Structural Constraints on Null Complementizers: A Minimalist Perspective
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This paper revisits the distribution of null complementizers in English and develops a minimalist account building on Pesetsky’s (1992) affixal view of C. I argue that the absence of null C in certain contexts reflects constraints on movement and labeling. Such derivations yield headless configurations, violating interface conditions. The analysis unifies long-standing contrasts among verb classes under a structural condition on complementizer licensing. Drawing on phase theory, external pair-Merge, and the Labeling Algorithm, the paper refines the affixal view of C and highlights how syntactic structure constrains embedded clause formation.
Abstract
This paper revisits the distribution of null complementizers in English and develops a minimalist account building on Pesetsky’s (1992) affixal view of C. I argue that the absence of null C in certain contexts reflects constraints on movement and labeling. Such derivations yield headless configurations, violating interface conditions. The analysis unifies long-standing contrasts among verb classes under a structural condition on complementizer licensing. Drawing on phase theory, external pair-Merge, and the Labeling Algorithm, the paper refines the affixal view of C and highlights how syntactic structure constrains embedded clause formation.