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Research in early generative syntax was dominated by problems concerning the right ordering of tr... more Research in early generative syntax was dominated by problems concerning the right ordering of transformations and their applicability to intermediate representations. However, a major bifurcation triggered by the publication of Chomsky’s Lectures on Government and Binding changed the course of history, and all subsequent advances in generative syntax, including the latest Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995), were motivated by a need to reduce the number of operations and mechanisms required to derive surface representations. The recent evolution of mainstream phonology, the Optimality Theoretic framework (Prince & Smolensky 1993) to be precise, shows a drastic reduction, if not elimination, of representations in favor of a far richer computational system. The theory is built around hierarchically ranked (universal and language specific) constraints that are all violable in principle; input forms are freely generated and then evaluated in the constraint chamber. Although the number ...
Ohala (1992) presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ... more Ohala (1992) presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ideas) for the syllabification of segmental strings. He then speculated that “syllable chunking may be done for the sake of synchronizing suprasegmental and segmental events or to accommodate neuromotor constraints”. This paper argues that branching structures are not necessary for the expression of segmental groupings. Evidence is drawn from the analysis of the consonantal patterning of French and Fongbe, two languages which exhibit Obstruent-Liquid (OL) consonant sequences but which apparently assign them to different structures. Until now, such a difference in syllabification of OL
Abstract: A central concern of syntactic theory has long been to explain and predict the distribu... more Abstract: A central concern of syntactic theory has long been to explain and predict the distribution of nominal expressions, henceforth D (eterminer) P (hrases), and their involvement in morphosyntactic relations. Where can they occur? When can they move, ...
Linguistic Inquiry, 2012
Hornstein (1999) put forward two thought-provoking ideas that generated a stimulating debate on c... more Hornstein (1999) put forward two thought-provoking ideas that generated a stimulating debate on control: (a) A-movement out of CP complements of control verbs is a design feature of Universal Grammar as first suggested by Kuno (1976), and (b) obligatory control (OC) is an instance of A-movement. This article presents new evidence from Kirundi (Bantu) that supports (a) but defies (b),
Linguistic Inquiry, 1999
This article argues for a restrictive asymmetric checking theory according to which only formal f... more This article argues for a restrictive asymmetric checking theory according to which only formal features of functional heads need to be checked for convergence. This theory enables us to dispense with several economy conditions assumed within Chomsky's (1995) checking theory: the Equidistance Condition, Last Resort (Greed), the multiple-Spec hypothesis, and the assumed null cost of Merge as a feature-checking operation.
Linguistic Inquiry, 2000
One standard assumption of the Minimalist Program is that formal, (grammatical) features are the ... more One standard assumption of the Minimalist Program is that formal, (grammatical) features are the only features that trigger the dislocation property of CHL. On the basis of two syntactically related properties of Fóngbé nonfinite clauses-object shift and verb doubling-I argue that pure phonological features can be overtly attracted. Three consequences follow: (a) the operation Attract F cannot be reduced to,
presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ideas) for th... more presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ideas) for the syllabification of segmental strings. He then speculated that "syllable chunking may be done for the sake of synchronizing suprasegmental and segmental events or to accommodate neuromotor constraints". This paper argues that branching structures are not necessary for the expression of segmental groupings. Evidence is drawn from the analysis of the consonantal patterning of French and Fongbe, two languages which exhibit Obstruent-Liquid (OL) consonant sequences but which apparently assign them to different structures. Until now, such a difference in syllabification of OL consonants has to be stipulated Levin 1985; Blevin 1995). This research suggests that the difference in syllabification is derivable from the acoustic modulations of segmental strings and the prosodic properties of the language. Ultimately, we are aiming at a minimalist approach to syllabification which appeals to neither the sonority hierarchy nor to branching syllabic constituents.
Research in early generative syntax was dominated by problems concerning the right ordering of tr... more Research in early generative syntax was dominated by problems concerning the right ordering of transformations and their applicability to intermediate representations. However, a major bifurcation triggered by the publication of Chomsky’s Lectures on Government and Binding changed the course of history, and all subsequent advances in generative syntax, including the latest Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995), were motivated by a need to reduce the number of operations and mechanisms required to derive surface representations. The recent evolution of mainstream phonology, the Optimality Theoretic framework (Prince & Smolensky 1993) to be precise, shows a drastic reduction, if not elimination, of representations in favor of a far richer computational system. The theory is built around hierarchically ranked (universal and language specific) constraints that are all violable in principle; input forms are freely generated and then evaluated in the constraint chamber. Although the number ...
Ohala (1992) presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ... more Ohala (1992) presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ideas) for the syllabification of segmental strings. He then speculated that “syllable chunking may be done for the sake of synchronizing suprasegmental and segmental events or to accommodate neuromotor constraints”. This paper argues that branching structures are not necessary for the expression of segmental groupings. Evidence is drawn from the analysis of the consonantal patterning of French and Fongbe, two languages which exhibit Obstruent-Liquid (OL) consonant sequences but which apparently assign them to different structures. Until now, such a difference in syllabification of OL
Abstract: A central concern of syntactic theory has long been to explain and predict the distribu... more Abstract: A central concern of syntactic theory has long been to explain and predict the distribution of nominal expressions, henceforth D (eterminer) P (hrases), and their involvement in morphosyntactic relations. Where can they occur? When can they move, ...
Linguistic Inquiry, 2012
Hornstein (1999) put forward two thought-provoking ideas that generated a stimulating debate on c... more Hornstein (1999) put forward two thought-provoking ideas that generated a stimulating debate on control: (a) A-movement out of CP complements of control verbs is a design feature of Universal Grammar as first suggested by Kuno (1976), and (b) obligatory control (OC) is an instance of A-movement. This article presents new evidence from Kirundi (Bantu) that supports (a) but defies (b),
Linguistic Inquiry, 1999
This article argues for a restrictive asymmetric checking theory according to which only formal f... more This article argues for a restrictive asymmetric checking theory according to which only formal features of functional heads need to be checked for convergence. This theory enables us to dispense with several economy conditions assumed within Chomsky's (1995) checking theory: the Equidistance Condition, Last Resort (Greed), the multiple-Spec hypothesis, and the assumed null cost of Merge as a feature-checking operation.
Linguistic Inquiry, 2000
One standard assumption of the Minimalist Program is that formal, (grammatical) features are the ... more One standard assumption of the Minimalist Program is that formal, (grammatical) features are the only features that trigger the dislocation property of CHL. On the basis of two syntactically related properties of Fóngbé nonfinite clauses-object shift and verb doubling-I argue that pure phonological features can be overtly attracted. Three consequences follow: (a) the operation Attract F cannot be reduced to,
presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ideas) for th... more presents compelling arguments against the use of the sonority hierarchy (or similar ideas) for the syllabification of segmental strings. He then speculated that "syllable chunking may be done for the sake of synchronizing suprasegmental and segmental events or to accommodate neuromotor constraints". This paper argues that branching structures are not necessary for the expression of segmental groupings. Evidence is drawn from the analysis of the consonantal patterning of French and Fongbe, two languages which exhibit Obstruent-Liquid (OL) consonant sequences but which apparently assign them to different structures. Until now, such a difference in syllabification of OL consonants has to be stipulated Levin 1985; Blevin 1995). This research suggests that the difference in syllabification is derivable from the acoustic modulations of segmental strings and the prosodic properties of the language. Ultimately, we are aiming at a minimalist approach to syllabification which appeals to neither the sonority hierarchy nor to branching syllabic constituents.