Quantity of Sentence Structure
Theories of syntax that build on the X-bar schema tend to posit a large amount of sentence structure. The constituency-based, binary branching structures of the X-bar schema increase the number of nodes in the parse tree to the upper limits of what is possible. The result is highly layered trees (= "tall" trees) that acknowledge as many syntactic constituents as possible. The number of potential discontinuities increases, which increases the role of movement up the tree (in a derivational theory, e.g. Government and Binding Theory) or feature passing up and down the tree (in a representational theory, e.g. Lexical Functional Grammar). The analysis of phenomena such as inversion and shifting becomes more complex because these phenomena will necessarily involve discontinuities and thus necessitate movement or feature passing. Whether the large amount of sentence structure associated with X-bar schemata is necessary or beneficial is a matter of debate.
Read more about this topic: X-bar Theory
Famous quotes containing the words quantity of, quantity, sentence and/or structure:
“Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it; its price, the quantity of labour which its possessor will take in exchange for it.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the five following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted, to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single year.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The label of liberalism is hardly a sentence to public igominy: otherwise Bruce Springsteen would still be rehabilitating used Cadillacs in Asbury Park and Jane Fonda, for all we know, would be just another overweight housewife.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)