Distinctness reconsidered: conceptual and empirical issues in Turkish

This study examines the Distinctness Principle, proposed to account for constraints on the co-occurrence of identical elements in syntax, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. First introduced by Richards (2010) within the framework of Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA), the principle states that a pair ⟨X, Y⟩ encoded in the linearization algorithm can be interpreted only if X and Y are distinct. While the principle has been widely accepted in the literature and explored cross-linguistically with respect to features such as case, animacy, and gender, its conceptual and empirical foundations remain underexamined. This study aims to critically assess the applicability of the Distinctness principle in Turkish and to evaluate whether it reflects a general syntactic mechanism.