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

Now, suppose we make the following assumption: A CP is not a possible predicate of a
fully referential DP. So, when the predicate in a Small Clause is a full CP, its subject has no
option but being a quasi-Argument. However ad hoc this idea may be, it seems unproblematic. 60
I think there is a possible empirical argument for the existence of the quasi-Argument. It
is the same kind of argument that Chomsky (1981) uses to motivate the existence of quasi-
Arguments. The idea is that they can control and thus licence a PRO which otherwise would be
illicit:
(29) a. It is cloudy without PRO actually raining
b. *I took the umbrella without PRO actually raining
The following example shows a similar pair where the controllee would be the quasi-
Argument of semblar-2, and the controller the quasi-Argument of plou 'it rains': 61
60 Basque seems to challenge this assumption as it allows
sentences as:
Jonek dirudi bere anaia berriro gaixo dagoela
J. seems his brother again ill is-that
'Jon looks as if his brother is ill again'
Perhaps this is due to the adverbial nature of embedded CPs
in Basque (the -ela 'that' complementizer is plausibly an
adverbial suffix). Taking the English translation as an example,
the 'as if IP' complement allows a full DP as well as a quasi-
Argument ('John/it looks as if his brother is ill again'). This,
too, would be due to the adverbial nature of the 'as if'
complement. So it would be non-adverbial CPs which exclusively
allow quasi-Arguments as subjects of predication.
61 As far as in the English translation of (0.a) 'to seem' is
used, our claim that semblar-2 corresponds to 'to look/sound,
etc.' is weakened. Perhaps English 'to seem' is ambiguous as
well.
In (0.a) the facts are a bit obscured by the simultaneous
presence of a infinitival PRO in the semblar clause (which we
claim is a controlled quasi-Argument) and another quasi-Argument
of 'to rain' in the finite clause embedded under semblar. The
following example avoids this situation, and is certainly a bit
marginal:
(i) ?Plou sense semblar que hi hagi núvols.
This could be due to a certain lack of identity between the
two quasi-Arguments. Consider:
1