Category Mismatches in Coordination Revisited

Abstract

We reexamine cases of coordinated elements that do not match in syntactic category. We show that these fall into two types. The first type includes predicates, modifiers in the clausal domain, and such modifiers apparently coordinated with arguments. We argue that these do not actually involve coordination of unlike categories. The second type involves coordinated arguments of different categories. With this type, unlike the first, noninitial conjuncts may violate selectional restrictions. To account for these violations, researchers have typically posited a special status for the first conjunct in a coordinate structure, such that it alone can determine the category of the coordinate phrase. We show that such accounts are untenable. First, the final conjunct can be what matters for selection, if it is closest to the selecting or selected element. Second, category mismatches are not free, but are extremely limited and exactly match those observed in ellipsis and displacement. This calls for a uniform account of these mismatches, not one specific to coordination. We spell out such an analysis, in which displacement, ellipsis, and coordination permit certain categories to behave as certain other categories through their effects on null syntactic heads.

De-constructing small clauses: The case of Mandarin Chinese

“…The Chinese equivalents of the English sentence (16a) with a denominative SC are given in (16b) and (16c): Bruening & Al Khalaf 2020). This does, however, not concern us here, because SCs will be shown not to exist in Chinese, be it as lexical projections or as a uniform PredP.…”

Constituency and left-sharing in coordination

“…Second, structures are constructed from left to right in terms of constituencies and dependencies in a Dependency Grammar framework (cf. Bruening & Al Khalaf 2018, 2020). These structures lack a TP/IP projection, and root nodes are replaced by lexical items: (Osborne & Gross 2017: 649 (8b)) As can be seen in (5), the conjuncts are linked by a dependency line, and only the initial conjunct is linked to the preceding element 1 .…”

Predicative Adverbs: Evidence from Polish

“…Although they are morphologically related to corresponding adjectives-for example, dobrze.ADV dobry.ADJ.NOM.SG.M-they cannot be analyzed as adjectives: (a) they cannot be used adnominally (see ( 18)); (b) they can be used adverbally (see ( 19)); and (c) they are not syncretic with any forms in the inflectional paradigms of corresponding adjectives. 7 ( 18 Constructions with adverbial predicates are analogous to those with typical-nominal, adjectival, and prepositional-predicates: in both, the copula may be dropped in present tense, as in ( 20)-( 21); in both, other verbs that can combine with nonverbal predicates may be used (e.g., wydawać się 'seem', stać się 'become'), as in ( 22)-( 23 When predicative adverbs are replaced with corresponding adjectives, the meaning normally remains the same; 8 compare the predicative constructions in ( 16)-( 17) with those in ( 24)-( 25 While it is a matter of debate which cases of unlike category coordination should be analyzed via ellipsis of sentential coordination (socalled conjunction reduction), it is generally assumed that the unlike category predicates are conjoined directly, within a single predicative position, by virtue of bearing the same predicative features (Sag et al 1985) or predicative "supercategory" (Bruening and Al Khalaf 2020). Indeed, (26) has the same predicative meaning as the prototypically predicative ( 27), which involves a nominative gerundial subject instead of an InfP and an adjective in place of an adverb.…”