1 A NEW LOOK AT SUBJECT ISLANDS: THE PHASEHOOD OF DEFINITENESS 1 Ángel Jiménez-Fernández University of Seville (ajimfer@us.es) Abstract: In this work I discuss the phasal status of Determiner Phrases (DPs) and propose that certain subject-island effects such as subextraction are best understood when interface- related features such as Definiteness/Specificity are taken into consideration. Utilizing Chomsky’s (2008) notion of phases, I claim that subextraction out of subjects is licensed if the relevant DP is not a phase. A DP subject is not a phase if it is indefinite. Building on Jiménez-Fernández (2009), I maintain that subextraction is possible not only in interrogative clauses, but also in other types of A’-movement such as focus fronting. I show that independently of the (post- or pre-verbal) position that DP subjects occupy, subextraction in A’-movement contexts is permitted if the DP subject does not contain the interface-related grammatical feature [+ def]. The phasal characterisation of subject islands is held to be a consequence of an interface effect relating to the Definiteness feature. In other words, island circumvention is crucially connected to interface conditions, not only to syntactic constraints (contrary to Gallego & Uriagereka 2007; Gallego 2011; Müller 2010). Subextraction out of a subject is illustrated with Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Greek and English data. A three- fold typological division is proposed, in which languages are classified according to the subextraction possibilities and the influence of Definiteness on this type of movement. In addition, a parallelism is established between DP phases and NP phases, which accounts for the strong influence of the [+ def] feature on the phasal characterization of nominal constructions in languages with and without articles. Keywords: focus movement, subextraction, subjects, islands, phases, definiteness 1. Introduction In this work I discuss the phasal status of Determiner Phrases (DPs) and propose that certain subject-island effects -- attributed in earlier work to Huang’s (1982) Condition on Extraction Domains (CED)-- are best understood when interface-related features such as Definiteness/Specificity are taken into consideration. My aim is to explain the reasons why in some languages material can be extracted out of subject islands. As I show, in languages such as Spanish, Greek, Turkish, Polish or Italian, and even English, subject islands may be circumvented. In Spanish and Italian subextraction is tolerated provided that the Definiteness/Specificity constraint is met. The proposal that Definiteness/Specificity plays a role in the island character of subjects can be traced back to Diesing (1992); Fiengo & Higginbotham (1981); Manzini (1992, 1998); Radford (2004), Adger (2003). I claim that this constraint can be formalised in terms of the phasal properties of DPs. 2 Variation allows that in some languages the phasal status of DPs (or NPs) is determined by their definite or indefinite nature, thus languages can vary freely and hence have a range of constructions (I thank Andrew Radford for bringing out this point to me).