What do Prepositional Complementizers do?

Abstract

It is traditionally assumed that prepositional complementizers originate in their surface position and neither move nor cause other constituents to move. In a recent paper, Kayne (1999) argues that they have both these properties. He proposes that a prepositional complementizer originates above VP and attracts an infinitival constituent to its specifier position. The prepositional complementizer then moves to a higher functional head, and VP moves to the specifier position of this head. I argue that Kayne has provided very little motivation for this analysis and that it faces a variety of problems. In the circumstances it seems reasonable to prefer the much simpler traditional analysis. Copyright © 2001 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.