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AGAINST OPTIONALITY IN DERIVATION AND INTERPRETATION:
EVIDENCE FROM SCRAMBLING
by
Hong-Keun Park
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(LINGUISTICS)
August 2007
Copyright 2007 Hong-Keun Park
Object Description
| Title | Against optionality in derivation and interpretation: evidence from scrambling |
| Author | Park, Hong-Keun |
| Author email | hongkeun@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Linguistics |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2006-12-11 |
| Date submitted | 2007 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2007-07-06 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Li, Yen-hui Audrey |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Vergnaud, Jean-Roger Kim, Nam-Kil |
| Abstract | This work investigates the issue of optionality in derivation and interpretation in scrambling constructions, under a strong working hypothesis that syntax does not allow sheer optional operations of any kind.; Regarding word order variations in Korean (and other so-called free word order languages) ascribed to scrambling, I support an information structure-based approach (ISA), which holds that scrambling is a syntactic means to encode structurally discourse-functional roles such as (contrastive) topic and (contrastive) focus, arguing against its alternative conception as a certain optional displacement operation in syntax or PF. Departing from most of the proponents of the ISA, however, I claim that syntactic encoding of a discourse-functional role does not always mean its feature checking within the local checking domain of a relevant head. Only the head Top is argued to have a strong feature [topic], attracting a topic phrase for feature checking; movement to Spec-FocP (or Spec-ContP) is not so much due to an analogous feature in Foc (or Cont) as to some licensing property of an element to be raised. An apparent counterexample to the ISA, which I call 'Tail movement,' is argued to result from the dual mode of licensing of a contrastive focus in Korean. I show that given certain parameterizations, the ISA proposed here can account for the distribution of topics and foci (presentational and contrastive) in other free word order langauges like Russian, Hungarian, and German, as well as in English.; As for interpretation of a scrambled element, I argue that only its surface position is accessible to interpretation, were it not for any need for reconstruction. That is, reconstruction effects must appear when a scrambled element fails to have its inherent property (e.g., referential dependency for anaphors) satisfied at the surface structure; otherwise, they are not present, or marginal to say the least. I also suggest here that reconstruction might well be regarded as a syntactic operation (lowering), which applies in a local way when required, on a par with raising. The given analysis refutes most of the previous analyses, which typically relate reconstruction effects in scrambling constructions to other displacement operations (such as A'-movement). In fact, I argue, based on the different picture in English wh-questions, that reconstruction thereof follows from an independent condition whereby every non-operator element in Spec-CP must be reconstructed, and that every non-head copy position is eligible for a reconstruction site. Obligatory reconstruction and multiple reconstruction sites with equal status of acceptability are in stark contrast with what is observed in scrambling constructions, which can receive an immediate and natural account under a non-uniform approach to reconstruction. |
| Keyword | information structure; topic; focus; scrambling; reconstruction |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m589 |
| Rights | Park, Hong-Keun |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Park-20070706 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume62/etd-Park-20070706.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | AGAINST OPTIONALITY IN DERIVATION AND INTERPRETATION: EVIDENCE FROM SCRAMBLING by Hong-Keun Park A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (LINGUISTICS) August 2007 Copyright 2007 Hong-Keun Park |
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