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Grano and Lasnik (2008) argue that phases should be extended if features are still unvalued on the complement of a phase head at the end of what would normally be a phase. Thus, if pronouns are bound variables with unvalued features, then the phase that matters for resolving the unvalued features is extended. However, the one case that their generalization should not cover, namely, local anaphora, suggests that phase extension based on unvalued features is not the right explanation of the bound pronoun effect, and that phases for anaphora are not coordinated with phases that restrict the relations that the bound pronoun effect encompasses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent proposals on phases claim that locality restrictions are obviated when the subject of a clausal phase has certain syntactic or discourse properties, suggesting that phasehood is acquired over the course of a derivation. I evaluate these claims with acceptability judgment experiments and argue that these phase-related locality effects can be derived from independently motivated principles, such as Feature Inheritance/Value-Transfer Simultaneity or the Principle of Minimal Compliance. I further point out similar effects with possessors and nominals in English, expanding the empirical domain. The nominal data constitute a novel argument for treating nominals as phases and strengthen the case for a general theory of phases that can account for these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deduces a modified version of the traditional ban on movement out of moved elements that provides a new perspective on it. Under the proposed analysis, the problem with the movement of YP out of moved XP does not arise at the point where YP moves out of XP, as in previous accounts. Instead, it arises already with the movement of XP: XP itself cannot undergo movement in this case. Any later movement out of XP is then trivially blocked. The proposed analysis leaves room for movement out of moved elements to take place in well-defined contexts. Several constructions bear this out, including German/Dutch r-pronoun constructions, Slavic left-branch extraction, and quantifier float more generally. What the proposed analysis deduces is then not the traditional ban on movement out of moved elements, but a ban on movement of phases with nonagreeing specifiers, which the article argues should replace the former ban. As a result, the analysis also extends to the immobility of verb-second clauses in German. The article also provides a new perspective on the Adjunct Condition (the ban on movement out of adjuncts). It shows that movement out of adjuncts is possible in the same configuration as movement out of moved elements. The proposed account of the latter is then extended to the Adjunct Condition. The article also proposes a labeling-based account of the Coordinate Structure Constraint, which also captures the across-the-board-movement exception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows that stripping, the elision of declarative TPs, is possible not only in coordinate structures, but also in embedded clauses-however, only when the complementizer is absent. This Embedded Stripping Generalization is not predicted by earlier accounts of stripping, but it falls out from a certain combination of independently available assumptions. Specifically, I propose a zero Spell-Out view of ellipsis in a dynamic (or contextual) phasehood approach, which, together with the lack of a CP layer in that-less embedded clauses, derives this generalization in languages like English. I then briefly consider stripping in other languages and suggest that the analysis also has the flexibility to accommodate crosslinguistic differences in the distribution of stripping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that in constructions where there is more than one phrase at a phasal edge, only the highest edge is available for movement and anaphor binding. This shows that only the outermost edge counts as the edge of a phase for the Phase Impenetrability Condition ( PIC). The article also demonstrates that moving the element that counts as the phasal edge in multiple specifier/adjunct cases can affect the PIC status of the remaining edges. These conclusions provide a new argument for the contextuality of phasehood. A number of recent works have argued that the phasal status of a phrase can be affected by the syntactic context in which it occurs. This article goes one step further: it shows that the concept of phasal edge, more precisely the status of a specifier/adjunct regarding the PIC, can also be affected by the syntactic context in which the specifier/adjunct occurs. The article also discusses several issues regarding the syntax and semantics of adjectives, possessors, and demonstratives, including what Partee (2006) calls familiar demonstratives, as well as anaphor binding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that Chomsky's (2013) "label identification by minimal search" explains "obligatory exit" from intermediate positions, not only in the successive-cyclic Ā -movement phenomena that Chomsky analyzes, but also in (phase-internal) successive-cyclic A-movement. Moreover, it does so by employing simplest Merge and third-factor minimal search for label identification. Our extension of Chomsky's analysis to A-movement operates without any appeal to Merge-over- Move or to lexical arrays or subarrays. This in turn renders the concept "phase" itself no longer necessary in analyzing the core cases of illicit A-movement, shown to reduce to labeling failure. Implications of this result and the nature of the long-standing evidence for strict cyclicity are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the Shipibo language, I defend a simple "dependent case" theory of ergative case marking, where ergative case is assigned to the higher of two NPs in a clausal domain. I show how apparent failures of this rule can be explained assuming that VP is a Spell-Out domain distinct from the clause, and that this bleeds ergative case assignment for c-command relationships that already exist in VP and are unchanged in CP. This accounts for the apparent underapplication of ergative case marking with ditransitives, reciprocals, and dyadic experiencer verbs, as opposed to the applicatives of unaccusative verbs, which do have ergative subjects. Finally, I show how case assignment interacts with restructuring to explain constructions in which ergative case appears to be optional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 Serbo- Croatian, Japanese, Turkish, and English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the syntax of the notorious tough(-movement) construction (TC) in English. TCs exhibit a range of apparently contradictory empirical properties suggesting that their derivation involves the application of both A-movement and Ā -movement operations. Within previous principles-and-parameters models, TCs have remained ''unexplained and in principle unexplainable'' (Holmberg 2000:839) because of incompatibility with constraints on θ -role assignment, locality, and Case. This article argues that the phase-based implementation of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2004) permits a reanalysis of null wh-operators capable of circumventing the previous theoretical difficulties. Essentially, tough-movement consists of A-moving a constituent out of a ''complex'' null operator that has already undergone Ā -movement, a ''smuggling'' construction in the terms proposed by Collins (2005a,b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that an approach to pied-piping in terms of wh-feature percolation is problematic under minimalist assumptions. I propose an alternative theory based on Agree, arguing that wh-movement and restrictions on pied-piping follow from the interaction of the theory of phases and a violable constraint that forces wh-feature checking under Agree to be as local as possible. I present and derive three observations about pied-piping that are attested in different languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a phase-based alternative to Kayne's (1989) analysis of past participle agreement in Italian. This analysis captures the principal facts without making reference to specifier-head agreement. Instead, the possibility of overt past participle agreement is determined by the Phase Impenetrability Condition and is linked to the surface position of the past participle. The analysis has interesting crosslinguistic implications, notably in that it predicts a general asymmetry between subject and object agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine evidence for the phase theory of movement (Chomsky 2000, 2001) in the context of Tagalog, arguing in particular that Tagalog has overt morphology that signals movement of arguments to check an EPP-feature on the head of the vP phase. We show that this morphology interacts with extraction in ways Chomsky's theory leads us to expect, and we develop a theory of the Tagalog facts that also accounts for the effects of Huang's (1982) Condition on Extraction Domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]