The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure

This paper reexamines several ideas and empirical data uncovered during the last decade regarding the left-edge part of the clause in Standard Spanish in the light of what is also known about other closely related languages, such as Italian and Caribbean Spanish. Two facts about Standard Spanish are identified as being intimately related to its rich agreement paradigm: the availability of the VSO order and the “subject inversion” phenomenon in informational questions. A particular formalism is proposed which allows us to identify the left-most edge in the I-domain (above Tense) as the projection of “rich” agreement (phi-P) and as the locus of the EPP feature.