16.1764, Review: Syntax: Stepanov, Fanselow & Vogel (2004)

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Subject: 16.1764, Review: Syntax: Stepanov, Fanselow & Vogel (2004)

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1)
Date: 03-Jun-2005
From: Rebecca Shields < rashields at students.wisc.edu >
Subject: Minimality Effects in Syntax 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 21:15:03
From: Rebecca Shields < rashields at students.wisc.edu >
Subject: Minimality Effects in Syntax 
 

EDITORS: Stepanov, Arthur; Fanselow, Gisbert; Vogel, Ralf
TITLE: Minimality Effects in Syntax
SERIES: Studies in Generative Grammar 70
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2996.html


Rebecca Shields, Department of Linguistics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

OVERVIEW

Most of the twelve papers in the volume assume the framework of the 
Minimalist Program, but three make proposals within Optimality Theory 
(OT). Minimality effects are discussed in a range of environments, 
including A-movement (passivization, raising, unaccusatives), head 
movement, Object Shift, remnant movement, Stylistic Fronting, 
topicalization, and wh-movement (single and multiple). The papers 
would be of interest to anyone working on Relativized Minimality, 
intervention effects, and more generally the encoding of locality 
constraints in grammar.

The papers present novel data which are problematic for existing 
theories, and make interesting new connections between previously 
published facts. The focus of much of the volume is empirical, primarily 
apparent counterexamples to Chomsky's (1995) Minimal Link 
Condition (MLC). The authors suggest a variety of remedies: they 
tweak the MLC slightly, suggest separate principles that work together 
with the existing MLC, propose disposing of it and replacing it with 
something different entirely, or reanalyze the offending data so that no 
change to the theory is necessary. Some papers also extend the 
purview of Minimality by suggesting novel analyses of data which 
make use of the MLC or an OT variant. There is also much discussion 
of purely theoretical issues, such as the implications of Minimality 
effects for the derivation/representation debate, and the theoretical 
status of the MLC in the model (is it a primitive, or derivable from more 
principled aspects of grammar?).

SUMMARY OF EACH PAPER

Elena Anagnostopoulou. On clitics, feature movement and double 
object alternations. 

Anagnostopoulou investigates A-movement (passive, unaccusative, 
and raising constructions) in Greek ditransitives. In Greek, 
goal/experiencer arguments may surface as dative PPs, genitive DPs, 
or cliticized genitives (with optional genitive DP doubling). But if the 
sentence involves A-movement of a theme or embedded subject, not 
all of these options remain possible. If the A-movement is biclausal, 
the goal/experiencer must be a cliticized genitive. If the A-movement is 
monoclausal, the goal/experiencer must surface either as a clitic or as 
a PP. Anagnostopoulou proposes an analysis in terms of Chomsky's 
(1995) notions Attract Closest and equidistance. Genitive DPs always 
block attraction by TP of a lower argument, because (following 
Marantz 1993) they are applicative arguments introduced by a light v, 
and are therefore closer to the attracting head than the theme or 
subject. PPs, on the other hand, are generated inside VP with the 
theme, so that the PP and clause-mate theme are equidistant to the 
attracting head. PPs therefore block attraction only of embedded 
subjects, but not clause-mate themes. (Note however that the appeal 
to equidistance is only necessary if it is NOT possible for the theme to 
c-command the PP underlyingly, an assumption which appears to be 
contradicted by the binding facts mentioned in the paper.) 
Anagnostopoulou proposes that clitics appear to be an exception to 
Attract Closest because they involve feature movement without pied-
piping. The features of the goal/experiencer argument may raise first, 
obeying Attract Closest, in which case the goal/experiencer is spelled 
out as a clitic. The theme or embedded subject can subsequently 
raise without inducing a Minimality violation, on the assumption that 
the stranded material does not bear a feature relevant to Attract.

Zelyko Boskovic. PF merger in stylistic fronting and object shift.

Boskovic provides a morphophonological analysis for some well-
known patterns in Scandinavian: the subject gap restriction on Stylistic 
Fronting in Icelandic, and V-topicalization repair in Scandinavian 
Object Shift configurations. The analysis is analogous to the Chomsky 
(1957) analysis of affix hopping. Boskovic proposes that Stylistic 
Fronting targets a functional projection FP above IP headed by a 
phonologically null verbal affix F, which must be adjacent to the verb 
at PF, thus accounting for the null subject requirement. He shows that 
intervening adverbs do prevent the PF merger from taking place -- 
evidence against a late insertion analysis of adverbs. He suggests the 
same analysis for wh-questions in Bulgarian, which show a similar 
restriction. The Object Shift puzzle is from Holmberg (1999), who 
noticed that although Object Shift is not generally permitted when an 
auxiliary undergoes V-2 movement rather than the verb, if the V is 
topicalized Object Shift becomes possible. Boskovic proposes 
extending Bobaljik's (1994) PF affixation analysis of Object Shift to 
these cases as well. On Bobaljik's analysis, Object Shift is 
ungrammatical only if it interferes with the PF adjacency required 
between a verb/verbal participle and the affix in I or head of 
ParticiplePhrase. Boskovic shows that this straightforwardly accounts 
for the V-topicalization repair cases assuming multiple spell-outs. 
Although the shifted object intervenes between the V and its affix in 
the final spell-out, since the V moves to its topic position successive-
cyclically, there will be an intermediate spell-out where it is adjacent to 
its affix and the two can phonologically merge.

Gisbert Fanselow. The MLC and derivational economy.

Fanselow looks at anti-superiority effects in multiple wh-questions in a 
range of languages. He notes that while the MLC appears to hold 
strictly for head-movement, in the case of wh-operator movement 
there are many counterexamples. He proposes that the MLC is not 
able to block movement which affects the semantic scope of 
operators. Specifically, he claims that the MLC only applies when the 
movement involved results in a distinct Logical Form (LF). On this 
view, the MLC is a global economy constraint. Fanselow claims that 
obeying the MLC is not correlated with either nestedness effects or 
wh-islands cross-linguistically, so these effects must therefore be 
produced by some principle other than the MLC. He suggests that 
other possible counterexamples to his proposal stem from the 
interaction of the MLC and various pragmatic constraints.

Susann Fischer. Stylistic Fronting: A contribution to information 
structure.

The topic of this paper is Stylistic Fronting (SF) in Old Catalan. 
Fischer shows that the null-subject requirement is not respected in 
this language, unlike in other languages that show SF (cf. Boskovic 
above). Several previous proposals for SF in Germanic are presented, 
critiqued, and shown to make incorrect predictions for Old Catalan. 
Fischer then presents her own account in terms of the types of 
features involved in motivating the fronting. Specifically, she proposes 
that in Old Catalan SF is motivated by the need to check off a strong V 
feature on SigmaP, a functional category above IP, while in Germanic 
languages the movement is triggered by the Extended Projection 
Principle (EPP) feature on IP. The constituent in SigmaP is interpreted 
as semantically emphasized. Thus, in Old Catalan SF is not simply the 
grammatical reflex of a projection attracting the closest head because 
it needs a specifier; rather, it stems from the speaker's intention to 
express emphasis, and has significance for information structure. 
Fischer also points out that some previously published data call into 
question the Attract Closest account for Icelandic, suggesting that her 
analysis may be extendable to some Germanic languages as well.

Hubert Haider. The superiority conspiracy: Four constraints and a 
processing effect.

Haider takes a cross-linguistic look at multiple wh-questions, and 
shows that there is considerably more variation than is predicted by 
the MLC. Superiority is sometimes respected, but not always; 
furthermore, the contexts where it is respected vary from language to 
language. He argues that the Superiority/MLC effects are in fact an 
epiphenomenon, and the patterns we observe are due to the 
conspiracy of four grammatical constraints, plus a processing 
restriction. The four constraints are: 1) obligatory operator - an in situ 
wh in the specifier of a functional projection must be an operator 
binding a variable, 2) semantic type - the moved wh and the in situ wh 
cannot both range over higher-order types, 3) domain-mapping - 
operators must c-command their semantic domain, and 4) minimal 
binding - an in situ wh-element must be licensed by a c-commanding 
wh-element in a minimal domain. Haider shows how the observed 
variation (he focuses primarily on English, German, and Dutch) follows 
from his constraints plus the head-parameter setting for a given 
language.

John Hale and Géraldine Legendre. Minimal links, remnant movement, 
and (non-) derivational grammar.

This paper takes another look at some previously reported facts about 
German remnant movement. Several researchers have noticed that 
the two movements involved (raising the NP out of the VP, and 
subsequent raising of the VP containing the NP trace) must be of 
different types. So if the NP is moved out of the VP via scrambling, the 
VP remnant can undergo wh-movement or topicalization, but not 
scrambling. Müller (1998) analyzes this as a type of MLC effect, and 
claims that it argues in favor of a derivational view of grammar. Hale 
and Legendre point out that the same effect can be captured 
representationally in terms of link minimization on surface structures. 
They go on to propose just such an account in an OT framework, and 
they show how variation in ranking of their violable constraints can 
account for certain differences between German and Japanese. 

Winfried Lechner. Extending and reducing the MLC.

This paper is primarily concerned with the theoretical status of 
constraints on the operations Move and Merge in the grammar. 
Lechner views the conditions on these two operations as having more 
overlap than is generally assumed. First, he provides a redefinition of 
the MLC which eliminates the need for Chomsky's 1995 explicit Merge 
over Move economy condition. This is achieved essentially by 
widening the domain of Attract to include items in the Numeration as 
well as items already Merged into the tree, so that Merge and Move 
compete directly within the MLC. Lechner shows how his redefinition 
makes some good predictions regarding Case freezing (A-movement 
out of finite clauses) and Superraising. A second proposal in the 
paper is that part of the MLC can be derived from Kayne's 1994 
Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA). Lechner achieves this by 
positing that the LCA imposes an ordering on several sets of nodes 
per derivation: the set of all terminals, as in Kayne's original version, 
and additionally the subset(s) of these nodes that contain a feature 
relevant to a particular type of movement. In such a subset (but 
crucially NOT in the superset), a moved expression and its copy count 
as a single item for the purposes of the ordering algorithm, and any 
distinct item which asymmetrically c-commands only the copy will 
therefore result in a contradiction for the LCA. Lechner further claims 
that the LCA is computed over phases, rather than over entire 
sentences, so that an ordering is required only for nodes within the 
same phase. The phase implementation predicts that although 
movement across a phase-mate intervener is ruled out, movement 
across an intervener in a higher phase should be allowed, contrary to 
fact. Lechner suggests that the latter cases constitute a residue of the 
MLC which is not derivable from the LCA.

Hanjung Lee. Minimality in a lexicalist Optimality Theory.

Lee discusses some previously reported facts about word order 
freezing. In Hindi, although variable word order is in general possible, 
the object may not precede the subject if both bear the same 
morphological case marker. Lee claims that this data is problematic for 
an MLC account, and offers an alternative in an OT Lexical-Functional 
Grammar framework. The data is explained by the interaction of 
violable constituent alignment constraints in the bidirectional model of 
Smolensky (1996). Two optimal candidate sets are computed, from 
the perspectives of production on one hand and comprehension on 
the other, and the overall winning candidate is chosen from the 
intersection of these sets. In this model recoverability from surface 
structures may play a direct role in grammar, if the comprehension 
optimization yields a narrower candidate set than the production 
optimization. Lee discusses further cases where recoverability 
constrains syntax in this way from Chamorro and Tzotzil.

Gereon Müller. Phrase impenetrability and wh-intervention.

Müller proposes abandoning the MLC and replacing it with a PHRASE 
Impenetrability Condition -- a strengthened version of Chomsky's 
(2000) PHASE Impenetrability Condition (PIC). The arguments in favor 
of such an approach are conceptual: Müller's condition is purely 
derivational, while a phase evaluation of the MLC is strongly 
representational; Müller's condition eliminates redundancies in the 
MLC and PIC; and Müller's condition is symmetrical, in that the probe 
must be in the head or specifier of the phrase currently undergoing 
Merge, and the goal must be in the head or specifier of the next 
phrase, while the MLC contains an asymmetry -- the domain of the 
probe is the head and specifier of the phrase undergoing Merge, but 
the domain of the goal is larger: the current phase. Actually, his 
explanation of the Minimality effects also relies crucially on a condition 
Müller calls Phrase Balance, which allows certain requirements of the 
derivation to be satisfied by elements in the Numeration as well as by 
elements already Merged. In this respect his approach is similar to 
Lechner's broadening of the domain of Attract mentioned above. 
Müller further shows how his approach, but not the MLC, can be 
extended to certain cases of wh-intervention by non-c-commanding 
wh-phrases in English and German.

Geoffrey Poole and Noel Burton-Roberts. MLC violations: Implications 
for the syntax/phonology interface.

The topic of this paper is apparent MLC violations in Stylistic Fronting 
in Icelandic and Long Head Movement in Breton. Poole & Burton-
Roberts claim that these types of movement are in some sense 
phonological rather than syntactic phenomena, which explains why 
they are insensitive to the MLC, a constraint on syntactic movement. 
Their analysis leads the authors to support their Representational (as 
opposed to Realizational) theory of the syntax-phonology interface. 
The movement operations in question, although they do not appear to 
be purely syntactic, do not appear to be purely phonological either --- 
for example, they make reference to syntactic category and 
constituency. Poole & Burton-Roberts claim that these phenomena 
can be explained by the "representational conventions" of a given 
language, which determine the mapping between syntactic and 
phonetic representations, and are thus neither strictly syntactic nor 
strictly phonological.

Arthur Stepanov. Ergativity, Case and the Minimal Link Condition.

Stepanov's puzzle is Nominative Case assignment to the absolutive 
argument of transitive verbs in Hindi. Assuming Nominative Case is 
assigned by T, the fact that it can be assigned to the absolutive object 
across an interfering ergative subject appears problematic for the 
MLC. Stepanov argues that Case assignment in this configuration is 
possible because ergative-absolutive verbs in Hindi are actually 
unaccusative, with the ergative argument receiving inherent Case. 
Such NPs, he claims, are merged counter-cyclically, in this case at a 
point in the derivation following the establishment of a structural Case 
dependency between T and the absolutive object (via Agree). At the 
point when the Nominative Case dependency is established, then, the 
MLC is respected. Stepanov gives examples from English raising to 
show that inherently Case marked NPs do not induce Minimality 
effects for structural Case related dependencies in general. 
Additionally, the counter-cyclic merge analysis helps to explain some 
scope freezing facts for ergative subjects as well.

Ralf Vogel. Correspondence in OT syntax and Minimal Link effects.

Vogel provides an OT analysis of Minimality effects in topicalization 
and wh-movement. In his model, violable constraints govern the 
possible correspondences between three levels of representation: 
semantic, syntactic, and phonological. The mappings are evaluated 
bidirectionally: like Lee above, Vogel discusses how his model handles 
the factor of recoverability in word order freezing. Vogel derives the 
differences between English and German (German allows Superiority 
violations in multiple questions, while English does not) by ranking the 
relevant Faithfulness constraints above Markedness in German, with 
English displaying the opposite ranking. Since Superiority violations 
are marked, English will never allow them, even if a violation is 
specified in the input. German, however, will tolerate markedness 
violations in order to remain faithful to the input, thus allowing marked 
Superiority violations to surface.

EVALUATION

Most of the papers are clearly written and well-argued; all of them 
present new and interesting data, analyses, and/or argumentation 
points. Anyone interested in locality effects in syntax will find here new 
puzzles to ponder and new approaches to consider.

A few things I found lacking:

It would have been interesting to see the papers dealing with anti-
Superiority effects in wh-movement compare their proposals with the 
featural movement analysis in Pesetsky (2000). Is there any way to 
distinguish between these proposals?

Also, in presenting wh-movement paradigms that are known to be 
sensitive to D-linking, some authors used wh-words that are 
ambiguous between D-linked and non-D-linked interpretations, such 
as 'who' and 'what.' In order to control for D-linking, it is necessary to 
compare unambiguously D-linked wh-phrases such as 'which person' 
with unambiguously non-D-linked wh-phrases such as 'who the hell,' 
and/or to present informants with explicit contexts. If this factor is not 
controlled for, it makes it difficult to know how to interpret the judgment 
patterns reported.

One other small but noticeable problem is that some papers contain 
an exceedingly large number of typos and grammatical errors, which 
in some cases compromise clarity. Such a nice and expensive 
publication surely deserved better proofreading.

Nevertheless the book is well worth reading. Particularly interesting in 
my view is the variety of environments where Minimality effects show 
up, and the variety of solutions adopted for similar problems across 
environments. This work naturally invites questions of further 
synthesis:

Are the various approaches presented here empirically 
distinguishable, or are they notational variants?

For those approaches which are empirically distinguishable, what is 
the scope of their explanatory power? Where do they overlap, and 
where do they complement each other? Can some be subsumed 
under others, or do we in fact need some or all of them to achieve 
maximum coverage?

For those approaches which are notational variants, can they be 
distinguished given some metric of simplicity or elegance? And do 
these metrics give the same results when applied to Minimality effects 
in various environments, or do some approaches seem better suited 
to some environments than others?

More generally, is Minimality a unified phenomenon, encoded "in one 
spot" in the grammar, or is it encoded redundantly (and perhaps 
somewhat differently) in various components of grammar?

REFERENCES

Bobaljik, Jonathan. 1994. What does adjacency do? MITWPL 22:1-32.

Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.

Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT 
Press.

Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In R. 
Martin, D. Michaels, and J. Uriagereka, eds., Step by step 89-155. 
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Holmberg, Anders. 1999. The true nature of Holmberg's 
generalization. Studia Linguistica 53:1-39.

Kayne, Richard. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: 
MIT Press.

Marantz, Alec. 1993. Implications of asymmetries in double object 
constructions. In S. A. Mchombo, ed., Theoretical aspects of Bantu 
grammar 113-150. Stanford: CSLI.

Müller, Gereon. 1998. Incomplete category fronting: A derivational 
approach to remnant movment in German. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Pesetsky, David. 2000. Phrasal movement and its kin. Cambridge, MA: 
MIT Press.

Smolensky, Paul. 1996. On the comprehension/production dilemma in 
child language. Linguistic Inquiry 27:720-731. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Rebecca Shields is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics at 
the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on 
Relativized Minimality, intervention effects, functional categories, and 
adjuncts.





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