23.5104, Review: Syntax: Di Sciullo & Hill (2010)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-5104. Thu Dec 06 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.5104, Review: Syntax: Di Sciullo & Hill (2010)

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Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:51:26
From: Lengji Danjuma [ldanjuma.danjuma at gmail.com]
Subject: Edges, Heads, and Projections

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/21/21-2947.html

Editor: Anna Maria  Di Sciullo
Editor: Virginia  Hill
Title: Edges, Heads, and Projections
Subtitle: Interface properties
Series Title: Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today   156
Publisher: John Benjamins
Year: 2010

Reviewer: Lengji Nudiya Danjuma, University of Jos

SUMMARY 

This volume is a selected collection of papers from the conference on
Interface Legibility at the Edge, held in 2009 in Bucharest. The volume
focuses on how the syntax of edges, heads, and projections affects development
in minimalist inquiries, with specific attention to the interaction of these
syntactic properties at the interface level of the conceptual-intentional
system. Underlying the notion of edge, head, and projection is the
minimalist-theoretic principle of ‘derivation by phase’, which holds that
units of computation are derived by operations of grammar and transferred to
interfaces for interpretation. The basic hypothesis pursued in this volume
assumes that the asymmetric relation of a specifier, a head, and a complement
play an important role, not only in grammar, but also in syntax, morphology,
and phonology. This assumption raises the following questions: What is the
categorical nature of phases?; Are phases (i.e. strong phases) only CPs and
*vPs or DPs?  Are other categories  also syntactic phases? What are the
properties of the functional fields within CPs?; What is the border of narrow
syntax?; Does narrow syntax expand projections up to the CP or are projections
derived in the CP-field only?

The volume is divided into two parts. Part One is a collection of five papers
on edges while part two is a collection of five papers on heads and
projections.

The first paper of part one is ‘Why edges are needed?’, by Cedric Boeckx. In
this paper, Boeckx presents three different notions of edges as assumed in the
Minimalist Program. The first notion sees the edge as the structure of the
left-periphery of syntactic domains, i.e., the domain of the clause
responsible for peripheral-feature checking and discourse-oriented
interpretive effects. The second notion is given as a position from which a
constituent may be displaced, i.e., landing-sites for extraction in phase
derivations. The third notion is given within the context of phases also,
where edges are considered to be features, i.e., edges are properties of
lexical items which permit operation merge to take place in the derivation.
Boeckx concludes that a unified syntax-semantics justification for edges is
part of the grammar. This assumption argues that Agree plays a regulatory role
in the grammar, as it makes it possible for the product of merge to be clearly
demarcated so as to guarantee efficient mapping to SEM and PHON.

Tabea Ibsane’s ‘Bare nouns with different edges’ examines the ambiguous
interpretation of bare nouns under coordination by adopting a strict
syntax-semantics mapping, which holds that this ambiguity is a result of the
level of complexity at the left-periphery. Based on ample examples of French
conjoint bare nouns, Ibsane argues that (in)definiteness is determined by
edges and not by the presence of the determiner. In other words, any
difference in the interpretation of nominal constructions is a result of the
properties of their edges and not the presence or absence of a specific
category (i.e. determiner). This position holds true for a language such as
Finnish, which does not have determiners. The argument is that these
interpretive features are encoded in the structure of nominal expressions by
the properties of edges.

‘Implicit agentivity without agents in the syntax’ is a crosslinguistic
analysis of SE-verbs in French and European Portuguese. In this paper,
Patricia Cabredo Hofherr and Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin observe that implicit
agents are syntactically active only if they are projected at LF and only if
the spec, IP position is semantically empty in the syntax. This position
assumes that implicit agentivity in SE-verbs is projected as a spec, TP
position which helps provide evidence that this position is not a phase edge.
Hofherr and Dobrovie-Sorin argue for a unified analysis of SE-verbs in which
implicit agentivity is available in spec, TP at the semantic interface in
passive and middle readings. In other words, the derivation of agents is
independent of the edge properties of v (i.e., the core functional category,
verb).

The proposal that part of the split left-periphery of a clause provides
evidence for a very high phasal head inside the CP field, which encodes speech
act features, sheds new light on the status of the interface between syntax
and pragmatics. This is the proposal of Nicola Munaro in his paper, ‘On the
edge-feature of particles, interjections, and short answers’. Munaro examines
the interface legibility and processability of these syntactic elements and
their role in the interpretation and typing of related clauses. Munaro argues
that sentential particles, interjections, and short answers are syntactic
elements endowed with an edge-feature that associates them with a clause. This
analysis allows for a better understanding of clausal processes and the
pragmatic features which are encoded in syntactic structures.

The last paper in Part One is ‘The grammar of polarity particles in Romanian’,
by Donka F. Farkas. This paper argues that semantic features of polarity
particles are syntactically mapped and integrated in the edge properties of
clauses. These polarity particles head projections which are merged at the
highest level of the left periphery. Farkas’ analysis situates itself within
the architecture of context structures, which capture the discourse paradigm
of these polarity particles from a pragmatic point of view. This establishes a
connection at the syntax-pragmatics interface.

The five papers in part two of this volume are concerned with functional heads
and their projections. This concern with heads and projections is discussed,
at a considerable level, within current approaches to minimalist research. The
basic assumption in this line of research is that heads project features and
these features are checked in syntax through the internal or external merge of
relevant heads. This line of research further assumes that the set of
functional features is projected at the high left periphery of clauses. In
other words, the properties of these heads constitute the CP field and its
projections, if there are any.

It is from this perspective that Peggy Speas investigates the syntax of
evidentials in ‘Evidentials as generalized functional heads’. In this first
paper of Part Two, Speas proposes that evidentials are functional heads which
encode inclusion and accessibility relations. As a feature set, evidentials
are a morpho-syntactic parallel to other feature sets such as those of tense,
person, and mood. However, this claim opens the door for further
investigations to show whether this proposal cuts across all languages and
whether there is a significant difference in the CP field
cross-linguistically.

The subtitle of Alexandru Grosu’s paper, ‘On the pre-theoretical notion
phrasal head: Ignoring the left periphery is at your own risk’, warns us of
the risk of ignoring the left periphery by claiming that heads at the left
periphery have the same properties and bi-dimensional representation as
functional heads in the lower domain. Grosu comes to this conclusion by
examining phrasal heads in ‘transparent free relatives’, whereby he defines a
phrasal head as a pivot that must share certain properties with a larger
phrase that properly contains it.

The proposal that reduced relatives have a head edge, which is PredP based on
a passive vP, shows a Pred head without any peripheral features that attract
the closest active nominal. This is the argument in ‘Predication and the
nature of non-finite relatives in Romance’, by Ion Giurgea and Elena Soare.
The assumption here is that reduced relatives undergo a mechanism of
relativization, which does not involve a C head. In other words, reduced
relatives are weak phases.

The role of phrases in syntactic variation in the high functional field points
to the fact that the phrasal property of a projection is determined by the
degree and the type of movement to the left periphery. In this regard,
verb-second properties are asymmetric at the edge of main and embedded
clauses, as Jose Camacho argues in the paper, ‘On the asymmetry of root and
embedded clauses: Evidence from Shipibo second position clitics’. By comparing
the verb-second-like properties of Shipibo with Germanic, Camacho argues for a
two-way parameterization of verb-second. The first parameter requires the
highest position of a strong phrase to be filled, while the second parameter
requires that the highest projection at the left periphery behaves like an
extended verb projection.

Cartographic mapping and the Minimalist Phase Theory form the bedrock of the
paper, ‘The cartography of phases: Facts and inference in Meiteilon’, by
Ayesha Kidwai. In this paper, Kidwai argues in support of feature transfer
from C to T, even in languages without tense, whereby it is shown that T
inherits uninterpretable features from a higher C-like dominating head. Kidwai
marries the two theoretical frameworks by showing that functional sequences
map onto a syntax of phases, and that the core functional categories C, T, and
v are expressed in terms of a feature transfer/inheritance relation within
phases. This analysis by Kidwai suggests that cartographies are the elements
involved in transfer/inheritance processes that hold within phases in
phase-based computations.

EVALUATION

The effort of the editors of this volume is highly commendable. The editors
not only made a careful and insightful selection of relevant papers for this
volume, but also ensured that the papers met the goals of the volume. Indeed,
the papers are able to put into clear perspective the notion of phrase and the
importance of heads, edges, and projections on interface legibility conditions
that underlie development in linguistic minimalism. These ideas allow for a
systematic parameterization of phasal heads cross-linguistically.
Each of the papers in the volume presents an impressive list of references
that reflects depth and quality in research practices. Grimshaw (1990), Cinque
(1999), Di Sciullo (2003), and Boeckx (2008), among others, present rudiments
of the goals of this volume. In order to maintain coherence among the papers
in the volume, the editors divided it into two parts of five papers each. In
spite of the fact that data from different and divergent languages are used,
the focus of the volume is not in any way distorted; rather, the points raised
are clearly presented in line with the two-part theme that makes up the
volume. For example, all the papers in Part One explore the notion of edge as
it relates to the focus of each of the papers. The same point is made for the
papers in Part Two, which explores the theoretical notions of heads and their
projections.

The first article in this volume is of particular interest to me as it
establishes for the reader the background assumption of the selected papers;
grammar is comprised of edges, heads, and projections which interact at the
interface level of the Conceptual-Intentional system. ‘Why edges are needed?’,
by Cedric Boeckx, makes it clear that Agree plays a regulatory role in the
grammar, as it makes it possible for the products of merge to be clearly
demarcated so as to guarantee efficient mapping to SEM and PHON. These
products of merge are related to heads, projections and edges, as his
presentation of the three notions of edges indicates. Edge is the domain of
the clause responsible for peripheral-feature checking and discourse-oriented
interpretive effects (head), the landing-site for extraction in phase
derivation (projection) and the property of lexical items that permits
operation merge to take place in the derivation (edge).

This volume opens up a potential research avenues in the cross-linguistic
investigation of these theoretical concepts in minimalist linguistics because,
in spite of the different and divergent languages used in the volume, many
other languages, particularly, African languages, if investigated along these
lines, will definitely help in establishing the finer points of these
concepts. For example, an in-depth investigation of the phase properties in
Ngas, Hausa or Fulfulde will definitely shed light on the complexity of the
human language faculty with respect to edges, heads, and projections as
understood today.

This volume is a useful resource for linguists and cognitive scientists who
are interested in advances in minimalism and situating language within or
outside human cognitive systems. Although the volume presupposes familiarity
with the basics of linguistic minimalism, as espoused in Chomsky (1995), and
more recently in Chomsky (2008), among others, it is also meant for interested
members of the public with a more than casual interest in developments in
theoretical linguistics, particularly, in minimalist linguistics.

REFERENCES

Boeckx, C. 2008. Bare Syntax. Oxford: OUP.

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

Chomsky, N.  2008. On Phases. In Fundamental Issues in Linguistic Theory, R.
Friedin, C. Otero & M. --L. Zubizarreta (eds) 133-166. Cambridge MA: The MIT
Press.

Cinque, G. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective.
New York: OUP

Di Sciullo, A. M.  2003. Asymmetry in Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.

Grimshaw, J.  1990. Argument Structure. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press


About the Reviewer:
Lengji N. Danjuma teaches linguistics in the Department of Languages and
Linguistics, University of Jos, Nigeria. Presently, he is a PhD student in the
Department of Languages and Linguistics, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria,
where his particular research interests include theoretical and African
linguistics. The focus of his current research is ‘Move-alpha, TOP, and PRO
within the Minimalist Program: A Cross-Linguistic Analysis of Ngas, Hausa, and
Fulfulde’. He is also a 2012 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)/
African Humanities Program (AHP) dissertation completion fellow.








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