Gapping and determiner sharing in Spanish

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of gapping and determiner sharing in Spanish. In gapping,the verb is missing in the final conjunct. In determiner sharing, the missing elements areboth the verb and a determiner in the final conjunct but both are still interpreted in bothparts of coordination. I make three major claims concerning the analysis of gapping anddeterminer sharing. First of all, I propose that both small and large conjuncts are nec-essary to account for these phenomena; this proposal challenges an implicit assumptionin previous works, namely, that all subtypes of gapping and determiner sharing could beaccounted for by either a small or a large conjunct analysis alone. Second, I propose thatboth movement and deletion are necessary to account for all subtypes of gapping anddeterminer sharing. Again, this reverses previous assumptions that either movement ordeletion alone should be enough to account for all subtypes of gapping and determinersharing. Third, I propose an additional condition to determiner sharing which is notlisted in the previous literature: for determiner sharing to be present in the sentence,there needs to be an independently triggered movement that affects the DPs that enterthe sharing relationship. The dissertation is organized as follows.In chapter 2, I focus on gapping in Spanish. I divide gapping phenomena in five differ-ent types: `Basic Gapping¿ where the only lexical verb is missing, `Gapping of Auxiliary¿where only the auxiliary is missing, `Gapping of Modal¿ where a modal verb is missing,`Complex Gapping¿ which can be `for Objects¿ where both the verb and an argument ofit are missing or `for Verbal Complexes¿ where whole verbal complexes are missing, and`Gapping in NEG-nor configurations¿. The analysis of all these types of gapping showsthat their structures are different. Various tests developed in previous studies shows thatthese types have each a different syntax. For instance, the scopal interactions of coordi-nation with negation and modals shows that differences exist among types of gapping,and the same happens with sloppy readings of pronouns. The structures of the first threetypes can be analyzed following the proposals of Johnson (2000) and Lin (2002): vPs arecoordinated and the gap is a consequence of ATB movement of the verb. All complexgapping types and the gapping type within NEG-nor contexts are dealt via deletion byphase at PF. Remnants in these cases escape the deletion domain by movements to theleft of the conjuncts and the size of conjuncts in these cases vary from small to large.In chapter 3, I turn to the determiner sharing construction and its interaction with thegapping structures discussed in chapter 2. I show that determiner sharing can be dividedinto the same five subtypes that gapping can, as discussed in chapter 1, and I analyzedeterminer sharing in both subject and object position. I show that though determinersharing is always possible in subject position, it is possible in object position only for somecases, namely, in cases where gapping is derived by deletion, rather than by movement.My proposal is to account for missing elements by adapting Lin¿s (2002) theory of DETsto the needs of the structures in Spanish, which basically comprise small conjuncts andmuch larger conjuncts, and movement and deletion. I show that the interaction betweenthe grammaticality contrasts and my proposal ¿conjunct sizes, movements, and deletion¿presents a scenario where determiner sharing is only possible when the DPs that enterthe sharing relationship move for independent reasons.Finally, in chapter 4, I study a specific case of determiner sharing, namely wh-determiner sharing, extending the analyses in Arregi and Centeno (2005) and Centenoand Vicente (2009). The central feature of the data in this chapter is that sharing can alsoaffect wh-determiners. It is shown that DET positions need to be above phases and thatthe analysis goes hand in hand with what is previously presented. Hence, a concludingaspect in this chapter is that it provides additional support for some of the proposals inthe previous chapters.