THE ROLE OF TRIGGERS IN THE EXTENDED SPLIT INFL HYPOTHESIS: UNLEARNABLE PARAMETER SETTINGS*

. This paper argues that the Extended Split INFL hypothesis of Chomsky (1991) opens up a new perspective on the nature of triggers of verb raising. Raising to Agr-s is triggered by rich agreement while the trigger of raising to Tns is word order. This explains (1) persistence of verb-raising in Early Modern English even after considerable erosion of agreement, and (2) loss of verb-raising after the loss of agreement in Mainland Scandinavian. Verb-raising in English at the relevant stage was to Tns. In Mainland Scandinavian, degree-0 learnability of Lightfoot (1991) in combination with V2, has as a consequence that loss of agreement led to loss of verb-raising.