This new, improved version of Chapter 9 discusses object control. The old version (without a discussion of object control) is available here. |
So far in this book, we have come across three types of clausal complements: finite clausal complements, ECM complements, and small clauses. (By 'clausal complement,' we mean any complement that contains a subject and a predicate.) We briefly review the three types in (1)-(3); the complement clause is bracketed, and any Infl element in it is in boldface.
The verb forms in (1b,c) are nonfinite, but the head of the complement clauses is a finite morpheme (a finite tense morpheme in (1b) and a modal in (1c)). As a result, the entire complement clause is finite. Click the links if you are unsure about how to determine the finiteness of a verb or of a clause. |
(1) | a. | We heard [ that the children [past] danced ] . | ||
b. | We heard [ that the children [pres] are dancing ] . | |||
c. | We heard [ that the children can dance ] . |
Like finite complement clauses, the ECM complements in (2) contain an Infl element---namely, to---but it is nonfinite.
(2) | a. | We expected [ the children to dance ] . | |
b. | We expected [ the children to be dancing ] . |
Finally, small clauses as in (3) contain no Infl element at all.
(3) | a. | We saw [ the children dance ] . | |
b. | We saw [ the children dancing ] . |
Despite their diversity with respect to how and whether Infl is realized, the complement clause types illustrated in (1)-(3) all have one property in common: namely, the presence of an overt subject (here, the children). But English also permits nonfinite complement clauses in which a subject is not overtly expressed (although one is understood). For instance, dance, the verb in the apparently subjectless complement clauses in (4), has an understood agent.
(4) | a. | Subject control: | The children agreed [ to dance ] . | |
b. | Raising: | The children seemed [ to dance ] . |
More particularly, this agent is interpreted as being identical to the referent of the matrix subject the children. Yet unlike (2), where the matrix clause and the complement clause each have their own subject (we, the children), the sentences in (4) contain only a single overt subject, the one in the matrix clause. In this chapter, we argue that the nonfinite complements in (4) contain a structural subject position that is filled by a silent element, and we argue further that the silent element in question is not the same in the two examples. Rather, we distinguish between subject control, as in (4a), and raising (sometimes called subject-to-subject raising), as in (4b). In a subject control sentence like (4a), the complement subject position is filled by a silent pronominal element PRO, which is coreferential with the referent of the matrix subject. In other words, we give (4a) the structure in (5a); note the parallel with (5b), where the complement of agree is finite and where the complement subject position is not PRO, but an ordinary personal pronoun (the indices on the children PRO, and they are intended to represent coreference).
(5) | a. | [The children]1 agreed | [ | PRO1 | to | dance ] . | |
b. | [The children]1 agreed | [ that | they1 | would | dance ] . |
The idea behind the term 'subject control' is that the matrix
subject fixes, or controls, the reference of PRO. Notice that the
parallel between PRO and overt pronouns in (5) is not complete.
Specifically, PRO in (5a) must be coreferential with the matrix subject,
whereas the pronoun they in (5b) can but needn't be, as
succinctly summarized in (i).
For this reason, only sentences with nonfinite complements can count as instances of subject control. |
Raising sentences differ from subject control sentences in that their matrix subject position starts out empty and the complement subject moves up to fill it. Their derivation is schematically illustrated in (6).
(6) | a. | Before raising: | _____ | seemed | [ the children | to dance ] . | |
b. | After raising: | [The children]i | seemed | [ ti | to dance ] . |
The assumption that the matrix subject position starts out empty is supported by the fact that when seem takes a finite counterpart, this same position is filled by expletive it.
(7) | Itexpl | seemed | [ that the children danced ] . |
Again, for a sentence to count as an instance of raising, the complement clause must be nonfinite, as in (6), since it is only then that the complement subject raises into the matrix clause. (7) contains the same matrix predicate as (6), but the complement subject never moves out of its clause. |
The chapter also addresses so-called object control. The difference between subject and object control is illustrated by the contrast between (4a), repeated as (8a), and (8b). In both sentences, the understood agent of the complement verb dance is the discourse entity referred to by the phrase the children. But in (8a), that phrase---the controller---is the matrix subject, whereas in (8b), it appears to be the matrix object.
(8) | a. | The children agreed to dance. | |
b. | We persuaded the children to dance. |
The treatment of object control that we present relies on the VP
shells introduced in
(9) | We [past] CAUSE [ the children agree [ to dance ] ] . |
Notice that the children is not actually an object in (9), but rather the subject of the small clause complement of CAUSE. However, as is customary in the literature, we will continue to use the term 'object control' as a purely descriptive label for sentences like (8b).
A note on terminology. We will refer to the class of (Fregean) predicates to which agree belongs as subject control predicates. Similarly, we refer to the class of predicates like seem as raising predicates, and to the class of predicates like persuade as object control predicates.
The term 'raising predicate' is potentially confusing. It is not the verb itself that undergoes movement. Rather, as schematically indicated in (6) and as we will see in more detail below, it is the complement subject that raises into the matrix clause. A better term for the class of predicates in question would be 'raising triggers.' But we continue to use the term 'raising predicate' because it is standard in the literature. |
A leading role in the analysis of nonfinite complementation is played by expletive there. The final section of the chapter shows that expletive there belongs to a larger class of nonthematic subjects.
(10) | a. | Amy drank the | |
b. | Lukas drank a whole |
Elapse selects a subject that refers to an explicitly quantified amount of time.
(11) |
The felicitous use of the verb murder requires (among other conditions) that both the agent and the theme arguments refer to humans. By contrast, kill imposes weaker selectional restrictions, requiring only that the agent and theme arguments refer to living beings.
(12) | a. | The | |
b. | The |
Two points are important to keep in mind concerning selectional restrictions. First, notice that we are using pound signs, rather than asterisks, in (10)-(12); in other words, we are treating the ill-formedness of sentences that violate selectional restrictions as semantic/pragmatic deviance, not as ungrammaticality. This approach is consistent with the fact that selectional restrictions can be deliberately flouted for special effect. For example, the ordinary (literal) meaning of lap up is 'to eagerly drink up (used especially of animals)'. Based on this meaning, we would expect it to select a nonhuman animate agent and a liquid theme. But although both restrictions are violated in (13), the sentence does not come across as deviant.
(13) | The little girl lapped up her teacher's praise. |
Rather, the violation of the selectional restrictions signals to the hearer that the sentence is intended to be taken not literally, but figuratively (here, as an instance of metaphor). (14) summarizes the kind of reasoning that a hearer of (13) would go through; the reasoning process itself is ordinarily not explicit, but subconscious and lightning-quick.
(14) | The little girl lapped up her teacher's praise?? Whoa there, that's
complete nonsense!
It's only nonhuman animals that lap up things. And then, whatever they're lapping up has to be liquid, not something abstract like praise. But the speaker seems to know English and be compos mentis, so what could they have possibly meant by what they said? I guess what they must have meant is that the attitude of the little girl towards her teacher's praise resembles the eagerness with which a thirsty animal laps up some welcome liquid. |
In distinguishing figurative from literal uses of language, don't let yourself be confused by the fact that in the vernacular, the adverb literally is routinely used to qualify figurative statements. So we often hear people say things like My boss literally hit the roof. In other words, literally has come to mean figuratively! |
Don't, by the way, conclude from examples like (13) that selectional restrictions are in force only intermittently (in force when language is used literally, but not in force when language is used figuratively). Rather, it is precisely the fact that selectional restrictions are always in force that prompts a hearer of (13) to go through a reasoning process like (14) and to come up with an interpretation in which the selectional restrictions are met in the metaphorical interpretation.
A second point to keep in mind concerning selectional restrictions is that the criteria for set membership that the restrictions are based on are not always crystal clear. In other words, sets like liquid things, animate beings, potential murderers, or potential murder victims, and so on, are somewhat fuzzy around the edges. Speakers might disagree, for instance, about whether the sentences in (15) are deviant; the disagreement would concern whether the selectional restrictions on murder might, on the basis of recent advances in the understanding of animal intelligence, be relaxed to include members of species other than Homo sapiens.
(15) | a. | The | |
b. | The explorer murdered { the |
Fortunately, for our purposes in this chapter, locating the exact
boundary between cases that meet selectional restrictions and ones that
violate them will not be necessary. The important thing is that
selectional restrictions exist, and that there are sentences in which
they are clearly met and ones in which they are clearly violated.
Subject control
Evidence for two clauses
Having introduced selectional restrictions, we now use them to show that
subject control sentences contain two separate clauses, each with their
own subject. We begin by showing that in finite complement counterparts
of subject control sentences, which incontrovertibly contain two
clauses, like (16), both the matrix and the complement verbs impose
separate selectional restrictions on their respective subjects. (For
simplicity, we omit referential indices in what follows; unless
otherwise noted, the intended interpretation is always the one where the
complement subject is coreferential with the matrix subject.)
(16) | The children agreed that they would dance. |
We then show that subject control sentences like (17) pattern just like their finite complement counterparts with respect to the selectional restrictions imposed by the two verbs.
(17) | The children agreed to dance. |
We begin with (18) and (19), where agree takes a finite complement clause. In (18), we have taken care to satisfy the selectional requirements of the complement clause (wet selects some physical object as its argument, and get imposes no further selectional restrictions of its own). We can therefore be sure that the acceptability contrast in (18) is due to the selectional restriction imposed by the matrix verb agree, which selects human subjects.
(18) | a. | The children agreed [ that they would get wet ] . | |
b. | # | The { horses, trees, rocks } agreed [ that they would get wet ] . |
Conversely, in (19), we have taken care to satisfy the selectional restriction imposed by agree. Here, the acceptability contrast is due to the selectional restrictions imposed by the various complement verbs.
(19) | a. | The children agreed [ that they would speak Twi ] . | |
b. | # | The children agreed [ that they would { elapse, evaporate } ] . |
If subject control sentences contain two clauses, as we are proposing, each with their own subjects, they ought to behave analogously to (18) and (19), and this is in fact exactly what we find in (20) and (21).
(20) | a. | The children agreed [ PRO to get wet ] . | |
b. | # | The { horses, trees, rocks } agreed [ PRO to get wet ] . | |
(21) | a. | The children agreed [ PRO to speak Twi ] . | |
b. | # | The children agreed [ PRO to { elapse, evaporate } ] . |
One last thing. Not all subject control predicates allow a finite complement paraphrase.
(22) | a. | The children tried [ PRO to learn Twi ] . | |
b. | * | The children tried [ that they learned Twi ] . |
But even for subject control predicates like those in (22), we
assume a biclausal structure with a PRO subject for the lower clause.
This is because, just as in (20) and (21), the subject control verb and
the lower verb impose separate selectional restrictions on their
respective subjects. We ask you to provide the relevant evidence in
If you have been paying close attention to the examples, you may have noticed that agree seems to have two slightly different meanings, depending on whether it takes a finite or a nonfinite complement. When it takes a finite complement, the finite complement expresses a proposition, and agree means something like 'assent to.' In this case, the subject of the complement clause need not be coreferential with the matrix subject.
(23) | The students agreed [ that the problem was difficult ] . |
We also have the semantic intuition that someone besides the agreer shares the belief in the proposition; in other words, agree takes an optional semantic argument, expressible in the syntax by a with phrase. So, for instance, if Sam were the last person on Earth, we might describe him as believing that there were no other people, but it would be odd to describe him as agreeing that there were no other people.1 On the other hand, when agree takes a nonfinite complement, it means something like 'commit oneself to a course of action.' Here, part of the irreducible meaning of agree seems to be that the agreer and the agent of the predicate of the lower complement must be identical. As a result, a sentence like (24) is ungrammatical (or perhaps only semantically deviant).
(24) | * | The students agreed [ the problem to be difficult ] . |
Here, too, there is a sense of an optional argument---an entity to whom the agreer has an obligation to. Now, so far, we have phrased things as if the semantic differences that we have described are associated with agree itself. However, a more attractive hypothesis is that agree has exactly the same meaning in both cases, and that the differences in meaning come about as a result of the different semantic properties of the complement that agree is combining with. Under this approach, agree would denote a commitment between a rational being and the kind of thing that the CP complement refers to, in the presence of another rational being. In the finite complement case, the CP expresses a proposition. A natural way to interpret commitment between a rational being and a proposition is as intellectual assent to the proposition, and a natural scenario is that the co-present rational being shares the belief in the proposition. We have seen that nonfinite IPs can express propositions (I expect there to be problem is synonymous for our purposes with I expect that there is a problem), but let us assume that nonfinite CPs (for some reason) cannot refer to propositions, but only to events or actions.
It is tempting to say that nonfinite complements of subject control
predicates are VPs (rather than CPs). But that would leave the presence
of to unexplained. Moreover, there are subject control
predicates that take indirect questions, as illustrated in (i).
|
A natural way to interpret commitment between a rational being and an action is as a commitment to seeing to it that the action is carried out, and a natural scenario is that the co-present rational being is someone to whom the agreer has an obligation. A crucial question that we will have to leave unresolved here is why the matrix subject controls the subject of the lower predicate in this case. In other words, what accounts for the oddness of (25a) despite its near-synonymy with (25b)?
(25) | a. | # | At the meeting, the higher-ups boss agreed for someone to do the job. |
b. | At the meeting, the higher-ups agreed to delegate the job to someone |
(26) |
Substituting a finite CP complement headed by that at the CP substitution node would yield structures for sentences like (16). Substituting a nonfinite CP complement headed by a silent complementizer yields structures for subject control sentences like (17). In what follows, we illustrate the derivation of (17) in detail.
(27) | a. | b. | c. | ||||||||
Substitute PRO in specifier position of lower verb | Substitute (27a) as complement of to | Substitute (27b) as complement of silent C |
Substituting the structure in (27c) as the complement of the control verb yields (28a), which in turn becomes the complement of the matrix I element, yielding (28b).
(28) | a. | b. | |||||
Substitute (27c) as complement of control verb | Substitute (28a) as complement of matrix I |
Finally, subject movement of the matrix and complement subjects yields (29a). The structurally analogous tree for the finite complement counterpart of (29a) (= (16)) in shown for comparison in (29b).
(29) | a. | b. |
In concluding our discussion of subject
control, we must point out that we will leave an important question
about PRO unresolved: namely, how its case feature (if any) is licensed.
There is evidence from languages like German and Icelandic that PRO is
able to bear the same case features that overt subjects do.
Nevertheless, PRO and overt noun phrases are in complementary
distribution;2 in other words, the
positions that PRO can appear in are ones from which overt noun phrases
are barred, and vice versa. It has therefore been proposed that PRO
does not bear a case feature at all (or that PRO bears a case feature
unique to it---so-called null case---which is checked by nonfinite I in
the spec-head configuration). Although this approach does not address
the crosslinguistic facts and leaves it mysterious why the case
properties of PRO and overt noun phrases should differ, it does have the
advantage of straightforwardly capturing the distributional difference
between PRO and overt noun phrases.
Raising
A detour
Let us turn now to raising sentences like (4b), repeated here as (30).
(30) | The children seemed [ to dance ] . |
At first glance, it seems as if we could simply treat such sentences on a par with subject control sentences. But that would leave use without an explanation for the contrast in (31)---in particular, for the grammaticality of (31b).
(31) | a. | * | There agreed to be a problem. |
b. | ok | There seemed to be a problem. |
The analysis in the previous section does correctly rule out (31a), to which we assign the structure indicated schematically in (32).
(32) | * | There agreed [ PRO to be a problem ] . |
Given the structure in (32), the sentence is ruled out for two reasons. First, expletive there is not licensed because it does not occupy the specifier position of a verb of (coming into) existence (this is the reason that we mark (31a) as ungrammatical rather than as just semantically deviant).
It is true that the sentence contains the there licenser be, but there never substitutes into its specifier position. The predicate whose specifier position there does substitute into, namely agree, is not a there licenser (*There agreed some students). |
Second, expletive there fails to satisfy the selectional restriction of agree, which, as we saw earlier, selects human subjects. So (32) is a fine representation because it correctly rules out (31a) as ungrammatical. But by the same token, if we give (31b) the analogous structure in (33), we incorrectly expect (31b) to be as ungrammatical as (31a).
(33) | Incorrect structure: | There seemed [ PRO to be a problem ] . |
The reason, once again, is that there is not licensed in the representation in (33). The fact that seem is not a there licenser is demonstrated in (34) (recall Exercise 3.4).
(34) | * | There seemed a problem. |
Be careful not to confuse the class of raising verbs with the class of there licensers. Raising verbs like seem don't themselves license there, as we see in (34). |
At this point, notice that the representations in (32) and (33) are both ruled out because there isn't licensed in the matrix clause. However, only in (32) are the selectional restrictions of the matrix verb violated. It turns out that a crucial difference between agree and seem is that seem imposes no selectional restrictions. We can see this by replacing agree in (20) with seem; the acceptability contrast between (20a) and (20b) disappears in (35). (By contrast, replacing agree with seem in (21) has no effect on the contrast. After reading this section to the end, you will be able to explain this fact, and you are asked to do so in Exercise 9.1B.)
(35) | a. | ok | The children seemed to get wet. |
b. | ok | The { horses, trees, rocks } seemed to get wet. |
Another noteworthy property of seem is that its specifier position is not (and, in fact, must not be) associated with any thematic role. It is true that seem takes an argument: what for lack of a better term we will call the proposition argument.3 However, this argument cannot be expressed in the specifier position, as we can see in the finite complement counterparts of raising sentences.4
(36) | a. | It seemed that the problem was hard. | |
b. | * | That the problem was hard seemed. |
To summarize: the subject position of seem is semantically
defective in the sense that it is associated neither with selectional
restrictions nor with a thematic role. We will refer to such subject
positions as nonthematic.
Of course, despite being superfluous from a semantic point of view,
nonthematic subject positions are nevertheless syntactically obligatory
(recall the subject requirement introduced in Chapter 3). This makes
possible the following analysis of the grammaticality of (31b) and, more
generally, of all subject raising sentences. We begin by deriving the
complement clause. Note how the eventual matrix subject there is
licensed as a specifier of main verb be in (37a). We assume that
the subject moves from Spec(VP) to Spec(IP) in (37c) in order to provide
the complement clause with a subject in accordance with the subject
requirement.
Deriving raising sentences
In the case of a nonexpletive matrix subject, as in The children seemed to dance, the children would substitute into the specifier of dance, thereby becoming associated with that verb's agent role. |
(37) | a. | b. | c. | ||||||||
Substitute eventual matrix subject as specifier of lower verb | Substitute (37a) as complement of to | Subject movement in complement clause |
We now substitute (37c) into the elementary tree for seemed in (38a).
(38) | a. | b. |
Before proceeding with the derivation, a few words about the elementary trees in (38) are in order. First, note that both elementary trees in (38) contain a specifier position. Though semantically unnecessary, as discussed above, this position is motivated by the syntactic obligatoriness of expletive it in small clauses.
(39) | a. | They made [ it seem that there was a problem. ] | |
b. | They made [ seem that there was a problem. ] |
Second, the syntactic category of the clausal complement is IP in (38a), whereas it is CP in (38b), which we would use if we wanted to derive the finite complement counterpart of (31b) (It seemed that there was a problem). The reason that raising predicates, in contrast to control predicates, require different elementary trees depending on the finiteness of their complement has to do with certain structural conditions that must be satisfied by traces of movement (but not by PRO). We simply mention the existence of these conditions here; their exact character and their motivation go beyond the scope of this textbook.
Substituting the clause in (37c) as the complement of the elementary tree for raising seem in (38a) yields (40a), which in turn becomes the complement of the matrix I element, yielding (40b).
(40) | a. | b. | |||||
Substitute (37c) as complement of raising verb | Substitute (40a) as complement of matrix I |
At this point in the derivation, the option arises in principle of substituting expletive it in the matrix Spec(VP) and moving it to the matrix Spec(IP). In fact, this is what we would do if the complement of seem were finite. In the case of a nonfinite complement, however, this step yields the hopelessly ungrammatical (41).
(41) | * | It seemed there to be a problem. |
Why is (41) ungrammatical? The reason is that there bears a nominative case feature that cannot be checked in the lower clause. (How we know that the case feature is nominative is left to you to determine in Exercise 9.1C.) The case feature can't be checked in the lower Spec(IP) (its position in (41)) because nonfinite I is unable to check case at all. The case feature also can't be check in the lower Spec(VP) (its position before subject movement in the complement clause) because V doesn't check case in the spec-head configuration.
In principle, seemed could check objective case on
there in the head-spec configuration just as expect and
other ECM verbs do. However, the ungrammaticality of (41) shows that
raising verbs are in fact unable to do so. Why they should differ from
ECM verbs in this way is obviously something that needs to be explained.
It has been proposed that there is a correlation between a verb's
ability to assign a thematic role to its specifier and its ability to
check objective case. This correlation, known as Burzio's
generalization, is discussed further in |
Since the complement subject's case feature cannot be checked within its own IP, it is forced to move via the matrix Spec(VP) to the matrix Spec(IP), as shown in (42a). In this final position, nominative case is checked by the finite I of the matrix clause in the spec-head configuration. Once again, the structure of the finite complement counterpart is shown in (42b).
(42) |
It is this movement of the subject from the complement clause to the
matrix clause that is known as raising. Raising, like ordinary
subject movement, targets the subject. In both cases, an element that
is licensed in a lower specifier position moves to a higher specifier
position. In the case of expletive there, the licensing is by an
appropriate verb; in the case of nonexpletive subjects, a natural
assumption is that they need to be licensed as arguments of a verb. In
both cases of movement, any licensing relations are maintained by the
trace of movement. And finally, in both cases, the lower position is
not a case-checking position, whereas the higher one is. The one
difference between raising and ordinary subject movement is that in the
case of raising, the subject moves out of the IP in which it originates.
Tend and occur
As was the case with subject control verbs, certain raising verbs are
able to take finite complements in addition to nonfinite ones, whereas
others are restricted to nonfinite complements. Seem, as we have
seen, belongs to the first type. Tend, as shown in (44), belongs to
the second type.
(43) | a. | ok | There seem to be huge traffic jams during rush hour. |
b. | ok | It seems that there are huge traffic jams during rush hour. | |
(44) | a. | ok | There tend to be huge traffic jams during rush hour. |
b. | * | It tends that there are huge traffic jams during rush hour. |
Despite the contrast between the (b) examples, seem and tend are both raising verbs; what is crucial is that the (a) examples, in which the subject of the complement clause moves out of its clause, are both grammatical.
There are also verbs with the converse pattern of tend.
(45) | a. | It occurred to me that there is a solution. | |
b. | * | There occurred to me to be a solution. |
Such verbs have a nonthematic subject position, just like
seem and tend. However, they are not considered raising
verbs, since their complement subjects cannot move out of the clause
they originate in (recall the second cautionary note in the introduction).
Promise
Promise has the curious property of behaving either as a subject
control predicate or as a raising predicate. As a subject control
predicate, promise means something like 'vow' and selects
rational agents as subjects. This promise can take either finite
or nonfinite complements.
(46) | a. | The { children, #horses } promised [ to eat their oatmeal ] . | |
b. | The { children, #horses } promised [ that they would eat their oatmeal ] . |
On this interpretation, the matrix clause can contain manner adjuncts that modify promise (notice how promise can be replaced by vow in this examples).
(47) | a. | The children softly promised [ to eat their oatmeal ] . | |
b. | The children obediently promised [ to eat their oatmeal ] . |
But promise can also have a 'weaker' meaning; on this interpretation, a sentence like (48a) can be paraphrased as (48b).
(48) | a. | This filly promises to win the race. | |
b. | All available evidence indicates that this filly will win the race. |
On this interpretation, modifying the matrix predicate by a manner adverb as in (47) is as deviant in the original promise sentence as in the paraphrase.
(49) | a. | # | This filly { softly, obediently } promises to win the race. |
b. | # | All available evidence { softly, obediently } indicates that this filly will win the race. |
Notice, moreover, that in the alternative paraphrase in (50), the presence of expletive there in matrix subject position indicates that the position is nonthematic.
(50) | There is every indication that this filly will win the race. |
The nonthematic character of the matrix subject position for this interpretation of promise is borne out by the grammaticality of (51).
(51) | There promises to be a new version by spring. |
From these facts, we conclude that the proper representation for a sentence like (51) must be the raising structure schematically indicated in (52).
(52) | Therei promises [ ti to be a new version by spring ] . |
Promise sentences with nonthematic subjects, on the other hand, are ambiguous between a raising analysis and a subject control analysis (as long as they contain no disambiguating adverbs). As always, which reading is prominent depends on the discourse context. In a sentence like (46a), the prominent interpretation, and the only one considered so far, is the subject control interpretation represented in (53).
(53) | The { children, #horses } promised [ PRO to eat their oatmeal ] . |
However, (46a) also has the raising interpretation represented in (54a), which can be paraphrased as in (54b).
(54) | a. | [ The { children, horses } ]i promised [ ti to eat their oatmeal ] . | |
b. | There was every indication that the { children, horses } would eat their oatmeal. |
Notice that under this interpretation, the contrast between children and horses that is due to the selectional restrictions imposed by subject control promise disappears.
There is at least one other verb in English that clearly has the
same curious property as promise---namely, threaten. You
are asked to provide evidence for this assertion in Object control
In this section, we present an analysis of object control predicates
like persuade. The analysis is extremely simple. According to
it, object control predicates are VP shell structurs in which a subject
control predicate is embedded under a causative predicate
(Larson 1988). Recall from
(55) | We persuaded the children that they should dance. |
The requisite VP shell structure is shown in (56).
(56) |
In extending the analysis of the finite complement case to the object control case, we will make a slight revision and replace BELIEVE by COMMIT. This is because BELIEVE is a predicate that can combine with propositions but not with actions, whereas COMMIT is general enough to combine with either propositions or actions, along the lines discussed earlier in connection with agree. We are not claiming, incidentally, that COMMIT is exactly identical with agree. The two predicates differ in that COMMIT does not take an optional argument referring to a co-present rational being. In other words, we can persuade someone that the moon is made of green cheese without necessarily sharing that belief ourselves, and we can persuade someone to do the dishes without their incurring an obligation to us to do so. Given this slight change, we are now in a position to derive (57).
(57) | We persuaded the children to dance. |
The derivation of the nonfinite clause to dance is exactly the same as in the case of a subject control sentence; (58a) is identical to (27c). (58a) substitutes as the complement of COMMIT, and substituting the children in the specifier position of COMMIT yields (58b).
(58) | a. | b. | c. | |||||||||
Reuse (27c) | Substitute (58a) as complement of abstract subject control verb | Substitute specifier in (58b) |
Notice how the apparent matrix object the children is not actually an object, but rather a subject of a small clause complement; in a moment, its objective case feature will be checked by CAUSE in the spec-head configuration. (58c) substitutes as the complement of CAUSE, and then substituting the matrix subject we in the specifier position of CAUSE yields (59a). Abstract verb movement yields (59b).
(59) | a. | b. | ||||||
Substitute (58c) as complement of CAUSE | Substitute specifier in (59a) |
Finally, the VP in (59b) substitutes into the elementary tree for the matrix I, and the matrix subject undergoes subject movement. For simplicity, we omit these last steps of the derivation.
The analysis just presented is straightforwardly consistent with the contrast between ECM and object control illustrated in (60).
(60) | a. | We expected there to be a problem. | |
b. | # | We persuaded there to be a problem. |
The structures for the two sentences are shown in (61).
(61) | a. | b. |
In (61a), expletive there is licensed by originating as the specifier of main verb be in the complement clause. (61b), on the other hand, is ruled out for exactly the same reasons as (32), repeated here as (62).
(62) | # | There agreed [ PRO to be a problem ] . |
First, expletive there is not licensed, since neither
COMMIT nor agree are verbs of existence. Second, COMMIT,
like agree, selects rational beings as subjects, and expletive
there fails to satisfy this selectional restriction.
More nonthematic subjects
In distinguishing among the various verb classes discussed in this
chapter, we have relied heavily on the distribution of expletive
there (or, to put it another way, on the grammaticality or
ungrammaticality of sentences containing expletive there). As
it turns out, expletive there is not the only nonthematic
subject (= subject that is not associated with a thematic role). In
this final section of the chapter, we present two further instances of
nonthematic subjects: so-called subject idiom chunks and weather it.
Subject idiom chunks
In
(63) | a. | The cat is out of the bag. | |
b. | The fur will fly. | ||
c. | The jig is up. | ||
d. | The pot is calling the kettle black. |
Subject idiom chunks share two important properties with expletive there. First, just as expletive there must be licensed by a verb of existence, the subjects in (63) have whatever idiomatic force they have only in connection with the rest of the idiom, but not otherwise.
The relation between subject idiom chunks and their predicates is actually even stronger than the relationship between expletive there and its licensers, since predicate idiom chunks also have no independent idiomatic meaning of their own, whereas verbs of existence can occur independently of existential there. |
For instance, neither cat in (63a) nor pot in (63d) have a metaphorical sense of secret or hypocrite, respectively, in other syntactic contexts. So sentences as in (64) have only literal interpretations.
(64) | a. | The cat is safe with her. (can't mean: 'The secret is safe with her.') | |
b. | # | Fortunately, the pot retracted that piece of duplicitous slander. (can't mean: 'The hypocrite retracted that piece of duplicitous slander.') |
Second, presumably because they are not interpreted literally, subject idiom chunks don't seem to be associated with any thematic role, and so they can occupy the nonthematic subject position of raising predicates. As a result of these two properties, contrasts as in (65) are expected.
(65) | a. | # | The cat agreed [ PRO to be out of the bag ] . |
b. | [The cat]i seems [ ti to be out of the bag ] . |
(65a) is ruled out both on a literal and an idiomatic reading. Agree selects rational beings as subjects and is therefore incompatible with the cat either as a literal or as an idiomatic (nonthematic) subject. In addition, the cat isn't licensed as an idiom chunk in the representation in (65a) because it doesn't form a constituent with the rest of the idiom. By contrast, both readings, and in particular the idiomatic one, are possible in (65b). This is expected, since the matrix subject originates in the complement clause, forming a constituent with the remainder of the idiom.
Note that examples like (66) do not invalidate the diagnostic value of subject idiom chunks in distinguishing between subject control and raising predicates.
(66) | The cat wanted [ PRO to be out of the bag ] . (only literal interpretation) |
Here, want imposes less strict selectional restrictions on
its subject. Since the subject needn't be rational (only have a
reasonably well-developed nervous system), the sentence is grammatical,
unlike (65a). However, unlike in (65b), the matrix subject position
isn't nonthematic and the matrix subject doesn't move out of the
lower clause, so the sentence has only a literal interpretation.
Weather it
The third type of nonthematic subject is weather it, the subject
of verbs of precipitation.
(67) | ok | It is |
As with subject idiom chunks and their predicates, the licensing relationship between weather it and their predicates is mutual: not only is weather it licensed by weather verbs, but the weather verbs are in turn themselves licensed by weather it, as shown in (68).
(68) | * | The { |
Given the nonthematic character of weather it, contrasts as in (69) are expected.
(70) | a. | # | It decided to rain at night. |
b. | It tends to rain at night. |
Unexpectedly, given what we have said so far, sentences like (71) are not that unacceptable.
(71) | ? | It's trying to rain; it finally managed to rain. |
What is going on here? A simple explanation is that the selectional
restrictions of try and manage are being violated at a
literal level (recall the discussion of the little girl lapping up her
teacher's praise), prompting the hearer to conceptualize the weather as
an animate being.
As we have seen, the special properties of nonthematic subjects make
them useful diagnostics to distinguish subject control from raising
predicates (and, mutatis mutandis, ECM from object control predicates).
The relevant judgments are summarized in (72); for convenience, we also
include the judgments for manner adverbs discussed in connection with
promise.
Summary
We have seen that expletive there is licensed as the subject of
verbs of (coming into) existence. Subject idiom chunks and their
predicates stand in a mutual licensing relationship, as does weather
it with weather predicates. Because of their special licensing
requirements, none of these subjects is licensed as the subject of a
subject control predicate (or as the apparent object of an object
control predicate). Nor can a control predicate's selectional
restrictions not be met by a nonthematic subject. By contrast, raising
predicates neither interfere with the licensing of nonthematic subjects
(which takes place in a lower clause) nor do they impose selectional
restrictions that the nonthematic subjects cannot meet. It is precisely
because of their semantic defectiveness that they are able to act as
grammatical catalysts, allowing licensing relations that are normally
confined to the same clause to extend across clause boundaries.
Subject control | Raising | ||||
(72) | Expletive there | * | ok | ||
Subject idiom chunk | # (or only literal) | ok (both idiomatic and literal) | |||
Weather it | # (or metaphorical) | ok | |||
Manner adverbs | ok | * |
1. For simplicity, we are disregarding the fact that one and the same person can be of two minds! In other words, the optional argument seems to be a state of mind rather than the experiencer of that state of mind.
2. The statement in the text is an oversimplification. In fact, there is a bit of overlap in the distribution of PRO and overt noun phrases---for instance, the subject position of gerunds.
(i) | a. | [ PRO going out with him ] would bother me. | |
b. | [ { Kim's, Kim } going out with him ] would bother me. |
3. For simplicity, we focus on the proposition argument of seem and disregard the optional experiencer (It seems to me that you've solved the problem). Including the latter in our considerations would not affect our conclusions.
4. Even clearer evidence that the specifier position at issue is the Spec(VP) associated with seem (and not, say, some higher specifier position, such as Spec(IP)) comes from small clauses like (i).
(i) | a. | They made [ it seem [ that the problem was hard ] ] . | |
b. | * | They made [ [ that the problem was hard ] seem ] . |
B. Explain the acceptability contrast in (1).
(1) | a. | The children seemed to learn Twi. | |
b. | # | The children seemed to { elapse, evaporate }. |
C. What is the evidence that the case feature on there in (2) is nominative?
(2) | There seemed to be a problem. |
D. Show that threaten is both a subject control verb and a raising verb.
(1) is grammatical; (2) is ungrammatical. Therefore, manage must be a subject control predicate, not a raising predicate.
(1) She managed to solve the problem. (2) * There managed to solve the problem.
B. Using the sample answers in (2) and (3) as a model, determine whether the verbs in (4) are subject control predicates, raising predicates, or neither. For the purposes of this exercise, use only active verb forms.
Evidence: | Conclusion: | |||
(2) | ok | There chanced to be an opening. | Chance is a raising verb. | |
(3) | a. | ok | Slip out is like occur. It has a nonthematic subject position (3a), but can't take nonfinite complements (3b), so it isn't a raising verb. | |
b. | * | There slipped out to be a problem. |
(4) | agree, aspire, attempt, be, beg, cease, choose, claim, come, commence, continue, dare, demand, deserve, desire, determine, elect, end up, endeavor, expect, fail, forget, happen, have, hope, intend, look, mean, need, neglect, plan, pledge, prefer, presume, pretend, proceed, prove, purport, remember, request, resolve, start, strive, swear, tend, train, try, volunteer, vow, wish, yearn |
C. Subject control and raising predicates can be of other syntactic categories than V. The predicates in (5) are adjectives, those in (6) are participles and it's not always completely clear whether they are adjectives or verbs, and about in (7) is a preposition. As in (B), determine which class each of these predicates belong to, giving the evidence on which your decision is based.
(5) | afraid, anxious, apt, certain, content, eager, ecstatic, evident, fortunate, glad, happy, hesitant, liable, likely, lucky, necessary, possible, ready, reluctant, sorry, sure, unlikely | ||
(6) | bound, delighted, destined, determined, embarrassed, excited, fated, going, inclined, itching, jonesing, prepared, scared, (all) set, supposed, thrilled | ||
(7) | about |
D. Using (8)-(10) as a model, determine whether the verbs in (11) are ECM verbs or object control verbs. Once again, use only active verb forms. For the purpose of this exercise, do not worry about how you would semantically decompose any object control verbs that you find.
Evidence: | Conclusion: | |||
(8) | ok | I assumed there to be a problem. | Assume is an ECM verb. | |
(9) | a. | ok | I convinced John to take the job. | Convince is an object control verb. |
b. | * | I convinced there to be a problem. | ||
(10) | a. | ok | Notice doesn't allow nonfinite complements; therefore it is neither an ECM verb nor an object control verb. | |
b. | * | I noticed the problem to be difficult. |
(11) | acknowledge, advise, allow, anticipate, ask, beg, blackmail, challenge, command, consider, convince, corral, dare, deem, determine, discover, encourage, enjoin, expect, fear, find, forbid, get, help, instruct, invite, know, order, order, perceive, permit, predict, pressure, prompt, prove, provoke, remind, report, request, require, tell, tempt, urge, warn |
For this exercise, find verbs that have not been discussed in the
book.
Be sure to provide the evidence (grammatical or ungrammatical sentences) on the basis of which you decide that a particular verb belongs to a particular class. Not much in the way of discussion is required beyond that. |
A. As was mentioned in
B. As we mentioned in
C. Expect is an ECM verb. Which other class(es) of verbs discussed in this chapter does it belong to?
(1) | a. | They appear to be lunatics. | |
b. | They hope to get the job. | ||
c. | They reminded him to solve the problem. | ||
d. | They aren't anxious to move. | ||
e. | They are likely to get the job. | ||
f. | They are about to graduate. |
B. Using the grammar tool in nonfinite complementation, build structures for the sentences in (1). Provide suitable decompositions for any object control predicates.
(1) | a. | * | There seems that they like caviar. |
b. | * | They1 seem that they1 like caviar. | |
c. | * | Theyi seem that ti like caviar. | |
d. | * | Caviari seems that they like ti. |
(1) | I persuaded them to come. | ||
(2) | a. | * | I was persuasive them to come. |
b. | * | I was persuasive of them to come. |
(1) | a. | The children agreed that they would dance; the children agreed to dance. | |
b. | It appears that the bear is hibernating; the bear appears to be hibernating. | ||
(2) | a. | The children tried to dance; *the children tried that they would dance. | |
b. | The bear tends to hibernate in winter; *it tends that the bear hibernates in winter. | ||
(3) | It is evident that there is a problem; *there is evident to be a problem. |
The analysis presented in the chapter is not detailed enough to account for these facts. Suggest how the analysis could be appropriately extended or revised.