Covert Modality in Non-finite Contexts

This book investigates the distribution and interpretation of Covert Modality. Covert Modality is modality which we interpret but which is not associated with any lexical item in the structure that we are interpreting. The book analyzes a class of environments that involves covert modality e.g. infinitival questions, infinitival relative clauses, purpose clauses, the 'have to' construction, and the 'is to' construction.

Auteur

Rajesh Bhatt, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.

Contenu
Contents
Acknowledgements iv
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Dissertation Outline and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.1 Chapter 2: The Syntax of Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2 Chapter 3: Non-Modal Infinitival Relative Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.3 Chapter 4: The Distribution and Interpretation of Infinitival Questions 6
1.2.4 Chapter 5: Ability Modals and their Actuality Entailments . . . . . . 8
2 The syntax of Infinitival Relatives 9
2.1 Subject infinitival relatives as Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Non-subject Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 The Modality of Infinitival Relatives and Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3.1 Proposal for Object Infinitival Relatives and Infinitival Questions . . 15
2.3.2 Proposal for Subject Infinitival Relatives and Infinitival Questions . . 16
2.4 Structures for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4.1 Kayne (1994)'s proposal for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4.1.1 Kayne (1994)'s general proposal for Relative Clauses . . . . 17
2.4.1.2 Kayne (1994)'s proposal for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . 18
2.5 Arguments for a Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.5.1 The Candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.5.2 The Argument from 'Idioms' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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2.5.2.1 A related argument from Subcategorization . . . . . . . . . 23
2.5.3 The argument from Binding Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.5.4 Amount Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5.5 Scope Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.5.6 Lower Readings of Adjectival Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.6 My proposal for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.6.1 Version 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.6.2 On the nature of Direct Predication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.6.3 Version 2: Accommodating Reconstruction into Reduced and Finite
Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.6.3.1 A comparison with Sauerland (1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.6.4 Reduced Relatives and Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.6.5 Interpreting the New Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3 Non-Modal Subject Infinitival Relatives 42
3.1 Properties of Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1.1 Non-Modal Infinitival Relatives allow for Modal Readings too . . . . 46
3.2 A Raising Relative Clause analysis of Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . 47
3.2.1 Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2.2 Interpreting the Raising Analysis (for Reduced Relatives) . . . . . . . 49
3.2.3 Raising Analysis applied to Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . . 50
3.3 Motivations for the Movement of Superlative est/Ordinals/only . . . . . . . 51
3.3.1 A semantics for Superlatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.3.2 Ordinals and Nominal only: Focus Sensitivity and Analysis . . . . . 56
3.4 More on the Raising Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.4.1 Structural Characterization of Superlatives, Ordinals, and only . . . . 59
3.4.2 Licensing from inside the infinitival clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.5 A prediction: Loss of Association with Focus with Non-modal Infinitival
Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.5.1 Loss of Focus-sensitivity of Superlatives, only, ordinals . . . . . . . . 64
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3.5.2 A Further Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.6 Lower Readings: Further evidence for the Raising Analysis . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.6.1 Evidence for Reconstruction from NPI licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.6.2 Evidence for Reconstruction from the behavior of Numeral Modifiers 72
3.6.3 Low Readings and Negative Island Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.6.4 Parenthet...