2002 Volume 19 Issue 2 Pages 186-210
Chomsky's (1995b, 2000, 2001a, b) analysis of expletive there constructions involves the Caseless there assumption, whereas Lasnik's (1992, 1995a-c) analysis involves the Case-bearing there assumption and Belletti's (1988) assumption of be as a partitive Case-assigner. After showing that both Chomsky's and Lasnik's analyses are untenable, I suggest a new analysis and show that it accounts for the relevant range of data. The suggested analysis extends to other constructions, including copular be constructions and small clause constructions. This analysis is also shown to be capable of accounting for some properties of expletive it constructions.
