Visibility, complement selection and the case requirement of CP

Abstract

Based on the observation that CPs and NPs have the same distribution in Chinese, this paper argues for an extension of Case theory to CPs, along the line of Visibility Condition (Aoun (1979), Chomsky (1981)): CP arguments, as well as NP arguments, need Case to receive thematic roles. More importantly, the same observation presents difficulties for reducing c-selection to Case theory in the vein of Pesetsky (1982), which relies crucially on the premise that CPs may or may not be Case-marked. Our defense of the generality of Visibility thus dovetails Rothstein's (1992) of the generality of Burzio's Generalization, both leading to Grimshaw's (1981) original conception: i.e., complement selection is achieved jointly by c-selection and Canonical Structural Realization. We also propose to correlate the absence of CRP effects in Chinese to its lacking Agr projections. CRP is reinterpreted as a ban against vacuous agreement under the minimalist approach (Chomsky 1992): CPs, unlike NPs, do not bear agreement features of their own in English and rely on expletives orwh-traces to fulfill feature checking on Agr projections. In contrast, feature checking never involves agreement features in Chinese. Hence the absence of CRP effects. Furthermore, the notion “Economy of employment” is introduced to accommodate the traditional Case-theoretical accounts under the new approach and to resolve the tension between the theory of goverment and that of Spec-head agreement from a cross-linguistic point of view.