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

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as proposed in this chapter. Full Interpretation is not met, and the creation of a
new Agree/Case domain or phase by the addition of a phi-probe fixes the problem
by removing one of the arguments into a separate Agree domain. Adopting (349)
shifts [+person] licensing to the legibility of probes rather than DPs, because the
agreement of a probe with multiple goals permits the apparent interaction of their
phi-features to be stated as a property of the probe. It would be possible to subsume
the general Case Filter under the same idea by extending it to multiple
[number] values, if desired. The trade-off between the needs of probes and goals
for different licensing conditions remains under investigation (cf. note 120).
Similarly, an LF view of [+person] licensing is fundamentally compatible
with ℜ. Bianchi (2006) and related work discussed in chapter 6 proposes that
[+person] licensing is an LF requirement for interpretable [+person] arguments to
relate to interpretable [+person] functional heads. If it could be construed as an LF
Full Interpretation requirement, it would be visible to ℜ. Various possibilities then
exist for how the addition of an Agree/Case system repairs the PCC. For instance,
the Agree/Case system might be responsible for relating [+person] features to their
corresponding functional heads, or there may be an entailment relationship between
the presence of the two systems in the CP.
5.9.3 Licensing, Full Interpretation, and ℜ
The two alternatives sketched above for failures of [+person] licensing do not
rely on features intrinsically illegible at the input to PF/LF, but on some other
problem that arises at the input. It may be implausible to construe the multiplyvalued
probe of (352) as illegible at the input to PF, rather than as a problem
within PF that may or may not be repaired there. Yet the sketches bring out the
following point: The formulation of ℜ in (38) can respond to any Full Interpretation
failure, (353)a, both those that arise for a lexical item α in a given syntactic
context, and those that arise for α in all contexts in virtue of its content, (353)b. 173
(353) Consequence of ℜ:
a. ℜ may responds to any Full Interpretation failure (LF or PF).
b. If α requires the presence of an uninterpretable feature F (probe) in all
numerations, ℜ licenses F in all numerations with α.
These observations have the potential to extend ℜ beyond the last-resort phenomena
considered so far. They bring within its scope failures of Full Interpretation
other than illegible features, and lead to the central question of the Strong
Minimalist Thesis. Why and how do features illegible to PF and LF (uninterpretable
features) exist in a syntax 'designed' to meet optimally Full Interpretation?
173 For the latter point, cf. Heck and Müller's (2003) discussion of their Phase Balance.