On the relationship between subject pronouns and clausal arguments

The syntactic structure of English clefts

“…8 The optionality of extraposition pronouns in German and Icelandic seems to suggest, according to Rizzi's typology, that extraposition pronouns are nonreferential. However, there is an alternative analysis according to which the overt pronoun is an argument and the extraposed CP an adjunct, and when no overt pronoun appears the CP is an argument (e.g., Bennis, 1986;Zaring, 1994;Mezhevich, 2004;Reeve (2010). This would mean that when the overt pronoun is present, it is referential, but when it is absent, non-referential pro may appear, since the CP is the argument in this case.…”

“…Kayne (1983) argues that while il is a true expletive, ce is an argument. Notably, while either il or ce can occur in extraposition sentences (depending on the adjunct/argument status of the extraposed clause; see Zaring, 1994), and il must appear in weather sentences, ce must be used in clefts.…”

A–movement and the EPP

“…Because the extraposed clause follows the matrix by-phrase in (56), I assume that it is located in the matrix clause. I further assume that extraposed elements are quite generally base-generated in their surface positions, as in Culicover and Rochemont 1990 (see also Bennis 1986, Jackendoff 1990, and Zaring 1994. A strong argument for this assumption and against the movement analysis of extraposition, in which extraposition involves movement of the extraposed element, is provided by split-antecedent constructions noted by Perlmutter and Ross (1970; see also Gazdar 1981), where there is no plausible source for the base-generation of the extraposed element within an NP.…”