Deletion and Logical Form
I. A. Sag, 1976
This thesis incorporates a detailed study of two deletion rules in English: Verb Phrase Deletion and Gapping. It establishes a fundamental connection between the familiar motion of the recoverability of deletion and matters of logical form.
Chapter One is an investigation of the syntax of Verb Phrase Deletion. Previous proposals for the constituent structure of VP and AUX are examined and rejected in favor of one that accomodates a proper formulation of that rule.
In the second chapter, it is argued that logical considerations play an important role in determining the applicability of such rules as Verb Phrase Deletion. A theory of logical form is sketched, as well as a theory of the recoverability of deletion. Those theories are justified on the basis of many new facts about the interaction of deletion and quantifier interpretation and certain well-known facts such as the problem of "sloppy identity".
Chapter three concerns the rule of Gapping. A reformulation of that rule is offered in light of various inadequacies of previous proposals that are observed. A revision of the A-over-A principle is also proposed, as well as a rather novel proposal for its interaction with the principle of the recoverability of deletion. The logical form of Gapped sentences is also examined.
The last chapter justifies the basic approach of the first three. A "mixed" theory of anaphora utilizing both deletion rules and interpretive rules is seen to be preferable to recent proposals which have attempted to treat all anaphoric processes interpretively.
Thesis supervisor: Noam Chomsky
Title: Institute Professor of Linguistics
Table of Contents
Chapter One The Syntax of Verb Phrase Deletion
1.1 Syntactic overview 10
1.2 Theories, objections, and a proposal 15
1.3 Semantic problems for the syntactic theories 57
1.4 Summary of Chapter One 74
Footnotes to Chapter One 75
Chapter Two Verb Phrase Deletion and Logical Form
2.0 Recoverability of deletion 85
2.1 Logical form 96
2.2 The problem of "sloppy identity" 122
2.3 Residual matters 142
2.4 Summary of Chapter Two 178
Footnotes to Chapter Two 179
Chapter Three Gapping
3.1 Syntactic overview 189
3.2 Previous proposals and problems 201
3.3 RAOAP reconsidered 229
3.4 A formulation of gapping 260
3.5 Gapping and logical form 279
3.6 Summary of Chapter Three 295
Footnotes to Chapter Three 296
Chapter Four A "Mixed" Theory of Anaphora
4.0 Introduction 301
4.1 Interpretation vs. deletion 304
4.2 Deep and surface anaphora 315
4.3 The non-unity of anaphora 329
4.4 Summary of Chapter Four 351
Footnotes to Chapter Four 353
Inconclusion 356