Nominal Clitics and Constructive Morphology in
Hindi
Devyani Sharma
Stanford University
Proceedings of the LFG99 Conference
The University of Manchester
Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King (Editors)
1999
CSLI
Publications
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/publications/
Abstract
This paper examines the establishment of grammatical and discourse
functions of NPs by morphological marking in Hindi. I argue that a
constructive morphology analysis of case marking can be generalized in
Hindi to both case and discourse clitics. Nordlinger (1998) proposes
constructive functions for case markers, whereby a lexical specification
such as 
replaces the
traditional c-structure annotation 
.
Crucially, under her analysis, case markers also carry
clause-level information about grammatical functions. I show that
extending this mechanism to discourse clitics in Hindi can account for
their ability to identify the clause-level discourse function of their
host NP. The constructive analysis also accommodates incorporated forms,
multiple embedding, and domain restrictions. However, as with constructive
case (Butt and King 1999, Lee To appear), the `flattening' effect of the
constructive function on discourse markers is restricted to f-structural
syntactic discourse functions and does not apply to semantic effects.
Introduction
Case marking in Hindi has been studied in greater detail in the literature
than discourse marking (Mahajan 1990; Mohanan 1994; Butt and King
1999).(1) Furthermore, similarities in the
licensing of case and focus have been observed in several studies, but they
have been generally oriented toward structural licensing (Horvath
1995; Butt and King 1996). Here I examine morphological marking that is
independent of positional licensing.
Traditionally in LFG, grammatical functions have been identified by
functional descriptions stating relations such as 
. Nordlinger (1998), building on work by Andrews (1996) and
Simpson (1991) amongst others, proposes constructive functions for case
markers, such as 
, in order to account for
various properties of case morphology in nonconfigurational languages. In
this paper, the extension of constructive morphology to discourse marking
captures the similar ways in which case and discourse clitics contribute
clausal information about their hosts independently of configurational
positions. The main aims of this paper will be:
- [i] To account for the establishment of grammatical and
discourse functions via cliticization in NPs in Hindi;
- [ii] To describe the similarities and differences in the
syntactic behaviour of case and discourse clitics;
- [iii] To distinguish between syntactic and semantic effects
of discourse clitics in particular.
In section 1, I give an overview of the behaviour of certain discourse
markers, providing evidence that they are similar to case markers in being
clitic-like. Section 2 provides a more detailed discussion of the syntactic
properties of these clitics. In section 3, I present an analysis for Hindi
case clitics using constructive morphology, and then show how this analysis
can be extended to discourse clitics. Finally in section 4, I point out
that although the `flattening' constructive function proposed here
identifies a syntactic function at f-structure, clitics ultimately require
a distinct semantic mapping to establish fine-grained scope interpretations
(Dalrymple 1993, Andrews and Manning 1999).
1 Structural status of discourse and case markers
The main discourse markers used in Hindi are listed in (1):2
Hii marks exclusive focus,
similar in some ways to only in
English. It identifies a particular member out of a possible set.
Bhii indicates inclusive focus, including a particular element in an
existing set.(3) Finally, to performs a
topic contrasting
function. More semantically and syntactically restricted clitics include
tak and bhar.
For purposes of consistency and due to space limitations, I will
restrict
most of the discussion in this paper to the focus marker hii. The
first three clitics listed above appear very frequently in conversational
speech and perform a range of pragmatically and semantically restrictive
functions. The definitions in (1) are somewhat coarse
approximations of the complex functional range of each marker. In example
(2) I show instances of their use.
In (2a) `Radha' is exclusively
focused; in (2b) `Radha' is
inclusively focused; and in (2c) the topic `candle' is contrasted
with the new information in the sentence. These examples show that
discourse clitics identify the constituent which they immediately follow
as marked for certain discourse roles. The discussion here is restricted
to the nominal domain, but it must be noted that discourse clitics may
also modify non-nominal elements in a clause, including verbal elements
and adjuncts. Although the full range of these uses cannot be adequately
addressed here, these facts are in keeping with the general property of
discourse markers as identifying the focus of a clause, whether nominal or
not. In fact, the analysis provided here for the nominal domain could
ultimately be generalized to include further uses of discourse markers, as
I discuss briefly in section 3.5.
I follow the analysis of case markers in Mohanan(1994:60) and Butt and
King
(1999) in analysing discourse markers also as syntactic clitics rather
than morphological affixes. Various distinctive characteristics provide
support for such an analysis. First, case markers may take phrasal scope
over conjoined nominals. Example (3), from Butt and King (1999), shows this
difference between clitic and affix behaviour.
In (3a), the oblique affix cannot
take scope over the conjoined
nominal stems. In (3b), however, the single case marker can mark
the conjoined stems. Discourse markers pattern like case
markers in this regard. They can also take phrasal scope over conjoined
elements, as shown in (4).
Secondly, pauses may intervene
between nominals and their case markers
(Mohanan 1994:60). Discourse markers show the same property. By contrast,
it is impossible to insert a pause between a nominal stem and an affix
such as -e in (3b). In addition to this, nominal agreement affixes
also affect the stress pattern of a noun, whereas case clitics do not
(Butt and King 1999:5). Again, discourse markers pattern like case
markers in this regard and do not affect stress. Finally, discourse
clitics and case clitics can be mutually reordered (although this is
subject to dialectal variation). However, neither type of clitic can
intervene between the nominal stem and regular affixes.
Assuming that discourse markers are also clitics, it is fairly
straightforward
to argue that, like case, they are of the type which attach to a
constituent rather than ones which occupy a clausal position, for
example, directly under S. Several phenomena may be taken as evidence for
this assumption.
Firstly, discourse clitics may appear within NPs with
correspondingly restrictive scope. If these clitics appear in a position
directly dominated by S or IP, their NP-internal positioning and scope
cannot be easily accounted for.
Secondly, discourse markers only take scope over constituents to their
left. This is distinct from non-constituent discourse particles in other
languages. Koenig (1991) distinguishes between adverb-like and
clitic-like behaviour of focus particles cross-linguistically. In the
English examples in (5), the particle `only' shows
adverb-like properties as its position and scope are relatively flexible.
English (adverb-like):
The focus marker hii in Hindi
contrasts with this in exhibiting a
stricter, constituent-like behaviour.
In (6a) and (6b) it is not possible
for hii to take focal
scope over any constituent that follows it. It can only focus the
immediately preceding constituent, Maya=ne, as shown in
(6c).
In order to consider the full range of positions that case and discourse
clitics may occupy in NPs, an exception to the clitic generalizations
listed in section 1.1 must first be taken into account. This is a
set of forms in which hii shows signs of being incorporated into its
nominal host.
Since hii follows the element it modifies, it commonly follows
case
markers too (Verma 1971). However, when hii does occur between
pronominals and their case markers, it usually shows signs of
incorporation (Koul 1990; McGregor 1995). I list the personal and
demonstrative pronominal forms with incorporated focus in
(7).
We can take hii to be
incorporated in these forms
based on several characteristics:
The focus morpheme interacts with
morphological stress; various types of
phonological reduction take place; nasalization of the /i/ vowel occurs in
these forms but never in cliticization; and gaps occur in the paradigm of
forms which show these characteristics.
To summarize the data discussed so far, I have argued that:
- Both case and discourse markers are clitic-like in nature;
- Discourse markers tend to follow case markers if both appear with a
nominal;
- Instances of the reverse ordering, i.e. NSTEM-DISC-CASE, are often
cases in which the focus marker is
morphologically incorporated into a pronoun.
A simplified representation of these generalizations is shown in
(9). This structure will be refined in the next sections.
2 Syntactic properties of nominal clitics
In this section I turn to various syntactic properties of both types of
nominal clitics, including position with regard to phrasal boundaries,
clausal cooccurrence, and domain restrictions.
As mentioned already, discourse clitics may attach to the right edge
of the focused or topicalized constituent. The appearance of discourse
clitics on an NP does not require any changes in word order, as seen in
(10).
Unlike agreement affixes on nouns,
discourse clitics do not
contribute information to the f-structure of the NP but rather to the
f-structure of the outer clause which contains the NP. They
identify their NP as the TOP or FOC of the main clause. In
this capacity, they resemble case clitics since they perform a
clause-level function.
Case clitics must be adjoined to the right of the nominal head;
this can be seen in (11).
(11b) and (11c) show that case
cannot appear on a modifier inside the
noun phrase, and (11d) shows that case cannot be multiply iterated
in a single noun phrase. Discourse clitics, on the other hand, may attach
to a wider range of constituents in the NP, as shown in
(12).(4)
(12b) and (12c) contrast with (11b)
and (11c) in allowing the focus
marker to appear on modifiers. Note that (12d) involves focus
marking which is morphologically incorporated into the demonstrative.
Given a constructive analysis which I will describe shortly, the
morphological rather than syntactic appearance of hii here does
not affect the establishment of clausal focus.
Finally, although a wider range of positions is possible for the
discourse markers, they cannot be instantiated more than once in the NP,
as seen in (13).
This restriction on multiple
discourse marking of a constituent
resembles the case restriction in (11d). I assume for now
that the coccurrence restriction derives from semantic incompatibility,
rather than a structural restriction.
Even when focus occurs in an NP-internal position, as in (12b-d),
the whole NP is identified as clausal focus in terms of syntactic
behaviour. Certain word order and syntactic focus phenomena support this
generalization.
One indication can be found in cases of multiple focii. There is a
restriction on having two morphologically focused arguments in the same
clause in Hindi unless the speaker resorts to very marked intonation
in unusual contexts.(5) Given this
restriction, a cooccurrence clash implies that hii is identifying
two different values for a single focus function in a
clause.
If a marker is within an NP, a regular (outside-in) function
such
as 
would not rule out such a
cooccurrence.
For example, if a modifier inside an NP has a clitic with the annotation
, focus would just map as an NP-internal
attribute, as the simplified f-structure in (14) shows.
Consequently, if two focus markers appear within two NPs, each NP would
simply have a focus attribute inside it and no clause level clash would
be registered.
However, (15) shows that
NP-internal discourse marking
percolates up to the clausal f-structure. In these examples, the
discourse markers occur on specifiers within NPs to show that in
spite of being embedded inside NPs they are `visible' at the clause
level and can clash.
In (15a), hii marks the
possessive modifier of the
subject and in (15b) it marks the possessive modifier of
the locative. In (15c), despite the fact that the two
discourse clitics are structurally within NPs, a clausal cooccurrence
is registered, resulting in an infelicitous sentence.
The general classification of hii and bhii as types of
focus
and to as a type of topic predicts further that the former two
cannot occur multiply but they may cooccur with to.
(16) supports this prediction,
showing that a
topic function and a focus function can legitimately cooccur. This
contrast is a further indication that the clausal f-structure is
sensitive to NP-internal discourse markers.
The syntactic status of focused NPs can also be verified by examining
the interaction of clitic marking with the grammaticalized focus
position in Hindi: the preverbal position (Butt and King 1996).
When a
part of an NP is focused, the entire NP may occupy this focus
position.(6)
In (17a), the NP containing the
focus marker is in situ.
(17b) shows that the marked element alone cannot appear
preverbally, but in (17c) the entire host NP can optionally
occupy this position.
Finally, it is important to establish the syntactic domain of focus in
Hindi. In other words, what is the limit beyond which cooccurrences are
permissible? Based on the contrast in (18), I take the finite
clause to be the domain within which restrictions on multiple focii must
hold.
(18a) is infelicitous due to the
occurrence of two identical focus
values. This contrasts with (18b), which contains an embedded
finite clause with focus.
3 Parallel analysis of discourse and case clitics
A regular annotation for identifying the grammatical function of an NP
in
a c-structure, for instance 
, defines a
path from the clausal f-structure down to the value of its SUBJ
attribute.
In Nordlinger's use of constructive morphology for case, however,
case-markers themselves constructively identify the grammatical relations
of arguments to the verb. When a case clitic bears a constructive
specification, it contributes information about the higher f-structure
within which it is contained, via an inside-out (IO) function application.
For example, if a case marker bears the functional description 
, the whole expression 
represents an
attribute-value pair which exists in the higher f-structure. The up arrow
indicates that the nominal itself is the value of a 
attribute
in a higher f-structure. The annotation defines a path outward, from
the lexical item to the clausal f-structure.
Some of the features of Hindi grammar are in keeping with Nordlinger's
original arguments in favour of a constructive approach to case. As a
discourse configurational language, Hindi allows considerable freedom in
argument positioning. It shows little evidence for configurationally
licensed grammatical functions.
Furthermore, mood, aspect, and semantic information can be contributed
by
the presence of certain case markers. For example, the dative marker
ko can imply specificity and the ergative marker ne has been
argued to indicate control on the part of the subject.
In (19), the only distinction in
interpretation
between the two sentences is in whether the action was deliberate on the
part of the subject. Annotations on case clitics have therefore been
argued to contribute both syntactic and semantic information to the clause
level (Mohanan and Mohanan 1994; Butt and King 1999; Lee to
appear). This assumption is in keeping with
Nordlinger's (1998:74) discussion of encoding semantic restrictions
within the case marker.
Most importantly for the discussion here, a constructive view
allows us to unify under a single analysis the shared patterns of
"bottom up" function identification found in Hindi clitic behaviour.
The representation in (20) shows how case and discourse clitics on
nominals can employ similar constructive functions to indicate the clausal
function(s) of their NP hosts.
Case clitics identify the
grammatical function of the NP, while
discourse clitics identify which of a set of possible discourse
functions the NP is associated with.
I have already indicated some important differences between the two
types of clitics. Although they share similar lexical properties, they
have distinct syntactic positions.
As (11) showed, case markers must cliticize only to the right edge
of the NP. I follow Butt and King (1999) in assuming the structure for
case given below, in which the case clitic serves as the head of the
functional projection KP. On the analysis here, DP is the sister of K and
specifier functions are within DP.(7)
Discourse markers, on the other
hand, may adjoin to any part
of the NP and in fact are not even restricted to nominal elements. To
cover this range, I assume the simple structure in (22)
for now:
The important difference here is
that case clitics head their own
functional projection while discourse clitics merely adjoin under their
sister's category.
The set of examples in (23) correspond to the focus-bearing
sentences I introduced in (12). These examples show that in spite
of the repositioning of hii within an NP, the f-structure of
the NP in each case is `flattened' in an identical manner due to the
constructive function mapping of FOC.
In (23a), the focus marker is on the
right edge of the whole NP; in
(23b) it is adjoined to the numeral and in (23c) it is
incorporated into the demonstrative pronoun. (23c) shows that the
incorportated focus forms discussed in section 1.3 are equally
accounted for by this analysis.
In each case, the NP is established as clausal focus in the f-structure
because 
identifies the entire NP
f-structure as the value
of the outer f-structure's focus function. Consequently, all three
c-structures share the single f-structure above.
The examples in (23) describe structures in which functional
projections carry a focus marking. For these situations, the mapping of
the constructive function is straightforward, as a direct path of
allows access to the outer clausal
f-structure. Multiply
embedded constituents do not permit a direct mapping of the constructive
function to the clause level.
It is important to first note that several speakers considered
focus-marking on adjectives much less acceptable than focus-marking on
determiners like possessives.(8) In the absence
of a more comprehensive corpus
study, the solution given here is somewhat tenative and subject to
dialectal restrictions. However, it is an intuitive extension and can in
fact accommodate the observed speaker variation.
Assuming that these cases are possible for some speakers, an intervening
node annotated 
prevents a direct
identification of
focus at the clause level. Instead, the ADJ will be identified as
focus within the NP, as shown in the `incorrect' f-structure in
(24).
This example does not identify the
NP as the focus of the clause
because the intervening ADJ f-structure maps focus to the outer
NP f-structure only.
However, (25) indicates that adjectives are no different
than other NP sites in terms of clausal focus identification.
For speakers who allow (25a), (25b)
is bad due to the
identification of two focus values. This is the same effect as in
(15c) earlier, suggesting that focus on adjectives must be
equally visible at the clause level.
In addition, certain speakers' judgements indicate that focus in
embedded
infinitives also percolates to the finite clause level, disallowing
other instantiations of focus marking in the entire clause. This
phenomenon is shown in (26), where the embedded instance of hii
clashes with a second use of the morpheme in the main clause.
Both of these embedded contexts - adjectival modifiers and
infinitival complements - are problematic for a 
annotation because a second intervening node is annotated
This node blocks percolation of the
focus to the top
f-structure of the finite clause itself.
I account for these provisionally with a simple extension of the
analysis
given so far. The 
annotation can be
substituted with the
inside-out functional uncertainty equation in (27) (Kaplan and Zaenen 1995;
Dalrymple 1993; Bresnan 1999).
This description states that the end
value of an unspecified string of
attributes is also associated with a particular discourse function.
Because of
the uncertainty of the string, this can accomodate both
NP-internal ADJ functions as well as embedded infinitives, in
addition to the simpler cases.
Furthermore, the speaker variation in allowing or disallowing these
multiply embedded focii can be accommodated with a simple distinction in
the lexical entries of discourse clitics:
(28a) requires one or more
attributes in the GF string. (28b) is
equivalent to the original proposal of 
.(9)>/sup> An added advantage of this
representation is that it can be
extended beyond the nominal domain. As mentioned in the presentation of
the initial data, discourse markers can also appear on non-nominal
elements in a clause, particularly verbal morphemes. In such cases, the
GF in the annotations suggested in (28) may itself be
optional, allowing the annotation to reduce to a simple statement of 
.>sup>(10)
In order to ensure that the outer limit of the focus domain is the
finite
clause, I include a second functional description in the lexical entries
of all discourse clitics stating the existential constraint in (29):
This is in keeping with Nordlinger's
1998:122) use of clause-level
information specification. Synthesizing the latest two additions, the
functional descriptions in (28) associate a DF with a
GF, and the addition of (29) in the lexical entry states
that the association must be such that the focus attribute is in an
f-structure which also bears a tense attribute. This takes care of
attribute strings which would otherwise stop short of the clausal
f-structure in their mapping.
A prediction of this domain restriction is that one should not find
stranded instances of discourse marked NPs. The example in (30)
shows that this seems to be the case:
In response to the question "Who
feeds the cat?" in (30a), just
saying Raam is perfectly acceptable. However, if the marker
hii is adjoined to Raam, then Raam=hii cannot be a
complete
utterance; it requires a tensed verb as in (b(iii)).
To summarize, this section has shown how discourse clitics may mark
various
parts of an NP and still identify the whole NP as the focus of the clause.
Discourse clitics exploit constructive functions in a manner similar to
case, and in some dialects appear to be restricted to one level of
embedding. In those dialects that allow further embedding within the NP,
functional uncertainty and the requirement that focus percolate to a
tense-bearing f-structure ensures the appropriate mapping.
4 Semantic interpretation (scope identification at s-str)
The discussion so far has specifically addressed syntactic functions.
However, if we return to the examples in (12), repeated below in
(31), we can see from the English translations that semantic
scope differences actually emerge based on repositioning the clitic within
the NP. Such NP-internal scope distinctions based on the position of
discourse markers can be observed in many languages and are discussed
specifically with regard to Hindi in Verma (1971:85) as well.
The constructive mechanism does
not account for these scope differences.
Precisely because of its radically flattening effect, the constructive
mapping overgeneralizes focus and does not represent these scope and
meaning differences directly at the f-structure.
Note that this type of distinction can be seen in various other
cross-linguistic phenomena. One possible example is wh-feature
percolation:
In (32), the wh-expression is
contained within the constituent
appearing in the clause-initial position McCawley (1988:477). There is
a distinction between the semantic interpretation of the wh-subconstituent
and the syntactic behaviour of the entire, containing constituent.
Returning to Hindi, we can observe rather subtle semantic distinctions
in
the reordering of focus and instrumental case clitics. Noguchi and Harada
(1990) discuss a similar phenomenon in Japanese, in which the reordering
of dake ("only") and de ("by") results in distinct semantic
interpretations. They describe these as absolute (de-dake)
and minimal (dake-de) restriction readings. I adopt this
basic
terminology for the examples below.
From the meaning distinctions in the
English translations in
(33), we can see that (33a) implies an absolute
necessity restriction while (33b) means that a bicycle is minimally
sufficient (but not absolutely necessary).
Reading these fine semantic relations directly off the f-structure is
inadequate due to the `flattening' of the NP. Andrews and Manning
(1999:11)
discuss how the flattening of f-structure is necessary for certain
syntactic associations, but is often an insufficient guide for semantic
interpretation. Their examples include `concentrically scoped' modifiers
and complex predicates, and they argue against the mediation of semantics
by the f-structure. In their `subset' view, where projections represent
groupings of information, certain attributes may be shared while others
are restricted. The semantic distinctions arising in the data presented
here calls for a similar treatment.(11)
I do not provide an account of the semantics of these clitics here.
However, I suggest that rather than unifying all of the information into a
single level, whether f- or s-structure, a comprehensive analysis must
distinguish the syntactic mapping proposed in this paper from the
fine-grained semantics alluded to in this section.(12) In other words, in the
syntax the entire NP is constructively identified as clausal focus,
regardless of position of discourse clitics within NP; however,
semantically, meaning differences emerge based on clitic adjunction.
Conclusions
This paper has presented a preliminary attempt to account for the status
of discourse clitics in Hindi as being parallel in many ways to that of
case clitics. While further research is still necessary for a more
complete account of the intricacies of clitic behaviour, I have argued in
favour of the following generalizations:
- Case and discourse clitics share similar constructive annotations,
from
which they are able to identify the clause-level function of their host
NP.
- The more restricted distribution of case clitics is account for by
differences in their structural cliticization possibilities.
- Like case clitics, discourse clitics contribute semantic information
which can be mapped independently from their NP's syntactic function.
Syntactic discourse function identification is established at
f-structure by constructive morphology; scope distinctions are more
fine-grained. They are therefore not read off the f-structure and are
independent of constructive morphology.
The extension of constructive annotations to discourse clitics has two
formal consequences that go beyond those of case.
- [i] These clitics appear within NP nodes which are
annotated with
. I assume that GF in this
annotation refers to the broad set of grammatical functions, including
argument, discourse, and ADJ functions. As discussed by
Nordlinger (1998:67), multiple case marking can be ruled out by general
well-formedness principles (Bresnan 1999). However, in the extension
here, it is actually possible for the annotation to permit
identification of the NP as having both an argument function and a
discourse function. Since function-argument Uniqueness will rule out the
assignment of incompatible argument functions to a single NP, the single
annotation 
need not be restricted to
allowing an
NP to be associated with only a single GF.
- [ii] Constructive case clitics will ensure that their NP is
identified with an argument required by the verb's argument structure
(Nordlinger 1998:68). However, discourse functions are not licensed in
this way. Thus, one interpretation of the analysis for discourse
markers here is that their f-description
actually requires a minimal f-structure containing
that DF attribute.
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Footnotes
- (1)
- I am indebted to Joan Bresnan and
Peter Sells for detailed
comments and insights on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to
the audience of LFG99 for many helpful suggestions. Any remaining errors
are my own.
- (2)
- For
discussions of the classification of discourse types, see Dik et al.
(1981); Prince (1992); Vallduvi (1992); Lambrecht (1994) among others.
The notions of grammaticalized focus and topic representations in the
f-structure assumed here are based on the classification of discourse
functions in Choi (1996) and Bresnan (1999:115). It is important to note
that these markers are optional in Hindi, as other mechanisms such as
word order and intonation may also be used for expressing discourse
prominence. This is unlike languages such as Somali, in which the
presence of appropriate discourse markers is obligatory (Lunella Mereu,
p.c.).
- (3)
- The discourse marker bhii
in particular shows
specific negative polarity properties when used in certain constructions
(Lahiri 1998).
- (4)
- Note that (11b) is subject to
dialectal
variation.
Koul (1990) offers the following example as ungrammatical:
McGregor (1995) cites a similar
restriction on the positioning of
`emphatic particles', however he specifically observes that this
restriction is not necessarily adhered to strictly by all speakers.
- (5)
- A more refined representation of
scalar discourse prominence would eventually be necessary to permit a
precise generalization of cooccurrence restrictions.
- (6)
- The blank space in (17b) is merely
to
clarify that inhii is the modifier of the object.
- (7)
- The assumption that case heads
its own functional projection is not crucial in the analysis presented
here. It is one of several possible structural descriptions of case,
but may be supported by certain head-like phenomena of case
cross-linguistically.
- (8)
- In such cases, these speakers
generally claimed a preference for an NP-final clitic with intonational
marking of the adjective.
- (9)
- The expanded expression in (28b)
simply states that
this f-structure is the value of a focus attribute as well as the value
of some GF. The simpler inside-out function application lacks the
additional GF requirement but this can be ensured by Extended
Coherence, whereby any discourse function must be associated with a GF.
- (10)
- At this point, the analysis
would encounter
the problem discussed by King (1997) of restricting focus to subparts of
a verbal f-structure.
- (11)
- Another approach to retaining
the semantic distinctions of discourse marking would be to annotate the
c-structure such that it maps to a highly embedded f-structure. There
are several disadvantages to this approach: (a) it builds into the
f-structure information which seems to belong in a distinct level of
representation; (b) multiple annotations would be required at each
detailed projection within the NP to allow the constructive function to
reach the clause level; (c) the syntactic behaviour of the entire NP as
the grammaticized discourse function would not be predicted.
- (12)
- This
positional sensitivity of semantic interpretation may ultimately account
for various scoping interactions of focus with semantic information such
as definiteness, volitionality, and negation.