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

Then in NSLs taking the unmarked option, T o 's assigning Case by itself to the I-subject is
the same option as combined assignment by AGR o and T o by Chain-government. In non-NSLs,
instead, this is not true, for, in finite sentences, the AGR-identifier in Spec of AGR cannot
combine with T o to provide it with case: instead, we have contended, it has to be Case-marked by
AGR under agreement and then transmit its Case to the I-subject. 143
There remain some problems: why does Sardinian allow complement infinitives not to be
controlled when a preposition precedes them (see 0)? No similar blocking effect occurs in other
languages having prepositional controlled infinitives. On the other hand Sardinian apparently
contradicts our claim that lexical control is a strong and pervasive requirement that applies
whenever possible. Sardinian, as we saw, is exceptional in another sense: in many cases of IOS,
if we take out the overt subject, the subject reference shifts to control or the PROArb interpretation
can appear when there is no possible controller. Sardinian prepositional infinitives, however, take
the arbitrary-existential interpretation steadily (see 0). 144 Although it is clear what the speaker
has internalized as a pattern (no preposition -> control/preposition -> no control), it is not clear
how this pattern can have been developed.
would be:
In the unmarked case, the I-subject in infinitives is Casemarked
with the same option as in finite clauses, the
options being: a) (Chain-)government; b) Agreement.
The trans-derivational and trans-structural character of
this formulation does not change w.r.t. 0. I leave the question
open.
143 What we call parallelism principles should perhaps be
called parameters in that they allow for variation. However, I
do not know of any non-NSLs taking the marked option (i.e.,
having Nominative assignment under government in infinitives) If
there is none, this asymmetry should obviously be captured. In
any case that is why I prefer to keep to the term 'principle':
as a parameter, it should have the two options freely available.
144 Thus the Sardinian cases of IOS-INV we are considering do
not behave like complements of ECM verbs such as English expect,
which shift to control when the infinitival subject is null.
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