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Benjamin Bruening
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry 1–45.
Published: 15 September 2023
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Bruening and Al Khalaf (2020) show that selectional violations in coordination are extremely limited (there are exactly two) and exactly match those that are permitted in ellipsis and displacement. Patejuk and Przepiórkowski (2023) criticize Bruening and Al Khalaf’s article on numerous fronts. They do successfully show that conjuncts do not need to match in syntactic category, but their dismissal of the selectional violation data does not succeed. I present additional data, including the results of three large-scale acceptability surveys, that show that the two violations of selectional restrictions are real and are fully general. The two patterns that need an analysis are coordinations of NP&CP appearing where CPs are banned, and Adv&AP appearing in prenominal position where adverbs are banned. I propose a variation on Bruening and Al Khalaf’s analysis that accounts for all of the facts and meets Patejuk and Przepiórkowski’s objections.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2020) 51 (1): 1–36.
Published: 01 January 2020
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We reexamine cases of coordinated elements that do not match in syntactic category. We show that these fall into two types. The first type includes predicates, modifiers in the clausal domain, and such modifiers apparently coordinated with arguments. We argue that these do not actually involve coordination of unlike categories. The second type involves coordinated arguments of different categories. With this type, unlike the first, noninitial conjuncts may violate selectional restrictions. To account for these violations, researchers have typically posited a special status for the first conjunct in a coordinate structure, such that it alone can determine the category of the coordinate phrase. We show that such accounts are untenable. First, the final conjunct can be what matters for selection, if it is closest to the selecting or selected element. Second, category mismatches are not free, but are extremely limited and exactly match those observed in ellipsis and displacement. This calls for a uniform account of these mismatches, not one specific to coordination. We spell out such an analysis, in which displacement, ellipsis, and coordination permit certain categories to behave as certain other categories through their effects on null syntactic heads.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2018) 49 (3): 537–559.
Published: 01 July 2018
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Some syntactic approaches to argument structure posit small clause constituents to represent what they take to be the semantics of the constructions being analyzed. For example, this approach would analyze a resultative construction like Martha hammered the metal flat as containing a small clause [the metal flat]. In the small clause analysis, the NP the metal is only an argument of the result state denoted by the small clause, and its referent is not part of the causal hammering event. Depictive secondary predicates show that this analysis is incorrect; the NP referent must be part of the verbal causing event. I show this for several constructions that have been analyzed as small clauses: resultatives, caused-motion constructions, verb-particle constructions, and double object constructions, among others. I also revisit arguments that have been presented in favor of small clause analyses (e.g., the argument from adverbial modification) and show that they do not actually favor small clause analyses. Domains of anaphora, in contrast, converge with depictives as a reliable diagnostic for small clauses, as actual small clauses always constitute opaque domains for anaphora.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2018) 49 (1): 123–150.
Published: 01 January 2018
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Ormazabal and Romero (2012) take issue with the arguments in Bruening 2010b that certain instances of prepositional dative constructions are really double object constructions. I show that their criticisms, when examined closely, actually support this claim. I also show that their alternative explanation for the facts is not successful. I also expand on the arguments from Bruening 2010b , and further argue that double object constructions must be distinct syntactically and semantically from prepositional dative constructions. The two cannot be derived from the same source.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2014) 45 (4): 707–719.
Published: 01 October 2014
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2010) 41 (4): 519–562.
Published: 01 October 2010
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This article discusses three asymmetries in ditransitives—quantifier scope, nominalizations, and idioms—and argues that an asymmetric theory like that advocated by Marantz (1993) and Bruening (2001) is correct. A symmetric theory like that proposed by Harley (1997, 2002) cannot account for the asymmetries. The article also proposes a complete theory of idiom formation based on selection. It also proposes a formal semantics for double object constructions that includes a mechanism for composing complex predicates. This semantics can account for the different readings of again and other modifiers, and can also be extended to nonalternating verbs like deny , spare , envy , and cost , with correct predictions about their behavior.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2010) 41 (2): 287–305.
Published: 01 April 2010
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Recent work by Bresnan and colleagues (Bresnan 2007, Bresnan et al. 2007, Bresnan and Nikitina 2007) has argued that double object and prepositional dative constructions are essentially identical, the choice between them being conditioned by various factors. I argue against this conclusion, showing that the grammar clearly distinguishes double object from prepositional dative constructions. Under certain circumstances, the first object of a double object construction can shift to the right, with the preposition to appearing, but the grammar still distinguishes this from a prepositional dative construction that looks identical on the surface. The phenomena that I investigate are scope interactions with quantifiers and locative inversion. In addition, the rightward reordering operations investigated here indicate that constraints on variable binding, including weak crossover, must be formulated in terms of linear order rather than hierarchy.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2009) 40 (3): 427–445.
Published: 01 July 2009
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Ritter and Rosen (2005) claim that Algonquian languages lack A-movement and A-binding, and they theorize that all agreement in Algonquian is agreement with Ā-positions. I show that this proposal cannot be maintained, given facts of quantifier scope in Passamaquoddy. These facts require recognizing a step of A-movement to a derived A-position, comparable to Spec, TP in languages like English. I further contrast this movement with the movement involved in crossclausal agreement (Branigan and MacKenzie 2002) and show that the two differ in exactly the ways that A-movement and Ā-movement differ. Algonquian languages clearly have A-movement as distinct from Ā-movement.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2007) 38 (1): 139–166.
Published: 01 January 2007
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Two theories, the Clausal Typing Hypothesis (Cheng 1991) and the unselective binding theory of wh -in-situ, have linked wh -in-situ to two other phenomena typologically: the use of a question particle, and the use of wh -words as indefinites. This article shows, through a typological survey and a detailed comparison of Passamaquoddy and Mandarin Chinese, that there is no connection between wh -in-situ and either property. Passamaquoddy uses wh -words as indefinites in all the contexts Chinese does, but it is a robust wh -movement language. Crosslinguistically, languages of all possible types are attested: most crucially, wh -in-situ languages without question particles exist, and wh -in-situ languages that do not use wh -words as indefinites also exist. In fact, most languages, regardless of whether they are wh -movement or wh -in-situ languages, have question particles, and most languages use wh -words as indefinites.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2006) 37 (1): 25–49.
Published: 01 January 2006
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Several phenomena in Passamaquoddy clearly distinguish wh-scope marking with ‘what’ from an apparently similar wh -copy construction. These facts argue for a theory of wh -scope marking like that in Bruening 2004 (based on Dayal 1994), where the embedded question is the syntactic and semantic restriction on the matrix wh -word ‘what’. The wh -copy construction, in contrast, is best analyzed as spelling out multiple copies of a long-distance movement chain. This copy theory is extended to scope marking with tan and comparatives in Passamaquoddy.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2001) 32 (2): 233–273.
Published: 01 April 2001
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The phenomenon of “frozen scope” in double object and spray-load constructions is shown to hold robustly across contexts, constructions, and quantifier types. Nevertheless, frozen scope is not absolute, holding only between two objects but not between an object and a subject or an object and some other operator. The rigidity of two object quantifiers follows the pattern of multiple instances of movement cross linguistically (multiple wh -movement, multiple A-scrambling, multiple object shift): movement paths cross, recreating the hierarchical order of the moving elements (Richards 1997). Hypothesizing that quantifier scope is derived by quantifier-specific syntactic movement, movement that is constrained in the same way as other types of movement, permits these phenomena to be unified under accounts of Relativized Minimality effects generally.