The Movement Order of the νP-Subject and the VP-Object in English

Chomsky (2001) and Kitahara's (2002) suggestion that object shift occurs prior to movement of the νP-subject to SPEC-T is not on the right track with respect to the Merge operation. According to the Merge operation, TP is necessarily created earlier than CP. Chomsky (2001) suggests that the probe-goal relation between T and SUBJ is evaluated in the CP after it is known whether the position of as has become a trace losing its phonological content. However, the FocP is not a phase (CP). So, Chomsky (2001) and Kitahara's (2002) suggestion is not correct in the case of the movement of OBJ to the spec of Foc in English, either. The aim of this paper is to show that the νP-subject must move to SPEC- T prior to the consecutive movement of the wh-object to SPEC-C via object shift in English. This derivation obeys Chomsky's (2001) so-called probe-goal matching condition.