A Note on the Copy vs. Multidominance Theories of Movement

Abstract

This article considers two different aspects of A-bar movement, namely (a) an analysis of reconstruction effects in terms of deletion at LF, and (b) Johnson’s (2007) decompositional analysis of quantifiers as a means to derive the correct interpretation of A-bar chains. By examining how these two proposals mesh with each other, it is possible to compare the copy theory of movement to a multidominance alternative. We will see that each approach to movement must make use of slightly different assumptions in order to derive the correct results, thus establishing a basis for a potential comparison between the two of them.

Keywords

• quantification
• A-bar movement
• copy theory
• multidominance
• syntax
• semantics