- Email: [email protected]
Parametric syntax
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Hagit Borer, Parametric syntax. (Studies in Generative Grammar, No. 13.) Foris Publications, Dordrecht, 1984. 260 pp. Dfl. 75, / $37.50. ISBN 90 6765 024 2 (bound.) Dfl. 55,-- / $27.50 ISBN 90 66765 025 0 (paperback). Reviewed by: Adrian C. Battye, Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, York, YOI 5DD, Great Britain. Introduction
This volume represents an important contribution to the already large body of work concerned with developing and refining the government-binding (GB) theory of Chomsky (1981, 1982). As the typification of Universal Grammar (UG) has come to occupy more and more a front stage position in GB theorizing, the study of parameters in UG has become crucial. Parameters are generally considered to be the different possibilities of realization 'offered' to particular languages by the components of UG. The guiding belief among proponents of GB theory seems to be that the various subsystems of their modular approach to syntax remain constant in all natural human languages; however certain of these subsystems allow the child acquiring a particular language a certain degree of latitude in defining exactly how they are to operate. It is precisely this latitude in the realization of certain subcomponents which permits the apparently wide variation attested in the surface structure syntax of natural human languages. It is clear then that as GB attempts to produce detailed accounts of the syntactic data of an ever increasing number of languages, a theoretical framework in which to deal with parameters is, to say the least, highly desirable. What might be termed the pioneering work on parameters within generative theory (for example Kayne (1981), Rizzi (1980)) established the importance and the usefulness of the notion of parametric variation amongst languages, but this work fell far short of producing a convincing framework in which the wide variety of variation in the syntax of even closely related languages might be adequately dealt with. Hagit Borer's Parametric syntax (a revised version of her 1981 MIT PhD thesis) is probably the most important contribution to date to the in-depth study of parameters in GB theory and it represents the first serious attempt to flesh out a fully articulated theory of parametric variation. Such a task is clearly enormous and it is hardly surprising that this first try is not always totally convincing but it must be stated from the outset that this book is likely to open up a very rich and profitable vein in syntactic research within GB theory and as such it must be recognized as a major contribution to the field of theoretical syntax in general. On a less theoretical level the appearance of this book must also be welcomed for the coverage of new syntactic data from a language as yet little studied in mainstream GB theory (Hebrew) and also for interesting new treatments of already well studied syntactic phenomena such as pro-drop, clitic doubling and causative structures in Romance.
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A model for parametric syntax After a brief introductory section which sets out the programme for what follows, the first chapter of the book launches the reader straight into the theoretical framework in which this approach to parametric variation is to be cast. No concessions are made to the non-specialist in GB theory and certain crucial notions such as the + anaphoric ] + pronominal J status of PRO, which may be considered to be controversial (see for instance Bouchard (1984)), are taken for granted. One interesting departure from classic X-bar theory is the proposal that complements be allowed to be generated at any bar level provided they are governed by the head (the definition of government crucially invoked here is a development of proposals made by Aoun and Sportiche (to appear)). While accepting that this proposal has important consequences for the development of Borer's argumentation and also that it does merit very serious consideration, it would have been advisable to have included a clearer discussion of the theoretical consequences of the large amount of structural ambiquity which it permits. The bulk of this first chapter, naturally enough, is given over to introducing and justifying the inflectional component, that is the new component which Borer seeks to include in the GB model. The term inflection is used here in an unorthodox fashion and serves to indicate types of local relations such as Case relations, agreement relations and theta-role assignment, all of which are specified as properties of lexical items or of grammatical formatives. An inflectional rule in this model is defined as an operation which affects the assignment of inflectional features. The availability of inflectional rules will vary from language to language and therefore they are to be considered as an important (although not unique) source of parametric variation in syntax. This account of parametric variation produces what intuitively seems to be a highly plausible view of the language acquisition process: 'The inventory of inflectional rules and of grammatical formatives in any given language is idiosyncratic and learned on the basis of input data. If all interlanguage variation is attributable to that system, the burden of learning is placed exactly on that component of grammar for which there is strong evidence of learning: the vocabulary and its idiosyncratic properties. We no longer have to assume that the data to which the child is exposed bear directly on universal principles, nor do we have to assume that the child actively selects between competing grammatical systems. Rather, just by learning the inflectional rules operating in her/his environment, the possibilities offered by UG are narrowed down so as to give rise to Core Grammar' (p. 29). 1
The operation qf the inflectional component A crucial assumption made here is that at least certain pronominal clitics are to be considered as lexical affixes attached to the head (or Case assigner) of a particular
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structure, lexical affixes that is which absorb the Case assigning properties of the head. The Case absorbing properties of certain clitics are considered to be fundamental in any attempt to account for what might be termed clitic doubling (as in River Plate Spanish) and related structures (such as possessive NP structures in Hebrew). Let us consider an example from Borer (p. 25) to illustrate how an inflectional rule works: (la) beit ha-mora house the-teacher 'the teacher's house' (lb) *beit-a~ ha-mora, house-her the-teacher 'the teacher's house' (lc) beit-a, gel ha-mora, house-her of the-teacher 'the teacher's house' Here we have three complex NP structures expressing a possessive relation. (la) is termed the Construct State construction and here it is proposed that the head noun beit 'house' is the Case assigner for the complement ha-mora 'the teacher'. In (lb) the clitic a 'her' which attaches to the head noun is considered to absorb its Case assigning properties; therefore the complement ha-mora is not Case marked and thus falls foul of GB's Case filter which marks ungrammatical any lexical noun which is Caseless in surface structure. In (lc) the genitive preposition .iel has been inserted by an inflectional rule of the form (p. 67):
o-
-) ~ e l / [ ~ . . . . _ _ _ _ N p 3
which basically says that within an NP, containing a non-coreferential NP~ the proposition gel can be inserted in front of the NP r The clitic in (lc) is still considered to have absorbed the Case-assigning properties of the head noun, but the availability of an inflectional rule inserting the preposition Jel at a post D-structure level 'saves' this structure from the Case filter by assigning genitive Case to ha-mora. The availability of a similar (though not identical) inflectional rule inserting the specificity marker a in River Plate Spanish accounts for the possibility of clitic doubling structures such as (2a) and the ungrammaticality of similar structures when the inflectional rule has not operated (as in (2b)) (p. 16): (2a) lo him 'We (2b) *lo him
vimos a Juan. saw-we to Juan saw Juan.' vimos Juan saw-we Juan
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It is argued that the lack of an inflectional rule similar to gel-Insertion in Modern Hebrew or a-Insertion in River Plate Spanish in French or Italian accounts for the absence of clitic doubling structures in these two languages. Thus far we have presented as objectively as possible Borer's proposals. However it is to be remembered that there is a large literature which deals with the problem of whether clitics are to be analysed as lexical affixes (or agreement features) or as pronominal elements generated in the base structure position corresponding to the constituent they replace and subsequently acted upon by clitic placement rules. In fact Labelle (1985) has argued the case for post-lexical cliticization (i.e. cliticization via movement) in French for all clitic pronouns very convincingly. Indeed Borer (p. 200, fn. 13) admits that her framework does not deal with clitics en and y in French; these clitics will still require the postulation of a clitic movement process. But, one asks, if some clitics require the process of clitic placement to take place, why cannot clitic placement operate on all clitic pronouns and the lexical affix hypothesis be dispensed with? At the very least one might have hoped to see such matters discussed at some length in this study and not relegated to footnotes. A final problem to be signalled with respect to this discussion is that of the status of strings such as (3a) (Farkas (1978: 88)) and (3b) in French and Italian respectively: (3a) Je l'ai vu, ton bouquin. I it-have seen your book 'I've seen your book.' (3b) Lo conosco il tuo amico. him (I)know the your friend 'I know your friend.' French and Italian both lack inflectional rules which insert prepositions in structures such as the ones in (3a, b); therefore, following Borer's criteria, these cannot be analysed as clitic doubling structures and must be considered to be dislocated ones. However these structures in both Italian and French are not communicatively marked (see Farkas (1978: 88) with respect to French), that is to say that they do not seem to have the special distribution in discourse which is generally associated with dislocated structures. We feel then that Borer's framework for analysing clitic doubling structures (at least in the Romance languages) does not give any new insight into the status of the data in (3a, b). Further applications
Space does not permit us to cover in detail all the syntactic structures dealt with by Borer, so we shall restrict attention to her treatment of free relative structures in Modern Hebrew, of different parameters acting on clitic doubling in Romanian and Modern Hebrew and of causative structure in River Plate Spanish and French.
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Free relatives in Modern Hebrew
The analysis of clitic doubling and gel-Insertion, which was discussed earlier, apparently receives further independent justification when one examines the behaviour of resumptive pronouns in certain wh-structures of Modern Hebrew. With wh-questions in Modern Hebrew it is impossible to use resumptive pronouns of any sort and only a movement strategy is possible (p. 73): (4a) 'im mi rakadti? with who danced-I 'With whom did I dance?" (4b) *mi rakadti 'it-o? who danced-I with-him The situation with respect to free relative structures in Modern Hebrew is somewhat more complicated because these structures show all the characteristics of a movement strategy in their formation but where there exists the possibility of using a resumptive clitic p r o n o u n (i.e. inside NPs or PPs) then it can appear (p. 74): (5) ma ge-hexlatnu ~al-av what that-decided-we on-it 'Whatever we decided on." On the other hand a full (i.e. non-clitic) resumptive p r o n o u n within such a free relative is impossible: (6) ma ge-raciti (* 'oto) what that-wanted-I (it) 'Whatever I wanted.' Indeed violations of the usual constraints on movements even with clitic pronouns are impossible (p. 74): (7) *ma, ge-pagagti 'et ha-fig ge-hexlit 'al-av, nimkar 'etmol what that-met-! ACC the-man that-decided on-it sold yesterday 'Whatever I met the man who decided on it was sold yesterday.' Therefore Borer concludes that even when a resumptive clitic appears in a free relative structure, as in (5) and (7), movement is still involved in its formation. If we accept her analysis of clitics as lexical affixes which absorb the Case-marking properties of a head, then the data shown here from Modern Hebrew wh-questions and free relatives find a neat explanation. One potential source of ungrammaticality in (4b) is the fact that mi 'who" has no Case because that which it should have received from the preposition "it
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'with' has been absorbed by the clitic o; therefore mi falls foul of the Case filter. Note that the inflectional rule of gel-Insertion cannot be invoked here to 'save' this derivation as the environment for its application (seen earlier) is not met in the structural configuration of a wh-question. With free relatives the situation might be thought to remain the same as that found in wh-questions, but there is one crucial difference because, following the analysis of free relatives proposed by Groos and van Riemsdijk (1981), we can assume that free relatives in Modern Hebrew possess a mechanism which enables wh-words in the highest COMP of these structures to receive Case from the matrix. Thus, although once again the environment for the application of the inflectional rule of ~el-lnsertion is not met, there exists another mechanism which allows Case to be assigned to the wh-word introducing the free relative and thus the negative effects of the Case filter are avoided. 2 Considered strictly in the context of Borer's framework, this account of the different distribution of clitics in wh-questions and free relatives is quite illuminating, but the fact that alternative structures for the free relative are not discussed is a weakness in the argumentation. In particular it would have been interesting to see why a headed analysis of the sort proposed in Bresnan and Grimshaw (1978) for free relative structures is not accepted here. There seems to be no decisive argument given in favour of preferring the analysis of these structures found in Groos and van Riemsdijk (1981) and so it must be concluded that the assumption that this analysis is the correct one is purely arbitrary. Parameters acting on clitic doubling in Wh-structures in Romanian and Modern Hebrew
Examples of clitic doubling such as those shown in (8) taken from Romanian seem to lend themselves naturally to an analysis in terms of clitics absorbing Case features and the availability of an independent Case assigner pe 'saving' the derivation by assigning Case to what would otherwise be a Caseless complement (p. 128): (8) am v~tzut-o~pe ea. (I)have seen-her 'pe' her 'I have seen her.' This structure resembles closely the River Plate Spanish one seen in (2a). However Borer's discussion of clitic doubling constructions in Romanian does leave certain questions unresolved; in particular there is the problem that only a subset of the environments in which pe is available permit clitic doubling. Thus we find examples where pe is obligatorily present but where no doubling clitic can appear, hence the contrast (p. 129): (9a) am v~tzut pe altcineva. (I)have seen 'pe' somebody else 'I've seen somebody else.'
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(9b) *lj-am vfizut pe altcineva, him-(I)have seen 'pc' somebody else Although these examples are taken from the text, it would appear that no clear account is given for why clitic doubling here is impossible. We have also to assume (no clear reasons are given for such assumptions though) that redundant Case marking is not ungrammatical (in 9a) both the verb vazut and the preposition pe assign Case to altcineva. Yet the reader is left wondering why, in the context of Borer's framework, an optional realization by a clitic pronoun of the Case feature of the verb in these kinds of structures is not possible. Leaving aside these difficulties, let us examine an important insight given by Borer's framework into differences between clitic doubling in wh-structures in Romanian and Modern Hebrew. Inflectional rules in this model are considered to be morphological rules and it is proposed that morphological rules can be stopped from applying at certain levels in the derivation of a syntactic structure. This principle is stated as follows: 'Given a morphological rule R, R may not apply at level n" (p. 24). gel-Insertion is a morphological rule of Modern Hebrew and following the above principle it is concluded that it cannot apply at D-structure. On the other hand pe in Romanian can be inserted at D-structure and therefore an interesting parameter of variation between Modern Hebrew and Romanian can be captured. Since pe can be inserted at D-structure in Romanian, this means that a wh-word governed by pe can be fronted by wh-movement and clitic doubling can also take place (p. 133): (10) am vfizut-o, pe care, credeai cfi am vfizut-o (e), (I)have seen-her "pe' which-one thought-I that (I)have seen-her 'I have seen whichever person you thought I have seen.' In Modern Hebrew however gel-Insertion cannot take place at D-structure (i.e. prior to wh-movement) and therefore even in environments where the structural configuration necessary for gel-Insertion is met prior to wh-movement, the resulting structure is ungrammatical (p. 133): (11) *ga'alnu gel mi i beit-o, (e), nisraf asked-we of who house-him burned 'We asked whose house burned.' This analysis is a good example of the way a parameter of variation between two languages might be accounted for within this framework. With respect to the analysis of Romanian, however, it must be added that it leads one to expect that pe will always govern a wh-word which is doubled by a clitic; apparently though this is not always the case, as the following example shows (Steriade (1980: 286)):
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(13) un studiu ale cfirui rezultate~ mi le,-a comunicat Popescu ... a study whose results to-me them-has communicated Popescu 'A study whose results Popescu communicated to me ...' How, it might be asked, would Borer's analysis account for this relative structure? Causative structures in River Plate Spanish and French
Borer's analysis of these structures, which have already been well studied within the generative tradition, is thought-provoking and insightful. The complexity of her argumentation means that we cannot do full justice to it here and so we will attempt to concentrate on a single point in order to show how variation between causative structures in French and River Plate Spanish can be accounted for in a parametric framework. A first difference between these two languages is that whereas in French certain indirect complements subcategorized for by the subordinate verb are optionally fronted (pp. 174-175): (14a) J'ai I have 'I have (14b) J'ai I have 'I have
fait parler Jean de Marie made to-talk Jean of Marie got John to talk about Mary.' fait parler de Marie fi Jean made to-talk of Marie to Jean got John to talk about Mary.'
in River Plate Spanish there is no similar optionality and all direct and indirect object complements strictly subcategorized for by the subordinate verb must be fronted. With respect to clitics there emerges another difference: in River Plate Spanish the clitics corresponding to the strictly subcategorized arguments of the subordinate verb can be attached either to the lower infinitive or to the higher form of the verb hacer (p. 170): (15a) Maria Mary 'Mary (15b) Maria Mary 'Mary
hizo escribirla made to-write-it got it written.' la hizo escribir it made to-write got it written.'
In French this optionality with respect to the clitic's position does not normally appear. To account for these differences in behaviour Borer proposes that the process of reanalysis which occurs in causative structures in French and in River Plate Spanish be
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considered to fall into two parts: merger of the arguments (i.e. the theta roles) and merger of the Case assigning properties. Each of these mergers is judged to occur independently and therefore different possibilities are realized (p. 176):
Type Type Type Type
A B C D
Merger ql" O-arguments
Merger q[ Case slots
+ + -
+ +
Type D here is disregarded as one assumes that the reanalysis process requires some kind of merger to take place. Type A clausatives, where./aire (to do) and haeer (to do) "acquire' both theta arguments and Case assigning properties of the subordinate verb, will be those where all arguments subcategorized for by the subordinate verb move, as in River Plate Spanish and as in (14b) in French, and where all clitics must attach to the verb./hire and haeer, as in French and as in example (15b) from River Plate Spanish. Type B differs from Type A in that while merger of theta roles is necessary, Case assigning properties do not merge. This kind of causative structure is illustrated in River Plate Spanish where fronting of arguments which are strictly subcategorized for by the subordinate verb is obligatory, but where clitics can still appear 'downstairs' as in (15a). Type C is illustrated by French where not all the theta arguments of the subordinate verb are taken over by the verbfilire and therefore not all the complements of the subordinate verb need to move. However all the Case assigning properties of the subordinate verb do merge into the higher verb and therefore clitics are obligatorily positioned 'upstairs'. Thus French exemplifies causatives of type A and C and River Plate Spanish those of type A and B. This different behaviour of French and River Plate Spanish with respect to the parameters of causative structure can be resumed as (p. 179):
River Plate Spanish French
Arguments merger
Case merger
Obligatory Optional
Optional Obligatory
This modularised approach to causative structures is insightful and opens up many new research possibilities for sorting out the extreme complexity of causative and related structures in Romance. Some reservations about it might however be expressed; firstly it is not entirely clear how this account of causative structures in Romance fits in with the GB model enriched by an inflectional component as proposed by Borer. Secondly the analysis of French data given does not cover the behaviour of reflexive clitics in causative structures in that language and neither does it account for so-called accusative and infinitive structures such as these (Radford (1979: 163)):
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ferai t'inviter. (16a) Je le I him will-make you to-invite 'I'll make him invite you.' a fait m'embrasser. (16b) Jean 1' Jean him has made me to-embrace 'Jean has made him embrace me.' ferai vous inviter. (16c) Je les I them will-make you to-invite 'I'll make them invite you.'
Concluding remarks Before ending, a word must be said about the unfortunate and at times irritating number of errors that appear in the text. Many if not all of these could have been eliminated by careful proof-reading or by having the text vetted by a native English speaker. There are endless spelling mistakes (i.e. genetive (p. 64), fecal (p. 170), and estabe (p. 184), to name but a few), many references are imprecise (see for instance the references to Jaeggli (1982) cited on pp. 34-35) and some are not cited in the bibliography (for instance Berent (1980) cited on p. 89, Bresnan and Grimshaw (1978) cited on p. 78, Halle and Vergnaud (forthcoming) cited on p. 198). Punctuation is not all that it should be, as the following example shows: 'Rather it is a pronoun and as such. It is subject to binding condition B: ...' (p. 122). Finally one must protest vigorously about the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in many of the T-markers shown (for instance those on p. 159 and p. 161, where inaccuracies in the dependency relations and problems with bar levels can be most confusing)? In the final analysis this study is thought-provoking and to be considered an important contribution to generative syntax in the eighties. It does nevertheless suffer from some of the defects which characterize current GB work: many of the analyses proposed ignore a wide range of the empirical data available and often concentrate too much on dialects of the languages studied which happen to fit neatly into the theoretical framework argued for. At times in this study GB theory does appear to have reached a level of such complexity and abstraction that it is difficult to imagine how one might objectively argue for or against some of the analyses proposed and the assumptions on which they are based.
References Aoun, Y. and Sportiche, D., to appear. On the formal theory of government. Linguistic Review. Belletti, A., L. Brandi and L. Rizzi (eds.), 1981. Theory of markedness in generative grammar. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore. Borer, H., 1981. Parametric variation in clitic constructions. (M.I.T. PhD Thesis.)
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Bouchard, D., 1984. On the content o f empty categories. Dordrecht: Foris. Bresnan, J. and J. Grimshaw, 1978. The syntax of free relatives in English. Linguistic Inquiry 9, 331-39[. Steriade, D., 1980. Clitic doubling in the Romanian wh-constructions and the analysis of topicalization. Chicago Linguistics Society No. 16, 282-297. Chomsky, N., 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Chomsky, N., 1982. Some concepts and consequences of the theory of government and binding. Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, No. 6. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Farkas, D., 1978. Direct and indirect object reduplication in Romanian. Chicago Linguistics Society No. 14. 88 97. Groos, A. and H. van Riemsdijk, 1981. Matching effects in free relatives: a parameter of core grammar. In: A. Belletti et al. (eds.), 171 216. Jaeggli, O., 1982. Topics in Romance syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. Kayne, R., 1981. On certain differences between French and English. Linguistic Inquiry 12, 349372. Labelle, M., 1985. Caract+re post-lexical de la cliticisation francaise. Lingvisticae investigationes 9, 83 96. Radford, A., 1979. Clitics under causatives in Romance. Journal of Italian Linguistics 4, 137 -[ 81. Rizzi, L., 1980. Violations of the wh-island constraint in Italian and the subjacency condition. Journal of Italian Linguistics 5, 157 196.
Notes This strong claim that all interlanguage variation might be attributable to the operation of lexical and inflectional properties of a particular language and that learning a language is thus learning its vocabulary and its inflectional rules seems however to contradict the more moderate claims made by Borer in the introductory section of her study: "In our opinion it is premature to determine whether all parametric variation can be reduced to the properties of the inflectional system. Such strong claims must await the investigation of more grammatical systems (...)' (p. 4). 2 It might be noted that in (5) cited from Borer (p. 74), the free relative is not contained in a matrix sentence and so, rather confusingly, there is no Case assigner from which the wh-word m a can receive Case. Technically this example does not illustrate very clearly the type of analysis which Borer seeks to justify. A similar example used later would have been much more apposite in this context (p. 132): kaniti ma, ~e-xa~;avt al-av (e)~ bought-I what that-thought-you about-it '1 bought whatever you thought about." 3 Perhaps it is unfair to single out Borer"s book on this point as these kinds of blemishes are typical of many of the titles in the series Studies in generative g r a m m a r .
Reviews
Hagit Borer, Parametric syntax. (Studies in Generative Grammar, No. 13.) Foris Publications, Dordrecht, 1984. 260 pp. Dfl. 75, / $37.50. ISBN 90 6765 024 2 (bound.) Dfl. 55,-- / $27.50 ISBN 90 66765 025 0 (paperback). Reviewed by: Adrian C. Battye, Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, York, YOI 5DD, Great Britain. Introduction
This volume represents an important contribution to the already large body of work concerned with developing and refining the government-binding (GB) theory of Chomsky (1981, 1982). As the typification of Universal Grammar (UG) has come to occupy more and more a front stage position in GB theorizing, the study of parameters in UG has become crucial. Parameters are generally considered to be the different possibilities of realization 'offered' to particular languages by the components of UG. The guiding belief among proponents of GB theory seems to be that the various subsystems of their modular approach to syntax remain constant in all natural human languages; however certain of these subsystems allow the child acquiring a particular language a certain degree of latitude in defining exactly how they are to operate. It is precisely this latitude in the realization of certain subcomponents which permits the apparently wide variation attested in the surface structure syntax of natural human languages. It is clear then that as GB attempts to produce detailed accounts of the syntactic data of an ever increasing number of languages, a theoretical framework in which to deal with parameters is, to say the least, highly desirable. What might be termed the pioneering work on parameters within generative theory (for example Kayne (1981), Rizzi (1980)) established the importance and the usefulness of the notion of parametric variation amongst languages, but this work fell far short of producing a convincing framework in which the wide variety of variation in the syntax of even closely related languages might be adequately dealt with. Hagit Borer's Parametric syntax (a revised version of her 1981 MIT PhD thesis) is probably the most important contribution to date to the in-depth study of parameters in GB theory and it represents the first serious attempt to flesh out a fully articulated theory of parametric variation. Such a task is clearly enormous and it is hardly surprising that this first try is not always totally convincing but it must be stated from the outset that this book is likely to open up a very rich and profitable vein in syntactic research within GB theory and as such it must be recognized as a major contribution to the field of theoretical syntax in general. On a less theoretical level the appearance of this book must also be welcomed for the coverage of new syntactic data from a language as yet little studied in mainstream GB theory (Hebrew) and also for interesting new treatments of already well studied syntactic phenomena such as pro-drop, clitic doubling and causative structures in Romance.
Rev~ws
221
A model for parametric syntax After a brief introductory section which sets out the programme for what follows, the first chapter of the book launches the reader straight into the theoretical framework in which this approach to parametric variation is to be cast. No concessions are made to the non-specialist in GB theory and certain crucial notions such as the + anaphoric ] + pronominal J status of PRO, which may be considered to be controversial (see for instance Bouchard (1984)), are taken for granted. One interesting departure from classic X-bar theory is the proposal that complements be allowed to be generated at any bar level provided they are governed by the head (the definition of government crucially invoked here is a development of proposals made by Aoun and Sportiche (to appear)). While accepting that this proposal has important consequences for the development of Borer's argumentation and also that it does merit very serious consideration, it would have been advisable to have included a clearer discussion of the theoretical consequences of the large amount of structural ambiquity which it permits. The bulk of this first chapter, naturally enough, is given over to introducing and justifying the inflectional component, that is the new component which Borer seeks to include in the GB model. The term inflection is used here in an unorthodox fashion and serves to indicate types of local relations such as Case relations, agreement relations and theta-role assignment, all of which are specified as properties of lexical items or of grammatical formatives. An inflectional rule in this model is defined as an operation which affects the assignment of inflectional features. The availability of inflectional rules will vary from language to language and therefore they are to be considered as an important (although not unique) source of parametric variation in syntax. This account of parametric variation produces what intuitively seems to be a highly plausible view of the language acquisition process: 'The inventory of inflectional rules and of grammatical formatives in any given language is idiosyncratic and learned on the basis of input data. If all interlanguage variation is attributable to that system, the burden of learning is placed exactly on that component of grammar for which there is strong evidence of learning: the vocabulary and its idiosyncratic properties. We no longer have to assume that the data to which the child is exposed bear directly on universal principles, nor do we have to assume that the child actively selects between competing grammatical systems. Rather, just by learning the inflectional rules operating in her/his environment, the possibilities offered by UG are narrowed down so as to give rise to Core Grammar' (p. 29). 1
The operation qf the inflectional component A crucial assumption made here is that at least certain pronominal clitics are to be considered as lexical affixes attached to the head (or Case assigner) of a particular
222
Rev#ws
structure, lexical affixes that is which absorb the Case assigning properties of the head. The Case absorbing properties of certain clitics are considered to be fundamental in any attempt to account for what might be termed clitic doubling (as in River Plate Spanish) and related structures (such as possessive NP structures in Hebrew). Let us consider an example from Borer (p. 25) to illustrate how an inflectional rule works: (la) beit ha-mora house the-teacher 'the teacher's house' (lb) *beit-a~ ha-mora, house-her the-teacher 'the teacher's house' (lc) beit-a, gel ha-mora, house-her of the-teacher 'the teacher's house' Here we have three complex NP structures expressing a possessive relation. (la) is termed the Construct State construction and here it is proposed that the head noun beit 'house' is the Case assigner for the complement ha-mora 'the teacher'. In (lb) the clitic a 'her' which attaches to the head noun is considered to absorb its Case assigning properties; therefore the complement ha-mora is not Case marked and thus falls foul of GB's Case filter which marks ungrammatical any lexical noun which is Caseless in surface structure. In (lc) the genitive preposition .iel has been inserted by an inflectional rule of the form (p. 67):
o-
-) ~ e l / [ ~ . . . . _ _ _ _ N p 3
which basically says that within an NP, containing a non-coreferential NP~ the proposition gel can be inserted in front of the NP r The clitic in (lc) is still considered to have absorbed the Case-assigning properties of the head noun, but the availability of an inflectional rule inserting the preposition Jel at a post D-structure level 'saves' this structure from the Case filter by assigning genitive Case to ha-mora. The availability of a similar (though not identical) inflectional rule inserting the specificity marker a in River Plate Spanish accounts for the possibility of clitic doubling structures such as (2a) and the ungrammaticality of similar structures when the inflectional rule has not operated (as in (2b)) (p. 16): (2a) lo him 'We (2b) *lo him
vimos a Juan. saw-we to Juan saw Juan.' vimos Juan saw-we Juan
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It is argued that the lack of an inflectional rule similar to gel-Insertion in Modern Hebrew or a-Insertion in River Plate Spanish in French or Italian accounts for the absence of clitic doubling structures in these two languages. Thus far we have presented as objectively as possible Borer's proposals. However it is to be remembered that there is a large literature which deals with the problem of whether clitics are to be analysed as lexical affixes (or agreement features) or as pronominal elements generated in the base structure position corresponding to the constituent they replace and subsequently acted upon by clitic placement rules. In fact Labelle (1985) has argued the case for post-lexical cliticization (i.e. cliticization via movement) in French for all clitic pronouns very convincingly. Indeed Borer (p. 200, fn. 13) admits that her framework does not deal with clitics en and y in French; these clitics will still require the postulation of a clitic movement process. But, one asks, if some clitics require the process of clitic placement to take place, why cannot clitic placement operate on all clitic pronouns and the lexical affix hypothesis be dispensed with? At the very least one might have hoped to see such matters discussed at some length in this study and not relegated to footnotes. A final problem to be signalled with respect to this discussion is that of the status of strings such as (3a) (Farkas (1978: 88)) and (3b) in French and Italian respectively: (3a) Je l'ai vu, ton bouquin. I it-have seen your book 'I've seen your book.' (3b) Lo conosco il tuo amico. him (I)know the your friend 'I know your friend.' French and Italian both lack inflectional rules which insert prepositions in structures such as the ones in (3a, b); therefore, following Borer's criteria, these cannot be analysed as clitic doubling structures and must be considered to be dislocated ones. However these structures in both Italian and French are not communicatively marked (see Farkas (1978: 88) with respect to French), that is to say that they do not seem to have the special distribution in discourse which is generally associated with dislocated structures. We feel then that Borer's framework for analysing clitic doubling structures (at least in the Romance languages) does not give any new insight into the status of the data in (3a, b). Further applications
Space does not permit us to cover in detail all the syntactic structures dealt with by Borer, so we shall restrict attention to her treatment of free relative structures in Modern Hebrew, of different parameters acting on clitic doubling in Romanian and Modern Hebrew and of causative structure in River Plate Spanish and French.
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Free relatives in Modern Hebrew
The analysis of clitic doubling and gel-Insertion, which was discussed earlier, apparently receives further independent justification when one examines the behaviour of resumptive pronouns in certain wh-structures of Modern Hebrew. With wh-questions in Modern Hebrew it is impossible to use resumptive pronouns of any sort and only a movement strategy is possible (p. 73): (4a) 'im mi rakadti? with who danced-I 'With whom did I dance?" (4b) *mi rakadti 'it-o? who danced-I with-him The situation with respect to free relative structures in Modern Hebrew is somewhat more complicated because these structures show all the characteristics of a movement strategy in their formation but where there exists the possibility of using a resumptive clitic p r o n o u n (i.e. inside NPs or PPs) then it can appear (p. 74): (5) ma ge-hexlatnu ~al-av what that-decided-we on-it 'Whatever we decided on." On the other hand a full (i.e. non-clitic) resumptive p r o n o u n within such a free relative is impossible: (6) ma ge-raciti (* 'oto) what that-wanted-I (it) 'Whatever I wanted.' Indeed violations of the usual constraints on movements even with clitic pronouns are impossible (p. 74): (7) *ma, ge-pagagti 'et ha-fig ge-hexlit 'al-av, nimkar 'etmol what that-met-! ACC the-man that-decided on-it sold yesterday 'Whatever I met the man who decided on it was sold yesterday.' Therefore Borer concludes that even when a resumptive clitic appears in a free relative structure, as in (5) and (7), movement is still involved in its formation. If we accept her analysis of clitics as lexical affixes which absorb the Case-marking properties of a head, then the data shown here from Modern Hebrew wh-questions and free relatives find a neat explanation. One potential source of ungrammaticality in (4b) is the fact that mi 'who" has no Case because that which it should have received from the preposition "it
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'with' has been absorbed by the clitic o; therefore mi falls foul of the Case filter. Note that the inflectional rule of gel-Insertion cannot be invoked here to 'save' this derivation as the environment for its application (seen earlier) is not met in the structural configuration of a wh-question. With free relatives the situation might be thought to remain the same as that found in wh-questions, but there is one crucial difference because, following the analysis of free relatives proposed by Groos and van Riemsdijk (1981), we can assume that free relatives in Modern Hebrew possess a mechanism which enables wh-words in the highest COMP of these structures to receive Case from the matrix. Thus, although once again the environment for the application of the inflectional rule of ~el-lnsertion is not met, there exists another mechanism which allows Case to be assigned to the wh-word introducing the free relative and thus the negative effects of the Case filter are avoided. 2 Considered strictly in the context of Borer's framework, this account of the different distribution of clitics in wh-questions and free relatives is quite illuminating, but the fact that alternative structures for the free relative are not discussed is a weakness in the argumentation. In particular it would have been interesting to see why a headed analysis of the sort proposed in Bresnan and Grimshaw (1978) for free relative structures is not accepted here. There seems to be no decisive argument given in favour of preferring the analysis of these structures found in Groos and van Riemsdijk (1981) and so it must be concluded that the assumption that this analysis is the correct one is purely arbitrary. Parameters acting on clitic doubling in Wh-structures in Romanian and Modern Hebrew
Examples of clitic doubling such as those shown in (8) taken from Romanian seem to lend themselves naturally to an analysis in terms of clitics absorbing Case features and the availability of an independent Case assigner pe 'saving' the derivation by assigning Case to what would otherwise be a Caseless complement (p. 128): (8) am v~tzut-o~pe ea. (I)have seen-her 'pe' her 'I have seen her.' This structure resembles closely the River Plate Spanish one seen in (2a). However Borer's discussion of clitic doubling constructions in Romanian does leave certain questions unresolved; in particular there is the problem that only a subset of the environments in which pe is available permit clitic doubling. Thus we find examples where pe is obligatorily present but where no doubling clitic can appear, hence the contrast (p. 129): (9a) am v~tzut pe altcineva. (I)have seen 'pe' somebody else 'I've seen somebody else.'
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(9b) *lj-am vfizut pe altcineva, him-(I)have seen 'pc' somebody else Although these examples are taken from the text, it would appear that no clear account is given for why clitic doubling here is impossible. We have also to assume (no clear reasons are given for such assumptions though) that redundant Case marking is not ungrammatical (in 9a) both the verb vazut and the preposition pe assign Case to altcineva. Yet the reader is left wondering why, in the context of Borer's framework, an optional realization by a clitic pronoun of the Case feature of the verb in these kinds of structures is not possible. Leaving aside these difficulties, let us examine an important insight given by Borer's framework into differences between clitic doubling in wh-structures in Romanian and Modern Hebrew. Inflectional rules in this model are considered to be morphological rules and it is proposed that morphological rules can be stopped from applying at certain levels in the derivation of a syntactic structure. This principle is stated as follows: 'Given a morphological rule R, R may not apply at level n" (p. 24). gel-Insertion is a morphological rule of Modern Hebrew and following the above principle it is concluded that it cannot apply at D-structure. On the other hand pe in Romanian can be inserted at D-structure and therefore an interesting parameter of variation between Modern Hebrew and Romanian can be captured. Since pe can be inserted at D-structure in Romanian, this means that a wh-word governed by pe can be fronted by wh-movement and clitic doubling can also take place (p. 133): (10) am vfizut-o, pe care, credeai cfi am vfizut-o (e), (I)have seen-her "pe' which-one thought-I that (I)have seen-her 'I have seen whichever person you thought I have seen.' In Modern Hebrew however gel-Insertion cannot take place at D-structure (i.e. prior to wh-movement) and therefore even in environments where the structural configuration necessary for gel-Insertion is met prior to wh-movement, the resulting structure is ungrammatical (p. 133): (11) *ga'alnu gel mi i beit-o, (e), nisraf asked-we of who house-him burned 'We asked whose house burned.' This analysis is a good example of the way a parameter of variation between two languages might be accounted for within this framework. With respect to the analysis of Romanian, however, it must be added that it leads one to expect that pe will always govern a wh-word which is doubled by a clitic; apparently though this is not always the case, as the following example shows (Steriade (1980: 286)):
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(13) un studiu ale cfirui rezultate~ mi le,-a comunicat Popescu ... a study whose results to-me them-has communicated Popescu 'A study whose results Popescu communicated to me ...' How, it might be asked, would Borer's analysis account for this relative structure? Causative structures in River Plate Spanish and French
Borer's analysis of these structures, which have already been well studied within the generative tradition, is thought-provoking and insightful. The complexity of her argumentation means that we cannot do full justice to it here and so we will attempt to concentrate on a single point in order to show how variation between causative structures in French and River Plate Spanish can be accounted for in a parametric framework. A first difference between these two languages is that whereas in French certain indirect complements subcategorized for by the subordinate verb are optionally fronted (pp. 174-175): (14a) J'ai I have 'I have (14b) J'ai I have 'I have
fait parler Jean de Marie made to-talk Jean of Marie got John to talk about Mary.' fait parler de Marie fi Jean made to-talk of Marie to Jean got John to talk about Mary.'
in River Plate Spanish there is no similar optionality and all direct and indirect object complements strictly subcategorized for by the subordinate verb must be fronted. With respect to clitics there emerges another difference: in River Plate Spanish the clitics corresponding to the strictly subcategorized arguments of the subordinate verb can be attached either to the lower infinitive or to the higher form of the verb hacer (p. 170): (15a) Maria Mary 'Mary (15b) Maria Mary 'Mary
hizo escribirla made to-write-it got it written.' la hizo escribir it made to-write got it written.'
In French this optionality with respect to the clitic's position does not normally appear. To account for these differences in behaviour Borer proposes that the process of reanalysis which occurs in causative structures in French and in River Plate Spanish be
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considered to fall into two parts: merger of the arguments (i.e. the theta roles) and merger of the Case assigning properties. Each of these mergers is judged to occur independently and therefore different possibilities are realized (p. 176):
Type Type Type Type
A B C D
Merger ql" O-arguments
Merger q[ Case slots
+ + -
+ +
Type D here is disregarded as one assumes that the reanalysis process requires some kind of merger to take place. Type A clausatives, where./aire (to do) and haeer (to do) "acquire' both theta arguments and Case assigning properties of the subordinate verb, will be those where all arguments subcategorized for by the subordinate verb move, as in River Plate Spanish and as in (14b) in French, and where all clitics must attach to the verb./hire and haeer, as in French and as in example (15b) from River Plate Spanish. Type B differs from Type A in that while merger of theta roles is necessary, Case assigning properties do not merge. This kind of causative structure is illustrated in River Plate Spanish where fronting of arguments which are strictly subcategorized for by the subordinate verb is obligatory, but where clitics can still appear 'downstairs' as in (15a). Type C is illustrated by French where not all the theta arguments of the subordinate verb are taken over by the verbfilire and therefore not all the complements of the subordinate verb need to move. However all the Case assigning properties of the subordinate verb do merge into the higher verb and therefore clitics are obligatorily positioned 'upstairs'. Thus French exemplifies causatives of type A and C and River Plate Spanish those of type A and B. This different behaviour of French and River Plate Spanish with respect to the parameters of causative structure can be resumed as (p. 179):
River Plate Spanish French
Arguments merger
Case merger
Obligatory Optional
Optional Obligatory
This modularised approach to causative structures is insightful and opens up many new research possibilities for sorting out the extreme complexity of causative and related structures in Romance. Some reservations about it might however be expressed; firstly it is not entirely clear how this account of causative structures in Romance fits in with the GB model enriched by an inflectional component as proposed by Borer. Secondly the analysis of French data given does not cover the behaviour of reflexive clitics in causative structures in that language and neither does it account for so-called accusative and infinitive structures such as these (Radford (1979: 163)):
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ferai t'inviter. (16a) Je le I him will-make you to-invite 'I'll make him invite you.' a fait m'embrasser. (16b) Jean 1' Jean him has made me to-embrace 'Jean has made him embrace me.' ferai vous inviter. (16c) Je les I them will-make you to-invite 'I'll make them invite you.'
Concluding remarks Before ending, a word must be said about the unfortunate and at times irritating number of errors that appear in the text. Many if not all of these could have been eliminated by careful proof-reading or by having the text vetted by a native English speaker. There are endless spelling mistakes (i.e. genetive (p. 64), fecal (p. 170), and estabe (p. 184), to name but a few), many references are imprecise (see for instance the references to Jaeggli (1982) cited on pp. 34-35) and some are not cited in the bibliography (for instance Berent (1980) cited on p. 89, Bresnan and Grimshaw (1978) cited on p. 78, Halle and Vergnaud (forthcoming) cited on p. 198). Punctuation is not all that it should be, as the following example shows: 'Rather it is a pronoun and as such. It is subject to binding condition B: ...' (p. 122). Finally one must protest vigorously about the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in many of the T-markers shown (for instance those on p. 159 and p. 161, where inaccuracies in the dependency relations and problems with bar levels can be most confusing)? In the final analysis this study is thought-provoking and to be considered an important contribution to generative syntax in the eighties. It does nevertheless suffer from some of the defects which characterize current GB work: many of the analyses proposed ignore a wide range of the empirical data available and often concentrate too much on dialects of the languages studied which happen to fit neatly into the theoretical framework argued for. At times in this study GB theory does appear to have reached a level of such complexity and abstraction that it is difficult to imagine how one might objectively argue for or against some of the analyses proposed and the assumptions on which they are based.
References Aoun, Y. and Sportiche, D., to appear. On the formal theory of government. Linguistic Review. Belletti, A., L. Brandi and L. Rizzi (eds.), 1981. Theory of markedness in generative grammar. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore. Borer, H., 1981. Parametric variation in clitic constructions. (M.I.T. PhD Thesis.)
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Bouchard, D., 1984. On the content o f empty categories. Dordrecht: Foris. Bresnan, J. and J. Grimshaw, 1978. The syntax of free relatives in English. Linguistic Inquiry 9, 331-39[. Steriade, D., 1980. Clitic doubling in the Romanian wh-constructions and the analysis of topicalization. Chicago Linguistics Society No. 16, 282-297. Chomsky, N., 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Chomsky, N., 1982. Some concepts and consequences of the theory of government and binding. Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, No. 6. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Farkas, D., 1978. Direct and indirect object reduplication in Romanian. Chicago Linguistics Society No. 14. 88 97. Groos, A. and H. van Riemsdijk, 1981. Matching effects in free relatives: a parameter of core grammar. In: A. Belletti et al. (eds.), 171 216. Jaeggli, O., 1982. Topics in Romance syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. Kayne, R., 1981. On certain differences between French and English. Linguistic Inquiry 12, 349372. Labelle, M., 1985. Caract+re post-lexical de la cliticisation francaise. Lingvisticae investigationes 9, 83 96. Radford, A., 1979. Clitics under causatives in Romance. Journal of Italian Linguistics 4, 137 -[ 81. Rizzi, L., 1980. Violations of the wh-island constraint in Italian and the subjacency condition. Journal of Italian Linguistics 5, 157 196.
Notes This strong claim that all interlanguage variation might be attributable to the operation of lexical and inflectional properties of a particular language and that learning a language is thus learning its vocabulary and its inflectional rules seems however to contradict the more moderate claims made by Borer in the introductory section of her study: "In our opinion it is premature to determine whether all parametric variation can be reduced to the properties of the inflectional system. Such strong claims must await the investigation of more grammatical systems (...)' (p. 4). 2 It might be noted that in (5) cited from Borer (p. 74), the free relative is not contained in a matrix sentence and so, rather confusingly, there is no Case assigner from which the wh-word m a can receive Case. Technically this example does not illustrate very clearly the type of analysis which Borer seeks to justify. A similar example used later would have been much more apposite in this context (p. 132): kaniti ma, ~e-xa~;avt al-av (e)~ bought-I what that-thought-you about-it '1 bought whatever you thought about." 3 Perhaps it is unfair to single out Borer"s book on this point as these kinds of blemishes are typical of many of the titles in the series Studies in generative g r a m m a r .