28 Steven Franks
argue that the potential for dative features drives the SD independently of consider-
ations of the case of PRO/pro.
Grebenyova (2005) applies Hornstein’s MTC to Russian. Although concerned not
with the SD but rather with the choice between “default” instrumental and agreement
for regular predicate adjectives, her account should carry over to the semipredicatives as
well.^14 For regular adjectives, she argued that the subject of the predicate adjective can
either move (under the MTC) or be an instrumental pro subject of a “small clause” (SC).
In (24), both options are potentially available, as shown by the two structures in (25):
(24) Ivan prišel domoj grustnyj/grustnym.
Ivan.nom came home sad.nom/inst
‘Ivan came home sad.’
(25) a. [TP IvanNOM T-fin [VP IvanNOM V [AP IvanNOM grustnyjNOM]]]
b. [TP IvanNOM T-fin [VP IvanNOM V [SC proINST grustnymINST]]]
Following Bailyn (2002, 2012 ), we could take the SC to be a Pred(ication) Phrase, with
instrumental assigned by Pred, presumably to the pro subject with which the adjective
then agrees.
It is not easy however to reconcile this with the SD, which does not seem ame-
nable to a parallel account. If (certain) infinitival TPs, like PredPs, have silent cased
subjects, i.e. PRODAT, then recasting (24) as an infinitival should introduce a dative
adjective as the agreeing equivalent of (25a). Instead, only the instrumental is possible:
(26) [Prijti domoj *grustnyj/*grustnomu/grustnym] neprijatno.
come.inf home sad.*nom /*dat/inst unpleasant
‘It is unpleasant to come home sad.’
The relevant substructure thus cannot be as depicted in (27):
(27) *[ CP C [TP PRODAT T-inf [VP PRODAT V [AP PRODAT grustnomuDAT]]]]
This is a serious problem: if predicate adjectives agree and if cased PRO is a possible
controller of that agreement, then the impossibility of dative in (26) is mysterious.
There is a conceivable technical solution exploiting case overwriting (cf. fn. 12), with
PRO first assigned instrumental by Pred, then, after moving, being reassigned dative
as the subject of the infinitival. In this regard, however, consider Przepiórkowski’s
(1999: 219) slightly marginal Polish example with both dative semipredicative and
instrumental adjective:- This is clear from Grebenyova’s fn. 3, in which she comments that “for the purposes of
exposition” she is extending the analysis of Laurençot (1997), in with the semipredicatives
agree with PRODAT, to “a more general paradigm (with the INST occurring in the same en-
vironments as the dative does).” Differences in behaviour between the semipredicatives and
regular adjectives are examined in more detail in Section 5 below.