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This paper investigates the behaviors of tag questions in Chinese and proposes a unifying analysis involving empty CP/DP pro-forms and predication. It is found that there are universally two types of Tag questions – (i) the invariable type and (ii) the (modal) verbal type, which correspond to the question-types in Chinese syntax. Previous research by Culivocer (1992. English tag questions in Universal Grammar. Lingua 88. 193–226) analyzed English tag questions as a pro-IP structure that is bound by a previous sentence. However, in Chinese, two types of tag questions include both A-not-A form and particle form. Furthermore, both the two kinds of tag questions display syntactic predication between the tag and an empty subject pro. An abbreviated "yes-no question" is attached to empty CP/DP constituents in these constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that there is no narrow syntax, and that the language faculty merely consists of the semantic and phonological components, and linking between these and other systems. It follows as a logical consequence from the latest works of Chomsky (2007 et seq.) and Hauser et al. (2002) who argue that narrow syntax consists of as few features as possible, ideally only recursive embedding and mapping to the interfaces, and Nordström (2014) who shows that the language faculty cannot involve recursive embedding if one wants it to be able to handle discrete infinity, but must merely be a discrete combinatorial system. As such, it shares features with many other mental processes, such as tool making, and, this paper argues, should not be seen as a separate module. The discrete combinatorial processes, as argued here, take place in the semantic and phonological components, which are linked by an axonal pathway. The paper further shows that other potential features of narrow syntax, namely word order, agreement and case (Pinker and Jackendoff 2005; Chomsky 2000 et seq.) can also perfectly well be located within the semantic and phonological components, dispensing with so-called uninterpretable features and leading to the ultimate conclusion that there is no narrow syntax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The syntax of auxiliaries has given rise to much discussion in the generative literature (Akmajian and Wasow 1975; Emonds 1978; Akmajian et al. 1979; Pollock 1989; Chomsky 1993; Lasnik 1995b; Roberts 1998; Bjorkman 2011; Rouveret 2012). This paper explores the distribution of non-finite auxiliaries in Standard English, in particular the issue as to whether such auxiliaries raise for inflectional purposes or remain in their base positions and have their inflections lowered onto them. It is shown that auxiliary distribution is not determined by auxiliary type (passive, copular, progressive etc.) as the lowering accounts predict, but by the morphological form that the auxiliary takes. In particular, the auxiliaries be/been and being exhibit significantly different distributional properties across ellipsis, fronting and existential constructions in English that are difficult to capture under an affix lowering model, and lend themselves more easily to an auxiliary raising account. I therefore offer a syntactic account of auxiliary inflections which employs the theoretical uniformity of an Agree-based approach, with the empirical advantages that an auxiliary raising analysis affords. The auxiliary raising system that will be proposed essentially harkens back to Chomsky's (1993) and Lasnik's (1995b) approach to the auxiliary system, though with the utilisation of Bošković's (2007) notion of foot-driven movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses conceptual aspects of a Multiple Spell-Out theory of the syntax-phonology interface where a domain of spell-out is a prosodic domain. I claim that economy considerations, which have contributed to the development of syntactic and phonological studies of generative grammar, also contribute to the study of syntax-phonology mapping. I argue that computational efficiency should be formulated in an explicit manner so that it has empirical effects on the mapping. Specifically, I propose an efficiency condition, which makes the mapping computationally efficient by prohibiting a prosodic domain from being modified in the course of mapping. I show that the so-called restructuring of phonological phrases allegedly induced by syntactic branching not only violates the proposed condition but also has empirical problems, and that it should be analyzed purely phonologically, without considering syntactic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two traditions devoted to the formulation and explanation of syntactic universals coexist in the field of linguistics. The surface universals tradition draws inductive generalizations pertaining to easily observable surface features in the world's languages. By and large it seeks to account for the universals that it uncovers by means of external, typically function-based, explanations. The deep universals tradition is part-and-parcel of most approaches to generative grammar. The central constructs of that theory, including the set of categories posited and the form of the principles at work, are ipso facto ‘deep universals’ provided by an innate Universal Grammar. Many generative grammarians take the position that deep universals are central to the explanation of surface universals, though there is good reason to be skeptical of such an idea. While most linguists would welcome a rapprochement between the two approaches to universals, a number of conceptual and empirical barriers stand in the way of its realization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rigors of the Minimalist Program eliminate movement operations, traces, and 1980s-style conditions of government. This article emphasizes poverty-of-stimulus problems, reviews lexical government effects, and captures them (and more) by treating certain deletion as cliticization. This analysis carves up the grammatical world differently, linking former “movement” conditions with phonological reductions, VP ellipsis, gapped verbs, some agreement relations, etc. The productivity of the analysis supports the rigors of the Minimalist Program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]