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

(38) a. John's loving Mary so much is a drag
3. Summary
b. I'd prefer John hating Mary a bit
c. Roddy accepted Eleine's dirty proposals, he being a confessed debauchee.
In this Chapter we have argued that:
a) Preverbal subjects in NSLs do not have the same status as preverbal subjects in non-
NSLs. This is expected under our previous theory (which predicts only the latter to be AGR-
identifiers, while the former will be pro/pronoun resumed elements). We have seen that
preverbal subjects in NSLs are restricted for quantification and, in some of the languages
(Catalan, Spanish) their position is not restricted to subject elements.
b) The reason for the restrictions on quantification must lie on some (not accounted for)
restrictions imposed by the head. We have argued that this head, although being the host of
AGR, is not exhaustively AGR. It also contains a 'meaningful' FC, which is subject to parametric
variation (ΣP being the unmarked option taken by NSLs). Since Spec of ΣP is an appropriate
host for interrogative Wh-elements, this is the place these elements move to. Both word order
phenomena and lack of Subject-Aux inversion point to that direction.
Although our discussion is too brief to be conclusive, I think the ideas advanced are
worth exploring quite independently of the precise and intricate theoretical assumptions in the
previous chapters: in my opinion, the null hypothesis that Romance NSLs minimally differ from
English (which has often been the departing point of study for many linguistic phenomena)
should be taken more carefully, even if we aim at universal grammar.
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