Verb Movement

摘要在一大类语言中，有一些句子中的动词出现在非典范位置。这些现象最近从动词移动的角度进行了分析，这一过程提出了独特的经验性和理论性问题。中心语(如动词)的运动表现出不同于短语范畴的运动特性，而短语范畴的运动特性自生成语法诞生以来一直是句法研究的一个主要焦点。动词的移动完全是局部的，并且在不同的语言中表现出显著的差异。核心的经验性问题是动词移位过程是否表现出跨构式和跨语言的单一独特的语法操作。核心的理论问题是，观察到的局部性和变异性是否可以归结为支配短语范畴行为的原则。这项研究的核心是三个想法。首先，有两种类型的动词移动过程：一种是将动词移动到助动词位置，另一种是将动词移动到现在位置。其次，这些运动留下的痕迹受制于在音系学中运作的首级政府条件，并可能以逻辑形式受到约束条件的影响。第三个想法是，经典的运动概念应该根据多重表征之间的关联性来重新解释。这涉及到根据“离域”范畴来概括派生的概念。这些中心思想可以通过许多不同的方式正式实现。正确的表述将取决于对新兴理论进行参数化的需要，以便它适当地适应观察到的变化。参数化必须对语言之间的同步变化和给定语言的各个阶段之间的历时关系作出响应。关于罗曼语和日耳曼语之间的差异以及英语和法语历史的大量工作有力地表明，差异集中在反映少量潜在参数的可识别的子组中。该项目侧重于当代语言学理论中的一系列相关中心问题。研究人员将考察几种不同的语言，并试图开发和完善一种理论语法模型，以彻底而简约的方式解释它们之间的差异。该项目的成功成果将大大促进我们对语言的根本性质的理解，从而也将对人类思维的理解产生重大进展。

ABSTRACT In a large class of languages there are sentences in which verbs appear in non-canonical positions. These phenomena have recently been analyzed in terms of verb movement, a process that raises unique empriical and theoretical questions. The movement of heads (such as verbs) displays very special properties which differ from the movement properties of phrasal categories, which have been a major focus of syntactic research from the inception of generative grammar. The movement of verbs is strictly local and displays significant variation from language to language. The central empirical question is whether verb movement processes manifest a single unique grammatical operation across construc- tions and across languages. The central theoretical issue is whether the observed locality and variation can be reduced to the principles governing the behavior of phrasal categories. Three ideas lie at the center of the research. First, there are two types of verb movement processes: one moves the verb to an auxiliary position, the other moves it to a presentential position. Second, these movements leave behind traces which are subject to a head government condition which operates in the phonology and, possibly, to the Binding Conditions in Logical Form. The third idea is that the classical notion of movement should be reinterpreted in terms of relatedness among multiple representations. This involves generalizing the notion of derivation in terms of the concept "delocalized" category. These central ideas can be formally realized in many different ways. The correct formulation will be shaped by the need to parameterize the emerging theory so that it accommodates the observed variations appropriately. The parameterization must be responsive to both synchronic variation among languages and diachronic relationships among stages of a given language. Extensive work on variation among the Romance and Germanic languages and on the history of English and French strongly suggests that differences cluster in identifiable subgroups which reflect a small number of underlying parameters. The project focuses on a related set of central issues in contemporary linguistic theory. The investigators will examine a number of different languages and attempt to develop and refine a theoretical model of grammar which can account for the variations among them in a thorough and parsimonious way. A successful outcome of the project would provide a significant advance in our understanding of the underlying nature of language, and hence of the human mind.