realization of the semantic relations. For example, there appears to be a
restriction on the animacy of arguments with both the verb kill and its
nominalization killing.
(61) (a) #Sincerity killed the stone
(b) #Sincerity’s killing of the stone
As mentioned in section 7.2.2, in the prevailing theoretical paradigm of
the time—Generative Semantics—this was captured by a transform-
ational rule of nominalization. However, Chomsky (1970) noted that
not all nominalizations behave as if they were transformationally
related. He distinguishes between ‘‘gerundive nominals’’ (e.g. criticiz-
ing), which he claims are transformationally related, and ‘‘derived
nominals’’ (e.g. criticism), whose categories are syntactically primitive
(appear as such at D-structure). For example, he observes among other
properties that gerundive nominals can take an adverb but (most)
derived nominals can not:
(62) (a) Marie’s constantly criticizing the president was a shock.
(b) Marie’s constant(*ly) criticism of the president was a shock.
Chomsky proposed X-bar theory as an explanation for why derived
nominals still express other cross-categorial generalizations (such as
those in (61)) even though they are not transformationally related.
7.3.2 Early controversies: Emonds (1976), Jackendoff (1977),
Stuurman (1984)
One of the most rigorous early elaborations of X-bar theory is found in
JackendoV (1977). The precise proposals there, along with proposals in
Emonds (1973), Siegal (1974), Bresnan (1976), Halitzky (1975), Hornstein
(1977)andMuysken(1982) gave rise to a number of interrelated questions
about the exact form of X-bar theory. At issue were the number of bar
levels (X’,X’’,X’’’, etc.), the nature of speciWers (were they auxiliaries,
subjects, determiners, etc.?), the number of speciWers, the nature of the S
category (is it V’’,V’’’, or something entirely diVerent?). Newmeyer (1986)
and Stuurman (1985) both have excellent summaries of the debates.

set of constraints on the formal properties of rules rather than on
linguistic forms (see e.g. Lightfoot 1979). Stowell proposed that instead
of constraining the form of phrase structure rules, X-bar theory should
be viewed directly as a constraint on structure.19 Other properties of
16 ‘‘X
n
! (C
1
)...(C
j
)X
nÀ1
(C
jþ1
)...(C
k
) where 1 # n # 3 and for all C
i
, either C
i
¼ Y’’’
for some lexical category Y or C
i
is a speciWed grammatical formative’’ (JackendoV 1977).
17 This has the interesting result that it allows for multiple speciWers, a proposal widely
adopted in the minimalism of the late 1990s in slightly diVerent guise.
18 Muysken’s actual proposal is that heads bear the features [Àproj, Àmax], intermedi-
ate projections are [þproj, Àmax], and phrases are [þproj, þmax]. There is a single rule:
X[þproj] ! ... X[Àmax] . . .
19 With the following properties:

describing the hierarchical structure of sentences. There are reasons
to think, however, that X-bar theory is too powerful. In the next
chapter, we consider work conducted between the late 1990s and the
early 2000s in the Chomskyan GB and Minimalist paradigms that
proposes constraints on X-bar theory, resulting in its eventual aban-
donment.
20 Building on Pullum (1984) and (1985).
132 phrase structure grammars and x-bar
Part 3
Controversies
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