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38 Pages·2013·0.12 MB·English

by  Andrew Weir

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Object drop and article drop in reduced written
register: a unified analysis
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Andrew Weir
University of Massachusetts Amherst
[email protected]
Register Variation and Syntactic Theory workshop
International Congress of Linguists
University of Geneva,26 July 2013
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Introduction
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Focus of this talk: object (pronoun) drop in ‘abbreviated
English’/’reduced written register’ (RWR)
Usually discussed for recipes (Haegeman 1987a,b, Massam &
Roberge 1989, Massam 1992):
(1) Cut chicken into small pieces. Bake∅for 20 minutes.
But in principle possible in non-recipe contexts in RWR, e.g.
diaries
(2) Received credit card bill in mail today. Will shred∅later.
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Questions about object drop
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What licenses object drop in RWR, but not standard English?
What is the relation,if any,between subject drop and object drop
in RWR?
Can object drop be understood as a consequence of independently
motivated assumptions about RWR? (My answer: yes,it’s a
consequence of article drop.)
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Roadmap of the talk
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Grammatical constraints on object drop;comparison with subject
drop
Null articles in RWR
Pronoun drop as a consequence of null articles (Tomioka 2003)
Speculations on differences with subject drop
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Subject drop vs. object drop
..
Pronouns seem to drop quite freely in RWR, both subject and
object pronouns
(3) ∅Received credit card bill in mail today. ∅Will∅shred later.
Is this a case of general/‘radical’ pronoun drop?
No;the constraints on subject pronoun drop and object pronoun
drop are different
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Subject drop vs. object drop
..
Subject drop can be any person.
(4) a. ∅Went to gym today. (1p)
b. (comments on a student’s essay)
∅Don’t need to go into so much detail here. (2p)
c. ∅Saw Bill today. ∅Didn’t look very happy. (3p)
Object drop can only be third person.
(5) a. ∅Received credit card bill in mail today.
Will shred∅later. (3p)
b. Don’t send me any more emails. *Will fire∅. (*2p)
c. Don’t want to talk to my boss. *Would fire∅. (*1p)
Existing analyses of object drop as topic drop (Haegeman 1987b)
or as a type of middle construction (Massam 1992) don’t obviously
capture this asymmetry,given that first- and second-persons can be
topics/subjects of middles.
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Subject drop vs. object drop
..
Dropped subjects can be expletives.
(6) a. ∅Rained all day yesterday.
b. ∅Seems to be a problem with the engine.
Dropped objects can’t be expletives.
(7) a. Considered ??(it) necessary to call the doctor.
b. Proved ??(it) to Mary to be necessary to call the doctor.
(after Runner 2000)
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Subject drop vs. object drop
..
Acurious constraint on object drop: it can’t co-occur with an overt
subject pronoun (Massam & Roberge 1989, Massam 1992)
(8) Received credit card bill in mail today.
a. ∅Will shred∅later.
b. *Iwill shred∅later.
Subjects as such are OK(contra the above references);it’s just
pronouns.
(9) a. Received credit card bill in mail today.
?Bill will shred∅later.
b. Staff will replenish∅daily.
(label on a hotel bottle of water)
This is presumably why dropped objects are so common in recipes:
imperatives normally have covert subjects (viz. Massam 1992)
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
An interesting parallel
..
Just as object pronouns can’t be dropped to the exclusion of
subject pronouns,object articles can’t be dropped to the exclusion
of subject articles (Mårdh 1980, Stowell 1991, Weir 2013)
(10) a. MANBITESDOG
b. MANBITESADOG
c. *AMANBITESDOG
(11) a. Boss brought in broken laptop today.
b. Boss brought in a broken laptop today.
c. The boss brought in ?*(a) broken laptop today.
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register
Constraints on object drop
The relevance of null articles
Subject drop
Further work and conclusion
Object drop = article drop?
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The fact that both pronoun drop and article drop show a
subject-object asymmetry suggest that we might try to unify them
My proposal: English RWRcontains an unpronounced article,and
it’s this fact that allows third-person objects to go unpronounced
Proposal based on Tomioka 2003’s analysis of pronoun drop in
Japanese,and Haegeman 2004,who notes an apparent correlation
in English-acquiring children between object drop and article drop
Andrew Weir Object drop and article drop in reduced written register