Syntax: A Journal of Theoretical, Experimental and Interdisciplinary Research 8.1: 65-80.

ABSTRACT:

 This paper has two goals. First, it provides a solution to an important and particularly recalcitrant problem regarding non-control infinitival complements of derived nouns, which have been argued to provide independent motivation for the retention of the EPP in T. Second, it presents an unnoted problem regarding the elimination of the EPP in infinitival complements of underived nouns, proposing an analysis for them that need not appeal to the EPP in T. To reach these goals, this paper appeals to: (i) an approach to null complementizers as affixes that require specific kinds of hosts, as proposed in Bošković and Lasnik 2003 (building on, but modifying certain aspects of the foundational analysis in Pesetsky 1991 and Stowell 1981); and (ii) an argument (based on Ormazabal 1995) that non-control infinitival complements to nouns are CPs headed by an affixal null C.