the locality principle

1. The Locality Principle
Morphology and English Syntax

2. Presentation by:
Kiran Nazir

3. The locality principle
 Much work on locality, since the late 1960’s has tried to account by proposing
different principles.
 In linguistics, locality refers to the proximity of elements in a linguistic
structure. Constraints on locality limit the span over which rules can apply to a
particular structure.
 Theories of transformational grammar use syntactic locality constraints to
explain restrictions of movement.
 Certain elements move about in a structure. As might be expected, movements
have limits; many possible movements result in a structure that is
ungrammatical.

4. The locality principle
 One of the first limitations to be noticed was that the movements have to be
short, i.e. not span too much of the sentence.
 . This limitation can be called the locality principle.

5. Principles
• Principles are the general conditions that hold for many different
constructions. The claim of P&P theory is that human languages consist of
principles with no construction specific rules. Principles are same in all
languages. Whereas parameters vary language to language.

6. The locality principle
Definition:
“The locality principle: movements must be within a ‘local’ part of the sentence
from which the moved element originates”
Movements must be short.
 This principle is a property of linguistic processes which restricts their
application to a limited part of the sentence.
 This forces different types of restrictions.

7. Movement
• Movement is the phenomenon that accounts for the possibility of a single
syntactic constituent or element occupying multiple, yet distinct locations,
depending on the type of sentence it is in.
• Mary was arrested.
• Was Mary arrested?

8. Subject-auxiliary inversion
• To form a yes-no question in English (i.e. one that can be answered within
either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’) an auxiliary verb; such as will, can, may, have or be,
moves from its normal position behind the subject to a position in front of the
subject.
• The teacher will punish Jack.
• Will the teacher punish Jack?
There is another example:
• Mary was visiting him.
• Was Mary visiting him?

9. More than one auxiliary verb
Some other sentences may have more than one auxiliary verb:
• The teacher will have punished Jack.
OR
• Mary would have visited him.
If there is more than one auxiliary verb in the sentence, only the first auxiliary
can move behind the subject to form the question. The second auxiliary verb
cannot move.

10. Examples
• Will the teacher have punished Jack?
• *Have the teacher will punished Jack?
In the second example:
• Would Mary have visited him?
• *Have Mary would visited him?

11. Why?
• As according to the locality principle, movements should be local i.e. short.
Comparing the distances that the two auxiliaries must move in these examples,
moving the first auxiliary will clearly involves a shorter movement than
moving the other auxiliary have:
• Will the teacher - have punished Jack?
• Have the teacher will – punished Jack?

12. Conti…
• Would Mary - have visited him?
• *Have Mary would - visited him?
So we can say that the shorter movement is grammatical and the longer is
ungrammatical.

13. Subject raising
• The subject of an embedded clause moves to a higher subject position in the
sentence. This is called subject raising. The following example involves
moving a subject of an embedded clause the teacher to a higher subject
position in the sentence:
• It seems [the teacher has punished Jack]
• The teacher seems [- to have punished Jack]
• Its seems [Mary has visited him]
• Mary seems [- to have visited him]

14. More than one embedded clause…
• If there is more than one embedded clause, movement from one subject
position is possible but not movement over the top of a subject, because of the
locality principle; as the longer of the two movements is ungrammatical and
the shorter is grammatical.
• it seems [Mary is likely [-to visit him]]
• *Mary seems [it is likely [- to visit him]]

15. Wh-movement
• Another type of movement is Wh-movement. Wh-movement also has to be
short. As; a Wh-element is allowed to move out of a clause to position at the
front of the clause, but moving another Wh-element to the front of an even
higher clause gives an ungrammatical result.
• David asked [who the teacher punished-].
• *Who did David ask [who-punished -]?

16. Reference
• A reflexive pronoun must refer to some other element in the same actual
sentence and cannot refer to something directly identified in the discourse
situation outside the sentence, as personal pronouns can.
• George talks to himself.
• *George talks to herself.
• George talks to her.

17. With two antecedents
• If there are two possible antecedents, one inside the clause containing the
reflexive and one outside the clause, only a nearest one can actually be
referred to.
• Mary thinks [George talks to himself]
• *Mary thinks [George talks to herself]

18. Applicable to all languages
• Principles are universals and so applicable to all human languages. The
locality principle can indeed limit movement and reference in all languages
(with some degree of parameterization). For example inversion phenomena,
whereby a verbal element moves to the front of a clause, can be found in
numerous languages, including German and French. Constructions involving
inversion in these languages confirm to the locality principle.

19. Example
1. Liest Hans das Buch?
2. (reads Hans the book)
3. (does Hans read the book?)
1. Hat Hans das buch gelesen?
2. (has Hans the book rea?)
3. Has Hans read the book?
1. *gelesen Hans das buch hat?

20. Conclusion
• The locality principle is a universal principle that applies to a wide variety of
constructions, some of which I have tried to explain there. It is part of UG. Of
course, the discussion given so far has been necessarily superficial and
limited. The point is, however, whatever principles are involved in accounting
for the phenomena discussed above, they are not construction specific, like
grammatical rules, and they are universal, that is to say, applicable to all
languages.

21. Any Questions?

22. Thank You