16.1929, Review: Syntax/Typology: Cinque & Kayne (2005)

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1929. Wed Jun 22 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1929, Review: Syntax/Typology: Cinque & Kayne (2005)

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Sheila Dooley, U of Arizona  
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: 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 at collberg at linguistlist.org. 

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

1)
Date: 22-Jun-2005
From: Ferid Chekili < feridchekililg at yahoo.fr >
Subject: The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:26:58
From: Ferid Chekili < feridchekililg at yahoo.fr >
Subject: The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax 
 

EDITOR: Cinque, Guglielmo; Kayne, Richard S.
TITLE: The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax
SERIES: Oxford Handbooks
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-171.html


Ferid Chekili, Department of English, Faculte des Lettres, 
University of Manouba, Tunisia.

DESCRIPTION

This volume is an edited collection of twenty-one essays written within 
the framework of the Principles-and-Parameters (P&P)conception of 
universal grammar (UG), and representing one area of syntactic 
investigation known as Comparative Syntax. As explained in the 'Preface', 
comparative syntax, not only "attempts to deepen our understanding of 
the 'parameters' side of the human language faculty"... but 
also..."provides us with a new and highly promising tool with which to 
deepen our understanding of the 'principles' side, the invariant core, of 
the human language faculty".

Chapter 1: Some Notes on Comparative Syntax, with Special Reference to 
English and French, by Richard S. Kayne. 
The author provides an analysis of certain French and English 
constructions based on the "nonpronunciation" of certain elements. For 
Kayne, an important question _to do with the existence of overt elements 
in one language and their absence in another _ is to determine whether 
differences between languages may result from an "irreducible parametric 
property" of a given element or be attributed to independent factors 
(p.37). 

He develops a conception of parametrisation whereby the syntactic 
differences between English and French depend on what can or cannot be 
pronounced. For example, despite the directness of the relation 
between 'Marie a mange peu de sucre' and 'Mary has eaten little sugar', he 
proposes that 'little' is an adjective, whereas 'peu' a noun. Further, he 
shows that 'little' corresponds to 'petit' and 'peu' to 'bit'. The 
differences between the two languages here, depend on what can or cannot 
be pronounced (pp.43-44).

Kayne also outlines the aims and methods of comparative syntax, including 
the requirement that any proper syntactic analysis of a given language 
must take into account other languages (cf. p.50). 

Chapter 2: On the Grammatical basis of Language Development: A Case Study, 
by Luigi Rizzi.  
Rizzi addresses the issue of continuity in language development through 
the comparative study of early and adult grammatical systems, more 
specifically, the parametric approach to comparative syntax. The case 
study which he uses to illustrate this link between parameters and 
development is the analysis of subject drop in early linguistic 
production. 

An important question addressed is the following: why should certain 
parameters -- such as subject drop -- differ from others -e.g. word order 
parameters  -- in not obeying Wexler's (1998) Very Early Parameter Setting 
and in manifesting developmental effects? In fact, he shows that 
the 'early subject drop' phenomenon is a distinct phenomenon from the null 
subject of null subject languages. 

He provides a functional explanation to early subject drop but argues for 
the grammatical status of the phenomenon  -- what he calls "Privilege of 
the Spec of the Root" -- which also appears in certain adult systems. In 
his own words, "language development is grammatically based but 
performance driven". 

He provides a parametric analysis of the "privilege of the root" using the 
approach to the left periphery in Rizzi (1997,2004). He calls the 
parameter 'the truncation parameter' and applies it to the development of 
early subject drop. 

Chapter 3: Comparative Syntax and Language Disorders, by Arhonto Terzi. 
Terzi examines the link between comparative syntax and language disorder 
in terms of the contributions of each to the study of the other. Clitic 
placement in Greek is often used here to illustrate the objectives above. 

Although, he argues, impaired varieties may not contribute much to the 
study of normal language (as they are different from dialects), there is a 
sense in which we can talk of a contribution: "if a certain phenomenon has 
been offered a similar account cross-linguistically for normal language, 
one expects that its impaired ... variant should manifest similar 
behaviour as well across the same languages. If not, the account offered 
on the basis of normal adult language may have to be reexamined". 

Also, impaired language can shed light on certain aspects of development 
(that early language cannot make clear because of the faster pace of 
development it shows)and ultimately, offer insights into the syntactic 
structure of normal language. 

Concerning the other side of the relationship, i.e. the contributions of 
comparative syntax to language disorder, he reports on the discovery, in 
English-type languages, of a "clinical marker" the Extended Optional 
Infinitive (EOI) which is based on the Unique Checking Constraint, and 
shows that it does not apply to Greek. However, there may be a counterpart 
of EOI in Greek (a language without infinitives), namely, 'auxiliary 
omission' in Standard Greek and (in view of the absence of auxiliaries in 
Cypriot Greek) the 'misplacement of pronominal clitics' in the latter 
language. 

Chapter 4: Object Shift, Verb Movement, and Verb reduplication, by Enoch 
Olade Aboh. 
The author argues that object shift and verb movement are obligatory in 
the Gbe languages, motivated by case or strong Extended Projection 
Principle (EPP) features and aspect features respectively. The differences 
between verb-object (VO) and object-verb (OV) can be accounted for in 
terms of the interaction between object shift and verb movement on the one 
hand, and differences in clause structure on the other. Differences 
between monoclausal VO structures and biclausal OV structures, together 
with the attendant movement possibilities, can account for the 
asymmetries. Further, Reduplication is argued to be a last resort 
phenomenon whereby the verb reduplicates in order to license a null 
expletive. 

Chapter 5: Finiteness and Negation in Dravidian, by R. Amritavalli and K. 
A Jayaseelan. 
The Dravidian languages investigated here, include Kannada and Malayalam. 
This paper argues against the universality of 'Finiteness-is-Tense', as 
finiteness in Dravidian is not a property of a tense category. Instead, 
finiteness is argued to be constituted by the presence of a Mood Phrase 
which contains agreement morphology and therefore, explains the 
correlation of agreement with finiteness. 

Comparative syntax is at play in this essay on two levels: first, the 
Dravidian languages are compared with European languages, and second, with 
one another. An example of the former: whereas in Dravidian languages, 
finiteness and tense information are realized in different projections -- 
a Mood Phrase and a Asp Phrase respectively  -- in English-type languages, 
there is a single head Tense realizing the two classes of features: a 
parametric difference in terms of features. An example of the latter: 
starting with the observation that negative clauses in Kannada and 
Malayalam are superficially different, they in fact show  -- on the basis 
of different complements of negation in different Dravidian languages -- 
that the Kannada negative clause is a "principled fact" of the whole 
language family. 

Chapter 6: On Some Descriptive Generalisations in Romance, by Paola 
Beninca and Cecilia Poletto. 
Clitic wh-elements, pronominal clitics, and negative clitics in Romance 
are considered with respect to their theoretical relevance for syntactic 
theory. The aim, as stated by the authors, is to show "how cross-
linguistic variation can direct our research toward a precise path and 
thereby narrow down the number of possible analyses of a given 
phenomenon". 

The paper shows how the development of clitic forms for wh-items, pronouns 
and negation is influenced by certain factors: It is sensitive to both 
semantic factors (a semantically poor element tends to become a clitic) 
and syntactic ones (clitics are sensitive to verb movement). 

The authors use Chomsky's concept of feature movement (Chomsky 1995) by 
proposing that clitic forms are the overt counterpart of the mechanism of 
feature movement at Logical Form (LF): the clitic checks the features of 
an element in a higher projection leaving the complex category behind. 
They also suggest that the development of clitics is tied to the loss of 
movement of the independent category. 

Chapter 7. Classifiers in Four Varieties of Chinese, by Lisa L.-S.Cheng 
and Rint Sybesma.   
The use of classifiers in four varieties of Chinese is considered with the 
aim of accounting for the "distribution and interpretation of nominal 
expressions in these languages" and their variations which are handled by 
means of parameters. Certain form-interpretation correlations between the 
nominal expressions in different varieties are identified. 

It is argued that a functional head (in the nominal domain) performs the 
deictic function. In languages with determiners, this function is 
performed by Determiner (D); in Chinese, by the classifier. Variation 
between the different varieties , in terms of definiteness, is accounted 
for by postulating different strctures and different mechanisms. 

Chapter 8: Morphology and Word Order in "Creolization" and beyond, by 
Michel Degraff. 
Certain VP-related properties in Haitian Creole (HC) (mainly verb and 
object placement) are compared with some of HC's source languages (e.g. 
French and Gbe dialects). 

The question of Creole "Exceptionalism" is also dealt with, with the 
conclusion that, from a Universal Grammar/ mentalist perspective, there is 
no difference, in terms of mental processes, between Creole and non Creole 
languages. Starting with the observation that the major sources of HC have 
certain word order and morphosyntactic properties not found in HC, the 
author argues that this does not necessarily lead to Creole 
Exceptionalism. 

Using what he calls a "verb placement" parameter, he argues that HC is V-
in-situ while French is V-to-I. This parameter is triggered by verbal 
inflectional morphology which is "rich" in certain languages but "poor" in 
others. He also argues that certain VP-related "discrepancies" in Germanic 
and Romance diachrony are as 'significant' as in the diachrony of HC. 
This, he says, weakens any empirical basis for Creole Exceptionalism.

Chapter 9: The Slavic Languages, by Steven Franks. 
A number of issues in Slavic comparative morphosyntax are examined, 
including case and agreement, the genitive of negation, numerals, argument 
structure and voice, clitics, wh-movement, negation, binding, aspect, and 
word order. The aim is to highlight the crosslinguistic variation and to 
sketch proposals for analyzing the phenomena. The belief is that Slavic 
morphosyntactic properties contribute to understanding the cross-
linguistic diversity. 

Chapter 10: The Scandinavian Languages, by Anders Holmberg and Christer 
Platzack. 
After highlighting certain similarities between Scandinavian languages, 
the authors turn to cases of syntactic variation including word order 
variation within the sentence and the noun phrase. 

The variations are accounted for using the proposals of the Minimalist 
Program (MP), in particular, the fact that structural variation results 
from an interaction between Universal (UG) principles and language 
particular lexical properties. 

The authors show that there is more variation between the Scandinavian 
languages within the noun phrase than the sentence. Noun phrase 
syntax "does not group the Scandinavian languages in the same way as 
sentential syntax". 

Chapter 11: Noun Class, Gender, and the Lexicon-Syntax-Morphology 
Interfaces: A Comparative Study of Niger-Congo and Romance Languages, by 
Alain Kihm. 
This essay is concerned with the grammatical function of "class". "Class" 
is argued to be "a particularly apt topic for comparative grammar, 
precisely because of its uncertain status as far as universality is 
concerned". 

Romance class systems include gender which consists in two or three 
genders; Niger Congo languages have noun class or multiple gender systems. 

The aim is to compare these two systems in light of certain empirical 
generalizations (e.g. class exponents of gender systems are suffixes, 
whereas those of noun class systems are suffixes or prefixes; and they are 
always combined (in the two systems) with number morphemes when overt.

The discussion is conducted within the framework of Distributed 
Morphology. 

They propose that the grammatical function of noun classes is distinct 
from classification as such. It is, instead, noun formation. Manjaku and 
Romance share the category "class", i.e. the formation of nouns from 
roots. However, they differ in that the lexical expressions of class are 
meaningful roots in Manjaku but semantically empty functional items in 
Romance.

Chapter 12: Agreement and its Placement in Turkic Nonsubject Relative 
Clauses, by Jaklin Kornfilt. 
The author concentrates on a productive type of head-final relative clause 
(RC) with a nonsubject target. Such RC's are of three types. To account 
for the common as well as different properties of the three types, Kayne's 
(1994) approach is used.

The author shows that a Kaynean derivation is able to account for the 
microparametric variation -the three RC types -- among the Turkic 
languages (e.g. Turkish, Uzbek, Azeri), by proposing, first, to move the 
target NP to [Spec,CP], and second, move the remnant IP to Spec of the 
large DP. Variation between the languages is due to the nature of the 
moving IP: AgrP for type one, and an Agr-less, bare nominal for types two 
and three. In other words, the differences among the three types are 
attributed to 1. a different status of Agr (if it occurs): either as a 
syntactic head (type one) or as a clitic (type three) 2. the moving IP. 

Chapter 13: Qu'est-ce-que (qu)-est-ce-que? A Case Study in Comparative 
Romance Interrogative Syntax, by Nicola Munaro and Jean-Yves Pollock. 
The authors' aim is to show that the distribution and constraints on the 
occurence of wh-est-ce-q questions in Romance follow from UG and the 
invariant left periphery of Romance questions. 

They argue that there is a difference between bare wh-words and complex wh-
phrases in Romance. Bare wh-words check the uninterpretable features of 
two left periphery positions (an existential position and a disjunction 
position); complex wh-phrases only check the second feature. Bare wh-words 
may lexicalize the existential quantifier (e.g. Bellunese), the 
disjunction operator (e.g. French, Italian), or both (e.g. Bellunese). 

It is also argued that French 'Que' is a clitic  -- a wh-clitic. This 
means that 'que' can reach its target position in CP only as a 'free 
rider' to Force Phrase. This explains the ban on 'que' extraction from 
subject position. The facts of Northern Italian dialects can also be 
explained if we posit a null clitic with similar behaviour to 'que'.

Chapter 14: Clitic Placement, Grammaticalization, and Reanalysis in 
Berber, by Jamal Ouhalla. 
He argues that in all Berber varieties, clitics are attracted (to the 
preverbal position) by functional categories, never by lexical categories. 
Apparent variation  -- such as cases where clitics appear after the verb 
in the presence of overt T or C -- is argued to be determined by processes 
of language change, i.e. grammaticalization and reanalysis. 

Clitic placement -following traditional accounts -- is said to be 
determined by factors that are partly syntactic  -- movement to a 
functional category -- and partly prosodic  -- accounting for the ban on 
first-position clitics.

Chapter 15: Clitic Placement in Western Iberian: A Minimalist View, by 
Eduardo P. Raposo and Juan Uriagereka. 
The idea that prosodic factors are involved in clitic placement is  shared 
by both Ouhalla and the present authors who are mostly concerned with 
European Portuguese and Galician. 

They argue that the complex pattern of Western Iberian (WI) clitic 
placement (as opposed to the more homogeneous pattern in Central/Eastern 
Iberian variants) can be accounted for by a morphophonological property of 
the functional category F located in the periphery of the clause. 

The position of Determiner clitics is discussed and accounted for in terms 
of a Phonetic Form approach, together with a distinction between two 
operations, namely, fusion and clitic placement. These clitics must "fuse" 
with an appropriate phonological host; clitic placement is understood as 
a "complex and costly route whereby a determiner clitic reaches its fusion 
host if it cannot find it in its immediate adjacency". 

Finally, a number of questions relevant to the MP are addressed by the 
authors. 

Chapter 16: Comparative Athapaskan Syntax: Arguments and Projections, by 
Keren Rice and Leslie Saxon. 
The authors investigate basic clause structure as revealed by a study of 
pronouns and word order. 

There is evidence, they claim, for the existence of three subject 
positions in these languages (around forty languages spread over North 
America). There are also two positions for direct objects: as the 
complement to the verb, and as the specifier of AgrOP.

In sum, they argue for the functional projections AgrO, NumP, and AgrS, 
basing their arguments on evidence from the properties of idioms and 
incorporation, word order... . 

Chapter 17: Number Agreement Variation in Catalan Dialects, by Gemma 
Rigau. 
The author's concern is primarily with Central Catalan and Ribagorcan 
Catalan. The aim is to show how two main varieties of Catalan can be 
distinguished as a result of an interaction between certain parametric 
properties and UG principles. 

Tense (T)is argued to be the locus of the parametric variation in number 
agreement in existential constructions. In Central Catalan, the phi-
features of T are determined separately, whereas in Ribagorcan Catalan, 
they are detremined simultaneously. Furthermore, the fact that in Central 
Catalan, T and the object D agree even when D does not erase the EPP 
feature in T, constitutes evidence for 'Agree' as an independent operation 
satisfying the EPP. 

Chapter 18: Classifiers and DP Structure in Southeast Asia, by Andrew 
Simpson. 
The essay's focus is on how to account for the cross-linguistic variation 
with respect to the ordering of constituents in Determiner Phrases (DP's). 
The aim is to see whether there are any principles governing the internal 
structure of DP's in these languages (primarily, Thai, Khmer, Burmese, 
Malay, Vietnamese...) or whether the attested patterns are arbitrary.

He adduces some evidence suggesting that numerals and classifiers project 
two distinct positions each associated with a distinct semantic function. 

Whether NP-internal NP-movement is obligatory or not, is argued to account 
for the word order variation. Such movement is argued to be the result of 
the reanalysis of an earlier adverbial form. 

In general, variation is explained in terms of elements being in different 
stages of historical development and reanalysis. The classifier is said to 
contribute to understanding this variation. 

Finally, it is suggested that DP's in these languages, may share the same 
underlying structure. 

Chapter 19: The Celtic Languages, by Maggie Tallerman. 
A number of issues of theoretical and empirical significance are surveyed 
with respect to word order, the position of the subject (whether in VP, or 
IP, or  -- as a result of the Split-Infl hypothesis -- neither VP nor IP), 
V2 Syntax, copular constructions, Agreement. 

She concludes that the syntax of the Celtic languages (Welsh, Breton, 
Irish, Scottish Gaelic, as well as two extinct languages, namely, Cornish 
and Manx) differs significantly. They share some properties with other VSO 
languages. However, their analysis can be integrated with that of "more 
familiar" SVO languages and hence, they may be analyzed with existing 
syntactic tools. 

Chapter 20: Preverbal Elements in Korean and Japanese, by John Whitman. 
The author argues that negation, in V-final languages, may be realized 
either as a specifier or a head: under Kayne's (1994) antisymmetric 
account, the SONegV pattern has neg in Spec (like French 'pas'), whereas 
the SOVNeg pattern has neg in head position; Korean SOVNeg results if the 
negator is a free morpheme, blocking raising to the lexical verb; the 
Japanese SOVNeg pattern results if the negator is a bound morpheme, 
hosting the raised verb. 

The preverbal SONegV pattern is not accounted for under a (symmetric) base-
generated left-branching analysis as the position of the preverbal element 
(before the verb) and its scope are unexpected. This points, he argues, to 
a view of V-Infl order as a derived order. 

Chapter 21: Continental West-Germanic Languages, by Jan-Wouter Zwart. 
This is largely a survey of the literature. The languages of the family 
include High German, Dutch, Frisian, Luxembourgeois, Africaans, ... with 
Dutch used to illustrate these languages' syntax. 

The author shows that, although the clause-final position of the verb may 
suggest that these languages are SOV, certain considerations point to 
these languages being head-initial instead. They will have undergone a 
number of displacement processes such as object movement and verb 
movement, resulting in SOV. 

The syntactic areas which are surveyed include word order, word classes, 
grammatical functions, types of complementation, pronouns, displacements, 
noun phrase structure, negation and coordination and ellipsis.

EVALUATION

All the papers in this volume are of a very high standard. Although most 
papers are not accessible to the general reader and would require some 
knowledge of syntactic theory (in particular of the P&P/MP type), the 
lengthy overviews and summaries that they contain make them fairly easy to 
read. 

Most papers present novel data and offer new insights leading to novel 
analyses; some are mostly reviews of the existing literature (e.g. 
chapters 9 and 19). 

Most papers  -- except a few which are theoretically more neutral -- are 
written within the framework of the P&P theory and make use of major 
developments of the MP including the structure of the left periphery, the 
concept of the phase... . All papers, explicitly or implicitly, accept the 
idea that a comparative approach helps understand UG. 

Among the areas covered in the book figure prominently morphosyntactic 
properties such as clitic placement, and certain concepts that are argued 
to be responsible for surface variation such as prosodic factors, 
grammaticalization, reanalysis... . 

Some problematic areas include:

A huge number of speculations, conjecture, open questions, and 
acknowledged weaknesses of the analyses can be found almost in all the 
papers. This is not necessarily a weakness and can be taken to reflect the 
still developing nature of the field. 

At least one analysis presented here was proposed elsewhere: Rizzi's 
explanation according to which a grammatical option may be used to 
alleviate a performance problem can be found in Chekili (2005) in 
connection with Tunisian Arabic.

Some problems of an empirical nature include, for example, the following: 
in chapter 1, the (very insightful) analysis of French 'peu' -which is 
argued to be a noun -- (pp.39-44) crucially depends on the assumption that 
English nominals  -- unlike their French counterparts -- require a 
determiner. More generally, although the analysis is able to capture the 
distinction between English and French in terms of a single parameter, it 
crucially depends on the assumption that English lacks nonargument 
nominals of the type we find in French. However, as mentioned in Radford 
(1997), such nominals exist in English and can be exemplified by 'John is 
head of department'. In chapter 6, although the analysis is intuitively 
correct in accounting for the difference between French and the dialect of 
S. Anna, it is less so when it comes to explaining the optionality 
attested in Paduan (examples (37)-(38)) as it is not clear why and under 
what conditions the same phonological element 'No' can both be a clitic 
and a nonclitic head. In chapter 14, although Ouhalla is concerned 
primarily with Berber, he advances the possibility that clitics are 
attached to functional (versus lexical) categories in all languages. It is 
not clear how this is the case in certain languages like Arabic (e.g. 
Tunisian Arabic  --TA) where a complementizer such as 'illi'  -- unlike 
his examples in (11a, b) -- is clearly not a lexical category. Hence, it is 
not clear how such cases may be accounted for in terms of 
grammaticalization and reanalysis. Instead of saying that the Berber 
equivalent of 'that' is not a functional category, it could have been 
equally plausible to adopt the 'checking theory' solution according to 
which a (DO) clitic checks its case and phi-features against a light v 
(also a functional category). Although this checking theory solution may 
run into problems elsewhere, the data here (11), as far as I can see, do 
not pose any problems to this solution.

Finally, one noticeable absence in this collection of essays, is Arabic. A 
lot of work within the P&P/ MP framework has recently been conducted on 
the syntax of the Arabic dialects. This would certainly have contributed 
to the book and the field of comparative syntax, more generally. 

REFERENCES

Chekili, F. (2005) Introduction to Generative Syntax.  Publications de la 
Faculté de la Manouba (in conjunction with CPU), Tunis. 

Chomsky, N. (1995) The Minimalist Program. MIT Press.

Kayne, R. (1994) The Antisymmetry of Syntax. MIT Press.

Radford, A. (1997) Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English: A 
Minimalist Approach. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge 
University Press.

Rizzi, L. (1997)The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery, in L. Haegeman, 
(ed.) Elements of Grammar, 281-338. Kluwer. 

Rizzi, L (2004) Locality and Left Periphery, in Belletti (ed.) Structures 
and Beyond. Oxford University Press.    

Wexler, K. (1998) Very Early Parameter Setting and the Unique Checking 
Constraint: A new Explanation of the Optional Infinitive Stage. Lingua 
106:23-79. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

The reviewer is professor of English and Linguistics at the University of 
Manouba, Faculte des Lettres, Tunisia. He is currently employed by Nizwa 
College of Education, Oman. His research interests lie in the areas of 
syntax, morphology, comparative syntax (English, French, Arabic), and 
second language acquisition.





-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1929