X-bar Syntax Research Articles

X-Bartheory: Its Pros/Strengths and Cons/Weaknesses in Generative Grammar

The X-bar theory is an interesting field in linguistic investigation. X-bar theory deepens our understanding of grammatical structure, and as a result may help us use the language in question (English language) more effectively. This study is a critical review, primarily aimed at exploring and examining the strengths and limitations of the X-bar theory in the analysis of syntactic structures in the English language. While we do not claim that X-bar syntax is the “best” approach to the analysis of [English] sentences, it has advantages over some other approaches. The study proves that despite the limitations of the X-bar theory like overworking the I-node et.c. It is an important theory that is worth studying by linguists as relevant in the study of syntactic structures of the English language. The analytical frameworks provided by contemporary scholars, Aarts and Radford, which ultimately are based on insights of Chomsky, Jackendoff and other scholars going back to the 1970s, are used and adapted for the analysis of sentences in this study. These two linguists use the Transformational Generative Grammar approach in their analysis of English phrases and sentences. It is therefore hoped that this study will provide, in addition to the already existing data, a current material on the X-bar theory especially for researchers in the field of generative linguistics.

A Comparative Analysis of Dholuo and Lubukusu Anaphors within the Government and Binding Theory

Languages exhibit anaphors, reflexives and reciprocals as either lexical items or affixes. This makes it interesting to identify their occurrence and interpretation. The study aimed at comparing anaphoric system of two African languages: Dholuo and Lubukusu to establish their morphological configuration and syntactic properties. Corpus of data for study were drawn from different sources. Dholuo data was derived from native speaker intuition, elicitations and from existing work by scholars. Lubukusu drawn was derived from works from scholars. First, data was categorized to establish their configuration. Then, the data from Dholuo and Lubukusu were compared to establish their morphological and syntactic configuration. Thereafter, a comparison of the anaphors from the two languages was performed. Syntactically, the anaphors were descriptively analyzed using X-bar syntax and Binding Theory modules of the Government and Binding Theory (GB). Results indicate that the two languages belong to different families: Dholuo, a Nilotic language while Lubukusu Bantu. Typologically, both Dholuo and Lubukusu were found to be agglutinating languages characterized with presence of affixes. Similarly, the affixes are bound to the verb. Contrastively, Lubukusu contains reflexives which occur as prefixes and reciprocals as suffixes; while Dholuo anaphors occur as suffixes. Conversely, Lubukusu exhibit the reflexive which occurs as an allomorph with two different morpheme markers; whereas Dholuo has a single reflexive marker. Furthermore, Lubukusu’s reciprocal is distinctly marked while in Dholuo the reciprocal and the reflexive are marked with the same morpheme. Apparently, context is paramount in the interpretation of Dholuo anaphor whereby both the speaker and listener must be aware of what is being conveyed. Lastly, both languages met the conditions highlighted in Chomsky’s Binding Principle A in establishing grammaticality of constructions. The anaphors are bound to respective antecedents irrespective of their positions in the two languages.

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE OF ADJECTIVE, ADVERB AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES OF AWGNI

The objective of this study is to agree to a logical inspection of syntactic structures of Awgni Adjective, Adverb and Preposition Phrases. The article attempts descriptive research design. Through purposive sampling, 12 texts were selected. Six informants (tree females and three males) were involved in group discussion to crosscheck these data. The scheme of data analysis employed in this study was x-bar syntax. Results indicated that Awgni Adjective, Adverb and Preposition Phrases were pending in a variety of head, complement, specifier and adjunct utterances. The Selections of complement, adjunct, and specifier in between phrases were to some extent syntactically similar. The study showed that syntactic structures have dominance, and precedence relationships. Finally, the study recommended a further research on some basic properties of Awgni labeling algorisms.

The Origin and Rationale of X-bar Syntax

The present paper is intended as a reasonably elementary introduction to the nature of X-bar syntax, an important module in the structure of a modern transformational-generative grammar. The examples have been taken from English; however, since X-bar syntax is an integral part of the overall structure of Universal Grammar, the analyses presented here extend to any language.

Remarks on Acceptability and Grammaticality

<p>In the present paper a distinction is drawn between <strong>acceptability</strong> and <strong>grammaticality</strong>. These two concepts have often been confounded in the literature. Thus linguists have been prone to say that 'the native speaker makes grammaticality judgments'. Nothing could be more mistaken. He makes acceptability judgments, and that is something entirely different. In this article, I shall make use of the sentence-schema which has been current since Chomsky (1986a) - a logical extension of X-bar syntax. Readers who are not familiar with the basic modules of modern TG-theory are referred to my articles in <em>Hermes</em>, 1 and <em>Hermes</em>, 2 (see references). In these two articles I adhered to the S-bar/S-schema of sentence structure. This is now obsolete. I shall adopt a relatively conservative view of bounding nodes (subjacency); i.e. I make no attempt to introduce the sophisticated theory of barrierhood developed in Chomsky (1986a). This is immaterial to the argument conducted in this paper.</p>

(Tomme) NPer i moderne generativ syntaktisk teori (2. del)

The present paper takes its point of departure in the concept of empty NP-categories, as this is embodied in a more comprehensive theory of NPs. The theoretical framework adopted is mainly that expouned in Chomsky: Lextures on Government and Binding (1981) and subsequent works (though no attempt has been made to incorporate the revised model presented in Chomsky: Barriers (1986)). The paper gives a brief introduction to the main modules of a modern generative grammar (X-bar syntax;0-theory; government (including proper government and the Extended Empty Category Principle); the theory of abstract Case; the theory of Binding; and the theory of Bouding). The paper falls into two parts. In the first part the basic modules and principles are introduced. In the second part, to be published in the next issue of Hermes, it will be shown how these modules interact in the derivation of sentences. Particular attention will be paid to NP-Movement and Wh-Movement. A separate section will deal with the status of PRO. The full bibliography appears after both parts.

(Tomme) NPer i moderne generativ syntaktisk teori (1. del)

The present paper takes its point of departure in the concept of empty NP-categories, as this is embodied in a more comprehensive theory of NPs. The theoretical framework adopted is mainly that expouned in Chomsky: Lextures on Government and Binding (1981) and subsequent works (though no attempt has been made to incorporate the revised model presented in Chomsky: Barriers (1986)). The paper gives a brief introduction to the main modules of a modern generative grammar (X-bar syntax;0-theory; government (including proper government and the Extended Empty Category Principle); the theory of abstract Case; the theory of Binding; and the theory of Bouding). The paper falls into two parts. In the first part the basic modules and principles are introduced. In the second part, to be published in the next issue of Hermes, it will be shown how these modules interact in the derivation of sentences. Particular attention will be paid to NP-Movement and Wh-Movement. A separate section will deal with the status of PRO. The full bibliography appears after both parts.

Examination of Verb and Verb Phrase in Boier Ahmadi Lori Based on X-bar Syntax

The big Chomskyan revolution took place by publication of Syntactic structures in 1957 but it evolved gradually during the time. In Syntactic structures, Chomsky introduced a grammar known as Generative Transformational Grammar which has many branches. One of its branches is Government and Binding theory / GB theory, sometimes called ‘Principle-and- parameters Theory’, also has some branches. One of its branches is ‘X-bar syntax’. It seems that X-bar syntax is able to describe verb and verb phrase in Boier Ahmadi Lori adequately. So, a free conversation of Boier Ahmadi Lori's informant was recorded. Then all of its simple sentences were analyzed based on X-bar syntax. The research comes up with this conclusion that X-bar syntax is not adequate enough to justify all characteristics of the verb and verb phrase in Boier Ahmadi Lori language.

Headhood in Yorùbá nominal compounds

The lexical status of a class of composite words known as the nominal compounds in Yorùbá, is the focus of this article. The different semantic relations associated with the constituents of Yorùbá compounds as well as their varying deep structures reveal that in locating nominal compound heads, efforts should be made to describe the percolation effects on the concatenated forms. The notion of x-bar syntax of Williams (1981a & 1981b), among others, was supported by semantic relatedness of forms in compounds for the analysis. This work essentially points to the fact that Yorùbá compounds cannot be said to exhibit a similar realization of headedness in their different tokens. Thus, Williams' (1981b:252) Right Hand Head Rule (RHHR) is found to not be a universal phenomenon. Condition is plausible anywhere in Yorùbá because Yorùbá is among those exceptional languages whose morphological heads are on the left hand for those that are headed, just as they are in the syntax of the language. We still find that some are double headed, while some are headless. As Yorùbá nominal compounds cannot be said to exhibit uniformity in their headedness, they cannot be explained using a monolithic approach of either syntax or morphology. The phenomenon of word headedness in the language can best be explained along the interface axis of morpho-syntax and semantic.

Les coordinations relèvent-elles de la syntaxe X-barre ?

Robert D, Borsley: Coordination and X-bar Syntax. It is widely accepted within Principles and Parameters theory that coordinate structures are Conjunction Phrases, in which the first term is the specifier, the conjunction the head, and the second term the complement. They differ from typical specifier-head-complement structures in various ways. so at most they could be exceptional instances of such structures. A consideration of the distribution of coordinate structures, the number of conjuncts (or terms), the nature of conjuncts (or terms), and the basic structure of coordinate structures suggests that there are no significant similarilies between coordinate structures and specifier-head-complement structures and a consideration of certain unbalanced coordinate structures points to the same conclusion. It seems, then, that the Conjunction Phrase analysis is untenable.

Complement selection in morphology and syntax

In this paper we discuss a recent proposal according to which: (1)derivational suffixes have a syntactic-like bar representation and (2) wordformation processes can be represented in terms of an X-bar syntax. Whilewe agree on the attribution of an argument structure to suffixes, we castsome doubt on the claim that such word-constituents are Complements of their(suffixal) selecting heads. We maintain that suffixes do not project as lexicalheads do and that a congurational X-bar structure in word formation is usefulonly to the extent that it represents the semantics (i.e., the LCS) of thewords selected by the suffix.

Zwicky on heads

An interesting development in the last decade or so has been the increasing use that theoretical linguists have made of the notion ‘head’ – or rather, in order not to beg the question, of notions to which they have given the name ‘head’. The term has been around for a long time in linguistics, of course – for example Bloomfield uses it in relation to endocentric constructions (1933: 195), where the head is the daughter constituent which has the same distribution as the mother. Before that, Sweet had used ‘head-word’ to refer to any word to which another is subordinate (1891: 16, quoted in Matthews, 1981: 165). However, theoretical linguists made very little use of the term, or of the constellation of associated concepts, until quite recently. Its present status is due largely to work on X-bar syntax dating from Chomsky (1970), and especially to its recent manifestation in Generalised Phrase Structure Grammar (Gazdar & Pullum, 1981; Gazdaret al., 1985)–and even more so in the ‘head-driven’ variant of this (Pollard, 1985). But the improved status of ‘head’ is also due to some extent to the renewed interest in dependency grammar (Anderson, 1971, 1977; Matthews, 1981; Atkinson,et al, 1982; Hudson, 1984; Nichols, 1986). All these treatments agree not only in using the term ‘head’, but also in using it to refer to the element in some construction to which all the other parts of that construction are (in some sense) subordinate.