University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Reindexing and some asymmetries in Universal Grammar

Chen, Chun-Yin Doris

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Description

Title
Reindexing and some asymmetries in Universal Grammar
Author(s)
Chen, Chun-Yin Doris
Issue Date
1991
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kisseberth, Charles W.
Department of Study
Linguistics
Discipline
Linguistics
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Language, Linguistics
Language
eng
Abstract
  • The goal of the present study is to explore Chomsky's proposal in Barriers (Chomsky (1986a)) that the ECP can be reduced to a single condition, namely, antecedent government, by examining some asymmetries, such as subject/object asymmetries, superiority effects, and that-trace effects. I claim that the Reindexing Principle is a parameter, which accounts for the differences among languages with regard to the above typological asymmetries, together with some principles of feature percolation.
  • The Minimality Barrier Condition, as in Chomsky (1986), is modified in this work; namely, a minimality barrier must be a functional category, which has two types of features, F-features and T-features. F-features, which are discharged to Spec of a functional category, will trigger move $\alpha$. T-features, however, are not dischargeable.
  • Languages are divided into two classes with respect to the Reindexing Principle in this work. Languages in Class I, including Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian, are marked (+Reindexing), so they do not exhibit the above asymmetries. However, languages in Class II, including English and French, are marked ($-$Reindexing), so they do exhibit all the asymmetries. The present study differs from Koopman and Sportiche (1988) and Wible (1990), in which a theta-theoretic account is given for the above asymmetries. In these accounts, the absence of subject/object asymmetries in some languages is due to the fact that subjects are assumed to be base-generated in the VP, and, therefore, are governed by V. However, antecedent government is favored in this work.
  • This work also discusses case assignment in ECM and passive constructions. It is argued that an embedded CP will not be a barrier for case assignment of Spec of IP.
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20651
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 1991 Chen, Chun-Yin Doris

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