EPP: can’t live with it, can’t raise without it

Krivochen, D. (2025) EPP: can’t live with it, can’t raise without it. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique. ISSN 1710-1115 doi: 10.1017/cnj.2025.5

Abstract/Summary

The E(xtended) P(rojection) P(rinciple) (specifically, in its guise as a movement-triggering feature in designated syntactic heads), has been a thorn in the Minimalist side since the mid-1990s. Recently, in the context of attempts to reduce syntactic mechanisms to their minimal expression, the generative operation Merge has been defined as unordered set formation (“Simplest Merge”), and the EPP has been pronounced dead in favour of conditions over labelling which force phrasal movement in order to dissolve ‘symmetry points’. This article compares several theoretical analyses and shows that very simple cases of {XP, YP} copular constructions in Spanish satisfy all requirements for labelling without the need to resort to Internal Merge (IM). Therefore, if there is IM of a DP it must be motivated by reasons other than labelling. Once such a reason exists, the elimination of EPP on labelling grounds becomes dubious.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/127670
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/cnj.2025.5
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Clinical Language Sciences
Publisher	Cambridge University Press (CUP)
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