Debrecen08

Restrictions on Remnants

Klaus Abels

In this class we will look at a number of proposals on how to restrict remnant movement. Such restrictions are necessary if syntactic theory is to explain word-order asymmetries. We will begin with the proposal in Williams (2002), Grewendorf (2004), and Abels (to appear), according to which the feeding/bleeding relations between regular movements carry over to remnant movement.

We will discuss where ordering restrictions between movement operations might come from, touching on phase-based (Nevins 2004, Obata and Epstein 2008) accounts and accounts in terms of structural hierarchies (Sternefeld 1992, Grohmann 2003).

In the final part of the class we will consider other types of restrictions on remnants, such as those observed already by den Besten and Webelhuth (1990) and those discussed in a recent manuscript by Collins and Sabel.

The methodology throughout will be to learn lessons from uncontroversial cases of remnant movement and to use the insights thus gained to evaluate more controversial remnant movement analyses.

I have made a website for the class that you can look at. The handouts will be available in paper on site (and what you see now is not yet a stable version and subject to further changes).

To access the readings you need a password which will be given out on site in Debrecen.

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