Subjacency

Abstract: This article examines crosslinguistic variation in FILLER-GAP DEPENDENCIES (wH-questions and relative clauses) from a processing perspective, and integrates research findings from psycholinguistics, language typology and generative grammar. Numerous implicational universals and hierarchies are proposed that receive a natural explanation in terms of processing and complexity. Filler-gap domains are complex in proportion to their size and in proportion to the amount of simultaneous syntactic and semantic processing that is required in addition to gap identification. They are simplified by making the gap easier to identify and process, or by avoiding a gap structure altogether. When grammatical variation is viewed from this perspective many descriptive insights and implicational patterns can be motivated that have either been stipulated or that have gone unnoticed hitherto. This approach provides an alternative to the assumption of innate parameterized subjacency constraints in this area.*

Abstract: In this study we investigated the hypothesis that standard subjacency effects in so-called “wh-islands” are not necessarily due to an innate syntactic constraint, i.e. a problem of language competence, but rather to limits on the human Sentence processor, i.e. a problem of performance. We did so by gathering global acceptability judgements and by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in response to both yes/no- and wh-questions containing embedded that-, if- and wh-clauses. The embedding of any one of these clause types within a yes/no-question typically results in a well-formed sentence. The well-formedness of wh-questions, on the other hand, depends in large part on the type of embedded clause into which a syntactic dependency is formed: dependencies into embedded that-clauses are usually considered grammatical, while dependencies into embedded if-clauses are considered marginal and dependencies into wh-clauses (“wh-islands”) ungrammatical. We predicted that these differences in gramm...

Abstract: This major contribution to modern syntactic theory elaborates a principles-and-parameters framework in which the differences and similarities among languages with respect to WH-questions can be captured. Move alpha is part of an overall program, initiated by Noam Chomsky, to create a global theory in which the entire transformational component can be reduced to a single process, Move alpha. Lasnik and Saito are concerned particularly with bounding requirements on movement (Subjacency) and proper government requirements on traces (The Empty Category Principle).The first two chapters present and extend the ideas proposed in the author's earlier article, "On the Nature of Proper Government." Included are detailed discussions of gamma-marking, the general rule Affect alpha, and the definition of proper government, particularly as these relate to WH constructions. The next two chapters propose a modification of Chomsky's Barriers Theory on the basis of a close examination of topicalization and examine the consequences of the modified theory. The discussion extends to restrictions on possible antecedent governors and the implications for quantifier raising and NP-movement of these restrictions. Consequences for Superiority are also considered, and a modified version of this condition is proposed, as is an extension of Chomsky's Uniformity Condition. The final chapter takes up further theoretical issues and alternative approaches.Howard Lasnik is Professor and Mamoru Saito is Associate Professor, both at the University of Connecticut.

Abstract: This paper argues that wh-in-situ in Japanese in fact involves S-structure movement of an invisible entity and therefore that the Subjacency effects discovered and used as evidence for LF Subjacency by Nishigauchi (1986, 1990) and Pesetsky (1987) are due to this S-structure movement. This conclusion is forced on us by the facts that (1) in multiple questions where one of the wh-phrases is inside an island and the other is outside of it, there are no Subjacency effects, contrary to the expectation of the LF Subjacency hypothesis, and that (2) an indirect question constitutes a wh-island for overt movement even though the visible part of the wh-phrase is still in-situ at S-structure.