Hans-Martin Gärtner

On the force of V2 declaratives

This paper discusses a variant of German V2 declaratives sharing properties with both subordinate relative clauses and main clauses. I argue that modal subordination failure helps decide between two rivaling accounts for this construction. Thus, a hypotactic analysis involving syntactic variable sharing must be preferred over parataxis plus anaphora resolution. The scopal behavior of the construction will be derived from its assertional proto-force, which it shares with similar embedded root constructions.

A note on the complexity of constraint interaction: locality conditions and minimalist grammars

Locality Conditions (LCs) on (unbounded) dependencies have played a major role in the development of generative syntax ever since the seminal work by Ross [22]. Descriptively, they fall into two groups. On the one hand there are intervention-based LCs (ILCs) often formulated as “minimality constraints” (“minimal link condition,” “minimize chain links”, “shortest move”, “attract closest,” etc.). On the other hand there are containment-based LCs (CLCs) typically de.ned in terms of (generalized) grammatical functions (“adjunct island”, “subject island”, “specifier island”, etc.). Research on LCs has been dominated by two very general trends. First, attempts have been made at unifying ILCs and CLCs on the basis of notions such as “government” and “barrier” (e.g. [4]). Secondly, research has often been guided by the intuition that, beyond empirical coverage, LCs somehow contribute to restricting the formal capacity of grammars (cf. [3–p. 125], [6–p. 14f]). Both these issues, we are going to argue, can be fruitfully studied within the framework of minimalist grammars (MGs) as defined by Stabler [25]. In particular, we are going to demonstrate that there is a specic asymmetry between the in.uence of ILCs and CLCs on complexity. Thus, MGs, including an ILC, namely, the shortest move condition (SMC) have been shown to belong to the mildly context-sensitive grammar formalisms by Michaelis [14]. The same has been shown in [16, 18] for a revised version of MGs introduced in [26], which includes the SMC and an additional CLC, namely, the specifier island condition (SPIC). In particular [14] and [16, 18] show that, in terms of derivable string languages, both the original MG-type and the revised MG-type constitute a subclass of the class of linear context-free rewriting systems (LCFRSs) in the sense of [28, 29], and thus, a series of other formalism classes all generating the same class of string languages as LCFRSs. Here we will demonstrate that removing the SMC from the revised MG-version increases the generative power in such a way that the resulting formalism is not mildly context-sensitive anymore. This suggests that intuitions to the contrary notwithstanding, imposing an LC as such, here the SPIC, does not necessarily reduce formal complexity.

More on the indefinite-interrogative affinity: The view from embedded non-finite interrogatives

Abstract German disallows embedded infinitival (wh-)interrogatives. Although cross-linguistic comparison has not been undertaken to any broader extent, most accounts attribute this gap to properties of complementizers and the C-system. By contrast, this gap will here be linked to a correlation between non-finite (wh-)interrogatives and the indefinite-interrogative affinity present in the inventory of wh-pronouns of many languages. The claim will be defended that, if a language has embedded non-finite (wh-)interrogatives, then its pronominal system does not have a robust indefinite/interrogative ambiguity. In addition to a crosslinguistic survey, it will be sketched – with particular reference to German – how to relate these two domains in terms of clausal typing and the illocutionary force of non-finite (root) interrogatives.

Beyond Expressives: Explorations in Use-Conditional Meaning

Acknowledgements List of contributors Expressives and beyond: An introduction to varieties of use-conditional meaning Daniel Gutzmann German non-inflectional constructions as separate performatives Sebastian Bucking and Jennifer Rau Modal particles and context shift Sophia Doering Discourse particles, common ground, and felicity conditions Markus Egg I love me some datives: Expressive meaning, free datives, and F-implicature Laurence R. Horn Good reasons Eric McCready and Yohei Takahashi Common ground management: Modal particles, illocutionary negation and VERUM Sophie Repp Biased polar questions in English and Japanese Yasutada Sudo Expressing surprise by particles Henk Zeevat Index

On Infinitivals Hosting Logophors: The Case of Icelandic

This squib provides counterexamples to the claim that Icelandic reflexive sig cannot be construed logophorically if immediately contained inside an infinitival clause. Consequences for Eric Reulands views on the division of labor between grammar and pragmatics are discussed.

Postmodern linguistics and the prospects of neural syntax: Some polemical remarks

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Martin Stokhof and Michiel van Lambalgen (S&vL) have correctly identified methodological flaws that obstruct progress in modern linguistics2 and let us therefore comment on one of the alternatives S&vL point out as potentially promising. For reasons of curiosity we choose “Neural Syntax” (NS) (Fitz 2009), which instantiates one of the “approaches in which neuronal models of language acquisition and language use are studied.” It is important for us to stress right at the outset that we cannot do justice to the intricacies of NS. In fact, we will be rather selective in focusing on issues that seem to us to cast doubt on the NS approach. To begin with, let us consider the kinds of motivation that drive connectionist theories like NS:

Germanic V-in-C: Some Riddles

Abstract 1. Introduction Usually, the Germanic languages are classified syntactically as V2-languages (see König and van der Auwera 1994). This is clearly due to the fact that they coincide wrt predominance of V-in-C clauses in root positions. Given this V-in-C/root correlation, it is highly plausible that a proper linguistic account of the exact distribution of Germanic V-in-C should at some level of analysis make appeal to the one characteristic property of root clauses, i.e. illocutionary force potential. Such an intuition has repeatedly guided research on V2, work inspired by Hooper & Thompson (1973) such as Andersson (1975) being among the early examples. However, this kind of work remained on a rather informal level, so Hubert Truckenbrodt (henceforth HT) deserves full credit for having put forth an explicit and non-trivial proposal for the analysis of German V-in-C that integrates syntax, discourse semantics, and pragmatics. Integration is guaranteed by so-called “context indices” and formulated as follows (cf. HTs (17)).