Linear Order and Constituency Colin Phillips Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory Department of Linguistics University of Maryland

Incremental Structure Building An investigation of the grammatical consequences of incremental, left-to-right structure building

Incremental Structure Building A

AB

A BC

A B CD

A B C DE

AB

AB constituent

Incremental Structure Building A BC constituent is destroyed by addition of new material

Incremental Structure Building A BC

A BC constituent

Incremental Structure Building A B CD constituent is destroyed by addition of new material

Incremental Structure Building the cat

Incremental Structure Building the catsat

Incremental Structure Building the cat saton

Incremental Structure Building the cat sat on the rug

Incremental Structure Building the cat saton

Incremental Structure Building the cat sat on the rug

Incremental Structure Building the cat sat on the rug [sat on] is a temporary constituent, which is destroyed as soon as the NP [the rug] is added.

Incremental Structure Building Conflicting Constituency Tests Verb + Preposition sequences can undergo coordination… (1) The cat sat on and slept under the rug. …but cannot undergo pseudogapping (Baltin & Postal, 1996) (2) *The cat sat on the rug and the dog did the chair.

Incremental Structure Building the cat saton

Incremental Structure Building the cat satonsleptunder and

Incremental Structure Building the cat satonsleptunder and coordination applies early, before the V+P constituent is destroyed.

Incremental Structure Building the cat saton

Incremental Structure Building the cat sat on the rug

Incremental Structure Building the cat sat on the rug andthe dogdid

Incremental Structure Building the cat sat on the rug andthe dogdid pseudogapping applies too late, after the V+P constituent is destroyed.

Incremental Structure Building Constituency Problem Different diagnostics of constituency frequently yield conflicting results Incrementality Hypothesis (a) Structures are assembled strictly incrementally (b) Syntactic processes see a ‘snapshot’ of a derivation - they target constituents that are present when the process applies (c) Conflicts reflect the simple fact that different processes have different linear properties Applied to interactions among binding, movement, ellipsis, prosodic phrasing, clitic placement, islands, etc. (Phillips 1996, in press; Richards 1999, 2000; Guimaraes 1999; etc.)

Movement & Binding a.John gave books to them on each other’s birthdays.

Movement & Binding a.John gave books to them on each other’s birthdays. gave books to them on each other’s birthdays VP V V (Pesetsky 1995)

Movement & Binding a.John gave books to them on each other’s birthdays. gave books to them on each other’s birthdays VP V V (Pesetsky 1995)

Movement & Binding b. …and [give books to them] he did ___ on each other’s birthdays (Pesetsky 1995)

Movement & Binding b. …and [give books to them] he did ___ on each other’s birthdays gave books to them on each other’s birthdays V’ VP (Pesetsky 1995)

Movement & Binding b. …and [give books to them] he did ___ on each other’s birthdayså gave books to them on each other’s birthdays V’ VP (Pesetsky 1995)

give books VP V to them

give books VP V to them IP hedid

give books VP V to them IP hedid

give books to them VP V give books VP V to them IP he did I’ constituent movement

give books to them on each other’s birthdays VP V V give books VP V to them IP he did I’ constituent movement

give books to them on each other’s birthdays VP V V give books VP V to them IP he did I’ constituent movement binding under c-command

Linear Order Movement & Binding: Binding relation does not block movement, because it is established after movement Ellipsis & Binding: Binding/Scope do block ellipsis, because they are established too early in the left-right derivation

Ellipsis blocks Scope/Binding John gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays *…and Mary did on each other’s first day of school Bill read all the books in a week (ambiguous scope) …and Sue did in a month (unambiguous scope)

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V V IP John +fin I’

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V V IP John +fin I’ and VP IP Bill did I’

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V V IP John +fin I’ and VP IP Bill did I’

gave books to the children VP V IP John +fin I’

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V IP John +fin I’

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V IP John +fin I’ IP and VP IP Bill did I’

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V IP John +fin I’ IP and VP IP Bill did I’

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V IP John +fin I’ IP and VP IP Bill did I’ gave books to the children V VP

gave books to the children on each other’s birthdays VP V IP John +fin I’ IP and VP IP Bill did I’ gave books to the children V VP on each other’s first day of school VP

Linear Order There have been other recent accounts which show how to handle these facts in a standard ‘back-to-front’ approach to structure-building movement & ellipsisLechner, 2001 ellipsis & bindingBaltin, in press (NLLT) None of these alternatives explains the whole range of facts; nor do they explain how comparative ellipsis sometimes behaves like movement, other times like VP- ellipsis…

Comparative Ellipsis John read as many books as Bill did in a week. (ambiguous) John read as many books in a week as Bill did in a month. (unambiguous)

Comparative Ellipsis John read as many books as Bill did in a week. (ambiguous) John read as many books in a week as Bill did in a month. (unambiguous)

Comparative Ellipsis John read as many books as Bill did in a week. (ambiguous) John read as many books in a week as Bill did in a month. (unambiguous) distributive reading of adverbial PP destroys constituency of V+NP

Comparative Ellipsis John read as many books as Bill did in a week. (ambiguous) John read as many books in a week as Bill did in a month. (unambiguous) distributive reading of adverbial PP destroys constituency of V+NP after ellipsisbefore ellipsis

Interim Conclusion By building syntactic structures from left-to-right we can explain a number of otherwise mysterious constituency phenomena (see Phillips, in press for more examples) We knew independently that humans have a left-to-right structure-building system (i.e. parser, producer) Possibility arises that the incremental left-to-right system is the only structure-building system that humans have