One central strand of analyses of the 'generic' or 'quasi-universal' interpretation of impersonal... more One central strand of analyses of the 'generic' or 'quasi-universal' interpretation of impersonal pronouns involves treating them as featurally impoverished pronouns which act as variables bound by a generic operator either high in the clause (Molt-mann 2006, SigurDsson and Egerland 2009, a.o.) or at the top of the DP (Ackema and Neeleman 2016b). In this paper, I will introduce a new pronominal form man in Multicultural London English (MLE), and give compelling evidence from its unique properties that the Gn-binding analysis of generic readings for impersonal pronouns cannot extend to this pronoun: the pronoun never behaves as a bound variable, and so it could not reasonably be assumed that a generic operator can bind it. I argue that the properties of the pronoun can be explained instead by positing a featureless person head, which introduces the full lattice of the person ontology (following Harbour In Press), and then allowing contextually determined subsets of that full lattice to be picked out by a choice function, modelled on the epsilon operator of von Heusinger (2004). This novel data from MLE suggests that generic-like interpretations can arise even where generic binding is not possible, but that both strategies of generating these interpretations are needed to capture the full typology.
This thesis is an investigation of the nature of the syntax-semantics and syntax-phonology interf... more This thesis is an investigation of the nature of the syntax-semantics and syntax-phonology interfaces, focusing on the noun phrase. It is argued that, under the assumption that the mapping between syntax and semantics is homomorphic, employing movement operations which do not have semantic effects as an explanatory tool for understanding word-order variation cross-linguistically is undesirable. I argue for the non-existence of head movement as a narrow syntactic operation, on the grounds that it does not produce semantic effects, and I explain apparent head movement effects in terms of the nature of the spell-out operation which maps syntactic structure to phonology. A Direct Linearization theory is proposed in which word-order effects purported to be the result of movement can be derived without appeal to any narrow syntactic operations; the explanatory burden shifts onto the mapping from syntax to phonology, which allows more than one head in a continuous complement line to be spelled out as a single morphological unit; morphological words can spell out at different positions along the extended projection of a root, giving rise to word order variation. I support these claims with two empirical case studies: 1. A study of the interpretation of different noun phrase configurations in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese shows that the spell-out system proposed in the thesis has better empirical coverage than an analysis which relies on head movement or phrasal movement; 2. An extension to a broader typology of classifier languages shows that the spell-out system proposed can capture an interesting generalization about the licensing of definite interpretations and definite morphology across classifier languages, and that word order variation among DP internal elements (Demonstrative, Numeral, Classifier, Adjective and Noun) in those languages can be derived without recourse to phrasal movement (where that movement has no interpretive effects).
One central strand of analyses of the 'generic' or 'quasi-universal' interpretation of impersonal... more One central strand of analyses of the 'generic' or 'quasi-universal' interpretation of impersonal pronouns involves treating them as featurally impoverished pronouns which act as variables bound by a generic operator either high in the clause (Molt-mann 2006, SigurDsson and Egerland 2009, a.o.) or at the top of the DP (Ackema and Neeleman 2016b). In this paper, I will introduce a new pronominal form man in Multicultural London English (MLE), and give compelling evidence from its unique properties that the Gn-binding analysis of generic readings for impersonal pronouns cannot extend to this pronoun: the pronoun never behaves as a bound variable, and so it could not reasonably be assumed that a generic operator can bind it. I argue that the properties of the pronoun can be explained instead by positing a featureless person head, which introduces the full lattice of the person ontology (following Harbour In Press), and then allowing contextually determined subsets of that full lattice to be picked out by a choice function, modelled on the epsilon operator of von Heusinger (2004). This novel data from MLE suggests that generic-like interpretations can arise even where generic binding is not possible, but that both strategies of generating these interpretations are needed to capture the full typology.
This thesis is an investigation of the nature of the syntax-semantics and syntax-phonology interf... more This thesis is an investigation of the nature of the syntax-semantics and syntax-phonology interfaces, focusing on the noun phrase. It is argued that, under the assumption that the mapping between syntax and semantics is homomorphic, employing movement operations which do not have semantic effects as an explanatory tool for understanding word-order variation cross-linguistically is undesirable. I argue for the non-existence of head movement as a narrow syntactic operation, on the grounds that it does not produce semantic effects, and I explain apparent head movement effects in terms of the nature of the spell-out operation which maps syntactic structure to phonology. A Direct Linearization theory is proposed in which word-order effects purported to be the result of movement can be derived without appeal to any narrow syntactic operations; the explanatory burden shifts onto the mapping from syntax to phonology, which allows more than one head in a continuous complement line to be spelled out as a single morphological unit; morphological words can spell out at different positions along the extended projection of a root, giving rise to word order variation. I support these claims with two empirical case studies: 1. A study of the interpretation of different noun phrase configurations in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese shows that the spell-out system proposed in the thesis has better empirical coverage than an analysis which relies on head movement or phrasal movement; 2. An extension to a broader typology of classifier languages shows that the spell-out system proposed can capture an interesting generalization about the licensing of definite interpretations and definite morphology across classifier languages, and that word order variation among DP internal elements (Demonstrative, Numeral, Classifier, Adjective and Noun) in those languages can be derived without recourse to phrasal movement (where that movement has no interpretive effects).
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Papers by David Hall
A Direct Linearization theory is proposed in which word-order effects purported to be the result of movement can be derived without appeal to any narrow syntactic operations; the explanatory burden shifts onto the mapping from syntax to phonology, which allows more than one head in a continuous complement line to be spelled out as a single morphological unit; morphological words can spell out at different positions along the extended projection of a root, giving rise to word order variation.
I support these claims with two empirical case studies:
1. A study of the interpretation of different noun phrase configurations in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese shows that the spell-out system proposed in the thesis has better empirical coverage than an analysis which relies on head movement or phrasal movement;
2. An extension to a broader typology of classifier languages shows that the spell-out system proposed can capture an interesting generalization about the licensing of definite interpretations and definite morphology across classifier languages, and that word order variation among DP internal elements (Demonstrative, Numeral, Classifier, Adjective and Noun) in those languages can be derived without recourse to phrasal movement (where that movement has no interpretive effects).
Drafts by David Hall
A Direct Linearization theory is proposed in which word-order effects purported to be the result of movement can be derived without appeal to any narrow syntactic operations; the explanatory burden shifts onto the mapping from syntax to phonology, which allows more than one head in a continuous complement line to be spelled out as a single morphological unit; morphological words can spell out at different positions along the extended projection of a root, giving rise to word order variation.
I support these claims with two empirical case studies:
1. A study of the interpretation of different noun phrase configurations in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese shows that the spell-out system proposed in the thesis has better empirical coverage than an analysis which relies on head movement or phrasal movement;
2. An extension to a broader typology of classifier languages shows that the spell-out system proposed can capture an interesting generalization about the licensing of definite interpretations and definite morphology across classifier languages, and that word order variation among DP internal elements (Demonstrative, Numeral, Classifier, Adjective and Noun) in those languages can be derived without recourse to phrasal movement (where that movement has no interpretive effects).