Jaume Solà i Pujols - Departament de Filologia Catalana ...

other verbs we will consider below) are the only verbs with no apparent I-subject. So it seems
reasonable not to give up our hypothesis and try to find a specific explanation for the behavior of
semblar.
Suppose we assume that semblar, like weather and similar verbs, has a quasi-Argument,
which is the subject in the problematic examples. 55 At first glance, this position does not seem
tenable: if the quasi-Argument is present with semblar + CP, it would block raising in the
semblar + IP construction, since two Arguments (the quasi-Argument and the raising Argument)
would be competing to coindex with AGR and become subjects of the main clause. On the other
hand, if a theory of quasi-Arguments is to be taken seriously, we cannot assume that the quasi-
Argument is optional and does not appear in the raising construction: quasi-Arguments should be
subject to the Projection Principle and the Theta-Criterion: otherwise they would be nothing but
a theoretical artifact used for our convenience.
The solution to this puzzle that we propose is based on the following assumptions: there
are two verbs semblar, one projecting a quasi-Argument and one not projecting it, the second
one being the one allowing raising. 56 We will see that this distinction is plausible and makes the
correct predictions.
I think that the existence of two verbs semblar can be independently motivated on both
semantic and syntactic grounds. Consider the following pair in Catalan:
55 Recall that the existence of quasi-Arguments is crucial
for our account: without quasi-Arguments, all weather verbs
would be problematic.
56 Hernanz (1982) arrives at a closely similar conclusion for
the Spanish equivalent of semblar (parecer), which behaves
exactly like semblar, as far as I know. Her arguments are based
on essentially the same motivation, except that she does not
face the problem of I-subjects and Burzio's Generalization. So,
she does not consider the possibility of a quasi-Argument. Other
differences will be pointed out later.
1