Right roof constraint

Definition
Right Roof Constraint is a condition on rightward movement first formulated by Ross (1967:185):

(i) In all rules whose structural index is of the form ... A Y, and whose structural change specifies that A is to be adjoined to the right of Y, A must command Y.

This condition captures the fact that rightward movement is upward bounded, as the following contrast (adapted from Ross 1967:166) shows. The PP cannot leave its clause:

(ii)  [That [a review ti] came out yesterday [of this article]i] is catastrophic (iii) *[That [a review ti] came out yesterday] is catastrophic [of this article]i

The notion of 'command' in (i) is not as strict as c-command : it goes up to the first S. The name - Right Roof Constraint - is due to Soames &amp; Perlmutter (1979).

Links

 * Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics