B. Elan Dresher
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262062787
- eISBN:
- 9780262273152
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262062787.003.0015
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics
This chapter examines the notion of contrast in phonology and gives a formal account of two competing approaches to assigning contrastive feature specifications: contrast based on an ordering of ...
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This chapter examines the notion of contrast in phonology and gives a formal account of two competing approaches to assigning contrastive feature specifications: contrast based on an ordering of features (Full Specification approach) and contrast based on logical redundancy (Contrastive Hierarchy approach). It shows how the Full Specification approach fails because it cannot differentiate the phonemes in a language while the Contrastive Hierarchy approach succeeds not only in differentiating the phonemes but also in clarifying some issues in underspecification theory. Under the Full Specification approach, the mutual redundancy of voice and nasality for an inventory /p, m/ leaves the segments with no non-redundant features, hence failing to differentiate the phonemes. Under the Contrastive Hierarchy approach, contrast can be successfully determined via hierarchical ordering of phonological features. The chapter explores the uses of contrast in the generative phonology literature and compares P. Kiparsky’s (1985) theory of structure preservation in phonology with J. Emonds’s (1976) theory of the same name in syntax.Less
This chapter examines the notion of contrast in phonology and gives a formal account of two competing approaches to assigning contrastive feature specifications: contrast based on an ordering of features (Full Specification approach) and contrast based on logical redundancy (Contrastive Hierarchy approach). It shows how the Full Specification approach fails because it cannot differentiate the phonemes in a language while the Contrastive Hierarchy approach succeeds not only in differentiating the phonemes but also in clarifying some issues in underspecification theory. Under the Full Specification approach, the mutual redundancy of voice and nasality for an inventory /p, m/ leaves the segments with no non-redundant features, hence failing to differentiate the phonemes. Under the Contrastive Hierarchy approach, contrast can be successfully determined via hierarchical ordering of phonological features. The chapter explores the uses of contrast in the generative phonology literature and compares P. Kiparsky’s (1985) theory of structure preservation in phonology with J. Emonds’s (1976) theory of the same name in syntax.
Ian Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262014304
- eISBN:
- 9780262289726
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014304.003.0003
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
According to Noam Chomsky, Move is the combination of Agree, Merge, and Pied-pipe. It decomposes into three more primitive operations, whereas Merge takes two syntactic objects—α and β—and forms a ...
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According to Noam Chomsky, Move is the combination of Agree, Merge, and Pied-pipe. It decomposes into three more primitive operations, whereas Merge takes two syntactic objects—α and β—and forms a new object, and is therefore the basic combinatorial operation of narrow syntax. Agree holds between α and β having interpretable and uninterpretable inflectional features, respectively. This chapter examines three possible ways of eliminating head movement from narrow syntax: structure preservation, chain uniformity, and the A-over-A Condition. It shows that the A-over-A Condition, but not structure preservation and chain uniformity, offers a viable way of forcing pied-piping of the maximal projection of the goal.Less
According to Noam Chomsky, Move is the combination of Agree, Merge, and Pied-pipe. It decomposes into three more primitive operations, whereas Merge takes two syntactic objects—α and β—and forms a new object, and is therefore the basic combinatorial operation of narrow syntax. Agree holds between α and β having interpretable and uninterpretable inflectional features, respectively. This chapter examines three possible ways of eliminating head movement from narrow syntax: structure preservation, chain uniformity, and the A-over-A Condition. It shows that the A-over-A Condition, but not structure preservation and chain uniformity, offers a viable way of forcing pied-piping of the maximal projection of the goal.
David Pesetsky
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199602490
- eISBN:
- 9780191757297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602490.003.0007
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
The chapter starts from the observation that a diagnostic is simply an argument in which one has particular confidence, put to practical use. The logical space of possible arguments for phrasal ...
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The chapter starts from the observation that a diagnostic is simply an argument in which one has particular confidence, put to practical use. The logical space of possible arguments for phrasal movement is sketched and exemplified with examples of such arguments, some well‐known and others more recently proposed. Hartman’s (2012) discussion of intervention effects is cited as an instance in which an established property of movement (intervention effects in A‐movement constructions) diagnosed the distribution of movement in a more poorly understood construction (English tough movement). The question of whether phrasal movement exists in the first place is taken up, in the context of the history of its discovery and current syntactic approaches that dispense with it.Less
The chapter starts from the observation that a diagnostic is simply an argument in which one has particular confidence, put to practical use. The logical space of possible arguments for phrasal movement is sketched and exemplified with examples of such arguments, some well‐known and others more recently proposed. Hartman’s (2012) discussion of intervention effects is cited as an instance in which an established property of movement (intervention effects in A‐movement constructions) diagnosed the distribution of movement in a more poorly understood construction (English tough movement). The question of whether phrasal movement exists in the first place is taken up, in the context of the history of its discovery and current syntactic approaches that dispense with it.
Ian Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262014304
- eISBN:
- 9780262289726
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014304.003.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This book explores the consequences of Noam Chomsky’s theory that head movement is not part of narrow syntax and argues that the current notion of syntax can and must accommodate a species of head ...
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This book explores the consequences of Noam Chomsky’s theory that head movement is not part of narrow syntax and argues that the current notion of syntax can and must accommodate a species of head movement. More specifically, it suggests that head movement is part of the narrow syntax, and that it applies where the goal of an Agree relation is defective. The book also implies a notion of structural deficiency as the key to understanding the conditions under which internal merge may apply to terminals, and proposes that head movement applies where the goal of an Agree relation is defective. Moreover, it shows that head movement does not differ considerably in its LF-effects from DP-movement (A-movement), considers three possible ways of eliminating head movement from narrow syntax (structure preservation, chain uniformity, and the A-over-A Condition), and describes the movement of simultaneously minimal and maximal categories, focusing on Romance clitics.Less
This book explores the consequences of Noam Chomsky’s theory that head movement is not part of narrow syntax and argues that the current notion of syntax can and must accommodate a species of head movement. More specifically, it suggests that head movement is part of the narrow syntax, and that it applies where the goal of an Agree relation is defective. The book also implies a notion of structural deficiency as the key to understanding the conditions under which internal merge may apply to terminals, and proposes that head movement applies where the goal of an Agree relation is defective. Moreover, it shows that head movement does not differ considerably in its LF-effects from DP-movement (A-movement), considers three possible ways of eliminating head movement from narrow syntax (structure preservation, chain uniformity, and the A-over-A Condition), and describes the movement of simultaneously minimal and maximal categories, focusing on Romance clitics.
Alexis Wellwood
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198804659
- eISBN:
- 9780191842870
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Theoretical Linguistics
This book re-imagines the compositional semantics of comparative constructions with words like “more”. It argues for a revision of one of the fundamental assumptions of the degree semantics framework ...
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This book re-imagines the compositional semantics of comparative constructions with words like “more”. It argues for a revision of one of the fundamental assumptions of the degree semantics framework as applied to such constructions: that gradable adjectives do not lexicalize measure functions (i.e., mappings from individuals or events to degrees). Instead, the degree morphology itself plays the role of degree introduction. The book begins with a careful study of non-canonical comparatives targeting nouns and verbs, and applies the lessons learned there to those targeting adjectives and adverbs. A primary distinction that the book draws extends the traditional distinction between gradable and non-gradable as applied to the adjectival domain to the distinction between “measurable” and “non-measurable” predicates that crosses lexical categories. The measurable predicates, in addition to the gradable adjectives, include mass noun phrases, plural noun phrases, imperfective verb phrases, and perfective atelic verb phrases. In each of these cases, independent evidence for non-trivial ordering relations on the relevant domains of predication are discussed, and measurability is tied to the accessibility of such orderings. Applying this compositional theory to the core cases and beyond, the book establishes that the selection of measure functions for a given comparative depends entirely on what is measured and compared rather than which expression introduces the measurementLess
This book re-imagines the compositional semantics of comparative constructions with words like “more”. It argues for a revision of one of the fundamental assumptions of the degree semantics framework as applied to such constructions: that gradable adjectives do not lexicalize measure functions (i.e., mappings from individuals or events to degrees). Instead, the degree morphology itself plays the role of degree introduction. The book begins with a careful study of non-canonical comparatives targeting nouns and verbs, and applies the lessons learned there to those targeting adjectives and adverbs. A primary distinction that the book draws extends the traditional distinction between gradable and non-gradable as applied to the adjectival domain to the distinction between “measurable” and “non-measurable” predicates that crosses lexical categories. The measurable predicates, in addition to the gradable adjectives, include mass noun phrases, plural noun phrases, imperfective verb phrases, and perfective atelic verb phrases. In each of these cases, independent evidence for non-trivial ordering relations on the relevant domains of predication are discussed, and measurability is tied to the accessibility of such orderings. Applying this compositional theory to the core cases and beyond, the book establishes that the selection of measure functions for a given comparative depends entirely on what is measured and compared rather than which expression introduces the measurement
Alexis Wellwood
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198804659
- eISBN:
- 9780191842870
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0008
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Theoretical Linguistics
This chapter considers how the compositional theory argued for in the preceding chapters might apply to a variety of additional cases where a lexical, degree-theoretic semantics has been proposed. ...
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This chapter considers how the compositional theory argued for in the preceding chapters might apply to a variety of additional cases where a lexical, degree-theoretic semantics has been proposed. For example, the analysis of attitude verbs like “to want”, nouns like “idiot”, and verbs like “to cool”. The chapter suggests that, rather than diagnosing scalar structure, the kinds of data motivating lexical degree-theoretic interpretation here should be understood as diagnostic of order-theoretic properties on the relevant expression’s domain of predication. Supporting the idea of a general recipe for how such cases should be addressed, the chapter raises theoretical questions like the following: do any lexical categories natively have a degree semantics? When is a degree-theoretic treatment appropriate? Should there be morphosyntactic requirements (e.g., overt or covert “much”) for an interpretation based on degrees, or not? What alternative analyses of extant cases are available?Less
This chapter considers how the compositional theory argued for in the preceding chapters might apply to a variety of additional cases where a lexical, degree-theoretic semantics has been proposed. For example, the analysis of attitude verbs like “to want”, nouns like “idiot”, and verbs like “to cool”. The chapter suggests that, rather than diagnosing scalar structure, the kinds of data motivating lexical degree-theoretic interpretation here should be understood as diagnostic of order-theoretic properties on the relevant expression’s domain of predication. Supporting the idea of a general recipe for how such cases should be addressed, the chapter raises theoretical questions like the following: do any lexical categories natively have a degree semantics? When is a degree-theoretic treatment appropriate? Should there be morphosyntactic requirements (e.g., overt or covert “much”) for an interpretation based on degrees, or not? What alternative analyses of extant cases are available?
