Derived constituent order in unbounded dependency constructions

J- Linguistics 30 (1994), 349~4°9- Copyright © 1994 Cambridge University Press

Derived constituent order in unbounded dependency constructions* JAMES P, BLEVINS Centre for Linguistics, The University of Western Australia (Received 20 May 1993; revised 11 April 1994) This paper proposes that unbounded dependency constructions in English instantiate a surface subject-predicate structure in which the predicate is typically discontinuous. Evidence is presented supporting this discontinuous analysis over the operatorvariable structure conventionally assigned to unbounded dependencies. A model of phrase structure that sanctions discontinuous representations is outlined, along with a feature-based strategy for generating the proposed structures within an extended phrase structure system. Extraction islands and other locality constraints are subsequently characterized with reference to the feature propagation paths that induce discontinuity.

Unbounded (or long-distance) dependency constructions have remained a topic of perennial interest within generative approaches to syntax since they were first identified as problematic for the classificatory procedures of Immediate Constituent (IC) analyses. To a considerable extent, the syntactic descriptions assigned to these constructions mirror shifting views of grammatical analysis, as derivational treatments have given way to the operator-variable structures commonly assumed in contemporary accounts. Yet the family of generative accounts also preserves a fundamental assumption that underlies early critiques of IC analysis, namely that the word order variation in unbounded dependencies dictates the assignment of a 'derived' constituent structure that departs from the subject-predicate arrangement of neutral declarative clauses. The claim that unbounded dependency constructions (and inversion structures) defy description in terms of a part-whole system of analysis is forcefully presented in Chomsky (1962: 131-132).

The case for indirect representation, not based on the relation of membership, becomes even strong when we consider such sentences as 'did they see John' or 'whom did they see'. These are sentences that no linguist

[*1 This paper substantially revises Blevins (1987) and chapter 7 of Blevins (1990). I am grateful to Emmon Bach, Roger Higgins, Edwin Williams, and Charles F. Hockett for helpful comments on previous drafts, and to Robert D. Borsley and several anonymous reviewers for numerous criticisms and suggestions that have led to improvements in the present version.

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would ever consider as the starting point for application of techniques of IC analysis - , i.e. no one would ask how they can be subdivided into two or three parts, each of which has several constituents, going on to use this subdivision as the basis for analysis of other sentences, and so on. Yet there is nothing in the formulation of principles of procedure for IC analysis that justifies excluding these sentences, or treating them somehow in terms of sentences already analyzed. To any speaker of English, it is evident that in the sentence 'whom did they see', 'they', is the subject, 'did...see' is the past tense of 'see', and 'whom' stands in place of the object. This paper argues that derived constituent analyses are misguided and ultimately counterproductive, and that, notwithstanding Chomsky's claim to the contrary, unbounded dependencies in English do lend themselves to a revealing part-whole IC analysis. The proposed analyses associate constituent questions like whom did they see with discontinuous structural analyses in which the fronted element forms a syntactic constituent with the governing verb to its right. Such structures unambiguously identify they as the subject of this example, and whom as the direct object. The arguments provided for this discontinuous analysis of leftward dependencies complement McCawley's (1982) arguments for a discontinuous treatment of rightward displacements, and suggest a model of grammatical description in which continuous structural descriptions represent a limiting rather than normative case. Moreover, like McCawley's analyses of parenthetical placement and particle separation, the present approach represents a direct development of descriptivist treatments of constituent dislocation. These claims are elaborated and supported in the following four sections. The first section exhibits the structure of unbounded dependency constructions. The second section provides empirical motivation for these representations in the domain of subcategorization and anaphora. The third section presents a model of syntactic description that admits discontinuous representations, outlines a strategy for generating these structures, and proposes applicable locality constraints. The final section concludes with some theoretical consequences of this approach.

1. THE STRUCTURE OF UNBOUNDED DEPENDENCIES

The family of unbounded dependencies comprises topicalizations, constituent questions, clefts and other constructions in which a dislocated element may occur indefinitely far from the argument position with which it is associated. The association between dislocated elements (or 'fillers') and vacant argument positions (or 'gaps') is subject to a variety of familiar syntactic constraints. Local compatibility requirements associated with the gap are generally shared by the filler. Fillers must, in particular, satisfy any 350

CONSTITUENT ORDER IN UNBOUNDED DEPENDENCIES

subcategorization, agreement and selectional restrictions imposed by the predicate governing the gap. Moreover, the anaphoric options of fillers are also largely fixed by the position of their gap. This effect is tacitly acknowledged in accounts of pronominal anaphora (e.g. the REST Binding Theory) that restrict binding relations to elements in argument positions.1 The domain spanned by an unbounded dependency may likewise depend on the configurational position of the gap, as gaps within complex noun phrases, indirect questions and other extraction 'islands' often resist association with displaced fillers. Li Leftward dependencies I will suggest that these and related properties of unbounded dependency constructions (UDCs) can be viewed as a consequence of the fact that fillers directly occupy the hierarchical position associated with their gap. The dislocation involved in UDCs is, on this analysis, a purely linear separation that preserves basic constituency relations. To see how this proposal accounts for the characteristics enumerated above, let us turn to some illustrative examples. The sentences in (i) provide representative UDCs containing preposed direct objects. (i) (a) They wonder [whom Max saw]. (b) Those files, we can discard. (c) What did Ida find? The structure in (2) represents the analysis assigned to the bracketed indirect question in (ia). This analysis locates the interrogative object whom within the verb phrase, as in the corresponding neutral declarative, and simply inverts the neutral ordering of the object and its verbal sibling. The initial Placement of whom leads to the syntactic discontinuity represented by the crossing branches in (2), as whom and saw flank the superordinate subject Max. (2)

whom

Max saw

U] Here and below I use the acronym 'REST' (for Revised Extended Standard Theory) to cover the post-Standard Theory lineage beginning roughly with Chomsky (1976) and spanning the descendant Government Binding (GB), Principles and Parameters, and Minimalist paradigms.

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The topicalized object in (3) likewise occurs as the sibling of its governing verb, while again inverting the neutral verb-complement ordering.2 As in (2), the clause-initial position of the topicalized object induces syntactic discontinuity in each of the verb phrases that contains it.3 (3)

those files we can discard In contrast, only the lowest VP is immediately discontinuous in the matrix question in (ic), as inversion of the auxiliary did in (4) inverts its neutral ordering relative to the subject NP.4 (4)

what find In each of these analyses, the traditional subject-predicate structure assigned to neutral declarative clauses is maintained in corresponding dislocation structures, so that the variation between such 'basic' and 'derived' constructions is a matter of constituent order rather than structure. This has immediate ramifications for syntactic phenomena that are conditioned by, or at any rate significantly correlated with, configurational domains. Thus hierarchical (e.g. tree- or graph-based) treatments of subcategorization, agreement and case government requirements may apply directly to the representations in (2)-(4). Because these analyses preserve local predicate-argument relations and concomitant configurational domains, [2] This diagram, and those below, suppress irrelevant internal structure (and unary branching). [3] It may be useful to visualize the representations in (2) and (3) as mobiles that in effect swivel about the V node, so that restoration of the neutral declarative ordering involves swivelling the preposed objects to a postverbal position. See section 3 for a feature-based 'swivelling' mechanism. [4] The analysis in (4) reflects the assumption that inversion structures instantiate a discontinuous structure, as proposed most recently in Ojeda (1987), though nothing essential hinges on this.

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no special provisions are needed for discontinuous UDCs. The requirement that a dislocated constituent must conform to the subcategorization or agreement demands of its governing head is subsumed under the conditions that guarantee conformance in neutral declaratives. Likewise, the observation that the anaphoric options of a preposed element are determined by the position of its gap also follows directly if fillers in fact occupy the configurational position associated with the gap. 1.2 ATB constructions The empirical support for a discontinuous analysis of leftward dependencies complements the evidence presented in McCawley (1982) for a discontinuous treatment of 'stylistic' rightward displacements, such as parenthetical placement, verb-particle constructions, and extraposition from NP, suggesting that discontinuity is not confined to marginal construction types. The proposed account of UDCs also provides a directional dual for the multidominated (or reentrant) analyses that McCawley assigns to Right Node Raising (RNR) constructions like (5a). (5) (a) Max likes and Ida hates anchovies. (b) They wonder [what Max likes and Ida hates]. McCawley argues that postposed constituents in RNR structures occur simultaneously in the multiple clauses with which they are associated.5 This analysis is illustrated in (6), in which the postposed direct object anchovies remains a direct constituent of the two coordinated sentences. The representation in (6) also shows thatright-peripheralplacement of the shared constituent induces syntactic discontinuity in each of the non-final clauses in a RNR construction. (6)

Moreover, just as a standard RNR configuration can be derived by postposing a multidominated constituent, a canonical Across-the-Board [5] A reentrant analysis of raising is likewise proposed in Sampson (1975) and criticized in Borsley (1980).

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(ATB) pattern will result from preposing a reentrant element. This parallelism is represented in the analysis in (7), corresponding to (5b). (7)

It is of course not necessary - or in any clear sense advantageous - to posit a derivational relation between multidominated RNR and ATB constructions.6 The operative similarity between these constructions is adequately encapsulated in their parallel structural configurations. The generally peripheral positioning of reentrant elements in (6) and (7) can be seen to reflect the fact that such elements must satisfy constituent ordering constraints within each conjunct. Thus anchovies occupies the postverbal object position in both sentences in (6), as Max likes anchovies and Ida hates anchovies both conform to the neutral SVO clause order. The dislocated counterparts what Max likes and what Ida hates both likewise constitute well-formed indirect questions. In contrast, the medial placement of a reentrant element will typically lead to a violation of constituent ordering principles in at least one of the conjuncts. Hence, the example in (8a) is not a well-formed RNR construction, while (8b) is not a grammatical instance of ATB extraction. In each case, one of the conjuncts is misaligned: anchovies Ida hates violates the neutral declarative ordering, while Max likes what is not a well-formed indirect question.7 (8) (a) *Max likes anchovies and Ida hates. (b) *They wonder [Max likes what and Ida hates]. A similar pattern is characteristic of parasitic gap (P-gap) constructions, which again contain more gaps than fillers, and typically restrict fillers to

[6] As Williams (1978) notes in arguing against deriving ATB constructions from RNR structures. [7] Though (8a) is possible as a matrix topicalization, and u/i-clements in situ, like what in (8b), may be licensed by a higher interrogative element. See section 3.3 for discussion of these options.

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clause-peripheral positions. Like the RNR examples in (5a) and (8a), the Pgap constructions in (9) exhibit a contrast that is directly correlated with the peripheral vs. medial positioning of the filler anchovies. (9) (a) Ida removed without tasting the anchovies, (b) *Ida removed the anchovies without tasting. The paradigm in (10) patterns likewise after the cases of ATB extraction in (5b) and (8b). (10) (a) They wonder [what Ida removed without tasting], (b) They wonder [Ida removed what without tasting]. These suggestive parallels have led to various strategies for assimilating parasitic gaps to ATB constructions.8 The analysis proposed for ATB structures supports a particular variant of this account on which P-gap constructions are again reentrant dislocations. The rightward dislocation in ( n ) corresponding to (9a), patterns with the RNR structure in (6).

(n)

Ida

removed without tasting

the anchovies

This postponed dislocation structure again has a direction dual in the ATBlike (12).9

[8] See Williams (1990) for a recent account, and Postal (1993) f ° r critical discussion of this proposal. fe] There are numerous inessential structural features of the representations in (11) and (12), including the sentential attachment of the PP modifier and the treatment of tasting as the participial head of a gerundive nominal. These features do not materially affect the basic analysis of P-gap constructions, though see Pullum (1991) and Blevins (forthcoming) for a defence of the analysis of gerundive nominals assumed here.

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JAMES P. BLEVINS (12)

without tasting Ida removed what As with the contrast between simple UDCs and neutral declaratives, the essential variation in these subconstructions reflects a difference in constituent order rather than constituent structure.10 Although discontinuity and multidomination are introduced independently in McCawley (1982), the analyses above illustrate the extent to which these representational innovations are mutually supporting. Reentrant structures permit the extension of'trace-less' discontinuous analyses to constructions with more apparent gaps than fillers. Conversely, the peripheral placement of multidominated elements typically induces discontinuity in one or more of the constituents that contain the displaced element. The discontinuous analyses proposed for leftward extractions, including ATB and P-gap constructions, also eliminate a peculiar directional asymmetry in McCawley's (1982) account. While McCawley advocates a discontinuous analysis of rightward displacements, he maintains a conventional structure-changing analysis of leftward dislocations such as w/i-fronting and topicalization. The present approach offers a more uniformly linear conception of word-order alternations, in which continuity represents a limiting case rather than the normative case for syntactic descriptions. 1.3 Resumptive strategies A prominent feature of these descriptions is the absence of clause-external positions and cross-referencing 'gaps' or 'traces'.11 Dislocated elements in the analyses above effectively combine the hierarchical position conventionally assigned to gaps with the linear order of displaced fillers. Empirical benefits of these analyses are presented in section 2. However, this [10] The alternation between (11) and (12) can again be visualized in terms of swivelling the peripheral reentrant element about the two 'fixed* V nodes. [11] Although the phenomenon of wanna contraction in English is sometimes cited as evidence for the presence of a (Case-marked) trace in English extraction constructions (Chomsky 1981:181 f.), a number of recent studies have challenged this view of contraction, and the role of empty categories in conditioning phonological processes generally. See Postal & Pullum (1982), Halpern (1991), Sag & Fodor (to appear) and references cited therein for discussion.

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representational parsimony also leads to empirical complications in extraction constructions that appear to contain both dislocated fillers and overt counterparts of gaps. Unbounded dependencies in the Scandinavian languages provide a clear illustration of this case. Maling & Zaenen (1982) argue that constructions containing resumptive pronouns and those containing gaps form a unified phenomenon, as the dislocatedfillersin both constructions maintain the same tight syntactic bond with their associated extraction site. The Swedish example in (13) illustrates the use of resumptive pronouns to avoid violating an island constraint (here whatever condition bars extraction over the complementizer om).12 03) Vem undrade alia om *(han) skulle komma i tid? who wondered everyone if he would come in time 'Who, did everyone wonder if (he,) would come on time.' Of%

particular interest is the fact that fronted interrogatives like vem 'who' roust conform to the local subcategorization requirements imposed by the governing verb, whether the extraction site is 'gapped' or resumed by an overt pronoun like han 'he'. This similarity is reinforced, as Zaenen, Engdahl & Maling (1981) show, by parallel anaphoric behaviour. Thus reflexive Pronouns within preposed elements may be bound by antecedents that are hierarchically superior to the extraction site, whether this site is occupied by a gap or pronoun. Maling & Zaenen (1982) conclude that a unified analysis of UDCs in Swedish and other Scandinavian languages must provide a means of associating dislocated elements with extraction sites that does not distinguish gapped constructions from those containing resumptive pronouns. REST accounts capture, this parallelism by positing a common opera tor-variable structure, with the gap/pronoun alternation typically ascribed to some sort °.£'sPell out' rule. The phrase-linking analysis proposed in Engdahl (1986) "kewise retains separatefillerand gap positions, but relates dislocated fillers with gaps and pronouns via an auxiliary 'linking' relation. The recognition of clause-external slots provides these accounts with enough positions to accommodate extracted elements and resumptive pronouns in examples such as (13). Yet this solution also requires extensions to the otherwise local conditions governing subcategorization, agreement and case concord, and similar revisions of constraints on anaphoric dependencies. The constituency-preserving treatment of extraction suggests an alternative account in which dislocated fillers and resumptive pronouns are sanctioned bv parallel expansions of a single phrasal constituent. The analysis assigned *° O3) is represented in (14), in which vem skull kommi i tid and han skulle Kommi i tid are simultaneous expansions of the embedded S node. 1I2J This paradigm is repeated from Maling & Zaenen (1982:238), who credit Engdahl (1979).

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S

(14)

NP

NP vem

undrade all

I

VP

I

om han skulle kommi i tid

This representation places the dislocated interrogative vem and the resumptive pronoun han in the same hierarchical position within these expansions. While simultaneous structure of this sort has primarily been explored in multidimensional accounts of coordination and restructuring, (14) illustrates how a parallel alignment of fillers and pronouns may also provide a useful description of resumptive pronoun constructions.13 This analysis accounts directly for the fact that dislocated fillers and resumptive pronouns must both satisfy the local subcategorization demands of the verb governing the extraction site. The structural position of the dislocated interrogative also accounts for the observation that pronouns within a filler are accessible to antecedents that are hierarchically superior to its associated extraction site. Much as REST accounts express the relation between a dislocated antecedent and a resumptive pronoun in terms of an auxiliary indexing relation, the parallel NP nodes in (14) (diacritically marked by dashed branches) supply an additional 'depth' dimension to standard twodimensional trees. The resulting multiplanar structures are representable as three-dimensional trees (or graph structures) in which the branching of parallel expansions is, in effect, perpendicular to simple subconstituent analysis. These representations can in turn be admitted by standard immediate dominance rules, if such rules are interpreted as sanctioning iterative subconstituent expansions in distinct planes. The fact that antecedents are fronted while resumptive pronouns remain in situ can likewise be attributed to the same nonlocal feature specifications that trigger constituency-preserving dislocation in UDCs without resumptive pronouns.14 There remains a host of largely open questions concerning the licensing of [13] See also Goodall (1987) and Muadz (1991) for alternative formulations of parallel structure. [14] See sections 3.2 and 3.3 for discussion of applicable features and their role in triggering extraction.

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CONSTITUENT ORDER IN UNBOUNDED DEPENDENCIES

Parallel expansions, as well as questions regarding the distribution, interpretation and function of resumptive pronouns. Nevertheless, the Proposed analysis suffices to illustrate how the present approach may extend a constituency-preserving analysis to displaced fillers in UDCs containing resumptive pronouns. 1

-4 Bounded dependencies

The nonderivational treatment of constituent order variation outlined in section 3.2 and section 3.3 below is broadly compatible with the family of unification-based approaches, and particularly consonant with extended Phrase structure formalisms such as GPSG and HPSG. I will accordingly follow these nonderivational approaches in analyzing passive and raising constructions in terms of operations on argument structure. Although the Manipulation of subcategorization lists (Pollard & Sag 1987), lexical forms (Bresnan 1982) or theta-grids (Williams 1993) may interact with the principles that determine constituent order, there is no direct displacement involved that would correspond to the syntactic operation of'NP-movement' ln REST analyses.15 This section has provided a general overview of the proposed analysis of ^DCs; the following sections now present empirical motivation for this analysis. The discussion of local compatibility requirements and anaphoric domains in section 2 contrasts the alternative outlined above with familiar operator-variable analyses of UDCs. The treatment of filler-gap locality in section 3 then illustrates how the stable constituency relations in discontinuous structures represent correspondingly stable configurational elands that are to some degree independent of constituent order variation. 2

- LOCAL DOMAIN PRESERVATION

A characteristic feature of generative accounts is the central role accorded to Phrase structure configurations.161 will argue below that the recognition of discontinuous leftward dependencies significantly extends the scope of structural accounts and contributes to an optimal structural analysis of a ra nge of local syntactic constructions and phenomena. Section 2.1 first ar gues that a configurational account of local subcategorization and 1*5] Other classes of bounded dependencies are likewise amenable to nonderivational analyses. Thus the multidominated nodes in ATB structures suggests an analysis of tough-movement constructions in which the surface subject occurs simultaneously as the object of the embedded infinitival. Alternatively, this identification of argument positions can be expressed as a relation between the terms in a subcategorization list or other representation °f argument structure. Similar options exist for other constructions, e.g. clefts, purpose clauses, infinitival relatives, and the like, in which an element in situ simultaneously satisfies an adjoined predicate. 1I6J This is of course not universally true: see section 4 for discussion of some alternatives.

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agreement can be applied directly to discontinuous analyses of extraction constructions. The treatment of anaphoric construal presented in section 2.2 then illustrates that an account which adequately characterizes subject-object asymmetries in neutral declarative clauses will extend to cover crossover and connectedness effects, provided that preposing constructions are discontinuous. 2.1 Argument structure in UDCs An immediate consequence of the present approach is that interrogative subjects of matrix clauses will remain in situ, occupying the same position as basic subjects. This is unavoidable if preposing involves advancing an element to a sentence-initial position, since this advancement will have no effect on an element that already occupies an initial position. A constituencypreserving account thus bifurcates the class of constituent questions. Matrix questions containing an interrogative subject pattern structurally with the corresponding declarative clause, and contrast with canonical UDC constructions. This limiting case of order-preserving 'dislocation' is illustrated by the analysis in (15). (15)

who saw The pattern of triggered inversion and 'do-support' in English provides a measure of independent support for this structural classification. As is well known, auxiliary inversion or do-support is generally obligatory in English questions following a fronted w/j-phrase, and impossible (without contrastive stress) in neutral declaratives. Yet matrix constituent questions containing an interrogative subject constitute a robust exception to this pattern, as they, like declaratives, resist inversion and do-support. The basic contrast is illustrated in (16).17 (16) (a) Who saw Max? (b) *Who did see Max? This contrast is unexpected on standard operator-variable analyses of UDCs. Positioning initial interrogates uniformly in a clause-external slot [17] The judgements here assume that did is unstressed; (16b) is acceptable with did assigned contrastive stress, though the same strategy will allow did to occur in declaratives as well.

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effectively neutralizes the configurational distinction between subjects and nonsubjects.18 A constituency-preserving analysis of UDCs, however, offers a straightforward account for this pattern. Given the analysis in (15), the fact that matrix w/i-subjects do not trigger inversion falls under the broader generalization that nondislocated subjects in general fail to trigger inversion. An account that distinguishes neutral declaratives from discontinuous UDCs will directly subsume the contrast in (16). Within the present approach, triggered inversion in matrix clauses explicitly marks discontinuity: the discontinuous clauses that result from the preposing of a VP-internal interrogative (or negative) element require auxiliary inversion or dosupport.10 The preservation of hierarchical domains in discontinuous UDCs also provides an account for the fact that preposed constituents must generally conform to the same subcategorization and agreement requirements that a Pply to elements occurring in situ. These effects follow immediately within a ny hierarchical account of argument structure in which verbs impose subcategorization requirements on their complement siblings and verb phrases impose agreement demands on their subject sibling. For the sake of ^lustration, let us consider the approach to subcategorization and agreement developed within HPSG. In the version of HPSG articulated in Pollard & Sag (1987), the subcategorization requirements of lexical heads are ^presented by means of a list-valued SUBCAT feature. The elements of a SUBCAT list are syntactic categories, ordered by an obliqueness relation.The la st (and least oblique) term represents the subject; the penultimate term, if Present, represents the object, and so on. The candidate SUBCAT list in (17) thus identifies hates as a canonical transitive verb that subcategorizes for an accusative object and a nominative subject argument.20 (17) hates: [SUBCAT ] The matching between SUBCAT lists and syntactic arguments is regulated by the Subcategorization Principle, which requires that the features of the first syntactic argument of a head must match (technically, unify with) the first Cement of its SUBCAT list, the features of the second argument must unify w ith the second SUBCAT term, etc. Elements of a SUBCAT list are cancelled or 'popped off' as they unify with syntactic arguments. The category that A variety of corrective measures have been proposed to account for this behaviour, including conditions on the subject gap (Koopman 1983) or constraints that prohibit vacuous movement, or render such movement optional, as proposed, e.g. in George (1980) and Chomsky (1986a). A feature-based formulation of this analysis is provided in section 3.2 below. The elements in this list make use of the standard GPSG aliases for complex syntactic categories. Complex categories like {, ,...}, e.g. are specified as NP[NOM]. For perspicuity, the SUBCAT feature name is also omitted from the node annotations in diagrams.

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results from combining a head with one or more syntactic arguments then inherits the SUBCAT list of the head, minus any elements that unified with the argument or arguments.21 The analysis in (18) shows how this mechanism regulates basic subcategorization demands. (18) VP[]

NP[NOM]

V[]

NP[ACC]

hates

them

who

The direct object them is here the first syntactic argument and accordingly unifies with the first SUBCAT term. The result of combining hates with its direct object is a verb phrase that inherits the single-element list . This VP combines in turn with the nominative subject, producing a sentence with an empty SUBCAT list < >. Since this mechanism refers exclusively to hierarchical structure, it applies indifferently to discontinuous dislocated structures. The satisfaction of local subcategorization demands in a representative UDC containing a fronted interrogative objective is illustrated in (19). (19) VP[(NP[NOM]>] NP[ACC]

I whom

NP[NOM] V[]

they

I

hate

As the sibling and first syntactic argument of hate, whom unifies with the verb's first SUBCAT term, yielding a discontinuous VP. The fact that whom precedes rather than follows the verb, and is separated from the verb by the subject argument, does not prevent the object from satisfying the strictly hierarchical subcategorization demands imposed by hate. The local enforcement of subcategorization requirements immediately extends to long distance extraction as well. Given a discontinuous treatment of UDCs, the fact that a preposed constituent is separated from its governing verb by an indefinite amount of intervening material will not disrupt the local [21] This procedure informally summarizes the spirit though not the precise execution of the HPSG Subcategorization Principle presented in Pollard & Sag (1987).

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CONSTITUENT ORDER IN UNBOUNDED DEPENDENCIES

configurational domain within which subcategorization is regulated.22 Other matching requirements, such as concord or agreement, may likewise be subsumed under the local conditions that govern arguments in situ.23 Consider the extensible pattern in (20). (20) (a) I wonder [which client they think hates/*hate anchovies]? (b) I wonder [which client they think Max believes hates/*hate anchovies]? However the subject agreement requirements of hates are represented, they will be satisfied locally in UDCs if the element which client remains the subject of the subordinate clause. For the sake of illustration, let us incorporate agreement within SUBCAT hsts, as in (21). (21) hates: [SUBCAT ] The particular use of the SUBCAT feature to represent agreement requirements ls entirely inessential here (as is the aggregate 3SG specification). Any explicit encoding of agreement features on the subordinate VP in (22) would suffice. The point illustrated in (22) is that the agreement between a dislocated subject and its governing verb (or verb phrase) remains strictly local in discontinuous UDCs, irrespective of how much intervening material separates them. (22)

VP[(NP[3SG]>]

NP[3SG]

I

which client

I

they think hates anchovies

third singular subject which client in (22) is a sibling of the VP hates anchovies, and hence must obey the same local agreement requirements as the su bject of a simple clause like Ida hates anchovies. The additional subordinate clause in (20b) does not disrupt this locality, as which client remains the configurational subject (and last argument) of hates anchovies. f22J It remains to characterize the domain over which a phrase may be discontinuous (the topic of section 3.2), though from the present perspective this has no consequences for constituent analysis. 123] This is of course not to suggest that all agreement processes can necessarily be treated locally, but rather that no nonlocal extensions are required expressly for UDCs.

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JAMES P. BLEVINS

While this illustration has made use of a specific feature encoding of subcategorization and agreement, other principles that regulate local subcategorization with reference to tree configurations or argument-ordering will also apply directly to discontinuous preposing structures.21 This contrasts with the operator-variable structures in (23). (23)

who

hates

them

whom they hate

The dislocated interrogatives who and whom occupy a clause-external position in these analyses and hence do not directly satisfy the subcategorization or agreement requirements of the verbs in (23). Instead, the null 'traces' (annotated e here) are the syntactic arguments, and the matching between these placeholders and the fronted elements is effected by supplementary matching conditions. In phrase structure accounts, these include mechanisms for propagating information about the form and distribution of null elements within a syntactic representation, while in REST accounts, they predominantly take the form of algorithms for constructing filler-gap 'chains'.25 2.2 Anaphoric dependencies

The present subsection explores further consequences of the structures exhibited above. The analyses in section 2.2.1 illustrate how the continuous subject-predicate structure assigned to UDCs accounts for the observation that the anaphoric options of a dislocated pronoun or prospective antecedent [24] Compare, e.g. }he GPSG treatment of strict subcategorization and agreement proposed in Gazdar et al. (1985; henceforth GK.PS), which exploits, respectively, an integer-valued SUBCAT feature and a category-valued AGR feature. As with the HPSG extension considered above, these mechanisms will regulate valence and agreement requirements in discontinuous UDCs. [25] Initial formulations of LFG (Kaplan & Bresnan 1982) likewise analyze UDCs in terms of a clause-external filler that is linked to a null placeholder via bounded metavariable instantiation in c(onstituent)-structures. More recent accounts (Kaplan & Zaenen 1987) characterize long-distance dependencies via functional uncertainty in f(unctional)structurcs.

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are in effect fixed by the hierarchical position of the associated extraction rite The discussion in section 2.2.5 then argues that noncoreference and Subject Condition effects are sensitive to .inear arrangement and S accordingly affected by constituency-preservmg d.slocation In Enelish as in many other languages, subjects and direct objects ot

Afi25£S5

O T ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ objects with respect to appropriate noun phrase in subject^posit on cu (24a) shows, the ill-formedness of (24b) indicates uiai aire control reflexive subjects.

^

j

(24) (a) Kim, nominated herself,, (b) ""Herself, nominated Kim,. J • Tmrc n«: shown by the corresponding This asymmetry is preserved in UDCs, as shown oy topicalizations in (25). (25) (a) Herself,, Kim, nominated, (b) *Kim,, herself, nominated. .

Conngura.ior.al approaches to P ™ -

m i n

t S

in (24) to the structural difference between subjects and » constituent analyses of English declarative clause^ In Binding Theory of Chomsky (1981) and desc e * b r t R B I of aa r P ^ ^ J ^ ^ ^ domain options of a i n of nhri d aanaphoric position on a phrase structure tree, a r e a t t a c h ed ^ subjects and objects is then attributed to s t r u c t u r e tree. higher (under S) than objects (under V .bove, precisely the Given the discontinuous analysis of ttions same account extends to the topicalizations 1 in (24). Z ^ maintain the same constituent structure as (24b) will make a ^24 any hierarchical condition that distinguishes parallel distinction between (25a) and (25b). i n g c i au se-extemal In contrast, analyzing the topics •« ' « i difference between S ^ ^ therefore be positions effectively neutralizes the proposed subjects and objects. The [ prospective pronouns directly attributed to the hierarchical. *. t r e f l e x i v e is and antecedents, as in (24). Although mains accessible to ostensibly higher than its subject — < ^ d o m a i n o f the the subject, while the subject in preposed object. REST accounts b i n d i n g relations to preserves anaphoric domains by ' is problematic (possibly null) argument positio: from Th in two respects: (i) it serves solely to i~—~ the configuration^ consequences of the operator365

JAMES P. BLEVINS

and (ii) it introduces further empirical complications in the description of anaphoric dependencies. Each of these issues is taken up below. 2.2.1 Bound variable anaphora

Let us first review the antecedent-oriented terminology of Reinhart (1976, 1983), which describes anaphoric asymmetries in terms of a structural ccommand relation.26 (26) A node A C-COMMANDS a node B ifif(i) neither A nor B dominates the other, and (ii) every branching node that properly dominates A dominates B. The contrast between (24a) and (24b) will then follow if we adopt the well-formedness condition in (27), which stipulates that reflexive pronouns must have a c-commanding antecedent. (27) A reflexive pronoun must be construed as anaphoric to a ccommanding antecedent. This condition expresses the configurational requirement imposed on antecedents of reflexive pronouns by Principle A of the REST Binding Theory (Chomsky 1986b), which requires that anaphors must be syntactically 'bound' (i.e. coindexed with a c-commanding antecedent). As recognized by Evans (1977) and Partee (1978) among others, a formally similar constraint applies to quantificational antecedents in English. Noun phrases containing the 'strongly' quantificational determiners every, no, etc., must generally occur higher in a structure than any pronominal that is construed as dependent on them. Violation of this requirement typically results in ungrammaticality, as the by now familiar subject-object asymmetry in (28) illustrates. (28) (a) No suspect, trusts his, lawyer, (b) *His, lawyer trusts no suspect,. Example (28a) shows that quantificational subjects may antecede possessive pronouns embedded within a direct object. In contrast, as the ill-formed (28b) indicates, possessive pronouns embedded within the subject cannot be construed as anaphoric to a quantificational object. Reinhart (1983) observes that a unified account of the contrasts in (24) and (28) can be obtained if (i) reflexive pronouns and quantificational noun phrase antecedents principally license bound variable dependencies, and (ii) [26] This formulation follows Reinhart (1976) and diverges from the strict version of ccommand introduced in Reinhart (1983) in that it incorporates the nondominance requirement that Klima (1964) imposes on nodes standing in the IN CONSTRUCTION WITH relation. The proper domination qualification is required for the case in which A is itself a branching node.

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hierarchical superiority is identified as a necessary condition for such anaphora.27 The latter interpretive constraint is expressed in (29). (29) The c-command restriction (Reinhart 1983) C-command is a necessary condition for bound variable anaphora. This requirement subsumes the Principle A violation in (24b) and the crossover example in (28b) under a general constraint keyed to the structural difference between subjects and objects.28 The preservation of this configurational difference in discontinuous UDCs thus supports a general and uniform treatment of anaphoric dependencies. The assumption that preposing preserves hierarchical structure entails that subject antecedents will be able to bind object pronouns and pronouns embedded within the object, irrespective of their relative order. Conversely, direct objects will remain hierarchically ineligible antecedents for subject Pronouns, whether the objects occur in a postverbal position or a preposed sentence-initial slot. The familial crossover and connectedness paradigms in section 2.2.2 illustrate that constituent questions exhibit the generalized subject/object asymmetry expected on this constituency-preserving account. 2.2.2 Binding in interrogatives: crossover and connectedness

The REST classification of who and other ^//-phrases as quantifiers is supported by the fact that these interrogative elements exhibit the distinctive anaphoric options of quantifiers. The examples in (30) show that a questioned subject may, as expected on nearly any account, antecede object reflexives a "d pronouns embedded within the object. (30) (a) Who, incriminated himself,? (b) Who, called his, lawyer? The contrast between (30) and (31) reveals a familiar argument-structure asymmetry, as the interrogative object whom may not serve as an antecedent either for the subject pronoun in (31a) or for the possessive pronoun embedded within the subject in (31b). I27] It may be that the interpretive constraints on quantificational noun phrases are best viewed as preference conditions, given that many quantificational NPs seem to license non-boundvariable anaphora. Reflexive pronouns in English likewise support non-bound uses, not only as emphatic pronouns, but also as discourse-bound pronouns (Lebeaux 1984; Pollard & Sag 1992) and possibly also as empathetic pronouns, encoding point of view (Kuno 1987). See Partec (1978) and Reinhart (1983) for further justification of the view that any structurally superior NP (with the operative notion of superiority defined in terms of ccommand for Reinhart, and the inverse 'in construction with' relation relevant for Partee) may license bound variable anaphora. See also Higginbotham (1980) and Engdahl (1986) Tor a defence of the converse view that only quantificational elements license bound variable anaphora.

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(31) (a) *Whom< did himself, incriminate? (b) *I wonder whom, his, lawyer called? The examples in (32) reinforce the generalization that preposing preserves anaphoric domains, as the subject pronoun he remains inaccessible to the fronted subordinate subject in (32a) and to the quantificational determiner whose in (32b).29 (32) (a) *Who, did he, think would call? (b) * Whose, lawyer did he, call? An analysis on which subjects and objects occupy the same configurational position in w/j-questions as in neutral declaratives provides a straightforward account of the consistent pattern in (3o)-{32). On this analysis, objects invariably occur in the anaphoric domain of subjects, while subjects remain outside of the anaphoric domain of objects, irrespective of their relative constituent order. The structural differences that determine the contrast between (30b) and the subordinate clause in (31b) are represented in the corresponding descriptions in (33). (33)

who called

his lawyer

whom

his lawyer called

As in neutral declaratives, the subjects of these clauses asymmetrically ccommand their direct objects. Given the hierarchical condition on antecedents in (29), this asymmetry effectively determines the contrast between the anaphoric options of who and whom above. The preservation of constituent structure in preposing constructions likewise accounts for a converse subject-object asymmetry involving pronominals contained within a preposed constituent.30 This asymmetry is illustrated in (34) and (35) below. As (34) shows, pronouns within interrogative subjects are inaccessible to quantificational objects. (34) (a) *Which of his, animals would eat no zookeeper,? (b) * Which rumour about himself, discredited each candidate,? [29] Examples of the sort illustrated in (31) and (32) are cases of what, following Postal (1971) and Wasow (1972), have come to be known as 'crossover' violations. (31b) is often characterized as a 'weak' violation, in contrast to the 'strong' (i.e. less acceptable) violation in (32a). [30] These examples illustrate one, particularly tractable, subcase of the connectedness effects discussed in Higgins (1979).

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While this pattern is again generally expected, a more revealing pattern emerges in (35), which illustrates that pronouns within fronted objects remain accessible to quantificational subjects.31 (35) (a) Which of his, animals would no zookeeper, release? (b) Which rumour about himself, did each candidate, deny? These examples again demonstrate the preservation of anaphoric domains in UDCs. Pronouns within a preposed subject remain outside of the domain of a quantificational object in (34), while pronouns within a preposed object remain accessible to a following subject antecedent in (35). This contrast follows directly if proposing maintains constituency relations, as in (33). The interrogative subjects in (34) simply remain in situ on this analysis. The preposed objects in (35) likewise retain their VP-internal position in discontinuous structures like (36). (36)

which of his animals

would no zookeeper release

The key to the uniform treatment of the paradigm in (24H35)' »* * linear characterization of the initial position occupied by a preposed topic or interrogative. If preposed subjects and objects retain their hierarchical attachment, the recurrence of configuration^ asymmetries in UDCs is an immediate consequence. In contrast, positioning dislocated subjects and objects alike in a clause-external slot eliminates the operative configuration^ difference. This precludes a general account of the example above, and necessitates additional constraints to deal specifically with dislocated antecedents and anaphors. Let us now examine these extensions. The assumption that preposed subjects and objects may occupy the same clause-external slot essentially dictates a bifurcation of clause-internal and clause-external anaphoric dependencies in REST accounts, as it enrans tat the difference between (30b) and (31b) cannot be attributed directlyto the structural differences that were invoked to distinguish (24a) from (24b). The problematic neutralization is illustrated in the descriptions in (37), m The examples in (35) exemplify'relational readings' in the sense of Engdahl (1986:174 ff.) While a semantic account of these cases is possible, this cannot provide a general account of domain preservation, as topicalizations like (25a) lack a relational interpretation.

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JAMES P. BLEVINS

which the preposed elements occupy a nonargument position, and a null placeholder marks their underlying position.32 (37)

who e called his lawyer whom his lawyer called The analysis assigned to the examples in (34) and (35) analogously cancels the structural difference between dislocated arguments by placing them in an undifferentiated clause-external position. Hence, unlike neutral declaratives, the distinctive anaphoric options of dislocated subjects and objects cannot be attributed to their surface position in UDCs. REST treatments accordingly partition anaphoric dependencies into two subclasses: relations between nominals in clause-internal A(rgument)positions, and relations involving nominals in A (nonargument) positions. The Binding Theory and, in particular, Principle A govern anaphoric relations between NPs in A-positions.33 Supplementary constraints, which are mostly keyed indirectly to the A-position with which a preposed element is associated, are then invoked to regulate anaphoric relations involving A-positions. Restricting the anaphoric domain of preposed quantifiers has posed a perennial problem for generative accounts, and the REST literature contains a variety of corrective principles to circumscribe the binding domain of preposed elements. These range from Postal's (1971) prohibition against extracting a noun phrase past an anaphoric pronoun, through the directionality conditions on binding proposed in Chomsky (1976) and Higginbotham (1980), the parallelism constraint of Safir (1984), and the [32] It is immaterial for present purposes whether this initial position is analyzed as a daughter of an exocentric 3 projection, as in (37), or as the specifier of a complementizer phrase (CP), as suggested in Chomsky (1986a). The difference between these alternatives is essentially a matter of node labelling conventions, and to the extent that there are distinguishable structural consequences of these conventions (e.g. the presence of an intermediate C projection), they are irrelevant to the matters under consideration. [33] The inventory of relevant A-positions standardly includes subjects, direct objects, prepositional objects, and the other clause-internal 'positions in which semantic roles such as agent, patient, and so forth can in principle be assigned' (Chomsky 1986b: 80). Apositions, in contrast, consist of adjoined positions and the clause-external positions occupied by dislocated elements.

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CONSTITUENT ORDER IN UNBOUNDED DEPENDENCIES

biuniqueness constraint in Koopman & Sportiche (1982). The following discussion briefly reviews two of the most widely accepted of these accounts. 2.2.3 Weak crossover and variable biuniqueness Consider first the Bijection Principle of Koopman & Sportiche (1982), which attributes weak crossover effects to the violation of a biuniqueness requirement applied to operators and variables. Koopman and Sportiche formulate this constraint as the general condition in (38). (38) The Bijection Principle There is a bijective correspondence between variables and Apositions. This principle is meant to enforce a one-to-one correspondence between Apositions and syntactic variables. The class of A positions includes dislocated COMP positions and adjuncts, while the operative notion of correspondence is defined in terms of syntactic binding (again coindexing with a ccommanding antecedent). The central innovation is the definition of a syntactic variable in (39), which applies indifferently to lexical and null pronominal elements. (39) a is a variable if a is in an A-position and is locally A-bound. Koopman & Sportiche argue that the constraint in (38) accounts for the contrast in (32) on the analysis represented in (37) (and repeated in more compact form in (40)). (40) (a) who, [3 et called his, lawyer] (b) •whom, [s his, lawyer called e(] In the well-formed (40a), who is the unique binder for the variable e in subject Position, and hence the unique local A-binder. The subject gap in turn is the local A-binder for his, since it c-commands and is coindexed with the Pronoun. Consequently, e is the only variable, and the only variable locally A-bound by who. Thus (40a) satisfies the biuniqueness requirement imposed by (38). In contrast, the lack of a c-command relation between the object gap and possessive pronoun in (40b) leads to a violation of the Bijection Principle. Since the object gap neither c-commands nor is c-commanded by his, whom is the local A-binder of both elements. This qualifies his and e as variables, according to (39), and violates the requirement that each APosition must bind exactly one variable. Hence the difference between (40a) and (40b) correlates with the presence or absence of a biunique binding configuration. Koopman & Sportiche account for the parallel contrast in the declarative sentences in (28) by applying (38) to the LF representations in (41), derived by movement of no suspect. 371

JAMES P. BLEVINS

(41) (a) no suspect, [g e( trusts his, lawyer] (b) *no suspect, [g his, lawyer trusts