Whamit!

The Weekly Newsletter of MIT Linguistics

LingLunch 10/1 - Colin Davis (USC)

Speaker: Colin Davis (USC)
Title: On parasitic gaps in relative clauses and extraction from NP
Time: Thursday, October 1st, 12:30pm – 13:50pm

Abstract: Much research argues that spell-out at each phase (CP, vP, DP) explains phenomena such as successive cyclicity (Chomsky 2000, 2001, a.o.) and the locality of morpho-phonological processes (Embick & Marantz 2008, Embick 2010, a.o.). While several morphological works argue that NP (often re-cast as nP) is a phase as well, syntactic evidence for this concept is less-attested. Here I argue that parasitic gap licensing in relative clauses by extraction from the same NP (1) reveals the possibility of successive-cyclic movement from NP, and discuss several implications of this result.

(1) Who_1 did Mary take [pictures of t_1 [that weren’t that flattering to PG_1]]? (Citko 2014)