I am one of the researchers in the Germany/UK-funded research-project, Locality and the argument/adjunct distinction: Structure-building vs. structure-enrichment (LASER). 

 

LASER (Locality and the argument/adjunct distinction: Structure-building vs. structure-enrichment, jointly funded by AHRC and DFG) seeks to investigate and derive cases of selective opacity, i.e. systematic variation in locality constraints on different types of syntactic dependencies, such as movement, control, and agreement. We are especially interested in how various A- and A'-dependencies interact with the argument/adjunct distinction. Among other things, we are exploring a novel path-based approach to locality which makes a crucial distinction between structure-building and structure-enrichment. 

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For more information about the project, check out these slides from a mini-course on these issues that I co-taught with Thomas McFadden at the University of Cambridge in 2019.  [PDF]. 

 

Project Team:

The LASER team is made up of three sub-projects. Each sub-project, involving a PI and research associate, will investigate one thematic or empirical aspect of selective opacity across languages.

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• Elise Newman & Robert Truswell (Edinburgh): A-bar dependencies & reconstruction effects

• Kenyon Branan & Thomas McFadden (ZAS, Berlin): A dependencies

• Sandhya Sundaresan & Hedde Zeijlstra (Göttingen): Formal algorithm of Merge & Agree 

• All members: Synthesis of sub-projects to develop a path-based algorithm of selective opacity