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BU CAS LX 522 - Lecture Notes

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1Week 12b. LFCAS LX 522Syntax IA word about interpretation Let’s think for a moment about what awh-question means: Who did Pat meet?[CP [DP who]i Ij+C [IP Pat meet ti]] Something like (a ‘logical form’):Tell me an x such that Pat met x is true.Pronouncing & interpreting There are two things we need to do with thelexical items we assemble on the workbench: Pronounce the sentence Interpret the sentence We’ve mainly been concentrating on thepronunciation part (getting the words into theorder we hear them), but the structure is alsoassumed to be the basis for interpreting thesentence as well.Our model of grammar Here again is the little picture of our model ofgrammar. The structure we end up with is used bothto express the logical relations between participantsand to pronounce the structure. (And of course it has to be that way, since how a sentencesounds is tied to what it means).LexiconWorkbenchMerge, Adjoin,Copy/MovepronounceinterpretA word about interpretation Who did Pat meet?[CP [DP who]i Ij+C [IP Pat meet ti]]Tell me a (person) x such that Pat met x. If we need to get to a logical structure like Tell mea (person) x such that Pat met x is true, then it maywell be that this is what wh-movement is for. The(original case-checked) trace serves as the xvariable, the moved wh-phrase sets the domain. Suppose that moving a wh-phrase (leaving acase-checked trace) is necessary forinterpretation as a wh-question.Wh-movement andinterpretation Who bought what? Tell me a (person) x and tell me a (thing) y such that x bought y. Who gave what to whom? Tell me a (person) x and tell me a (thing) y andtell me a (person) zsuch that x gave y to z. How do we interpret those other wh-words?2The wh-typology English: One wh-phrase moves to the front. What did Bill give to whom? Japanese: No wh-words move to the front. Taroo-ga dare-ni nani-o ageta no?T-nom who-to what-acc gave Q‘What did Taroo give to whom?’ Bulgarian: All wh-words move to the front. Kakvo na kogo Ivan dade?what to whom Ivan gave‘What did Ivan give to whom?’The wh-typology Yet in all of these languages, the meaning ofWhat did Bill give to whom? is the same… Tell me a (thing) x and tell me a (person) ysuch that Bill gave x to y. So, if the ‘tell me an x…such that…x…’meaning arises from wh-movement (and, infact, we can see the wh-movement inBulgarian), it stands to reason that even inEnglish and Japanese there is wh-movementfor each wh-word—we just can’t alwayshear it.¿Qué? Wh-movement…that you can’t hear… The next topic (quantifiers) willgive us pretty good evidence thatthere is such a thing as “movementyou can’t hear.” Adopting it hereallows for a uniform view ofmeaning and structure acrosslanguages, even in the face of the(superficial) differences in wh-movement behavior. So, let’sprovisionally accept it and seewhere it leads.Derivations The structures are built in steps, Mergingthings together, Adjoining things to otherthings, “Moving” (copying and Merging)things from within things. Some things happenbefore other things.LFmove firstwh-wordmove secondwh-wordDerivations The last step, prior to interpretation, goes bythe name LF (stands for “Logical Form”). Atthe LF structure, all of the movements havebeen accomplished and its ready to beinterpreted.LFmove firstwh-wordmove secondwh-wordSpellout On this view, languages can differ on whichstep of the derivation they focus on forinterpretation. The point in the derivation thata language focuses on is the point of Spellout.LFmove firstwh-wordmove secondwh-word3Spellout Bulgarian: All wh-words move to the front. Kakvo na kogo Ivan dade?what to whom Ivan gave‘What did Ivan give to whom?’ So, in Bulgarian, Spellout is relatively late.LFmove firstwh-wordmove secondwh-wordBulgarianSpellout Japanese: No wh-words move to the front. Taroo-ga dare-ni nani-o ageta no?T-nom who-to what-acc gave Q‘What did Taroo give to whom?’ And, in Japanese, Spellout is relatively early.LFmove firstwh-wordmove secondwh-wordBulgarianJapaneseSpellout English: Just one wh-word moves to the front. What did Pat give to whom? And, in English, Spellout is sort of in-between.LFmove firstwh-wordmove secondwh-wordBulgarianJapaneseEnglishThe wh-typology Thought of this way, Bulgarian shows all of itswh-movement. Bulgarian: All wh-words move to the front. Kakvo na kogo Ivan dade?what to whom Ivan gave‘What did Ivan give to whom?’ Pick the x, pick the y, such that Ivan gave x to y. We see the wh-phrases moving in Bulgarian. Butwe know from the meaning that all of thesemovements have to happen in all languages.The wh-typology We conclude then that languages differnot in whether they move all of the wh-words to the front of the sentence—theyall do—but rather in when they movethem there (relative to Spellout). Bulgarian: All before Spellout. Japanese: All after Spellout. English: One before Spellout, the restafter Spellout.The wh-typology A common terminology for this is “overt”and “covert” movement: Bulgarian: All wh-movement is overt. Japanese: All wh-movement is covert. English: One wh-phrase moves overtly,the rest move covertly.4Derivations This allows us a fairly uniform view of languages. Across languages, the underlying structure isbasically the same (theta requirements, functionalprojections). Across languages, the LF is basically the same(meanings, scope, etc.). This means that across languages, the movementsthat happen between DS and LF are basically thesame. What differs is the timing of Spellout—whether themovements happen before or after Spellout.Selection and scope Something of an aside: There are many verbs thatcan take CP complements. Some can take only declaratives (regret, depend on) *I regret who left. I regret that Pat left. Some can take only questions… (wonder, ask) I wonder who left. *I wonder that Pat left. Many can take either… (guess, know, hear, say) I know who left. I know that Pat left.Selection We can think of this in terms ofcomplement features of the V (the verb“selects” for certain kinds ofcomplements). Regret has a [-Q] complement feature. Wonder has a [+Q] complement feature Know has neither.Scope When we move a wh-word into SpecCP,we say that it “takes scope” at that clause.What


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BU CAS LX 522 - Lecture Notes

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