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Partitive forces the DP receiving it to be indefinite. 22 For convenience, however, we shall adopt
the essentials of Belletti's theory in the next chapter, leaving the question open of whether it
could be reinterpreted in a different way still compatible with our theory.
In any event, if we adopt Belletti's theory together with the above proposal on CHAINS,
the account for BG does not work as it stands, since an expletive-indefinite CHAIN would
contain two Cases (Nominative and Partitive).
Another problem the above theory does not account for is subject inversion in languages
such as Italian and its absence in languages like English. If subject inversion is analyzed as
involving an expletive/Nominative CHAIN, then why are overt-expletive/inverted-subject
CHAINS not possible?
above):
A solution to both problems can be based on the following principles (which replace 0
(23) A CHAIN can not contain two structural Cases.
(24) Null expletives do not require Case, while overt ones do.
0 and 0 together allow the three only cases of expletive CHAINS which are attested:
- expletive/CP (assuming that the CP does not require -or even accept- Case): there is one
Case, which is assigned to and retained by the expletive:
(25) It strikes me that...
- expletive/indefinite: the expletive is assigned Nominative (or whatever Case is assigned
22 See Pesetsky (1982) for the contention that Partitive is
restricted to certain positions because of its quantificational
nature. See also Reuland & ter Meulen (1987) for discussion on
the semantic/formal nature of the (In)definiteness Constraint.
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