Resumptive chains in restrictive relatives, appositives, and dislocation structures

215 Pages·2004·12.04 MB·English

by  Demirdash, Hamida

RESUM~WEC HAINS IN RESTRICTWE RELATIVES,
M P O S m E S AND DHSLOCATIBN STRUCTURES
Namida Khadiga Demirdache
D.E.A., Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
(1985)
Maitrise, Universitk de la Sorbonne N~uveUeP, aris El.
(1984)
Licenses, Universitk be la Sorborme Nouvelle, Paris III
(190)
Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
at the
NIASSACIlUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
August 1991
O Wamida Khadiga Demirdache
The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute
copies of this thesis document in whole or in part.
- L
L
-.- -_.._.
Signature of Author-
*f Department o Linguis and Philosophy
~'August8,'1990
Certified by- L %&f .,''<
2
/
Noam Chomsky
? /-!
l@stitu te Professor
Accepted by
Wayne O'Neil
Head, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Resumptive Chins in Restrictive Relatives,
Appositives and Dialocatioi~S tructures
b.rl
Hamicia K. Dernirdache
Subnutted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
on August 8,1991 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
ABSTRACT
This thesis proposes that wlz-operators in (headed) restrictive and non-restrictive
relatives are resumptive chains. A resumptive chain can have +wlz-features
or -wlz-features. If it has -7vlz-features, it can be either a null pronoun or an overt
pronoun. It can have either of the two interpretations that pronouns have. Thus,
in restrictive relatives, it has a bound variable interpretation. In appositive
relatives, it is a referring pronoun (or what Evans (1982) calls an E-type pronoun).
This resumptive chain can be created at S-structure or at LF. In particular, it is
argued that what has been called (misleadingly) in the literature a 'resumptive
pronoun' in languages like Hebrew or Irish (i.e. a pronoun that freely alternates
with gaps in certain positions) is an instance of in-situ relativisation: an overt
-wh-pronoun in-situ at S-structure creates an operator-variable chain at LF. It
does not have the same range of interpretations as a trace created at S-structure
because it is not a variable at S-structure. In contrast, the wlz-operator in
appositive relatives never has a bound variable interpretation. An analysis of
appositives is proposed based on Emonds' (1979) Main Clause Hypotlzesis. It is
argued that appositive clauses are lifted at kF out of the matrix clause cs~~taining
their antecedent. The relation between the appositive pronoun and its
antecedent is treated on a par with anaghora across discourse, except in one
respect: anaphora is obligatory precisely because of the wlz-features of the
pronoun. Finally, it is argued that, zmder the abgve proposal, the (C1itic)Left-
Dislocation corlstruction discussed by Cinque (1991) must be a wh-movement
construction. 'The clitic-pronoun is a -wh-operator in-situ at S-structure, on a par
with the pronoun that appears in Hebrew relatives. However, it has the syntactic
properties and the interpretation of the +wh-operator in appositive relatives.
Thesis Superrisor: Nsam Chomsky
Title: Institute Professor
Acknowledgements
I have dreaded writing these ackaowledgements far more than the actual thesis
because I know that I will not find the appropriate words to thank the very many
people who have contributed in some way or other.
My first thanks go to the members of my thesis committee: Noarn Chomky, Ken
Hale, Howard tasnik, David Pesetsky and Esther Torrego. I thank Noam
Chomky for relentlessly questioning every assumption in the theory (including
his own) and, thus, teaching me that nothing - be it in linguistics or in politics - is
a given. I will always look forward to my appointments with Ken Hale because
his enthusiasm for linguistics is infectious and I especially want to thank him for
showing me how my work can connect to issues beyond linguistics. Working
with Howard Lasnik has strongly influenced this thesis. I thank him for listening
to all my ideas and for helping me sharpen them, for his objectivity and his
kindness. To David Pesetsky, I am grateful for very constructive appointments,
for being prolific with his ideas, and for his encouragement and interest in my
work. It has been a privilege to share my work with Esther Torrego. She has
taught me to take risks in linguistics and elsewhere.
1 wish to express my deepest gratitude to my first teachers in linguistics in Paris,
Franqois Dell, Main Rouveret and, in particular, Jean-Roger Vergnaud.
I have been very lucky in my classmates, Eulslia Bonnet, Lisa Cheng, Michael
Hegarty, Mika Hoffman, Sabine Iatridou, Peter Ihionu, Utpal Lahiri, Paul Law
and Chris Tansredi.
To all the people with whom I have lived over the past four years in Cambridge,
Lisa Cheng, ltziar Laka, Kelly Sloan, Jon Ortiz de Urbina, Eithne Guilfoyle, Tom
Green, Doug Jones and Kumiko Murasugi, thanks for making 24 Magazine Street
very special.
A very special mention goes to Myriarn Uribe-Etxebarria, Jingqi Fu, Ken Go, Lori
Holmes, Utpal Lahiri, Paul Law, Harry Leder, Anoop Mahajan, Gyanam
Mahajan, Xabier Ormazabal and Doug Saddy for their friendship. To Lisa
Cheng, who has been a classmate, ruommate, co-author, co-editor and above all,
a friend, I owe more than I can acknowledge.
I thank Hagit Borer, Tova Rappoport, Tanya Reinhart, Ur Shlonsky and Sigal
Uziel for judgements, data and discussions of Hebrew; Gyanam Mahajan for long
horn of discussion of correlatives in Hindi (which never made it into this thesis);
and A. R. Demirdache for Egyptian data and judgements. I am also thankful to
Irene Heirn and Richard Lasson for insightful appointments.
Special thanks to Doug Jones and Lisa for resolving all of my Macintosh crises,.
Thanks also to Viviane Deprez, Maya Honda, Bill Idsardi, Kate #earns, Yafei Li,
Toshi Oka, Wayne O'Neil, Befiat Oyarqabal, Hiroaki Tada, Carol Tenny and Bao
Zhimhg.
I am grateful to Jaimie Young, Nancy Peters, Rachel Pearl, Carley Sherry and
Marylin Sylva and Wendy Weber for always being helpful.
My studies at MIT were partially funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Comeid of Canada.
Very special thanks to Ikbal (i:bay), Laila, and Karim Dernirdashe for the late
night phone calls. This thesis is dedicated to my father, who gave me his copy of
Aspecfs, at a time when linguistics did not yet exist for me.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
...........................................................................................................................
Abstract 2
.....................................................................................................
Acknowledgements 3
.........................................................................................................
Table sf Contents 5
........................................................................................
Organisation of the Thesis 8
1. Introduction: An Asymmetry Between Relativisation and
Question Forma tion ..................................................................................1 0
. ...............................................................
2 What are Resumptive Pronouns ? 12
2.1. Chao & Sells (1983) and Sells' (1984) analysis ..................................1 2
2.2. The proposal ......................................................................................... 16
2.3. Sstructure wh-movement of resumptive pronouns ...................... 29
3 . The Landing Site of the Resumptive Pronoun ......................................... 23
4. The Question Marker in Egyptian Arabic ................................................3 3
5. Class 1 and Class 2 languages ................................................................... 35
5.1. How are relatives formed in class 2 languages ...............................3 7
5.2. Resumptive pronouns in interrogatives ......................................... 42
6. A Resumptive Pronoun is an operator-variable chain created by
movement .........................................................................................4..8.
7ilh-
Chapter I1
............
Weak Crossover. Parasitic Gaps and Across The Board Constructions 50
1 . Introducticn .................................................................................................5..0
2 . Resumptive Pronouns and Weak Crossover Effects .........................5 1
2.1. The lack of Weak Crossover with resumptiv~p ronouns ..............5 1
7. .2 . Why are resumptive pronouns immune to Weakcrossover? .......5 3
2.3. Resurnptive pronouns are not immune to Weak Crossover ........5 4
............................................................
2.4. Pronoun Fronting in Hebrew 56
.............................................................................
2.5. Anaphoric Epithets 57
3 . The Leftness Ccnditi~.n.. ...........................................................................6..0.
3.1. Theories of Weak Crossover ............................................................6.0.
3.2. The Strict c-command Condition and the Lack of WCO with
.........................................................................
resumptive pronouns 62
3.3. ATB and Parasitic Gap coris~dion..s.. .......................................... 65
4. A Theory of Weak Crossover ....................................................................- 72
4.1. Stowell's theory of WCO .................................................................... 74
4.2. Back to Hebrew ATB and Parasitic Gap constructions ..................' /7
4.3. A Theory of Weak Crossover. ...........................................................8 0
4.4. Back to the lack of Weak Crossover with resumptive
.............................................................................................
pronouns -83
4.5. Back to anaghoric epithets in Irish ...................................................8. 4
4.6. PRO gates .............................................................................................8 7
.
5 Back to coordinate struct~~raensd parasitic gap constructions in
.........................................................................................................
Hebrew -89
5.1. Coordinate Sh-uctures. .......................................................................8. 9
.........................................
5.2. The embedded/non-embedded contrast 93
-
. .
3.3. Parasibc Gaps .....................................................................................9..4
6 . Reconstruction Effects. ..............................................................................9..6
7. An asvmmetry in the interpretation of gaps and resumptive
......................................................................................................
pronouns -97
in
Chapter
....................................................................................................
Appositive Relatives 102
. .................................................................................................
1 Introduction -102
2 . Emsnds' (1979) " Main Clause Hypothesis" ............................................. 104
2. An Analysis of Appositive Relatives. ........................................................ 107
2.1. Appositives Relatives are base-generated as Embedded
.................................................................................................
Clauses 107
2.2. Appositive Relatives are interpreted as Main Clauses at LF. .......I I I
2.3 Main Clause properties of appositives ..............................................1 14
2.4. The Relative Pronoun in Appositives is a Resumptive
Pronoun ...............................................................................................1 15
.................................................................
2.5. Predication or Anaphora? 115
2.6. Why is ilanaphora Obligatory?. .........................................................1 19
2.7. Construing the Resumptive Pronouns with the Head of the
. .
...........................................................................................
Apposihve 119
2.8 The Resumptive function and the Quantificational Function
......................................................................................
of Mrh-chains. 120
2.9. The Syntactic Form of Wh-words in English Questions and
...............................................................................................
Relatives 122
................................. . ......................................
2.9. Resumptive Chains 125
3. Evidence for LF raising ..............................................................................1..2 6
3.1. Why quantifiers cannot be the antecedent of an appositive ........1 26
3.2. Quantifier scope and appositives .....................................................- 132
........................................................................
3.3. The Scope of Negation 135
3.4. The Opacity of Appositives ...............................................................1 45
3.5. Counterexamples ................................................................................1. 46
3.5. The invisibility of appositives. ..........................................................1 53
5 . Conclusion. ..............................................................................................1 59
..............................................................................................
(Clitic) Left-Dislocation 161
1. Intrsduction .................................................................................................. 161
2 . Clitic Left-dislocation. ..................................................................................1 62
.........................................................................................
2.1. Introduction 162
2.2. Cinque 's (1990) analysis of Clitic Left-Dislocation ........................ 143
2.3. Referentiality ........................................................................................ 165
3 . Why Quantifiers Cannot Be (Clitic-) Left-Dislocated ............................1 71
3.1. Clitic-Lek-dislocation, Left-dislocation and Appositive
relatives. ..............................................................................................1. 71
3.2. Is Clitic-Left-Dislocation a Wh-movement Construction? ............1 73
...................................
3.3. Clitic-Left-Dislocation and Left-Dislocation 175
. . . .
3.4. Quanhfier Rasmg .........................................
3.5. D-Linking. .............................................................................................1 81
1. An Analysis of Clitic-Left-Dislocation. ..................................................... 183
. .
4.2. Parasitic gaps. ....................................................................................... 184
.
"2 Why are Clitics Incompatible with Topicalisation and Wh-
questions? ............................................................................................1 87
4.3. Weak C~.osssve.r.. ...............................................................................1. 89
5 . CLDL and Island effects .............................................................................. 192
............................
5.1. Resumptive Pronouns and Resumptive Clitics 195
.................
5.2. Iatridou's (1990) analysis of Islands Effects and CLDL 198
.......................................................................
5.3. Deriving Island Effects 199
. ........*.....................*..*.....*.......*..............................................
6 Corlclusion 202
Organisation of the Thesis
In Chapter I, I propose that resumptive pronouns in languages where their
distribution is not restricted to Islands are an instance of in-situ relativisation.
These pronouns have been analysed in the literature as S-structure operator-
bound pronouns. In contrast, I propose that a resumptive pronoun in these
I -nguages is an operator-variable chain created by wlz-movement at LF. A chain
headed by an overt pronoun differs from a chain headed by a null operator or by
a +wh-operator in one respect: i.t is derived at LF.
In Chapter 11, 1 show that this proposal derives the apparent immunity of these
pronouns to Weak Crossover; 2) their co-occurrence with gaps in coordinate
stnuctures 3) their ability to licence Parasitic Gaps; and 4) why they can serve as
the loci of Reconstruction. 'The assumption that these pronouns ares not
variables at S-structure explains why they do not have the same range of
interpretations as a gap in the same position Further, I propose a Theory of
Weak Crossover based on Stowell (1991) and S2.fir (1986) that derives the
distribution of gaps and pronouns in Across The Board constructions.
In Chapter 111, I argue that all wtz-operators in (headed) relatives are
resumptive chains. Resmptive chains are pronouns with wlz-features. These
pronouns can have +-rulz-featureso r -wit-features. If they have -wh-features, they
can be either phonologically null or overt. Just like any pronoun, they can be
bound pronouns, as in restrictive relatives, or referring pronouns, as in
appositive relatives.
I then develop an analysis of appositive relatives based on Emonds' (1979)
Main Clouse Hypothesis (MCH). I argue that appositives are interpreted at LF as
independent clauses. The anaphoric relation between the appositive pronoun
and its antecedent is treated on a par with the anaphoric relation established
across discourse between a pronoun and its antecedent in a separate clause,
except in one respect: the pronoun must resume a constituent in the matrix
clause from which the appositive was lifted b the mapping between S-structure
and LF. This is precisely the function of the wlz -features of the pronoun.
The idea that the appositive clause is lifted out of the clause containing its
antecedent at LF together with the assumption that the relative pronoun is a
resumptive chain explains why quantifiers cannot be modified by an appositive
relative; why a quantifier in the clause containing the antecedent of the
appositive cannot bind a pronoun in the appositive clause; why indefinites under
the scope of a quantifier cannot be modified by an appositive; why any predicate
under the scope of negation cannot be the antecedent of an appositive; and the
well known 'opacity' of appositives. Finally, I argue that whenever the
antecedent of an appositive is non-referential, the appositive pronoun does not
have the interpretation of a bound variable, but that ~f an E-type pronoun.
In Chapter 4, I extend the proposal that resumptive pronouns are
zolr-chains to the resumptive clitic-pronouns that appear in the clitic-left-
dislocation construction (CLDL) discussed by Cinque (1990) and analyse CLDL
as a wlz-movement construction. I argue that CLDL is derived by LF-movement
of an overt -mh-operator and that this operator has the syntactic properties and
the interpretation of the +wli-operator in appositive relatives. In fact, under the
proposal developed in this thesis that resumptive pronouns are pronouns that
have wli-features, CLDL must be a w1z-movement construction. Finally, I propose
zn analysis of the Island effects in CLDL.
Chapter 1
Resumptive Pronouns
1. Introduction: An Asymmetry Between Relativisation and Question
Formation.
Levels of representation are related by iterated applications of Affect-a. There is
parametric variation across languages with respect to the level of .epresentation
at which a given instance of Affect-a is required to apply. Thus, a given instance
of Move-a, be it NP-movement or wh-movement, will be required (by some
principle of UG) to apply at the level of S-structure in certain languages, but after
S-structure, at the level of Logical Form (LF), in other languages. Thus, for
instance, NP-movement of the VP-internal subject to Spec IF is required by Case
Tharj. It applies at §-skuctxre ia English, yielding SVO word order, but applies
at LF in Arabic, yielding VSO order'. Likewise, English questions are derived by
wh-movement applying at S-structure whereas Chinese questions are derived by
wh-movement applying at LF. However, this holds only for one subcase of wh-
movement, namely question-formation. Thus, although relativisation is assumed
to be another instance of wh-movement (see, for instance, Chomsky 1997), there
is no &smion in the literature as to whether there is parametric variation across
languages with respect to the level of representation at which wh-movement
1 See Koopman & Sportiche (1988) amongst others for an analysis of VSO vs SVO
languages in terms of whether or not NP-movement applies at Sstructure. kF
NP-movement was proposed in Chomsky (1989).