Symmetry in Structure Building
Peter Hallman · Syntax · 2004
Abstract. This paper defends three interconnected claims: (a) selection is the only licensing procedure available to UG, specifically, checking is an instance of selection; (b) selection obtains in the mutual c‐command configuration; and (c) though a head does not mutually c‐command its own specifier, it mutually c‐commands the specifier of its complement. A head may therefore license the specifier of its complement (as well as its complement) but not its own specifier (it is not local enough). This effectively eliminates the spec‐head configuration from the repertoire of syntactic configurations, in favor of a unified notion of locality strictly identifiable with mutual c‐command, a symmetric configuration. The discussion shows that a theory that collapses these distinctions remains empirically discriminating. The resulting theory is therefore genuinely reductionist.