Syntax 265
11 Syntax
MARK C. BAKER
1 The Domain of Syntax
At its most basic level, syntax can be defined as the branch of linguistics that
studies how the words of a language can be combined to make larger units,
such as phrases, clauses, and sentences.
As such, syntax is deeply concerned with the relationship between the finite
and the infinite. Most languages have a finite number of basic words, but those
words can be put together to make an infinite number of sentences. Thus, one
can buy a more or less complete dictionary of English, but it is unthinkable to
buy a similar reference book that would list all the sentences of English. This
is because there are rules and patterns that can be used in a dynamic way to
create and understand new English sentences. Syntax is the study of these
rules and patterns. For example, readers of this chapter will be aware of having
encountered the English words this, loves, elephant, and eggplant, and they
will find them listed in their dictionaries. However, they will not be aware of
having encountered the English sentence in (1) before, and they will be unable
to “look it up”:
(1) This elephant loves eggplant.
Nevertheless, they will have no hesitancies about recognizing it as English, or
about being able to understand it and use it appropriately. Moreover, they will
feel very differently about (2), even though it is made up of the same familiar
elements:
(2) *Loves elephant eggplant this.
In this arrangement, the words are not well-formed, but rather are ungrammatical
(indicated by * symbol).
Syntax is primarily concerned with whether a sentence is “properly put
together” rather than whether it is meaningful, or silly, or bizarre. Thus, it is
266 Mark C. Baker
concerned with the difference between (1) and (2), more than in the difference
between (1) and the examples in (3) (Chomsky 1957: ch. 2).
(3) a. Those hippopotamuses hate asparagus.
b. #This eggplant loves elephants.
These sentences are all instances of the same basic pattern from a syntactic
point of view, even though they mean different things ((3b) in particular
being nonsensical, and unacceptable for that reason). What the new sentences
formed by the patterns of syntax actually mean is the primary concern of
semantics. However, aspects of how words are put together can influence how
the sentence is interpreted; hence these issues can come into the domain of
syntax as well. Indeed, there is a complex interaction between the disciplines
of syntax and semantics, and it is controversial whether the topics can truly be
distinguished.
The other branches of linguistics that are closely related to syntax are
morphology and discourse analysis: morphology because it builds the words
that are the starting point of syntax, and discourse analysis because it involves
the construction of sentences into even larger entities, such as texts. Again, it
is somewhat controversial to what extent syntax is a distinct topic from these
others. It is conceivable that sentences are built in accordance with the same
patterns and procedures as words or texts are. In that case, syntax would not
be a separate topic from morphology or discourse analysis. Be that as it may,
there is no doubt that some kind of syntax exists, and that it involves taking
the finite building blocks made available by a given language and putting
them together into an infinite number of representations, which in turn can
express an infinite number of thoughts.
2 The Chomskyan Perspective
The study of syntax has flowered since 1950, having been given new impetus
by the work of Noam Chomsky. One small but essential part of Chomsky’s
contribution has been to bring certain insights and perspectives from the
study of formal languages in mathematics and computer science to bear on the
fundamental problems of syntax. For example, the simple mathematical concept
of a recursive function sheds crucial new light on how a finite number of words
could be pieced together to make an infinite number of sentences (Chomsky
1975: chs 7, 8). In essence, a recursive function is one that is defined in terms of
itself – a “circular” definition that succeeds in saying something substantive.
For example, suppose that English contains the following rules:
(4) a. A sentence (S) consists of a Noun Phrase (NP) followed by a Verb
Phrase (VP).
(S → NP + VP)
Syntax 267
b. A VP consists of a verb (V), possibly followed by an NP and / or a
clause (CP).
(VP → V, or V + NP, or V + CP, or V + NP + CP)
c. A CP consists of a S, possibly preceded by a complementizer (C)
(CP → S or C + S)
English also includes the following words, which are members of the indicated
lexical categories:
(5) Noun phrases: John, Mary, Bill
Verbs: believes, likes
Complementizer: that
This is a very small vocabulary, and a relatively short list of rules / patterns.
However, the set of rules is recursive in the sense that a sentence contains a VP,
and one of the things a VP can contain is a clause (CP), which always contains
a new S. This S in turn contains its own VP, which can contain yet another
S. And so on. Thus, with only these rules one can already make an infinite
number of grammatical English sentences, depending on how many times one
puts a new S inside the verb phrase:
(6) Mary likes Bill.
John thinks that Mary likes Bill.
Bill thinks that John thinks that Mary likes Bill.
Mary thinks that Bill thinks that John thinks that Mary likes Bill.
John thinks that Mary thinks that Bill thinks that John thinks that Mary
likes Bill.
Note that each of these sentences expresses a distinct idea – one that is potentially
useful in the complex world of high school courtship. Clearly there is
much more to English than this, but it shows how the basic idea of recursion
can elegantly address the apparent paradox of how people who have a finite
amount of knowledge of English stored in their minds can produce and understand
an infinite number of English sentences.
Another foundational contribution from Chomsky and the cognitive science
revolution of the 1950s and 1960s has more to do with the spirit of linguistic
inquiry than its technical machinery. This is the ethos that when one is trying
to discover the syntactic rules and patterns of a particular language, those
rules should be stated explicitly and precisely, with (ideally) nothing being
taken for granted or left to the imagination (Chomsky 1957: Preface). To see
why this has proved important, consider the difference between telling a friend
to do something and programming a computer to do something. Interacting
with your friends is generally easier, because you automatically expect the
friend to bring a great deal of common sense to bear on the request, filling in
the details and interpreting the command in the light of circumstances. In
268 Mark C. Baker
contrast, computers have no inherent common sense; they do all and only
what they are told in the most literal fashion. But while this can make working
with computers exasperating, it can also make it educational, because trying to
program a computer to do a task forces one to take stock of exactly what goes
into that task, with no question-begging or step-skipping. This experience
turns out to be highly relevant to the study of language. The syntax of English
often seems deceptively simple, particularly in a monolingual situation. Since
we all speak English (or another natural language), it is very easy to unconsciously
fill in details without realizing it. If, however, one takes up the challenge
of finding the patterns and principles of syntax to the point where one
could (in principle) program a computer to judge sentences, manipulate them,
and interpret them the way we do, one is forced to seriously investigate many
issues that are otherwise easily overlooked. Sometimes this may seem obsessive
to the outside observer: syntacticians sometimes seem to be telling needlessly
complex stories when it is obvious that we say (1) and not (2) because
“(1) sounds better” or “(1) makes more sense.” But in fact linguists are at least
as interested in exactly what goes into this “linguistic common sense” as they
are about the salient and arbitrary rules of grammar that get most of people’s
attention (like “don’t end a sentence with a preposition”). In fact, many important
discoveries have been made by taking this perspective, some of which will
be mentioned below.
The broadly Chomskyan approach to syntax is often called formal or generative:
“formal” because it uses mathematical style formalisms and definitions
in presenting its analysis, such as the recursive rules above; “generative” because
it seeks to explicate how fluent speakers can generate new well-formed
expressions of a language. Many current syntacticians still accept these labels
for their work, while others have reacted against them and what they see as
some deficiencies and excesses of this approach. However, it seems fair to say
that even those that react most loudly against the Chomskyan approach have
been positively influenced by its most basic ethos and by some of what has
been learned from that perspective. For purposes of this chapter I will attempt
to background these areas of disagreement, and foreground areas of relative
agreement, simply noting in passing some areas where interpretations differ
significantly.
3 Basic Lessons of Syntactic Research
What then are some of the substantive discoveries that have been made by
adopting this perspective to syntax? Beyond the details of a vast number of
particular discoveries, one can identify at least three broad themes: (1) that
syntax is a vast topic; (2) that constraints are central to syntax; and (3) that
there is a large component of syntax that is common to all human languages.
I will discuss each of these themes in turn, using them as a context for presenting
some more specific material by way of illustration.
Syntax 269
3.1 The vastness of syntax
The first important lesson that comes from several decades of research on syntax
is that there is much more to syntax than anyone ever imagined. Natural
languages turn out to be enormously complicated, once one takes up the “take
nothing for granted” attitude of the computer programmer. Prior to reflection,
it is natural to think of an activity like playing chess as the epitome of a complex
activity requiring great intelligence; in contrast, forming grammatical
English sentences seems like a very ordinary, routine behavior. After all, playing
chess requires conscious mental exertion and some people can do it much
better than others, whereas English sentences are formed automatically, almost
unconsciously by practically everyone. Indeed, the first blush of success over
phrase structure rules could make one think that that is pretty much all there
is to it. However, the actual experience of computer programming has shown
vividly that the real complexity of the tasks is the reverse. Steady progress has
been made in programming computers to play chess, to the point that they now
beat even the best human players. In contrast, there is still no computer system
that can match the ability to judge, generate, and interpret English sentences
of an average ten-year-old child, in spite of the fact that enormous resources
have been devoted to the problem. Indeed, the longest grammars of the beststudied
languages are not close to complete descriptions, and new discoveries
about languages like English and French are still made on a regular basis.
3.1.1 Phrase Structure
To see where some of the complexities come from, let us return to the notion
of phrase structure. Rules like S → NP + VP and VP → V or V + NP express in
a succinct way several facts (Chomsky 1965: ch. 2). First, they express the fact
that all normal sentences must have at least a subject NP and a verb (except
for imperatives, and certain elliptical expressions). If the subject is omitted, the
sentence strikes native speakers of English as deviant.
(7) a. Mary likes the dress.
b. *Likes the dress.
Second, these rules express the fact that the subject appears before the verb,
and the object appears immediately after it. Thus, The dress likes Mary is a silly
sentence with a completely different meaning from (7a); this is because it
cannot be understood as having the object come before the verb and the subject
after, but only as the dress being the subject and Mary being the object. The
other logically possible rearrangements of the words are simply ungrammatical:
(8) a. *Mary the dress likes.
b. *Likes Mary the dress.
c. *Likes the dress Mary.
d. (*)The dress Mary likes. (This is OK in context as a topicalization)
270 Mark C. Baker
Third, the phrase structure rules as given also express the more subtle fact that
the object and the verb together form a tighter unit in English, with the subject
attached more loosely. Thus, in some special contexts one can put the verb and
the object together at the front of the sentence, leaving the subject behind (see
(9a)). In contrast, one can never put the subject and the verb at the front,
leaving the object behind ((9b)).
(9) I told you that John would like that dress, and indeed . . .
a. . . . Like that dress, John does.
b. *. . . John like, does that dress.
This unit that contains both the verb and the object but not the subject – the
phrase that appears before the comma in (9a) – is called the Verb Phrase.
Putting these pieces together, we can diagram the structure of a simple English
sentence as follows:
(10)
NP
likes
V
VP
Mary
NP
S
the dress
Similarly, the second sentence in (6) would have the phrase structure diagram
in (11); note the recursion, where one S is embedded inside another.
(11)
Billlikes
NPV
VP
Mary
NP
S
that
C
CP
thinks
V
VP
John
NP
S
Syntax 271
While these rules can be elaborated, refined, and added to, this gives some
sense of how they are intended to work.
Already some complications arise. The phrase structure rules as given account
for the ungrammaticality of (7a) compared to (7b), where the subject has
been omitted. Now it is also ungrammatical to leave out the object of (7a):
(12) *John likes.
Indeed, (12) feels just as bad as (7b). However, unlike (7b), (12) can be generated
by the phrase structure rules we have given. The difference is intentional.
The reason is that (12) becomes grammatical when another verb is substituted
for likes; for example, one can say John smiles. However, sentences like (7b) are
impossible whatever verb is chosen (*Arrived the dress, *Tore the dress, etc.).
Thus, it is a property of the particular English verb like that it needs to appear
with an object, whereas it is a property of the English language as a whole that
sentences need to have subjects. This difference between the status of subjects
and objects is sometimes called the (extended) projection principle (Chomsky 1981).
In contrast, the fact that objects must be present if and only if the particular
verb of a clause specifically calls for one is sometimes called the theta criterion
(Chomsky 1981).
3.1.2 Transformational and interpretive rules
Rich as they are, there seems to be more still to syntax than phrase structure
rules. There are also certain systematic relationships between sentences that
need to be captured, for which Chomsky originally proposed the formal device
of the transformational rule (Chomsky 1957: ch. 7). These rules change one
phrase structure into another. For example, consider the following English
sentences:
(13) a. Mary will like the dress.
b. *Mary will like what?
c. What will Mary like?
d. *What will Mary like the dress?
e. *The dress will Mary like.
Like other languages, English has a special set of words that can take the place
of a missing piece of information in order to form a question; these are often
called wh-words after the letters that most of them begin with (who, what,
where, which . . . ). However, (13b) shows that it is not enough in English to
simply put one of these words in place of the desired piece of information.
Rather, the wh-word must appear at the beginning of the sentence, as in (13c).
Moreover, (13c) is a striking exception to the generalization made above that
the verb like must be immediately followed by an object. On the contrary, in
this environment like must not have an object after it, as shown by (13d). One
272 Mark C. Baker
natural way to describe this network of facts is to say that the initial structure
of (13c) is like that of (13a), with what substituted for the dress. However, the
structure is “transformed” by a rule that can be stated something like this:
(14) Move wh-words to before the first word of an S that contains them.
This rule applies to interrogative NPs, but not to other kinds of NPs; hence (13e)
is not possible, even though it is perfectly parallel to (13c).
Transformational relationships like these turn out to be relatively common.
Indeed, (13) illustrates another one. Notice that the placement of the future
auxiliary element will is different in declarative sentences like (13a) and interrogative
ones like (13b). In declarative sentences, it always comes after the
subject and before the main verb, whereas in interrogative sentences it comes
between the wh-phrase and the subject. This change in word order is required
(see (15a)) and one cannot have a second auxiliary of the same type in the
usual position between the subject and the verb (15b).
(15) a. *What Mary will like?
b. *What will Mary will / may like?
Again, a movement transformation is a simple way to account for this fact:
(16) Shift the auxiliary verb to the front of the subject NP in sentences that
are interpreted as questions.
There may also be processes that apply to phrase structures that do not fall
under the general category of movement. Suppose that we expand our miniature
English dictionary to include NPs that are pronouns, such as he, she, and
it. Then the phrase structure rules generate examples like (17):
(17) John thinks that he likes Mary.
This sentence is ambiguous. Depending on context and expectations, it can
easily be interpreted as meaning that John thinks that John himself likes Mary,
or that John thinks that some other male we are discussing (say Bill) likes Mary.
This is an essential feature of how competent English speakers understand and
use sentences with pronouns. Now suppose that each distinct person referred
to is associated with a unique number, written as a subscript to the Noun
Phrase(s) that refer to it. Then the ambiguity in (17) can be captured by adding
a rule like the following (Chomsky 1973; this rule is given for illustrative
purposes; it is not now widely accepted, although the effect is genuine (Lasnik
1989: ch. 4)):
(18) Copy the referential index of an NP onto a pronoun as its referential
index.
Syntax 273
This is called an interpretive rule, rather than a transformational rule. It is
optional: one meaning of (17) comes from applying the rule, and the other
meaning comes from choosing not to apply it.
(19) a. John3 thinks that he3 likes Mary4, or (by (18))
b. John3 thinks that he2 likes Mary4.
Just as the transformational rules apply only to a specific set of items (whwords,
auxiliary verbs), so (18) applies only to pronouns. Thus, if the man
named John also happens to be a sentimental fool, one can in principle use
either the NP John or the sentimental fool to refer to him. However, if one
replaces the pronoun he in (17) with the NP the sentimental fool, the sentence
can only have a meaning like (19b), where three distinct people are being
discussed. This is because the sentimental fool is not a pronoun, and therefore
rule (18) does not apply.
The existence of transformational rules like (14) and (16) and interpretive
rules like (18) is more controversial than the existence of phrase structure.
These elements of a linguistic analysis can be eliminated; one simply has to
make up new phrase structure rules that will generate the desired sentences
directly (Gazdar et al. 1985). Some syntacticians prefer this alternative approach,
often for reasons of computational simplicity or formal elegance. However,
there is no doubt that there needs to be some kind of general mechanism for
expressing the relationships among the different parts of a syntactic structure
– such as the relationship between the sentence initial question word in (13c)
and the fact that the sentence has no NP in the object position of the verb
phrase.
3.2 The centrality of constraints
This is far from exhausting the domain of syntax, however. Indeed, it merely
sets the stage for what is perhaps the most interesting and significant discovery
of all: the existence of constraints. When the various rules of syntax are
stated in their simplest and most general form, they typically “over-generate,”
producing a number of ungrammatical sentences along with the grammatical
ones. Therefore, syntacticians have proposed a system of constraints that prevent
these rules from running wild.
As an example, let us return to the rule that moves wh-words to the front of
sentences. This is a very general phenomenon, but it turns out to be far from
exceptionless. Consider, for example, the following more complex examples:
(20) a. John will think that Mary likes the dress
b. John will think Mary likes the dress.
c. What will John think Mary likes – ?
d. What will John think that Mary likes – ?
274 Mark C. Baker
e. Who will John think – likes the dress?
f. *Who will John think that – likes the dress?
(20a) and (20b) are both simple sentences, formed by the phrase structure rules
in (4). They differ only in whether the complementizer that is present or not: in
(20a) the CP inside the VP containing think is expanded as C + S (where that is
C); in (20b) the CP is expanded simply as S. Examples (20c) and (20d) are the
result of generating what as the object of the embedded sentence and moving
it to the front; both are grammatical, as expected. Examples (20e) and (20f)
are the result of substituting who for the subject NP of the embedded sentence
and moving it to the front. This time, we find something unanticipated: (20f)
is ungrammatical for most speakers, even though our rules can construct this
sentence just as easily as the others. There seems to be a special, additional
constraint at work here, which can be phrased as follows (Chomsky and Lasnik
1977):
(21) Complementizer constraint
A sentence is ungrammatical if a complementizer comes immediately
before a verb (in languages where subject phrases are generally
obligatory).
Since only (20f) has the forbidden sequence of words . . . that – likes . . . it
alone is ruled out by (21), as desired.
There are other constraints on wh-movement as well. We have seen that
either a subject or an object can be replaced by a wh-word, which then moves
to the front of the clause. However, a difference between subjects and objects
arises when one tries to question only a part of the noun phrase. When a
question word replaces part of an object noun phrase and moves to the front,
the result is often perfectly acceptable, as in (22).
(22) a. You saw [a picture of John].
b. Who did you see [a picture of – ]?
However, when a question word replaces a similar part of a subject noun
phrase, the result is unacceptable:
(23) a. [A picture of John] disturbed you.
b. *Who did [a picture of – ] disturb you?
There is no obvious reason why (23b) should not be as useful or meaningful a
sentence as (22b); it just sounds awkward. To account for this, linguists have
stated the following condition (Huang 1982):
(24) The condition on extraction domains (CED):
A phrase X can move out of a phrase Y only if Y is immediately contained
in a Verb Phrase.
Syntax 275
Since the object is inside the VP, as shown by the phrase structure diagram in
(25), the movement in (22b) is possible:
(25)
However, the subject NP is not inside the Verb Phrase; therefore question
words cannot move out of the subject:
(26)
a picture of – NP
bother
V
VPNP
S
who
NP
S′
you
*
Thus, the condition on extraction domains correctly differentiates between
sentences like (22) and (23).
There are also interesting constraints on the pronoun interpretation rule in
(18). Suppose that the object of a sentence is a pronoun. That pronoun can
easily be understood as referring to something contained in the subject noun
phrase, as expected:
(27) John’s2 mother3 loves him2.
The situation is not symmetrical however. If we put a pronoun in the subject
position, it cannot normally be understood as referring to something contained
in the object. Thus, he cannot be John (or the mother) in sentences like (28), but
must be some third person.
a picture of –
OK
NP
see
V
VP
you
NP
S
who
NP
S′
276 Mark C. Baker
(28) *He2 loves John’s2 mother3
One might think that this is simply a matter of linear order – that a pronoun
can never refer to a noun phrase that comes after it. However, this is not true.
For example, in a sentence like (29), the pronoun his comes before John; nevertheless,
his can be understood as referring to John, at least for most English
speakers. (This interpretation is easier to get if one says the sentence with the
main stress on the verb loves, rather than on John.)
(29) (?)His2 mother3 loves John2.
Thus, we need to add a condition to (18), which by itself implies that pronouns
can always refer to any other NP in the same sentence (Lasnik 1989, Reinhart
1983). First, it helps to define the term c-command:
(30) C-command:
An element X c-commands another element Y if the first phrase which
properly contains X also properly contains Y.
Given this, we can state the condition on pronouns as follows:
(31) Disjoint reference condition (DRC):
A pronoun X may not refer to the same thing as (have the same index
as) a nonpronominal NP Y if X c-commands Y.
This explains the pattern of facts as follows. Consider (32), which is the structure
of (27).
(32)
NP
loves
V
VP
S
him
N
John’s
NP
NP
mother
First we must check if the pronoun him c-commands the NP John. The first
category that properly contains him is the VP, and John is outside this VP. Thus,
the pronoun does not c-command John in this structure. Therefore, the DRC
does not apply, and (18) can; thus, the pronoun may refer to the same thing as
“John.” However, (28) comes out differently:
Syntax 277
(33)
Here the first category that contains the pronoun he is S, the whole sentence,
and S obviously contains the NP John as well. Therefore, the pronoun does
c-command the noun phrase in this structure, so the pronoun cannot refer to
the same thing as that noun phrase, by the DRC. Finally, (34) is the structure
of (29):
(34)
Here the pronoun his is not the whole subject, but only a part of the subject.
Thus, the first phrase which properly contains his is the subject NP. This
subject NP does not include the object John. Therefore, the pronoun does not
c-command the NP in this example. Therefore, coreference is possible again.
Thus, we see that a condition defined over the basic phrase structure of the
sentence accounts for the usage of pronouns in English; indeed, it does so better
than a simplistic rule that says that a pronoun must come after the Noun
Phrase that it refers to.
Much of the beauty of these constraints comes from the fact that in many cases
they regulate the operation of more than one transformational relationship
(Ross 1967, Chomsky 1973, Chomsky 1977). For example, in addition to the
transformations outlined above, English has a rule of relative clause formation
that makes noun phrases out of sentence-like structures. A simple example is:
(35) Mary likes the dress → The dress that Mary likes –
This is not the same process as question formation, but it is somewhat similar
in that a noun phrase (here the dress) comes to appear at the beginning of the
NP
loves
V
VP
S
John
N
his
NP
NP
mother
John’s mother
NNP
NP
loves
V
VP
he
NP
S
278 Mark C. Baker
clause, and there is a gap inside the clause where a noun phrase normally has
to be. Thus, this too can be thought of as a movement process. Now given the
way the constraints are set up, we automatically expect relative clause formation
to have the same limitations as question formation. This is correct. Like
question movement, relative clause formation cannot create a configuration
where the complementizer that comes immediately before the verb. The examples
in (36) are exactly parallel to those in (20).
(36) a. The dress that John thinks Mary likes –
b. The dress that John thinks that Mary likes –
c. The woman that John thinks – likes the dress
d. *The woman that John thinks that – likes the dress
Similarly, relative clause formation obeys the CED, such that part of the object
can be moved, but not part of the subject. (37) is parallel to (22b) and (23b).
(37) a. The man that you saw a picture of
b. *The man that a picture of disturbed you
This is an important finding, because it shows that the constraints should not
be built into the individual transformations themselves; rather they are more
general, and have a semi-separate existence. A priori, one could write the
Complementizer Filter and the CED into the basic formulation of the question
movement transformation. The result would be a rule that is rather complex
and inelegant. Furthermore, the same complexities would have to be written
into the relative clause transformation – and into a number of other transformations
as well. Clearly, it is better to factor these out as separate conditions. This
has led to the view that the constraints are really more fundamental than the
transformations themselves, a shift from seeing language as fundamentally a
list of construction rules to seeing it as a system of constraints that must be
satisfied (Chomsky 1981).
Ongoing research has proceeded in the direction of uncovering constraints
that are more and more general. A good illustration is the so-called “shortest
move” constraint. Auxiliary inversion seems to be quite a different kind of
process from both question movement and relative clause formation: it moves
a very different kind of linguistic element (a verb, rather than a noun phrase)
to a somewhat different position under partially different circumstances. As a
result, constraints like the complementizer constraint and the CED do not seem
relevant to this particular transformation. Nevertheless, there are similarities.
Suppose that one tries to generate a sentence with two distinct wh-words, each
substituting for a different piece of desired information, as in (38a). The whmovement
rule must apply exactly once to such a structure (in English), moving
one of the wh-words to the beginning of the clause and leaving the other in
place, as shown by the grammatical example in (38b). Strikingly, one does not
have a choice as to which of the wh-words to move, as shown by (38c).
Syntax 279
(38) a. John gave what to who.
b. What did John give to who?
c. *Who did John give what to?
Something very similar is found with auxiliary inversion. (39a) shows a structure
that contains two distinct auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary inversion can apply once
and only once to this structure to create the grammatical Yes / No question in
(39b). Again, one does not have a choice of which auxiliary to move, as shown
by the ungrammaticality of (39c).
(39) a. John will have eaten the sandwich by noon.
b. Will John have eaten the sandwich by noon?
c. *Have John will eaten the sandwich by noon?
There is a simple generalization here: in both cases it is the element that starts
off closest to the front of the clause that must move. This has led linguists to
propose the “shortest move” condition, which favors shorter movements to
longer movements when there is a choice (Chomsky 1995). All the various
kinds of movements arguably obey this very general condition. This condition
can be looked at as a kind of economy condition, in the sense that it favors the
smallest possible adjustment to the structure. One strain of current research
explores the idea that all conditions can be reduced to a very small number of
these “super-conditions,” all of which have an economy flavor (Chomsky 1995).
3.3 The similarity of all human language
A third major lesson that emerges from contemporary syntactic research
is that all natural languages are strikingly similar. This is certainly not one’s
first impression. There are some six thousand languages currently spoken in
the world, many of which had relatively little contact with each other until
recently. When speakers of an Indo-European language first start to learn a
Native American language, or an Australian Aboriginal language, or an East
Asian language they are usually more struck by difference than by similarity.
However, the differences seem to be largely on the surface. We have already
seen how once one starts to take nothing for granted one begins to discover
many unsuspected intricacies of English grammar. It is not surprising that
when one begins to study other languages from the same perspective, one
finds unsuspected intricacies in those languages too. What is surprising is that
the intricacies turn out to be largely the same, even across languages that are
geographically separated and historically unrelated. Moreover, this seems to
be more true the further one goes into the linguistic analysis. Thus, the phrase
structures of languages are not necessarily the same; for example, verbs and
prepositions come before their object noun phrases in English, but they come
after their objects in Japanese, Hindi, and many other languages. Similarly, the
280 Mark C. Baker
transformational processes of a language may or may not be the same. For
example, English has a rule that moves question words to the front of the
clause, but languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Hindi do not. But at the level
of syntactic constraints it is striking that constraints originally discovered for
languages like English and French often show up in other languages – or at
least it is possible to rephrase the constraint slightly so that it applies to all of
the languages. Thus, the syntax of natural languages is not only vaster than
we thought, but it is also more similar than we thought.
To get a flavor of how this kind of reasoning goes, consider the Edo language,
spoken in Nigeria. This language had no contact with European languages
until recent times, and has had no impact on the development of syntactic
theory before now. Thus, it provides an interesting test case for the generality
of that theory. In fact, it can be shown that Edo is strikingly like English
in most of the syntactic features presented above. (The data in this section is
from O. T. Stewart, personal communication.)
First of all, the same basic phrase structure rules that work in English work
also in Edo. For example, the subject comes before the verb, and the object
comes immediately after it:
(40) Òzó guòghó àkhé.
Ozo broke pot.
“Ozo broke the pot.”
As in English, the subject noun phrase is obligatory in all clauses, but whether
an object is needed or not depends on which verb is chosen:
(41) a. Òzó só.
Ozo shouted
“Ozo shouted.”
b. *Guòghó àkhé.
broke pot
(“Pot” must be the subject, not the object: Àkhé guòghó “the pot
broke.”)
While Edo does not have any process that fronts the VP that is directly comparable
to the English one in (9a), it is possible to show that the object and verb
form a relatively tight unit to the exclusion of the subject, as in English. Thus,
the basic phrase structure patterns S → NP + VP and VP → V or V + NP (or
V + CP) are equally valid for both languages.
There are also similarities between the two languages at the level of transformations.
Edo, like English, has a rule that obligatorily moves question words
to the front of the clause:
(42) a. *Òzó ghá guòghó dèmwìn?
Ozo will break what
Syntax 281
b. Dèmwìn nè òzó ghá ghó!
ghó?
what that Ozo will break
“What will Ozo break?”
Edo also has the optional process of assigning a pronoun the same reference
as a noun that appears elsewhere in the sentence. Thus, (43) is ambiguous in
Edo, just as (17) is in English.
(43) Òzó hòó nè ò kpàá.
Ozo wants that he leave. (he = Ozo, or he = the other guy under
discussion)
However, Edo does not have the Auxiliary Inversion transformation. Thus,
in (42b) the future tense auxiliary ghá does not shift to before the subject in
Edo questions the way it does in English (*dèmwìn ghá òzó guòghó). Instead a
special functional word nè is inserted in this position. This kind of patterning
gives syntacticians the impression that, while languages are certainly not
identical, they seem to choose their syntactic structures from a limited set of
options that are universally available.
Finally, consider the level of constraints. Recall that English puts limitations
on when a wh-word can move to the front of the clause, such as the CED. The
same constraint holds in Edo. (44a) shows a sentence in which a clause is in
the object position with respect to the main verb ta “say.” (44b) shows that one
can generate a question word as the object of this embedded clause and then
move it to the front of the sentence as a whole in the usual way.
(44) a. Úyì tá wé!é òzó dé ímótò.
Uyi said that Ozo bought car.
“Uyi said that Ozo bought a car.”
b. Dèmwìn nè Úyì tá wé!é òzó dé – ?
what that Uyi said that Ozo bought.
“What did Uyi say that Ozo bought?”
In contrast, in (45a) there is a clause that functions as the subject of the main
verb yee “please.” All things being equal, it should be possible to replace the
object of this clause with a question word and then move that question word
to the front, forming the question in (45b). But this is impossible.
(45) a. Wèé òzó dé ímótò yèé Úyì.
that Ozo bought car please Uyi.
“That Ozo bought a car pleased Uyi.”
b. *Dèmwìn nè wèé Òzó dé – yèé Úyì?
what that that Ozo bought please Uyi.
“What did that Ozo bought please Uyi?”
(i.e. “What did it please Uyi that Ozo bought?”)
282 Mark C. Baker
Note that exactly the same judgments hold true of the English translations.
This confirms that the same constraint on question movement holds in both
languages.
The DRC also applies in Edo, constraining how pronouns are interpreted.
Consider the following range of examples:
(46) a. Wé!
é né!
né ékítà lèlé Ìsòkèn yèé órè.
That the dog followed Isoken pleased her (OK her = Isoken)
b. Wé!
é né!
né ékítà lèlé érè yèé Ìsòkèn.
That the dog followed her pleased Isoken. (OK her = Isoken)
(47) a. Ìsòkèn hòó nè né!
né ékítà lèlé érè.
Isoken wants that the dog follow her. (OK her = Isoken)
b. Ò hòó né né!
né ékítà lèlé Ìsòkèn.
She wants that the dog follow Isoken. (Only OK if she ≠ Isoken)
The examples in (46) have an embedded clause that functions as the subject of
the main verb yèé “please”, and the speaker desires to express that the object
of the embedded verb (the person who is followed) is the same person as the
object of the main verb (the person who is pleased). This can be done by either
putting a pronoun in the embedded clause and a name in the main clause, or
vice versa. The examples in (47) are similar, except that this time the embedded
clause is the object of the main verb hòó “want.” Now if the speaker desires to
express that the subject of wanting is the same person as the intended object
of following, the options are restricted: the name must be used as the subject
of the sentence as a whole, and a pronoun must be used as the object of the
embedded clause, as in (47a). It is grammatical to use a pronoun as the subject
and a name as the embedded object, as in (47b), but then the pronoun can only
be interpreted as some third person, not Ìsòkèn. This is exactly what the DRC
predicts. In (47b) the smallest phrase containing the pronoun is the sentence
as a whole, which also contains Ìsòkèn. Therefore, the pronoun c-commands
the name, and coreference is prohibited. However, the pronoun does not
c-command the name in any of the other sentences in (46) or (47) (it is contained
in the embedded VP in (46b) and (47a), and in the main VP in (46a);
these phrases do not contain Ìsòkèn). Therefore, coreference is allowed. Again,
the same judgments are valid for the English translations, confirming that the
same constraint holds in both languages.
Sometimes even when languages look quite different, they are actually responding
to a similar constraint in a different way. An interesting example
comes from the complementizer constraint, stated in (21). The configuration
of complementizer wèé followed by verb is also avoided in Edo:
(48) a. Dèmwìn nè Úyì tá wèé òzó dé –
what that Uyi said that Ozo bought.
“What did Uyi say that Ozo bought?”
Syntax 283
b. *Dòmwàn nè Úyì tá wèé – dé ímótò.
who that Uyi said that buy car.
“Who did Uyi say that bought a car?”
However, English avoids the problematic configuration by omitting the complementizer;
in contrast Edo avoids it by filling in the space left behind by the
question word with a pronoun, as shown in (49) (see (Koopman 1982) for
discussion of this pattern in Vata):
(49) a. *Dòmwàn nè Úyì tá dé ímótò.
who that Uyi said buy car.
“Who did Uyi say bought a car?”
b. Dòmwàn nè Úyì tá wèé ó dé ímótò.
who that Uyi said that he buy car.
“Who did Uyi say bought a car?”
Moreover, this difference in the two languages is not an arbitrary one.
Edo is different from English in that it normally requires embedded clauses
to have a complementizer; in symbols, CP → C + S is the only option in Edo.
Therefore, (49a) is ungrammatical in this language. On the other hand, there
are other situations in which pronouns show up where question words once
were in Edo. This then is a simple example of how even in areas where languages
look somewhat different, important similarities can be discerned, particularly
in the domain of constraints.
Over all, when one compares the syntax of different languages, they seem to
be making different choices from a similar range of options: they have the same
kinds of phrase structures, with possible differences in the order of the words;
they have the same kinds of transformations; they have the same general constraints,
although with different specific ways of satisfying them. This leads to
the idea that much of human language is somewhat like a kit that you buy at a
store: the basic pieces are prefabricated, although there is some variation in how
you assemble them (and much freedom in how you decorate the final product).
Up to this point, there is reasonably broad agreement across a wide range
of syntacticians, although significant differences in emphasis. Disagreement
becomes more vigorous on the question of how to interpret this interplay of
universal patterns and language-particular facts. Roughly three approaches
are current. The first is the principles and parameters approach of Chomsky himself
and his nearer followers. This takes the view that the principles of language
are essentially universal, and they take the form of a certain number of
stipulated abstract constraints. The set of these principles is often referred to as
Universal Grammar. Language variation comes from fixing certain parameters
– especially those that involve the idiosyncratic properties of the words of
a language (Chomsky 1981). This has been called a “constitutional view.”
The second approach is more “architectural” (Bach 1988). It emphasizes the
modes of composition of the words of languages (phrase structure rules or the
284 Mark C. Baker
equivalent) and tries to state those principles of combination in just such a
way that constraints like the CED emerge as theorems of the system. This is
roughly the view of more mathematically oriented theories like categorial grammar
and generalized phrase structure grammar. Third, there are a variety of
functionalist approaches. These see the universal constraints on language as
functional in nature: they are design features that facilitate language’s basic
purpose of communication, a goal which is taken to be essentially the same
across the species (see, for example, Croft 1995). On these views, languagespecific
idiosyncrasies are generally taken to have historical explanations, in
which some communicative strategy that was originally a dynamic option gets
entrenched as a habit, and thus becomes a “rule” of a particular language.
The CED facts surveyed above can provide an illustrative comparison of
these perspectives. I stated the CED as an extrinsic constraint, in the style of
the formal, “constitutional” approach: all movements are possible, unless they
violate this “law.” A functionalist approach, on the other hand, would investigate
the communicative purpose of asking a question and the communicative
purpose of expressing something as a direct object (rather than a subject
or a modifier), looking for (in)compatibilities at that level. At first, it seems
like it should be easy to determine which approach is correct by simple crosslinguistic
comparison. The formal approach predicts that CED-type restrictions
should appear when and only when there is a movement relation; the
exact communicative purpose of the movement is not directly relevant. For
example, (37) showed that the CED restricts the formation of relative clauses
as well as questions, even though the communicative effects of the two are
quite different. Conversely, I mentioned in passing that some languages form
questions simply by replacing the unknown material with a suitable interrogative
word, with no movement. On the formal view, it should be possible
to ask a wider range of questions in these languages than in English, because
the CED does not restrict this kind of question formation. For a number of
languages, this seems correct. Thus, (50) is a grammatical question in Chinese,
where the wh-phrase shei replaces an NP inside a clause that functions as the
subject of the sentence as a whole (Huang 1982):
(50) [Lisi da-le shei] shi ni hen bugaoxing? (Huang 1982: 496)
Lisi hit-ASP who make you very unhappy.
“Who did it make you very unhappy that Lisi hit?”
Strikingly, relative clause formation does involve movement of an NP in
Chinese – although to the end of the clause, rather than to the beginning of
the clause. Thus, the formal approach expects CED-style restrictions, and that
is what one finds:
(51) ??Lisi da-le – shi wo hen bugaoxing de neige ren
Lisi hit-ASP – make I very unhappy DE that man
“The man that it made me very unhappy that Lisi hit”
Syntax 285
However, there is also evidence that points the other way. For example, Foley
and Van Valin (1984: 22–4) mention that question words are not moved in the
Native American language Lakhota; yet the kinds of sentences that violate the
CED in English are also ungrammatical in Lakhota:
(52) #WiChaSa wã taku ophethZ ki he wãlaka he.
man a what buy the that you-see Q
“What did you see the man who bought?”
They point out that the badness of (52) makes more sense from the functionalist
perspective, assuming that there is some kind of basic incompatibility
between the goal of asking a question and the goal of expressing an object
modifier. This functional style of explanation can rule out sentences like (52)
in the same way in Lakhota and English, irrespective of differences in how
each particular language chooses to express questions. Much work remains to
be done to sort out whether the formalist expectations or the functionalist
expectations fit the facts better, or whether some kind of synthesis is called for.
This is an area in which further research and debate can be expected.
4 Universal Grammar and Parameterization:
A Concrete Example
So far, I have presented syntacticians’ claims about Universal Grammar only
by comparing English and Edo. While this is a fair test in as much as the languages
developed quite independently of each other, it is clear that they are
relatively similar typologically. In the rest of this chapter, I will illustrate the
claims of syntax by way of a more radical comparison, between English and
the Mohawk language. The analysis in this section, based on Baker (1991,
1996), is less a part of the standard canon than the material presented so far,
and some features of it are controversial. However, its leading idea has wide
acceptance, and it provides a good illustration of some characteristic features
of contemporary syntactic research.
If one offered a prize for the language that looks the least like English,
Mohawk would be a strong candidate. At first glance, one finds differences
wherever one looks, starting with the most simple sentences. We saw that in
English and Edo a transitive verb must appear with two NPs, a subject and an
object. In Mohawk this is not so: either the subject or the object – or both – can
be left out, and the result is still a complete and grammatical sentence:
(53) a. Sak ranuhwe’s atya’tawi.
Sak likes dress
“Sak likes the dress.”
b. Ranuhwe’s atya’tawi.
likes dress
“He likes the dress.”
286 Mark C. Baker
c. Sak ranuhwe’s.
Sak likes
“Sak likes it.”
d. Ranuhwe’s.
likes
“He likes it.”
In English and Edo, the subject must come before the verb and the object
after; in Mohawk this is not so. Rather, the subject, the object and the verb can
appear in any of the six orders that are logically possible for a three word
sentence (see also (53a)):
(54) a. Ranuhwe’s Sak atya’tawi.
likes Sak dress
“Sak likes the dress.”
b. Sak atya’tawi ranuhwe’s.
Sak dress likes
c. Ranuhwe’s atya’tawi ne Sak.
like dress NE Sak
d. Atya’tawi ranuhwe’s ne Sak.
dress like NE Sak
e. Atya’tawi Sak ranuhwe’s.
dress Sak like
In English, the object and the verb sometimes move together as a unit; in
Mohawk this is never possible, as far as researchers have been able to determine.
Thus the phrase structure rules of English do not seem applicable to Mohawk
at all. Such languages are sometimes called nonconfigurational (Hale 1983).
Moving on to the domains of transformations and constraints, recall that in
English, a question word can move out of the direct object noun phrase to the
beginning of the clause, but question words cannot move out of subject noun
phrases (see (22) and (45)). One similarity between Mohawk and English is
that question words must move to the front of the clause in Mohawk too:
(55) Uhka washakokv’ ne Sak?
who see NE Sak
“Who did Sak see?”
However, in Mohawk when one tries to move a question word out of some
larger phrase that serves as the object, the result is just as ungrammatical as if
the question word moves out of a subject phrase. Thus, there is no difference
here between subjects and objects the way there is in English and Edo:
(56) a. *?Uhka wesatsituni’ ne akokara’?
who made-cry-you NE story
“Who did the story of make you cry?”
Syntax 287
b. *?Uhka senuhwe’s ne akokara’?
who you-like NE story
“Who do you like the story of?”
In English, the DRC says that a pronoun subject cannot refer to an NP contained
in the direct object, but a pronoun object can refer to an NP contained in
the subject ((27) and (28)). In contrast, both kinds of coreference are possible in
Mohawk.
(57) a. (Akauha) wa’akoya’takehnha’ ne Uwari akona’tsu.
her help NE Mary pot
“Mary’s pot helped her.” (OK her = Mary)
b. (Rauha) wahanohare’ ne Sak rao’share.
he wash NE Sak knife
“He washed Sak’s knife.” (OK he = Sak)
Thus, our first impression is that the syntax of Mohawk is radically different
from the syntax of English, and (except for question movement) virtually none
of the rules and principles seem to carry over. Rather, it seems like, in order to
analyze Mohawk insightfully, one must start from scratch, building a theory
that accounts for Mohawk in its own terms.
There is another possibility, however. It could be that Mohawk is actually
rather like English, but we are looking at it wrong. In fact, when one looks a
little further, certain similarities begin to turn up. Consider once again the
DRC. Before, I only used this to explicate differences between subjects and
objects, but the condition is more general. For example, most English speakers
find a difference between (58a) and (58b):
(58) a. I hired him2 [because John2 was a good worker].
b. *I told him2 [that John2 was a good worker].
Superficially, these sentences look very similar, the main difference being the
first verb. However, the pronoun him can be understood as referring to John
in the first sentence, but not in the second. Why should this be? Part of the
answer is that the embedded clauses in these two sentences are performing
very different functions. In (58b), the clause is basically a special kind of object.
As such, it can be replaced by a normal NP object:
(59) I told him [the news].
However, a similar replacement is not possible in (58a):
(60) *I hired him [the reason].
The embedded clause is not an object of the verb at all in (58a); rather, it is a
modifier that helps put the main clause into context. As a result, the embedded
clause is optional in (58a); if it is omitted, the sentence is still grammatical and
288 Mark C. Baker
complete. In contrast, (58b) sounds incomplete without the embedded clause.
These differences translate into a difference in the phrase structure of the
sentences. Since the clause of tell functions as a kind of direct object, it makes
sense that this would be generated inside the VP, in the same kind of position
as other direct objects:
(61)
On the other hand, since the because clause is a modifier of the sentence as a
whole, and only loosely attached to it, its phrase structure is as in (62):
(62)
John . . .that
SC
CP
him
NP
VP
V
told
S
NP
I
NP
hired
V
VP
I
NP
S
him
S
John . . .
SC
CP
because
Now we can apply the DRC to these structures and we get the results we
want. In (61) the object pronoun c-commands the NP John inside the embedded
clause; therefore they cannot refer to the same thing. In (62), however, the
object pronoun does not c-command the NP “John” inside the because-clause:
the first phrase that properly contains the pronoun is VP, and this VP does not
contain the modifier. Therefore, the pronoun can refer to the same thing as the
NP, just as we observed.
Significantly, comparable sentences in Mohawk elicit the same pattern of
judgments, as shown in (63).
(63) a. (Rauha) wahi’nha’ne’ ne tsi Sak rayo’tvhseriyo.
him I-hired because Sak is-a-good-worker
“I hired him because Sak is a good worker.” (OK him = Sak)
Syntax 289
b. (Rauha) wahihrori’ tsi Sak rayo’tvhseriyo.
him I-told that Sak is-a-good-worker
“I told him that Sak is a good worker.” (Not OK: him = Sak)
Again, the pronoun object of the first verb can refer to an NP in the embedded
clause when the verb means “tell,” but not when it means “hire.” Perhaps then
the DRC applies in Mohawk after all.
Consider next the CED. Given the structures in (61) and (62), the CED predicts
that wh-words should be able to move out of that-clauses but not becauseclauses,
because only that-clauses are immediately contained in VP. This is true
in English:
(64) You think [that Mary kicked John.]
Who do you think [that Mary kicked – ]?
(65) You cried [because Mary kicked John.]
*Who did you cry [because Mary kicked – ]?
(In fact, this kind of contrast was part of the original motivation for the CED in
Huang (1982).) Strikingly, the same contrast is found in Mohawk. Sentences
like (66a) are perfectly grammatical, while sentences like (66b) are not:
(66) Uhka ihsehre’ Uwari wahuwarasvtho’?
Who you-think Mary kicked
“Who do you think Mary kicked?”
(67) *Uhka wa’tesahvrehte’ ne tsi Uwari wahuwarasvtho’?
who you-shouted because Mary kicked
“Who did you shout because Mary kicked?”
Thus, there is evidence that the CED applies in Mohawk too.
So far, we have something of a paradox. When we look at noun phrase
objects and subjects, Mohawk and English seem completely different. However,
when we look at embedded clauses, they seem very much the same.
How can this conflicting evidence be reconciled?
In fact, there is a rather simple way of resolving the paradox. (Formal) syntactic
analysis characteristically comes in two steps: first, one determines the
basic structures of sentences in the language, and, second, one defines conditions
over those structures. Given this, the fact that one gets different grammaticality
patterns in Mohawk from English is not necessarily due to a difference
in the conditions, but could be due to a difference in the basic structure that
the conditions apply to. Let us then hypothesize that the conditions in Mohawk
are indeed the same as those in English, based on the evidence from embedded
clauses. Now, reconsider sentence (57b), repeated as (68).
290 Mark C. Baker
(68) (Rauha) wahanohare’ ne Sak rao’share.
he wash NE Sak knife
“He washed Sak’s knife.” (OK he = Sak)
Here the pronoun subject can be coreferent with the NP Sak inside the direct
object, unlike in English. If the DRC really holds in Mohawk, this can only mean
that the object NP is in some other position where it is not c-commanded by
the pronoun subject. In other words, it must be outside of the smallest phrase
that properly contains the subject. Is there such a position? The answer is yes:
we saw above that because-clauses can be attached loosely to the sentence as a
whole. This is only legitimate because the sentence is complete without the
because-clause. However, the same is true of object NPs in Mohawk; sentences
are complete without them (see (53c)). Thus, the structure of (68) is (69).
(69)
More generally, we can conjecture subject and object NPs are always loosely
attached to the clause in this way in Mohawk.
This hypothesis about Mohawk sentence structure immediately solves some
other problems as well. Another difference between Mohawk and English was
that question words cannot move out of object NPs in Mohawk, as shown in
(56b). This now makes perfect sense. The NP that we are trying to move out of
is not a true object after all, but rather a loosely attached NP, in the same kind
of position as because-clauses:
(70)
?
washed
V
VP
he
NP
S
S
knife
NNP
NP
Sak’s
like
?V
VP
you
NP
NPS
S
who
NP
S′
– story
Syntax 291
Since the loosely attached NP is not in the VP, it follows from the CED that a
question word cannot move out of this NP. These sentences fall into place with
no further adjustments.
The important thing to realize here is that the DRC and the CED both seem
to go wrong in Mohawk – but crucially they go wrong in the same way. They both
assume that object NPs are inside the VP. Once this assumption about basic
structure is corrected, the conditions consistently give the correct results after
all. Our first impression was that Mohawk was different from English in almost
every imaginable way. We have now corrected that impression; in fact, Mohawk
differs from English in only one way, as stated in (71) (see Jelinek 1984; the
idea apparently has roots as far back as Humboldt’s remarks on Nahuatl in the
first half of the nineteenth century).
(71) NPs are true subjects and objects in English, but are loosely attached to
the sentence as a whole in Mohawk.
Since this affects the basic structure of the sentence, and many conditions are
stated in terms of that structure, it causes ripples throughout the grammar of
Mohawk. Nevertheless, most of the syntactic principles are the same.
In fact, there is reason to think that even (71) overstates the differences
between Mohawk and English. Consider again the fact that the subject and
object in Mohawk do not need to appear:
(72) Ranuhwe’s. (= (53d))
likes
“He likes it.”
Why is such a sentence possible? The verb nuhwe’ “like” is similar to its English
translation in being a transitive verb; logically speaking, it is a two-place
predicate. Thus, it should need to have two NPs, almost as a point of logical
necessity. The reader may have noticed that when NPs are missing, the gaps
are interpreted as pronouns – “he” and “it” in this case. Moreover, what pronoun
to use is determined by agreement prefixes on the verb. Many languages
such as Spanish use different verb forms for different subjects, depending on
whether it is first person, or second person, or whatever:
(73) a. (el) habla español. “He speaks Spanish.”
b. (tu) hablas español. “You speak Spanish.”
c. (yo) hablo español. “I speak Spanish.”
Moreover, languages that have enough of this kind of agreement typically
allow one to omit the pronoun, because the information is already there on the
verb; thus, it is normal to say simply Hablo español. Linguists often assume that
there is still a pronoun present in the syntactic structure of such a sentence, but
it is not pronounced. Now Mohawk is like Spanish in these respects, only
more so: Mohawk verbs change form not only depending on the subject, but
depending on the object as well. Thus, it is not surprising that Mohawks can
292 Mark C. Baker
leave out both subject and object pronouns unless they want to give them
special emphasis.
With this in mind, we can reconsider Mohawk structures in (69) and (70).
These structures are peculiar from the English perspective because there is no
direct object (or the direct object is in the wrong place, depending on your
terminology). However, given Mohawk’s rich agreement system, it is reasonable
to say that there is an object present, but it is simply one of the invisible
pronouns just discussed. Then a more complete structure for (68) would be:
(74)
NP
washed
V
VP
he
NP
S
S
knife
NNP
NP
Sak’s
it
This structure does not look so unfamiliar. English too can have structures in
which the true object is a pronoun, and some NP is attached to the sentence to
clarify what that pronoun refers to, as shown in (75).
(75) a. That dress, he really likes it.
b. He really likes it, that dress.
c. That dress, he really likes it, John.
This phenomenon is called dislocation. It is colloquial and not particularly common
in English, but it does exist. Thus, it is not really accurate to say that
English and Mohawk have different structures; it is more accurate to say that
Mohawk uses dislocation all the time, while English does not.
Finally, we can ask why NPs must be dislocated in Mohawk but not in
English. Moreover, recall that embedded clauses do not need to be dislocated;
rather they can appear inside the VP in Mohawk just as in English, as shown
in (63)–(67). In fact, a similar contrast between NPs and clauses is found in
English, although in a different part of the grammatical system. Some verbs
like believe can have either an NP or a clause as their object:
(76) a. People generally believe [John]NP.
b. People generally believe [that John is telling the truth]CP.
However, when these verbs are put in the passive voice, the situation changes.
The clause can still remain in its usual position after the verb, but the object
NP cannot. Rather, it must be “dislocated” – in this case to the subject position:
Syntax 293
(77) a. It is generally believed [that John is telling the truth]CP.
b. *It is generally believed [John]NP.
(Compare: [John]NP is generally believed –.)
Apparently putting the verb in the passive form disrupts its ability to take an
NP object, but has no effect on clauses. This has led linguists to propose a
principle which I state very informally as follows (a part of the case filter;
Chomsky 1981):
(78) If an affix (of a certain type) is attached to a verb, it can no longer take an
NP as a direct object.
Now we know that every transitive verb in Mohawk has affixes attached to it.
In particular, it has an affix that agrees with the object in person, number, and
gender. Suppose this agreement affix is in the same class as the passive voice
affix. Then it follows that NPs will never be in the normal object position in
Mohawk; they will always be dislocated. There will be no similar effect on
clauses, however. If this is correct, then all of the many differences between
Mohawk and English actually boil down to this:
(79) All Mohawk verbs have affixes that agree with their subject and object
(but English verbs do not).
There is nothing mysterious or complex about (79); on the contrary, it is one of
the first things one must face when learning Mohawk.
In closing, let us reconsider the basic question of whether Mohawk is like
English. Crucially, the answer depends on what one means by the question. In
one sense, Mohawk is obviously very different. In particular, the basic structure
of most sentences in Mohawk is very different from that of comparable
sentences in English. As a result, words can appear in any order, pronouns
have different possibilities of interpretation, question words face different
limitations, and so on. However, in another sense, the syntax of Mohawk and
English is virtually identical. This comes out most clearly if one makes a list of
the syntactic principles that hold in both languages and compares it to a list of
the differences:
(80) a. Common elements (“principles”)
The disjoint reference condition
The condition on extraction domains
Question words become clause-initial
Clauses must be “logically complete” (have the right number of NPs)
NPs can be “dislocated” to the edge of a sentence
The case filter, etc.
b. Differences (“parameters”)
Verbs agree with both subject and object in Mohawk, not English
294 Mark C. Baker
Almost all the principles are the same, and the one difference is a rather superficial
one. However, that one difference just happens to be like a pebble that is
in exactly the right position to start an avalanche: it has repercussions throughout
the grammar.
Thus, this extended example should help to explicate what syntacticians
mean when they speak of “Universal Grammar,” and when they say that “all
human languages are essentially the same.” This claim makes sense, but only
when one shifts from looking at languages as some kind of list of sentence
structures to looking at them as a set of constraints in the minds of speakers
that the sentences they form must satisfy. In other words, one must look not at
particular Mohawk examples like (53) to (57), but rather at the abstract characterization
of Mohawk in (80) that induces those examples. Chomsky (1986)
refers to this as the shift from looking at “Externalized language” to looking at
“Internalized language,” a part of his emphasis on the importance of a psychological
interpretation of syntactic theory. Hopefully, this example also illustrates
something of the intellectual interest that surrounds the task of trying to
tease out what is universal in human language and what is idiosyncratic and
particular, which is a central focus of current syntactic research.
Generative Grammar 295
12 Generative Grammar
THOMAS WASOW
1 Introduction
1.1 “Grammar”
To most people, the word “grammar” suggests a normative enterprise, dictating
what constitutes correct language use. For example, many educated English
speakers would identify at least five supposed grammatical “errors” in the
following sentence:
(1) Hopefully, we will be able to easily figure out who to talk to.
Yet native speakers of American English also certainly recognize that (1) would
be an entirely acceptable and natural sounding sentence in ordinary discourse.
Indeed, the supposedly “correct” alternative (2) would be an awkward and
affected way of expressing the thought.
(2) I hope that we shall be able easily to figure out to whom to talk.
Modern linguistics has little use for this prescriptive conception of grammar.
Linguists are more interested in the knowledge of English that allows native
speakers to judge (1) as fully acceptable and (2) as somewhat less natural. The
prescriptions of traditional grammar are attempts to impose the speech patterns
of one region, class, ethnicity, or generation on speakers belonging to other
groups. They may be of interest to sociologists, historians, and political scientists,
but they tell us very little about the nature of language.
Language is a natural phenomenon, constituting an essential component of
every human society. Linguistics is concerned with studying languages and
language in general, much as biology studies living species and life in general.
From this scientific perspective, the norms of prescriptive grammar are to