A Univeral Letter (X) and a Newer x-bar Theory

The Presence of a Univeral Letter (X)

and a Newer x-bar Theory

By Jay Lee*

(neogrammar@naver.com)

* Doowon Technical College. EFL.

1. the x-bar of Chomskians and déjà-vu

 

They tried to find absolute linguistic rules under the name of the x-bar theory or UG(Universal Grammar). Then, what is the x-bar theory?

The term X-bar is derived from the notation representing this structure. Certain structures are represented by X (an X with an bar over it). Because this is difficult to typeset, this is often written as X′, using the prime symbol. In English, however, this is still read as "X bar". The notation XP stands for X Phrase, and is equivalent to X-bar-bar (X with a double overbar), written X″, usually read aloud as X double bar. (Wikipedia. X-bar theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory)

Some of their intrinsic hunch urged them to search for the universals in human languages, thus suggesting the x-bar theory.1) Whether their academic efforts have proved successful or not, every reader but professional linguists will find it extremely hard to understand the above explanation on the x-bar theory. Plus, they were born in America, whose main concern almost always lies in the States, therefore they didn't go beyond the American bar. Alas!

But, even untrained minds from North-eastern Asia will find the letter X quite similar to 又(yòu. also or again)? Déjà-vu? Actually, what Chomskians have endeavored to find was not a syntactic quark, but a sememe. And, one the sememic-morpheme quark of Chinese letters 又 can be divided into '一'(yī. one) and '㐅'(wǔ. = 五. five), one of the potential meaningful linguistic universal.2)  

[Picture 1]

The Similarity of alphbet x and Chinese 㐅

*source: http://hanja.naver.com/hanja?q=%E3%90%85

The Similarity of X  and 又

*source: http://hanja.naver.com/hanja?query=%E5%8F%88

1) For more detailed and professional accounts on the x-bar theory, see Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on nominalization. In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) Reading in English Transformational Grammar, 184-221. Waltham: Ginn; Jackendoff, Ray (1977). X-bar-Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Kornai, Andras and Pullum, Geoffrey (1990) The X-bar theory of phrase structure. Language 66 24-50; and Chomsky, Noam (1994). "Bare Phrase Structure". MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics (5).