Book 83

Merge

by Barbara Citko and Martina Gracanin-Yuksek

Published 2 February 2021
An argument that Merge is binary but its binarity refers to syntactic positions rather than objects.

In this book, Barbara Citko and Martina Gračanin-YĆ¼ksek examine the constraints on Merge--the basic structure-building operation in minimalist syntax--from a multidominant perspective. They maintain that Merge is binary, but argue that the binarity of Merge refers to syntactic positions Merge relates: what has typically been formulated as a constraint that prevents Merge from combining more than two syntactic objects is a constraint on Merge's relating more than two syntactic positions.