Abstract
This paper aims to account for the syntactic transition of doubly-filled Comp in the history of English in terms of locality of language change. On the assumption that the loss of verb movement in main clauses was a downward shift of the [+F] feature, it will be argued that doubly-filled Comp was permissible from the 14th century to the mid-15th century when [+F] occupied the lower head of the split-CP structure in embedded clauses. This analysis provides substantial support for the idea that the simultaneous demise of V2 and doubly-filled Comp was not a mere coincidence but induced by the same factor.
