Minimalist Program Technical Innovations: Bare Phrase Structure

Minimalist program
Technical innovations[edit]
The exploration of minimalist questions has led to several radical changes in the technical apparatus of
transformational generative grammatical theory. Some of the most important are: [8]
 The generalization of X-bar theory into bare phrase structure (see below).

 The simplification of representational levels in the grammatical model, eliminating the distinction
between deep structure and surface structure in favor of a more explicitly derivational approach.
 The elimination of the notion of government.
 The inclusion of a two new points of interaction, namely, a "spell-out" point between syntax and the
interface with the phonological form, and an additional point of interaction with the logical form.
 The idea that syntactic derivations proceed by clearly delineated stages called "phases" (see
below).
Bare phrase structure[edit]
A major development of MP inquiry is bare phrase structure (BPS), a theory of phrase
structure (sentence building prior to movement) developed by Noam Chomsky.[9] The introduction of
BPS has moved the Chomskyan tradition toward the dependency grammar tradition, which operates
with significantly less structure than most phrase structure grammars.[10]
This theory contrasts with X-bar theory, which preceded it, in four important ways:
1. BPS is explicitly derivational. That is, it is built from the bottom up, bit by bit. In contrast, X-bar
theory is representational—a structure for a given construction is built in one fell swoop,
and lexical itemsare inserted into the structure.
2. BPS does not have a preconceived phrasal structure, while in X-bar theory every phrase has
a specifier, a head, and a complement.
3. BPS permits only binary branching, while X-bar theory permits both binary and unary branching.
4. BPS does not distinguish between a "head" and a "terminal", while some versions of X-bar
theory require such a distinction.
BPS incorporates two basic operations: "merge" and "move". Although there is active debate on exactly
how "move" should be formulated, the differences between the current proposals are relatively minute.
The following description follows Chomsky's original proposal.
Merge is a function that takes two objects (say α and β) and merges them into an unordered set with a
label (either α or β, in this case α). The label identifies the properties of the phrase.
Merge (α, β) → {α, {α, β} }
For example, "merge" can operate on the lexical items "drink" and "water" to give "drink water". Note
that the phrase "drink water" behaves more like the verb drink than like the noun water. That is,
wherever the verb drink can be put, so too can the phrase "drink water":
I like to _____________ (drink)/(drink water).
(Drinking/Drinking water) __________ is fun.
Furthermore, the phrase "drink water" can not typically be put in the same places as the noun water:
It can be said, "There's some water on the table", but not "There's some drink water on the table".
So, the phrase is identified with a label. In the case of "drink water", the label is drink since the phrase
acts as a verb. For simplicity, this phrase is called a verb phrase (VP). If "cold" and "water" were
merged to get "cold water", this would be a noun phrase (NP) with the label "water"; it follows that the
phrase "cold water" can appear in the same environments as the noun water in the three test sentences
above. So, for drink water, there is the following:
Merge (drink, water) → {drink, {drink, water} }
This can be represented in a typical syntax tree as follows:
or, with more technical terms, as:
Merge can also operate on structures already built. If it could not, then such a system would predict
only two-word utterances to be grammatical. If a new head is merged with a previously formed object (a
phrase), the function has the form
Merge (γ, {α, {α, β}}) → {γ, {γ, {α, {α, β}}}}
Here, γ is the label, so that γ "projects" from the label of the head. This corresponds to the following
tree structure:
Merge operates blindly, projecting labels in all possible combinations. The subcategorization features of

the head then license certain label projections and eliminate all derivations with alternate projections.
Phases[edit]
A "phase" is a syntactic domain first hypothesized by Noam Chomsky in 1998.[11] A simple sentence is
often decomposed into two phases, CP and vP (see X-bar theory). Movement of a constituent out of a
phase is (in the general case) only permitted if the constituent has first moved to the left edge of the
phase. This condition is described in the phase impenetrability condition, which has been variously
formulated within the literature. In its original conception, only the vP in transitive and unergative
verbs constitute phases. The vP in passives and unaccusative verbs (if even present) are not phases.
This topic is, however, currently under debate in the literature. [12] It has also been proposed that a TP
can be a phase, depending on the language. [13]

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Minimalist program

 The generalization of X-bar theory into bare phrase structure (see below).

Merge operates blindly, projecting labels in all possible combinations. The subcategorization features of

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