Determiner spreading as DP-predication*

Predication 1 Predication

Predication

Determiner sharing as an instance of dependent ellipsis

In English coordinate ellipsis constructions, the determiner of a DP in the second conjunct can sometimes be omitted under identity with the determiner of the corresponding constituent of the first conjunct, a phenomenon known as determiner sharing. Following Williams’s (1997) analysis of nonconstituent ellipsis, we argue that determiner sharing involves a twostep elision process: coordinate el...

The Employee/Contractor Determiner

A side-effect of the national debate about employer-provided benefits has been to focus attention on the cost of hiring and retaining employees. This has led to renewed interest in the issue of when a worker is an employee vs. an independent contractor. The IRS must make determinations regarding worker status. This determination process which has evolved through judicial precedent, is subjectiv...

Plural Predication

My thesis consists of three self-contained but interconnected papers. In the first one, 'Word and Objects', I assume that it is possible to quantify over absolutely everything, and show that certain English sentences containing collective predicates resist paraphrase in first-order languages and even in first-order languages enriched with plural quantifiers. To capture such sentences I develop ...