Person:

Huang, C-T

Collins (Syntax 8:81–120, 2005) proposes a smuggling approach to English passives that solves some problems associated with the traditional analysis. This article will show that while English passives involve smuggling, Mandarin passives do not; we offer an explanation for this difference. We first provide evidence that Mandarin passives can have not only control structures (as previously assumed) but also the possibility of a raising derivation involving A-movement, thus ruling out control as the sole reason for the absence of smuggling. We then attribute the absence of smuggling in Mandarin to the existence of vP-internal movement, which implies that Chinese allows multiple Specs of vP while English does not. This analysis helps tie together a number of otherwise unrelated differences between these languages (vP-internal movement, quantifier float, and constituency). We see the results as falling within the basic tenets of the theory of UG: While UTAH and Minimality are presumably universal requirements, individual grammars may employ different strategies to satisfy them.

The Principles-and-Parameters Theory marked an important milestone in formal linguistic theoryby offering a plausible solution to the logical problem of language acquisition, leading to a productive field of inquiry that uncovered important universal properties and macro-patterns of parametric variation among an unprecedented number of languages. Recent advances in parametric theory have capitalized on microparametric variation, raising certain questions about the status of macro-parameters. In this chapter, developing recent work and using the facts of Chinese as a paradigm case, we show that (a) both macro- and microparameters are needed in linguistic theory, (b) macroparameters are simply aggregates of microparameters acting in concert with a conservative learning strategy, and (c) the (micro)parameters themselves are hierarchically organized. Assuming a ‘three factors’ model, we take parameters to be emergent properties that result from the interaction of a radically unspecified UG, experience, and third-factor principles like Feature Economy and Input Generalization.