Privileged Access, V2 and the that-trace effect

Abstract

The paper discusses the famous that-trace effect and the strategies used to circumvent it in German, English, French and Italian. While the data have been widely discussed in the literature, the paper proposes a new account of the phenomenon underlies these strategies and argues that a violation of economy in subject movement is at the core of the that-trace effect. In particular, it is argued that the that-trace effect targets subjects and not objects or adjuncts, since subjects stand out in having privileged access to the C-domain. Cases in which subjects to not give rise to that-trace effects and cases where other elements than subject do give rise to a that-trace effect, will be explained as falling out from grammatical system of anchoring arguments to the context.