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

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tives, the relationship of EA-O interactions to the PCC, and of inverses to PCC repairs.
Elements of this ensemble are also found in Béjar (2003), Bianchi (2006),
Lochbiher (2008), and Nichols (2001). 170
In EA-O and IO/S-S person hierarchy interactions alike, repairs activate the
ergative and accusative agreement and case relations. Beside them stands the
emergence of the ergative and accusative for the Case licensing of any DP regardless
of person, in ordinary transitives of the English or Basque sort, or the applicatives
discussed in section 5.6.3. All are unified through the dependent Case view
of the ergative and accusative as reflexes of a last-resort Agree/Case relationship
created by ℜ. The Full Interpretation problem to which ℜ responds has also been
accorded a uniform treatment as a Case-licensing failure. In this has been followed
Anagnostopoulou's (2003) proposal that the problem of [+person] licensing in
PCC contexts is a Case problem. The unification of person and Case licensing is
independent of ℜ itself, and may be discussed further.
Structural Agree/Case relations are about two phenomena. One is the alternation
of nominative and accusative or ergative and absolutive case and agreement,
without correlated interpretive properties in section 5.5. The other is the use made
of the syntactic theory of it in order to explain constraints on DP (A-)positions,
starting with Rouveret and Vergnaud (1980) and Chomsky (1980, 1981, 1986b).
This is the Case Filter and the Inverse Case Filter in section 5.4.
In Chomsky (2000a et seq.), the driving force of Agree/Move dependencies is
the need of phi-probes to be valued and eliminated through Agree for Full Interpretation,
sometimes termed in the Inverse Case Filter. However, the Case Filter
remains in vigour in the need of the Case of DPs to be likewise valued and eliminated.
It remains the explanation for generalizations both wide-ranging and subtle.
Among them are the Case licensing of the direct object DPs in (348) (Chomsky
1986b: 3.3.3.2; Pesetsky 1982, 1995, Baker 1988, 1997, Bošković 1997); of small
clause subject DPs by unergatives but not unaccusatives in (349) (Rothstein 1992,
Burzio 1986); of infinitival subject DPs by ECM verbs only if an applicative DP
does not intervene in (350) (cf. Postal 1993, Bošković 1997). In all these environments
the DP in bold is barred if Case is unavailable. All other conditions are met,
including thematic and subject position ('EPP') licensing.
(348) a. She asked/*wondered the time. (cf. She wondered what the time is)
b. Kate (*was) passed the letter. (Kate as recipient)
170 Table 5.5 also indicates the need of tools for parametrizing the person hierarchies, developed
in Béjar and Rezac (2009). Analogous parametrization does not occur in the PCC because applied
object always stops a higher probe (Béjar and Rezac 2009: 46 note 6, section 3.4), save if
the lower object belongs to the same point on the hierarchy. These apparently vary in being
treated as non-PCC/direct or PCC/inverse contexts, giving the so-called weak vs. strong PCC
(Nevins 2007, Anagnostopoulou 2005, but see section 4.6 for qualms about its existence). Further
EA-O interactions reveal much additional but here irrelevant complexity, for instance transitives
with different loci for person and number, EA-O person interaction for v in a system with
person probes on T and v, etc.; see Béjar (2003), Rezac (2003), Béjar and Rezac (2009).