How to understand the notion of phase

Abstract

The most recent development in the Minimalist program is quite derivation-centered in that it minimizes the levels of presentation into those relevant to the auditory-productive interface and the conceptual-intentional interface, perhaps PF and LF. These levels may be understood as sequences of PF- and LF-chunks cyclically produced by Spell-Out (or more generally Transfer). A crucial issue in this theoretical endeavor is how we could determine such chunks which Chomsky (2000, 2001a, b) call "phases". In this talk, we will review the evolution of the characterization of phase in Chomsky`s recent papers mentioned above and its initial empirical motivations (Fox 1998, Nissenbaum 1998, among others). Then, we will review some empirical consequences of this theoretical construct in the Minimalist program, including both displacement and morphological agreement phenomena, on the one hand, and both syntax-phonology interface phenomena such as sentential stress (Kahnemuyipour 2004) and the syntax-semantic interface phenomena such as scoping of quantifiers (Butler 2004). We will then review some criticisms or discussions on the theoretical construct, notably by Legate (2002, 2003), Boecks & Grohman (2004), Matushansky (2004), etc. Through this talk, we will try to identify the current issues related to the notion of phase, and to find out some ways to extend its empirical coverage in the description of natural languages including Korean.