Reconstruction, Binding, and Scope

Sportiche, Dominique

doi:10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom002

Cited by 15 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…This formalism derives binary-branching “X-bar” structural descriptions that integrate constituency, dependency and movement information. The particular syntactic analyses that we used extend those in Hale (2003, chapter 4) along the lines of Sportiche et al (2013). Figure 1 (bottom) illustrates one such tree in which the representation of a long-distance “movement” relationship leads to node counts that are different from those derived by a context-free analysis of the same sentence (Figure 1, top).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abstract linguistic structure correlates with temporal activity during naturalistic comprehension

et al. 2016

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Neurolinguistic accounts of sentence comprehension identify a network of relevant brain regions, but do not detail the information flowing through them. We investigate syntactic information. Does brain activity implicate a computation over hierarchical grammars or does it simply reflect linear order, as in a Markov chain? To address this question, we quantify the cognitive states implied by alternative parsing models. We compare processing-complexity predictions from these states against fMRI timecourses from regions that have been implicated in sentence comprehension. We find that hierarchical grammars independently predict timecourses from left anterior and posterior temporal lobe. Markov models are predictive in these regions and across a broader network that includes the inferior frontal gyrus. These results suggest that while linear effects are wide-spread across the language network, certain areas in the left temporal lobe deal with abstract, hierarchical syntactic representations.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abstract linguistic structure correlates with temporal activity during naturalistic comprehension

et al. 2016

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“…There is salso a strong crossover effect -see Postal (1971 Coreference is possible in (37), but not in (38). As pointed out by Sportiche (2007), the problem is not due to linear precedence, because both (39) and (40) are grammatical, showing that precedence by itself is not enough for accounting for the contrast between (37) and (38). In sentence (37) the problem is instead constituted by the structural relation between the pronoun and its intended antecedent.…”

Section: Current Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consider for instance the following Italian example (where e in example (42) stands for empty, signaling the basic position of the 18 The literature on this issue is very rich and it is impossible to summarize the relevant discussion in this work. See among the many others, Sportiche (2007) 19 For a discussion of condition C and CLLD in Italian see Cecchetto and Chierchia (1999), Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl (2007).…”

Section: Current Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discourse, sentence grammar and the left periphery of the clause

Giorgi

2018

Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy &Amp; Psychology

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The term left periphery refers to that area on the left of the subject, in the syntactic representation of a clause, where the relationships with the context are encoded. In this work I propose a syntactic analysis that goes beyond mere sentence grammar and integrates prosodic and discourse features as well. On the one hand, this move accounts for some observations previously not fully understood, such as the anomalous syntactic properties of Clitic Left Dislocation and Hanging Topic, their differences with respect to Focus and their similarities with parentheticals. On the other, it aims at providing a theory of grammar able to encode the relationships between sentence grammar, context and bigger units such as discourses. prosody. In section 5, I contrast Clitic Left Dislocation with another kind of topic, the so-called Hanging Topic, and propose a syntactic representation extending the boundaries of syntax to include features connected to the discourse. 2 The syntax of the left periphery of the clause According to the Government and Binding paradigm developed by Chomsky (1981), a sentence is a predicative structure, where subject and predicate are connected by means of so-called functional projections. A typical sentence has the following structure, where I stands for Inflection, i.e. the temporal, modal, and agreement properties connected with the verb: 2 (1) [ IP NP [ I [ VP V ]]] The subject-in representation (1) a Noun Phrase, NP-is connected to the predicate-in this case a Verb Phrase, VP-by means of Inflection. Hence, according to X-bar theory, the subject is the specifier of the Inflection and the predicate is its complement. 3 In the Government and Binding framework, only one head position is available on the left of the subject and only one maximal projection position, i.e. only one position where a phrase can appear. The structure available in this framework is therefore the following: (2) [ CP XP [ C [ IP NP [ I … C is a head position, occupied in subordinate clauses by the complementizer head, for instance that, as in the following example: 2 These are to be understood as abstract properties, universally represented, even if languages might differ in the way they realize them. 3 X-bar theory was firstly proposed in the 70's, see among the others Chomsky (1970) and Jackendoff (1977). In this work I will not discuss the arguments in favor, or against, this syntactic representation. Let me just point out that more recently, several aspects of X-bar theory have been deeply revised, to account for further empirical observations, see the anti-symmetrical proposal by Kayne (1994). (3) John thinks that Mary is a genius That occupies the C position in the subordinate clause. The specifier position of C can be occupied by embedded wh-phrases, as in the following case: (4) John wonders which boy Mary met In English, C is also the landing site of Verbs and auxiliaries in interrogative inversion, as in the following example: (5) What did you eat? Did occupies the C position and what its specifier. The specifier ...

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“…The empirical status of Principle C violations in reconstruction contexts is both subtle and intricate (see Heycock 1995, Büring 2005, Sportiche 2006, Salzmann 2006, and others for comprehensive discussions). Certainly there are well-established classes of examples where reconstructed Principle C violations do not result in ungrammaticality.…”

Section: Principle Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the lip service that (Mary said that) John paid to civil liberties In order for the idiomatic interpretations to be licensed, there must be some mechanism for transmitting information about the idiom chunk from its displaced position to the rest of the idiomatic expression. This has traditionally served as an argument for syntactic reconstruction (see, e.g., Sportiche 2006), since one way to make the needed connection is to syntactically reconstruct the idiom chunk, at which point it will be reunited with the rest of its idiom.…”

Section: Idiomsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation order, crossover, and reconstruction

Barker¹

2018

Reconstruction Effects in Relative Clauses

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This paper explores an approach to reconstruction that falls into the general category of semantic reconstruction: the syntax and the semantics collaborate in order to account for a number of reconstruction effects, but without any syntactic movement.The analysis developed here builds on Shan and Barker 2006, Barker and Shan 2008, and Barker 2009. It serves in turn as the basis for chapter 6 of Barker and Shan 2014, which, although published earlier, was written later. The briefer discussion in Barker and Shan 2014 relies on the current paper for a number of elaborations and more detailed discussions.My starting point is the observation in Shan and Barker 2006:123 that at least some reconstruction effects fall out from the interaction of their particular analyses of scopetaking, binding, and wh-interrogatives. In Barker 2009, I discuss that account of reconstruction, developing especially some of the details of the treatment of questions and higher-order pronoun meanings. These previous discussions, however, considered only a very small range of example types. One of the main goals of the current paper is to see how well the approach scales up to a wider range of reconstruction effects and example types, including quantificational binding, binding of anaphors, idiom licensing, and especially crossover phenomena, in the context of wh-interrogatives, relative clauses, and wh-relatives.Although the analyses just mentioned differ small ways, they all share core assumptions and goals with the account presented here. I will call the general strategy they develop the evaluation order approach. The central goal is to explain crossover effects as following from imposing a default left-to-right evaluation order:

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Reconstruction, Binding, and Scope

Cited by 15 publications

References 30 publications

Abstract linguistic structure correlates with temporal activity during naturalistic comprehension

Abstract linguistic structure correlates with temporal activity during naturalistic comprehension

Discourse, sentence grammar and the left periphery of the clause

Evaluation order, crossover, and reconstruction

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