Focus Sensitive Coordination

This thesis investigates the role of the Focus Sensitive Operators (FSOs) even and also when found inside of a coordination. Coordinations of this form are called Focus Sensitive Coordinations (FSC) and include or even, and even, and also, not only...but also, let alone, and as well as. I argue that let alone and as well as are composed of a coordination component and an (overt or covert) FSO adjoined to the left-hand coordinate. This analysis, taken together with Karttunen (1973)'s analysis of presupposition projection in disjunction, accounts for the fact that the existential presupposition of even does not project in an or even sentence, but it does in a let alone sentence. It is further shown that Focus Sensitive Coordination has a restricted distribution relative to ordinary coordination. In particular, FSC is generally possible only with propositional coordinates or coordinates that can be derived from propositional coordinates by way one of the kinds of ellipsis that can target coordination. Apparently smaller coordinates are subject to a range of prohibitions on remnants for gapping. This can be accounted for by a particular lexical entry for the FSOs and a prohibition against movement of the FSOs. Furthermore, a restriction on coordinations containing even adjoined to a noun phrase can be accounted for if we treat the resulting phrase as a generalized quantifier. Evidence from FSC also provides a new argument in favor of a treatment of even as being ambiguous between ordinary even and an NPI even (Rooth 1985).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Hulsey, Sarah McNearney

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Danny Fox.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45897

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/45897