Yoon - Expletive It in English

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11

Expletive it in English*

Hang-Jin Yoon

(University of Suwon)

This paper focuses on the generation and interpretation of the expletive it in a construction called extraposition. I propose that the expletive it is generated in the SPEC position of the CP of the extraposed clause with a feature which triggers such a semantic effect as focus. When there is no semantic effect, the CP is moved into the subject position. I also argue that the expletive it agrees with the head (C) of the extraposed clause and shares with it the complete φ-set and Case feature. The expletive it agrees with T and moves and raises to SPEC-T due to the EPP feature of T. Case is assigned as a result of the operation. At LF, it can refer to the extraposed clause via reconstruction with its interpretable φ-features.

Keywords: expletive it, extraposition, extraposed clause, semantic effect, reconstruction.

1. Introduction

Ever since the introduction of generative grammar, the occurrence of the

expletive it in the following sentences has been a problem to be solved.

* This is the extended and revised version of the paper presented at the SMOG 2001 Fall Conference on Linguistics and published in its proceedings. I would like to thank the participants of the meeting for their comments. I am also deeply grateful to two anonymous reviewers of Studies in Generative Grammar for their invaluable comments.

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(1) a. It is obvious that the world is round. (Akmajian and Heny 1975: 280)

b. They doubt it very much that you will go. (Rosenbaum 1967: 34)

it in (1a) and (1b) is called expletive (or pleonastic) because it does not carry

any argumenthood.1 Conceptually, the presence of an uninterpretable constituent

in a sentence appears to reflect the imperfection of faculty of language in terms

of Chomsky (1995, 1998, 1999). Especially the occurrence of an expletive

element in an apparent object position as in (1b) brings about controversy since

it may nullify the Projection Principle and the θ-criterion.2

In this paper, I make a proposal on the generation and the interpretation of

it in the sentences (1a) and (1b) within the framework of the minimalist

approach as advocated by Chomsky(1995, 1998, 1999). In section 2, I introduce

an apparent parallelism between there-constructions and it-constructions (often

called extraposed constructions). Section 3 is devoted to the exploration of the

1. Expletive it discussed here is different from weather it in its syntactic behavior. Safir (1985: 65) quotes Chomsky (1981): weather it should be treated as a ‘quasi-argument’, that is, an argument specially selected by a particular predicate as having a particular form. Thus, it can occasionally count as a controller:

(ⅰ) iti rained before PROi snowing

The expletive it of ‘it-extraposition’, however, cannot be treated as a ‘quasi-argument’, since its distribution is almost entirely predictable independently of any particular predicate, and it does not count as a controller in the same way as weather it as in the following:

(ⅱ) *iti seemed that John was guilty after PROi appearing that he had a strong motive

But expletive it must appear in Case-marked positions just like weather it.

(ⅲ) (For) *it to be true that Mary is quirky would be delightful

2. Indeed Postal and Pullum (1988) rejects both principles with the assumption that it in these sentences occupies the object position. Detailed introduction of their argument is beyond the scope of this paper. One may refer to Authier (1991), Rothstein (1995) and Stroik (1996) for the arguments against Postal and Pullum.

Expletive it in English 545

relationship between it and the extraposed clause with the examination of

previous proposals. I make a proposal on the extraposed construction in section

4: (i) the expletive it, with such a feature as focus, is generated in the Spec of

CP of the extraposed clause and is moved due to the EPP feature of the matrix

T and v* in (1a) and (1b) respectively. (ii) it agrees with C of the extraposed

clause and gets φ-features and Case feature via Spec-Head agreement. (iii) it

has no semantic contents and it is reconstructed at LF. I conclude the paper with

a summary in section 5.

2. Apparent Parallelism between there-Constructions and

Extraposed Constructions.

Consider the following pairs.

(2) a. It is obvious that the world is round.

b. That the world is round is obvious. (Akmajian and Heny 1975: 280)

(3) a. There is a man in the room. (Groat 1995: 355)

b. A man is in the room.

In terms of the minimalist approach, (3a) is a result of Merge between there and

the projection of T whereas (3b) is generated by the movement of a man into

the Spec of T projection followed by Merge. The same operation appears to be

applicable to (2a) and (2b). CP(that-clause) merges into T projection in (2b) via

movement while the expletive merges into T projection by pure Merge.

Let's examine the operation more closely.

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(4) a. [ EXPL [T [ be a man in the roon]]]

b. there is a man in the room

(5) a. [ a man [T [be ta man in the roon]]]

b. a man is in the room

According to Chomsky (1999), in (4) the expletive, there, has an uninterpretable

feature [person] and the feature agrees with T after the expletive there merges

into T projection. The operation deletes the [person] feature. Since the expletive

is incomplete, the φ-set of T remains intact. Thus, T agrees with man again to

delete its uninterpretable features.3 The expletive is not visible at LF without

any interpretable feature. Thus, no interpretation is necessary for the expletive

there. It is only visible at PF with its phonetic features.

In (5), T agrees with man. man, activated with Case feature, raises to

SPEC-T to check off the EPP feature of T. The operation deletes the φ-set

and EPP feature of T, and Case feature of man. Case is assigned as a result

of the operation. Since all the uninterpretable features delete, the sentence

converges at LF.

Now, let's find out how the system works for the construction with the

expletive it.

(6) a. [ EXPL [T be obvious [ that the world is round ]]]

b. It is obvious that the world is round.

(7) a. [ CP [T be obvious tCP ]]

b. That the world is round is obvious. (Akmajian and Heny 1975: 280)

3. Recently, there have been different proposals on there-constructions. Im (2001), following Plazak (2000)'s idea, suggests Multiple Interface hypothesis to explain the constructions. Kim (2000) makes a proposal which relies on Case oriented approach. One may also refer to Lasnik (2001), S-H Kim (1999), S-W Kim (2001) among others for related issues.


In (7), in order for the sentence to be grammatical, T should agree with the

CP. CP raises to SPEC-T to check off the EPP feature of T. The operation

deletes the φ-set and EPP feature of T. Case is assigned as a result of the

operation. It then implies that the CP has a complete φ-set and structural Case

feature just like man in (4) and (5) and that it can be assigned Case.

Now, in analogy with the operation applied in (4), it can be assumed that the

expletive it merges into T of the matrix clause and agrees with it in (6). Unlike

the expletive there, it appears to have a complete φ-set and Case feature. Agree

holds between T and it, and the uninterpretable features of T and the structural

Case feature of it delete. However, the interpretable features of it remains. They

are visible at LF. However, it has no antecedent to be referred to inside or

outside the sentence since it is assumed to be an expletive element. The dilemma

is how we should be able to interpret it at LF.

Another problem is that there should be a way to delete the Case feature of

the extraposed clause in (7). CP is supposed to have a complete φ-set and

structural Case feature in (6). T is not available for Agree with the CP since

it agrees with the expletive it and deletes all its features. There remains no

candidate. One suggestion might be that it like there has an incomplete φ-set.

Then, T agrees with it deleting its features. The φ-set of T remains intact since

the expletive it is incomplete. T agrees with CP deleting its features as well as

the Case feature of CP.

However, as McCloskey(1991) shows, there is a difference in agreement

between there-constructions and extraposed constructions.

(8) a. No good solutions exist to this problem.

b. There exist/*exists no good solutions to this problem.

(9) a. That the president will be reelected and that he will be impeached

are equally likely at this point.

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b. It seems/*seem equally likely that the president will be reelected and

that he will be impeached.

(9b) shows that the verb agrees not with extraposed clauses but with the

expletive it even when extraposed clauses are coordinated.4 In the framework

of the minimalist approach, it means that Agree holds between the expletive it

and T excluding extraposed clauses. Then, the problems mentioned in the

above remain unsolved; (i) the extraposed clause keeps its Case feature

undeleted and (ii) the relationship between the expletive it and the extraposed

clause is unexplained in relation with the interpretable φ-set of the expletive it.

In the following sections, I make an attempt to find a solution to this dilemma.

In sum, the expletive there does not have a complete φ-set; thus, it does not agree with T and further it appears to make no semantic contribution. On the other hand, the expletive it agrees with T, which legitimates the assumption that it has a complete φ-set.

3. Expletive it and Extraposed Constructions

The first option for the interpretation of the expletive it is to relate it with

the extraposed clause. It implies that it and the extraposed clause in (6) may

4. As McCloskey describes, “plural agreement is possible just in case the conjoined propositions are contradictory or incompatible, or more generally, when they specify a plurality of distinct states of affairs or situation types. Thus, when the coordinated clauses denotes compatible propositions, then singular agreement is preferred or required” (McCloskey 1991:565) as shown in the following:

(ⅰ) The UNO will be elected and that sanction will be lifted is/??are now likely.

However, what is important here is that even when semantic condition is met, plural agreement in an expletive Construction is inconceivable.


form a θ-chain, (it, CP).

(6) a. [ EXPL [T be obvious [ that the world is round ]]]


However, Safir(1985) argues that such a chain is unbalanced and that they

should not form a chain. According to Chomsky (1981), the members of θ

-chains in which the head is not an argument should be given superscripts

since otherwise the principle C of the Binding Theory would be violated; that

is, if the head A-binds the argument and the argument is a name, the Principle

C is violated. Clearly the chain, (it, CP) has a non-argument head and the CP

appears to behave like a R-expression(name) regarding the Principle C:5

(10) a. [that John is guilty]i bothered the man who knew iti (from Safir

1985: (14))

b. *iti bothered [NP the man who knew [that John was guilty]i]

In (10a), the CP, that John is guilty, is not c-commanded by it; thus, no

violation of Principle C occurs. On the contrary, in (10b) iti coindexed with the

CP c-commands the CP, inducing the violation of the Principle C. Thus, the

only way to connect the expletive and the CP is via superscripts. But the Unity

of Indexing Hypothesis by Safir (1985) excludes superscripts.6 How is the CP

5. The Principle C of the Binding Theory writes:

A R-expression (like names) must be free.

6. According to Safir (1985: (14)), Unity of Indexing Hypothesis is as follows:

(ⅰ) Suppose that α and β are in a relation αRβ such that α and β are a. in configuration relation Yb. share the features X

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then interpreted? In other words, how does the CP get a θ-role?

He proposes a new definition of external θ-position:

(11) External θ-position

Assign θ-role T to a sister of VP.

Thus, external θ-role can be assigned either to the subject position or to the

VP adjoined position in the following diagram:

(12) S

NP INFL VP

X VP X7

The positions marked with X are potentially assigned external θ-role in the

diagram.8 Therefore, the extraposed clause is independently assigned a θ-role

c. are in the adjacency context Z, and d. α and β are coindexed

Then if (a), (b), and (c) hold of relation R' for γR'δ, and γ is coindexed with δ, then γRδ.

Put it simply, the above hypothesis is equivalent to the following:

(ⅱ) There is only one type of indexing.

Thus, such a special treatment as superscript should be excluded from the grammar according to the hypothesis.

7. Here, such phrase markers as S and INFL are used following Safir (1985). After the introduction of the extended X'-theory, S becomes IP which is a projection of I(nfl) and S' becomes CP which is a projection of C(OMP). In this paper, we use different terms and markers interchangeably partly due to the difference in their choice by the papers cited here.

8. Gelderen (1985:140) proposes that extraposed clauses are adjoined to VP on the basis


when there is no element in the subject position. But Safir (1985) does not have

an answer for how the expletive it is licensed and interpreted. It seems that the

assignment of the θ-role is only applied to the extraposed clause since he

argues against forming a θ-chain between it and the extraposed clause. Then

there is no relation between the expletive it and the clause. However, even

though it seems natural that the expletive it has no θ-role, there appears to be

a relation between the expletive it and the extraposed clause; otherwise their

co-occurrence would not be explained.

Authier (1991) also claims that the expletive it and the extraposed clause

of the criteria which originates from Reinhart (1980, 1983). The first one is related to though-movement:

(ⅰ) Though-movementa. Unlikely that she would pass the exam though it was, Rosa still decided to take

the exam.b. *Unhappy who live in New York though many people are, nobody thinks of

moving.

According to him, sentential subjects in (a) are adjoined to VP because they can remain with the rest of the VP while though it was moves. Relative clauses, on the other hand, are adjoined to S, because they cannot remain with the VP while the rest of the sentence moves.

Second argument is VP preposing:

(ⅱ) VP-preposinga. I warned you that it would upset Rosa that you smoke, and upset her that you

smoke it certainly did.b. It was predicted that many people would resign who disagreed with the

management's policy, *and resign who disagreed with the management's policy many people did.

Reinhart (1980: 623) argues that “if the extraposed clause is attached to the VP, it should be possibile to prepose it along with the VP, when the VP is preposed.” This can be done with the sentential subject as in (a) but not in relative clauses as in (b). Reinhart concludes that extraposed sentential subjects are attached to VP and not to the S, since (a) would be ungrammatical if the that S did not prepose together with VP.

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(CP) do not form a CHAIN.9 Let's take a look at the following examples:

(13) a. *They never mentioned it to the candidate [the chairman's tormenting

the junior faculty].

b. *We demand it of our employees [their being nice to the customers].

c. *I dislike it [his being so cruel].

d. *John resented it [Georgina's leaving] (from Authier 1991: (7))

(14) a. They never mentioned it to the candidate [that the job was poor

paid].

b. We demand it of our employees [that they wear a tie].

c. I dislike it [for him to be so cruel].

d. John resented it [that Mary was leaving] (from Authier 1991:(4))

In (13), all the poss-ing gerunds cannot occur in the position occupied by the

CPs in (14). Authier (1991) attributes the ungrammaticality of the sentences in

(13) to the unavailability of Case in the extraposition occupied by the gerunds.

That is, gerunds, being a DP like other nominal phrases, need Case. On the

other hand, CPs do not need to be assigned Case as it may appear in the

Caseless internal argument position projected by the passive verb.10

9. Chomsky (1986), while revising the notion of a chain into a CHAIN partly for the explanation of an expletive-argument pair, adopts the following condition:

(ⅰ) A D-Structure A-position is occupied by α, α nonempty, iff α is linked to an argument.

10. As for the categorial status of gerunds, one may find an extensive research in Abney (1987). Stowell (1981) makes an attempt to find a reason that CP need not be assigned Case and that it may not occupy Cased positions with his Case Resistance Principle. I, however, assume here as in section 4 that CPs have Case feature; thus, either Case feature is transferred to the expletive it or it is checked directly via Agree between the EPP feature of T or v* and the CP when the expletive it does not appear in the construction.


(15) a. It was noticed that Georgina had left.

b. *It was noticed Georgina's leaving.

He further argues that (it, CP) in (15) do not form a CHAIN. If they were,

he claims, Case inheritance would be possible for the poss-ing gerunds in (13).

He concludes, following Safir (1985), that the extraposed CP is not in a

CHAIN but is base-generated in an adjoined position where it receives a θ

-role directly from V and that the object position filled by it in (14) does not

follow form the Projection Principle.11 I adopt the proposal by Safir and

Authier that the extraposed CP complement clause is base-generated at the VP

adjoined position and that (it, CP) in (14) do not form a chain for the share of

θ-role.

However, although Authier tries to show that the expletive it and the

extraposed clause do not form a chain, he doesn't have a comment on the

licensing of the expletive it either. In the next section, I will propose a new

approach toward an answer for the licensing of the expletive it.

4. Generation and Interpretation of Expletive it

In an attempt to explain the expletive it in the object position, Stroik (1996)

makes a claim that the expletive it is generated in the SPEC of CP and that it

moves upward to the matrix clause. Thus, the syntactic representation of the

sentence in (16) at LF is as in (17):

(16) I should resent it that you did not call.

11. Readers may refer to Postal and Pullum (1988) for the argumentation against the theta criterion. Earlier arguments can also be found in Rosenbaum (1967).

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(17) [. . .[PredP resenti [AGRoP itj [AGRo' ti [VP [V' ti [CP tj[C' that you did not call

]]]]]]]]]

He argues that the assumption that the expletive it is generated in the SPEC of

CP can explain the asymmetry between the clausal complement headed by that

and the wh-clausal complement.

(18) a. I just knew that Mary would fire John today

b. I just knew it that Mary would fire John today

(19) a. I just knew where Mary would fire John today

b. *I just knew it where Mary would fire John today

According to him, if the expletives in (18b) and (19b) originate in the SPEC

of the extraposed CP, (19b) is expected to be ill-formed because both the

expletive and the wh-phrase would have to occupy the same position, SPEC of

the CP. He ascribes the well-formedness of (18b) to the availability of agreement

relationship between the expletive and the extraposed CP.

However, he does not make the same proposal for the expletive it in the

subject position since it in the subject position is compatible with wh-clausal

complements unlike it in the object position.

(20) a. It was told to Sam that Lou likes her

b. It was told to Sam who Lou likes.

Although his explanation appears to be attractive, it does not give answers to

the following questions:

(ⅰ) Why is the expletive it generated in the SPEC of CP?


and in relation to this

(ⅱ) When do we have the expletive it and when not?

(ⅲ) Why does it move?

(ⅳ) How is the expletive it interpreted, that is, is it possible for the

expletive to share the θ-role which is assigned to the extraposed CP?

I will assume, extending the proposal in Stroik (1996), that the expletive it is

generated in the SPEC of the extraposed CP both in the subject and object

position which is base-generated in the VP-adjoined position as a θ-marked

complement.12 However, I propose that it is generated there only when the

structure has a special semantic effect which I call a focused reading. The

expletive it raises to the SPEC of TP in syntax due to the EPP feature of the

matrix T in (20); on the other hand, it moves to the SPEC of v*p at PF in

(18) which triggers a semantic effect similar to the one which results from

Object Shift in a language like Icelandic (cf. Chomsky 1999 and Holmberg

1999). When the sentence does not have any specific semantic effect, it is not

generated in the SPEC of the extraposed CP as in (7) (repeated here).

(21=6) a. [ EXPL [T be obvious [ that the world is round ]]]


(22=7) a. [ CP [T be obvious tCP ]]

b. That the world is round is obvious. (Akmajian and Heny 1975:280)

12. Not every predicate allows the CP in the VP adjoined position as a complement. I adopt the idea of Safir (1985) as I do in section 3 that only when the predicate does not have an external argument, it can have a CP complement in the VP adjoined position which is thus assigned a Ɵ-role. In fact, Stroik (1996: 246) shows that predicates with the external argument do not allow extraposition.

(ⅰ) a. [That Lou was hired] forced me to quit my job.b.?*It forced me to quit my job [that Lou was hired]

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According to Bolinger (1977), the expletive it “must refer to some fact

already broached” and the pronoun is anaphoric to the CP. Thus, the following

sentences have different readings due to the presence and absence of the

expletive it.

(23) a. John and Mary have announced that they got married.

b. John and Mary have announced it that they got married.

(from Rothstein (1995: (61))

(23a) is appropriate in a situation that John and Mary made an announcement

of information new to the speaker. On the other hand, (23b) is more

appropriate when the speaker is reporting an event which she already knew to

have occurred. it here denotes a specific event prominent in the discourse and

the clausal complement identifies that event explicitly. Thus, I argue that there

are two different types of CP complements; one, with it, carries old information

with focus and the other, without it, carries new information without any

special focus.13

Another argument for the generation of the expletive it exclusively at the

SPEC of the CP can be found in the fact that only CPs are allowed to occur

in the extraposition construction.

(24) a. It bothers me very much [CP that the diplomat is not reliable].

(Yang 2000:109)

b. It was arranged [CP [PRO to leave]]. (Boskovic 1997: 90)

c. It was a joy [CP [PRO encountering that book in such an out of the

13. There is a difference in reading between (21) and (22) as in (22) and (23); thus, with it in (21) the speaker knows the fact that the world is round whereas the speaker has no such information at the moment of the utterance without it.


way shop]]. (Milsark 1988: (17))

(25) a. *Iti is believed [TP ti to be someone in the room].

(Boskovic 1997: 90)

b. *It was a joy [TP Susan encountering that book in such an out of the

way shop]. (Milsark 1988: (17))

c. *It was a joy [DP Susan's encountering that book in such an out of

the way shop]. (Milsark 1988: (17))

The clauses in extraposition in (24) are all considered to be CPs. They can

indeed co-occur with the expletive it. The clauses in (25) are not allowed to

occur in extraposition; they are generally considered to be either TP (for a and

b) or DP (for c). The above examples thus show that the expletive it merges

only with the projection of C; in other words it is generated in the SPEC of

the CP.14

When it is generated, it agrees with C and shares with C the complete φ-set

and Case feature of C.15 The expletive it moves due to the EPP feature of T

and v* as advocated in Chomsky (1999).16 The focused reading is induced only

when the expletive it moves to the SPEC of v* where it appears in the object

position and to the SPEC of the matrix TP where it appears in the subject

position.17 Thus, the movement of the expletive it in (26) takes the following

14. Boskovic (1997), adopting the idea of Stowell (1982), assumes that SPEC-T in (24b) but not in (25a) can be a host for it as an LF affix. One may refer to H-Kim (2001) for recent research on the issue.

15. I assume that a CP like an NP has a complete set of such features as [person], [number], etc. Thus, it can agree with the φ set of T or v*.

16. Stroik (1996) claims that the expletive it moves to get Case. However, in the framework of the minimalist program, Case can be assigned in situ position as a result of the operation, Agree; thus, an element is supposed to move not for Case but for the checking of the EPP feature.

17. Focused reading may be induced when the extraposed clause occupies the rightmost position of the sentence. It has been reported that the position gets the constituent to have

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step to the SPEC of the matrix CP.

(26) a. It is told to Sam that Lou likes her (Stroik 1996: (21))

b. [ CP it [C' [TP tit T [VP is told [CP tit[C'. . . ]]]]

In the object position, it moves to the SPEC of v*P which also has EPP feature.

(27) a. I resent it that you did not call

b. [TP. . .[v*P it [v*' [VP resent [CP tit [C' that you did not call]]]]]]]

However, I propose that while the movement to the SPEC of TP takes place

in syntax that to the SPEC of v*P occurs at PF. This results in the difference

between the sentence (19b) and the sentence (20b) in allowing wh-clausal

complements.

(19) a. I just knew where Mary would fire John today

b. *I just knew it where Mary would fire John today

(20) a. It was told to Sam that Lou likes her

b. It was told to Sam who Lou likes.

In (19b) the movement of the expletive it occurs at PF; thus, the wh-phrase

cannot raise to the SPEC of the extraposed CP occupied by the expletive it.

On the other hand, in (20b), the wh-phrase can raise to the position which is

evacuated with the overt movement of the expletive it into the SPEC of the

matrix TP.18

a focus. Then, the movement of the expletive it is an operation which enables the extraposed clause to occupy that position. Refer to J-Kim (2001) and Y-Kim (2001) for recent proposals.

18. An anonymous reviewer points out that the expletive it in the object position behaves differently from that in the subject position in some aspects.


The last question to answer is how the expletive it is interpreted. In (24), it

agrees with T of the matrix clause. The φ-set of T deletes because features

are uninterpretable. However, the φ-set of it remains intact since features are

interpretable. I proposed in previous sections that it agrees with the head of the

extraposed CP. Although the expletive it does not have referentiality of usual

pronouns, it shares the same feature with the head of the extraposed CP. Thus,

I propose that the relationship between the expletive it and the head of the

extraposed CP is reconstructed at LF.19 20 As a specifier, it makes a

contribution to make the extraposed CP specific. The interpretation of the

expletive it is carried out without resort to the chain analysis or replacement

explanation in which it is replaced by the extraposed CP (cf. McCloskey 1991).

(ⅰ) a. He made it clear that the meeting was cancelled.b. *He made that the meeting was cancelled clear.c. He made clear that the meeting was cancelled.d. He made the point clear.

(ⅱ) a. It is obvious that the world is round.b. That the world is round is obvious.

The sentence in (iib) shows that the that-clause may occupy the subject position whereas (ib) shows that it may not occupy the object position. However, as the grammaticality of (ic) demonstrates, the ungrammaticality of (ib) may not be ascribed to the absence of the expletive it but to the difficulty of interpretation. In (ib) clear appears after the final element of the that-clause; thus it is not easy to link clear with the main verb made as Yang (2000) points out. One may refer to Rothstein (1995), and Postal and Pullum (1988) for more about the asymmetries between the expletive it in the subject position and that in the object position.

19. Groat (1993) make a slightly different claim on the interpretation of the expletive it. He argues that expletives have null interpretation at LF. Thus, interpretable features of expletives get interpretation.

20. By reconstruction I mean that the copy of the expletive it in the extraposed clause is involved in interpretation in relation with the head of the extraposed CP.

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5. Summary

Thus far, I have examined the construction which involves so-called

extraposition. I make a claim that the special reading of the construction is due

to the presence of the expletive it with a feature inducing that reading. The

appearance of it in the subject and object position thus depends one the reading

which the speaker intends to express. The expletive it moves at PF because of

the EPP feature in v* whereas it raises in syntax because of the EPP feature

of T in the matrix clause. The interpretation of it is carried out via reconstruction.

References

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Principle, Linguistic Inquiry 22:721-740

Bolinger, D. 1977. Meaning and form. London: Longman.

Boskovic, Željko. 1997. The syntax of nonfinite complementation: An economy

approach. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Yoon - Expletive It in English

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