Pullum_geoffrey_k_a_student_s_introduction

§6 Main-clause and lower-level coordination

233

top level we contrast employed with unemployed; at the lower level we distin­ guish two jobs.

In [ii] we have X or Y expressing a choice, where X is an NP and Y is a coor­ dination.

In [iii] we have X and Y at the top level, and at the lower level each of X and Y has the fonn of a coordination.

In the first two examples we have contrasting coordinators: and and but in [i], or and and in [ii] . This itself is sufficient to indicate that there is layered coordination. A single coordination with more than two coordinates may have just one coordinator or multiple occurrences of the same coordinator (as in [2 1 ]), but not two different coordinators.

6Main-clause and lower-level coordination

Coordinations can occur at almost any place in constituent structure, from large constituents down to small ones like individual words. We make a gen­ eral distinction between main-clause coordination and lower-level coordination:

[24]	MAIN-CLAUSE COORDINATION
11	[Itwas a perfect day and everyone was in good spirits.]	[main clauses]
	LOWER-LEVEL COORDINATION
a.	He [made a mistake or changed his mind].	[VPs]
b.	We met [my bank manager and herhusband] at the airport.	[NPs]
c.	She introduced me to her [mother and father].	[nouns]

Equivalent main-clause and lower-level coordinations

In many cases a lower-level coordination can be expanded into a logically equiva­ lent main-clause one. This is so with all of the examples in [24ii], which can be expanded as follows:

[25]i He made a mistake or he changed his mind.

iiWe met my bank managerat the airport and we met her husband at the airport.

iiiShe introduced me to her mother and she introduced me to her father.

These are logically equivalent to [24iia-c]. There may be subtle meaning differ­ ences: the versions in [25ii-iii] do seem to separate the events more, so that you would be more likely to infer from [24iic] that she introduced me to her parents together, and from [25iii] that the introductions were on different occasions. But if [24iic] is true, then [25iii] is, and vice versa. That's what is meant by logical equivalence.

Non-equivalent main-clause and lower-level coordinations

There are some cases where pairs with lower-level and main-clause coordination are NOT logically equivalent:

234Chapter 14 Coordination and more

[26]a. One teacher was [popular andpatient].

b.One teacher was popular and one teacher was patient. 11 a. No one [stood up and complaine!lJ.

b.No one stoodupand no one complained. III a. She didn't have any [tea or coffee].

b.She didn't have any tea or she didn't have any coffee.

In [ia] we have a single teacher with two properties; [ib] talks about two teachers. In [iia] no one both stood up and complained. But standing without complaining and complaining while seated are both excluded by [iib] .

In [iii], suppose she had tea but not coffee. Then [b] is true but [a] is false. (Compare with She didn't have any teaand she didn't have any coffee.)

7Joint vs distributive coordination

One special case where a lower-level coordination is not equivalent to a corresponding main-clause coordination is in joint coordination, as opposed to the default distributive coordination:

[27]	DISTRIBUTIVE COORDINATION	JOINT COORDINATION
a.	[Kim and Pat] arefine players.	b. [Kim and Pat] are a goodpair.
ii a.	[Lee, Robin and Sam] like you.	b. [Lee, Robin and Sam] like each other.

In [i] the property of being a fine player applies to Kim and Pat separately - it's distributed between them; whereas that of making a good pair applies to the two of them jointly.

In [ii] the property of liking you applies to Lee, Robin and Sam individually, but the property of liking each other can only apply to them jointly, as a group.

Joint coordination is almost always marked by the coordinator and. The central cases are NP coordinations. In cases like [ib] and [iib] it is not possible to replace the coordination by either coordinate alone: it is incoherent to say *Kim is a good pair or *Lee likes each other. Condition [ 1 2], therefore, doesn't cover joint coordi­ nation. Joint coordination has the following properties:

It requires that each coordinate denote a member of a set.

It requires that the coordinates belong to the same syntactic category.

It disallows correlative coordination (*Both Kim and Pat are a goodpair).

8Non-basic coordination

So far we have focused on what can be called basic coordination con­ structions, the ones where all the following properties hold:

[28]The coordination consists of a continuous sequence of coordinates.

11 The coordinates are either bare or expanded (by a coordinator or determinative). III The coordinates can occur as constituents in non-coordination constructions.

§8.3 Right nonce-constituent coordination

235

In this final section we very briefly discuss various kinds of non-basic coordina­ tion, which depart from that elementary pattern.

8. 1	Expansion of coordinates by modifiers

An expanded coordinate can contain a modifier as well as (or instead of)

amarker:

[29]She comes home [every Christmas and sometimes at Easteras well].

II We could meet [on Friday or alternatively at the week-end ifyouprefer].

iiiShe can speak [French but not German].

ivHefelt [not angry but rather deeply disappointed].

The underlined expressions here are neither markers of the relation holding between the coordinates nor part of the bare coordinates. They are modifiers of the coordi­ nate in which they are located. Sometimes they reinforce the relation expressed (as well or too reinforce the sense of and; alternatively or else reinforce or), and some­ times (as with but not) they indicate a contrast.

8.2Gapped coordination

The middle part of a non-initial coordinate can be omitted if it is recov­ erable from the corresponding part of the initial coordinate:

[30]i Her son lives in Boston and her daughter _ in Chicago.

iiKimjoined the company in 1988, and Pat _ thefollowing year.

iiiSue wants to be a doctor, Max _ a dentist.

The gap marked '_' is understood by reference to the first coordinate: in these cases "lives", "joined the company", and "wants to be". The gap normally includes the verb, but can include other material too (as in [ii]). The antecedent needn't be a syntactic constituent; it isn't in [iii] (wants to be a doctor is made up of wants plus to be a doctor, so wants to be isn't a phrase).

8.3Right nonce-constituent coordination

A third non-basic coordination construction is illustrated in [3 1 ] :

[31]We gave [Kim a book andPat a CD].

II They stay [in Boston during the week and with theirparents at week-ends].

iiiI could lendyou [$30 now or$50at the end ofthe week].

There are two distinctive properties here.

, First, the coordinates do not form constituents in corresponding non-coordination constructions. In We gave Kim a book. for example, the underlined part does not form a single constituent: it is a sequence of two N P s.

236 Chapter 14 Coordination and more

Second, the coordinates are required to be syntactically parallel: the separate ele­ ments of each coordinate must have the same functions in corresponding non­ coordination constructions. In the clauses We gave Kim a book and We gave Pat a CD, both the first elements (Kim and Pat) are indirect objects and both second elements (a book and a CD) are direct objects, so [3 l i] is acceptable. The coor­ dination is ungrammatical if the functions don't match in this way, as in *We gave [Kim $1,000 and generously to charity], with two objects in the first coor­ dinate and a manner adjunct plus pp complement in the second.5

8.4Delayed right constituent coordination

Another odd coordination construction is illustrated in the [a] members of the pairs in [32], where the [b] members are the corresponding basic coordinations:

[32] a. She [noticed but didn't comment on] his inconsistencies.

b.She [noticed his inconsistencies but didn't comment on them]. ii a. [Twoperfect and four slightly damage4] copies werefound.

b.[Two verfect copies and four slightly damaged ones] werefound.

The delayed right constituent coordination construction has the following distinc­ tive properties:

At least one of the coordinates does not form a constituent in a corresponding non-coordination construction. In She didn't comment on his inconsistencies, for example, the underlined sequence is not a constituent, since on is head of the pp on his inconsistencies. Similarly two perfect does not form a constituent two perfect copies, which consists of the determiner two plus the head nominal per­ fect copies.

The element on the right of the coordination (doubly underlined) is understood as related to each coordinate. In [i], for example, his inconsistencies is under­ stood both as object of the verb noticed and as object of the preposition on.

The term delayed right constituent coordination reflects the salient difference between this construction and basic coordination. In the latter the doubly underlined expression occurs earlier, as the rightmost constituent of the first coordinate (and then is repeated, normally in reduced form, at the end of the second): She noticed his inconsistencies but didn't comment on them. In the non-basic version, therefore, this element appears to be held back, delayed.

8.5End-attachment coordination

One more non-basic coordination construction we should mention is seen in the [a] members of the following pairs:

5Nonce constituents have constituent status only for one special occasion, by courtesy of the coordi­ nation relation. We call this construction right nonce-constituent coordination because the coordina­ tions occur to the right of the head (predicator) of the clause - gave, stay and lend in our examples.

Exercises 237

[33] a. Kim was included on the shortlist, but not Pat.

b.[Kim but not Pat] was included on the shortlist.

ii a. They've charged the boss with perjury - and her secretary.

b.They've charged [the boss and her secretary] with perjury.

They differ from the more elementary [b] versions in that the second coordinate (including the coordinator) is not adjacent to the first but is attached at the end of the clause. The relation marked by the coordinators but and and is still expressed, but in the [a] examples the constituents related by the coordinators don't make up a constituent.

1 . Consider the determinatives both, either,			i	He lost control of the carandcrashed
	and neither that occur in correlative			into a tree.
	coordinations. Which, if any, can occur		ii	Talk to me like that again andyou'll be
	introducing main clause coordinations?			fired.
	Give grammatical and ungrammatical		iii	Don't tell anyone or we'll be in heaps of
	examples to support your answer.			trouble.
2.	In Ch. 7 we referred to cases like What are		iv	You can't work 18 hours a day and not
	you looking at? as illustrating preposition			endangeryourhealth.
	stranding. Consider the question of		v	You can eat as much of this as you like
	whether coordinators can be stranded,			and notput on any weight.
	illustrating your discussion with grammati­	6.	Explain why the following lower-level
	cal and ungrammatical sequences of words		coordinations are not equivalent to main­
	as appropriate.		clause coordination.
3.	Some prescriptive manuals and English		i	Who wenttothemoviesand left the
	teachers advise against beginning a			house unlocked?
	sentence with a coordinator. Choose a		ii	Didshe take the carandgo to thebeach?
	published work that you think is a good		iii	The last and most telling objection
	example of written Standard English,			concerned the cost.
	preferably one that you enjoy and admire,		iv	They couldfind nothing wrong with the
	and read from the beginning looking for a			battery or with the thermostat.
	sentence that begins with a coordinator		v	One guy was drunkand abusive.
	(And, Or, But). How many sentences did	7.	For each of the following examples, say
	you have to read before you found one?		which kind of non-basic coordination
4.	Choose a published work that you think is a		construction it exemplifies.
	good example of written Standard English,		i	I'd expectedJill to back us, butnother
	preferably one that you enjoy and admire,			father.
	and read it from the beginning, keeping		ii	Itwas criticisedbysomeforbeing
	count of each coordinate structure you			too long andby othersforbeing too short.
	encounter. At what point do you find the		iii	Both the British and the French dele­
	first one that has coordinates of different			gates supported theproposal.
	categories? How many sentences did		iv	You can have a banana or else an apple
	you have to read before you found one?			instead.
5.	Explain why the following coordinations		v	Max left the country in May and the rest
	are asymmetric.			of thefamily in June.

'-Information packaging in the clause

I	Introduction	245
2	Passive clauses 247
3	Extraposition	254
4	Existential clauses 256
5	The it-cleft construction		258
6	Pseudo-clefts	26 1
7	Dislocation	262
8	Preposing and postposing		263
9	Reduction 265

1Introduction

The bulk of this chapter is concerned with a family of constructions which we illustrate initially in the [a) members of the following pairs:

[1 ]	a. Her son was arrested by the police.

iia. It's unusualfor her to be this late.

iiia. There were two doctors on the plane.

b. Thepolice arrested her son.

b. For her to be this late is unusual. b. Two doctors were on theplane.

Example [ia) belongs to the passive construction, [iia) to the extraposition construction, and [iiia) to the existential construction. These constructions have the following properties in common:

[2]	They are non-canonical constructions; characteristically, they have a
	syntactically more elementary or basic counterpart, given here in the
	[b] examples.

iiThey generally have the same core meaning as their basic counterpart, but they present - or 'package' - the information differently.

The basic counterpart

The [b) examples in [ 1 ) are all structurally simpler than those in [a], as is evident from the fact that the latter contain extra words - the auxiliary be and the preposi­ tion by in [ia), the dummy pronouns it and there in [iia/iiia) . In the examples chosen, the [b) versions are all canonical clauses, but there are similar pairs where both members are non-canonical, as in the negatives Her son wasn't arrested by the police and The police didn't arrest her son.

238

§ 1 Introduction

239

For the passive, there is an established name for the basic counterpart: [ l ib] is an active clause. But there is no established name for [iib] : this is simply the non­ extraposition counterpart of [iia] . Similarly, [iiib] is just the non-existential coun­ terpart of [iiia] . And this will be the case with the other constructions we deal with in this chapter: we have special names for the non-basic constructions, but not for their basic counterparts.

Exceptional cases without a grammatically well-formed basic counterpart

We said that the non-canonical clauses CHARACTERISTICALLY have syntactically more basic counterparts. There are exceptions. In some cases the basic counter­ part is in fact ungrammatical. This can arise, for example, with the existential construction:

[3]EXISTENTIAL

a. There was a bottle of wine on the table. ii a. There is plenty of time.

NON-EXISTENTIAL

b. A bottle of wine was on the table. b. *Plenty of time is.

Both versions are permitted in [3i] (or in our original pair [ 1 iii]), but only the exis­ tential version is grammatical in [3ii] . The verb be can't normally occur without an internal complement, so [3iib] is ungrammatical. There are other cases of this sort, as we'll see later.

Core meaning and information packaging

The pairs in [ 1 ] have the same core meaning in the sense explained in Ch. 1 3, §4.2: since they are declarative clauses, having the same core meaning is a matter of having the same truth conditions. With pair [i], for example, if it's true that her son was arrested by the police it must be true that the police arrested her son, and vice versa. And likewise if [ia] is false, [ib] must be false too. The differences have to do not with the information presented but how it is organised and presented: the two clauses in each pair PACKAGE THE INFORMATION DIFFERENTLY. We refer collectively to the passive, extraposition and existential constructions - and others to be intro­ duced below - as information-packaging constructions: they depart from the most elementary syntactic structure in order to package the information in special ways. Our major concern in this chapter will therefore be to describe the syntactic differences between these constructions and their basic counterparts and to investi­ gate the factors which favour or disfavour the use of one of these constructions rather than the more basic counterpart.

Exceptional cases where the core meanings are different

We have said that clauses belonging to one of the information-packaging construc­ tions GENERALLY have the same core meaning as their basic counterpart: the qual­ ification is needed because there are special factors that can cause a difference in the core meanings. Consider the following existential/non-existential pair:

240	Chapter 1 5 Information packaging in the clause
[4]	EXISTENTIAL	NON-EXISTENTIAL
	a. There weren't many members present.	b. Many members weren'tpresent.

Suppose we are talking about the annual general meeting of a large organisation. It's perfectly possible for [b] to be true while [a] is false: thousands of members were not present, so [b] is true, yet thousands of others were present, making [a] false. These sentences are not saying the same thing in different ways: they're saying dif­ ferent things.

The reason has to do with the fact that the clauses contain a quantifier (many) and a negative word (weren 't). The negative comes first in [a] but the quantifier is first in [b]. The relative order affects the scope of the negative, as explained in Ch. 8, §5. This isn't a fact about existential clauses: any clause in which a negative word precedes a quanti­ fier tends to be interpreted with the negative including the quantifier in its scope.

Setting aside the special factor of scope, corresponding existential and non-exis­ tential clauses do have the same truth conditions, as illustrated in [3i] . And that is also true for the other constructions considered. In the remainder of this chapter we will set aside such special factors as scope.

2Passive clauses

The first information-packaging construction we consider is the passive clause. Passive clauses contrast with active clauses in a system called voice, so we consider that first.

2. 1	The system of voice

A system of voice is one where the terms differ as to how the SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS are aligned with SEMANTIC ROLES. Usually there are also formal differences either associated with the verb (e.g. special inflection or auxiliaries) or associated with the NPs (e.g. special case marking or prepositions).

The general terms active and passive are based on the semantic role of the sub­ ject in clauses expressing actions:

[5]In clauses describing some deliberate action, the subject is normally aligned with the active participant (the actor) in the active voice, but with the passive participant (the patient) in the passive voice.

In [ l ib], for example, the police refers to the actor and is subject; her son refers to the patient, yet is subject in [ l ia] .

There are also differences associated with the verb and one of the NPs: [ l ia] con­ tains the passive auxiliary verb be, and the second NP is complement of the preposition by.

Many clauses, of course, do not describe actions, but they can be assigned to the active and passive categories on the basis of their syntactic likeness to clauses like those in [ l i] :

		§2.2 Differences between active and passive clauses			24 1
[6]		ACTIVE VOICE		PASSIVE VOICE
	a.	Everyone saw the accident.	b.	The accident was seen by everyone.
11	a.	His colleagues dislike him.	b.	He is disliked by his colleagues.

Seeing and disliking aren't actions, but the syntactic relation between the members of these pairs is the same as that between [ 1 ib] and [ l ia] , so they can be classified as active and passive pairs.

2.2Differences between active and passive clauses

Examples like [ l ia], and the [b] examples in [6], illustrate the most straightforward kind of passive clause. We'll look first at how they differ from their active counterparts, and then extend the account to cover other passive constructions.

Structural diagrams for the examples in [6i] are shown in [7] . The syntactic differences are summarised in [8] :

[7] a.

Clause

b.

Clause

Subject:		Predicate:			Subject:	Predicate:
	NP		VP		NP	VP
							VP
Dpredi I
				ect:	Predicator:		Comp:
					V		Predicate:
		V	NP					I
everyone		saw	the accident
						Predicator:		Internalised Comp:
									PP
								Head:	Comp:
								Prep	NP
								I
						seen		by	everyone
[8]	The subject of the active (everyone) appears in the passive as complement of
	the preposition by in a pp functioning as complement.
ii	The direct object of the active appears as subject of the passive.

iii The passive has auxiliary be carrying the tense inflection and taking as complement a subjectJess non-finite clause with a head (seen) in past participle form.

We use the term internalised complement to label the function of by everyone,I because when we replace an active clause by its corresponding passive, the active

IIt is more usually referred to as the agent, but we're avoiding that term because it is also in widespread use as the name of a semantic role, equivalent to 'actor' . As we just argued in discussing [6], the com­ plement of by very often does not have that semantic role.

242 Chapter 1 5 Infonnation packaging in the clause

clause subject appears internal to the passive VP, like internal complements (see Ch. 4, §l).

The auxiliary be of passive clauses takes on the inflectional properties of the verb of the corresponding active, except that any person and number features are deter­

mined by AGREEMENT WITH THE PASSIVE SUBJECT (compare was above with were in

The accidents were seen by everyone).

Voice and information packaging

The voice system provides different ways of aligning the two major NPs in a clause with the syntactic functions and hence of selecting their order of appearance. Generally the subject comes first in the clause and the object or internalised com­ plement later. A major factor influencing the choice between these orders of pres­ entation has to do with the familiarity status of the NPs. This involves the contrast between old (familiar) and new (unfamiliar) infonnation.

To illustrate the contrast between old and new, suppose a conversation began with one of the following sentences:

[9]	Theplumbersays the dishwasher can't be repaired, but Idon't think that's true.
11	Mv neighbourcame over this morning; she askedme ifI'd seen her cat.

In [i] the first underlined sequence represents new infonnation: I'm telling you this, not treating it as something you are already familiar with. The word that is interpreted as "the dishwasher can't be repaired", which is old - it's part of the information that has already been introduced.

But infonnation is to be understood in a broad sense that covers entities as well as facts or propositions. My neighbour and her cat in [ii] refer to entities that haven't been mentioned previously, so they represent new information. She is old information, since it makes a second reference to my neighbour. Me and I count as old because the deictic 1 st and 2nd person pronouns refer to participants in the discourse who can always be regarded as familiar (if I'm telling you something, then there are at least two people in the world that we can both agree that we already know about: me and you).

In English there is a broad preference for packaging infonnation so that SUBJECTS REPRESENT OLD INFORMATION. It's only a preference, of course: there's no question of a ban on subjects being new (that's obvious from [9], where both the plumber and my neighbour are new). But the preference is strong enough to be a clear influence on the choice between equivalent active and passive clauses. Compare these:

[ 1 0] a. A dog attacked me in the park. ii a. I bought a tie.

b. I was attacked by a dog in the park. b. 'A tie was bought by me.

In [i], the active example [a] has a new-infonnation subject, and [b], the passive, has an old-infonnation subject. The passive version will often be preferred in such pairs (though [ia] is nonetheless perfectly grammatical and acceptable).