Linearization and the Architecture ofGrammar: A view from the Final-overFinal Constraint∗
THERESA BIBERAUER1,2, ANDERS HOLMBERG3 &IAN ROBERTS1
1

University of Cambridge, 2Stellenbosch University and 3Newcastle University
mtb23@cam.ac.uk, Anders.Holmberg@ncl.ac.uk, igr20@cam.ac.uk
This paper addresses the issue of the locus of linearization
information in the context of a minimalist grammar.
Contrary to what is arguably the dominant view inminimalist theorizing today, it is argued that linearization
information must in fact be specified Narrow Syntaxinternally. The imperative underlying this conclusion is anempirical skewing in the domain of word-order variation, in
terms of which head-initial structures associated with agiven projection line may only be (harmonically) dominatedby head-initial structures, while head-final structures may be
dominated either by head-initial or head-final structures inthe same context – the so-called Final-over-Final Constraint(FOFC). It is argued that attested FOFC effects suggest thatlinearization information is in fact encoded in such a way –namely, by harnessing an already-required movement
diacritic in accordance with Relativized Minimality,
arguably a third-factor-imposed principle – that its NSinternal presence does not violate the Strong Minimalist
Thesis of Chomsky (2001 et seq.). We also consider thequestion syntactic categories and their formal status, against
this background.

1. Introduction
This paper is primarily concerned with linear ordering and its locus in the architectureof grammar. During the GB era, syntactic structure was generally assumed to involve
both hierarchy and fixed linear ordering, with the former falling out as theconsequence of a principle of UG (X-bar theory) and the latter following from thesetting of universally given parameters (e.g. the Head Parameter). In the context of
Minimalism, by contrast, there presently appears to be a fairly strong consensus thatlinear ordering is only established at PF (cf. i.a. Berwick & Chomsky 2008, Boeckx
2008 and Richards 2009). Further, it is often asserted that the language faculty
exhibits an “LF bias”, with the mapping from syntax to SEM conforming to theStrong Minimalist Thesis (SMT; cf. Chomsky 2001) in (1), while that from syntax to
PHON does not.
∗The research reported here is funded by AHRC Grant AH/E009239/1: “Structure and Linearization in
Disharmonic Word Orders”. For valuable input on the ideas central to this paper we thank in particular Angel
Gallego, John Hawkins, Neil Myler, and Michelle Sheehan, and also the IGG35 and GLOW32 audiences. All usual
disclaimers apply.

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The Strong Minimalist Thesis: Language is an optimal solution to legibility
conditions, i.e. it is a “perfect”, maximally efficient solution to the conditions
imposed by the interfaces, SEM and PHON.

The purpose of this paper is to take issue with these views, and to argue, firstly, thatthe commonly held “good design” expectation that linearization only comes into play
at PF cannot in fact be correct and, secondly, that this fact undermines the view thatPF, unlike LF, simply has to “make do” with the incomplete structural informationthat is fed to it. Our argument is based on a striking empirical asymmetry in thedomain of attested word-order patterns, one which is not amenable to a parsimonious“late linearization” account.
The paper is structured as follows: section 2 introduces the empirical facts and theword-order constraint that lead us to reconsider the role of linearization information in
Narrow Syntax; section 3 outlines the proposed analysis of these facts; finally, section
4 considers the implications of the analysis and concludes.

2. A word-order asymmetry: introducing the Final-over-Final Constraint
Building on Holmberg (2000), Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts (2007; BHR) observea skewing in the word-order patterns attested in the world’s languages: while bothtypes of “harmonic” order (i.e. consistently initial and consistently final) are readilyfound, only one of the expected “disharmonic” types surfaces, namely that involving
head-initial phrases dominating head-final ones. This asymmetry is schematized in
(2):
a.
β’
ru
αP
β
ru
γP
α
Consistent headfinal

(2)

b.
β’
ru
β
αP
ru
α
γP
Consistent headinitial

β’
ru
β
αP
ru
γP
α
Initial-over-Final
c.

β’
ru
αP
β
ru
α
γP
Final-over-Initiald. *Evidence of the skewing in the disharmonic domain comes from a wide range ofstructures, discussed in more detail in BHR and also Biberauer, Newton & Sheehan(2009a,b) and Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts (2009). Here we mention only three:(i) the apparent crosslinguistic absence of VOAux orderings, and (ii) the absence ofVO languages with initial complementisers, and (iii) the diachronic pathways which
languages appear to follow during the process of word-order change. As thediscussion in section 3.3 will show, these empirical facts can be understood as reflexesof a general constraint, which may be formulated as follows:(3)

The Final-Over-Final Constraint (FOFC)
For all heads {α, β, ..} on a single projection line, if α is a head-initial phrase
and β is a phrase immediately dominating α, then β must be head-initial. If α isa head-final phrase, and β is a phrase immediately dominating α, then β can behead-initial or head-final.

2.1.

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Many Germanic varieties permit both harmonic and disharmonic permutations ofAux, V and O. Thus spoken Afrikaans, for example, allows both of the orders in(4a,b) and English-influenced Kaaps additionally permits (4c); no variety of
Afrikaans, however, allows (4d), the FOFC-violating order:
(4)

a.

b.
c.
d.

… dat sy [DP ‘n brief] geskryf het
that she a letter written has‘… that she has written a letter’… dat sy het [DP‘n brief] geskryf… dat sy het geskryf [DP‘n brief]*… dat sy geskryf [DP‘n brief] het[OV-Aux][Aux-OV][Aux-VO][VO-Aux]

This pattern is replicated in other Germanic varieties, both modern and historical, in
Finno-Ugric, and also in Basque and Italian Sign Language (cf. Cecchetto 2009).
More generally, it appears to be the case that VOAux structures are exclusively
permitted in languages featuring non-inflecting auxiliary elements, commonly
designated particles (cf. i.a. Dryer 2009b for discussion of Niger-Congo languages
permitting this structure). That particle-containing VOAux structures should not beviewed as counter-examples to (3) is strongly suggested by data such as the following:
(5)

a.

b.

yə- ca dɛyo lɔ[Bwe-Karen]
1SG-see picture ASP“I am looking at a picture”
ce-ɗɔ mijə-khɔ phi má nɔ (*jə-khɔ)
3- say COMP 3- FUT take what
“What did he say that he would take?”(data from Dryer 2009a)

Here we see that non-inflecting particles expressing tense-aspectual (auxiliary)
information necessarily occupy a very different position to that in which inflecting
auxiliaries obligatorily surface. Significantly, the FOFC-violating final position isnever available to the latter, the same pattern that we see in more familiar European
languages, all of which feature non-particle auxiliaries. This suggests that inflecting
and particle elements are formally distinct in a way that is crucially relevant for
FOFC. We return to this point in section 3.3 below.
2.2 The cross-linguistic absence of VO languages with final complementisers
An oft-noted fact about the distribution of subordinating conjunctions (e.g. that) is that
VO languages systematically lack sentence-final complementisers (Cs; cf. i.a.
Hawkins 1990: 256-257, Dryer 1992: 102; 2009a). By contrast, many OV languages
have initial Cs. According to the on-line World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS;
Haspelmath et al. 2008), 54 clearly OV languages (out of a sample of 64) feature an
initial adverbial subordinator (“because”), and this excludes familiar OV languages
like German and Dutch, which, on account of their matrix V2 property, are listed as
languages with “no dominant order”; only 2 VO languages are said to feature final
adverbial subordinators, but see Newton (2008) for a critique of the descriptions
underlying this classification. Evidently, then, there is a skewing in the distribution ofcomplementisers.

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On the assumption that C is on the projection line of V (cf. Grimshaw 1991),1 thefact that VO languages systematically lack final Cs follows directly from (3), as thefollowing diagrams show:(6)a.

*[CP [TP [VP V O ] T ] C ] -- violates FOFC for α = V and β = T
*
CP
ru
TP
C
ru
ru

b.

*[CP [TP T [VP V O ]] C ] -- violates FOFC for α = T and β = C
*
CP
ru
ru
ru
V

O

Worth noting here is that it appears to be necessary to draw a formal distinction
between subordinating elements of the type illustrated above and so-called C particles
such as the force particles in i.a. the Chinese dialects (Paul 2009), the Northern Italiandialects (Munaro & Poletto 2006) and Gungbe (Aboh 2006). Firstly, the latter are very
commonly restricted to matrix contexts and secondly, comparison of the placement ofthese elements indicates that subordinators consistently surface in the expected initial
position, while the particles surface in apparently FOFC-violating positions. The
examples from Vietnamese below illustrate:
(7)

a.

b.

Tân mua gi the?
Tan buy what PRT‘What did Tan buy?’
Anh đã
nói (rằng) côtakhông
PRN ANT say that PRN NEG
PRT‘He said that she didn’t believe (him)’tinbelieve

Once again, then, there are indications that particles are, in some sense, special.
Pending further research into their properties, we leave them aside here.
2.3 Diachronic evidence
Absolute synchronic constraints are expected to have diachronic consequences. Thus
if FOFC represents an absolute universal, we expect word-order change to proceedalong certain pathways, specifically:1

In the sense that it is part of the clausal functional sequence, it is clear that C should count as part of the extended
projection of V. The fact that complementisers are sensitive to verbal properties such as finiteness further
reinforces this impression.

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Head-final to head-initial (“OV” to “VO”) change must proceed “top-down”:(8)[[[O V] I] C]  [C [[O V ] I]]  [C [ I [ O V]]]  [C [I [V O]]].
Head-initial to head-final (“VO” to “OV”) change must proceed “bottom-up”:(9)[C [ I [ V O ]]]  [C [ I [ O V ]]]  [C [ [ O V ] I ]]  [[[ O V ] I ] C].
Any other route entails FOFC violations at intermediate stages. Biberauer, Newton &Sheehan (2009a,b) present case studies from the history of Germanic and EthiopianSemitic, showing that directionality changes in languages belonging to these families
conform to the expected FOFC-determined pathways. Further, it appears that NigerCongo languages that have undergone varying amounts of initial to final change have
likewise done so in the predicted “bottom-up” fashion (cf. Nikitina 2008 for recent
discussion); similarly, the Sami languages within Finno-Ugric, appear to haveundergone the reverse change “top-down”.

3. Accounting for the asymmetry: a closer look at linearisation
The previous section has shown that there appears to be a striking asymmetry in thedomain of disharmonic word orders: while initial-over-final orders involving elements
on a single projection line are relatively common, final-over-initial orders fail tosurface. The same skewing is notably absent where structures involving elements
associated with different projection lines occur together. Consider German (10):(10)… dass sie gerne [DP ein Täschen Kaffee] trinktthat she gladly a cup-DIM coffee drinks“… that she enjoys drinking a cup of coffee”

Here a head-initial DP is dominated by a head-final VP, a pattern which is just as
common among the world’s languages as its inverse (cf. BNS 2009b for discussion
and references). Since nouns define extended projections independently of the verbs
with which they combine, (3) leads us to expect the absence of an asymmetry in thiscross-categorial domain. A similar explanation may also account for the availability ofhead-initial PPs in V-final languages. Crucially for present purposes, the fact that theasymmetry in disharmonic word orders is not an across-the-board phenomenon
suggests that an “external” account in terms of processing constraints is likely to be
problematic (see, however, Cecchetto 2009, for a proposal along these lines2).
Similarly, the observed facts and the added complication introduced by the non-total
nature of the asymmetry make it unclear how a Head Parameter (HP)-based accountwould be able to rule out the problematic orders without stipulation. In the minimalist
context, this is significant: as noted in the introduction, the view that linearization
information, like phonological specifications more generally, has no place in NS andshould therefore only be imposed at PF, possibly via a PF parameter, is widespread(cf. Biberauer 2008a and Richards 2009 for recent overview discussion andreferences). It is our contention, however, that the empirical facts mentioned above
and the apparent universality of (3) fatally undermine the validity of this assumption.
In what follows, we outline an analysis which facilitates a new and, importantly,
FOFC-compatible perspective on linearization.
2

John Hawkins (p.c.) confirms that his influential processing theory (Hawkins 1994, 2004) would not seem tooffer a ready explanation for the observed facts.

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3.1
Theoretical background: the Probe-Goal-Agree system
In terms of the Probe-Goal-Agree approach to syntactic derivations developed since
Chomsky (2001), NS-internal movement is triggered by (generalized) EPP-features.
Crucially, these features must be thought of as distinct from the formal features
involved in Agree operations: unvalued features on a given head (loosely designatedthe Probe) may probe corresponding valued features on one or more heads (loosely
designated the Goal) in their c-command domain, thereby effecting Agree operations.
Importantly, feature valuation, which is the outcome of Agree, is therefore notdependent on the creation, via movement, of specific local configurations (Spec-Heador Head-Head), as was the case in earlier checking-based theories. Agree-driven
movement, instead, only takes place if a given probe is associated with an EPPfeature. As pointed out by Pesetsky & Torrego (2001), movement triggers may
therefore essentially be viewed as “a feature-of-a-feature”, i.e. as diacritics.
Movement need, however, not always be Agree-related; phase-heads
specifically are assumed to be able to trigger non-Agree-mediated movement ofelements to their edge, via so-called Edge Features/EFs3, which they may or may not“spread” to the heads they select. We assume these EFs to be identical to thegeneralized EPP-features mentioned above and henceforth represent movement
triggers as ^.
3.2
Linearization and movement
The apparatus outlined in the previous section leads us to expect the following typesof movement:
(11)

a.
b.

Agree-driven movement: e.g. v [φ^], where v’s φ-probe is associated witha movement trigger.
Non-Agree-driven movement: e.g. v^, where ^ is a free-standing trigger
not specifically associated with any of a head’s contentive features (seenote 3).

Building on insights in Rizzi (2008), we suggest that there is in fact a third species of
movement, namely Selection-driven movement (cf. also Holmberg 2000 and Julien
2002 for early proposals along these lines; Pesetsky & Torrego 2006 and Cecchetto &Donati 2009 also assume Selection to involve probing, although their proposal differsfrom that made here). For Rizzi, Agree may be viewed as Internal Search, whereas
Selection is External Search; a head can therefore be thought to probe either the
structure which it c-commands or the Lexical Array which is at that time feeding thederivation. Since the features triggering Internal Search are uncontroversially assumed
to have the option, subject to parametric variation, of being associated with ^, thequestion arises why the same should not be possible for those triggering External
Search. More specifically, if External Search is in fact driven by c-selection features,
we might expect these features, like their Agree-triggering counterparts, also to havethe parametrically determined option of being associated with ^ or not. Our contention
is that this option does in fact exist, and that the non-availability of this mode of3

Worth noting here is that the phase head-related EFs discussed here should not be confused with the generalised
Merge features, also designated Edge Features, ascribed to every lexical item in Chomsky (2006 et seq.): as
languages do not differ in respect of the fact that their lexical items may undergo External Merge/EM, whereas
they do differ in respect of whether already-merged, and thus EF-bearing, items can trigger movement (Internal
Merge/IM), it may be necessary to draw a distinction (contra Chomsky 2006:17, 2008:144). We leave open thepossibility that non-Agree-driven movement simply involves a head associated with two EFs, i.e. an EM-triggering
EF which bears a further IM-triggering EF as a secondary feature.

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movement, just like the non-availability of movement more generally (cf. Chomsky2005), would have to be stipulated. Specifically, we propose that c-selection-driven
movement triggers comp-to-spec movement, with the selected XP raising into thespecifier of its selector.4 Further, we argue that interpreting ^ in the usual manner as a
trigger for leftward movement paves the way for a principled account of the FOFC
constraint, one which has important implications for our understanding of thearchitecture of the grammar.
3.3
Accounting for the asymmetry
Assuming the movement options outlined in (11) plus the existence of Selectiondriven movement, we are led to expect that languages may differ in respect of:(a) whether given heads feature or lack ^; and, if ^ is present,(b) whether ^ is free-standing or associated with Selection or with Agree features.
If ^-distribution were completely free, with heads being able to bear or lack ^independently of one another and independently of the nature of ^’s association, thecrosslinguistic occurrence of “harmonic” patterns would reduce to an unexplainedcoincidence: in the context of the system assumed here, “harmony” falls out fromheads systematically lacking or bearing ^ (head-initial and head-final systems,
respectively). Similarly, the discrepancy that lies at the heart of FOFC cannot be
accounted for if heads may either bear or lack c-selection-related ^ independently of
one another. To capture the observed skewings, a formal constraint on the distributionof (c-selected) ^ (henceforth: ^) along the lines of (12) appears to be necessary:(12) If a non-lexical head Xn in the extended projection E of a lexical head L has ^associated with its selection feature for a lower head Xn-1, then so does Xn-1.
In terms of (12), higher heads on a given projection line may only bear ^ if the lower
heads on that projection line do so. If v is v^, V will therefore also have to be V^.
Where auxiliaries are v-elements, this constraint ensures that VOAux orders willremain unattested, this order requiring v^ to select V, in contravention of (12). By
transitivity, the same is true of cases where auxiliaries are T-elements. VOAux orders
derived via c-selection-driven movement are therefore ruled out, as desired. By
contrast, the inverse disharmonic order – AuxOV – is ruled in since this order results
when V bears ^, but v lacks this diacritic. Assuming C to be part of the V’s extended
projection, VOC is likewise ruled out: this case would involve C^ dominating ^-lesslower clausal heads, in contravention of (12). Frequently attested COV (cf. Latin,
West Germanic, Turkish, etc.) is, however, expected to be permitted since thisordering entails (a) lower head(s) bearing ^, while C lacks this diacritic. (12), then,offers a formal account of the synchronically attested FOFC asymmetries discussed in
sections 2.1 and 2.2 above. The diachronic facts noted in section 2.3 likewise follow
since we expect (12) to determine the shape of all synchronic grammars including the
successive grammars involved in change scenarios; intermediate grammars may not,therefore, entail a violation of (12).
(12) also allows us to understand why cases in which FOFC appears to beviolated would arise. Consider first the case of V selecting DP. Unlike V and v/T/C, V
4

C-selection-driven movement therefore violates anti-locality (cf. i.a. Pesetsky & Torrego 2001 and Abels 2003).
To the extent that anti-locality still holds of non-c-selection-related movements, earlier arguments contra antilocality stand, with the anti-locality violation in the c-selection case being justified in SMT terms as it entails thatan already required movement diacritic (^) may also be harnessed to signal directionality information (see section 4
for further discussion).

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and D are not part of the same projection line: while the former are all heads on theclausal projection line, – the main “spine” in a clausal structure – D represents afunctional head associated with a distinct “spine”, the extended projection of N. As
such, (12) does not lead us to expect V^/v^ dominating D to be any more problematicthan V/v dominating D^, precisely what the typological record suggests.
To the extent that Ps are lexical categories which therefore initiate extended
projections independently of N and V, we are also led to expect both V^/v^ and Pcontaining grammars, i.e. grammars in which initial PPs are dominated by final V/vPs,
and the inverse, non-FOFC-violating word order, i.e. initial V/vPs with final PPs. This
seems to be correct (cf. Haspelmath et al. 2008), although it is worth noting that Pdirectionality does appear to harmonise very strongly with V-directionality (cf. also
Dryer 1992, 2009a). Also worth noting in connection with Ps is the non-uniform
nature of the elements ascribed to this class: while some Ps exhibit formal properties
more typical of lexical categories, others appear to instantiate “light”/functional
elements (cf. van Riemsdijk 1998, the contributions in Asbury et al. 2008, and muchrecent work by Peter Svenonius). This discrepancy is particularly evident in thecontext of circumpositional structures, where the difference in the linearization
properties of the two Ps coincides with differences in their semantic, phonological andgrammatical properties (essentially, one P is “light”/more functional head-like, theother is “strong”/more lexical head-like). The expectation in the present context is,then, that (more) lexical Ps may exhibit directionality at odds with the nominal and/or
verbal heads they dominate and/or are dominated by – since they count as the bottomof a new extended projection – whereas functional Ps may not – since only lexical
heads count as bottoms of projections. This prediction remains to be fully tested, but
seems correct for familiar West Germanic circumpositional structures.
As noted in sections 2.1 and 2.2, there are numerous contexts in which socalled particles – roughly, non-inflecting “little words” – appear to violate FOFC.5
The question is why this should be so? Given how little is presently understood about
the formal properties of particles, it is difficult to answer this question with any degreeof confidence. We, however, take data of the type illustrated in (5) and (7) to indicatethat particles should not simply be viewed as exponents of the same functional heads
as those realised by composite elements, e.g. an auxiliary which expresses not only
tense, but also agreement and possibly mood or voice or evidentiality, etc., or a Celement which expresses not just subordination, but also finiteness and possibly alsomood and/or evidentiality, etc. Particles, instead, appear to realise sub-heads
associated with “cover-term” heads like v, T, C and D (consider, for example, Aboh’s
detailed (2004, 2006) illustrations of this state of affairs in Gungbe). If particles areindeed a (sub)type of functional head, however, we would expect them to be FOFCrespecting elements, which cannot therefore bear ^ in structures featuring lower heads
lacking ^. Worth noting here is that two aspects of the formal realisation of particle
elements suggest that a functional-head analysis may not be correct. To see this, it isnecessary to clarify what is meant by ‘lexical’ and ‘functional’ category in the context
of the theoretical framework adopted here.
Taking canonical cases like V and N as our point of departure6, a reasonable

5Worth noting here is the fact that Greenberg (1963), similarly, observed that particles frequently
emerge as outliers in the context of the typological word-order generalisations he established. He
therefore disregarded them.
6
In referring to N and V here, we leave aside the possibility that N and V may in fact be complex heads
derived via prior merger with nominalizing and verbalizing heads (cf. Myler 2009 for discussion which

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Vol.xx 2005 - Title of the volumeinterpretation would be that lexical categories are elements which may only probe
externally, i.e. whose NS-relevant featural make-up entails at most a categorial
specification (see note 6) and c-selection features, with Internal Agree-related features
being entirely absent; in turn, functional categories are those which may probe bothinternally and externally, in the manner usually assumed. Against this background,particles emerge as a rather unusual type of functional head since their formal
realisation systematically fails to give any evidence of the Internal Agree operations
they are expected to be involved in: although there is no requirement for PF to spellout NS-internal Agreement operations, it is clear from examples such as those given in(5) and (7) that it is meaningful to draw a distinction between agreement- and nonagreement-reflecting elements, with the latter exhibiting peculiar behaviour that seems
to be absent with the former. The extent to which particles are involved in Internal
Agree (i.e. standard probing) operations is therefore unclear. Secondly, it is notablethat the semantics (and pragmatics) of particles is more idiosyncratic and difficult topin down than that of non-particle functional elements, a state of affairs which tosome extent resembles the situation with lexical elements. In the cases where this isless obviously true (e.g. Focus particles), it is worth noting that the particles inquestion appear to lack not only Internal Agree-triggering probes, but also c-selectionrelated (External Agree-triggering) properties: these elements may combine with XPsof any type. As such, the only possible “point of attachment” for ^ would be the EFsof the relevant elements (cf. section 3.1 above). Particles of this type, then, would not
violate (12) since their ^ is not c-selection-related. Assuming particles not to be ahomogenous category, with the absence of both internal and external probes not being
definitive of the entire class, we are left with the question of how particles which do
appear to c-select (i.e. those which seem to surface in fixed hierarchical positions) canbe accounted for. The proposal here is that these particles may in fact be lexical rather
than functional elements, i.e. elements bearing only c-selection, but not Agree-related
probes. As lexical elements, they cannot count as part of the extended projection of
the structure they dominate, with the result that (12) is once again respected. We leave
the details of this matter to future research, noting here only that current theoreticalassumptions may facilitate valuable, but until now, unexplored insights into the natureof syntactic categories.
What we have seen so far is that (12) appears to fare well in accounting for theasymmetry discussed in section 2. A question that arises given the discussion ofparticles, which highlights that head-finality need not only result from c-selectiondriven movement, is how unattested orders derived via Agree- or EF-related
movement (cf. section 3.2) can be ruled out. Why, for example, is it not possible for
SVOAux orders to be derived via one of these alternatives modes of movement,
neither of which violates (12)? Starting with EF-related movement, we follow BHR inassuming SVOAux orders derived in this way to be ruled in, but, crucially, to be
associated with typical A’ interpretive properties (focus, etc.). This seems to becorrect (see BHR for discussion). As far as Agree-related movement (involving
piedpiping) is concerned, we again follow BHR, this time ruling out this possibility on
the grounds that the phase-based way in which derivations proceed, with material in
the complement domain of phase heads undergoing Radical Spellout and therefore
being unavailable for subsequent movement operations, precludes the generation of
Agree-driven SVOAux structures (again, see BHR for discussion). This last casesuggests that verbalizing v and transitivity, etc-determining v cannot be one and the same entity). The
point here is crucially that we assume lexical categories to be categorially specified.

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highlights the important fact that FOFC effects are not uniquely the consequence of(12), but that they in part also follow from independently motivated architecturalconsiderations.

4. Implications and conclusions
The preceding discussion has argued for a model of the language faculty in terms ofwhich linearization information is present in NS. At first sight, this proposal mightseem to conflict with (1) since a system in which purely hierarchical syntactic
structure is converted into linear structures at the PF interface, i.e. at the point at
which it is first needed, may intuitively seem like the most economically designed
one; having the information available throughout the derivation, where it serves no
purpose, seems unnecessary (another instance of “look ahead”), particularly if aprincipled mechanism can be uncovered to govern hierarchy-linearisation conversion.
We have argued, however, that a striking skewing in the typological recordsuggests that the language faculty cannot in fact be constructed in this way: headdirectionality options are subject to the constraint in (12), which entails that thedirectionality of individual heads is dependent on the directionality of certain others. It
is not clear how the effects of this constraint may be imposed at PF, other than by
stipulation. One could, of course, interpret ^ as a PF diacritic, interpreted as signallingthat the complement of a ^-bearing head be linearised to its left. This would, however,entail the postulation of a specifically PF-legible diacritic, i.e. a special device
relevant to PF only. Furthermore, it would leave unexplained why ^ should signal
leftward and not rightward linearization, with the question of whether this system
implies that head-final structures are "more marked" than head-initial ones also
arising. By contrast, (12) viewed as an NS-internal constraint, drawing on devices
evidently required by the computational system, emerges as a very natural constraint.
Firstly, it references c-selection features and the movement diacritic (^), bothof which are independently required, the latter to enable the computational system toconstruct both discourse-neutral and discourse-marked structures (cf. the so-called
duality of semantics property of natural language syntax). Secondly, since movement
is always leftward (cf. Abels 2008 for overview discussion), the fact that ^ should
signal leftward placement of complements also follows directly: linearization is justanother movement-derived effect. Thirdly, the constraint in (12) in its essence statesthat the distribution of ^ is subject to a "no skipping" constraint of the type that isfamiliar from Relativised Minimality (RM, Rizzi 1990, 2001): just like othermovement types (Agree-driven, non-Agree-driven, etc.) cannot "skip" an intermediate
position of the same type, the distribution of c-selection-related ^ cannot "skip" anintermediate c-selecting head within the same extended projection. All three of the
movement types discussed in section 3.2 and 3.3 above therefore respect RM, whichappears to be a syntax-internal constraint, though undoubtedly one imposed by thirdfactor considerations (cf. BHR 2009 for more detailed discussion). Furthermore,
viewing linearization as the consequence of a species of movement operation opens
the possibility of moving beyond the view that (partially) head-final languages are
somehow "more marked" than their head-initial counterparts: if linearization-related
movement is simply one species of movement, it is clear that the "calculation" as tohow "marked" a language is in movement terms should include not just linearization
movements, but movement operations tout court. In this context, the oft-observed factthat OV languages tend to be wh-in situ takes on a new significance.
The picture that emerges, then, is of a system which satisfies the SMT byCISCL Working Papers

Vol.xx 2005 - Title of the volume

harnessing the movement diacritic it independently requires to facilitate "duality ofsemantics" not only to fulfil this design requirement on natural language, but also tosolve a further design requirement, namely that of ultimately delivering linearised
strings that can be externalised in a temporal dimension. Viewed from thisperspective, the NS-internal presence of linearization information can be viewed as
the reflex of a system which is constructed so as to make maximally economical useof its necessary components, the diametric opposite of the standardly held view.
Evidently, many aspects of the proposal outlined here require more detailed,systematic working out, something which space constraints preclude in the present
context (but cf. BHR 2009). The aim here was simply to outline some low- and highlevel architectural consequences of rejecting the currently dominant minimalist viewthat linearization information has no place in syntax; if the ideas in this paper are on
the right track, there would appear to be no need to assume the currently muchdiscussed "LF bias" in the context of the SMT.

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