Is the Incompleteness of the Expletive There a Real Imperfection?
Sun-Ho Hong · Journal of Linguistic Studies · 2018
The existence of incompleteness of feature composition in probes and goals is discussed in the minimalist view. We discuss why such incompleteness of probes and goals is in the human computational system and what it entails in the human language design. To find the answer to the first question, we will discuss whether such incompleteness of feature composition can cause a serious imperfection problem to the ‘well-designed' language system. In the second question, through the derivation of the there-construction, we will find that in the absence of the incompleteness of probes and goals in certain situations the computational system requires a stipulation at the narrow syntax.