To Reconstruct or Not to Reconstruct: that is the question

Nicolas Guilliot (1)

1 LLING - Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes

The aim of this study is to use what is traditionally referred as A'-reconstruction in order to compare two possible formalizations of syntax-semantics interface, one based on Generative Grammar and Logical Form (GG), the other built on Categorial Grammar and Variable-Free Semantics (CG-VFS). Considering mainly reconstruction data with resumption in natural language (from French and Jordanian Arabic mostly), I will first give several arguments suggesting that both analyses could be on the right track, both theoretically (both accounts of distributive/reconstructed readings amount to an e-type interpretation of the resumptive pronoun) and empirically (both formalizations correctly predict distributive/reconstructed readings within syntactic islands). Finally, I will present two generalizations about resumption which seem to favor the GG account based on actual reconstruction, one concerning the type of distributive reading (functional vs pair-list), the other linked to a distinction between weak and strong resumption.

Domaines: Linguistique; Linguistique

Nicolas Guilliot. To Reconstruct or Not to Reconstruct: that is the question. What Syntax feeds Semantics, Maribel Romero, Aug 2008, Hambourg, Germany. http://www.illc.uva.nl/ESSLLI2008/WhatSyntaxFeedsSemantics.html. ⟨hal-00435681⟩