Maintaining the Late Merger Approach to Transparent Free Relatives: Reply to Lee (2015)

This paper explores the derivation of the so-called Transparent Free Relatives (TFRs). Its bewildering characteristics have been investigated in a number of works, but the issues of the analysis are always boiled down to whether the content kernel resides in the matrix clause and how the TFR is connected to the matrix clause. In regard to two issues, a recent analysis, the so-called Doublet Analysis, is proposed by Lee (2015) particularly in order to account for the direct interaction between the content kernel and the matrix clause. This paper aims to examine the doublet analysis with potential theoretical and empirical problems. Also, this paper attempts to defend Song and Kim’s (2015) Late Merger Approach, according to which the TFR without the content kernel is introduced into the matrix clause via late merger. Some of the problems raised by Lee (2015) against the late merger approach will be revisited and discussed with alternative options to unravel the posed problems.