Feature Checking Under Adjacency And Vso Clause Structure

Abstract

This chapter examines the way syntactic features are dealt with by interface systems. The core proposal is that the syntax morphology and syntax semantics interfaces both invoke feature interpretability but that the configurations in which they do so are different: the LF interface interprets syntactic features that are in spec-head or head-adjoined relations, whereas the interface with morphology, interprets syntactic features in adjacency relations. The chapter first outlines a way of conceptualizing syntactic feature checking that treats checking and the locality configurations involved in checking as ways of rendering LF uninterpretable features acceptable to the Conceptual-Intentional interface. It shows how that same conception of feature checking can be applied to morphologically (un)interpretable features, and proposes that a relevant configuration here is one of adjacency. Discussing the problem posed by subjects in VSO structures, the chapter outlines a number of analytical and theoretical problems with McCloskey's analysis. Keywords: adjacency; Conceptual-Intentional interface; LF uninterpretable features; McCloskey's analysis; morphology; VSO clause structure