Feature Percolation

Within unilevel theories of grammar like Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, there has been considerable attention paid to the development of a coherent theory of Feature Percolation. Within Government and Binding Theory, however, this matter has received less attention. In this paper, we argue that the incorporation within GBT of a simple set of principles governing Feature Percolation provides a general treatment of diverse phenomena. We concentrate on how a theory of Feature Percolation can simplify various aspects of the description of long distance reflexives in Chinese, Korean and other languages.