Showing papers in "Natural Language and Linguistic Theory in 1985"

Coordination and how to distinguish categories

Abstract: In this paper we have presented a detailed treatment of key problems in the syntax of coordination in English which goes well beyond previous treatments in the breadth of its coverage. The separation of immediate dominance rules from linear precedence rules had played an essential role in our analysis. It is this aspect of Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar that allows the full range of conjunctions in English to be treated in a unified manner using a small set of constructs. This same factoring of dominance and ordering information is what allows us to account for such problems as the peculiar properties of the coordination of embedded clauses and NPs, as we have shown. In addition, it is the interplay of various independently motivated principles in GPSG, such as the Head Feature Convention and the Foot Feature Principle, that enable one to derive, rather than stipulate, a solution to such long-standing problems as the facts commonly discussed in terms of the Coordinate Structure Constraint and the Across-the-Board Convention. Over twenty years ago, the syntax of coordination was a key topic in the discussions that led to the widespread acceptance of transformational grammar. It is curious, then, that even today no version of transformational grammar has succeeded in explaining, and often not even in describing, well-known and very basic facts about coordination (e.g., the fact that arbitrary tensed VPs can coordinate with each other). Moreover, the various instances of coordination of unlike categories, which we have provided an account of without appeal to any ancillary devices or ad hoc principles, have received no serious analysis within the transformational tradition. Of course, much remains to be done on the grammar of coordinate constructions. Among the problems we have addressed insufficiently or not at all are the precise formulation of the syntax and semantics of non-constituent ellipsis, the treatment of ‘right node raising’ constructions, and the semantic peculiarities of N1-coordination discussed by Bergmann (1982). Nevertheless, the present paper improves on earlier generative treatments of coordination by broadening the coverage while at the same time stipulating less.

On the syntax of disjunction scope

Abstract: The account of disjunction proposed above is an interesting one, I believe, not simply because a principled account has been given of a certain collection of data, but also because the relation between the syntactic and semantic analyses is an intuitively satisfying one. Under the account argued for here the syntactic properties of elements such as either and whether are almost entirely predictable given three components of information: (i) the meaning of disjunction as explicated by Rooth and Partee (1982); (ii) a number of general principles and conditions, and (iii) certain very simple lexical facts such as the fact that either is [−WH], while whether is [+WH]. In view of the first component we know that disjunction takes scope through binding of a free variable. The second component presumably gives us that scope is syntactically represented, that scope assignment involves movement to an Ā position, that the trace of this movement is subject to ECP, that the domain of this movement is bounded by Subjacency, &c. Finally, given either and whether as scope indicators, the third component entails that the former adjoins to S, and so marks scope within the minimal sentence containing its associated disjunction, while the latter moves to COMP, and so may mark scope in broader domains.

PRO and subject of NP

Abstract: In the preceding sections, we have examined a number of roles that PRO in the specifier of an NP might play in relating the interior of the NP to its exterior, with respect to the principles of the binding theory, bound pronouns, and control. In each instance, positing PRO in NP helped with only an arbitrary subset of the cases. The implicit arguments view outlined here encompasses the full range of cases.

Welsh syntax and vso structure.

Abstract: L'auteur defend l'idee que les langues VSO, comme le gallois, ont une structure de base SVO et que l'ordre VSO est obtenu par moyen d'une regle de montee du verbe. Discussion sur les implications theoriques de cette hypothese dans le cadre theorique du liage et du gouvernement

Autolexical syntax: A proposal for the treatment of noun incorporation and similar phenomena

Abstract: 1. BACKGROUND According to the standard picture of the interface between syntax and morphology, the words of well-formed natural-language expressions are attached to the leaves of the syntactic phrase structure trees. Furthermore, each word may be represented by a structured tree whose leaves represent the constituent morphemes, and each morpheme is a (presumably structureless) list of segments. The representation of the structure of the expression is thus a smoothly branching tree with the highest syntactic category at the top, and individual segments at the bottom, as in diagram (1), where A-E represent syntactic categories with D a lexical category, a-d represent subword constituents where b, c and d are simple morphemes, and S1-Sm are phonological segments.

Multiple subcategorization and the ϑ-criterion: The case of climb

Abstract: We have successfully accounted for all the data of section 2 with the single unified entry (27). The price has been two innovations in the semantic structure of lexical items: the curly bracket notation for alternative realizations of variables, and the P operator. Each of these has been independently motivated. Returning to the general issue that motivated this study, we have maintained a strong correspondence between syntactic ϑ-positions and semantic argument positions. However, the correspondence need not be strictly one-to-one. We have seen multiple argument positions for a single ϑ-position in transitive climb, transaction verbs such as buy and sell, and possibly intransitive dress. We have also seen, possibly, that an argument may be multiply filled, once by a subcategorized phrase and once by a nonsubcategorized phrase. We have also seen that the correspondence between syntactic and semantic structure is encoded in lexical entries by means of principles more complex than seems to have been suspected. And the complexities we have found are for climb, which intuition suggests is a relatively simple item with rather transparent semantics. When we attempt to represent verbs with complicated options for sentential complementation (such as know and ask), we should expect the descriptive problems to multiply. Eventually, of course, one would like to adequately constrain the theory of syntax-semantics linkages in the lexicon. The present study should caution us, however, of the danger of applying Occam's razor too soon, thereby cutting off one's hand. This study has also provided evidence confirming Grimshaw's (1979) conclusion that syntactic and semantic conditions on lexical insertion are autonomous. Here we have ended with a lexical entry whose sole syntactic constraint is that there is a single postverbal complement. The syntactic category of the complement, however, is determined by the range of semantic categories possible in the corresponding variables. Viewed from a different angle, though, one might say that it is the availability of only one syntactic complement position that prevents both semantic variables from being expressed at once. There is nothing conceptually wrong with * Bill climbed the mountain up the ropes, in which both postverbal complements fill j-variables in (27) — it is just a syntactic fact about the English verb climb that makes it ungrammatical. To sum up, then, the subcategorization feature is not simply a projection of argument structure, as generally assumed. Rather, ϑ-structure and argument structure are better thought of as each constraining potential projections of the other. Finally, it is evident that these issues could not have been investigated without a fairly explicit theory of semantic structure like Conceptual Semantics. I hope to have provided here a taste of what syntactic theory may have missed out on, as a result of its habit of viewing semantics through the narrow window of more traditional formalizations of predicate-argument structure. I am grateful to Jane Grimshaw and David Olson for helpful discussion of this material, and to Jerrold Katz and especially another (anonymous) NLLT reviewer for many insightful comments on an earlier version. The puzzle of rent in section 4 goes back to discussions with Joe Emonds around 1966. This research was supported in part by NSF Grant IST-8120403 to Brandeis University, and in part by NSF Grant BNS-7622943 to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where my initial exploration of climb took place one typically glorious day in February 1984.

Variables in Palauan syntax

Abstract: The analysis of unbounded dependencies in terms of Wh-movement lies at the heart of generative grammar. The components of this analysis are central concepts of the theory: the trace theory of movement rules, the Subjacency Condition, the ECP and recoverability, and the ordering of abstract levels of representation. One of the strengths of this analysis is that it has been found to apply consistently over a wide range of languages. However, it is this generality which poses a challenge to linguists analyzing unbounded dependencies in unfamiliar languages: one needs to maintain a characterization that appears to have universal validity, while giving the special properties of the language one is des- cribing their due weight in the analysis. In this paper I will describe the grammar of unbounded dependencies in an Austronesian language, Palauan, whose syntax at first appears to have quite unusual properties. First, although Palauan can be analyzed as having no syntactic Wh-movement, it has the full range of unbounded dependencies at S-structure. Second, though these dependencies involve the use both of gaps and resumptive pronouns, the distribution of gap and pronoun is unrelated either to island constraints or to the type of clause in which the binding takes place. Finally, though all the structures in question are base generated, they contain evidence that the variable, gap or pronoun, is bound to its antecedent at S-structure. This paper will attempt to show that most Of these phenomena can be accommodated within Government-Binding Theory (GB), while still allowing the special nature of Palauan grammar to emerge. Those phenomena that remain unaccounted for will be seen to be suggestive of parametric variation, and I will propose a way in which the theory might be adjusted to account for the Palauan facts.

Tracing case in phonology

Abstract: We have seen in this paper that there are a number of cases where a Case-marked phonologically empty element blocks rules with phonological effects. We have also seen instances where the influence of Case-marked trace fails. One can avoid an ad hoc marking of the distinction by observing that the relevant difference between these two types is one that can be incorporated into recent proposals by Selkirk, who assumes that the grammar contains both phonosyntactic phonological rules and phonological rules proper, with a mapping component linking the two blocks of rules. It turns out that the observed partitioning of rules into those that can and those that cannot see Case-marked empty elements coincides with the distinction between phonosyntactic and phonological rules in this framework. No ad hoc markings for rule-type are required, and Selkirk's mapping component defines the breaking point for the relevance of syntactic information to phonological processes. This appears to be a result worth striving for.