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

able features, and ultimately explicable in such terms (cf. Bever 2009 on the uninterpretable
EPP requirement).
There are other sources of uninterpretable phi-features. Some may lie outside
the linguistic systems considered here. These must be kept in mind, even if only as
background and contrast. Outside the 'core' of syntax, PF, and LF, the systems of
'performance' put their output to use. Sometimes they have an unmistakeable profile,
as when meaning and phonology interact to give slips of the tongue like compensation
prize for consolation prize (Dell and Reich 1981, Griffin and Ferreira
2006). Sometimes they passably mimic the core, as when production creates ungrammatical
'intrusive' resumptive pronouns in (31) (Ferreira and Swets 2005,
Alexopoulou and Keller 2007, but cf. Safir 1984, 1986), or prescriptive rules impose
whom for who in (32) (Lasnik and Sobin 2000, but cf. Kayne 1984).
(31) [[Any fact]i [which Mary didn't like itsi consequences]] she would ignore.
(32) The man whoi/whomi I believe ti has left.
Phi-features are accessed and manipulated by the performance systems, it
seems, like many other aspects of linguistic structure. Phillips, Wagers, and Lau
(forthc) review 'grammatical illusions', ungrammatical but regularly produced
structures. Among them are 'attractions' of the phi-features of the verb to the underlined
controllers in (33). However, (33)a has also been argued to belong to syntax
from consequences for scope (Den Dikken 2001). Surely (33)b does so for
some, to go by grammaticality judgments, locality constraints (Kimball and Aissen
1971, Kayne 2000: 190, Baker 2008: 75f.), and cross-linguistic parallels (Bruening
2001). One analysis does not exclude the other. One generation's performance
errors might be acquired as phi-features for the core system of the next. Each
system should impose its modular profile, its computational, informational, and
interactional signature, by which it may be detected.
(33) a. (*)[The key to the cabinetsPL]SG arePL on the table.
b. (*)the runnersPL [whoPL the doctorSG seePL each morning twho always
wave.]
Similar remarks hold for other phi-related aspects of the performance systems,
such as the pragmatic salience of 1 st /2 nd person (Tasmowski 1985, García
2001), or the prescriptive-politeness code that requires that 1 st person come last in
English coordinations (Kuno 2005; cf. Brown and Levinson 1987, Levinson 2005,
Stivers et al. 2007). Both of these have been proposed as sources of the person hierarchy
phenomena discussed in chapters 3 and 4 (cf. Heath 1991, 1998, Beck
2003). That may well be. Again the system underlying a phi-feature phenomenon
is expected to impose its properties. They will place the phenomena of the following
chapters into the core system, and within them into the distinctive modules of
syntax, PF, or LF, or at their interface.
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