Covert Modality in Non-finite Contexts

This book investigates the distribution and interpretation of Covert Modality. Covert Modality is modality which we interpret but which is not associated with any lexical item in the structure that we are interpreting. This dissertation investigates a class of environments that involves covert modality. Examples of covert modality include wh-infinitival complements, infinitival relative clauses, purpose clauses, the 'have to' construction, and the 'is to' construction (cf. 1): 1a. Tim knows [how to solve the problem]. ("Tim knows how one/he could/should solve the problem.") 1b. Jane found [a book to draw cartoons in] for Sara. ("Jane found a book for Sara one could/should draw cartoons in.") 1c. [The man to fix the sink] is here. ("The man whose purpose is to fix the sink is here.") 1d. Sue went to Torino [to buy a violin]. ("Sue went to Torino so that she could buy a violin.") 1e. Bill has to reach Philadelphia before noon. ("Bill must reach Philadelphia before noon.") 1f. Will is to leave tomorrow. ("Will is scheduled/supposed to leave tomorrow.") The interpretation of (1a-f) involves modality; however, there is no lexical item that seems to be the source of the modality. What (1a-f) have in common is that they involve infinitivals. This book addresses the following questions about covert modality: what is the source of this modality, what are its semantic properties, why are some but not all infinitival relatives modal, and why are all infinitival questions modal? The infinitival [+wh] Complementizer is identified as the source of the covert modality. The apparent variability of the force of this modality is related to the particular semantics of this Complementizer. Infinitival relatives that receive a non-modal interpretation are analyzed as being reduced relatives and thus not involving the infinitival [+wh] Complementizer.

Table of Contents:
Contents Acknowledgements iv 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Dissertation Outline and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.1 Chapter 2: The Syntax of Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.2 Chapter 3: Non-Modal Infinitival Relative Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.2.3 Chapter 4: The Distribution and Interpretation of Infinitival Questions 6 1.2.4 Chapter 5: Ability Modals and their Actuality Entailments . . . . . . 8 2 The syntax of Infinitival Relatives 9 2.1 Subject infinitival relatives as Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.2 Non-subject Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.3 The Modality of Infinitival Relatives and Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.3.1 Proposal for Object Infinitival Relatives and Infinitival Questions . . 15 2.3.2 Proposal for Subject Infinitival Relatives and Infinitival Questions . . 16 2.4 Structures for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.4.1 Kayne (1994)’s proposal for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.4.1.1 Kayne (1994)’s general proposal for Relative Clauses . . . . 17 2.4.1.2 Kayne (1994)’s proposal for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . 18 2.5 Arguments for a Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.5.1 The Candidates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.5.2 The Argument from ‘Idioms’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 x 2.5.2.1 A related argument from Subcategorization . . . . . . . . . 23 2.5.3 The argument from Binding Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.5.4 Amount Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.5.5 Scope Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.5.6 Lower Readings of Adjectival Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 2.6 My proposal for Reduced Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.6.1 Version 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.6.2 On the nature of Direct Predication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2.6.3 Version 2: Accommodating Reconstruction into Reduced and Finite Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 2.6.3.1 A comparison with Sauerland (1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.6.4 Reduced Relatives and Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2.6.5 Interpreting the New Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 2.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3 Non-Modal Subject Infinitival Relatives 42 3.1 Properties of Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 3.1.1 Non-Modal Infinitival Relatives allow for Modal Readings too . . . . 46 3.2 A Raising Relative Clause analysis of Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . 47 3.2.1 Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 3.2.2 Interpreting the Raising Analysis (for Reduced Relatives) . . . . . . . 49 3.2.3 Raising Analysis applied to Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . . 50 3.3 Motivations for the Movement of Superlative est/Ordinals/only . . . . . . . 51 3.3.1 A semantics for Superlatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 3.3.2 Ordinals and Nominal only: Focus Sensitivity and Analysis . . . . . 56 3.4 More on the Raising Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 3.4.1 Structural Characterization of Superlatives, Ordinals, and only . . . . 59 3.4.2 Licensing from inside the infinitival clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 3.5 A prediction: Loss of Association with Focus with Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.5.1 Loss of Focus-sensitivity of Superlatives, only, ordinals . . . . . . . . 64 xi 3.5.2 A Further Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 3.6 Lower Readings: Further evidence for the Raising Analysis . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.6.1 Evidence for Reconstruction from NPI licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 3.6.2 Evidence for Reconstruction from the behavior of Numeral Modifiers 72 3.6.3 Low Readings and Negative Island Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 3.6.4 Parentheticals: a potential alternative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 3.7 Interpretation of the non-modal infinitival clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 3.7.1 A first semantics for first . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 3.7.1.1 first with possessive NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 3.7.1.2 Digression: Larson & Cho (1998)’s Analysis of former . . . . 77 3.7.1.3 Back from the Digression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 3.7.2 first with Non-modal Infinitival Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 3.7.3 Simultaneity between ‘head’ NP and Relative Clause . . . . . . . . . 80 3.7.3.1 Simultaneity effects with Finite Relative Clauses and first . 82 3.7.3.2 On why there is Reconstruction with first . . . . . . . . . . . 84 3.7.4 A Prediction: Locus of Change of State is Undetermined . . . . . . . 87 3.7.5 Temporal Properties of the Infinitival Clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 3.7.5.1 When is first(P) evaluated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 3.7.5.2 Aspectual Characterization of the Infinitival Clause . . . . 91 3.7.5.3 A covert Perfect? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 3.7.5.4 A problem with assuming a Covert Perfect and a solution . 93 3.7.5.5 A Difference between the Covert and the Overt Perfect . . 96 3.7.5.6 Perfective Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 3.7.5.7 A Minimal Crosslinguistic Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 3.7.6 Future interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 3.8 Appendix A: A semantics for Raising Analysis of Relative Clauses . . . . . 102 3.9 Appendix B: Semantics of only and first . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 3.9.1 only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 3.9.2 Ordinals (‘first’, ‘second’, : : :, ‘last’) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 3.10 Appendix C: An in situ licensor analysis of Non-modal Infinitival Relatives 110 3.11 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 xii 4 The Distribution and Interpretation of Wh-infinitivals 114 4.1 Infinitival Question Complements: Distribution and Subcategorization . . . 115 4.1.1 The Distribution of Infinitival Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 4.1.1.1 A Classification of Predicates that take Finite Interrogative Complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 4.1.1.2 Infinitival Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 4.1.2 Infinitival Questions and Subcategorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 4.1.2.1 Non-interrogative Infinitival Complements of Predicates that take Infinitival Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 4.1.2.2 Some Subcategorizational Generalizations . . . . . . . . . . 121 4.1.2.3 One Predicate or Many . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 4.2 Modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 4.2.1 Nature of Infinitival Modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 4.2.2 Force of Infinitival Modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 4.2.2.1 The effect of the wh-word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 4.2.2.2 The effect of the embedding predicate . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 4.2.2.3 The effect of the infinitival question predicate . . . . . . . . 135 4.2.2.4 The effect of the context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 4.3 The Modality in Infinitival Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 4.3.1 Could Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .