Two Challenges to the Cyclic Linearization Account of Fragmental Left Elements

Abstract

Prenominal modifiers (PMs) in Korean can survive as fragments, seemingly violating the Left Branch Condition (LBC, Ross 1967). Ahn and Cho (2017a, b, 2019, 2020) argue that fragmental PMs do not induce an LBC violation as they are derived from a copular construction: N-to-copula incorporation nullifies the NP’s islandhood due to Baker’s (1988) government transparency corollary. Nevertheless, a PM extraction is banned in non-elliptical copular sentences. This restriction is attributed in Ahn and Cho (2020) to Fox and Pesetsky’s (2005) Cyclic Linearization (CL) coupled with Grohmann’s (2002) Anti-locality. This squib examines the theoretical validity of Ahn and Cho’s CL-based account. It will be shown that, despite some theoretical attractiveness, their account faces two non-trivial challenges: (i) Anti-locality unequally applies (copular vs. non-copular predicates); and (ii) ill-formed results are not filtered out by the CL when the subject is suppressed.