Local modelling of non-local dependencies in syntax

532 Pages·2012·2.93 MB·English

by  Artemis Alexiadou

Linguistische
547
Arbeiten
Herausgegeben von Klaus von Heusinger, Gereon Müller,
Ingo Plag, Beatrice Primus, Elisabeth Stark und Richard Wiese

Artemis Alexiadou, Tibor Kiss,
Gereon Müller (Eds.)
Local Modelling
of Non-Local Dependencies
in Syntax
De Gruyter
ISBN 978-3-11-029471-2
e-ISBN 978-3-11-029477-4
ISSN 0344-6727
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Contents
LocalModellingofNon-LocalDependenciesinSyntax:AnIntroduction
ArtemisAlexiadou,TiborKiss&GereonMu¨ller 1
LongDistanceAgreementinRelativeClauses
FabianHeck&JuanCuartero 49
InSupportofLongDistanceAgree
ArtemisAlexiadou,ElenaAnagnostopoulou,GianinaIorda˘chioaia
&MihaelaMarchis 85
Agree,Move,Selection,andSet-Merge
PetrBiskup 111
ProbingthePast:OnReconcilingLong-DistanceAgreementwiththePIC
MarcRichards 135
ReflexivityandDependency
TiborKiss 155
DerivationalBindingandtheEliminationofUninterpretableFeatures
JoachimSabel 187
GermanFreeDativesandKnightMoveBinding
DanielHole 213
RestrictedSyntax–UnrestrictedSemantics?
UdoKlein 247
LocalCase,CyclicAgreeandtheSyntaxofTrulyErgativeVerbs
FlorianScha¨fer 273
ALocalDerivationofGlobalCaseSplits
DoreenGeorgi 305
FunctionCompositionandtheLinearLocalModelingofExtended
NEG-Scope
Hans-MartinGa¨rtner 337
EllipsisandPhases:EvidencefromAntecedentContainedSluicing
MasayaYoshida&A´ngelJ.Gallego 353
RestructuringandCliticClimbinginRomance:ACategorialGrammar
Analysis
ChiyoNishida 371
vi Contents
ADerivationalViewonMovementConstraints
ChristinaUnger 401
AreMovementPathsPunctuatedorUniform?
KlausAbels&KristineBentzen 431
AHypotheticalProofAccountofChamorroWh-Agreement
ChrisWorth 453
DerivingReconstructionAsymmetries
GregoryM.Kobele 477
LocalModellingofAllegedlyLocalbutReallyNon-LocalPhenomena:
LackofSuperiorityEffectsRevisited
DalinaKallulli 501
Index 525
ArtemisAlexiadou,TiborKiss&GereonMu¨ller
Local ModellingofNon-LocalDependencies inSyntax:
An Introduction*
Abstract
This introduction first presents various types of non-local dependencies in syntax (among
theminstancesofmovement,reflexivization,caseassignment,agreement,consecutiotempo-
rum,deletion,switchreference,extendedscopeofnegation,and(semantic)binding).Inthe
secondpart, weidentify three classes ofaproaches tonon-local dependencies: (i)spurious
non-locality,(ii)non-localmodelling,and(iii)localmodelling.Finally,wementionsomeof
thecoreissuesthatariseunderalocalmodellingperspective.
1. Non-localdependencies:settingthestage
1.1. Localvs.non-localdependencies
Manysyntacticdependenciesarestrictlylocal.Oftentheyinvolvethemostlo-
calstructuralrelationthatisavailable,viz.,sisterhoodinphrasestructures.This
holds,e.g.,fortheassignmentoflexical(orinherent)case,whichcangenerally
only affect the lowest argumentof a verb – i.e., the sister of V (see Fanselow
(2001)).Relevant cases are illustrated in (1): The assignmentof inherentgen-
itive to a nominal argumentDP by a simple transitive verb in (1-a), and by a
ditransitiveverbin(1-b),takesplaceundersisterhoodinGerman.Thisviewis
supportedbyconstituencytests:StrictlocalityisindicatedbyjointVPtopical-
izationofDP andV(withtheoptionofleavingother–higher–argumentsin
gen
situ)in(1-cd).
(1) a. dassman derOpfer gedenken sollte
that one.NOMthe victims.GENcommemorateshould
* Wewould like tothank AnkeAssmann,DoreenGeorgi, TimoKlein andPhilipp Weisserfor
editorialassistance,discussionsofnon-localdependencies, andvariouskindsofhelpwiththe
presentvolume.WearealsogratefultoJakobHamannandPatrickSchulzforhelpwithtype-
setting,andtoLisaMorgenrothandDanielaThomasfortheirworkontheindex.Andweare
particularlyindebtedtoFabianHeckforhissubstantialinputtothepresenttext.
LocalModellingofNon-LocalDependenciesinSyntax,1-48
ArtemisAlexiadou,TiborKiss&GereonMu¨ller(eds.)
LINGUISTISCHEARBEITEN547,deGruyter2012
2 ArtemisAlexiadou,TiborKiss&GereonMu¨ller
b. dassdieStaatsanwaltschaftdieLehrer derBestechlichkeit
that theprosecution.NOM theteachers.ACCthe corruptibility.GEN
u¨berfu¨hrt hat
foundguiltyofhas
c. DerOpfer gedenken sollte man schon
the victims.GENcommemorateshouldone.NOMPRT
d. DerBestechlichkeit u¨berfu¨hrt hat dieStaatsanwaltschaftdie
the corruptibility.GENfoundguiltyofhastheprosecution.NOM the
Lehrer
teachers.ACC
Inothercases, thedependencymayrangebeyondstrictsisterhoodbutcanstill
becoveredbyrelyingonanotionlikethatof(theminimal)predicate/argument
structure (i.e., a predicate together with all its arguments as they are required
byitssubcategorizationframe–itselfasyntacticdependencythatisverylocal),
orbyinvokingtheclause-materelation.Thus,thedependencyformedbycom-
biningareflexivewithitsantecedent(‘reflexivization’)istypicallyconfinedtoa
singlepredicate/argumentstructure,inthesensethatitaffectsco-arguments.See
(2-ab)(whereco-occurrenceinareflexivizationdependencyisindicatedbyco-
indexing),and Pollard & Sag (1992),Reinhart & Reuland (1993),and Bu¨ring
(2005) for approaches to reflexivization that more or less directly incorporate
thisargumentstructure-basedconceptoflocality.
(2) a. John likeshimself
1 1
b. *John thinksthatMarylikeshimself
1 1
In many (but certainly not all) languages, the scrambling operation (cf. Ross
(1967))producingvariable (or free) word order is also a highly local process,
andsimilarconsiderationsholdformovementtosubjectposition(orraisingto
subject) in languagesthat exhibita requirementto fill this position (the ‘EPP’
property;seeChomsky(1982)).Thus,scramblinginGermanandraisingtosub-
jectinEnglisharebothdependenciesthatcannotspana(finite)clause;thede-
pendencies,conceivedofasmovement,requirethebasepositionandthetarget
position to be clause-mates. Local dependencies are shown for scrambling in
German in (3), and for raising in English in (4), with t representingthe trace
1
leftinthebasepositionofthemoveditem.
(3) a. dassdenFritz keiner t gesehenhat
1 1
that the Fritz.ACCno-one.NOM seen has
b. dassdaru¨ber keiner [ einBuch t ]gelesenhat
1 DP 1
that aboutthisno-one.NOM a book.ACC read hass
(4) a. Abook wasgivent toMary
1 1
b. Mary wastalked[ aboutt ]
1 PP 1
LocalModellingofNon-LocalDependencies 3
Note that (4-b), and in particular (3-b), call into question the adequacy of the
minimal predicate/argument structure as the local domain relevant for these
movement types; the PP daru¨ber (‘about this’) in (3-b) is not an argument of
theverbsehen(‘see’).However,themovementoperationsarestillhighlylocal.
Asshownbytheill-formedexamplesin(5)(instantiatinglong-distancescram-
bling in German and long-distanceraising to subject in English, respectively),
they are confined by a clause-mateness requirement(where “CP” stands for a
clause).
(5) a. *dasswir denFritz glauben[ dasskeinert sah]
1 CP 1
that we.NOMthe Fritz.ACCbelieve that no-one.NOMsaw
b. *John seems[ thatt gaveabooktoMary]
1 CP 1
However,eventhoughmanycoredependenciesinsyntaxarelocal,syntacticde-
pendenciesmayalsobenon-local,inthesensethattheyinvolvetwopositionsin
a phrase structure whose correspondencecannotbe captured by invokingcon-
ceptslikesisterhood,(minimal)predicate/argumentstructureortheclause-mate
relation.
First and foremostamong these potentially non-localdependenciesare var-
ious types of movement (or displacement) in the world’s languages. In ad-
dition (and in contrast to what we have seen above), some kinds of reflex-
ivization may be non-local:Reflexivization is often confinedto minimal pred-
icate/argumentstructures,butmay also applylong-distancein certaincontexts
incertainlanguages(withoutnecessarilybeingamenabletoanaccountinterms
oflogophoricity,seebelow).Similarly,itlooksasthoughcertainkindsofnon-
local case assignment (which are not necessarily confined to minimal predi-
cate/argumentstructures)canalsooccur.Indeed,itturnsoutthattherearenon-
local instances of many other dependencies (that may often be classifiable as
local in their core occurrences),among them long-distanceagreement (in lan-
guageslikeTsez,Itelmen,Hindi,perhapsalsoIcelandic),consecutiotemporum
(whichinvolvesanon-localrelationshipbetweenanembeddedtenseandama-
trix tense), extended scope of negation, extended mood selection (cf., e.g., the
relationbetweenamatrixpredicatelikedemandandanembeddedmoodmark-
ing as subjunctive), control of the subject of an infinitive by an argument be-
longingtoamatrixclause,therelatedphenomenonofswitchreferencesystems
indicatingidentityofreferenceordisjointnessofmatrixandembeddedsubjects,
and last but certainly not least the (semantic) binding of variables (as, e.g., in
thecaseofbound-variablepronouns),whichispotentiallynon-localalmostby
definition.1Letusgothroughsomerelevantexamples.
1 Inordertoshow thatthesedependencies areindeed instances ofnon-local, orlong-distance,
dependencies,itmustofcoursebeestablishedineachcase(a)thatthereisaclauseboundary(in
arelevant,technicalsense,e.g.,asaCPphraseheadedbyC,orasanS(cid:2)nodeinearlierwork),or
4 ArtemisAlexiadou,TiborKiss&GereonMu¨ller
1.2. Long-distancemovement
The most well-known and best established cases of non-local dependencies
aredisplacementconstructionslikewh-movement,topicalization,relativization,
etc., where the moveditem and its base position can in principle be separated
by arbitrarilymanyinterveningclause boundaries.Examplesfrom Englishare
given in (6-a) (wh-movement), (6-b) (topicalization, from Ross (1967))), and
(6-c)(relativization,fromGazdaretal.(1985)).
(6) a. What doyouthink[ thatJohnbelieves[ thatMaryboughtt ]]?
1 CP CP 1
b. Beans I don’tthink[ you’llbeabletoconvinceme[ Harryhas
1 CP CP
evertastedt inhislife]
1
c. Theman[ who Ithink[ t chasedFido]]returned
CP 1 CP 1
Therelationbetweenthepositioninwhichtheargumentstatusofthedisplaced
item is assessed, or its θ-role is assigned (here indicated by a trace t , but at
1
this point this should not be taken to imply any theoretical analysis), and the
positionthatiteventuallyshowsupincanspanarbitrarilymanyCPs(clauses),
providedthatnoconstraintsonmovement(likeRoss’s(1967)islandconstraints,
Chomsky’s(1973)SubjacencyCondition,Rizzi’s(1990)RelativizedMinimality
condition,etc.)areviolated.
Whatismore,displacementoperationslikescramblingandraisingtosubject
position,whichaswehaveseenarestrictlylocalinlanguageslikeGermanand
English (respectively),can in fact apply non-locally in other languages. Thus,
long-distancescramblingfromCPis anoptionin languageslikeRussian (see,
e.g., Mu¨ller & Sternefeld (1993) and Bailyn (2001)) and Japanese (see Saito
(1985)andGrewendorf& Sabel(1999),amongmanyothers;KoreanandPer-
sian also belong in this group). The following example taken from Zemskaja
(1973) instantiates a well-formed case of long-distance scrambling in (collo-
quial)Russian.
(cid:2)(cid:2)
(7) Ty [ doktor] videl[ kogdat pod ezzˇal]?
DP 1 CP 1
you doctor.NOMsaw when came
Similarly,raisingtosubjectpositionacrossaninterveningCP boundaryseems
tobeavailableinanumberoflanguages,amongthemGreek(seePerlmutter&
Soames(1979,ch.43)andAlexiadou&Anagnostopoulou(1999;2002),among
others)andKilegaandotherBantulanguages(seeObata&Epstein(2011)and
referencescited there).AGreekexamplethatillustratessucha legitimatecase
ofsuper-raisingisgivenin(8):
someotherindependentlyestablishedlocalitydomain,separatingthetwoitemsparticipatingin
thedependencies,and(b)thattheclauseboundary(inthistechnicalsense;orsomeotherlocality
domain)blocksthelocalrelationship.Otherwise,onecouldarguethat,e.g.,aCprojectionisa
meretheoreticalconstructorartefact.Wewillreturntothisissuebelow.