Abstract

Many recent studies have appealed to the idea that linguistic systems are subject to economy of structure or representation, e.g. Chomsky 1995, Rizzi 1997, Bresnan 2001. The guiding idea of economy of structure is that small structures are preferred over large ones, other things being equal. Other things being equal, projections with fewer elements are preferred over projections with more elements, and structures containing fewer projections are preferred over structures with more projections.