Research in Syntax
- Activities
- Staff members
- PhD students
- External
collaborators
- Selected publications
Activities
The Syntax group consists of researchers working in the field of generative
grammar. Richard Hudson's work is in dependency grammar, while that of Annabel
Cormack, Ad Neeleman, Neil Smith and Hans van de Koot is in the general
framework of the minimalist program. Michael Brody's work is in elegant syntax,
a framework not unrelated to but different in various ways from this program.
PhD students are integrated within the research group and participate in
regular meetings of the Minimalist
Reading Group and the Word Grammar
Discussion Group.
Michael Brody's work over the last 6 years has focused on the framework of
elegant syntax where "perfection" is taken to be equivalent to
theoretical elegance. No imperfections are countenanced and/or rationalized as
forced by external systems or by any other consideration. While imperfections
are not unexpected, they are taken to be just that: problems or mysteries for
future research to resolve. Currently the main subtheories of elegant syntax
include mirror theory (a theory of syntactic representations), bare checking
theory, and the distributed theory of chains. The approach dispenses with
economy conditions and with the widely assumed architectural
representational-derivational duplications.
Over the last ten years Annabel Cormack and Neil Smith have been developing a radically revised theory of the human language faculty. Their point of
departure is a version of Chomsky's 'Minimalist Programme', but with a number
of modifications. First, they have elaborated detailed proposals on the correct
allocation of responsibilities as between syntax, semantics and pragmatics - an
area that Chomsky himself largely ignores. For instance, they claim (Cormack
& Smith, 2000b) to have demonstrated that fronting constructions, such as Nothing
must the baby eat, rely for their correct interpretation not on the
semantics of a specific syntactic Focusing head, but on the pragmatically
driven exploitation of semantic structure.
Second, they have suggested several
basic revisions to the technical machinery of the theory. In standard
Minimalism there are two operations - Merge and Move - which jointly account
for the possible syntactic configurations displayed by natural languages. In
contradistinction to this, they have argued that the 'displacement' property of
language (whereby constituents are interpreted in a place other than where they
are heard, such as Fred was elected) does not require the traditional
appeal to 'movement'. An alternative treatment of this phenomenon, exploiting a
blend of Minimalism and Combinatorial Categorial Grammar, also leads them to
propose that Merge is mediated by 'combinators' which are present in the
syntax.
Most radically (see Cormack 1999), they do away with the notion
'Specifier' (a cover term for an unnatural class of entities, including
'subject' and some modifiers, but additionally operating as a landing site for
moved phrases). They do this by using two-place operators in syntax as well as
in semantics, and insisting that all merge is licensed by selection. They have
already published about a dozen articles, and have long-term plans to complete
a monograph.
Richard Hudson is still (after more than 20 years) developing the theory
called Word Grammar.
This includes a non-Chomskyan theory of syntax whose main pillars are
dependency structure and multiple default inheritance, and which has been
applied in some detail to English. He teaches undergraduates how to apply this
grammar to free texts so that they can analyse almost all the words in any
text, and many of them have applied the same theory on a small scale to other
languages. However the theory goes well beyond syntax to embrace morphology,
lexical relationships, lexical and compositional semantics and sociolinguistic
patterns. According to WG, language is a network, a sub-network of the total
cognitive network whose boundaries are neither clear nor important.
Ad Neeleman’s research has focused mainly on the way in which grammatical
relations such as ‘subject of’ and ‘object of’ are structurally encoded. The
general claim, worked out in some detail in Complex Predicates and in Flexible
Syntax, a monograph with Fred Weerman (Utrecht University), is that there is a
range of possible configurations in which grammatical relations can be
established. The choice between these is a matter of interface conditions.
Current work deals partly with the formal properties of syntax that make it
flexible (in cooperation with Hans van de Koot, see below), and partly with the way the
syntax interacts with syntax-external systems (in cooperation with Peter Ackema
(Utrecht University)).
Peter Ackema & Ad Neeleman argue that a number of apparently syntactic
phenomena should in fact be explained through the interaction between two
competing structure-generating systems (syntax and morphology) and their
mapping to phonology. The account offers new insights into the nature and
effects of affixation and addresses paradoxes involving particle verbs, phrases
embedded in words and context-sensitive spell-out rules. Some of this work is
based on Optimality Theory as developed by Alan Prince (Rutgers University) and
Paul Smolensky (Johns Hopkins).
Hans van de Koot has worked on the grammar-parser relation and the
computational complexity of natural language recognition problems. His recent
work has been concerned with the question whether the properties of grammatical
dependencies, such as movement, can be derived from more primitive properties
of natural language syntax. This line of work has led to collaboration with Ad
Neeleman on a project which is entirely devoted to this question (see below).
Ad Neeleman and Hans van de Koot have
developed a radical version of bare phrase structure, which derives fundamental
properties of grammatical dependencies from a small set of syntactic
primitives. The basic problem they address is that standard views of
grammatical dependencies are incompatible with inclusiveness (the idea that
properties of non-terminal nodes are fully recoverable from the structure they
dominate). Decomposing grammatical dependencies into a copy operation and an
operation of function satisfaction reconciles their existence with
inclusiveness and explains shared properties, such as c-command. The approach
has recently been extended to a bare phrase structure analysis of resultatives.
Staff members
PhD
students
- Dirk Bury
Self-attachment (syntax).
Email:
- Vikki
Janke
Control
Email:
- Ann
Law
Acquisition of sentence final particles in Cantonese
Email:
- Marika
Lekakou
Middle formation
Email:
- Alex
Perovic
Acquisition of syntax in pathological cases, esp Downs syndrome
Email:
- Hitoshi
Shiraki
The distribution of long-distance reflexives
Email:
- Marco
Tamburelli
Transfer in bilingual acquisition
Email:
- Vina
Tsakali
Acquisition of clitics in Modern Greek
Email:
- Reiko Vermeulen
Japanese nominative
Email:
- Jenny Yang
Pro drop
Email:
External collaborators
Selected publications
Several of the publications below and many others may be downloaded from
the web pages of the relevant staff members.
We also have a searchable
database of staff publications.
Ackema, Peter, and Ad Neeleman (2000) M-Selection
and Phrasal Affixation. In C. Iten and A. Neeleman (eds) UCL Working
Papers in Linguistics 12, pp. 307-342.
Ackema, Peter and Ad Neeleman (2001). 'Competition between Syntax and
Morphology'. In J. Grimshaw, G. Legendre and S. Vikner (eds.) Optimality-Theoretic
Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. pp. 29-60.
Brody, M. (1995). Lexico-Logical Form, a Radically Minimalist Theory.
MIT Press.
Brody, M. (1997). 'Towards Perfect Chains'. In L. Haegeman (ed) Elements of
Syntax. Kluwer.
Brody, M. (1998). 'Projection and Phrase Structure'. Linguistic Inquiry
29.3, 367-398.
Brody, M. (1998). 'The Minimalist Program and a Perfect Syntax'. Mind and
Language, 205-214.
Brody, M. (1999). 'Word Order, Restructuring and Mirror Theory'. In Peter
Svenonius (ed) The Derivation of VO and OV. John Benjamins, pp. 27-43.
Brody, M. (1999). 'Relating Syntactic Elements'. Syntax 2, 210-226.
Brody, M. (2000). 'Mirror Theory: Syntactic Representation in Perfect Syntax'.
Linguistic Inquiry 31.1, pp. 29-56.
Brody, M. (2000). 'On the Status of Derivations and Representations'. UCL
Working Papers. To appear in Samuel Epstein and Daniel Seely (eds) Derivational
Explanation. Blackwell.
Brody, M. (2001). 'One More Time'. Syntax 4, pp. 126-138.
Cormack, A. (1989/1998) Definitions: Implications for Syntax, Semantics
and the Language of Thought. New York, Garland.
Cormack, A. (1999) 'Without specifiers'. In D. Adger, S. Pintzuk, B. Plunkett &
G. Tsoulas (eds) Specifiers: Minimalist Approaches. Oxford, OUP, pp.
46-68.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (1996) 'Checking theory: features, functional heads
and checking-parameters'. In P. Backley and J. Harris (eds) UCL Working
Papers in Linguistics 8, pp. 243-281.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (1997) 'Checking features and split signs'. In P.
Backley and J. Harris (eds) UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 9, pp.
223-252.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (1998) 'Negation, polarity and V positions in
English'. In J. Harris and C. Iten (eds) UCL Working Papers in Linguistics
10, pp. 285-322.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (1999a) 'Why are depictives different from
resultatives?' In C. Iten and A. Neeleman (eds) UCL Working Papers in
Linguistics 11:251-284.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (1999b) 'Where is a sign merged?' Glot
International 4,6: 21.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (2000a) 'Head movement and negation in English'. Transactions
of the Philological Society 98, pp. 49-85.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (2000b) 'Fronting: The syntax and pragmatics of
'focus' and 'topic''. In C. Iten and A. Neeleman (eds) UCL Working Papers in
Linguistics 12, pp. 387-416.
Cormack, A. and N. Smith (in press) 'Modals and negation in English'. In S. Barbiers & F. Beukema (eds) Modality
in Generative Grammar. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.
Doetjes, Jenny, Ad Neeleman and
Hans van de Koot (1999). Degree Expressions.
Ms. UCL.
Hudson, R. (1997) 'The rise of auxiliary DO: Verb-non-raising or category-strengthening?',
Transactions of the Philological Society 95, 41-72.
Hudson, R. (1998) English Grammar. London: Routledge.
Hudson, R. (1999) 'Teaching grammar is dead - NOT!' In Rebecca Wheeler (ed) Language
Alive in the Classroom. Westport: Greenwood, pp. 101-112.
Hudson, R. (1999) 'Subject-verb agreement in English'. English Language and
Linguistics 3, pp. 173-207.
Hudson, R. (2000) '*I amn't'. Language 76, pp. 297-323.
Hudson, R. (2000) 'Grammar Without Functional Categories'. In Robert Borsley
(ed) The Nature and Function of Syntactic Categories. New York: Academic
Press, pp. 7-35.
Hudson, R. (2000) 'Gerunds and multiple default inheritance'. In C. Iten and
A. Neeleman (eds) UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 12, pp. 303-335.
Hudson, R. (2000) 'Language as a cognitive network'. In H.G. Simonsen and R.T.
Endresen (eds) A Cognitive Approach to the Verb. Morphological and Constructional Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hudson, R. (2000) 'Discontinuity'. Traitement
Automatique des Langues, pp. 15-56.
Neeleman, Ad and Fred Weerman (1998). Flexible Syntax; A Theory of Case
and Arguments. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Kluwer,
Dordrecht.
Neeleman, Ad and Hans van de Koot (1999) The Configurational
Matrix. Ms. UCL. To appear in Linguistic Inquiry.
Neeleman, Ad and Hans van de Koot (2001) Bare
Resultatives (draft version). Ms. UCL.
Neeleman, Ad and Hans van de Koot (2001).Syntactic
Haplology. Ms. UCL. (draft version)
Smith, N. (1999) $. Glot International. 4,7: 7.
Smith, N. and A. Cormack (2000) 'Aspects of the Grammar-Pragmatics Interface:
Indeterminacy, Iconicity and Interpretation'. Paper presented at the Symposium
on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
April, 2000 (to appear in the Proceedings).
Van de Koot, Hans (1995). 'The Computational Complexity of Natural Language
Recognition'. Lingua 97, pp. 37-80.