The Emergence of Order in Syntax (Electronic book text)

The syntactic component of the faculty of language is argued to be a rewiring of a few independently motivated components: features, the conjunction of a successive operation of union-formation ( Merge ) and of derivational records ( nests ), and principles of analysis. Since nests linearize terminals (Kuratowski 1921), Kayne s (1994) LCA becomes dispensable. The study of how features are ordered in discontinuous, analytic and syncretic patterns, governed by the Full Interpretation Condition and the Maximize Matching Effects Principle, provides a simple account for several syntactic phenomena, like the C-Infl connection, certain cartographic observations due to Cinque (1999), the A -status of preverbal subjects in Null Subject Languages (Sola 1992), the alleviation of "wh"-island effects in English when the embedded "wh"-phrase is a subject (Chomsky 1986) and the dynamic V2 patterns in double agreement dialects observed by Zwart (1993). The possibility that Comp-trace effects derive from the contraction of the C-Infl discontinuity is explored and subject islands and "wh"-islands are derived from the Relativized Opacity Principle, an alternative to Chomsky s PIC.