The Criterial Freezing Effect and Split A'-movement

This paper investigates the mechanism of A'-movement. Based on Italian data, Rizzi (2006) proposes that Criterial Freezing restricts successive A'-movement which satisfies several A'-properties, while it does not prohibit the extraction out of the A'-moved phrase. However, we will show that some English data express the ban on extraction. We will present split A'-movement analysis, which claims that an A'-element can split and subphrases move to distinct landing sites in the articulated CP domain. This assumption, together with feature-based relativized minimality (Rizzi (2004)), explains extraction phenomena both in Italian and in English. Further, the notion of the fine periphery is extended to the vP domain and we will give a plausible account for wh-movement of associate DPs in there-constructions.