Generative analyses have standardly assumed severe constraints on the form of syntactic representations. This thesis explores consequences of relaxing the undermotivated constraints that prohibit discontinuous and converging configurations. A principal benefit of this revision is that it facilitates the assignment of a uniform constituent analysis to constructions that exhibit different constituent orders. This in turn permits a more general account of structure-sensitive phenomena involving anaphora and extraction, and provides a means of extending configurational definitions to derived constructions and languages with variable or otherwise problematic word order conventions. Chapter 2 presents an arboreal model of phrase structure which admits discontinuity and multidomination by partially dissociating order and structure, and relaxing the requirement that each node have a unique parent. Chapter 3 argues for a discontinuous constituent analysis of the Celtic languages Irish, Welsh and Breton, which conform to a dominant VSO pattern. Chapter 4 examines the word order patterns of the Polynesian language Niuean, which again instantiates a VSO order, and proposes a multidomination analysis of the Niuean raising constructions described by Seiter (1980). Chapter 5 examines subordinate Germanic constructions and suggests an analysis which assigns intercalated structural descriptions to cross-serial dependencies. Chapter 6 suggests a strategy for assigning an articulated hiearchical structure to free word order or 'nonconfigurational' languages, and reconsiders the question of Dyirbal's structural ergativity. Chapter 7 presents arguments, based on anaphoric and extraction domains, that unbounded dependency constructions in English instantiate a canonically discontinuous structure. Chapter 8 adumbrates strategies for admitting some of the discontinuous representations proposed in earlier chapters. Chapter 9 briefly summarizes previous arguments, examines some unresolved issues, and considers the correspondence between discontinuous structural analyses, and conventional representations containing 'gaps'.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-7843 |
| Date | 01 January 1990 |
| Creators | Blevins, James Peter |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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