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BU CAS LX 522 - Syntax I

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1Episode 5b. Head movementand the strength of features5.4CAS LX 522Syntax IMerge, Adjoin, and …move? The method by which we arrive at structuresfor sentences is… Take some lexical items (a “numeration” or “lexicalarray”) Combine any two of them (Merge) to make a newitem. Lexical items can have uninterpretable features. Merge cancheck these features. All of the uninterpretable featuresmust be checked by the end of the derivation. Attach one to another (Adjoin). Adjoin does not check features. Move stuff around. What can you do? What can’t you do? Does it checkfeatures? Why do you do it? What’s really happening?Move There are two basic kinds of movement. We’veseen examples of each. One is head-movement, where a head moves up tojoin with another head. Examples: V moves to v, {Perf/Prog/M} moves to T The other is XP-movement, where a maximalprojection (an XP) moves up to a specifier of ahigher phrase. Example: The subject moving to SpecTP.Forced movement (eviction?) We will assume that, like with Merge, Moveoccurs to “solve a problem.” And the main problem our system has is uncheckeduninterpretable features. So, Move must check features. We have two ways to check features so far. Oneof them is under sisterhood (Merge). The other is“at a distance” (Agree). The [uN] feature of P, checked by Merging P and an NP. The [uInfl:] feature of v, valued by the [tense] feature of T. What kind of problem could Move solve? Well, for one thing, it must not be able to solve the problem inplace, without moving. Seems to need “closeness.”Agree and checking under sisterhood Feature-checking (first version): c-selection If X[F] and Y[uF] are sisters,the [uF] feature of Y is checked: Y[uF]. P has a [uN] feature. Merge it with an N(P), and the [uN]feature of P is checked. Feature-checking (second version): inflection If X[F:val] c-commands Y[uF:],the [uF:] feature of Y is valued and checked: Y[uF:val]. T has a [tense:past] feature. Strictly speaking [tense:past] doesn’t look like it’s a valued[Infl] feature. We need to stipulate in addition a list of thingsthat can value [Infl] features.A more general Agree Agree requires: An uninterpretable feature A matching feature Line of sight (c-command) And results in: Valuing of unvalued features. Checking of the uninterpretable features. Our first version of checking (sisterhood) is aspecial case of this more generalconception of Agree. Except that we do want the [uN] feature of P to be checkedby directly Merging P and an NP—not “at a distance” likeagreement.2Strong features In order to check the [uN] feature of P onlythrough Merge (sisterhood), we will define aspecial kind of uninterpretable feature: thestrong feature. A strong feature can only be checked whenthe matching feature is on an element thatshares the same mother node. We will write strong features with a *: P [P, uN*] C-selection features are strong.A more general Agree Line of sight: c-command. Matching: Identical features match. [N] matches [uN]. Some features match several things. [uInfl:] canmatch [tense:value], as well as the category features[Perf], [Prog], [M]. What if there are two options? We’ll see later that onlythe closest one participates in Agree. Valuing/Checking: An unvalued feature is always uninterpretable. Valuing a feature will check it. A privative feature is simply checked when it matches.A more general Agree Other properties of Agree, relevant mainlyafter the midterm: Strong features Agree first. Where a single head has more than one feature that mustAgree, the strong ones go first. The system is lazy. Agree always goes with the closest option it can find inorder to check an uninterpretable feature. If Agree locates a matching feature on X for oneuninterpretable feature, and X has a different feature thatalso matches, both features will be checked. Examples are coming up later, but for cross-referencing:these properties are important for subject agreement.A more general Agree If: X has feature [F1], Y has feature [F2] X c-commands Y or Y c-commands X [F1] and/or [F2] are/is uninterpretable. [F1] matches [F2] X and Y are close enough, meaning: There is no closer matching feature between X and Y. If [F1] or [F2] is strong, X and Y share the same mothernode Then: Any unvalued feature ([F1] or [F2]) is valued. The uninterpretable feature(s) is/are checked.Comments on Agree That’s a general enough statement of Agreethat it should work for the rest of thesemester, even as we introduce newconcepts. It allows for several different configurations: [uF]…[F] [F]…[uF] [uF]…[uF]c-selection Inflection Case Strong features must be checked very locally. Merge can provide this locality. Move can also provide this locality. And that’s why we’re talking about it now. Strong features are what motivates movement.What happens when V moves to v? When V moves to v, they combine in away that we have been writing just asV+v. Let’s be more precise. In fact, we assume that V head-adjoins(adjoins, head-to-head) to v. This is thesame sort of structure that Adjoin createsbetween maximal projections. In the structure, the v head is replaced by thev head with V adjoined. Adjunction does not change projectionlevels—v is still a minimal projection, stillthe head of vP. But it is a complex head(it’s a v with a V adjoined to it).VPNPv′eatvvV[uV*, …]<V>3What happens when V moves to v? We should also consider what happens tothe VP from which the V moved. It is still a VP, it must still have a head. The features of the VP are the features of thehead (recall for example, that checking theuninterpretable feature on the head is the sameas checking the uninterpretable feature on theprojection of the head). The VP is still a VP, itshead is still a verb (with category feature [V]),and presumably all the rest of the features aswell. We notate the original location of the Vby writing <V> (standing for the “trace”left behind by the original V). But since <V> must still be a bundle offeatures, the same one that was therebefore movement, <V> is really justanother copy (or, well, the original) of theverb.VPNPv′eatvvV[uV*, …]<V>What happens when V moves to v? Moral: “Head-movement” can beviewed as


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BU CAS LX 522 - Syntax I

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