To Reconstruct or Not to Reconstruct: That is the Question *

Overview The Starting Point: to develop and compare two possible accounts of reconstructed/distributive readings within displacement structures (dislocation, interrogation, relativization) based on two formalizations of syntax-semantics interface Account #1: Generative Grammar and Logical Form (GG) ⇒ distributive readings of displaced constituents rely on syntactic reconstruction. Account #2: Categorial Grammar and Variable-Free Semantics (CG-VFS) ⇒ distributive readings of displaced constituents do not rely on syntactic reconstruction. Goal #1: to show that such comparison reinforces two fundamental claims about distributive readings with resumption (Theoretical) Claim #1: distributive/reconstructed readings with resumption just amount to an e-type interpretation of the resumptive pronoun. (Empirical) Claim #2: distributive/reconstructed readings with resumption should and do occur in presence of syntactic islands. Goal #2: to (re)introduce two generalizations about resumption which seem to favor the GG account based on actual reconstruction Generalization #1: resumption only allows for a functional interpretation, but not a pair-list interpretation (based on Sharvit (1997)). Generalization #2: weak resumption allows for distributive readings in any context, but strong resumption does not. * I would like to thank the following persons for their help and comments

The Syntax of Preverbal Particles and Adjunction in Irish

It is shown that five apparently irreconcilable claims about the clausal syntax of Irish can be reconciled in a natural, base-generated LFG analysis that builds on the standard LFG theory of endocentricity and coheads/extended heads, the LFG projection architecture, and Toivonen's (2001) work on nonprojecting categories and c-structure adjunction. The analysis also builds on McCloskey's (1996) analysis of Irish adjunction, but does not posit complementizer lowering. The principal theoretical consequences of the analysis are 1) the reconciliation of the five claims, in particular a synthesis of McCloskey's position that the Irish preverbal particles are complementizers and Sells's (1984) position that they are head-adjoined to the verb, 2) the elaboration of Toivonen's (2001) theory of c-structure adjunction, 3) correct predictions about not only adjunction to matrix and subordinate clauses, but also adjunction to appositives

Glue Semantics for HPSG

this paper outlines how it can be applied to HPSG. As well as providing an alternative form of semantics for HPSG, we believe that the benefits of HPSG glue include the following: (1) simplification of the Semantics Principle (Pollard and Sag, 1994); (2) a simple and elegant treatment of modifier scope, including empirical phenomena like quantifier scope ambiguity, the interaction of scope with raising, and recursive modification; (3) an analysis of control that handles agreement between controlled subjects and their coarguments while allowing for a property denotation for the controlled clause (Chierchia, 1984a,b); (4) re-use of highly efficient techniques for semantic derivation already implemented for LFG, and which target problems of ambiguity management also addressed by Minimal Recursion Semantics (Copestake et al., 1995, 1999). Glue semantics embodies a notion of `interpretation as deduction' closely related to categorial grammar's `parsing as deduction'. Syntactic analysis of a sentence yields a set of glue premises, which essentially state how bits of lexical meaning attach to words and phrases. Deduction in (linear) logic then combines the premises to derive a conclusion that attaches a meaning to the sentence as a whole. The innovation in this paper is to sketch how glue premises can be obtained from HPSG analyses; the subsequent stage of linear logic deduction is the same as when premises are obtained from LFG analyses. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews the way in which linear logic / glue deduction assembles sentence meanings given a set of lexical glue premises. Section 3 describes the adjustments to HPSG's feature geometry necessary for it to construct sets of glue premises. Section 4 show how these adjustments give rise to sema..

Argument Structure and Animacy Restrictions on Anaphora

This paper presents a new constraint, the Antecedent Closeness Constraint (ACC), which unifies the binding properties of control, Super Equi-NP constructions, picture NPs, and anaphors as specifiers of NPs (in English). The focus will be on the last three cases, which share the property of containing an anaphoric element that is exempt from binding theory (see section 4 for examples of the data under consideration)