ON FEATURE INHERITANCE: AN ARGUMENT FROM THE PHASE IMPENETRABILITY CONDITION.

The article discusses the feature inheritance model of phase theory that was proposed by Chomsky (2005) and offers a revision that would remove a potential conceptual flaw in the theory. An edge-to-nonedge feature inheritance mechanism--related to basic premises of cyclic/phasal spell-out in conformance with Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT)--leads to the realization of a distinction in A-positions created by movement for the Agree and edge features. The argument is based on the idea that phase heads cannot drive operations unless there is mediation by a nonphase head, which synchronizes valuation and transfer.