Minimal Distance Principle Research Articles

PRO theory

Control theory has received a lot of attention from syntacticians and semanticists on a par such as Chomsky (1965), Rosenbaum (1967), Hornstein (1997, 1999), Boeckx and Hornstein (2003), Landau (2003), Culicover and Willinks (1986) and Culicover and Jackendoff (2001) to name but some. We attempt to investigate the controversial phenomenon of control in Standard Arabic (SA). The paper sheds some light on Standard Arabic grammar and shows how Rosenbaum's Minimal Distance Principle is violated by the Arabic elaborate morphological system. We try to illustrate that control behaves differently depending on the language in question and that syntactic and semantic analyses cannot be employed in a language that is structurally different from English. One of these distinct differences is that Arabic syntax employs a silent element, viz., pro instead of the anaphoric PRO.

Control Structure between Removal and Movement: Evidence from Modern Standard Arabic

This paper investigates control structure in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in light of the current discussions that are revolving around either removing the control construction from the grammar because it is just like raising construction or retaining it. The Minimal Distance Principle (MDP) is applied in MSA in light of Landau's argument to clarify whether promise-type verbs are highly marked exceptions as claimed by Hornstein or not. This investigation explains that promise-type verbs are not highly marked. The pieces of evidence provided by the MSA examples point out that control structure is not a raising structure; thus the former cannot be reduced to the latter.

Control Shift, the Minimal Distance Principle, and the Binarity Principle

The movement theory of control (MTC) predicts that the closest argument is the controller: that is, the MTC cannot be maintained unless the Minimal Distance Principle (MDP) is correct. Accordingly, one of the most important issues in control is whether the MDP is empirically supported. Control shift is a well-known phenomenon that appears to run counter to the MDP. This paper provides supporting evidence in favor of the MDP, showing that control shift follows from the independently motivated principles--the Binarity Principle and the Principle of Co-arguments.

The minimal distance principle and obligatory control in Persian

The goal of this paper is to investigate the syntax and semantics of obligatory control predicates in Persian. After reviewing present syntactic approaches to control, the facts of Persian are shown to lead to the conclusion that it is not possible to identify the controller in Persian on purely syntactic grounds. Rather, the properties of obligatory control constructions in this language provide evidence for the necessity of considering semantic factors in the proper analysis of this construction. These properties are shown to follow a semantic treatment along the lines of Jackendoff and Culicover (2003) and Culicover and Jackendoff (2005). We propose that in Persian obligatory control constructions, the control predicate licenses an event complement with the controller being the argument to which the control predicate assigns the role of actor for the action stated in the complement clause. Classes of exceptions, not to be discussed in this paper, may be treated as coercion in the sense of Sag and Pollard (1991), Pollard and Sag (1994); followed by Jackendoff and Culicover (2003) and Culicover and Jackendoff (2005), in which internal conventionalized semantic materials, not present in syntax, are added.

Reply to “Control Is Not Movement”

In this reply we examine Culicover and Jackendoff's (2001) arguments against syntactic treatments of control, and against Hornstein 1999 in particular. We focus on three of their core arguments: (a) the syntactocentric view of control; (b) the control pattern found with promise; and (c) the violability of the Minimal Distance Principle. In all cases we contend that Culicover and Jackendoff's claims fail to undermine Hornstein's proposal.

Une approche lexicalisée des phénomènes de contrôle

Karine Baschung : A lexicalist approach of control phenomena We deal with the problem of identifying the obligatory controller of an infinitival complement. We show that a lexical approach is descriptively more adequate than the purely syntactic one of generative grammarians (Minimal Distance Principle) or a purely semantic one (as in GPSG). We offer a formalization in Unification Categorial grammar (UCG) that captures the lexical generalizations we have found to hold in French. We also consider alternative approaches within lexical semantics (Dowty) or HPSG (Pollard and Sag).

Algorithmic and heuristic strategies in comprehension of complement clauses by patients with Parkinson's disease

Language ability in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) and normal control subjects (NC) matched on age, sex, education and socioeconomic status (SES) was investigated. The two groups of subjects were tested on eight sentence types in Greek in the form of main and complement clause with eight matrix verbs. These matrix verbs were ask (ask information), promise (commissive meaning), tell 1 (order, command) and tell 2 (give information) in sentences with no semantic constraints, and confess, sell, trust and scold in sentences with semantic constraints (implicit causality). The results show that language ability, despite relative preservation is significantly impaired in PD patients as compared to that of NC. More specifically, syntax with semantic constraints was the most effective independent variable to classify PD patients and NC subjects into two distinct groups according to a Logistic Regression Analysis. To restrict the algorithmic process in sentence comprehension, PD patients seem to make use of the minimal distance principle (MDP) and the “experiencer constraint” heuristic strategies. Possible similarities in language behavior between PD patients and aphasics, in general, are suggested.

Language behavior by mildly handicapped and nonretarded children on complement clauses

Comprehension of complement clauses embedded into four matrix verbs in Greek, equivalent to English in syntactic and semantic constraints, was investigated with mildly handicapped (MH) and nonretarded children (NR). The results suggest that: (a) the MH children use the same syntactic information in comprehension of complement clauses as the NR children, (b) verbal MA cannot best predict linguistic performance by MH and NR children. (c) Digit Span does not correlate with comprehension nor does verbal IQ in MH., (d) Digit Span and verbal IQ are significantly correlated with NR children's comprehension, (e) the psychological status of the minimal distance principle (MDP) is debatable, while the semantic role principle (SRP) is partially supported by the data, (f) MH children lack metalinguistic ability compared to young NR children.

Children's and adults' perception of missing subjects in complement clauses: evidence from another language.

Findings on perception of missing subjects in complement clauses are reported in two experiments with school-aged children and adults. The complement clauses were embedded into four matrix verbs in Greek, such as Ask (ask information), Promise, Tell (order/command), and Tell (give information) equivalent to English in syntactic and semantic constraints. The data from Experiment 1 show the following: (1) Perception of missing subjects in Ask, Promise, and Tell complement clauses is significantly higher than in Tell, but Guttman coefficient of scalability (.58) was slightly lower than the required one (over .60) to document a developmental sequence between the four constructions. (2) In general, these results, as other findings, contradict with Minimal Distance Principle (MDP) advocated by Chomsky (1969, 1972). (3) Differences in perceiving the source (i.e., NP) in Ask and Promise and the goal/recipient (i.e., NP) as subject in the complement clauses on Tell and Tell cannot consistently be explained by the Semantic Role Principle (SRP) postulated by Maratsos (Lederberg & Maratsos, 1981; Maratsos, 1974) either. (4) Results from Experiment 2 with three age groups, despite minor differences, confirm the results in Experiment 1, suggesting that comprehension of complement clauses with Ask, Promise, and Tell is a prerequisite to comprehension of complement clauses with Tell, according to Guttman coefficients of scalability (over .60 for all groups). (5) The findings are discussed within the framework of the SRP, but the emphasis is placed on the interaction of semantic and pragmatic presuppositions over processing the four construction types.

UNDERSTANDING COMPLEMENT CLAUSES BY EDUCABLE MENTALLY RETARDED AND NONRETARDED CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS*

Two experiments are reported on understanding complement clauses embedded into four Greek matrix verbs, Ask (ask information), Promise, Request and Tell (give information), equivalent to English in syntactic and semantic constraints. Experiment 1 was conducted with educably mentally retarded (EMR) and nonretarded (NR) children matched on verbal mental age (MA), and the second with fifth and sixth graders and young high school adults. The results suggest that: (1) EMR and NR children are similar in performance, despite other differences, according to Guttman coefficients of reproducibility and scalability, (2) verbal MA and Digit Span cannot best predict EMR and young NR children's linguistic behavior, (3) the minimal distance principle (MDP) advocated by Chomsky (1969, 1972, 1982) fails to account for performance by either population sample on constructions conforming to the same syntactic and semantic constraints as in English, (4) the semantic role principle (SRP) approach (Lederberg and Maratsos 1981; Maratsos 1974) falls short of making consistent predictions of performance by EMR and NR children on constructions requiring the same semantic role allocation, (5) evidence from Experiment 2, despite differences, supports the results of Experiment 1, (6) the results on understanding complement clauses of the type tested are discussed within the framework of the SRP approach in general, but the emphasis is placed on interaction of semantic and pragmatic presuppositions.

REFLECTIONS ON SUBJECT AND OBJECT CONTROL

A recurrent problem in linguistic theory has been trying to provide a principled basis for the distinction between subject control and object control verbs, where by 'subject control verb' is understood a main clause verb that requires coreference between its subject and the understood subject of a dependent infinitive (e.g. I tried to leave, I promised you to leave), and by ‘object control verb’ a main clause verb that requires coreference between its object and the understood subject of a dependent infinitive (e.g. I persuaded you to leave). A number of possible solutions are examined, in particular a purely formal principle (the Minimal Distance Principle) and a pragmatic principle rooted in Searle's theory of speech acts. It is concluded that any explanatory account of the subject/object control distinction must be grounded in the pragmatics of speech acts, although in at least some languages, including English, these pragmatic principles have become grammaticalized

CONTROL JUDGMENTS BY DEAF ADULTS AND BY SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS1

First language acquisition studies reveal that children overextend the minimal distance principle (MDP) during their acquisition of infinitive complement structures. The MDP dictates the interpretation of the logical subject of the infinitive in these structures and overrides marked lexical features such as subject control. Misinterpretations by adult second language learners and by adult prelingually deaf individuals are also shown to result from an overextension of the MDP. On a comprehension test of specific sentences, the relative order of difficulty in interpreting the logical subject of the infinitive is similar for both groups. This order reflects the same order of difficulty on sentences containing tell, ask, and promise which has been reported in the literature on first language acquisition. The later acquisition of certain structures is explained in terms of the inherent linguistic complexity of the sentences.

Syntactic component in language responsible cognitive structure: Neurological evidence

From the results of a broad ranging comprehension test, a hierarchy of difficulty emerged that is shared by the two groups of aphasics (Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics) and by the control group of normal subjects. The parallelism has been interpreted as a confirmation of the hypothesis that syntactic competence is not inaccessible either in Wernicke's or in Broca's aphasia. The Minimal Distance Principle, as a relevant recognition principle, has been studied, and although not confirmed by the scores has been brought to the fore both by the correlations between the variables under study and by the correlations with the concomitant variables of age and level of education.

Comprehension strategies determining reference in aphasia: A study of reflexivization

This study explored the comprehension of reference in aphasia as reflected in reflexivization. A total of 132 test sentences were used consisting of two basic syntactic frames varying in the minimal distance principle and in the type of cues available in the sentence (syntax, syntax and morphology, syntax and lexical, and syntax, morphology, and lexical) for determining pronominal reference. Fifteen patients, five Broca's, five Conduction, and five Wernicke's, were asked to point to the picture (of two) corresponding to the auditorily presented test sentence. Results indicated that aphasic patients as a whole comprehend reference; however, their performance varied depending on the nature of the cues available in the sentence. All groups were impaired when only syntactic cues were available and showed a significant decrement in performance when the test sentence violated the minimal distance principle. As additional cues other than syntactic structure were provided, performance level increased. All groups, including the Broca's aphasics, showed only slight improvement with the presence of morphological cues. Wernicke's aphasic's performance was particularly vulnerable when lexical cues were added to syntactic cues. These results suggest that evaluation of a patient's deficit in sentence comprehension requires analysis of those attributes of the sentence contributing to its overall semantic interpretation.

Children's use of semantic analysis in the interpretation of missing subjects: Further evidence against the MDP

Preschool and many older children often have difficulty understanding who carries out the complement action (e.g., to go in sentences such asMary promised John to go; this is so, even though they easily understand this information in sentences such asJohn told Mary to go. C. Chomsky (1969) proposed that children's errors arise from the overgeneral application of a purely structural Minimal Distance Principle. Maratsos (1974), however, hypothesized that children err by overgeneralizing a different principle which he called the Semantic Role Principle. According to this principle, the Goal-Recipient of the spoken message, not the closest noun phrase, is understood as the person who carries out the act referred to by the infinitival complement. The two studies reported here were designed to determine which of these principles children use. Preschool children were taught to understand a specially designed novel construction. The children then acted out sentences containing related but novel uses of the construction such that they would respond differentially according to which interpretive principle they used. The results strongly favored the Semantic Role Principle, rather than the MDP described by Chomsky (1969), or a related, more complex MDP described by Rosenbaum (1967). It is further discussed how children's formulation of the Semantic Role Principle, rather than the MDP, might arise from their prior analyses of related constructions, such as the imperative construction, rather than following from an innate preference, as suggested in Maratsos (1974).

Grammatical relations in illocutionary sentences: language rules in deaf children

Abstract Cognitive experiments with the deaf designed to establish the independence of thought and language have usually disregarded their subjects’ exposure to special programs of instruction in English at School. This might be justified by assuming that language instruction produces isolated, esoteric knowledge which remains unintegrated into the child's functioning. The present experiment sought evidence of language knowledge in deaf children extending beyond formal instruction, and consequently suggestive of a functional, generative language system. It was found that deaf children had made considerable progress in assigning grammatical relationships according to Chomsky's (1969) Minimal Distance Principle (MDP) in complex sentences with regular illocutionary verbs. There was also some evidence of progress with the exceptional verb promise which disposes relationships in violation of the MDP. These findings cast doubt on the validity of testing the thought: language relationship by indiscriminate use o...

THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCE IN AN EXCEPTIONAL LANGUAGE STRUCTURE IN OLDER CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS

KRAMER, PAMELA E.; KOFF, ELISSA; and LURIA, ZELLA. The Development of Competence in an Exceptional Language Structure in Older Children and Young Adults. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1972, 43, 121-130. Ss between 8 and 20 years of age were tested for competence on an exception to a grammatical rule, the minimal distance principle. No age group tested was found with all Ss competent. Older groups had 2 competent Ss for every S who lacked the competence. Stages found by C. Chomsky (1969) for Ss below 8 were duplicated above age 8. 2 years after the original experiment, Ss who had not been found competent originally were retested. All age groups improved; no evidence for greater improvement of competency for the younger languageplastic-aged Ss was found.