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

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several boats(M).PL.NOM
(Icelandic, Sigurðsson 1991: 355f.)
This proposal posits uninterpretable requirements behind phi-agreement and
Case that need have no interpretable consequences. In Chomsky (1995), it was not
so. Phi-agreement and Case were also established through uninterpretable phifeatures
on T/v and Case features on nominals. However, the interpretable phifeatures
of a nominal were moved to T/v to license the deletion of the uninterpretable
ones. One factor in the reconstrual of the mechanism through uninterpretable
features alone is the absence of detectable consequences to agreement, as
in (19) (Chomsky 2000a: 119, 146 note 71). Phi-agreement and Case are interpretively
inert, unless accompanied by movement of interpretable material.
Chomsky's work lays bare the ontological strangeness of such uninterpretable
features and dependencies of syntax in the Minimalist Program (e.g. Chomsky
2000ab). The program proposes that the content of lexical items is motivated by
their role in the syntax-external systems of interpretation at LF and realization at
PF, the Interpretability Condition (27)a, and that syntax arranges them into structures
to meet the legibility requirements of these systems, Full Interpretation
(27)b, without introducing features of its own, (27)c (see section 5.4).
(27) 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 like
indices or deletion marks.
Uninterpretable features are a purely syntax-internal device beyond these proposals.
Phi-agreement and Case assignment do not occur to meet interpretive
needs, nor need they be realized (as on nouns and past tense verbs in English). Yet
they appear to be syntactic dependencies. Their character is that of phrasestructurally
unbounded dependencies subject to syntactic constraints like locality,
illustrated in the remote agreement in (28) (and (19), (21)). They are also part of
the licensing conditions on syntactic structures. In (29), the need of DPs to bear
Case rules out five and seven when another DP, her, is closer to the matrix Case
assigner and absorbs the only available Case (see section 5.4, 5.9).
(28) a. There seemi/*seemsj to have been several studentsi awarded a bookj.
b. There seemsi/*seemj to have been one studenti awarded several booksj.
c. There seemsi/*seemj [to the watchersj] to have been a fishi caught.
d. In the lakej werei/*wasj caught several fishi.
(29) a. They showed her that five and seven are primes.
b. They showed (*her) five and seven to be primes.
c. Five and seven were shown (*her) t to be primes.