Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

Ce séminaire reçoit des conférenciers invités spécialisés dans différents domaines de la linguistique. Les membres du Département, les étudiants et les personnes externes intéressées sont tous cordialement invités.

Description du séminaire Print

Titre Labeling and movement
Conférencier Carlo Cecchetto, University of Milan-Bicocca and SFL (CNRS & UniversitĂ© Paris 8)
Date mardi 23 octobre 2018
Heure 12h15
Salle L208 (Bâtiment Candolle)
Description

In this talk I will defend the following strictly syntax-internal definition of label:

(1) When two objects a and b are merged, a subset of the features of either a or b become the label of the syntactic object {a, b}. The label:

(i) can trigger further computation and

(ii) is visible from outside the syntactic object {a, b}.

This definition in (1) is not semantically motivated, since the claim that a label plays a role at the semantic interface is very dubious (it is well known that the same syntactic category can correspond to various semantic types).

A consequence of the syntax-internal definition of label in (1) is that the presence of an unlabeled node should always block the derivation, as a label-less object cannot be integrated into the structure. This goes against recent treatments of successive cyclic-movement as involving unlabeled nodes that are temporarily allowed but must be dispensed with by the time the semantic interface is accessed. I will re-assess the issue of successive cyclic-movement and I will propose an account that sticks to the definition in (1) and at the same time has interesting consequences for:

Ø  the explanation for strong island violations in a theory that dispenses with the notion of government

Ø  the apparent countercyclical character of head movement

Ø  the way to capture some aspects of the notion of extended projection

   
Document(s) joint(s)
Geneva abstract.pdf