Basic English Syntax with Exercises

Suggested Answers for Check Questions

According to one view, clauses which consist of a subject and a predicate not including a verbal element to express a proposition are analysed as ’Small Clauses’ which lack a categorial status (thus, these would count as exocentric projections). Another view assumes that these clauses have the categorial status of their predicate and their subjects occupy the specifier position within the projection of the predicate. According to the third view these type of clauses contain an agreement element acting as head (an I head). In this view the head of the predicate does not determine the categorial status of the whole clause, the agreement element does.