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

infinitives. 113 This generalization could hardly be a matter of accident and, even if it was, it
would pose a problem for learnability as far as, for languages not having 'if'-infinitives, the
learner would need negative evidence in order not to generalize Wh-interrogative infinitives to
'if'-infinitives on the basis of finite clauses, where both Wh- and 'if'-interrogatives are possible.
- It sets a plausible basis for reducing control to BT, a desirable result in view of the
hitherto poorly understood phenomenon of control.
- it accounts for (the possibility of) enclisis in a highly principled way, on the basis of the
ECP and affixation constraints in V-raising, as well as morphological-headedness constraints on
clitic attachment.
However, Kayne's proposal is far from crystal-clear in many respects, which we will
consider in turn.
One question Kayne's proposal raises concerns his crucial claim that V o adjoins to I'.
There are two possible problems with this proposal. One is whether adjunction of X o to Y' should
be allowed at all. The other problem is that Kayne's analysis of proclisis vs. enclisis analyses the
former as having the clitic more closely attached to the (functional head containing the) verb than
the latter. There is some evidence pointing to the opposite way (see Benincà & Cinque (1990)).
Since, however, these two possible objections are extrinsic or peripheral to Kayne's discussion,
we will not pursue them here. We will concentrate on intrinsic problems Kayne's theory cannot
escape facing.
There is a problem that is essentially connected to Kayne's proposal, although he does
not explicitly address it. Kayne seems to tacitly assume that the only means of having PRO
governed inside IP in structures like 0/0 is having the governing head adjoined to I'. Let us see
why this tacit assumption is necessary. Kayne analyses Sardinian as a language having infinitival
V-raising to T o (= I o in 0), i.e., to the functional head the clitic is attached to. Since this language
does not allow 'if'-infinitives, we must imply that V in I o cannot govern PRO while V adjoined to
113 Portuguese is a potential problem for the empirical
generalization, as we will see above.
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