Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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of the target, goal, and the path between them, and those that depend on the global
properties of the surrounding structure like PCC repairs.
Outside Full Interpretation failures, the two views are not equivalent. In contexts
where Agree by a [-active] probe does not cause a crash, it should be available
optionally. Datives in French need not only Case licensing but also a cliticization
site. Agree with their head P provides both in section 5.7, creating locativelike
full PPs. If this phenomenon is analyzed by giving PDAT a [-active] probe,
such Agree is always available. If it does not lead to a crash by blocking a
[+active] probe, it should emerge as optional, and as obligatory when a cliticization
site is unavailable. By contrast, ℜ can add a probe to PDAT only when necessary
for Full Interpretation. The latter expectation is met in PCC repairs: dative
turn into locatives only to repair the PCC, not optionally and not for other reasons.
Theoretically, this is the touchstone to discriminate between the two approaches.
169
These are the general properties of ℜ in PCC repairs and dependent Case. A
more technical aspect of its mechanics remains to be addressed: its parametrization.
The case studies in this chapter have focussed on systems where PCC repairs
are detectable, like Western Basque, and their siblings where they would be invisible,
like Eastern Basque. Yet beside Western Basque varieties and Finnish that
transitivize unaccusatives to repair the PCC, there stand other Western Basque varieties
and Icelandic that cannot, despite appearing to have all the right properties.
Similarly, the strengthening of an agreeing dative to a nonagreeing one in transitives
is available to many but not all speakers of Western Basque (cf. Artiagoitia
2001: 405). Georgian dialects in section 5.8 appear to present the same variation,
while their own strengthening of a DP is unavailable to Basque.
Ideally, the parameters needed would reduce to independent properties of the
structures involved, such as the presence of potential Agree/Case licenser. T, v,
PDAT, and δ would have interpretable [Case] to assign in some but not other systems,
modulating its activation by the addition of a phi-probe. That seems plausible
for PDAT and δ, and it may well have other detectable correlates as suggested
for Georgian X's tav pronouns in section 5.8. However, in Icelandic and Finnish
vACC, and in all varieties of Basque TERG, assign their accusative in transitives in
the same way, yet in only some of these systems are they available for PCC repairs.
At this point, it seems necessary to posit a property P that allows a potential
Agree/Case-licenser to host the probe added by ℜ (cf. Béjar and Rezac 2009: 56).
It may eventually prove feasible to eliminate P, for instance through the need of
morphological resources to resolve multiple Agree by the added and core probe
(Rezac 2008c).
169 It remains to be developed, since no attempt has been made here to examine the plausibility
of blocking [-active] probes by the needs of [+active] ones whenever empirically undesirable.