The Phase Impenetrability Condition, the Vacuous Movement Hypothesis, and that-t effects

This paper proposes a new analysis of that-t effects, which have resisted any principled minimalist account. It is shown that given the Vacuous Movement Hypothesis, that-t effects straightforwardly follow from the Phase Impenetrability Condition, an independently motivated principle in the minimalist program. The proposed analysis receives further support from the fact that it accounts for adverb effects and crosslinguistic variations with that-t effects.