This book critically reviews grammatical research into logical form over the past 20 years and reconsiders some of its major themes in the light of recent theoretical innovations. In the late 1970s generative grammarians proposed the existence of an abstract syntactic level of grammatical representation derived from surface structure which was phonetically invisible. This level, dubbed logical form, has been thought of as the information that the grammar contributes to semantic interpretation. The first part of the book reviews the standard arguments for the existence of LF and its format.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments viii List of Abbreviations ix 1 An Introduction 1 1 The Grammatical Locus of Semantic Interpretation 1 2 Two Ways of Identifying LF 3 3 Studying LF 5 2 Motivating LF 10 1 Interpreting LF 11 2 The Empty Category Principle at LF 13 3 Cross Over Effects at LF 21 4 Bound Pronouns 23 5 Conclusion 28 Appendix Subjacency 28 3 More on LF 35 1 Relative Quantifier Scope 35 1.1 Aoun and Li (1989) 35 1.2 Aoun and Li (1993a) 40 2 The Relative Scope of WHs and Quantifiers 44 2.1 The Problem 44 2.2 Generalized Binding and Variable Types 46 2.3 MBR and WH/Q Structures 47 3 Antecedent-contained Deletion (ACD) 53 4 Conclusion 58 4 Some Minimalist Background 59 1 Where We Are 59 2 Where We Are Going: Outlines of a Minimalist Theory 62 2.1 LF and PF as the Sole Grammatical Levels 63 2.2 Basic Grammatical Relations are X’-theoretic 67 2.3 Elements Move to Satisfy Morphological Requirements 69 3 Conclusion 71 5 Antecedent-Contained Deletion 72 1 Baltin (1987) on ACD 73 2 Larson and May's Reply 74 3 ACDs and Minimalism 78 4 A Minimalist Theory of ACDs 79 5 Adjunct ACDs 84 6 Further Implications 87 7 ACDs and LF V-raising: Some Cross-linguistic Considerations 91 8 Conclusion 96 Appendix 1 Nominative Objects 97 Appendix 2 Just Where is LF? 98 6 Linking, Binding, and Weak Cross Over 99 1 Introduction 99 2 Linked Pronouns 100 3 Stating the Weak Cross Over Principle 106 4 The WCOP and Minimalism. 110 5 A Further Consequence: Linking and Quantifier/WH Interactions 111 6 A Loose End: Reanalyzing “almost c-command” 118 7 Conclusion 122 7 Superiority Effects 123 1 Introduction 123 2 Superiority and Functional WHs 125 3 Further Facts: Multiple Which Questions 130 4 Some Comparative Superiority Data 135 4.1 Languages with Multiply Fronted WHs 135 4.2 Subject Postposing and Superiority 141 4.3 Superiority in Clauses with Three WHs 143 4.4 Anti-superiority Effects in Japanese 144 4.5 Multiple Interrogatives with “Why” 147 4.6 Yes/No Questions 150 4.7 Concluding Remarks 151 5 Conclusion 152 8 Quantifier Scope 153 1 Introduction: Basic Assumptions 153 2 Subject and Object Quantified NPs 155 3 Scope Restrictions 158 4 Chinese Quantifiers 164 5 Weak Cross Over Superiority, and Polarity 165 6 Some Further Benefits of Eliminating QR 171 7 Two Residual Cases 175 7.1 Prepositional Objects 175 7.2 Double Object Constructions (DOCs) 177 8 Conclusion 180 9 Revisiting the Minimalist Program 183 1 The Status of LF 183 2 Chains and their Properties 186 3 Derivational Constraints on Chains 192 4 PF Chains 195 5 “Pure” Subject/Object Asymmetries 197 6 Conclusion 201 Notes 203 Bibliography 253 Index 259