<OT> New Posting: ROA-824

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 824-0106

Coordination in Optimality Theory

Miklos Gaspar <miklos at pressflex.com>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=824


Abstract:
This dissertation provides an analysis of coordination within
a restricted version of Optimality Theory (OT), operating
exclusively with alignment and faithfulness constraints.
It is shown that this version of OT, which does not assume
the existence of syntactic structure, is capable of handling
coordination phenomena that have been problematic for previous
structureless accounts, while at the same time also avoids
the problems encountered by structure-based theories trying
to fit coordination into models developed to account for
structures occurring elsewhere.


It is standardly assumed in OT that syntactic structure
conforming to X-bar Theory axioms is imposed on all the
candidates generated from the input by the structure building
component of the grammar. I reject this view and contend
that it is by eliminating from the grammar historically
inherited axioms about X-bar Theory or even the central
notion of phrases that we can unlock the real power of OT:
the violable constraints that make up the evaluation system
are solely responsible for the grammar and grammatical difference
s between languages.


I show how such an assumption, originally conceived in Newson
(2000b), can predict basic word order patterns and can also
account for topicalization as well as coordination in a
wide variety of language types. As syntactic OT in general,
and alignment OT in particular are relatively novel developments
within linguistic research, the basic principles of the
theory are still being formed. I show that the originally
assumed family of predicate alignment constraints alone
is not capable of accounting for a variety of data such
as SOV language pattern as well as topicalization and focalizatio
n in a variety of languages, and introduce a second family
of alignment constraints. Contrary to the predicate alignment
constraints, which establish the position of an element
with respect to its predicate (or, more generally, functor),
first and last constraints sanction the placement of elements
to the beginning and the end of the string, respectively.
The interaction of these constraints with each another and
with the functor alignment and the faithfulness constraints
provides a powerful grammar.


The coordinative conjunction is argued to be a functor,
taking the predicates of the propositions it conjoins as
its arguments. As a functor, the functor constraints originally
developed for the predicate-argument relationship are relevant
for the conjunction-conjunct alignment relationship as well.


Central to the analysis of ellipsis is the claim that ellipsis
is not only characterized by phonological absence, but by
syntactic absence as well. Essentially, ellipsis is treated
as a semantic phenomenon: it is up to the semantic component
of the grammar to reconstruct elided material missing from
all other levels of grammatical description. In the framework
adopted semantic interpretation is based on the input of
the optimality system. Thus the input is the foundation
of ellipsis phenomena -- as much as it contains gaps for
material that surface as elided. I suggest that semantic
reconstruction of  missing input material occurs via a higher-ord
er unification process and that the sentence receives interpretat
ion only if this unification process succeeds.

Comments: 
Keywords: coordination, topicalization, alignment, ellipsis, gapping, functor, word order, impoverished input
Areas: Syntax,Semantics
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=824