The purpose of this study is to specify a principled explanation for the syntactic puzzling phenomena of the expletive there-constructions. For this, expletive there pure-merged in the vP-Spec as a defective Goal argument is posited on the basis of Chomsky's (2001, 2005b) Agree-based Strong Minimalist Thesis. In addition, Interpretive Complex (Chomsky 1999, 2001) for the Bare Output Condition satisfying surface structure semantic effects of edge feature is adopted in the vein of Chomsky's (2005b) semantic Duality of the interface and Diesing's (1992) Mapping Hypothesis. As a result, an unspecific reading of associate NP and the Definite reading problem in the expletive there-constructions are specified. The inconsistent role of Probe expletive there is also solved without maximizing matching effect. In addition, the merge of expletive there in the Raising structure and ECM is explained in the same manner. Furthermore, Merge over Move Principle is not needed any longer in the locality of the phase level.

This paper provides a way for the expletive there to associate directly with its indefmite DP via Agree between their Sc` -features in narrow-syntactic derivation. It is claimed that in English, External Merge of there with _u[person] and _u[Case] features need to be allowed in the Spec of a weak v, where no θ-role is assigned to there and the there-argument link can be established by assuming that the _u[person] feature of there is valued via Agree with the φ-set of the associate DP. It is assumed that there and an indefinite DP are selected as a pair in the Sub-Lexical Array. A single θ-role and a unique Case value may thus be given to them. The single θ-role will be saturated as they merge into the weak vP and the unique Case value will be given to them via Multiple Agree with a higher T or v during the derivation. These are based on the assumption that Multiple Agree takes place sequentially, but not simultaneously, contra Chomsky (2001). Sequential application of Multiple Agree may contribute to rendering the computation purely derivational and remove the distinction of Multiple Agree from Agree.