[HPSG-L] extraction of primary objects and benefactives in English

[Tom Wasow]

Hi Stefan,

In answer to the question about experimental studies, there is a very old
one by Langendoen, et al, which I am attaching.  In my view, it falsifies
that the conventional wisdom that the extraction of the primary object is
unacceptable, though it is consistent with the claim that this extraction
is marked compared to the extraction of the secondary object.

Best,

Tom

P.S.  My own intuitions (which tend to be less restrictive than those of
many other native English-speaking linguists) agree with the Langendoen, et
al experiments -- that is, I find extractions of the primary object no
worse than awkward, irrespective of whether the primary object is a
recipient or a benefactive.

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 12:19 PM, Stefan Müller <St.Mueller at hu-berlin.de>
wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I am looking at extractions of objects in English. The literature claims
> that extraction of the primary object is out/bad/marked and the
> extraction of the secondary object is fine.
>
> Hudson:
>
>   We give children sweets.
>   Which sweets do you give children _?
> % Which children do you give _ sweets?
>
> First question: Are there any experimental studies on this?
>
> Second question: Are benefactive different?
>
>   He carved this woman a statue.
>   What kind of statue did he carve this woman _?
> % Which woman did he carve _ a statue?
>
> Third question: Is there an HPSG analysis that formally blocks the
> extraction of one of the objects?
>
> I would do this by lexically specifying the SLASH value of the object as
> empty, but maybe there is a paper on or an implementation of this already.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Greetings from Berlin
>
>         Stefan
>
>
>
> @article{Hudson92a,
>         Author = {Richard Hudson},
>         Journal = {Language},
>         Number = {2},
>         Pages = {251--276},
>         Title = {So-Called 'Double Objects' and Grammatical Relations},
>         Volume = {68},
>         Year = {1992}}
>
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