A phenomenon that has received much attention in the recent Minimalist literature is what Chomsky has dubbed ‘‘defective intervention’’ (Chomsky 2000). This is a phenomenon in which some head (usually finite T) seeks a matching NP to agree with or attract, but some other NP intervenes. In simple intervention cases, this other NP is itself eligible for agreement or movement. In cases of defective intervention, in contrast, the intervening NP is not itself eligible for agreement or movement, since it has already had its features checked by some other element, typically a preposition. The result is ungrammaticality: the lower NP is unable to check its features with the head, because the other NP is in the way. A small sample of the numerous publications discussing defective intervention includes McGinnis 1998, Boeckx 1999, 2008, Holmberg and Hróarsdóttir 2003, and Hartman 2012. The pattern was...

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