Mark Baltin

Bio: Mark Baltin is an academic researcher from New York University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Head-driven phrase structure grammar & Universal grammar. The author has an hindex of 13, co-authored 23 publications receiving 1254 citations.

The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory

Abstract: Contributors. Introduction. Part I: Derivation Versus Representation:. 1. Explaining Morphosyntactic Competition: Joan Bresnan (Stanford University). 2. Economy Conditions in Syntax: Chris Collins (Cornell University). 3. Derivation and Representation in Modern Transformational Syntax: Howard Lasnik (University of Connecticut). 4. Relativized Minimality Effects: Luigi Rizzi (Universite de Geneve). Part II: Movement:. 5. Head Movement: Ian Roberts (University of Stuttgart). 6. Object Shift and Scrambling: Hoskuldur Thrainsson (University of Iceland). 7. Wh--in--situ Languages: Akira Watanabe (University of Tokyo). 8. A--Movements: Mark Baltin (New York University). Part III: Argument Structure and Phrase Structure:. 9. Thematic Relations in Syntax: Jeffrey S. Gruber (independent scholar). 10. Predication: John Bowers (Cornell University). 11. Case: Hiroyuki Ura. 12. Phrase Structure: Naoki Fukui (University of California). 13. The Natures of Nonconfigurationality: Mark C. Baker (McGill University). 14. What VP Ellipsis Can Do, and What it Can't, but not Why: Kyle Johnson (University of Massachusetts at Amherst). Part IV: Functional Projections:. 15. Agreement Projections: Adriana Belletti (Universita di Siena). 16. Sentential Negation: Raffaella Zanuttini (Georgetown University). 17. The DP Hypothesis: Identifying Clausal Properties in the Nominal Domain: Judy B. Bernstein (Syracuse University). 18. The Structure of DPs: Some Principles, Parameters and Problems: Giuseppe Longobardi (University of Trieste). Part V: Interface With Interpretation:. 19. The Syntax of Scope: Anna Szabolcsi (New York University). 20. Deconstructing Binding: Eric Reuland and Martin Everaert (both Utrecht Institute of Linguistics). 21. Syntactic Reconstruction Effects: Andrew Barss (University of Arizona). Part VI: External Evaluation of Syntax:. 22. Syntactic Change: Anthony S. Kroch (University of Pennsylvania). 23. Setting Syntactic Parameters: Janet Dean Fodor (City University of New York). Bibliography. Index.

Alternative conceptions of phrase structure

Abstract: In the early years of generative grammar it was assumed that the appropriate mechanism for generating syntactic structures was a grammar of context-free rewriting rules. The twelve essays in this volume discuss recent challenges to this classical formulation of phrase structure and the alternative conceptions proposed to replace it. Each article approaches this issue from the perspective of a different linguistic framework, such as categorical grammar, government-binding theory, head-driven phrase structure grammar, and tree-adjoining grammar. By contributing to the understanding of the differing assumptions and research strategies of each theory, this volume serves as an important survey of current thinking on the frontier of theoretical and computation linguistics.

Floating quantifiers , PRO, and predication

Abstract: Dans cet article, l'A. presente un temoignage en faveur de l'existence du PRO, de l'emplacement du sujet propositionnel en position specifieur du V, de la contrainte qui exige que les elements se deplacent seulement si quelques principes de grammaire l'imposent (le principe de mouvement en dernier recours de Chomsky (1991)), et en faveur de la predication en tant que relation grammaticale plutot que concept semantique. Il fournit ainsi une preuve contre l'idee, proposee par Chomsky et Lasnik, qu'il est affecte au PRO un cas nul special en position specifieur de to ou-ing. Ce temoignage vient du phenomene de preverbes dans les infinitives anglaises

Deletion versus pro-forms: an overly simple dichotomy?

Abstract: This paper examines an anaphoric construction, British English do, and locates it within the dichotomy in the ellipsis literature between deleted phrases and null pro-forms, concluding that the choice is a false one, in that pro-forms involve deletion as well; the question, then, is how to account for the differential permeability to dependencies that require external licensing of the various deleted constituents. British English do has some characteristics of a fully deleted phrase, and some of a pro-form. The paper proposes that deletion is involved in this construction, but of a smaller constituent than can host wh-movement or long quantifier-raising. Therefore, deletion must occur within the syntax, in order to bleed syntactic processes. It is further shown that, within a phase-based syntax, Voice must be a phase rather than v, but that both functional heads must exist, and offers a new explanation for the incompatibility of passive and British English do, as well as an account of why some languages, like English, lack impersonal passives, while others, such as Dutch, allow them.

Neural Network Acceptability Judgments

Abstract: This paper investigates the ability of artificial neural networks to judge the grammatical acceptability of a sentence, with the goal of testing their linguistic competence. We introduce the Corpus of Linguistic Acceptability (CoLA), a set of 10,657 English sentences labeled as grammatical or ungrammatical from published linguistics literature. As baselines, we train several recurrent neural network models on acceptability classification, and find that our models outperform unsupervised models by Lau et al. (2016) on CoLA. Error-analysis on specific grammatical phenomena reveals that both Lau et al.’s models and ours learn systematic generalizations like subject-verb-object order. However, all models we test perform far below human level on a wide range of grammatical constructions.

Movement Operations after Syntax

Abstract: We develop a theory of movement operations that occur after the syntactic derivation, in the PF component, within the framework of Distributed Morphology.The theory is an extension of what was called Morphological Merger in Marantz 1984 and subsequent work.A primary result is that the locality properties of a Merger operation are determined by the stage in the derivation at which the operation takes place: specifically, Merger that takes place before Vocabulary Insertion, on hierarchical structures, differs from Merger that takes place post—Vocabulary Insertion/linearization.Specific predictions of the model are tested in numerous case studies.Analyses showing the interaction of syntactic movement, PF movement, and rescue operations are provided as well, including a treatment of Englishdo-support.

The Greenbergian word order correlations

Abstract: This paper reports on the results of a detailed empirical study of word order correlations, based on a sample of 625 languages. The primary result is a determination of exactly what pairs of elements correlate in order with the verb and object. Some pairs of elements that have been claimed to correlate in order with the verb and object do not in fact exhibit any correlation. I argue against the Head-Dependent Theory (HDT), according to which the correlations reflect a tendency towards consistent ordering of heads and dependents. I offer an alternative account, the Branching Direction Theory (BDT), based on consistent ordering of phrasal and nonphrasal elements. According to the BDT, the word order correlations reflect a tendency for languages to be consistently right-branching or consistently left-branching.*