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

) Hence (headless) PRO in Spec of AGR will not have Case, and its Binding domain
will not be definable, according to our definition, which makes reference to a Case position.
Therefore it is immaterial whether it is governed or not as far as the PRO-theorem is concerned
(in 0 it would be governed by [ NOM o AGR o ]). In the present account, then, PRO can escape BT
either by not being governed or by not having a Case position.
c) PRO o , on the other hand, once adjoined to a head, is not in an A-position and is not
subject to BT. 124
d) (headless) PRO in Spec of AGR is coindexed with AGR o (by Spec-head agreement)
and AGR o is coindexed with the I-subject (by the very same reason it is in finite sentences). Then
PRO A-binds the I-subject, with the result that the latter cannot be an R-expression (in the
following example, the infinitive is dislocated, so that the reason for the BT-3rd Principle
violation cannot be binding by the main subject):
(47) a. Fer això ell/*en Joan, no ho desitja pas
To-do this he/ the J. not it-wishes at-all
'To do this himself/*John, he does not wish'
b. [ Fer [ IP [ PRO t ]i [ VP [ VP això ] elli/*en Joani ] ]
The Case position for the I-subject is the I-subject itself, thus the Binding Domain for the
I-subject excludes PRO, and the I-subject can be (and has to be) a pronominal.
124 If this idea is correct, then it could have far-reaching
consequences for other cases of head-movement of a pronominal
(thanks to Carme Picallo for pointing this out to me): if, for
instance, clitics are analyzed as DP heads adjoining to some FC,
then, by the same logic of our reasoning about PRO o , no Binding
Principle would apply to clitics, contrary to fact. On the one
hand, however, it is not clear that clitic attachment is the
output of head movement from the A-position. On the other hand,
the Binding Theoretical properties of clitics are an obscure
area at least in the case of reflexives (reflexive clitics often
become passivizer or unaccusativizer morphemes across
languages).
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