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

(69) Greek:
a. O KóstasNom íne [ SC tNom o kalíteros ipopsífiosNom ]
Kostas is the best candidate
b. Theorí [ SC ton KóstaAcc ton kalítero ipopsífioAcc ]
German:
He-considers Kostas the best candidate
c. Dein BruderoNom ist [ SC tNom ein guter MenschNom ]
Your brother is a good person
d. Ich finde [ SC deinen BruderAcc einen guten MenschAcc ]
I find your brother a good person
Suppose that, somehow, a Small Clause inherits its Case from its subject: then the source
for Case for the Small Clause in the copulative constructions under consideration is the same as
that of its subject, namely Spec of AGR in non-NSLs and the I-subject itself in NSLs. Therefore,
the Binding Domains will be, respectively, AGRP and TP. If it is AGRP (in non-NSLs), the
Small Clause is bound by the preverbal subject inside the Binding Domain and is, therefore,
anaphoric. In NSLs, on the other hand, the Small Clause will be pronominal, because there is no
binder inside TP.
Although the preceding analysis is far from crystal-clear (we need some specific
stipulations about the nature of these constructions) I think something of what we assumed must
be on the right track: the contrast 0/0 looks significant: the judgements about the examples are
steady, in spite of the fact that they are unlikely candidates to having been learned as
idiosyncratic facts, because of the unusual character of the sentences. In fact, in Romance these
constructions are not as usual as in English. So some speakers react with a certain reluctance to
them. But when they are asked to confront them with the ones having the wrong element (i.e., the
reflexive in a NSL), their judgements are sharp. This is a further argument for the poverty of
1