A Nonsolution for a Problem of PP ExtractionAuthor(s): Jeff GoldbergSource: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Summer, 1985), pp. 478-481Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178447 .

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478 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

A NONSOLUTION FOR A

PROBLEM OF PP EXTRACTION

Jeff Goldberg, Stanford University

Sag (1982) offers a solution to a difficult problem of extraction from coordinate structures. He claims that his solution predicts "new facts in an unrelated domain, solving a long-standing problem involving prepositional phrases." I will show here that Sag's modification of the overall theory proposed in Gazdar (1981; 1982) and elsewhere does not, in fact, solve the prepo- sitional phrase problem that he discusses.

Sag's proposal is intended to account for the ungrammati- cality of the extraction of conjuncts as in (2).

(1) a. Who do we need [[stories about ] and [pic- tures of ...]?

b. What did you say [[Alicia loves ] and [Albert can't stand ..]]?

(2) a. *Who do we need [[] and [pictures of ]]? b. *What did you say [[] and [..]]?

This is achieved by replacing Gazdar's (1981; 1982) rule schema (3) with the metarule given in (4).

(3) la-* t

(4) The Trace Introduction Metarule (TIM)

aelp . ./pJ . .. => al . . t . ,(where ot 7&

If the output of the TIM were the only rules that allowed for a trace, then by the a $ ,B condition trace would never be the daughter of any node labeled a/a.'

The a $ f condition is needed to account for the examples in (2). According to Sag, it is also the condition that accounts for the ungrammaticality of (Sd).

(5) a. Amy tossed the bomb [out [of [the window]]]. b. Which window did Amy toss the bomb [out [of

]]l? c. [Out [of [which window]]] did Amy toss the bomb

9

d. *[Of which window] did Amy toss the bomb [out

To allow for the prepositional phrase in (5a) Sag assumes the

I am grateful for the support I received from the University of California at Santa Cruz Syntax Research Center. I would also like to thank Jon Aske, Sarah Riskin, and Saaren Schwartz, who participated in the discovery of this problem, as well as Jorge Hankamer, Geoff Pullum, and others who made valuable comments on earlier versions of this squib.

1 The a # f3 condition on the TIM does not prohibit rules of the form (i).

(i) aal. . t . . . It merely ensures that such rules must be introduced into the grammar by means other than the TIM.

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SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION 479

rules given in (6), from which proceed the derived rules in (7) (= Sag's (22) and (23), with different notation).

(6) a. PP P PP b. PP PNP

(7) a. PP/PP P PP/PP b. PP/NP P NP/NP

The a : ,B condition prevents (7a) from being input to the TIM, and this, according to Sag, is what rules out (5d). The rules in (6), however, are incorrect in a small but crucial way.

Consider the structure of the prepositional phrases in (8) and (9). ((8a-c) are examples (44a-c) from Jackendoff (1973).)

(8) a. Right down the road Frodo saw an approaching band of grzches.

b. The curious sounds of a harp could be heard far after the landing of the saucer.

c. The class of prepositions is made up partly of verbs.

(9) a. Out straight from under the house the three chil- dren came.

b. The tortoise is from right around Elea. c. From directly under the table Fido jumped.

Jackendoff (1973; 1977) concludes that the lexical category P is not an immediate daughter of the maximal projection of P, and that instead there is an intervening node.2 In (8a) the prepo- sitional phrase including the adverb right appears in a fronted position. Following Jackendoff,3 I analyze the structure of the prepositional phrase in (9c), not as in (lOa), but as in (lOb).

(10) a. PP

I p from AdvP PP

directly P NP

under the table 2 Jackendoff bases his arguments largely on a desire to maintain

symmetry with the rest of his system. It is possible, though not trivial, to show that prepositions do not subcategorize for these prepositional phrase adverbials. Once it is shown that subcategorization is not in- volved, we can conclude that the adverb phrase is not a sister to the P, provided we are assuming with Jackendoff (1977, 58) that X' contains all and only the subcategorized complements of X.

3It is not relevant to my argument whether or not what I have called Adv" is dominated by an intervening node Specp, as in Jackendoff (1973). Nor is the choice of bar system relevant. This argument will hold for a two bar level system, a three bar level system, and others.

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480 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

b.

Pt

from Adv" P'

directly P N"

under the table

Tree (lOb) corresponds to rules (1la-c), which should replace (6a-b).

(I11) a. P' PN" b. P'-PP" c. P" (Adv") P'

These give rise to the following derived rules.

(12) a. P'/N" P N"IN"

b. P'/P" P P"/P" c. Pit/Pit (Adv") P'/P'

Both (12a) and (12b) can serve as input to the TIM. P' does not equal P". Thus, (13) will be a rule of the grammar.

(13) P'/P" -+ P t

This rule will allow extraction of prepositional phrases from prepositional phrases, and it is not prevented by the condition on the TIM.

One might try to solve this problem by strengthening the condition on the TIM-for instance, by replacing the a. # 3 condition with a stronger statement (14):

(14) ot and f are not projections of the same lexical cate- gories.

If this were the case, then (12b) would not be input for the TIM, and (13) would be excluded from the grammar. This approach does have its problems, especially for analyses that assume that S is the maximal projection of V. Under such an assumption (15) would not serve as input to the TIM. I am assuming a two bar level system, but the argument would hold just as well for others.

(15) V' -+ V V"

Thus, (16), if part of the grammar, would not be the output of the TIM.

(16) V'/V"-*Vt

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SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION 481

Although it would clearly be possible to stipulate a rule like (16), such a stipulation would be missing the generalization that Topicalization of clauses (as in That Alex broke the window, I will never believe) is similar to Topicalization of NP and of PP. That similarity is one of the major reasons for assuming that S is the maximal projection of V, as stated in Jackendoff (1977).

It seems, then, that if one assumes that S is the maximal projection of V, as does Gazdar (1982), then it is best to leave the condition on the TIM in its original, weaker form, and rec- ognize that the problem exemplified by (5d) is still unsolved.

References

Gazdar, G. (1981) "Unbounded Dependencies and Coordinate Structure," Linguistic Inquiry 12, 155-184.

Gazdar, G. (1982) "Phrase Structure Grammar," in P. Jacobson and G. K. Pullum, eds., The Nature of Syntactic Rep- resentation, Reidel, Dordrecht.

Jackendoff, R. (1973) "The Base Rules for Prepositional Phrases," in S. R. Anderson and P. Kiparsky, eds., A Festschrift for Morris Halle, Holt, Rinehart and Win- ston, New York.

Jackendoff, R. (1977) X Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sag, I. (1982) "Coordination, Extraction, and Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar," Linguistic Inquiry 13, 329- 335.

ILLICIT NP MOVEMENT:

LOCALITY CONDITIONS ON

CHAINS?

Howard Lasnik, University of Connecticut

1. Conditions on NP Movement

One of the major syntactic discoveries of the early 1970s was that in certain central respects, NP movement obeys the same constraints as the process associating an anaphor with its ante- cedent. Chomsky (1973) proposed that this fact is simply a special case of the generalization that all rules obey the Tensed- S Condition and the Specified Subject Condition. The signifi- cance of such an approach was that it allowed for a great re- duction in the descriptive power of transformations, leading ul- timately to the current "Move a." (1) and (2) are representative

I would like to thank Noam Chomsky, Sam Epstein, Bob Freidin, Yinxia Long, Luigi Rizzi, Dominique Sportiche, Tim Stowell, and an anonymous LI reviewer for helpful suggestions. This research was sup- ported in part by the MIT Center for Cognitive Science under a grant from the A. P. Sloan Foundation's particular program in Cognitive Sci- ence.

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