Stephen M. Wechsler (wechsler@mail.utexas.edu)
Tue, 17 Oct 1995 14:43:51 -0500
>I think that _Kim_ is not listed as a _phrase_ in the lexicon, but >simply as something which has [COMPS <>], and that suffices to make >_kim_ a nonhead daughter. > >Best regards, > >Tibor On rereading your earlier posting I see this is exactly what you said. Sorry for the misreading. Anyway, this view leads to the question of formulating LP rules which don't depend on (e.g.) subjects being phrases-- or perhaps scrapping the word/phrase sortal distinction entirely, as Andreas suggests. I like the idea behind Andreas' proposal, although I couldn't quite follow the specifics, having not read his dissertation. Another proposal for linearization which refers only to saturation and not to the word/phrase distinction is due to Klaus Netter (p.c.), who proposed this English LP constraint: a head (lexical or non-lexical) has to precede its complements (subj or comps), if its COMPS-list is non-empty; it has to follow its complements if the comps-list is empty. Like Andreas, I wonder if there are other phenomena which need to refer to the word/phrase distinction. Specifically, what about phonological phenomena like 2nd position clitics, phrasal stress, etc.? 'Word' can perhaps be redefined as 'terminal node', but I think we lose a definition of 'phrase'. Maybe some of the more phonologically inclined have thoughts on this. Steve o----------------------------------------------------------------o | Stephen Wechsler, Assistant Professor of Linguistics | | office: 403 Calhoun; Fall '95 office hrs: Tues. 2-4, Weds. 3-4 | | mail: Linguistics Dept., 501 Calhoun, U. of Texas, | | Austin, TX 78712-1196. ph: (512) 471-1701 | | home: 209 W. 39th St., Austin TX 78751, ph: (512) 371-3670 | o----------------------------------------------------------------o
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