On dissociating adjunct island and subject island effects

Abstract

In this paper we defend non-unified approaches to subject and adjunct islands. We review syntactic and extrasyntactic approaches as well as unified and non-unified approaches to these two island effects. Since Huang (1982), these two islands have been treated as two strong island effects (i.e., extraction out of these domains is uniformly banned). This idea was inherited in some Minimalist literature (e.g, Nunes & Uriagereka 2000). However, following Stepanov (2007), much recent Minimalist literature pursues non-unified analyses wherein the two islands have distinct explanations. The opposite situation holds for recent extrasyntactic approaches, which seem to prefer a unified analysis. We argue that existing unified extrasyntactic approaches are inadequate, and that the data call for a non-unified approach involving both syntactic and extrasyntactic principles.