On the (Non)complementarity of θ-Theory and Checking Theory

Abstract

Chomsky (1995) proposes that the θ system and the checking system form two complementary modules. As a consequence both subjects and objects must form nontrivial chains to check their formal features with a functional category (T and v, respectively). I argue that objects and exceptional-Case-marking subjects check their formal features with a lexical verb, whose domain is therefore both θ role assigning and feature checking. I showthat discarding the complementarity assumption in this manner results in a more “bare” theory of the computational system as well as several empirical advantages.