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Mirror theory


In theoretical linguistics, mirror theory refers to a particular approach to the architecture of the language organ developed by Michael Brody, who claims his theory to be purely representational (unlike most of the current generative theories that are either derivational or combining derivation and representation).

There are several important respects in which mirror theory is different from more traditional theories of phrase structure in generative linguistics such as X-bar theory or bare phrase structure. The first principle, called mirror, states that the syntactic relation 'X complement of Y' is identical to an inverse-order morphological relation 'X specifier of Y'. Thus, the notions of 'syntactic' and 'morphological' specifiers and complements are crucial for the linearisation of syntactic structure and its mapping to the morphological component.

When the structure is pronounced, it linearises in the following order: specifiers precede heads, and heads precede their complements. So when a sentence like that in the diagram below is pronounced, 'John' precedes the V-v-T chain, which in turn precedes 'Mary', the latter being the specifier of V. However, English is a VO language, which means that the morphological word 'loves' associated with the V-v-T chain is spelled in v, deriving the correct word order.

Adger, D., Harbour, D., and Watkins, L. Mirrors and Microparameters: Phrase Structure beyond Free Word Order

Brody, M. Mirror Theory

Similar to mirror theory is the Mirror Principle of the Distributed Morphology framework that deals primarily with issues of affix ordering. In the model of Distributed Morphology, the underlying assumption is such that all morphemes in a morphologically complex word are effectually "leaves" on a syntactic tree. These syntactic "leaves" undergo operations that lead to the build-up of words, meaning that word-formation is subject to the same principles that govern the syntactic build-up of sentences. The mirror principle surmises that a complex word is generated in a derivation with the root of a given word merging lower than all subsequent suffixes that attach to that word. These suffixes immediately c-command the root word and are ordered in accordance with the principle of semantic scope; morphemes that have scope over other parts of a words. To generate the proper linear structure, Left-Head Movement is applied recursively to include the morphemes that c-command a given root.


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