Evolution and revolution in linguistic theory Ed. by Héctor Campos and Paula Kempchinsky (review)

Abstract

874LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 (1997) Evolution and revolution in linguistic theory. Ed. by Héctor Campos and Paula Kempchinsky. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1995. Pp. xiii, 418. Reviewed by John M. Lipski, University of New Mexico The authors of these fourteen essays include some of the leading exponents of contemporary linguistic theory. One article deals with phonology, another with semantics, three handle morphology (including syntactic consequences), while the remaining essays cover syntactic topics, all basically cast within the principles and parameters or minimalist frameworks. Luigi Burzio tackles English stress-neutral and stress-shifting suffixes in 'On the metrical unity of Latinate affixes' (1-24). Rejecting familiar metrical and lexical phonological models, he proposes a solution in which metrical structure is present underlyingly, and syllabification can parse phonetically empty elements (in this case, null syllabic nuclei). Similar to claims advanced by government phonology, words ending in consonants are analyzed as containing an underlying null final vowel, the inventory of possible feet is reduced to the binary (?s) (heavyheaded trochee) and the ternary (s?s), plus a third type (aW) ending in an obligatory weak syllable (e.g. English -y, -ure, -ive, etc.). English stress falls uniformly on the rightmost nonweak foot. This formal elegance carries a price: a revised version of extrametricality, in which wordfinal null vowels (in words superficially ending in consonants) are optionally parsed into feet. Moreover, final weak feet (as in the America-Americanist alternation) are also incapable of receiving stress, thus ensuring stress neutrality. Adding a suffix containing nonweak syllables to a word ending in a weak syllable yields a stress shift (e.g. document-documentable). The sole semantic study is Ray Jackendoff's 'The conceptual structure of intending and volitional action' (198-227). Jackendoff develops a formal model of 'folk metaphysics' based on two conceptual functions: EXEC (whose sole argument is a situation) and COM (commitment), related to attitudes. COM allows for intend and believe to have the same causative structure, while EXEC fits intend among actional attitudes and opposes it to situational attitudes. The approach is clearly mentalist; for example EXEC 'is well formed only if it is ascribed to a person's (animal's, computer's, etc.) mind' (211). The form, ordering, and co-occurrence restrictions of Spanish object clitics have been the subject of scrutiny by theoretical linguistics at least since Perlmutter 1971. James Harris offers a comprehensive morphosyntactic account in "The morphology of Spanish clitics' (168-97). His approach begins wim an account of the internal configuration of Spanish clitics, based on notions of successive inclusion of semantic and morphological features. Neutralizations (e.g. of second and third person plural) are cast as mies of semantic depletion. The biggest dividend of this model is relative clitic ordering and co-occurrence restrictions, traditionally the last stipulative holdout. Harris develops a hierarchically ordered morphological geometry, analogous to phonological feature geometry; when combined with the successive-inclusion analysis of Spanish clitics , the geometrical structure correctly predicts both sequencing and restrictions on clitic appearance. The model works for both dative and accusative clitics and represents a large step forward in the elusive quest of a Spanish clitic theory. Spanish clitics—this time as a doubled syntactic constituent—appear once more, in Esther Torrego's 'On the nature of clitic doubling' (399-418). Torrego analyzes Spanish clitics as the D head of a DP and accounts for variation of clitic selection among verbs through the postulate of light verbs (phonetically null VPs), which in tum select for an INFL-like DP, namely the clitic. Restrictions against overt clitics with certain verbs (e.g. presentarse 'to introduce oneself) are given a semantic explanation, similar to that advanced by Harris in the previously-mentioned article. English is noteworthy for the freedom with which it forms noun-noun compounds of the grape juice sort; Spanish in tum virtually disallows such compounds. The few existent compounds are left headed (hombre rana 'frogman') in Spanish as opposed to English right-headed compounds, and recursive compounding of the Concord grapejuice sort are disallowed. In 'On compounding in English and Spanish' (302-15) Carlos PmRA attempts a principled explanation based on the internal morphological structure of words in each language. He uses Harris...