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

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(378) a. Toi et moi, oni aime bien PROi sei/??nousi sentir utiles (à nosi amis).
b. Toi et moi, oni aime bien PROi sei/?*nousi faire utiles (à nosi amis).
You and me, wei (on) like PROi to feel/make ourselvesi (se/?*nous)
useful (to ouri friends).
c. Oni a essayé de PROi faire semblant de sei/?nousi laver.
Wei tried to pretend PROi to wash ourselvesi (se/?nous).
(French, (c) cf. Kayne 2007)
(379) a. Nousi aimons bien PRO nousi/*sei faire utiles.
b. Vousi aimez bien PRO vousi/*sei faire utiles.
(French)
Landau's (2000, 2008) Agree-based theory of obligatory control in (380) provides
a suitable tool. The controller Agrees with a head in its clause, T for subject
control, and another Agree transmits its phi-features to the PRO of the embedded
clause (directly as indicated, or through C). In turn, PRO controls the phi-features
of the infinitival T and of the reflexive se through T-PRO and T-se Agree. 188
(380) We T twe like to C PRO T SE tPRO feel useful.
Agree relations
There is independent evidence that T-subject Agree determines the person of
the reflexive in French. In inversion constructions (381), agreement with the postverbal
subject is for 3 rd person, even if the preverbal subject would require 1 st /2 nd
person. The reflexive shares the phi-features of agreement, not of the subject. The
postverbal subject in such constructions is low, below T, and agreement occurs by
T-subject Agree rather than the movement of any interpretable content (Rezac
2010b). The reflexive appears to get its person feature through subsequent Treflexive
Agree, as Reuland (2006) and Chomsky (2008: 148) propose, and so has
the same features as verb agreement. 189
(381) a. [Marie et moi] nous trouvions près de l'église.
[Marie and I] found.1PL ourselves (nous) near the church.
b. *[Marie et moi] se trouvaient près de l'église.
points out for (378)c, perhaps to be related to partial control. Uncontrolled arbitrary PRO appears
to have the same possibilities as in English, e.g. Before PROarb descending oneself/yourself/ourselves,
it is necessary to inspect the rope (oneself = French se/soi-type).
188 The mechanism may appear to be counter-cyclic: the matrix T-subject Agree determines the
value of T-PRO Agree that determines the value of PRO-T and T-se Agree. That need be no
more than appearance. Under the proposal of Frampton et al. (2004) and Pesetsky and Torrego
(2006), Agree collapses the phi-sets it relates into a single multiply linked object. Embedded T-
PRO and T-se Agree links the features of T, PRO, se into a single object; Agree between the matrix
T and PRO adds to it the phi-features of matrix T; and finally matrix T-subject Agree values
the phi-features of this single object at all the positions to which it is linked.
189 The same facts hold of expletive constructions, see Fauconnier (1974: 214).