Arguments vs. Adjuncts

[Max Copperman]

My intuitions are different from Andy Kehler's, though like his, they seem 
to support the notion that only one instance of an argument PP is involved 
in at least some of John's examples.

> 	(1) John relied on Bill, on his ability to get things done.

It strikes me that some form of ellipsis is happening here; that a
paraphrase would be:

  (1'') John relied on Bill, that is, John relied on Bill's ability to get things done.

where the semantics of "that is" are introduced by the comma in (1). (Note that

  (1''') *John relied on Bill on his ability to get things done.

is bad, so that comma is clearly doing something.)  If it is ellipsis,
the badness of (5) in the null context is expected, as is the ability to
accommodate it in the context Andy Kehler suggests.

> 	(5) #John relied on Bill, on Tom's ability to get things done.

But I don't see how an ellipsis story accounts for (2).

> 	(2) On whom did John rely on his ability to get things done?
 
> 	(6a) Bill panhandled in New York City in Central Park.
> 	(6b) #Bill panhandled in New York City in Golden Gate Park.  (Golden
> Gate Park is in San Francisco.)
> 	(6c) In which park did Bill panhandle in New York City?
>  
> 	(7a) Bill put the statue in New York City in Central Park.
> 	(7b) #Bill put the statue in New York City in Golden Gate Park.
> 	(7c) In which park did Bill put the statue in New York City?
> 
I can get (6a) and (7a) only if "in Central Park" restricts "in New York City"
(pretheoretically, if you were to attach the second "in" to the first "in").
This accounts for the semantic anomalies in (6b) and (7b) but says nothing
about (6c) and (7c).


Regards,

Max


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