Chapter 7. A Romance perspective on gapping constructions
-
Anne Abeillé
Abstract
Focusing on two Romance languages, French and Romanian, we provide a detailed analysis of gapping and present several empirical arguments for preferring a construction-based approach of gapping (with semantic reconstruction of ellipsis) over alternative accounts that rely on movement or deletion. We then study parallelism constraints and show that syntactic parallelism is less strict than what is usually assumed, while discourse parallelism is clearly required. Syntax is not completely ignored though, as each remnant is required to match some subcategorization frame of the verbal predicate its correlate depends on. We show how those core properties can be accounted for within a construction-based framework relying on inheritance hierarchies of typed feature structures, such as HPSG in its more recent versions.
Abstract
Focusing on two Romance languages, French and Romanian, we provide a detailed analysis of gapping and present several empirical arguments for preferring a construction-based approach of gapping (with semantic reconstruction of ellipsis) over alternative accounts that rely on movement or deletion. We then study parallelism constraints and show that syntactic parallelism is less strict than what is usually assumed, while discourse parallelism is clearly required. Syntax is not completely ignored though, as each remnant is required to match some subcategorization frame of the verbal predicate its correlate depends on. We show how those core properties can be accounted for within a construction-based framework relying on inheritance hierarchies of typed feature structures, such as HPSG in its more recent versions.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Chapter 1. Applying constructional concepts to Romance languages 1
- Chapter 2. The role of constructional meanings in novel verb-noun compounds in Spanish 37
- Chapter 3. From lexicalization to constructional generalizations 79
- Chapter 4. A constructional corpus-based approach to ‘weak’ verbs in French 113
- Chapter 5. The Narrative Infinitive Construction in French and Latin 139
- Chapter 6. Bringing together fragments and constructions 181
- Chapter 7. A Romance perspective on gapping constructions 227
- Chapter 8. Variable type framing in Spanish constructions of directed motion 269
- Author index 305
- Construction index 309
- Language index 311
- Subject index 313
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Chapter 1. Applying constructional concepts to Romance languages 1
- Chapter 2. The role of constructional meanings in novel verb-noun compounds in Spanish 37
- Chapter 3. From lexicalization to constructional generalizations 79
- Chapter 4. A constructional corpus-based approach to ‘weak’ verbs in French 113
- Chapter 5. The Narrative Infinitive Construction in French and Latin 139
- Chapter 6. Bringing together fragments and constructions 181
- Chapter 7. A Romance perspective on gapping constructions 227
- Chapter 8. Variable type framing in Spanish constructions of directed motion 269
- Author index 305
- Construction index 309
- Language index 311
- Subject index 313
