Abstract:
The study of constraints on wh-movement is found throughout the development of the transformational generative grammar, from the early Government and Binding Theory to the Minimalist Program of the late 1990s and the latest Phase Theory. During the whole process, generative grammar gradually discharges its complex conditions and acquires simplicity, which is justified by the updating of constrains on wh-movement. During the period of Government and Binding Theory, there were complicated constraints on wh-movement for different wh-structures, but they all have been abandoned and replaced by one uniform phase impenetrability condition now. This is not just the simplification of constraints, more importantly, it breaks through the limitation of structure-orientation and resumes the general derivation. It is the transformation from the description of phenomena to the explanation of the nature behind. It also marks the maturity of the theory of generative grammar.