Are Noun Phrases Phases? Evidence from Semitic Construct State
Mohammed Q. Shormani · 2016
That Noun Phrases (or DPs) are phases is a debated issue in the current minimalist syntax. A phase is said to be a unit of syntactic computation that can be sent to the PF and LF interfaces as an independent syntactic chunk (Chomsky 2000, et seq ). In this article, support is added to the claim that Noun Phrases are phases. In particular, I show that a Semitic construct state(CS), a kind of DP, is a KP-sized constituent which constitutes a domain for movement/linearization at PF, interpretation at LF, and cyclic movement within the narrow syntax. It is also feature-saturated. At PF, evidence is provided that a DP CS can undergo extraposition, clefting, isolation, and predicate fronting. At LF, evidence is also provided that a CS is a propositional object, can undergo reconstruction and successive cyclic movements. At the syntax level, I examine some feature-wise facts, concerning feature-saturation of a CS and feature locus, feature transmission, ɸ- completeness , etc., and more importantly how the head K (like phase heads in general) is characterized with these properties. There are also certain facts manifested by the genitive DP complements (GDCs), qualifying CSs to be phases. One such fact is that GDCs constitute ‘phase Spell-Out domains,’ by virtue of being (and always) assigned Gen Case by their heads, and hence they are not accessible to outside operations.