Recursion Restrictions: Where Grammars Count

Abstract

Since recursion is a fundamental property of human languages, it is puzzling that we regularly find cases where recursion is impossible or restricted. In this paper we argue that these restrictions follow from an independently necessary property associated with individual lexical items, which encodes sensitivity to phonological properties. These restrictions must be stated on the output of the syntactic derivation, when syntactic structures are transferred to phonology as expected in current late spell-out models. The main idea is that phonological properties can be “grafts” on the structure-building requirement of a lexical item, referred to as an epp property, which can then be viewed as a repository of the finely grained knowledge speakers have of the phonological properties associated with local syntactic environments. In this view, restrictions on recursion, though accidental, can be straightforwardly and simply accounted for as arising from the way that independently necessary properties interact in specific local syntactic environments. This accounts for a number of well-known effects, including left branch restrictions, restrictions on center embedding, and complexity effects.