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Abstract

The goal of this paper is to provide an explanation for both the freezing principle and its exceptions in the framework of Chomsky (2021). In pursuit of the goal, we first review some basic assumptions about Search and Merge in Chomsky (2021), and then introduce the , a hypothesis that is proposed by Goto and Ishii (2024). It is shown that not only presses forward Chomsky’s (2013, 2015, 2021) free Merge hypothesis but also provides empirical advantages over Chomsky’s approach to Search and Merge, arguing that the freezing principle follows from Binarity. We then review Chomsky’s Form Copy analysis of A-positions and elaborate it by extending it to A’-positions, arguing that the exceptions to the freezing principle follow from Form Copy. We also discuss some consequences of the Form Copy analysis, , traditional criterial freezing effects and crosslinguistic variation with left branch extraction.

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2025-04-21
2026-07-21

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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: Minimal Search-free Merge Hypothesis ; Form Copy ; left branch extraction ; exceptions to the freezing principle ; Search ; Binarity ; traditional criterial freezing effects ; Merge ; crosslinguistic variation with left branch extraction ; the freezing principle

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