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Talk presented in Hanoi, May 11-12, 2013
Original Abstract
This talk is concerned with a deceptively simple question: where does sentence meaning come from? Within generative grammar, at least since the demise of Generative Semantics, the received view has been that the meaning of a sentence is exhaustively a function of the lexical elements of which it is comprised (setting aside the effects of constituency and scope). This is made explicit in the Projection Principle (Chomsky 1981), which understands syntax as a "projection of lexical properties". In subsequent Minimalist approaches (Chomsky 1993, 1995, 2000), this restriction is tightened up even further by the requirement that syntactic computations operate exclusively with the lexical items introduced in the initial array (numeration): no node labels or extraneous symbols (e.g., theta-roles, indices, movement traces, levels of representation) which might contribute to sentence meaning. This does not, of course, exclude reference to abstract formal features—indeed, these are crucial to most Minimalist analyses—but it requires that such features (e.g., EPP features) are ultimately drawn from the lexicon: they are themselves lexical entries, alongside contentful, arbitrary lexical items. Whatever the theoretical advantages of this approach for delivering an extremely spare Minimalist syntax, it should be clear that it massively increases lexical complexity, leading to a multiplicity of different abstract features attaching to what are, intuitively speaking, the same lexical items. Grammatical theory is a ‘zero-sum game’: if the syntax does little or no semantic work, the burden necessarily falls on lexical specification.
In the case of languages with rich inflectional paradigms and/or an extensive inventory of phonetically-differentiated functional categories, this 'poor syntax—rich lexicon' approach makes some sense, since subtle differences in feature specification are reflected in different pronunciations that must in any case be lexically listed; e.g., English present perfect has been vs. preterite was; wh-interrogative who vs. indefinite anyone; locative vs. expletive there; nominative she vs. accusative her. However, for Vietnamese and other isolating languages, the desirability of a strict lexicalist approach is much less evident. In contrast to inflectional languages, Vietnamese does not appear to differentiate subtle meaning contrasts in the lexicon: instead, it disposes of a set of radically-underspecified 'multifunctional' items, whose semantics are determined in part—and in some instances exhaustively—by their position in phrase-structure. A clear example of this multifunctionality is offered by the modal auxiliary được (also phải), which is variously interpreted as a deontic, epistemic or abilitative modal—even as a non-modal, aspectual, particle—in different structural positions, This is illustrated in (0); see Duffield (1999), Phan & Duffield (in prep.)
0. a. Ông Quang được mua cái nhà.
prn Q. can buy cl house
‘Quang was allowed to buy a house.’
b. Ông Quang mua được cái nhà.
prn Q. buy can cl house
‘Quang has bought (was able to buy) a house.’
c. Ông Quang mua cái nhà được.
prn Q. buy cls house can
‘Quang is able to buy a house/Quang may possibly buy a house.’
Other examples will be discussed directly. This multifunctionality suggests a radically different, though equally austere, conception of Minimalism: Minimalist Lexicalism (see also Marantz 2005, Borer 2007). The corollary of this, of course, is Semantic Syntax: meaning inheres in, and is read off of, syntactic representations. In this talk, then, I elaborate an alternative Minimalist thesis: I argue that it is elucidating to introduce a limited amount of meaning into syntax, maintaining that this can be done without resurrecting Generative Semantics.
Talk presented in Hanoi, May 11-12, 2013
Original Abstract
This talk is concerned with a deceptively simple question: where does sentence meaning come from? Within generative grammar, at least since the demise of Generative Semantics, the received view has been that the meaning of a sentence is exhaustively a function of the lexical elements of which it is comprised (setting aside the effects of constituency and scope). This is made explicit in the Projection Principle (Chomsky 1981), which understands syntax as a "projection of lexical properties". In subsequent Minimalist approaches (Chomsky 1993, 1995, 2000), this restriction is tightened up even further by the requirement that syntactic computations operate exclusively with the lexical items introduced in the initial array (numeration): no node labels or extraneous symbols (e.g., theta-roles, indices, movement traces, levels of representation) which might contribute to sentence meaning. This does not, of course, exclude reference to abstract formal features—indeed, these are crucial to most Minimalist analyses—but it requires that such features (e.g., EPP features) are ultimately drawn from the lexicon: they are themselves lexical entries, alongside contentful, arbitrary lexical items. Whatever the theoretical advantages of this approach for delivering an extremely spare Minimalist syntax, it should be clear that it massively increases lexical complexity, leading to a multiplicity of different abstract features attaching to what are, intuitively speaking, the same lexical items. Grammatical theory is a ‘zero-sum game’: if the syntax does little or no semantic work, the burden necessarily falls on lexical specification.
In the case of languages with rich inflectional paradigms and/or an extensive inventory of phonetically-differentiated functional categories, this 'poor syntax—rich lexicon' approach makes some sense, since subtle differences in feature specification are reflected in different pronunciations that must in any case be lexically listed; e.g., English present perfect has been vs. preterite was; wh-interrogative who vs. indefinite anyone; locative vs. expletive there; nominative she vs. accusative her. However, for Vietnamese and other isolating languages, the desirability of a strict lexicalist approach is much less evident. In contrast to inflectional languages, Vietnamese does not appear to differentiate subtle meaning contrasts in the lexicon: instead, it disposes of a set of radically-underspecified 'multifunctional' items, whose semantics are determined in part—and in some instances exhaustively—by their position in phrase-structure. A clear example of this multifunctionality is offered by the modal auxiliary được (also phải), which is variously interpreted as a deontic, epistemic or abilitative modal—even as a non-modal, aspectual, particle—in different structural positions, This is illustrated in (0); see Duffield (1999), Phan & Duffield (in prep.)
0. a. Ông Quang được mua cái nhà.
prn Q. can buy cl house
‘Quang was allowed to buy a house.’
b. Ông Quang mua được cái nhà.
prn Q. buy can cl house
‘Quang has bought (was able to buy) a house.’
c. Ông Quang mua cái nhà được.
prn Q. buy cls house can
‘Quang is able to buy a house/Quang may possibly buy a house.’
Other examples will be discussed directly. This multifunctionality suggests a radically different, though equally austere, conception of Minimalism: Minimalist Lexicalism (see also Marantz 2005, Borer 2007). The corollary of this, of course, is Semantic Syntax: meaning inheres in, and is read off of, syntactic representations. In this talk, then, I elaborate an alternative Minimalist thesis: I argue that it is elucidating to introduce a limited amount of meaning into syntax, maintaining that this can be done without resurrecting Generative Semantics.
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