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

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c. Muchos estudiantes i dijeron que pro i piensan que ellos i son intelligentes. many students said that think that they are intelligent Many students said that they think they are intelligent. (Montalbetti 1984:90) d. A quienes i Pedro convenció de que pro i digan que ellos i son tontos? A who Pedro convinced of that say that they are foolish Who did Pedro convince to say that they are foolish? (Montalbetti 1984:101) Montalbetti (1984:157f.) notes that in Spanish tough-movement, the gap behaves like a bound pro in being able to license a farther pronoun, rather than like the trace of Ā-extraction which could not. Cinque (1990:127ff.) adds this as an argument in favor of treating the TM gap as a null pronoun rather than a trace. 27 (61) Muchos estudiantes i son faciles de convencer e i de que ellos i viajen a Lima. many students are easy of convince of that they travel to Lima Many students are easy to convince to travel to Lima. (Montalbetti 1984:157) 4.3.5 Condition C and Strong Cross-Over There is one solid piece of evidence that the gap does not behave as a regular pronoun: the OPgap chain is subject to strong cross-over if it crosses a pronoun, (62)a. 28 (62) a. Antero Vipunen j would be difficult PRO arb to convince him ??i/*j /*himself j that I admire t j . b. Antero Vipunen j is easy OP j PRO arb to spot t j in a crowd. c. *Antero Vipunen i is possible [ CP t i ' PRO to like t i ] The validity of this conclusion depends on what strong cross-over is. Chomsky (1981:203ff.) treats it as Condition C applied to Ā-traces, which thus behave as R-expressions. Tension arises between the legitimacy of tough-movement, where the TM subject is ultimately linked to an Ā- bound (OP-bound) gap on standard accounts, and using Condition C to rule out improper movement in (62)c where t i as an Ā-trace (of t i ') is illegitimately bound by John i because of Condition C. This has led to the standard formulation where Condition C requires α to be free in the domain of the head of its maximal chain, defined as the history of the movement of α (Chomsky 1981:193-204, 1986b:113f., Brody 1993:8ff.). Thus, while him in (62)a triggers Condition C for t j , John does not trigger it for t j in (62)b because the chain of t j ends in OP j . Since possible does not select an OP clause, the only representation of (62)c is with John illegitimately binding t i within the latter's maximal chain (terminating at John i ). Higginbotham (1983) and Postal (1997, 2004: chapter 7) present significant challenges to treating strong crossover as Condition C, leaving the phenomenon without a clear explanation. Here it suffices to note that even approaching it as Condition C in (62)a, the fact that the null pronoun in the gap bears an Ā-feature, an extra formally interpretable property normally associated with topic, focus, etc., might subject it to Condition C in the manner of an R-expression. 4.4 The distribution of pure Ā-Agree 22
Although there is reason to be cautions, there is evidence that the TM gap behaves like a null pronoun rather than an Ā-trace/copy. The location of the gap is constrained by the locality of Ā- Agree, so this pronoun enters into pure Ā-Agree with C OP , without any displacement consequent on this relation itself. I assume that the pronoun has an Ā-feature that renders it active for the Ā- system, so I will refer to it as pro Ā , Pro Ā requires Agree to eliminate its Ā-feature. The C OP head of OP clauses, which has an Ā- probe, considers pro Ā a match and Agree between the two satisfies the requirements of both. Following Brody (1993:8f.), I have been assuming that C OP (like e.g. C Q ) is subject to selection, accounting for why impossible but not (not) possible is a TM trigger. Three related questions arise: (i) whether are there non-arbitrary restrictions on the selection of C OP ; (ii) why does C OP require pro Ā and is not content with e.g. a relative pronoun; (iii), and vice versa, why is pro Ā limited to clauses with C OP and does not appear in clauses that have a suitable Ā-probe provided the semantics does not require that the Ā-probe have another goal, for example why can pro Ā not appear in a regular clause under topicalization. Some inroad on answering these seems possible. Consider the general class of "On wh-movement constructions" in English (Chomsky 1977, Browning 1989). Wh-questions and topicalizations, which may be finite or non-finite, necessarily have an overt goal for their Ā-relation which moves to their left periphery, (63). Let's set these aside from those whose left periphery need not be overtly filled by the Ā-goal. (63) I don't know what/*∅ (I want) to bake. Among the rest, there is a split between those whose topmost clause must be tensed, namely tensed relatives, clefts, and comparatives, and those where it must be infinitival, namely infinitival relatives, tough-movement OP clauses, degree clauses, and purpose clauses; parasitic gaps are possible with both infinitival and tensed clauses (Culicover 2001). Browning (1989:127ff.) views tense as significant. Only the tensed group may have overt an Ā-phrase, deletable up to recoverability (Chomsky and Lasnik 1977), (64), while the infinitival group must use "null operators" (with one exception, below), (65). Levin (1983, 1984) develops an attractive explanation for this: overt Ā-phrases require Case(-like) licensing, which a tensed but not an infinitival T provides to its local [Spec, CP]. It is also only the tensed group, setting aside parasitic gaps, which shows relative insensitivity to depth of embedding, intervening tensed clauses, and subject/object asymmetries (aside from that-trace). One could take degradation in these contexts to arise from the null nature of this group's Ā-phrase. However, as Browning (1989:144f.) observes, infinitival relatives do in fact allow overt operators, provided they piedpipe other material, (66). 29 (64) Overt operator in tensed constructions a. the dragon who talked with Ath b. John has more money than what I have. (Browning 1989:127) (65) Overt operator in TM a. Wade and Guingelot are easy/too mysterious (*who) to talk about at length. b. *Wade and Guingelot are easy/too mysterious about whom to talk at length. (66) Overt operator in infinitival relatives a. A person *(who) to invite. (Browning 1989:127) 23
Page 1 and 2: On tough-movement * Milan Rezac, Un
Page 3 and 4: that it involves an Ā-step between
Page 5 and 6: d. *John is easy that anyone likes
Page 7 and 8: Adopting the copy theory for traces
Page 9 and 10: In tough-movement, the TM subject i
Page 11 and 12: (28) *There were asked what things
Page 13 and 14: . =No person is such that it seems
Page 15 and 16: constructions, all accounts share t
Page 17 and 18: the top of the OP clause. Various q
Page 19 and 20: not find an active wh-phrase as a g
Page 21: The pattern of goodness and degrada
Page 25 and 26: makes them available to external φ
Page 27 and 28: 14 It is an open question whether O
Page 29 and 30: References Abeillé, A., Goddard, D
Page 31 and 32: Kaplan, R. M. and Bresnan, J. 1982.
Page 33 and 34: Rizzi, L. Forthcoming. "On the form
Page 35: TABLE 1: Properties of "On wh-movem

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

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