2 Economy Conditions in Syntax CHRIS

An important theme in recent generative grammar is that linguistic operations, derivations, and representations are subject to economy conditions which guarantee that they are optimal in some sense (see Chomsky 1998b). Consider an operation OP applying in a derivation D leading to the representations (PF, LF) (phonetic form and logical form). Economy considerations suggest that OP be as small as possible, and be applied in a way that minimizes search. Given a series of operations that form a derivation D, economy conditions suggest that the length or cost of the derivation must be minimized in some way. Lastly, economy considerations suggest that the representations formed in the course of a derivation should be as simple as possible, consisting of a minimal number of syntactic objects, each of which is interpretable (at either LF or PF). The main purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the economy conditions that have been proposed for syntax and to discuss how the various conditions are related. I will also present what I consider to be the outstanding problems and interesting research issues. This chapter is organized as follows. In section 1, I will discuss Last Resort. In section 2, I will discuss Minimality. In section 3, I will discuss the Shortest Derivation Requirement. In section 4, I will discuss timing principles, such as ASAP (As Soon As Possible) and Procrastinate. In section 5, I will discuss the issue of local versus global economy conditions. In section 6, I will discuss economy of representation. Section 7 is the conclusion.