On Linearization. Toward a Restrictive Theory.

The derivation of linear order is often taken to be rather trivial as the physics of speech, it is said, leaves just two options (a head either precedes or follows its complements and modifiers). This idea however falls short of a number of generalizations concerning linear order; among which, the fact that of all the theoretically possible combinations of n elements only a specifiable subset is ever attested, and the fact that more orders are found to the right of a head than to its left (just one). The physics of speech does not help us understand any of these generalizations. An account of them and the hope of deriving the orders of all languages from one and the same hierarchical organization via the same basic principles through a restrictive theory of linear order may however be attained once we have 1) a precise understanding of the fine-grained hierarchies and sub-hierarchies that underlie the clause and its phrases, 2) a restriction on movement whereby only the head of each (sub-)hierarchy can move (by itself or in one of the two pied piping modes), and 3) Kayne’s Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA). Here I will try to delineate a possible first implementation of a restrictive theory of linear order along these lines.