1 [To appear in in Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2010, Irene Franco, Sara Lusini and Andrés Saab (eds.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins]. On the argument structure of the causative construction: evidence from scope interactions Francesco Costantini (University of Venice) Abstract: I claim that scope interactions provide empirical evidence in order to establish the argument structure of the causative construction in Romance languages. Since quantifier raising adjoins a quantified argument to vP, quantified arguments interact differently if they are coarguments than if they are not. Thus, scope interactions are able to give indications on what argu- ments in a causative structure belong to the same vP, and, as a consequence, how vPs may occur in a causative structure. The data I discuss shows that in Romance causative structures the causee and the internal argument (if any) are arguments of the causativized predicate, whereas the causative head in- troduces the causer argument. Moreover, they suggest that the causee moves from its merger position to a higher functional position in order to check dative Case. Keywords: causatives, argument structure, quantifier raising, scope, Case checking. 1 Introduction The argument structure of the causative construction (and specifically of the so called ‘faire-infinitive’, which I exemplify in (1)) in Romance languages has been discussed virtually in every work on causatives. (1) Gianni ha fatto leggere il libro a Maria. Gianni AUX.3SG made read-INF the book to Maria ‘Gianni made Maria read the book.’ Various hypotheses have been proposed to account for its properties. Zubizarreta (1985) hypothesizes that the causer, the causee, and the object of the causativized verb (if any) are arguments of one complex predicate formed by the causative verb and the causativized predicate. Alsina (1992) and Ippolito (2000) propose that the object is an argument of the causativ- ized predicate, whereas the causer and the causee are arguments of the causative head proper. In a series of works (Kayne 1975, 2004, Burzio 1986, Guasti 1993, 1996, Cinque 1998, Folli and Harley 2007) it has been proposed that the causee and the object are arguments of the causativized verb, whereas the causer is an argument of the causative verb.