تسجيل الدخول

تسجيل

Cyclicity and Locality

المؤلف:  Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng and Norbert Corver

المصدر:  Wh-Movement Moving on

الجزء والصفحة:  C1-p14

2026-10-04

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Cyclicity and Locality

Lasnik’s chapter examines the motivations and consequences of different conceptions of the cyclic principle that have appeared in generative syn tactic theorizing since the mid-1960s. Lasnik starts with the relation between the cycle and generalized transformations, and with how the latter have been resurrected in minimalism. He then discusses the necessity of the principle of strict cyclicity within minimalism. In particular, he points out that (1) empirical arguments for cyclicity, as Freidin (1978) notes, are based on derivations that can be independently excluded under plausible assumptions; and (2) the theoretical argument based on preservation of existing structure (Chomsky 2000) cannot be sustained under a set theoretic conception of phrase structure. Lasnik further examines arguments for and against successive cyclicity for A-movement, concluding that A-movement is indeed successive cyclic.

 Ishii’s chapter investigates the weakening of intervention effects. In particular, he shows that indirect questions do not constitute wh-islands for extraction when the following two conditions are met: (1) indirect questions are infinitival or subjunctive, and (2) extracted wh-phrases are D linked. He argues that this hitherto unexplained anomaly concerning the Wh-Island Constraint is given a principled minimalist account by an operation of covert restructuring and Chomsky’s (2000, 2001, 2004a) Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC). He shows that contrary to the wide spread belief that the Wh-Island Constraint can be subsumed under the Defective Intervention Constraint, we still need a traditional Subjacency type account based on the notion of the phase to fully accommodate the wh-island effect.