关键词: 最简方案, 语段, 生成语法, 生物语言学

Abstract: This paper reviews phase-based theory of syntax, introduced by Chomsky in recent years. Especially we focus on proposals concerning phases put forward by Chomsky in 2005a, 2005b, 2006. Within the biolinguistic framework, interface conditions and computational efficiency are of great importance to the study of language. Chomsky claims that the computational component of the Language Faculty can only hold limited amounts of syntactic structure in its working memory at any one time, and that clause structure is built up in phases (with phases including CP and transitive vP). In order to ensure a reduction of computational burden, the derivation of expressions proceeds by phase, so that syntactic structures a re built up one phase at a time. Thus phase-based theory plays an important role in syntactic derivation. In this paper we present the theory of derivational phases and discuss the far-reaching theoretical consequences of phase-based theory on syntactic study.