移位之再拼合說

Move is Remerge

句法學的基本理論議題之一是移位是否經過拷貝這一程序。本文從理論上和語言事實上論證移位不經過拷貝，強調移位僅僅是句法成份X在與句法成份Y拼合之後又與句法成份Z再次拼合的過程。

In this paper I discuss a basic theoretical question: Does movement contain a step of copying? Since Chomsky (1993), Copy as an operation to derive displacement effects has been introduced into the syntactic theory. In contrast, it is also claimed that displacement effects are achieved by the operation Remerge, without any copy operation (Epstein et al. 1998, among others). I present some problems of the Copy Theory of movement: the problematic motivation and implementation of the assumed PF-deletion; a paradox with respect to the locality of feature-checking; and a problem in theta-role receptivity. I argue that overt movement is simply remerger of a given term, rather than copying of any element. The Remerge Theory works without the assumed operation of Copy, and is free from the problems of Copy Theory of movement. The paper also addresses how issues such as trace, reconstruction effects, and resumptive pronouns are dealt with in the Remerge Theory of movement.