CPs: Copies and Compositionality

Moulton, Keir

doi:10.1162/ling_a_00183

Cited by 76 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…37 Note that for some speakers, so is the only grammatical option in (80a). 38 As noted by Moulton (2015), Bhatt (2010) shows there are naturally occurring examples of semifactive know selecting so:…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noun complement clauses as referential modifiers

Cuba

2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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A number of recent analyses propose that so-called noun complement clauses should be analyzed as a type of relative clause. In this paper, I present a number of complications for any analysis that equates noun complement clauses to relative clauses, and conclude that this type of analysis is on the wrong track. I present cross-linguistic evidence showing that the syntactic behavior of noun complement clauses does not pattern with relative clauses. Patterns of complementizer choice and complementizer drop as well as patterns involving main clause phenomena and extraction differ in the two constructions, which I argue is unexpected under a relative clause analysis that involves operator movement. Instead I present an alternative analysis in which I propose that the referentiality of a noun complement clause is linked to its syntactic behavior. Following recent work, I claim that referential clauses have a syntactically truncated left-periphery, and this truncation can account for the lack of main clause phenomena in noun complement clauses. I argue that the truncation analysis is also able to accommodate complementizer data patterns more easily than relative clause analyses that appeal to operator movement.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noun complement clauses as referential modifiers

Cuba

2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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“…Hartman (2012:62) calls this a Last Resort principle, for instance, inserting a DP shell post-cyclically. Sheehan & Hinzen (2011) (to be rejected) Haegeman & Ürögdi (2010a:136) and Moulton (2015) argue, in similar fashion, that presuppositional verbs do not take DP complements because it is not possible to say (106a), only (106b). It is possible to find supporting evidence for the notion of fine-grained subcategorization.…”

Section: And Clausal Complementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factivity mirrors interpretation: The selectional requirements of presuppositional verbs

Kastner

2015

Lingua

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Different verbs can take different kinds of arguments. Factive verbs such as remember and forget take clausal complements which are presupposed to be true. In contrast, verbs such as say and think do not presuppose the truth of their complements. I suggest that the complements of presuppositional verbs like remember, forget, admit and deny are actually definite DPs, picking out a discourse referent in the Common Ground. Under this view, factive verbs turn out to be subset of presuppositional verbs, verbs which presuppose the existence of their complement as a proposition in the Common Ground. Factive verbs further require that this proposition be true. It has been established that certain effects arise in clauses embedded by presuppositional verbs: only complements can be extracted from them and argument fronting inside of them is not allowed. I also note that these clauses can have DP pro-forms (which). This stands in opposition to non-presuppositional clauses, where extraction and fronting are possible, and only CP pro-forms (as, so) are allowed. The DP view allows for a uniform solution to these puzzles; the crucial distinction is whether the matrix verb selects for a definite entity (presuppositional) or for a proposition (non-presuppositional). Going further, I introduce crosslinguistic data showing that the entity/proposition split parallels a split in interpretation between DP and CP complements: a presuppositional DP complement is interpreted like a presupposed entity, while a non-presuppositional CP complement has the semantics of a novel proposition. This way of looking at clausal complements also allows us to account for the behavior of sentential subjects, which have been argued to be both nominal and factive. I flesh out these generalizations and show that they emerge as a natural result in our framework. With sentential subjects as with clausal complements, factivity and presupposition correlate with the syntactic category of the argument. I take this to imply a form-meaning isomorphism in the syntax and semantics with regard to what a verb licenses (DP or CP).

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“…However, this hypothesis cannot be right. As shown by (19), neither the response predicates, nor predicates like don't think impose a general ban on CPs (see Moulton 2015, andDjärv 2019b: Sec. 2.3 for further discussion): 11 (19) a. I know you think that we should leave, but I certainly don't think so.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Syntax of Assertion and Presupposition

Djärv

2019

SALT

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This paper addresses the question of how assertion and presupposition are reflected in the grammar. Since Kiparsky &Kiparsky 1970 andHooper &Thompson 1973, it's often been suggested that these notions provide the semanticpragmatic underpinning for a range of complementation patterns, including the licensing of so-called Main Clause Phenomena [MCP]. This paper presents a new large-scale experimental study, investigating the lexical and semantic-pragmatic licensing conditions of four types of MCP (Verb Second [V2], topicalization, speech act adverbs, and scene setting adverbs) in English, Swedish, and German. The central contribution of this paper is demonstrating what precise dimensions of assertion and presupposition are reflected in the grammar: for embedded V2, what matters is the discourse status of the embedded proposition as new vs. Given (in the sense of Schwarzschild 1999); a dimension which cross-cuts both factive and non-factive verbs. The other MCP investigated show no sensitivity to either of the lexical or pragmatic factors investigated. We further show that Givenness is not reflected in a (null) DP-layer, contrary to previous claims. The Syntax of Assertion and PresuppositionThe main finding of the experiment is that V2 tracks the availability of p as discourse new information (as contrasted with the status of p as Given, in the sense of Schwarzschild 1999) -a dimension which cross-cuts both factive and non-factive verbs. The interpretation of p as new vs. Given is found to depend closely on the type of predicate; however, interactions with the polarity of the matrix clause speak against a selection-based account. The other MCP investigated, on the other hand, are found to be sensitive to neither type of lexical or pragmatic factor investigated; showing us that MCP encompass a less homogeneous set of constructions than generally assumed. We moreover show that Givenness does not imply that the embedded clause is underlyingly a DP, as per previous proposals (e.g. Haegeman 2014; Kastner 2015; following Kiparsky & Kiparsky 1970). Overview of the paperSection 1.2 looks at previous approaches to MCP, finding a highly complex theoretical and empirical landscape, with substantial disagreement not just on the theoretical side, but also in terms of what the empirical facts actually are. The main open questions are discussed in Section 1.3. This discussion leaves us with the conclusion that without comparative data from a larger number of speakers and a wider range of verbs, MCP, and languages, further theoretical progress is difficult. Section 2 presents the current experiment, addressing these open questions. Section 3 discusses the analytical consequences of the present findings, showing further that Givenness is not semantically encoded in a null D-layer. We end on a note on the implications of the current findings for the theory of factivity.

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CPs: Copies and Compositionality

Cited by 76 publications

References 61 publications

Noun complement clauses as referential modifiers

Noun complement clauses as referential modifiers

Factivity mirrors interpretation: The selectional requirements of presuppositional verbs

The Syntax of Assertion and Presupposition

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