On Left and Right Dislocation: A Dynamic Perspective

The paper argues that by modelling the incremental and left-right process of interpretation as a process of growth of logical form (representing logical forms as trees), an integrated typology of left-dislocation and right-dislocation phenomena becomes available, bringing out not merely the similarities between these types of phenomena, but also their asymmetry. The data covered include hanging topic left dislocation, clitic left dislocation, left dislocation, pronoun doubling, expletives, extraposition, and right node raising, with each set of data analysed in terms of general principles of tree growth. In the light of the success in providing a characterisation of the asymmetry between left and right periphery phenomena, a result not achieved in more wellknown formalisms, the paper concludes that grammar formalisms should model the dynamics of language processing in time.Articl

Towards a Dynamic Account of BE in English

The perennial problem with analysing the copula is that it appears in a wide range of constructions, apparently involving postcopular elements of different sorts, and giving rise to a variety of different interpretations. For example, in English be may apparently do little more than hosting tense and agreement information with ad0704jective, prepositional and nominal phrases in predicatives (1a); induce an interpretation of identity with a noun phrase complement in equatives (1b); give rise to existential interpretation in construction with there (1c); act as some sort of presentational marker with an expletive subject (1d); as part of a construction determining focus in cleft (1e), and pseudo-cleft (1f) constructions; (rarely) provide ‘existential focus ’ in certain intransitive constructions (1g), and with present and past participles give rise to progressive and passive readings, respectively (1h,i): (1) a. Mary is happy/in the gym/a student. b. John is the teacher. c. There is a riot on Princes Street. d. It’s me. e. It is Mary who is the dancer. f. What I want is a good review. g. Neuroses just are (they don’t need a cause). h. Kim was running to the shops. i. The fool was hit by a truck. 1 I am grateful to many discussions with Ruth Kempson, with whom a lot of the ideas in this paper were worked through; to Caroline Heycock for inspiring me to pursue the topic; an