The framework

This chapter outlines the theoretical machinery of the framework that shall be assumed throughout this monograph, the so-called Minimalist Program (see Chomsky 1993a and subsequent work). The chapter is divided into two main sections: the fist one considers the specifics of the operations Merge and Agree, its relation to former operations (e.g., Attract, Move), and its role both within the narrow syntactic component and at the interfaces. Building on Chomsky (2007; 2008), it will be argued that labels are not created (in the X-bar sense), but rather identified by a minimal search algorithm; likewise, Merge will be taken to be less feature driven than is usually assumed since Chomsky (1986b; 1993a). The second (and shorter) part delves into the notion of syntactic cycle, providing a brief summary of the main motivation and advantages of this way of conceiving computations. This sets the stage for the second chapter, where a critical and detailed assessment of Phase Theory is carried out.