The Grammar of Repetition

Displacement is a fundamental property of grammar. Typically, when an occurrence moves it is pronounced in only one environment. This was previously viewed as a primitive/irreducible property of grammar. Recent work, however, suggests that it follows from principled interactions between the syntactic and phonological components of grammar. As such, the phonetic character of movement chains can be seen as both a reflection of and probe into the syntax-phonology interface. This volume deals with repetition, an atypical outcome of movement operations in which displaced elements are pronounced multiple times. Although cross-linguistically rare, the phenomenon obtains robustly in Nupe, a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria. Repetition raises a tension of the descriptive-explanatory variety. In order to achieve both measures of adequacy, movement theory must be supplemented with an account of the conditions that drive and constrain multiple pronunciation. This book catalogs these conditions, bringing to light a number of undocumented aspects of Nupe grammar.

Chris Collins, New York University:
One of the most challenging issues facing minimalist syntax is to give a general account of the conditions under which multiple occurrences (created by internal Merge) of a single syntactic constituent are spelled out. Jason Kandybowicz adduces data from Nupe, a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria, to address this issue. In particular, Kandybowicz argues convincingly that syntactic, phonological, morphological and prosodic conditions can force more than one occurrence to be spelled out. Kandybowicz’s study is a paradigmatic example of how the careful analysis of a less studied language (from the point of view of English, Italian, Japanese, etc.) can have clear consequences for the theory of Universal Grammar.