The object-gap pseudorelative generalization

Abstract

Previous literature contains two different points of view regarding the subject-object asymmetry related to the DP head of pseudorelatives (PRs). Some authors claim that the DP head can only be interpreted as the subject of the embedded predicate (subject-gap PRs). Other authors point towards the possibility of finding other constituents (e.g. direct object) in head position (object-gap PR), too. In this paper I claim that there are certain languages that only allow the DP head to be the subject of the embedded predicate, that is, they only allow subject-gap PRs, whereas other languages allow both subject-gap and object-gap PRs. Thus, the aim of this paper is to present the object-gap pseudorelative (PR) generalization to account for the cross-linguistic availability of subject-gap and object-gap PRs: the availability of object-gap PRs is subject to object clitic doubling. The structure of this paper goes as follows. Section 1 introduces PRs. Section 2 presents data about subject-gap and object-gap PRs. Section 3 gives some remarks on object clitic doubling. Section 4 presents the object-gap PR generalization. Conclusions and further research issues are presented in section 5.