Home Linguistics & Semiotics Some Remarks on Fox and Pesetsky: ‘‘Cyclic Linearization of Syntactic Structure’’
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Some Remarks on Fox and Pesetsky: ‘‘Cyclic Linearization of Syntactic Structure’’

  • Molly Diesing
Published/Copyright: July 27, 2005
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Abstract

Fox and Pesetsky (F&P) make the claim that certain constraints on Object Shift and Quantifier Movement in Scandinavian can be explained within their model of the mapping between syntax and phonology. Among the salient features of this model are: Spell-out occurs phase-by-phase (as in recent work by Chomsky 2000, 2001a,b), and linearization relations established at each Spell-out point must be preserved (F&P’s property of Order Preservation). As F&P demonstrate quite elegantly, this system enforces successive cyclicity in wh-movement, in that non-successive-cyclic derivations will result in an ordering contradiction (violating Order Preservation). Thus, the ‘‘cyclicity’’ of successive cyclicity is shifted to being a by-product of the cyclic spelling-out process. One might still ask why Spell-out itself is cyclic, but this is certainly a welcome simplification.

Published Online: 2005-07-27
Published in Print: 2005-05-20

© Walter de Gruyter

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