Island Constraints

constraints', which serve to block the association of antecedent to gap under specific syntactic conditions. Of the restrictions identified by Ross and others, the ones we will discuss here are the Complex NP Constraint, exemplified with a relative clause in (3b) and with a nominal complement in (4a), the Subject and wh Island Conditions (Chomsky, 1973) in (4b, c) respectively, and the Adjunct Island Condi tion (see Huang, 1982's Condition on Extraction Domain), illustrated in (4d, e). (4) (a) *John, Mary made the claim that Sally plans to recommend_ for ajob. John, Mary claimed that Sally plans to recommend _ for a job. As for John, Mary heard the rumor that Sally intends to marry him. (b) *John, an article about _just appeared in the newspaper. As for John, an article about him just appeared in the news paper. (c) *Bill, I wonder who likes_. As for Bill, I wonder who likes him. (d) *The heat, we left early because of _. As for the heat, we left early because of it. (e) *The money, I lied so that I could keep_. As for the money, I lied so that I could keep it.

This book examines a challenging problem at the intersection of theoretical linguistics and the psychology of language: the interpretation of gradient judgments of sentence acceptability in relation to theories of grammatical knowledge. Acceptability judgments constitute the primary source of data on which such theories have been built, despite being susceptible to various extra-grammatical factors. Through a review of experimental and corpus-based research on a variety of syntactic phenomena and an in-depth examination of two case studies, Elaine J. Francis argues for two main positions. The first is that converging evidence from online comprehension tasks, elicited production tasks, and corpora of naturally-occurring discourse can help to determine the sources of variation in acceptability judgments and to narrow down the range of plausible theoretical interpretations. The second is that the interpretation of judgment data depends crucially on the theoretical commitments and assumptions made, especially with respect to the nature of the syntax-semantics interface and the choice of either a categorical or a gradient notion of grammaticality. The theoretical frameworks considered in this book include derivational theories (e.g. Minimalism, Principles and Parameters), constraint-based theories (e.g. Sign-based Construction Grammar, Simpler Syntax), competition-based theories (e.g. Stochastic Optimality Theory, Decathlon Model), and usage-based approaches. The volume shows that while acceptability judgment data are typically compatible with the assumptions of various theoretical frameworks, some gradient phenomena are best captured within frameworks that permit soft constraints-non-categorical grammatical constraints that encode the conventional preferences of language users.

This monograph sets out to derive the effects of standard constraints on displacement like the Minimal Link Condition (MLC) and the Condition on Extraction Domain (CED) from more basic principles in a minimalist approach. Assuming that movement via phase edges is possible only in the presence of edge features on phase heads, simple restrictions can be introduced on when such edge features can be inserted derivationally. The resulting system is shown to correctly predict MLC/CED effects (including certain exceptions, like intervention without c-command and melting). In addition, it derives operator-island effects, a restriction on extraction from verb-second clauses, and island repair by ellipsis. The approach presupposes that syntactic operations apply in a fixed order: Timing emerges as crucial. Thus, the book provides new arguments for a strictly derivational organization of syntax. Accordingly, it should be of interest not only to all syntacticians working on islands, but more generally to all scholars interested in the overall organization of grammar.

This book, by one of Spain's most eminent philosophers, provides a lively and very accessible introduction to philosophy. Written for those who have no prior knowledge of the field, it reveals how the central problems of philosophy remain high"

Table of contents

"Structure is at the rock-bottom of all explanatory sciences" (Jan Koster). Forty years ago, the hypothesis that underlying the bewildering variety of syntactic phenomena are general and unified structural patterns of unexpected beauty and simplicity gave rise to major advancements in the study of Dutch and Germanic syntax, with important implications for the theory of grammar as a whole. Jan Koster was one of the central figures in this development, and he has continued to explore the structure preserving hypothesis throughout his illustrious career. This collection of articles by over forty syntacticians celebrates the advancements made in the study of syntax over the past forty years, reflecting on the structural principles underlying syntactic phenomena and emulating the approach to syntactic analysis embodied in Jan Koster's teaching and research.

Algebraic Structures in Natural Language addresses a central problem in cognitive science concerning the learning procedures through which humans acquire and represent natural language. Until recently algebraic systems have dominated the study of natural language in formal and computational linguistics, AI, and the psychology of language, with linguistic knowledge seen as encoded in formal grammars, model theories, proof theories and other rule-driven devices. Recent work on deep learning has produced an increasingly powerful set of general learning mechanisms which do not apply rule-based algebraic models of representation. The success of deep learning in NLP has led some researchers to question the role of algebraic models in the study of human language acquisition and linguistic representation. Psychologists and cognitive scientists have also been exploring explanations of language evolution and language acquisition that rely on probabilistic methods, social interaction and information theory, rather than on formal models of grammar induction. This book addresses the learning procedures through which humans acquire natural language, and the way in which they represent its properties. It brings together leading researchers from computational linguistics, psychology, behavioral science and mathematical linguistics to consider the significance of non-algebraic methods for the study of natural language. The text represents a wide spectrum of views, from the claim that algebraic systems are largely irrelevant to the contrary position that non-algebraic learning methods are engineering devices for efficiently identifying the patterns that underlying grammars and semantic models generate for natural language input. There are interesting and important perspectives that fall at intermediate points between these opposing approaches, and they may combine elements of both. It will appeal to researchers and advanced students in each of these fields, as well as to anyone who wants to learn more about the relationship between computational models and natural language.

チョムスキーによる言語習得の理論