The Left Periphery: “Rigid” vs. “Flexible” Syntax
Keywords: Derivational Grammar, “Flexible” Syntax, Locality, Left Periphery, Cartography
Aim: I consider cases of “locality” failures (i.e., whenever intervention effects between different constituents
are not identical on the local and non-local level) in the Left Periphery of the clause, and argue on the basis
of these examples that a flexible approach to structure building operations, where syntactic projections are
considered to be emerging properties of the derivation rather than fixed elements on a hierarchical structure,
may be misguided, at least as far as the Left Periphery is concerned. As a matter of fact, the fact that locality
restrictions are fundamentally different on the local and non-local level seem to point to the existence of an
underlying template which constrains the local ordering of Left Peripheral elements, an explanation which is
hardly compatible with a pure derivational approach.
The “Derivational Turn” of the Theory of Grammar: Following the rise of the Minimalist Program
(Chomsky 1995), syntactic structures are standardly assumed to be the result of the application of the
recursive operation Merge, which combines two elements to form a new constituent. According to such an
analysis, the human language system is thus intrinsically derivational, as syntactic constituents are defined in
terms of a sequence of Merge operations. This fundamental “derivational turn” of Syntactic Theory prompts
the question of whether derivation must necessarily work towards a fixed goal, i.e., a universal, rigidlyordered sequence of functional projections (as advocated, for example, by the Cartographic tradition, see
Cinque (2002); Cinque & Rizzi (2008)), or whether it proceeds in a more local fashion, caring only about the
semantic and syntactic relations between sister nodes (as argued, among others, by proponents of Dynamic
Syntax, see Zwart(2009)). In particular, according to this latter line of analysis, which can be defined as
“flexible”, syntactic projections should not be defined in terms of fixed, absolute positions on an underlying
template of the clause, but are rather “emerging properties of the derivation” (Zwart, 2009:60): they are
created “on the go”, and only if needed by the derivation under construction, e.g. to resolve an inner context
by eliminating (i.e., moving) the offending element (Van Craenenbroek, 2006).
Locality and the Left Periphery: The superiority of a flexible analysis over a cartographic one has been
often invoked in terms of empirical grounds: Bobaljik (1999), Nilsen (2003) and Van Craenenbroeck (2006)
for instance argued that the existence of transitivity failure examples suggests that the way syntactic structure
is created is inherently flexible. Similarly, Neeleman and Van de Koot (2008) and Neeleman et al. (2009)
claimed that only a flexible theory of the grammar can account for the relatively free choice of landing site of
A-bar scrambled contrastive foci and topics in Dutch. Abels (2012) took this crusade against “rigid” syntax a
step further and argued that Rizzi’s (1997) hierarchy of the Left Periphery is an unnecessary formal device,
in that the very same sequence of functional projections independently follows from locality principles: if X
−X being any element of the Left Periphery− is a stronger island-creating element than Y −also a member of
the Left Periphery−, then Y cannot be extracted across X, neither long-distance, nor locally. The only
possible order will therefore be X>Y. According to Abels, the fact that the Left-Peripheral hierarchy follows
from more general locality principles suggests that no preinstalled template of the Left Periphery is needed to
capture word order phenomena. As no template is necessary, Abels argues that a flexible analysis of the Left
Periphery is to be preferred for economy reasons. In other words, there are no fixed positions, there are only
universal locality restrictions.
“Locality” Failures: A crucial prediction of Abels’ theory of locality is that long-distance intervention
effects mirror local ones. In other words, if a given element A locally precedes another element B, we expect
A to also precede B if one of the two elements has been moved to a higher CP, i.e., if the two elements are
no longer contained in a single C layer. This property plays a crucial in making Abels’ account preferable to
a rigid, cartographic template of the Left-Periphery à la Rizzi: Abels’ theory of locality is more general, as it
accounts for both the local and non-local interactions of Left-Peripheral elements. It is thus significantly
more predictive than Rizzi’s hierarchy, which only regulates local orders.
The problem with this generalization is that it does not seem to hold in a substantial number of cases.
Consider for example the following English example:
(1) Locally
a) *I wonder this apple to whom we should give.
*Top>Wh
b) ?I wonder to whom this apple we should give.
✓Wh>Top
Non-locally
c) This apple I wonder to whom we should give.
✓ Top>Wh
As can be seen in (1), whenever an interrogative element locally co-occurs with a fronted topic, it is
impossible for the topic to precede the wh- element (1a). If the topic is fronted to a higher CP, however, the
very same order which was ungrammatical in the local condition is now possible (1c). A similar
phenomenon can be observed with respect to the relative order of fronted foci and the interrogative
complementizer “se” (=”if”) in Italian:
(2)
Locally
a) Mi chiedo se MARIO (non MARCO) Lea ami davvero.
✓“se”>Foc
I wonder if MARIO (not MARCO) Lea loves truly
b) *Mi chiedo MARIO (non MARCO) se Lea ami davvero.
*Foc> “se”
I wonder MARIO (not MARCO) if Lea loves truly
Non-Locally
c) MARIO (non MARCO) mi chiedo se Lea ami davvero.
✓Foc> “se”
MARIO (not MARCO) I wonder if Lea loves truly
Locally, a fronted focus must necessarily follow the interrogative complementizer: the order *Foc> “se” is
thus ruled out (2b). Having the focus precede “se” is however perfectly acceptable if the two elements are no
longer in a local relation (2c). An additional example of “locality” failure can be observed in the example in
(3), also taken from Italian:
(3)
Locally
a) Credo che a Marioi Gianni glii offrirà del pesce.
✓“che”> Contrastive Top
I believe that to Marioi Gianni to-himi will serve fish
b) *Credo a Marioi che Gianni glii offrirà del pesce.
*Contrastive Top>“che”
I believe to Marioi that Gianni to-himi will serve fish
Non-Locally
c) A Marioi credo che Gianni glii offrirà del pesce
✓Contrastive Top>“che”
To Marioi I believe that Gianni to-himi will offer fish
Once again, what is impossible in the local conditions is grammatical in the non-local ones: a contrastive
topic may precede a declarative complementizer, but only if the topic resides in a different CP.
These examples suggest that there must exist some syntactic mechanism or underlying template which
restricts the relative order of left-peripheral elements on the local level, but which has no effects on their
long-distance interactions. This conclusion is however fundamentally incompatible not only with a locality
explanation of the Left-Peripheral order, but also with a flexible theory of syntax: structure building
operations in the Left Periphery seem to be guided by an underlying syntactic architecture, an explanation
not immediately available under a flexible approach to syntactic structure, at least not in its purest form.
Conclusion: A flexible account of how syntactic structure is created appears to be more palatable than a
cartographic one, because, for one, the first can do without a considerable amount of formal machinery (e.g.,
the characteristic long Cartographic sequences of functional projections). This is a desirable outcome,
especially from a Minimalistic point of view. Global considerations on the overall elegancy of a system
should however not trick us into favoring a simpler system over a more complex one, especially when
additional complexity appears to be necessary. The Left Periphery seems to be a case in point: the rigidity of
the Left-Peripheral local orders, and the fact that this rigidity is not matched on the non-local level, is
suggestive evidence in favor of the existence of an underlying Left-Peripheral template, which restrains and
constraints the possible derivations.
Selected References: Abels, K. (2012). The Italian Periphery: A View from Locality. Linguistic Inquiry 43:
229–254. Bobaljik, J. D. (1999). Adverbs: The hierarchy paradox. Glot International,4(9/10), 27-28.
Chomsky, N. (1995). Categories and transformations. The minimalist program, 219 394.Cinque, G. (Ed.).
(2002). Functional structure in DP and IP (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press. Cinque, G., & Rizzi, L.
(2008). The cartography of syntactic structures. Studies in linguistics 2,42-58. Neeleman, A., & van de
Koot, H. (2008). Dutch Scrambling and the Nature of Discourse Templates. The Journal of Comparative
Germanic Linguistics 11(2), 137-189. Neeleman, A., Titov, E., van de Koot, H., & Vermeulen, R. (2009).
A syntactic typology of topic, focus and contrast. Alternatives to cartography, 100, 15. Nilsen, Ø. (2003).
Eliminating positions. The syntax and semantics of sentence modification. Doctoral dissertation, Utrecht
University/LOT Publication series. Rizzi, L. (1997). The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. Elements of
Grammar: Handbook in Generative Syntax, 281-337. Van Craenenbroeck, J. (2006). Transitivity failures
in the left periphery and foot-driven movement operations. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 23(1), 52-64.
Zwart, J. W. (2009). Uncharted territory. Towards a Non-Cartographic Account of Germanic Syntax, 2009,
59-84.