Talk:Crossover effects

Stong crossover example sentence

Since love is a transitive verb, the example sentence should be

(3) * Who_i does he_i love her?

shouldn't it? Cnilep (talk) 18:39, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Per the Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, the words who and he are co-indexical with a trace in object position. I've added it to both the Strong and Weak examples, though I'm afraid that they are now quite opaque to readers without a background in linguistics. Cnilep (talk) 16:56, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Recent additions

The recent edits to this article are problematic. They are taking too much for granted and are hence making the content of the article less accessible to the average Wikipedia reader. For instance, the DP analysis of nominal groups is specific to one approach to syntax; the NP analysis has a stronger tradition that reaches much further back. Citing articles in Linguistic Inquiry about crossover in a little known and studied language, i.e. Yoruba, goes too much into detail. Such statements do not belong in the introduction, but rather potentially in a subsection just about crossover in Yoruba. Notions such as A-movement are again specific and therefore belong in a potential section that addresses crossover in GB or MP syntax. Please respond to my concerns here before continuing. If there is no response here, I will remove the additions. --Tjo3ya (talk) 03:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Your feedback is much appreciated and understood. I am a 4th year student in Linguistics editing this page as a research project for a syntax class - I was unaware that the DP analysis was anything other than standard as this is what I have learned this term. With respect to Yoruba, I have no complaints about moving that elsewhere in the article or removing it entirely. I added it mainly to clarify the point that was there previously that English-like CO during wh-raising may be universal. Similarly to my first point, I was not trying to be positional by discussing A-movement; I do not know alternative theories. Thank you for your feedback and please advise changes I should make. JRRobins (talk) 20:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello JRRobins. Thank you for responding in an open way. The DP-analysis is standard in mainstream Chomskyan syntax, but outside thereof, it is not widely accepted. For instance, most work in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Dependency Grammar, Construction Grammar and in school grammar more generally assumes NPs instead of DPs. The fact that your instructor did not talk about this points to a lack of circumspection on his or her part. He or she probably lacks exposure to other approaches to syntax, and so your exposure to the field is also limited.

Your own truthful statements, which I very much appreciate, point to a problem with what you are attempting to do. You lack exposure to the broader field of syntax and therefore your contribution to this article will be too narrow. In this regard, I want to draw your attention to what I wrote on the talk page for the article "Constituent (Linguistics)" here (see bottom of page). I repeat those statements here. It may be that some of your fellow students are attempting to work on that article, they are therefore now experiencing similar concerns coming from me:

What you are doing in general is problematic, though, so regardless of your efforts, I am going to be highly skeptical of the value or your work. You are students of linguistics, perhaps with only a few months, or perhaps just a year or two, of linguistics studies under your belt. You are anonymous; you are not self-identifying by establishing user pages, but rather you use aliases (i.e. Syntactician1, Syntactician2, etc.). Your edits therefore are easy to discount. The biggest problem, though, is that you are under pressure because your grade depends on your work in Wikipedia. The result of that pressure is poor quality. I have some empathy for your position insofar as the main problem here lies with your instructor. That person should not be assigning/allowing Wikipedia work for a grade! Please pass this message on to him or her.

My suggestion to all of you students who are currently attempting to edit Wikipedia articles on syntax is that ask your instructor if you can write term papers instead. You could produce the narrow accounts of the phenomena in such a manner that will nicely adhere to the limited approach to syntax you've learned in the one class you've now taken. Concerning this article, I will continue to scrutinize additions and will likely go in to remove or correct content that I view as problematic. --Tjo3ya (talk) 03:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Tjo3ya, I am also working with JRRobins on developing this Wikipedia page as part of the project. I think that with our current timescale, (our term ends on April 22nd ) it won't be feasible for us to write a term paper instead of the Wikipedia project. One of our tasks with respect to the Wikipedia project is to ensure that the information is broad enough to be accessible to users and so your criticisms are much appreciated. We will continue to make edits on the page and hopefully this content will be less problematic taking your suggestions. I am creating a new heading in the talk page to post changes I am looking to make to the Weak Crossover section. In particular I think that the paragraph beginning with "For some reason that has to do with binding possibilities..." can be developed to include discussion of the possible analyses of which result in the co-reference judgments of Weak Crossover. Chris.lampl (talk) 17:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Tjo3ya, I have read the talk page on the linked article and I understand your concerns. As Chris.lampl mentioned above, we are quickly approaching the end of term and most likely will not be able to arrange an alternative project at this time. One of the goals of our project is to expand the article enough to raise it from Stub class to Start class - as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), we must add depth to the article to achieve this. As such, we will continue to propose expansions to the article based on our research. I understand that our limited experience puts us in a difficult position to provide insightful content and I would like to suggest edits on this talk page openly in order to improve clarity. JRRobins (talk) 20:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Chris and JR, Thanks for your informative messages. Please, please convey to your instructor my concerns about what he or she is doing. The power of the grade is a corrupting influence on Wikipedia content. I will withdraw for two days due to your deadline out of respect for the openness with which you have corresponded here. On the 23rd, I'll be back to clean up what I find, which will likely involve removing much of your work. --Tjo3ya (talk) 01:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Weak Crossover

Crossover is "weak" when the coreferential reading is marginal, that is, when the coreferential reading is not clearly unacceptable, but rather just quite unlikely. Typical cases of weak crossover occur when the expression that has been "crossed over" is a possessor inside a noun phrase, e.g.

a. ?Which players₁ does their₁ coach distrust __₁? – Weak crossover, indicated reading possible, but unlikely

b. ?Which beer₁ does its₁ brewer never advertise __₁? – Weak crossover, indicated reading possible, but unlikely

c. ?Who₁ do her₁ parents worship __₁? – Weak crossover, indicated reading possible, but unlikely

The pronoun that has been crossed over in each of these examples is embedded inside a noun phrase. Such cases of crossover are not impossible, but rather just unlikely. Koopman & Sportiche (1983) attribute the judgements on coreference with respect to weak crossover to the Bijection Principle: “There is a bijective correspondence between variables and A-positions. (That is, each operator must A-bind exactly one variable, and each variable must be A-bound by exactly one operator.)” In the examples above, neither the trace (T), represented by the gap, nor the pronoun (P) binds the other as the pronoun is contained within a noun phrase. Therefore, the operator locally binds both T and P, meaning that it binds two variables and violates the Bijection Principle. However, weak crossover effects are absent when the pronoun is contained within an adjunct phrase, for example:

a.) Who₁ did you say __₁ was a liar before you met him₁? - Weak crossover absent, coreferential reading possible

Based on this observation, Stowell proposes the following analysis of weak crossover: “In a configuration where a quantifier Q locally binds a pronoun P and a trace T, P may not be contained in an argument phrase XP that c-commands T.” Chris.lampl (talk) 18:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Mechanism Section?

I can see now that the previously added Mechanism section was contradictory. I do think that having a section providing some level of detail on how crossover effects occur before providing examples may be helpful, however. Would we be open to reworking and adding such a section, with broader strokes? The information I have on this come from the Postal 1993 and Ruys 2000 papers that I have cited in the Reference section in a previous edit. JRRobins (talk) 22:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Varieties

This section will not be included JRRobins (talk) 23:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Examples

Topicalization

The following illustrate crossover effects as a result of topicalization, as per Postal (1993); the a) examples do not exhibit crossover effects and the b) examples do:

Sidney1, I am sure his1 job is important to ___1.

• Sidney1, I am sure your opinion of him1 is important to ___1.

Ted1, who1 I am sure that his1 dismissal has driven ___1 mad, …

• Ted1, who1 I am sure that your dismissal of him1 has driven ___1 mad, …

I would like to include these examples, but providing an explanation is required. JRRobins (talk) 23:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Section has been added. JRRobins (talk) 21:01, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Are these example supposed to be in English, or are they supposed to mimic something from other languages? I ask because none of them look grammatical to me as a native speaker of English, and there's no explanation indicating they aren't English or of what language they are supposed to be imitating.72.172.62.57 (talk) 01:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)