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Left peripheral focus
(2010)
In Czech, German, and many other languages, part of the semantic focus
of the utterance can be moved to the left periphery of the clause. The main generalization is that only the leftmost accented part of the semantic focus can be moved. We propose that movement to the left periphery is generally triggered by an unspecific edge feature of C (Chomsky 2008) and its restrictions can be attributed to requirements of cyclic linearization, modifying the theory of cyclic linearization developed by Fox and Pesetsky (2005). The crucial assumption is that structural accent is a direct consequence of being linearized at merge, thus it is indirectly relevant for (locality restrictions on) movement. The absence of structural accent correlates with given-ness. Given elements may later receive (topic or contrastive) accents, which accounts for fronting in multiple focus/contrastive topic constructions. Without any additional assumptions, the model can account for movement of pragmatically unmarked elements to the left periphery (‘formal fronting’, Frey 2005). Crucially, the analysis makes no reference at all to concepts of information structure in the syntax, in line with the claim of Chomsky (2008) that UG specifies no direct link between syntax and information structure.
Content: 1 Introduction 2 A restrictive theory of head movement 2.1 Preliminary Remarks 2.2 Theoretical Problems of Head Movement 2.3 Remnant Phrasal Movement 2.4 Münchhausen Style Head Movement 3 Verb Second Movement 3.1 Introductory Remarks 3.2 Problems of V/2 constructions: Does V really move to Comp? 3.3 The preverbal position 3.4 The Second Position 4 References
In the recent literature there is a hypothesis that the human parser uses number and case information in different ways to resolve an initially incorrect case assignment. This paper investigates what role morphological case information plays during the parser’s detection of an ungrammaticality or its recognition that a reanalysis is necessary. First, we compare double nominative with double accusative ungrammaticalities in a word by word, speeded grammaticality task and in this way show that only double nominatives lead to a so-called ”illusion of grammaticality” (a low rate of ungrammaticality detection). This illusion was found to disappear when the second argument was realized by a pronoun rather than by a full definite determiner phrase, i.e. when the saliency of the second argument was increased. Thus, the accuracy in recognizing an ungrammaticality induced by the case feature of the second argument is dependent on the type of this argument. Furthermore, we found that the accuracy in detecting such case ungrammaticalities is distance sensitive insofar as a shorter distance leads to a higher accuracy. The results are taken as support for an ”expectationdriven” parse strategy in which the way the parser uses the information of a current input item depends on the expectation resulting from the parse carried out so far. By contrast, ”input-driven” parse strategies, such as the diagnosis model (Fodor & Inoue, 1999) are unable to explain the data presented here.
Syntax
(2007)
Morphology
(2007)
Contents: Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Information Structure 2 Grammatical Correlates of Information Structure 3 Structure of the Questionnaire 4 Experimental Tasks 5 Technicalities 6 Archiving 7 Acknowledgments Chapter 2. General Questions 1 General Information 2 Phonology 3 Morphology and Syntax Chapter 3. Experimental tasks 1 Changes (Given/New in Intransitives and Transitives) 2 Giving (Given/New in Ditransitives) 3 Visibility (Given/New, Animacy and Type/Token Reference) 4 Locations (Given/New in Locative Expressions) 5 Sequences (Given/New/Contrast in Transitives) 6 Dynamic Localization (Given/New in Dynamic Loc. Descriptions) 7 Birthday Party (Weight and Discourse Status) 8 Static Localization (Macro-Planning and Given/New in Locatives) 9 Guiding (Presentational Utterances) 10 Event Cards (All New) 11 Anima (Focus types and Animacy) 12 Contrast (Contrast in pairing events) 13 Animal Game (Broad/Narrow Focus in NP) 14 Properties (Focus on Property and Possessor) 15 Eventives (Thetic and Categorical Utterances) 16 Tell a Story (Contrast in Text) 17 Focus Cards (Selective, Restrictive, Additive, Rejective Focus) 18 Who does What (Answers to Multiple Constituent Questions) 19 Fairy Tale (Topic and Focus in Coherent Discourse) 20 Map Task (Contrastive and Selective Focus in Spontaneous Dialogue) 21 Drama (Contrastive Focus in Argumentation) 22 Events in Places (Spatial, Temporal and Complex Topics) 23 Path Descriptions (Topic Change in Narrative) 24 Groups (Partial Topic) 25 Connections (Bridging Topic) 26 Indirect (Implicational Topic) 27 Surprises (Subject-Topic Interrelation) 28 Doing (Action Given, Action Topic) 29 Influences (Question Priming) Chapter 4. Translation tasks 1 Basic Intonational Properties 2 Focus Translation 3 Topic Translation 4 Quantifiers Chapter 5. Information structure summary survey 1 Preliminaries 2 Syntax 3 Morphology 4 Prosody 5 Summary: Information structure Chapter 6. Performance of Experimental Tasks in the Field 1 Field sessions 2 Field Session Metadata 3 Informants’ Agreement
This paper investigates the nature of the attraction of XPs to clauseinitial position in German (and other languages). It argues that there are two different types of preposing. First, an XP can move when it is attracted by an EPP-like feature of Comp. Comp can, however, also attract elements that bear the formal marker of some semantic or pragmatic (information theoretic) function. This second type of movement is driven by the attraction of a formal property of the moved element. It has often been misanalysed as “operator” movement in the past. Japanese wh-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the wh-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of Multiple Spell-Out in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a wh-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and wh-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out.