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Idan Landau
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2025) 56 (1): 97–129.
Published: 04 January 2025
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Theories of argument ellipsis based on PF deletion or LF copying do not generate predictions regarding possible constraints on the semantic type of the elided argument. Yet such constraints obtain, as documented in Landau 2022 : only type- e arguments can be targeted by argument ellipsis. Focusing on quantificational arguments here, I show that when they yield readings expressible by type- e denotations, they may elide, but when they denote genuine generalized quantifiers, they may not. Utilizing the restricted range of interpretations made available by choice function binding and E-type pronouns, the analysis derives a number of peculiar scopal properties of indefinite NPs, quantifiers, and exceptive phrases under argument ellipsis.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2020) 51 (2): 341–365.
Published: 01 March 2020
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An increasingly popular analysis of object gap sentences in many languages derives them in two steps: (a) V-raising out of VP, and (b) VP-ellipsis of the remnant, stranding the verb (V-stranding VP-ellipsis, VSVPE). For Hebrew, Hindi, Russian, and Portuguese, I show this analysis to be inadequate. First, it undergenerates elliptical objects in various environments, and second, it overgenerates nonexisting adjunct-including readings. For all the problematic data, simple argument ellipsis provides a unified explanation. The absence of VSVPE in languages that do allow V-raising and Aux-stranding VP-ellipsis raises an intriguing problem for theories addressing the interaction of head movement and ellipsis.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2020) 51 (2): 281–318.
Published: 01 March 2020
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Ellipsis of a constituent whose head has moved out of it (“headless ellipsis”) is possible in some cases but not in others. Headless ellipsis is licensed only if the stranded head has not crossed a Spell-Out domain. The reason is that the silencing instruction responsible for ellipsis must be PF-visible on the head of the elided constituent, and PF-visibility is cut off at Spell-Out domain boundaries. A parallel effect is observed with remnants of head movement that are frozen for movement (“headless movement”). The two effects can possibly be united if ellipsis and copy deletion recruit the same silencing instruction at PF, hosted on the head of the deleted constituent. A third, mirror-image effect is observed with reprise fragments, which must be visibly headed. This time head movement removes the PF instruction that spares these fragments from ellipsis. Overall, these phenomena establish the significance of headedness for the syntax-PF interface.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2020) 51 (1): 75–96.
Published: 01 January 2020
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When occurring without their goal argument, communication verbs induce two types of control: obligatory control (OC) by the implicit goal, or nonobligatory control (NOC) by a salient antecedent. Arguments are presented to demonstrate that the two are genuinely distinct, and furthermore, that the NOC option is not reducible to embedded imperatives. The two types of control implicate the same grammatical representations, the single difference being the choice of the context of evaluation for PRO (fixed as the reported context in OC, free in NOC). Finally, evidence is presented (from VP-ellipsis) that reference to deictic antecedents in NOC is not direct but mediated via grammatically present entities ( SPEAKER and ADDRESSEE functions).
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2016) 47 (3): 572–580.
Published: 01 July 2016
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2010) 41 (3): 357–388.
Published: 01 July 2010
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Although they participate in control relations, implicit arguments are standardly viewed as unprojected ϑ-roles, absent from the syntax. I challenge this view and argue that implicit arguments are syntactically represented. The argument rests on the observation that implicit arguments can exercise partial control, and the claim that partial control must be encoded in the syntax (given plausible assumptions on the limits of lexical relations). I further argue that the syntactic constitution of implicit arguments is more impoverished than that of pro, explaining their differential visibility to various syntactic processes.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2009) 40 (2): 343–346.
Published: 01 April 2009
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2009) 40 (1): 113–132.
Published: 01 January 2009
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A rich literature on Icelandic syntax has established that infinitival complements of obligatory control verbs constitute a case assignment domain independent from the matrix clause, and in this differ systematically from all types of A-movement, which manifest case dependence/preservation. As Landau (2003) has observed, these facts provide significant counterevidence to the movement theory of control (Hornstein 1999 and subsequent work). Boeckx and Hornstein (2006a) attempt to defend this theory in light of data from Icelandic. We offer here a review of the relevant literature, and we show that Boeckx and Hornstein's reply fails on several counts. We further argue that contrary to their claims, PRO in Icelandic receives structural rather than default (nominative) case, leaving the movement theory with no account for the distinction between PRO and lexical subjects.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2007) 38 (3): 485–523.
Published: 01 July 2007
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The fact that the specifier of T 0 is subject both to the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) and to the Empty Category Principle (ECP) has remained an unexplained accident within Government-Binding Theory. I propose a principled account of this correlation. The EPP is a selectional requirement of functional heads (e.g., T, Top, C) that applies at PF—an instance of p-selection for an overt element. Like all selectional requirements, it applies to the head of the selected phrase, explaining why null heads cannot appear in EPP positions (thus deriving certain representational ECP effects). A wide range of empirical results follow, all unified by the exclusion of null-headed phrases from EPP positions: subject-object asymmetries in the distribution of bare nouns in Romance and sentential complements; failure of certain adjuncts to occur in clause-initial position; resistance of indirect objects to Ā-movement; and phonological doubling of heads of fronted categories. I argue against the agreement/checking view of the EPP and show that only the selectional construal allows a natural explanation of its puzzling properties.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2003) 34 (3): 471–498.
Published: 01 July 2003
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This article is a comprehensive critique of the reductionist view of control advocated in recent minimalist studies, most notably Hornstein 1999. The core of this view is the claim that obligatory control should be collapsed with raising, and nonobligatory control with pronominal coreference. I argue that Hornstein's theory (a) overgenerates nonexisting structures and interpretations, (b) fails to derive a wide range of well-known raising/control contrasts, and (c) involves unstated stipulations belying the appeal to Occam's razor.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2002) 33 (3): 465–492.
Published: 01 July 2002
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This article explores the possibility that the distinction between interpretable (valued) and uninterpretable (unvalued) features has grammatical manifestations beyond its role in feature checking. I argue that both selection and lexical insertion are sensitive to this distinction; thus, a head may determine not only which features its complement must bear but also whether they should be interpretableor not. Empirical consequences are explored in Hebrew, where infinitival complements to negative verbs (‘refrain’, ‘prevent’) display a number of surprising syntax-semanticscorrelations.Those are tracedto the operation of negative features in the Comp position. The analysis also provides insight into the recalcitrant prevent DP from V-ing construction in English.