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

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The conditions on these dependencies refer to the external systems: scope
commutativity and string adjacency belong to LF and PF, not syntax. It is possible
to formulate them as requirements on the input to these systems, Full Interpretation,
and thus visible to ℜ (Reinhart 2006: 1.3, 2.7, Chomsky 1995: 377, 2000:
109 for quantifier raising). However, they encroach on ground that belongs properly
within the external systems and is invisible to syntax and to ℜ, like allomorphy
or overlapping reference. This is particularly so if the same conditions also
constrain mechanisms properly within the external systems, as Fox (2000: chapter
4) shows for variable binding. It is possible to leave them there. 176 The syntax of
terminal A'-dependencies then need not refer to the external systems and they may
remain driven by lexically fixed properties. Evidence that the latter are uninterpertable
features comes from morphology as in (23), from synchronically arbitrary
parametrization independent of PF and LF, and from 'constructional' uses of A'dependencies
without their expected interpretation, if these exist (Culicover and
Jackendoff 1999, 2005, Jackendoff 2002).
These considerations suggest that ℜ may not be the right way to think about
nonglobal syntactic dependencies. They make use of the properties of lexical
items. Among them are the lexicalized uninterpretable features of the Agree/Case
system, not motivated by PF or LF and so an 'imperfection' for the Strong Minimalist
Theses. Their origins lie in the synchronic residue of diachrony, consequences
of acquisition, and in domains still unknown (cf. Bever 2009, Chomsky
2009 on the EPP, and generally chapter 6). Outside the Agree/Case domain, the
situation is unclear. It is conspicuous that theoretically, it seems possible to replace
dedicated A'-features with a generalized Edge Feature (Chomsky 2008:
151), and empirically, that the morphological reflexes of A'-probes are often phifeatures,
as in (23), perhaps under a disguise elsewhere.
For global dependencies, ℜ has the right properties. Over the development of
the Minimalist Program, there has been a move away from global mechanisms
such as Minimize Structure or Fewest Steps for the core Agree/Move dependencies,
while analogues of ℜ have remained for others such successive-cyclic
movement (cf. Reinhart 1995, 2006, Yang 1997, Collins 1997, Jacobson 1997,
Johnson and Lappin 1999, Frampton and Gutmann 1999, Chomsky 2000a, Potts
2002). This partitions syntactic phenomena into two intuitively significant groups:
nonglobal Agree/Move dependencies that depend on the lexical properties of target,
goal, and the path between them, and global ones that depend on the global
convergence of an entire structure. The latter are the province of ℜ as an interface
algorithm at the edges of syntax, relating the numeration to legibility at PF and
LF, within the bounds of modularity.
The place of ℜ in the larger architecture of language remains all but unexplored.
Reinhart (2006) proposes a unification of different global mechanisms as
176 For instance, rather than quantifiers moving only for new scope, they move freely in syntax,
and it is interpretation that decides to use the lowest copy unless a higher one gives a different
reading (D. Fox, p.c., citing M. Brody, p.c.; indepedently proposed by Adger 1994: 93-5, 1996).