18.1803, Diss: Syntax/Semantics/Pragmatics: Kucerova: 'The Syntax of Givenness'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1803. Thu Jun 14 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 18.1803, Diss: Syntax/Semantics/Pragmatics: Kucerova: 'The Syntax of Givenness'

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1)
Date: 14-Jun-2007
From: Ivona Kucerova < ivona at alum.mit.edu >
Subject: The Syntax of Givenness

 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:30:08
From: Ivona Kucerova < ivona at alum.mit.edu >
Subject: The Syntax of Givenness 
 


Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
Program: Department of Linguistics and Philosophy 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2007 

Author: Ivona Kucerova

Dissertation Title: The Syntax of Givenness 

Dissertation URL:  http://web.mit.edu/kucerova/www/Kucerova2007Thesis.pdf

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics
                     Semantics
                     Syntax

Subject Language(s): Czech (ces)


Dissertation Director(s):
Danny Fox
Sabine Iatridou
Alec Marantz
David Pesetsky

Dissertation Abstract:

The goal of this thesis is to account for distributional patterns of given
and new items in Czech, especially their word order. The system proposed
here has four basic components: (i) syntax, (ii) economy, (iii)
interpretation, and (iv) reference set computation. The approach belongs to
the family of interface driven approaches.

The syntactic part of the thesis introduces a free syntactic movement
(G-movement). The movement causes very local reordering of given elements
with respect to new elements in the structure. G-movement is licensed only
if it creates a syntactic structure which leads to a semantic
interpretation that would not otherwise be available. The economy condition
interacts with the way givenness is interpreted. I introduce a recursive
operator that adds a presupposition to given elements. The distribution of
the operator is regulated by the Maximize presupposition maxim of Heim
(1991). The reference set for purposes of this evaluation is defined as the
set of derivations that have the same numeration and the same assertion.

Finally, I argue that the licensing semantic conditions on givenness in
Czech are not identical to the licensing conditions on deaccenting in
English. The givenness licensing conditions are stronger in that they
require that for an element to be given it must not only have a salient
antecedent but also satisfy an existential presupposition. 





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