predicate cleft and adverbial scope

[Ash Asudeh]

[see original messages below]

Philippa,

What I was really talking about was the following situation:

1. You have two verbs, a "dummy" in the cleft and the "real" verb below
(it was the latter that I meant by the cleft target; i.e., the target of
the cleft operation)

2. On my proposal, the upstair's verbs s-structure node, call it S, was
identified with that of the lower verb. So although the upstairs verb is
a dummy and contributes no semantics of its *own*, it's node in s-strucure
is the same as the node of the verb below.

3. This means that if you have an adverb in the clefted material, nothing
special needs to be said about it. It can contribute a normal adverbial
resource of the form S -o S. Due to the identification of the upper and
lower verbs, the effect is for the adverb to take scope over the lower
verb's resource (which is the same as the upper verb's resource). In this
manner the right adverbial results are achieved without positing anything
special about the adverb at all.

It's not quite right, I think, to say that this means that the verb is
taking scope over *both* verbs, because with respect to scope there is
just the one s-structure node that can be scoped over.

Could you send me some of the data you have in mind? I can't look at it
right away, but I promise to look at it soon.

Best,
Ash



On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Philippa Cook wrote:

> Dear Ash,
>
> in your comment about adverbial modification in
> predicate clefts, you suggest that
>
> "we might want to identify the s-structure resource of
>
> the predicate clefted "dummy" with that of the copied
> verb:
> sigma(^) = sigma((VFOCUS ^) COMP*)
> This would allow the adverbial inside the predicate
> cleft to take scope over the cleft target."
>
> I don't understand how this would ensure scope over
> the cleft target (by which you mean the initial
> "dummy", right ?)...but this is something I've been
> trying to find a way to do in other constructions for
> ages.
>
> Can you elucidate a bit for someone who is new to GLUE
> semantics ? If you'd prefer to do this on the open
> list, then I can re-send the mail into the list.
> Whatever you prefer !
>
> Thanks a lot,
> Philippa Cook
>
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On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Philippa Cook wrote:

> Dear Ash,
> i thought about my first mail to you & realised
> that the scope is presumably simply over "both
> versions of the verb" because they are identified.
>
> What I want to do is have something coming later in
> the clause scoping over a fronted PRED but in
> constructions without verb-doubling. (and HAVING to
> have that scope)
>
> best, Philippa
>
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