A plea for null expletives: Strategies of Case-marking on Classical Greek complement clauses
Richard Faure
November 2024 

Participation in the derivation of argumental DPs is tightly related to their ability to be Case-marked. In contrast, Finite Complement Clauses (FCCs) seem to be reluctant to Case-marking. Notwithstanding, they can function as arguments. This article addresses this paradox from the perspective of Classical Greek. It shows that its FCCs are nominals endowed with φ-features, which do value the features of functional heads like v° or T°, as expected from bona fide arguments. However, they are Case-less because they do not project a CaseP, so they cannot be directly tied to v° or T°, which is also reflected in their more restricted placement, compared to run-of-the-mill DPs. Which is why they make use of proxy strategies to become active in the derivation. This indirect participation in the derivation necessitates positing null expletives for uniformity in an array of cases. Strong independent motivations for null expletives are adduced.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008559 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	submitted
keywords:	expletives, complement clauses, classical greek, case, φ-features, agree, long-distance, prolepsis, hyperraising to object, visibility, activation, syntax
previous versions:	v1 [November 2024]
Downloaded:	391 times

 

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