A Landing Site Theory of Movement Rules

N. Chomsky's claim that transformational rules can be reduced to the single rule 'move a' ("On the Representation of Form and Function," conference paper, Royaumont, 1980) is contested. Derived constituent structures created by movement rules are analyzed & the predictive weakness of the Revised Extended Standard Theory is noted. An alternative theory - providing a solution to adverb placement, element adjunctions to categories, & the projection problem - is presented. It is argued that the theory is both compatible with the facts & capable of explaining them. Z. Dubiel