A Theory of Structure-Sharing: Focusing on Long-Distance Dependencies and Parasitic Gaps

This paper proposes a theory that provides a unified treatment of constructions involving structure-sharing, namely, long-distance dependencies and raising. The theory consists in a set of well-formedness conditions on the f-structure, dispensing with control equations. The most important of these conditions requires a structure-sharing relation to involve a non-thematic GF as the most prominent GF in the relation. This implies, among other things, that a wh-subject at the matrix level of the wh-clause does not involve a structure-sharing relation, which explains certain facts such as the non-subject restriction on that-less non-wh relative clauses in English or the observation that French interrogative que cannot be a matrix subject. Among other consequences, this theory allows for constructions with multiple gaps (or parasitic gaps), while ruling out ungrammatical instances of multiple gaps.