Timing is everything! On derivational complexity and multiple workspaces
Timing is everything! On derivational complexity and multiple workspaces

Summary/Abstract: Under any derivational approach, syntactic computations proceed from more complex to less complex domains. Though such multiple workspaces get to be resolved into a single – matrix – workspace, the issue of timing– i.e. the point when multiple workspaces must resolve to a single derivational space has not been addressed in the literature. I argue that not only the direction, but also the timing of syntactic computations is guided by a more general requirement to reduce the computational complexity and I propose Multiple Workspaces Earliness Hypothesis to address this issue. On the empirical side, the technical apparatus and the analysis I propose allow me to capture the seemingly contradictory binding facts involving locative PPs as well as to treat adjuncts as relation, rather than absolute notions.

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