The Configurational Matrix

Abstract

This article presents a theory of grammatical dependencies that is in accordance with basic assumptions of bare phrase structure theory. It explains Koster's (1987) configurational matrix, the observation that such dependencies share five properties: c-command by the antecedent, obligatoriness, uniqueness of the antecedent, nonuniqueness of the dependent, and locality. The theory is based on two primitive syntactic relations (copying and function application) and a nonatomic view of nodes.