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 argues that labeling is the key linguistically bespoke operation. I trace the recursive property of Gs to the fact that they employ labels. The chapter argues that labels are the device for taking an expression in the range of Merge and putting it into the domain of Merge. Thus labels close Merge in the domain of the lexical atoms. So closing the operation effectively delivers a recursive system of unbounded hierarchy. The chapter also critically reviews some arguments for the simplicity of Merge based on the role it is intended to play in explaining the evolution of language. I dispute this and argue that what needs explanation is something quite different: What is the source of the power to form inductive definitions? Recursion is a consequence of closure afforded by labels.