The Null Content of Null Case

While we agree that the base-generated phonologically null nominal known as PRO has Case, we dispute the recent contention of Chomsky & Lasnik (1995) and Martin(2001) that there is a special Null Case, assigned in English by certain instances of infinitival to. We show that, contrary to Martin’s claims, there is no consistent distinction between instances of to that license PRO, and instances of to that require other types of subjects (DP-trace and lexical subjects), either in temporal interpretation or in the licensing of VP-ellipsis. Furthermore, a closer examination of for-infinitives reveals an inability of the null Case theory to predict when a subject will be PRO, and when it will be lexical.