8
votes
Accepted
To what extent was Chomsky influenced by Tesnière?
I do not think that Chomsky ever cited Tesnière in a meaningful way, because if he had, we would know about it. I state this as the main translator of Tesnière's work Elements of structural syntax ...
- 5,805
6
votes
Accepted
What is the relation between a specifier and a determiner?
Determiner is a grammatical category for words like "the" and "a." Some theories claim that possessive 's is also a determiner.
Specifier is a grammatical relation in certain theories, such as X-bar ...
- 2,364
6
votes
Accepted
How to treat adverbial phrases in X-bar theory
Short answer
'[I]n the many places where I was guilty of the reprehensible and shockingly common confusion of the notions of "adverb" and "adverbial"; these defects, for which I ...
- 4,118
6
votes
Accepted
tree diagrams, X-Bar theory
For the most part, any type of phrase can dominate any other type of phrase, because of the recursive structure of syntax. Since a CP can be dominated by a VP, and a VP can be dominated by a CP, you ...
- 69.6k
5
votes
Critics and arguments against the generative syntax theories?
The best argument I've encountered against generative syntax is that made in C.F. Hockett's State of the Art. Personally, I don't subscribe to it, but you may find it persuasive. Hockett compares ...
- 12.5k
5
votes
How do contractions work in syntactic movement?
I'm not convinced the notion "clitic" is really needful to explain what is going on. Some syntactic rules depend on what the words are, and you can't always trust traditional English orthography to ...
- 12.5k
5
votes
How do contractions work in syntactic movement?
Summarizing the paper by Zwicky and Pullum commented by @sumelic above: They suggest that most contractions are clitics, but <-n't> is an inflection.
Most English contractions, such as <-'s> &...
- 6,909
5
votes
Accepted
Is Generative / X-bar Theory prescriptivist? (can the descriptivist linguist create X-bar syntax trees?)
X-bar theory is prescriptivist in a certain sense. It prescribes certain things about the structure of syntax trees: that all branching is binary, for example, and that every XP level dominates an X' ...
- 69.6k
4
votes
What is the relation between a specifier and a determiner?
The term specifier denotes a set position in a fixed schema, the X-bar schema. In contrast, the term determiner denotes a specific word category. The next illustration is from Wikipedia (X-bar theory):...
- 5,805
4
votes
How does an AdvP attach in X-bar syntax?
The AdvP here isn't a complement or a specifier, but a separate third thing: an adjunct, a modifier that's attached to an entire, completed phrase.
In other words, you have your VP "love the ...
- 69.6k
4
votes
Accepted
Argumentation for the existence of Tense phrase
The usual argument is that the present-tense marking only ever appears once in the phrase. If you put another verb before the main one, that one takes the tense marking instead:
John spends […]
John ...
- 69.6k
3
votes
What is the x-bar tree of 'I am proud of my students'? (having trouble with proud)
(Disclaimer: I am not a specialist in Syntax)
According to the X-bar Theory, Adjectives, as any other lexical category, undergo three different levels of projection. They can have Complements (which ...
- 2,679
3
votes
Are English modal verbs tensed or non-tensed?
I start out with declaring my ignorance. I do not know what X’ theory is. I am a mere historical linguist. For me, the reason we do not say (in English) “*shoulds” is that in the Germanic languages “...
- 24.6k
3
votes
X-bar theory without movement
You might want to have a look at LFG, they use X' Theory extended with an additional "lexocentric" category S to accommodate nonconfigurational phrase structures.
- 2,600
3
votes
Accepted
In X bar theory, is the first auxiliary the head of an interrogative clause and the remainder the complement?
The simple answer to the question is as follows: Yes, the complement of an auxiliary verb in a traditional X-bar-theoretic approach does view the entire string following the inverted auxiliary as the ...
- 5,805
3
votes
Is there a language whose syntactic structure accepts a specifier of a PP?
In his syntax textbook, Richard Larson (2010: 346-7) suggests that measure phrases in PPs, e.g. “three miles” in “three miles down the road”, occupy the specifier of PP. If that’s correct, English is ...
- 306
2
votes
Accepted
How to determine when an additional X-bar or XP can be used
To answer your question, we'd need a theoretical understanding of "bar" and "bar level" (as opposed to a diagrammatic esthetic). One idea is to connect "bar" with the addition of complements, then ...
- 12.5k
2
votes
Accepted
How do noun-noun compounds fit into a noun phrase in syntax?
Noun-noun compounds are nouns: N -> N N. The structure of your example is
[N [N [N [N chocolate] [N chip]] [N cookie]] [N dough]]
or possibly
[N [N [N chocolate] [N chip]] [N [N cookie] [N dough]]]...
- 12.5k
2
votes
Are English modal verbs tensed or non-tensed?
I wouldn't say that modals are I': rather, I'd say that they're I. In other words, a modal verb is syntactically an inflection, not a full verb. (It's easy to see that modals don't act like Vs: they ...
- 69.6k
2
votes
You are the first person [to notice the mistake]. (complement vs adjunct/modifier)
At the core of the question is a key observation about the nature of certain noun phrases. At times an adjective takes a complement that appears to the right of the noun, which is problematic because ...
- 5,805
2
votes
Are English modal verbs tensed or non-tensed?
In current English, the common modals are paired up in a fashion similar to present/past pairs: "will/would, can/could, shall/should", and sometimes "could" has the sense of a past tense "can". Of ...
- 12.5k
2
votes
Is the X bar theory applicable to any natural language other than English?
The general X bar scheme is, although heavily motivated by English - or at least Indo-European languages - thought to be applicable to any natural language.
How well that works depends highly on what ...
- 6,601
2
votes
How to draw the NP "so little" in "He said so little" in a tree diagram?
There are a number of possibilities for the X-bar analysis of the phrase so little. A central choice one has to make concerns viewing little as an adjective or as a derived noun, that is, as a noun ...
- 5,805
2
votes
Accepted
Tree diagrams in CGEL
I've always wondered about this tree too. In particular, I wondered why from Lloyds would be a complement. And so I asked Geoff Pullum, who replied that he thinks that salary doesn't take complements. ...
- 308
2
votes
Does the relative clause (which suggests...) here function as an adjunct of the whole clause in front of it?
The high notes returned to his compositions towards the end of his
life, [which suggests he was hearing the works that were taking shape
in his imagination].
Yes, it is an adjunct, more ...
- 867
2
votes
Does the relative clause (which suggests...) here function as an adjunct of the whole clause in front of it?
I think you're right, and iirc this is what McCawley argues in Syntactic Phenomena of English. The antecedent of "which" in the appositive relative clause is the S "The high notes ... his life". ...
- 12.5k
2
votes
Why only 1 complement is possible?
The problem you point to is addressed later in Carnie's book, starting on page 412. The greater issue concerns the extent to which tertiary branching should or should not be assumed. This matter ...
- 5,805
2
votes
Is it possible to have a repeated node appear under the same node? (Syntax Tree) [illustration provided]
While I don't speak French, most styles of generative syntax (the sort you seem to be doing here) do allow for this sort of "repetition". When you attach a complement to a node (using the &...
- 69.6k
1
vote
In X Bar Theory where can "ne" and "pas" be found?
Check this: http://www.bu.edu/linguistics/UG/course/lx522-f03/handouts/lx522f03-9a-ammt.pdf Other than in your mentioned papers though, < pas > here is not in a spec position. It is adjacent to <...
- 658
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