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Derivation by phase

01 Jan 1999-
About: The article was published on 1999-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 4191 citations till now.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The principles-and-parameter approach has been used in this paper 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.
Abstract: 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

1,409 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A theory of movement operations that occur after the syntactic derivation, in the PF component, within the framework of Distributed Morphology is developed, finding that the locality properties of a Merger operation are determined by the stage in the derivation at which the operation takes place.
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.

773 citations

01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that language is I-language, a state of FL, and universal grammar (UG) is reinterpreted as the theory of the initial state of language.
Abstract: The problem that has virtually defined the serious study of language since its ancient origins, if only implicitly, is to identify the specific nature of this distinctive human possession. Within the “biolinguistic perspective” that began to take shape fifty years ago, the concern is transmuted into the effort to determine the genetic endowment of the faculty of language FL, understood to be a “cognitive organ,” in this case virtually shared among humans and in crucial respects unique to them, hence a kind of species property. So construed, language is I-language, a state of FL, and universal grammar (UG) is reinterpreted as the theory of the initial state of FL. The term “biolinguistics” itself was coined in 1974 by Massimo Piattelli-Palmerini as the topic for an international conference he organized for the Royaumont Institute in Paris and MIT, bringing together evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, linguists, and others concerned with language and biology, one of many such initiatives, before and since, which sought to explore the extent to which apparent principles of language are unique to this cognitive system, one of “the basic questions to be asked from the biological point of view,” as discussed there, and crucial for the study of development of language in the individual and its evolution in the species.1 Within the biolinguistic framework, methodological considerations of simplicity, elegance, etc., can often be reframed as empirical theses concerning organic systems generally. For example, Morris Halle’s classical argument against postulating a linguistic level of structuralist phonemics was that it required unmotivated redundancy of rules, taken to be a violation of natural methodological assumptions. Similarly conclusions about ordering and cyclicity of phonological and syntactic rule systems from the 1950s were justified on the methodological grounds that they reduce descriptive complexity and eliminate stipulations. In such cases, the issues can be recast as metaphysical rather than epistemological: Is that how the world works? The issues can then be subjected to comparative analysis and related to principles of biology more generally, and perhaps even more fundamental principles

726 citations

01 Jan 2000

682 citations


Cites background from "Derivation by phase"

  • ...For example, the final disappearance of an uninterpretable feature marked for deletion may quite regularly wait until the completion of a CP (or other category called a "phase" by Chomsky 1998, 1999)....

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  • ...The assumption that uninterpretable features marked for deletion disappear completely at the end of the CP cycle is the proposal also argued for by Chomsky (1998, 1999) in his discussion of the notion phase.48 The observation that erasure of uT on Sue at the conclusion of the CP cycle prevents…...

    [...]

Book
10 Oct 2009
TL;DR: In this article, a first phase syntax is used to derive verb classes and then a first-phase syntax for verb classes is used for verb class extraction and verb class classification.
Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. The empirical ground 3. A first phase syntax 4. Deriving verb classes 5. Paths and results 6. Causativization 7. Conclusion.

650 citations