15.1866, Review: Syntax: Hendrick (2003)

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-15-1866. Sat Jun 19 2004. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 15.1866, Review: Syntax: Hendrick (2003)

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org):
	Sheila Collberg, U. of Arizona
	Terence Langendoen, U. of Arizona

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomi at linguistlist.org>
 ==========================================================================
What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our Book
Discussion Forum.  We expect discussions to be informal and
interactive; and the author of the book discussed is cordially invited
to join in.

If you are interested in leading a book discussion, look for books
announced on LINGUIST as "available for review." Then contact
Sheila Dooley Collberg at collberg at linguistlist.org.

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Sat, 19 Jun 2004 15:13:31 -0400 (EDT)
From:  Justin Fitzpatrick <jfitzpat at MIT.EDU>
Subject:  Minimalist Syntax

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 19 Jun 2004 15:13:31 -0400 (EDT)
From:  Justin Fitzpatrick <jfitzpat at MIT.EDU>
Subject:  Minimalist Syntax

EDITOR: Hendrick, Randall
TITLE: Minimalist Syntax
PUBLISHER: Blackwell Publishing
YEAR: 2003
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-614.html


Justin M. Fitzpatrick, MIT

SUMMARY

This book consists of five essays on different aspects of current
research in minimalist syntax. All of the essays have a mixed
review/new research character. That is, each attempts to couch
cutting- edge research within a larger perspective, as well as serve
as an introduction to such research for those who are not already
familiar with it. Furthermore, most of the chapters highlight new and
innovative analyses of old problems, dealt with at length in
Government-Binding (GB) theory, using the tools and ideas made
available in minimalism.

Chapter 1, Hornstein's ''On control'', discusses differences between
control and raising, and the prospects that control can be treated as
movement. Fox's ''On logical form'' (chapter 2) discusses fundamental
issues in the treatment of quantificational NPs and presents Fox's own
material on antecedent-contained deletion, extraposition, and the copy
theory of movement. In chapter 3 Lasnik and Hendrick turn to binding
theory and attempt to develop a theory of binding that makes no
crucial reference to S-structure. Thrainsson's chapter 4 deals with
cross- linguistic (including historical) differences with respect to
verb movement. Thrainsson develops a theory that languages may differ
in whether they have a split IP (T and Agr) or an atomic INFL. This
difference is leveraged to explain observed differences across the
Germanic languages. Finally, Chametsky turns to perhaps the most
central of syntactic tools: phrase structure (PS). He provides
detailed discussion and criticism of minimalist thought on PS,
including close commentary on Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2001). Chametsky
concludes that basic notions of PS from the early days of generative
grammar through GB are incompatible with minimalism.

DISCUSSION

Hendrick's introductory remarks provide brief and excellent historical
and theoretic context for the rest of the book. Hendrick focuses on
the minimalist application of a critical ''corrosive'' to our theories
in the search for ''an elegant theory with the minimum of theoretical
primitives and statements consistent with familiar goals of
description and explanation.'' (pp. 2-3) and puts forth the idea that
the shift from GB to minimalism is in part a shift from focus on
representations to focus on rules (derivations), in ''an attempt to
rethink many syntactic phenomena in the hopes of extracting greater
insight by questioning the explanatory role of the representations.''
(p. 2)

This shift can be found clearly in Hornstein's analysis of control as
movement (Chapter 1), where independently motivated NP-movement is
recruited to do the job of representationally-defined construal in the
control module of GB. Hornstein argues that pure base-generation in
theta-position (as in GB, and more generally since Chomsky's
''Aspects'') should be abandoned. In essence, this move erases the
last vestiges of D-structure from the theory and allows for movement
into theta positions. Hornstein provides a short introduction to
control phenomena, focusing on differences between control, raising,
and exceptional case marking (ECM), as well as obligatory (OC)
vs. non- obligatory control (NOC). He then investigates the results of
treating OC as NP-movement, a theoretical option afforded him by the
rejection of pure D-structure theta-role assignment, and NOC as a null
pronoun (little pro). While this is an attractive proposal from the
point of view of theoretical parsimony, Hornstein has his work cut out
for him, as he himself acknowledges. While many of the shared
characteristics of NP-movement and control are quickly explained, the
differences present more of a challenge. Much of the second half of
the chapter is devoted to providing (often new) answers to problems
brought up by critics since Hornstein 1999, 2000, as well as
extensions to backward control and so-called PRO-gate phenomena. Not
all of the challenges are successfully met, however, and the reader
need only glance at the rich literature concerning this debate
(e.g. Culicover & Jackendoff 2001; Hornstein 1999, 2000; Landau 2000,
2003; Martin 1996, Grohmann 2003, inter alia) to see that the question
is far from settled. However, the chapter serves as a good in depth
introduction for those looking to dive into the polemic.

In chapter 2 Danny Fox discusses the semantics of quantificational
noun phrases (QNPs) within truth-functional semantics of a (locally)
compositional nature. Fox's main goal is to pursue a treatment of QNPs
using syntactic movement and in the process incorporate complex data
regarding binding and reconstruction within current conceptions of the
copy theory of movement. Fox quickly establishes two key questions
given the assumption that QNPs denote second-order properties that
take one-place predicates as arguments (sister to the QNP): (i) How
does a QNP find its argument when its sister is not a one-place
predicate?  (ii) How are arguments determined in constructions that
involve multiple quantificational elements so as to account for scopal
ambiguities? (p. 85). He then shows how overt QNP movement effects
scope in the desired way and extends this result to covert quantifier
raising (QR). This chapter provides an excellent introduction to the
syntax/semantics of QNPs, and Fox is careful to note (and cite!)
alternate approaches to the problems at hand. The second half of the
article presents newer work (some along the lines of Fox & Nissenbaum
1999) that attempts to reconcile the copy theory of movement with
antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) and binding theory effects by
treating ACD through rightward extraposition.

Lasnik and Hendrick's chapter on binding theory nicely complements the
first two chapters. They begin with a discussion of binding in
control, raising, and ECM constructions, which are also discussed in
chapter 1, and they go on to discuss reconstruction effects and the
copy theory of movement along the lines introduced by Fox in chapter
2. They then extend the discussion to idiom interpretation and
negative polarity item (NPI) licensing, among other things. Lasnik and
Hendrick are largely concerned with establishing a version of binding
theory that can account for the rich data related to binding without
reference to S-structure or government, two constructs that are
generally rejected in current minimalist work. They propose instead a
''clause-mate'' restriction (Postal 1974) on local anaphors at LF and
make crucial use of Fox's ''determiner replacement'' and ''variable
insertion'' operations on copies. Under this approach different LF
mechanisms can access different occurrences of a syntactic object
(different ''members of a chain'') at LF. The chapter moves rather
quickly and introduces a large amount of data. Therefore, it is best
appreciated if the reader is already steeped in the binding
literature.

Focusing on Germanic languages, Thrainsson addresses cross-linguistic
variation in verb raising in chapter 4. Some work in minimalist syntax
has been marred by illusory ''explanations'' in terms of feature
strength. The argument might go, for example, ''language A has verb
raising because T has `strong features' and language B does not have
verb raising because T's features are `weak'.'' Thrainsson rightly
notes that this just restates the problem. Building on
cross-linguistic (including historical) work, Thrainsson develops a
theory to explain variation in verb raising through the inventory of
inflectional heads in a given language. Specifically, languages with
distinct T(ense) and Agr(eement) heads have verb raising while those
with a single INFL head do not. That is, some languages have a ''split
IP'' (Pollock 1989) and some do not. Thrainsson approaches the
problem, as one should, from the point of view of the learner: how
does a child learn what type of language she is learning? Thrainsson
proposes that verb-adverb order and/or distinct tense and agreement
morphemes will trigger a split-INFL hypothesis, while atomic INFL is
the default. This correctly predicts that ''rich inflection'' and verb
raising are not related biconditionally.

Thrainsson stresses this often-missed fact: If a language has rich
inflection, it has verb raising, but it is not true that if a language
does not have rich inflection, it does not have verb raising. Instead,
there are examples of languages (e.g., dialects of Norwegian, Swedish,
and Finnish, as well as Faroese) that have verb raising (at least in
some clauses) without ''rich'' inflection. Thrainsson also presents
synchronic work with modern Faroese speakers and suggests a historical
sequence through which languages lose inflection and verb raising, but
the former precedes the latter. Faroese appears to be a case in which
both options are still available (though with difference across clause
types): sometimes clauses have split INFL, sometimes they don't. While
Thrainsson's specific proposal regarding why verb movement is
necessary in split INFL but not in atomic INFL may have problems (for
example, if AgrO is allowed in ''atomic'' INFL domains, or if negation
heads its own projection), this proposal is a good example of
responsible theoretical work on cross- linguistic (and
intra-linguistic) variation and change.

Chametsky's chapter on phrase structure (PS) is perhaps the most
polemical in the volume. Chametsky's main goal is to show that the
following syllogism holds:
(i)   If there are lexical projections, then there are functional
      projections.
(ii)  There are no functional projections.
(iii) Therefore, there are no lexical projections.

That is, minimalist syntax cannot be phrase structural. Since it is
usually assumed without argument that phrase structure is basic and
given, this argument has to be made very carefully. Chametsky does
this by closely scrutinizing definitions and discussion in Chomsky
(1995, 2000, 2001), Epstein et al. (1998), and Speas (1990), among
others. In the process, he provides biting (and as far as I can tell
correct) criticism of, e.g., Chomsky's (2001) treatment of adjunction
and c- command. As close exegesis and criticism of work on the formal
foundations of minimalist syntax, the chapter is a must-read. However,
as a difficult argument (both for the writer and the reader), the
reader would have been better served with a less circuitous argument
and more discussion of non-phrase structural alternatives within
minimalism. Chametsky does provide some discussion of alternatives,
including that of Epstein et al. (1998) and Collins & Ura (2001), but,
as Chametsky predicts, many will remain unconvinced. Most, however,
should be shaken a bit from their dogmatic slumber.

This book attempts to provide about a 50/50 split between review of
linguistic analysis within a given chapter's field and treatment of
new leading ideas in the minimalist framework. In this goal it is
largely successful, though readers must be warned that half of a short
article cannot hope to do justice to many decades' worth of research
in generative syntax. Familiarity is assumed throughout with basic
syntactic concepts and GB theory. Therefore, the book would not be
suitable as an introductory text to minimalism unless students had a
good background in GB (and some minimalism!). Still, it would be a
useful tool in an advanced seminar on minimalism or as a stepping
stone to the rich primary literature that is cited throughout.

REFERENCES

Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Step by
step, ed. by Roger Martin, David Michaels, and Juan Uriagereka,
89-156.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Ken Hale: A life in
language, ed. by Michael Kenstowicz, 1-52.

Collins, C. and H. Ura. 2001. Eliminating phrase structure. Ms.,
Cornell & Kwansei Gakuin University.

Culicover, Peter and Ray Jackendoff. 2001. Control is not movement.
Linguistic Inquiry 32:493-511.

Epstein, Samuel David, Erich Groat, Ruriko Kawashima, and Hisatsugu
Kitahara. 1998. A derivational approach to syntactic relations. New
York: Oxford University Press.

Fox, Danny and Jon Nissenbaum. 1999. Extraposition and scope: A case
for overt QR. In the Proceedings of WCCFL 18.

Grohmann, Kleanthes. 2003. Prolific domains: On the anti-locality of
movement dependencies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Hornstein, Norbert. 1999. Movement and Control. Linguistic Inquiry
11:679-708.

Hornstein, Norbert. 2000. Move! A minimalist theory of construal.
Oxford: Blackwell.

Landau, Idan. 2000. Elements of control: Structure and meaning in
infinitival constructions. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Landau, Idan. 2003. Movement out of control. Linguistic Inquiry 34:
471-498.

Martin, Roger. 1996. A minimalist theory of PRO and control. Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Connecticut, Storrs.

Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1989. Verb movement, universal grammar, and the
structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20:365-424.

Postal, Paul. 1974. On raising: One rule of English grammar and its
theoretical implications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Speas, M. 1990. Phrase structure in natural language. Dordrecht:
Kluwer.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Reviewer's research interests: Locality and multi-dominance in syntax,
computational learning theories of reduplication and verbal
inflection, phonological cyclicity, the morpho-syntax of affixation,
tense and aspect at the syntax-semantic interface.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you buy this book please tell the publisher or author
that you saw it reviewed on the LINGUIST list.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-15-1866