Agree and Move.

일치와 이동

  • Published : 2001.12.01

Abstract

It has been claimed recently that the two computational operations Move and Agree of Chomsky (2000, 2001a) should be separated into distinct and independent operations. According to this view, Move is an “operation that applies only to meet an EPP-feature of a functional category.” It is also claimed under that analysis that “a candidate for Move is simply a syntactic object with phonetic content.” The purpose of this short paper is to show that the operation Move should still be viewed as composite; hence it must have the operation Agree as one of its prerequisites. We argue that the EPP feature of T may not be analyzed as an independent feature that triggers overt displacement in syntax. Under Chomsky's (2000, 2001a) theory, displacement in syntax must require the probe-goal (P, G) association before the actual movement takes place. It is shown in this paper that in order for an element $\beta$ to raise to the [Spec, T] position, the $\varphi$-features of T must establish a (P, G) relation with those of $\beta$ prior to movement. In short, Move requires Agree, the EPP feature being dependent on the minimal $\varphi$-feature [person] of nominals.

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