This article presents obligatory control constructions in San Martín Peras Mixtec, a language in which PRO must be exponed with an overt pronoun. I propose a morphological analysis of this phenomenon in which this language lacks a null allomorph for bound minimal pronouns (Kratzer 2009, Safir 2014, Landau 2015, 2018), posited to underlie silent PRO in other languages. This suggests that null exponence ought not be ontologically tethered to PRO’s distribution or interpretation; rather, it can be reduced to the routine functions of language-specific contextual allomorphy.

control, copy control, PRO, bound variable anaphora, minimal pronouns
This content is only available as a PDF.
© 2023 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2023
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
You do not currently have access to this content.