Noun-Verb Distinction as a Consequence of Antisymmetry: Evidence from Primary Progressive Aphasia

Franco, Ludovico; Zampieri, Elisa; Garzon, Martina; Meneghello, Francesca; Cardinaletti, Anna; Semenza, Carlo

doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.08.023

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Basically, if we assume that (only) functional items build syntax, we must say that lexical roots are inert in grammar: they do not project. That is the proposal in Kayne (2009), in which it is also argued that all verbs are functional light verbs (see also Franco et al 2010, for clinical evidence from an anomic patient affected by Primary Progressive Aphasia, a degenerative syndrome marked by progressive deterioration of language functions and relative preservation of other cognitive domain). This is a basic fact, in order to implement a constrained Merge model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Constraint on Merge: The Roots of the Lexical/Functional Divide

Franco¹

2012

TPLS

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This paper addresses the following questions: is (external) merge, the binary operation that combines two elements into a constituent in every variant of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1993, 1995 and related works), an unconstrained operation? If so, what avoid generating ill-formed structures? I will argue here for a simple functional / lexical constraint on Merge, assuming a possible principled binary opposition for the items which enter the syntactic derivation. I will basically follow Kayne (2009), who assumes that the class of nouns (or L-roots) is the only open (lexical) class in grammar, updating the intuitions of Hale and Keyser (1993). This proposal leads to interesting structural and typological consequences

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%