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Categorial grammar is well-known for its elegant analysis of coordination enabled by the flexible notion of constituency it entertains. However, to date, no systematic study exists that examines whether this analysis has any obvious empirical advantage over alternative analyses of nonconstituent coordination available in phrase structure-based theories of syntax. This paper attempts precisely such a comparison. We compare the direct constituent coordination analysis of non-canonical coordinations (right-node raising, dependent cluster coordination and Gapping) in categorial grammar with an ellipsis-based analysis of the same phenomena in the recent HPSG literature. We provide a set of empirical evidence, consisting of cases in which non-canonical coordinations interact with scopal operators of various sorts, which systematically falsifies the predictions of the latter, ‘linearization-based’ ellipsis approach to coordination. We propose an alternative analysis in a variant of categorial grammar called Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar. The proposed framework builds on both the Lambek-inspired variants of categorial grammar and a more recent line of work modelling word order via a lambda calculus for the prosodic component. The flexible syntax–semantics interface of this framework straightforwardly captures the interactions between non-canonical coordinations and scopal expressions, demonstrating the broader empirical payoff of the direct constituent coordination analysis of non-canonical coordinations pioneered by Steedman (Language 61(3):523–568, 1985; Linguist Philos 13(2):207–263, 1990) and Dowty (Categorial grammars and natural language structures, 1988) hitherto not explicitly recognized in the literature.

This paper proposes a unified analysis of the ‘respective’ readings of plural and conjoined expressions, the internal readings of symmetrical predicates such as same and different, and the summative readings of expressions such as a total of $10000. These expressions pose significant challenges to compositional semantics, and have been studied extensively in the literature. However, almost all previous studies focus exclusively on one of these phenomena, and the close parallels and interactions that they exhibit have been mostly overlooked to date. We point out two key properties common to these phenomena: (i) they target all types of coordination, including nonconstituent coordination such as Right-Node Raising and Dependent Cluster Coordination; (ii) the three phenomena all exhibit multiple dependency, both by themselves and with respect to each other. These two parallels suggest that one and the same mechanism is at the core of their semantics. Building on this intuition, we propose a unified analysis of these phenomena, in which the meanings of expressions involving coordination are formally modelled as multisets, that is, sets that allow for duplicate occurrences of identical elements. The analysis is couched in Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar. The flexible syntax-semantics interface of this framework enables an analysis of ‘respective’ readings and related phenomena which, for the first time in the literature, yields a simple and principled solution for both the interactions with nonconstituent coordination and the multiple dependency noted above.

The scope anomaly observed in sentences like Mrs. J can’t live in Boston and Mr. J in LA (¬◊>∧) and No dog eats Whiskas or cat Alpo (¬∃>∨) is known to pose difficult challenges to many analyses of Gapping. We provide new arguments, based on both the basic syntactic patterns of Gapping and standard constituency tests, that the so-called ‘low VP coordination analysis’—the only extant analysis of Gapping in contemporary syntactic theories which accounts for this scope anomaly—is empirically untenable. We propose an explicit alternative analysis of Gapping in Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar, a variant of categorial grammar which builds on both the Lambek-inspired tradition and a more recent line of work modelling word order via a lambda calculus for the prosodic component. The flexible syntax-semantics interface of this framework enables us to characterize Gapping as an instance of like-category coordination, via a crucial use of the notion of hypothetical reasoning. This analysis of the basic syntax of Gapping is shown to interact with independently motivated analyses of scopal operators to immediately yield their apparently anomalous scopal properties in Gapping, offering, for the first time in the literature, a conceptually simple and empirically adequate solution for the notorious scope anomaly in Gapping.

We argue that the phenomenon described and discussed in the literature as locative or stylistic inversion in English is actually a conflation of twoquite different constructions: on the one hand, light inversion (LI), inwhich the postverbal NP element can be phonologically and structurallyextremely simple, possibly consisting of a single name, and on the otherhand heavy inversion (HI), where the postverbal element is heavy in thesense of Heavy NP Shift.1 We present evidence that the preverbal PP in LI patterns with subjects but the PP in HI is a syntactic topic, usinga variety of tests which distinguish A-positions from Ā-positions.Other significant differences between HI and LI, such as the classesof verbs which support these two constructions respectively, and thedifferential behavior of HI and LI with respect to adverbial placement,provide support for interpreting HI as a case of Heavy NP Shiftapplying to subject constituents.

Once again we would like to thank our critics for replying to our comments and continuing the discussion of the issues that we raised in our original Topic-Comment piece. We feel that this debate is important as it touches on fundamental questions concerning the scientific status of linguistic theories and the way in which they are accepted. We will take up their main points in turn and then offer some concluding remarks.

Dans un article precedent, les As. ont critique les fondements theoriques et methodologiques du programme minimaliste en s'insurgeant contre le fait que les postulats et les principes de ce paradigme theorique aient ete aussi facilement adoptes par la communaute scientifique. Cet article a suscite des reactions de la part de A. Holmberg, E. Reuland, I. Roberts, M. Piattelli-Palmarini et J. Uriagereka, qui ont fait l'objet de publications dans le present numero. Les As. font ici le bilan des critiques emises a propos de leur article et montrent dans quelle mesure elles revelent des contradictions conditionnees par une tendance a accepter, sans discussion critique, des arguments provenant d'une autorite

Since Noam Chomsky's 1977 paper ‘On wh-movement’, syntactic theorists almost universally have assumed that tough/too/enough constructions are to be treated by the same formal mechanism as wh-extraction constructions, in spite of well-known syntactic divergences between the two types. We argue that these divergences reflect a real dichotomy between unbounded dependencies with fillers in A(rgument) positions, e.g. tough constructions, and those whose fillers occupy non-argument (A-bar) positions, e.g. topicalization. We first show that strong external evidence exists supporting the GPSG-internal prediction of full syntactic connectivity between Aposition fillers and their gap sites, but that this result seems contradicted by the existence of case conflict between the filler and gap. To overcome this contradiction, we introduce a new gap-licensing feature GAP, and show how a number of other divergences between A- and A-bar filler/gap constructions follow as a consequence.

Farkas (1986) argues that earlier work by Horvath on Hungarian clause structure appealing to constituent-lowering movement is incorrect, and that no such ‘downgrading’ movement exists in natural languages. Farkas then claims that while this lack of downgrading movement must be stipulated in the GB framework, it follows as a theorem from GPSG formalism. I argue here that the formal structure of GPSG is completely compatible with the existence of down-grading constructions. A rule system implementing such constructions is presented together with a compositional semantics which yields the appropriate semantic representations for such constructions. It follows that the possibility of lower filler/higher gap linkages is irrelevant to theory comparison between GB and GPSG, or indeed, between any pair of theories both of which include a phrase structure component.