Explorations into a Top-Down Approach to the Copy Theory of Movement

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As a promising alternative to a bottom-up approach to sentence structure building, I have conducted an investigation into a top-down approach and within Chomsky’s minimalist framework. After preliminary surveys of reconstruction effects on A-movement (cf. Terada (2010a, b)), Terada’s (2011) paper, “Where do the Binding Conditions (A) and (C) apply? (sokubaku joken (A) to (C) wa dokode tekiyo sareruka),” has discussed the issue of timing of the application of Noam Chomsky’s (1981) Binding Theory from the top-down perspective, providing an argument for David Lebeaux’s (2009) thesis that Binding Condition (A) is best analyzed as an “anywhere condition” and that Binding Condition (C) is an “everywhere” condition. According to his thesis, Condition (A) must be satisfied at least once during the derivation of a sentence in which an anaphor (i.e. either a reflexive or reciprocal pronoun) is introduced and Condition (C) must not be violated at any point of derivation of a sentence in which a r … More eferential expression is involved. Based on this conclusion, my 2012 paper, “On Reconstruction Strategies (Sikochiku sutorateji ni tsuite),” has discussed differences in reconstruction effects on A-bar movement phenomena between adult grammar and child grammar observed by Leddon (2006). Reconstruction effects are available when an interrogative noun phrase containing referential expressions (such as proper nouns) is moved across a pronoun with which the r-expression is co-indexed toward the sentence-initial position. I have shown that the lack of reconstruction effects in child’s grammar and the grammar of Japanese learners of English is explained in the top-down approach straightforwardly, by claiming that they rely on a certain reconstruction strategy which facilitates the formation of after-reconstruction logical structure. This analysis is further confirmed in my 2013 paper, “Relativization in Interlanguage: Derivation and Reconstruction (Chukan-gengo niokeru Kankeisetsu no Hasei to Saikochiku)”. In this paper, it is observed that native speakers of English and Japanese learners of English yield different configurations in the context of reconstruction configurations. The author has shown that the top-down approach proposed in this investigation provides a straightforward account for the observed facts. Less