Simpler Syntax

by Culicover, Peter W.; Jackendoff, Ray

• ISBN13: 9780199271092
• ISBN10: 0199271097
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This groundbreaking book offers a new and compelling perspective on the structure of human language. The fundamental issue it addresses is the proper balance between syntax and semantics, between structure and derivation, and between rule systems and lexicon. It argues that the balance struckby mainstream generative grammar is wrong. It puts forward a new basis for syntactic theory, drawing on a wide range of frameworks, and charts new directions for research. In the past four decades, theories of syntactic structure have become more abstract, and syntactic derivations have become ever more complex. Peter Culicover and Ray Jackendoff trace this development through the history of contemporary syntactic theory, showing how much it has been driven bytheory-internal rather than empirical considerations. They develop an alternative that is responsive to linguistic, cognitive, computational, and biological concerns. At the core of this alternative is the Simpler Syntax Hypothesis: the most explanatory syntactic theory is one that imputes the minimum structure necessary to mediate between phonology and meaning. A consequence of this hypothesis is a far richer mapping between syntax and semantics than isgenerally assumed. Through concrete analyses of numerous grammatical phenomena, some well studied and some new, the authors demonstrate the empirical and conceptual superiority of the Simpler Syntax approach.Simpler Syntax is addressed to linguists of all persuasions. It will also be of central interest to those concerned with language in psychology, human biology, evolution, computational science, and artificial intellige

Author Biography

Peter W. Culicover is Chair of the Department of Linguistics and former Director of the Center for Cognitive Science at the Ohio State University. His books include Formal Principles of Language Acquisition (1980, with Kenneth Wexler), Principles and Parameters (1997), Syntactic Nuts (1999), and Dynamical Grammar (2003, with Andrzej Nowak).
Ray Jackendoff is Professor of Philosophy and Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He was previously Professor of Linguistics at Brandeis University. His books include Semantics and Cognition (1983), Consciousness and the Computational Mind (1987), A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1982, with Fred Lerdahl), and Foundations of Language (2002). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a past president of the Linguistic Association of America and of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiv
Acknowledgements	xvi
PART I CUTTING SYNTAX DOWN TO SIZE
Why Simpler Syntax?	3	(41)
Different notions of simplicity	3	(3)
A sample argument: Bare Argument Ellipsis	6	(3)
The goals of linguistic theory	9	(5)
The architecture of the grammar	14	(11)
Constraints rather than derivations	15	(1)
No ``hidden levels'' of syntax	16	(1)
Multiple sources of combinatoriality	17	(3)
Conceptual Structure	20	(2)
Combinatorial autonomy of syntax and semantics	22	(3)
The continuum from words to rules; ``syntactic nuts'' and the core/periphery distinction	25	(12)
Words that go in the wrong place	26	(3)
Sluice-stranding	29	(3)
Constructional idioms in the VP	32	(5)
Core grammar and its relation to UG	37	(7)
How Did We Get Here? Principles and Early History of Mainstream Syntax	44	(29)
Principles of argumentation in mainstream syntax	45	(11)
General considerations	45	(1)
Uniformity	46	(4)
A consequence of Occam's Razor applied locally: VP-shells	50	(6)
Syntactic Structures through early PPT: transformational passive and its consequences	56	(17)
Uniform lexical projection and passive	57	(4)
The Structure-Preserving Hypothesis	61	(1)
Raising to subject	62	(2)
(No) Raising to object	64	(3)
Government and binding	67	(3)
Trace theory and quantifier movement	70	(3)
Later History of Mainstream Syntax	73	(34)
Late PPT: UTAH, Head Movement, and beyond	73	(15)
UTAH and its consequences	73	(6)
Further consequences of Head movement	79	(3)
Branching	82	(2)
Agreement through movement	84	(4)
The Minimalist Program	88	(6)
Perfection	88	(4)
Derivational economy	92	(2)
Uniformity entails Generative Semantics	94	(9)
MP meets GS	94	(1)
Classic cases	95	(5)
How is this possible?	100	(3)
The alternative	103	(4)
Flat Structure	107	(44)
Introduction	107	(1)
Overview of syntactic structure	108	(4)
In-principle arguments for binary branching	112	(5)
Learnability	112	(1)
Binary branching as a desideratum of minimalism	113	(3)
C-command and unambiguous paths	116	(1)
Empirical arguments for right-branching	117	(7)
The structure of the evidence	117	(1)
Binding of anaphors	118	(4)
C-command and quantifier binding	122	(2)
Arguments for left-branching	124	(11)
Basic arguments from VP anaphora	124	(4)
Arguments/adjuncts in VP	128	(3)
Small clauses	131	(4)
NP structure	135	(8)
NP complements	136	(2)
NP specifiers	138	(5)
A sketch of English phrase structure	143	(8)
PART II THE SYNTAX--SEMANTICS INTERFACE
Basic Clause Structure	151	(36)
Looking ahead	151	(2)
Overview of CS	153	(5)
Carving out the words and morphemes	158	(5)
Default principles for determining syntactic embedding	163	(7)
Constraining (most of) linear order	170	(3)
What a verb can say about its arguments	173	(9)
Obligatory vs. optional semantic arguments	174	(2)
Category of syntactic arguments	176	(2)
Direct vs. oblique NP arguments	178	(2)
Syntactic argument structure alternations	180	(2)
Hierarchical linking of direct NP arguments	182	(5)
The Grammatical Function Tier	187	(46)
The need for grammatical functions	187	(4)
The Grammatical Functiontier and Raising	191	(11)
Some basic cases	191	(2)
Absent subjects: Controlled VPs and pro-drop	193	(3)
Dummy subjects	196	(1)
Raising	197	(5)
Passive	202	(13)
Standard cases and interaction with raising	202	(4)
Passive VPs as complements and modifiers	206	(1)
Prepositional passives: extension of the GF-tier to oblique arguments	207	(3)
Passives that skip over arguments	210	(2)
Things that don't undergo passive	212	(3)
Binding of reflexives in the GF-tier	215	(7)
Bells and whistles	222	(8)
The light verb construction	222	(3)
VP constructions	225	(2)
Coercions	227	(3)
Concluding remarks	230	(3)
Bare Argument Ellipsis and its Relatives	233	(50)
Introduction	233	(3)
Nonsentential utterance types	236	(3)
Problems for a syntactic account of bare argument ellipsis	239	(9)
Reasons to believe syntax is involved in BAE	248	(6)
The generalizations behind indirect licensing	254	(4)
A mechanism for indirect licensing	258	(8)
Sluicing and sluice-stranding	266	(7)
Gapping	273	(10)
Reasons why gapping cannot be syntactic deletion	273	(2)
Gapping as double BAE	275	(3)
The gapped fragment is not an S	278	(5)
VP Ellipsis and its Relatives	283	(18)
Do X anaphora, it happen anaphora, VP ellipsis, pseudo-gapping, and one-anaphora	283	(13)
The facts	284	(1)
Reasons not to derive the constructions from full VPs	284	(5)
Treatment of the constructions in terms of indirect licensing	289	(3)
Pseudo-gapping	292	(4)
Some arguments that VP ellipsis must be syntactic deletion	296	(2)
Summary of Chapters 7 and 8	298	(3)
Discontinuous Dependencies	301	(54)
There is no A'-movement	302	(5)
Wh-questions	307	(13)
Simple wh-questions	307	(4)
Comparison of movement and non-movement	311	(2)
In situ wh and pied-piping	313	(7)
Other wh-constructions	320	(7)
The signature of a long-distance dependency	320	(1)
Other wh-constructions in English	321	(3)
Chains and wh-in situ	324	(3)
Island constraints	327	(15)
Against intermediate traces of movement	327	(3)
Slash-categories	330	(2)
Where do constraints come from?	332	(2)
Semantic constraints on long-distance dependencies	334	(4)
Topicalization, left and right dislocation, and connectivity	338	(4)
Tough movement	342	(5)
Other candidates for movement	347	(4)
Heavy shift	347	(3)
Scrambling	350	(1)
Summary	351	(4)
PART III BINDING AND CONTROL
Mme Tussaud meets the Binding Theory	355	(34)
Introduction	355	(1)
The problem	356	(3)
Interaction of the statue rule with binding	359	(1)
The Pragmatic Option	360	(3)
The Syntactic Option	363	(8)
Interaction of the Syntactic Option with binding	364	(2)
A deletion can't work anyway	366	(2)
An apparently better version of the Syntactic Option	368	(3)
The Interface Option	371	(2)
Reconceiving binding theory	373	(6)
Formalizing and generalizing parts of Principle Acs	379	(10)
The `statue' sentences and other coercions	379	(4)
Verbs whose meanings involve representations or information	383	(4)
Final remarks	387	(2)
Something else for the Binding Theory	389	(26)
Introduction	389	(4)
How else behaves	393	(5)
Contra-indexing and extended anaphora	398	(6)
Against contra-indexing	398	(1)
Quantifier + else is compositional	399	(2)
Condition C and Crossover	401	(2)
Sloppy identity	403	(1)
Else is not other than α in syntax	404	(8)
Syntactic reconstruction is not possible with ``extended anaphors''	405	(1)
Syntactic reconstruction is impossible because there need be no possible syntactic realization	406	(1)
The reconstructed antecedent of else need not be a constituent in syntax	407	(3)
Putting the pieces together	410	(2)
Summary	412	(3)
The Semantic Basis of Control in English	415	(58)
Introduction	415	(2)
A typology of control	417	(10)
Motivation for pursuing a semantic solution	417	(3)
One purely syntactic dimension: possibility of a local subject	420	(1)
Free control, nearly free control, and unique control	421	(4)
Control in adjunct clauses	425	(2)
Actional complements	427	(5)
Unique control by objects and by subjects	432	(12)
Unique control is determined by semantic roles	432	(6)
Some communication verbs and some adjectives with unique control	438	(6)
Toward a semantically based theory of unique control	444	(7)
Coercion that shifts control	451	(8)
The bring about coercion	452	(2)
The someone allow coercion	454	(5)
Partial control and the joint intention coercion	459	(5)
Further problems	464	(5)
Four move cases of control	464	(1)
Obviative vs. non-obviative control	465	(1)
Parallels with reflexives	466	(1)
Control of nominals	467	(2)
Conclusions	469	(4)
PART IV CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CLAUSES
Semantic Subordination Despite Syntactic Coordination	473	(27)
Introduction	473	(2)
A conditional reading of and	475	(3)
LS-and is not a subordinating conjunction	478	(3)
Interactions with binding	481	(4)
Extraction	485	(6)
Inversion and extraction within main clause S-and LS-S	491	(3)
Asymmetric coordination ≠ semantic subordination	494	(4)
Summary	498	(2)
The View from the Periphery: The English Comparative Correlative	500	(30)
Introduction to the CC construction	500	(4)
Evidence for the left-subordinate hypothesis	504	(3)
Evidence for the paratactic hypothesis	507	(2)
The internal structure of CC-clauses	509	(8)
The subject requirement and be-omission in CC-clauses	509	(2)
The usual constraints on long-distance dependency	511	(2)
The upper end of the long-distance dependency	513	(2)
Behavior of the more compared to other specifiers of QP	515	(2)
Binding	517	(4)
Extraction from CC	521	(5)
Summary and consequences for UG	526	(4)
What Is Language Like? Moving On	530	(18)
Where have we gotten?	530	(6)
Special properties of the present approach	536	(4)
Two aesthetics	540	(4)
Where do we go from here?	544	(4)
References	548	(27)
Index	575