Labelling, Instability, and Noun Incorporation

In standard Minimalist Theory, the impetus for movement is feature strength. Strong features trigger overt movement, while weak features trigger covert movement. The equally stipulative EPP has also been implicated as a rigger for movement. Acknowledging that feature strength and the EPP are unsatisfying explanations for movement in language (Richards 2010; 2016), I investigate labelling and instability as sources of movement, as developed by Chomsky (2013) and Ott (2015). Ott argues that unlabelled structures are unstable and trigger movement. I investigate this nascent proposal in the context of noun incorporation in Northern Iroquoian languages. I show that noun incorporation is driven by instability caused by lack of a label rather than by Baker’s Morphological Visibility Condition. In addition to clarifying certain aspects of noun incorporation that are problematic for Baker’s analysis, this investigation brings us a step closer to the elimination of feature strength from Universal Grammar.