Raising and Control(55) a ... has seem 1 -ed [VP [IP the electrician to have found a mouse] t 1 ]
b ... will seem 1 - ∆ [VP [IP the electrician to have found a mouse] t 1 ]
c ... seem 1 -ed [VP [IP the electrician to have found a mouse] t 1 ]
It is important to realise that, as the verb has no subject of its own, there will be no
light verb to assign a -role to the subject. As we know, it is the light verb which is
responsible for assigning Case and hence as there is no light verb, there will be no
Case assigned. The subject of the embedded clause also cannot receive Case from
inside this clause as the inflection is non-finite and non-finite I does not assign Case.
Thus, we can conclude that, despite the exceptional status of the embedded clause, its
subject will not be assigned Case and if it remains in this position it will violate the
Case Filter. Raising this subject to the next clause satisfies the Case Filter as it can get
Case from the finite I of this clause:
(56) IP
DP I'
the electrician 2 I vP
seem 1 -s v'
v VP
t 1 CP/IP V'
t 2 to have found a mouse V
t 1
Here, the verb first moves to the tense position, and then into the I to support the
bound tense and agreement morphemes. The subject in its D-structure position is
Caseless, so it moves into the vacant specifier of the IP where it is assigned nominative
Case.
Next, consider the restrictions on the movement shown in (52b) and (c). The
subject of the embedded clause cannot undergo raising if it is in a finite clause, or in an
object position. In both of these cases, the DP is sitting in a Case position, therefore
regardless of any other restriction, there would be little point in it moving to the
specifier of the higher clause as once it has satisfied the Case Filter, it does not need to
do so again. We might assume a kind of laziness to the system (some call it
‘economy’) such that if something doesn’t need to happen, it will not happen. If the
clause is finite and hence the subject gets nominative from the finite inflection, then
the higher subject position will be unfilled. It is under these circumstances that the EPP
will force the insertion of a pleonastic subject: