The Final-Over-Final Condition

Sheehan, Michelle; Biberauer, Theresa; Roberts, Ian; Holmberg, Anders

doi:10.7551/mitpress/8687.001.0001

Cited by 74 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…), and that once a head-final sequence has "stopped", it cannot restart within the same EP. Contrast the structures in (25) and (26) > non-monotonicity: structurally adjacent heads vary in their ^-specification; an "on-off" pattern As noted elsewhere (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts 2008;Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan 2009;Biberauer, Sheehan & Newton 2010;BHR 2014;Sheehan et al 2017), this requirement has diachronic implications: OV>VO changes must proceed top-down, and VO>OV changes bottom-up, which seems to be correct. Very significantly for our current purposes, however, FOFC-style monotonicity effects are not restricted to the domain of word order.…”

Section: (24)mentioning

confidence: 72%

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Factors 2 i 3: cap a un enfocament fonamentat

Biberauer

2019

catJL

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This paper seeks to make progress in our understanding of the non-UG components of Chomsky's (2005) Three Factors model. In relation to the input (Factor 2), I argue for the need to formulate a suitably precise hypothesis about which aspects of the input will qualify as 'intake' and, hence, serve as the basis for grammar construction. In relation to Factor 3, I highlight a specific cognitive bias that appears well motivated outside of language, while also having wide-ranging consequences for our understanding of how I-language grammars are constructed, and why they should have the crosslinguistically comparable form that generativists have always argued human languages have. This is Maximise Minimal Means (MMM). I demonstrate how its incorporation into our model of grammar acquisition facilitates understanding of diverse facts about natural language typology, acquisition, both in "stable" and "unstable" contexts, and also the ways in which linguistic systems may change over time.

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Section: (24)mentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Consider, for example, the Final-over-Final Condition 23 (FOFC; see i.a. Sheehan 2013;Sheehan, Biberauer, Roberts & Holmberg in 2017 What (25) requires is that head-finality start at the bottom of an Extended Projection, i.e. with a lexical V or N (see Grimshaw 1991 et seq.…”

Section: (24)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors 2 i 3: cap a un enfocament fonamentat

Biberauer

2019

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“…In this paper, I assume that in contrast to Bailey, the particle in question is a Q-particle, which occupies the SA head. In fact, this analysis is not inconsistent with the FOFC given that the SA projection is a different extended projection from the C domain (Sheehan et al 2017). Rizzi, Luigi.…”

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confidence: 80%

Licensing of matrix questions in Japanese and its implications

Fujiwara

2020

Proc Ling Soc Amer

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Japanese allows matrix questions either with or without a Q-particle. It is therefore often assumed that a Q-particle is optional in matrix questions and questions can be licensed by a null Q-particle or rising-intonation. This paper, however, shows that some matrix questions require an overt Q-particle, which undermines the assumption that a null Q-particle or rising intonation can license sentences as interrogative. This study thus pursues the mechanism of licensing matrix questions without this assumption. In particular, I propose that yes/no- and wh-questions without an overt Q-particle are licensed via Agree with their relevant items (i.e. a polarity head and wh-phrase). I further argue that there are two positions where matrix yes/no-questions are licensed in Japanese. This two-layered approach can capture the typological distribution of Q-particles and universal properties of matrix yes/no-questions.

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“…Languages such as German or Persian can be considered exemplars of the nonrigid head-final type; their head-final property seems to be a violable constraint. In reality, few languages are strictly head-final or head-initial types, the orders that can be characterized as "harmonic" or rigid (Hawkins 1983;Biberauer and Sheehan 2013;Sheehan et al 2017;Dryer 2013aDryer , 2013b.…”

Section: Headedness and Headedness Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Headedness and the Lexicon: The Case of Verb-to-Noun Ratios

Polinsky

Magyar²

2020

Languages

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This paper takes a well-known observation as its starting point, that is, languages vary with respect to headedness, with the standard head-initial and head-final types well attested. Is there a connection between headedness and the size of a lexical class? Although this question seems quite straightforward, there are formidable methodological and theoretical challenges in addressing it. Building on initial results by several researchers, we refine our methodology and consider the proportion of nouns to simplex verbs (as opposed to light verb constructions) in a varied sample of 33 languages to evaluate the connection between headedness and the size of a lexical class. We demonstrate a robust correlation between this proportion and headedness. While the proportion of nouns in a lexicon is relatively stable, head-final/object-verb (OV)-type languages (e.g., Japanese or Hungarian) have a relatively small number of simplex verbs, whereas head-initial/verb-initial languages (e.g., Irish or Zapotec) have a considerably larger percentage of such verbs. The difference between the head-final and head-initial type is statistically significant. We, then, consider a subset of languages characterized as subject-verb-object (SVO) and show that this group is not uniform. Those SVO languages that have strong head-initial characteristics (as shown by the order of constituents in a set of phrases and word order alternations) are characterized by a relatively large proportion of lexical verbs. SVO languages that have strong head-final traits (e.g., Mandarin Chinese) pattern with head-final languages, and a small subset of SVO languages are genuinely in the middle (e.g., English, Russian). We offer a tentative explanation for this headedness asymmetry, couched in terms of informativity and parsing principles, and discuss additional evidence in support of our account. All told, the fewer simplex verbs in head-final/OV-type languages is an adaptation in response to their particular pattern of headedness. The object-verb/verb-object (OV/VO) difference with respect to noun/verb ratios also reveals itself in SVO languages; some languages, Chinese and Latin among them, show a strongly OV ratio, whereas others, such as Romance or Bantu, are VO-like in their noun/verb ratios. The proportion of nouns to verbs thus emerges as a new linguistic characteristic that is correlated with headedness.

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The Final-Over-Final Condition

Cited by 74 publications

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Factors 2 i 3: cap a un enfocament fonamentat

Factors 2 i 3: cap a un enfocament fonamentat

Licensing of matrix questions in Japanese and its implications

Headedness and the Lexicon: The Case of Verb-to-Noun Ratios

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