Serial Verbs and the Empty Category Principle in Krio
Dudley K. Nylander · The Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique · 1985
One of the principles of grammar introduced in Chomsky (1981) is the Empty Category Principle, which can be stated as follows: (i) [α e] must be properly governed. Proper government, as defined by Chomsky, is of two types (see footnote 2). First, there is proper government by a lexical category of the [±N±V] type. In (2a), for example, the empty category (ei) is properly governed by the verb see, a lexical element of the [-N+V] type. Second, there is proper government by coindexation. In (2b), for example, the empty category in subject position (ei) is properly governed by the coindexed trace in COMP (ti).