LINGUIST List 13.2039

Tue Aug 6 2002

Sum: Strong/Weak Crossover

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

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  • MOHAMMAD RASEKH, Summary of strong/weak crossover

    Message 1: Summary of strong/weak crossover

     Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 23:00:21 -0700 (PDT)
    From: MOHAMMAD RASEKH <mrmahand2001yahoo.com>
    Subject: Summary of strong/weak crossover


    Here is a summary of the responses on strong/weak crossover:

    Illicit movement of an operator (for instance a wh-word) across a pronoun in argument position when the pronoun c-commands the variable (trace) of the operator and pronoun and trace are coindexed.

    This sounds difficult but isn't quite so:

    (1) *Whoi, does hei think, ti has won the competition?

    (1) is ungrammatical with the indexing indicated. Given this coindexing the interpretation of this sentence would be: For what x, x a person: x believes, that x has won the competition.

    In this case the variable (who) crosses a pronoun in argument position (A position) (he). he c-commands the variable (trace t) and there is coindexing of trace, pronoun and operator. Compare this with the well-formed

    (2) Whoi ti thinks, hei has won the competition?

    weak crossover:

    Illicit movement of an operator over a constituent (his mother in (3)) which c-commands the variable (trace) and contains a pronoun coindexed with this variable:

    (3) *Whoi does [hisi mother] really like ti?

    For what x, x a person: the mother of x likes x.

    There is no weak crossover effect with A-movement:

    (4) Johni seems to hisi sister [ti to be a fool].

    All A'-movements (that is movement in non-argument position) are subject to the strong crossover effect while only those A'-movement relations involving a quantifier-variable relation are subject to the weak crossover effect. wh-words behave as other quantifiers do. Compare the question operator of (3) with the relative operator in (5) (and with the topicalization in (6)):

    (5) Johni, whoi hisi mother really likes ti ...

    (6) Johni, hisi mother really likes ti.



    ===== Mohammad Rasekh Mahand English and Linguistics Department Litrature and Humanities Faculty Bu-Ali Sina University Hamadan,IRAN.