Phases and cycles. Some problems with Phase Theory

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to review recent proposals in phase theory. The notion of phase has acquired a central position in recent minimalist thinking, with several core concepts of minimalism intimately linked or even derived from phases. Notions such as cyclicity, movement and Transfer, the way the syntactic system interacts with the sensory-motor and conceptual-intentional systems of the brain, all are directly linked to the phase. We show how the notion of phase has been the driving force behind a lot of syntactic theorizing in the past few years, and what new ideas it has inspired. With new ideas also come new problems and questions. The second part of this article discusses several issues that the approach raises. Some of these find natural and straightforward answers, others seem more problematic. For example, parallel probing, one of the more conspicuous changes in recent models, raises practical problems for the No-Tampering Condition, and seems to require a theoretical move in the direction of a representational model of syntax. Furthermore, the empirical data it is based on appear to be questionable. We believe that it is not actually necessary to adopt parallel probing, and we therefore suggest an alternative that generalizes the notion of edge feature and makes use of Spec-Head instead of Agree as the main type of agreement operation.

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