Phrasal Movement and Its Kin (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

This study investigates the types of movement and movement-like relations that link positions in syntactic structure. David Pesetsky argues that there are three such relations. Besides overt phasal movement, there are two distinct types of movement without phonological effect: covert phrasal movement and feature movement. Focusing on wh-questions, he shows how his classification of movement-like relations allows us to understand the story behind wh-questions in which an otherwise inviolable property of movement—"Attract Closest"—appears to be violated. By demonstrating that more movement takes place in such configurations than previously suspected, he shows that Attract Closest is actually not violated at all in these cases. This conclusion draws on recent research in both syntax and semantics, and depends crucially on Pesetsky's expanded repertoire of movement-like relations.

Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 37

David Pesetsky is Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an editor of Is the Best Good Enough? (MIT Press, 1998) and the author of Zero Syntax (MIT Press, 1994).