1 On tough-movement* Milan Rezac, University ... - Multimania.co.uk

constructions, all accounts share the notion that the Agreed-with DP must be sufficiently local to
the next higher φ-probe, whether this is formulated in terms of φ-intervention, government
(which carves out a local neighborhood of visibility around a probe, Massam 1985, Potsdam and
Polinsky 2001), or phase-edges (which carve out a local neighborhood around a designated lower
barrier, Branigan and MacKenzie 2001, Bruening 2001, Svenonius 2004). The φ-intervention
approach here seems to have an easier time dealing with situations where the DP controller of
cross-clausal φ-Agree is deeply embedded within its clause, as in (24). It also has the advantage
of assimilating cross-clausal locality in φ-Agree to clause-internal locality, where φ-intervention
not reducible to phasehood seems to play a crucial role (McGinnis 1998, Anagnostopoulou 2003,
Béjar and Rezac 2003).
The use of φ-agreement for the transmission of an index is partly inspired by Browning
(1989: chapter 2). For her, predication (of which λ-binding is an implementation) interprets
subjects in predicate-related open variables identified by agreement (OP/gap or PRO).
Agreement is shared only in the spec-head and head-projection configurations. This results in
strong phrase-structural locality between the subject and the predicate (cf. Williams 1980), ruling
out (41)a where the agreement transmission chain between a man and PRO is broken by it is.
Agreement also serves to identify (in the sense of Rizzi 1986) the null operator on the
assumption that it is pro, ruling out (41)b with unidentified OP/pro; this implements Chomsky's
(1986b:85) strong binding requirement on null operators (I return to this in section 4.4). Toughmovement
has the structure in (42)a; another type of configuration permitted is for PRO itself to
be the open variable as in subject reduced relatives (42)b.
(41) a. *A man i it is illegal PRO i to fix the sink.
b. *It is easy OP i PRO arb to bother e i .
(42) a. Kate 1 is t 1 [ AP OP 1 easy A [ CP PRO arb to please t 1 ]]
agreement
b. a girl 1 [ IP PRO 1 to I fix the sink]
agreement
In my approach φ-Agree may identify a predicate variable at a distance, as in (43). This is
required for tough-movement since the OP/gap chain terminates within the OP clause (section 2),
while the TM subject is base-generated "at a distance" in the TM trigger's [Spec, TP] (section
3.3). Strict subject-predicate locality remains encoded in the formulation of Predicate
Abstraction, and agreement continues to identify predicate variables. Browning's ungrammatical
examples are properly blocked by the locality of φ-Agree, which cannot cross it in (41)a. The
consequences of the strong binding requirement are captured more directly: the index of the TM
subject is determined by whatever φ-set is represented at the top of the OP clause, whether this is
OP resulting in a TM subject that λ-binds OP/gap, or C φ resulting in it.
(43) Kate 1 has T been [ AP [ AP easy for Nolwenn i ] [ CP pro 1 C [ IP PRO i to please t 1 ]]]
Agree
4 OP-movement as Ā-Agree
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