Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T11:24:22.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bounding theory and Greek syntax: evidence for wh-movement in NP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Geoffrey Horrocks  and
Melita Stavrou
Geoffrey Horrocks
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge and University of Crete
Melita Stavrou
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge and University of Crete
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is a standard assumption of government-binding theory that the relationship between a constituent displaced by the transformational rule schema Move α and its trace is subject to the locality condition known as subjacency, the central principle of the subtheory of universal grammar known as bounding theory (Chomsky, 1981, 1982, 1986). Subjacency requires that not more than one ‘barrier’ intervene between a moved constituent and its trace, but the definition of the relevant barriers has been, and remains, an issue of considerable controversy. In Chomsky (1977) it is suggested that NP and one of S or S¯ are the ‘bounding nodes’ for English, and many standard textbooks have since argued for NP and S (e.g. Radford, 1981: Ch. 7; van Riemsdijk & Williams, 1986: Ch. 4). Nevertheless, the possibility of cross-linguistic parametric variation may have to be allowed for, since Rizzi (1978) makes out a case for S¯ rather than S as the clausal bounding node for Italian in order to account for the freedom of extraction from so-called ‘wh-islands’ in that language. Chomsky (1980), however, puts forward the possibility that S¯ may be a bounding node universally, and that languages vary according to whether S is also. If it is, then there will be no long-distance movement (cf. standard German and Russian) unless individual verbs are specified in the lexicon as ‘bridges’ which nullify the barrierhood of S¯ (cf. the majority of verbs subcategorized by clausal complements in English). This view is revised and refined in Chomsky (1981: 307), where S¯ is taken to be a bounding node universally when it includes a complementizer or wh-phrase preceding a finite clause, in which case the finite clause S may also optionally be a barrier, and S is taken to be a bounding node when it is governed, as is the case after S¯-deletion in the complements of ‘raising’ predicates. Finally, Chomsky (1986) seeks to unite the definition of barrier for the purposes both of movement and government, assuming two barriers block movement and one barrier blocks government, by proposing that any ungoverned maximal projection is a barrier, and that any maximal projection immediately dominating such a barrier, whether lexically governed or not, is also a barrier by inheritance.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 79 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akmajian, A. (1975). More evidence for the NP cycle. LIn 6. 115–129.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1970). Remarks on nominalisation. In Jacobs, R., Rosenbaum, P. (eds), Readings in English transformational grammar. Waltham, Mass.: Ginn. 184–221.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1972). Studies on semantics in generative grammar. The Hague: Mouton. 62–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1977). On wh-movement. In Culicover, P., Wasow, T. & Akmajian, A. (eds), Formal syntax. New York: Academic Press. 71–132.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1980). On binding. LIn 11. 1–46.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1982). Some concepts and consequences of the theory of government and binding. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1986). Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gazdar, G., Pullum, G. K., Klein, E. & Sag, I. (1985). Generalized phrase structure grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Horrocks, G. C. (1983). The order of constituents in Modern Greek. In Gazdar, G., Klein, E. & Pullum, G. K. (eds). Order, concord and constituency. Dordrecht: Foris. 95–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horrocks, G. C. (1984). The lexical head constraint, X¯-theory and the pro-drop parameter. In de Geest, W., Putseys, Y. (eds). Sentential complementation. Dordrecht: Foris. 117–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1977). X¯-syntax: a study of phrase structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Koster, J. (1978). Why subject sentences don't exist. In Keyser, S. J. (ed), (1978). Recent transformational studies in European languages. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 53–64.Google Scholar
Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Philippaki-Warburton, I. (1985). Word order in Modern Greek. Transactions of the Philological Society, 113–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radford, A. (1981). Transformational syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (1978). Violations of the wh-island constraint in Italian and the subjacency condition. In Dubisson, C., Lightfoot, D. & Morin, Y. C. (eds), Montreal Working Papers in Linguistics, 11.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (1982). Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szabolcsi, A. (1985). The possessor that ran away from home. The Linguistic Review 3. 89–102.Google Scholar
van Riemsdijk, H. & Williams, E. (1986). Introduction to the theory of grammar. Cambridge, Mass. & London: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Zwicky, A. (1985). Heads. JL 21. 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar