Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Part I The Big Picture
- Part II Issues of Labeling
- Part III The Realm of Merge
- 13 Basic Operations
- 14 Merge, Move, and Contextuality of Syntax
- 15 Merge
- 16 Merge
- 17 Merge and the Formal Recognition of the Workspace
- 18 Copy and Move
- 19 Distinguishing Copies and Repetitions
- 20 Copy Theory and Sideward Movement
- Part IV Structural Concerns
- Part V Features and Agree(ment)
- Part VI Toward the Interfaces
- Index
- References
17 - Merge and the Formal Recognition of the Workspace
from Part III - The Realm of Merge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 October 2026
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Part I The Big Picture
- Part II Issues of Labeling
- Part III The Realm of Merge
- 13 Basic Operations
- 14 Merge, Move, and Contextuality of Syntax
- 15 Merge
- 16 Merge
- 17 Merge and the Formal Recognition of the Workspace
- 18 Copy and Move
- 19 Distinguishing Copies and Repetitions
- 20 Copy Theory and Sideward Movement
- Part IV Structural Concerns
- Part V Features and Agree(ment)
- Part VI Toward the Interfaces
- Index
- References
Summary
This vignette explores the form and function of the Workspace (WS) in recent minimalist theory. Since its introduction in Chomsky’s (1994) Bare Phrase Structure, Merge has been underspecified, particularly with respect to the elements that Merge can (and cannot) target. Consider the fact that Merge can build objects in parallel: putting together the and man, for example, and eats and apples, before forming The man eats apples. Informally speaking, we can ask “where” are these objects? Does “where” they are matter; does it play a role in the syntax? In recent work, Chomsky has sought to clarify this by introducing and using in novel ways the notion of “the workspace.” Simply put, the WS is a set of syntactic objects – lexical items and objects constructed by Merge. The WS represents at any given point of a derivation the available computational recourses. This has certain important consequences for how Merge operates, allowing the specification of a third-factor-constrained search procedure on the elements that Merge can access and a natural limit on the expansion of the WS as the derivation proceeds, with interesting empirical results.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program , pp. 286 - 297Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
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