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In:New Insights into Theoretical Syntax from Asian Languages: Studies in honor of C.-T. James Huang
Edited by Andrew Simpson
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 290] 2026
► pp. 380–404

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Analyticity as an epiphenomenon

 | Leiden University
 | Leiden University
Published online: 15 January 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.290.15che
Abstract
This chapter argues that linguistic analyticity, defined as the situation in which there is a one-to-one relation between a bit of meaning and a bit of sound, is an epiphenomenon. Assuming, first, that all heads need to be filled or visited at some point during the derivation of the sentence, and, second, that movement is the default way of realizing this, we observe that separate material is inserted in heads when movement into that head is not possible and the information denoted by the head is not already expressed elsewhere.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Free and not so free morphemes
  • 3.Analyticity
  • 4.Bits of sound, bits of meaning and functional categories
  • 5.Three case studies
    • 5.1The extended projection of V
      • 5.1.1Head-to-head movement of V
      • 5.1.2A note on action and endpoint
    • 5.2Head-to-head movement of psych predicates
    • 5.3Head-to-head movement of N
    • 5.4A brief note about classifiers: No N-to-Cl
  • 6.Not all heads are the same
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (49)
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