Neither Unified Nor Free:

This paper examines the validity of the two claims advocated in Chomsky (2014) and address some inconsistencies in these claims. One claim concerns the proposed unification of the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) and the Empty Category Principle (ECP) under the labeling theory Chomsky advances in the paper. This paper shows that the EPP and the ECP are not in fact given a unified account under labeling theory as proposed but rather they are still approached by the two independent principles, i.e. the EPP by labeling and the ECP by the Phase Impenetrability Condition. The other claim that this paper investigates is on the proposal that the operation Merge can apply freely in relation to other operations in the syntax. This paper shows that at least in certain cases, the timing of the application of Merge cannot be free but should instead be constrained, especially in relation to the operation of Labeling Algorithm.