Resumen de The Labeling Algorithm and Kirundi Inversion Structures

Nagarajan Selvanathan

• Moro (2009) proposes that Italian inversion structures provide evidence for one of the predictions of the Labeling Algorithm (LA, Chomsky 2013, 2015). This is that in structures in which labeling is ambiguous, one of the constituents must be moved to a higher position, instantiated in Italian inversion as an intermediate focus position. However, Italian provides little independent evidence for movement to such a position and the evidence it does provide is limited to symmetrical structures containing two DPs. In this paper, I argue that Kirundi Object‐Verb‐Subject (OVS) inversion structures and transitive expletive constructions (TECs) (Ura 1996, Ndayiragije 1999) provide more direct evidence for the type of movement that Moro proposes for Italian. Because of a confluence of Kirundi idiosyncrasies, Kirundi shows unambiguously that when the external argument does not move to Spec, TP, it cannot stay in Spec, vP. Importantly, this ban on remaining in Spec, vP cannot be accounted for by appealing to relativized minimality (Rizzi 1990). Kirundi thus instantiates a key prediction of the LA.