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

- null expletive-inverted subject CHAINS (Italian: pro ha telefonato Gianni 'pro has
telephoned Gianni').
The third type seems to be restricted to NSLs. A theory about CHAINS has to be able to
predict why these (and only these) are well-formed expletive CHAINS.
Concerning expletive-indefinite CHAINS, let us consider Belletti's (1988) theory of
Partitive Case. According to Belletti, the indefinite DP receives Partitive Case, which is an
inherent Case.
It predicts, on the basis of the assumption that Partitive is an inherent Case, and that
inherent Case is always assigned to an Argument by a head that θ-marks it, that indefinite DP's in
these constructions are restricted to θ-positions, (see 0.a)), and specifically to θ-positions which
are θ-marked by the verb which assigns partitive (see 0.b)):
(20) a. * There seem men to have come
b. * There were considered men intelligent
In fact, Belletti's theory should be qualified in order to deal with certain types of Small
Clause subjects. Specifically, Small Clauses which are complements of causative verbs allow
Partitive subjects (examples from Catalan):
(21) a. No deixeu [ SC llibres oberts ]
Not leave books open
'Don't leave (any) books open'
b. Aquesta política manté [ SC gent en atur ]
This policy keeps people in unemployment
'This policy keeps some people unemployed' 20
20 The English glosses might be misleading because English
bare NPs can be both indefinite and generic. Catalan bare NPs
are only indefinite.
1