The Emergence of Order in Syntax (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today)

225 Pages·2008·1.1 MB·English

by  Jordi Fortuny

The Emergence of Order in Syntax
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA)
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph
studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical
and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics,
morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust
empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective.
General Editors
Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen
University of Vienna / Rijksuniversiteit Arizona State University
Groningen
Advisory Editorial Board
Cedric Boeckx Christer Platzack
Harvard University University of Lund
Guglielmo Cinque Ian Roberts
University of Venice Cambridge University
Günther Grewendorf Lisa deMena Travis
J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt McGill University
Liliane Haegeman Sten Vikner
University of Lille, France University of Aarhus
Hubert Haider C. Jan-Wouter Zwart
University of Salzburg University of Groningen
Volume 119
The Emergence of Order in Syntax.
Jordi Fortuny
The Emergence of Order in Syntax
Jordi Fortuny
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
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American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fortuny.
The emergence of order in syntax / Jordi Fortuny.
p. cm. -- (Linguistik aktuell/linguistics today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 119)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax. 2. Order (Grammar) I. Title.
P295.F67 2008
415--dc22 2007042375
isbn 978 90 272 5502 0 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE 1

PART I. ELEMENTS OF SYNTAX

CHAPTER 1. ELEMENTS OF SYNTAX 11

1.1 Instructions 11

1.2 Merge: nests 16

1.3 Merge: internal and external 22

1.4 Onset 27

PART II. PATTERNS

CHAPTER 2. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMPLEMENTIZERS
AND INFLECTIONAL HEADS 31

2.1 The C-Infl link 31

2.1.1j-features 32

2.1.2 Tense 36

2.1.3 Mood 40

2.1.4 Modality 44

2.1.5 Negation 48

2.2 Conclusion 55
vi THE EMERGENCE OF ORDER IN SYNTAX
CHAPTER 3. DISCONTINUOUS SYNTACTIC PATTERNS 57

3.1 The source of the C-Infl link 57

3.2 Probe-goal relations in a phase 57

3.2.1 Subextraction (I): subject islands and j-features 58

3.2.2 The Generalized Feature Inheritance Theory 61

3.3 Revising the Generalized Feature Inheritance Theory 65

3.3.1 The status of the phase head C and of Infl heads 66

3.3.1.1 Infl 66

3.3.1.2 C 67

3.3.2 Revising the Phase-Impenetrability Condition 67

3.3.2.1 Cyclicity 67

3.3.2.1.1 The classical empirical argument for strict cyclicity 69

3.3.2.1.2 Successive cyclicity 76

3.4 Discontinuities 83

3.5 Subextraction (II): relativized opacity for probe-goal relations 89

CHAPTER 4. ANALYTIC SYNTACTIC PATTERNS 95

4.1 On cartographies 95

4.2 The nature of ordering restrictions 99

4.2.1 Some allegedly non-primitive order restrictions 100

4.2.1.1 Epistemic modality and tense 100

4.2.1.2 Tense and aspect 103
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
4.2.2 Some allegedly primitive order restrictions 105

4.3 Toward a principled account for some order restrictions 106

4.3.1 Voice and tense 107

4.3.2 Quantificational aspectual adverbs and completive/prospective
aspectual adverbs 109

4.3.3 Evidential mood and epistemic modality 110

4.4 The Full Interpretation Principle 112

4.5 Cartographic effects 113

CHAPTER 5. SYNCRETIC SYNTACTIC PATTERNS 115

5.1 On structural minimization 115

5.2 Why and where V moves 119

5.3 A side-effect of V-to-T movement 134

5.3.1 SPEC-T becomes an A’-position when V has moved to T 135

5.3.1.1 Preverbal subjects in NSLs 135

5.3.1.2 Postverbal subjects in NSLs 136

5.3.1.3 Clitic Left dislocated elements in NSLs 138

5.3.1.4 Both preverbal subjects and CLLD elements match (cid:1)-features
in SPEC-T in NSLs 140

5.3.2 The source of (cid:1)-features associated with SPEC-T when V instantiates
j -features on T 142

5.3.2.1 Subextraction (III): phase sliding 142

5.3.2.2 Maximize Matching Effects Principle 157
viii THE EMERGENCE OF ORDER IN SYNTAX
5.3.3 When SPEC-T is created in NSLs 158

5.4 Other conundrums to be solved on the basis of structural minimization 160

5.4.1 Double agreement dialects 160

5.4.2 From the Vacuous Movement Hypothesis to syntactic syncretism 170

5.5 Contraction 179

5.6 Conclusion 182

PART III. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 6. ON THE EMERGENCE OF ORDER IN SYNTAX 189

REFERENCES 195

SUBJECT INDEX 208

LANGUAGE INDEX 211
PROLOGUE

The main idea of this study can be expressed in a few words: the syntactic
component of the faculty of language is responsible for ordering categories and for
ordering categories only. This would be a completely uninteresting thought, a
truism, if one did not attempt to account for how and why the attested patterns
emerge from the external requirements that the syntactic component has to satisfy.
Although saying that syntax is responsible for order does no more than to
express the etymological meaning of the word ‘syntax’, the use of the term ‘order’
in this study may deserve some attention, since it does not subscribe to the com-
mon use in grammatical studies. Throughout the text, the term ‘order’ does not
exclusively refer to the literal precedence relation among terminals (this is the
common use of the term in grammar), but rather to the hierarchical properties that
are attributed to syntactic representations, as will later become clear. Literal pre-
cedence is mapped from hierarchy. Thus, the object of inquiry of the discipline
called syntax is how categories are ordered or how hierarchies are generated.
More precisely, this study poses two questions: what are the basic elements of
the syntactic component? and why do syntactic patterns have the shape they seem
to have? The first question is addressed in Part I and the second question in Part II.
Part III summarizes the conclusions of the preceding two parts and discusses the
possibility that Universal Grammar (Chomsky’s Factor II) is a rewiring of
elements that are in place independently (Chomsky’s Factor III).
Chapter 1 suggests that the basic elements of the syntactic component are
features and a combinatorial operation known as Merge. A feature is defined as an
instruction for a particular level of interpretation of the faculty of language and
Merge is defined as an operation that takes as input two categories or sets included
in an alphabet and yields as output the union of these two sets. The specific in-
structions that functional categories provide for the several levels of in-terpretation
are described. It is argued that the hierarchical properties of syntactic objects
derive from a derivational record, a set K (a nest) where the outputs of successive
Merge operations are linearly ordered by the strict inclusion relation. Conse-
quently, Kayne’s Linear Correspondence Axiom is no longer an axiom one needs
to postulate to account for the X’-theory; hierarchy is a product of creating struc-