CONSTRAINTS ON VARIABLES IN SYNTAX

Abstract

This thesis attempts a definition of the notion syntactic variable a notion which is of crucial importance if the central fact of syntax that there are unbounded-syntactic processes is to be accounted for. A set of constraints on variables some universal some language particular is presented and the question of what types of syntactic rules they affect is raised. It is shown that these constraints in conjunction with the notion of command partition phrase markers into islands the maximal domains of applicability of all rules of a specified type.