1 / 22

Language Design, Feature Economy, and the Subject Cycle

Language Design, Feature Economy, and the Subject Cycle. Elly van Gelderen Arizona State University ellyvangelderen@asu.edu. Factors in Language Design. 1. Genetic endowment = UG 2. Experience 3. Principles not specific to language (Chomsky 2005: 6).

christina
Download Presentation

Language Design, Feature Economy, and the Subject Cycle

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Language Design, Feature Economy, and the Subject Cycle Elly van GelderenArizona State University ellyvangelderen@asu.edu

  2. Factors in Language Design 1. Genetic endowment = UG 2. Experience 3. Principles not specific to language (Chomsky 2005: 6). The third factor includes principles of efficient computation, which are "of particular significance in determining the nature of attainable languages" (Chomsky 2005: 6)

  3. More details (1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby making language acquisition possible; (2) external data, converted to the experience that selects one or another language within a narrow range; (3) principles not specific to [the Faculty of Language]. Some of the third factor principles have the flavor of the constraints that enter into all facets of growth and evolution, [...] Among these are principles of efficient computation"

  4. Some third factors Strong Minimalist Thesis Language is a perfect solution to interface conditions (Chomsky 2007: 5) Head Preference Principle (HPP): Be a head, rather than a phrase. Late Merge Principle (LMP): Merge as late as possible (van Gelderen 2004)

  5. If there are Principles, they should be visible in Lg Change Demonstrative pronoun that to C Pronoun whether to C Demonstrative to article Negative adverb to negation marker Adverb to aspect marker Adverb to complementizer (e.g. till) Full pronoun to agreement = Spec to head

  6. Late Merge On, from P to ASP VP Adverbials > TP/CP Adverbials Like, from P > C (like I said) Negative objects to negative Modals: v > ASP > T Negative verbs to auxiliaries To: P > ASP > M > C PP > C (for him to do that ...)

  7. Negative Cycle in Old English450-1150 CE a. no/ne early Old English b. ne (na wiht/not) after 900, esp S c. (ne) not after 1350 d. not > -not/-n’t after 1400

  8. Spec to Head and Merge over Move HPP XP Spec X' na wihtX YP not> n’t … Late Merge

  9. The Subject Cycle (1) demonstrative > third person pron > clitic > agrmnt (2) oblique > emphatic > first/second pron > clitic > agrmnt Basque verbal prefixes n-, g-, z- = pronouns ni ‘I’, gu ‘we’, and zu ‘you’. Pama-Nyungan, inflectional markers are derived from independent pronouns. Iroquoian and Uto-Aztecan agreement markers derive from Proto-Iroquoian pronouns Cree verbal markers ni-, ki-, o-/ø = pronouns niya, kiya, wiya.

  10. Some stages Korean and Urdu/Hindi: full pronoun (1) ku-nun il-ul ha-nta he-TOP work-ACC do-DECL (2)a. mẽy nee us ko dekha 1S ERG him DAT saw b. aadmii nee kitaab ko peRha man ERG book DAT read (3) ham log `we people‘ (4) mẽy or merii behn doonõ dilii mẽy rehtee hẽ I and my sister both Delhi in living are

  11. English: in transition (a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position, (d) doubling, (e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code switching Coordination (and Case) (1) Kitty and me were to spend the day. (2) %while he and she went across the hall. Position (3) She’s very good, though I perhaps I shouldn’t say so. (4) You maybe you've done it but have forgotten. (5) Me, I was flying economy, but the plane, … was guzzling gas

  12. Doubling and cliticization (1) Me, I've tucking had it with the small place. (2) %Him, he .... (3) %Her, she shouldn’t do that (not attested in the BNC) (4) *As for a dog, it should be happy. CSE-FAC: uncliticized cliticized total I 2037 685 (=25%) 2722 you 1176 162 (=12.1%) 1338 he 128 19 (=12.9%) 147

  13. Loss of V-movement and Code switching (5) What I'm go'n do? `What am I going to do' (6) How she's doing? `How is she doing‘ (7) *He ging weg `he went away’ Dutch-English CS (8) The neighbor ging weg

  14. Grammaticalization =Specifier to HeadSubject Cycle a TP b TP DP T’ DP T’ pron T VP pron-T VP Urdu/Hindi, Korean Coll French c TP [DP] T’ pro agr-T VP Italian varieties

  15. French (1) *Je et tu ... I and you (2) *Je lis et écris `I read and write'. (3) Je lis et j'écris I read and I-write `I read and write'. (4) J’ai vu ça. I-have seen that (5) *Je probablement ai vu ça I probably have seen that

  16. Formal > Colloquial (1)mais jenel'ai pas encore démontré but I NEG it-have NEG yet proven `but I haven't yet proven that' (Annales de l'institut Henri Poincaré, 1932, p. 284) (2) j'ai pas encore démontré ça

  17. Two problems w/ HPP and LMP Minor: Move is `just’ internal merge Major: Language Change proceeds in a cycle. HPP and LMP are 2 stages but 2 more: (a) how is the head lost, (b) how is the specifier replaced

  18. Head > 0 is solvable: e.g. iconicity Null hypothesis of language acquisition A string is a word with lexical content. Faarlund (2008) explains that "the child misses some of the boundary cues, and interprets the input string as having a weaker boundary (fewer slashes, stronger coherence) at a certain point" My alternative: Feature Economy

  19. Feature Economy Minimize the interpretable features in the derivation, e.g: Adj/Arg Specifier Head affix semantic > [iF] > [uF] > --

  20. Subject > Agreement emphatic > full pronoun > head > agreement [i-phi] [i-phi] [u-1/2] [u-phi] [i-3]

  21. What is FE? • Maximize syntax? • Keep merge going? • Lighter?

  22. Conclusions • Economy Principles = Third factor • Children use these to analyze their input + there is language change if accepted. • Change is from the inside • Possible Principles: HPP and LMP • but some problems • Therefore, Feature Economy

More Related