Overt PRO in Gã

Abstract

This paper presents data from Gã (Kwa, Niger-Congo language spoken in Ghana) that show that controlled subjects of non-finite predicates must be overt in this language. The presence of an overt pronominal subject in a non-finite embedded clause is surprising from the perspective of languages such as English and French, where such subjects must be covert (PRO). We provide evidence that the overt pronoun in Gã patterns with obligatorily controlled PRO (Hornstein 1999; Landau 2013) and argue for the minimal pronoun analysis of Kratzer (2009).

Keywords

• Gã
• PRO
• infinitival predicates
• minimal pronouns