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

(13) *[ X o V o ] ... [ Y o cl [ Y o t ] ]
where X o and Y o are functional heads and t is a necessary intermediate trace of V o -movement.
The reverse situation, where the clitic is in a higher functional head than V o is not excluded:
(14) [ X o cl X o ] ... [ Y o V o ]
This would be the structure for languages having the clitic preceding the infinitival verb
but not necessarily adjacent to the verb (Occitan, earlier French).
Since both V o and the clitic are heads, why is it that the clitic can move non-cyclically
(giving 0) while V o cannot (as far as 0 is not allowed)? Kayne's solution is based on the idea,
developed in Kayne (1989), that for NSLs infinitival INFL (or some of its members) is strong
enough to l-mark and void some potential barriers, 110 so that long head movement is allowed to
some extent. However, V o -movement is subject to a further constraint: it has to pick up the
affixal functional heads. This would explain the contrast 0/0: in 0 the verb has to move through
Y o to merge with this affixal head, while the clitic in 0 meets no similar requirement.
Since cyclic movement (as expressed by the HMC) is not a matter of principle, but is
rather derived (from the ECP and affixation requirements), there might be structures where V o
skips the clitic position without violating any principled requirement. Kayne argues that there is
one such structure. Suppose the clitic moves to a functional head I o , left-adjoining to it (as it has
to); suppose I o has no content, so that V o is not required to move to it to pick up any affixes;
suppose finally the verb adjoins to the I' projection, giving:
110 Specifically, in Kayne (1989) VP would be the potential
barrier that is voided by INFL o l-marking. Although Kayne (1991)
does not address the question, at least some of the 'heirs' of
INFL after the INFL splitting hypothesis should be l-marking
elements for the hypothesis in Kayne (1989) to be extendable to
the proposal in Kayne (1991).
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