Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies

✍ Scribed by Robert Frank

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 339
• Series: Current Studies in Linguistics
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies , Robert Frank explores an approach to syntactic theory that weds the Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) formalism with the minimalist framework. TAG has been extensively studied both for its mathematical properties and for its usefulness in computational linguistics applications. Frank shows that incorporating TAG's formally restrictive operations for structure building considerably simplifies the model of grammatical competence, particularly in the components concerned with syntactic movement and locality. The empirical advantages of the resulting model, illustrated with extensive case studies of subject-raising constructions and wh-questions, point toward a conception of grammar that is sharply limited in its computational power.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 14
1.1 Phrase Structure Composition in Grammatical Derivation......Page 16
1.2 TAG Basics......Page 31
1.3 The Structure of TAG Derivations......Page 42
1.4 Formal Grammar and Human Grammar......Page 47
2.1 Elementary Trees as Thematic Domains......Page 52
2.2 Extending beyond the Thematic Domain......Page 55
2.3 The Unity of Extended Projections......Page 60
2.4 Elementary Trees as Extended Projections......Page 68
3.1 The Displacement Phenomenon and Motivations for Movement......Page 82
3.2 A TAG Analysis: Factoring Recursion......Page 84
3.3 Deriving Locality......Page 88
3.4 Getting By without Traces......Page 96
3.5 Nonraising in Nominals and Gerunds......Page 104
3.6 Raising Passives......Page 111
3.7 Raising from Small Clauses......Page 114
3.8 Raising and Inversion......Page 116
4.1 A Local Version of the EPP......Page 128
4.2 Local Feature Checking and Local Economy......Page 138
4.3 Locality and the Maximal Checking Principle......Page 143
4.4 Residues of the EPP......Page 148
4.5 Quirky Subjects, Agreement, and Nominative Case Assignment......Page 153
4.6 Constraints on Adjoining: Feature Checking across Elementary Trees......Page 168
A Case Study: Wh-Dependencies......Page 190
5.1 Movement and Adjoining in Wh-Dependencies......Page 191
5.2 Bridge Verbs and Nonmaximal Complements......Page 195
5.3 Nonmaximal Projections, Wh- Features, and Superiority......Page 197
5.4 What Drives Wh-Movement?......Page 205
5.5 Deriving Island Effects......Page 214
5.6 Long Movement......Page 233
5.7 Long Movement from Nominals......Page 242
6.1 Difficult Dependencies......Page 248
6.2 Interface Issues......Page 254
Notes......Page 260
References......Page 308
A......Page 324
C......Page 325
D......Page 327
E......Page 328
G......Page 330
I......Page 331
L......Page 332
M......Page 333
P......Page 334
R......Page 335
S......Page 336
T......Page 337
W......Page 338
Z......Page 339