160129 PS PS Advanced Topics in Linguistics II (2023W)

X-bar theory as developed in the 1970s and 1980s combines four claims:
i. Every node has a unique head.
ii. No node has more than two daughters.
iii. No node has more than one mother.
iv. Projections are layered, with specific functions assigned to specific levels.
In addition, it is often claimed that...
v. Linear order is absent from syntax, so that no syntactic operation refers to it.
In this course, we will encounter structures in which one or more of these claims appear to be incorrect. We will discuss coordination, which I argue violates (i) and (ii), right-node raising, which violates (iii), and structures of complementation without sisterhood, which violate (iv) and (v). These issues should of course not lead us down the rabbit hole of an unrestrictive theory, so one question considered throughout is under what circumstances (i)-(v) can be violated. I can offer a reasonably well-worked out proposal for (i) and (ii). There appears to be a generalization that governs violations of (iii), but I can only speculate on why that generalization should hold. Finally, I think that (iv) should be replaced by a theory of syntactic hierarchies and their interactions.
The order of topics to be discussed is as follows:
1. Projection and dependencies
2. Coordination
3. Right-Node Raising
4. Linear constraints and the structure of VP