Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

176 Workshops
The proper analysis of what I will call “quotative constructions” in Spanish has, I think,
important consequences for the cartography of the left periphery (Rizzi 1997 and subsequent
work), as well as for the LF representation of some finite dependencies, such as the well
studied double-complementizer structures in Spanish (Plann 1982, Uriagereka 1988, Brucart
1992, Suñer 1993, Rivero 1995, Lahiri 1991, 2002).
Scope Effects in Exclamative Sentences
González, Raquel
Madrid
This talk deals with the (im)possibility of negating exclamative sentences in Spanish (cf.
Masullo 2005, Villaba 2004): while quantitative exclamatives can be negated, qualitative
exclamatives cannot. I show that the constraints on the presence of negation in exclamative
sentences follow from scope relations established between the wh-phrase and negation. I
provide evidence for the syntactic reconstruction approach to derive these scope relations.
My proposal is that negation can appear in exclamative sentences when it does not take scope
over the wh-phrase; when the wh-phrase is within the scope of the negative operator, the sentence
is ungrammatical because the degree quantifier is a Positive Polarity Item (PPI). One of the
differences between qualitative and quantitative quantifiers is the scope relations these types of
operators establish. Qualitative quantifiers always have narrow scope with respect to other
operators (cf. Heim 2000, Kennedy 1997), and exclamative ones do not behave differently.
Finally, I explore how the scope relations established between two operators, such as negation
and exclamative wh-phrases, are derived from the syntax (cf. Hornstein 1995, 1999, Szabolcsi
1997). The relation where the wh-phrase has wide scope is obtained by the surface linear
order of these operators, but the situation is different when the wh-phrase has narrow scope. I
argue that inverse scope is obtained through syntactic reconstruction of the wh-phrase (cf.
Agüero-Bautista 2001, Fox 2000). Reconstruction consists of interpreting the lowest (or the
intermediate) copy of the wh-phrase. When this operator has wide scope, the highest copy is
interpreted by the semantic interface.
Introductory Remarks
Grohmann, K. K. / Tsimpli, I.-M.
University of Cyprus / University of Thessaloniki
kleanthi@ucy.ac.cy;imt@enl.auth.gr
This workshop aims to address the question of form and function in linguistic phenomena
which involve the left periphery of the clause, i.e. phenomena which typically subsume an
interface level between syntax and discourse. Such phenomena readily lend themselves to
functionalist approaches as they are heavily semantically and discoursally marked.
Universalist accounts of the generative tradition, on the other hand, regard such phenomena as
being driven by formal operations which are inherent properties of natural languages, such as
agreement or movement relations which, when applied to the higher layer of clause structure
(i.e. the left periphery), render the grammatical features involved ‘visible’ by the interpretive
component as discourse-related features. (For a nice overview of both positions, see e.g.
Hammond, Moravcsik & Wirth 1988.)
Universalism suggests that form and function interact at some level, but function does not
determine form, and form is generated independently of function. On the other hand,
relativism typically assumes a stronger interaction between form and function, with function