Movement, Locality, and Spell-out

LECTURER: Željko Bošković

Two basic mechanisms that characterize the minimalist approach to language are the operation merge and the locality domain. The emphasis in this course will be on the interaction between the two, which occurs with movement, especially with movement out of islands. In this respect, the course will examine a number of traditional islands as well as cases of discontinuous dependencies (including certain non-standard coordinations). Special attention will be paid to successive-cyclic movements and the role of successive-cyclic movements in islandhood. Theoretical mechanisms such as phases and labeling of syntactic of objects will be articulated among others. We will show that the two interact in a particularly interesting way with respect to spell-out, using a new approach to multiple spell-outs developed based on their interaction. The discussion throughout the course will be based on patterns found in rich cross-linguistic data.