A Unified Account of Preverbal Items and their Positions: Subjects and Objects The treatment that is given to subjects and objects in a standard analysis has

always been non-unified (Ordóñez 1997 and Ordóñez and Treviño 1999). Consider the examples in (85):

(85) a. Juan le dio las llaves a Pedro [Juan him give the keys to Pedro]

b. las llaves se las dio a Pedro [the keys him them give to Pedro]

c. a Pedro le dio las llaves [to Pedro him give the keys]

It has been assumed that in Romance preverbal subjects such as those in (85a) occupy a functional projection, that of [Spec IP], in which Case and agreement are satisfied (Rizzi 1990, Motapanyane 1988, Cardinaletti 1996, Belletti 1990). On the other hand, preverbal objects such as those in (85b) and (85c) are taken to occupy a more external position corresponding to that of a topic.

Thus, sentences with preverbal subjects received the analysis in (86) in which subjects are in [Spec IP], while preverbal Ods and Ois received a different analysis as in (87):¹⁷⁵

(86) [IP [SpecIP Juan ] le dio las llaves] SVO [Juan him give-3^rdps-past the keys]

[Juan gave him the keys]

(87) a. [ [Topic XP Od/Oi ] [IP pro V]] O pro V las llaves / a Pedro [pro le dio]

[the keys / to Peter [pro him give-3^rdps-past]]

b. [ [Topic XP Od/Oi ] [IP [DP subject ] V]] OSV las llaves / a Pedro [Juan le dio]

[the keys / to Peter [John him give-3^rdps-past]]

In the case of objects, the IP projection is always present too, either occupied by pro, as indicated in (87a), or by a lexical DP subject, as indicated in (87b).

The standard analysis, therefore, leads to a dual characterization depending on which type of preverbal items we are dealing with, that is, whether preverbal subjects or preverbal objects are involved.

Ordóñez (1997) proposes a uniform analysis for all preverbal arguments, independently of their nature, on account of two facts:

1) the assumption that there is a null pro in IP with a preverbal Od or Oi conflicts with some facts of ellipsis and extraction of quantificational elements. The conclusion that pro cannot be postulated in the preverbal subject position leads naturally, in turn, to the elimination of the idea that there is a preverbal projection that is exclusive for subjects altogether;

2) overt preverbal subjects share certain important similarities with preverbal Ods and Ois regarding constraints on quantificational interpretation.

175 Given an articulated theory of inflectional projections as in Pollock (1989), this projection would

Ordóñez (1997) proposes the elimination of [Spec IP] as a projection that is exclusive for subjects, something that Contreras had already defended with the elimination of [Spec IP] for subjects in Spanish. Instead, Olarrea analyzes Ods, Ois and subjects as occupying the same topic position as in (88):

(88) [ [TopP XP (subject/Od/Oi) Top] V ... ]

Therefore, the new topic phrase will be the one in which we are to locate the three arguments in (85) above.

A quick look at some cases of ellipsis will illustrate Ordóñez's (1997) approach. Spanish exhibits ellipsis phenomena that differ in several ways from English VP ellipsis. Brucart (1987) shows that certain discourse polarity particles such as sí ([yes]), no ([not]), también ([too]), and tampoco ([neither]) license ellipsis. The elements that can stand as remnants of this kind of ellipsis include not only preverbal subjects but also preverbal direct and indirect objects, as can be seen in (89):¹⁷⁶

(89) a. él le dio unos libros a Pía y Pepe también [le dio unos libros a Pía]

[he her gave some books to Pía and Pepe too [her gave some books to Pía]

b. unos libros le dio Juan a Pía y unos cuadros también [le dio Juan a Pía]

[some books her gave John to Pía and some pictures too [her gave John to Pía]]

c. a Pía le dio Juan unos libros y a Sara también [le dio Juan unos libros]

be denominated AgrS. See Belletti (1990). We will continue using the term IP except when the denomination AgrS becomes relevant.

176 The term remnant is taken from Reinhart (1991) and it makes reference to the element that appears on the other side of the conjunction.

[to Pía her gave John some books and to Sara too [her gave John some books]]

In the three examples, the elided material is enclosed in square brackets and the remnants are indicated in bold type. In (89a), it is the subject NP/DP Pepe that is the remnant, while in (89b) and (89c) unos cuadros and a Sara are both objects, Od/NP and Oi/PP respectively.

Furthermore, all the remnants of this type of ellipsis can be easily subordinated, as in (90):

(90) a. Juan le dio unos libros a Pía y me parece que Pepe también [le dio unos libros a Pía]

[John her gave some books to Pía and me think-3^rdps that Peter too [her gave some books to Pía]]

b. a Pía le dio Juan unos libros y me parece que a Sara también [le dio Juan unos libros]

[to Pía her gave John some books and me think-3^rdps that to Sara too [her gave John some books]]

Both in (90a) and (90b), the remnants Pepe and a Sara are within the subordinated structure introduced by me parece que.

Under the dual hypothesis in which preverbal subjects occupy a more external position than preverbal Ods and Ois, Ordóñez (1997) predicts that it would not be easy to capture the parallelism shown by all remnants in the former examples. As reflected in (91), two different types of remnants must be postulated:

(91) a. [ S no/también/tampoco/sí ]

b. [ Od/Oi [pro no/también/tampoco/sí ]]

Thus, there would be one constituent remnant with preverbal subjects, that is, the subject itself, as in (91a), and two constituent remnants for preverbal objects and pro, as in (91b). If this were true, in cases like (91b) and (92a), we may consider it possible to substitute pro in IP for an overt subject. Nevertheless, the following example (92b) shows that this prediction is incorrect:

(92) a. a ti los policías te van a detener, pero me parece que a María el detective no la va a detener

[to you the policemen you go-3^rdps to arrest, but me think-3^rdps that to Mary the detective not her go-3^rdps to arrest]

b. ?? a ti los policías te van a detener, pero me parece que a María el detective no [la va a detener]

Under this analysis, remnants containing a preverbal Oi do not admit a preverbal overt subject without rendering the sentence at least partially incorrect.

Ordóñez’s (1997) main proposal in this respect is, therefore, the elimination of the idea that there is a preverbal projection exclusive for subjects and the postulation of a common focus phrase (FocP) for all preverbal arguments.