Overt Nominative Subjects in Infinitival Complements Cross - NYU ...

NYU Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 2: Papers in Syntax, Spring 2009 323.2 Mexican Spanish (thanks to Violeta Vázquez-Rojas for data and discussion)3.2.1 ControlIt seems that Spanish matrix subjects can scramble with infinitival material to a greater extentthan Italian ones, retaining their matrix scope. So more orders are acceptable and are ambiguousin Spanish than in Italian, something that I will not attempt to account for.(139) shows that sólo Juan can occur in all 4 positions, but only with a HI reading. (140)shows that the HI reading is similarly available to sólo él, although between quiere and ir it isdispreferred. Crucially to us, (141) shows that sólo él can receive a LO reading in all non-initialpositions. In final position the LO reading is dispreferred, although this becomes fine if thematrix negation is removed.(139) no quiere ir a la escuela .HI `Only Juan doesn’t want to go to school’*LO `He i doesn’t want it to be the case that only Juan i goes to school’(140) no quiere