Exploring crash-proof grammars / edited by Michael T. Putnam.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Putnam, Michael T.

Series:

Language faculty and beyond ; v. 3.

Language faculty and beyond ; v. 3

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Generative grammar.

Minimalist theory (Linguistics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (315 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub. Company, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Minimalist Program has advanced a research program that builds the design of human language from conceptual necessity. Seminal proposals by Frampton & Gutmann (1999, 2000, 2002) introduced the notion that an ideal syntactic theory should be 'crash-proof'. Such a version of the Minimalist Program (or any other linguistic theory) would not permit syntactic operations to produce structures that 'crash'. There have, however, been some recent developments in Minimalism - especially those that approach linguistic theory from a biolinguistic perspective (cf. Chomsky 2005 et seq.) - that have called the pursuit of a 'crash-proof grammar' into serious question. The papers in this volume take on the daunting challenge of defining exactly what a 'crash' is and what a 'crash-proof grammar' would look like, and of investigating whether or not the pursuit of a 'crash-proof grammar' is biolinguistically appealing.

Contents:

Exploring Crash-Proof Grammars

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Dedication page

Table of contents

Preface &amp

acknowledgments

List of contributors

Exploring Crash-proof grammars

1. Introduction

2. Defining crash(es)

3. Scope and content of this volume

Works cited

Part I. Applications of crash-proof grammar

Computation efficiency and feature inheritance in crash-proof syntax

2. Feature inheritance

3. Subject-verb agreement

4. Subject extraction and Anti-Agreement Effects

5. Long distance extraction and agreement

6. DONATE, KEEP and SHARE application in crash-proof syntax

7. Conclusion

Implications of grammatical gender for the theory of uninterpretable features

1.1 Theoretical overview

1.2 Structure of the paper

2. Gender and interpretability

2.1 Romance gender

2.2 Bantu noun class

3. Gender agreement in Bantu and Romance

4. Why Bantu agreement is independent of case

4.1 The proposal: Gender is never deactivated

4.2 Against an Agree-with-Agreement approach

support from semitic

5. Activity: A closer look

5.1 Strengthening the Activity Requirement

6. A problem for Feature Inheritance

7. Deriving Goal Deactivation

8. Conclusion

References

The Empty Left Edge Condition (ELEC)

2. A uniform approach to null-arguments

3. Germanic argument drop and the ELEC

4. More cases of left edge sensitive argument drop

5. The emptiness conditions are operative in PF

6. Concluding remarks

Part II. The crash-proof debate

Grammaticality, interfaces, and UG

1. Linguistics as the study of I-language

2. Acceptability and grammaticality

3. Selection and structure-building

4. Prospects for an unprincipled syntax

A tale of two minimalisms.

1. Introductory remarks

2. The distinguishing feature between the two minimalisms

2.1 The crash-proof route

2.2 The alternative route

2.3 A concise comparison, and why Merge α has an edge

3. On Agree

4. Conclusion

Uninterpretable features

1. Unclarities regarding the distinction between crash vs. convergent gibberish

2. A pervasive empirical problem for the valuation-transfer analysis

3. Designing a perfect system "primarily" for CI and "secondarily" for SM

4. A crash-proof system and a remaining question

Syntactic relations in Survive-minimalism

2. "Phrase structure rules" a la the Survive Principle

3. Theta Roles in Survive-minimalism

4. Cleaning-up crashes

5. Consequences and conclusions

Toward a strongly derivational syntax

2. Labeling and First Merge

2.1 C-selection is not feature checking

2.2 C-selection has no role in labeling

2.3 Labeling at First Merge: Agree

2.4 Collins' Locus and First Merge

2.5 Crash-proof derivation vs. immediate filtering

3. The issues facing First and Second Merge

4. Toward a strongly derivational syntax

4.1 Eliminating the First Merge/Second Merge dichotomy

4.2 Eliminating First Merge

4.3 A)symmetry in narrow syntax and at the interfaces

4.4 Eliminating Merge

4.5 Consequences of Eliminating Merge

4.6 Transfer and feature checking

4.7 Complex specifiers

5. Concluding remarks

On the mathematical foundations of crash-proof grammars

1. Rainbow, language, theory

2. The concept of crash-proof syntax

3. Mechanisms of crash-proof syntax

4. Elements, contexts, and formal Systems

5. Peano's axioms

6. The language-number correspondence

7. Conclusions

Crash-proof syntax and filters

2. OT-syntax as a theory of filters.

3. Crash-proof syntax does not void the need for filters

3.1 Movement

3.2 Negative sentences

3.3 Other differences

3.4 The universal generator

3.5 Conclusions

4. Why developing a crash-proof syntax may be desirable

5. Conclusion

Crash-free syntax and crash phenomena in model-theoretic grammar

2. Grammar as system of declarative constraints rather than a system of production operations

3. When derivations crash (in performance)

4. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Index

the Language Faculty and Beyond series.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612775079

9781282775077

1282775073

9789027288011

9027288011

OCLC:

673625085