Syntactic Structure without Projection Labels
Miyoko Yasui
Dokkyo University
myasui@dokkyo.ac.jp
1.

February, 2004

Projection Labels in Bare Phrase Structure

It has been taken for granted that the structure formed of lexical items needs to be
represented by a label that has no phonetic content such as NP and V'. This is truealso in the bare phrase structure theory proposed in Chomsky (1994) and pursued insubsequent work, where projection labels are eliminated by the use of lexical items;
lexical items used as labels are not pronounced at all. There are at least two
advantages of using a projection label in representing a syntactic structure: (i) it
expresses constituency, and (ii) linear order is derivable by a simple algorithm.

(i) isstraightforward. The algorithm mentioned in (ii) is to ignore all projection labels andpronounce only terminal nodes from left to right. An exception is Kayne's (1994)
ingenious attempt to deduce linear order from the configurational properties of asentence; still, it crucially depends on non-terminal nodes that lack phonetic values.
It is desirable to eliminate projection labels if (i) and (ii) are maintained.
I will concentrate on (i), setting aside (ii) for a while. According to the standard
conception of syntactic structure, merging lexical items, α and β, is represented by thetree in (1), with no order assumed.
(1)

γ
α

β

The new node γ is introduced along with two directed edges connecting it with α andβ. α and β are pronounced but γ has no phonetic value. If γ is the same type as α, α is1the head of the structure labeled as γ, and α selects or agrees with β. The syntactic
relation is reversed if γ is the same type as β. The two cases can be distinguishedwithout γ, as in (2a,b).
(2) a.

α

b.

β

β
α

α selects or agrees with β in (2a) and vice versa in (2b). Compare (1) and (2a,b)graph-theoretically. A graph, denoted G=(V, E), consists of a set of nodes V and a setof ordered pairs of nodes E.

The definition of (1) is more complex than those of(2a,b), which are given below:(3) (1):G1=(V1, E1) V1= {α, β, γ}. E1 ={<γ, α>, <γ, β>}γ={α, {α, β}} or γ={β, {α, β}}(2a):G2=(V2, E2) V2={α, β}E2={<α, β>}(2b):G3=(V3, E3) V3={α, β}E3= {<β, α>}(1) and (2a,b) differ in their representations of headedness. In (1), a non-terminal
node γ is added to the node set V1, two ordered pairs <γ,α> and <γ,β> constitute theedge set E1. In (2a,b), on the other hand, the node sets V2 and V3 are minimal,
containing just α and β, and either of the two possible ordered pairs <α, β> and<β, α> constitutes the edge set. Note that <α, β> is generally defined as{{α}, {α, β}}, and it looks very close to Chomsky's (1995:244-245) definition of theobject formed from α and β of the type α: {α, {α, β}}. For expository convenience,
Chomsky continues to employ the graphical representation of the form (1) for theobject {α, {α, β}}, acknowledging that (1) is more complex than is absolutely
necessary.

If {{α}, {α, β}} is adopted instead of {α, {α, β}} as the definition of theobject formed from α and β , the discrepancy between the formal definition and its
2

graphical representation will disappear, which seems to be a desired result.
Structural representations built as in (2a,b) will be referred to as lexical graphs.

2.

Constituency, C-command and Other Syntactic Relations

Lexical graphs can capture constituency and other important syntactic relations expressed in standard tree representations. Take (4) for example. Its traditional andminimalist representations are (5a,b), while its lexical graph is (5c).
(4) It will be raining.
(5) a.

IP

DP

b.
I'

D

Infl

it

will

will*
it

VP

c.

will*
will

V

VP

be

V

will
it

be*
be

be
rainingrainingraining
The non-branching nodes in (5a) are eliminated in (5b), and the remaining projection
nodes are represented by lexical items as labels, which are asterisked to distinguishthem from those that have phonetic content. The node be* expresses important syntactic relations: be and raining are sisters; they form a constituent; and the constituent
they form is the same type as be rather than raining. The lower will* has analogous
functions. The upper will* captures the fact that it forms a larger structure with theconstituent that is of the same type as will, and that the resultant structure is also thesame type as will. The asterisked nodes are removed in (5c), where the relations of
selection and agreement as well as the headedness are represented by directed edges.

3

The four nodes in (5c) correspond to the four minimal projections in (5b). The
upper will* and be* in (5b) correspond to the subgraphs rooted by will and be in (5c),respectively.

More generally, a constituent of the type α can be defined as α itself ora subgraph that consists of all the nodes α dominates. One constituent that falls out of
this definition is the lower will* in (5b), which corresponds to the intermediate projection I' in (5a). This is a welcome result, since an intermediate projection is syntactically and semantically invisible as Chomsky (1994:10) claims.
Head-movement, which is strictly local, affects two nodes connected by a single
edge.

In a lexical graph, the subject is adjacent to the Infl just like the object is adja-

cent to the verb. Assuming the standard tree representation like (5a), Kayne(1984:chapter 10) and Haegeman (1994:585) argue that cliticization of the object tothe verb is upward and syntactic, but cliticization of the subject to the Infl is downward due to the intermediate node I' and hence must be analyzed as a PF-operation.
If a lexical graph is adopted, this conclusion can be circumvented since the problematic intermediate node I' is absent, as discussed above.
The configuration of a lexical graph alone does not distinguish a specifier froma complement.

If syntactic structure is built first by satisfying selectional require-ments, followed by agreement or formal feature checking, a specifier and a complement can be distinguished based on their derivational histories. Alternatively, a
specifier, if it is not an expletive, results from Move or internal Merge; it is connectedto the category selecting it and also to the one inducing agreement with it. I willassume that a specifier can be identified by its derivational history or its double-connectedness in a lexical graph.

4

Next, consider how c-command can be defined in a lexical graph. (6) shows atypical contrast in reflexive binding, and its bare phrase structure and lexical graph are(7a,b), respectively.
(6)

The mother of the boy talked about herself/*himself.

(7) a.

[past]*

b.

the*
the

mother*[past][past]*

thetalk[past]

motherabout
herself/himself

talk*motherof*

talkabout*

of

of

the*

about

herself/himself

the

the

boy

boy

In (7a), the upper the* is immediately dominated by the root, which dominates thereflexive, but the lower the* is immediately dominated by of*, which does not dominate the reflexive. Applying the same definition of c-command to (7b) can accountfor the contrast; the upper the c-commands the object but the lower the does not.
Note that in the subject of (7a), the upper the c-commands of, the lower the and boy,
while it is not the case in (7b).

Long-distance binding, which hold between phrases,

is attested in many languages, but heads are not known to be related non-locally.
This supports the present theory; a head fails to c-command distant heads within its
complement.

3.

Some Problems Caused by Projection Labels

Earlier theories assumed syntactic structure to be built up in a top-down manner by
rewriting rules, followed by lexical insertion. A bottom-up structure building is
adopted in the bare phrase structure theory.

5

Phillips (2003) proposes an incremental

structure building, which is a kind of top-down system. The presence of these conflicting proposals on the order of structure building might suggest that the selectional/agreement requirements of lexical items can be satisfied in any order. Thisconclusion is acceptable to the approach sketched above but would be problematic ifconstituency is expressed by projection nodes.
Going back to (4), the four lexical items are originally unconnected. A connected graph is formed by establishing an edge between those in a selection or agreement relation. For example, be is connected to will, which selects a bare verbal form,
raining is connected to be, which selects a progressive verbal form, and the expletive
it is finally connected to will, which agrees with a nominative DP. This order would
cause a violation of cyclicity in the traditional and bare phrase structure theory, as
illustrated below:(8) a.

will*
will

b.
be

will*
will

be*
be

raining(8a) is not problematic at all, but adding raining results in replacing be in (8a) with thegraph rooted by be* in (8b). To avoid this, Frampton and Gutmann (1999, 2000)
propose that a syntactic derivation should start by introducing a lexical item that selects nothing first; raining in the case of (4). This stipulation is not necessary in theformation of lexical graphs.1
Phillips' incremental theory allows a constituent at one stage of the syntactic
derivation to become a non-constituent later, and it is intended to resolve the contrast
in (9a,b) among others.
(9) a.

Mary said she would congratulate every boy, and congratulate every boy she

6did at his graduation.
b. *Mary congratulated every boy at his graduation, and Sue did at his 21stbirthday.
If the string congratulate every boy is a constituent and did can be interpreted as its
copy in (9a,b), binding of his by every boy should be equally possible or impossible;
the fact is that it is possible only in the partial VP fronting case in (9a). The string
congratulate every boy in the clause-initial position of the second conjunct of (9a) isanalyzed as (10a), which is clearly a constituent.
(10) a.

VP
V

b.
DP

congratulate every boy

VP
V

VP

congratulate DPV'every boy V

PP

congratulate at his graduation
Adding the PP modifier will destroy its constituency, as shown in (10b), where a shellstructure is created by copying the verb and combining it with the PP adjunct in acounter-cyclic fashion.

(9a) is acceptable since congratulate every boy is a constitu-

ent of the form (10a) at the point where it is copied. Adding the PP adjunct subsequently as in (10b) destroys the constituency, but it is not problematic at all. On theother hand, when did in the second conjunct of (9b) looks for a VP constituent as its
antecedent, the string congratulate(d) every boy in the first conjunct has already become a non-constituent as described in (10b); hence, it cannot be copied.
Phillips acknowledges that congratulate every boy at his graduation can also be
analyzed as the left-branching structure in (11), which is presumably more widelyassumed than the right-branching structure in (10b).

7

(11)

VP
V'

PP

V

DP

at his graduation

congratulate every boy
Congratulate every boy is a constituent in (11), and nothing should prevent it frombeing an antecedent of did.

Phillips attributes the failure of every boy in (11) to bindhis to the node V'; the object may not bind into the adjunct PP.

Note that the strict c-command relation holds between the object and his in the right-branching structure in(10b).

In brief, Phillips argues that (9b) is unacceptable because congratulate every

boy is a non-constituent in (10b) and every boy may not bind his in (11).
The above account crucially depends on the formation of (12) for (9a).
(12)

IP
VP

IP

V

DP

congratulate every boy

DP

Infl

she

did

(12) is assumed to be built incrementally from left to right. The first three steps in(13a-c) are unproblematic.
(13) a.

V
congratulate

b.

VP
V

c.
D

VP
V

congratulate everyDPcongratulate D
every

N
boy

The label of the structure formed at each step is decided by one of its inputs: the verb
congratulate. The top projection label of (12) also reflects the category of did.
What is problematic is the step between (13c) and (12), which should look like (14).

8

(14)

?
VP
V

DP
DP

she

congratulate D

N

every

boy

At the point where the subject is added, the whole structure should be labeled presumably as IP, but none of the inputs belongs to the category INFL. This kind of
categorial indeterminacy would arise more extensively if the incremental theory isextended to head-final languages; an INFL-bearing item appears only after arguments
and adjuncts are incrementally introduced.

4.

PF-interpretation of Lexical Graphs

To account for (9a,b) based on the theory advocated so far, it is necessary to offer
algorithms to deduce PF-interpretations from lexical graphs. I argued in Yasui (2003)
that SVO and SOV orders can be derived from properly modified versions of depthpriority tree traversal algorithms, and I formalized them in the programming language
C in Yasui (2004).

I will present the basic ideas here.

A depth-priority traversal starts from the root; it goes as deep as possible until
reaching some leaf node, giving priority at a branching node to some of its child nodes,
typically the leftmost one; it comes back to the branching node and traverses the otherchildren nodes if any; the remaining nodes are traversed recursively in the same manner. A tree is traversed in the same way, but its nodes are pronounced in different
orders. The pronunciation conditions for inorder and postorder traversals to be
adopted here are (15a,b).

9

(15) a.

Inorder (SVO): Pronounce a given node when it does not immediately
dominate a unpronounced specifier node.

b.

Postorder (SOV): Pronounce a given node when it does not immediately
dominate unpronounced nodes.

(15a,b) presuppose that a specifier is distinguishable in a lexical graph, which, I acknowledge, is a non-trivial issue.

(15a) says that a head is pronounced after its speci-

fier and before its complement, while (15b) says that a head is pronounced after bothof them. The binary-branching tree in (16) will illustrate how (15a,b) work.
(16)

0
1
3

2
4

5

6

The left and right child of each node are its specifier and complement. Traversing (16)according to (15a,b) results in (17a,b), where each node is pronounced in theunderlined position.
[Ed./Comp.: From here to the end of the text, underlining should be set as underlining](17) a.

0-1-3 -1-4-1-0-2-5-2-6-2-0

b.

0 -1-3-1-4-1-0-2-5-2-6-2-0

I will not go further into (15b) here.
Traversing (5c) and (7b) in accordance with (15a) produces the sequences oftraversed nodes in (18a,b), respectively.
(18) a.
b.

will-it-will-be-raining[past]-the-mother-of-the-boy-the-of-mother-the-[past]-talk- about-herself

If the predicate-internal subject analysis is taken, there should be one more directededge from talk to the upper the in (7b).

Pronouncing the subject twice can be10

avoided by applying (15a) only to unpronounced nodes.
Going back to (9a,b), I will adopt the left-branching structure (11) equally for(9a,b) to account for the fact that the fronted or elided part can be V' or the whole VP.
I will also assume that VP-fronting is triggered by a functional category, call it [F], ona par with [WH] assumed for wh-movement. The lexical graph analysis of thesecond conjunct of (9a) under these assumptions is (20a), and that of (19a,b) is (20b).
(19) a.

(I wonder) on which occasion she congratulated the boy.

b.

(I wonder) which occasion she congratulated the boy on.

(20) a.

[F]

b.

[WH]

did
she

[past]
congratulateshecongratulate at
every
boy

congratulatecongratulate on

his
graduation

the

which

boy

occasion

Intuitively, [WH] searches downward for a constituent with a wh-feature. In (20b), it
picks up the subgraph headed by on (PP) or by which (DP).2 Traversing (20b) according to (15a), thus, gives the two sequences of traversed nodes in (21a,b).
(21) a.

[WH]-on-which-occasion-which-on-[WH]-[past]-she-[past]-congratulatecongratulate -the - boy ==> (19a)b.

[WH]-which-occasion-which -[WH]-[past]-she-[past]-congratulatecongratulate-the- boy -the-congratulate-congratulate-on ==> (19b)

Analogously, (19a) has the PF-interpretation in (22) in addition to (9a).
(22)

Congratulate every boy at his graduation she did.

[F] in (20a) looks for a VP with some emphatic feature relevant to it; and the constitu-

11ent in question can be the subgraph headed by the upper instance of congratulate, or
the one headed by the lower instance. Inorder traversal of (20a) yields (23a,b).
(23) a.

[F]-congratulate-every-boy-every-congratulate-[F]-did-she-did-congratulateat-his- graduation ==> (9a)b.

[F] -congratulate-congratulate-every-boy-every-congratulate-congratulateat-his- graduation - his - at - congratulate - [F] - did - she - did ==> (22)Congratulate is underlined twice in (21) and (23); I assume that only the first instancehas phonetic effect.
As for binding of his by every boy in (20a), I will adopt m-command instead ofstrict c-command: the two instances of congratulate are regarded as constituting one
branching node. This implies that his binds every boy in (9b).

Moreover, it should

not be problematic to copy congratulate every boy, which is a constituent, into its
second conjunct. I will assume the second conjunct of (9b) to be analyzed as (24a):(24) a.

did
Sue

b.

did

at

Sue congratulate

at

his

every

his

21st

boy

21st

birthdaybirthday(24a) is pronounced according to (15a): did-Sue-did-at-his-21st-birthday. At someinterpretive level, congratulate every boy is copied into the second conjunct as in(24b). Every in (24b) is immediately dominated by congratulate, which does not
dominate his; hence the failure of every boy to bind his.
I have outlined a theory of syntactic structure without projection labels andapplied it to the contrast in (9a,b). Other consequences of the present theory are12presented in Yasui (2003, 2004), especially on word order flexibility attested inJapanese and other head-final languages.

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(http://kasiwagi.dokkyo.ac.jp/~myasui/general/profile/publications/traversal.pdf)
1

If a specifier is identified by its derivational history, as mentioned in Section 2,

selectional requirements must be satisfied before agreement requirements.
2

I assume the wh-feature of which can be percolated up to on in (19a).

14