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enclisis (English, French, Occitan, Sardinian). Let us simply assume that in those languages a
controlled infinitive has the following essential structure:
(43) [ CP C o [ AGRP PRO [ AGR' AGR o ] ] ]
PRO is not governed by AGR o : in English, French and Occitan, simply because AGR o is
not filled and therefore is not intrinsically able to govern. For any language, however, there is a
major reason: AGR o is not structurally able to govern PRO, because, we assumed, heads do not
govern specifiers. If, however, C o is filled with an intrinsically possible governor (such as 'if'),
then PRO is governed and there is a conflict with the PRO-theorem. So we adhere to Kayne's
(1991) initial idea that the impossibility of 'if-infinitives in some languages is due to an illicitly
governed PRO.
In languages having enclisis, however, the structure is the following (where NOM is the
nominal head of infinitives, as we proposed above):
(44) [ NOM o AGR o i ] [ AGRP [ PRO PRO o ] [ AGR' ti ] ]
where AGR o has moved to the next head.
We assumed that in this structure PRO o is able to adjoin to NOM o . Therefore:
a) Since AGR o is merged in the same head as PRO, it becomes rich in (control-provided)
features. Thus it is the AGR-identifier, and can assign Nominative directly to the I-subject, in
accordance with the principles we postulated in Chapter 3:
(45) AGR o can optionally assign Nominative Case to Spec of AGR by agreement or to some
other position under government.
(46) The I-subject must receive Case from its AGR-identifier.
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