On the Syntax of Missing Objects: A study with special reference to English, Polish, and Hungarian (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today)

Focusing on objects, this book aims at contributing to the on-going inquiry into modelling structures with missing arguments. In addition to offering detailed discussion and analyses of a unique combination of three very different systems (English, Polish, and Hungarian), a larger goal here is to provide a framework for deriving cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic variation in the domain of object drop. Variation of this type is hypothesised to follow, first and foremost, from the association of heads in the extended nominal projection with phonemic features and from the system of interpretation of nominal expressions in a language. The book will be of interest to both theoretically- and descriptively-oriented researchers, since, even though its focus is theoretical, a detailed discussion of the empirical facts, including some novel findings drawn from corpus studies and grammaticality judgements, is also offered. On the Syntax of Missing Objects Editorial page Title page LCC data Table of contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Comparing and contrasting English, Polish, and Hungarian Structure of the current work Part I. A theory of missing objects Chapter 1. Missing objects in English, Polish, and Hungarian: Developing a theoretical analysis 1.1 Modelling missing objects: Previous approaches 1.1.1 Structures with missing objects are unergative 1.1.2 Missing objects are null variables bound by a null topic 1.1.3 Missing objects are null pronouns linked to a projection in the left periphery 1.1.4 Missing objects are pro 1.1.5 Missing objects are deleted full NPs/DPs 1.1.6 Missing objects are inside deleted VPs in verb-standing VP ellipsis 1.1.7 Missing objects are the feature complex {[D], [φ]} or {[φ]} 1.1.8 Missing objects are null bare nouns 1.1.9 Missing objects are represented by the nominal categorial feature 1.2 Lexical encoding of object drop 1.3 Present analysis: Conclusions from the data 1.4 Present analysis: Basic assumptions Chapter 2. Indefinite missing objects 2.1 A transitive analysis of indefinite object drop 2.2 Indefinite missing objects as n 2.2.1 Silence of n 2.2.2 Meaning of n 2.2.3 Indefinite missing objects and incorporation 2.2.4 Syntactic activity of the missing object 2.3 The manner and result components of verb meaning 2.4 Summary and extensions 2.4.1 Extensions: Arbitrary missing objects and control 2.4.2 Extensions: Read ø versus kan-shu ‘read-book’ Chapter 3. Definite missing objects 3.1 Definite missing objects as partial pronominal structures 3.2 The structure of pronouns in English, Polish, and Hungarian 3.3 Definite missing objects: Syntactic representation, silence, and interpretation 3.3.1 Definite missing objects in English 3.3.2 Definite missing objects in Polish 3.3.3 Definite missing objects in Hungarian 3.3.3.1 Missing objects and verbal conjugation 3.3.3.2 [pl] marker as the blocking factor 3.3.3.3 First/second-person plural objects 3.3.4 An alternative: Null D in English and Polish 3.4 Definite missing objects as n or DP: Conclusion Part II. The phenomenon: Further empirical facts and theoretical considerations Chapter 4. Interpretive properties of missing objects 4.1 General introduction: Anaphoricity and definiteness 4.2 Non-anaphoric missing objects 4.2.1 Analytical possibilities: Lexical ambiguity 4.2.2 Analytical possibilities: Syntactic transitivity 4.2.3 Analytical possibilities: Antipassive 4.2.4 A special case: Human object 4.2.5 A special case: Characteristic property of the instrument 4.3 Anaphoric missing objects 4.3.1 Anaphoric missing objects in Polish 4.3.2 Anaphoric missing objects in Hungarian 4.4 A note on reflexives 4.5 Problems of interpretation: Win ø 4.6 Conclusion and outlook Chapter 5. Missing objects: The licensing and constraining factors 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Features of the verb 5.2.1 Selectional restrictions 5.2.2 Meaning components: Manner and result 5.3 Features of the predicate/sentence 5.3.1 Aktionsart, telicity, and grammatical aspect in English, Polish, and Hungarian: Some basic facts and observations 5.3.2 Interactions with object drop 5.4 Licensing of missing objects by syntactic and information-structural environment 5.4.1 Habituality, genericity, iterativity 5.4.2 Contrast, emphasis on the action, verb sequences, and stress on an element other than the object 5.5 Conclusion and outlook Chapter 6. Conclusions and extensions 6.1 Missing objects: language similarity and language variation 6.1.1 Intra-linguistic variation 6.2 Missing objects and language acquisition References Language index Subject index