The Copy Theory of Movement: A View from PF

ðeljko Boškoviƒ (University of Connecticut) and

Jairo Nunes (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)

The initial motivation for the revival of the copy theory of movement in the Minimalist Program had to do with interpretation phenomena. Chomsky (1993) argues that if traces are copies, reconstruction effects may be captured at LF without the need to postulate noninterface levels of representation. In this paper we present an extensive documentation of evidence for the copy theory from the PF side of the grammar. We show that the PF realization of the head of the chain is not the only possibility available in the system; we may also find cases where lower copies, different parts of different chain links, or more than one chain link get realized at PF. We argue that the full set of data may be accounted for if chains are subject to the LCA and deletion of chain links is subject to economy considerations.