Maribel Romero Fall 1999 - 653: Ellipsis

653: Seminar on Ellipsis Course Description and Syllabus Course Description This seminar explores the Syntax-Semantics interface and, to some extent, the discourse conditions of several elliptical constructions, namely VP-Ellipsis, Antedecent-Contained Deletion (ACD), Comparative Deletion/Ellipsis, Sluicing, Reduced Conditionals, Gapping, Pseudogapping, Conjunction Reduction (seemingly phrasal coordination, ATB and Right Node Raising), and Stripping. Its first goal is to investigate the “similarity” between each type of elided constituent and some salient antecedent constituent from which the meaning of the elided constituent is recovered. The questions asked in this respect will be: (i) whether this similarity has to be syntactic or semantic (or something else), and (ii) how tight this similarity has to be. The second goal is to try to condense the “similarity” conditions of several ellipsis types into a single general one. We will be interested in how to derive the particularities of each ellipsis type from independent factors. Course Requirements There are no prerequisites, but some knowledge of Syntax and of Semantics is recommended (at least equivalent to Syntax II and Formal Semantics I). Requirements: One term paper due on December 13 by noon. Two class presentations: One presentation of one paper on the syllabus, before Nov 17. One presentation of your own incipient project on Nov 17. Final presentation of your project at some date to be announced (last day of classes or soon after). References Syllabus Note: The seminar meets regularly on Wednesday, but there will be talks by guests speakers that may be held on a different day of the week. These talks are highly relevant to the seminar and I will consider them part of it. I include them in the syllabus already (preceded by a star), though dates are tentative. Sept 8 Introduction to VP-Ellipsis: Parallelism Condition and VP-Identity Condition. Puzzles. Readings: none. Background: Sag (1976), Williams (1977), Hirschbühler (1982), Lobeck (1995), Johnson (199?).   Sept 15 Parallelism Condition I: core cases; anaphora puzzles Readings: Fiengo-May (1994): chapter TBA. Rooth (1992b) Background: Dahl (1973), Rooth (1992a), Fiengo-May (1994, entire book), Asher et al. (forth.)   Sept 22 Parallelism Condition II: anaphora puzzles (cont’d); scope puzzles. Readings: Fox (1999): chapters 2 and 4. Background: Higginbotham (1983), Haik (1987), Hestvik (1995), Oku (1998), Shieber et al. (1999).   Sept 29 VP-Identity I (also in ACD): the tightness of Syntactic Identity; the Infinite Regress problem. Readings: Fiengo-May (1994): chapter TBA. Kennedy (1997b). Background:Sag (1976: ACD ch.), May (1985), Hornstein (1994), Jacobson (1998), Lappin (1999).   Oct 6 VP-Identity II: Semantic Identity. Readings: Jacobson (1992) Hardt (1999) Background: Webber (1978), Dalrymple et al. (1991), Hardt (1993), Kamp-Reyle (1993), Lasnik (1995), Lappin (1996).   Oct 13 VP-Identity III: no VP-Identity. Readings: Fox (1999): ch. 3. Background: Tancredi (1992)   *Oct 15 Talk by D. Fox (Harvard Univ.). Oct 20 Comparatives I: two types of than?; Semantics. Readings: Lechner (forth.): ch. TBA. Kennedy (1997a): ch. TBA. Background: Bresnan (1973), Hankamer (1973), Pinkham (1982), Heim (1985), McCawley (1988), Klein (1992), Kennedy-Merchant (forth.). *Oct ?? Possible talk by W. Lechner (Univ. Tübingen) Oct 27 Sluicing I: introduction; islands. Readings: Chung-Ladusaw- McCloskey (1995) Merchant (1999): ch. 5. Background: Ross (1969), Levin (1982), Romero (1998)   Nov 3 Sluicing II: restriction on antecedents; vehicle change to E-type pronouns. Reduced Conditionals. Readings: Romero (1999): Ch. 1. Schwarz (199?) Background: Kadmon (1987), von Fintel (199?). *Nov 4 Talk by S. Tomioka (Univ. Delaware).   Nov 10 Gapping. Readings: Neijt (197?) Johnson (1996) Background: Ross (1970), Maling (1972), Johnson (1998), Aoun-Benmamoun (1999).   Nov 17 Class presentations.   Nov 24 Coordinate structures I: coordinate phrases or ellipsis? Readings: Wilder (1997) Munn (1998) Background: Larson (1985), Heycock-Kroch (1994), Wilder (1994), Schwarz (forth. a, forth. b).   Dec 1 Coordinate structures II: extraction (ATB, RNR) or ellipsis? Stripping. Readings: Schwabe (1999) ??? Background: Ross (19??), Williams (1978), Schwabe (1998), Wilder (1998).   Dec 8 Recovery Day or final presentations.