Abstract
We examine several cases of object movement from various languages, and demonstrate that the syntactic behavior of objects can be derived from certain conditions on LF representations. Conditions on LF relevant to the distribution of arguments are identified as relative scope fixing and type mismatch repair. These two conditions interact with the multiple semantic types that may be assigned to NPs (cf. Partee 1987) to induce movement of certain objects out of the VP, universally by LF and parametrically in the overt syntax. Diesing's (1992b) Mapping Hypothesis combined with the multiple NP types predicts that quantificational NPs in object position will have to undergo movement by LF. This movement is forced by the principles of semantic composition as a mechanism of type mismatch resolution. The existential closure operation over VP is claimed to be genuinely unselective: any NP that introduces a free variable and does not receive an existential interpretation must move out of the scope of existential closure (and thus out of the VP) by LF. Pronouns are variables, limited in semantic type assignment, that by virtue of their definiteness cannot be bound by existential closure and must move out of its scope. In Egyptian Arabic, object pronouns escape from the VP via attachment to a verb that raises to adjoin to an Aspect inflectional head above the VP. The movement of object pronouns and definite/specific NPs in Scandinavian is also associated with verb movement.
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The Egyptian Arabic judgments presented here were given by Adel Gamal and Hassan Selim. Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson, Halldór Sigurðsson, and HöskuldurPráinsson provided Icelandic judgments; and Anders Holmberg, Sten Vikner, and Christer Platzack assisted with the Mainland Scandinavian data. Financial support for the research reported here was provided in part by the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute at the University of Arizona in the form of a Small Grant awarded jointly to both authors, and also by NSF Young Investigator Award DBS-9257144 awarded to Molly Diesing. Earlier versions of this paper were presented in colloquia at Cornell University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MIT, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. We are grateful for the comments provided by the audiences on these occasions, as well as for the input given in the syntax and semantics seminar taught in the fall of 1992 at Cornell. Finally, we wish to acknowledge the comments, suggestions, and encouragement offered to us by Hagit Borer, John Bowers, Vicki Carstens, Gennaro Chierchia, Sandy Chung, Chris Collins, Viviane Déprez, Regina Hauptmann, Irene Heim, Anders Holmberg, Sabine Iatridou, Kyle Johnson, Angelika Kratzer, Bill Ladusaw, Jim McCloskey, Kumiko Murasugi, David Pesetsky, Christer Platzack, Ur Shlonsky, Magui Suñer, Peter Svenonius, and two anonymousNALS reviewers. We of course retain responsibility for any remaining errors.
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Diesing, M., Jelinek, E. Distributing arguments. Nat Lang Seman 3, 123–176 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01249836
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01249836