Configurational and Linearization-based Approaches to Negative Inversion

It has been suggested in mainstream syntactic frameworks such as Minimalism and Principles-and-Parameters theory that the only information contained in tree diagrams is that of constituent structure, and not of linear order since the latter can be predicted from constituent structure (e.g., Kayne 1994). An important consequence of this view is that all syntactic operations must be sensitive to hierarchical structure, and cannot refer to word order. The standard framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG; Pollard and Sag 1994), following GPSG (Gazdar et al. 1985), has separate immediate dominance (ID) and linear precedence (LP) constraints. Linear order is a property of phonology (represented as a value of PHONOLOGY attribute), but it is closely related to constituent structure: the phonology of a set of sisters cannot be separated by the phonology of a non-sister. Let us call this type of view on linear order ‘configurational’. On the other hand, recent years have seen an emergence of a view that linear order is to a considerable extent independent from constituency. Such an idea is most clearly manifested in a version of HPSG, so-called linearization HPSG. In this framework, a linear sequence is analyzed in terms of a level of ‘order domains’, which is an ordered list of elements that often come from several local trees (see, e.g., Pollard et al. 1993; Reape 1994; and Kathol 2000, 2001). An important consequence of this approach is that syntactic constraints can be sensitive to linear order, not only to hierarchical structure; thus, it is possible to give a ‘linearization-based’ approach to certain syntactic phenomena. With these two conceptions of linear organization in hand, it is important to consider what sort of analyses each approach can provide for various constructions. In this paper we will look at one specific construction, the negative inversion (NI) construction. The sentences in (1) are typical examples.