Anti-uniqueness without articles

We report on the expression of singular nominals in Burmese, an articleless language, from original elicitation work. Bare nouns are interpreted as singular definites, to which the numeral tiq 'one' is added to form indefinites. We propose that tiq 'one' restricts the domain of the nominal to a singleton, and that its addition is subject to a Non-Vacuity constraint; this is the source of the anti-uniqueness inference of indefinites. We furthermore investigate the availability of tiq 'one' in anaphoric definites. Such behavior forms an argument that the compositional semantics of anaphoric definites does not involve contextual restriction via a situation variable, unlike unique definites

Focus association into copies and the scope of even

Nakanishi 2012 presents a novel argument for the so-called "scope theory" of English VP-even, based on examples with antecedent-contained deletion (ACD). Nakanishi's argument is based on the assumption that even cannot associate with a focus which has moved out of its scope. I show that this assumption is incorrect, defusing Nakanishi's argument. I propose that when even associates with a focus which has moved out of its scope, it actually associates with focused material in the lower copies of movement (trace positions). I show that a closer look at ACD examples of Nakanishi's type in fact forms a new argument against the scope theory. I conclude that English VP-even must always be interpreted in its pronounced position. The patterns of focus association with even presented here constitute a new argument for the copy theory of movement.

Binding reconstruction and two modes of copy-chain interpretation

We present a theory for the interpretation of Ā-movement chains at LF in the copy theory of movement where the NP restrictor of a DP Ā-movement chain is interpreted in only one copy. Such a view is motivated for English by evidence from reflexive binding, building on observations in Barss 1986, and its interaction with parasitic gap licensing and weak crossover effects. Our approach offers a means for understanding the classification of Ā-movement types in Cinque 1990 and Postal 1994 in copy-theoretic terms

Restrictions on the position of exh

The grammatical approach to scalar implicatures attributes their introduction to a covert operator exh, which can be posited in various structural positions. By studying the interaction of scalar implicature calculation and the presuppositions of English also and again, we are able to pinpoint the structural position of exh. This diagnostic shows that some triggers of scalar implicature require exh to be adjoined as low as possible above them, whereas other triggers allow for more delayed adjunction of exh. We offer a concrete proposal for these behaviors in terms of syntactic feature-checking and show how it extends to cases involving ignorance inferences

The expression of exhaustivity and scalarity in Burmese

The Burmese particle hma expresses exhaustivity in some contexts but a scalar, even-like meaning in other contexts. We detail the distribution of hma and its meaning and develop a unified semantics. Hma is a not-at-issue scalar exhaustive, similar to the semantics proposed for English it-clefts in Velleman, Beaver, Destruel, Bumford, Onea & Coppock 2012. When hma takes wide scope, it leads to an exhaustive, cleft interpretation which is not scale-sensitive. When hma takes scope under negation, the resulting meaning will have a scale-sensitive felicity condition. We also discuss the semantics of the sentence-final mood marker dar, which we propose is a marker of propositional clefts (Sheil 2016), and its apparent role in the determination of the scope of hma

Tanglewood Untangled

We argue for the existence of covert focus movement in English focus association. Our evidence comes from Tanglewood configurations of the form in Kratzer 1991. We show that Tanglewood configurations are sensitive to syntactic islands, contrary to Kratzer's claims and predictions. We propose that Tanglewood configurations always involve covert movement of the focused constituent – possibly with covert pied-piping (Drubig 1994; Krifka 1996, 2006; Tancredi 1997, 2004; Wagner 2006; Erlewine & Kotek 2014) – to bind a bound variable in the ellipsis site. This availability of covert pied-piping explains examples such as Kratzer’s which are apparently not island-sensitive. We show that covert focus movement is long-distance and not simply QR. Kratzer's proposal that ellipsis enforces the identity of focus indices is shown to overgenerate Tanglewood readings

Anti-locality and subject extraction

In many languages, Ā-extraction of local subject arguments behaves differently from the extraction of other arguments, for example in triggering specialized morphosyntactic processes or being subject to additional restrictions. I argue that many such interactions are due to an anti-locality constraint on movement, which bans movement which is too short. Subject extraction is often distinguished due to the high canonical position of subjects in their clauses (e.g. Spec,TP), making their movement to the clause edge (e.g. Spec,CP) uniquely in danger of violating the Spec-to-Spec Anti-Locality constraint (Erlewine 2016). Concretely, three subject extraction asymmetry behaviors are discussed and analyzed: complementizer-trace effects, subject anti-agreement effects, and bans on subject resumption, including the so-called Highest Subject Restriction. In each case, we observe that the special behavior associated with subject extraction (a) can be obviated by increasing the distance of movement, (b) also applies to exceptionally high non-subjects, and (c) does not correlate with other subjecthood properties. These facts are straightforwardly explained by the anti-locality-based approach to these asymmetries, but are challenging for alternative accounts