Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T19:51:39.485Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Specificational sentences and the influence of information structure on (anti-)connectivity effects1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2009

KAREN LAHOUSSE
KAREN LAHOUSSE*
Affiliation:
Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders & University of Leuven
*
Author's address: Department of Linguistics, University of Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, PO Box 3308, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper argues that the difference between connectivity and anti-connectivity effects in specificational copular sentences is heavily influenced by semantics and information structure. It shows that anti-connectivity effects with respect to binding disappear when the influence of information structure is neutralized, whereas anti-connectivity effects with respect to scope result from the semantics of specificational sentences. These data lead to the conclusion that anti-connectivity effects cannot be used as evidence against a syntax-based approach to specificational sentences and binding, that the analysis of specificational sentences should include both a syntactic and a semantic device, and that the syntactic analysis of specificational sentences should rely crucially on their information structure. I present and adopt Heycock & Kroch's (2002) analysis for specificational sentences, in which connectivity effects result from the assembling of ground and focus. The fact that connectivity effects are also exhibited by verb–object–subject word order in French and Spanish, which is marked for the ground-focus partition, is presented as an important piece of independent evidence in favor of this analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 139 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[1]

This paper has benefited from judgments by and discussion with Manuela Caniato, Carlo Cecchetto, Jenny Doetjes, Liliane Haegeman, Caroline Heycock, Vincent Homer, Stefania Marzo, Francisco Ordóñez, Johan Rooryck, Philippe Schlenker, Dieter Vermandere, María Anne Zribi-Hertz, Luisa Zubizarreta, as well as two anonymous referees for the Journal of Linguistics. All errors remain of course my own.

References

REFERENCES

Akmajian, Adrian. 1970. On deriving cleft sentences from pseudocleft sentences. Linguistic Inquiry 1, 149–168.Google Scholar
Aranovich, Raúl. 2003. Two types of postverbal subjects in Spanish: Evidence from binding. In Beyssade, Claire, Bonami, Olivier, Hofherr, Patricia & Corblin, Francis (eds.), Empirical issues in formal syntax and semantics, vol. 4, 227–242. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek. 1975. Some assertions about presuppositions about pronominalization. In Grossman, Robin E., James San, L. & Vance, Timothy (eds.), The Parasession on Functionalism (CLS 11), 24–35. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1979. Pronouns in discourse. In Givón, Talmy (ed.), Discourse and syntax (Syntax and Semantics 12), 289–310. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bošković, Željko. 1997. Pseudoclefts. Studia Linguistica 51.3, 235–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bosque, Ignacio. 1992. Anáforas distributivas: La gramática de sendos. In Cartagena, Nelson & Schmitt, Christian (eds.), Miscellanea Antverpiensia: Homenaje al vigesimo aniversario del Instituto de Estudios Hispanicos de la Universidad de Amberes, 59–92. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 1997. The great scope inversion conspiracy. Linguistics and Philosophy 20, 175–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 1999. Topic. In Bosch, Peter & van der Sandt, Rob (eds.), Focus – linguistic, cognitive and computational perspectives, 142–165. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cecchetto, Carlo. 2000. Connectivity and anti-connectivity in pseudoclefts. In Hirotani, Masako, Coetzee, Andries, Hall, Nancy & Kim, Ji-Yung (eds.), North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 30, 137–151. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA).Google Scholar
Cecchetto, Carlo. 2001. Syntactic or semantic reconstruction? Evidence from pseudoclefts and clitic left dislocation. In Cecchetto, Carlo, Chierchia, Gennaro & Teresa Guasti, Maria (eds.), Semantic interfaces, 90–144. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter. 1977. Some observations concerning pseudo-clefts. Linguistic Analysis 3, 347–375.Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat. 1988. Studies on copular sentences, clefts and pseudo-clefts. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dikken, Marcel den, Meinunger, Andre & Wilder, Chris. 2000. Pseudo-clefts and ellipsis. Studia Linguistica 54.1, 41–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisner, Jason. 1995. Quantifier connectedness in pseudoclefts. Ms., University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 1997. The dynamics of focus structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi. 1999. Focus structure and scope. In Rebuschi, Georges & Tuller, Laurice (eds.), Grammar of focus, 119–150. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosu, Alexander. 1973. On the status of the so-called right roof constraint. Language 49, 294–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 1994. Introduction to Government and Binding theory. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene & Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline & Kroch, Anthony. 1999. Pseudocleft connectedness: Implications for the LF interface level. Linguistic Inquiry 30.3, 365–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heycock, Caroline & Kroch, Anthony. 2002. Topic, focus and syntactic representations. In Mikkelsen, Line & Potts, Christopher (eds.), Twenty-first West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 21), 101–125. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Higgins, Francis Roger. 1979. The pseudo-cleft construction in English. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Ioup, Georgette. 1975. Some universals for quantifier scope. In Kimball, John (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 4, 37–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Pauline. 1994. Binding connectivity in copular sentences. In Harvey, Mandy & Santelmann, Lynn (eds.), SALT (Semantics and Linguistic Theory) 4, 161–178. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard. 1984. Connectedness and binary branching. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kesik, Marek. 1985. La notion de cataphore: Problèmes de théorie et perspectives d'application. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4, 350–360.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. Scope or pseudoscope? Are there wide scope indefinites? In Rothstein, Susan (ed.), Events in grammar, 163–196. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 1998. Scope inversion under the rise-fall contour in German. Linguistic Inquiry 29.1, 75–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuno, Susumu. 1972. Functional sentence perspective: A case study from Japanese and English. Linguistic Inquiry 3.2, 269–320.Google Scholar
Kuno, Susumu. 1987. Functional syntax: Anaphora, discourse and empathy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lahousse, Karen. 2006. NP subject inversion in French: Two types, two configurations. Lingua 116, 424–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahousse, Karen. 2007. Specificational sentences and word order in Romance: A functional analysis. Folia Linguistica 41.3/4, 357–404.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2002. Reanalyzing the definiteness effect: Evidence from Danish. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 69, 1–75.Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 1990. There-raising: Principles across levels. Presented at the 13th GLOW Colloquium, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Ordóñez, Francisco. 2000. Clausal structures of Spanish: A comparative analysis. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara. 2000. Copula inversion puzzles in English and Russian. In Kusumoto, Kiyomi & Villalta, Elisabeth (eds.), Issues in semantics (University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics (UMOP) 23), 183–208. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Prince, Ellen. 1978. A comparison of wh-clefts and it-clefts in discourse. Language 54, 883–906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1983. Anaphora and semantic interpretation. London & Canberra: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya & Reuland, Eric. 1993. Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 24, 657–720.Google Scholar
Ross, John. 1972. Act. In Davidson, Donald & Harman, Gilbert (eds.), Semantics of natural language, 70–126. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlenker, Philippe. 2003. Clausal equations (a note on the connectivity problem). Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 21, 157–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharvit, Yaël. 1999. Connectivity in specificational sentences. Natural Language Semantics 7, 299–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steedman, Mark. 2000a. Information structure and the syntax–phonology interface. Linguistic Inquiry 31.4, 649–690.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steedman, Mark. 2000b. The syntactic process. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Van Peteghem, Marleen. 1991. Les phrases copulatives dans les langues romanes. Wilhelmsfeld: Gottfried Egert Verlag.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1994. Thematic structure in syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Zubizarreta, María Luisa. 1998. Prosody, focus, and word order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar