Major constituents and two dependency grammar constraints on sharing in coordination

Abstract The article examines the usage of the “major constituent” concept in theories of coordination. The literature on coordination references major constituents when predicting the material that may and may not be shared by the conjuncts of coordinate structures. Previous attempts at defining the concept are, however, vague and insufficient. Hence the article presents a new definition. This definition is based in a dependency grammar framework. In addition to this new definition, two constraints are proposed that help predict which material can be shared in coordination. The first constraint, called the Restriction on External Sharing (RES) predicts which material external to coordinate structures can be shared. The second constraint, called the Restriction on Internal Sharing (RIS), predicts which material internal to the initial conjunct can be shared. A central aspect of the approach is the distinction between conjunct-external and conjunct-internal sharing. Various data are examined that demonstrate the validity of this distinction.