Ascending and Descending VPs in English

Janke, Vikki; Neeleman, Ad

doi:10.1162/ling_a_00082

Cited by 23 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…One observation showing post-head restrictions is the impenetrability of the verb cluster, a property which means that verb clusters may be interrupted by nonverbal material to the left of the head but not to its right (Bobaljik 2004 among others). We also find case adjacency to the right of the verb but not on its left (Haider 2005;Janke and Neeleman 2012), resulting in restricted interactions between argument and adjunct placement. Further, Abels (2007) claims that the mirror image of the Swiss German and Dutch cross-serial pattern is never found, which again suggests an asymmetry in the interactions between orders.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

The fundamental left–right asymmetry in the Germanic verb cluster

Abels

2016

J Comp German Linguistics

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Cinque (Linguist Inq 36(3): [315][316][317][318][319][320][321][322][323][324][325][326][327][328][329][330][331][332] 2005; Universals of language today. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 165-184, 2009; Functional structure from top to toe. Vol. 9 of The cartography of syntactic structures. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 232-265, 2014a) observes that there is an asymmetry in the possible ordering of dependents of a lexical head before versus after the head. A reflection on some of the concepts needed to develop Cinque's ideas into a theory of neutral word order reveals that dependents need to be treated separately by class. The resulting system is applied to the problem of word order in the Germanic verb cluster. It is shown that there is an extremely close match between theoretically derived expectations for clusters made up of auxiliaries, modals, causative 'let', a main verb, and verbal particles. The facts point to the action of Cinque's fundamental left-right asymmetry in language in the realm of the verb cluster. At the same time, not all verb clusters fall under Cinque's generalization, which, therefore, argues against treating all cases of restructuring uniformly.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

The fundamental left–right asymmetry in the Germanic verb cluster

Abels

2016

J Comp German Linguistics

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“…Such an account fits the data better than a structural account and it has a precedent in Janke and Neeleman's (2012) analysis of the English VP.…”

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confidence: 86%

“…Janke and Neeleman (2012) argue that floating quantifiers must be c-commanded by the DP they are interpretively linked to andin English -precede the category they are attached to. According to these criteria, there is a position in a descending structure like (67a) that can host object-oriented floating quantifiers, but this is not the case in an ascending structure like (67b).…”

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AP Adjacency as a Precedence Constraint

Belk

Neeleman

2017

Linguistic Inquiry

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Attributive APs precede certain other categories (PPs, genitive DPs, and so on), when the noun precedes both (Giurgea 2009, Adger 2012. This observation may suggest an analysis in terms of X-bar-style 'structural layering'. However, such an account faces several problems: (i) in languages with PP-AP-N order, scrambling of the AP is permitted, (ii) in languages with AP-N-PP order or PP-N-AP order, there is evidence that the AP can c-command the PP, as well as the other way around, and (iii) in languages with N-AP-PP order, the AP can take scope over the PP, as well as the other way around, arguably as a consequence of a structural ambiguity. We therefore develop an alternative analysis based on a striking parallel between the syntax of attributive APs and that of objects: while OV languages systematically allow adverbs to intervene between object and verb, VO languages tend to require verb-object-adverb order. This aspect of verbal syntax is familiar and can be captured in terms of a well-known linear constraint: Case Adjacency (Stowell 1981; Janke and Neeleman 2012). We propose that this constraint has a nominal counterpart that ensures N-AP adjacency in noun-initial structures. Thus, this instance of NP/VP parallelism has its source in parallel constraints, rather than parallel structural layers.Keywords: AP adjacency, PP peripherality, Attribution, Case Adjacency Parallels between nominal and verbal structuresSimilarities between nominal and verbal grammar have been a theme in generative research since at least Lees 1960. Lees observed that clauses like the army destroyed the city and nominalizations like the army's destruction of the city display certain syntactic and semantic parallels. For example, the event denoting word is preceded in both structures by an agentive phrase and followed by a patient. Moreover, both structures seem to allow passivization (as in the city was destroyed by the army and the city's destruction by the army).Perhaps the most influential account of such parallels is given in Chomsky 1970. In this paper, Chomsky introduces X-bar theory, an abstract system of projection that applies to both

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Idioms, collocations, and structure

Bruening

2019

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Ascending and Descending VPs in English

Cited by 23 publications

References 33 publications

The fundamental left–right asymmetry in the Germanic verb cluster

The fundamental left–right asymmetry in the Germanic verb cluster

AP Adjacency as a Precedence Constraint

Idioms, collocations, and structure

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