Antisymmetry

In linguistics, antisymmetry is a syntactic theory presented in Richard S. Kayne's 1994 monograph The Antisymmetry of Syntax. It asserts that grammatical hierarchies in natural language follow a universal order, namely specifier-head-complement branching order. The theory builds on the foundation of the X-bar theory. Kayne hypothesizes that all phrases whose surface order is not specifier-head-complement have undergone syntactic movements that disrupt this underlying order. Others have posited specifier-complement-head as the basic word order.

For the property of matrices, see Skew-symmetric matrix. For the property of mathematical relations, see Antisymmetric relation. For other uses, see Antisymmetric (disambiguation).

Antisymmetry as a principle of word order is reliant on X-bar notions such as specifier and complement, and the existence of order-altering mechanisms such as movement. It is disputed by constituency structure theories (as opposed to dependency structure theories).

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