Sie sind auf Seite 1von 4

Linguistic Society of America

Review
Author(s): Steven Franks
Review by: Steven Franks
Source: Language, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Jun., 1999), pp. 368-370
Published by: Linguistic Society of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/417272
Accessed: 06-08-2015 21:13 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Linguistic Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Language.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 21:13:21 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LANGUAGE, VOLUME 75, NUMBER 2 (1999)

368

The syntax of nonfinite complementation: An economy approach. By ZELJKO


BOSKOVIC.
(Linguistic Inquiry monographs, 43.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.
Pp. 247.
Reviewed by STEVENFRANKS,Indiana University
This is a careful revision of the author's 1995 Universityof Connecticutdoctoraldissertation.
In it, Boskovic applies recent minimalist concepts and mechanisms to a range of phenomena
associatedwith infinitivalcomplementation,attemptingto eliminate stipulationsassociatedwith
previous analyses. This researchstrategyis largely successful in reducing unnecessaryaspects
of phrase structurealthoughit not unexpectedlycomes with its own assumptionsabout what a
grammarshould look like, as well as the occasional unwanted stipulation. Nonetheless, the
diversity of problems explored and the sophisticationof its argumentationmake this book an
importantcontributionto minimalist syntactic theory, one that will in all likelihood become
essential reading in the field at large.
Althoughversionsof some of thematerialhavebeenpublishedelsewhereby B (especiallysizable
portionsof Chs. 2 and5 as Boskovic 1996and 1995,respectively),this volume representsa significant amountof completely new and highly innovative work. After a brief introductorychapter,
which sets the contextforminimalism,B turnsin Ch. 2, 'Selectionandthe categorialstatusof infinitival complements',to some possible residualeffects of c(ategorial)-selection,showing how they
mightbe alternativelyaccommodatedin s(emantic)-selectionterms.Ch. 3, 'Wager-classverbsand
Frenchpropositionalinfinitivals',dealswith a particularlyproblematicset of noncanonicalbelieveclass verbs.In Ch. 4, 'Existentialconstructions,A-movement,andinfinitivalcomplementation',B
takes issue with variousanalysesof thereconstructionsby bothChomskyandLasnik,proposinga
novel solutionthatexploitsLFloweringof theexpletive.Lastly,Ch. 5, 'Participlemovement',treats
and,to a farlesser
themechanismsgoverningtheplacementof verbalparticiplesin Serbian/Croatian
extent, Dutch andPolish. As this chapterstrikesme as somewhatautonomousfrom the rest of the
book, I will not discuss it furtherin this review.
I now turn to some of the more interestinghighlights, and the issues they raise. A by now
classic argumentin the generative literature(but see Odijk 1997) concerns Pesetsky's (1982)
demonstrationthat a theory of s-selection, properly supplementedby the diacritic ability of a
verbto assign Case, can explain why predicateslike ask can take NP or CP complements,whereas
predicateslike wonder can only take CP complements.B (8) points out that the traditionalGB
analysis of illegal taking a CP complement but appear taking an IP complement, in order to
handlethe datain 1, is problematicin thatit requiresc-selection as a lexical property.Additionally,
it relies on the PRO theorem government approachto the distributionof PRO, an approach
fraughtwith unwarrantedassumptions.
(1) a. *Johniis illegal [cP ti to parkhere]
b. It is illegal [cp PRO to parkhere]
c.
Johnjappears[IP ti to like Mary]
d. *It appearsto Bill [IP PRO to like Mary]
B thereforeadvancesa version of Martin's(1994) modificationof Chomskyand Lasnik's (1993)
'nullcase' theoryof PRO,accordingto which a phonologicallysilent Case is checkedby [ + tense,
- finite] I underSpec-head agreement.This turnsout to be a powerful explanatorydevice, able
to accommodatediverse phenomenaunder a single rubric.
B's treatmentof the paradigmin 1 can best be seen by comparinginfinitival complementsto
the ECM verb believe and the control verb try, as in 2 and 3.
(2) a.

John believedi [AgroPhimj t, [,p tj to be crazy]]

b. *Johnbelieved [IP PRO to be crazy]


(3) a. *Johntriedi [Agrophimj t, [cp [Ip tj to win]]]
b.

John tried [cp PRO to win]

Whereas, following Stowell (1982), believe s-selects a 'Proposition'complement which lacks


tense features, try s-selects a nonpropositional'Irrealis' complement which has a tense value
independentfrom the matrixclause. Consequently,B argues that subjectsof infinitivalcomple-

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 21:13:21 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS

369

ments to believe must get their case checked in the main clause SpecAgroP, implying in the
spiritof Lasnik and Saito (1991) that ECM after believe-type verbs involves overt object shift,
whereas subjects of infinitival complements to try are checked for null Case internalto their
own clause. Once this move is made, many facts about these two verb classes fall into place,
and it becomes unnecessaryto stipulatethat believe can only take an IP and try only a CP: 2b
is impossible because PRO has no source for Case, and 3a is impossible because it involves
movement from one Case-checkingposition (SpecIP) into another(SpecAgroP), in violation of
the Last Resort Condition(a.k.a. "Greed").'
B (21) furtherargues that bare IP infinitivals are necessary to account for the judgments in
(4).
(4) a. [cp Thatj*0 [he would buy a car]] was believed at that time
b. [cp 0 [IPTo buy a car]] was desirable at that time
c. [IPTo buy a car] was desirable at that time
Since 4a violates the ECPif complementizerthatis not present,andthatis requiredin noncomplement finite clauses so that (phonologicallynull) I also meet the ECP, the question arises of why
4b is grammatical.B concludes that this is because the subject infinitival must in fact be an IP,
as in 4c; the ECP problem does not arise since (pronounced)to occupies I. Given the need to
postulate bare IP control infinitivals, B proposes that, in the absence of explicit c-selectional
requirements,there is also no reason why control infinitivals such as 3b should involve a CP
ratherthan IP complement.He then adopts a 'minimal structureprinciple' (MSP) which limits
the number of functional projectionsin a given representationto those actually motivated by
thatrepresentation;in other words, if no C is required,then none is projected.This popularidea
has all sorts of useful implications;for example, there are no that-traceeffects in 5b because
the embeddedclause is not a CP (30).
(5) a. *Who, do you believe [cp that [IP t, likes Mary]]?
b. Whoi do you believe [ip t, likes Mary]?
While I find no flaw in any of this reasoning,clarificationof how the ECP and associatedeffects
can be recast in minimalistterms would have been desirable.
B's view of the MSP has significant consequences for Chomsky's 1995 characterizationof
the numeration.B rightly points out that Chomsky's criterionthat 'c enters the numerationonly
if it has an effect on output' is conceptually undesirablein its globality.2He proposes instead
that the numerationconsists exclusively of lexical elements, and that subsequentaccess to the
lexicon in order to merge functional categories (necessitated by features of associated lexical
heads) has a cost, hence only applies when unavoidable.In this way, the MSP derives from the
Last Resort Condition.
B develops very interestingextensions of the MSP approachto problems in ASL, Romanian
and, in the next chapter, French. If the ASL sign FEEL takes a CP but THINK takes an IP, the
contrastsin 6 vs. 7 follow:
wh-q
(6) a. ?*WHO YOU FEEL [JOHNLIKE t]
wh-q
b. WHO YOU THINK [RAY LIKE t]
__t
(7) a.
b.

BILL FEEL [cp [IP JOHN [IP MARY LIKE t]]]


__t
*BILL THINK [IP JOHN [IP MARY LIKE t]]

B (32) arguesthatwh-movementin 6a but not 6b violates subjacencyand thatembeddedtopicalization is possible in 7a but not 7b, since there it would involve adjunctionto an argument.
l Sincebe illegal vs. appear in (1) satisfythe sameset of diagnostics
adducedby B, the samesortof
Irrealisvs. Propositional
s-selectionaccountshouldsufficehereas well,withthedifferencebeingthatthese

predicatesdo not 0-marktheir subjects.


2 See Collins 1997
for an alternative,
localeconomysolutionto thisproblem.

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 21:13:21 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LANGUAGE, VOLUME 75, NUMBER 2 (1999)

370

Although these data are consistent, and 7a can be taken as positive evidence that FEELrequires
a CP complement,I nonetheless wonderedhow this lexical fact could be stated in other than cselectional terms.The same conceptualproblemarises in Ch. 3, where it is proposedthat French
croire 'believe' takes an infinitival CP complement in order to explain differences it displays
from its English gloss.
Ch. 4 tackles expletive there constructions.B critiquesChomsky's (1993) 'expletive replacement' and 1995 'formal feature movement' analyses of there, showing them to be technically
unworkable;especially valuable is his probingdiscussion (92-104) of featuremovement analyses. With Lasnik (1995), B concludes that be is a (partitive)case assigner, and with Chomsky
(1993) he concludes that the relevantmovement is drivenby Greed. B (83) proposes, however,
that this movement indeed involves a deficiency of there, hence it is actually LF lowering of
there to the associate, ratherthanthe opposite, as in all other accounts.This innovationexplains
more straightforwardlythan alternativesthe fact that the associate necessarilyhas in situ scope
andbindingproperties.B (87-89) also neatlyhandlesthe firstconjunctagreementfacts discussed
by Sobin (1994, 1997), since under B's analysis there in 8 is expected to lower in LF to the
closest partitiveNP.
(8) a. There is/*are a man and five women in the house.
b. There *is/are four men and a woman in the house.
The shortest move is thus to the first (and structurallyhigher) conjunct.
In this review I have only had space to mention a few of the ideas consideredby Boskovic.
There are numerousother aspects of B's analyses which warrantserious discussion, such as the
role agentivityplays in his theory,the statusof the extendedprojectionprincipleand the inverse
case filter, or the interactionof overt object shift and procrastinate,and all sorts of curiouspieces
of language data which B is able to shed new light on. In attemptingto come to grips with the
centralconceptualissues raised in the name of minimalism,this book is a milestone exercise in
syntactic argumentation.As such, it is a volume which surely belongs on every syntactician's
minimalist reading list.

REFERENCES
ZELJKO.
1995. Participlemovement and second position cliticization in Serbo-Croatian.Lingua
BOSKOVIC,
96.245-66.
.1996. Selection andthe categorialstatusof infinitivalcomplementation.NaturalLanguageandLinguistic Theory 14.269-304.
CHOMSKY.
NOAM.1993. A minimalistprogramfor linguistic theory. The view from building 20: Essays in
linguistics in honorof Sylvain Bromberger,ed. by Ken Hale and Samuel J. Keyser, 1-52. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
. 1995. Categoriesand transformations.The minimalistprogram.Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
1993. The theoryof principlesandparameters.Syntax:An internationalhandbook
LASNIK.
, andHOWARD
of contemporaryresearch,ed. by JoachimJacobs,Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld,and Theo
Vennemann,506-69. Berlin: Walterde Gruyter.
CHRIS.1997. Local economy. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
COLLINS,
HOWARD.
1995. Case and expletives revisited:On Greedandotherhumanfailings. LinguisticInquiry
LASNIK,
26.615-33.
SAITO.1991. On the subjectof infinitives. Papersfrom the 27th regional meeting of the
, and MAMORU
Chicago Linguistic Society, ed. by Lise Dobrin,Lynn Nichols, and Rosa Rodriguez,324-43. Chicago:
Chicago Linguistic Society.
ROGER.
1994. Null case and the distributionof PRO. Storrs:University of Connecticut,MS.
MARTIN,
ODIJK,JAN.1997. C-selection and s-selection. Linguistic Inquiry28.365-71.
DAVID.1982. Paths and categories. Cambridge,MA: MIT dissertation.
PESETSKY,
1994. Non-local agreement,Little Rock: University of Arkansas.
SOBIN,NICHOLAS.
.1997. Agreement,default rules, and grammaticalviruses. Linguistic Inquiry28.318-43.
TIM.1982. The tense of infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry 13.561-70.
STOWELL,
Departmentof Linguistics
IndianaUniversity
322 MemorialHall
Bloomington, IN 47405

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 21:13:21 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen