My opinions:
Yes, (5) is better than (4)
(6b) is better than (6a)
Reasoning: I cannot think of a good reason that a DP cannot recursively
include another DP. I believe that the purpose of syntax diagrams is to
clarify the syntax of a language, rather than to force a language's syntax
to conform to a certain theory's rules. (6b) is a clear and unambiguous
diagram for a bit of Ayeri syntax, which is why I prefer it. (You can see
that I am a "pragmatist", rather than a "theoretician"; others may come to
different conclusions.) In case you're wondering, I have studied syntax,
but did not enjoy the formality of it.
Jeffrey


On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 7:49 AM Carsten Becker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> OK, since two of you suggested to summarize what I'm uncertain about
> specifically ... Ayeri is a VSO language, and I analyzed it previously
> as having the following basic sentence structure for transitive
> clauses where the subject NP is not a pronoun (view this email in a
> fixed-width font to see the examples and charts lining up):
>
> (1)              IP
>         .--------+--------.
>         |                 |
>        ↑=↓               ↑=↓
>         I'                S
>     .---+---.         .---+---.
>     |       |         |       |
>    ↑=↓  ↓∈(↑ADJ)  (↑SUBJ)=↓  ↑=↓
>     I      XP         NP      VP
>                               |
>                               |
>                           (↑OBJ)=↓
>                               NP
>
> As I said in my original post, I analyzed my conlang's syntactic
> structure in terms of LFG, so the c(onstituent)-structure tree above
> contains functional annotations instead of relying solely on bar
> levels in order to identify syntactic functions; non-branching
> pre-terminal bar levels are moreover typically pruned for tidiness.
> ↑=↓ means that the semantic content of the current node is simply
> passed on to (or actually, united with, as in set theory) the next
> higher node; (↑SUBJ)=↓ identifies the current phrase as the superior
> node's (and ultimately IP's) subject, etc.  This way, Ayeri relies on
> an extended head for its verb (the head of VP is empty but its
> functional equivalent is found as the head of IP), so that it is still
> "configurational," also since I still c-commands V's modifiers this
> way.
>
> Now, the thing that is still puzzling me is that Ayeri very regularly
> places modifiers after heads, and since there is no agreement
> morphology on adjectives, adjectives follow their heads *immediately*
> to keep scope unambiguous, even though they are adjuncts and not
> complements.  Complements move up further to the right if an adjective
> is present: NOUN--ADJ--COMP.  To give an example:
>
> (2) Ang   vacya          John koyās   dano  gindiyēri.
>     ang=  vac -ya    Ø=  John koya-as dano  gindi-ye-eri
>     A.TOP=like-3SG.M TOP=John book-P  green poem -PL-INS
>     'John, he likes the green book of poems.'
>
> Here, the adjective _dano_ 'green' follows its head, _koyās_ 'book'
> rather than the head + complement _koyās gindiyēri_ 'book of poems' to
> signal that its head is 'book' rather than 'poems' ('*green poems' are
> maybe the kind of poetry colorless green ideas prefer, I don't know).
> Functionally, this construction should be in no way different from the
> 'normal' constituent order N--COMP--ADJ.  It's simply a quirk of Ayeri
> to invert the order of complement and adjective/adverb, although as we
> will see below, this quirk is motivated.
>
> (3) +-                                   -+
>     | PRED 'like <(↑SUBJ) (↑OBJ)>'        |
>     |      +-           -+                |
>     |      | PRED 'John' |                |
>     | TOP  | PERS 3      |--.             |
>     |      | NUM  SG     |  |             |
>     |      | GEND M      |  |             |
>     |      +-           -+  |             |
>     | SUBJ -----------------'             |
>     |      +-                          -+ |
>     |      | PRED 'book <(↑COMP)>'      | |
>     |      | ANIM +                     | |
>     |      | CASE P                     | |
>     |      |      +-            -+      | |
>     |      |      | PRED 'poem'  |      | |
>     |      | COMP | NUM  PL      |      | |
>     | OBJ  |      | CASE INS     |      | |
>     |      |      +-            -+      | |
>     |      |      ,-                -.  | |
>     |      |      | +-            -+ |  | |
>     |      | ADJ <: | PRED 'green' | :> | |
>     |      |      | +-            -+ |  | |
>     |      |      '-                -'  | |
>     |      +-                          -+ |
>     +-                                   -+
>
> Here, the part in question is the f(unctional)-structure labeled 'OBJ'
> for its function as an object: its lexical head ('predicator') is
> 'book', which subcategorizes for a complement.  This requirement is
> satisfied by the subordinate f-structure labeled 'COMP'.  The object
> also contains an adjunct function (ADJ), and the only member of the
> set is given as the adjective 'green'.  The question is now, however,
> how to analyze this in terms of c-structure.  In LFG, functional heads
> are regarded as co-heads of their equivalent lexical categories, which
> is why I and V are regarded as functionally the same: both functional
> and lexical heads of the same kind (verbal, nominal) write their
> semantic features into the same f-structure.  The strategy of verbs
> should thus in principle also be applicable to D and N, with D as NP's
> extended head.  However, I have so far analyzed NPs with adjuncts and
> complements in the following way and was wondering if this is correct:
>
> (4)         NP
>         .---+---.
>         |       |
>        ↑=↓  (↑COMP)=↓
>         NP      NP
>     .---+---.
>     |       |
>    ↑=↓   ↓∈(↑ADJ)
>     N       AP
>
> While it is generally possible to adjoin a phrasal node to a phrasal
> node, the restriction according to LFG's annotation rules is that
> phrasal nodes adjoined to another phrasal node either need to be
> unannotated (I suppose, this means ↑=↓) or not to embody an argument
> function, however, COMP *is* an argument function.  For nouns, I
> suppose one could still invoke lexocentricity---the word as such
> identifies the NP as a complement, here by way of its case marking.
> This does not work for all phrase types, however, since e.g. CPs as
> complements of predicative adjectives (nice [CP that you're here]) do
> not mark case.  I was wondering therefore if the following analysis
> might not actually be better, also because it parallels the way Ayeri
> handles verbs:
>
> (5)             DP
>         .-------+-------.
>         |               |
>        ↑=↓             ↑=↓
>         D'              NP
>     .---+---.           |
>     |       |           |
>    ↑=↓   ↓∈(↑ADJ)   (↑COMP)=↓
>     D       AP          NP
>
> The head noun is found as a functional head D here, while N itself is
> empty, however, its complement is still in place.  This parallels how
> V is empty, while the object, as V's complement, is still constructed
> as a daughter of VP.  This also allows for annotation of the nodes
> according to the rules, or at least without bending them, as far as I
> can tell.
>
> A question arising from this is how to deal with determiners.  Since I
> modeled my analysis in (1) on Bresnan et al.'s (2016) analysis of
> Welsh---which they analyze as not using Spec as a parametric
> choice---I implicitly assumed for Ayeri as well not to make use of
> Spec.  This means that I analyzed determiners like _nā_ 'my' or
> _sinya_ 'which' (as an interrogative pronoun) as heads of DP which are
> complemented by an NP, as in (6a).  However, with the analysis in (5),
> can I still follow this strategy and have [DP [DP NP]], as in (6b), or
> is it preferred for DP not to recursively include another DP for some
> reason? This is probably a Syntax 101 question, but I've never really
> had a Syntax 101 class.
>
> (6) a.         DP
>            .---+---.
>            |       |
>           ↑=↓     ↑=↓
>            NP      D
>        .---+---.
>        |       |
>       ↑=↓   ↓∈(↑ADJ)
>        N       AP
>
>     b.                   DP
>                    .-----+-----.
>                    |           |
>                   ↑=↓         ↑=↓
>                    DP          D
>            .-------+-------.
>            |               |
>           ↑=↓             ↑=↓
>            D'              NP
>        .---+---.           |
>        |       |           |
>       ↑=↓   ↓∈(↑ADJ)   (↑COMP)=↓
>        D       AP          NP
>
> I mentioned above that adjectives can have phrasal complements.  If an
> adverb is present, complements of adjectives move up as well, but
> adjective phrases do not have a functional equivalent. So what would I
> do there, if the strategy outlined for nouns in (5) is followed
> mutatis mutandis? Would I simply put an AP inside another AP, or would
> I maybe rather use DP, since adjectives are a nominal category in my
> conlang?
>
> Regards
> Carsten
>