Nested phase interpretation and the PIC

Abstract

This chapter investigates phonological, morphological, and syntactic phenomena, aiming to demonstrate that the Phase Impenetrability Condition (Chomsky 2001) is epiphenomenal. The chapter therefore builds on the argumentation in Bošković (2007, 2014). It is demonstrated that the PIC cannot hold in the syntax, as the operations Merge (Late Adjunction), Move (post-spell-out movement), and Agree (long-distance Agree) can all be shown to cross phase boundaries. Morphological operations such as the anti-cyclic merger of morphemes (Late Adjunction) and spell-out of lower copies of a chain demonstrate the same permeability of the previously interpreted domains of phases. In the pure phonology, data displaying the effects of Phonological Merger (Newell and Piggott 2014) and Infixation demonstrate that phonological domains are not opaque for phonological operations, and that this transparency is not limited to phonological edges.