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

when one wants to refer to somebody the other person does not know, one minimally introduces
a descriptive restriction for the quantifier (e.g., 'a friend of mine', 'some guy I met the other day',
etc.).
So, the conclusion seems to be that:
- 'Strong' [-human] quantifiers cannot be preverbal (unless moved by Focus fronting).
- 'Strong' [+human] quantifiers can be preverbal but they have to be adjacent to the verb,
which suggests they are in Spec of AGR. They involve a resumptive clitic strategy if they are
not subjects. If subjects, they would be resumed by pro.
- 'Weak' (D-linked or 'referential') quantifiers can be dislocated.
What is of our present concern is that there is a preverbal Specifier position (we assume
for the moment it is Spec of AGR) that can be filled by [+human] strong quantifiers being
resumed by a minimal (clitic or pro) pronoun. So our previous speculation that all preverbal
subjects are all dislocated is false, but now we conclude their position is not one specific to
subjects. 157
Another fact which is worth considering is that the acceptable preverbal quantified
elements having the V-adjacency requirement (examples from e. to g. above) are clause-bound:
if they appear in the upper clause they are unacceptable approximately to the same degree as if
they are not adjacent (the following examples are identical to examples from 0.e) to g., except
that instead of an intervening XP we have a superordinate clause segment crec que 'I think that'):
157 In fact, if that position exists, nothing prevents nonquantified
preverbal subjects from being there, unless we
assumed it is an exclusively quantifier position. We will
address this issue in the next section.
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