This vignette argues that Chomsky’s Problems of Projection (PoP, 2013, 2015) are entirely consistent with the label-free syntax initiated by Collins 2002 and further explored in Seely 2006, in deriving the effects of labels from independently motivated principles. Although PoP refers to labels and a “labeling algorithm,” in fact there are no labels in Chomsky’s framework. Rather, PoP offers a novel, and elegantly simple, answer to the question of how the effects of labels can be derived without appeal to any special (and stipulative) label-projection mechanism. With respect to categorial identification of a syntactic object at the interfaces, label information in PoP is provided by (i) irreducible features of lexical items and (ii) third-factor, hence freely available, Minimal Search. Merge, the most fundamental operation of the narrow syntax, is thereby simplified by eliminating the label-projection component, allowing just binary set formation: Merge(X, Y) = {X, Y}.

This chapter rehashes some of the history of generative grammar with a special focus on the notion of headedness. In doing so, it shows how two components have been outsourced from the component of the grammar which builds hierarchical structure, i.e., Merge: linearization and projection. It describes the development of this outsourcing until Chomsky’s (2013, 2015) formulation of a labeling algorithm and some of its theoretical implications and empirical applications, drawn from the literature. The latter include EPP and ECP in English, and their absence in Italian, split topicalization in German, verb second, Japanese case markers, and the amalgamation of heads. Some outstanding issues are addressed and discussed.