The relevance of referring expressions : the case of diary drop in English
This thesis offers a pragmatic analysis of subjectless sentences in non-null subject languages, focusing on English âdiary dropâ (as in âSaw a good film yesterdayâ). In chapter 1, I survey the data and discuss existing syntactic analyses (Haegeman & Ihsane 1999, 2001). While these generally acknowledge the importance of pragmatic factors in an overall account, no detailed investigation of their contribution has been proposed. In chapter 2, I consider subjectless sentences in child language, and suggest that relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/95) can shed light on why such utterances occur. In chapter 3, I revisit the adult data, and having established that null subjects function as referring expressions, I consider two pragmatically-oriented approaches to the analysis of referring expressions: Accessibility Theory (Ariel, 1990) and the Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski, 1993). Both adopt the relevance-theoretic framework, but claim that relevance alone is insufficient to account for the data. In chapters 4 and 5, I develop a relevance-based account of referring expressions, and argue that we can do without the machinery of Accessibility Theory and the Givenness Hierarchy on two
Scott, K. J.
The relevance of referring expressions : the case of diary drop in English. This thesis offers a pragmatic analysis of subjectless sentences in non-null subject languages, focusing on English âdiary dropâ (as in âSaw a good film yesterdayâ). In chapter 1, I survey the data and discuss existing syntactic analyses (Haegeman & Ihsane 1999, 2001). While these generally acknowledge the importance of pragmatic factors in an overall account, no detailed investigation of their contribution has been proposed. In chapter 2, I consider subjectless sentences in child language, and suggest that relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/95) can shed light on why such utterances occur. In chapter 3, I revisit the adult data, and having established that null subjects function as referring expressions, I consider two pragmatically-oriented approaches to the analysis of referring expressions: Accessibility Theory (Ariel, 1990) and the Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski, 1993). Both adopt the relevance-theoretic framework, but claim that relevance alone is insufficient to account for the data. In chapters 4 and 5, I develop a relevance-based account of referring expressions, and argue that we can do without the machinery of Accessibility Theory and the Givenness Hierarchy on two
relevance refer_expression case diary drop english offer pragmatic analysis sentence non null subject language focus english diary drop saw good film survey_data discus exist syntactic_analysis and generally_acknowledge importance pragmatic_factor overall account detailed_investigation propose consider sentence child_language suggest relevance_theory and wilson shed_light utterance_occur revisit adult data establish null subject function refer_expression consider pragmatically oriented approach analysis refer_expression accessibility theory hierarchy adopt relevance_theoretic framework claim relevance alone insufficient account_data develop relevance based_account refer_expression argue without machinery accessibility theory hierarchy