Talk:Syntactic movement

added expert tag
I flagged this article as being in need of an expert on the subject because it seems rather unsystematic. Most importantly, the article should begin by putting the concept of syntactic movement into context -- is it a phenomenon recognized by all theories of syntax, or specific to specific approaches, e.g. generative or transformational grammar? Also, the example presented as "typical" seems pretty arcane -- perhaps a more accessible example could be used? Joriki (talk) 01:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

All major histories of linguistics would rather show that this is not at all restricted to transformational grammar. One example, is Graffi's volume cited in the text —Preceding unsigned comment added by Semmelweiss (talk • contribs) 21:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no "Move" in the (continental) theories I work with. And I totally agree with Joriki: how come a universal operation as "Move" is supposed to be is illustrated with such a complicated sentence? R Camus (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC).

Proposed merge with Trace (linguistics)
From the article content as well as the refs, traces are only discussed in the context of movement: A trace is usually what occupies the empty (null) position in the syntactic structure that is left behind when some element undergoes movement.

I'm fairly sure, but am unable to recall where, that Chomsky came up with traces back in the day to analyse tough movement. If anyone could verify, that would be appreciated. → Σ σ  ς. (Sigma) 07:01, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

References missing, DG representation inappropriate
The feature passing analysis of nonlocal dependencies is due to Gazdar, 1981. This should be credited and appropriate figures should be provided.

Gazdar, Gerald. 1981. Unbounded dependencies and coordinate structure. Linguistic Inquiry 12. 155–184. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StefanMülller (talk • contribs) 11:46, 12 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi Stefan,
 * I have revised the later sections in the article to accommodate most of your points. Gazdar (1981) and Sag and Fodor (1994)are now cited where appropriate. Concerning the dependency tree, it has the advantage that the average Wikipedia reader can understand its illustration. The same is, I believe, much less true of the corresponding GPSG or HPSG illustration of feature passing due to the complexity of those representations. --Tjo3ya (talk) 06:07, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

No evidence for traces
wanna contraction is not theory independent. It is not accepted by people working in non-transformational frameworks. Please check the literature.

Sag, Ivan A. & Janet Dean Fodor. 1994. Extraction without traces. In Raul Aranovich, William Byrne, Susanne Preuss & Martha Senturia (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirteenth West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 365–384. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications/SLA. http://lingo.stanford.edu/sag/papers/sag-fodor-wccfl.pdf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StefanMülller (talk • contribs) 11:53, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

In the two examples: a. Who does Vicky want to vote for t? → Who does Vicky wanna vote for? b. Who(m) does Vicky want t to win? → *Who(m) does Vicky wanna win?

The two "want to" examples are not comparable because "wanna" is a contraction of the grammatical construction "want to," a modal (or mood marker) modifying the verb "vote," signifying the desiderative mood. Vicky is the subject and Vicky is doing the voting (or the wanting to vote), alternatively you could analyze it as a "to-infinitive" clause, and the word "want" can contract with the "to" when it begins the clause.

In the second example, the "to" is part of a dependent clause with "who" as the subject: "Vicky wants who to win?" Vicky is not doing the winning or wanting to win, she wants the "who" to win. "want" is not a modal or grammatical construction here, it's just simply the verb of the sentence: "Vicky wants X." In example B, "who" is the subject of the dependent clause, that is, the subject of the verb "to win", inside of the clause. However, the clause itself "who to win" is the object of the sentence "Vicky wants X."

IN example A, "want to" is a mood marker, a construction, or multi-word unit, that can contract to "wanna." IN example B, "want" is a separate word, and the "to" is an infinitive marker that goes with "win" which is inside a clause, so contraction is not grammatically sound and sounds invalid to the ear.

There is a different reading in which "wanna" would be an appropriate contraction, and that would be, say, if Vicky were participating in a charity auction for a dinner with a public figure. If there were multiple candidates participating, it would be appropriate to ask "Who(m) does Vicky wanna win?" In that case it would indeed be Vicky doing the wanting and the winning, and the object "who" would be the candidate she wanted to successfully bid for in the auction. In that case, "want to" would be modal (modifying "win") and it would sound fine to the ear to contract "want to" to "wanna" in that circumstance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.65.238.70 (talk) 18:37, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

I have a hard time with the Trace section because I can't say: *Who does Kim think's beneath contempt? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4898:80E8:1:4E51:E5D1:F17:9836 (talk) 07:52, 14 November 2020 (UTC)