In minimalist theory of syntax, it is a standard assumption that movement is triggered by feature checking between the attractor (or checker) and the attracted (or moved/checked). Under this assumption, however, the motivation for the intermediate steps in interclausal movements, especially in the so-called "long" wh-movement, does not seem to be very clear. In order to account for the successive cyclicity of wh-movement, Chomsky (2000, 2001a, b) and others assume that the head of every phase-inducing category has some uninterpretable feature, which triggers successive cyclic movement. On the other hand, Boskovie (2002) and others propose that successive cyclicity has no direct relation with feature checking, but that the requirement for intermediate steps in interclausal movement is due to some Subjacency-like locality condition, e.g., the Minimal Chain Condition of Chomsky and Lasnik (1993). Neither of these two approaches, however, is successful in accounting for the successive cyclicity of wh-movement. The feature-based approach of Chomsky (2000, 2001a, b) and others assumes some unmotivated feature, e.g., [uwh]; the constraint-based approach of Bodkovid (2002) and others must assume "look-ahead," which is to be avoided by the phase-by-phase model of the minimalist framework. We suggest two possible directions to pursue: one with top-down structure-building, and the other with Greed-like properties of the extracted element itself, laying more emphasis on the latter approach.

Chomsky (2000) proposes that the operation Attract-F of Chomsky (1995) be replaced by the operation Agree, in which there is, in principle, no movement at all. In the Agree theory, agreement between a Probe P and its Goal G can lead to feature checking in situ. Lasnik (2002), however, argues that feature movement (or attract) is to be preferred to agreement at a distance, presenting three pieces of evidence: pseudo-gapping, sluicing, and remnant movement. The purpose of this article is to show that the agreement-at-a-distance theory of Chomsky (2000) can still be maintained if we adopt Pesetsky and Torrego`s (2001) conception of the EPP property as a "subfeature of a feature." Furthermore, if we assume Boeckx and Stjepanovic´`s (2001) claim that head movement is a PF phenomenon, the persuasiveness of Lasnik`s (2002) argument becomes even weaker. Following Chomsky`s (2001b) assumption that internal Merge can apply either before or after Spell-Out, I have demonstrated that even the remnant movement phenomenon, the most powerful piece of evidence for Lasnik`s (2002) argument, can naturally be accounted for with the feature checking in situ of the Agree theory.

"You may not agree with Chomsky`s work, but it would be both short-sighted and unscholarly to ignore it." (Smith 2000:vi) Sung-Hyuk Park. 2002. Chomsky`s Conception of Language and Grammar. Studies in Modern Grammar 31, 25-46. Chomsky`s views on human language and the nature of linguistic inquiry are very widely referred to, but equally widely misrepresented. Such widespread misunderstanding of Chomsky`s linguistic ideas seem, especially in Korea, to be due in part to misinterpretation of his conception of language and grammar. The purpose of this paper is to reexamine Chomsky`s conception of language and grammar with a view to helping Korean critics of Chomskyan theory understand it in a reasonable manner. According to Chomsky, "there is a faculty of language FL, a component of the human mind/brain dedicated to language," and "FL undergoes state changes under triggering and shaping influences of the environment." The most important and basic assumption of Chomskyan theory is the internalist conception of knowledge of a language, according to which such knowledge is constituted solely as part of the psychology of individuals. This special notion is accordingly referred to as "I-language," where I is to suggest "individual," "internal," and "intensional." The notion of language that is being investigated is the language of an individual (I-language), not the language of a community or a country or an era. An I-language L is thus defined as the language of an individual whose FL is in a state L (S?). The notion of grammar should then be conceived of in the same vein: the term "grammar" is the linguist`s theory of the I-language, universal grammar (UG) being the theory of the initial state S? of FL, which is uniform for the species.

Sung - Hy uk Park . 2002 . T he Ex tended Projection Principle in the Minimali s t Prog ram . S t ud ie s in M od e rn Gram ma r 27, 1- 35 . The Extended Projection Principle (EPP ), which requires that clauses have subject s, has been playing a central role in Chomsky ' s generative grammar ever since it was proposed in Chomsky (1981, 1982). The EPP, however, shifts from a requirement on clausal structure to a requirement on feature checking in the Minimalist Program, i.e., a feature on the head T of TP. From its inception on to the present , the EPP has had a flavor of oddity in that it is not a principle of its own standing, despite it s name. In Chomsky ' s (1981, 1982) original formulation, the principle is incorporated into the clause- expanding phrase structure rule, whereas in the Minimalist Program, the EPP feature is assumed to be a feature of a feature. All in all, the EPP is largely stipulative and redundant, hence it may be suggested that the principle should be eliminated from the grammar . Proposals have been presented by quite a few syntacticians to derive the EPP effect from some independent principle(s ) and/or module(s) of the grammar . Among these proposals, Bo kovi (2001) seems to be the most promising one. His explanation of the so- called intermediate EPP effect, however, needs some qualification if it is to be true to the basic tenet of the Minimalist Program that every movement is feature- driven.

Sung-Hyuk Park. 2000. A Note on Multiple Matching/Agreement. Studies in Modern Grammar 21, 183-199. In order to account for Case agreement between T and the participle (PRT), or between v* and PRT in languages like Icelandic, Chomsky (1999) makes use of multiple matching/agreement, assuming that deleted features are still visible to narrow-syntactic operations up until the strong phase level CP or v*P. The purpose of this squib is to show that Chomsky`s assumption that deleted features remain visible until the strong phase level gives rise to a conceptual problem, which might undermine the system of multiple matching/agreement. In order to overcome the problem, we suggest two alternatives, each with its own shortcomings, however. One is to assume that deleted features are literally deleted, that is, they are invisible to the operations of narrow syntax. The other is to assume that all deletion operations take place at once at the strong phase, at which point the phase is transmitted to the phonological component. Since the main purpose of this squib is simply to show that Chomsky`s (1999) assumption regarding the Case checking of PRT may bring about a subtle conceptual problem, however, the squib will not attempt to make a decision between these alternatives.

Park Sung-Hyuk. 1996. On the Meaning of "minimization" in the Minimalist Program. Studies in Modern Grammatical Theories 9: 57-76. In the minimalist program (MP) of Chomsky (1993; 1995a; 1995b; 1996), it is assumed that a particularly simple design for language would take the two interface levels, PF and LF, to be the only levels, since only these two interface levels seem to be conceptually necessary. Under minimalist assumptions, the linguistic expressions are the optimal realizations of the interface conditions, where "optimality" is determined by the economy conditions of UG. Then, the minimalist program can be defined as a programmatic approach to language study that takes a linguistic expression to be nothing other than a formal object that satisfies the interface conditions in the optimal way. The most remarkable property of the MP is its explicit commitment to explanation through the distinctive method of minimization. Its ultimate goal, which is to reduce grammatical constructs to bare essentials, is claimed to be reached through the following minimizations, among others: (a) minimization of representations and levels of representations and (b) minimization of computational operations and procedure, which further leads to the minimization of computational complexity. Therefore, minimization means economization and optimization. However, minimization may not be interpreted as minimizing to zero (or null) but as minimizing to bare essentials, whose justification is based on conceptual necessity.