36.2171, Reviews: Coordinate Structures: Ning Zhang (2023)

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Subject: 36.2171, Reviews: Coordinate Structures: Ning Zhang (2023)

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Date: 15-Jul-2025
From: Dennis Ott [dennis.ott at post.harvard.edu]
Subject: Syntax: Ning Zhang (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-765

Title: Coordinate Structures
Series Title: Elements in Generative Syntax
Publication Year: 2023

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
           http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics
Book URL: https://cambridge.org/9781009326636

Author(s): Ning Zhang

Reviewer: Dennis Ott

SUMMARY
This slim monograph is the second entry in Cambridge University
Press’s “Elements” series. At a mere 67 substantive pages, and like
the two other entries in the series published at the time of writing,
it is essentially an extended research article, structured into
“sections” rather than chapters.
Section 1 opens with general introductory remarks on coordination and
argues that—pace Johannessen 1998 and other works—coordinate
structures do not have a distinct, inherent category (&P, ConjP, or
the like); rather, their category is derivative, determined by that of
the structurally prominent conjunct. Zhang’s central thesis is that
coordination arises as a result of stepwise complementation and
categorization: in a first step, the coordinator (& for now) is merged
with an “internal” conjunct Y to form [ & Y ]; in a second step, this
head–complement structure is adjoined to an “external” conjunct X to
form [ X [ & Y ]], of category X. I will refer to this core claim of
the monograph as the modification analysis of coordination (MAC).
Section 2 seeks to buttress the MAC by highlighting apparent signs of
structural asymmetry between conjuncts, indicating that the external
conjunct c-commands the internal conjunct. Evidence cited involves
Q-binding and NPI-licensing. Furthermore, Zhang argues that only the
external conjunct is truly integrated into the higher clausal
structure, as evidenced by the fact that it, not the internal
conjunct, must satisfy externally imposed selectional restrictions
(e.g. of adpositions embedding complexes coordinating nominal and
clausal categories).
The MAC is then spelled out in some further detail. Coordinators are
argued to be functional items that assign no theta-roles but select
complements. Zhang generalizes over different types of coordinators as
belonging to an abstract category J; she consequently refers to the
head–complement configuration [ J Y ] formed by merging J with the
internal conjunct Y as a “J-set”. This J-set in turn merges with the
external conjunct X to form [ X [ J Y ]], of category X(P).
J is claimed not to be a bona fide syntactic category, but a root-like
element; as a result, the J-set is neutral between argumental and
predicative uses and remains unlabeled. This, Zhang argues, is what
motivates merging the J-set with an external conjunct: absent a label
for the J-set, the external conjunct provides the category of the
overall coordinate complex. The J-set itself is an adjunct to the
external conjunct and as such syntactically optional, an assumption
shared with Munn 1993.
Zhang adduces further support for the MAC by pointing out a number of
properties shared by J-sets and adjuncts, such as their optionality,
iterability, and positional variability (the J-set can precede or
follow the external conjunct in linear order, with additional
phonological factors deciding the positioning of the coordinator).
As for the interpretation of coordinate structures, Zhang’s claim is
that the interpretation of a J-set [ J X ] depends on the
interpretation of X as a predicate, entity, or proposition; in the
general case, the external conjunct will be of the same semantic type,
although cases of so-called asymmetric coordination are argued to fall
under this analysis as well.
Section 3 goes deeper into the morphosyntax of coordinators and
develops the MAC’s core idea that J is a general modification marker
or linker, rather than a dedicated coordinator. J is explicitly
likened to Tagalog-style linkers and Mandarin’s modification marker de
and assimilated to these “dependency markers” on the grounds of
several shared properties: all are functional elements
(non-theta-assigners); all lack an inherent category; all link two
elements; all can be null; all can be proclitics (e.g. English) or
enclitics (Japanese) and are variable in their positioning; in
addition, coordinators and linkers share a common form in some
languages. The net outcome are directly analogous representations for
modification and coordination:
[ VP [ J VP ]] (e.g. “read the paper and watch the movie”)
[ VP [ J AdvP ]] (e.g. “read the paper quickly”, with J null)
Additional coordinators (as in French “et XP et YP”) are said to be
correlative “focus markers” (echoing De Vries 2005); the true exponent
of J, Zhang claims, is always the one occurring with the internal
conjunct.
The idea that the linker (c-)selects the internal conjunct is
supported by the observation that many languages have different
coordinators for the coordination of different categories (e.g.
nominal vs. clausal).
The section also discusses coordinate sequences of an unbounded number
of conjuncts, which Chomsky (1961,2013) calls “unstructured
coordination”, as in “noodles, (and) eggs, (and) lettuce, and juice”.
Against Neeleman et al. (2023), Zhang argues that such sequences do in
fact realize nested J-set structures enabled by nonexhaustive
coordinators and are thus not unstructured at all. In
English/Mandarin-type languages, such coordinate complexes feature
either a coordinator in each conjunct or else a single overt
coordinator next to the final conjunct.
Zhang further argues that with three or more conjuncts, “subgrouping”
(recursive coordination) is impossible unless each conjunct occurs
with an overt coordinator. (This generalization, Zhang’s (71), does
not seem to be empirically correct; perhaps it can be read charitably
as an idealization covering the examples to be discussed.) That is,
the expression “Tom and Dick and Harry” can be assigned either of two
structures, each giving rise to multiple readings:
[ [ Tom [ J Dick ]] [ J Harry ] ]
[ Tom [ J Dick [ J Harry ]] ]
By contrast, no such subgrouping is possible for “Tom, Dick and
Harry”, where “Dick and Harry” is said to be a “complex J-set” [ Dick
[ J Harry ]], to be categorized by the NP Tom, rather than a
coordinate structure; as a result, “these two conjuncts do not form a
group semantically” (32); see Borsley 2005 for discussion of these
contrasts. The idea seems to be that J can in principle have any
number of specifiers, and that this structuring around a unique J
contrasts with recursive coordination (nested J-sets) enabled by
iteration of J.
Section 4 seeks to adduce further evidence for the MAC’s central
thesis that coordination is a subtype of modification, and that the
composition of coordinate structures does not require any
construction-specific operations.
Zhang rejects the idea that all coordination is at the clausal level
(as prevalent in early theorizing and more recently revived in
Schein’s 2017 work). J is neutral with regard to the categories of its
dependents: instead of a rigid constraint requiring “coordination of
likes”, Zhang, building on Kehler 2002 and her own earlier work (Zhang
2010), argues for a constraint imposing “coherence” on the coordinate
complex, which is defined in terms of the notions “relatedness” and
“resemblance”. This constraint is said to “reflect the economy in
processing, rather than a constraint on the operations in building a
coordinate complex” (41) and assumed to supersede the
Coordinate-structure Constraint (CSC); Zhang provides various
arguments for the syntactic mobility of conjuncts and their elements.
Section 5 considers derivative constructions: ATB-movement and related
phenomena. Zhang distinguishes “I-ATB” with identical gaps, “R-ATB”
with respectively-type interpretations, and S-ATB with additive
interpretations. I-ATB is argued to involve an anaphoric pro in
non-initial conjuncts (“Who did John see t and Mary kiss pro?”), i.e.
extraction proceeds asymmetrically from the initial conjunct. R-ATB is
claimed to involve repetitions and ellipsis (“How many students did
John see and <how many students did> Mary kiss, respectively?”),
rendering such configurations parallel to sequences of questions with
obligatorily non-identical gaps. S-ATB is claimed to be the result of
movement of a null operator in each conjunct, which derives a
predicate; the multiple derived predicates then combine into a
compound predicate of which the left-edge XP is a kind of subject
(“How many books [ OP did John borrow t ] and [ OP Mary steal t in
total ]?”), yielding the additive reading. Alternative
analyses—forking chains, sideward movement, multidominance—are briefly
considered but rejected more or less out of hand.
Zhang furthermore addresses what she calls “heterofunctional
coordination”, as in “How and why did she kill him?” (or the Russian
equivalent of “Who and whom saw?” = “Who saw whom?”), argued to
involve sideward movement and an expletive coordinator, and
“split-argument constructions” with symmetrical predicates (“John met
Mary” = “John and Mary met”) as well as modifier sharing/split
antecedents, argued to derive via conjunct movement from an underlying
“hydra” (“a man and a woman who knew each other”). See Van
Craenenbroeck & Johnson forthcoming for an almost identical analysis
of symmetrical predicates.
Lastly, Zhang proposes a sideward-movement analysis of what Bošković
(2022) terms “non-ATB ATB” (as in “How many books and how many
magazines did John write and Mary read?”), which again involve a
derived coordination in operator position, Zhang suggests. The
analysis proposed seems to be virtually identical to Bošković’s.
Section 6 concludes the essay by reiterating the central tenets of the
MAC:
[1] There is no dedicated functional head &, only a general linker J
variously realized as a coordinator or a modification marker, taking a
complement and a specifier.
[2] No specialized operations are involved in the construction of
coordinate complexes.
[3] Coordination is an instance of modification. The differences
between coordination and other modification configurations are
entirely due to the interpretive relation (symmetric/asymmetric)
between the XPs related by the linker J and lexical properties of J.
EVALUATION
Ning Zhang’s “Coordinate structures” is a highly relevant contribution
to the theoretical debate surrounding coordination and an ambitious
attempt at assimilating the phenomenon to the better-understood
mechanisms of modification. The general notion that coordinate
complexes are not endocentric but categorized by the prominent
conjunct seems to be fundamentally correct (see also Borsley 2005,
Chomsky 2013). Given its simplicity, the MAC could plausibly be
considered a null hypothesis.
As usual, questions remain and new problems arise.
The book repeatedly makes sweeping generalizations based on rather
casual examination of a small number of (usually English) data points;
for instance, the evidence presented for structural prominence of the
external conjunct over the internal conjunct based on binding is more
controversial than Zhang acknowledges (see Ke et al. 2025 for recent
critical discussion). The proposal would have strongly benefitted from
a more in-depth discussion of these fundamental properties of
coordination.
The nature of J remains somewhat obscure. On the one hand, as Zhang
makes clear, the analysis depends crucially on its NOT being a
syntactic category (since this would label coordinate complexes as
JPs); yet, at the same time, the claim that J groups together a range
of LIs is equally central to the proposal. It is hard to see, for this
reviewer at least, what this means if not that J is, in fact, a
syntactic category. Furthermore, J is claimed to be both a functional
category and root-like in its inability to effect labeling. Note that
this view seems to entail labeling of the J-set by the internal
conjunct in head–head coordinations (which seem to be real: Borsley
2005), a possibility Zhang does not discuss. These apparent
contradictions are not resolved in the monograph.
The analysis of “unstructured” coordination as structured similarly
raises questions. Modifiers, and categories quite generally, can be
added to expressions in two ways, hierarchically (“the oldest blue
house”) and sequentially (“the oldest, blue house”). It remains
unclear if Zhang’s analysis of “unstructured” coordination as
involving either a “complex J-set” constructed around a single J or
recursive J-set formation can elucidate these analogous differential
modes of composition. A related worry is that the formation of complex
J-sets to avoid recursive coordination in cases such as “Tom, Dick and
Harry” requires the stipulation that an XP merged to a J-set (“Dick”,
in this case) can fail to categorize it. Why this is remains unclear.
The discussion of ATB constructions feels rather like an add-on to the
discussion than an integral part of it; in this reviewer’s estimation,
the monograph would have benefitted from omission of this part in
favor of a more detailed exploration of the MAC and its ramifications.
Zhang’s assertion that “all three types of ATB constructions are
derived without any coordination-specific syntactic operations” (49),
repeatedly emphasized throughout, is borne out by the discussion only
in an extremely narrow sense, since the analyses presented rest on
various construction-specific stipulations (e.g., the exceptional
availability of radical pro-drop in I-ATB configurations in grammars
that do not generally permit it).
Lastly, it remains unclear what, if anything, remains of the CSC.
Zhang asserts that “conjuncts may move, and elements may also move
from conjuncts” (65), and the explanatory burden of canonical CSC
effects appears to be shifted entirely to the coherence constraint.
Whether or not this is the right move to make can only be evaluated
once the latter is elaborated in greater detail.
Despite these drawbacks and remaining questions, Ning Zhang’s essay is
a valuable contribution to a long-standing debate in syntactic theory
and commendable for its scope, clarity, and dedication to
simplification of the theory. The author’s hope, expressed in the
monograph’s closing sentence, that it will “serve as a springboard to
further research on coordinate structures and syntactic theories”, is
likely to be fulfilled.
REFERENCES
Bošković, Ž. 2022. On the limits of across-the-board movement:
distributed extraction coordinations. Philosophies 7.
https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7010010
Chomsky, N. 1961. On the notion ‘rule of grammar’. In R. Jakobson
(ed.), Structure of Language and its Mathematical Aspects, 6–24.
Providence. RI: American Mathematical Society.
Chomsky, N. 2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130.
van Craenenbroeck, J. and K. Johnson. Forthcoming. Sloppy symmetry
under ellipsis. The Linguistic Review.
Johannessen, J.B. 1998. Coordination. Oxford University Press.
Ke, A.H., A. McInnerney, and Y. Sugimoto. 2025. Lack of c-command in
coordinate structures: evidence from binding. Natural Language &
Linguistic Theory, online first.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-025-09662-8
Kehler, A. 2002. Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar.
Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Munn, A. 1993. Topics in the syntax and semantics of coordinate
structures. PhD dissertation, University of Maryland.
Neeleman, A., J. Philip, M. Tanaka, and H. van de Koot. 2023.
Subordination and binary branching. Syntax 26.
de Vries, M. 2005. Coordination and syntactic hierarchy. Studia
Linguistica 59.
Schein, B. 2017. And. MIT Press.
Zhang, N. 2010. Coordination in syntax. Cambridge University Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Dennis Ott is associate professor of linguistics at the University of
Ottawa, Canada. His research focuses on various areas of syntax,
including unbounded dependencies, connectivity, and ellipsis.



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