In Defense of Edge Coordination in Syntax

Abstract

This paper argues in support of edge coordination that applies at the periphery of two conjuncts formed in the course of syntactic derivation. Chomsky (2020, 2021) recently proposes FORM SET, which applies Merge/MERGE to build a set of conjuncts, which in turn get linearized via the subsequent operation of FORM SEQUENCE. On top of FORM SET/FORM SEQUENCE, in this paper we argue for introducing edge coordination to grammar to account for derivationally constructed coordinate structure and its interaction with other modules of grammar such as agreement and binding phenomena in the respectively construction of English, which has been investigated in great details by Bošcović (2022). It will be shown below that the coordinate structure newly formed in the course of syntactic derivation in the construction at issue enters into subject-verb agreement and also feeds into the representation where Binding Conditions (A) and (B) apply, which renders compelling evidence for the validity of postulating edge coordination as an independent syntactic operation besides FORM SET/FORM SEQUENCE.