Aspects of Bulgarian Syntax: Complementizers and WH Constructions

Chapter 7: Conclusion: Bulgarian and Syntactic Theory

Chapter 7 Conclusion: Bulgarian and Syntactic Theory In the preceding chapters I have described and proposed an analysis of several related constructions in Modern Bulgarian, all involving a WH element: questions, headed relative clauses, and free relatives clauses. All of these, as well as other WH constructions which I have not described in detail, such as comparative and exclamative clauses,1 have a great deal in common syntactically; in fact, I have claimed that they are essentially identical in structure and derivation. Investigation of these Bulgarian constructions has led to a number of conclusions concerning controversial aspects of the analysis of WH constructions in Universal Grammar and of complement clauses in general. In addition, the treatment of basic sentence structure and word order which I have outlined as a background to the discussion of WH constructions has consequences for a theory of phrase structure and word order in relatively free word order languages. In this chapter I review the major conclusions of this study and their implications for linguistic theory. I begin by briefly summarizing the rules which I have proposed to produce the various WH constructions and other clause types discussed in the book. 7.1. Summary of Rules The PS rules developed in chapter 2 generate base structures of the form (1); COMP and V are the only obligatory categories, but a maximally expanded E(xpression) may contain Left or Right Dislocated NPs and an unordered set of phrasal constituents following the verb in S.2 1 See the brief discussion of these in chapter 1. 2 As noted in chapter 3, there is probably also an AUX component; this is not important for our purposes here. 212 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN SYNTAX (1) E qu p (NP) S′ (NP) “Right Dislocated” “Left ru Dislocated” COMP S ru V (XP*) Any phrasal constituent which is a semantic/pragmatic topic or focus can move to TOPIC or FOCUS positions, that is, it can be adjoined to S′ or S respectively, giving surface structures like (2) (2) E qu p (NP) S′ (NP) “Right Dislocated” “Left ru Dislocated” TOPIC S′ ru COMP S ru FOCUS S ru V (XP*) There are three rules which are involved specifically in the derivation of WH constructions , one binding (obligatory coindexing) rule, one deletion rule, and one movement rule: (3) Relative Clause Binding (RCB) In a structure of the form [NP1 [NP2 ][S′ [COMP ][S ]]], coindex COMP with NP2, then find an unindexed pronoun in S and coindex it with COMP. (4) Controlled Pronoun Deletion (CPD) NPi […proi…] › NPi […ti…] (5) WH Movement [COMP αQ, βR (WH)] X WH › [COMP αQ, βR WHi ([COMP WH ])] X ti αQ, βR αQ, βR CONCLUSION: BULGARIAN AND SYNTACTIC THEORY 213 These are the only processes required to derive all questions and relative clauses. RCB and CPD together produce deto relatives. RCB also applies in WH relative clauses, and WH Movement, of course, is part of the derivation of both WH relatives, including free relatives, and WH questions, as well as comparatives and other WH constructions. One final rule is needed in all clauses in which WH Movement has not occurred, namely the rule which spells out the empty COMP as a complementizer. The COMP of each clause contains the features ±Q, ±R, ±C, marking it as an interrogative , relative, comparative, or other clause, and COMP is spelled out differently depending on these features. (6) COMP Realization [COMP +Q] › null if the immediately dominating S′ contains li dali otherwise [COMP +R] › deto [COMP +C] › če [COMP –Q, –R, –C] › null in main clause null if the immediately dominating S′ contains da če otherwise COMP Realization may well have to be modified to include an exclamative COMP type or possibly others; this would not involve any change in the way the analysis works, just the addition of one or more categories to rule (5) and (6). The above rules produce all of the constructions we have been concerned with in Bulgarian, specifically all types of questions and relatives, those that contain a complementizer, as well as those formed with a WH word, in addition to če and da complements. The application of movement and controlled deletion rules is restricted by a crossing constraint which I call the Binding Constraint on Variables. (7) Binding Constraint on Variables (BCV) A may not bind B in the configuration A-X-B, where X is a variable containing an instance of A...