The Syntax of Givenness Ivona Kucerová

(97) a. And what will he read and translate?
b. Bude číst detektivky a překládat romány.
will-he read detective mysteries and translate novels
‘He will read detective mysteries and translate novels.’
(98) a. And what did he read and translate?
b. #Četl detektivky a překládal romány.
read detective mysteries and translated novels
‘He read detective mysteries and translated novels.’
I do not know at this point how to account for the difference between past and future.
Intuitively, the past form of ‘read’ is not given in the same sense as the future form of ‘read’.
There is something about the shared object that seems to make a difference for givenness.
My hope is that these cases contain coordination reduction and the contrast between implicit
objects in past and in future is related to a structural difference. I leave the question
of differences among VP coordinations as a puzzle for future research.
For now, let’s assume that verbal coordinations are of different types and that it is possible
to reduce all relevant verbal coordinations to propositional domains. We can conclude
that the G-operator can always be adjoined below the first verbal conjunct without leading
to Presupposition failure.
Notice that we have shifted our reasoning that the difference between nominal and verbal
coordination is related to existence or non-existence of a pronominal counterpart. The
existence of a pronominal counterpart is relevant only in an indirect way. The reason why a
verbal coordination asymmetrically c-commanded by new material is felicitous is not that
there is no better tool to mark givenness. The reason is that such a coordination is a propositional
domain. Thus, the G-operator can be safely inserted. The situation with coordinated
DPs is rather different. There is no way to insert the G-operator without Presupposition
failure. Thus, invoking givenness lexically is the only grammatically suitable option the
language has.
What about adverbs? Recall that adverbs are sensitive to ordering within a coordination
but they do not need to be pronominalized even if there is a pronominal counterpart available.
I argue that adverbs can always be adjoined at a propositional level. Thus, an adverbial
coordination is always located on the left edge of a propositional domain. Therefore,
inserting a G-operator below the first conjunct is always felicitous. There is one problem
remaining: we have defined the reference set as a set containing derivations based on the
same numeration and the same assertion. Presumably, DPs and their pronominal counterparts
are not part of the same numeration. Even though there might be a more principal
solution of the problem, for now I will stipulate that pronouns may be part of the reference
set as well. 18
18 One option would be to treat pronouns as DP ellipsis, as has been suggested in Postal (1966) and further
developed in Elbourne (2005).
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