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

177
distinct from syntax and from each other in virtue of their partly unique symbolic
and/or computational primitives, and of their limited interaction (chapter 2).
In the Government and Binding antecedent of MP, aspects of the external systems
are duplicated within syntax. The Theta Criterion requires a predicate for an
argument and the right number of arguments for a predicate in a phrasestructurally
local relationship. However, the needs of arguments and predicates are
an aspect of their interpretation, and under certain natural assumptions about interpretive
mechanisms, the phrase-structural locality of their relationship follows
(Heim and Kratzer 1998). Thus only those syntactic structures that meet the Theta
Criterion can receive an interpretation, and it may be left to LF. Similarly, the ban
on vacuous quantifications follows if the interpretation of natural language quantifiers
requires a variable in their scope (see on both principles Chomsky 1981: 12,
29ff., 1986b: 95-101, 1995: 151f., 187f.). On the PF side, the same reasoning
might shift linear order outside syntax (Kayne 1994, Uriagereka 1999ab). Ultimately,
the elimination of these aspects of language from syntax is parallel to that
of others which are intuitively clearer, such as allomorphy.
The point of departure of the Minimalist Program is to fully assume the syntax-external
character of these aspects of LF and PF (Chomsky 1995: 170f., 334-
340). The resulting reduction leads MP to investigate the strong minimalist thesis:
how far is syntax the optimal system to provide the external systems with legible
objects. Legibility starts from the absence of features that are illegible or uninterpretable
input to an external system. It may extend to conditions like linearizability
for PF, thematic and quantificational interpretability for LF, while excluding
others like phonotactics (Chomsky 1995: 4.1, 4.5, 341, 347, 2000a: 103, 111f.,
120f., 2000b: 9-15, 2005: 10, 14-16, 2008: 138-141, 148; cf. Epstein et al. 1998:
122, Johnson and Lappin 1999: chapter 3). The strong minimalist thesis inspires
the guidelines in (30): lexical items consist only of properties with a role in the external
systems, interpretable and realizable information, and syntax arranges them
but adds nothing (Chomsky 1995: 225, 2000a: 113): 128
(269) a. Full Interpretation: Objects submitted by syntax to external systems
must be fully legible to them, both features and their arrangements.
b. Interpretability Condition: Lexical items have no features other than
those interpreted at the interfaces, properties of sound and meaning.
c. Inclusiveness Condition: Syntax does not introduce new features, such
as indices or deletion marks.
128 Distinct is the issue of how features legible only to a given external module are made invisible
to other modules to meet Full Interpretation (Chomsky 1995: 4.1). They might be inserted
'late', after spell-out to their corresponding module, but only when not used in syntax; others
must be replaced, for instance interpretable phi-features by their PF exponents, by a translation
operation at the interface, Vocabulary Insertion (Halle and Marantz 1993, Bobaljik 2000, Fox
2000).