Margaret SPEAS, Phrase structure in natural languag

Runner, Jeffrey T.

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142 Links & Letters 1, 1994 Reviews demonstrates that they can be argued to sentation. M I T  Working Papers in display a number of functional categories Linguistics 1 O. 43-74. which partially paralel those ofsentences. POLLOCK, J.-Y. (1989). Verb Movement, In English, for example, noun phrases can UG, and the Structure ofII? Linguistic be analysed as D(eterminer)Ps when they Inquiry 20.3. 365-424. contain a Det element acting as the head of the whole constituent or as AGRPs Josep Quer when they contain an AGR element that Department de Filologia Catalana normdly surfaces as genitive subject. Tak- Universitat ~~~o~~~~ de Barcelona ing into account the role played by these elements, many idiosyncratic behaviours of substan-tives (mainly, of the head noun and its subject) receive a principled explana- tion. MARGARET SPEAS, Phrase Structure i n  The final part 0f this last chapter is Natural Language. J-JDordrechr: devoted to motivate the idea that Comp elements are nominalisers in the sense Kluwer, 1 990. 306 pages. that their projection on the top of senten- tial clauses allows for the latter to function T~mSf~rmational grammar (Chomsky as arguments. 1965), the Gouernmentand Binding (GB) As has been noted in the previous m ~ d e l  in particular (Chomsky 198 11, is a paragraphs, Ouhalla's work draws on t h e o ~  of Universal G ~ ~ ~ ~ a r  (UG), the mainstream research in current syntactic set of principies and parameters that are Studies and rnakes a very important con- claimed to be an innate part of the human tribution to the developrnent of some of language faculv Central to GB theory is the ideas put fonvard in the literature. phrase structure (PS), the hierarchical The &eory of parameters and language representation of the structure of the sen- variation is one of the central issues at tence; it is to elements in this structure stake in the present stage of linguistic that the transformation move alphais clairned theory and as such Ouhalla's book should to apply deriving from one PS repre- become a point of reference in the debate. sentation a new PS representation cons- trained by universal structural and licensing requirements. A central ques- Referentes tion, intuitively stated, is how does PS start, or where does it come from? A se- BAKER, M. C. (1988). Incorporation: A cond question regards the universalit~ of Theory af Grammatical Function the hierarchical representations which Changing. Chicago: Chicago Univer- have been successful in describing confi- sity Press. gurational (Con) languages like English: BORER, H. (1983). Parametric S'ntax: do n~nconfi~urational (NCon) langua- Case Studies in Semitic and Romance ges like e.g. Warlpiri, which have beeri Languages. Dordercht: Foris. argued not to have a hierarchical PS (Hale FUKUI, N. and M. SPEAS. (1986). Speci- 1983), differ in some fundamental way in fiers and Projections. M I S  Working their syntax? NCon languages pose a se- Papers in Linguistics 8. 128- 172. rious challenge to GB theory since in CHOMSKY, N. (1981). Lectures on Gou- general the evidence in favor of a hierar- ernment and Binding. Dordrecht: Fo- chical PS is weak and further, the evidence ris. a ainst such structure is strong. It is this CHOMSKY, N. (1986). Barriers. Cam- c allenge that Margaret Speas' (1990) bridge (Mass.): The MIT Press. F, Phrase Structure in Natzdral Language CHOMSKY, N. (1988). Some Notes on addresses. The claim Speas (S) defends is Economy of Derivation and Repre- that PS is projected from lexical items Reviews Links & Letters 1, 1994 143 thernselves in a highly restricted rnanner and that the variation found is associated to variation in these lexical iterns frorn language to language; there is no funda- mental difference between Con and NCon languages. In what follows 1 briefly surnrnarize each chapter of S's book, highlighting its conclusions and particularly inter- esting discussion; also, as appropriate 1 discuss its weak points. Overall though, we will see that her conclusions are quite well-justified. Ch. 1 introduces sorne of the basic notions which becorne irnportant later in the book; 1 will sirnply introduce such notions as necessary &d-say nothing fur- ther about Ch. 1. In Ch. 2, S rnotivates a view of PS which is different in a funda- mental way frorn preceding versions: no "rules" or schernata are required. PS is ~roiected freelv frorn lexical iterns 1 .I thernselves as long as every elernent can be licensed in a certain way. Thus, the structure is licensed only if the elernents in the structure are licensed. Licensing involves three particular "theta" (genera- l lized thernatic ) relations which are reali- zed under sisterhood: (1) discharge, one lexical itern "needs" another as in the case of a verb needing an object; (2) rnerger, two iterns with the sarne type of require- rnent "rnerge" into one category which retains this requirernent; and (3) binding, two iterns with the sarne requirement sa- tis& each other (Higginbotharn 1985). An interesting result of this restricted set of licensing requirernents is that D- structure (DS), which is the level of PS associated with the lexical iterns thernsel- ves. can contain onlv elernents which are thernatically related; an elernent which is not associated with the PS tree by any of the above three rnechanisrns is not licen- sed at DS. This yields a quite restricted view of DS: everything rnust be licensed thernatically. There will be no "extra" ele- 1. Thetalthematic relations are the inherent rela- tions held between a lexical item and the ele- rnents associated with it; e.g. the relation between a predicate and its arguments. rnents allowed at that level. S argues that this is correct by pointing out that certain types of adjuncts (ty ically thernaticall~ unrelated elernents) g ehave syntactically as ifthey are not present at DS. Specifical- ly she argues, following Lebeaux (1988), that such ~hrases are adioined to the PS later in ;he derivation by a "genera- l ized transforrnation (an operation which combines PSs). S's view of PS does not rely on the notion of rnaxirnal pbojection (XP) or rninirnal projection (X ); and she specifi- cally argues against the notion of a defi- ned "interrnediate" projection (X') by showing that no rule of ra refers to such a level. XP an f x are sirnply "' the two "ends" of the PS projection, what she refers to as a Projection Chain, analo- gously to chains of other syntactic ele- rnents which have a e a d  and a "foot" ''b (in this case XP and X , respectively). By showin~ that PS can be built based on independently rnotivated lexical require- rnents, S rernoves PS "rules" or schernata frorn UG, elirninating redundancy and geatly reducing the power of the PS corn- ponent. Having spent Ch. 2 arguing for a universal theory of the rnap ing frorn lexical iterns to DS, S faces the P orrnidable challenge posed by the so-called NCon languages, which appear to differ funda- rnentally in their PS frorn Con languages like English. Her rnain clairn in Ch. 3 and Ch. 4 is that there is no variation in the principles of projection defended in Ch. 2, which include those rnentioned above as well as several other GB principles: UTAH, that thernatic roles (like agent and therne) are hierarchically arranged and project into the syntax in a specific universal order; the Theta Criterion, which roughly states that every theta po- sition rnust be dis- charged once; and the Projection Principie (PP), which in SS sirn- plification just states that UTAH and the Theta Criterion rnust hold at every level of representation. The result of the PP is that if rnove alpha applies to an elernent, some "trace" of the elernent rnust be left so that its original thernatic relations can 144 Links & Letters 1, 1994 Reviews be recovered; this trace is then subject to other svntactic reauirements. I The specific claim S argues against is that  of Hale's (1983) Dual Repre- sentation Hypothesis (DRH). The DRH states that universally, every language has two separate syntactic "structures": a lexi- cal structure (LS), where hierarchical lexi- cal a n d  themat ic  informat ion is represented, and a phrase structure (PS), a "flat" (not hierarchical) representation of the items in a sentence. LS and PS are related by "rules of construal". The DRH further states that in NCon languages the Projection Principie holds only of LS, not PS. Thus, move alpha can apply to PS (vacuously) with-out having to leave traces. First, S shows that the supposed diag- nostics of nonconfigurationality do not, in fact, pick out two lists of fundamental- ly different languages. Many languages show characteristics of both types. Second. she shows that the DRH allows a great amount of redundancy since in NCon languages the mapping from DS to PS. via move aloha. is redundant as I ' it is vacuous, and in Con languages the mapping between LS and PS, via rules of construal. is also redundant. If the redun- dancy is removed, however, we are left with one type of language with LS and PS (NCon) and a second type with DS and PS (Con); S argues that this model must be rejected because such a fundamental difference between the two types of lan- guages cannot account for the fact (point 1 above) that languages do not divide cleanly into one type or the other. Third, she examines each of the sup- posed NCon languages in detail and shows three things: (1) each language does in fact display certain asymmetries which could support a hierarchical PS. Although it should be noted that many of these asymmetries involve binding (the theory of the distribution of reflexives, pronouns and "names"); and if binding is not svntactic. as has been a r ~ u e d  bv a U number of researchers (e.g. Williams 1987), these arguments are weakened but her main ooint remains valid: (2) the , % ,  arguments in favor of a "flat" structure can be reinterpreted in her framework to be consistent with a hierarchical PS; and (3) in Ch. 4, S shows in a detailed study that even Navajo, which appears to show independent evidence for the DRH, falls into the framework she has developed throughout the book. Especially interesting in al1 of these cases is the fact that the parameters required to account for the variation observed are al1 consistent with the "Lexical Parameter Hypothesis", first articulated in Borer (1984), that language variation is to be associated with variation in particular lexical items. Thus, the l e a r ~  i n ~  of oarameters is reduced to the learn- 0 ' ing of lexical items; the principles of pro- jection and other universal (and presuma- bly, innate) syntactic principles are not subject to pararnetrization. The conclusions that this work clearly supports are the following: (1) PS is pro- jected from lexical items and is constrai- ned by universal principles of projection, not PS schemata; (2) variation among languages can be traced back to variation among particular lexical items; and (3) universal principles of grammar, in parti- cular principles ofprojection, are not sub- ject to ,parametrization. S's contribution, then, nicely advances us towards the goal of understanding Universal Grammar, by showing that fundamental principles of grammar need not be parametrized to account for what aoDear on the surface to be fundamental dikferences among the world's languages. BORER, H .  (1 984). Parametric Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. CHOMSKY, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory o f  Syntax. Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press. (1981). Lectures on Go- vernmentandBinding. Dordrecht: Foris. HALE, K. (1983). Warlbiri and the Grammar of Nonconfigurational Languages. Natural Language and Linpistic Theory 1.5-47. HIGGINBOTHAM, J. (1985). O n  Seman- tics. Linguistic Inquiry 16.547-594. Reviews Links & Letters 1, 1994 145 LEBEAUX, D. (1988). Language Acquisi- Natural Language and Linguistic tion and the F o m  of  the Grammar. Theoíy 5. 151-180. U.Mass, Amherst: Ph.D. diss. SPEAS, M.J. (1990). Phrase Structure in Jeffrey T. Runner Nahra/Language. DOrdreht: Kluwer. University of Massachusetts at Amherst WILLIAMS, E. (1987)- Im~lic i t  A%u- & Universitat Autbnoma de Barcelona ments, Binding Theory and Control. 

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