"Syntatic Theory" Query

[Paul Kay]

Tom & Emily,

Are you being too modest?  I find attractive the suggestion that a word
string like "Kim prefers doughnuts" is ambiguous between a
subject-predicate structure (conveying, say, a vanilla categorical
judgment) and a subject-topicalized structure with a specialized discourse
function.  I too haven't investigated whether NP-VP strings can accept the
prosody and discourse interpretations of topicalized sentences like (1)

(1)	DOUGHNUTS, Kim LIKES.

in the sense that I haven't done systematic interviewing on the question.
But consulting nothing more probative than my own intuitions it seems to
me that discourses like (2) are natural

(2)	A: I've brought cinnamon rolls for Sandy, Kim and Pat.
	B: KIM, likes DOUGHNUTS.

and suggest that NP-VP strings can constitute topicalized structures wrt
discorse interpretation and prosody.

Paul


On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Tom Wasow wrote:

> Here is a partial answer from 2/3 of the authors of the textbook.  Ivan is
> on vacation just now, so his response will have to wait.  We are confident
> he will have something to add.
>
> The mechanisms we introduce in Chapter 14 would in fact block the analysis
> in b).  The lexical entry for 'smiled' is [STOP-GAP < >], because this is
> a lexical default that is obligatorily preserved by lexical rules (p.
> 441).  Hence, the Head-Filler Rule, which requires a nonempty STOP-GAP
> value on the head, will not be able to apply.
>
> We hasten to add, however, that a slight modification of the example
> raises essentially the same question.  'John smiled knowingly' does permit
> an analysis in which 'John' is the filler for a subject gap.  Nothing in
> our grammar blocks 'smiled knowingly' from having the requisite STOP-GAP
> value.
>
> Our book makes no pretense of giving more than a very incomplete sketch of
> a theory of long-distance dependencies.  A fully worked out treatment
> should clearly eliminate this difference between one-word and multi-word
> VPs:  either both should allow an adjacent subject NP to be analyzed as a
> filler, or neither should.  Frankly, we're not sure which of these
> alternatives is preferable.  If root NP-VP strings can get the prosody and
> discourse interpretations normally associated with topicalization in
> English, then it would make sense to give them dual analyses.  There are
> empirical issues here, which we haven't looked into.
>
> Tom & Emily
>
> On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Rui Pedro Chaves wrote:
>
> > Greetings,
> >
> > can anyone please explain me how the 'Subject Extraction
> > Lexical Rule' as stated in Sag & Wasow (& Bender)
> > "Syntactic Theory" textbook is blocked from predicting b)
> > for a sentence such as 1):
> >
> >
> > 1) John    smiled.
> >
> >     subj-dtr   head-dtr
> > a) John       smiled.
> >     [1]NP     [SPR <[1]NP>
> >                COMPS <>
> >                GAP <> ]
> >
> >     filler-dtr head-dtr
> > b) John       smiled.
> >     [1]NP      [SPR <>
> >                 COMPS <>
> >                 GAP <[1]NP> ]
> >
> > ----------------------
> > subj-extraction-lir effect:
> >   INPUT ( 'smiled'
> >           SPR <[1]>
> >           COMPS <>
> >           GAP <> )
> >
> >   OUTPUT( 'smiled'
> >           SPR <>
> >           COMPS <>
> >           GAP <[1]>)
> > ----------------------
> >
> > Note that would not be possible in Pollard & Sag (1994:350).
> > Thank you very much in advance.
> > Cheers,
> > Rp
> >
>
>
>


_____________________________________
Paul Kay
<kay at icsi.berkeley.edu>
International Computer Science Institute
1947 Center Street
Berkeley, CA 94704, USA
Tel. (510) 666-2885
Fax  (510) 666-2956
www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~kay