ScholarWorks@경상국립대학교

초록

This paper investigates the mechanisms of labeling in embedded clauses, focusing on the critical role of externalization and complementizer overtness. While traditional minimalist theories posit that feature-sharing through overt movement is necessary for successful labeling, empirical evidence from wh-in-situ languages such as Korean and Japanese challenges this assumption. In these languages, embedded CPs are properly labeled and interpreted even though wh-elements remain in situ, without undergoing overt movement to SpecCP. Instead, overt complementizers supply sufficient morphosyntactic information to allow labeling. Building on the interface-sensitive approach of Murphy and Shim, this study argues that the overt realization of complementizers provides a morphophonological anchor that enables labeling independently of movement. Further drawing on Kitahara and Seely’s findings, a revised labeling algorithm is proposed: labeling is determined by minimal search for overt morphophonological material at the sensorimotor (SM) interface. This revised view also advances a more dynamic understanding of the interaction between syntax and interface systems.

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