Chomsky and Lasnik (1993) argue convincingly that PRO has null Case, checked by nonfinite T, and suggest that this may explain PRO’s narrow distribution. However, their analysis falls short of reaching this goal. Here, I refine the theory of null Case so as to fully account for the distribution of empty and lexical subjects of nonfinite clauses, concluding that this minimalist analysis is more ...

The purpose of this study was to explore whether 13 children with specific language impairment (SLI; ages 5;1-8;0 [years;months]) were as proficient as typically developing age- and vocabulary-matched children in the production of finite and nonfinite complement clauses. Preschool children with SLI have marked difficulties with verb-related morphology. However, very little is known about these ...

This paper investigates to what extent child second language (L2) acquisition is similar to first language (L1) acquisition. The focus is on the nature of root infinitives (RIs) produced by children, namely root declarative clauses whose main verb is either a past participle or an infinitive, whereas a finite form is required in the target language (e.g. papa partir 'daddy leave-INF' instead of...

Abstract Finnish nonfinite clauses constitute a complex grammatical class with seemingly chaotic mix of verbal and nominal properties. Thirteen constructions, their selection, control, thematic role assignment, agreement, embedded subjects, syntactic status were targeted for analysis. An analysis is proposed which derives semantic properties by relying on computational model human information p...

There has been a long-standing debate in the literature about whether Mandarin has infinitival clauses. Since there is no verbal morphology to distinguish finite and nonfinite clauses, this is an open question. Researchers have used diagnostics such as the availability of an overt embedded subject and the interpretation of aspect markers to argue both for and against the presence of infinitival...