TY  - JOUR
A1  - Vicente, Luis
T1  - Free versus bound variables and the taxonomy of gaps
JF  - Natural language semantics : an international journal of semantics and its interfaces in grammar
N2  - Potts (Nat Lang Linguist Theory 20:623–689, 2002a) et seq. presents an analysis of gap-containing supplements (primarily, as-parentheticals) where the gap is modelled as a variable over the semantic type of the constituent that the as-clause adjoins to (the anchor). This much allows the meaning of the gap to be resolved purely compositionally, by defining as as a function that allows the anchor to bind the gap variable. This article presents a class of as-clauses where Potts’s analysis seems to break down, in that the gap cannot be modelled as a variable over the semantic type of the anchor. I propose that these cases can be unified with those in Potts’s work, as well as a larger class of ellipsis phenomena, by assuming that, under certain conditions, surface gaps are composite entities, containing a bound variable and a free variable that are resolved independently of each other. The bound variable is bound by the anchor (just as in Potts’s account), and the free variable is resolved by anaphora to a salient discourse object.
KW  - As-clauses
KW  - Ellipsis sites
KW  - Variable resolution
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-016-9123-6
SN  - 0925-854X
SN  - 1572-865X
VL  - 24
SP  - 203
EP  - 245
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  -