tb_comment, still MRG

The language faculty has at least two components: (i) a cognitive component and (ii) a performance component.

3. The cognitive component, that is, the syntactic componentproper, consists of a computational system, a lexicon and a phonological component (PHON). On the basis of some experiences of a particular language or primary linguistic data (PLD), this component of the language faculty, which varies across linguistic environments, can develop into a mature form, I-language, that is, _a generative procedure generating an infinite set of SDs.

4. The performance component includes those parts ofarticulatory-perceptual (A-P) system and the conceptual-intentional (C-I) system that are relevant to language use. The contents of this component are entirely inherent and not affected by the idiosyncrasy of the particular language to which an individual is exposed.

5. The cognitive component is embedded in the performancecomponent. It does not mean that the generative procedure is designed for use. The SDs generated are presumably ‘instructions’ for the A-P and C-I systems to carry out their tasks. Consequently the SDs must be interpretable by these ‘external’ (that is, non-syntactical) systems. In order that the A-P and C-I systems can ‘read’ an instruction, a SD (the expression of an I-language) must have a nature of, roughly, a sound and a meaning. There are two interface levels: Phonetic Form (PF) at the A-P interface and Logical Form (LF) at the C-I interface. The I-language generates a set of pairs (p, l), where p is a PF representation drawn from PF and l a LF representation drawn from LF. However, both p and l are formal representations of sound and meaning respectively—formal because they are determined by the syntactical or cognitive component.

And yet, that a SD must have two levels of representation is due to the design of the whole language faculty that has the A-P and C-I systems interface to the computational mechanism. (We humans must communicate in words or signs; telepathy is not applicable to us.) The interface systems impose some legibility requirements (called the Bare-Output Conditions) from ‘outside’.

6. CHL determines an infinite set of pairs (p, l), which satisfy thebare-output conditions. The generative procedure is a mapping of a certain lexical choice to a pair (p, l).

S, which explains language variation, is restricted to the property of the lexicon, rather than that of the computational system. In particular, it is concerned with the features of the functional elements of this lexicon like the N-feature and V-feature of Tense (T). In essence, parametric variation is a matter of morphology. These features are optionally either strong or weak. The word order of a particular language is due to the strength of the features of the functional categories.

MRG 4th dose

240506

i’ve just now changed the title of this page to MRG (standing of course for minimalist reading group, a slight variation on the theme from last year’s minimalist retreat group when we went to kausani with a lot of fanfare, didn’t we, and then everything fell apart, oh god, dont even remind me of that) from OnEdge, cos the latter was more inclusive, in the sense we did psycho, gender studies and of course a lot of syntax. do check the earlier versions of this page.

today we met as usual and went up to p27 of the 1st chapter of MP, not much in terms of coverage but isnt it Chomu bhaiyya who said that we’re NOT into coverage (read the interview) but explanation of why something is something. great! but we do agree when start looking at the problem of coverage (read, Typo), you are never going to cover everything anyway, certainly not in a lifetime but never. so forget about coverage, let’s see what we’ve actually done today.

1. re-iterated difference between I and E lg (a sure qn in any lingx job interview:)) and made sure everybody understood that E-lg is NOT external spoken lg but rather the system of “formal lg” as in progamming lgs and arithmetic (+, -, %, etc). and we have nothing really to do with E-lg. Our concern is I-lg, which is, basically, “narrow syntax” (comes up several times in minimalist discussions generally, so useful to know), ie, the lexicon and the mapping from D- to S-str, the computational system, that is.

2. lg out in the real world is only an epiphenomenon—a significant theme of Chomu’s ideas but not many ppl know about it or dare to engage in discussions. See for immediate reference p18 para beginning “it has sometimes …”.

3. a bit of revision of L1 topics like levels of adequacy (remember?) and what really is meant by explanatory adequacy in the minimalist progrom (not a spelling mistake!). Gladly Sarah asked questions about it and i could draw a horse! (of course khuong for some reason started to laugh, for the first time, at this point)

4. then of course the interesting para on p 20 starting with “We assume …”. It’s very interesting cos here i think for the 1st time chomu talks about checking. now we have revised it twice and i hope it’s clear to all present. pd (as in probal dasgupta) many yrs ago gave this exposition of minimalism when it was still hot from the bakers (or is THE baker?) in hyd in 1992. i recorded that talk/ exposition or most of it as i remember i had to rush to nampally station 40 kms away to catch a train to delhi. i dont know where that cassette is. but the fact of the matter is that he used a very vivid metaphor for exactly this point: earlier in GB we let affixes hang from branches of trees like PAST or -ed from the I node and walk from the V node etc. and then let movement (raising or lowering) take care of it. now (that is since 92 or so and certainly concretely in 95 when the present book came out), we take the whole guy and check whether s/he has hands, legs, etc at several departments, if you like. {this is where khuong started to laugh again, again for reason somewhat unknown to me!}. As i was saying, earlier limbs used to hang around and you had to construct a whole human, now you have the human, you just need to checking at several specialists, to make sure everything’s alright (yeah, it IS funny, isnt it?). anyway read the para again.

5. then we read this 3rd para on p21 and i confessed that i didnt know that levels of representations like PF and LF (what about D and S str?) must satisfy three conditions: universality, interface-like, uniformity.

6. related: and on this i think we’d some discussion last march/ april on the MRG website (link from my site again), that PF and LF are external interface levels and D-str is the internal interface level.

7. Variations in lgs would mean 2 things: lexicon, and point where S-str is. On this last point (see p26) we discussed for long the case of wh-in-situ (but only apparently in-situ) lgs and question semantics. Also, Q-movement for scope reasons.

8. brief intro to full interpretation (end of p27) and on p28, end of first para, and i quote: ”...when matters are properly understood, [economy principles] subsume much of what appears to the specific character of particular principles.” Here I briefly mentioned (the part Rose missed cos she had a dentist appointment, too many chocolates?) the case of bounding theory in GB being derived from Relativised Minimality and the Minimal Link Condition of MP.

Finally, I DIDN’T talk about lg evolution, my favourite topic, today (but i did on the 22nd!)

Bye and post reactions if any

MRG 3rd dose

OnEdge (_Finally_)
220506

Finally it happened today, there was more teaching than reading tho’, which was fine by most. Khuong did the IP structure and CP structure for Rose and Sara and I explained the nature of differences between the minimalist program and the rest of the earlier P&P approach. this was to mainly do with the implications of Merge which are 10 a bottom up approach and also 2) derivations in parallel.
We read a bit, at least the one about the I-lg and E-lg and decided (along with Chomsky) that the latter was of no importance to us linguists.
I also chalked out the nature of derivation in MP, e.g. that feratures specify more than one thing, viz, subcategorization and principles like EPP, e.g.
Then a bit of a diversion about evolution of lg and diff ideas (the burgess shell story of Gould) connected to that. this was to give an idea of what FL is, as will encounter it very often soon.
Stick around, it’s going to be useful for all of you (and me) as i am doing L5, L13, L14 all together in one class.
The reading for the next meeting (on 240506) is still chap 1 of course, pages 1-50. See ya!

MRG 2nd dose

OnEdge (_Agian_)
200506

Well, finally it’s going to start, at least Rose, Khuong, Sara and Chandan (?) are going to start from Ch1 of the Minimalist Program book.

I think the first session slotted for Monday 22nd May.

I will try to come in as many sessions as possible but mostly you guys should do it regularly.

It’s not the case that you’ll find in it very useful things for your dissertations in the book, but this is definitely a good way to get into the subject and develop a “feel” for the field. And Chap 1 is a good way to get into some of the topics discussed there (binding theory, section 1.4.2, Case theory etc.) Remember that this chapter was co-written with Howard Lasnik and it’s only the beggining of the idea of minimalism (which really flowers fully in chap 4). Also note that the levels of representations D-str, S-str etc are still retained in this chapter.

Let me know the final date/time. Venue is going to be my room.
see ya

Not that it matters anymore

yup, am blogging again after a longwhile (looks nice as a one word) after so many mountains and so many rivers and jungles. now that you're all grown ups (yes, in few weeks you can call yourselves linguists, true!
Am posting stuff from another cyberspace (mine of course!) which lists day to day activities (and sometimes, no activities) during or even outside our choTaa MRG or the minimalist reading group, oh god, am actually very impresed with meself, how many universities (or even committed so-called teachers) run a reading group during the bloody hot summer in a tropical lace like delhi??? I DO! and my lovely students do, yup!
Ok, now the stuff in very random and unorganised fashion:
290406

Am creating this new board, to clear up the mess from the earlier board, use this from now.

Will add members s-l-o-w-l-y. Again, keep the password to yourself.

I want to start OnEdge, tho’ am busy and it’s hot, we can do it at my place in the evenings, every week. What say??

General Notes & Topic (Control)

General Notes on looking for material for your topic:

1. Please remember that I am not a librarian, so please don't keep asking me where you can or not get a certain material; I WILL help as much as possible but I am out of sync with the DU library system. You need to do some legwork to get to the material, it's a part of learning how to do research in India, there's no Father Librarian waiting with gifts for you.

2. Since you have the benefit of net-search, please do so to get as much bibliographic reference as possible. It's a job that has to be done by any researcher at any level. There's not going to be any spoon-feeding or holding-you-by-the-little-finger; if you haven't understood this by now, it's time to do so. Building a good reference is an invaluable asset in doing any form of research and always the first stop in writing a paper.

3. It's silly trying to be hep without being professional in your work habits, no one will take you seriously. It's not enough to be born modern, you need to be modern and for that a lackadaisical approach to life and work is about the last thing that should come in the calculations. If you think the city inspires you only to koi nahi and ho jaayegaa, you will simply not be prepared to face the real world of work and work ethics.

4. All this to make you all hopefully see that doing syntax is not like doing any other subject, there's a lot of style but also a lot of discipline. I believe that this group can make real headway and create a lasting impression on the linguistics scene surrounding us if we apply ourselves a little harder and shake ourselves up from the slumber that threatens to engulf us.

Specific notes on material, this time on Control:
1. Herbert's and Hornstein's papers in the Webelhuth book
2. Here's a short bibliography:
Alexiadou, Artemis and Elena Anagnostopolou: 1997,
'Notes on ECM, control and raising'. In Alexiadou, Artemis, Nanna Fuhrop, Paul Law, and Ursula Kleinhenz (eds.): 1997, Papers on syntax, semantics, phonology and acquisition. (ZASPIL - ZAS Papers in linguistics 8/9) Berlin, Germany: Centre for General Linguistics, Typology and Universals Research (ZAS)

Anderson, John: 2001,
'Raising control'. Studia Linguistica 55:77-111

Bach, Emmon: 1969,
'Linguistic form: transformational theory'. In Meetham, A. R. and R. A. Hudson (eds.): Encyclopedia of linguistics. information and control. Oxford : Pergamon, 1969. 280-284

Boeckx, Cedric and Norbert Hornstein: 2003,
'Reply to'Control is not movement' '. Linguistic inquiry 34/2, 269-280

Boeckx, Cedric and Norbert Hornstein: 2004,
'Movement under control '. Linguistic inquiry 35/3, 431 – 452

Borer, Hagit: 1989,
'Anaphoric AGR'. In Jaeggli, Osvaldo and Kenneth J. Safir (eds.): The null subject parameter . (Studies in natural language and linguistic Theory 15) Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer 69-109

Bouchard, Denis: 1985,
'PRO, pronominal or anaphor'. Linguistic inquiry 16, 471-477

Bresnan, Joan W.: 1982a,
'Control and complementation'. Linguistic inquiry 13/3:343-434. Also in Bresnan 1982b 282-390

Brody, Michael: 1982,
'On deletion and on local control'. In Marantz, Alec and Tim Stowell (eds.): Papers in syntax. (MIT Working papers in linguistics 4) 5-14

Cole, Peter: 1987,
'Null objects in Universal Grammar'. Linguistic inquiry 18/4, 597-612

Comrie, Bernard: 1985,
'Reflections on subject and object control'. Journal of semantics 4/1:47-65

Culicover, Peter W. and Wendy Wilkins: 1986,
'Control, PRO, and the projection principle'. Language 62/120-153

Culicover, Peter W. and Ray Jackendoff: 2001a,
'Control is not movement'. Linguistic inquiry 32/3:493-512

Davison, Alice: 1985,
'Case and control in Hindi-Urdu'. Studies in the linguistic sciences

Epstein, Samuel David: 1984,
'Quantifier-PRO and the LF Representation of PROarb'. Linguistic inquiry 15:499-505.

Hornstein, Norbert: 1999,
'Movement and control'. Linguistic inquiry 30, 69-96

Hornstein, Norbert: [1997] 2000,
'Control in GB and minimalism'. In Cheng, Lisa and Rint Sybesma (eds.): 2000, The First glot international state-of-the-article book. The latest in linguistics. (Studies in generative grammar 48) Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter

Hornstein, Norbert: 2003,
'On control'. In Hendrick, Randall (ed.): 2003, Minimalist syntax. ( Generative syntax 7) Malden, Mass.: Blackwell

Iwakura, Kunihiro: 1985,
'The binding theory and PRO'. Linguistic analysis 15/1:29-55

Jackendoff, Ray and Peter W. Culicover: 2003,
'The semantic basis of control in English'. Language79 3/517-56

Koopman, Hilda: 1983,
'Control from COMP and comparative syntax'. Linguistic Review 2/4:365-391. Reprinted in Koopman, Hilda: 2000, The syntax of specifiers and heads: collected essays of Hilda J. Koopman . (Routledge leading linguists 4) London, UK: Routledge 126-150

Koster, Jan: 1984,
'On binding and control'. Linguistic inquiry 15/3:417-459

Landau, Idan: 2000,
Elements of control. Structure and meaning in infinitival constructions . (Studies in natural language and linguistic theory 51) Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer

Landau, Idan: 2001,
'Control and extraposition: The case of super-equi'. Natural language and linguistic theory 19/1: 109-52

Landau, Idan: 2003b,
'Movement out of control'. Linguistic inquiry 34/471-498

Landau, Idan: 2004,
'The scale of finiteness and the calculus of control'. Natural language and linguistic theory 22/4: 811-877

Larson, Richard K., Sabine Iatridou, Utpal Lahiri, and James Higginbotham (eds.): 1992,
Control and grammar. ( Studies in linguistics and philosophy 48) Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer

Larson, Richard K.: 1991,
'Promise and the theory of control'. Linguistic inquiry 22/103-139

Manzini, Maria Rita and Anna Roussou: 2000,
'A minimalist theory of a-movement and control'. Lingua 110/409-447

Martin, Roger A.: 2001,
'Null case and the distribution of PRO'. Linguistic inquiry 32/1, 141-166

McCloskey, James and Peter Sells: 1988,
'Control and A-chains in Modern Irish'. Natural language and linguistic theory 6/2:143-189

Mohanan, Karuvannur P.: 1983,
'Functional and anaphoric control'. Linguistic inquiry 14/4:641-674

Mohanan, Karuvannur P.: 1985,
'Remarks on control and control theory'. Linguistic inquiry 16/4:637-648

Nishigauchi, Taisuke: 1984,
'Control and the thematic domain'. Language 60, 215-250.

Polinsky, Maria, and Eric Potsdam: 2002,
'Backward control'. Linguistic inquiry 33/2:245-82

Rika, Rudolf: 1983,
'Remarks on control', Linguistic inquiry 14:309-324

Ruzicka, Rudolf: 1983b,
'Remarks on control'. Linguistic inquiry 14:309-324

Srikumar, K.: 1991,
'Control in Malayalam'. International journal of Dravidian linguistic 20/1:104-16

Terzi, Arhonto: 1997,
'PRO and null case in finite clauses'. Linguistic review 14/4, 335-360

Williams, Edwin. 1980,
'Predication'. Linguistic inquiry 11, 203-238

Williams, Edwin: 1985,
'PRO and subject of NP'. Natural language and linguistic theory 3:297-315

Williams, Edwin: 1987,
'Implicit arguments, the binding theory, and control'. Natural language and linguistic theory 5/2:151-180

Xu, Leijiong: 1985/6,
'Towards a lexical-thematic theory of control'. Linguistic Review 5/4, 345-376

Yamaguchi, Tadashi: 1986,
'The null subject parameter and the theory of control'. Sophia linguistica 20-21, 119-124

221205

Look out for ideas and references on the topics that you have all chosen for your long assignment at this site. If you have any questions you can post them on the blog or ask me by email during the vacation. It's a good idea to start thinking about your topic while on vacation. I will be to post more details about the class lectures in the other site after the 25th. Meanwhile, do as much reading as possible during the break, now that you all have copies of various material that I distributed yesterday.
Merry Chirstmas and happy new year!

141205

The good news for those you who are still shopping for an optional paper in your 2nd year MA (Linguistics) is that you can still (as of today 141205) join in the L14 paper that is being offered as usual in the second semester (Dec. 05 to March 06).

Remember that this is an advanced paper and such a course (at least for me) is run rather differently from the lecture method that most of you're used to and have been exposed to for the last one year. It will involve less actual lecturing and more of discussion and certainly class presentation and assignment writing. If you're already looking for the nearest door, then, truly, this paper is not for you. However, those of you (and I know that some of you) are encouraged, Welcome to my parlour.
Modalities such time table (at least 4 hours of late afternoon contact hours though), topics, evaluation method, reading list have been more or less decided (by today 141205) but a few things are yet to be decided, the term paper topics for example.

The course itself, if today's 'lecture' (see link http://syntaxlog.wordpress.com/ for a brief review)was any indication, will mess things up a bit in life and letters but I hope the overall spirit of Minimalism will reach you at some level at some point. In short, don't expect an unproverbial neat house at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Hard times are aahead!