EVENTS AND ECONOMY OF COORDINATION Ljiljana Progovac Abstract. I argue that reinforcement of the conjunction and with the correlative both has a precise and consistent semantic effect on the event structure: assignment of two separate (h-) roles to the conjuncts, which gives rise to the interpretation of two grammatically encoded events/states. This effect is argued not to be the property of the meaning of the lexical item both itself but a computational property of the number of overt heads associated with coordination. Roughly put, multiplicity of events is encoded syntactically, in fact iconically, by an increased number of conjunction markers. I argue that the effect eventually follows from Economy of Pronunciation, a principle independently needed in the grammar. These event considerations are argued to be encoded in the structural representation of coordination. 1. Introduction My paper rests on the assumption that sentences contain reference to (quantification over) events or states (with Davidson 1967; Higginbotham 1985; Dowty 1989; Parsons 1980, 1990; etc.). Like Parsons (1990;145), ‘‘I begin this investigation by making minimal assumptions about the nature of events and states, assuming that such information is more the result of investigation than a prerequisite for it.’’ To the extent that the conclusions in this paper are sound, they provide evidence not only for the underlying event structure but also for a specific encoding of event considerations in the structural representation of coordination. Section 2 establishes that reinforcement of the conjunction and with the correlative both has a precise and consistent semantic effect on the event structure — namely, assignment of two separate (h-) roles to the conjuncts, which gives rise to the interpretation of two grammatically encoded events/ states. 1 Section 3 shows that this effect is not directly a property of the meaning of the lexical item both itself but rather a computational property of the number of overt/pronounced heads associated with coordination. I argue that the multiplicity of events is indicated by an increased number of conjunction markers. In section 4, I argue that the effect eventually follows from Economy of Pronunciation, a principle independently needed in the grammar. Section 5 argues that the interpretation of multiplicity of events within a single clause is Syntax 2:2, August 1999, 141–159 ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA *Thanks to Marc Authier, Ellen Barton, Z ˇ eljko Bos ˇkovic ´, Wayles Browne, Andrew Carnie, Guglielmo Cinque, Sam Epstein, Steve Franks, Richard Kayne, Iliyana Krapova, Martha Ratliff, Lisa Reed, Henk van Riemsdijk, Daniel Seely, Jindra Toman, Mila Dimitrova-Vulchanova, Ed Zoerner, an anonymous Syntax reviewer, and the FASL 1997 and FASSL 1997 audiences not mentioned above for stimulating comments on various stages of the development of this paper. They are all greatly appreciated. 1 This paper only discusses the use of the conjunction and, although other correlative pairs, such as either-or and if-then, may show comparable properties.