Model Abstracts

The LSA Program Committee has prepared model abstracts that members may wish to consult before preparing submissions, on the LSA page at http://www.lsadc.org/info/abstract-models.cfm. The following example is based on an accepted abstract from 1997 by Geoffrey Pullum and Arnold Zwicky. The annotation was done by Amy Dahlstrom and John Kingston. Permission to reproduce the abstract in the different versions below for educational purposes is hereby granted; the authors retain all other rights.

Acceptable Abstract Sample

Licensing of prosodic features by syntactic rules: The key to auxiliary reduction

Auxiliary reduction (e.g. she's for she is) is well known to be blocked before sites of VP ellipsis (*She's usually home when he's), pseudogapping (*It's doing more for me than it's for you), wh-movement (*I wonder where he's now?), etc. Most analyses connect this to empty categories. We show that this is incorrect.

Selkirk (Phonology and syntax, 1984:366) proposes a syntactic condition on prosody: Deaccenting is necessary for reduction, and a phrase-final monosyllable cannot be deaccented. Inkelas & Zec (1993) place the condition on prosodic (not syntactic) phrases, assuming the mapping principle that a dislocated syntactic phrase begins a new phonological phrase. Such accounts fail to predict correctly on comparative subdeletion (*She's a better scientist than he's [NP an [QP Ø ]engineer]) or examples with subject-auxiliary inversion (*He's taller than's his friend [AP Ø]). Here the empty category or extraction or ellipsis site does not abut the auxiliary, yet still it cannot reduce. Inkelas & Zec posit (on rather weak arguments) dislocation in subdeletion and pseudogapping and thus predict the lack of deaccenting; but they must allow reduction in subject-auxiliary inversion sentences to get Who's your friend?, so they apparently cannot block *He's taller than's his friend [AP Ø].

Previously unnoticed is the relevance of rejoinder emphasis with too/so, as in I am TOO gonna fix it!. Reduction is blocked (*I'm TOO gonna fix it!)--but here THERE IS NO DISPLACED OR ELIDED CONSTITUENT. This is the key to the constraints on auxiliary reduction. A syntactic condition of rejoinder emphasis calls for light accent on the auxiliary verb and heavy accent on too/so (prosodic conditions of this sort on syntactic constructions are not uncommon). But since (as noted by Selkirk) an auxiliary can reduce only when completely stressless, the requirements of rejoinder emphasis and auxiliary reduction clash irresolvably.

All the other constructions mentioned above similarly require lightly accented auxiliaries. For example, the VP ellipsis construction could be described as one in which a VP contains nothing but a lightly accented head (applied semantically to a free variable over VP meanings). What this means is the distribution of reduced auxiliaries can be completely accounted for by Selkirk's stresslessness condition--except that there are certain left context conditions on cliticization (noted by Kaisse 1983), these being the only remaining syntactic conditions on reduction: Auxiliaries cliticize only to (1) subjects, (2) subordinators (than, that), (3) proadverbial so, or (4) wh-words.

Our analysis needs no special rule for auxiliary reduction at all. As a matter of morphology, the auxiliaries have (at least) two shapes, one when completely deaccented and one when accented, and the syntax of certain constitutuent types determines light accent on head verbs (something that has to be stated anyway). This analysis offers no support for traces; in fact if traces exist, then Selkirk's condition has to be modified rather awkwardly to say not just 'if it ends a constituent' but 'if it ends a constituent or has as its complement a case-marked trace.'

Paragraph-by-paragraph exegesis of the acceptable abstract; comments are indented and boldfaced.

Auxiliary reduction (e.g. she's for she is) is well known to be blocked before sites of VP ellipsis (*She's usually home when he's), pseudogapping (*It's doing more for me than it's for you), wh-movement (*I wonder where he's now?), etc. Most analyses connect this to empty categories. We show that this is incorrect.

The phenomenon to be examined is made clear, with examples of three of the major constructions in which reduction is blocked. The examples simultaneously illustrate blocking of auxiliary reduction and remind the reader of what, say, pseudogapping is. The last two sentences of the paragraph alert the reader to previous accounts of the phenomenon and the alternative direction to be taken here. (A general comment about the abstract as a whole: The authors do not coin acronyms for the phenomena under discussion (e.g. 'AR' for auxiliary reduction). This greatly improves the readability of the abstract!)

This second paragraph cites two of the previous works on the topic, briefly stating their solutions to the problem. Constructions which are problematic for the previous accounts are mentioned, again with an illustration of each construction. (In other words, even if one assumes that the conditions on auxiliary reduction make reference to empty categories, the previous accounts fail to block reduction in some constructions.)

Here the authors introduce new data into the discussion: a construction with no empty category/extraction site in which auxiliary reduction is blocked. This construction suggests that any account of auxiliary reduction which appeals to empty categories is misguided. Instead, the authors offer a sketch of the prosodic requirements of this particular syntactic construction, which clash with the conditions required for auxiliary reduction. Note that the authors have signaled the importance of this new data by presenting it in a separate paragraph, highlighting the clause in which they point out there is no empty category, and stating explicitly that this (in their view) is the key to understanding the problem. These stylistic points not only make it easier for the abstract readers to appreciate the point of the argument, but they also suggest that the authors will succeed in making the oral presentation of this materials clear even to nonspecialists.

Having argued that rejoinder emphasis shows that the conditions on auxiliary reduction cannot crucially depend upon empty categories, the authors now reconsider the constructions containing empty categories, giving as an example the prosodic requirements associated with VP ellipsis.

In the concluding paragraph the authors sum up their general proposal and touch upon a larger theoretical question: the existence of traces.

Unacceptable Abstract Sample

Licensing of prosodic features by syntactic rules: The key to auxiliary reduction

This paper will discuss the phenomenon of auxiliary reduction, a topic which has been treated by many syntacticians and phonologists. We will show that traces do not exist and that any theory assuming traces is gravely flawed and must be abandoned. We will propose that in the morphology, every auxiliary has two shapes, one when the auxiliary is completely deaccented and one when the auxiliary is accented. (There may be more than two shapes for the auxiliaries.) Constructions such as VP ellipsis and wh-movement in which auxiliary reduction is impossible are ones in which only the accented form of auxiliaries may appear, due to syntactic conditions on accent patterns and on what may serve as the host for a clitic. This also handles comparative subdeletion and pseudogapping, which have been claimed to involve dislocation in order to preserve the generalization that when there is an empty category next to the auxiliary it cannot reduce, which is not necesssary with our proposal. It may also be noted that our solution will account for the impossibility of auxiliary reduction before emphatic too or so in rejoinders and in comparative constructions with subject-auxiliary inversion. In conclusion, the results of this paper will have profound effects on linguistic theory in general.

Line-by-line exegesis of the unacceptable abstract; comments are indented and boldfaced.

This paper will discuss the phenomenon of auxiliary reduction, a topic which has been treated by many syntacticians and phonologists.

Future tense is a bad sign; is the paper not written yet?
No example given of the construction.
No specific citations of previous work.

We will show that traces do not exist and that any theory assuming traces is gravely flawed and must be abandoned.

Sweeping claim and tendentious, obnoxious tone.
Writer assumes that readers know that many previous accounts appeal to the mechanism of traces, instead of making the connection explicit.
No specific criticisms are made of the earlier accounts.

We will propose that in the morphology, every auxiliary has two shapes, one when the auxiliary is completely deaccented and one when the auxiliary is accented. (There may be more than two shapes for the auxiliaries.)

Solution given here with no preamble.
Hard to see why this solution is justified.
The issue of the number of shapes of each auxiliary is given more prominence than it is worth.
The parenthetical comment is distracting.

Constructions such as VP ellipsis and wh-movement in which auxiliary reduction is impossible are ones in which only the accented form of auxiliaries may appear, due to syntactic conditions on accent patterns and on what may serve as the host for a clitic.

Only vague reference is made to the relevant syntactic conditions; compare the good abstract, where the accent patterns of two constructions are described and the possible hosts listed (with a specific reference to earlier work).

This also handles comparative subdeletion and pseudogapping, which have been claimed to involve dislocation in order to preserve the generalization that when there is an empty category next to the auxiliary it cannot reduce, which is not necessary with our proposal.

No examples of the syntactic constructions referred to.
No specific citations of others' work.
Stylistic problems such as run-on sentences and vague pronominal reference make the abstract more difficult to follow.

It may also be noted that our solution will account for the impossibility of auxiliary reduction before emphatic too or so in rejoinders and in comparative constructions with subject-auxiliary inversion.

The rejoinder construction is the key point of the paper! In the good abstract it is given central prominence, but here it is buried and could easily be missed.
No example of the construction in question.
Writer should state explicitly that no empty category can be posited as the explanation for this instance of blocked auxiliary reduction.
The inversion facts raise problems for analyses appealing to empty categories, and they also deserve more than an offhand remark in the abstract.

In conclusion, the results of this paper will have profound effects on linguistic theory in general.

Inflated, empty conclusion.