Video 13.3 Overt and Covert Movement: Explaining Cross-Linguistic Variation

Andrew Carnie presents Syntax: A Generative Introduction. 4E. Wiley Blackwell.
Video 13.3 Overt and Covert Movement: Explaining Cross-Linguistic Variation
If Full Interpretation and Move are universal properties, then how to we explain what appears to be variation among languages in how they apply. Adapting the Saussurian notions of Signifiers (PF) and Signifieds (LF), we explain variation by appealing to timing of the move operations relative to the "Spellout" operation that bifurcates the derivation of the sentence into two representations a PF and an LF. Universal semantics claims that all languages have the same LFs, so language variation must be a consequence of whether the movement appears before spellout (so is reflected in the PF) or after it (so is only reflected in the LF and not the PF). Movement that happens before SpellOut is called "Overt Movement", Movement that happens after it is called "Covert movement". This distinction allows us to explain ambiguity in structures involving quantifiers and to explain why restrictions on movement (like the MLC) seem to apply in languages with wh-in-situ, resulting in island effects.
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