GOVERNMENT

GOVERNMENT AND
AND BINDING
BINDING
THEORY
THEORY

Eger, 19-11-2011 K. Nagyné Pataki Noémi

Szarkáné Tóth Andrea
 Government&Binding Theory

• Developed by Noam Chomsky

• The descendant of Transformational
Grammar (TG)
• Two levels of analysis: deep- and surface
structure
• During the 1970s two other levels:
phonetic form(PF) and logical form(LF)
 The "T-model"
d-structure

s-structure

phonetic form logical form

(the output of the grammar (the corresponding level
at the „sound„ end) at the „meaning„ end)
 The TG rule:

S(sentence)
NP (noun phrase) Aux(auxiliary) VP(verb phrase)

(modal verbs: might, could)

The node Aux is called INFL (for inflection)

Between s-structure and PF (phonetic form)
the PAST element is joined with the verb and
we spell out –ed ending on the verb:

• They fire Mary.

•They PAST fire Mary.

Elements of PAST never occur in English

as separate words.
 The Move-α
• α = a variable over syntactic categories
• the fundamental idea: „moving anything
anywhere”
• questions: what can move and where it can
move?
• For example: passive moves objects

to make them subjects:

Mary was fired.
The organization of the GB grammar,
with all its different components:
 Syntax and Universal Grammar

• A constraint: the fundamental

grammatical notion in GB
• It is part of the very nature of
language itself
The nature of UG
- The Rule R puts together elements of INFL
-The word aren’t can only appear with the s
subject I if the sentence is inverted:
Aren’t I the one? But not I aren’t the one.
 X-theory (X-bar theory)
• Developed in the 1970s
• Looking at the structures internal to

different phrases:
a similar pattern: its object and the
preposition precedes its object.

X-scheme:
-The head: part of the linguistic unit that gives
its essential character
(the head of an NP is the noun, the verb heads a
VP)
-The phrase is the projection of the head
the highest level of projection is called
the maximal projection
 X-scheme
X’’ maximal projection

specifier modifier
(like determiners) (for example : very)

X’

X Argument
(constituents that a head subcategories for)
 C-command and Government
Government: -a fundamental concept in GB,
-the notion of a local domain,
-the same category β is in the domain of
some other category.
C-command: - states a relation defined on tree-structures
- a given category α is hierarchically superior to.
• strong definition: α c-command β
iff every branching node VP
dominating α dominates β
V’ PP
• weaker definition: α c-commands β
iff every maximal projection
dominating α dominates β V NP
 Coindexing
• is used to represent many important relations
• 3 coindexing mechanism:

- Coindexing (NP,S) and AGR at d-structure

- Move-α creates and preserves indices

- Freely index all A-position at s-structure

 Landing sites
- Certain positions are available for movement to
take place to.
- The set of possible movements:
• movement to [NP, S] postion (NP-movement)

• adjunction to COMP (wh-movement)

• adjunction to S

•adjunction to VP
 Case Theory
Responsible for determining in large part the
distribution of NPs.

The basic instances of Case assignment:

•If INFL contains TNS, Nominative Case
is assigned to the [NP,S]
•A verb assigns Accusative Case to [NP,VP]
•A preposition assigns Accusative Case