Left-dislocation

Before we leave preposing, it is important to distinguish it from a superficially similar – but functionally distinct – construction with which preposing is often confused. Left-dislocation (LD) is superficially similar to preposing in that a non-subject appears in sentence-initial position, but in left-dislocation a corefer-ential pronoun appears in that constituent’s canonical position. Consider (20):

(20) One of the guys I work with, he said he bought over $100 in Powerball tickets. ( JM to WL, in conversation)

Here, a subject pronoun he – coreferential with the sentence-initial constituent – appears in canonical subject position; therefore, unlike preposing, there is no

“empty” argument position. It is the presence of this coreferential pronoun that distinguishes LD from preposing in terms of sentence structure, and it is also what distinguishes the two constructions in terms of information struc-ture. As we have seen, the preposed constituent of preposing uniformly repres-ents discourse-old information in context. In the case of LD, however, it is possible for the initial constituent to be not only discourse-new, but even hearer-new, as in (20), where the guy in question is being mentioned for the very first time and therefore not linked in any way to the previous discourse.

Prince (1997) argues that there are three types of left-dislocation (LD), distinguishable on functional grounds. Type I LD is what Prince calls simplifying LDs:

A “simplifying” Left-Dislocation serves to simplify the discourse processing of Discourse-new entities by removing them from a syntactic position disfavored for Discourse-new entities and creating a separate processing unit for them. Once that unit is processed and they have become Discourse-old, they may comfort-ably occur in their positions within the clause as pronouns. (1997: 124)

That is, LDs of this type involve entities that are new to the discourse and would otherwise be introduced in a non-favored (i.e. subject) position. Con-trast (21a) with (21b–c):

(21)a. Two of my sisters were living together on 18th Street. They had gone to bed, and this man, their girlfriend’s husband, came in. He started fussing with my sister and she started to scream. The landlady, she went up and he laid her out. (Welcomat, December 2, 1981)

Information Structure and Non-canonical Syntax 163 b. She had an idea for a project. She’s going to use three groups of mine.

One she’ll feed them mouse chow. Just the regular stuff they make for mice. Another she’ll feed them veggies. And the third she’ll feed junk food. [SH in conversation, 11/7/81 (=Prince 1997, ex. 9e)]

c. That woman you were just talking to, I don’t know where she went.

In (21a), the landlady is new to the discourse (and presumably to the hearer as well); however, the speaker is introducing her via an NP in subject position – a position disfavored for introducing new information. The dislocated NP creates a new information unit and thus, according to Prince, eases processing.⁷ The other two types of LD – triggering a poset inference (21b) and amnestying an island violation (21c) – typically do, according to Prince, involve discourse-old information. This stands in stark contrast to true preposing constructions, in which the preposed constituent must represent a discourse-old link to the prior discourse.

5 Postposing

Whereas preposing constructions serve to place relatively familiar information in preverbal position (via the preposing of a discourse-old link), postposing constructions preserve the old-before-new information-structure paradigm by presenting relatively unfamiliar information in postverbal position. That is, when canonical word order would result in the placement of new information in subject position, postposing offers a way of placing it instead toward the end of the clause, in the expected position for new information. Nonetheless, different postposing constructions serve this function in slightly different ways.

In this section we will discuss existential there, presentational there, and extraposition. These postposing constructions will then be contrasted with right-dislocation, which is structurally and functionally distinct.

Two postposing constructions in English place non-referential there in sub-ject position while placing what would be the canonical subsub-ject into postverbal position. These constructions are illustrated in (22):

(22)a. In Ireland’s County Limerick, near the River Shannon, there is a quiet little suburb by the name of Garryowen, which means “Garden of Owen”. (Brown Corpus)

b. After they had travelled on for weeks and weeks past more bays and headlands and rivers and villages than Shasta could remember, there came a moonlit night when they started their journey at evening, having slept during the day. (C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, (1954), p. 23)

164 Gregory Ward and Betty Birner

Example (22a) presents an instance of existential there, defined by the presence of non-referential there occurring in subject position while the NP that would canonically appear in subject position instead appears postverbally, and finally by the presence of be as the main verb. Presentational there, as in (22b), is similar in that non-referential there appears in subject position while the NP that would canonically appear in that position instead appears postverbally;

it differs, however, in having a main verb other than be (here, came). Note that (22a) also admits a second reading, in which there is referential; under this reading there receives an H* pitch accent (see Pierrehumbert 1980) and is coreferential with the previously evoked location in County Limerick. It is only the non-referential reading that concerns us here.

Both constructions constrain the postverbal NP (PVNP) to represent new information; in this way, both offer a way to preserve the given-before-new ordering of information in cases where canonical word order would violate this ordering. The specifics of the constraint, however, differ slightly in the two constructions: Existential there requires that the PVNP represent informa-tion that is hearer-new, while presentainforma-tional there requires only that the PVNP represent information that is discourse-new. Thus, the constraint on presenta-tional there is weaker than that on existential there, since it is possible for information to be new to the discourse while still being known to the hearer, and such information may felicitously occur in clauses containing presentational there. To see this, consider (23):

(23)a. As soon as he laughed, he began to move forward in a deliberate way, jiggling a tin cup in one hand and tapping a white cane in front of him with the other. Just behind him there came a child, handing out leaflets.

(Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood, 1952)

b. . . . Just behind him there came the mayor, handing out leaflets.

Here we see that both the variant with a hearer-new PVNP (23a) and the vari-ant with a hearer-old PVNP ((23b), where towns are known to have mayors) are acceptable, because in both cases the PVNP represents an entity that is new to the discourse. If we alter the discourse so that the PVNP is discourse-old, presentational there becomes infelicitous:

(24) As they laughed, John and the mayor began to move forward in a delib-erate way. John jiggled a tin cup in one hand and tapped a white cane in front of him with the other. #Just behind him there came the mayor, handing out leaflets.

Existential there is likewise felicitous with a hearer-new, discourse-new PVNP, as in (22a) above; however, consider the hearer-old, discourse-new PVNP in (25), modeled after the corresponding presentational-there variant in (23b):

Information Structure and Non-canonical Syntax 165 (25) As soon as he laughed, he began to move forward in a deliberate way, jiggling a tin cup in one hand and tapping a white cane in front of him with the other. #Just behind him there was the mayor, handing out leaflets.

In this case, the mayor still represents hearer-old information, but unlike the presentational there in (23b), existential there in this sentence is infelicitous.

That is, both constructions require a new PVNP, but the type of newness differs: presentational there requires only discourse-new status, whereas exis-tential there also requires hearer-new status.

Notice that we cannot simply phrase the constraint in terms of definiteness;

that is, the difference is not merely in whether the PVNP may be definite.

Many authors (Milsark 1974, Safir 1985, Reuland and ter Meulen 1987, Lasnik 1992, inter alia) have assumed that there is a “definiteness effect” that prevents definite NPs from appearing in postverbal position in these sentences. How-ever, as shown in Ward and Birner (1995) and Birner and Ward (1998), this illusion arises from the close similarity of the constraint on definiteness and that on the PVNP in a there-sentence. While the PVNP is constrained to be either discourse-new or hearer-new (depending on the construction), a definite NP in general is constrained to be, loosely speaking, identifiable; more spe-cifically, it must be individuable within the discourse model (Birner and Ward 1994, 1998; cf. Gundel et al. 1990, 1993; Abbott 1993, this volume). While most referents satisfying the newness criterion for PVNP status will fail to meet this criterion for definiteness, the two sets are not totally distinct; thus there are a number of contexts in which a definite NP may appear in a there-sentence, as in, for example, hearer-new tokens of hearer-old (hence identifiable) types (26a), hearer-new entities with fully identifying descriptions that render them indi-viduable (26b), and false definites, which represent discourse-new, hearer-new information that does not in fact satisfy the usual criteria for definiteness (26c):

(26)a. The Woody Allen–Mia Farrow breakup, and Woody’s declaration of love for one of Mia’s adopted daughters, seems to have everyone’s attention. There are the usual sleazy reasons for that, of course – the visceral thrill of seeing the extremely private couple’s dirt in the street, etc. (San Francisco Chronicle, August 24, 1992)

b. In addition, as the review continues, there is always the chance that we’ll uncover something additional that is significant. (Challenger Commission transcripts, March 18, 1986)

c. There once was this sharp Chicago alderman who also happened to be a crook. (Chicago Tribune; cited in Birner and Ward 1998: 139) In (26a), the current set of sleazy reasons is hearer-new, but it represents an instance of a hearer-old type – the “usual” sleazy reasons for being interested

166 Gregory Ward and Betty Birner

in the troubles of celebrity couples. The hearer-new status of the current set of reasons justifies its postverbal placement in the existential, while the identi-fiability of the hearer-old type justifies the definite. In (26b), the definite is justified by the fact that the PVNP fully and uniquely individuates the chance in question, while its position in the existential is justified by the fact that this represents hearer-new information. Finally, in (26c), the NP this sharp Chicago alderman constitutes hearer-new information and hence is felicitous as a PVNP;

in fact, this NP does not in any way represent identifiable or individuable information within the discourse model and hence is a “false definite” (Prince 1981b, Wald 1983, Ward and Birner 1995).

Notice that because the PVNPs in (26) are also discourse-new, they are equally felicitous in presentational there clauses:

(27)a. The Woody Allen–Mia Farrow breakup, and Woody’s declaration of love for one of Mia’s adopted daughters, seems to have everyone’s attention. There exist the usual sleazy reasons for that, of course – the visceral thrill of seeing the extremely private couple’s dirt in the street, etc.

b. In addition, as the review continues, there always exists the chance that we’ll uncover something additional that is significant.

c. There once lived this sharp Chicago alderman who also happened to be a crook.

In each case in (27), presentational there is licensed by the discourse-new status of the PVNP. Other cases in which a definite PVNP may occur in an existential or presentational there-sentence include old information treated as hearer-new, as with certain types of reminders, and hearer-old information newly instantiating the variable in an OP; see Ward and Birner (1995) for details.

The last type of postposing construction to be discussed is extraposition. In extraposition, a subordinate clause is postposed from subject position, while its canonical position is filled by non-referential it. Consider the canonical sentences in (28) and their variants with extraposition in (29):

(28)a. That a bloodthirsty, cruel capitalist should be such a graceful fellow was a shock to me. (Davis, The Iron Puddler; token courtesy of Philip Miller)

b. Yet to determine precisely to what extent and exactly in what ways any individual showed the effects of Christianity would be impossible.

(Brown Corpus; token courtesy of Philip Miller)

(29)a. It was a shock to me that a bloodthirsty, cruel capitalist should be such a graceful fellow.

Information Structure and Non-canonical Syntax 167 b. Yet it would be impossible to determine precisely to what extent and exactly in what ways any individual showed the effects of Christianity.

In both (29a) and (29b), the clause appearing as an embedded subject in the canonical version is instead extraposed to the end of the matrix clause. As shown by Miller (2001), extraposition, like the other postposing constructions discussed above, serves to preserve an old-before-new ordering in the dis-course. In particular, Miller shows that the canonical variant is felicitous only if the embedded subject clause represents familiar information; if it represents new information, it must be extraposed (cf. Horn 1986). To see this, consider the constructed examples in (30–31):

(30)a. A: Jeffrey didn’t turn in his term paper until a week after the deadline.

B: It’s a miracle that he turned in a term paper at all.

b. A: Jeffrey didn’t turn in his term paper until a week after the deadline.

B: That he turned in a term paper at all is a miracle.

(31)a. A: Jeffrey isn’t a very good student.

B: Yeah; #that he turned in a term paper at all is a miracle.

b. A: Jeffrey isn’t a very good student.

B: Yeah, it’s a miracle that he turned in a term paper at all.

In (30), the fact that Jeffrey turned in a term paper is discourse-old, having been presupposed in A’s utterance, and both variants are felicitous. In (31), on the other hand, this fact is new to the discourse, and only the extraposed variant is felicitous. Notice that unlike each of the other constructions we have dealt with, in which the non-canonical version is subject to some constraint on its felicity, in the case of extraposition it is the canonical variant that is con-strained; that is, the canonical variant is infelicitous when the embedded subject represents new information, and in such cases extraposition becomes obligatory.

Although Miller frames this constraint in terms of old vs. discourse-new status, it appears that in fact it is hearer-status that is relevant – i.e., that non-extraposed subject clauses are felicitous when they represent hearer-old information. Consider (32):

(32) His act takes on lunatic proportions as he challenges female audience members to wrestling matches, falling in love with one while grappling it out on the canvas. How he and feminist Lynne Margulies (Courtney Love) became life partners is anyone’s guess. (Man on the Moon movie review; token provided by Rodney Huddleston)

Here the fact that the referent of he (comedian Andy Kaufman) and Lynn Margulies became life partners is treated as shared background knowledge,

168 Gregory Ward and Betty Birner

despite not having been evoked in the prior discourse. Hence it is hearer-old rather than discourse-old, yet the utterance is nonetheless felicitous. Thus, extraposition is required only when the embedded clause represents hearer-new information, and the extraposition in that case serves once again to pre-serve the ordering of old before new information within the utterance.