Intervention as gluttony

Jessica Coon (McGill) & Stefan Keine (USC)This talk develops a generalized theory of intervention effects in terms of what we call “feature gluttony.” Feature gluttony results if a single probe agrees with more than one DP. This arises in configurations in which a lower DP is more specific than a higher DP relative to the specification of the probe. While such Agree is not itself fatal, it can give rise to irresolvably conflicting requirements for subsequent operations, leading to ineffability. We apply this account to intervention effects in three domains:

  • A-domain: PCC effects
  • A’-domain: focus-intervention effects
  • interactions between A- and A’-domain: Mayan extraction asymmetries

Handout