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

– Albizu (1997b, cf. 1997a): A person feature cannot be c-commanded (in
the same minimal domain) by another less (or equally) presuppositional.
– Aissen (1997): The relative prominence of arguments on the person and
grammatical function hierarchies should match.
253
– Boeckx (2000: 366f.): A dative and a 1 st /2 nd person both code Point-of-
View. If an intervening dative prevents a 1 st /2 nd person nominative from
raising to the Point-of-View projection, there is a Point-of-View clash.
However, it is not obvious that the point of departure is right: that [+person]
corresponds to an interpretive notion. The misgivings can be illustrated with
through the Agree/Case system. Syntactic dependencies often have plausible interpretive
motivations, such as movement to scope a quantifier over a proposition.
The Agree/Case system as well has been ascribed such motivation, including
theta-role assignment (Chomsky 1981: 2.3, 1986b: 3.3.3.3.1, 3.4.3), and temporal
interpretation (Pesetsky and Torrego forthc, Wiltschko 2003, Brandt 2003). Yet
Agree/Case relations appear to be orthogonal to interpretation (chapters 1 and 5).
In (271), interpretation does not change according to whether the underlined DP
participates in the nominative relationship with T/Fin or the accusative one with
v/Asp. More tellingly in (271), among the DPs that obligatorily participate in the
Agree/Case system and related A-movement are idiom chunks and expletives.
They have no interpretive content presently detectable, including through pronominal
anaphora, control, quantification, existential assertion. 193
(386) a. I believe [there to have been tabs/agents-ACC kept on you].
b. There are believed [to have been tabs/agents-ACC kept on you].
193 For contentless expletives such as there or the it of seem, (i), see Abney (1987: 209 note 58),
Chomsky (1986b: 92); cf. Kayne (1979, 2008: 202), Safir (1982: 2.4.2), Ruwet (1991: 3.6.2).
The behaviour of idiom chunk DPs is complex, subtle, and varied (Ruwet 1991, Nunberg, Wasow
and Sag 1994, Schenk 1995, Horn 2003). The pertinent class participates in Agree/Case, often
in A-movement, but not even in relativization, pronominal anaphora, or control of PRO
within the same idioms, as in (ii, iii). In English these include also make short work of, take the
rap, throw cold water on; see e.g. Postal (1974: 34f., 2003: 52, 127-132), Lasnik and Fiengo
(1974: 540-2), Fiengo (1974: 51-7), Chomsky (1981: 223f. n. 20, 309, 327, 345 n. 5), Bresnan
(1982: 46-49), Davison (1984: 815f.), Sailer (2003: 6.2), Horn (2003: 261f.). This class of idioms
belies attempts to link EPP/A-movement to 'referential autonomy' or other independently
detectable notion of content on part of the idiom chunk. (The tag hasn't it in (i) illustrates that a
pronoun may stand for the idiom chunk, not as a semantically anaphoric pronoun, but perhaps
through repetition + ellipsis: cf. There is a book on the table, isn't there?).
(i) It was likely/*seemed, without PRO being obvious, that Kate won.
(ii) Muchi seems to have been made of the inscription, hasn't iti, without *PROi/*iti/much
being made of the context.
(iii) [The ice that was easy to break last week] will not be (easy to break) this week. (literal
only)