Why Are Sentential Subjects Not Allowed in Seem-type Verbs in English?

The purpose of this paper is to show the internal structure of the socalled sentential subject constructions in English. The constructions that we examine in this paper are such as It seems that John failed in the syntax exam vs. *That John failed in the syntax exam seems and It really stinks that the Giants lost the World Series vs. That the Giants lost the World Series really stinks. As seen above, the English verb seem does not tolerate the sentential subject. This is in sharp contrast to other English verbs such as suck, blow, bite, and stink, which do allow the sentential subject. There are several issues regarding these constructions. First, where is the sentential subject located? Second, is the sentential subject assigned structural Case? Third, is the sentential subject extraposed or does it remain in its base-generated complement position? Fourth, is the sentential subject a base-generated topic in the specifier position of CP, as Arlenga (2005) claims? In this paper, we argue that sentential subjects are base-generated in the specifier of the verbal phrase in case of stink-type verbs, while they are licensed as a complement to verbs like seem. We also argue that a sentential subject can be raised in the seem-type verbal constructions, if it were part of the complement small clause.