34.2186, Review: Coordination and the Syntax – Discourse Interface

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LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2186. Tue Jul 11 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2186, Review: Coordination and the Syntax – Discourse Interface

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Date: 20-May-2023
From: Victoria Fendel [vbmf2 at cantab.ac.uk]
Subject: Morphology, Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax: Altshuler, Altshuler (2022)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/33.3674

AUTHOR: Daniel Altshuler
AUTHOR: Robert Truswell
TITLE: Coordination and the Syntax – Discourse Interface
SERIES TITLE: Oxford Surveys in Syntax & Morphology
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Victoria Fendel

SUMMARY
The volume is written as a survey (p. 1) and consists of seven
chapters, with Chapter 6 going beyond the scope of a survey and
offering the authors’ own approach to the topic. The volume has
emerged from the collaboration of a semanticist and a (generative)
syntactician (p. 280). The volume is concerned with extraction from
coordinate structures, as in the examples cited here: (p. 3) What did
[[Kim enjoy _____] but [Sally hate _____]]? (Across the Board
extraction (ATB)); (p. 4) What did you [[go to the store] and [buy
_____]]?; (p. 4) How much can you [[drink _____] and [still stay
sober]]? The three examples show (i) three different patterns of where
the gap in the extraction structure appears, (ii) the prevalence of
verb-phrase coordination in extraction patterns (p. 51), (iii) the
distinction between symmetric and asymmetric patterns of extraction
(p. 18), and (iv) the prevalence of ‘and’ in the discussion of the
volume yet the availability of other conjunctions such as ‘but’ and
‘or’ (pp. 52 and 234–235). The volume aims to fruitfully reconcile two
fundamentally different approaches to extraction from coordinate
structures in the research literature, (i) the ‘syntax calls the
shots’ approach has attempted to ‘reduce patterns of extraction from
coordinate structures to principled statements about constraints on
unbounded dependencies in syntax’ (p. 5), whereas (ii) the ‘discourse
calls the shots’ has relied on ‘asyntactic statements about the
interpretation of unbounded dependency constructions in specific
discourse contexts’ (p. 5). The volume establishes seven Choice Points
(summarised in the Appendix, pp. 292–293) at points where the research
literature cannot be synthesized.
        Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the topic, extraction from
coordinate structures and the syntax-discourse interface, and to Ross’
(1967) ‘Coordinate Structure Constraint, or CSC, which prohibits
extraction of conjuncts and extraction out of conjuncts’, and provides
an overview of the subsequent chapters.
        Chapter 2 shows the difficulties in defining coordinate
structures, in fact ‘the monolithic notion of ‘coordinate structure’
begins to fragment’ (p. 13). The chapter highlights the difference
between symmetric and asymmetric structures, in logical /
truth-conditional and syntactic terms. The authors note that ‘only ∧
and ∨ are binary (they take two arguments) and symmetrical (switching
the two arguments does not affect truth conditions)’ (p. 14). However,
as the examples cited above show, not all coordinate structures fit
this bill. Syntactically, the authors decide in their CHOICE POINT 1
to follow Munn’s (1993) asymmetric analysis, i.e. ‘the first conjunct
asymmetrically c-commands the second’ (p. 32), this is option 4 in the
choice point (p. 37).
Chapter 3 discusses the Coordinate structure constraint (CSC) (p. 41)
– ‘In a coordinate structure, no conjunct may be moved, nor may any
element contained in a conjunct be moved out of that conjunct’ (Ross
1967: 161) – and the range of counterexamples to the CSC.
Counterexamples concern primarily asymmetric types, namely Lakoff’s
(1986) Types A (Narration, n-ary), B (Violated expectation), and C
(Result) (p. 46), along with a Type D (Condition) (p. 48). In all
these patterns, the CSC predicts that extraction from coordinate
structures is impossible when empirical data suggest otherwise. The
chapter presents some non-English data to show that ‘languages do not
vary without limit in which patterns of extraction from coordinate
structures they allow’ (p. 57). The chapter discusses in some detail
how the CSC ‘applies across the range of A'-dependencies, then covert
movement, overt A-movement, and head movement’ (pp. 57–67) in
generative grammar, before focusing on the so-called SLF construction,
e.g. In den Wald ging der Jäger und fing einen Hasen. (‘Into the
forest went the huntsman and caught a rabbit.’). The SLF construction
provides ‘support for Munn’s adjunction analysis of coordination’ (pp.
81–82). The SLF construction ‘involves asymmetric extraction from the
initial conjunct, without restrictions on the category of the
extracted element or the discourse relation holding between the
conjuncts’ (p. 135, ch. 4). The chapter finishes with two choice
points. CHOICE POINT 2 concerns the ‘relationship between symmetrical
and asymmetric patterns of extraction from coordinate structures’ (p.
82) and the authors favour Option 2, i.e. that ‘ATB extraction has no
special status in the syntax’. CHOICE POINT 3 asks what ‘the CSC and
its exceptions derive from’ and the three approaches provided as
options are the concern of the rest of the book (p. 83): ‘Option 1:
Coordination is syntactically unique; the CSC follows from the unique
syntax of coordination, together with general syntactic locality
principles; apparent exceptions to the CSC can also be explained in
syntactic terms; Option 2: Coordination is not syntactically unique;
the CSC and its exceptions follow from general syntactic locality
principles; Option 3: Coordination is not syntactically unique; the
CSC follows from a semantic parallelism constraint …; exceptions to
the CSC follow from nonsyntactic considerations of the sort sketched
by Lakoff (1986)’. The authors aim to make use of theories of syntax
and discourse to explain the patterns observed in this chapter (p.
86).
        Chapter 4, based on a distinction between extrinsic and
intrinsic accounts (pp. 89–90), shows that ‘mainstream Chomskyan
locality theory does not make clear intrinsic empirical predictions
about extraction from coordinate structures … and in particular does
not predict the CSC’ (p. 92). The chapter discusses in some detail
developments in locality theory (pp. 92–103), finishing this section
with parasitic gaps as in Which books did you file t [before reading
p.g.]?, where ‘a gap within a subject or adjunct [i.e. a CED island]
is coindexed with a gap in a complement [i.e. a regular gap]’ (p. 101,
see also p. 126). Parasitic gap constructions run counter to the
Condition on Extraction Domain. The authors find the CSC not to fit
(pp. 103–105) with the rest of locality theory, but discuss in some
detail approaches that have made it fit: ‘Across a range of
theoretical approaches (GPSG, CCG, HPSG, GB, Minimalism, and surely
others), it is clearly possible to develop unified theories of
locality which either intrinsically predict the CSC (as in Gazdar
(1981)) or are amenable to natural extensions which derive the CSC (as
in Pesetsky (1982) or Takahashi (1994))’ (p. 124). They leave the
reader with the question ‘should we’ integrate the CSC with the rest
of locality theory (p. 125). The final section of the chapter focusses
on parasitic gaps and ATB extraction. The authors follow Munn’s (1993)
approach, which considers noninitial conjuncts to be adjuncts, which
are weak islands, whereas initial conjuncts are not islands (p. 146).
ATB extraction and asymmetric extraction from initial conjuncts are
not subject to weak-island restrictions (p. 132). The chapter finishes
with CHOICE POINT 4 regarding ‘the relationship between the CSC and
Chomskyan locality theory’ offering the options of reject, integrate,
or reinterpret (p. 137, see also p. 139).
        Chapter 5 discusses in detail Lakoff’s (1986) and Kehler’s
(2002) approaches to extraction from coordinate structures (p. 140).
For Lakoff, discourse relations were ‘direct causal factors accounting
for the different extraction patterns’ (p. 140) (his Types A
Narration, B Violated expectation, and C Result), which the authors
find impossible to uphold (p. 140). Kehler considers Lakoff’s Type A
as expressing Occasion. Yet, Result entails Occasion (p. 154) which
makes Types A and C difficult to uphold as independent categories. NB:
For Result, the authors assume that asymmetric extraction ‘is only
possible from the initial conjunct’ (p. 167). Furthermore, Type A ‘may
not be a unified class’ (p. 171), in fact some of the conjuncts in
this n-ary type may be scene-setters or internal causes (p. 168)
(Background), which are not instances of Occasion (p. 174). Type B
usually contains an ‘extracted measure phrase and the modal can’ (p.
168). Several patterns that were observed are not part of Lakoff’s
typology, including ATB extraction (p. 177), Type D patterns (p. 178),
conditional-like patterns (p. 178), threat-or patterns (p. 178), and
SLF patterns (p. 179). The chapter concludes that some discourse
relations are inexpressible by coordinate structures (p. 182) and that
the conjunction ‘and’ ‘is incompatible with many discourse relations’
(p. 182).
Chapter 6 ‘is less surveylike’ than the rest of the book (p. 185) and
introduces the framework of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory
(SDRT) (pp. 209–224). One key feature of SDRT is the distinction
between coordinating discourse relations which ‘change the scene and
hence move forward the narrative’ and subordinating discourse
relations which ‘detail the scene and thereby deepen the narrative’
(p. 216), indicated by patterns of anaphora (p. 218); this distinction
differs from that between symmetrical and asymmetrical coordination
(p. 223). A distinction is made between sentence topics, discourse
topics, (common) themes, and discourse relations (p. 251). Von
Fintel’s (1994) notion of sentence topic that stand in anaphoric
relation to a discourse topic is adopted (p. 199). CHOICE POINT 5
considers ‘the relationship between D-linking, sentence topic, and
weak islands’ and assumes that (Option 1) ‘D-linking and sentence
topic form a natural class; only D-linked/topical phrases can be
extracted from weak islands’ (pp. 202–203). The authors assume in this
chapter that Munn’s (1993) adjunction analysis is correct and that
Postal’s (1998) hypothesis of non-initial conjuncts being weak islands
in languages like English is correct (p. 253). CHOICE POINT 6
considers ‘the relationship between a common theme and the ATB
constraint’ (p. 257), with an Option 4 ‘Something else’ acknowledging
that the options considered ‘are quite speculative’ (p. 260). CHOICE
POINT 7 is interested in the ‘analysis of Type B scenarios’ (p. 263).
The authors are leaning towards Option 3, i.e. ‘examples … harbor some
less contentful relation like CONTINUATION’ (p. 263). The chapter
considers primarily binary coordination, although n-ary coordination
is briefly considered (pp. 266–271). The authors conclude the
following correspondences (p. 273): ‘1. Subordinating discourse
relations are not expressed by coordinate structures. 2. Discourse
relations such as PARALLEL, whose semantics makes reference to a
maximal common theme, only allow ATB extraction. 3. Discourse
relations such as RESULT, whose semantics does not make reference to a
maximal common theme and which do not include a discourse topic in
their structural representations, only allow ATB extraction or
asymmetric extraction from the initial conjunct. 4. Discourse
relations such as NARRATION, which stand as ELABORATIONs of a
discourse topic represented in their logical form, allow any
extraction pattern in some instances’. Finally, it is noteworthy that
‘and, or, and but’ do not ‘require a common theme, but all have
distinctive interpretations in the presence of a common theme’ (p.
248). This links back to the discourse dependency.
Chapter 7 concludes that ‘no-one calls all the shots: we need to
analyze both the syntax and the discourse structure to fully
understand patterns of extraction from coordinate structures’ (p.
276). The chapter recaps the distinction between symmetric and
asymmetric approaches to the syntax of coordination (pp. 276–278) –
the CSC predicts that asymmetric extraction should not exist (although
it does). The chapter also recaps how the truth-conditional link
between Result and Occasion would predict on an account in which
discourse relations directly condition extraction patterns (like that
of Lakoff) that ‘every instance of RESULT could also be construed as
OCCASION’, but this is not the case (p. 279). Rather, these empirical
observations support Kehler’s hypothesis of indirect conditioning,
‘through an intermediary of topicality’ (p. 279) – ‘discourse
relations condition the distribution of sentence topics, and
extraction is sensitive to the notion of ‘sentence topic’’ (p. 279).
Postal’s (1998) noninitial conjuncts being weak islands and von
Fintel’s (1994) anaphoric relation between sentence topics and
discourse topics were adopted (pp. 279–280). The authors conclude that
‘drawing out these SDRT-based predictions, and pairing them with the
syntactically motivated distinction between initial and noninitial
conjuncts, is the most significant original research contribution of
this survey’ (p. 280). The chapter finishes with notes on unanswered
questions regarding the topicality approach, language typology, and
Verb Phrase coordination (pp. 280–284), as well as notes on
implications for locality theory regarding conjuncts and adjuncts
along with islands (pp. 284–291).

EVALUATION
The volume extensively discusses and contextualises and eventually
fruitfully reconciles two fundamentally different approaches to
extraction from coordinate structures, the syntactic and the
discursive ones, concluding that a combination of the two is necessary
and introducing the reader to a concrete approach (in Chapter 6). The
volume reviews and synthesizes, where possible, the research
literature in detail, and establishes seven Choice Points such that
the reader could make choices different from those the authors made
e.g. when working on a different language (family). The volume
establishes plentiful gaps in and avenues for research (e.g. p. 96).
Given the presentation of especially the syntactic data, a background
in generative syntax is beneficial as is a background in formal
semantics (especially given the multitude of abbreviations the reader
needs to keep track of). The authors note this interdisciplinary
challenge explicitly: ‘One pervasive practical challenge is that the
required expertise is very diverse’ (p. 280). However, the authors
summarise and clarify choices they make at the end of every section
and chapter, such that as long as the volume is read in a linear
manner, a good amount of background information is provided.
        I would like to raise three specific points: (i) the focus on
English, (ii) the disagreements about grammaticality judgements, and
(iii) the support-verb construction ‘to make a claim’.
        The focus of the volume is on extraction from coordinate
structures in English. This is due to the focus of the research
literature that the survey builds on. The authors are acutely aware of
this (e.g. p. 136) and proffer, especially in Chapter 3, some insight
into the phenomenon across languages. Furthermore, a recurring example
is the so-called SLF construction, e.g. In den Wald ging der Jäger und
fing einen Hasen (‘Into the forest went the huntsman and caught a
rabbit’), which ‘has been the focus of a large amount of research in
the Germanic syntax-semantics community’ (p. 67). The difference
between ‘languages like English’ and ‘languages like German’ impacts
directly on the authors’ theory developed in Chapter 6 as ‘noninitial
conjuncts are weak islands’ in English but ‘strong islands, from which
nothing can extract’ in German (p. 203). The present reviewer finds
the explicit focus on English to be a strength of the volume as it
allows the authors to go into depth.
        The German SLF construction leads to a further observation.
While the present reviewer would rate this construction rather formal
in German and at best eliciting a comic effect in lower-register or
spoken registers, it may well be that language users object to it
entirely. Throughout the volume, the authors comment repeatedly that
they do not agree on grammaticality judgements for some examples. The
question arises whether the differing grammaticality judgements are
related to different mental reference grammars (Smith 2022: 71), as
has been suggested for periphrastic patterns. A similar usage-based
approach is mentioned in passing regarding that-traces (p. 278 n. 3).
It may also apply to examples with and without a conjunction (p. 227):
(127) a. I had a great meal last week. I went to Burger King. b. [[I
had a great meal last week] and [I went to Burger King]]. Conversely,
the different verb agreement patterns in Subject-Verb and Verb-Subject
word orders (p. 29) may be pragmatically conditioned, yet may also
reflect a change in progress diachronically speaking (cf. Bentley &
Cennamo 2022 on Romance). Such usage-based observations raise the
question whether a syntax-pragmatics interface as described by Marten
(2002: 2) ‘from the perspective of a dynamic, hearer-based syntactic
model’ should at least inform the discussion.
        Bentley and Cennamo (2022: 361) and Marten (2002: 4) accord
the lexicon significance at the syntax-pragmatics interface, although
in different ways. In (25), ‘[t]he interesting case is (25b), which
has the surface syntax of a CNPC [complex noun phrase constraint]
violation but is relatively acceptable. For Ross, this indicated that
‘make the claim’ was structurally identical to the verb ‘claim’ at the
level of representation at which the island constraints are evaluated’
(p. 190): (25) a. What did she claim that he had done? b. ?What did
she make the claim that he had done? c. *What did she discuss the
claim that he had done? (Erteschik-Shir 1973: 146) (my emphasis)
However, the issue in (25b) as compared to (25a) seems to be the type
of verb phrase. The verb phrase ‘to make a claim’ has a different
event structure and syntactic structure as compared to the verb phrase
‘to claim’. While we find a simplex verb in (25a), we find a
support-verb construction in (25b) (cf. Butt (2010) on the impact on
event structure especially regarding profiling the subject).
Consequently, the status of the subordinate clause is not the same in
(25a) and (25b). While we are dealing with a complement clause that is
under the scope of the main clause in (25a), we are dealing with an
appositional clause in (25b) (insert ‘namely that’), rather in the
sense of Djaerv’s (2019) main-clause phenomena. Support-verb
constructions and the simplex verb that is either formally or
functionally related to the semantic head, i.e. the predicative noun,
can differ in meaning (e.g. Sanroman Vilas 2009; Storrer 2009), yet in
the specific case of ‘to make a claim’ as opposed to ‘to claim’, the
semantic difference seems to rest primarily on the transitivity
profile of the verb and possibly sociolinguistic factors (e.g. Gross
2017). The support verb ‘to do / to make’ does not modify the subject
component to the same extent as e.g. ‘to receive’ would (e.g. Tovena
2017; Gross 1989). Thus, it seems that in pairs such as (25a) and
(25b), the key to the differences observed is the type of verb phrase.

REFERENCES
Bentley, Delia & Michela Cennamo. 2022. Thematic and lexico-aspectual
constraints on V–S agreement. In Adam Ledgeway, John Charles Smith &
Nigel Vincent (eds.), Periphrasis and inflexion in diachrony: a view
from romance (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical
Linguistics), vol. 48, 335–361. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Butt, Miriam. 2010. The Light Verb Jungle: Still Hacking Away. In
Mengistu Amberger, Brett Baker & Mark Harvey (eds.), Complex
Predicates: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Event Structure, 48–78.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Djärv, Kajsa. 2019. Factive And Assertive Attitude Reports. University
of Pennsylvania PhD thesis.
https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3645.
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 1973. On the nature of island constraints.
Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD thesis.
Fintel, Kai von. 1994. Restrictions on quantifier domains. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts PhD thesis.
Gazdar, Gerald. 1981. Unbounded dependencies and coordinate structure.
Linguistic Inquiry 12. 155–184.
Gross, Maurice Gaston. 1989. Les constructions converses du français
(Langue & cultures). Vol. 22. Geneva: Droz.
Gross, Maurice Gaston. 2017. Petit historique de la notion de verbes
supports. Cahiers de lexicologie 111(2). 121–144.
https://doi.org/10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-07412-0.p.0121.
Kehler, Andrew. 2002. Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar.
Stanford, CA: CSLI.
Lakoff, George. 1986. Frame semantic control of the coordinate
structure constraint. Papers from the parasession on pragmatics and
grammatical theory 152–167.
Marten, L. 2002. At the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface: Verbal
Underspecification and Concept Formation in Dynamic Syntax. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. (18 March, 2019).
Munn, Alan. 1993. Topics in the syntax and semantics of coordinate
structures. Maryland: University of Maryland PhD thesis.
Pesetsky, David. 1982. Paths and categories. Massachusetts:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD thesis.
Postal, Paul. 1998. Three investigations of extraction. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Ross, John. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Massachusetts:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD thesis.
Sanroman Vilas, Begona. 2009. Diferencias semanticas entre
construcciones con verbo de apoyo y sus correlatos verbales simples.
Estudios de Lingüística. Universidad de Alicante 23. 289–314.
Smith, John Charles. 2022. The boundaries of inflexion and
periphrasis. In Adam Ledgeway, John Charles Smith & Nigel Vincent
(eds.), Periphrasis and inflexion in diachrony: a view from romance
(Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics 48), 61–90.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Storrer, Angelika. 2009. Corpus-based investigations on German support
verb constructions. In Christiane Fellbaum (ed.), Idioms and
collocations: Corpus-based linguistic and lexicographic studies
(Research in Corpus and Discourse), 164–187. London: Continuum.
Takahashi, Daiko. 1994. Minimality of movement. Connecticut:
University of Connecticut PhD thesis.
Tovena, Lucia. 2017. Some constraints on the arguments of an event
noun with special aspectual properties. In Maria Bloch-Trojnar & Anna
Malicka-Kleparska (eds.), Some constraints on the arguments of an
event noun with special aspectual properties, 301–328. Berlin ;
Boston: Mouton De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501505430-013.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

The present reviewer has a background in historical and contact
linguistics. Current research interests lie with periphrastic
structures and communicative strategies in corpus languages. The
present reviewer is currently holding a Leverhulme Early Career
Fellowship at the University of Oxford, which focuses on support-verb
constructions in literary classical Attic.



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