LINGUIST List 14.2938

Tue Oct 28 2003

Diss: Syntax: Abels: 'Successive...'

Editor for this issue: Takako Matsui <takolinguistlist.org>

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  • abels, Successive Cyclicity

    Message 1: Successive Cyclicity

     Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 17:58:52 +0000
    From: abels <abelsuni-leipzig.de>
    Subject: Successive Cyclicity


    Institution: University of Connecticut Program: Department of Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2003

    Author: Klaus Abels

    Dissertation Title: Successive Cyclicity, Anti-Locality, and Adposition Stranding

    Dissertation URL: http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~abels/papers/Klaus_Abels_2003_phd_thesis.pdf

    Linguistic Field: Syntax

    Dissertation Director 1: Zeljko Boskovic Dissertation Director 2: Howard Lasnik Dissertation Director 3: William Snyder

    Dissertation Abstract:

    This thesis studies movement operations in natural languages. It is observed that certain heads �' C�, v�, and, in most languages, P� �' cannot be stranded; the complements of these heads never move without pied-piping the heads in question. This is surprising since (a) extraction out of CP, vP, and PP is possible in principle and (b) the complement categories of these heads, TP, VP, and DP or PP, are movable. Evidence for the more contentious of these claims is provided in chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 4 also investigates the ramifications of these facts for theories of adposition stranding. All heads in question have independently been argued to project what Chomsky (2000) calls 'phases'. The generalization is that phase heads cannot be stranded.

    Chapter 2 derives the ban against stranding phase heads within a derivational model of the grammar. The effect of phases on successive cyclicity is the following: To be licit, movement out of a phase must pass through the specifier position of that phase. The idea of the account is that every step of movement must establish a relation between the moved item and some other element in the phrase marker which is in a well-defined sense closer than the relation they were in prior to movement. Movement from complement to specifier position within the same phrase never achieves this. In fact, any movement within the same phrase is in effect too short to achieve this. There are then well-defined anti-locality effects, which fallout from considerations of local economy. The ban against stranding phase heads now follows. A category can leave its containing phase only by passing through its specifier position. Since complements cannot reach the specifier position in the same phrase, the complements of phase heads cannot move away.

    Head Movement is prohibited by the same economy based reasoning. Chapter 5 focuses on Head Movement, advocating a version of Brody's (2000) Mirror Theory. In contrast to standard theories of Head Movement, Mirror Theory predicts what looks like downward Head Movement to be possible. Data from VP-ellipsis in English show that this prediction of Mirror Theory is correct.