Exploring the EM-only hypothesis
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This study critically examines Kitahara and Seely’s (2024) proposal for deriving the Duality of Semantics―the distinction between propositional and clausal domains―through a strengthened version of Minimal Yield (MY) and a expanded definition of Accessibility. Their framework, refining Chomsky’s (2023a) box system, eliminates the explicit distinction between External Merge (EM) and Internal Merge (IM), arguing that IM occurs only once to delineate the two thought domains. While this approach reduces reliance on stipulative distinctions, it raises some conceptual challenges, including the fixed composition of the workspace (WS), the necessity of IM, and look-ahead problems inherent in finite WS configurations. To address these issues, we propose an EM-only system that eliminates IM entirely, thereby simplifying derivation while adhering to minimalist principle. In this system, both arguments and non-arguments are introduced via EM, remaining accessible to phase heads for interface interpretation. By employing dynamic lexical selection during derivation, this approach avoids look-ahead problems and aligns with the Markovian property of syntactic computation, which excludes reliance on prior stages of derivation. The EM-only system, independent of IM, offers a simpler, more parsimonious framework for syntactic theory while maintaining the capacity to account for diverse syntactic phenomena.
Abstract
This study critically examines Kitahara and Seely’s (2024) proposal for deriving the Duality of Semantics―the distinction between propositional and clausal domains―through a strengthened version of Minimal Yield (MY) and a expanded definition of Accessibility. Their framework, refining Chomsky’s (2023a) box system, eliminates the explicit distinction between External Merge (EM) and Internal Merge (IM), arguing that IM occurs only once to delineate the two thought domains. While this approach reduces reliance on stipulative distinctions, it raises some conceptual challenges, including the fixed composition of the workspace (WS), the necessity of IM, and look-ahead problems inherent in finite WS configurations. To address these issues, we propose an EM-only system that eliminates IM entirely, thereby simplifying derivation while adhering to minimalist principle. In this system, both arguments and non-arguments are introduced via EM, remaining accessible to phase heads for interface interpretation. By employing dynamic lexical selection during derivation, this approach avoids look-ahead problems and aligns with the Markovian property of syntactic computation, which excludes reliance on prior stages of derivation. The EM-only system, independent of IM, offers a simpler, more parsimonious framework for syntactic theory while maintaining the capacity to account for diverse syntactic phenomena.