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

ecause control would be a universally available grammatical option, which 'tries to apply'
whenever possible. This idea could be related to the Elsewhere Condition, which essentially
states that regular processes apply automatically unless they are blocked by the existence of more
specific/irregular processes (e.g., in morphology, a regular verbal form is used unless an irregular
form exists).
Suppose control is a universal option, in fact the most 'regular' one possible for
infinitives, and applies whenever possible, unless a more specific/idiosyncratic option exists (for
instance, an idiosyncratic subcategorization specification for 'believe' ([__IP]) in English). Then
the existence of AGR in lexical control structures is forced by the obligatory application of
control: control involves PRO; PRO can only appear in Spec of AGR; 139 an element in Spec of
AGR has only two options to be licenced, in accordance with our previous assumptions: either it
becomes an AGR-identifier or it is resumed by an independently Case-marked I-subject (see next
chapter). Putting aside the second option, the conjunction of the above assumptions gives the
result that AGR has to be present in control structures. 140
139 It is far from obvious that theories being as rich in
structural positions as the Split-INFL hypothesis, or Larson's
(1988) VP-shell theory, can manage to confine PRO to Spec of
AGR. Two solutions come to mind: a) PRO (or PRO o ) is inherently
an AGR-identifier; b) PRO can appear in other positions, but
then it is not available for control.
140 It is not obvious that the Elsewhere Condition, which has
been used in phonology and morphology, should be relevant for
syntax. I think it is at variance with Chomsky's (1988)
implementation of the idea of economy of derivation, in that he
explicitly states that regular/universal options take preference
over irregular/idiosyncratic options. In fact Chomsky's proposal
is intended to deal with subtle, theory internal problems, while
the EC could be argued to be relevant for syntax in more obvious
cases (e.g., if a language has object agreement morphology, it
has to use it, and give up what is likely to be the more
universal option of not using it). In addition, the idea of
economy need not be tied to Chomsky's universal-over-particular
constraint. For instance, Roberts (1991-a) uses a notion of
economy based on the length of derivations.
Since, however, Chomsky is concerned with the economy of
derivations in a very subtle sense, it could turn out not to be
at variance with the Elsewhere Condition if some subtle
distinction could be made between the field of application of
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