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About Movement Linguistics
About Movement Linguistics
Movement
Movement leaves a trace, it may leave intermediate traces, it is generally towards the left
and upward, rather than downward. Between the trace and the moved constituent there is
a C-commanding relation, in that the moved constituent moves to a c-commanding
position, from where it binds its trace (lowering seems not to obey the c-commanding
relation between the moved element and the trace, cf. lowering of verbal tense).
Movement is not an essentially free process, but one subject to several constraints.
Local movement constraint: in English it is the clause or the phrase
dominated by the CP
Head movement is clause-bound.
Maximal projections can be moved out of the clause in which they acquire
their thematic roles. Long extraction to the Spec of the higher CP proceeds through
the specifier of the lower CP, which is an escape hatch:
1. [CP Who do [IP you believe [CP who that [IP John saw who]]]]?
4. Whom will Sheila entertain? [Spec, CP whomj [CPwill [Spec, IP Sheilai [VP ti [V
entertain] [NP whomj]]]]
5. What party did Sheila go to? [Spec, CP what partyj [CPdid [Spec, IP Sheilai [VP ti
[V go] [PP to [NP what partyj]]]]]
Parasitic gap the gap in the position after to (the trace tj) depends on the
phrase with the interrogative pronoun in the higher clause; one of the elements
is moved to the front to form a question. The preposition to needs to be
followed by an object NP; and the question phrase what party has to be
understood as being the object of to. The question is analyzed as leaving
behind a trace at the original position, not pronounced but still grammatically
active, co-indexed with the question-word.
Wh-movement
6. Whoi do you believe that John saw ti?
7. *Whoi do you believe the [claim [that Bill saw ti]] (Cf. Do you believe the
claim that Bill saw x?)
8. Whose book did you read? (pied-piping: the moved constituent is larger
than the wh-constituent)
9. *Whose did you read book? (In the starred examples, a wh-word has been
moved out of a position within an NP, to a position outside the NP.
In English only one Wh word can get out of the clause, because when it moves
through the C node it leaves a trace and therefore there wont be any space for any
other Wh word to get through GB explanation: there are island constraints that
block extraction from certain environments. The C node is the escape hatch through
which extracted words can move in those cases where long-distance extraction does
occur
10. Who did you say[_had done what]?
11. *Whoi did you say whatj [ti had done tj]?
The Wh- feature of interrogative complementizers is strong in English and Romanian, but
weak in Chinese and Japanese, for example. In order for derivations to converge at PF, a
Wh phrase must overtly move and check the Wh feature of C in English, while in
Chinese Wh words only move covertly, at LF, in order to satisfy the Procrastinate
Principle. It suffices if only one Wh word moves; Procrastinate prevents other elements
from moving ovetly.
If the Wh- feature of the Wh words is strong, all Wh words move (cf. Romanian)
Chomsky: properties of the phonological component may require that when the formal
features of a lexical item move, all the other components of that category move (are pied-
pied):
DP
who D
s book
The interrogative complement Q has a strong Wh- feature that must be overtly checked,
otherwise the derivation crashes at PF.
Tough movement
Called this way because examples of it often contain the word tough:
21. John is tough to please. John is logically the object of please. Cf. It is
tough to please John.
tefan Oltean, Course notes (Generative grammar) 4
IP
NP I
Johni
I AP
is
A
A IP
tough I
I VP
to V NP
V
please Johni
Another example, slightly different:
IP
NP I
Johni
I VP
-s
V
V IP
seem NP I
ti I VP
to have lost
tefan Oltean, Course notes (Generative grammar) 5
Minimalism
Given the principle of economy, movement must happen for some reason. The case filter
was thought to provide such a driving force.
In 1 and 2 Mary is understood as the subject of win the race, as suggested by the
underlying structure (below), from which (1) is thought to be derived:
Mary cannot be assigned case; it raises to the higher subject position to get case. the
NP Mary has some problem and it moves to solve the problem. The driving force is case
requirement.
This requirement is not satisfied immediately upon the introduction of the NP into
the structure, but sometimes needs to wait until the next cycle, or many cycles until the
last cycle, which is the ultimate landing site that licenses the nominative case.
25. Mary seems to be likely to win the race. give the underlying form
26. Mary is believed to seem to be likely to win the race. give the underlying
form
create a larger unit, and so on, in keeping with X-bar theory. no deep structure, i.e., an
independent representation following all lexical insertion and preceding all
transformations.
V-raising:
V-raising was thought to occur in French, in Romanian, but not in English. What moves
in English? How about Romanian? V-movement has PF motivation; it guarantees that the
inflection affix will be attached to a proper host.