On the Nature of Proper Government

Lasnik, Howard; Saitō, Mamoru

doi:10.1007/978-94-015-6859-3_10

Cited by 201 publications

(222 citation statements)

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“…Second, it attempts to recast the Subjacency Condition in terms of barriers to movement instead of bounding nodes, evoking a parallelism with barriers to government in formulations of the Empty Category Principle (e.g., Huang 1982, Lasnik andSaito 1984). Third, it attempts to correct some incorrect predictions of the original Subjacency Condition, such as the prediction that extraction from any complex NP should be unacceptable in English, including NPs in object position (e.g., an "object island").…”

Section: Consequences For the Barriers Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Sprouse

Caponigro²,

Greco³

et al. 2015

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

115

132

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Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported in part by National Science Foundation grants BCS-0843896 and BSC-1347115 to JS. We would like to thank Michela Marchesi for assistance collecting data for the Italian WH-dependencies experiment. We would like to thank Jeremy Hartman, Norbert Hornstein, Luigi Rizzi, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. We would also like to thank audiences at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Illinois Chicago for helpful comments at various stages of the development of this study. All errors remain our own.1 Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian AbstractThe goal of this article is to explore the utility of experimental syntax techniques in the investigation of syntactic variation. To that end, we applied the factorial definition of island effects made available by experimental syntax (e.g., ) to four island types (wh/whether, complex NP, subject, and adjunct), two dependency types (wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies) and two languages (English and Italian). The results of 8 primary experiments suggest that there is indeed variation across dependency types, suggesting that wh-interrogative clause dependencies and relative clause dependencies cannot be identical at every level of analysis; however, the pattern of variation observed in these experiments is not exactly the pattern of variation previously reported in the literature (e.g., Rizzi 1982). We review six major syntactic approaches to the analysis island effects (Subjacency, CED, Barriers, Relativized Minimality, Structure-building, and Phases) and discuss the implications of these results for these analyses. We also present 4 supplemental experiments testing complex wh-phrases (also called D-linked or lexically restricted wh-phrases) for all four island types using the factorial design in order to tease apart the contribution of dependency type from featural specification. The results of the supplemental experiments confirm that dependency type is the major source of variation, not featural specification, while providing a concrete quantification of what exactly the effect of complex wh-phrases on island effects is.

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Section: Consequences For the Barriers Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Sprouse

Caponigro²,

Greco³

et al. 2015

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

115

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…One might propose that the preposed constituent fails to qualify as an antecedent for the empty subject because it is in an adjoined position (Lasnik & Saito, 1984), and that adjoined constituents are not potential antecedents for the trace in [Spec, IP]. The tree in (41) is a schematic representation: The question would arise, though, why a c-commanding adjoined constituent would be disqualified as a binder.…”

Section: Adjunctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Register variation, truncation, and subject omission in English and in French

Haegeman¹

1997

English Language and Linguistics

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This paper concerns the null subject phenomenon attested in abbreviated written registers in English and in French (diaries, instructions) and in informal spoken English. Neither a pro drop analysis nor a topic drop analysis will account for the incompatibility of the English null subjects with w/i-preposing and with embedded contexts. Rizzi's (1994) analysis for null subjects in child production is adopted here in a slightly modified form. Like the early null subject, the (adult) null subject in abbreviated registers is an antecedentless empty category in the A-specifier of the root. Null subjects depend on the truncation of CP, which turns the specifier of IP into the highest specifier of the clause. The paper explores apparent noninitial null subjects, i.e. null subjects co-occurring with preposed adjuncts (though not arguments) and shows that these can be accounted for in terms of partial truncation within an articulated CP. The null subject is an antecedentless empty category in the (A-)specifier of an AGRprojection dominating the Topic Projection. The incompatibility with Wi-preposing and with argument preposing is accounted for. In a more speculative vein I also consider the deletion of be in the abbreviated styles, which I claim can also be analysed in terms of truncation. Introduction Aim and scope of the paperLanguages differ with respect to whether the pronominal subject in a finite clause may be omitted or not. This parametric variation, referred to as the pro drop parameter, is illustrated in (1): (1) (a) Italian (Io) Compro un giornale.(I) buy a newspaper (b) English *(I) buy a newspaper (c) French *(Je) achete un journal Italian is a pro drop language: it allows a pronominal subject of a finite clause to be nonovert (la). English and French are not pro drop languages: the pronominal 1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented on a number of occasions: the Graduate Students

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“…For instance, we have (cf. Fults, 2005;Huang, 1982;Lasnik and Saito, 1984;Williams, 1995 My very preliminary inquiries suggest that judgments here are weak. Some informants find cases like these outright unacceptable (indicating adjunct rather than argument status), while some find them marginal.…”

Section: B Tasty(chili) > S(tasty)mentioning

confidence: 85%

Context, content, and relativism

2007

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Forthcoming in Philosophical StudiesHere is a simple and inviting picture: the semantic values of sentences, relative to contexts, are sets of possible worlds. These are the truth conditions of assertions of those sentences in contexts. They are thus the contents of assertions, or the objects of attitudes we might take towards such contents.There have been many questions raised about the simple picture. For instance, sets of worlds might well be too coarse-grained to capture fully the objects of attitudes, leading to more fine-grained or structured contents. But opting for structure does not conflict with truth conditions being sets of worlds, and so, I shall ignore this sort of question. I shall likewise ignore questions about the nature of possible worlds.I propose to ignore these questions to focus on whether the semantic values of sentences should be sets of something more than possible worlds. For instance, it has frequently been proposed that semantic values should be sets of pairs of worlds and times. The simple picture opts for eternalism: semantic values of sentences are eternal truth conditions. This stand in * Versions of this paper were presented at a symposium on relativism at the Pacific APA, 2006, the 'Cog Lunch' at CSLI, 2006 contrast to temporalism, which holds that semantic values are time-relative truth conditions. Temporalism has been subject to a number of criticisms; from Enç (1984Enç ( , 1986, from Evans (1985), from King (2003), and from Richard (1981Richard ( , 1982. I shall not be particularly concerned to argue against temporalism here, though I find these criticisms persuasive, and I shall be assuming eternalism. The question on which I shall focus here is whether, on the model of temporalism, we should see any other additions to worlds in the semantic values of sentences. Leaving times to one side, we can distinguish two sorts of positions: Semantic value absolutism:The semantic values of sentences are sets of worlds. Semantic value relativism:The semantic values of sentences are sets of tuples of worlds and other parameters, relative to which the truth of a sentence in a context is determined.The particular form of semantic value relativism I shall discuss most in this paper posits that semantic values of sentence are sets of pairs of worlds and judges. The judge assesses certain claims, like what counts as fun.As proponents of such views are clearly aware, this is a form of relativism about truth.We can get no truth value from the content of an assertion until we fix the judge relative to whom it is true. But defenders of this sort of semantic value relativism are quick to point out they are not repeating the mistake, all too common among our undergraduates, of just thinking that truth is 'truth for me, and truth for you'. Rather, they argue, there are semantic phenomena we cannot make sense of without making room for relative truth.Furthermore, they will argue, this semantically motivated relativism is more modest, and more sensible, than our undergraduates' version, and so is no...

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On the Nature of Proper Government

Cited by 201 publications

References 1 publication

Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian

Register variation, truncation, and subject omission in English and in French

Context, content, and relativism

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