Adverb placement [Elektronische Ressource] : an optimality theoretic approach / von Eva Engels

Eva Engels

Informations

• Publié par: universitat_potsdam
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 21
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Adverb Placement
An Optimality Theoretic Approach



Dissertation

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil.)
eingereicht bei der Humanwissenschaftlichen Fakultät
der Universität Potsdam

















von
Eva Engels

September 2004












CONTENTS



Introduction 1


PART I: ADVERB PLACEMENT

Chapter 1.The Dat 9

1.1 The Ordering of Adverbs and Verbs/Auxiliaries 9
1.1.1 Adverbs and Finite Verbs/Auxiliaries 9
1.1.2 Adverb and Non-Finite Verbs/Auxiliaries 14
1.2 The Ordering of Adverbs and Arguments 17
1.2.1 Focus-Background Structure 17
1.2.2 Topic-Comment 19
1.2.3 Frequency and Temporal Adverbs and the Reading of Arguments 21


Chapter 2. Previous Approaches to the Ordering of Adverbs and Verbs 24

2.1 Syntactic Approaches 24
2.1.1 (In)Variable Verb Positioning: Emonds (1976), Pollock (1989, 1997),
Baker (1991) 24
2.1.2 (In)Variable Subject Positioning: Belletti (1990, 1994) 30
2.1.3 (In)Variable Verb and Subject Positioning: Cinque (1999) 38
2.14 (Un)Availability of X'-Adjunction: Ernst (2002) 41
2.2 A Semantic Approach: Ernst (1998, 2002) 50
2.3 Summary 62


i Adverb Placement. An Optimality Theoretic Approach
Chapter 3. An Optimality Theoretic Approach to Adverb Placement 63

3.1 Theoretical Assumptions 64
3.1.1 The Input
3.1.2 Candidates 67
3.2 The Ordering of Adverbs and Verbs/Auxiliaries in English and French 71
3.2.1 The Ordering of Wide Scope Adverbs and Finite Verbs/Auxiliaries 71
3.2.2 Excursus: The Ordering of Adverbs and Negation 80
3.2.3 The Ordering of Narrow Scope Adverbs and Finite Verbs/Auxiliaries 86
3.2.4 The Ordering of Adverbs and Non-Finite Verbs/Auxiliaries 88
3.2.5 Summary 90
3.3 German Verb Placement and the Prefield Position 92
3.3.1 Verb Placement in German 92
3.3.2 The Prefield Position 99
3.3.3 Summary 110
3.4 Adverb Placement and Focus-Background Structure 111
3.4.1 Focus-Sensitivity of Sentence Adverbs 111
3.4.2 Positioning of Focus-Sensitive Adverbs in German 114
3.4.3 Positioning of Focus-Sensitive Adverbs in English and French 135
3.4.4 Excursus: Placement of Sentence Adverbs in Italian 142
3.4.5 Summary 143
3.5 Adverb Placement and Topic-Comment Structure 145
3.5.1 Topic Fronting in Declarative Clauses 145
3.5.2 Adverb Fronting in Declarative Clauses 158
3.5.3 Topic Placement in Questions 166
3.5.4 Adverb Placem 175
3.5.5 ent and the Reading of Arguments 183
3.5.6 Summary 188
3.6 Summary 189


PART II: ADVERB PLACEMENT IN GAP CONSTRUCTIONS

Chapter 4.English 195

4.1 The Data 195
4.2 Previous Approaches to Adverb Placement in Gap Constructions 203
4.2.1 Baker (1971, 1981) 203
4.2.2 Sag (1978, 1980b), Sag & Fodor (1994), Kim & Sag (1995a, 2002) 204
4.2.3 Empty Category Principle Approaches 205
4.2.4 Summary 206

ii Contents
4.3 The Gaps 207
4.4 Wide Scope Adverb Placement in Non-Inverted Gap Constructions 210
4.5. Excursus: There-Gap Constructions 218
4.6 Narrow Scope Adverb Placement in Gap Constructions 221
4.7 Adverb Placement in Inverted Gap Constructions 227
4.8 Summary 231


Chapter 5. French 233

5.1 The Data 234
5.2 Adverb Placement in Clitic Left Dislocations 240
5.3 Adverb Placement in Clefts 249
5.4 Excursus: The Distribution of Sentence Adverbs in Italian 258
5.5 Summary 260


Chapter 6.German 263

6.1 The Data 263
6.2 Syntax: V2 270
6.3 Pragmatics: Information Structure 273
6.4 Semantics: Scope 277
6.5 Summary 281


Conclusion 282

References 284

Appendix: Constraints and Rankings 299


iii









INTRODUCTION



This thesis examines the placement of adverbs in general (Part I) and in particular
constructions, called gap constructions below (Part II). On the basis of the investigation of
adverb distribution in English, French, and German, an Optimality Theoretic (OT) approach
to adverb positioning is developed in Part I. The languages examined here differ in various
aspects of their placement of adverbs. In English, the ordering of adverbs and finite verbs
depends on the type of verb: a medial adverb precedes a finite lexical verb while it may occur
on either side of a finite aspectual auxiliary. The linearization of adverbs and non-finite
verbs/auxiliaries is subject to scope-based restrictions: an adverb outscopes a following non-
finite verb while it takes narrow scope relative to a preceding one. In French, the reverse
pattern holds: while a medial adverb has to follow a finite verb irrespective of verb type
(lexical or auxiliary) - adverb intervention between the subject and the finite verb is strictly
prohibited -, adverb placement relative to a non-finite verb is more variable than in English,
permitting an adverb to follow a non-finite verb that it outscopes. In contrast to English and
French, finite verb placement in German depends on the type of clause (V2 in matrix clauses
vs. V-final in embedded ones), with non-finite verbs occurring in right-peripheral position;
consequently, adverb positioning relative to verbs/auxiliaries is rather restrained. Yet as an
OV-language, German displays a greater flexibility in the ordering of adverbs and arguments
than English and French. A survey of the basic phenomena of adverb placement is presented
in chapter 1.
Section 2.1 reviews various approaches to the variability of and restrictions on the ordering of
adverbs and verbs/auxiliaries in English and French, analyzing the cross-linguistic contrasts
as resulting from differences in the movement behavior of lexical verbs and auxiliaries
(Emonds 1976, Pollock 1989, 1997, Baker 1991), contrasts in the flexibility of subject
placement (Belletti 1990, 1994) and/or verb positioning (Cinque 1999) as well as from
differences in the availability of I'-adjunction (Ernst 2002). However, approaches applying
purely syntactic principles do not cover the fact that semantic factors may influence adverb
placement as well: whether or not a particular position is available for a certain adverb may
depend on the other items involved in the clause. In view of the fact that alternations in
adverb placement may give rise to differences in scopal interpretation, adverb positioning
seems to be restrained by the availability of scope options (see section 2.2). Ernst (1998,
1 Adverb Placement. An Optimality Theoretic Approach 2
2002) traces back these semantic restrictions on the placement of adverbs to their lexical
properties: in his approach, an adverb can only occur in a position in which it may satisfy its
selectional requirements, predicting adverb placement to be influenced by the co-occurring
elements.
Chapter 3 develops an Optimality Theoretic (OT) approach to adverb placement. In OT
(Prince & Smolensky 1993), grammaticality is determined by optimal satisfaction of a
hierarchy of violable constraints. For some input i , a set of output candidates is produced by k
the function GEN out of which the function EVAL selects that candidate o as grammatical k
output which optimally satisfies the constraint hierarchy: the candidate o is the optimal k
output if there is no candidate o such that o violates the highest ranking constraint o and o l l k l
disagree on less often. The correlation between the availability of particular scope options and
the acceptability of certain adverb positions is captured by restrictions on the input and its
realization in the output candidates (see section 3.1): the input is taken to be a semantic
structure, which is subject to compositional principles based on Ernst's analysis, guaranteeing
that only representations that reflect acceptable scopal relations may enter the syntactic
competition. Moreover, an inviolable constraint in GEN is assumed to restrain the base
positioning of an adverb in the output candidates in accordance with its scope: an adverb has
to be merged as sister to its semantic argument specified in the input. However, the surface
position of an adverb is decided on by the candidates' evaluation with regard to the violable
constraints. Since the hierarchic relation between these constraints is crucial in determining
grammaticality, cross-linguistic contrasts in word ordering can be traced back to alternati