DERIVATION, MINIMALISM, AND THAT-TRACE EFFECTS

This paper considers that-t(race) effects in the Minimalist Program and proposes a principled explanation. It is claimed that that-t effects follow from the fact that the EPP feature in T cannot be satisfied at any point in the derivation. It is shown that the proposed analysis falls out from independently motivated theoretical assumptions and is empirically supported in that it correctly accounts for grammatical and ungrammatical instances of that-t effects from a number of languages, which also reveals that parametric variations with that-t effects are properly accommodated. We also discuss two theoretical implications for the Minimalist Program, both of which resonate with recent arguments in the Minimalist literature.