Earliness Principle - Lear

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2.1 Argument #1 for the Innertness of do: __ Conditional Inversion (C-Inv)
English, like a number of Germanic and Romance languages, shows a type of
subject-verb inversion in conditionals. The complementary distribution of Conditional Inversion
(C-Inv) and lexical if, _ seen in (15), suggests, as noted by den Besten (1983) and Holmberg (1986),
that the Conditional Inversion crucially involves COMP. Let us therefore assume, with these
authors, that C-Inv is a rule that moves the contents of INFL to C.
(15) a. If John had read the book, he would have known the answer.
b. Had John read the book, he would have known the answer.
c. *If had John read the book, he would have known the answer.
d. *Had if John read the book, he would have known the answer.
W ewill show that do __does
not undergo this rule, and use this fact to argue for
LP-structure. T o accord any significance to this fact, however, it is first necessary to look at what
elements of the verbal and auxiliary systems may ____ undergo this rule. 6
In English, C-Inv applies only to counterfactuals. ____________ Thus, whenever C-Inv is found, the
protasis is always presupposed to be false (or unlikely). I will use the ability to take an apodasis
with the modal would _____ as a sign that a conditional is counterfactual, which seems correct.
2.1.1 Non-inverted ________________________
Counterfactuals
Before asking what elements can occur in counterfactuals with ____________ inversion, we must ask
what elements can occur in the INFL of the protasis of counterfactuals without ______ inversion. A
complete listing can be found in (16), where (16a-g) contain auxiliaries and modals that do occur in
non-inverted counterfactuals, and (16h-o) contains those modals that do not occur in
counterfactuals.
(16) a. If John had solved the problem, he would have shown up.
b. If Mary should meet him, she would certainly come and
tell us. [“non-obligational ______ should”]
c. If John were to solve the problem, we would be happy.
d. If Mary were dying, she would look worse.
e. If Mary could speak French, she would have shown up.
f. ?If we were to take out the garbage every day, they would
have left us a note.
(on the reading “if we were to” ≈“If we were expected to”)
g. If John would drive a little faster, he would get there a
little sooner. [“agentive _____ would”]
h. *If Mary can speak French, she would have translated for us.
i. *If Bill may leave, we would have been told.
j. *If Bill might leave, Sue would have informed us.
k. *If Sue must take out the garbage each morning, she would have
asked for higher wages. [cf. (93f)]
l. *If Bill ought to take out the garbage each morning, Sue would
have informed us.
m. *If Mary shall speak French, she would have started already.
n. *If Bill should take out the garbage, we would have known about it.
[“obligational ______ should”]
o. *If Sue will speak French, she would have told us.
(17) shows that paraphrases of many of the bad modals in (16) are acceptable. We
therefore can’t look to their meaning for a simple answer: