THE COORDINATE STRUCTURE CONSTRAINT AS A DISCOURSE-ORIENTED PRINCIPLE ...

34 Pages·2015·0.35 MB·English

THECOORDINATESTRUCTURECONSTRAINTASADISCOURSE-ORIENTED
PRINCIPLE:FURTHEREVIDENCEFROMJAPANESEANDKOREAN
YusukeKubota JungmeeLee
UniversityofTsukubaand SeoulNationalUniversityof
TheOhioStateUniversity ScienceandTechnology
coordinate structure constraint
We reexamine the status of the (CSC; Ross 1967) by
drawingonevidencefromJapaneseandKorean.ContrarytothestandardviewthattheCSCisa
syntacticconstraint,theempiricalpatternsfromthetwolanguagesshowthatitshouldinsteadbe
viewedasapragmaticprinciple.Weproposeapragmaticanalysisbybuildingonandextendinga
previousproposalbyKehler(2002).ExaminingtheJapaneseandKoreandataturnsouttobevital
inthecomparisonofthesyntacticandpragmaticapproaches,sincethesyntacticdifferencesbe-
tweentherelevantconstructionsinthetwolanguagesandtheircounterpartsinEnglishcrucially
distinguishthepredictionsofthetwoapproaches.*
Keywords:coordinatestructureconstraint,Japanese,Korean,coordination,subordination,island
constraints,discourserelation
Introduction coordinatestruc-
1. .SinceRoss1967,thestandardviewaboutthe
tureconstraint
(CSC)hasbeenthatitisasyntacticconstraint.Detailsvary,butall
major syntactic theories (both derivational and nonderivational) have adopted some
variantofRoss’s(1967)originalformulationin1,1togetherwithits‘across-the-board’
(ATB)exception—whichsaysthat1canbeviolatedifextractionoccursfromallofthe
conjuncts—toexplaincontrastsbetweensentenceslikethosein2.2
(1) In a coordinate structure, no conjunct may be moved nor may any element
containedinaconjunctbemovedoutofthatconjunct.(Ross1967:89)
(2) a. #Thisisthemagazinethat[Johnbought__]and[Maryboughtthebook].
b. #Thisisthemagazinethat[Johnbought__]and[Marydidn’tbuy__].
However,exceptionstotheCSCwerealreadynotedbyRosshimself:ifsomesemantic
relation other than ‘pure logical conjunction’ obtains between the two conjoined
clauses, extraction from a single conjunct is allowed, as exemplified by the following
well-knownexamples.
WewouldliketothankBobLevineforhiscontinuedencouragementandnumerousinputs(ofvarious
sorts)onthisworkthroughoutitslonggestation.Earlierversionsofthisarticlewerepresentedatthe15thIn-
ternationalConferenceonHead-DrivenPhraseStructureGrammar(Keihanna,Japan,2008)andthe83rd
annualmeetingoftheLinguisticSocietyofAmerica(SanFrancisco,2009);wewouldliketothankthepar-
*
ticipantsoftheseconferencesforfeedback.Thanksarealsoduetothemembersofthesyntax-semanticsdis-
cussiongroup‘Synners’attheOSULinguisticsDepartment.Wewouldalsoliketothankfouranonymous
Languagerefereesfortheircomments,whichhelpedimproveboththecontentandpresentationofthearticle
greatly.Lastbutnotleast,wewouldliketothankLanguageeditorGregCarlsonforhisverythoughtfuledi-
torialguidanceandvarioususefulremarksonthiswork.ThefirstauthorwassupportedbytheJapanSociety
for the Promotion of Science (JSPS; PD 2010–2013 and Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad
2013–2014)whenheworkedontherevisionsofthisarticle,andwouldliketothanktheJSPSforitsfinancial
support.
1Inthisarticle,wedealonlywiththeso-called‘elementconstraint’oftheCSC(i.e.whatthesecondpart
from
of1says,whichprohibitsextractionofelements conjuncts).TheotherpartoftheCSC,the‘conjunct
of
constraint’(i.e.thefirstpartof1,prohibitingextraction conjunctsthemselves),isadifferentissue.Yatabe
(2003)discussessomescramblingdatainJapanesethatsuggestthatJapanesenominalcoordinationdoesnot
obeytheconjunctconstraint.
2Throughoutthearticle,wemark‘CSCviolation’exampleswith#insteadof*inconformitywithour
claimthattheirunacceptabilityisduetopragmaticinfelicity.?isusedformildlydegradedbutbasicallyac-
ceptableexamples.Theunderscore(__)formissingmaterialispurelyforexpositorypurposeswithoutany
theoreticalimplications.
642
PrintedwiththepermissionofYusukeKubota&JungmeeLee.©2015.
Thecoordinatestructureconstraintasadiscourse-orientedprinciple
643
(3) Here’sthewhiskeywhich[Iwenttothestore]and[bought__]. (Ross1967)
(4) That’s the stuff that the guys in the Caucasus [drink __ ] and [live to be a
hundred]. (Schmerling1972)
Such examples have typically been dismissed as ‘apparent’exceptions involving a
special, ‘asymmetrical’use of and that is exempt from the CSC. In fact, the very first
suchattemptwasmadebyRoss(1967)himself,accordingtowhomtheunderlyingsen-
tencefortherelativeclausein3isderivedfromtheparaphraseIwenttothestoretobuy
thewhiskey,andthusdoesnotinvolvetruecoordination.Thisaccountwasthoroughly
criticizedbySchmerling(1972),whonotedthatthetwosentencesarenotsynonymous.
Despitethefactthatlaterauthors,likeRoss,havefailedtoprovideanyclearevidence
thatthisso-calledasymmetricalcoordinationwassyntacticallydifferentfrom‘canoni-
cal’coordination (as noted by Kehler (2002), unlike ordinary subordinate clauses, the
secondconjunctcanneverprecedethefirstconjunctinthistypeofcoordination),one
seesvariousincarnationsofthisideathroughouttheliterature(see,forexample,Steed-
man2012forthemostrecentproposalalongtheselines).
Amongvariousislandconstraints,thenatureoftheCSCisespeciallyimportantthe-
oretically.Notefirstofallthat(despiteblatantexceptionssuchas3and4)theCSChas
oftenbeentakentobeoneofthemorerobustcasesofislandconstraints(forotheris-
landconstraintssuchastheadjunctconstraintandthecomplexNPconstraint,various
sorts of amelioration effects have been discussed in the literature; cf. Kluender 1992,
1998,Hofmeister&Sag2010).Second,theCSChassometimesbeenusedtocrucially
distinguishbetweenpredictionsofdifferenttheoreticalapproaches;forexample,oneof
generalizedphrasestructuregrammar
theclaimedbigsuccessesof (asopposed
toderivationaltheories,inwhichthepreciseformulationoftheCSChasalwaysbeena
hugeproblem;Sag2000)wasthatit‘predicted’theCSCanditsATBexceptionviathe
slash-feature treatment of extraction (a similar claim survives to date in a related the-
ory—cf.Steedman&Baldridge2011).Butifthephenomenonisnotsyntactictobegin
with,suchanargumentsimplylosesitsforce.
Infact,apragmaticaccountoftheCSCpatterns3hasbeenproposedbyauthorssuch
as Lakoff (1986), Deane (1991), and Kehler (2002), based on data like 3 and 4, and
buildingonrelatedworkbySchmerling(1972,1975)andLevinandPrince(1986)(the
gapping
latterisastudyon ,butitdiscussespropertiesof‘asymmetrical’coordination
relevant for the CSC). Details vary, but the gist of their proposals is essentially the
same:thekeydifferencebetweenexampleslike2andthoselike3and4isnotsyntac-
tic,butispurelypragmatic.Theformerexpresssituationsoreventsthatareparallelto
eachother,whereasinthelatter,thetwoconjunctsdonothavesuchparallelstatuses.In
3,theconjoinedclausesstandinakindof‘stage-setting’relationthatoneserveswith
respecttotheother,andin4,thereisacausalrelationbetweenthetwoevents.Extrac-
tion is associated with the pragmatic effect of treating the extracted element as being
prominent (or designated).Then, extraction from a single conjunct leads to unaccept-
ability in examples like 2 since it destroys the parallel between the two conjuncts. By
contrast,in3and4,sincenosuchparallelrelationobtainsbetweenthetwoconjunctsto
beginwith,non-ATBextractiondoesnotinvokeanyanomaly.
Itisworthnotingherethat,thoughmuchless oftendiscussed,thesamepatternex-
tendstootherconjunctionwordssuchasorandbut(BobLevine,p.c.).
3Inwhatfollows,weusetheterms‘CSCpatterns’and‘CSCeffects’torefertothedescriptivegeneral-
syntactic
izationofthesortexemplifiedby2and‘CSC’torefertoa constraintthatismeanttocapturethis
generalization.
644 LANGUAGE,VOLUME91,NUMBER3(2015)
(5) a. #WhichcitywillRobingotoSeattlethisweekorvisit__nextweek?
b. #WhodidJohnvotefor__butMaryvotedforObama?
(6) a. [He] regards the limitless abundance of language as its most important
property,onethatanytheoryoflanguagemustaccountfor__orbedis-
carded. (Campbell1982:183)
b. WhatdidJohngotothestorebutforgettobuy__?
Hereagain,aparallelrelationblocksnon-ATBextraction,butnonparallelrelationsdo
not. These examples are especially troublesome for the type of accounts, alluded to
above,thatattempttoexplainawaytheanomalyoftheclassicalRoss/Schmerlingdata
in3and4ascasesofasymmetricalcoordination,attributingtheexceptionalCSCvio-
lation to some special property of nonlogical and. For example, Sag and colleagues
(1985) have a section (§4.1) devoted to asymmetrical coordination, in which the au-
thorsdiscussexampleslike3and4andproposetotreatthemviaspecialtypesofphrase
structurerules(distinctfromtheirmoregeneralcoordinationrule)specificallyapplica-
ble to the conjunction word and. (See also Goldsmith 1985 for a similar idea but one
castintermsofsyntacticreanalysis.)Similarly,Steedman(2012:95)continueswiththis
lineofanalysis,suggestingtotreatsuchexamples‘byassigningadditionalindependent
categoriestoand,supportingextractionfromleftandrightconjunctsrespectively’.But
onallsuchaccounts,itremainscompletelymysteriouswhythesamesensitivitytodis-
courserelationsextendstootherconjunctionmarkers.
WeargueinsteadforapurelypragmaticaccountoftheCSCpatterns,building(pri-
marily)onKehler’s(2002)work(indoingso,weintroducesomerefinementsnecessary
forextendinghisapproachtotheJapaneseandKoreandatadiscussedbelow).Although
thepreviousproposalsbyLakoff(1986),Deane(1991),andKehler(2002)(towhichthe
morerecentChaves2007,2012canbeadded)offeranintriguingalternativetothecur-
rentlydominantsyntactictreatmentoftheCSC,wethinkthattheystilldonotshowthe
superiority of the former over the latter convincingly enough.The data considered by
these authors are limited (mostly) to English, and this limitation in empirical domain
standsinthewayofevaluatingthetruestrengthofthispragmaticalternative.4Infact,we
believethatthisisatleastoneofthereasonsthattheroutinelyinvokedrecoursetothe
lexicalidiosyncrasyofasymmetricalandnotedaboveisstillprevalentintheliterature.
Notealsothatconductingextensivecrosslinguisticworkisespeciallyimportantforthe
discussion of the CSC, since one of the central motivations for syntactic island con-
straintsispreciselytoexplaintherecurrentpatternsof(un)grammaticalityacrosstypo-
logicallydiverselanguages.Suchafact,theargumentgoes,canbeexplainedonlyifitis
amanifestationoftheuniversalgrammar.Thus,anadvocateofapragmaticalternativeis
responsibleforshowingthatitscrosslinguisticapplicabilityatleastmatchesthatofthe
morepopularsyntacticview.
Butmerelybroadeningtherangeoflanguagesconsidereddoesnotnecessarilylead
to theoretically relevant findings. In order to evaluate the relative advantages of the
pragmaticapproachvis-à-visthesyntacticapproach,itiscrucialtoexaminedatafrom
4NaandHuck’s(1992)workonEnglishandKoreanCSCdataisanotableexception,andisanimportant
precursorforthepresentwork.AspointedoutbyKehler(2002),however,theirproposedconditionisappli-
cabletoasymmetricalcoordinationonlyandneedstobesupplementedwithaseparateprinciplefordealing
withsymmetricalcoordination(infact,itseemsthatNaandHucktaketheCSCasasyntacticconstrainttobe
responsibleforit).Moreover,theydonottakeintoaccountthedifferencebetweenEnglishextractioncon-
structionsandextraction-likeconstructionsinKoreanandsimplytreatthelatterasacaseofextraction.Thus,
eventhoughthesetofdatathatNaandHuck(1992)discussoverlapswithourstoacertainextent,theulti-
mateconclusionswedrawarequitedifferentfromtheirs.
Thecoordinatestructureconstraintasadiscourse-orientedprinciple
645
languages that are typologically different from English, in particular, languages in
whichthekindsofmeaningthataretypicallyexpressedbycoordinationinEnglishare
expressedbyconstructionsthatdonotexhibitthecharacteristicpropertiesofcoordina-
tion and in which the kinds of semantic/pragmatic functions that English extraction
servesarebornebyconstructionsthatdonotdisplaythecanonicalpropertiesofextrac-
tion.JapaneseandKorean,thetwolanguagesthatwetakeupinthisarticle,turnoutto
be ideal candidates in this respect, since they satisfy both of these criteria. Coordina-
tion-likeconstructionsinJapaneseandKorean(i.e.onesthatexpressthesamekindsof
semantic relations as English coordination) are morphosyntactically subordination
ratherthancoordination(importantly,weexcludetheCSCpatternsfromthesetofdi-
agnostics for coordination, since its inclusion would beg the question). Displacement
constructionsintheselanguages(ofwhichweconsiderboththe‘overtmovement’type
andthe‘covertmovement’type)alsohavedifferentsyntacticpropertiesfromEnglish
extraction constructions, suggesting that (at least on the null hypothesis) they should
notbetreatedintermsofsyntacticmovement.
ThesedifferencesbetweenJapaneseandKoreanontheonehandandEnglishonthe
othermakeitpossibletocomparethesyntacticandpragmaticapproacheswithrespectto
amuchbroaderrangeofdatathanhasbeendoneinthepreviousliterature.And,moreim-
portantly,theyenableustocomparethepredictionsofthetwoapproachesmoresharply.
On the syntactic approach (unless with ad hoc extensions), one would expect that the
extraction coordinate
CSC effects are found only in from structures, whereas the
pragmaticapproachpredictsthatthesamepatternswillbefoundinconstructionsthat
sharesimilarsemanticandpragmaticproperties.Topreviewtheconclusion,wewillsee
thatbasicallythesamepatternsarefoundinallofthethreelanguages,despitethesyn-
tacticdissimilaritiesintherelevantconstructionsinvolved.Moreover,theJapaneseand
Koreandataweconsiderinthisarticledisplayadditionalcomplexities(duetotheexis-
tenceofthetensedvs.tenselessvariantsofthecoordination-likeconstructioninKorean
andtheso-called‘gapless’variantsofdisplacementconstructionsinthetwolanguages)
ofakindnotfoundintheEnglishdatadiscussedinthepreviousliterature,whichulti-
matelyprovidefurthersupportforthepragmaticapproach.Theseconsiderationsleadus
totheconclusionthatthepragmaticapproachtotheCSCeffectsnotonlyisviable,butis
alsomoreexplanatorythanthemorefamiliarsyntacticapproach.
Before moving on, we would like to briefly comment on two broader issues. First,
datalike3and4thatcastdoubtonthesyntacticnatureoftheCSChavebeentakenby
someauthors—mostnotablyLakoff(1986)—tounderminetheautonomyofsyntaxand
toargueforan‘integrated’modelofgrammarinwhichsyntactic,semantic,andprag-
maticinformationisrepresentedsimultaneously(cf.Chaves2007,2012forarecentex-
plicitproposalalongtheselines).Wethinkthatthisistoostrongaconclusiontodraw
(seeKehler2002:§5.6foradiscussiononarelatedpoint).TheCSCpatterns(including
theJapaneseandKoreanfactsdiscussedbelow)canbeaccountedforadequatelyinany
theoryasapragmaticeffectaslongassomereasonablyarticulatesyntax-pragmaticsin-
terfaceisprovided.Second,anoteisinorderinrelationtorecentprocessing-oriented
accounts of other island phenomena (e.g. Kluender 1992, 1998, Hofmeister & Sag
2010).Atagenerallevel,ourfindingsarecompatiblewiththeseaccounts,andwebe-
lievethatthediscourserelationsthatplaycrucialrolesinouraccountshouldultimately
begivensomepsycholinguisticbasisinasufficientlyelaboratetheoryofdiscoursepro-
cessing(alongthelines,forexample,thattheunacceptabilityofCSCviolationexam-
ples like 2a stems from the fact that the impossibility of establishing an appropriate
discourserelationincursanextraprocessingcosttoanalreadycostlyprocessofparsing
646 LANGUAGE,VOLUME91,NUMBER3(2015)
structuresinvolvingdisplacement).However,giventhelackofsuchamodelatpresent,
wehavechosentocouchouranalysisinthetermsofmoretraditionallinguisticseman-
ticsandpragmatics.
Thearticleisstructuredasfollows.First,therelevantCSCpatternsinJapaneseand
Koreanarepresented(§2),andthentheprevioussyntacticapproachestotheCSCinthe
twolanguagesarereviewed(§3).OurpragmaticanalysisoftheCSCdataispresented
in§4,followedbyaconclusion(§5).
The CSC patterns in japanese and korean
2. . In this section, we examine the
CSC patterns in Japanese and Korean. However, since both the extraction-like con-
structions and the coordination-like constructions in the two languages have syntactic
properties that are distinct from those of the corresponding English constructions, we
reviewthepropertiesoftheseconstructionsbeforeexaminingtheCSCpatterns.
Displacement and coordination-like constructions in japanese and
2.1.
korean.
Displacementconstructions
.ForthecounterpartofEnglishextraction,wecon-
sider three overt ‘displacement’constructions in Japanese and Korean (relativization,
wh
topicalization, and cleft) and one covert ‘displacement’construction ( -questions).
Theterm‘displacement(construction)’isusedherejustasatheoreticallyneutralterm
forgroupingtogethertheseconstructionsbasedonacertainsyntacticsimilarity(while
avoidingthetheoreticallyloadedterms‘extraction’,‘movement’,or‘filler-gapdepen-
dencies’):inalloftheovertdisplacementconstructions,somematerialinthesentence
appears in a ‘displaced’position rather than in its canonical position within the sen-
wh wh
tence.And we call the -question constructions in these languages (both being -
in-situ)‘covertdisplacement’,justforterminologicalconsistency.
WhilethethreeovertdisplacementconstructionsinJapaneseandKoreanareappar-
entlysimilartoextractionconstructionsinEnglish,theirsyntacticpropertiesareactu-
allyquitedifferentfromtypicalextractionconstructions,asdiscussedbyKuno(1973),
Yoon(1993),andMatsumoto(1997),amongothers.First,unlikeextraction,thesedis-
placement constructions do not obey syntactic island constraints (except possibly for
theCSC).Second,theseconstructionshavetheso-calledgaplessvariants,thatis,sen-
tencesthatdonotcontainasyntacticgapcorrespondingtothe‘displaced’element.The
wh
covert movement of -questions is also different from extraction in that it does not
obeyislandconstraints(seeAppendixAfortherelevantdata;gaplessexamplescanbe
wh
constructedonlyforovertdisplacementandarethusnotprovidedfor -questions).
Asforislandsensitivity,ithasoftenbeenpointedoutthatrelativeclausesandtopi-
calizationinJapaneseandKoreandonotobeysyntacticislandconstraints(Kuno1973,
Yoon1993,Matsumoto1997).Examples7and8showthatrelativizationoutofcom-
plexNPs(theinternalbracketedpartin7isarelativeclausethatmodifiesthefollowing
noun)andoutofadjunctsispossibleinbothJapanese((a)-examples)andKorean((b)-
examples).AnalogousexampleswithtopicalizationandcleftaregiveninAppendixA.5
(7) a. [[__ki-te i-ru] yoohuku-ga kitanai] sinsi
teprog npst nom npst
[[__wear- - clothes- dirty. gentleman
‘thegentlemansuchthattheclothesthatheiswearingaredirty’(=‘the
gentlemanwhoseclothesaredirty’)
5Thefollowingglossesareusedinthisarticle:acc:accusative,cop:copula,dat:dative,decl:declara-
i gen hon ko neg nmlz nom npst
tive, :-i, :genitive, :honorific, :-ko, :negation, :nominalizer, :nominative, :
pass pst pl prog q rel te top
nonpast, :passive, :past, :plural, :progressive, :interrogative, :relativizer, :-te, :
topic.
Thecoordinatestructureconstraintasadiscourse-orientedprinciple
647
b. [[__ip-koiss-nun] yangpok-itelep-un] sinsa
prog rel nom rel
[[__wear- - suit- be.dirty- gentleman
‘thegentlemansuchthatthesuitthatheiswearingisdirty’
(8) a. [[__sin-da ato] mina-gakanasin-da]zyosei
pst nom pst
[[__die- afterall- miss- woman
‘thewomanthatallmissedaftershedied’
b. [[__cwuk-unhwu-ey]motwu-kakuliuweha-n]yeca
rel nom rel
[[__die- after all- miss- woman
‘thewomanthatallmissedaftershedied’
An even more radical difference from typical extraction constructions is that these
displacement constructions have so-called gapless variants where there is no missing
position in the sentence corresponding to the syntactically ‘displaced’element, as ex-
emplified by the following relative clauses ((a)-examples are Japanese, (b)-examples
Korean;again,forexampleswithotherconstructions,seeAppendixA).
(9) a. atama-ga yoku-naru hon
nom npst
head- good-become. book
‘abookthatonebecomessmartbyreading’
b. meli-ka cohaci-nun chayk
nom rel
head- become.good- book
‘abookthatonebecomessmartbyreading’
(10) a. watasi-de-saeinemuri-deki-nakat-taeiga
cop neg pst
I- -even doze.off-can- - movie
‘the movie that (was too exciting that) even I could not doze off (by
watching)’
b. na-to col swu-ka ep-ess-ten yenghwa
nom pst-rel
I-evendoze.offpossibility- not.exist- movie
‘the movie that (was too exciting that) even I could not doze off (by
watching)’
(11) a. yakedosi-ta kizu
pst
get.burned- scar
‘aburnscar’(ascarcausedbygettingburned)
b. John-i pwul-eytey-n sangche
nom rel
John- fire-at get.burned- scar
‘John’sburnscar’
Matsumoto(1997)studiesthepropertiesofthesegaplessrelativesindetailandshows
that they involve a link between the event denoted by the relative clause and another
eventinvolvingthereferentoftheheadnoun.Thelattereventisnotovertlyexpressed
bythesentencebutisinvokedbythelexicalcontentoftheheadnounorthemainpred-
icateoftherelativeclause.Thetwoeventsarerelatedviaadiscourserelationinstanti-
ating the cause-effect category (broadly construed and including the nonprototypical
‘violationofexpectation’typerelation).Forexample,in9,theheadnounhon‘book’in-
vokes the event of reading a book via its lexical information (in some theories of the
generative lexicon
lexicon such as Pustejovsky’s (1995) (GL), such information
(‘telicrole’intheGLterminology)ispartofthemeaningoftheword).Fromthegen-
eralworldknowledgethatreadingabookisanintellectualactivity,acause-effectrela-
tion is established between this implicit event and the event of one’s becoming smart
(i.e.thedenotationoftherelativeclause).In10,therelationbetweentherelativeclause
eventandtheimpliciteventofwatchingthemovie(again,invokedviathetelicroleof
648 LANGUAGE,VOLUME91,NUMBER3(2015)
eiga‘movie’)isnotthatofcause-effectbut,rather,violationofexpectedconsequence.
Thisexamplereliesontheknowledge(sharedbytheinterlocutors)thatthespeakeris
notveryinterestedinmoviesingeneralandoftenfallsasleepbywatchingthem.With
thiscontextualsupport,thecontentoftherelativeclausebecomesrelevantasadescrip-
tionofthemoviesinceitcanbeinterpretedasindirectlyendorsingitsunexpectedhigh
quality.Finally,in11,theimpliciteventinvolvingtheheadnounisinvoked(primarily)
bythemainpredicateoftherelativeclauseratherthantheheadnoun.Yakedosuru‘get
burned’is a creation verb and entails a result state of a burn scar being created. Note
alsoherethatthecause-effectrelationbetweentherelativeclauseeventandtheimplicit
eventistheoppositefrom9.Here,therelativeclauseeventisthecauseandtheimplicit
eventistheresult.
The establishment of a discourse relation between the relative clause event and the
implicit event contributed by the head noun depends heavily on shared knowledge
among interlocutors. The following example from Matsumoto 1997 illustrates this
pointnicelyforJapanese.
(12) #atama-ga yoku-naru kuruma
nom
#head- good-becomecar
intended:‘acarthatonebecomessmartbydriving’
Example 12 is minimally different from the grammatical 9 in its head noun (kuruma
‘car’),butisunacceptablebecause,givenordinaryworldknowledge,itisdifficulttoes-
tablish a causal relation between driving a car and becoming smart.We come back to
thispointofpragmaticsensitivitywhenwediscusstheCSCeffectsinexamplesinvolv-
inggaplessrelativesattheendof§2.2.Notsurprisingly,wewillseetherethatthefelic-
ityof‘CSCviolation’examplesinvolvinggaplessrelativesisalsocruciallyaffectedby
thissensitivitytopragmaticinformationandcommonknowledgeestablishedamongin-
terlocutorsthatcharacterizesthisconstruction.
The island insensitivity and the existence of gapless variants suggest that Japanese
and Korean displacement constructions do not involve syntactic filler-gap dependen-
cies. Given this evidence, the null hypothesis is that the relationship between the dis-
placed element and the rest of the sentence is instead established pragmatically, as
argued by Matsumoto (1997) andYoon (1993).6Thus, followingYoon (1993), we as-
sumeastructureroughlyalongthelinesofthatinFigure1forrelativeclausesinJapa-
head-drivenphrasestructuregrammar
neseandKorean.Weadopt (HPSG)since
itenablesustostatetherelevantassumptionsaboutthesyntax-semanticsinterfaceex-
plicitly and perspicuously. However, it should be noted that the pragmatic account of
theCSCpatternsweformulatebelowisentirelytheory-neutralanddoesnotdependon
anyspecificaspectsofthesyntaxweassume(also,hereandinwhatfollows,wewrite
lambdatermsforsemantictranslationsforbetterreadability,insteadofadoptingsitua-
minimal recursion semantics
tion semantics or —the two more commonly adopted
semantic frameworks in HPSG—but nothing hinges on this choice; (≡ λPλQλx.
P(x)∧Q(x))standsforParteeandRooth’s(1983)generalizedconjunction).
subcat
Here, crucially, the relative clause is a fully saturated sentence ( 〈〉) with an
slash
empty feature(thus,nofiller-gaplinkageisinvolved).Aunaryruleprojectsthis
(cid:4)
sentencetoaprenominalmodifier(forKorean,inwhichthereisanovertrelativizer,we
6Thisdoesnotexcludeapossibilityofanalyzingtheseconstructionsintermsofafiller-gapdependency
mechanisminthesyntax.Buttheburdenofproofisonthosewhowouldmaintainthislatterassumptionto
explainthedifferenceamongtherelevantconstructionsacrosslanguagesastotheirisland(in)sensitivity.
Thecoordinatestructureconstraintasadiscourse-orientedprinciple
649
N(cid:2)HEAD 5(cid:3)
CONT 4
SUBCAT (cid:5)(cid:6)  N(cid:2)HEAD 5 (cid:3)
SLASH {} 3 CONT 2 λx.book(x)
S 
MOD 3 
 
CONT 4(cid:7) 2 (cid:2)λx.propertyC(x,1)(cid:8) ‘movie’
SUBCAT (cid:5)(cid:6) 
S SLASH {}
CONT 1¬♦doze(I)
‘Icouldn’tdozeoff’
Figure
1.StructureofrelativeclausesinJapaneseandKorean.
could dispense with this unary projection by encoding the relevant information in the
lexicalentryfortherelativizer,asisdoneinYoon1993),whichcombineswiththehead
head-adjunct schema
noun via the standard of HPSG. The semantics (specified in
cont
the feature)ofthisprenominalmodifier(whichisinheritedtothemothernodevia
semantic principle
the of HPSG; Pollard & Sag 1994) says that the meaning of the
<
whole relativized nominal is obtained by conjoining the denotation of the head noun
with the property λx.property (x, ¬◊doze(I)). Here, property is a context-sensitive
C C
operatorthatreturnssomeappropriatepropertythatholdsofitsfirstargumentbasedon
thepropositiondenotedbyitssecondargument(thiscorrespondstothenotionof‘prag-
maticallycoherentproperty’thatwediscussin§4.2below).Forexample,inthecaseof
Fig.1,viaworldknowledge,property identifiesitsfirstargumentasanentityxsuch
C
bywatching
thatthespeakercouldnotdozeoff x(wheretherelation‘bywatching’is
pragmatically invoked to establish an explicit link between x and the content of the
propositionthatisthesecondargumentofproperty ).
C
Notethat,correspondingtotheabsenceofsyntacticfiller-gaplinkage,thereisnose-
manticvariablebindinginvolvedbetweenxandsomeargumentpositionintherelative
clause.Thus,therelationisestablishedentirelypragmatically,alongthelinesdiscussed
above.Weassume,followingYoon(1993),thatevenincaseswhereitapparentlylooks
likethereisvariablebinding,asinthecaseof‘ordinary’relativeclausessuchas13,the
linkisestablishedpurelypragmatically.
(13) Japanese
[John-ga __kat-ta] hon
nom pst
[John- __buy- book
‘thebookthatJohnbought’
JustliketheabovegaplessrelativeinFig.1,here,too,therelativeclauseisafullysat-
uratedsentence(notethatbothJapaneseandKoreanallowfornullpronouns).Compo-
sitionally,weobtainatranslationalongthelinesofλx.property (x,buy(z)(j))forthe
C
relativeclause.Thevariablezistechnicallyafreevariable,buthereitispragmatically
identified with x and we obtain an interpretation equivalent to λx.buy(x)(j), since the
mostnaturalwayofestablishingacoherentrelationbetweenthedenotationsoftherel-
ativeclause(inwhichtheidentityofthedirectobjectargumentisleftunspecified)and
650 LANGUAGE,VOLUME91,NUMBER3(2015)
theheadnounistosimplyidentifythismissingargumentintherelativeclausewiththe
headnoun.
Thisway,eventhoughthereisnofiller-gaplinkage(andthereforenoexplicitseman-
ticvariablebinding)betweenanargumentpositionintherelativeclauseandthehead
nouninthesyntax(andsemantics)ofrelativeclauses,alinkcanbeestablishedbetween
therelativeclauseandtheheadnoun.Importantly,thisanalysisenablesauniformtreat-
mentofboth‘ordinary’relativeclausesandthegaplessvariants.Weassumethatasim-
ilaranalysisextendstootherdisplacementconstructionsinthetwolanguages.
Coordination-likeconstructions
.InJapaneseandKorean,whatappeartocor-
respond to English verbal (and sentential) coordination are expressed by marking the
nonfinalconjunctswiththemorphemes-teor-i(Japanese)and-ko(Korean),asinex-
amples14and15.
(14) Japanese
[John-ga zassi-o kat(*-ta)-te/-i][Mary-ga hon-o kat*(-ta)].
nom acc te i nom acc pst
[John- magazine- buy-PST- /- Mary- book- buy-
‘JohnboughtthemagazineandMarydidn’tbuythebook.’
(15)Korean
[John-un capci-lul sa(-ss)(*-ta)-ko] [Mary-nunchayk-ul
top acc pst ko top acc
[John- magazine- buy- -DECL- Mary- book-
sa-ss*(-ta)].
pst decl
buy- -
‘JohnboughtthemagazineandMaryboughtthebook.’
Onemightbetemptedtoregardtheseconstructionsasinstancesofcoordination,given
thesemanticsimilaritytoEnglishcoordination.Butitisimportanttokeepinmindthat
syntactic
whatisatissueisthe propertiesoftheconstructionsathand,sinceitissuch
syntacticpropertiesthatcruciallydeterminewhethertheCSC—asitisformulatedasa
syntactic constraint—should be applicable to them. In fact, when we turn to purely
(morpho)syntacticproperties,itturnsoutthattheevidenceistothecontrary.7Ascanbe
seenin14and15,thefinitenessmarker(namely,thetensemarker-tainJapaneseand
themoodmarker-tainKorean)cannotappearinthenonfinalclausesintheseconstruc-
tions.Moreover,asshownin16and17,thesenonfinalclauseswithnonfiniteendings
cannotstandaloneasfull-fledgedsentences.
(16) Japanese
*John-ga zassi-o kat-te/-i.
nom acc te/-i
*John- magazine- buy-
intended:‘Johnboughtthemagazine.’
7Thedistinctionbetweencoordinationandsubordinationisahairyissue(seeHaspelmath2007forsome
relevantdiscussion),wheresomeauthorstakesemanticpropertiestobe(atleastpartly)relevantforthedis-
tinction.Giventhelogicofthesyntacticapproach,however,itshouldbeclearthatwhatoneshouldbelook-
ingforhere—soastoavoidcircularityofargument—ispurelysyntacticevidence.Noteonceagaininthis
connectionRoss’s(1967)failuretoprovideindependentcriteriaforthenotionofcoordinationinEnglishwith
respecttothe‘asymmetrical’coordinationcases,whichhasbeencriticizedinmuchlaterwork(Schmerling
1975,Lakoff1986,Kehler2002).
Movabilityandrepeatabilityaresometimesusedascriteriaforcoordination,butwedonotrelyonthese
testshere.ThemovabilitytestisinapplicableforJapaneseandKoreansincetheselanguagesareverb-final
andthusdonotallowsubordinateclausestoappeartotherightofthemainclause.Asforrepeatability,itis
syntactic
notclearwhetherthistestreallypertainstothe differencebetweencoordinationandsubordination
(notethatcertainsubordinateclausesliketemporaladverbialclausescanberepeatedmultipletimesaslong
astheydonotinducesemanticanomaly).
Thecoordinatestructureconstraintasadiscourse-orientedprinciple
651
(17) Korean
*John-un capci-lul sa(-ss)-ko.
top acc pst ko
*John- magazine- buy- -
intended:‘Johnboughtthemagazine.’
This shows that the -te/-i/-ko-marked clauses are (morphosyntactically) subordinate
clauses.
Additional(thoughindirect)evidenceforthe(morphosyntactically)subordinatesta-
tusoftheseconstructionscomesfromthefactthatverbalformswiththesamemorpho-
logicalendingsappearinothersubordinateenvironments,whicharenormallyanalyzed
as‘complexpredicate’constructions.Forexample,Japanesehasmorphologicallycom-
plex verbs such as V-te miru (‘try V-ing’), V-te morau (benefactive), V-i hazimeru
(‘begin to V’), and V-i sugiru (‘over-V’), where the first verb marked in the -te or -i
formissyntacticallyandsemanticallyanargumentofthesecondverb.Themorpholog-
icalformsofthefirstcomponentofthesecomplexverbsareidenticaltothe-teand-i
formsastheyappearinthecoordination-likeconstructionsexemplifiedin14and15.In
both constructions, -te undergoes the same voicing assimilation morphophonological
process in certain environments, and the -i form is the same conjugation form called
Renyookei (lit. ‘predicate-connecting form’, the verbal conjugation used in environ-
mentsinwhichapredicatefollows).Koreansimilarlyhascomplexpredicatesinvolving
-kosuchasV-kosiph‘wanttoV’,V-koiss‘beintheprocessofV-ing’,andV-komal
‘end up V-ing’. While the existence of morphologically identical forms with subordi-
nate functions can provide only an indirect piece of evidence for the subordination
view,suchafactistotallyunexpectedonthecoordinationview(theEnglishconjunc-
tionwordsandandordonothavesuchhomophonoussubordinationmarkers).
Thus, despite the semantic similarity to English coordination, independent mor-
phosyntactic evidence suggests that the Japanese and Korean -te/-i/-ko constructions
aresubordinationconstructions.Justtobeexplicit,herewespelloutoursyntacticas-
sumptions about English coordination and the Japanese and Korean coordination-like
constructions,continuingtousetheHPSGnotation.Followingthestandardassumption
inHPSG(Pollard&Sag1994,Sagetal.2003,Chaves2012),weassumethatcoordi-
nationinEnglishislicensedbyanonheadedschemaoftheforminFigure2.
CAT 1 
S CONT P∧Q
 
CONTEXT R(P,Q)
S(cid:2)CAT 1(cid:3) Conj S(cid:2)CAT 1(cid:3)
CONT P CONT Q
Figure
2.CoordinationinEnglish.
Thesyntacticcategoriesoftheconjunctsneedtomatch,8andtruth-conditionally,the
cont
semantics( )issimplytheBooleanconjunctionofthemeaningsoftheconjuncts.
context
The feature(whichstorespragmaticinformationinHPSG)additionallyspec-
ifiesthatthereisacontextuallydeterminedrelationRthatholdsbetweenthemeanings
ofthetwoclauses.WeassumethatRisinstantiatedasoneofthediscourserelationsin
8Thisisofcourseasimplification,giventhewell-knownexamplesofunlikecategorycoordination(Saget
al.1985,Bayer1996).