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2.4. The Position of pro and Floating Quantifiers
In the above account, it is crucial that pro is able to occur as an I-subject, contrary to the
standard assumption that subject pro is only licenced in the Spec of INFL/AGR. In the present
account, pro-drop is in some sense an epiphenomenon: the I-subject can be null in all languages:
it will be pro in NSLs and a null anaphor in non-NSLs. So Taraldsen's (1980) original idea that
AGR morphological richness is the key to pro-drop is here expressed in some indirect way:
richness makes AGR o the AGR-identifier and this leads, through Binding Theory, to the
existence of a null pronominal as I-subject. Therefore, we cannot assume that pro is licenced in
Spec of AGR.
Rizzi has adduced two pieces of evidence in favor of the preverbal position for pro (the
argumentation is reproduced in Roberts (1989) and Roberts (1991-a)). One of them is expressed
by the following paradigm (from Italian):
(78) a. Essendo stanco, Gianni è andato via.
Being tired G. is gone away
'Being tired, Gianni went away'
b. Essendo stanco, è andato via.
Being tired is gone away
'Being tired, he went away'
c. *Essendo stanco, è andato via Gianni.
Being tired is gone away G.
'Being tired, JOHN went away'
Rizzi's argument, adapted in terminology, is as follows: the gerund subject is a PRO
which has to be controlled by a preverbal subject, which can m-command it. This is why the
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