Minimality Effects in Syntax · The MLC and Derivational Economy ...

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80 Gisbert Fanselow vant for the applicability of the MLC must be a matter of identical (or closeto-identical) Logical Forms. The LF of (12c) is different from the one of (12b) (see in particular Fanselow and Mahajan (2000) for arguments), and therefore, (12c) does not count when the grammaticality of (12b) is established. Haider (1997: 221) exemplifies the claim that complement clause whphrases may cross matrix wh-phrases in German with examples such as (14). To me, (14) invites a single-pair answer only, so that (14) is not fully comparable to the multiple questions discussed so far. Furthermore (14) involves apparent movement from a V2-complement clause, and the theoretical status of such an operation is quite unclear, see Reis (1996, 1997) for arguments that the construction is parenthetical. I therefore refrain from discussing such examples in more detail. (14) Superiority violations in a construction with extraction out of a V2 complement wemi Bild hat wer verkauft]? gesagt [ei habe sie ei ein who.dat hat who.nom said has.subjunctive she a picture sold “who said she had sold a picture to whom?” Our argumentation presupposes that single-pair interpretations of multiple questions (for which (12a) seems marginally acceptable) have a derivation different from the one for multiple questions with a pair-list reading. This claim is supported by the observation that further constructions are ungrammatical with a pair-list reading, but acceptable under a single-pair interpretation. E.g., most native speakers of German (including the author) reject (15) as a question asking for pair-lists, but the single pair interpretation is fine. (15) Multiple adjunct question with a single pair interpretation wie hat er es warum geschrieben how has he it why written “how did he write it, and why” Examples such as (7) show that the applicability of the MLC depends on the interpretation of the structure that it would block. German data such as
(12) constitute further evidence for this. At the same time, the data in (12) shows that the MLC is not sensitive to “meaning” in a global sense – rather, it is the nature of the LF that a movement operation creates that determines whether the MLC must be respected. 2. The MLC and expressivity The strongest conclusion one can draw from from the discussion in the preceding paragraph is that requirements of semantic expressivity always override the MLC. A structure violating the MLC is ungrammatical only if the Logical Form it would express can be arrived at with a structure respecting the MLC. In this section, we defend this strong conclusion against potential counterexamples, and discuss how the MLC can be applied in local fashion. First, we discuss the interaction of the MLC with the that-trace filter. Section 2.2 focuses argument-adjunct asymmetries, while section 2.3 is dedicated to nestedness effects, which have been related to the MLC. Finally, we will briefly discuss what a cyclic application of the MLC might look like. 2.1. Interactions with the ECP The MLC and derivational economy 81 As one of the anonymous reviewers has pointed out, the absence of a contrast in (16) might pose a problem for the idea that the MLC applies only if that does not prevent a certain interpretation from being expressed: (16) Two wh-phrases merged in a finite complement clause a.*who do you think that _ bought what b.*what do you think that who bought _ (16b) violates the MLC, so its ungrammaticality is expected. However, the constellation that respects the MLC, viz., (16a), is ungrammatical as well because of a that-trace-filter violation. In contrast to what we saw in section 1, the MLC violation of (16b) is not tolerated by the grammatical system of English, in spite of the fact that this renders the interpretation of (16b) inexpressible. The absence of a contrast in (16) does not show, however, that the MLC is able to block structures even if the competing structure respecting the
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Page 17 and 18: For example, Swedish respects the n
Page 21 and 22: (33a) and the locality requirements
Page 23 and 24: The key to an understanding of this
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Page 27 and 28: oft ‘often’, i.e., it precedes
Page 29 and 30: Such an analysis is not convincing,
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Page 39 and 40: (65) Multiple questions in Yiddish
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