Elementary Operations and Optimal Derivations

Part 1 A minimalist view of language design: a general outlook; the generative procedure; bare phrase structure; functional categories; computational principles; economy principles. Part 2 Shortest derivation and timing effects: elementary operations - a proposal; strict cyclicity - past and present; deriving procrastinate; summary. Appendix - expletives and multiple-subject constructions. Part 3 Legitimate steps and movement phenomena: deriving relativized minimality; deriving the superiority condition; summary. Appendix - scrambling and unbound traces. Part 4 Chain formation and degrees of deviance: degrees of deviance - a problem; LF objects and the chain formation algorithm; the chain formation condition - a proposal; further consequences; summary.