Clause-internal successive cyclicity: Phasality or DP intervention?

• Published in: Natural language and linguistic theory Vol. 43; no. 3; pp. 1119 - 1182
• Main Authors: Keine, Stefan, Zeijlstra, Hedde
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.08.2025; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Case studies; Clauses; Cyclicity; Linguistics; Natural Language Processing (NLP); Philosophy of Language; Predicate; Restrictions; Social Sciences; Intervention; Extraction marking; Successive cyclicity; Phases; (Relativized) minimality; Leapfrogging
• ISSN: 0167-806X; 1573-0859
• DOI: 10.1007/s11049-024-09627-3

The well-known requirement that movement must proceed successive-cyclically through intermediate landing sites is standardly attributed to the presence of locality domains (phases) along the extraction path. Correspondingly, the existence of clause-medial intermediate landing sites is commonly taken as evidence for the existence of a clause-medial phase. In this paper, we argue that at least some instances of successive cyclicity through clause-medial positions are better understood as the result of intervention by the external-argument DP, not phasehood. Building on recent proposals about the principles that govern the behavior of complex probes, we propose that C in these cases can only attract the structurally closest DP. Elements separated from C by an intervening DP must first move around the intervening DP (“leapfrogging”). In languages where such leapfrogging is impossible, a local-subject-only extraction restriction arises; in a language where such leapfrogging is possible, extracting elements across the local subject is possible but must proceed through a clause-medial intermediate position, resulting in successive cyclicity. Evidence for this shift away from absolute locality domains like clause-medial phases to a DP-intervention account includes: (a) the reflexes of successive cyclicity being selective, arising with some elements but not others, (b) the distribution of the effect not correlating with whether an element is vP-internal or vP-external, but with whether a DP intervenes between this element and C, and (c) extraction patterns in unaccusatives.