PERMISSIVE SUBORDINATION: A LANGUAGE-PARTICULAR GRAMMATICAL OPTION
PERMISSIVE SUBORDINATION: A LANGUAGE-PARTICULAR GRAMMATICAL OPTION

Summary/Abstract: Permissive Subordination: A Language-particular Grammatical Option. Current generative syntax says little about language-particular grammars, though it vaguely endorses ‘Borer’s Conjecture,’ that they consist of ‘granmmatical lexicons,’ i.e. lexical entries for morphemes whose only features play a role in syntax (i.e., ‘closed class’ morphemes). However, little research has focused on formal properties of these entries. Nonetheless, Emonds (2001) indicates that these items, unlike open class items, can give rise to ‘flat structures,’ whereby a grammatical item and its complement, e.g. a French causative verb and its V complement, can be daughters of the same VP. This essay defines a formal property of such structures, ‘Permissive Subordination,’ and shows that instances analyzed until now conform to the Conjecture. The essay then moves on to English ‘Preposition Stranding’ and Phrasal Verbs, showing that they also exemplify Permissive Subordination: they consist of Ps that don’t project to PPs. But then Borer’s Conjecture must be modified; the Stranding property characterizes all English selected grammatical Ps, and hence it is not a property of their lexical entries but of the English grammatical Ps taken as a grammatical class.

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