By Ángel J. Gallego, Juan Uriagereka
We study some syntactic properties of embedded sentences that seem to be associated to the verb‟ s modal inflection (indicative vs. subjunctive). Focusing on the island status of indicative clauses in some language families, we defend the possibility that such distinction, apparently morphological, has a structural correlate; more specifically, we argue that indicative dependents are similar to “event participants”(oblique, indirect, or applied arguments), while subjunctives are akin to “event articulators”(direct or measuring-out arguments).