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6. Syntax and Morphology Multidimensional

7. Interface Explorations 24
Editors
Artemis Alexiadou
T. Alan Hall
De Gruyter Mouton

8. Syntax and Morphology
Multidimensional
edited by
Andreas Nolda
Oliver Teuber
De Gruyter Mouton

9. ISBN 978-3-11-023874-7
e-ISBN 978-3-11-023875-4
ISSN 1861-4167
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Syntax and morphology multidimensional / edited by Andreas Nolda,
Oliver Teuber.
p. cm. — (Interface explorations; 24)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-023874-7 (alk. paper)
1. Grammar, Comparative and general — Syntax. 2. Grammar,
Comparative and general — Morphology. 3. Structural linguistics.
I. Nolda, Andreas. II. Teuber, Oliver.
P291.S95624 2011
415 — dc23
2011028427
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 10785 Berlin/Boston
Cover image: iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Typesetting: Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong
Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
f» Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com

10. Contents
Introduction: Multiple dimensions in syntax and morphology 1
Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 17
RayJackendoff
A phono-syntactic template for Turkish: Base-generating free word
order 45
Ash Goksel
A coanalysis approach to Polish past tense agreement 77
BertholdCrysmann
Optimal specifications: On case marking in Polish 101
Bernd Wiese
Case competition in Russian: Genitive vs. accusative and nominative.
An integrational account 129
Hans-Heinrich Lieb and Svetlana Friedrich
How can the polysemy of syntactic categories be conciliated with
semantic coherence? Syntactic and lexical factors for the emergence
of a global signification of the imparfait in French 187
Marie-Helene Viguier
On lexical and syntactic licensing of category mixing 217
TatianaNikitina
AUTO- and INTER- versus (?) SE: Remarks on interaction and
competition between word formation and syntax 239
KatrinMutz
The interaction between morphology and syntax exhibited by the
German writing system 259
NannaFuhrhop
Subject index 289

11. Introduction:
Multiple dimensions in syntax and morphology
Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
The present volume collects papers that approach theoretical and empirical
problems in syntax and morphology from a multidimensional point of view. In
such an approach to syntax or morphology, syntactic phrases, morphological
words and the like are conceived of as syntactic or morphological constructs
with multiple, interrelated components, each representing morphosyntactic
properties of different kinds. Thereby one can describe, say, hierarchical struc­
ture and linear order, or morphosyntactic categories and functions in their own
right, without neglecting their interrelations.
The aim of this introductory article is to clarify what we mean by "multi-
dimensionality" and to provide an overview of the volume. We proceed as fol­
lows. Section 1 discusses the distinction between multidimensionality and
monodimensionality. Section 2 exemplifies monodimensional approaches by a
Government and Binding analysis. Section 3 characterizes multidimensional
frameworks insofar as they are represented in this volume. Section 4 finally
shows how the papers of the volume relate to its general topic.
1. Multidimensionality vs. monodimensionality
Morphosyntactic objects such as syntactic phrases or morphological words are
conceived of in different ways by different theoretical approaches. They are
modeled as constituent structures, dependency structures, feature structures.
etc. or as combinations thereof, i Assume, for instance, that in a certain theo­
retical framework morphosyntactic objects are modeled jointly by a constituent
structure - representing, say, hierarchical structure, linear order, and phono­
logical form - and a feature structure - representing morphosyntactic categories
and functions. Then we shall take the pair consisting of the constituent structure
and the feature structure to be a two-dimensional morphosyntactic construct. If.
1. Note that constituent structures, dependency structures, and feature structures
can themselves be formalized in different ways, e.g., by set-theoretical or graph-
theoretical means.

12. 2 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
however, all of those properties are represented by a constituent structure only.
the latter is a one-dimensional morphosyntactic construct.
In more general terms, then, morphosyntactic constructs are multidimen­
sional if they are composed of several components, each representing morpho­
syntactic properties of (at least partially) different kinds. Otherwise morpho­
syntactic constructs are mono dimensional. By extension, we shall say that a
theoretical framework is multidimensional itself if it models morphosyntactic
objects by multidimensional constructs. Similarly, a framework is monodimen-
sional if it models morphosyntactic objects by monodimensional constructs.
From a metatheoretical point of view, monodimensional frameworks may
appeal because of the uniformity and ontological parsimony of their morpho­
syntactic constructs. The number of their components is reduced to the bare
minimum: one. By contrast, morphosyntactic constructs in multidimensional
frameworks are more complex. They are composed of several components, that
do not only represent different kinds of morphosyntactic properties, but often
also differ with respect to their type (constituent structure, dependency struc­
ture, feature structure, etc.). In addition, multidimensional frameworks have to
provide means for relating corresponding parts in different components of a
given morphosyntactic construct.
On the other hand, monodimensional frameworks tend to posit rather intri­
cate structures for their morphosyntactic constructs because the latter have to
represent, and distinguish, properties of various kinds. In multidimensional
frameworks, however, the individual components of morphosyntactic con­
structs can have relatively simple structures, which are specifically adapted to
the one or few kinds of morphosyntactic properties they represent.
Another advantage of multidimensional frameworks is that different kinds
of morphosyntactic properties can be described in their own right, such that
mismatches between them are accounted for easily. Assume, for instance, that
in a given multidimensional framework hierarchical structure and linear order
are represented by different components of morphosyntactic constructs. Then
discontinuous constituents can be directly represented (instead of being 'simu­
lated' by movement operations or other technical devices).
As a matter of fact, monodimensional frameworks are often multistratal
ones. In a multistratal framework morphosyntactic objects are modeled by se­
quences of denvationally related constructs. In such a sequence all constructs
are of the same type (e.g. constituent structures) and represent morphosyntactic
properties of (at least partially) identical kinds. Typically, though not necessar­
ily, they are assigned to different 'descriptive levels' or 'derivational stages'
(such as 'deep' and 'surface structures'). Multidimensional frameworks, how­
ever, normally happen to be monostratal ones. Due to the multidimensional

13. Introduction 3
nature of their morphosyntactic constructs there arises no need for assuming
more than a single'descriptive level'.
2. A monodimensional example
A well-known monodimensional, and multistratal, framework is the Govern­
ment and Binding (or Principles and Parameters) incarnation of Generative
Grammar (Chomsky 1981, 1986). Ouhalla (1999: 136-137), for example,
models clause (1) in this framework by a sequence of constituent structures
with (2) as the S-structure (roughly, 'surface structure') member:
(1) {that) this problem, I can solve
(2)
Spec
/ can V
V NP
solve ti

14. 4 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
(2) is a monodimensional syntactic construct, representing at the same time
hierarchical structure, linear order^ syntactic categories, and - to a certain
degree - syntactic functions. In addition, it contains a coindexed trace ?,, linking
(2) with the D-structure (roughly, 'deep structure') member of the sequence
(another constituent structure, not given here).
As a rule, syntactic objects are modeled by constituent structures with a root
constituent of a phrasal category XP, and morphological ones by constituent
structures with a root constituent of a lexical category X According to X-bar
theory, the syntactic functions head, complement, adjunct, and specifier are
relations between positions in local tree configurations. In a local tree of cate­
gory X', for example, the relation of a YP daughter to an X daughter counts as a
complement relation, while its relation to anX daughter counts as an adjunct
relation. In a local tree of category XP, in turn, the relation of a YP daughter to
anX daughter counts as a specifier relation, while its relation to anXP daugh­
ter counts again as an adjunct relation.
In order to represent syntactic functions in an unambiguous way,3 X-bar
theory has to assume relatively complex constituent structures. The non-
branching VP configuration in (2) is a direct consequence of representing syn­
tactic functions by means of X-bar theoretic relations between constituent
structure positions.* Regarding hierarchical structure (in terms of part-whole
relations), the non-branching configuration is redundant: both the VP node and
the V node stand for the same verbal constituent. But without the intervening
V node between the VP and the contained NP, the syntactic function of the lat­
ter could not be determined by reference to X-bar theoretic principles.
The joint representation of hierarchical structure, linear order, and syntactic
functions by the same constituent structure can lead to further complexity, since
Chomskyan Generative Grammar does not allow for discontinuous constitu­
ents. In (1) this problem is a complement (the direct object) of solve, that is
2. In the Minimalist Program of current Generative Grammar, syntactic structures do
not directly represent linear order. According to Chomsky's (1995) 'bare phrase
structure' conception, syntactic structures are unordered sets. Their linearization is
delegated to the phonological component.
3. As a matter of fact, functional ambiguities can occur mX-bar theoretic tree struc­
tures despite their relative complexity. This is the case in adjunction configurations
where mother and daughters are of the same category XP. Unless further principles
are stipulated for the distinction between head and adjunct (such as then relative
linear order; cf Kayne 1994), the direction of the adjunct relation cannot be umquely
determined.
4. By giving upX-bar theory, the Minimalist Program avoids non-branching structures
(cf. Chomsky 1995).

15. Introduction 5
topicalized for mformation-structural reasons. In order to represent the comple­
ment function of this problem in accordance wrth X-bar theory, solve and this
problem would have to form anX constituent wrth solve as an X daughter and
this problem as a YP daughter. Due to the totalization of this problem, thatX
constituent would be discontinuous, though. In the Government and Binding
framework one resolves this sort of dilemma by representing syntactic functions
on D-structure but not necessarily on S-structure; surface linear order, in turn.
is represented on S-structure, but not necessarily on D-structure.
3. Multidimensional frameworks
We shall now characterize selected multidimensional frameworks - those
frameworks that are presupposed in papers of this volume. These are Lexical-
Functional Grammar, Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, the Parallel Ar­
chitecture, and Integrational Linguistics.^
3.1. Lexical-Functional Grammar
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) in the original version of Kaplan and
Bresnan (1982) models morphosyntactic objects by constructs containing a
constituent structure (c-structure) and a functional structure (f-structure).
Newer versions assume additional components such as argument structure
(a-structure) (cl Bresnan 2001).
Kaplan (1995: 10-11), for instance, models sentence (3) jointly by the
c-structure (4a) and the f-structure (4b):
(3) I saw the girl.
5. Multidimensional frameworks that are not represented withm the present volume
include Construction Grammar approaches such as Berkeley Construction Grammar
(cl, inter alia, Fillmore 1999; Kay 2002).

16. 6 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
(4) a. S
b.
the girl
PRED 'pro'
SUBJ PERS 1
LNUM SG J
TENSE PAST
PRED 'see <(t SUBJ), (t OBJ))'
PRED 'girl'
DEF +
PERS 3
L LNUM SG J J
OBJ
The c-structure (4a) represents hierarchical structure in terms of constituents
and constituent categories. Since (4a) is formalized as an ordered tree graph, it
also represents linear order. The f-structure (4b) represents morphosyntactic
categories such as first person and singular, grammatical functions, and lexical
meanings. Linear order is not accounted for by (4b), being formalized as a set-
theoretic function.
C-structures and f-structures are linked by a structural correspondence func­
tion (not given here; for details cf Kaplan 1995: 15-18), mapping constituents
of (4a) to parts of (4b). Note that c-structures and f-structures need not be iso­
morphic. In (4a), for example, the constituents saw, saw the girl, and / saw the
girl all correspond to (4b) as a whole.
3.2. Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar
Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) (Pollard and Sag 1987, 1994)
models syntactic and morphological objects exclusively by means of typed fea-

17. Introduction 1
ture structures. They are described by constraints, which are equally formulated
in terms of feature structures.
(6), for example, is a (simplified) model of sentence (5) (cf Pollard and Sag
1994: 32; type specifications are suppressed):
(5) Kim walks.
(6) PHON (Kim, walks)
SYNSEM Sin]
DTRS
HEAD-DTR
COMP-DTRS
L L
Informally, (6) can be notated as in (7):
(7)
PHON (walks)
SYNSEM VP[/zw]
PHON (Kim)
SYNSEM NP[«om]
J]
NP [nom] VP [fin]
Kim walks
The SYNSEM features in (6) specify, inter alia, syntactic categories (denoted
by feature structures, abbreviated here as "S[/k]", "NP[«0m]", etc.). The
HEAD-DTR and COMP-DTRS features represent hierarchical structure and
syntactic functions, conforming to the immediate dominance (ID) schemata of
the grammar. The PHON value represents phonological form and linear order.
the latter being constrained by the grammar's linear precedence (LP) con­
straints. Since in classical HPSG LP constraints apply to sister constituents
only, discontinuous structures cannot be described
The restriction to continuous constituents, however, is lifted in linearization-
based HPSG, notably developed by Reape (1992, 1996). According to him
(1992: 17) "syntactic structure should be formulated independently of word
order and then the relation between the two investigated". To this aim, he
6. The HPSG distinction between ID schemata and LP constraints takes up the ID/LP
rule format of Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG) (Gazdar et al. 1985).
Note that in a GPSG-style ID/LP grammar, ID rules still impose some constraints on
linear order, since the domain of LP rules is restricted to sister constituents.

18. 8 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
introduces a separate component for representing word-order - so-called order
domains, conceived as lists of domain objects.
Consider (8) as an example:
(8) (dass) der Mann versucht hat, das Buck zu lesen
that the man tried has the book to read
'(that) the man tried to read the book'
According to Reape (1996: 217-218), the unordered hierarchical structure of
(8) involves a constituent versucht das Buck zu lesen, that is discontinuously
linearized in the corresponding order domain. Using the same informal nota­
tion as in (7), the essentials of Reape's (1996) analysis can be sketched as in
(9):
(9)
versucht das Buch zu lesen
Amore formal representation is given in (10):'
(10)
TPHON {der, Mann, versucht, hat, das, Buck,zu, lesen)
SYNSEM VP
COMP-DTRS (|T| ;
TPHON (versucht, das,Buch,zu,lesen)
SYNSEM VP
PHON (der, Mann)
SYNSEM NP
LDOM (gssg
[COMPOS (H[>XM Sr^-llJ
JJ
J
LDOM |T]g
7. In his version of linearization-based HPSG, Reape uses the features "SYN" and
"ARG-DTRS" instead of "SYNSEM" and "COMP-DTRS", respectively. Boxed
numerals indicate token-identical values.

19. Introduction 9
The PHON value of (10) now results from concatenating the PHON values
of the domain objects in the DOM list, to which LP constraints apply in
linearization-based HPSG. Note that domain objects may be immediate con­
stituents or non-immediate ones. In the latter case (as in the top-level DOM list
in (10) with the domain objects versucht and das Buck zu lesen), constituents
can be discontinuously linearized.
The classical approach to morphology in HPSG is an item-and-process one:
feature structures modeling morphological objects (e.g. stems) are mapped
onto feature structures modeling morphological or syntactic ones (stems or
words) by lexical rules (Pollard and Sag 1987: chap. 8). For a recent overview.
including also alternative item-and-arrangement approaches, cf Muller (2008!
chap. 19).
3.3. The Parallel Architecture
In the Parallel Architecture (PA) framework (Jackendoff 1997,2002; Culicover
andJackendoff2005)thegrammaticalstructureofasyntactic(ormorphological)
object is conceived as a triple containing a (morphojphonologwal structure, a
(morpho)syntactic structure, and a semantic structure. Each structure can in
turn be composed of several tiers.
Example (12) outlines the grammatical structure of sentence (11) (cf. Culi­
cover and Jackendoff 2005: 193):
(11) Pat gave Dan a book
(12) a. Pat2 gave, Dan, a book,
b. [NP^vpVxNPsNPJJ,
c. GF2>GF3>GF4
d. [GIVE (PAT2, DAN3, [BOOK; INDEFWh
(12a) gives the phonological structure of (11) in orthographic terms, neglecting
its articulation into several tiers. (12b) represents the hierarchical structure of
(11) in form of a headed syntactic constituent structure. The grammatical func­
tion tier (12c) ranks unspecified grammatical functions. (12d) formulates the
conceptual structure of (11) (further semantic tiers are ignored).
Each structure in (12) is constrained by a separate combinatorial component
of the grammar with its own primitives and principles of combination. The

20. 10 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
primitives of the syntactic combinatorial component, which constrains syn­
tactic constituent structures, are syntactic categories and features. Its princi­
ples of combination are principles of constituency and principles of linear
order.* Correspondences between parts of different structures - expressed by
numerical indices in (12) - are constrained by interface components of the
grammar.
The multidimensionality of the grammar architecture allows Culicover and
Jackendoff (2005) to design a 'simpler syntax'. Syntactic constituent structures
can be as flat as possible, since they do not represent, e.g., any syntactic func­
tions beyond the head function.
3.4. Integrations! Linguistics
Ever since the seminal work of Lieb (1983),' Integration^ Linguistics (IL)
conceives structured syntactic objects as triples composed of * syntactic unit, a
syntactic structure, and a lexical interpretation. Syntactic structures in turn are
taken to consist of a constituent structure, a categonal marking structure, and
^intonation structure.
(14) gives, in informal notations, the syntactic unit (14a), the syntactic into­
nation structure (14b), the syntactic constituent structure (14c), the syntactic
marking structure (14d), and the lexical interpretation (14e) of sentence (13)
(cf Nolda 2007: 153-183):
(13) Ichhabenur franzosischen Rotwein.
I have only French red wine
'I only have French red wine.'
(14) a. 1 2 3 4 5
ich habe nur franzosischen Rotwein
8. In addition to GPSG-style LP rules, Cuticover and Jackendoff (2005) make use
of 'default' LP rules, specifying the default order of sister constituents, and
'edge' LP rules, linearizing constituents at the left or right edge of the mother
constituent.
9. For recent introductions to the framework cf. Nolda (2007: chap. 7) and Sackmann
(2008). The framework is presupposed, inter alia, by Eisenberg's (2006) German
reference grammar.

21. b. 1 2 3 4 5
L HL H LHrLL Ld L
c. VGr
Nf Vf Ptf Nf Nf
4 5
Introduction 11
1 2 3
d. 1 2
PERS-PRON, 1PERS,. . . MAIN-V, NOM+ACC,. . .
Nom, SmgNf,. . . IPers, Smgvf, Pres,. . .
3 4 5
QUAL-W,. . . ADJ,. . . MASS-N, MASC, . . .
Unmptf Ace, SmgNf, Masc,. . . Ace, SmgNf,. . .
e. 1 2 3 4 5
•I- haver c° Frenehr redwing-
From a formal point of view, all of those components are set-theoretical func­
tions. Their domains consist of position numbers, or sets of such numbers, rep­
resenting linear order and linking corresponding parts of different components.
The syntactic unit (14a) is a function from positions to phonological words
(notated here as orthographic words). The intonation structure (14b) associates
the positions with one or several sets of auditive values (one set per syllable:
only pitches are considered above). The constituent structure (14c) maps sets of
positions to constituent categories such as Nf ('noun form', including substan­
tival as well as adjectival word forms) or NGr ('noun group'). Note that the
VGr ('verb group') ich habe franzosischen Rotwem is a discontinuous constitu­
ent in (14c), interrupted by the Ptf ('particle form') nur. For those position sets
that are assigned basic constituent categories, the marking structure (14d) sup­
plies further categorizations in terms of lexical word categories (e.g. ADJ) and

22. 12 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
word form categories (Ace etc.), while the lexical interpretation (14e) assign
lexical meanings to them.io
Putting the components in (14) together yields a multidimensional con­
struct, that serves as a basis for specifying occurrences of syntactic functions
(represented by arrows in (15)):
(15)
Nf
1
ich
L
•I-
PERS-PRON, 1PERS,
Nom, SingNf,...
^VGr
VGr-«—— _




tffi>^
Vf
2
habe
HL
•haver
MAIN-V,NOM+ACQ.
IPers, Singyf, Pres,...
\ <*£>'
'NGT
Ptf
3
nur
H
c°
QUAL-W,.
Unmptf
Nf-'
4
fremzosischen
LULL
•French] •
ADJ,...
Ace, SingNf, Masc,
mod
5
Rotwein
LdL
•redwiner
MASS-N.MASC,.
Ace, SingNf,...
In the classical IL conception structured morphological objects were
conceived in a strictly analogous way, effectively combining an item-and-
arrangement approach with elements of the word-and-paradigm tradition (for
details, the reader is referred to Lieb 1983; for an application to German, cf
Eisenberg 2006: vol. 1). Recently, it has been proposed to replace it by an item-
and-process approach, though (Lieb 2006, 2010).
4. The papers in this volume
The contributions in this volume partly derive from papers read at the work­
shop on "Syntax and morphology multidimensional" at the annual meeting of
the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Sprachwissenschaft in Bielefeld in 2006. All of
them subscribe to a multidimensional point of view of syntax and morphology
presupposing, for the most part, one of the multidimensional frameworks pre­
sented in Section 3.
In "The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science", Ray Jack-
endoff argues that multidimensional parallel architecture approaches in general.
10. In (14e), "c°" denotes the empty concept. In IL, the meaning of 'particle forms' such
as nur is accounted for in sentence semantics, not lexical semantics.

23. Introduction 13
and his own Parallel Architecture framework in particular, integrate better with
cognitive science than mainstream Generative Grammar. This claim is justified
with reference to PA's conception of the lexicon, conceptual semantics, and
syntax. A PA lexicon includes 'stored' linguistic entities of all kinds, including
idioms, constructions, and phrase structure rules. Given the independently mo­
tivated complexity of PAs mentalistic conceptual semantics, syntax can be cut
down to the bare minimum that is needed to map between phonology and
meaning.
Ash Goksel advances a monostratal, multidimensional approach to Turkish
syntax that includes prosodic structure as a crucial part. In "A phono-syntactic
template for Turkish: Base-generating free word order", she proposes a tripartite
template for capturing general properties of linear order in Turkish sentences.
The domains in this template are defined independently from hierarchical struc­
ture solely by reference to the positions of sentence stress and the predicative
verb. It is shown that this proposal can be successfully applied to phenomena
such as functional ambiguity, quantificational dependency, and ellipsis.
In "A coanalysis approach to Polish past tense agreement", Berthold Crys-
mann discusses past tense and conditional agreement markers in Polish, that
can syntactically 'float off' to hosts on the left of the verb. He argues that the
former, but not the latter, are best analyzed as verbal affixes that are 'visible'
for syntactic linearization. This idea is implemented in a generalized ver­
sion of linearization-based HPSG that allows words to introduce more than
a single domain object into order domains.
Bernd Wiese shows in his paper "Optimal specifications: On case marking
in Polish" that the traditionally assumed multiplication of paradigms and
declensions for Polish nominal inflection can be avoided by hierarchical,
'multi-level' classification systems for gender and case. On their basis, Wiese
identifies largely unambiguous categonal specifications of noun endings. The
use of the latter is controlled by associated application conditions that specify
restrictions in formal or functional dimensions.
In their article on "Case competition in Russian: Genitive vs. accusative and
nominative. An integrational account", Hans-Heinrich Lieb and Svetlana
Friedrich investigate the semantics of the genitive case and its syntactic basis
in Russian. Presupposing the framework of Integrational Linguistics, they
identify semantic effects of the genitive for negation-independent competition
with the accusative as well as for negation-dependent competition with both the
accusative and the nominative. The semantic effects are derived by interpreting
syntactic functions in terms of semantic functions. The application of the latter
is controlled by application conditions (of different nature than those in Wiese's
paper), which make reference to various components of multidimensional

24. 14 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
syntactic constructs, including, but not limited to, the appearance of case cate­
gories in the marking structure.
Semantic functions and their applications conditions also play a crucial role
mMarie-Helene Viguier\ paper "How can the polysemy of syntactic categories
be conciliated with semantic coherence? Syntactic and lexical factors for the
emergence of a global signification of the imparfait in French". Viguier argues
that the polysemy of the French imparfait is at least partly semantic, not prag­
matic. She shows on the example of the non-past interpretation of the imparfait
in conditional ./-clauses how such an account can be implemented in Integra-
tional Linguistics by the formulation of a 'multidimensional' application condi­
tion for the corresponding semantic function, which here directly interprets a
syntactic category.
In her paper "On lexical and syntactic licensing of category mixing" Tatiana
Nikitina provides an LFG account of conditions on grammatical function real­
ization in deverbal noun constructions in Italian and Wan (a Mande language.
spoken in Cote d'lvoire). Nikitina proposes to explain the (non-)blocking of
grammatical functions in such 'mixed-category' constructions by distinguish­
ing two independent, and possibly conflicting, licensing mechanisms for gram­
matical functions (encoded in f-structure) and for their syntactic realization
(encoded in c-structure).
The paper on "AWV- and INTER- versus (?) SE: Remarks on interaction
and competition between word formation and syntax" of Katrin Mutz studies
the 'division of labor' between syntax and morphology on the example of
syntactic reflexive markers and their morphological counterparts in Romance
languages. The comparison of their functions is cast in a multidimensional
representation that includes 'levels' such as conceptual semantic structure,
argument structure, and morphosyntactic realization structure.
In her paper on "The interaction between morphology and syntax exhibited
by the German writing system", Nanna Fuhrhop shows how the dimensions of
morphology and syntax have independent impact on the spelling system of
German. The discussion is led along two phenomena, capitalization of nouns
and juxtaposition of compound words. It is shown that the graphematic system
falls back on morphological principles as well as on syntactic principles. Cases
of doubt arise from conflicts between these independent sets of principles.
References
BresnatUoan
2001 Lexical-Functional Syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.

25. Introduction 15
Chomsky, Noam
1981 Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures. Dordrecht:
Foris.
Chomsky, Noam
1986 Barriers. (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs 13.) Cambridge, Mass, MIT
Press.
Chomsky, Noam
1995 Bare phrase structure. In Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory.
Hector Campos and Paula Kempchmsky (eds.), 51-109. Washington:
D.C, Georgetown University Press.
Cuhcover, Peter W., and Ray Jackendoff
2005 Simpler Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eisenberg, Peter
2006 Grundriss der deutschen Grammatik. 3rd ed. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Metzler
Fillmore, Charles
1999 Inversion and constructional inheritance. In Lexical and Construc­
tional Aspects of Linguistic Explanation, Gert Webelhuth, Jean-Pierre
Koemg, and Andreas Kathol (eds.), 113-128. Stanford: CSLI Publica­
tions.
Gazdar, Gerald, Ewan H. Klein, Geoffrey K. Pullum, and Ivan A. Sag
1985 Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell
Jackendoff, Ray
1997 The Architecture of the Language Faculty. (Linguistic Inquiry Mono­
graphs 28.) Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Jackendoff, Ray
2002 Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Ox­
ford: Oxford University Press.
Kaplan, Ronald M
1995 The formal architecture of Lexical-Functional Grammar. In Formal
Issues in Lexical-Functional Grammar, Mary Dalrymple, Ronald M.
Kaplan, John T. Maxwell, and Annie Zaenen (eds.), 7-27. (CSLI Lecture
Notes 47.) Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Kaplan, Ronald M, and Joan Bresnan
1982 Lexical-Functional Grammar: A formal system for grammatical repre-
sentation. In The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, Joan
Bresnan (ed.), 173-281. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Kay, Paul
2002 An informal sketch of a formal architecture for Construction Grammar.
Grammars 5: 1-19.
Kayne, Richard S.
1994 The Antisymmetry of Syntax. (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs 25.) Cam­
bridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Lieb,Hans-Heinrich
1983 Integration* Linguistics. Vol. 1. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory
17.) Amsterdam: Benjamins.

26. 16 Andreas Nolda and Oliver Teuber
Lieb,Hans-Hemnch
2006 Wortbildung auf morphologischer und Wortbildung auf syntaktischer
Grundlage. Paper presented at the 28th Jahrestagung der Deutschen Ge-
sellschaft filr Sprachwissenschaft in Bielefeld on February 23.
Lieb,Hans-Hemnch
2010 Word formation: morphological and syntactic: A unified process view
based on a Word and Paradigm model. Ms., Freie University Berlin.
Miller, Stefan
2008 Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar: Fine Einfuhrung. 2nd ed.
(StauffenburgEmfilhrungen 17.) Tubingen: Stauffenburg.
Nolda, Andreas
2007 Die Thema-Integration: Syntax und Semantik der ,gespaltenen Topika-
lisierung' im Deutschen. (Studien zur deutschen Grammatik 72.) Tubin­
gen: Stauffenburg.
Ouhalla,Jamal
1999 Introducing Transformational Grammar: From Principles and Parame­
ters to Minimalism. 2nd ed. London: Arnold.
Pollard, Carl, and Ivan Sag
1987 Information-based Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 1: Fundamentals. (CSLI
Lecture Notes 13.) Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Pollard, Carl, and Ivan Sag
1994 Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications
and Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Reape,Mike
1992 A formal theory of word order: A case study in West Germanic. Ph. D.
Diss., University of Edinburgh.
Reape,Mike
1996 Getting things in order. In Discontinuous Constituency, Harry Bunt and
Arthur van Horck (eds.), 209-253. (Natural Language Processing 6.)
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
SackmannRobm
2008 An introduction to Integration^ Linguistics. In Explorations in Integra-
tional Linguistics: Four Essays on German, French, andGuarani, Robin
Sackmann (ed.), 1-20. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 285.) Am­
sterdam: Benjamins.

27. The Parallel Architecture and its place
in cognitive science*
Ray Jackendoff
It has become fashionable recently to speak of linguistic inquiry as brolmgws-
tics, an attempt to frame questions of linguistic theory in a biological context.
The Minimalist Program (MP; Chomsky 1995, 2001) is of course the most
prominent stream of research in this paradigm. However, an alternative stream
within the paradigm, the Parallel Architecture, has been developing in my own
work over the past 3 0 years; it includes two important subcomponents, Concep­
tual Structure and Simpler Syntax (Jackendoff 2002, 2007b; Culicover and
Jackendoff 2005). The present article will show how the Parallel Architecture
is in many ways a more promising realization of biolinguistic goals than the
Minimalist Program, and that it is more conducive to integration with both the
rest of linguistic theory and the rest of cognitive science.
1. Parallel architectures, broadly conceived
The Parallel Architecture can be explored at two levels: First, what is a parallel
architecture in general? Second, what distinguishes "the" Parallel Architecture
from other theories within this genre? In both cases, the basic question is:
(1) What is the best way to allocate the generative capacity of language, so as
to account for the observed relations between sound and meaning?
Traditional generative grammar, from Syntactic Structures (Chomsky 1957)
through the Minimalist Program, has answered:
(2) Syntactocentric architecture:
The recursive rules of the syntactic component provide the generative
capacity of language. The relation between sound and meaning arises
through mapping syntactic structures into phonetic form (PF) (or the
"sensorimotor interface") on one hand and logical form (LF) (or the
"conceptual-intentional interface") on the other.
* This chapter was published previously in The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic
Analysis, Bernd Heme and Heiko Narrog (eds.), 583-605, Oxford: Oxford Univer­
sity Press. We thank OUP for permission to include this chapter here. (The editors.)

28. 18 RayJackendoff
However, theoretical developments as early as the 1970s showed that pho­
nological structures have then own primitives and principles of combination
that cannot be reduced to syntactic terms. For instance, rules of syllabification,
prosody, and morphophonology are stated in terms of units that are thoroughly
comfortable in phonological terms but often quite uncomfortable in syntactic
terms. The same is true of meanings: semantic notions like event, manner,
quantification, and focus cut across syntactic categories but are charactenzable
in independent semantic terms. In particular, it has been a staple of linguistic
theory and psycholinguists to distinguish semantic ill-formedness ^Color­
less green ideas sleep furiously) from syntactic ill-form edness (M good ideas
am rare), which depends on the distinction between semantic and syntactic
combinatorial^
Within the syntactocentnc approach, mismatches between syntax and pho­
nology have been either incorporated into syntax (e.g. "Spell-Out") or ignored.
at least by syntacticians. Moreover, there has been a constant tendency to ac­
count for apparent mismatches between syntax and semantics by building more
and more aspects of semantics into syntactic structure - as is required by an
architecture in which all combinatonality is a consequence of syntax. The in­
evitable result is a syntactic component rich with invisible structure, in which
many constituents move multiple times. Differences of opinion arise as to
whether this is a Good Thing or not.
A parallel architecture answers question (1) like this:
(3) Parallel architecture:
a. The generative capacity of language is invested in multiple components
- at the very least, autonomous generative components for phonological.
syntactic, and semantic structure. Each component has its own distinc­
tive primitives and principles of combination, and generates its own
structure.
b. The relation between sound and meaning is mediated by a set of inter­
face components, which establish optimal linkings among the various
structures and their parish
c. The structure of a sentence is therefore an «-tuple of structures, one for
each appropriate component, plus the linkages established among
them by the interface components.
1. "Syntactic" is sometimes used to mean 'combinatorial in any sense', including
music, phonology, and semantics. I am using the term here in the narrow sense of
'combinatorial^ whose units are things like Noun and Verb.'
2. Note that in this theory, an interface is not a level of structure, but rather a connec-
tion between/wo levels of structure.

29. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 19
The main points of (3) can be illustrated by the following "W-model" of the
language faculty.
(4) Phonological Syntactic Semantic
Formation Formation Formation
Rules Rules Rules
1 1 1
Phonological Syntactic Semantic
Structures Structures Structures
\ *• Interface
Interface
A prion, the traditional approach (2) seems simpler, since it has only one
"generative engine" and fewer components overall. But, to paraphrase Chom­
sky (1972, 125-129) (who is responding to Postal's (1972) "The Best Theory"
without citing it), architectures must be judged not only on their formal ele­
gance, but also on their affordance for describing the data of language in full
detail (descriptive adequacy), in explaining language variation and the possibil­
ity of language acquisition (explanatory adequacy), and in explaining how the
system can arise from more general cognitive and biological principles ("be­
yond explanatory adequacy", to use the term of Chomsky 2001). In particular,
formal elegance must not be conflated with biological or cognitive elegance.
which might be quite different.
Pursuing the goal of going beyond explanatory adequacy, consider which
sort of architecture conforms more closely to what is known about the brain.
For instance, the visual system is known to contain numerous areas specialized
to different aspects of visual perception: detection of contour, detection of mo­
tion, detection of color, several independent mechanisms for constructing the
perception of depth, possibly face perception, and many many others. Each of
them accounts for a relatively limited aspect of visual understanding; the total­
ity of visual understanding arises from their combined efforts. In order for their
efforts to combine, they must communicate, linking their respective representa­
tions in an optimal fashion (Koch 2004). At the moment, we don't know a lot
about the formal details of representations computed by various visual areas,

30. 20 RayJackendoff
and there is still much dispute about what brain areas are responsible for differ­
ent aspects of linguistic understanding. Nevertheless, the overall flavor of the
visual system is far more compatible with a parallel architecture, with its mul­
tiple independent but linked components, than with a syntactocentnc one.
There seems to be no part of visual perception/cognition from which all other
parts can be derived; rather each part has its own special character.
There is one cognitive capacity other than language for which formal details
of the representations have been explored in some detail: music. Here it proves
impossible to generate musical structures from a single component. Lerdahl
and Jackendoff (1983) (see also Jackendoff and Lerdahl 2005) develop a paral­
lel architecture for music containing four components linked by interface rules.
One of these structures, grouping, is a general-purpose cognitive capacity that
also plays an important role in vision. Another, metrical structure, bears strong
similarities to the metrical systems that determine stress and prosody in lan­
guage. The other two structures are, so far as we know at the moment, particular
to music.
One of my original motivations for a parallel architecture in language (Jack­
endoff 1997, 2002) was the existence of multiple independent tiers in phonol­
ogy, such as syllabic structure, metrical structure, prosody, and tone, also linked
by correspondence or interface rules. Similarly, it is now fairly clear that se­
mantic structure can be dissected into semi-independent structures - at least
propositions structure (who did what to whom) and information structure
(topic vs. focus vs. common ground). Finally, the relation of language to vision.
such that we can talk about what we see, has to be mediated by a set of princi­
ples that link linguistic representations of some level to visual representations
of some level - it cannot be accounted for through further derivation from syn­
tactic structure (Jackendoff 1987). Thus a parallel architecture can easily be
scaled down to the internal structure of individual components, and scaled up
to the relation of language to other faculties.
A parallel architecture for language and other cognitive faculties displays a
version of modularity. This is not modularity in Fodor's (1983) sense, which
seals off various capacities from each other, but what could be called represen­
tational or structure-based modularity. Each separate form of representation
has its own particular autonomous (i.e. domain-specific) structure, and its own
interfaces to other structures. One form of representation is relatively informa-
tionally encapsulated from another to the degree that they can influence each
other only through a series of interfaces, or through a narrowly specialized in­
terface. For example, phonological structure is relatively encapsulated from
visual representations, because in order to speak about what one sees, one
has to pass from high-level visual understanding through linguistic semantic

31. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 21
structure and syntactic structure in order to influence phonology - i.e. through
a series of interfaces. However, there is also a narrowly circumscribed vision-
to-phonology interface that subserves reading, and this aspect of vision is
rather tightly yoked to phonology. (For more detail, see Jackendoff 1987.
chapter 12; 2002, section 7.5.)
In short, the spirit of parallel architectures is in overall accord with what is
known about (a) the brain, (b) the structure of other cognitive capacities, (c) the
interior structure of linguistic components, and (d) the interaction of language
with other cognitive capacities. The syntactocentnc architecture, including the
Minimalist Program as one realization, is not*
Many different theories of grammar employ parallel architectures in this
broad sense. As noted above, phonological theory since the mid-1970s has been
thoroughly parallel in conception. Among syntactic theories, the most prominent
parallel architecture is Lexical-Functional Grammar (Bresnan 2001), where the
work of syntax is divided between f-structure, c-structure, and the interface
between them. Autolexical Syntax (Sadock 1991) has parallel components for
morphosyntactic structure and phrasal syntactic structure, with the possibility
of further subdivision. Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin and LaPolla
1997) subdivides syntax into morphosyntax and phrasal syntax, and semantics
into propositions and information structures, with interfaces running in all
directions. Construction Grammar (Fillmore 1988, Goldberg 1995) is not for­
mally laid out as a parallel architecture, but it acknowledges the independence
of semantics from syntactic form, in that it emphasizes the many-many map­
ping between syntactic form and meaning, possible only if semantics is autono­
mous. And the granddaddy of them all is Stratificational Grammar (Lamb
1966), which decomposes the entire grammar into a long sequence of autono­
mous levels linked by interface components.
Another fundamental question in the architecture of grammar is this:
(5) What formal operations are employed in building linguistic structure?
The mainstream architecture - along with Tree-Adjoining Grammar (TAG.
Joshi 1987) - gives the following answer:
(6) Derivation-based generation:
Syntactic trees are built algonthmically, either from the top down (as in
pre-Minimalist theories) or from the bottom up (as in MP and TAG), and
3. An advocate of Minimalism might respond that this issue is one of performance or
implementation, and so this sort of evidence is not pertinent to Minimalist inquiry. I
would consider such a response simply a rhetorical avoidance of the evidence.

32. 22 RayJackendoff
they undergo a sequence of distortions (movements and deletions) to de­
rive sound and meaning.
In parallel architectures, the interface relation between different compo­
nents cannot be a sequenced derivation, since structures in different compo­
nents often stand in a many-to-many relation. Rather, the interface components
must be treated as constraints (possibly violable), which establish (or license)
well-formed links among different kinds of structure. In principle, the rules
responsible for each individual component of structure could be algorithmic.
But in practice, almost all parallel architectures I have encountered have
utilized a constraint-based formalism, in which each independent structure is
licensed by simultaneously applied constraints.* To sum up, the answer to
question (5) is (7).
(7) Constraint-based generation:
The structures of each component are licensed by simultaneously applied
component-internal constraints. The relationships among structures in
different components are licensed by interface constraints.
Thus a parallel derivation has no notion of logical sequence, as is essential in a
syntactocentric derivation. This has consequences for the relation of linguistic
theory to theories of processing, as we will see in the next section.
2. The Parallel Architecture: The lexicon
Having settled on a parallel architecture, the more specific question is:
What are the autonomous representational formats, and what are the interfaces
among them? What I have been calling "the" Parallel Architecture (in capitals.
or PA) incorporates specific proposals about semantics, phrasal syntax, and the
interface between them, plus less specific proposals about morphology and
phonology.
A leading question in the Parallel Architecture is the structure of the lexicon.
The question is stated in essentially psycholinguists terms:
(8) What linguistic material does a speaker have to store in memory - i.e.
What is in the lexicon? What structures can be built online in the course
of speaking and understanding?
4. An exception is Synchronous TAG (Shieber and Schabes 1991).

33. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 23
Traditionally, the lexicon is thought of as consisting of words (or mor­
phemes), a distinct component of the language from the rules of grammar.
Thinking in terms of question (8) leads to quite a different conception, as we
will now see.
A typical word - in any theory - is a triple of phonological, syntactic, and
semantic information. In syntactocentric theories, a word is inserted into a syn­
tactic derivation (by lexical insertion or Merge), and it is carried through the
derivation to the points where its phonological and semantic properties are
"read off." In the Parallel Architecture, the picture is quite different. The struc­
ture of a word suits it perfectly to function as a part of the interface compo­
nents: It establishes a correspondence between small chunks of phonological,
syntactic, and semantic structures. The correspondences among larger chunks
are accomplished by other interface rules.
There is no "point in the derivation" where a word is inserted. Rather, one
can think of the word being "inserted" into all three structures at the same time.
along with the links among them. Or one can think of the word as licensing the
connection among preexisting structures. Alternatively, one can think in terms
of processing. Given a perceived phonological structure, the word licenses the
building of a connection to corresponding pieces of syntactic and semantic
structure; given a piece of meaning to be expressed, the word licenses connect­
ing it to appropriate pieces of syntactic and phonological structures. This last
view suits PA to serve directly as a component of a theory of sentence process­
ing (Jackendoff 2002, chapter 7; 2007a). PA itself is nondirectional, but its
constraints can be implemented in an order suited to particular processing tasks.
One aspect of the information coded in a lexical item is its contextual re­
strictions. Syntactic contextual restrictions include subcategonzation features
on syntactic arguments; semantic contextual restrictions include selectional
restrictions on semantic arguments. Often these two are partly redundant
with each other, but not always (see Jackendoff 2002, section 5.9).
Not every word has to connect all three components. English contains a
small collection of "defective" words such as (9a). These have phonology and
meaning, but no syntactic properties that allow them to combine into larger
phrases (aside from within direct quotes, where anything at all is allowed).
There are also a few words that have phonological and syntactic properties but
no meaning, such as (9b).
(9) a. Phonology and meaning, no syntax:
hello, ouch, upsy-daisy, allakazam, wow, shhh, gee whiz,. . .
b. Phonology and syntax, no meaning:
do (Jo-support), it (pleonastic), o/(N o/NP)

34. 24 RayJackendoff
A lexicon conceived in terms of question (8) must contain more than single
words. Most obviously, it must contain the thousands of idioms and other fixed
expressions in the language such as (10), all of which are units known by native
speakers.
(10) a. Idioms:
kick the bucket, a breath of fresh air, right on the money, the jig is up.
day in day out, clean as a Whistle,pie in the sky,...
b. Fixed expressions (cliches, etc.):
baby-blue eyes, home sweet home, take it from me, weapons of mass
destruction, no money down, leave a message at the tone,. . .
Including these items in the lexicon (as they must be - where else would they
be in the language?) leads to two important conclusions.
First, lexical items cannot be conceived of as syntactic atoms, since many
items in (10) have internal syntactic structure. Kick the bucket is a transitive VP.
clean as a whistle is an AP with a comparative complement, weapons of mass
destruction is a complex NP, and so on. Thus they cannot be inserted by a pro­
cess like MP's Merge, which builds structure out of syntactic atoms. However.
treated as interface constraints, they pose no problem: they simply link a com­
plex syntactic structure with an idiosyncratic meaning. (This approach is shared
withHPSG.)
Second, the lexicon cannot be conceived of as a nonredundant list of excep­
tions, as Chomsky has often asserted (citing Bloomfield). The lexical item
weapons of mass destruction contains four independently attested words, mean­
ing exactly what they ought to mean. It adds the information that these four
form a known unit, and adds some extra meaning or connotation. It is impos­
sible to extract the redundant information, leaving only the extra information.
and end up with something that is formally coherent. The conclusion is that the
lexicon is full of redundancy. In terms of formal elegance this is less than satis­
factory, but it is where the facts urge us. In terms of "brain elegance", though.
it seems entirely in line with the rest of the brain, which seems to favor redun­
dancy where possible, in the interests of more reliable memory and processing.
In addition to items such as (10) that are larger than a word, the PAs lexicon
also contains items that are smaller than a word. For example, the regular plural
suffix -z/-s/-3z in English establishes a correspondence between a piece of pho­
nology, a syntactic feature, and a piece of meaning. Its contextual restrictions
state that it is to be affixed to a noun (syntactic context) that is count (semantic
context); the conditions for its allomorphy depend on its phonological context.
It can be affixed to a noun of any phonological shape, including novel ones (as

35. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 25
in the wugs test). Thus its manner of combining with its host is formally no
different from the way a transitive verb combines with its object, except that it
combines below the word level rather than at the phrasal level.
On the other hand, irregular plurals (oxen, women, axes, etc.) have to be
learned individually and therefore have to be stored in the lexicon. Formally.
they are semantically and syntactically composite, but phonologically unitary:
They are therefore parallel in structure to idioms, which are phonologically and
syntactically composite but not semantically composed of the meanings of their
morphemes. We can therefore think of these cases as "morphological idioms.'*
The treatment of regular inflectional morphology as lexical items extends
easily to other regular morphological phenomena, including unusual ones. For
instance, English expletive inflation (manu-fuckm-facturer) is a stored mor­
pheme with a distinct (non-truth-conditional) meaning, and can be affixed to
any syntactic category. Its main contextual restriction is prosodic. Similarly.
reduplicative morphemes have meanings and syntactic contextual restrictions
just like any other affix, but their phonological shape is listed in the lexicon as
a sort of binding: "Copy such-and-such a part of the word I'm attached to"
(Ghomeshi et al. 2004).
PA's treatment of regular morphology parts company here with "lexicalist"
theories such as LFG and HPSG (Pollard and Sag 1994), which derive morpho­
logically complex words "in the lexicon", "prior to" inserting them into sen­
tences. In PA, both phrasal grammar and morphology contain processes of free
combination that can be used online, and both also include lexically listed "pre­
fabs" (idioms and irregular morphological combinations respectively). The dif­
ference between phrasal grammar and morphology is only that the units and
principles of combination for phrases are in part different from those for words.
In this framework, LFG's notion of Lexical Integrity amounts to the claim that
the two sets of principles do not interact, except through inflectional morphology.
PA's lexicon also incorporates the insight of Construction Grammar that
certain pieces of syntax can carry idiomatic meaning, with or without overt
morphemes that mark the constructional meaning. Some of these construc­
tional idioms have ordinary syntax, for instance the VP constructions in (11);
others, such as (12), have unusual syntax ("syntactic nuts" in the sense of Culi-
cover 1999).
(11) a. joke your way into the meeting
(V Pro's way PP = 'go PP while/by V-ing')
5. There may of course be subregulanties among irregular forms, but we set this aside
for purposes of the present article; see Jackendoff (2002, sections 6.2-6.4).

36. 26 RayJackendoff
b. rumble around the corner
(V PP = 'go PP in such a way as to make a V-ing sound')
c. knit the afternoon away
(V NP away = 'spend NP[time] V-ing')
d. paint me a picture
(V NPX NP2 = 'V NP2 for the benefit of MY)
(12) a. The more you eat, the fatter you get (the more S, the more S)
b. One more beer and I'm leaving (one more X and S)
c. How about some lunch? (How about HP?)
d. student after student (NPN)
Each of these constructions is listed in the lexicon as a linking between a syn­
tactic complex and a meaning; some parts of the syntactic complex may be
linked also to phonology (e.g. way). The syntactic variables in these construc­
tions correspond to semantic variables in the usual way, and the constructions
can therefore be combined with other items to form a sentence in exactly the
same way as words and other idioms are. However, notice that the verbs in
(11 a-c), though they are syntactic heads, serve semantical^/ as manner or means
modifiers.
Since the lexicon contains linked phonological, syntactic and semantic
complexes, nothing in principle prevents it from also containing phonological
and syntactic complexes that are not inherently linked to anything. For exam­
ple, a "generative" phrase structure rule such as (13a) - which, as part of one's
knowledge of English, must be stored in memory somehow - can also be stated
as a "treelet" (13b), a syntactic complex that constrains possible syntactic struc­
tures. PA treats it as a stored piece of structure; it can therefore be localized in
the lexicon alongside semantically and phonologically linked VPs such as kick
the bucket.
(13) a. VP-V-NP
b. [VpVNP]
Thus autonomous principles of syntax - fixed head position, the availability of
ditransitive constructions, the means for forming relative clauses, and so on -
are stated in precisely the same format as constructional idioms, and they there­
fore belong in the lexicon as well. In phonology, one can view syllable structure
rules as lexical entries that specify pieces of autonomous phonology.
The upshot is that there is no principled distinction between words and rules
of grammar. Both are stored pieces of structure, lying at opposite ends of a

37. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 27
multidimensional continuum of idiosyncrasy and regularity. This conclusion
has been arrived at within HPSG, Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987), and
Construction Grammar as well as PA, in each case through attention to a mul­
titude of intermediate cases such as idioms and constructions. Mainstream gen­
erative grammar, partly because of its algorithmic formulation, has followed
traditional grammar in making a strong lexicon/grammar distinction. This has
made it difficult to assimilate idioms and constructions into the theory, resulting
in loss of descriptive adequacy.
In pursuit of explanatory adequacy, the MP has arrived at the conjecture that
there is actually only one rule of grammar, Merge, and that all differences
among languages are localized in the lexicon (Chomsky 2001); this conjecture
has not proven as simple in execution as in principle (particularly since MP has
no theory of the organization of the lexicon!). Within PA, HPSG, and Construc­
tion Grammar, the counterpart of this conjecture is quite straighforward. All
words and all rules of grammar are pieces of structure stored in the lexicon. The
only "procedural" part of language is the fundamental operation of Unification
(Shieber 1986), which assembles pieces of structure. Merge proves to be a spe­
cial case of Unification: it combines two given elements with a piece of tree
structure.
Unification can be generalized to combinatorial cognitive capacities other
than language, thus better satisfying the goal of "beyond explanatory adequacy."
For example, in vision it can be used to integrate evidence for depth perception
from disparate sources. It can also be used to weld lyrics to music in building
songs. Merge cannot perform either of these functions. If Unification is a gen­
eral brain mechanism for achieving combinatonality, it should be no surprise
that language uses it too. (See Jackendoff 2008 for discussion of Merge vs.
Unification.)
3. Conceptual Semantics
To work out any version of a parallel architecture, it is necessary to have theo­
ries of the individual components and the interfaces among them. Unlike other
parallel architectures in the literature, and unlike mainstream linguistic theory.
PA is grounded in a highly articulated theory of semantics, Conceptual Seman­
tics, that answers to the concerns of the biolinguistic perspective and that also
offers considerable (and continually increasing) empirical coverage. There is
space here only to list some of the highlights of the theory.
First, Conceptual Semantics (like Cognitive Grammar) is thoroughly men-
talistic: it is a theory of the information in a language user's mind/brain that is

38. 28 RayJackendoff
involved in understanding utterances, connecting them to perceptual evidence.
and making inferences. It recasts the traditional philosophical concerns with
reference and truth in mentalistic terms:
(14) a. Traditional formulation:
i. A phrase P refers to an entity E in the world (or in a possible
world).
ii. A sentence S is true if it meets conditions Ch . . . , Cn in the world.
b. Mentalistic formulation:
i. A language user LU understands a phrase P to refer to an entity E
in the world as LUconceptualizes it.
n. LU judges a sentence S true if S meets conditions Q,. . . , C„ in
the world as LU conceptualizes it.
The seeming objectivity of language, stressed by traditional philosophy of lan­
guage, is a consequence of language users sharing a common (or near-common)
conceptualization of the world, so that agreement can largely be taken for
granted (Jackendoff 1983; 2002, chapters 9 and 10).
Second, Conceptual Semantics recognizes that many aspects of one's con­
ceptualization of the world are independent of language. For instance, one can
understand much of the behavior of physical objects ("naive physics") without
any language at all. Decades of research on child development, linguistic and
nonlinguistic, have shown that prelinguistic children bring a rich toolkit to the
task of understanding the physical world, and that this understanding serves as
a foundation for learning word meanings (e.g. solving Quine's gavagai prob­
lem). Thus the view of meaning espoused by Conceptual Semantics offers the
potential of explanatory adequacy, i.e. helping to explain the innate basis from
which children acquire lexicons (now including rules of grammar).
It also appears that other primates - especially apes - negotiate the physical
world in much the same way we do; humans differ only in being able to talk
about it. This provides an evolutionary underpinning for the semantic system of
language: our ancestors had thoughts - as it were, things to talk about - before
they could talk. This view of meaning, then, helps satisfy the goal of "beyond
explanatory" adequacy: it helps explain why (some part of) the semantic sys­
tem of language is the way it is, because it is built upon pre-existing primate
cognition.
Recall that within the mainstream architecture, the combinatorial properties
of the "conceptual-intentional interface" arise through derivation from the syn­
tactic component. On the face of it, this amounts to the claim that babies and
apes cannot think combinatorial^. It is possible to read certain passages of

39. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 29
Chomsky as endorsing such a claim, for example, "unbounded Merge provides
only a language of thought, and the basis for ancillary processes of externaliza-
tion" (Chomsky 2009). This acknowledges the combinatorial character of
thought, but it still does so in syntactocentnc terms. The basic units of Chom­
sky's 'language of thought' are NPs and VPs; and Merge, the capacity for
combinatonality, is said to have arisen in the course of human evolutionary
divergence from other primates. To my knowledge, this position has not been
defended against the copious literature on primate intelligence.
In PA, by contrast, the 'language of thought' is the combinatorial system in
terms of which one understands the world. Its units are entities such as objects,
events, properties, and trajectories. NPs and VPs are part of the combinatorial
system of (narrow) syntax, which plays a role in the mediation between thought
and sound, that is, as part of what Chomsky calls "processes of externaliza-
tion." PA takes the combinatorial system of meanings to be universal (though
use of the system can be biased by the means of expression if "Whorfian" ef­
fects prove to be genuine). It is just that meanings are not made of syntactic
units. This approach is possible precisely because of the fundamental assump­
tion of PA that language - and the mind in general - utilizes multiple sources of
combinatonality.
A third important aspect of Conceptual Semantics, again drawing on the
Parallel Architecture, is that the system of meaning or 'language of thought' is
itself bifurcated into at least two linked combinatorial systems, Spatial Struc­
ture and Conceptual Structure, each of which is responsible for part of the con­
ceptualization of the world (with or without language). The representations of
Spatial Structure are quasi-geometnc or topological in character. For a first ap­
proximation, Spatial Structure might be thought of as the highest level of the
visual system, representing objects in terms of their detailed shape. However, it
must be able to encode shapes in a perspective-independent fashion, so that
they can be recognized from any distance and angle (i.e. accomplish object
constancy). It must be possible also to represent objects schematically, so that,
say, the action of sitting can be represented in terms of a generic or schematic
human figure rather than a specific person.
In fact, though, Spatial Structure is not exclusively visual: it can also code
shape and configuration that has been derived haptically (sense of touch) and
propnoceptively (body sense), and both of these can be compared and inte­
grated with visual input. Thus Spatial Structure is more abstract and general
than a visual image - it is conceived of as a central level of cognition that codes
the physical world in a relatively modality-independent fashion. It plays a role
in word and sentence meanings, in that it encodes what things and events look
like, and it enables us to talk about what we see.

40. 30 RayJackendoff
The second major division of meaning, Conceptual Structure, is an alge­
braic structure built up in terms of discrete features and functions. It encodes
distinctions that cannot be represented in the geometnc/topological format of
Spatial Structure, such as those in (15), which are not part of what an object or
event looks like.
(15) a. the type-token distinction, distinguishing categories from individuals
b. taxonomic relations: Xis an instance/subtype of 7'
c. temporal relations: Xis past/future'
d. causal relations: Xcauses 7', Xenables F, Ximpedes F, . . .
e. modal notions: Xis hypothetical/nonspecific/potential/nctional. . .'
f. social notions: Xis the name of F, Xis dominant to F, Xis kin to/
friend of F, Xis member of group Z\ Xowns F, Xis obligated to
perform act F, 'action 7 is of normative value Z\ . . .
g. theory of mind notions: Xbelieves 7', Ximagines 7', Xintends 7'.
Xis committed to norm 7',...
The overall architecture looks like this:
(16) Haptic
^ System
Phonological ^ w Syntactic ^ w Conceptual ^ ^ Spatial ^ ^ Visual
Structure Structure Structure Structure w System
N
Proprioceptive
Systems
LANGUAGE PROPER CENTRAL COGNITION
Conceptual Semantics takes it that word meanings must be potentially com­
posite in order to encode relations among word meanings and in order to state
properly general rules of inference. On the other hand, it differs from classical
views of word meaning in admitting conditions other than necessary and suf­
ficient. For instance, the conditions for color words must be encoded in terms
of relative distance from central instances. In judging a hue between focal red
and focal orange, two such conditions come into competition, and the judgment
is therefore variable and to some degree context-dependent.
In addition, many word meanings contain multiple conditions interacting in
"preference rule" fashion. For instance, stereotypical climbing involves mov­
ing (i) upward, (ii) in a clambering fashion. But one can climb down a tree
(clambering but not moving upward), and an airplane can climb into the clouds

41. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 31
(moving upward but not clambering). On the other hand, an airplane cannot
climb down out of the clouds, because such motion is neither upward nor clam­
bering. In other words, neither condition is necessary, either may be sufficient,
and stereotypical cases satisfy both. This type of rule interaction produces so-
called "cluster concepts", of which Wittgenstein's (1953) example of game is
the most famous.
These characteristics of word meanings, even if unusual according to stan­
dard philosophical preconceptions, are totally normal within the context of
brain computation. As been observed since the gestalt psychologists of the
1920s (Wertheimer 1923), conditions based on central instances and rule inter­
actions with the characteristics of preference rules are standard in vision. They
also appear in phonetic perception and in musical cognition, and essentially
anyplace that multiple factors can either combine or conflict in producing a
judgment.
Conceptual Semantics differs from most theories of semantics (but again.
not from Cognitive Grammar) in that it denies a sharp division between linguis­
tic meaning and encyclopedic meaning (or "knowledge of the world"). Every
division that has been proposed turns out to eviscerate linguistic meaning to the
point where it cannot serve as a basis for inference (see Jackendoff 2002, sec­
tions 9.6-9.7; Bolinger 1965; Langacker 1987; Levinson 2000).
A related point is that "semantics" and "pragmatics" do not involve distinct
representations. Rather, there is a pair of mental representations, Conceptual
Structure and Spatial Structure, that are the locus of sentence understanding.
Some aspects of these representations may come from the words in the sen­
tence and their grammatical configuration; we may call these parts "semantic".
Other aspects come from nonlinguistic sources such as perception, inference.
and "world knowledge"; we may call these parts "pragmatic." But these parts
are often intricately interwoven in the representation in such a way that one
cannot do the "semantics" first and paste in "pragmatics" afterward.
In Conceptual Semantics, the taxonomy of concepts ('a poodle is a kind of
dog', 'a dog is a kind of animal', etc.) grounds out in a fundamental ontology
of concepts - the basic types of things that humans can conceptualize in the
world. Traditional philosophy of language and formal semantics attempt to
make do with an absolutely minimal ontology such as individuals and truth-
values. Perhaps this makes sense if one thinks semantics is about the nature of
reality and should ground out elegantly in fundamental physics. But if seman­
tics is about the human conceptualization of the world, its fundamental units
arise from evolution's building a brain that is equipped to guide an organism
successfully through its life. Again "brain elegance" takes precedence over for­
mal elegance.

42. 32 RayJackendoff
One piece of evidence for the basic ontology comes from deictic expres­
sions that pick out units in the visual field. Just as it is possible to point out
objects for the hearer to identify, as in (17a), it is possible to pick out a wide
range of other entities.
(17) a. Please pick that [pointing] up. [object]
b. Please put your hat here [pointing]. [location]
c. He went that way [pointing]. [path/trajectory]
d. Please don't do that [pointing] around here anymore. [action]
e. Did you hear that? [sound]
f. / hope that [pointing] doesn 't happen again. [event]
g. The fish I caught was this long [demonstrating]. [distance]
h. There were about Ms many [gesturing] [amount/number]
people here last night.
i. Can you walk like this [demonstrating]? [manner]
Each of these ontological categories has its own conditions of individuation:
many of them (but not all) allow a type-token distinction; many permit quanti­
fication. Adopting this relatively rich system from the start affords Conceptual
Semantics a broad descriptive capacity and, to some extent, a better constrained
relation between semantic and syntactic categories. Note also that (17) lists
only ontological categories observable in the physical world; there are clearly
others, such as information and value.
Once the ontological system is laid out, it becomes possible to recognize
entities that subsist simultaneously in more than one ontological domain (the
"dot-objects" of Pustejovsky 1995). For instance, a book is simultaneously a
physical object and a body of information. These two characterizations, more­
over, are in a preference rule relation, since there are blank (i.e. information-
less) books and books stored on a computer (i.e. not laid out on paper pages).
Reading is a "dot-action", in that it involves both the physical act of scanning
the page with one's eyes and the informational act of receiving information off
the page. Dot-objects are therefore multidimensional entities within Concep­
tual Structure.
Perhaps the most important case of a dot-object is a human being, who is
conceptualized simultaneously as an animate physical object and as a person
- an entity in the social domain. The two domains correspond to the (appar­
ently) universal cultural conceptualization of people as composed of body and
mind (or soul or spirit). The fact that people have faces and hands and livers
falls into the physical domain; the social notions and theory-of-mind notions in
(15f,g) above are predicated in the social domain. Again, in traditional beliefs

43. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 33
at least, these two characterizations stand in a preference rule relation. For in­
stance, * zombie is an animate physical object lacking conscious personhood; a
ghost is a mind (or soul) lacking a physical body. Reincarnation and body-
switching (both amply attested in human narratives) are one mind inhabiting
different bodies in succession; multiple personality disorder is experienced as
different personalities (i.e. different individuals) inhabiting the same body in
succession (Jackendoff 2007b, chapter 5).
The combinatorial possibilities of Conceptual Structure arise from (at least)
three principles of combination: argument satisfaction, modification, and bind­
ing. In the default case, argument satisfaction is expressed by syntactic comple­
mentation, and modification by syntactic adjuncts. For instance, in (18), John
expresses an argument of sleep, and beside the rtver expresses a place modifier.
(18) John slept beside the river.
However, there are exceptions to this typical configuration. For instance, in the
sound + motion construction illustrated in (lib) and (19), the subject is a se­
mantic argument not only of the verb, but also of an unexpressed predicate of
motion. The PP is also an argument of the predicate of motion, and the verb
expresses a modifier of this predicate, i.e. 'move while rumbling'.
(19) The trolley rumbled along the nver
A mismatch in the opposite direction is illustrated by (20). Here cheap marga­
rine is syntactically an adjunct, but semantically it is an argument: it is what
Bill put on the bread.
(20) Bill buttered the bread with cheap margarine.
Such mismatches are common.
Binding, a direct connection between one conceptual constituent and an­
other, comes in two varieties: identity of reference and identity of sense. This is
reflected in two kinds of anaphoric elements in language. Identity of reference
binding is expressed by definite pronouns and also by anaphoric epithets, such
as in (21) (which does not display identity of sense).
(21) John wants to win, but the voor Suv never wtll.
Identity of sense binding is expressed by 0«e-anaphora and also by VP anaphora
with expressions like do so. These two types of binding must be distinguished
in Conceptual Structure, as they give rise to different inferences.

44. 34 RayJackendoff
Using argument satisfaction to create semantic combinations requires func­
tions whose arguments are to be satisfied. A number of broad families of func­
tions have been investigated within Conceptual Semantics.
- Functions that encode spatial location, motion, and orientation. They all take
two arguments: a Theme (the object being located or in motion) and a
Location or Path: BE(Theme, Loc), GO(Theme, Path), STAY(Theme, Loc),
ORIENT(Theme, Path), EXTEND(Theme, Path)
- Functions that encode Locations and Paths relative to a reference object:
IN(X), ON(X), TO(X), FROM(X), TOWARD(X), NEAR(X), etc. Some of
these involve imposing a reference frame on the reference object; e.g.
BEHIND(X) must be specified as to whether one is speaking of the intrinsic
back of Xor its other side relative to the speaker. (This family has been
heavily investigated within Cognitive Grammar as well.)
- Causative functions that encode a Causer (an Agent or Event) being causally
connected to anEffect(anotherEvent): CAUSE(Causer,Effect),LET(Causer.
Effect), HELP(Causer, Effect), ENABLE (Causer, Effect), and others.
- Mereological functions that encode part-whole relations: PART-OF (legs.
handles, noses), BOUNDARY-OF (edges, surfaces, ends, etc.), MEMBER-
OF (members of aggregations), COMPOSED-OF (ingredients of mixtures)
A founding insight of Conceptual Semantics (due to Gruber 1965) is that all
of these functions can be applied to semantic fields other than physical space.
For instance, an object being owned by someone (a social relation) is often
expressed crosslinguistically as the object 'being at' the owner, and changes of
possession are often expressed as the object 'going' 'from' the previous owner
'to' the new owner. Similarly, just as we talk about the end of a rope, we can
talk about the end of a speech, a relationship, or a genealogical line. This sug­
gests that these Conceptual functions can be decoupled from their physical con­
text (where they connect with Spatial Structure) so as to apply to more abstract
domains as well. In addition to possession, they also extend to such fields as
time, event structure (such as aspectuality and telicity), ascription of properties.
and (in the case of causation) social coercion and logical entailment
Further functions that have been investigated (Jackendoff 2007b) involve
the personal domain. They include:
6. This insight is treated somewhat differently in Cognitive Grammar (Lakoff 1987).
where it is taken to show that underlying linguistic expression is an extensive and
powerful system of conceptual metaphor.

45. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 35
- Theory-of-mind predicates, e.g. Xperceives Y (in various modalities)', Xis
committed to proposition /»' (belief), Xis committed to action A' (inten­
tion), Xis committed to norm N' (adherence to norms)
- Value predicates in various domains (affective, normative, quality, etc.): X
is of valueP, Xis of value F to person F
- Predicates of exchange: Xdoes action^ in exchange/return/retaliation for Y
doing action^'
- Obligations, rights, and authority: Xis obligated to 7 to perform action^', X
has anghtto perform action^', Xhas authority over 7's performing action^'
All of these functions are involved in constructing the prepositional tier of
Conceptual Structure. In addition, sentence meaning involves an information
structure tier, which designates certain semantic constituents as topic, certain
as focus, and the rest as common ground. Further differentiation of the propo-
sitional tier has also been proposed, for which there is no space here: a referen­
tial tier in Jackendoff (2002) (involved for instance in identity-of-reference
anaphora, specificity, referential opacity, and quantification) and an action tier
or macrorole tier in Jackendoff (1990, 2007b).
In short, Conceptual Semantics aspires to the formal richness necessary to
encode the character of human concepts and their inferential affordances. It
integrates comfortably with the Parallel Architecture, in that although it is a
combinatorial system, its units and principles of combination - as well as the
resulting structures - are quite different from those of syntax. In particular, it is
a multidimensional formal system, in that it involves both Spatial Structure and
Conceptual Structure, the latter itself split into multiple tiers connected by in­
terface components. Only through looking at semantics on its own terms.
grounded in the character of nonlinguistic cognition, can the independence
of these structures from language - and their psychological and biological
grounding - be revealed. If meanings have this sort of structure, they certainly
cannot be derived from the syntax of NPs and VPs.
4. Simpler Syntax and the syntax-semantics interface
An advantage of a parallel architecture over a "single-engine" architecture is
that no single level of structure has to carry the entire informational load. In a
syntactocentnc architecture, all semantic combinatonality has to be derived
from syntactic combinatonality. Thus syntax is forced to be combinatonally at
least as complex as semantics - if not more so, since it also has to answer to its
own internal imperatives such as word order and agreement. And indeed this

46. 36 RayJackendoff
outcome has been achieved twice in the history of generative grammar: the first
time, in the Generative Semantics movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s
(Lakoff 1971), and the second time, in Government-Binding Theory of the
1990s and the Minimalist Program. In MP, the rules of grammar and the con­
tents of UG have been reduced to a minimum (allegedly - though only through
drastic cuts in empirical coverage), but the structures and derivations have in­
creased steadily in size and complexity (see Culicover and Jackendoff 2005.
chapters 2 and 3).
In PA, the combinatorial properties of meaning are a property of autono­
mous conceptual combinatonality. From this perspective, syntax functions in
the grammar not as the fundamental generative mechanism, but rather as an
intermediate stage in the mapping between meaning and sound (in either direc­
tion). The words in a sentence are interface rules that provide small-scale map­
pings between meaning and sound. What remains to complete the mapping is
the relationships among the words: the function-argument, function-modifier.
and binding relations. Syntax can be thought of as a way of encoding the se­
mantic relationships among the words in a sentence in terms that are visible
to phonology, such as linear order, inflectional morphology, and anaphoric
elements - as well as coding the overall semantic force of a clause, such as
declarative vs. interrogative. However, there is no need for syntax to encode
any more of semantic structure than is necessary to map between phonology
and meaning.
In fact, many aspects of meaning are not supported by syntactic or lexical
expression. For instance, in (22), the underlined constituents are understood as
suggested in parentheses.
(22) a. Ellipsis:
It seems we stood and talked like this before. We looked at each other
in the same way then. But I can't remember where or when. (= 'where
or when we stood and talked like this before and looked at each other
in the same way as we're looking at each other now')
[Spoken to someone about to jump off a building] Don't!!! (= 'Don't
jump!')
b. Constructional meaning:
The trolley rumbled alonZ the river. (= 'the trolley went along the
river rumbling') (cf (19))
c. Coercion:
The ham sandwich over in the corner wants more coffee. (= 'guy with
ham sandwich')

47. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 37
Plato is on the top shelf. (= 'book by/bust of Plato')
Joe jumped until the bell rang. (= 'jumped repeatedly')
d. Implicature:
Are vou SomS to be SomS near a mailbox? (= 'Will you mad some
letters for me?')
Some of these are treated in mamstream theory in terms of syntactic (or PF)
deletion of unexpressed elements; others are not treated in mainstream theory
at all. Culicover and Jackendoff (2005) show that they are all best treated in
terms of elements of semantics that have no syntactic realization.
Carrying this outlook consistently through the syntactic component leads to
the approach of Simpler Syntax (Culicover and Jackendoff 2005): an attempt to
cut syntactic structure down to the bare minimum necessary to accomplish the
sound-meaning mapping. This is a "minimalist" approach to language, but with
different premises about what is to be minimized than the Minimalist Program.
The basic stance of Simpler Syntax is that the complexity of semantics is
independently necessary in order to explain inference and the relation to per­
ception. Therefore semantics and the syntax-semantics interface should play as
large a role as possible in constraining the grammatical structure of sentences.
and syntax as small a role as possible. On the other hand, the "generative
engines" of syntax and morphosyntax are still necessary to account for differ­
ences among languages in word order, case marking, agreement, handling of
long-distance dependencies, and the existence of special constructions. The
resulting syntactic theory is by no means simple, but it is far simpler than
mainstream models (whatever 'simple' means in this context).
The Simpler Syntax lexicon is as described in Section 3: it contains words.
regular affixes, idioms, constructions, and independent principles of phrase
structure. Syntactic structures are as flat (i.e. as undifferentiated) as possible.
Aside from linear order, there is no syntactic distinction between specifiers.
arguments and adjuncts, as this is already provided for in the semantics. The
result is predominantly two-layer X-bar skeleta, as in (23a-c). The exception is
S, which is a three-layer projection of V, as in (23d).
(23) a. NP b. AP c. PP d. S
One price of this structural simplification is the need for trees with multiply
branching nodes rather than strictly binary branching as in MP. Culicover and

48. 38 RayJackendoff
Jackendoff (2005) give arguments why strictly binary branching is not an ad­
vantage, and in fact is often a disadvantage. Another price of this simplification
is that some rules of grammar have to be sensitive to linear order as well as
dominance. This is too often taken to be a disadvantage. But from a larger per­
spective it is actually an advantage. Linear order comes for free in the signal
and hierarchical structure does not. So rules that depend in part on linear order
ought actually to be easier for the child to learn.
Simpler Syntax makes use of almost no empty nodes in syntactic structure.
This is desirable in principle, because empty nodes make heavier demands both
on the learner and on processing. Most empty nodes in the classical theory are
posited either for semantic reasons or to promote syntactic uniformity. For in­
stance, the phonologically empty element PRO is posited to fill in a semantic
subject of an infinitival VP where there is none at the surface, thereby giving all
verbs a syntactic subject. Simpler Syntax instead allows infinitival VPs without
syntactic subjects, and it uses the interface to identify their "understood" sub­
jects in Conceptual Structure.
(24) a. Mainstream: [John Med [s PRO [VP to leave]]]
b. Simpler Syntax: {John Med [VP to leave]]
Similarly, ellipsis is not derived through empty nodes or deletion. Rather.
elliptical configurations, especially when they are syntactically unusual (as in
Gapping), are treated as meaningful constructions listed in the lexicon. The
interpretation of an elliptical construction is derived from the Conceptual Struc­
ture of its antecedent - or from the Conceptual Structure of the context - not
from a deleted syntactic structure. Culicover and Jackendoff show many cases
of ellipsis for which there is no plausible syntactic antecedent, such as those
in (22a).
A standard argument for syntactically derived ellipsis is that elliptical
constructions often display syntactic properties that normally can arise only
through syntactic licensing (so-called connectivity). For instance, in the
dialogues in (25), the difference in the prepositions in the replies can be
traced directly to the difference between the syntactic licensing of proud vs.
pride.
(25) a. A: Bill is very proud.
B: Yes, especially of his stamp collection. {ct proud of I* in]
b. A: Bill has a lot of pride.
B: Yes, especially in his stamp collection, [cf pride in/* of]

49. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 39
However, similarly licensed syntactic properties appear even in sentences
where there is no relevant linguistic context, such as (26).
(26) Do you like these? [pointing at a pair of pants],
Simpler Syntax proposes a relation of indirect licensing that accounts for these
effects.
Like other constraint-based theories, Simpler Syntax has no movement and
no covert level of syntactic structure such as Logical Form. The effects ascribed
to movement in mainstream theory are accounted for with a variety of mecha­
nisms, most of them shared with other constraint-based theories, especially
HPSG. These mechanisms include:
- Free phrase order (e.g. among adjuncts in VP, where the order is constrained
only by prosody and focus)
- Alternative argument realizations (e.g. dative alternation)
- For long-distance dependencies, operator-trace relations along the lines of
HPSG (trace is the only kind of empty node in Simpler Syntax). The con­
straints on long-distance dependencies arise from multiple sources, only
some of which are syntactic. Others arise from processing complexity and
from semantics, especially information structure and referential structure.
- Binding and control are relations over Conceptual Structure, not over syntac­
tic structure, though they may involve syntactic conditions on the relation
between anaphoric elements and antecedents.
In order to account for so-called A-movements, in particular passive and
raising, it is unfortunately necessary to introduce extra machinery. Simpler
Syntax proposes a grammatical function (GF-) tier that modulates the syntactic
realization of semantic arguments expressed as NPs, that is, subjects, objects.
and indirect objects. We are not too dismayed by this extra mechanism, as the
principles behind it appear in every substantive syntactic theory: as f-structure
in LFG, as essentially all of Relational Grammar, as the complement hierarchy
in HPSG, and as abstract case in GB/MP
The analysis is closest to that in LFG and HPSG. However, in these two
theories, passive is a rule that converts active verbs into passive verbs in the
lexicon, altering their argument structure. As mentioned earlier, this is not
an option in PA, in which the lexicon is where items are stored, and working
memory is where structures are built online. Hence, in Simpler Syntax, pas­
sive is treated as a construction in the GF-tier that alters argument realization

50. 40 RayJackendoff
online, without altenng the verb itself. The GF-tier is of course another piece
of parallel architecture, this time a partial mediator of the syntax-semantics
interface.
(27) illustrates the linking between the various structures in an example
involving raising. The linking relations are notated as subscripts; for visual
clarity, some of them are also notated redundantly by vertical association
lines.
(27) John seems to like scotch.
[SEEM ([LIKE (JOHN3, SCOTCH4)]2)], Conceptual Structure
[GF3L [GF3 > GF4]2 Grammatical Function Tier
I I
[SNP3 [VP Vx [VP to5 V2 NP4]2]]! Syntactic Structure
John, seems, to, like2 scotch, Phonological Structure
In Conceptual Structure, JOHN is an argument of LIKE, just as in It seems
that John likes scotch. It links to the GF array associated with the subordinate
clause (bracketed expression subscripted 2). In turn, this GF (subscripted 3) is
linked to a GF in the main clause array (subscript 1), which is then linked to the
subject of the main clause and its phonology. The linking through the GF-tier is
the Simpler Syntax counterpart of an A-chain in classical syntax. But it is not
in syntax proper, as there is no syntactic subject at all in the subordinate clause,
only a GF-subject. (See Culicover and Jackendoff 2005 for more motivation
and detail.)
5. Concluding remarks
An abiding issue between linguists and psycholinguists has been the
competence-performance distinction. Mainstream linguistics tends to say that
the grammar written by linguists is a description of competence, but it is some­
what obscure how this is utilized in performance. This has the effect of in­
sulating linguistic theory from results in psycholinguists. By contrast, in the
Parallel Architecture, language processing consists of assembling pieces of
structure stored in the lexicon to form a triple of phonological, syntactic, and
semantic structures in working memory. As a result, there is no mystery to the
competence-performance distinction. Competence theory describes the pieces

51. The Parallel Architecture and its place in cognitive science 41
of structure and their affordances for assembly, while performance theory
describes how these very pieces are assembled in real time, starting from either
phonetic input (perception) or conceptual input (production). Details of a per­
formance model in such a vein appear in Jackendoff (2002, chapter 7) and
Jackendoff (2007a).
The Parallel Architecture also offers an attractive vehicle for discussion of
the evolution of the language capacity. It begins with the premise that some
version of Conceptual Structure is present in apes, and therefore in our hominid
ancestors. Bickerton (1990) and Givon (1979) have proposed that, prior to the
development of modern language, there was a stage of "protolanguage", which
persists in the human language capacity and emerges in situations such as pid­
gins and agrammatic aphasia. The denning characteristics of protolanguage are
words concatenated into utterances, but lacking any syntactic organization be­
yond that afforded by linear order. A great deal of the informational load in such
an utterance is earned by pragmatics. Within the Parallel Architecture, this
form of language can be characterized in terms of a level of phonology linked
to Conceptual Structure without the intervention of syntactic structure (Jack­
endoff 2002, chapter 8).
From this stage, the evolution of a syntactic capacity can be seen as adaptive:
it is a canonical coding of semantic relationships among words for greater
accuracy and efficiency In any architecture, phonological and semantic
structures have to be relatively rich, as they code the thousands of distinctions
among words. In Simpler Syntax, syntactic structure is relatively lean: its
elements comprise only a few parts of speech and phrasal categories, as might
be expected of a relatively late evolutionary add-on. By contrast, in the
mainstream architecture, an elaborate syntax would have had to evolve first
before combinatorial phonology and semantics could be possible, a rather less
enticing scenario.
To sum up, this article has shown many ways in which the Parallel Architec­
ture, with its components Conceptual Semantics and Simpler Syntax, instanti­
ates the biolinguistic outlook better than does the Minimalist Program. In par­
ticular, it offers the prospect of integrating linguistics fully with cognitive
science. There still remain, of course, many challenges to the approach, among
which perhaps the most important are integrating phonology, morphology, lan­
guage variation, and language change into the model - as well as a range of
syntactic constructions from languages other than English - so that it covers
a broader range of linguistic phenomena. In addition, a theory of language
acquisition has been sketched (Jackendoff 2002, chapter 6), but it remains
a promissory note. It is dearly to be hoped that some of these challenges
can be undertaken by practitioners of the relevant subdisciplines.

52. 42 RayJackendoff
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55. Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content

56. severe Winter will follow. A bunch of Ash-keys is still thought
efficacious as a protection against witchcraft.
In marshy situations, the roots of the Ash will run a long way at a
considerable depth, thus acting as sub-drains: hence the proverb, in
some parts of the country, “May your foot-fall be by the root of the
Ash.” In the Spring, when the Ash and Oak are coming into leaf,
Kentish folk exclaim:—“Oak, smoke; Ash, squash.” If the Oak comes
out first, they believe the Summer will prove hot; if the Ash, it will be
wet.
“If the Oak’s before the Ash,
You will only get a splash;
If the Ash precedes the Oak,
You will surely have a soak.”
Gilbert White tells us of a superstitious custom, still extant, which
he thinks was derived from the Saxons, who practised it before their
conversion to Christianity. Ash-trees, when young and flexible, were
severed, and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped
naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that
they would be cured of their infirmity. The operation over, the tree
was plastered up with loam, and carefully swathed. If the severed
parts coalesced in due course, the babe was sure to be cured; but if
not, the operation would probably be ineffectual. The same writer
relates another extraordinary custom among rustics: they bore a
deep hole in an Ash-tree, and imprison a live shrew mouse therein:
the tree then becomes a Shrew-Ash, whose twigs or branches,
gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the
cramp, lameness, and pain supposed to attack the animal wherever
a shrew mouse has crept over it.
Lightfoot says that, in the Highlands, at the birth of an infant, the
nurse takes a green Ash stick, one end of which she puts into the
fire; and, while it is burning, receives in a spoon the sap that oozes
from the other, which she administers to the child as its first food:

57. this custom is thought to be derived from the old Aryan practice of
feeding young children with the honey-like juice of the Fraxinus
Ornus. The sap of the Ash, tapped on certain days, is drunk in
Germany as a remedy for the bites of serpents.
In Northumberland, there is a belief that if the first parings of an
infant’s nails are buried under an Ash, the child will turn out a “top
singer.” In Staffordshire, the common people believe that it is very
dangerous to break a bough from the Ash. In Leicestershire, the Ash
is employed as a charm for warts. In the month of April or May, the
sufferer is taken to an Ash-tree: the operator (who is provided with a
paper of new pins) takes a pin, and having first struck it through the
bark, presses it through the wart until it produces pain; the pin is
then taken out and stuck into the tree, where it is left. Each wart is
similarly treated, a separate pin being used for each. The warts will
disappear in a few weeks. It is a wide-spread custom to stroke with
a twig from an Ash-tree, under the roots of which a horse-shoe has
been buried, any animal which is supposed to have been bewitched.
An Ashen herding stick is preferred by Scotch boys to any other,
because in throwing it at their cattle it is sure not to strike in a vital
part, and so kill or injure the animal, a contingency which may occur,
it seems, with other sticks. It is worthy of note that the lituus of the
Roman Augur—a staff with a crook at one end—was formed of an
Ash-tree bough, the crook being sometimes produced naturally, but
more often by artificial means.
In many parts of England, the finding of an even Ash-leaf is
considered to be an augury of good luck; hence the old saying, so
dear to tender maids—
“If you find an even Ash or a four-leaved Clover,
Rest assured you’ll see your true-love ere the day is over.”
In Cornwall, this charm is frequently made use of for invoking
good luck:—

58. “Even Ash I thee do pluck,
Hoping thus to meet good luck.
If no good luck I get from thee,
I shall wish thee on the tree.”
In Henderson’s ‘Northern Folk-lore,’ occur the following lines
regarding the virtues of even Ash-leaves:—
“The even Ash-leaf in my left hand,
The first man I meet shall be my husband.
The even Ash-leaf in my glove,
The first I meet shall be my love.
The even Ash-leaf for my breast,
The first man I meet’s whom I love best.
The even Ash-leaf in my hand,
The first I meet shall be my man.”
“Even Ash, even Ash, I pluck thee,
This night my true love for to see;
Neither in his rick nor in his rear,
But in the clothes he does every day wear.”
It is a tradition among the gipsies that the cross our Saviour was
crucified upon was made of Ash.
In Devonshire, it is customary to burn an Ashen faggot at
Christmastide, in commemoration of the fact that the Divine Infant
at Bethlehem was first washed and dressed by a fire of Ash-wood.
The Yule-clog or -log which ancient custom prescribes to be burnt
on Christmas Eve, used to be of Ash: thus we read in an old poem:—

59. “Thy welcome Eve, loved Christmas, now arrived,
The parish bells their tuneful peals resound,
And mirth and gladness every breast pervade.
The ponderous Ashen-faggot, from the yard,
The jolly farmer to his crowded hall
Conveys with speed; where, on the rising flames
(Already fed with store of massy brands),
It blazes soon; nine bandages it bears,
And, as they each disjoin (so custom wills),
A mighty jug of sparkling cider’s brought
With brandy mixt, to elevate the guests.”
Spenser speaks of the Ash as being “for nothing ill,” but the tree has
always been regarded as a special attractor of lightning, and there is
a very old couplet, which says:—
“Avoid an Ash,
It courts the flash.”
Its character as an embodiment of fire is manifested in a remarkable
Swedish legend given in Grimm’s ‘German Mythology.’ Some
seafaring people, it is said, received an Ash-tree from a giant, with
directions to set it upon the altar of a church he wished to destroy.
Instead, however, of carrying out his instructions, they placed the
Ash on the mound over a grave, which to their astonishment
instantly burst into flames.
There is an old belief that to prevent pearls from being
discoloured, it is sufficient to keep them shut up with a piece of Ash-
root.
Astrologers appear to be divided in their opinions as to whether
the Ash is under the dominion of the Sun or of Jupiter.
ASVATTHA.—The Indian Veda prescribes that for the purpose of
kindling the sacred fire, the wood of an Asvattha (Ficus religiosa),
growing upon a Sami (Mimosa Suma), should be employed. The idea
of a marriage suggested by such a union of the two trees is also

60. developed in the Vedas with much minuteness of detail. The process
by which, in the Hindu temples, fire is obtained from wood
resembles churning. It consists in drilling one piece of wood (the
Asvattha, symbolising the male element) into another (the Sami,
representing the female element). This is effected by pulling a string
tied to it, with a jerk, with one hand, while the other is slackened,
and so alternately until the wood takes fire. The fire is received on
cotton or flax held in the hand of an assistant Brahman. This Indian
fire-generator is known as the “chark.” (See also Samá and Peeéul).
AURICULA.—The old Latin name of this plant was Auricula ursi,
from the shape of the leaves resembling a bear’s ear. It is thought to
be the Alisma of Dioscorides. Matthiolus and Pena call it Sanicula
Alpina, from its potency in healing wounds. Old herbalists have also
named it Paralytica on account of its being esteemed a remedy for
the palsy. Gerarde calls it Bear’s-ear, or Mountain Cowslip, and tells
us that the root was in great request among Alpine hunters, for the
effect it produced in strengthening the head and preventing
giddiness and swimming of the brain overtaking them on high
elevations. The plant is reputed to be somewhat carnivorous, and
cultivators place juicy pieces of meat about the roots, so that they
may absorb the blood.——In Germany, the Auricula is considered
emblematical of love of home.
AVAKA.—The Avaka or Sîpâla is an India aquatic plant, which
plays an important part in their funeral ceremonies. It is placed in a
cavity made, according to their custom, to the north-east of the
sacred fire Ahavanîya, and it is believed that the soul of the
deceased person passes into this cavity, and thence ascends with
the smoke to heaven. The Avaka or Sîpâla forms the food of the
Gandharvas, who preside over the India waters.
Aîens.—See Herb Bennett.
AZALEA.—This handsome shrub is narcotic and poisonous in all
its parts. Xenophon, in his narrative of the ‘Retreat of the Ten
Thousand,’ in Asia, after the death of Cyrus, tells how his soldiers

61. became temporarily stupefied and delirious, as if intoxicated, after
partaking of the honey of Trebizond on the Black Sea. The baneful
properties of this honey arose from the poisonous nature of the
blossoms of the Azalea Pontica, from which the bees had collected it.
BACCHARIS.—This plant is the Inula Conyza, and was called
Baccharis after the god Bacchus, to whom it was dedicated. Virgil
speaks of Baccharis as being used for making garlands, and
recommends it as a plant which is efficacious as a charm for
repelling calumny—
“Bacchari frontem
Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro.”
Its English name is the Ploughman’s Spikenard; and it was highly
esteemed by the old herbalists on account of the sweet and
aromatic qualities of its root, from which the ancients compounded
an ointment which was also known as Baccharis.
Bacheloê’s Buttons.—See Ranunculus.
BALBAGA.—The Indian Grass, Eleusine Indica, had, according to
De Gubernatis, the Vedic name of Balbaja: and, as a sacred herb,
was employed in Indian religious festivals for litter, in ceremonials
connected with the worship of the sacred Cow.
BALDMONEY.—According to Gerarde, the Gentian was formerly
called Baldmoyne and Baldmoney; but Dr. Prior considers that the
name appertains to Meum athamanticum, and that it is a corruption
of the Latin valde bona, very good. The Grete Herball, speaking of
Sistra, he says, gives the following explanation:—“Sistra is Dyll, some
call it Mew; but that is not so. Howbeit they be very like in properties
and vertue, and be put eche for other; but Sistra is of more vertue
then Mew, and the leaves be lyke an herbe called Valde Bona, and
beareth smaller sprigges as Spiknarde. It groweth on hye hylles”
(See Feldwode).

62. BALIS.—This herb was believed by the ancients to possess the
property of restoring the dead to life. By its means Æsculapius
himself was said to have been once resuscitated; and Pliny reports
that, according to the Greek historian Xanthus, a little dog, killed by
a serpent, was brought back to life by this wonderful herb Balis.
BALSAM.—The seed vessel of this plant contains five cells. When
maturity approaches, each of these divisions curls up at the slightest
touch, and darts out its seeds by a spontaneous movement: hence
its generic name Impatiens, and its English appellation Noli me
tangere—Touch me not. Gerarde calls it the Balsam Apple, or Apple
of Jerusalem, and tells us that its old Latin name was Pomum
Mirabile, or Marvellous Apple. He also states that the plant was
highly esteemed for its property of alleviating the pains of maternity,
and that it was considered a valuable agent to remove sterility—the
patient first bathing and then anointing herself with an oil
compounded with the fruit.——The Turks represent ardent love by
this flower.——Balsam is under the planetary influence of Jupiter.
BALM.—The Melissa, or Garden Balm, was renowned among the
Arabian physicians, by whom it was recommended for hypochondria
and affections of the heart, and according to Paracelsus the primum
ens Melissa promised a complete renovation of man. Drunk in wine,
it was believed to be efficacious against the bitings of venomous
beasts and mad dogs. A variety called Smith’s or Carpenter’s Balm,
or Bawm, was noted as a vulnerary, and Pliny describes it of such
magical virtue, that Gerarde remarks, “though it be but tied to his
sword that hath given the wound, it stancheth the blood.” On
account of its being a favourite plant of the bees, it was one of the
herbs directed by the ancients to be placed in the hive, to render it
agreeable to the swarm: hence it was called Apiastrum.——The
astrologers claimed the herb both for Jupiter and the Sun.——In
connection with the Garden Balm, Aubrey relates a legend of the
Wandering Jew, the scene of which he places in the Staffordshire
moors. When on the weary way to Golgotha, Jesus Christ, fainting

63. and sinking beneath the burden of the cross, asked the Jew
Ahasuerus for a cup of water to cool his parched throat, he spurned
the supplication, and bade him speed on faster. “I go,” said the
Saviour, “but thou shalt thirst and tarry till I come.” And ever since
that hour, by day and night, through the long centuries, he has been
doomed to wander about the earth, ever craving for water, and ever
expecting the Day of Judgment, which alone shall end his frightful
pilgrimage. One Whitsun evening, overcome with thirst, he knocked
at the door of a Staffordshire cottager, and craved of him a cup of
small beer. The cottager, who was wasted with a lingering
consumption, asked him in and gave him the desired refreshment.
After finishing the beer, Ahasuerus asked his host the nature of the
disease he was suffering from, and being told that the doctors had
given him up, said, “Friend, I will tell thee what thou shalt do; and
by the help and power of Almighty God above, thou shalt be well.
To-morrow, when thou risest up, go into thy garden, and gather
there three Balm-leaves, and put them into a cup of thy small beer.
Drink as often as you need, and when the cup is empty, fill it again,
and put in fresh Balm-leaves every fourth day, and thou shalt see,
through our Lord’s great goodness and mercy, that before twelve
days shall be past, thy disease shall be cured and thy body altered.”
So saying, and declining to eat, he departed and was never seen
again. But the cottager gathered his Balm-leaves, followed the
prescription of the Wandering Jew, and before twelve days were
passed was a new man.
BALM OF GILEAD.—The mountains of Gilead, in the east of the
Holy Land, were covered with fragrant shrubs, the most plentiful
being the Amyris, which yielded the celebrated Balm of Gilead, a
precious gum which, at a very early period, the Ishmaelites or
Arabian carriers trafficked in. It was to a party of these merchants
that Joseph was sold by his brethren as they came from Gilead, with
their camels, bearing spicery, and Balm, and Myrrh, going to carry it
down to Egypt (Gen. xxxvii., 25). There were three productions from

64. this tree, all highly esteemed by the ancients, viz.: Xylobalsamum, a
decoction of the new twigs; the Carpobalsamum, an expression of
the native fruit; and the Opobalsum, or juice, the finest kind,
composed of the greenish liquor found in the kernel of the fruit. The
principal quantity of Balm has, however, always been produced by
excision. The juice is received in a small earthen bottle, and every
day’s produce is poured into a larger, which is kept closely corked.
So marvellous were the properties of this Balm considered, that in
order to test its quality, the operator dipped his finger in the juice,
and then set fire to it, expecting fully to remain scathless if the Balm
was of average strength. The Balm of Gilead has always had a
wonderful reputation as a cosmetic among ladies. The manner of
applying it in the East is thus given by a traveller in Abyssinia:—“You
first go into the tepid bath, till the pores are sufficiently opened; you
then anoint yourself with a small quantity, and as much as the
vessels will absorb: never-fading youth and beauty are said to be the
consequences.” By the Arabs, it is employed as a stomachic and
antiseptic, and is believed by them to prevent any infection of the
plague.——Tradition relates that there is an aspic that guards the
Balm-tree, and will allow no one to approach. Fortunately, however,
it has a weakness—it cannot endure the sound of a musical
instrument. As soon as it hears the approaching torment, it thrusts
its tail into one of its ears, and rubs the other against the ground, till
it is filled with mud. While it is lying in this helpless condition, the
Balm-gatherers go round to the other side of the tree, and hurry
away with their spoil.——Maundevile says that the true Balm-trees
only grew in Egypt (near Cairo), and in India. The Egyptian trees
were tended solely by Christians, as they refused to bear if the
husbandmen were Saracens. It was necessary, also, to cut the
branches with a sharp flint-stone or bone, for if touched with iron,
the Balm lost its incomparable virtue. The Indian Balm-trees grew
“in that desert where the trees of the Sun and of the Moon spake to
King Alexander,” and warned him of his death. The fruit of these

65. Balm-trees possessed such marvellous properties, that the people of
the country, who were in the habit of partaking of it, lived four or
five hundred years in consequence.
BAMBOO.—The Bambusa Arundinaceæ is one of the sacred
plants of India: it is the tree of shelter, audience, and friendship. As
jungle fires were thought to be caused by the stems of Bamboos
rubbing together, the tree derived from that fact a mystic and holy
character, as an emblem of the sacred fire.——Indian anchorites
carry a long Bamboo staff with seven nodes, as a mark of their
calling. At Indian weddings, the bride and bridegroom, as part of the
nuptial ceremony, get into two Bamboo baskets, placed side by side,
and remain standing therein for some specified time. The savage
Indian tribe called Garrows possess neither temples nor altars, but
they set up a pillar of Bamboo before their huts, and decorate it with
flowers and tufts of cotton, and sacrifice before it to their deity. In
various parts of India there is a superstitious belief that the
flowering and seeding of various species of Bamboo is a sure
prognostication of an approaching famine.——Europeans have
noticed, as an invariable rule, in Canara, that when the Bamboos
flower and seed, fever prevails. At the foot of the Ghauts, and round
Yellapûr, it has been observed that when the Bamboos flowered and
seeded, fever made its appearance, few persons escaping it. During
blossom, the fever closely resembles hay fever at home, but the type
becomes more severe as the seeds fall.——The poor, homeless
fishermen of China, to supply themselves with vegetables, have
invented a system of culture which may move with them, and they
thus transport their gardens wherever they may go. This they do by
constructing rafts of Bamboo, which are well woven with weeds and
strong grass, and then launched on the water and covered with
earth. These floating gardens are made fast to the stern of their
junks and boats, and towed after them.
BANANA.—The Banana (Musa sapientum) and the Plantain (M.
paradisiaca) are so closely related, as to be generally spoken of

66. together. The Banana has been well designated the king of all fruit,
and the greatest boon bestowed by Providence on the inhabitants of
hot countries. According to Gerarde, who calls it in his Herbal,
Adam’s Apple Tree, it was supposed in his time by the Grecians and
Christians inhabiting Syria, as well as by the Jews, to be that tree of
whose fruit Adam partook at Eve’s solicitation—the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil, planted by the Lord Himself in the
midst of the Garden of Eden. It has also been supposed that the
Grapes brought by the Israelites’ spies to Moses out of the Holy
Land, were in reality the fruit of the Banana-tree.——In the Canary
Islands, the Banana is never cut across with a knife because it then
exhibits a representation of the Crucifixion. Gerarde refers to this
mark, remarking that the fruit “pleaseth and entiseth a man to eate
liberally thereof, by a certaine entising sweetnesse it yields; in which
fruit, if it be cut according to the length, oblique, transverse, or any
other way, whatsoever, may be seene the shape and forme of a
crosse, with a man fastened thereto. My selfe have seene the fruit,
and cut it in pieces, which was brought me from Aleppo, in pickle:
the crosse, I might perceive, as the form of a spred-Egle in the root
of Ferne; but the man I leave to be sought for by those which have
better eies and judgement than my selfe.”——A certain sect of
Brahmans, called Yogis, place all their food in the leaves of the
Plantain, or Apple of Paradise, and other large leaves; these they use
dry, never green, for they say that the green leaves have a soul in
them; and so it would be sinful.
BANYAN TREE.—The Indian Fig-tree (Ficus Indica), of which
one of the Sanscrit names is Bahupâda, or the Tree of Many Feet, is
one of the sacred trees of India, and is remarkable for its vast size
and the singularity of its growth: it throws out from its lateral
branches shoots which, as soon as they reach the earth, take root,
till, in course of time, a single tree extends itself to a considerable
grove. Pliny described the Banyan with great accuracy, and Milton
has rendered his description almost literally:

67. “Branching so broad along, that in the ground
The bending twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree; a pillared shade,
High over-arched, with echoing walks between.
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.”
The Banyan rarely vegetates on the ground, but usually in the crown
of Palms, where the seed has been deposited by birds. Roots are
sent down to the ground, which embrace, and eventually kill, the
Nurse-Palm. Hence, the Hindus have given the Banyan the name of
Vaibâdha (the breaker), and invoke it in order that it may at the
same time break the heads of enemies.——In the Indian mythology,
the Banyan is often confounded with the Bo-tree, and hence it is
given a place in heaven, where an enormous tree is said to grow on
the summit of the mountain Supârsva, to the south of the celestial
mountain Meru, where it occupies a vast space. Beneath the pillared
shade of the Banyan, the god Vishnu was born. His mother had
sought its shelter, but she was sad and fearful lest the terrible Kansa
should put to death her seventh babe, Vishnu, as he had already
done her first six. Yasodâ, to console the weeping mother, gave up
her own infant daughter, who was at once killed by Kansa’s servants;
but Vishnu was saved. It is, says De Gubernatis, at the foot of a
gigantic Banyan, a Bhândîra, near Mount Govardhana, that the
Buddhist Vishnu plays with his companions, and, by his presence,
illuminates everything around him. The Banyan of the Vedas is
represented as being peopled with Indian parroquets, who eat its
fruit, which, however, does not exceed a Hazel-nut in size. The
Chinese Buddhists represent that Buddha sits under a Banyan-tree,
turned towards the East, to receive the homage of the god Brahma.
Like the sacred Bo-tree, the Banyan is regarded not only as the Tree
of Knowledge, but also as the tree of Indian seers and ascetic

68. devotees. Wherever a Bo-tree or a Banyan has stood, the place
where it formerly flourished is always held sacred.——There is in
India a Banyan-tree that is the object of particular veneration. It
grows on the banks of the Nerbudda, not far from Surat, and is the
largest and oldest Banyan in the country. According to tradition, it
was planted by the Seer Kabira, and is supposed to be three
thousand years old. It is said to be the identical tree visited by
Nearchus, one of the officers of Alexander the Great. The Hindus
never cut it or touch it with steel, for fear of offending the god
concealed in its sacred foliage. De Gubernatis quotes the following
description of this sacred tree given by Pietro Della Valle at the
commencement of the seventeenth century:—“On one side of the
town, on a large open space, one sees towering a magnificent tree,
similar to those which I had noticed near Hormuz, and which were
called Lul, but here were known as Ber. The peasants of this country
have a profound veneration for this tree, both on account of its
grandeur and its antiquity: they make pilgrimages to it, and honour
it with their superstitious ceremonies, believing that the goddess
Pârvatî, the wife of Mahâdeva, to whom it is dedicated, has it under
her protection. In the trunk of this tree, at a little distance from the
ground, they have roughly carved what is supposed to be the head
of an idol, but which no one can recognise as bearing any semblance
to a human being; however, like the Romans, they paint the face of
the idol red, and adorn it with flowers, and with leaves of a tree
which they call here Pan, but in other parts of India Betel. These
flowers and leaves ought to be always fresh, and so they are often
changed. The pilgrims who come to visit the tree receive as a pious
souvenir the dried leaves which have been replaced by fresh ones.
The idol has eyes of gold and silver, and is decorated with jewellery
offered by pious persons who have attributed to it the miraculous
cure of ophthalmic complaints they have suffered from.... They take
the greatest care of the tree, of every branch, nay, of every leaf, and
will not permit either man or beast to damage or profane it. Other

69. Banyan or Pagod trees have obtained great eminence. One near
Mangee, near Patna, spread over a diameter of three hundred and
seventy feet, and it required nine hundred and twenty feet to
surround the fifty or sixty stems by which the tree was supported.
Another covered an area of one thousand seven hundred square
yards; and many of almost equal dimensions are found in different
parts of India and Cochin-China.”——In the Atharvaveda mention is
made of an all-powerful amulet, which is a reduction, on a small
scale, of a Banyan-tree, possessing a thousand stems, to each of
which is attributed a special magical property.
BAOBAB.—The leviathan Baobab (Adansonia) is an object of
reverential worship to the negroes of Senegal, where it is asserted
that some of these trees exist which are five thousand years old. It
is reputed to be the largest tree in the world, and may readily be
taken at a distance for a grove: its trunk is often one hundred feet in
circumference; but its height is not so wonderful as its enormous
lateral bulk. The central branch rises perpendicularly, the others
spread out in all directions, and attain a length of sixty feet, touching
the ground at their extremities, and equalling in bulk the noblest
trees. The wood is spongy and soon decays, leaving the trunks
hollow. In these hollow trunks the negroes suspend the dead bodies
of those who are refused the honour of burial; and in this position
the bodies are preserved without any process of embalming. The
magnificent snowy blossoms are regarded with peculiar reverence at
the instant they open into bloom. The leaves are used medicinally,
and as a condiment; dried and powdered, they constitute Lalo, a
favourite article with the Africans, who mix it daily with their food, to
prevent undue perspiration; a fibre is obtained from the bark that is
so strong as to have given rise in Bengal to the saying, “As secure as
an elephant bound with a Baobab rope.” The gourd-like fruit, called
Monkey-bread and Ethiopian Sour Gourd, is also eaten, and is prized
for its febrifugal qualities.

70. BARBERRY.—The Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) was formerly
called the Pipperidge-bush, and was regarded with superstitious
dislike by farmers, who believed that it injured Wheat crops, even if
growing a hundred yards off, by imparting to the Corn the fungus
which causes rust.——In Italy, the Barberry is looked upon as the
Holy Thorn, or the plant which furnished the crown of Thorns used
at our Lord’s crucifixion: it seems to be so regarded because its
Thorns grow together in sets of three at each joint of the branch.
——The Barberry is under the dominion of Venus.
BARLEY.—Barley is a symbol of riches and abundance. The God
Indra is called “He who ripens Barley,” and in many of their religious
ceremonies the Indians introduce this cereal, viz., at the birth of an
infant, at weddings, at funerals, and at certain of their sacrificial
rites.——Barley is claimed by astrologers as a notable plant of
Saturn.
BAROMETZ.—The Barometz, or Scythian Lamb (Polypodium
Barometz), is a name given to a Fern growing in Tartary, the root of
which, says Prof. Martyn, from the variety of its form, is easily made
by art to take the form of a lamb (called by the Tartars Borametz),
“or rather that of a rufous dog, which the common names in China
and Cochin-China imply, namely, Cau-tich and Kew-tsie.” The
description given of this strange Fern represents the root as rising
above the ground in an oblong form, covered all over with hairs:
towards one end it frequently becomes narrower and then thicker, so
as to give somewhat of the shape of a head and neck, and it has
sometimes two pendulous hairy excrescences resembling ears; at
the other end a short shoot extends out into a tail. Four fronds are
chosen in a suitable position, and are cut off to a proper length, to
represent the legs: and thus a vegetable lamb is produced. Loureiro
affirms that the root, when fresh cut, yields a juice closely
resembling the blood of animals.——Kircher has given a figure of the
Tartarian Lamb, in which the lamb is represented as the fruit of
some plant on the top of a stalk.——Parkinson, in the frontispiece to

71. his Paradisus Terrestris, has depicted this Lamb-plant as growing in
the Garden of Eden, where it appears to be browsing on the
surrounding herbage.——Scaliger has given a detailed account of the
Barometz, which he calls “a wondrous plant indeed among the
Tartars.” After remarking that Zavolha is the most considerable of the
Tartar hordes, he proceeds:—“In that province they sow a seed not
unlike the seed of a Melon, except that it is not so long. There
comes from it a plant which they call Borametz, that is to say, a
lamb; and, indeed, the fruit of that plant has exactly the shape of a
lamb. We see distinctly all the exterior parts—the body, the feet, the
hoofs, the head, and the ears; there wants, indeed, nothing but the
horns, instead of which it has a sort of wool that imitates them not
amiss. The Tartars fleece it, and make themselves caps of the skin.
The pulp that is within the fruit is very much like the flesh of crabs.
Cut it, and the blood gushes out, as from a wounded animal. This
lamb feeds itself upon all the grass that grows around it, and when it
has eaten it all up, it dries and dies away. But what perfects the
similitude between the Borametz and a lamb is that the wolves are
very greedy of this fruit, which no other animals ever care for.”——
The elder Darwin, in his poem on ‘The Loves of the Plants,’ makes
the following allusion to the Barometz:—
“Cradled in snow and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Barometz! thy golden hair;
Rooted in earth, each cloven hoof descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends;
Crops the gray coral Moss and hoary Thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime,
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
Or seems to bleat, a vegetable Lamb.”
BASIL.—The English name of the Ocymum basilicum is derived
from the Greek basilikon, royal, probably from its having been used
in some royal unguent, bath, or medicine.——Holy Basil, or Tulasî

72. (Ocymum sanctum), is by the Hindus regarded as a most sacred
herb, and they have given one of its names to a sacred grove of
their Parnassus, on the banks of the Yamuna. This holy herb is
grown in pots near every temple and dwelling of devout Hindus. It is
sacred to Vishnu, Kushna, and Lakshmi, but all the gods are
interested in it. Narada, the celestial sage, has sung the praises of
the immortal plant, which is perfection itself, and which, whilst
protecting from every misfortune those who cultivate it, sanctifies
and guides them to heaven. For this double sanctity it is reared in
every Hindu house, where it is daily watered and worshipped by all
the members of the household. Perhaps, also, it was on account of
its virtues in disinfecting and vivifying malarious air that it first
became inseparable from Hindu houses in India as the protecting
spirit or Lar of the family. The pious Hindus invoke the divine herb
for the protection of every part of the body, for life and for death,
and in every action of life; but above all in its capacity of ensuring
children to those who desire to have them. Among the appellations
given to the Tulasî are—“propitious,” “perfumed,” “multi-leaved,”
“devil-destroying,” &c. The root is made into beads, which are worn
round the neck and arms of the votaries of Vishnu, who carry also a
rosary made of the seeds of the Holy Basil or the Sacred Lotus. De
Gubernatis has given some interesting details of the Tulasî cultus:
—“Under the mystery of this herb,” he says, “created with ambrosia,
is shrouded without doubt the god-creator himself. The worship of
the herb Tulasî is strongly recommended in the last part of the
Padmapurâna, consecrated to Vishnu; but it is, perhaps, no less
adored by the votaries of Siva; Krishna, the popular incarnation of
the god Vishnu, has also adopted this herb for his worship; from
thence its names of Krishna and Krishnatulasî. Sîtâ, the epic
personification of the goddess Lakshmî, was transformed, according
to the Râmâyana, into the Tulasî, from whence the name of
Sitâhvayâ given to the herb.” Because of the belief that the Tulasî
opens the gates of heaven to the pious worshipper, Prof. De

73. Gubernatis tells us that “when an Indian dies, they place on his
breast a leaf of Tulasî; when he is dead, they wash the head of the
corpse with water, in which have been dropped, during the prayer of
the priest, some Flax seeds and Tulasî leaves. According to the
Kriyâyogasâras (xxiii.), in religiously planting and cultivating the
Tulasî, the Hindu obtains the privilege of ascending to the Palace of
Vishnu, surrounded by ten millions of parents. It is a good omen for
a house if it has been built on a spot where the Tulasî grows well.
Vishnu renders unhappy for life and for eternity infidels who wilfully,
or the imprudent who inadvertently, uproot the herb Tulasî: no
happiness, no health, no children for such! This sacred plant cannot
be gathered excepting with a good and pious intention, and above
all, for the worship of Vishnu or of Krishna, at the same time offering
up this prayer:—‘Mother Tulasî, be thou propitious. If I gather you
with care, be merciful unto me, O Tulasî, mother of the world, I
beseech you.’”——Like the Lotus, the Basil is not only venerated as a
plant sacred to the gods, but it is also worshipped as a deity itself.
Hence we find the herb specially invoked, as the goddess Tulasî, for
the protection of every part of the human frame, from the head to
the feet. It is also supposed that the heart of Vishnu, the husband of
the Tulasî, is profoundly agitated and tormented whenever the least
sprig is broken of a plant of Tulasî, his wife.——In Malabar, sweet
Basil is cultivated as a sacred plant, under the name of Collo, and
kept in a little shrine placed before the house.——In the Deccan
villages, the fair Brahminee mother may be seen early every
morning, after having first ground the corn for the day’s bread and
performed her simple toilet, walking with glad steps and waving
hands round and round the pot of Holy Basil, planted on the four-
horned altar built up before each house, invoking the blessings of
heaven on her husband and his children. The herb is planted largely
on the river banks, where the natives bathe, as well as at the
entrance to their temples. They believe that the deities love this
herb, and that the god Ganavedi abides in it continually. When

74. travelling, if they cannot obtain the herb, they draw the form of the
plant on the ground with its root.——It is difficult to understand why
so sacred and so fragrant a herb as Sweet Basil should have become
the symbol of Hatred, unless it be because the ancients sometimes
represented Poverty by the figure of a female clothed in rags, and
seated by a plant of Basil. The ancient Greeks thought that when
Basil was sown, the act should be accompanied by abuse, without
which it would not flourish. Pliny also records that it throve best
when sown with cursing and railing. This explains the French saying,
“Semer le Basilic,” equivalent to slandering.——The plant has a
decided funereal symbolism. In Persia, where it is called Rayhan,
“the Basil-tuft, that waves
Its fragrant blossom over graves,”
is usually found in cemeteries. In Egypt, the same plant is scattered
over the tombs by the women who go twice or oftener a week to
pray and weep at the sepulchres of the dead. In Crete, the Basil is
considered a symbol of the Evil One, although it is to be found on
every window-ledge. It is unfortunate to dream of Basil, for it is
supposed to betoken grief and misfortune. It was probably these
sinister and funereal associations of the plant that induced Boccaccio
to make the unhappy Isabella conceal her murdered lover’s head by
planting Basil in the pot that contained it; although it is surmised
that the author of the ‘Decameron’ obtained the idea from Grecian
sources.——It is, however, satisfactory to find that in Italy the Basil
is utilised for other than funereal purposes. De Gubernatis tells us
that in some districts pieces of Basil are worn by maidens in their
bosoms or at their waists, and by married women in their hair: they
believe also that the perfume of Basil engenders sympathy, from
which comes its familiar name, Bacia-nicola—Kiss me, Nicholas!
Rarely does the young peasant girl pay a visit to her sweetheart
without affixing behind her ear a sprig of Basil, which she takes

75. special care not to part with, as that would be a token of scorn. In
Turkey, they call Basil, Amorino. In Moldavia, the Basil is regarded as
an enchanted flower, whose spells can stop the wandering youth
upon his way, and make him love the maiden from whose hand he
shall accept a sprig.——In the East, Basil seeds are employed to
counteract the poison of serpents: in India the leaves are used for
the same purpose, as well as for the cure of several diseases.
Gerarde says that “they of Africke do also affirme that they who are
stung of the scorpion, and have eaten of it, shall feele no paine at
all.” Orisabius likewise asserts that the plant is an antidote to the
sting of those insects; but, on the other hand, Hollerius declares that
it propagates scorpions, and that to his knowledge an acquaintance
of his, through only smelling it, had a scorpion bred in his brain.——
Lord Bacon, in his Natural History, states that if Basil is exposed too
much to the sun, it changes into Wild Thyme, although the two
herbs seem to have small affinity. Culpeper quaintly remarks:
“Something is the matter; this herb and Rue will never grow
together—no, nor near one another; and we know the Rue is as
great an enemy to poison as any that grows.” Gerarde, however, tells
us that the smell of Basil is good for the heart and for the head.——
The plant is a paradox:—sacred and revered, yet dedicated to the
Evil One; of happy augury, yet funereal; dear to women and lovers,
yet emblem of hatred; propagator of scorpions, yet the antidote to
their stings.——Astrologers rule that Basil is a herb of Mars, and
under the Scorpion, and therefore called Basilicon.
BAUHINIA.—The leaves of the Bauhinia or Ebony-tree are two-
lobed, or twin—a character, which suggested to Plumier the happy
idea of naming the genus after the two famous brothers, John and
Caspar Bauhin, botanists of the sixteenth century.
BEANS.—Among the ancients, there appears to have been a
superstitious aversion to Beans as an article of food, arising from the
resemblance of the fruit to a portion of the human body. The
Egyptians, among whom the Sacred Bean was an object of actual

76. worship, would not partake of it as food, probably on that account;
because by so doing they would be fearful of eating what they
considered was human, and of consuming a soul. By some nations
the seed was consecrated to the gods.——The eating of Beans was
interdicted to the Jewish High Priest on the Day of Atonement from
its decided tendency to bring on sleep.——The goddess Ceres, when
bestowing her gifts upon mankind, expressly excluded Beans. The
unhappy Orpheus refused to eat them; Amphiaraus, the diviner, in
order to preserve a clear vision, always abstained from them; the
Flamines, Roman priests, instituted by Numa, would neither touch
nor mention them; and the Grecian philosopher Pythagoras, who
lived only on the purest and most innocuous food, invariably
declined to partake of Beans of any description, giving as his reason
that, in the Bean, he recognised blood, and consequently an animal,
which, as a vegetarian, he could not consume. According to
tradition, the great philosopher, being pursued by his enemies, was
overtaken and killed, solely because, having in his flight reached a
field of Beans, he would not cross it for fear of trampling upon living
beings, the souls of the dead, who had entered temporarily, into the
vegetable existence. Cicero considered that the antipathy to Beans
as an article of food arose from their being considered impure,
inasmuch as they corrupted the blood, distended the stomach, and
excited the passions. Hippocrates considered them unwholesome
and injurious to the eyesight. They were also believed to cause bad
dreams, and, moreover, if seen in dreams, were deemed to portend
evil.——One of the Greek words for Bean is Puanos, and at the
festival of Puanepsia, held in the month of October, at Athens, in
honour of Apollo, Beans and Pulse, we are told, were sodden. The
Romans offered Beans to their goddess Carna on the occasion of her
festival in the month of June.——The Lemures, or evil spirits of those
who had lived bad lives, according to a Roman superstition, were in
the habit, during the night-time, of approaching houses, and then
throwing Beans against them. The Romans celebrated festivals in

77. their honour in the month of May, when the people were
accustomed to throw black Beans on the graves of the deceased, or
to burn them, as the smell was supposed to be disagreeable to the
manes. This association of Beans with the dead is still preserved in
some parts of Italy, where, on the anniversary of a death, it is
customary to eat Beans and to distribute them to the poor. Black
Beans were considered to be male, and white female, the latter
being the inferior.——De Gubernatis relates several curious customs
connected with Beans. In Tuscany, the fire of St. John is lighted in a
Bean-field, so that it shall burn quickly. In Sicily, on Midsummer Eve,
Beans are eaten with some little ceremony, and the good St. John is
thanked for having obtained the blessings of a bountiful harvest
from God. At Modica, in Sicily, on October 1st, a maiden in love will
sow two Beans in the same pot. The one represents herself, the
other the youth she loves. If both Beans shoot forth before the feast
of St. Raphael, then marriage will come to pass; but if only one of
the Beans sprouts, there will be betrayal on the part of the other. In
Sicily and Tuscany, girls who desire a husband learn their fate by
means of Beans, in this fashion:—They put into a bag three Beans—
one whole, another without the eye, a third without the rind. Then,
after shaking them up, they draw one from the bag. The whole Bean
signifies a rich husband; the Bean without an eye signifies a sickly
husband; and the Bean without rind a husband without a penny.——
The French have a legend, of one Pipette, who, like our Jack,
reaches the sky by means of a Bean-stalk. In France, some parts of
Italy, and Russia, on Twelfth Night, children eat a cake in which has
been baked a white Bean and a black Bean. The children to whose
lot fall the portions of cake containing the Beans become the King
and Queen of the evening.——An old English charm to cure warts is
to take the shell of a broad Bean, and rub the affected part with the
inside thereof; the shell is then to be buried, and no one is to be told
about the matter; then, as the shell withers away, so will the wart
gradually disappear. It is a popular tradition that during the flowering

78. of the Bean more cases of lunacy occur than at any other season. In
Leap Year, it is a common notion that broad Beans grow the wrong
way, i.e., the seed is set in the pods in quite the contrary way to
what it is in other years. The reason given is that, because it is the
ladies’ year, the Beans always lie the wrong way—in reference to the
privilege possessed by the fair sex of courting in Leap Year. There is
a saying in Leicestershire, that if you wish for awful dreams or desire
to go crazy, you have only to sleep in a Bean-field all night.——
Beans are under the dominion of Venus. To dream of them under
any circumstances means trouble of some kind.
BEDSTRAW.—Our Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum) filled the
manger on which the infant Jesus was laid. In a painting of the
Nativity by N. Poussin, this straw is introduced. From its soft puffy
stems and golden flowers, this grass was in bygone times used for
bedding, even by ladies of rank,—whence the expression of their
being “in the straw.”——Galium was formerly employed to curdle the
milk in cheese-making, and was also used before the introduction of
Annatto, to give a rich colour to Cheshire cheese. The old herbalists
affirmed that the root stirred up amorous desires, if drunk in wine,
and that the flowers would produce the same effect if smelt long
enough. Robert Turner says: “It challenges the preheminence above
Maywort, for preventing the sore weariness of travellers: the
decoction of the herb and flowers, used warm, is excellent good to
bath the surbated feet of footmen and lackies in hot weather, and
also to lissome and mollifie the stiffness and weariness of their
joynts and sinews.”——In France, Galium is considered to be a
remedy in cases of epilepsy.——Lady’s Bedstraw is under the
dominion of Venus.
BEECH.—Vieing with the Ash in stateliness and grandeur of
outline, the Beech (Fagus) is worthily given by Rapin the second
place among trees.

79. “Mixt with huge Oaks, as next in rank and state,
Their kindred Beech and Cerris claim a seat.”
According to Lucian, the oracles of Jupiter at Dodona were delivered
not only through the medium of the sacred Oaks in the prophetic
grove surrounding the temple, but also by Beeches which grew
there. A large part, if not the whole, of the Greek ship Argo was built
of Fagus, or Beech timber, and as certain beams in the vessel gave
oracles to the Argonauts, and warned them against the approach of
calamities, it is probable that some, at least, of these prophetic
beams were hewn from the Dodonæan Beeches. It was from the top
of two Beech-trees that Minerva and Apollo, in the form of vultures,
selected to watch the fight between the Greeks and the Trojans.——
The connection of the tree with the god Bacchus appears to have
been confined to its employment in the manufacture of bowls for
wine in the happy time when “No wars did men molest, and only
Beechen bowls were in request.” Cowley alludes to this in the words
—
“He sings the Bacchus, patron of the Vine,
The Beechen bowl foams with a flood of wine.”
Virgil notices the use of its smooth and green bark for receiving
inscriptions from the “sylvan pen of lovers;” and Ovid, in his epistle
from Œnone to Paris, refers to the same custom, gracefully noting
that the name of the fair one would grow and spread with the
growth of the tree:—
“The Beeches, faithful guardians of your flame,
Bear on their wounded trunks Œnone’s name,
And as their trunks, so still the letters grow;
Spread on, and fair aloft my titles show.”

80. According to a French tradition, a blacksmith, who was one day
beating a bar of red-hot iron on his anvil, raised such a shower of
sparks, that some of them reached the eyes of God himself, who
forthwith, in His wrath, condemned the man to become a bear, with
the condition that he might climb at his pleasure all the trees
excepting the Beech. Changed into a bear, the man was for ever
afterwards cogitating how to uproot the tree. In this legend, the
Beech, which is generally considered a tree of good augury,
becomes a specially favoured or privileged tree. Pliny wrote that it
should not be cut for fuel. Gerarde says of it: “The wood is hard and
firme, which being brought into the house there follows hard travail
of child and miserable deaths, as it is reported; and therefore it is to
be forborne, and not used as fire wood.” The Beech-tree is believed
to be exempt from the action of lightning, and it is well known that
Indians will seek its shelter during a thunderstorm. It is the Danish
symbol.—Astrologers rule the Beech to be under the dominion of
Saturn.
BELINUNCIA.—Under the appellation of Kêd, or Ceridwen, the
Druids worshipped the Moon, who was believed to exercise a
peculiar influence on storms, diseases, and certain plants. They
consecrated a herb to her, called Belinuncia, in the poisonous sap of
which they dipped their arrows, to render them as deadly as those
malignant rays of the Moon which were deemed to shed both death
and madness upon men.
BEL-TREE.—The Ægle Marmelos, Bilva (Sanscrit), or Bel-tree, is
held sacred in India. Belonging to the same natural order as the
Orange, its leaves, which are divided into three separate leaflets, are
dedicated to the Hindu Trinity, and Indians are accustomed to carry
one of them folded in the turban or sash, in order to propitiate Siva,
and ensure safety from accidents. The wood is used to form the
sacrificial pillars.——The Hindu women of the Punjab throw flowers
into a sacred river, by means of which they can foretell whether or
not they are to survive their husbands: but a much more ingenious

81. rite is practised by the Newars of Nepaul. To obviate the terrible
hardships to a young Hindu girl of becoming a widow, she is, in the
first instance, married to a Bel-fruit, which is then cast into a sacred
river. Should her future husband prove distasteful to her, this rite
enables her to obtain a divorce; and should the husband die, she
can still claim the title of wife to the sacred Bel-fruit, which is
immortal; so that she is always a wife and never a widow.
Beää-fäoïeê.—See Blue-bell, and Campanula.
BETEL.—According to Indian traditions, the Betel was brought
from heaven by Arjuna, who, during his journey to Paradise, stole a
little bough of the sacred tree, which, upon his return to earth, he
carefully planted. In remembrance of this celestial origin of the tree,
and of the manner of its introduction to earth, Indians who desire to
plant the Betel invariably steal a few young shoots.——The Betel, or
Pepper-tree (Piper betle), is most highly esteemed by the Indian
races, who attribute to its leaves no less than thirty properties or
virtues, the possession of which, even by a plant of heavenly origin,
can scarcely be credited. It is the leaf of the Betel which serves to
enclose a few slices of the Areca Nut (sometimes erroneously called
the Betel Nut); and these, together with a little Chunam or shell-
lime, are what the natives universally chew to sweeten the breath
and strengthen the stomach. The poor, indeed, employ it to keep off
the pangs of hunger. In certain parts of the East, it is not considered
polite to speak to a superior without some of the Betel and Areca
compound in the mouth. At Indian marriage ceremonies, the bride
and bridegroom exchange between themselves the same Areca Nut,
with its accompanying Betel-leaf.——In Borneo, a favoured lover may
enter the house of the loved one’s parents, at night, and awaken
her, to sit and eat Betel Nut and the finest of Sirih-leaves from his
garden.
BETONY.—The ‘Medicinal Betony,’ as Clare calls it, is Betonica
officinalis, and of all the simples praised by old herbalists, both
English and foreign, none (the Vervain excepted) was awarded a

82. higher place than Wood Betony. Turner, in his ‘Brittish Physician’
(1687), writes:—“It would seem a miracle to tell what experience I
have had of it. This herb is hot and dry, almost to the second
degree, a plant of Jupiter in Aries, and is appropriated to the head
and eyes, for the infirmities whereof it is excellent, as also for the
breast and lungs; being boiled in milk, and drunk, it takes away
pains in the head and eyes. Probatum. Some write it will cure those
that are possessed with devils, or frantic, being stamped and applied
to the forehead.” He gives a list of between twenty or thirty
complaints which Betony will cure, and then says, “I shall conclude
with the words I found in an old manuscript under the virtues of it:
‘More than all this have been proved of Betony.’” Gerarde gives a
similar list, and adds, that Betony is “a remedy against the bitings of
mad dogs and venomous serpents, being drunk, and also applied to
the hurts, and is most singular against poyson.” There is an old
saying that, when a person is ill, he should sell his coat, and buy
Betony.——The Romans were well acquainted with the medicinal
properties of this herb. Pliny wrote of the marvellous results
obtained from its use, and also affirmed that serpents would kill one
another if surrounded by a ring composed of Betonica. Antonius
Musa, physician to Augustus, wrote a treatise on the excellencies of
Betonica, which he affirmed would cure forty-seven different
ailments. Franzius went so far as to assert that the wild beasts of
the forest, aware of its surpassing virtues, availed themselves of its
efficacy when they were wounded.——At a time when a belief in
witchcraft was rife in England, it was generally understood that the
house where Herba Betonica was sown, was free from all mischief.
In Yorkshire, the Water Betony was formerly called Bishop’s Leaves.
In Italy, at the present day, there are several proverbs relating to the
virtues of Betony, one of which is, “May you have more virtues than
Betony;” and another, “Known as well as Betony.”
BIGNONIA.—One of the native names of the Bignonia Indica, or
Indian Trumpet-flower, is Kâmadûti, or the Messenger of Love. Under

83. the name of Patala, the Bignonia suaveolens is specially consecrated
by the Indians to the god Brahma. The name of Patala, however, is
given in the Sanscrit to Durgâ, the wife of Siva, probably on account
of the colour of her idols, which assimilate to the colour of the
flowers of the Bignonia.
BILBERRY.—The origin of the Bilberry or Whortleberry
(Vaccinium Myrtillus), according to the mythology of the ancients, is
as follows:—Œnomaüs, father of the lovely Hippodamia, chose for
his attendant the young Myrtillus, son of Mercury. Proud of his skill,
he stipulated that all his daughter’s suitors should compete for the
prize in a chariot race with him. Pelops, who was eager to obtain the
beautiful Hippodamia, promised Myrtillus a large reward if he would
take out the linch-pin of his master’s chariot. Myrtillus was not proof
againt the offer: in consequence, the chariot was overturned, and
Œnomaüs mortally injured; but as he expired, he implored Pelops to
avenge him, which he did by throwing the treacherous attendant
into the sea. The waters having borne back his body to the shore,
Mercury changed it to the shrub called after his name, Myrtillus, a
name formerly given to the plant producing the Myrtle-berry, a fruit
largely imported in the middle ages, and used in medicine and
cookery—of the same genus as the English Bilberry, which is often
found growing on the sea-shore. The Scotch name of this shrub is
Blaeberry, the praises of which are often sung in Northern ballads.
“Will ye go, lassie, go to the braes of Balquhidder,
Whare the Blaeberries grow ’mong the bonny blooming Heather?”
Bilberries are held by the astrologers to be under Jupiter. (See also
Whoêtäebeêêy.)
BIRCH.—According to Scandinavian mythology, the Birch (Betula
alba) was consecrated to the god Thor, and symbolised the return of
Spring. The Greeks and Romans had not much knowledge of the
tree, but the latter seem to have regarded it with a feeling of dread

84. in consequence of the fasces of the magistracy being composed of
it, as now, says Evelyn, “are the gentler rods of our tyrannical
pedagogues for lighter faults.” According to Pliny, the celebrated
books which Numa Pompilius composed seven hundred years before
Christ, and which were buried with him, were written on the bark of
the Birch-tree.——It is in the northern countries of Europe that the
Birch flourishes, and it is there the tree is held in the highest
esteem. The Russians have a proverb that the Birch excels in four
qualities:—It gives light to the world (with Birch-boughs torches are
made); it stifles cries (from Birch they extract a lubricant which they
apply to the wheels of carriages); it cleanses (in Russian baths, to
promote perspiration, they scourge the body with branches of
Birch); it cures diseases (by incision they obtain a liquor stated to
have all the virtues of the spirit of salt, and from which a wine is
distilled, excellent as a cordial and useful in cases of consumption).
Moreover, in Russia, the oil of the Birch is used as a vermifuge and a
balsam in the cure of wounds. In fact, to the peasants of the North,
the Birch is as beneficent as is the Palm to the Indians. No wonder,
then, that the Russians are very fond of the Birch, and surround
their dwellings with it; believing, as they do, that this tree is never
struck by lightning.——On the Day of Pentecost, it is a custom
among young Russian maidens to suspend garlands on the trees
they love best, and they are careful to tie round the stems of the
Birch-trees a little red ribbon as a charm to cause them to flourish
and to protect them from the Evil Eye. De Gubernatis quotes from a
Russian author named Afanassief, who tells us of a Birch that
showed its appreciation of the kindly attentions of a young girl in
decking its stem, by protecting her from the persecutions of a witch,
who had become her step-mother; and the same author makes
mention of a certain white Birch, which grew in the island of Buian,
on the topmost of whose branches it was currently believed the
Mother of God might be seen sitting.——Grohmann, a German
writer, recounts the legend of a young shepherdess, who was

85. spinning in the midst of a forest of Birch-trees, when suddenly the
Wild Woman of the forest accosted her. The Wild Woman was
dressed in white, and had a garland of flowers upon her head: she
persuaded the shepherdess to dance with her, and for three days
kept up the dance until sunset, but so lightly that the grass under
her feet was neither trampled upon nor bent. At the conclusion of
the dance, all the yarn was spun, and the Wild Woman was so
satisfied, that she filled the pocket of the little shepherdess with
Birch-leaves, which soon turned into golden money.——Professor
Mannhardt, says De Gubernatis, divulges to us the means employed
by the Russian peasants to evoke the Lieschi, or Geni of the forest.
They cut down some very young Birch-trees, and arrange them in a
circle in such a manner that the points shall be turned towards the
middle: they enter this circle, and then they call up the spirit, who
forthwith makes his appearance. They place him on the stump of
one of the felled trees, with his face turned towards the East. They
kiss his hand, and, whilst looking between his legs, they utter these
words:—“Uncle Lieschi, show yourself to us, not as a grey wolf, not
as a fierce fire, but as I myself appear.” Then the leaves of the Aspen
quiver and tremble, and the Lieschi shows himself in human form,
and is quite disposed to render no matter what service to him who
has conjured him—provided only that he will promise him his soul.
——De Gubernatis relates one other anecdote respecting the Birch,
which he says to the Esthonian is the living personification of his
country. It is related that an Esthonian peasant noticed a stranger
asleep beneath a tree at the moment when it was struck by
lightning. He awoke him. The stranger, thanking him for his good
offices, said: “When, far from your native country, and feeling
sorrowful and home-sick, you shall see a crooked Birch, strike and
ask of it: ‘Is the crooked one at home?’” One day the peasant, who
had become a soldier, and was serving in Finland, felt dispirited and
unhappy, for he could not help thinking of his home and the little
ones he had left behind. Suddenly he sees the crooked Birch! He

86. strikes it, and asks: “Is the crooked one at home?” Forthwith the
mysterious stranger appears, and, calling to one of his spirits, bids
him instantly transport the soldier to his native country, with his
knapsack full of silver.——The Swedes have a superstition that our
Saviour was scourged with a rod of the dwarf Birch, which was
formerly a well-grown tree, but has ever since that day been
doomed to hide its miserable and stunted head. It is called Láng
Fredags Ris, or Good Friday rod.——In France, it was in mediæval
times the custom to preserve a bough of the Birch as a sacred
object. In the country districts around Valenciennes, it is an old
custom for lovers to hang a bough of Birch or Hornbeam over the
doorway of his lady-love. In Haute Bretagne, as a charm to
strengthen a weakly infant, they place in its cot Birch-leaves, which
have been previously dried in an oven. There is an old English
proverb, “Birchen twigs break no bones,” which has reference to the
exceedingly slender branches of the tree.——In former days,
churches were decked with boughs of the Birch, and Gerarde tell us
that “it serveth well to the decking up of houses and banqueting-
rooms, for places of pleasure, and for beautifying of streets in the
crosse and gang [procession] weeke, and such like.” According to
Herrick, it was customary to use Birch and fresh flowers for
decorative purposes at Whitsuntide:—
“When Yew is out, then Birch comes in,
And many flowers besides;
Both of a fresh and fragrant kinne,
To honour Whitsontide.”
The Scotch Highlanders think very highly of the Birch, and turn it to
all sorts of uses. With Burns, the budding Birch was a prime
favourite in the Spring-time. The Scotch proverb, which says of a
very poor man that he is “Bare as a Birk at Yule e’en,” probably
refers to an old custom of stripping the bark of the tree prior to
converting it into the yule log. The tree known in the Highlands as

87. the Drooping Birk is often grown in churchyards, where, as Scott
says, “Weeps the Birch of silver bark with long dishevell’d hair.” In
Scottish ballads, the Birch is associated with the dead, and more
especially with the wraiths or spirits of those who appear to be living
after death. The following is a good example:—
“I dreamed a dreary dream last nicht;
God keep us a’ frae sorrow!
I dreamed I pu’d the Birk sae green
Wi’ my true love on Yarrow.
“I’ll redde your dream, my sister dear,
I’ll tell you a’ your sorrow;
You pu’d the Birk wi’ your true love;
He’s killed, he’s killed on Yarrow.”
The Birch-tree is held to be under the dominion of Venus.
Bátteê-Sïeet.—See Solanum.
BITTER VETCH.—The Orobus, or Bitter Vetch, is supposed to
represent the herb mentioned in a passage in Pulci, which relates
how an enchanter preserves two knights from starvation, during a
long journey, by giving them a herb which, being held in the mouth,
answers all the purposes of food.——The Scotch Highlanders have a
great esteem for the tubercles of the Orobus root (which they call
Corr or Cormeille); they use them as masticatories, to flavour their
liquor. They also affirm that by the use of them they are enabled to
repel hunger and thirst for a considerable time. In times of scarcity,
the roots have served as a substitute for bread, and many think that
the Bitter Vetch is the Chara, mentioned by Cæsar, as affording food
to his famished soldiers at the siege of Dyrrhachium. The seeds,
ground and tempered with wine, were applied to heal the bitings of
dogs and venomous beasts.
Bäacâ-Thoên.—See Thorn.
Bäaebeêêy.—See Bilberry and Whortleberry.

88. BLUE-BELL.—The Blue-bells of Scotland have long since become
household words. The flower (Campanula latifolia) is the finest and
most stately of the species, and although common enough on its
native hills, is scarce in England. It is associated with the feast of St.
George. (See Caméanuäa.)
Bäue-Bottäe and Bäuet.—See Centaury.
Bo-Têee.—See Peepul.
BORAGE.—In former days, Borage (Borago officinalis) was noted
as one of the four “cordial flowers” most deserving of esteem for
cheering the spirits—the other three being the Rose, Violet, and
Alkanet. Pliny called Borage Euphrosynum, because it made men
merry and joyful: and to the same purport is the old Latin rhyme,
“Ego Borago gaudia semper ago.” All the old herbalists praise the
plant for its exhilarating effects, and agree with Pliny that when put
into wine the leaves and flowers of Borage make men and women
glad and merry, driving away all sadness, dulness, and melancholy.
The “cool tankard” of our forefathers was a beverage composed of
the young shoots and blossoms of Borage mingled with wine, water,
lemon, and sugar. Lord Bacon was of opinion that “if in the must of
wine or wort of beer, while it worketh, before it be tunned, the
Burrage stay a short time, and be changed with fresh, it will make a
sovereign drink for melancholy passion.”——Borage, astrologers tell
us, is one of Jupiter’s cordials.
BOX.—The evergreen Box (Buxus semperviva) was specially
consecrated by the Greeks to Pluto, the protector of all evergreen
trees, as being symbolical of the life which continues through the
winter in the infernal regions, and in the other world.——A curious
superstition existed among the ancients in regard to the Box:
although it very much resembles the Myrtle, which was held sacred
to Venus, yet they carefully refrained from dedicating the Box to that
goddess, because they were afraid that through such an offering
they would lose their virility. They also, according to Bacon,
entertained the belief that the Box produced honey, and that in

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