Premium
Severing the Distribution of PRO from Case
Author(s) -
Landau Idan
Publication year - 2006
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/j.1467-9612.2006.00087.x
Subject(s) - variety (cybernetics) , distribution (mathematics) , control (management) , feature (linguistics) , task (project management) , welsh , linguistics , computer science
. Deriving the distribution of PRO in a principled manner is a central task for the theory of control. Traditionally, Case has been identified as the key to this problem: PRO was argued to bear no Case at all, or some special (‘‘null’’) Case. I argue that PRO bears standard case like normal lexical DPs; clear evidence comes from languages with case‐concord (Russian, Hungarian, Icelandic). Moreover, PRO (and obligatory control) may occur in finite clauses (Hebrew, Balkan languages). Conclusion: PRO's distribution must be completely divorced from Case, possibly because abstract Case does not exist. The alternative is to tie the distribution of PRO to the specific values of [T] and [Agr] on the I 0 and C 0 heads of the embedded clause (Landau 2004). A feature‐based algorithm predicts the distribution of PRO in a variety of clausal complements. It is shown that the system naturally explains some intriguing correlations between obligatory control and agreement in Basque and Welsh complementation structures.