Constraints on Displacement

Müller, Gereon

doi:10.1075/lfab.7

Cited by 51 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 130 publications

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“…In a derivation by phase framework, this entails that ellipsis occurs at the point of transfer, which I will take to indicate that the domain targeted by ellipsis is always a phasal one. This is, in fact, the view espoused, under one form or another, by many authors including Holmberg (2001), Gengel (2007), Gallego (2010), Müller (2011), Rouveret (2012), BoŠković (2014, and Aelbrecht (2010) among others. 6 As Gengel (2007) has argued, the simplest view of the relation between ellipsis and phases is that ellipsis is simply the flipside of phasal spell-out.…”

Section: Derivational Ellipsismentioning

confidence: 71%

French Predicate Anaphora, Comparatives, and Ellipsis

Authier

2023

Probus

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While French does not display the kind of VP-ellipsis found in languages like English, it effects verbal anaphora by means of two constructions that have received relatively little attention in the literature. Both of these combine the generic ‘action verb’ faire ‘do’ with what appears to be a pronoun. The first one, which I call le-faire anaphora (LFA), uses the clitic le, whereas the second one, which I call faire-ça anaphora (FCA), brings into play the strong pronoun ça ‘it/that’. Taking such pronouns to be substitutive pro-forms devoid of inner structure cannot, however, explain why LFA, but not FCA, can appear in the standard of a comparative, a property that distinguishes English VP-ellipsis from VP-pro-forms like do it/that/so, which behave like FCA. On the other hand, LFA, unlike English VP-ellipsis, does not allow wh-extraction from a VP-internal position outside the realm of comparatives, which leads to a paradox left unresolved in the literature. In this article, I argue that LFA involves ellipsis of a whole vP phase. Specifically, I argue that faire in LFA, but not in FCA, is a (semi)auxiliary verb that takes a vP complement and bears an E-feature lexicalized by the clitic le. I show that this correctly predicts that A-movement out of the ellipsis site is possible and that A-bar movement of a degree wh-phrase out of vP in comparatives is made possible by the fact that French licenses Quantification at a Distance, a grammatical operation that allows degree quantifiers to escape vP before the next phasal head (C) is merged and triggers ellipsis. Other wh-quantifiers that do not benefit from the Quantification at a Distance option are then expected to not be able to escape vP prior to ellipsis, hence run-of-the-mill wh-extraction out of VP is correctly predicted to be incompatible with LFA. I then turn to what appears to be a related anaphoric phenomenon, which consists of the predicational copula être ‘be’ and the clitic le, which I call l’être anaphora (LEA), and show that it too is an instance of ellipsis in that it allows the full range of extraction phenomena out of the missing constituent introduced by the copula. I assume that in those cases in which the copula takes a small clause, it participates in an asymmetric structure where it lexicalizes Pred, a head that mediates between subject and predicate. In those cases in which the copula introduces a passivized VP, on the other hand, I assume that it lexicalizes v, an assumption in line with theories that posit multiple instantiations of predicate mediators (so-called ‘flavors of v’). In both cases, the copula in LEA heads a phase, bears an E-feature lexicalized by le, and is argued to license ellipsis of its phasal complement. Thus, elements are allowed to escape ellipsis by moving to the edge of the phase headed by the copula, and this correctly predicts that LEA permits a wider range of extractions out of the ellipsis site than LFA does.

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Section: Derivational Ellipsismentioning

confidence: 71%

French Predicate Anaphora, Comparatives, and Ellipsis

Authier

2023

Probus

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“…AAE), where it was possible derivational steps that were compared. An OTbased approach can be used both for evaluating competing derivations (transderivational economy), as well as competing continuations of a given derivation (translocal economy; see Müller & Sternefeld 2001;Müller 2011;Graf 2013). Both types of constraints seem useful and necessary.…”

Section: (70)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Resolving conflicts with violable constraints: On the cross-modular parallelism of repairs

Murphy

2019

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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When grammatical constraints impose conflicting requirements on a linguistic expression, this conflict is often resolved by employing a repair operation. This repair can take various forms, for example insertion, deletion or modification of linguistic material. In this paper, I provide a number of case studies in morpho-syntax, showing how there are striking parallels between the repairs employed in phonology and morpho-syntax with regard to the context, type and shape of the repair. Ultimately, it is argued that, given clear similarities between these distinct domains of grammar, repairs should be governed by the same basic principles, namely a system of violable constraints. This view supports the hypothesis of Cross-modular Structural Parallelism (Nevins 2008; Arregi & Nevins 2012).

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“…Rather, we take it that minimality effects are derivable from other principles of grammar, such as the PIC (Chomsky :47, fn. 52; Müller, ). This means that if there is more than one DP in an accessible domain that can be attracted or agreed with, then in principle any of them can be targeted by the operation‐inducing head.…”

Section: Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We call this taking away of features that should normally be reserved for some other item “maraudage” (Georgi et al. , Georgi , and Müller )…”

Section: Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ergatives Move Too Early: On an Instance of Opacity in Syntax

Assmann

Georgi

Heck

et al. 2015

Syntax

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Abstract. In this paper we examine the ban onĀ-movement of the external argument of a transitive verb that holds in many morphologically ergative languages. We argue that the prohibition against movement of the ergative subject should not be derived from restrictions on the movement of the ergative DP. Rather, we suggest that movement of the ergative argument is per se unproblematic, but if it applies, it applies too early, and thereby creates problems for its absolutive co-argument, which does not receive structural case. In morphologically accusative languages, no such movement asymmetry arises because arguments move too late to trigger the fatal consequences that moving ergatives cause. We present a relational, co-argument-based analysis that implies a strictly derivational syntax in which the order of operations plays an important role in deriving properties of the grammar.

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Constraints on Displacement

Cited by 51 publications

References 130 publications

French Predicate Anaphora, Comparatives, and Ellipsis

French Predicate Anaphora, Comparatives, and Ellipsis

Resolving conflicts with violable constraints: On the cross-modular parallelism of repairs

Ergatives Move Too Early: On an Instance of Opacity in Syntax

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