The article proposes a new theory of successive-cyclic movement that reconciles the early and the current minimalist approaches to it. As in the early approach, there is no feature checking in intermediate positions of successive-cyclic movement. However, as in the current approach and unlike in early minimalism, successive-cyclic movement starts before the final target of movement enters the structure, and Form Chain is eliminated. The locality of Move and the locality of Agree are shown to be radically different, Agree being free from several mechanisms that constrain Move, namely, phases and the Activation Condition. However, there is no need to take phases to define locality domains of syntax or to posit the Activation Condition as an independent principle. They still hold empirically for Move as theorems. The Generalized EPP (the “I need a Spec” property of attracting heads) and the Inverse Case Filter are also dispensable. The traditional Case Filter, stated as a checking requirement, is the sole driving force of A-movement. More generally, Move is always driven by a formal inadequacy (an uninterpretable feature) of the moving element, while Agree is target driven. The system resolves a lookahead problem that arises under the EPP-driven movement approach, where the EPP diacritic indicating that X moves is placed on Y, not X, although X often needs to start moving before Y enters the structure.
bstract. The paper considers several accounts of crosslinguistic variation regarding left branch extraction (LBE), focusing on adjectival LBE, and explores consequences of a proper analysis of LBE for the internal structure of NP. Two lines of research are pursued, both of which are based on the claim that languages that allow adjectival LBE do not have DP. One is based on the phase-based locality system, extending the phase system from clauses to NPs, and the other one is based on the existence of crosslinguistic variation regarding the position of adjectives in the traditional NP, with some languages having the traditional NP-over-AP structure, others having Abney's AP-over-NP structure. Which structure a language has is argued to depend on the presence/absence of DP in the language, the lack of DP leading to the NP-over-AP structure. Under this analysis, the ban on AP LBE in English-type languages follows from the ban on movement of non-constituents, a problem that does not arise in languages that allow AP LBE. The impossibility of LBE of AP in the presence of another AP in languages that in principle allow such extraction is argued to provide evidence that adjectives are located in multiple specifiers of the same head. This paper examines the phenomenon of left branch extraction (LBE), focusing on adjectival LBE, and explores consequences of a proper analysis of LBE for the internal structure of NP, in particular, the structural position of AP. I pursue two lines of research, both of which are based on the claim that languages that allow LBE of adjectives do not have DP. One is based on the phase-based locality system, extending the phase-based locality system from clauses to NPs, and the other one is based on the existence of crosslinguistic variation regarding the position of adjectives in the traditional NP, with some languages having the traditional NP-over-AP structure, others having Abney's (1987) AP-over-NP structure. Although there are reasons to favor the latter analysis, ultimately I will not be able to provide a completely conclusive way of teasing apart the alternative analyses. In this respect, the paper reflects our present understanding of the phenomenon of LBE, which is currently too rudimentary to put us in a *This material was presented at the
I show that multiple wh-fronting languages (MWFL) do not behave uniformly regarding wh-movement and eliminate MWFL from the crosslinguistic typology concerning wh-movement in multiple questions. Regarding when they have wh-movement, MWFL behave like non-MWFL: some behave like English (they always have wh-movement), some like Chinese (they never have it), and some like French (they have it optionally although, as in French, wh-movement is sometimes required). MWFL differ from English, Chinese, and French in that in MWFL even wh-phrases that do not undergo wh-movement still must front for an independent reason, argued to involve focus. The fronting has several exceptions (semantic, phonological, and syntactic in nature), explanation for which leads me to posit a new type of in-situ wh-phrase and argue for the possibility of pronunciation of lower copies of chains.
On the basis of a number of cases where the status of X with respect to phasehood changes depending on the syntactic context in which X occurs, I argue for a contextual approach to phasehood whereby the highest phrase in the extended projection of all lexical categories-N, P, A, and V ( passive and active)-functions as a phase. The relevant arguments concern extraction and ellipsis. I argue that ellipsis is phaseconstrained: only phases and complements of phase heads can in principle undergo ellipsis. I show that Ā -extraction out of an ellipsis site is possible only if the ellipsis site corresponds to a phasal complement. I also provide evidence for the existence of several AspectPs, all of which have morphological manifestations, in the VP domain of English and show that they crucially affect the phasehood of this domain. The article provides a uniform account of a number of superficially different constructions involving extraction and ellipsis from SerboCroatian, Japanese, Turkish, and English.
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