Meaningful silence, meaningless sounds

Abstract

This paper discusses the very general question of how syntactic features of individual languages relate to the universal set of syntactic features. It is pointed out that Chomsky’s approach (2001a) to this fundamental issue is paradoxical. On one hand he argues that language is uniform in the relevant sense (L-uniformity), but, on the other hand, he also assumes that languages make different selections of features from a universal feature set (L-selection). The paper argues strongly that L-uniformity is the only conceivable possibility. However, if that is correct, a great deal of what languages have is common is ‘silence’, that is, categories that are present in Narrow Syntax but silent in PF. In other words, language has innate elements and structures irrespective of whether or how they are overtly expressed. It follows that language variation is to a substantial extent ‘silence variation’, that is, much of it boils down to languages being explicit vs. silent about different (syntactically active) categories. This claim is coined as the Silence Principle, saying that any meaningful feature of language may be silent.

The case of PRO

“…What is uninterpretable is the overt morphological agreement reflection of Person, not the Person category itself. Going into further details here would take me too far afield, but I refer the reader to Sigurðsson (2004aSigurðsson ( , 2004bSigurðsson ( , 2004cSigurðsson ( , 2006bSigurðsson ( , 2007c and to Sigurðsson and Holmberg (2007 Sigurðsson (2004bSigurðsson ( , 2007c, Speas (2004), Bianchi (2006), among many. Another important feature of the speech or utterance event is SPEECH TIME in the sense of Reichenbach (1947), that is, a T feature, call it T S , in the CP-domain.…”

The Nom/Acc alternation in Germanic

“…9 The same features are arguably present in the syntax of languages, such as English, that 'keep quiet' about them in their morphology (cf. Sigurðsson 2003Sigurðsson , 2004d unexpectedly and dangerously got filled with water, i.e. that it 'swamped'.…”

Agree in syntax, agreement in signs

“…34 That individual languages can link semantics with agreement is unquestionable, as evidenced by examples like (29) above. Language in general 'utilizes' morphological markers to the extent they are available (subject to conventionalization), but the 'expressive power' of language is nonetheless independent of such markers (Sigurðsson 2004c). Much the same applies to other 'lexical material' -it is in general useful rather than indispensible.…”