In
generative grammar
Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistic ...
, the technical term operator denotes a type of expression that enters into an
a-bar movement dependency.
[Chomsky, Noam. (1981) ]Lectures on Government and Binding
''Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures'' (''LGB'') is a book by the linguist Noam Chomsky, published in 1981. It is based on the lectures Chomsky gave at the GLOW conference and workshop held at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pi ...
, Foris, Dordrecht.[Haegeman, Liliane (1994)
Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Blackwell.][Koopman, H., & Sportiche, D. (1982). Variables and the Bijection Principle. ''The Linguistic Review, 2'', 139-60.] One often says that the operator "binds a variable".
[ Cinque, Guglielmo (1991) Types of A-Bar Dependencies. MIT Press.]
Operators are often
determiner
A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner m ...
s, such as
interrogatives
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', ''who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most o ...
('which', 'who', 'when', etc.), or
quantifiers ('every', 'some', 'most', 'no'), but
adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...
such as sentential negation ('not') have also been treated as operators.
[Zanuttini, R. (1997) Negation and Clausal Structure: A Comparative Study of Romance Languages, Oxford University Press.] It is also common within generative grammar to hypothesise
phonetically
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
empty operators whenever a clause type or construction exhibits symptoms of the presence of an
a-bar movement dependency, such as sensitivity to
extraction islands.
[Rizzi, Luigi. (1990) Relativized Minimality. MIT Press.]
Examples
The following examples illustrate the use of the term operator within generative grammatical theory.
Wh-operators
The following example is a case of so-called "
wh-movement
In linguistics, wh-movement (also known as wh-fronting, wh-extraction, or wh-raising) is the formation of syntactic dependencies involving interrogative words. An example in English is the dependency formed between ''what'' and the object position ...
":
1. What did Bill say he wants to buy __ ?
Here, "what" is an operator, binding a
phonetically
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
empty "variable" indicated here as "__".
Quantifier raising
In the generative model of the
syntax-semantics interface, a quantifier must
move
Move may refer to:
People
* Daniil Move (born 1985), a Russian auto racing driver
Brands and enterprises
* Move (company), an online real estate company
* Move (electronics store), a defunct Australian electronics retailer
* Daihatsu Move
Go ...
to positions higher in the structure, leaving behind a
trace
Trace may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* ''Trace'' (Son Volt album), 1995
* ''Trace'' (Died Pretty album), 1993
* Trace (band), a Dutch progressive rock band
* ''The Trace'' (album)
Other uses in arts and entertainment
* ''Trace'' ...
which it then binds. When this movement leaves the spoken word order unchanged, it is said to be "covert".
This process of covert quantifier raising (QR) can create
scope
Scope or scopes may refer to:
People with the surname
* Jamie Scope (born 1986), English footballer
* John T. Scopes (1900–1970), central figure in the Scopes Trial regarding the teaching of evolution
Arts, media, and entertainment
* Cinem ...
ambiguities as in the following example.
2. I didn't do something.
This sentence is ambiguous between an "I did nothing" reading and another, "there's something I didn't do" reading. On the latter reading, one would represent the sentence as follows within generative grammar (omitting irrelevant details):
[May, Robert. (1977) "Logical Form and Conditions on Rules." In Kegl, J. et al. eds. Proceedings of NELS VII, pp. 189 - 207. MIT,
Cambridge, Mass.]
3. Something
x didn't do x
Here, "x" is the variable, and "something
x" is the operator binding that variable.
Tough constructions
The following is an example which is treated within generative grammar in terms of an invisible operator binding an invisible variable:
4. John is easy to please.
The relevant aspects of this sentence are represented as follows:
5. John is easy
x to please x">Px to please x
Here, "Op
x" is the empty operator and "x" is the variable bound by that operator, functioning as the
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
of the verb "please". Part of the reason to assume the empty operator—variable dependency in such sentences is that they exhibit sensitivity to
extraction islands. For example, the following attempt to create a similar example results in an ungrammatical sentence. The theoretical representation of the sentence is given right below,
omitting, again, irrelevant details.
6. Bad: John is easy to decide whether to please.
7. John is easy
x to decide whether to please x">px to decide whether to please x
Here, "whether" creates an island for a-bar movement. This means that the operator Op
x is unable to bind its variable "x", and this is thought to be the reason why the sentence is ungrammatical. One popular theoretical implementation of this is called "relativized minimality".
Roughly, it states that a variable of a given kind must be bound by the closest available operator of the same kind. In (6,7), "x" can't be bound by "Op
x", because there is a closer operator of the same kind as "Op
x": "whether".
The sentence (4) with its representation (5) is grammatically acceptable because there's no intervening operator between "Op
x" and "x" which blocks the dependency in that sentence.
See also
*
wh-movement
In linguistics, wh-movement (also known as wh-fronting, wh-extraction, or wh-raising) is the formation of syntactic dependencies involving interrogative words. An example in English is the dependency formed between ''what'' and the object position ...
*
syntactic movement
Syntactic movement is the means by which some theories of syntax address discontinuities. Movement was first postulated by structuralist linguists who expressed it in terms of ''discontinuous constituents'' or ''displacement''. Some constituen ...
*
Complementizer
In linguistics (especially generative grammar), complementizer or complementiser (glossing abbreviation: ) is a functional category (part of speech) that includes those words that can be used to turn a clause into the subject or object of a s ...
*
Topic marker A topic marker is a grammatical particle used to mark the topic of a sentence. It is found in Japanese, Korean, Quechua, Ryukyuan, Imonda and, to a limited extent, Classical Chinese. It often overlaps with the subject of a sentence, causing con ...
References
{{reflist
Grammar
Generative syntax