Extraposition

from NP
Heike Walker
Georg-August University of
Gttingen

CoGETI Workshop
Heidelberg
Overview
1. Definition and Data
2. Syntactic Analyses
3. HPSG Analyses
4. Discourse Constraints
5. Conclusion

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1. Definition and Data
2. Syntactic Analyses
3. HPSG Analyses
4. Discourse Constraints
5. Conclusion

3
Definition
Extraposition: a process by which an
element
is moved to the right of, or subsequent to,
its
canonical position.

Extraposition from NP: a process by

which
an element is extraposed from an NP.
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Categorial restrictions

PP-Extraposition
(1) A man appeared with green eyes.
(2) I dont see much argument myself any longer
against differential rents. (Keller 1995)
Relative Clause Extraposition
(3) A book appeared which was written by
Chomsky. (Baltin 2001)
Sentential complements
(4) Mary mentioned the claim yesterday that John
is intelligent. (Kiss 2002)

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The Position of
Attachment of the
Extraposed Phrase
- Syntactic tests (ellipsis, topicalization
and pseudoclefting of VP) reveal a
subject-object asymmetry of attachment
sites
- Phrase extraposed from object
attached to VP
- Phrase extraposed from subject
attached to VP or IP (Culicover&Rochemont 1990)
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Upward boundedness
(5) *It was believed [S that John saw a picture _i in the
newspaper by everyone] [of his brother]i.
(6) Whoi did Mary say [S that John saw a picture of _i in
the newspaper]? (Culicover&Rochemont 1990, 24)

Ross (1967): Right Roof Constraint

An element cannot move rightward out of the clause
in which it originates.

Rightward movement more restricted than

leftward movement

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Insensitive to island
constraints
(7) A man came into the room [with
blond hair].
(8) *[With what color hair]i did a man _i
come into the room?
(Culicover&Rochemont 1990, 24)

Rightward movement less restricted

than leftward movement
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Extraposition and
Topicalization
An extraposed relative clause cannot be related to a
topicalized phrase.
- Antecedent contained in a topicalized VP:
(9) a. John said he would meet a man at the party who was from
Philadelphia, and meet a man at the party who was from
Philadelphia he did.
b. *John said he would meet a man at the party who was from
Philadelphia, and meet a man at the party he did who was from
Philadelphia. (Culicover&Rochemont 1990, 28)

- Antecedent itself topicalized:

(10) a. Micro brews that are located around the Bay Area , I like.
b. *Micro brews, I like that are located around the Bay Area .
(Kiss 2003)

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Frozenness to further
extraction
No dislocation out of an extraposed phrase:
(11) a. Whoi did you see a picture of _i in the newspaper?
b. *Whoi did you see a picture in the newspaper of
_i?

But extraposition from wh-moved objects possible:

(12) [Which book _j ]i did she write _i last year [that takes
only two hours to read]j?
(13) [Which woman _j ]i did he meet _i yesterday [from
the south of France]j?
(Keller 1995)

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1. Definition and Data
2. Syntactic Analyses
3. HPSG Analyses
4. Discourse Constraints
5. Conclusion

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Extraposition as a
rightward movement
process
- Extraposed phrase base-
generated within the NP
- Movement to a position adjoined
to IP or VP
- Extraposed phrase related to a
gap within the antecedent NP
- How is this adjunction licensed?
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Baltin (1981): Generalized Subjacency
In the configuration A...[a...
[b...B...]...]...A',
i. A' cannot be related to B where a
and b are maximal projections of any
major categories;
ii. A cannot be related to B where a
and b are drawn from the following
list of phrasal categories: (a) PP; (b)
NP; (c) S or S' or both, depending on
the specific language.
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Problems with Generalized Subjacency:
- Stipulation of the set of bounding nodes
for leftward movement
- Fails to block successive cyclic
movement of the extraposed phrase in a
fashion exactly parallel to wh-movement
(Culicover&Rochemont 1990, 27)

- Violation of the principle in (14):

(14) I saw it [PP in [NP a magazine _i ]]
yesterday
[which was lying on the table]i. (Baltin
2001)

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Guron (1980) and Guron&May (1984)
- Extraposition as process of Move ,
subject to bounding conditions (e.g.
Subjacency)
- Head-complement relation must be
satisfied at the level of logical form (LF):
The complement of X is a constituent
governed by X. (Guron 1980, 642)
- Explanation of subject-object asymmetry

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Arguments against movement
account:
- Unmotivated distinction between
rightward and leftward movement
- Coordinate structures:
(15)A
mani came in and a womanj went out
whoi+j know each other very well.
(Culicover&Rochemont 1990, 45)
(16)Johnsaw a mani and Mary saw a womanj
whoi+j were wanted by the police. (Kiss 2002,
20n.)

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Base generation
- Extraposed phrase base-generated in its
extraposed position
- How is this position licensed?
- Culicover&Rochemont (1990): extraposed
complements related to their antecedents by a
relation of coindexing subject to the
restrictions imposed by the Complement
Principle:
is a potential complement of (,=Xmax),
only if and are in a government relation.
- Problem: semantic relation between the
extraposed element and its antecedent
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1. Definition and Data
2. Syntactic Analyses
3. HPSG Analyses
4. Discourse Constraints
5. Conclusion

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Keller (1995)
- Extraposition as a nonlocal
dependency
- Nonlocal feature EXTRA to establish
connection between an extraposed
element and its antecedent
- Lexical rule removes complement
from the SUBCAT list and introduces
it into the EXTRA set:
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 Keller
(1995)

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- Extraposed phrase is bound on top of a phrase
that introduces intervening material between the
extraposed constituent and its antecedent
- Feature PERIPHERY (PER), located under LOCAL
- A phrase that is extraposed from is marked [PER
left] if there is no material that could intervene
between the extraposed constituent and its
antecedent.
- Otherwise it is [PER right] and EXTRA elements
can be bound on top of it.
- In case [PER left], the EXTRA element percolates
up to find a phrase with right periphery
- For English, all lexical entries marked [PER left]

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- To implement the binding of
extraposed elements, an additional
immediate dominance schema is
introduced
- Subtype of head-struc called head-
extra-struc bearing the feature
EXTRA-DTRS (with a non-empty list
of sign as its value)

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Head-Extra Schema

Keller (1995)

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- Head daughter [PER right] since the
binding of extraposed phrases is only
possible at the right periphery of a phrase
- Mother node [PER extra] to disallow
adjuncts on top of a head-extra structure
(adjuncts specified as [MOD|LOC|PER
non-extra])
(17) *An entirely new band rings today, [several
of whom are members of the congregation]
at Great Torrington.
- [INHER|EXTRA { }] requires all members
of EXTRA to be bound at the same level;
extraposed elements originating from the
same phrase are sisters; ordered by LPCs
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(18) I dont see much argument myself any
longer against differential rents.

(Keller
25 1995)
Kiss (2002, 2003)
- Relative Clause Extraposition
- A non-movement account
- Extraposition treated as an anaphoric
process by means of percolation of anchors
to which the relative clause is bound
- Basic idea expressed by the principle of
Generalized Modification:
The index of a modifying phrase has to be
identified with a suitable index contained in
the phrase to which the modifier is adjoined.

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- Anchors are introduced by every NP (and
VP) and projected through the set-valued
non-local feature ANCHORS (contains
INDEX and HANDLE features)
- Projection governed by the Anchors
Projection Principle:
The anchors set of a headed phrase consists
of the union of the anchors set of the
daughters less those anchors that are
specified as TO-BIND|ANCHORS on the
head daughter.
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- The relative clause requires that the
ANCHORS set of its syntactic sister
contains a member that is token-identical to
the ANCHORS feature of the relative clause
- Upward boundedness is modelled by
imposing restrictions on the Head-Filler
Schema and the Head-Specifier Schema to
the effect that all anchors of the daughters
are specified as TO-BIND|ANCHORS.

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 Kiss (2003)

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1. Definition and Data
2. Syntactic Analyses
3. HPSG Analyses
4. Discourse Constraints
5. Conclusion

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- Certain sentences not acceptable in isolation
- Acceptability improved in an appropriate
discourse context:
(19) a. A man arrived who wasnt wearing any
clothes.
b. ??A man screamed who wasnt wearing
any clothes.
(20) Suddenly there was the sound of lions
growling. Several women screamed. Then a
man screamed who was standing at the very
edge of the crowd.
(Culicover&Rochemont 1990, 29 n.14)

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Verbs of appearance
- Guron (1980): constraints on the level of LF interact
with pragmatic factors (rules of semantic interpretation
and discourse) to filter syntactic outputs
- Ss which are unacceptable in isolation become
acceptable in a context in which the verb is
pragmatically emptied of all semantic content beyond
that of appearence in the world of the discourse.
(Guron 1980, 653-4)
(21) a. A man appeared from India.
b. *A man died from India.
(22) Several visitors from foreign countries died in the terrible
accident. A woman died from Peru and a man died from
India.

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Question Under Discussion
(QUD)
Maynell (2003): Extraposition of
restrictive relative clauses from definite
NP subjects
(23) a. A cocktail waitress entered the dining
room who was wearing a blond wig.
b. ??The cocktail waitress entered the
dining room who was wearing a blond
wig.

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- (23b) usually viewed as
ungrammatical or unacceptable;
ruled out by syntactic constraints
(cf. Guron 1980, Guron&May 1984)

- Maynell claims that the structure

must be allowable by any syntactic
theory; its acceptance depends on
the relationship of the information
conveyed by the extraposed phrase
to the discourse context
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- Definite NP can introduce new referents
into the discourse as long as these can
be accommodated and added to the
common ground of a discourse (part of
the QUD)
- Predicate must be non-informative with
respect to the QUD
- Extraposed relative clause must match
the information status of its definite NP
head
- Extraposed relative clause must provide
new information with respect to the
immediate QUD
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1. Definition and Data
2. Syntactic Analyses
3. HPSG Analyses
4. Discourse Constraints
5. Conclusion

36
Conclusion
- Syntactic, semantic and pragmatic
factors involved
- My aim: to give an integrated
approach to Extraposition
- Open questions

37
References

Baltin, Mark R. (1981): Strict Bounding. In Carl Lee Baker, John J.

McCarthy, eds., The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT, 257-295.
Baltin, Mark R. (Draft of 2001): Extraposition, the Right Roof Constraint,
Result Clauses, Relative Clause Extraposition, and PP Extraposition. (
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/lingu/people/faculty/
baltin/papers/extrapos.pdf).
Culicover, Peter W., Michael S. Rochemont (1990): Extraposition and the
Complement Principle. In Linguistic Inquiry 21:1, 23-47.
Guron, Jacqueline (1980): On the Syntax and Semantics of PP
Extraposition. In Linguistic Inquiry 11:4, 637-678.
Guron, Jacqueline, Robert May (1984): Extraposition and Logical Form.
In Linguistic Inquiry 15:1, 1-31.

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Keller, Frank (1995): Towards an Account of Extraposition in HPSG.
In Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the European Chapter of the
Association for Computational Linguistics. Student Session. Dublin,
301-306. (http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/keller/papers/eacl95.pdf ).
Kiss Tibor (2002): Semantic Constraints on Relative Clause
Extraposition. Forthcoming in Natural Language and Linguistic
Theory. (
http://www.linguistics.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/~kiss/publications.html ).
Kiss, Tibor (2003): Phrasal typology and the interaction of
topicalization, wh-movement, and extraposition. In Jong-Bok Kim,
Stephen Wechsler, eds., Proceedings of the 9th International
Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Stanford:
CSLI, 109-128.
Maynell, Laurie A. (Draft of 2003): Discourse Constraints on
Extraposition from Definite NP Subjects in English.
(http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~maynell/papers/RelClause.Ex.pdf ).
Ross, John Robert (1967): Constraints on Variables in Syntax.
Doctoral Dissertation. Reproduced by The Linguistics Club of
Indiana University, Fall 1968. (Reprinted [1986]: Infinite Syntax!
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.).

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