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

In the case of raising and ECM, since they are marked options, no problem of necessity
(but rather one of mere availability) arises: these structures are allowed, not required, by UG, and
will only exist if some lexical idiosyncratic (pattern of) specification(s) is learned (I think ECM
and raising pose no problem for being learned on positive evidence). Since raising or ECM
always involve infinitival complements (not, for instance, adjuncts), if raising or ECM
configurations are not used in a language, then lexical control takes over (e.g., 'believe' is a
control verb in languages not having ECM 141 ) or the construction simply does not exist.
So the existence of AGR in complement infinitives is always forced to be present by
control or simply allowed, to give raising/ECM structures. In some adjunct infinitives, however,
neither lexical control nor raising is a possible option. Therefore, there is in principle no
necessity by which the infinitive should have AGR. PROArb or dative control is still an available
option in most cases, but not always a necessary one, in that it is not subject to fixed lexico-
semantic control requirements. Therefore, absence of AGR would give the result that no
principle of licensing concerning AGR applies.
If this is the situation, the prospects are not highly promising yet within the present
theory: we are in the middle of nowhere, for we have given up the key element we had recourse
to in order to account for distribution of subjects: AGR. It would be little interesting to simply
propose independent constraints that apply to subjects when there is not AGR, especially
because the distribution of I-subjects in the above cases is obviously reminiscent of the one in
finite, control and raising/ECM cases: I-subjects are strictly [-anaphoric].
Therefore, the optimal theory should try to characterize what is the minimal common
factor between control/raising/ECM infinitives and IOS. In more technical words, if the
preceding considerations are on the right track, we should determine what is common between
AGR-ful and an AGR-less infinitives that bears on I-subject distribution. And in addition we
the EC and economy. I leave the question open.
141 English verbs allowing both control and ECM (e.g. expect)
would have [___ IP ] only as an optional subcategorization
idiosyncrasy.
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