The overgeneration problem and the case of semipredicatives in Russian 27
Of course, even local agreement would seem to require checking, in that Nadja in (22)
must be merged with nominative features, which can only subsequently be validated
(after movement into the matrix clause).^12
How would the MTC deal with the SD? For Hornstein (2001), there is no such
thing as PRO, even in arbitrary control contexts. But this is terminological, since he
still needs an independent pronominal subject in these contexts (although he says
little about it). This pronominal, akin to pro, is introduced by a last resort operation
when movement fails, something like “do-support.” Non-OC, Hornstein (2001: 58)
concludes, is “simply ‘pro’ and it is inserted at a cost in the [Spec, IP] of non-finite
CP complements.” This leaves much of the details to the imagination and, for the SD,
raises similar conceptual issues as does V-binding.
First, recall some representative non-OC examples from (7):
(23) a. Ivan ne imeet predstavlenija o tom,
Ivan.nom not has idea.gen about it
[kak žit’ samomu].
how live.inf self.dat
‘Ivan has no idea how to live on one’s own.’
b. Ivan dumaet, čto [pojti domoj odnomu] važno.
Ivan.nom thinks that go.inf home alone.dat important
‘Ivan thinks that it is important to go home alone.’
c. [Pojti tuda odnomu] rasstroilo by menja.
go.inf there alone.dat upset cond me
‘It would upset me to go there alone.’
d. [Prijti odnomu] očen’ trudno.
arrive.inf alone.dat very difficult
‘It is very difficult to arrive alone.’
It is not clear how the dative pro (or PRO) can be inserted as a last resort operation, if
the SD reflects agreement with a dative subject and that agreement takes place locally/
on-line. Possibly, adapting the analogy that do-support serves to host tense/agreement
features, the pro subject is inserted to host dative features.^13 I will in fact eventually
- Boeckx and Hornstein (2006), in attempting to assimilate the recalcitrant Icelandic facts
into the MTC, must assume case assignment (in the embedded clause) and case overwriting
(in the matrix clause) to handle OC of quirky case-assigning infinitives. This system implies
that Nadja in (22) is for some reason assigned nominative already in the embedded clause.
But, as Bobaljik and Landau (2009) point out, a control movement chain with two structural
cases is problematic for Hornstein’s MTC. This is why, again in discussing Icelandic, Boeckx
and Hornstein contend that the predicative nominative is default rather than structural. - Except that do-support serves a clearly morphological purpose but this operation would
not.