Two Advantages of Precedence Syntax

Abstract

Precedence syntax assumes that dominance hierarchies are in fact precedence hierarchies, avoiding the necessity of having two very similar basic ordering primitives in grammar. On the one hand there are some possible neutral asymmetric orders before, but not after the head, that do not correspond to the order of the functional categories or to its mirror image. On the other hand under certain circumstances some of the orders corresponding to the order of functional categories are systematically missing before the head and are possible only after the head, in the mirror image version. Precedence syntax appears to have the potential to contribute to the explanation of these generalizations.