Overt vs. Covert Movements

Abstract

In a number of cases (involving, e.g., negation, only, reverse scope of some and every, ACD) where covert (LF) phrasal movement has been postulated, it is possible and advantageous to dispense with covert movement (including feature raising) and replace it with a combination of overt movements of phonetically realized phrases.The strongest interpretation of this conclusion is that the cases explicitly considered are typical. UG leaves no choice: Scope must be expressed hierarchically, there are no covert LF phrasal movements permitted by UG, and neither can the effect of covert phrasal movement be achieved by feature raising. Scope reflects the interaction of merger and overt movement.