Against Across-The-Board Movement
Niina Ning Zhang · 2004
This paper argues against Across-The-Board movement. Conceptually, the stipulation of a forking chain is ad hoc, and incompatible to our well-recognized feature checking operations. Computationally, no multiple extraction operations from sub-constituents to the same damain are possible. The impossibility is accounted for if we realize that multiple movement chains need to form a cluster and that movement obeys the cyclicity condition. The combination of the two considerations rules out ATB movement. I found that if two elements undergo the same type of movement, the launching site of one element must c-command the launching site of the other element. Empirically, there is evidence to show that the extracted element of ATB constructions is originated in the first conjunct only. Key words: extraction, ATB construction, major constituent movement,