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

(100) ser... [ SC jo el president ]
To-be I the president
Both Moro's and Longobardi's proposals essentially say that, when the predicate is a
DP, either the Argument or the predicate are allowed to raise to Spec of AGR. Plausible and
simple though this idea is, it does not immediately explain why:
- agreement takes place with the postverbal DP.
- these examples are only allowed in NSLs.
I think our theory on AGR-identifiers is well equipped to say something on the way of
an explanation for these facts. We proposed that Spec of AGR is not the AGR-identifier in NSLs.
So Spec of AGR is not required to be filled. In fact, as we will argue in Chapter 5, it appears to
be a position with much looser requirements for the DP filling it than in non-NSLs. In any event,
the fact that the predicative DP raises to it does not interfere with AGR-identification of
Nominative assignment.
In non-NSLs, raising of the predicate to Spec of AGR would not abide by the
requirements that there must be an AGR identifier and that this AGR-identifier has to transmit its
Case to the I-subject, which implies it has to form an A-Chain with it. Therefore, non-NSLs
cannot have DP-predicate raising: French lost it as soon as it became a non-NSL.
In conclusion, even if we cannot provide a precise explanation for why the predicative
DP can raise to Spec of AGR, we can explain why it cannot in some non-NSLs.
We cannot explain why, in this type of construction, the pre-verbal DP can be dropped
and the postverbal DP (which would be the I-subject) cannot:
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