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Monotonicity in Syntax

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Monotonicity in Logic and Language (TLLM 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 12564))

Abstract

Extending previous work on monotonicity in morphology and morphosyntax, I argue that some of the most important constraints in syntax can be analyzed in terms of monotonic functions that map specific kinds of syntactic representations to fixed, universal hierarchies. I cover the Ban Against Improper Movement, the Williams Cycle, the Ban Against Improper Case, and omnivorous number. The general method of analysis is remarkably similar across all phenomena, which suggests that monotonicity provides a unified perspective on a wide range of phenomena in syntax as well as morphology and morphosyntax. I also argue that syntax, thanks to extensive work in computational syntax, provides a unique opportunity to probe whether the prevalence of monotonicity principles in natural language is due to computational complexity considerations. Not only, then, is it possible to extend the purview of monotonicity from semantics to syntax, doing so might yield new insights into monotonicity that would not be obtainable otherwise.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This of course depends on how one analyzes cases such as John greeted whoever Mary invited, which was discussed in Sect. 2.1. In addition, there have been proposals in the Minimalist literature that a mover can undergo Late Merge with some of its arguments [35].

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Acknowledgments

The work reported in this paper was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-1845344. The paper benefited tremendously from discussion with Aniello De Santo, Alëna Aksënova, Ayla Karakas, Sedigheh Moradi, and Nazila Shafiei, as well as the detailed feedback of two anonymous reviewers.

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  1. Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA

    Thomas Graf

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  1. Thomas Graf
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Correspondence to Thomas Graf .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chinese Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Dun Deng

  2. Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Fenrong Liu

  3. Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Bejing, China

    Mingming Liu

  4. Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Dag Westerståhl

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Graf, T. (2020). Monotonicity in Syntax. In: Deng, D., Liu, F., Liu, M., Westerståhl, D. (eds) Monotonicity in Logic and Language. TLLM 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12564. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-62843-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-62843-0_3

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