Labeling Without Labels (published)

Collins, Chris and T. Daniel Seely. 2026. Labeling without Labels. In Kleanthes K. Grohmann and Evelina Leivada (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Minimalism, 168-178. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Labeling Without Labels

Abstract:

We argue in this vignette that Chomsky’s 2013, 2015 Problems of Projection (PoP) is entirely consistent with the label-free syntax initiated by Collins 2002, and further explored in Seely 2006, in deriving the effects of labels from independently motivated principles. Although PoP refers to labels and a ‘labeling algorithm’, in fact, there are no labels in Chomsky’s framework. Rather, PoP offers a novel, and elegantly simple, answer to the question of how the effects of labels can be derived without appeal to any special (and stipulative) label-projection mechanism. With respect to categorial identification of a syntactic object at the interfaces, label information in PoP is provided by (i) irreducible features of lexical items, and (ii) 3rd factor, hence freely available, Minimal Search. Merge, the most fundamental operation of the narrow syntax, is thereby simplified by eliminating the label-projection component, allowing just binary set formation: Merge(X, Y) = {X, Y}.

Keywords: 

labels, labeling algorithm, label-free syntax, minimal search, simplest Merge, 3rd factor, interfaces, Strong Minimalist Thesis