1. Introduction Syntactic structures are complex objects, whose subtle properties have been highlighted and elucidated by half a century of formal syntactic studies, building on a much older tradition. Structures are interesting objects of their own, both in their internal constitution and in their interactions with various grammatical principles and processes. The cartography of syntactic structures is the line of research which addresses this topic: it is the attempt to draw maps as precise and detailed as possible of syntactic configurations. Broadly construed in this way, cartography is not an approach or a hypothesis: it is a research topic asking the question: what are the right structural maps for natural language syntax? Answers may differ, and very different maps may be, and have been, proposed, but the question as such inevitably arises as a legitimate and central question for syntactic theory. If it is a virtual truism that cartography can be construed as a topic and not as a framework, it is also the case that cartographic studies have often adopted certain methodological and heuristic guidelines, and also certain substantive hypotheses on the nature of syntactic structures, which form a coherent body of assumptions and a rather well-defined research direction; we will try to illustrate some ideas and results of this direction in the present chapter. If structures have, in a sense, always been central in generative grammar, the idea of focusing on structural maps arose around the early nineties, following a track parallel to and interacting with the Minimalist Program. Perhaps the main triggering factor was the explosion of functional heads identified and implied in syntactic analyses in the first ten years of the Principles and Parameters framework. One critical step was the full-fledged extension of X-bar theory to the functional elements of the clause (Chomsky 1986) as a CP – IP – VP structure; and the observation that other configurations, e.g. nominal expressions, were amenable to a hierarchical structure with a lexical projection embedded within a functional structure (such as Abney's DP hypothesis, Abney 1987). These advances provided a natural format for the study of the structure of phrases and clauses as hierarchical sequences of the same building block, the fundamental X-bar schema (or, later, elementary applications of Merge); the lowest occurrence of the building block typically is the projection of a lexical category, e.g. a noun or a verb, and this element is typically completed by a …

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The Cartography of Syntactic Structures

In this paper I argue that cross-linguistic grammatical comparison cannot be based on grammatical categories, because these are language-specific. Instead, typology must be (and usually is) based on a special set of comparative concepts that are specifically created by typologists for the purposes of comparison. Descriptive formal categories cannot be equated across languages because the criteria for category-assignment are different from language to language. This old structuralist insight (called categorial particularism) has recently been emphasized again by several linguists, but the idea that typologists need to identify "crosslinguistic categories" before they can compare languages is still widespread. Instead, what they have to do (and normally do in practice) is to create comparative concepts that help them to identify comparable phenomena across languages and to formulate cross-linguistic generalizations. Comparative concepts have to be universally applicable, so they can only be based on other universally applicable concepts: conceptual-semantic concepts, formal concepts, general concepts, and other comparative concepts. If, by contrast, one espouses categorial universalism and assumes crosslinguistic categories, as many generative linguists do, typology works by equating comparable categories in different languages, which are said to "instantiate" a cross-linguistic category. But in typological practice, all that is required is that a language-specific category matches a comparative concept. For example, the Russian Dative, the Turkish Dative and the Finnish Allative all match the comparative concept 'dative case', but they are very different distributionally and semantically and therefore cannot be equated and cannot instantiate a cross-linguistic category 'dative'. Comparative concepts are not always purely semantically-based concepts, but outside of phonology they usually contain some semantic components. If one is not confident about the universality of meanings, one can substitute extralinguistic contexts for universal meanings. The view that descriptive categories are different across languages and different from comparative concepts leads to terminological problems, which are also discussed here. Finally, I observe that the adoption of categorial universalism has actually impeded, not facilitated, cross-linguistic research.

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Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies

Lexicalization, a process of language change, has been conceptualized in a variety of ways. Broadly defined as the adoption of concepts into the lexicon, it has been viewed by syntacticians as the reverse process of grammaticalization, by morphologists as a routine process of word-formation, and by semanticists as the development of concrete meanings. In this up-to-date survey, Laurel Brinton and Elizabeth Traugott examine the various conceptualizations of lexicalization that have been presented in the literature. In light of contemporary work on grammaticalization, they then propose a new, unified model of lexicalization and grammaticalization. Their approach is illustrated with a variety of case studies from the history of English, including present participles, multi-word verbs, adverbs, and discourse markers, as well as some examples from other Indo-European languages. The first review of the various approaches to lexicalization, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of historical linguistics and language change.

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Lexicalization and Language Change

This paper provides a new perspective on the options available to languages for encoding directed motion events. Talmy (2000) introduces an influential two-way typology, proposing that languages adopt either verb- or satellite-framed encoding of motion events. This typology is augmented by Slobin (2004b) and Zlatev & Yangklang (2004) with a third class of equipollently-framed languages. We propose that the observed options can instead be attributed to: (i) the motion-independent morphological, lexical, and syntactic resources languages make available for encoding manner and path of motion, (ii) the role of the verb as the single clause-obligatory lexical category that can encode either manner or path, and (iii) extra-grammatical factors that yield preferences for certain options. Our approach accommodates the growing recognition that most languages straddle more than one of the previously proposed typological categories: a language may show both verb- and satelliteframed patterns, or if it allows equipollent-framing, even all three patterns. We further show that even purported verb-framed languages may not only allow but actually prefer satellite-framed patterns when appropriate contextual support is available, a situation unexpected if a two- or three-way typology is assumed. Finally, we explain the appeal of previously proposed two- and three-way typologies: they capture the encoding options predicted to be preferred once certain external factors are recognized, including complexity of expression and biases in lexical inventories.

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The typology of motion expressions revisited

The general distinction between morphology and syntax is widely taken for granted, but it crucially depends on a cross-linguistically valid concept of �(morphosyntactic) word�. I show that there are no good criteria for defining such a concept. I examine ten criteria in some detail (potential pauses, free occurrence, mobility, uninterruptibility, non-selectivity, non-coordinatability, anaphoric islandhood, nonextractability, morphophonological idiosyncrasies, and deviations from bi-uniqueness), and I show that none of them is necessary and sufficient on its own, and no combination of them gives a definition of �word� that accords with linguists' orthographic practice. �Word� can be defined as a language-specific concept, but this is not relevant to the general question pursued here. �Word� can be defined as a fuzzy concept, but this is theoretically meaningful only if the continuum between affixes and words, or words and phrases, shows some clustering, for which there is no systematic evidence at present. Thus, I conclude that we do not currently have a good basis for dividing the domain of morphosyntax into morphology and syntax, and that linguists should be very careful with general claims that make crucial reference to a cross-linguistic �word� notion.

https://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/staff/haspelmt/pdf/WordSegmentation.pdf

The indeterminacy of word segmentation and the nature of morphology and syntax

Compounds are generally acknowledged to be formed by at least two words1 (e.g. Eng. taxi-driver, postman, It. divano-letto 'sofa-bed', camposanto 'cemetery', Fr. tire bouchon 'cork-screw', timbre-poste 'stamp', etc.). Though this defi nition does not always hold true2, it is nonetheless descriptively valid for the core of compounding processes. Since we have reasons to believe that the classifi cations of compounds provided so far are not adequate, in this paper we would like to propose a new classifi cation which is at the same time based on consistent criteria and not just valid for one language or for a family of languages, but hopefully universally valid3. The paper is organized as follows: in section 1 we will discuss the main problems with current and previous classifi cations of compounds; in section 2 we will present our proposed classifi cation and in section 3 we discuss some residual problems and draw some provisional conclusions.

The Classification of Compounds

In this paper it is maintained that inflection rules (IRs) and derivation rules (DRs) should be considered to be different. Several arguments in favor of this hypothesis are discussed: (1) DRs, but not IRs, change the syntactic category of their base. (2) Inflectional morphemes are peripheral with respect to derivational suffixes. (3) Derivational suffixes are heads, while inflectional suffixes are never heads. (4) DRs and IRs 'do' different things: in particular, DRs are more powerful rules than IRs. (5) DRs allow a (restricted) amount ofrecursivity, while IRs do not. (6) The readjustment rules (RRs) that operate on the output of IRs are (partially) different from the RRs which operate on the output of DRs. (7) Both DRs and IRs can be 'productive' but productivity in derivation is constrained by a number of very subtle types of restrictions. Productivity in inflection is more 'blind'. (8) Inflection and derivation behave differently with respect to the predictions made by the atom condition; in particular, derivation can be sensitive (in certain cases) to prefixation, whereas inflection cannot. (9) The structure of an inflected word is probably different from the structure of a derived word. The major aim of the paper is to give a general overview of the discussion on this topic, discussing old points (such as 1) in the light of recent research and presenting some new points (such as 8).

Inflection and derivation

Cross-Disciplinary Issues in Compounding,

Despite the fact that compounding is themost widespread word-formation strategy in the world’s languages – and for some languages, the only one – compounds have received little, if any attention in linguistic typology and, in particular, in studies on linguistic universals.

Searching for Universals in Compounding

(3) Di Sciullo & Williams (1987:49) The Atomicity Thesis Words are “atomic” at the level of phrasal syntax and phrasal semantics. The words have “features,” or properties, but these features have no structure, and the relation of theses features to the internal composition of the word cannot be relevant in syntax – this is the thesis of the atomicity of words, or the lexical integrity hypothesis, or the strong lexicalist hypothesis (as in Lapointe 1980), or a version of the lexicalist hypothesis of Chomsky (1970), Williams (1978; 1978a), and numerous others.

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Sergio Scalise

Papers

The Classification of Compounds

Inflection and derivation

Cross-Disciplinary Issues in Compounding,

Searching for Universals in Compounding

The Lexical Integrity Hypothesis in a New Theoretical Universe