Concord in Minimalist Theory

Abstract

Concord within DP argues that movement is driven by uninterpretable features of either the target or the moved item, contra Chomsky 1995. The uninterpretable f-features of which concord consists must be eliminated by LF, to satisfy Full Interpretation. But raising of inflected APs and KPs into checking relations with N0 cannot be motivated, in Chomsky's system, since N0 has no uninterpretable features that these items can check. Assuming Kayne's (1994, 1998) proposal for APs, the problem can be partially overcome, but inflected “of” constructions still lack an account. Chomsky's (1998) probe-goal approach applied to concord also encounters difficulties, avoided under revision of the (1995) system: if the f-features of APs and KPs drive them to raise for checking, correct results are obtained.