Catalan Journal of Linguistics (Dec 2019)

De-syntacticising Syntax? Concerns on the Architecture of Grammar and the Role of Interface Components

  • Aritz Irurtzun

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/catjl.231

Abstract

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This article discusses different ways in which interface components could potentially affect syntax (or what have traditionally been analysed as syntactic phenomena). I will distinguish four types of potential effects that the interface components could have onto syntax: (i) no real interaction, since almost nothing pertains to syntax: everything (beyond Merge) is externalization; (ii) computations at interface components actively affect the syntactic computation; (iii) Properties of interface representations function to inform biases for language acquisition; (iv) interface components impose Bare Output Conditions (legibility conditions) that constrain the range of possible syntactic representations at the interface. I argue that the first two are problematic, whereas the latter two may help us understanding a range of universal and variable phenomena.

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