Where Does Binding Theory Apply?

Transcription

1 Where Does Binding Theory Apply? David Lebeaux The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please mitpress.mit.edu This book was set in Times New Roman and Syntax on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lebeaux, David. Where does binding theory apply? / David Lebeaux. p. cm. (Linguistic inquiry monograph) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN (hard cover : alk. paper) ISBN (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Government-binding theory (Linguistics) I. Title. P158.2.L dc

3 For my late father, Charles, and my mother, Lillian For Father He is one of the level headed, and I have been led past an old barn, an old shed, into an equilibrium. In the middle of this pasture, he is one sure man, in the center aging faster and faster, in the sun; This is the grass he grew, these his childhood homes, the green and blue of his earth and sky come together here. Father: this is a strange settling for you, in the water of newer homes. This land is yours to balance under your feet, to spread and steady; it pours, it leaks, it runs. Deborah Lebeaux

4 Preface This book presents some very simple sentences with the potential to reframe our understanding of the entire linguistic system. The argument is slightly complex, and for this reason I include this preface, to summarize and highlight the major points. The argument starts with a revised formulation of binding theory, which is used in turn to investigate the architecture of the grammar, including phrase structure. The book reexamines Chomsky s (1995) conjecture: (1) Chomsky s conjecture [interface conjecture] All conditions apply at the interfaces, in particular LF. Instead I argue for the following: (2) Homogeneity conjecture All negative conditions, in particular Condition C, apply continuously throughout the derivation. The architecture in (2) is quite di erent from (1) since it implies that the derivation itself has homogeneous constraints holding over it. These constraints rule out any derivation at the point that it violates Condition C: the derivation crashes and it cannot be saved by further operations. Positive conditions (Condition A, quantificational binding, and quantificational scope read-o ) apply at LF, though they apply over structures over which the information is collected in the course of the derivation, by the copy-and-erasure operation or by leaving a trace. ( In a sense, then, they apply over the derivation, but more exactly they apply at LF.) This proposal is close to Chomsky s own; it diverges from earlier work by myself and others ( Lebeaux 1988, 1991; Burzio 1986; Belletti and Rizzi 1988; Kayne 1984), in which I held that the entire binding theory, including the positive conditions, applied throughout the derivation. The reason for this change is that it appears there is a single tree (the Single Tree

5 xii Preface Condition, discussed below) that encodes all quantificational and binding information in a coherent fashion (see also Chomsky 1977a). If the positive binding conditions could apply throughout the derivation, then, when an element is moving, one set of conditions could apply at one point in its path, and another set of conditions could apply at another point in its path, not giving rise to a coherent tree. Since the tree appears to be coherent (see the discussion in chapters 1 and 2), I argue that all positive conditions apply in a single structure. This contention is not trivial: most formulations of binding and interpretation have violated it. Why this di erence between positive and negative conditions? Negative conditions apply everywhere: what I take to be the default or null case. However, positive conditions must lead to an interpretation, and hence must lead to a single, coherent tree: what we call the LF representation. Negative conditions do not lead to an interpretation they just throw out certain trees and so need not apply to a single, LF structure. Let us consider in more detail how negative conditions apply everywhere. The relevant sentences are very simple ones, as noted above: (3) *He i seems to John s i mother t to be expected t to win. (Condition C) (4) *He i seems to him i t to be expected t to win. (Condition B) Both sentences are ungrammatical, violating Conditions C and B, respectively. But why? If reconstruction is possible, the matrix subject should optionally reconstruct at LF (or its equivalent in terms of copy-anderasure), giving rise to the following sentences, which do not violate any conditions: (5) e seems to John s i mother e to be expected he i to win. (6) e seems to him i e to be expected he i to win. The bulk of the argumentation in the first part of this book is thus to show that reconstruction is in general possible, so that sentences like (3) and (4) could give rise to sentences like (5) and (6) at LF. Since these are grammatical, the derivation of (3) and (4) must be ruled out at some pre- LF point. This in turn means that Condition C (and Condition B), the negative conditions, do not apply solely at LF, but must apply throughout the derivation. The argument that the whole architecture of the grammar has the negative conditions applying throughout the derivation therefore rests on a small and seemingly insignificant part of the grammar: reconstruction. In

6 Preface xiii fact, this minor module holds within it a key to the whole grammar. The following generalization holds: (7) A-reconstruction applies (optionally to any trace site)! Condition C applies throughout the derivation Since the sentences in (3) and (4) can give rise to LFs in (5) and (6), and since (5) and (6) are not ungrammatical at LF, this means that they must be ruled out by Condition C applying at some pre-lf point. In the text, I give six arguments for (A-) reconstruction applying, optionally, to any trace site. One argument turns on the existence of what I call trapping e ects. The sentences are the following: (8) a. Two women seem t to be expected t to dance with every senator. b. Two women seem to each other t to be expected t to dance with every senator. (9) a. For (8a) 2xEy; Ey2x b. For (8b) 2xEy; not Ey2x (8a) and (8b) di er for quantifier scopes. The readings for (8a) and (8b) are shown in (9a) and (9b). Both orderings of quantifiers exist for (8a), 2xEy and Ey2x. These correspond to the readings: (i) the same two women dance with each senator, and (ii) for each senator, two women dance with each. For (8b), only the first of these holds, as in (9b): 2xEy, the same two women dance with every senator. There is no reading in which di erent women dance with each senator. Why should this divergence occur? The answer must be the following. For (8a), the moved DP two women optionally reconstructs to the base trace site (or its equivalent in terms of copy-and-erasure). This is shown in (10a): (10) a. LF of (8a) e seem e to be expected two women to dance with every senator. b. LF of (8b) Two women seem to each other t to be expected t to dance with every senator. From there, either quantificational ordering can be obtained. Thus there are the two readings for (8a), shown in (9a). In contradistinction, in (8b), shown in (10b), two women must stay in the matrix clause, in order to bind each other at LF. Therefore, it cannot reconstruct (or the equivalent

7 xiv Preface in terms of copy-and-erasure) to the lowest trace site as the subject of dance. It must stay as the subject of the matrix clause. So only one quantifier ordering is possible, with two women taking scope over every senator (two women being two clauses up). This shows, then, the optional (A-) reconstruction of two women in (8a). See the text for five more arguments. These sentences also provide an argument for what I call the Single Tree Condition. In the Single Tree Condition, the LF representation must encode the quantificational force of a moved phrase at one point, and not be spread out over several trace sites. This is shown in (8b) and (10b). If the quantificational force of two women could be registered not only at the Spell-Out (surface) position, but at the various trace sites too, then one could use the Spell-Out position to bind each other, and the base (originally merged) position to take both quantifier scopes (2xEy and Ey2x). This would predict that the sentence (8b) would be ambiguous, like (8a). Since it is not ambiguous, this argues that the quantificational force of a moved element must be in one particular spot. Other arguments in the text show that this position can be either the base position, the Spell-Out position, or an intermediate spot in the chain. The above arguments for reconstruction are relevant because they lead to the conclusion that Condition C must apply elsewhere than LF, given the ungrammaticality of sentences like (3), repeated below: (11) *He i seemed to John s i mother t to be expected t to win. To summarize, the first section of the book concludes that Condition C applies throughout the derivation. The remainder of the book takes up a second type of very simple sentence, which, however, proves problematic for the conclusion just given. The sentence is the following: (12) John i seems to himself i t to like cheese. If Condition C applies throughout the derivation, then the above sentence should be ruled out in its premovement structure, which is (13): (13) *e seems to himself i John i to like cheese. How, then, can (12) turn out to be grammatical? The answer given here is somewhat complex. The first proposal is the following:1 (14) All DPs begin as schematic elements that are little pro s. Movement of these elements takes place. These are then overlaid in the course of the derivation by pronouns, anaphors, and names, at di erent points.

8 Preface xv This notion of lexical overlay will be grounded in a way that will become clearer below. A sample derivation (of (13)) is given in (15). ( For clarity, I have not overlaid the to-phrase.) (15) Derivation e seems to himself pro i to like cheese. (A nonname pro is present instead of John, hence Condition C is not triggered) Move! pro i seems to himself t i to like cheese Overlay! John i seems to himself t i to like cheese Bind! John i seems to himself i t i to like cheese. At no point is Condition C triggered, because the schematic element pro is present in the premovement position. The general idea, then, is that lexical insertion is staggered throughout the derivation. Lexical insertion is free to apply prior to movement as well, producing structures like the following: (16) Final sentence: Each other s ties seem to the boys t to be quite colorful. e seem to the boys pro to be quite colorful Overlay! e seem to the boys each other s ties to be quite colorful Bind! e seem to the boys i each other s i ties to be quite colorful Move! Each other s i ties seem to the boys i t to be quite colorful. For clarity, I have had Bind apply throughout the derivation. We could have it, and other positive conditions, apply on the LF representation instead, as above, if an element could reconstruct to any overlaid position. Thus each other in (16) could reconstruct to the base position in (16) because it is overlaid there. A negative condition, such as Condition C, continues to apply throughout the derivation. John does not trigger Condition C in (15), because a pro is in its base position it is overlaid later. A problem arises, however, with the following sentence: (17) *Which pictures of John i does he i like t? If lexical insertion can apply postmovement, and if Condition C applies throughout the derivation, then (17) should be grammatical, since Which pictures of John can escape a Condition C violation by being inserted after movement, where John is no longer in the c-command domain of he. This suggests that there is a deep di erence between A- and A 0 -chains. While A 0 -chains trigger a Condition C violation from their base position (17), A-chains do not trigger such a violation, as in (12), repeated below:

9 xvi Preface (18) John i seems to himself i t to like cheese. The di erence between (17) and (18) poses a conundrum, which, I claim, goes to the heart of the grammar. In terms of lexical overlay, (17) and (18) would mean that lexical overlay may occur anywhere in the movement of an A-chain, while lexical overlay must occur prior to A 0 -movement. The only derivation of a A 0 - moved phrase is shown below, with overlay occurring prior to movement. (I have not shown the overlay for the nonmoved phrases.) (19) Only derivation he saw pro Overlay! he i saw which pictures of John i Condition C! *he i saw which pictures of John i Move! *Which pictures of John i did he i see t? This is in contradistinction to the derivation of John i seemed to himself i t to like cheese, where overlay occurs after movement to escape a Condition C violation. It is obvious, then, that A-chain and A 0 -chains operate di erently with respect to reconstruction. The question is, is this just a superficial di erence in chains, or does this have a deeper aspect bearing on the organization of the grammar? In particular, I argue that the A/A 0 distinction should be traced to a theory of Case, A-chains being formed before the application of Case, and A 0 -chains being formed after the application of Case. In this book, I give two possible explanations. The more thoroughgoing explanation is based on my work throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Lebeaux 1988, 1991, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001). Case and theta theory are held to apply to separate phrase markers instead of a single one. The two then fuse (by an operation called Project-a) into a single phrase marker (see also Williams 2003). The operation looks like this: (20) Theta subtree Case frame ƒ ƒ! ƒ ƒ! full tree What does this mean in terms of the schematic structure discussed earlier? Simply put, the Case frame corresponds to the schematic structure and the theta subtree corresponds to the lexical elements that must be projected (fused into) the open slots of the Case frame. The full organization therefore looks like (21), with movement taking place on the Case frame/ schematic structure.

10 Preface xvii (21) An example of the Case frame and theta subtree that become fused is for the simple sentence The man saw a woman (Lebeaux 1988, 1991, 1997, 2000, 2001). These are fused as follows. Note that the Case frame essentially consists of closed-class elements, while the theta subtree is openclass elements. (22)

11 xviii Preface Note that the Case frame essentially consists of closed-class elements, while the theta subtree is open-class elements. I have placed simple V here, rather than big V and little v. If one wanted to include the latter, little v would be part of the Case frame. This would strengthen the analysis, in particular the claim that the Case frame consists only of closedclass elements. A-movement takes place on the Case frame optionally prior to the Fusion or Project-a operation. This was shown in (21) above. Thus the schematic elements ( pro s) move. Condition C and all negative conditions apply throughout the derivation. The Case frame contains all Case-receiving and Case-assigning elements. Thus, in this system, determiners receive Case and pass it on to their associated NP. Since they receive case, they are part of the Case frame (also a closed-class element). Prepositions, on the other hand, are a paramount case of a Caseassigning element. Therefore, they are part of the Case frame, assigning Case. The notion of schematic structure used for binding theory, and movement on it, is an argument for a separate Case frame, since only with a separate Case frame/schematic structure can Condition C violations be avoided in examples like (12), repeated here: (23) John i seems to himself i t to like cheese. Since John is initially a pro, and movement takes place on the Case frame, where the A-moved element is a pro, Condition C is not triggered. I provide several more arguments in the text for the division into Case frame and theta subtree (see Lebeaux 1988, 1991, 1998, 2000, 2001). I will sketch two of these arguments here. The first argument traces itself back to the language acquisition sequence. If the Case frame and the theta subtree exist as separate entitites, evidence should crop up, perhaps in unexpected places, for each. One such place is in the very early stages of language acquisition (see also Radford 1990). Consider sentences such as the following: (24) a. See ball b. Give toy Mommy c. Allgone shoe These structures are, I would argue, solely part of the theta subtree. They contain a verb or a verblike element see, give, allgone and a thematic element. In each case, the Case-receiving or Case-assigning element, for example, the determiner or preposition, is missing:

12 Preface xix (25) Element Full element Case-receiving or Case-assigning element ball the ball the: Case-receiving Mommy to Mommy to: Case-assigning shoe unaccusative position in theta position, not Case position TNS element missing no Case, therefore no subject Ball, in such a structure, does not have the next to it; thus the Casereceiving element, the, is missing. This is expected, since, according to the proposal, the Case frame is not present in very early speech. Mommy does not have to assigning it Case; thus the Case-assigning element is missing. The situation is slightly more complex with allgone shoe. Here the question is not of a missing element, but rather with the placement of shoe in allgone shoe. Note that allgone means essentially disappeared: itisan unaccusative predicate. However, shoe is on the wrong side of allgone (given that allgone means disappeared ): it is in the direct object position instead of the subject position. That is, for the adult grammar it should be shoe allgone, not allgone shoe, asinthe shoe has disappeared. This points to the following crucial fact: the child is generating the shoe in the theta position, not the Case position. This in turn suggests that the Case frame is missing: the theta subtree is regulating the order of the elements. Finally, the Case-assigning TNS is missing there are thus missing subjects (Hyams 1992). These are all arguments that the theta subtree and not the Case frame is relevant for the description of very early speech. In short, what I call a subgrammar of the full grammar regulates early speech (Lebeaux 2000, 2001). A second argument for a separate Case frame and theta subtree, with movement initially taking place on the Case frame ( prior to their fusion), can be found in idioms. Idioms are fixed pieces of structure. It has been known for a long time that some idioms allow passivization, and others do not. This is shown in (26) and (27): (26) take advantage of: passivizes Advantage was taken of John. (27) kick the bucket: does not passivize *The bucket was kicked. The question is, what determines whether an idiom passivizes? It is a contention of Lebeaux (1988, 2001, 2008) that what determines the passivizability of idioms is the freedom of the determiner of the object. If the

13 xx Preface determiner is free to vary, then the idiom may passivize; if the determiner is fixed, as part of the idiom, then passivization is impossible. An example is given here: (28) Determiner fixed a. kick the bucket *kick all the bucket *Some men kicked some buckets. b. hit the road *hit all the road *hit some roads c. Passivization *The bucket was kicked. *The road was hit. (29) Determiner free a. take advantage of take some advantage of take a lot of advantage of b. make tracks make some tracks make a lot of tracks c. Passivization Advantage was taken of John. Tracks were made by Mary. In (28), the in kick the bucket is fixed (part of the idiom). Hence passivization is barred. The same consideration applies to the in hit the road. The determiner is part of the idiom, hence passivization is barred. In (29), the determiner is free in take advantage of, hence passivization is possible. The same is true for make tracks (go fast). Note that in some cases, the determiner is part of the citation form, but it actually is freed up in the use of the idiom. In such cases, to the extent to which the determiner has freed up, passivization is possible. (30) Break the ice: Determiner relatively free even though the is part of the citation form. a. Determiner free break a lot of ice break some ice b. Passivization (possible) A lot of ice was broken. Some ice was broken by that remark.

14 Preface xxi While the is part of the citation form in break the ice, the determiner is actually somewhat free, as shown by the grammaticality, perhaps slightly degraded, of break a lot of ice and break some ice. To the extent that the determiner has freed up, it undergoes passivization (A lot of ice was broken, Some ice was broken). The Determiner Generalization is therefore the following (see the main text for further discussion): (31) Determiner Generalization: In a V DP idiom: The determiner is free. $ The idiom passivizes. This leaves us with a large question: why should the possibility of passivization depend on the freedom of the determiner? The answer is found in the division into the theta subtree and the Case frame. While a full explanation is found in the text, idioms like take advantage (of) and make tracks are found in the theta subtree: they are what I will call Level I idioms. Idioms like kick the bucket are found at the post-fusion point: they are Level II idioms. (32) Level I idioms are generated at their deepest level on the theta subtree. Level II idioms are generated at their deepest level on the post-fusion tree. Now recall that A-movement occurs on the free Case frame prior to the Fusion operation. Thus Case frames are free for Level I idioms, but not for Level II idioms. That is, the following holds: (33) A-movement applies in general on the free Case frame. The Case frame is free for Level I idioms, but does not exist as a separate unit for Level II idioms (the post-fusion structure is the earliest point for these idioms).

15 xxii Preface This concludes another argument for the free Case frame. Recall that the argument from binding theory was the existence of a schematic structure/ Case frame, underlying the derivation for sentences like (34): (34) John seems to himself t to like cheese. In conclusion, the arguments in this book are twofold. The first part of the book proposes that the negative binding conditions, and perhaps all negative conditions, apply throughout the derivation. The key sentences are examples like (35), which, if reconstruction applies optionally at LF, should be grammatical at LF: (35) a. *He i seems to John s i mother t to be expected t to win. b. LF: e seems to John s i mother e to be expected he i to win. Six arguments are given in the text that (A-) reconstruction does (optionally) apply for (35a). Thus the sentence should be grammatical at LF, since the output of reconstruction would be (35b), and this violates no conditions. Since (35a) is ungrammatical, this must mean that Condition C is violated before reconstruction applies, leading to the conclusion that Condition C applies throughout the derivation. The first part of this book concerns negative conditions applying throughout the derivation; the second part takes up a particular case that is problematic for this statement. This is given in (36): (36) John i seems to himself i t to like cheese. This sentence is unexpectedly grammatical. Yet if Condition C applies throughout the derivation, it should trigger Condition C at its premovement site. (37) Premovement structure e seems to himself i John i to like cheese. The solution to this was to propose a schematic structure that underlies (37). Lexical insertion (at least of names) is distributed throughout the derivation, and an overlay operation (lexical overlay) overlays little pro s that have moved with full names. Thus John in (36) escapes a Condition C violation in its premovement structure, by starting out as little pro: John later overlays this after A-movement. This schematic structure of little pro s is then identified with what I call the Case frame. The Case frame and the theta subtree are substructures that go into the making of the full structure, by the operation of Fusion or Project-a (they are fused). Each is a pure instantiation of the primitive it encodes, theta roles and Case that is, each is a pure instantiation of a

16 Preface xxiii licensing relation. A-movement takes place on the free Case frame. This in turn gives rise to the startling pattern of grammaticality and ungrammaticality of Level I and Level II idioms, where Level I idioms (without the determiner) may passivize, and Level II idioms ( post-fusion) may not. An argument was also given for the free theta subtree from very early stages of acquisition. The identification of the schematic structure with the Case frame allows independent arguments to be made for binding theory from phrase structure itself.