Reviewed by Jim Paul Wood, New York University

Acrisio Pires presents a theory of nonfinite clauses couched within the minimalist program but discusses the phenomena such that practitioners of other theories may also benefit from his analyses. To this end, P often makes generalizations in a framework-neutral way and offers less formal versions of his hypotheses before moving into the technical analysis.

P takes a movement approach to obligatory control and analyzes clausal gerunds as tense phrases (TPs) with an unvalued case feature on tense (T°). The subject determiner phrase (DP) of the embedded clausal gerund gets its theta-role and moves to the specifier of TP (Spec,TP) to value T°’s phi and extended projection principle (EPP) features. At this point, T°’s unvalued case feature, by hypothesis, prevents T° from valuing case on the DP. The matrix little-v merges and attracts the DP, assigning its second theta-role. The second T° merges, attracts the DP, and finally values its case.

When the clausal gerund’s subject is overt, the derivation proceeds similarly until the matrix verb merges. It brings its own external argument, so the clausal gerund’s subject stays put. Little-v values case on T°, at which point T° values case on the DP in its Spec, preventing further movement of the clausal gerund’s subject. The matrix verb’s external argument then moves to Spec,TP. P argues that there are, in addition to the canonical cases, TP-defective gerunds (complements of verbs such as try) that either do not project a TP or project a TP whose head is [- tense].

P proposes a similar account for obligatory control infinitives in Portuguese. He takes a comparative approach, discussing European Portuguese, Standard Brazilian Portuguese, and Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese. He observes that English does not allow obligatory control with complements of believe-type verbs, whereas French and Standard Brazilian Portuguese do. P considers and rejects two approaches to the difference: that it follows from whether the complement is [+/- eventive] or [+/- tense]. Neither approach explains all the facts, especially observing that Standard Brazilian Portuguese, contrary to French, requires an auxiliary in the complement of believe-type verbs to license an eventive interpretation, although obligatory control is allowed in these contexts. P also discusses the relationship between nonobligatory control and inflected infinitives in Portuguese.

In the final chapter, P adopts a cue-based historical perspective and analyzes the rise and fall of inflected infinitives in Standard Brazilian Portuguese. He proposes a series of cues that children of various generations had available during acquisition. For example, the loss of inflected infinitives resulted from a weakening of the inflectional system in general, along with the replacement of first-person plural pronouns with third-person singular a gente ‘people’. The cues available to children do not license inflected infinitives or nonobligatory control in infinitival complements, although Standard Brazilian Portuguese, contrary to European Portuguese, allows overt subjects of noninflected infinitives.

P does the syntactic community a service with this book. He covers often overlooked empirical data and takes a comparative and historical approach in his analyses. He clearly explicates the empirical phenomena and demonstrates the strengths and limits of his analysis. Furthermore, his historical, acquisition-based approach punctuates the need for linguistic theory to account for how children so easily acquire a complex system as human language.