Disentangling notions of specifier impenetrability. In The mathematics of language

Abstract. In this paper we investigate the weak generative capacity of minimalist grammars with late adjunction. We show that by viewing the Specifier Island Condition as the union of three separate constraints, we obtain a more nuanced perspective on previous results on constraint interaction in minimalist grammars, as well as the beginning of a map of the interaction between late adjunction and movement constraints. Our main result is that minimalist grammars with the SpIC on movement generated specifiers only and with the Shortest Move Constraint, in conjunction with late adjunction, can define languages whose intersection with an appropriate regular language is not semilinear.