3 Analysis of the evidence for Strict Cyclicity
In this section, it is assumed that the major movement rules are formulated as in (1) (see Chomsky (1976) for discussion).
(1)
These rules apply freely without constraint, and thus there is no question as to whether a grammar will misgenerate any of the examples that follow. In fact, (1) misgenerates a considerably larger class of structures whose derivations violate the SCC than has been discussed previously. It will be demonstrated here that the Opacity Principle (27) and other independently motivated well-formedness conditions on structure account for all such cases of misgeneration.
Schematically, all violations of the SCC resulting in misgeneration involve a derivation (2), where [Pi ] designates a base-generated position.
(2)
Because the mapping from (2a) onto (2b) crucially involves the cycle, the mapping from (29b) onto (2c), which affects solely the cyclic subdomain of violates the SCC. Every such violation depends on a pair of movements of the same type. If X and Y are NPs, rule (1a) applies; if they are wh-phrases, rule (1b) does. Beyond this, there are several other parameters. S′ 2 may contain either a finite or a nonfinite clause. X may have been base-generated in Pb or moved into it by a rule.
Almost all cases of misgeneration resulting from violations of the SCC have alternative derivations that do not violate the SCC. Because these cases will be accounted for by conditions on structure, how they are derived will be of no consequence. Therefore, only the derivations that violate the SCC will be given.
