Minimalism (Languages and Linguistics) Research Papers (original) (raw)

This book is about one of the most intriguing features of human communication systems: the fact that words that go together in meaning can occur arbitrarily far away from each other. In the sentence This is technology that most people think about, but rarely consider the implications of, the word 'technology' is interpreted as if it were simultaneously next to the words 'about' and 'of'. This kind of long-distance dependency has been the subject of intense linguistic and psycholinguistic research for the last half century, and offers a unique insight into the nature of grammatical structures and their interaction with cognition. The constructions in which these unbounded dependencies arise are remarkably difficult to model and come with a rather puzzling array of constraints that have often defied characterization or proper explanation. This work provides a detailed survey of these constructions and the factors responsible for their creation and comprehension, describes new experimental evidence that sheds light on the nature of the phenomenon, and suggests new avenues for future research. The volume will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in the fields of morphosyntax, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science.
[https://global.oup.com/academic/product/unbounded-dependency-constructions-9780198785002?lang=en&cc=us]

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- Languages and Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Syntax, Linguistics

The aim of this paper is to analyse the Catalan and Spanish quotative recomplementation (QRC) in terms of pragmatic features encoded by morphosyntax. In QRC constructions, the second complementizer (que2) is used to set the boundaries between a reproduced discourse and the clausal elements that were implicit in the original discourse, which must be reintroduced in the new communicative situation because they are not shared by the interlocutor (e.g. Sp. Están sentados en la mesa --> Ha dicho que1 los invitados #(que2) están sentados en la mesa). QRC is an evidence for the existence of two types of complements for assertive verbs: quotative complements (embedded speech acts with a de dicto interpretation) and reportative complements (speech events that are stated, with a de re interpretation; e.g. Sp. Están sentados en la mesa --> Ha dicho que1 los invitados (#que2) ya están en su sitio). Quotative complements have the same propositional structure as the original sentence and can include some elements such as speech act adverbs —which are oriented to the original speaker (i.e. the matrix clause subject)—, Hanging Topics, or discourse connectors. On the contrary, reportative complements may be a summary of the original discourse and they have not such elements oriented to the original speaker or the previous discourse. Besides, reportative complements allow long-distance movement from the embedded CP to the matrix CP.

This article proposes an analysis of Finnish islands that relies on intervention. The analysis makes the following three assumptions. (1) Underlying wh-interrogatives lies an operator-variable construction defined by two features and their formal counterparties, which enter into a probe-goal relation in narrow syntax. (2) The construction is present in all and only adjoinable phrases but is interpreted semantically only if not head-governed; head-government renders the operator feature inactive and uninterpretable. (3) The operator head contains an EPP diacritic searching for a goal to be displaced to its specifier. This search is restricted by feature intervention which, together with the system of features outlined in (1-2), derives island behavior in Finnish. Data from Finnish and English is discussed. The article will also touch upon several universal constraints on wh-movement, such as CED, Superiority and ECP.

- by Pauli Brattico
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- Syntax, Minimalism (Languages and Linguistics), Finnish Language, Wh-movement

Given a phonetic form (PF) representation π and a logical form (LF) representation λ, the computational system of human language, CHL, maps a numeration to (π, λ). According to Chomsky (1995, 2000), this mapping procedure is subject to an inviolable principle referred to as the Inclusiveness Condition (IC), which precludes features absent in the numeration from entering CHL. However, adopting the derivational formation of a numeration proposed by Stroik (2009a), I argue that the IC is no longer required as an independent principle under the strictly derivational theory of syntax referred to as Survive-minimalism (Stroik (2009b)). On the basis of Survive-minimalist assumptions (Stroik (2009b), Stroik and Putnam (2010)), I also argue that the effects of Chomsky’s (2008) No Tampering Condition are derivative. Consequently, Survive-minimalism offers a simpler, more restrictive theory of CHL than that provided by Chomsky.

- by Minoru Fukuda
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- Syntax, Minimalism, Minimalist Linguistics, Minimalist Syntax

Following (Huggard 2011) Hittite does attest wh-in-situ in that there is no obligatory wh-movement to the specifier of the highest CP projection. However, pace (Huggard 2011), Hittite wh-in situ does not involve wh-phrases in the base-generated position. It is syntactic movement out of vP to a low position within the CP layer. Wh-words merge in the same position as focus (Spec,FocP) and then optionally scramble further on to Spec,ForceP. Relative pronouns, bare existential quantifiers and subordinators merge in Spec,QP and then scramble optionally to Spec,TopP or Spec,ForceP. The feature that wh-words satiate in Spec,FocP is +focus and the feature that relative pronouns satiate in Spec,QP is +quantifier.

Minimalizm terimi yirminci yüzyılın başında politik alanda kullanılmış, ancak 1960’lardan itibaren başta resim ve heykel olmak üzere müzik ve mimarlık gibi sanat alanlarında ve edebiyat (özellikle kısa öykü) alanında bir fenomeni nitelendirmiştir. Soyut dışavurumculuğa tepki olarak ortaya çıkan minimalizm yeni üsluplar getirmiş, genel geçer sanat anlayışına alternatif bir anlayış ortaya koymuştur. Minimalizm hem edebiyatta hem de genel olarak sanatta eksiltme, indirgeme ve kısıtlama teknikleriyle ve damıtma-yoğunlaşma süreçleriyle küçüklük ve sadeliğin sağlanmasını amaçlar. Minimalist eserin başarısı izler kitlede yarattığı etkiye bağlıdır. Bu çalışma minimalizmin ortaya çıkışını, gelişimini, edebi minimalizmi, minimalist eserlerde rastlanan ortak özellikleri kısaca ele almayı, ayrıca edebi minimalizmin önde gelen yazarlarından Ann Beattie’nin “The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation” adlı öyküsünü minimalist açıdan incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Antipassives have different structural and semantic properties and are used under different conditions across languages. They also show a few universal tendencies: for instance, they generally correlate with imperfec-tivity. Both the diversity and the universal tendencies of antipassives have fostered a variety of analyses of this construction type in the formalist and the functional-typological frameworks. In this article, these analyses will be surveyed with a view to establishing their explanatory potential and will be compared with a diachronic-typological account of how antipassives diverge and what they have in common. It will be shown that at least part of this diversity finds a straightforward explanation once the sources of the antipassive are taken into account, and that most of the semantic and distributional universals of antipassives are persistent features of their sources.

In the debate between literalism and contextualism in semantics, Kent Bach’s project is often taken to stand on the latter side of the divide. In this paper I argue that this is a misleading assumption and justify my argument by contrasting both Bach’s assessment of the theoretical eliminability of minimal propositions from natural language semantics with standard minimalist views, and by further contrasting his account of the division of interpretative processes ascribable to the semantics and pragmatics of a language with a parallel analysis carried out by the most radical opponent to semantic minimalism, i.e., by occasionalism. If my analysis proves right, the sum of its conclusions leaves Bach’s proposal in an invisible region of the literalism/contextualism debate.

- by Ana Falcato
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- Philosophy Of Language, Pragmatics, Semantics, Contextualism

In this paper we will discuss the notion of prominence in morphology by reviewing how morphological heads are defined through their prominence at different levels. After outlining the main issues and, specially, the problems posed by heads in morphology, we consider how prominence and headedness are dealt with in two different influential contemporary theories: Minimalism and Construction Morphology. Despite being very different in many respects, the two models agree that there is no need for a structural notion of head, because interpretability is guaranteed by the interplay of features within complex constituents.

Slides explicativos de estruturas de movimento sintático propostas por Richards (1997,2002) em sua tese "What moves where when in which language?" (1997) e livro "Movement in languages: interactions and archtectures" (2002) dentro do... more

- by Rafael Saint-Clair Braga
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- Syntax, Syntactic Theory, Linguistics, Linguistic Theory

As palavras interrogativas t- em Ticuna, geradas na base, não sofrem extração devido à estreita relação que mantêm com o núcleo do verbo leve v0 de uma fase forte. A justificativa para este licenciamento é uma configuração sintática bastante particular: a adjunção a um especificador externo (‘outer specifier’), locus sintático que permite uma “estreita relação entre núcleo e complemento” (cf. Facó Soares 1992, 1999, Rackowski & Richards 2005, em consonância com Chomsky 1999, 2001). Facó Soares (idem) comprovou haver,também, a incompatibilidade do feixe de traços [+ANIMADO] e [+HUMANO] no domínio de [Spec,CP] caso palavras t- sejam movidas para esta configuração, desde que a ordem [OV] seja a estar em questão. Estas características justificam o licenciamento de não movimento de palavras t- para além do estrato vP. Uma vez sendo a não-extração licenciada, contemplam-se as relações de escopo de palavras t- múltiplas na língua que se revelam bastante rígidas, motivando adjunção destas ao especificador de IP. A absorção (adjunção) ao IP é uma característica, então, compartilhada com línguas reconhecidamente de sintaxe encoberta como o japonês e chinês-mandarim padrão. Concernente às palavras t-, estas precisam ser movidas para posições de escopo em Forma Lógica (LF), interface onde os constituintes ocupam universalmente posições de escopo.

- by Jason Zentz
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- Bantu Linguistics, Syntax, Formal syntax, Morphosyntax

Complementizer doubling in the Ibero-Romance languages is a cover term for two distinct phenomena related with embedded clauses. In the first, the second complementizer (que2) is used to set the boundaries between a reproduced discourse and the clausal elements that were implicit in the original discourse, which must be reintroduced in the new communicative situation because they are not shared by the interlocutor. The second, allways in subjunctive clauses, corresponds to a jussive clause in indirect speech, where a prominent element appears on the left periphery between the subordinating particle que1 and the obligatory jussive particle que2'.

- by Francesc González i Planas
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- Languages and Linguistics, Catalan Language, Portuguese, Pragmatics

Статья посвящена конструкциям «аккузатив с причастием» в литовском языке, которые до сих пор не становились объектом строгого синхронного описания в современных синтаксических терминах. Эти конструкции обсуждаются в свете генеративной теории, в рамках которой подобным структурам в других языках были предложены две конкурирующие трактовки: (i) в терминах «подъёма» субъекта зависимой клаузы в позицию прямого объекта главной и (ii) в терминах «исключительного падежного маркирования» этого субъекта, находящегося во вложенной клаузе, матричным предикатом. На основании эмпирических критериев демонстрируется, что ни один из двух основных принятых в порождающей грамматике способов анализа не подходит для литовских конструкций. Вместо этого предлагается альтернативная трактовка, основанная на высказанной в ряде работ последнего времени идее приписывания падежа внутри самой вложенной клаузы.

- by Peter Arkadiev
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- Syntax, Minimalism (Languages and Linguistics), Participles, Lithuanian language

Timothy Osborne argues that phrase structure grammars (PSGs) postulate unnecessarily complex structures, and that Dependency Grammar (DG) is to be preferred on grounds of simplicity (1:1 word-to-node ratio) and empirical adequacy (capturing the results of constituency tests). In this reply, I argue that, while some of Osborne's criticisms of PSGs are justified, there are both empirical and theoretical problems with his major claims. In particular, his version of DG is too restrictive with respect to certain constituency facts (modified nouns, verbal phrases), and what it gains in simplicity qua number of nodes, it loses in requiring a more complex interface between syntax and other linguistic components (phonology, semantics). I argue that Mirror Theory, a framework that is in a sense intermediate between DG and PSGs, answers Osborne's justified criticisms while not suffering from the problems of his version of DG.

In this paper, we point out several conceptual and empirical problems with Chomsky’s (2015) downward inheritance of phasehood. We also propose two hypotheses: (i) the inheritance applies upward so that C can inherit phasehood from T; and... more

In many languages, A'-movement in the syntax is reflected by alternations in the morphology. Categorizing these extraction morphology phenomena on the basis of the morphological alternation involved produces three types, all of which are found in Bantu languages: replacement, deletion, and addition. This paper illustrates each of these types of extraction morphology with Bantu examples before demonstrating how the existence of the third type (addition extraction morphology or wh-agreement) in languages such as Shona, Duala, Lubukusu, and Akɔɔse proves problematic for an account of extraction morphology that relies on the deletion of features. Lahne (2009) proposes that extraction morphology is always less specific than canonical morphology; she implements this intuition using a mechanism called probe impoverishment, whereby a feature on the probe is deleted each time movement occurs. Here, cases of Bantu wh-agreement are shown to be counterexamples to Lahne's Generalization and to be more amenable to traditional analyses in which the additional morphology is the realization of the movement-triggering feature.

- by Jason Zentz
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- Bantu Linguistics, Syntax, Formal syntax, Morphosyntax

In this monograph, I show how backtracking problems with various kinds of movement that necessarily arise in a phase-based approach to syntax can be solved by adopting the concept of a syntactic buffer. Buffers are identified with the values of movement-related features (like [wh], [rel], [top]), which are conceived of as lists of symbols (rather than atomic symbols, as standardly assumed).

- by Gereon Müller
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- Syntax, Minimalism (Languages and Linguistics), Locality, Scrambling

The hub of Dama Diwan is this document containing all links to learn Dama Diwan even from inside. NAMO=center; TUTO=sheet.

Traditional expressivists want to preserve a contrast between the representational use of declarative sentences in descriptive domains and the non-representational use of declarative sentences in other areas of discourse (in particular, normative speech). However, expressivists have good reasons to endorse minimalism about representational notions, and minimalism seems to threaten the existence of such a bifurcation. Thus, there are pressures for expressivists to become global anti-representationalists. In this paper I discuss how to reconstruct in non-representationalist terms the sort of bifurcation traditional expressivists were after. My proposal is that the relevant bifurcation can be articulated by appeal to the contrast between relativistic and non-relativistic assertoric practices. I argue that this contrast, which can be specified without appeal to representational notions, captures the core intuitions behind the expressivist bifurcation (in particular, it captures the anti-realist intuitions motivating many expressivist proposals).

"This poster provides empirical support for the inheritance of non-φ-features by T from C. In the Bantu language Duala (Epée 1975, 1976a,b), A′-movement (focus movement, relativization, or wh-movement) of an element other than the matrix subject requires the presence of an invariant particle no following the highest verb in the clause where the A′-operator takes scope. The analysis presented here demonstrates that no is the morphological reflex on T of a feature associated with an A′-operator that takes scope in the CP domain. This featural link between C and T is straightforwardly derived under feature inheritance (Chomsky 2007, 2008)."

- by Jason Zentz
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- Bantu Linguistics, Syntax, Formal syntax, Morphosyntax

This paper addresses the superficially similar focus constructions in Shona ([sna], Bantu, Zimbabwe) and Kîîtharaka ([thk], Bantu, Kenya). Using a topicalization test from Abels & Muriungi (2008), I argue that Shona has a biclausal cleft construction, while the Kîîtharaka construction is monoclausal. This asymmetry has consequences for the availability of the "intermediate" strategy for wh-question formation (Muriungi 2003).

- by Jason Zentz
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- Bantu Linguistics, Syntax, Formal syntax, Morphosyntax

This research aims to study and to describe syntactically the preposition deletion in the prepositional Phrases in Modern Persian, based on Minimalism Syntax. The most fundamental axis of the research are to scrutinize the positions of preposition deletion, reasons for preposition deletion, and grammaticality of the sentences with deleted prepositions. The results show that the presence of the prepositions in Persian is dependent on the type of verb (valency/Transitivity), the relationships between the verb and it’s arguments, the grammatical roles and some semantic features, and in some cases can be optional. So the preposition deletion in some positions doesn’t make the sentence ungrammatical. Some of these positions and cases are as follows: 1- incorporation operation, 2- indirect object position, 3- Ellipsis due to previous repetition. 4- phrasal verbs, 5- complex prepositions, and 6- some prepositional phrases.

- by Ava Imani
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- Formal syntax, Minimalism (Languages and Linguistics)

This paper addresses partial wh-movement in Shona ([sna], Bantu, Zimbabwe), which is sensitive to islands below but not above the pronunciation site of the wh-word. I argue for a composite derivation of this phenomenon: the wh-word moves overtly to its pronunciation site at an intermediate clause boundary, where it is unselectively bound by a null operator in the scopal position. Thus, Shona partial wh-movement can be reduced to a hybrid of full wh-movement and wh-in-situ. This composite derivation has been predicted to be possible (Sabel 2000, Abels 2012), but clear empirical support for it has been lacking until now.

- by Jason Zentz
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- Bantu Linguistics, Syntax, Formal syntax, Morphosyntax
- by J. Joseph Perry
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- Vowel harmony, Minimalism (Languages and Linguistics)

The following paper is based on the observation of two related phenomena in Spanish. First, when two personal pronouns acting as prepositional objects are coordinated, they are usually constructed by repeating the preposition before each member of the coordination. Secondly, when this does not happen, the second member of the coor- dination does not appear in oblique case (which would be expected to happen through government), but it appears in nominative case. This can be clearly appreciated in the coordination of pronouns that dis- play morphological case. The purpose of this paper is to explain these phenomena within the Minimalist Program. The conclusions suggest that the irregular case of the second member of the coordination can be explained by Johannessenn’s structure for coordination (1996) and default case valuation principle (2008), while the duplication of the preposition can be accounted for through reasons of economy.

In Romeu (2014a) and (2015) I presented a model in which grammatical categories are considered to be only theoretical labels that gather lexical items that lexicalize similar parts of the syntactico-semantic structure of languages. In those works I give evidence based on prepositions.
In this work, I show that not only this model can be applied to prepositions but also to other categories and phenomena. By these means I present different ways to explain controversial questions in the analysis of languages. I show that this model allows us to address and explain, among other questions, the differences between prepositions and particles, the real nature of stranding, why only certain languages have resultatives, the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive adjectives, what hides behind the apparently redundant nature of agreement, etc.

- by Gerhard Preyer
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- Philosophy, Communication, Languages and Linguistics, Pragmatics

- by Rafael Saint-Clair Braga
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- Indigenous Languages, Formal syntax, Syntactic Theory, Linguistics

This paper focuses on a decades-long debate concerning the modal status of the progressive and defends the thesis that the debate, though in a certain sense localized, actually gives us reason to abandon an approach to explanation within linguistics and philosophy that is currently in ascendancy; it presents us with a crack in the foundation. In particular, I argue that while some progressives give rise to substantive modal interpretations—namely, those that pattern with ‘Mary is crossing the Atlantic,’ which is associated with an arrival across—others do not—namely, those that pattern with ‘Mary is swimming,’ which isn’t associated with an outcome. Once these patterns are in view, the principal difficulty in accounting for them is immediately apparent: if we assume that progressive contributes a substantive modal condition, we fail to account for half of the pattern and if we assume that it doesn’t, we fail to account for the other half. Since both parties to this debate assume that systematically available modal interpretations are to be explained in terms of modal meanings and their absence in terms of the absence of modal meanings, neither is in a position to account for these interpretations, explaining, in my view, the tendency to treat all progressives on the model of either ‘crossing’- or ‘swimming’-progressives. But though this approach to explanation is entrenched, it isn’t the only one. This paper is an attempt to motivate an alternative and, specifically, to conceptualize the relationship between interpretation and form in a way that makes space for the possibility that these modal interpretations are not to be explained in terms of modal meanings.

- by Ashley Atkins
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- Psychology, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy Of Language, Semantics

Minimalist syntax triggers its computations through uninterpretable features on functional heads. Recent works however question this primary role given to the lexicon and its formatives. Adopting an anti-feature perspective, I assay a feature-free syntax where one dispenses with the operation Agree. Instead, agreement is taken as N-copying from a D(P) to a v/T(P), effecting near-symmetric structures. Languages realize N-copying on v and T differently – via partial/gender and complete/person morphology respectively. I suggest, drawing on cross-linguistic data, that gender and person are not syntactic primitives. Gender, animacy, social-prominence, etc. are morphological manifestations of N-copying on v – the mechanism underlying the creation of a neo-Davidsonian event argument. Similarly, person, time and location are some of the language-particular instantiations of N-copying on T – generating relations between event structure participants and utterance structure. In the end, I also discuss the implications that the feature-free approach has for Case.

Building upon work by Idan Landau (1999), this paper develops an analysis of the Possessor Dative Construction (PDC) of Modern Hebrew as a raising phenomenon. An analysis is proposed in terms of local intra-derivational optimization (Heck and Müller, 2007), borrowing concepts from diverse work in recent years: Stroik (2009) (Repel-based movement), Caha (2009) (Case as a hierarchical functional sequence in syntax), and Reinhart (2003) (Thematic Roles as composed of primitive binary features). Such an approach improves upon a purely Minimalistic one by providing an account for the generation of a possessor carrying Dative case, deriving asymmetries in island effects, avoiding a look-ahead problem, and suggesting a simpler account for the diachronic change from earlier forms of Hebrew.

- by Michael H Sappir
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- Syntax, Linguistics, Optimality Theory, Minimalism (Languages and Linguistics)

One of the most compelling images of modern science is its apparent ability to unearth the ‘real properties of matter’ from below the chaos encountered in the ‘world of ordinary experiences’ (Chomsky 1991). The image supports a common conception of science – sometimes called the ‘modernist perspective’ – that views science as a harbinger of truth: the realist position. In contrast, there is a minority, anarchist view in the philosophy of science which says that scientific theories necessarily fail to describe the world. In its extreme form, held notably by Nancy Cartright (1983), this view says that scientific theories are lies: the anti-realist position. In this paper, I attempt a reconciliation of the contrasting views without submitting either to a realist or an anti-realist position on science. In effect, I would be suggesting that the supposed opposition between realism and anti-realism need not be substantive.

Although sentences unfold sequentially, one word at a time, most linguistic theories propose that their underlying syntactic structure involves a tree of nested phrases rather than a linear sequence of words. Whether and how the brain builds such structures, however, remains largely unknown. Here, we used human intracranial recordings and visual word-byword presentation of sentences and word lists to investigate how left-hemispheric brain activity varies during the formation of phrase structures. In a broad set of language-related areas, comprising multiple superior temporal and inferior frontal sites, high-gamma power increased with each successive word in a sentence but decreased suddenly whenever words could be merged into a phrase. Regression analyses showed that each additional word or multiword phrase contributed a similar amount of additional brain activity, providing evidence for a merge operation that applies equally to linguistic objects of arbitrary complexity. More superficial models of language, based solely on sequential transition probability over lexical and syntactic categories, only captured activity in the posterior middle temporal gyrus. Formal model comparison indicated that the model of multiword phrase construction provided a better fit than probability-based models at most sites in superior temporal and inferior frontal cortices. Activity in those regions was consistent with a neural implementation of a bottom-up or left-corner parser of the incoming language stream. Our results provide initial intracranial evidence for the neurophysiological reality of the merge operation postulated by linguists and suggest that the brain compresses syntactically well-formed sequences of words into a hierarchy of nested phrases. intracranial | merge | constituent | neurolinguistics | open nodes

In this presentation, we would like to focus on the often-used term (efficient/minimal) search that stands out in the current minimalist literature but avails a coherent formalization. We will try to 'reap the fruits' that the science of Artificial Intelligence [AI] has to offer in defining the notion search and problem/search space and see how far computer science can get us when it comes to complex computational architectures. As we will see, it turns out that we already have at our disposal a very articulated

Many languages exhibit morphological reflexes of syntactic movement. Within Bantu, there are at least three types of this extraction morphology. In “anti-agreement,” extraction of a class 1 subject blocks canonical subject/verb agreement;... more

- by Jason Zentz
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- Bantu Linguistics, Syntax, Formal syntax, Morphosyntax