Linear Order and Constituency

In this article I present a series of arguments that syntactic structures are built incrementally, in a strict left-to-right order. By assuming incremental structure building it becomes possible to explain the differences between the range of constituents available to different diagnostics of constituency, including movement, ellipsis, coordination, scope and binding. In an incremental derivation structure building creates new constituents, and in doing so may destroy existing constituents. The article presents detailed evidence for the prediction of incremental grammar, that a syntactic process may refer to only those constituents that are present at the point in the derivation when the process applies.