This paper argues that ‘null’ Case appears in person-less elements, including (some) clauses in addition to PRO, while ‘full’ Case shows up in regular nominals. Several data are adduced in this regard, the pertinent distribution being decided when constructing cyclic lexical arrays through an economy metric: Full Case/person features are required only on elements that […]

In this note, I reflect on a reconstructive path for the syntax of Proto-Basque, building on the results of Gomez and Sainz (1995), working on a tradition started already by Astarloa two centuries ago, and of which Trask (1977) is an excellent example. The matter is interesting not just in itself, but also in that […]

Romance linguistics, 149-162

The Complementiser Phase: subjects and wh-dependencies This chapter investigates Chomsky’s (2008) phase-based analysis of CED effects, which capitalizes on an opacity created by phasal specifiers (socalled ‘edges’). After reviewing different pieces of evidence, it is argued that an Agree/Activity Condition approach to islandhood phenomena is theoretically and empirically superior, a conclusion that is pushed to […]

Anuario del Seminario Julio de Urquijo. International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology This paper explores two simple, related ideas, within the Minimalist Program: that the skeletal Tense system of clauses involves a single T node, whether they are finite or infinitive, of the raising or the control type; and that this system is implicated […]

The biolinguistic turn. Issues on language and biology, ed. J. Rosselló & J. Martın Starting out from some well-known formal characteristics of grammars (the Chomsky Hierarchy) we revisit the question of whether the fossil record can provide us with reliable early evidence for fully syntactic linguistic behaviors. We show how the tying of knots requires […]

Machado Libros

Blackwell's

Lingue e Linguaggio, D. Delfitto, G. Graffi & S. Scalise (eds.), IV-1, 27-79, special issue on Language Evolution Enard et al. 2002 date the last mutation in FOXP2, the gene implicated in some central aspects of human language –crucially including context-sensitive syntax– to ca. 120,000before the present (B.P.). Traits in modern humans that arguably presuppose […]