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Symmetry in Structure Building
Author(s) -
Hallman Peter
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
syntax
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9612
pISSN - 1368-0005
DOI - 10.1111/j.1368-0005.2004.00066.x
Subject(s) - specifier , complement (music) , selection (genetic algorithm) , locality , head (geology) , computer science , repertoire , symmetry (geometry) , composition (language) , mathematics , theoretical computer science , artificial intelligence , physics , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , biochemistry , chemistry , noun , geomorphology , complementation , noun phrase , acoustics , gene , phenotype , geology
. This paper defends three interconnected claims: (a) selection is the only licensing procedure available to UG, specifically, checking is an instance of selection; (b) selection obtains in the mutual c‐command configuration; and (c) though a head does not mutually c‐command its own specifier, it mutually c‐commands the specifier of its complement. A head may therefore license the specifier of its complement (as well as its complement) but not its own specifier (it is not local enough). This effectively eliminates the spec‐head configuration from the repertoire of syntactic configurations, in favor of a unified notion of locality strictly identifiable with mutual c‐command, a symmetric configuration. The discussion shows that a theory that collapses these distinctions remains empirically discriminating. The resulting theory is therefore genuinely reductionist.