Antecedent-Contained Deletion

[Gwen Alexandra Frishkoff]

Hello,
Can you explain, what is neural grammar? I'd be interested in any
references.

Thanks,
Gwen Frishkoff

*************************
Gwen Alexandra Frishkoff
Department of Psychology
University of Oregon
sasha at cs.uoregon.edu
*************************

On Sun, 17 Jun 2001, George Lakoff wrote:

> This was one of the old arguments for generative semantics, that is,
> for syntactic distribution to be based on semantic considerations.
> The kinds of examples I used back in 1966 to argue the case were
> distinctions like:
>
> (1) [The man who deserved [it]j ]i got [the prize [he]i wanted]j.
>
> (2) *That Harry [believed that Bill had []j ]i indicated that Sam
> would [claim that Max had []i ]j.
>
> (1) is the old Bill Woods sentence (written about by Bach and Peters).
>
> (2) shows that predicates don't work the same way as arguments, for
> semantic reasons.
>
> The fact so-called VP-deletion is actually the omission of an
> identical predication also explains the ill-formedness of (5) in
> Dan's letter.
>
>  From a theoretical perspective, it would not be surprising if
> functional considerations fit semantic considerations. After all,
> semantically ill-formed sentences tend not to occur and therefore
> would be outside of positive functional principles.
>
> It should be said that such considerations also hold in all
> contemporary theories where semantic considerations determine
> syntactic distributions: e.g.,cognitive grammar and embodied
> construction grammar (aka neural grammar).
>
> It's nice to see argument forms from 35 years ago surfacing again.
>
> George
>
>
> >I am wondering if anyone reading this list knows of or has worked on
> >functional approaches to Antecedent Contained Deletion. Consider the
> >following (inspiration for this posting comes from David Pesetsky's new
> >book, Phrasal Movement and Its Kin, MIT Press):
> >
> >In thinking of functionalist accounts of ACD, some of the simple cases seem
> >to work out. So, consider
> >crucial pairs like the following:
> >
> >(1)  Mary suspected everyone that I did.
> >(2) *Mary suspected that I did. (under verbal ellipsis reading, i.e. where
> >  'did' is 'suspected')
> >
> >(1) is supposed to be good in a Minimalism account because the entire
> >quantified d.obj.
> >  'everyone that I did' raises at Logical Form and then the quantifier raises
> >out,
> >  i.e. 'everyone' to the far left of the phrase, the CP position. And this
> >  movement is supposed to eliminate the infinite regress difficulty. Since
> >  there is no quantifier in (2), such LF movement is
> >impossible, hence we are led to an infinite regress and the sentence is out
> >(though
> >  people don't usually mention that an infinite regress ought only to be a
> >  performance problem.)
> >
> >If I were to take a simple-minded approach to this, I would say that, in
> >RRG terms, you cannot delete/omit verbal material (or any other) from a
> >'core' argument position (the d.obj. especially) because new information
> >is presented here. Notice that the grammatical 'quantificational
> >structure' doesn't involve deletion of a core argument but, rather, a
> >modifying
> >position of exactly the kind that old information often turns up in (and
> >old information is often realized as a clitic or zero). The other condition
> >on ACD is
> >that the antecedent VP is supposed to c-command the elided VP. So no
> >passives: *That everyone did was suspected by John. But c-command, in my
> >experience, can be paraphrased in RRG-functional terms as CORE argument or
> >argument of CORE argument. In any case, the sentence just given is bad
> >presumably because subjects never take objects as antecedents. C-command
> >is unnecessary. Now consider
> >
> >(3) Everyone suspected. That everyone did was suspected by John.
> >Or,
> >(4) John met everyone that Mary did.
> >(5) *Everyone that Mary did was met by John.
> >(6) ??Mary met people. Everyone that Mary did was met by John (too).
> >  (perhaps special stress is needed on 'did' for this to work.)
> >
> >So, it doesn't look utterly implausible to suggest an
> >information-structure approach to ACD, rather than a structural
> >approach.
> >
> >In fact, an information-structure approach is rendered even more
> >plausible by the well-known, but often ignored, fact that intonation affects
> >most
> >cases of deletion and displaced constituents. Is anyone on this list aware
> >of any
> >attempts to reanalyze ACD facts in terms of information structure?
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >Dan Everett
>