The notion of “subject” and CED under Symmetrizing Syntax

Abstract This chapter aims at providing a minimal characterization of the notion of “subject,” building primarily on Narita and Fukui’s (2022) notion of Generalized Predication (GP). We will argue that subjecthood is not due to some specific categorial feature or its X-bar-theoretic projections, but primarily an interface phenomenon that arises as a result of GP, whose application is driven by the structural symmetry (exocentricity) of {XP, YP}-structures ( Section 2 ). We will then argue that the Subject Condition effect of Huang’s (1982) Condition on Extraction Domain (CED) may be reformulated under the GP-based characterization of subjecthood and the so-called specificity condition ( Section 3 ). We will further argue that Rizzi’s (2005) and Rizzi and Shlonsky’s (2007) Subj(*)P and the associated phenomenon of Criterial Freezing, Bowers’ (1993) Pr and other predicator heads ( Den Dikken’s 2006 Relator, etc.), extraneous conditions on Merge, labeling, and phases are all eliminable in favor of a single notion of GP.