Locality on chains

Locality constrains the links of a chain. Chomsky's Phase Impenetrability Condition bars a link from the interior of a phase, the positions its head c-commands, to a position outside the head's maximal projection, so that the edge is the escape hatch (Crosses); an island is a domain no link may leave (Escapes). A token with one copy has no link, so binding in situ is subject to neither (not_crosses_of_length_le_one, not_escapes_of_length_le_one), and movement, covert movement included, is subject to both, as Sato and Ngui find. The interior of a phase on positions is the c-command domain of its head (RoseTree.cCommandDomain), and it carries the terms within the complement of the unordered phase (withinComplement_iff_exists_mem_cCommandDomain).

Main definitions

• Minimalist.Crosses, Minimalist.Escapes: a link leaving a phase from its interior, and a link leaving a domain.

Main statements

• Minimalist.withinComplement_iff_exists_mem_cCommandDomain: the positions a phase head occurring once c-commands carry the terms within its complement.

Implementation notes

• Positions, not terms, individuate copies, so the phase interior of the unordered object (SyntacticObject.phaseInterior) cannot tell the links of a successive-cyclic chain apart, and the locality of links is stated on positions.

References

• Chomsky 2000, Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework
• Sato & Ngui 2017, Wh-questions in Singapore English tell us what about questions with declarative syntax?
• Marcolli et al. 2025, Mathematical Structure of Syntactic Merge: An Algebraic Model for Generative Linguistics formalized