Minimalist Programme Research Articles

Head Movement: Analysis of Minimalist Programme

Head Movement: Analysis of Minimalist Programme

Sesotho control verbs with the reflexive prefix: A morpho-syntactic analysis

This article examines the Sesotho control structures to account for their dual behaviours resulting from the attachment of the reflexive prefix. The reflexive is a morpheme that is annexed to a verb to show that the subject acts upon itself. It is observed that some control verbs yield acceptable syntactic constructions when the reflexive attaches, while others yield unacceptable results. Using the minimalist programme (merge and adjunction) the investigation reveals that both the acceptability and unacceptability of reflexive control structures result from the effect the reflexive has on the argument structure of the verbs. The absorption of the internal argument renders two-argumentstaking verbs unacceptable as PRO subject of the infinitive clause lacks reference. In the case of three-argument-taking verbs, the absorption of one of the arguments leaves a controller for PRO, hence the acceptability of the structures. It can, therefore, be concluded that both acceptability and unacceptability of control verbs with the reflexive prefix can be accounted for in terms of the argument structure.

Sensory Chunking and the Like: Testing a Pedagogical Treatment Applied to the Strengthening of the Third-Person Singular-s

Research into foreign language acquisition reports that learners of English as a foreign language are inconsistent with the suppliance of verbal morphology and tend to omit morphemes such as the third-person singular -s even at advanced instructional stages. Researchers rely on Generative linguistics and models such as the Minimalist Programme (Chomsky, 2000, 2015/1995) and the Feature Assembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2005, 2007, 2009) to account for such variability. The present study attempted to increase the accuracy rates of the -s. The author designed a treatment (©2018, 2019, Verónica Mendoza Fernández) that centered around sensory chunking (teaching with chunked sentences). Sixty-four learners of English as a foreign language from three different rural schools of primary education in Northern Spain participated in a classroom experiment that followed a pretest-postest procedure. Participants from school 1 constituted the control group and participants from schools 2 and 3, the experimental groups. The results of a grammaticality judgement task indicated a statistically significant increase in the accuracy rates of the -s for one of the experimental groups and a trend towards significance for the other experimental group. The treatment could promote the learning of linguistic items contained within blocks of language, as well as the learning of such blocks, and thus foster language automatisation.

Switchmate! An Electrophysiological Attempt to Adjudicate Between Competing Accounts of Adjective-Noun Code-Switching

Here, we used event-related potentials to test the predictions of two prominent accounts of code-switching in bilinguals: The Matrix Language Framework (MLF; Myers-Scotton, 1993) and an application of the Minimalist Programme (MP; Cantone and MacSwan, 2009). We focused on the relative order of the noun with respect to the adjective in mixed Welsh–English nominal constructions given the clear contrast between pre- and post-nominal adjective position between Welsh and English. MP would predict that the language of the adjective should determine felicitous word order (i.e., English adjectives should appear pre-nominally and Welsh adjectives post-nominally). In contrast, MLF contends that it is the language of the finite verb inflexion rather than that of a particular word that governs felicitous word order. To assess the predictions of the two models, we constructed sentences featuring a code-switch between the adjective and the noun, that complied with either English or Welsh word-order. Highly proficient Welsh–English bilinguals made semantic acceptability judgements upon reading the last word of sentences which could violate MP assumptions, MLF assumptions, both assumptions, or neither. Behaviourally, MP violations had no significant effect, whereas MLF violations induced an average drop of 11% in acceptability judgements. Neurophysiologically, MP violations elicited a significant Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) modulation, whereas MLF violations modulated both P600 and LAN mean amplitudes. In addition, there was a significant interaction between MP and MLF status in the P600 range: When MP was violated, MLF status did not matter, and when MP criteria were met, MLF violations resulted in a P600 modulation. This interaction possibly reflects a general preference for noun over adjective insertions, and may provide support for MLF over MP at a global sentence processing level. Model predictions also manifested differently in each of the matrix languages (MLs): When the ML was Welsh, MP and MLF violations elicited greater P600 mean amplitudes than MP and MLF adherences, however, this pattern was not observed when the ML was English. We discuss methodological considerations relating to the neuroscientific study of code-switching, and the extent to which our results shed light on adjective-noun code-switching beyond findings from production and experimental-behavioural studies.

Kanuri DP Hypothesis: A Minimalist Approach

This paper examines the structure of Kanuri DP (structure) Hypothesis within the framework of Abney (1987) and Chomsky (1995) Minimalist Programme (MP). In conducting the research, the researcher uses his native speaker intuition and other three competent native speakers of Kanuri to validate the data of this study. The study identifies Kanuri determiners as post head modifier language. The study identifies also two types of demonstrative modifiers –near and far demonstratives. The near demonstratives agree with their head nouns while the far demonstratives take both singular and plural head nouns. The far demonstratives do not show any form of agreement morphology between the nouns and their demonstrative modifiers. The analysis of DP Hypothesis shows the NP complement moves to the specifier position in the surface syntax which give rise to complement-head (C-H) order. The study further analyzes possessives, demonstratives and quantifiers under the DP hypothesis. The outcome of the study reveals that possessive determiner ‘nde’ (our) is base generated at the possessive position, moves and fills the D position under the DP in Kanuri while the far demonstrative ‘tudu’ (that) is also base generated at the Dem. Position of the determiner phrase (DP) -hence the D position is strong head position moves and fills the D position and the noun ‘fato’ (house) moves to the specifier position of the determiner phrase (DP) in order to check agreement feature in Kanuri.

Evaluating the predictions of three syntactic frameworks for mixed determiner–noun constructions

Abstract This paper presents a comparative evaluation of three linguistic frameworks, the Minimalist Programme (MP), Word Grammar (WG) and the Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF), regarding their predictions of possible combinations in a corpus of 187 German–English code-switched (CS) determiner–noun constructions. The comparison revealed a significant difference in the accuracy of the predictions between the MP and WG, but not between the other frameworks. We draw attention to the fact that while WG and MP deal with the processes of feature agreement between determiner and noun, the MLF is concerned with a broader notion of agreement in language membership. We suggest that advances in our understanding of grammaticality in code-switching will be achieved by combining the insights of all three frameworks instead of considering them in isolation.

The PF Disjunction Theorem to Southern Min/Mandarin code-switching

Aim and research question: The aim of this study is to test Macswan’s ((1999). A minimalist approach to intrasentential code switching. New York, NY: Garland; (2000). The architecture of the bilingual language faculty: Evidence from intrasentential code-switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 37–54; (2005). Codeswitching and generative grammar: A critique of the MLF model and some remarks on “modified minimalism”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8, 1–22.) PF Disjunction Theorem (PFDT), which was proposed based on Chomsky’s ((1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.) minimalist programme, to answer the following question: Is code-switching (CS) behaviour governed by CS-specific grammar or an innate mechanism that produces monolingual and bilingual utterances in our language faculty? Methodology: A quantitative approach was adopted to test the PFDT with the Southern Min/Mandarin CS data. Data and analysis: 811 lexical items extracted from 343 bilingual clauses in my Southern Min/Mandarin CS corpus, and almost no violation against this model (i.e., a word-internal switch) was found, except one example that was regarded as the informant’s slip of tongue. Findings/conclusions: The results of this study confirm the prediction of the PFDT that phonological systems cannot be mixed within a word. Originality: Although the morphosyntactic structures and in some cases the pronunciations of morphemes are identical, tonal differences of these two languages still prohibit word-internal switches. Significance/implications: This study thus supports the PFDT and argues that CS behaviour is governed by a single innate mechanism that governs both monolingual and bilingual language production and that the so-called CS-specific grammar/mechanism is not necessary.

Nativism, Empiricism, and Ockham’s Razor

This paper discusses the role that appeals to theoretical simplicity (or parsimony) have played in the debate between nativists and empiricists in cognitive science. Both sides have been keen to make use of such appeals in defence of their respective positions about the structure and ontogeny of the human mind. Focusing on the standard simplicity argument employed by empiricist-minded philosophers and cognitive scientists—what I call “the argument for minimal innateness”—I identify various problems with such arguments—in particular, the apparent arbitrariness of the relevant notions of simplicity at work. I then argue that simplicity ought not be seen as a theoretical desideratum in its own right, but rather as a stand-in for other desirable features of theories. In this deflationary vein, I argue that the best way of interpreting the argument for minimal innateness is to view it as an indirect appeal to various potential biological constraints on the amount of innate structure that can wired into the human mind. I then consider how nativists may respond to this biologized version of the argument, and discuss the role that similar biological concerns have played in recent nativist theorizing in the Minimalist Programme in generative linguistics.

Null Arguments in the Yoruba Child’s Early Speech

This paper studied null arguments in the early speech of the Yoruba child. We examined whether null subjects are more prominent than null objects and whether the usage of null subjects decreases with language development in the early utterance of the Yoruba child. We also examined the relationship between argument ellipses and finiteness. Minimalist Programme was adopted as the theoretical framework because of its provision for minimality in the processes of language acquisition. The database was made up of longitudinal naturalistic speech output of three Yoruba-speaking children between 15and 36 months of age. We discovered the preponderance of null argument-NPs at the initial stage; subjects-NPs were easily omitted while object-NPs were hardly omitted; the three Yoruba-speaking children began to make use of overt argument-NPs from fifteen months and gradually, null argument-NPs gave way. We found no direct relationship between the acquisition of finiteness and the end of null arguments.

Early Lexicon of the Yoruba Child

This paper examines the lexicon of the Yoruba child at the initial stage. We examined the composition of the early lexicon of the Yoruba child and how they are acquired. The research is couched in the Minimalist Programme which believes that language acquisition is a matter of learning vocabulary and determining lexical idiosyncrasies. A quantitative analysis of the data is carried out. The database consisted of longitudinal studies of three children, Damilare, Temiloluwa and Tola, between the ages of fifteen (15) and thirty-six (36) months. We found that there were few lexical items which were gradually built up by the children. We also discovered that the first sets of words to be acquired are verbal items, followed by nominal items. The presence of transitive and intransitive verbs is noted in the utterances of the children and we conclude that the children make use of verbs related to actions and events that they or those around them are involved in.

The minimalist grammar of action

Language and action have been found to share a common neural basis and in particular a common 'syntax', an analogous hierarchical and compositional organization. While language structure analysis has led to the formulation of different grammatical formalisms and associated discriminative or generative computational models, the structure of action is still elusive and so are the related computational models. However, structuring action has important implications on action learning and generalization, in both human cognition research and computation. In this study, we present a biologically inspired generative grammar of action, which employs the structure-building operations and principles of Chomsky's Minimalist Programme as a reference model. In this grammar, action terminals combine hierarchically into temporal sequences of actions of increasing complexity; the actions are bound with the involved tools and affected objects and are governed by certain goals. We show, how the tool role and the affected-object role of an entity within an action drives the derivation of the action syntax in this grammar and controls recursion, merge and move, the latter being mechanisms that manifest themselves not only in human language, but in human action too.

What Nominal Phrases are all about<BR> The Atypical Case of Indefinite Pronouns with a Determiner

This paper presents novel data that challenge the traditional categorial understanding of the nominal phrase. The established use of an indefinite pronoun with a determiner in French (ce quelqu'un, du n'importe quoi, un je ne sais quoi) contravenes assumptions both about pronouns, which should not be embedded, and nominal phrases, which should be headed by a noun. Analysed here for the first time, the embedding of a pronoun under a determiner is shown to find its justification in the semantic import of the construction. The anaphoric role guaranteeing referential continuity is promoted by a strong determiner; weak determiners typically contribute to constructing a designative use of the pronoun when a more precise characterisation cannot or will not be provided. How this construction would be analysed in the Minimalist Programme is presented to suggest that the phrase satisfies semantic requirements, which resolves the paradoxes of its traditional definition

The Scope of the Negative Loʾ in Biblical Hebrew (review)

Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 362 Reviews the term corpus, he does not overtly state a commitment to a corpus linguistics approach to Hebrew Text. However, his approach does offer a corpus of “finite size” for “sampling and representativeness” which comprises texts that might be termed “standard reference.” Should these texts be compiled into “machine readable form,” the basic requirements for a corpus linguistics approach would be in place. In this regard, it is claimed that a well-chosen corpus “provides a yardstick by which successive studies can be measured…new results can be directly compared with already published results without need for recomputation” (see http://bowlandfiles.lancs.ac.uk /monkey/ihe/linguistics/contents.htm ). Elizabeth R. Hayes Wolfson College, Oxford Oxford, England erussell.hayes@gmail.com THE SCOPE OF THE NEGATIVE LO} IN BIBLICAL HEBREW. By F. P. J. Snyman. Acta Academica Supplementum 3. Pp. vii + 315. Bloemfontein: UFS-SASOL Library, 2004. Paper. Snyman offers an exhaustive, computer-assisted study of the syntax (distribution ) and semantics (scope) of the Biblical Hebrew particle lo} ‘not’ to replace the “inadequate and incomplete” treatment thereof in existing grammars (p. 38). The study is a welcome contribution on this account. To describe adequately the “syntactic richness of this negative element” (p. 38), however, he invokes the full panoply of theoretical devices of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program, the dominant approach to generative grammar. As I suggest below, the full complexity of this theoretical framework is probably not required to analyze the syntactic phenomenon and may serve instead as a barrier to Hebraists together with the 300-page length. Because Snyman invokes the latest theorizing on explanatory adequacy within generative grammar (cognitive psychology), he is immediately embroiled in the difficulty of studying the tacit knowledge of native speakers of Biblical Hebrew. He suggests that “the adequacy of the description will be proportionate to the amount and variety of the material upon which it is based” (p. 2), and accordingly extends the scope of the study to the entire “huge corpus” of Biblical Hebrew, further invoking “the remarkable uniformity of the BH text” (p. 3). In terms of methodology, we might reasonably question this assumption of “uniformity.” On the one hand, the Biblical Hebrew corpus can readily be divided into five to ten sub-corpora by dialect markers (e.g., see V. DeCaen, Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 363 Reviews “Hebrew Linguistics and Biblical Criticism: A Minimalist Programme.” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 3 [2000–2001] and republished in Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures, ed. E. Ben Zvi, 2006). On the other hand, we also know that the syntax of negation is especially liable to change; an obvious example is the history of negation in Modern English (see further, e.g., L. Horn, A Natural History of Negation [Stanford: CSLI, 2001]). The study is initially motivated with two examples of negation: Deut 7:7 and Exod 20:10. Snyman concludes that the possibility of reading the negation with wide or narrow scope “could lead to great confusion as to the exact meaning” (p. 6). In Deut 7:7, the adverbial phrase is negated (“not because ”), as the majority of translations confirm; the NIV and GNB suggest, however, that the negation has scope over the entire verse (“did not set, did not choose”). I would be prepared to argue that the wide-scope reading is not available. Similarly, the case of Exod 20:10 appears to be more an artifact of rendering into Germanic languages an awkward apposition under wide scope than a real example of a possible narrow-scope reading. However, there are other significant problems in the analysis of Biblical Hebrew negation that do merit the study that they receive in sections 5.8 and 6.5.2 (discussed below). Chapter 2, which is arguably two chapters in one, is a parade example of methodological rigour. In the first part, he describes in detail the morphological and prosodic variants of lo} to eliminate potential noise. He also flags twenty examples of qere/kethib but, curiously, fails to remove these from the database—as linguistic rigour dictates. In the second part, he offers an overview of previous treatments (both grammars and dictionaries), admittedly not exhaustive but a sufficient “basis as...

Verb Movement in Biblical Aramaic (review)

Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 436 Reviews “What’s Wrong with Grammaticalization?” p. 158). Rubin is to be complemented for illustrating the heuristic value of grammaticalization for Semitic studies: the collecting of various examples of grammaticalization found throughout the geographic and temporal range of the Semitic languages presents an important step forward both for linguists interested in the data and Semitists interested in typological arguments and explanations for Semitic language change. I am, however, less convinced that Rubin’s brief volume has offered “valuable insights into the history of the Semitic languages” (p. 154) beyond what has hitherto been known but admittedly widely scattered in the literature. John A. Cook Eisenbrauns Winona Lake, IN 46590 jacook@eisenbrauns.com VERB MOVEMENT IN BIBLICAL ARAMAIC. By Adriaan Lamprecht. Acta Academica Supplementum 1. Pp. iv + 165. Bloemfontein: UFSSASOL Library, 2001. Paper. Lest anyone overlook this modestly-sized and unassuming volume, let me say at the outset that this work is a significant contribution to the study of word order in Biblical Aramaic. Not only does Lamprecht address an understudied topic, he employs a theoretical framework, the minimalist program of Chomskyan generative linguistics, that is underused in biblical studies, even though it is one of the most prominent frameworks in general linguistics. Indeed, Lamprecht hypothesizes that “word order in Biblical Aramaic is not free,” as has been generally thought in biblical and Aramaic studies, and that verb “movement as proposed in the Minimalist Programme … is adequate to explain the various word orders in BA” (p. 9). Given his minority conclusion, that Biblical Aramaic is a recognizable verb-subject language, it is well-worth the time necessary to work through this technical study. Lamprecht organizes his investigation in seven chapters, the first of which is the introduction, in which he clearly sets out his research questions (p. 8), and the last of which is a summary of his conclusions. In the main body of the work, chapter 2 is a clear and concise introduction to the minimalist program as it was articulated by Chomsky in 1992 and 1994. Chapters 3 and 4 are the crucial sections in that the basic relationships of the subject and verb (chap. 3) and verb and object (chap. 4) are analyzed. Chapter 5 synthesizes the analyses advanced in chapters three and four in Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 437 Reviews that all three major constituents, verb (V), subject (S), and object (O), and the various orders in which they occur (SVO, OVS, SOV, OSV, VOS) are described within the model that has been developed. Finally, chapter 6 tackles double-object syntax in Biblical Aramaic (i.e., clauses with ditransitive verbs). At the heart of Lamprecht’s conclusions is the rejection of the description in reference grammars of Biblical Aramaic word order as “free.” Instead , Lamprecht proposes that Biblical Aramaic has an unmarked surface word order of verb-subject-object (viz., the verb raises out of the verb phrase while the subject noun phrase remains in its site of origin in the verb phrase). Thus, clauses like Dan 6:8 are unmarked: aDt…wkVlAm yEk√rDs lO;k …wfAoÎyVtIa. However, Biblical Aramaic clearly exhibits a great deal of constituent movement, although it is not free but “licensed” (that is, linguistically motivated) for specific environments. Notably, Lamprecht was quick to pick up on a development in minimalist syntax for which the minimalist implications were just being worked out when this monograph was written: the proposal of specific positions (“projections ”) at the front of the clause for pragmatically-oriented constituent movement. Specifically, Lamprecht suggests that the “marked and unusual” subject-verb word order (as in Dan 7:10 bIt◊y aDnyî;d) reflects the movement of the subject, which normally remains in the verb phrase (i.e., below the raised verb), to a “Topic” phrase that is above the projection in which the verb may check its agreement features against the subjet noun phrase (labeled as the “AgrSp” node). In other words, Lamprecht argues that the normal order would have been (unattested) aDnyî;d bIt◊y, but that subject aDnyî;d raised to the Topic phrase to create the subject-verb order. This structure also fits clauses in which the object precedes the verb...

Head-final effects and the nature of modification

In English and other languages, pre-modifiers must generally be head-final, whereas specifiers need not be, which suggests that modifiers are NOT specifiers. The theory of modification defended here rests on a unified version of Merge triggered by satisfaction of selection features under a Priority constraint and claims that the label is dynamically determined by the object containing unsatisfied features AFTER Merge or Move. ‘Adjuncts’ do NOT exist in it, for modification reduces to complementation. Modifiers are just additional predicates, modifieds are their complements or specifiers, depending on the previous structure of the modifier, and correct scope and surface order, including head-final effects and absence thereof, follow from Kayne's Linear Correspondence Axiom without stipulations like the Head-Final Filter. Empirically and conceptually, this theory compares favourably with major alternatives like Kayne's, Chomsky's, Cinque's or Ernst's, and perhaps deserves consideration within a minimalist programme.

The syntax and morphology of the negative morpheme /ha/ in Sesotho

Sentence negation in Sesotho is expressed by means of bound negative morphemes rather than negative words. There are only three negative morphemes, namely: negative morphemes /ha/, /sa/ and /se/. These morphemes negate various predicate forms and only appear in restricted sentence types. This paper will only explore sentence constructions that realize negation by means of the negative morpheme /ha/. The distribution of this morpheme is investigated with regard to non—copulative verbs over a full range of tense, aspect and mood distinction, copulative verbs and deficient verbs It will be examined within the general framework of the Minimalist Programme, which holds that inflectional categories occur as heads of phrasal projections This paper will also explore the negative morpheme /ha/ within the model of Lexeme—Morpheme Base Morphology of Beard (1995), where lexemes and morphemes are assigned discrete components within grammar

Cleft sentences in Venda

The structure, distribution and semantic significance of cleft constructions in Venda are investigated in this paper. Cleft constructions are varied, but the paper focuses on two major types, namely, clefts and pseudo-clefts. It is demonstrated in this paper that cleft constructions in Venda exhibit their own peculiar characteristics, especially the fact that they are always distinguished by the copulative verb ndi and the relative with an element in COMP. Cleft constructions can be analysed successfully according to the Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Programme as proposed by Chomsky, Du Plessis, Visser and Shlonsky.

The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger

A minimalist programme for linguistic theory, Noam Chomsky on argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations, Kenneth Hale and Samuel Jay Keyser distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection, Morris Halle and Alex Marantz integrity of prosodic constituents and the domain of syllabification rules in Spanish and Catalan, Hames W. Harris interrogatives, James Higginbotham triggering science forming capacity through linguistic inquiry, Maya Honda and Wayne O'Neil evidence for metrical constituency, Michael Kenstowicz.