Chain Condition

In genrative syntas, a chain condition is a wellformedness condition on chains, which states that every chain (a₁,...,a_n) must contain exactly one Theta-marked position and exactly one Case-marked position.

Comments

In A-chains a_n is Case-marked and an is Theta-marked, while in A'-chains the lowest variable A'-bound by the operator is Case-marked, and may either be Theta-marked, or A-bind a Theta-marked position in the chain. This condition restates the case filter (or the visibility condition) and the Theta criterion in terms of chains.

Link

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

References

• Chomsky, Noam A. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht:Foris.
• Chomsky, Noam A. 1986. Knowledge of language: its nature, origin and use. Praeger, New York.
• Chomsky, Noam A. 1986b. Barriers. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.