Boeckx (2008) - Islands PDF
Boeckx (2008) - Islands PDF
Boeckx (2008) - Islands PDF
Islands
Cedric Boeckx*
Harvard University
Abstract
The present article presents an overview of how islands have been treated from
Chomskys and Rosss seminal works to current minimalist theorizing.
1. Discovery
If asked what the most fundamental empirical discovery made so far by
generative grammarians is, I would unhesitatingly answer islands. In the
1960s, grammarians discovered configurations that render otherwise legitimate
syntactic dependencies illicit. These include domains like complex
noun phrases, adjoined clauses, coordinate structures, left branches,
sentential subjects, and embedded interrogative clauses. With characteris-
tic flair, John R. Ross (1967) dubbed such configurations islands (the
image being that of syntactic elements marooned on certain portions of
the sentence).
Chomsky was the first to observe in 1964 a condition on the application
of syntactic transformation that prohibited movement of an element of
type A to a position B if that element was dominated by another element
of type A. This condition, which, again thanks to Rosss talent as a
wordsmith, came to be known as the A-over-A principle, and which I
schematize (in a more modern idiom) in (1), straightforwardly accounts for
contrasts like (2ab).
Few would deny that we owe our modern interest in islands to Rosss
(1967) seminal work. Ross went far beyond Chomskys limited examples
motivating the A-over-A condition, and provided us with a detailed
overview of the major syntactic islands.
Ross systematically investigated the fact that seemingly minute manipu-
lations of the context of a transformation dramatically affected the
acceptability of sentences, as in (3a,b).
(4) *[Handsomei though [S I believe [NP the claim that [S Dick is ti]]],
Im still going to marry Herman.
Since Chomsky (1973), most conditions introduced and discussed by
generative linguists can be characterized as locality principles, that is,
principles that limit the space within which linguistic rules can apply.
Remarkably, linguists today focus on many of the conditions and the
phenomena they give rise to that Chomsky first mentioned in his 1973
study. I have in mind here notions like bounding nodes, analyzed as barriers
in Government-Binding theory (Chomsky 1986), or as phases in minimalism
(Chomsky forthcoming);2 strict cyclicity (now referred to as the No Tam-
pering condition; Chomsky 2000),3 successive cyclicity (whose form and
rationale have remained remarkably unchanged since its introduction),4 and
superiority (now treated as a subcase of relativized minimality; Rizzi 1990;
Chomsky 1995; Kitahara 1997). All of these can be traced back to Chomskys
original discussion.
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Islands 153
leads to island violations. Put differently, this conception sees islands as the
by-products of principles that guarantee the computational efficiency
of grammatical operations. Chomsky has consistently favored this view,
from the Subjacency account (see Chomsky 1973, 1977) through the
Barriers framework (Chomsky 1986), and, more recently, the phase
framework (Chomsky 2000, 2001, forthcoming).
The second conception of the etiology of islands is based on the idea
that islands identify conditions on the output(s) of the computational
system. Whereas the first approach views islands as reflecting limitations
on syntactic processes (rule application), the second views islands as
affecting the products of these computations. Under this view, islands
must naturally follow by taking those conditions to be imposed by the
systems with which the syntactic component interfaces.6 That is, they
restrict the form in which syntactic information is being handed to
them. Under this view, islands amount to representational constraints.
[Path-based approaches to locality in the GB era, such as Kayne 1984
and Pesetsky 1982 were of this type, as was Kosters (1978, 1987) approach
although the issue of interfaces only became prominent with the advent
of minimalism.]
Viewed in this light, one can call the first view the derivational view,
and the second, the representational view (a similar division is endorsed
in Hornstein et al. 2007). Both views make islands conditions of the faculty
of language in the narrow sense (FLN, to borrow a term from Hauser
et al. 2002); that is, islands are conditions imposed on the workings on the
syntactic component (narrow syntax, as it is now often referred to), or
on how the mapping from syntax onto the external systems. To put it in
yet another way, islands are conditions of narrow syntax, or interface
conditions.
The third view locates islands outside of FLN, and ascribes them to the
faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB). Specifically, the third view
treats islands to be the result of processing/memory factors that constrain
how linguistic knowledge is put to use. Thus, the third view takes islands
to be a matter of performance, not competence (for representative works
in this tradition, see Pritchett 1991; Kluender 1991, 1992, 1998, 2004;
see already Givon 1979).7,8
It is conceivable, indeed, quite possible, that each of the three views
just outlined captures a portion of the truth, but in practice linguists have
attempted to unify all island effects under a single umbrella.9 All three
views have now distinguished pedigrees, and I suspect that conceptual
arguments could be pressed into service to support any of the three
candidate theories of islands.
As is so often the case, theoretical debates will have to be resolved
in large part on the basis of detailed empirical investigation.10 So let me
now turn to the kind of data that may bear on the issue of why islands
exist.
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Islands 155
3. Island Circumvention
Let me note two things right away. First, the strategy to be used here will
not be different from what is done in, say, biology. When trying to figure
out the nature of, say, molecular processes, special attention will be given
to situations where something goes wrong, where an expected result fails
to obtain. (This is why mutants and monsters have played such a prominent
role in biology. Think of the role of the fruit flies that grow eyes on their
antennas in the context of evolutionary developmental biology.) In the
context of islands, this will amount to finding cases where expected island
effects fail to obtain.
Second, in the domain of finding the data that bear on the nature of
islands, Rosss impact cannot be overestimated. In addition to establishing
the existence of islands, Ross documented at least three classes of cases
that bear directly on the nature of islands. I will refer to such classes of
cases as instances of island circumvention. A more popular term to refer
to at least some of these cases is island repair. But I want to avoid using
the term repair, because it is suggestive of a certain view of island (one
that takes islands to be violable conditions). I find the term circumvention
more neutral.
The first class of island circumvention identified by Ross falls under
the rubric of resumption. As is well-known, the presence of a resumptive
pronoun where we expect a gap leads to an improvement in island contexts.
Contrast (5) and (6).
(5) *Which woman did John laugh [after Bill kissed __]
(6) Which woman did John laugh [after Bill kissed her]
The second class of island circumvention, again discussed by Ross in
his thesis, goes by the name of pied-piping. Ross noted that taking the
island along with the moving element renders movement possible.
(9) *Who did John made [the claim that Peter saw __]
(10) John made the claim that Peter saw someone, but I cant remember
who [elided: <John made the claim that Peter saw __>]
Perhaps the least surprising instance of island circumvention is pied-
piping, as, by taking the island along with the moving element, no
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156 Cedric Boeckx
The wh-in-situ data prove even more interesting, once we take into account
the fact, first noted by Huang (1982), that some wh-in-situ (adjunct
wh-phrases equivalent to why, for example) give rise to island effects.
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160 Cedric Boeckx
constituent in the same configuration as the one that Huang (1982) concen-
trated on. It may well turn out to be the case that some kinds of
subject configurations are as stable islands as adjuncts are (see Gallego
2007 for evidence in favor of this suggestion). Put differently, the adjunct
island may appear more robust because the term adjunct is used more
consistently across studies on various languages.
Be that as it may, the above remarks point to the need for better
empirical arguments in favor of a uniform treatment of islands.
5. Conclusion
Let me take stock. As the above discussion makes clear, despite intensive
research for over three decades, islands remain a rich source of puzzles
touching on the very foundation of linguistic theory.
While we can say with some confidence that we have a good grasp of
the descriptive terrain to be covered, things are much less clear on the
explanatory side. Although the distinction between weak islands (minimality
islands) and strong islands (spell-out islands) has is often invoked in the
literature, island circumvention data reveal that perhaps it is mistake to
unify islands, even under two umbrellas. Island circumvention data also
suggest that some kinds of dependency are possible across most islands. If
conditions like superiority are not viewed as island effects, then we can
perhaps strengthen the statement just made and say that no island is a true
island where a true island would be a truly impenetrable domain. As
Ross suspected, all islands must be relativized to the kind of processes
available in the grammar.
Needless to say, the strength of the island circumvention data depends
on how ellipsis and resumption (as well as pied-piping and wh-in-situ) are
treated at the theoretical level. Here too, the consensus view that has
recently emerged, which treats island circumvention as repair at the interfaces
(Merchant 2001; Lasnik 2001), may not be quite right. It may be that once
the range of dependencies is suitably refined, no repair is needed at the
interfaces, since no violation was ever incurred (see Boeckx 2003 for a defense
of such a view in the domain of resumption, and Boeckx forthcoming
and Wang 2007 for an extension of it to the domain of ellipsis). One can
only hope that advances in psycholinguistics will add to the data base, and
help us decide which theoretical views are to be favored (for prime exam-
ples of how psycholinguistics may help, see Phillips 2006 and Sprouse
2007).
Looking back at the dominant analyses of islands, it is impossible not to
be struck by how conservative the field has remained ever since Chomsky
(1973) outlined one possible approach to conditions on transformations. It
may well be that the degree of restrictiveness achieved there was already
such that only a few options can be entertained, or it may be that we have
not be willing to explore too many options.
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Islands 163
The future will tell us if we have been right to hold to consensus views
for so long.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Norbert Hornstein, Dennis Ott, Terje Lohndal, Angel Gallego,
and two reviewers for comments.
Short Biography
Cedric Boeckx is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Harvard University.
He received his PhD from the University of Connecticut in 2001. He has
held visiting positions at the Universities of Illinois and Maryland. His
research interests are in theoretical syntax, comparative grammar, and
architectural questions of language, including its origins and its development
in children and its neurobiological basis. He is the author of Islands and
Chains (John Benjamins, 2003); Linguistic Minimalism (Oxford University
Press, 2006); and Understanding Minimalist Syntax (Blackwell, 2007); co-editor
with Kleanthes K. Grohmann of Multiple Wh-fronting (John Benjamins,
2003); and co-author with Howard Lasnik and Juan Uriagereka of A
Course in Minimalist Syntax (Blackwell, 2005). He has published numerous
articles in journals such as Linguistic Inquiry and Natural Language &
Linguistic Theory.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Cedric Boeckx, Department of Linguistics, Harvard University,
Boylston Hall 313, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Email: [email protected].
1
The centrality of locality is attested not only in studies in transformational grammar; it holds
throughout the theoretical syntax literature; see in particular Sag 2005 for an insightful review
of the issue of locality from the perspective of constraint-based approaches, such as Head-
Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). Islands have also played a central role in tree-adjoining
grammar models (see Frank 2002 for valuable discussion).
2
On the parallelism between bounding nodes, barriers, and phases, see Boeckx and Grohmann
(2007) and Boeckx (2007: Chapter 3). See also Gallego 2007.
3
On the development of cyclicity, see Freidin 1999 and Lasnik 2006.
4
For an extensive discussion of successive cyclicity, see Boeckx 2007.
5
For an excellent review, focusing on the development of the Empty Category Principle (ECP)
proposed in Chomsky (1981), see Hornstein and Weinberg 1995. See also Manzini 1992.
6
The external systems are very often called C-I (conceptual-intentional), and S-M (sensori-
motor), which interface with syntax via Logical Form (LF) and Phonetic Form (PF), respec-
tively. But a richer conception of the interfaces may incorporate conditions on discourse
mapping, as investigated by Erteschik-Shir (1973, 2007) (see also Goldberg 2006, from a
different theoretical perspective).
7
It is fair to say that such theories are often offered as proof-of-concept that island constraints
can be explained by processing factors. I do not know of any processing account that tackles
the richness of island data that forms the basis of competence theories.
8
This view is to be kept separate from views that take grammatical constraints like subjacency
to have a functional motivation to be found in the structure of the parser (see in particular
Berwick and Weinberg 1984; Weinberg 1988).
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164 Cedric Boeckx
9
This is, again, true not only in the transformational generative literature; see, for example,
Levine and Huraki (2006), who offers a unified treatment of islands in an HPSG framework.
10
I must stress that choosing among theoretical alternatives cannot solely be said to be an
empirical matter. The very act of deciding how to weigh the evidence cannot be executed
without theoretical assumptions. As usual, one hopes that the most adequate analysis of the data
will be compatible with the most natural assumptions.
11
Although alternative treatments, based on very rich semantic representations, exist. For a
detailed exposition, see Szabolcsi 2006 and references therein.
12
Boeckx (2003) tried to go a little bit further in this respect. He argues that chains can contain
at most strong positions, where strong position can be equated with [+wh]-checking position
or with strong agreement. (See Boeckx 2003 a for a more precise characterization; for a similar
intuition, see Richards 1997, 2001; Rizzi 2006; Rizzi and Shlonsky 2007.) As a result of this
ban on chains that are too strong, elements that normally agree (A-type agreement, or what
Chomsky 2001 calls complete -feature agreement) must fail to agree (i.e., anti-agree) in
order for them to successfully enter into a checking relation with an A-bar target (Wh-/A-bar-
feature checking).
The intuition behind Boeckxs analysis is Last Resort. Once a chain contains a strong position
(of any kind), it cannot contain another, equally strong position (of any kind).
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