scholarly journals Verb movement and interrogatives

Linguistica ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-176
Author(s):  
Gašper Ilc ◽  
Milena Milojević Sheppard
Keyword(s):  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Clausal Structure ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Base Position ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Feature Checking

Verb movement is a phenomenon that has been studied extensively withintheframework of Chomskyan generative grammar. The pioneering work by Pollock(1989) has been followed by a number of studies involving various languages, whichhas provided an important insight both into the language-specific andlanguage-uni­versal properties of verb movement. In most general terms, verb movement canbedefined as movement of the verb from its base position in the (V)erb (P)hrase tosomeposition higher in the clausal structure. In Government & Binding theory verbmove­ment was motivated by the need of the bare lexical verb to associate with theinflec­tional affixes hosted by the functional heads (Pollock 1989, Belletti 1990). Bycontrast,the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995) claims that all types of movement aretrig­ gered by feature-checking requirements. In this system, items from lexical categories are fully inflected in the lexicon.Thus the verb is inserted into its base position with all its inflectional affixes and associated inflectional features. Functional heads donotcontain any inflectional material; they carry only abstract features, which arecheckedagainst the corresponding features on the lexical items. In order for feature-checkingto take place the lexical item (e.g. the verb) must raise to the relevantfunctionalhead(s).

Semantics in generative grammar

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-185
Author(s):  
Enrico Cipriani
Keyword(s):  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Minimalist Approach

Abstract I provide a critical survey of the role that semantics took in the several models of generative grammar, since the 1950s until the Minimalist Program. I distinguish four different periods. In the first section, I focus on the role of formal semantics in generative grammar until the 1970s. In Section 2 I present the period of linguistic wars, when the role of semantics in linguistic theory became a crucial topic of debate. In Section 3 I focus on the formulation of conditions on transformations and Binding Theory in the 1970s and 1980s, while in the last Section I discuss the role of semantics in the minimalist approach. In this section, I also propose a semantically-based model of generative grammar, which fully endorses minimalism and Chomsky’s later position concerning the primary role of the semantic interface in the Universal Grammar modelization (Strong Minimalist Thesis). In the Discussion, I point out some theoretical problems deriving from Chomsky’s internalist interpretation of model-theoretic semantics.

Verb Second in Medieval Romance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Old French ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Medieval Romance ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Clausal Structure ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Null Argument

This book provides the first book-length study of the controversial subject of Verb Second and related properties in a range of Medieval Romance languages. Both qualitative and quantitative data are examined and analysed from Old French, Occitan, Sicilian, Venetian, Spanish, and Sardinian to assess whether the languages were indeed Verb Second languages. The book argues that unlike most modern Romance varieties, V-to-C movement is a point of continuity across all the medieval varieties, but that there are rich patterns of synchronic and diachronic variation in the medieval period which have not been noted before. These include differences in the syntax–pragmatics mapping, the locus of verb movement, the behaviour of clitic pronouns, the syntax of subject positions, matrix/embedded asymmetries, and the null argument properties of the languages in question. The book outlines a detailed formal cartographic analysis both of both the synchronic patterns attested and of the diachronic evolution of Romance clausal structure.

The Concept of Explanatory Adequacy

2016 ◽  
pp. 96-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Rizzi
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Parametric Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of ◽  
Explanatory Adequacy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

This chapter illustrates the technical notion of ‘explanatory adequacy’ in the context of the other forms of empirical adequacy envisaged in the history of generative grammar: an analysis of a linguistic phenomenon is said to meet ‘explanatory adequacy’ when it comes with a reasonable account of how the phenomenon is acquired by the language learner. It discusses the relevance of arguments from the poverty of the stimulus, which bear on the complexity of the task that every language learner successfully accomplishes, and therefore define critical cases for evaluating the explanatory adequacy of a linguistic analysis. After illustrating the impact that parametric models had on the possibility of achieving explanatory adequacy on a large scale, the chapter addresses the role that explanatory adequacy plays in the context of the Minimalist Program, and the interplay that the concept has with the further explanation ‘beyond explanatory adequacy’ that minimalist analysis seeks.

Minimalisme et variation syntaxique

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-95
Author(s):  
Juvénal Ndayiragije
Keyword(s):  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Internal Focus ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Feature Checking ◽  
Focus Projection ◽  
Formal Features

AbstractThis article argues for a very restrictive theory of feature checking whereby only formal features of functional heads need to be checked for convergence. This theory, which enables us to dispense with most of the economy conditions assumed within the minimalist program (Chomsky 1995), is empirically supported by two syntactically and semantically related constructions in Kirundi: the Subject-Object Reversal and the Transitive Expletive Constructions. On parametric grounds, we argue that such constructions derive from the existence in Kirundi of a TP-internal focus projection whose [+focus] feature must be checked for convergence.

Echo Questions in the Minimalist Program

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Sobin
Keyword(s):  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Question Formation ◽  
Scope Assignment ◽  
Echo Questions

English echo questions present numerous challenges to the analysis of interrogatives, including (a) simple wh-in-situ (You saw who?); (b) apparent Superiority violations (What did who see?); (c) apparent verb movement without wh-movement (Has Mary seen what?); and (d) requisite wide scope only for echo-question-introduced wh-phrases (underlined in these examples—only who in What did who see? is being asked about). Such apparently contrary features may be explained in terms of independently necessary scope assignment mechanisms and a complementizer that subordinates the utterance being echoed and “freezes” its CP structure. No norms of question formation are violated.

‘Virtual conceptual necessity’, feature-dissociation and the Saussurian legacy in generative grammar

2006 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
NOEL BURTON-ROBERTS ◽  
GEOFFREY POOLE
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Architecture ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Interface Property ◽  
Linguistic Sign ◽  
Conceptual Necessity

This paper is a critique of two foundational assumptions of generative work culminating in the Minimalist Program: the assumption that, as a matter of conceptual necessity, language has a ‘double-interface property’ and the related assumption that phonology has a realizational function with respect to syntax-semantics. The issues are broached through a critique of Holmberg's (2000) analysis of Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic. We show that, although empirically motivated, and although based on the double-interface assumption, this analysis is incompatible with that assumption and with the notion of (phonological) realization. Independently of Stylistic Fronting, we argue that the double-interface assumption is a problematic legacy of Saussure's conception of the linguistic sign and that, conceptually, it is neither explanatory nor necessary. The Representational Hypothesis (e.g. Burton-Roberts 2000) develops a Peircian conception of the relation between sound and meaning that breaks with the Saussurian tradition, though in a way consistent with minimalist goals. Other superficially similar approaches (Lexeme–Morpheme Base Morphology, Distributed Morphology, Jackendoff's Parallel Architecture) are discussed; it is argued that they, too, perpetuate aspects of Saussurian thought.

scholarly journals Negation in Languages: A Urhobo Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-443
Author(s):  
Iwuala, Zebulon Chukwudi ◽  
Imu, Famous Oghoghophia
Keyword(s):  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
High Tone ◽  
Orthographic Representation ◽  
Low Tone

This paper examines negation and types of tense negation in Urhobo. It also identifies negation marker(s) and the manner in which these negation marker(s) are used in sentences. Transformational generative grammar theory of analysis was used in the work. The aim of this study is to determine the syntactic characteristics of negation in Urhobo. The study shows that negative construction in the Urhobo language involves the doubling of the last vowel of the last word in sentences; or what may be called the lengthening of the last vowel of the lexical item in the sentence. Also, the low-high tone can do the same function as the lexical or grammatical tone. It was observed that negation is a natural phenomenon that cuts across Urhobo, and that the orthographic representation of the low tone, which is the copying of the final vowel, is written contiguously while other negative markers are written separately. It was also observed that Urhobo operates suffixation. Finally, the study work reveals ejo, je, odie and and oyen as negative markers in Urhobo.

The Syntax of Existential Constructions

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilan Hazout
Keyword(s):  
Combined Effect ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Clausal Structure ◽  
Existential Interpretation ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Existential Constructions ◽  
Long Distance Agreement ◽  
Feature Checking

This article outlines an account of the syntax of existential constructions (e.g., There are [too many problems]) based on a view of the postcopular NPas a predicate. This NPfigures as the predicate in an embedded clausal complement of be with expletivethere as its subject. There consequently moves to the higher Spec, IPposition for Case-theoretic reasons. Existential constructions and existential interpretation are a particular instance of a wider phenomenon involving the use of predicates of various categories with expletive subjects (e.g., It is cold).Long-distance agreement between the main (inflected) verb and the postcopular NPis a combined effect of the relation of subject-predicate agreement holding between the expletive subject (there) and a predicate NPwithin the embedded clausal structure and the relation of specifier-head agreement (feature checking) between the raised expletive and the matrix I/T. This analysis is generalized to other cases of long-distance agreement (e.g., There appeared a man). It is shown that an analysis based on the notionAgree (Chomsky 2000) is empirically inadequate. Well-known restrictions on the distribution of NPs/ DPs in existential constructions follow from the proposed analysis.

Movement and Control

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Hornstein
Keyword(s):  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Control Structures ◽  
Obligatory Control ◽  
And Control

Since the earliest days of generative grammar, control has been distinguished from raising: the latter the product of movement operations, the former the result of construal processes relating a PRO to an antecedent. This article argues that obligatory control structures are also formed by movement. Minimalism makes this approach viable by removing D-Structure as a grammatical level. Implementing the suggestion, however, requires eliminating the last vestiges of D-Structure still extant in Chomsky's (1995) version of the Minimalist Program. In particular, it requires dispensing with the θ-Criterion and adopting the view that θ-roles are featurelike in being able to license movement.

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