Remarks on “Pair-MERGE as Set-MERGE”: Internal Pair-MERGE of heads reconsidered

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Abstract This article points out that any reformulation of Pair-MERGE as Set-MERGE based on Zermelo-Fraenkel Set-Theory with the Axiom of Choices (ZFC) (Omune 2018; Nakashima 2022) faces both conceptual and empirical problems. First, we show that it inevitably violates the Principle of Determinacy (Chomsky 2019a, 2019b). Second, we demonstrate that the ZFC-based reformulation of Pair-MERGE as Set-MERGE does not explain the observation that a raised NEG in English licenses an NPI in its c-commanding domain. We conclude that the reformulation of Pair-MERGE based on ZFC is untenable and the current minimalist model which adopts the system of MERGE (Chomsky 2019a, 2019b; a.o.) must assume Pair-MERGE, or possibly Form Sequence (Chomsky 2021) as an independent operation apart from Set-MERGE.