Coreference in Non-constituent coordination

[kay at cogsci.berkeley.edu]

I was about to write exactly what Ash has written.

Paul

On Fri, 17 May 2002, Ash Asudeh wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, 17 May 2002, Dick Hudson wrote:
>
> > ## But surely that's not true of subjects in (so-called) VP coordination?
> > (1)	People come to London in the summer and avoid it in the winter.
> > (2)	Only one student got a distinction and failed - all the rest just passed.
> > (3)	One boy kissed Mary and hugged Jane - all the other girls got kisses
> > and hugs from several boys.
>
> For what it's worth, I absolutely cannot get (2) and (3) to mean what Dick
> wants them to mean. For (2) I only get the reading where the student gets
> a distinction but still fails (not the reading where there's only one
> student who got a distinction, and only one who failed). For (3) I only
> get a reading where the same boy kisses Mary and hugs Jane, which still
> makes sense with the continuation.
>
> As for (1), I do get a reading where it's possibly different people
> visiting London in the summer and the winter, but I suspect it has to do
> with the generic subject, which still makes Dick's point I suppose.
>
> Best,
> Ash
>


__________________________________________________________
 Paul Kay                      Department of Linguistics
 kay at cogsci.berkeley.edu       University of California
 www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~kay    Berkeley, CA 94720, USA