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Traces or Copies, or Both – Part I: Characterizing Movement Properties
Author(s) -
Takahashi Shoichi
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2010.00255.x
Subject(s) - movement (music) , generalization , trace (psycholinguistics) , ellipsis (linguistics) , object (grammar) , displacement (psychology) , linguistics , motion (physics) , natural (archaeology) , computer science , epistemology , history , philosophy , psychology , artificial intelligence , aesthetics , archaeology , psychotherapist
Two theories of movement have been proposed to capture properties of displacement in natural language – the trace theory and the copy theory. These theories differ in their assumptions regarding the lexical contentfulness of an object left behind by movement. Capitalizing on this difference, the present two‐part article scrutinizes predictions made by the two theories to investigate movement properties. In Part I of the article, exploring facts from reconstruction and ellipsis, we establish the generalization that A'‐movement obligatory leaves behind a copy of a moved element, but A‐movement only optionally does.