crossover (adj.)

A term used in GENERATIVE GRAMMAR, referring to a principle restricting the operation of certain TRANSFORMATIONS which move a NOUN PHRASE (as in PASSIVES, REFLEXIVES, TOUGH MOVEMENT). In an early formulation, the principle states that a transformation cannot apply to a PHRASE-MARKER if it would result in one noun phrase crossing another with which it is CO-REFERENTIAL. The crossover constraint or principle would be used, for example, to explain why passivization cannot apply to structures of the type John washed himself: given an UNDERLYING STRUCTURE John_i washed John_i , to derive a passive John_i was washed by John_i would involve a violation of this principle. In later formulations, more specific CONSTRAINTS on the application of this principle are introduced. In GOVERNMENT-BINDING THEORY, weak crossover refers to cases of crossover phenomena which involve the MOVEMENT of an R-EXPRESSION across a non-C-COMMANDING CO-INDEXED PRONOUN, as in *Who_i does his_i mother love t_i ? Strong crossover refers to cases which involve this movement across a c-commanding co-indexed pronoun, as in [*Whose_i mother]_j does he_i love t_j ? The latter case is eliminated through condition C of binding theory. A LEFTNESS PRINCIPLE excludes all cases of weak crossover, and allows a unified account of these phenomena at the level of LOGICAL FORM.

مواضيع ذات صلة

Language Mixture—Grammar

Change in grammar and pronunciation

Word order

Grammaticalization.

Convergence in the Balkans

Did we lose the perfect tense already?

It’s grammaticalization, innit?

Haugen’s model

Diglossia

Language shift and language death

Stratification and hypercorrection

Exploring variation in language