The small minds' hobgoblin is not optimal:

Ties in optimality calculations lead to optionality within a single grammar

Steven Schäufele

Sat. 4-5:40 A

Prima facie, the Minimalist Approach to syntactic theory with its principles of Greed, Laziness, and Procrastination, predicts that for any given conceivable syntactic structure there is at most one best derivation and therefore at most one grammatical realization. This prediction is counterexemplified by the frequent occurrence of optional realizations in normal linguistic behaviour. In the face of such evidence, one is tempted toinvoke bidialectalism and code-switching, on the assumption that the two attested options represent two distinct grammars residing within the same brain, or at least within the same speech community.

However, the Optimality approach extended from phonological to syntactic theory in such work as Grimshaw 1993 and Legendre et al. 1993 suggests a methodologically more elegant solution to this problem. According to this approach, the logically possible competing representations of a given structure are ranked according to how well they conform to a set of (potentially incompatible) constraints within a single grammar. If two representations rank higher on this scale than all others but neither ranks higher than the other, then both are equally 'optimal' and either may be attested in actual usage. Similar results arise if it is hypothesized that certain variables in certain constraints are radically underspecified.

This paper examines evidence for syntactic optionality in several languages, showing that in each case an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of the relevant divergent options allows both to be generated by a single grammar, and that there is therefore no need for the clumsy and inelegant assumption that they represent 'code-switching' between competing grammars within a single brain or speech-community. Phenomena surveyed include the optionality of V-Agr ascent in embedded clauses with pronominal subjects in Old Swedish (cf. Falk 1994) and in negative clauses in Early Modern English (cf. Schäufele 1994). Analyses are offered of both cases in each of which both options are optimal because the relevant grammatical constraints are equally satisfiable by either. Analyses in a similar spirit are likewise offered of optional determiner-fronting in Vedic Sanskrit (cf. Schäufele 1990:192) and the optional ga/no marking of agents of embedded clauses in Japanese (cf. Harada 1971, Miyagawa 1993, etc.). In each case, the presence of optional manifestations in overt linguistic behaviour is shown to be recognizably symptomatic of ambiguities inherent in the relevant abstract syntactic structures and the constraints on their generation.

References

Falk, Cecilia. 1994. Embedded Word Order in Old Swedish and Modern Swedish. Paper read at the Third Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference, Amsterdam, 30 March 1994.

Grimshaw, Jane. 1993. Minimal Projection, Heads, & Optimality. (Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science Technical Report 4) Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science.

Harada, Shin-Ichi. 1971. Ga-no Conversion and Idiolectal Variations in Japanese. Gengo -noKenkyuu 60:25-38.

Legendre, Geraldine, William Raymond, & Paul Smolensky. 1993. An Optimality-Theoretic Typology of Case and Grammatical Voice Systems. BLS 19: 464--478.

Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1993. Case Marking, LF Movement, and ga-no conversion. In Soonja Choi, ed., Japanese/Korean Linguistics, vol. 3 (Stanford, CA: CSLI), pp. 221-235.

Schäufele, Steven. 1990. Free Word-Order Syntax: the Challenge from Vedic Sanskrit to Contemporary Formal Syntactic Theory. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Available from University Microfilms.

______. 1994. Do as I Do, Not as I Say: a Study of the History of V-Agr Merger, VP-Negation, and Do-Support in English, 1350-1750. Paper read at the Third Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference, Amsterdam, 31 March 1994.