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

(17) CLLD elements:
a. (A) un/algun malalt el visiten tots els metges
(To) a /some patient him-visit all the doctors
'A/some patient is visited by all the doctors'
b. Molts/la majoria de llibres els llegeix tothom
Many /most books them-reads everybody
'Many/most books are read by everybody'
So the quantification test for preverbal subjects gives no clear-cut result because
quantification is not a trivially unitary concept in natural language. A minimal characterization of
the facts could be the following:
- some indefinite DPs (bare NPs, non-D-linked non-referential existential quantifiers -
such as 'few'- and some negative quantifiers not having the [+human] feature - e.g. 'nothing' ) are
not possible as preverbal subjects, in the same way as they are not as CLLD elements.
- other quantifiers (negative elements, universal quantifiers) are possible preverbal
subjects or CLLD elements, but they always have wide scope.
Given this state of affairs, an obvious possibility is to assume that:
- preverbal subjects in NSLs are dislocated elements resumed by a pro (as CLLD
elements are resumed by a (definite) clitic).
quantifiers).
- only 'weak' quantifiers can be dislocated (this is less evident for universal and negative
We will see that this hypothesis can not be maintained. Thus far we have not considered
an additional criterion that can distinguish dislocated elements from elements in Spec of AGR:
word order. If we assume that:
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