Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-b5k59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-08T13:55:09.793Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rethinking Cartography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Richard K. Larson
Richard K. Larson*
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University
*
[Richard.Larson@stonybrook.edu]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The CARTOGRAPHIC PROGRAM has investigated interesting crosslinguistic linear orderings among various sentence constituents. Its signature technical move is to postulate HIERARCHIES OF FUNCTIONAL PROJECTIONS related by functional selection. I note three problems that functional hierarchies encounter in capturing linear order: ‘explanation’, ‘plenitude’, and ‘rigidity’. I compare linearity in cartography with linearity in the integers, which involves a single relation (<) ordering the domain. I consider work by Scontras et al. (2017) arguing for a single ‘inequality relation’ underlying the ordering of attributive adjectives in nominals and show how this result can be incorporated into a feature-driven theory of syntactic projection. This captures crosslinguistic linear orderings without appeal to functional selection or functional hierarchies.

Keywords

syntaxcartographyadjectivesfunctional selectionfunctional projectionssyntactic features

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 97 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 245 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Early versions of this work were presented at the Second International Workshop on Syntactic Cartography (Beijing, 2017) and at the Biolinguistic Conference on Interface Asymmetries (NYU, 2017). My thanks to audiences at those event for comments and discussion, and my particular thanks to Si Fuzhen and Anna Maria Di Sciullo, the (respective) event organizers. I am grateful to two anonymous Language referees and to associate editors James McCloskey and Christina Tortora for critique and suggestions that considerably improved this work. Remaining errors and flaws are of course my own.

References

Abney, Steven. 1987. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation. Online: http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dm/theses/abney87.pdf.Google Scholar
Banfield, Ann. 1973. Narrative style and the grammar of direct and indirect speech. Foundations of Language 10. 1–39. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25000702.Google Scholar
Barwise, Jon, and Cooper, Robin. 1981. Generalized quantifiers and natural language. Linguistics and Philosophy 4. 159–219. DOI: 10.1007/BF00350139.10.1007/BF00350139CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckenbach, Edwin, and Bellman, Richard. 1961. Introduction to inequalities. Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belletti, Adriana (ed.) 2004. Structures and beyond: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 3. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195171976.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benincà, Paola, and Munaro, Nicola (eds.) 2011. Mapping the left periphery: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 5. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benincà, Paola, and Poletto, Cecilia. 2004. Topic, focus and V2: Defining the sublayers. The structure of CP and IP: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 2, ed. by Rizzi, Luigi, 52–75. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan. 1999. Adverbs: The hierarchy paradox. Glot International 4. 27–28.Google Scholar
Brugé, Laura, Cardinaletti, Adriana, Giusti, Giuliana, Munaro, Nicola; and Poletto, Cecilia (eds.) 2012. Functional heads: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 7. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, ed. by Martin, Roger, Michaels, David, and Uriagereka, Juan, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195115260.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo (ed.) 2002. Functional structure in DP and IP: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo (ed.) 2006. Restructuring and functional heads: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 4. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195179545.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2010. The syntax of adjectives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262014168.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo, and Rizzi, Luigi. 2008. The cartography of syntactic structures. Studies in Linguistics—CISCL Working Papers 2. 42–58. [Reprinted in The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis, ed. by Heine, Bernd and Narrog, Heiko, 65–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.].Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo, and Rizzi, Luigi (eds.) 2010. Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 6. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393675.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Robin, and Lappin, Shalom. 2011. Linguistic nativism and the poverty of the stimulus. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.10.1002/9781444390568CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiCiccio, Thomas J., and Efron, Bradley. 1996. Bootstrap confidence intervals. Statistical Science 11(3). 189–228. DOI: 10.1214/ss/1032280214.10.1214/ss/1032280214CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane. 1979. Complement selection and the lexicon. Linguistic Inquiry 10. 279–326. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178109.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2010. The internal syntax of adverbial clauses. Lingua 120. 628–48. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2008.07.007.10.1016/j.lingua.2008.07.007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane (ed.) 2012. Adverbial clauses, main clause phenomena, and composition of the left periphery: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 8. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2013. The syntax of adverbial clauses. The language-cognition interface 45, ed. by Anderson, Stephen, Moeschler, Jacques, and Reboul, Fabienne, 135–65. Paris: Droz.Google Scholar
Hahn, Michael, Degen, Judith, Goodman, Noah, Jurafsky, Dan; and Futrell, Richard. 2018. An information-theoretic explanation of adjective ordering preferences. Paper presented at the 40th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Jeretič, Paloma, and Tulling, Maxime. 2019. The role of intersubjectivity in ordering the left periphery. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, New York.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L., and Stavi, Jonathan. 1986. A semantic characterization of natural language determiners. Linguistics and Philosophy 9. 253–326. DOI: 10.1007/BF00630273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laenzlinger, Christopher. 2005. French adjective ordering: Perspectives on DP-internal movement types. Lingua 115. 645–89. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2003.11.003.10.1016/j.lingua.2003.11.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamarche, Jacques. 1991. Problems for N0-movement to Num-P. Probus 3. 215–36. DOI: 10.1515/prbs.1991.3.2.215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, Richard. 1991. The projection of DP (and DegP). Stony Brook: SUNY–Stony Brook, ms. [Published in Larson 2014, 427–80.].Google Scholar
Larson, Richard. 2014. On shell structure. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203429204CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, Richard, and LaTerza, Ivana. 2017. Revisiting article-S. Revista Linguíʃtica 13. 51–87. DOI: 10.31513/linguistica.2017.v13n2a14028.10.31513/linguistica.2017.v13n2a14028CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, Jey Han, Clark, Alexander; and Lappin, Shalom. 2014. Measuring gradience in speakers' grammaticality judgments. Proceedings of the 36th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2014): Cognitive Science Meets Artificial Intelligence: Human and Artificial Agents in Interactive Contexts, 23–26. Online: https://cogsci.mindmodeling.org/2014/papers/149/.Google Scholar
Leivada, Evelina, and Westergaard, Marit. 2018. Is there a universal hierarchy for adjective ordering? Paper presented at the A0 Workshop, Bled, Slovenia.Google Scholar
McNally, Louise. 2016. Modification. The Cambridge handbook of formal semantics, ed. by Aloni, Maria and Dekker, Paul, 442–64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139236157.016.Google Scholar
Mišmaš, Petra, Marušič;, Franc and Žaucer, Rok. 2018. Looking for an extralinguistic source of the strict order of adjectives. Paper presented at the A0 Workshop, Bled, Slovenia.Google Scholar
Nilsen, Øystein. 2003. Eliminating positions: Syntax and semantics of sentence modifi cation. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht dissertation. Online: http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/624.Google Scholar
Pesetsky, David, and Torrego, Esther. 2007. The syntax of valuation and the interpretability of features. Phrasal and clausal architecture: Syntactic derivation and interpretation, ed. by Karimi, Simin, Samiian, Vida, and Wilkins, Wendy, 262–94. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey, and Wilson, Deirdre. 1977. Autonomous syntax and the analysis of auxiliaries. Language 53. 741–88. DOI: 10.2307/412911.10.2307/412911CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. Elements of grammar, ed. by Haegeman, Liliane, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-5420-8_7.10.1007/978-94-011-5420-8_7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 2004. Locality and left periphery. In Belletti, 223–51.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 2017. Cartography and explanation. Paper presented at the Second International Workshop on Syntactic Cartography, Beijing Language and Culture University, October 28, 2017.Google Scholar
Scontras, Gregory, Degen, Judith; and Goodman, Noah D.. 2017. Subjectivity predicts adjective ordering preferences. Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science 1(1). 53–66. DOI: 10.1162/OPMI_a_00005.10.1162/OPMI_a_00005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scontras, Gregory, Degen, Judith; and Goodman, Noah D.. 2019. On the grammatical source of adjective ordering preferences. Semantics and Pragmatics 12:7. DOI: 10.3765/sp.12.7.10.3765/sp.12.7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, Gary-John. 2002. Stacked adjectival modification and the structure of nominal phrases. Functional structure in IP and DP, ed. by Cinque, Guglielmo, 91–120. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195148794.003.0004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shlonsky, Ur (ed.) 2015. Beyond functional sequence: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 10. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Carlota. 1964. Determiners and relative clauses in a generative grammar of English. Language 40. 37–52. DOI: 10.2307/411923.10.2307/411923CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svenonius, Peter (ed.) 2014. Functional structure from top to toe: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 9. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199740390.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truswell, Robert. 2009. Attributive adjectives and nominal templates. Linguistic Inquiry 40. 525–33. DOI: 10.1162/ling.2009.40.3.525.10.1162/ling.2009.40.3.525CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 2015. The cartography of Chinese syntax: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 11. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen. 2006. Transitivity failures in the left periphery and foot-driven movement operations. Linguistics in the Netherlands 2006. 52–64. DOI: 10.1075/avt.23.08van.10.1075/avt.23.08vanCrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen. 2009. Alternatives to cartography: An introduction. Alternatives to cartography, ed. by van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen, 1–14. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110217124.1.10.1515/9783110217124CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 2009. There is no alternative to cartography. Alternatives to cartography, ed. by van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen, 361–74. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110217124.361.Google Scholar