This study investigates the types of movement and movement-like relations that link positions in syntactic structure. David Pesetsky argues that there are three such relations. Besides overt phasal movement, there are two distinct types of movement without phonological effect: covert phrasal movement and feature movement. Focusing on wh-questions, he shows how his classification of movement-like relations allows us to understand the story behind wh-questions in which an otherwise inviolable property of movement—"Attract Closest"—appears to be violated.
The analysis and theory developed in Zero Syntax is an important contribution to the understanding of Universal Grammar. The overriding theme is the notion that the availability and syntactic positioning of arguments is not a matter of chance but arises from laws governing the structure of lexical entries and from laws governing syntactic structures themselves. Along the way, Zero Syntax also examines issues of broad significance to current theoretical linguistic research in syntax and lexical semantics.
