Sluicing and stripping in Korean : a non-ellipsis, anaphoric analysis

This dissertation examines some constructions that have been traditionally described as ellipsis phenomena in Korean. Specifically, I focus on the embedded sluicing construction and its two variants (i.e., the embedded sluicing-like construction and the embedded confirmative/contrastive construction), and the stripping construction. In doing so, I first show that there are two possible types for each of the constructions in terms of the presence of a copula. I then argue that regardless of whether or not they contain a copula they are not truly 'ellipsis', since they cannot be related to a full form by adding words. Instead they should be treated as simple full clauses. In particular, I claim that they are like other subject-predicate constructions, where the subject is a (possibly phonologically silent) anaphoric pronoun and a [VERBAL +] predicate. I show that previous analyses of these constructions face problems in accounting for their diverse intriguing properties, since they do not distinguish between these two types or they resort to PF deletion and silent syntax. I then argue that when the clause occurs with a copula, the copula has a specificational use, whereas when it does not occur with a copula, the [VERBAL +] predicate simply denotes the property of the pronominal subject. I also offer formal representations of some representative examples of the these constructions, adopting the framework of HPSG (Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar). This analysis enables us to capture their numerous common grammatical properties and to explain their different behavior in some respects, making the most of discourse/context information.Linguistic

Investigations on salvation and non-salvation by deletion

I use salvation and non-salvation by deletion as a window to understand computational and lexical resources in natural languages. I revisit previous findings from the literature and present novel data of repair under ellipsis from Polish and Nupe. Salvation by deletion is then used to analyze verb-echo answers in Brazilian Portuguese, which, I show, require a word order that is not available in the language. The phenomenon is also used to compare two types of approaches to phasal domains with date from Nupe. I show that salvation by deletion does not obtain in cases of intervention in A-movement and head movement locality, which implies that these are derivational constraints. Finally, salvation and nonsalvation by deletion are used as a way to distinguish two types of lexical gaps with data from Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and English

Two Ways to the Right : A Hybrid approach to Right-dislocation in Korean

This paper investigates the syntax and semantics of right dislocation constructions (RDCs) in Korean, with special focus on asymmetries between postverbal arguments and postverbal adjuncts. I argue that RDCs are sub-divided into two types: argument RDCs vs. adjunct RDCs. I propose that postverbal arguments undergo focus movement to the root C in a mono-clausal structure, whereas postverbal adjuncts are base-generated at the end of the utterance, and the head of the adjunct may undergo sideward movement onto the host clause. I show that under the current proposal, we can explain a variety of unique properties of RDCs in Korean, which include: root effects, scope, variability in island effects, Negative Polarity Item (NPI) licensing, wh-licensing, and the presence or absence of LBC and CED effects. My proposal also captures otherwise surprising similarities between argument RDCs and specificational focus constructions and a parallelism between adjunct RDCs and parasitic gap constructions

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) is a constraint-based or declarative approach to linguistic knowledge, which analyses all descriptive levels (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) with feature value pairs, structure sharing, and relational constraints. In syntax it assumes that expressions have a single relatively simple constituent structure. This volume provides a state-of-the-art introduction to the framework. Various chapters discuss basic assumptions and formal foundations, describe the evolution of the framework, and go into the details of the main syntactic phenomena. Further chapters are devoted to non-syntactic levels of description. The book also considers related fields and research areas (gesture, sign languages, computational linguistics) and includes chapters comparing HPSG with other frameworks (Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Construction Grammar, Dependency Grammar, and Minimalism)

An overview of theories of the syntax-phonology interface

This article is intended as a critical survey of the phonological theories of the syntax-phonology interface. These theories can be divided into two main groups, according to the role they attribute to syntactic representations in creating phonological domains. On the one hand there is the Direct Reference Theory, which claims that phonological operations are directly sensitive to syntactic information, in terms of relations of c-command or m-command (i.e., government) holding between the elements participating in phonological processes. On the other, there is the Prosodic Hierarchy Theory of Prosodic Phonology, which defends the view that syntactic and phonological representations are not isomorphic and that there is a distinct level of representation called Prosodic Structure which contains a hierarchically organized set of prosodic constituents. These constituents are built from syntactic structure by a finite set of parameterized algorithms, and phonological processes refer to prosodic constituents rather than to syntactic constituents. Elordieta (1997, 1999) proposes that certain phonological phenomena may be specified to apply in the domains or constituents formed by functional and lexical heads related by feature checking. Seidl's (2001) Minimal Indirect Reference Theory claims that syntactic relationships such as theta-domains determine phonological constituency at the phrasal level. Another important, more recent view is the one that maintains that spellout domains (that is, all the material included in a syntactic phase except for the head of the phase and elements in the specifier of that phase) are interpreted as phonological constituents in PF

Typology of bizarre ellipsis varieties

This dissertation deals with the typology and analysis of several types of ellipsis that have received little or no attention so far in the literature. The theoretical goal of the dissertation is to propose analyses of sluicing and gapping that will be able to account for cross-linguistic variation in this domain. While the overall approach of the dissertation is typological, a particular focus is made upon data from Russian, Georgian (the South Caucasian language family), as well as Digor and Iron Ossetic (Iranian; Indo-European)