Unaccusative Verbs in Romance Languages by Ian Mackenzie

Unaccusative Verbs in
Romance Languages
Ian Mackenzie
Unaccusative Verbs in Romance Languages
Also by Ian Mackenzie
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY

SPANISH: An Essential Grammar (with Peter T. Bradley)
Unaccusative Verbs in
Romance Languages
Ian Mackenzie
School of Modern Languages
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
© I. E. Mackenzie 2006
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mackenzie, I. E.
Unaccusative verbs in Romance languages / Ian Mackenzie.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Romance languages – Verb. I. Title.

PC145.M33 2006
440′.0456 – dc22
2005056582
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06
For Jack, Harry and Palma
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Contents
List of Tables ix
Acknowledgement x
Sources of Historical Examples xi
1 The Ergative Analysis and the Unaccusative Hypothesis 1
1.1 The Ergative Analysis 1
1.2 The Ergative Analysis versus the Unaccusative
Hypothesis 5
1.3 General problems with the ‘deep-object’ hypothesis 8
1.4 Conclusion 15
2 Expletive Inversion 17
2.1 Introduction 17
2.2 Expletives and unergative subjects 18
2.3 Partitive case 20
2.4 A preliminary conclusion about expletive inversion 30
2.5 Distribution of French il 31
2.6 Conclusion 37
3 Partitive Cliticization 39
3.1 Introduction 39
3.2 Syntactic arguments 40
3.3 Partitive cliticization independent of unaccusative–
unergative distinction 55
3.4 The distribution of partitive ne/en 60
3.5 Conclusion 67
4 Bare Subjects 70
4.1 Introduction 70
4.2 Unergatives can have bare postverbal subjects 73
4.3 Constraints on bare subject distribution 78
4.4 Aspectually stative constructions 95
4.5 Modified and conjoined bare subjects 99
4.6 Conclusion 101
5 Perfect Auxiliary Selection 103
5.1 Introduction 103
5.2 Burzio’s theory 104
vii
viii Contents
5.3 Accounts based on the nature of the auxiliaries 109

5.4 Comparison between Italian and French 111
5.5 Auxiliary selection is not directly semantic 117
5.6 The historical perspective 129
5.7 Conclusion 159
6 Past Participle Agreement 162
6.1 The basic patterns 162
6.2 Agreement by movement 164
6.3 The problem of postverbal subjects 165
6.4 Fragmentation of the system 168
6.5 Conclusion 170
7 Participial Absolutes 172

7.1 The basic data 172
7.2 Structural analyses of participial absolutes 173
7.3 Unergative subjects in participial absolutes 178
7.4 Conclusion 180
8 Conclusion 182
Notes 187
References 212
Index 220
List of Tables
5.1 French intransitive verbs that select être 104

5.2 Italian intransitive verbs that select essere 105
5.3 French and Italian auxiliary assignment mismatches 113
5.4 Revised taxonomy for French and Italian auxiliary
assignment mismatches 116
ix
Acknowledgement
The preparation of this book was fi nanced by a grant from the Research
Leave scheme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
x
Sources of Historical Examples
(Editions are specified only where necessary.)
A El libro de Alexandre (13th C.)

Arr Martial d’Auvergne: Arrêts d’amour (15th/16th C.)
C Poema de mio Cid (13th C.)
Cal Calila e Dymna (13th C.) [References are to Cacho Blecua and
Lacarra 1984.]
Cent Antonio Pucci: Il Centiloquio (14th C.)
Crest Ernesto Monaci: Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli (13th C.)
[References are to Arese 1955.]
D Giovanni Boccaccio: Decameron (14th C.)
Dicc Diccionario Ilustrado latino–español, español–latino. Barcelona:
Bibliograf. 1970. [‘A’ indicates reference to appendix.]
F I fiorétti di S. Francesco (14th C.) [References are to Luca
1954.]
FC Filippo Corsini: Istoria della conquista del Messico scritta in casti-
gliano da Antonio de Solís, tradotta in toscano (17th C.)
I Dante Alighieri: Inferno (14th C.)
L Bianco da Siena: Laudi spirituali (14th C.) [References are to Bini
1851.]
M Gonzalo de Berceo: La vida de San Millan de Cogolla (13th C.)
Mal Lorenzo Lippi: Il Malmantile racquistato (17th C.)
O Ludovico Ariosto: Orlando furioso (16th C.)
P Dante Alighieri: Purgatorio (14th C.)
Po Poeti del Duecento (13th C.) [References are to Contini 1960.]
Q La Queste de Saint Graal (13th C.)
R Chanson de Roland (11th C.)
S Gonzalo de Berceo: Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (13th C.)
Sette Il libro dei sette savi di Roma (14th C.) [References are to Cappelli
1865.]
T Omero Tórtora: Istoria di Francia (16th/17th C.)
TF Testi fiorentini del Dugento e dei primi secoli del Trecento
(13th/14th C.) [References are to Schiaffini 1926.]
Tra Dell’arte del vetro per musaico, Tre trattatelli dei secoli XIV
e XV (14th/15th C.) [References are to pages in Milanesi
1864.]
xi
xii Sources of Historical Examples
Trec Franco Sacchetti: Il Trecentonovelle (14th C.)

U La gran conquista de ultramar (13th C.) [References are to
Gayangos 1951.]
V Matteo Villani: Cronica (14th C.)
1
The Ergative Analysis and the
Unaccusative Hypothesis
1.1 The Ergative Analysis
A number of intransitive verbs, particularly those indicating movement

or change of state and those that have a presentational type meaning,
are associated with a cluster of properties across the Romance lan-
guages, the most important of which are:
1. Selection of a ‘be’ perfect auxiliary, together with subject–participle

agreement: modern Italian Sono arrivate delle lettere ‘Some letters
arrived’, Old Spanish Salidos son de Valençia ‘They have left Valencia’
(Cid 1821).
2. Compatibility with absolute past participle constructions: Spanish
Llegados los niños . . . ‘Once the children had arrived . . .’, Italian Ritor-
nati i Borboni sul trono di Napoli . . . ‘With the Bourbons returned to
the Naples throne . . .’
3. Compatibility with overt expletives in subject position: French Il est
paru une nouvelle edition ‘A new edition has just come out’.
4. Compatibility with partitive cliticization from the subject: Italian
Ne occorreranno molti di più ‘Many more of them will be needed’,
Catalan Va morir-ne un en accident ‘One of them died in an
accident’.
5. Compatibility with postverbal bare subjects (in those languages that
allow them): Spanish Entraban hormigas en la tienda ‘Ants were
getting into the tent’, Italian Usciva fumo dal motore ‘Smoke was
coming from the engine’.
Not all of the relevant verbs exhibit all of the above properties (for
example, Spanish does not have a partitive clitic like Italian ne and
1
2 Unaccusative Verbs in Romance Languages
Catalan en), but there are enough cross-linguistic similarities to enable

a group of intransitive verbs to be identified as special in some way.
According to what I will call the Ergative Analysis,1 the above pro-
perties are related to the fact that the apparent subjects of the verbs
in question (called unaccusatives or ergatives) 2 are ‘deep’ objects, and in
some cases surface objects also. Details vary over exactly how the con-
trast is drawn between unaccusatives and ordinary intransitives (called
unergatives) but, within syntax-based analyses at least, it has been con-
sistently argued that unaccusative subjects have a structurally ‘lower’
initial position (or external merge site) than unergative subjects. Origi-
nally it was argued that unaccusative subjects originated in the position
of complement to the verb, and then either remained in situ or moved
to another position. For example, in an influential paper Belletti (1988)
argued that while indefinite postverbal unaccusative subjects were in
their initial position of complement to the verb, their defi nite coun-
terparts and all preverbal unaccusative subjects had undergone
movement:
(1) All’improvviso [VP é entrato [ NP un uomo] [ PP dalla finestra]].

(Adapted from Belletti 1988:9)
‘Suddenly a man came in through the window.’
(2) [VP È arrivato ti ] Giannii. (Adapted from Belletti 1988:17)
‘Gianni has arrived.’
(3) Giannii [VP è arrivato ti ].
‘Gianni has arrived.’
Notice that in (2) and (3) the subject Gianni is analysed as having
moved from its original position as the complement of arrivato, which
is now occupied by a trace t (bearing the same subscript as the moved
phrase). On the other hand, the indefinite postverbal subject in (1)
undergoes no movement and is thus structurally a direct object (albeit
one that does not have accusative case).3
In contrast to the above patterns, unergative subjects were assumed
to originate in the high preverbal subject position (spec-IP or spec-TP),
from which they could optionally be lowered to the same structural
position as that assigned in Belletti’s 1988 theory to postverbal definite
unaccusative subjects (see example (2) above).
In a recent updating of the above analysis, Belletti (1999, pp. 34–5)
has continued to argue that indefinite postverbal unaccusative subjects
originate (and remain) in the base position assigned to direct objects
The Ergative Analysis and the Unaccusative Hypothesis 3
(now deemed by her to be the specifier of a low or inner VP), although

she now analyses postverbal unergative and defi nite subjects as moving
to the specifier of a clause-internal ‘focus phrase’ (the first functional
projection above a higher or outer VP), with the verb raising even
higher to give the VS word order. In this way she preserves the core of
the Ergative Analysis, viz. the assumption that ‘the surface preverbal
subject of unaccusatives is in fact a deep object, and, even more impor-
tantly, the postverbal subject of unaccusatives is in fact not only a deep
but also a surface object’ (Belletti 1999, p. 34).4
A link between assumptions such as those made in Belletti 1988/1999
and the properties 1 to 5 described above has then been claimed to
follow from general principles of syntax. The classic instance of this is
the treatment of partitive cliticization, which has been variously linked
to the distinction between A-positions and A-bar positions (Belletti and
Rizzi 1981), the Empty Category Principle (Contreras 1986, Cinque
1990a, 1990c, Longobardi 1991), the Condition on Extraction Domains
(Belletti 1999) and the proper binding requirement on traces (Baltin
2001). Note for example the latter approach, according to which the
availability of ne-extraction from a postverbal subject in Italian is
determined straightforwardly by the requirement that traces have c-
commanding antecedents (identified by Fiengo 1974, 1977). Thus Baltin
writes (assuming the 1988 version of Belletti’s theory):
The argument for ne-cliticization is that the host of ne must be,

within GB/minimalism terms, the c-command domain of ne. The
post-verbal indefinites [i.e., those that allow ne-cliticization] are ana-
lyzed as simply being the D-structure objects of the verb that remain
in their D-structure positions, claimed by Belletti (1988) to receive
an inherent partitive Case. The other post-verbal subjects are ana-
lyzed as being adjoined to VP, a position from which they are not
c-commanded by ne.5 (Baltin 2001, p. 241)
The same ethos has characterized approaches to the other properties

associated with unaccusative verbs. For example, Contreras (1986)
argued that the apparent link between unaccusativity and bare subject
capability followed from the Empty Category Principle (ECP), accord-
ing to which empty categories were required to be properly governed.
By positing that bare arguments contained an empty category (specifi-
cally an empty quantifier), and by assuming a comparatively restricted
definition of proper government, he derived the constraint that bare
arguments had to occur in the complement position to either a preposi-
tion or a verb. Necessarily then, a bare subject had to occur as the

complement of its verb, a possibility that exists in the case of unaccusa-
tives, under the Ergative Analysis, but not in that of unergatives.
With regard to overt expletives like French il (as well as English there),
the assumption in Burzio’s classic study (Burzio 1986) was that such
items targeted the same initial position as unergative subjects, thus
ensuring that the two could not co-occur in the same clause. Alterna-
tively, the associate (the postverbal argument) in the expletive con-
struction has been claimed to have a case, called partitive, that can
only be licensed on objects. This would exclude unergative associates
but not unaccusative associates, given the assumption that the latter
are objects. (For this particular approach see in particular Lasnik 1999,
p. 130.)
As regards participial absolute constructions, the basic approach has
consisted in attributing the apparent exclusion of unergative verbs to
their q -marking properties. Some authors (such as Levin and Rappaport
1986 and Cinque 1990a) have assumed that the past participle mor-
phology generally blocks the licensing of subject q -role (or its external-
ization),6 which would leave an unergative subject of a participial clause
without a q -role but not an unaccusative subject (assuming the latter
have object q -role). Alternatively, unergative past participles have been
claimed to bear accusative case, which, by reason of an assumed need
for case conflict to be avoided, prevents them from raising to another
case position; that is, one from which nominative case can be licensed
on their subject. Thus the possibility of an unergative subject in a par-
ticipial clause is ruled out on the grounds that such a subject would
not be case-marked. (For this approach, see Belletti 1992, 1990.)
The unaccusative–unergative asymmetry in terms of perfect auxi-
liary selection has been linked both to the theory of binding (Burzio
1986) and to the theory of auxiliaries (Kayne 1993, Cocchi 1994).
Burzio famously attributed ‘be’ selection with unaccusatives to the
binding relation established between the (preverbal) subject and
the trace he assumed it left behind in its initial (postverbal) position.
He additionally claimed that an analogous binding relation existed
between an unmoved unaccusative subject (in effect an object) and a
null expletive occupying the otherwise vacant preverbal subject posi-
tion. Later, developing Benveniste’s (1960) thesis that ‘have’ and ‘be’
are variants of the same underlying unit, Kayne and Cocchi argued
that there was no auxiliary selection as such. Instead ‘be’ was claimed
to be the basic auxiliary, but it was realized as ‘have’ whenever a certain
abstract preposition incorporated to it. The apparent unaccusative–
unergative perfect auxiliary asymmetry in languages like Italian then

followed from the assumption that such incorporation did not take
place with unaccusatives.7
Finally, the subject–participle agreement pattern exhibited by ‘be’-
selecting unaccusatives in the perfect has been claimed to result from
the movement of the subject from its hypothesized initial position as
object to its surface preverbal position (Kayne 1989, Belletti 2001). The
basic assumption is that, in so moving, the subject passes through the
specifier of a participle agreement projection and thus enters into an
agreement relation with the participle.
These and other theoretical accounts will be reviewed in the course
of the present study. The point to note at this stage is that certain
familiar descriptive facts of the sort enumerated earlier as 1 to 5 are
now widely assumed to follow from a specific syntactic characteriza-
tion. The precise details vary from author to author, but the basic
assumption is so deeply entrenched that the question of whether it is
correct or not is to all intents a settled issue. The object of the present
study is to question this status quo by showing (i) that the foregoing
syntactic account of the relevant phenomena is both theoretically
unnecessary and empirically inadequate and (ii) that perfectly rational
alternative explanations are readily available. Indeed, one of the implicit
conclusions will be that the Ergative Analysis – insofar as it applies to
Romance – is a classic instance of reconstructing essentially non-syn-
tactic phenomena in syntactic terms.
1.2 The Ergative Analysis versus the

Unaccusative Hypothesis
The Ergative Analysis stems primarily from the work of Burzio (1981,
1986), although partly overlapping ideas can be found in the work
of previous authors (for example, Stowell 1978, Fiengo 1974). It
was originally inspired (at least in its post-1970s form) by the Unaccusa-
tive Hypothesis (Perlmutter 1978, p. 160; 1989, pp. 64–7) of Relational
Grammar (RG). Within the latter framework, grammatical functions
or relations are assigned numbers, with 1, for example, corresponding
to the subject and 2 corresponding to the direct object. Such numbers
were originally used to label arcs in diagrams that represented the
relations in question, but the ‘arc’ terminology has since fallen
into disuse – it will however be used here, given the need to refer to
certain seminal RG papers that are couched within the older
terminology.
RG also makes use of the concept of a ‘stratum’. This reconstructs the

idea of a syntactic level, with the initial stratum corresponding roughly
to the D-Structure formerly posited within the Generative tradition.
According to the Unaccusative Hypothesis, an initial stratum is unac-
cusative ‘if and only if it contains a 2-arc and no 1-arc’ (Perlmutter
1989, p. 65), much as under the Ergative Analysis an unaccusative verb
is assigned a ‘deep’ direct object argument but no ‘deep’ subject argu-
ment.8 Given the Final 1 Law, according to which ‘clauses with final
unaccusative strata will not be well-formed in any language’ (Perlmut-
ter 1978, p. 160), the item heading the 2-arc in an initial unaccusative
stratum often ‘advances’ to head a 1-arc in the final stratum. Thus, for
example, the sentence Gorillas exist (with the unaccusative verb exist)
has two strata: an initial one, in which the nominal gorillas heads a 2-
arc (is a 2) and a final one in which it heads a 1-arc (is a 1).
Note however that an initial 2 does not always undergo advancement
in this way. In particular, Italian postverbal unaccusative subjects (at
least when indefinite) are assumed by Perlmutter to be chomeurs (liter-
ally, unemployed persons) rather than 1s in the final stratum. Thus in
example (4) below (from Perlmutter 1983, p. 142) dei profughi ungheresi
heads an initial 2-arc but is a chomeur in the final stratum. The overall
sentence is then regarded as illustrating an impersonal construction,
with a silent dummy as the final 1:
(4) Sono rimasti dei profughi ungheresi nel paese.

‘Some Hungarian refugees remained in the country.’
Although it is sometimes suggested that the ergative analysis of unac-

cusatives is simply a Government-Binding or Minimalist analogue of
the original RG formulation, such claims are in fact misleading. Within
the GB/Minimalist programme, the analysis of unaccusative subjects
as being deep objects (and in many cases surface objects also) is associ-
ated with a configurational description that in principle has empirically
verifiable implications. In contrast, within the RG framework the analy-
sis of unaccusative subjects as being (initial) 2s is unsupported by a
configurational description. Perlmutter in fact is rather clear on this
point, when he insists (1989, pp. 107–8) on the non-equivalence of
RG-style 1s and 2s with GB/Minimalist-style configurational defini-
tions of subject and direct object. However, given that the Unaccusative
Hypothesis also assumes 2hood not to be necessarily associated with
any surface morphosyntactic property such as case, agreement with the
verb or linear position, it is hard to see what objective correlate attaches
to the RG concept of 2hood. Indeed, RG appears to make a virtue of

the fact that notions such as 1hood and 2hood are ‘theoretical primi-
tives’, that is, undefined concepts (Perlmutter 1989, pp. 64–5). Thus the
2hood analysis of unaccusative subjects is essentially a way of grouping
the subjects of the verbs deemed to be unaccusative with transitive
direct objects. This grouping is motivated by the fact that unaccusative
subjects are claimed to pattern with transitive direct objects in terms
of certain phenomena, the classic instances in Romance being partitive
cliticization and absolute participial constructions (Perlmutter 1989,
pp. 67–74).9
By the same token, RG-style analyses of the cluster of properties listed
as 1 to 5 in 1.1 are necessarily stipulative in character, given that the
crucial analytical concepts (1hood, 2hood, and so forth) admit of no
appeal to more general structural principles. Consider, for example, the
following generalizations from the RG literature:
(5) Condition on Italian partitive ne (Perlmutter 1983,
p. 155):
A nominal can be the ‘source’ of partitive NE in clause b only
if it:
a) heads a 2-arc with tail b,10 and
b) does not head a final 1-arc with tail b.11
(6) Auxiliary selection rule for Italian (Perlmutter 1989, p.

82):
If there is a nominal heading both a 1-arc with tail b and an
Object arc12 with tail b, then clause b requires the perfect aux-
iliary essere. Otherwise it requires avere.
(7) Generalization on Italian participial absolutes (Loporcaro

2003, p. 240):
The verb in participial form is accompanied by a nominal
which is
i) its P-initial 213
ii) the final 1 of the participial clause or its brother-
in-law.14
Notice that in each case the occurrence of the relevant phenomenon

is stated to result from the fulfi lment of an essentially arbitrary com-
bination of conditions. Thus while the generalizations have empirical
import – in that they assert various patterns of parallel distribution –
there is no sense in which they are motivated in terms of general theo-
retical principles.
Therefore, while it can be argued whether RG-style generalizations

such as those shown in (5) to (7) are empirically adequate or not, the
undefined nature of the key analytical concepts leaves no scope for
engagement at a theoretical level. Accordingly, little will be said in the
theoretical sections of this book about the RG approach, although the
empirical evidence adduced will implicitly challenge the empirical
adequacy of the relevant RG generalizations.
1.3 General problems with the ‘deep-object’ hypothesis
As was mentioned earlier, the aim of this book is to question the utility
of the unaccusative–unergative distinction in terms of the analysis of
properties such as those enumerated as 1 to 5 in 1.1. Obviously, this
objective can only be advanced through consideration of the nature of
these properties on an individual basis, and that programme forms the
subject matter of the main chapters of this book. On the other hand,
certain general anomalies can be identified at this stage within the
basic assumption that unaccusative subjects are ‘deep’ direct objects (or
initial 2s) in a syntactic sense.
1.3.1 q -marking
The first such anomaly relates to a standard subject–object asymmetry
in q -marking. Since Chomsky (1986a, pp. 59–60), it has usually been
assumed that subject q -role is assigned not by the verb in isolation but
compositionally by the VP as a whole. For example, in (8) and (9) below
it is the verb plus its complement, and not merely the verb, that deter-
mines the q -role assigned to John (agent in (8), but not in (9)):
(8) John broke the window.
(9) John broke his arm.
This contrasts with the assignment of a q -role to the object position,

which is assumed to be determined directly by the verb.
Now the assumption concerning unaccusatives is that their subjects
bear object q -role, given that while such verbs q -mark an object, no q -
role is assigned to the subject position. Thus if unaccusative subjects
really are ‘deep’ objects, we would expect their q -role always to be
determined exclusively by the verb and never compositionally by the
verb together with a complement. In fact, however, this does not
appear to be the case. This can be seen when an unaccusative verb has
a prepositional complement, as in the pair of Spanish examples

below:15
(10) Pedro pasó por nuestra calle a propósito.

‘Pedro deliberately went through our street.’
(11) ??Pedro pasó por una mala época a propósito.
‘Pedro deliberately went though a difficult period.’
Assuming, following Gruber (1976), that adverbs meaning ‘deliberately’

diagnose agentivity, Pedro has agent q -role in (10) but not in (11).
But it must be the verb plus its prepositional complement that deter-
mines this pattern of q -marking and not the verb in isolation, given
that pasar on its own is unspecified in respect of the distinction between
agent and non-agent. This finding indicates that the q -marking of
unaccusative subjects is compositional, just like that of subjects in
general. Such a situation is difficult to reconcile with the assumption
that unaccusative subjects are q -marked in the same way as direct
objects.
1.3.2 A postverbal control asymmetry

An additional asymmetry in terms of which unaccusative subjects do
not pattern as expected relates to the phenomenon of control. Direct
objects systematically lack the ability to control PRO in an adjunct
clause:
(12) *The police arrested two meni [without PROi putting up a

fight].
This restriction has been accounted for under the assumption that the
direct object position is not sufficiently ‘high’ in the clause structure
to c-command into the adjunct.16 In contrast, the preverbal subject in
(13) below occupies a high position and thus control into the adjunct
is unproblematic:
(13) The policei arrested two men [without PROi reading them their
rights].
Now given that postverbal unaccusative subjects in null subject lan-

guages like Italian and Spanish are assumed to be not just deep direct
objects but also surface direct objects (at least when indefinite), one
would expect them not to have the ‘high’ control capability associated
with preverbal subjects.17 However, as noted by Chomsky (1995b,
p. 274) in connection with the Italian example below, postverbal unac-
cusative subjects behave like ordinary preverbal subjects in this
respect:18
(14) Sono entrati tre uominii [senza PROi indentificarsi].19

‘Three men entered without identifying themselves.’
The above paradigm is in fact general in Romance null subject lan-

guages. Thus the Spanish counterpart to (14) is also unproblematic:
(15) Entraron tres hombresi [sin PROi identificarse].

‘Three men entered without identifying themselves.’
In this respect, unaccusative verbs are indistinguishable from unerga-

tive verbs:
(16) Gritaron tres hombresi [sin PROi identificarse].

‘Three men shouted without identifying themselves.’
On the face of it, the control asymmetry between postverbal unac-

cusative subjects and transitive direct objects is entirely unexpected. If
the latter cannot control into an adjunct, one would expect the same
to apply (possibly a fortiori, in the light of notes 16 and 17) to postverbal
unaccusative subjects (at least when they are indefinite). It might be
argued that the phenomenon could receive a non-structural account,
given that control can involve (in addition to structure) thematic prop-
erties. However, it is difficult to see how thematic properties could be
relevant in the case of adjuncts introduced by sin/senza, which do not
appear to place any thematic constraints on the controller. Notice for
example that the relevant control pattern is equally possible with an
agent subject, as in sentence (16), and with a theme subject, as in
sentence (17):
(17) Ha muerto mucha gente sin hacer un testamento.

‘Many people have died without making a will.’
The structural nature of the phenomenon in question is further

confirmed by the fact that the relevant control pattern is not possible
in the French sentence (18) below, which is semantically equivalent to
(14) and (15):
(18) *Il est arrivé trois hommes sans s’identifier.

‘There arrived three men without identifying themselves.’
This disparity between Italian/Spanish on the one hand and French on

the other is surprising if the control pattern in question is determined
by semantic factors.20
Chomsky initially argued (1995b, pp. 273–4) that the Italian/Spanish-
style postverbal unaccusative control pattern resulted from covert
raising of the subject’s formal features to a high preverbal position. The
difference with respect to cases such as French (18) was then claimed
to follow under the assumption that the features of the postverbal
argument did not raise, whence the fi xed singular agreement form of
the verb (est as opposed to sont). However, the feature movement
hypothesis has now effectively been abandoned, with postverbal argu-
ments now being assumed to agree in situ with the verb (see Chomsky
2000, pp. 123–6).
With control by raised features thus ruled out, the asymmetry
between postverbal unaccusative subjects and transitive objects could
plausibly be taken to indicate that the former are higher than the latter
in the clause structure. Exactly where is unclear, but the parity between
unaccusative and unergative postverbal subjects illustrated by (16)
might be interpreted as reflecting a single location for both types of
item.
1.3.3 Passive–unaccusative asymmetries
Under both the Ergative Analysis and the Unaccusative Hypothesis,
passive subjects receive a parallel analysis to unaccusative subjects.
Accordingly, it has been insisted time and again that passives pattern
with unaccusatives in terms of phenomena assumed to be criterial for
determining syntactic analysis (see, for example, Levin and Rappaport
1989). It will be argued in 2.5 and 3.4 that much of this parallel behav-
iour can be attributed to a common capability in terms of information
structure, without the need to assume a common syntax. However, at
this stage it should also be noted that there are two key respects in
which passives diverge from unaccusatives.
Firstly, there is the issue of perfect auxiliary selection. It is true that
passives select essere in Italian, as shown by (19) below:
(19) Sono stati visti dai parenti per l’ultima volta il 26 e 27

febbraio.
‘They were last seen by relatives on the 26th and 27th of
February.’
However in French, for example, passives select avoir in the perfect,

thus patterning rather conspicuously with unergatives:
(20) Le cardinal allemand a été élu pape au quatrième tour de

scrutin.
‘The German cardinal was elected Pope on the fourth ballot.’
Moreover older forms of French are identical in this respect, as the fif-
teenth-century example below illustrates:
(21) ung chapellet d’amour dont present a esté faict par une dame
a deux amoureux
‘a rosary of which a present was made by a lady to two lovers’
(Arr, 34) 21
Perfect auxiliary selection is absent in modern Spanish, but it existed

in Old Spanish and there too passives selected a ‘have’ verb (Lapesa
2000, p. 784; Benzing 1931, p. 442) rather than a ‘be’ verb.
It seems strange that so much significance can be attached to the
passive–unaccusative symmetry in perfect auxiliary selection in Italian
and yet so little to the corresponding asymmetry in languages like
French and Old Spanish.22
There is also a passive–unaccusative asymmetry in terms of bare
subject capability. Consider, for example, the contrast between the two
Spanish sentences below (from Contreras 1986, p. 27):
(22) Falta café. (Unaccusative)

‘Coffee is needed.’
(23) *Fue enviado café. (Passive)
‘Coffee was sent.’
Contreras accounted for the above disparity by claiming that the post-
verbal passive subject occupied a position that was not properly gov-
erned, hence the empty quantifier he believed to be present within the
subject phrase was not properly governed either (assuming, in addition,
that the empty quantifier was not governed from within the subject
phrase). The ungrammaticality of (23) thus resulted from a violation
of the Empty Category Principle.
Notice, however, that the same principle has been appealed to in
order to account for the distribution of partitive clitics such as Italian
ne (see, for example, Cinque 1990a, pp. 5–6; 1990b, p. 69), which sys-
tematically is possible with passives:
(24) Ne sono stati identificati tre.

‘Three (of them) have been identified.’
The extraction of ne from the postverbal subject is standardly assumed

to leave a trace, which, as an empty category, would also require proper
government under the ECP. Thus the grammaticality of (24) implies
that the asymmetry illustrated by (22) versus (23) cannot be a reflex of
the ECP, or indeed any other principle regulating the distribution of
empty categories.
We might then consider the possibility that case licensing is the
crucial factor in the contrast between (22) and (23). Belletti (1988) and
others have argued that bare nouns in Italian and Spanish have
partitive (or inherent) case. Accordingly, it might be supposed that
partitive case cannot be checked in the configuration illustrated by
(23). However this possibility is immediately ruled by the fact that,
under the partitive case hypothesis, partitive case is licensed in passive
constructions (see, for instance, Belletti 1988, p. 6; Lasnik 1999, pp.
85–90). For example, it is precisely this possibility that has been claimed
to account for the occurrence of passives in the French expletive il
construction:
(25) Il a été tué un homme.

‘A man has been killed.’
Case-licensing, then, cannot account for the contrast between (22)

and (23). A final possibility is that there is some sort of adjacency
requirement (unrelated to case) on the bare subject in relation to the
finite verb. Under that approach, (23) is ruled out because café is not
adjacent to fue. Such an analysis, however, quite apart from the fact
that it lacks any obvious independent motivation, would wrongly
predict a sentence such as (26) below to be ungrammatical, given that
here too the bare noun is non-adjacent to the fi nite verb: 23
(26) Son inminentes tormentas. Storms are imminent.’
Thus the contrast between (22) and (23) remains mysterious. However,
under the assumption that passives and unaccusatives receive parallel
syntactic analyses, there should be no contrast at all.
We find, then, that while passives pattern with unaccusatives in

terms of some of the criterial phenomena (for example, ne-cliticization
and perfect auxiliary selection in Italian), in terms of others there is
no parallel at all (bare subject capability, perfect auxiliary selection in
French/Old Spanish). This ‘soft’ convergence pattern is suggestive of a
probabilistic distributional link between passives and unaccusatives
rather than a ‘hard’ causal link determined by a common syntax.
1.3.4 The COMP-trace effect

Finally it can be noted that certain instances of object-like behaviour
on the part of subjects involve no unaccusative–unergative asymmetry
at all. The classic example relates to the apparent immunity of null
subject languages to the so-called COMP-trace effect. In languages like
English it is possible to wh-extract an object but not a subject across an
overt complementizer:
(27) Who did you say that she saw?

(28) Who did you say (*that) phoned?
In contrast, null subject languages typically allow the deviant (in

English) subject-extraction pattern. For example, note the obligatori-
ness of que in the Spanish sentence below:
(29) ¿Quién has dicho que ha llamado?

‘Who did you say phoned?’
It has often been assumed (following Rizzi 1982) that the COMP-
trace immunity illustrated by sentences such as (29) results from the
fact that the wh-extracted subject is in reality a postverbal subject, as
schematized in (30): 24
(30) ¿Quiéni has dicho que ha llamado ti?
This possibility is only available, of course, in languages that routinely

allow postverbal subjects, in other words null subject languages like
Spanish and Italian.
The interesting point from the present perspective is that the COMP-
trace immunity is blind to the unaccusative–unergative distinction.
Thus compare (29), involving unergative llamar, with (31) below, involv-
ing unaccusative llegar:
(31) ¿Quién has dicho que ha llegado?

‘Who did you say has arrived?’
The comparison with English (27) indicates that the postverbal extrac-
tion position in (29) and (31) is analogous to an object position.
However, both unergative and unaccusative subjects can occupy this
position. This suggests that it is postverbal placement rather than an
association with an unaccusative verb that enables object-like behav-
iour in a subject. The implication of Chapters 2, 3 and 4 will be that
those object-like behaviour patterns that have been identified as unac-
cusative diagnostics do not in reality constitute an exception to this
principle.
1.4 Conclusion
Two syntactic theories, the Ergative Analysis and the Unaccusative

Hypothesis, ascribe a cluster of well-known properties of certain
Romance intransitive verbs (the unaccusatives or ergatives) to the fact
that the subjects of such verbs are ‘deep’ direct objects and, under the
Ergative Analysis, frequently ‘surface’ direct objects also. The first of
these theories articulates this linkage in terms of various general prin-
ciples that are claimed to be independently motivated. Under the
second theory, the crucial direct object relation (the ‘2’ relation)
is taken to be a theoretical primitive and thus the analysis of the
relevant phenomena reduces ultimately to a series of empirical
generalizations.
A brief investigation of some of the more obvious implications result-
ing from the principle claim of the above theories reveals a number of
discrepancies. Firstly, evidence from verb + prepositional complement
sequences suggests that unaccusative subjects receive their q -role com-
positionally, just like unergative and transitive subjects and in contrast
to transitive direct objects. The reverse pattern is expected if unaccusa-
tive subjects really are deep objects and hence receive object q -role.
Secondly, control properties group postverbal unaccusative and unerga-
tive subjects together, in contradistinction to transitive objects. This
again is unexpected, given that under the Ergative Analysis postverbal
unaccusative subjects are assumed to occupy direct object position.
Thirdly, the much cited distributional parallel between unaccusatives
and passives is by no means as robust as is often assumed. In particular,
perfect auxiliary selection tends to group passives with unergatives in
western Romance and there is a general unaccusative–passive asym-
metry in terms of bare subject capability, for which extenuating cir-

cumstances are difficult to identify. Finally, the absence of any
unaccusative–unergative asymmetry in terms of the COMP-trace
immunity in null subject languages suggests that postverbal position
rather than verb class is the key factor in determining object-like behav-
iour in subjects.
2
Expletive Inversion
2.1 Introduction
What is traditionally referred to as ‘free’ subject inversion is associated

primarily with null-subject languages such as Italian, Spanish and
Catalan. Non-null subject languages like French and English exhibit a
rather more restricted form of inversion, in which the high preverbal
subject position (usually identified as spec-TP or spec-IP) is occupied by
an expletive element and the phrase corresponding to a Spanish/Italian-
style postverbal subject is referred to as the expletive’s ‘associate’. I will
refer to this type of construction as expletive inversion. The sentences
below provide illustrations from French and English:
(1) Il est arrivé quelque chose de très drôle.

‘Something very strange happened.’
(2) Il est paru une nouvelle édition de son livre.

‘A new edition of his book has appeared.’
(3) Il a surgi certaines difficultés au dernier moment.

‘Certain problems emerged at the last minute.’
(4) There followed a period of instability.

(5) There appeared a squadron of riot police.
(6) As the afternoon faded there approached a sailboat from the
north.
Expletive inversion has received a considerable degree of theoretical

interest, primarily because it appears to confirm one of the basic
assumptions behind the Extended Projection Principle (EPP). Within
17
Government Binding Theory, expletives were analysed as being inserted

into the high preverbal subject position in order to satisfy the EPP as
originally conceived, that is, to satisfy the requirement that every
clause have a (structural) subject in spec-IP/TP at S-structure. The
essentials of this analysis have been carried over into Minimalism, with
expletive insertion into spec-IP/TP now analysed as providing the
mechanism whereby the (uninterpretable) strong D feature on T(ense)
is checked and deleted. As Lasnik (1999, p. 76) observes, this way of
looking at matters ‘captures the core’ of the original EPP.
Possibly because of the frequency in expletive inversion of prototypi-
cal unaccusative verbs, as well as verbs meaning ‘be’ (which also receive
an unaccusative type of analysis), it has frequently been argued that
there is a basic incompatibility between this construction and unerga-
tive syntax. In this way, compatibility with items such as French il and
English there has often come to be seen as an unaccusative diagnostic
(see, for example, Burzio 1986, Belletti 1988, Labelle 1992).
While expletive inversion is not the most widely cited of the unac-
cusative diagnostics, it is convenient to discuss it in this initial chapter,
as this provides an opportunity to introduce certain themes that will
be important in later chapters, in particular the relationship between
presentational information structure and unaccusativity.
2.2 Expletives and unergative subjects
As was mentioned above, it has often been claimed that expletive in-
version is incompatible with unergative syntax. The basic theoretical
method for deriving this exclusion involves assuming that the expletive
and the verb’s subject (the would-be associate) are in competition for
the same structural position. In Burzio’s classic account (1986:119–77),
this strategy was implemented through the claim that overt expletives
were inserted into the high preverbal subject position at D-structure.
This immediately excluded unergatives, given the then prevalent
assumption that unergative subjects were base-generated in exactly that
position.
Obviously enough, however, Burzio’s account is insufficient under
the more recent VP-internal subject hypothesis, according to which
unergative subjects are base-generated at a position that is lower than
the preverbal subject position.1 Under any reasonable implementation
of this hypothesis, and given the surface postverbal position of the
associate, a would-be unergative associate would never need to occupy
the high position assigned to the expletive. A mechanism is of course
Expletive Inversion 19
required for deriving the postverbal placement of the associate, but

plausibly some form of verb raising might be hypothesized, as is rou-
tinely assumed for postverbal unergative subjects in null-subject
languages.2 Indeed some such process has to be independently assumed
for other cases of unergative inversion that can be found in non-null
subject languages, as illustrated by the following French examples:
(7) De nouveau soufflait le grand vent du premier soir.3

(Fournier)
‘Again was blowing the strong wind of the fi rst night.’
(8) Devant nous marchait la colonne de soldats.

‘In front of us marched the column of soldiers.’
Thus the widespread assumption that overt expletives are base-gener-

ated, or (externally) ‘merged’, in the high preverbal subject position
conventionally labelled as spec-IP or spec-TP does not in itself rule out
the possibility that unergative subjects can occur as associates. More
recently, Richards and Biberauer (2005) have suggested that expletives
are (externally) merged in spec-vp (where vp is the outer shell of a two-
tiered VP) and subsequently raise to spec-TP/IP. At first glance, this
might appear to motivate an exclusion of unergative associates, given
that unergative subjects are also assumed (under the vp shell analysis)
to merge into spec-vp.
However, Richards and Biberauer’s proposal assumes crucially that
an expletive is merged into the non-thematic outer specifier of vp
(replacing the object agreement projection of older models) and not
into the q -related inner spec-vp position. It is the latter that is normally
identified as the merge site corresponding to unergative subjects. Thus
the occurrence of an unergative subject would not in principle impinge
upon the possibility for an expletive to be inserted. Accordingly, the
merge-vp analysis of expletives does not appear to provide a basis for
deriving a theoretical exclusion of unergative verbs from expletive
inversion.
In fact, many authors (such as Bouchard 1995, Cummins 1996,
Legendre and Sorace 2003) have observed that the occurrence of uner-
gative verbs in expletive il inversion is a routine matter. Some examples
are given below: 4
(9) Il vole des milliers de corbeaux au dessus de la ville.

‘Thousands of crows are flying above the town.’
(10) Il a régné trois rois mérovingiens.

‘Three Merovingian kings have reigned.’
(11) Il a couru beaucoup de gens dans le marathon.
‘Many people ran in the marathon.’
(12) Il voyage un homme seul.
‘A man is travelling alone.’
(13) Il souffle un vent du nord.
‘A wind is blowing from the north.’
2.3 Partitive case
Nevertheless, the data represented by (9) to (13) is at variance with

another widely held assumption, viz. that expletive constructions
require the associate to have so-called partitive (or inherent) case.
Building on ideas first developed by Belletti (1988), Lasnik (1999:130)
has argued that the expletive checks and deletes nominative case. Con-
sequently, the assumed nominative case of an unergative subject would
be incapable of being checked (licensed) in an expletive construction
and so sentences such as (9) to (13) ought not to be grammatical. On
the other hand, it is argued that no such problem affects unaccusative
subjects, given the further assumption (p. 85) that these have partitive
case, which is checked in a low position (VP-internally according to
Belletti 1999, p. 34, or in an object agreement projection according
to Lasnik 1999, pp. 86–7).5 Under this type of analysis, the capability
to occur in expletive inversion becomes limited to partitive case licens-
ers, that is, unaccusatives, passives and verbs meaning ‘be’.
The original evidence for the partitive case hypothesis was compiled
by Belletti. Noting the so-called ‘definiteness effects’ in sentences
such as (14) to (17) below (from Belletti 1988, pp. 4–6), she argued that
unaccusatives and passives licensed on their associates an overtly
unrealized case that was incompatible with definite or universal
reference:
(14) *There arose the storm here.
(15) *Il est arrivé la fille.
‘There arrived the girl.’
(16) *Il a été tué l’homme.
‘There has been killed the man.’
(17) *There arises every terrible storm in that area.
Belletti called the case in question ‘partitive’, by analogy with overtly

manifested partitive case in languages like Finnish, which has been
claimed to be associated with non-definite interpretations.
It had been assumed that no definiteness effects existed in null-
subject languages like Italian, because postverbal subjects in these
languages did not appear to be constrained by the same restric-
tions as those illustrated by (14) to (17). However, Belletti argued (1988,
pp. 8–10) that such effects did exist, but they were only apparent
in cases in which a postverbal subject was located between the verb
and a subcategorized preposition phrase (PP). Thus she highlighted
grammaticality/acceptability contrasts such as the following:
(18) All’improvviso è entrato un uomo dalla finestra.

‘Suddenly a man entered from the window.’
(19) *All’improvviso è entrato l’uomo dalla finestra.
‘Suddenly the man entered from the window.’
(20) È stato messo un libro sul tavolo.
‘A book has been put on the table.’
(21) *È stato messo il libro sul tavolo.
‘The book has been put on the table.’
(22) Era finalmente arrivato qualche studente a lezione.
‘Some students had finally arrived at the lecture.’
(23) *Era finalmente arrivato ogni studente a lezione.
‘Every student had finally arrived at the lecture.’
(24) È stato trovato qualche articolo di Gianni nel dossier.
‘Some articles by Gianni have been found in the file.’
(25) *È stato trovato ogni articolo di Gianni nel dossier.
‘Every article by Gianni has been found in the fi le.’
The importance of the frame ‘verb . . . PP’ lay in the fact that Belletti
assumed it to diagnose direct object position. Thus the apparent
definiteness effects illustrated by (19), (21), (23) and (25) indicated, in
Belletti’s view, that while indefinite unaccusative/passive postverbal
subjects remained in direct object position (where they were assumed
to originate), their definite and universal counterparts could not. In
fact, these were analysed as having to move to a VP-adjoined position
where they were said to receive nominative case.6 This implied that the
indefinite postverbal subjects were case-licensed in direct object posi-

tion. Under the further assumptions (i) that nominative case could not
be licensed on an argument in direct object position and (ii) that
neither unaccusatives nor passives license accusative case, the indefi-
nite postverbal subjects had to bear a case other than nominative or
accusative. Belletti contended that the case they bore was partitive.
The approach pioneered in Belletti (1988) was updated in Belletti
(1999, pp. 35–6). In the newer framework, Belletti has continued to
argue that indefinite unaccusative postverbal subjects are licensed
through partitive (or possibly just ‘inherent’) case in the initial or base
position assigned to direct objects.7 However, the position in which
definite and unergative postverbal subjects are licensed is now the
specifier of a clause-internal ‘focus phrase’ (identified as the first
functional projection above VP). In other words, defi nite and unerga-
tive postverbal subjects are assumed to be focused constituents.
Alleged definiteness effects are then attributed (p. 35) to ‘the existence
of a certain tendency whereby there is a preference in having the
focussed constituent in the clause fi nal position’.8 The insertion of a
definite/unergative postverbal subject between the verb and a PP com-
plement would represent a failure to observe this principle. However,
as no ‘deep’ constraint is violated, the structure thus created is ‘ruled
in but acquires a marginality flavor’. Accordingly, the earlier outright
ungrammaticality of (19) gives way to the newer marginal status of
(26):
(26) ?È entrato Mario dalla finestra. (Belletti 1999, p. 36)

‘Mario has come in through the window.’
Superficially at least, Belletti’s partitive case hypothesis is persuasive.

However, a number of considerations can be marshalled against it.
Before looking at these, we can perhaps separate the strictly definite
data from the data pertaining to the universal distributives such as
English every and Italian ogni.9 In general, restrictions on associates or
postverbal subjects involving the latter are much more robust than
those that relate to definite determiners. For example, while Spanish
fails to reveal any systematic definiteness effect (in the strict sense), as
is illustrated by the complete acceptability of examples such as (27) and
(28) below, which replicate the structure of Italian (19) and (21), it
nevertheless exhibits a strong tendency for universal distributives not
to occur in postverbal position (with or without a following PP), as is
shown in (29) and (30):
(27) Por fin llegó María a casa.

‘Finally María got home.’
(28) Fue arrojada la basura por un barranco.
‘The rubbish was thrown down a gulley.’
(29) Ha llegado un alumno/??cada alumno.
‘A student/Every student has arrived.’
(30) Ha sido escondido un libro/??cada libro.
‘A book/Every book has been hidden.’
However, the problem attaching to the cada phrases in (29) and (30)
can be reproduced when the verb is unergative, where partitive case is
ruled out on a priori grounds:
(31) Ha llamado un alumno/??cada alumno.10

‘A student/Every student has phoned.’
(32) En el jardín jugaba un niño/??cada niño.
‘In the garden a boy/every boy played.’
We find the same pattern with French and English unergatives in exple-
tive inversion. For example, voler ‘fly’ and voyager ‘travel’ are compatible
in principle with indefinite associates, as is shown by the earlier exam-
ples (9) and (12), repeated below:


However, they cannot occur with universal distributives:
(33) *Il vole chaque corbeau au dessus de la ville.

‘Every crow flies/is flying above the town.’
(34) *Il voyage chaque homme seul.

‘Every man travels/is travelling alone.’
Similarly, English vote is possible in cases such as (35), but not in cases
such as (36):
(35) There voted more women than men in the last election.
(36) *There voted every man in the last election.
In general, then, restrictions on universal distributives do not dis-

criminate between passives/unaccusatives and unergatives. Therefore,
given that, by hypothesis, unergatives cannot license partitive
case, such data cannot be relevant in terms of establishing whether
partitive case (in Belletti’s sense) exists. Presumably, in fact, the
restrictions in question result from the circumstance that the use
of a universal distributive in Romance typically implies a topic–
comment segmentation of the information structure associated with
the containing clause. As will be discussed in more detail in 2.5, both
expletive inversion and the type of inversion illustrated by examples
such as (29) to (32) are incompatible with that type of information
structure.
Turning now to the strictly definite effects, note first of all that,
contrary to Belletti’s assumptions, the French il construction routinely
allows definite associates, provided these obey the usual pragmatic
constraint on definite descriptions to the effect that their referent must
be capable of being identified (either on the basis of the description
itself or on the basis of collateral information stemming from the
context of utterance):
Proper name:
(37) À ce moment-là il est apparu Jésus.

‘At that moment Jesus appeared.’
Definite description:
(38) En 1782, il a été construit le nouveau fort afin de garder l’entrée

du fleuve contre les invasions.
‘In 1782 the new fort was built, in order to protect the entrance
to the river from invasion.’
(39) Il se joue le cricket en Afrique du Sud.
‘Cricket is played in South Africa.’
(40) Un sénateur et un député se disputaient le siège de président
regional. Il a été élu le sénateur.
‘A senator and a member of the Assembly were fighting for the
job of Regional President. The senator was elected.’
Demonstrative phrase:
(41) Il est déjà paru cette édition aux Etats Unis.

‘This edition has already appeared in the USA.’
(42) Il a été construit cette maison en 1890.
‘This house was built in 1890.’
The English there construction also allows defi nite associates,

although slightly less freely than the French il construction:
(43) And when she was gone there appeared Apollo himself. (Alfred
Church)
(44) At that moment there arrived the officer of the guard carrying
his parcel. (Andrew Lang)
(45) Twenty-eight years later there occurred the Cape Ann
earthquake.
Analogous examples to French (40) are not forthcoming, which indi-

cates that the there construction does not readily allow associates
that depend on recent prior mention in order to determine their
reference.11
Thus it does not appear to be true that the il and there constructions
are incompatible in principle with definite associates.12 The crucial
constraint appears to be that a definite associate must be capable of
having its referent identified. A deficiency in this regard can then be
regarded as the source of the deviancy of sentences such as (14) to (16),
repeated below:
(14) *There arose the storm here.

(15) *Il est arrivé la fille.
‘There arrived the girl.’
(16) *Il a été tué l’homme.
‘There has been killed the man.’
If this deficiency is remedied, for example by modifying the associates,

the sentences become fully acceptable:
(46) At this point there arose the long-dreaded storm.13
(47) Il est arrivé la fille du roi.

‘The king’s daughter arrived.’
(48) Il a été tué l’homme le plus faible.
‘The weakest man was killed.’
It might still be argued that the definite associates illustrated above

could in principle occupy the position assigned by Belletti to definite/
unergative postverbal subjects in Italian, that is, a position in which
licensing is assumed not to be effected through partitive/inherent case.
However, such an analysis is problematic in view of the fact that a defi-
nite associate can be inserted between the verb and a subcategorized
PP, that is, in the very frame that Belletti originally took to diagnose
partitive case position:
(49) Il a été expulsé Lénine du parti.

‘Lenin was expelled from the party.’
(50) Il a été posé le modèle sur la table.14

‘The model was placed on the table.’
(51) Just then there emerged the commanding officer from his tent.
Under the original theory, configurations such as the above would

be predicted to be ungrammatical, because they would necessarily
involve definite associates in partitive case position. Under the updated
version (Belletti 1999), the situation is less clearcut. Given the pos-
sibility of verb movement, the frame ‘verb . . . subcategorized PP’ can
no longer be regarded as directly diagnosing partitive case position.
However, as mentioned earlier, the ‘marginality’ in Italian of configura-
tions comparable to (49) to (51) is derived by assuming that they con-
flict with the principle that focused items should occur clause-finally.
Thus if (49) to (51) receive the analysis proposed for Italian, they ought
to have a ‘marginality flavour’, which in fact they do not. On the other
hand, if the focus-related considerations identified in Belletti (1999)
only apply to Italian, this leaves us with no diagnostic, as far as French
and English are concerned, for identifying different structural posi-
tions for definite and indefinite associates. Either way, the behaviour
of French and English defi nite descriptions in expletive inversion ceases
to motivate a partitive case hypothesis.
Thus the data from English and French provide no obvious grounds
for positing the existence of partitive case (in Belletti’s sense). More-
over, in the light of (27) and (28), reproduced below, the data from
Spanish point in the same direction:
(27) Por fin llegó María a casa.

‘Finally María got home.’
(28) Fue arrojada la basura por un barranco.
‘The rubbish was thrown down a gulley.’
From this perspective, the Italian data adduced by Belletti now look
somewhat isolated. The question that arises at this point is whether the
behaviour of definite postverbal subjects in Italian might be interpreted
in a way other than that indicated by Belletti.
With this question in mind, it is significant that Pinto (1997:49) has
attributed the deviancy of example (19), reproduced below, to the fact
that the definite description is insufficiently specific to secure unique-
ness of reference:15
(19) *All’improvviso è entrato l’uomo dalla finestra..

‘Suddenly the man entered from the window.’
According to Pinto, if the phrase l’uomo is replaced by il cane, which in

her view ‘identifies a unique object in the world, i.e. the salient dog
in that specific context of interpretation’, the sentence becomes
acceptable:
(52) All’improvviso è entrato il cane dalla finestra.16

‘Suddenly the dog came in through the window.’
If Pinto is correct, the deviancy of (19) is not due to a failure of

case licensing, as claimed in Belletti 1988, or to the fact that
definite postverbal subjects are always focused, as claimed in Belletti
1999.
Pinto does not appear to comment on the passive frame illustrated
by (21), which is reproduced below:
(21) *È stato messo il libro sul tavolo.

‘The book has been put on the table.’
Notice, however, that an account of (21) that is analogous to the one

suggested by Pinto for sentence (19) is potentially available, given that
in each of the sentences below (all from authentic sources), a definite
postverbal subject with a determinate referent has a felicitous occur-
rence in precisely the type of context illustrated by (21), that is, between
a passive verb and a following PP complement:
(53) La Polizia è intervenuta nel momento in cui è stata consegnata

la busta al X, in presenza del ricorrente. (Rome court
report)
‘The police intervened at the moment when the envelope was
handed to X, in the presence of the appellant.’
(54) Nel 1767 . . . furono espulsi i Gesuiti dal Regno di Napoli affi-
dando a dei laici l’istruzione pubblica. (Document on the
history of Naples)
‘In 1767 the Jesuits were expelled from the kingdom of Naples
and public instruction was entrusted to lay persons.’
(55) Sarà concesso il diritto di prelazione agli inquilini. (Letting
agency publicity)
‘The right of pre-emption will be granted to the tenants.’
Belletti (1988, p. 16) in fact recognized that there was no defi niteness
effect when the reference was to types of object that were clearly
unique, as in the example below, where there is a background assump-
tion that people usually have one and only one wallet:
(56) È stato rubato il portafoglio a Maria.

‘Maria’s wallet has been stolen.’
Belletti claimed that, despite its normal indefinite import, partitive case
was licensed on the definite postverbal subject in the above type of
context, precisely because of the overtly unique reference (which she
termed the ‘uniqueness interpretation’). However, given that, as Russell
(1905) famously showed, the whole point of a singular definite descrip-
tion is that it has (or purports to have) unique reference, it is hard to
see on what grounds Belletti can allow that partitive case can be
licensed on uniquely referring definites and yet claim that it cannot be
licensed on definites in general.17 All felicitous singular definites are
uniquely referring and thus all such definites in principle fall under
some form of uniqueness interpretation.
Belletti’s more recent assumption that definite postverbal subjects

move to the specifier of a focus phrase also looks suspect, given that it
implies that all such subjects are in focus and, as a matter of fact, this
does not appear to be the case. Thus in the examples below (from Pinto
1997, p. 20), the legitimacy of the question Che cosa è successo? ‘What’s
happened’ indicates the answer has wide focus, excluding the possibil-
ity that the definite postverbal subject is in focus:
(57) – Che cosa è successo?

– È entrata Beatrice.
‘What’s happened?’ ‘Beatrice has come in.’
– È affondata la Attilio Regolo.
‘What’s happened?’ ‘The Attilio Regolo has sunk.’
– È morto Fellini.
‘What’s happened?’ ‘Fellini has died.’

– Si è sciolta la neve.
‘What’s happened?’ ‘The snow has melted.’
The above data indicate that focus does not systematically identify
definite postverbal subjects. Therefore there is no principled motivation
for assuming that definite postverbal subjects in Italian occupy the
specifier of a focus phrase. By the same token the Italian data, like the
English, French and Spanish data, do not appear to provide a principled
basis for assuming that indefinite and definite postverbal subjects
occupy distinct structural positions. We are thus left without a princi-
pled reason for assuming that the indefinites are licensed in a different
fashion from the definites. This finding in itself appears to deprive the
partitive case hypothesis of independent motivation. However, as just
noted, that hypothesis is additionally challenged by the felicitous
occurrence of definite postverbal subjects in syntactic contexts or
frames in which they are predicted to be infelicitous (or even ungram-
matical under the original theory) and also by the availability of Pinto’s
alternative explanation for the deviancies highlighted by Belletti.18
Given all of this, it does not seem unwarranted to conclude that
Belletti’s partitive case hypothesis is not motivated by the available
evidence.
2.4 A preliminary conclusion about expletive inversion
With this conceptual obstacle removed, we are free to suppose that the
licensing mechanism (whatever this may be) that suffices for the uner-
gative associates in sentences such as (9) to (13), reproduced below,
represents the general case, that is, that it suffices also for unaccusative
and passive associates, definite or indefinite:

(10) Il a régné trois rois mérovingiens.

‘Three Merovingian kings have reigned.’
(11) Il a couru beaucoup de gens dans le marathon.
‘Many people ran in the marathon.’
(13) Il souffle un vent du nord.
‘A wind is blowing from the north.’
As regards the il construction, this finding essentially confirms what

was already implied by the very existence of these and comparable
examples, viz. that there is no direct link between expletive inversion
and unaccusativity. Moreover, there is every likelihood that this con-
clusion applies generally. For example, English there parallels il in the
relevant respects. As we have seen, there is no compelling a priori argu-
ment requiring it to be incompatible with unergative syntax. In addi-
tion, it too exhibits a de facto compatibility with unergative verbs:
(61) Over by the hemlock tree there buzzed a swarm of angry

hornets.
(62) One autumn day there fluttered onto the Cathedral roof a
slender, sweet-voiced bird. (Saki)
(63) On a vote being taken, there voted for the Amendment three,
and for the Motion four. (Minutes of the Lochaber Area
Committee)
(64) There dined with us Lord Rochester, and his fine daughter.
(Swift)
(65) And next there spoke a tribal elder.
Mention could also be made of certain Italo-Romance locative clitics

that have similar functions to expletives. One such is Sardinian bi,
discussed at length by Bentley (2004b). She in fact argues that the clitic
is not an expletive, although on the face of it there appear to be impor-
tant similarities with Piedmontese ye, which Burzio (1986) assumed to
be an expletive. I leave open what the exact classification of bi is, but
if it is in any way on a par with English there and French il, then its
behaviour reinforces the general conclusion drawn here, given that it
is compatible both with unergative verbs and with definite associates
(examples from Bentley 2004b, p. 63):
(66) B’at balladu medas piseddas.

‘There have danced many girls.’
(67) B’ana balladu (solu) sas piseddas.
‘There have danced (only) the girls.’
With regard to Piedmontese ye, this also appears to be routinely com-

patible with definite associates:
(68) A y riva i client. (Burzio 1986, p. 122)

‘The clients arrive.’
2.5 Distribution of french il
2.5.1 Unfocusable verbs

As Burzio (1986:143) noted, the French il construction is highly produc-
tive with passives and with the se-moyen construction (the counterpart
to Italian/Spanish impersonal si/se):
(69) Il a été construit beaucoup d’immeubles dans cette ville.

‘Many buildings have been built in this town.’
(70) Il se construit beaucoup d’immeubles dans cette ville.
‘Many buildings are built in this town.’
This pattern of distribution, combined with the undeniable frequency

of the construction with a subset of the unaccusative verbs (notably
verbs like apparaître ‘appear’ and arriver ‘arrive’) requires an explana-
tion. In 2.2 we rejected any direct link between expletive constructions
and the syntax assigned to unaccusatives. The same applies in the case
of passives and se-moyen, which typically are assigned a parallel analy-

sis to unaccusatives. Accordingly, the distribution of French il (and by
implication that of other comparable expletives) must be determined
by some other factor.
As a fi rst step towards an explanation, it can be noted that the post-
verbal placement of the subject prevents the verb from being accented
(under normal conditions). In null-subject languages, as is well known,
such a strategy is compatible both with narrowly focused postverbal
subjects and with ‘presented’ postverbal subjects (which in the litera-
ture are typically associated with so-called wide focus). The fi rst possi-
bility is illustrated by the reply in (71) below, where the phrase el Real
Madrid supplies the identity of the winning team, while the second
possibility is illustrated by (72):
(71) – ¿Quién ha ganado entre el Real Madrid y el Milán?

– Ha ganado el Real Madrid.
‘Who won between Real Madrid and Milan.’ ‘Real Madrid
won.’
(72) Se me acercó un niño. (Assuming no constituent to be contextu-
ally salient)
‘A boy came up to me.’
From the pragmatic point of view, narrowly-focused postverbal subjects

and presented postverbal subjects have different functions. However,
in certain respects they are very similar. As just noted they are
both prosodically prominent under a neutral, non-interrupted
intonation. More significantly for present purposes, they occur in
contexts in which the syntactic predicate (or more precisely, the
verb) is not the main locus of new or important information,
either because its content is part of the ‘given’, as in (71), or because it
has a presentational type of meaning, as in (72). Therefore, abstracting
away from pragmatic differences, sentence (72) and the reply in (71)
can both be seen as instantiating an information structure in
which the verb is incapable of being focused (assuming a neutral
intonation).
The contention here is that the distribution of the French il construc-
tion is simply a reflex of the ‘unfocusable verb’ pattern, with the associ-
ate typically having a presented function – as in (9) to (13) as well as
(37) and (38) – or, less commonly, narrow focus as in (40).19
2.5.2 Presented associates

The presented function is clearly the more basic of these possibilities
and this may or may not reflect a more widespread situation in which
the imperative for inversion is greater in the presentational case than
in the case of narrow focus. Certainly, there are some instances in
which verbs with presentational capability cease to be presentational
when inversion does not occur, as is illustrated by the Spanish pair of
examples below:
(73a) Llegaron unos amigos. (Presentational)

‘Some friends showed up.’
(73b) Unos amigos llegaron. (Topic-comment)
‘Some friends managed to get there.’
In the basic case, then, expletive inversion as found in French and

English can be regarded as replicating the pattern illustrated by
(73a), albeit at a much lower level of general productivity than is
associated with presentational inversion in null-subject languages, on
account of the stylistically marked nature of the overt expletive
construction.
By far the most common presentational verbs are those that indicate
appearance, arrival, occurrence, presence, absence and so forth,
and typically these are classified as unaccusative.20 The affinity
of the il construction for certain unaccusatives can thus be more
accurately described as an affi nity for presentational unaccusatives.
Presumably the deep-seated feeling that expletive inversion diagnoses
unaccusativity in general stems from the prominence of such cases. But
it is clearly the striking presentational capability of these verbs, rather
than their syntax, that explains their frequency in the expletive
construction.21 In fact, presentational unergatives exhibit a similar
affinity:
(74) Il souffle un vent chaud.

‘There blows a hot wind.’
(75) Il brillait un soleil impitoyable.

‘The sun blazed mercilessly.’
(76) Il a régné un silence de mort.

‘There was a deathly silence.’
Turning now to passives and se-moyen, a comparison with null

subject-type inversion is again instructive (the sentences below are
from Spanish):
(77) Ha sido descubierto un nuevo planeta.

‘A new planet has been discovered.’
(78) Se ha descubierto un nuevo planeta.

‘A new planet has been discovered.’
(79) En los últimos años han sido construidas muchas casas.

‘In the last few years many houses have been built.’
(80) En los últimos años se han construido muchas casas.
‘In the last few years many houses have been built.’
In these and numerous comparable examples, postverbal placement of

an indefinite subject is clearly the unmarked option, with preverbal
placement liable to give rise to at the very least a light infelicity.
What this suggests is that, when the subject is indefi nite, both true
passives and reflexive-type passives are frequently presentational in
terms of their information structure. This circumstance presumably
results from the fact that such constructions suppress the subject q -role,
upon which the topic–comment informational articulation is
frequently reliant. In principle, a topic–comment articulation can
be established between a preverbal passive subject (bearing object q -
role) and its predicate. However, as is well established in the logical
tradition, there is a basic asymmetry between subjects and objects, one
manifestation of which is the fact that object q -role (particularly when
assigned to an indefinite phrase) is typically consonant with presenta-
tional import. This latter circumstance naturally impinges on informa-
tion structure, rendering certain possibilities less preferred than
others.22 Note, for example, how the phrase un presunto terrorista is
naturally presentational as a direct object in the Spanish sentence (81)
and is then appreciably more felicitous as a (‘presented’) postverbal
subject, as in (82), than as a preverbal subject (a would-be topic), as in
(83):
(81) Han detenido a un presunto terrorista.

‘They have arrested a suspected terrorist.’
(82) Ha sido detenido un presunto terrorista.

‘A suspected terrorist has been arrested.’
(83) Un presunto terrorista ha sido detenido.

‘A suspected terrorist has been arrested.’
In general, in fact, a topic–comment type of structure in passives

(true or reflexive) is associated primarily with definite or ‘strong’ quan-
tificational subjects:
(84) Esos platos se ponen allí.

‘Those plates go there.’
(85) Los negocios no se hacen así.
‘Business is not done like that.’
(86) Cada propuesta fue rechazada.
‘Every proposal was rejected.’
French il with passives or se-moyen can then be regarded as essen-

tially reproducing the presentational information structure illustrated
by (77) to (80) and by (82). Assuming that French is like the null-
subject languages in terms of the relative frequency of presentational
information structure with passives/se-moyen, the productivity of
these constructions with il is thus immediately accounted for.
2.5.3 Narrowly-focused associates

It was noted earlier that French il was also compatible with narrow
focus on the associate, as in example (40), reproduced below:
(40) Un sénateur et un député se disputaient le siège de président

regional. Il a été élu le sénateur.
‘A senator and a member of the Assembly were fighting for the
job of Regional President. The senator was elected.’
Here, the associate has the same pragmatic function as the postverbal
subject Miguel in the reply in the Spanish example below:
(87) – ¿Quién ha sido nombrado?

– Ha sido nombrado Miguel. (Narrow focus.)
‘Who was nominated?’
‘Miguel was nominated.’
The availability of the possibility illustrated by (40) presumably follows

from the fact that the relevant narrow focus pattern is simply one more
instantiation of the basic ‘unfocusable verb’ paradigm outlined

earlier.
Narrow focus under expletive inversion is rather less productive than
wide focus (sentence focus), an imbalance that can be attributed to the
fact that expletive inversion is mainly a presentational resource. Now
this latter point is significant, because while an example such as the
second sentence in (40) is not presentational itself (given that it involves
narrow focus), the passive construction it contains has presentational
capability. This can be seen by considering that construction outside of
the context of expletive inversion, as in (88) below:
(88) Beaucoup de femmes ont été élues.

‘Many women were elected.’
The above sentence can, and indeed is likely to, have the same (presen-
tational) information structure as the equivalent sentence involving
expletive il:
(89) Il a été élu beaucoup de femmes.

‘Many women were elected.’
Thus what examples such as (40) appear to show is that expletive inver-
sion will tolerate narrow focus on the associate, but only if the relevant
verb or verbal construction has presentational capability to begin with.
From this perspective, the fact that narrow focus under expletive inver-
sion is attested primarily with passives (in French at least) results
from the coincidence of two circumstances, viz. (i) that expletive il +
passive has become an established presentational collocation and (ii)
that, notwithstanding this, postverbal passive subjects need not be
presentational.
2.5.4 Narrow focus on locatives and time phrases

Turning finally to the issue raised in note 19, we have to consider
examples such as the earlier sentences (41) and (42), which are repro-
duced below:
(41) Il est déjà paru cette édition aux Etats Unis.

‘This edition has already appeared in the USA.’
(42) Il a été construit cette maison en 1890.
In these cases, the associate is neither presented nor in narrow focus.

Rather, the verb and its associate are subsumed within the same infor-
mational unit, and it is the clause-final adjunct (aux Etats Unis or en
1890) that is then in narrow focus. Accordingly, the discourse function
of the containing sentences is essentially one of event-locating, whereby
the event designated by the verb–associate complex is assigned a space
or time coordinate.
In this respect, the sentences in question contrast sharply with the
corresponding subject-first structures shown below:
(90) Cette édition est déjà parue aux Etats Unis.

‘Thus edition has already appeared in the USA.’
(91) Cette maison a été construite en 1890.

Here, the verb naturally forms an informational unit with the clause-
final adjunct. Specifically, the verb and the adjunct are subsumed
within the comment component of a topic–comment structure. Given
that this possibility is systematically unavailable in the inverted coun-
terparts (41) and (42), it can be surmised that the principal effect of
expletive inversion (in this type of case) is to force an informational
division that segregates the verb and the associate from the clause-final
adjunct.
Now although this result is not achieved through the associate acquir-
ing prosodic prominence itself, there is nevertheless a similarity with
the presentational and narrow-focus (on the associate) structures,
because in all three cases prominence is withheld from the verb. In
other words, assuming focus to be essentially a reflex of accentuation,
the paradigm illustrated by (41) and (42) is simply a third instantiation
of the ‘unfocusable verb’ information structure identified at the begin-
ning of this section.
2.6 Conclusion
In this chapter we have considered expletive constructions, relatively

insignificant for null-subject languages such as Spanish and Italian but
of fundamental importance in French and English. As discussed in 2.2.
and 2.3, essentially two methods exist for establishing a link between
the relevant empirical data and the ‘deep-object’ analysis of unaccusa-
tive subjects. Either it can be assumed that the expletive originates in
the position in which unergative subjects originate, thus precluding

the occurrence of unergative subjects as expletive associates, or it can
be argued that expletive constructions call for partitive/inherent case
on the associate, a possibility that by hypothesis does not exist with
unergatives.
The first of these methods is unlikely to be feasible under current
assumptions, and in any case is somewhat difficult to motivate on a
general basis, given that the mere occurrence of unergative associates
(which is well attested in French and English) immediately demon-
strates that expletives are not in complementary distribution with
unergative subjects. The second method relies on the so-called definite-
ness effect, observable principally in non-null subject languages like
French and English but claimed by Belletti to exist also in languages
like Italian. The finding in this chapter has been that the definiteness
effect is largely a mirage, created primarily by an undue concentration
on examples in which the associate is pragmatically indeterminate. By
thus dissolving the fiction of the definiteness effect, I demonstrated
that the partitive case hypothesis is theoretically unnecessary and thus
does not motivate the thesis that unergative subjects are barred from
occurring as expletive associates.
In the light of these considerations, and given the de facto occurrence
of unergatives in expletive constructions, it is reasonable to conclude
that the unergative–unaccusative distinction is not directly a factor in
this area of syntax. The shared predisposition of passives, reflexive pas-
sives and unaccusatives to occur in the French il construction can then
be attributed to a common informational capability, given that the
function of the il construction is to prevent the verb from being
accented and hence focused. Many of the unaccusatives are prototypi-
cal presentational verbs, and so occur readily in the ‘unfocusable verb’
pattern, while passives and reflexive passives have a natural presenta-
tional capability, due to their suppression of subject q -role. However,
presentational unergatives are also forthcoming and these also occur
routinely in the il construction.
The issue of which verbs can occur in il/there-type expletive construc-
tions can thus be seen as pertaining primarily to information structure.
From this perspective, the approach adopted in the bulk of the unac-
cusative literature can be regarded as an attempt to reconstruct an
essentially pragmatic phenomenon in syntactic terms.
3
Partitive Cliticization
3.1 Introduction
Many of the Romance languages exhibit a clitic reflex of Latin inde

‘whence’ that functions in a broadly pronominal capacity, with the
meaning ‘of it’, ‘of them’ etc. Typically the inde reflex has several dis-
tinct uses, the commonest of which are illustrated below using Italian
ne and Catalan en:
Cliticization of the prepositional complement of a verb:
(1) Ne parlammo per due ore.

‘We spoke about it for two hours.’
(2) Què en pensen els nens?
‘What do the children think of it?’
Cliticization of an adnominal complement:
(3) Ne è uscita una nuova edizione nel 1988.

‘A new edition (of it) came out in 1988.’
(4) Més tard, les excavacions en van descobrir els fonaments.
‘Later, the excavations revealed the foundations (of it).’
Cliticization of a quantified noun:
(5) Se ne sono perduti sette.

‘Seven (of them) were lost.’
(6) Jo l’altre dia en vaig veure un a la Rambla.

‘The other day I saw one (of them) on the Rambla.’
39
It has been claimed in numerous places (particularly in respect of

Italian) that the possibility of being an extraction site for an inde reflex
discriminates between unaccusative and unergative postverbal sub-
jects, with the former but not the latter being proper extraction sites.1
This claim has been buttressed by example pairs such as the two Italian
sentences below cited by Belletti (1999, pp. 36–7):
(7) ??Ne ha telefonato uno al giornale.2

‘One (of them) has phoned the newspaper.’
(8) Ne è arrivato uno al giornale.
‘One (of them) has arrived at the newspaper.’
Much of the unaccusative-related discussion has focused on the cliti-

cization of quantified nouns, although in principle the adnominal
pattern of extraction has a similar distribution – this seems to be the
assumption in, for example, Longobardi (1991, pp. 80–9), Longobardi
(2000, pp. 699–700) and Burzio (1986, pp. 74–5). For simplicity, the
discussion here will be concentrated primarily on the quantified noun
pattern of extraction, henceforth referred to as ‘partitive cliticization’.
The findings can be expected to be capable of being carried over to the
adnominal pattern also, although no attempt will be made to demon-
strate this point.
3.2 Syntactic arguments
As will be pointed out later, there is ample evidence that partitive cliti-
cization does not systematically distinguish between unaccusative and
unergative subjects. However, before proceeding to an empirical discus-
sion, it is worth considering whether there is any a priori motivation
for the assumption that postverbal unergative subject position will not
be a proper extraction site. Accordingly, I will review the various theo-
retical arguments that have attempted to link partitive cliticization to
the ‘deep-object’ analysis of unaccusative subjects. The arguments dis-
cussed below were all framed in regard to Italian ne, although it seems
that the assumption has generally been that analogous considerations
apply to Catalan en (see, for example, Picallo 1984, pp. 98–101).
3.2.1 Belletti and Rizzi (1981)

Within the Generative tradition at least, Belletti and Rizzi’s (1981)
analysis represents the seminal theoretical linkage between partitive
Partitive Cliticization 41
cliticization and unaccusativity. They noted first of all that this opera-
tion was not possible in respect of ‘adverbial’ noun phrases, as is shown
by the ungrammaticality of the (b) examples below (from Belletti and
Rizzi 1981, pp. 126, 128):
(9a) Gianni é rimasto tre settimane a Milano.

‘Gianni stayed for three weeks in Milan.’
(9b) *Gianni ne é rimasto tre a Milano.
‘Gianni stayed for three in Milano.’
(10a) Ha studiato due ore.
‘He studied for two hours.’
(10b) *Ne ha studiato due.
‘He studied for two.’
On this basis, they contended that ne-extraction was possible only

from an argument position, that is, ‘major base generated NP or S-bar
position, bearing a grammatical function, available for subcategoriza-
tion and assignment of thematic role’ (Belleti and Rizzi 1981, p. 128).3
They also argued (pp. 135–8) that unergative postverbal subjects were
right-adjoined to VP, a position that they assumed was not an argument
position. It then followed that ne-extraction from unergative postverbal
subjects would never be possible.
Clearly, however, the above argument is rendered unstable by the
now widely accepted VP-internal subject hypothesis. In accordance
with that hypothesis, an unergative postverbal subject is generated in
spec-VP, with the verb subsequently raising and ‘crossing over’ the
subject. Now spec-VP can plausibly be regarded as an argument posi-
tion, given that that is where the subject is commonly assumed to be
q -marked. Therefore if the unergative postverbal subject is analysed as
remaining in its base-generated position, it can be deemed to occupy
an argument position and, accordingly, the theory proposed in Belletti
and Rizzi 1981 would cease to motivate the claim that unergative
subject position is not a proper site for ne-extraction.
3.2.2 Belletti (1999)

More recently, Belletti (1999, pp. 15–16) has argued that unergative
postverbal subjects in Italian move from spec-VP to the specifier position
in a clause-internal focus phrase (identified as the first functional projec-
tion above VP), with the verb raising higher still to give the subject order
VS. Within this newer model, Belletti assimilates (p. 37, n. 52) the appar-
ent failure of partitive cliticization from unergative postverbal subject
position to the class of effects that fall under the Condition on Extrac-
tion Domains (CED).4 The latter is a general condition restricting the
class of constituents from which elements may be extracted. It subsumes
more specific constraints such as the Adjunct Condition, which prohib-
its extraction from adjuncts, as illustrated below:
(11) *Whoi did John go home [because he saw ti ]?
According to Belletti (p. 37, n. 52), the position to which unergative

postverbal subjects move (spec-FP) is a ‘derived not L-marked’ position,5
hence an impossible extraction site. The relevance here of L-marking
is that, in the Barriers framework of Chomsky 1986b as well as much
subsequent work, positions that are not L-marked are not transparent
to extraction.
However, this analysis immediately appears inconsistent with
Belletti’s assumption (p. 36) that all definite postverbal subjects are in
spec-FP.6 For, as observed in 2.3 (note 18), ne-extraction is routinely
possible from definite postverbal subjects (of certain verbs at least):
(12) Ne è arrivata la conferma ufficiale.

‘The official confirmation has arrived.’
(13) Ne è uscita la seconda edizione.

‘The second edition has come out.’
(14) Ne è affondata la chiglia. (Cinque 1990a, p. 6)

‘Its keel sank.’
(15) Vediamo come ne funziona la gestione.
‘Let’s see how well they are managed.’ (Literally: ‘Let’s see how
the management of them works.’)
Examples such as those above show that the position occupied by (at
least some) definite postverbal subjects is a proper extraction site.
Presumably, then, such subjects cannot be in spec-FP. But if that is the
case, there seems to be no principled reason why unergative subjects
must be in spec-FP, given that in Belletti’s framework unergative post-
verbal subjects in effect fall together with defi nite postverbal subjects
(in that neither can be licensed by partitive/inherent case – see 2.3 in
this book).
Belletti’s empirical motivation for the spec-FP analysis of unergative

postverbal subjects stems from the fact that such subjects frequently
are in focus. This is illustrated by examples involving identificational
questions as a diagnostic for focus on the postverbal subject (Belletti
1999, p. 13):
(16) –Pronto, chi parla?

–Parla Gianni.
‘Hello, who’s speaking?’ ‘Gianni’s speaking.’
However, Belletti enshrines the tendency reflected in examples like (16)

in a syntactic principle according to which postverbal unergative sub-
jects (in Italian at least) are actually licensed in a focus phrase. Obvi-
ously enough, this assumption requires that all such subjects are in
focus. But a generalization to this effect does not appear to be sustain-
able, as is demonstrated rather conclusively by Pinto (1997). Thus in
the examples below (from Pinto 1997, pp. 26, 204), the legitimacy of
the question Che cosa è successo? ‘What/What’s happened’ indicates
that the corresponding answers have wide focus, excluding the possi-
bility that the (unergative) postverbal subjects are in focus:
(17) –Che cosa è successo?

–Ha telefonato Beatrice da Milano.
‘What happened?’ ‘Beatrice called from Milan.’
(18) –Che cosa è successo?
–Ha pianto un bambino.
‘What happened?’ ‘A child cried.’
Given the existence of these and numerous other counterexamples to

Belletti’s claim, it seems to be impossible to derive a structural distinc-
tion between unergative and unaccusative postverbal subjects from the
distribution of focus. At most, we can speak of an approximate correla-
tion, with postverbal unergative subjects being more likely to be in
focus than their unaccusative counterparts, but this clearly lacks the
predictability of a genuinely syntactic phenomenon.
Thus Belletti’s spec-FP analysis of postverbal unergative subjects
appears to be untenable, both on empirical grounds, as just observed,
and because it creates an internal inconsistency with another leading
assumption in her overall theory. In the light of this finding, there is
no reason in principle why postverbal subjects of unergatives cannot
be analysed as remaining in their VP-internal (or vp-internal, if vp

shells are assumed) original position, as assumed, for instance, in Car-
dinaletti (2001). According to some authors at least (for example,
Koopman and Sportiche 1988), that position is L-marked, hence trans-
parent to extraction. There would thus be no a priori reason for assum-
ing postverbal unergative subject position to be an impossible site for
ne-extraction.
Note also that if the alleged impossibility of ne-cliticization from
postverbal unergative subject position does indeed indicate a CED type
of effect, one would expect other phenomena known to be subject to
CED effects to exhibit a similar unaccusative–unergative asymmetry.
In particular, one would expect wh-extraction to exhibit such an asym-
metry. However, the evidence here is rather inconclusive. Longobardi
(1991, p. 80) and Cinque (1990a, p. 8) insist that the wh-extraction
data from Italian do exhibit the asymmetry in question. For example,
Longobardi (1991, p. 81) cites the following contrast (between unerga-
tive telefonare ‘phone’ and unaccusative scomparire ‘disappear’), evaluat-
ing (19) as ‘?*’ and (20) as fully grammatical:
(19) Di quale assessino ha telefonato un complice?

‘Of which murderer has an accomplice phoned?’
(20) Di quale assessino è scomparso un complice?
‘Of which murderer has an accomplice disappeared?’
In fact, native speakers other than linguistics experts are somewhat less
categorical in terms of distinguishing between sentences such as (19)
and (20). But even if we accept Longobardi’s evaluation, the contrast
in question appears not to be capable of being generalized to all verbs
in the unaccusative class. Thus the acceptability differential between
(19) and (20) appears to decrease if other unaccusatives such as
sbagliarsi ‘be mistaken’, cadere ‘fall’, arrivare ‘arrive’, lamentarsi
‘complain’ and so on, are substituted for scomparire in (20).
Moreover, the alleged sensitivity of postverbal wh-extraction to the
unaccusative–unergative distinction would be a peculiarly Italian phe-
nomenon. Spanish, for example, exhibits no comparable sensitivity,
and indeed cases exist in which, if anything, the data point in the
opposite direction from that claimed for Italian. For example, in the
pair of Spanish sentences below, wh-extraction from the postverbal
subject of unaccusative llegar ‘arrive’ is marginally less acceptable than
extraction from the postverbal subject of unergative llamar ‘call/

phone’:
(21) ?¿De qué paciente ha llegado una hija?

‘Of which patient has a daughter arrived.’
(22) (?)¿De qué paciente ha llamado una hija?
‘Of which patient has a daughter phoned.’
In French, too, it is difficult to reproduce the relevant asymmetry. Thus

in the sentences below, extraction of combien from a postverbal associ-
ate (examples (23) and (24)) or from a stylistically inverted subject
(examples (25) and (26), from Kayne and Pollock 2001) is unaffected
by whether the verb is unergative (voler ‘fly’, téléphoner ‘phone’) or unac-
cusative (arriver ‘arrive’, partir ‘leave’):
(23) Combien vole-t-il d’avions au dessus de la ville?

‘How many planes fly over the city?’
(24) Combien arrive-t-il de cars par semaine?
How many coaches arrive per week?
(25) Combien ont téléphoné de linguistes? (Kayne and Pollock
2001, (29a))
‘How many linguists have phoned?’
(26) Combien sont partis de linguistes? (Kayne and Pollock 2001,
(29b))
‘How many linguists have left?’
It turns out, then, that if we abstract away from the Italian data,
which themselves are not particularly conclusive, it is difficult to find
evidence consistently indicating that the unaccusative–unergative
distinction plays a role in CED effects.
To sum up: several problems can be pointed to within Belletti’s
updated thoery. First, there is the possibility of extracting ne from pre-
cisely the structural position that Belletti claims is not a possible extrac-
tion site. Secondly, the basis proposed by Belletti for assigning distinct
structural positions to unaccusative and unergative postverbal subjects
is empirically problematic, given that the criterion of narrow focus on
the postverbal subject does not systematically distinguish between
unaccusatives and unergatives. Finally, the evidence that other forms
of extraction, in particular wh-extraction, systematically discriminate

between unaccusative and unergative postverbal subjects is rather
inconclusive. This latter circumstance is unexpected if the apparent
unaccusative–unergative asymmetry in terms of ne-extraction really
reflects a CED effect.
3.2.3 Government into the subject’s specifier

Both Belletti and Rizzi’s original (1981) account of partitive cliticization
as well as that advanced in Belletti (1999) suffer from the difficulty
inherent in the task of deriving a relevant syntactic distinction between
unergative and unaccusative postverbal subject positions, that is, one
that provides the basis for a principled explanation for the apparent
ne-extraction asymmetry. An interesting account that potentially obvi-
ates this problem was advanced by Longobardi (1991).
Longobardi put forward the empirical generalization that only ‘pos-
sessive’ arguments of nouns could be extracted from an NP. Consider,
for example, the sentence below, in which the PP di Gianni is ambigu-
ous between an interpretation in which Gianni is the object of the
desire and one in which he is the experiencer of it:
(27) Abbiamo ricordato il desiderio di Gianni. (Longobardi 1991,

p. 59)
‘We remembered the desire of Gianni.’
However, if di Gianni is replaced by a possessive, only the experiencer

reading is available:
(28) Abbiamo ricordato il suo desiderio. (Longobardi 1991, p. 59)

‘We remembered his desire.’
Longobardi observed that both wh-extraction and ne-extraction pre-

served only the above ‘possessive’ reading:
(29) Gianni, di cui abbiamo ricordato il desiderio.

‘Gianni, of whom we remembered the desire.’
(30) Ne abbiamo ricordato il desiderio.
‘We remembered his desire.’
On the basis of this apparent parallel between possessivization and

extraction from NP, and assuming the specifier of NP to be the locus
of possessives, Longobardi argued that extraction from NP (in Romance)

must proceed in successive cyclic fashion, via the specifier position,
with the extracted item leaving an intermediate trace in that position.
The basic analytical paradigm for sentences with extractions from NP
in Romance was then as follows (Longobardi 1991, p. 65):
(31) il soldato di cui ho visto la t cattura t

‘the soldier of whom I saw the capture’
(32) Ne ho visto la t cattura t.
‘I saw his capture.’
Longobardi then argued (pp. 73–80) that unergative verbs did not
govern into the specifier of a postverbal subject, while unaccusatives
did. Accordingly, and given the further assumption (p. 73) that a trace
in the specifier of an NP required proper government by an external
head, ne-extraction (as well as wh-extraction) from a postverbal unerga-
tive subject NP was predicted to be ungrammatical, while such extrac-
tion from a postverbal unaccusative subject NP was predicted to be
grammatical.
Notice, however, that Longobardi’s theory requires acceptance of the
claim that an unaccusative–unergative asymmetry exists in terms of
the possibility of governing into the specifier of a postverbal subject.
In support of this position Longobardi adduced evidence relating to
wh-extraction and ne-extraction from NP subjects, as well as evidence
relating to successive cyclic extraction from infinitival clauses embed-
ded within sentential arguments. Now from the present perspective,
that is, in terms of determining whether Longobardi’s theory provides
a priori motivation for assuming postverbal unergative subject position
to be an impossible site for ne-extraction, the ne-extraction data them-
selves cannot be adduced without an obvious circularity. Moreover, as
noted in 3.2.2, the data pertaining to wh-extraction from NP/DP sub-
jects are somewhat inconclusive, and even confl icting if other Romance
languages are considered. This leaves us with just the evidence pertain-
ing to successive cyclic extraction from sentential arguments, discussed
by Longobardi in section 5 of his paper.
There he considered cases such as (33) below, in which a wh-phrase
(a cui) is extracted from a preverbal (infinitival) subject but the resul-
tant CED effect is much weaker than might be expected, with the
consequence that (33) was evaluated by Longobardi as being merely ‘?’,
as opposed to fully ungrammatical:
(33) Gianni, a cui temo che parlare sarà difficile (Longobardi 1991,
p. 74)
‘Gianni, to whom I fear that talking will be difficult’
Longobardi attributed (p. 75) the above type of CED amelioration to

what he assumed was the successive cyclic nature of the extraction,
with a cui passing through the specifier of the higher sentential argu-
ment che parlare sarà difficile and leaving a trace in that position. The
presence of this trace, he contended, enabled the complementizer che
to govern into the specifier of the infinitival clause, thus licensing a
trace in that position and hence movement of a cui out of the infinitival
clause (under the further assumption that external government of an
empty category could override barrierhood). Essentially, then, a trace
in the specifier of a sentential argument could license an otherwise
prohibited extraction from the preverbal subject of this sentential argu-
ment, albeit with a degree of attendant marginality.
Longobardi then argued (pp. 76–9) that only certain types of senten-
tial argument could accommodate a trace in their specifier, and so the
kind of CED amelioration just illustrated was limited to a subset of
sentential arguments. In particular, he claimed that ‘internal’ senten-
tial arguments, such as those that were postverbal unaccusative
subjects, allowed traces in their specifier, but ‘external’ sentential argu-
ments, such as transitive subjects, did not. Thus he contended that
(34) below exhibited the relevant CED amelioration, and hence
was marginally grammatical, while (35) did not and so was fully
ungrammatical:
(34) Gianni, con cui le è dispiaciuto che parlare non fosse facile
‘Gianni, with whom it displeased her that talking was not
easy’
(35) Gianni, con cui l’ha impressionata che parlare non fosse
possibile
‘Gianni, with whom it impressed her that talking was not
possible’
According to Longobardi, the apparent impossibility for a trace to occur

in the specifier of a sentential argument that was a postverbal transitive
subject resulted from the general failure of a transitive verb to govern
into the specifier of its subject. By assuming that the relation between
a transitive verb and its subject was analogous to the relation between
an unergative verb and its subject, Longobardi then extrapolated

(p. 78) the conclusion that unergative verbs could not govern into
the specifier of their postverbal subject.
The argument just summarized is clearly a masterpiece of ingenuity.
However, the motivation for the final conclusion is narrow in the
extreme. In the first place, very few, if any, genuinely unergative verbs
can actually take sentential subjects. It is presumably for this reason
that Longobardi does not adduce a single example involving an unerga-
tive verb in the strict sense, relying instead, as just observed, on an
extrapolation from the case of sentential subjects of transitive verbs.
Given this very narrow corpus, there is a significant risk of a destructive
bias being introduced by extraneous lexical or semantic factors. Such
a risk is all the greater given that acceptability judgments elicited for
Longobardi’s examples do not appear to give an unambiguous indi-
cation as to their underlying grammaticality or ungrammaticality.
For instance, some native speakers see no grammar-based distinction
between (34) and (35), attributing any acceptability differential instead
to pragmatics, with a marginally greater degree of likelihood attaching
to the situation described by (34) than to that described by (35).
Secondly, as Longobardi recognized (p. 76), at least some sentential
objects of transitives behave like sentential subjects of transitives, in
that in their case there appears to be no amelioration of the relevant
CED effect. Thus Longobardi classified (36) below, with matrix rimpi-
angere ‘regret’, as fully ungrammatical:
(36) Gianni, a cui rimpiango che parlare sia così difficile

‘Gianni, to whom I regret that talking is so difficult’
The ungrammaticality of (36) implies, under Longobardi’s analysis,

that the extracted item a cui cannot leave a trace in the specifier of the
object clause che parlare sia così difficile, which in turn implies that
rimpiangere does not govern into that position. This is unexpected if,
as Longobardi proposed (p. 78), the possibility for a trace to be licensed
in the specifier of a sentential argument correlates with the distinction
between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ arguments.
In fact, Longobardi appears to have assumed that cases such as (36)
did not tell against his proposed correlation, because of the existence
of a general constraint preventing factive verbs – that is, verbs that
presuppose the truth of their sentential argument – from governing
into the specifier of their sentential argument. On the face of it, this is
a rather curious position, given that the very assumption that factivity
is relevant appears to constitute a recognition that the basic phenome-

non in question may have a semantic rather than a syntactic basis, a
circumstance that would then call into question the relevance to this
issue of the (syntactic) distinction between external and internal argu-
ments. In any case, however, factivity per se does not appear to be
relevant, given, for example, that è dispiaciuto in (34) is factive but is
nevertheless able, under Longobardi’s analysis, to govern into the speci-
fier of its sentential subject, whence the marginal grammaticality of the
containing sentence. Thus there seems to be no principled reason why
cases such as (36) should not be deemed to tell against Longobardi’s
proposed correlation, and with it the claim that the unaccusative–
unergative distinction is relevant to the acceptability differential in
question (given that the unaccusative–unergative distinction is stan-
dardly treated as a reflex of the internal–external dichotomy.)
Finally, the evidence from successive cyclic adjunct extraction out of
sentential arguments does not indicate a systematic capability among
unaccusatives to govern into the specifier of a (postverbal) sentential
subject. Under assumptions prevalent in the 1980s and early 1990s,
such extraction leaves a trace in the specifier of the sentential argu-
ment. If Longobardi’s analysis as outlined above is correct, it would be
expected that matrix unaccusatives should be able to license such a
trace in a postverbal subject, through head government. However, in
the majority of cases no such capability is apparent, with adjunct
extraction from a postverbal sentential subject being impossible for
most unaccusative verbs. This is illustrated by (37) and (38) below,
involving unaccusative piacere ‘please’ and importare ‘matter’. Both
sentences appear to be ungrammatical under the reading indicated:
(37) Perchèi ti piacerebbe [ti che lo licenziassero ti ]?

‘Why would it please you that they sacked him?’
(38) Perchèi importerebbe [ti che lo licenziassero ti ]?
‘Why would it matter that they sacked him?’
Extraction failures such as those illustrated above suggest that unaccu-

sativity per se does not privilege a verb in terms of enabling successive
cyclic extraction from inside its postverbal sentential subject. By the
same token, it does not appear to be the case that unaccusativity per
se secures government into the specifier of such a subject.
There are, then, a number of considerations that call into question
the reliability of the evidence pertaining to sentential arguments
brought to bear by Longobardi in support of his basic contention, viz.

that the capability to govern into the specifier of a postverbal subject
exhibits an unaccusative–unergative asymmetry. Firstly, we can point
to the narrowness of the corpus of data adduced, which surely is insuf-
ficient to eliminate the possibility that lexical or semantic factors rather
than syntax are the crucial determinants. Secondly, we have the non-
amelioration of the relevant CED effect in object clauses of certain
transitive verbs, suggesting that the relevant distinction is not that
which exists between internal and external arguments. Finally, there
is the non-transparency to adjunct extraction of postverbal sentential
subjects of most unaccusative verbs, a phenomenon that indicates that
unaccusative verbs are not in general privileged in terms of the capa-
bility to govern into the specifier of a postverbal sentential subject.
Accordingly, Longobardi’s evidence from sentential arguments cannot
be regarded as compelling.
We thus find there to be no reason that is both convincing and
independent of the ne-extraction data for accepting the claim that an
unaccusative–unergative asymmetry exists in terms of the possibility
of governing into the specifier of a postverbal subject. By the same
token, Longobardi’s account turns out not to offer any compelling
motivation for an a priori supposition that ne-extraction from a post-
verbal unergative subject will be impossible.
3.2.4 Burzio (1986)

Burzio’s account relied on the Projection Principle in conjunction with
the assumptions (i) that ne was base-generated in its clitic position and
(ii) that it was an object clitic, receiving its q -role from an empty cate-
gory in object position (1986, pp. 33–4). The Projection Principle was
a Government Binding Theory construct, requiring syntactic structures
to observe the lexical properties of the items they contained at all levels
in the derivation. Given Burzio’s assumptions (i) and (ii) just men-
tioned, this predicts grammaticality for (39) below and ungrammatical-
ity for (40), given that in the former the proper relation obtains
between the clitic and the empty category at all levels in the derivation
(assuming an ergative analysis of arrivare) while in the latter it does not
obtain at D-structure (under the further assumption that molti ei
originates to the left of ne telefoneranno and subsequently moves
rightwards).
(39) Nei arriveranno molti ei.

‘Many will arrive.’
(40) *Nei telefoneranno molti ei.

‘Many will telephone.’
Notice that this account is crucially dependent on the assumption

that ne is an object clitic only. Whether this assumption is correct is
an empirical matter, in that this can only be determined by examining
the distribution of ne. Accordingly, Burzio’s account does not provide
any a priori reason for supposing that unergative postverbal subjects do
not allow partitive cliticization. In fact, as will be observed below, parti-
tive cliticization from an unergative postverbal subject is possible (and
maybe even routine) in certain circumstances. Therefore the assump-
tion that ne is exclusively an object clitic appears to be incorrect.
3.2.5 Perlmutter (1983/1989)

Perlmutter (1983, pp. 152) stated the following condition on partitive
cliticization in Italian:
A nominal can be the ‘source’ of partitive NE in clause b only if it:
(i) heads a 2-arc with tail b, and

(ii) does not head a 1-arc with tail b
Clause (ii) of the above condition relates to the fact that the source of
ne must be postverbal. Clause (i) is the key clause for present purposes,
as it is this clause that alludes to the concept of ‘2hood’ (that is, direct
objecthood), by means of which Perlmutter distinguished between
unaccusatives and unergatives, with the former but not the latter
heading a 2-arc in the initial stratum (see the brief overview of Perl-
mutter’s Unaccuative Hypothesis in 1.2 of this book). Given this dis-
tinction, the above condition on partitive cliticization predicts that it
can occur with unaccusative postverbal subjects but not with unerga-
tive postverbal subjects.
However, it is far from clear that the concept of 2hood has any real
content. Consider first of all Perlmutter’s argument for assuming that
unaccusative subjects were 2s (that is, headed a 2-arc in some stratum),
which can be summarized as follows (based on Perlmutter 1989,
pp. 67–83):
1. The Italian intransitive verbs can be split into two classes depending
on whether they select auxiliary essere or avere in the perfect.
2. The subjects of verbs in the essere-selecting class pattern with transi-
tive direct objects in terms of (a) partitive cliticization and (b)
participial constructions (Uscite le donne . . . ‘The women having

left . . .’, Perduti i soldi . . . ‘With the money lost . . .’ and so on.).
3. The subjects of verbs in the avere-selecting class do not pattern with
transitive direct objects in terms of (a) partitive cliticization and (b)
participial constructions.
4. Therefore the subjects of verbs in the essere-selecting group (but not
those in the avere-selecting group) must share a property with transi-
tive direct objects. Transitive direct objects are 2s (by definition).
Therefore the subjects of verbs in the essere-selecting group must also
be 2s in some stratum (specifically, the initial stratum). By the same
token they are unaccusative.
As can be seen, the entire argument is based on parallel behaviour,

with auxiliary selection identifying the class of intransitives that enter
into the parallel. Being a 2 has no correlate per se, either in terms of a
structural description (as in Government Binding/Minimalism) or in
terms of surface morphosyntactic properties (as identified in traditional
grammar).7 Thus the 2hood analysis is merely a way of grouping the
subjects of the essere-selecting verbs (the unaccusatives) with the transi-
tive direct objects. As such it is entirely dependent on the parallel in
question being (i) perfect and (ii) incapable of receiving an alternative
explanation.
In fact, as will be demonstrated later, the parallel is far from being
perfect. Moreover, alternative explanations are readily available. As far
as ne is concerned, it will be argued in 3.4 that the parallel between
unaccusative postverbal subjects and direct objects is due to a common
information structure.8 As regards participial absolutes, it will be argued
in 7.3 that the relatively high frequency of unaccusatives is the con-
sequence of a resultant-state requirement, which naturally favours
achievement and accomplishment terms, the bulk of which, if they are
intransitive, select essere in the perfect and hence are classified as
unaccusatives.
3.2.6 C-command
As mentioned in 1.1, Baltin (2001, p. 241) has argued that the distribu-
tion of partitive ne results from the need for it to c-command the trace
it leaves behind at the extraction site. He states that ‘the requirement
that ne c-command the nominal which it modifies is simply Fiengo’s
(1974, 1977) proper binding requirement on traces, assuming that ne
has moved out of the nominal.’ However, most modern theories assume
that the verb in null-subject languages like Italian raises to a very high
position in the sentence (T, for instance), and certainly one from which
a moved clitic could c-command its own trace in a postverbal unerga-
tive subject. Thus an analysis in terms of c-command would not, in
the present theoretical climate, secure the desired exclusion of ne-
extraction from postverbal unergative subject position.
In any case, Belletti and Rizzi (1981, p. 127) originally entertained
an explanation in terms of c-command (albeit under the looser ‘maximal
projection’ definition) and concluded that it accounted only for the
data relating to preverbal position. In the example below (from Belletti
and Rizzi 1981, p. 126), the phrase tre settimane is in VP, hence an
extracted clitic would c-command its own trace, but nevertheless the
corresponding sentence with ne is ungrammatical:
(41) Gianni è rimasto tre settimane a Milano.

‘Gianni remained three weeks in Milan.’
(42) *Gianni ne è rimasto tre a Milano.
‘Gianni remained three in Milan.’
Thus an account in terms of c-command is immediately problematic,

from a number of perspectives.
3.2.7 No compelling theoretical argument

The foregoing review of the syntactic arguments concerning partitive
cliticization indicates that there is no compelling a priori reason to
expect that the operation will be impossible from unergative postverbal
subjects. The original assumption that Italian ne must be extracted
from an argument position is rendered unstable by the advent of the
VP-internal subject hypothesis. Belletti’s more recent account in terms
of a CED-type effect attaching to the spec-FP position hypothesized for
unergative postverbal subjects is questionable on a number of grounds.
Longobardi’s theory according to which partitive cliticization presup-
poses external government of the subject/object’s specifier requires
acceptance of the imperfectly motivated premise that unergative
verbs cannot govern into the specifier of their postverbal subject.
Burzio’s and Perlmutter’s accounts rely on certain assumptions of a
factual nature concerning the distribution of partitive cliticization
and so cannot determine any a priori expectation concerning that
distribution. Finally, the account in terms of Fiengo’s proper binding
requirement on traces is unstable under now widely accepted
assumptions.
3.3 Partitive cliticization independent of

unaccusative–unergative distinction
It turns out that, under certain circumstances, postverbal subjects of

at least some unergative verbs routinely allow partitive cliticization.
This point was first made for Italian by Lonzi (1986),9 but the situation
seems to be general in Romance. I give a selection of examples below
(from Catalan and Italian):10
(43) Som en plantilla 50 persones, però en treballen moltes més

cobrint baixes i vacances.
‘We are a basic team of 50 people, but many more work to
cover absences and holidays.’
(44) Es poden inscriure 12 jugadors per equip i al ser de futbol 7,
en juguen 7.
‘Twelve players can register per team and, as it is seven-a-side
football, seven of them play.’
(45) No hi havia cap practicant i ara als campionats escolars en
participen uns 40.
‘There were no players and now about 40 participate in the
school championship.’
(46) Sobre un cens de 10.622 persones, en voten 6.001.
‘Out of an electorate of 10,622 people, 6001 vote.
(47) Tot i que . . . només es van inscriure 27, en van correr més de
40.
‘Despite the fact that . . . only 27 put their names down, more
than 40 ran.’
(48) Al CNR lavorano 7.500 persone, mentre al CNRS ne lavorano
26.000.11
‘7,500 people work at the CNR, while 26,000 work at the
CNRS.’
(49) Come già comunicato in precedenza su 721 elettori ne hanno
votato 635.
‘As previously indicated, out of 721 voters 635 voted.’
(50) In Italia (il campionato più difficile del mondo) ne giocano
pochi.
‘In Italy (the most difficult championship in the world) few
[foreigners] play.
(51) Su un totale di 268 famiglie nel 1720, nel Paese Alto ne

abitavano 120.
‘Out of a total of 268 families in 1720, 120 of them lived in
the Paese Alto.’
(52) Nel 1996, negli USA ne vivevano in povertà 5 milioni e
mezzo.
‘In 1996, in the USA five and a half million [children] were
living in poverty.’
(53) Su 13 mezzi acquistati ne camminano solo 6.
‘Out of 13 trams only 6 work.’
Conversely, according to Lonzi (1986, p. 114) certain unaccusatives

with animate subjects are incompatible with partitive cliticization. She
thus contrasts the deviant (a) sentences below with the corresponding
unproblematic (b) sentences:
(54a) *Se ne sono evoluti molti d’insegnanti.

‘Many teachers have developed.’
(54b) Molti insegnanti si sono evoluti.

‘Many teachers have developed.’
(55a) *Ne sono cambiati tanti di genitori.
‘So many parents have changed.’
(55b) Tanti genitori sono cambiati.

‘So many parents have changed.’
Therefore, from the empirical point of view, it is incorrect to claim

that partitive cliticization capability among intransitives is directly
determined by whether a verb is unaccusative or unergative. Recently,
Bentley (2004a, pp. 237–8) has argued that partitive cliticization in
Italian does distinguish between unergatives and unaccusatives, but
not in the way previously supposed. She contends that partitive cliti-
cization from unaccusative subjects is compatible with two types of
information structure, viz. wide focus and narrow focus (on the quanti-
fier element), whereas partitive cliticization from unergative subjects is
compatible with only one, viz. wide focus. As evidence for this, she
observes that while partitive cliticization from unaccusative subjects is
possible in interrogative structures such as that shown in (56) below,
it is not analogously possible from unergative subjects, as illustrated by

the apparent unacceptability or infelicity of (57):
(56) Quanti ne muoiono/nascono/arrivano?

‘How many (of them) die/are born/arrive?’
(57) ??Quanti ne camminano?

‘How many (of them) walk?’
Similarly, she argues that partitive cliticization with unaccusatives is

possible in replies to questions like (56), and that no corresponding
possibility exists for unergatives.
As a first step towards considering Bentley’s claim, notice that an
asymmetry of the sort she identifies would not be general in Romance.
For example, partitive cliticization from expletive associates in French
is compatible with narrow focus (on the quantifier) regardless of
whether the verb is unaccusative, passive or unergative:
(58) –Combien en est-il resté en France?

–Il en est resté moins de quatre mille.
‘How many remained in France?’ ‘Less than four thousand
remained.’
(59) –Combien en a-t-il été produit?

–Il en a été produit des centaines.
‘How many were produced?’ ‘Hundreds were produced.’
(60) –Combien en vole-t-il au dessus de la ville?
–Il en vole trois par jour.
‘How many fly over the town?’ ‘Three fly over per day.’
Even within Italian, however, the pattern adduced by Bentley does

not appear to be general. Acceptable unergative examples reproducing
the structure of (57) are forthcoming, provided that either the inter-
rogative clause is embedded in a suitable context or the verb is not an
agentive activity term:
(61) Quanti animatori di villaggi sono stati formati e quanti ne

lavorano nelle nostre strutture e quanti, invece, ne importiamo
da altre regioni?12
‘How many holiday camp workers have been trained and how
many work in our facilities and how many, on the other hand,
do we import from other regions?
(62) Defence lawyer X: Quanti aerei partecipavano a quella . . .

Witness Y: Eh, non mi ricordo.
Defence lawyer X: Generalmente quanti ne partecipano?13
‘How many aircraft were participating in that . . .’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Generally how many participate?’
(63) Quanti ne funzioneranno?14
‘How many of them will be working?’
In addition, it is difficult to interpret cases such as the italicized sequence

in the earlier example (48), reproduced below, as involving anything
other than narrow focus on the quantifier element, in view of the fact
that the verbal component lavorano is rather clearly part of the
‘given’:
(48) Al CNR lavorano 7.500 persone, mentre al CNRS ne lavorano

26.000.
‘7,500 people work at the CNR, while 26,000 work at the
CNRS.’
Finally, Catalan (43) and (44), reproduced below, can plausibly receive
a similar analysis to (48), given the implicit comparison in these two
cases between the quantity specified in the sequence in italics and a
quantity specified previously:
(43) Som en plantilla 50 persones, però en treballen moltes més

cobrint baixes i vacances.
‘We are a basic team of 50 people, but many more work to
cover absences and holidays.’
(44) Es poden inscriure 12 jugadors per equip i al ser de futbol 7,
en juguen 7.
‘Twelve players can register per team and, as it is seven-a-side
football, seven of them play.’
What then is the reason for the apparent unacceptability of

examples such as Bentley’s (57), repeated below, together with its
answer?
(57) ??Quanti ne camminano?

‘How many (of them) walk?’
The fact that camminare (in the favoured sense) is an agentive activity
verb appears to be relevant, as does the absence of a context. As will
be argued in 3.4 below, partitive cliticization from a subject requires
the associated verb to have a presentational type of occurrence. More-
over, of all the semantic classes of verb, agentive activity terms are the
most difficult to reconcile with this type of use. Specifically, it seems
to be the case that presentational occurrences of agentive activity verbs
systematically involve a linguistic context that creates a weak existen-
tial interpretation of the verb–subject complex, and in so doing
backgrounds the verb’s usual agentive meaning, as in the examples
below:
(64) Qui abitualmente durante il giorno giocano molti bambini.

‘Here normally during the day many children play.’
(65) Nell’amministrazione lavorano numerose donne, general-

mente mal retribuite.
‘In public administration many women work, generally poorly
paid.’
(66) Nella piazza cantano e ballano molti buffi personaggi.
‘In the square many amusing characters sing and dance.’
The above presentational use of agentive activity verbs together with

postverbal subjects can be contrasted with the ‘identificational’ infor-
mation structure that attaches when such sequences are deprived of
collateral linguistic material. For example, according to Pinto (1997:
21–2), the sentence below must be identificational and cannot be
presentational:
(67) Hanno urlato due terroristi.

‘Two terrorists have shouted.’
The deviancy of example (57) can then plausibly be attributed to the

absence of a suitable linguistic context. In other words, the verb cam-
minano as presented in (57) appears to have an agentive activity type
of occurrence which is at variance with the use of partitive ne to cliti-
cize from the subject. From this perspective, the interrogative nature
of the sentence and the associated narrow focus (on the quantifier) are
not strictly speaking relevant.
This latter point is confirmed by the evidence of examples such as
(61), reproduced below, which indicate that the presence of a support-
ing context is sufficient to ameliorate deviancies of the type in

question:
(61) Quanti animatori di villaggi sono stati formati e quanti ne

lavorano nelle nostre strutture e quanti, invece, ne importiamo
da altre regioni?
‘How many holiday camp workers have been trained and how
many work in our facilities and how many, on the other hand,
do we import from other regions?’
Moreover, examples such as (63), reproduced below, indicate that when

an unergative verb is not an agentive activity term, explicit linguistic
contextualization may not even be required:
(63) Quanti ne funzioneranno?

‘How many of them will be working?’
I assume, then, that even Bentley’s data do not indicate a systematic

unaccusative–unergative asymmetry as regards partitive cliticization.
The general absence of such an asymmetry, as argued for in this section,
allied to the findings in 3.2 concerning the theoretical analyses of
Italian ne, indicates that the syntax assigned to unaccusatives but with-
held from unergatives is unlikely to be a factor in the distribution of
partitive reflexes of Latin inde.
3.4 The distribution of partitive ne/en
Despite the foregoing remarks it is undeniable that, overall, unaccusa-

tive subjects exhibit a greater compatibility than unergative subjects
with partitive cliticization. This circumstance requires an explanation,
as does the fact that passive subjects and transitive direct objects are
generally compatible also.15
As a first step towards tying these various elements together, it is
instructive to consider the situation in French, in which partitive cliti-
cization is allowed from non-objects but is then largely restricted to
contexts of expletive inversion, where the item from which the parti-
tive clitic is extracted will be an expletive associate. Now, as discussed
in 2.5.1, the basic function of expletive inversion is to withhold focus
from the verb and the construction is thus naturally compatible with
canonical presentational verbs,16 given that these usually eschew focus.
Accordingly, the phenomenon of partitive cliticization from non-
objects in French is primarily associated with canonical presentationals

(including passives):
(68) Il en arrive plus de mille par an.

‘More than a thousand come each year.’
(69) Il en est apparu deux ou trois chez les marchands.
‘Two or three have turned up among the dealers.’
(70) Il en a fallu vingt-sept pour régler le problème.
‘Twenty-seven were needed to solve the problem.’
(71) Il en a été construit un très grand nombre entre le VIIe et le XIVe
siècles.
‘A very large number were built between the seventh and four-
teenth centuries.’
In addition, however, expletive inversion may be compatible

with verbs that are not readily classifiable as canonical presentationals
provided they are used presentationally, and a corresponding
possibility exists for partitive cliticization from the associates of such
verbs:
(72) Il en souffle assez pour couvrir deux fois la demande mondiale

d’électricité prévue pour 2020.
‘Enough of it blows to meet twice over the world demand for
electricity forecast for 2020.’
(73) Il en a démissionné plusieurs.
‘Several of them resigned.’
(74) Quand il en sonne un, tous se mettent à chercher le leur.
‘When one rings, everyone starts looking for their own.’
(75) Pourtant il en volait encore en 1978.
‘However some were still flying in 1978.’
Thus the evidence from French indicates that the possibility for parti-
tive cliticization from non-objects is a function of the presentational
capability of the relevant verb. An analysis of null subject languages
such as Italian and Catalan that assumes a parallel state of affairs to
the French situation (but with partitive cliticization from intransitive
subjects having a higher frequency in these languages due to the
greater productivity of null subject-style inversion in comparison to
expletive inversion) would readily account for the distributional pat-

terns noted at the beginning of this section.
In support of a parallel between French and the null subject lan-
guages, we can point first of all to the tell-tale inability of the Italian
and Catalan verb to be focused when partitive cliticization from
the subject has occurred. Thus, assuming a normal intonation
without artificial breaks, only the (a) members of the example pairs
below are compatible with readings in which uccisi or perdut are
accented:
(76a) Tre di loro sono stati uccisi.

‘Three of them have been killed.’
(76b) Ne sono stati uccisi tre.
‘Three of them have been killed.’
(77a) Malauradament algunes s’han perdut.
‘Unfortunately some of them have been lost.’
(77b) Se n’han perdut algunes. Les que s’han conservat són les
següents . . .’
‘Some have been lost. Those that remain are the
following . . .’
Secondly, the relevant distributional patterns in Italian and Catalan

are remarkably similar to those found in French, albeit at higher general
levels of frequency. Thus in addition to passives/reflexive passives, the
most frequently cited (intransitive) verbs that occur with ne/en are
prototypical presentational verbs such as arrivare/arribar ‘arrive’,
mancare/faltar ‘be missing’ and so on, and verbs with an obvious pre-
sentational capability such as morire/morir. The examples below are
from Catalan:
(78) Només entre l’abril . . . i el setembre, n’han arribat 22.511.

‘Just between April . . . and September, 22,511 have arrived.’
(79) Ha estat el primer pas en aquest camp, però encara en falten
molts.
‘This has been the first step in this area, but still many more
are needed.’
(80) D’una població de 12.000 habitants en van morir 1.100.
‘Out of a population of 12,000 inhabitants 1,100 died.’
Moreover, as in French, verbs that are not canonical presentationals

are also possible, provided they are used with presentational import.
The earlier examples (43) to (53) illustrate this point.
Given the rather obvious parallels between French on the one hand
and Catalan/Italian on the other, it is entirely plausible to suppose that
partitive cliticization from intransitive subjects is conditioned by the
same factor in both types of language. In French, the phenomenon is
overtly restricted to expletive inversion, clearly a presentational-type
construction. The obvious inference is that the same restriction applies
in Catalan and Italian, but that this is not so overtly apparent given
the absence of an overt ‘presentational’ expletive corresponding to il.
If this is the case, then the apparent link between unaccusatives/
passives and partitive cliticization simply reflects the natural presenta-
tional capability of an important subset of unaccusatives and of passives
in general.
The viability of such a hypothesis would in fact be independently
supported by certain data pertaining to adjectives. Following Carlson
(1977) and Milsark (1974), predicative elements are divided into
two types, viz. individual-level predicates and stage-level predicates.
Roughly speaking, the former ascribe properties to individuals whereas
the latter ascribe states (or, alternatively, they ascribe properties to
spatiotemporal slices or ‘stages’ of individuals). Individual-level predi-
cates necessarily impose a topic–comment division that matches the
grammatical subject–predicate division, whereas stage-level predicates
may also be used in so-called ‘thetic judgments’ (see Kuroda 1972), in
which topic–comment and subject–predicate are dissociated. Compare,
for example, sentences (81) and (82) below, the former containing an
individual-level predicate, ‘is dangerous’, and the latter a stage-level
predicate, ‘were scattered about the room’:
(81) Mountaineering is dangerous.

(82) Papers were scattered about the room.
Sentence (81) can plausibly be analysed as making a statement about

mountaineering, viz. that it is dangerous, but (82) can hardly be said
to be ‘about papers’. If anything, (82) makes a statement about the room
in question, viz. that papers were scattered about it. On this basis, we
can say that the subject noun mountaineering in (81) is a topic, and that
the subject noun papers in (82) is not. Accordingly, in sentence (81)
there is a topic–comment division that matches the grammatical
subject–predicate division, whereas in (82) this is not the case. Sentence

(82) can thus be classified as illustrating a thetic judgment.
Now as Cinque (1990a) has shown, some adjectives admit partitive
cliticization from their subject. However it appears to be the case that
this capability is limited to adjectives that are stage-level predicates
(although this is not to say that every such adjective allows partitive
cliticization). For example, the individual-level predicates sono buoni
‘are good’ in (83) and sono pericolosi ‘are dangerous’ in (84) disallow
partitive cliticization, whereas the stage-level predicates erano previsti
‘were expected’ in (85) and sono visibili ‘are visible’ in (86) allow it:
(83) *Ne sono buoni pocchi. (Cinque 1990a, p. 7)

‘Few (of them) are good.’
(84) *Ne sono pericolosi molti. (Cinque 1990a, p. 7)
‘Many (of them) are dangerous.’
(85) Quanti ne erano previsti?

‘How many (of them) were expected?’
(86) Ne sono visibili quattro.

‘Four (of them) are visible.’
The above pattern of data suggests that partitive cliticization from a

subject is not possible when the predicate is of a type that is incompat-
ible with thetic judgments. Now most authors (for example, Lambrecht
1994, Suñer 1982) assume some sort of identification between thetic
judgments and the presentational type of information structure. Given
this identification, and given that individual-level predicates can never
be involved in thetic judgments, the pattern of the data represented by
(83) to (86) is entirely consistent with the general hypothesis that the
possibility for partitive cliticization from a subject is a reflex of presen-
tational capability.
It might be suggested that the argument advanced here, relying as it
does on the presentational capability of the verbs that are compatible
with partitive cliticization from their subjects, does not in fact elimi-
nate the link usually posited between the latter phenomenon and the
‘deep-object’ analysis assigned to unaccusative subjects. This would
follow from the assumption that presentational information structure
is simply a reflex of the syntax implied by that analysis, as Lonzi (1986)
in effect appears to have assumed (see note 9 above). However, there
are two reasons for rejecting this assumption. First, as established in
Chapter 2, expletive presentational inversion does not in principle

require the associate to be a deep object, and the same applies, a forti-
ori, to presentational inversion in null subject languages such as Italian
and Catalan. Secondly, given that unergative verbs as a matter of fact
can have presentational capability, the only way that presentational
information structure can be treated as a reflex of the syntax assigned
to unaccusatives is by assuming that unergatives become unaccusatives
when used presentationally. However, as observed in note 9 above, the
practice of positing switches merely to accommodate adverse data is
somewhat lacking in methodological rigour and should generally be
avoided if at all possible.
It seems reasonable to assume, then, that the partitive cliticization
diagnostic highlights information structure rather than syntactic struc-
ture, with a bias towards unaccusatives/passives but not a complete
exclusion of unergatives. Now this still leaves unexplained the fact that
partitive cliticization is also widely available in the case of (indefinite)
direct objects. However, here again we can develop one of the themes
alluded to in Chapter 2 (section 2.5.2). There it was observed that
object q -role is generally consonant with ‘presented’ discourse func-
tion. This circumstance is presumably related to the fact that, in null
subject languages at least, the bearer of object q -role typically surfaces
in postverbal position when indefinite (compare the Spanish examples
(81) to (83) in Chapter 2). When such a configuration arises, it is in
effect impossible to focus the verb without resorting to a marked into-
nation pattern. This point is illustrated by the Spanish examples just
mentioned and also by the Italian example below, where the main
accent within the verb phrase falls naturally on the direct object
tre sospetti terroristi (assuming a neutral and continuous intonation
contour):
(87) La polizia ha arrestato tre sospetti terroristi.

‘The police have arrested three suspected terrorists.’
What this suggests is that transitive direct objects are in essentially the
same situation, from the point of view of information structure, as
expletive associates, given that the effect of expletive inversion is to
withhold focus from the verb. If this is correct, the general transpar-
ency of (indefinite) direct objects to partitive cliticization falls under
the same generalization as that put forward in connection with intran-
sitive subjects, viz. that partitive cliticization diagnoses presentational
capability. In this way, the parallel between unaccusatives, passives and
presentational unergatives on the one hand, and transitives on the

other, can be reduced to a common capacity regarding information
structure, without the need to assume a parallel syntax.17
A final problem that needs addressing relates to the fact that many
(but, as Lonzi observes (1986, pp. 114, 116), not all) of the Italian verbs
that select perfect auxiliary essere are compatible with partitive cliticiza-
tion from their subjects. A solution to this final piece of the puzzle can
be derived from the link noted in a number of places (see 5.5.1) between
essere-selection and aspectual class.
As was mentioned earlier (end of 3.3), agentive activity verbs are the
most difficult to reconcile with presentational information structure.
Given the view adopted here, this state of affairs accounts readily for
the infrequency of partitive cliticization from the subjects of such
verbs. In contrast, the members of the remainder of the verb classes are
not similarly resistant to presentational information structure, in that
they routinely have presentational occurrences:
Achievement/accomplishment terms:
(88) Nel frattempo sono falliti molti programmi di cooperazione

allo sviluppo.
‘In the meantime many development aid programmes have
failed.’
(89) Alle 11.00 si sono schiantati due treni merci incanalati sullo
stesso binario.
‘At 11 a.m. two freight trains on the same line collided.’
(90) Sono passati molti giorni.

‘Many days have passed.’
Non-agentive activity terms:
(91) All’epoca gli abitanti erano 600 e funzionavano due mulini di

proprietà del Comune.18
‘At the time there were six hundred inhabitants and two pub-
licly owned mills were working.’
State terms:
(92) Esistono pochi casi documentati.

‘There exist few documented cases.’
(93) A questo elenco mancano molti paesi.

‘Many countries are missing from this list.’
In general, then, intransitive verbs other than agentive activity terms

are likely to have a natural presentational capability, with the possibil-
ity of partitive cliticization from the subject arising as a corollary of
this property (notice that all of the above verbs are compatible with
partitive cliticization from the subject,19 as are the bulk of the other
verbs in these classes). Thus it seems to be the case that there is an
indirect (and somewhat uneven) relationship between partitive clitici-
zation and aspectual class.20 Given the broad pattern of perfect auxil-
iary assignment across the various aspectual classes, this relationship
favours partitive cliticization (from the subject) with essere-selecting
verbs, although it does not exclude it in the case of avere-selecting verbs.
As regards the last point, note in particular that non-agentive activity
terms such as funzionare have quite a high degree of presentational
capability and yet are likely to select perfect auxiliary avere. Thus
among this group of verbs the correlation between essere-selection and
partitive cliticization is likely to be at its weakest.
3.5 Conclusion
A surprising number of attempts have been made to derive a principled

theoretical basis for the alleged exclusion of unergative subjects from
the partitive cliticization construction. 21 The most important of these
theories were reviewed in this chapter and it emerged that no general
syntactic principle appears to exist that can be made to provide the
required discrimination between postverbal unaccusative and unerga-
tive subjects.
Formerly, it could be argued that postverbal unergative subject posi-
tion (assumed to be VP-adjoined to the right) was a non-argument
position and thus the apparent unaccusative–unergative asymmetry in
respect of partitive cliticization could be attributed to the requirement
that the partitive clitic had to be extracted from an argument position.
With the advent of the VP-internal subject hypothesis, however, that
argument is invalidated, unless it can be shown that the unergative
subject necessarily moves out of its initial position. Belletti (1999)
argues that this is indeed the case, in that unergative subjects move to
the specifier of a focus phrase projected above the outer VP. This she
takes to be a non L-marked position, hence not a legitimate extraction
site. However, the focus-phrase analysis is defective in several respects,
not least because not all postverbal unergative subjects are in fact
focused.
Longobardi argued that partitive cliticization involved successive
cyclic movement and that such movement was not possible in the case
of unergative subjects because unergative verbs did not govern into the
specifier of their subject. While this proposal obviates several of the
problems inherent in other theories, it has a major weakness, viz. that
it is difficult, if not impossible, to provide compelling independent
motivation for the assumption of an unergative–unaccusative asym-
metry in terms of the capability to govern into the specifier of a (post-
verbal) subject.
Of the remaining accounts, Burzio’s and Perlmutter’s theories are
ultimately stipulative and are thus immediately vulnerable to adverse
empirical data, while any attempt to explain the distribution of parti-
tive cliticization in terms of Fiengo’s proper binding requirement on
traces, as suggested by Baltin, requires the adoption of an outmoded
theoretical framework.
These findings, together with the fact that postverbal subjects of
certain unergative verbs routinely allow partitive cliticization, indicate
that the distribution of the latter phenomenon is unlikely to be syn-
tactically conditioned. In fact, it has been argued in this chapter that
the distributional patterns are determined by tendencies pertaining to
information structure. This is suggested initially by the fact that parti-
tive cliticization from non-objects in French is largely restricted to
expletive inversion, which is available only to verbs or constructions
that are capable of being used presentationally. On the basis of impor-
tant similarities between the French and Italian/Catalan situation, it
was argued in the text that partitive cliticization from the argument of
an intransitive verb is subject in all three languages to essentially the
same restriction in terms of information structure, the only significant
cross-linguistic disparity being that presentational inversion in the null
subject languages is significantly more productive than expletive inver-
sion in French.
Building on some of the ideas introduced in Chapter 2, it has also
been argued that there is a consonance between object q -role and the
capability for an argument to have a ‘presented’ function. This accounts
for the way in which both passive subjects and transitive direct objects
pattern with subjects of presentational unaccusatives (and also with
subjects of presentational unergatives).
Finally, it was observed that all intransitives other than agentive
activity terms are likely to have a natural presentational capability and
thus are likely to be compatible with partitive cliticization from the

subject/associate. Most of these verbs (that is, verbs other than agentive
activity terms) are assigned perfect auxiliary essere in Italian, given
the partly aspectual basis for auxiliary assignment (to be discussed in
Chapter 5), and this circumstance accounts for the rough correlation
between essere selection and the possibility of partitive cliticization
from the subject. However, some groups of intransitives, a case in point
being the non-agentive activity terms, have a fairly strong presenta-
tional capability but nevertheless are often associated with auxiliary
avere. The existence of such groups of verbs causes the classes defined
by the auxiliary-selection and partitive-cliticization diagnostics to be
significantly non-isomorphic.
4
Bare Subjects
4.1 Introduction
It is commonly (though not universally) assumed that the distribution

of bare subjects in Romance null subject languages correlates with the
unaccusative–unergative distinction. In Spanish, which lacks the ‘be’
perfect auxiliary as well as an equivalent to the Italian/Catalan-style
partitive clitic, bare subject compatibility is in fact taken to be one of
the primary unaccusative diagnostics (see, for example, Aranovich
2003, Mendikoetxea 1999).1 For this reason, the discussion here focuses
primarily on Spanish, but the main conclusions would in broad terms
be applicable to Catalan, Portuguese and Italian.
Except in what might be termed stylistically marked contexts,2
Spanish bare subjects appear only in immediately postverbal position,
as in examples (1) to (3), in the left periphery, as in examples (4) and
(5), or after a focusing item, as in example (6):
(1) Dimitían ministros con una frecuencia impresionante.

‘Ministers resigned with an amazing frequency.’
(2) Está claro que han muerto turistas.
‘It is clear that tourists have died.’
(3) Entra frío.
‘The cold is coming in.’
(4) Terremotos, no ocurren nunca.
‘Earthquakes, they never happen.’
(5) MEJILLONES faltan. (With emphatic stress on mejillones.)

‘It’s mussels that are needed.’
70
Bare Subjects 71
(6) Participaron hasta soldados.

‘Even soldiers participated.’
The above distribution has been claimed to result from the existence
of a proper or lexical government requirement on bare arguments,
under the assumption that they contain an empty determiner or quan-
tifier.3 The general principle from which this requirement is assumed
to derive is some form of the Empty Category Principle (ECP), a Gov-
ernment Binding construct requiring empty categories to have proper
governors.4 The original articulation of this view is due to Contreras
(1986), although Longobardi’s (1994) restatement within the frame-
work of the DP (determiner phrase) hypothesis has been highly influ-
ential. We can note in particular the conditions Longobardi assumed
(pp. 617–18) empty determiners to be subject to:
(a) They are restricted to plural or mass head nouns like several other
determiners.
(b) They are subject to a lexical government requirement like other
empty heads.
(c) They receive an indefinite interpretation corresponding to an exis-
tential quantifier unspecified for number and taking the narrowest
possible scope (default existential).
A variant on the empty category approach is provided by Lois (1996).

She contends (p. 230) that Longobardi’s lexical government require-
ment can be reconstructed in terms of configurations that will enable
the licensing of a ‘hidden’ event argument of the sort posited by Kratzer
(1995).5 The relevant assumptions are (i) that only stage-level predicates
are associated with the Kratzer-style event argument and (ii) that, as
noted by Carlson (1977), bare subjects of stage-level predicates must
be ‘existential’, in precisely the sense required under condition (c) of
Longobardi’s theory (see above). In essence, then, Lois’s account of bare
subjects (in Romance) can be characterized as stating that they will be
possible with stage-level predicates but impossible with individual-level
predicates.
It has also been suggested that bare arguments manifest partitive (or
inherent) case in the sense of Belletti (1988). For example, Masullo
(1992, p. 263) treated them as nominal projections that did not attain
their maximal level of expansion. They thus required a ‘stronger’ means
of identification – specifically, they had to receive partitive case and
they had to incorporate into another head. Under the assumption that
partitive case is reserved for direct objects (for example, as in Lasnik

(1999, pp. 86–7), this would implicitly rule out the possibility that
unergative subjects could be bare.
Belletti (1988) highlighted two facts that indicated in her view that
bare arguments had partitive case. Firstly, she pointed out (p. 29) that
bare direct objects in Italian are cliticized by partitive ne and not by
an accusative clitic, as illustrated in the example below:
(7) Lettere, oggi non ne/*le ho scritte.

‘Letters, I haven’t written any today.’
In addition, she noted that bare nouns could not appear as the small
clause subject in an ECM (Exceptional Case Marking) construction:
(8) *Consideravo [ SC studenti intelligenti]. (Belletti 1988, p. 29)

‘I considered students intelligent.’
(9) *Consideraba [ SC estudiantes inteligentes]. (Spanish equivalent
of (8))
‘I considered students intelligent.’
Given that it is the small clause predicate and not the matrix verb that
is responsible for q -marking the small clause subject, the ungrammati-
cality of (8) and (9) would follow, under Belletti’s analysis, from the
assumption that partitive case licensing requires a q -relation between
licenser and licensee (and indeed, this requirement is implicit in the
characterization of partitive case as ‘inherent’).
The final component of the jigsaw relates to the so-called ‘unerga-
tive–unaccusative alternations’ (Torrego 1989), as in (10) and (11)
below:
(10) ?Trabajaban presos.

‘Prisoners worked.’
(11) En aquella fábrica trabajaban presos.
‘Prisoners worked in that factory.’
The verb trabajar is deemed to be unergative, whence the apparently

problematic status of the bare subject in (10). However, sentence (11)
is entirely unproblematic, despite the fact that trabajar again has a bare
subject. This is accounted for in Torrego’s analysis under the assump-
Bare Subjects 73
tion that unergatives switch to the unaccusative class when used with
a preverbal locative argument.
Torrego did not explicitly motivate, in syntactic terms, the possibility
of unergative-to-unaccusative switches. Conceivably, she may have rea-
soned that the locative argument (which she analysed as a ‘locative
subject’) was q -marked in the high preverbal subject position (spec-IP
or spec-TP) and thus could not co-occur with an unergative subject,
given that the latter, under 1980s assumptions, was presumed to be q -
marked in that very position.
4.2 Unergatives can have bare postverbal subjects
In some ways the claims discussed above according to which a bare

nominal may contain an empty determiner or quantifier are fairly tra-
ditional. For example in the structuralist tradition it was frequently
observed that the plural morpheme was paradigmatically analogous to
an overt determiner. And indeed, Longobardi (1994) makes use of a
familiar distributional argument, observing (p. 619) that bare singular
count nouns (which by hypothesis do not have an empty determiner)
cannot be modified by a relative clause:
(12) *Gianni è medico che si cura davvero dei suoi pazienti.

‘Gianni is doctor who really cares for his patients.’
The fact that relativization is possible with plural and mass bare nouns,
as well as with nouns that have an overt determiner, provides an
empirical link between each of these types of item. Longobardi’s obser-
vation in fact underlies one of the main empirical arguments in favour
of the so-called DP hypothesis (see Bernstein 2001, p. 543).
On the other hand, there is no compelling reason to assume that
some form of lexical government requirement would necessarily exclude
bare nouns from (postverbal) unergative subject position. Indeed the
usual assumption, pace Contreras (1986), has been that postverbal
unergative subjects are governed by the verb, and hence are lexically
governed. This follows from certain considerations pertaining to
the so-called COMP-trace effect, that is, a prohibition on wh-extraction
of the subject across an overt complementizer, as illustrated by
(13):
(13) Who do you think will win/*that will win?

Romance null subject languages are systematically different in this

respect, as is shown by the Spanish example below:
(14) ¿Quién crees que ganará?

‘Who do you think will win?’ (Literally: ‘Who do you think
that will win?’)
Within the Government Binding framework, the COMP-trace effect

was explained in terms of the ECP, with the preverbal subject position
assumed not to be properly governed, hence not capable of being occu-
pied by a wh-trace (an empty category). Rizzi’s (1982) explanation of
the apparent immunity of null subject languages in this regard con-
sisted in assuming that the wh-extracted subject in these languages was
a postverbal subject, assumed to be governed by the verb (hence prop-
erly governed). Under that analysis there was no violation of the ECP
and so the immunity in question was only apparent.
The important point from the present perspective is that the ap -
parent COMP-trace immunity in null subject languages is blind to the
unaccusative–unergative distinction. Thus if Rizzi’s explanation is
adopted, all postverbal subjects are governed by the verb.6 A lexical or
proper government requirement of the sort proposed by Longobardi
would thus not rule out bare postverbal unergative subjects.
Nor do such subjects appear to be excluded under Lois’s (1996) recon-
struction of the lexical government requirement in terms of configura-
tions in which an eventive q -role can be licensed. This follows from
the fact that the unaccusative–unergative distinction clearly is not
isomorphic with the distinction between stage-level predicates and
individual-level predicates (on this point see Kratzer, 1995, p. 136).
Accordingly, the ‘existential’ meaning that Lois (following Longobardi)
takes to be intrinsic to bare subjects in Romance is not in itself incom-
patible with unergative verbs.
As regards the claim that bare arguments have partitive case, it is
not clear whether much significance can be attached to this view,
given the adverse findings in 2.3 concerning the motivation for the
partitive case hypothesis in general. Moreover, Belletti’s use of ne-
cliticization as a diagnostic for partitive case (see example (7) above)
is challenged by the fact that partitive clitics can realize unergative
subjects, which by hypothesis never have partitive case (for example,
see French (75) in 3.4). Finally, as regards the specific paradigm illus-
trated by example (7), note that Spanish can have an accusative clitic
where Italian has ne:
Bare Subjects 75
(15) Macarrones, los he comido hoy. (Garrido 1996, p. 315)

‘Macaroni, I’ve eaten some today.’
In fact, according to the example below from López Díaz (1996, p. 131),
an accusative clitic is possible also in Italian (pace Belletti):
(16) –Ho trovato noccioline. (‘I have found peanuts.’)

–Noccioline, le ho trovate anche io. (‘Peanuts, I too have found
some.’)
Thus there are good reasons for rejecting the alleged link between
bare nouns and partitive case. From that perspective, we can regard
clitics like ne as being unspecified in terms of case, and the prohibition
on bare nouns occurring as ECM subjects, illustrated by examples (8)
and (9), can be attributed to the fact that the relevant ECM verbs are
individual-level predicates in Carlson’s (1977) sense. Bare arguments of
such predicates must have universal reference, which in principle is not
possible with (unmodified) bare nouns in Romance (see 4.4 below).
We find, then, that there is no compelling a priori motivation for the
assumption that postverbal unergative subjects cannot be bare. In addi-
tion it is quite clear, once all the descriptive facts are in, that unergative
verbs do admit bare postverbal subjects. I give a selection of examples
below. The unergative status of the verbs in question is indicated by a
number of facts: (i) their translation equivalents in Italian and French
are not assigned the ‘be’ perfect auxiliary (at least not in the senses
illustrated below), (ii) their meanings fall within the unergative spec-
trum on Sorace’s Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (Sorace 2000), and (iii)
they cannot appear in participial absolutes.
(17) Volarán ejecutivos al 50% de descuento.

‘Executives will fly at a 50% discount.’
(18) Han votado extranjeros por primera vez.
‘Foreigners have voted for the first time.’
(19) Han contribuido accionistas.
‘Shareholders contributed.’
(20) A menudo juegan niños aquí.
‘Children frequently play here.’
(21) Participaron alumnos.

‘Students participated.’
(22) Si trabajan niños, no deberán ejecutar tareas peligrosas.

‘If children work they must not carry out dangerous tasks.’
(23) Correteaban niños sin parar.
‘Children ran around ceaselessly.’
(24) Saltaban peces.
‘Fish were jumping.’
(25) Soplaba viento.
‘Wind blew.’
(26) Sonaban campanas.
‘Bells rang.’
(27) Zumbaban abejas.
‘Bees buzzed.’
In fact not just unergatives can appear with bare subjects but also
transitives:
(28) A veces me ayudan amigos.

‘Friends help me sometimes.’
We can also reject Torrego’s doctrine of unergative–unaccusative

alternations. As observed in 4.1, there is no clear theoretical motivation
for inferring that unergatives systematically switch to the unaccusative
class in the way suggested by Torrego. As mentioned at that point, it
is conceivable that Torrego assumed preverbal locative ‘subjects’ and
unergative subjects to be in competition for the same q -position.
However, even an argument based on that assumption would lose its
force under the now widely accepted VP-internal subject analysis.
Under the newer assumptions, an unergative subject is q -marked below
the high position assigned to the preverbal locative, and so there
would be no reason to suppose that the two competed for the same
q -position.
More important, perhaps, is the fact that, while it appears to be
crucial to Torrego’s theory that the item that legitimizes an unerga-
tive–unaccusative switch is (i) a locative, (ii) preverbal and (iii)
overt (see Torrego 1989, pp. 262–4), the item in question may in reality
be a non-locative, or postverbal or non-overt (within the relevant
clause):
Bare Subjects 77
(29) A veces llaman alumnos.

‘Sometime students call.’
(30) Escriben amigos de vez en cuando.
‘Friends write from time to time.’
(31) Colaboraron expertos en la búsqueda de una solución.
‘Experts collaborated in the search for a solution.’
(32) Trabajan niños en todas sus fábricas.
‘Children work in all their factories.’
(33) Este parque me gusta: juegan niños. (Garrido 1996, p. 305)
‘I like this park. Children play (here).’
In other words, there is nothing particularly special about overt

preverbal locatives. In fact, Torrego’s preverbal locatives are simply
one instance of a general phenomenon, affecting unergatives and
unaccusatives alike, whereby a complex consisting of a verb plus a
bare subject always requires some form of contextualization, which
may or may not be supplied by an item that is overt within the
clause containing the complex. This contextualization requirement
is discussed in more detail in 4.3.3.5 below. For the moment, it suffices
to note that, in the absence of any compelling theoretical argu-
ment supporting the doctrine of unergative–unaccusative switches,
there seems no obvious reason why examples such as those below
(all from Torrego 1989) should not be treated as yet more illustra-
tions of the fact that bare subject capability does not diagnose
unaccusativity:
(34) Aquí han dormido animales.

‘Animals have slept here.’
(35) En esta pista aterrizan helicópteros.

‘Helicopters land on this runway.’
(36) En este árbol anidan cigueñas.

‘Storks nest in this tree.’
Thus the occurrence of bare subjects with unergatives, with or

without overt preverbal locatives, is a routine matter. It is simply at
variance with the facts to claim otherwise. Some suggestions are given
in 4.3.3.5 and note 18 below as to why a correlation should have
been so readily supposed between bare subject capability and

unaccusativity.
4.3 Constraints on bare subject distribution
The rest of this chapter will be primarily concerned with accounting

in semantico-pragmatic terms for the types of context in which bare
subjects occur. This analysis is based primarily on an examination of
the contrast between complexes consisting of a verb plus a bare noun
and complexes consisting of a verb plus an overtly quantified noun. It
will be shown that this contrast provides the key to the contextual
distribution of the former. The issue of why bare subjects are normally
required to be postverbal is then addressed in 4.5.
4.3.1 The dispositional exemplar

The starting point for the analysis is supplied by the contrast between
disposition sentences such as (37) below, understood as meaning that
apple-eating is one of the things Jorge does as part of his disposition,
and event-describing sentences such as (38):
(37) Jorge come manzanas.

‘Jorge eats apples.’
(38) Jorge comió unas manzanas.

‘Jorge ate some apples.’
The point here is that manzanas in (37) cannot be viewed as determin-

ing individual apples in the way that unas manzanas does in (38),
because come in (37) is habitual, that is, the action denoted by the verb
occurs habitually. The distinction in question becomes obvious if the
two sentences are analysed in terms of their quantificational structure.
Note first of all that the meaning of (38) can be expressed in terms of
the quantificational schema shown below, where the letter ‘F’ means
manzana, ‘G’ means comió and a = Jorge:
(39) ∃x(Fx & Gax)7
However, if we attempt an analogous treatment of (37), this time inter-

preting ‘G’ in (39) as habitual come, the resulting analysis presents Jorge
as habitually eating the same apple or apples, which quite clearly is not
what (37) does.
Bare Subjects 79
Significantly, from the present perspective, the dispositional type of

meaning illustrated by (37) is available only with a bare noun. Thus
(40) below, with unas manzanas, cannot be used to say what (37) says.
In fact, if (40) has any viability, it would be in a ‘historic present’ type
of context, for example, in a running commentary on a series of actions
carried out by Jorge, or as a caption to a photograph of Jorge eating
some apples: 8
(40) Jorge come unas manzanas.

‘Jorge eats some apples.’
In the foregoing examples, the bare noun in question functioned

as a direct object. However, the facts are wholly analogous if the
bare noun is a subject. Thus consider the paradigm represented by
(41) to (43) below, where I assume that the locative aquí ‘here’ has an
equivalent logical role to the proper name Jorge in the previous
examples:
(41) Por aquí pasan ciclistas.

‘Cyclists come through here.’
(42) Por aquí pasaron unos ciclistas.
‘Some cyclists came through here.’
(43) Por aquí pasan unos ciclistas.

‘Some cyclists come through here.’
Sentence (42) corresponds to quantificational schema (39), repro-

duced below, with Fs this time understood as being cyclists, a as the
place designated by aquí, and Gs as ordered pairs consisting of a place
and an individual that passed through it:
(39) ∃x(Fx & Gax)
On the other hand, sentence (41) cannot receive an analogous analysis,

given that pasan is habitual and so, were (41) to be analysed as in
schema (39), each of the ordered pairs in the extension of the ‘G’ predi-
cate would consist in a place and an individual that habitually passes
through it. Analysed in that way, sentence (41) would say that deter-
minate cyclists habitually pass through the place designated by aquí,
whereas what it really says is simply that the place in question is fre-
quented by cyclists.
Notice also that this ‘frequented by cyclists’ meaning is available only

with a bare noun as the subject of pasar. Thus (43), with unos ciclistas,
is deviant if it is understood as an attempt to say what (41) says. Alter-
natively, it might be interpreted as making reference to determinate
cyclists, in which case it would correspond to schema (39) under the
interpretation specified in the preceding paragraph for the erroneous
analysis of (41).
We see, then, that the kind of quantificational reading represented
by schema (39) is systematically unavailable with bare objects or sub-
jects. Conversely, the non-quantificational reading illustrated by (37)
and (41) is only available with bare objects or subjects, in Spanish at
least. One way of dealing with the first point is to assume that sequences
consisting in a verb plus a bare object or subject can be logically
unstructured. Quine (1960, pp. 134, 175), for example, adopted that
approach, referring to sequences such as eats mice in Tabby eats mice as
‘dispositional combinations’ and stating that ‘the internal structure of
these recalcitrant compounds is, relative to canonical notation, just not
structure’. In other words, eats mice was to be analysed as corresponding
to a single schematic letter (representing a simple monadic term or
‘predicate’) and the logical structure of the containing sentence Tabby
eats mice then reduced to the basic predicational schema ‘Fa’, where the
letter ‘F’ means eats mice and a = Tabby. Under this analysis, the mice
position is sealed within a logically simple monadic term and is thus
rendered inaccessible to quantification from outside.
Possibly, the need for the ‘unstructured’ approach favoured by
Quine might be obviated by treating verbs as generally having a tacit
time argument.9 However, for present purposes Quine’s basic insight
can be adopted unamended. The important point is that complexes
consisting of a verb plus a (non-generic) bare object or subject are not
analysable in terms of the simple schema illustrated by (39). In this
respect they differ from otherwise similar complexes involving overtly
quantified nouns. In Spanish at least, these systematically are analys-
able in terms of such schemata.10
4.3.2 Apparently referential bare nouns

Before looking at the relevance of the foregoing distinction in terms of
determining the distribution of bare nouns, it is important to rule out
a number of considerations that at first glance appear to blur this
distinction.
First of all, we have the apparent possibility of pronominal cross-
reference into a verb + bare noun sequence, as in (44) below:
Bare Subjects 81
(44) Jorge repara coches y Pedro los vende.

‘Jorge repairs cars and Pedro sells them.’
If, in line with the view taken in 4.3.1, the position occupied by the
bare noun coches in the above sentence is inaccessible to quantification
(at least in the manner envisaged in schema (39)), it might seem sur-
prising that coches can serve as the antecedent for clitic los. This would
follow from the assumption that los in (44) is analogous to los in (45)
below:
(45) Jorge reparó unos coches y Pedro los vendió.

‘Jorge repaired some cars and Pedro sold them.’
Here the clitic los serves merely to introduce an additional occurrence

of a bound variable. This can be seen from consideration of the corre-
sponding quantificational schema, which is as in (46) below, assuming
that a = Jorge, b = Pedro and that ‘F’ means coche, ‘G’ means reparó and
‘H’ means vendió:
(46) ∃x(Fx & Gax & Hbx)
Thus if clitic los in (44) is to be analysed in a parallel fashion to los in

(45), it cannot be that the first conjunct in (44) is not a quantification,
as claimed here.
However, a moment’s reflection suffices to reveal that the two
occurrences of los are rather different. As just noted, in sentence
(45) there is an irreducible link between the phrase unos coches and the
clitic los, whereby the latter is in effect an extension of the referential
apparatus of the former. Sentence (44), on the other hand, essentially
makes two unrelated assertions, viz. that Jorge repairs cars and
that Pedro sells cars. Accordingly, no cross-referential relation arises
that would be comparable to that which exists between los and
unos coches in (45), and the bound variable type of analysis enshrined
in schema (46) simply does not apply. Rather, the sequence los vende
in (44) is simply the pronominal counterpart to the logically unstruc-
tured complex vende coches ‘sells cars’ and receives an identical
analysis.
Matters are complicated, however, if some connecting word such as
luego ‘then’ is introduced into (44), because in that case the los of the
second conjunct ceases to be a mere proxy:
(47) Jorge repara coches y luego Pedro los vende.

‘Jorge repairs cars and then Pedro sells them.’
Here the second conjunct amounts in effect to Pedro vende los coches
que Jorge repara ‘Pedro sells the cars that Jorge repairs’. Nevertheless,
as with (44), no genuine cross-reference into repara coches need be
assumed. The first conjunct pragmatically implicates the existence of
certain cars, and it is to these cars that los in the second conjunct
refers. Roughly speaking, then, sentence (47) has the logical structure
shown below, where the letter ‘p’ stands for the disposition sentence
Jorge repara coches, Fs are cars repaired by Jorge and Gs are cars sold by
Pedro:
(48) p & ∀x(Fx → Gx)
Notice that the proposed analysis does not require any of the terms
within the first conjunct of sentence (47) to be exposed for cross-
referential purposes, whence the possibility of representing that fi rst
conjunct by the unanalysed sentence letter ‘p’ in schema (48). In other
words, as a consequence of the part played by pragmatics in determin-
ing the overall meaning of sentence (47), we can simultaneously treat
the second conjunct as a universal quantification about cars repaired
by Jorge and maintain that no direct referential connection exists
between that second conjunct and the bare noun coches in the first
conjunct.11
Therefore, scrutiny of the apparently adverse cases (44) and (47)
indicates that the possibility of a pronoun cross-referring into a verb +
bare noun complex is apparent rather than real. The Quinean analysis
adopted in 4.3.1 is thus undamaged by such cases.
An additional apparently adverse case is represented by event-
describing sentences that involve bare nouns. In his famous paper on
bare plurals, Carlson raises precisely this issue (1977, p. 429), in con-
nection with the two English sentences shown below:
(49) Arlene found squirrels in her attic.

(50) Arlene found some squirrels in her attic.
According to Carlson, in sentences like (49) ‘it seems that a group really
is, in some sense, being set up and referred to. Otherwise, we would
simply have no understanding of why [(50)] gives us such a nice para-
Bare Subjects 83
phrase.’ From the present perspective, this observation might be viewed

as implying that both cases correspond to the type of schema shown
in (39), reproduced below, assuming a = Arlene, Fs are squirrels and Gs
are ordered pairs consisting of a person and a thing found by that
person in Arlene’s attic:
(39) ∃x(Fx & Gax)
However, if both sentences (49) and (50) do correspond to schema

(39), then (non-generic) bare nouns are ambiguous, as between a
reading that resists an analysis of the kind implied in (39) and an
analysis that does not. Such a state of affairs is perfectly possible, but
other data suggest that there is no such ambiguity. To see this, consider
what happens when we extract the ‘sentence radical’ (that is, the
untensed verb together with its arguments) from each of (49) and (50),
and then embed it as the complement of a verb that is capable of creat-
ing a referentially opaque context, such as want:
(51) Arlene wanted to find squirrels in her attic.

(52) Arlene wanted to find some squirrels in her attic.
Following the embedding operation, the radicals Arlene find squirrels in

her attic and Arlene find some squirrels in her attic can be seen to diverge
rather sharply. Thus while (52) can be read in such a way that schema
(39) is still applicable, with Gs now interpreted as ordered pairs consist-
ing of a person and a thing sought by that person in Arlene’s attic, no
equivalent reading is available for (51), given that the formulation
wanted to find squirrels can never be understood as entailing that the
subject was after determinate squirrels (although it does not actually
rule out such a state of affairs). Accordingly, under the Quinean type
of analysis, the wanted to find squirrels part of (51) has no quantifica-
tional structure at all.12
Thus the differing results obtained by embedding the radicals Arlene
find squirrels in her attic and Arlene find some squirrels in her attic in a
potentially opaque construction indicate that only the second of these
radicals is associated with the type of quantificational structure repre-
sented by schema (39). The apparent possibility of analysing sentences
such as (49) in terms of that structure must therefore be attributed to
pragmatic inference. Presumably, we read the kind of quantificational
structure represented by schema (39) into sentence (49) because it is
not in fact possible for (49) to be true without a corresponding sentence

instantiating (39) also being true.13
I therefore conclude this section by re-affirming the general logical
dichotomy drawn here between complexes consisting of a verb plus a
bare noun and those consisting of a verb plus an overtly quantified
noun. Apparently adverse cases purporting to show that (non-generic)
bare nouns have quantificational import turn out not to tell against
the Quinean type of analysis adopted here.14
4.3.3 Bare subjects and the importance of context

We can now posit (for Spanish) the general principle that bare nouns
will be preferred to overtly quantified nouns in all and only those
contexts in which the quantificational meaning associated with the
latter would create a pragmatic anomaly or would otherwise be at vari-
ance with the intended assertion.15 The principle applies to bare nouns
in general but, given the focus in this chapter on bare subjects, only
its application to the latter is considered here.
4.3.3.1 Time phrases

One type of context in which the operation of the foregoing principle
has rather clearcut effects is that in which the verb–subject complex
co-occurs with a time phrase implying quantification, as in the two
sentences below:
(53) De ese agujero estuvieron saliendo hormigas durante tres

horas.
‘Ants were coming out of that hole for three hours.’
(54) ??De ese agujero estuvieron saliendo unas hormigas durante

tres horas.
‘Some ants were coming out of that hole for three hours.’
If we make the simplifying assumption that durante tres horas expresses

universal quantification, the basic quantificational structure of (53) can
be represented as in schema (55) below, where a is the hole in question,
Fs are times within a certain three-hour period, and Gs are ordered
pairs consisting of a location and a time at which ants were exiting
it:
(55) ∀x(Fx → Gax)

Bare Subjects 85
The deviancy of sentence (54) can then be traced to the fact that unos/
unas represents the overt expression of a quantifier that calls for the
widest possible scope. Accordingly, were unas hormigas to receive its
customary analysis, the quantificational structure of sentence (54)
would be as in schema (56) below, where a is the hole in question, Fs
are ants, Gs are times within a certain three-hour period and Hs are
ordered triples consisting of a location, an individual that exited it and
the time at which that exit was made:
(56) ∃x∀y[Fx & (Gy → Haxy)]
Under the interpretation just specified, schema (56) describes a prag-

matically anomalous situation, in which individual ants were perpetu-
ally coming out of the hole. In other words, it is not possible for unas
hormigas to occur with its customary quantificational force in the ‘. . .’
position within De ese agujero estuvieron saliendo . . . durante tres horas
without a pragmatic anomaly arising. To this circumstance can be
attributed the deviancy of (54), and hence the requirement for a bare
subject, as in (53).16
Notice that there is no general prohibition against indefinitely deter-
mined subjects appearing in the type of frame just illustrated. For
example, (57) below is analogous to (54) and yet no deviancy arises:
(57) En esta casa estuvieron viviendo unos terroristas durante más

de un año.
‘In this house some terrorists were living for more than a
year.’
Here, given the nature of the situation described, the quantificational

structure can plausibly be as in schema (56), with a understood as the
house in question, Fs as terrorists, Gs as times within a certain period
that exceeds one year and Hs as ordered triples consisting of a dwelling,
a dweller and a time at which the latter occupied the former.17 Under
this analysis, sentence (57) asserts that one or more individual terrorists
occupied the house throughout the relevant time period, which is a
perfectly plausible state of affairs.
Thus the deviancy of a case such as (54) – and with it the appropri-
ateness of (53) – does appear to follow from circumstances that are
specific to the particular type of situation described. A large number
of comparable cases can then receive analogous explanations, modulo
certain details pertaining to the associated quantificational schemata.

A few examples are given below:18
(58a) Surgieron problemas desde el primer momento.

‘Problems arose from the very beginning.’
(58b) ??Surgieron unos problemas desde el primer momento.
‘Some problems arose from the very beginning.’
(59a) Dimitían ministros todas las semanas.
‘Ministers were resigning every week.’
(59b) ??Dimitían unos ministros todas las semanas.
‘Some ministers were resigning every week.’
(60a) Llegan paquetes continuamente.
‘Parcels arrive continually.’
(60b) ??Llegan unos paquetes continuamente.
‘Some parcels arrive continually.’
4.3.3.2 Locatives
An analogous situation exists in respect of sentences involving locative
phrases, as is illustrated by the paradigm below:
(61) Viven lobos en todas las provincias del norte.

‘Wolves live in all of the northern provinces.’
(62) ??Viven unos lobos en todas las provincias del norte.
‘Some wolves live in all of the northern provinces.’
From the logical point of view, sentence (61) has the structure of a
standard Aristotelian universal affirmative (‘All Fs are Gs’), and so can
be represented by the schema below, with Fs understood as northern
provinces and Gs as places inhabited by wolves:
(63) ∀x(Fx → Gx)
Sentence (62), on the other hand, involves an additional quantifier,

because of the natural quantificational import of unos lobos. Moreover,
as noted earlier in connection with example (54), this quantifier appears
to require the maximum possible scope. Accordingly, the schema cor-
responding to (62) is as in (64) below, with Fs understood as wolves,
Bare Subjects 87
Gs as northern provinces and Hs as ordered pairs of places and indi-

viduals that inhabit them:
(64) ∃x∀y[Fx & (Gy → Hyx)]
Under the interpretations just specified, schema (63) represents a

perfectly plausible assertion, which may or may not be true, whereas
(64) describes a pragmatically anomalous situation, viz. one in which
one or more individual wolves live in all of the northern provinces.
From this contrast arise the divergent acceptability statuses of the cor-
responding sentences (61) and (62), and by extension the necessity for
the subject to be bare in (61).
Notice that sentences that are syntactically analogous to (62) will
not be similarly deviant if the type of pragmatic anomaly just
described does not arise. For example, sentence (65) is syntactically
identical to (62) in the relevant respects, and yet it is entirely
acceptable:
(65) Viven unos lobos en aquel bosque.19

‘Some wolves live in that forest.’
The reason for the unproblematic status of (65) is that unos lobos can
receive its customary quantificational analysis without the containing
sentence thereby coming to have a meaning that is pragmatically
deviant. Thus sentence (65) is unproblematically assigned the earlier
schema (39), reproduced below, with a understood as the forest in ques-
tion, Fs as wolves, and Gs as ordered pairs of places and individuals
that live in them:
(39) ∃x(Fx & Gax)
4.3.3.3 Other quantificational contexts

The type of contrast illustrated in 4.3.3.1 and 4.3.3.2 can essentially
be reproduced whenever a phrase implying quantification is present in
addition to the verb–subject complex. For example, the en-phrase in
the two sentences below is neither a locative nor a time phrase, and yet
the now familiar acceptability contrast is still apparent:
(66) Participan niños en muchas guerras africanas.

‘Children participate in many African wars.’
(67) ??Participan unos niños en muchas guerras africanas.

‘Some children participate in many African wars.’
Sentence (66) makes a statement about many African wars, viz. that
they involve children, whereas (67) says something about one or more
individual children, viz. that they are involved in many African wars.
The latter assertion is pragmatically deviant, whence the acceptability
differential between (66) and (67).
4.3.3.4 Redundant quantification

A slightly more complex train of argumentation is required to explain
contrasts such as the following:
(68) Trabajaron esclavos en la construcción del viaducto.

‘Slaves worked on the construction of the viaduct.’
(69) ?Trabajaron unos esclavos en la construcción del viaducto.20

‘Some slaves worked on the construction of the viaduct.’
The problem here is that the fundamental dichotomy identified so far,

viz. between Quine-style unstructured complexes and complexes that
are transparent to quantification, provides no obvious basis for an
acceptability contrast between (68) and (69).
To see this, consider the logical schemata that can be assigned to the
two sentences. If we assume, as before, that a complex consisting of a
verb plus a bare subject has no quantificational structure, then (68) can
be analysed as corresponding to the simple predicational schema ‘Fa’,
where a is the viaduct and Fs are items on the construction of which
slaves worked. Sentence (69), on the other hand, assuming that unos
introduces a quantificational dimension, is an instance of the earlier
schema (39), reproduced below, with Fs now understood as slaves and
Gs as ordered pairs consisting in a built item and an individual that
worked on its construction:
(39) ∃x(Fx & Gax)
Now it is immediately apparent that, under the analyses just sketched,

both (68) and (69) describe situations that are pragmatically plausible
and that do justice to the meaning the speaking can be assumed
to be intending to convey. Accordingly, both should be equally
acceptable.
Bare Subjects 89
The solution to the apparent paradox appears be related to the

purpose to which a sentence with the lexical content exhibited by (68)
and (69) would be put. Presumably, this content is most naturally used
in a descriptive historical assertion about the viaduct in question, with
no suggestion of any reference to specific slaves. Analysed as having
the structure ‘Fa’, with the interpretation specified above, (68) is ideally
suited to this task. In theory, sentence (69), analysed as in schema (39),
should also be suited to this task. However, for some reason, (69) carries
the pragmatic implicature that certain slaves (perhaps some that the
speaker has in mind) worked on the viaduct’s construction, and it is
this implicature that appears to be the source of the associated devi-
ancy.21 The question, then, is why this ‘specificity’ implicature arises
in the case of (69), or, more generally, in the case where the verb–
subject complex has quantificational structure.
Plausibly, this implicature is analogous to the implicature that gives
rise to Donnellan’s (1966) ‘referential’ use of a description. Donnellan
argued that a sentence such as Smith’s murderer is insane could either be
used to say something about ‘whoever or whatever is the so-and-so’ (p.
285), in this case the murderer of Smith (whoever that may be), or to
say something about some determinate individual, for example, the
particular individual who has been found guilty of Smith’s murder. In
the first case, the definite description (that is, Smith’s murderer) was said
to be ‘attributive’ and in the second ‘referential’ (in specialized senses
of these terms).
Kripke (1977) later argued that the same distinction – understood as
a pragmatic ambiguity – applied to uniquely quantified indefinite
descriptions used as paraphrases for definite descriptions, as implied in
Russell’s (1905) theory of definite descriptions. In fact, if Kripke is
correct, there is no obvious reason why his conclusion should not
be generalized to all indefi nite descriptions, so that overtly quantified
noun phrases in general will be expected to exhibit Donnellan’s ambigu-
ity (understood as a pragmatic ambiguity). From that perspective, unos
esclavos in (69) is capable of being interpreted in a wholly general
fashion (‘attributively’) or as involving reference to certain slaves
(‘referentially’).
These remarks explain why the ‘specificity’ implicature alluded to
earlier is possible with (69), but they do not identify what actually
causes this implicature to be triggered in this particular case. In fact,
the causality is likely to reflect the operation of some principle such as
Grice’s maxim of Quantity, which enjoins speakers not to say more
than is necessary (see Grice 1975). Given the availability of the logically
simpler type of construction illustrated by (68), the use of the construc-

tion illustrated by (69) to achieve essentially the same effect can be
seen as involving an element of redundancy, that is, as saying more
than is strictly necessary. This redundancy, given the way in which
conversational implicatures feed off violations of the Gricean maxims,
presumably triggers an implicature to the effect that the speaker in (69)
intends unos esclavos to have more than a purely general import. Now,
if we extrapolate from Donnellan’s and Kripke’s discussions of the
attributive–referential distinction, the purely general reading of unos
esclavos would in fact correspond to the attributive use. Accordingly,
an implicature to the effect that unos esclavos is intended to have more
than a purely general import is likely to trigger the referential reading
(implying some degree of specificity).
We see, then, that there is indeed a basis for the acceptability contrast
between (68) and (69). However, because the contrast is essentially of
a pragmatic nature, it is immune to any characterization articulated
purely in terms of the unstructured–quantificational dichotomy identi-
fied earlier. Without going into the precise details of the associated
analyses, contrasts such as the following appear to be analogous to that
identified here between (68) and (69):22
(70a) Participaron policías en la huelga.

‘Policemen participated in the strike.’
(70b) ?Participaron unos policías en la huelga.
‘Some policemen participated in the strike.’
(71a) Votaron extranjeros en la elección de 1824.
‘Foreigners voted in the 1824 election.’
(71b) ?Votaron unos extranjeros en la elección de 1824.
‘Some foreigners voted in the 1824 election.’
4.3.3.5 The need for an argument

As has become apparent from the basic analytical paradigm proposed
here, a complex consisting in a verb and a (non-generic) bare noun
corresponds to a monadic predicate, represented in a logical schema by
a single capital letter. Now in order to be a component of a complete
assertion, a predicate must have an argument, which may be an item
with independent reference (such as a proper name or a definite descrip-
tion) or a bound variable. In other words, put schematically, ‘F’ is not
Bare Subjects 91
a complete assertion, whereas ‘Fa’ and ‘ϕx(Fx)’ (where ϕ is any quanti-

fier) are. This requirement for an argument presumably stems from
the basic principle that all assertion is ultimately categorical in the
Aristotelian sense (pace Brentano 1973) and thus requires a minimum
of two terms from the logical point of view.
In the case in which the bare noun is the verb’s object, the argument
requirement is naturally satisfied by the subject, as in the earlier
example (37), reproduced below, or in the universal quantification
(72):
(37) Jorge come manzanas.

‘Jorge eats apples.’
(72) Todos los niños comen manzanas.
‘All the children eat apples.’
Here we have the monadic predicate come(n) manzanas, which takes as

its argument the proper name Jorge in (37) and a variable bound by the
quantificational apparatus associated with todos los niños in (72). In
both cases, the grammatical subject is the locus of the predicate’s
argument.
The above strategy is obviously not available, however, when the
subject itself is the bare noun that forms a single predicate with its verb.
In this case, the argument of the predicate must be supplied by some
item other than the grammatical subject.23 Sections 4.3.3.1 to 4.3.3.4
above abound with examples in which the argument is supplied by
phrases that refer to times, places or events. 24 An additional possibility
is illustrated by (73) below, where the indirect object (a) Pedro provides
the required argument:
(73) A Pedro le falta confianza.

‘Pedro lacks confidence.’
Finally, there is the case in which the argument is not mentioned at

all in the clause that contains the bare noun, but either is supplied by
the previous discourse or else must be inferred from the extra-linguistic
context. The earlier example (33), reproduced below, illustrates the first
possibility, while (74) to (76) exemplify the second:
(33) Este parque me gusta: juegan niños. (Garrido 1996, p. 305)

‘I like this park. Children play (here).’
(74) Están entrando hormigas.

‘Ants are coming in.’
(75) Sale agua.
‘Water is leaking out.’
(76) Faltan cuchillos.
‘There aren’t enough knives.’
We can now identify a second principle governing the distribution

of bare subjects, namely that the verb–subject complexes that contain
them must occur in contexts in which an appropriate argument is
forthcoming. From this principle results the deviancy of uncontextual-
ized verb + bare subject complexes, highlighted by Torrego (1989) for
unergative verbs but in reality apparent also with unaccusatives. Notice,
then, that the verb + bare subject complexes in the (a) sentences below
are rendered deviant when deprived, in the associated (b) sentences, of
a context that determines a suitable argument:
(77a) Por aquí pasan trenes.

‘Trains pass through here.’
(77b) ?Pasan trenes.
‘Trains pass through.’
(78a) A veces intervienen profesores.
‘Sometimes teachers intervene.’
(78b) ?Intervienen profesores.
‘Teachers intervene.’25
(79a) Ha desconectado su teléfono. Llamaban alumnos.

‘He’s disconnected his phone. Students were calling.’
(79b) ?Llamaban alumnos.
‘Students were calling.’
The deviancy of the above (b) sentences parallels that which would
attach to a null subject sentence such as Está roto ‘(It) is broken’ if it
were uttered in a context in which the identity of the subject could not
be determined. In both types of case we have a predicate but no iden-
tifiable argument, hence no assertion is made to which a truth value
could be assigned.
Now while the need for verb + bare subject complexes to be contex-
tualized applies regardless of whether the verb is unaccusative or uner-
Bare Subjects 93
gative, it may sometimes seem to apply less in the former case than in
the latter, and this circumstance may explain why a correlation has
so often been assumed to exist between bare subject compatibility
and unaccusativity (see also note 18 for an additional contributory
factor).
As a first step towards seeing how this appearance of an asymmetry
can arise, a contrast can be drawn between the argument structure
associated with agentive activity terms (prototypical unergative verbs)
and that associated with verbs of directed motion (prototypical unac-
cusatives). Outside of the marked case in which the subject is bare, the
use of an agentive activity term does not generally require the deter-
mination of any argument other than the subject and so we are not in
any particular way attuned to such a possibility. In contrast, verbs of
directed motion always involve a locative argument, which may be
explicit or implicit. In the latter case, we tacitly assume that the argu-
ment can be recovered from the context. For example, if we hear Pedro
entró ‘Pedro entered’, we are immediately attuned to the need for there
to be a place that Pedro entered, whereas if we hear Pedro cantó ‘Pedro
sang’ we are not immediately attuned to the need for there to be a place
that Pedro sang in. This in effect means that we envisage an appropriate
non-subject argument more readily for directed motion verbs than we
do for agentive activity verbs.
This latter circumstance, in the context of verb + bare subject com-
plexes, can result in an uneven appreciation of the deviancies resulting
from the non-satisfaction of the argument requirement alluded to at
the beginning of this section. For example, while both (80) and (81)
below are deviant if uttered completely out of context, the natural
assumption that a verb like ir ‘go’ must have a locative argument is
likely to ensure that (80) will elicit a more favourable acceptability
judgment than (81) if the two sentences are put to a linguistic
informant:
(80) (?)Iban jóvenes.

‘Young people used to go.’
(81) ?Trabajaron esclavos.

‘Slaves worked.’
However, if the argument requirement is explicitly satisfied, as in (82)

and the earlier example (68), reproduced below, the deviancy in both
cases disappears completely:
(82) A aquel bar iban jóvenes.

‘Young people used to go to that bar.’
(68) Trabajaron esclavos en la construcción del viaducto.
‘Slaves worked on the construction of the viaduct.’
The ameliorating factor attaching to verbs of directed motion has a

‘built-in’ character in sentences in which the locative argument is deic-
tically determined, as in the earlier sentences (74) and (75), reproduced
below:
(74) Están entrando hormigas.

‘Ants are coming in.’
(75) Sale agua.
‘Water is leaking out.’
Here it is immediately assumed that the context of the speech event

determines an appropriate argument, and sentences (74) and (75) thus
escape deviancy completely.
Other prominent unaccusatives are similar to the directed motion
verbs, in that they too are readily associated with non-subject argu-
ments. For example, the easy availability of a contextually-determined
argument for faltar ‘lack’ was already hinted at in connection with
sentence (76), reproduced below:
(76) Faltan cuchillos. (Implictly: en la mesa, en esta casa, etc.) 26

‘There aren’t enough knives.’ (‘on the table’, ‘in this house’
etc.)
And morir ‘die’ is similar, although in the example below the implicit
argument is not determined deictically, and so (83) has the attenuated
deviancy that characterizes sentences such as (80):
(83) (?)Murieron turistas. (Implicitly: en la explosión, en el terremoto

etc.)
‘Tourists died.’ (‘in the explosion’, ‘in the earthquake’, etc.)
What the foregoing remarks demonstrate is that certain types of

unaccusatives flaunt a non-subject argument in ways that unergatives
typically do not. However, while this is liable in many cases to secure
better acceptability judgments for unaccusatives than for unergatives
Bare Subjects 95
when they occur in uncontextualized verb + bare subject complexes,

it would be wrong to infer that bare subject capability systematically
discriminates between unaccusatives and unergatives. For there are
plenty of unaccusative verbs whose use with a bare subject out of
context is not ‘rescued’ in this way. Such is the case, for example, of
crecer ‘grow’ and nacer ‘be born’:
(84) ?Crecen/Crecían flores.

‘Flowers grow/were growing.’
(85) ?Nacen/Nacieron niños.
‘Children are/were born.’
Conversely, certain unergatives that implicitly involve reference to

an event, a place or some other type of abstract object may elicit
positive acceptability assessments even when presented out of
context:
(86) (?)Participaron alumnos.

‘Students took part.’
(87) (?)Contribuyeron políticos.
‘Politicians contributed.’
4.4 Aspectually stative constructions
An important contrast arises in connection with aspectually stative

predicates. This is instantiated by experiencer–stimulus verbs (exam-
ples (88) and (89) below) and by copula–adjective constructions (exam-
ples (90) and (91) ):
(88) Me gustan las ostras. (But not *Me gustan ostras.)

‘I like oysters.’
(89) Me apetecen ostras.
‘I fancy oysters.’
(90) Son peligrosas las tormentas. (But not *Son peligrosas
tormentas.)
‘Storms are dangerous.’
(91) Son inminentes tormentas.
‘Storms are imminent.’
As regards the experiencer–stimulus case, it is interesting to note that

Contreras (1986) claimed that gustar was not unaccusative and that this
was why it could not take a bare subject. Quite apart from any other
considerations, this would be a classic instance of an ‘unaccusative
mismatch’, given that the corresponding verb in Italian, viz. piacere,
selects perfect auxiliary essere (and so is assumed to be unaccusative).
Moreover, Perlmutter (1989) devoted several pages to showing how the
unaccusative hypothesis accounts for the behaviour of the type of
construction exemplified by piacere and gustar (which he termed
‘inversion’).
In fact, the real reason for the contrast between (88) and (89), as well
as for the contrast between (90) and (91), is connected to the old philo-
sophical distinction between properties and states. Following Carlson
(1977, p. 448), this distinction is characterized in the linguistic litera-
ture in terms of a contrast between predicates that apply to individuals
and predicates that apply to ‘stages’ or ‘realizations’ of indivi-
duals. Now, as noted by Carlson, what have come to be known as
‘individual-level’ predicates select a universal or kind-designating inter-
pretation of a bare subject, whereas ‘stage-level’ predicates select a non-
universal interpretation:
(92) Ravens are black. (Individual-level predicate.)

(93) Gold is yellow. (Individual-level predicate.)
(94) Men are shouting. (Stage-level predicate.)
(95) Water is leaking from the cistern. (Stage-level predicate.)
The universal meaning attaching to the bare subjects ravens and gold
in (92) and (93) is demonstrated by the fact that they do not support
substitutions by hyperonyms (that is, nouns of which they are hypo-
nyms) and so are analogous to the corresponding universally quanti-
fied subjects all ravens and all gold. For example, bird is a hyperonym of
raven and (92) does not logically imply Birds are black (just as All ravens
are black does not logically imply All birds are black). Similarly, metal is
a hyperonym of gold and (93) does not logically imply Metal is yellow
(just as All gold is yellow does not logically imply All metal is yellow). In
contrast, the non-universal bare subjects in (94) and (95) do support
substitutions of this kind. Thus (94) logically implies People are shouting,
for example, and (95) implies for example, Liquid is leaking from the
cistern.
Bare Subjects 97
Now, as noted in many places, there are no universal bare nouns in

Romance (at least not when the noun is unmodified).27 Instead the
definite article is used, with contextually-independent reference:
(96) Los cuervos son negros. (But not *Cuervos son negros.)
‘Ravens are black.’
(97) El oro es amarillo. (But not *Oro es amarillo.)
‘Gold is yellow.’
We can now account for the contrasts between (88) and (89) and
between (90) and (91), all of which are reproduced below:
(88) Me gustan las ostras.

‘I like oysters.’
(89) Me apetecen ostras.

‘I fancy oysters.’
(90) Son peligrosas las tormentas.

‘Storms are dangerous.’
(91) Son inminentes tormentas.
‘Storms are imminent.’
The sequences me gustan in (88) and son peligrosas in (90) are

individual-level predicates whereas me apetecen in (89) and son inminen-
tes in (91) are stage-level predicates. In principle, this is shown by the
impossibility or possibility of substitutions by hyperonyms, although
in fact the test is not applicable to the ostras position in (89), because
this position must be non-extensional if occupied by a bare noun
(given the meaning of apetecer) and the hyperonym-substitution test is
only suitable for extensional contexts. Nevertheless, the test is applica-
ble to the remaining bare subjects in the (88) to (91) paradigm. Accord-
ingly, it can be observed, for example, that (88) does not logically imply
(98) below and that (90) does not logically imply (99), while (91) does
logically imply (100):
(98) Me gustan los mariscos.

‘I like seafood.’
(99) Son peligrosos los fenómenos meteorológicos.

‘Meteorological phenomena are dangerous.’
(100) Son inminentes fenómenos meteorológicos.

‘Meteorological phenomena are imminent.’
As regards non-extensional (89), no formal test demonstrating a non-

universal reading of ostras is available, but intuitively it seems clear that
the noun is not universal in any meaningful sense.
Thus neither me gustan nor son peligrosas could take a bare (unmodi-
fied) subject,28 given that such a phrase would have to be universal and,
as just noted, bare (unmodified) universals are not an option in
Romance. This leaves just two possibilities, viz. a universal definite
subject, as in fact is illustrated in (88) and (90), or an overtly quantified
non-universal subject, as in (101) and (102) below: 29
(101) Me gustan algunos deportes.

‘I like some sports.’
(102) Son peligrosas algunas tormentas.
‘Some storms are dangerous.’
No such problem arises in connection with me apetecen and son inmi-

nentes, however. Accordingly, these are compatible with the full seman-
tic paradigm of subject phrases: 30
(103) Me apetecen ostras/unas ostras/las ostras.

‘I fancy oysters/some oysters/the oysters.’
(104) Son inminentes tormentas/unas tormentas/las tormentas.

‘Storms/some storms/the storms are imminent.’
The original examples (89) and (91) simply represent the bare subject
option.
Notice that, under this latter option, an argument must be deter-
mined for the logically unstructured verb–subject complex, in accor-
dance with the view outlined in 4.3.3.5. With some stative predicates,
it may be common for the argument to be determined by an implicit
reference to the here and now. Such was the case of faltar in example
(76), reproduced below:
(76) Faltan cuchillos.

‘There aren’t enough knives.’
Sentence (91) appears to be analogous in this respect, given that,

as Garrido (1996, p. 331) observes in respect of a similar example, the
Bare Subjects 99
sentence has the effect of associating a particular situation with the

time of speech. On the other hand, in (89) the required argument is
overtly supplied by the clitic me, which identifies an individual of
whom apetecen ostras is predicated.31
4.5 Modified and conjoined bare subjects
As was mentioned earlier (see note 2), it is widely recognized that

modifying or conjoining a bare subject can override the usual restric-
tion against bare subjects occurring in preverbal position (both exam-
ples from Lois 1996, p. 229):
(105) Serios problemas/*Problemas surgieron en la reunión.

‘Serious problems emerged during the meeting.’
(106) Hombres y mujeres/*Hombres corrían por la calle.
‘Men and women ran through the street.’
Longobardi (2000, p. 693) assumes that the modification of a bare

preverbal subject somehow remedies the need for lexical government
(see 4.1 above). However, he concedes that the phenomenon is ‘still
unexplained’. The contention in the present work is that this appar-
ently irresolvable mysteriousness results from an attempt to explain in
syntactic terms a phenomenon that essentially pertains to informa-
tional content. Once this is recognized, not only does the mysterious-
ness of the modification effect dissolve, but also we are free to assume
a parallel explanation for modification and conjoining.
As a first step towards understanding the role played by informa-
tional content, we can consider the type of contrast illustrated below:
(107a) En todas sus fábricas trabajan niños.

‘Children work in all of their factories.’
(107b) ?En todas sus fábricas trabajan hombres.
‘Men work in all of their factories.’
(108a) Por aquí entran ladrones.
‘Burglars get in through here.’
(108b) ?Por aquí entran espectadores.
‘Spectators come in through here.’
The deviancy of the (b) sentences appears to stem from the fact that
the nouns hombres and espectadores are insufficiently informative or
insufficiently ‘new’. As regards (107b), the assertion that men work in

all the relevant factories is unsurprising. As regards (108b), if it is
assumed that the speaker is talking about some building that is designed
to receive spectators (for example, a stadium), the possibility of specta-
tors entering is presupposed and, accordingly, the proper means of
mentioning spectators would involve the use of the definite article, as
in (109) below:
(109) Por aquí entran los espectadores./Los espectadores entran por

aquí.
‘[The] Spectators come in through here.’
What the (107)/(108) paradigm suggests, then, is that bare subjects

must be informationally rich. 32 We might then conjecture that a more
exacting form of this requirement holds in the marked case in which
the bare subject precedes the verb and also that modification and con-
joining represent alternative strategies for satisfying this requirement.
Such a hypothesis is supported by two types of data.
Firstly, the licensing effect of modification and conjoining can
actually be achieved by using a sufficiently surprising or informative
unmodified noun. For example, while hombres in (110) requires a deter-
miner, extraterrestres and terroristas in (111) do not:
(110) *Hombres/Unos hombres han secuestrado al presidente.

‘Men/Some men have kidnapped the president.’
(111) Extraterrestres/Terroristas han secuestrado al presidente.
‘Aliens/Terrorists have kidnapped the president.’
Secondly, the strategy of modifying or conjoining can also be

employed to render a postverbal bare subject acceptable in contexts in
which the unmodified noun would be infelicitous:
(112) ?Hablaron expertos.

‘Experts spoke.’
(113) Hablaron expertos internacionales.

‘International experts spoke.’
(114) Hablaron expertos y profesionales.
‘Experts and professionals spoke.’
Bare Subjects 101
What the above acceptability patterns suggest is that the modifica-

tion and conjoining data pertaining to preverbal subjects are part of a
more general phenomenon, whereby bare subjects in general are more
felicitous if they are informationally rich. As mentioned in note 32, the
latter tendency appears to result from the way in which the accent is
assigned, with bare subjects naturally being accented unless an item
such as a clause-final locative or time phrase is present to attract the
accent away from the bare subject. The default accentuation of bare
subjects presumably accounts for their strong tendency to occur in
postverbal position, given that accented constituents in Romance natu-
rally come after the verb. Preverbal bare subjects must also be accented,
but this calls for a rather marked intonation contour, with an emphatic
type of stress being placed on the bare subject. The more exacting form
of the informational richness requirement that attaches to preverbal
bare subjects can then be attributed to their rather extreme prosodic
prominence.
4.6 Conclusion
The bare subject diagnostic for unaccusativity has turned out to be

somewhat wide of the mark, in that unergative examples are immedi-
ately forthcoming and, in addition, the relevant theoretical argument
is easily rebutted. The basic principle invoked in this respect is the
lexical/proper government requirement. Proper government, however,
partly as a consequence of its success in motivating a principled account
of the COMP-trace immunity in null-subject languages, is unable to
separate unaccusative postverbal subjects from unergative postverbal
subjects. This leaves us, assuming that partitive case is ruled out for the
reasons given in 2.3, with no plausible means of deriving a theoretical
linkage between bare subject capability and the kind of syntax envis-
aged under the ‘deep-object’ analysis of unaccusative subjects.
In fact, the distribution of bare subjects appears to be largely condi-
tioned by two semantico-pragmatic principles, viz. (i) that they are
preferred to overtly quantified subjects when, and only when, the
quantificational meaning associated with the latter is incompatible
with the context or with the speaker’s target assertion, and (ii) that the
verb–subject complexes that contain them must occur in contexts in
which an appropriate non-subject argument can be determined. The
second of these principles can then be identified as the prime cause of
the prevailing assumption that bare subjects diagnose unaccusativity,
given that certain unaccusatives are more suggestive of a non-subject

argument than are many unergatives, with the consequence that
uncontextualized specimen sentences involving unaccusatives and
bare subjects are more likely to elicit favourable acceptability judgments
than are equivalent unergative formulations. However, the first princi-
pal is probably implicated as well, because achievement verbs, which
typically are classified as unaccusative (when intransitive), are in prac-
tice more likely than other types of verb to have occurrences that are
incompatible with overtly quantified subjects.
In certain cases, the stage-level versus individual-level distinction is
also relevant, given that (i) there are no (unmodified) bare universal
subjects in Romance and (ii) only stage-level predicates admit non-
universal bare subjects. Accordingly, a general principle naturally arises
whereby a bare (unmodified) noun cannot be the subject of an
individual-level predicate. This phenomenon produces a rather striking
‘unaccusative mismatch’, given that Spanish gustar ‘please’ is conspicu-
ously an individual-level predicate, but its Italian counterpart is assigned
perfect auxiliary essere.
The final piece of the puzzle relates to the superficially mysterious
licensing effect of modifying or conjoining a bare preverbal subject.
This is plausibly analysed as one instance of a generalized informa-
tional heaviness effect. Bare preverbal subjects appear always to bear
quite a heavy stress. As a consequence, they are sensitive to a require-
ment that they deliver a certain level of informational content. The
modification or conjoining of a bare subject increases its informational
content and can thus be viewed as a strategy for the satisfaction of the
requirement in question. A similar outcome can be achieved through
the selection of an informationally rich or otherwise surprising unmodi-
fied noun as the subject, as was illustrated in the text by the contrast
between hombres ‘men’ and extraterrestres ‘aliens’ when considered as
possible candidates for preverbal placement.
In short, bare subject distribution is primarily a semantic/pragmatic
affair, and attempts to reconstruct the relevant causalities in syntactic
terms have been unsuccessful to date.
5
Perfect Auxiliary Selection
5.1 Introduction
All the Romance languages have at some point in their history exhib-
ited a split perfect auxiliary system, with transitive verbs generally
taking a ‘have’ verb (normally descended from Latin habere) and some
intransitives taking a ‘be’ verb (normally related to Latin esse). For
convenience the letters ‘A’ and ‘E’ are used here to denote ‘have’ and
‘be’ verbs respectively.
In the standardized languages of the Iberian Peninsula (Spanish,
Catalan, Portuguese and Galician), the E perfect auxiliary has been
entirely displaced by the A auxiliary, although it survives in some
Catalan and Aragonese dialects. On the other hand, the E auxiliary
survives in standard French and is highly productive in standard
Italian.1 In both of these languages E is assigned uniformly to all
reflexives (including middle and impersonal reflexive constructions).
As regards non-reflexive verbs, E is assigned to a narrowly defined
group of French verbs but to a much larger class in Italian. Table 5.1
gives a reasonably complete list of the relevant French verbs,
while Table 5.2 gives illustrations for Italian. The semantic classification
given in the latter table is for convenience only and nothing depends
on it.
As far as perfect auxiliary selection is concerned, the Ergative Analy-
sis and Unaccusative Hypothesis are inspired primarily by the Italian
situation. Constructions that select perfect auxiliary E other than
passives, raising predicates (for example, parere ‘seem’ and risultare ‘turn
out’) and reflexives are assumed to be unaccusative. E assignment is
thus identified as the reflex of a syntactic property that is common to
all of these constructions.
103
Table 5.1 French intransitive verbs that select être
aller go
apparaître appear
arriver arrive
descendre* go down
devenir become
entrer enter
intervenir intervene
monter* go up
mourir die
naître be born
partir depart
rentrer return home
rester stay
retourner return
revenir come back
sortir go out
survenir appear/happen
tomber fall
venir come
* Selects avoir when used transitively
5.2 Burzio’s theory
The classic syntactic analysis of perfect auxiliary selection in Italian is

due to Burzio (1981, 1986). His fundamental claim (1986, pp. 55–6,
139–40) was that perfect auxiliary E was assigned whenever a binding
relation existed between an item in the preverbal subject position and
either a clitic or an item in the direct object position. Given its specific
definition, this binding relation included the antecedent–trace relation
and the relation between the subject and a reflexive clitic, but it excluded
the binding relation between the subject and the strong reflexive se
stesso. The two basic patterns thus envisaged are illustrated below:
(a) Subject binds clitic: 2
(1) La tigrei sii è leccata.

‘The tiger licked itself.’
(b) Subject binds its own trace: 3
(2) Alessandroi è nato ti nel 1980.

‘Alessandro was born in 1980.’
Table 5.2 Italian intransitive verbs that select essere (‘A/E’ denotes that either auxiliary is commonly possible depending on
the meaning or context)
(i) Verbs designating non-agentive events or processes:

affogare drown affondare sink annegare drown annerire turn black
arrossire blush/redden asciugare dry/set aumentare increase bruciare burn
calare ebb/wane/set cambiare change congelare freeze crescere grow
crollare crumble/collapse dimagrire slim diminuire diminish diventare become
esplodere explode fiorire bloom (A/E) ghiacciare freeze (A/E) imbrunire get dark
impazzire go crazy imputridire rot indurire harden ingiallire turn yellow
ingrassare get fat ingrossare swell invecchiare age marcire rot
migliorare improve morire die nascere be born nevicare snow (A/E)
peggiorare worsen piovere rain (A/E) ringiovanire rejuvenate rinverdire go green again
sbiadire fade sbocciare flower/open up scolorire fade scoppiare explode
scurire darken sprofondare collapse/sink spuntare emerge tramontare set
(ii) Verbs related to movement:

accorrere rush (A/E) andare go arretrare withdraw arrivare arrive
cadere fall correre run (A/E) entrare enter evadere escape
fuggire flee giungere reach girare rotate (A/E) incespicare stumble
rimbalzare rebound (A/E) ritornare return rotolare roll ruzzolare topple/tumble
salire go up saltare jump (A/E) sbarcare disembark scappare escape
scendere go down scivolare slip/slide smontare dismount uscire go out
venire come volare fly (A/E)
(iii) Time and aspect verbs:

cessare end (A/E) cominciare begin (A/E) continuare continue (A/E) durare last (A/E)
finire end (A/E) iniziare begin (A/E) passare pass proseguire continue (A/E)
scadere expire seguire follow (A/E) subentrare succede trascorrere elapse
105
106
Table 5.2 Continued
(iv) Verbs of appearance and occurrence:

accadere happen apparire appear avvenire happen capitare happen
emergere emerge/surface risultare turn out scomparire disappear sorgere arise
sparire disappear succedere happen svanire vanish toccare fall (to)
(v) State verbs:

appartenere belong avanzare be left over bastare be sufficient bisognare be necessary
convenire be advantageous/ dipendere depend dispiacere displease esistere exist
agree (A/E)
essere be importare matter mancare be missing (A/E) parere appear
piacere please rimanere remain sembrare seem stare stay/be
(vi) Verbs of success and failure:

capitolare surrender (A/E) fallire fail/go bankrupt prevalere prevail (A/E) riuscire succeed
(A/E)
(vii) Phenomena and emission verbs:

balenare flash baluginare flicker colare trickle/seep (A/E) defluire stream away
filtrare drain/filter fioccare rain/spew fluire flow/stream fuoriuscire leak out
gocciolare trickle (A/E) grondare drip/stream luccicare shimmer (A/E) penetrare (in) seep (into)
(A/E)
riecheggiare resound rimbombare rumble (A/E) risuonare boom/resound sboccare (in) flow/lead (to)
(A/E)
scaturire flow out squillare ring/sound (A/E) suonare ring/toll (A/E) traboccare overflow (A/E)
zampillare gush/spurt (A/E)
Perfect Auxiliary Selection 107
(3) Mariai è stata invitata t i.

‘Maria has been invited.’
(4) Mariai è sembrata ti risolvere il problema.4
‘Maria has seemed to solve the problem.’
Thus Burzio’s auxiliary-selection argument for the Ergative Analysis

is that only this analysis enables an E-triggering binding relation to be
posited for unaccusatives. If unaccusatives did not have the syntax he
proposed assigning to them, there would in his view (1986, p. 57) ‘be
no reason why they should fall together with passive and reflexive
constructions with respect to auxiliary assignment’. In this way, without
actually being exclusive to unaccusatives, essere assignment came to be
a diagnostic for such verbs, as did être assignment in French, on the
assumption that similar principles to those that existed in Italian
governed auxiliary assignment in French.5
A problem arises, however, with postverbal subjects. Here, by hypoth-
esis, no movement has occurred6 and so there is no antecedent–trace
relation. Nor, obviously enough, is there an antecedent–clitic relation.
As a consequence, Burzio (1986, p. 98) attempted to derive the required
subject–object binding relation by assuming that a null expletive in
the preverbal subject position (shown here as pro) bound the postverbal
subject, as schematized below:
(5) proi È uscita [una nuova edizione di questo celebre romanzo] i.

‘A new edition of this celebrated novel has come out.’
(6) proi Sono stati incontrati [alcuni problemi] i.
‘Some problems were encountered.’
However, Burzio’s strategy is immediately problematic. The doctrine

of the null expletive results from an assumed parallel between, on the
one hand, the ‘routine’ pattern of subject inversion observable in
Spanish/Italian-type languages and, on the other, English/French-style
expletive inversion, as in (7) below:
(7) There arose a great commotion.
Thus the relation envisaged by Burzio for the type of case illustrated
by (5) and (6) is essentially analogous to the relation in (7) between
there and its associate a great commotion. The only difference is that the
expletive is phonologically null in the Italian examples but overt in the

English example.
The problem for Burzio’s theory is that under current assumptions,
there is no syntactic relation (let alone one involving binding) between
an expletive and its associate. While it was originally claimed that the
(nominative) case-licensing of the associate, together with the determi-
nation of the agreement form of the verb, were mediated via the exple-
tive (see, for example, Chomsky 1986a), both processes are now reduced
to a long-distance relation that ‘involves features only and is indepen-
dent of the expletive’ (Chomsky 2000, p. 126, my emphasis).7 Within the
newer framework, the expletive is inserted merely to satisfy the Extended
Projection Principle (EPP), originally embodying the requirement that
every clause have a subject but recast within Minimalism as a specific
feature checking requirement.8 The role of the expletive is if anything
even more peripheral in the context of a null-subject language, given
Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou’s (1998) hypothesis that in this case
the EPP is satisfied by verb raising (V-to-T movement). Thus the binding
relation alleged by Burzio between a preverbal null expletive and the
postverbal subject looks extremely unstable in the present theoretical
environment.
Such a relation is further ruled out by the fact that it would entail
regular violations of binding theory. Condition C of the theory prohib-
its the binding of so-called R-expressions (referentially free expression),
such as Maria in the example below. Thus if the containing sentence
receives the analysis proposed by Burzio, there will necessarily be a
Condition C violation. However, no such violation is apparent:
(8) proi È arrivata Mariai.

‘Maria has arrived.’
A wholly parallel argument could be made in respect of Condition B,

which forbids too close a proximity between a pronominal and its
antecedent, ruling out cases such as (9) on the intended reading:
(9) *Johni saw himi. (Compare Johni saw himself i.)
Under Burzio’s analysis, a parallel deviancy should arise with sentences

such as (10) below, but clearly this is not the case:
(10) proi Sono arrivato ioi.

‘I have arrived.’
Given problems of the type just mentioned, Chomsky (1981) origi-

nally assumed a special kind of co-indexing relation between the exple-
tive and its associate, represented in the notation by co-superscripting
rather than co-subscripting, where only the latter fell within the scope
of the binding theory. More recently, Chomsky has assumed that no
coindexing relation at all exists: ‘A long-standing question has been
why there is no Condition C violation in the case of an expletive and
its related associate. But we now assume that the two simply have
different indices’ (1995, p. 157).9
To sum up: Burzio’s account of perfect auxiliary selection in terms
of the presence or absence of a determinate binding configuration is
problematic both theoretically and empirically. A reasonable conclu-
sion to draw would be that his account does not motivate the ergative
analysis of unaccusative verbs.
5.3 Accounts based on the nature of the auxiliaries
More recently, the emphasis has been on attributing auxiliary alterna-

tions to the syntax of the auxiliaries themselves. Some years ago,
Benveniste (1960) suggested that items such as French avoir and être
were in effect variants of the same underlying unit. Kayne (1993) has
developed this idea, arguing that ‘be’ is in some sense the basic perfect
auxiliary but is realized as ‘have’ whenever a certain abstract (that is,
phonologically null) preposition incorporates to it. It is then claimed
that the abstract preposition is systematically missing in the case of
unaccusatives in languages like Italian, thus accounting for the appar-
ent unaccusative–unergative asymmetry in terms of perfect auxiliary
selection.
Cocchi (1994) attenuates the stipulative nature of this analysis by
arguing that the abstract preposition is always present but incorpora-
tion is blocked by the activation of the head of a low (past participle-
related) agreement projection.10 Such activation is triggered when an
unaccusative subject passes through the specifier of the agreement
projection on its way from its assumed initial postverbal position to
the high preverbal subject position.
Finally, Belletti (2001, section 5) suggests that, in Italian at least, E
systematically selects participial clauses that lack a subject (that is, an
argument merged high in the VP/vp) while A systematically selects
clauses that have such an item. In this way E is never associated with
unergatives/transitives and A is never associated with unaccusatives/
passives.
From the present perspective, the above accounts can be ruled out
as evidence in favour of the ergative analysis of unaccusative verbs.
Belletti’s and Kayne’s accounts are essentially stipulative in that there
is no independent motivation for the assumed correlation between
unaccusative–unergative, on the one hand, and E versus A on the
other.11 Cocchi’s theory is less stipulative, but it immediately faces
problems of empirical adequacy.
Firstly, there is an analogue to the problem highlighted in section
5.2 for Burzio’s binding-related theory. Thus consider the occurrence
of perfect auxiliary E in examples such as the following:
(11) Sono entrati due ladri dalla finestra. (From Belletti 2001,
(34c))
‘Two thieves came in through the window.’
The subject due ladri would standardly be analysed as being licensed in

situ and hence as undergoing no movement. This follows either from
the assumption that the subject has partitive/inherent case (the
licensing of which requires no movement to an alternative case-
checking location) or, if the subject is assumed to have nominative
case, from the assumption that it enters into a long-distance agreement
relation with the abstract T(ense) constituent, which c-commands it
and hence can ‘probe’ it (see Chomsky 2000, pp. 122–3). Now if the
subject does remain in situ, it is unclear how it can be deemed to pass
through the specifier of the relevant agreement projection (that is, the
projection responsible for past participle agreement). Accordingly, the
realization of the perfect auxiliary as E is unexpected under Cocchi’s
account.12
An additional problem for Cocchi’s account relates to the selection
of E in the impersonal si construction with unergatives, as in (12)
below:
(12) Si è parlato di molte cose. (Compare: Gianni ha/*è parlato di

molte cose.)
‘One spoke about many things.’
Here, by hypothesis, the subject si cannot have been generated in a

position low enough to enable it to pass through the specifier of the
relevant agreement projection, and yet the auxiliary is E, implying in
Cocchi’s analysis that the head of the agreement projection has been
activated (thereby preventing the incorporation to the auxiliary of the
Kayne-style abstract preposition and the subsequent realization of the

auxiliary as ‘have’).13
5.4 Comparison between Italian and French
A different set of problems arise when the patterns of auxiliary selec-

tion in Italian are compared to those that exist in French. A comparison
of the earlier Tables 5.1 and 5.2 immediately reveals a rather dramatic
mismatch between the two languages in this respect. Note in particular
the fact that perfect auxiliary E in French is systematically not assigned
to verbs that enter into intransitive–transitive alternations, such as
couler ‘sink’, fondre ‘melt’ and sécher ‘dry’, or to French counterparts of
what might be regarded as ‘prototypical’ unaccusatives in Italian (that
is, to verbs like manquer ‘be missing’, exister ‘exist’, disparaître ‘disap-
pear’, surgir ‘arise’, and so forth).
Sorace (2000), from the semantic point of view, has attempted to
provide a framework that can accommodate the Franco–Italian dispar-
ity, but, within syntactic approaches to unaccusativity, only Burzio
(1986) has made a serious attempt in this direction. We have already
had cause to reject the theoretical principle enshrined in his account
of auxiliary selection. Nevertheless, his handling of the comparative
data illustrates the basic difficulties that face any attempt to encompass
French and Italian within a single syntactic theory of auxiliary
selection.
As mentioned in section 5.2, Burzio argued that E assignment in
Italian was triggered by the existence of a certain type of binding rela-
tion. On this basis, he posited what amounts to a three-way taxonomy
of verbs or constructions that are assigned perfect auxiliary E (for sim-
plicity I ignore impersonal si):
(a) Transitive reflexives14

(b) (Non-reflexive) unaccusatives and intransitive reflexives
(c) Raising verbs (including passive ‘be’)
The binding-related basis for the above taxonomy may be unreliable,

but the groupings identified by Burzio form what can plausibly be
regarded as natural syntactic classes. Thus the transitive reflexives are
the only transitive structures that are assigned perfect auxiliary E,
while the intransitive reflexives frequently parallel (non-reflexive)
unaccusatives in terms of phenomena deemed to be criterial (for
example, partitive cliticization from the subject and participation in
intransitive–transitive alternations). The raising verbs are different

again, given that, according to standard analyses, they do not occur in
monoclausal sentences (at least not as raising verbs).
Now as far as Italian is concerned, class (a) does not admit of any
lexical variation in terms of auxiliary selection, given that all transitive
reflexives select perfect auxiliary E. Class (b) can also be deemed not
to admit of any lexical variation, given that (i) intransitive reflexives
invariably select E and (ii) non-reflexive intransitives that do not select
E are regarded as not being unaccusative by definition (in Italian, at
least). On the other hand, Burzio argued (1986:139) that class (c) rep-
resented an ‘area of idiosyncrasy’, in view of his raising analysis of verbs
such as potere ‘be able to’, which may select perfect auxiliary A depend-
ing on the following non-finite verb:
(13) Mariai ha potuto ti risolvere il problema.

‘Maria has been able to resolve the problem.’
Burzio sought to account for the above type of idiosyncrasy by

arguing that the system for assigning perfect auxiliary E had a ‘core’
and a ‘periphery’.15 From that perspective, classes (a) and (b) were core
cases for E assignment, while (c) was in the periphery of the system. In
the periphery, E assignment was assumed to be partly lexically condi-
tioned, or at least subject to a degree of idiosyncrasy.
Burzio assumed, as was reasonable, that the assignment of perfect
auxiliaries in French followed an analogous principle to that which he
took to be operative in Italian. However, as was mentioned earlier,
raising verbs (including passive être) and most of the cognates or trans-
lation equivalents of the Italian (non-reflexive) unaccusatives select A
as their perfect auxiliary. Burzio attempted to impose a certain struc-
ture on the large disparity between Italian and French, by invoking
the distinction between core and periphery outlined in the preceding
paragraph. He argued that only class (a) was core for French, while (b)
represented the periphery and (c) was outside the system altogether –
see Table 5.3. Therefore the fact that French passives select A followed,
in Burzio’s account, from the fact that raising verbs in general were
outside the E-assigning system in French (see Burzio 1986, p. 153).
Burzio also posited a subregularity within the periphery. He claimed
(1986:141) that if a verb could appear in two or more distinct syntactic
configurations, whereby one fell within the core and one within the
periphery, the auxiliary assigned in the core was maintained in the
periphery. He used this principle to explain why the intransitive use of
Table 5.3 French and Italian auxiliary assignment mismatches (following

Burzio 1986)
Class Membership Status in Italian Status in French

for E assignment for E assignment
(a) Transitive reflexives Core Core

(b) (Non-reflexive) unaccusatives Core Periphery
and intransitive reflexives
(c) Raising verbs (including Periphery Outside system
passive ‘be’)
verbs that can be either transitive or intransitive attracts perfect auxil-

iary A in French but E in Italian, as is illustrated in (14) below:16
(14) Due navi sono affondate. (Italian: E)

Deux bateaux ont coulé. (French: A)
‘Two ships sank.’
Given that (according to Burzio’s analysis) this is a periphery case for

French (but not for Italian), couler inherits the auxiliary assigned to it
in its transitive configuration, illustrated in (15), as this was deemed to
be a core case, albeit for A assignment:
(15) Ils ont coulé le bateau.

‘They sank the boat.’
On the face of it, then, Burzio’s taxonomy, together with his

core–periphery distinction, invests the otherwise striking disparity
between French and Italian with a degree of predictability. Never-
theless important difficulties remain, even if we order the facts as
Burzio proposed.
In the first place, the claim that passives (together with raising verbs
in general) are outside the E-assigning system in French might be
viewed as representing a rather stark admission. As we saw with the
transitive use of verbs like couler, being outside the system of E assign-
ment entails being in the core for A assignment. Therefore, if we adopt
Burzio’s taxonomy of E-selecting constructions, the status of passives
with regard to the assignment of perfect auxiliary E becomes somewhat
marginal. In French, they are a core case for perfect auxiliary A, while
in Italian they are only in the periphery for perfect auxiliary E. In other
words, French passives pattern absolutely with unergatives, because

both are core cases for the assignment of perfect auxiliary A, while
Italian passives pattern only partially with unaccusatives (recall that
the latter are in the core of the Italian E-assigning system whereas pas-
sives are in the periphery). Therefore, taking French and Italian together,
Burzio’s proposed analysis implies that passives actually pattern more
closely with unergatives with respect to perfect auxiliary assignment
than they do with unaccusatives. This presumably is an unwanted
result, given that it has been insisted time and again that passives
pattern with unaccusatives in terms of phenomena assumed to reflect
syntactic structure (see, for example, Levin and Rappaport 1989, and
Perlmutter 1989).
A second problem that arises concerns the intransitive reflexives.
Under Burzio’s analysis, and indeed many other analyses, these are
treated identically to (non-reflexive) unaccusatives (see Burzio 1986:38).
Accordingly, in Italian they are a core case for E assignment, but in
French they are in the periphery. However, in French they actually
behave as if they were in the core, given that they uniformly select E.
Moreover, the behaviour of verbs like se casser ‘break’ (that is, Burzio’s
‘ergative reflexives’) is even more problematic in light of the fact that
they participate in intransitive–transitive alternations and so are in
exactly the same position as verbs like couler ‘sink’. The latter are pre-
dicted to always select A in French, given that when they are used
transitively they are a core case for A assignment (see the remarks con-
cerning example (15) above). The same should apply to like verbs like
(se) casser, because when used transitively (that is, without the clitic),
they too are in the core for A assignment:
(16) J’ai cassé le verre.

‘I broke the glass.’
However, such verbs universally select E when used intransitively:
(17) Des branches se sont cassées.

‘Some branches broke.’
Thus French intransitive reflexives exhibit an affinity for perfect

auxiliary E that exceeds their status within the taxonomy. The only
way to remedy this problem would be to subsume the intransitive
reflexives within class (a), thereby creating a core for E assignment that
embraced all constructions involving a reflexive clitic. Burzio himself
(1986, p. 142) entertained precisely this possibility.17 However, the

proposed manoeuvre would separate the intransitive reflexives from
the (non-reflexive) unaccusatives, which would be empirically prob-
lematic, given that intransitive reflexives in Romance pattern fairly
consistently with (non-reflexive) unaccusatives in terms of other basic
unaccusative diagnostics whereas transitive reflexives do not. For
example, Burzio (1986, pp. 38–41) observed that both the major sub-
types of intransitive reflexive (that is, his ‘inherent reflexives’ and his
‘ergative reflexives’) allow ne-extraction from a quantified postverbal
subject, whereas Reinhart and Siloni (2004, p. 172) cite evidence sug-
gesting that transitive reflexives do not:
Inherent reflexives:
(18) Se ne sbaglieranno molti. (Burzio 1986, p. 40)

‘Many of them will be mistaken.’
Ergative reflexives:
(19) Se ne rompono molti. (Burzio 1986, p. 38)

‘Many of them break.’
Transitive reflexives:
(20) *Se ne sono vestiti tre. (Reinhart and Siloni 2004, p. 172)18
‘Three of them have got dressed.’
In addition, Reinhart and Siloni (2004, p. 173) observe that cliticized

past participles from intransitive reflexives behave like (non-reflexive)
unaccusative past participles as regards their capability to occur in
certain adjectival constructions,19 whereas cliticized past participles
from transitive reflexives do not:
Unaccusative past participle:
(21) L’uomo arrivato a Ginevra è una spia.

‘The man who arrived in Geneva is a spy.’
Cliticized intransitive reflexive past participle:
(22) Il bicchiere rottosi ieri apparteneva a mio nonno.

‘The glass broken yesterday belonged to my grandfather.’
Cliticized transitive reflexive past participle:
(23) *L’uomo lavatosi ieri è mio nonno.

‘The man washed yesterday is my grandfather.’
It turns out, then, that the core–periphery approach to perfect aux-

iliary selection faces what appears to be an insuperable dilemma in
respect of reflexives. The general pattern in French and Italian suggests
strongly that both transitive and intransitive reflexives must be in the
core of the E-assigning system (in both languages). In addition, the
rather noticeable auxiliary selection mismatch between Italian and
French as regards (non-reflexive) unaccusatives implies that, in French
at least, the verbs in this latter category are in the periphery of the E-
assigning system. Thus the auxiliary selection data on their own call
for a taxonomy that groups all reflexives together and separates them
from (non-reflexive) unaccusatives, as shown in Table 5.4. However,
such a taxonomy cannot be assumed without implicitly downgrading
the significance of unaccusative diagnostics such as ne-cliticization and
behaviour relating to adjectival participle constructions. Like the mar-
ginalization of passives noted earlier, this presumably would be an
unwelcome result for any theorist attempting to place unaccusativity
at the centre of a syntax-based account of perfect auxiliary selection in
Romance.
Notice that the problems discussed in this section are in principle
unrelated to Burzio’s particular analysis of perfect auxiliary selection.
They are likely to arise for any plausible syntactic taxonomy of the
various constructions that are assigned E. In crude terms, the basic
pattern across Italian and French is one in which all reflexive construc-
tions invariably select perfect auxiliary E while there is a considerable
Table 5.4 Revised taxonomy for French and Italian auxiliary assignment
mismatches
Class Membership Status in Italian Status in French

for E assignment for E assignment
(a) Transitive and intransitive Core Core

reflexives
(b) (Non-reflexive) unaccusatives Core Periphery
(c) Raising verbs (including Periphery Outside system
passive ‘be’)
disparity in relation to the (non-reflexive) intransitives. Now if it was

assumed that only E-selecting verbs could be unaccusative, French
would have an extremely impoverished class of (non-reflexive) unac-
cusatives. Thus the most acceptable solution – and the one which is
adopted tacitly or explicitly by the majority of authors – is to assume
that at least some French verbs are assigned perfect auxiliary A but are
nevertheless unaccusative (obvious candidates would be verbs like
manquer ‘be missing’, exister ‘exist’, disparaître ‘disappear’, surgir ‘arise’
and so on, although the exact membership of this category is not
strictly speaking relevant). However, this solution will necessarily
disturb any syntactically determined concept of core and peripheral
classes for E assignment, given that reflexive intransitives are usually
analysed as being structurally identical to (non-reflexive) unaccusatives
and yet they systematically select E in both French and Italian. This
circumstance, together with the fact that passives are assigned A in
French, ensures that the Franco–Italian corpus is likely to remain resis-
tant to any overarching syntactic account of auxiliary selection.
5.5 Auxiliary selection is not directly semantic
Sections 5.2 to 5.4 have highlighted (i) a fundamental problem within

Burzio’s (1986) account of perfect auxiliary selection in Italian (which
resurfaces under a different guise in Cocchi’s (1994) account), (ii) the
essentially stipulative nature of more recent approaches such as that
proposed by Kayne (1993) and that hinted at in Belletti (2001) and (iii)
a possibly irreconcilable disparity between auxiliary selection in French
and that in Italian. In the light of these findings, it is reasonable to
conclude that phenomena pertaining to perfect auxiliary selection do
not actually compel an ergative analysis of unaccusative verbs. Indeed
it is by no means clear that anything of a genuinely syntactic nature
can be directly inferred from patterns of perfect auxiliary selection. At
best such data provide an explicit indication that verbs grouped together
in terms of other phenomena (for example, partitive cliticization from
the subject) form a natural class. However, given the findings of the
previous chapters, the mere identification of such a class falls some way
short of motivating the syntactic analysis envisaged for its members.
Moreover, the empirical naturalness of the class itself is by no means
a settled issue, given the absence of any real isomorphism between the
class as determined by auxiliary selection and the class as determined
by the other phenomena in question (partitive cliticization, and so
forth). In connection with this latter point, consider, for instance,
examples such as (24) below (= (49) from chapter 3) and (20) from
section 5.4 above (reproduced below):
(24) Come già comunicato in precedenza su 721 elettori ne hanno

votato 635.
‘As previously indicated, out of 721 voters 635 voted.’
(20) *Se ne sono vestiti tre. (Reinhart and Siloni 2004, p. 172)
‘Three of them have got dressed.’
It is tempting, then, to assume that auxiliary selection is likely to

respond to semantic factors. However, while a number of tendencies
can be identified, it seems in practice to be impossible to identify a
non-vacuous semantic principle that will account for every case. This
can be illustrated by considering some recent semantics-based
approaches to the question.
5.5.1 The aspectual account

In an influential paper, Van Valin (1990, p. 233) postulates the follow-
ing generalization for Italian:
(25) AUXILIARY SELECTION WITH INTRANSITIVE VERBS :

Select essere if the LS [logical structure] of the verb contains a
state predicate.
In effect this means that achievement, accomplishment and state terms

select E while activity terms select A. This follows from the assumption
(originally due to Dowty 1979) that the meaning of achievement and
accomplishment predicates, but not that of activity terms, involves the
concept of a state. This assumption in turn stems from the belief that
achievement predicates denote the inception of a state, while accom-
plishment predicates indicate that one event, normally an activity,
has resulted in an achievement (see Van Valin 1990, pp. 223–4). For
example, if ‘BECOME’ is an operator signalling inchoatives and ‘dead¢’
represents the state predicate dead, the logical (that is, semantic) struc-
ture of the achievement term die would be represented as in (26) below
(Van Valin 1990, p. 233):
(26) BECOME dead¢ (x).

The accomplishment term ‘kill’ would be represented as in (27) below

(Van Valin 1990, p. 243). There ‘do¢’ represents an unspecified activity
predicate and ‘CAUSE’ is an operator indicating a causal link:
(27) [do¢(x)] CAUSE [ BECOME dead¢ (y)].
Thus for Van Valin, the semantic representation or logical structure

of achievement and accomplishment terms contains a state predicate,
as does that of state terms (for obvious reasons). On the other hand,
the logical structure of activity terms does not involve a state
predicate.
While a principle of the kind embodied in (25) works for a large
number of cases,20 it is impossible to deny that (i) some activity terms
are assigned E and (ii) some non-activity terms are assigned A. The E-
selecting activity terms include certain occurrences of change-of-state
verbs that have no built-in terminus, with meanings like ‘grow’, ‘age’,
‘increase’, ‘worsen’ etc.21 As is well known, verbs of this type are typi-
cally ambiguous between activity and either achievement or accom-
plishment meanings. The problem for the aspectual account of E
selection is that in Italian these verbs can be assigned auxiliary E
regardless of whether they are used as activity or achievement/accom-
plishment terms. This is apparent from the examples below, where I
assume that compatibility with durational per or fino a diagnoses activ-
ity status: 22
(28) Questo segmento è cresciuto per quasi tutti gli anni’ 90.
‘This sector grew throughout almost the entire 90s.’
(29) Il valore delle azioni è aumentato fino alla prima settimana di

dicembre.
‘The value of the shares increased until the fi rst week of
December.’
(30) Già dal lunedì sucessivo ho iniziato ad accusare dolore al gin-
occhio destro ed è peggiorato fino al sabato, quando non rius-
civo più a reggermi in piedi.
‘Already on the following Monday I started to feel pain in my
right knee and it got worse until Saturday, when I could no
longer stand up.’
Particularly in Romance, motion verbs meaning ‘go up’, ‘go down’

and so forth exhibit a similar ambiguity to the one just described. For
example, Italian salire ‘go up’ is an activity term in (31) but an accom-
plishment term in (32):
(31) Salimmo per ore su campi inclinati.

‘We ascended for hours on gently inclined terrain.’
(32) Salimmo in poco più di cinque ore. 23
‘We climbed up in little more than five hours.’
As intransitives, salire and similar verbs (for example, scendere ‘descend’)

are assigned E in not just their accomplishment use (which is predicted
by the theory) but also in their activity use:
(33) Siamo saliti per un’ora e alla fine era come essere in paradiso.
‘We climbed for an hour and at the end it was like being in
heaven.’
This again falsifies the claim that activity terms always select A.
Conversely to the above cases, A can be assigned to non-activity
terms. A assignment to achievement or accomplishment terms is illus-
trated below:
(34) La pioggia ha smesso. (Verb: smettere)

‘The rain has stopped.’
(35) Lo squalo ha deviato a sinistra. (Verb: deviare)
‘The shark turned to the left.’
(36) Ho svoltato sulla strada principale. (Verb: svoltare)
‘I turned onto the main road.’
(37) Sono esseri umani che hanno sbagliato. (Verb: sbagliare)
‘They are human beings who have made a mistake.’
(38) Abbiamo atterrato a Tirana alle 18,30. (Verb: atterrare)
‘We had landed in Tirana at 6.30 p.m.’
(39) Ho votato per i Verdi e me ne pento. (Verb: votare)
‘I voted for the Greens and I regret it.’
(40) Il re ha abdicato. (Verb: abdicare)
‘The king has resigned.’
(41) Sfinito ha ceduto alla corrente. (Verb: cedere)

‘Exhausted he succumbed to the current.’
It might be suggested that an appeal to the concept of agentivity

could account for some of the above cases (for example, those involving
votare ‘vote’ and abdicare ‘abdicate’). However, it seems to be impossible
to devise a generalization that correctly predicts when agentivity will
be significant and when it will not.24 For example, both capitolare ‘give
in’ in (42) below and abdicare ‘abdicate’ in (40) above appear to be
agentive, and both appear to have the same aspectual property (viz.
they are achievement terms), but one is assigned E and one is assigned
A:
(42) Nel 1992 il sinodo anglicano è capitolato e ha votato a favore

delle ordinazioni femminili.
‘In 1992 the Anglican synod capitulated and voted in favour
of female ordinations.’
Finally in this connection, it should be noted that the activity versus

non-activity distinction correlates poorly with auxiliary alternations in
the case of physical phenomena verbs. For example, Italian scorrere
‘flow’, suonare ‘sound’ and nevicare ‘snow’ are capable of selecting E even
when used as activity terms:
(43) il fiume di sangue che è scorso per tutto il Novecento

‘the river of blood that flowed throughout the 20th
century’
(44) L’allarme è suonato per 18 minuti prima che le forze dell’ordine

intervenissero.
‘The alarm sounded for eighteen minutes before the police
intervened.’
(45) É nevicato per tutta la notte. 25
‘It snowed all night.’
Conversely, debordare ‘overflow’ (an achievement or accomplishment

term) routinely selects A:
(46) Il lago di Como ha debordato dai suoi argini ed il livello conti-

nua a salire.
‘Lake Como has overflowed beyond its banks and the level
continues to rise.’
Thus we see that while there is clearly some form of relationship

between aspectual class and auxiliary selection (in Italian at least), a
substantial minority of cases of auxiliary assignment are idiosyncratic
in this respect.
5.5.2 Combinations of semantic properties

A number of authors have attempted to do justice to the data in terms
of combinations of semantic properties. The pioneer in this area of
research is Sorace, who devised the cross-linguistic Auxiliary Selection
Hierarchy (ASH) – see Sorace (2000) and Legendre and Sorace (2003).
Basing themselves on the ASH, Bentley and Eythórsson (2003) have
recently attempted to characterize E selection in Italian in terms of
cross-linguistically relevant combinations of semantic properties. They
make two complementary claims about the semantic distribution of E
and A assignment, which are expressed in terms of the semantic prop-
erties dynamicity (‘D’), telicity (‘T’) and stativity (‘St’). The latter are
glossed as follows:
‘Dynamicity’ (D) is the property of verbs denoting change: directed

change of location or change of state. ‘Stativity’ (St) is the property
of verbs denoting continuity and lack of agent control. ‘Telicity’
(T) is an aspectual property. Telic predicates encode an endpoint
and, therefore, a delimited event. (Bentley and Eythórsson 2003,
pp. 460–1)
The relevant combinations are [D+T], [D−T], [St−D] and [St].

Following Sorace (2000), Bentley and Eythórsson classify the verbs/
predicates that select E in Italian as follows:
(i) Change of location

(ii) Change of state
(iii) Continuation of pre-existing state
(iv) Existence of state
Verbs in class (i) are [D+T]. Some of the verbs in class (ii) (for example,
morire ‘die’) are also [D+T], while others (e.g. cambiare ‘change’) are
[D−T]. Verbs in class (iii) are [St−D]. Verbs in class (iv) are [St].
Bentley and Eythórsson’s two generalizations about the semantic
distribution of E and A assignment (to intransitives) in Italian can then
be characterized as follows:
(a) E is assigned to verbs that are [D+T], [D−T], [St−D] or [St]

(pp. 463–4).
(b) A is assigned ‘when none of the properties [dynamicity, telicity,
stativity] apply to an intransitive predicate’ (p. 461).
However, given their characterization of the relevant features or proper-

ties, Bentley and Eythórsson’s account is vulnerable in similar ways to
Van Valin’s account (discussed in 5.5.1). In the first place, the verbs in
the earlier examples (34) to (41) appear to be [T+D]. Therefore, accord-
ing to generalization (a), they should be assigned E, but in fact they
exhibit A. Secondly, apparently identical occurrences of at least some
phenomena- or emission-type verbs can be assigned either E or A:
(47) Quella frase mi è rimbombata tutto il giorno nella testa.

‘That sentence resounded in my head all day long.’
(48) Questa frase ha rimbombato nelle nostre teste per tutto il

viaggio.
‘This sentence resounded in our heads for the whole
journey.’
Presumably the above occurrences of rimbombare each receive the same

assignment of semantic properties. However, such a possibility appears
to be ruled out by the conjunction of the two generalizations (a) and
(b). The same point could be made in respect of a number of other
phenomena/emission verbs, such as those illustrated in examples (43)
to (45), because these too are associated with an apparently unpredict-
able A/E alternation. 26
Bentley and Eythórsson also refer to French, stating (p. 464) that E
is assigned in that language to verbs that are [D+T].27 While this is
largely true (except in the case of rester ‘remain’, which is classified as
[St−D]), it leaves unexplained the assignment of auxiliary A to a fairly
large group of French [D+T] verbs, such as exploser ‘explode’, crever
‘burst’, disparaître ‘disappear’, etc. This latter class is all the larger if
agentive verbs such as capituler ‘capitulate’, démissionner ‘resign’ and so
on are also deemed to be [D+T]. In addition, there is a counterpart to
the problem noted earlier for Van Valin’s account in relation to verbs
such as salire (see example (31)). Thus E is assigned equally to [−T] and
[+T] occurrences of verbs like descendre ‘go down’ and monter ‘go up’:
(49) Nous sommes descendus/montés pendant des heures.

‘We descended/climbed for hours.’
(50) Nous sommes descendus/montés en une heure.
‘We got down/climbed up in an hour.’
5.5.3 Subject-affectedness
The semantic accounts discussed in 5.5.1 and 5.5.2 focus on the nature
of the situation described by the verb. An alternative approach, in
which the focus is on the role of the subject, has been put forward by
Chierchia (2004 [originally written 1989]). Under the assumption that
auxiliaries were ‘property modifiers’28 and hence could be sensitive to
the meaning associated with what they modified, he argued (2004:46–
7) that the choice of Italian essere versus avere was sensitive to what he
termed ‘subject affectedness’, where the subjecting-affecting operations
were the following: P(assive), E(xpletive) and R(eflexive). Below, I
describe each of these operations in turn.
Note that, in order to make sense of Chierchia’s notation, it needs to
be understood that he takes non-linguistic items such as properties and
relations to be primitives within his system. Linguistic sentences are
then analysed as involving what he calls the ‘predication relation’,
represented by the symbol ∪, which takes a property as its input and
yields a propositional function as its output. For example, the sentence
‘John runs’ is analysed as in (51) below, where ‘run’ stands for the
property of running (Chierchia 2004, p. 26):
∪
(51) run(John)
Informally, this can be read as ‘John instantiates [the property of]

running’.
5.5.3.1 Operation P(assive)

This is the most straightforward of the operations just enumerated.
Chierchia defined it as an operation that takes a relation as its input
and yields a property as its output, by filling the argument position

corresponding to the linguistic subject with a variable bound by an
existential quantifier. For example, the property of being seen (repre-
sented below by ‘P(see)’) is analysed as being derived through the
application of P to the two-place relation of seeing (represented by
‘see’). By applying the predication relation to this property, we get the
propositional function ∪ [P(see)], which is subject to the following
equivalence:
∪
(52) [P(see)](x) ↔ ∃y∪ [see(x)](y)
In other words, x is seen if and only if something sees x.
5.5.3.2 Operation E(xpletivization)

Chierchia defines the basic predication relation (notated by ∪ ) as requir-
ing a property and an individual as its arguments. Now in order to
apply this apparatus to constructions of the form It seems that p,
Chierchia posits an E(xpletivization) operation that converts the seems
that p component into a property, which must be predicated of an
‘arbitrarily chosen funny object’ (Chierchia 2004, p. 32), presumably
the denotatum of the expletive subject. For example, if ⊥ represents
such an object, a sentence such as (53) below could be analysed as in
(54):
(53) It seems that tax cuts are off the agenda.

∪
(54) [E(seems that tax cuts are off the agenda)]⊥
5.5.3.3 Operation R(eflexivization)

Chierchia envisaged two different reflexivization operations, denoted
as ‘R’ and ‘R I’ (the latter becomes r in a postscript to Chierchia 2004 –
see below). The R operation identifies the two arguments of a relation,
thereby reducing it to a property. For example, if the relation in ques-
tion is that of washing, we have the following equivalence (p. 29):
∪
(55) [R(wash)](x) ↔ ∪ [wash(x)](x)
In other words, x R-washes if and only if x washes x.

Initially, Chierchia defined the R I operation in a similar way. The
only difference in comparison to the R operation was in the logical
type of the output: a property in the case of R and a propositional
function in the case of R I (Chierchia 2004, p. 38). The significance of

this latter point stems from Chierchia’s stipulation that the argument
to a propositional function must correspond, at the syntactic level, to
an ‘internal argument’, such as an unaccusative subject deemed to
remain in situ. Moreover, given Chierchia’s definition of the ∪ relation,
according to which its arguments must be a property and an individual,
a propositional function cannot enter into a predication relation (in
Chierchia’s sense). Rather, the proposition resulting from the applica-
tion of a propositional function to its (internal) argument must undergo
the operation of Expletivization. The output of this operation then
enters into a predicational relation with a ‘funny’ object (see 5.5.3.2
above). For example, given Chierchia’s assumption that la barca in (56)
is an internal argument, the analysis of the containing sentence would
be as in (57): 29
(56) È affondata la barca.

‘The boat has sunk.’
∪
(57) [E(R I (affondare)(la barca))]⊥
Notice, however, that Chierchia’s (initial) assumption that R I was

analogous to R implies that (57) must be equivalent to (58):
∪
(58) [E([affondare(la barca)](la barca))]⊥
Analysed in this way, the extension of intransitive affondare excludes

any individual x that was sunk by another individual y, where x ≠ y.
But this does not seem to be correct, given that a boat sunk by Maria,
for example, will still be in the extension of intransitive affondare,
despite the fact that the boat and Maria are non-identical. Speaking
generally, Chierchia’s R I operation converts a relation f into a property
y that fails to be instantiated by any individual that is not in the f
relation to itself. This is not the required result if f and y are associated
with transitive and intransitive uses of the same verb.
In a postscript to his article, Chierchia recognizes this problem (2004,
pp. 54–5) and proposes solving it by introducing a new operation called
‘reflexive closure’, represented by r. This deletes the subject argument
(which may or may not be an eventuality type of object rather than,
say, a person) of a relation and replaces it with a copy of the object
argument. For example, affondarer is a relation in which the subject
(a sinker) is identical to the object (a thing sunk). This then reduces
to a property through the application of REFL (which appears

to be identical to the R of the original paper) or by some other
means.
5.5.3.4 Auxiliary selection

Returning now to auxiliary selection, Chierchia’s original contention
was that each of the various constructions that are assigned perfect
auxiliary E in Italian was associated with one or more of P, E and R/R I.
As just noted, R I gives way to a combination of r and REFL in a postscript
to the original proposal, but presumably the overall theory of auxiliary
selection remains essentially the same. Now, according to the original
paper, passives require P and ‘true’ reflexives require R (and raising
predicates like sembrare ‘seem’ presumably require E, given that they
lack personal subjects). In addition, in light of the postscript, unac-
cusatives that have transitive counterparts (for example, affondare
‘sink’) require a combination of r and REFL. Finally, Chierchia argued
at length (pp. 39–45) for a parity between affondare-type unaccusatives
and unaccusatives that do not have transitive counterparts. Presum-
ably, therefore, the latter must be deemed to be associated with
whatever operations are deemed to be involved in the meaning of
affondare-type unaccusatives.30
Now Chierchia’s claim (p. 46) was that all of the operations just
mentioned affect the subject slot of a relation: P by quantifying into
the subject slot, E by adding a truth-conditionally inert subject slot and
R by identifying the subject with the object slot.31 He thus arrived at
the conclusion alluded to earlier, according to which the domain32 of
perfect auxiliary E (now viewed as a function) is the set of all and only
those properties that are the output of ‘subject-affecting’ operations on
relations, that is, the set of ‘subject-affected’ properties. He then identi-
fied the complement of this set with the domain of perfect auxiliary A
(p. 47).
The foregoing theory is a masterpiece of ingenuity. However, it is
problematic in two interconnected ways. Firstly, a respectable minority
of A-selecting intransitives enter into transitive–intransitive alterna-
tions that are analogous to the affondare pattern. Examples include
deviare ‘deviate’, bollire ‘boil’ and girare ‘turn’ (note that (63) and (64)
reproduce (ii) and (i) from note 16):
(59) All’improvviso l’auto ha deviato.

‘Suddenly the car swerved.’
(60) La polizia municipale ha deviato il traffico.

‘The local police have diverted the traffic.’
(61) Il latte ha bollito.
‘The milk has boiled.’
(62) Ho bollito il latte.
‘I have boiled the milk.’
(63) La macina ha girato.
‘The millstone has turned.’
(64) Il mulo ha girato la macina.
‘The mule has turned the millstone’
Presumably, if Chierchia’s semantic analysis is applied consistently, the

intransitive uses of the above verbs must be associated with some
subject-affecting operation such as r (or r together with REFL). But if
that is the case, the distinction between perfect auxiliaries E and A
cannot correlate with the distinction between the set of subject-affected
properties and its complement, as proposed by Chierchia.
Conversely, we find E-selecting verbs for which there exists no inde-
pendent motivation for assuming that any of the subject-affecting
operations are involved. Two such cases are illustrated below:
(65) Saddam è capitolato.

‘Saddam has given in.’
(66) Berlusconi è andato a Tripoli.
‘Berlusconi has gone to Tripoli.’
Presumably P can be ruled out immediately, as can the R operation that

is associated with true reflexives. E also can be excluded, given that
this seems not to be intended for cases in which the subject is VP-
external (see Chierchia 2004, p. 38). This leaves just the reflexive
closure operation proposed for verbs like affondare (or something
similar, given Chierchia’s contention (p. 57) that ‘verbs that cannot
take eventualities as subjects . . . cannot undergo reflexive closure’).
However, while the involvement of such an operation is not explicitly
ruled out, there is nothing about the verbs capitolare and andare that
actually calls for an analysis along those lines. Nothing, that is, apart
from the selection of perfect auxiliary E. However, if the semantic
analysis is allowed to dance to the tune set by the pattern of auxiliary
selection, it starts to become circular. In other words, once certain E-

selecting verbs receive a certain semantic analysis merely because of the
auxiliary they select, that analysis can no longer be used to explain
why the particular auxiliary is assigned.
It is true that an assumption to the effect that all unaccusatives can
be assimilated to the affondare paradigm would assist in explaining how
certain verbs that are strictly intransitive in one linguistic variety may
be capable of being used transitively in others, as with Italian crescere
and Spanish desaparecer in the non-standard examples below:
(67) I figli, Gianni li ha cresciuti bene. (Chierchia 2004, p. 40)

‘His sons, Gianni has raised them well.’
(68) A otros denunciantes los han desaparecido.

‘Other accusers have been made to disappear.’
However, the difficulty lies in the fact that there is no natural division
between cases that should be treated like affondare and cases that
should not. Moreover, it is doubtful that any such dividing line can
plausibly be made to coincide with the distribution of the perfect aux-
iliaries. To take a few examples, capitolare in sentence (65) is semanti-
cally like abdicare in the earlier sentence (40), reproduced below, and
unlike intransitive affondare, and yet the pattern of auxiliary assign-
ment completely ignores this state of affairs:
(40) Il re ha abdicato.
‘The king has resigned.’
Conversely, intransitive deviare, bollire and girare in (59), (61) and (63)
are like intransitive affondare and they are unlike abdicare in (40), and
yet auxiliary selection groups them with abdicare.
The implication of Chierchia’s theory is that the pattern of auxiliary
selection can be understood as determining the boundary between the
affondare paradigm and those intransitives that must receive a different
analysis. However, as observed above, an approach based on that
assumption will necessarily be circular.
5.6 The historical perspective
The various problems identified for the accounts discussed in 5.5 appear
to be illustrative of an inescapable fact,33 viz. that the assignment of
perfect auxiliary E is not a phenomenon about which an empirically

complete semantic generalization can be made. Proponents of the syn-
tactic basis for perfect auxiliary assignment have argued that precisely
this state of affairs constitutes evidence in favour of the syntactic
approach (see for example, Rosen 1984). However, while it illustrates
the limitations of attempts to characterize E assignment semantically,
it is hard to see how it constitutes empirical evidence in favour of the
syntactic account. The leading hypothesis in that account is that the
occurrence of E assignment reflects a certain syntax. By hypothesis,
then, all cases of E assignment will involve the syntax in question,
including those that are resistant to a semantic generalization.
But this inference is merely a deduction from the hypothesis and
cannot, without an obvious circularity, be used to reinforce that
hypothesis.34
On the other hand, given the rejection in 5.2 to 5.4 of syntax-based
generalizations, the assumption that a semantic generalization is not
viable either seems to leave perfect auxiliary selection without any
explanation at all. However, on the purely synchronic level, this should
not be regarded as an unacceptable finding. For there are plenty of
phenomena that cannot, in purely synchronic terms, be given a
non-vacuous explanation. For example, no theoretical principle can
accurately predict when the subjunctive mood will be assigned to
complement clauses in Spanish. Attempts have been made to character-
ize this in terms of assertive versus non-assertive matrix predicates but,
as shown by Palmer (1986), for example, such characterizations are
circular, in that the semantic property alleged to trigger subjunctive
assignment cannot be given an independent definition, and as such is
merely a label. The case of perfect auxiliary is in broad terms analogous.
While some relatively far-reaching generalizations can be made, the
attempt to find an all-encompassing principle having purely synchronic
import can only result in (i) vacuity or (ii) empirical inadequacy.
A different question, and one that can be given a non-vacuous answer,
is why the synchronic data is as it is: ultimately untameable in terms
of an overall determining principle but nevertheless subject to tantaliz-
ing trends and family resemblances, especially in relation to aspect.
Here it will be argued that the limited semantic regularities that attach
to the class of modern E-selecting verbs are a residue of an earlier more
unified semanticism. This will be analysed as a concomitant of the
syntax embodied in the early Romance E + intransitive past participle
construction, prior to its grammaticalization as a true exponent of the
perfect. It will then be claimed that the earlier, more unified, semanti-
cism has narrowed in French and in effect expanded in Italian, owing

largely to the trend towards the conventionalization of auxiliary assign-
ment, understood as the process whereby given assignments cease to
reflect meaning differences.
It will be assumed that the parallel in terms of E assignment between
the E-selecting non-reflexives and the intransitive reflexives results
from a merger in late Latin or early Romance of the various E + past
participle structures that were inherited from earlier Latin. As for the
anomalous assignment of E to transitive reflexives, the position here
will be that the traditional account is largely correct, whereby the
transitive reflexives were attracted historically to the model established
by the much more frequent intransitive reflexives. The striking unifor-
mity among reflexive constructions in terms of auxiliary selection,
regardless of semantic and syntactic considerations, is presumably a
reflex of this evolutionary pattern.
In what follows, I will assume a taxonomy of perfect uses of the sort
proposed by numerous authors. For example, I will distinguish between
the perfect of result and the experiential perfect (Comrie 1976, pp. 56–60).
In the former use, a particular state exists at the appropriate reference
time, for instance, the moment of speech. This state is the result of the
occurrence (or, in the negative, the non-occurrence) of the event
denoted by the verb. For example, sentence (69) below uttered while
Pedro was still at the relevant location would illustrate the perfect of
result:
(69) Pedro has arrived.
A sentence illustrating the experiential perfect is essentially a quanti-

fication to the effect that zero or more times in the past are times at
which a given event or state occurred. Thus (70) below is an example
of this use:
(70) Jones has been in prison four times.
5.6.1 E as a copula
As is well known, the paradigm of A perfect forms descends from a
Latin construction involving habere as a full lexical verb. For example,
in venenum praeparatum habebat ‘he had the poison ready’ the unit
venenum praeparatum is plausibly analysed as a small clause, on a par
with similar units in the following examples from modern Italian,
Spanish and French:
(71) Hai [ SC la camicia sporca].

‘Your shirt is dirty.’ (Literally: ‘You have the shirt dirty.’)
(72) Tienes [ SC abandonados a tus amigos].
‘You have your friends abandoned.’
(73) J’avais [ SC la porte ouverte].
‘I had the door open.’
The A + small clause construction differs from the true perfect con-
struction in several ways. Most significantly from the present perspec-
tive, the participle in the small clause functions as a predicative adjective
and so, where extraneous factors do not prevent this, the small clause
can usually be expanded to a full copular construction in which the
tense of the copula replicates that of the A verb:
(74) Hai [ SC la camicia sporca]. La camicia è sporca.

‘You have the shirt dirty.’ ‘The shirt is dirty.’
(75) Tienes [ SC abandonados a tus amigos]. Tus amigos están
abandonados.
‘You have your friends abandoned.’ ‘Your friends are
abandoned.’
(76) J’avais [ SC la porte ouverte]. La porte était
ouverte.
‘I had the door open.’ ‘The door was open.’
This correspondence appears to have been less productive in Latin,

perhaps because (i) the E + past participle formulation was the locus of
the passive and the deponent perfects and (ii) it was quite common for
a single intransitive verb to express what in the modern languages is
expressed using E + past participle, as in patent ‘are open’ corresponding
to modern sono aperti, están abiertos, sont ouverts, and so on.
As is well documented, the above A + small clause construction
coalesced over time producing the Romance A perfect, presumably fol-
lowing a long period of structural ambiguity. Now the Romance E
perfect also has a Latin forerunner, viz. the deponent perfect, as in
mentitus sum ‘I lied/have lied’ (from mentiri ‘lie’). It would be logical
for the E and A perfects to have followed parallel historical paths, that
is, for the participle in both constructions to have originally functioned
as a predicative adjective (under common syntactic assumptions that
would in fact amount to assuming a small clause in both cases). At fi rst
glance, however, this seems to be ruled out by the fact that periphrastic
forms like mentitus sum are assumed to have occupied the same place
in the deponent paradigm as synthetic forms like cucurri ‘I ran/have
run’ (from currere ‘run’) within the non-deponent paradigm. While
certain specific forms such as mortuus est may have been syntactically
ambiguous, as between the perfect structure (with the meaning ‘died/
has died’) and the copula–adjective construction (with the meaning ‘is
dead’), this duality cannot easily be generalized throughout the depo-
nent perfect. Accordingly the syntactic statuses of the forerunners of
the E and A perfects do not appear, in Classical Latin at least, to have
been analogous.
On the other hand, there are grounds for thinking that towards the
end of the Latin period the deponent perfect underwent a process of
syntactic reanalysis. With the demise of the passive/deponent mor-
phology and the migration of the deponent verbs to the various spoken
Latin conjugations, many of the deponent perfect forms were replaced
by non-standard formulations modelled on the synthetic perfect,
reflexes of which abound in the modern languages. 35 For example men-
titus sum ‘I (have) lied’, was replaced by a form constructed from the
root ment- together with the first person singular synthetic perfect
ending -i(v)i, giving rise ultimately to modern Italian mentii, Spanish
mentí, and so on. Such analogical forms were created also for those
deponent verbs (sequi ‘follow’, mori ‘die’, nasci ‘be born’, and so on)
which in Romance exhibit a deponent-style E perfect. For example,
when mori became assimilated to the -ir(e) conjugation, it both retained
the form corresponding to its periphrastic perfect, which surfaces in
the various Romance languages as è morto, est mort and so on, and also
acquired an analogical synthetic perfect paradigm constructed from
the stem mor- together with the relevant synthetic perfect endings. The
latter analogical paradigm surfaces in Romance as the synthetic pret-
erite (morì, murió, and so on).
Analogous remarks apply mutatis mutandis to the (larger) group of
verbs that are not descended from Classical Latin deponent verbs but
which in spoken Latin or Romance became attracted to the periphrastic
pattern. For example, spoken Latin ven + itum/utum (replacing Classical
ventum) sum yields Romance forms like sono venuto, suis venu and so
forth, but the paradigm of the synthetic perfect (Latin veni, and so on)
persisted into Romance: venni, vine, and so on.
Overall a pattern emerges, involving (i) the retention and generaliza-
tion of the synthetic perfect, and (ii) the reorganization of the member-
ship of the class of intransitives that entered into the periphrastic
construction: out go activity verbs like fabulari ‘talk’, as well as transi-

tive verbs such as metiri ‘measure/evaluate’, while in come prototypical
unaccusatives like venire ‘come’ and intrare ‘enter’. This suggests that at
some point (presumably towards the end of the Latin period) the peri-
phrastic construction and the synthetic perfect came to be functionally
non-equivalent: if this did not happen, it is hard to see why verbs like
mori, nasci and so forth should develop new synthetic perfects and still
retain a periphrastic form involving E. Moreover it was through the
synthetic perfect that the semantics of the Latin perfect, deponent or
otherwise, persisted into Romance. For example, in the Iberian Penin-
sula the sense of periphrastic fabulatus est ‘spoke/has spoken’ was con-
tinued via analogical synthetic forms such as fablaut, fablot (>modern
Sp. habló, Pt. falou and so on).36 Accordingly, the meaning associated
with the E periphrasis must have altered over time: in (earlier) Latin it
was presumably largely equivalent to the synthetic perfect, but new
semantic life appears to have been breathed into it with the replace-
ment of the somewhat diffuse group of Latin deponent verbs by the
semantically coherent class of E-selecting Romance intransitives. Argu-
ably, this development reflects an underlying process of syntactic
reanalysis.
The most likely scenario is that the Latin perfect auxiliary E was
reanalysed as a copula, with the past participle adopting its alternative
role as an adjective. It is difficult to avoid positing such a development
for verbs like venire (that is, intransitive verbs which were not deponent
in Classical Latin but which were later attracted to the E + past partici-
ple pattern), because in this case the past participle was originally only
adjectival, given that non-deponent verbs formed their perfects syn-
thetically. Moreover, even at the relatively late stage at which texts
written in the Romance vernaculars began to be produced, it can plau-
sibly be argued that E is still typically a copula when used with the past
participle.37
Note first of all that while examples are forthcoming in which E is
best analysed as a true perfect auxiliary, as in (77) below, they are
uncommon throughout much of the Middle Ages, because the syn-
thetic preterite was the primary locus of such usages, as in (78):
(77) De vasselage es suvent esprovet.38 (R 3163)

‘He has often proved his courage.’
(78) Uscicci mai alcuno . . . ? (I IV, 49)

‘Has anyone ever left here?’
In fact, in the vast majority of the examples in the medieval corpus,

E + intransitive past participle has a resultant-state type of meaning,
which in principle is compatible either with a ‘perfect of result’ analysis
or with an analysis in which E is a copula and the past participle an
adjective denoting a resultant state:
(79) Fenduz en est mis olifans el gros, Caiuz en est li cristals e lis ors.
(R 2295–6)
‘My oliphant is split at the wide end, the crystal and gold
have/are fallen off.’
(80) Or incomincian le dolenti note a farmisi sentire; or son venuto

là dove molto pianto mi percuote. (I V, 25–6)
‘Now the doleful notes begin to reach me; now I have/am come
to where much wailing smites me.’
(81) L’altra fiata ch’i’ discesi qua giù nel basso inferno, questa roccia
non era ancor cascata. (I XII, 34–6)
‘The other time I came down here to lower Hell, that rock
had/was not yet fallen.’
(82) Los unos eran muertos e los otros fuydos (A [Paris ms.] 1415b)
‘Some were dead and the others had/were fled.’
However, the copular analysis seems preferable for several reasons.

Firstly, there is the way in which the imperfect–preterite distinction
interacts with the construction, with the imperfect form merely stating
what was the case at a given time, as in (81) and (82) above, and the
preterite form typically occurring within the scope of a temporal quan-
tifier, as in (83) below, or after items that introduce or imply a change
of state, as in examples (84) and (85):
(83) Anzi ‘mpediva tanto il mio cammino, chi’i’ fui per ritornar più
volte vòlto.
‘It so impeded my path that several times I turned to go back.’
(I I, 36)
(84) hasta que fue la alma de la carne partida (M 318b)
‘until the soul had separated from the flesh’
(85) Poi che mosso fue, intrai per lo cammino alto e silvestro. (I II,
142)
‘After he had moved, I entered along the high and wild
path.’
This rather sharply defined contrast is somewhat arbitrary if E

is analysed as a perfect auxiliary, devoid of semantic content in its
own right.39 However, the contrast immediately seems natural if
E is analysed as a copula, given the general tendency in Latin/Romance
for copulas to preferentially select the preterite rather than the
imperfect both in cases of temporal quantification, as in examples (86)
and (87), and in change-of-state contexts, as in examples (88) to
(90):
(86) Bis post Numoe regnum Ianus clausus fuit. (Dicc A27)
‘Twice after the reign of Numa the temple of Janus was closed
(that is, unopen).’
(87) María estuvo enferma cuatro veces el año pasado. (Mod. Sp.)
‘María was ill four times last year.’
(88) Quinci fuor quete le lanose gote. (I III, 97)
‘Whereupon the hairy cheeks were quiet.’
(89) E all’improvviso fu buio e freddo. (Mod. It.)
‘And suddenly it was dark and cold.’
(90) hasta que estuvo hundido en el barro (Mod. Sp.)
‘until it was sunk into the mud’
The copular analysis is additionally suggested by certain quasi-equiv-

alence patterns that are observable in the medieval corpus, viz. between
E-preterite + past participle and the synthetic preterite, as in examples
(91) to (93), and between E-present + past participle and the simple
present tense, as in (94) and (95):
(91) En el octavo dia . . . fo ida la dolor. (S 594d)

‘On the eighth day, the pain went away.’
(92) Paien dient: ‘Si mare fumes nez!’ (R 2146)
‘The pagans say: “We were born for such a misfortune.” ’
(93) Allor li fu l’orgoglio sì caduto che . . . (I XXI, 84)
‘Then his pride collapsed to such an extent that . . .’
(94) Li reis Marsilie s’en fuit en Sarraguce, Suz un olive est descendut
en l’umbre.’ (R 2570–1)
‘King Marsile flees to Zaragoza, He dismounts under an olive
tree in the shade.’
(95) A icel jur venent a Sarraguce . . . Li amiralz est issut del calan.
(R 2645–7)
‘They arrive that day at Zaragoza. The emir disembarks from
the lighter.’
The near equivalences illustrated by the above examples are again

mysterious if E is analysed as an empty auxiliary, but they have a
straightforward explanation if E is treated as a copula. We simply
assume that the copula, like other state verbs, always has the potential
to be used inceptively. In the past tense, the inceptive value is explicitly
indicated by the preterite,40 while in the present tense an inceptive
reading falls out from the context.
Finally, treating E as a copula explains the otherwise surprising medi-
eval phenomenon normally analysed as the omission of the reflexive
pronoun from the perfect. In fact, as Brambilla Ageno (1964:200)
points out, ‘il pronome non viene tralasciato . . . ma non è ancora
stato introdotto’.41 Examples from Old Spanish include the following
(see Lapesa 2000, p. 785):
(96) Çiento quinze cavelleros todos iuntados son. (C 291) (Verb:

iuntarse)
‘One hundred and fifteen knights are/have all joined
together.’
(97) Non era puesto el sol. (C 416) (Verb: ponerse)
‘The sun was/had not set.’
(98) El Campeador en pie es levantado. (C 2219) (Verb: levantarse)
‘The Cid is on his feet.’
For Old Italian, compare mosso fue in the earlier example (85), repro-
duced below, with si mosse in (99) (see also the many examples in
Brambilla Ageno (1964, pp. 200–5):
(85) Poi che mosso fue, intrai per lo cammino alto e silvestro. (I II,
142)
‘After he had moved, I entered along the high and wild
path.’
(99) Allor si mosse, e io li tenni sietro. (I I, 136)
‘Then he moved and I followed him.’
For Old French compare sunt asemblez in (100) with s’ . . . asemblent in

(101):
(100) E Sarrazins, ki tant sunt asemblez . . . (R 1030)

‘And the Saracens who are assembled in such numbers . . .’
(101) Tels.IIII. cenz s’en asemblent a helmes. (R 2120)
‘Four hundred of them assemble, wearing helmets.’
The phenomenon in question is unsurprising if E is a copula, because

there is ample evidence from the modern languages that the past par-
ticiples of reflexive verbs never retain their reflexive pronoun when
used in small clause complements of copulas. Compare the following
pairs of examples (from modern French and modern Spanish):
(102a) Ils se sont tous réunis. (Sont is perfect auxiliary)

‘They have all met up.’
(102b) Ils sont tous réunis. (Sont is copula: no reflexive pronoun)
‘They are all together.’
(103a) Me había levantado del asiento. (Había is perfect auxiliary)

‘I had got out of my chair’.
(103b) Estaba levantado del asiento. (Estaba is copula: no reflexive
pronoun)
‘I was out of my chair.’
On the other hand, there is no obvious explanation (for the medieval

‘omission’) if E is a perfect auxiliary. As noted in La Fauci (1992, pp.
218–19), the ‘omission’ of the reflexive pronoun appears to be charac-
teristic mainly of the intransitive reflexive construction. This construc-
tion evolved as a replacement for the ‘middle’ use of the Latin passive
morphology (see 5.6.5 below) and no phenomenon within this process
of replacement would account for the failure of the reflexive pronoun
to appear in the periphrastic members of the paradigm but not in the
synthetic ones.
5.6.2 Semantics of the copula–adjective construction

There are then a number of reasons for supposing that the Romance E
perfect was at some stage in its history a copula–adjective construction.
First, the pattern of the reorganization of the perfect system in late
Latin/early Romance, as described earlier, suggests that E + intransitive

past participle (< Latin deponent perfect) underwent a process of
reanalysis at or before the beginning of the Romance period. Secondly,
even as late as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries few examples of E
+ intransitive past participle unambiguously call for an analysis in
which E is a true perfect auxiliary. In many cases E is best analysed as
a copula and in the majority of cases either analysis is possible. Given
that over the course of the Romance period the direction in which E +
intransitive past participle has evolved is towards its ever greater gram-
maticalization as an exponent of the perfect, the low frequency in the
late Middle Ages of examples that unambiguously reflect such a process
implies the relatively recent existence of a state of affairs in which
‘perfect auxiliary’ E was in fact a copula. Assuming such a state of
affairs existed, a cyclical pattern of development can be posited, with
reanalysis occurring twice over: 42
Phase 1: Latin mortuus est (perfect)

Phase 2: Early Romance morz est, muerto es and so on (copula–
adjective)
Phase 3: Modern Romance est mort, ha muerto and so on (perfect)
If the above pattern of development is an accurate approximation to

the facts, then during the early Romance phase only verbs whose
past participle could function as an adjective could occur in the E +
intransitive past participle construction. It has been argued (for
example, by Levin and Rappaport 1986) that this capability is essen-
tially syntactic, with the past participle morphology systematically
blocking the externalization of subject q -role, thus preventing unerga-
tive past participles from occurring as adjectives.43 In fact this position
is difficult to maintain given the existence of unergative adjectival
participles:
Spanish:
(104) Los niños están bañados y cenados.

‘The children are bathed and have had their supper.’
(105) No podemos aceptar apuestas de personas resididas en el
Canadá.
‘We cannot accept bets placed by persons residing in
Canada.’
Italian: 44
(106) Anzi avevo imparato la sottile arte di presentarmi alle cene già
cenata.
‘In fact I had learned the subtle art of appearing at dinners
already having dined.’
(107) O ci andate già mangiati, solo per vedere la partita . . . oppure
è meglio stare alla larga.
‘You either go there having already eaten, just to watch the
match . . . otherwise it’s best to stay away.’
English:
(108) He is widely travelled and has lived at various times in France,

Canada and America.
(109) The two men were rather studied in their mannerisms.
It is true that unergatives are in general rather less likely than unac-
cusatives to be available in an adjectival capacity. However, unaccusa-
tives can hardly be said to enjoy unfettered productivity in this respect.
Consider, for example, some of the complex semantic and syntactic
restrictions that apply in English:
(110) *Tyres become worn must be changed.

(111) *Smith is standing for the seat of the recently died member for
Glasgow central.
(112) *The spectators remained in the ground witnessed an extraor-
dinary comeback.
I assume, then, that the past participle morphology does not block
the externalization of subject q -role and that, accordingy, the proposed
analysis of the E + intransitive past participle construction in early
Romance does not rule out any intransitive verbs on a priori grounds.
On the other hand, given that the earliest attested examples of the
construction almost invariably refer to the state resulting from the
event denoted by the verb (or the predicate as whole), it can be assumed
that access to the construction was limited to those verbs whose past
participles expressed a resultant state, a constraint which would obvi-
ously favour achievements and accomplishments. This point can be
illustrated in connection with modern Spanish estar + past participle,

assuming this has a similar meaning to that attributed here to early
Romance E + intransitive past participle. Consider, for example, the
verb dormir ‘sleep’, which is an activity term while its reflexive
form dormirse ‘go to sleep’ is an achievement term (or possibly an
accomplishment term) and the past participle dormido can in general
correspond to either of these meanings. Notice that, as used with
estar, the participle dormido can only correspond to the achievement
meaning:
(113) El niño está dormido.

‘The boy is asleep.’ (i.e. ‘has gone to sleep’)
Therefore, ignoring state terms for the moment, it can be surmised

that in early Romance the class of verbs that occurred in the E + intran-
sitive past participle construction comprised exclusively achievement
and accomplishment terms. Notice that this means that if a given verb
could be used both as an achievement or accomplishment term and as
an activity term, E was assigned only in the former case. Compare for
example the achievement and activity occurrences of Old Spanish folgar
‘rest/recover’ illustrated below:
(114) Sólo que y plegasse luego serié folgado. (S 599d)

‘If he could just get there he would be recovered.’
(115) desque ahí hobieron morado é folgado algunos dias (U p. 87)

‘after they had dwelled and rested there for a few days’
The indirect perspective onto this ‘initial’ state of affairs that is afforded
by the data from the Middle Ages appears to confirm the basic conjec-
ture just outlined. This can be seen by considering the aspectual classes
of the verbs/predicates that appear in the medieval examples in 5.6.1
above.
5.6.3 Conventionalization of auxiliary assignment and

other processes
If the ‘initial’ state of affairs (as just outlined) had persisted unchanged,
then the aspectual account of auxiliary selection in modern Italian
discussed in 5.5.1 would essentially be correct (except in its predictions
about E-selecting state terms, for which see 5.6.4 below), and indeed it
would also be applicable to modern French, modern Spanish and so
forth. However, a number of processes have conspired to alter some-

what the linguistic landscape.
In the first place the grammaticalization of E + intransitive past
participle as an exponent of the perfect necessarily (under the view of
perfect auxiliaries adopted here) resulted in a dissociation of the ‘resul-
tant state’ constraint from its original syntactic locus (viz. a copula–
adjective construction). In other words, while the class of verbs that
could occur in E + intransitive past participle had a motivated semanti-
cism as long as E was a copula, this ceased to be the case once E became
essentially an empty marker of perfectivity. In Ibero–Romance, the
unmotivated nature of E assignment was resolved through elimination
of auxiliary selection. In French and Italian this essentially redundant
feature survived but, in the French case at least, only in a radically
impoverished form.
In both of the latter languages, conventionalization has occurred to
varying degrees, but with different effects. In French, there has been a
tendency towards the elimination of auxiliary alternations altogether,45
usually in favour of the commoner A auxiliary. This has entailed the
complete elimination of auxiliary alternations in the case of transi-
tive–intransitive verbs of the type geler ‘freeze’, pourrir ‘rot’, sécher ‘dry’
and so on, which in Old French routinely selected E in the intransitive
use. The same process operated also in respect of purely intransitive
verbs where these could have both achievement/accomplishment
(hence E-selecting) occurrences and activity (hence A-selecting) occur-
rences. For example, while A assignment to courir ‘run’ is categorical in
modern French, E assignment was routine in Old French whenever the
verb was used as an accomplishment term: 46
(116) Rollant reguardet, puis si li est curut. (R 2086)

‘He looks at Roland, than ran up to him.’
In modern Italian, while auxiliary alternations are very common,

conventionalizing tendencies have had the effect of rendering these
immune to any generally applicable principle (other than the principle
that A is selected in transitive occurrences). Thus aspectually am-
biguous intransitives that in Old Italian alternated their auxiliary
consistentlyas a function of the dichotomy between achievements/
accomplishments and activities often exhibit, in the modern language,
unique E assignment or what is in effect free variation between E and
A (see the discussion of the problematic cases in 5.5.1 and 5.5.2 above).
Conventionalization is also likely to have been involved in the other-
wise surprising (under the account proposed here) assignment of E to

a number of Italian state verbs (see 5.6.4 below).
In other cases, the developments in Italian seem to parallel those that
took place in French, with A spreading at the expense of E. An illustra-
tive example is deviare ‘deviate’. In modern Italian this is typically
assigned A but in Old Italian E appears to have been the norm. Indeed
cognates of Italian deviare are widely attested with E across early
Romance, as illustrated by this example from Old Spanish:
(117) El ladrón cató ora que el religioso fuese desviado. (Cal p. 138)
‘The thief waited until the monk had/was turned away.’
Plausibly, the displacement of E by A results from conventionalization

based on the common transitive use, possibly assisted by the sense that
the intransitive use frequently involves an implicit object, correspond-
ing to the explicit object in cases such as the following:
(118) La colata è giunta vicinissima ed alla fine ha deviato il suo

corso.
‘The lava flow came very close but in the end altered its
course.’
Elsewhere, the period at which the verb in question entered the lan-
guage is likely to be relevant. Many of the achievement/accomplish-
ment terms that select A in either Italian or French or both (for example,
words meaning ‘vote’, ‘abdicate’, ‘explode’) are modern or early modern
borrowings (either from written Latin or from other European lan-
guages). These obviously had no ‘inherited’ perfect auxiliary assign-
ment and instead were assimilated to the prevailing principles governing
such assignment. However, assuming that such principles were by then
already self-conflicting, as in the modern period, any such assimilation
is unlikely to have followed a consistent pattern. One striking case is
that of Italian esplodere and French exploser, which are eighteenth/nine-
teenth century derivations from words meaning ‘explosion’, themselves
post-Renaissance calques modelled on Latin explosio. Despite both
being obvious achievements (hence obvious candidates for E assign-
ment), esplodere is assigned E and exploser is assigned A. The reason for
this disparity is simply that by the time exploser was incorporated into
the French lexicon, E assignment in that language had long since
become a purely conventionalized affair and the E-selecting class of
verbs was effectively closed. Attempting to capture the auxiliary assign-
ment contrast between Italian esplodere and French exploser in terms of

a modern synchronic principle (semantic or otherwise) is therefore
clearly pointless.
In yet other cases, account needs to be taken of the tendency for
perfect auxiliary assignment to acquire a disambiguating function
between different senses or uses of a given verb, with A often being
linked to meanings or contexts that involve a greater element of human
deliberation, though not in any consistent way. Presumably this rough
correlation results from the fact that A is more closely associated with
agentivity than is E, a circumstance which itself can be seen as an
oblique reflection of the original adjectival function of the perfect
participle. Some illustrations are given below:
Convenire:
(119) Il Ministro ha convenuto sulla richiesta delle parti sociali.

‘The minister agreed to the demand of the unions and
management.’
(120) 500 delegati di 20 nazioni sono convenuti a Roma.
‘500 delegates from 20 nations convened in Rome.’
Mancare:
(121) Il ministero ha mancato al suo dovere verso i cittadini.

‘The ministry has failed in its duty towards the citizens.’
(122) All’Europa è mancata l’Italia.
‘Europe has missed Italy.’
Fallire:
(123) Berlusconi ha fallito.

‘Berlusconi has failed.’
(124) Il progetto politico di Berlusconi è fallito.
‘Berlusconi’s political project has failed.’
Subregularities such as the above attach to specific verbs or groups of

verbs only, and thus contribute to the absence of any overall semantic
principle governing auxiliary selection.
5.6.4 State terms

At first glance, the earlier assumption that only achievement and
accomplishment terms occurred in the E + intransitive past participle
construction in early Romance appears to be at variance with fact that
E is assigned to a number of state verbs. This is observed commonly in
modern Italian (see Table 5.2 above), vestigially in modern French, and
was common across the Romance languages up until the end of the
medieval period. However, state verbs usually also have achievement
acceptations, and these typically are more common in contexts of
perfective aspect:
(125) La casa è rimasta al figlio. (Rimanere ‘remain’.)

‘The house went to the son.’
(126) All’ultimo momento sono mancati i soldi. (Mancare ‘be
missing’.)
‘At the last minute the money ran out.’
(127) È mancata l’acqua. (Mancare ‘be missing’.)
‘The water supply failed.’
It is suggested below that E assignment to many of the verbs in this

category became conventionalized at an early date, on the basis of the
achievement acceptations, which historically were even more closely
linked to the E + past participle construction than they are in the
modern languages. In other cases, the semanticism of the verb has
changed over time, with an earlier achievement spectrum of meanings
giving way to pure stativity. Some of the various possibilities are con-
sidered below.
5.6.4.1 Ambiguous state/achievement terms

As is well known, many state verbs are also achievement terms. For
example English understand can designate a certain state of the mind
or a momentary event that brings the state into existence (on this and
related points, see Vendler (1967, pp. 113–18). Where a verb has a dual
aspectuality of this kind, the state and achievement senses are always
linked by specific implicational relations. For example, sentence (128)
below, understood as stative, implies (129), understood as referring to
an achievement:
(128) I understand the theory.
(129) I have understood the theory.
The reverse implication can hold, but only under the perfect of result
(see beginning of 5.6). Thus (128) is implied by (129) qua perfect of
result but not qua experiential perfect. In the latter case, (129) indicates
merely that there is at least one occasion in the past when I have under-
stood the theory, and nothing is implied about the present moment
(compare I have understood the theory [that is, previously] but have since
forgotten).47
Discussions of verbs that can be both achievement terms and state
terms tend to focus on psychological verbs (understand, recognize, see
and so on) but the same duality of use applies to verbs like remain, for
example. This latter verb clearly has a state sense in sentences such as
(130) below:
(130) At this time he remains a suspect.
However, it has an achievement sense in sentences like (131):
(131) When the others were released, he remained in prison.
In the achievement use, the insertion of a duration phrase produces an

anomaly, which is unexpected if the verb is analysed as being stative:
(132) ?When the others were released, he remained in prison for six
months.
In order for there not to be any deviancy, the duration phrase must
construe with another verb, as in (133) below:
(133) When the others were released, he remained in prison, and he

stayed there for six months.
Notice also that the implicational relation identified between the

achievement and state senses of understand can also be observed with
remain. In particular, a sentence such as He has remained in prison entails
(under the perfect of result) the corresponding sentence He remains in
prison.
Several of the apparently stative verbs that are associated with aux-
iliary E in Romance can be assimilated to the remain pattern. Clearly
this is the case with some of the verbs that actually mean ‘remain’.
Thus Italian rimanere has an achievement occurrence in (134) and a
stative occurrence in (135):
(134) Molti emigrati sono poi tornati in Italia ma milioni sono rimasti
all’estero.
‘Many emigrants have since returned to Italy but millions have
remained abroad.’
(135) Rimangono all’estero ancora 3 milioni di vacanzieri italiani.

‘Three million Italian holidaymakers remain abroad.’
As regards (134), under the assumption that sono rimasti is a perfect of

result, the appropriate implicational relation obtains between milioni
sono rimasti all’estero and the corresponding state clause (136):
(136) Milioni rimangono all’estero.

‘Millions remain abroad.’
Note that not all ‘remain’ verbs can be assimilated to this pattern.
Spanish quedar, for example, is more robustly an achievement term.
Thus while it translates rimanere as used in (134) – han quedado en el
extranjero – it cannot do so when the use is as in (135)/(136): *quedan
en el extranjero.
Other verbs that fit the ‘remain’ pattern include Italian mancare ‘be
missing’ and avanzare ‘be left over’:
(137a) Manca l’acqua nelle case. (State)

‘There is no water supply in the houses.’
(137b) È mancata l’acqua nelle case. (Achievement)
‘The water supply in the houses has failed.’
(138a) Avanza della pasta. (State)
‘There is some pasta left over.’
(138b) È avanzata della pasta. (Achievement)
‘Some pasta has been left over.’
Here again we find the appropriate implicational relation. Thus, assum-

ing the perfect of result, the (b) sentences imply the (a) sentences.48
Plausibly, though less obviously, the same analysis can be extended
to the verbs piacere ‘please’ and parere ‘seem’. Thus if we again assume
the perfect of result, the stative (a) sentences below are implied by the
corresponding (b) sentences, and so the relation is analogous to that
which obtains between the (a) and (b) sentences for mancare and
avanzare:
(139a) Gli piace il dono.

‘He likes the gift.’
(139b) Gli è piacuto il dono.
‘He liked the gift.’
(140a) Mi pare una ragazza sensibile.
‘She seems a sensitive girl to me.’
(140b) Mi è parsa una ragazza sensibile.
‘She seemed a sensitive girl to me.’
Where a state–achievement ambiguity exists, the modern perfect is

not incompatible per se with the state sense. Thus in the examples
below, the occurrence of the duration phrases introduced by per indi-
cates that the verb is stative:
(141) In Guatemala sono rimasti per un mese.

‘In Guatemala they stayed for one month.’
(142) È mancata la luce per molte ore.
‘The power was off for many hours.’
(143) Per molto tempo è parso niente altro che un bel sogno.
‘For a long time it seemed nothing more than a beautiful
dream.’
However, an incompatibility with the state sense arises in the specific

instance of the perfect of result, because this necessarily calls for the
achievement sense. For example, if sentence (144) below is an instance
of the perfect of result (= ‘He remained in bed and is still there’), then
this particular occurrence of rimanere must be of the achievement
type:
(144) È rimasto a letto.

‘He remained in bed.’
This follows from the nature of the perfect of result, together with the
achievement–state implicational relation described earlier. With am-
biguous state–achievement verbs, the effect of the perfect of result is
to indicate that a state exists of the type designated by the verb under
its stative meaning, but only the achievement sense of the verb in ques-
tion brings such a state about.
It is widely assumed that, at first, the Romance perfect was primarily
a perfect of result.49 Other functions, for example, those associated with
the experiential perfect and the perfect of recent past, were typically
effected using the preterite, as in the earlier example (78), reproduced
below, and in the examples from note 36, reproduced below as (145) to
(147):
(78) Uscicci mai alcuno . . . ? (I IV, 49)

‘Has anyone ever left here?
(145) Yo, de que fu rrey, non fiz mas de dos cortes. (C 3129)
‘Since I became king I have convened only two sessions of the
Cortes.’
(146) Io vidi già cavalier muover campo. (I XXII, 1)
‘I have before now seen horsemen moving camp.’
(147) Lessiez ester et me dites se vos menjastes hui. (Q 106, 28)

‘Rest and tell me if you have eaten today.’
During the early phase, then, ambiguous state–achievement verbs such

as rimanere, mancare, avanzare and so on would normally occur in the
perfect only as achievement terms and rarely or never as state terms.
This would motivate the assignment of auxiliary E on a categorical or
near categorical basis. On the other hand, once the perfect had ceased
to be purely (or primarily) a perfect of result, there would be no barrier
to stative occurrences of such terms in the perfect. Under the analysis
proposed here, the assignment of E in these latter cases would be at
variance with the prevailing ‘inherited’ tendency to assign E only to
achievement and accomplishment terms.50 The fact that (in the modern
languages at least) E is assigned even in these unmotivated cases can
be attributed to the process of conventionalization alluded to in 5.6.3,
one possible outcome of which is the fi xing of a single auxiliary (in
this case E) for all acceptations of a given verb.51
In the particular case of the ‘remain’ verbs, which uniquely among
the state terms are associated with E both in Italian and French, an
early freezing into place of E assignment may have been assisted by the
previously common ‘cease’ type of meaning, which is attested across
the Romance languages:
(148) maguer era el planto e el duelo quedado (A [Paris ms.] 652a)

‘although the lamenting and mourning had ended/
quietened’
(149) poi que la voce fu restata e queta (I IV, 82)
‘after the voice had ceased and was still’
(150) Car li soleilz est remés en estant.52 (R 2459)
‘For the sun has come to a stop.’
5.6.4.2 Verbs that evolved through non-stative meanings

Verbs like occorrere and convenire exhibit an aspectual duality that if
anything is more striking than that exhibited by rimanere, mancare and
so on. In the case of occorrere, E assignment is obviously strongly moti-
vated in examples such as (151) below:
(151) È occorso un errore.

‘An error has occurred.’
The above ‘occur’ acceptation has always existed, with the stative ‘be
necessary’ acceptation perhaps developing from the formerly common
collocation of occorrere (in the ‘occur’ sense) with the deverbal noun
bisogno, as in sequences such as the example below:
(152) se un gran bisogno non mi fosse occorso (Mal 4, 55)

‘if a great need had not occurred’
The ‘occur’ sense is logically more compatible with the perfect of

result than is the ‘be necessary’ sense. Therefore a fi xed auxiliary
assignment could plausibly have arisen on the basis of the ‘occur’
sense.
Turning now to convenire, this verb retains at least two achievement
acceptations, as illustrated by the earlier examples (119) and (120),
reproduced below: 53
(119) Il Ministro ha convenuto sulla richiesta delle parti sociali.

‘The minister agreed to the demand of the unions and
management.’
(120) 500 delegati di 20 nazioni sono convenuti a Roma.

‘Five hundred delegates from twenty nations have convened
in Rome.’
Moreover, other achievement meanings were formerly common, in

particular the ‘occur necessarily’ sense illustrated below:
(153) El s’accese e arse, e cener tutto convenne che cascando divenisse.

(I XXIV 101–2)
‘He caught fire and burned and of necessity, falling, became
ash.’
As with occorrere, the achievement strand of meaning is commoner in

the perfect than is the stative sense (that is, ‘be advantageous’) and so,
once again, the assignment of auxiliary E could well reflect an early
conventionalization based on non-stative meanings.
5.6.4.3 Diachronic meaning shifts

A number of state verbs have undergone a significant change in their
associated semanticism. The verbs in question include bastare ‘suffice’,
importare ‘matter’ and stare ‘stay/stand’. Each of these appears to have
been primarily an achievement term at an earlier phase in the history
of Italian and thus the assignment of auxiliary E is perhaps best
explained as a relic of a previous situation.
(a) Bastare. This verb and its cognates in Spanish, Catalan and so on
were commonly used with achievement meanings that approximated
more to those of the etymon, viz. late Latin bastare ‘carry/endure’. As
regards Italian bastare, Corominas (1980–91) gives ‘durar’ [‘last’], ‘dar
de sí’ [‘last out’] and ‘alcanzar’ [‘reach’] as typical former acceptations.
The ‘last’ and ‘reach’ meanings would appear to be illustrated in the
examples below:
(154) Per grande spazio bastò il rovinìo delle pietre che cadevano giù.
(F 957, 29)
‘The destruction caused by the falling stones reached far and
wide.’
(155) In molte parti [la neve ghiacciata] bastò nella città piu di tre
mesi. (V 4, 65)
‘In many parts [the frozen snow] lasted more than three
months in the city.’
Note that the phrase piu di tre mesi in (155) is a durational complement
as opposed to a durational adjunct. In other words it is not asserted
that some state designated by [la neve ghiacciata] bastò endured for
more than three months. Rather, bastò . . . piu di tre mesi forms a
single achievement term indicating that a certain period, viz. that
during which snow was on the ground, exceeded a determinate
measure.
(b) Importare. In older forms of Italian this was more commonly used
in the achievement senses of ‘cost’ or ‘attain’:
(156) Il regalo . . . sarà importato intorno a duemila pezze. (FC 2,

153)
‘The present must have cost around two thousand pieces.’
(157) Ci’importava lo spazio di sessanta passi. (T 1, 218)
‘It attained a distance of sixty paces.’
Presumably the modern sense of ‘matter’ reflects (i) a generalization

away from the earlier financial/spatial acceptations, and (ii) suppres-
sion of the nominal complement.
(c) Stare. In addition to the ‘remain’ and ‘stand (up)’ meanings that
persist into modern Italian, stare formerly had a variety of meanings
related to the concepts of becoming still and not succumbing to exter-
nal actions:
(158) Non si potenno stare di piangere. (Sette 28)

‘They could not stop crying.’
(159) Né le campane stavan di suonare. (Cent 84, 17)
‘Even the bells didn’t stop ringing.’
(160) . . . il quale starà a tutte le pruove (Tra 52)
‘which will withstand all tests’
The ‘stop’ sense is also illustrated in cases such as the example below,
where presumably si stanno is an intransitive reflexive and stea is
transitive:
(161) Se i piè si stanno, non stea tuo sermone. (P XVII, 84)

‘If our feet are stayed, do not stay your speech.’
(As far as the task of identifying the motivation for E assignment is

concerned, reflexive intransitive constructions such as si stanno receive
an identical treatment to non-reflexive intransitive constructions – see
5.6.5 below.)
Note that stare and essere merge in the perfect, in that stare supplies
the past participle of essere. Thus it may be that the assignment of the
perfect auxiliary E to passives is simply a reflex of the assignment of
auxiliary E to stare, which according to the view developed here is his-
torically motivated, given the earlier predominance of achievement
acceptations in this verb’s meaning range.
(d) Esistere and appartenere. A similar account to that put forward for
bastare, importare and stare may be available for esistere ‘exist’ and
appartenere ‘belong to’, although early examples are somewhat incon-
clusive. The first of these verbs is a relatively late borrowing from Latin
and therefore is likely to have been used initially with the meaning
assigned to its Latin model exsistere. Now Latin exsistere was primarily
an achievement term meaning ‘appear/arise’, as in the example
below:
(162) Magna inter eos exsistit controversia. (Dicc 183)

‘An argument arose between them.’
Thus it is unlikely that Italian esistere (or indeed its cognates in other
languages) was always a state term. As regards appartenere, this, like its
Old French cognate apartenir, was formerly widely used in the achieve-
ment sense of ‘come to be close/linked to’. Plausibly this achievement
acceptation could have been significant in conditioning E assignment
at an early period.
5.6.4.4 Pseudo-state terms

Certain terms masquerade as state terms, but in fact are achievement
terms used either with habitual aspect or in a kind of historic present
construction. The latter case is illustrated by English turn out in a sen-
tence such as (163) below:
(163) It turns out that they are innocent.
While turn out is in may respects similar to the verb appear, the two
differ crucially in terms of their compatibility with duration phrases:
(164) For a few weeks it appeared/*turned out that that they were
innocent.
Assuming that duration phrases are possible with state terms but not
with achievement or accomplishment terms, turn out must belong to
one of the latter classes. Presumably it is not an accomplishment term
(compare *It took five years to turn out that . . .) and although one cannot
say, for example, *At that moment it turned out . . ., the event implied in
a formulation such as It later turned out that . . . can only be punctual.
Now an achievement term like turn out can also be used in habitual
sentences such as (165) below:
(165) It frequently turns out that he underperforms.
Notice that in the habitual sense it is possible to apply a duration

phrase, as in (166):
(166) For many years it frequently turned out that he

underperformed.
But this is not in itself significant, given that all achievement and
accomplishment terms become compatible with duration phrases when
used with habitual meaning:
(167) For six months he arrived on time every day
(168) For several decades she wrote a book every six months.
Several of the Italian E-selecting verbs are like English turn out.
In particular spettare ‘fall to’ patterns in a similar way. Standard
examples such as (169) below can be regarded as involving a kind of
historic present occurrence of the achievement sense illustrated in
(170):
(169) A Nicole spetta la parte da protagonista.

‘Nicole has the lead role.’
(170) A Nicole è spettata la parte da protagonista.

‘Nicole has been given the lead role.’
Like English turn out, spettare is incompatible with a duration phrase

unless it is used with habitual aspect, as in (171) below:
(171) Per anni il ruolo è sempre spettato a lui.

‘For years the role has always fallen to him.’
Risultare is analogous to spettare when it means ‘result/turn out’, as

in the example below:
(172) Il margine operativo è risultato negativo.

‘The operating profit has turned out to be negative.’
We can assume, then, that in the favoured sense both risultare and
spettare are achievement terms. With the weakened meaning of ‘be’,
however, risultare becomes fully compatible with duration phrases,
implying a stative aspectual classification:
(173) Per lungo tempo è risultato imbattibile.

‘For a long time it has been unbeatable.’
Therefore, as with many of the other verbs considered in this section,

it has to be assumed that auxiliary assignment at some point became
fi xed on the basis of the achievement sense. As in the other cases, the
preference is explicable because the perfect of result, which for cen-
turies was effectively the only perfect, is compatible with achievement
meanings but not with stative meanings.
5.6.4.5 Concluding remarks on state terms

The above brief survey of a number of E-selecting state terms points to
several plausible models whereby the auxiliary assignment can be
ascribed ultimately to an achievement meaning, following convention-
alization at an early period. The driving force in each case is the fact
that the perfect of result, which we take to be the basic use throughout
much of the Middle Ages, necessarily calls for non-stative (and indeed
non-activity) meanings.
Firstly, we have the ‘remain’ type of verb, which is systematically
ambiguous between an achievement sense and a state sense. With the
latter being ruled out in the perfect of result, categorical assignment of
auxiliary E at an early period is well motivated. The modern state of
affairs would then follow under the assumption that this categoricity
persisted even when other uses of the perfect began to be common-
place. A similar model can be advanced for verbs like convenire and
occorrere, although in this case the relevant state and achievement
meanings are rather sharply differentiated from each other. As regards
verbs such as stare and bastare, diachronic semantic development

appears to obscure an earlier achievement-centered semanticism. Con-
ventionalization based on these core meanings would then produce the
modern situation. Finally, the verb risultare can be viewed primarily as
an achievement term which, through semantic weakening, acquires the
value of a stative copula. Here again the achievement meaning can
plausibly be regarded as driving categorical E assignment.
5.6.5 Reflexive constructions

Turning now to reflexive constructions, the pattern of auxiliary assign-
ment here appears to have been driven by the dominant intransitive
reflexive construction, which arose as a by-product of the disintegra-
tion of the Latin passive morphology. As Brambilla Ageno (1964:200)
points out, in late Latin the reflexive came to be used with ‘i verbi
esprimenti un’azione alle quale il soggetto non partecipava ma che
subiva soltanto, e il cui agente rimaneva affatto indeterminato’.54 In
Classical Latin these verbs exhibit the non-passive use of the ‘passive’
morphology, as in the example below:
(174) Aqua conclusa facile corrumpitur. (Dicc A25)

‘Stagnant water quickly goes bad.’
Here the ‘passive’ third-person singular suffi x -itur applied to the

otherwise transitive corrumpere ‘corrupt/adulterate’ indicates that the
subject acqua has theme q -role, but not in the sense that it is affected
by an agent. Corrumpitur in this instance can be regarded as a kind of
‘intransitive passive’,55 in the way that the corresponding sentence in
modern Spanish, for example, involves an ‘intransitive reflexive’:
(175) El agua estancada se corrompe fácilmente.

‘Stagnant water quickly goes bad.’
Thus the actual historical process whereby the reflexive pronoun was
substituted for the passive morphology can to a large extent be regarded
as a superficial phenomenon that did not alter the nature of the
construction.
The Latin ‘intransitive passive’ or middle voice formed its perfect in
an identical fashion to the true passive, that is, it used a periphrastic
construction involving esse and the past participle of the relevant verb.
This pattern persisted even when the passive morphology gave way to
the reflexive pronoun. However, as mentioned in relation to the earlier
examples (96) to (101), it was not until centuries later that the reflexive
pronoun began to be used with the past participle. Thus the history
of the perfect of the intransitive reflexives can be assimilated to that
of the non-reflexive E-selecting intransitives discussed in 5.6.1, with
apparently the same initial semantic constraint being in force (cap-
ability to denote a resultant state). Numerous examples from the
early modern corpus confirm this parallel semanticism. Brambilla
Ageno (1964, pp. 201–9) provides a copious supply of instances from
old Italian:
(176) Per tutti i Cristiani è sparta questa malattia. (Verb: spargersi)

(TF 119, 20–1)
‘This sickness has/is spread among all the Christians.’
(177) Egli ne era fatto ricchissimo. (Verb: farsi) (D 7, 7, 4)

‘As a consequence he had become very rich.’
(178) la nebbia che era levata in quel padule (Verb: levarsi) (Trec 48,
18)
‘the mist that had risen up in that marsh’
And many similar examples are forthcoming from Old French and Old
Spanish too.
In some cases, purely intransitive verbs also became reflexive in
Romance or late Latin, giving rise to the Romance ‘inherent reflexives’.
As with the verbs just considered, the associated semanticism appears
to have been identical to that of the non-reflexive E-selecting
intransitives:
(179) Ed i miei prossimi son ribellati. (Verb: ribellarsi) (L 67, 46)

‘Those close to me have rebelled/are in rebellion.’
Thus the history of the inherent reflexives can also be assimilated to

that of the non-reflexive E-selecting intransitives.
The penultimate piece of the jigsaw involves the attraction of the
transitive reflexives to the E-selecting paradigm. These are not in
general attested in early Romance in the E + past participle periphrasis,
presumably because E + transitive past participle normally had a passive
interpretation,56 as in the following (relatively late) Italian examples
(from Brambilla Ageno 1964, p. 190):
(180) Forse m’è costei mandata da Dio. (D 3, 9, 18)

‘Perhaps she has been sent to me by God.’
(181) Ricorditi del bene che t’è fatto. (Cres 66, 46–7)
‘Remember the good that has been done to you.’
(182) Non so se v’è contato che . . . (Po 2, 49–50)
‘I don’t know if it has been told to you that . . .’
An analogous situation existed in French, Spanish and so forth (see

Pountain 1985).
Once the above passive pattern had been replaced by the more
modern perfect passive patterns such as Italian essere stato + past par-
ticiple and French avoir été + past participle, the assimilation of the
transitive reflexives to the intransitive reflexive pattern of perfect for-
mation could proceed unchecked, and this is presumably what hap-
pened (see Vincent 1982, pp. 94–6, for a partially similar account).
5.6.6 Impersonal si
According to Burzio (1986, p. 43), the clitic si has an impersonal occur-
rence in any of the following construction types:
(183) Gli si telefona spesso.

‘One phones him often.’
(184) Si leggerà volentieri alcuni articoli.
‘One will read eagerly a few articles.’
(185) Alcuni articoli si leggeranno volentieri.
‘A few articles will be read eagerly.’
(186) Si leggeranno volentieri alcuni articoli.
‘A few articles will be read eagerly.’
Historically speaking, the patterns illustrated by (185) and (186) have

an identical origin to the intransitive reflexives discussed in 5.6.5. The
theoretical division that separates (185) and (186) from intransitive
reflexives such as (187) below is purely a function of modern grammati-
cal analysis:
(187) Il vetro si rompe.

‘The glass breaks.’
Accordingly, the assignment of auxiliary essere to the impersonal si

constructions illustrated by (185) and (186) can receive exactly the
same explanation as the assignment of essere to the intransitive
reflexives.
The use of si illustrated by sentences (183) and (184), like the analo-
gous use of Spanish se, is generally regarded as the outcome of a rela-
tively recent development, whereby the reflexive pronoun in cases such
as (186) was reanalysed as a subject clitic. Alternatively, it may be that
the usage has always existed, given that Classical Latin offers numerous
precedents (for the (183) type of pattern, at least), assuming the Clas-
sical Latin ‘passive’ suffi xes correspond in these cases to reflexive pro-
nouns in late Latin or Romance:
(188) Ab hora tertia bibebatur. (Dicc A25)

‘One had been drinking since three o’clock.’
(189) Legendo discitur. (Dicc A34)
‘By reading one learns.’
Under either view, the construction illustrated by (183) and (184) was
at the very least uncommon until the end of the Middle Ages, and so
attraction to the highly productive intransitive reflexive pattern of
perfect formation is entirely unsurprising.
5.7 Conclusion
We saw in the first part of this chapter that the mere fact that some
intransitives select perfect auxiliary E, and in so doing pattern with
passives and reflexives, does not in itself motivate the assumption that
the subjects of such verbs are deep objects. Burzio (and to a lesser extent
Cocchi) attempted to identify a property that was common to all of
these constructions under the assumption that unaccusative subjects
were generated in object position, but the blindness of auxiliary selec-
tion to whether the subject is preverbal or postverbal constitutes an
insuperable obstacle to that enterprise. The remaining theories are
essentially stipulative, in that they do no more than state – albeit
within a certain theoretical architecture – that unaccusative verbs
select E and unergatives select A.
Possibly the stipulative nature of the latter theories could be over-
looked if other unaccusative diagnostics defined classes that were iso-
morphic to the E-selecting class. But the lesson of Chapters 2 to 4 of

this book, as well as Chapters 6 and 7 to come, is that such isomor-
phism is notably absent, both within particular languages and (a
fortiori) from the cross-linguistic perspective. Moreover, there are plau-
sible explanations, unreliant on any underlying syntactic analysis, for
even the limited degree of convergence noted in the literature.
The insistence, then, that auxiliary selection can be explained in
terms of the Ergative Analysis or the Unaccusative Hypothesis is some-
what baffling. At best, such approaches simply relabel a problematic
area of empirical description. At worst they are a barrier to a genuinely
explanatory analysis of the various factors in play.
Nevertheless, the view that auxiliary selection can be accounted for
in terms of a semantic generalization is also problematic. Clearly, aspect
is the crucial semantic parameter in Romance, but in a significant
minority of cases auxiliary assignment appears to ignore aspectual
distinctions assumed to be criterial.
By a process of elimination, then, it was surmised that no general
synchronic principle governs auxiliary selection. In French it seems
fair to say that auxiliary selection is lexically conditioned in the
(non-reflexive) intransitive class. For example, faced with the two verbs
apparaître ‘appear’ and disparaître ‘disappear’, no non-stipulative prin-
ciple can predict that the former is assigned E and the latter A. The
situation in Italian is rather less straightforward, in that both lexical
and semantic conditioning appear to co-exist, and the latter is partly
fragmented into a range of subregularities. However, the view advanced
in this chapter was that this complex and unordered situation could in
principle result from the uneven effects of linguistic change upon a
once transparent system.
Thus it was argued that a window is likely to have existed in late
Latin or early Romance for the creation of just such a system, with the
erstwhile deponent/passive perfect auxiliary recycling itself as a copula.
While no direct confirmation of such a development can in principle
be forthcoming, given that the early examples never unambiguously
call for a single analysis, the treatment of the embryonic ‘perfect
auxiliary’ E as a copula is supported by the high frequency of the
resultant-state type of meaning during the Middle Ages, together with
the otherwise mysterious distribution of the preterite and the imperfect
within the E + past participle construction and the adjective-like nature
of the past participle of reflexive verbs.
Assuming the correctness of the copular analysis, the aspectual con-
straints that are imperfectly manifested in the modern distribution of
the E and A auxiliaries are immediately accounted for. The copular

analysis implies that, at the initial stage (late Latin/early Romance) only
achievement and accomplishment terms could occur in the E + past
participle construction. At this stage, then, the semantic principle
underlying E assignment can be assumed to have been completely
transparent. The modern, fragmented, situation can then be derived
by assuming a process of conventionalization, whereby specific au
xiliary assignments became categorically associated with specific verbs
or with specific strands of meaning within the overall semanticism of
given verbs, without the emergence of any general organizing
principle.
It was argued that stative verbs were a case in point, given that E
assignment to states is unmotivated under the analysis just sketched.
It was shown that many state terms are in fact systematically ambigu-
ous between state and achievement senses, while others formerly had
achievement senses that have now been lost. Therefore, in view of the
systematic exclusion of stative verbs from the perfect of result, widely
assumed to have been the primary instantiation of the perfect in the
Middle Ages, E assignment to the verbs in question is at first strongly
motivated. Plausibly, then, E assignment to state terms in the modern
era can be regarded as the outcome of a process of conventionalization,
whereby an initially motivated pattern of assignment ceased to be
sensitive to relevant semantic distinctions, and the auxiliary came to
be assigned on a lexical (or quasi-lexical) basis.
As regards reflexives and the related impersonal si construction, it
was argued that the intransitive reflexives, descended from the Latin
middles, had an analogous semanticism to the E-selecting non-reflexive
intransitives and that this accounted for their occurrence in the E +
past participle construction. E assignment to transitive reflexives and
the impersonal si construction can then be viewed as the outcome of
the familiar process of attraction.
To sum up, then, the modern distribution of the perfect auxiliaries
appears to reflect the operation of a number of long-term historical
processes. While these have not entirely obliterated the original seman-
tic basis for auxiliary assignment, they have created a degree of arbi-
trariness within the modern situation that will always resist analysis
in terms of a finite set of general principles. Accordingly, any strictly
synchronic theory will always be incomplete from the explanatory
point of view.
6
Past Participle Agreement
6.1 The basic patterns
Past participle agreement phenomena are widespread in Romance.

Although the picture is somewhat fragmented when all the various
Romance dialects are taken into consideration,1 certain basic trends are
readily observable across the standard languages, and it is these that
have provided the essential data feeding into the participle agreement
diagnostic for unaccusativity.
We can note first of all that participle agreement in the perfect is
typically impoverished or completely absent in those languages that
have lost perfect auxiliary E.2 In Spanish, for example, which now has
only the A auxiliary, the past participle is invariable in the perfect:
(1) María ha salido.

‘María has gone out.’
(2) Las hemos comprado.

‘We have bought them.’
In contrast, Italian and French, which both retain the E auxiliary, show
participle agreement in the perfect in broadly similar circumstances.
These are as follows:
With E-selecting intransitives (including intransitive reflexives):
(3) Maria è uscita. (It.)

‘Maria has gone out.’
(4) La sala si è svuotata. (It.)

‘The hall emptied.’
162
Past Participle Agreement 163
(5) Marie est sortie. (Fr.)

‘Marie has gone out.’
(6) La porte s’est ouverte. (Fr.)
‘The door opened.’
With transitive reflexive constructions (including reciprocals):
(7) La tigre si è leccata. (It.)

(8) Les soldats se sont tués. (Fr.)
‘The soldiers killed each other.’
With direct object cliticization: 3
(9) Giovanni la ha accusata. (It.)

‘Giovanni has accused her.’
(10) Je les ai achetés. (Fr.)
‘I have bought them.’
A language like Catalan occupies an intermediate position in terms

of the two poles established by the Italian/French pattern and the
Spanish pattern, in that while it has lost the E auxiliary (in standard
varieties at least) it retains optional agreement under direct object cliti-
cization, but only in the third person: 4
(11) L’havia comprada feia uns anys.

‘He had bought it some years previously.’
Unlike perfect-related participle agreement, passive-related participle

agreement occurs uniformly, regardless of whether E has been retained
as a perfect auxiliary:
(12) Due persone furono ferite. (It.)

‘Two people were injured.’
(13) Dos personas fueron heridas. (Sp.)
(14) Dues persones van ser ferides. (Cat.)

6.2 Agreement by movement
Under widely (though not universally) held assumptions, the subjects

in (3) to (6) and (12) to (14), as well as the clitics in (7) to (11), are
analysed as having moved from the direct object position (that is, the
structural position in which the direct object originates or externally
‘merges’).5 Superficially at least, this suggests that participle agreement
is in some sense connected to direct object movement (although the
absence of participle agreement in the Spanish examples (1) and (2)
would immediately imply a degree of cross-linguistic variation in this
regard). Moreover, such a view is reinforced by the possibility in French
of participle agreement in the perfect being triggered by wh-movement,
again from direct object position:
(15) Voilà les sottises que Jean n’aurait jamais faites. (Belletti 2001,
2.2)
‘These are the stupid things that Jean would never have
done.’
An early approximation to the perspective just sketched is enshrined

in Burzio’s (1986:56) pioneering account of participle agreement in the
Italian perfect. There a binding relation is posited between the item
triggering agreement and the direct object position. Thus the participle
agreement manifested in the case of E-selecting intransitives, assumed
to be unaccusative, was claimed to result from a binding relation estab-
lished between the subject and its trace (located, by hypothesis, in
direct object position), while the agreement manifested in the cases of
transitive reflexives and constructions involving (non-reflexive) direct
object clitics was claimed to result from a binding relation between the
clitic and an empty category in direct object position.6
Later approaches, essentially starting with Kayne (1989) have
attempted to establish a symmetry between participle agreement and
subject–verb agreement. Given that the latter has, until recently at least,
been assumed to be the reflex of a spec–head relation established inside
a ‘high’ subject agreement projection, authors such as Belletti (2001)
have claimed that past participle agreement is obtained through a
spec–head relation in a ‘low’ participle agreement projection. Assuming
the direct object has access to the specifier of this projection, the
pattern of apparently direct object-triggered participle agreement dis-
cussed above is thus naturally derived. The impossibility of agreement
between the subject and the participle when the auxiliary is A is also
derived, under the further assumption that the participle agreement

projection is located lower than the base position of the subject of A-
selecting verbs.
Both the Burzio-style analysis in terms of a binding relation and the
Belletti-style analysis in terms of a spec–head relation clearly require
the subject of an unaccusative to be generated in a low position, by
hypothesis the direct object position. Therefore, if either of those ana-
lytical approaches is correct, so too is the ergative analysis of unaccusa-
tive verbs. From that perspective, past participle agreement phenomena
can be seen as providing indirect support for the latter analysis.
6.3 The problem of postverbal subjects
However, while the unified perspective offered by the approaches dis-

cussed in 6.2 has a certain attraction, it is arguable that this apparent
unity conceals a major flaw. This relates to the case in which the subject
is postverbal and the auxiliary is E.7 Notice first that the participle sys-
tematically agrees with the subject in this type of case:
(16) Sono arrivate/*arrivato molte lettere. (It.)

‘Many letters have arrived.’
(17) Le silence se fit. Alors sont entrés/*entré deux hommes.8 (Fr.)
‘There was silence. Then two men entered.’
In Burzio’s original account (1986, pp. 98–9), the above pattern of

participle agreement was claimed to be triggered by a binding relation
between a null expletive in the preverbal subject position and the
postverbal subject. However, as detailed in 5.2, an expletive–associate
binding relation of this sort is unmotivated within current theoretical
frameworks and in any case has always been at variance with the prin-
ciples of binding theory. In more recent accounts, where object move-
ment is identified as the trigger for participle agreement, the problem
posed by cases such as (16) and (17) is if anything more acute. This is
because, under most standard analyses, the subjects of such sentences
are licensed in situ and undergo no movement. In Belletti’s partitive/
inherent case framework, this hypothesis is implemented by assuming
that a VP-internal case position is systematically available for indefinite
unaccusative subjects (see Belletti 1999, p. 34). Alternatively, in theories
in which postverbal unaccusative subjects are assumed to have nomi-
native case, they naturally fall within the scope of the ‘long-distance
agreement’ analytical paradigm associated prototypically with English-

style expletive associates. Within Chomsky’s probe-goal version of this
approach, c-command is taken to be a sufficient configurational condi-
tion for a (feature-checking) agreement relation to be established.
Accordingly, an expletive associate (hence, by implication, a postverbal
unaccusative subject also) is licensed in its (external) merge site, through
agreement with the abstract T(ense) constituent, which c-commands it
(see Chomsky 2000, p. 123).
We see, then, that while movement of the agreement-determining
item is a prerequisite for past participle agreement according to the
agreement-by-movement theory, cases such as (16) and (17) show that
such agreement can occur even when mainstream theory implies that
no relevant movement has taken place. Moreover, analogous difficulties
presumably affect postverbal passive subjects also. Here too the auxil-
iary is E and here too the past participle systematically agrees with the
subject. If the subject is in situ, no such agreement is expected under
the agreement-by-movement theory.
(18) Furono catturati/*catturato quattro presunti membri dell’Eta.

(It.)
‘Four suspected members of ETA were captured.’
(19) Han sido demolidas/*demolido tres casas. (Sp.)
‘Three houses have been demolished.’
The unexpected pattern of subject–participle agreement illustrated

by (16) to (19) contrasts rather starkly with the notable absence of
object–participle agreement in cases such as the following: 9
(20) Hanno arrestato/*arrestate due persone. (It.)

‘They have arrested two people.’
(21) Ils ont fait/*faites des recherches. (Fr.)
‘They have done some research.’
In some respects, participle agreement here might seem to be more

likely (under the agreement-by-movement theory) than in the type of
case illustrated by (16) to (19). A number of frameworks assume move-
ment of a direct object out of its base position to a case-checking
position in which accusative case can be licensed. Now some authors at
least assume this position to be relatively high. Thus Bennis (2004, pp.
86–7) identifies it with the outer specifier of vp, while Belletti (2004)
assumes it to be above the position in which postverbal unergative/tran-

sitive subjects are licensed,10 implying that it would be above vp in a
vp-shell type of analysis. On the other hand, according to Belletti
(2001), the participle agreement projection (responsible for agreement
on the past participle) is relatively low, below the base position of an
unergative/transitive subject. Taken together, assumptions such as these
imply that the case-checking position for a direct object is in fact above
the agreement projection responsible for past participle agreement
(although see Richards (1998, p. 624) for the reverse hypothesis). Accord-
ingly, these assumptions might well be taken to imply that a full direct
object such as those shown in (20) and (21) has the capability to pass
through the participle agreement projection (and hence trigger past
participle agreement) on the way to its case-checking position.
Speaking more generally, we can note that both the agreement-by-
movement theory of past participle agreement and Burzio’s original
formulation in terms of binding represent attempts to assimilate various
superficially distinct participle agreement patterns to a single underly-
ing mechanism. However, the implication of the foregoing discussion
is that the theoretical mechanisms enshrined in these approaches
appear, in a significant subset of cases, to be irrelevant to the observable
agreement phenomena. The most telling case is that in which there is
systematic agreement between the subject and the participle whenever
the auxiliary is E. Such agreement is manifestly blind as to whether the
subject is preverbal or postverbal, whereas both the agreement-by-
movement theory and Burzio’s theory can only predict agreement with
any plausibility when the subject is preverbal.
In fact, from the synchronic perspective, there would appear to be
two irreconcilable systems of past participle agreement. On the one
hand, we have the case in which the participle agrees only with items
that by hypothesis have moved (that is, clitics and wh-words), and on
the other hand, we have the case in which the participle agrees with
items regardless of whether they have moved (that is, subjects). Given
this fundamental fault line cutting across the distribution of past par-
ticiple agreement, no single principle can be expected to have general
applicability. Now if this is the case, the participle agreement phenom-
ena cease to count as evidence for the ergative analysis of unaccusative
verbs. The view that such phenomena were evidence for that analysis
was based on the argument that a unified account of past participle
agreement could only be achieved under the assumption that the sub-
jects of E-selecting intransitives are ‘deep’ objects. However, it turns out
that no unified account can be given even if that assumption is accepted.
I conclude, then, that past participle agreement phenomena do not

motivate the ergative analysis of unaccusative verbs.11
6.4 Fragmentation of the system
The major finding of the previous section is that participle agreement

phenomena in Romance do not constitute a unified system. Such a
conclusion might seem to be in some sense ‘untidy’, but there is no
obvious benefit from positing generalizations that do not in reality
correspond to the observable facts. Moreover, as with the distribution
of the perfect auxiliaries discussed in Chapter 5, the modern frag-
mented state of affairs can plausibly be argued to stem historically from
a genuinely unified pattern.
This unity results in part from the trivalent functionality of the late
Latin or early Romance E + past participle construction, which could
be related to a non-reflexive intransitive (mortuus est ‘has died’), to a
reflexive intransitive (dissolutus est ‘has dissolved’, from reflexive se
dissolvere), or to a passive (factus est ‘is done/has been done’).12 In each
case the E verb can be analysed as a copula selecting a participial small
clause, out of which the argument of the participle may or may not
raise to the high preverbal subject position. The latter optionality is
apparent in comparable constructions in modern Romance, such as the
Spanish estar + past participle construction:
(22) Está [ SC hecha la cama.]

‘The bed is made.’
(23) La cama está [ SC hecha].
‘The bed is made.’
Now as discussed in 5.6.1, the A + past participle construction ini-

tially receives a similar analysis, with the difference that the participle’s
argument is never required to raise out of the small clause. This can be
illustrated with the following Latin example from Cicero, cited in
Vincent (1982) p. 82, where pecunias magnas remains within the small
clause:
(24) [ SC In ea provincia pecunias magnas collocatas] habent.

‘They have much money invested in that province.’
A single rule of past participle agreement can then be seen to govern

all of the possible cases at this early stage. We simply assume that the
participle agrees with its argument.13 This entails that the participle
will agree with the object of the finite verb when this is A and with
the subject of the finite verb when this is E (the latter may occupy either
a high preverbal position or remain in the small clause). The A type of
agreement is illustrated by collocatas in (24) above, while the E type is
illustrated by migrati in the sequence below, extracted from a medieval
Latin example (Menéndez Pidal 1926, p. 33):
(25) migrati sunt de hoc sec(u)lo a sa(n)cta Maria

‘[they] have gone from this world to saint Mary’
This system persisted into Romance and is well-documented in the

standard philological works. The important point from the current
perspective is the pattern of erosion of this system, which gives rise to
the modern fragmented situation.
In fact, the erosion affects primarily the A type of agreement, given
that the E type survives largely intact in the modern languages, modulo
(i) the reanalysis of E as a perfect auxiliary and (ii) the loss of this
auxiliary in some languages.14 Presumably the robustness of the E type
of agreement results from the powerful analogy exercised by the agree-
ment pattern in standard adjectival small clause complements of E (for
example, Maria è malata ‘Maria is ill’). The retrenchment of the A type
of agreement is a natural concomitant of the grammaticalization of A
+ past participle as an exponent of the perfect, under which the A verb
was reanalysed as an auxiliary (as opposed to a full verb, as in (24)
above).
The modern pattern of A-type agreement in Italian, French, Catalan
and so forth, whereby agreement tends to occur when the direct object
occupies a relatively high position, appears to represent an intermediate
stage in the historical trajectory towards eventual elimination. This is
suggested by the fact that languages in which the A type of agreement
has been completely lost typically pass through a stage at which
such agreement is largely confined to cases involving ‘high’ objects.
For example, while agreement under A occurs only inconsistently in
the medieval Spanish corpus, a higher level of consistency is apparent
under topicalization, cliticization or relativization of the direct object,
all of which processes involve placing the agreement-triggering nominal
to the left of the auxiliary:
(26) Una tienda á dexada (C 582)

‘One tent he has left.’
(27) El agua nos an vedada. (C 667)

‘The water they have cut off.’
(28) Los de Valençia çercados nos han. (C 1119)
‘The people of Valencia have surrounded us.’
(29) Tierras de Borriana todas conquistas las ha. (C 1093)
‘The lands of Burriana he has conquered.’
(30) aquéllas que avién dexadas (C 929)
‘those they had left behind’
(31) la ganançia que han fecha (C 1084)
‘the booty they have made’
Presumably, when the direct object is ‘high’ this obscures the re-
analysis of the A verb as perfect auxiliary, thus braking the historical
process towards the complete elimination of A-type agreement. In
languages like Spanish and Portuguese this process reached completion
at a comparatively early period. For Italian, French, Catalan and so on,
it has to be assumed that the high object pattern of agreement was
sufficiently robust to withstand the general eliminatory pressure. In
the modern languages, maintenance of vestigial A-type agreement is
assisted by standardization. Note in particular the normative French
rule of ‘the preceding direct object’, which according to Togeby (1974,
p. 189) can be attributed to a single individual, the sixteenth century
poet Marot, himself apparently inspired by Italian formulations such
as Dio noi a fatti ‘God has made us’.15
Thus the rather untidy modern situation concerning past participle
agreement can receive a natural explanation in terms of the operation
of long-term processes of linguistic change upon an initially simple
system. Where these processes have reached a natural terminus, as in
Spanish and Portuguese, participle agreement has reacquired the
transparency of the early Romance system. Where these processes are
only partially complete, as in most of the other Romance languages,
participle agreement becomes inconsistent and often optional, both
classic symptoms of a system in transition.
6.5 Conclusion
The adoption of the deep-object analysis of unaccusative subjects

enables a superficial unity to be imposed on the otherwise fragmented
system of Romance past participle agreement. Under this analysis, all
participle agreement is object-related and is triggered by movement of

the object through a relevant agreement projection. The problem for
this approach is that agreement in many cases occurs regardless of
whether movement can be claimed to have occurred. This suggests that
the agreement-by-movement analysis is essentially incorrect.
The view adopted here is that the modern situation is irreducibly
split, although this has not always been the case. Plausibly it can be
assumed that past participle agreement originally followed a maximally
simple principle, whereby the participle agreed with its argument in
the participial small clause. Given the availability of raising-to-subject
with E but not A, this in effect entailed subject–participle agreement
in the case of the former and object–participle agreement in the case
of the latter.
Reanalysis of the E and A verbs as perfect auxiliaries might well have
been predicted to eliminate perfect-related participle agreement alto-
gether. However, presumably on account of analogical pressure exer-
cised by passives and copular constructions, assisted no doubt in the
modern era by the forces of standardization, the E type of agreement
pattern has remained largely intact. In contrast, the erosion of the A
type has been far reaching.
The scattered and rather inconsistent examples of A-type agreement
that are observable in the contemporary languages appear to bear some
similarity to patterns that existed in medieval Ibero-Romance prior to
complete elimination of this type, with agreement proving most
robust in relation to ‘high’ objects. Plausibly, then, the current situation
as regards A in languages like French, Catalan and Italian represents
merely one synchronic phase within a long-term diachronic process of
change.
7
Participial Absolutes
7.1 The basic data
The participial absolute diagnostic for unaccusativity relates to a subset

of small clause-type constructions involving past participles. The
context that apparently discriminates between unaccusatives and uner-
gatives is that in which the past participle co-occurs and agrees with a
lexical subject in the same clause. The illustrations below are from
Spanish and Italian:
(1) Salidos los padres jesuitas, Colombia prometió a Ecuador ‘una

paz permanente’.
‘With the Jesuit Fathers having left, Colombia promised
Ecuador “a permanent peace”.’
(2) *Jugados los niños, el césped estaba muy deterioriado.
‘The children having played, the lawn was in a bad
condition.’
(3) Appena uscita la nuova versione mi sono catapultato ad
acquistarla.
‘Hardly had the new version come out, I rushed to buy it.’
(4) *Telefonata Maria, Gianni andò all’ appuntamento.

‘Maria having phoned, Gianni went to his appointment.’
Perlmutter (1989) originally implied (in respect of Italian) that uner-

gatives could not occur at all in participial absolutes. However, as rec-
ognized by Dini (1994) and Loporcaro (2003), they are not in principle
excluded when there is no overt subject within the participial
clause:1
172
Participial Absolutes 173
(5) Telefonato a Gianni, Mariai uscì di casa. (Belletti 1992, p. 44)

‘Having phoned Gianni, Maria left the house.’
(6) Vendemmiato, i contadini lasciarono il paese. (Loporcaro 2003,
p. 214)
‘Having harvested, the farmers left the town.’
(7) Bussato alla porta, Gianni entrò. (Loporcaro 2003, p. 220)

‘Having knocked at the door, Gianni went in.’
A similar possibility exists in other Romance languages such as

Spanish and Catalan:
(8) Una vez concursado se marchan sin quedarse a aplaudir a los

de la categoría abierta.
‘Once they’ve competed, they leave and don’t stay around to
applaud contestants in the open category.’
(9) El green haurà de ser inmediatament abandonat una vegada

jugat.2
‘The green must be vacated immediately after playing.’
Thus the participial absolutes diagnostic for unaccusativity reduces to

the claim that overt unergative subjects cannot occur in participial
absolutes. In fact, I will show below that in some cases they can and that
the apparently impossible pattern illustrated by (2) and (4) is not impos-
sible for all unergative verbs. However, before looking at the relevant
data, I think it can be argued that there is no theoretical reason for assum-
ing unergative subjects to be excluded from participial clauses.
7.2 Structural analyses of participial absolutes
Within the Relational Grammar framework, as exemplified by Perlmut-

ter (1989) and Loporcaro (2003) the assumed exclusion of unergative
subjects is derived by stipulating that the nominal in a participial
absolute must be an initial 2, that is, a ‘deep’ direct object. Presumably,
the correctness or otherwise of this stipulation is essentially an empiri-
cal matter, and so does not motivate in a theoretical sense the exclusion
in question.
Within Generative Grammar, the emphasis has been on deriving the
exclusion from general principles. Within that framework there appear
to be two basic mechanisms for securing it.
7.2.1 Blocking subject q -role

Firstly, Burzio (1986, pp. 151–2, 191) and others have argued that the
past participle morphology prevents the licensing of subject q -role in
perfective participle constructions, as is assumed to happen in passive
constructions.3 This implies, assuming that subject q -role is the only
possibility for the subject of an unergative, that a participial clause based
on an unergative could not in principle have a subject. Such a state of
affairs would rule out cases such as (2) and (4), but not cases such as (1)
and (3), where by hypothesis the subject has object q -role.4
Note, however, that the kind of structure illustrated by (5) to (8)
would also be ruled out, given that the control relation exhibited by
the matrix subject implies the existence of a covert PRO subject within
the clause. It was precisely on these grounds that Burzio (1986:151, 190)
ruled out the possibility of unergatives in participial reduced relatives.
Thus he attributed the deviancy of the example below to the inability
of unergative applied to license subject q -role, which meant that no PRO
subject could be available within the participial clause for control by
the matrix subject a student:
(10) *A student [ SC applied to the program] arrived yesterday. (Burzio

1986, p. 190)
Given the general recognition that structures such as (5) to (9) are in
fact possible, the subject q role-suppression analysis of perfective past
participles immediately looks suspect.
It looks even more so in the light of two other types of data. Firstly,
it appears that transitive verbs in Italian can have active (that is, non-
passive) occurrences in participial clauses, as indicated by the overt
accusative case on me in the example below:
(11) Conosciuta me, hai cominciato ad apprezzare il mare. (Belletti

1992, p. 32)
‘Having met me, you started liking the seaside.’
Secondly, at least some unergative past participles appear to be pos-

sible in secondary predicate-type constructions, as illustrated below:
(12) Anzi avevo imparato la sottile arte di presentarmi alle cene già
cenata.
‘In fact I had learned the subtle art of appearing at dinners
already having dined.’
(13) O ci andate già mangiati, solo per vedere la partita . . . oppure

è meglio stare alla larga.
‘You either go there having already eaten, just to watch the
match . . . otherwise it’s best to stay away.’
Belletti analyses sentences such as (11) as control structures, with a PRO

subject inside the participial clause. If that analysis is correct, it confirms
that subject q -role can be licensed in the presence of past participle
morphology. The participial clauses in (12) and (13) might in principle
receive a similar type of analysis, that is, as involving a PRO subject, or
they could be analysed as involving externalization of the subject as is
often assumed in copular constructions. Either way, a conclusion to the
effect that subject q -role is licensed appears to be unavoidable.
Thus there are several cases that appear to falsify the assumption that
perfective participles cannot license subject q -role. Accordingly, no the-
oretical exclusion of unergative subjects from participial absolutes based
on that assumption need be regarded as compelling.
7.2.2 Failures of case

The second of the two theoretical devices for securing the exclusion in
question stems from Belletti’s (1990, 1992) study of agreement and case
in Italian past participle clauses. In broad terms, she envisaged two
possible types of structure for such clauses, one consisting in an agree-
ment phrase of the sort posited in accounts of past participle agreement
and one constituting a full CP (complementizer phrase). The primary
exemplar of the first pattern was the active transitive clause, illustrated
by Salutata Maria in (14) below: 5
(14) [AGRP PROi Salutataj t j Maria], Giannii se ne andò.

‘Having greeted Maria, Gianni left.’
In this type of case, Belletti assumed a covert PRO subject in the spec-
AgrP position, with the past participle in the Agr position (after verb
raising), and the object in its original position as complement of the
verb.
The CP paradigm is instantiated by unaccusative clauses, as in (15)
below:
(15) [ CP Arrivatai [AGRP Mariaj ti t j ]], Gianni tirò un sospiro di

sollievo.
‘Maria having arrived, Gianni gave a sigh of relief.’
Belletti analysed the unaccusative subject as raising to the spec-AgrP

position and the past participle as raising even higher, to C, assumed
by Belletti to be a position from which nominative case could be
licensed on the subject.
Participial clauses involving an unergative verb without an overt
subject were then assimilated to the transitive paradigm (p. 44): 6
(16) [AGRP PROi Telefonatoj t j a Gianni], Mariai uscì di casa.

‘Having phoned Gianni, Maria left the house.’
Belletti derived the assumed exclusion of unergative subjects by

showing (pp. 38–9) that a participial clause containing an unergative
with an overt subject would be incompatible with both of her two main
analytical paradigms. Incompatibility with the transitive paradigm fol-
lowed from the supposition that the unergative subject would not be
case-marked. Belletti had argued (p. 36) that the object in the transitive
construction was case-marked through agreement, but she assumed
agreement between an unergative and its subject, as in (17) below, was
systematically impossible:7
(17) *Telefonata Maria, . . .

‘Maria having telephoned, . . .’
Incompatibility with the unaccusative paradigm was derived by

assuming that unergative past participles were case-marked (specifi-
cally, with accusative case). By hypothesis, the C position to which
Belletti analysed unaccusative past participles as raising was a case
position (specifically, a nominative case position). Thus the analogous
raising of an unergative past participle would, Belletti argued, entail a
case conflict, under the assumption that (structurally) case-marked
elements could not move to a case position. This latter assumption was
itself derived from Chomsky’s (1986a) chain condition, which stated
that every chain must contain exactly one q -marked position and
exactly one case-marked position.
We can probably accept without further question Belletti’s claim that
a participial clause with an unergative subject would in principle be
incompatible with the analytical paradigm put forward for transitives.
The lexical argument of an unergative is at no stage a complement and
so the head–complement agreement pattern observable in the standard
transitive case clearly could never exist. However, were it not for the
alleged case conflict, it might well be supposed that unergative subjects
could be accommodated along similar lines to unaccusative subjects,

modulo the assumed lower initial position of the latter.
Now the case-conflict analysis proposed by Belletti is crucially depen-
dent on the assumption that unergative verbs are licensers of accusative
case, which Belletti argued (1992, p. 38) was taken up or received by
the past participle morphology attaching to unergative past participles.
The assumption in question is due to Burzio (1986, pp. 184–5) and has
been widely adopted in the literature (see, for example, Levin and
Rappaport Havav 1995). However, the logic behind it is somewhat
mysterious. To demonstrate this, I reproduce the key argument from
Burzio below (in the text cited, the phrase ‘the statement in (22)’ refers
to the statement that all assigners of subject q -role are potential assign-
ers of accusative case, and the notation ‘-q s’ means ‘does not assign
subject q -role’):
The statement in (22) is also true, though this time true necessarily,
for precise theoretical reasons. Consider the case of a verb which
takes the direct object but does not assign Case to it. This verb will
have to fail to assign q -role to the subject position, since the only
two possibilities for such a direct object to receive Case will be:
(i) that it be linked with a non-argument subject; 8 (ii) that it move
into subject position. Both possibilities require -q s. (Burzio 1986,
p. 184)
Notice that the argumentation refers only to verbs that take a direct
object (understood as the complement of the verb). Now strictly speak-
ing such verbs are transitive. Unergatives, in contrast, are intransitive.
Therefore, on the face of it, the above line of reasoning does not affect
the position of unergatives. Nevertheless, much has been made of the
possibility of unergatives appearing with ‘expletive’ objects (He slept the
sleep of the just and so forth), which has been claimed to show that
unergatives can appear with direct objects. However, if such items
really are direct objects, then logically the verb must be deemed to have
a transitive occurrence rather than an unergative occurrence and the
situation would then be analogous to that of verbs that can be either
transitive or unaccusative (for example, John opened the door versus The
door opened). On the other hand, if expletive objects are not really direct
objects, then the possibility of assigning accusative case does not arise.
Under either interpretation of the data, there is no obvious motive for
assuming that verbs that have an unergative argument structure must
be capable of licensing accusative case.
If the above train of thought is correct, there is no reason to assume

that unergative past participles are case-marked, hence no reason to
assume that a case conflict would necessarily arise were an unergative
verb to raise in the manner posited for unaccusatives. By the same
token, Belletti’s theoretical derivation of the assumed exclusion of uner-
gative subjects from participial absolutes need not be regarded as com-
pelling. The question then is whether, as a matter of empirical fact,
unergative subjects do occur in this type of structure.
7.3 Unergative subjects in participial absolutes
The answer to this appears to be that they do, although the possibility
is confined to a subset of the unergative class (examples below from
Italian and Spanish): 9,10
(18) Abdicata la regina, la popolazione si rivoltò contro il nuovo

governo.
‘The queen having abdicated, the people rebelled against the
new government.’
(19) Una volta attecchito il tappeto erboso, il grigliato è quasi non
visibile.
‘Once the turf has taken root, the grating is almost invisible.’
(20) Una volta bollito il brodo, immergerci la zucca in pezzetti.
‘Once the broth has boiled, immerse the chopped pumpkin.’
(21) Tracimato il Lago Maggiore, straripano il Seveso e il Lambro a

Milano.
‘With lake Maggiore having overflowed, the Seveso and the
Lambro in Milan flood.’
(22) Triunfados los rebeldes en el norte, el gobierno ya no podía

garantizar la seguridad de la capital.
‘With the rebels having triumphed in the north, the govern-
ment could no longer guarantee the security of the capital.’
(23) Cenados los niños, salimos al cine.
‘With the children having had supper, we went out to the
cinema.’
(24) Recién abdicado el rey Carlos IV tras el motín de Aranjuez . . .

el joven monarca Fernando VII fue acogido verdaderamente
como El Deseado por sus súbditos. (José Gella Iturriaga)
‘With King Carlos IV recently abdicated after the Aranjuez

mutiny . . . the young monarch Fernando VII was welcomed
truly as El Deseado [The Desired] by his subjects.’
Thus, in addition to the finding in section 7.2 that there is no com-

pelling syntactic motive for assuming unergative subjects to be inca-
pable of occurring in participial absolutes, we now have factual evidence
instantiating precisely this possibility. A reasonable conclusion, then,
is that the hypothesized syntactic distinction between unergatives and
unaccusatives is not relevant to the ability of a verb to co-occur with
its subject in a participial absolute.
This conclusion leaves unexplained the undeniable unergative–unac-
cusative asymmetry in terms of overall productivity in the construc-
tion under consideration. However, as is well known, this construction
is associated with a pragmatic requirement that the participial clause
indicate a resultant state, which is then a factor in conditioning
the relevance of the matrix clause. This requirement, assuming that
neither activities nor states give rise to resultant states in this sense, in
effect means that the verb supplying the past participle must
be an achievement or accomplishment term, or a state term function-
ing as an achievement term, as in the example with rimanere ‘remain’
below:
(25) Sposatosi il figlio, tornato libero dalla prigionia, e rimasto paral-

izzato il marito, Francesca nel 1425 con un gruppo di
tredici amiche pronunciò la formula di oblazione dei monaci
di S. Maria Nova. (Franco Rossi)
‘With her son married, having returned from captivity, and
her husband having been paralysed, Francesca in 1425 with a
group of thirteen friends uttered the oblation of the order of
Santa Maria Nova.’
As noted in many places, intransitive achievement, accomplishment

and state verbs are liable to be classified as unaccusative, particularly
in Italian, where the majority of such verbs are assigned perfect
auxiliary essere (see Van Valin 1990). Thus unaccusatives are likely to
satisfy the aspectual criterion for occurrence in the participle + overt
subject construction. In contrast, unergatives more often than not are
activity terms, and hence are likely to be unsuitable. The unergative–
unaccusative asymmetry thus falls out straightforwardly from the
aspectual composition of the two classes.
Notice that the PRO type of construction illustrated by (5) to (9) does
not appear to be subject in principle to any overriding aspectual require-
ment. For in this case, the occurrence of activity verbs is unproblematic
(examples from Spanish and Italian):
(26) Residido tanto tiempo en exterior, había perdido su sentido de

identidad cultural.
‘Having resided abroad for so long, he had lost his sense of
cultural identity.’
(27) Trastullatasi a lungo, Maria rientrò infine a casa. (Loporcaro
2003, p. 221)
‘Having amused herself (idly), Maria eventually went back
home.’
As was observed in 7.1, the capability to appear in the PRO construction

is not in principle an unaccusative diagnostic. Concerning the two
examples above, I assume residir is unergative11 while trastullarsi is pre-
sumably unaccusative (specifically, an inherent reflexive in the sense
of Burzio 1986).
7.4 Conclusion
The picture that emerges from a review of the participial absolutes

diagnostic broadly replicates what has been found in the previous
chapters in connection with the other unaccusative diagnostics. Thus
there appears to be no real theoretical imperative for assuming that
unergative verbs cannot appear in the construction in question and,
moreover, data can be identified that fail to pattern as expected if that
assumption is adopted.
Concerning the theoretical imperative, we have seen in this chapter
that the hypothesis that the past participle morphology systematically
blocks the assignment of subject q -role is falsified by the occurrence of
unergatives and active transitives in the PRO type of participial con-
struction. The hypothesis that unergatives are licensers of accusative
case was also shown to be improperly motivated. On the basis of the
latter finding, I concluded that there is no reason in principle for a case
conflict to arise if an unergative subject is overt in a participial absolute,
as has been claimed by Belletti.
In fact, examples illustrating just that possibility are forthcoming.
These are statistically much less frequent than examples with unaccusa-
tives, but this frequency asymmetry can plausibly be attributed to a

resultant-state constraint on absolute participial clauses containing
overt subjects. As noted in Chapter 5, resultant-state meanings derive
exclusively from verbs in the achievement and accomplishment aspec-
tual classes. Therefore, given that the bulk of the achievement and
accomplishment terms are classified as unaccusative, it is unsurprising
that the asymmetry in question should favour unaccusatives.
8
Conclusion
This book began with a summary of the main empirical evidence in

Romance for the establishment of an unaccusative–unergative dichot-
omy within the class of intransitive verbs, together with an overview
of the various theoretical analyses that have been brought to bear. Both
the empirical evidence and the associated theories have now been
reviewed, and a number of common themes have emerged.
Firstly, it turns out that no compelling link can be identified between
the empirical data and the basic theory according to which unaccusa-
tive subjects are deep objects. Concerning expletive associates, for
example, there is no particular reason why there should be a deep-
object requirement on these. Historically, an apparent defi niteness
effect has given rise to the view that associates must bear partitive case,
which (by hypothesis) is effectively limited to objects. However, on
closer inspection the definiteness effect turns out to be largely a mirage.
The partitive case type of assumption thus ceases to be motivated and,
by the same token, so does the presumption that expletive associates
must be structural objects.
As regards the phenomena that appear to indicate a parallel between
unaccusative subjects and transitive objects (viz. the distribution of
partitive cliticization and of bare subjects), no theory exists that con-
vincingly embeds this parallel within general principles. The nub of
the problem here is that, from the theoretical point of view, it is diffi-
cult to find any independently motivated principle that discriminates
between unaccusative and unergative subjects when they are in post-
verbal position. Well-known constructs such as the Empty Category
Principle and the Condition on Extraction Domains account well for
preverbal–postverbal asymmetries, as between English-style subjects
and objects, but the finer discrimination required to account for exclu-
sively postverbal asymmetries cannot easily be derived.
182
Conclusion 183
The converse problem arises in connection with theories relating to

perfect auxiliary selection and participle agreement, where a postverbal
symmetry between unaccusative and unergative subjects would be more
convenient. In broad terms, such theories have been claimed to unify
otherwise arbitrary distributional patterns, but only under the assump-
tion that unaccusative subjects originate as direct objects. Crucially,
the trigger for the phenomena claimed to diagnose unaccusativity is
identified as movement of the unaccusative subject out of its postulated
initial position. However, the phenomena in question appear not to be
sensitive to whether the unaccusative subject moves or remains in
situ.
Finally, as regards the alleged exclusion of unergative subjects from
participial clauses, the implication of the relevant theories is that such
subjects would necessarily be problematic in terms either of q -marking
or of case-licensing. However, the assumption that past participle mor-
phology systematically blocks the assignment of subject q -role is falsi-
fied by the occurrence of unergatives and active transitives in the PRO
type of participial clause. In addition, there appears to be no compel-
ling reason to assume that unergative verbs are licensers of accusative
case, a circumstance that has been claimed to prevent them from occu-
pying a nominative case-licensing position within participial clauses.
With these conceptual obstacles removed, there is no reason to presup-
pose that unergative subjects are barred from participial clauses.
Thus careful scrutiny of the syntactic analyses of the phenomena
claimed to diagnose unaccusativity in Romance reveals there to be no
theoretical imperative (as far as Romance is concerned) for assuming
that unaccusative subjects are deep objects. In other words, nothing is
actually gained by making this assumption and surrendering it would
have no adverse theoretical consequences.
On the other hand, a consistent finding in this book has been that
the implications of the foregoing assumption are often at variance with
the empirical data. In particular, unergative subjects frequently exhibit
behaviour that the deep-object theory predicts to be exclusive to items
that are deep objects. For example, in Chapter 3 it was found that parti-
tive cliticization from unergative subjects is not in reality exceptional,
although it is less common than partitive cliticization from unaccusa-
tive subjects. Faced on the one hand with these concrete empirical
failures of the deep-object theory, and on the other with the essential
redundancy of that theory, as highlighted above, a logical response
would be to surrender the theory. And that, in effect, has been the
position taken in this book.
Accordingly, alternative explanations for the relevant phenomena

were identified. A recurrent theme has been the close link between
alleged unaccusativity diagnostics and tendencies relating to informa-
tion structure. In particular, it was shown in Chapters 2 and 3 that
expletive inversion and partitive cliticization from postverbal subjects
coincide in diagnosing presentational capability, and it is therefore no
surprise that in French the two phenomena are intimately connected.
Unaccusatives have a comparatively high frequency in both phenom-
ena because many such verbs naturally are presentational, in contrast
to agentive activity terms, which are the most difficult of all the seman-
tic classes of verb to reconcile with presentational uses. The much-cited
link between unaccusatives and passives then follows from the natural
presentational capability of the latter, which was attributed in Chapter
2 to their suppression of subject q -role.
Such an account would explain why, in Romance in general, passives
pattern strongly with unaccusatives in terms of expletive inversion and
partitive cliticization but only weakly in terms of perfect auxiliary
selection (on this latter point see 1.3.3 and 5.4). For the common pre-
sentational capability of passives and unaccusatives is a genuine and
enduring linguistic phenomenon, whereas coincidences in perfect aux-
iliary assignment must normally be regarded as the chance outcome of
a coincidence between the auxiliary assigned to unaccusatives and that
assigned to the relevant copula (which typically supplies the passive
auxiliary). In Italian, for example, the copula essere turns out to select
the E perfect auxiliary that is also assigned to unaccusatives (presum-
ably because it borrows its past participle from stare, which is indepen-
dently assigned perfect auxiliary E), whereas in French the copula être
selects the perfect auxiliary A that is assigned to unergatives. Thus
perfect auxiliary assignment to passives is in general contingent on the
perfect auxiliary assignment that arises in respect of the copula. As
such, there is no reason to expect that any particular property of pas-
sives will play a role in conditioning the overall pattern of perfect
auxiliary assignment.
As regards this pattern, I have highlighted in this book the intractable
problems that prevent the formulation of an adequate semantic gener-
alization and argued that the complex and unordered modern situation
results from the uneven effects of linguistic change upon a once trans-
parent system, in which the E verb was a copula and the past participle
expressed a resultant state. Given that only achievements and accom-
plishments can create resultant states, the implication of this analysis
is that originally only achievement and accomplishment terms could
Conclusion 185
occur in the E + past participle construction. The modern, fragmented,

situation can then be derived by assuming a process of conventionaliza-
tion, whereby specific auxiliary assignments became categorically asso-
ciated with specific verbs or with specific strands of meaning within
the overall semanticism of given verbs.
I argued for a similar approach to past participle agreement. Thus
while the modern situation appears to be irreducibly fragmented, it can
be assumed that past participle agreement was originally governed by
the simple principle that the participle always agreed with its argument
in the participial small clause. Given that the argument could raise to
matrix subject position when the matrix verb was E but not when it
was A, this in effect entailed subject–participle agreement in the case
of the former and object–participle agreement in the case of the latter.
Reanalysis of E and A as perfect auxiliaries would naturally tend towards
the elimination of perfect-related participle agreement altogether.
And indeed, such a process has occurred in languages like Spanish
and Portuguese. However, analogical pressure, possibly assisted in the
modern era by the forces of standardization, has resulted in an almost
perfect preservation of the E pattern of agreement, and aspects of the
A pattern are preserved to varying degrees in languages such as Italian
and French.
As regards bare subject capability, I argued that the distributional
patterns were conditioned by the logically unstructured nature of verb
+ bare subject complexes. This gives rise to two semantico-pragmatic
principles: (i) that bare subjects are preferred to overtly quantified
subjects when, and only when, the quantificational meaning associated
with the latter is incompatible with the context or with the speaker’s
intended meaning, and (ii) that complexes consisting of a verb + a bare
subject must occur in contexts in which an appropriate non-subject
argument can be determined. Both principles are likely to be implicated
in the widely held view that bare subject capability is the preserve of
the unaccusative class. The main cause of this perception is probably
related to principle (ii), in that prominent members of the unaccusative
class are naturally suggestive of a non-subject argument in ways that
prototypical unergatives are not, with the consequence that uncontex-
tualized specimen sentences involving unaccusatives and bare subjects
are in practice more likely to elicit favourable acceptability judgments
than are analogous unergative formulations. In addition, however,
achievement verbs, the majority of which are classified as unaccusative
(when intransitive), tend more frequently than other types of verb to
have occurrences that are incompatible with overtly quantified sub-
jects. By the above principle (i), then, achievement unaccusatives will

have bare subjects with a relatively high degree of frequency, thereby
adding to the impression that there is a direct link between unaccusa-
tivity and bare subject capability.
Turning finally to absolute participial clauses, I demonstrated that
unergative subjects are not actually barred from this construction
although there is an asymmetry as regards frequency. This I attributed
to a resultant-state constraint on such clauses when they contain overt
subjects. Such a constraint implies that only achievement and
accomplishment terms can occur in this construction. Obviously
enough, this will favour unaccusatives, given that the bulk of the
intransitive achievement and accomplishment terms are classified as
unaccusative.
We thus arrive at the general conclusion that no unaccusative–
unergative distinction is required in Romance to account for the phe-
nomena that that distinction has been claimed to explain. General
theory provides no a priori basis for assuming that the phenomena in
question must be sensitive to the unaccusative–unergative distinction,
there is ample empirical evidence that these phenomena are not system-
atically sensitive in this way, and alternative explanations are readily
available.
Notes
1 The Ergative Analysis and the Unaccusative Hypothesis

1. I coin this label deliberately in order to distinguish the approach in
question from the Unaccusative Hypothesis (see 1.2 below), which
strictly speaking can only be expressed within the framework of Relational
Grammar.
2. The term ‘ergative’ in this sense is due to Burzio (1981, 1986), while ‘unac-
cusative’ figures prominently after the publication of Perlmutter 1978, but
is apparently due to Geoffrey Pullum (exact source unknown). Burzio’s use
of the term ‘ergative’ represents a continuation and extension of the
common 1960s and 1970s usage to denote intransitive occurrences of verbs
like roll or sink (The boulder rolled down the hill; The ship sank) as opposed to
their transitive occurrences (We rolled the boulder down the hill; They sank
the ship). For this more specific sense, see Lyons (1968). In typological
studies, ‘ergative’ denotes the case assigned to transitive subjects in mor-
phologically ergative languages. The latter use will not figure in this
book.
3. Unlike Belletti, Burzio (1986) drew no distinction between indefi nite and
definite postverbal unaccusative subjects, both of which he assumed to
remain in situ.
4. Another means of capturing syntactically the unaccusative–unergative dis-
tinction is inspired by a line of research stemming from Larson (1988).
Within that approach, it is assumed that VP is subdivided into an inner VP
and an outer ‘shell’, denoted by ‘vp’. Unergative subjects are then regarded
as originating or (externally) ‘merging’ in spec-vp, while unaccusative sub-
jects are analysed as originating either as the complement of V (as under
the original theory) or in spec-VP. For the fi rst of these latter suppositions,
see Bennis (2004), and for the second, Radford (1997:399). Compare also
the framework devised by Bowers (2001:309), who argues that unergative
subjects originate in the specifier position of a predicate constituent
(labelled ‘Pr’), which is superordinate to VP, while unaccusative subjects
originate in the specifier of VP.
5. In fact, as will be pointed out in 3.2.6, the c-command analysis of ne is
empirically inadequate. This was noted long ago by Belletti and Rizzi
(1981:127).
6. It is commonly supposed, however, that this does not apply when the par-
ticiple is embedded under a perfect auxiliary.
7. An additional approach, which appears to have been advanced primarily
for Germanic languages, involves the stipulation that ‘have’ and ‘be’ select
vp complements that respectively have and do not have a thematic argu-
ment in their specifier (see, for example, Radford 1997:399). Given the usual
assumption (within the vp shell framework) that unergative subjects, but
not unaccusative subjects, are (externally) merged in spec-vp, this stipula-
187
188 Notes
tion guarantees that unergatives will be associated with auxiliary ‘have’

and unaccusatives with auxiliary ‘be’.
8. Within this framework, unaccusative verbs are verbs that ‘determine’
(Perlmutter 1978:162) an initially unaccusative stratum.
9. The 2hood analysis also enables passive subjects and subjects of raising
predicates to be brought under the same descriptive generalization as unac-
cusative subjects.
10. The ‘tail b’ terminology simply indicates that the classification of the
nominal applies to its occurrence in clause b.
11. This latter condition is designed to reserve ne-cliticization to postverbal
indefinite subjects, which are analysed by Perlmutter as chomeurs rather
than 1s (see example (4) in the text above).
12. ‘Object arc’ is a portmanteau term equivalent to ‘either a 2-arc or a 3-arc’,
where 3s are indirect objects.
13. The qualification ‘P-initial’ (suggesting ‘Predicate-initial’) rules out the pos-
sibility that the nominal is an initial 2 in relation to a construction involv-
ing an auxiliary, as in the ungrammatical example below:
*State cadute le arance dall’albero, nessuno le raccolse. (Loporcaro 2003,

p. 223)
‘The oranges having been fallen from the tree, nobody picked them
up.’
14. The brother-in-law is the postverbal indefi nite nominal in the ‘impersonal’
construction illustrated by example (4).
15. Spanish pasar is standardly classified as unaccusative (see, for example,
Torrego 1989, Garrido 1996). Note in particular that (i) it is routinely
cited as the type of verb that has bare subject capability (the main
Spanish-internal diagnostic for unaccusativity), (ii) it occurs in participial
absolutes (Pasados los botes a la otra ribera . . . ‘With the boats having
passed to the other bank . . .’), (iii) it falls within the unaccusative semantic
spectrum on Sorace’s cross-linguistic Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (see
Sorace 2000), and (iv) its Italian equivalent is assigned perfect auxiliary
‘be’.
16. Note, though, that in Lasnik’s view (1999:186), accusative objects acquire
the necessary ‘height’ to c-command into an adjunct by raising overtly to
an object agreement projection for case-checking purposes. However,
Lasnik then acknowledges that the failure of a transitive direct object
to control into an adjunct (as in my example (12)) is ‘mysterious’
(1999:189).
17. Notice that, unlike accusative direct objects (see note 16), postverbal unac-
cusative subjects are not widely assumed to have to raise out of their base
position for case-checking purposes (not when they are indefinite, at least).
For example, in Belletti’s partitive/inherent case framework, it is assumed
that indefi nite postverbal unaccusative subjects have their case licensed in
their base position (see Belletti 1999: 34). The same applies if postverbal
unaccusative subjects are assumed to have nominative case, because they
then naturally fall within the scope of the ‘long-distance agreement’ ana-
Notes 189
lytical paradigm associated prototypically with expletive associates in

English. Within Chomsky’s probe-goal theory, an expletive associate (hence,
by implication, a postverbal unaccusative subject also) is licensed in its base
position, through agreement with the abstract T(ense) constituent, which
c-commands it (see Chomsky 1998: 123).
18. On the other hand, Chomsky cites the possibility of ne-cliticization from
the postverbal subject in this type of sentence as evidence that it occupies
complement (direct object) position.
19. Curiously, Perlmutter (1983:150) denies the possibility in Italian of exam-
ples such as this one. He basis this generalization on the apparent deviancy
of the following example:
(i) Sono rimasti nel paese dei profughi ungheresi senza ottenere permessi
di lavoro.
‘Some Hungarian refugees remained in the country without obtaining
work permits.’
Presumably the deviancy here results from something specific to this par-
ticular example, rather than from a general prohibition on the configura-
tion in question. Possibly the problem stems from the information structure
implied by the placement of dei profughi ungheresi after the prepositional
complement nel paese. Belletti (1999:37) analyses ‘reordered’ structures of
this sort as having a topicalized VP and a focalized subject. Conceivably
the relevant adjunct control is degraded under a marked information struc-
ture of this kind.
20. Marandin (2001) observes a parallel control disparity, internal to French,
between the il construction and certain ‘stylistic’ inversion constructions
not involving il:
(i) *Il est entré deux hommes avinés sans frapper/en riant.
‘Two drunk men entered without knocking/while laughing.’
(ii) *Il est entré sans frapper/en riant deux hommes avinés.
‘Two drunk men entered without knocking/while laughing.’
(iii) Alors sont entrés sans frapper/en riant deux hommes avinés.
‘Then two drunk men entered without knocking/while laughing.’
Marandin’s conclusions are rather different from those drawn here. In addi-
tion, he assumes (erroneously) that the ‘stylistic’ inversion illustrated by
(iii) is limited to unaccusative verbs. (See Legendre and Sorace 2003 for a
demonstration of this error.)
21. This example is cited by Martin and Wilmet (1980: 201).
22. Burzio 1986 (152–3) attempted to account for the French–Italian disparity
in terms of his binding-related analysis of perfect auxiliary selection (see
1.1 above). He argued that the relevant binding relation was weaker in the
case of passives than in that of unaccusatives, because with passives
it had to cross a small-clause boundary (assuming a small-clause analysis
of passives). Accordingly, some degree of variation might be expected.
However, it will be shown in 5.2 that Burzio’s attribution of ‘be’-selection
to the existence of a determinate binding relation cannot be accepted, for
190 Notes
important theoretical and empirical reasons. Thus his proposed ex-

planation for the French–Italian disparity in this regard ceases to be
motivated.
23. In fact, assuming the now widely accepted small clause analysis of ‘be’
(both qua passive auxiliary and qua copula), the structure of (26) is essen-
tially analogous to that of (23).
24. The rationale was that the postverbal subject position (unlike the preverbal
position) was properly governed by the verb, thus legitimizing the trace
resulting from wh-extraction (assuming traces required proper govern-
ment). The relevance of the presence versus absence of an intervening overt
complementizer is that the presence of such an item was assumed to block
proper government of the trace by its antecedent.
2 Expletive Inversion
1. Where exactly depends on the structure envisaged for VP. Typically the VP
of earlier accounts is now assumed to have at least two layers of structure,
for example, a low VP and higher ‘shell’ VP, designated as ‘vp’. The subject
(i.e. of unergatives and transitives) is then assumed to be base-generated or
‘merged’ in spec-vp.
2. Note that the very same linear sequence ‘expletive + unergative verb +
argument’ is routinely countenanced under the supposition that postverbal
subjects in general (regardless of whether the verb is unergative or unaccu-
sative) co-occur with a null expletive fi lling the preverbal subject position.
This assumption was once widespread in Romance linguistics and remains
popular (see, for example, Belletti 1999: 11).
3. This example is cited in Legendre and Sorace (2003).
4. I assume the verbs in these examples are unergative because (i) they select
perfect auxiliary A (as do their Italian equivalents), (ii) they cannot occur
in participial absolute constructions, (iii) they appear within the unergative
semantic spectrum on Sorace’s cross-linguistic auxiliary selection hierarchy
Sorace (2000).
5. For a similar account, specifically in relation to the French il construction,
see Arteaga and Herschensohn (2004:9–10). They assume that in the lexical
array for the sentence Il arrive des jeunes filles ‘There arrive some young girls’
the associate is marked for partitive case and the expletive for nominative
case. The case of the associate is licensed directly by the verb while that of
the expletive is checked and deleted in spec-TP/IP. Any other combination
of cases would cause the derivation to crash.
6. For example, È arrivato Gianni ‘Gianni has arrived’ was assigned the follow-
ing analysis (p. 17):
NPi [VP [VP é arrivato [NP e] i ] [NPi Gianni]].
Notice that the postverbal subject Gianni has moved from its original posi-
tion as the complement of arrivato, which is now occupied by the empty
category e. The empty NP in the preverbal subject position is a null exple-
tive of the kind alluded to in note 2 above.
Notes 191
7. Presumably the same applies to passive postverbal subjects, although

Belletti (1999) does not appear to make a specific ruling on this.
8. This follows from the type of approach embodied in the nuclear stress rule
(NSR) line of research, as exemplified by Zubizarreta (1998).
9. This approach has a precedent in McNally (1998), where it is argued that
quantificational and defi nite restrictions in existential sentences have non-
identical causes.
10. This sentence might be rescued by assuming a very emphatic stress on cada
alumno. For diagnostic purposes, however, a neutral intonation should be
assumed.
11. This presumably results from the fact that prior mention conflicts with the
generally presentational nature of overt expletive constructions, which
typically requires the description/associate to have an ‘introducing’ func-
tion. In the case of the il construction, this confl ict is not insurmountable,
given that examples like (40) are fairly routine in French. Presumably the
acceptability of (40) results from the fact that while the referent of le séna-
teur is part of the ‘given’, the identification of this referent as the winner
of the election represents the ‘new’. It must be surmised then that the
French il construction is compatible with narrow focus on the associate
whereas the there construction is more strictly presentational (calling for
wide focus).
12. It is not clear whether this conclusion is applicable when the verb is be. The
persuasive discussion in Ward and Birner (1995) would suggest that to a
large extent it is. Note also that in Catalan the equivalent of the English
there is construction is routinely compatible with definite associates:
(i) Hi havia la Joana a la fiesta. (McNally 1998: 367)

‘Joana was at the party.’
French il y a is similar in this respect:
(ii) Il y a Pierre qui est malade.

‘Pierre is ill.’
13. In this particular case, in addition to remedying the deficiency in the asso-
ciate I have deleted the word here and inserted the PP at this point. This is
for stylistic reasons only. The sequence there arose the long-dreaded storm has
a somewhat literary flavour, which would be at odds with the rather banal
locative here. Presumably this additional amendment does not invalidate
the basic point, viz. that there arose is not incompatible with defi nite
associates.
14. Like the second sentence in (40), this presupposes prior mention of the
referent of the associate. Here, though, unlike in (40) the associate is not
in (narrow) focus, or at least this is unlikely. More plausibly, the clause-fi nal
locative can be expected to be focused or, alternatively, the sentence may
receive wide focus. Given this latter possibility, the remark made at the
beginning of note 11 above may require some qualification.
15. Pinto’s analysis of (19) parallels the earlier conclusions regarding French/
English (14) to (16). It would also be applicable to a ‘defi niteness effect’ that
192 Notes
is sometimes alleged for the Spanish faltar construction, as in (i) and (ii)
below, where (ii) is alleged to be deviant:
(i) Falta un alumno.

‘A student is missing.’
(ii) Falta el alumno.
‘The student is missing.’
To the extent that there is a problem with (ii), it is that, out of context, it
is impossible to identify the referent of el alumno. Nevertheless, faltar does
not impose any prohibition on definite subjects per se, as is shown by the
unproblematic examples below:
(iii) Falta Pedro.

‘Pedro is missing.’
(iv) Falta la hermana de Miguel.
‘Miguel’s sister is missing.’
16. The apparent acceptability of sentence (52) may appear to be at odds with
Belletti’s claim that the earlier sentence (26), repeated below, is marginally
deviant:
(26) ?È entrato Mario dalla fi nestra.

‘Mario came in through the window.’
Notice, however, that sentence (52) has the adverbial all’improvviso in

sentence-initial position, and this appears to force a presentational reading.
If this is the case, il cane in (52) does not carry narrow focus and might
thus not be expected to require clause-final placement. In contrast, sen-
tence (26) does appear to have narrow focus on Mario, and so the normal
rule about clause-final placement applies.
17. Note in particular that Belletti’s argument that somehow the semanticism
of the ‘uniqueness interpretation’ is compatible with the semantics of par-
titivity is entirely impressionistic (see Belletti 1988:15–16).
18. Note also that ne-extraction is possible from a definite postverbal subject,
as illustrated by the example below (from Burzio 1986: 75):
Ne sono arrivati i dirigenti.

‘Their managers have arrived.’
Under Belletti’s proposal, the structural position of the postverbal subject

in the example above would be identical to that of an unergative postverbal
subject. Yet Belletti also maintains (1999:37) that unergative postverbal
subject position is not a proper position for ne-extraction (when the extrac-
tion is from a quantified nominal at least). Thus Belletti’s assumption of a
definiteness effect requires acceptance of a somewhat surprising state of
affairs, viz. one in which ne-extraction both is and is not possible from
unergative postverbal subject position.
19. In fact, as in Spanish inversion, there is also a third possibility, in which
the item in focus is a clause-fi nal locative or time phrase, such as aux Ètats
Notes 193
Unis and en 1890 in (41) and (42). These cases are discussed at the end of
this section.
20. In fact, this is truer of Italian than French, given that many of the proto-
typical presentational verbs select perfect auxiliary avoir in French and so
are potentially classifiable as unergative: manquer ‘be absent’, exister ‘exist’,
disparaître ‘disappear’, surgir ‘emerge’, falloir ‘be lacking’ etc. However, if
these French verbs are deemed to be unergative, then the empirical basis
for the claim that the il construction exhibits a bias towards unaccusatives
becomes severely degraded.
21. Lonzi (1986:106) and others have assumed that the presentational type
of information structure corresponds to the type of syntax assigned to
unaccusatives under the Ergative Analysis (see 1.1 in this book). However,
I can fi nd no theoretical motivation for this assumption. Moreover, as
noted below, unergative verbs routinely enter into presentational
information structures. These presentational unergatives can only be
accommodated within a model that identifies presentational information
structure with ergative/unaccusative syntax under the assumption that
they ‘switch’ to the unaccusative class. However, the positing of such taxo-
nomic switches merely to accommodate adverse data is methodologically
a somewhat suspect strategy. Normal scientific practice calls for a revision
of the theory in such cases, rather than a reclassification of thedata.
22. For an interesting study of the relationship between objecthood and pre-
sentational information structure in a variety of languages, see Lambrecht
(2000).
3 Partitive Cliticization
1. Extraction from a preverbal subject is rare (except in the case of the French
en-avant construction). This has been attributed to Fiengo’s (1974, 1977)
proper binding requirement on traces. On this point, see Belletti and Rizzi
(1981: 120).
2. Note, however, that extraction from a postverbal subject of telefonare
appears to be possible when the postverbal subject is not followed by a
subcategorized PP. The example below is from Lonzi (1986: 113):
Ti accorgerai che in quest’ufficio ne telefonano davvero molti, di

stranieri.
‘You’ll notice that in this office really a lot, of foreigners, call.’
3. To be more precise, they assumed (128–9) that ne-extraction was subject to

subjacency under a revised definition incorporating this ‘argumenthood
requirement’.
4. For the original formulation of the Condition on Extraction Domains, see
Huang (1982).
5. Roughly speaking, a category is L-marked if and only if it is q -marked by a
lexical head.
6. This assumption represents a continuation of the view articulated in
Belletti (1988). There she argued that a defi niteness effect was detectable
in Italian, indicating that defi nite postverbal subjects of unaccusatives and
194 Notes
passives were in fact in a structurally identical position to postverbal uner-

gative subjects in general. See 2.3 in this book.
7. Perlmutter in fact explicitly makes the fi rst of these points when he insists
(1989:107–8) on the non-equivalence of 1s and 2s with GB/Minimalist-style
configurational defi nitions of subject and direct object. As regards the
absence of any surface morphosyntactic property that might provide an
objective correlate of 2hood, this is obviously implicit in the Unaccusative
Hypothesis itself, which denies the traditional distinction between subject
and direct object in terms of surface properties such as case, overt agree-
ment with the verb and linear position.
8. Suggestions of this kind are not new: see also Lonzi (1986) and Levin and
Rappaport Hovav (1995: 276–7).
9. However, to judge from her conclusion (p. 116), she appears to assume that
unergatives have an ergative/unaccusative-type syntax when ne is extracted
from their subject. She links this view with what she takes to be a prohibi-
tion against partitive cliticization from an unergative subject occurring in
the perfect (that is, when auxiliary avere is present). In fact such a prohibi-
tion does not appear to be general, as is illustrated by examples such as
Italian (49) below. Given this circumstance, I can see no motivation
for assuming that unergatives undergo a switch to the unaccusative class
(which is in effect what Lonzi appears to assume). Indeed, from a general
methodological viewpoint, the positing of such taxonomic switches merely
to accommodate adverse or unexpected data should presumably be avoided
if at all possible. In such cases, the preferred scientific method involves
revising the theoretical model.
10. Some of the examples given below and elsewhere in this chapter involve
preverbal locatives. Any suggestion that the presence of such an element
indicates that the unergative verb has ‘switched’ to being an unaccusative is
unmotivated under current theoretical assumptions – see the discussion of
Torrego’s (1989) claim that such an alternation was operative in Spanish (4.2
in this book). Note also the general qualms expressed in note 9 above con-
cerning the positing of taxonomic switches to accommodate adverse data.
11. CNR and CNRS are the Italian and French national research councils
respectively.
12. This extract is taken from a (publicly available) document produced by the
Conferazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro.
13. This extract is taken from a (publicly available) Rome courtroom
transcript.
14. I think this example works in isolation. However, in case the context is
required, the immediately adjacent sequence is as follows:
L’aula gamma ha 24 computer (quanti ne funzioneranno? lo scorso
febbraio quando ho fatto soundforge un 30 percento non andava . . .)
anche se sul sito indica 50 posti.
‘The Gamma computer room has 24 computers (how many will be
working? last February when I used Soundforge, 30 percent were out of
action . . .) although on the website it says 50 workstations.’
15. As in 2.5.2, by ‘passive’ I mean to include both true passives and also
reflexive passives.
Notes 195
16. I use the term ‘canonical presentational verb’ to refer to verbs/constructions

that have a natural presentational capability, viz. presentational verbs in
the strict sense (those meaning ‘arrive’, ‘appear’ etc.) and verbs that often
are presentational but need not be (for example, verbs meaning ‘die’). The
dual nature of verbs in the latter class may not be immediately obvious in
languages like English, but it is rendered rather conspicuous in the alterna-
tions between preverbal and postverbal subject placement that are charac-
teristic of the null subject languages, as is illustrated by the pair of Spanish
examples below:
(i) Murió much gente. (Presentational.)

‘Many people died.’ (i.e. ‘There were many deaths.’)
(ii) Mucha gente murió. (Non-presentational.)
‘Many people died.’ (i.e. ‘Many individuals suffered death.’)
As noted in 2.5.2, passives can be included among the canonical presenta-

tionals, given that they too have natural presentational readings when they
occur with postverbal indefi nite subjects.
17. The dissociation between syntax and focus/intonation envisaged here is at
variance with the restrictive approach adopted in, for example, Belletti
(2004) where it is assumed that intonation should optimally be read off
the syntactic configuration directly. However, the view taken here is that
it is unrealistic to expect complete isomorphism between intonation and
syntax.
18. The relevant clause is the second conjunct.
19. For example:
(i) Su 1.000 imprese registrate ne falliscono 10.

‘Out of 1000 registered companies 10 fail.’
(ii) Se ne sono schiantati almeno 6 durante esercitazioni.
‘At least 6 have collided during exercises.’
(iii) Ne funzionano pochi.
‘Few work.’
(iv) Ne sono passati molti.
‘Many [years] have passed.’
(v) Ne esistono pochi.
‘There are few in existence.’
(vi) Ne mancavano quattro
‘Four were missing.’
20. Van Valin (1993) and Bentley (2004a) assume a Dowty-style decomposi-
tional treatment of aspectual classes as described (briefly) in 5.5.1 of this
book. Within that framework, they argue that there is a direct link between
partitive cliticization and aspectual class. In the approach adopted here the
principle consideration is information structure, with the aspectual link
arising only as a corollary of that.
21. In this respect, one is perhaps tempted to agree with Lambrecht (2000),
when he suggests (641) that Italian ne has received an ‘undue’ amount of
attention in the Generative literature.
196 Notes
4 Bare Subjects
1. There are other diagnostics such as compatibility with certain participial
constructions, but these alone would defi ne a smaller membership. These
constructions are discussed in Chapter 7.
2. Bare postverbal subjects also occur preverbally in literary or journalistic
styles when conjoined or modified:
(i) Ciudades y pueblos fueron destrozados.

‘Cities and villages were destroyed.’
(ii) Expertos de varios países asistieron al coloquio.
‘Experts from several countries attended the conference.’
3. In some theories, bare arguments in left-peripheral positions are assumed

to be immune to this requirement (see, for example, Contreras 1986: 27,
43). Alternatively, as suggested in Lois (1996: 229), such nominals are
analysed as being reconstructed in a lexically-governed position.
4. Under the general GB conception, a governs b if and only if (i) a c-
commands b and (ii) the path connecting a and b does not cross a maximal
projection. Proper government obtains when the governor is a lexical head
(for example, a verb or a preposition) or an antecedent. In fact, Minimalism
dispenses with the concept of government. Lasnik (1999:27), for example,
refers to it as an ‘arbitrary syntactic relation’. However, its effect is achieved
by other means. In particular, as regards case-licensing, government has
been replaced by agreement configurations.
5. Actually, Lois refers to it as an eventive q -role (‘papel temático eventivo’:
232). Moreover, the implication of Lois’s paper appears to be that it is the
bare subject or object that is assigned this q -role, through either a spec–
head relation or a head–head relation.
6. Compare, for example, Burzio’s (1986:99) remark that ‘the postverbal
subject in [Ha telefonato Maria] must be governed like an object’.
7. In fact, strictly speaking it should be ‘∃x∃y(Fx & Fy & x ≠ y & Gax & Gay)’,
given the irreducibly plural meaning of unas. However, this complicating
factor can be set aside for the sake of simplicity (and I will follow this
practice in all subsequent examples, as well).
8. In contrast, the possibility exists in Italian and French of sentences such as
the following:
(i) Ogni giorno mangia delle mele.

‘Every day he eats apples’
(ii) Il mange des pommes tous les jours.
‘Every day he eats apples.’
Thus the Italian/French partitive article allows for non-quantificational

uses (or, alternatively, narrow-scope uses) in contexts in which unos/unas
does not.
9. A sentence such as (37), for example, might then be analysed as asserting
the timeless existence of certain triples involving an eater (viz. Jorge) an
apple and a time. Arguably, such an analysis would simultaneously capture
Notes 197
the habitual nature of sentences like (37) and render the bare noun position
accessible to quantification. I leave the issue open, however.
10. A partly analogous asymmetry is apparent among complements of ser ‘be’,
as is illustrated by (i) and (ii) below:
(i) Son médicos.

‘They are doctors.’
(ii) Son unos médicos.
‘They are some doctors.’
The pragmatics of the above sentences are rather different. Roughly speak-
ing, sentence (i) indicates what the persons implicitly referred to are, while
sentence (ii) indicates who they are. Thus son in (i) functions as a genuine
copula, simply linking the implied subject to the predicate médicos, which
in turn ascribes a property to the subject. In contrast, son in (ii) can plau-
sibly be analysed as denoting the identity relation, with the overall sen-
tence asserting an identity between the subject and certain individuals that
are doctors. Accordingly, while (i) can be analysed as a conjunction corre-
sponding to the schema ‘Fa & Fb . . .’, where Fs are doctors and a, b and so
forth are the persons implicitly referred to, (ii) is more transparently rep-
resented in the manner shown below (assuming that the letters ‘a’, ‘b’ and
so on must designate distinct individuals):
(iii) ∃x(Fx & a = x & b = x . . .)
11. An analysis that is in some respects similar to that proposed here for cases
such as (47) is put forward by McNally (2004:125–6) in connection with
sentences such as (i) below:
(i) Mucha gente que tiene perros los abandona durante las vacaciones.
‘Many people that have dogs abandon them during the holidays.’
McNally observes that while the bare plural perros ‘licenses a subsequent
pronoun’, this licensing ‘cannot be direct, as the BP does not denote the
antecedent for the pronoun’. She then infers that the antecedent must be
determined via ‘accommodation’, which in her view is facilitated by ‘the
descriptive content of the BP and the fact that [the containing sentence
entails] the existence of an entity that could support the anaphora’
(126).
12. An alternative way of analysing sequences such as wanted to find squirrels is
to say that there is a quantifier but it must have narrow scope (in the sense
of Russell 1905). Alternatively, some authors state that bare nouns can only
have a ‘weak’ reading, as opposed to the ‘strong’ reading represented here
by schemata such as (39). Compare, for example, Laca (1996:254).
13. Garrido (1996) makes effectively the same point when he refutes Masullo’s
(1996) claim that Spanish (i) below can have the same meaning as English
(ii):
(i) Pedro cazó perdices.

‘Pedro shot partridges.’
(ii) Pedro shot some partridges.
198 Notes
Of the Spanish sentence, Garrido writes: ‘It is not that a group of partridges
is represented, rather the property of hunting partridges is applied to a situa-
tion, with the result that in the situation there must exist entities consisting
in hunted partridges.’ (Garrido 1996: 315; my translation.)
14. It is worth pointing out at this stage that I am extending Quine’s approach
into areas on which Quine himself does not appear to have given any clear
pronouncement. Quine’s (1960:175) assessment of verb plus bare noun
combinations as being ‘relative to canonical notation, just not structure’ is
expressed in relation to the dispositional case. I do not claim that he would
endorse the generalization of this position that is being proposed here.
15. In Latin, of course, matters were different, given that there bare nouns
routinely had quantificational meaning. The modern situation results from
a gradual diachronic change that has had partially different results in each
of the various Romance languages. Modern French, for example, completely
disallows bare subjects and objects, while modern Spanish systematically
rejects the use of semantically unmotivated determiners. On the other
hand, the system embodied in modern Italian is in some respects hybrid,
given that it allows bare subjects and objects in the kinds of context in
which they are allowed in Spanish, and yet, like French, it also allows
semantically unmotivated occurrences of the partitive article, as mentioned
in note 8 above.
16. Carlson (1977:422) noted an analogous contrast in cases such as the
following:
(ia) Max discovered rabbits in his yard for two hours.

(ib) Max discovered a rabbit in his yard for two hours.
(iia) Chester killed flies repeatedly last night.
(iib) Chester killed a fly repeatedly last night.
The deviancy of the (b) sentences stems from the assignment of wide scope
to a rabbit and a fly, which implies that the same rabbit or fly was repeatedly
discovered/killed.
17. Notice also that the occurrence of unos in (57) has nothing to do with any
alleged incompatibility between vivir and bare subjects. Thus unos can be
deleted from (57) without damaging grammaticality or acceptability,
although the quantificational structure changes accordingly:
(i) En esta casa estuvieron viviendo terroristas durante más de un año.

‘In this house terrorists were living for more than a year.’
Sentence (i) makes an analogous assertion to (53) and has an identical

quantificational structure, that is, the one represented by schema (55), with
Fs understood as times within a certain period that exceeds one year and
Gs as ordered pairs consisting of a dwelling and a time at which it was
occupied by terrorists. Thus (i) involves no implication that any single ter-
rorist lived in the house for more than a year.
18. Notice that these and similar cases involve achievement verbs, with a series
of events being presented as if it were a single process. This is no coinci-
dence, given that the punctual nature of an achievement term lends itself
Notes 199
naturally to iterative assertions of this sort (on this point, see Lyons 1977:
712). In practice, then, achievement verbs are likely to have a built-in
affinity for bare subjects. Now this circumstance, given that most of the
intransitive achievement verbs are classified as unaccusative in Romance
languages (for example, those meaning ‘die’, ‘arrive’, ‘enter’, ‘depart’ and so
on), may well contribute to the impression that unaccusatives in general
are somehow, in virtue of their unaccusativity, better suited to bare subjects
than unergatives are. See also the discussion in the latter part of 4.3.3.5
below.
19. The formulation Viven lobos en aquel bosque would also be possible, but the
meaning would be subtly different. With bare lobos as the subject, the
structure of the sentence is given by the basic predicational schema ‘Fa’,
where a is the forest in question and Fs are places inhabited by wolves.
Compare the discussion of the later examples (68) and (69) and also note
21.
20. The assignment here of a single question mark here, rather than a double
question mark, is intended to indicate a lower level of deviancy than in the
previous examples. Indeed, at the relevant stylistic level, (69) will be wholly
acceptable to many speakers.
21. The earlier sentence (65), reproduced below, presumably carries an analo-
gous implicature to (69) and yet is not deviant:
(65) Viven unos lobos en aquel bosque.

‘Some wolves live in that forest.’
The absence of deviancy in (65) appears to result from the fact that no
anomaly is created if the speaker is implicated to be referring to certain
wolves. For example, the speaker may live in an area where wolves are nearly
extinct and might then almost always be thinking of specific wolves when
he or she uses the phrase unos lobos.
22. Interestingly, the occurrence of English some in the translations of the (b)
sentences may also be slightly deviant, but only if it is unstressed (that is,
sm, as in Milsark 1974). In the light of the present analysis, this suggests
two things. First, that stressed some is often not referential in Donnellan’s
sense and, secondly, that Spanish unos/unas equates to English sm rather
than to (stressed) some. The latter in fact has a better Spanish equivalent
in algunos/algunas. For example, the type of context illustrated by the sen-
tence below calls for algunas rather than unas, and the English translation
must then involve some rather than sm:
Algunas madres se preocupan por esas cosas.

‘Some mothers worry about that type of thing.’
23. In light of the present analysis, it is tempting to treat complexes consisting

of a verb and a bare subject as expressing ‘simple’ or ‘thetic’ judgments in
the Brentano–Marty sense (see Brentano 1973). However, in the recent lit-
erature the thetic–categorical distinction has been defined more or less
exclusively in terms of information structure (see Lambrecht 1987, 1994).
200 Notes
Defined in that way, the thetic–categorical distinction cuts across the dis-
tinction between complexes with bare subjects and those with determined
subjects. For example, both faltan cuadros in (i) below and faltan unos
cuadros in (ii) are thetic (in the modern sense at least), but whereas
faltan cuadros is a single predicate from the logical point of view, faltan unos
cuadros is a quantification (‘There are some pictures that are missing’):
(i) Faltan cuadros en esta casa.

‘This house needs pictures.’
(ii) Faltan unos cuadros.
‘Some of the pictures are missing.’
Note also that while the class of thetic sentences is usually assumed to
include the class of presentational sentences, many of the prototypical
presentational verbs may in fact be deviant when used with bare subjects
(unless there is independently an imperative for the use of the bare noun,
as per the principle stated at the beginning of 4.3.3):
(iii) ?Llegaron paquetes esta mañana.

‘Parcels arrived this morning.’
(iv) ?De repente aparecieron lobos.
‘Suddenly wolves appeared.’
Both the type of data illustrated by (i) and (ii) and that illustrated by (iii)
and (iv) indicate that verb + bare subject complexes exhibit a property over
and above theticity (understood as a type of information structure). Accord-
ing to the view adopted here, this additional property consists in the logi-
cally unstructured nature of these complexes.
24. The view espoused here should not be confused with the kind of theory
put forward by Kratzer (1995), who argues that stage-level predicates sys-
tematically have an argument position corresponding to an event or a
spatio-temporal location. The independence of the two approaches can be
seen by considering a sentence such as (i) below:
(i) Un niño gritó.

‘A boy shouted.’
Here the verb gritó is a stage-level predicate and so, according to Kratzer’s
theory, has a place in its argument structure for an eventive or locational
argument. On the other hand, in terms of the analysis developed here, the
subject and the verb do not form a logically simple unit, given that that
the presence of the determiner un forces a division into a predicative
element (gritó) and a bound variable which is the argument of that element.
According to the view put forward here, then, sentence (i) is a complete
predication as it stands and thus does not require the provision of any
additional argument.
25. This particular English translation could be understood with intervene as a
(dispositional) individual-level predicate and teachers as having universal
Notes 201
reference. The corresponding Spanish sentence cannot have this meaning,

however.
26. As in (74) and (75), there is no deviancy at all here, given that the argument
requirement is satisfied deictically.
27. This qualification is necessary because, as observed by Longobardi (2000),
modified bare nouns in Romance can be universal (although in fact
this represents a rather marked pattern). The following Italian examples
(693, 694) illustrate the phenomenon for bare subjects (preverbal and
postverbal):
(i) Linguisti capaci di scrivere il Mémoire o LSLT diventano subito

famosi.
‘Linguists capable of writing the Mémoire o LSLT immediately become
famous.’
(ii) Diventano subito famosi linguisti capaci di scrivere il Mémoire o LSLT.
‘Linguists capable of writing the Mémoire o LSLT immediately become
famous.’
Notice, incidentally, that the type of case illustrated by (ii) calls for a dis-
continuous intonation, with a rather noticeable separation of the predicate
from the subject.
28. In fact, because modification of the bare subject enables the possibility of
a universal interpretation (see note 27), gustar can have a bare modified
subject:
Ceremonias así de complicadas no me gustan.

‘I don’t like ceremonies that are that convoluted.’
29. In these examples, algunos/algunas is preferred to unos/unas because of the

fact that me gustan and son peligrosas are individual-level predicates. Accord-
ingly, the English translations have stressed some as opposed to unstressed
sm (see also note 22).
30. The definite article in this case has its specific, context-dependent,
interpretation.
31. Given Diesing’s (1992) mapping hypothesis, linking universal arguments
with VP-external positions and non-universal arguments with VP-internal
positions, it might be suggested that the gustar–apetecer contrast simply
shows that gustar is unergative (with a VP-external subject) and apetecer is
unaccusative (with a VP-internal subject). However, that cannot be the
correct explanation because, as is immediately apparent, universal argu-
ments routinely occur VP-internally as objects (for example, Odio las ostras
‘I hate oysters’). In any case, several studies have indicated that a VP-
external versus VP-internal distinction of the sort envisaged by Diesing in
fact cuts across the unaccusative–unergative distinction (see Pinto 1997:
203; Longobardi 2000: 692).
32. In fact, this requires qualification, given that in sentences such as the one
below, the bare subject can hardly be said to be informationally rich if we
assume the same type of extra-linguistic context as for (108b):
202 Notes
Entran espectadores continuamente.

‘Spectators are continually coming in.’
What appears to be the case here is that the adverb continuamente naturally
attracts the accent away from the espectadores position, which is thus ren-
dered immune to the informational richness requirement (assuming the
latter to be a reflex of accentuation). The correct generalization for bare
subjects, then, is that they must be informationally rich unless another
item is present that can absorb the postverbal accent.
5 Perfect Auxiliary Selection

1. The use of E is productive in Italo-Romance at the dialectal/regional level
also. Studies such as Loporcaro (2001) Cennamo (2001) Bentley and
Eyrthórsson (2001) reveal a considerably more fragmented or fluid pattern
of auxiliary selection at this level, with extraneous factors such as the
grammatical feature of person having to be considered. The implication of
such wide-ranging variation for the claim that auxiliary selection is a reflex
of syntactic structure is not immediately obvious. On the face of it, the
attested ‘fuzzy’ distributional pattern is not suggestive of a ‘hard’ syntactic
template.
2. Burzio also assumed this pattern to obtain in cases involving ‘impersonal
si’, as in the example below:
ei Sii è parlato di molte cose.

‘One spoke about many things.’
The relevant binding relation arises here (according to Burzio’s analysis)

because impersonal si is assumed to be associated with an empty category
(shown above as ‘e’) which occupies subject position and which binds si.
3. This pattern also obtains with intransitive reflexives, in which the clitic is
analysed as not being associated with a q -role:
(i) Gli operaii si sono ribellati t i.

‘The workers have rebelled.’
(ii) Il furgonei si è capovolto t i.
‘The van overturned.’
4. The trace here occupies direct object position under Burzio’s particular
definition, viz. ‘an A-position governed by the verb’ (1986:56).
5. Another seminal work is Perlmutter 1989, which contains the following
auxiliary selection rule for Italian: ‘If there is a nominal heading both a 1-
arc with tail b and an Object arc with tail b, then clause b requires the
perfect auxiliary essere. Otherwise it requires avere.’ (Perlmutter 1989: 82)
Note, however, that like the other Relational Grammar formulations given
as (5) and (7) in 1.2, this rule is essentially a descriptive generalization,
because the crucial concepts (1hood [that is, subjecthood] and objecthood)
are assumed to be undefi ned primitives. Thus the formulation ‘a nominal
Notes 203
heading both a 1-arc . . . and an Object arc’ is in effect a label for any subject
that is also analysed as an object (in some stratum). Accordingly, Perlmut-
ter’s rule simply asserts a parallel between passives, unaccusatives, raising
verbs and reflexives, given the RG analysis of these constructions as having
subjects that are also objects. This analysis may or may not be accepted,
but the auxiliary selection rule does nothing more than group the relevant
constructions together.
6. In fact, if Belletti’s (1988, 1999) analysis is adopted, this is only true in the
case of indefinite postverbal subjects (see 2.3).
7. Alternatively, under Belletti’s partitive/inherent case hypothesis, (partitive)
case is directly licensed on the associate by the verb (see 2.3).
8. For example, in Chomsky (1995b) [Chapter 3], it is recast as the require-
ment that the strong D feature of the T(ense) position be checked. In lan-
guages like English, this requirement is satisfied by the occurrence of a
(structural) subject in the high preverbal subject position, that is, spec-TP
(or spec-IP under older analyses).
9. Somewhat differently, but with the same overall effect, Rizzi (1982) required
that binding relations must not involve q -dependency, which ruled out the
relation between the preverbal subject position and a postverbal subject,
given that he assumed postverbal subjects were q -marked from the subject
position.
10. Cocchi in fact refers to this as an object agreement projection (1994:99–
100). The crucial point from the present perspective is that the agreement
projection in question (whatever its exact nature may be) is implicated in
determining the agreement form of the past participle.
11. The type of account envisaged in note 7 to Chapter 1 (advanced primarily
for Germanic languages) is stipulative in a similar way.
12. It is true that the past participle exhibits overt agreement in respect of the
subject due ladri, which, according to the agreement-by-movement analysis
of past participle agreement discussed in 6.2, implies that movement has
taken place. However this simply illustrates a general problem with the
agreement-by-movement analysis itself (see 6.3 for further discussion).
13. The equivalent problem is solved in Burzio’s account (1986:58) under
the assumption that an empty category in subject position binds the
impersonal clitic si, thus creating a subject–clitic binding relation which,
for Burzio’s purposes, has the same status as the relation illustrated by
the earlier example (1). Centineo (1996:235) takes issue with this
solution, observing that the c-command relation is incorrect (the empty
category, in effect the trace, c-commands the antecedent rather than vice
versa).
14. By the term ‘transitive reflexive’ I mean a reflexive construction in which
the verb has a transitive occurrence and the reflexive clitic bears a q -role
(other than that assigned to the subject). In contrast, the clitic in an intran-
sitive reflexive construction has no q -role and the verb is not deemed to
have a transitive occurrence. In fact, intransitive reflexives are typically
regarded as a subtype within the overall unaccusative class. Burzio (1986)
divided intransitive reflexives into ‘ergative reflexives’ and ‘inherent
reflexives’, where the former alternate with transitives (for example, rom-
persi ‘become broken’ versus rompere ‘break (something)’) but the latter do
204 Notes
not. Most subsequent authors have tacitly adopted this or a similar

subdivision.
15. In this respect, Burzio’s approach foreshadows the core–periphery dicho-
tomy invoked by Sorace (2000) as part of her Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy.
Note, however, that while Sorace’s hierarchy is established on exclusively
semantic grounds, Burzio’s core–periphery distinction was determined con-
figurationally. Thus each of the classes (a) to (c) shown in the text was argued
to correspond to a different degree of contiguity to the verb on the part of
the element that was claimed to be bound by the subject (see 5.2). In class
(a), representing the closest degree of contiguity, the clitic actually formed
a morphological unit with the verb, while in (c), representing the remotest
case, the bound trace was separated from the verb by a clause boundary.
16. In fact, even in Italian some transitive/intransitive pairs exhibit A selection
for both members of the pair. One such case, cited by Burzio (1986:177),
involves girare ‘rotate’:
(i) Il mulo ha girato la macina.

‘The mule has turned the millstone’
(ii) La macina ha girato.
‘The millstone has turned.’
17. Interestingly, Belletti (2001) has proposed what amounts to subsuming

transitive reflexives within class (b), that is, to treating transitive reflexives
as in effect intransitive reflexives. Given that overt past participle agree-
ment in Italian is always obligatory in transitive reflexive constructions but
not always in non-reflexive transitive constructions that involve a direct
object clitic (see chapter 6, note 5, of this book), she has suggested that
reflexive clitics are generated outside the VP projection (perhaps as ‘agree-
ment’ markers within the clause functional structure) and that what deter-
mines the agreement form of the participle is not the clitic but the subject.
In that analysis, the preverbal subject of a transitive reflexive construction
would be analysed as having raised from direct object position. Thus the
earlier example (1), reproduced below, would receive the type of analysis
schematized in (i):
(1) La tigrei sii è leccata.

(i) La tigrei si è leccata t i.
18. In fact, despite assigning ‘*’ to this sentence, Reinhart and Siloni note that
at least some speakers fi nd it acceptable. As was implied by the discussion
in Chapter 3, the view adopted in this book is that the partitive cliticization
diagnostic detects pragmatic failures rather than outright grammaticality
failures, and so a degree of variation in speaker judgments is only to be
expected.
19. For this type of diagnostic, see note 4 in Chapter 7 of this book.
20. This can be seen by considering the aspectual classes of the verbs in Table
5.2.
Notes 205
21. The term ‘degree achievement’ (Dowty 1979) is sometimes used in connec-
tion with some of the verbs in this category.
22. In fact it also diagnoses stativity, but that possibility can presumably be
ruled out given the dynamic nature of the processes described.
23. Compatibility with a time-span phrase introduced by a word meaning ‘in’
is a standard diagnostic for accomplishment status. Compare, for example,
Smith wrote a book in two months (accomplishment) as opposed to Smith was
writing a book for two months (activity).
24. This point is discussed in Rosen (1984).
25. In various places (for example, Centineo 1996, Rohlfs 1949) it is asserted
that verbs like suonare and nevicare select only A when used as activity
terms. However, scrutiny of authentic contemporary sources reveals E
assignment to be possible in this use too.
26. For example, compare (44) to the sentence below:
La campana ha suonato per un’ora.

‘The bell rang for an hour.’
27. More specifically, this is their generalization for European French. For
Canadian French they acknowledge a degree of lexical conditioning.
28. In fact this phraseology is slightly problematic (in my view), given that
properties presumably must be extra-linguistic objects and so, strictly
speaking, cannot enter into linguistic relations such as modification. I leave
this detail aside, however.
29. In a theory such as Belletti’s (1988/1999), a definite subject such as la barca
would receive the same analysis as a postverbal unergative subject, that is,
it would presumably not be an ‘internal’ argument in Chierchia’s sense.
30. This leaves the case of impersonal si, which Chierchia also claims falls
within the scope of this theory (47–50). For simplicity, I leave this issue out
of the present discussion.
31. Presumably, something similar could be said about r, for example, that it
substitutes a copy of the object for the subject.
32. In essence, the domain of a function is the set of items that can serve as
the input to the function (i.e. the set of possible arguments for which the
function will return a value).
33. See Perlmutter (1989) and Centineo (1996) for reviews of other earlier, now
largely discredited accounts.
34. In fact, given that the syntactic analysis of auxiliary selection does not
appear to follow from any general theoretical principle (see 5.2 and 5.3
above), the attribution of E selection to a determinate but non-verifiable
syntax is to all intents devoid of explanatory power.
35. The corollary of this process in the passive voice was the well-known rein-
terpretation of the tense value of the auxiliary, with for example factus est
giving way to factus fuit as the locus of the meaning ‘was done/has been
done’.
36. Even in the later Middle Ages, the synthetic perfect/preterite was still the
principle vehicle for the majority of the functions that in the modern lan-
guages are associated with the perfect:
206 Notes
(i) Yo, de que fu rrey, non fiz mas de dos cortes. (C 3129)

‘Since I became king I have convened only two sessions of the
Cortes.’
(ii) Io vidi già cavalier muover campo. (I XXII, 1)
‘I have before now seen horsemen moving camp.’
(iii) Lessiez ester et me dites se vos menjastes hui. (Q 106, 28)
‘Rest and tell me if you have eaten today.’
37. This would apply also to E + past participle qua ‘perfect’ passive – see note
56 below.
38. Presumably, this is an instance of Comrie’s ‘experiential perfect’ (see begin-
ning of 5.6).
39. Here I take for granted the traditional assumption that true perfect
au xiliaries have a quasi-morphological function. On this point, see Bentley
and Eythórsson (2003) section 5.2.
40. Thus the quasi-equivalence between the periphrastic constructions shown
in (91) to (93) and the corresponding synthetic preterite forms (se fue,
naquimes, cadde) is analogous to that which exists between, for example,
modern Spanish estuvo cerrado ‘was closed’ (that is, ‘became closed’) and
the corresponding ‘action’ passive fue cerrado ‘was closed’. This near equiva-
lence can be accounted for in terms of one construction indicating the
inception of a state (estuvo cerrado) and the other the occurrence of an event
that initiates the same state (fue cerrado).
41. ‘The pronoun is not omitted but has not yet been introduced.’
42. In fact, assuming that the Latin past participle originated as an adjective,
the Classical Latin situation probably represents the outcome of a process
of syntactic reanalysis also. Such cyclical developments are not uncommon
historically.
43. This follows because unergatives are assumed to assign subject q -role to
their subject. If the past participle morphology blocks the externalization
of subject q -role, an unergative past participle will fail to assign any q -role
either to a matrix subject in a predicative construction (for example, *The
customer was complained) or to the modified noun in an attributive con-
struction (for example, *a coughed patient).
44. In addition to the two examples in the text, consider also the example with
convenuti in note 53 below. In the latter case, the participle presumably
comes from the ‘agree’ sense of convenire, to which perfect auxiliary A is
normally assigned (by hypothesis, this assignment indicates an unergative
occurrence).
45. Monter ‘go up’ and descendre ‘go down’ are notable exceptions.
46. As noted in many places, an analogous alternation persists in modern
Italian:
(i) Luisa ha corso nel parco per un’ora. (Centineo 1996: 251)
‘Luisa ran in the park for an hour.’
(ii) Luisa è corsa a casa in un’ora. (Centineo 1996: 251)
‘Lucy ran home in an hour.’
47. The exact status of the implication in question depends on the particular
analysis of the perfect. If the perfect of result and the experiential perfect
Notes 207
are assigned the status of different meanings, then the implication has a
semantic status. On the other hand, if the usages in question do not involve
different meanings, the implication presumably is a pragmatic
implicature.
48. Note also that the achievement potential of mancare is rendered rather
explicit when the verb is used as a euphemism for morire:
Il 16 agosto X è mancato, a 89 anni.

‘On the 16th August, X died, aged 89.’
49. In fact, given the discussion in 5.6.1, many apparent instances of the
perfect of result in the Middle Ages might in reality be instances of a
copula–adjective construction. The ‘resultant state’ meaning is the same
under both analyses, however.
50. In fact, in early modern Italian, there are fairly frequent attestations with
auxiliary avere of at least some of the verbs in question, but never when the
perfect is a perfect of result.
51. Possibly bisognare ‘be necessary’ could be assimilated to the general model
discussed in this section, given the achievement sense illustrated by the
(somewhat archaic) examples below:
(i) Quando bisognò, venne in aiuto coi paladini. (O 31, 59)

‘When the need arose, he came to help with the paladins.’
(ii) Ma quando bisognò, l’ebbe in oblio. (O 43, 70)
‘When the need arose he forgot.’
In these examples, the sequence quando bisognò appears to refer to the

inception of a state that could be described using bisognare in its stative
sense.
52. Remés is the past participle of Old French remanoir, a cognate of Italian
rimanere.
53. The common use of A with the ‘agree’ meaning (example (119)) may result
from the uneven tendency for correlations to emerge between the perfect
auxiliaries and specific senses of given verbs, with A often being associated
(not particularly systematically) with meanings that involve greater delib-
eration and control. Given that the past participle convenuto retains its
adjectival capability even in the ‘agree’ sense, as illustrated in the example
below, there is no a priori reason to expect the latter sense to be incompat-
ible with E assignment:
Sono convenuti sulla necessità di utilizzare truppe antisommossa.

‘They are agreed on the need to use riot police.’
54. Translation: ‘verbs expressing an action in which the subject did not par-
ticipate but which the subject simply underwent, and whose agent remained
completely indeterminate’.
55. Alternatively, it might be classified as an instance of the ‘middle voice’.
56. Notice that this circumstance implies that E + past participle was three-way
ambiguous, as between a strictly intransitive meaning, a reflexive intransi-
tive meaning, and a passive meaning.
208 Notes
6 Past Participle Agreement

1. On this point, see Loporcaro (1998) and Bentley and Eyrthórsson 2003
(section 6).
2. I continue using ‘E and ‘A’ to designate ‘be’ and ‘have’ verbs respectively,
as in Chapter 5.
3. In Italian this is obligatory only with third person clitics. Italian also
exhibits agreement when the clitic is partitive ne:
Ne ho viste/*visto molte.
‘I have seen many of them.’
4. Agreement is also possible (though dispreferred) when the clitic is partitive

en:
Ja n’havia feta una.

‘I had already made one.’
5. An alternative taxonomy, proposed by Belletti (2001, section 5), involves

assimilating the transitive reflexive examples (7) and (8) to the ‘unaccusa-
tive’ paradigm of (3) to (6), with the subject and not the clitic raising
from object position. This separation of the transitive reflexive structure
from the (non-reflexive) object clitic structure (examples (9) and (10))
would be motivated by the obligatory nature of the agreement with fi rst
and second person clitics in the former case and its optionality in the
latter:
(i) Ci siamo guardati/*guardato allo specchio.

‘We looked at ourselves in the mirror.’
(ii) Vi ha visti/o.’
‘He has seen you (pl.).’
6. Burzio was assuming a ‘base-generated’ account of cliticization, according

to which the clitic is base-generated in its clitic position but is coindexed
with an empty category in the position in which the q -role borne by the
clitic is assigned (for example, direct object position for a direct object
clitic). The net effect in terms of the present discussion is analogous to that
which follows from the movement-based analysis of clitics assumed in the
preceding paragraph in the text (and also in the analysis of Belletti 2001,
discussed below).
7. For simplicity I limit my remarks to indefinite postverbal subjects, given that
in some theories at least, indefinite and definite postverbal subjects of E-
selecting verbs/constructions receive divergent analyses.
8. Typically the subject is preverbal in French. Thus examples such as this one
(from Marandin 2001) are stylistically marked. Notice, in connection with
the argument that follows in the text, that the agreement exhibited by the
participle is not retained in this inverted construction if avoir is the
auxiliary:
Notes 209
Parfois a résonné/*résonnée une voix qui paraissait la sienne.

‘Sometimes a voice that seemed to be hers has resonated.’
9. Such agreement appears to be possible, however, in non-standard varieties

of Italian (compare Centineo 1996: 235; Belletti 2001: section 3.3). This
non-standard pattern could perhaps represent a continuation of the initial
Romance pattern of A-type agreement discussed in 6.4.
10. It is to this circumstance that she attributes the impossibility of VSO word
order in Italian, given that the object would have to cross over the post-
verbal subject, thereby violating Relativized Minimality.
11. An additional problem with the unified accounts discussed in the text
consists in the fact that they cannot account for the complete absence of
participle agreement in the perfect in languages like Spanish. For example,
given the assumption that such agreement is triggered by object movement,
there would be no reason not to expect participle agreement in cases of
object cliticization. Belletti (2001) suggests that the relevant participle
agreement projection is missing altogether in Spanish. However, Spanish
passive constructions exhibit past participle agreement (see examples (13)
and (19)), which presumably motivates the positing of an agreement projec-
tion in that type of case. Therefore the absence of such a projection in the
perfect must in effect be stipulated.
12. See the discussion in 5.6.5.
13. I leave open whether this is generated as the object or the subject of
the past participle. Logically, both possibilities must exist. (Compare the
assumption in Cinque 1990 that some adjectives generate their argument
in object position and others in subject position, a duality that clearly does
not interfere with the agreement form of the adjective.) I also assume that
the participle morphology does not systematically block the licensing of
subject q -role, for the reasons given in 7.2.1 and 5.6.2.
14. This view might seem to be challenged by the modern dissociation of par-
ticiple agreement and E selection in the Italian impersonal si construction,
in cases when the participle is from a verb that does not itself select perfect
auxiliary E, as illustrated by the contrast below:
(i) Si è arrivati. (Compare: Gianni è/*ha arrivato)

‘One has arrived.’
(ii) Si è parlato/*parlati. (Compare: Gianni ha/*è parlato)
‘One has spoken.’
However, the non-agreement in the type of case illustrated by (ii) is histori-

cally motivated under the present analysis, given that it could never have
been the case that essere was a copula in this construction (that is, in the
case in which the participle is from an A-selecting verb). This use of essere
results from the historical levelling of auxiliary selection, in favour of E, in
all reflexive and related constructions. As regards (i), this simply represents
a continuation of the general case illustrated by (25), but with impersonal
subject si as opposed to a personal subject.
15 To the effective dissemination of this rule can be attributed the divergence
between Italian and French as regards indirect object reflexive clitics.
210 Notes
7 Participial Absolutes
1. Typically this will produce a control-type of structure, with an item outside
the participial clause controlling into that clause.
2 Here the participial clause una vegada jugat presumably could be classified
as involving an instance of ‘arbitrary’ PRO, analogously to the participial
clause in the following example from Belletti (1992:43):
Finito un lavoro, è piacevole prendersi una vacanza.

‘Having finished a task it is nice to take a holiday.’
3. This obviously requires an additional stipulation excluding the case when

the past participle occurs with a perfect auxiliary. Burzio (1986:152) pro-
vides such a stipulation.
4. A position that is in effect analogous is adopted by Levin and Rappaport
(1986:654) in respect of adjectival past participles. They contend that the
past participle morphology blocks the externalization of the subject q -role,
with the result that an unergative participle will fail to assign a q -role to
either the matrix subject in a predicative construction (for example, *The
customer seemed shouted) or to the modified noun in an attributive construc-
tion (for example, *a cried child).
5. The active analysis of this type of clause is motivated primarily by the overt
accusative case that is observable under cliticization, as in (11) above. Alter-
natively, the verb might be regarded as passive, as claimed by Egerland
(1996:229–63). A passive analysis would be more attractive for languages
like Spanish, Portuguese, French and so on, where there is no accusative
clitic data corresponding to Italian (11).
6. So in fact was the passive type of case (Salutata da tutti, Maria lasciò la sala
‘Having been greeted by everybody, Maria left the room), although this
possibility is not relevant to present concerns.
7. Actually, this assumption would not be applicable generally, given example
(18) below, as well as Spanish (22) and (23), all of which instantiate pre-
cisely this pattern. Note also the agreement exhibited in the earlier second-
ary predicate type of construction (examples (12) and (13)) and also the
agreement in the PRO type of construction with verbs like vivere ‘live’:
(i) Vissuta in povertà, Maria morì il 2 febbraio 2002. (Loporcaro 2003:

219)
‘Having lived in poverty, Maria died on 2 February 2002.’
Loporcaro (apparently following Dini 1994) classifies vivere as unaccusative,

although in fact avere appears to be the commoner perfect auxiliary with
this verb – compare religious/biblical examples such (ii) and (iii) below:
(ii) Il Salvatore ha vissuto in povertà.

‘The Saviour lived in poverty.’
(iii) un prete che ha vissuto in povertà ed è morto povero
‘a priest who lived in poverty and died poor’
Notes 211
Plausibly, vivere could well be classified as unergative, as in fact are most of

its cognates in other Romance languages.
8. Here Burzio is assuming the classic ‘case transmission’ theory, whereby a
null expletive in the high preverbal subject position (spec-IP/TP) is respon-
sible for case licensing on a postverbal subject (see 5.2).
9. For the Italian verbs, I assume selection of perfect auxiliary avere to indicate
unergative status:
(i) Il re ha abdicato.
‘The king has abdicated.’
(ii) L’erba ha attecchito.
‘The grass has taken root.’
(iii) Il latte ha bollito.
‘The milk has boiled.’
(iv) Il lago ha tracimato.
‘The lake has overflowed.’
As far as the Spanish examples are concerned, I classify the relevant verbs
as unergative on the grounds that (i) their Italian and French equivalents
are assigned avere/avoir and (ii) they fall within the unergative semantic
spectrum on Sorace’s (2000) auxiliary selection hierarchy. Given the unreli-
ability of the bare subject diagnostic discussed in Chapter 4, there is in fact
no principled Spanish-internal basis for classifying verbs as unaccusative
or unergative.
10. In addition to the examples in the text, it is also worth noting cases such
as the following:
Terminato il ministro di parlare, si udì un tuono e il tomporale fu

tremendo.
‘The minister having finished speaking, a clap of thunder was heard and
the storm was terrible.
In this use, terminare is either unergative or transitive (depending on how
di parlare is analysed), but in any case is not unaccusative.
11. This classification seems reasonable in view of the facts that (i) its equiva-
lents in Italian and French select perfect auxiliary avere/avoir) and (ii) it
falls into the unergative semantic spectrum on Sorace’s Auxiliary Selection
Hierarchy.
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Index
Accent perfect auxiliary E and, 140–3,

bare subjects and, 101 145, 161, 179
direct objects and, 65 presentational uses of, 66–7
partitive cliticization and, see also State terms
62 Activity terms
prevented from falling on verb, agentive, 57, 59, 66–9, 93
32, 37–8, 62 diagnostics for, 119
see also Focus identificational information
Accomplishment terms structure and, 59
diagnostics for, 205 n. 23 Latin deponents and, 134
frequently classified as non-agentive, 57, 60, 66–7, 69
unaccusatives, 53, 179, 181, participial absolutes and,
186 179–80
participial absolutes and, 179 partitive cliticization and, 57–
partitive cliticization and, 195 60, 195 n. 19
n. 19 perfect auxiliary A and, 67, 69,
perfect auxiliary A and, 118
120–2 perfect auxiliary alternations
perfect auxiliary alternations and, 141–2
and, 141–2 perfect auxiliary E and, 119–21
perfect auxiliary E and, 140–3, presentational uses of, 59, 66–
161, 179 7, 69
presentational uses of, 66–7 unergativity and, 57, 60, 93
resultant states and, 140–1, see also Contextualization
181, 184 Adjectival past participles
semantic decomposition of, reflexive verbs and, 115–16
118–19 restricted to unaccusative verbs,
Achievement terms 139, 206 n. 43, 210 n. 4
as denoting the inception of a unergative, 139–40, 207 n. 53
state, 118, 140–1, 149, 181, see also E-verbs: as copulas
184 Adjunct
bare subjects and, 102, 185–6, condition, 42
198–9 n. 18 extraction, 50–1
frequently classified as Agentivity
unaccusatives, 53, 102, 179, diagnostics for, 9
181, 185, 186, 199 n. 18 perfect auxiliary selection and,
participial absolutes and, 179 121, 144, 207 n. 53
partitive cliticization and, 195 Agreement
n. 19 long-distance, 108, 110, 165–6,
perfect auxiliary A and, 188 n. 17
120–2 projections, 5, 19–20, 109–10,
perfect auxiliary alternations 164–5, 167, 175–6, 188 n. 16,
and, 141–2 203 n. 10, 209 n. 11
220
Index 221
see also Past participle past participle agreement with,

agreement 163–5, 168–70, 185, 208 n.
Alexiadou, Artemis, 108 8, 209 n. 9
Algunos versus unos, 199 n. 22, small clauses and, 131–2, 168,
201 n. 29 185
Anagnostopoulou, Elena, 108 Avere, see A-verbs
Aranovich, Raúl, 70 Avoir, see A-verbs
A(rgument)-positions, 3, 41, 54,
67, 202 n. 4 Baltin, Mark, 3, 53, 68
Aristotle, 86, 91 Bare subjects
Arteaga, Deborah, 190 n. 5 as unaccusative diagnostic in
Aspectual class Spanish, 70, 92–5, 101–2,
participial absolutes and, 179 185–6, 198–9, 211 n. 9
partitive cliticization and, 67 conjoined, 99–101, 196 n. 2
perfect auxiliary selection and, contrasted with overtly
118–24 quantified subjects, 79–80,
see also Accomplishment terms; 88, 90
Achievement terms, etc. default existential
Associates interpretation of, 71, 74,
case and, 4, 20, 108 96–7
compared with transitive direct empty determiners/quantifiers
objects, 65 and, 12, 71, 73
defined, 17 event arguments and, 71, 74
definite, 24–6, 31, 191 n. 12 informational richness
extraction from, 45, 57, 60–2, requirement on, 100–2
69 locative subjects and, 73,
form informational unit with 76–7
verb, 36–7 modified, 99–101, 196 n. 2,
introduced by universal 201 n. 27, n. 28
distributives, 22–4 of unergative verbs, 75–7
narrowly focused, 32, 35–6 presentational verbs and, 200
need not be deep objects, 65 n. 23
passive, 30 preverbal, 100–1
pragmatically indeterminate, semantico-pragmatic
38 constraints on the
presented, 32–5 distribution of, 78–95, 101,
see also Agreement: long- 185
distance; Binding; syntactic distribution of,
Unaccusative; Unergative 70–1
Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy universal, 75, 96–7, 102
(ASH), 75, 122, 188 n. 15, see also Accent; Achievement
190 n. 4, 204 n. 15, 211 n. 9 terms; Contextualization;
A-verbs Empty Category Principle;
as perfect auxiliaries, 12, 109– Ergative Analysis;
14, 119–24, 142–4, 160–1, Government; Individual-
169, 171, 185, 193 n. 20 (see level predicates; Partitive
also Accomplishment terms; case; Quantification; Stage-
Achievement terms; Activity level predicates; State
terms) terms
222 Index
Belletti, Adriana Brentano, Franz, 91, 199 n. 23

on bare nouns, 72, 74 Brother-in-law, 188 n. 14
on definiteness effects, 20–2, Burzio, Luigi
193–4 n. 6 and the term ‘ergative’, 187
on inversion, 22, 41, 43 n. 2
on participial absolutes, on accusative case, 177
175–6 on impersonal si, 158, 202 n. 2
on partitive cliticization, 40–3, on participial small clauses,
54, 67, 193 n. 1 174
on partitive (inherent) case, 13, on partitive cliticization, 51–2
20–2, 72, 74, 165, 188 n. 17, on past participle agreement,
192 n. 18, 203 n. 7 164, 165
on past participle agreement, on perfect auxiliary selection,
5, 164–5, 167 104, 107, 111–13, 159
on perfect auxiliary selection,
109 Cardinaletti, Anna, 44
on reflexives, 204 n. 17 Carlson, Greg N, 63, 71, 75, 82,
on relation between syntax 198 n. 16
and intonation, 195 n. 17 Case
Bennis, Hans, 166, 187 n. 4 accusative, 2, 4, 22, 166–7, 174,
Bentley, Delia 176–7, 180, 183, 188 n. 16–
on definiteness effects in 17, 210 n. 5
Sardinian, 31 failures of, 175–8
on perfect auxiliary selection, nominative, 4, 20–2, 108, 110,
122–4, 202 n. 1, 206 n. 39 165, 176, 183, 188 n. 17
on ne-cliticization, 56–7, 195 n. transmission, 108, 211 n. 8
20 see also Partitive (inherent)
Benveniste, Emile, 4, 109 case
Benzing, Joseph, 12 Catalan, see Participial absolutes;
Bernstein, Judy, 73 Partitive cliticization; Past
‘Be’-verbs, see E-verbs participle agreement
Biberauer, Theresa, 19 C-command, 3, 9, 53–4, 110,
Binding 166, 188–9 n. 16, n. 17, 196
of associate/postverbal subject, n. 4, 203 n. 13
by expletive, 107–9, 165 Cennamo, Michela, 202
of clitic, by subject, 104, 203 n. 1
n. 13 Centineo, Giulia, 203 n. 13, 205
of object position, by clitic, n. 25, n. 33, 206 n. 46
164 Chierchia, Gennaro, see
of trace, by subject, 4, 104, 107, Subject-affectedness
164 Chomeur, 6
theory, 108 Chomsky, Noam
see also Past participle on chains, 176
agreement on control into adjuncts, 10
Birner, Betty, 191 n. 12 on ne-extraction, 189 n. 18
Bouchard, Denis, 19 on raised features, 11
Bowers, John, 187 n. 4 on relation between expletives
Brambilla Ageno, Franca, 137, and associates, 108–9
157 on L-marking, 42
Index 223
see also Agreement: long- Definiteness effects

distance; Subject q -role: focus and, 22, 27
assignment of in English, 20, 25
Cinque, Guglielmo in French, 20, 25
on ne-extraction, 3, 13, 44 in Italian, 21–2, 27
on participial absolutes, 4 in Spanish, 22–3
on unaccusative adjectives, 64, partitive case and, 20–2, 27–8,
209 n. 13 182
on wh-extraction, 44 pragmatic rather than
Cocchi, Giulia, 4, 109–10, 117, syntactic, 38, 182
159 Degree achievements, 205 n. 21
Combien extraction, 45 Deponent, 132–4, 139
Comrie, Bernard, 131 Diesing, Molly, see Mapping
COMP-trace effect, see Null- Hypothesis
subject languages; Dini, Luca, 172
Government Direct objects
Condition on Extraction and control into adjuncts, 9–10
Domains (CED), 42, as defined by Burzio, 202 n. 4
44–5, 47–9, 51, 182, 193 expletive, 177
n. 4 in Relational Grammar, 7, 52–3
Contextualization unaccusative subjects as, 2–4,
activity terms and, 59–60, 93, 9, 15, 21
102 see also Partitive cliticization
bare subjects and, 77, 90–5, Dispositional combinations, 80–1
102, 185 Donnellan, Keith, 89–90
partitive cliticization and, 57, Dowty, David, 118, 195 n. 20,
59–60 205 n. 21
presentational information DP (determiner phrase)
structure and, 59 hypothesis, 71, 73
Contreras, Heles, 3, 12, 71, 73,
96, 196 n. 3 Egerland, Verner, 210 n. 5
Control, see PRO Emission verbs, 123
Conventionalization, see Perfect Emphatic stress, 101, 191 n. 10
auxiliary selection Empty Category Principle (ECP)
Corominas, Joan, 151 bare subjects and, 12–13, 71
Cummins, Sarah, 19 defined, 71
partitive cliticization and, 13
Deep object analysis, 2–3, 6, 8, see also Postverbal subjects
15, 37, 40, 64–5, 101, 159, En-avant, 193 n. 1
167, 170, 173, 182–3 EPP (Extended Projection
Definite descriptions Principle), 108
attributive–referential Ergative Analysis
distinction and, 89 bare subjects and, 3–4
pragmatic constraint on, 24–6, contrasted with Unaccusative
38 Hypothesis, 5–8, 15, 187
uniqueness of reference and, n. 1
27–8 explained, 1–5
see also Associates; Postverbal past participle agreement and,
subjects 165, 167–8
224 Index
Ergative Analysis cont. Focus

perfect auxiliary selection and, accentuation and, 32, 37–8,
103, 107, 109, 160 201–2 n. 32
Essere, see E-verbs clause-final placement and, 22,
Être, see E-verbs 26, 36–7, 101, 192 n. 16
Event arguments, 71, 74, 200 n. 24 narrow, 32–3, 35–7, 56–9
E-verbs partitive cliticization and,
as copulas, 132, 134–42, 157, 56–60
160, 168, 184–5, 207 n. 49 phrase, 3, 22, 29, 41–3, 54,
as passive auxiliaries, 109–14, 67
117, 119–24, 160–1, 163, 166, postverbal subjects and, 22, 29,
169 43, 45, 68
as perfect auxiliaries, 107, 109– wide (sentence), 29, 32, 43,
11, 138, 142, 169, 171, 185 withheld from verb, 31–2, 37,
(see also Accomplishment 60, 62, 65
terms; Achievement terms; see also Definiteness effects
Activity terms) French, see Expletives; Partitive
past participle agreement with, cliticization; Past participle
162–3, 165–7, 168–9, 185 agreement; Perfect auxiliary
Experiencer–stimulus verbs, 95– selection
6, 102, 148
Experiential perfect, 146, 149 Galician, 103
Expletives Garrido, Joaquín, 75, 77, 98, 188
EPP and, 17–18, 108 n. 15, 197 n. 13
in English, 17, 20, 24–5, 30 Government
in French, 17, 19–20, 23–6, bare subjects and, 12, 71, 73–4,
30–8, 190 n. 5 101
nominative case and, 20 COMP-trace effect and, 73–4,
null, 107–8, 190 n. 2, 6, 211 190 n. 14
n. 8 into specifier, 46–51, 68
passives and, 13, 20, 31, 34–6, standard GB conception of,
38 196 n. 4
se-moyen and, 31, 34–5 Grice, H. Paul, 89–90
spec-IP (spec-TP) and, 18–19 Gruber, Jeffrey, 9
spec-vp and, 19
unaccusatives and, 31, 33, 38 Haber, see A-verbs
unergatives and, 33, 38 ‘Have’-verbs, see A-verbs
see also Associates; Herschensohn, Julia, 190 n. 5
Piedmontese; Sardinian; Hidden arguments, see Event
Topic–comment division arguments
Extensional contexts, 97 Huang, James, 193 n. 4
Extraction, see ne-extraction; wh- Hyperonym, 96–7
extraction, etc.
Eyrthórsson, Thorallur, 122–4, Identificational, 43, 59
202 n. 1, 206 n. 39 Impersonal si
bound from subject position,
Factivity, 49–50 202 n. 2
Features, see Movement compared with Latin passive,
Fiengo, Robert, 3, 5, 68, 193 n. 1 159
Index 225
past participle agreement and, Larson, Richard, 187 n. 4

209 n. 14 Lasnik, Howard
perfect auxiliary selection and, on control into adjuncts, 188
110, 158–9, 161, 202 n. 2, n. 16
209 n. 14 on EPP, 18
Inde, 39, 60 on government, 196 n. 4
Individual-level predicates on partitive (inherent) case, 4,
bare subjects and, 71, 74, 97, 13, 20, 72
102 Latin, 39, 131–4, 138–9, 143, 153,
defined, 96 156, 159, 168–9, 198 n. 15
partitive cliticization and, Legendre, Géraldine, 19, 122, 189
63–4 n. 20
In situ, 2, 11, 126, 165–6, 183, Levin, Beth, 4, 11, 114, 139, 177,
187 n. 3 194 n. 8, 210 n. 4
Internal arguments, 48–9, 50–1, L-marking, 42, 44, 67, 193 n. 5
126, 202 n. 31 Locative subjects, 73
Intransitive passive, 138, 156–7 Lois, Ximena, 71, 74, 99, 196 n. 4
Inversion Longobardi, Giuseppe
expletive, 13, 17–38, 60–2, 68 on bare arguments, 71, 99, 201
narrow focus and, 32, 35–7 n. 27
presentational, 33, 68 on extraction, 3, 40, 44, 46–9,
stylistic, 45 68
unergative, 19 on Diesing’s Mapping
see also Null-subject languages Hypothesis, 201 n. 31
Italian Lonzi, Lidia, 56, 64, 66, 193
bare subjects and, 198 n. 15 n. 21, 194 n. 8
see also Definiteness effects; López Díaz, Enrique, 75
Participial absolutes; Partitive Loporcaro, Michele, 7, 172–3,
cliticization; Past participle 208 n. 1
agreement; Perfect auxiliary Lyons, John, 187 n. 2, 199 n. 18
selection
Italo–Romance dialects: perfect Mapping Hypothesis, 201 n. 31
auxiliary selection in, 202 Marandin, Jean-Marie, 189 n. 20,
n. 1 208 n. 8
Masullo, Pascual, 71, 197 n. 13
Kayne, Richard, 5, 45, 109–10, Maximal projection, 54, 196 n. 4
117, 164 McNally, Louise, 191 n. 9, n. 12,
Koopman, Hilda, 44 197 n. 11
Kratzer, Angelika, see Event Mendikoetxea, Amaya, 70
arguments Menéndez Pidal, Ramón, 169
Kripke, Saul, 89–90 Middle voice, 138, 156
Kuroda, Shige-Yuki, 63 Milsark, Gary, 63, 199 n. 22
Movement
Labelle, Marie, 18 of expletives, 19
Laca, Brenda, 197 n. 12 of features, 11
La Fauci, Nunzio, 138 of subject, 2, 67, 164–5, 176,
Lambrecht, Knud, 64, 193 n. 22, 183
195 n. 21, 199 n. 23 of verb, 19, 41, 108, 175–6, 178
Lapesa, Rafael, 137 out of small clauses, 168, 185
226 Index
Ne-cliticization, see Ne-extraction licensing of, 13, 20, 72

Ne-extraction position, 22, 26, 165
adnominal pattern of, 39–40, see also Definiteness effects
42, 46–7, 192 n. 18 Partitive cliticization
as successive cyclic, 47, 68 diagnoses presentational
c-command and, 3, 53–4 capability, 60–7, 184
compared with wh-extraction, from direct objects, 52–3, 65–
44–7 6, 68
from argument positions, 41 from passive subjects/
from L-marked positions, 42, associates, 13, 57, 60–62, 65,
44, 67 184
preverbal subjects and, 193 n. from unaccusative subjects/
1 associates, 56–7
see also Partitive cliticization from unergative subjects/
Nuclear stress rule, 191 n. 8 associates, 55–7, 183
Null-subject languages in Catalan, 39, 55, 58, 61–3, 68
immunity of, to COMP-trace in French, 57, 61–2, 68
effect, 14–16, 74 in Italian, 55–8, 61–4, 66–7
inversion in, 19, 32–4, 61, 65, in Relational Grammar, 7,
195 n. 16 52–3
perfect auxiliary selection and,
Object q -role 66–7, 69, 111, 115–18
and presented discourse syntactic theories of, 40–54
function, 34, 65, 68 see also Accomplishment terms,
and unaccusative subjects, 4, Achievement terms, etc.;
15, 18, 174 Aspectual class; Empty
Category Principle; Ergative
Palmer, Frank R., 130 Analysis; Focus; Individual-
Participial absolutes level predicates; Ne-
agreement in, 176 extraction; Reflexives; Stage-
as unaccusative diagnostic, level predicates
172–3 Passives
in Catalan, 173 bare subjects and, 12–13
in Italian, 172–6, 178–180 compared with unaccusatives,
in Spanish, 172–3, 178–9 11–14, 65, 68, 184
perfect auxiliary selection and, past participle agreement and,
52–3, 179 163, 166, 209 n. 11
unergative subjects in, perfect auxiliary selection and,
178–80 11–12, 112–14, 117, 153, 157–
see also Accomplishment terms; 8, 168, 184
Achievement terms; presentational capability of,
Aspectual class; Case: 36, 38, 68, 184, 195 n. 16
failures of; PRO; Relational reflexive, 34–5, 38, 62, 194
Grammar; Subject q -role n. 15
Partitive (inherent) case see also Associates; Expletives;
bare subjects and, 13, 71–2, Partitive cliticization;
74–5 Postverbal subjects;
ECM constructions and, 72, Reflexives; Subject-
75 affectedness
Index 227
Past participle agreement see also Agentivity; Ergative

in Catalan, 170 Analysis; Impersonal si;
in French, 170 Passives; Raising verbs;
in Italian, 170 Reflexives; State terms;
in Latin, 168–9 Subject-affectedness
in Spanish, 162–3, 169–70, 209 Perfect of recent past, 149
n. 11 Perfect of result
movement-based theories of, accomplishments/achievements
164–7, 183 and, 146–9, 155
non-standard, 209 n. 9 defined, 131
postverbal subjects and, 165–7 in the Middle Ages, 135, 149,
single rule of, in early 155, 161
Romance, 168–9 Perlmutter, David M.
standardization and, 170 and the Unaccusative
two systems of, in modern Hypothesis, 5–6
Romance, 167 on control into adjuncts, 189
see also A-verbs; E-verbs; n. 19
Impersonal si; Participial on grammatical relations, 194
absolutes; Passives; n. 7
Reflexives on partitive ne, 7, 52–3, 68
Perfect auxiliary selection on perfect auxiliary selection
conventionalization of, 131, in Italian, 7, 202–3 n. 5
141–3, 145, 149, 151, 155–6, Phenomena verbs, 121–3
161, 185 Picallo, M. Carme, 40
disambiguating function of, Piedmontese, 31
144, 207 n. 53 Pinto, Manuela, 27, 29, 43, 59,
Franco–Italian mismatches in 191 n. 15, 201 n. 31
respect of, 111–7 Pollock, Jean Yves, 45
historical perspective on, Portuguese, 70, 103, 134, 185,
129–59 210 n. 5
in modern French, 12, 103–4, Postverbal subjects
111–17, 123–4, 131, 141–5, Condition on Extraction
149, 160 Domains and, 42, 44, 182
in modern Italian, 103–6, 111– definite, 2, 21–2, 27–9, 42, 193
17, 119–23, 127–9, 141–5, n. 6
147–8, 150–1, 154–5 government and, 73–4, 190
in Old French, 12, 134–8, 142, n. 14
149, 150, 153 Empty Category Principle and,
in Old Italian, 134–7, 149, 74, 182
150–2, introduced by universal
in Old Spanish, 136–7, 141, distributives, 21, 22–4
143, 150 object-like behaviour of, 14–16,
no complete synchronic 34, 65, 196 n. 6, 203 n. 14
generalization for, 130, 160– passive, 21, 23, 36, 166, 191 n.
1, 184 7, 195 n. 16
semantic theories of, 118–29, presented, 32–4
160, 205 n. 33 see also Binding; Focus; Past
syntactic theories of, 104–11, participle agreement;
116–17, 130 Unaccusative; Unergative
228 Index
Pountain, Christopher, 158 intransitive, 111, 114–16, 131,

Presentational 152–3, 156–9, 162, 202 n. 3
capability, 33, 36, 38, 61–3, 69, ‘omission’ of pronoun with,
184, 195 n. 16 137–8
information structure, 33–5, partitive cliticization and, 115
59, 64, 66, 200 n. 23 past participle agreement and,
unaccusatives, 33, 38, 61, 63, 162–4, 204 n. 17
68, 184, 200 n. 23 perfect auxiliary selection and,
unergatives, 33, 38, 61, 66, 68 103–4, 111, 114–17, 131,
versus ‘logically unstructured’, 156–9
200 n. 23 transitive, 111, 115–16, 131,
see also Accomplishment terms, 157–8
Achievement terms, etc.; Bare see also Adjectival past
subjects; Inversion; Object q - participles
role; Partitive cliticization; Reinhart, Tanya, 115, 118
Passives Relational Grammar
Prior mention, 25, 191 n. 11 ‘arc’ phraseology in, 5, 202–3
Pro, see Expletives: null n. 5
PRO contrasted to GB/Minimalism,
in adjunct clauses, 9–11 5–8
in participial clauses, 174–6, overview of, 5–6
180, 183, 210 n. 1, n. 2, n. 7 participial absolutes and, 7, 173
Probe–goal theory, see partitive cliticization and, 7,
Agreement: long-distance 52–3
Projection Principle, 51 perfect auxiliary selection and,
7, 202–3 n. 5
Quantification ‘tail’ phraseology in, 188 n. 10
bare subjects and, 84–90 ‘Remain’ verbs
default existential, 71 aspectual ambiguity of, 146–7,
existential, 78–81, 83, 85, 87– 155
8, 125 ‘cease’ meaning of, 150
redundant, 88–90 Resultant-state constraint, 53,
universal, 82, 84–7 140, 179, 181, 186
Quine, Willard Van Orman, 80, Richards, Marc, 19
82–4, 88 Richards, Norvin, 167
Rizzi, Luigi
Radford, Andrew, 187 n. 4, n. 7 on binding relations, 203 n. 9
Raising, see Movement on COMP-trace effect, 74
Raising verbs (predicates), 103, on ne-extraction, 54, 193 n. 1
107, 111–13, 116, 127, 188 Rohlfs, Gerhard, 205 n. 25
n. 9 Rosen, Carol, 130, 205 n. 24
Rappaport Hovav, Malka, 4, 11, Russell, Bertrand, 28–9, 89
114, 139, 177, 194 n. 8, 210
n. 4 Sardinian, 31
Referentially opaque contexts, 83 Se-moyen, see Expletives
Reflexives Sentence-radicals, 83
ergative, 115, 203 n. 14 Siloni, Tal, 115, 118
inherent, 115, 157, 180, 203 Sm versus some, 199 n. 22, 201
n. 14 n. 29
Index 229
Sorace, Antonella, 19, 189 n. 20 Subject q -role

see also Auxiliary Selection assignment of, 8–9, 15, 175, 177
Hierarchy (ASH) blocking of, 139, 174–5, 180,
Spanish 183–4, 209 n. 13, 210 n. 4
difficulty of classifying verbs Suñer, Margarita, 64
as unaccusative in, 211 n. 9
see also Bare subjects; T(ense), 54, 166, 203 n. 8
Definiteness effects; Past That-trace effect, see COMP-trace
participle agreement; Perfect effect
auxiliary selection; Theme q -role, 156
Reflexives: intransitive Thetic judgments, 63–4, 199–200
Spec, see Specifier n. 23
Specifier Togeby, Knud, 174
–head relation, 164–5, 196 Topic–comment division
n. 5 definite subjects and, 35
of agreement projection, 175 individual-level predicates and,
of focus phrase, 42–3, 67 63
of IP/TP, 2, 17, 19, 73, 190 n. 5, passives and, 34–5
203 n. 8, 211 n. 8 prevented by expletives, 37
of vp, 19, 166, 187 n. 4, 190 universal distributives and, 24,
n. 1 35
of VP, 41, 187 n. 4 Torrego, Esther, 72–3, 76–7, 92,
see also Government 194 n. 10
Sportiche, Dominique, 44
Stage-level predicates Unaccusative
bare subjects and, 71, 97–8, adjectives, 64, 209 n. 13
102 associates, 4, 30, 45
defined, 96 defined, 2
partitive cliticization and, diagnostics, 15, 18, 69–70, 107,
64, 173, 180, 183–4
thetic judgments and, 63 Hypothesis, 5–6, 11, 15,
see also Event arguments 103
State terms postverbal subjects, 2, 10, 15,
achievement senses of, 145–53, 21–2, 40, 45–8, 101, 165
155–6, 179 syntax, 31, 33, 60, 101, 107,
bare subjects and, 95–9 193 n. 21
diagnostics for, 146, 148, 154 Unergative
partitive cliticization and, 67 associates, 18–20, 30, 38, 45
perfect auxiliary selection and, defined, 2
141, 145–56, 161 postverbal subjects, 2, 15, 22,
presentational uses of, 66–7 26, 40–7, 51–2, 54, 67, 73–4,
pseudo-, 153–5 101, 167, 194 n. 6
Subjacency, 193 n. 3 syntax, 18, 30
Subject-affectedness –unaccusative alternations, 65,
expletivization and, 125–7 72–3, 76–7, 193 n. 21, 194 n.
passives and, 124–5 9, n. 10
perfect auxiliary selection and, see also Direct objects:
124, 127–9 expletive; Inversion
reflexivization and, 125–8 Unfocusable verbs, 32, 38
230 Index
Uniqueness interpretation, see Vincent, Nigel, 158, 168

Definite descriptions VP-internal subject hypothesis,
Universal 18, 67
bare subjects, see Bare subjects vp shells, 19, 167, 187 n. 4, 190
distributives, see Associates; n. 1
Postverbal subjects; Topic–
comment division Ward, Gregory, 191 n. 12
quantifier, see Quantification Weak existential interpretation,
59
Van Valin, Robert Jr, 179, 195 n. Wh-extraction, 44–50, 73–4,
20 164
Vendler, Zeno, 145
Verb raising, see Movement: of Zubizarreta, María Luisa, 191
verbs n. 8

Unaccusative Verbs in Romance Languages by Ian Mackenzie

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Unaccusative Verbs in

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this

1. Romance languages – Verb. I. Title.

5.3 Accounts based on the nature of the auxiliaries 109

7 Participial Absolutes 172

5.1 French intransitive verbs that select être 104

(Editions are speciﬁed only where necessary.)

A El libro de Alexandre (13th C.)

Trec Franco Sacchetti: Il Trecentonovelle (14th C.)

1.1 The Ergative Analysis

A number of intransitive verbs, particularly those indicating movement

1. Selection of a ‘be’ perfect auxiliary, together with subject–participle

Catalan en), but there are enough cross-linguistic similarities to enable

(1) All’improvviso [VP é entrato [ NP un uomo] [ PP dalla ﬁnestra]].

(now deemed by her to be the speciﬁer of a low or inner VP), although

The argument for ne-cliticization is that the host of ne must be,

The same ethos has characterized approaches to the other properties

tion or a verb. Necessarily then, a bare subject had to occur as the

unergative perfect auxiliary asymmetry in languages like Italian then

1.2 The Ergative Analysis versus the

RG also makes use of the concept of a ‘stratum’. This reconstructs the

(4) Sono rimasti dei profughi ungheresi nel paese.

Although it is sometimes suggested that the ergative analysis of unac-

to the RG concept of 2hood. Indeed, RG appears to make a virtue of

(6) Auxiliary selection rule for Italian (Perlmutter 1989, p.

(7) Generalization on Italian participial absolutes (Loporcaro

Notice that in each case the occurrence of the relevant phenomenon

Therefore, while it can be argued whether RG-style generalizations

1.3 General problems with the ‘deep-object’ hypothesis

(8) John broke the window.

(9) John broke his arm.

This contrasts with the assignment of a q -role to the object position,

a prepositional complement, as in the pair of Spanish examples

(10) Pedro pasó por nuestra calle a propósito.

Assuming, following Gruber (1976), that adverbs meaning ‘deliberately’

1.3.2 A postverbal control asymmetry

(12) *The police arrested two meni [without PROi putting up a

Now given that postverbal unaccusative subjects in null subject lan-

(14) Sono entrati tre uominii [senza PROi indentiﬁcarsi].19

The above paradigm is in fact general in Romance null subject lan-

(15) Entraron tres hombresi [sin PROi identiﬁcarse].

In this respect, unaccusative verbs are indistinguishable from unerga-

(16) Gritaron tres hombresi [sin PROi identiﬁcarse].

On the face of it, the control asymmetry between postverbal unac-

(17) Ha muerto mucha gente sin hacer un testamento.

The structural nature of the phenomenon in question is further

(18) *Il est arrivé trois hommes sans s’identiﬁer.

This disparity between Italian/Spanish on the one hand and French on

(19) Sono stati visti dai parenti per l’ultima volta il 26 e 27

However in French, for example, passives select avoir in the perfect,

(20) Le cardinal allemand a été élu pape au quatrième tour de

Perfect auxiliary selection is absent in modern Spanish, but it existed

(22) Falta café. (Unaccusative)

(24) Ne sono stati identiﬁcati tre.

The extraction of ne from the postverbal subject is standardly assumed

(25) Il a été tué un homme.

Case-licensing, then, cannot account for the contrast between (22)

(26) Son inminentes tormentas. Storms are imminent.’

We ﬁnd, then, that while passives pattern with unaccusatives in

1.3.4 The COMP-trace effect

(27) Who did you say that she saw?

In contrast, null subject languages typically allow the deviant (in

(29) ¿Quién has dicho que ha llamado?