trace (n.) (t)

A term introduced into TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR of the mid-1970s to refer to a FORMAL means of marking the place a CONSTITUENT once held in a DERIVATION, before it was moved to another position by a transformational operation. The position from which the constituent was moved is known as a trace (t marks its place in the REPRESENTATION), which is said to be ‘BOUND’ by that constituent. The moved constituent and the EMPTY NODE it leaves behind are CO-INDEXED. For example, in a RULE which ‘raises’ the SUBJECT of an EMBEDDED CLAUSE to be the subject of the MAIN clause, the trace t marks the position of the embedded subject, e.g. it is certain [the man to come] ⇒ the man is certain t to come. In GOVERNMENT-BINDING THEORY, a distinction is made between traces of NOUN PHRASES moved by NP-MOVEMENT (NP traces), as in PASSIVE and RAISING sentences, and traces of categories moved by WH-movement (wh-traces), as in wh-questions, relative clauses, etc. The former are ANAPHORS and the latter are VARIABLES. The distribution of traces is governed by the EMPTY CATEGORY PRINCIPLE. Several arguments have been proposed to support a trace theory of movement rules, e.g. that it facilitates the statement of the conditions which affect the SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION of SURFACE structures, and that it permits a more principled account of the operation of syntactic rules. The extent of the convention’s applicability (whether all moved constituents leave traces), and the kinds of insight and problem which the theory raises, have been sources of controversy.