Abstract

In order to eliminate traces as stipulated grammatical objects, syntactic movement has been reformulated in terms of multiple-merge : it is the result of the same constituent being merged into the structure multiple times, using either copies or multidominance structures . In spite of their empirical and conceptual advantages, multiple-merge theories pose known challenges for the semantic interpretation of movement, as there are no variable-denoting traces in lower positions. The most common means of resolving this conundrum is trace conversion (Fox 2002, 2003), in which either a syntactic operation makes alterations at lower merge sites in order to generate trace-like interpretations, or the semantics behaves as if such a syntactic operation had occurred. In this paper I discuss problems faced by presently formulated versions of trace conversion and propose an alternative, compositional trace conversion , in which multiple-merge structures can be directly interpreted in a straightforwardly compositional manner. This approach is shown to generalize well, extending to modals and degree phrases as well as DPs. EARLY ACCESS

Highlights

  • For much of the history of generative syntax, displacement—the apparent tendency for constituents to simultaneously occupy multiple syntactic locations—has been cast in terms of movement: a constituent seems to occupy multiple locations because it starts in one spot and moves to another, leaving a trace

  • An alternative possibility mentioned by Fox (2003) is that trace conversion is not syntactic but semantic: no alterations occur at LF, but the semantics interprets quantificational DPs at lower merge sites as if some syntactic alteration had taken place. (See Ruys 2015 for a similar proposal.)

  • = [λ Q. ¬Q(leave)](λ P. [EVERY]s1(student)(P)) = ¬[EVERY]s1(student)(leave) Naturally, when we evaluate with respect to Stay, we get the desired inverse scope interpretation: (63) every1 student λ1′ not every1 student leave Stay = ¬EVERY(student)(leave) the higher-type lambda abstraction required in order to perform semantic reconstruction is perfectly compatible with the analysis adopted in this paper

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Summary

Introduction

For much of the history of generative syntax, displacement—the apparent tendency for constituents to simultaneously occupy multiple syntactic locations—has been cast in terms of movement: a constituent seems to occupy multiple locations because it starts in one spot and moves to another, leaving a trace. A common means of interpreting LFs like (2) is to treat traces as denoting variables bound by the lambda-abstracting nodes λ1 and λ2, generating predicates that serve as arguments to their respective quantifiers (Heim & Kratzer 1998). This view of compositionality seems untenable in the face of LFs like (3) and Fig. 1, as it would require that a DP be interpreted as a true quantifier at its highest merge site, and as a bound variable at lower merge sites Put another way, there is an apparent tension an intriguing way to analyze across-the-board movement (cf Fox & Johnson 2016).

The Interpreted Lower Restrictor Hypothesis
Setting the table
Fox 2002 and the ACD-extraposition connection
Resolving the Kennedy-Sauerland Puzzle
Trace conversion and its discontents
Syntactic trace conversion
Semantic trace conversion
Compositional trace conversion and DP movement
A possible extension
Lower-type swap states and ILRH
Generalizing
Type-generalized state dependency
Modals
Degree phrases in comparatives
Classical accounts of comparatives
Comparatives and wholesale late merger
Semantic composition of comparatives
Concluding remarks
Full Text
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