Phase Extension: A reply

Abstract Phase Extension is a theory of ‘domain widening” resulting from movement of the head of a phase (either an inherent phase or a derived phase that is itself the result of Phase Extension) to the next head up the tree. Phase Extension is the automatic and unavoidable result of movement of such head movement. It saves some operations that would be ungrammatical without its application, but it blocks others that would have been perfectly legitimate if no Phase Extension had taken place. In my target paper, I presented a variety of empirical domains in which Phase Extension provides an explanatory account for otherwise often quite recalcitrant data. In the following pages, I address many of the comments and questions raised by my commentators regarding some of the empirical proposals, the technical ingredients of the theory, and their conceptual underpinnings. In the closing section, I will consider Pesetsky's alternative ‘property delay’ model, and point to some areas where it makes predictions that are dierent from, and as far as I can see less accurate than, those made by the Phase Extension theory.