Table Of ContentMerge in the Mind-Brain
The main theme of this book is Merge, the basic operation of human lan-
guage. The Merge operation has been assumed, at least from the mid-1990s,
to be the fundamental core operation of human language syntax that is
responsible for its Basic Property, i.e., that human language generates a
pair of interpretations (sensorimotor, conceptual-intentional)—roughly, a
“sound-meaning pair”—for each of infinitely many hierarchically struc-
tured expressions. Various complex grammatical devices that had been
proposed in the literature to account for an intricate array of linguistic phe-
nomena have been shown to be reducible to this simple formal operation, as
it interacts with general computational principles. Accordingly, the precise
understanding of Merge is of utmost importance for our theory of human
language.
The present volume is a collection of nine articles that I wrote in the past
several years (and, in most cases, have published in various places), all of
which focus on the operation Merge, its nature, its interactions with other
components of grammar, and its implementations in the brain. The papers
are divided into two parts. The papers in Part I are investigations of Merge
(and its related postulates) in theoretical syntax. The papers collected in
Part II, on the other hand, are concerned with the neuroscience of Merge,
i.e., they deal with how this fundamental operation is implemented in the
brain. The book as a whole—though it’s a collection of articles—offers a
coherent and focused attempt at understanding the nature of Merge, from
two distinct but related angles—theoretical syntax and the neurosciences.
Naoki Fukui received his Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT in 1986. Since then,
he has been teaching at various places, both in the US and in Japan, includ-
ing the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Irvine, Har-
vard University, and is currently teaching at Sophia University in Tokyo. He
has published Theoretical Comparative Syntax in the Routledge Leading
Linguists series as well as a number of other books and articles both in
English and Japanese.
Routledge Leading Linguists
Edited by Carlos P. Otero, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
14 Between Syntax and Semantics
C.- T. James Huang
15 Regimes of Derivation in Syntax and Morphology
Edwin Williams
16 Typological Studies
Word Order and Relative Clauses
Guglielmo Cinque
17 Case, Argument Structure, and Word Order
Shigeru Miyagawa
18 The Equilibrium of Human Syntax
Symmetries in the Brain
Andrea Moro
19 On Shell Structure
Richard K. Larson
20 Primitive Elements of Grammatical Theory
Papers by Jean-Roger Vergnaud and His Collaborators
Edited by Katherine McKinney-Bock and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta
21 Pronouns, Presuppositions, and Hierarchies
The Work of Eloise Jelinek in Context
Edited by Andrew Carnie and Heidi Harley
22 Explorations in Maximizing Syntactic Minimization
Samuel D. Epstein, Hisatsugu Kitahara, and T. Daniel Seely
23 Merge in the Mind-Brain
Essays on Theoretical Linguistics and the Neuroscience of Language
Naoki Fukui
Merge in the Mind-Brain
Essays on Theoretical Linguistics and the
Neuroscience of Language
Naoki Fukui
First published 2017
by Routledge
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© 2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Naoki Fukui to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fukui, Naoki, author. | Fukui, Naoki, editor.
Title: Merge in the Mind-brain : essays on theoretical linguistics and the
neuroscience of language / by Naoki Fukui.
Description: New York : Routledge, [2017] | Series: Routledge leading
linguists; 23 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016051226 | ISBN 9781138216143 (hardback :
alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Grammar, Comparative and general—Syntax. |
Dependency grammar. | Brain—Psychophysiology. | Cognition
and language. | Neurolinguistics.
Classification: LCC P291 .F76 2017 | DDC 410—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051226
ISBN: 978-1-138-21614-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-44280-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Original Publication Details vii
Introduction 1
PART I
Merge in the Mind 7
1 Merge and Bare Phrase Structure 9
2 Merge and (A)symmetry 35
WITH HIROKI NARITA
3 G eneralized Search and Cyclic Derivation by
Phase: A Preliminary Study 75
WITH TAKAOMI KATO, MASAKAZU KUNO, HIROKI NARITA,
AND MIHOKO ZUSHI
4 Merge, Labeling, and Projection 94
WITH HIROKI NARITA
5 A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language 119
6 0-Search and 0-Merge 127
WITH HIROKI NARITA, HIRONOBU KASAI, TAKAOMI KATO,
AND MIHOKO ZUSHI
vi Contents
PART II
Merge in the Brain 155
7 T he Cortical Dynamics in Building Syntactic Structures
of Sentences: An MEG Study in a Minimal-Pair Paradigm 157
WITH KAZUKI IIJIMA AND KUNIYOSHI L. SAKAI
8 S yntactic Computation in the Human Brain: The Degree
of Merger as a Key Factor 181
WITH SHINRI OHTA AND KUNIYOSHI L. SAKAI
9 C omputational Principles of Syntax in the Regions
Specialized for Language: Integrating Theoretical Linguistics
and Functional Neuroimaging 237
WITH SHINRI OHTA AND KUNIYOSHI L. SAKAI
Bibliography 265
Author Index 281
Subject Index 285
Original Publication Details
Chapter 1: Naoki Fukui. 2011. Merge and bare phrase structure. In C.
Boeckx, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism, pp. 73–
95, Oxford University Press. Reprinted by permission from the Oxford
University Press.
Chapter 2: Naoki Fukui and Hiroki Narita. 2012. Merge and (a)symmetry.
An extended written-up version of the presentation at the Kyoto Confer-
ence on Biolinguistics (March, 2012). Appeared in this volume for the
first time.
Chapter 3: Takaomi Kato, Masakazu Kuno, Mihoko Zushi, Hiroki Nar-
ita, and Naoki Fukui. 2013. Generalized search and cyclic derivation
by phase: A preliminary study. Sophia Linguistica 61, pp. 203–222. Re-
printed by permission from the Sophia Linguistic Institute for Interna-
tional Communication.
Chapter 4: Naoki Fukui and Hiroki Narita. 2014. Merge, labeling, and
projection. In A. Carnie, D. Siddiqi, and Y. Sato, eds., Routledge Hand-
book of Syntax, pp. 3–23, Routledge. Reprinted by permission from
Routledge.
Chapter 5: Naoki Fukui. 2015. A note on strong vs. weak generation in
human language. In A.J. Gallego and D. Ott, eds., 50 Years Later: Re-
flections on Chomsky’s Aspects, pp. 125–131, MIT Working Papers in
Linguistics. Reprinted by permission from MITWPL.
Chapter 6: Hiroki Narita, Hironobu Kasai, Takaomi Kato, Mihoko Zushi,
and Naoki Fukui. 2016. 0-Search and 0-Merge. Appeared in this volume
for the first time.
Chapter 7: Kazuki Iijima, Naoki Fukui, and Kuniyoshi L. Sakai. 2009.
The cortical dynamics in building syntactic structures of sentences: An
MEG study in a minimal-pair paradigm. NeuroImage 44, 1387–1396.
Reprinted by permission from NeuroImage.
Chapter 8: Shinri Ohta, Naoki Fukui, and Kuniyoshi L. Sakai. 2013. Syn-
tactic computation in the human brain: The degree of merger as a key
factor. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56230. doi: 10.1381/journal.pone.0056230.
Chapter 9: Shinri Ohta, Naoki Fukui, and Kuniyoshi L. Sakai. 2013. Com-
putational principles of syntax in the regions specialized for language:
Integrating theoretical linguistics and functional neuroimaging. Frontiers
in Behavioral Neuroscience 7: 1–13. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh. 2013.00204.
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Introduction
Shortly after I moved from the University of California, Irvine, to Sophia
University in Tokyo, I came to know Kuniyoshi Sakai of the University of
Tokyo and started to work with him and his colleagues on the neuroscience
of human language. Kuni—who has a strong background both in physics
and biology—is one of the (very) few neuroscientists in Japan (or in any
country, for that matter) who hold a deep respect for the field of generative
linguistics as an emerging science, and, consequently, he has a very seri-
ous interest in what theoretical linguistics can offer for the neuroscience
of human language. I enjoyed very much working with him, and our col-
laboration developed into a research project, with Kuni as the PI, supported
by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in the category CREST
(Core Research in Evolutionary Science and Technology)—which was in
fact supported by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development
(AMED) for its last year due to organizational reforms of the sponsoring
institutions. The project lasted for five and a half years (from October 2010
to March 2016), during which I played a role in coordinating the project
team’s linguistic theory group and produced, in collaboration with other
members of the team, various articles both in the areas of theoretical syntax
and the neuroscience of language. The articles collected in this volume are
mostly those that I wrote during the AMED-CREST period (with a few
exceptions to be indicated next).
The main theme throughout the articles contained in the book is Merge,
the basic operation of human language. The Merge operation has been as-
sumed, at least from the mid-1990s, to be the fundamental core operation
of human language syntax that is responsible for its Basic Principle—i.e.,
that human language generates a pair of interpretations (sensorimotor,
conceptual-intentional)—roughly, a “sound-meaning pair”—for each of in-
finitely many hierarchically structured linguistic expressions. Various com-
plex grammatical devices that had been proposed in the literature to account
for an intricate array of linguistic phenomena have been shown to be re-
ducible to this simple formal operation, as it interacts with general com-
putational principles as well as with independently motivated extraneous
conditions imposed by the two performance systems—i.e., the interface
