Brainstorming: Possible Seminar Topics (Spring 2026)

As usual, I post a few of the ideas I have for a seminar in order to get feedback. That is, each of the following topics is a possible topic for my Spring 2026 seminar, and I need to choose one of them. The default is ‘Inversion’, but I could be persuaded to do one of the others, if there is enough interest.

1. Inversion

This course will look at a wide variety of inversion constructions cross-linguistically, including: quotative inversion, locative inversion, inverse copular constructions, subject-object inversion in Bantu, as well as other related constructions. The goal will be to show how these constructions fit into the theory of argument structure and voice of Collins (2024) (‘Principles of Argument Structure’, MIT Press) (see also Storment 2025 ‘Projection (your) Voice: A Theory of Inversion and Defective Circumvention’, Doctoral dissertation, Stony Brook). Students will be given the opportunity to do fieldwork with a consultant during the course of the semester.

2. Foundations of Minimalism

This course will discuss foundational issues in syntactic theory, including the notion of Merge, copies versus repetitions and workspaces. Discussion will focus on Marcolli (2025) (‘Mathematical Structure of Syntactic Merge’, MIT Press) and related papers (e.g., Chomsky et. al. ‘Merge and the Strong Minimalist Thesis’ CUP). By the end of the semester, students will write papers in the framework of Marcolli (2025), or write papers critiquing that framework.

3. Large Language Models and Generative Syntax

This course will review literature concerning the relationship between Large Language Models and linguistic theory. Some of the topics of interest include: (a) What is the basic architecture of a LLM? (e.g., How are vectors used for lexical representation?) (b) How are LLMs able to produce fluent and natural English text? (c) Can LLMs be taken as a possible theory of the human language faculty? (d) If not, can LLMs contribute anything useful to the study of human language? (d) Can generative syntax contribute anything useful to the creation of LLMs? Students will be expected to do projects directly investigating these issues. 

Creating a Syntax Syllabus at the Graduate Level

How do you write a syllabus for the introduction to syntax at the graduate level (Syntax I, II)? This blog post poses some basic questions, and provides some preliminary suggestions, based on my experience in writing such syllabi over the last thirty years. I got my PhD 1993, and have been teaching Syntax I and II regularly ever since. 

Although the framework I teach is Minimalism, most of the suggestions I make below could be used for a course based on a different syntactic framework. Most of them could also be used for an introductory course in a different subfield (e.g., phonology, semantics, acquisition, etc.).

Syllabus for Graduate Level Syntax I (Fall 2025) (Rough Draft)

 Here is a rough draft for my graduate level course Syntax I (Fall 2025) at NYU. 

Comments welcome!

Syllabus Syntax I (Fall 2025) (Rough Draft)

Graduate Student Handbook (Linguistics)

I put together some blog posts that I have written in the last few years

which are relevant to graduate education in linguistics. In some cases,

the posts lean more toward syntax than other subfields. If there is

interest, I will continue to add links to this list in the coming years.

Many other topics need to be covered, for example, advice on writing

a doctoral dissertation. 

1. Top Likes and Dislikes of Working in Academics (Revised)

2. Writing a Statement of Purpose for Linguistics Graduate School

3. Advice for Surviving Linguistics Graduate School

4. Writing a Conference Abstract in Syntax – Some Practical Advice

5. Giving a Talk -- Some Practical Advice

6. How to Review a Syntax Paper

7. Responding to Reviewers: 10 Pieces of Advice

8. Collaboration in Syntax

9. Required Documents during a Career in Linguistics

Outline: Introduction to Syntax for Undergraduates (NYU)

Here are the lecture titles for my introduction to syntax at the undergraduate level:

Table of Contents

1. Syntactic Data

2. UG and I-Langauge

3. Syntactic Categories

4. Merge

5. Constituent Structure Tests

6. Functional Projections: TP

7. Complementizers, CP and Recursion

8. DP Structure

9. Complements versus Adjuncts

10. Lexicon: Theta-Roles

11. Introduction to the Binding Theory

12. English Auxiliary Verbs

13. Head Movement (V to T)

14. Head Movement: Do-Support and Affix Hopping

15. Head Movement: Structure Dependence

16. Movement (Internal Merge)

17. Passive and Case Theory

18. VP Internal Subject Hypothesis

19. Raising and Control (Subjects)

20. VP-Shells: Double Object Constructions

21. Raising and Control (Objects)

22. Principles and Parameters

Quantifier Raising: Entailment and Inverse Scope (Syntax II, Spring 2025)

Consider the following two sentences, each involving an existential quantifier phrase and a universal quantifier phrase.

1.

a. Some boy loves every girl.

b. Every boy loves some girl.

In both cases, we can ask what the possible logical form representations of the sentence are, and what the truth conditions of those representations are. If we adopt the syntactic operation QR, then (1a) with inverse scope yields truth conditions that clearly distinguish it from (1a) with surface scope. The question of whether inverse scope is needed for sentences like (1b) is more intricate. This note goes into these issues in detail.

Applying QR to (1a), there are two logical form representations:

2.

LF1: (surface scope)

[TP <[some boy]1> [TP <[every girl]2> [TP DP1 loves DP2]]

LF2: (inverse scope)

[TP <[every girl]2> [TP <[some boy]1> [TP DP1 loves DP2]]

In these structures, the notation <…> indicates that the occurrence is not pronounced. In LF1, for example, [some boy] has two occurrences, but only the one in subject position is pronounced. Furthermore, in these representations the possibility of VP adjunct is ignored (see Fox 2002 for discussion).

These LF representations can be paraphrased as follows:

3. LF1 (paraphrase): There is some boy who loves every girl.

LF2 (paraphrase): For every girl, there is some boy who loves her.

Now consider the following two situations:

4.

S1: John love Sue, Mary and Kathy.

(and there are no other people or relationships involved)

S2: John loves Sue, Bill loves Mary, Chris loves Kathy.

(and there are no other people or relationships involved)

Calculating the truth value of each LF representation in each situation (actual semantic calculation omitted), we have the following results (SS = surface scope, IS = inverse scope):

5. S1 S2

LF1 (SS) true false

LF2 (IS) true true

This table shows that LF2 (inverse scope) is true in S2, whereas LF1 (surface scope) is not. These truth values provide an important argument for the existence of inverse scope. If inverse scope were not allowed, there is no way we could capture the intuition that (1a) (with structure LF2) is true in S2.

In the theory I presented in class (from May 1977, Fox 2002), inverse scope is accounted for in terms of QR. In inverse scope, the object undergoes QR to a scope position higher than the subject scope position (see LF2 above). Therefore, the data in (5) provides evidence supporting the covert movement operation QR.

This table shows that only S2 distinguishes the two LF representations, S1 does not. Therefore, it is clear that LF1 is stronger, in the sense that whenever LF1 is true, so is LF2, but not vice versa. In fact, using formal semantic tools, it is possible to prove the following:

6. a. LF1 entails LF2 (LF1 ⊨ LF2)

b. LF2 does not entail LF1 (LF2 ⊭ LF1)

When there is an entailment relation like this between two LFs, it is sometimes hard to distinguish them empirically. For example, in 5, both LF representations were true in S1. And so S1 could not be used to distinguish them.

With this background, consider now (1b) above. Applying QR to (1b), there are two logical form representations:

7.

LF1: (surface scope)

[TP <[every boy]1> [TP <[some girl]2> [TP DP1 loves DP2]]

LF2: (inverse scope)

[TP <[some girl]2> [TP <[every boy]1> [TP DP1 loves DP2]]

These LF representations can be paraphrased as follows:

8. LF1 (paraphrase): For every boy, there is some girl who he loves.

LF2 (paraphrase): There is some girl who every boy loves.

Now consider the following two situations:

9.

S1: John loves Sue, Bill loves Mary, Chris loves Kathy.

(and there are no other people or relationships involved)

S2: John love Sue, Bill loves Sue, Chris loves Sue.

(and there are no other people or relationships involved)

Calculating the truth value of each LF representation in each situation (calculation omitted), we have the following results:

10. S1 S2

LF1 (SS) true true

LF2 (IS) false true

In this case, LF2 is stronger than LF1, in the sense that LF1 is true whenever LF2 is true. In other words, we have the following entailment relations:

11. a. LF2 entails LF1 (LF2 ⊨ LF1)

b. LF1 does not entail LF2. (LF1 ⊭ LF2)

Now let’s ask what the evidence is for the inverse scope representation in LF2 of the sentence in (1b). Unfortunately, because of the entailment relations, there is no situation (such as S1 or S2) where LF2 (inverse scope) is true and LF1 (surface scope) is false. This makes it difficult to justify the inverse scope representation purely on the basis of situations where the LF representations are true. Therefore, the question is whether in this case one needs an inverse scope representation of (1b) at all.

To put matters more intuitively, concerning (1b), if it is true that there is some girl who every boy loves (inverse scope) then it is also true that for every boy, there is some girl who he loves (surface scope). So perhaps in this case we could say that only the surface scope representation in LF1 is possible, but it is vague as to whether everybody loves the same girl or not.

We can summarize as follows:

12.

a. Some boy loves every girl.

i. Inverse scope does not entail surface scope.

ii. There is a situation where inverse scope LF is true,

but surface scope LF is not true.

b. Every boy loves some girl.

i. Inverse scope entails surface scope.

ii. If inverse scope LF is true in some situation,

then so is surface scope LF.

Notice that LF1 and LF2 in (7) are not equivalent, and so they are false in different cases (see (10)). In particular LF1 is true in S1 but LF2 is false in S1. This leads to the suggestion that we could use falsity to distinguish the interpretations of LF1 and LF2.

So, given S1, consider the following dialogue:

13. (in S1)

A: Isn’t it strange that every boy loves some girl? (with structure LF2)

Intended: Isn’t it strange that there is some girl that every boy loves?

B: That is false, they all love different girls.

If this were an acceptable discourse it would provide evidence that both LF1 and LF2 are needed for (1b). Since it would show that LF2 (inverse scope) is possible, and is false in a particular situation. Unfortunately, it is not very easy to access the inverse scope interpretation in 13A, and the discourse seems forced.

Another similar way to distinguish LF1 and LF2 is through constructions like “It is false that” and “It is not the case that”. These constructions negate the embedded clause:

14. a. It is false that every boy loves some girl.

Intended: It is false that there is some girl that every boy loves.

b. It is not the case that every boy loves some girl.

Intended: It is not the case that there is some girl that every boy loves.

If LF2 (inverse scope) were a possible representation here, then the sentences would be true in S1. Once again, the facts are not that clear.

There are ways to bring out inverse scope. For example, adding the word particular makes it much easier:

15. a. It is false that every boy loves some particular girl.

Intended: It is false that there is some particular girl that every boy loves.

b. It is not the case that every boy loves some particular girl.

Intended: It is not the case that there is some particular girl that every boy loves.

This kind of sentence where one is negating the inverse scope LF representations suggests that inverse scope is also needed in examples such as (1b).

In summary, based on truth conditions, it is easier to justify an inverse scope LF representation for (1a) than it is for (1b). However, given the clear need for an inverse scope LF representation for (1a), the null hypothesis is that such an inverse scope representation should also be available for (1b). That conclusion leaves open the difficult status of the judgments in (13) and (14).

How to Syntax 3 (‘only’ Modifying Noun Phrases)

This is the third of a series of blog posts showing how I think about a syntax problem when I first notice it. For the first and second installment, see:

How to Syntax I (the now that-Construction)

How to Syntax 2 (Adverbs with Attributive Adjectives)

That first glimpse of a problem is an important period in thinking about syntax. I will occasionally choose phenomena that I notice, and talk about them in an informal fashion, breaking down the process of preliminary syntactic exploration. That is, I am just thinking off the top of my head (brainstorming), with few or no revisions. Ideally, I will give myself a time period of two to three hours maximum to prevent polishing. The focus of the discussion will be on process. I am not trying to come up with a polished analysis. Of course, if people suggest references for me to look at, I will look at them later, but that would be a second stage of thought, not the preliminary exploration.

Data Discovery

I do not recall how I first noticed the construction. I have known about it since at least Fall 2021, where I mentioned it briefly in a seminar I taught. But I kept it on the back burner, knowing at some point I would get back to it.

Combinatorial Basics

I want to investigate phrases such as the following:

(1) a. He is the only candidate.

b. The only candidate is sitting over there.

c. I met the only candidate.

For convenience, I will occasionally refer to this as the ‘only’-NP construction. An alternative involves the expression ‘one and only’, as in ‘He is the one and only candidate.’ Another related expression is ‘the lone candidate’. I leave aside these alternatives for now.

At first glance, the construction consists of a definite determiner, followed by ‘only’, followed by a noun. 

An indefinite determiner is difficult or impossible to get:

(2) a. *He is an only candidate.

b. *An only candidate is sitting over there.

c. *I met an only candidate.

The examples in (2) all seem unacceptable to me, putting aside fixed phrases like ‘an only child’. Similarly, in the following (b) examples, the determiners with ‘only’ seem unacceptable:

(3) a. John is the only person I know.

b. John is a (*only) person I know.

(4) a. The only weird person is sitting over there.

b. That (*only) weird person is sitting over there.

(5) a. The only candidate is sitting over there.

b. Every (*only) candidate is sitting over there.

But possessors work fine:

(5) a. He is my only friend.

b. My only friend is sitting over there.

c. I met my only friend.

(6) a. his only friend

b. your only friend

c. their only friend

When there is an adjective or a numeral in the DP, it must follow ‘only’:

(7) a. The only big dog was in the corner.

b. *The big only dog was in the corner.

(8) a. The only two reporters were out for lunch.

b. *The two only reporters were out for lunch.

Although focus particles such as ‘only’ and ‘even’ overlap in their distributions (see (9) and (10)), the focus particle ‘even’ cannot be used in the same way (see (11)):

(9) a. Only John left early.

b. Even John left early.

(10) a. John only likes Mary.

b. John even likes Mary.

(11) a. *He is the even candidate.

b. *The even candidate is sitting over there.

c. *I met the even candidate.

Paraphrase and Entailment

Usually when ‘only’ modifies a constituent X, X is in focus. The general scheme is this, where (b) and (c) are entailments of (a):

(12) a. Only John came to the party.

b. John came to the party, but nobody else did.

c. It is not the case that Mary (or anybody else) came to the party.

In other words, for this example any DP substitution for John is false, as shown in (12c).

Similarly, when ‘only’ appears with a predicative constituent:

(13) a. John is only watching TV.

b. John is watching TV, but he is not doing anything else.

c. It is not the case that John is working (or doing anything else).

Now consider how such a paraphrase would work with the ‘only’-NP construction:

(14) a. The only dog was in the corner.

b. The dog was in the corner, but for no other x was the x in the corner.

c. It was not the case that the cat was in the corer (or any other animal).

These truth conditions are just wrong. Clearly, for (14a), it is possible that a cat could also be in the corner. In other words, interpreting [the only NOUN] as a focus construction where NOUN is in focus does not give the right results.

So what is the right paraphrase? It seems to be the following:

(15) a. The only dog was in the corner.

b. The x such that only x is a dog was in the corner.

(16) a. I saw the only person I know.

b. I saw the x such only x is a person I know.

In formal notation, the translation is (assuming a Fregean account of the definite article):

(17) a. the only dog

b. ιx[dog(x) ∧ ∀y[dog(y) --> x = y]]

‘The unique x such that x is a dog and for every y, 

if y is a dog, the y = x’

But such a definition poses a bit of a conundrum. Consider the definition of the definite article from Heim and Kratzer (pg. 75):

(18) a. [[the]] = λf. f ɛ D<e,t> and there is exactly one x such that f(x) = 1.

                 the unique y such that f(y) = 1.

b. [[the dog]] = Presupposition: there is exactly one x such that dog(x) = 1.

        Denotation: the unique y such that dog(y) = 1.

Comparing (17) and (18), it looks like ‘only’ is just restating the presupposition of the definite article. In other words, ‘only’ appears to be semantically vacuous when appearing with the definite article. But is this true?

(19) a. My friend is over there.

b. My only friend is over there.

If you and I are at a party, and I say (19a) pointing to the corer, you might infer that my unique friend at the party is over there. There is a uniqueness presupposition, but it is very fluid and flexible. In fact, if I say (19a), it could be the friend of mine that we were just talking about, even if I have lots of friends at the party.

On the other hand, (19b) seems less fluid and more rigid. Once again, if we are at the party, and I say (19b) pointing to the corer, your natural inference is that I don’t have any other friends in my life. If I wanted it to be clear we were talking about friends at the party, I would have to say: ‘My only friend at this party is over there.’

So it seems at the very least there is a difference in the possibility for domain restriction between the two forms (with and without ‘only’). I leave investigating this to further work, since today’s session is just supposed to be the first glimpse of the construction.

Speculations on Structure

As part of the first glimpse into the construction, I would like to speculate on the syntactic structure. The value of the speculation is that is provides a concrete way to test further predictions (against the structure). So consider the following sentence repeated from above:

(20) a. The only dog was in the corner.

b. The x such that only x is a dog was in the corner.

My suggestion is that ‘only’ does not modify its sister semantically in the same way that the focus particle normally modifies its sister (creating a quantificational structure, quantifying over alternatives). 

First, I assume that in definite DPs like ‘the dog’, ‘the person’, there is a null category which is the argument of the noun phrase (see Collins 2024 for discussion, see also Koopman 2003, 2005). For convenience, let’s call that empty category ec:

(21) [the [ec dog]]

Second, this is enough to start to account for ‘only’-NP, if we say that ‘only’ modifies the empty category, with the interpretation in (22b).

(22) a. [the [[only ec] dog]]

b. the x such that only x is a dog.

I leave out the labels of the constituents, just giving the bare minimum for this first glace.

Combinatorial Basics Revisited

Now that I have put in place the sketch of an analysis, we can revisit some of the basic combinatorial properties listed above. For lack of time, I will not discuss all of them, but consider again the ordering of an adjective and ‘only’, repeated below:

(23) a. The only big dog was in the corner.

b. *The big only dog was in the corner.

I assume the structure is:

(24) a. [the [ec big dog]]

b. the x such that only x is a big dog

In other words, ‘big dog’ is acting as the predicate, and ec is the subject, so there is no way for ec to intervene between ‘big’ and ‘dog’. Therefore, since ‘only’ modifies ec, there is no way for ‘only’ to appear between ‘big’ and dog’.

Negative Polarity Item Licensing

A well-known property of ‘only’-phrases is that they license negative polarity items, as shown in (25):

(25) a. Only John knows any physics.

b. *John knows any physics.

But clearly, such licensing does not extend to the ‘only’-NP construction:

(26) a. *The only candidate knows any physics.

b. *The candidate knows any physics.

The difference between (25) and (26) follows from the analysis I outlined above in (22) above since on that analysis ‘only’ takes scope internal to the DP. In other words, in (25a) [only John] takes scope over the entire clause. In (26a), ‘only’ takes scope internal to the subject DP, not over the entire clause.

However, internal to the modified NP, a NPI becomes possible:

(27) a. *The candidate who has ever been to France is John.

b. The only candidate who has ever been to France is John.

This fact could also follow from the analysis is if the correct way to break it down is:

(28) a. the only candidate who has ever been to France

b. the x such that only x is a candidate and only x has ever been to France

I leave working out details to future work.

Technical Glitch

My preliminary analysis rests on the assumption that ‘only’ can modify an empty category ec. But in general, it does not look like ‘only’ can modify empty categories.

(29) a. I want (only) Mary to go.

b. I want (*only) PRO to go.

Intended: ‘I want only myself to go.’

(30) a. Only John left.

b. The man that (*only) ec left.

Example (29b) shows that ‘only’ cannot modify PRO. Example (30b) shows that ‘only’ cannot modify the trace of subject extraction in a relative clause.

It is unclear to me for the moment how to get around this problem. But acknowledging technical glitches is an important part of the discovery process. It could lead you to reject your initial analysis, or to give a much better analysis down the road.

One possibility, no considered so far, is that ‘the’ itself is the argument of the noun, so the structure would be the following:

(31) [[the only] dog]

If this were the case, it would look a bit like post focus ‘only’ in the following example:

(32) John only is allowed to enter the fort.

I put the issue aside for now.

Conclusion

I have spent a few hours analyzing the ‘only’-NP construction. The preliminary syntactic methods I have applied are the following:

(31)

a. Combinatorial basics

b. Paraphrase

c. Speculations on structure

d. Explaining facts in terms of structure

e. NPI licensing

f. Technical Glitch

The theoretical significance of the construction is that it may support the structure of DPs and the Argument Criterion as outlined in Collins 2024.

 

Grammatical Analysis I: Merge (Lecture 4, Spring 2025)

 Here is the lecture on Merge, in the fourth lecture.

After this, Merge is the basis for everything we talk about in the semester.

Lecture 4: Merge

Grammatical Analysis I (Assignment 2)(Spring 2025)

 Here is my second assignment for the undergraduate introduction to syntax.

Chris

Assignment 2

Basic Skills (A versus A'-Movement)

Syntax II Spring 2025

Week 2: Basic Skills: A versus A’-Movement

By the end of the semester, a student taking Syntax II (graduate level) should have the following basic skills. 

1.

Be able to argue whether or not there is a movement relationship between two positions X and Y.

2.

Be able to define A-position and A’-position. 

3.

Be able to give a wide range of example sentences illustrating A-movement and A’-movement in English. The student should be able to draw plausible tree diagrams for each of these examples (e.g., tough-movement).

See Class Exercise

4.

For any particular example of movement, the student should be able to argue (using various diagnostics) that it is A or A’-movement.

5.

Be able to list the main properties distinguishing A-movement and A’-movement (e.g., binding, reconstruction, parasitic gaps, improper movement, weak crossover, etc.). The student should be able to define all the relevant principles that enter into these properties (e.g., they should be able to define weak crossover, they should know about the copy theory of movement).

6.

For each property in (5), the student should be able to give example sentences illustrating that property. For example, the student should be able to show that A-movement does not show Weak Crossover Effects. Likewise, the student should be able to show that A-movement does not give rise to condition C reconstruction effects.

Schoolhouse Rock Videos

I grew up watching these videos all the time. The tunes are very catchy and they are a pretty good popular source of information on basic grammatical categories. I have no idea whether people outside the US know of them.

Last week, in my undergraduate syntax class, I recommended to the students that they watch them. We don't literally follow the definitions in the videos, but they are an entertaining way to review.

Schoolhouse Rock (Grammar Rock) Videos

A Noun is a Person Place or Thing

Busy Prepositions

Conjunction Junction

Interjections

Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here

Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla

The Tale of Mr. Morton

Unpack Your Adjectives

Verb That’s What’s Happening

Grammatical Analysis I (Assignment 1)(Spring 2025)

Here is my first assignment for undergraduate syntax. It is all about the internet.

I am trying to keep up with the times.

GA I Assignment 1

Grammatical Analysis I (Spring 2025)

This is the syllabus for the first semester of undergraduate syntax at NYU.

I would be happy to discuss it with people who are interested. I have two

main guidelines:

a. I try to use Merge as a pedagogical tool throughout the semester.

b. I try to make the course as hands-on as possible, with in-class activities.

Syllabus: Grammatical Analysis I (Spring 2025)

LSA 2025 Workshop: Foundations of Minimalist Syntax (Handouts)

LSA 2025 Workshop

Foundations of Minimalist Syntax: Steps Toward the Miracle Creed

Organizers: Andreas Blümel (Universität Göttingen/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, andreas.bluemel@hu-berlin.de) and Chris Collins (New York University, cc116@nyu.edu)

Sunday January 12, 2025    (Salon G: 10:15am to 1:30pm)

Handout: Part I (Andreas)

Handout: Part II (Chris)

Handout: Part III (Andreas)

Papers Cited

Overview of Nanosyntax (from the Perspective of MaS) (November 11 2024)

Summary: Nanosyntax is a theory of syntax that assumes late insertion, and phrasal spell-out.

< /blikәt/ ⇔ [ZP Z [YP Y [XP X ]]] ⇔ BLICKET > (Baunaz and Lander 2018: 26)

Example: Russian accusative of ‘lip’ gub-ú (Caha 2020: 30, example (65))

[ACCP F2 [NOMP F1 [#P # [FEMP FEM REF]]]]

Discuss: Superset Principle, Elsewhere Principle, Cyclic Override Principle

Positives:

1. Minimalist (Merge), Cartography, LCA

2. One feature, one head (no bundling)

3. No Morphological Component (no impoverishment, no post-syntactic insertion)

Spellout-Driven Movement

1. Motivated by Spellout (in addition to syntactic movement)

2. Leaves no trace (needed for lexical insertion)

3. Spellout Algorithm/Lexicalization Algorithm (Caha et. al. 2024)

a. Merge F and lexicalize FP

b. If (a) fails, move the Spec of the complement of F, and lexicalize FP

c. If (b) fails, move the complement of F, and lexicalize FP

d. If (c) fails, go back to the previous cycle and try the next option for that cycle

Paval Caha (p.c.): “You need Spec movement before complement movement in all cases where an agglutinative form (derived by complement movement) could have been used, but never is, because there is a portmanteau morpheme.”

Worries:

1. Spellout driven movement seems like a second syntactic system (outside of regular syntax) needed for spell-out. In that way, it is similar to the operations of the morphological component (e.g., impoverishment, post-syntactic movement) in DM.

2. How does compositional semantics work in Nanosyntax?

a. Spell-out driven movement does not leave traces.

b. Lexical insertion introduces conceptual material at the phrasal level.

MaS and Nanosyntax:

Note: NS uses phrasal spell-out, where MaS uses empty elements. 

Hypothesis: For every NS proposal, it is possible to translate that proposal mechanically into an MaS proposal in the following way:

a. If in NS, a lexical item spells out a phrase with one head H as PHON, then in MaS, there is the lexical item {H, PHON}.

b. If in NS, a lexical item spells out a phrase involving two heads H1 and H2 (H1 c-commands H2) as PHON, then in MaS, there is the lexical item {H2, PHON}, and H1 is licensed as an empty element when occurring with H2.

A Very Short History of Mas (Morphology as Syntax)

December 2020

First version of “Towards a Theory of Morphology as Syntax” posted to Lingbuzz.

(published in 2023)

August 2018

Collins’ “The Logical of Contextual Allomorphy” posted to Linguzz. “I explore ways of analyzing contextual allomorphy that eschew reference to competition and blocking.”

December 2016

Kayne’s “What is Suppletive Allomorphy? On ‘went’ and ‘*goed’ in English’ posted to Lingbuzz (published in 2019). “These analyses do not invoke late insertion. It may be that late insertion is systematically unavailable.”

September 28, 2015

The name “Morphology as Syntax (MAS)” is proposed for first time.

December 13, 2012

Considering names for approach:

syntax-based morphology, Merge-based morphology, minimalist morphology

January 14-19, 2012

Long e-mail discussions about English past tense morphology.

January 14, 2012

Long e-mail discussion of “contextual allomorphy” with the conclusion that there is no contextual allomorphy.

Two Allomorphy Models without Late Insertion (Morphology as Syntax)

 Here is a handout from my seminar with Richard Kayne (Morphology as Syntax). On this handout, I outline two approaches to allomorphy not involving late insertion. This list is not meant to be exclusive. In fact, in the very same class period (September 23 2023), I presented yet another completely different model of allomorphy based on autosegmental phonology.

How to Syntax 2 (Adverbs with Attributive Adjectives)

This is the second of a series of blog posts showing how I think about a syntax problem when I first notice it. For the first installment, see:

How to Syntax I (the now that-Construction)

I will occasionally choose phenomena that I notice, and talk about them in an informal fashion, breaking down the process of preliminary syntactic exploration. That is, I am just thinking off the top of my head (brainstorming), with few or no revisions. Ideally, I will give myself a time period of three hours maximum to prevent polishing. The focus of the discussion will be on process. I am not trying to come up with a polished analysis. 

Possible Seminar Topics 2024-2025

The following is a list of possible seminar topics for 2024-2-25. That is, each item below represents a different seminar topic. I need to choose one of them.

1.

Quotative Inversion

We will begin the semester reviewing the literature on quotative inversion written in the wake of Collins and Branigan (1997). We will try to systematically enumerate all known syntactic properties of quotative inversion in English. We will then develop a more modern account based on remnant movement and smuggling. Connections to related phenomena, such as locative inversion and subject-object inversion in Bantu, will be explored. Students will be encouraged to look at quotative inversion cross-linguistically for course papers and presentations.

2.

Merge, MERGE and Workspaces.

Recent work on the foundations of minimalism, by Chomsky and others, has focused on the role of the workspace in syntactic derivations. In this seminar, we will review work on workspaces, starting with Collins and Stabler 2016. We will evaluate Chomsky’s arguments for MERGE over Merge. Emphasis will be on developing empirical predictions of the various theoretical formulations. Depending on the interest of the students, other possible topics may include labelling and copies versus repetitions.

3.

Morphology as Syntax: Spelling out Syntactic Structure

In this seminar, we will review various proposals in the morphology literature for spelling out syntactic structure, including proposals based on spans, DM (Vocabulary Insertion), Nanosyntax and MaS (Collins and Kayne 2023). We will discuss the theoretical foundations of each of these approaches. Then we will present various case studies from the literature, and compare them.

4.

Topics in Argument Structure

The purpose of this seminar will be to investigate a small range of topics (e.g., adjectival passives, unaccusatives) from the perspective the Merge-based approach to argument structure developed in Collins 2023 (see also Collins 2005). In the first two weeks, we will review the main results of Collins 2023, and then quickly branch off into unknown territory. The topics investigated will be decided jointly by the participants in the seminar.

How to Syntax 1 (the now that-Construction)

This is the first of a series of blog posts showing how I think about a syntax problem when I first notice it. I will occasionally choose phenomena that I notice, and talk about them in an informal fashion, breaking down the process of preliminary syntactic exploration. That is, I am just thinking off the top of my head (brainstorming), with few or no revisions. The focus of the discussion will be on process. I am not trying to come up with a polished analysis. Of course, if people suggest references for me to look at, I will look at them later, but that would be a second stage of thought, not the preliminary exploration.