The Y-model (derivational version) - Chomsky

The Y-model (derivational) 1st step

• Lexicon
• The syntactic derivation begins at the lexicon.
• Lexical ítems are inserted by means of the operation merge.

The Y-model (derivational) 2nd step

• Merge
• Operation that inserts lexical items.
• It substitutes the operation lexical insertion.
• The objects that are merged can be either:
• 2 lexical items
• 1 lexical item & the constituent that has been so far constructed by the syntactic derivation

The Y-model (derivational) 3rd step

• Move
• This is the old operation move-α
• The operations merge & move apply cyclically until lexical ítems that are to form part of the sentence are in the syntactic derivation.

The Y-model (derivational) 4th step

• Split
• Once they are all in the syntactic derivation & no formal condition has yet to be met, the derivation splits up into 2 linguistic representations:
• - PF: legible by the S-M system
• - LF: legible by the C-I system

The Y-model (derivational) 5th step

• Transfer
• This operation transfers PF & LF to the external systems, S-M & C-I respectively, so that they can be interpreted: either articulated in speech sounds or semantically interpreted, respectively.

The Y-model (derivational)

• This derivational model does not acccount for cyclicity phenomena.
• Therefore, the model has evoveld to a cyclic model knosn as Phase Tehory.
• This step is the end of the Y-model because the syntactic derivation now proceeds by phases, i.e. by chunks which once they have been closed, they are transferred to PF & LF at different times or at the same time, and the derivation goes on until no lexical item to be inserted in the sentence is left.