The Theory of Syntax and the Representation of Indexicality

This chapter deals with the relations between IP and CP and shows that temporal dependencies that hold in complex sentences can be ascribed to values/features internal to the left periphery of the clause. It provides evidence that in Italian, the complementizer cannot be omitted in those complex sentences in which the temporal location of the speaker is required in order to temporally locate the embedded event. On the basis of this evidence, it argues that the left-most position in the complementizer layer is devoted to the representation of the speaker's temporal coordinates, and shows that this proposal should also be extended to those contexts embedded under a future tense.