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GOVERNMENT AND BINDINGGOVERNMENT AND BINDING

THEORY THEORY 

GOVERNMENT AND BINDINGGOVERNMENT AND BINDING

THEORY THEORY 

K. Nagyné Pataki NoémiK. Nagyné Pataki Noémi

Szarkáné Tóth AndreaSzarkáné Tóth AndreaEger, 19-11-2011

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Government&Binding Theory

� Developed by Noam Chomsky

� The descendant of Transformational

Grammar (T G)� Two levels of analysis: deep- and surface

structure

� During the 1970s two other levels:phonetic form(PF) and logical form(LF)

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The "T-model"

d-structure

s-structure

phonetic form logical form(the output of the grammar (the corresponding level

at the ÅsoundÅ end) at the ÅmeaningÅ end)

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The T G rule:

S(sentence)

NP (noun phrase) Aux(auxiliary) VP(verb phrase)

(modal verbs: might, could)

The node Aux is called INFL (for inflection)

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Between s-structure and PF (phonetic form) the PAST element is joined with the verb and

we spell out ²ed ending on the verb:

�They PAST fire Mary.

Elements of PAST never occur in Englishas separate words.

� They fire Mary .

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The Move-

� = a variable over syntactic categories� the fundamental idea: Åmoving anythinganywhereµ� questions: what can move and where it canmove?

� For example: passive moves objects

to make them subjects:

Mary was fired.

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The organization of the GB grammar,with all its different components:

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Syntax and Universal Grammar

� A constraint: the fundamentalgrammatical notion in GB

� It is part of the very nature oflanguage itself

The nature of UG

- The Rule R puts together elements of INFL

-The word aren·t can only appear with the s

subject I if the sentence is inverted: Aren¶t I the one? But not I aren·t the one.

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X-theory (X-bar theory)� Developed in the 1970s

� Looking at the structures internal todifferent phrases:

a similar pattern: its object and thepreposition precedes its object.

X-scheme:-T he head: part of the linguistic unit that givesits essential character

(the head of an NP is the noun, the verb heads aV

P)

-The phrase is the projection of the headthe highest level of projection is calledthe maximal projection

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X-scheme

X¶¶ maximal projection

specifier 

(like determiners)

modifier 

(for example : very)

X¶

X Argument

(constituents that a head subcategories for)

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C-command and Government

Government: -a fundamental concept in GB,

-the notion of a local domain,-the same category is in the domain of

some other category.

C-command: - states a relation defined on tree-structures- a given category is hierarchically superior to.

� strong definition: c-command

iff every branching node

dominating dominates

� weaker definition: c-commands

iff every maximal projectiondominating dominates

VP

V¶ PP

V NP

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Coindexing

� is used to represent many important relations

� 3 coindexing mechanism:

- Coindexing (NP,S) and AGR at d-structure

- Move- creates and preserves indices

- Freely index all A-position at s-structure

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Landing sites

- Certain positions are available for movement totake place to.

- The set of possible movements:

� movement to [NP, S] postion (NP-movement)

� adjunction to COMP (wh-movement)

� adjunction to S

�adjunction to VP

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Case T heoryResponsible for determining in large part thedistribution of NPs.

The basic instances of Case assignment:�If INFL contains TNS, Nominative Case

is assigned to the [NP,S]�A verb assigns Accusative Case to [NP,VP]�A preposition assigns Accusative Case