統率の方向性とECP

抄録

Within the current theory of transformational-generative grammar, one of the most important topics is the treatment of empty categories. Grammarians are making attempts to characterize the occurrence of empty categories in terms of the ECP under the assumption that traces must be governed while PROs must not be governed.
Concerning the properties of governors, however, there seems to be a curious confusion of ideas of subcategorization and of a semantic relation (binding): it is taken for granted that X° elements of major categories and those elements which are co-indexed with traces have the same function of governing. Such candidates for governors are, needless to say, quite heterogeneous. Actually, the government by co-indexed elements is restricted to the cases of the so-called that-trace phenomena, an indication that the property of binding can and should be precluded from the notion of government. I propose to modify the idea of government by confining governors to X° categories. In so doing, the ECP can be stated as requiring that empty categories be governed unidirectionally. The evidence for this revised ECP can be provided from a variety of phenomena of subjectnonsubject asymmetry.