15.2679, Diss: Syntax: Lee: 'Syntactically-Triggered...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-15-2679. Tue Sep 28 2004. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 15.2679, Diss: Syntax: Lee: 'Syntactically-Triggered...'

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1)
Date: 24-Sep-2004
From: Miae Lee < miae at usc.edu >
Subject: Syntactically-Triggered VP Information Focus


	
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 11:20:40
From: Miae Lee < miae at usc.edu >
Subject: Syntactically-Triggered VP Information Focus



Institution: University of Southern California
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 25-Jun-1905

Author: Miae Lee

Dissertation Title: Syntactically-Triggered VP Information Focus

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax

Subject Language(s):
English (Code: ENG)
Korean (Code: KKN)


Dissertation Director(s):
Jean-Roger Vergnaud

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation highlights parallel constraints observed in
head-internal relative clauses in Korean and existential
there-sentences in English.

Analyzing 'kes' occupying the external head position of the
head-internal relative as an expletive whose function is similar to
that of 'there' in existential there-sentences, it is claimed that
both constructions structurally license VP information focus in order
to highlight the internal head and the postverbal DP, respectively,
within the VP focus position.  Hence, the argument externalization
out of the VP thematic domain in both constructions does not take
place and the respective argument remains within the VP.  The
presence of expletive is, therefore, required for the EPP feature
checking, forcing both constructions to be subject to the VP-domain
specific syntactic/semantic constraints such as the definiteness
effect and the predicate restriction, triggered by the information
focus effect.

By viewing the problem as syntactic phenomena in interaction with the
discourse information structure of the argument,  the proposed
analysis in this thesis claims to resolve the main drawbacks of the
previous analyses in syntactic, semantic or discourse functional
approaches, which suffer from criticisms pertaining to an entirely
syntactic, semantic condition or a pragmatic condition.

This thesis further proposes that existential there-sentences and
cleft-sentences in English license ''syntactically-triggered''
information focus versus contrastive focus, respectively.

In sum, by treating the definiteness effect and the predicate
restriction as the unified phenomena of the structural encoding of VP
information focus, this study successfully identifies the main
triggering factor behind the long puzzling constraints in existential
there-sentences in English and head-internal relative clauses such as
Korean as well.



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