A Note against Feature Percolation

This paper claims that feature percolation mechanism has both conceptual and empirical problems. On the conceptual and theoretical side, the assumption that features percolate only from Spec positions turn out to be problematic in explaining pied-piping wh-movement of English in the least. On the empirical side, it is shown that feature percolation faces problems with various cross linguistic findings from both theoretical and experimental studies regarding pied-piping, sluicing with preposition stranding and subject-verb agreement mismatch in English. As an alternative approach to those phenomena, this paper proposes that multiple activation which causes confusion on the part of speakers/ comprehenders would be a key factor in explaining the data that has been dealt with under feature percolation.