Features in Minimalist syntax

March 1, 2019

This talks provides an overview of approaches to featural dependencies in current minimalist work starting from Chomsky (1995). I also discuss aspects of the theory of feature structure which, though often taken for granted, present non-trivial challenges to developing explanatory analyses of featural dependencies. In addition to ϕ-features, the features I discuss are as follows:

  • interpretable vs. uninterpretable
  • valued vs. unvalued
  • second-order features/EPP-features
  • features-of-features ([E]-features)
  • formal wh-features
  • formal information-structural features

I conclude, in broad agreement with Šimík (2012) and Boeckx (2015), that the only domain where postulating formal features does not lead to problems are morphosyntactic agreement phenomena.

You can view the (Russian-language) slides here.

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I’m Pavel Rudnev, and this is my personal website. I’m a research fellow and lecturer in linguistics at HSE University in Moscow. My main area of interest is syntax and its interfaces with sound and meaning. In particular, my current research revolves around the structure of nominal expressions, agreement, case and verbal morphosyntax in East Caucasian languages, and the syntax-to-phonology mapping in Russian Sign Language.

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