Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution

b. Morphophonology: [IntPξ 1 ,...,ξn]a

corresponds to

Syntax: [xi,...,xn([yi,...,ym])]a

whereξicorresponds to xi

To see how this works, look again at (16) and (17).

• Thefirst IntP in (16b) corresponds to thewholesentence in (16a), except thatthe Children's Television Workshop
  is“carvedout”oftheright-hand end(i.e. itcorresponds totheoptionalsequenceofysinrule(19b)whichare
  omitted from the IntP). However, rule (18a) says that everything in the utterance must belong to some IntP
  orother. Thereforethe Children's Television Workshopis assignedtoitsownIntP; itcanbesoassigned,becauseit
  is a constituent on its own.


• In (16c), thefirst IntP corresponds directly to the subject NP. The second IntP corresponds to the VP, but
  thefinal PPof the Children's Television Workshopis carved out to for mits own IntP.


• In (17), thefirst IntP corresponds to the whole sentence, but the large relative clausethat caught the rat that ate
  the cheeseis omitted. In turn, this relative clause is further carved: thefinal relative clause is taken out to form
  the third IntP. The result is perfectly balanced prosodically.


• Note also the role of rule (18d), which places some sort of bound on absolute duration. It is this rule that
  prevents (16a) and (17a) fro mbeing assigned to a single extre mely long IntP.^56

We see fro m(16) that, although syntactic structure constrains the choice of intonational phrasing, it does not uniquely
determine it.Now we can ask: is therelationmutual? Does intonationeverconstrain syntax? Consider an examplelike
(20). (The brackets indicate intonational phrasing in (20c, d).)

(20) a.John bought a computer yesterday.

b. *John bought yesterday a computer.

c. ?* [John bought several expensive pieces of hardware that he's been dreaming about for months] [yesterday]

d. [John bought yesterday] [several expensive pieces of hardware that he's been dreaming about for months]

120 ARCHITECTURAL FOUNDATIONS

(^56) I promisedin section1.6 toexplain thestrange coindexingmarked bythesubscriptsaandbin Fig. 1.1. It follows fro mrule (19).Thesubscripta is marked as in (19b);
it corresponds to thefirst Intonational Phrase in the phonology and the wholesentencein the syntax. Subscriptb corresponds to the“carved out”constituent: the second
Intonational Phrase in phonology and the PP in syntax.