Rethinking syntactocentrism [Elektronische Ressource] : lessons from recent generative approaches to pragmatic properties of left-periphery-movement in German / vorgelegt von Andreas Trotzke

Andreas Karkavitsas

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• Publié par: albert-ludwigs-universitat_freiburg
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 21
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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RETHINKING SYNTACTOCENTRISM
LESSONS FROM RECENT GENERATIVE APPROACHES TO PRAGMATIC
PROPERTIES OF LEFT-PERIPHERY-MOVEMENT IN GERMAN







Inaugural-Dissertation
zur
Erlangung der Doktorwürde
der Philologischen Fakultät
der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität
Freiburg i. Br.



vorgelegt von

Andreas Trotzke
aus Duisburg


SS 2010


























Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Dittmann
Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Raible

Vorsitzender des Promotionsausschusses
der Gemeinsamen Kommission der
Philologischen, Philosophischen und Wirtschafts-
und Verhaltenswissenschaftlichen Fakultät: Prof. Dr. Hans-Helmuth Gander

Datum der Fachprüfung im Promotionsfach: 17.12.2010



Contents


0. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… 3

1. Grounding Syntactocentrism ……………………………………………………... 6
1.1 The Syntactic Component ………………………………………………...… 7
1.2 The Phonological Component ………………………………………………. 11
1.3 The Semantic Component …………………………………………………... 17

2. The Format of Recent Syntactocentrism ……………………………………..… 25
2.1 The Syntactic Component ………………………………………………..…. 26
2.2 The Phonological Component .... 32
2.3 The Semantic Component .… 41

3. The Shift from Representational to Derivational Syntactocentrism ……...….. 47
3.1 Representational Syntactocentrism ……………………………..……..….. 47
3.2 Derivational Syntactocentrism …………………………………………….... 55
3.2.1 Rethinking D- and S-Structure …………….……………...……… .… 55
3.2.2 Rethinking LF and PF ……...…….………………………………….... 63

4. Alternatives to Syntactocentrism …………….…......………………………….... 70
4.1 Cognitive Linguistics ……………………………………………………….…. 70
4.2 The Parallel Architecture …….…………………………………………… …. 75
4.3 Syntactocentrism and its Alternatives:
Perspectives of Convergence .… 81
1 5. Derivational Syntactocentrism and the Parallel Architecture:
Approaches to the Pragmatics of LP-Movement in German …………………. 83
5.1 The Representational View: The Cartographic Approach ……………….. 85
5.1.1 A Cartographic Analysis of LP-Movement in German …………..… 94
5.1.2 Conceptual and Empirical Problems …………………….………..… 100
5.2 The Derivational View: Cyclic Linearization in Minimalism …………….… 105
5.2.1 A Minimalist Analysis of LP-Movement in German …………..……. 108
5.2.2 Derivational Syntactocentrism and the Parallel Architecture:
Perspectives of Convergence ………………………………………... 112

6. Derivational Syntactocentrism and Cognitive Linguistics:
Approaches to Language Evolution ……………………………………………... 122
6.1 The Computational View: Recursive Syntax & FLN ……………...…….…. 123
6.2 The Communicative View: Shared Intentionality ……………….....…….… 127
6.3 Derivational Syntactocentrism and Cognitive Linguistics:
Perspectives of Convergence ……………………………………………….. 132

7. Conclusion: Rethinking Syntactocentrism …………………………………….… 137

References …………………………………………………………………………….… 142

Zusammenfassung in deutscher Sprache ……………………………………………. 151
2 0. Introduction
[W]hat is called for is an open-mindedness to insights from whatever quarter
[…] and a joint commitment to fight fair in the interests of deeper understand-
ing. To my mind, that’s what the game of science is about. (Jackendoff 2002:
xiii)
[T]he syntactocentric model […] was explicitly only an assumption, which
quickly hardened into dogma and then became part of the unstated back-
ground. (Jackendoff 2003: 659)

The linguist Ray Jackendoff never tires to call for open-mindedness and fairness in
the heterogeneous area of research on the mental foundations of language. One of
the approaches within this field claims that syntax, as regarded in linguistics à la
Noam Chomsky, plays the central role in modeling the mental architecture of the
human language faculty. According to Jackendoff, this conception has ‘hardened into
dogma’ and thus is not amenable to any insights from other ‘quarters.’ To sharpen
this claim, he invented the term ‘syntactocentrism’ and thereby suggests that this
concept of generative grammar is more of an ideology, an ‘ism,’ than an approach
that lends itself to participate in the open-minded ‘fights’ taking place in science.
In this thesis, I will explore to what extent this characterization is justified both by
evaluating Jackendoff’s notion of syntactocentrism in light of recent models of main-
stream generative grammar and by asking what lessons can be learned from apply-
ing these recent conceptions to a specific phenomenon of German.
In chapter 1, in order to shed some light on the ‘unstated background’ Jackendoff
refers to, I will ground the concept of syntactocentrism by outlining basic beliefs con-
cerning the mental architecture of the language faculty held at the time the concep-
tion of syntactocentrism was introduced. In doing so, I will present the general idea
of this model and also clarify why many scholars, including Jackendoff, regard the
early version of this conception as a reasonable view due to the historical context it
emerged in.
In chapter 2, I will turn to Jackendoff’s claim that the syntactocentric view of
grammar, although quite reasonable in the 1960s, is now obsolete and can only be
adhered to by ignoring progress in both phonology and semantics. To examine this
impression, I will survey the format of recent syntactocentrism by first looking at the
changed conception of syntax and then turning to current approaches to phonology
and semantics that are based on this concept.
3 Chapter 3 deals with the different grammar models of syntactocentrism that Jack-
endoff discusses. It focuses on the recent shift from ‘representational’ to ‘deriva-
tional’ syntactocentrism. To outline this change, I will first illustrate the view of syntax
as a mental entity enriched with different levels of representation. Then, in order to
arrive at an overall picture of recent syntactocentrism, I will sketch how this model
has been successively abandoned and replaced by a fairly-reduced conception of
syntactic operations.
In chapter 4, I will turn to prominent theoretical alternatives to syntactocentrism
and first concentrate on some basic ideas within the general movement of Cognitive
Linguistics. Having illustrated this view, which contradicts mainstream generative
grammar in many ways, I will look at Jackendoff’s own approach, the ‘Parallel Archi-
tecture,’ which can be regarded as an intermediate position between the two ex-
tremes of Cognitive Linguistics and syntactocentrism. In the final section of this
chapter, I will reflect on the question whether there is any perspective of conver-
gence between syntactocentrism and its theoretical alternatives.
In chapter 5, based on this reflection, I will explore the conjecture that, once the
consequences of recent derivational syntactocentrism are taken seriously, some of
Jackendoff’s objections to this perspective on language disappear. To investigate
this hypothesis, I will reduce the comparison of recent syntactocentrism and the Par-
allel Architecture to tractable size and thus focus on the analysis of one specific phe-
nomenon, namely the pragmatics of left-periphery-movement in German. In doing
so, I will contrast the representational analysis of this phenomenon with a strong
derivational account and then, based on the differences that emerge, compare this
more recent derivational analysis with the conceptual underpinnings of accounting
for this phenomenon within the framework of the Parallel Architecture.
Having thus exemplified recent syntactocentrism by outlining a concrete deriva-
tional analysis, chapter 6 addresses the remaining question whether there are points
of convergence even between recent syntactocentrism and Cognitive Linguistics.
Since in this case, in contrast to comparing syntactocentrism with the Parallel Archi-
tecture, there is less potential for convergence at the ‘microscopic,’ descriptive level,
I will turn to more high-level issues and compare both approaches regarding the is-
sue of language evolution. To undertake this comparison, I will first sketch an ap-
proach to the evolutionary origins on language that is associated with the strong
derivational view on syntactic computations exemplified in the context of left-
4 periphery-movement in German. After that, I will illustrate an approach that concen-
trates on language as a communicative system and crucially rests on concepts of
Cognitive Linguistics. Finally, I will compare these two approaches and look for
points of convergence.
In chapter 7, I conclude by summarizing the main results of this thesis and by
turning to the question whether these results vindicate the notion of syntactocentrism
as used by Jackendoff.
Before I start with grounding the n