Asymmetry in Grammar, Volume 2: Morphology, Phonology, Acquisition

316 Pages·1999·1.95 MB·English

by  Anna-Maria Di Sciullo (ed.)

<ATSKSWVIUIDUEOZTIBYDOTEFLJWFHTECESHHCOOIEN"ETTRRAFI"DGs1O"y""5SLH4m"0i"nT"m>"g"eu"ti2rs2yti0k"inAkGtruaemll/mLianrg:uVisotilcusmTeod2a:yM,Voropluhmoloegy5,8"phonology,acquisition"
AsymmetryinGrammar
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original
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SeriesEditor
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UniversityofVienna
AdvisoryEditorialBoard
GuglielmoCinque(UniversityofVenice)
GüntherGrewendorf(J.W.Goethe-University,Frankfurt)
LilianeHaegeman(UniversityofLille,France)
HubertHaider(UniversityofSalzburg)
ChristerPlatzack(UniversityofLund)
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KenSafir(RutgersUniversity,NewBrunswickNJ)
LisadeMenaTravis(McGillUniversity)
StenVikner(UniversityofAarhus)
C.Jan-WouterZwart(UniversityofGroningen)
Volume58
AsymmetryinGrammar:Volume2:Morphology,phonology,acquisition
EditedbyAnnaMariaDiSciullo
Asymmetry in Grammar
Volume 2: Morphology, phonology,
acquisition
Edited by Anna Maria Di Sciullo
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AsymmetryinGrammar:Volume2:Morphology,phonology,acquisition/ Editedby
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Contents:v.1.Syntaxandsemantics--v.2.Morphology,phonology,acquisition.
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Table of contents
Introduction
Asymmetryingrammar 1
AnnaMariaDiSciullo
Morphology
Morphologicalrelationsinasymmetrytheory 9
AnnaMariaDiSciullo
Prefixationvs.compounding 37
AngelaRalli
Asymmetry,syntacticobjectsandtheMirrorGeneralization 65
RéjeanCanacMarquis
Synthetic/analyticasymmetriesinvoiceandtemporalpatterns 95
AbdelkaderFassiFehri
Phonology
Asymmetryandlinearizationinphonology 129
EricRaimy
Levels,constraintsandheads 147
HarryvanderHulstandNancyA.Ritter
Obstruentneutralityinnasalharmony 189
G.L.Piggott
Towardsatheoryoffundamentalphonologicalrelations 215
CharlesReiss
 Tableofcontents
Contrastandasymmetriesininventories 239
B.ElanDresher
Acquisition
TheAcquisitionofconstructionswithreflexivecliticsinPolish 259
MaríaLuisaRiveroandMagdalenaGole˛dzinowska
Asubgrammarapproachtolanguageacquisition 285
DavidLebeaux
Index 301
Asymmetry in grammar
Morphology, phonology, acquisition
AnnaMariaDiSciullo
Introduction
The Set theoretical notion of asymmetry and symmetry are used to define
the properties of the operations of the grammar. In Chomsky (2000), set-
Merge, which derives the Head complement relation is symmetric, whereas
pair-Merge,theadjunctionoperation,isasymmetric.InKayne(1994),thelin-
ear order of terminals in a syntactic tree is a function of the complete set of
orderedpairsofpre-terminalsforwhichasymmetricc-commandholds.
While research has been mainly focussed on the properties of syntactic
asymmetries, Chomsky (1998, 1995, 2001), Kayne (1984, 1994, 2001), there
havealsobeenworksonasymmetryin morphology,phonology,as wellas in
acquisition.
In morphology,the rulesof wordformationderiveasymmetric,couched
in termsof the notion of Head of a Word (Selkirk 1982; Williams 1981) and
Relativized Headof aWord(DiSciullo & Williams1987).Asymmetryisalso
partoftheAdjunctIdentificationCondition(DiSciullo1997)proposedtoac-
countfortherestrictionsontheadjunct-headrelations,viz.adjunctsidentify
unspecifiedfeaturesofheads.An empiricalconsequenceoftheseproposalsis
thataprefixcannotbethecategorialheadofaword.Moreover,asymmetriesin
compositionhavealsobeenobserved.Forexample,subjectsandprepositional
complementsare rare or unacceptable in deverbalcompounds. This fact has
beenproposedtofollowfromconstructionspecificprinciples,suchastheFirst
Sister Principle (Roeper & Siegel 1978). Morphological asymmetriesin com-
poundsarealsodiscussedinDiSciulloandWilliams1987,Kayne1994,Lieber
1992,DiSciullo1996andinRoeperandKeyser1997.
 AnnaMariaDiSciullo
The hypothesis that morphological expressions include a head as well as
dependent projections, as it is the case in syntactic expressions, allows for a
unified treatment of the different expressions derived by the grammar. The
question arises whether there should be any difference at all between syn-
tax and morphology. This question is still subject to debate, as can be seen
withthedifferentviewpointsembodiedbyDistributedMorphology(Halle&
Marantz1993)andAmourphousMorphology(Anderson1992).Baker(1988)
proposedtoextendthesetoftransformationsinordertoincludeHeadMove-
ment.TheHeadmovementconstraint(Travis1984)wasproposedtoaccount
fortherestrictionsonthemovementofheads.However,Headmovementhas
been shown to be problematicin more than one way (Di Sciullo & Williams
1987;Brody2001).KoopmanandSzabolcsi(1998),Mahajan(2000)havepro-
posed that Head movementis not found in syntax. The theoretical reason is
that Head Movementdoes notsatisfy the core properties of syntactic deriva-
tions, the Extension Condition and the Inclusiveness Condition (Chomsky
1995). This reopensthe question of the proper treatmentof displacement in
bothsyntaxandmorphology,aswellastheproperderivationofbothsyntactic
andmorphologicalasymmetries.
Asymmetryinphonologyhasbeendiscussedwithrespecttofeaturegeom-
etry,headdependencies,andmorerecentlywithrespecttothePFlinearization.
Workonthedistributionalinequalitiesbetweenpositionsintheprosodichier-
archyreflectingasymmetriesintheprosodiclicensingrelationsareimportant
inthisarea(Harris1994,1997;Huslt&Ritter1999).
Asourceofasymmetryinphonologyisthepresenceofhead-dependency
relations (Dresher & van der Hulst 1998; Dresher & Rice 1993; Hulst 1984,
1999,2000;Piggot1999,2000;Rice1992;Rice&Avery1993).Thereisanin-
teractionbetweentheasymmetrythatresultsfromhead-dependencyrelations
andthe symmetrythat liesin the fact that phonological oppositionsare typ-
ically polar paradigmatic opposites (like oral–nasal, stop–continuant, front–
back,etc.).Head-dependencyrelationsarealsoatplayinthesyntagmaticdo-
main(syllablestructureandbeyond).Thequestionariseswhetherthenotion
of asymmetry and the notion of head-dependencycan be identified as iden-
tical. The questionalso ariseswhether the phonologicalasymmetriesareiso-
morphictothesyntacticandthemorphologicalasymmetries.Papersfromthis
collectionsuggestthatthisisnotthecase.Raimy(2000,inthisvolume)argues
thatthelinearizationprocessin phonologyissimilartobutdistinct fromthe
syntacticLCA(Kayne1994)infundamentalways.Similaritiesbetweenthetwo
arethatlinearizationensuresasymmetryinrepresentationsataninterface,and
thatbothlinearizationprocessesappeartobelanguageuniversals.Thediffer-
Asymmetryingrammar 
encesbetweenthetwolinearizationprocessesaremorepronounced.TheLCA
createsdefaultprecedencerelationships betweenmorpho-syntactic unitsthat
previously did not have any precedence relationships, whereas phonological
linearization ensures that a precedence structure is interpretable at the pho-
neticinterface.TheLCA eliminatessymmetricrelations(ascreatedbymove-
ment)by ‘deleting’parts of a syntactic chain whereas phonologicallineariza-
tionrepeatssegmentalmaterial(withoutidentitybetweenthecopies).Because
thelinearizationprocessesinsyntaxandphonologyaredifferent,wecanexpect
non-trivialinteractionsbetweenthetwoprocesses.
If phonological asymmetryexists, as well as syntactic andmorphological
asymmetries,thequestionthatcomestomindiswhetherasymmetryisgiven
byUniversalGrammar.Itmightbethecasethatasymmetryispartoftheinitial
stateoftheLanguageFaculty,enablinghumanbeingstodevelopthegrammar
ofthelanguagetowhichtheyareexposed,tointerpretandtoquicklygenerate
theexpressionsofthislanguageinashortperiodoftime.
This collection of paper contributes to the view that asymmetry is basic
inGrammarandthusisapropertyofgrammaticalrelationsacrosstheboard.
Thefollowingparagraphssummarizethemaincontributionsofeachpaper.
Morphology
In‘MorphologicalRelationsinAsymmetryTheory’,AnnaMariaDiSciulloap-
proaches the properties of morphological relations with Asymmetry Theory.
According to this theory, morphological objects cannot reduce to either non
branching or binary branching configurations. Even though such configura-
tionshavebeenproposedintheliteratureforthestructureofwh-expressions,
shelaysouttheoreticalaswellasempiricalmotivationtoshowthattheseex-
pressions, as it is the case more generallyfor morphological expressions, are
minimally articulated in terms of shells, that is, double-layered asymmetric
structures. She shows that the specifier-head and the head-complementrela-
tionmustbeprojectedinthehigherandinthelowerlayeroftheshell,inorder
forthefeaturestructureofthefunctionalconstructstobeproperlydeployed.
Shebringssupporttoshowthatthestructuringoffunctionalfeaturesinmor-
phologicalobjectsisnotisomorphictotheirsyntacticstructuring,eventhough
morphologicalandsyntacticobjectsarebuiltonthebasisofasymmetricrela-
tions.Predictionsaremadewithrespecttotherestrictionsoncompositionand
orderingoffunctionalfeaturesinwh-wordsandsubordinationconjunctionsin
EnglishandRomance,morespecificallyItalian,French,andRomanian.