Null subjects without pro

We argue that the notion of pro meets both empirical and theoretical difficulties within the minimalist framework of Chomsky (1995). We present an alternative theory which gives up pronominal empty categories, as well as DP-movement, in favor of an operation of feature movement which relates thematic to inflectional positions. The proposed analysis is compatible with a particularly simple formulation of the null subject parameter, which reinterprets strong and weak features as overtly r ealized and non-overtly realized features respectively, while accounting for subject c litic varieties, such as Northern Italian dialects, as well as classical null subject ones, such as standard Italian.