Linguistic Variation Yearbook, vol. 2 (2002) (review)

This is the second installment of the Linguistic variation yearbook, an annual publication bringing together work on aspects of linguistic variation and typology from a generative perspective. In this volume, contributors investigate syntactic phenomena in a number of languages.

Pierre Pica and Johan Rooryck (1–3), the series editors, open the volume with a brief précis of the contents. Peter W. Culicover and Andrzej Nowak (5–30) look into language change to suggest that languages tend to lose marked feature combinations and/or structures that do not map conceptual structure onto syntax in a straightforward manner. Heidi Harley (31–70) proposes that the projection of the prepositional element involved in possession (incorporated to give the verb have) may also host the two internal arguments in double-object constructions, exemplifying the variation predicted on a range of languages, such as Romance and Japanese. Carol Neidle (71–98) discusses the puzzle of wh-words regularly appearing at the right edge of American Sign Language sentences. She shows this to be the result not of remnant movement but of SpecCP projecting rightwards in the language. At the same time, Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (217–57) demonstrates the necessity of a remnant-movement analysis for Spanish wh-words appearing at the right edge of the sentence. Comparing the two chapters, it is interesting to remind ourselves once more that syntactic ‘constructions’ identical on the surface may involve radically different structures—an observation made lucid by the juxtaposition of those two contributions.

The chapters by Ileana Paul (99–122) and by Alain Rouveret (123–84) also share a theme. While they explore different phenomena, the general inaccessibility of objects in Malagasy (and Austronesian, more generally) and the nature of Celtic resumptive pronouns respectively, they both converge on explaining the issues in question primarily as a result of Noam Chomsky’s phase impenetrability condition (‘Derivation by phase’, Ken Hale: A life in language, ed. by Michael Kenstowicz, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). This result is stimulating as it foregrounds yet another well-known theme: the necessity of inductive research for the completeness of description, even if this is not always initially obvious. Cristina Schmitt and Alan Munn (185–216) inquire into the nature of bare noun arguments, both singular and plural, in Brazilian Portuguese, offering an analysis that brings a Chierchian typology of nouns together with the option of (nominal) functional categories marking different features in different languages. Finally, Hubert Truckenbrodt (259–303) explores Bengali p-phrasing, a phenomenon at the syntax-phonology interface, in optimality-theoretic terms.

The volume thoroughly succeeds in its aim, stated on the inside of the cover, namely ‘to relate patterns of linguistic variation … to the organization of the language faculty proper’. The work appearing in the volume is exciting, meticulously carried out, and methodologically solid. I hope the series continues to provide in the future a forum where high-quality work on variation and comparative grammar can be presented; at least this is what this particular volume prepares us for.