Minimality Effects in Syntax · The MLC and Derivational Economy ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

84 Gisbert Fanselow volume, Reinhart 1995, Hornstein 1995, among many others) that excludes the adjuncts how and why in any position but Spec,CP. (20) a. who spoke when? b. who spoke in what way? Again, the question arises as to why the MLC cannot be overriden in this context – yielding (19b,d), which do not violate the strong constraint against how and why appearing in situ. Note that (21) is ungrammatical: only one out of some twenty linguists with English as a native language who I consulted accepted the sentence with a downstairs interpretation of how. Unlike what we saw in the preceding section in the context of (18), the ungrammaticality of (19b,d) can not be explained in terms of an additional constraint filtering out wh-phrases in the subject position of non-subjunctive clauses. (21) *how does the police demand that who be treated _ We will propose two accounts of (19) that allow us to maintain that the MLC is ignored when a certain LF cannot be constructed otherwise. As Haider (this volume) has pointed out, adjunct effects of the sort exemplified in (19) are absent in OV languages, as (22) illustrates. This observation excludes the idea that (19a,c) are ungrammatical on simple semantic grounds. (22) Missing Adjunct Effects in OV-languages a. wie het hoe gedaan heeft (Dutch complement question) b. wer es wie gemacht hat (German complement question) who it how done has Haider suggests that higher-order wh-operators such as how and why must c-command the head of the phrase they are applied to. Higher order adverbs range over events, so how and why should c-command the element that situates the proposition in time, i.e., how and why must c-command the (finite) verb. This condition is fulfilled in (22a,b), but not in (19a,c). Movement of the finite verb to Comp does not render wh-adjuncts in situ ungrammatical in Dutch or German. This is in line with the general observation that verb second movement is invisible at the level of Logical Form, either because it is reconstructed, or because it applies in the phonological component of grammar.
(22) Missing Adjunct Effects in OV-languages The MLC and derivational economy 85 c. wie heeft het hoe gedaan (Dutch matrix question) d. wer hat es wie gemacht (German matrix question) who has it how done The account suggested by Haider (this volume) cannot be fully correct, however, because Swedish is not in line with it. All of my five informants accepted (23a), and three of them found (23b) grammatical, in spite of the VO-nature of Swedish. (23) Missing adjunct effects in Swedish a. vem skrattade varfoer who laughed why b. Det spelar ingen roll vem som skrattade varfoer it plays no role who that laughed why “it does not matter who laughed for what reason” Similarly, Richards (2001: 18–19) reports adjunct effects for the SOV language Tibetan. Therefore, a different solution is called for. Rizzi (1990: 47) has proposed that certain wh-adjuncts (corresponding to sentence-level adverbs) are based-generated in Comp. One way of translating this proposal into the current discussion consists of the assumption that certain wh-elements are required to appear at the left periphery of clauses on a language particular and item-specific basis. Because of (22) – (23), this idiosyncrasy of how and why (and French pourquoi) cannot be reduced to semantic considerations alone. One way of spelling this idea out lies in the assumption that the MLC applies cyclically (see below for details), while the constraints forcing how and why into Spec,CP are representational principles checking the wellformedness of completed Logical Forms. The MLC would therefore apply prior to the constraints affecting higher order wh-phrases, with the desired effect: the MLC picks (19a,c), and these sentence are blocked at too late a point in the derivation for undoing the impact of the MLC. The account sketched so far predicts the data as judged in (19) and (24). The MLC forces the subject to move to Spec,CP in a multiple question involving subjects and adjuncts, but the resulting structure is blocked because why and how cannot appear in any position but Spec,CP. On the other hand, when adjuncts interact with objects, the MLC will make (24b) block (24a). (24b) is also in line with the requirement that English wh-adjuncts appear at the left periphery.
Page 1 and 2: The MLC and Derivational Economy Gi
Page 3 and 4: Independent of whether such a facto
Page 5 and 6: Penka Stateva, my second Bulgarian
Page 7 and 8: The MLC and derivational economy 79
Page 9 and 10: (12) constitute further evidence fo
Page 11: (18) Missing superiority effect for
Page 17 and 18: For example, Swedish respects the n
Page 21 and 22: (33a) and the locality requirements
Page 23 and 24: The key to an understanding of this
Page 25 and 26: (44) MLC: Liberal Version α cannot
Page 27 and 28: oft ‘often’, i.e., it precedes
Page 29 and 30: Such an analysis is not convincing,
Page 37 and 38: (63) Restricted liberalization of s
Page 39 and 40: (65) Multiple questions in Yiddish
Page 41 and 42: (70) Non-referential subjects in wh
Page 43 and 44: The absence of a contrast between (
Page 45 and 46: Similarly, noun phrases with an obl
Page 47 and 48: References The MLC and derivational
Page 51: The MLC and derivational economy 12

Minimality Effects in Syntax · The MLC and Derivational Economy ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?