Cognitive constraints and island effects

Competence-based theories of island effects play a central role in generative grammar, yet the graded nature of many syntactic islands has never been properly accounted for. Categorical syntactic accounts of island effects have persisted in spite of a wealth of data suggesting that island effects are not categorical in nature and that nonstructural manipulations that leave island structures intact can radically alter judgments of island violations. We argue here, building on work by Paul Deane, Robert Kluender, and others, that processing factors have the potential to account for this otherwise unexplained variation in acceptability judgments. We report the results of self-paced reading experiments and controlled acceptability studies that explore the relationship between processing costs and judgments of acceptability. In each of the three self-paced reading studies, the data indicate that the processing cost of different types of island violations can be significantly reduced to a degree comparable to that of nonisland filler-gap constructions by manipulating a single nonstructural factor. Moreover, this reduction in processing cost is accompanied by significant improvements in acceptability. This evidence favors the hypothesis that island-violating constructions involve numerous processing pressures that aggregate to drive processing difficulty above a threshold, resulting in unacceptability. We examine the implications of these findings for the grammar of filler-gap dependencies

Variation and learnability in constraints on A-bar movement

A classic problem in linguistics is explaining how learners come to know so much about their native languages, despite receiving limited and noisy input. This learning problem becomes especially acute when the linguistic properties in question are obscure and show subtle variation across languages. Cross-linguistic variation means that learners must identify the appropriate points of variation for their language, even though the direct evidence that they need is often hard to detect or even non-existent. This dissertation presents two case studies on constraints in A-bar movement. Because constraints are by nature abstract and difficult to observe directly, a classic solution to the learning problem posed by constraints claims that knowledge of these abstract or negative linguistic properties is innate. However, a number of these constraints show cross-linguistic variation, raising questions about how they are represented and how linguistic experience might (or might not) shape linguistic knowledge. The first case study, discussed in chapters 2 and 3, involves cross-linguistic variation in the constraint that governs A-bar movement from relative clauses: some, but not all, languages allow A-bar movement from relative clauses under exceptional circumstances. I argue that these “porous” relative clauses that permit A-bar movement can be distinguished by a property that I call “tense dependence,” and discuss how this tense property might be formally related to A-bar movement. I show that this particular kind of variation presents a learning problem: in languages like English and Mandarin Chinese, learners have little direct positive evidence that such A-bar movement is possible. Using tense dependence, I propose that learners might circumvent this absence of direct evidence by relying on A-bar movement from a superficially unrelated structure: non-finite purposive clauses. The second case study, discussed in chapter 4, involves bridge verbs: within a given language, some verbs allow A-bar movement and others do not; in addition, the set of verbs that allow A-bar movement varies across languages. I present an acceptability judgment experiment that is aimed at clarifying existing generalizations about bridge verbs in English. With more secure generalizations in hand, I discuss the extent to which bridge effects have a pragmatic origin, bringing in data from an informal survey of English and Dutch native speakers that looks at the effect of context on long-distance A-bar movement. Echoing existing work, the survey shows what appears to be a case of cross-linguistic variation between English and some Dutch varieties for cognitive factive verbs. To account for this instance of cross-linguistic variation, I suggest that English learners might have limited access to direct evidence, and discuss what learning mechanisms a learner might need to draw the language-appropriate conclusions based on sparse evidence. Chapter 5 discusses the consequences these case studies have for our formal accounts of these constraints. I evaluate existing proposals and argue that the range of variation observed requires more flexibility than what many existing proposals can offer. Chapter 6 concludes

Recent Advances in Research on Island Phenomena

In natural languages, filler-gap dependencies can straddle across an unbounded distance. Since the 1960s, the term “island” has been used to describe syntactic structures from which extraction is impossible or impeded. While examples from English are ubiquitous, attested counterexamples in the Mainland Scandinavian languages have continuously been dismissed as illusory and alternative accounts for the underlying structure of such cases have been proposed. However, since such extractions are pervasive in spoken Mainland Scandinavian, these languages may not have been given the attention that they deserve in the syntax literature. In addition, recent research suggests that extraction from certain types of island structures in English might not be as unacceptable as previously assumed either. These findings break new empirical ground, question perceived knowledge, and may indeed have substantial ramifications for syntactic theory. This volume provides an overview of state-of-the-art research on island phenomena primarily in English and the Scandinavian languages, focusing on how languages compare to English, with the aim to shed new light on the nature of island constraints from different theoretical perspectives

Stage levels, states, and the semantics of the copula

The paper investigates the issue whether the stage-level/individual level contrast introduced by Carlson 1977 requires the assumption of two homonymous copulas depending on the categorization of the predicative. We argue that instead of a uniform stage-level/individual level distinction we have to distinguish several similar but independent contrasts, none of which crucially depend on the semantics of the copula. In the second part of the paper, we concentrate on one group of phenomena-the distribution of weak subjects-and propose an explanation in terms of an interaction between topic/comment structure and aspectual properties of the predicate

Structural Analysis of the Japanese Language Using Montague Grammar.

This thesis applies Montague's theory of grammar to a fragment of ordinary Japanese and aims to provide a foundation for an explicit semantics of Japanese. The typological or transformational studies will be presented first as data and the corresponding Montague grammatical analyses will be proposed. In Chapter 1, Montague's theory of grammar is discussed, comparisons being made with Davidsonian truth conditional semantics and Chomskyan transformational grammar. In Chapter 2, subjects, adjectives and adverbs are analysed, in Chapter 3, complementation, in Chapter 4 reflexives, passives, causatives, and in Chapter 5 negation and factive presupposition. The main theoretical concern is the relation between a logical syntax and linguistic syntax. It is hoped that a new linguistic framework will be developed from this study. The other important theoretical concern is the relation between semantics and pragmatics

Scope, scalarity, and polarity in aspectual marking : the case of English 'until' and Spanish 'hasta'

This dissertation explores how languages express durations of time and the significant cross-linguistic variation displayed in words describing temporal duration with otherwise quite similar meanings. Specially, I examine 'until'-like phrases that bound events in time. These phrases are puzzling because across languages they typically only modify atelic predicates and not telic predicates. Yet they are acceptable with telic predicates if the predicate is negated, and in that case they furthermore generate a factive inference that the event described by the predicate must come about at a future time. Additionally, some languages, like Greek, use two distinct lexical words, one for atelic predicates and one for telic predicates. Three major prior proposals have been posited: (i) a lexical ambiguity account wherein there is a positive 'until' and a negative 'until', (ii) a monosemy account wherein 'until' is a type of universal quantifier over times that interacts scopally with negation, and (iii) a monosemy account wherein 'until' is a type of measure phrase over an existentially-quantified event. However, each approach fails to generalize appropriately. I revisit these three theories by examining the behavior of English "until"-phrases vis-à-vis durative "for"-adverbials, as well as 'until' counterparts in languages that acquire a superset or a subset of the interpretations of English "until", such as Spanish "hasta" and Greek "mehri". I propose a monosemy account that draws on insights from all three prior analyses. The key insight is that there is parameterization in the quantification that 'until' words in different languages exhibit. English "until" is universal in nature subject to a scope economy constraint. Spanish "hasta" is existential in nature subject to a plurality constraint in positive environments. Both universal and existential 'until' allow for negated telic predicates but the latter admits a wider set of readings and also permits lexical specialization of 'until' under negation, as found in Greek. Ultimately, irrespective of their quantification, English "until" and Spanish "hasta" activate temporal scalar alternatives that I argue derive factive inferences as an epiphenomenon of independent scopal interactions between the alternatives, polarity, and covert exhaustification-based operators of the inferential mechanism.Linguistic

Factive And Assertive Attitude Reports

This dissertation investigates the semantics, pragmatics, and syntax of propositional attitude reports; in particular, how assertion and presupposition are reflected in these different parts of the grammar. At the core of the dissertation are factive attitude reports, involving predicates like know, discover, realize, resent, appreciate, and like. Since Stalnaker (1974), factivity is taken to encompass both the discourse status of the embedded proposition p as Common Ground and the projection of the inference that the speaker is committed to p from the scope of operators—in both cases, unlike asserted content. Syntactically, factivity and assertion are argued to provide the semantic-pragmatic underpinnings for a range of complementation patterns (Kiparsky and Kiparsky 1970, Hooper and Thompson 1973, Rizzi 1997, a.o.). The central contributions of the dissertation are: (i) demonstrating what precise dimensions of assertion and presupposition are reflected in the syntax and semantics of clausal embedding, and (ii) decomposing the classically multifaceted notion of factivity into a set of more specific theoretical notions; importantly, dissociating the discourse status of p and the projection-prone speaker commitment inference. We attribute the speaker commitment inference to a lexical presupposition of an evidential modal base that entails p. We argue that this evidential base is always anchored to a Judge, which, depending on the type of factive predicate, is bound by different individuals. In the case of doxastic factives like discover, the judge is bound by the speaker, whereas in the case of emotive factives like appreciate, it is bound by the attitude holder, and for fact that nominals, it is realized as an index on the noun. The discourse status of p, we attribute to a separate dimension of discourse new vs. Given content (in the sense of Schwarzschild 1999), which cross-cuts both factive and non-factive verbs. Among the predicates which treat their complements as Given, we differentiate between the requirement (of response predicates like accept and not say) that p has an antecedent in the discourse, and the requirement (of emotive factives like resent and appreciate) that the situation or individual providing the attitude holder’s evidential basis for p is contextually accessible. We further argue for a fundamental semantic distinction between primarily acquaintance-based predicates —which include both factives (evidentials) like discover and non-factives like fear— and fundamentally doxastic or epistemic predicates, like believe and trust. Making these distinctions allows us to account for a wide range of apparently connected, yet clearly disparate empirical phenomena, some of which represent open problems in the literature and some of which are new observations made in the dissertation. Importantly, we are able to capture: (i) the dissociation of the discourse status of p and the commitment-to-p inference in doxastic factives (Chapters 3 and 5); (ii) a number of asymmetries between doxastic and emotive factives regarding their apparent entailment properties, interactions with operators, and sensitivities to contextual effects (Chapter 5); (iii) variations in entailment and argument-structural patterns across verbs like know and believe (Chapter 4); and (iv) the distribution of a set of proposed syntactic correlates of assertion and presupposition; in particular, V-to-C movement, wh-extraction, and selection for DP vs. CP-complements (Chapters 2 and 3)

Evaluative Adjectives as a Window onto Inner-Aspect

162 p.This thesis proposes that Evaluative Adjectives (EAs) (brave, intelligent, rude) are stative causative predicates that undergo the causative alternation just as many verbs do (break). It is argued that EAs syntactic and aspectual properties follow from a single stative causative lexical entry. Analysing EAs¿ aspectual properties leads to the general conclusions that the only primitive aspectual argument denotes a state, and that Davidsonian eventivity is epiphenomenal.EAs are compared with adjectives of psychological experience (eager, willing) and relational adjectives and adjectives denoting physical states (Canadian, tall), as well as verbs of all aspectual sorts. An important result is that adjectival argument structures are shown to be as complex as verbal ones. Argument structure is argued to be neutral with respect to lexical category.EAs are often analysed as Individual-Level predicates. It is shown that EAs only partially overlap with Individual-Level predicates. Rather, they have a distinct aspectual signature matching verbs classified as Davidsonian-States and stative causatives. In arguing against an IL classification of EAs an extensive argument against the Individual/Stage distinction is given.It is argued that cross-linguistically the only aspectual distinction made in the syntax through predicate decomposition is between states and causatives built out of states. Eventivity effects are derivative of causation, and ultimately pragmatic. The conclusion is that EAs and causative alternating verbs such as break have the same formal aspectual representations

Proceedings of JeNom 4, 4èmes Journées d’Étude sur les Nominalisations - the 4th Workshop on Nominalizations

Dieser Band ist eine Sammlung von Beiträgen zu JeNom 4, 4. Workshop zu Nominalisierungen (The 4th Workshop on Nominalizations / 4èmes Journées d’étude sur les nominalisations), der vom 16.-17. Juni 2011, an der Universität Stuttgart stattgefunden hat. Der Workshop wurde im Rahmen eines DAAD-Aurora-Projektes zwischen der Universität Stuttgart, der Universität Paris 8 und der Universität Lille 3 organisiert