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oa Is it syntactic or pragmatic?
A hybrid analysis for lf-intervention effects
- Source: Language and Linguistics, Volume 18, Issue 2, Apr 2017, p. 228 - 253
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- 12 Jun 2015
- 16 Mar 2016
- 10 Apr 2017
Abstract
The main aim of this study is to reconsider Tomioka’s (2007) pragmatic account of the lf-intervention effects (IE), and to claim that Polarity Sensitive Items (psis) are genuine syntactic interveners. I will examine the parallelism among psis in IE configurations, which is distinct from other interveners, and further claim that the study of IE should not be monolithic, but hybrid: Syntactic lf-interveners (psis), blocking scopal interactions/Pragmatic interveners, causing illegal information structures. The predictions will be borne out that psis actually cause IE in other contexts as well, which pragmatic accounts cannot explain (Funakoshi & Takahashi 2014). Such hybrid perspectives bring back enormous findings on IE (e.g. lf wh-movement) to the field of syntax, without relegating all of them to pragmatics.