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

positions inside the (strict) NP. In order to preserve Chomsky's results, there is an obvious
solution: we define CFC as the minimal constituent containing all the θ-positions of a predicate
plus the A-specifiers of the FCs locally dominating it. If the specifier of the highest IP (or the
genitive specifier of DP) are A-positions, then the definition will give CFCs which coincide in
essence with Chomsky's and Kayne's proposal: the highest IP for clauses and DP for nominals. This simple
(which allows Spec of CP to be an A-position under certain conditions) could be problematic. I
will not speculate further on these ramifications.
Crucial for the present thesis is, however, the fact that we postulate that, at least in the set
of NSLs considered, I-subjects (which are the most prominent θ-positions in a clause) do not
form an A-Chain with Spec of IP, then there is no plausible motivation for extending the CFC
from VP max to IP. In fact, our definition of Binding Domain basically restricts the candidates by
requiring them to be functional categories:
(23) A is Binding Domain for B iff A is the minimal FC containing B, a governor of B and
the Case position from which B obtains Case.
In all hypotheses about FC structure which simultaneously assume the internal subject
hypothesis, FCs (as the various members of IP or DP) form a 'shell' around the predicative lexical
categories (resp. VP Max and NP). Therefore requiring the Binding Domain to be a FC amounts to
ensuring that a Binding Domain will always contain the whole CFC (if the latter is defined on the
basis of θ-positions only).
There is another problem Kayne himself points out: if enclisis is the manifestation of
close adjacency between V and the clitic without both forming a constituent, then the prediction
is that V-cl cannot move as such. Since AUX-to-COMP (as characterized in Rizzi's work) has
enclisis on the AUX, this could only follow from the accidental fact that the clitic happens to
(left) adjoin to C o and the AUX adjoins to C'. Although not an impossible accident, it is rather
suspicious that enclisis is preserved in AUX-to-COMP.
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