ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF EMPTY CATEGORIES

The increasing importance, in the study of grammatical processes, of systems of principles äs opposed to Systems of rules in recent years is reflected on a large scale by a particular focus on properties of representations äs compared with properties of derivations. The component elements of representations are considered with regard to their 'function', i.e. their relation with the structural context, rather than äs results of derivations. However, in the current framework, certain cases of indeterminacy äs to the respective roles of derivations and representations exist that call for clarification. This is particularly striking in the case of empty categories (ECs). Assume that 'the Status of a particular occurrence of an EC . . . is functionally determined' (Chomsky 1982,34). There are two different ways, Chomsky suggests, of thinking of the functional identification: either in derivational terms, i.e., 'by inspecting the pair (D-structure, S-structure)' (Chomsky 1981,328), or in representational terms, i.e., 'in