Head of a Projection

Abstract

In recent work in generative grammar, one finds two approaches concerning the projection of heads onto phrases. On the one hand, in the Govemment-Binding/Minimalist Program tradition it has commonly been assumed that a projection inherits all the properties of its head and nothing else, a principle that Brody (1998) refers to as Uniqueness. On the other hand, in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) and its predecessors it is explicitly assumed that features of a complement of X can project to XP, so a projection of X ends up richer than its head. Therefore, whether Uniqueness holds between a projection and its head is an issue that needs to be resolved. So far, within minimalism only a conceptual argument has been presented in favor of Uniqueness, that of Chomsky's (1995) theory of bare phrase structure. In this squib I present two additional empirical arguments in favor of Uniqueness, drawn from well-known properties of causative constructions and noun incorporation.