LISSIM 6

June 1-15, 2012@ Kangra

Selected Essays

Floating quantifiers and associates of existential constructions in Standard English

Will Harwood
PhD, GIST, Ghent

 How LISSIM6 can help me with my research

1. Introduction

According to me, knowledge can be best acquired through informal and intimate surroundings, and it is for this reason that I am an avid supporter of linguistic summer schools. They offer the chance to study the discipline in a unique environment that is vastly different from traditional lectures or reading materials, and which leads to a better understanding of the topic in general. I often find the experience of two weeks at a summer school to be far more beneficial for my own research than months of independent study, and it is for this reason that I wish to attend this year’s LISSIM summer school, which has been recommended to me by several former LISSIM lecturers (David Adger, Ian Roberts, Guglielmo Cinque), for the complete immersion in syntax and semantics it offers, for the intimate and informal setting it promotes, and for the insightful and stimulating discussions arising from this.

 An overview of my research follows, along with how I believe my attendance at LISSIM might help further this.

2. Research

My PhD research focuses on the distributional similarities of floating quantifiers (FQs) and associates of existential constructions in Standard English (SE), and providing a unifying account of these two phenomena.

The position of both FQs and associates in English has long been used in support of the vP--‐internal subject hypothesis, as such constructions appear to show evidence for the subject originating in vP. However, a number of problems have been noted, namely that the FQ and the associate do not always appear to surface in their base, vP--‐internal positions. Derived associates and the FQs of derived subjects cannot surface in the object position:

(1) a. The pixies were (all) arrested (*all).

b. The guests had (all) arrived (*all).

c. There were (many pixies) arrested (*many pixies).

d. There were (many guests) arriving (*many guests).

 Furthermore, when the passive auxiliary or copula be is present as being, the associate and FQ must precede this item as well:

 (2)      a. The pixies were (all) being (*all) arrested.

b. The pixies were (all) being (*all) rather loud.

c. There were (many pixies) being (*many pixies) arrested.

d. There were (many pixies) being (*many pixies) rather loud.

 These similarities in distribution have been unobserved until now. Though many analyses have attempted to account for either the distribution of FQs or associates, none have attempted to account for both phenomena simultaneously. This is the aim of my research. As Jonathan Bobaljik has worked on both FQs and existentials, his presence at LISSIM will be extremely relevant for me.

 A large proportion of my analysis of FQs and existentials is centred upon the observation that progressive aspect is largely responsible for the distributional properties of these phenomena. FQs and associates must precede passive or copular be when inflected for progressive morphology, and the associate must precede the unaccusative verb when inflected for progressive aspect.

 (3)      a. There were (several guests) arriving (*several guests).

b. There had (*several guests) arrived (several guests).

 This has led me to claim that progressive aspect behaves differently from other aspectual forms in SE, such as perfective, in that it acts as a phasal boundary. As my research revolves around the aspectual structure of the verbal layer, I am interested in discussing my work with Roumyana Pancheva, whose research on perfective aspect and auxiliary have may shed light on this distinction between progressive and perfective.

An effect of the progressive phase boundary is that the edge feature of this aspectual phase is what causes so many of the associates to raise out of their base positions. Together with the claim that quantificational elements must be licensed on the phase edge (Butler 2004), this also explains why quantifiers can only be stranded from this position onwards. Furthermore, the claim as to the uniqueness of progressive aspect is able to account for the quirks of many phenomena in SE, such as VP ellipsis, reduced relative clauses, VP fronting, tag questions, idioms and aspectual mismatches. I am interested in discussing this more cartographical approach to phases with Ayesha Kidwai, who has herself worked on translating phase theory into a cartographical framework.

Another part of my motivation to attend LISSIM is to see how the behaviour of certain aspectual forms, in particular progressive and perfective, extends cross--‐linguistically. It is difficult to thoroughly study progressive forms within many of the Germanic and Romance languages that I have been exposed to as they only produce progressives under Small Clauses. Attending LISSIM will bring me into contact with speakers of many other languages and boost the cross--‐linguistic aspect of my research.

My research topic is obviously but a sub--‐topic within the more fundamental issues of argument structure and A--‐movement, for which I am extremely keen to follow the courses taught by David Pesetsky and MT Hany Babu, both of whom have worked extensively on these research areas.

My research on the structure of the English auxiliary system has recently led me to work on ellipsis. Within this field I have been trying to account for the optional ellipsis of the English auxiliaries be and been, and the obligatoriness of the non--‐finite auxiliary when selected by the epistemic modal must. This I believe to be for semantic reasons, for which I am keen to attend Friederike Moltmann’s lectures in the hope of gaining an answer to this puzzle. MT Hany Babu’s and Roumyana Pancheva’s work on modality may also be helpful in this regard. It is due to my work on ellipsis and auxiliary selection that I am furthermore interested in following Tanmoy Bhattacharya’s classes, who has published widely on these issues.

I am also very keen to meet students from the Indian sub--‐continent, to offer a fresh pair of eyes to one another’s research. I would be extremely grateful to attend LISSIM6 and look forward to it with great enthusiasm, having waited for two years already for the chance to attend this summer school.

For enquiries, write to secretary@fosssil.in