The Principle of Phonology-Free Syntax

Four apparent counterexamples in French

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10140484
AutoresPhilip Miller (0000-0002-1436-9533, Université de Lille, autor correspondente), Philip H Miller, Geoffrey K Pullum (0000-0002-7748-8847, University of California, Santa Cruz), Arnold M Zwicky (The Ohio State University)
Ano1997
Volume33
Fascículo1
Páginas67-90
Data de publicação1997-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-2267 • E-ISSN: 1469-7742
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022226796006305
OpenAlexW2120128863
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas17
Referências citadas9

The Principle of Phonology-Free Syntax (PPFS) is a proposed universal principle of grammar that prohibits reference to phonological information in syntactic rules or constraints. Although many linguists have noted phenomena that appear to them to be in conflict with it, the appearances are misleading in all cases we have examined. This paper scrutinizes four instructive cases in French that appear to falsify the PPFS. Section 1 deals with the alleged relevance of syllable count to the description of attributive adjective placement; section 2 addresses the validity of a rule mentioning consonantality in stating the agreement rule for adverbial tout ; section 3 turns to the issue of preposition choice (e.g. en vs. au ) with geographical proper names; and section 4 takes a look at a purported case of phonological reference in stating the rule for ellipsis of a clitic pronoun and an auxiliary in a coordinate structure. In each case we bring independent evidence to bear on the problem in order to show that the analyses employing phonology-sensitive syntactic statements are in error and the prediction of the PPFS is confirmed

Adjective · Adverbial · Attributive · Clitic · Complementizer · Ellipsis (linguistics · Grammar · Linguistics · Noun · Phonology · Section (typography · Syntax · Word order · Computer Science · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation