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

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tain configurations like (385), barring all LFs with [+person] pronouns. Maximize
Presuppositions should then permit 3 rd person pronouns without [+person]. 196
Empirically, such an effect appears to occur in (392). In Basque Country
Spanish, animate 3SG/PLM.ACC clitics must be [+person] le/les, save in a PCC
context where the otherwise non-animate lo/los may take over. Ormazabal and
Romero (2009, 2010) demonstrate that the two sets of pronouns have different
conditions on clitic doubling, and so involve different syntactic structures. Applying
the logic behind Maximize Presuppositions, syntax generates structures with
and without [animate]/[+person] on the 3 rd person pronoun in question, with their
different syntactic behaviours. The structure without [animate]/[+person] is ordinarily
ruled out by Maximize Presuppositions, because one with more fully specified
pronouns is available. In PCC contexts, the former emerges.
However, it is far more systematically the case that PCC contexts do not permit
a less fully specified pronoun to emerge. In (366) Maximize Presuppositions
permits a 3 rd person pronoun to refer to the speaker, because the presupposition of
a 1 st person pronoun is incompatible with the range of values it assumes. Yet 3 rd
person is never used for 1 st /2 nd person to repair the PCC. Moreover even in (392),
the phenomenon is not permitted to the 3 rd person pronoun usted that is dedicated
to polite addresee reference (section 6.4). The clitic that doubles usted must remain
animate in this leísmo variety, even if it incurs the PCC.
There is a technical way out. In the PCC context Maximize Presuppositions
should permit the omission of [+person], but not of other specifications like [masculine].
The resulting phi-sets might have no spell-out. For Basque Country leísmo
(392)b, the inanimate masculine pronoun has the spell-out lo. In a hypothetical
variant dialect, there might be no realization for a 3 rd person masculine inanimate
pronoun, only for a 3 rd person masculine animate one and a 3 rd person inanimate
one. In the same way, [1 st person] without [+person] might not have a spell-out.
The appeal of this suggestion depends on what [+person] is, and thus what
1 st /2 nd person without [+person] might be. There is intriguing evidence about these
matters. It suggests that there are 1 st /2 nd person pronouns that are not [+person],
and that there are interpretive consequences by which the nature of [+person]
might be known. This curious effect is a fitting end to the section, for though it
does not bring us far, it reveals new horizons.
It is useful to start with the Person Case Constraint in mediopassives, although
they are not a core context where it has been discussed. In the Romance
mediopassive (399), a transitive verb occurs with the clitic se (in italics), a silent
external argument proarb interpreted as an arbitrary agent 'one', and an agreeing,
nominative object (underlined). The meaning resembles passives. The surface is
identical to anticausatives and reflexives (Zribi-Hertz 1982, 2009). 197
196 Strictly, we should like to examine contexts with a PCC repair, such as those in section 4.5.
197 For the present discussion, it seems immaterial whether there are to be distinguished middle
and impersonal passive constructions. In both prototypical middle and impersonal passive uses
(They always sell easily, One sold them yesterday), the French mediopassive appears to have an
impersonal arbitrary human agent (Zribi-Hertz 2009), and in both the person restriction holds