Gereon Müller

Optimality, markedness, and word order in German

Abstract The main goal of this article is to develop an approach to free-word-order structures in German that reconciles the findings of two different lines of research: competition-based models that center upon the interaction of factors like definiteness, animacy, case, and focus on the one hand, and optimality-theoretic syntax with its violable and ranked constraints on the other. The analysis relies on the existence of a syntactic scrambling operation. The major claims are as follows: (i) Scrambling is triggered by a subhierarchy of violable and ranked linearization constraints. (ii) Optimality under at least one linearization constraint results in grammaticality, optimality under the whole subhierarchy results in an unmarked structure (unmarked structures do not correspond to D-structures, as is often assumed). (iii) The distinction between subhierarchies and matrix hierarchies in optimality theory parallels the traditional distinction between weak and strong rules. It accounts for the difference between weak pronoun fronting to a Wackernagel position, which results in a fixed order, and scrambling to VP, which does not. (iv) Language-specific variation with respect to scrambling options is due to constraint reranking.

On Deriving CED Effects from the PIC

This article shows that a version of the Condition on Extraction Domain (Huang 1982) can be derived from the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC; Chomsky 2001, 2008) if the following assumptions are made: (a) All syntactic operations are driven by features of lexical items. (b) These features are ordered on lexical items. (c) All phrases are phases. (d) Edge features that trigger intermediate movement steps can only be added before the phase head becomes inert. Given (ad), it follows from the PIC that extraction from XP is blocked if the operation that has merged XP is the final operation taking place in a phase: a last-merged specifier is a barrier because no edge feature can be inserted that might extract some item out of it; this induces a PIC violation on the following cycle. The analysis can be extended to cover freezing effects. Furthermore, it predicts the existence of the melting effect, illustrated in German and Czech: local scrambling in front of what would otherwise qualify as a last-merged specifier renders the specifier transparent for extraction. The most important assumption made here is that the timing of edge feature insertion is crucial (before vs. after in (d)). Accordingly, the analysis can be viewed as an argument supporting a strictly derivational organization of grammar.

A constraint on remnant movement

This paper addresses a peculiar asymmetry that arises with so-called remnant movement in German, that is, movement of an XP from which some other movement has already applied. It appears that an XP from which scrambling has taken place can undergo topicalization or wh-movement (thereby creating a trace that is not bound at S-structure), but not scrambling or left dislocation. It is argued that this apparent movement type asymmetry cannot be accounted for by invoking the notion of reconstruction, as has sometimes been suggested. Rather, the pertinent constraint on remnant movement follows from a principle of Unambiguous Domination which states that a trace with a (not necessarily c-commanding) antecedent in a position of type α must not be dominated by a category in a position of the same type α. Under this view, any movement type may in principle apply to a remnant XP — whether or not remnant movement is possible depends on whether or not the remnant XP ends up in a position that is formally different from the position occupied by the antecedent of the unbound trace. This prediction is shown to be corroborated by additional empirical evidence drawn mainly from German and English. Finally, the conceptual status of the Unambiguous Domination requirement is clarified.

Shape Conservation and Remnant Movement

Remnant movement is movement of an XP β from which extraction of α has taken place; cf. (1). This phenomenon has been argued to support a derivational approach to syntax (cf. Chomsky (1998)): Since remnant movement creates an unbound α trace that is separated from its antecedent by an XP in non-selected position (i.e., a barrier), the wellformedness of the resulting structure is unexpected under representational approaches that require proper binding of traces and check locality constraints at Sstructure; but nothing is wrong with (1) under a strictly derivational approach in which proper binding is replaced by strict cyclicity and locality is checked directly after each movement operation.

Constraints on displacement : a phase-based approach

This monograph sets out to derive the effects of standard constraints on displacement like the Minimal Link Condition (MLC) and the Condition on Extraction Domain (CED) from more basic principles in a minimalist approach. Assuming that movement via phase edges is possible only in the presence of edge features on phase heads, simple restrictions can be introduced on when such edge features can be inserted derivationally. The resulting system is shown to correctly predict MLC/CED effects (including certain exceptions, like intervention without c-command and melting). In addition, it derives operator-island effects, a restriction on extraction from verb-second clauses, and island repair by ellipsis. The approach presupposes that syntactic operations apply in a fixed order: Timing emerges as crucial. Thus, the book provides new arguments for a strictly derivational organization of syntax. Accordingly, it should be of interest not only to all syntacticians working on islands, but more generally to all scholars interested in the overall organization of grammar.

Partial wh-movement and Optimality Theory

Partial wh-movement constructions in German and Hungarian exhibit a number of properties that are unexpected under standard approaches to movement. In contrast, I will show that these properties follow directly under an optimality-theoretic approach to wh-dependencies. This approach is primarily devised so as to account for languages like English, Korean, and Bulgarian, and centers around six general and commonly accepted constraints (PROJ-PRIN, DER-ECON, WH-CRIT FULL-INT, MIN-CHAIN, and BAR-CON). However, it turns out that the properties of partial wh-movement constructions of both the German and the Hungarian type correspond exactly to one specific ranking of these constraints. On a more general note, the analysis presented here provides arguments for postulating complete derivations as members of the reference set, and for constructing the reference set via LF identity

Explorations in Nominal Inflection

Explorations in Nominal Inflection is a collection of new articles that focus on nominal inflection markers in different languages. The studies are concerned with the morphological inventories of markers, their syntactic distribution, and, importantly, the interaction between the two. As a result, the contributions shed new light on the morphology/syntax interface, and on the role of morpho-syntactic features in mediating between the two components. Issues that feature prominently throughout are inflection class, case, gender, number, animacy, syncretism, iconicity, agreement, the status of paradigms, the nature of morpho-syntactic features, and the structure of nominal projections. Recurrent analytical tools involve the concepts of competition (optimality, specificity), underspecification, and economy, in various theoretical frameworks.James P. Blevins: Inflection Classes and EconomyBernd Wiese: Categories and Paradigms. On Underspecification in Russian Declension

Pro-Drop and Impoverishment

It is often assumed that some notion of morphological richness plays a central role in the theory of pro-drop: In languages with sufficiently rich verbal φ-feature (person, number, gender) agreement morphology, pronominal arguments can (and, in some contexts, must) remain without phonological realization; in languages without such a rich verbal agreement morphology, pronominal arguments must be overtly realized. Focussing on subject pro-drop here and in what follows, this difference can be illustrated with evidence from Spanish and Italian on the one hand (languages with rich subject agreement morphology), and English and German on the other (languages without rich subject agreement morphology); see (1-ab) vs. (1-cd). Following Chomsky (1982), Rizzi (1986), and Grewendorf (1989), among many others, I assume that the pro-drop phenomenon does not involve post-syntactic deletion (cf. Perlmutter (1971)), but an empty category pro. Such a non-overt pronoun pro is merged in the canonical position for subjects (in Spec of vP or within the VP, depending on its status as an external or internal argument), and undergoes Agree with T in the languages under consideration here (which rely on a nominative/accusative system of argument encoding), thereby ensuring nominative case and subject agreement; cf. Chomsky (1995; 2001).1 (1) a. [TP Hemos have-3.PL [vP pro trabajado worked todo all el the día ]] day b. [TP Ha has-3.SG [vP pro cantato ]] sung c. *I think [TP have [vP pro worked all day ]] d. *Ich I denke, think dass that [TP [vP pro gesungen sung habe ]] have-1.SG Even though the hypothesis that morphological richness is involved in the licensing of argumental pro seems to be a natural one, and is widely accepted, it has proven extremely difficult to pin down. In fact, it seems that the notion of morphological richness relevant here is left somewhat vague in most of the relevant literature. Jaeggli & Safir (1989, 29-30) assume that pro-drop is possible in languages with morphologically uniform inflectional paradigms, where an inflectional paradigm counts as uniform iff it “has either only underived inflectional forms or only derived inflectional forms”: The former option covers pro-drop languages like Spanish and Italian; the latter option covers pro-drop languages like Japanese or Chinese, which lack verbal φ-feature agreement completely; non-pro drop languages like English and French, which have bare-stem inflectional forms in their verbal paradigms, are correctly excluded. As noted by Rohrbacher (1999, ch. 5), this approach ignores the fact that base-stem forms can act as fully distinctive members of morphological paradigms (and are accordingly often analyzed as involving null morphemes in morphology that are accorded the same formal status as

Beschränkungen für Binomialbildung im Deutschen: Ein Beitrag zur Interaktion von Phraseologie und Grammatik

This paper addresses the constraints that govern binomial (Paarformel) formation in German (as in fix und fertig, Kind und Kegel). It is shown that the most striking property of binomials, their striking irreversibility, follows without construction-specific assumptions, from the interaction of three classes of constraints that are all independently motivated in the grammar of German : (a) semantic/pragmatic salience constraints ; (b) phonological constraints on stress assignment in monomorphemes ; and (c) phonological constraints on syllable concatenation. It is argued that these highly general constraints may impose conflicting requirements on binomial candidates, and that these conflicts are resolved in an optimality-theoretic manner : The constraints are violable and ranked

A phase-based approach to Scandinavian definiteness marking

Abstract We propose a syntactic approach to apparent blocking effects in the realization of definiteness marking in the Scandinavian languages. The claim is that the differences in definiteness marking can be attributed to a requirement that a definiteness feature ([DEF], a property of N) must be located at the left edge of the DP phase in order to be PIC-accessible for probes outside of the DP. As a result, [DEF] can be spelled out on N if N is the only element within DP and [DEF] is therefore part of DP’s edge domain (giving rise to suffixal marking). In contrast, the presence of an (overt) adjectival modifier (at the left edge of DP) requires feature movement of [DEF] to D, which is then realized as a prenominal article (with additional spell-out of the lower copy of [DEF] in Swedish). The paper also addresses the (slightly different) behavior of definiteness marking in the context of relative clauses and certain issues pertaining to the interpretation of the different strategies.