Merge, Move, and Contextuality of Syntax: The Role of Labeling, Successive-Cyclicity, and EPP Effects
Zeljko Boskovic
April 2023
 

The paper discusses two basic mechanisms that characterize the minimalist approach to language, operation Merge and the locality domain, the emphasis being on the interaction between the two, which occurs with movement. It is shown that labeling plays a crucial role in the way the two interact in that unlabeled elements cannot undergo movement, cannot function as interveners, and cannot be targeted by movement. The discussion in the paper also leads to a new contextual approach to the EPP, where the satisfaction of the EPP is not tied to a particular position. This in turn is put into a broader perspective involving broader movement toward contextuality in the grammar in general: the contextuality of syntax is shown to manifest itself in the locality of movement/islandhood (there are in fact no islands as this notion has been traditionally understood—there are no phrases that by their nature, independently of their syntactic context, disallow extraction), the motivation for movement, structure building, labeling, as well as the new conception of the EPP.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/005871
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: To appear in The Cambridge Handbook of Minimalism
keywords: merge, move, locality, epp, contextuality, syntax
previous versions: v4 [April 2023]
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