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

4.1 Ā-Agree vs. Ā-movement
In discussing φ-Agree, Chomsky (2000:124, 126) takes it to be an operation that does not
represent the interpretable features of the goal at the target, unlike in Chomsky (1995:272ff.), but
rather as the valuation uninterpretable features which later delete. 18 Agree therefore does not
create any permanent representation of the goal at the target's position; dependencies are formed
"at a distance" without phrase-structural modification. The reasons lie in the inertness of φ-
agreement for all syntactic and semantic diagnostics such as binding, scope, or control,
demonstrated by Lasnik (1999: chapters 6, 8) from paradigms like (44) (and later Jónsson
1996:209 for Icelandic and Potsdam and Polinsky 2001:620 for Tsez). For discussions of this
change and its ramifications, and the arguments that bear on it, see Watanabe (2000), Boeckx
(2002), Lopez (2002), Lasnik (2002), Rezac (2004a: chapter 4). I adopt it forthwith.
(44) a. Several runners seem to each other t i to be likely to win the race.
b. *There seem to each other to be several runners likely to win the race.
Chomsky (2000:109, 128, 149 notes 91, 92) suggests that Ā-dependencies use the same basic
mechanism as A-dependencies: for the wh-system, this would be Agree by a [Q] probe with a
matching interpretable [Q] and an activation [wh] features on the goal, with the relativized
minimality effect of Ā-interveners arising as a defective intervention effect of the interpretable
[Q] features on wh-phrases. Adger and Ramchand (forthcoming) propose that as for φ-Agree,
there are constructions which involve pure Ā-Agree with no corresponding movement. This is
what I will suggest for the OP-gap relation here.
For some Ā-relations such as those involving wh or focus, pure Agree might be precluded.
For example, the semantics of a wh-word might be such that it must take a proposition-turnedquestion
as its second argument, much as a quantifier must a predicate: see Romero (1997),
Hagstrom (1998), and Rullmann and Beck (1998) for some recent analyses. On the opposite end
of the scale are relative clauses, where all that is ultimately needed for the relative clause to be
interpreted with its head λ-binding the gap is a λ-operator at its top binding the gap in it, and that
is inserted by Predicate Abstraction at LF. Resumptive relatives in particular need not use any
syntactic mechanism at all to establish dependencies: this is the case for Irish resumptive
relatives on the analysis of McCloskey (2002) and for English such that relatives on the
Montagovian analysis (Dowty, Wall and Peters 1985:211ff., Heim and Kratzer 1998:106ff.).
In the following sections, I will consider what the OP-gap relation in TM OP clauses looks
like from this perspective. The basic idea to keep in mind is that it might be analyzed as follows:
(i) The C OP at the top of the OP clause has an Ā-probe, whose Ā-Agree is responsible for the set
of Ā-properties classically diagnosing OP-movement;
(ii) This Ā-Agree alone transmits the index feature identifying the goal to be λ-bound;
(iii)The goal is a pronoun (see section 3.3 for why) with a feature that makes it an Ā-goal;
(iv) The goal itself stays in-situ, with no representation at the top of the OP clause.
This hypothesis makes three predictions about OP clauses. First, there is a C OP -gap
relationship stemming from Ā-Agree, as conclude Chomsky (1977, 1981, 1986ab) and others.
Second, the gap behaves as an undisplaced pro (albeit with an Ā-feature), the analysis of
Chomsky (1982) and Cinque (1990). Third, there is no interpretable representation of the gap at
16