ON SYMMETRIC ASPECTS OF GRAMMAR

Symmetry in Syntax: Merge, Move, and Labels, by Barbara Citko, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, xii+276pp.

Abstract

Contrary to the traditionally accepted view that asymmetric relations are the core relations of the language faculty (Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2008), Kayne (1994), Moro (2000), Di Sciullo (2002, 2005)), Citko’s Symmetry in Syntax: Merge, Move, and Labels investigates three fundamental syntactic mechanisms, i.e. Merge, Move, and Labeling, arguing that all three can also be symmetric under well-defined circumstances. After providing an overview of each chapter of the book, this article explicates puzzling dual selections in CP layers of Japanese, Korean, and Spanish, and presents a way of accommodating them under Citko’s theory of symmetric labeling.