Abstract Movement is the locus of power in Minimalist grammars (MGs) but also their primary source of complexity. In order to simplify future analysis of the formalism, we prove that every MG can be converted into a strongly equivalent MG where every phrase moves at most once. The translation procedure is implemented via a deterministic linear tree transduction on the derivation tree language and induces at most a linear blow-up in the size of the lexicon.
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@InProceedings{GrafEtAl16FG,
author = {Graf, Thomas and Aks\"{e}nova, Al\"{e}na and De Santo,
Aniello},
author+an = {2=sbu;3=sbu},
title = {A Single Movement Normal Form for {Minimalist} Grammars},
year = {2016},
booktitle = {{Formal} {Grammar}: 20th and 21st International
Conferences, {FG} 2015, {B}arcelona, {S}pain, {A}ugust
2015, Revised Selected Papers. {FG} 2016, {B}ozen, {I}taly,
{A}ugust 2016},
editor = {Foret, Annie and Morrill, Glyn and Muskens, Reinhard and
Osswald, Rainer and Pogodalla, Sylvain},
publisher = {Springer},
address = {Berlin, Heidelberg},
pages = {200--215},
abstract = {Movement is the locus of power in Minimalist grammars
(MGs) but also their primary source of complexity. In order
to simplify future analysis of the formalism, we prove that
every MG can be converted into a strongly equivalent MG
where every phrase moves at most once. The translation
procedure is implemented via a deterministic linear tree
transduction on the derivation tree language and induces at
most a linear blow-up in the size of the lexicon.},
isbn = "978-3-662-53042-9",
doi = {10.1007/978-3-662-53042-9_12},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53042-9_12}
}