Premium
Nominative Subjects and Pro‐Drop INFL
Author(s) -
Torrego Esther
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
syntax
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9612
pISSN - 1368-0005
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9612.00008
Subject(s) - nominative case , linguistics , catalan , computer science , feature (linguistics) , agreement , mathematics , arithmetic , combinatorics , verb , philosophy
In this article I discuss pro and its licensing strategies. I argue that the D‐feature postulated by Chomsky (1995) for Tense and v can be realized in a separate head, namely, on a D, which then licenses pro (along the lines of Torrego (1998)). Focusing on nominative subjects in certain infinitival clauses of Catalan, Italian, and Spanish, I propose that their nominative subjects are licensed by a D with “weak” agreement features in association with Tense. Expletive pro and argumental pro are discussed and it is proposed that the D that licenses the former has no agreement features, whereas the D that licenses the latter has “rich” agreement. A parallel is established between the licensing strategy of “clitic‐doubling” and the licensing of argumental pro in infinitival clauses.