Paul Elbourne

Total Reconstruction, PF Movement, and Derivational Order

Theories of total reconstruction have generally supposed that movement can be followed by an undoing operation like LF lowering (May 1977, 1985) or deletion of higher copies (Chomsky 1993). We argue that reconstruction effects can be derived only if the original movement is purely phonological. There are no undoing operations. We present three distinct arguments, based on an interaction between raising and wh-movement in English, facts from agreement with group terms in British English, and multiple scrambling in Japanese. The arguments imply that the T-model is correct in supposing that movement that affects both LF and PF must precede movement that affects only PF.

On the Acquisition of Principle B

Chien and Wexler (1990) reported that children obeyed Principle B of binding theory when the antecedent was a quantifier but not when the antecedent was referential. This was argued by Grodzinsky and Reinhart (1993) to support Reinharts (1983) theory according to which Principle B affects only bound pronouns. Since then, other studies have supported the asymmetry between referential and quantifier antecedents. This article, however, argues that previously unremarked experimental factors lessen the force of all these studies, and it points to other relevant experiments that seem to showthat children do not obey Principle B at all. It reviews previously offered theories on the acquisition of Principle B that are compatible with the latter view of the facts.

Ellipsis Sites as Definite Descriptions

This article analyzes three phenomena that are troublesome for some theories of ellipsis: the existence of sloppy readings when the relevant pronouns cannot possibly be bound; cases where the antecedent of ellipsis does itself contain an ellipsis site, but in resolving the larger ellipsis the interpretation understood at the ellipsis site in the antecedent is not used; and cases where an ellipsis site draws upon material from two or more separate antecedents. These cases are accounted for by an analysis of silent VPs and NPs that makes them into higher-order definite descriptions that can be bound into.

The Interpretation of Pronouns

There is no overall consensus on the interpretation of pronouns, but recent research generally argues for one of three positions: that pronouns are individual variables, that they are covert definite descriptions, or that they are identity functions.

Why Propositions Might be Sets of Truth-supporting Circumstances

Soames (Philos Top 15:44–87, 1987, J Philos Logic 37:267–276, 2008) has argued that propositions cannot be sets of truth-supporting circumstances. This argument is criticized for assuming that various singular terms are directly referential when in fact there are good grounds to doubt this.

Multi-sentential category mistakes

Magidor (Category Mistakes, 2013, OUP) argued that category mistakes are infelicitous due to presupposition failure. The case for this position is strengthened by the consideration of a previously unnoted category of data, namely multi-sentence discourses in which category mistake phenomenology arises at the end of the last sentence, but arguably due to content contained in a previous sentence. This phenomenon is analysed in terms of the previous sentence giving rise to a presupposition that is shown to be false only in the last sentence.