Chapter 8 - The Syntax of Non-Finite ClausesIn this example, the subject starts off in the lowest clause as the subject of the adjective
skilled. It then moves out of three clauses to the subject position of the raising verb. In
principle, then, it might appear that there is no limit to how far a subject may raise.
However, it is interesting that in order for this to happen, each predicate between the
original clause and the final landing site of the raised subject must be either a raising
predicate or a passive verb and moreover each intervening clause must be non-finite
and have a vacant subject position. If any of these conditions is not upheld, the
sentence is ungrammatical:
(63) *the builder 1 seemed [that the electrician believed [t 1 to be incompetent]]
The grammatical (62) raises the problem of how it can be grammatical with so
many clauses but only one visible subject. The EPP demands that all clauses have
subjects and so we might expect that this sentence ought to be ungrammatical. All
these problems can be solved if we assume that the subject does not move in one go,
but moves from clause to clause, stopping off in each subject position:
(64) the builder 1 seemed [t 1 to be unlikely [t 1 to be considered [t 1 to be very skilled]]]
In this way, each clause is provided with a subject, the trace, and hence the EPP can be
satisfied. The ungrammaticality of (63) demonstrates that when a subject raises, it
cannot actually be moved too far. Looking at what is possible and what is not possible
with such movements, there is something similar about the restriction to the restriction
we have noted concerning head movement. Recall that he Head Movement Constraint
demands that heads do not move over the top of other heads. It appears that the
restriction on subject movement is that it cannot cross over the top of another subject.
A general way to express both these restrictions is to claim that a moving element
cannot move over the top of a like element. This principle, known as Relativized
Minimality, was introduced by Rizzi (1990) as a way of accounting for locality
conditions on movement. The following diagram might help to make clear how the
principle works:
(65) X Y Z where X, Y and Z are of the same type
What this depicts is a situation in which an element Z is moving to a position X over
the top of another element Y. Given the structure preserving nature of movement, X
and Z will be of the same type, i.e. both phrases or both heads, but if Y is of the same
type too, the then movement is not allowed. Thus, a head cannot move over a head and
a subject cannot move over a subject.
2.2 Control
Let us now turn to the other non-finite clause with an apparently missing subject, in
which there is in fact a phonologically empty pronoun. There are a number of
interesting points to be made about this element. The first is that although it is
obviously a DP, it has a much more limited distribution than normal DPs. The other
matters of interest concerning the empty pronoun PRO are the limitations on its