The Syntax of Givenness Ivona KucerovÃ¡

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It has also been observed that in basic word order various constituents may be understood as new. The only condition for an SVO language like Czech is that a new constituent be aligned to the right edge of a clause. We can test this property by using wh-questions targeting different constituents, as seen in (23). 18
(23) What can be understood as new? a. (i) What did Marie give to Pavel? (ii) Marie dala Pavlovi [facku] New ←− slap b. (i) What did Marie give to whom? (ii) Marie dala [Pavlovi facku] New ←− Pavel a slap c. (i) What did Marie do? (ii) Marie [dala Pavlovi facku] New ←− gave Pavel a slap d. (i) What happened? (ii) [Marie dala Pavlovi facku] New ←− Marie gave Pavel a slap In contrast, if an utterance contains any deviance from the basic order, then such an utterance is infelicitous in an all-new context. It means that if any reordering takes place, at least one constituent must be α G , i.e., introduced in the previous discourse. In other words, any reordering limits the number of structural positions in which we can identify the partition between given and new. For example, in a derived word order, as in (24), there is only one felicitous interpretation of the information structure. More precisely, only the rightmost constituent can be interpreted as new (non-G). In this particular case, it is the indirect object Pavel. Thus, in (24) there is only one possible partition between given and new, in contrast to (22) that is compatible with several partitions, as schematized in (25). (24) Focus Projection within a derived word order: a. Marie dala facku [Pavlovi] New ←− S V DO || IO t DO b. #Marie dala [facku Pavlovi] New c. #Marie [dala facku Pavlovi] New d. #[Marie dala facku Pavlovi] New (25) a. Marie dala facku || Pavlovi. b. (||) Marie (||) dala (||) Pavlovi (||) facku. What we can learn from the observed pattern is that in basic word order there is a relative freedom in what parts of the utterance can be interpreted as new and what parts can be interpreted as given. As I have already anticipated in the previous discussion of G-movement, this pattern can be described in the following manner: whatever is interpreted as given cannot be linearly preceded by anything interpreted as new. Let’s now turn to the question of how exactly the multiple partition effect follows from our system. To see that, we will look at a very simple case: a transitive clause that has no modifiers, only a subject, a verb, and an object. Consider first the case where the subject is the only given element. As we already know, the resulting word order is SVO, as seen in (26) and (27). 16 (26) a. Subject-G verb Object ←− b. #Object verb Subject-G 16 I use here examples with potom ‘then, afterward’ instead of a wh-question. The reason is that potom creates a natural context where only the subject is presupposed/given. For reasons that are not clear to me, it is difficult to obtain the same pragmatic effect with a wh-question. 19
Page 1 and 2: The Syntax of Givenness by Ivona Ku
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgments Two things were dif
Page 5 and 6: A.4 A note on base generation . . .
Page 7 and 8: (2) a. SVO: Chlapec našel lízátk
Page 9 and 10: accent on the auxiliary did in (4-a
Page 11 and 12: Pitch (Hz) 500 400 300 200 100 0 ch
Page 13 and 14: (6) Petr řídil včera rychle auto
Page 15 and 16: phrases are required to undergo G-m
Page 17: . A entails (α,U) where (α,U) is
Page 21 and 22: (28) Derivation of [Subject]-G verb
Page 23 and 24: functionalist tradition there has b
Page 25 and 26: c. ?P v-V vP Subject vP v-V VP V Ob
Page 27 and 28: (40) What happened to the antique c
Page 29 and 30: movement is possible. (47) a. Why d
Page 31 and 32: TP Aux vP money vP gave VP t money
Page 33 and 34: TP Aux TP T vP t Aux VP money VP gi
Page 35 and 36: c. #Jeho viděla Marie na nádraž
Page 37 and 38: (63) a. #Diskuse proběhla bez věd
Page 39 and 40: (70) a. #Žáky a učitelku to pře
Page 41 and 42: Chapter 2 G-movement In chapter 1,
Page 43 and 44: asic word order cases we expect wor
Page 45 and 46: (9) a. What happened? b. #[Vlak př
Page 47 and 48: . ?P DO vP subject vP v VP V VP IO
Page 49 and 50: . vP subject vP v VP V ?P DO VP IO
Page 51 and 52: . Marie [ vP včera dala [ V P rych
Page 53 and 54: vP Marie vP yesterday vP gave VP qu
Page 55 and 56: list reading. No such requirement e
Page 57 and 58: poskytovat jídlo. provide food.Acc
Page 59 and 60: a. X X X Z X X α b. X α X X X Z X
Page 61 and 62: existing Agree relation in case it
Page 63 and 64: 2.4 Summary In this chapter, I have
Page 65 and 66: 3.1 Deriving the verb partition In
Page 67 and 68: We will see in the next section how
Page 69 and 70:
e. vP subject vP DO vP v VP v V DO
Page 71 and 72:
If more than one given element may
Page 73 and 74:
c. TP VP book give to-Peter t book
Page 75 and 76:
(20) a. Marie otevřela zase dveře
Page 77 and 78:
cause she was interrupted by her mo
Page 79 and 80:
. TP T-v-V vP Marie vP again vP t v
Page 81 and 82:
move again, (38-b). When the given
Page 83 and 84:
Since the subject is new, the deriv
Page 85 and 86:
stituent containing several given e
Page 87 and 88:
4.1 Where we stand In the previous
Page 89 and 90:
differently. As we have seen in (2)
Page 91 and 92:
on the semantic component, more pre
Page 93 and 94:
4.2 Marking givenness by an operato
Page 95 and 96:
a. What happens with all the money
Page 97 and 98:
‘Martin was loved again.’ The c
Page 99 and 100:
Furthermore, I assume that if there
Page 101 and 102:
lexical head. In a way, we want the
Page 103 and 104:
(54) a. VP Petr VP V t Petr b. vP P
Page 105 and 106:
c. TP VP book give to-Peter t book
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In the same way that there can be t
Page 109 and 110:
(70) st terminating point object e,
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c. G-operator and local G-movement:
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Mary managed chair G to-burn d. G-o
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well. Recall that there are two rel
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There is simply no way the G-operat
Page 119 and 120:
(97) a. And what will he read and t
Page 121 and 122:
In this case, the given part is ‘
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To sum up, we now have in place a f
Page 125 and 126:
Generic indefinites behave slightly
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. #Porsche má kamarád mojí ženy
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The position of the sentential stre
Page 131 and 132:
is whether English givenness is rea
Page 133 and 134:
Appendix A G-movement is A-movement
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. Svoji kočku má ráda Marie. her
Page 137 and 138:
with movement of a pronoun over a c
Page 139 and 140:
Petr’s friends.Acc saw Marie.Nom
Page 141 and 142:
A.5 Summary To conclude, we have se
Page 143 and 144:
Biskup, Petr. In preparation. The p
Page 145 and 146:
Dotlačil, Jakub. 2004. The syntax
Page 147 and 148:
Junghanns, Uwe. 1999. Generative Be
Page 149 and 150:
Neeleman, Ad, and Tanya Reinhart. 1
Page 151 and 152:
Selkirk, Elizabeth O. 1995. Sentenc
Page 153:
Zikánová, Šárka. 2006. Slovosle
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The Syntax of Givenness Ivona KucerovÃ¡

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