Overt Subject Raising in the History of English

抄録

This paper offers an account of the distribution of nominative subjects in the history of English within the framework of the Minimalist Program. First, it is observed that overt subject raising is obligatory in transitive sentences, but optional in unaccusative sentences, throughout the history of English. This contrast is shown to be derived by incorporating the notion ‘subject of predication’ as a feature checking relation. On the other hand, the freer distribution of unaccusative subjects in Old and Middle English (that is, the fact that they can remain overtly in their base positions in other contexts than there-sentences) is argued to follow from the presence of “rich” verbal agreement triggering overt verb raising. In particular, it is claimed that the “rich” verbal agreement, which counts as a (pro)nominal element, can satisfy the EPP feature of T without overt subject raising or merger of expletive there, when it is carried to T along with overt verb raising.