Under current assumptions, the structural representation of a clause consists of three kinds of structural layers, each layer an instantiation of the X-bar schema: 

1.

The lexical layer, headed by the verb, the structural layer in which theta assignment takes place.




2.

The inflectional layer, headed by functional heads corresponding to concrete or abstract morphological specifications on the verb, and responsible for the licensing of argumental features such as case and agreement.




3.

The complementizer layer, typically headed by a free functional morpheme, and hosting topics and various operator-like elements such as interrogative and relative pronouns, focalized elements, etc.






In the mid eighties, each layer was identified with a single X-bar projection (VP, IP, CP), but this assumption quickly turned out to be too simplistic. Under the impact of Pollock’s (1989) influential analysis of verb movement, IP dissolved into a series of functional projections, each corresponding to system (Agr, T, Asp,…). Kayne’s (1984) binary branching hypothesis naturally led to the postulation of multiple VP layers for multi-argument verbs, e.g. along the lines of Larson (1988) and much related work.

The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery

Noam Chomsky,The Minimalist Program. (Current Studies in Linguistics 28.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Pp. 420.The Minimalist Program, by Noam Chomsky, is a collection of four articles, ‘The Theory of Principles and Parameters’ (written with Howard Lasnik, 13–127), ‘Some notes on Economy of Derivation and representation’ (129–166), ‘A Minimalist Program for linguistic theory’ (167–217), and ‘Categories and transformations’ (219–394). The first three articles have appeared elsewhere, and are reprinted here with minor revisions. The fourth was circulated in manuscript form earlier in 1995 and is commonly referred to as ‘Chapter four’. The volume opens with an ‘Introduction’ (1–11) and closes with a general bibliography and an index (395–420).The work collected here is based on material presented by Chomsky, and discussed by participating students, faculty, and visitors, in Chomsky's fall term lecture-seminars at MIT in the period of 1986 through 1994. For those who have ever wanted to attend these class lectures, but were never in the position to, this is a must read. The MIT Press is to be commended for having made this collection available in such an exemplary inexpensive volume.

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The minimalist program

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

The biolinguistic perspective regards the language faculty as an “organ of the body,” along with other cognitive systems. Adopting it, we expect to find three factors that interact to determine (I-) languages attained: genetic endowment (the topic of Universal Grammar), experience, and principles that are language- or even organism-independent. Research has naturally focused on I-languages and UG, the problems of descriptive and explanatory adequacy. The Principles-and-Parameters approach opened the possibility for serious investigation of the third factor, and the attempt to account for properties of language in terms of general considerations of computational efficiency, eliminating some of the technology postulated as specific to language and providing more principled explanation of linguistic phenomena

/pdf/three-factors-in-language-design-3ui5wze9cz.pdf

Three Factors in Language Design

Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world's 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of "universal," we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition. Linguistic diversity then becomes the crucial datum for cognitive science: we are the only species with a communication system that is fundamentally variable at all levels. Recognizing the true extent of structural diversity in human language opens up exciting new research directions for cognitive scientists, offering thousands of different natural experiments given by different languages, with new opportunities for dialogue with biological paradigms concerned with change and diversity, and confronting us with the extraordinary plasticity of the highest human skills.

/pdf/the-myth-of-language-universals-language-diversity-and-its-i1slauuahf.pdf

The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science

One of the world's leading syntacticians presents evidence for locating Adverb Phrases in the specifiers of distinct functional projections within a novel and well articulated theory of the clause. In this theory, both adverbs and heads, which encode the functional notions of the clause, are ordered in a rigid sequence. Cinques cutting-edge proposal suggests that the structure of natural language sentences is much richer than previously assumed.

Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Types of A'-Dependencies develops the theories of Bonding and Government of the "principles and parameters" approach to syntax pioneered by Noam Chomsky. Using data from Romance languages, Cinque argues for a particular way of delimiting the descriptive generalizations that concern the grammar of constituent extraction, and the principles from which they derive.Cinque starts by distinguishing four major cases of A'-Dependencies on the basis of their different behavior with respect to island conditions. He discusses the distinction between "long" and "successive cyclic" wh-movement, indicating restrictions on the class of elements able to undergo "long" wh-movement and offering a simplification of the locality conditions on the two types of movement.Cinque then introduces a Romance construction, Clitic Left Dislocation, to show the value of separating the two types of wh-movement and offers a theory that explains certain differences between NPs and non-NPs under extraction.Guglielmo Cinque is a Professor on the Faculty of Linguistics at the University of Venice.

Types of Ā-dependencies

Adverbs and functional heads

Types of Ā-dependencies

Presentation de la theorie de la grille metrique. Etude dans le cadre de la phonologie generative de la place qu'occupe l'accent dans la phrase selon differents parametres : profondeur de l'enchâssement d'un constituant phrastique, focus, presuppostion, mot compose.

http://lear.unive.it/jspui/bitstream/11707/91/1/A%20null%20Theory%20of%20Phrase%20and%20Compound%20Stress2.opd.pdf

Guglielmo Cinque

Papers

Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Types of Ā-dependencies

Adverbs and functional heads

Types of Ā-dependencies

A null theory of phrase and compound stress