Successive cyclic wh-movement is an operation contingent on the information available at a later stage of the derivation. For this reason, the conventional bottom-up view of structure-building would inevitably induce look-ahead properties or backtracking of computation. This paper explores successive cyclic wh-movement within Phillips' (1996, 1998) top-down approach to structure-building, assuming contra Chomsky (1995, 1998b) that lexical arrays are eliminated, that computation multiply accesses the lexicon, and that Merge (combined with Agree) does not preempt Move. I speculate on technical implementation of the top-down approach and discuss its extensions to observed properties of A/A'-movement.

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This article attempts to provide an account of the Quotative Construction, in which the quote is located in sentence-initial position. I argue that the complementizer of the matrix clause, which determines clause type, attracts the quote overtly to its specifier position. I maintain that since the matrix verb in this construction is semantically light, it is similar to the functional categories in syntactic behavior, which leads to overt verb raising in English. Various peculiar properties of this construction are explained under the analysis proposed here.

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This article concerns adverbs that end in -ly (henceforth -ly adverbs), such as probably and carefully. Unlike previous analyses, it is proposed that -ly adverbs may move at LF to be licensed in the checking domain of an appropriate head. Furthermore, it is assumed that appropriate licensers of adverbs are Mod_epistemic, Mod_root, Asp(ect) and V-v. Based on the proposals, it is shown that the otherwise puzzling facts about scopal ambiguity and the distribution of adverbs are naturally explained.

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The purpose of this paper is to present a syntactic and morphological analysis of English verb-particle constructions. We classify them into three types: the pure idiom type, the simple combination type, and the hybrid idiom type. For all three, we propose that V⁰ contains a domain where both morphological and syntactic rules can apply. In the first type, a verb and a particle form a complex verb, and the verbal portion can be overtly excorporated from within the V⁰-internal domain of the verb. In the second and third types, a particle can be overtly incorporated into the domain of a verb.

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Seemingly idiosyncratic properties of Bare-NP Adverbials (BNAs), in fact, follow from assumptions supported on independent grounds. Lexical Restrictions and Typological Restrictions follow from the assumption that derivations of BNAs start with structures with abstract nominal heads, and Semantic Extension and Semantic Inclusion from the assumption that BNAs are theta-marked by their own nominal heads. Besides, predictions about possible types of BNAs are made cross-linguistically, based on the former assumption, and the long-standing problem of “Case-assignment” of BNAs is resolved, based on the latter assumption.

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This paper aims to discuss the properties of locative/directional inversion (LI) and one subtype of there-construction, namely the Outside Verbal Existential construction (OVE), and to show that the multiple subject analysis of LI and OVE fails to capture all the relevant properties of LI and OVE. Through discussion it will be shown that the VP shell analysis for unaccusative verbs, which is proposed by Radford (1997) and Nishihara (1999), and the specification of P-feature and Topic feature in the finite clauses can provide accounts for the properties of LI and some types of there-construction.

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This paper considers in the framework of the minimalist program (Chomsky (1995)) a key problem in syntax-the question of what kinds of theoretical devices should account for the frequently observed phenomena in natural language in which infinitival complements display transparency for typically clause-bounded processes. The particular case we look closely at is transparency in BI (Bare Infinitive) complements in English, which is evidenced by the non-clause-boundedness of otherwise clause-bounded phenomena such as Pseudogapping, HNPS (Heavy NP Shift), and scope interpretation of negative quantifiers. The transparency will be analyzed as deriving from overt incorporation of Tense feature and other formal features of the verb of the BI complement to the matrix verb. A theoretical importance of this analysis is that it employs the set of formal features independently necessary to account for V-to-T movement in finite clauses, and therefore it does not lead to proliferation of formal features.

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In this paper, I will examine the historical development of perfect constructions in English and propose a licensing condition on perfect participles: Perfect participles are licensed either through the Spec-Head relation with a subject, or by adjunction to HAVE. In earlier English, asymmetrical auxiliary selection was observed, since the two options were available to license the participles. In present-day English, by contrast, only the latter option is permitted, and then have is used in perfect constructions (which I call‘symmetrical’auxiliary selection). I will further claim that the shift from asymmetrical to‘symmetrical’auxiliary selection was caused by the‘complete’loss of overt verb raising.

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This article is a critical comment on Naoaki Wada's theory of tense, and its application to indirect speech, as it is to be found in Wada (1998a, 1998b). The author raises a number of (what he considers to be) problems for this theory. He also defends his own theory of tense against the criticism which Wada levels at it.

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