We introduce a novel locality violation and its repair in Southeastern Sierra Zapotec: an object pronoun cannot cliticize when the subject is a lexical DP. We develop an account in which pronouns and lexical DPs interact with the same probe because they share featural content. In particular, we suggest that the Person domain extends to include nonpronominal DPs, so that all nominals are specified for a feature we call [δ] (to resonate with DP), while all and only personal pronouns are specified for [π]. This account aims to unify the locality violation with the Weak Person-Case Constraint (PCC), as well as parallel constraints based on animacy, and requires a departure from Chomsky’s (2000, 2001) classical system of featural covariation (Agree). A functional head must be able to overprobe —that is, interact with more than one goal, even if its requirements appear to be met. We introduce a probe activation model for Agree in which, after applying once, the operation can apply again, subject to certain restrictions. We compare probe activation with two other systems recently proposed to account for overprobing: Deal’s (2015, 2022) “insatiable probes” and Coon and Keine’s (2021) “feature gluttony.” Neither can account for the locality pattern in Zapotec.

Relative clauses (RCs) are considered islands for extraction, yet acceptable cases of overt extraction from RCs have been attested over the years in a variety of languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Japanese, Hebrew, English, Italian, Spanish, French, and also in Lebanese Arabic and Mandarin Chinese, where covert extraction from an RC is observed. The possibility for extraction has often been presented as evidence against a syntactic theory of locality, and in favor of constraints defined in terms of information structure, or processing limitations and constraints on working memory. Another possibility, still hardly explored, is that locality is determined syntactically, combined with a more fine-grained structure for RCs and a theory of how extraction from this structure interacts with the theory of locality. I argue in favor of the latter approach. I assume the structural ambiguity of RCs and argue that while externally headed RCs do block extraction, extraction is possible, under certain conditions, from a raising RC, and is formally similar to extraction from an embedded interrogative.

A Minimalist hypothesis about resumptive pronouns is that they should be no different from ordinary pronouns ( McCloskey 2006 ). The article substantiates this hypothesis with respect to a particular view of pronouns: pronouns are ‘‘elsewhere’’ elements. Just as the interpretation of ordinary pronouns, on this view, is determined by competition with anaphors, so the interpretation of resumptive pronouns is determined by competition with gaps. On the basis of new facts in Hebrew and systematic differences between optional and obligatory pronouns, I argue that the tail of a relative clause movement chain is realized as the least specified form available. Since their interpretive properties are fully determined by external factors, resumptive pronouns must be part of the syntactic derivation, not items merged from the (traditional) lexicon.

Lasnik (1999) has claimed that NegDPs in derived subject position cannot be interpreted in the embedded clause and do not undergo A-chain reconstruction. We show that with a well-defined set of predicates, including deontic modals and raising predicates, scope diminishment of NegDP is observed. We argue, nevertheless, that scope diminishment in these cases is not produced by A-chain reconstruction. We also show that A-chain reconstruction of the indefinite part is possible. We conclude that the claim that NegDP does not undergo reconstruction reduces to the observation that the negative ingredient cannot reconstruct, and we suggest why this should be so. If we are correct, the analysis removes an obstacle to the view that A-chains exhibit syntactic reconstruction.