Journal of Language and Linguistics Volume 1 Number 1 2002 ISSN 1475 - 8989

May (1985, 1991) considered Logical Form to be the representation of the form of the logical terms, or the expressions with invariant meanings, of a language. It is then at LF that semantic rules for the interpretation of logical terms are applied. May (1991) assumed that the operations Wh-Movement and Quantifier Raising derived LF from S-structure. Such a designated level of syntactic representation was motivated by some theory-internal considerations such as the principles of the Binding Theory of the time. "Indeed, if the Binding Theory could be shown to require the particular articulation of structure found just at LF for its full application, this would constitute a sort of 'existence proof' for LF, and the devices employed in deriving it" (May, 1991: 339). The empirical support for "invisible" LF operations were sentences with quantifiers like (22) in May (1991) [2], reproduced here as (1a), with a structure satisfying Principle A ONLY AFTER the application of QR at LF (1b) so that "both the women and the men locally c-command an occurrence of each other":

Although QR generalises binding principles to sentences like (1a), it can also risk their applicability for some other sentences that are ungrammatical in terms of binding prior to the movement of the quantifier to the left-most position of the sentence at LF but fulfill the binding requirements after QR:



In (2b), Mary is outside the c-command domain of she. Then Mary can antecede she with no violation of binding requirements. The prediction proves to be empirically false. Based on similar cases, Chomsky (1981) concluded that Principle C was satisfied at S-structure; a solution that is not available in Minimalist Syntax with
S-structure dispensed with.


Chomsky (1993), however, argues that only the specifier every in the DP every director is raised at LF. It follows that (3b) will be the LF representation of (3a) after QR.



(3) shows weak crossover (WCO) effects. The quantifier every has raised to an LF position high enough to c-command and, as a result, fulfill the requirements of scope theory. Despite that, the DP every student does not take scope over the pronoun his. This can explain why the pronoun cannot be bound to the DP even after QR. It can also explain the ungrammaticality of (2a).

It follows that (4) below is ambiguous in scope NOT because everyone c-commands someone (4b), or vice versa (4c) (see May's (1977) Scope Principle) but due to LF representations with either of quantificational specifiers every or some taking scope over the other (4d-e).



Then the empirical challenge to the viability of this version of QR must come from grammatical cases, if any, in which one (the nominal element of the DP) cannot c-command a co-indexed pronoun unless the whole DP, say someone, is raised at LF.
But do such cases exist?


In each of the sentences in (5) below, the quantificational DP binds the pronoun without c-commanding it. (6) indicates how the problem in (5a) can be solved if the whole DP is raised to the left-most position of the sentence at LF. For other sentences, similar structures are conceivable.

But do we really need to raise child together with its quantifier after all? Perhaps not, if one uses another command relation instead of c-command, namely m-command, as the scope condition on binding:

(7) A binds B if the lowest maximal projection properly dominating A also properly dominates B.

In case of (5a) above, every can still raise to the left-most position of the sentence to take scope (or have only its formal features move as specified in Chomsky, 1995: chapter 4) while child remains in situ to bind the pronoun his. This is more general-isable than the raising solution as it equally applies to sentences with no quantifica-tional phrases of any sort:



Does (7) predict sentences in (9) to be grammatical, too?


Not at all. The lowest maximal projection dominating John/gangster is DP (rather than VP), which does not dominate him:

In this squib I briefly examined the status of quantifiers in the theory of syntax, and argued that adopting m-command as the scope condition (on binding in general and quantificational binding of pronouns in particular) would save some unnecessary theoretical labour at LF. The empirical question to address next is how much of LF truly remains indispensable to the theory of syntax. Meanwhile, the linguist keeps on dancing with the quantifiers!

About the Author

Ahmad Lotfi is Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at Azad University at Khorasgan (Esfahan), Iran.

Email: lotfi@www.dci.co.ir

References

Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.

Chomsky, Noam. 1993. A minimalist program for linguistic theory. In The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger, ed. Kenneth Hale and Samuel Jay Keyser, 1-52. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

May, Robert. 1977. The grammar of quantification. Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.

May, Robert. 1985. Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

May, Robert. 1991. Syntax, Semantics, and Logical Form. In The Chomskyan Turn, ed. Asa Kasher, 334-359. Oxford: Blackwell.