Distributing arguments

摘要

We examine several cases of object movement from various languages, and demonstrate that the syntactic behavior of objects can be derived from certain conditions on LF representations. Conditions on LF relevant to the distribution of arguments are identified as relative scope fixing and type mismatch repair. These two conditions interact with the multiple semantic types that may be assigned to NPs (cf. Partee 1987) to induce movement of certain objects out of the VP, universally by LF and parametrically in the overt syntax. Diesing's (1992b) Mapping Hypothesis combined with the multiple NP types predicts that quantificational NPs in object position will have to undergo movement by LF. This movement is forced by the principles of semantic composition as a mechanism of type mismatch resolution. The existential closure operation over VP is claimed to be genuinely unselective: any NP that introduces a free variable and does not receive an existential interpretation must move out of the scope of existential closure (and thus out of the VP) by LF. Pronouns are variables, limited in semantic type assignment, that by virtue of their definiteness cannot be bound by existential closure and must move out of its scope. In Egyptian Arabic, object pronouns escape from the VP via attachment to a verb that raises to adjoin to an Aspect inflectional head above the VP. The movement of object pronouns and definite/specific NPs in Scandinavian is also associated with verb movement.