Derived constituent order in unbounded dependency constructions

Abstract

This paper proposes that unbounded dependency constructions in English instantiate a surface subject-predicate structure in which the predicate is typically discontinuous. Evidence is presented supporting this discontinuous analysis over the operatorvariable structure conventionally assigned to unbounded dependencies. A model of phrase structure that sanctions discontinuous representations is outlined, along with a feature-based strategy for generating the proposed structures within an extended phrase structure system. Extraction islands and other locality constraints are subsequently characterized with reference to the feature propagation paths that induce discontinuity.

Towards a new typology of coordinatedwh-questions

“…This brings us to a host of proposals that invoke MD to capture movement dependencies. 8 This is the main insight behind the PHRASE-LINKING GRAMMAR of Peters & Ritchie (1981) (see also Engdahl 1986;Blevins 1990Blevins , 1994Gärtner 1999Gärtner , 2002, where movement configurations are represented through a node being shared between at least two parents (a TREE PARENT and a LINK PARENT, such that the former dominates the latter), without assuming either that structures are three-dimensional, or that (this version of) MD is restricted to coordination.…”

The post-transformational enterprise

“…Yet the rules formulated in these models specified only the order of constituents in the output, with no information about the structure of these constituents. The notion that extraction constructions contained a dislocated filler ‘binding’ a gap provided the first general solution to the problem of assigning derived structure to transforms, though this solution is by no means empirically unproblematic (Blevins 1994).…”