The Antisymmetry of Syntax
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Contents Series Foreword xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii Chapter 1 Introduction 3 1.1 Introduction 3 1.2 Proposal 5 Chapter 2 Deriving XBar lhory 7 PART 11 13 Chapter 3 Adjunction 15 3.1 Segments and Categories 15 3.2 Adjunction to a Head 17 3.3 Multiple Adjunctions: Clitics 19 3.4 Multiple Adjunctions: Nonheads 21 3.5 Specifiers 22 ... Vlll Contents Contents 3.6 Verb-Second Effects 27 Chapter 6 3.7 Adjunction of a Head to a Nonhead 30 Coordination 57 6.1 More on Coordination 57 Chapter 4 6.2 Coordination of Heads, Wordorder 33 4.1 The specifier-complement including Clitics 59 Asymmetry 33 6.3 Coordination with With 63 4.2 Specifier-Head-Complement as a Universal Order 35 6.4 Right Node Raising 67 4.3 Time and the Universal Chapter 7 -- Specifier-Head-Complement Order Complementation 69 7.1 Multiple Complements and 36 Adjuncts 69 4.4. Linear Order and Adjunction to 7.2 Heavy NP Shift 71 Heads 38 7.3 Right-Dislocations 78 4.5 Linear Order and Structure below the Word Level 38 Relatives and Posseshes 85 8.1 Postnominal Possessives in 4.6 The Adjunction Site of Clitics English 85 42 8.2 Relative Clauses in English 86 Chapter 5 Fortherconsequences 47 5.1 There Is No Directionality 8.3 N-Final Relative Clauses 92 Parameter 47 8.4 Reduced Relatives and 5.2 The LCA Applies to All Syntactic Representations 48 Adjectives 97 8.5 More on Possessives 101 I 5.3 Agreement in Adpositional Phrases 49 1 8.6 More on French De 105 b 5.4 Head Movement 50 8.7 Nonrestrictive Relatives 1 10 5.5 Final Complementizers and Agglutination 52 ... Vlll Contents Contents 3.6 Verb-Second Effects 27 Chapter 6 3.7 Adjunction of a Head to a Nonhead 30 Coordination 57 6.1 More on Coordination 57 Chapter 4 6.2 Coordination of Heads, Wordorder 33 4.1 The specifier-complement including Clitics 59 Asymmetry 33 6.3 Coordination with With 63 4.2 Specifier-Head-Complement as a Universal Order 35 6.4 Right Node Raising 67 4.3 Time and the Universal Chapter 7 -- Specifier-Head-Complement Order Complementation 69 7.1 Multiple Complements and 36 Adjuncts 69 4.4. Linear Order and Adjunction to 7.2 Heavy NP Shift 71 Heads 38 7.3 Right-Dislocations 78 4.5 Linear Order and Structure below the Word Level 38 Relatives and Posseshes 85 8.1 Postnominal Possessives in 4.6 The Adjunction Site of Clitics English 85 42 8.2 Relative Clauses in English 86 Chapter 5 Fortherconsequences 47 5.1 There Is No Directionality 8.3 N-Final Relative Clauses 92 Parameter 47 8.4 Reduced Relatives and 5.2 The LCA Applies to All Syntactic Representations 48 Adjectives 97 8.5 More on Possessives 101 I 5.3 Agreement in Adpositional Phrases 49 1 8.6 More on French De 105 b 5.4 Head Movement 50 8.7 Nonrestrictive Relatives 1 10 5.5 Final Complementizers and Agglutination 52 x Contents * Chapter 9 Series ore word Extrapasition 117 9.1 Relative Clause Extraposition 117 9.2 Result Clauses and Comparatives 126 PART IV 129 Chapter 10 Conclusion 131 Notes 133 We are pleased to present this monograph as the twenty-fifth in the series References 171 LinguMc Inquiry Monographs. These monographs will present new and original research beyond the scope of the article, and we hope they will Index 187 benefit our &Id by bringing to it perspectives that will stimulate further research and insight. Originally published in limited edition, the Linguistic Inquiry Mono- graph series is now available on a much wider scale. This change is due to the great interest engendered by the series and the needs of a growing readership. The editors wish to thank the readers for their support and welcome suggestions about future directions the series might take. Samuel Jay Keyser for the Editorial Board x Contents * Chapter 9 Series ore word Extrapasition 117 9.1 Relative Clause Extraposition 117 9.2 Result Clauses and Comparatives 126 PART IV 129 Chapter 10 Conclusion 131 Notes 133 We are pleased to present this monograph as the twenty-fifth in the series References 171 LinguMc Inquiry Monographs. These monographs will present new and original research beyond the scope of the article, and we hope they will Index 187 benefit our &Id by bringing to it perspectives that will stimulate further research and insight. Originally published in limited edition, the Linguistic Inquiry Mono- graph series is now available on a much wider scale. This change is due to the great interest engendered by the series and the needs of a growing readership. The editors wish to thank the readers for their support and welcome suggestions about future directions the series might take. Samuel Jay Keyser for the Editorial Board Preface It is difficult to attain a restrictive theory of syntax. One way of making progress toward that goal is to restrict the space of available syntactic representations, for example, by imposing a binary branching require- ment, as I suggested in earlier work. The present monograph proposes further severe limitations on the range of syntactic representations acces- sible to the human language faculty. The primary locus of inquiry is the relation between hierarchical struc- ture and linear order. It is standardly assumed that that relation is a flexible one, that is, that linear order can be associated with hierarchical structure quite freely. A head (H) and its complement (C) can be asso- ciated in some languages with the order H-C, in others with the order C-H. There may also be languages in which the order varies depending on the category of the head, for example, H-C when H is N, but C-H when H is V. Furthermore, adjunctions can be either to the left or to the right, again depending sometimes on the particular language, sometimes on the particular construction within a given language. I will argue in what follows that this picture of the human language faculty is incorrect and that the human language faculty is in fact rigidly inflexible when it comes to the relation between hierarchical structure and linear order. Heads must always precede their associated complement position. Adjunctions must always be to the left, never to the right. That is true of adjunctions to phrases and it is true of adjunctions to heads. This inflexibility extends to specifiers, too, which I argue to be an in- stance of adjunction. Hence, specifier positions must invariably appear to the left of their associated head, never to the right. The implications of this new picture of the human language faculty are widespread. For languages like English, right adjunction has standardly been assumed in the characterization of various constructions. Every one xiv Preface xv Preface of these constructions must be rethought in a way compatible with the Consider now a typical SOV sentence in Japanese. The subject must unavailability of right adjunction. The range is substantial: right disloca- occupy some specifier position. That specifier position is the specifier posi- tion, right node raising, relative clause extraposition, comparative and tion of some head Yo. However, the complement of Yo cannot have result clause extraposition, heavy NP shift, coordination, multiple com- moved into its spederpsition, sincefhat is iilled by the subject, by plements and multiple adjuncts (here the work of Richard Larson has assumpti&. Therefore2? is ndtfinai in its phrase. been extremely important), possessives like a friend of John's, partitives, Strictly speaking, this>onclusion is not necessarily valid for Yo. Per- and also relative clauses, which must now be reanalyzed in the spirit of the haps the complement of Yo has moved into the specifier position of a raising/promotion analysis that dates back to the early seventies. different head Z0 higher than Yo. But then the complement of Z0 remains For languages like Japanese, complement positions can no longer be to the right of ZO,in which case Z0 is not hal. One could pursue this taken to be to the left of their head. The fact that complements do precede further, but given the finiteness of syntactic representations, the conclu- their associated.head must be reinterpreted as indicating that in Japanese sion will clearly be that in every representation, at least one head must be complements necessarily appear in specifier/adjoined positions that are initial, in the sense that its complement must have remained in situ. hierarchically higher than the position of the head. A direct object in Thus, Japanese cannot be uniformly head-final, although it could be Japanese will asymmetrically c-command its verbal head, the object of a that all its visible heads are head-final. (Iam actually led below to ques- postposition will asymmetrically c-command that postposition, and the tion even this.) Since by this reasoning no language can be uniformly IP complement of a complementizer will asymmetrically ocommand that head-final, the conclusion must be that mixed headedness is by far more complementizer. common than standard typological descriptions would lead one to be- It is legitimate and necessary to ask wby the human language faculty lieve. (Note that in this new sense of headfinal English is head-final in displays the particular linear ordering that it does. Why do heads always certain constructions, too-for example, those involving preposition precede complements and why do specifiers and adjoined phrases always stranding.) From this perspective, the fact that many languages (e.g., precede heads? I provide a partial answer to this question, starting from Dutch, Hungarian) are visibly of mixed headedness is to be expected.