Constituent Questions

This monograph has grown out of some issues that I began to investigate in my dissertation (Engdahl, 1980a). I am extremely grateful to the members of my doctoral committee, Emmon Bach, Chuck Clifton, Lyn Frazier, Barbara Partee, and Edwin Williams, who gave me construc­ tive feedback all through the writing of the dissertation. In particular, I want to thank my chairperson, Barbara Partee, for her detailed com­ ments and insightful suggestions. To a large extent, the research pre­ sented in this book represents further developments of ideas and problems that came up in our weekly meetings. During this period I also discussed with Eva Ejerhed, Irene Heim, Per-Kristian Halvorsen, Lauri Karttunen, Bill Ladusaw, Jim McCloskey, Stanley Peters, Arnim von Stechow, and Annie Zaenen who in various ways made me aware of additional aspects of the semantics of questions. Several people gave me helpful comments on my dissertation, most of which have influenced the present study in one way or another. Among these people I would like to mention Murvet Enc, Gerald Gazdar, Jeroen Groenendijk, Angelika Kratzer, Fred Landman, Alice ter Meulen, Mats Rooth, and Martin Stokhof. While I was developing the analysis presented in this book, I greatly benefitted from opportunities to present my ideas to other people.

I. Introduction.- 1. Theoretical and Methodological Issues.- 2. Unbounded Dependencies.- 3. Questions in Swedish.- 3.1. Extractions Out of Indirect Questions.- 3.2. Bound Anaphors in Preposed Constituents.- 4. The Semantics of Questions.- 5. Extensions of the Present Study.- Notes.- II. Recent Approaches to Unbounded Dependencies.- 0. Introduction.- 1. Short Overview of Relevant Data from Swedish.- 2. Arguments for Transformations.- 3. Generalized Phrase-Structure Grammars.- 3.1. Syntactic Rules.- 3.2. Semantic Rules.- 3.2.1. Designated Variables.- 3.2.2. Lambda Conversion.- 3.3. Evaluating the GPSG Framework.- 4. Cooper’s Proposal.- 4.1. Free Quantification and Controlled Quantification.- 4.2. Interpretation Through Substitution.- 5. Phrase Linking Grammars.- 5.1. An Outline of PLG.- 5.2. Linked Trees.- 5.3. Semantics.- 6. Unbounded Dependencies in the Government-Binding Framework.- 7. Choosing a Framework.- Notes.- III. A Frame Work for Swedish.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Format of Rules.- 2.1. Syntax.- 2.2. Semantics.- 3. Quantification.- 3.1. Free Quantification.- 3.2. Controlled Quantification.- 4. Questions.- 4.1. Questions Out of Questions.- 4.2. Multiple Questions.- 4.2.1. Mixed yes/no and Constituent Questions.- 4.2.2. Do We Need a Syntactic Category Q?.- 4.2.3. Linked Trees and Token Indexing.- 4.3. Subject Questions.- 4.4. Infinitival Questions.- 5. Pronouns.- 5.1. Free and Bound Pronouns.- 5.1.1. Resumptive Pronouns.- 5.1.2. Epithets.- 5.2. Reflexives.- 5.3. Restrictions on Binding of Pronouns.- 6. Gaps.- 6.1. Alternation Between Gaps and Pronouns.- 6.2. Pronoun-Gap Alternation as a Disambiguating Device.- 6.3. Parasitic Gaps.- 7. Constraining the Framework.- 7.1. How Many Extractions?.- 7.2. Structural Constraints.- 8. Summary.- Notes.- IV. The Interprentaion of Questions.- 1. Some Previous Approaches to Questions.- 1.1. Karttunen’s Treatment of Constituent Questions.- 1.2. Some Problems for Karttunen’s Approach.- 2. Quantifying Into Questions.- 2.1. Karttunen and Peters’ Proposal.- 2.2. Belnap’s Proposal.- 3. Some Arguments Against Quantifying Into Questions.- 3.1. Relational Questions Without Wide Scope Antecedents.- 3.2. Negative Antecedents.- 3.3. Questions Into Opaque Contexts.- 3.4. Summary.- 4. A Relational Approach to Interrogative Quantifiers.- 4.1. Similarities Between Pronouns and Interrogatives.- 4.2. The W Function.- 4.3. Questions With Bound Anaphors.- 4.3.1. Bound Personal Pronouns.- 4.3.2. Reflexive Pronouns.- 5. Interaction Between Interrogative Quantifiers and Other Quantifiers.- 5.1. Quantifiers and Pronoun Interpretation.- 5.2. Constituent Questions With Quantifiers.- 5.3. Excursus on Wide Scope Interpretation of Embedded NPs.- 6. The Internal Structure of Interrogative Constituents.- 6.1. Possessives.- 6.1.1. vems (whose).- 6.2. PP Complements.- 6.3. Partitive Questions.- 6.4. More on Control of Reflexives.- 7. Multiple WH Questions.- 7.1. Simple ‘unmoved’ WH Phrases.- 7.2. Embedded WH Phrases.- 7.3. Embedded WH Phrases in Comp.- 8. Questions Involving Other Categories.- 8.1. Pied-Piping.- 8.2. Adverbial, Adjectival, and Predicate Nominal Questions.- 8.3. Questions With Quantifier Type Answers.- 9. An Alternative Approach.- 9.1. Analyzing which as a Quantifier.- 9.2. Temporally Ambiguous Questions.- 9.3. Arguments Against Splitting up the Interpretation of Interrogative Quantifiers.- 10. Conclusion.- Notes.- V. A Comparison with EST-GB.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Semantic Interpretation in Transformational Grammar.- 3. Characterizing wh-Movement.- 4. wh-Interpretation and Reconstruction at LF.- 5. Bound Anaphors in Moved Constituents.- 5.1. Anaphora Interpretation in EST.- 5.2. The Binding Theory in the Government-Binding Framework.- 5.3. wh-Interpretation Reconsidered.- 6. Higginbotham and May’s Theory of Questions.- Notes.- VI. Restricting the Interpretation of Pronouns.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Disjoint Reference and Non-Coreference.- 2.1. A Pragmatic Account for Non-Coreference.- 2.2. Bound Anaphora and Parasitic Gaps.- 3. Cross-over.- 3.1. Background.- 3.2. Higginbotham’s Approach.- 3.3. Accounting for Cross-over Without Indexing of Syntactic Structures.- 3.4. Weak Cross-over.- 3.5. Cross-over and the Binding Theory in GB.- Notes.- VII. Theorotical Postcript.- 1. Linked Trees.- 2. Storage.- 3. Relational Readings.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.