Labeling (Reduced) Structures: When VPs Are Sentences

In this paper, we analyze five reduced structures in Italian that display morphological agreement between the past particle and the internal argument. Three out of the five structures have full illocutionary force despite lacking the middle field and the left periphery. We explain this fact (and the differences with the two remaining participial structures) by extending to object agreement cases Chomsky’s (2019) hypothesis that clause are exocentric but can be labeled by a mechanism of feature sharing. This goes against the hypothesis that all reduced structures interpreted as clauses must be elliptical.