Several people have asked me for a summary of my recent syntax paper.  After explaining the ideas to several family members, I decided the best thing would be simply to make the paper available to anyone who wants to read it.

Some of the theory won't make sense if you're not familiar with minimalist syntax, but you should still be able to follow the basic arguments.  A little more background might help:

A squib is a statement of a problem, perhaps examples of perplexing data, without an attempt at an explanation.  A squib+is my professor's term for a statement of a problem, along with some thoughts that might lead to an explanation.  That's what this paper is.

A star (*) is used to mark a sentence that is unacceptable to most native speakers in normal usage.  An example without a star is considered acceptable.  A sentence with a question mark (?) is acceptable, but a little odd to most speakers.  For instance:

	There are some strange men in the garden.
?	There's some strange men in the garden.
*	There is some strange men in the garden.

PF, or Phonetic Form, is the interface between syntax and phonology.  According to Chomskyan theory, changes take place at this level to make a sentence pronounceable.  For instance, in English, one might suggest that the auxiliary do is added at PF, as in the following.

	He bought a new car.
	What did he buy?
*	What he buy?
*	What bought he?

LF, or Logical Form, is the interface between syntax and meaning.  I won't try to elaborate further here, since it's rather difficult to explain.  Suffice it to say that changes which occur at PF are reflected in the visible form of the sentence, while changes which occur at LF are not.

The most innovative suggestion of the paper is the use of concepts from phonology to explain observations in syntax.  In particular, I suggest the use of underspecified features and default feature values.

Some languages use these much more than English.  An example in English might be the following list of words:

• inoperative
• innumerable, intolerant
• immeasurable, imperceptible
• illogical
• irrelevant

According to one interpretation, all of these words use the same prefix.  The consonant is underspecified, taking on features of the following consonant.  The word inoperative shows what happens when the prefix is followed by a vowel.  This suggests that the default form of the prefix is in-.

Please let me know if you have any questions or responses.

Written: June 2004