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

This fact should be due to some restrictions on the distribution of emphatic elements. I'm
not able to say anything interesting about this issue, except that emphatic subjects seem to be
restricted to some positions.
Now consider Italian. In this case, it is AGR o which has to become an AGR-identifier, if
the unmarked option is taken. For the infinitival AGR o to become the AGR-identifier, it has to be
rich. As before, in raising constructions the infinitival AGR and the main AGR end up coindexed
with the same I-subject and, therefore, coindexed themselves. Suppose that, since the main AGR
is rich, the infinitival AGR o may inherit phi-features from it and become rich itself. 129 If so, it
will be the AGR-identifier and will have to assign, by the combination of principles 0 and 0,
Case to its I-subject by Chain-government, provided the infinitival verb raises.
Since our Parallelism Principle 0 induces, for NSLs like Italian or Catalan, the main
AGR o to assign Case to its I-subject, we have to assume that, in raising constructions in these
NSLs, the main and the embedded AGR are reanalyzed as an 'extended' Government-Chain,
consisting of the union of the two head Chains formed by V-movement up to AGR in both the
main and the infinitival clause. The foot of one Chain (V o 's trace of 'seem') governs the head of
the other, and in addition the two AGR o s are coindexed. So Chain extension is a very natural
129 We crucially assume that the main AGR is rich and its
coindexation with the embedded AGR makes the latter rich. When
the richness of the main AGR o is only obtained after PRO o
incorporation (see section 2.1.2. above), we might wonder
whether, since incorporation is an S-structure phenomenon, it
comes 'too late'. In fact, 'seem' verbs have a degraded status
in infinitival constructions in Catalan (and possibly other
NSLs):
(i) ??Semblar estar borratxo no t'ajudarà
To-seem to-be drunk not will-help-you
(ii) ??Vull semblar estar borratxo
I-want to-seem to-be drunk
I cannot pursue this idea here.
Coindexation between main and embedded AGR takes place in
subject controlled constructions as well, so that in this case
we predict that both PRO o incorporation and AGR coindexation
converge to the same effect.
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