Extraction from infinitival clauses in Ulster Irish

Dónall P. Ó BAOILL
Hideki MAKI

The purpose of this paper is to examine extractability of wh-phrases out of infinitival clauses in Ulster Irish, and to consider the implications of the results. In Ulster Irish, word order is VSO in tensed clauses, but it becomes SOV in infinitival clauses. We first show that extraction from the object in infinitival clauses results in grammaticality while extraction form the subject in such clauses results in ungrammaticality. We then claim that extraction is prohibited from the phrase in the specifier which is in agreement with the verb/INFL in Φ-features, and that whether the specifier is in the properly (lexically) governed position is not relevant for determining extractability of the element within it.