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A Merge-Based Account of Hierarchical Asymmetry in English Coordinate Structures
YAO Shuchao
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2026.04.006
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China
Coordinate structures are traditionally treated as symmetric constructions in which conjuncts are parallel in category, hierarchical status, and function. This assumption, however, is empirically inadequate: English coordination exhibits systematic hierarchical non-parallelism among conjuncts with respect to structural position, sharing relations, and interpretive burden—asymmetries irreducible to surface categorial mismatch. Despite substantial generative work on coordination, no existing account has determined which asymmetry type demands which structure-building operation, or whether such distinctions can be established on language-internal grounds alone. This article addresses that gap through four empirical domains in English: unlike-category coordination, irreversible ordering, Across-the-Board (ATB) extraction and the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC), and the syntax-semantics subordination mismatch. These domains are shown to instantiate three structurally distinct asymmetry types, evaluated against ordinary Merge, pair-Merge, and Parallel Merge, with the movement/base-generation distinction and lexicalized dependency as boundary conditions. No single Merge operation proves sufficient: Ordinary Merge provides a baseline for unlike-category structures but fails to derive ordering restrictions or shared-structure dependencies; pair-Merge better handles adjunction-like augmentation asymmetries; and Parallel Merge offers the most principled account of ATB phenomena through multidominance. The article concludes that the three asymmetry types are irreducible to a single structural source, and that this irreducibility constitutes the primary diagnostic for differentiating among Merge paths within a single language.
coordinate structures, hierarchical asymmetry, Merge, pair-Merge, Parallel Merge, syntax-semantics interface
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