Abstract
It has been argued that null VP structures in English occur where they are properly governed by INFL. Proper government was shown to be satisfied by INFL where it is lexically headed and it fully θ-marks VP: that is, it both assigns a θ-role to VP and assigns a referential index to VP in the form of identification for a time — a value for the feature [PAST]. This latter requirement, which is not fully met when INFL is [-TENSE], accounts for the restricted distribution of null VP in infinitives. In clauses with auxiliaries, Head-Head Agreement allows the Minimality condition to be observed, and allows a non-sister of INFL (or of perfectivehave) to be θ-governed.
Published Version
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