Motivation for PRO[edit]

There are several independent pieces of linguistic theory which motivate the existence of
PRO.[3][5] The following four are reviewed here:

 the Extended Projection Principle

 the Theta Criterion
 Binding Theory
 Nominal agreement
Extended Projection Principle[edit]
The Extended Projection Principle (EPP) requires that all clauses have a subject. A consequence of
the EPP is that clauses that lack an overt subject must necessarily have an "invisible" or "covert"
subject; with non-finite clauses this covert subject is PRO.[5]
Motivation for a PRO subject comes from the grammatical of sentences such as (1) and (2), where
the subject of the infinitival to-clause, though not overtly expressed, is understood to be controlled by
an argument of the main clause. In (1a), the subject of control is understood to be the same person
that issued the promise, namely John. This is annotated in (1b) by co-indexing John with PRO,
which indicates that the PRO subject of [TP to control the situation] co-refers with John. In (2a), the
subject of sleep is understood to be the same person that was convinced, namely Bill. This is
annotated in(2b) by co-indexing Bill with PRO, which indicates that the PRO subject of [TP to
sleep] co-refers with Bill.

(1) a. John promised Bill to control the situation.

b. Johnj promised Bill [CP[TP PROj to control the situation]]
(2) a. John convinced Bill to sleep.
b. John convinced Billk [CP[TP PROk to sleep]]
(adapted from: Koopman, Sportiche and Stabler 2014: 247 (29), 251
(47b))

Since the argument that controls PRO in (1a) is the subject, this is called subject control, and PRO is
co-indexed with its antecedent John, As shown in (2a), it is also possible to have object control,
where the argument that controls PRO is the object of the main clause, and PRO is co-indexed with
its antecedent Bill.
In the context of the EPP, the existence of subject and object control follows naturally from the fact
that the null pronominal subject PRO can be co-indexed with different DP arguments. While (1a) and
(2a) show the surface sentences, (1b) and (2b) show the more abstract structure where PRO serves
as the subject of the non-finite clauses, thereby satisfying the EPP-feature of T (realized
by infinitival 'to'). The following tree diagrams of examples (1) and (2) show how PRO occupies the
subject position of non-finite clauses.
It is sometimes desirable in theories of syntax to postulate elements in sentences that are not
pronounced. They have grammatical effects but no phonetic output. These are called empty
categories, and a number of distinct kinds can be discerned: two of them are
the pronouns pro and PRO, also called little pro and big PRO.

Roughly the difference is that pro is used for case-marked positions, the subject and object of a main
verb, while PRO is used in positions that can't take case, the chief one being the subject of
an infinitive or gerund in a subordinate clause.

pro
English does not allow pro. All such positions have to be filled explicitly, even if only by
an expletive such as 'it' or 'there': It seems Mary is ill. If a language allows the empty pro it is
called pro-drop, and this is believed to be a parameter of Universal Grammar. Italian, Spanish,
Chinese, and Japanese are all pro-drop. The former two have a rich agreement system, so you don't
need a subject pronoun because the subject is adequately marked on the verb (mangio 'I
eat', mangiamo 'we eat'); however Chinese and Japanese have no agreement at all yet freely omit
subjects and objects. Bantu languages such as Swahili have verbal prefixes for both subject and
object, so don't need either of these separately: alikiandika 'they wrote it'. Such pronoun-less
sentences can be regarded as having underlying forms like pro mangio and pro alikiandika pro, with
the pro satsifying the need of the verb to mark something as subject or object.

PRO
By contrast PRO is postulated where it can't be marked, but is still logically a subject. In English it
occurs in sentences such as John tried to leave and Eating people is wrong. In the first one, John is
the subject of 'try', since it's John who's trying, but what John is trying to achieve is the state where
John leaves: there is an internal clause with an unexpressed subject. You can separate the two
subjects and say John tried to get Mary to leave, but you can't say this more directly as *John tried
Mary to leave..

This is analysed as John tried PRO to leave, and to indicate that both expressions refer to the same
person, that is the PRO is an anaphor referring back to its antecedent, we notate this by using the
same index: Johni tried PROi to leave.
The verb try doesn't mark a direct object. One that does is persuade. In John persuaded Mary to
leave, Mary is the object of persuade but she is also the subject of to leave. You can separate these
two roles: John persuaded Mary that Bill should leave, but you can't do so while still using
the infinitive: *John persuaded Mary Bill to leave. With the infinitive the inner subject co-refers with
the outer object, and we co-index PRO accordingly: John persuaded Maryi PROi to leave.

The co-reference of PRO with one of its antecedents is called control. Try has subject control,
and persuade has object control. A third possibility is arbitrary control, where there is no antecedent.
This receives a general reading, something like the pronoun 'one' or 'anyone': It is difficult PRO to
leave quietly.

A gerund is a clause that is acting as a noun phrase: Eating in public disgusts John or John dislikes
eating in public. The embedded clause has a subject of its own, and this can be taken as PRO with
either bound or arbitrary readings: Johni dislikes PROi eating in public with same indices meaning John
dislikes John doing it, or Johnidislikes PROj eating in public with different indices meaning he dislikes
people generally doing it.

http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/sent-nonfinite.html

Variations[edit]
In some analyses, separate levels of phrase structure are proposed for different kinds of inflection.
For example, there may be posited an agreement phrase (AgrP), with an Agr head that bears
inflectional properties for verb agreement with the subject. There can also be direct object and
indirect object agreement phrases (AgrOP, AgrDOP, AgrIOP), for languages in which verbs may
exhibit agreement with an object. Other types of inflection may be encapsulated in a tense
phrase (TP) for grammatical tense, aspect phrase (AspP) for grammatical aspect, and so on.
The postulation of such a multiplicity of categories has been criticized on the grounds that they
appear not to be universal, many being found in only a minority of languages.[2]