ABSTRACT
For well over three decades, some notion of the cyclic nature of transformations, and of derivations more generally, has guided theorizing about the nature of the language faculty In this chapter, I evaluate current discussions of cyclicity in terms of previously identified empirical and conceptual motivations for a syntactic cycle. In section 4.1, I give a brief history of the cycle in generative grammar, showing in particular that the original motivation for a cycle is no longer valid under current basic assumptions. In section 4.2, I discuss the current status of the syntactic cycle under various proposals within the Minimalist Program. I demonstrate how all of the empirical motivation cited for stipulating a cyclic principle falls under other independently motivated principles and analyses, so that stipulating a cyclic principle is redundant with respect to other parts of grammar (cf. Freidin 1978). In section 4.3, I evaluate recent proposals for deriving the empirical effects of a generalized cyclic principle from other principles of grammar. I subject these proposals to a minimalist critique, showing that they are based on nonminimal assumptions. Instead, I propose that the empirical effects of a generalized cyclic principle can be derived from a theory of elementary transformational operations that is optimal from a minimalist perspective.
