Control in Generative Grammar

A Research Companion

Idan Landau

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781107016972
• eBook ISBN: 9781139603515
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The subject of nonfinite clauses is often missing, and yet is understood to refer to some linguistic or contextual referent (e.g. 'Bill preferred __ to remain silent' is understood as 'Bill preferred that he himself would remain silent'). This dependency is the subject matter of control theory. Extensive linguistic research into control constructions over the past five decades has unearthed a wealth of empirical findings in dozens of languages. Their proper classification and analysis, however, have been a matter of continuing debate within and across different theoretical schools. This comprehensive book pulls together, for the first time, all the important advances on the topic. Among the issues discussed are: the distinction between raising and control, obligatory and nonobligatory control, syntactic interactions with case, finiteness and nominalization, lexical determination of the controller, and phenomena like partial and implicit control. The critical discussions in this work will stimulate students and scholars to further explorations in this fascinating field.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Background
• 2 Control theories: a typology
• 3 Empirical arguments for PRO
• 4 Predicting the distribution of PRO
• 5 The phenomenology of obligatory control
• 6 Adjunct control
• 7 Non-obligatory control
• 8 Conclusion
• References
• Language index
• Name index
• Subject index