Linguistics 150, Assignment 7

Due: Wednesday, March 8

Exercise 1

A. Using existential there as your diagnostic, find at least five raising verbs and at least five subject control verbs other than the ones discussed in
Chapter 7. Provide the sentences on the basis of which you classify the verbs.

B. Repeat (A), but now find as many adjectives of both kinds as you can.

C. Repeat (A), but now find five ECM verbs and five object control verbs other than those discussed in Chapter 7.

Exercise 2

How do we know that seem doesn't bear an oblique case feature?

Exercise 3

English has no ECM or object control adjectives, as illustrated in (1).

(1) a. * I was expectant there to be a problem.
b. * I was persuasive her to take the job.

Is this simply a statistical accident, or is there a deeper reason for this gap? Explain.

Exercise 4

As noted in
Chapter 7, some raising verbs can take nonfinite as well as finite that complements with expletive it subjects, and the same is true of some raising adjectives. But some raising predicates cannot take finite complements. Can you think of examples?