Abstract

Case, agreement, and A-movement dependencies across finite clause boundaries, such as Hyperraising or Long-Distance Case or Agreement [LDA], are available in many typologically diverse languages. The research on such dependencies typically distinguishes between cross-linguistically restricted true A-dependencies across finite clauses, and generally available binding-like A′-dependencies as found in Prolepsis. In this paper, we investigate both types of configurations in parallel and refer to this as the A-domain. Since the diagnostics to distinguish A-configurations vary across languages and often cannot be compared directly, we define four characteristic properties: whether the construction is restricted by matrix predicate selection, whether movement in the embedded clause is involved, whether the dependency shows locality restrictions, and whether there are semantic restrictions on the relevant DP. By combining different values of the characteristic properties, we show, differently from previous approaches, that the A-domain does not simply consist of two types of configurations, but that the empirical landscape represents a continuum of five A-constructions. We suggest a theoretical implementation of our empirical findings, which is built on a predicational relator phrase above the embedded CP and propose that, in some of the constructions, these two projections fuse into one. We employ a minimalist probing approach which relies on differences in the base-generated position of the relevant DP, differences in the feature composition of the embedded C, a composite probe hierarchy yielding three types of feature-dependencies of composite probes, and, resulting from that, different probing mechanisms. Lastly, this paper also contributes methodological tools for disentangling constructions of the A-domain.