Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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Couquaux's proposal is difficult to recast in many descendants of his framework,
including the Minimalist Program. They have restricted nonglobal transformations
to the Agree/Move relationship, which follows a monotonic ccommand
path and only sees information on it. This is stated as the Path Condition
in (263). In current work, the Path Condition follows from cyclicity that prevents
the top end of a syntactic dependency (the probe) from looking too far 'upwards'
in the tree, and locality that prevents it from looking 'downwards' beyond a
certain point (the goal or phase) (e.g. Chomsky 2000a: 122, 132-5; cf. (276)).
(263) Path Condition: In an Agree/Move relationship between α [target] and β
[goal], α c-commands β, and the relationship is sensitive only to the
properties of constituents c-commanded by α and c-commanding β (or in
the Minimal Domain of α, β). 126
The Path Condition or the principles underlying it has considerable explanatory
scope. Consider the passive of Kate baked (someone) three cakes. The relationship
of three cakes to T may be blocked by an applicative object on the path between
them, giving Three cakes were (*someone) baked. However, nothing off their path
can matter, below three cakes or above the TP, for instance the adverb and the
locative argument in (Yesterday) three cakes were baked (in the kitchen).
It proves difficult to unify the PCC repairs under the Path Condition. Their
common property is the addition of an Agree/Case domain, not its particular location
with respect to the elements that define the PCC context. However, this depends
on execution. A discussion clarifies the impression and the alternatives.
The French PCC repair transforms of a defective PPDAT indirect object to a
full PP. To make this amenable to a movement treatment, there must occur an
Agree/Move relationship between the two kinds of PPs, and the direct object must
lie on its path, because its phi-features decide which PP is legitimate. Ormazabal
and Romero (1998) advance an elegant proposal along these lines for the Spanish
analogue of the French PCC repair, adapted to French in (264) (Rezac 2010c).
126 The formulation of the condition sets aside possible interarboreal (sideways) relations (Nunes
2001). Successive cyclic movement does not obey the condition, because it can only occur if it
can be continued up to a terminal position, Bošković (2002: section 4, 2007). On Bošković's
(2002) proposal, landing at intermediate sites is a reflex of movement to the final site. On Chomsky's
(2000a, 2001) alternative that Bošković also discusses, successive-cyclic movement would
fall under the mechanism ℜ developed for PCC repairs, as discussed in section 5.9. The inverse
issue would arise in Multiple Agree of a probe with several goals (cf. notes 132, 140, 160), if
Agree with a closer goal needed to crucially refer to the outcome of Agree with a farther goal.
Presently, such reference seems either illusory (for the T/v-(participle)-NOM/ACC-(participle)
configurations of Chomsky 2001, 2008, see Frampton et al. 2000, Pesetsky and Torrego 2007),
or advantageously formulable as the local outcome of the former Agree relation alone, e.g.
whether valuation of the probe takes place, does not take place, or is impossible (cf. Anagnostopoulou
2003 for T/v-DAT-NOM/ACC, Bobaljik and Branigan 2006 on C-ERG-ABS).