Article published in:
Variation within and across Romance Languages: Selected papers from the 41st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Ottawa, 5–7 May 2011
Edited by Marie-Hélène Côté and Eric Mathieu
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 333] 2014
► pp. 255–274

When control can’t be a fact

| The Pennsylvania State University
This paper shows that linguistic theory presently fails to offer a non-stipulative account of what appears to be a universal gap in simple Control complementation with a substantial class of verbs. The author attributes this to the denotational type of the complement clause selected by such verbs interacting with the manner in which an index of evaluation is set up in tenseless contexts. Specifically, the author proposes that (a) this class of verbs selects Possible Fact-denoting complements – complements whose truth is indeterminate and (b) simple Control clauses (like ECM and small clause complements) are tenseless; therefore, their index of evaluation must be lexically determined by the matrix verb (which precludes Possible Facts). Given this, Possible Facts must independently set up an index of evaluation via inflection of I for tense – fully inflected Is are well known to be associated with Nominative Case, precluding Control.
Published online: 17 December 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.333.17ree
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