THE PROPER ANALYSIS OF MISSING-P FREE RELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

Larson (1987) proposes, contra Bresnan and Grimshaw (1978), that free relatives with ''missing'' Ps are NP-headed and undergo antecedent-con tained deletion, and that adjectival/adverbial free relatives are ''fr ee comparatives.'' Using data not previously considered, he argues for a head analysis of wh-phrases in free relatives. I argue here, on the basis of data from English, French, and German, that (i) Larson's arg ument for the ''head analysis'' is invalid, (ii) free AP/AdvP construc tions are relatives, not comparatives, (iii) free relatives of all cat egories are headed by null categories, and (iv) in missing-P free rela tives, the overt P and the wh-phrase form a constituent located in [Sp ec, C'].