MG Parsing as a Model of Gradient Acceptability in Syntactic Islands

Aniello De Santo

Abstract:

It is well-known that the acceptability judgments at the core of current syntactic theories
are continuous. However, an open debate is
whether the source of such gradience is situated in the grammar itself, or can be derived
from extra-grammatical factors. In this paper,
we propose the use of a top-down parser for
Minimalist grammars (Stabler, 2013; Kobele
et al., 2013; Graf et al., 2017), as a formal
model of how gradient acceptability can arise
from categorical grammars. As a test case, we
target the acceptability judgments for island
effects collected by Sprouse et al. (2012a).