Dennis OttUniversity of Ottawa · Department of Linguistics
Dennis Ott
PhD
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50
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Introduction
I'm interested in the formal principles underlying the syntax of natural languages, and how the mental grammar defined by these principles interfaces with systems of interpretation and articulation. Specific interests include A'-dependencies, ellipsis, head movement, locality and connectivity effects, and the interaction of grammar and pragmatics.
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
July 2015 - present
Education
June 2008 - May 2011
September 2006 - May 2008
October 2002 - August 2006
Publications
Publications (50)
Aquest treball proporciona una visió general dels aspectes clau actuals en el camp de la gramàtica generativa: l’estudi de la facultat del llenguatge humà. Es tractaran algunes de les visions a què aquest enfocament del llenguatge ha donat lloc, incloent-hi èxits importants en la comprensió de les propietats bàsiques del llenguatge i les seves inte...
Much current theorizing analyzes ellipsis as a PF operation silencing designated syntactic domains from which focal constituents are extracted prior to deletion. ¹ In many cases, this requires exceptional evacuation movements that are not observed—and often altogether illicit—in corresponding nonelliptical forms. We introduce a novel set of data in...
This Perspective traces the evolution of certain central notions in the theory of Generative Grammar (GG). The founding documents of the field suggested a relation between the grammar, construed as recursively enumerating an infinite set of sentences, and the idealized native speaker that was essentially equivalent to the relation between a formal...
This article proposes a novel analysis of contrastive left-dislocation (CLD), according to which the left-dislocated XP is a remnant of clausal ellipsis. This analysis makes sense of the otherwise paradoxical fact that the dislocated XP shows connectivity into the clause it precedes, while other properties betray its clause-external status. The par...
While the left clausal periphery has been in the center of attention of syntactic theory since the 1970s, the right periphery remains comparatively ill-understood. The goal of this paper is to rectify this situation. We argue that Germanic right-dislocation constructions are composed of two juxtaposed clauses, the dislocated peripheral XP being a r...
This paper offers a comparison and preliminary analysis of ‘topicalization’ strategies in German, Basque, and English. I argue that Basque and English topics at the left periphery are dislocated elements resumed by pronominal correlates, a configuration more directly evidenced in German. I propose an analysis of left-peripheral topics in Basque and...
Gisbert Fanselow's work furnishes strong arguments against the "syntacticization" of information structure. I summarize his key arguments for modularity and show that his conclusions extend beyond the cases he considered, undermining the neo-functionalist approach to syntax quite generally.
introduction to a forthcoming edited volume
We provide a variety of empirical arguments in favor of a paratactic account of recomplementation constructions, in which a left-dislocated element appears in between two complementizers. Contrary to integrated analyses assuming Complementizer Phrase (CP) recursion or Rizzi’s split periphery, we assume that the dislocated phrase is structurally ind...
In this paper, we develop a theory of the form and interpretation of nonrestrictive nominal appositives, by combining two recent syntactic and pragmatic approaches. Following Ott (2016), we assume that NAPs are independent elliptical speech acts, which are linearly interpolated into their host sentences in production. Building on insights in Onea 2...
This introductory chapter surveys the phenomenon of predicate fronting and provides brief summaries of the individual chapters.
A short, general discussion of the scope and limits of phrase-structure theory
Dislocation is a kind of construction in which a phrasal constituent (the dislocate) appears at the outer left or right edge of a gap‐less clause (its host) that contains a pronominal correlate of the dislocate. Dislocations are widely attested and presumably universally available across languages. The construction raises a number of problems for c...
This paper documents the existence of swiping – that is, inversion of a wh -phrase and its associated preposition under sluicing – in a non-Germanic language. We discuss swiping in a variety of Ontario French (Lafontaine French, LFF), which shares some of the characteristics of its extensively-studied English counterpart (Ross 1969, Merchant 2002,...
This squib discusses the curious pattern observed regarding differential object marking (DOM) in Western Armenian. This DOM system is fairly typical in most regards, allowing and preferring to mark highly salient arguments (i.e., specific and definite animate referents) in the direct object position in the DAT case, and marking less salient objects...
https://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?SubID=36603877
This is the introduction to a forthcoming Oxford University Press volume edited by Vera Lee-Schoenfeld and myself.
Noam Chomsky. 2015. The Minimalist Program, 20th anniversary edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pp. xiii + 393. US $30 (softcover). - Noam Chomsky. 2015. Aspects of the theory of syntax, 50th anniversary edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pp. xx + 270. US $28 (softcover). - Volume 64 Issue 3 - Dennis Ott
This paper presents a novel analysis of Stylistic Fronting (SF) in Icelandic. It is argued that SF is not a head-movement operation, but rather phrasal movement to subject position. Typically, however, independent factors require evacuation movements prior to raising, in which case the fronted phrase moves as a remnant category. It is shown that th...
While VP-fronting in English has various properties that are generally taken to be hallmarks of A¯-movement, other properties of the construction militate against an analysis in terms of displacement of VP to the clausal periphery. Such an analysis falls short of providing principled answers to the questions of why the trace of VP-fronting must be...
This paper defends the Satellite Hypothesis of clause-initial CPs (sentential subjects and fronted complement clauses) proposed by Koster (1978) and Alrenga (2005). According to this hypothesis, clause-initial CPs are not simply fronted to the edge of the superordinate clause, but are in fact leftdislocated and hence structurally external to their...
This paper investigates the internal and external syntax of non-restrictive nominal appositives (NAPs), such as 'John Smith' in 'I met an old' 'friend, John Smith, at the pub'. It is shown that the internal constitution of' 'NAPs bears directly on the analysis of the irrelation to the surrounding host sentence, in that a rich internal syntax obviat...
Various views exist in the literature about whether parentheticals should be accommodated by syntactic or discursive means (or both). Some (e.g., Safir 1986, Fabb 1990, Haegeman 1991) have suggested, in various ways, that parentheticals are not syntactically integrated into their hosts, but associate with them at some extragrammatical level of (dis...
We compare two views of ellipsis and its place in grammar. One view holds that ellipsis is a form of prosodic reduction (optional omission of deaccented material). An alternative and currently dominant view holds that ellipsis is more syntactic than this, requiring remnants of deletion to undergo extraction to a clause-peripheral position in narrow...
This paper proposes a crosslinguistically uniform analysis of Left-dislocation constructions, according to which left-dislocated XPs are elliptical sentence fragments surfacing in linear juxtaposition to their host clause. The analysis is shown to provide a principled solution to
Cinque’s Paradox
: dislocated XPs are extra-sentential constituents a...
In this paper, I argue against the standard analysis of so-called split topics in German as discontinuous noun phrases (van Riemsdijk 1989). Building in part on Fanselow 1988, I show that the construction rather involves two morphosyntactically autonomous nominal constituents that are predicatively related in underlying form. This predication is sy...
The volume is a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Noam Chomsky's groundbreaking Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.
In a recent squib, Wood 2012 provides an argument against the Movement Theory of Control , which treats Control as A-movement, similar to Raising. His argument is based on Control configurations in Icelandic object-extraposition constructions for which no movement derivation can be plausibly assumed. I contest Wood's claim that Control in such case...
We propose to analyze right-dislocation constructions in terms of clausal coordination, coupled with ellipsis. While neither rightward movement nor base-generation of backgrounded and afterthought phrases is descriptively accurate, we show that the facts follow straightforwardly on an analysis that takes the dislocated phrase to be the surface remn...
In German, mass nouns can be turned into count nouns by means of two alternative strategies: either by using them in connection with a numeral classifier, or by adding the diminutive morpheme (-chen). In this paper, I argue that the two strategies are structurally exactly parallel, with both kinds of elements (numeral classifiers and diminutive -ch...
This monograph argues for a novel approach to split topicalization and quantifier float in German, based on the premise that syntactic structure-building proceeds solely via free application of Merge. Following recent developments in the pursuit of a more principled theory of syntax, it is argued that the stipulative notion of ‘projection’ ought to...