Discontinuity of Noun Phrases

Languages vary in whether they allow discontinuous noun phrases: while in languages like English sentences with ‘‘extraction of the left branch’’ like *Every I saw lamp hanging from the ceiling are ungrammatical, equivalent strings in languages like Russian are fully acceptable. I am interested in how such discontinuity arises, how it is restricted, and why languages vary in whether they allow discontinuous phrases. One hypothesis I argued for is that this discontuity is only apparent: all languages move only full noun phrases in syntax, and what they differ in is rules of copy pronounciation at PF—while Russian allows distributed deletion of noun phrases, English does not. Another interesting question is how linearization constraints restrict pronounciation of discontinuous noun phrases and whether they can explain asymmetries in left branch extraction from subjects and objects.