A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING

BRADLEY LARSON

This article proposes a different means of deriving right node raising (RNR) sen-

tences in English. The three current mainstream analyses will first be shown to each

inescapably succumb to some particular sort of data, prompting a new analysis. The

proposed alternative will be argued to succeed in avoiding the pitfalls that the others

run into while at the same time proving easily amenable to the interface concerns

such as linearization and interpretation. This alternative is dubbed a “concatenative"

approach to RNR. Concatenation is the proposed sub-operation of merge proposed

by Hornstein (2009) and Hornstein & Nunes (2008) for adjunct and exploited by

Larson (2010) for coordination. It is applied in this instance to relate the shared

material in RNR to each conjunct without any c-command relation between much

of the first conjunct and the shared material. This provides a way of accounting for

Vehicle Change effects and asymmetrical NPI licensing effects as well providing an

intuitive application of the LCA for purposes of linearization.

I will first investigate the shortcomings of the current analyses and show the short-

comings to be inherent to those approaches. Second I will introduce the decomposed

merge concept proposed by Hornstein and extend it to RNR, showing how it suc-

ceeds where the others fail. Third I propose a synthesis of decomposed merge with

Pesetsky and Torrego’s (2004) feature sharing analysis to derive some structural con-

straints of RNR. Following this I propose a means of interpreting the gap position

1

2 BRADLEY LARSON

in the first conjunct via extra-grammatical inference. Finally I show that this new

approach to RNR is, as opposed to previous accounts, extremely simple to linearize.

1. Introduction

The study of right node raising (RNR) finds itself at an impasse. There are cur-

rently three main avenues of analysis concerning the construction, each of which

is compelling and comes with its advantages. Unfortunately, each is inherently in-

capable of accounting for certain data points. The same features that grant them

certain successes preclude them from extending to recalcitrant cases. Fiddling with

the various approaches will not skirt this. This first section argues that none of the

current accounts can handle all of the basic empirical facts of RNR. It is not simply

particular formulations of these accounts that fall short. In their most fundamental

form and without ad hoc machinery, the accounts simply predict the opposite of

what the facts provide.

The three accounts are Deletion, Movement, and Multidominance, and each enjoys

strong support in the literature. In what follows I will discuss the merits of each as

a prelude to the stubborn facts that are unaccounted for.

1.1. Deletion. Proposed most notably by Wexler and Culicover (1980) (see also

Kayne 1994; Wilder 1997; Hartmann 2000; Ha, 2006; An, 2007; Ince 2009) the

Deletion account holds that an element in the first conjunct is phonologically deleted

under some form of identity with an element in the second conjunct, just like in VP-

deletion. Portrayed graphically, this operation takes a string like (1) and generates

a string like (4).

(1) Ivan bought the short stories and Ivy read the short stories.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 3

(2) Ivan bought [the short stories] and Ivy read [the short stories].Identity

(3) Ivan bought [the short stories] and Ivy read [the short stories].

Deletion

(4) Ivan bought and Ivy read the short stories.

1.1.1. Advantages. The analysis straightforwardly captures the fact that there always

exists in RNR an element in the second conjunct that is also interpreted in the first

despite not appearing there overtly. It also predicts some surprising facts about

RNR: island insensitivity and vehicle change capability.

Islands are violated when an element subextracts from inside one. Under the

Deletion analysis no movement occurs in deriving RNR, only deletion. We should

thus expect that when an element is right node “raised" (i.e. deleted) out of an island

there is no violation. And this is indeed the case, as shown in the complex NP island

below

(5) John knows a man who sells, and Fred knows a man who repairs, washing

machines.

derived from:

(6) John knows [island a man who sells washing machines] and Fred knows a man

who repairs washing machines.

4 BRADLEY LARSON

In addition to this, the Deletion (qua deletion of the same sort as VP-deletion as is

uniformly assumed) account correctly predicts that certain binding principle viola-

tions can be avoided via vehicle change (Fiengo and May, 1994). Example (7) in its

un-deleted form represents a Principle C violation. If deleted, the offending bindee

R-expression can undergo vehicle change into a more suitable guise. That is, at LF

the R-expression can be represented as its pronominal correlate. The same goes for

the RNR example in (8).

(7) a. *Mary [loves Johni] and hei thinks Sally does [love Johni] tooIdentity

b. *Mary [loves Johni] and hei thinks Sally does [love Johni] too

Deletion

c. XMary loves Johni and hei thinks Sally does [love himi] too.Vehicle change

(8) a. *Hei hopes that Susan won’t [fire Johni], but the secretary knows that she

will [fire Johni]Identity

b. *Hei hopes that Susan won’t [fire Johni], but the secretary knows that she

will [fire Johni]

Deletion

c. XHei hopes that Susan won’t [fire himi], but the secretary knows that

she will fire Johni Vehicle Change

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 5

These are strong predictions, correctly made under a Deletion account, but there

are other data points that such accounts cannot easily handle. In the next subsection

we lay these out.

1.1.2. Disadvantages. 1

Because the Deletion account does not posit any movement to derive RNR, the

account is able to predict that it is island insensitive. But the fact that no overt

movement has taken place also will essentially preclude scope ambiguities from aris-

ing. To see why this is precluded, consider the following. As noted by Boskovic and

Franks (2000), there is no scope ambiguity in (9), only surface scope is available

(9) Some delegate represented every candidate and nominated every candidate.

This contrasts with the monoclausal example in (10) in which there is no obvious

overt movement, yet there is indeed scope ambiguity.

(10) Some delegate represented every candidate.

Boskovic and Franks take the above data point to suggest that there is no across-

the-board covert movement operation. Whereas we can grant a covert Quantifier

Raising operation to get the scope facts in (10), granting the same ability in an

across-the-board fashion in (9) would falsely predict two available scope readings.

There are two universal quantifiers in (9) and only one apparent left-periphery for

1Howard Lasnik (pc) notes a very striking disadvantages to deletions accounts of RNR: deletion, inevery other instance, requires an antecedent preceding the ellipsis site. This seems to be a simplereason to doubt that RNR is derived via deletion.

6 BRADLEY LARSON

them to QR to. If QR were going to happen, then it would need to be across-the-

board (from two positions to one). We can’t get the reading that this would effect

and as such we do not want to posit this covert ATB movement as a possibility.

In more agnostic terms, the data above at least shows that elements that are in

some sense identical in coordinated structures cannot scope high. Taking this to be

the case, the Deletion analysis would predict that RNR sentences also fail to display

scope ambiguity. Though covert at PF, the deleted elements in (11) still exist at LF.

(11) Some policeman arrested [every teenager who was near the crime scene] but

ended up releasing every teenager who was near the crime scene

However, there is indeed scopal ambiguity in (11) despite the fact that at LF, (11)

would have two universally quantified elements just like the unambiguous (10). In

sum, In the case of island sensitivity, Deletion doesn’t involve movement and the

right prediction is made; in the case of scope ambiguity, Deletion doesn’t involve

movement and the wrong prediction is made.

As with the advantages and disadvantages stemming from the lack of movement in

such accounts, so too does the deletion aspect of the account bring with it good and

bad. While phonological deletion predicts the vehicle change facts, it sets the account

up for failure in dealing with relational modifiers. Conjunction reduction accounts

of coordination traditionally cannot handle sentences where reciprocal anaphors are

deleted:

(12) Ivan and Ivy saw each other

cannot be derived from:

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 7

(13) *Ivan saw each other and Ivy saw each other.

Also, the interpretation of (14) differs from its un-reduced form in (15). That is,

in (14) the books that Ivan read are similar to those that Ivy read yet in (15) the

books that Ivan read were all of a type, similar to each other and independent of

Ivy’s books.

(14) Ivan and Ivy read similar books.

(15) Ivan read similar books and Ivy read similar books.

Similar facts are problematic for Deletion accounts of RNR. The sentence in (16)

differs from its un-reduced form, shown in (17). The interpretation of similar below

tracks those of the pair above.

(16) Ivan wrote, and Ivy read, similar books.

(17) Ivan wrote similar books and Ivy read similar books.

Again, the Deletion account presents a double-edged sword. We want deletion

for the vehicle change aspect, but cannot have it for relational modifiers. In turn,

movement would seem to allow the attested scope ambiguities, but movement would

create island violations where they don’t exist. By their very nature, Deletion ac-

counts cannot avoid this tension.

1.2. Movement. The same advantages and disadvantages above can be found in

reverse with Movement accounts (as in Ross, 1967; Postal, 1974; Gazdar, 1981;

Williams, 1981; and Sabbagh 2007, 2008). Shown below, Movement analyses of RNR

8 BRADLEY LARSON

posit a form of across-the-board movement of like constituents to right-preripheral

position.

(18)

XP

book

XP

book

book

Such analyses fail to predict island insensitivity of the sort that we have encoun-

tered above. But they do allow for the scope ambiguity by giving the target for

movement a landing site to take scope from. Also, they do not straightforwardly

account for the vehicle change facts, but allow for the correct readings of relational

modifiers (so long as they scope high).

Movement accounts also fall short empirically with respect to c-command phe-

nomena. One example of such is negative polarity item (NPI) licensing. There must

be a c-command relation between a negative element and an NPI and it must apply

in overt syntax.

(19) No newspapers annoyed anyone

(20) *Any newspapers annoyed no one

(21) *Any newspapers didn’t annoy Ivan

When the targeted element is moved to the right-periphery like in (18), it is no

longer c-commanded by the relevant elements in the clause, but rather c-commands

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 9

them itself. We thus might expect NPIs not to be licensed in such a position when

there is negation in the clause that they moved from.2But this is not the case, as the

sentence in (22) is fine. On the other hand, were the negative element to be raised

to the right periphery, we would expect NPIs left in-situ to be licensed, but (23) is

ungrammatical.3

(22) Ivan didn’t buy and Ivy didn’t read any newspapers.

(23) *Any newspapers annoyed and any books enraged no students

One final disadvantage to this approach is that preposition stranding in RNR is

licit in languages that otherwise do not allow it, say German. In (24) it is clear

that German prohibits movement-derived preposition stranding. In (25) the same

preposition is stranded in the first conjunct, yet the sentence is fine.

(24) *Wem

whomsass

satdie

theKatze

catauf?

onWho did the cat sit on?

2 This differs interestingly from the scope ambiguity case. In the scope ambiguity case, the movedelement could be interpreted in its base position or in its final derived position. Here it seems thatonly the final derived position matters. This seems to be an additional restriction on NPI licensing.Perhaps there is a negative aspect to NPI licensing: a negative element cannot be within in thescope of an NPI at LF.3 It could be the case that NPI licensing requires not only c-command but precedence (as proposedin Klima, 1964) as well. This is not the case. In left-branching languages like Turkish and Japanese,NPIs are licensed by negation that c-commands from the right. In the following example fromTurkish (Ilknur Oded, p.c.) the NPI hic is c-commanded, but not preceded, by the verbal negation

(i) Ben hic elma yemedim.I any apple eat.Neg.Past.1sgI didn’t eat any apples.

To require both c-command and precedence would need to be a quirk of English for the argumentabove not to hold.

10 BRADLEY LARSON

(25) Die

TheKatze

catsass

satauf,

onund

andder

theHund

dogsass

satunter,

underdem

thedicken

fatMann.

manThe cat sat on, and the dog sat under, the fat man.

Furthermore, in English preposition stranding is disallowed with rightward move-

ment, see the extraposition example in (26). But such stranding is fine in English

RNR (27).

(26) *The cat sat on yesterday the fat man.

(27) The cat sat on, and the dog sat near, the fat man.

We again find an approach that falls short empirically due directly to what is its

saving grace with respect to some other construction. Movement gets the scope and

relational modifier facts correct, but in turn gets the island and NPI facts wrong.

There is no apparent escape from this tension.

1.3. Multidominance. The last existing account presented here is Multidominance.

Originally proposed by McCawley (1982) (see also Wilder, 1999; de Vos and Vicente,

2005; Gracanin-Yuksek, 2007; Bachrach and Katzir, 2009; Grosz, 2009; Larson, 2009)

Multidominance approaches argue that the element that is interpreted in both con-

juncts is actually simultaneously, token-identically in both conjuncts and only overtly

realized in the second one.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 11

(28) CP

TP TP

Ivan VP

bought

Ivy VP

read

DP

the book

This sort of tree is made possible via the operation External Remerge proposed by

Citko (2005) whereby an element X is first externally merged with an element Y (29)

and then externally merged with subsequent element Z (30).4

(29) YP

X Y

(30)

ZP YP

X YZ X

This approach has the obvious advantages of being consistent with the island effects

discussed above. The shared element simply does not move. Also, it is able to account

for the scope facts since any covert movement would not be across-the-board. That

4 Whether this happens in the stepwise fashion as presented here or simultaneously is not importanthere. Though it is interesting to note that if it is stepwise, the operation is difficult to distinguishfrom Sideward Movement

12 BRADLEY LARSON

is, with covert quantifier raising of the shared element there would only be a single

instance of movement from one position, nothing across-the-board.

Multidominance approaches enjoy the added bonus of accounting for the preposi-

tion stranding effects mentioned earlier. In languages that do not allow preposition

stranding, like German, apparent preposition stranding is fine in RNR.

(31) Die

TheKatze

catsass

satauf,

onund

andder

theHund

dogsass

satunter,

underdem

thedicken

fatMann.

manThe cat sat on, and the dog sat under, the fat man.

This is readily explained under a multidominance account. The object of the

preposition dem Tisch is literally “still there" in both conjuncts. It is only pho-

netically realized in one (see Johnson (2007), Wilder, and Bachrach and Katzir for

linearization schemes).

But again here, there are data points that Multidominance cannot handle without

unmotivated stipulation. As mentioned above, NPIs are licit as the target of RNR

sentences and Multidominance approaches handle this fact easily. But the simple

symmetry found in (28) above makes the wrong predictions with respect to sentences

like (32) where only one conjunct contains a negative elements.

(32) a. Ivan bought, but Ivy didn’t read, any books

b. *Ivan didn’t buy, but Ivy read, any books

The multidominance approach does not make differential predictions concerning the

above sentences. The tree above shows the same relation between the conjunct with

the negation as the conjunct without it, regardless of order, and as such should either

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 13

predict the sentences in (32) to both be grammatical since the NPI is licensed in at

least one conjunct.

The Multidominance account does not involve any sort of deletion. There is only

one target token which, on pain of non-recoverability, cannot not be deleted. Given

this, we also do not expect the vehicle change effects evinced by Deletion accounts.

That is, there is no way to keep ‘hei’ from c-commanding ‘Johni’ in sentence (8c.)

repeated here as (33)

(33) Hei hopes that Susan won’t, but the secretary knows that she will fire Johni

In sum, thanks to the local advantages of the multidominance account, it fails to

fully account for the entirety of the facts.

1.4. Summary. We have seen that each approach to RNR, despite enjoying various

advantages, is incapable for principled reasons of handling some core data that the

others can. The power of any given approach only serves to undermine it in the end.

It would be a different matter if all the approaches failed in the face of the same sort

of data: everyone’s problem is nobody’s problem. But this is not the case here.

We can describe their failures in a chain of sorts:

1. Deletion can handle vehicle change and island facts but not scope facts.

2. Movement can handle scope facts but not c-command or island facts.

3. Multidominance can handle island facts but not NPI or vehicle change facts.

14 BRADLEY LARSON

Short of ignoring some of these problems, there is no obvious way of maintaining

any one of these three previous analyses.5 Instead I propose here a fourth way.

2. Decomposed merge

2.1. Introduction. In this section I lay out the concept of decomposed merge as

it applies to adjunction and coordination. In the section following, its coverage is

extended to RNR and is shown to account for the stubborn knot of facts discussed

above.

2.2. Basics. Hornstein (2009) as well as Hornstein & Nunes (2008), argue that the

operation Merge (Chomsky, 1995) should be decomposed into two sub-operations:

Concatenate and Label. Concatenate takes two elements and adjoins them to one

another like in (34). The result is not a targetable constituent in this account, but

rather a flat, string of syntactic elements.

(34) Concatenate XP and YP ⇒

XP YP

This object can undergo the second sub-operation, Label. This operation takes one

of the elements of the Concatenation and uses it to close off the string (that is,

preclude further operations on its internal elements), determine the type of string

that has been closed off, and atomize the erstwhile string into a syntactic constituent,

available to further operations.

5Barros and Vicente (2010) suggest what they deem an eclectic approach to RNR. That is, thereis no single way to derive RNR sentences. Rather, they suggest that Deletion accounts and Mul-tidominance accounts can work in concert to account for the facts. See Larson, in press for coun-terargumenation.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 15

(35) Label the above object as an X ⇒ XP

X YP

This decomposition allows for an elegant account of the differential behavior of ad-

verbial modification. When an adverb Concatenates with a verb and does not project

(36), the verb+adverb complex is, in Hornstein’s words, “invisible" to the rest of the

structure. So when an operation like VP-deletion targets a VP with a Concatenated

adverb, the VP is deleted to the exclusion of adverb (37).

(36)

VPrun

Aquickly

(37) Ivan ran slowly and Ivy did run quickly.

When an adverb is both Concatenated and Labeled into the structure (38), VP-

deletion applies and deletes the adverb as well (39).

(38) VP

Vrun

Aquickly

(39) Ivan ran quickly and Ivy did run quickly too.

This approach provides an analysis of adjunction in Bare Phrase Structure (BPS)

terms that was not there before (see Hornstein’s discussion for details). Descriptively,

for the verb to be a potential target for deletion it must be a maximal projection.

Since the verb can be targeted for do substitution either inclusive of the adverb

or exclusive of it, two maximal projections are required. Given BPS, two maximal

16 BRADLEY LARSON

projections of the same head is an incoherent notion. To avoid this, the above

decomposition is proposed.

As shown above, adjunction can be wedded to BPS in an elegant fashion. But

more than just adverbs have been argued to be adjuncts. For instance, Munn (1993)

argues that coordination is also an adjunction structure (40).

(40) NP

NP &P

& NP

2.3. Adjunction of Likes. Larson (2010) argues that a similar Hornsteinian tack

must be taken with respect to coordination. The structural ambiguity that Hornstein

posits is also found in coordination. In (41) below, it is possible to target both the

topmost VP for do so substitution and also a lower one. And in (42), it seems that

the anaphor can be bound by either the topmost DP or by a lower one.

(41) a. Ivan [VP [VP ate an apple] and wrote a letter] in the park

b. . . . while Ivy [did so] in the library

c. . . . while Ivy [did so] and read a book in the park

(42) a. Ivan showed [DP the man] and the woman to [himself] and herself in

the mirror

b. Ivan showed [DP the man and the woman] to [themselves] in the mirror

If we only have one XP per projection, as in BPS, then we need some other way

to get these facts. The decomposition of merge discussed in the previous section

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 17

seems to fit the bill. We simply have structural ambiguity with coordination, just

like with traditional adjunction. That is, for example (42a), the coordination has

the structure shown in (43).

(43)

DPthe man

DPthe woman

(44) DP

Dthe man

Dthe woman

In the next section this approach will be applied to RNR and shown to overcome the

obstacles that plague the three other options.

3. Composing RNR

3.1. The Basics. When Hornstein states that the merely concatenated elements are

invisible to the rest of the structure he should not be understood as suggesting that

the individual elements (though as a complex invisible) are invisible to any possible

operation in isolation. There is no reason to suppose that they cannot undergo

subsequent external merge, since they remain maximal projections.

Say an element X concatenated with an element Q but did not label (45). The

Q spine could of course continue growing in the normal fashion (46). Likewise, the

adjoined X element can also undergo further structure building operations (47).

18 BRADLEY LARSON

(45)

Q X

(46) WP

UP W

XW Q

(47)

XP

YP X

X ZP

WP

UP W

W Q

Let us now see how this sort of structure building can be applied to RNR. Our

goal sentence is (48) below.

(48) Ivan bought, and Ivy read, the book.

First the direct object is constructed: “the" merges (concatenates and labels) with

“book"

(49) the

the book

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 19

Then, the verb “read" merges with the product of the pervious merge.

(50) read

read the

the book

In the same way that the DPs adjoin in (43) above, another verb (“bought") con-

catenates with “read" but does not undergo labeling.

(51)

bought read

read the

the book

There is no sense in which “bought" is now more of a root node than “read". Chom-

sky’s (1995) extension condition requires merge to apply to root nodes and as such

both “bought" and “read" are open to further merge operations. It should be noted

that, while a root node, “bought" is not the root of the rest of the tree, just its own

fledgling side-tree.

So both of these verbs can take subjects in their specifier positions and grow just as

normal trees would, the only difference being that at one point they contain elements

that have only been concatenated with each other.

20 BRADLEY LARSON

(52)

T

T read

Ivy read

T

T bought

Ivan bought

read the

the book

The two Ts (or eventual Cs) can be conjoined in the manner below using an &P

following Johannesson (1998).

(53) &

T

&

& T

T read

Ivy read

T bought

Ivan bought

read the

the book

The result is essentially Multidominance without the Dominance. There is no

hierarchically structured relation between the two verbs, just a flat concatenation.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 21

Under either the Reinhart (1976) definition of c-command (or any really), there is

no command relationship between anything below T in the conjunct to the left and

the one to the right.

This approach can handle each of the otherwise intransigent data points discussed

above as we will see below.

3.2. Advantages. Recall the problems that we found with the previous three analy-

ses in the sections above. There was a list of empirical hurdles that need to be cleared:

1. The shared material can be island-internal

2. The shared material does not c-command from a peripheral position into theconjuncts.

3. The shared material can scope high

4. The shared material shows vehicle change effects with respect to the gap position

5. The shared material is not c-commanded by anything in the first conjunct

It turns out to be the case that none of the analyses in the literature can account

for all of them. Each account fails at one or the other and this was argued not to

stem not from the particulars of each theory but rather from its foundations.

The approach posited in the above section however succeeds in every instance

where the others fail.

3.2.1. Islands. First, the fact that the shared material does not show island effects is

captured in a similar manner to multidominance accounts: the shared material does

22 BRADLEY LARSON

not move. So unlike a movement analysis, this in-situ analysis predicts the lack of

island effects.

3.2.2. C-command. The shared material never moves and as such never moves to a

position from which it c-commands the relevant elements in the sentence. We then

predict the lack of NPI licensing by negation in the shared material.

In short, the problems plaguing movement analyses are not encountered here.

3.2.3. Scope. We have seen that the Deletion analysis cannot handle the scope facts.

It has been noted that there is no across-the-board covert movement, but we are

allowed covert movement in the proposed analysis as there is only one instance of

the shared material. Any QR need not work in an ATB fashion and thus is not easily

ruled out.

3.2.4. Vehicle change and ‘asymmetrical’ C-command. In this analysis the lack of

c-command effects between the first conjunct and the shared material are now ac-

counted for. Unlike the traditional multidominance approach, nothing in the first

conjunct c-commands the shared material. As such we correctly predict that it is

irrelevent to NPIs whether there is negation in the first conjunct. We saw this in

(32) repeated as (54) below.

(54) a. Ivan bought, but Ivy didn’t read, any books

b. *Ivan didn’t buy, but Ivy read, any books

The vehicle change effects are also predicted. There is nothing to bar the co-

indexation of ‘he’ and ‘John’ in (55) as there is no c-command relation between

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 23

them. The R-expression ‘Johni’ is, per the binding principles’ strictures, free. It is

not c-commanded by any co-indexed expression.

(55) Hei hopes that Susan won’t, but the secretary knows that she will fire Johni

If the co-indexed expression finds itself instead in the second conjunct, the sentence

is no longer acceptable (56).

(56) *The secretary hopes that Susan won’t, but hei knows that she will, fire Johni

The proposed lack of c-command between the first conjunct and the shared material

makes a wealth of predictions as we will see in the next subsection.

3.3. (Lack of) C-command Effects. We saw in the last section that the relevant

elements in first conjunct do not seem to c-command the shared material as far as

NPIs and principle C of the binding theory are concerned. In this section further

instances where c-command should play a role are investigated.

3.3.1. Binding Theory. With principle C accounted for, next on the docket is prin-

ciple B. Here a pronoun cannot be bound with a given minimal domain, like in (57).

But when there is no c-command relation, the co-indexation of the two is fine.

(57) a. *Johni likes himi

b. Johni’s mother likes himi

In example (58) adapted from Ha (2006) we find that co-indexation of the pronoun

and the antecedent is licit when the antecedent is in the first conjunct, but not when

it is in the second.

(58) a. Johni couldn’t, and Mary didn’t want to, shave himi.

24 BRADLEY LARSON

b. *Mary didn’t want to, and Johni couldn’t, shave himi.

Lastly, with principle A, we see that an anaphor must be c-commanded by a co-

indexed expression, as seen below.

(59) a. Johni likes himselfi

b. *Maryj likes himselfi

When there is a co-indexed expression in the second conjunct, the anaphor in the

shared material is bound and the sentence is fine, no matter what is in the first

conjunct. But when the co-indexed R-expression in second conjunct is not in a

position to license the reflexive, the sentence is bad.

(60) Ivanj thinks that Maryk likes, but Johni hates, himselfi.

(61) *Ivanj thinks that Maryk likes, but Johni thinks that Ivy hates, himselfi.

Also, when the co-indexed expression is in the first conjunct, it fails to license the

anaphor. Yet of course, flip the conjuncts and the acceptability reverses.

(62) *Johni hates, but Maryj likes, himselfi

(63) Maryj likes, but Johni hates, himselfi

Given the results concerning principle A, we should expect that reciprocals would

not be licit in RNR when the antecedents are shared by the two conjuncts. The

reciprocal anaphor, if it is only c-commanded by a single, singular expression, should

not be licensed. And this is what we find in (64) below.

(64) *Ivani saw, and Ivyj heard, each otheri+j

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 25

When there is a plural expression in the first conjunct and a singular one in the

second conjunct, the reciprocal is also not licensed.

(65) *Ivani and Igorj saw, and Ivyk heard, each otheri+j(+k).

However, if there is a plural expression in the second conjunct, we not only get

an acceptable sentence, more interestingly, we get a particular interpretation. The

sentence below is interpreted as Ivan and Igor seeing each other, Ivy hearing the both

of them, but no reciprocity in either seeing or hearing Ivy by the two males. That

Ivan and Igor can license the reciprocal is expected in this account as is the fact that

Ivy, not c-commanding the reciprocal, can play no part in the reciprocity.

(66) Ivy heard, and Ivan and Igor saw, each other

As will be shown in the an upcoming section, Ivy will still act as a thematic agent to

the reciprocal, which will explain that she can hear the two males, but not be seen

or heard by either of them.

3.3.2. Bound Variables. Another diagnostic of c-command is that of bound variables.

For example, the universally quantified noun phrase ‘every doctor’ c-commands the

pronoun in (67a) and as such the two can co-vary. When the quantifier phrase does

not c-command the pronoun, such covariance is not possible (67b).

(67) a. Every doctor thinks that he is a hero.

b. He thinks that every doctor is a hero.

When the quantified phrase is in the first conjunct of an RNR sentence, we predict

that the pronoun in the shared material will not be able to co-vary, and this is the

26 BRADLEY LARSON

case (68a): there is no-command relation. When the quantified phrase is in the

second conjunct, the bound variable reading is possible.

(68) a. Every doctor thinks, and heart patients hope, that he is a miracle

worker.

b. Heart patients hope, and every doctor thinks, that he is a miracle

worker.

Further in the vein of bound variable readings are crossover phenomenon. Crossover

effects have been categorized into weak- and strong-crossover.6 Strong crossover

effects are found when a certain element crosses over another c-commanding, co-

varying element like in (69) (or similarly (67b). In (69), there is assumed covert

movement of the quantified phrase ‘each boy’ to a left-peripheral position. In moving

to this position it has to cross over the c-commanding pronoun ‘he’ and cannot co-

vary with it.

(69) He likes each boy

Weak crossover effects are likes those in (69) except that the pronoun is further

embedded in the subject and does not c-command the moving element. In the

sentencs below, the prohibition of covariance is not nearly as strong. It is, like the

6 The crossover phenomena discussed here do not include examples of “traditional" strong crossoverlike in (i) below which shows that a wh-phrase cannot move above A c–commanding pronoun andstill co-vary with it.

(i) Who does he like?

To shoehorn the above type of sentence into an RNR-like configuration would result in an ATBwh-question and more on those later.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 27

term suggests, weak. Sentence (70) can be a statement concerning each mother and

her own personal son.

(70) His mother loves each boy.

The sole difference between these two types of crossover is that there is a c-command

relationship between pronoun and object in (69) and a lack of such a relationship in

(70).

Given our take on RNR, we expect that with our non-c-commanding first conjunct

we should be able to make a weak-crossover effect out of a strong one. That is, take

a strong crossover string and split it across an RNR sentence such that pronoun is

in the first conjunct and the object is in the shared material. When we do this, we

find that the strong crossover sentences receive weak-crossover readings.

(71) possible co-varying reading

He selected, but Sally bought, each boy’s fathers day present.

Again, when the same potentially strong-crossover inducing pronoun is in the

second RNR conjunct, its strength is undiminished7:

(72) Sally bought, but he selected, each boy’s fathers day present.

7 It seems that going through this same procedure with weak-crossover strings creates even weakercrossover effects. That is, in (i) there is the still the slight twinge that weak-crossever exampleselicit. In (ii) I fail to detect any such feeling.

(i) Sally selected, but his mother bought, each boy’s fathers day present.

(ii) His mother selected, but Sally bought, each boy’s fathers day present.

In (i), the weak crossover effect is due to whatever it is that causes them generally: the quantifiedNP moves across the non-c-commanding bound pronoun at LF. In (ii) there is no such cross-overand there is thus no cross-over effect.

28 BRADLEY LARSON

As we have seen, asymmetries seem to be the rule in RNR. In the next section, we

will investigate deeper the engine driving this way of structure building and find

further asymmetries.

4. Featural Engine

4.1. Introduction. At first glance, it is not entirely apparent why the verbs in this

account concatenate with each other. The first conjunct’s verb requires an internal

argument. This internal argument exists, but it is in the second conjunct and it is

unclear how a relation is established between the two. There is no direct structural

relation between the two and the relation between the two verbs is relatively tenuous;

they have only been Concatenated and there is no c-command relation between them.

The first step in demystifying the selectional requirements of the first verb in this

account is to take issue with description of the Concatenation process as producing

a “tenuous" link between the two verbs. Hornstein takes the Concantenation sub-

operation to be the sole locus of featural relationships. Labeling serves to create a

compositional constituent, but it is Concatenation that mediates feature processes,

be they Agreement, valuation, checking, sharing, what-have-you.

4.2. Feature Sharing. The relation between the verbs is then a rather important

one, and will get us quite far in building a relation between object and first conjunct

verb. For the sake of argument, let us suppose that Merge is driven by some sort

of feature. That is, objects have an interpretable feature X and the verb bears an

uninterpretable feature of the same sort to be valued.8

8 It should be noted at the outset that these weakly hypothesized subcategorizing features are ofcourse not the sole features amenable to this analysis. The derivations investigated herein can beachieved via other features as well if one wished to posit them. Furthermore, depending on one’sconception of the grammar these features may not be at all necessary. That is, the features are

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 29

(73)

{see}uXval[_]

{John}iX[_]

In order to transmit the features, they must do as features do: Agree. Under this

analysis, all that is required for Agree would be Concatenation. So Concatenation

applies and Agree occurs as in Pesetsky and Torrego (2004) (PandT), namely the

feature ends up being shared by two positions (here, the ‘1’ represents each instance

of a single feature). Also, the heretofore uninterpretable feature on the verb is made

interpretable9.

(74)

{see}iXval[1]

{John}iX[1]

With the state of the derivation as in (74), the verb will undergo Label. Given

Chomsky’s inclusiveness condition and BPS, the resulting label must retain the fea-

ture it gained in the Concatenation step. It would violate inclusiveness to introduce

another version of the verb that does not have the feature in question. Though

adding the features adds content to the lexical items, one needs to assume this to be

acceptable if there is to be any checking of features at all. They may be affixed to

the lexical items pre-syntactically. The result of Labeling the verb is shown in (75).

posited with a more crash-proof grammar in mind: one that does not produce ill-formed objects(see Frampton and Gutman, 2002). These serve to prevent wild trees from arising. If one prefers agrammar in which wild trees will be filtered out by the grammar, this featural engine section canbe ignored.9 I am going to stray from the traditional notation here for clarity’s sake. When an uninterpretablefeature has Agreed with an interpretable one, I am going to change the u(ninterpretable) markingto an i(nterpretable)-marked feature. In (74) the uXval feature on the verb becomes iXval afterAgreeing with the internal argument.

30 BRADLEY LARSON

(75) {see}iXval[1]

{see}iXval[1]

{John}iX[1]

Pesetsky and Torrego note that the feature on see can “...now serve as the goal for

some later operation of Agree triggered by an unvalued, higher instance of F serving

as a new probe." (PandT page 4). In the case of verbs like see it is normally not

the case that the feature they gained from their internal argument will have any

reason to serve as a goal. As such it will eventually delete according to PandT and

Chomsky (2001). If however, there is another verb in the derivation that can serve

as the probe to this potential goal, there is nothing principled to prevent it.

Say there were another “uXval[_]" verb entered into the derivation: hear as in

(76). It could Concatenate with the Label of our mini tree in (75) and satisfy that

part of its featural requirements like in (77).

(76)

{hear}uXval[_] {see}iXval[1]

{see}iXval[1]

{John}iX[1]

(77)

{hear}iXval[1] {see}iXval[1]

{see}uXval[1]

{John}iX[1]

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 31

According to Pesetsky and Torrego, this will result in a single feature in three loca-

tions. With PandT’s feature sharing analysis we are indirectly able to link up the

verb in the first conjunct with the object in the second. This feat is achieved without

any c-command relationship whatsoever.

It should also be noted that while this approach may appear different in type

or technology than PandT’s account of feature sharing, there has been no added

machinery. In fact, given the lack of novel machinery, it would take a stipulation

to prevent this method of feature transmission from occurring, given the assumed

technology.

4.3. Adjunction Analogies. So we have seen that after one verb Merges (in the

sense of both Concatenate and Label) with its complement, another verb can come

and Concatenate with the result. Why is it not the case that Labeling ensues? It

certainly did when the first verb found its complement. Why not when the second

verb finds its complement equivalent? In this section we will compare this situation

with regular adjunction in PandT’s system.

The Concatenation of verb with verb suggested above is analogous to the situation

PandT describe when distinguishing (un)valued and (un)interpretable features. Take

the example phrase from Latin that they offer:

(78) puella

girl-Nom.Fem.SgRomana

Roman-Nom.Fem.Sg.Roman girls

In their analysis, ‘girls’ enters into the derivation valued for gender (feminine) and

number (plural). The adjective ‘Romana’ enters unvalued for gender and unvalued

for number. The adjective receives its feminine and plural ending from Agreeing

32 BRADLEY LARSON

with the noun, not from any inherent femininity or plurality. As such, the elements

in the derivation, in terms of valuation, begin as in (79).

(79)

{girls}Fem.val[_]

Num.val[_]

{Roman}Fem.[_]

Num.[_]

As for the interpretability of features, ‘girls’ enters the derivation with its gender and

number features interpretable. That is to say in PandT’s words, gender and number

make a particular semantic contribution to that item.10 The number and gender

features on ‘Roman’ do not however contribute to that lexical item’s interpretation

and as such enter the derivation unvalued. We then ultimately have the features

affixed to the lexical items in (80). The relevant features on ‘girls’ are valued and

interpretable, while the features on ‘Roman’ are unvalued and uninterpretable.

(80)

{girls}iFem.val[_]

iNum.val[_]

{Roman}uFem.[_]

uNum.[_]

These two lexical items have matching features (Fem. and Num.) and as such can

Concatenate and Agree, as in (81). Following Hornstein, with adjuncts there is no

projection required and we can leave the structure as is.

10 What the semantic contribution grammatical gender offers is a mystery to me. Maybe inter-pretable features need not always have semantic import.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 33

(81)

{girls}iFem.val[1]

iNum.val[2]

{Roman}iFem.[1]

iNum.[2]

What would happen if there were no adjective to Agree with the noun? The deriva-

tion would function just fine. The noun had, for the relevant features, everything it

needed. Its features were already valued and interpretable. We want the same to be

the case with our Concatenation of verb with verb. It should not be the case that

this sort of Concatenation of verb to verb is necessary for the derivation to converge.

More often than not, sentences work out just fine without verbs Concatenating with

other verbs.

We thus want our verb-verb Concatenation to work as similarly to the above case

as possible. It should be the case that one verb functions like the noun in having its

relevant features valued and interpretable. The other verb should be able to enter

into the derivation afresh like the adjective.

In the particular case with the verbs, the initial one will be valued (it started out

that way) but its feature will also be interpretable having Agreed with its internal

object. This is to say that the verb’s complement is now sharing its interpretable

feature with the verb. The second verb will enter the derivation just like any verb in

this system: with a feature that is uninterpretable. Thus we have roughly analogous

sets of relative features in the (80) case above as with (82) below: one lexical item has

a feature that is interpretable while the other has a feature that is uninterpretable.

34 BRADLEY LARSON

(82)

{hear}uXval[_] {see}iXval[1]

{see}iXval[1]

{John}iX[1]

This can be generalized. We can now say that optional (adjunct-like) Concatena-

tions happen between elements that are fully ‘satiated’ for a given feature and those

that are not. This restricts adjunction in two important ways. One, it keeps adjuncts

(in this case adjectives and our proposed verb Concatenation) from being crucial to

the success of the derivation and maintains their optionality. Two, it requires that

they adjoin to relevant elements (those that they share features with). This will

preclude a number of wild structures in which irrelevant elements concatenate with

each other.

5. Theta Roles

5.1. Issue. At a glance, it is not entirely apparent how theta roles are to be handled

under this account. For the three other accounts, theta role assignment works by

transparent analogy to any otherwise normal, non-coordinated sentence. In this

concantenative account however, it is unclear how any thematic relation is established

between the verb in the initial conjunct and object in the shared material. There is

no direct structural relation between the two and the relation between the two verbs

is relatively tenuous, they have only been Concatenated and there is no c-command

relation between them.

In this section I will present new argumentation that arguments (internal argu-

ments in particular) are semantically independent of the verb (i.e., full thematic

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 35

separation) and can thus be syntactically independent of it as well. As opposed to

function application (FA) accounts of semantic composition, sentences with miss-

ing arguments are still well-formed in Neo-Davidsonian predicate conjunction (PC)

approaches. Sentences missing arguments can be acceptable so long as the missing

argument can be inferred, this inference depending on the number of event variables.

5.2. RNR Accounts. For Movement and Deletion accounts each verb initially (and

as far as LF is concerned always) has an argument as its complement and as such

thematic role assignment can work in the traditional configuration fashion. With

Multidominance it is superficially more difficult to thematically relate verbs and

arguments. But there is really no important difference here either: each verb has its

complement. They just happen to share the complement.

It is easy to see how thematic roles are assigned in the three other analyses. It is

not so clear with this new approach. One conjunct is missing an argument (or more

than one) in the syntax. What does this mean and how can we account for the theta

assignment?

There is no way that the verb in the first conjunct can structurally “see" the object

in the second conjunct. This verb has access to the features of the second conjunct

verb via its Concatenation with it. The first conjunct verb has not Concatenated

with the shared object, nor is it in any meaningful structural position with respect

to it (like c-command). The shared object is in no position to receive its thematic

role from the first verb.

But it nevertheless does receive a thematic role from that verb. We will investigate

how.

36 BRADLEY LARSON

5.3. Ways of Semantic Composition.

5.3.1. Function Application. One mainstream way of conceiving of semantic compo-

sition is Fregean Function Application (FA) in the sense of Heim and Kratzer (1998)

among many others. In this view verbs are construed as functions, functions that

necessarily take arguments. Nouns (or prepositional phrases or clauses) are those

arguments. For these verbs qua functions to be well-formed for interpretation, they

must be satisfied by arguments in the guise of nouns.

Given a simplistic example sentence like (83), why is it unacceptable according to

FA?

(83) *ran

Under the FA regime the verb run takes the (simplified) form in (84). It is a function

that takes an argument x and returns the proposition that x is a runner.

(84) [[run]] = λx.RUN(x)

In the FA approach, a verb on its own like above is unsaturated and as such cannot

be interpreted as true or false of anything and is in a word ill-formed. In a case

more apropos of our discussion, the sentence in (85) below is unacceptable for the

same reason. Its logical form is given in (86) and as is apparent, the verb is not

entirely satisfied and the result is something that is not formally ready for semantic

interpretation.11

(85) *Ivan hit

(86) [[Ivan hit]] = λyλx.HIT(x,y) x=Ivan

11 I’m abstracting away from the external-argument introducing little v head here.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 37

This should not distract from the fact that there is indeed some thematic information

in (86). Ivan is the x of the ordered pair x,y and as such is the one who did the

hitting. The hittee however is unknown. That the agent is known is essentially for

naught because the sentence as a whole is going to be ill-formed.

5.3.2. Event Conjunction. Another way of semantic composition is so-called Predi-

cation Conjunction (PC) in the vein of Pietroski (2005) among others. In this view

verbs do not serve as functions nor nouns arguments. Rather, each is a predicate

of an event variable and is formally much more self-sufficient. That is, a verb is

fully-formed and interpretable independent of any noun.

However, a caveat of sorts: this analysis takes a much different route in determining

that (83) is unacceptable. The logical form of (83) is (simplistically) like that in (87).

(87) [[run]] = ∃e{running(e)}

Crucially, (87) is entirely well-formed and nothing is going unsatisfied. The above

straightforwardly denotes a running event. The reason why (83) is unacceptable

is not to be found in the syntax or the semantics but rather the lexico-pragmatic

conceptual weirdness of a running event missing a runner. The same goes for our

Ivan hitting scenario. Its PC logical form looks something like (88).

(88) [[Ivan hit]] = ∃e{hitting(e) & Agent(Ivan, e)}

The above again is formally sound and denotes a hitting event whose agent is Ivan.

The fact that Ivan hit is unacceptable stems from the conceptual oddity of someone

hitting without anything getting hit.

38 BRADLEY LARSON

5.3.3. So What? The fact that there is no such thing as a formally missing argument

in the PC approach is important in addressing the thematic role problem of the RNR

analysis presented here. Under the FA regime, a verb missing an argument is beyond

hope. The sentence will be ungrammatical and there is no way to salvage it. With

PC, the same sentence missing an argument is well-formed semantically and is open

to extra-semantic means of rescue.

I have argued that in RNR there is indeed a missing argument of sorts, syntactic

one, in the first conjunct. The extent to which that analysis is correct is the extent

to which we have an argument for PC as a means of semantic composition and not

FA.

Or vice versa. If PC turns out to be the fundamental means of semantic com-

position, we are not inherently prohibited from investigating RNR along the lines

suggested here.

All told, under an FA approach this RNR analysis would face an asymptotically

steep uphill battle against the formal problems of missing arguments.12 With PC

this is not so and we only need to fight against conceptual oddness. With the rest

of the sentence still to come and all of our human inferential power on our side, this

seems like a more tractable problem. Let’s explore how this might work.

12 I suppose it could be the case that an ungrammatical sentence could nevertheless seemacceptable. There are so-called “grammatical illusions" like that in (i) as noted in Phillips et. al.(2009). The sentence below is ungrammatical yet at first pass, seems fine.

(i) More people have been to Russia than I have.

This however contrasts with RNR sentences in that no matter how much rumination one devotesto RNR sentences, they continue to make sense. Furthermore, there seems to be little speakervariability in judging RNR sentence. This is something one might expect with an ungrammaticalyet not terribly unacceptable sentence.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 39

5.4. Edo. A test case of this “missing argument" situation in PC-style to semantic

composition can be found in Edo double verb constructions. The sentences, like that

in (89) and analyzed by Baker (1989) as (90), involving null coordination and a null

pro.

(89) Ozo

Ozogha

willle

cookevbare

foodre

eatOzo will cook food and eat it

(90) Ozo will cook foodi and eat proi

The sentence above has some interesting and severe restrictions on its interpretation.

For one, sentences in this mould can only have the interpretation in which the cooking

was done with an eye towards the eating. As Pietroski (2002) puts it, the sentence

must describe a single event that begins with a cooking and ends with an eating.

Second, the food that is to be cooked must be the self-same food that is eaten.

Pietroski develops a PC analysis of how this pro is interpreted given the fact that

the sentence describes only one single event. In short, the pro needs to somehow be

interpreted as necessarily co-indexed with food. But Pietroski wonders how this is to

be done given that there is no c-command relation between the two. Even if there

were c-command between the two, it is unclear how this would be guaranteed.

Take it as a (entirely intuitive) premise that an event can only have a single Theme.

The sentence has one clear Theme: the complement of cook. That complement is

then locked in as the Theme of the sentence and any other argument in a Theme

position, say pro, must be interpreted as the same thing. And this is the reading we

40 BRADLEY LARSON

get. Thanks to the fact that there is only one event described in this sentence, the

pro that is eaten must be the food that is cooked.

However, Baker notes that there is no independent evidence for pro in Edo. It’s a

relatively ad hoc entitiy to posit in this position. Suppose we were to eschew ad hoc

entities. We might see what goes wrong by dropping pro, like in (91).

(91) Ozo will cook foodi and eat

As we have seen, there is going to be nothing formally wrong with the semantics of

(91) under a PC account. We merely have the conceptual oddity of eat not having

a complement. An eating event without anything being eaten.

But the same mechanism that gives pro its interpretation when we had it can

save eat ’s conceptual requirement of a Theme. This sort of inferential mechanism

presumably resides outside semantics proper and its underlying logic will serve as a

guide through the discussion of RNR in the next section.13

5.5. RNR. Much like in the Edo case, I argue that there is a missing argument in

RNR. This time however there is nothing to force the interpretation per se. Unlike

the Edo case, the sentence in (92) need not necessarily begin with cooking and end

in eating.

(92) Ivan cooked, and Ivy ate, a lot of food.

13Not just any sort of inference is possible. I maintain that the inference here relies on the existenceof an LF entity that serves as the basis for the inference. That is, a mentioned or implied objectfrom some previous discourse would no count. If an apple had previously been mentioned or pointedat, it would not exist in the LF of the sentence in question and thus not count a potential basis forthe inference.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 41

It could be the case that Ivy ate a lot of food on Sunday and Ivan cooked a lot of food

on Monday. It follows that the food need not be the self-same food as in Ozo’s case.

Ivan could have cooked a lot of food completely unaware that Ivy was concurrently

eating a lot of food cross-state. The interpretations of (92) are much freer than in

Ozo’s sentence.

This suggests multiple events and what’s more, a total separation of them. Re-

member, that there was a mere one event in the Edo case allowed for syllogistic

guidance in determining the missing argument’s interpretation: There is one Theme

per event, food is the Theme of this event, eat conceptually requires a Theme, food

is that Theme. Instead, sentence (92) has a PC LF something like that in (93). That

is to say: There was a cooking event with Ivan as its agent and there was an eating

event with Ivy as its agent and a lot of food as its theme.

(93) ∃e∃e’{Agent(e, Ivan) & cooking(e) & Agent(e’, Ivy) & eating(e’) & Theme(e’,

a lot of food)}

With at least two events now, we are now missing that guidance. It is heartening

that the fact that there are multiple events correlates with freer interpretation, but

it means that we are going to have to determine the missing RNR argument in a

different fashion.14

5.6. Intonation. A signature aspect of RNR has been ignored in this essay so far.

RNR sentences universally display a unique, marked intonation pattern. Fery and

14 An interesting sidenote, it seems that if the coordination in a potentially RNR sentence is lowenough, its interpretation mirrors that of the Edo double verb construction, see (94).

(i) Ivan cooked and ate a lot of food.

Though it could be argued that this is mere verb coordination and not an instance of RNR.

42 BRADLEY LARSON

Hartmann (2005) among others explore how RNR is licensed in terms of prosody.

In this subsection I will posit that the particulars of this marked prosody assist in

overcoming the effects of the missing argument in the first conjunct.

Fery and Hartmann note that in a sentence like (94) there are rising accents on

hummed and sang.

(94) Hanna hummed, and Erika sang, a melody

In particular, the rising accent on hummed is characterized by them as “extremely

prominent". They also argue that two accented elements are interpreted as con-

trasting with one another. As we saw in the previous sections, to save our PC-style

account of RNR sentences, we require something to help fill in the missing argument.

In contrasting hummed and sang, one thing that distinguishes them is that the

former is missing an argument and the latter is not. What would happen if we were

to posit that the second conjunct accent picks out what is to follow the first accent?

This would not be to say that the element following sang should be inserted into the

position following hummed in any syntactic or formal sense, but rather as a means to

repair the conceptual weirdness of the first conjunct. There is not much formal to this.

I suggest that this sort of inference is essentially extra-grammatical and a heuristic

way to salvage an otherwise odd sentence. Recall, this odd sentence is universally

cross-lingusitically expected given the operation Concatenation as presented in the

previous sections.

Phillips (1996) notes that it is tempting but disadvantageous to consider RNR a

stylistic quirk or some sort of flourish not solely derivable from the grammar. This

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 43

accent-based inference account bites that bullet and indeed treats RNR as in part

dependent on extra-grammatical operations to produce an acceptable sentence.

But this does not seem like the worst thing. For one, RNR is, as far as is known,

found in every language. As such, the crucial steps that make an RNR sentence what

it is should lie outside the components of grammar that are subject to variation. This

model provides for this. The sentences are allowed to be missing an argument because

of the language-invariant Concatenation operation described above and the missing

argument is inferred via the inferential ability, common to all humans. In essence,

a core operation independent of any specific language gives rise to sentences that

require an operation independent of language in toto.

This model of RNR derivation straddles the variable inner workings of syntax

and predicts the construction to be universal. I consider this an advantage that

other accounts of RNR lack. They all require some operations or features that are

particular to RNR and it is not explained any deeper than as a construction. In

the following section I will investigate the repercussions of this approach to thematic

roles.

5.7. Predictions. Implicit in the above section is the idea that the thematic role of

the missing argument in an RNR sentence is independent of the thematic roles in the

second conjunct. The structure will be be built with regard only to subcategorical

requirements, not to thematic ones. That is, we could begin building a sentence like

in (95) below.

(95) [V P arrived a tall man]

44 BRADLEY LARSON

To this VP another verb that requires an internal argument can Concatenate (take

‘∧’ to signify Concatenation).

(96) [V P expect]∧[V P arrived a tall man]

The sentence hums along as normal and the result is (97), an unacceptable sentence.

(97) *Ivan expected and a tall man arrived

Why is this bad? Inferring a tall man into the gap after expected should be very

straightforward, there is no competing argument and expected desperately needs one.

The problem here is that the sentence is not fertile ground for the correct prosody.

It lacks the contrasting accents followed by gaps and arguments respectively, as

discussed above.

If we alter the sentence minimally so as to allow for the contrastive, rising accents,

the sentence is fine despite the differing thematic roles

(98) Ivan expected, and soon enough there arrived, a tall man.

Given the correct prosody, examples abound in which the overt and inferred argu-

ments differ in thematic role. In (99) the shared element is Agent in one conjunct

and Patient in another. In (100) Patient and Instrument are swapped. And so on.

(99) Ivan saw, and Ivy was seen by, the police

(100) Ivan bought, and Ivy ate her peas with, a fork

(101) Ivy climbed, and Ivan walked towards, the old oak tree.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 45

Also, by modulating prosody it is possible to give an otherwise fine sentence a

novel interpretation. Take (102). As it stands the sentence is fine. With normal

prosody we understand it as meaning that Ivan was eating a meal during the time

in which Ivy was trying to sell some chestnuts. When RNR prosody is imposed, the

chestnuts are inferred as the complement of eating in the first conjunct, see (103).

(102) Ivan was eating while Ivy tried to sell some chestnuts.

(103) Ivan was EATING, while Ivy tried to SELL, some chestnuts.

This inference can work on more than just arguments. As shown below we can

infer phrases with functional material in them as well. Such is the case with the

preposition in the examples below. Interestingly, the functional material can be

inferred such that it serves a different purpose in each conjunct. Sentence (104) has

the understandable, if slightly painted by non sequitur, interpretation in which Ivan

was hired by someplace or other and Ivy happens to live by the bank. The sentence

with the RNR-type prosody is interpreted in such way that Ivy lives by the bank

that Ivan was hired by.

(104) Ivan was hired and Ivy lives by the bank.

(105) Ivan was HIRED, and Ivy LIVES, by the bank.

5.8. Conclusion. All told, this means of inferring the missing argument makes the

right predictions. Though it is indeed a novel, non-canonical way of doing so, it is

in a sense forced upon us given the previous discussion.

46 BRADLEY LARSON

6. Linearization

Much like with thematic roles, the functioning of linearization under the concate-

native account of RNR is initially less obvious than competing accounts. Also like

with thematic roles, the solution is fairly simple and intuitive. First however, the

linearizations schemes for the competing analyses will be analyzed and shown to be

wanting.

6.1. Deletion. In Deletion accounts of RNR, it is generally stipulated that the

shared material appears at the right edge of the right conjunct, as opposed to the

right edge of the left conjunct. This stipulation alone should be cause for concern.

There is however in Ha (2006) a coding of this stipulation via the ellipsis feature

he uses to account for the apparent elliptical properties of RNR. He posits a feature,

ERNR, that determines what gets deleted (among other things). Under the ERNR

account, the shared material in each conjunct is affixed with this feature, like in

(106). The C head then Agrees with the nearest ERNR feature and this Agreement

causes the deletion of string dominated by the feature, like in (107).

(106) [CP C [TP Ivan bought [ERNR the newspaper] [&P and [TP Ivy read [ERNR

the newspaper]]]]]

(107) [CP C [TP Ivan bought [ERNR the newspaper] [&P and [TP Ivy read [ERNR

the newspaper]]]]]

Agree

This approach runs into problems when there is more than one conjunct. An RNR

sentence with three conjuncts can only have its first instance of shared material

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 47

elided. A sentence initially like (108) would undergo Agree like in (107) and the

result would be (109). Under this approach, it is not possible to derive an RNR

sentence with all but one instance of the shared material elided.

(108) [CP C [TP Iris saw [ERNR the newspaper] [&P and [TP Ivan bought [ERNR

the newspaper] [&P and [TP Ivy read [ERNR the newspaper]]]]]

(109) Iris saw, and Ivan bought the newspaper, and Ivy read the newspaper.

This approach, though in the end untenable, is in the author’s opinion the least

stipulative of the Deletion accounts in terms of linearization. Another ostensibly

straightforward approach to linearization can be found in movement analyses.

6.2. Movement. Most movement analyses of RNR pre-date the LCA (where c-

command determines precedence) and as such they are free to posit movement to

the periphery that translates to movement to the right for purposes of externalization.

These, like the stipulative directionality of Deletion accounts, are not very convincing.

Ignoring this LCA problem, there is a recent movement account of linearization that

is much more interesting than the early ones (like Ross 1967 and Postal 1974).

Sabbagh (2007) presents an elegant method of deriving the linear order of RNR

sentences via movement. Summed up: so long as the movement does not contradict

the linear order as already spelled out (Fox and Pesetsky, 2005), the sentence should

be fine in that regard. Additionally, for Sabbagh rightward movement is argued to

be unbounded and apparently free.

48 BRADLEY LARSON

Given two (simplified) sub-trees not yet coordinated, like in (110) below, the two

instances of John are ordered like in Fox and Pesetsky (in a phase-based, multiple

spell out system) as (111a) and (111b) respectively (where “>" denotes “precedes").

(110) sees

Ivy sees

sees John

hears

Ivan hears

hears John

(111) a. Ivan > hears > John

b. Ivy > sees > John

Spellout having occurred, this ordering cannot be contradicted, and under Sabbagh’s

account, it won’t. To continue on in our simplified manner, the two trees can be

coordinated, resulting in (112). The two instances of John are then free to move out

of the CP to the right, adjoining to CP1 in an across-the-board fashion, like in (113).

(112) &P

hears

Ivan hears

hears John

&′

& sees

Ivy sees

sees John

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 49

(113) &P

&P

hears

Ivan hears

hears ti

&’

& sees

Ivy sees

sees ti

Johni

This movement is licit according to Sabbagh. The ordering when (113) is spelled out

does not contradict that in (111). The string John follows both sees and hears and

Sabbagh asserts that it also follows the larger &P complex. Since the intial ordering

is not contradicted, the final ordering is licit.

The problem with this account is that although it has the trappings of a non-

stipulative account, it falls prey to the same issues that traditional movement ac-

counts of RNR do. The fact that the moved element in (113) adjoins to the right of

the &P complex simply begs the question. There is no motivation to assume that the

moved elements will not adjoin to the left and disrupt the pre-established ordering.

There could potentially be some global constraint on this, but it is not stated. For

instance, it could be the grammar allows the shared material to move to either the

left- or right-preiphery and the left-peripheral version are filtered out. What’s more,

there is no motivation, featural or otherwise, to prompt the movement in the first

place. Without any explicit motivation for this movement we should rule this sort of

movement out. It is true that one could posit any number of features and filters to

50 BRADLEY LARSON

motivate and constrain the movement, but these would amount to ad hoc entities.

If they can be avoided, they should be.

In sum, movement accounts as they stand cannot avoid linear ordering stipulations.

Something which in the Minimalist Program is anathema.

6.3. Multidominance. Given the LCA, Multidominance accounts also have trouble

when it comes to linearization. Take an example like (114), The LCA would produce

orderings like those in (115) and (116).

(114) &

read &

& bought

Ivan bought

bought

Ivy read

read

the

the book

The right TP c-commands the left one and as such precedes it. This precedence

relation extends to everything dominated by the respective TPs. This produces the

following orderings (of many)

(115) Ivy > bought

(116) the book > the book

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 51

The ordering in (116) violates the LCA’s reflexivity restriction and Multidominance

requires alterations to the LCA to avoid this15. We do not want to alter the LCA

for a single construction. It is rather elegant as it stands and the following analysis

of RNR allows it to remain that way.16

6.4. The Concatenative Account. Unlike the previous analyses, the Concatena-

tive account requires neither unmotivated stipulation nor alterations to conceptual

machinery to produce linear orderings. Kayne’s LCA provides a straightforward

mapping between c-command relations and precedence and I assume it here.

Given the Concatenative RNR tree in (117), it is at first not entirely clear how

the Concatenation (dashed line) will affect or play a role in the linear order. One

could, for instance, suppose that the Concatenation of the two verbs introduces some

linear order ambiguity to the tree and as such requires something additional to be

linearizable.

15 See Wilder (1999) for a reformulation of the LCA to allow for Multidominance as well as Bachrachand Katzirs Multidominance linearization scheme for another alternative. Though also see An(2007) and Ha (2006) for problems for each of these alternatives respectively.16In the next section I do adopt an alteration to the LCA, but one that is, if not uncontroversial,less construction-specific than alterations for Multidominance.

52 BRADLEY LARSON

(117) &

T

&

and T

T read

Ivy read

T bought

Ivan bought

read the

the book

However, it is crucial that Concatenation does not create any c-command relations,

only Labeling can do that. That is, c-command relies on a parent shared between

two nodes and without Labeling there is no shared parent to construe c-command

over. Since the LCA is only concerned with c-command relations, the dashed line

is effectively invisible with respect to linearization. As far as the LCA is concerned

(117) appears like (118). In other words, the initial conjunct is essentially a complex

specifier for the purposes of linearization.17

17 This tree shares a resemblance to Phillips (1996) account of RNR in which, building left to right,the first conjunct sans the shared material forms a constituent. Here it also forms a constituent asfar as linearization is concerned.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 53

(118) &

T

&

and T

T read

Ivy read

T bought

Ivan bought

read the

the book

Example (118) spelled out (with the initial conjunct acting like a run-of-the-mill

complex specifier) gives us the grammatical RNR sentence that we would expect.

And it does so without recourse to any stipulations aside from those inherent to the

assumed frameworks of Kayne and Hornstein.

6.5. Specifiers. Why is it that the following sentences (from Johnson, 2007) are

unacceptable?

(119) a. *Mary talked to about Jim, and Sally talked to Paul about, Marilyn

Manson.

b. *Mary talked to about Jim, and Sally talked about to Paul, Marilyn

Manson.

c. *Sally mailed to Bill, and Mary faxed, the contract to Sam.

How can the means of structure building presented above account for the fact that

the gap in the first conjunct of an RNR sentence must appear on its right edge (call

54 BRADLEY LARSON

it the right-edge restriction)? That is, the shared material does not seem to be able

to be in a specifier position in the first conjunct. In the sentences above there is

a preposition in the specifier position of a lower VP projection (following Larson,

1988).

To understand why this is the case, let us look at the state of the derived object

at a point in time before the first conjunct’s relevant specifier is formed (120).

(120)

Q X

Q can be taken as a complement without any obvious negative repercussions.

Also, from this perspective it is in principle possible for Q to also serve as a specifier.

But assuming a multiple spell-out framework like that of Uriagereka (1999) we can

preclude this. Under Uriagereka’s analysis, syntactic objects are spelled-out prior to

their having merged into a specifier position. Spell-out in his terms essentially renders

the object a giant word, its innards impervious to subsequent syntactic operations.

That this happens allows for a simpler conception of the LCA. Prior to this, an an

element within a specifier would precede, say, the verb without c-commanding it. It

would certainly be dominated by something that c-commanded the verb, but it itself

wouldn’t and an inductive step was required to achieve the effect of c-command.

If the specifier were made into a word-like element, this problem no longer arises.

What’s more it captured many other empirical facts.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 55

Relevant for us is that the spell-out of the incipient specifier required that the

object be a command unit. A command unit would be any tree without any complex

specifiers, an object whose linear ordering could be read off the structure without

induction (121).

(121) X

Y X

X Z

The LCA determines the order of the elements in the above tree and then the tree

is flattened. When we look at the fledgling RNR structure above and consider how

it would work in this situation, it becomes clear what will go wrong. The tree is

presented again in (122).

(122)

Q X

Were the above object to be made word-like, there would no longer be a node X that

could serve to build the second conjunct. This would preclude the RNR sentence

from getting anywhere near completion. This then rules out the sentence in which

the shared element finds itself in a specifier position and this will in turn predict the

right-edge restriction in RNR sentences.

56 BRADLEY LARSON

It could also be the case that the above object does not even constitute a command

unit. As such it is not a viable candidate to be spelled out and inserted as a specifier

to begin with. There is no way to derive the right-edge restriction violating sentences

under this view either.18

7. Conclusion

I hope to have convinced the reader of two things. One, the current ways of

analyzing Right-node Raising are untenable without substantial revision. Two, such

revision is unnecessary. The approach presented here accounts for a broader swath

of facts than any of its competitors and does so in a simple, principled manner.

One such avenue for further investigation concerns ATB wh-questions. Much like

the asymmetrical c-command effects found in RNR from left to right, ATB wh-

questions seem to shows asymmetrical c-command effects from right to left. As a

taste of further inquiry, I present (123). Wh-island effects arise only in the first

conjunct, not the second.

(123) a. *What did Ivy say who buys t and Jack say Ivan sells t?

b. What did Jack say Ivan buys t and Ivy say who sells t?

18 It would of course need to be the case that the structure could be flattened when the coordinationenters the picture. Though if the entirety of the structure were flattened at this point, nothingwould go awry. The massive &P would simply be spelled out as a word. That is, we can spell-outobjects like (122) so long as the Q is merging as the specifier to something in the spine thatcontains X. This has the repercussion of ruling in sentences like (i)

(i) The man who likes, met the woman who hates, armadillos.

In this sentence the Q analogue likes eventually finds itself as a subpart of a specifier. The nodethat it is a specifier to happens to dominate the X analogue hates and the sentence is ruled in, tomy ears correctly so.

A SPARSE APPROACH TO RIGHT NODE RAISING 57

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