Susi Wurmbrand

Two types of restructuring—Lexical vs. functional

This paper presents and discusses criteria for distinguishing between lexical and functional heads in the clausal domain, with special focus on restructuring configurations (a.k.a. reanalysis, clause union, coherence). Using these criteria, I show that even under the narrowest understanding of the term restructuring, German has both functional and lexical restructuring verbs. This proposal contrasts with the view recently advanced by Cinque on the basis of Italian under which all restructuring verbs are functional (as opposed to lexical) heads residing within a highly articulated IP. The two approaches are compared, and it is shown that a universalist interpretation of Cinques position is untenable.

Word Order and Scope: Transparent Interfaces and the ¾ Signature

A recurring pattern of partial correlations between word order variation and scope possibilities (the ¾ signature) supports a particular view of economy constraints in syntax, with these properties: (1) There are economy conditions (soft constraints) that value a particular type of correspondence between LF and PF representations. (2) These constraints are unidirectional: LF (broadly construed) is calculated first and determines PF (surface word order). (3) Scope rigidity is a property not of languages but of specific configurations, and the distribution of rigidity effects is (largely) predictable from independent variation in the syntactic resources of various languages. We focus here on the interaction of these three assumptions and on the role of (2) in predicting the ¾ signature effect. We contrast our proposal with Reinhart’s (2005) Interface Economy model, in which economy conditions regulate a mapping that takes overt structure as its input and yields permissible interpretations.

Tense and aspect in English infinitives

This article investigates the temporal and aspectual composition of infinitival complementation structures in English. I show that previous classifications of tense in infinitives are insufficient in that they do not cover the entire spectrum of infinitival constructions in English. Using the distribution of nongeneric, nonstative, episodic interpretations as a main characteristic, I show that infinitival constructions fall into three classes: future irrealis infinitives, which allow episodic interpretations with bare VPs; simultaneous infinitives that do not allow episodic interpretations; and simultaneous infinitives that allow episodic interpretations depending on the matrix tense. I argue that the three classes of infinitives are derived from the following properties: future infinitives are tenseless but involve a syntactically present future modal woll; simultaneous propositional attitude infinitives impose the now of the propositional attitude holder as the reference time of the infinitive; and certain simultaneous infinitives form a single temporal domain with the matrix clause. The analysis proposed has consequences for the composition of tense and aspect, the syntax of infinitives, and the way selection is determined.

Adjacency, PF, and extraposition

In the OV Germanic languages, certain verbs selecting infinitival complements (roughly, the restructuring predicates) appear to form a tight cluster with the heads of their complements. This is particularly striking in Dutch, where clustering is overtly signaled in some contexts by an inversion of the order of the two verbal heads (assuming a head-final base order). This inversion motivated the original movement (verb raising) analysis in Evers (1975) whereby the embedded verb adjoins to the selecting head, as indicated in (1b). An alternative analysis without syntactic head movement, offered by Haegeman and Van Riemsdijk (1986), takes the inversion to be a PF phenomenon, as sketched in (1c).

Stripping and Topless Complements

This article shows that stripping, the elision of declarative TPs, is possible not only in coordinate structures, but also in embedded clauses—however, only when the complementizer is absent. This Embedded Stripping Generalization is not predicted by earlier accounts of stripping, but it falls out from a certain combination of independently available assumptions. Specifically, I propose a zero Spell-Out view of ellipsis in a dynamic (or contextual) phasehood approach, which, together with the lack of a CP layer in that-less embedded clauses, derives this generalization in languages like English. I then briefly consider stripping in other languages and suggest that the analysis also has the flexibility to accommodate crosslinguistic differences in the distribution of stripping.

Nor: Neither Disjunction nor Paradox

NOR: NEITHER DISJUNCTION NOR PARADOX Susi Wurmbrand University of Connecticut Postal, Paul M. 1998. Three investigations of extraction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rackowski, Andrea. 2002. The structure of Tagalog: Specificity, voice, and the distribution of arguments. Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Rackowski, Andrea, and Norvin Richards. 2005. Phase edge and extraction: A Tagalog case study. Linguistic Inquiry 36:565–599. Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized Minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ross, John R. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Published as Infinite Syntax!. Norwood, NJ: Ablex (1986). Sabbagh, Joseph. 2007. Ordering and linearizing rightward movement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25:349–401. Schachter, Paul. 1976. The subject in Philippine languages: Topic, actor, actor-topic, or none of the above? In Subject and topic, ed. by Charles N. Li, 491–518. New York: Academic Press. Schachter, Paul, and Fe T. Otanes. 1972. Tagalog reference grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wexler, Kenneth, and Peter W. Culicover. 1980. Formal principles of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wilder, Chris. 1997. Some properties of ellipsis in coordination. In Studies on Universal Grammar and typological variation, ed. by Artemis Alexiadou and T. Alan Hall, 59–107. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wilder, Chris. 1999. Right node raising and the LCA. In WCCFL 18: Proceedings of the 18th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. by Sonya Bird, Andrew Carnie, Jason D. Haugen, and Peter Norquest, 586–598. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.