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violates some locality condition on A-movement: either the ECP (if A-movement takes place in
one step) or constraints on proper movement (if intermediate traces in A'-positions are used).
According to 0, this structure is simply not possible because the AGR in the upper clause will
never coindex with a DP internal to the embedded CP, since the CP itself is the option chosen.
So it is obvious that our principle 0 is powerful enough to make it unnecessary to resort
to the ECP (or other principles) to exclude super-raising. Therefore, it is highly suspicious, as far
as the ECP is a well established and independently motivated principle. Of course, we can
always assume that the ECP and 0 redundantly constrain A-movement, but it is always advisable
to eliminate unnecessary redundancies.
What we are going to argue is that the ECP is not sufficient to constrain A-movement,
and therefore 0 is a possible way of covering the gap. One problem the ECP faces in connection
with A-movement is the asymmetry between A'-long-movement and A-long movement (super-
raising):
(42) a. ?Which book do you know who read e
b. **This book seems that (it) was read e
The traditional account for the mild ill-formedness of 0.a) is that, in spite of the fact that
the A'-Chain violates locality constraints (subjacency) it does not violate the ECP, because the
empty category is properly governed by the verb read, and the antecedent-government option of
the ECP is not required. If this is the case, it remains a mystery why 0.b) has the status of a
strong (presumably ECP) violation: the empty category should be similarly properly governed by
the verb and therefore only subjacency would be violated.
All solutions to this problem are based on the assumption that, for some reason, A-
movement always requires antecedent government, and therefore proper government by the verb
is not sufficient.
1
Chomsky (1986-a), in some final developments he explores, reaches the conclusion that