The Subject-in-Situ Generalization and the Role of Case in Driving Computations

Abstract

The article establishes a novel generalization concerning the placement of arguments by Spell-Out. It centers on the principles that force arguments to leave the VP across languages. The empirical domain consists of constructions where subject movement is not required for reasons that have to do with the Extended Projection Principle. In these environments and whenever a sentence contains both a subject and a direct object, one of the arguments must vacate the VP. We argue that argument externalization is related to Case. It is forced because movement of both arguments to a single head T⁰ that contains two active Case features in the covert component is banned.

In this article we investigate the syntactic conditions on the availability of VP-internal subjects and objects across languages in constructions in which the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) requirement of T is satisfied by a third element, for example, an expletive. We argue that the generalization in (1) holds.

(1) By Spell-Out VP can contain no more than one argument with an unchecked Case
feature.

(1) expresses the fact that there is a ban against leaving, in the overt component, more than one DP argument in the position in which they are merged. If the sentence contains a subject and a direct object, one of them must vacate the VP. (1) does not discriminate between the subject and the object; it does not matter which argument moves, as long as one of them does. This is a surprising fact because usually argument externalization is related to the EPP and thus affects only subjects. Here we have a case not reducible to the EPP. The movement requirement in (1) applies equally to subjects and objects, when these have an active Case feature. Therefore, we argue that (1) expresses a requirement for argument externalization related to Case. To account for (1), we propose that there is a constraint against multiple covert Case checking, which is due to the fact that it is not possible for both a subject and an object to move to a single head (T⁰) containing two active Case features. The theoretical implication of this proposal is that there are two formal features manipulated by the computational system, one triggering EPP-related phenomena and one triggering externalization phenomena related to Case.

The article is organized as follows. In section 1 we examine two Ā-movement constructions in which the subject and the object remain VP-internal in languages that generally show an intransitivity restriction on subject inversion. The cases in point are stylistic inversion in French and quotative inversion in English. These constructions lead us to formulate (1). In section 2 we investigate transitive constructions in languages without an intransitivity restriction on subject inversion-specifically, transitive expletive constructions in Icelandic, VSO constructions in Celtic and Arabic, and inverted (VOS) constructions in Romance (Italian/Catalan). At first sight these constructions seem to be counterexamples to (1). However, we argue that (1) holds for these languages as well, once adverb and participle placement facts are taken into account. In fact, there are certain restrictions on inversion in these languages that cannot be accounted for unless (1) is correct. In section 3 we discuss two more cases that arguably fall under (1): locative inversion in English and ga/no conversion in Japanese. In section 4 we discuss the criteria one can use to diagnose VP-internal argumenthood, focusing on the distribution of adverbs in quotative inversion. In section 5 we argue that (1) is never related to the EPP and that it is related to Case. We propose our analysis, which crucially relies on the assumption that whenever Case-assigning heads with unchecked Case features form a complex head (T⁰), the derivation crashes. This forces DP-externalization for reasons of Case checking before such a complex head is formed. In section 6 we illustrate how our proposal works by looking at the derivations of the constructions discussed in sections 1-3. In section 7 we look at...