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157 LAWS AND PRINCIPLES
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as the linguistic relativity principle,
was developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but is associated with
Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, who made it a part of modern linguistics.
It states that ‘[E]ach language ...is itself the shaper of ideas ....We
dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages’ (Whorf 1940a:
212–13), and that speakers of different languages have, by virtue of the grammatical
systems of the languages they speak, different views of the world
(Whorf 1940b: 221). The hypothesis is extremely controversial.
Sentential Subject Constraint
See Island constraints.
Separation Hypothesis
The separation hypothesis is the notion, expounded particularly by Beard
(e.g. 1977, 1995), that processes of derivation (e.g. the creation of a nominalisation
of a particular verb) and processes of affixation (e.g. the addition of the
suffix -ation) should be kept distinct and not conflated into a single set of
processes.
Specified Subject Condition and Tensed S Condition
These are two constraints on movement within a transformational syntax.
They are summarised by Ouhalla (1999: 86) in the following terms:
Move NP to an empty subject position provided NP is
(i) not contained in a tensed S
(ii) not separated from the target position by a specified subject.
Structure Preserving Hypothesis
This hypothesis is stated by Lasnik & Uriagereka (2005: 113) as: ‘No
transformational rule can involve positions X and Y if X and Y do not share
property P.’
Subjacency Condition
For discussion of what the Subjacency Condition does, see Island constraints.
Freidin (1992: 109) gives the simplest form of this condition as: