#Xbar theory series#

Much of this theoretical apparatus has recently been abandoned in the version of the Minimalist Program outlined in Chomsky 1995, which revives generalized transformations and develops a ГўВЂВГўВЂВbareГўВЂВ™ГўВЂВ™ X-bar theory. BARE X-BAR THEORY AND STRUCTURES FORMED BY MOVEMENT Jairo Nunes Universidade Estadual de Campinas Within the principles-and-parameters framework, the categorial type of structures formed by movement and the matching of phrasal status between moved elements and targets of movement have traditionally been determined by primitives of X-bar theory combined with some version of EmondsГўВЂВ™s (1976) Structure Preservation Hypothesis. Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. It embodies two independent claims: one, that phrases may contain intermediate constituents projected from a head X and two, that this system of projected constituency may be common to more than one category (e.g., N, V, A, P, etc.). In Principles and parameters in comparative grammar, ed. X-bar theory is a theory of syntactic category formation. Assuming this approach, questions arise about how the label of a bare phrase structure formed by movement can be determined and how the effects of the Structure Preservation Hypothesis can be derived.

In Principles and parameters in comparative grammar, ed. This last N-bar then forms an NP along with the determiner the, which acts as a specifer.Bare X-Bar Theory and Structures Formed by Movement Bare X-Bar Theory and Structures Formed by Movement The head is the noun student, which forms an N-bar with the complement of linguistics, and the N-bar student of linguistics then forms an N-bar with the adjunct at the university. The syntactic structure of the noun phrase The student of linguistics at the university is almost exactly parallel. Finally, a VP (verb phrase) is formed from the specifier NP he and the V-bar studies linguistics at the university. The V-bar studies linguistics then forms another V-bar with the adjunct at the university.

The head of the VP is the verb studies which forms a V-bar with the complement linguistics. We can see the syntactic structure of the verb phrase He studies linguistics at the university.

X-bar -> X, (complement.) An X-bar consists of an X and any number of complements, in either order.

(X-bar -> X-bar, adjunct) An X-bar may consist of an X-bar and an adjunct, in either order.

XP -> (spec), X-bar An X Phrase consists of an optional specifier and an X-bar, in either order.

#Xbar theory series#

These rules can be formalized as follows: NOTE: what follows is done in the bare phrase structure format (which replaces the X-bar format) First, a process called numeration selects a series of lexical items, e.g.,: the, river, people, watch. In this way, complements are distinguished from adjuncts by the fact that a complement has an X as a sister, whereas an adjunct has X-bar as a sister.

Finally, an X-bar is said to combined with a specifer to form the top level of the phrase, the X Phrase (or XP). An X is said to combine with a complement to form an X-bar, and an adjunct is said to combine with an X-bar to form another X-bar. X-bar theory adds an additional levels of hierarchy to more traditional phrase structure rules using the phrasal constituent called an X-bar. The letter X is used to signify an arbitrary lexical category, the head of the phrase (instead of, for example, N for noun or V for verb) in order to keep the description of the rules general. The theory claims that there are certain structural similarities among all phrasal categories of all languages. X-bar theory is a linguistic theory which attempts to identify syntactic features common to all languages.