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

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features behind these systems seem partly fixed by the parametric properties of
lexical items that do not transparently reduce to PF/LF legibility, so that languages
differ in the inventory of lexical items with phi-probes in ways that are synchronically
arbitrary. French and Icelandic both have the past participle morphology to
reflect agreement with fronted objects, but only some varieties of French do so.
This is a parameter that appears irreducible to PF or LF, but depends on the arbitrary
presence of a phi-probe on the participle. It is technically feasible to construct
a system without lexically specified uninterpretable features for these systems,
but it does not seem to lead to deeper insight into them. 175
Even in the domain of A'-dependencies, it is not clear that ℜ is the right
mechanism. PCC repairs have motivated ℜ in the domain of global dependencies
that are not easily stated as properties of the target, goal, and the path between
them. Successive-cyclic movement belongs here as well. It requires look-ahead to
the terminal dependency without which it cannot occur, so it is global (Bošković
2002: 136-8, 2007). At the same time, it is driven by the probe-goal system, reflected
even at the intermediate steps through agreement morphology, as in (23)
(McCloskey 2002, Chung 1998; Kimball and Aissen 1971, Bruening 2001, Carstens
2005). Chomsky (2000a: 107f., 2001: 34) reconciles these two properties
through the antecedent of ℜ in (281)-(282). Under ℜ, each phase with a wh-word
not in its terminal position might be posited to fail Full Interpretation, licensing
the insertion of a probe for it (cf. Heck and Müller 2003, Bošković 2007).
Extending ℜ to the remaining, terminal, A'-dependencies is more dubious.
Some of them do appear to refer to PF/LF directly, rather than to the fixed featural
content of lexical properties. Extraposition is a convenient example. It avoids
Condition C in (355)a, so it occurs in the syntax, but (355)b shows that it can only
apply if not string-vacuous, so it refers to a PF property (Fox 2000: 75f.; but see
Fox 2002: 75 for reanalysis as a parsing preference, cf. Sportiche 2005).
(355) a. I introduced him1 (??to the woman that John1 likes) yesterday (to the
woman that John1 likes).
b. ??I introduced him1 [to the woman that John1 likes].
(Fox 2000: 76)
Other examples are quantifier raising and scrambling only to allow new scope
in Fox (2000), Reinhart (2006), Miyagawa (2005, 2006), scrambling only to allow
focus assignment in Krifka (1998), Icelandic Object Shift only to avoid newinformation
interpretation in Chomsky (2001: 34ff.), wh-movement only if not
string-vacuous in Chomsky (1986a: 48-54), Fox (2000: 75f.).
175 It may seem that the difference between Obligatory (lexically specified) and Dependent (ℜcreated)
Agree/Case relations would be lost if both reduced to ℜ. However, if Agree/Case reflected
PF/LF requirement, Obligatory Case loci could be supposed to have an interpretable requirement
to relate to a DP, while the Dependent Case loci to satisfy rather the requirement of a
DP, paralleling the difference between interrogative and successive-cyclic C for wh-movement.