Merge Or Move

In this paper, I will propose, contrary to Chomsky (1995), that Move is selected over Merge. I will provide three arguments for my proposal: first, it guarantees strict cyclicity without any stipulation about how to check off a strong feature. Second, it excludes superraising. Finally, it derives the effect of the stipulation that subject introduced into Spec of a light verb cannot enter into any checking relation at that position. Furthermore, I will show that an existential construction is accounted for by independently motivated assumptions without resorting to Chomsky's condition selecting Merge over Move.∗.