed only at LF. As the present work is not one on the binding theory, I refrain from discussing at which stage of a derivation the binding principles may or must be observed. It may suffice to remark that I do not see a conceptual necessity that binding establishes anaphoric relations only between semantic forms. Binding relates two constituents; the construction of this relation via the semantic or the phonological forms does not seem to be a priori restricted to one of these options. Quite to the contrary, at least with respect to principle A, I suspect that it is observed if the phonological forms of the constituents involved are in the appropriate configuration at some point during the derivation (see also Grewendorf 2002: 49, 225). This includes their base position, of course, i.e. the position in which their semantic forms remain. Consider for instance the following examples (see Grewendorf 2002: 211): (236) a.
I wonder which portraits of each other the men believed that the women had placed in a scrapbook b. I wonder [which portraits of [each other]i ]j the men believed t j that [the women]i had placed t j in a scrapbook c. I wonder [which portraits of [each other]i ]j [the men]i believed t j that the women had placed t j in a scrapbook
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(236a) is ambiguous between (236b) and (236c). The reciprocal each other can take the women as antecedent or the men. The former possibility suggests that principle A is observed at the point of the derivation at which the phonological and semantic forms of the wh-XP are in their common base position (lower t j ). The latter possibility suggests that principle A is observed at the point of the derivation at which the phonological form of the wh-XP is in embedded spec-C (higher t j ). This one example does of course not sufficiently justify my suspicion just expressed. The binding theoretic consequences of my assumption that semantic forms remain in situ while phonological forms move in what has traditionally been called overt movement would have to be studied in much more detail. I proceed on the hypothesis that a version of the binding theory compatible with this assumption can be developed.
. XP-movement to spec-Foc of root clauses .. Declarative root clauses The idea of subject fronting – an invisible operation – is not new. It is mentioned under the headword ‘short topicalisation’ by Lasnik & Saito (1992: 110), who conceive of ‘topicalisation’ as IP adjunction (see also Vallduví 1990/1992: 130 and the reference given there). Under this analysis ‘short topicalisation’ is argued to be ruled out on the following syntactic grounds (Lasnik & Saito 1992: 110): [W]e expect that ‘short’ topicalization of a subject by adjunction is impossible, since the resulting structure will be as follows: [(237)] [IP John1 [IP t1 left]]
The trace t1 in [(237)] is not lexically governed, and there is no X0 category that can serve as an antecedent governor for this trace. Hence, [(237)] violates the ECP.
In order to explain why an X0 category is implicitly said to have to be a potential antecedent governor here, not an XP, as one would expect from other well-known conceptions of antecedent government (as e.g. from Rizzi 1990), a rather convoluted line of argumentation would have to be retraced, without much reward for the purposes of the present work. Ultimately the problem with (237) boils down to the same ECP problem that we would be faced within Rizzi’s framework, namely that the trace t1 in (237) is not properly head-governed. That is, in terms of Rizzi, the formal licensing condition for traces is violated. This problem appears with the IP-adjunction analysis of fronting (see also above, Section 3.2), but it is not at issue with the approach presented in the current work, where the subject DP
FocP-related English syntax
John is in spec-Foc and where the subject trace in spec-I is assumed to be properly head-governed by the Foc-head of FocP (see p. 159). Hence, this problem mentioned by Lasnik & Saito (1992) can be taken as an argument against the IPadjunction analysis of fronting, but not as one against invisible subject movement to spec-Foc.228 Not only DPs but also PPs, APs, embedded clauses and what at first glance seem to be VPs may move to spec-Foc. In the following I will present a number of attested examples of sentences with fronted non-DPs and will afterwards discuss syntactic issues related to the respective group. Let us consider PP-fronting first. (238) PP-fronting a. For that last bold assertion there are no statistics (from Ward 1985/1988: 3) b. I promised my father – on Christmas Eve it was – to kill a Frenchman at the first opportunity I had (from Ward 1985/1988: 84) c. The point of transformations is to change a base form into a specific structure. Into this derived structure then, lexical items are inserted (from Ward 1985/1988: 156) d. In the VIP section of the commissary at 20th Century-Fox, the studio’s elite gather for lunch and gossip. The prized table is reserved for Mel Brooks, and from it he dispenses advice, jokes and invitations to passersby (from Ward 1985/1988: 156)229 e. But unfortunately for his argument, the question at issue was the nature and source of the initial set of universal hypotheses and the “natural variable,” and about this question Cohen has nothing to say (from Ward 1985/1988: 158) f. I get enough information from the Wall Street Journal. From a book I want entertainment (ditto) g. Some things he could not vouch for (his friends had told him), but of others he had had personal experience (from Biber et al. 1999: 902) h. To these three presuppositions concerning the knowledge state of the addressee we must add the consciousness presuppositions evoked by the personal pronoun I and the relative pronoun who (from Lambrecht 1994: 56) i. So into the boats they got [. . .] (from Lodge 1984/1985: 252) j. For himself, he wrote some of his darkest lines (from Rushdie 1999/2000: 134) For a PP to be in clause initial position can mean three different things. We have to distinguish between, first, lexically governed (argument) PPs which are clause initial by virtue of having moved to spec-Foc; second, lexically ungoverned (non-
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argument) adjunct PPs which are clause initial by virtue of having moved to specFoc; and, third, lexically ungoverned (non-argument) PPs which are clause initial not by virtue of having moved to spec-Foc. Since generation of a phrase in specFoc is principally ruled out,230 the third case means that the PP is not part of the syntactic structure proper at all, but is an extra-clausal constituent (ECC).231 Although there are clear cases of ECCs (see e.g. Dik 1989: 264f.), we may not always be sure how to distinguish one from a constituent that belongs to the clause structure proper. Consider for example the following list from Quirk et al. (1985: 490), which exemplifies various possibilities (not all equally natural) of linear surface positions for a PP: (239) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.
By then the book must have been placed on the shelf The book by then must have been placed on the shelf The book must by then have been placed on the shelf The book must have by then been placed on the shelf The book must have been by then placed on the shelf The book must have been placed by then on the shelf The book must have been placed on the shelf by then
Would we rule out the possibility that the PP by then is appropriately characterised as an ECC in some of these cases? To my knowledge an elaborated and authoritative theory of ECCs does not yet exist,232 and the syntax of non-argument constituents remains problematic despite much attention devoted to them in recent times (see e.g. Alexiadou 1997; Cinque 1999; Ernst 2002). Perhaps some of these problems have to do with the fact that it is still unclear which instances of non-arguments are ECCs and which non-arguments do belong to the clause structure proper.233 However, this situation can also be exploited to one’s theoretical advantage, without being methodologically dubious. If there are no reasons to assume that a particular constituent is not an ECC and if the occurrence of this constituent in a clause poses an especially recalcitrant problem for one’s analysis, we are allowed to consider this constituent an ECC and thus avoid the problem. This line of argumentation is employed by Browning (1996), for instance, who discusses the ‘adverb effect’ as described by Culicover (1991) (see also below, Subsection 7.5). Essentially, the ‘adverb effect’ refers to the phenomenon that an adverbial intervening between the complementiser that and a subject trace markedly mitigates or even obviates the that-trace effect, as shown by the examples in (240), which are, including their judgements, from Culicover (1991: 11). Robin met the man whoi Leslie said that *(for all intents and purposes) t i was the mayor of the city b. This is the tree whichi I said that *(just yesterday) t i had resisted my shovel
(240) a.
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c.
I asked whati Leslie said that *(in her opinion) t i had made Robin give a book to Lee d. Lee forgot [which dishes]i Leslie had said that *(under normal circumstances) t i should be put on the table
Browning (1996: 238, N. 2) points out that, and explains why, the ‘adverb effect’ is not present in analogous examples with non-finite embedded for-clauses instead of finite embedded that-clauses. In addition Browning warns of a reading in which the intervening adverb is interpreted as an ECC. Such a reading would make the utterance more acceptable, but is irrelevant for the point to be made. Unlike that, for assigns Case to the subject trace that follows it. [...] [T]his is blocked by the intervention of [an] adverb. As illustrated by [(241b)], when an adverb such as those responsible for the adverb effect intervenes between the for complementizer and an overt subject, ungrammaticality results. [(241)] a. I would wait for Harry to arrive for several hours. b. *I would wait for under normal circumstances Harry to arrive for several hours.
Readers should beware of giving the adverb in [(241b)] interjection intonation, which will make the sentence more acceptable. A constituent that receives this intonation, which signals that it is not actually part of the syntactic representation, does not block Case assignment, as illustrated in [(242)]. [(242)] a. *He bought unfortunately a Yugo. b. He bought, unfortunately, a Yugo.
Just as Browning does here, I will also argue a couple of times below that examples which supposedly contradict a theoretical point to be made result from the fact that they crucially involve ECCs and are thus irrelevant. Birner & Ward (1998: 31) make the following observation concerning the distinction between lexically governed and lexically ungoverned PPs (see also Ward 1985/1988: 9f.): To see that the preposing of lexically governed constituents is more constrained than that of constituents that are not lexically governed, consider [(243)]: [(243)] a. #In a basket, I put your clothes. b. I put your clothes in a basket. [(244)] a. b.
In New York, there’s always something to do. There’s always something to do in New York.
The preposing in [(243a)], in which the preposed locative PP is lexically governed by the verb put, is infelicitous as a discourse-initial utterance. Note that
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the corresponding sentence in which the PP is not preposed [(243b)] is fully acceptable in the same context. Where the PP is not lexically governed, as in [(244a, b)], both orderings are possible.
I assume that the type of focus structure canonically associated with a discourseinitial utterance is thetic focus structure (cf. N. 187).234 In (243a), however, the argument PP has obviously moved to spec-Foc, and, consequently, we cannot have thetic focus structure here. This is the reason for the infelicity observed by Birner & Ward. The fact that (244a) is impeccable as a discourse starter entails that in New York cannot be positioned in spec-Foc. It is a PP prefaced to the FocP as an ECC. There is a sense, though, in which the PP in New York may be said to also have ‘topic’ character in the use of (244a) as a discourse-initial utterance. What this intuition refers to is a discourse topic. Note, however, that this is not the understanding of ‘topic’ which is relevant in the present work. This view of ECCs with discourse topic character in clause initial position (which, by definition, cannot be spec-Foc) accords well with what Sornicola (1994) writes in the following two passages: By a large consensus in the literature only those constituents that convey grammatical functions are considered as candidates for the topic function. Thus languages may have topics that do not occur in the first position of the sentence; to take but one example, the so-called circumstantial elements that express the temporal or spatial setting [...] may be placed in the first position, as in the sentence Yesterday Mary was in a very bad mood. Here the topic is not yesterday, but the constituent with the subject function. (Sornicola 1994: 4634) It seems reasonable then to differentiate two fundamental classes of topicrelated phenomena, the first having to do with extra sentential constituents [...] which constitute a kind of hanging topic, the second with sentential arguments moved [...]. (Sornicola 1994: 4637)
There is, however, an alternative analysis of (244a) as a discourse-initial utterance, one which makes use of the notion of accommodation of presuppositions mentioned in N. 234. It can be claimed that in New York is a [–foch f ]XP -featured adjunct which has moved to spec-Foc as topic expression in a categorical sentence. The corresponding relevance presupposition may then be argued to be accommodated. I see no way of deciding which analysis is correct. What I have said about non-argument PPs applies also to non-argument constituents of other categorial types, i.e. to lexically ungoverned ‘adverbials’ in the traditional sense (see Quirk et al. 1985: Ch. 8, pass.), among them notably adverbs. There certainly are lexically governed adverbials, and they may move to spec-Foc, such as in (245).
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(245) a. Badly he behaved b. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go (from Joyce 1922/1986: 19) c. Tightly they held on to the wing (from Ernst 2002: 21) But such cases are rare. In by far the most instances adverbials are not lexically governed. An investigation in which of these cases the adverbials may be analysed as ECCs could turn out to be advantageous for syntactic theory at large. Such a project cannot be pursued in the context of the present work. I turn now to vP/VP-fronting. (246) vP/VP-fronting a. At the end of the term I took my first schools [sic]; it was necessary to pass, if I was to stay at Oxford, and pass I did (from Ward 1985/1988: 3) b. In fact, one wonders how he managed to produce any music at all. But produce music he did (from Ward 1985/1988: 47) c. Whereas Lohrmann has to overcome a poor script to be bright, Durang has handed Ginny Brown Graham, via Sister Mary Ignatius, a fantastic script, and all she has to do is shine. And shine she does (from Ward 1985/1988: 109) d. So there was no question of forcing children to learn something their parents did not want them to learn, at least in the public schools. But learn it they will, one way or the other (from Ward 1985/1988: 181) e. One can take one of two tacks here: rejoice in the limited renascence Yiddish is currently having, or wonder why it has been ignored. And ignored it has been, [. . .](from Ward 1985/1988: 182) f. A teller handed over a packet of bills with exploding red dye and explode that red dye did (from Ward 1985/1988: 185) g. Despite her impressive academic credentials, it took her a year to find work again after she and her husband split up. But find a job she did [. . .](from Ward 1985/1988: 189) h. One factor is the Irani belief that there is no greater deed than to die for Iran. And dying they are, by the thousands (from Ward 1985/1988: 192) i. It’s your mission to open the public’s eye to a problem that many people have preferred not to see. But see it we must (from Ward 1985/1988: 194) j. After he finishes, he goes. And go he should (from Ward 1985/1988: 195)
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k. [Kenny Rogers] had asked his fans to bring cans to his concerts to feed the hungry in the area. And bring cans they did – thousands of them (from Ward 1985/1988: 198) l. Hit my bloody shoe that will! (from Biber et al. 1999: 906) It is shown by Ross (1967/1986: 241) that vP/VP-fronting obeys the restrictions nowadays subsumed under subjacency, as illustrated by (247), and that it thus patterns just like DP-fronting (see also Section 3.2 above). (247) a.
They said that nobody would pay up, but I know a boy who did pay up b. *They said that nobody would pay up, but pay up I know a boy who did c. They said that Tom would pay up, and that he did pay up is wellknown d. *They said that Tom would pay up, and pay up that he did is wellknown
But under observation of subjacency a vP/VP may, in principle, move stepwise across clauses arbitrarily higher up, as suggested by (248). (248) They said Tom would pay up, and pay up I’m sure everybody will tell you that his lawyers expect me to believe he did (from Ross 1967/1986: 241) This lends strong support to the assumption that we are confronted with vP/VPmovement to spec-Foc here, in a fashion parallel to DP-movement to spec-Foc. But can we be sure that it is the core VP or the shell vP which moves in such sentences? Actually, the following examples and judgements from Akmajian, Steele & Wasow (1979: 28) suggest, first, that it is the VoiceP which moves to spec-Foc and, second, that no higher phrase than VoiceP may move to spec-Foc. Note that the [+passive]-featured auxiliary being in (249a, b) is in the Voice-head position before fronting, the [+prog]-featured head been in (249c, d) is in Prog while the [+perf]-featured head have in (249e) is in Perf. (It may help to consult the tree diagram on page 112 for the present argumentation.) (249) a. They all said that John was being followed, and being followed he was! b. *They all said that J. was being followed, and followed he was being! c. They swore that J. might have been taking heroin, and taking heroin he might have been! d. *They swore that J. might have been taking heroin, and been taking heroin he might have! e. *They swore that J. might have been taking heroin, and have been taking heroin he might!235
FocP-related English syntax
An example like (246e), repeated below as (250), is not a counter-example against the conclusion that no higher phrase than VoiceP may be fronted. (250) One can take one of two tacks here: rejoice in the limited renascence Yiddish is currently having, or wonder why it has been ignored. And ignored it has been [. . .] The auxiliary been in (250) realises both the [+passive]-featured Voice-head and the [–prog]-featured Prog-head. By virtue of the latter it has moved to the Proghead position and is thus not affected by the movement of the VoiceP to spec-Foc. Note also in this context that being in (251a, b) (from Akmajian, Steele & Wasow 1979: 28) is not an auxiliary and does not occupy a position in the ANTAV-layer, but is the copular main verb having moved from the h-position in the general format of the clausal base (see (18) on p. 20) to the S-head position. (251) a.
They all said that John was being obnoxious before I arrived, and being obnoxious he was! b. *They all said that John was being obnoxious before I arrived, and obnoxious he was being!
Recall (from Subsection 2.1.2, p. 27) that, for independent reasons, I actually assume all lexical verbs to move to the S-head position in English. Thus, vP/VPfronting turns out to be either SP- or VoiceP-fronting. Of course, only if the Voicehead is filled with phonological material can the question of whether it is SP or VoiceP which is fronted be answered on empirical grounds. To reflect the uncertainty in those instances where this is not the case, I will use the term ‘SP/VoicePfronting’ in the following. Janßen (2000), who takes the functional projections AgrS P, TP, PerfP and AspP (= my ProgP) into account, but not VoiceP, comes to the conclusion that SP/VoiceP-fronting is actually AspP-fronting. Note that AspP-fronting is fronting of the lowest functional projection above VP in his account just as VoiceP-fronting is fronting of the lowest functional projection in the FANTAV-layer in mine. Ignoring VoiceP, however, causes Janßen to run into problems. For example, he claims on the one hand that AspP-fronting is ill-formed “as soon as the AspP is dominated by a lexically filled PerfP” (Janßen 2000: 232), giving the example and judgement ?? . . . and leaving the dark room John has been, while he also quotes (249c), but leaves its judgement, which does not correspond to that of his own example, uncommented. The ultimate reason for the confusion is that ignoring VoiceP does not allow a proper identification of which auxiliary heads which functional projection. Thus Janßen assumes that examples like (249a) instantiate AspP- (= ProgP-) fronting, whereas being here is clearly the passive auxiliary, i.e. the head of VoiceP.
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If an SP or VoiceP moves to spec-Foc, then the trace of the subject will not be c-commanded by its antecedent, as shown by the structures in (252) (in which the nodes of irrelevant XPs are left out). (252) [FocP [IP hei did [VoiceP [SP t i passj [VP t i t j ]]]]] → [FocP [VoiceP [SP t i passj [VP t i t j ]]]k[IP hei did t k ]] For the identification of traces (i.e. for establishing the connection between phonological and associated semantic form), it is usually required that the antecedent (i.e. the phonological form) c-commands its traces (of which the lowest one is the semantic form). That is, it has long been proposed that there is a proper binding condition, a simple version of which Müller (1998: 20) formulates as: “Traces must be bound.” (See Müller 1998: 20 also for references to other authors concerned with the proper binding of traces.) C-command is usually taken to be a prerequisite for binding. However, it is well known that there are some types of construction, including SP/VoiceP-fronting, which seem to violate such a proper binding condition, if it is said to apply at surface or (in earlier frameworks of generative grammar) S-structure. The following examples (from Frampton 1991: 28) illustrate the point for SP/VoiceP-fronting once again as well as for a different kind of construction. (253) a. [Put t j in jail]k hej will not be t k b. [How likely [t j to win]]k is Johnj t k ? In both cases, t j is not c-commanded by its antecedent. Müller (1998) addresses an analogous binding problem in connection with his discussion of so-called remnant movement in German, as illustrated in (254) (from Müller 1998: ix). (254) a.
Gelesen hat das Buch keiner read has the book nobody ‘Nobody read the book’ b. Zu lesen hat das Buch keiner versucht to read has the book nobody tried ‘Nobody tried to read the book’ c. Zu lesen versucht hat das Buch keiner d. Ein Buch hat Antje über die Liebe gelesen A book has Antje about the love read ‘Antje read a book about love’
Müller (1998) develops an approach to a solution of this problem which involves, first, the reconstruction of the fronted XPs (i.e. their lowering into their original position) at LF in those cases where lowering is not said to be ruled out for independent reasons (see Müller 1998: 116ff.); second, it involves the replacement of
FocP-related English syntax
the proper binding condition by the condition that “[v]ariables must be bound at LF” (Müller 1998: 119). He comments: Note that whereas the notion of binding is to be understood syntactically in [this condition], in terms of c-command, the notion of ‘variable’ in [this condition] is semantic in nature, and not syntactic: It includes initial traces of NP movement (anaphoric traces in the theory of Chomsky (1981; 1982)) that are co-indexed with an operator, initial traces of A-bar movement (which belong to the class of syntactic ‘variables’ in standard theorizing) that are co-indexed with an operator, as well as pronouns that are co-indexed with an operator; however, it does not include intermediate traces of any kind (even if they are classified as syntactic variables) or initial traces and pronouns that are not co-indexed with an operator. (Müller 1998: 119)
LF-reconstruction understood as XP-lowering, with ‘XP’ comprising both phonological and semantic forms, is neither available in the present framework, nor would it make sense. For the semantic form of a moved constituent remains in situ anyway. But what has to be ensured is that a phonological form dissociated from its semantic form remains connected with it for the purpose of identification. The existence of some version of a proper binding condition or of a condition along the lines proposed by Müller (1998) can be assumed to perform this function. But now it seems that, if Müller is correct in the passage just quoted, an identification problem does generally not appear with some kinds of traces, i.e. some kinds of configurations where phonological and semantic form are dissociated. These are the cases where the trace is not a variable in Müller’s sense, i.e. where it is an intermediate trace or an initial trace not co-indexed with an operator. Now, in the cases of SP/VoiceP-fronting discussed on the previous pages as well as the cases of remnant movement illustrated in (254), the relevant traces in the fronted XPs are clearly not variables in Müller’s sense; they are certainly not co-indexed with an operator.236 According to Baltin (1982: 16), some speakers, including Baltin himself, are not happy with SP/VoiceP- and AP-fronting. He hypothesises that in these speakers’ idiolect fronting is only possible for categories with the feature [–V] (i.e. DPs and PPs). But he also notes that he did not investigate whether the rejection of SP/VoiceP- and AP-fronting co-occurs. Alternatively, it may be that the binding condition for traces/variables is parameterised. For example, one could hypothesise that for some speakers it requires c-command by the phonological form of its associated semantic form in all cases, but of only the semantic form of variables in Müller’s (1998) sense for other speakers. However, if it were as simple as that, one would have to assume that those speakers who reject SP/VoiceP- and APfronting also reject sentences like (253b), which does not involve SP/VoiceP- or AP-fronting – which seems unlikely to me, but would have to be tested. This prob-
Chapter 7
lem of idiolectal variation in the acceptance of SP/VoiceP- and AP-fronting I must leave to future research. Ward (1985/1988: 192ff.) points to a puzzle for any kind of movement analysis of SP/VoiceP-fronting. He presents the authentic example in (255) below and notes that the “regular past participle, swum, would sound quite odd if preposed” (Ward 1985/1988: 193). (255) We had both been thrown into the water to sink or swim, and swim we had – we had swum from very far apart to come together in a cemetery in Haiti The same point is made by Bresnan (2001: 18, referring to unpublished work by Andrews (1994)), whose example is (256).237 (256) She said she would meet me, and meet me she has! According to Ward (1985/1988: 193), the “apparent unacceptability of preposed participles is not categorical” though. He presents the following constructed examples (Ward 1985/1988: 193).238 (257) a.
They told him that he had to be there all day long and {been / be} there all day long he has! b. They provided us with enough beer to drink all day long and {drunk / drink} all day we have! c. We had to stand firm, and {stood / stand} firm we have! d. You wanted the kids to have eaten by now, and {eaten / eat} they have! e. I didn’t want to lose your friendship, but {lost / lose} it I have. f. His mother had always hoped he would grow up, and {grown / grow} up he has! g. She suggested I try to find a solution and {tried / try} I have!
Ward’s (1985/1988: 193f.) comment on these is as follows: While judgments vary, these seven examples of preposed past participle are listed in roughly their order of acceptability, with [(257g)], an example of a regularly formed past participle, judged to be the most acceptable preposed participle of the sample. It seems that when the past tense and past participle forms are homonymous, as with the regular verb try, speakers generally accept either form preposed, with a slight preference for the infinitival form. However, when the two forms differ, as with irregular stand or eat, informants report a noticeable preference for the preposed infinitive.
Considerations of morphological (ir)regularity, as implicitly and vaguely suggested by Ward in this passage, may play a role here. But note that contrary to what Ward suggests, the past tense and past (or rather ‘perfective’) participle forms of
FocP-related English syntax
stand (appearing in (257c)) are homonymous, while grow of (257f) has nonhomonymous past tense and perfective participle forms although (257f) is closer than (257c) to the pole where both the perfective participle and the infinitive are said to be almost equally acceptable. According to Oku (1996: 283), there is a discourse condition saying that “[t]he form of [the] fronted verb is preferred to be identical to the form of the verb in the first conjunct.” This is the result of data collection resulting in the judgements indicated in (258) (from Oku 1996: 283). (258) a.
He claimed he would take first place, and {take / ??taken} first place he has b. They said he had taken first place, and {taken / ??take} first place he had
Oku (1996) also makes the observation that a choice – possibly restricted by the discourse condition just mentioned – between fronted perfective participle and bare form (infinitive) neither carries over to bare form and progressive participle, nor to bare form and passive participle, as shown by (259a, b) (from Oku 1996: 283) on the one hand, and by (259c) (cf. Oku 1996: 290) on the other hand. (259) a.
They said he would take first place, and {*take / ?taking} first place he is b. They said he was taking first place, and {taking / *take} first place he was c. Mary said they would criticise John, and {*criticise / (?)criticised } he was
It is difficult to find an explanation for the data in (255)–(259). The problem in terms of checking theory is this: The set of features forming a [+perf]-head contains a complement feature which must check against a formal perfective head feature carried by another verb form and projected up until ProgP where it can be checked, ProgP being the complement of the Perf-head. This is suggested by examples such as in (260). (260) a. We {have / had} swum b. *We {have / had} swim Swum, but not swim, contains the perfective head feature. Thus, if swim is in the derivation, the complement feature of the [+perf]-head remains illicitly unchecked. While we may insist – in view of (258b) and despite Schutze’s judgement (see N. (258b)) – that Ward’s data do not imply that movement of SP/VoiceP headed by a perfective participle is actually ungrammatical, there is still the prob-
Chapter 7
lem of explaining how come that there is no illicitly unchecked perfective head feature in sentences with a fronted SP/VoiceP headed by an infinitival verb. As a solution of this problem, Oku (1996: 285) suggests that “[t]he feature of perfective have, but not the feature of progressive be, can be checked by the trace of VP.”239 The assumption of this principle seems ad hoc to me. My own attempt at an approach to this problem, which may not appear less ad hoc though, is to suggest that the seemingly infinitival verb form in the problematic cases does indeed carry the required perfective head feature and is thus no infinitive but a perfective verb form homonymous with the infinitive. Of course, under this approach we have to explain why present/past perfective sentences with non-fronted SP/VoiceP with this perfective verb form, such as in (260b), are ungrammatical. This may be the result of lexical blocking – the well-established and conventional perfective verb form lexically blocking the marginal one that looks like an infinitive. In SP/VoicePfronting contexts, where the auxiliary and perfective participle are separated on the surface, this blocking is suspended, and a discourse condition such as Oku’s (1996) (“The form of [the] fronted verb is preferred to be identical to the form of the verb in the first conjunct”; see above) can become operative. It seems to me that some kind of lexical explanation along these lines has to be sought. For if we tinker with the syntactic principles we will open up a box of even greater problems when it comes to other languages. For whatever syntactic principle might be invented to allow for the problematic versions in (255)–(258), its function would have to be cancelled for a language like German, where only the version corresponding to the non-problematic one is possible, as exemplified in (261). (261) a.
Sie erzählten ihm, dass er den ganzen Tag da zu sein habe, und den ganzen Tag da {gewesen / *sein} ist er (‘They told him to be there the whole day, and there the whole day he was’) b. Hermann versorgte sie mit genug Bier um den ganzen Tag lang zu saufen, und den ganzen Tag lang {gesoffen / *saufen} haben sie (‘Hermann provided them with enough beer to booze all day long, and booze all day long they did’) c. Wir mussten fest entschlossen bleiben, und fest entschlossen {geblieben / *bleiben} sind wir. (‘We had to stand firm, and stand firm we did’)
Let us now consider AP-fronting. (262) AP-fronting240 a. Today’s tapes may still be cheerful, but cheap they are not (from Ward 1985/1988: 3)
FocP-related English syntax
b. ‘M*A*S*H’ means ‘mobile’ and mobile you shall be! (from Ward 1985/1988: 60) c. But behind this pleasant exterior is a committed feminist who has more than once shocked her genteel friends with outspoken opinions. Demure she is not (from Ward 1985/1988: 112) d. I think she was Japanese. No – Korean she was (from Ward 1985/1988: 114) e. The villagers – who’ve been farming, fishing, raising families and pub crawling in splendid isolation for generations – offer amazingly little resistance. Humble they may be. But daft they ain’t (from Ward 1985/1988: 134) f. A: This is not another vulgar disgusting sexploitation film. B: Vulgar it’s not. Dumb it is (ditto) g. A: I can’t stand R. He’s stupid, arrogant and totally off-the-wall B: Stupid I wouldn’t really say he is (ditto) h. A: He’s both amiable and sinister. B: Sinister, yes. But amiable I would not call him (ditto) i. Right you are! (from Biber et al. 1999: 904) j. Horrible they are! (ditto) k. Bloody amazing it was! (ditto) l. Charming you are! (from Biber et al. 1999: 909) m. Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly (from Joyce 1922/1986: 45) o. Crazy, Peter believes the man (from Stowell 1982: 307) AP-fronting patterns analogously to DP- and SP/VoiceP-fronting with respect to subjacency and the lack (in principle) of clause-boundedness, as can be seen from the following examples: (263) a. *[Stupid]i I know a man who really is t i (subjacency violated) b. [Not guilty]i I’m sure everybody will tell you that his lawyers expect me to believe he is t i (subjacency observed, stepwise movement across higher clauses possible) In the majority of cases of AP-fronting the AP is what is traditionally known to be the predicate in a copulative clause. The only other possibility is for the fronted AP to be the predicate in a verbless ‘small’ clause, as in (262hB, o). In both cases the AP proper instantiates the core HP dominated by the shell hP in the general structure of the clausal base (recall Subsection 2.1.2) – of the copulative root clause in the first case, of an embedded verbless clause in the second. As the (phonological form of the) DPs leave the clausal base for their case positions in the functional case layer (the subject of the verbless ‘small’ clause moves to matrix spec-AgrO ), we cannot
Chapter 7
be sure that it is actually the AP (= HP) which is fronted. This is one possibility. But it may also be that, in the ‘small’ clause case, the fronted ‘AP’ actually is the hP or, in the copulative clause case, the hP or SP, with the phonological material belonging to the AP being the only phonological material in hP or SP. The final group to be discussed in this subsection is embedded clause fronting. (264) Embedded clause fronting a. There are other areas, but what those areas are, we don’t know (from Ward 1985/1988: 174) b. Where in the processing strategy this determination was made, we cannot know (ditto) c. How these issues will be resolved we can only guess (from Ward 1985/1988: 176) d. The team is good enough to stay up but whether we will do I don’t know (from Biber et al. 1999: 153) e. That he has prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one shorthandwriter in the hall (from Biber et al. 1999: 901) f. What it was that changed this conclusion, I don’t remember (ditto) g. Why he came this way I will probably never know (ditto) h. How he would use that knowledge he could not guess (ditto) i. Unfortunately, eating was her weakness. Whether this was congenial, stemmed from growing up around a grocery store, or nerve induced, she sometimes wondered (ditto) j. What she had wanted, she was to have (ditto) k. What they can do, we can do (ditto) l. Whether Nancy was there or not, she could not be certain, looking from one to the other in her mind’s eye (ditto) m. What he was doing here I have no idea. Why he came this way I will probably never know (from Biber et al. 1999: 902) n. That she was in bad trouble, she already knew. That sassiness, delinquency, nihilism and unpredictability didn’t add up to a person, she had worked out for herself (Rushdie 1999/2000: 125) o. What he suffered for love when she was under-age he will suffer again now that they are both in their prime (Rushdie 1999/2000: 381) p. Whether these two, the loves of each other’s lives, whose gift of loving is exceeded only by their talent for erecting mighty obstacles to that love, are the creators of their circumstances, or destiny’s fools, I leave to others to decide (Rushdie 1999/2000: 382) q. Who had brought Michaelis there one afternoon the Assistant Commissioner did not remember very well (from Conrad 1907/1994: 92)
FocP-related English syntax
Embedded clause fronting as well patterns analogously to other types of XPfronting with respect to subjacency and the lack (in principle) of clause-boundedness, as can be seen from the following examples: (265) a. *[That the gardener is the murderer] I know a man who really believes t i (subjacency violated) b. [Who the murderer is]i I’m sure everybody will tell you that his lawyers expect me to know t i (subjacency observed, stepwise movement across higher clauses possible) Embedded clause fronting presents another of those puzzles which Bresnan (2001: Ch. 2) calls “movement paradoxes” (see N. 237 and its context). Consider the following examples. (266) a. *He didn’t think of that he might be wrong (example and judgement from Bresnan 1991: 54) b. That he might be wrong he didn’t think of (ditto) c. *We talked about that he was sick for days (ditto from Bresnan 2001: 17)241 d. That he was sick we talked about for days (ditto)242 Similar to the ‘movement paradox’ resulting from ‘infinitival’ SP/VoiceP-fronting in perfective clauses, the problem is this: Of and about do not seem to be able to check their complement feature against the formal head feature of the that-CP, as suggested by the ungrammaticality of (266a, c), so that it is unclear how this feature could be checked when the that-CP is moved to spec-Foc, as in (266b, d). Webelhuth (1989/1992) explains such cases by stipulating a sentence trace universal, which says: “Sentences can only bind DP-traces, i.e. traces with the categorial specification [+N, –V]” (Webelhuth 1989/1992: 94). This means that embedded clauses (Webelhuth’s ‘sentences’) leave behind a trace of the categorial type DP when moved. Thus (266a, c) are ungrammatical because the prepositions of and about c-select a DP, not a CP. However, when the CP (that he might be wrong or that he was sick respectively) moves to the front, it leaves behind a trace of type DP by virtue of the sentence trace universal. This DP-trace, then, satisfies the c-selection properties of the governing preposition (see Webelhuth 1989/1992: 100).243 Webelhuth is very cautious about the plausibility of the sentence trace universal, but retains it nevertheless because of its “extraordinary explanatory value in the analysis of a large number [of] seemingly unconnected phenomena of the syntax of Germanic”244 (Webelhuth 1989/1992: 111). Indeed, Webelhuth presents a long list of phenomena whose explanation involves the sentence trace universal. Still, one would only very reluctantly want to include the sentence trace universal as a gen-
Chapter 7
uine principle of grammar, for precisely the reasons Webelhuth himself points out (see N. 244).245 As an alternative attempt at an explanation for this movement paradox I suggest that the sources of (266b, d) are not those in which of and about take a that-clause as complement, but a the fact that . . . -DP: (267) a. → b. →
[FocP [IP he didn’t think of the fact that he might be wrong]] [FocP [the fact that he might be wrong] [IP he didn’t think of t]] [FocP [IP we talked about the fact that he was sick for days]] [FocP [the fact that he was sick] [IP we talked about t for days]]
The string the fact can then be assumed to be deleted in the phonological component of the grammar or, perhaps preferably, during phonetic processing in performance. Embedded clauses introduced by that may be fronted whereas this is not possible for embedded clauses without introductory that (see e.g. Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 99f.): (268) a. I didn’t expect (that) John would come b. *(That) John would come I didn’t expect If we assume with Radford (1997: 147ff.) and others that a finite clause functioning as complement of a verb like expect is a CP if it is introduced by the complementiser that and an IP if not, then we may account for the ungrammaticality of sentences like (268b) in terms of semantics. The idea would be that an IP denotes a truth value, i.e. is of semantic type t, and is thus inappropriate as either topic expression or identificational focus expression. For, as I will discuss in Chapter 8, topic expressions are of type e, while identificational focus expressions are of type <<e,t>,t> or <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>>.246 The other possibility is to assume with Haegeman & Guéron (1999: pass.) and others that a finite clause functioning as complement of a verb like expect is a CP in any case, i.e. that there is an empty (null) complementiser heading the CP if there is no overt that introducing the complement clause. In this case the ungrammatical, that-less, version of (268b) could have been derived by CP-fronting, as shown in (269a), or by IP-fronting, as in (269b) (with ‘e’ symbolising the empty complementiser). (269) a. *[FocP [CP e [IP John would come]]i Foc [IP I didn’t expect t i ]]] b. *[FocP [IP John would come]i Foc [IP I didn’t expect [CP e ti ]]] Both (269a) and (269b) can be argued to be ruled out as ECP violations. In the former e is a non-pronominal empty category which is not properly head-governed, in the latter t i is the offending non-pronominal empty category, as it is not properly head-governed by e.247
FocP-related English syntax
Fanselow & Felix (1987/1993: 90) point to the following difference between a fronted finite CP and a fronted non-finite clause. (270) a. That he will win the race, they expect b. *Him to win the race, they expect They account for this difference on the basis of the claim that case assignment requires adjacency of the case assigning head and its case receiving complement in English (see e.g. Fanselow & Felix 1987/1993: 69, 90). According to the traditional exceptional case marking (ECM) explanation of the objective case requirement for subjects of embedded non-finite clauses, the subject of the non-finite embedded clause in (270b) has to be assigned case by the matrix verb. This, Fanselow & Felix (1987/1993: 90) say, is impossible as the matrix verb and the embedded subject are not adjacent. However, there cannot be an adjacency requirement for case assigner and case receiver in English, since if it existed, not only non-finite clause fronting but also simple DP-fronting would not be possible. Such a requirement would extend not only to subjects of non-finite clauses but also to downright nominal objects.248 That nominal objects have to be marked objective in English irrespective of their being fronted or not is common wisdom and can be verified with respect to fronted nominal objects in examples like (271). (271) Except maybe Mahatma Gandhi. And him they shot (from DeLillo 1997/1998: 29) As the grammaticality of the examples (272) below suggests, non-finite clause fronting seems indeed to be impossible only in those cases for which ECM is the traditional account. If the subject receives objective case within a for-phrase, or if there is no overt subject in the non-finite embedded clause, fronting is possible. (272) a. For him to even win the race, I’ve never really expected b. To even win the race, I’ve never really hoped I propose that the ungrammaticality of examples like (270b) is due to the fact that the subject of the embedded non-finite clause moves to spec-Od of the matrix clause to check its case, thereby leaving its own clause.249 It seems reasonable to assume that the [±foch f ]XP -feature responsible for the movement of the phonological form of the non-finite clause to matrix spec-Foc cannot be assigned across a clause boundary. But such a cross-clausal assignment would be implied if the [±foch f ]XP -featured constituent were him to win the race in (270b). That is, on the assumption that [±foch f ]XP cannot be assigned across a clause boundary, him to win the race in (270b) and analogous constructions in similar cases do not form a constituent capable of carrying [±foch f ]XP and thus cannot move to spec-Foc. This account predicts that it should be possible to move that part of a non-finite
Chapter 7
embedded clause to spec-Foc which does not contain the embedded subject. This prediction is borne out: (273) To even win the race, I’ve never really expected him And, as we have seen with (272a), there is equally no problem for non-finite clause fronting if the embedded subject does not have to leave its clause in order to move to matrix spec-Od (as its case is checked within a for-phrase), for [±foch f ]XP is not illicitly assigned across a clause boundary in these cases.
.. Interrogative root clauses As already pointed out above (Section 3.2), the constraints on fronting are exactly parallel to those of the movements of wh-XPs in wh-interrogatives. This is because both movement operations originate in identical positions for corresponding types of wh-XPs and to-be-fronted XPs,250 and they target exactly the same position, namely spec-Foc.251 That is, I assume that FocP takes over the functions so far attributed to root CP, especially its role in the derivation of interrogative clauses. There is no CP in root clauses.252 Interrogatives are characterised by having a wh-XP or an abstract yes/no question operator Q-Op which carries a formal head feature [inth f ]XP which has to be checked against a corresponding specifier feature. In addition to [inth f ]XP an interrogative wh-XP or Q-Op carries [±foch f ]XP .253 In genuine interrogatives (for non-genuine ones see below in this subsection), [inth f ]XP is lexically provided by the head of the wh-XP (the wh-word), while [±foch f ]XP is assigned to the wh-XP by the conceptual-intentional system (recall Subsection 2.2.3). A wh-XP is forced to move to spec-Foc overtly if [±foch f ]XP is of type α, which it is in present-day standard English (SE). The specifier feature [ints ], against which [inth f ]XP checks, is a member of the feature set which can be thought of as a question head Q. In English Q is part of the finite verb of the respective interrogative clause. It can be conceived of as an abstract bound morpheme.254 It is a para-functional head in that it does not project a functional phrase of its own within the FANTAV-layer (see Section 5.1 above). According to Radford (1997: 294f.) and the authors he relies on, Q-Op can be conceived of as the covert counterpart of whether, which actually introduces yes/no interrogatives in early modern English (EModE), as illustrated by (274) (quoted from Radford 1997: 295). (274) a.
Whether had you rather lead mine eyes or eye your master’s heels? (Merry Wives of Windsor, III.ii) b. Whether dost thou profess thyself a knave or a fool? (All’s Well That Ends Well, IV.v)
FocP-related English syntax
I assume that Q-Op is generated just like a non-argument wh-XP (like EModE whether), perhaps as an adjunct of the clausal base, and moves to spec-Foc just like such a wh-XP. As just pointed out, overt movement of a wh-XP is due to [±foch f ]XP being of type α in SE. [inth f ]XP , on the other hand, is of type γ. This assumption allows for a straightforward answer to the question of why any wh-XP except one can stay in situ in multiple wh-XP interrogatives (examples in (275) from Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 333).255 (275) a. When will you do what? b. *What when will you do? c. *When what will you do? While there has to be exactly one [±foch f ]XP-featured wh-XP, which, if the feature is of type α, moves to spec-Foc overtly, there may be more than one [inth f ]XP features. Each interrogative wh-XP carries [inth f ]XP , and if there are more than one interrogative wh-XPs in the derivation, there are consequently more than one [inth f ]XP -features. XPs which carry [inth f ]XP but not [±foch f ]XP do not move overtly. Only the wh-XP which carries [±foch f ]XP moves to spec-Foc overtly. Any other wh-XP remains in situ, and its [inth f ]XP moves up without carrying along its associated phonological form.256 I assume that the [inth f ]XP -features of in situ wh-XPs adjoin to the set of features which has been pied-piped by [±foch f ]XP into spec-Foc and are absorbed there. Feature absorption takes place if a feature adjoins to a set of features which contains an identical feature.257 With respect to [inth f ]XP , it results in the annihilation of all but one of several [inth f ]XP -features. The single [inth f ]XP which remains after absorption checks against the single [ints ] in Foc. (I will explain why and how [ints ] is in Foc shortly below, after having finished the discussion of multiple wh-XP interrogatives.) If adjunction of [inth f ]XP to the set of features in spec-Foc is possible in principle, then multiple overt whXP movement to spec-Foc by adjunction is expected for languages in which both [±foch f ]XP and [inth f ]XP are of type α. Languages like Bulgarian or Romanian, where all interrogative wh-XPs appear at the left clausal periphery, are cases in point.258 The problem with multiple wh-XP interrogatives, however, is to explain some putative syntactic peculiarities. There is the traditional rule “[i]f one of the whelements is subject, it must be initial” (Quirk et al. 1985: 823), which is reflected by the following examples and judgements (from Erteschik-Shir 1997: 189). (276) a. Who ate what? b. *What did who eat?
Chapter 7
Although there is certainly a strong predilection for the order in (276a), I tend to agree with Bolinger (1978), who claims that there is actually no syntactic constraint involved in this case: Yet with a proper contextualisation, even [What did who break?] is normal: [(277)] I know that among all the disasters in that kitchen, Jane scorched the beans and Lydia put salt in the ice tea; but whát did whó bréak? I know somebody broke something, so stop evading my question.
The only thing necessary here was a motivation for the accent on the last word. There are, besides, unlimited opportunities to front wh words other than the subject, if more than two of them are used and one falls in final position: [(278)] a. b. c.
Who took what where? What did who take where? Where did who take what?
Although [(278a)] would certainly outrank [(278b)] and [(278c)] in frequency, all three are natural as a continuation of All I want to know is. Evidently there is no syntactic restriction on the grammatical status of the wh item that is fronted. (Bolinger 1978: 108)
Bolinger gives more examples with non-subject interrogative wh-XP in front position (see e.g. his list 1978: 130f.; see also Pesetsky 1987: 108f.) and claims that their limited occurrence is due to processing difficulties.259 Although syntactic constraints for the phenomenon have been extensively discussed under the headword of superiority in generative grammar (for a recent survey see Grewendorf 2002: Ch. 8), the hope to find purely syntactic constraints seems to begin to vanish among generative syntacticians (see Chomsky 1995b: 387, N. 69). Grewendorf (2002) supposes “that for a conclusive and comprehensive solution of the superiority problem we may need to consider factors which no theoretical analysis has taken into account yet” (my translation from Grewendorf 2002: 303). With respect to auxiliary support (aux-support, ‘subject-auxiliary inversion’) in root interrogatives, the pattern for SE to be explained is as follows (on the assumption that (279a ) is grammatical see shortly below). (279) a. b. c. d.
Whoi t i saw you? *Whoi you saw t i ? *Wheni he came t i ? *Q-Opi You smoke t i ?260
a . b . c . d .
Whoi t i did see you? Whoi did you see t i ? Wheni did he come t i ? Q-Opi Do you smoke t i ?
The analysis of cases like (279b–d) and (279b –d ), i.e. of non-subject wh- or yes/no interrogatives is this: [±foch f ]XP is of type α, while [ints ] is of type β and [inth f ]XP of type γ. If [ints ] is the attracted feature it may move if it is associated with a finite auxiliary; in this case it pied-pipes the phonological form of the auxiliary. If it is
FocP-related English syntax
associated with a lexical finite verb, then it fails to move if attracted. These characteristics make it a feature of type β. A wh-XP’s or Q-Op’s [inth f ]XP in spec-Foc attracts the finite verb’s [ints ] into Foc. Only a finite auxiliary may move to Foc, and consequently the derivation can only succeed if there is an auxiliary in the numeration of lexical items from which the derivation proceeds (see p. 41 above).261 Constructions (279b–d) are ungrammatical since movement of β-type [ints ] from the S-head position to Foc fails and thus both [ints ] and [inth f ]XP remain unchecked. (279a) is different from (279b–d) in that the subject wh-XP and [ints ] on the finite lexical verb have already been in a spec-head checking relation in the course of the derivation before the former’s movement to spec-Foc, namely at the point where the subject wh-XP is in spec-S. (Recall that Q is a para-functional head which does not project a functional phrase of its own and whose specifier feature is checked as soon as the corresponding formal head feature of the wh-XP is the specifier of finite verb+Q anywhere in the structure.) Nevertheless, the subject wh-XP, just like any interrogative wh-XP or Q-Op, has to move on to spec-Foc. In (279b–d) [ints ] has never entered a spec-head relation with the wh-XP or Q-Op. Both [inth f ]XP and [ints ] remain unchecked and the derivation crashes. In (279a ) the subject wh-XP checks its [inth f ]XP against [ints ] on the auxiliary in spec-AgrS . The subject wh-XP moves to spec-Foc as usual, but there is no reason for the auxiliary to move to Foc now, its [ints ] having already been checked in AgrS . This account is based on the assumption that sentences like (279a ), i.e. those where we have aux-support in subject wh-interrogatives, are in fact grammatical. Indeed, the grammaticality of subject wh-interrogatives is not acknowledged in traditional grammar.262 My informants, however, support Koster’s (1987: 210) judgement that an example like Who did come? “becomes grammatical with emphatic stress on did.” Consider, for example, Anne’s utterance in the following (constructed) situation (280) Conversation between Mary (wife of John and mother of Peter) and Anne at their workplace: M: Those lazy boys. I couldn’t get my car started this morning, and neither John nor Peter were willing to get up and help me with it. A: (knowing that M. got to work by car after all): Who did help you then? Some attested examples of aux-support in subject wh-interrogatives are given in (281). (281) a.
What really did happen in the Oxford Canal murder? (Morse in “The Wench is Dead” from the Inspector Morse TV series (produced on video by Carlton & WGBH, 1998)
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b. Michelet has strong emotions, and smears what he feels on paper without caring in the least how he does it, and without giving the slightest thought to technique or conventional forms – just shaping it into any form that can be understood by those who want to understand it. There was the rub. Who did want to understand it? (BNC CBN 1895ff.) c. A: Let’s cut the cackle. I’m on my own. When I say that I mean I’m operating without back-up. Even the Director has no idea I’m here. B: Who does know then? (BNC CN3 2994ff.) d. A: Did you tell your daughter? B: No, I wanted to surprise her. It was Dorothy’s idea. We were going to tell her on her birthday, that’s two weeks from today. A: Who does know? (BNC CJX 2558ff.) e. You might wonder why UNFPA should expend quite so much effort in arguing against such a crackpot idea. Who does believe such things anyway? Well, some rather important people: [. . .] (BNC HH3 3690ff.) f. A: Peter, there are many people who agree with Kathleen Blanchard, how damaging is all this for the Conservatives? B: Who does want VAT on domestic fuel? (BNC K21 2011f.) g. A: [. . .] and then he had the cheek to charge me for insurance! Well I expect him to pay the insurance. B: Who did pay the insurance? (BNC KCT 1865ff.) h. ‘[. . .] Both of them, especially Foster, had to travel for his job, going back and forth to places like Egypt.’ ‘Drugs?’ Ambrogiani asked. ‘Could be. Or it could be something else.’ ‘What?’ ‘I don’t know. Drugs don’t feel right, somehow.’ ‘What does feel right?’ (Leon 1993/1995: 167) i. The young man winked again and said: ‘Just! Still, your meaning doesn’t help me out of my difficulties. I am determined to leave Chandrapore. The problem is, for where? I am determined to write poetry. The problem is, about what? You give me no assistance.’ Then, surprising both Hamidullah and himself, he had an explosion of nerves. ‘But who does give me assistance? No one is my friend. [...]’ (Forster 1924/1979: 239) In contrast to Rizzi (1996: 67; see also Rizzi 1997: 316f.), who proposes an analysis of interrogative aux-support on the basis of the assumption that a sentence like
FocP-related English syntax
Who does love Mary? is “irrelevantly [...] possible with emphatic do”, I maintain that it is syntactically relevant that such interrogatives are possible and syntactically irrelevant that the auxiliary has to be pitch-accented.263 My position here is essentially that of Wilder (1997: 340f.), who considers (282).264 (282) a. Who bought the book? b. Who did buy the book? c. “There is one (or more) relevant person who didn’t buy the book.” Wilder’s (1997: 340f.) analysis is this: A wh-question does not assert a proposition – rather, its meaning can be thought of in terms of a set of alternative propositions, its ‘answer set’ (the set of potentially true answers to that question). Thus, [(282a)] defines a set such as [(283)], and asks the hearer to identify the member(s) of the set that are true. Focusing aux in a wh-question generates a second set (the ‘focus set’), which contains the negations of the propositions from the answer set [(284)]. [(283)] {John bought the book; Mary bought the book; Bill bought the book; . . .} [(284)] {John didn’t buy the book; Mary didn’t buy the book; Bill didn’t buy the book; . . .}
The preceding context must then contain the negation of one or more of these propositions. [(282b)] is felicitous, e.g., if [(285)] has just been uttered. [(285)] John didn’t buy the book. (. . .nor did Mary, nor did Bill. . .)
As regards movement to Foc in interrogatives, the copular verb be patterns with auxiliaries rather than with lexical verbs, although it is the only verb present and not literally ‘auxiliary’. (286) a. b. c. d.
{Is / Was} he a teacher? *{Does / Did} he be a teacher? What {is / was} he? *What {does / did} he be?
By contrast, other copula-like verbs such as seem and appear behave like lexical verbs in this respect. (287) a. {Does / Did} he {seem / appear} ill? b. *{Seems / Seemed / Appears / Appeared} he ill? Thus, the copular verb be, but not a copula-like verb such as seem or appear, belongs to the class of verbs whose phonological form can be pied-piped by β-type [ints ].
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In sentences with wh-XP extraction from an embedded clause we must have aux-support both in subject and non-subject wh-interrogatives. Whoi did you say t i arrived first? (from Haegeman 1995: 296, N. 5) *Whoi you said t i arrived first? (ditto) Whati do you believe he has bought t i ? *Whati you believe he has bought t i ? Whati is it likely that Tom will try to persuade Edith to name the baby t i ? (from McCawley 1988: 469) f. *Whati it is likely that Tom will try to persuade Edith to name the baby ti?
(288) a. b. c. d. e.
Neither a subject nor a non-subject wh-XP may enter a spec-head relation with [ints ] on the finite lexical verb of the root clause in such cases.265 This follows naturally from the account just given, for in contrast to simple subject whinterrogatives, the wh-XP in sentences like (288b) does not move through root spec-S, nor root spec-AgrS , these positions being occupied by the root clause subject (you) or its trace respectively. If there is no wh-XP and no Q-Op we can still be confronted with an interrogative if we assume that the finite verb carries interpretable [inth s ]X . In this case there are no uninterpretable features in the derivation, neither [ints ] on the finite verb, nor [inth f ]XP on a wh-XP or Q-Op. The fact that in such a “nonoperator question” (Radford 1997: 298f.) there is no Q-Op is made plausible by the ungrammaticality of polarity items, which are usually said to be licensed by the presence of a Q-Op: (289) You’ve ordered the/*any drinks? (example and judgement from Radford 1997: 298f.) In (289) it is the subject that moves to spec-Foc to check [±foch f ]XP against [±focs ]. But movement of other XPs is also possible, as shown by the following attested examples: (290) a.
A: B: b. A: B: c. A: B:
We did it in the backseat of a Ford. In a Ford you did it? (from Ward 1985/1988: 112) Then came the oral part – in Spanish. In Spanish it was? (from Ward 1985/1988: 122) So, when I’m rich and famous – Rich and famous you’re going to be now? (ditto)
What is the analysis of wh-XP ‘echo interrogatives’, which I take to be a common and core characteristic of SE? The problem here is that if in this variety of English a wh-XP generally bears an α-type [±foch f ]XP , how can it stay in situ in wh-XP ‘echo interrogatives’?
FocP-related English syntax
(291) A: I saw Ted Dawson today. B: You saw who? (from Quirk et al. 1985: 835) I suggest that the presence of both [±foch f ]XP and [inth f ]XP on a wh-XP actually distinguishes an interrogative that is used as a “genuine” (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 47) question from one used as an ‘echo question’. The echo character of the latter is achieved by copying the original, including its focus structure (apart from the expression substituted for by the wh-XP and except for changes in deictic expressions). Thus, in order for the focus structure of the original to be copied, the wh-XP of the ‘echo interrogative’ must not bear [±foch f ]XP . In (291) [–foch f ]XP is carried by the DP you. Moreover, it may be argued that the wh-XP of an ‘echo interrogative’ is different from that of a genuine interrogative in that it does not carry [int]-features at all, i.e. that an ‘echo interrogative’ actually has no interrogative force. In fact, the function of an ‘echo-interrogative’ is typically rather exclamative or requestive (in that it demands a repetition or clarification) than interrogative. In languages and varieties which have genuine wh-XP in situ interrogatives, i.e. which are not ‘echo-interrogatives’, such as typically in Chinese (see e.g. Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 47f., 549f.), but also in some varieties of French, both [inth f ]XP and [±foch f ]XP on the wh-XP are of type γ; and so is [ints ] on the finite verb.266 The feature movement involved here takes place covertly. In English we also find nonechoic wh-XP in situ interrogatives. These are called declarative questions by Quirk et al. (1985: 817, n. f) and said to be “associated with interviews and interrogations”. Their example is this: (292) Q: A: Q: A:
So you boarded the train where? At Los Angeles. And you got off at what station? At San Diego. (from Quirk et al. 1985: 817, N. f)
Rather than saying that such examples reflect a register of English in which the type of [±foc]- and [int]-features parallels that of Chinese or the varieties of French just referred to, I suggest that the wh-XP is not assigned a [±foc]-feature in these cases. This is a decision taken in the conceptual-intentional system in order to allow for a focus structure which parallels that of utterances which the interviewer/interrogator wishes or incites the interviewee to produce: I boarded the train at LA; I got off at San Diego. It is now time to address the question of which feature exactly, [+foch f ]XP or [–foch f ]XP, it is that is carried by an interrogative wh-XP. Drawing on an analysis by Erteschik-Shir (1997: 105ff.), I conclude that both cases are possible. Erteschik-Shir suggests that an interrogative sentence like (293) What did Sue eat?
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is ambiguous between readings in which the wh-XP ranges over a restricted or an unrestricted set of values. What is meant by (un)restricted here becomes clear from her comment (Erteschik-Shir 1997: 106f.) on cases where only one reading is possible: Individual-level predicates with only one argument allow only the restrictive interpretation of wh-questions. Compare: [(294)] a. ?Who is intelligent? b. Who is available?
[(294a)] receives an interpretation only if the context makes available a restrictive set of whos and the question asks for a partitioning of this set into intelligent and nonintelligent individuals. This type of question is a request to decide for each individual student in the topic set, whether or not s/he is intelligent. In effect we get a list of yes/no questions, one for each individual within the set. Without a context, in which a set of students is defined, the question makes no sense.267
A topic set in terms of Erteschik-Shir is available if the wh-XP is D-linked:268 “Dlinking [...] boils down to a topic set being available” (Erteschik-Shir 1997: 188). In my terms “a topic set being available” does first of all not mean more than that a number of referents are active or accessible. But if a wh-interrogative, simple or multiple, is to be interpreted as asking for information about each member of the set of active or accessible referents, this set can be said to establish a multi-member topic set (and thus a topic tout court) also in my sense. In this case, where we have a restrictive reading of the wh-XP, it is the [–foch f ]XP -feature which is carried by the wh-XP. In the non-restrictive case, on the other hand, it is the [+foch f ]XP -feature. As the set of values over which a Q-Op ranges is {yes, no} and thus restricted, I assume that in yes/no interrogatives it is [–foch f ]XP which is carried by Q-Op. This view provides a differentiated picture with respect to the debate about whether a wh-XP is a topic or a focus expression in wh-interrogatives (see above, p. 92), and it may partly explain the existence of different opinions among researchers.269 But note also the discussion in Drubig & Schaffar (2001: 1087), which suggests that there are languages in which one type of interrogative wh-XPs does not carry [±foc]-features at all. These seem to correspond to informational focus expressions rather than to identificational ones and they exist alongside [±foc]-featured interrogative wh-XPs.
.. Aux-support for downward-entailing fronted XPs in root clauses Aux-support in root clauses with clause initial downward-entailing XPs (negative XPs, DPs with hardly, few, little, only etc., adverbial XPs like seldom, rarely etc.; the
FocP-related English syntax
latter two groups are often characterised as ‘inherently negative’) has been traditionally described as movement of the downward-entailing constituent into specC plus movement of an auxiliary into the C-head position of CP (see e.g. Klima 1964: 313; Ladusaw 1980; Drubig 1992a; Haegeman 1995: Ch. 2).270 As the auxiliary comes to precede the subject by this operation, it is also commonly referred to as a case of subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI). In the present work such constructions are analysed in a way similar to wh-interrogatives, where FocP rather than CP is involved. Consider the following examples from Quirk et al. 1985: 781, 1382: (295) a. b. c. d.
Rarely does crime pay so well as many people think Little help can be expected from Peter Not a single book had he read that month Only one more point will I make
I assume that those XPs which, if fronted, trigger aux-support carry a formal head feature [deh f ]XP alongside α-type [+foch f ]XP .271 As far as [deh f ]XP is concerned, it must be noted that its postulation marks a deviation from the methodological constraint adhered to so far that abstract syntactic features are to be assumed only if they can be formally motivated, i.e. by morphological or phonological (including intonational) oppositions in the grammar (see Ch. 1 above). But recall also (from Ch. 1, p. 9, N. 8) that it is conceivable that semantics may play a similar role as morphological and phonological oppositions for the assumption of an abstract syntactic feature – in language acquisition as well as syntactic theory. Indeed, if the members of the class of phrases which trigger this kind of aux-support could simply be characterised as negative rather than downward-entailing (or perhaps something even more complicated if extent quantifiers are taken into account as well; see N. 270b), it would not be difficult to imagine that the language-acquiring child is able to figure out that there is a specific set of features involved and which one it is. For negation, in contrast to downward entailment, is semantically quite perspicuous. But then it can be reasonably hypothesised that the child starts off by assuming that it is phrases which carry [+neg]-features that trigger aux-support if they are fronted. The child may afterwards realise that the class of phrases which trigger aux-support is not restricted to negatives and may lexically mark the heads of the phrases which she experiences to do so too as she hits upon them in her linguistic input. That (a part of) the class of lexical items which trigger aux-support if they head a phrase which is fronted can be characterised as the class of downwardentailing items is an insight of linguists and cannot and need not be inferred by the language learner.272 Anyway, [deh f ]X is a feature with which a certain, ultimately semantically defined, class of items is marked in the lexicon and which projects up to the XP headed by the respective item so that the XP is [deh f ]XP-featured. How-
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ever, [deh f ]X(P) is syntactically active only in combination with [+foch f ]XP , as we will see shortly. [deh f ]XP on an XP in spec-Foc requires a corresponding specifier feature [des ]X against which it may check. [des ]X is a feature which forms an abstract (covert) bound morpheme attached to the finite verb. It is of type β and thus capable of moving to Foc only if it is attached to a finite auxiliary whose phonological form it pied-pipes when being attracted into Foc. [des ]X cannot pied-pipe the phonological form of a lexical verb from S to Foc, as shown in (296). (296) a. b. c. d.
*Rarely pays crime so well as many people think *Little help expect we from Peter *Not a single book possesses he *Only one book possesses he
I also assume – admittedly quite ad hoc – that the [de]-features are ‘dormant’ (not active) if a downward-entailing XP which would trigger aux-support if it was fronted is actually not fronted, i.e. if it does not also carry [+foch f ]XP , as illustrated in (297). Dormant features need not be checked and erased. (297) a. Crime rarely pays so well as many people think b. We expect little help from Peter c. He possesses {not a single book / only one book} The ad hoc assumption of the notion ‘dormant feature’ would need to be motivated independently. I expect them to play a role only on the periphery of grammar (cf. N. 272). Just as with subject wh-interrogatives, it seems to be commonly held that [deh f ]XP -featured subject XPs do not trigger inversion. Culicover (1991: 27) gives the following example and judgement and points to its parallelism with whinterrogatives, where the “ungrammaticality of *who did leave with unstressed did shows that inversion does not apply in these cases” (Culicover 1991: 26f). (298) a. No one left b. *No one did leave In contrast to Culicover, whose account both of subject wh-interrogatives and clauses with downward-entailing (or ‘affective’ as he calls them, following Klima 1964) subjects involves a couple of worrying assumptions,273 I capitalise on the fact that clauses like (298b) are grammatical with pitch-accented do. Consider (299), which is fine. (299) (John had expected that after what he was going to say no one would leave, and in fact) no one did leave
FocP-related English syntax
The analysis is similar to the one with subject wh-interrogatives: [deh f ]XP of the subject XP is checked in spec-S against [des ]X in the S-head if the finite verb which carries [des ]X is lexical. And if the finite verb is an auxiliary, the checking and erasing of the [de]-features takes place while [deh f ]XP of the subject XP is in spec-AgrS and [des ]X of the finite auxiliary is in the AgrS -head position. It follows straightforwardly from the analysis just suggested that interrogative formation and aux-support with a fronted downward-entailing XP, as illustrated by the following examples and judgements (of which (300a–f) are from Kuwabara 1990: 151), are incompatible: (300) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.
*What not once did you see? *Not once what did you see? *Who under no circumstances would John help? *Under no circumstances who would John help? *What very rarely do you find? *Very rarely what do you find? *With no job would John be happy?274
The downward-entailing XP and the wh-XP target the same landing site, spec-Foc, but cannot both be hosted there. Moreover, only one XP can be [±foc]XP-featured. I will come back to aux-support for downward-entailing XPs in front position in Subsection 7.3.5 below. There I will be concerned with this phenomenon in embedded clauses.
.. Full inversion in root clauses It might be thought that full inversion (FI; called stylistic inversion by Rochemont & Culicover (1990)) can be analysed in a way similar to aux-support, with only a difference in α/β/γ-feature type involved. The following examples are from Quirk et al. (1985: 1380). (301) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.
Especially remarkable was her oval face Faint grew the sound of the bell In a distant grave lies his beloved body Here comes my brother Down came the rain Up went the flag There at the summit stood the castle in all its medieval splendour Away ran the terrified boy Equally inexplicable was his behaviour to close friends
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That is, it might be thought that such sentences can be explained by assuming some feature [fh f ]XP on the fronted XP in spec-Foc which attracts a corresponding feature [fs ] to be checked against and carried by the finite verb into Foc. If [fs ] was then postulated to be of type α, then movement of the finite verb (auxiliary or lexical) to Foc and thus the linear order exhibited by the sentences in (301) would follow. Apart from the fact that this approach would be ad hoc in that there is no common semantic or formal characteristic displayed by the fronted, FI-triggering, XPs which could be associated with such a feature, there is another reason which rules it out immediately. For if the sentences in question have a verb group rather than a simple finite lexical verb, then it is the whole verb group and not only the finite verb which appears in second position after the initial phrase: (302) a.
Out of the courtroom will walk a judge (from Rochemont 1978/1985: 23) b. Just as I was getting settled, in would walk some man with a problem (ditto)275 c. Into the river was thrown an innocent bystander (ditto) d. By ‘strategy’ is meant the basic planning of the whole operation (from Quirk et al. 1985: 1380) e. In them were floating two chips of ice, rapidly melting from their originally cubic form (attested example from Drubig 1988: 83) f. [. . .] on top of the folded hanky is seen the imprint of the selected card (ditto from Birner & Ward 1998: 157) g. With greater individual freedom should come greater individual responsibility (ditto from Dorgeloh 1997: 24)
Having the whole verb complex in second position after the XP in front position is incompatible with an analysis parallel to the one suggested for aux-support. I propose the following analysis instead. In constructions with FI the subject case feature of the XP which moves to spec-S of the functional case layer is not of type α but of type γ and thus leaves the phonological form associated with it, i.e. that of the subject XP, in situ in the base. The phonological form of the verb moves to S as usual and thereby comes to end up in front of the subject. Having a type γ subject case feature for any nominal head of a subject XP which projects up to its maximal and extended phrases is a genuine lexical option, whose exploitation is blocked when the verb takes more than one DP-argument in English. Overt movement to spec-positions in the functional case layer is the syntactic reflex of the need to be able to associate theta-roles with DParguments when they are not morphologically marked for case distinctions. But if there is only one DP-argument, then there is no danger of confusion with respect to the association of theta-role and argument. In this case even the association
FocP-related English syntax
of morphological and functional case may be suspended, as can be seen in the examples in (303) below. These are from Rochemont (1978/1985: 31), according to whom each of them is “appropriate in a context in which the pronoun has a deictic reference.”276 (303) a. At the foot of the stairs was {she / her} b. Standing in the doorway was {him / he} c. Less fortunate was {she / her} The syntax of a language may very well allow for an optional choice between leaving the phonological form of the only DP-argument of a predicate in situ and having it pied-piped by the case feature. This option is expressed by allowing for an αtype or a γ-type case feature on a nominal which becomes the lexical head of a DP which is to have its case feature checked. This option, which is lexically provided for, is constrained in its syntactic exploitation in that it may only be exercised with predicates that take only one DP-argument. While the phonological form of the DP-argument stays in situ in FI constructions, spec-AgrS has to be phonologically filled in languages with poor or residual overt agreement morphology like English, whereas it may be filled by a phonologically empty element (pro) in some (but not all) other languages with rich overt agreement morphology, i.e. in so-called ‘null subject’ or ‘pro-drop’ languages.277 In thetic FI sentences the filler is ‘existential’ or ‘presentational’ expletive there. An example of the former is given in (304a) and of the latter in (304b) below; (304c) is an example where the clause initial DP is a topic expression in a categorical there-clause. (304) a.
What can happen is a hangup such as Rocky Smith ran into, as the independent hauler was traversing Chicago with a load of machinery that just had to get to a factory by morning. “There was this truck in front of me carrying giant steel coils, and potholes all over the place,” he remembers. “This guy swerves all of a sudden to avoid a big hole.” He hit it anyway. (attested example from Birner & Ward 1998: 102) b. The visitors here are a doctor who keeps zapping himself with a burglar-fighting stun gun, and Moon Unit’s best friend, a lovable flake played by Bess Meyer. The two women like to wear goofy hats. The credits say that three writers were required to create this tableau. Okay, but it has only one good line. The line is: “So?” There remains the burning question of whether the Zappas, offspring of rock star Frank Zappa and occasional guest veejays on MTV, can act. (ditto from Birner & Ward 1998: 142)
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c.
There remained the question of how the comic element was to be managed. A comic element there had to be [. . .]. (from Craik 1995/2000: 36)
That verbs which take more than one DP-argument do not allow for FI is well known. Drubig (1988: 84), for instance, notes that “[t]ransitive verbs are excluded from [FI], except as agentless passives.” It has often been claimed that among the predicates which take only one DP-argument FI is restricted to, in semantic terms, predicates of existence or appearance, that is, more specifically, to those which designate “a process through which the subject referent becomes part of the scene in some sense, i.e. visible, or (more) salient” (Drubig 1988: 88). In syntactic terms the respective class of predicates has been argued to be that of unaccusatives (see the references given by Birner & Ward 1998: 187). However, unergative predicates are also possible in FI constructions, as shown by the following attested examples (from Birner & Ward 1998: 188f.). (305) a.
Several groups behind the mayor’s car marched police officers from Sheriff James O’Grady’s parade unit b. On the third floor worked two young women called Maryanne Thomson and Ava Brent, who ran the audio library and print room c. From this pulpit preached no less a person than Cotton Mather
According to Birner & Ward (1998: 189), “inversion is clearly not restricted to unaccusative verbs”. Following Birner (1995), they argue instead that “what has been presented as a constraint on the syntactic or semantic class of verbs appearing in inversion is in fact a pragmatic constraint on the information status of the verb in context: namely, that it must not represent new information in the discourse” (Birner & Ward 1998: 189). It seems that in fact all kinds of predicates which take only one DP-argument allow for FI syntactically. If it is a genuine lexical option that the case feature of nominals is either of type α or γ, then all cases of FI except those where an expletive there occupies spec-AgrS should have a syntactically well-formed alternative in which the phonological form of the subject does not remain in situ, but moves to spec-AgrS .278 I would claim that this is indeed the case and that any oddness which may result from ‘transforming’ an FI sentence of this kind into its alternative – as happens with some sentences in (301), for instance – has information-structural (discourse related, pragmatic) reasons (see Birner & Ward 1998: Ch. 3–5; for an overview of various functional approaches to FI; see also Dorgeloh 1997).279 In sum, in addition to the constraint imposed on some languages (including English) by the EPP, the lexicon-based optionality of leaving the phonological form of the subject in situ in the base or not in sentences in which the predicate takes only one DP-argument is information-structurally constrained. According to Birner & Ward (1998), this
FocP-related English syntax
constraint is primarily one in terms of degree of givenness/newness (activation) of discourse denotata or referents.
.. Multiple fronting in root clauses Multiple fronting poses a problem for the syntactic implementation of focus structure as suggested in the present work. For the theory contains the claim that there is exactly one phrase which carries [±foch f ]XP . The list in (306) contains some examples and their judgements from the literature in which the phonological forms of more than one phrase appear clause initially: (306) a. *John this book likes (from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 96) b. ??On the table this book John put (from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 86) c. *Bill John I’ve never introduced to (from Rochemont & Culicover 1990: 72) d. *To John a letter Mary just sent (ditto) e. *That book on the table Bill just put (ditto) f. ?For John a book I would never buy (from Rochemont & Culicover 1990: 134) g. ?A book for John I would never buy (ditto) h. *John a book I would never buy for (ditto) i. *A book John I would never buy for (ditto) j. ?To John a book on linguistics I would never give (from Rochemont & Culicover 1990: 176, N. 3)280 k. ?A book on linguistics to John I would never give (ditto) l. On Wednesday with John I’m going to the opera (ditto) m. In front of the house in a new car Mary claims she saw Bill (ditto) n. *This book Mary I gave to (from Kuno & Robinson 1972: 477) o. *Mary this book I gave to (ditto) Culicover (1991: 36f.) points out that it makes a difference whether a string like This book to Robin I gave is pronounced with what he (among others) calls “comma intonation” or not. He refers to Gundel’s (1974/1988) distinction of two topicalisation intonation contours, writing: The topic intonation is the typical ‘comma intonation,’ where the topic and the rest of the sentence constitute separate intonation groups. [...] The focus intonation is characterized by a primary stress in the topic and no break between the topic and the rest of the sentence. It is possible for there to be an additional primary stress elsewhere in the sentence, as well. (Culicover 1991: 34)
His judgements of the string This book to Robin I gave are as given in (307).
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(307) a. *This book, to Robin, I gave (‘comma intonation’) b. This book to Robin I gave (no ‘comma intonation’) Culicover (1991: 7, N. 11 in connection with 33ff.) suggests that (307a) instantiates “‘topic’ Topicalization” and (307b) “‘focus’ Topicalization”. In his theory, the former is adjunction to IP and the latter movement to spec-Pol, with PolP being a “Polarity Phrase” positioned between CP and IP (see Culicover 1991: 3).281 While this theory seems better motivated by cases which Culicover discusses before he mentions multiple fronting (see below, Subsection 7.3.5), it remains unclear how the examples in (307) are supposed to fit into the general framework. The only remark Culicover makes in this respect is this: “We also expect to have multiple Topicalization just in case the inner topic is focus” (Culicover 1991: 36). It remains unclear, first, why multiple adjunction to IP (multiple ‘topic topicalisation’) should be ungrammatical and, second, which position the initial phrase in (307b) (this book) is supposed to occupy. It is certainly not a second ‘focus topic’ but rather a ‘topic topic’ to the left of the ‘focus topic’ in spec-Pol. If so, however, it cannot be adjoined to IP, although IP-adjunction is generally assumed for ‘topic topics’ by Culicover (1991). These are problematic aspects of Culicover’s theory. I propose that sentences like (307a) are ungrammatical because it is not possible to move two constituents to spec-Foc. By contrast, sentences like (307b) are felt to be better by some speakers because the string this book to Robin can be conceived of as a single, in principle moveable XP, namely Od P. The structure of the functional case layer and the base of sentences like (307b) before movement to spec-Foc is (308). (308) [SP gavei [Od P [this book]k [vP t i [VP [to Robin] t i t k ]]]] The Od P this book to Robin is one single constituent and thus moveable in principle. I assume that this is what underlies Culicover’s judgement. However, (307b) is still unacceptable for other speakers. This is perhaps due to an identification problem concerning the traces of the verb after movement of the Od P to spec-Foc, for the traces are then higher up in the structure and not c-commanded by their antecedent gave.282 For speakers who judge (307b) as Culicover does, this identification problem does not exist or is significantly less severe than the prohibition against multiple movement of constituents into a single target position. By contrast, a ‘comma intonation’ involving a separate intonation group for to Robin in (307a) (see the block quotation from Culicover 1991 above) suggests an analysis in which this book and to Robin have been fronted individually, not jointly forming a constituent. This is not possible, as there is only one target position available (spec-Foc). Thus, the first step in disentangling the judgements involved with ‘multiple fronting’ should be to distinguish cases where the fronted string is ambiguous between a one-constituent and a multiple-constituent reading such as in (306g, k)
FocP-related English syntax
and those where only the multiple-constituent reading is possible, such as in (306a, b, c, d, h, i, n, o). Not surprisingly any more, the examples from the former group are judged ‘?’, while almost all of the latter are judged ‘*’ ((306b) is judged ‘??’). Then we have to take the existence of syntactically non-integrated, i.e. extraclausal constituents (ECCs), in pre-clause position into account (see above, p. 167f.). Just like parenthetical constituents, they do not occupy a structural position in the clause. I would maintain that in (306l, m) either both PPs or one of them may be analysed as an ECC with the discourse function of indicating the discourse topic; and the same holds for for John in (306f). Correspondingly, none of these three examples is judged ‘*’. It is not compulsory to assume that both pre-subject phrases in these examples have moved to spec-Foc. It seems, then, that most of the judgements in (306) can be accounted for without having to allow for ‘multiple fronting’ in the sense of multiple movement to clause initial position of some topic or identificational focus expression. The only examples in (306) which do not fit the explanation given are (306e), which should also be possible for speakers who accept (306g, k), and (306j), which should not be acceptable (but see N. 280 as regards the latter). In view of the delicacy of the judgements involved – of which Rochemont & Culicover’s (1990) differing judgements of (306d) and (306j) are a symptom – I would maintain that these exceptions from the pattern do no invalidate the explanation suggested. An immediate consequence of the analysis of interrogatives involving FocP presented in Subsection 7.2.2 is that a combination of both interrogative clause formation and fronting is ruled out. This is supported by the examples and their judgements already given in Section 3.2, some of which repeated in (309). (309) a. *To whom the books did John give away? / *Whom the books did John give away to? (examples an judgements from Chomsky 1977: 92) b. *The book to whom did you give? (ditto from Baltin 1982: 17) c. *Can this kind of behaviour we tolerate? (ditto from Radford 1997: 312) d. *What in the living room did Mary find? (ditto from Rochemont 1989: 147) e. *Robin {who will talk to / what wants to do / why will leave early / how fixed the car}? (ditto from Culicover 1991: 32) f. *Robin {will who talk to / does what want to do / will why leave early / did how fix the car}? (ditto) While [±foch f ]XP is carried by a wh-XP or by the yes/no question operator (Q-Op) if we are confronted with a (genuine) interrogative, we would have to assume one [±foch f ]XP -feature on the wh-XP or the Q-Op and a second one on the fronted (non-wh-) XP for (309a–f) to be possible. According to the FocP-hypothesis devel-
Chapter 7
oped in the present work, however, there is exactly one [±foch f ]XP -featured XP in a grammatical sentence, and thus examples like those in (309) are ruled out. Some authors, though, have questioned the general impossibility of fronting in interrogatives. Rochemont (1989: 147) notes the lack of agreement about sentences like (310) In the living room what did Mary find? He makes the following comment about (310): I adopt here the position [...] that examples such as [(310)] may be considered grammatical only if the topic is both the accent focus of the sentence that follows and not separated from the sentence by an intonation break. A variant of [(310)] in which these conditions are not met is generally agreed to be ungrammatical.[...] (Rochemont 1989: 147)
My informants do not support this. Quite to the contrary, they accept (310) only when there is a clear intonation break after in the living room. Rochemont’s comment reminds one of Culicover’s (1991) reference to ‘comma intonation’. Recall that Culicover considers an utterance of This book to Robin I gave acceptable with a nuclear pitch accent on Robin and no ‘comma intonation’ (see (307) above). But note that This book to Robin I gave and (310) are fundamentally different in that the string in the living room what does not form a moveable phrase at all, in contrast to the string this book to Robin (as I argued above). Thus, I would maintain that (310) is only acceptable with ‘comma intonation’, that the clause initial PP in the living room is an ECC in this case and is thus not moved to spec-Foc, but is an independent phrase functioning as a discourse topic expression. Since the clause what did Mary find? as such is not ungrammatical, clauses like (310) are quite readily accepted, given the appropriate prosodic conditions.283 Rochemont (1989) claims that the same point he makes about (310) holds also for the following yes/no interrogatives (“good only if they are pronounced without an intonation break following the focussed topic”; Rochemont 1989: 148). (311) a. John does Mary like? b. To Bill has Mary said anything? c. At the party did Mary say anything? The native speakers consulted by Drubig (1992a: 385) “consider [(311a)] and similar examples marginal at best.” My informants rule (311a, b) out, while they find (311c) ok under the prosodic condition that there is a clear intonation break after at the party (contrary to what is claimed by Rochemont (1989)). The acceptance of the latter is again explainable by the fact that at the party can be interpreted as a discourse topical ECC.
FocP-related English syntax
Kuwabara (1990: 149) contrasts the examples in (312a, b) with those in (312c– j) (partly drawn from other authors, notably Delahunty 1983: 384f.), which are said to be acceptable. (312) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j.
*To whom the book did you give? *The book to whom did you give? These prices, what can anyone do about? And a book like this, to whom would you give? That book by Chomsky, which of us do you think can read? That book by Chomsky, how are we going to understand? And to Cynthia, what do you say you will send? And on this shelf, what do you think we should put? To John, what did you say you would dedicate? From John, what kind of help do you think you can expect?
With a clear prosodic break at the comma position, some of my informants find some of (312c–j) acceptable as well (especially (312h, j)). And the same holds for the following examples mentioned and not marked as deviant by Culicover.284 (313) a. To Terry, what did you give? (from Culicover 1996: 461) b. That house that you were looking at, how much did you say would cost per month? (ditto) c. On the table, how many books did you put? (from Culicover 1997: 186) d. To John, which books did you give? (ditto) These examples are different from (310), (311b, c) and (ia, b) of N. 283 in that interpreting the clause initial XP as an ECC leaves a clause which is clearly ungrammatical. For under this perspective each of these clauses shows an argument position that has to be obligatorily filled, but is not. It can be argued that such cases are indeed ungrammatical, but nevertheless marginally acceptable in performance and on the level of discourse, since the missing argument can easily be identified with the clause initial XP, which again is an ECC.285 XP-fronting and aux-support due to a [deh f ]XP -featured second fronted XP should equally be ruled out under the analysis presented in the present subsection, since both XPs target spec-Foc. This appears to be supported by the following examples and judgements from Emonds (1976: 41). (314) a. *These steps never did I sweep with a broom b. *Never {did these steps / these steps did} I sweep with a broom These are contradicted, however, by the following examples and judgements from Kuwabara (1990: 151).
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(315) a. That film, not once did I see b. ?Mary, under no circumstances would John help c. The ideal partner, very rarely do you find Presented without punctuation to my informants, these examples were all rejected. I suppose that Kuwabara’s informants associated a prosodic break with the comma position and that their judgements can be accounted for by the same performancebased explanation which I just outlined for the acceptance by some speakers of sentences like (312c–j) and (313). In this subsection I have put much effort into arguing that multiple fronting does not exist in English. This is, on the one hand, because I have found many of the examples given in the literature to be of doubtful or marginal acceptability. On the other hand I have suggested analyses for several of the less doubtful and marginal examples to the effect that we are not actually confronted with multiple fronting in these cases. However, as I will discuss in Chapter 9, there are languages for which it is hard to deny that they have separate TopP and FocP. It may be that (some) speakers of English have grammars that are like these other languages in this respect. Consequently, Park (1998: 97ff.) may very well be correct in taking judgements like those by Culicover (1991) about (307), here repeated as (316), to be evidence for distinct TopP and FocP also in English. (316) a. *This book to Robin I gave b. This book to Robin I gave Park (1998) argues for TopP dominating FocP in English, just as in Korean, Bulgarian, and Hungarian, for instance, whereas in German these projections are assumed to be non-distinct by her. For Park (316a) is out because the lack of phonological prominence on either of the fronted phrases makes them both topic expressions which cannot both be hosted in spec-Top. By contrast, this book in (316b) is assumed to be topic expression located in spec-Top while the phonological prominence on Robin makes to Robin (contrastive) focus expression located in spec-Foc. Clearly, for speakers of English who do have (or allow) distinct TopP/FocP other examples mentioned by Park (1998) which are judged to be acceptable by her informants or by (those of) the authors she relies on fall into place as well. For example (see Park 1998: 153f.): (317) a. This book never would we buy b. Becky said that these books, only with great difficulty can she carry286 c. This book, I think that under no circumstances would we read287 However, the fact that Park comes to the conclusion that there are languages like German in which TopP and FocP are non-distinct (see e.g. Park 1998: 154) suggests
FocP-related English syntax
that grammars of this kind do exist after all. Hence, my attempt at analysing the grammar of speakers of English who feel uneasy with multiple fronting to be also of this kind is legitimate.
.. Movement to root spec-Foc from an embedded clause (318) shows some examples of movement to root spec-Foc from an embedded clause. (The examples from Ward 1985/1988 are attested.) (318) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.
j. k. l. m.
A kangaroo Jim claims he has never seen (from Gundel 1974/1988: 141) Cigarettes I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give up (ditto) Both of them I’d really like to see (from Ward 1985/1988: 15) Some computation he may not be able to carry out in his head (from Ward 1985/1988: 19) Anybody who’d do that I’d like to meet (from Ward 1985/1988: 36) M16s I believe they were (from Ward 1985/1988: 76) That you don’t want to answer, huh? (from Ward 1985/1988: 95) A job talk I think you’d have somewhat more control over (from Ward 1985/1988: 101) Three terms will have to be defined before we can proceed. One, which involves the notion presupposition, I’ll have to hold off on presenting (from Ward 1985/1988: 102) Several of these questions I will try to answer (from Ward 1985/1988: 103) Stupid I wouldn’t really say he is (from Ward 1985/1988: 137) [. . .] but a simple question like this he had trouble answering (from Ward 1985/1988: 149) This book I think that you should read (from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 80)
Movement to root spec-Foc from an embedded clause does not seem to raise many FocP-related questions and problems other than those discussed with respect to simple root clauses in the preceding subsections. A few things, though, ought to be mentioned in this context. I assume that in the ‘regular’ case, that is, in contrast to some cases to be discussed in Section 7.3, there is no FocP in an embedded clause. An embedded clause may be a CP dominating a finite or non-finite IP, or – for some authors at least (see Radford 1997: 147ff. and the references given there) – a finite or non-finite IP without a dominating CP, or a ‘small’ clause (with or without a verb) as usually discussed (see e.g. Culicover 1997; Haegeman 1991/1994; Haegeman & Guéron 1999; Radford 1997). Only in exceptional cases (see Section 7.3 below) is there a FocP
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in an embedded clause. If the embedded clause out of which an XP to be moved to root spec-Foc is L-marked (see Subsection 7.1.2 above), then it does not constitute a barrier for movement. This is always given in the examples in (318).288 Conversely, if the embedded clause is not L-marked, no phrase can move out of it to root spec-Foc, as exemplified in (319a), where the embedded clause is a relative clause, and (319b), where the embedded clause is a non-finite adjunct. (319) a. *[Your dog]i I saw a man who was beating t i b. *[The milk on the stove]i she fell asleep completely forgetting t i This is because the crossing of one barrier is only possible if there is a (intermediary) landing site to which the position from which the movement started is subjacent (see Subsection 7.1.2 above). But there is no such position for the fronted XPs in examples like (319a, b). In (319a) embedded spec-C would be a potential intermediate landing site to which t i is subjacent, but spec-C is occupied by who (see also Subsection 7.3.4 below). Non-finite clauses not being CPs, there is not even a potential intermediate landing site for the milk on the stove in (319b). Finally in this (sub)section it should be mentioned that the contrast indicated by (320) below is an ECP violation caused by the fact that the complementiser that does not properly head-govern the trace in embedded spec-IP. (320) Johni I think (*that) t i won the race (from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 82) Whether this bears on the analysis of embedded finite clauses without the complementiser that as IP or as CP headed by an empty complementiser (see above, p. 182) is an interesting question to ask. However, as far as I can see, this observation alone does not settle the case. It depends also on assumptions about the properties of the postulated empty complementiser, a discussion of which would lead us too far afield in the present work.
. XP-movement to spec-Foc of embedded clauses Before I can turn to specific syntactic details of XP-movement to spec-Foc in embedded clauses in Subsections 7.3.2 to 7.3.5, the general problem of focus structure in embedded clauses has to be discussed. This is what I will start with in the following subsection.
.. Embedded clauses and focus structure In the theory presented here visible (i.e. non-subject) fronting in an embedded clause is movement of the phonological form of an XP to embedded spec-Foc,
FocP-related English syntax
which implies that the embedded clause has either categorical or identificational focus structure. It seems that we cannot generally assume embedded clauses to manifest focus structure and that it is ‘normally’ rather the root clause which does so. For it is usually the root clause rather than an embedded clause which constitutes the syntactic unit that is used to make an utterance (to perform a speech act). This is supported by the following passage from Erteschik-Shir (1997: 54f.): According to C. Heycock (pers. com.), languages that mark topics morphologically, such as Japanese, do not allow for topic-marked phrases within embedded clauses (when- or if -clauses, for example). Neither does English allow topicalization in embedded clauses which do not provide the main assertion.
But note also the proviso implicated in the last sentence of this quotation that there are embedded clauses which constitute the ‘main assertion’ and allow for (visible) movement to spec-Foc. This will become important in the sequel. Visible fronting (‘topicalisation’) was considered to belong to the class of operations which were called root transformations in earlier stages of generative syntax (see e.g. Emonds 1976). Yet, the phenomenon of fronting in embedded clauses exists, as the examples in (321) show, and there is some work devoted to it in the syntax literature (some of which mentioned on the following pages). (321) a. b. c. d. e. f.
g.
h.
{The inspector explained / We saw} that each part he had examined carefully (from Hooper & Thompson 1973: 474, 481) Sally plans for Gary to marry her, and he vows that marry her he will (ditto) It appears that this book he read thoroughly (from Hooper & Thompson 1973: 478) She found that certain kinds of things she just couldn’t recognise (attested example from Ward 1985/1988: 102) We decided that money we don’t have too much control over (ditto from Ward 1985/1988: 104) Q: Don’t you want any cheese [in your omelet]? A: I have a feeling that the types of cheese they put in them I’m not gonna like (ditto) In the abstract, meeting the natives was a good idea; but I was beginning to realize that, in the particular, some of these natives you might not want to meet (ditto from Ward 1985/1988: 105) John said that this book he thought you would like (from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 92)
According to Drubig (1992a: 382), “[s]ome authors have suggested that the generation of root phenomena in subordinate contexts should be syntactically free, but constrained by purely pragmatic principles acting as a filter on the syntac-
Chapter 7
tic output.” For Drubig himself, however, “the occurrence of main clause privileges in embedded contexts is constrained by a number of purely syntactic factors, which speaks against any explanation in terms of pragmatic filtering.” (Drubig 1992a: 382.) He assumes a CP-recursion analysis for fronting in embedded clauses, in which the matrix verb governs a first CP which dominates a second CP as shown in (322a) (see Drubig 1992a: 389), and he adopts the licensing conditions for a recursive CP (CP1 in (322)) proposed by Iatridou & Kroch (1992), which are given in (322b). (322) a. [VP V [CP1 [CP2 [IP ]]]] b. “CP-recursion is licensed iff the recursive CP 1. is governed by a lexical predicate, and 2. is not selected by a lexical predicate.” (Quoted from Drubig 1992a: 390.) According to Drubig, these syntactic licensing conditions correctly rule out a number of cases of fronting in embedded clauses, but leave a residue of cases unaccounted for. Consider the following of Drubig’s (1992a: 388) examples and the comment below.289 (323) a. *That the carbine he put on the ground under the clock is obvious290 b. *She didn’t like the fact that the carbine he put on the ground under the cloak291 c. *She regretted that the carbine he put on the ground under the cloak292 d. *She was afraid because the carbine he put on the ground under the cloak e. *She wondered whether/if the carbine he put on the ground under the cloak It is a particular virtue of [(322b)] that it not only specifies the kind of configuration needed for root effects but also eliminates unwanted choices. By appeal to the notion of government in [(322b1)], the principle achieves a unification of the contexts where CP-recursion is not allowed with those which act as islands to extraction. Thus, CP-recursion is impossible in sentential subjects like [(323a)], complex noun phrases like [(323b)] and in adjunct clauses like [(323d)], all of which are contexts prohibiting extraction. [(323e)] is a violation of [(322b2)], the clause which requires that [CP2 in (322a)] can only be licensed across [CP1 in (322a)] if the latter is unselected or semantically transparent. This excludes CP-recursion from Wh-islands, or at least from interrogatives. It is not clear to me, at this point, how [(323c)] could be handled under this proposal. [(323c)] shows the sensitivity of CP-recursion to the assertive/nonassertive-distinction among sentential complement verbs which was stressed by Hooper and Thompson (1973). (Drubig 1992a: 390)
FocP-related English syntax
While the embedded ‘recursive’ CPs are ungoverned and unselected in (323a, d) and governed and selected in (323b, e) and thus ruled out according to (322b) (but see N. 290–292), I do not see where exactly the problem with (323c) lies for Drubig. Does he want to say that the ‘recursive’ CP is not selected by regret and the sentence should thus be fine according to (322b)?293 (Under which definition of selection would this be the case?) However, if it is claimed that the ‘recursive’ CP actually is selected by regret in (323c) and the sentence thus ungrammatical due to (322b), then an explanation for the grammaticality of (324) and that of most of the examples in (321) will have to be found. (324) Bill says that John Mary doesn’t like (from Drubig 1992a: 385) What may the difference be with respect to ‘selection’ between say and regret?294 Under this perspective sentences like (323c) are indeed problematic for the analysis in terms of ‘recursive’ CPs in connection with the licensing conditions of (322b). The reference to Hooper & Thompson (1973) in the above quotation from Drubig (1992a) is a reference to some of those authors hinted at earlier who suggest, at least partially, a pragmatic account of ‘root phenomena’ (among them fronting) in embedded clauses.295 Such a pragmatic approach seems to be endorsed by Drubig (1992a) at least with respect to those sentences which are syntactically licensed by some (set of) principle(s) like (322b). Drubig suggests that [f]rom a pragmatic perspective, CP-recursion, a highly marked syntactic choice in English, looks like a construction which virtually suspends the syntactic fact of subordination, reducing the main clause to a parenthetical comment and giving the embedded clauses an elevated position which is normally reserved to root sentences. (Drubig 1992a: 418)
Let us see what other authors have to say on fronting – and consequently the manifestation of focus structure – in embedded clauses. Erteschik-Shir (1997) makes some pertinent observations. The sentence (325) I think that John fell asleep is commented on by Erteschik-Shir (1997: 13) in the following way: A natural interpretation of [(325)] is one in which only the subordinate clause has focus structure. Here the matrix is used merely to qualify the assertion [...] The matrix is not presupposed. It is therefore possible to have a sentence in which constituents are ‘left out’ [for the assignation of topic and focus labels in terms of Erteschik-Shir’s theory]: they function neither as topics nor as foci. And they are not presupposed.
In other words, there are situations in which the matrix of an utterance like (325) is completely irrelevant for focus structure and can be ignored.296 This is plausible,
Chapter 7
for it is perfectly possible to imagine (325) as an answer to the question What did John do?, which suggests a reply with John as topic expression. By contrast, the focus structure analysis of (325) as an answer to the question What do you think? will have to take the matrix into account; in this case I is topic expression. Another case similar to (325) is pointed out by Erteschik-Shir shortly afterwards (1997: 14f.). She observes that the ‘lie-test’ detects an ambiguity with respect to what “the main assertion or the main f-structure” (Erteschik-Shir 1997: 15) is in an utterance like (326) John said that he knows Peter There are two possible lie-test applications in this case. A speaker may reply to (326) in either of the following ways: (327) a. That’s a lie, he didn’t b. That’s a lie, he doesn’t Erteschik-Shir (1997: 14f.) writes: The fact that [(327b)] is a possible response indicates that the lower sentence can be the one that the speaker directs the hearer’s attention to and hence the focus can fall on or within it. (Here the topic and focus both fall within the subordinate clause.) In this manner, the lie-test distinguishes the main assertion of the sentence from the rest of the sentence. This test is not a test for focus per se, but rather a test for the main assertion or the main f-structure.
Later on in her book she explains that the sentence (328) I believe (that) Mary saw Susan allows three f-structures, one of which she characterises like this: “[T]the complement clause forms the main f-structure and the matrix is backgrounded” (ErtschikShir 1997: 230). Reinterpreted in the context of the theory of focus structure developed in the present work this means that not the root clause but the embedded clause manifests focus structure, with Mary being [±foch f ]XP-featured and having moved to spec-Foc of the embedded clause as topic or identificational focus expression. The second f-structure associated with (328) translates as follows: The root clause manifests focus structure; I is [±foch f ]XP -featured and has moved to specFoc of the root clause as topic or identificational focus expression.297 The third f-structure, which is given as (329) TOPi [I believe [(that) Mary saw Susan]i ]FOC is said by Erteschik-Shir (1997: 230) to require “a context in which the content of the complement is presupposed qualifying the complement as a main or subordinate topic.” This f-structure does not have an easily identifiable corresponding
FocP-related English syntax
focus structure in my theory, and I would need a concrete context in order to be able to say what the focus structure in my terms may be. The verb of the root clause that takes the embedded clause as complement in (328), believe, is a bridge verb (or non-factive verb).298 Erteschik-Shir claims (1997: 230) that bridge verbs generally allow for the three f-structures she associates with (328) in analogous sentences. For my theory this would mean that a root bridge/non-factive predicate generally allows for the embedded clause to have focus structure, thus to project FocP and thus to enable movement to spec-Foc. Actually, some authors explicitly postulate a restriction of the possibility of fronting (‘topicalisation’) in embedded clauses to such a bridge/non-factive context.299 Yet, there is considerable variation in judgements of visible fronting in embedded clauses both in factive and non-factive contexts. According to Baltin (1982: 17), “[n]ot all speakers find [(330)] totally acceptable.” (330) It’s obvious that Mary, he can’t stand Maki, Kaiser & Ochi (1999: 3f.) have noted divergencies in judgements with respect to the following examples (most of which have already been quoted in N. 290, 291, and 292 above): (331) a. b. c. d.
John believes (that) this book, Mary read300 John regrets that this book, Mary read John believes the rumour that this book, Mary read That this book, Mary read is true
There are both factive (obvious, regret) and non-factive (believe) clausal complement taking predicates involved in (330) and (331), and the embedded clauses in (331c, d) are not complements of predicates at all. The fact that all of these sentences (or structurally parallel ones) are accepted by at least some speakers and rejected by others suggests that the possibility of fronting in embedded clauses is not restricted to bridge/non-factive predicates heading them. In Haumann’s (1997) theory of clausal subordination fronting (‘topicalisation’) in embedded clauses is grammatical if the item that heads the embedded clause does not theta-mark it; otherwise fronting is ungrammatical (see Haumann 1997: 212ff., 247ff.). Among heads that take embedded clauses as complements she distinguishes between (the purely functional) complementisers (that, interrogative if and a zero-complementiser Ø), subordinating conjunctions (although, because, causal for and since, conditional if, conditional whether etc.) and lexical prepositions (after, before, temporal since etc.).301 The last mentioned ones are thetamarking heads and thus do not allow fronting in the embedded clause (examples and judgements from Haumann 1997: 247):302
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(332) a. *The dizzy turns started immediately after in the bathroom he was administered the poison b. *We all knew what they were up to long before last month Tom told us c. *He got ill while in Italy he was on holiday Haumann’s (1997) claim that fronting is generally possible in embedded clauses introduced by complementisers and subordinating conjunctions (in her sense) is not supported by other authors’ and speakers’ judgements. According to Hooper & Thompson (1973: 479), “a few speakers allow [root transformations including visible fronting] in all that-S complements. For the majority of speakers, however, clauses which are presupposed and not asserted may not undergo [root transformations].” But note that Hooper & Thompson introduce a pragmatic aspect here, which does not rule out that syntactically fronting in embedded clauses is possible for all speakers. On the other hand it is not obvious that pragmatic and syntactic considerations can be kept apart in these cases. Some of Haumann’s (1997) examples and judgements involving fronting in embedded clauses introduced by subordinating conjunctions are given in (333) (from Haumann 1997: 248). (333) a. Bill would cry if while in London Mary had been seeing John b. I had to watch where I put my feet in case despite being guided I fell c. He won’t accept this offer unless for example by bribing him you convince him to accept it These are problematic, though, for the constituents that are assumed to be fronted in (333) are not arguments, so that it is unclear whether they are really moved to the front or are rather parenthetical ECCs. The discussion of focus structure in embedded clauses is in some sense parallel and perhaps connected to a discussion of illocutionary force in embedded clauses and a discussion of whether an embedded clause can be the bearer of the main relevance. For example, my reservations voiced against the manifestation of focus structure in embedded clauses, mirrors my reservations which I have when Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 521ff., Section “Illocutionary force and CP”) seem to identify the expression of certain illocutionary forces with the declarative and interrogative types of embedded clauses. With respect to (334) a. I wonder if Mary will invite Thelma b. I wonder whom Mary will invite the authors write: “[I]n [(334a)] the embedded clause is introduced by the complementizer if and the sentence is interrogative. [(334b)] is also interrogative: the illocutionary force is signalled here not by an overt complementizer, but rather by the presence of a wh-phrase (whom) in the specifier of CP.” Many linguists will agree that in root clauses the declarative or interrogative clause types are signals of the
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representative or directive (or erothetic) illocutionary forces respectively (in direct speech acts).303 But to transfer this relation to embedded clauses seems questionable. Drubig (1992a: 418) writes, “an indirect question cannot be used to perform a speech act, but only to report one”, and Higginbotham (1996: 379) says about “indirect questions” that they are “unsuitable as vehicles for asking a question.” It could be maintained that the utterance of either sentence of (334) constitutes a speech act of the representative type (if intended as a direct speech act), that the embedded clauses do not have illocutionary force of their own, and that saying this does not interfere with granting that the embedded clauses are of the interrogative clause type in each case, selected by their matrix verbs. However, to categorically deny embedded clauses the capacity to carry illocutionary force seems likewise inappropriate. Thus, Lakoff (1984: 480) comes to the conclusion that generative theories “have no way of generating speech act constructions in exactly the right subordinate clauses while not generating them in the wrong subordinate clauses – and still stating the fully general principles governing their occurrence.” And from a relevance-theoretic point of view Blakemore (1992: 97) plausibly claims that the “main relevance” of I predict that Jane will leave the room – and other utterances involving performatives – “lies in the embedded proposition”.304 Frankly, I feel to be standing on shaky grounds in view of the problem of the manifestation of focus structure in embedded clauses. Just for simplicity’s sake and despite the good arguments which have been adduced for assuming syntactic principles at work for ruling out a number of relevant cases (but see the diverging judgements reported on above), I would prefer to align myself with those authors who are characterised by Drubig (1992a: 382) as suggesting “that the generation of root phenomena in subordinate contexts should be syntactically free, but constrained by purely pragmatic principles acting as filter on the syntactic output.” But I would like to interpret this to mean that while it is syntactically possible to generate a FocP in any embedded clause, a FocP is generated only if the embedded clause actually does manifest focus structure. These cases are most notably realised and quite natural if bridge/non-factive matrix predicates are involved so that the matrix can be interpreted as a kind of annotation (or adsentential; see N. 296) and thus as focus-structurally irrelevant.305 In other contexts, where this is not possible (especially in embedded clauses which are headed and theta-marked by lexical prepositions), fronting leads to a severe focus structural incoherence, whose judgement it is impossible to distinguish from that of a syntactic ill-formedness. The idea that the matrix can be focus-structurally irrelevant and that an embedded clause can be the one which manifests focus structure is supported by the fact that only in embedded finite clauses is it possible to front an XP, not in non-finite ones.
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(335) a. My friends tend to support the more liberal candidates b. *My friends tend the more liberal candidates to support (example and judgement from Hooper & Thompson 1973: 485) c. Bill says that to Fred he will give a raise (ditto from Delahunty 1983: 388) d. *Bill wants to Fred to give a raise (ditto) In virtue of its non-finiteness a non-finite clause cannot take over the illocutionary and focus-structural functions of a finite clause. Whereas a finite clause may be only seemingly embedded by an annotational (adsentential) matrix and thus illocutionarily and focus-structurally independent, a non-finite clause is necessarily and strictly embedded and can never be illocutionarily and focus-structurally independent. Consequently, a non-finite clause does not project a FocP, and there is no spec-Foc to move to.306 We will see in the subsections to come that the notion of annotative (adsentential) matrix will have to be stretched quite a bit to cover cases which are different from and more complicated than those where a bridge/non-factive matrix predicate is involved. For example, for speakers who accept (336) below it must be invoked for the strings which precede and follow the appositive clause on not a single hat was there a propeller, for I will analyse the fronted negative constituent in such cases as having moved to embedded spec-Foc as well. (336) The fact that on not a single hat was there a propeller indicates how far the beanie has fallen in modern times (from Culicover 1991: 6) But notice that such examples are not accepted by all speakers. Actually, I would consider them to be focus-structurally defective in that two focus structures are illicitly merged. But as the syntax provides for a FocP in the respective embedded clause in principle, such cases are judged acceptable by those speakers who are able (and willing) to abstract away from the focus-structural defect – or who allow pragmatic repair mechanisms to rectify them implicitly. Focus structure is allowed to manifest itself in the embedded clause while the manifestation of focus structure for the whole root utterance is temporarily suppressed. Something of this kind is also going on in the following examples, which are considered “odd” by Rochemont (1989: 148f., N. 8; his ?-judgement). (337) a. ?Who said that Tom Mary gave a book to? b. ?Who said that to Tom Mary gave a book? Here visible fronting in the embedded clause in combination with the fact that the root clause is interrogative does not allow an interpretation of the matrix as an annotation. Since the wh-XP moves to root spec-Foc, we must assume a root
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FocP and thus root focus structure in addition to the embedded FocP and thus embedded focus structure. Strictly speaking, this is focus-structurally incoherent. If focus structure is manifested in an embedded clause, this means that [±foc]features are to be checked within the embedded clause. Only in these cases does the embedded clause have a FocP dominating the embedded IP. An embedded clause does not show a FocP where it is the root clause which manifests focus structure. In the following subsections I will concentrate on syntactic issues that arise if an embedded clause visibly manifests focus structure, that is, if there is an embedded FocP dominating IP.
.. Embedded declarative clauses According to Rochemont (1989: 147, N. 4) and Maki, Kaiser & Ochi (1999: 3) fronting in embedded clauses has to be accompanied by an overt that for some speakers while that may be present or absent in such cases for other speakers. Examples in point are the following. (338) a. Bill says (*)(that) John, Mary doesn’t like (from Rochemont 1989: 147) b. John believes (*)(that) this book, Mary read (from Maki, Kaiser & Ochi 1999: 3) It seems that for some speakers, but not for others, the presence of the complementiser that is necessary for the matrix to be interpreted as an annotation.307 The next observation is due to Lasnik & Saito (1992: 110f.). (339a) below is ungrammatical because of a violation of principle A of the binding theory; the reflexive object himself is not bound within its binding domain, i.e. the clause Mary likes himself. If, however, the reflexive object is fronted, i.e. moved to embedded spec-Foc, it can be bound by the subject of the root clause (John). Movement of an embedded reflexive subject to spec-Foc, though, does not render the sentence grammatical. (339) a. *John thinks that Mary likes himself b. John thinks that himself, Mary likes c. *John thinks that himself likes Mary308 These data cause Lasnik & Saito (1992) and Agbayani (2000) to reject analyses which assume invisible subject movement from spec-I to some higher specposition parallel to non-subject movement in wh-interrogatives or in sentences with visible fronting. But this conclusion need not be drawn. Consider the traditional definition of the binding domain (governing category) in which an anaphor must be bound. In the words of Haegeman (1991/1994: 241): “The governing category for A is the minimal domain containing it, its gov-
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ernor and an accessible subject/SUBJECT” (for the distinction between ‘subject’ and ‘SUBJECT’ see Haegeman 1991/1994: 216ff.). In (339a) the relevant governor is likes and the relevant subject is Mary and the governing category is thus the embedded IP. Himself is not bound within the embedded IP, and the sentence is ungrammatical. Applied to (339b) the definition of the governing category may mean two different things: Either that or likes is the relevant governor. On the first alternative, which is counter-traditional though,309 there is no reason not to assume the same for (339c), irrespective of the issue of invisible subject movement. That is, whether there is subject movement to spec-Foc or not, that relevantly governs himself in (339c), and the root clause should be the governing category for the anaphor in both (339b) and (339c). In this case (339c) should be grammatical independently of the issue of invisible subject movement. If we make the more reasonable assumption that likes is the relevant governor in (339b), then the governing category turns out to be the root clause again, for otherwise (339b) would be as ungrammatical as (339a). In (339b) the relevant governor is within the embedded clause, while the antecedent is within the root clause, which is the binding domain.310 Thus, (339c) is ungrammatical not because the binding domain for the anaphor is different from the one in (339b), but because the anaphor does not have a proper relevant governor. And the reason for this is that himself in (339c) is the subject of a finite clause. For, as pointed out by Culicover (1997: 61ff., 67f.), the requirement that the governing category contain the governor of the anaphor is built into the definition of the governing category in order to rule out anaphors as subjects of finite clauses.311 This requirement has the intended effect in sentences like (339a), with likes as the relevant governor, but is problematic in sentences like (339b, c). Yet, any appropriate definition of the governing category has to disallow anaphors as subjects of finite clauses. That is, whatever the more fundamental reason behind the fact that anaphors must not be subjects of finite clauses, this is what makes (339c) ungrammatical.312 Hence, the data in (339) do not force a conclusion to the effect that an analysis involving subject movement to spec-Foc is to be rejected.
.. Embedded interrogative clauses The following examples show embedded interrogative clauses with a non-subject wh-XP. (340) a. I wondered which dish they picked (from Radford 1997: 287) b. He asked whether I was leaving (from Radford 1997: 289) As there is movement of a wh-XP to the left of the subject in spec-IP in cases like these, it makes sense to posit that an embedded interrogative is some XP which
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dominates IP. Traditionally this XP has been claimed to be CP. From what has been said in the present work so far it may be concluded that an embedded interrogative could also be a FocP. I maintain that both options are possible and that, similar to embedded declaratives, the first option is the regular one and the second is exceptional. If the embedded interrogative is a FocP, then it manifests focus structure and the matrix is an annotation (adsentential) (see above, Subsection 7.3.1). This is as exceptional here as it is in embedded declaratives.313 In the regular case it is the root clause which manifests focus structure also if there is an embedded interrogative. (341) a. [. . . [CP [IP ]]] regular structure of embedded interrogative314 b. [. . . [FocP [IP ]]] exceptional structure of embedded interrogative; the ‘[. . .’-part is annotative Recall from Subsection 7.3.1 that, although there is an intuition that an embedded interrogative may not be used as a question, this is precisely how certain utterances which contain an embedded interrogative have to be interpreted. I would maintain that this intuition is based on an analysis in which the respective utterance is assigned the structure in (341a), whereas embedded interrogatives used as questions have the structure in (341b). However, apart from the pragmatics-informed observation just made there does not seem to be syntactic evidence for distinguishing between (341a) and (341b).315 Let us assume for sentences like (340a, b) that matrix governors which select embedded interrogatives, such as verbs like ask and wonder, carry an interrogative complement feature [intc ]. That is, they select an interrogative, i.e. [inth f ]XP -featured CP, since [intc ] has to be checked against [inth f ]XP . A CP becomes [inth f ]XP -featured by virtue of its head C being [inth f ]X -featured.316 In standard English [inth f ]X is part of the interrogative complementiser if or of an abstract question head Q, which is bound to the finite verb in finite embedded interrogatives. [intc ] attracts [inth f ]X into C if it is not already there, i.e. if the CP is not headed by if. In addition to [inth f ]X Q consists of the specifier feature [ints ] which has to be checked against [inth f ]XP of a wh-XP or of the overt yes/no question operator whether (which may also be said to be a wh-XP).317 A wh-XP’s [inth f ]XP is attracted into spec-C by [ints ]. As argued in Section 7.2.2, [inth f ]XP of a wh-XP is of type γ in root interrogatives, where fronting of (the phonological form of) a wh-XP is due to α-type [±foch f ]XP . However, in regular embedded interrogatives, where there is no FocP and no [±foc]-feature checking going on in the embedded clause, a non-subject wh-XP nevertheless moves to clause initial position overtly. This means that a whXP’s [inth f ]XP must be of type α in embedded clauses. This is not a nice conclusion to be drawn, but may be plausible after all if we interpret this situation as a result of analogy pressure exerted by the surface position of a wh-XP in root interrogatives.
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For subject wh-XP interrogatives such as that in (342) we do not have to assume that there is a CP or FocP dominating IP (= AgrS P). (342) She wondered who would look after the baby [inth f ]XP of the subject wh-XP can check against [ints ] of Q when the finite verb is in S or AgrS and the wh-subject in spec-S or spec-AgrS , depending on whether the finite verb is lexical (S) or auxiliary (AgrS ). The finite verb’s [inth f ]X causes the AgrS P to be [inth f ]XP -featured so that the matrix governor’s [intc ] can check against [inth f ]XP of the AgrS P. If is not the exact overt counterpart of Q, for it does not seem to contain [ints ]. Otherwise it should be compatible with whether or a wh-XP in its specifier position, contrary to the facts, as shown in (343). (343) a. *I asked who if John had seen b. *I wondered whether if John had arrived While (343a) may be argued to be semantically ruled out, there does not seem to be a semantic reason for rejecting (343b). Thus, both (343a, b) are ungrammatical since the wh-XP and whether are not licensed (and (343a) may additionally be semantically uninterpretable). There are some differences between standard English (SE) on the one hand and many non-SE varieties on the other hand as regards embedded interrogatives. In contrast to SE embedded interrogatives the respective non-SE ones show auxsupport and have a covert yes/no question operator Q-Op instead of the interrogative complementiser if. These differences are exemplified in (344). (344) a. a . b. b . c. c . d. d . e.
I can’t remember now what was the reason for it (Scottish English; from Miller 1993: 126) I can’t remember now what the reason for it was (SE) You sort of wonder is it better to be blind or deaf (Scottish English; from Miller 1993: 126) You sort of wonder {whether / if} it is better to be blind or deaf (SE) He wanted to know how far was it to Lurgan (Irish English; from Harris 1993: 168) He wanted to know how far it was to Lurgan (SE) He came to see would we set up a shop at the end of the road (Irish English; from Harris 1993: 168) He came to see {whether / if} we would set up a shop at the end of the road (SE) When he discovered I wasn’t at school he wanted to know what was the matter (Tyneside English; from Beal 1993: 204)
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e . When he discovered I wasn’t at school he wanted to know what the matter was (SE) f. She once asked me did it interfere with me (Tyneside English; from Beal 1993: 204) f . She once asked me {whether / if } it interfered with me (SE) g. I wondered was Bill going (Belfast English; from Henry 1995: 105) g . I wondered {whether / if } Bill was going (SE) h. I asked them what had they done (Belfast English; from Henry 1995: 105) h . I asked them what they had done (SE) i. They couldn’t understand how had she had time to get her hair done (Belfast English; from Henry 1995: 106) i . They couldn’t understand how she had had time to get her hair done (SE) j. He didn’t say why had they come (Belfast English; from Henry 1995: 106) j . He didn’t say why they had come (SE) I interpret the difference concerning aux-support to be due to the α/β/γ-distinction of the respective [inth f ]X -feature involved. [inth f ]X is of type γ in SE embedded interrogatives. That is, the phonological form associated with the feature remains in the S-head position while the feature itself moves to the C-head position. By contrast, in the non-SE varieties which have aux-support [inth f ]X is of type β; the phonological form of a finite auxiliary, but not of a finite lexical verb, is pied-piped by the feature into C. In contrast to SE we have an overt complementiser in embedded whinterrogatives in other languages and in other varieties of English. For example: (345) a.
Ik weet niet wie dat Jan gezien heeft I know not whom that Jan seen has (Dutch; from Haegeman 1991/1994: 382) b. I woaß ned wann daß da Xavea kummt I know not when that the Xavea comes (Bavarian German; from Bayer 1984: 24)318 c. Es is no ned g’wiß wea daß kummt (ditto)319 it is yet not sure who that comes d. ne kepe I nat to seye who wrastleth best naken, with oille anoynt, ne who that baar hym best in no disjoynt (Middle English; from Lightfoot 1979: 322, quoting Chaucer) e. men shal wel knowe who that I am (late Middle English/early Early Modern English; from Lightfood 1979: 322, quoting Caxton)
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f.
ye desire to knowe whedyr that I shulde abide here stille or nowe (early Early Modern English; from Lightfood 1979: 322, quoting from the Paston Letters) g. I wonder which dish that they picked (Belfast English; from Henry 1995: 107) h. They didn’t know which model that we had discussed (ditto) As a “simple answer” to the question after the reason for this difference between languages and varieties, Radford (1997: 286), who focuses on the contrast between SE and Belfast English, suggests that that is an inherently noninterrogative finite-clause complementizer in [SE]. Because it is noninterrogative, [SE] that can’t be merged with the question affix Q [...]. By contrast, the head features of its Belfast English counterpart indicate that it is simply finite, and so can be used in interrogative and noninterrogative clauses alike.
In terms of the feature checking mechanism developed in the present work, SE that does not allow adjunction of [inth f ]X to it, so that [intc ] of the matrix governor does not get a corresponding [inth f ]XP-featured CP as complement. This restriction of SE that is not operative in other languages and varieties of English which do allow that or a corresponding complementiser in embedded interrogatives.320 The examples below and their judgements suggest that fronting in embedded interrogatives is not possible. (346) a. b. c. d.
*I wonder what on the table Mary put (from Rochemont 1989: 147) *I wonder on the table what Mary put (ditto) *I asked what, to Lee, Robin gave (from Culicover 1991: 5) *Robin knows where, the birdseed, you are going to put (ditto)
It is not immediately obvious why (346a, c, d) should be impossible if, as is assumed in the present subsection, an embedded interrogative is a CP which, in the exceptional case, may take a FocP as complement. That is, why should it not be possible to have cases parallel to fronting in embedded declaratives where the matrix is interpreted as an annotation (adsentential) and where the embedded clause manifests focus structure (see Subsection 7.2.1 above)?321 In other words, why can we not have sentences like (346a, c, d) with the underlying structure (347)? (347) [. . . [CP [FocP [IP ]]] There are two aspects involved here. The first is that both C and spec-C belong to the annotative (adsentential) matrix in those cases where an embedded declarative manifests focus structure. In an embedded interrogative, however, C and spec-C are crucially involved in the formation of the interrogative structure. As the inter-
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pretation of a part of the root clause as an annotation is essentially a pragmatic one, an explanation based solely on this pragmatic aspect would amount to saying that (346a, c, d) are pragmatically completely out, although syntactically possible. The second aspect is this: As argued in Subsection 7.2.2 with respect to root interrogatives, it is the fronted wh-XP which carries the [±foch f ]XP -feature. That is, the fronted wh-XP is topic or identificational focus expression. Under the assumption that this association between [±foch f ]XP and wh-XP is also given in those embedded interrogatives which do manifest focus structure, it follows that no other XP can be topic or identificational focus expression – and thus be fronted – at the same time. This second point amounts to a syntactic reason for ruling out fronting in embedded interrogatives.
.. Relative clauses Relative clauses have traditionally been analysed as CPs with either an overt (relative wh-pronoun) or a covert relative operator having moved to spec-C and, if the relative operator is covert, optional presence of the overt C-head that (see e.g. Haegeman 1991/1994: 463ff.; Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 185ff.).322 This analysis I assume as well. In syntactic principle this should allow for a FocP and consequently for fronting in a relative CP. Note that the second, syntactic, reason mentioned in the preceding subsection for the unacceptability of fronting in embedded interrogatives, which are syntactically similar to relatives, does not apply to relatives: The relative wh-pronoun or the abstract relative operator is not the constituent which is supposed to carry [±foch f ]XP , so there may be another [±foch f ]XP -featured XP. However, the first, pragmatic, reason for the unacceptability of fronting in embedded interrogatives applies to fronting in relatives as well: C and spec-C are crucially involved in the derivation of relatives, but would have to belong to the annotative matrix if the relative clause had a FocP and thus manifested focus structure. I would argue that syntactic possibility and pragmatic impossibility compared to both syntactic and pragmatic impossibility in the case of fronting in embedded interrogatives is the reason for why fronting in relatives seems to fare better than fronting in embedded interrogatives in judgements given in the literature. Let us consider some of them. The following example and judgement is from Baltin (1982: 17), who points out that “[n]ot all speakers find [(348)] totally acceptable”.323 (348) He’s a man to whom liberty we could never grant Drubig (1992a: 391), on the other hand, observes that “[n]ative speakers accept such sentences rather willingly.” According to Rochemont (1989: 166), however,
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“the grammaticality of [(348)] is rather delicate, and not easily reproduced in parallel examples”. His own examples and judgements are as follows: (349) a. b. c. d. e. f.
*He’s a man who liberty we could never grant to ??He’s a man from whom money we could never take *He’s a man who money we could never take from *This is the book that under the table I saw *That is the park where John I talked to ??That’s the sort of liberty that to Bill we could never grant
For Culicover (1991) there is a clear – though subtle – difference between the unprimed and the primed versions of the sentences in (350) below (see Culicover 1991: 35f.; note that capitalisation and punctuation are exactly as in Culicover’s original examples here; note also that it is not clear how subtle Culicover considers the difference between the starred and the unstarred examples to be). (350) a. *This is the book which, to Robin, I gave (‘comma intonation’) a . This is the book which to Robin I gave (‘no comma intonation’) b. *I picked up the books which, on the table, Lee had put (‘comma intonation’) b . I picked up the books which on the table Lee had put (‘no comma intonation’) c. *This is the town in which, last year, we were living (‘comma intonation’) c. This is the town in which last year we were living (‘no comma intonation’) Culicover (1991) suggests that the unprimed versions instantiate “‘topic’ Topicalization” and the primed version “‘focus’ Topicalization” (see above, p. 420). His explanation for the difference is as follows: ‘Focus topicalisation’ is considered to be movement to spec-Pol. “PolP is not a barrier, since it is c(ategory)-selected by C (in the sense of Cinque 1990). Where the [‘focus’] topic is in [Spec,PolP], then, we expect that extraction [of a wh-XP] from IP over PolP into a higher Spec should be possible.” In contrast, ‘topic topicalisation’ is considered to be adjunction to IP. Extraction of a wh-XP is not possible in this case since the CP now dominates two IP segments, which are both barriers in the framework of barrier theory assumed by Culicover (1991) (apparently Chomsky 1986; Cinque 1990). This appears to be a stronger point for Culicover’s (1991) approach of syntactically analysing ‘topic topicalisation’ and ‘focus topicalisation’ in substantially different ways than his reference to multiple fronting discussed above (p. 200). However, because of the delicacy of the judgements involved, I prefer to remain cautious about drawing far reaching conclusions from them.
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In sum, then, relative clauses are CPs with either an overt (relative whpronoun) or a covert relative operator in spec-C (in the latter case optionally with an overt C-head that). Syntactically the relative CP may dominate an embedded FocP; the manifestation of focus structure entailed by the presence of an embedded FocP in a relative clause is information structurally incoherent though.
.. Aux-support for downward-entailing fronted XPs in embedded clauses What is the analysis of embedded clauses in which there is an overt complementiser that plus a fronted downward-entailing constituent plus aux-support? (351a–c) below are from Culicover (1991: 6), (351d–f) from Authier (1992: 330) and (351g– i) from Delahunty (1983: 390). (351) a. Lee said that at no time would she agree to visit Robin b. It is apparent that only on Friday will the traffic be too heavy to get there in time c. The fact that on not a single hat was there a propeller indicates how far the beanie has fallen in modern times324 d. John swore that under no circumstances would he accept their offer e. Mary kept saying that never in her life had she seen such a thing f. I found out that never before had he had to borrow money g. Bill thinks that only to Fred would he give such a gift h. Mary said that never again would she allow herself to be so misled i. Philippa believes that only in Rome may one do as the Greeks do The traditional analysis – movement of the auxiliary into the C-head of CP plus movement of a downward-entailing constituent into spec-C – is obviously not sufficient for sentences like those in (351). Here we have two heads allegedly targeting the C-position (the complementiser and the auxiliary) and two XPs allegedly targeting spec-C (the downward-entailing one and another fronted constituent). Authier’s (1992) suggestion for a solution of this problem consists in assuming that CP can be iterated such that the C-head of a higher CP selects another CP as complement. In cases such as those in (351) C of the higher CP hosts the complementiser while the lower CP hosts the fronted XP in its specifier position and the inverted auxiliary in its head position. Having FocP at our disposal, we do not need any further technical machinery like that of Authier’s (1992) iterated CP. Inversion takes place in embedded FocP as described for the corresponding root clauses in Subsection 7.2.3. The embedded FocP is the complement of the complementiser that, which heads a CP which itself is the complement of a lexical matrix governor.325 The whole matrix is an
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annotation (adsentential) which allows for the embedded clause to manifest focus structure, i.e. to have a FocP. For Culicover (1991: 15) aux-support for a fronted downward-entailing XP and interrogative formation are not incompatible. Consider the following of his examples and judgements. (352) a. ?Lee wonders whether at no time at all would Robin volunteer b. Lee wonders whether only then would Robin volunteer c. ?Lee wonders whether so many people did Robin insult that he does not dare return home d. Lee will finally tell us whether or not to so many people did Robin give his phone number that we can expect phone calls all week e. ??Lee wonders exactly when in no way at all could Robin solve the problem f. ?Lee told us where on very few occasions would Robin ever agree to eat dinner g. Lee wonders why only then would Robin volunteer h. Lee wonders how come at not many times would Robin eat dinner In the approach taken here these examples should be as unacceptable as the cases of fronting in embedded interrogatives discussed in Subsection 7.3.3, and for the same reasons: If it is the embedded clause which manifests focus structure, that is, if it is in the embedded clause where FocP is projected and [±foc]-features are checked, then it should be the wh-XP and not the downward-entailing XP (or the extent so-XPs in (352c, d)) which carries [±foch f ]XP . Even if this were not the case, that is, even if we assumed that the wh-XP moves to spec-C while the downwardentailing (or extent) XP moves to embedded spec-Foc, we would be confronted with the focus-structurally incoherent situation that spec-C and C belong to the annotative matrix but are crucially involved in the derivation of the embedded clause at the same time. Actually, my informants rule the examples in (352) out as unacceptable, partly with hesitation in the case of (352g). I do not think that the extreme marginality of such examples as (352) for some speakers warrants the conclusion that both fronting of a wh-XP and of a downward-entailing or extent XP in an embedded clause is grammatical. I suggest that such examples are only accepted as cases where a radical syntactic and focus-structural reorientation midway during the utterance is acknowledged and implicitly repaired by the hearer. On the other hand, as relative wh-XPs do not carry [±foch f ]XP , examples with a fronted downward-entailing XP and aux-support in a relative clause should be syntactically possible and may thus be judged more acceptable by some speakers than the corresponding situation in an embedded interrogative clause. That is, the
FocP-related English syntax
downward-entailing XP may be assumed to carry [±foch f ]XP and to move to embedded spec-Foc while the relative wh-XP moves to embedded spec-C. However, the focus-structural problem mentioned above exists in these cases as well and will be responsible for the rejection of such examples by many speakers. Other speakers, such as Culicover with respect to (353a, b), may find examples like these acceptable, since they can be assigned a syntactically well-formed, if focus-structurally incoherent, structure. (353) a.
These are the books which {only to Robin will Lee give / only on this table will Lee put} (example and judgement from Culicover 1991: 8) b. Terry is the person to whom only books like these would I give (ditto from Culicover 1996: 456)
. XP-movement to both root and embedded spec-Foc Recall from Subsection 7.3.1 that I characterise the existence of FocP in both root and embedded clauses as syntactically possible but focus-structurally incoherent. This was said to be the reason for the ?-judgements by Rochemont (1989: 148f., N. 8) of the following examples. (354) a. ?Who said that Tom, Mary gave a book to? b. ?Who said that to Tom, Mary gave a book? By contrast, the sentences in (355) are perfectly fine. (355) Who {told, asked} you who(m) Ally loves? For regular embedded interrogatives I do not assume that there is an embedded FocP (see Subsection 7.3.3 above). Rather, an embedded interrogative wh-XP moves to spec-C. The absence of an embedded FocP entails the absence of focus structure and thus the removal of the reason for the oddness of such sentences as in (354). The sentences in (354) are examples of ‘short movement’ in the sense that a root constituent moves to root spec-Foc while a constituent from an embedded clause moves to its embedded spec-C or spec-Foc. Much more complicated and delicate to judge are cases of ‘long movement’ from the embedded clause to root spec-Foc while another constituent from the embedded clause moves to embedded clause initial position. These issues have been analysed under the headword of topic island by some authors (e.g. Rochemont 1989; Müller & Sternefeld 1993) in view of the assumption that fronting of one constituent into a superordinate clause over
Chapter 7
another fronted one is generally not possible. Consider the following examples and their judgements which illustrate cases in point. (356) a. *What does John think that Bill, Mary gave to? (example and judgement from Rochemont 1989: 147) b. *This book, I know that Tom, Mary gave to (ditto) c. *Who do you think this book likes (ditto from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 96) d. *Which books did Lee say that to Robin, she will give? (ditto from Culicover 1991: 7) e. *Which books did Lee say that on the table, she will put? (ditto) f. *On which table did Lee say that these books, she can put? (ditto) g. *The money I think that Terry Lee gave to (ditto from Culicover 1996: 453) h. *Our group I think that sociolinguistics Terry was talking to about (ditto from Culicover 1996: 455) i. *Sociolinguistics I think that our group Terry was talking to about (ditto) Culicover (1996), however, denies that embedded clauses with a visibly fronted XP are islands. He presents the following examples which he considers to be acceptable. (357) a.
To Terry, I think that the money, Lee gave (example and judgement from Culicover 1996: 453; punctuation and capitals as in the original) b. To our group, I think that about sociolinguistics, Terry was talking (ditto from Culicover 1996: 454) c. About sociolinguistics, I think that to our group, Terry was talking (ditto) d. To our group, I think that sociolinguistics, Terry was talking about (ditto from Culicover 1996: 455) e. About sociolinguistics, I think that our group, Terry was talking to (ditto) f. Under no circumstances do I think that to Terry I would give my favourite reading material (ditto from Culicover 1996: 456)
Indeed, from a purely syntactic point of view, that is, if we ignore that a FocP and thus focus structure in both root and embedded clause is focus-structurally incoherent, there seems to be no problem for the sentences in (357). As already pointed out in N. 221, Culicover (1996) argues that there is a processing factor rather than a violation of a syntactic principle involved in the unacceptability of examples like (356g–i). His idea is that if two DPs (NPs in his terminology) are fronted, then they interfere with each other with respect to the
FocP-related English syntax
identification of their respective thematic roles and syntactic functions. This is the case in (356g–i), where two DPs are fronted, but not in (357), where either two PPs or one DP and one PP are fronted. This account in terms of an identification problem can also be invoked for (356b). And it can also be invoked when a whXP and a nominal DP interfere with each other in respect of thematic role and/or syntactic function, as in (356c).326 As also pointed out already, it may be possible to pursue an account of such cases in terms of a syntactic principle along the lines of relativised minimality (see Rizzi 1990) as an alternative to Culicover’s in terms of processing.327 It is true, the constellations in (356a–c, g–i) above are not subject to relativised minimality (RM) as developed by Rizzi (1990). The fronted XPs in these examples are referential arguments in Rizzi’s (1990) sense, and thus their relation to their traces is one of binding, which is not supposed to be subject to RM. However, none of the examples discussed by Rizzi (1990) which lead him to the distinction of trace binding by a referential constituent from trace government by ¯ a non-referential antecedent involves two referential constituents in A-positions. Thus, a modification of RM might be proposed to the effect that movement of ¯ a referential argument DP or wh-XP to an A-position (here spec-Foc) across an¯ other referential argument DP or wh-XP in an A-position is ruled out as an RM violation as well.328 This would explain the unacceptability of (356a–c, g–i). And it would explain that for speakers who are able to abstract away from the focusstructural incoherence posed by having a FocP in both the root and the embedded clause (such as Culicover seems to be), sentences like those in (357) are judged to be better than the former. For this modified RM principle would not apply to the sentences in (357), where a PP is extracted over a DP or PP in embedded spec-Foc. But note that (356f) should be as acceptable as the examples in (357), and (356d, e) should be as acceptable as (ia, b) of N. 326 under this account. All this is bound to remain as speculative as the judgements involved are subtle and delicate. Consider next (358) which is from Culicover 1996: 458. (358) This book I was wondering who might be interested in reading This sentence is judged fine. Indeed, there is nothing which would force an analysis to the effect that there is an embedded FocP. The embedded interrogative clause with a subject wh-XP is a CP or IP as discussed in Subsection 7.3.3. There is, thus, neither a focus-structural problem, nor does it seem likely that the thematic roles and syntactic functions of this book and who are confused, nor is a potential ¯ modified RM violation involved as who in spec-I is not in an A-position. The examples to be mentioned below have an embedded FocP and a nonargument wh-XP in root spec-Foc. Rochemont (1989: 147) gives a ‘*’ to the following example (359) *Howi did you say that the car Bill fixed t i
Chapter 7
For Browning (1996: 250), by contrast, long adjunct extraction over a fronted XP in an embedded clause is grammatical:329 (360) a. Whyi do you think that this book Lee assigned to the intro class t i ? b. Whyi do you think that to those students Kim gave such low grades t i ? c. Howi do you think that this problem Robin would solve t i ? Apart from the by now familiar focus-structural problem with FocP in both root and embedded clauses, there does not seem to be any other issue involved here. I conclude that such sentences as (359) and (360) are syntactically possible, but focus-structurally deviant. Browning’s (1996) acceptance of such examples is due to the fact that she abstracts away from the focus-structural incoherence. Browning (1996: 253) refers to a judgement by Lasnik & Saito (1992) according to whom adjunct construal with the lowest embedded clause in the following example, which has an additional level of clause embedding compared to (360), is impossible. (361) How do you think that, Mary, Bill told that John solved the problem? Browning (1996: 253) writes: How can be construed with think or told, but not solved. Lasnik and Saito propose that the construal of how with told and the lower construal of the adjuncts in [(360)], can be licensed on the basis of a trace in the specifier of CP headed by that and is not dependent on the presence of a trace within IP. For our purposes, this boils down to the claim that the adjunct may be generated in the specifier of the CP headed by that and from there can move to the specifier of the matrix CP.
To my mind, the idea of adjunct base-generation in spec-C is ad hoc. Moreover, I feel (361) – with how construed as originating in the lowest clause – to be either as Rochement-bad as (359) or as Browning-good as (360) in principle. Of course, any further level of embedding increases the processing load in such cases and may thus reduce acceptability.
. Mitigated that-trace effects The examples to be discussed in this subsection show mitigation of that-trace effects if a non-DP is fronted within the embedded clause and no such mitigation if a DP is fronted within the embedded clause.
FocP-related English syntax
(362) a.
Robin met the man whoi Leslie said that *(for all intents and purposes) t i was the mayor of the city (example and judgement from Culicover 1991: 10) b. This is the tree whichi I said that *(just yesterday) t i had resisted my shovel (ditto) c. I asked whati Leslie said that *(in her opinion) t i had made Robin give a book to Lee (ditto) d. Lee forgot [which dishes]i Leslie had said that *(under normal circumstances) t i should be put on the table (ditto)
Similar phrases and clauses are presented by Rizzi (1997: 310ff.), who discusses them under the headword ‘anti-adjacency effects’. The examples (363d, f) are originally from Bresnan (1977: 194, N. 6), who considers them “mildly awkward”: *A man whoi I think that t i knows this book very well *A man whoi I think that [this book]j t i knows t j very well *An amendment whichi they say that t i will be law next year An amendment whichi they say that [next year]j t i will be law t j *[Which doctor]i did you tell me that t i had had a heart attack during an operation? f. [Which doctor]i did you tell me that [during an operation]j t i had had a heart attack t j ?
(363) a. b. c. d. e.
If we assume that the constituents which mitigate the that-trace effect are actually fronted, then there must be an embedded FocP, with the fronted XP being in embedded spec-Foc. If there is no visible fronting in the embedded clause, then there is no reason to analyse it as containing a FocP. Taking the relevant traces involved into account and noting the positions of the embedded Foc-heads, we get the following slightly more detailed picture for (362)–(363). (364) a. *Robin met the man whoi Leslie said that t i was the mayor of the city b. Robin met the man whoi Leslie said that for all intents and purposes Foc t i was the mayor of the city c. *This is the tree whichi I said that t i had resisted my shovel d. This is the tree whichi I said that just yesterday Foc t i had resisted my shovel e. *I asked whati Leslie said that t i had made Robin give a book to Lee f. I asked whati Leslie said that in her opinion Foc t i had made Robin give a book to Lee g. *Lee forgot [which dishes]i Leslie had said that t i should be put on the table
Chapter 7
h. Lee forgot [which dishes]i Leslie had said that under normal circumstances Foc t i should be put on the table i. *A man whoi I think that t i knows this book very well j. *A man whoi I think that this book Foc t i knows very well k. *An amendment whichi they say that t i will be law next year l. An amendment whichi they say that next year Foc t i will be law m. *[Which doctor]i did you tell me that t i had had a heart attack during an operation? n. [Which doctor]i did you tell me that during an operation Foc t i had had a heart attack? The ECP is violated in (364a, c, e, g, i, k, m) since the subject traces in spec-I of the embedded clauses fail to be properly head-governed by that. But there is no ECP violation in (364b, d, f, h, j, n) since in these sentences the subject traces in embedded spec-I are properly head-governed by Foc. There is the general focusstructural problem of having a FocP in embedded clauses where the matrix cannot readily be interpreted as an annotation. This accounts for the awkwardness of such examples. The fronted adverbials in (364b, d, f, h, l, n) cannot be argued to be extraclausal, for if they were, their omission would do no harm to the grammaticality of the sentences. But, as we see from (364a, c, e, g, k, m), precisely the opposite is the case. That is, they must be analysed as having moved to embedded specFoc, which entails that there is indeed a FocP in the embedded clause. Why then does (364j) remain ungrammatical? The reason in terms of modified relativised minimality (RM) suggested in the preceding subsection – which could be reformulated in terms of the corresponding processing approach taken by Culicover (1996) – is this: Who, which is ‘referential’ in the RM-relevant sense, has moved to ¯ ¯ an A-position across referential this book, which is likewise in an A-bar position. If the examples in (364) are modified by omitting the complementiser that so that the that-trace effects disappear, we get the following: (365) a. Robin met the man whoi Leslie said t i was the mayor of the city b. Robin met the man whoi Leslie said for all intents and purposes Foc t i was the mayor of the city c. This is the tree whichi I said t i had resisted my shovel d. This is the tree whichi I said just yesterday Foc t i had resisted my shovel (just yesterday to be construed in the embedded clause) e. I asked whati Leslie said t i had made Robin give a book to Lee f. I asked whati Leslie said in her opinion Foc t i had made Robin give a book to Lee g. Lee forgot [which dishes]i Leslie had said t i should be put on the table
FocP-related English syntax
h. Lee forgot [which dishes]i Leslie had said under normal circumstances Foc t i should be put on the table i. A man whoi I think t i knows this book very well j. *A man whoi I think this book Foc t i knows very well330 k. An amendment whichi they say t i will be law next year l. An amendment whichi they say next year Foc t i will be law m. [Which doctor]i did you tell me t i had had a heart attack during an operation? n. [Which doctor]i did you tell me during an operation Foc t i had had a heart attack? The only ungrammatical case is (365j), again because of a modified RM problem. (This applies also to the examples mentioned in N. 330.) With respect to the fronting of identificational focus XPs, the basic idea of my account is similar to the one proposed by Culicover (1991), who posits the existence of a PolP between IP and CP, which thus provides the same positions for XPs to move into as my FocP. (Recall from Subsection 7.2.5 that Culicover (1991) interprets fronting of topic expressions as IP-adjunction.) In Culicover 1993, however, he voices reservations against his own proposal. There he argues that it is not clear what properly governs traces in spec-I (see the grammatical examples in (364)–(365)). The head in Pol (locationally corresponding to my Foc) “can’t, since the two are not coindexed.” (Culicover 1993: 558.) In the theory developed in the present work, a head’s potential for proper government does not rely on co-indexation. Thus, the problem does not arise. Another argument of Culicover’s against the type of analysis proposed here and earlier by himself is that there “is no apparent agreement relationship” (Culicover 1993: 559) between Pol and the XP in spec-Pol. This reservation does not hold with respect to my theory, in which movement into spec-Foc is licensed by [±foc]-feature checking.
. Conclusion Although it has not been possible to give a fully satisfactory account of every aspect of XP-movement to spec-Foc,331 the discussion in the present chapter has shown that a grammar which incorporates the FocP-hypothesis does not fare worse than the conventional model in any respect, but has advantages compared to it in some respects: In general, visible (non-subject) fronting is explained as an instance of XP-movement to spec-Foc which is generally operative in categorical and identificational sentences, i.e. which comprises invisible subject movement to spec-Foc as well. In this way fronting, which shows all the characteristics of a core-grammatical operation, is not only accounted for by the feature checking requirement inherent
Chapter 7
to the minimalist program, but the worrying assumption that the topic and focus features involved may not be assigned to a subject is dispensed with. Note that precisely this assumption has to be made by authors (such as Grewendorf (2002) and Haegeman & Guéron (1999), essentially following Rizzi (1997)) who provide for a TopP or FocP only in those cases where a non-subject has been fronted. By contrast, there are no reasons to assume that subjects are syntactically different as far as eligibility for [±foc]-assignment is concerned.332 As far as the more particular advantages of the incorporation of the FocPhypothesis into syntax are concerned, I may highlight the following ones: (1) The ungrammaticality of (366a) below in contrast to the grammaticality of (366b–c) can be readily explained by the assumption that a [±foch f ]XP-feature cannot be assigned across a clause boundary in connection with the assumption that constructions which have traditionally been analysed in terms of exceptional case marking (ECM) are actually characterised by movement of an embedded subject to matrix spec-Od (see Subsection 7.2.1). (366) a. b. c. d.
*Him to win the race, they expect That he will win the race, they expect For him to even win the race, I’ve never really expected To even win the race, I’ve never really hoped
(2) The assumption that it is a [±foch f ]XP -feature of type α rather than the interrogative feature which is responsible for the fronting of a wh-XP in genuine interrogatives allows for a straightforward explanation of why all but one wh-XP remain in situ in multiple wh-XP interrogatives (see Subsection 7.2.2). (3) Full inversion can be readily analysed as movement of a non-argument to spec-Foc while the subject remains in the base due to the choice of type γ for the nominal subject case feature, a choice always possible with the single argument of an intransitive verb and blocked if two or three arguments are involved (see Subsection 7.2.4). (4) The assumption of an embedded FocP allows us to dispense with iterative CPs in the analysis of aux-support for downward-entailing fronted XPs in embedded clauses (see Subsection 7.3.5). (5) The assumption of an embedded FocP suggests a straightforward explanation of the ‘anti-adjacency effect’ as the removal of an ECP violation (see Subsection 7.5). * With the demonstration that the FocP-hypothesis stands on sufficiently firm grounds as far as the details of syntactic analysis are concerned, the elaboration and defence of the syntactic-intonational aspect of it has now been brought to a close. Next, the syntax-semantics/pragmatics interface of my integrated approach based on the FocP-hypothesis has to be dealt with.
Chapter 8
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
The sections in this chapter discuss semantic aspects of the theory developed in the preceding chapters. The basic direction of argumentation is, first, that truthconditional meaning is dependent on focus structure,333 and, second, that the integration of focus structure into syntax as presented here is capable of accommodating in a fairly straightforward manner semantic effects which have traditionally been accounted for in terms of covert LF-movement. Section 8.1 presents an outline of the semantic framework in which my approach is set. The presentation is selectively geared to the particular semantic issues to be discussed in the following sections. Section 8.2 is devoted to the discussion of problems which emerge and concepts which need clarification if the semantic framework outlined in Section 8.1 is made to operate in conjunction with the syntactic theory developed in the preceding chapters. Section 8.3, then, discusses semantic phenomena which can be explained by the syntactic-semantic theory thus constructed. The range of examples and phenomena considered is rather small and not more than suggestive of a potential for extension. Such an extension would demand a book-length study and cannot be accommodated in a single chapter of the present work.
. The syntax-semantics/pragmatics interface Syntactic representations supply the input to semantic processing. That is, a wellformed syntactic representation is assigned meaning (or revealed to be meaningless) by a semantic module which uses its own rules or principles of interpretation. The semantic tradition in generative grammar adheres to the premises that “[t]o know the meaning of a sentence is to know its truth-conditions” (Heim & Kratzer 1998: 1) and that “the meaning of a composite expression is a function of the meanings of its component expressions” (Lyons 1995: 204; see also Heim & Kratzer 1998: 2f., pass.).334 Many authors have added flesh to the programmatic skeleton of assigning meaning to syntactic representations generated by a syntax along the lines of more recent developments in generative grammar under these premises of truth conditionality (or truth functionality) and compositionality. My
Chapter 8
discussion in the present chapter will proceed especially with the work of Heim & Kratzer (1998) in mind, on which I will build, but which I will also criticise and modify in some respects.335 It follows from the syntactic theory presented in the previous chapters that what the semantic module processes and assigns meaning to is a configuration of semantic constituents contained in FocPs in the categorical and identificational cases and contained in IP in the thetic case. The guiding idea in this chapter is that there are no syntactic LF-operations, notably no quantifier raising (QR), and that it is the in situ configuration of the semantic constituents within a FocP or IP as we have come to know them in the preceding chapters which is directly input to the semantic module, without an intervening LF-representation resulting from XP-movement(s) to higher positions adjoined to FocP or IP.336 Consequently, I have to show that the semantic phenomena which motivate the assumption of LFoperations can be accounted for in a different way. My hypothesis is that taking the three different focus structures into account, i.e. conceiving of the traditional ‘sentence’ as a mere sentence-string which conflates three different focus-structured root clauses, provides such a way of dispensing with LF-operations. I will not be able to support this hypothesis with respect to every semantic phenomenon that has been put forward to motivate LF-operations; actually, I will discuss only a few examples. Therefore, my guiding idea will remain a hypothesis. However, I think that the discussion will lend some plausibility to it and will point to an interesting direction for further research. In this section I want to give a rough idea of how the approach presented by Heim & Kratzer (1998) may be modified so as to deal with FocPs and thus different focus structures.
.. Context-dependent truth conditions The relevance of the context of a sentence for its truth conditions has so far been generally acknowledged only for the domain of variable-reference terms, i.e. indexicals. For example, Larson & Segal (1995: 199) observe that “the presence of variable-reference terms shows that we cannot assign values to expressions simpliciter; rather we must assign them with respect to a context of use or a context of utterance.” They model this aspect of context dependence by means of sequences and indices, i.e. by providing each variable-reference expression with a numerical index and associating such an expression via its index with the corresponding object in a sequence, i.e. a linearly ordered, infinite set of objects. This results in the notion of “sequence-relative truth” (Larson & Segal 1995: 206), but only for those sentences that contain variable-reference expressions: However, this idea [of sequence-relative truth] does not seem appropriate for a sentence like Chris agrees. This sentence contains only sequence-independent
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
expressions. No words or phrases of the sentence depend on sequences for their values. Consequently, it seems that we should be able [to] talk about this sentence as being true or false absolutely without reference to a sequence. We can satisfy this intuition by defining the notion of absolute truth in addition to the notion of sequence-relative truth. (Larson & Segal 1995: 206)
There is a tendency to associate what Larson & Segal (1995) call absolute truth with sentences on the one hand and context- (or sequence-) relative truth with utterances on the other hand. Thus, in order to account for the semantic behaviour of referring pronouns, Heim & Kratzer (1998: 243) introduce the notion ‘appropriate context’ and link it to the truth conditions for utterances in the following way: Appropriateness Condition A context c is appropriate for an LF φ only if c determines a variable assignment gc whose domain includes every index which has a free occurrence[...] in φ. Truth and Falsity Conditions for Utterances If φ is uttered in c and c is appropriate for φ, then the utterance of φ in c is true if [[φ]]g c = 1 and false if [[φ]]g c = 0.
Hence, the appropriateness of the context is necessary for the utterance of a sentence with LF φ to be true or false. In contrast to Larson & Segal (1995), Heim & Kratzer (1998), after having introduced the notion ‘truth conditions for utterances’ (‘context-dependent truth conditions’), do not say if they give up or maintain the notion ‘truth conditions for sentences’ (‘context-independent truth conditions’ or ‘absolute truth’) for those cases where there are no variable-reference expressions involved. Given that the notion ‘context-dependent truth conditions’ is necessary for the purposes of truth conditional compositional semantics, it seems legitimate and reasonable from the viewpoint of theoretical parsimony to try to dispense with the notion ‘context-independent truth conditions’. This step is taken by Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000), for example, who maintain that “we must relativize our definition of truth for a sentence to a context (as well as to an LF that disambiguates it).” (Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 1990/2000: 343.) I am now going to show how this relates to the theory developed in the present work.337 Imagine a situation in which there are five people involved in a conversation. A certain suggestion is being made by one of the participants, David. This situation is reported on by person A talking to person Q. The following dialogue ensues: (367) Q: Who all agreed? A: Chris agreed. H*+L
Chapter 8
Assume that it was in fact Fred, Barbara and Chris who agreed to the suggestion made by David, whereas Erica disagreed. Some semanticists will probably say that A’s utterance is true. Potential hesitation in considering it true will be explained by saying that A’s utterance triggers an implicature to the effect that A’s interlocutors believe him to mean that it is only Chris who agreed. This implicature is not validated by the actual situation, but this fact does not make the sentence false. Indeed, if we assume that the expression Chris agreed is a sentence and that it expresses either a true or a false proposition with respect to the state of affairs described (see above, the notion ‘absolute truth’ maintained by Larson & Segal (1995)), then this is the only way to argue. We may take a different perspective though. Let us insist that A’s utterance in (367) is a false statement in the given situation, taking into account that the context question asked by Q in (367) belongs to this situation. In other words, let us consider the context question asked by Q to be part of the conditions under which the statement made is true or false. It is a false statement in the following sense: Q’s question elicits a reply with identificational focus structure, i.e. one with the relevance presupposition in (368) (cf. (99) on p. 87) with x ranging over a sequence of proper names whose referents are salient in the respective discourse situation (Fred, Barbara, Chris, David, Erica). (368) λx . agreed(x) A’s reply is false in that it does not mention Fred and Barbara as referents who agreed, while the question explicitly enquires about all persons who agreed.338 Although false, (367A) is appropriate in that its focus structure type and thus its relevance presupposition fits the context in which it occurs. Of course, the string Chris agreed can be used to make a true statement about the respective state of affairs, if the context is different. For example, we may have the following dialogue between Q and A: (369) Q: What did Chris say about David’s suggestion? A: Chris agreed. H*+L In this case, A’s statement is appropriate and true. But notice that we are now confronted with a different focus structure of A’s utterance compared to (367A). What we have now is categorical focus structure with Chris as topic expression. In contrast to (367A) and (369A), A’s utterance in the following dialogue is not appropriate. (370) Q: Who all agreed? A: #Chris agreed. H*+L
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
The intonation indicated for (370A) licenses only categorical or thetic focus structures with respective relevance presuppositions which do not fit the context. The situation assumed for (370A), including the context question (370Q), does not belong to the set of appropriate contexts for it. I propose to say that (370A) does not have any truth conditions in this situation. This is comparable to an utterance of Hei AGREED where the index i on the variable cannot be assigned in a given context. To repeat a point already made several times above: A string like Chris agreed as such does not have a theoretical status in syntax and semantics/pragmatics. What does have a theoretical status is a focus-structured clause, i.e. either of the three expressions in (371). (371) a. [FocP [Chris][–foc] agreed] b. [FocP [Chris][+foc] agreed] c. [IP Chris agreed] ‘Focus-structured clause’ is a syntactic concept in the present theory. It is syntactically implemented as discussed in the preceding chapters. A focus-structured clause is a potential utterance and, as such, is subject to a focus structure appropriateness condition which requires that the relevance presupposition associated with it is compatible with the context in which it is construed. If it does not meet this appropriateness condition, its set of truth conditions is empty.339 (372) In order to be appropriate for a focus-structured clause φ, a context c needs to be compatible with the relevance presupposition associated with φ. Thus, the dependence of truth conditions on the conditions imposed by the context holds not only for sentences which contain variable-reference expressions, but for all sentences.340 By this conception Stalnaker’s (1974: 212f.) suspicion expressed in the following quote is theoretically integrated and generalised to a degree perhaps even greater than surmised by him: The semantic rules which determine the content of a sentence may do so only relative to the context in which it is uttered. This is obviously the case with sentences using personal pronouns, demonstratives, quantifiers, definite descriptions, or proper names. I suspect it happens in less obvious cases as well.
(372) is formulated in a way which suggests that the relevance presupposition of an utterance is something which does not belong to the context of the utterance. We can take a different stand on this issue. From the perspective of an utterance producer, we may define ‘context’ roughly as the set of assumptions held by the communicator at the time of utterance. Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995: 132ff.) criticise an understanding of context as a set of assumptions which is uniquely determined and given in advance of an utterance. Taking the perspective of an addressee, they
Chapter 8
argue that such a view of context is defective. Instead they propose a conception in which “it is relevance which is treated as given, and context which is treated as a variable” (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995: 142). In more detail, their notion of context is as follows: We have so far suggested that the choice of a context for inferential processes in general, and for comprehension in particular, is partly determined at any given time by the contents of the memory of the deductive device, those of the general-purpose short-term memory store, and those of the encyclopaedia, and by the information that can be immediately picked up from the physical environment. These factors determine not a single context but a range of possible contexts. What determines the selection of a particular context out of that range? Our answer is that the selection of a particular context is determined by the search for relevance. (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995: 141)
That is, out of a range of possible contexts, that one is selected (or constructed) by the addressee of an utterance which will maximise relevance (see Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995: 142).341 The utterance serves as a trigger for and influencing factor in this process of context selection/construction under the condition of relevance maximisation. Anyway, the nature of a context is still that of a set of assumptions – held by the communicator and to be constructed by the addressee. The relevance presupposition associated with an utterance clearly belongs to this set. It is contained in the set of assumptions which constitute the communicator context. After these background remarks on the notion of context I give a slightly modified version of (372) now, which expresses the assumption that the relevance presupposition of an utterance belongs to its context. (373) Focus structure appropriateness condition (FSAC): In order to be appropriate for a focus-structured clause φ, a context c needs to contain the relevance presupposition associated with φ. This formulation makes it clear that the set of appropriate contexts for a focusstructured clause φ is one of three disjoint subsets Cc , Ci or Ct which jointly make up the set of all contexts C for φ. (The indices ‘c’, ‘i’, ‘t’ for the context subsets are mnemonic for ‘categorical’, ‘identificational’, ‘thetic’.) Cc , Ci and Ct are individually characterised by the fact that one of the assumptions contained in the contexts which are elements of the respective subset is the relevance presupposition associated with categorical, or identificational, or thetic focus structure for φ respectively. A set of truth conditions does not exist for φ as such, but only for φ in either Cc or Ci or Ct respectively. While there is a range of possible contexts from which the addressee has to select in the course of interpreting an utterance, the communicator context, i.e. the set of assumptions held by the communicator at the point of producing an
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
utterance, is definite with respect to whether it is from Cc , Ci or Ct , for the relevance presuppositions associable with a sentence string are mutually exclusive. That is, given an utterance u which makes use of a focus-structured clause φ, exactly one of the following three possibilities is the case: First, φ has categorical focus structure, is thus appropriate and has truth conditions only in a context which belongs to the context subset Cc ; second, φ has identificational focus structure, is thus appropriate and has truth conditions only in a context which belongs to Ci ; third, φ has thetic focus structure and is thus appropriate and has truth conditions only in a context which belongs to Ct .
.. The (basically) Montagovian perspective Consider again the sentence string Chris agreed. Let us concentrate first on its typesemantic analysis as a categorical sentence on the one hand and as an identificational sentence on the other hand. The respective syntactic structures are given in (374), where Chris and agreed are to be conceived of as representing semantic forms in their base positions. Their associated phonological forms have moved to positions higher up in the structure. The features [±foch s ]XP are the semantic features which characterise the DP Chris as a topic and identificational focus expression respectively. (374)
categorical
identificational
FocP
FocP Foc'
Foc
Foc' Foc
IP VP Chris agreed [–foc hs]XP
IP VP Chris agreed [+foc hs]XP
(375) a. Chris agreed [FocP [Chris][–foc] agreed] (categorical) b. Chris agreed [FocP [Chris][+foc] agreed] (identificational)
The relevance presuppositions associated with (375a, b) are (376a, b) respectively. (376) a. λx . Chris(x) b. λx . agreed(x)
Chapter 8
Recall (from p. 88) that the constant in these λ-terms constitutes the semantic subject and the variable the semantic predicate in the associated respective (focusstructured) sentence. That is, Chris is the semantic subject, agreed the semantic predicate of (375a) (not (376a)!), while agreed is the semantic subject and Chris the semantic predicate of (375b) (not (376b)!).342 In ‘set talk’ predication can be conceived of as the claim that the semantic subject is an element of the set denoted by the semantic predicate. The semantic predicate agreed of (375a) denotes the set of all individuals (entities) of the discourse domain who agreed; predicating agreed of Chris means the claim that Chris is an element of the set of all individuals (entities) who agreed. The semantic predicate Chris of (375b) denotes the set of all sets to which Chris belongs; predicating Chris of agreed means the claim that the set denoted by agreed is a subset (i.e. an element) of the set of all sets to which Chris belongs. Let us now translate from ‘set talk’ into ‘type and function talk’. In type semantics, e (entity) and t (truth value) are the (only) primitive types. If σ and τ are semantic types, simple like e or t, or complex like <e,t>, <<e,t>,t>, etc., then σ and τ can be functionally combined if and only if one has the form σ and the other the form <σ, τ>. “The pair <σ, τ> is to be thought of as the type of functions from things of type σ to things of type τ” (Thomason 1974: 31; see also Montague 1970/1974: 227f.). Conceiving of the denotation of a predicate as a set of entities is equivalent to conceiving of it as a function from expressions of type e to expressions of type t, i.e. as an expression of semantic type <e,t>. Now, under the assumption that the type of a one-place predicate like agreed is rigidly <e,t>, what I said about (375a, b) above in set talk translates into type and function talk as follows: In (375a) e-type Chris functionally combines with <e,t>-type agreed so as to yield the sentence of type t. In (375b) <e,t>-type agreed functionally combines with <<e,t>,t>-type Chris so as to yield the sentence of type t.343 That is, the direction of functional application between Chris and agreed in (375b) is the reverse of that in (375a). In (375a) agreed (<e,t>) is the function which takes Chris (e) as argument; in (375b) Chris (<<e,t>,t>) is the function which takes agreed (<e,t>) as argument. The corresponding interpretation functions are given in (377). (377) a. [λx : x ∈ De . agreed(x)](Chris) b. [λx : x ∈ D<e,t> . Chris(x)](agreed) By now the idea of my approach will have become apparent – the association of the e-type interpretation of a semantic subject with categorical focus structure and the generalised quantifier (<<e,t>,t>-type) interpretation of a semantic subject with identificational focus structure. The two different semantic Focfeatures, [–foch s ]XP and [+foch s ]XP , can be conceived of as the determinants of type e ([–foch s ]XP ) and of type <<e,t>,t> ([+foch s ]XP) respectively (see below).
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
What does the picture look like with thetic focus structure for the string Chris agreed? The syntactic representation is given in (378) and the corresponding relevance presupposition in (379). (378) thetic IP VP Chris agreed
(379) λx . x In the thetic case there are no [±foch s ]XP -features which could determine the semantic type of Chris and thus the direction of functional combination of Chris and agreed. I interpret this to imply that the meaning of Chris agreed as a thetic utterance is indeterminate between the two interpretations (377a, b) above. I will use the tilde in order to symbolise such indeterminacies, as in (380).
(380) [λx : x ∈ De . agreed(x)](Chris) ∼ [λx : x ∈ D<e,t> . Chris(x)](agreed) This interpretative indeterminacy, which entails an indeterminacy of the type of Chris (e ∼ <<e,t>,t>), may be seen as the defining semantic characteristic of thetic utterances.344 (381) summarises the correlations between Foc-features and semantic types as just worked out on the example of Chris agreed: [–foch s ]XP correlates with type e for a DP whose [–foch f ]XP is checked in spec-Foc. (categorical) b. [+foch s ]XP correlates with type <<e,t>,t> for a DP whose [+foch f ]XP is checked in spec-Foc. (identificational)
(381) a.
The base position of a syntactic one-place predicate’s argument DP whose [±foch f ]XP is checked in spec-Foc, that is, whose phonological form has ended up in spec-Foc in English, is either comp-H or spec-H or spec-h.345 It is in spec-h if the syntactic predicate is either formed by a copula (positioned in h) and its complement or is a one-place agentive verb which moves from H to h in a non-copulative clause. In any case, the syntactic one-place predicate and its argument DP are sister constituents for semantic purposes. This is obviously so for the relation between a syntactic predicate P and its syntactic argument in comp-P. But it is likewise so for a one-place predicate P and its argument in spec-P, for in this case comp-P is unfilled and P is thus identical to P which is the sister of spec-P. And if we consider that
Chapter 8
the syntactic predicate is h in a copulative clause in which the syntactic argument is in spec-h, then we also have the semantic sister relation here. As expected then, it is always the syntactic one-place predicate and its syntactic argument DP which are functionally combined in a base formed by them. Given that such a syntactic predicate is of type <e,t>, its syntactic argument DP can be functionally combined with it if it is either of type e or type <<e,t>,t>. As a type e syntactic argument the DP is also a semantic argument; as a type <<e,t>,t> syntactic argument it is a semantic predicate (a function) which takes the syntactic predicate as semantic argument. Let us now have a look at clauses with a syntactic two-place predicate and object fronting. (The semantic features given as subscripts in (382) are short forms for [±foch s ]XP . This holds also for later cases where I use this notation.) (382) a. a . b. b .
Beans, Chris likes [FocP /beans/. . . [VP Chris likes beans[–foc] ]] Beans, Chris likes [FocP /beans/. . . [VP Chris likes beans[+foc] ]]
Given that (381) applies to such two-place predicate cases as well, the semantic form of beans should be an e-type expression in (382a) and an <<e,t>,t>-type expression in (382b). I will assume that the determination of the semantic type of a DP which may potentially be of type e or <<e,t>,t> is dependent only on whether it is associated with [–foch s ]XP or [+foch s ]XP . We will then have to conclude that Chris in (382) is indeterminate between types e and <<e,t>,t>.346 If transitive likes is of type <e,<e,t>> there is no problem for (382a). Likes combines with its e-type sister beans so as to yield an expression of type <e,t> which is combined with e-/<<e,t>,t>-type Chris to yield an expression of type t. In (382b), however, <<e,t>,t>-type beans cannot be combined with <e,<e,t>>-type likes. If an <<e,t>,t>-type complement (beans) is to be combined with its head (likes) so as to yield an expression of type <e,t>, the only possibility is to assume that the head is of type <<<e,t>,t>,<e,t>>. This line of argument carries over to any syntactic two-place predicate, so that we would have to accept an inherent multiplicity of types (<e,<e,t>> and <<<e,t>,t>,<e,t>>) for them.347 There is an alternative to this analysis. We may keep the semantic type of the two-place predicate fixed as <e,<e,t>> and assume that beans is of type e in (382a) and of type <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>> in (382b) (cf. Heim & Kratzer 1998: 180ff.). I opt for this analysis. The reason is that in this way we can remain faithful to the idea that it is the respective semantic [±foch s ]XP -feature which correlates with one of the principally available types for the DP whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. Moreover, keeping the type of one constituent class constant, i.e. <e,t> for syntactic one-place predicates and <e,<e,t>> for syntactic two-place predicates, while allowing for multiple types only for their syntactic arguments,
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
seems to be more economical and elegant than allowing for multiple types for both syntactic predicates and their argument(s). Let us now consider sentence strings in which type e for any of the syntactic arguments of the verb is ruled out. (383) Nobody likes everyone The quantificational DPs nobody and no X are certainly not of type e, nor are, arguably, the quantificational DPs everyone and every X.348 With type e being ruled out for nobody, categorical focus structure is no option for (383) under the assumptions made in (381); only identificational and thetic focus structure are possible. But note that assuming only type <<e,t>,t> for nobody and everyone will not do for the semantic interpretation of (383), given that we keep type <e,<e,t>> for likes. For such DPs we have to assume that types <<e,t>,t> and <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>> are principally available, the latter being the one assumed for beans in (382b) as well.349 It seems, then, that most DPs used as syntactic arguments are potentially of type e or <<e,t>,t> or <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>>, while for some the type e denotation is ruled out.350 Type e is a potential type for syntactic arguments of syntactic oneplace and two-place predicates. Type <<e,t>,t> is another potential type for the syntactic argument of a syntactic one-place predicate and for the specifier argument of a two-place predicate.351 Type <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>> is a potential type for the complement argument (the sister) of a syntactic two-place predicate. I do not intend to discuss in detail the type-semantic issues of functional application with respect to three-place syntactic predicates. But note that in a vP-shell framework (see Subsection 2.1.2), seemingly three-place predicates are analysed as being composed of an overt two-place predicate core which functions as complement – and thus syntactic argument – of an abstract (covert) two-place predicate, the v-head of a vP-shell. In this way, the adicity of a syntactic predicate does not exceed two. Thus, it seems that the situation with seemingly three-place predicates does not result in type-semantic issues different in kind from those discussed above. Hence, the relation between the semantic type of a syntactic predicate and the semantic types of that syntactic argument of it whose [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc can be generalised as in (384) below, where I replace talk in terms of ‘correlation’ between Foc-features and semantic types (as in (381)) by talk in terms of ‘determination’ of the latter by the former. That is, I assume that the semantic-syntactic fact of a DP’s being [±foch s ]XP -featured determines its being typed differently in the semantics. (384) a.
Let P be a syntactic one-place predicate (type <e,t>) and let a be a syntactic argument DP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is
Chapter 8
checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a; [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,t>,t> for a. b. Let P be a syntactic two-place predicate (type <e,<e,t>>) and let a be a syntactic argument DP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a; [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,t>,t> for a if a is specifier argument of P, and <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>> if a is complement argument of P. The semantic type which the respective semantic Foc-feature determines must be inherently, i.e. ultimately lexically, available for a. If, for instance, a does not have type e inherently available, as is the case for exclusively quantificational DPs like nobody and {most / more} X, then they cannot be [–foch s ]XP -featured, and their phonological form cannot be in spec-Foc of a categorical utterance. This makes sense, for such DPs can hardly be conceived of as aboutness topic expressions as characterised in Sections 3.1 and 4.1. An approach in terms of flexible semantic types and in situ interpretation is presented by Heim & Kratzer (1998: Ch. 7) as an alternative to the quantifier raising (QR) analysis of quantificational expressions in object positions, which pose a type-semantic problem parallel to the one pointed out above in connection with (382b) with object movement to spec-Foc. For Heim & Kratzer, though, QR is still necessary to provide a straightforward account for what they consider to be scope ambiguities with sentences like (385) Somebody offended everybody Their comment runs as follows (1998: 194): [(385)] has two readings, not just one. It can mean that there is somebody who offended everybody. Or else it can mean that for everybody there is somebody that s/he offended. On either of the proposals for in situ interpretation that we discussed above,[352] we predict only the reading where there is somebody who offended everybody. Once we move quantifiers, however, it is trivial to derive several distinct and truth-conditionally non-equivalent LFs from a given SS [i.e. surface structure].
In Section 8.3 I will argue that the ambiguity involved in sentences like (385) is of a slightly but significantly different kind than surmised by Heim & Kratzer (1998) – a different kind which in fact does not constitute supporting evidence for the need of QR.
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
.. A (basically) Davidsonian revision I have been suggesting that lexical items and phrases formed by them are interpreted in their base position. This appears to have an unwelcome effect with respect to the Montagovian assumption that semantic predicates are functionally combined with their semantic arguments so as to result in an expression of type t. The point is that we would rather want to say that a finite clause, not the clausal base, is the kind of expression which has a denotation of type t. However, the conclusion that the clausal base does in fact not denote truth values accords well with a tradition of semantic thought that originates with Davidson (1967/1980, 1969/1980, 1970/1980, 1971/1980) and has been established within generative grammar especially by Higginbotham (1985). According to more recent views in this tradition, [b]esides ordinary individuals, the universe also contains eventualities, qualities, spatial entities, and periods of time. This is different from traditional Montague grammar, in which the universe of discourse, corresponding to the basic type e, is an unstructured set of ordinary individuals. In much recent work, a more articulated universe of discourse has emerged, containing primitive entities besides objects. (Zwarts 1992: 79ff.)
As we will see, the idea that an eventuality is an entity and thus of semantic type e is precisely what we need in order to solve the problem that it is not the clausal base, but the finite clause which is of type t. For Davidson events are entities which are individuated by having a distinct position within the dimension made up of causes and effects. That is, events are identical if they have exactly the same causes and effects (see especially Davidson 1969/1980). I would maintain that this concept of events as entities can be extended to the class called eventuality by Bach (1981), i.e. to states and processes as well as protracted and instantaneous events. According to the linguistic tradition based on Davidson’s insights, a verb has an argument position E in addition to its thematic (valency/adicity determining) argument positions. For example, the argument position E in the thematic grid <1, 2, E> of the verb see determines its denotation as “those ordered triples such that e is an event of a’s seeing b” (Higginbotham 1985: 555). With respect to a conceptual-semantic ontology, where we have conceptual-semantic types such as eventuality, agent, patient, quality etc. (in contrast to logico-semantic types such as e, t, <e,e>, <e,t> etc.), we may say that the argument position E determines the conceptual-semantic type of a verb saturated by its syntactic arguments as an eventuality; and as long as E itself is not saturated in the projections of the verb, it determines the conceptual-semantic type of each of these projections as an eventuality too. According to Higginbotham (1985: 561), E is not saturated until ‘VP’ is combined with some head from the functional domain: “[W]e can conjecture
Chapter 8
that the position E of the thematic grid of the verb is discharged at the point where VP meets Infl.” Where exactly this discharging takes place in an articulated functional domain above the clausal base, remains to be investigated. It seems that the points where the T- or the AgrS - or the Foc-head is combined with their respective complement are plausible candidates. Just for the sake of concreteness, I assume that the event(uality) argument is discharged where the T-head meets its complement. As already pointed out, an eventuality does certainly not translate into logico-semantic ontology as a truth value (logico-semantic type t). From the Davidsonian conception it follows that an eventuality and thus the clausal base as well as those functional projections above the clausal base which are below the one where the event argument position E is saturated (here TP) is of logico-semantic type e.353 Consequently, the T-head has to be of type <e,t>. Assuming type e for a base requires a revision of the statements made so far about the semantic types of a syntactic predicate and its argument(s). This revision is straightforward: Wherever I have said ‘t’ in this context, I have to say ‘e’ now. This is summarised in (386). (386) A syntactic one-place predicate is of type <e,e>; a syntactic two-place predicate is of type <e,<e,e>>. The specifier argument of a syntactic predicate is of type e, or <<e,e>,e>; the complement argument of a syntactic predicate is of type e, or <<e,e>,e>, or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>.354 The corresponding revision of (384) of the previous subsection is as formulated in (387), which I would like to call the type determination mechanism (TDM). (387) Type determination mechanism (TDM) a. Let P be a syntactic one-place predicate (type <e,e>) and let a be a syntactic argument DP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a (categorical); [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,e>,e> for a (identificational). b. Let P be a syntactic two-place predicate (type <e,<e,e>>) and let a be a syntactic argument DP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a (categorical); [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,e>,e> for a if a is specifier argument of P, and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> if a is complement argument of P (identificational). As is well known, we have not only verbal but also nominal, adjectival and prepositional syntactic predicates. This is the case in copulative clauses. Some typical examples involving predicates of these non-verbal kinds are given in (388) below. What corresponds to a VP-core in a non-copulative base is (syntactically pred-
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
icative) DP, AP, or PP in a copulative base. Just as with a non-copulative base, I assume the argument(s) of a non-verbal predicative head to be interpreted in their base position (as indicated in (388)). (388) a. b. c. d. e.
This is John John has been sad John was out J. has been fond of A. Dortmund is in Germany
[hP this [h is [DP John]]] [hP John [h been [AP sad]]] [hP John [h was [PP out]] [hP J. [h been [AP fond [of A.]]]] [hP Dortmund [h is [PP in Germany]]]
If what I have said so far applies to copulative clauses as well, then the copulative hP must be of type e (all bases are of this type), the respective subject must be of type e or <<e,e>,e> (TDM) and h must consequently and appropriately be of type <e,e>.355 About the copula it may suffice to say that it must be a constituent whose combination with its complement results in the h of type <e,e>.
. Conceptual and type-semantic considerations .. Referentiality, (in)definiteness, and (non-)specificity Referential expressions are of semantic type e and type e terms are referential expressions (see Partee 1987: 115). Which natural language expressions are or can be of type e, i.e. can be used to refer to an entity (‘individual’)? Following Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000: 55ff.), I assume that proper names, demonstratives, personal pronouns, definite singular and plural DPs, DPs denoting substances, actions and abstract entities can be used referentially, i.e. may be of type e. I quote Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet’s view (1990/2000: 56f.) with respect to the possibly less obvious cases: NPs can refer not just to individuals but also to pluralities or collections of individuals: [(389)] a. b.
The students in my class are American. The students in my class outnumber those in yours.
In [(389a)] the subject NP refers to a plurality of students in a distributive way. That is, the property of being American is attributed individually to each student in the relevant class. In contrast, in [(389b)] the subject NP refers to a plurality in a collective way. No individual student in the relevant class outnumbers anything; only the students as a group do. NPs can also refer to substances, actions, and abstract entities: [(390)] a. b. c.
Gold is expensive. Running is healthy. Justice should be prized.
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Whether any of these kinds of expression is actually of type e or is of the generalised quantifier types <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> in a given sentence depends on the syntactic-semantic function it fulfils in the sentence. The problem of the relation between referentiality and the other terms which appear in the heading of this subsection on the one hand and the notion of topic (expression) on the other hand is implicit in the following quotation from Reinhart (1981: 66): [I]ndefinite NPs, which are traditionally interpreted, semantically, as existentially ‘quantified’, can be used as specific or generic, in which case they behave pretty much the same as referential expressions denoting an individual or a set. [...] Although this may be controversial, I think that [...] specific indefinite NPs can, indeed, serve as topics [...].
In this quotation Reinhart implicitly associates expressions which denote an individual (entity) or a set with referentiality and contrasts these with expressions which are traditionally considered to be existentially quantified and thus nonreferential. Her point is that seemingly existentially quantified expressions, such as indefinite DPs (her ‘NPs’) of the form a X, for instance, may in fact be referential and may thus function as topic expressions. In the following I will discuss and elaborate on the points made by Reinhart here. For Reinhart (1981) being ‘quantified’ is not necessarily opposed to being referential: “Universally quantified NP’s can be interpreted (pragmatically) as denoting sets, and consequently sentences containing them can be understood as asserting something about these sets or their members” (Reinhart 1981: 65). This quotation and the one in the preceding paragraph may mean that Reinhart considers ‘quantified’ and ‘referential’ to be semantically exclusive, but pragmatically not exclusive, and that pragmatics overrides semantics. Or it may mean that she uses the notion of quantification in a sense which is first of all tied to the linguistic form of the expression ({a / some / all / every / no / etc.} X) and that, certain pragmatic conditions given, some of these expressions may be interpreted referentially. In the present work ‘referential’ is understood to be opposed to ‘quantificational’ in the type-semantic sense of being of type e versus being of the generalised quantifier types <<e,e>,e> and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>. (If I want to express the notion of quantification which is tied to the linguistic form, I will use the term ‘formally quantificational’.) I interpret Reinhart’s points made in the above quotations as saying that some of those expressions for which it has been (‘traditionally’) assumed that they can only be of the generalised quantifier types may actually also be of type e; it is a question of pragmatics whether the referential or the generalised quantifier type is made use of in an utterance. Note that this use of the term ‘referential’ as opposed to ‘quantificational’ has the following consequence in view of my discussion in Section 8.1: The pronouns in (391) below (in which the italics are taken over from the
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
original and obviously used for indicating an F-marking pitch accent) are not to be considered referential, since they are identificational focus expressions and thus of type <<e,e>,e> according to the TDM. (391) a.
“You asked me if anything unusual had happened just before Sammy got hit.” “Yes?” “Well, she happened, didn’t she? [. . .]” (Rankin 1998/1999: 177) b. “[. . .] Don’t expect him to press charges. He’ll want you on the outside.” “Then you’ll have to let me go.” “Don’t bet on it, Ned. We can press charges. We don’t need Telford.” (Rankin 1998/1999: 200) c. (Rebus talking to Colquhoun:) “You sent Candice back to them. You did that.” (Rankin 1998/1999: 224) d. It’s Tarawicz, he is the problem. (Rankin 1998/1999: 249)
That is, we have to distinguish a notion of referentiality based on indexicality (deicticality) from the one in which ‘referential’ is opposed to ‘quantificational’ and associated with a certain logico-semantic type. Expressions which are used deictically referential (most prototypically with second person pronouns as in (391c, e)) can very well be non-referential (quantificational) in the other sense. Reinhart’s (1981) references to ‘sets’ in the two quotations from above should be understood as references to pluralities (sums, collections, groups) of individuals (entities) rather than to sets in the sense of the set-theoretic translation of the function-argument structure of semantic composition. In the latter sense a set of entities constitutes the denotation of a syntactic predicate such that, for example, the predicate smokes denotes the set of all those individuals that smoke. And the denotation of a quantificational expression is also interpreted as a set in the settheoretic translation of the function-argument structure of semantic composition, namely as a set of sets (see e.g. Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 1990/2000: Ch. 9). Thus, I propose to interpret Reinhart’s statement about universally quantified expressions which can be interpreted as denoting ‘sets’ so that sentences containing them can be understood as asserting something about these ‘sets’ or their members (see above) as a statement about formally quantificational expressions which under certain pragmatic conditions can be interpreted as pluralities. And about pluralities, i.e. sums and collections of entities (individuals), Link (1983: 305) says this: “Sums and collections are similar, however, in that they both are just individuals, as concrete as the individuals which serve to define them, and of the same logical type as these.”356 That is, a plurality of entities is of logico-semantic type e just as the entities themselves are; and under certain pragmatic conditions, a formally
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quantificational expression can denote a plurality, i.e. a referential, type e expression. In these cases a formally quantificational expression is not a quantificational expression in the sense of being opposed to referential expression. Recall from N. 348 that for Partee (1987: 132) there are no e-type readings only for such DPs as are “most clearly ‘quantificational’: no man, no men, at most one man, few men, not every man, most men. Every man could get an e-type reading [...] in case there is only one man; but linguistically it never seems to act as a singular ‘referential’ term”. For Partee, then, every-DPs do not seem to belong to the class of formally universally quantified expressions which for Reinhart (1981: 65) “can be interpreted (pragmatically) as denoting sets, and consequently sentences containing them can be understood as asserting something about these sets or their members” (see above), i.e. about pluralities. If Partee’s view with respect to everyDPs is correct, then these cannot be topic expressions. This consideration caused me (Breul 2001: 31, N. 19) to be sceptical about example (392), which was mentioned by Joachim Jacobs (p.c.)357 and intended to show that everybody can be topic expression. (392) Q: Where did everybody go? A: Everybody went home In fact, (392A) seems slightly odd to me in the context of (392Q), as does its German near-equivalent in (393A). (393) Q: Wo ist jeder hingegangen? A: #Jeder ist nach Hause gegangen I would argue that the correctness of Partee’s view with respect to everybody correlates with the extent to which this intuition of mine with respect to (392A) is shared by other speakers. For those who feel (392A) to be indeed slightly odd my explanation is that it cannot be interpreted as categorical and that this is due to the fact that everybody cannot be topic expression. In this case an utterance of (392A) cannot be but thetic (with everybody being of type <<e,e>,e>), and its slight oddness is due to the fact that thetic utterances, since they are confined to discourse-initial position (see above, p. 129, 170), are less easily accommodated pragmatically than categorical utterances as replies to wh-questions. (Recall from Section 4.1 that whquestions may be said to elicit identificational utterances as answers, but that a relevant categorical reply is easily accommodated.) As we will see shortly below, however, there are other cases which suggest that every-DPs can be topic expressions after all. It seems to be undeniable that Partee’s (1987) list of “most clearly ‘quantificational”’ expressions for which no e-type reading is possible (see above) is shorter than surmised by her. Büring (1997: Ch. 4) discusses several formally quantifica-
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
tional expressions, among them most-DPs, which may function as topic expression. Consider the following of his examples (from Büring 1997: 106): (394) I was curious whether the boys would make it to the station. In fact, MOST boys WALKEDF to the station, but the others didn’t get there at all With the intonation signalled (secondary, Φ-projecting, pitch accent (typically L+H*) on most and primary, F-projecting, pitch accent (typically H*+L) on walked) and in the context given, the DP most boys is a topic expression. I would indeed hypothesise that this forces a referential, type e reading of most boys, whose denotation can be paraphrased as ‘the majority of the boys evoked by the prior discourse’. I consider ‘the majority’ to be a specific kind of plurality. Of course, this approach raises questions about the proper semantic analysis of most and boys in such a case. I must leave them open.358 Interestingly, using an every-DP instead of a most-DP in a similar context like (394) and with the same intonation, i.e. with a secondary L+H* pitch accent on every is distinctly odd: (395) I was curious whether the boys would make it to the station. #In fact, EVERY boy WALKEDF to the station, so none even had to take a taxi This suggests that every-DPs behave differently than most-DPs in this respect indeed. On the other hand, if it is conceded that most boys in (394) is a topic expression, then it can hardly be denied that every boy in examples like (396) are not. (396) I was curious whether the kids would make it to the station. In fact, every F BOY got there in TIME , but most of the girls didn’t make it Apparently, an every-DP can only be interpreted as a plurality when it is conceived of as a sub-plurality (the boys) of a larger plurality (the kids). In this case it may function as topic expression. A bare everybody/everyone does not offer this possibility of relating it to a larger plurality. But the reverse possibility of relating it to a smaller plurality seems to be given – by negation. Consider (397). (397) Every one cannotF make music (from Horn 1989: 226, quoting Walton; see also Büring 1997: 120) Recall from my discussion of a similar case in the context of Jacobs’s (e.g. 1997) notion of i-topicalisation (Section 5.2 above) that, as regards the semantic forms in such cases, I consider the negation to form a constituent with the formally quantificational expression along the lines of (398) (see also Horn 1989: 226ff.). (398) [[not everyone] [can make music]]
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Conceptualising the denotations of everyone/everybody as a plurality (more specifically: ‘the totality of the people concerned’), thus as a referential, type e expression and thus as a potential topic expression, seems to be possible if it is related to its negation. Again I must leave the implications of these observations for the proper semantic analysis of every-DPs in the respective cases unexplored here. Fodor & Sag (1982: 380), argue that an “indefinite can be used for the purpose of making an assertion about an individual, even though the individual in question is not identified by the speaker.” In other words, Fodor & Sag believe, as does Reinhart (1981), as we have seen, that indefinite DPs can be referential, a view with which I agree.359 According to Lyons (1995: 300), “[d]efinite descriptions are only one of many subclasses of noun-headed noun-phrases used as referring expressions. Another, of course is that of indefinite descriptions (in certain contexts and used with what is called specific, though not definite, reference): ‘a man’, ‘a certain girl’, etc.” This quotation brings the relation between (non-)referentiality and (non-)specificity into focus, a point which is also addressed in the block quotation from Reinhart (1981) on page 248 above. Lyons as well as Reinhart and Fodor & Sag seem to maintain that indefinite DPs can be used specifically and non-specifically and that if they are used specifically, then they are referential. Before discussing the relation of referentiality to (in)definiteness and/or (non-)specificity, let us consider the relation between the last two notions. On this Enç (1991) provides a promising approach. With respect to the distinction between definiteness and indefiniteness Enç draws on work by Kamp (1981) and Heim (1982/1988) and comes to the following, quite traditional, discourse-based distinction: The difference between definite and indefinite NPs is captured through the Familiarity Condition and the Novelty Condition. All indefinites in a sentence must be novel, in the sense that they must introduce into the domain of discourse referents that were not previously in the discourse. All definites must be familiar, in the sense that discourse referents they are mapped onto must have been previously introduced into the discourse. In other words, indefinites cannot have antecedents in the discourse, whereas definites must. (Enç 1991: 7)
While all definites are specific (Enç 1991: 9), indefinites can be either specific or non-specific. Enç’s account of the distinction between specific and non-specific indefinites is this (Enç 1991: 8): “A specific indefinite is only required to obey the Novelty Condition, which states that its discourse referents must be distinct from previously established discourse referents. In contrast, the discourse referent of a non-specific indefinite is further required to be unrelated to previously established referents.” This is equally a discourse-based account, which makes no reference to scopal relations (as other approaches to (non-)specificity do; see Enç 1991: 8) and
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
is thus independent of truth conditions. The difference can be exemplified with the following utterance sequences (cf. Enç 1991: 6ff.). (399) a. Several children entered my room. #I knew two girls. b. Several children entered my room. I knew two of the girls. Both the two DPs two girls and two of the girls are indefinite and have referents distinct from previously established ones (novelty condition). The partitive construction in (399b) signals that the speaker views the two girls as belonging to the set denoted by several children in the preceding utterance, thus establishing a subset relation between the referents of two of the girls and several children. The existence of such a relation makes the DP two of the girls specific. By contrast, no such relation is signalled by using two girls in (399a), which is non-specific. The utterance sequence as a whole is incoherent due to the non-specificity of two girls, i.e. the lack of a relation between its referent and that of previously established ones. Enç (1991) concludes that specificity and definiteness are distinct phenomena, sensitive to different, though related, discourse conditions, both having to do with the linkage of DPs to previously established referents – or, it should be added, to referents familiar from the non-linguistic context of the communicative event or from the encyclopaedic knowledge of the discourse participants. “Definiteness involves a strong link, that of identity of reference, whereas specificity involves a weak link, that of being a subset of or standing in some recoverable relation to a familiar object.” (Enç 1991: 24.)360 Can definiteness or specificity be identified with referentiality? That is, does the fact that a DP is definite/specific entail that it is referential, i.e. of semantic type e, and vice versa? The question whether a definite DP is necessarily a referential DP is one of venerable age and weight in the history of linguistic semantics. The discussion revolves around considerations such as these: What do we make of the definite DP in sentences like The present king of France is bald in view of the fact that there is no present king of France? What do we make of the definite DP in the sentence The number of planets might have been even? Does it ‘refer’ to the number ‘9’? (Sentence is false.) Or does it ‘refer’ to the number of planets the earth happens to have? (Sentence is true.) Similarly, does it make sense to say that the definite DP the president of the US refers to an individual in the utterance (made on 5 December 2001) Jim Bean wants to be the president of the US given that Jim Bean does not want to be George W. Bush, but wants to be in office as the president of the US? How can we properly be said to be referring by using the definite DP the door in utterances like You left the door open in view of the fact that there is no single door? Or consider the famous Smith’s murderer is insane (originally discussed in Donnellan 1966). If the utterance is supposed to mean ‘whoever murdered Smith is insane’, can we reasonably say that the definite DP Smith’s murderer is referential here? Questions and problems like these, which in part are very different in essence,
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have found various answers and solutions in the literature, some of which controversial (for an overview see e.g. Larson & Segal 1995: Ch. 9). It is not the place to discuss them here.361 But what I can state as following from the theory of syntactically represented focus structure as elaborated in the present work is this: There are indeed definite DPs which cannot be said to be referential in the sense of being of logico-semantic type e, namely those that are determined to be of type <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> by the TDM (i.e. definite DPs functioning as identificational focus expressions), or whose semantic type is left indeterminate between e and <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> (e.g. definite DPs occurring within thetic utterances).362 Is a referential DP necessarily definite? This is denied by authors such as Reinhart (1981), Fodor & Sag (1982) and Lyons (1995) quoted above, who point to specific indefinites and seem to associate specificity with referentiality. I certainly agree that referential DPs need not be definite and that specific indefinites are good candidates for being referential. But I would not want to maintain that specificity and referentiality are equivalent. Let us consider their relation in a little more detail. Higginbotham (1987: 65) denies that specificity entails referentiality. He argues as follows: In typical cases specific uses are said to involve a referent that the speaker ‘has in mind.’ But this condition seems much too strong. Suppose my friend George says to me, ‘I met with a certain student of mine today.’ Then I can report the encounter to a third party by saying, ‘George said that he met with a certain student of his today,’ and the ‘specificity’ effect is felt, although I am in no position to say which student George met with.
Pafel (1993: 876) writes “[s]pecific does not mean referential”, reasoning that, on the one hand, there is a scale of specificity for indefinite nominal expressions, while, on the other hand, it does not make sense to distinguish degrees of referentiality. The most convincing type of examples I know of against the view that specificity entails referentiality is provided by Kratzer (1998). Her motivation for not taking specific readings to be referential (see Kratzer 1998: 167) comes from the “intermediate scope reading” (Kratzer 1998: pass.) of such sentences as (400) Every professor rewarded every student who read some book he had recommended363 The intermediate scope reading is the one where every professor picked some book out of all the books he had recommended, and rewarded every student who read that book. Different books might have been picked by different professors. The Professor of French might have picked Madame Bovary from the list of French novels he had recommended. The Professor of Italian might have chosen I Promessi Sposi. And the
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
Professor of English might have insisted on The House of Mirth. If [(400)] is understood this way, the indefinite NP some book he had recommended cannot be referential. It does not refer to a particular book. [...] It is not that students were rewarded just because there was some recommended book they read. For every professor, there was a particular book that was singled out for a reward.
Clearly then, there are indefinite expressions used specifically, such as some book he had recommended in the situation described by Kratzer, which are not referential. Hence, it is true that specific does not entail referential. But note that this is no argument against the view that there are indefinite expressions used specifically which are referential. Does referentiality entail specificity? There is a clear intuition that this is actually the case. However, Birner & Ward (1998: 80) characterise the fronted indefinite DPs in the italicised utterances in the following attested examples as non-specific and “topicalized”. (401) a.
In principle, he is now capable of carrying out or determining the accuracy of any computation. Some computation he may not be able to carry out in his head. b. I’m expropriating ‘text’ sort of as a technical term. Some other environment I wouldn’t call a text.
Although Birner & Ward (1998) have a different conception of the difference between fronted focus and topic expressions than the one advocated here, I agree that the fronted DPs in these examples are topic expressions.364 The decisive reason is that I believe the most natural way of understanding (401a) and (401b) to suggest an intonation with the F-marking pitch-accent not in the fronted XP, but on head in the former and on wouldn’t in the latter. At least, this is a possible intonation and one with a readily accessible meaning, and it has to be accounted for. However, if these fronted DPs are topic expressions in the sense of being [–foch s ]XP -featured and having their phonological forms in spec-Foc, then they ought to be referential. Is our intuition that referentiality entails specificity proved wrong by these examples? I do not think so. I would maintain that the respective DPs some computation and some other environment are indeed specific. Assuming Enç’s (1991) approach (see above), I see a clear relation between some computation in the second utterance of (401a) and any computation in the first, namely the subset relation. In (401b), there is an implied complement-set relation between the environment which the speaker calls a text and some other environment which he would not call so.365 These remarks on the relation between (in)definiteness, (non-)specificity and referentiality may suffice for the purposes of the present work. The most important result is that there is no reason to assume that referentiality and thus potential topicality is restricted to definite expressions. Indefinite expressions may be referential,
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i.e. of logico-semantic type e, and thus topic expressions, especially – but not necessarily only – if they are used specifically.366 This is important since, in English, definiteness is a morpho-syntactically defined category (which, as we have seen, can be given a discourse-semantic analysis); and if we had come to the result that indefinites could not be used referentially, we would have had to conclude that an indefinite in spec-Foc may not be topic expression. This would have been a result incompatible with what I will argue in Section 8.3.
.. Type-semantic issues concerning non-nominal expressions in spec-Foc In Subsection 7.2.1 I showed that not only DPs but also SPs, VoicePs, PPs, APs and CPs can be fronted, i.e. moved to spec-Foc (possibly with idiolectal restrictions). I did not address the question whether these non-nominal XPs are identificational focus or topic expressions. Here I want to discuss the semantic issues that arise if we assume that these kinds of XP are moved to spec-Foc as either topic or identificational focus expressions. The central question in this context will be if or in how far the TDM, which has so far been said to apply to argumental DPs only, can also be said to operate on argumental XPs other than DPs. Note that I will not take much care in observing the syntactic distinction between argument and adjunct XPs. Implicit in this procedure is the assumption that for those constituents which can move to spec-Foc, the syntactic argument/adjunct distinction is ultimately irrelevant, or, in other words, that non-predicative constituents which are commonly analysed as adjuncts and which may move to spec-Foc are nevertheless just like arguments in the relevant respects. Let us start with SP/VoiceP-fronting. Recall from Subsection 7.2.1 that it may be SP or VoiceP which moves to spec-Foc in what is traditionally called VPfronting. The functional phrases above vP/VP are extended projections of the base. As suggested in Subsection 8.1.3, the clausal base and its functional projections up to PerfP are each of type e. PerfP combines with the T-head of type <e,t> so as to give an expression of type t. Hence, any phrase between vP and VoiceP (including these) is of type e, and it is thus natural to assume that SP or VoiceP may move to spec-Foc as topic expression. Moreover, if SP or VoiceP can only be of type e, then it should not be possible for them to move to spec-Foc as identificational focus expression. This raises two questions. First, how is a SP or VoiceP as topic expression compatible with our basic, Lambrecht 1994-orientated characterisation of this notion, which was said (above, Section 3.1, 4.1) to belong to the aboutness approach? Second, is it justifiable to claim that SP/VoiceP-fronting occurs only if the SP or VoiceP can be interpreted as a topic expression? In order to answer these questions, I repeat the two passages from Lambrecht 1994 which I used in Section 4.1 to introduce the notion of topic (expression) as viewed by Lambrecht (1994: 335).
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
The topic relation is the relation of aboutness between a proposition and a discourse entity. A proposition is interpreted as being about an entity if it is understood as conveying relevant information with respect to this entity, i.e. as increasing the hearer’s knowledge of it. For an entity to be construed as having a topic relation to a proposition it must also be taken to be presently under discussion, i.e. it must not only be identifiable for the addressee but it must have a certain degree of activeness in the discourse. [...] Fully active referents are the cognitively preferred topics.
Actually, all of the cases of fronted SP/VoiceP which I have come across are compatible with this characterisation. In addition to our conclusion that SP and VoiceP are of logico-semantic type e and thus referential from the logico-semantic perspective, we have seen that the clausal base can be interpreted as an eventuality from the conceptual-semantic point of view. An eventuality is an entity; and, whatever semantic contribution Voice, Prog, Perf may make in particular, they do not change the conceptual-semantic eventuality type of a base. Moreover, fronted SPs and VoicePs seem to occur almost exclusively in a very specific type of larger conjunctive construction in which the eventuality denoted by it is activated in the first conjunct and is thus active by the time the second is produced. Consider once again the examples of SP/VoiceP-fronting presented in Section 7.2.1 and two more of them given here (from Biber et al. 1999: 905), which illustrate the same kind of construction as all but one of those mentioned there.367 (402) a. I had said he would come down and come down he did b. But, as he said, it had to be borne, and bear it he did The eventualities in question here are those of the respective referents of he coming down / bearing the referent of it, and the proposition is about them in that it asserts that they took place. We can thus draw the following conclusions for SP/VoiceP-fronting in declarative clauses (but see N. 367): Since SP/VoiceP can be only of type e it can move to spec-Foc only as topic expression. An extension of the TDM to SP/VoiceP is neither possible (because of the restriction to type e), nor empirically called for as there do not seem to be utterances where a fronted SP/VoiceP can be interpreted as something other than a topic expression. Let us turn to the semantic issues involved in ‘AP’-fronting. Recall from Subsection 7.2.1 that we cannot be sure whether the fronted ‘AP’ is actually the AP which instantiates HP of the clausal base. In the verbless ‘small’ clause case it may also be the hP which is fronted, and in the copulative clause case it may be the hP or SP. But note that an hP or SP is of semantic type e, whereas an AP is of type <e,e>. That is, we must have hP- or SP-fronting with nothing but the AP contained in
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hP/SP if the fronted XP is topic expressions. I would claim that this is the case in examples such as in (403) (repeated from Subsection 7.2.1). (403) a. ‘M*A*S*H’ means ‘mobile’ and mobile you shall be! b. But behind this pleasant exterior is a committed feminist who has more than once shocked her genteel friends with outspoken opinions. Demure she is not. c. The villagers – who’ve been farming, fishing, raising families and pub crawling in splendid isolation for generations – offer amazingly little resistance. Humble they may be. But daft they ain’t. d. A: I can’t stand R. He’s stupid, arrogant and totally off-the-wall. B: Stupid I wouldn’t really say he is. e. A: He’s both amiable and sinister. B: Sinister, yes. But amiable I would not call him. The referential eventuality denoted by such a fronted hP/SP is that of some entity being something: a person being mobile in (403a), a person being demure in (403b), a person being amiable in (403eB) etc. The proposition in (403a) is about the respective eventuality in that it is asserted to become a fact in the future relative to the time of utterance; the proposition in (403b) is about the respective eventuality in that it is asserted not to be a fact at the time of utterance; the proposition in (403eB) is about the respective eventuality in that it is asserted to be among the eventualities the speaker would assert not to be a fact at the time of utterance etc. The degree of activeness of the respective eventualities is different in the examples of (403). While it is high in (403d, e), where the respective eventuality has been explicitly mentioned in the preceding discourse, it is less high in (403a). In the latter only the components of the eventuality are active (the referent of you, the denotation of mobile), but not their eventuality-forming relation, which has to be inferentially accommodated as being active for the eventuality ‘the referent of you being mobile’ to function as topic expression. The degree of activeness is least high in (403b, c), where only the participant in the eventuality is fully active (the respective referents of she and they). The respective second component of the eventuality (being demure, being humble, being daft) as well as the eventualityforming relation between participant and second component has to be inferentially accommodated as being active for the respective eventualities to function as topic expression – which can easily be done given the preceding discourse. An analysis of ‘AP’-fronting as topical hP/SP-fronting cannot always be applied. Consider the following examples: (404) a.
I think she was Japanese. No – Korean she was (repeated from Subsection 7.2.1) b. Right you are! (from Biber et al. 1999: 904)
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
c. Horrible they are! (ditto) d. Bloody amazing it was! (ditto) The eventuality ‘referent of she being Korean’ is certainly not active at the time of the utterance in (404a), and the same holds for the eventualities ‘referent of you being right’, ‘referent of they being horrible’ and ‘referent of it being bloody amazing’ in (404b–d) respectively in typical contexts for these utterances. In addition, the F-marking pitch accent is located within the fronted phrase in these examples, in contrast to what is the case in (403). This suggests that the eventualities just mentioned are not topical here, that we are thus not confronted with categorical utterances, but with identificational ones. I assume that these are examples of genuine AP-fronting, i.e. fronting of an AP which instantiates HP in a copulative clause. By virtue of being a one-place syntactic predicate, the respective AP is of type <e,e> in each case – there are no other options.368 Similar to SP/VoiceP-fronting, then, there is no possibility nor necessity to extend the TDM to ‘AP’-fronting. There are no types between which an extended TDM could select in these cases. This is the appropriate place to point out that the syntactic predicate HP in a copulative clause or verbless ‘small clause’ may of course also be realised by DP or PP and that such an HP instantiated by DP/PP may also be fronted. Some attested examples from Ward (1985/1988) are the following: (405) a.
Q: Are there black kids in that school now? A: Not many. I had two really good friends. Damon and Jimmy their names were. (from Ward 1985/1988: 113) b. Q: What was the name of that film with Jessica Lange who plays that crazy actress? A: Fanny? No, no. Um . . . Damn, I know I know it . . . “Frances” it was called. (from Ward 1985/1988: 114) c. Computer whiz kids – hackers they’re called – are more and more obtaining access to computer programs which are strictly off limits. (from Ward 1985/1988: 115) d. I promised my father – on Christmas Eve it was – to kill a Frenchman at the first opportunity I had (from Ward 1985/1988: 84)
The DP in such cases is not subject to the TDM, a fact which is provided for in its formulation by the reference to “syntactic argument DP”. Predicative DP or PP is of type <e,e>. Fronting of a predicative DP or PP results in an identificational utterance. Having just mentioned predicative PPs, we turn now to the discussion of typesemantic issues concerning fronted PPs which are not predicative, but argumental. That locative as well as temporal and scalar PPs may be referential has been argued by Haumann (e.g. 1992, 1993), Rauh (e.g. 1995, 1996, 1997a, 1997b) and Zwarts
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(1992). In a conceptual-semantic ontology local, temporal and scalar PPs refer to spaces – local spaces, temporal spaces or scalar spaces respectively. More exactly, they denote a space in relation to the reference object designated by the complement of the preposition (see e.g. Rauh 1997a: 142). With Zwarts (1992: 75) I assume that such spaces translate into logico-semantic ontology as entities no less readily than substances, eventualities and abstracta. With respect to the PPs in the expressions live in Utrecht and drive to Utrecht Zwarts (1992: 75) writes, “PPs seem to be referential expressions in this case, denoting locations and paths, and therefore of type e.” The referentiality of lexical PPs in Rauh’s sense (i.e. spaces-denoting locative, temporal and scalar PPs) entails that it should be possible to move them to spec-Foc as topic expression.369 This seems indeed to be the case, as the following examples show, in which the fronted PPs in B’s utterances are lexical PPs as topic expressions (the unprimed sentences (406a, b) are from Rauh 1997a: 140f.; (406c) is from Rauh 1996: 224): (406) a. John put the book on the shelf a . A: What did John put on the shelf? B: On the shelf he put a Chinese vase. b. The man stayed inside {Ø / the house} b . A: Did the women stay inside {Ø / the house}? B: No. Inside {Ø / the house} the man stayed on his own. c. He marked the paper above average c . A: Whose papers did he mark above average? B: Above average he marked Georgia and Ally’s papers. In contrast to a lexical PP the projection of a governed preposition, which shows a number of characteristics of a functional, case-marking head, does not denote a space at all (see e.g. Rauh 1997a: 151).370 But it is nevertheless possible to move such a projection to spec-Foc as topic expression. The unprimed sentences in (407) are from Rauh (1997a: 148, 150), exemplifying projections of governed prepositions. (407) a. They had been absent from school a . A: Who was absent from the maths lesson, and who was absent from the history lesson? B: From the maths lesson John was absent, and from the history lesson Peter was. b. He had no influence over his sister b A: Gretel seems to be quite obstinate. B: Yeah. Over her Hansel will never have complete influence. c. Bill relied on Mary’s experience
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
c . A: This is another case which shows that you can rely on Mary’s experience. B: On Mary’s experience you can always rely. But note that the topic expressions here are not the projections of the governed prepositions as such, but rather their DP-complements ({maths / history} lesson, her, Mary’s experience). As pointed out by Rauh with respect to governed prepositions: “The reference of the phrase is to be attributed exclusively to the complement DP of P” (my translation from Rauh 1997a: 151).371 If an argumental PP can be topic expression and thus of type e just like an argumental DP, then there should be no type-semantic problem for having PPs as identificational focus expressions with the generalised quantifier type <<e,σ>, σ> (with σ being e or <e,e>). For it is irrelevant for the possibilities of semantic combination in terms of types whether the type associated with a given argument position is realised by a DP or PP. That a PP can indeed be identificational focus expression can be shown by examples such as the following: (408) a.
Q: A: b. Q: A:
Where did the man stay? Inside {Ø / the house} he stayed Where did John put the vase? On the shelf he put it
In (408aA), stay is a two-place syntactic predicate of type <e,<e,e>> whose complement is the semantically [+foch s ]XP -featured PP inside or inside the house. The TDM extended to argumental PPs determines type <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> for the PP, which combines with the predicate so as to result in the HP of type <e,e>. The HP combines with he (typed either e or <<e,e>,e>) so as to result in the base of type e as required. In (408bA) put realises the syntactic core predicate H of a shell headed by an abstract agentive syntactic predicate h. The core predicate H is of type <e,<e,e>> which combines with its complement argument it (typed either e or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>) so as to result in H of type <e,e>. The TDM extended to argumental PPs determines type <<e,e>,e> for the semantically [+foch s ]XP -featured specifier argument PP on the shelf. The PP combines with H so as to result in the HP of type e (the eventuality of ‘it being on the shelf ’). HP combines with the twoplace shell head h of type <e,<e,e>> so as to result in h of type <e,e>. Finally, h combines with he (typed either e or <<e,e>,e>) so as to result in the base hP of type e as required. Parallel considerations as just undertaken for argumental PPs could be pursued for argumental embedded clauses which can be moved to spec-Foc as topic or identificational focus expression. The essential assumption in such a discussion would of course be that an embedded frontable clause can be of type e or its generalised quantifier counterparts of the structure <<e,σ>,σ> in analogy to DP and
Chapter 8
argumental PP. I will not lead this discussion here. An outcome of such a discussion to the effect that the assumption just mentioned can be maintained would strongly suggest that the TDM can be applied not only to argumental DPs, but to any kind of argumental XPs.372 Thus, I propose as a motivated hypothesis the generalised version of the TDM in (409), which differs from the earlier one only in that ‘argument DP’ is replaced by ‘argument XP’. (409) Type determination mechanism (TDM) – generalised to any argumental XP a. Let P be a syntactic one-place predicate (type <e,e>) and let a be a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a (categorical); [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,e>,e> for a (identificational). b. Let P be a syntactic two-place predicate (type <e,<e,e>>) and let a be a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a (categorical); [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,e>,e> for a if a is specifier argument of P, and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> if a is complement argument of P (identificational).
.. Ambiguity and vagueness In Section 8.3 the distinction between semantic ambiguity and semantic vagueness will become relevant a number of times.373 Keenan (1978: 172) explains the difference and mentions a sufficient condition for the distinction in the following passage: There are many easily-agreed-upon instances of ambiguous sentences, such as the flying planes can be dangerous ones. There are equally many clear cases of vagueness. Thus the man on the table is hurt is vague, not ambiguous, according as the man is Albanian or not. Note of course that the situations in which the man is, or is not, Albanian are quite distinct. But we feel that neither of these situations is talked about in the original sentence. We shall propose then the following sufficient condition for a sentence to be judged vague, rather than ambiguous, in certain respects: A sentence S is vague according as it describes distinct situations a and b if, on a natural occasion of its use, the speaker of the sentence does not have to know (or believe he knows, a distinction we will not continue to make) whether in fact a or b is the case. Thus we may naturally assert that the man on the table is hurt
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
without having to know whether the man is Albanian or not, so the sentence is correctly judged to be vague in this respect. On the other hand, in a normal assertion of the chickens are ready to eat the speaker is expected to know whether the chickens are ready to be eaten or rather are ready to dine. So this sentence does not satisfy our criterion of vagueness, and is more plausibly judged ambiguous. [. . .] All we are saying then is that if a speaker can remain indifferent between alternatives a and b and still meaningfully assert some sentence then the sentence is vague not ambiguous according as a or b obtains.
Thus, a speaker may make a true utterance by saying The man on the table is hurt in a number of possible worlds comprising the set of worlds in which the man on the table is Albanian and the set of worlds in which he is not Albanian. And a speaker may make a true utterance in saying The chickens are ready to eat in a number of possible worlds comprising the set of worlds in which the chickens are ready to be eaten and the set of worlds in which the chickens are ready to dine. In deciding whether the respective utterance is vague or ambiguous we probe into our – linguistic knowledge informed – intuition as to whether the speaker either ought to or need not be able to remove the indeterminacy concerning these different sets of possible worlds in which the utterance is true. This accords very well with the following brief characterisations of the distinction by Pinkal: “Vague expressions have an indefinite denotation; ambiguous expressions possess several alternative denotations. [. . .] In contrast to vague expressions, ambiguous ones need to be disambiguated or precisified” – in order for communication not to become immediately infelicitous, one may want to add (my translation from Pinkal 1991: 264). For Pinkal (1983/1985/1995, 1991) ambiguity in the narrow sense (“Ambiguität” in the German original (Pinkal 1983/1985)), i.e. ambiguity in the sense characterised by Keenan and Pinkal in the preceding quotations, is a subtype of ambiguity in the broad sense (“Mehrdeutigkeit” in the German original), which comprises ambiguity in the narrow sense and multiplicity of use.374 Actually, multiplicity of use is an ambivalent area between vagueness and ambiguity (see Pinkal 1983/1985/1995: 79). While cases of narrow sense ambiguity and pure vagueness are clearly distinct from each other, the assignment of cases of multiplicity of use to either vagueness or broad sense ambiguity is a matter of perspective: “If the precisification spectrum of an expression is perceived as discrete, we may call it ambiguous; if it is perceived as continuous, we may call it vague” (Pinkal 1983/1985/1995: 76). Lakoff ’s (1970) and so-test is designed so as to sharpen our judgement of whether a speaker can remain indifferent (as Keenan (1978) says in the above quotation) with respect to differences between states of affairs which in isolation can all be truthfully referred to by using a given sentence string. Lakoff considers clearly
Chapter 8
ambiguous sentences such as (410a) in comparison to clearly vague sentences such as (410b). (410) a. Selma likes visiting relatives b. Harry kicked Sam The ambiguity of (410a) is obvious. (410b) is vague in that Harry could have kicked Sam with his left or his right foot, for example. Lakoff observes that adding and so does/did X to (410a, b), as in (411a, b), results in a significant difference as to possible readings. (411) a. Selma likes visiting relatives and so does Sam b. Harry kicked Sam and so did Pete (411b) can be used to refer truthfully to the state of affairs where Harry kicked Sam with his left foot and Pete kicked Sam with his right foot. By contrast, (411a) cannot be used to refer truthfully to a state of affairs where Selma likes going to visit relatives and Sam hates going to visit relatives but likes relatives who are visiting. That is, it is possible to associate one of the vaguely different alternatives of interpretation with the first clause of (411b) and the other with the conjoined and so-clause, but it is not possible to associate one of the ambiguously different alternatives of interpretation with the first clause of (411a) and the other with the conjoined and so-clause. These are linguistic effects resulting from our knowledge of the lexical-syntactic structure of the sentences involved and the way they are semantically computed.
. Semantic effects of focus structure That orthographically identical sentences which differ only in the type of focus structure (i.e. ‘corresponding sentences’ in the sense defined on p. 33) may have different truth conditions was already shown at earlier places in the present work. Recall the discussion of (412a, b) from Subsection 2.2.1 and that of (412c, d) from subsections 8.1.1 and 8.1.2. (412) a. b. c. d.
English is spoken in Australia English is spoken in Australia Chris agreed Chris agreed
The subsections in the present section discuss some more examples which illustrate the relation between focus structure and truth conditions. Subsections 8.3.2–8.3.4 will be concerned with cases where there are quantificational and anaphoric ex-
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
pressions involved, which have been known for a long time to have special semantic effects. I will analyse some of them in terms of focus structure. As explained in Chapter 5, I entertain a checking theory in which purely semantic features do not move but stay in the base. As pointed out there as well, this prevents us from accounting for so-called LF-phenomena by theories both along the lines of May (1985) and Hornstein (1995, esp. Ch. 8, 9). For, different as they are, they both crucially assume overt and covert movement of purely semantic features in order to derive various scopal relations of quantificational XPs. In Subsection 8.3.2 I offer some ideas about how one might think in a different way about some of those phenomena which have so far been conceived of as involving differences in scopal relations between quantificational XPs. But we will start with some more cases of truth-conditional effects of focus structure where neither quantificational nor anaphoric expressions play a role and which are in this sense ‘plain’.
.. Some more ‘plain’ cases The following discussion is inspired by Sgall, Hajiˇcová & Panevová (1986: 72). They mention the following pair of utterances (413) a. Charles saw an explosion b. An explosion was seen by Charles and write that they “may be considered as having the same intensions;[...] however, if the morphological cast changes, their meaning differences may become of importance for their factual content. Thus, e.g., in [(413)], intensional identity vanishes, if Charles and John replaces Charles” (Sgall, Hajiˇcová & Panevová 1986: 72). What the Czech scholars are aiming at here is that a true utterance of Charles and John saw an explosion may involve an eventuality with two specific (if indefinite) explosions, while a true utterance of An explosion was seen by Charles and John can only involve a state of affairs with one specific (if indefinite) explosion. I will spell the analysis out in my terms in detail by considering the various focus structures that can be associated with the expressions in (413). (413a) can be associated with categorical or thetic focus structure. By contrast, (413b) can be associated only with categorical focus structure, the DP an explosion being (an indefinite but specific) topic expression. (413b) cannot have identificational focus structure since the subject-XP in spec-Foc does not contain the F-marking pitch accent. And it cannot have thetic focus structure since the F-marking pitch accent placed within a non-argument XP (by Charles) fails to Fproject to IP. The only case, then, in which (413a) and (413b) have non-disjunctive appropriateness conditions and where the question of truth-conditional equiva-
Chapter 8
lence thus poses itself (recall Subsection 8.1.1) is that where both have categorical focus structure, as indicated in (414). (414) a. [FocP Charles[–foc] saw an explosion] b. [FocP [An explosion][–foc] was seen by Charles] These two are indeed truth-conditionally equivalent. What changes if we substitute the plural expression Charles and John for the singular Charles in the respective sentence strings? Keeping the F-marking pitch accent final in the corresponding utterances, we get (415). (415) a. Charles and John saw an explosion b. An explosion was seen by Charles and John Again the only case where the question of truth-conditional (non-)equivalence poses itself is that of categorical focus structure for both utterances. In (415a) Charles and John can get a group reading with saw an explosion predicating something of this group collectively, or a distributive reading, with saw an explosion predicating something of Charles and John individually. The indeterminacy involved in these readings is one of vagueness, not ambiguity. It is well possible to say (416) Charles and John saw an explosion, and so did Bill and Henry associating the group reading with Charles and John and the distributive reading with Bill and Henry or vice versa. By contrast, as topic expression, an explosion has to be referential in (415b). Hence, it is not possible to truthfully refer to a state of affairs in which Charles and John saw different specific explosions by using (415b). Note that the analysis leads to different results if we modify the intonation structure. If we provide the subject of (415b) with the F-marking pitch accent so as to make it an identificational utterance, an explosion cannot be a topic expression and is thus not subject to the referentiality requirement. (417) An explosion was seen by Charles and John Consequently, the utterance is vague between readings in which Charles and John saw the same or different explosions. A discourse such as the following illustrates the possibility of using (417) to make a true utterance in a discourse world which involves two specific explosions: (418) There was a strange coincidence lately: While Charles and John were on two different continents, 5000 miles apart, an explosion was seen by them in exactly the same minute. This intonational variation plays an important role also in the discussion of the following example provided by Chomsky (1975: 97f.):
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
(419) a. Beavers build dams b. Dams are built by beavers He writes: Sentences [(419a, b)] plainly differ in range of meaning. Sentence [(419b)], in its most natural interpretation, states that it is a property of dams that they are built by beavers. Under this interpretation, the sentence is false, since some dams are not built by beavers. But there is no interpretation of sentence [(419a)], under normal intonation at least, in which it asserts that dams have the property that they are built by beavers; [(419a)] cannot be understood as referring to all dams. Sentence [(419a)] states that beavers have a certain property, namely that they are dam builders, but does not imply (under any interpretation) that their activities in dam building account for all dams; in fact, [(419a)] might be true if beavers never exhibit their species specific characteristic, say, if all beavers are in zoos.
What Chomsky considers the most normal intonation is most probably that indicated by (420): (420) a. Beavers build dams b. Dams are built by beavers375 There is much to be said about sentences like (420), especially in view of the fact that there is genericity involved with bare plurals like beavers and dams. I will concentrate on one specific aspect: (420a) can be truthfully uttered in a world W1 in which all dams are built by beavers and in a world W2 in which not all dams are built by beavers. This is not true for (420b), which can only be truthfully uttered in W1 ; and this is why (420b) is false in our actual world, which is like W2 in this respect of dam-building. I interpret this difference in truth conditions as the effect of dams being a topic expression, i.e. referential (i.e. denoting the sum of all dams) in (420b). That dams can only be interpreted as a topic expression in (420b) results from the failure of the F-marking pitch accent placed within a non-argument XP (by beavers) to F-project to IP, so that, in contrast to (420a), a thetic interpretation, in which the subject need not be referential, is not possible. (Of course, identificational focus structure for both utterances is equally ruled out.) Now recall what I have just said about the truth-conditional effect of changing the intonation structure from (415b) to (417). Such an effect seems to be what Standop (1981) has in mind with respect to (419) when he claims that “the differences in meaning which Chomsky assumes vanish” (Standop 1981: 145) under certain modifications of the intonation pattern. Consider the following pairs of utterances:
Chapter 8
(421) a. Beavers build dams b. Beavers build dams
a . Dams are built by beavers b . Dams are built by beavers
I think Standop is right in seeing that – in the words of my framework – dams in (421a ) is not referential (as dams in (420b) is), since it is identificational focus expression. And this may seem to result in truth-conditional equivalence of (421a) and (421a ). For if we read (421a) as a thetic utterance, the subject beavers is not referential, i.e. does not denote the sum of all beavers, and, as just pointed out, the same is true for the subject dams in (421a ). Note, however, that for (421a ) only an identificational focus reading is possible. A speaker may not felicitously start a discourse or reply to a question such as Have you learned anything interesting at school today? by uttering (421a ).376 Thus, manipulating the intonation of these utterances in a way so that the requirements of referentiality are removed results in different focus structures with disjunctive appropriateness conditions. This entails that there are no contexts in which both (421a) and (421a ) could be appropriately uttered so that the question of their truth-conditional equivalence does not arise in the first place. (421b) and (421b ) are equally not truth-conditionally equivalent. While, as explained above, dams in the latter is necessarily referential, it is not necessarily referential in the former. Indeed, it is obvious that dams in (421b) need not refer to the sum of all dams, as the following dialogue shows: (422) A: There are animals which build dams – rats, I think, do. B: No, beavers build dams. Certainly, B’s utterance is true also in our actual world, where not all dams are built by beavers.
.. Focus structure instead of QR Many authors who subscribe to some version of generative syntax account for the two readings of such sentences as (423a) and (423b) in terms of LF-ambiguity. (423) a. Some boy kissed every girl b. Every boy kissed some girl 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, as represented by the logical formulae in (424a, b) below (see e.g. Allwood, Andersson & Dahl 1971/1977: 68; Chierchia & McConnellGinet 1990/2000: Ch. 3, 9; Fanselow & Felix 1987/1993: 192f.; Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 541; Heim & Kratzer 1998: Ch. 7, 8; Kamp & Reyle 1993: 279f., 288f.):377 (424) a. ∀x ∃y[K(x, y)] b. ∃y ∀x[K(x, y)]
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
In this subsection an alternative account is proposed which dispenses with the idea that there are different scope relations involved in the readings of such sentences as in (423) 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 results in the different readings associated with such sentences. The approach is motivated by an observation which leads to the conclusion that (423a) is ambiguous while (423b) is vague.378 This observation is based on an application of Lakoff ’s (1970) and so-test, which was recapitulated in subsection 8.2.3. Consider a model in which there are three Roman and three Greek letters and three numbers. (425a) appropriately and truthfully describes the situation depicted by (425b). (425) a.
Every Roman letter is mapped to some number, and so is every Greek letter á 1 1 b. a b
2
â
2
c
3
ã
3
Thus, the clause Every Roman letter is mapped to some number, which is parallel to (423b) in the relevant respects, turns out to be vague rather than ambiguous.379 Vague readings are not to be distinguished by different syntactic representations. Thus, we have lost a motivation for assuming that sentences like (423b) are ambiguous between two truth-conditionally distinct interpretations due to reversed quantifier scope relations represented along the lines of the logical formulae in (424). Consequently, we have also lost a motivation for postulating QR, for it is the function of QR to attain different quantifier scope relations. In contrast to (425a), however, (426a) cannot be used to refer truthfully to (426b). So there seems to be genuine ambiguity involved in sentences such as (423a), to which Some Roman letter is mapped to every number is parallel in the crucial respects. (426) a.
Some Roman letter is mapped to every number, and so is some Greek letter á 1 1 b. a b
2
â
2
c
3
ã
3
Chapter 8
It has been argued that the and so-test cannot be applied in cases where one of the different readings entails the other, i.e. where the different readings stand in the relation of what Zwicky & Sadock (1975) call “privative opposition”.380 This is because “the existence of the more general understanding [i.e. the entailed one] guarantees that we will get all possible understandings” with the result that “we will always conclude that we are dealing with a lack of specification [i.e. vagueness]” (Zwicky & Sadock 1975: 23). Indeed, we have such an entailment relation between (424b) and (424a), as expressed by (427). (427) ∃y ∀x[K(x, y)] → ∀x ∃y[K(x, y)] And consequently, we should get vagueness as the result of an application of the and so-test applied to any sentence which has readings that can be represented by the logical formulae in (424a) and (424b) respectively. The first conjuncts of both (425a) and (426a) are such sentences of which it is claimed that they each have two readings represented by (424a) and (424b). That is, (425a) should be a true utterance about situation (425b), and (426a) should be a true utterance about situation (426b), if (424a) and (424b) were appropriate representations of their two readings. The point, however, is that while (425a) is a true utterance about situation (425b), (426a) is not a true utterance about situation (426b). Hence, (424a) and (424b) cannot be appropriate representations of the two relevant readings of such sentences as (423a, b) and (425a, b). Thus, the argument against the applicability of the and so-test to sentences whose readings to be tested stand in an entailment relation turns out to confirm the inappropriateness of logical formulae like (424a, b) as representations of the respective readings. An entailment relation between the two readings predicts vagueness as the result of the application of the and so-test; yet, we get vagueness only for (425a), but not for (426a). Note also that the claim that one reading of such sentences entails the other follows on the assumption that these readings correspond to the predicate calculus formulae of (424). However, it is my claim that the differences in reading between the respective sentences do not correspond to these formulae. Hence, there is no reason to assume a priori that in the semantics which is appropriate there holds an entailment relation between the respective readings as well.381 If we continue to think in terms of quantifier scope relations about the ambiguity involved here, then the problem is how to generate different scope relations for sentences like (423a) and block them for sentences like (423b). This may be done along the lines suggested by Hornstein (1995, 1999; see also N. 379). As an alternative which is not based on scope relations I propose an account in terms of focus structure in connection with the type determination mechanism (TDM), repeated here as (428).
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
(428) Type determination mechanism (TDM) a. Let P be a syntactic one-place predicate (type <e,e>) and let a be a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a (categorical); [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,e>,e> for a (identificational). b. Let P be a syntactic two-place predicate (type <e,<e,e>>) and let a be a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [±foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [–foch s ]XP on a determines type e for a (categorical); [+foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,e>,e> for a if a is specifier argument of P, and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> if a is complement argument of P (identificational). If we take the TDM into account, it becomes clear that (423a) is threefold ambiguous, as shown in (429) (where the semantic features [±foch s ]XP are abbreviated as [±foc]). (429) a. categorical: [vP [some boy][–foc] → e [kissed<e,<e,e>> [every girl]<<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> ]<e,e> ]e ]] b. identificational: [vP [some boy][+foc] → <<e,e>,e> [kissed<e,<e,e>> [every girl]<<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> ]<e,e> ]e ]] c. thetic: [vP [some boy]e ∼ <<e,e>,e> [kissed<e,<e,e>> [every girl]<<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> ]<e,e> ]e ]] In all three cases the object every girl is of type <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>, since type e is ruled out due to the lexical properties of every. As regards the subject some boy, it is of type e in the categorical case, of type <<e,e>,e> in the identificational case, and in the thetic case, it is indeterminate between types e and <<e,e>,e>, since its type is not determined by the TDM. The interpretation functions of the vPs of (429a–c) are given in (430a–c), where (430c) is intended to express that the interpretation of the vP in the thetic case is indeterminate between those of the vP in the categorical and identificational cases. (430) a. [[vP of (429a)]] = [λx : x ∈ De . (kissed every girl)(x)](some boy) b. [[vP of (429b)]] = [λx : x ∈ D<e,e> . (some boy)(x)](kissed every girl) c. [[vP of (429c)]] = [[vP of (429a)]] ∼ [[vP of (429b)]] I claim that the truth-conditionally different interpretations of a sentence-string like (423a) (Some boy kissed every girl), which many authors have analysed in terms of ∃∀ vs. ∀∃ quantifier scope relations, reflect the ambiguity between the categorical reading on the one hand and the identificational reading on the other hand. The intuition that there is a reading of (423a) in which the speaker has some spe-
Chapter 8
cific boy in mind of whom he predicates that he kissed every girl, without actually specifying the identity of this boy (see Kamp & Reyle 1993: 289f.), is represented as the categorical reading, where a semantic [–foch s ]XP determines the referential type e denotation for the indefinite DP whose phonological form is in spec-Foc. The intuition that there is a reading of (423a) according to which every girl was kissed by some boy or other (i.e. there being potentially, but not necessarily, more than one kissers) is represented as the identificational reading. This is provided for by some boy being of type <<e,e>,e> in these readings. With this type some boy in (423a) denotes the set of sets to which some boy or other belongs (see Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 1990/2000: 501ff.; see also Subsection 8.2.1 above), that is, it refers by no means to a single, specific boy. What is identificational about this reading is that the kisser(s) is/are identified as (a) boy(s) in contrast to other kinds of individuals (e.g. adult man, girl, adult woman). The thetic reading of (423a) is itself vague between an interpretation along the lines of the categorical and the identificational one. For Williams (1988: 143) heavy stressing of everyone in (431), which is parallel to (423a) in the relevant respects, removes its ambiguity. (431) Someone loves everyone He considers everyone to receive wide scope in this case. Interestingly, for ErteschikShir (1997: 181) “this is factually wrong”; she opts for someone to have wide scope in (431). With respect to a state of affairs in which each person is loved by someone different, for instance, those who consider everyone to have wide scope, like Williams, would regard (431) as true, whereas for those who consider someone to have wide scope, like Erteschik-Shir, it is false. In line with what I have argued above, I suspect that the solution of this puzzle is that it is not scope relations which are at issue here, but different focus structure readings. There are those, like Erteschik-Shir, who happen to associates only categorical focus structure with (431), and there are others, like Williams, who happen to associate only thetic focus structure with it, while in fact both readings are possible. (The identificational focus reading is ruled out since the F-marking pitch accent is not located on someone.) With the categorical reading the topic expression someone is referential, i.e. refers to one specific individual. With the thetic reading there is no topic expression and thus no requirement of referentiality for someone. The utterance is vague with respect to the question whether there is one specific lover or more than one. As long as there is a lover for everyone, be it one and the same individual or partly different ones or even a different one for everybody, the utterance is true. In contrast to (423a) (Some boy kissed every girl), (423b) (Every boy kissed some girl) appears to be twofold ambiguous, since the determination of type e for every boy by the semantic [–foch s ]XP-feature and thus categorical focus structure is ruled out due to the lexical properties of every. As shown in (432) below, (423b)
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
may have either thetic focus structure or identificational focus structure, where the semantic type of the subject every boy is <<e,e>,e> and the object some girl is indeterminate between types e and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>. Note that while the TDM determines type <<e,e>,e> for every boy, this determination is redundant in the sense that it is the only type available in this case (the second generalised quantifier type <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> not being eligible for a DP in specifier position). (432) a. identificational: [vP [every boy][+foc] → <<e,e>,e> [kissed<e,<e,e>> [some girl]e ∼ <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> ]<e,e> ]e ]] b. thetic: [vP [every boy]<<e,e>,e> [kissed<e,<e,e>> [some girl]e ∼ <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> ]<e,e> ]e ]] Actually, then, despite the characteristic syntactic-semantic difference between the identificational and thetic structures of corresponding sentences in terms of the presence/absence of [+foch s ]XP , (432a) and (432b) turn out to have identical, if vague, interpretations, since their vPs are identical. The vagueness is due to the type indeterminacy of some girl, which produces vagueness in the reading of the V kissed some girl (see (433)) and consequently in that of the whole clause. (433) [[kissed some girl]] = [λx : x ∈ De . kissed(x)](some girl) ∼ [λx : x ∈ D<e,<e,e>> . (some girl)(x)](kissed) I would maintain that what linguists have in mind who consider sentence strings like (423b) to be ambiguous in terms of quantifier scope relations is rather the vagueness resulting from the type indeterminateness of the indefinite quantificational DP in object position.382
.. Some more cases with quantificational expressions involved Consider (434). (434) a. Almost everybody answered at least one question b. At least one question almost everybody answered This is what Heim & Kratzer (1998: 136) say about this pair: [(434a)] can be true when no two people answered any of the same questions, whereas [(434b)] requires there to be some one question that was answered by almost all. For instance, imagine there were ten students and ten questions; student #1 answered just question #1, student #2 just question #2, and so on, except for student #10, who didn’t answer any. [(434a)] is clearly a true description of this state of affairs, but [(434b)] is false of it. (Some speakers might decide upon reflection that they actually get two distinct readings for
Chapter 8
[(434a)], one of which is equivalent to [(434b)]. But even so, the fact remains that [(434b)] cannot express the salient reading of [(434a)].)
I would like to concentrate on (434b), which should have the two readings of (435) below in the theory developed in the present work. For at least one question is an expression which should also have the quantificational reading associated with type <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> and should thus allow also for identificational structure, not just the interpretation proposed by Heim & Kratzer where there is “some one question that was answered by almost all”, i.e. the categorical reading. [FocP [At least one question][–foc] almost everybody answered] (categorical) b. [FocP [At least one question][+foc] almost everybody answered] (identificational)
(435) a.
Actually, I have doubts about Heim & Kratzer’s assessment of (434b). It is very well possible to truthfully utter (434b) in a situation in which there is not a single specific question that was answered by almost all students. Imagine a professor who, arriving at home after having marked the exam, has kept in mind that of his ten examinees eight answered only one question, one answered four questions and one answered none, without the professor remembering anything about the identity of the questions answered. He may very well utter (434b), and truthfully so, if asked How many questions did your students cope with this time? by his wife, regardless of whether or not there was a single specific question that was answered by nine of his ten examinees. Heim & Kratzer’s reading of (434b) may be the more salient one, but it does not seem to be the only possible reading. Recall the Abusch (1993–1994)/Kratzer (1998) example (400), repeated here as (436), for which Kratzer (1998) claims that there is an ‘intermediate scope’ reading. (436) Every professor rewarded every student who read some book he had recommended Kratzer’s discussion (see above, p. 254f.) raises the question whether the intermediate scope reading is one which has to be assigned a distinct representation at LF, i.e. whether there is ambiguity involved with this reading. This does not seem to be the case. The different readings of sentences like (436), including the ‘intermediate scope’ reading, do not make it ambiguous but vague. Imagine the situation described by Kratzer (above, p. 254f.) as being true with respect to every assistant professor (i.e. the Assistant Professor of French, the Assistant Professor of Italian, and the Assistant Professor of English), while their chair holding colleagues, rewarded every student who read any of the books they had recommended. There is no problem in referring to this situation by uttering (437).
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
(437) Every assistant professor rewarded every student who read some book he had recommended, and so did every full professor (437) used in the situation just described is an application of the and so-test, which is passed and which thus supports the claim that (436) is not ambiguous but vague. I have shown that it is possible to view ambiguities that have so far been explained by assuming covert LF-movement of quantificational expressions to scope positions as focus structure ambiguities. It follows from this approach that I have to assume a semantic theory that allows for flexible types. Flexible semantic types are made use of in the present work for syntactic arguments of syntactic clausal predicates. The types of these argumental XPs are flexible between the referential type e, and the quantificational types <<e,e>,e> and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>, a property which is ultimately due to a lexical type flexibility of some lexical item in the XP. The TDM determines the type actually needed in a given categorical or identificational utterance, whereas the type is left indeterminate in a thetic utterance. Heim & Kratzer (1998: especially Ch. 7, 8) argue that in most cases where quantificational expressions are involved there is principally an alternative between analyses that, on the one hand, allow for flexible types and leave quantificational expressions in situ and, on the other hand, analyses that accept only rigid types but and employ QR. But the authors also present examples whose analysis seems to favour, or even reveal as exclusively possible, only either one of the two approaches. They sum up their own position and that of other scholars whose work bears on this question as follows (Heim & Kratzer 1998: 194): It is entirely conceivable that there exist both quantifier movement and mechanisms for in situ interpretation (of nonsubject quantifiers), and that the grammars of natural languages employ one option in some constructions and the other in others. In fact, the majority of scholars who have done influential work in this domain have (explicitly or implicitly) taken such mixed positions of one sort or another.
Let us consider two examples which lead Heim & Kratzer (1998) to the conclusion that an analysis in terms of an exclusively in situ flexible type approach is after all and principally impossible.383 The first example is (438) (see Heim & Kratzer 1998: 219f.): (438) Al didn’t return every clock to its owner Their argumentation for the conclusion that there has to be LF-movement of the quantificational expression is as follows (Heim & Kratzer 1998: 220) (the figure below belongs to the quotation): [(438)] has a reading where the direct object every clock has narrower scope than the negation, but at the same time is the antecedent of the bound-variable
Chapter 8
pronoun it. What is the LF for this reading? As we saw earlier, if the pronoun is to be bound, it must be inside a [Predicate Abstract] configuration and co-indexed with a trace. So every clock cannot have stayed in situ in this LF; rather, it must have adjoined to a node which is high enough to dominate both its own trace and the pronoun. The only such nodes in [(438)] are VP, ¯I, and IP. But since the scope of every clock also is narrower than that of the negation in the intended reading, it cannot have raised as high as ¯I or IP. This leaves adjunction to VP as the only possibility. In other words, [(438)] has a reading that is expressed by the [following] LF [...], but not by any LF derivable without adjoining to VP. S DP
I I
Al did
VP not2 DP every2
1 clock
VP V
return
PP t1 to
DP it1’s owner
Indeed, we have to assume that there is a relation of binding, not of co-reference, between the pronoun and every clock as antecedent. The pronoun does not inherit the denotation of every clock; (438) with the meaning referred to in the above quotation cannot be paraphrased as ‘Al didn’t return every clock to every clock’s owner’ (see also Heim & Kratzer 1998: 200ff., 241f.). It is true, also on the present work’s syntactic and semantic assumptions the semantic form of the pronoun its cannot be bound by the semantic form of its antecedent every clock, the latter being lower in the structure than the former. (439) below gives the structure, in which irrelevant projections are omitted and phonological forms are distinguished from semantic forms for those constituents whose phonological form moves (i.e. all except to its owner). (Phonological forms dissociated from their semantic forms are represented by the use of slashes, as proposed on p. 120.) The structure is a FocP in case it is a categorical or identificational sentence and an IP if it is a thetic sentence. The position of the negation particle not instantiates one possibility of several in which “every clock has narrower scope than the negation” (see Heim & Kratzer quotation above).
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
(439) [FocP/IP /Al didn’t return every clock/ . . . [vP Al [v v [VP [to its owner] [V return [not [every clock]]]]]]] However, as we have seen above, it is not at all clear that binding must involve the semantic forms of antecedent and bindee; there are reasons to assume that a binding configuration is given if the phonological form of the antecedent c-commands the semantic form of the bindee at some stage in the derivation (see above, p. 165). This is the case in (439), where the phonological form of every clock is in spec-Od from where it c-commands and binds its bindee its within the PP to its owner in spec-VP.384 There is no type-semantic problem for (439): Return is a syntactic twoplace predicate (type <e,<e,e>>) and combines with not every clock of type <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> so as to result in a V of type <e,e>. The V combines with to its owner of type <<e,e>,e> so as to result in a VP-core of type e (an eventuality of ‘not every clock returning to its owner’).385 The VP-core combines with the abstract light verb v – another two-place predicate of type <e,<e,e>> – so as to result in a v of type <e,e>, which is ultimately combined with the subject Al, which is of type e, or of the quantifier type <<e,e>,e>, or indeterminate between these two, depending on which focus structure we are confronted with. The other example which Heim & Kratzer (1998: 197) present, suggesting that a flexible type in situ approach is ultimately not maintainable, is one which involves so-called inverse linking. Inverse linking refers to the phenomenon that the reading in which a lower quantificational expression seems to take scope over a higher quantificational expression is the only one possible or at least the strongly preferred one (see e.g. May 1977/1990: 61ff., 1985: pass.; Heim & Kratzer 1998: 197f., 221ff., 233ff.). The following are two cases in point. (440) a. One apple in every basket is rotten (from Heim & Kratzer 1998: 197) b. Somebody from every city despises it (from May 1985: 68) The inversely linked readings of (440a, b) are the salient, most natural ones: In every basket there is one apple which is rotten; every city has at least one citizen who despises the city of which s/he is a citizen. (Again, there cannot be co-reference involved between every city and it, only binding). The point of these examples is that QR of the embedded every-DP seems to account straightforwardly both for the type-semantic issues involved in the semantic composition of the sentences (see Heim & Kratzer 1998: 197f. with respect to (440a)) and for the fact that the pronoun it in (440b) can be bound by every city (which it has to in the relevant reading) given standard assumptions about binding in terms of standard c-command (see Heim & Kratzer 1998: 234f.).386 As to the question of how the problem of binding may be solved in an approach in which there is no QR at all, see Hornstein (1995: 106ff., 118ff.) for various suggestions. I would like to discuss in some de-
Chapter 8
tail the type-semantic issue addressed by Heim & Kratzer (1998: 197) with respect to (440a). Heim & Kratzer (1998: 197f.) present an attempt at a flexible type in situ analysis which fails. The crucial passage is the following: ‘in’ has the same type of meaning as a transitive verb, <e,et>.[387] So ‘every’ must have its type <et,<<e,et>,et>> meaning here. Thus we get: [[in every basket]] = λx . for every basket y, x is in y
We proceed to the next node up by Predicate Modification and get: [[apple in every basket]] = λx . x is an apple and for every basket y, x is in y
Of course, combining the denotation of apple with that of in every basket by predicate modification will result in nothing but the non-salient (perhaps impossible) reading where there is a single apple which is in every basket and which is rotten. The analysis fails since Heim & Kratzer assume a rigid type for in here (but see Heim & Kratzer 1998: 66f. and N. 391 below) while allowing a flexible type only for every. However, there is no reason to assume that there is only one possible semantic type for a preposition like in. To assume type <e,<e,e>> for in and to use predicate modification, as Heim & Kratzer do in the above passage, is only justified if in is a lexical preposition.388 However, in every basket within the DP one apple in every basket in the salient reading of (440a) does not seem to be a lexical PP. If it were one, then in every basket would denote a local space, and it would be possible to substitute the locative deictic pro-form there for it under preservation of meaning.389 This is not possible, as the infelicity of (441B) suggests. (441) A: One apple in every basket was rotten. B: Yes, you’re right. #One apple there was rotten. In contrast to Heim & Kratzer’s assumptions, the discussion of lexical PPs in Subsection 8.2.2 presupposes that there is only functional application, no predicate modification; and it implies, of course, that a lexical preposition is of type <e,e>. Yet, the problem would be the same as Heim & Kratzer’s, namely that in every basket would be of type e, denoting a local space. The solution of the problem is that the preposition in in (441A) is a grammatical preposition in Rauh’s (1995, 1996, 1997a, 1997b) sense. Its meaning in combination with a quantificational DP like every basket is rather distributive than local – the sentence can be paraphrased as One apple per basket was rotten. The syntactic bracketing of the DP one apple in every basket, reduced to the essentials for purposes of semantic composition, is this: (442) [one [apple [in [every [basket]]]]]
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
Obviously, (442) in the salient reading of (440a), where it is subject, cannot be of type e, which leaves the generalised quantifier type <<e,e>,e> for it. For the quantificational determiner one we need that one of its alternative types which yields <<e,e>,e> when combined, i.e. <<e,e>,<<e,e>,e>> (cf. Heim & Kratzer 1998: 207, N. 26).390 Consequently, the NP [apple [in [every [basket]]]] is of type <e,e>, that is, of the common noun type, just like apple. The PP in every basket, then, has to be combined with <e,e>-type apple so as to result in <e,e>-type apple in every basket. This means that the PP in every basket has to be of type <<e,e>,<e,e>>. Every basket being either of type <<e,e>,e> or of type <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>, it follows that the type of in is either <<<e,e>,e>,<<e,e>,<e,e>>> or <<<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>,<<e,e>,<e,e>>>.391 (443) summarises the preceding analysis in a tree structure. (443)
one apple in every basket / <<e,e>,e> one / <<e,e>,<<e,e>,e>>
apple in every basket / <e,e>
apple / <e,e>
in every basket / <<e,e>,<e,e>>
in / a) <<<e,e>,e>,<<e,e>,<e,e>>> b) <<<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>,<<e,e>,<e,e>>>
every basket / a) <<e,e>,e> b) <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>
In sum, a QR-less analysis of inverse linking sentences like (440a) does not pose any type-semantic problems if we take into account that in this case in is not a typical lexical preposition. This analysis undermines Heim & Kratzer’s (1998) suggestion that one can hardly do without QR in view of sentences like (440a).
.. Weak crossover effects This subsection is devoted to the discussion of another syntactic-semantic phenomenon, weak crossover (WCO), which has been claimed to motivate the assumption of covert LF-movement to a scope position. We will see again that this motivation is not convincing. Moreover, we will see that changing the type of focus structure of sentences which show WCO-effects causes them to disappear. The contrasts in (444) below (from Culicover 1997: 329) exemplify the phenomenon of WCO:392 Recall (from Subsection 7.1.3) that I use parenthesised coindices to signal co-reference and co-indices without parentheses to indicate binding. As the question of whether the relation between anaphor and antecedent is binding, co-reference or something else in the relevant examples is part of the point
Chapter 8
to be made in this subsection, I use co-indices accompanied by a question mark to indicate abstention from pre-judgement in this respect. (444) a. b. c. d.
The person that he(i) likes insulted John(i) His(i) mother likes John(i) *Whoi? did the person that hei? likes insult t i? ? *Whoi? does hisi? mother like t i? ?
Co-reference between a pronoun which precedes but does not c-command (and thus does not bind) John in (444a, b) is possible. If, however, the position of John is occupied by a wh-XP which raises and leaves behind a trace, co-indexation between the wh-XP and the pronoun that precedes but does not c-command the trace of the wh-XP seems to become markedly less acceptable (444c, d). The traditional way of accounting for this phenomenon is to propose a leftness condition, which, in a formulation used by Hornstein (1995: 22), says: “A variable cannot serve as the antecedent of a pronoun on its left.” Wh-traces are considered to be a type of variable here. May (1985: 6) points out that WCO-effects occur also with quantificational expressions which occupy the same structural position as John and the traces of raised wh-XPs in sentences like those in (444): (445) a. *The person that hei? likes insulted everyonei? b. *Hisi? mother saw everyonei? This effect motivates the assumption of general quantifier raising at LF. For if it is assumed that a quantificational expression like everyone in (445a, b) raises covertly just like the wh-XP does overtly in (444c, d), we get the same structural relations in the overt syntax of (444c, d) as in the covert syntax of (445a, b) respectively such that a unified account for the effects may be provided (see Hornstein 1995: 22f., 99ff.; Heim & Kratzer 1998: 265f.). A considerable amount of work has been devoted to trying to establish the structural conditions of WCO-effects (besides the references just mentioned see e.g. Koopman & Sportiche 1982–1983; Lasnik & Stowell 1991; Postal 1971, 1993; Safir 1996; Wasow 1972, 1979). But almost from the beginning of the study of this phenomenon it has been repeatedly observed that there seem to arise difficulties in accounting for it in strictly structural terms. Culicover (1997: 331f.) exemplifies and summarises the problems as follows: There appears to be a D-linking effect with weak crossover.[393] DPs that are more ‘determinate’ more readily act as antecedents for pronouns to their left, e.g.[394] [(446)] a.
He was the type of man with whomi hisi work would always come first.
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
b. c. d.
He was the kind of man whoi when hei loses hisi collar stud bellows the house down. How many [copies of Aspects]i does your friend who collects themi own? [Which well-known actor]i did the policeman who arrested himi accuse of being drunk.[395]
The idea here is that who, what, etc. are relatively ‘indeterminate,’ while relative pronouns with fairly specific antecedents, how many, which, and so on are relatively ‘determinate’. Why this difference should be relevant is unclear if weak crossover is a strictly LF phenomenon. However, if ‘D-linked’ whphrases are not interpreted as quantifiers, it is possible that the weak crossover phenomenon is sensitive to the quantificational status of the antecedent of the pronoun. [...] There is growing interest in the contribution of discourse to the interpretation of anaphora, and it is reasonable to expect that the contribution on [sic; of probably intended] discourse to WCO and similar configurations will become clearer as research progresses.
I discuss briefly a few aspects of WCO which are directly relevant for the theory presented in the current work. First, I point out that it has repeatedly been observed in the literature that intonation and context have an influence on the acceptability of sentences where a pronoun precedes (but does not c-command) its referential (non-variable) antecedent. Chomsky (1976: 344) notes the difference between (447a) and (447b). (447) a. *The woman he(i) loved betrayed John(i) (Chomsky’s judgement) b. The woman he(i) loved betrayed John(i) Actually, he takes this effect to support his argument that John in (447a) is a focus expression which moves to a clause-initial focus position at LF. Semantically, this would amount to saying that John is an identificational focus expression in (447a), not an informational one, as the theory developed in the present work suggests. However, Rochemont (1978/1985: 101) observes that even (447a) is possible given that the utterance is embedded in an appropriate context and associated with a specific focus structure. The following dialogue is from Culicover & Rochemont (1983: 154), where this point is made again: (448) S: Sally and the woman John loves are leaving the country today. H: I thought the woman he loves had betrayed Sally. S: No. The woman he(i) loves betrayed John(i) . Williams (1997: 589) suggests the following explanation for cases such as (449a, b).
Chapter 8
(449) a. *His(i) mother loves john(i) b. His(i) mother loves John(i) The dependence of his on John in [(449b)] is illusory; really, John itself is dependent on something preceding (here implicit), and his is dependent on it as well. If this is so, then the only difference between definite and quantified antecedents is that the illusion of dependence cannot be created in the case of quantificational NPs, since they cannot themselves be dependent.
I propose that the preceding ‘something’ which his and John are each dependent on in (449b) is a prior reference to John so that John is active (or salient) at the point where it occurs in the discourse. (Note that John is not capitalised, i.e. not pitch-accented in (449b)). Both his and John in (449b) depend on this preceding expression which refers to John. Pronouns are either co-referring expressions or bound variables, with the latter being excluded in (449) because of principle C of the binding theory. However, it is not possible to construe his in (449a) to be referring to John.396 For the use of a co-referring pronoun presupposes a referent whose mental representation is already active at the respective stage of the discourse (see e.g. Lambrecht 1994: 98, pass.). The fact that John is pitch-accented in (449a) is most naturally taken to signal that it refers to an individual whose mental discourse representation is inactive (irrespective of the question whether it carries an F- or Φ-marking pitch accent; see above, Section 6.3).397 Now, if this explanation is a valid interpretation of what Williams means in the above quotation, then my interpretation of his conclusion with respect to quantificational XPs is this: A quantificational XP in the position where John is located in (449) precludes its being co-referential with the preceding pronoun, since, being non-referential, the quantificational XP cannot co-refer with anything. This account suggests that there are in fact no structural reasons for WCO-effects where a quantificational XP is involved. That is, May’s (1985) point about (445) does not force us to conclude that there must be covert LF-raising of everyone. Nor do we have to assume that John in (447a) is an identificational focus expression (but see also Drubig 1994; Drubig & Schaffar 2001: 1089). As we know, most DPs can be used referentially or quantificationally. Thus, it is not surprising to find the following example in Hornstein (1995: 159), which the author does not provide with a ‘*’ and about which he says that the WCO-effect is attenuated: (450) Every picture of his(i) dog seemed to someone(i) to be out of focus In this example the WCO-effect is attenuated because it is possible to interpret someone referentially. Just as in Williams’s (1997) example (449b), his and someone are not dependent on each other, but are both referring to a common referent.
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
While, as just explained, this common referent can be assumed to have been mentioned in the discourse prior to an utterance of (449b), it is not mentioned previously and left implicit (by the use of the indefinite someone) in (450). Of course, this implicitness makes the utterance slightly odd. Important though Williams’s (1997) observation is, it cannot yet be the whole story. For pronouns need not be referential, but, like other DPs, have also their quantificational denotation lexically available. Actually, under certain conditions, co-indexation between a pronoun and a following quantificational expression is possible after all. Zubizarreta (1998: 11) gives the following example, in which (451B) is judged OK, if the subject has “main prominence”: (451) A: I would like to know who will accompany {each / every} boy the first day of school B: Hisi? mother will accompany [{each / every} boy]i? the first day of school Supplied with intonational “main prominence” the DP his mother is identificational focus expression in (451B) and thus non-referential, i.e. of type <<e,e>,e>. In this case his has to be interpreted as an E-type anaphor (see e.g. Heim & Kratzer 1998: 277ff.), i.e. one where the anaphoric relation is “neither variable binding nor co-reference” (Heim & Kratzer 1998: 286) and where a quantificational expression can serve as ‘antecedent’ for the anaphor in a certain sense (see Heim & Kratzer 1998: 283).398 The problem with sentences like Hisi? mother saw everyonei? (= (445b)) is to construe an appropriate reading given that a pronominal DP tends to be interpreted referentially and that a clause like this presented without context tends to be read with the F-marking pitch accent on everyone.399 This discussion implies that, in contrast to widespread assumptions, examples like (445a, b) cannot be taken as compelling evidence for covert quantifier raising at LF. Let us finally come back to the examples (444c, d) from Culicover (1997), with which I started my discussion in this subsection, and which are repeated here as (452). (452) a. *Whoi? did the person that hei? likes insult t i? ? b. *Whoi? does hisi? mother like t i? ? Their oddness vanishes almost completely as well if they are embedded in an appropriate context and provided with an appropriate intonation: (453) a.
A lot of our male friends are insulted by the person they hate. But tell me: Who(m)i? did the person hei? LIKES insult? b. OK, Jill. We’ve established that each of the boys here is his father’s darling. Now tell me: Who(m)i? does hisi? MOTHER like?
Chapter 8
These utterances are acceptable with the reading indicated by the co-indexation between the wh-XP and the pronoun. To conclude: My use of ‘i?’-indices can now be interpreted as signalling an Etype anaphoric relation. WCO seems to be a pragmatic difficulty with generating E-type anaphora interpretations of pronominal expressions which precede their antecedents. A leftness condition does not seem to exist, as the acceptable examples mentioned in this subsection show, nor, I believe, does any other structural WCOcondition.400
. Conclusion The main purposes of the present chapter have been twofold and interrelated: to show that the syntactic distinction between the three types of focus structure, identificational, categorical and thetic, has semantic effects, and to show that this distinction offers an alternative to semantic analyses which presuppose the assumption of covert LF-operations, notably QR. Given the approach to feature and constituent movement sketched in Chapter 5, according to which semantic forms remain in situ throughout the syntactic derivation, such an alternative had to be sought. The compatibility of these two aspects and the concomitant prospect for an elimination of the artificial conception of LF-operations strengthens the present theory at large. The pivot of the argumentation is the type determination mechanism (TDM) which determines the referential type e for an argumental XP in spec-Foc of categorical sentences and the quantificational types <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> respectively for an argumental XP in spec-Foc of identificational sentences, while the lack of [foc]-features and of FocP results in type indeterminacy for argumental XPs in thetic sentences. (The replacement of the traditional types <<e,t>,t> and <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>> by <<e,e>,e> and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> is due to the fact that the clausal base as well as the layer of functional projections above it up to a certain point are conceived to express an entity (an eventuality) rather than a truth value. The root clause becomes an expression of type t at the point where a functional head of type <e,t> higher up in the structure (possibly T) is combined with its complement of type e.) The motivating trigger for postulating the TDM is the widespread conviction among researchers that a topic expression (i.e. the XP in spec-Foc of a categorical sentence) is referential, which has been interpreted to mean ‘of type e’ in the present chapter. The TDM complements this idea by claiming that the XP in spec-Foc of an identificational sentence corresponding to a categorical one is non-referential in the sense that it is of one of the quantificational types – <<e,e>,e> for an argument which has been base-generated as a specifier of
Semantic issues related to the FocP-hypothesis
the verb and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> for an argument which has been base-generated as a complement of the verb. An important correlate of the TDM is the insight that a referential (type e) expression in spec-Foc of a categorical sentence is a semantic subject, whereas a quantificational (type <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>) expression in spec-Foc of an identificational sentence is a semantic predicate. Consequently, the traditional identification – or rather confusion – of syntactic and semantic subject, whose problematic nature has long been known (see Chapter 1), can only be maintained for one specific situation among several others, namely the one where a syntactic subject (the XP whose case feature is checked in spec-S) ends up in spec-Foc of a categorical sentence. Several of the sentences analysed in the present chapter have been claimed to be structurally ambiguous in the previous literature, ambiguities which have been taken to be representable only under the assumption of covert QR. Whereas some of these have been shown to be structurally ambiguous in terms of different types of focus structure rather than different covert LF-movements in the present chapter (e.g. Some boy kissed every girl), others have been argued to be vague rather than ambiguous (e.g. Every boy kissed some girl), with vagueness being a property that cannot and need not be represented by different syntactic structures. Weak crossover (WCO) phenomena have also been shown to be sensitive to the distinction between the three types of focus structure. WCO has been analysed as a pragmatic phenomenon rather than a structural one, so that its value for motivating the assumption of covert LF-movement has vanished too. * With the semantic Chapter 8 the aim of the present work – to provide an integrated theory of the intonational, syntactic and semantic aspects of the distinction between categorical, identificational and thetic sentences – has come to an end. Apart from occasional references to other languages, the discussion has been focused on English. As the semantic forms of constituents are considered in the present work to remain cross-linguistically in situ and as the principles of semantic composition can be applied to (and thus be claimed to underlie) any language, there is no need to indicate how the semantic approach would look like with respect to other languages than English – there is no difference. Of course, the empirical claims following from this approach would have to be tested with respect to semantic intuitions in other languages, and this could be done in a larger scale project. But whereas it is clear that the semantic principles, which are based on logic and mathematics, are cognitively universal to the extent that the principles of logic and mathematics are cognitively universal, and whereas there do not seem to be doubts about the cognitive universality of the latter which have to be taken seriously, there is much less agreement about the cognitive universality of syntactic
Chapter 8
principles and/or about the precise nature of syntactic principles. Therefore, given that the present work is set in a generative – and thus essentially universal – framework it is appropriate to outline how some of its central syntactic claims made with respect to English would have to be interpreted or adjusted in view of data from languages which are different from English in related aspects. To give such an outline is the purpose of the next chapter.
Chapter 9
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
The present chapter comprises two sections, the first of which about languages other than English in general, the second exclusively on German. In the first section I will start by making some across-the-board remarks about how different constituent orders can be generated on the basis of some details of the syntactic theory used in the preceding chapters. I will then turn to aspects which relate more specifically to FocP and the FocP-hypothesis and how they may manifest themselves in other languages. The discussion in this first section of the present chapter is mainly theory-driven and selective, and sketchy in terms of empirical detail. It is no more than suggestive in that it is intended to show ways in which I believe other languages may be reasonably approached in view of the central ideas and claims made so far with respect to English. Whether this belief is well-founded remains to be seen in the light of future research. The discussion of German in Section 9.2 is likewise selective. But it is more detailed in parts and more data-driven. It addresses mainly phenomena which are specific to this language, but which have, ideally, to be explainable within the framework so far developed as well.
. Other languages in general .. Constituent order variations in general So far I have assumed (454) as the structure of the base of both copulative and non-copulative clauses in English. (454)
hP h'
spec h
HP spec
H' H
comp
Chapter 9
To recapitulate some points from Subsection 2.1.2: If the respective clause is a copulative one, then the copula is base-generated (merged) in the position h. The argument of an individual level predicate (ILP) in a copulative clause is merged in the position spec-h. The argument of a stage level predicate (SLP) in a copulative clause is merged in comp-H if the predicate is unaccusative and in spec-H otherwise. The nominal, adjectival, or prepositional head of the ILP or SLP instantiates H. If the respective clause is a non-copulative one, then H is instantiated by the lexical verb, h potentially by an abstract agentive ‘light’ verb, and comp-H, spec-H and spec-h potentially by the arguments of the lexical verb. It is the thematic role that determines which of comp-H, spec-H or spec-h a given argument occupies. I assume this mapping of thematic roles to spec- and comp-positions in the base to be determined by universal principles. As languages differ with respect to which syntactic categories they express by morphological and/or phonological/intonational oppositions, we expect differences between them with respect to the functional phrases that are projected above the base. That the hierarchical order of these functional projections is universal as well is another reasonable assumption. With respect to the functional heads represented by English auxiliaries, Van Valin & LaPolla (1997: 52), who do not work in the tradition of generative grammar, write: “So the reason that English auxiliaries line up the way they do is because that is the way operators always line up in every language that has them on the same side of the verb.”401 And: “By looking at the linear order of operators in the English examples, and then comparing it with the comparable order of operators in the verb-final languages (Kewa, Japanese, Turkish), we can see that they are just mirror images of each other” (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997: 49f.; similarly e.g. Giorgi & Pianesi 1997: 14; Cinque 1999). Variations in surface constituent order between languages may be due to two factors. First, the sequential relations between the constituents may be parameterised differently so as to allow any of the structures given in (455) – for any phrase differently, in principle. (455) a. b. c. d.
[spec [head comp]] [spec [comp head]] [[head comp] spec] [[comp head] spec]
The mirror image of English auxiliary order in some verb-final language would then be the result of the respective heads being on the right of their complements rather than on the left as in English. A great amount of variation between the orders (455a–d) among the various phrases of a given language is not to be expected, however, as this would put a heavy a burden on language acquisition. It seems reasonable to assume that consistency in the choice of one of the options in (455) is the default situation and that deviations from the default parameterisation in
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
specific phrases is rather exceptional. But such exceptions do occur, as I will argue below (Section 9.2) for German. If the options in (455) are also given in principle for the base, then it may be difficult or even impossible to prove which one is actually realised in a specific language in which the phonological forms of almost all constituents leave the base as a consequence of α-feature checking. As this is the case in English as well, the hypothesis that (454) is the base structure for English is not much more than an analogy to the analysis assumed for the situation in the FANTAV-layer (where complements are analysed as being to the right and specifiers to the left of the head) in connection with the default assumption that one of the options of (455) are consistently employed for all kinds of phrases. However, it may also be the case that the constituents in the base stand in an arbitrary sequential relation to one another by any of the options given in (455) and that the default assumption maintains only for the functional domain above the base. Note that for semantic composition it does not make any difference whether the semantic forms of the specifier or complement constituents precede or follow the head as long as the complement is combined with the head first, resulting in an intermediate phrase (X ) which is then combined with the specifier constituent so as to result in a maximal phrase (XP). The second factor responsible for variations in surface constituent order is the α/β/γ-differentiation of features, i.e. the (in)capacity of a moving feature to piedpipe the associated phonological form. Consider for example the partial structure in (456), which has heads and specifiers consistently on the left and complements on the right. (456)
AgrSP AgrS' AgrS
SP S' S
OdP Od' Od
If we take this structure skeleton, five of the six constituent orders which are both logically possible and attested cross-linguistically may result from the states of af-
Chapter 9
fairs listed in (457) below, where saying ‘{S / V / O} in . . .” is short for “the phonological form of {S / V / O} in . . .”. It is important to note that the symbol ‘S’ is used ambiguously in the following. On the one hand it is used as the conventional abbreviation for subject in the traditional sense, which is also the sense that usually underlies discussion of constituent orders in terms of ‘SVO’, ‘SOV’, ‘VSO’ etc. (And ‘O’ and ‘V’ are used in the corresponding sense.) On the other hand it is used as the name of the head position in the functional case layer in whose spec-position subject case features are checked. (And ‘Od ’ is used in the corresponding sense.) Keep in mind that if the phonological form of either S, V, or O appears outside the base, this is due to an α-feature. If the phonological form of S, V, or O remains in the base, this is due to a γ-feature, which moves to its target position without pied-piping the associated phonological form. (457) SVO: a. S in spec-AgrS ; V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od b. S in spec-AgrS ; V in AgrS ; O in the base c. S in spec-AgrS ; V in S; O in spec-Od d. S in spec-AgrS ; V in S; O in the base e. S in spec-AgrS ; V in Od ; O in the base f. S in spec-S; V in S; O in spec-Od g. S in spec-S; V in S; O in the base h. S in spec-S; V in Od ; O in the base SOV: a. S in spec-AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; V in Od b. S in spec-AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; V in the base c. S in spec-S; O in spec-Od ; V in Od d. S in spec-S; O in spec-Od ; V in the base VSO: a. V in AgrS ; S in spec-S; O in spec-Od b. V in AgrS ; S in spec-S; O in the base VOS: a. V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; S in the base b. V in S; O in spec-Od ; S in the base OVS: a. O in spec-Od ; V in Od ; S in the base Under the assumption that specifiers and heads of the base are equally consistently on the left and complements on the right, some of the respective constituent orders may be manifested in addition to the possibilities mentioned in (457) if two or all three of S, V, O (their phonological form, that is) remain in the base. Thus, we will
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
also get SVO in nominative-accusative languages if S, V, and O remain in the base, and we get VSO if V moves up while S and O remain in the base. OSV could result from having O in spec-Od while S and V remain in the base. This, actually, is the line of argumentation for explaining constituent order variation pursued by those authors who maintain a universal constituent order hypothesis (see e.g. Kayne 1994; Zwart 1997). They assume the existence of only the left-headed and left-specified structure of (455a) above, without parameterisation ranging over (455a–d). The reason why I do not adopt this approach results from an observation with respect to German. It is not only nominal arguments that precede the inflected verb form in German V-end clauses but also adjectival predicates such as groß in (458) below, for which there is no reason to assume that they move up into some case position (or any other position for that matter) as nominal arguments are assumed to do. (458) dass Peter groß ist (‘that Peter is tall’) Under the assumption that the copula is base-generated in h and groß in H of the base, there is no plausible way of deriving the constituent order displayed by (458) in a theory which allows only left-headed and left-specified phrase structures. But note that under different assumptions about the base structure of copulative clauses examples like (458) may not be incompatible with Kayne’s theory. There are many more ways than listed in (457) to derive constituent order variations between languages in the traditional terms of SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS on the basis of the precedence parameters as expressed in (455a–d) in connection with the feature and checking theory used in the present work. I will exemplify some of them below. It should be noted beforehand that the classification of a language as having one of those six basic constituent order types is subject either to a number of methodological constraints (see e.g. Siewierska 1998) or to a number of uncertainties. Basic constituent order variation as investigated by Siewierska (1998) (following Steele 1978) is “measured in terms of the number and type of permissible permutations of the subject, object and finite verb relative to each other in main, positive, declarative, transitive clauses” (Siewierska 1998: 477), but with almost no systematic control of prosodic differences.402 In addition, it is not necessarily subjects and objects whose order relative to the finite verb is considered, but rather agent and theme (patient) arguments, as becomes obvious from the following observation by Siewierska (1998: 479): “Though under some definitions of subjecthood and objecthood not all languages have subjects and objects, if we interpret the subject as the more agentive argument of a transitive clause and object as the more patient-like argument, such nominal constituents are relatively easy to identify in all languages.” If, as I suggested in Subsection 2.1.2, the case feature of a theme (patient) argument has to be checked in spec-S rather than in spec-Od in absolutive-ergative systems as opposed to nominative-accusative systems, then
Chapter 9
it means something different for an absolutive-ergative language to be SOV, SOV etc. in comparison to a nominative-accusative language of the ‘same’ type. Moreover, given that the type of focus structure is not systematically controlled for being thetic, it cannot be ruled out without further assumptions that the order obtained reflects the involvement of topic and identificational focus expressions rather than S or O as such.403 In my presentation below of the ways by which the six traditional basic constituent orders may be derived in addition to the ways displayed in (457) on the basis of the structure in (456), I will ignore all these complications. Note in particular that my statements are valid only for nominative-accusative languages. And this is also the case for what follows in this section. The exercise is supposed to exemplify nothing but the principle of deriving traditional basic constituent orders on the basis of clause structures of the kind suggested in the present work. The partial clause structures will correspond to that in (456), consisting of AgrS P, a case layer (comprising SP and Od P) and the base, ignoring tense, aspect and voice projections as well as FocP. The absence of FocP means that the constituent orders which are compatible with this structure are those which we would expect in thetic utterances, for in this case there is no FocP and thus no overt movement of any constituent from within the AgrS P to spec-Foc or to the Foc-head position. Consider first the mirror image of (456), with heads and specifiers consistently to the right and complements to the left. AgrSP
(459) AgrS' SP
AgrS
S' OdP
S
Od' Od
We have the following possibilities of deriving basic constituent orders: (460) OVS: a. S in spec-AgrS ; V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od b. S in spec-AgrS ; V in AgrS ; O in the base
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
c. S in spec-AgrS ; V in S; O in spec-Od d. S in spec-AgrS ; V in S; O in the base e. S in spec-AgrS ; V in Od ; O in the base f. S in spec-S; V in S; O in spec-Od g. S in spec-S; V in S; O in the base h. S in spec-S; V in Od ; O in the base VOS: a. S in spec-AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; V in Od b. S in spec-AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; V in the base c. S in spec-S; O in spec-Od ; V in Od d. S in spec-S; O in spec-Od ; V in the base OSV: a. V in AgrS ; S in spec-S; O in spec-Od b. V in AgrS ; S in spec-S; O in the base SOV: a. V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; S in the base b. V in S; O in spec-Od ; S in the base SVO: a. O in spec-Od ; V in Od ; S in the base What I said about additional possibilities of deriving constituent orders with respect to (456) and (457) holds analogously with respect to (459) and (460). That is, under the assumption that specifiers and heads of the base are equally consistently on the right and complements on the left, some of the respective constituent orders may be manifested in addition to the possibilities mentioned in (460) if two or all three of S, V, O (their phonological form, that is) remain in the base. Thus, OVS will also be achieved if O, V, and S remain in the base, and OSV will result if V moves up while S and O remain in the base. VSO is obtained by having O in spec-Od while S and V remain in the base. Consider next a structure in which heads are consistently to the left and complements and specifiers consistently to the right.
Chapter 9
(461)
AgrSP AgrS' AgrS
SP SP'
S
OdP Od'
Od
We get: (462) VOS: a. V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS b. V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S c. V in AgrS ; O in the base; S in spec-AgrS d. V in AgrS ; O in the base; S in spec-S e. V in S; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS f. V in S; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S g. V in S; O in the base; S in spec-AgrS h. V in S; O in the base; S in spec-S i. V in Od ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS j. V in Od ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S k. V in Od ; O in the base; S in spec-AgrS l. V in Od ; O in the base; S in spec-S m. V in the base; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS n. V in the base; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S VSO: a. V in AgrS ; S in the base; O in spec-Od b. V in S; S in the base; O in spec-Od c. V in Od ; S in the base; O in spec-Od Here as well we may get some more possibilities, if two or all three of S, V, O remain in the base. Finally, consider the mirror image of (461), with heads consistently to the right and specifiers and complements on the left.
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
(463)
AgrSP AgrS' SP
AgrS S'
OdP
S Od' Od
We get: (464) SOV: a. V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS b. V in AgrS ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S c. V in AgrS ; O in the base; S in spec-AgrS d. V in AgrS ; O in the base; S in spec-S e. V in S; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS f. V in S; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S g. V in S; O in the base; S in spec-AgrS h. V in S; O in the base; S in spec-S i. V in Od ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS j. V in Od ; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S k. V in Od ; O in the base; S in spec-AgrS l. V in Od ; O in the base; S in spec-S m. V in the base; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-AgrS n. V in the base; O in spec-Od ; S in spec-S OSV: a. V in AgrS ; S in the base; O in spec-Od b. V in S; S in the base; O in spec-Od c. V in Od ; S in the base; O in spec-Od Again, we get some more possibilities if two or all three of S, V, O remain in the base. There is no correlation at all between the number of ways listed above for deriving a specific constituent order and the cross-linguistic relative percentages of
Chapter 9
basic constituent order types, which, according to Siewierska’s (1998: 489) investigation of a sample of 171 languages of the world is as follows:404 Table 2. Cross-linguistic frequencies of basic constituent order types (Siewierska 1998: 489) SOV
SVO
VSO
VOS
OVS
OSV
split
none
40%
33%
14%
3%
2%
1%
3%
4%
But this does not mean that a theory of universal grammar in which such structures as exemplified by (456), (459), (461) and (463) are provided for in principle and in which basic constituent orders may in principle result from derivations as varied as those listed should be implausible and unlikely to be true. According to Hawkins (1994: 110), [t]here are no innate and parameterized universals of directionality for case and θ-role assignment. The innate grammar quite plausibly contains general principles of linguistic structure, but it makes no reference to order. Instead, performance, in the form of EIC, motivates the orderings that become conventionalized in particular languages.
As regards the impact of his theory of early immediate constituents (EIC; see Subsection 4.2.2 above), Hawkins (1994: 328–339) argues that the quantitative ranking between basic constituent types as displayed by Table 2 (as well as figures provided by other authors, which do not differ significantly) is predicted and explained by it: The preferred versus non-preferred orderings of subject, object, and verb are motivated by the efficiency with which they provide on-line information about word groupings or constituent structure. The massively preferred orders will be SVO and SOV, in both of which the subject precedes the object. This follows ultimately from the preference for [NP VP] in both language types, and/or from the relative weight distributions of subjects and objects in these languages[405] : objects being longer in SVO (whether there is a VP or not); and subjects being longer in SOV (whether there is a VP or not). The only other productively attested type, VSO, also has relatively good scores because of the recognition of the subject immediately after the construction of VP, and/or because objects are again longer than subjects in these head-initial languages. The three most preferred word orders all have subject before object, therefore. But this left-right asymmetry follows from general principles and does not require any separate descriptive statements for subjects and objects as such [. . .]. Similarly, the preference for VOS and OVS over OSV, in all of which the object precedes the subject, does not reduce to any special principle(s) involving subjects and objects, but simply follows from the general theory, namely EIC. (Hawkins 1994: 338f.)
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
Some phenomena of free constituent order in a given language may be the result of optionality concerning the α/γ-type of feature.406 Assume, for example, that a language allows its direct object and indirect object DPs to carry the respective nominal case feature of type α or, alternatively, of type γ. Then, within the domains of the functional case layer and the base, the two possible linear orders of direct object (DO) and indirect object (IO) can be derived as exemplified in (466), which presupposes a left-headed and left-specified functional case layer as shown in (465). (465)
AgrSP AgrS' AgrS
SP S' S
O iP Oi' Oi
OdP Od' Od
(466) a. IO > DO: [Oi ]XP of type α; [Od ]XP of type α b. DO > IO: [Od ]XP of type α; [Oi ]XP of type γ What the sequence of DO and IO is if their case features are both of type γ depends on the situation in the base, i.e. on whether we assume an arbitrary sequence in the merging of head with complement and of X with specifier or, no such arbitrariness given, on the left- or right- headedness and specifiedness. The situation in the base has also effects on where the subject may be situated in the linear sequence. The possibilities for the case layer and base domains mentioned in (467) result from a left-headed and left-specified functional case layer (as in (465)) as well as a leftheaded and left-specified base structure. (467) a. S > IO > DO: [S]XP of type α; [Oi]XP of type α; [Od ]XP of type α b. S > DO > IO: [S]XP of type α; [Od ]XP of type α; [Oi ]XP of type γ c. IO > S > DO: [Oi ]XP of type α; [S]XP of type γ; [Od ]XP of type γ
Chapter 9
d. IO > DO > S: [Oi ]XP of type α; [Od ]XP of type α; [S]XP of type γ e. DO > S > IO: [Od ]XP of type α; [S]XP of type γ; [Oi ]XP of type γ The sequence DO > IO > S can be derived by assuming, for instance, a left-headed and left-specified functional case layer (as before) and a right-specified base with [Od ]XP being of type α and [Oi ]XP and [S]XP being of type γ. Of course, DPmovement to the specifier position of a functional projection higher up than the functional case layer, such as AgrS P or FocP, for example, may alter the linearisation given for the functional case layer and the base in (466) and (467). But the purpose of these examples – to illustrate the mechanism of deriving various constituent orders on the basis of α/γ-optionality of features – is not undermined by this observation.407
.. Cross-linguistic variations concerning topic and identificational focus XPs Work on the syntactic manifestation of topic and identificational focus expressions in languages other than English suggests that, in contrast to what I have argued for English, they do not target the same structural position universally. Topic and identificational focus expressions do not appear to be complementarily distributed in all languages. That is, the set of [–foc]-features and the set of [+foc]-features may be associated with distinct functional projections in the languages of the world. It is common to talk in terms of TopP and FocP in these cases, the former I would claim to be headed by a [–foch f ]X -featured head, the latter by a [+foch f ]X -featured head. Of course, we may rename these features then, calling the former [toph f ]X and the latter [foch f ]X , which I will occasionally do in the sequel. Although it is often not clear whether the focus expressions discussed in the literature are actually identificational and not informational ones (see e.g. É. Kiss 1998a: 708), work on Hungarian (see e.g. É. Kiss 1994b, 1998a; Puskas 1997) shows that at least this language may project distinct TopPs and FocPs (and other languages very probably too). TopP and FocP being potentially distinct in a language entails that there is a fourth type of focus structure in that language, a type in which there is both a topic expression and an identificational focus expression. The semantics of this mixed categorical-identificational type is characterised by the fact that both the phrase whose [toph f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Top and the phrase whose [foch f ]XP feature is checked in spec-Foc get their logico-semantic types determined. The former is assigned the referential type e, the latter one of the quantificational types <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>, depending on whether it is specifier argument or complement argument of the syntactic predicate. Consequently, the TDM has to be modified in the following way for languages with distinct TopP and FocP:
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
(468) Type determination mechanism (TDM) – for languages with distinct TopP and FocP a. Let P be a syntactic one-place predicate (type <e,e>). Let a be either a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [toph f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Top or a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [toph s ]XP on a determines type e for a (categorical); the semantic feature [foch s ]XP on a determines type <<e,e>,e> for a (identificational). b. Let P be a syntactic two-place predicate (type <e,<e,e>>). Let a1 be a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [toph f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Top and let a2 be a syntactic argument XP of P whose syntactic [foch f ]XP -feature is checked in spec-Foc. The semantic feature [toph s ]XP on a1 determines type e for a1 (categorical or categorical-identificational); the semantic feature [foch s ]XP on a2 determines type <<e,e>,e> for a2 if a2 is specifier argument of P, and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> if a2 is complement argument of P (identificational or categorical-identificational).408 If TopP or FocP is topmost, then a topic or identificational focus expression which moves overtly, i.e. whose phonological form is pied-piped by its [±foch f ]XP feature, is either the first or the last syntactically fully integrated constituent in a root clause. The former case is given if spec-Foc/Top is to the left, the latter if spec-Foc/Top is to the right. Actually, it seems that in almost all languages topic expressions appear on the left periphery (see e.g. Gundel 1988; É. Kiss 1998a; Hawkins 1994: 339ff.; Lambrecht 1994: 199ff.; Primus 1993b).409 According to Primus (1993b: 886f.) and Hawkins (1994: 339ff.), this is the result of the grammaticalisation of left-peripheral topic positions due to syntactic processing constrained by EIC. In the words of Primus (1993b: 887): “[I]t is not some characteristic property of topics such as givenness or agentivity which is responsible for their preferred position. The key factor is rather the fact that they are, on the average, shorter than predicates.” But the left-peripherality of topic expressions does not seem to be universal. According to Siewierska (1998: 482f., referring to work by Cole (1982)), in Imbabura Quechua, a language which has been characterised as SOV, topic expressions may occur postverbally.410 If it is the subject which occurs postverbally as topic expression, “it is obligatorily marked with the topic particle -ka” (Siewierska 1998: 483); postverbal objects as topic expressions may and frequently do have the topic particle, but this is said to be optional. (469) below (from Siewierska 1998: 483) illustrates a postverbal subject and a postverbal object topic expression marked by -ka. More specifically, this “topic particle” seems to be an enclitic. It may be possible to analyse it as the morphological reflex of the [–foch f ]XP -feature.
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(469) a.
Alpa-ta yapu-n nuka tayta-ka land-ACC plow:3 my father-TOP ‘My father ploughs the land.’ b. Juzi rura-rka jatun wasi-ta-ka Jose make-PST:3 big house-ACC-TOP ‘Jose made a big house.’
One attempt at interpreting these data is that FocP is right-specified in Imbabura Quechua such that topic expressions appear on the right clausal periphery. However, topic expressions need not appear there, as the following example (from Siewierska 1998: 483) shows. (470) Juzi-ka Maria-ta-mi juya-n Jose-TOP Maria-ACC-VAL love:3 ‘Jose loves Maria.’ This suggests that [–foch f ]XP is optionally of type α or of type γ. Interestingly, Siewierska (1998: 483) notes that “[a]ccording to Cole [. . .], though topic marking in Imbabura Quechua is not obligatory, typically a sentence will contain one constituent marked for topic even in SOV order.” An example where there is no “topic particle” present is (471) (from Siewierska 1998: 483). (471) Juan chagra-ta trabaja-jun Juan field-ACC work-PROG:3 ‘Juan is working in the field.’ It would be interesting to investigate whether such cases where we have SOV-order but no topic enclitic can be generally interpreted as thetic sentences. As regards identificational focus expressions, they are clause-initial in the majority of languages as well, while clause-final position for them is very rare. Nonperipheral (pre- and postverbal) position for identificational focus expressions is also attested (see Drubig & Schaffar 2001: 1079 for examples and references). Even if FocP and/or TopP is topmost in a root clause, a topic or identificational focus expression need not be on the left or right clausal periphery. The [±foch f ]XP feature may be of type γ, thus moving alone to spec-Foc/Top, not pied-piping the phonological form of the associated XP. This seems to be the case for topic expressions in Irish and Scottish Gaelic (which are VSO-languages), whose phonological forms do not move to a clause peripheral position (see É. Kiss 1998a: 700, 719), in contrast to topic expressions in other VSO-languages such as Cornish, Manx or Welsh, which do move to the left periphery (see e.g. Tallerman 1998: 31ff.). The phonological forms of identificational focus expressions, however, move to the left periphery in Irish and Scottish Gaelic as well as in other VSO-languages (see É. Kiss 1998a: 719).
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
The feature [±foch f ]X may also differ between types α, β or γ. In Subsection 2.1.2 and Section 5.1 I suggested that the functional features which project the FANTAV-layer originate in the verb(s) in languages like English and German. In general terms this means that a functional [fh f ]X -feature which is of type α piedpipes the phonological form of the verbal item of which it is a part into the respective functional head position; if it is of type β, then it pied-pipes the phonological form of only auxiliaries into the respective functional head position; if it is of type γ, then it does not pied-pipe the phonological form of any verbal item. Let us assume more specifically that [±foch f ]X originates in the finite verb. In English [±foch f ]X is obviously of type γ, for the phonological form of neither finite lexical verb nor auxiliary precedes the subject in spec-AgrS in declarative sentences in which a non-subject is overtly fronted. (472) a.
Q: Do you like this album? A: *Yeah, this song like I really. b. A: Can I get a bagel? B: No, sorry. We’re out of bagels. *A bran muffin can I give you.
The situation is different in German, where the verb-second property in root clauses can be interpreted as the effect of [±foch f ]X being of type α. Dieses Stück mag ich wirklich this song like I really ‘This song I really like’ b. Einen Kleiemuffin kann ich Ihnen bringen a bran muffin can I you bring ‘A bran muffin I can bring you’
(473) a.
The finite verb moves overtly to the Foc-head position and the topic or identificational focus expression moves overtly to spec-Foc so that topic or identificational focus expression and finite verb end up in adjacent positions. Finally in this (sub)section a remark on FocP/TopP-related morpho-syntactic differences between languages: There are numerous references in the literature to topic or focus particles (markers) in many languages.411 It may be worthwhile to investigate whether these can be interpreted as morphological manifestations of the Foc- or Top-head respectively or as a morphological reflex of the [±foch f ]XP feature. In the former case (morphological manifestation of Foc/Top) we would expect the respective particle to be an affix bound to the finite verb or a non-affixal functional head. In the latter case (morphological reflex of [±foch f ]XP ) we would expect the respective particle to be a clitic.412
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. German .. Clause structure I assume German root clauses to have a structure whose basic characteristics are displayed by the tree diagrams in (475a, b) below, which exemplify the structure with the corresponding categorical, identificational and thetic sentences of (474a, b). (474) a.
Peter schenkt Maria das Buch Peter gives Maria the book ‘Peter gives Maria the book (as a present)’ b. Peter hat Maria das Buch geschenkt Peter has Maria the book given ‘Peter has given Maria the book’
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
(475) a. categorical/identificational
b. thetic
FocP Peteri
AgrSP Peteri
Foc'
a. schenktj b. hatk
a. schenktj b. hatk
AgrSP
a. ti b. tk
AgrS' tj
VoiceP
TP
VoiceP
a. tj b. tk a. tj b. tk
a. tj b. tk
SP
Marial
a. tj Oi'
Od P
ti
a. tj b. tk
S' a. tj
OiP Oi'
Od P
a. tj
das Buchm Od' a. tj a. ti tl tm tj b. ti tl tm to
das Buchm Od'
a. ti tl tm tj b. ti tl tm to
a. tj b. tk
a. tj b. tk
SP
Marial
S' OiP
TP
PerfP
PerfP
ti
AgrS'
a. tj b. geschenkto
a. tj b. geschenkto
The base is dominated by a right-headed and left-specified functional case layer which is dominated by an equally right-headed and left-specified sequence of the functional projections VoiceP, PerfP and TP, which in turn is dominated by a leftheaded and left-specified AgrS P.413 (I ignore NegP.) A left-headed and left-specified FocP forms the topmost node in categorical and identificational sentences. The Foc-head features are of type α, that is, they pied-pipe the phonological form of any finite verb into the Foc-position. Movement into Foc is thus overt, and so is
Chapter 9
movement into spec-Foc since [±foch f ]XP (on the subject XP in (475a)) is of type α as well. Auxiliaries are generated in the head position of the lowest projection of the FANTAV-layer whose category they manifest. That is, if there is only one auxiliary, as in (474b), then this auxiliary manifests all the functional categories of the FANTAV-layer and is thus generated in VoiceP, moving up in the course of the derivation. By contrast, in an example like (476) where there is the exclusively passive auxiliary worden alongside ist, worden is generated in the Voice-head position and ist in the Perf-head position, as PerfP is the lowest functional projection of those that are manifested by ist, namely PerfP, TP and AgrS P. (476) Maria ist ein Buch geschenkt worden Maria is a book given been ‘Maria has been given a book’ The AgrS -head features are of type α so that any finite verb, lexical or auxiliary, moves overtly into the AgrS -head position. [AgrS h f ]XP may optionally be of type α or of type γ so that a subject may or may not move to spec-AgrS . If it does not move to spec-AgrS , an expletive es is often generated there, but not necessarily so in informal speech, especially not if the particle doch is present:414 (477) Q: Guten Tag Frau Schmidt. Was gucken Sie denn so verärgert? (‘Good afternoon Mrs. Schmidt. Why are you looking so annoyed?’) A: a. Die Frau Meyer sagt(e) (doch) gestern zu mir: . . . .415 the Mrs. Meyer tell/told part yesterday to me ‘Mrs. Meyer told me yesterday: . . .’ a . Es sagt(e) (doch) gestern die Frau Meyer zu mir: . . . . a . Sagt(e) ?(doch) gestern die Frau Meyer zu mir: . . . . b. Die Frau Meyer ist (doch) gestern vorbeigekommen. the Mrs. Meyer is part yesterday dropped-in ‘Mrs. Meyer dropped in yesterday.’ b . Es ist (doch) gestern die Frau Meyer vorbeigekommen. b . Ist *(doch) gestern die Frau Meyer vorbeigekommen. The utterances in (477A) are all thetic. While the finite verb has moved to AgrS in all examples, the DP whose nominal subject case feature has to be checked in SP, i.e. the syntactic clausal subject die Frau Meyer, has moved to spec-AgrS only in (477Aa, Ab). The representations in (475) above suggest that the nominal direct and indirect object case features are of type α in German, for the respective direct and indirect object DPs (i.e. their phonological forms) are shown to have moved to their respec-
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
tive spec-positions in the functional case layer. As we will see in Subsection 9.2.2, this is only one, exemplary option. The verb-end property of German CPs can be accounted for by assuming that the C-head selects a right headed AgrS P – or a right-headed FocP in the ‘exceptional’ cases where it is the embedded clause which manifests focus structure and thus shows a FocP (see Section 7.3 above).416 (479) below illustrates this conception with respect to the verb-end clauses in (478) under the assumption that they do not manifest focus structure, i.e. do not contain a FocP. (478) a.
dass Peter Maria das Buch schenkt that Peter Maria the book gives ‘that Peter gives Maria the book (as a present)’ b. dass Peter Maria das Buch geschenkt hat that Peter Maria the book given has ‘that Peter has given Maria the book’
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(479)
C C' dass
AgrSP Peteri
AgrS' a. schenktj b. hatk
TP PerfP VoiceP
a. tj b. tk
a. tj b. tk
SP ti
a. tj b. tk
S' a. tj
OiP Marial
Oi'
Od P
a. tj
das Buchm Od'
a. ti tl tm tj b. ti tl tm to
a. tj b. geschenkto
As regards having a functional phrase FocP above AgrS P into which topic or focus expressions move, my suggestion for German clause structure is similar to those of Müller (1995; see also Müller & Sternefeld 1993) and Park (1998). Although these authors discuss only examples where a (non-subject) XP moves visibly to the specpositions of their corresponding functional phrases (Müller: TP, Park: TopP) in the context of ‘topicalisation’, Müller (1995: 344) remarks that “Germanic phrase structure is strictly homogenous; it always contains a CP which embeds a TP, whether topicalization occurs or not.” However, the role of TP in sentences where there is no ‘topicalisation’ (i.e. visible non-subject fronting) is not discussed by Müller and
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
there is no attempt made to correlate the syntactic function of his TP with the notion of focus structure.417
.. Scrambling As is well known, German allows for scrambling, i.e. for constituent order variations of the kind exemplified in (480).418 (480) a.
Die Tochter hat dem Vater das Bild geschenkt the daughter has the father the painting given ‘The daughter has given the father the painting’ b. Die Tochter hat das Bild dem Vater geschenkt the daughter has the painting the father given ‘The daughter has given the father the painting’
According to Müller (1995: 100), the differences in constituent order resulting from scrambling “in most cases appear to be pragmatic in nature, and generally do not affect semantics, i.e. truth conditions.” I subscribe to this view.419 As has been clearly demonstrated by Müller (1995: 100), scrambling is different from (and thus not to be confused with) fronting (‘topicalisation’ in his terms). Scrambling may have to do with information structure at large, but does not participate in the manifestation of different types of focus structure as conceived of in the present work.420 It is dealt with here, first, in order to flesh out in a more data-orientated way the ideas about free constituent order presented in rather abstract terms in Section 9.1; second, because the discussion will lay the foundation for the analysis of specifically German fronting phenomena in the next subsection. There is a cross-linguistic tendency for languages which have a rich morphological case system to allow for scrambling. However, there are also languages without morphological case marking but with scrambling as well as languages with a rich case morphology but without scrambling.421 This situation leads Müller (1995: 109f.) to the following remark: [W]hat distinguishes German from English must be a more abstract property than just overt Case morphology. But then the distinction between overt (i.e. morphological) Case and abstract Case becomes blurred – what appears to be required for licensing scrambling is an ‘intermediate’ notion of Case, to the effect that German nouns have this type of Case [. . .], whereas English nouns never do, not even in the case of pronouns like him [. . . ].
The approach to scrambling suggested in the present subsection, which makes crucial use of the α/γ-distinction of nominal case features and thus overt movement or lack of it to spec-positions in the functional case layer, may be seen as an attempt to make this “‘intermediate’ notion of Case” more concrete. Under this approach the
Chapter 9
difference between English and German boils down to the property that the German nominal case features are optionally of type α or γ, whereas those of English are obligatorily of type α. As pointed out in Subsection 9.1.1, I suggest two approaches to free constituent order phenomena like scrambling: First, arbitrary left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base and, second, α/γ-optionality for the DP case features. It may of course also be that both these states of affairs obtain. With respect to (480) this means the following: The IO > DO order in (480a) may be due to both the indirect and the direct objects being supplied with a nominal case feature of type α so that their phonological forms are in spec-Oi and spec-Od respectively. Alternatively, only the phonological form of the indirect object is in spec-Oi , whereas the phonological form of the direct object has remained in the base because of a type γ nominal case feature. Or both the direct and the indirect objects are supplied with type γ case features and the order shown in (480a) reflects the order in the base.422 Consequently, the order between direct and indirect object in (480b) may be due to both constituents having remained in the base, now with a different one of the arbitrary base configurations than in (480a).423 Or only the direct object nominal case feature is of type α and causes the phonological form to move to spec-Od while the phonological form of the indirect object remains in the base because of a type γ case feature. Is there a way of deciding whether arbitrary left/right-headedness and specifiedness or α/γ-optionality is involved? Yes, there is indeed. If we take the subject into account as well, then it is quickly revealed that we need at least some arbitrariness in left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base and an α/γ-optionality as regards nominal case features. For if we assumed only the former, then we can derive only linearisations of S, IO and DO in which S is left- or right-peripheral, i.e. S > IO > DO, S > DO > IO, IO > DO > S or DO > IO > S. If we assumed only the latter (while the linearisation in the base is rigid), then there is always at least one linearisation of the six possible ones which cannot be derived within the domain which comprises the functional case layer and the base as assumed for German along the lines of the structures in (475) above. (481) lists those linearisations which are not derivable given a rigid order in the base, and it mentions what the situation in the base has to be in order to derive the problematic sequences: (481) a.
base rigidly S > IO > DO: DO > IO > S underivable; derivable if S is right peripheral in base b. base rigidly S > DO > IO: DO > IO > S underivable; derivable if S is right peripheral in base c. base rigidly IO > DO > S: IO > S > DO and DO > S > IO underivable; derivable if S is left peripheral in base
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
d. base rigidly DO > IO > S: IO > S > DO and DO > S > IO underivable; derivable if S is left peripheral in base The point now is that in German thetic sentences in which there is no overt XPmovement to spec-AgrS all six theoretically possible linearisations of S, IO and DO are in fact grammatical. This is shown in (482), where the base complement ein Buch of the lexical verb geschenkt needs the primary pitch accent (in accordance with the principles worked out in Ch. 6).424 (482) Q: Guten Tag Frau Schmidt. Was gucken Sie denn so nachdenklich? (‘. . . Why are you looking so thoughtful?’) A: a. (Es) hat doch unsere Tochter dem Peter ein Buch geschenkt b. (Es) hat doch unsere Tochter ein Buch dem Peter geschenkt c. (Es) hat doch dem Peter unsere Tochter ein Buch geschenkt d. (Es) hat doch dem Peter ein Buch unsere Tochter geschenkt e. (Es) hat doch ein Buch unsere Tochter dem Peter geschenkt f. (Es) hat doch ein Buch dem Peter unsere Tochter geschenkt Hence, at least so much arbitrariness with respect to left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base is necessary to be able to derive all possible linearisations of S, IO and DO. As we saw in (481), in order to achieve this we need at least that the clausal subject may be right- or left-peripheral in the base. However, instead of concluding that only the base position of the clausal subject is arbitrary with respect to its being attached to the left or to the right, I suggest to proceed on the conceptually more attractive assumption that left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base are generally arbitrary. (483) Left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base are generally arbitrary. (Note that for the semantic forms, which remain in the base, and their semantic composition it is irrelevant whether they are ‘on the left’ or ‘on the right’ of their respective partner; indeed, in terms of semantics, this distinction does not even make sense.) I will try to accommodate some data from German syntax under this assumption. While an across-the-board α/γ-optionality for nominal case features would entail unconstrained scrambling possibilities, it is well known that there are restrictions operating with respect to scrambling. Lenerz (e.g. 2001) and Büring (e.g. 2001), among others, consider scrambling to be constrained by factors such as intonational focus and (in)definiteness, which are unrelated to and independent of the α/γ-feature type distinction. For these authors direct objects that are intonational focus XPs or existential indefinites must not be scrambled over indirect objects. However, the judgements involved here are delicate. The following A-utterances,
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for instance, are all considered to be unacceptable by Lenerz (2001: 129f.), a judgement which I and other native speakers of German do not share (hence the brackets around the symbols giving Lenerz’s judgements). (484) a.
Q: Was hast du dem Studenten gegeben? (‘What did you give to the student?’) A: (*?)Ich habe das Buch dem Studenten gegeben. I have the book the student given b. Q: Wem hast du ein Buch gegeben? (‘Who did you give a book?’) A: (*)Ich habe ein Buch dem/einem Studenten gegeben. I have a book the/a student given
While (484a) is completely fine for me and other native speakers of German, (484b) is completely fine if provided with a secondary L+H* pitch accent on Buch alongside the primary H*+L accent on Studenten.425 This is in accordance with what we saw in our discussion of intonation in Section 6.3, where I pointed out that a secondary L+H* in combination with a primary H*+L pitch accent often indicates contrastiveness. Of course, it would be strange to repeat a full DP like ein Buch instead of using the pronoun es in (484bA), were it not for some motive. The indication that ein Buch is implicitly or explicitly (by mentioning the alternative expressions later on in the discourse) contrasted is such a motive – which requires an appropriate pitch accent for its expression. In order to shield an investigation of the scrambling possibilities from the influence of intonation for the expression of such factors as contrastiveness, we may choose an intonation in which the primary pitch accent is the only pitch accent and located within none of the DP constituents whose sequence is altered. Consider the examples in (485A) below, for instance, which illustrate IO/DO-scrambling. The utterances are supposed to be categorical ones with er as topic expression, the context (485Q) being intended to suggest that the referents or denotations of the respective direct and indirect objects have been mentioned in the preceding discourse and are thus active. Recall (from Sections 6.2, 6.3) that expressions which have active referents or denotations must not be pitch-accented (given that they need not be pitch-accented for some other reason such as indicating contrastiveness, which is intended not to be the case here). (485) Q: Nachdem wir das nun alles durchdiskutiert haben, was ist deine Schlussfolgerung? (‘Now that we have talked all this through, what are your conclusions?’) A: a. Er hat einem Freund eine Waffe gegeben426 he has a friend a weapon given ‘He did give a friend a weapon’
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
b. Er hat einem Freund die Waffe gegeben he has a friend the weapon given c. Er hat dem Freund die Waffe gegeben he has the friend the weapon given d. Er hat dem Freund eine Waffe gegeben e. (?)Er hat eine Waffe einem Freund gegeben f. Er hat eine Waffe dem Freund gegeben g. Er hat die Waffe dem Freund gegeben h. Er hat die Waffe einem Freund gegeben i. Er hat sie ihm gegeben he has her him given ‘He did give it him’ j. *Er hat ihm sie gegeben427 k. ?Er hat ihm es gegeben he has him it given l. Er hat es ihm gegeben It seems that there are idiosyncratic, ultimately lexical differences involved in the linearisation of direct and indirect objects, which, in addition, may not be the same for each speaker. In the variety represented by the judgements in (485) the full direct and indirect object DPs {eine / die} Waffe and {einem / dem} Freund can optionally carry a type α or type γ nominal case feature, perhaps with a preference for type α for those speakers who favour IO > DO after all.428 However, (485Ai) and (485Aj) show that the nominal case feature of the accusative pronoun sie is of type α while that of the dative pronoun ihm is of type γ, no optionality given with these lexical items. (485Ak) and (485Al) show that type α for the nominal case feature of the accusative pronoun es is favoured, but that for those speakers who (marginally) accept (485Ak) type γ is (marginally) also an option. Without assuming lexical idiosyncrasies here, the deviant behaviour of pronouns with regard to linearisation would be hard to come to terms with.429 It has been pointed out (see e.g. Grewendorf 1988: 57f.; Müller 1995: 212, pass.) that binding of a reciprocal anaphoric DO by a c-commanding IO is illicit in all varieties of German (see (486a), and that this binding configuration is equally not possible with a reflexive anaphoric direct object for many speakers of German (see (486b)). (486) a. *Man stellte [den Gästen]i einanderi vor one presented the guests each-other part b. *Der Arzt zeigte [dem Patienten]i sichi im Spiegel the doctor showed the patient himself in-the mirror
Chapter 9
According to Müller (1995), corresponding constructions in English are grammatical: (487) a.
I assigned the twins each other (as dance partners) (from Müller 1995: 218) b. I showed Mary herself (from Müller 1995: 215)
Grewendorf (2002: 57ff.) discusses Müller’s (1995) and Sabel’s (1996) attempts at a solution of this question (which are incompatible with some assumptions made in the present work) and finds them problematic. His own proposal, which takes only German into account, is crucially based on the idea that a DO anaphor (e.g. the reflexive sich in (486b)) is generated not in the clausal base, but in the head position of an AgrO -phrase, where it enters an incorporation relation with the verb (see Grewendorf 2002: 63). In this position it is not c-commanded and thus cannot be bound by an IO in spec-V. Nor can it be bound by a scrambled and c-commanding ¯ IO, for the scrambling position is an A-position and the DO anaphor needs to be A-bound (i.e. bound by a constituent in an A-position).430 This suggestion can be made compatible with my own assumptions: The spec-positions in the functional case layer, i.e. the scrambling positions in my account, have to be characterised ¯ as A-positions from which an anaphor cannot be A-bound; Grewendorf ’s AgrO head position can be identified with some head position in the functional case layer targeted by the lexical verb (e.g. Od ). What has to be added is an explanation of why, in contrast to German, binding of a DO reciprocal or reflexive by an IO antecedent is possible in English. A simple, but not implausible, answer is that in English these anaphors are merged in the base, just like non-pronominal DPs.
.. Some specifically German types of XP-fronting (and related issues) The structures in (475) and (479) above – (475) is repeated below as (488) – show the (phonological forms of the) perfective participles to have moved to the Od head position.
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
(488) a. categorical/identificational
b. thetic
FocP Peteri
AgrSP Peteri
Foc'
a. schenktj b. hatk
a. schenktj AgrSP b. hatk a. ti b. tk
AgrS'
VoiceP
TP PerfP
VoiceP
a. tj b. tk
a. tj b. tk
a. tj b. tk
SP
Marial
a. tj Oi'
a. tj
OiP Oi'
a. tj
Od P Od'
a. tj
das Buchm Od'
a. tj b. tk
S'
das Buchm
Od P
a. ti tl tm tj b. ti tl tm to
ti
a. tj b. tk
a. tj b. tk
SP
Marial
S' OiP
TP
PerfP
tj
ti
AgrS'
a. ti tl tm tj b. ti tl tm to
a. tj b. geschenkto
a. tj b. geschenkto
Actually, this is only an arbitrary choice, for various data suggest that a perfective participle may be positioned in any one of the head positions of the functional case layer, i.e. in the Od -, Oi - or S-head position, or may remain in the base. That a perfective participle does not move higher than to the S-head position follows from the fact that it always precedes the non-finite forms of the passive auxiliary werden (werden, worden) in passive sentences:
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(489) a.
b. c.
d. e.
f.
Er {ist / war} geschlagen worden he {is / was} beaten been ‘He {has / had} been beaten’ *Er {ist / war} worden geschlagen Er wird geschlagen werden he will beaten be ‘He will be beaten’ *Er wird werden geschlagen Er wird geschlagen worden sein he will beaten been be ‘He will have been beaten’ *Er wird worden geschlagen sein
Recall that VoiceP is the first functional projection of the FANTAV-layer above the functional case layer. The passive auxiliary being generated in the Voice-head position and the perfective participle being to the left of it leaves only some position within the functional case layer or in the base for the latter. Last but not least, there is no reason, i.e. no feature contained in a perfective participle which could be responsible for its movement higher than spec-S. (Recall that Perf is the head position for the perfective auxiliary.) That a perfective participle cannot be assumed to remain in the base in all cases follows from the following reasoning: If it remained always in the base, then examples like (490) would entail that subjects precede it in the base. (490) Es hat doch letztens dieses Buch ihm unsere Tochter geschenkt it has part recently this book him our daughter given ‘Our daughter recently gave him this book (as a present)’ If this were true, then subjects would necessarily be left peripheral in the base. As pointed out in (481a, b), this would not allow to derive the DO > IO > S order, which, however, is precisely what we find in (490). (And, of course, it would contradict our assumption of arbitrary left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base in the first place.) That a perfective participle must be assumed to remain in the base in some cases is immediately shown by examples of the following kind: (491) a.
Ihm geglaubt hat sie die Geschichten nie him believed has she the stories never ‘She never believed his stories’ b. Seiner Frau anvertraut hat er das Geheimnis nie his wife confided has he the secret never ‘He has never confided the secret to his wife’
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
The fronting of indirect object and perfective participle under exclusion of the direct object can only result from vP-fronting with the indirect object and the participle having remained in the vP (i.e. in the base) while the subject and the direct object have moved out of it to their respective spec-positions in the functional case layer (and possibly further on to spec-AgrS as regards the subject). Tappe’s (1989: 168) example (492) is very similar to (491) in that here as well we have a fronted indirect object plus (passive rather than perfective) participle. (492) Der Polizei übergeben wurden zwei Briefe the police handed-over were two letters ‘Two letters were handed over to the police’ The only difference is that (492) is a passive sentence with the clausal subject zwei Briefe being base-generated as complement of the lexical verb. I assume that the following of van Riemsdijk’s (1989: 127) examples can also be analysed in a way similar to (491). (493) Zur Post gebracht hat er den Brief noch nicht to-the post brought has he the letter yet not ‘He has not yet posted the letter’ The PP zur Post (which I assume to be base-generated in spec-V) and the participle have remained in the vP, er and den Brief have left it, and the vP has been fronted. What remains unaccounted for is the fact that the order of indirect object/PP and participle is restricted to that given in (491) and (493), that is, we cannot have (494a–d). (494) a. b. c. d.
*Geglaubt ihm hat sie die Geschichten nie *Anvertraut seiner Frau hat er das Geheimnis nie *Übergeben der Polizei wurden zwei Briefe *Gebracht zur Post hat er den Brief noch nicht
This is unexpected on the assumption of arbitrary left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base. I will come back to this problem later. Consider next (495) below, which can be analysed either as vP-fronting or as Od P-fronting with the subject and the indirect object having moved out of the base. Whether the participle has remained in the base or moved to the Od -head position makes no difference under the second option of analysis. (495) Blumen geschenkt hat der Chef der Sekretärin noch nie flowers given has the boss the secretary yet never ‘The boss has never before given flowers to the secretary’ Note again that the vP-fronting option should allow a reversed order of direct object and participle, but does not in fact:
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(496) *Geschenkt Blumen hat der Chef der Sekretärin noch nie As I will argue below, this does not mean that the vP-fronting analysis is unavailable, but that something else happens to a lexical verb and an argument if they remain in the base. Let us see what we can say about the case where an indirect object appears fronted alongside a direct object and a participle, as in (497). (497) a. Der Sekretärin Blumen geschenkt hat der Chef noch nie b. Blumen der Sekretärin geschenkt hat der Chef noch nie This may be vP-, Od P- or Oi P-fronting with the indirect and direct objects having remained in the base; in fact, supposing that the subject is located in spec-AgrS , we may even have SP-fronting. Or we may have Oi P-fronting with the indirect object having moved to spec-Oi while the direct object is either in spec-Od or in the base and the subject outside the base in (497a). An Oi P-fronting analysis for (497b) requires the direct object to have moved to spec-Od and the indirect object to have remained in the base. In (497b) we may also have Od P-fronting with the direct object in spec-Od and the indirect object in the base. In all these options the subject must have left the base, of course. The position of the perfective participle to the right of both direct and indirect objects within the fronted phrase is directly accounted for by its being located in the Od -, Oi - or S-head position in the Od P-, Oi P- and SP-fronting options. As in the cases discussed above, under a vPfronting analysis and given arbitrary left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base we would expect the position of the perfective participle to be variable within the fronted phrase, contrary to fact: (498) a. b. c. d.
*Der Sekretärin geschenkt Blumen hat der Chef noch nie *Blumen geschenkt der Sekretärin hat der Chef noch nie *Geschenkt der Sekretärin Blumen hat der Chef noch nie *Geschenkt Blumen der Sekretärin hat der Chef noch nie
As pointed out above, this implies that there is more to be said about what is going on in the vP if vP-fronting cannot be dismissed in general, as shown by the discussion of (491) and (493). The acceptability of a fronted vP/Od P/Oi P/SP which contains the subject (as the only argument or together with one or more other arguments) and the perfective participle varies in a manner for which I have no explanation. I just mention a couple of examples without further discussion. (499) a. *Glocken geläutet haben431 have bells rung
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
b. Die Glocken geläutet haben hier um diese Uhrzeit noch nie the bells rung have here at this time yet never ‘The bells have never before rung here at this time’ c. *Der Chef einen Angestellten angeschrien hat (noch nie)432 never the boss a employee shouted-at has yet d. *Einen Angestellten der Chef angeschrien hat (noch nie) e. Der Chef einen Angestellten angeschrien hat in dieser the boss a employee shouted-at has in this Firma noch nie company yet never ‘The boss has never before shouted at an employee in this company’ f. Der Chef einer Sekretärin Blumen geschenkt hat in dieser Firma noch nie g. *Der Chef der Sekretärin Blumen geschenkt hat (noch nie) h. *Der Sekretärin der Chef Blumen geschenkt hat (noch nie) i. *Blumen der Chef der Sekretärin geschenkt hat (noch nie) j. *Blumen der Sekretärin der Chef geschenkt hat (noch nie) k. Jemand jemanden angeschrien hat hier noch nie someone someone shouted-at has here yet never ‘Nobody has ever shouted at anybody here’ l. Jemand jemandem etwas geklaut hat hier noch nie someone someone something stolen has here yet never ‘Nobody has ever stolen anything from anybody here’ (500a, b) suggest that there is also VoiceP-fronting, for the passive auxiliary worden, which is generated in the Voice-head position, is contained in the phrase which has moved to spec-Foc. [VoiceP Einem Angestellten eine Gratifikation gewährt worden]i been a employee a gratification given ist in dieser Firma noch nie t i is in this company yet never ‘No employee has ever been given a gratification in this company’ b. [VoiceP Eine Gratifikation einem Angestellten gewährt worden]i ist in dieser Firma noch nie t i
(500) a.
Consider next the following examples from Haider (1990: 97):
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(501) a.
Ein Fehler unterlaufen ist auch schon mal diesem a mistake occured is even yet occasionally this Professor professor ‘Even this professor has occasionally made a mistake’ b. Ein Fehler unterlaufen ist ihm auch schon mal c. Ein Tiger entwichen ist doch erst kürzlich diesem a tiger escaped-from is part just recently this Wanderzirkus traveling circus ‘A tiger has just recently escaped from this traveling circus’ d. Ein Tiger entwichen ist ihm doch erst kürzlich e. Ein Job angeboten wurde damals sofort jedem Tagträumer a job offered was then instantly every day dreamer ‘Every day dreamer was instantly offered a job in those days’ f. Ein Job angeboten wurde ihm damals sofort
The perfective participles in (501a–d) are unaccusatives (‘ergatives’ in Haider’s (1990) terminology), while the participle in (501e, f) is a passive one. Both kinds of verbs take the clausal subject as base complement. The specific characteristic of unaccusative and passive verbs is that they fail to project Od P so that the base complement (ein Fehler, ein Tiger, ein Job respectively) has to check its case feature in spec-S. But it could not have moved overtly to spec-S in (501), for otherwise it could appear in clause initial position only by SP-fronting. This, however, is ruled out because of the fact that the indirect object does not accompany the subject to the front, as it should do with SP-fronting. Od P-fronting is ruled out as well, since there is no Od P. And the participle cannot be positioned in Od for the same reason. Thus, we are forced to assume that both the (phonological forms of) the participles and their base complements have remained in the base. Now, the examples in (501) can be derived by base-fronting, i.e. vP-fronting, with the indirect object having moved to spec-Oi . As has been mentioned a couple of times above in connection with other examples of vP-fronting, this account of (501) does not explain why a reversed order of participle and its complement is not possible (see (502)), as it should be on our assumption that left/right-headedness and specifiedness are arbitrary in the base. (502) a. *Unterlaufen ein Fehler ist auch schon mal diesem Professor b. *Entwichen ein Tiger ist doch erst kürzlich diesem Wanderzirkus c. *Angeboten ein Job wurde damals sofort jedem Tagträumer It is clear that (501) must instantiate vP-fronting with the indirect object having moved to spec-Oi . But under the assumptions made here an additional reason has
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
to be found for the obligatory complement > participle order in these cases. An explanation will emerge in the sequel. So-called split topicalisation, as exemplified in (503) has been considered problematic for a movement account of fronting.433 (503) a.
Autos mag er nur amerikanische cars likes he only American ‘Cars, he only likes American ones’ (from Tappe 1989: 159) b. Briefe geschrieben hat sie mir bis jetzt nur drei traurige letters written has she me until now only three sad ‘Letters, she’s only written me three sad ones yet’ (from Haider 1990: 94)
One problem with (503a, b) is that it is not clear what the structure of the DP amerikanische Autos and drei traurige Briefe respectively has to be in order to allow extraction of Autos and Briefe. My suggestion for an approach to a solution of the extraction problem is based on the following observation: (504) a. *Buch geschrieben hat er bis jetzt nur ein book written has he until now only a b. Bücher geschrieben hat er bis jetzt nur eins books written has he until now only one ‘Books, he’s written only one yet’ c. *Haus gebaut haben sie hier noch kein house built have they here yet no d. Häuser gebaut haben sie hier noch keins houses built have they here yet none ‘Houses, they haven’t built one here yet’ There are three things to be noted about these examples (see also van Riemsdijk 1989): First, precisely those examples are acceptable in which the source expression from which the fronted XP has been extracted is ungrammatical: *eins Bücher, *keins Häuser.434 Second, and conversely, precisely those examples are unacceptable in which the source expression is grammatical: ein Buch, kein Haus. Third, the stranded expression can be interpreted as a complete and fully grammatical DP in the grammatical cases – [DP eins], [DP keins] – but not in the ungrammatical cases – *[DP ein], *[DP kein]. That is, eins and keins are pronouns which form a DP on their own, as opposed to the determiners ein and kein.435 The structures of the extraction source in (504a, c) are as given in (505), that is, they are DPs headed by the determiners ein and kein respectively. (505) a. [DP [D ein [NP Haus]]] b. [DP [D kein [NP Haus]]]
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The ungrammaticality of (504a, c) is due to the fact that it is not possible to extract the NP out of the DP. A determiner not being a proper governor, extraction leads to an ECP violation. The structure of the source expression from which Bücher and Häuser have been extracted in the grammatical cases (504b, d), i.e. *eins Bücher, *keins Häuser is similar, but not identical to (505). (506) a. *[DP [D eins [DP Bücher]]] b. *[DP [D keins [DP Häuser]]] One difference to (505) is that Bücher and Häuser can be interpreted to be DPs rather than NPs.436 The other difference between (505) and (506) is that eins and keins are pronouns which principally allow for extractable complements: Er hat nur [DP eins [PP von den Büchern]] gelesen one of the books read he has only ‘He has only read one of the books’ a . [Von den Büchern]i hat er nur eins t i gelesen b. Sie hat noch [DP keins [PP von den Häusern]] verkauft none of the houses sold she has yet ‘She has not yet sold any of the houses’ b’. [Von den Häusern]i hat sie noch keins t i verkauft
(507) a.
That is, the pronouns eins and keins are proper governors so that extraction of their complements does not result in an ECP violation.437 Of course, the structures in (506) as such are ungrammatical. The reason for the ungrammaticality is that a bare DP does not carry partitive (genitive) case features, i.e. the case features which could be checked in a DP headed by eins or keins:438 (508) a. Er hat nur eins der Bücher gelesen b. Sie hat keins der Häuser verkauft. My point now is that the structures in (506) can be merged in the base but the derivation can only survive if the case mismatch caused by the embedded complement DP can somehow be circumvented. In other words, the structures in (506) are fine as concerns their DP internal thematic structure, but have to be prevented from causing a case problem. My proposal is that this case problem can be solved by extraction and incorporation of the embedded DP into the lexical verb, i.e. the participle in (504b, d). (I will explain this in more detail shortly below.) Recall that extraction as such is not the problem any more given that the head of the source DP, eins and keins in (506), is a proper governor which has a partitive relation with its respective complement DP. Similar to eins and keins in the examples above, I propose to analyse amerikanische and traurige in (503a, b) as nouns which are merged with the DPs
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
Autos and Briefe respectively as complement. The extraction sources of (503a, b), then, are these: (509) a. *[DP [amerikanischeN [DP Autos]]] b. *[DP drei [traurigeN [DP Briefe]]] Similar to (506), structures like (509a, b) are thematically well-formed. They mean something like ‘American things of the car-kind’ and ‘three sad things of the letterkind’, which express an intersective relation between the denotation of the head noun and that of its DP complement. But these structures are syntactically illformed as such because the DP-complements of the noun heads amerikanische and traurige cannot get their case features checked within the larger DP. Again, this case problem can be solved by extraction and incorporation of the embedded DP into the lexical verb. The possibility of construing a partitive or intersective relation between the nominal constituents in the source DP of split topicalisation structures depends on the type of the complement DP and seems to vary among speakers.439 According to van Riemsdijk (1989: 124f.), there are speakers who accept only (510a), others (including myself) who accept only (510a, b) and still others who accept (510a–c). (510) a.
Bücher hat er keine mehr books has he none more ‘Books, he no longer has any’ b. Ein Buch hat er noch keins a book has he yet none ‘A book he doesn’t have yet’ c. Buch hat er noch keins (ditto)
I assume that the extracted DP must be plural for the first group of speakers, plural or generic for the second and third, while the third group, but not the second, has the option to express genericity by a bare singular DP. That sentences like (503) (repeated here as (511)) involve incorporation has been suggested by Rosengren (1993: 277). (511) a. Autos mag er nur amerikanische b. Briefe geschrieben hat sie mir bis jetzt nur drei traurige Rosengren writes: The nominal constituent in the initial field and the verb form a predicative unit. I want to assume now that this is possible due to the fact that the nominal XP already forms a unit with the verb in the middle field, similar in kind to how Rad [‘bike’] + fahren [‘ride’] form a unit in radfahren [lit. ‘bike-ride’].
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Only it is not a unit formed in the lexicon [. . .], but a syntactic “incorporation” of the nominal head [. . .]. (My translation from Rosengren 1993: 277)
The problem with this idea is that incorporation is commonly thought to be restricted to the incorporation of a X0 -category by another X0 -category (see Baker 1988). Thus it does not appear to account for examples like the following, where the fronted expression comprises a DP plus the lexical verb in the form of the perfective participle:440 (512) a.
Ein Buch von ihm erschienen ist noch a book by him published is yet ‘A book by him hasn’t been published yet’ b. Ein Buch darüber geschrieben wurde a book about-this written was ‘A book about that hasn’t been written yet’
keins none noch keins yet none
The following adaptation and elaboration of the incorporation idea emerges from the hypothesis that syntactic ‘noun incorporation’ may actually be bare DP- rather than N0 -incorporation. Suppose base incorporation of the embedded complement DPs of (511) to be left-adjunction to the lexical verb, as illustrated in (513), where left/rightheadedness is only exemplary, but actually arbitrary. (513) a. [V geschrieben [DP nur [DP drei [traurige [DP Briefe]]]] b. [V mag [DP nur [DP amerikanische [DP Autos]]]] V' geschrieben nur drei traurige Briefe mag nur amerikanische Autos
V'
Briefei geschrieben nur drei traurige ti nur amerikanische ti Autosi mag
The configuration underlying this incorporation process is the same as that of noun incorporation as described by Baker (1988). But, as the term implies, the cases of ‘noun incorporation’ discussed by him are analysed as incorporation of an N0 -category by V0 . By contrast, what is incorporated in the presently relevant constructions are DPs. And this is necessary, for, as already pointed out, the ap-
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
proach is ultimately to cover also those cases where not only a bare noun, but a ‘full-fledged’ DP takes part in split topicalisation, as in the following examples of van Riemsdijk’s (1989: 107): (514) a.
Eine bessere Lösung als ich hat er auch keine a better solution than me has he also none ‘A better solution than me he doesn’t have either’ b. Ein definitiver Beweis ist bis jetzt erst einer der dritten a definite proof is until now yet one of-the third Konjektur gefunden worden conjecture found been ‘A definite proof has only been found of the third conjecture yet’
But note that under Chomsky’s (1995a, 1995b: 241ff.) theory of bare phrase structures as sketched in Subsection 2.1.1 a lexical head which needs neither be complemented nor specified is a minimal projection (informally notated X0 ) which, if it is actually neither complemented nor specified, is a maximal projection (informally notated XP) at the same time. Thus, it may be assumed that what moves and incorporates in Baker’s (1988) examples is not actually a noun in its morphological sense, but a ‘minimal/maximal (X0 /XP) projection’. Moreover, Baker (1988: 92ff.) discusses several examples from various languages in which a ‘determiner’ or a ‘possessor’ is left stranded after extraction and incorporation of the ‘noun’ with which the ‘determiner’ or ‘possessor’ is in construction. In order to prevent an ECP violation due to the extraction of the ‘nouns’ to be incorporated, it must be assumed that their respective ‘determiners’ or ‘possessors’ are proper governors. That is, ‘determiner’ and ‘possessor’ must be more like the (pro)nominal X0 /XPs which take a thematically related DP as complement (as argued for eins, keins, amerikanische, traurige in (506), (509) above) than like, respectively, a purely functional head (determiner) or a possessor phrase occupying a spec-position in a DP.441 In conclusion, I would consider it possible that at least some cases of those which Baker calls noun incorporation are rather instances of bare DP-incorporation and thus not essentially different from the incorporation process assumed in the present context.442 Baker (1988: 129) argues that “universally Noun Incorporation NPs do not need to have Case. [. . .] However, as a language-specific or morpheme-specific property, incorporated nouns may receive Case after all within the complex verb, leading to a ‘Case absorption’ effect.” By contrast, I would maintain that, in split topicalisation, both the incorporated DP and the DP from which the incorporated DP has been extracted have to have their case features checked. However, the checking of the case feature of the incorporated DP is effected as part of the incorporation process, not via feature movement to the respective spec-position in the functional case layer. (It is unclear to me, though, what the precise mechanism
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of case feature checking inherent to incorporation may look like.) Moreover, the checking of, say, a direct object case feature as part of the incorporation process does not necessarily lead to direct object case absorption. That is, it does not necessarily prevent the projection of Od P and does not interfere with the usual process of feature checking there. It is hard to find convincing examples which show that incorporation of a nominal constituent does not prevent the projection of a functional case phrase for a second nominal constituent which has a thematic relation to the incorporating verb that is to be expressed by the same case as the first. But the following may be to the point: (515) a.
Ich muss heute noch die ganze Wohnung staubsaugen (‘I still have to hoover the whole flat today’) b. Mein Onkel hat sich ein Fahrrad mit Hilfsmotor gekauft. Er ist es bisher nur radgefahren. Den Hilfsmotor hat er noch nicht gebraucht (‘My uncle bought himself a bike with an auxiliary engine. So far he’s only cycled it. He hasn’t used the engine yet’)
The incorporated nominal constituent, staub (‘dust) in (515a), rad (‘bike’) in (515b), does not prevent the presence of another direct object, die ganze Wohnung (‘the whole flat’) in the former, es (‘it’) in the latter. Thus, I assume for split topicalisation that incorporation of the embedded DP circumvents the requirement for its case feature to be checked in the functional case layer while the source DP does have to check its case feature in the functional case layer as usual. The fact that in split topicalisation both the extracted and the source DPs have the same case is due to the fact that they have the same thematic relation to the verb. And this is because the source DP expresses a partitive or intersective relation between its nominal constituents. Let us then assume that the (phonological form of the) DP-V complex resulting from incorporation cannot be pied-piped by feature movement to a head position and that the (phonological form of the) incorporated DP must appear in a position in which it precedes its trace in order to be able to identify it.443 Since a finite verb like mag in (513b) must move to the AgrS -head position, the incorporated DP has to excorporate from it again. The DP moves to spec-Foc – no other position is available for it – where it precedes (and c-commands) its trace as required, irrespective of whether the originally embedding DP nur amerikanische t moves overtly to spec-Od or not. In this way we can derive sentences like (503a), here repeated as (516). (516) Autos mag er nur amerikanische The precedence requirement for the case where a DP-V complex is involved in which V is non-finite (Briefe geschrieben) can be fulfilled in two ways: either by
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
excorporation and movement to spec-Foc of the DP or by base (i.e. vP-) fronting, with the DP out of which the embedded DP has been extracted having left the base. The first way derives (517a) (where Briefe also c-commands its trace in the originally embedding DP), the second (517b) (where Briefe does not c-command its trace in the originally embedding DP). (517) a. Briefe hat sie mir nur drei traurige geschrieben b. Briefe geschrieben hat sie mir nur drei traurige The sequence of extraction, incorporation and fronting processes just discussed applies not only to direct objects, but also to indirect ones, as can be seen in (518) (read (518a, b) with a rising pitch accent on the first and with a falling pitch accent on the second small-capitalised item).444 (518) a.
Einem älteren Mann bin ich noch keinem begegnet a older man am I yet no-one met ‘I haven’t met an older man yet’ b. Einem älteren Mann begegnet bin ich noch keinem c. Männern traut sie keinem mehr men trusts she no-one anymore ‘She doesn’t trust men anymore’ d. Männern trauen tut sie keinem mehr men trust does she no-one anymore (ditto; colloquial German)445
In these examples the indirect object is the only argument beside the subject, so that in terms of base configuration the lexical verb and the indirect object are sister constituents in these cases just as are lexical verb and direct object. But at least for some speakers judgements do not change if there is a direct object alongside the indirect one: (519) a.
(?)Anderen Männern hat sie keinem so traurige Briefe other men has she no-one such sad letters geschrieben written ‘To other men she didn’t write such sad letters’ b. (?)Anderen Männern geschrieben hat sie keinem so traurige Briefe
I assume this to mean that for those speakers who accept sentences like (519a, b), the possibilities for DP-incorporation in the base is not restricted to the point of the derivation at which the lexical verb has not yet risen to the v-head position, i.e. to the position of the abstract light verb heading vP. DP-incorporation is also possible after the lexical verb has risen to the v-head position. Meinunger (2000: 190)
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gives the example (520a) below. Interestingly, the modified version (520b) of this example, where the participle accompanies Frauen to the front, is ungrammatical: (520) a.
Frauen hat er schon vielen das Gesicht geliftet women has he yet many the face lifted ‘He’s lifted many women’s faces yet’ b. *Frauen geliftet hat er schon vielen das Gesicht
It seems to me that the non-native verb liften is not capable of incorporating DPs. While (520b) could only be derived by incorporation, (520a) need not involve incorporation. In (520a), Frauen is extracted from the DP vielen Frauen after it left the base for spec-Oi . This analysis is supported by the fact that substituting schon vielen by noch keiner in (520a) leads to ungrammaticality: (521) *{Frauen / Einer Frau} hat er noch keiner das Gesicht geliftet Recall that the DPs *keiner Frauen or *keiner einer Frau can be merged in the base but would need to have their respective embedded DPs Frauen and einer Frau extracted and incorporated into the verb in order to be rescued from its case problem. However, liften does not incorporate, and the derivation crashes. Incorporation of a DP extracted from a clausal subject base-generated in specv would imply that the DP is lowered. Movement to a lower position is principally ruled out in more recent versions of generative grammar, and, according to Baker (1988: 83), this restriction also holds for incorporation. Actually, corresponding examples do get worse: (522) a. *?Ein jüngerer Mann hat ihr noch keiner Blumen geschenkt a younger man has her yet no-one flowers given b. *Ein jüngerer Mann geschenkt hat ihr noch keiner Blumen Although the two versions are worse than their preceding counterparts which involve non-subjects in front position, some speakers feel that there is a difference in acceptability depending on whether the extracted DP appears clause-initially alone or accompanied by the lexical verb.446 This may be because a sentence like (522a) leads the parser on a garden path which deceptively promises a successful processing and which the parser is too inert to leave by the time it should, i.e. by the time keiner is reached. (Note that the sentence starts like a common main clause with a complete subject in clause-initial position.)447 In contrast to subjects basegenerated in spec-v, those which originate in comp-V, i.e. those of unaccusative and passive verbs, do allow extraction, incorporation (and, potentially, subsequent excorporation): (523) a. Ein Buch von ihm ist noch keins erschienen b. Ein Buch von ihm erschienen ist noch keins
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
c. Ein Buch darüber wurde noch keins geschrieben d. Ein Buch darüber geschrieben wurde noch keins Haider’s (1990: 94) example (524) should be ungrammatical under this account. (524) Außenseiter gewonnen hat es bis jetzt nur ein einziger outsider won has it until now only a single ‘Only one outsider’s won it so far’ (Haider’s judgement) The verb gewinnen is not agentive. There is no abstract agentive light verb v, consequently no v-shell and no movement of gewonnen to v. The subject Außenseiter is base-generated in spec-V and is thus higher than V. That is, incorporation of Außenseiter into gewonnen would also involve illicit lowering. Actually, this example is unacceptable for me and other native speakers of German. Of course, its acceptance by Haider would have to be explained. Since it is the subject whose agreement features are checked in languages like German, extraction and incorporation of a DP whose number features differ from those of an embedding subject DP leads to a mismatch:448 (525) a. b. c. d.
*Bücher von ihm ist erst eins erschienen *Ein Buch von ihm sind schon zwei erschienen *Bücher von ihm sind erst eins erschienen *Ein Buch von ihm ist schon zwei erschienen
On the last couple of pages I have discussed extraction and incorporation by the lexical verb of a DP embedded in a DP which is base-generated in comp-V or spec-V (the latter only if the verb has moved from V to v). If this is possible when necessary in order to prevent a case problem for the incorporated DP, then it is reasonable to assume that not only such an embedded DP but any argument DP generated in comp-V or (given the above-mentioned condition) spec-V itself may be incorporated by the lexical verb in the manner described. Actually, I suggest this to be generally the case if a lexical verb plus an argument remains in the base in German: (526) In German a lexical verb whose phonological form remains in the base incorporates a direct or an indirect object if their phonological forms are not pied-piped to their respective spec-position in the functional case layer. Now recall that DP-incorporation is left-adjunction to the lexical verb. This accounts for the rigid right-peripheral position of the perfective participle in (491)– (493) and (501) above, repeated below as (527a–j), which are those kinds of examples which show that there must be vP-fronting and that the perfective participle must be able to remain in the base. The DPs which do not accompany the non-
Chapter 9
finite verb to the front must be assumed to have left the base for their respective spec-positions. (527) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j.
Ihm geglaubt hat sie die Geschichten nie Seiner Frau anvertraut hat er das Geheimnis nie Der Polizei übergeben wurden zwei Briefe Zur Post gebracht hat er den Brief noch nicht Ein Fehler unterlaufen ist auch schon mal diesem Professor Ein Fehler unterlaufen ist ihm auch schon mal Ein Tiger entwichen ist doch erst kürzlich diesem Wanderzirkus Ein Tiger entwichen ist ihm doch erst kürzlich Ein Job angeboten wurde damals sofort jedem Tagträumer Ein Job angeboten wurde ihm damals sofort
In sum, the strictly right-peripheral position of the non-finite lexical verb in fronted phrases is due to either of two possibilities: (a) The non-finite lexical verb has incorporated, i.e. left-adjoined to it, an argument DP which does not overtly move to its respective spec-position in the functional case layer so that vP-fronting causes the DP-V complex – and no overt material within vP but the DP-V complex – to be moved to spec-Foc. (b) No argument DP incorporates to the nonfinite lexical verb; all argument DPs leave the base so that Od P/Oi P/SP-fronting likewise causes the non-finite lexical verb to appear right-peripheral in the fronted phrase, irrespective of whether the lexical verb has remained in the base or moved to a head position in the functional case layer.449 This analysis allows us to maintain the conceptually attractive assumption of arbitrary left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base.
.. Some remaining problems and questions There are several problems and questions for the approach to the syntax of German outlined in this section for which a solution or answer does not present itself readily. I will briefly mention two of the more pressing ones. Recall from Section 3.1, page 49 that the expressions körperlich and im Falle eines Sieges in (528) (= (51) above) are characterised as ‘frame topics’ and distinguished from ‘aboutness topics’ by Jacobs (2001). (528) a. Körperlich geht es Peter gut (from Jacobs 2001: 655) b. Im Falle eines Sieges wird die Mannschaft eine Belobigung durch den Staatspräsidenten erhalten (ditto) I argued that they can be considered aboutness topic expressions and thus topic expressions in the sense of [–foch f ]XP-featured XPs having moved to spec-Foc after
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
all. For we may say that the proposition expressed by geht es Peter gut in (528a) is about the physical domain rather than the mental or the financial one; and wird die Mannschaft eine Belobigung durch den Staatspräsidenten erhalten in (528b) is about the possible situation in which the team wins. This is the view which I seem to be forced to take within the syntactic framework described above: First, because the respective clause-initial expressions are clearly fully integrated within the root clause – their fronting is accompanied by finite verb raising to second position – and, second, because it has been argued all along that there is no higher XP than FocP in a root clause, so that there is no other position than spec-Foc available for them. As aboutness topic expressions, körperlich and im Falle eines Sieges in (528) must be of semantic type e, i.e. the entities ‘physical domain’ and ‘possible situation in which the team wins’ respectively. Of course, this stretches the ontological scope of ‘entity’ quite a bit – inappropriately so? Would it have to be clearly over-stretched in view of such examples as (529a, b), where the clause initial adverbial phrases also trigger finite verb raising to second position? (529) a.
{Leider / Hoffentlich / Vielleicht} wird er anwesend sein (‘{Unfortunately / Hopefully / Perhaps} he will be present’) b. {Jedenfalls / Schließlich / Dennoch} schadet es nicht (‘{Anyway / Eventually / Still} it won’t do any harm’)
Do examples like these leave any doubt that there potentially is a phrase higher than FocP – Müller’s (1995) root-clause CP, perhaps (see above, p. 306) – into whose spec-position such adverbial phrases may move? Or is it possible to interpret them to denote some entity, and thus potentially as topic expressions, after all – something like positions or ranges on a scale? For example: leider: the negativeattitude pole on a two-valued scale on which states of affairs are ordered according to the attitude the speaker has towards them; hoffentlich: the positive-attitude pole on a two-valued scale on which states of affairs are ordered according to the attitude the speaker has towards them; vielleicht: the possibility range on a scale on which states of affairs are ordered according to the degree to which the speaker believes them to have been, be, or become a fact. Finally, what is the analysis of sentences such as (530) where a PP seems to have scrambled out of a DP? (530) a.
Peter hat über Paul mal wieder ein Gerücht gehört Peter has about Paul yet again a rumour heard ‘Peter heard a rumour about Paul again’ b. Peter hat [über Paul]i mal wieder [ein Gerücht t i ] gehört (cf. Müller 1995: 91, pass.)
It seems that such examples are only compatible with the approach to scrambling suggested in Subsection 9.2.2 under two conditions: (a) über Paul does not nec-
Chapter 9
essarily originate as a prepositional complement of Gerücht, but is an XP basegenerated in spec-V;450 (b) über Paul has some reason to move into spec-Oi (i.e. some feature to check there). While it seems not too difficult to make a case for the fulfilment of condition (a), an analysis in which condition (b) is fulfilled does not present itself readily.
. Conclusion In the first section of the present chapter I showed how, in principle, each of the logically possible and cross-linguistically attested basic constituent orders (SVO, SOV, VSO etc.) can be derived within a conception of feature and constituent movement as discussed in Chapter 5. The main idea of this conception is that there is a syntactic feature distinction in terms of what happens with the phonological form of the constituent with which the syntactic feature is associated if the feature moves: If a syntactic type α feature moves, then the phonological form of its associated constituent is pied-piped; if a syntactic type γ feature moves, then the phonological form of its associated constituent remains behind. (Type β features, which can only move if they belong to specific types of constituents, such as English auxiliaries, and which pied-pipe their associated phonological form if they move, have been ignored in the present chapter.) In this conception cross-linguistic differences in basic constituent order are due, first, to differences with respect to the α/γ-distinction of the syntactic [±fh f ]XP -features which have to be checked in the functional domain of the clause. Second, they are due to differences in terms of left/right headedness and specifiedness in the X-bar configuration of the functional phrases that are projected.451 As concerns topic and identificational focus expressions, it seems that some languages distinguish TopP and FocP rather than having a non-distinct FocP in whose specifier position the [±foch f ]XP -feature of either a topic or an identificational focus expression is checked as in English (and German, for that matter). We have seen that the type determination mechanism (TDM) can be easily adapted to this situation. In the second section, which is devoted exclusively to German, I assume that most of the German functional phrases are right-headed and left-specified while some, namely FocP and AgrS P in root clauses and CP in embedded clauses, are left-headed and left-specified. In view of the fact that all basic constituent orders can be derived under the two assumptions mentioned in the first paragraph of the present section I propose the hypothesis that left/right-headedness and specifiedness is arbitrary in the base. Scrambling is analysed as the effect of optionality as regards the α/γ-distinction of the nominal case features: The phonological form of
Aspects of the syntax of languages other than English
a nominal argument is pied-piped into its case position by the movement of a case feature of type α, or, alternatively, a case feature of type γ moves alone, i.e. without pied-piping the associated phonological form. This α/γ-optionality in connection with the left/right arbitrariness of head and specifier in relation to the verb in the base allows us to derive each of the logically and syntactically possible orders of subject, direct object and indirect object in German. An analysis of scrambling to the effect that a direct or an indirect object may or may not leave the base overtly accords nicely with the analysis of some constructions that involve XP-movement to spec-Foc which are specific to German, notably so-called split topicalisation. Some important ingredients of the analysis of split topicalisation are the following: In the base there is a direct or indirect object DP whose internal structure is thematically well-formed but syntactically ill-formed. More specifically, there is a DP-complement to a noun head; the DPcomplement carries the same case feature as the noun head; the case feature of the DP-complement cannot be checked in a functional case position. It can only be checked by incorporating the DP into the verb. If the verb has to move, the incorporated DP has to subsequently excorporate. The only position where the excorporated DP may move to is spec-Foc. If the verb does not have to move, the DP-verb complex resulting from incorporation remains intact and may be fronted by vP-movement to spec-Foc.
Chapter 10
Summary and general conclusion
The present work, whose theoretical background is generative grammar, argues that, in languages like English and German, every root clause is either categorical, identificational or thetic. The categorical/identificational/thetic distinction is conceived of as one in terms of focus structure. This conception of focus structure is adopted and adapted from Lambrecht 1994 (a work which is not set in a generative framework). Each of the three types of focus structure is characterised by a specific property of its syntactic structure. The syntactic aspects of focus structure are summarised in the FocP-hypothesis. It claims that categorical and identificational root clauses in languages like English and German have a FocP as topmost functional projection. In a categorical sentence, some [–foc]-featured XP from the IP has to check its [–foc] in spec-Foc. In an identificational sentence, some [+foc]-featured XP from the IP has to check its [+foc] in spec-Foc. The [–foc]-featured XP is the topic expression of the categorical sentence, the [+foc]-featured XP is the identificational focus expression of the identificational sentence. In a thetic sentence there are no FocP and no [±foc]-features. There are languages (such as Hungarian) which, in contrast to English and German, project distinct TopP and FocP, the former associated with [–foc]- (= [top] in this case) features, the latter with [+foc]- (= [foc] in this case) features. The decision to assign [±foc]-features to a phrase is taken in the conceptual-intentional system of the human mind. An important aspect which distinguishes a theory based on the FocPhypothesis from other more recent syntactic approaches that acknowledge the existence of a FocP and/or TopP (e.g. Rizzi 1997; Haegeman & Guéron 1999; Grewendorf 2002) is this: The FocP is present not only in those cases where a constituent has visibly moved to clause initial position (in languages like English and German). The FocP is also present in those cases where the syntactic subject is topic or identificational focus expression in categorical or identificational sentences respectively and moves from spec-AgrS to spec-Foc invisibly. In this way visible fronting (‘topicalisation’) is revealed to be a perfectly canonical movement operation triggered by the need to check syntactic features. The formerly special status of FocP/TopP as a syntactic construct and of visible fronting as a syntactic phenomenon – which had been known to show core grammatical properties on
Chapter 10
the one hand, but whose apparent optionality had suggested a ‘stylistic’ treatment on the other hand – has vanished in the present work by their integration in a comprehensive, syntactic, intonational, and semantic-pragmatic framework. The intonational perspective on the FocP-hypothesis shows that and how the three types of focus structure are manifested by intonation, i.e. by characteristic distributions of pitch accents. A theory of intonational focus (i-focus) projection based on Selkirk 1995 is developed which contains the following principles: (531) Basic i-focus rule A pitch-accented word is F-marked or Φ-marked. (532) Base position i-focus projection (BPIFP) a. I-focus projection applies to heads and phrases in their base positions. b. i. F-marking of a head H licenses the F-marking of H’s projection(s). ii. F-marking of the complement C of a head H licenses the Fmarking of H. (533) Complement priority principle (CPP) F-marking the complement C of an i-focus projecting head H has priority over the F-marking of H itself, unless the complement has an active or accessible denotatum (and H does not have an active or accessible denotatum). The distinction between intonational F- and Φ-marks is due to the insight that there is, potentially, a complex interplay of different types of pitch accents such that a given pitch accent of a given type may (F-mark) or may not (Φ-mark) be the one associated with the projection of the i-focus, depending on the presence and identity of other pitch accents in the utterance. The principles of i-focus projection determine which phrases in the syntactic structure of the root clause that underlies an utterance are F-marked and thus licensed as i-foci. The relation between a [±foc]-featured XP, i.e. a topic or identificational focus expression, and an i-focus licensed by these principles is as follows: (534) A [+foc]-featured XP α has to fulfil either condition (a) or (b): a. α is licensed as i-focus and is syntactically licensed to move to specFoc; b. α dominates an XP β which is licensed as i-focus, and α is the first XP above β which is syntactically licensed to move to spec-Foc. (535) A [–foc]-featured XP α has to fulfil condition (a): a. α is syntactically licensed to move to spec-Foc, but is neither licensed as i-focus, nor does it dominate a phrase licensed as i-focus.
Summary and general conclusion
These relations entail that categorical and identificational utterances can be unambiguously kept apart. The intonational realisation of a thetic sentence, however, is systematically identical to that of either the corresponding categorical or the corresponding identificational sentence. An important accompanying aspect of the syntactic analyses aimed at demonstrating the viability of the FocP-hypothesis is a specific version of feature and feature checking theory. It makes a distinction between syntactic features of types α, β and γ according to what happens to the phonological forms associated with them if the respective feature moves in order to be checked: An α-feature pied-pipes the phonological form associated with it irrespective of the type of head or XP. b. A β-feature pied-pipes the phonological form associated with it only if it belongs to specific types of head or XP; feature movement fails with other types of head or XP. c. A γ-feature never pied-pipes the phonological form associated with it, irrespective of type of head or XP.
(536) a.
This distinction plays the crucial role in the explanation of surface constituent order in general (including the surface location of topic and identificational focus expression), of cross-linguistic constituent order differences as well as optional constituent orders within one language. In addition to the general syntactic advantages of the present theory over previous approaches mentioned above several problematic details of syntactic analysis are given a rather straightforward solution. For example: (1) The ungrammaticality of (537a) below in contrast to the grammaticality of (537b) is explained by the assumption that a [±foch f ]XP -feature cannot be assigned across a clause boundary in connection with the assumption that constructions which have traditionally been analysed in terms of exceptional case marking (ECM) are actually characterised by movement of an embedded subject to matrix spec-Od .452 (537) a. *Him to win the race, they expect b. That he will win the race, they expect (2) The assumption that it is a [±foch f ]XP -feature of type α rather than the interrogative feature which is responsible for the fronting of a wh-XP in genuine interrogatives allows for a straightforward explanation of why all but one wh-XP remain in situ in multiple wh-XP interrogatives. (3) Full inversion can be readily analysed as movement of a non-argument to spec-Foc while the subject remains in the base due to the choice of type γ for the nominal subject case feature, a choice always possible with the single argument of an intransitive verb and blocked if two or three arguments are involved. (4) The assumption of an embedded FocP allows
Chapter 10
us to dispense with iterative CPs in the analysis of aux-support for downwardentailing fronted XPs in embedded clauses. (5) The assumption of an embedded FocP suggests a straightforward explanation of the ‘anti-adjacency effect’ (e.g. This is the tree which I said that *(just yesterday) had resisted my shovel) as the removal of an ECP violation. The semantic discussion has shown that the distinction between the three types of focus structure correlates with semantic effects, and it offers an alternative to semantic analyses which presuppose the assumption of covert LF-operations, notably quantifier raising (QR). It is true, given the assumptions made about feature and constituent movement according to which semantic forms remain in situ throughout the syntactic derivation, such an alternative had to be sought. But the success in being able to provide such an alternative which crucially rests on the investigation of the semantic properties of each of the three types of focus structure provides reasons to believe in the coherence of the theory as a whole and in its being on the right track. The pivot of the semantic argumentation is the type determination mechanism (TDM) which determines the referential type e for an argumental XP in spec-Foc of categorical sentences and the quantificational types <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> respectively for an argumental XP in spec-Foc of identificational sentences, while the lack of [±foc]-features and of FocP results in type indeterminacy for argumental XPs in thetic sentences. (The replacement of the traditional types <<e,t>,t> and <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>> by <<e,e>,e> and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> is due to the fact that the clausal base as well as the layer of functional projections above it up to a certain point are conceived to express an entity (an eventuality) rather than a truth value. The root clause becomes an expression of type t at the point where a functional head of type <e,t> higher up in the structure (possibly T) is combined with its complement of type e.) The motivating trigger for postulating the TDM is the widespread conviction among researchers that a topic expression is referential, which has been interpreted to mean ‘of type e’ in the current work. The TDM complements this idea by claiming that the XP in spec-Foc of an identificational sentence corresponding to a categorical one is non-referential in the sense that it is of one of the quantificational types – <<e,e>,e> for an argument which has been base-generated as a specifier of the verb and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> for an argument which has been base-generated as a complement of the verb. One of the eye-opening results from the present work concerns the traditional notions of subject and predicate, which run into problems in all cases except those where we are confronted with a categorical sentence without visible fronting.453 The solution of these problems is to define a notion of syntactic subject (the XP whose case feature is checked in spec-S) and one of semantic subject (constituted by those expressions which correspond to the constants in the λ-terms for the rel-
Summary and general conclusion
evance presupposition of the respective focus structured sentence; note that this definition entails that we may have composite, i.e. inner and outer, subjects and predicates). Only in a categorical sentence in which the syntactic subject is topic expression is the syntactic subject identical to the semantic subject. And this is the case to which the traditional notion of subject is geared. The present work can be elaborated on, complemented and tested against empirical data in many respects. Some of the research questions which it raises and research directions which it guides into are the following: How can ‘special’ constructions such as (pseudo-) clefting, left/right dislocation, extraposition, heavy shift etc., which have been associated with the notion of focus (and partly topic), be approached against the background of the theory developed here? What is the complete inventory of possible patterns of pitch accents for the realisation of Fand Φ-marks in the projection of a given i-focus? Is the semantic approach of doing away with covert LF-operations (notably QR) in favour of an account in terms of focus structure and in situ semantic forms viable in view of a wider range of examples and semantic phenomena? Are the ideas about constituent order, crosslinguistic constituent order variation, and about the morpho-phonological reflexes of [±foc]-features compatible with the syntactic data in other languages? What are the patterns of realisation of the three types of focus structure in discourse?
Notes
. Note Lambrecht’s (1994: 224) use of the notion ‘argument’ in the expression ‘argument focus (structure)’: “[T]he word ‘argument’ in ‘argument-focus’ is used here as a cover term for any non-predicating expression in a proposition, i.e. it includes terms expressing place, time, and manner.” . I will refer to a book or article by mentioning the author’s/authors’ name(s) followed by the year of publication without brackets. If I refer to an author/to authors’ and the view(s) held by her/him/them expressed in a specific book or article, then the year of publication is bracketed. . See Gundel 1988 on topic and focus markers in several languages and Drubig & Schaffar 2001: 1096ff. for a cross-linguistic overview of the morphological expression of focus (see also Grewendorf 2002: 69 for references). See p. 69f. for a remark on focus markers in Tuki and Subsection 9.1.2 for some more examples of languages with topic and focus markers and for references. . This is the effect of the feature checking mechanism, by which a feature attracts another matching feature lower in the syntactic tree structure into a checking position. Given that the attracted feature has the capability to carry along the phonological form of the constituent with which it is associated, the feature’s movement entails a displacement of the phonological form of the associated constituent. I will discuss feature checking in detail in Chapter 5. . Note that the formal oppositions I am thinking of show themselves in the grammar as a whole, not necessarily with individual expressions. For example, the fact that sheep has only one form does not entail that the opposition singular/plural is not effective in that word form. The fact that this opposition is morphologically manifest on some items suffices to infer that it is manifest in the grammar as a whole. . Rizzi (1997: 288): “[I]t is reasonable to assume that the topic-focus system is present in a structure only if ‘needed’, i.e. when a constituent bears topic or focus features to be sanctioned by a Spec-head criterion.” All the examples discussed by Rizzi (1997) involve some kind of ‘marked’ construction or intonation. There is no suggestion made that a ‘plain’ case like Dogs must be carried involves the ‘topic-focus system’ as well. Rizzi’s approach is endorsed by Grewendorf ’s recent survey of the latest developments in generative grammar (see Grewendorf 2002: 66ff.) so that I am confident that my own approach does offer a new perspective. . ‘[±feature]’ is an abbreviation for ‘[+feature] or [–feature]’. . It is an interesting question to ask if or in how far semantics-pragmatics can play the same role for the motivation (in language acquisition and syntactic theory) of abstract syntactic
Notes
features as formal oppositions proper (morphology, phonology/intonation). I mention this in order to raise the possibility that the semantic-pragmatic issues to be discussed in the present work may be interpreted not only as being felicitously compatible with, but as providing also ‘perceptible’ evidence for the existence of [±foc]-features and their role in the manifestation of focus structure in syntax. This would entail a loosening of the restriction to formal oppositions as motivating evidence for abstract features, but is not implausible in principle and may be necessary after all. . The term ‘present-day standard English’ is used here as a cover term for an abstraction over a cluster of mental grammars, namely the mental grammars of those persons which have traditionally been called speakers of ‘present-day standard English’. I am aware of the problematical nature of such a notion (see e.g. McArthur 1998). . The subscripts have no theoretical status, they only serve to distinguish the different occurrences of feel for later reference. . On problems pertaining to these category labels see below in this section. . a) Note this use of category here and in the quotation from Chomsky below, which has to be distinguished from that referring to N, P, A, etc. b) That there is a distinction between a non-projecting (X0 ) and a projecting head (X) can be inferred from the following quote: “We restrict the term head to terminal elements. An X0 (zero-level) category is a head or a category formed by adjunction to the head X, which projects” (Chomsky 1995b: 245). . I assume that a module for the semantic processing of LFs is part of the conceptualintentional system. . Cf. Chomsky (1995a: 402): “The bare theory outlined here departs from conventional assumptions in several respects. One is that an item can be both an X0 and an XP.” . Note, however, that the notion of an X-head’s potential to project being ‘exhausted’ after having merged with a specifier does not apply to its capacity to project an extended projection above XP (see below in this section). . For a critical discussion of approaches to grammatical theory in which the objects of grammatical operations are prototypically structured categories, see Newmeyer (1998: Ch. 4). . According to Roberts (1997: 15), adverbs “are taken to be a variant kind of adjective”. Nevertheless, some authors (e.g. Haegeman & Guéron 1999; Radford 1997) use A and Adv as distinct category labels. This is just to motivate the brackets around ‘Adv’ here, i.e. to point out that some authors use ‘Adv’ as the abbreviation for a class of lexical heads while for others this class is included in the one denotated by the label ‘A’. . See Grimshaw (1991, 2000) on extended projections. According to Grimshaw (2000: 118f.), “an l-head [lexical head] and its projection are always the most deeply embedded members of any extended projection, and the complement of an l-head is always the top of a new extended projection.” . Throughout this work I use the term constituent in the sense of “an expression which is one of the components out of which a phrase or sentence is built up” (Radford 1997: 500), not in the more restricted sense of “chain of terminal symbols which is exclusively domi-
Notes
nated by one single node”. (My translation from Fanselow & Felix 1987/1993: 30.) A terminal element is a constituent in the first sense, but not in the second. . For references to authors who assume that copular verbs do not assign theta-roles see Löbel 2000. . I do not – and do not think to have to – take a stand on this issue. . On the vP-shell theory see especially Larson (1988) and Hale & Keyser (1993); an overview is given in Radford (1997: Ch. 9). . Here and in the sequel the terms spec and comp in tree structures do of course not stand for any kind of head or phrase, but indicate specifier and complement positions whose instantiation or potential instantiation is left unspecified. . When extended projections of lexical categories other than verbs are discussed, we may also talk of their ‘bases’, which are not clausal bases then. In the present work it is clausal bases rather than non-clausal ones that are relevant, and I will refer to a clausal base often simply as ‘base’. . The UTAH demands that “[i]dentical thematic relationships between items are represented by identical structural relationships between those items at the level of D-structure” (Baker 1988: 46). D-structure has to be replaced by base in the current framework. . Note that ‘specifier of X (spec-X)’ and ‘specifier of XP (spec-XP)’ mean the same and are only notational variants. I will use the former variant in the present work. . For theories about theta-roles and related notions see e.g. Baker (1988); Dowty (1991); Grimshaw (1990); Gruber (2001); Jackendoff (1972, 1983, 1990); Primus (1993a, 1999); Rauh (1988); Wunderlich (1997: 43ff.). Research in this field is vast and – as far as I can see – inconclusive. I do not pretend that the list of theta-roles just mentioned in the main text is exhaustive or common ground, nor that their delimitations are clear, nor that it is always obvious which argument in any given sentence can be said to bear which theta-role. I only want to say that some such mapping between theta-roles and base positions exists. . The price to pay for this approach is to have two lexical entries for verbs such as be, seem, appear, one used in raising constructions, the other in simple copulative sentences. . a) See Löbel (2000) for references to authors who think of copular verbs as ‘light’ verbs (e.g. Lasnik 1995a: 628ff.). b) The position h in (18) may also be instantiated by an abstract copulative verb, as in Russian (e.g. On (‘he’) braˇc (‘doctor’) (‘He is a doctor’)). Essentially following Aarts (1992: 181ff.) (whose syntactic framework does not provide for shell-core structures for clausal bases, though), I assume that this is also the case in so-called verbless small clauses (e.g. She called [him a liar]). . I assume that this difference is due to the fact that a verb base-generated in H moves to h (see above), whereas a non-verbal H does not. . In this distinction the term predicate is used in its logic-orientated sense where it denotes predicative nominals, adjectivals etc. and non-copular verbs. . On the SLP/ILP distinction see e.g. Carlson (1977, 1977/1980); Chierchia (1995); Drubig (1992b); Fernald (2000); Kratzer (1988/1995).
Notes . Actually, Drubig capitalises not only missing but also head in this example. Capitalising signifies prosodic prominence for him (see Drubig 1992b: 143). In my usage small capitals signify the word which carries the primary (nuclear) pitch accent of an utterance, of which there is only one per utterance (see also Ch. 6 below). In terms of primary (nuclear) pitch accents, the intonational difference intended by Drubig is that hinted at by the notation in (20a, b). Schmerling’s (1976: 91) original notation is as given in (i), where the acute signifies the “heaviest stress” (Schmerling 1976: 4). (i)
a. b.
The statue’s héad is mîssing The statue’s hêad is míssing
. a) More precisely: all but the Davidsonian argument for events or spatio-temporal location, whose existence distinguishes SLPs from ILPs according to Kratzer (1988/1995) (see also Davidson 1967/1980). b) In the syntactic framework in which this assessment is set ‘external’ means being generated in the specifier position of the functional head I, while ‘internal’ means being generated within VP. . a) Unaccusative predicates typically “express movement, existence, coming into existence, and change of state” (Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 242). A diagnostic for unaccusatives in English is their ability to appear in expletive there-constructions (see e.g. Radford 1997: 392ff.; Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 244): There are two students missing. This shows that missing may be an unaccusative predicate, but it does not entail that missing is always an unaccusative. It is, arguably, not unaccusative in (20b). b) See Burzio (1986: 20, pass.), who draws on work set in the framework of relational grammar by Perlmutter (1978); see also Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 244f.) and Radford (1997: 392ff.); Radford (1997: 396ff.), however, opts for an analysis in which subjects of unaccusative verbs originate in spec-V rather than comp-V. . This conclusion will become important in the context of intonational focus projection in Chapter 6. . My conception can be conceived of as an implementation of Giorgi & Pianesi’s (1997: 15) “Feature Scattering Principle” which says: “Each [syntactic] feature can head a projection” (my addition). . I will elaborate on feature and constituent movement and on the feature checking mechanism in Chapter 5. . In the words of Roberts (1997: 58): “[I]t is clear that there is a relation between θ-roles and grammatical functions. For example, it seems that Agents are always subjects. However, subjects are not always Agents [. . . ]. Nevertheless, we want to be able to say that, for each verb, a given θ-role is associated with a given grammatical function.” As to statements, ideas and theories which bear on the question of the mapping between theta-roles and functional cases see the works mentioned in N. 27. See also Bresnan 2001: Ch. 14 and the literature mentioned there for the approach to this mapping in the framework of lexical-functional grammar. . With respect to Georgian, for instance, Fanselow & Felix (1987/1993) point out:
Notes
What is decisive about these data is that the respective case which the subject receives depends solely on the inflection of the verb. If INFL carries the feature present, imperfect, future, conditional or subjunctive, then the subject will always appear in the nominative; if INFL is aorist, optative or imperative, then the subject will be assigned the ergative; with perfect, past perfect or subjunctive perfect, the subject will appear in the dative. (My translation from Fanselow & Felix 1987/1993: 74) . a) For syntactic reasons to assume the existence of an indirect object projection in addition to a direct object projection see e.g. Radford 1997: 444ff. For a distinction of two functional objective cases in English see also Müller (1995: 199, pass.). The idea of a functional case layer shines through in Müller 1995: 255 (although it is not clear to me whether what he calls ‘SpecAGR/S’ is distinct or not from spec-I, i.e. from the position where he assumes subjects to be generated). One reason why Müller does not adopt this idea is that the problem may arise of how to guarantee that each argument ends in its ‘correct’ specifier position. Why, e.g. would the DO move to SpecAGR/O, the subject to SpecAGR/S, and the IO to SpecAGR/IO, but not, say, the DO to SpecAGR/S, the subject to SpecAGR/IO, and the IO to SpecAGR/O? (Müller 1995: 255) Note that the mapping between positions in the base and spec-positions in the functional case layer just proposed provides an answer to this question. b) According to Wunderlich (1997: 47), English, “lacking both morphological and articulated agreement, is restricted to two structural arguments, except in the double object construction [. . .], in which the ‘dative’ argument is reconstrued as direct object.” It would be interesting to know more about this process of reconstrual, which may supply an alternative for the morphologically unmotivated assumption of Oi in English. . With Van Valin & LaPolla (1997: 263f.), the difference between the accusative and the ergative patterns can be explained in the following way: Take “S, the single argument of an intransitive verb, A, the actor of a transitive verb, and U, the undergoer of a transitive verb”; then: “S and A receive nominative case and U receives accusative case” in the accusative pattern; in the ergative pattern, “S and U are assigned absolutive case, while A receives ergative case. Thus in an ergative language, case marking treats S and U alike and treats A differently.” For a survey of generative approaches to ergativity see Johns (2000). . A ‘root clause’ is the (simple or complex) clause dominated by the root node, i.e. the highest clause. An ‘embedded clause’ is a clause that is a constituent of a higher (not necessarily root) clause. A ‘matrix clause’ is the higher clause of which an embedded clause is a constituent. (See Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 22.) Thus, if there is an embedded clause, its matrix clause may or may not be the root clause. Consequently, it is not quite appropriate when Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 101) say “[r]oot clause and matrix clause are two terms which refer to the same thing”. . In language acquisition these indicators help the child determine which functional projections there are. . Some authors (e.g. Ernst 2002: 312) assume a ModP between TP and PerfP in the headposition of which modal auxiliaries are generated. ModP can be ignored for the purposes of the present work. Below ModP Ernst also posits a PerfP-ProgP-VoiceP cascade.
Notes . In terms of the feature theory to be developed in Chapter 5, non-finite S lacks a specifier feature. . With respect to PRO the assumption that a non-finite clause lacks spec-S corresponds to Chomsky & Lasnik’s (1993/1995: 119f.) claim that PRO bears null-case. Note that if nonfinite subject clauses have subjects, then these must be objective and preceded by for (see (ia)–(ic) below). This follows from the fact that non-finite clauses lack spec-S: There is no position higher up where the subject of the non-finite clause could check its case. Case can only be checked by embedding the DP as complement of for, which projects a functional Od P. The Od -case feature of the DP moves covertly to spec-Od in the extended projection of for. Note also that in examples like (id) we are confronted with verbal nouns rather than non-finite clauses, and the genitive is checked within the extended projection of the verbal noun. (i)
a. To remain neutral is out of the question b. *He / *Him to remain neutral is out of the question c. For him to remain neutral is out of the question d. His remaining neutral is an insult.
. This assumption is made by Radford (1997: 431) and the authors he relies on. . The adverb well is assumed to be adjoined to the VP here. The same holds for strongly in (28c). . I assume NegP to dominate TP also for semantic reasons to be discussed in Section 5.2. If AgrS and T were conflated, then NegP would be higher than AgrS P/TP and we would expect to find such negative clauses as (iA) instead of John didn’t come home. (i)
Q: What happened? A: *Not John did come home. / *Didn’t John come home.
. According to Chomsky & Lasnik (1993/1995: 55), specifiers “are typically optional”. . The term ‘IP’ stems from the time before Pollock’s (1989) analysis of the ‘inflection phrase’ (I(nfl)P) as consisting of a number of distinct agreement and tense projections. . Among the more recent works see e.g. Alexiadou (1997); Cinque (1999); Ernst (2002); Laenzlinger (1998: Ch. 2). . It may also be, as argued by Ernst (2002: 24, pass.) (following Kayne 1994), that specifiers are a special subtype of adjuncts. . I agree with Polinsky (1999: 580) in her assessment of Lambrecht (1994) that “this book is a milestone in the theory of information structure.” . I will discuss the main concepts of Lambrecht (1994) in more detail in Chapter 4. . Assume that the nuclear pitch accent is a falling one in these examples. . Despite this common goal, the approach taken in the present work is developed independently and is different from the one sketched by Drubig (1997: 14–17) on the basis of work by Diesing (1992), Tsai (1994) and Uechi (1994). . Of course, the ‘usual’ orthographic representation can be supplemented by certain typographic means such as capitalisation so as to effect disambiguation.
Notes . What É. Kiss calls predicate phrase here is in my theory the IP which contains a trace in the position from which the XP in spec-Foc has been extracted. In É. Kiss (1998a) the predicate phrase is said to be “the highest verbal projection” (É. Kiss 1998a: 690) and indeed also identified with IP (see e.g. É. Kiss 1998a: 698). . The relation between (identificational and/or informational) focus and cleft constructions, which will play a role in the following discussion of É. Kiss’s (1998b) claim, is summarised in the following way by Drubig (1997: 12): Indeed, authors working on (contrastive) focus constructions in languages with constructional focus (syntactic focus marking) almost invariably point out that syntactically marked focus have [sic] an interpretation which is identical with – or closely resembles – that of focus phrases in cleft sentences[...] . Moreover, in many languages, focus operators – moved or in situ – are accompanied by focus particles which can be historically derived from copula constructions. (Heine & Reh 1984; Harris & Campbell 1995) But note also that although the post-be expression in a cleft construction is often a ‘focus’ in some sense, it need not necessarily be so. Consider the following example (from Hetland & Molnár 2001: 627; see also the references given there): (i)
Q: And does the head know? A: No. Oh wait a minute. It was the head who arranged it.
See Drubig & Schaffar (2001: 1090ff.) for an overview of various approaches to the syntactic analysis of the cleft construction. . This does of course not preclude that there are languages where identificational focus expressions are indeed always exhaustive. According to Szabolcsi (e.g. 1981a) and É. Kiss (e.g. 1998a, 1998b, 2001), Hungarian is such a language. Note also Szabolcsi’s (1981a: 159, N. 5) remark below, which denies that English cleft sentences correspond to Hungarian identificational sentences. I will insist on translating Hungarian F [i.e. an identificational focus expression] with contrastive stress in English although I am aware that this choice does not give a full correspondence (– and neither would clefting). Note that my arguments are based on the Hungarian original and not on the translation. . By using Australia instead of the Shetlands. . See Sgall, Hajiˇcová & Panevová (1986: 223f.) for these authors’ discussion of a similar case. . On conversational implicatures in general see e.g. (Grice 1975); Levinson (1983: Ch. 3). . I assume this is what Hajiˇcová, Partee & Sgall (1998b: 115) mean by “‘invited’ exhaustive listing”. . See Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995) for the notion of context as a set of assumptions. Blakemore (1992: 87) gives the following concise characterisation of this notion: “the beliefs and assumptions the hearer constructs for the interpretation of an utterance either on the basis of her perceptual abilities or on the basis of the assumptions she has stored in memory or on the basis of her interpretation of previous utterances.”
Notes . Chomsky (1995c: 2) calls the conceptual-intentional cognitive system (as well as the articulatory-perceptual system) a performance system and writes (1993/1995: 194): “Expressions have the interpretations assigned to them by the performance system in which the language is embedded: period.” Certainly, semantic-pragmatic processing is interpretation of expressions. . In some way this difference recalls the early discussions of focus effects (see e.g. Chomsky 1970/1971; Jackendoff 1972: Ch. 6), where it was debated whether such effects are determined by ‘deep’ or ‘surface’ structure. Because of the radically altered syntactic framework as a whole, however, it is highly complicated and without obvious reward in the present context to scrutinise and elaborate on the exact terms of this analogy. But I may note that the present work is intended to be a contribution to making those aspects more explicit which Chomsky (1995b: 220) says he is abstracting away from in the following passage. Notice that I am sweeping under the rug questions of considerable significance, notably, questions about what in the earlier Extended Standard Theory (EST) framework were called “surface effects” on interpretation. These are manifold, involving topic-focus and theme-rheme structures, figure-ground properties, effects of adjacency and linearity, and many others. . Sentences with expletive there- and it- subjects in clause initial position are generally thetic, their theticity being signalled lexico-syntactically (see Sasse 1987: 530f.). But note that expletive there- and it- sentences in which some other XP has moved to spec-Foc exist as well: (i)
There remained the question of how the comic element was to be managed. A comic element there had to be [. . .]. (from Craik 1995/2000: 36) (ii) ‘Did she have any other boy-friends?’ ‘There was plenty as was willing, any road. Headmaster for one, only he were married. But no – Walter it had to be.’ (BNC H9D 2728)
. For an introduction to focus projection theory see Selkirk 1995 and for an overview of the literature on focus projection see (Winkler 1997: Ch. 3, 4). Winkler herself proposes an interesting version of focus projection theory based on theta theory. I will discuss focus projection in more detail in Chapter 6. . a) Recall from Section 2.1.1 that a lexical item which is not a head is an X0 and an XP at the same time. b) In Chapter 6 I will argue that the F-projection principles apply to lexical items and phrases in their base positions (“at D-structure” in terms of Winkler 1997). . Actually, there is disagreement among authors working within the autosegmentalmetrical framework about whether the contour I am referring to here is to be characterised as the bitonal pitch accent H*+L or as the combination of a single tone pitch accent (H*) followed by a phrase tone (L), i.e. the tune H* L (see Ladd 1996: 81ff., 90f.). I follow Ladd, who opts for the former analysis (see also von Stechow 1991a: 806). (Note also that the schematic f0 contour for the tunes H* L L% and H* L H% are the same as those of H*+L L L% and H*+L L H% respectively; see Appendix.) However, not being able to evaluate the specialists’ discussion of this point, I do so for no other reason than to avoid complications, of terminological and substantial nature, which would accrue if I were to consider phrase tones. What
Notes
I want to be able to say, without being drawn into too much theory-internal complications of autosegmental-metrical phonology, is that an abstract F-mark is realised as a pitch accent (not: sometimes as a pitch accent, sometimes as tune, i.e. a combination of pitch accent and phrase tone and, possibly, boundary tone). . This is almost always the case, except when we have an expletive there or it as subject and no movement of another XP to spec-Foc (cf. N. 70 above). . I signal this difference between a pitch-accented but not F-marked lexical item on the one hand and a pitch-accented and F-marked one on the other hand by the superscript F on the small-capitalised word in the latter case. If there is only one small-capitalised word, then it is supposed to be the F-marked one, and the superscript F need not be added. . CHL is the “computational system [...] for human language” (Chomsky 1995c: 7). ‘π’ is a representation of the phonological form (PF); ‘λ’ is a representation of the logical form (LF). . I say ‘in general’ and ‘in principle’ in the previous sentences since it cannot be excluded that, exceptionally, some specific lexical items are specified for [±foc] in some language or other. . The nature of the conceptual-intentional cognitive system and its relation to the language faculty is not clear though (see Chomsky 1995a: 434, N. 4, 1993/1995: 168). . In Chapter 5 we will see that it is actually not a single [±foc]-feature which is carried by the finite verb and which projects FocP, but a set of component [±foc]-features. . A recent comprehensive survey of the related notions as discussed in the more functionally orientated literature is given by Gómez-Gonzáles (2001: Ch. 1–5). The following also provide surveys (with different perspectives and aims) of relevant research: Foley (1996); Gundel (1974/1988, 1999a); Hetland & Molnár (2001); Molnár (2000); Rebuschi & Tuller (1999); Sornicola (1994); de Swart & de Hoop (2000: 109–120); Thein (1994: Ch. 1–4); Ward (1985/1988: Ch. 2); Vallduví (1990/1992: Ch. 2, 3); Vallduví & Engdahl (1996: 460ff.); van Kuppevelt (1994). A bibliography specifically concerned with the topics mentioned and/or discussed in the present work is Haftka (1999). . Note that ‘overt’ movement, where the phonological form of an XP is pied-piped by a moving feature, is not necessarily ‘visible’ on the surface. Subject XP-movement to specFoc is overt but not visible. (Non-visible movement is string-vacuous.) Visible movement is always overt. . See also Newmeyer (2001) for an account of the influence of Prague school linguistics on, and its relationship with, various functionally orientated approaches to syntax on the one hand and formal semantics on the other hand. See this article also for its wealth of further references on the Prague school and Prague school related linguistics. . Ladusaw (2000) sketches one approach to doing so and the present work, especially Chapter 8, is another one. . On this traditional and standard view of predication see e.g. also Larson & Segal (1995: 121ff.). . The predicate focus (i.e. categorical) utterance corresponding to (49A) would have the intonational realisation indicated in (i).
Notes
(i)
My father died
. É. Kiss (1998a: 686f.) as well makes a distinction between categorical, thetic, and a third, “non-predicating”, type of sentences. . But see also Subsection 9.2.4, where I phrase the idea of considering körperlich in (51a) and im Falle eines Sieges in (51b) as topic expressions in more hesitant terms. . Consequently, it is very often the case that authors and/or works cannot be exclusively associated with one or the other conception of topic. Especially the characterisation of topics (topic expressions) in terms of aboutness and givenness often go hand in hand. A section heading in Gundel (1974/1988: 32), for instance, reads “Towards an Adequate Theory of the Notion ‘What the Sentence is About’: Topic as Presupposed (Given or Known) Information”. . See Halliday (1985/1994: 39ff.) for his analysis of what may constitute the ‘first position’. . Slashes (/) signal feet boundaries and double slashes (//) tone group boundaries (see Halliday 1985/1994: 292ff.). In this example the bold printed you and I are certainly contrastive. But whether they are topic or identificational focus XPs (individually or jointly) depends on the context and will be associated with different pitch accents on them. For example, as a reply to the question What are you doing and what am I to do? both of them are (contrastive) topic XPs and typically pronounced with a rising pitch accent on bold printed you and a falling one on go in the first utterance and with a rising pitch accent on I’m and a falling one on not in the second. As a reply to a question like Who ought to go? the first utterance has identificational focus structure with bold printed you being identificational focus XP (typically getting a falling pitch accent), while the second may again be a categorical utterance with I as (contrastive) topic XP. . Here and in the following I will ignore indications of the intonational realisation of examples from languages other than English in my English translations. . Such a distinction between TKG and FHG can be interpreted as a reaction to difficulties that arise if topic and focus are defined in terms of a distinction between given and new information. Höhle (1982: 92), for example, identifies the lexical material “Karl + das Buch + geschenkt” (‘Karl + the book + gave (as a present)’), which does not form a constituent, as the focus of (iA) in the context of (iQ). (i)
Q: Was hat das Kind erlebt? (‘What did the child experience?’) A: Karl hat dem Kind das Buch geschenkt. (‘Karl gave the child the book.’)
That Höhle considers “Karl + das Buch + geschenkt” to be the focus here follows from his characterisation of what he understands by ‘focus’: “In uttering a sentence Si that part of Si is the focus Fc (Si ) whose function in Si is not known from the relevant context. (The remaining parts of Si form the topic Tc (Si ).)”. (My translation from Höhle 1982: 86.) The identification of the topic/focus dichotomy with that of given/new is to be rejected, though (see below, Section 4.1). . Meinunger (2000: 46) is of the same opinion. . For both SMS and AS (for an overview see von Stechow 1991a), Chomsky’s (1970/1971) and Jackendoff ’s (1972) observations on and analyses of focus have laid the foundation. SMS is associated primarily with von Stechow (see e.g. Cresswell & von Stechow 1982; von
Notes
Stechow 1981) and Jacobs (e.g. 1983, 1984, 1991), while Rooth (e.g. 1985, 1992, 1996) is the most important representative of AS (see also Kratzer 1991). For further work on phenomena which fall within the range of SMS/AS and either do or do not take an SMS/AS approach, see e.g. Bayer (1996, 1999); Büring (1997, 1998); Drubig (1994, 1997); Geilfuß-Wolfgang (1995, 1996); Hajiˇcová, Partee, & Sgall (1998a, 1998b); Herburger (2000); König (1991, 1993); Krifka (1992); Partee (1991, 1999); Taglicht (1984); Vallduví (1990/1992: Ch. 7); Wold (1998). . ⊕ is an operator which combines two individual (entity) terms i1 and i2 so as to result in the plural object (individual sum) i1 ⊕ i2 , which is itself an individual (entity) term (see Link 1983, 1991). . For an idea as to how this may be achieved in the syntax see Section 5.2. . We can imagine both utterances as appropriate replies to context questions such as What did John do? or What happened? . Partee’s (1991: 172) own explanation is this: If one focuses “Prague”, then the claim concerns a comparison of the sizes of the demonstrations in all the demonstrations in all the places where there were demonstrations in November 1989; if “November”, then we are comparing the sizes of demonstrations in Prague in all the months in 1989; if “1989” then we are comparing the sizes of the demonstrations in Prague in November in all the different years. The problem I am going to point out is inherent in this formulation as well as in that by Gundel (1999). . I may note that whether this hypothesis is true or not does not affect my approach to focus structure in terms of the distinction between thetic, categorical and identificational sentences. . In addition to the terminological issue of whether ‘topicalisation’ is used to refer to a syntactically or functionally defined class of phenomena the term has also been used differently among authors who concentrate on the syntactic perspective (see Ward 1985/1988: 130). Some have used it in a restricted sense for visible NP/DP fronting only, reserving other terms for the fronting of other phrasal categories (e.g. Emonds 1976). Others have used it for visible fronting of all kinds of phrasal categories. Something in between these usages can also be found. Haegeman & Guéron, for instance, call NP/DP-, PP- and PP-fronting ‘topicalisation’, but refer to VP-fronting by this same term (see Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 225f., 555). . I.e. the coordinate structure constraint, the complex NP constraint, the wh-island constraint, the sentential subject constraint; see Ross (1967/1986). . This generally holds for examples where the wh-XP precedes the fronted XP. Some speakers, however, consider (at least some) sentences where the fronted XP precedes the whXP (as in (68i)) to be acceptable. I will come back to such cases in the course of this section and will discuss them in more detail in Subsection 7.2.5. See also N. 103. . Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 226) preface the list from which (68v, w) are taken and which comprises also (ia) and (ib) below (including the ‘*’) by saying: “For most speakers,
Notes
topicalization of VP-constituents is incompatible with inversion structures triggered by whmovement or by negative proposing [sic; preposing is intended]”. Although the authors do not say whether there are deviating judgements by some speakers on all or some of examples such as (68v, w) and (ia, ib) below, it seems that it is more specifically examples like (68v) and (ia), i.e. those where the fronted XP precedes the wh-XP or negative preposed XP, whose judgements are not clear (see also N. 102). (i)
a. *On that subject, under no circumstances will I consult with John b. *Under no circumstances on that subject will I consult with John
. For similar surveys see Rochemont (1989: 146ff.); Park (1998: 12ff.). See also Drubig (1992a: 383ff.); Müller (1995: 327ff.). . In the course of Radford’s book (1997) IP is reanalysed as TP. The differences between the IP- and TP-view is, as far as I can see, not relevant here. But note that where Radford has TP in his tree diagrams I take it to be equivalent to IP. . In order to avoid this problem, Drubig (1992a) restricts an analysis along these lines to “Focus Topicalization” (FT) in root clauses, and opts for a CP-recursion analysis where a second CP immediately dominates the first CP for FT in embedded clauses (see also below in the main text). As a CP-recursion analysis does not seem appropriate for “Topic Topicalization” (TT) in embedded clauses in view of sentences like (i)
He’s a man to whom liberty we could never grant
Drubig (1992a: 391) comes to the conclusion that “[t]he proper structure of TT must remain open here”. (For a discussion of such examples as (i) see also Subsection 7.3.4.) An essentially different treatment of fronting of topic expressions on the one hand and of identificational focus expressions on the other hand may be an option. But for reasons of theoretical parsimony it should be avoided if possible, as it is in the present approach, which has the additional advantage that the newly created problem noted by Drubig does not emerge. . There is a debate on the proper analysis of subject wh-interrogatives. Some authors propose that a subject wh-XP does not overtly move to spec-C; others propose that it does move overtly but invisibly. I will present my own analysis of subject wh-interrogatives in Subsection 7.2.2. . For more details on subjacency and barriers see below, Subsection 7.1.2. . This approach is also taken by Rochemont & Culicover and others (see Rochemont & Culicover 1990: 9, 160, N. 9). . The ‘D’ in this tree diagram is to be understood as ‘pronominal determiner’, i.e. a X0 /XP category (cf. Radford 1997: 154ff.). It is located in spec-T here. . Chomsky (1995b: 324) on ‘stylistic’ operations: In early transformational grammar, a distinction was sometimes made between “stylistic” rules and others. Increasingly, the distinction seems to be quite real: the core computational properties we have been considering differ markedly in character from many other operations of the language faculty, and it may be a mistake to try to integrate them within the same framework of principles. The problems
Notes
of XP-adjunction are perhaps a case in point: they may not really belong to the system we are discussing here [...]. Chomsky (1995b: 324) mentions as potential ‘stylistic’ phenomena “such operations as extraposition, right-node raising, VP-adjunction, scrambling, and whatever ‘rearrangements’ are involved in forming such expressions as [I took a lot of pictures out of the attic yesterday of my children and their friends].” . With respect to Japanese “wa-Topicalization”, Rochemont (1998: 347, 351) refers to unpublished work by Uechi (1995). . With respect to examples such as in (i) Zubizarreta (1998: 102) writes “there may be a ‘topic’ feature on a functional category above TP”. (i)
a. b.
Todos los días, Juan compra el diario all the days Juan buys the newspaper En este bar, Max escribío su primera novela In this bar Max wrote his first novel
Contrary to what I assume Zubizarreta (1998: pass.) allows for more than one topic per utterance so that utterances like (ia, ib) would be analysed as having two topics. I suggest that the fronted adverbials are not topic-XPs, but extra-clausal constituents. . Benincà (2001: 55) argues that Rizzi’s (1997) reasons derived from Italian data for assuming a potential TopP below FocP are not conclusive. For her TopP and FocP are distinct (as for Rizzi), but TopP invariably precedes FocP in Italian clause structure (unlike for Rizzi). . The identification of the respective traces left by the fronting of the two non-argument (not theta-marked) phrases has to be ensured by antecedent government. Antecedent government is subject to relativised minimality, which requires that no closer potential governor in a non-argument position intervene between an antecedent and its trace. In (82) on no account may be assumed to be a potential antecedent governor which intervenes between the antecedent during the holidays and its trace. . The symbol ‘%’ indicates that judgements vary among native speakers. . More precisely in terms of relevance theory (see Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995: pass.; Carston 1988; Blakemore 1992: Ch. 4–6), a root clause linguistically encodes a ‘logical form’ (in the relevance theoretic sense), which has to be developed by explicature into a propositional form. The relevance theoretic ‘logical form’ is the propositional “blueprint delivered by the grammar”, as Blakemore (1992: 59) puts it, which is not necessarily fully propositional yet. In most cases, it has to be enriched by reference assignment, disambiguation, specification of vague terms and other contextually inferred features. ‘Propositional form’ is the notion preferred by relevance theoreticians over ‘proposition’ and is defined as “a well-formed formula which (a) undergoes formal logical (truth preserving) operations determined by its structure, and (b) is semantically complete in that it is capable of being true or false” (Carston 1988: 178, N. 2). These distinctions, although important in general, will not be crucial for the purposes of the present work and may thus be neglected here. . The terms speaker/hearer are often used in the literature as equivalents for communicator/addressee and are then usually intended to subsume writer/reader as well. . Lambrecht’s (1994) notion of activeness is derived from Chafe:
Notes
Chafe (1987: 22ff.) argues that a particular ‘concept’ may be in any one of three activation states, which he calls active, semi-active (or accessible) and inactive respectively. An active concept is one ‘that is currently lit up, a concept in a person’s focus of consciousness at a particular moment.’ An accessible/semiactive concept is one ‘that is in a person’s peripheral consciousness, a concept of which a person has a background awareness, but one that is not being directly focused on.’ An inactive concept is one ‘that is currently in a person’s long-term memory, neither focally nor peripherally active.’ In the following discussion I will refer to what Chafe calls here ‘concepts’ as ‘(mental representations of) referents’[.] (Lambrecht 1994: 93f.) . Lambrecht’s (1994) degrees of activeness are, of course, similar to what other authors refer to by the dichotomy given (old) vs. new information. But he correctly points out that these terms are often used differently and misleadingly by various authors (see Lambrecht 1994: 45ff.). . These two examples show that Erteschik-Shir’s (1997: 21) claim that “a pronoun is necessarily a topic” is hardly tenable. . Actually, I would prefer to say that the object pronoun den is topic expression in Jacobs’s example. The topic is the individual referred to by both the topic expression and the expression den Franz-Josef. The information-structural role of the denotation or referent of a so-called left dislocated constituent like den Franz-Josef in this example is of course closely related to that of a topic expression, but ‘topic expression’ and ‘left-dislocated constituent’ should be strictly kept apart; cf. also Jacobs (2001). . Lambrecht (1994: 117) uses ‘discourse topic’ “to designate a topic expression whose referent is pragmatically salient beyond the limit of a single sentence.” See also Reinhart (1981: 54f.). . Assuming that an utterance is in some sense about the topic does in fact not entail that it should pass the various syntactic tests (e.g. the as for-, or what about?-tests) which have been proposed (see e.g. Lakoff 1971; Gundel 1974/1988). That these tests do not work has been shown by Prince (1984: 216) and Ward (1985/1988: 17ff., 30ff.). . The terminological variation between ‘focus’ and ‘focus element’ is confusing here. And I do not see any motivation for a distinction between ‘topic expression’ and ‘topic element’. As topics are not only referred to by ‘elements’ (such as pronouns) but also by more complex expressions, I will not use the term ‘topic element’. . a) To this definition is appended (Lambrecht 1994: 60) the one of pragmatic presupposition by Stalnaker (1974: 200), which contains the idea that in addition to what the speaker assumes about the hearer’s state of mind also the speaker’s assumptions about the hearer’s assumptions about the speaker’s state of mind are important. For a critique of this concept of ‘mutual knowledge’ see Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995: 15ff., 38ff.). ‘Mutual knowledge’ may have to be replaced by Sperber & Wilson’s (1986/1995: 38ff.) notion of ‘mutual manifestness’. b) According to Höhle (1982: 90f.), it is only the propositional content, but not the truth value, of the propositions in the presupposition (which corresponds to his “relevanter Kontext” (‘relevant context’); see Höhle 1982: 86), that is known or taken for granted.
Notes . Recall from Chapter 1, note 1 that “the word ‘argument’ in ‘argument-focus’ is used here [i.e. in Lambrecht 1994] as a cover term for any non-predicating expression in a proposition, i.e. it includes terms expressing place, time, and manner” (Lambrecht 1994: 224). . Lambrecht (1994: 223), who gives also the corresponding versions of the A-examples in Italian, French and Japanese, points out that [c]oncerning the predicate-focus examples in [(89aA)], it is clear that in the minimal context provided here the sentences would be most natural with pronominal or null subjects. The versions with lexical topic NPs are included here as possible grammatical alternatives, which would be required in discourse contexts in which the topic referent is pragmatically less accessible. . See Lambrecht’s comment (1994: 179) as to the misleading character of the term ‘existential’ for such sentences. For it is very rarely only the assertion of mere existence that is effected by them, but rather the introduction of “a referent into the ‘place’ or ‘scene’ of the discourse and thereby of raising it into the addressee’s consciousness”. On expletive there-sentences as thetic sentences see also Drubig (1992b: 167, pass.). . Of course, using the term specific in this context makes sense only as far as categorical and identificational sentences are concerned. . a) I do not intend to participate in the debate about the distinction of entailment and presupposition. I assume without discussion that the respective open proposition is both an entailment and a presupposition. b) Lambrecht (1994) does not mention Sperber and Wilson’s work (e.g. Wilson & Sperber 1979; Sperber & Wilson 1986(/1995)). Polinsky (1999: 579) is “a bit surprised by the absence of any references to relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986). This omission is surprising given that many of L[ambrecht]’s assumptions about pragmatics and the contribution of discourse can be directly linked to this theory.” . Note, however, that in the entailment in (92a) no variable occurs and that by using the clitic morph for the perfective morpheme one syntactic constituent has been ignored. These point to technical detail problems of the variable substitution mechanism, which I will ignore in this sketch of Wilson & Sperber’s (1979) idea. . For (93) the ultimate entailment is (92j). . For (93) the penultimate entailments are (92e) and (92i). . More accurately, it is functions over what corresponds to a syntactic argument or predicate in a proposition. For a proposition is not a syntactic unit as such, i.e. not identical to a root clause. A root clause is used to express a proposition. If the function is ‘over a root clause’, then the corresponding relevance presupposition is radically open, that is, the function denoted by the λ-term ranges over complete propositions. . The indication of the F-marked lexical items in both (100aA) and (100bA) is added by me. . A similar view shines through when Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 517) say with respect to the sentence Thelma, Mary will invite, in which Thelma is assumed to be a topic expression, that “[t]he DP Thelma is the subject of a predicate consisting of the entire sentence. Structurally, Thelma is the specifier of the head Top, whose complement is the entire clause.”
Notes
See also Jacobs (2001: 647), for whom semantic predication is one of the “functional attributes of prototypical examples of TC [topic-comment constructions]”. For example, in (i) below “it is the syntactic object that serves as semantic subject” (Jacobs 2001: 648). (i)
Der Polizei mißtraut er. L+H* H*+L
See also Gundel (1974/1988: Ch. 2) for a review of the notions of subject and predicate in grammar and logic. . See Lambrecht’s (1994: 147ff., 248f.) discussion of primary and secondary topics. . The availability of both (102Aa) and (102Ab) as natural replies to Q’s utterance calls for a revision of Erteschik-Shir’s (1997: 47) claim that “in symmetric cases, when both the subject and object are candidates for topichood, the subject is taken as the main topic”. . See also Gundel (1974/1988: 38ff., 46, N. 19); Peregrin (1995: 50); de Swart & de Hoop (2000: 110f.) for support of the Strawsonian argument. Reinhart (1981: 70) considers it “essentially correct” although “pretty subtle”. . Likewise Gundel (1974/1988: 36), according to whom the topic “of sentences which answer some implicit or explicit question like what happened?, is the particular situation (time and place) about which it is asserted (questioned, etc.).” . As concerns the referentiality of topics, see also É. Kiss (1995a: 7); Erteschik-Shir (1997: pass.); Peregrin (1995: 51); Prince (1981a: 251ff., 1984: 217f.); Reinhart (1981: 65ff.); Sasse (1987: 555); Sornicola (1994: 4639); Strawson (1964/1971: 97). But see also Takizawa (1987: 225), who claims that generic and abstract nominal expressions as well as propositional expressions are, although possible topic expressions, not referential. I do not agree with Takizawa, though. . A boy is tall is acceptable, though, if a boy is generic. . Likewise Grewendorf (2002: 72f.), who also mentions languages in which wh-XPs are morphologically marked as focus expressions. . And for Halliday (1967–1968: 212f.), the wh-element in a wh-interrogative is “‘what the clause is about”’ (“unmarked theme”). . Lambrecht’s reference to (non-focus related) activation accents may be countered in turn by pointing out that there surely are contexts for the utterances in (109a) and (109c), for example, in which the referents of the accented expressions are already active: (i)
a. b.
Clyde had always seemed less interested in Bertha than in Adelheid. Why did he marry Bertha (then)? Bertha had always seemed less attractive to Clyde than to Dennis. Why (then) did Clyde marry her?
In cases like these, the accents clearly are no activation accents, they rather signal contrast. As an expression’s being contrasted does not entail its being a focus expression, however, we may simply add contrast to the inventory of functions that an accent may take if it is freed from its role in determining the focus. See also Section 6.3.
Notes
. Vallduví (1990/1992: 133ff.; see also 1993: 24f.; Vallduví & Engdahl 1996: 474f.) argues on the basis of Ward (1985/1988) that the difference between They named their dog FIDO and FIDO they named their dog is that the latter, but not the former, involves specification of a value from a scale or element of a set (“the set of dog names, probably ordered among them in terms of clichédness”; Vallduví 1993: 25). . A similar point is made by Vallduví (1993: 4f., N. 4) with respect to “questions like What’s new? or What happened next? [which] are often assumed not only to accept but also to require an all-focus [i.e. thetic] answer [. . .]. This, however, is not necessarily true.” . There may be affective and/or social aspects of meaning attached to the nonapplication of this rule. Consider the following (fictional, but realistic) conversation, especially the last utterance exchange (from Rankin 1990/1997: 163): (i)
‘Who’s in charge here?’ Rebus demanded. The workman blew on the contents of his cup, then took another swig before replying. ‘Me, I suppose.’ His eyes were wary. He could smell authority a mile off. ‘This is a legitimate tea-break.’ ‘Never mind that. What’s going on?’ ‘Who wants to know?’ ‘CID wants to know.’
Non-deletion of the IP [t wants to know] in Detective Inspector Rebus’s reply adds a nuance of irritable authority to his utterance. . “A sentence is an output of grammar, a triple complex of syntactic, semantic and phonological information. A sentence-string is an uninterpreted surface sentential sequence” (Kempson & Cormack 1981: 302, N. 1). . In no probable and felicitous intonational version do the fronted pronouns carry the primary (nuclear) pitch accent. What they do need though is a secondary, most typically rising accent (L+H*). . (124) is a modified version of an example given by Birner & Ward (1998: 17). Birner & Ward’s version is misleading at one point. They talk about the ‘is-as-tall-as-or-taller-than’ relation and explain its antisymmetry by saying “[i]f X is as tall as or taller than Y, and Y is as tall as or taller than X, then X=Y”. This is not true if X and Y are understood – against Birner & Ward’s intention, but naturally by intuition – as variables for persons. Imagine X to be instantiated by the person John and Y to be instantiated by the different person Ally, both being of the same height. Then the premise ‘X is as tall as or taller than Y, and Y is as tall as or taller than X’ is true, but the conclusion ‘X=Y’ is false. The point is that X and Y have to be understood as variables for heights. . Transitivity: If x is part of y and y is part of z, then x is part of z. Irreflexiveness: If x is part of y, then y can never be identical with x. Asymmetry: If x is part of y, then y can never be part of x. . The identity relation is trivially transitive, reflexive and antisymmetric. . The notions of ‘backward looking center’ (BLC) and ‘forward looking center’ (FLC) are adopted and adapted from Joshi & Weinstein (1981) and Grosz, Joshi & Weinstein (1983)
Notes
by Ward (1985/1988: 54ff.) and correspond respectively to link and anchor in Birner & Ward (1998). . Of a total of 589 preposings that constitute Ward’s (1985/1988) corpus he identifies only 7.3% as being based on the identity relation, most of these being PP (53.5%) and NP (39.5%) preposings (see Ward 1985/1988: 155). . Ward (1985/1988) adds in a note (N. 131) that “with FALL-RISE intonation contour over ‘The Americanization of Emily’, an intonational contour claimed to involve scalar relations, example [(128aB)] becomes felicitous.” . In Ward (1985/1988: 162f.) this example is discussed as one which leaves open both an interpretation involving the identity relation and one involving a scale, with Ward appearing to prefer the latter. He writes: “the speaker’s mention of a recurring dream could evoke a scale of dreams. The BLC this dream would thus constitute a value on that scale.” And he adds in a note (N. 129): “That this interpretation is at least plausible is evidenced by the fact that the speaker used a demonstrative adjective in referring to the dream. If identity were the salient relation, one might wonder why the speaker did not use a definite article, i.e. the dream, or even a pronoun, i.e. it.” In Birner & Ward (1998: 223), this assessment has changed. The authors write: “Here, the link this dream is related via an identity relation to the anchoring poset, consisting of a singleton dream; there is no mention of any other dream in the prior or subsequent context.” . Finding an adequate relation as such is no problem, for, as Birner & Ward (1998: 20) point out, “in principle any random set of items could constitute a poset”. The problem is that the relation has to be salient or at least inferable. But see N. 160. . Deictic expressions by definition cause the context and thus any poset-constituting relation between items from the context to be salient. . ‘TOP’ is Ward’s abbreviation for the type of preposing that corresponds to a categorical clause with non-subject topic DP; ‘[+IDENTITY]’ means that the preposing is (assumed to be) licensed by the identity relation. . Actually, there is also a discourse constraint on non-pronominal subjects as topic expression linked to the anchor by identity. Consider the following example from Ariel (1988: 69). (i)
Geraldine Ferraro has been an active Democrat for quite a few years. But {she / ??Geraldine Ferraro} ran for Vice-Presidency only in 1984.
Ariel’s (1988: 69) explanation is this: “The difference in acceptability between a proper name and a pronoun in subsequent retrievals is due to the fact that pronouns, unlike proper names, mark high Accessibility. Since in [(i)] Ferraro had just been mentioned, a marker of high Accessibility is more appropriate.” For a comprehensive discussion of the accessibility of antecedents of nominal expressions see Ariel (1990). . Gustafsson (1983: 35) counted 745 fronted direct objects and 43 prepositional objects in a corpus of ca. 128,000 running words (the “‘Gothenburg’ version of the Brown Corpus”). She estimates that 15% of all direct objects and 5% of all prepositional objects in finite clauses are fronted.
Notes . See also Newmeyer (1998) for an assessment of the relation between performance factors as conceived of by Hawkins and the principles of syntax as conceived of by generative grammarians. . I ignore thetic sentences here. But note that in thetic sentences it is the syntactic subject which is clause initial, for it is in spec-AgrS and no other XP is in a higher spec-position. . Of course, in a syntactic framework in which there is only binary branching, the right IC is also always the rightmost IC. . The discourse constraint discussed in the previous subsection, which blocks nonsubjects in spec-Foc which are linked to the context by the identity relation, is not at issue in (135). For the pronoun picks its referent deictically from a set of implied alternatives here. As argued above, such a link does not fall into the category of identity relations. . We can think of feature checking as a technical way to express syntactic saturation requirements/options and their fulfilment. From that point of view there is no essential difference between saturation by a specifier or by a complement, and it is thus straightforward and economical to capture syntactic saturation by a complement in the same way, i.e. by feature checking, as syntactic saturation by a specifier. In having complement features Radford’s version of feature checking theory diverges from the mainstream. (I am grateful to Elly van Gelderen for pointing this out to me.) But it has the advantage of unifying the technicalities involved in the combination of a head with a specifier on the one hand and with a complement on the other. . Person and number features are uninterpretable on verbs, but interpretable on nominals (see e.g. Chomsky 1995b: 277f.). . An XP which moves to spec-Foc, however, does contain a semantic Foc-feature (see Ch. 9 below). . By the checking mechanism, no interpretable feature is erased while all uninterpretable ones are erased – except one, namely the formal feature of the highest functional head, i.e. of Foc in categorical and identificational root clauses and of AgrS in thetic root clauses. This exception cannot be helped, but, intuitively, does not seem to pose a problem if we conceive of the checking of formal head features as something like the saturation of structural argument positions according to the mutual configurational exigencies of phrases. Whatever the nature and thus the category of the highest phrase in a syntactic structure, it is by definition not integrated in a higher structure, i.e. it cannot saturate a structural argument of another head. Its function, then, is not to signal that another suitable head may take the phrase as complement or specifier, but simply to signal its formal nature. If we wish, however, we may guard the checking mechanism against this residual inconsistency concerning the requirement that all formal head features must be erased by stipulating that the formal head feature of the highest functional head is to be erased anyway. . See Subsection 7.2.2 for an analysis of the movement and checking operations that involve the interrogative head Q, for which this is the case. . See Groat & O’Neil (1996) for a discussion of the wider theoretical implications and conceptual as well as some empirical advantages of a checking theory along these lines (especially compared to the original version presented in Chomsky 1993/1995).
Notes . Some non-SE varieties too lack interrogative subject-aux inversion (e.g. Indian English; see e.g. Barber 1993: 252). . This example as well as the following ones are from written texts. . Ura (2000: 17) refers to Section 4.5.6 of Chomsky (1995b) to substantiate this statement. However, I cannot find a discussion of this topic there. What Chomsky does say in Section 4.6 (Chomsky 1995b: 312f.) is that “there should be no interaction between θ-theory and the theory of movement”, that “θ-theory is virtually complementary to the theory of checking” and that “θ-relatedness is a ‘base property,’ complementary to feature checking which is a property of movement.” . Of course, this follows only under the assumption that both scopal orders are actually derivable by LF-movement. But this is commonly assumed, as one of the motivations for postulating LF-movement in the first place is to allow for the derivation of the two scopal orders everyone > someone and someone > everyone to represent the ambiguity in sentences like Someone admires everyone. See also Chapter 8 below. . In order to determine which deletions are licit, Hornstein (1995) makes crucial use of Diesing’s (1992) mapping principle. . This phrase is Drubig’s (1994) “Focus Phrase”, i.e. the ‘associate’ of the focus particle. . a) This range is probably subject to mechanisms of F-projection along the lines to be discussed in Chapter 6. b) Note that, due to F-projection, (151b) has two more possible source structures (and thus more possible interpretations) than the one given in (152b). They are these: (i)
a. b.
[vP John [v v[VP only [VP to Sue [V introduced Bill]]]]] [vP only [vP John [v v[VP to Sue [V introduced Bill]]]]]
The first one means something like ‘the only action John performed was introducing Bill to Sue’; the second one means something like ‘the only event going on was John’s introduction of Bill to Sue’. . This idea will be made use of more extensively in Chapter 9, where languages other than English are discussed. . See also (i) below. To the limited extent that (ib) is accepted, we must provide for SP as complement too. (i)
a. John has only been dating Nelle b. *?John has been only dating Nelle c. *John only has been dating Nelle
. Concentrating on German, Büring & Hartmann (2001) argue against the view that focus particles are (cross-categorial) heads and in favour of the view that they are adverbial XPs. Their main argument is that the former assumption overgenerates, so that a focus particle which precedes a DP inside another DP or a PP should be possible. For them, however, the following examples are “utterly unacceptable in German” (Büring & Hartmann 2001: 233): (i)
a. *mit nur Hans (‘with only Hans’)
Notes
b. *gegen sogar den Präsidenten (‘against even the president’) c. *der Bruder nur des Grafen the brother only the earl’s ‘the brother of only the earl’ d. *die Proklamation sogar der Unabhängigkeit (‘the proclamation even of independence’) (all judgements by Büring & Hartmann; translations and gloss mine.) Actually, for other native speakers of German (including myself) these are, although less readily acceptable than their counterparts in which the focus particle precedes the preposition, by no means utterly unacceptable. For these speakers they merit at most a ‘?’. While it remains true that this degradation in acceptance, be it more or less significant, will have to be explained in a theory which presents focus particles as heads rather than adverbial XPs, I cannot bring myself to believe that this difficulty is costlier than the price to be paid by Büring & Hartmann’s view. Beside the fact that allowance has to be made for two phrases preceding the finite verb in German on their approach (cf. Büring & Hartmann 2001: 235, 244ff., 264ff.), it has to cope with at least two other problems: First, it requires an explanation for the fact that English, for instance, readily accommodates focus particles within PPs (with only John, against even the president), for which a focus-particle-as-adverbial-XP analysis does not suggest itself readily. Second, it requires an explanation for the fact that focus particles are peculiar XPs in that they may exclusively be X0 /XPs, that is, none of the focus particles as heads of their phrases ever allows for a complement or specifier. . See e.g. Bayer (1996: 212ff.) for an account in terms of LF-movement. . Drubig’s (1997: 11) own view is this: The particle only in [(156Ab)] forces a reading which the focus it accompanies may also have without it: it quantifies over a closed set of individuals known to the interrogator and – by identifying the focus – excludes the set of alternative values. At the same time, [(156Ab)] forces a D(iscourse)-linked reading (Pesetsky 1987) on the indefinite wh-pronoun in [(156Q)], which under normal circumstances signals an open question. Although the alternative-related interpretation of focus in such cases is independent of the particle, only makes the interpretation unambiguously ‘contrastive’. In addition, it seems to cancel the expectation that somebody else besides John came in [. . .]. . I-topicalisation has been a concern of Jacobs’s for a long time (see e.g. Jacobs 1982, 1984). For a discussion of I-topicalisation see also Molnár & Rosengren (1997) and the references given in Jacobs’s and Molnár & Rosengren’s work. . It is difficult to identify thetic utterances in performance data and to determine the position and function of thetic utterances in discourse; see Sasse (1995) and the other articles from the same source (e.g. Sornicola 1995: 83: “We cannot avoid observing, in conclusion, that the very concept of ‘theticity’ is problematic to grasp, when one tries to check it in real texts”). Although much more work will have to be done on the question after the discourse position and function of thetic utterances, I would venture the suggestion that under some appropriate definition of ‘discourse’ discourse initiality may turn out to be the best candidate in this respect. The fact that theticity has always been associated with out-of-the-blue
Notes
utterances or with those that respond to questions like What happened? is a first indication of the plausibility of such a suggestion. . See also Selkirk (1984), of which Selkirk (1995) provides a much less detailed but concise and improved version with respect to the aspects that are relevant for the purposes of the present work. . As usual, ‘IP’ stands for the cascade of functional projections above vP/VP. The vP/VP is complement of the functional phrase immediately above (VoiceP in English), and the F-marking of vP/VP licenses the F-marking of this functional phrase. The latter in turn is complement of the next functional phrase higher up which is thereby licensed as being F-marked – and so on up to the root XP, i.e. the sentence. (Cf. Selkirk 1995: 556.) . a) The same point is made by Drubig (1994: 9ff.). b) I will discuss the role of pitch accents with respect to the ‘new/old’ information distinction in the next section. . Note that it is only claimed that the IP is licensed to be the i-focus. This does not mean that the IP is the i-focus in any utterance of this IP in any communicative situation. The subject DPs too are licensed as possible i-foci in these cases. . a) Diesing (1992: 46), referring to Kratzer (1988/1995), writes: “there is a class of individual-level predicates whose subjects are generated in an internal (object) position.” Such predicates, called ‘unaccusative’ by Diesing (1992: 47) “in the sense that their subjects are generated VP-internally”, are assumed to originate in spec-V (see Diesing 1992: 24). Radford (1997: 399) as well assumes that the subjects of unaccusative predicates originate in the specifier of a VP-core. Note, however, that Selkirk’s examples in (169) are not individual level predicates, but stage level predicates (see above, p. 21) and that there is a long tradition of analysing the argument of an unaccusative verb as originating in its complement position (see N. 35), a view which I subscribe to. b) See also Uhmann (1991a: 197ff.) and the references given there (N. 9) to earlier work in which a distinction between internal and external arguments in terms of thematic roles is used in the discussion of i-focus projection. . I am grateful to Hans-Bernhard Drubig for directing me to Faber’s and Göbbel’s work. . Faber (1987) and Göbbel (2003) assume that there has to be a pitch accent on both the argument and the verb in the respective second examples of the two series in (173a, b), i.e. where there is a human controller of the action. In the present work it is the pitch accent on the verb that is responsible for the F-mark (hence the superscript F independent of the question whether or not there has to be a second pitch accent on the argument for the utterance to be thetic. See also below in this chapter. . (176aA ) is odd if (as theticity presupposes) the referent of the ball is not active or inferable in the discourse, i.e. if Q does not know which ball A is talking about. Of course, (176aA ) is not terribly deviant, as it may be easily inferred pragmatically that A may be talking about a certain ball she has been playing with. In this case, however, A s utterance is taken to be categorical. . Rosengren (1995: 96ff.) gives a list of German thetic one-argument sentences (drawn from other sources) whose argument is pitch-accented. She criticises theories “where only internal arguments may be focus exponents” (Rosengren 1995: 98) for not being able to
Notes
explain the potential theticity of these examples. However, under a strictly observed vP/VPinternal subject hypothesis there are no arguments which are generated outside the base (vP/VP), i.e. no ‘external’ arguments in the first place. On the contrary, the argument whose pitch-accenting licenses a thetic reading in one-argument sentences is not only base‘internal’ but required to be the complement of the verb in the base. And this is true for all one-argument verbs except for unergatives. Actually, there is one example in Rosengren’s list which involves an unergative verb and which several informants (including myself) cannot accept as having a potentially thetic reading: (i)
Die Schüler streiken heute (‘The pupils are on strike today’) (from Rosengren 1995: 97)
I would maintain that (i) can only be identificational. That streiken is unergative is suggested among other things by the fact that it has an agentive verb + DP paraphrase: machen einen Streik (lit. ‘make a strike’) (cf. Radford 1997: 391). . Whatever the precise internal structure of the expressions in the inner brackets in (186Ac) and (186Ad), they are undoubtedly complements of the adjective. . As follows from what has just been pointed out, ‘base’ does not refer to only a clausal base here, but to the base of any extended projection. . With respect to (193Ac) Lambrecht (1994: 261) writes: “the activation criterion simply does not apply, since no activation state can be assigned to the denotatum of noone.” . Essentially the same problem is noted by Hetland (1993), who compares (ia) and (ib) below (‘Peter has bought a house’). (i)
a.
Peter hat ein HAUS gekauft
b.
Peter hat ein Haus GEKAUFT
“maximal focus possible” (my translation from Hetland 1993: 110) “only minimal focus” (my translation from Hetland 1993: 110)
. The clause in parenthesis is supposed to account for cases like the following (from Rosengren 1993: 287), where both the denotatum of the V-head (begrüßte) and the referent of its DP-complement (Gerd) are active: (i)
Q: Was tat Petra als sie in das Zimmer trat und Gerd begrüßte? (‘What did Petra do when she entered the room and greeted Gerd?’) A: Blöde Frage: Sie begrüßte GERD. (‘Stupid question: She greeted Gerd.’)
. See also Rochemont’s (1986: Ch. 1) modifications of the NSR. . They indicate contrastive topic expressions; see the next section. . It is important to analyse an seine Frau as complement of Brief, not as beneficiary/recipient argument of geschrieben originating in spec-V here. But this is as it should be, for having the pitch accent within what is obviously a beneficiary/recipient argument of geschrieben gives an unacceptable result: (i)
a. b.
Q: A: Q: A:
Gibt’s was Neues? (‘What’s new?’) #Peter hat seiner Frau einen Brief geschrieben. (‘Peter wrote his wife a letter.’) Gibt’s was Neues von Peter? (‘What’s new about Peter?’) #Er hat seiner Frau einen Brief geschrieben.
Notes . As already pointed out above (N. 73), there is a debate on how to interpret the respective contour. Either the L tone in such a sequence “is part of a bitonal pitch accent or has the status of an independent phrase accent” (Selkirk 1995: 568, N. 3; see also the works mentioned there). Ladd (1996) discusses this problem quite extensively and comes to the general conclusion that “phrase tones [i.e. the L in H* L, for instance] and trailing tones [the L of H*+L, for instance] might be, in some way, different manifestations of the same thing.” (Ladd 1996: 111.) Note also that the stylised f0 contours for the intermediate phrases H* L and H*+L L are identical (see Appendix). . Recall (from p. 130) that “the Focus of a sentence [...] is defined as an F-marked constituent not dominated by any other F-marked constituent” (Selkirk 1995: 555). . ‘F-projection’, then, means the same and is simply a shorter expression for ‘i-focus projection’. . The presence of secondary (non-nuclear) pitch accents alongside the primary (nuclear) one seems to be the rule rather than the exception. This is one result of Uhmann’s (1991a, b) investigation of German intonation with respect to focus structure. She adds that the secondary “pitch accents freed from the task of serving as the phonological correlate of the focus feature take over additional functions” (Uhmann 1991b: 228). . I assume that H*+L, i.e. same pitch accent as that used for bats, is appropriate. . The contrastive function of L+H* is pointed out by Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg (1990: 296) and Steedman (2000a, b) among others. In the words of the latter, for instance: “It is only appropriate to mark the theme with an L+H* pitch accent when it stands in contrast to a different established or accommodatable theme” (Steedman 2000a: 656). But note that Steedman’s use of ‘theme’ is not identical to that of ‘topic’ as used in the present work. . The notions ‘A accent’ and ‘B accent’ were introduced by Bolinger (1958). . There is, however, at least a terminological inconsistency when Jackendoff (1972) allows for more than one focus per utterance at some places in his book (see e.g. Jackendoff 1972: 260) and writes “there is only one focus per sentence” (Jackendoff 1972: 250) at another place. As follows from the first three chapters of the present work, my own position is that there is exactly one identificational focus expression per (identificational) sentence. . But see my argument (above, p. 93f.) that a response to a wh-question need by no means necessarily be identificational. . On recent developments in the analysis of the structural position of APs within DPs see Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 453ff. . On verb-second in Old and Middle English see Fischer et al. 2000 and the references given there. In the present work verb-second is analysed as movement of the phonological form of the finite verb to Foc due to a type α Foc-feature in the verb (given that both auxiliaries and finite lexical verbs are consistently affected). The following example from the preface to a Wycliffite Bible concordance (quoted after Burnley 1992/2000: 178) illustrates a later Middle English verb-second construction with a fronted object DP. (i)
An instrument wherwiÞ we hewen clepen we an axe
Notes . As follows especially from Chapter 5 above, the lowest trace is conceived of in the present work as a semantic form dissociated from its phonological form which has moved, a point that will only occasionally be reflected in the formulations used in the sequel, but which should always be kept in mind. . Consider examples like Whoi did you say (*that) ti left? and those involving fronting in (i): (i)
a. b.
Johni I believe (*that) t i is innocent Johni I prefer (*for) t i to remain silent
Note that according to Quirk et al. (1985: 1193) having for as a complementiser which introduces to-infinitive clauses after certain verbs is “chiefly restricted to [American English]”. . Of course, if we want to retain proper government and identification of traces as independent conditions, then the definition of proper government cannot be made dependent on theta-marking, if the notion of theta-marking is restricted to arguments. For otherwise any kind of non-argument movement, including simple cases such as in Whyi did you leave ti ? would have to produce an ECP violation, contrary to fact. That is, either the notion of theta-marking has to be extended to non-arguments, or proper government has nothing to do with theta-marking. These are questions which lie outside the scope of the present work. . For an overview of the phenomena and theoretical approaches see the relevant passages and chapters in e.g. Haegeman (1991/1994); Haegeman & Guéron (1999); Culicover (1997). . This problem will be discussed extensively in Section 7.4. . Culicover (1996: 454f.) compares this phenomenon with one found in relative clauses: A similar argument is made by Pickering and Barry (1989), who show that extraction of NPs out of PPs in relative clauses produces centre-embedding violations, whereas pied-piping of the PPs that contain these NPs does not. This is illustrated in [(i)]. [(i)] a. *This is the table whichi I put the box whichj we found the money in tj on ti . b. This is the table on whichi I put the box in whichj we found the money tj ti . c. This is the table on whichi I put the box whichj we found the money in tj ti . d. ??This is the table whichi I put the box in whichj we found the money tj on tj . There is no significant structural difference among the four sentences. The first is unacceptable, because neither NP can be assigned a grammatical or thematic role until the corresponding gap is recognized and processed. This is a classic example of centre embedding. On the other hand, it is sufficient in [(ib)] to associate the PP (e.g., on which) with the corresponding verb (e.g., put); no gap processing is required for the interpretation. Similarly, in [(ic)] on which can be associated with put without interfering with the identification of the gap for whichj . In [(id)] the gap for whichi cannot be found before the PP in whichj is encountered. In gen-
Notes
eral, it appears that any processing of one wh-phrase while another has not been thematically resolved produces some level of unacceptability. . a) Recall that ‘specifier of XP (spec-XP)’ and ‘specifier of X (spec-X)’ mean the same and are only notational variants. b) The cases intended to be covered by this extension of L-marking are accounted for in ¯ terms of A-binding by Lasnik & Saito (1992). This divergence from Chomsky’s (1986) approach by Lasnik & Saito results from their assumption that topicalisation is adjunction to IP (see Lasnik & Saito 1992: 102, 196, N. 29). As I assume that fronting is movement to spec-Foc, I can keep closer to Chomsky’s original definition. . This accounts for the fact that extraction to spec-Foc from the subject DP in spec-I in examples like (ia–b) below is possible although the subject DP is not the sister of any L-marking head and although there is no position to which the extraction site would be subjacent if the subject DP were a barrier. (i)
a. b.
[Of John]i no pictures t i were taken [Of John]i I believe no pictures t i were taken
. That “VP is never a barrier” is derived by Müller (1995: 31) “as a theorem of the theory of barriers.” . Actually, in Cinque’s (1990) barrier theory a barrier is, roughly, defined as a maximal projection which fails to be selected by a verb-related head (by “a category non-distinct from [+V]”; Cinque 1990: 42). In this theory neither vP/VP, nor any functional projection above vP/VP up to and including AgrS P is a barrier, for they are all selected by the head of their respective dominating projection. And these heads are all verb-related in that they all originate from features associated with the (finite and/or non-finite) verb(s). . But see e.g. Culicover (1997: Ch. 3); Haegeman (1991/1994: Ch. 4); Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 362ff., 551ff.) for an overview of the complications involved in properly defining the local domain and for refinements of the definition of local domain just given. . Chomsky (1993/1995: 211) then proposes the following interpretative versions of the binding principles, in which ‘D’ refers to the relevant local domain: If α is an anaphor, interpret it as coreferential with a c-commanding phrase in D. If α is a pronominal, interpret it as disjoint from every c-commanding phrase in D. C. If α is an r-expression, interpret it as disjoint from every c-commanding phrase.
A. B.
. Lasnik & Saito (1992) have another objection against invisible subject fronting (‘short topicalisation’) which I will discuss later (Subsection 7.3.2). . I ignore the syntax of co-ordinating conjunctions like and, or, but as well as conjunctional adverbs in the present work. . In the architecture of the present syntactic framework, all phrases are either generated in the base as arguments or (non-argument) adjuncts or generated as adjuncts in the functional domain, and they potentially move to specifier positions in the FANTAV- and functional case layers for checking purposes.
Notes . The term ‘extra-clausal constituent’ (ECC) is used by Dik (1989). He gives the following characterisation of ECCs (Dik 1989: 265): • • •
•
They may precede, interrupt, or follow the clause proper; They are typically ‘bracketed off ’ from the clause by pause-like inflections in the intonation pattern; They are not sensitive to the clause-internal grammatical rules, though they may entertain relations of coreference, parallelism (e.g. same case marking), or antithesis (e.g. negative Tag with positive clause) with the clause they are associated with; They are not essential to the integrity of the internal structure of the clause; when they are left out, the remaining clause structure is complete and grammatical.
I consider parentheticals to be a type of ECC in which there is clausal material to the left and to the right of it. . This is confirmed by Ernst (2002: 416, 430). See Ernst (2002: 416ff.) for his “first stab” (p. 430) at a theory of parentheticalisation. But see also Ernst (2002: 509, N. 24) for references to works dealing with parentheticals by other authors. . There will be different opinions about what role ECCs should play in a theory of syntax, one pole of the range of opinions being the ‘no role at all’ position. I place myself close to this pole, with one proviso: The fact that ECCs cannot be inserted anywhere between constituents of a clause (*The by then book must have been placed on the shelf ; *The old by then book must have been placed on the shelf ) implies that there is some kind of interaction between ECCs and constituents of clause structure proper after all. . Of course, a speaker may open a discourse by uttering a categorical or identificational sentence, thus doing as if there were the corresponding relevance presuppositions ‘around’. Then such presuppositions are ‘accommodated’ (see Lewis 1979; Lambrecht 1994: 65ff.; see also Zubizarreta 1998: 161f., N. 6). I think it is plausible to regard the accommodation of presuppositions as a kind of implicature. . a) I note in passing that such derivations as in (ia–c) below are ruled out by the fact that it is not even an XP which is moved but an X , namely I (the subject, he, occupying spec-I). (i)
a. b. c.
[FocP [IP he was watching TV]] → *[FocP was watching TV [IP he t]] [FocP [IP he was watched by the FBI]] → *[FocP was watched by the FBI [IP he t]] [FocP [IP he watches TV]] → *[FocP watches TV [IP he t]]
b) According to Janßen (2000: 232: N. 28), “[n]ative speaker judgements on the acceptability of a fronted perfective have are very insecure. With only a few exceptions preposed PerfPs are not possible”. He gives the following example and judgement: ?? . . . and have examined the students the professor will. . I may point out here that I consider examples of remnant movement like (254a–c) to be instances of SP/VoiceP-fronting (see also my discussion of German in Section 9.2). Although (254d) is obviously a case of DP-fronting, it is not clear to me how to properly
Notes
analyse the fact that the PP über die Liebe can be left behind (see also Subsection 9.2.4 below, but also Müller 1995, 1998 and the literature referred to there). . For Bresnan (2001) this constitutes one of the “movement paradoxes” (Bresnan 2001: Ch. 2). According to her, these are problematic for the mainstream framework of generative grammar and thus favour the lexical-functional grammar architecture, which does without movement. I will discuss other movement paradoxes further below in this subsection. . a) See also my summary of a Linguist List query (issue 12-2972 at ‘http://linguistlist.org/ issues/12/12-2972.html#1’ (28 Nov 2001)) in which I mention (255) and (257a–c). Based on the comments I had got on these examples, I conclude that there are significant idiolectal and/or dialectal differences concerning such cases. b) “As a speaker of North American English”, Carson Schutze, “ [. . .] find[s] the variants of [(255), (257a–c)] in which the fronted phrase contains the participle that would have occurred in situ to be consistently ungrammatical, not just odd.” (Personal communication received in the context of the Linguist List query mentioned in a) of this note.) . a) This is Oku’s suggestion in the lexicalist framework along the lines of Chomsky (1993/1995), which I also adopt here. Oku also considers a PF affixation approach along the lines of Lasnik (1995b) and concludes that there are reasons to prefer the lexicalist to the PF affixation approach. b) Oku (1998) takes a different approach which, however, is crucially based on the assumption that only the variant with the bare form of the verb in front position is grammatical (see Oku 1998: 29f., 192f., 219, N. 28; but see also 56, N. 11). But this is hardly compatible with what he says (Oku 1996) about the judgements of (258b) (see above) and with Ward’s (1985/1988) assessment that there are cases where the perfective participle is readily accepted. . Examples like those in (ia, ib) below involve meta-linguistic mentioning rather than using the expressions wonderful and bitter and are thus to be disregarded in the present context. (i)
a.
b.
A:
All my friends think she’s wonderful and generous. Well she’s certainly generous . . . B: Wonderful you’re not so sure about? (from Ward 1985/1988: 137) Cyril H. Wecht might be out, but he says he’s not down. Wecht will step down from his first term as an Allegheny County commissioner early next month – and although he has been voted out of the office he worked years to gain, he does not leave a beaten man. Bitter he will allow, but not beaten (from Ward 1985/1988: 138)
. Bresnan (2001: 24, N. 2) notes that “in some dialects of English examples like [(266c)] do occur.” . (266c, d), with John instead of he, is also discussed in Webelhuth (1989/1992: 100); see shortly below in the main text. . This approach is similar to that of Oku’s (1996) with respect to the ‘movement paradox’ concerning seemingly infinitival verb forms in SP/VoiceP-fronting contexts with have (see above). . Webelhuth (1989/1992: 94) concedes that
Notes
[a]s it stands, the Sentence Trace Universal has a rather implausible status. It was introduced in an ad hoc fashion and conceptually is dubious in that it requires a set of constituents to leave behind traces that must be categorially distinct from them – and all that for no reason other than that of capturing the facts relating to the topicalization of sentences. The latter proposal is especially unusual, given that the whole treatment of long-distance dependencies in some syntactic theories is based on the premise that an antecedent and its trace must be featurally identical. . Another problem for Webelhuth’s (1989/1992) account is that of governed by think and about governed by talk do not actually require that their complement be a DP; embedded clauses other than that-clauses are possible as well: (i)
a. b. c.
We {thought of / talked about} how she had saved our lives We {thought of / talked about} what she had done for us We {thought of / talked about} who might be the appropriate choice
Such examples also suggest that an explanation in terms of categorial selection (via complement features) is to be preferred over one in terms of case, i.e. along the lines of saying that a that-clause is not possible as complement of a case-checking preposition as clauses do not carry case. For under the case-approach sentences like (ia–c) should not be possible either. . Actually, I will re-interpret the traditional generalised quantifier types <<e,t>,t> and <<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>> as <<e,e>,e> and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> in Subsection 8.1.3. . Haegeman & Guéron (1999) also propose an ECP account for the ungrammaticality of constructions like (269a) (see Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 444). However, their definition of the ECP being based solely on identification (“Non-overt elements must be identified”; e.g. p. 398), it looks different from the one suggested here. . According to Chomsky (1995b: 330), the minimalist framework in general “has no natural place for the condition of adjacency. Furthermore, if Case is assigned by raising to a [Spec, head] position, as we assume, adjacency should be irrelevant in any event.” . Recall from Subsection 2.1.2 that non-finite clauses lack SP and that consequently overt nominal subjects which do not get their case checked by virtue of for in such clauses must move to matrix spec-Od . . By this I mean that the wh-XP in an interrogative, before moving to spec-Foc, is situated in exactly the same position as the non-wh-XP in the corresponding declarative clause. For example, in Whoi did you see ti the position of the trace t i , from where who has moved, is structurally exactly the same as that of Peter in You saw Peter. . The fact that in the present approach the movement of fronted and of interrogative whXPs target the same landing site may remind the reader of an older suggestion for analysing fronting, namely Higgins’s (1973: 152, N. 5) and Emonds’s (1976: 40ff.) proposal of ‘topicalisation’ as “COMP substitution”, according to which both fronted and interrogative whconstituents were analysed as moving to COMP (the forerunner of spec-C); see also above, Section 3.2. . Up to recently in the younger history of generative syntax the traditional and canonical position for an interrogative wh-XP has been spec-C. However, also Haegeman & Guéron
Notes
(1999: 345), for instance, come to the conclusion that wh-XPs move to spec-Foc (in their sense) in root interrogatives. . a) I will explain further below in this subsection in which cases I think the respective feature is [+foch f ]XP and in which [–foch f ]XP . b) A direct association between wh- and focus features in the derivation of wh-interrogatives has also been proposed by other authors, e.g. Motapanyane (2001) (at least for languages like English) and Sabel (2000). See also Grewendorf (2002: 72ff., 227ff.). . According to Spencer (1991: 26), “[i]n some languages [. . .], there is a separate verb paradigm used in interrogative sentences.” An observation to the same effect is made by Rizzi (1996: 66). In such languages, then, Q has an overt morphological reflex. . a) In the present context, for a wh-XP to remain ‘in situ’ means that its phonological form does not move to the front. It does not necessarily mean that its phonological form remains in its base position. In English the phonological forms of subject and object wh-XPs move at least into their respective spec-positions in the functional case layer. b) So far it has been generally assumed that interrogative features are strong. See e.g. Chomsky (1993/1995: 199, 1995b: 232); Radford (1997: Ch. 6, 7). This assumption raises the problem of how an interrogative feature associated with a wh-XP in situ in multiple wh-XP interrogatives is checked, a problem pointed out e.g. by Reinhart (1998). She suggests that “this feature is optional on the wh-phrase, so a wh-phrase moves only if marked with this feature” (Reinhart 1998: 32, N. 2). To me this suggestion seems ad hoc. . Sabel (2000) argues that in English the wh-feature is strong (triggering overt movement) and the focus feature weak (covert movement). For German Sabel assumes the reverse situation (focus feature strong; wh-feature weak) (see Sabel 2000: 436ff.). This assumption is based on his analysis of the difference between German and English with respect to partial wh-movement, as illustrated by (i). (i)
a. Was meinst du wen Marie liebt? (‘Who do you think Mary loves?’) b. *What do you think who(m) Mary loves? (example and judgement by Sabel)
The problem of wh-XPs in situ in English multiple wh-XP interrogatives arises with Sabel’s approach as well, but is not addressed. . Feature absorption is to be conceived as the covert counterpart of wh-absorption, which is described by Haegeman (1991/1994: 503) in her discussion of multiple wh-XP movement as the process which “converts two wh-operators into one operator which binds two variables.” (See also Haegeman 1995: 78f. pass.). . See Grewendorf (2002: Ch. 7). Grewendorf discusses several approaches to multiple wh-XP interrogatives. He himself suggests an analysis along the following lines: There is only one clause-initial specifier position into which interrogative wh-XPs may move; multiple interrogative wh-XPs form a w-complex prior to any movement to the clause-initial target position; some feature checking takes place in the w-complex; some languages require the movement of the whole w-complex into its specifier target position; other languages extract one wh-XP from the w-complex which moves. Grewendorf ’s approach differs from the one suggested here in that the adjunction and checking processes involved take place before whXP movement to the clause initial target position.
Notes . See Erteschik-Shir (1997: 184ff.) for a different position with respect to this issue. . As a ‘nonoperator’ (or ‘declarative’) yes/no interrogative (see shortly below) this is fine, but not as a yes/no interrogative with Q-Op in spec-Foc. . Note that in subject wh-interrogatives as well as in declaratives a finite lexical verb appears after VP adverbs so that the idea that a finite lexical verb may move overtly but invisibly to Foc is ruled out: (i)
a. Who often reads books? b. *Who reads often books? c. Who frequently beat him? d. *Who beat frequently him?
. See for example Jespersen (1940/1954: 508), Quirk et al. (1985: 134, N. c), Visser (1963– 1973, Part 3, 1st half: 1553). . a) Such sentences occur when the denotation/referent of every constituent is active or accessible and they thus cannot be assigned a pitch accent (see Section 6.3 above). In this case an auxiliary has to be present in the numeration of lexical items feeding the syntactic derivation such that the auxiliary may carry the F-marking pitch accent and ensure F-projection. b) The analysis of interrogatives presented here solves the problem posed by subject whinterrogatives which pattern differently from non-subject wh- and yes/no interrogatives in that aux-support is not necessary for the former. See Radford (1997: 292ff.) and the references given there for other approaches. . There are various approaches to the analysis of the denotation of wh-interrogatives (for an overview see e.g. Bäuerle & Zimmermann 1991; see also Higginbotham 1996). As far as I can see, it is not too difficult to adapt Wilder’s (1997) analysis of wh-interrogatives with accented auxiliary to any of these. . What may be a bit surprising is the fact that we have to assume that Q is bound to the finite verb of the root clause, not to that of the embedded clause in which the wh-XP originates. But this is not that astonishing after all, for it is surely the root clause in which interrogative mode is encoded. . Some examples from French (the ones from Grevisse 1936/1993 attested): (i)
a. b. c. d.
Tu as rencontré qui? (‘Who did you meet?’) (from Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 173) Ils arrosent quelles fleurs pour toi? Ils te fournissent quoi? (‘Which flowers do they water for you? What do they bring you?’) (from Grevisse 1936/1993: 611) Et ça coûte combien? (‘And what does it cost?’) (ditto) Cet argent sera distribué comment? (‘How will this money be distributed?’) (ditto)
According to Grevisse (see 1936/1993: 611) this manner of constructing interrogatives is common in, but not restricted to, the spoken language. . For a similar explanation of the restrictive reading see also N. 268 below and the following quotation from Hornstein (1995: 130) with respect to a multiple wh-XP interrogative:
Notes
[T]he felicity of [Who bought what?] presupposes a given set of people of which the speaker is asking what things each purchased. Further, the answer should be exhaustive, saying of each individual what s/he bought. In contrast to the given set, over which the who ranges, there need not be a given object set, over which what ranges. . The notion of D-linking was introduced by Pesetsky (1987: 108): Roughly, which-phrases are discourse-linked (D-linked), whereas who and what are normally not D-linked. When a speaker asks a question like Which book did you read?, the range of felicitous answers is limited by a set of books both speaker and hearer have in mind. If the hearer is ignorant of the context assumed by the speaker, a which-question sounds odd.[...] Similarly, in a multiple which-question like Which man read which book? the speaker assumes that both speaker and hearer have a set of men and a set of books in mind, and that the members of ordered man-book pairs in a felicitous answer will be drawn from the sets established in the discourse. No such requirement is imposed on wh-phrases like who, what, or how many books. These phrases may be non-D-linked. If a speaker asks How many angels fit on the head of a pin?, there is no presumption that either speaker or hearer has a particular set or quantity of angels in mind. . a) See e.g. Rochemont (1978/1985: 36); Culicover & Rochemont (1983: 140); Rochemont (1986: 19ff.); Lambrecht (1994: 283ff.); É. Kiss (1995a: 23f.); Erteschik-Shir (1997: pass.); Zubizarreta (1998: 92) for some pertinent statements. b) Drubig & Schaffar (2001: 1080) point to the widespread cross-linguistic parallelism in syntactic behaviour between identificational focus expression and interrogative wh-XP, but also mention languages which seem to show differences in this respect. Such cases need further investigation. . a) “A downward-entailing sentence is one in which substituting a more specific for a less specific term yields a valid argument. Few is downward-entailing on both of its arguments since Few men slept entails Few old men slept, and Few old men like children entails Few old men like small children. Some, in contrast, is upward-entailing on both its arguments” (Drubig 1992a: 375, N. 2). b) XPs which contain extent quantifiers such as so, too, such also trigger aux-support when they occur in front position, “but only when the accompanying extent clause is extraposed” (Drubig 1992a: 375). The following examples and judgements are from Drubig (1992a: 375): (i)
a. b.
More often than I had expected my students came to class unprepared ??More often than I had expected did my students come to class unprepared
I ignore this type of cases and the complications they introduce as they do not seem directly relevant for my purposes. . a) ‘[de]’ is supposed to remind us of ‘downward-entailing’. The fact that downward entailment is semantically well-defined may favour its use over the classic [aff(ective)] introduced by Klima (1964) for the naming of the feature. The drawback of using this semantically more committing and less impressionistic term is that it does not cover all relevant items (see N. 270b). b) I see no way of determining which type (α, β, γ)[deh f ]XP is.
Notes
c) Drubig (1992a: 418) as well associates this type of aux-support with fronting of a focused phrase: “[Focus preposing] triggers SAI if the focussed element in the preposed phrase is an affective or an extent operator.” For a similar view see e.g. Rochemont (1978/1985: 79ff.); Culicover (1991: 34); Park (1998: 152ff.), . It is perhaps a peripheral phenomenon in Chomsky & Lasnik’s (1993/1995: 19f.) sense, i.e. one that belongs to a class that “results from historical accident, dialect mixture, personal idiosyncracies, and the like” (Chomsky & Lasnik 1993/1995: 20). However, its historical development does not seem to be clear. Denison (1993: 460) reports that “Ellegård [(1953)] confirms that this kind of inversion entered the language quite suddenly in the sixteenth century” and adds in a note that “Stockwell (1984) treats this inversion as a hangover from Old English, Visser (1963–1973: §1436) as arising in the fourteenth century (though with very few examples).” . For example, Culicover’s (1991) PolP is a possible complement of the I-head as well as of the C-head; Culicover allows for a deletion operation (do-deletion), which is incompatible with minimalist assumptions. . According to Rochemont (1978/1985: 77) this string “can be interpreted only as a declarative statement in which negation takes wide scope, and not also as a question with wide scope of negation”. . There are examples where a complex verb group in full inversion constructions does not ‘sound fine’. In such cases there are contextual rather than strictly syntactic considerations involved (see Rochemont 1978/1985: 22f.). . See also Rochemont 1986: 114, where the same point is made. . The extended projection principle (EPP), which includes “the requirement that clauses have subjects” (Chomsky 1982: 10) covers this phenomenon in a stipulative way. Speas (1993) makes a suggestion for the derivation of the EPP from more general principles. . If the phonological form of the subject moves on to spec-Foc the sentence is not a real alternative to the in situ case, for then the focus structure type of the two apparent alternatives is different. Yet, in this case the phonological form of the subject has at least moved through spec-AgrS . Real alternatives, however, may be rare on information-structural (discourse related, pragmatic) grounds (see also the following remarks in the main text and in N. 279 below. . Quirk et al. (1985: 1379) assign ?/(?) to (ia–c) below corresponding to (301a–c) above, but this is not an indication of ungrammaticality. They claim that the constituent order in (ia–c) suggests “that a nuclear [intonational] focus be placed, inappropriately, on the verb”. (i)
a. b. c.
?Especially remarkable her oval face was ?Faint the sound of the bell grew (?)In a distant grave his beloved body lies
Indeed, if we assign the verb the primary pitch accent, then we have to assume that the fronted phrase is a topic expression; and an appropriate context for this is not easy to come up with. But the sentences become significantly better if we place the primary pitch accent on remarkable, faint, and grave or distant so as to force an interpretation in which the fronted phrase is an identificational focus XP.
Notes . Note that (306d) above, which is structurally identical to (306j), gets a ‘*’ by Rochemont & Culicover. . Culicover (1991: 3) characterises the functions of CP and PolP in the following way: “I will suggest that C ranges at least over that, Q, and [e], while Pol may be at least Neg, Wh and So.[...] There is also evidence that Pol may be Focus.” In his analysis of subject whinterrogatives and sentences with downward-entailing subjects (e.g. No one left), which do not need aux-support, Culicover assumes that PolP may also be a complement of the I-head (see Culicover 1991: 26ff.). . Recall the discussion of a similar identification issue in Subsection 7.2.1. . This argumentation can be applied analogously to the following two sentences not marked as deviant: (i)
a. b.
Tomorrow, where shall we go? (Culicover 1997: 186) During the holidays, why did they invite Tom? (from Haegeman & Guéron 1999: 526)
. Park (1998: 7) quotes several examples partly identical, partly very similar to (312c–j) and (313) as being from a manuscript by Pesetsky (1989). These are all marked ‘?’. According to Ernst (2002: 508, N. 18), examples like (313) are “allowed by a relatively small number of English speakers”. From this he draws the following conclusion: “Since these are rejected by most speakers, I take them as exceptional and not as a challenge to the generalization that ¯ only one A-moved argument landing site, that is, Spec position, is allowed per projection.” . This is a slightly elaborated version of Ernst’s position (2002) mentioned in the preceding note. . This is an example of fronting in an embedded clause, which will be discussed in detail in Section 7.3. . a) The capitalisation of no and circumstances is taken over from Park (1998: 154), but cannot be interpreted as signalling a primary pitch accent on both items. b) This is an example of movement to root spec-Foc from an embedded clause, which will be discussed in the next subsection. . The government relation between a verb or adjective and its non-finite clause complement, as in (318b, c, d, e, g, i, j, l) is also an L-marking one. See Lasnik & Saito (1992: 185), for whom believe L-marks its non-finite clause complement in I believe John to be clever. . “All these sentences are questionable, to say the least. Rochemont himself mentions similar examples, calling them ungrammatical” (Drubig 1992a: 388). . Maki, Kaiser & Ochi (1999: 3) give the parallel sentence That this book, Mary read is true a ‘*’ (see also Authier 1992: 332, referring to Hooper & Thompson 1973), but the parallel That this solution, I proposed last year is widely known appears unasterisked in Lasnik & Saito (1992: 77; a similar unasterisked example can be found in Lasnik & Uriagereka 1988: 156). Maki, Kaiser & Ochi (1999: 4) acknowledge this, and write: “This dialectal variation remains unexplained under the general hypothesis developed here.”
Notes . The parallel John believes the rumour that this book, Mary read is reported to be accepted by some of Maki, Kaiser & Ochi’s (1999: 3f.) informants. But note that the complement of fact is factive and that of rumour non-factive; see Hooper & Thompson (1973). . The parallel John regrets that this book, Mary read is reported to be accepted by some of Maki, Kaiser & Ochi’s (1999: 3f.) informants. . Another point in Drubig’s comment which is not clear to me is in which sense it is the notion of government that “achieves a unification of the contexts where CP-recursion is not allowed with those which act as islands to extraction.” For the noun fact in (323b) does govern the ‘recursive’ CP, whereas that in (323d) is indeed ungoverned (while the assessment in this respect of the other examples may be subject to discussion). . Further below we will encounter an influential proposal to the effect that factive predicates (e.g. regret) do not allow fronting in their complement clauses whereas non-factive predicates (e.g. say) do. . See also Green (1976: 392): “It seems that the distribution of each main clause phenomenon will be determined by pragmatic, semantic, and syntactic factors, which interact in ways not yet totally predictable.” . a) I refer to strings like I think in (325) as ‘matrix’ rather than ‘matrix clause’, for, strictly speaking, it is not a clause at all within the structure of (325). Perhaps Erteschik-Shir’s use of ‘matrix’ in the above quotation is guided by the same reasoning. b) See also Pollard & Sag’s (1994: 176ff.) notion of matrices as “annotations” and the conclusion reached by Drubig (1992a) referred to above. And see the following statement by Lasnik & Saito (1992: 193, N. 7): “We speculate that [. . .] the embedded clause can be construed as a matrix clause [my root clause] in some sense, possibly along the lines suggested by Bresnan (1969), who analyzes certain superficial matrix clauses as adsententials.” . Actually, the f-structures given by Erteschik-Shir (1997: 230) correspond only to those cases where Mary or I respectively are topic expressions. But (328) can, of course, also be the orthographic representation of clauses where Mary and I respectively are identificational focus expressions, or where we are confronted with a thetic sentence. . On bridge verbs see Haumann (1997: 151ff.) and the references given there. . See Müller & Sternefeld (1993: 483); Müller (1995: 336ff.) as well as Haumann (1997: 151ff.) and the authors mentioned there. . Lasnik & Saito (1992: 76) characterise such sentences as “possible although marginal for some speakers”. . See Breul (1999: 48ff.) and Haumann (1999: 91f., N. 20) for a discussion of whether because is a subordinating conjunction or a lexical preposition. . a) I refrain from discussing which semantic types of embedded clauses count as thetamarked and what the criteria are for determining theta-marking here. At least temporal clauses such as those in (332) are uncontroversial. b) Because of the problem of having to distinguish between ECCs and structurally properly integrated non-argument XPs, I would have preferred fronted arguments instead of the fronted non-arguments in (332). But actually, an example like *The dizzy turns started im-
Notes
mediately after the poison he was administered in the bathroom merits the ‘*’ at least as much as does (332a). . While Searle (1975: 356) considers the illocutionary act ‘question’ to belong to the illocutionary class of ‘directives’, Wunderlich (1976: 181f.) suggests a separate class for it (“Erotetika”). . Actually, this seems to be a well-established pragmatic insight, for it is also pointed out by Levinson (1983: 244) that “explicit performatives, although in declarative form, have the force associated with the overt performative verb in each case”. . It seems that such annotations or adsententials cannot bracket the clause which manifests focus structure. Consider the following contrast pointed out by Rochemont (1989: 150f., N. 9): (i)
a. Bill said that he really likes Sally just last night b. *Bill said that Sally, he really likes just last night
“In [(ia)] the temporal adverb may be construed with the higher clause, but in [(ib)] it may not, so giving rise to unacceptability.” . Müller (1995: 366f.) also comes to the conclusion that “there is some evidence that a TP [roughly corresponding to my FocP] does not occur in infinitivals.” For a different approach to the unavailability of fronting in non-finite clauses see Park (1998: 107ff.). . According to Maki, Kaiser & Ochi (1999: 3) [u]nder the Minimalist Program, movement operations must be triggered by feature checking. Given this, the question arises as to how feature checking might be done in the embedded topicalization construction under the IP adjunction analysis. Because the topic adjoins to IP, feature checking should be done between it and the head INFL.[...] In the case of [John thinks that himselfi , Mary likes ti ], the topic adjoins to the embedded IP, and feature checking is done between the topic and INFL. In contrast to what the authors seem to assume here, feature checking between a head X1 and an X2 P adjoined to the X1 P headed by X1 is not provided for in the MP anymore (see Chomsky 1995b: 316ff., 324ff.; but recall (from p. 67f. above) that Chomsky held a different position in 1993/1995). In view of the fact that the example referred to in the above quotation does show fronting in an embedded clause, one is surprised to learn one page later that fronted XPs in embedded clauses are licensed by a C(OMP) to which I(NFL) moves at LF. The only motivation for postulating this licensing relation is that the sentences with fronting in embedded clauses which the authors cite are said to “show that either a topic or INFL has a close relation with an L-marked COMP” (Maki, Kaiser & Ochi 1999: 4). . We can make sure that we have movement of the embedded subject to embedded spec-Foc here by providing himself with the F-projecting pitch accent, i.e. by suggesting intonationally that the embedded clause has identificational focus structure. . The relevant governor in this context of binding theory has always been assumed to have to be lexical, not functional (see e.g. Fanselow & Felix 1987/1993: 111f.).
Notes . It appears, then, that the governor mentioned in the definition of the binding domain (governing category) is the governor of the semantic form of the respective anaphor, while the ‘accessible subject/SUBJECT’ must be accessible for its phonological form. . A simple statement to this effect, i.e. the nominative island condition – “A nominative anaphor in S cannot be free in S¯ containing S” (Chomsky 1980: 13) – is felt to be a mere stipulation which has to be avoided (see Culicover 1997: 63f.). . For an analysis according to which this effect is explained as an ECP violation due to LF-movement of anaphors see Fanselow & Felix (1987/1993: 170ff.). . By distinguishing between ‘regular’ and ‘exceptional’ cases in this context I do not want to imply that the regular ones are necessarily more frequent. It is rather that having syntactic segments which function as annotations is probably a phenomenon which belongs to the periphery rather than the core of grammar and is in this sense exceptional. . As we will see below in this subsection, it is possible to assume embedded interrogatives with a subject wh-XP to be IPs. . At the end of this subsection I will discuss cases for which the structure [. . . [CP [FocP [IP ]]] would have to be assumed. . As pointed out in Section 5.1, a formal head feature [fh f ]X of a head X projects up to X’s intermediate, maximal and extended phrases such that [inth f ]X of C and [inth f ]XP of CP are actually the same feature. The two notations are used to distinguish the feature source on the one hand and its manifestation on a projection of the head to which it belongs on the other hand. . On the difference between if (a complementiser) and whether (a wh-XP) see e.g. Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 175f.); Radford (1997: 57f., 295ff.). . See also Müller & Sternefeld (1993), who consistently mark the complementiser (daß) as optional in German sentences like Ich weiß nicht wen (daß) du gesehen hast (‘I don’t know who you have seen’). They “assume that most dialects of English [...] employ a PF deletion ,’ which applies obligatorily and blocks classical ‘Doubly Filled rule ‘that → Ø/[+ wh] Comp’ configurations. (In many dialects of German the rule applies optionally.)” (Müller & Sternefeld 1993: 491f.) . This is also an example of the fact mentioned in Subsection 7.1.2 that complementiser + trace sequences (here daß + subject wh-trace) are not universally ruled out. . This account provides an alternative to that given by Müller & Sternefeld (1993: esp. 484ff.) and avoids their conclusions. . (346b) is ruled out in any case, for the wh-XP in spec-C could not appear after the fronted XP in spec-Foc if CP dominates FocP. . The complementary distribution of overt relative operator and overt complementiser is characteristic of SE, but does not hold for other languages. . Baltin (1982: 17) presents this example in order to support his rejection of the idea that fronted XPs and wh-XPs target the same landing site, namely Comp in the syntactic framework of the time of his writing: “Given that Comps cannot be doubly filled, we cannot analyze both the wh-phrase and the topicalized phrase as occurring in Comp. Therefore the rationale for viewing Topicalization as a Comp-substitution disappears in light of such
Notes
examples as [(348)].” Indeed, examples like (348) pose a problem for any theory which assumes that relative wh-XPs or covert operators target the same landing site as fronted XPs, a conclusion also drawn by Drubig (1992a) in view of such examples as (348). This problem does not appear in the theory presented here, where a fronted XP in a relative clause moves to embedded spec-Foc. . Full acceptance of such a sentence, where the FocP manifesting embedded clause is embedded in a root subject DP (as follows from my analysis to be developed below), would be surprising. Actually, not everybody is happy with sentences like these. Hooper & Thompson (1973: 466) asterisk the parallel (i) *The fact that never has he had to borrow money makes him very proud In turn, a reviewer of Authier (1992) “points out that Hooper and Thompson’s (1973) factual claims regarding [(i)] may need to be qualified in view of the fact that in his/her dialect such sentences improve if negatives other than never are used, such as at no time” (Authier 1992: 332, N. 5). . A similar analysis is suggested by Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 337ff.). . Culicover (1996) finds sentences with fronting in both the embedded and the root clause to be reduced in acceptability when it is the DP that precedes the PP, as in the examples below. (i)
a. b. c.
?The money, I think that to Terry, Lee gave (example and judgement from Culicover 1996: 453; punctuation and capitals as in the original) ?Our group, I think that about sociolinguistics, Terry was talking to (ditto from Culicover 1996: 454) ?Sociolinguistics, I think that to our group, Terry was talking about (ditto)
It seems that for Culicover (1996) the relevant difference between (ia-c) and the corresponding (357a, d, e) is the greater distance of the fronted DP to its trace in the former cases as compared to that in the latter. For he says that among the factors which affect judgement here is “the proximity of the extracted NP to its trace” (Culicover 1996: 455). As the judgements in the present subsection are extremely delicate in general, I refrain from investigating this point any further. . Actually, the two approaches may not be independent if the syntactic principle has developed as a reaction to the processing problem. See Newmeyer (1998: pass.) for a discussion of the relation between processing (parsing) pressure and principles of grammar. . For a critical discussion of Rizzi’s notion of ‘referentiality’ in this context see Frampton 1991. . The traces indicated in (360) are added by me. Browning (1996: 250ff.) explicitly refers to adjunct construal in the embedded clause, but, as we will see shortly below in the main text, believes that the adjunct is base-generated in embedded spec-C. . Cf. the following examples and judgements: (i)
a. *I wonder who this book likes (from Lasnik & Saito 1992: 96) b. *I wonder who, this book, would buy around Christmas (from Rizzi 1997: 309)
Notes . First, the ‘movement paradox’ which seems to involve bare infinitives in SP/VoicePfronting (Subsection 7.2.1) still bothers me. Second, although I am convinced that the story told in Section 7.3 about the complex interplay between syntactic and pragmatic/discoursal factors to account for the subtle and sometimes diverging judgements of cases of fronting in embedded clauses is essentially correct, I would have been happier with a simpler and more straightforward one. . Actually, there are discoursal (pragmatic) and processing factors at work which favour [±foc]-assignment to subjects (see Section 4.2). . This insight – with differences regarding the conceptualisation of what I call ‘focus structure’ – is not new. It has been reached by a number of authors. See the works mentioned in N. 94 as well as Erteschik-Shir (1997, 1998), Gundel (1999a), Heim & Kratzer (1998: 143, pass.), Szabolcsi (1981a, 1981b, 1983), Pafel (1993: 872), Peregrin (1995, 1996). . a) Lyons’s (1995: 146) formulation of the first premise is this: “to know the meaning of a sentence is to know the conditions under which it (or the statement made by uttering it) would be true or false.” The parenthesis here is of particular interest for this section, since I am going to argue for a semantics of focus-structured clauses, i.e. potential utterances. b) Approaches to linguistic semantics based on these two premises originate with Frege (especially 1891/1962/1994, 1892/1962/1994, 1918/1966/1994, 1919/1966/1994, 1923/1966/ 1994) and have been elaborated by Montague (see Thomason (Ed.) 1974) and his followers. . a) For a good German introduction to formal semantics against a generative background see Lohnstein (1996), for an overview von Stechow (1991c). See Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000) for a more comprehensive and sometimes very demanding introduction. b) As concerns the semantic treatment of the difference between categorical and identificational sentences proposed in the present chapter, there are occasional parallels with the work of Peregrin (1995, 1996). . See also Simpson (2000, 2001), who, on the basis of cross-linguistic analyses concerning wh-(non-)movement, comes to the conclusion that on minimalist assumptions “one is left with little compelling evidence or reason to continue to posit the existence of a level of LF formed by covert movement operations” (Simpson 2001: 200). . See also Szabolcsi (1983: 140), who argues for a particular class of identificational sentences in Hungarian that “the intended meaning of a [common noun]-focus sentence cannot even be approximated unless the truth of the sentence is made relative to some context as well as some state of affairs.” . Note that I do not introduce exhaustiveness as a semantic characteristic of identificational focus expressions here, after having denied it for English in Subsection 2.2.1 above. I would still maintain that (367A) is a true utterance in the context of the question Who agreed? in the given model. This latter question does not explicitly ask for an exhaustive list of the persons who agreed and constitutes thus a different context for an utterance of (367A). . See also Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000: 361): “The basic idea [...] is that in a given context the presuppositions of a sentence must be assumed in order for that sentence
Notes
to be true or false. In other words, sentences fail to have a truth value (fail to be interpretable) if their presuppositions are not assumed to be true (or taken for granted).” . When I use the term ‘sentence’ in the context of my own theory, then it is a synonym for ‘focus-structured root clause’. Note that this may not be the case when I take the perspective of other authors. . The selection or construction of context is done under a “presumption of optimal relevance”, which states what the addressee is entitled to expect from the communicator. In Sperber & Wilson’s revised form (1986/1995: 270), it says: (a) The ostensive stimulus [i.e. the utterance] is relevant enough for it to be worth the addressee’s effort to process it. (b) The ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one compatible with the communicator’s abilities and preferences. . That is, the functor (the ‘logical predicate’) in the λ-expression for a relevance presupposition (Chris in (376a), agreed in (376b)) corresponds to the semantic subject in the associated focus-structured sentence. Conversely, the logical argument in the λ-expression for a relevance presupposition (x in both (376a, b)) corresponds to the semantic predicate in the associated focus-structured sentence. . The quantificational type <<e,t>,t> for proper names and pronouns is the one originally suggested by Montague (see 1973/1974, Thomason 1974: 61f.). Partee & Rooth (1983: 367) propose that there are two types standardly associated with such expressions: “Montague assimilated proper names and pronouns to the higher type needed for quantificational noun phrases, but it would be consonant with our alternative schema to assign proper nouns and pronouns to type e (with their PTQ [i.e. Montague 1973/1974] type interpretations available as predictable homonyms”. The following quotation from Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000: 513) shows that the notion of generalised quantifier is to be interpreted as a set of sets in what Heim & Kratzer (1998) call ‘set talk’ as opposed to ‘function talk’: “Proper names can be lifted in an information-preserving way to the category of generalized quantifiers. For example, the proper name Pavarotti can be interpreted as the set of sets to which Pavarotti belongs.” . This latter indeterminacy seems to match what Ladusaw (2000: 237) means by “fuzzier existence” in his remark below about the following thetic example from Japanese: (i)
neko ga asoko de nemutte iru (from Ladusaw 2000: 234) the/a cat there sleeping is In [(i)], only the existence of the eventuality is affirmed, but commitment to that description will indirectly, obliquely [. . .] commit the judger to the existence of the cat. But the cat has a much fuzzier existence in the thetic judgement than it does in the categorical version, where it is presented and affirmed directly, first of all, before moving on to the predication.
. Recall from Subsection 2.1.2 that the maximal structure of the clausal base is (i). (i)
[hP spec-h [h h [HP spec-H [H H [comp-H]]]]]
Notes . Note that this assumption is not incompatible with the processing strategy proposed by Partee & Rooth (1983: 67f.) that “all expressions are interpreted at the lowest type possible”. . The second type is the one assumed by Montague (1970/1974: 251f.) for transitive verbs. . According to Partee (1987: 132), there are no e-type readings only for such DPs as are “most clearly ‘quantificational’: no man, no men, at most one man, few men, not every man, most men [but see also Partee’s N. 21 on most-DPs]. Every man could get an e-type reading [...] in case there is only one man; but linguistically it never seems to act as a singular ‘referential’ term”. I will come back to this claim in Subsection 8.2.1. . The type-semantic analysis of quantificational DPs in object position as <<e,<e,t>>, <e,t>> is well known. See e.g. Heim & Kratzer (1998: Ch. 7). . Non-argumental, i.e. predicative, DPs such as a lawyer in John is a lawyer are commonly assumed to be of type <e,t> (see e.g. Partee 1987). . By ‘specifier argument’ I mean that argument which is not complement (sister) of the predicate head, but stands in the syntactic specifier relation to it. . The two proposals the authors allude to here are these: Either the semantic type of the predicate is kept constant and that of the quantificational expression in object position is allowed to be flexible, or vice-versa. . This conclusion is supported by Chierchia & Turner (1988: 295), who develop the “idea [. . .] that finite VP’s are functions [. . .] while non finite VP’s are individuals”. They also point out that this accounts for the descriptive generalisation that “[f]inite VP’s never occur as arguments of other VP’s” (Chierchia & Turner 1988: 294), as illustrated by (i). (i)
a. b.
John tries {to leave / *leaves} John forces Mary {to leave / *leaves}
See also Chierchia’s (1982) discussion of the semantic relation between non-finite VPs, gerunds and that-clauses on the one hand and DPs that denote individuals on the other hand, which foreshadows Chierchia & Turner’s (1988) idea. . I note without further discussion that zero-place syntactic predicates which require an expletive syntactic subject it (It is late (time), It is raining (atmospheric condition), It is far (distance)) are of type e. . And this type corresponds to the traditional <e,t> assumed for predicative DPs, of course (cf. N. 350). . According to Carlson (1977, 1977/1980), bare plurals (i.e. plural nouns without a determiner) denote proper names of kinds of things if they are the subjects of individual-level predicates. Such bare-plurals are referential and thus of type e as well, then. Consequently, É. Kiss (1998a: 683, 723, N. 4) also mentions ‘kinds’ as potential topic expressions. However, the question of the ontology and of the semantic type(s) of plural DPs in general is not absolutely straightforward, and there are several approaches of modelling plurality within a compositional semantics (see e.g. Link 1991). . Comment made in the discussion of the paper I read at the annual DGfS-conference, Leipzig, Feb 28–Mar 2, 2001, on which Breul (2001) is based.
Notes . See Büring (1997) and the works mentioned there for relevant discussion. If I see it correctly, Büring himself would deny that most boys in (394) is referential and of type e (see especially Büring 1997: 97). . Fodor & Sag’s (1982) view is discussed e.g. in Heim (1991: 516ff.); Abusch (1993–1994); see also Partee (1987). . While definiteness has a morpho-syntactic manifestation in the grammar of languages like English (basically in the determiner system), specificity does not. But there are other languages, such as Turkish, for instance, where (non-)specificity is morpho-syntactically encoded (see Enç 1991). . About some of the problems raised by these examples I am confident that they have little or nothing to do with the topic of the present work (as in the case of You left the door open). With respect to others (e.g. The present king of France is bald; on this example see also p. 89f. above) the theory developed here may have some interesting implications. . I note again that it may seem strange to consider definite DPs, notably proper names and pronouns as in examples like (iaA, ibA), not to be referential. (i)
a. b.
Q: A: Q: A:
What’s up? John is back home. (thetic) Who do you think is responsible? You are. (identificational)
But this is ultimately only a terminological issue which has arisen from the identification of ‘referential’ and ‘type e’. If we were to delink this association and to reserve the notion of referentiality for a different concept, the one ultimately rooted in deixis, then the problem disappears. Of course, there is a reason for the identification of ‘referential’ and ‘type e’, namely the fact that e-type expressions denote entities and that prototypical entities can be pointed at by deictic means. But I suspect that there is much more to be said about this relation than can be done here. . Originally from Abusch (1993–1994). . Birner & Ward (1998) are concerned with “non-canonical” constituent order, one kind being “preposing” constructions. Among preposing they distinguish two types, ‘focus preposing’ and ‘topicalisation’: The preposed constituent of focus preposing contains the focus of the utterance, and bears nuclear accent; the rest of the clause is typically deaccented.[...] Topicalization, on the other hand, involves a preposed constituent other than the focus and bears multiple pitch accents: [...] both types of preposing require a salient or inferrable [open proposition] at the time of utterance for felicity. [...] (Birner & Ward 1998: 35) . Of course, the discussion depends on what exactly is meant by (non-)specificity by different authors. As this is not always clear, different authors appear to make diametrically opposed claims about the (non-)specificity of fronted indefinite DPs (see Birner & Ward 1998: 80). . Correspondingly, Ward & Prince (1991: 177) come to the conclusion “that what is relevant for the Topicalization of an NP is not intrinsic morphological/lexical/semantic prop-
Notes
erties [such as specificity and definiteness] but rather the relation of the entity it represents to the other entities in the discourse structure.” . The only exception to this conjunctive construction type in which the eventuality expressed by the fronted SP/VoiceP has been mentioned and thus activated in the preceding conjunct are exclamative utterances like (i). (i)
Hit my bloody shoe that will! (from Biber et al. 1999: 906)
Note that examples of this kind are also intonationally different from those in (402) in that the F-marking pitch accent is within the fronted SP/VoiceP (on shoe) in the exclamative, but invariably on the finite auxiliary in all the other examples. This suggests that the fronted SP/VoiceP is an identificational focus expression here. The semantic analysis of exclamative clauses (including the analysis in terms of logico-semantic types) will certainly look different from that of declarative clauses in fundamental respects. For example, the type of the whole clause is not t and the auxiliary does not seem to have the normal tense function (the eventuality of something hitting the speaker’s shoe is not temporally located by will in (i)). . I may add that despite the exclamation marks in (404b–d) (which are taken over from the source) I do not think that these are cases of exclamative clauses in a syntactic sense to be distinguished from declarative clauses, as I argued for (i) of N. 367. In contrast to that example, (404b–d) are truth evaluable, and the finite verb temporally locates the eventuality expressed by the clausal base as usual. . A succinct characterisation of lexical (“lexikalische”) prepositions and the PPs headed by them is this: ‘Lexical’ prepositions c- and s-select their complements. They form extended projections, are morphologically and phonologically independent, have a Kase grid and semantic content by means of which reference to entities in a possible world is established. They license adjuncts within their projection. Their maximal projections can be licensed as complements, predicates and adjuncts, and can be substituted by proforms. (My translation from Rauh 1997b: 439, N. 11) . Rauh characterises governed (“regierte”) prepositions and their projections in the following way: ‘Governed’ prepositions f-select their complements, which are always DPs. They do not form extended projections, they are morphologically and phonologically dependent, constitute a closed class, have a Kase grid, but no semantic content by means of which reference to entities of a possible world is established. They are transparent for the semantic information of lexical heads. [They are] described as functional heads of the category Case in the extended projection of nouns. This Case is lexical and required – and thus ‘governed’ – by lexical heads of the categories V, A, N or P. (My translation from Rauh 1997b: 439, N. 13) . Besides lexical and governed prepositions, Rauh identifies grammatical (“grammatische”) prepositions, which she characterises as follows: ‘Grammatical’ prepositions c- and s-select their complements only in a restricted manner. They do not form extended projections and do not have semantic content by which reference to entities of a possible world is established. They do not
Notes
license adjuncts. They do, however, have a Kase grid. Their maximal projections can be licensed as predicates and adjuncts, but not as complements. The not very felicitous term ‘grammatical’ prepositions was chosen to express that a large majority of them are descended from spatial prepositions by grammaticalisation. (My translation from Rauh 1997b: 439, N. 12) As projections of grammatical prepositions cannot appear as arguments, I ignore them in the context of the present discussion. . Jackendoff (1983: 52ff., 63ff.) argues that any type of XP can be referential (except quantificational DPs). This supports the point I wish to make in this subsection. For if any type of XP can be referential, i.e. of type e, then any type of XP can also be of the generalised quantificational types <<e,e>,e> and <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>>. . For a general discussion of the distinction between ambiguity and vagueness (other terms used in the literature for the latter are: indeterminacy, generality, nondetermination, indefiniteness of reference, lack of specification) see e.g. Zwicky & Sadock (1975); Pinkal (1983/1985, 1983/1985/1995, 1991) and the works mentioned there. See also Kempson (1975: 13ff.). . Pinkal (1983/1985/1995: 110, pass.) uses “indefiniteness with the potential for precisification” as the superordinate term comprising vagueness and broad sense ambiguity. . See also Standop (1981: 143ff.), who, despite his criticism of this passage by Chomsky, does not doubt that there is a difference in meaning between both sentences if they are uttered as indicated here. . Note that (421a ) is different from passive utterances like President KENNEDY was assassinated or even DAMS are being built, which may very well be thetic. The point here is that the adjunct by beavers in (421a ) would need to contain an F-marking pitch accent too in order for the sentence to be thetic (see also p. 140f. above). . a) See also May (1977/1990), where the QR account of (supposed) LF-ambiguities of the kind illustrated by (423) was introduced and studied in detail for the first time in generative grammar. b) Authors differ with respect to logical notations when representing different scope relations. The notation I use in (424) is adopted from Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990/2000). Haegeman & Guéron (1999: 541), for instance, use the more explicit notation below in representing the two readings of Everyone saw someone (similarly Kamp & Reyle 1993: 279f., 288f.). (i)
a. b.
Ax (x = H) → Ey (y = H) & (S x y) Ey (y = H) & Ax (x = H) → (S x y)
. That is, neither are both ambiguous, as the above mentioned authors seem to assume, nor both vague, as argued by Kempson & Cormack (1981). . Hornstein (1995: 237f., N. 12) comes to the same conclusion with respect to the example Every man kissed a woman. In contrast to the approach taken in the present paper, Hornstein, although he aims at doing away with QR as well, still assumes that there are quantifier scope relations at issue. Similarly with respect to German examples, Pafel (1993: 868) ar-
Notes
gues that (ia) below is ambiguous, while (ib) “has only the reading with wide scope of the universal quantifier.” (i)
a. b.
Eines der Bücher hat jeder von uns gelesen (‘One of the books every one of us has read’) Jeder von uns hat eines der Bücher gelesen (‘Every one of us has read one of the books’)
In addition, Pafel (1993: 870) refers to work on Italian, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean and notes that at least in these languages “[s]entences with a universally quantified subject preceding an existentially quantified direct object have only the reading with wide scope of the subject”. But he also points out (p. 871) that there is a good deal of disagreement among authors about the (un)ambiguity of such sentences. Vallduví (1990/1992: 122) mentions the example Every student passed the PRELIMS last year, pointing out that its two readings (“whether all students passed the same prelims or whether each student passed possibly different prelims”) “is just a case of vagueness”. . See also Kempson & Cormack (1981), for instance. Actually, this argument extends to the whole family of tests for ambiguity to which the and so-test belongs (called “identity tests” by Zwicky & Sadock 1975). . For an additional argument which supports the claim that strings like (423a) are ambiguous while those like (423b) are vague see Breul (2001: 26f.). . I implicitly relegate the issue of vagueness and ambiguity to the lexical characteristics of some in this argumentation, which recalls that of Fodor & Sag (1982). Indeed, my account of the ambiguity of sentences like (423a) in terms of focus structure is closely linked to one in terms of the lexical ambiguity of some. The point of my approach is that this lexical ambiguity is exploited differently in sentences like (423a) as compared to those like (423b). . For all other examples they discuss Heim & Kratzer (1998) either suggest (the basic line of) analyses in terms of both types of approach themselves or refer to the respective alternative in the literature (for example Jacobson 1992 for a quantifier in situ analysis of VP deletion in antecedent-contained deletion constructions like I read every novel that you did (see Heim & Kratzer 1998: 198f.)). . If one follows Radford (1997: 367ff.) and others, the structure of the vP of (438) will be (i), where the semantic form of every clock does c-command that of its (negation ignored here). (i)
[vP Al [v v [VP every clock [V return [to its owner]]]]]
Recall (from p. 136f.) that I prefer the analysis of the vP as given in (439) for intonational reasons. . More specifically, to its owner is an XP headed by a governed preposition. The semantic content of such an XP is determined by that of the DP-complement (see above, p. 261), and the semantic type of such an XP is the same as that of the DP-complement, which has type <<e,e>,e> available. . More precisely, it is QR in the form of adjunction to IP that allows for straightforward, standard, binding of the pronoun. In view of the problem that LF-extraction of every
Notes
city from the subject violates a syntactic island condition, May (1985: 68f.) proposes an alternative to his 1977/1990 analysis in which the embedded quantified expression does not adjoin by QR to IP but to its own containing DP. With an accordingly adjusted definition of c-command the configuration necessary for binding the pronoun is achieved. . The notations for the complex types are unambiguously simplified here by leaving out the innermost brackets (‘et’ instead of <e,t>). Recall from Subsection 8.1.2 that in the theory developed in the present work the primary type t does not occur in type expressions for constituents in their base positions. Thus, in order to make Heim & Kratzer’s (1998) type expressions comparable to those employed here, one has to replace every occurrence of ‘t’ in such constituents by ‘e’. . See Rauh (e.g. 1995, 1996, 1997a, 1997b) on lexical, grammatical and governed prepositions (see also p. 259ff. above). . I am grateful to Gisa Rauh for pointing this out to me and for discussion. . According to Heim & Kratzer (1998: 182) every determiner is either of type <<e,t>, <<e,t>,t>> or <<e,t>,<<e,<e,t>>,<e,t>>> (= my <<e,e>,<<e,e>,e>> or <<e,e>,<<e, <e,e>>,<e,e>>>). The latter is needed for DPs in object position. . The type for the PP in every basket just derived, <<e,e>,<e,e>> (= Heim & Kratzer’s (1998) <<e,t>,<e,t>>), is that of the PP in Texas, which Heim & Kratzer (1998: 66) assume in their discussion of a functional application alternative to their predicate modification analysis of this constituent. As they assume type e for Texas in this PP, it follows that they derive <e,<<e,t>,<e,t>>> (= my <e,<<e,e>,<e,e>>>) as the type for in. Note the systematic relationship between this type and the two possibilities just mentioned in the main text for in, such that all three types can be expressed in the general form <σ,<<e,e>,<e,e>>>, where σ is type e or <<e,e>,e> or <<e,<e,e>>,<e,e>> depending on which of these the DP complement of the preposition has. . The term ‘weak crossover’ suggests that the effect is generally conceived to be less strong than that of ‘strong crossover’ (SCO) (see Haegeman 1991/1994: 417). The following contrast illustrates SCO: (i)
a. Hei thinks that Mary likes himi b. *Whoi does hei think that Mary likes t i ?
While SCO is usually explained as a violation of condition C of the binding theory – the pronoun c-commands and illicitly binds the wh-trace (see e.g. Culicover 1997: 316ff.) – WCO does not involve such a violation, since here the pronoun does not c-command the co-indexed trace. . According to Culicover (1997: 305), ‘D-linking’ is a term that is intended to suggest that [wh-XPs in certain constructions] receive reference (or, more accurately, delimit the range of possible answers) in part at least, through linking to discourse. There is no precise characterisation of what makes an expression D-linked; however the notion of D-linking is often appealed to in the literature when a particular example appears not to be sensitive to some constraint on wh-questions. On D-linking see also page 402 and N. 268.
Notes . This notion of ‘determinateness’ stems from Wasow (1972: 54, 144), who uses it to designate the class of specific and generic indefinites on the basis of their being referring expressions. . a) In Culicover 1997: 331, (446d) has an obviously misplaced index, namely “whoi ” and no square brackets around Which well-known actor. b) (446a–d) are also mentioned by Wasow (1972: 137), who quotes the first two as being from novels; the last two are given a ‘?’ by Wasow. . I ignore E-type anaphora here, but take them into account shortly below. On bound and referential pronouns and E-type anaphora, see e.g. Heim & Kratzer (1998: Ch. 9–11). . a) For references to authors who suggest similar discourse-based explanations of the contrast in (449) see Rebuschi & Tuller (1999: 7). b) The situation in (448) is different in that the context makes clear that in S’s second utterance the pitch accent on John does not signal inactiveness of the mental representation of the referent of John, but a contrastive informational focus. Although John is pitch-accented, it is also active in this specific context. But here we see what the preceding expression with which he co-refers is, namely the referential expression John used by S in her first utterance. . I do not attempt to give a more positive characterisation of what E-type anaphora is and refer the reader to Heim & Kratzer (1998: 290ff.) instead. . There may be an additional problem for E-type construals of pronominal expressions with every-DPs in contrast to each-DPs. According to Beghelli & Stowell (1997: 98), “each and every exhibit a number of other differences, which collectively suggest that every, unlike each, can receive a non-distributive universal construal in certain configurations, behaving essentially like all.” We need the distributive interpretation of every- and each-DPs if they are to be construed with an E-type pronominal expression. If for some independent reason the non-distributive interpretation of an every-DP is favoured, then E-type construal of a pronominal expression with it becomes impossible for this reason. . Simpson (2000: 32) comes to the same result. . In Van Valin & LaPolla’s (1997: 40) terminology, the category ‘operator’ includes “some familiar categories, like tense and aspect, and some perhaps unfamiliar, like evidentials. Often in English and other Indo-European languages, operators are coded on or as auxiliary verbs. In other languages, they may be coded by a string of verbal affixes or clitics, without an independent auxiliary element to bear them.” . Siewierska (1998: 485): As for phonological marking, the only type of prosodic differences that I have systematically controlled is the presence of a distinct pause separating a subject or object from the constituent following or preceding it. Since a distinct pause is typically an indication of the fact that the constituent preceding or following it is outside the clause proper, functioning as an introductory frame of reference or an afterthought, it seems legitimate to distinguish in a study of clause level word order variation word order patterns which may, in fact, involve extra-clausal constituents from those that do not.
Notes . a) Control for thetic structure could be achieved by taking only constituent orders into account which are realised in sentences uttered in response to the context question What happened?, for instance. b) But see also Siewierska’s (1998: 481ff.) remarks on the control of pragmatic markedness in connection with morphological topic and focus markers. . a) For an overview of different, but essentially similar figures based on different samples investigated by different authors, see Siewierska (1994: 4994). b) The category ‘split’ refers to languages with mixed types within the group of main, positive, declarative, transitive clauses, with constituent order depending on specific morphosyntactic conditions. The category ‘none’ refers to languages where no basic constituent order could be identified. . The square brackets and what they enclose here are part of the source. By “preference for [NP VP]” Hawkins means that SVO and SOV languages tend to ‘have a VP’ rather than a flat structure such as [NP V NP]. Binary branching is not a theoretical premise in the syntactic framework used by Hawkins; actually, he “suspects that syntax is much flatter than is often assumed” (Hawkins 1994: 434). And this is also the background for his writing two times “whether there is a VP or not” a little later in the quoted passage. . That there definitely are optional alternatives in syntactic derivation which should not exist under classical minimalist assumptions is shown by Tappe (2000). In order to cope with them, he proposes a version of minimalist theory enriched by optimality theoretic (OT) ideas. My own proposal, on which much of the discussion in the present chapter is based and which attempts to do without borrowing from OT, may be thought of as an alternative to Tappe’s. Note that one finds a remark in Chomsky (1993/1995: 199) which seems to foreshadow my own proposal: “[. . .] a language might allow both weak and strong inflection, hence weak and strong NP-features. Arabic is a suggestive case, with SVO versus VSO correlating with the richness of visible verb inflection.” . It may be worthwhile to reconsider assumptions about the non-configurational (or ‘flat’) structure of (certain domains of) the phrase marker in languages which are characterised, to a greater or lesser extent, by free constituent order. For example, it may be possible to replace the non-configurational structure for the postverbal domain in Hungarian proposed by É. Kiss (e.g. 1994a, b) by a configurational one with the free constituent order phenomena explained by α/γ-optionality of nominal case features. However, such an approach would also have to comprise a reanalysis of the binding and co-reference phenomena which motivate a flat structure in the postverbal domain for É. Kiss (see e.g. 1994b: 19ff.). . The sentence is categorical if only TopP is projected, identificational if only FocP is projected and categorical-identificational if both TopP and FocP are projected. . I do not consider right-dislocated DPs as in He is a nice guy, your brother (from Lambrecht 1994: 203) and analogous cases in other languages to be topic expressions in the relevant sense. For me, the topic expression is the clause initial pronominal DP here, and the dislocated DP is extra-clausal. . For references to other languages with topic expressions on the right clausal periphery see Primus (1993b: 884).
Notes . See, among others, the works mentioned in N. 3 and the articles collected in É. Kiss ((Ed.) 1995), Siewierska ((Ed.) 1998). . See my reference to the topic particle -ka in Imbabura Quechua (examples (469)– (471)). See Drubig (1994: 13) for a reference to focus markers attached to phrases in Somali. . This, then, is a case (alluded to above, p. 288f.) where a language shows differences in the left/right-headedness or specifiedness among its phrases. . a) It is my suspicion that expletive es is generated in spec-AgrS for some reason, not yet clearly understood, which is traditionally known as the extended projection principle (EPP) (see N. 277). It demands that spec-AgrS be overtly filled in languages like English, but does not seem to apply always obligatorily in German, as (477Aa , b ) show. b) Müller (1995: 107) refers to unpublished work by Koster, according to whom “German and Dutch are ‘semi’-pro-drop languages in the sense that expletive pro is licensed in SpecI.” . Narrative present tense (sagt instead of sagte) is typical of informal speech. . Park (1998: 181) assumes that while there is a strong V-feature in the Foc-head which is responsible for a verb’s overt movement to the Foc-head position in root clauses, the C-head of embedded clauses selects a weak V-feature of the Foc-head so that overt movement does not take place. I prefer my own approach since Park’s entails the presence of a FocP and thus the manifestation of focus structure in every embedded clause. . Müller’s (1995) remark just quoted points to another clear difference of my conception to his: He assumes, for both English and German, the presence of a CP as the topmost projection also in root clauses (see Müller 1995: 373ff.), generally headed by an empty Chead. In addition, wh-XP movement in root wh-interrogatives is movement to spec-C, not to spec-Foc (or his spec-T). . Scrambling is a much discussed issue in German syntax. See e.g. the articles collected in Corver & van Riemsdijk ((Eds.) 1994) and Grewendorf & Sternefeld ((Eds.) 1990); see also Müller (1995: Ch. 3). . This position is also taken by Chomsky (1995b: 324), who counts scrambling among those rearrangement operations which belong to the ‘stylistic’ component of grammar. But see also Müller’s (1995: 99) reference to authors who “argue that scrambling eventually is not optional, but rather forced by semantic considerations”. . See Rosengren (1993) and the articles collected in Haftka ((Ed.) 1994), especially Haftka (1994) and Rosengren (1994). In the latter Rosengren aims at showing “that scrambling is blind to the semantics of the sentence itself, but that it has both information structural and semantic effects” (my translation from Rosengren 1994: 175). The semantic effects mentioned here are restricted to the scrambling of quantifiers (see also Rosengren 1993: 270ff.). Since my view of the semantics of quantificational expressions as presented in Chapter 8 is rather untraditional, I prefer to postpone the discussion of another set of phenomena in which quantificational expressions are involved. But see also Meinunger (2000: 64ff.), where several examples are given which are said to show semantic effects of scrambling without involving quantificational expressions. . Müller (1995: 110) concludes that “there probably is a correlation between Case morphology and free word order under a diachronic perspective, synchronically the two properties are independent from one another.”
Notes . Irrespective of whether the base is left- or right-headed, we get IO > DO if it is leftspecified. . Irrespective of whether the base is left- or right-headed, we get DO > IO if it is rightspecified. . See also Hawkins (1986: 38f.) and Meinunger (2000: 61f.), where the 24 possibilities of serialising S, IO, DO plus an adjunct are listed and (reported to be) judged grammatical. Hawkins points out that the judgements are subject to appropriate stressing, and according to Meinunger, who uses dass-clauses, some orderings “sound more acceptable than others”. . My judgement of examples like (484b) is shared by Müller (1995: 157), while he gives ‘??’-judgements to examples like (484a) (see Müller 1995: 143ff.). . Such examples are discussed as instances of Verum-Fokus by German authors such as Höhle (1992) (sometimes called ‘polar focus’ or ‘polarity focus’ in the English literature; see Höhle 1992: 138, N. 1). . Although many native speakers of German (including myself) consider (485Aj) to be unacceptable, I am sure to have heard this sentence uttered in informal speech by speakers of the German dialect of the Ruhr area. . Of course, on the assumption that the base is arbitrarily left/right-headed and specified, the IO/DO-orders in (485Aa–h) can also all be generated if both nominal case features were exclusively of type γ. But, as already argued above, scrambling possibilities which involve the subject show that the α-option must also be given: (i)
a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h.
Es hat einem Freund {ein / der} Polizist eine Waffe gegeben (‘{A / The} policeman did give a friend a weapon’) Es hat einem Freund {ein / der} Polizist die Waffe gegeben Es hat dem Freund {ein / der} Polizist die Waffe gegeben Es hat dem Freund {ein / der} Polizist eine Waffe gegeben Es hat eine Waffe {ein / der} Polizist einem Freund gegeben Es hat eine Waffe {ein / der} Polizist dem Freund gegeben Es hat die Waffe {ein / der} Polizist dem Freund gegeben Es hat die Waffe {ein / der} Polizist einem Freund gegeben
. On the intracies of the position and order of German pronouns see Lenerz (e.g. 1993, 1994). ¯ position for Grewendorf (2002). A. a) Scrambling is movement to an adjoined (A-) positions are positions to which theta-roles can be assigned, i.e. argument positions in the clausal base. Being also assigned a theta-role, the verb-incorporated reflexive is like an argument in an A-position with respect to the requirement of having to be A-bound. b) Unfortunately, the fact that an anaphor does not appear immediately to the left of a finite lexical verb, despite the anaphor’s being incorporated by it, gets only a superficial explanation by Grewendorf. The anaphor’s dislocation “can be traced back to requirements of focusing. Let us therefore assume that for these reasons it is either moved into the specifier of AgroP, adjoined to AgroP, or moved into a Wackernagel position (whatever its nature)” (my translation from Grewendorf 2002: 63). . Compare (i), which is fine.
Notes
(i)
Ihn verwarnt hat der Chef him a-caution-given has the boss ‘The boss did give him a caution’
. Compare (i), which is fine. (i)
Ihn angeschrien hat er him shouted-at has he ‘He did shout at him’
. a) But see Abraham 1996 for reasons which strongly suggest a movement analysis after all. b) For Müller (1998: xii) split topicalisation differs substantially from remnant movement as exemplified by the examples (254) on page 174. He argues that these constructions actually are instances of ordinary XP-movement, despite some seemingly peculiar properties, including the fact that remnant fronted XPs contain unbound traces. . Examples like (504b, d), where there is no article in the initial DP but where the source is nevertheless ungrammatical, are not accounted for by Abraham’s (1996) approach. According to him, a parasitic article (eine) is inserted in the initial DP in cases like (i) below in order to comply with a surface filter which bars article-less DPs. (i)
Eine schöne Lösung hat man noch keine gefunden (‘A nice solution one hasn’t found yet’)
This account fails to work as an explanation of cases like (504b, d) (or Fleisch isst er keines (‘Meat he doesn’t eat’), which is mentioned by Abraham (1996: 3) himself). . The following example may suffice to illustrate the difference: (i)
Q: Was machen eure Überlegungen zum Autokauf? Habt ihr euch schon entschieden? (‘How are your thoughts about buying a car doing? Have you decided yet?’) A: Wir wollen uns jetzt doch {eins / *ein / keins / *kein} kaufen. (‘We do (not) want to buy one now’)
The point that the ‘stranded determiners’ are in fact pronouns is also made by Hawkins (1986: 227f., N. 52). . That bare plurals can be DPs follows from sentences such as Ich liebe Bücher (‘I love books’), Er verkauft Häuser (‘He sells houses’). . What follows is foreshadowed by Hawkins (1986: 228f., N. 52) (“the fronted noun is understood partitively in relation to a pro-NP”), by van Riemsdijk’s (1989: 120) reference to examples like Wein habe ich nur zwei Flaschen dabei (‘Wine, I only have two bottles with me’) – “the partitive complement is extracted from a complex NP [. . .] and moved into the topic position” – and by Tappe’s (1989: 176) discussion of “Split Topicalizations with extractions from DPs containing possessive specifiers” as in the examples below. The judgements are Tappe’s. (i)
a. b. c.
?Geld habe ich in Spanien nur Pauls ausgegeben (‘Money, I spent only Paul’s in Spain’) Geld habe ich nur dem Paul seins ausgegeben (ditto) Geld habe ich nur von Paul das ausgegeben (ditto)
Notes
Working with a conception of proper government in terms of Chomsky (1986), Tappe (1989: 176) notes that extraction of Geld from its containing DP “would leave a trace lacking proper government in form of antecedent government due to the minimality barrier established by D against such intrusion, unless D is taken to be a proper governor itself ”. . In order to see that bare DPs can carry accusative and dative, but not genitive case, consider the following examples: (i)
a. b. c.
Sie liest Bücher (‘She reads books’) Sie gibt Büchern den Vorzug (‘She prefers books’) Sie entledigt sich *(ihrer) Bücher (‘She gets rid of her books’)
. “[T]he determiner in the topic position is always the simple indefinite one, that is einfor singular count nouns and Ø for singular mass nouns and plurals. No other indefinite determiners (negated ones, quantified ones such as viele [. . .], manche [. . .], etc.) may occur nor may any definite articles be used.” (van Riemsdijk 1989: 108.) . This is obviously seen by Rosengren (1993: 278), but not discussed. . Indeed, the ‘determiners’ which are left stranded in Baker’s (1988) examples are all of such a kind that they may form proper DPs on their own, namely demonstratives (glossed as that, this) and numerals, i.e. potential pronominal items. And the ‘possessors’ are also characterised as ‘possessor NPs’ by Baker (1988: 99ff.) himself, i.e. as phrasal constituents. . This conclusion is supported by Van Valin & LaPolla (1997: 65ff.), who argue that ‘noun incorporation’ in Greenlandic Eskimo is actually incorporation into the verb of a fully referential NP, a phenomenon which has to be distinguished from bare noun incorporation. . a) I must take recourse to precedence rather than some version of command here as will presently become clear in connection with (517b), where Briefe is deeply embedded within the fronted vP and does not command its trace in the embedding DP nur drei traurige t under any reasonable definition of command. b) Note that if left/right-headedness and specifiedness in the base are arbitrary, as assumed here, then the incorporated DP cannot be said to precede its trace in the base. Recall that the orientation in the tree diagram in (513) is chosen arbitrarily. . (518a) (without the small-capitalisation) is from van Riemsdijk (1989: 115) and judged ‘??’ there. With the intonation proposed above this sentence is perfectly fine for me and other native speakers of German. . This is an example where an infinitive rather than a perfective participle is involved. . Cf. also van Riemsdijk’s (1989: 115) ??Ein Experte hat keiner den Schaden geprüft (‘No expert inspected the damage’). . I am grateful to Beate Abel (p.c.) and Gisa Rauh (p.c.) for suggesting an explanation along these lines to me. . (525a, b) are slightly modified from van Riemsdijk (1989: 112). He has *Bücher ist erst eins von ihm erschienen and *Ein Buch sind schon zwei von ihm erschienen. . In the case of VoiceP-fronting (see (500)) it is the passive auxiliary that is rightperipheral in the fronted phrase, but the participle is immediately to the left of it and strictly
Notes
to the right of all argument DPs in the fronted VoiceP, which is the relevant aspect in this case. . Under this view examples like (530a) are similar to those of prepositional object scrambling given by Rosengren (1993: 266), two of which are these: (i)
a. b.
und damit komme ich [zu der Frage von Herrn Burger]i nochmal t i zurück (‘and with this I come back to Mr. Burger’s question’) Ich will [auf die außenpolitischen Dinge]i jetzt nicht mehr t i eingehen (‘I don’t want to talk about the foreign affairs any longer now’)
. An observation concerning German (see above, p. 291) causes me not to adopt the Kaynean (e.g. Kayne 1994; Zwart 1997) theory of universal left headedness and left specifiedness. But recall that this decision is partly dependent on a specific, unrelated assumption elsewhere in the theory. That is, Kayne’s theory, although incompatible with some details of analysis in the present work, is not incompatible with the general suggestion of accounting for different constituent orders in terms of the α/β/γ-distinction of syntactic features. . In this context of mentioning spec-Od another innovative syntactic aspect of the present work may be pointed out, namely the assumption of a case layer of functional projections above the clausal base. . The traditional notions of subject and predicate run into problems in utterances such as GLASS is elastic, or All that stuff you can throw AWAY, for instance.
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Appendix
Schematic F0 contours
LL%
LH%
HL%
H H%
H*
L*
L*+H
STRESS BASELINE LL%
LH%
HL%
H H%
L+H*
H*+L
(same as H*)
H+L* STRESS BASELINE (from Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg 1990: 281)
Name index
A Aarts, Bas 341 Abel, Beate 390 Abraham, Werner 388, 389 Abusch, Dorit 274, 379, 380 Agbayani, Brian 215 Akmajian, Adrian 172, 173 Alexiadou, Artemis 29, 168, 344 Allwood, Jens 268 Ammann, Hermann 46 Andersson, Lars-Gunnar 268 Andrews, Avery 176 Ariel, Mira 356 Authier, J.-Marc 223, 372, 376 B Bach, Emmon 245 Baker, Mark 18, 322, 323, 326, 341, 390 Baltin, Mark 27, 62, 66, 175, 201, 211, 221, 375 Barber, Charles 357 Barry, Guy 363 Bäuerle, Rainer 369 Bayer, Josef 122, 125, 219, 349, 359 Beal, Joan 218, 219 Beckman, Mary 147 Beghelli, Filippo 385 Benešova, Eva 46 Benincà, Paola 351 Biber, Douglas 96, 97, 167, 172, 179, 180, 257, 258, 380 Biloa, Edmond 68, 69 Birner, Betty 97–101, 103, 169, 170, 196–198, 255, 355, 356, 380 Blakemore, Diane 213, 345, 351 Bolinger, Dwight 50, 143, 186, 362
Bowers, John 60 Brentano, Franz 1 Bresnan, Joan 176, 181, 229, 342, 365, 366, 373 Breul, Carsten 250, 373, 379, 383 Browning, M. A. 168, 169, 228, 376 Büring, Daniel 50, 151, 250, 251, 309, 349, 358, 359, 379 Burnley, David 362 Burzio, Luigi 342 C Campbell, Lyle 345 Carlson, Gregory 21, 341, 379 Carston, Robyn 351 Casiellez-Suárez, Eugenia 97 ´ Cavar, Damir 4 Chafe, Wallace 48–51, 142, 351, 352 Chaucer, Geoffrey 219 Chierchia, Gennaro 37, 120, 121, 235, 247, 249, 268, 272, 341, 377–379, 382 Chomsky, Noam 6, 7, 11, 12, 14–16, 28, 29, 37, 41, 42, 46, 60–68, 79, 110, 144, 158, 160–162, 165, 175, 186, 201, 203, 222, 266, 267, 281, 323, 340, 344, 346–348, 350, 351, 357, 358, 364, 366–368, 370, 371, 374, 382, 386, 387, 389 Cinque, Guglielmo 29, 159, 168, 222, 288, 344, 364 Cole, Peter 299, 300 Conrad, Joseph 180 Cook Wilson, John 6, 7, 88 Cormack, Annabel 355, 382, 383 Corver, Norbert 387 Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 38
Name index
Craik, T. W. 198, 346 Cresswell, Maxwell 348 Cruttenden, Alan 38, 132 Culicover, Peter 8, 9, 11, 29, 61, 62, 92, 136, 141, 160, 168, 194, 195, 199–205, 214, 216, 220, 222–227, 229–231, 279–281, 283, 350, 363, 364, 370–372, 374, 376, 384 D Dahl, Östen 268 Daneš, František 46 Davidson, Donald 245, 342 de Hoop, Helen 35, 347, 354 de Swart, Henriëtte 35, 347, 354 Delahunty, Gerald 62, 203, 214, 223 DeLillo, Don 97, 183 Denison, David 370 Diesing, Molly 134, 344, 358, 360 Dik, Simon 168, 364 Donnellan, Keith 253 Dorgeloh, Heidrun 196, 198 Dowty, David 341 Drubig, Bernhard 2, 4, 21, 22, 32, 94, 125, 140, 192, 193, 196, 198, 202, 207–209, 213, 221, 282, 300, 339, 341, 342, 344, 345, 349, 350, 353, 358–360, 370, 372, 373, 375, 386 E É. Kiss, Katalin 2, 33–35, 92, 103, 298–300, 345, 348, 354, 370, 379, 386 Ellegård, Alvar 370 Emonds, Joseph 60, 64, 203, 207, 349, 367 Enç, Mürvet 252, 253, 255, 379 Engdahl, Elisabet 94, 145, 151, 347, 355 Ernst, Thomas 29, 168, 171, 343, 344, 365, 372 Erteschik-Shir, Nomi 30, 89–92, 139, 185, 191, 192, 207, 209–211, 272, 352, 354, 368, 370, 373, 377
F Faber, David 135, 136, 360 Fanselow, Gisbert 28, 61, 183, 268, 341–343, 374 Felix, Sascha 28, 61, 76, 142, 183, 268, 341–343, 374 Fernald, Theodore 21, 341 Firbas, Jan 46 Fischer, Olga 362 Fodor, Janet 252, 254, 379, 383 Foley, W. A. 347 Forster, E. M. 188 Frampton, John 174, 376 Frege, Gottlob 101, 377
G Geilfuß-Wolfgang, Jochen 349 Giorgi, Alessandra 288, 342 Göbbel, Edward 135, 360 Gómez-Gonzáles, Mariá Ángeles 347 Green, Georgia 95, 99, 373 Grevisse, Maurice 115, 369 Grewendorf, Günther 4, 11, 28, 165, 186, 232, 311, 312, 333, 339, 354, 367, 368, 387, 388 Grice, H. P. 345 Grimshaw, Jane 17, 340, 341 Groat, Erich 114, 357 Grosz, B. 355 Gruber, Jeffrey 341 Guéron, Jacqueline 4, 11, 17, 20, 28, 29, 63, 65, 67, 70–73, 92, 114, 115, 120, 121, 159, 164, 182, 185, 191, 205, 212, 221, 232, 268, 333, 340, 342, 343, 349, 353, 362–364, 367, 369, 372, 375, 376, 382 Gundel, Jeanette 7, 59, 76, 77, 91, 92, 151–153, 199, 205, 299, 339, 347–349, 352, 354, 377 Gussenhoven, Carlos 138, 143 Gustafsson, Marita 356
Name index
H Haegeman, Liliane 4, 11, 17, 19, 20, 27–29, 63, 65, 67, 70–73, 92, 114, 115, 120, 121, 159, 162, 182, 185, 190, 191, 193, 205, 212, 215, 216, 219, 221, 232, 268, 333, 340, 342, 343, 349, 353, 362–364, 367–369, 372, 375, 376, 382, 384 Haftka, Brigitta 347, 387 Haider, Hubert 317–319, 327 Hajiˇcová, Eva 36, 46, 92, 265, 345, 349 Hale, Kenneth 341 Hall, Radclyffe 97 Halle, Morris 144 Halliday, M. A. K. 46, 48, 51, 52, 348, 354 Harris, Alice 218, 345 Hartmann, Katharina 358, 359 Haumann, Dagmar 211, 212, 259, 373 Hawkins, John 103–105, 296, 299, 356, 385–387, 389 Heim, Irene 163, 164, 233–235, 242, 244, 252, 268, 273–280, 283, 377–379, 383–385 Heine, Bernd 345 Henry, Alison 219, 220, 266 Herburger, Elena 349 Hetland, Jorunn 144, 146, 345, 347, 361 Heycock, C. 207 Higginbotham, James 93, 94, 119, 213, 245, 254, 369 Higgins, F. R. 64, 367 Hirschberg, Julia 97, 147, 148, 154, 362, 417 Höhle, Tilman 94, 147, 348, 352, 387 Hooper, Joan 207–209, 212, 214, 372, 375, 376 Horn, Laurence 35, 251 Hornstein, Norbert 121, 122, 265, 270, 277, 280, 282, 358, 369, 382
I Iatridou, S. 208 J Jackendoff, Ray 7, 48, 60, 79, 151, 341, 346, 348, 362, 381 Jacobs, Joachim 48–50, 53, 55, 56, 77, 126, 144, 250, 251, 328, 349, 352, 354, 359 Jacobson, Pauline 383 Janssen, T. M. V. 173, 365 Jespersen, Otto 46, 369 Johns, Alana 343 Joshi, A. K. 355 Joyce, James 97, 171, 179 K Kaiser, Lizanne 211, 215, 372, 374 Kamp, Hans 252, 268, 272, 382 Kayne, Richard 14, 291, 344, 390, 391 Keenan, Edward 262, 263 Kempson, Ruth 355, 382, 383 Keyser, Samuel 341 Kidwai, Ayesha 92 Klima, Edward 193, 194, 370 König, Ekkehard 122, 123, 349 Koopman, Willem 280 Koster, Jan 187, 386 Kratzer, Angelika 18, 21, 22, 163, 164, 233–235, 242, 244, 254, 255, 268, 273–280, 283, 341, 342, 349, 360, 377, 378, 383–385 Krifka, Manfred 349 Kroch, A. 208 Kuno, Susumu 199 Kuroda, S.-Y. 46 Kuwabara, Kazuki 63, 195, 203, 204 L Ladd, D. 4, 38, 142, 144, 147, 149, 346, 362 Ladusaw, William 46, 47, 193, 347, 378
Name index
Laenzlinger, Christopher 344 Lakoff, George 213, 263, 264, 269, 352 Lambrecht, Knud 1–3, 9, 29, 30, 35, 45–48, 50, 53–56, 75–82, 86–92, 95, 141, 142, 149–151, 167, 256, 282, 299, 333, 339, 344, 351–354, 361, 365, 370, 386 LaPolla, Randy 25, 288, 343, 385, 390 Larson, Richard 234–236, 254, 341, 347 Lasnik, Howard 11, 61, 65, 73, 160–162, 166, 167, 199, 205–207, 215, 226, 228, 280, 341, 344, 364, 366, 370, 372, 373, 376 Lenerz, Jürgen 309, 310, 388 Leon, Donna 188 Levinson, Stephen 345, 373 Lewis, David 365 Lightfoot, David 219 Link, Godehard 249, 349, 379 Löbel, Elisabeth 17, 341 Lodge, David 50, 97, 167 Lohnstein, Horst 377 Lyons, John 37, 233, 252, 254, 377
M Maienborn, Claudia 49 Maki, Hideki 211, 215, 372, 374 Marty, A. 45, 46 Mathesius, Vilém 46 May, Robert 121, 265, 277, 280, 282, 382, 383 McArthur, Tom 340 McCawley, James 190 McConnell-Ginet, Sally 37, 120, 121, 235, 247, 249, 272, 377, 378, 382 McNally, Louise 8 Meinunger, André 325, 348, 387 Miller, Jim 218 Molnár, Valéria 48, 54, 55, 126, 345, 347, 359
Montague, Richard 240, 245, 377, 378 Motapanyane, Virginia 92, 367 Müller, Gereon 174, 175, 225, 306, 307, 311, 312, 329, 343, 350, 364, 365, 373–375, 386–388 N Newmeyer, Frederick 356, 376
15, 340, 347,
O Ochi, Masao 211, 215, 372, 374 Oku, Satoshi 177, 178, 366 O’Neil, John 114, 357 P Pafel, Jürgen 254, 377, 382 Panevová, Jarmila 36, 46, 265, 345 Park, Young-Me 204, 306, 350, 370, 372, 374, 387 Partee, Barbara 36, 46, 59, 247, 250, 345, 349, 378, 379 Paul, Hermann 45, 57, 329, 330, 389 Peregrin, Jaroslav 354, 377 Perlmutter, David 136, 342 Pesetsky, David 186, 359, 369, 372 Pianesi, Fabio 288, 342 Pickering, Martin 363 Pierrehumbert, Janet 147, 148, 154, 362, 417 Pinkal, Manfred 263, 382 Polinsky, Maria 30, 76, 344, 353 Pollard, Carl 373 Pollock, Jean-Yves 344 Postal, Paul 280 Prince, Ellen 91, 97, 101, 352, 354, 380 Puskas, Genoveva 298 Q Quirk, Randolph 38, 97, 168, 170, 185, 191, 193, 195, 196, 363, 369, 371
Name index
R Radford, Andrew 11, 19, 27–29, 62–67, 109, 110, 118, 119, 134, 136, 137, 182, 184, 190, 201, 205, 216, 220, 340–344, 350, 357, 360, 361, 368, 369, 375, 383 Rankin, Ian 132, 142, 249, 355 Rauh, Gisa 15, 16, 259–261, 278, 341, 381, 383, 384, 390 Rebuschi, Georges 347, 384 Reh, Mechthild 345 Reinhart, Tanya 37, 76, 77, 88–90, 248–250, 252, 254, 352, 354, 368 Reyle, Uwe 268, 272, 382 Rizzi, Luigi 4, 8, 70–73, 121, 158–160, 162, 166, 188, 227, 229, 232, 333, 339, 351, 368, 376 Roberts, Ian 11, 14, 28, 29, 340, 342 Robinson, Jane 199 Rochemont, Michael 62, 66, 68, 92, 130, 134, 138, 140, 141, 195–197, 199, 201, 202, 214, 215, 220, 221, 225–227, 281, 350, 351, 361, 370–373 Rooth, Mats 48, 57, 58, 123, 145, 349, 378 Rosengren, Inger 126, 321, 322, 359–361, 387, 390 Ross, John 60, 61, 172, 349 Roth, Philip 99, 100 Rothstein, Susan 119, 122 Rushdie, Salman 97, 167, 180 S Sabel, Joachim 312, 367, 368 Sadock, Jerrold 270, 382, 383 Safir, Ken 280 Sag, Ivan 252, 254, 373, 379, 383 Saito, Mamoru 65, 73, 160–162, 166, 167, 199, 205–207, 215, 226, 228, 364, 372, 373, 376 Sasse, Hans-Jürgen 1–3, 46–48, 346, 354, 359 Schaffar, W. 2, 4, 192, 282, 300, 339, 345, 370
Schmerling, Susan 21, 342 Schutze, Carson 177, 366 Searle, John 373 Segal, Gabriel 234–236, 254, 347 Selkirk, Elisabeth 40, 130–134, 137–141, 143, 144, 147–150, 334, 346, 359–362 Sgall, Petr 36, 46, 265, 345, 349 Shakespeare, William 95 Siewierska, Anna 2, 5, 291, 296, 299, 300, 385, 386 Simpson, Andrew 377, 385 Sobin, Nicholas 159, 162 Sornicola, Rosanna 170, 347, 354, 359 Speas, Margaret 371 Spencer, Andrew 4, 368 Sperber, Dan 54, 82, 83, 85, 86, 95, 237, 238, 345, 351–353, 377 Sportiche, D. 280 Stalnaker, Robert 237, 352 Standop, Ewald 267, 268, 382 Steedman, Mark 148, 150, 151, 153, 362 Steele, Susan 172, 173, 291 Sternefeld, Wolfgang 225, 306, 373, 375, 387 Stowell, Tim 179, 280, 385 Strawson, P. F. 89, 90, 354 Szabolcsi, Anna 345, 377
T Taglicht, Josef 125, 349 Takizawa, Naohiro 354 Tallerman, Maggie 300 Tappe, Hans-Thilo 315, 319, 386, 389 Thein, Maria 94–96, 347 Thomason, Richmond 240, 377, 378 Thompson, Sandra 207–209, 212, 214, 372, 375, 376 Tsai, Wei-Tien 344 Tuller, Laurice 347, 384 Turner, Raymond 379
Name index
U Uechi, E. 344, 351 Uhmann, Susanne 130, 134, 138, 139, 144, 145, 148, 150, 360, 362 Ura, Hiroyuki 118, 358 Uriagereka, Juan 372
V Vallduví, Enric 35, 94, 145, 151, 166, 347, 349, 355, 382 van Kuppevelt, Jan 347 van Riemsdijk, Henk 315, 319, 321, 323, 387, 389, 390 Van Valin, Robert 25, 288, 343, 385, 390 Visser, F. 369, 371 von der Gabelentz, Georg 45 von Stechow, Arnim 30, 79, 80, 346, 348, 349, 377
W Ward, Gregory 60, 63, 87, 97–103, 167, 169–172, 176–180, 190,
196–198, 205, 207, 255, 259, 347, 349, 352, 355, 356, 366, 380 Wasow, Thomas 172, 173, 280, 384 Webelhuth, Gert 11, 181, 182, 366, 367 Wegener, Ph. 45 Weil, Henri 45 Weinstein, S. 355 Wilder, Chris 4, 189, 369 Williams, Edwin 272, 281–283 Wilson, Deirdre 6, 7, 54, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 95, 237, 238, 345, 351–353, 377 Winkler, Susanne 40, 130, 140, 141, 148, 346 Wold, Dag 349 Wunderlich, Dieter 18, 341, 343, 373 Z Zimmermann, Thomas 369 Zubizarreta, Maria 69, 70, 89, 92, 283, 351, 365, 370 Zwart, Jan-Wouter 14, 291, 390 Zwicky, Arnold 270, 382, 383
Subject index
Φ-marking, Φ-projection 94, 149, 150–154, 156, 160, 251, 282, 334, 337
A A-accent 151, 362 aboutness 49–51, 76, 77, 88, 244, 256, 257, 328, 329, 348 absolutive 25, 343 absorption (of feature) 185, 323, 324, 368 accessibility (of denotata, referents) 89, 101, 142, 143, 146, 192, 334, 352, 353, 356, 369 accommodation (pragmatic ∼) 54, 170, 250, 258, 362, 365 accusative 15, 23, 25, 311, 343, 389 activation, activeness (of denotata, referents) 47, 53–55, 76, 77, 79, 89, 90–92, 141–143, 145, 149, 150, 153, 192, 199, 257–259, 282, 310, 334, 351, 352, 354, 360, 361, 369, 380, 385 adjunction 14, 67, 166, 185, 200, 220, 222, 276, 340, 364, 368, 374, 383 adsentential 213–215, 217, 220, 221, 224, 230, 373, 374 affective feature 194, 370 alternative semantics (AS) 56, 57, 60, 123, 348, 349 anaphora 2, 102, 162, 165, 175, 215, 216, 264, 265, 279, 281, 283, 284, 311, 312, 364, 374, 384, 385, 388 anchor 99–103, 355, 356 annotation see adsentential
ANTAV (∼-domain, ∼-layer) 26, 29, 41, 111, 173 antecedent 131, 158, 159, 163–166, 174, 200, 216, 227, 252, 275–277, 279–282, 283, 284, 312, 351, 356, 366, 389 anti-adjacency 229, 232, 336 Arabic 386 argument focus 1–3, 30, 35, 47, 80, 92, 339, 353 autosegmental-metrical phonology 38, 147, 347 B B-accent 151, 362 backward looking center (BLC) 100, 355, 356 Bantu 68 barrier 60, 65, 73, 159–162, 206, 222, 350, 364, 389 base position I-focus projection (BPIFP) 140, 143–146, 154, 334 Basque 28 Bavarian 219 bridge verb 211, 213, 214, 373 Bulgarian 185, 204 C case (∼ assignment, ∼ checking, ∼ feature, morphological ∼) 15, 19, 23–28, 70, 88, 109, 117, 121, 122, 169, 183, 196–198, 232, 285, 290, 291, 297, 304, 307–309, 311, 318, 320, 321, 323, 324, 330, 331, 333, 335, 336, 344, 367, 386, 388 Catalan 145
Subject index categorial (∼ feature, ∼ property, etc.) 15, 16, 122, 170, 181, 367 categorical (type of focus structure) 1ff. categorical-identificational (type of focus structure) 298, 299, 386 Chavante 2 Chinese 48, 191, 260 cleft (construction) 5, 34, 56, 68, 337, 345 comment (topic vs. ∼) 45, 53, 55, 80, 152, 354 complement priority principle (CPP) 143–145, 334 compositionality (semantic ∼) 7, 123, 233, 235, 249, 277, 278, 285, 289, 309, 379 constituent recognition domain (CRD) 104–106 contrastive (∼ focus, ∼ topic, etc.), contrastiveness 45, 46, 50, 143, 151–153, 204, 310, 345, 348, 359, 361, 362, 385 copula, copular verb, copulative (∼ base, ∼ clause, etc.) 17–23, 137, 138, 173, 179, 180, 189, 241, 242, 246, 247, 257, 259, 287, 288, 291, 341, 345 Cornish 300 covert (∼ movement, ∼ operator, etc.) 8, 70, 114, 119, 184, 191, 194, 218, 221, 223, 233, 243, 265, 268, 275, 279, 280, 282–285, 336, 337, 344, 368, 375, 377 (see also overt) Croatian 4 cross-categorial 122–124, 358
E early immediate constituents (EIC) 103, 104, 106, 296, 299 Early Modern English (EModE) 184, 185 echo interrogative 190, 191 Efik 2 empty category principle (ECP) 61, 95, 121, 158, 159, 166, 182, 206, 230, 232, 320, 323, 336, 363, 367, 374 entailment 82–87, 98, 192–195, 223–225, 232, 270, 336, 353, 370, 371 entity 33, 46–48, 53, 55, 76, 79, 81, 88, 91, 98, 126, 240, 245, 247–249, 257, 258, 260, 284, 329, 336, 349, 380, 381 ergative 25, 136, 137, 318, 343 E-type anphora 283, 284, 384, 385 event-reporting (∼ sentence, ∼ utterance) 80, 81 eventuality 46, 245, 246, 257–261, 265, 277, 284, 336, 378, 380, 381 excorporation 324–326, 331 exceptional case marking (ECM) 27, 183, 232, 335 exhaustiveness, exhaustivity 33–36, 94, 341, 345, 369, 377 explicature 351 extended projection principle (EPP) 198, 371, 386 extra clausal constituent (ECC) 168–171, 201–203, 212, 364, 365, 373 extraposition 5, 8, 56, 59, 337, 351, 370
D discourse linking (D-linking) 192, 280, 281, 369, 384 dormant feature 194 Dutch 219, 386
F F (∼-feature, ∼-label, ∼-marking, ∼-projection) 38–40, 57, 58, 79, 80, 93, 130–134, 137–149, 151–156, 249, 251, 255, 259,
Subject index
265–267, 272, 283, 334, 346, 347, 353, 358, 360, 362, 369, 374, 380, 382 factive verb 211, 372, 373 (see also bridge verb) FANTAV (∼-domain, ∼-layer) 26, 40, 113, 117, 124, 127, 161, 173, 184, 289, 301, 304, 314, 364 flexible semantic type 244, 275, 277, 278, 379 focus structure appropriateness condition (FSAC) 238 Fokus-Hintergrund-Gliederung (FHG) 53–55, 348 foreground 46, 48, 83, 86 forward looking center (FLC) 355 frame topic 48–50, 328, 385 French 17, 115, 191, 254, 274, 353, 369 functional (∼ layer, ∼ position, ∼ projection, etc.) 17, 23–28, 41, 111, 117, 127, 161, 179, 196, 197, 200, 260, 290, 297, 298, 303, 305, 307, 308, 312–315, 323, 324, 327, 328, 331, 342, 343, 364, 368 (see also (F)ANTAV, case projection) functor 378 G Gaelic 300 generic (∼ expression, etc.), genericity 91, 248, 267, 321, 354, 384 Georgian 342 German 9, 10, 17, 23, 28, 49, 54, 114, 126, 134, 138, 144–147, 174, 178, 204, 219, 250, 263, 287, 289, 291, 301, 302, 304–312, 325, 327, 328, 330, 331, 333, 358–360, 362, 365, 368, 375, 377, 382, 386–388, 390 Germanic 181, 306 givenness, given (old) information 46, 47, 50, 52, 53, 55, 133, 141, 148, 149, 199, 348, 352, 360 (see
also accessibility, activation, newness) Greek 269 Greenlandic 390
H hanging topic 49, 170 Hausa 2 heavy (NP) shift 5, 8, 56, 337
I identifiability (of denotata, referents) 50, 76, 91, 210, 257 identificational (type of focus structure) 1ff. Imbabura Quechua 299, 300, 386 implicature 36, 56, 126, 153, 236, 345, 365 inactiveness (of denotata, referents) 76, 92, 141–143, 149, 150, 153, 282, 352, 385 incorporation 312, 320–328, 331, 388, 390 indeterminacy (type semantic ∼) 241, 242, 254, 263, 266, 271, 273, 275, 277, 281, 284, 336, 378, 382 individual level predicate (ILP) 21, 22, 138, 139, 192, 288, 341, 342, 360, 379 informational focus 33, 35, 50, 58–60, 78, 81, 94, 192, 281, 298, 345, 385 inverse linking 277, 279 Irish 218, 300 island 61, 208, 225, 226, 349, 372, 374, 383 Italian 72, 254, 274, 351, 353, 382 iteration (of phrase) 70, 73, 223, 232, 336 I-topicalisation 126, 251, 359 Ixil 2
Subject index
J Japanese 69, 179, 207, 258, 288, 351, 353, 378, 382 K Kewa 288 Korean 179, 204, 258, 259, 382 L leftness condition 280, 284 LF (∼-ambiguity, ∼-movement, ∼-raising, etc.) 6, 12, 37, 120–122, 164, 165, 174, 175, 233–235, 265, 268, 274–276, 279, 280–285, 336, 337, 347, 358, 359, 374, 377, 382, 383 lie-test 210 light (∼ head, ∼ verb, etc.) 18, 114, 136, 277, 288, 325, 327, 341, 375 M Mandarin 382 Manx 300 matrix (∼ clause, ∼ verb, etc.) 19, 27, 118, 119, 179, 183, 184, 208–210, 213–215, 217, 218, 220, 221, 223, 224, 228, 230, 232, 335, 343, 367, 373 minor functional head (MFH) 122 N Nandi 2 newness, new information 33, 45–48, 50, 52–55, 78, 80, 141, 148, 149, 198, 348, 352, 360 (see also accessibility, activation, givenness) nominative 23, 25, 70, 343, 374 nuclear stress rule (NSR) 144, 145, 361 O operator 63, 65, 66, 68, 71, 72, 120, 122, 152, 175, 184, 201, 217, 218,
221, 223, 288, 345, 349, 368, 370, 375, 385 optimality theory (OT) 386 optional (∼ feature, ∼ movement, etc.), optionality 8, 15, 41, 60, 103, 104, 124, 196–198, 221, 223, 299, 275, 297, 298, 300, 304, 308, 309, 311, 330, 331, 334, 335, 344, 368, 375, 386–388 orthographic (∼ representation, ∼ sentence) 7, 32, 33, 38, 88, 96, 264, 344, 373 out-of-the-blue (∼ sentence, ∼ utterance) 90, 133, 137, 359 overt (∼ head, ∼ movement, etc.) 9, 23, 25, 27, 31, 45, 66, 73, 106, 114, 116, 117, 119, 158, 166, 169, 182, 183, 185, 196, 197, 212, 215, 217–219, 221, 223, 243, 265, 280, 292, 303, 307, 309, 328, 347, 367, 368, 373, 375, 387 (see also covert) P paradox (movement ∼) 181, 182, 365, 366, 376 para-functional head 113, 114, 116, 184, 187 parameters, parameterisation 8, 14, 70, 76, 144, 175, 288, 291, 296 parenthetical 73, 201, 209, 212, 365 parsing 104–106, 326, 376 passive 104, 106, 138, 165, 173, 177, 198, 304, 313–315, 317, 318, 326, 382, 390 Persian-Iraqi 97 plurality 247, 249–252, 379 polarity 72, 190, 200, 387 poset 97–99, 101, 102, 356 predicate (syntactic vs. semantic ∼) 7, 87, 88, 285 predicate focus 1, 3, 30, 46, 48, 80, 347, 353 predication 1–3, 47, 48, 50, 152, 240, 347, 354, 378
Subject index
presentational sentence 80, 81, 197 presupposition 35, 53, 56, 78, 79, 82–88, 90, 92, 94, 151, 163, 167, 170, 205, 236–239, 241, 337, 352, 353, 365, 377, 378 privative opposition 270 processing 75, 95, 103, 106, 110, 123, 160, 164, 180, 182, 186, 226–228, 230, 233, 299, 326, 340, 346, 363, 376, 378 pseudo-cleft (construction) 5, 56, 337 Q quantification, quantificational (∼ expression, etc.), quantifier 2, 121, 122, 127, 193, 237, 240, 243, 244, 248–251, 261, 264, 265, 268–285, 298, 336, 359, 367, 370, 378, 379, 381–383, 387, 390 R raising (∼ verb, LF-∼, etc.) 19, 20, 121, 127, 234, 244, 268, 280, 283, 329, 336, 341, 351, 367 reciprocal 162, 165, 166, 311, 312 reconstruction 121, 174 reflexive 97, 98, 162, 165, 215, 311, 312, 355, 388 relativised minimality (RM) 72, 160, 227, 230, 231 relevance 53, 55, 82–88, 90, 94, 151, 170, 212, 213, 234, 236–239, 241, 351, 353, 365, 377, 378 rheme 45, 46, 51, 52, 55 rigid semantic type 240, 275, 278 Romanian 185 Russian 341 S scope 7, 122, 123, 126, 152, 244, 254, 268–277, 279, 329, 363, 371, 382 Scottish English 218 Scottish Gaelic 300
secondary pitch accent 149, 151, 154, 251, 310, 355, 362 secondary topic 89, 354 Sentani 2 sentence focus 1, 3, 30, 46, 80, 133 sentence string 96, 129, 234, 239, 243, 263, 266, 271, 273, 355 (see also orthographic) Somali 386 so-test 263, 269, 270, 275, 383 Spanish 69, 70, 125, 190 split topicalisation 319, 321, 323, 324, 331, 388, 389 stage level predicate (SLP) 21, 22, 90, 137–139, 288, 341, 342, 360 strong crossover (SCO) 384 structured meaning semantics (SMS) 56, 57, 60, 348, 349 stylistic (∼ operation, ∼ rule, etc.) 68, 103, 104, 195, 334, 350, 351, 387 subjacency 60, 61, 65, 73, 160–162, 172, 179, 181, 206, 350, 364 subject (syntactic vs. semantic ∼) 6, 7, 49, 50, 88, 337, 354 T thematic, theta (∼ grid, ∼ role, etc.) 17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 28, 51, 113, 114, 119, 122, 135–137, 141, 158, 160, 196, 211, 213, 227, 245, 246, 288, 320, 324, 341, 342, 346, 351, 360, 363, 373, 388 theme (∼ vs. rheme) 45, 46, 51, 52, 55, 346, 354, 362 thetic (type of focus structure) 1ff. topic 1ff. topic-comment (TC) 53, 55, 80, 348, 354 Topik-Kommentar-Gliederung (TKG) 53, 54, 348 Tsai 344 Tuki 68, 69, 339 Turkish 288, 379 Tyneside English 218, 219
Subject index
type determination mechanism (TDM) 246, 247, 249, 254, 256, 257, 259, 261, 262, 270, 271, 273, 275, 284, 285, 298, 299, 330, 336
W wa (∼ topicalisation) 69, 351 Warlpiri 28 w-complex 368
U unaccusative 22, 135–139, 198, 288, 318, 326, 342, 360 unergative 134–137, 198, 361
Y Yapese 2 Yiddish 171, 173 Yoruba 2, 97
In the series Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 12 ABRAHAM, Werner, Samuel David EPSTEIN, Höskuldur THRÁINSSON and C. Jan-Wouter ZWART (eds.): Minimal Ideas. Syntactic studies in the minimalist framework. 1996. xii, 364 pp. 13 ALEXIADOU, Artemis and T. Alan HALL (eds.): Studies on Universal Grammar and Typological Variation. 1997. viii, 252 pp. 14 ANAGNOSTOPOULOU, Elena, Henk van RIEMSDIJK and Frans ZWARTS (eds.): Materials on Left Dislocation. 1997. viii, 349 pp. 15 ROHRBACHER, Bernhard Wolfgang: Morphology-Driven Syntax. A theory of V to I raising and prodrop. 1999. viii, 296 pp. 16 LIU, Feng-Hsi: Scope and Specificity. 1997. viii, 187 pp. 17 BEERMAN, Dorothee, David LEBLANC and Henk van RIEMSDIJK (eds.): Rightward Movement. 1997. vi, 410 pp. 18 ALEXIADOU, Artemis: Adverb Placement. A case study in antisymmetric syntax. .. 1997. x, 256 pp. 19 JOSEFSSON, Gunlög: Minimal Words in a Minimal Syntax. Word formation in Swedish. 1998. ix, 199 pp. 20 LAENZLINGER, Christopher: Comparative Studies in Word Order Variation. Adverbs, pronouns, and clause structure in Romance and Germanic. 1998. x, 371 pp. 21 KLEIN, Henny: Adverbs of Degree in Dutch and Related Languages. 1998. x, 232 pp. 22 ALEXIADOU, Artemis and Chris WILDER (eds.): Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase. 1998. vi, 388 pp. 23 GIANNAKIDOU, Anastasia: Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)Veridical Dependency. 1998. xvi, 282 pp. 24 REBUSCHI, Georges and Laurice TULLER (eds.): The Grammar of Focus. 1999. vi, 366 pp. 25 FELSER, Claudia: Verbal Complement Clauses. A minimalist study of direct perception constructions. 1999. xiv, 278 pp. 26 ACKEMA, Peter: Issues in Morphosyntax. 1999. viii, 310 pp. 27 RŮŽIČKA, Rudolf: Control in Grammar and Pragmatics. A cross-linguistic study. 1999. x, 206 pp. 28 HERMANS, Ben and Marc van OOSTENDORP (eds.): The Derivational Residue in Phonological Optimality Theory. 2000. viii, 322 pp. 29 MIYAMOTO, Tadao: The Light Verb Construction in Japanese. The role of the verbal noun. 2000. xiv, 232 pp. 30 BEUKEMA, Frits and Marcel den DIKKEN (eds.): Clitic Phenomena in European Languages. 2000. x, 324 pp. 31 SVENONIUS, Peter (ed.): The Derivation of VO and OV. 2000. vi, 372 pp. 32 ALEXIADOU, Artemis, Paul LAW, Andre MEINUNGER and Chris WILDER (eds.): The Syntax of Relative Clauses. 2000. vi, 397 pp. 33 PUSKÁS, Genoveva: Word Order in Hungarian. The syntax of Ā-positions. 2000. xvi, 398 pp. 34 REULAND, Eric J. (ed.): Arguments and Case. Explaining Burzio's Generalization. 2000. xii, 255 pp. 35 HRÓARSDÓTTIR, Thorbjörg: Word Order Change in Icelandic. From OV to VO. 2001. xiv, 385 pp. 36 GERLACH, Birgit and Janet GRIJZENHOUT (eds.): Clitics in Phonology, Morphology and Syntax. 2001. xii, 441 pp. 37 LUTZ, Uli, Gereon MÜLLER and Arnim von STECHOW (eds.): Wh-Scope Marking. 2000. vi, 483 pp. 38 MEINUNGER, Andre: Syntactic Aspects of Topic and Comment. 2000. xii, 247 pp. 39 GELDEREN, Elly van: A History of English Reflexive Pronouns. Person, Self, and Interpretability. 2000. xiv, 279 pp. 40 HOEKSEMA, Jack, Hotze RULLMANN, Víctor SÁNCHEZ-VALENCIA and Ton van der WOUDEN (eds.): Perspectives on Negation and Polarity Items. 2001. xii, 368 pp. 41 ZELLER, Jochen: Particle Verbs and Local Domains. 2001. xii, 325 pp. 42 ALEXIADOU, Artemis: Functional Structure in Nominals. Nominalization and ergativity. 2001. x, 233 pp.
43 FEATHERSTON, Sam: Empty Categories in Sentence Processing. 2001. xvi, 279 pp. 44 TAYLAN, Eser Erguvanlı (ed.): The Verb in Turkish. 2002. xviii, 267 pp. 45 ABRAHAM, Werner and C. Jan-Wouter ZWART (eds.): Issues in Formal German(ic) Typology. 2002. xviii, 336 pp. 46 PANAGIOTIDIS, Phoevos: Pronouns, Clitics and Empty Nouns. ‘Pronominality’ and licensing in syntax. 2002. x, 214 pp. 47 BARBIERS, Sjef, Frits BEUKEMA and Wim van der WURFF (eds.): Modality and its Interaction with the Verbal System. 2002. x, 290 pp. 48 ALEXIADOU, Artemis, Elena ANAGNOSTOPOULOU, Sjef BARBIERS and Hans-Martin GÄRTNER (eds.): Dimensions of Movement. From features to remnants. 2002. vi, 345 pp. 49 ALEXIADOU, Artemis (ed.): Theoretical Approaches to Universals. 2002. viii, 319 pp. 50 STEINBACH, Markus: Middle Voice. A comparative study in the syntax-semantics interface of German. 2002. xii, 340 pp. 51 GERLACH, Birgit: Clitics between Syntax and Lexicon. 2002. xii, 282 pp. 52 SIMON, Horst J. and Heike WIESE (eds.): Pronouns – Grammar and Representation. 2002. xii, 294 pp. 53 ZWART, C. Jan-Wouter and Werner ABRAHAM (eds.): Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax. Proceedings from the 15th Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax (Groningen, May 26–27, 2000). 2002. xiv, 407 pp. 54 BAPTISTA, Marlyse: The Syntax of Cape Verdean Creole. The Sotavento varieties. 2003. xxii, 294 pp. (incl. CD-rom). 55 COENE, Martine and Yves D'HULST (eds.): From NP to DP. Volume 1: The syntax and semantics of noun phrases. 2003. vi, 362 pp. 56 COENE, Martine and Yves D'HULST (eds.): From NP to DP. Volume 2: The expression of possession in noun phrases. 2003. x, 295 pp. 57 DI SCIULLO, Anna Maria (ed.): Asymmetry in Grammar. Volume 1: Syntax and semantics. 2003. vi, 405 pp. 58 DI SCIULLO, Anna Maria (ed.): Asymmetry in Grammar. Volume 2: Morphology, phonology, acquisition. 2003. vi, 309 pp. 59 DEHÉ, Nicole: Particle Verbs in English. Syntax, information structure and intonation. 2002. xii, 305 pp. 60 TRIPS, Carola: From OV to VO in Early Middle English. 2002. xiv, 359 pp. 61 SCHWABE, Kerstin and Susanne WINKLER (eds.): The Interfaces. Deriving and interpreting omitted structures. 2003. vi, 403 pp. 62 CARNIE, Andrew, Heidi HARLEY and MaryAnn WILLIE (eds.): Formal Approaches to Function in Grammar. In honor of Eloise Jelinek. 2003. xii, 378 pp. 63 BOECKX, Cedric: Islands and Chains. Resumption as stranding. 2003. xii, 224 pp. 64 BOECKX, Cedric and Kleanthes K. GROHMANN (eds.): Multiple Wh-Fronting. 2003. x, 292 pp. 65 MANNINEN, Satu Helena: Small Phrase Layers. A study of Finnish Manner Adverbials. 2003. xii, 275 pp. 66 GROHMANN, Kleanthes K.: Prolific Domains. On the Anti-Locality of movement dependencies. 2003. xvi, 372 pp. 67 MIŠESKA TOMIĆ, Olga (ed.): Balkan Syntax and Semantics. 2004. xv, 474 pp. + index. Expected Summer 2004 68 BREUL, Carsten: Focus Structure in Generative Grammar. An integrated syntactic, semantic and intonational approach. 2004. x, 415 pp. + index. 69 KISS, Katalin É. and Henk van RIEMSDIJK (eds.): Verb Clusters. A study of Hungarian, German and Dutch. 2004. vi, 500 pp. + index. Expected Summer 2004 70 AUSTIN, Jennifer R., Stefan ENGELBERG and Gisela RAUH (eds.): Adverbials. The interplay between meaning, context, and syntactic structure. 2004. Expected Fall 2004 71 GELDEREN, Elly van: Grammaticalization as Economy. 2004. Expected Fall 2004
