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This article is an overview of the literature on scrambling in various languages. It discusses the typology of languages that exhibit this property, as well as different theories and findings that correspond to this phenomenon. Some critical responses to previous literature have been offered where appropriate.

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... As case-assignment entails that complements are adjacent to their head predicates (see previous section), free word order is often attributed to 'scrambling', namely the process in which complements move from their base A-positions to non-argument A'-positions (Chomsky (1986a:80), Roberts (1986:10), Webelhuth (1995:31, 64-69), Baker (2001), Karimi (2008), Neeleman and Weerman (2009:278ff), cf Kiparsky (1997)). 27 The non-adjacent KPs in section 1.2.1 can therefore be 'scrambled' thus: 28 27 Other models like LFG do not insist on a configurational representation of arguments (see footnote 22) and use 'flat' structures to account for free word order (Ledgeway (2011a(Ledgeway ( , 2012:chapters 3-4)). ...
... 'Scrambling' can therefore be attributed to morphological case (Karimi (2008, Neeleman and Weerman (2009:278-284)), as one can insert [u-KP] and movement diacritics in A'positions which attract KPs and derive multiple word orders. 30 When a language has morphological case, therefore, there are KPs which can (but do not necessarily) undergo 'scrambling', but when it does not, there are no KPs and so no 'scrambling' takes place. ...
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This paper considers the genesis of Case markers, which constitute a new functional category (K(case)) hitherto unanalysed in formal (Minimalist) analyses of grammaticalization.
... The term "scrambling" was first coined by Ross (1967) to describe languages with the appearance of relatively free word order as a result of movement. Several interpretations of scrambling have been proposed, including that it results from A'-movement, as it licenses parasitic gaps and is subject to reconstruction effects (see Karimi, 2008 for summary of arguments and additional references). As scrambling is argued to be a result of movement while resumption is not, testing for other movement-triggered phenomena such as crossover and reconstruction effects, as well as scope freezing, is necessary. ...
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Island constraints, or movement restrictions on syntactic constituents, have received considerable attention since their proposal in Ross (1967), including in second language (L2) acquisition. Native language-L2 transfer studies have shown L2 learners without wh movement in their L1s can identify island violations better than chance (e.g., Bley-Vroman et al., 1988; Li, 1998). However, the learners are far from native-like in their performance. Several options have been proposed to account for this, including that learners posit phonologically null resumptive pronouns (nRPs) to resolve long-distance dependencies. An English learner may structure the Complex NP island shown in (1a) as (1b) without incurring phonological differences. 1) a. *Which beverage did you pet [NP the cat that drank ___]? b. [Which beverage]i did you pet [NP the cat that drank proi]? This pilot study examined English L2 learners from three L1s (Italian, Palestinian Arabic, and Lebanese Arabic), each using unique resumption types. Controlling for availability of RPs and nRPs, this study hypothesized speakers possessing nRPs in their L1 accept more island violations in their L2. This study provides some evidence for transfer of resumptive pronouns through island amelioration rates, but fails to confirm the hypothesis that having nRPs results in greater acceptance rates of island violations than having overt resumptive or intrusive pronouns.
... It transpires that there are actually two forms of scrambling (A-scrambling and A′-scrambling) (Fanselow 1990, Mahajan 1990, Webelhuth 1992; see Karimi 2008 for an overview), an important discovery demonstrating that the same surface syntactic patternnamely, noncanonical word-ordercan arise from distinct grammatical processes. ...
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This chapter describes how the core principles of generative linguistics, which were outlined by Chomsky in the 1950s and 1960s, yielded a research methodology whose core features guarantee quick and fruitful syntactic research. Although generative linguistics is predominantly a syntax‐focused program, the methodology is intended for use in all linguistic subfields. The discovery that the establishment of a nonlocal dependency rests on hierarchical relations between words and phrases rather than on linear relations represents a watershed moment for generative syntax. The ubiquity of gaps in natural language has prompted extensive research into the precise status of gaps and whether all gaps have the same status. The chapter also discusses the enduring discoveries made about the hierarchical syntactic structures on which nonlocal dependencies are instantiated. It focuses on so‐called gaps or empty categories, which frequently feature as members in nonlocal dependencies.
Article
This paper presents an analysis of wh-scrambling in Persian based on gradient judgment data. The experimental approach allows a more precise and reliable analysis of syntactic phenomena, in order to highlight nuanced differences in markedness. Data on simple, complex, and multiple wh-questions as well as long NP-scrambling is presented that were collected during fieldwork in Tehran, and using a gradient acceptability judgment test. The analysis provides a view on wh-scrambling where focus properties play an important role. The nuanced yet systematic differences within the range of well-formed constructions are captured with the concept of preference constraint. Their effects cumulate (in terms of violations costs). Finally, it is shown that the notion of gradience does not blur the qualitative distinction of grammatical vs. ungrammatical. Only grammatical and marginal, though not ungrammatical constructions are sensitive to preference constraints.
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This paper explores a way of deducing the set of major typological differences between English and Japanese including the existence of obligatory syntactic wh movement, of the so-called ‘multiple subject’ structures in clauses and noun phrases, of the ‘scrambling’ phenomena, etc. It is argued that, given the relativized X-bar theory proposed in Fukui 1986, it is possible to derive many of the differences from a single fundamental difference between the two languages, i.e. the presence of agreement-inducing ’functional’ categories in the core lexicon of English and the lack of such elements in the core lexicon of Japanese. Implications of this result for the general theory of parameters in linguistic theory are also discussed. © 1988, International Heart Journal Association. All rights reserved.
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This article argues that identificational focus, which expresses exhaustive identification and occupies the specifier of a functional projection, must be distinguished in language description from information focus, which conveys new information and involves no syntactic reordering. The properties of the two types of focus are established on the basis of Hungarian and English material. It is argued that the cleft constituent is the realization of identificational focus in English. Only-phrases are analyzed as identificational foci carrying an evaluative presupposition. The feature specification of identificational focus is shown to be subject to parametric variation: the focus operators of various languages are specified for the positive value of either or both of the features [+exhaustive] and [+contrastive].*.
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Aims of this StudySpecificity and CaseSubscrambling in Turkish(Apparent?) Effects of the “Specificity Constraint”Subscrambling and Oblique CaseThe Specificity Constraint in Some Other Languages with Respect to ScramblingCED-Based Explanations: How Well are they Motivated?Subscrambling, Scrambling, and IncorporationConclusions
Chapter
The essays in this collection celebrate Ken Hale's lifelong study of underdocumented languages and their implications for universal grammar. The authors report their latest research in syntax, morphology, semantics, phonology, and phonetics. Contributors Elena Anagnostopoulou, Noam Chomsky, Michel DeGraff, Kai von Fintel, Morris Halle, James Harris, Sabine Iatridou, Roumyana Izvorski, Michael Kenstowicz, Samuel Jay Keyser, Shigeru Miyagawa, Wayne O'Neil, David Pesetsky, Hyang-Sook Sohn, Kenneth N. Stevens, Ester Torrego, Cheryl Zoll
Chapter
This collection of previously unpublished articles examines Noam Chomsky's Extended Projection Principle and its relationship to subjects and expletives (words like "it" that stand for other words). Re-examining Chomsky's proposition that each clause must have a subject, these articles represent the current state of the debate, particularly with respect to the theory's universal applicability across languages. Presenting an international and highly respected group of contributors, the volume explores these questions in a variety of languages, including Italian, Finnish, Icelandic, and Hungarian.
Chapter
Word Order and Scrambling introduces readers to recent research into the linguistic phenomenon called scrambling and is a valuable contribution to the fields of theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics. • Introduces readers to recent research into the linguistic phenomenon called scrambling, or free word order. • Explores major issues including factors responsible for word order variations, how scrambled constructions are processed, and whether variations are available in early child language development and in second language acquisition. • Discusses a number of typologically diverse languages including Hindi, Japanese, and Navajo. • Provides enlightening information on different aspects of word order variation and the consequences for our understanding of the nature of human language.
Article
This article argues that identificational focus, which expresses exhaustive identification and occupies the specifier of a functional projection, must be distinguished in language description from information focus, which conveys new information and involves no syntactic reordering. The properties of the two types of focus are established on the basis of Hungarian and English material. It is argued that the cleft constituent is the realization of identificational focus in English. Only-phrases are analyzed as identificational foci carrying an evaluative presupposition. The feature specification of identificational focus is shown to be subject to parametric variation: the focus operators of various languages are specified for the positive value of either or both of the features [ + exhaustive] and [ + contrastive].
Article
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The questions that we want to consider here have arisen in a number of different contexts in recent work on the nature and use of language. Among these are the following: (1)a. Restricting the options for transformational grammar (TG) (discussed in section 1.1 below); b. Perceptual strategies and syntactic rules (section 1.2); c. Problems of obligatory control (section 1.3); d. Properties of the complementizer system (section 1.4).
Chapter
The present collection includes papers that address a wide range of syntactic phenomena. In some, the authors discuss such major syntactic properties as clausal architecture, syntactic labels and derivation, and the nature of features and their role with respect to movement, agreement, and event-related constructions. In addition, several papers offer syntax-based discussions of aspects of acquisition, pedagogy, and neurolinguistics, addressing issues related to case marking, negation, thematic relations, and more. Several papers report on new findings relevant to less commonly investigated languages, and all provide valuable observations related to natural language syntactic properties, many of which are universal in their implications. The authors challenge several aspects of recent syntactic theory, broaden the applicable scope of others, and introduce important and provocative analyses that bear on current issues in linguistics.
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IntroductionRussian Word OrderInversionRelating A'-Scrambling to FocusConclusion
Article
The biolinguistic perspective regards the language faculty as an "organ of the body," along with other cognitive systems. Adopting it, we expect to find three factors that interact to determine (I-) languages attained: genetic endowment (the topic of Universal Grammar), experience, and principles that are language- or even organism-independent. Research has naturally focused on I-languages and UG, the problems of descriptive and explanatory adequacy. The Principles-and-Parameters approach opened the possibility for serious investigation of the third factor, and the attempt to account for properties of language in terms of general considerations of computational efficiency, eliminating some of the technology postulated as specific to language and providing more principled explanation of linguistic phenomena.
Article
In this reply, I show that Russian examples that Bailyn (2001) uses to argue against Bošković and Takahashi's (1998) analysis of scrambling are irrelevant to the analysis because they in fact do not involve scrambling. I also establish a crosslinguistic correlation between lack of articles and availability of scrambling and provide an account of the correlation under Bošković and Takahashi's approach to scrambling.
Article
L'A. critique l'approche de Z. Boskovic et D. Takahashi (1998) concernant le scrambling selon laquelle les arguments impliques sont generes par la base dans leur position de surface mais doivent subir une descente cachee a partir de leurs positions canoniques afin qu'un role theta soit assigne a la forme logique. De plus, selon ces auteurs, le scrambling constitue un phenomene unitaire d'un point de vue translinguistique. L'A. montre que des differences de scrambling entre le japonais et le coreen remettent en question ce statut unitaire
Article
English has visible wh-movement; Japanese doesn’t. Japanese scrambles and word order is free; English doesn’t scramble and has an orderly word order. The topic is prominent in Japanese; it is not in English. Japanese has double or multiple subject structures; English does not. Such are the major typological differences between English and Japanese, and some linguists entertain the idea that parametric differences concerning Deep Structure exist between English and Japanese which are responsible for these differences. It has been proposed that English is configurational while Japanese is nonconfigurational; cf: Hale (1980), Chomsky (1981), among others. Or it has been suggested that Japanese clauses are Max(V), while English ones are Max(I); for example, Chomsky in a lecture at UCSD, 1985. I would like to sketch in this paper a claim to the contrary that there is no parametric difference between English and Japanese that results in essentially different deep structure configurations. Instead, the parametric difference between English and Japanese consists simply of the following: Agreement is forced in English, it is not in Japanese. 1
Article
It has been claimed that the functional architecture of German clauses involves heads such as [Topic] that are defined by their information structure value, and that movement to the specifier position of such heads is (partially) responsible for free word order in German. This paper argues that this view is misguided. (i) There is no evidence for a syntactically defined topic position in the middle field of German clauses. (ii) The distinction between marked and unmarked serialization must also be made for structures that do not involve movement. (iii) Movement in the interest of information structure is often altruistic.
Article
This article proposes a new base generation account of free constituent order. Scrambling as movement is incompatible with central assumptions of the Minimalist Program:it cannot involve the checking of strong categorial features. Concentrating on German, the article refutes the standard empirical arguments for scrambling and shows that free constituent order is a base-generated phenomenon. The article proposes that -role assignment is a by-product of checking the formal features of arguments. When checking features are strong, word order is fixed; when checking features are weak, free constituent order arises owing to a relativized interpretation of the Minimal Link Condition.
Article
Under the standard analysis (e.g., Fukui 1993, Saito 1985, 1992), scrambling in Japanese raises a serious problem for the last resort view of Move α, since it is considered to involve optional overt movement that has no driving force. In this article we propose a new analysis of scrambling that puts scrambling in conformity with the Last Resort principle. We argue that scrambled elements are base-generated in their surface non-θ-positions and undergo obligatory LF movement to the position where they receive θ-roles, which we consider to be formal features capable of driving movement. We show that our LF analysis of scrambling is both conceptually and empirically superior to the standard optional overt movement analysis.
Article
In this article I argue against Boš;kovićć and Takahashi's (1998) analysis of scrambling as base generation (with lowering for ĀĀ -cases). I present evidence from Russian of scope and antire construction effects and scrambling/wh-movement parallels, all implicating a classical overt movement account of ĀĀ-scrambling. I then discuss theoretical issues unresolved by the base generation/lowering account. Having shown that ĀĀ -scrambling is (upward) movement, I argue that the account of A-scrambled arguments as base-generated also loses its force. In conclusion I suggest an alternative way to eliminate the apparent optionality associated with scrambling, while maintaining the classical analysis of scrambling as upward movement.
Article
In this book Liliane Haegeman presents an account of sentential negation within a Government and Binding framework. Building on the work of Klima and Lasnik, Haegeman demonstrates the parallelism between negative sentences and interrogative sentences, and gives a unified analysis in terms of a well-formedness condition on syntactic representations: the AFFECT criterion, instantiated as the WH-criterion in interrogative sentences and as the NEG-criterion in negative sentences. It is shown that in the same way that in many languages the WH-criterion gives rise to WH-movement, the NEG-criterion may also give rise to NEG-movement. This is particularly clear in the Germanic languages. In the analysis of sentential negation in Romance languages the author makes extensive use of the notion of representational chain, showing that in these languages too the NEG-criterion applies at the level of S-structure. In addition to providing a syntactic analysis of sentential negation the book also raises a number of theoretical issues such as that of the distinction between A-positions and A'-positions and the level of application of well-formedness conditions. This book will be of interest to all those working on theoretical syntax, particularly of the Germanic and Romance languages.
Article
This article proposes the following mechanism of Merge, modifying and incorporating the effect of the head parameter: K = {γ, 〈α, β〉}, where γ ε {α, β} a. γ = α: head-initial, left-headed b. γ = β: head-final, right-headed It is argued that under the parameterized version of Merge, traditional “adjunction” operations (scrambling and heavy NP shift) are characterized as substitution in the sense that they always accompany the projection of the target, whereas traditional “substitution” operations (wh-movement and NP-movement) are analyzed as genuine adjunction. It is then shown that numerous empirical consequences follow from this theory of phrase structure and movement, including (a) the nature and distribution of optional movements, (b) an elegant account of some peculiar properties of specifiers, and (c) a new unification of adjunct and subject condition effects, with a natural explanation of the parametric variation associated with the latter effect.
Chapter
IntroductionNavajo Nominals as OperatorsProblems in the Order and Syntactic Function of NPs in the Navajo ClauseConclusions
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IntroductionScrambled DefinitesThe AnalysisConclusion
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IntroductionScrambling in the Argument FieldMovement to the Operator FieldMovement to the Topic FieldConclusion: How General are Hungarian Facts?