Adjunct Extraction and Chain Configurations
, M. Hegarty 1992
This study is concerned with the semantic content of complementizers, and with the modes of interpretation of adverbial wh elements and with their possibilities for wh movement. It examines the event structure of complement clauses, revealing a difference of semantic function between the complementizers in tensed factive complement clauses and propositional complement clauses. This yields a difference in their effects on adverbial wh extraction points to the Minimality Condition, taking effect for nongoverning heads such as complementizers. An attempt is made to define antecedent government in such a way as to capture the Minimality effects of complementizers.
Chapter 1 reviews some pertinent aspects of the underlying syntactic and semantic frameworks, and contains a brief outline of the thesis.
Chapter 2 examine the event structure of complement clauses. It argues that the event position of factive complements is discharged by the factive complementizer, yielding an interpretation of factive complements as involving discourse binding of the event position of various infinitival complement clauses and of gerunds, as well as some other contexts which involve discourse binding of an event variable, and which exhibit the resulting presupposition that the event occurred. In all cases, event positions which are not bound are found to exhibit the possibility of unselective binding by an adverb of quantification.
Chapter 3 examines the pattern of adverbial wh extraction from factive and propositional complement clauses and shows that this pattern depends on the event structures of the complement clauses detailed in Chapter 2. Adverbial wh extraction out of infinitivals and gerunds is then examined, along with extraction from some other contexts which involve discourse binding of the event variable.
Chapter 4 examines some simplifications in extraction theory that follow from a typology of chains at LF proposed by Chomsky. On the basis of these simplifications, a radically reduced system of g-marking is proposed for extraction theory. A definition of antecedent government is then formulated so as to capture the Minimality effects on antecedent government of intervening complementizers.
Chapter 5 summarizes the results of the thesis and discusses them in the light of some recent literature.
Thesis Supervisor: Noam Chomsky
Title: Institute Professor
Chapter 1 Preliminaries and Theoretical Framework 8
1.0 Introduction 8
1.1 The Syntactic Framework 8
1.2 The Semantic Framework 14
1.2.1 Theta role discharge and semantic composition 15
1.2.2 Event semantics 20
1.2.3 Discourse binding 23
1.3 Outline of the thesis 26
Chapter 2 Events and Presuppositions 28
2.0 Introduction 28
2.1 The event structure of tensed complement clauses 28
2.1.1 Propositional and factive complements 29
2.1.2 Response stance complements 45
2.1.3 The complementizer in propositional complements 48
2.1.4 Further properties of factive and response stance
complements 50
2.2 The event structure of infinitival complement clauses 55
2.2.1 Nonimplicative (propositional and “irrealis”) infinitivals 55
2.2.2 Implicative infinitivals 57
2.3 The event structure of gerunds 67
2.4 The structural generation of some other presuppositions 77
2.4.1 Temporal adverbial clauses 78
2.4.2 Change/continuation of state verbs 79
2.4.3 Iteratives and continuants 81
2.4.4 Clefts and pseudoclefts 82
2.4.5 Implicit clefts with stressed constituents 83
2.5 Presuppositions, defeasability, and modal contexts 83
2.5.1 Defeasability 83
2.5.2 Modals and presuppositions 86
Chapter 3 Adjunct Extraction 88
3.0 Introduction 88
3.1 Adverbial extraction from tensed complements 89
3.1.1 The basic extraction facts 90
3.1.2 Syntactic accounts in the literature 92
3.1.3 Adverbial extraction and event structure 95
3.1.4 Adverbial extraction out of multiple embeddings 100
3.1.4.1 On a processing account of the data 105
3.2 Adverbial extraction and event structure: other contexts 107
3.2.1 Nonfactive infinitivals 107
3.2.2 Perception verbs and implicative verbs 109
3.2.3 Gerunds 111
3.2.4 Temporal adverbials 120
3.2.5 Change/continuation of state verbs 121
3.2.6 Iteratives and continuants 123
3.3 Referential indices and secondary predication 124
Chapter 4 Wh Movement and Legitimate Objects at LF 130
4.1 Legitimate LF chains 130
4.2 Antecedent government and Minimality 141
4.3 Complementizer agreement and the Comp-trace effect 161
4.4 Inner Islands 165
4.5 Subjacency 170
4.6 Wh-in-situ 177
Chapter 5 Summary and Discussion 185
5.1 On the semantic content of complementizers 185
5.1.1 Negative complementizers: Laka (1990) 189
5.1.2 Indicative and subjunctive complements in Italian:
Scorretti (1991) 193
5.2 Complementizers, antecedent government, and Minimality 195
5.2.1 Lasnik and Saito (1984, forthcoming) 198
5.2.2 Chomsky’s Barriers 199
5.2.3 Cinque (1990) 200
5.2.4 Rizzi (1990) 204
5.3 Topics for further inquiry 209