A Short Introduction to X-Bar Syntax and Transformations (review)

A welcome departure from introductory tomes laden with discursive incidentals, Walsh’s slim but comprehensive intro book offers the beginning student of current syntactic theory an accessible and useful foundation for study.

W shows care in introducing new material. Chapters reflect a bottom-up approach where W assumes no knowledge of syntax, motivates a theory through examples, then builds up to a complete theory. Other texts supposedly work this way, too, but W actually accomplishes it. Ch. 1, ‘Phrase structure rules’ (1–18), outlines general motivation for PS rules from an X’ theoretic approach and defines technical concepts like dominance, precedence, and c-command. Ch. 2, ‘Noun phrases’ (19–35), addresses internal structure of NP, using pro-forms as motivation to elucidate the structure of VP, AP, DP, PP, and the overall XP covered in Ch. 3, ‘Other phrase types’ (38–58). Ch. 4, ‘The phrase structure of sentences’ (59–76), introduces CP and IP structure, including TNS, Agr, and F features. It also covers embedded CPs and relative clauses. Chs. 5 and 6, ‘Transformations’ (77–101) and ‘NP movement’ (102–17), present subcategorization, I-movement, wh-movement, passivization, and subject raising. No G & B, thetaroles, or case theory; although W does end with a short remark about move alpha.

Individual chapters are headed, subheaded, and include plainly laid out goals. In the NP chapter (Ch. 2), for example, W begins, ‘In this chapter we will look more closely at the internal structure of NP’s and, in the process, lay the foundation for generalizing about the structure for all phrasal categories’ (19). Clarity, fortunately, is W’s vice. Plenty of example data and trees illuminate the principles that W addresses.

Chapters end with sets of four to five exercises. A typical set contains a few questions whose answers lie directly in the chapter and one or two questions whose answers require some interpolation based on chapter content. For example, in the transformations chapter (Ch. 5), one question asks about the relevance of using the ‘wanna’ (want to) contraction as evidence in support of wh-movement. While the chapter doesn’t cover this topic exactly, it provides the necessary components for students to make an argument. Thus, assuming wh- leaves behind a trace after movement and noting that sentences star where ‘wanna’ occurs over a trace, ‘Who does Prissy wanna give books to Albert’ (101), the student can discover the principle without being matter-of-factly informed.

One objection may be about W’s treatment of auxiliaries, which involves a rather elaborate set of rules to explain the data, but W notes that ‘these features, or some other notational device, is needed . . . to account for their selectional restrictions’ (56). Another objection may be that there’s no index, but a detailed table of contents obviates the need for one.

Overall, teachers will find the book a concise, well-developed addition to an intro class focusing mostly on minimalism or P & P but needing some coverage of PS. Advanced students (this author included) will find Chs. 4, 5, and 6 handy for quick reference.