Dynamic antisymmetry for labeling

•Move consists of Copy and Merge, and copying a phrase makes the original inactive.•This derives the effects of the PIC on the assumption that Transfer involves Copy.•This accounts for that-trace effects and for Rizzi's (2006) criterial freezing.•This deals properly with the optionality of raising to object in ECM constructions.

The main question raised in this article is why movement of a phrase makes its copy left behind invisible for labeling. Adopting the assumption that movement consists of Copy and Merge, I propose that copying a phrase makes the original inactive in syntactic computation. I argue that this makes it possible (i) to derive the effects of the Phase-Impenetrability Condition on the assumption that Transfer involves Copy, (ii) to provide an account of that-trace effects in English, and (iii) to account for Rizzi's (2006) criterial freezing, as manifested in overt wh-movement in English. I further argue that the proposed system of labeling can be made compatible with the Agree-less approach, recently advocated by Hornstein (2009), with the assumption that feature-checking is conducted in labeling in terms of agreeing features. This brings us a nice consequence of properly dealing with the optionality of raising to object in the English ECM construction.