Interface Strategies

by Reinhart, Tanya

• ISBN13: 9780262182508
• ISBN10: 0262182505
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-07
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

In this monograph Tanya Reinhart discusses strategies enabling the interface of different cognitive systems, which she identifies as the systems of concepts, inference, context, and sound. Her point of departure is Noam Chomsky's hypothesis that language is optimally designed-namely, that in many cases, the bare minimum needed for constructing syntactic derivations is sufficient for the full needs of the interface. Deviations from this principle are viewed as imperfections. The book covers in depth four areas of the interface: quantifier scope, focus, anaphora resolution, and implicatures. The first question in each area is what makes the computational system (CS, syntax) legible to the other systems at the interface-how much of the information needed for the interface is coded already in the CS, and how it is coded. Next Reinhart argues that in each of these areas there are certain aspects of meaning and use that cannot be coded in the CS formal language, on both conceptual and empirical grounds. This residue is governed by interface strategies that can be viewed as repair of imperfections. They require constructing and comparing a reference set of alternative derivations to determine whether a repair operation is indeed the only way to meet the interface requirements. Evidence that reference-set computation applies in these four areas comes from language acquisition. The required computation poses a severe load on working memory. While adults can cope with this load, children, whose working memory is less developed, fail in tasks requiring this computation.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: Optimal Design	1	(12)
Reference-Set Computation	13	(34)
The Minimal Link Condition	14	(11)
Interpretation-Dependent Reference Sets	25	(12)
The Interface Strategy: Repair of Imperfections	37	(10)
Scope-Shift	47	(78)
Quantifier Scope: The State of the Art	48	(16)
The Optimistic QR View of the 1970s	48	(2)
The Syntactic Freedom of Existential Wide Scope	50	(3)
Can the Problem with Existentials Be Explained Away?	53	(7)
The ``Realistic'' QR View of the 1980s	60	(1)
Some Problems	61	(3)
The Alternative of Wide Scope In Situ	64	(4)
Wh-In Situ	64	(2)
Sluicing	66	(2)
The Interpretation Problem of Wide Scope In Situ	68	(8)
Wh-In Situ	69	(2)
Sluicing	71	(2)
Existential Wide Scope	73	(3)
The Semantic Problem with Island-Free QR	76	(3)
An Intermediate Summary	79	(2)
Where No QR Is Needed: Choice Functions for Existential Quantifiers	81	(20)
Choice Functions and Existential Closure	81	(4)
Deriving the Choice-Function Interpretation	85	(3)
The Collective-Distributive Distinction	88	(3)
Which Indefinites Are Interpretable by Choice Functions?	91	(4)
Some Choice-Function Semantics	95	(6)
Scope-Shift: An Interface Repair Strategy	101	(24)
Minimize Interpretative Options	101	(4)
Applying the Illicit QR as a Repair Strategy	105	(5)
Processing Limitations on the Size of Reference Sets---Indefinite Numerals	110	(15)
Focus: The PF Interface	125	(40)
Sentence Main Stress	127	(7)
Cinque's Main-Stress System	127	(4)
Szendroi's Main-Stress System	131	(3)
How Focus Is Coded	134	(7)
Main Stress and Focus: The Basic View	134	(1)
PF-Coding: The Focus Set	135	(6)
Stress Operations	141	(15)
Focus and Anaphora	141	(7)
The Operations: Destressing and Main-Stress Shift	148	(8)
Reference-Set Computation	156	(9)
Focus Projection	156	(5)
Markedness	161	(4)
The Anaphora Reference-Set Strategy	165	(34)
Two Procedures of Anaphora Resolution	165	(8)
The Current Picture	166	(3)
What Is Binding?	169	(3)
Covaluation	172	(1)
Anaphora Restrictions	173	(8)
Restrictions on Binding	173	(5)
Restrictions on Covaluation	178	(3)
The Interface Strategy Governing Covaluation (Rule I)	181	(11)
Minimize Interpretative Options	181	(5)
Reference-Set Computation	186	(4)
Further Details of the Computation	190	(2)
Covaluation in Ellipsis Contexts	192	(4)
The Psychological Reality of Rule I	196	(3)
The Processing Cost of Reference-Set Computation	199	(94)
Acquisition of the Coreference Rule I	204	(34)
An Overview of Binding and Rule I	206	(10)
Thornton and Wexler's Arguments against the Processing Account	216	(11)
Questions of Learnability	227	(5)
Explaining Chance Performance	232	(6)
Acquisition of Main-Stress Shift	238	(34)
An Overview of Stress and Focus	238	(8)
Preliminaries	246	(5)
Switch-Reference Resolution	251	(8)
Guess and Default: Focus Identification in the Scope of Only	259	(7)
Useful and Arbitrary Defaults	266	(6)
Acquisition of Scalar Implicatures	272	(21)
Notes	293	(22)
References	315	(16)
Author Index	331	(4)
Subject Index	335