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Subjacency

Subjacency. An Animated and Narrated Glossary of Terms used in Linguistics presents. Basic Idea. To be subjacent, means to be lying immediately below . In some uses, X is subjacent to Y if X is one level lower than Y, but not immediately under Y. Example:. supervisor Jas.

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Subjacency

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  1. Subjacency An Animated and Narrated Glossary of Terms used in Linguistics presents

  2. Basic Idea To be subjacent, means to be lying immediately below. In some uses, X is subjacent to Y if X is one level lower than Y, but not immediately under Y. Example: supervisor Jas supervisor Jac Tam is subjacent to Jas. worker Tam worker Beth

  3. Syntax Immediate subjacency XP A YP subjacent B C D subjacent

  4. Syntax Phrase-specific subjacency E.g. subjacent XP XP1 A YP NOT subjacent XP2 C D subjacent

  5. Motivation Who did the boy pinch? Who did Mary say the boy pinch? Mary asked whether the boy pinched Suzie. *Who did Mary ask whether the boy pinch? Chomsky (1973) proposed this to explain why certain correlations between a syntactic trace and it’s binder are impossible. Noam Chomsky Picture from: http://www.changeany1thing.com/political/buckley-vs-chomsky-ideology-and-progressive-change/

  6. Movement and subjacency Wh-movement is only possible across subjacent S. S’ S2 Who Mary said S’ S1 subjacent Who The boy pinched X. subjacent

  7. Movement and subjacency Wh-movement is only possible across subjacent S. S’ S Who Mary asked S’ S Not subjacent whether The boy pinched X.

  8. Summary Subjacency = sub“one-level down” + adjacent “beside” In syntax, it can be used to explain attested “movement”, i.e. possible correlations between items in a sentence. Typically, subjacency works on levels of S (IP, TP, etc) and NP (DP). Such nodes, typically S and NP are called bounding nodes.

  9. The End Wee, Lian-Hee and Winnie H.Y. Cheung (2009) An animated and narrated glossary of terms used in Linguistics. Hong Kong Baptist University.

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