Earliness Principle - Lear

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(i) a. As for the dictionary, Sue barely relied on it.
b. ?As for the dictionary, Sue relied barely on it.
c. *As for the dictionary, Sue relied on it barely.
d. *Sue’s reliance barely on it surprised us.
(ii)a. John scarcely glanced at the students.
b. ?John glanced scarcely a´t
the students.
c. *John glanced at the students scarcely.
d. *John’s glance scarcely a´t
the students surprised us.
(iii)a. It was easy to get their attention. John simply sho´ted u
to them, and they came.
b. ?It was easy to get their attention. John sho´ted u simply
to them, and they came.
c. It was easy to get their attention. John sho´ted u to them
simply, and they came.
d. *John’s shout simply to them did the job.
(iv)a. Comprendre a` peine l’italien apr`s e cinq ans d’´tude e d´note e
un manque de don pour les langues.
b. Oublier presque son nom c¸a n’arrive pas fr´quemment.
e
(Pollock 1988)
(V. Deprez (personal communication) notes, however, that even in French there are certain
difficulties with examples like (iv)a-b: in certain cases the adverb is actually modifying the direct
object; in others, verb class appears to make a difference (e.g. parler ________________ presque fran c ¸ ais ___
vs.
??rencontrer ____________________
presque Marie).)
21. These occasionally receive one or two question marks in the literature (for example, from
Andrews (1983)), but I have not found any objection to them among informants.
22. This observation puts one in mind of Chomsky’s identification of µ with object agreement
(AGR-O), and his suggestion that AGR-O is somehow implicated in objective Case assignment, but
I do not see how to connect the two facts, and in any case the discussion below argues against
identifying µ with a morpheme of this sort.
23. Inter alia, this shows that the restrictions on movement to English INFL cannot be reduced to
restrictions on movement to µ, as claimed by P ollock.
24. Here I commit a gross oversimplification of Chomsky’s approach. The theory of verb
movement in Chomsky (1989) is actually a sustained argument that the HMC is only a partially
correct generalization, and that those cases that seem correct follow from the ECP. In section 3.3 I
deal directly with Chomsky’s actual claims.
25. There is a certain parallel with Safir’s (1982) claim that expletive elements may be exempt
from the ECP of Chomsky (1981).
26. Another argument can be constructed on the basis of subject-oriented adverb interpretation.
Assume an subject-oriented adverb takes as an argument the highest A-position in the clause to