No Final Rule: A Structural Argument from Recursive Constraint Failure

This paper advances a structural argument against selection-based accounts of semantic determination. Extending work on the underdetermination of rule selection, it argues that no hierarchical selection structure yields a uniquely privileged outcome. Attempts to resolve indeterminacy via higher-order constraints reproduce the same problem at every level of abstraction. For any level—rules, constraints, or meta-constraints—introducing a higher-order selector reinstates structurally analogous underdetermination. Consequently, no finite level in the hierarchy functions as a terminating explanatory point. The result is a non-terminating regress inherent to selection architectures, constituting a structural impossibility claim about hierarchical semantic determination.