The A/A-Bar Distinction and Movement Theory
, A. K. Mahajan 1990
This thesis argues for a reformulation of the A/A-bar distinction in the theory of syntax. In the first part of this thesis, it is shown that this reformulation is forced by both theoretical considerations raised by VP internal subject theories and also certain empirical considerations relating to scrambling operations in Hindi. Evidence for the reformulation includes locality constraints on movement, weak crossover phenomena, reconstruction effects and binding properties associated with movement. This evidence also leads to a new approach to the study of scrambling phenomena. It is suggested that scrambling operations " an operation that involves substituting the scrambled element into a SPEC of a functional projection internal to IP (with properties similar to a rule like Passive) and an operation that adjoins the scrambled NP to a maximal projection (with properties similar to a rule like QR). The approach developed here yields a framework that seems to be promising for the study of variation found with respect to scrambling phenomena in natural languages.
The second part of this thesis argues that a language that does not have overt wh-movement at s-structure may not have wh-movement to SPEC CP at LF either. It is argued that in a language like Hindi, the wh-phrases simply undergo QR at LF. This operation adjoins a wh-phrase to the nearest IP. We show that this approach yields a number of consequences that are desirable in Hindi, a language that at first glance seems to be mixed between a language with overt wh-movement in syntax as well as wh-in-situ. We discuss some aspects of wide scope quantification in Hindi and some other languages and show that the absence of wh-movement to SPEC CP at LF yields certain effects that would be surprising under the approaches that permit wh-movement to SPEC CP at LF.
Thesis supervisor: Noam Chomsky
Title: Institute Professor
Table of Contents
Outline of the thesis 6
Chapter 1 Scrambling 7
1.0 Introduction: free word order and scrambling 7
1.1 Theoretical assumptions 10
1.2 Argument shift 15
1.2.1 On the A/A-bar distinction 15
1.2.2 Some remarks on Hindi word order 19
1.2.3 Wh-phrases in simple sentences in Hindi 20
1.2.4 Some remarks on Weak Crossover 22
1.2.5 NP fronting and Weak Crossover in Hindi 25
1.2.6 Scrambling and reflexive binding 32
1.2.7 Reflexive binding and reconstruction 34
1.3 Adjunction to XP 38
1.3.1 Weak Crossover and long distance scrambling out of a
finite clause 38
1.3.2 Reflexive binding and long distance scambling out of a
finite clause 43
1.3.3 Short distance adjunction 46
1.3.4 Summary 46
1.4 Evidence against a mixed position 47
1.4.1 Reconstruction and Weak Crossover 47
1.4.2 Parasitic Gaps 52
1.4.3 Summary 55
1.4.4 German evidence 56
1.5 Conclusion: toward a unified theory of scrambling 61
Chapter 2 Agreement, Case and scrambling 68
2.0 Introduction 68
2.1 Theoretical background 70
2.2 Agreement 72
2.2.1 Some basic facts about Hindi agreement 72
2.2.2 Some basic facts about Hindi Case marking 75
2.2.3 Subject agreement 75
2.2.4 Object agreement 78
2.2.5 Agreement and adverbial interpretation 80
2.3 Case and agreement 89
2.4 Visibility condition 97
2.5 Case, agreement, and scrambling 100
2.6 Agreement and specificity 103
Chapter 3 Against wh-movement in Hindi 107
3.0 Introduction 107
3.1 Simplex clauses: wh-in-situ 112
3.1.1 Simple questions 112
3.1.2 Multiple questions 118
3.1.3 Some verb-wh adjacency effects in Hindi 121
3.2 Wh-phrases in subordinate clauses 126
3.2.1 An outline of various strategies for wh-phrases in
embedded clauses 127
3.3 Embedded questions 131
3.3.1 Movement out of embedded questions 133
3.4 Wide scope questions 134
3.5 Extraction wh-questions 136
3.5.1 Multiple wh-questions 138
3.5.2 The non-barrierhood of the complement CP 142
3.5.3 Complex NP constraint: subjacency at LF 148
3.5.4 Argument-adjunct asymmetries under long distance
multiple movement: relativized minimality effects 152
3.5.5 Wh-phrases in infinitives 159
3.6 kvaa-questions 164
3.6.1 Introduction 165
3.6.2 Multiple kvaa questions 169
3.6.3 kvaa questions and multiple embeddings 170
3.6.4 Extractions out of kvaa questions 173
3.7 Summary 174
3.8 Wh-in-situ in English 176
3.8.1 Uniclausal multiple questions 176
3.8.2 Wide scope wh-in-situ in English 179
3.8.3 On adjunction to IP in English 184
3.9 Wh-in-situ in other languages 187
3.10 Conclusions 193