A Minimalist View on the Syntax–Semantics Relationship: Turning the Mind into a Snowflake (Studies in Philosophy of Language and Linguistics)

Current developments of the Minimalist Program in generative linguistics put the procedure of labeling syntactic objects at the center of the syntax-semantics transition. This book provides a discussion of consequences of such proposals for a proper analysis of different varieties of the operation Merge and their interpretive reflexes, as well as for the general theory of the syntax-semantics relationship. It argues that the absence of substitutional operations in Narrow Syntax should restrict the range of admissible interpretive operations on adjunction structures in the conceptual-intentional component. It also debates that syntactic chains are subject to interpretive procedures properly analyzed with the help of counterpart-theoretic concepts.