The semantics of ellipsis

There are four phenomena that are particularly troublesome for theories of ellipsis: the existence of sloppy readings when the relevant pronouns cannot possibly be bound; an ellipsis being resolved in such a way that an ellipsis site in the antecedent is not understood in the way it was there; an ellipsis site drawing material from two or more separate antecedents; and ellipsis with no linguistic antecedent. These cases are accounted for by means of a new theory that involves copying syntactically incomplete antecedent material and an analysis of silent VPs and NPs that makes them into higher order definite descriptions that can be bound into

Da linguística gerativa à gramática categorial : sujeitos lexicais em infinitivos controlados

Orientadores: Marcelo Esteban Coniglio, Sonia Maria Lazzarini CyrinoTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências HumanasResumo: A presente tese situa-se na interface da lógica e da linguística; o seu objeto de estudo são os pronomes lexicais em sentenças de controle em três línguas Românicas: Português, Italiano e Espanhol. Esse assunto tem recebido mais atenção na linguística gerativa, especialmente nos anos recentes, do que na gramática de cunho lógico. Talvez como consequência disso, há ainda muito a ser entendido sobre essas estruturas linguísticas e as suas propriedades lógicas. Essa tese tenta preencher as lacunas na literatura \--- ou, pelo menos, avançar nessa direção \--- colocando questões que não foram suficientemente exploradas até agora. Para tal efeito avançamos duas perguntas-chaves, uma linguística e a outra lógica. Elas são, respectivamente: Qual é o estatuto sintático dos pronomes lexicais em estruturas de controle? E: Quais são os mecanismos disponíveis, em uma gramática lógica livre de contração, para se reusar recursos semânticos? A tese divide-se, consequentemente, em duas partes: linguística gerativa e gramática categorial. Na Parte I revisamos algumas das principais teorias de controle gerativistas e a recente discussão acerca das cláusulas infinitivas com sujeito lexical. Na Parte II revisamos a literatura categorial, atendendo principalmente às propostas acerca das estruturas de controle e dos pronomes anafóricos. Em última instância, mostraremos que as propostas linguísticas e lógicas prévias precisam ser modificadas para se explicar o fenômeno linguístico em questão. Com efeito, nos capítulos finais de cada uma das partes avançamos propostas alternativas que, a nosso ver, resultam mais adequadas que as suas rivais. Mais específicamente, na Parte I avançamos uma proposta linguística na linha do cálculo de controle T/Agr de Landau. Na Parte II apresentamos duas propostas categoriais, uma na linha do cálculo categorial combinatório e a outra, na gramática lógica de tipos. Finalmente mostramos a implementação da última proposta em um analisador sintático e de demonstração categorialAbstract: The present thesis lies at the interface of logic and linguistics; its object of study are control sentences with overt pronouns in Romance languages (European and Brazilian Portuguese, Italian and Spanish). This is a topic that has received considerably more attention on the part of linguists, especially in recent years, than from logicians. Perhaps for this reason, much remains to be understood about these linguistic structures and their underlying logical properties. This thesis seeks to fill the lacunas in the literature \--- or at least take steps in this direction \--- by way of addressing a number of issues that have so far been under-explored. To this end we put forward two key questions, one linguistic and the other logical. These are, respectively: What is the syntactic status of the surface pronoun? And: What are the available mechanisms to reuse semantic resources in a contraction-free logical grammar? Accordingly, the thesis is divided into two parts: generative linguistics and categorial grammar. Part I starts by reviewing the recent discussion within the generative literature on infinitive clauses with overt subjects, paying detailed attention to the main accounts in the field. Part II does the same on the logical grammar front, addressing in particular the issues of control and of anaphoric pronouns. Ultimately, the leading accounts from both camps will be found wanting. The closing chapter of each of Part I and Part II will thus put forward alternative candidates, that we contend are more successful than their predecessors. More specifically, in Part I we offer a linguistic account along the lines of Landau's T/Agr theory of control. In Part II we present two alternative categorial accounts: one based on Combinatory Categorial Grammar, the other on Type-Logical Grammar. Each of these accounts offers an improved, more fine-grained perspective on control infinitives featuring overt pronominal subjects. Finally, we include an Appendix in which our type-logical proposal is implemented in a categorial parser/theorem-prover (categorial parser/theorem-prover)DoutoradoFilosofiaDoutora em Filosofia2013/08115-1, 2015/09699-2FAPESPCAPE

Sloppy Identity

Although sloppy interpretation is usually accounted for by theories of ellipsis, it often arises in non-elliptical contexts. In this paper, a theory of sloppy interpretation is provided which captures this fact. The underlying idea is that sloppy interpretation results from a semantic constraint on parallel structures and the theory is shown to predict sloppy readings for deaccented and paycheck sentences as well as relational-, event-, and one-anaphora. It is further shown to capture the interaction of sloppy/strict ambiguity with quantification and binding.Comment: 20 page

Anaphora and Discourse Structure

We argue in this paper that many common adverbial phrases generally taken to signal a discourse relation between syntactically connected units within discourse structure, instead work anaphorically to contribute relational meaning, with only indirect dependence on discourse structure. This allows a simpler discourse structure to provide scaffolding for compositional semantics, and reveals multiple ways in which the relational meaning conveyed by adverbial connectives can interact with that associated with discourse structure. We conclude by sketching out a lexicalised grammar for discourse that facilitates discourse interpretation as a product of compositional rules, anaphor resolution and inference.Comment: 45 pages, 17 figures. Revised resubmission to Computational Linguistic

Syntactic features in morphology : general problems of so-called pronominal inflection in german

Morphological analysis of inflectional categories has been for a long time a favored field of classical structuralism. American scholars, in this respect, concentrated on the representation of inflected forms in terms of concatenated morphemes

Overtly anaphoric control in type logical grammar

In this paper we analyse anaphoric pronouns in control sentences and we investigate the implications of these kinds of sentences in relation to the Propositional Theory versus Property Theory question. For these purposes, we invoke the categorial calculus with limited contraction, a conservative extension of Lambek calculus that builds contraction into the logical rules for a customized slash type-constructor.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft