Edwin Williams: Representation Theory - Book review

Edwin Williams: Representation Theory. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2003, 285 pp

Phi-Agree, A-movement, and Complementizer-Tense Relations in Chinese.

This dissertation reveals an apparent paradox presented by Chinese which confronts current theories of Universal Grammar, parametric variation, and typology of human languages. Specifically, Chinese presents a problem for the feature inheritance hypothesis (Richards 2007; Chomsky 2007, 2008; Miyagawa 2010) because Chinese seems to manifest neither phi-features/Agree on T nor the freedom to raise any topic phrase to spec-TP (a hallmark feature of discourse-configurational languages like Finnish). That is, the UG-typology advanced under the feature inheritance hypotheses seems to exclude Chinese. In view of this apparent paradox, I investigate the distribution and motivation of A-movement in Chinese in chapter 2 and argue that Chinese is in fact compatible with Miyagawa’s feature inheritance approach. I contend that Chinese displays A-movement motivated by two distinct forces: the Case feature (see Epstein and Seely 2006, Bošković 2002) and the Topic feature (as in Miyagawa 2010). Chapter 3 investigates the question of whether Chinese lacks phi-features/Agree altogether by examining the blocking effects observed in the long-distance construal of the reflexive ziji (see Huang and Liu 2001) and the formation of Chinese wh-the-hell questions (see Huang and Ochi 2004 and Chou 2012). I contend that these two types of blocking effects receive a unified analysis if we assume phi-Agree exists at the CP level in Chinese, and involves [Speaker] and [Participant] features. Chapter 4 examines the derivation of locative inversion in English and Chinese, particularly focusing on why T-to-C inversion is not allowed in English locative inversion, whereas the counterpart operation is allowed in Chinese. I argue that (i) locative inversion in both English and Chinese is topic A-movement, and (ii) the possible presence of φ-features on T and the categorial status of the locative phrase jointly determine whether a language can implement T-to-C inversion in locative inversion. Chapter 5 discusses two foundational theoretical implications, including (i) how to express the A/A'-distinction in languages without φ-features on T, and (ii) the postulation of featurally crash-proof grammar in which uninterpretable features present at the CI interface do not cause crash (see Frampton and Guttman 2002; Carstens 2011; Epstein, Kitahara and Seely 2010; Putnam 2010).PhDLinguisticsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99859/1/ctchou_1.pd

Ellipsis in the vP domain in Mandarin and Xhosa

This thesis provides a unified analysis of ellipsis in the vP domain in two typologically different languages, Mandarin and Xhosa from a generative perspective. It starts with the V-stranding Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE) assumption and shows that Mandarin and Xhosa do not have V-stranding VPE. The evidence for this is that in both languages, the constituents that remain in vP obligatorily are not allowed to be deleted, whereas the ones that can/must move out of vP can be deleted. The deleted constituents display the characteristics of PF-deletion, i.e. they have an internal syntactic structure. Based on the parallel between movement and ellipsis of the vP-internal constituents, I propose the Ellipsis EPP Hypothesis to account for ellipsis in the vP domain. The Hypothesis predicts that there is an Ellipsis Phrase at the left periphery of vP. The EP bears an Ellipsis-EPP (EEPP) feature, which must be satisfied. Maximal phrases in the c-command domain of EP are all potential candidates for satisfying the EEPP feature by moving to [Spec, EP]. However, only the phrases that are allowed to move out of vP can move to [Spec, EP] as EP is located above vP. Moreover, the movement to [Spec, EP] is subject to the syntactic and semantic restrictions in structure-building in that ellipsis is one operation in the course of structure-building and the derivation will continue after ellipsis takes place. The EEPP feature renders an XP in the specifier phonetically empty and syntactically frozen; therefore, a constituent will be deleted as soon as it moves to [Spec, EP]. The Hypothesis is schematically represented below. The Ellipsis EPP Hypothesis adequately accounts for the ellipsis of various vP-internal constituents - NPs, DPs, infinitive complements and CP complements - in both Mandarin and Xhosa. At the same time, it reveals the reasons why vP is precluded from being elided in these two languages. In Mandarin vP moves to [Spec, AspPi] to check the uninterpretable [asp] feature and in Xhosa vP moves to [Spec, FocP] to realize the focus; consequently, vP may not move to [Spec, EP] for ellipsis

Embedded jussives as instances of control : the case of Mongolian and Korean

Thesis: Ph. D. in Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2018.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-185).This dissertation is an investigation into the semantics of imperatives and imperative-like forms (collectively referred to as jussives) in embedded contexts. The long-held view that imperatives are confined to root (matrix) contexts has been challenged by recent findings of counterexamples from a variety of languages. This thesis contributes to the debate by introducing novel empirical evidence from Mongolian confirming that the restriction on imperative embedding is not universal: Mongolian is shown to allow for embedding of a a speaker-directed jussive form voluntative and a hearer-directed imperative. The empirical domain is widenend to include data from jussive embedding in Korean (drawing on Madigan 2008, Pak et al. 2008b, a.o.). This thesis takes special interest in the complex combination of properties characterizing the subjects of embedded jussives in Mongolian and Korean, to wit, (i) their dependence on an antecedent in the embedding clause, (ii) the requirement to be interpreted de se, and (iii) the presence of [phi]-features. These properties are used to make a case for an analysis of jussive subjects as instances of Obligatory Control PRO, and against an analysis as indexical pronouns. In particular, it is demonstrated how a view of PRO as a syntactically and semantically complex unit closely resembling de re expressions in attitude reports (Percus & Sauerland 2003a) provides an elegant way of accounting for the combined characteristics of jussive subjects. Set against the background of a Neo-Davidsonian event semantics, this thesis puts forward the idea that jussive clauses denote sets of events whose propositional content amounts to a desire statement. An analysis of jussives as sets of events is shown to afford a natural extension to matrix occurrences on the assumption that the content denoted by matrix jussives is anchored to the speech event. Finally, this thesis proposes to bridge the gap between jussive reports and canonical Obligatory Control constructions and demonstrates how the presented account can be generalized to provide a novel perspective on Obligatory Control constructions as well.by Milena Sisovics.Ph. D. in Linguistic

Propositional Anaphora: The case of embedded polar responses in Dutch and English

This dissertation investigates the embedded polar response paradigms of Dutch, English and to some extent of German. These are responses that involve an agent, a propositional attitude verb and an anaphor, such as the affirmative response ‘I think so’ to a question like ‘Did John feed the dog?’ (cf. Sailor 2012). In such responses, anaphors, like ‘so’, have been argued to refer to the proposition introduced in the preceding questions (see, e.g., Cushing 1972; Cornish 1992; Asher 1993; Needham 2012; Krifka 2013; Snider 2017). Unlike anaphors in for instance the nominal domain, propositional anaphors have not been studied extensively, with the exceptions of Cushing (1972); Webber (1991); Cornish (1992); Asher (1993); Hegarty et al. (2002), Snider (2017), Pasquereau (2018, 2022) and recent studies of response particles ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (see, e.g., Krifka, 2013; Brasoveanu et al., 2013; Roelofsen and Farkas, 2015; Claus et al., 2017; Goodhue and Wagner, 2018). The present work aims to fill this gap from the perspective of embedded polar responses. Note that the English embedded polar response paradigm consists of responses like ‘I think so’, ‘I think’ (using a null proform), or ‘I think not’ in combination with the predicate ‘think’. The response ‘I think it’ is considered infelicitous. In combination with, e.g., ‘doubt’, one can only response ‘I doubt it’ in response to a question, whereas ‘I doubt so’ or ‘I doubt’ would be infelicitous responses. This pattern raises the question why there are multiple embedded polar responses in the first place and why they are restricted to certain predicates. Furthermore, it raises the question if embedded polar response paradigms in other languages are similar. To shed light on these questions, the present dissertation investigates responses in Dutch, English and to some extent in German. One of the main conclusions of this dissertation is that there is no uniform class of anaphoric items used in embedded polar responses. I show that these anaphors, like ‘it’, ‘so’, or the null proform, are very different from one another in terms of their semantic contribution and their pragmatic role in their paradigms. Despite these differences, there are also similarities between the different responses considered and the different languages under consideration. This dissertation considers two categories: Type I and Type II responses. This dissertation first argues that the category of Type I responses consists of responses involving items like Dutch polar ‘van’ and English ‘so’. It argues that these responses signal that the proposition under reference has not been settled yet - because either the speaker is uncertain about it his/herself or other interlocutors disagree about the status of the proposition. As a consequence, both polar ‘van’ and ‘so’ cannot generally occur with factive predicates. Note that polar ‘van’ and ‘so’ signal their Type I meanings in different ways. Chapter 3 argues that the ‘uncertainty’ signaled by polar ‘van’ is due to the similative meaning hardwired into its semantics. In contrast, Chapter 4 argues that ‘so’ bears a presupposition with respect to the common ground status of its referent. More specifically, Chapter 4 argues that ‘so’ presupposes that its referent is still under discussion, i.e. on the Table in terms of Farkas and Bruce (2009), thereby building on Needham’s (2012) account. In addition, this dissertation shows that ‘so’ is in fact an adverb. These two properties set ‘so’ apart from the other anaphors considered in this thesis, although this anphor is often considered an exemplary propositional anaphor. In the first part of this dissertation we thus saw that embedded polar responses with polar ‘van’ and ‘so’ thus have rather similar functions, but a very different underlying semantics and pragmatics. This dissertation argues that the second category, Type II responses, consists of embedded polar responses that lack a presupposition or implication that signals uncertainty or non-settledness. This dissertation shows that this category involves embedded polar responses containing for instance weak pronouns, like ‘het’ or ‘it’, or the null proform. As a consequence, these kinds of responses compete with Type I responses. Whenever a speaker wishes to express that the proposition under reference is not yet settled, s/he will choose a Type I response over a Type II response. That is, an English speaker would prefer a response involving ‘so’ over a response involving a null proform in such a scenario. The Dutch counterpart would involve polar ‘van’ instead of ‘het’. Furthermore, Chapters 5 and Chapter 6 argue that there are differences between English and German, on the one hand, and Dutch, on the other, where it comes to Type II responses. Both English and German are able to form embedded polar responses with predicates like ‘think’ or ‘guess’ and the null complement anaphor (NCA) and are unable to form such responses with weak pronouns. For Dutch, this works the other way around: Dutch can form embedded polar responses with, e.g., ‘denken’ (think) and ‘het’ (it), but not with an NCA. Moreover, English and German may use propositional attitude verbs in combination with the negative adverbs ‘nicht’ and ‘not’ in embedded polar responses, whereas Dutch cannot. Chapter 5 shows that such responses with negative operators are most parsimoniously analyzed as involving NCA, just like their non-negative counterparts. On the basis of the languages under consideration this dissertation argues there seems to exist a correlation between (i) being able to form embedded polar responses with NCA and a negative adverb and (ii) being unable to form one with a weak pronoun and a predicate like think. Chapter 6 investigates Dutch embedded polar responses with weak pronouns in more detail. The main question of this chapter is why Dutch features such responses whereas English does not. Chapter 6 argues that this is the case, because ‘het’ is the phonologically weakest proform available in Dutch. Dutch does not feature an NCA. The competitors of ‘het’ are, e.g., the phonologically heavier demonstratives ‘dat’ (= that) and ‘dit’ (= this). These proforms, on their turn, compete with one another in terms of proxomity. Since the demonstratives are phonologically heavier than the weak proform, they are dispreferred for embedded polar responses, which target the most salient proposition in the discourse at the moment of answering. In addition, ‘het’ competes with polar ‘van’. As mentioned above, polar ‘van’ is chosen over ‘het’ if the speaker wishes to express a more subjective meaning. There are thus different types of competition at play: Competition in terms of subjectivity, phonological strength and proximity. The same competition applies to the Dutch forms. This dissertation shows that we cannot simply compare the licensing of one propositional anaphor with another without taking into consideration the individual meanings and uses of these proforms. In discussing different kinds of responses across languages, this dissertation also provides insight into the different discourse moves that constitute answers to polar questions. It shows that responses with for instance polar ‘van’ in Dutch or ‘so’ in English convey more and different information than those with for instance ‘het’ in Dutch or NCA in English. The former bear more information than just the information that the proposition under reference is compatible or not with the attitude holder’s information state, as they also provide information on the unsettledness or uncertainty of the proposition under reference. In addition, the present work sheds more light on propositional attitude verbs. It shows that Anand and Hacquard’s (2008, 2013) distinction between doxastic and assertive predicates is highly relevant when considering embedded polar responses (cf. Scheffler 2008) and that these predicates behave differently when occurring with different items in embedded polar responses. We saw that the use of polar ‘van’ in Dutch and ‘so’ in English is more flexible than that of other anaphors. Again, this can be attributed to the ‘special’ meaning of these anaphors and their evidential uses. This illustrates once more that the items used in embedded polar responses are not a uniform set