On the Locality of Extraposition from NP in English: A View from the Markovian Property of Derivation
Takanori Nakashima
March 2025 

Extraposition from NP (EXNP) is subject to the locality constraint that bars rightward displacement across a finite clause and a verb phrase (Ross (1977); Baltin (1981); Culicover and Rochemont (1990), among others). Adopting Chomsky (2021, 2024a, b) and Chomsky et al.’s (2023) idea that derivation is Markovian (i.e., it does not look back at the derivational history), this article proposes that an extraposed phrase is base-generated in a surface position and c- commands a structurally identical element in the sister of a modified phrase, with these two items taken to be a copy pair at the interfaces. This article also demonstrates that the locality restriction on EXNP follows from copy formation locally applied at v*P and CP phases.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008956 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Explorations in English Linguistics number 38, comments welcome!
keywords:	extraposition from np, the right roof constraint, markovian property of derivation, copy formation, phase theory, syntax
Downloaded:	63 times

 

[ edit this article | back to article list ]