Projection, heads, and optimality

1997-01-01articleLinguistic Inquiry603 citationsclosed

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Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation Phonetics and Phonology Research Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism

Abstract

This article argues that inversion of the subject and auxiliary in English matrix questions and elsewhere is the effect of a violable optimality-theoretic constraint that requires head positions to be filled. When no other auxiliary is available, do-support occurs to satisfy this constraint, resulting in the presence of an expletive verb. When a higher-ranked constraint prohibits inversion, no inversion or do-support is found. The argument is then extended to cases where the complementizer that is obligatory, which are shown to offer best satisfaction of the proposed set of violable constraints

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