Word Order and Minimalism
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Heles Contreras
Abstract
The minimalist program, with its clear separation between constituency, relevant to LF, and linear order, relevant to PF, makes it possible and, I would claim, natural to pursue an approach to ‘free’ word order as the result of underspecification.
In contrast with the prevailing tradition that identifies one basic order and derives the rest by different ‘movement’ operations, I will suggest that it is the lack of ordering stipulations that allows the free permutations of major sentence constituents in languages like Warlpiri (Hale 1983) and the different subject positions in languages like Spanish.
This proposal is not equivalent to the postulation of ‘flat’ structures for certain languages. The structures delivered to LF are necessarily hierarchical, given the properties of Merge, which combines two elements at a time. In this respect, Warlpiri and English are alike. It is only the PF structures that can differ with respect to how much stipulation is needed.
Abstract
The minimalist program, with its clear separation between constituency, relevant to LF, and linear order, relevant to PF, makes it possible and, I would claim, natural to pursue an approach to ‘free’ word order as the result of underspecification.
In contrast with the prevailing tradition that identifies one basic order and derives the rest by different ‘movement’ operations, I will suggest that it is the lack of ordering stipulations that allows the free permutations of major sentence constituents in languages like Warlpiri (Hale 1983) and the different subject positions in languages like Spanish.
This proposal is not equivalent to the postulation of ‘flat’ structures for certain languages. The structures delivered to LF are necessarily hierarchical, given the properties of Merge, which combines two elements at a time. In this respect, Warlpiri and English are alike. It is only the PF structures that can differ with respect to how much stipulation is needed.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
