Theoretical Comparative Syntax

5   A note on improper movement

The purpose of this note is to argue that the “standard” account of improper movement in terms of Condition C of the Binding Theory (cf. May 1979) is no longer available if we assume Chomsky and Lasnik's (1993) version of the Uniformity Condition, and to suggest two alternative accounts of improper movement each of which has some interesting theoretical consequences.

1   A problem with the standard account of improper movement

Chomsky and Lasnik (1993) propose the Uniformity Condition on Chains as a condition on legitimate objects in Logical Form (LF) (cf. also Browning 1987), stating that the chain C of (1) is a legitimate LF object only if C is “uniform”.

(1)	C = (α1, . . ., αn)

Uniformity here is defined ...