The Syntax of MEAN

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the hitherto unnoticed issue of what syntactic categories mean may take as complements, analyzing the syntactic structure of sentences like What do you mean that I’m a liar? from the minimalist perspective. On the basis of the intuition that what starts out as the object of mean, I consider the mechanism of Case-licensing of wh-arguments. Noticing that under the current minimalist framework, object shift to SpecvP and vP-adjunction result in exactly the same configuration with respect to chain length, I consider how Case-licensing of wh-arguments in the complement clause of mean circumvent improper movement characterized in terms of the traditional A/A-distinction. I also discuss the Doubly Filled COMP Filter and the Superiority Condition in relation to the syntax of mean, both of which are shown to be consistent with the proposed analysis.