Cover not available
Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14: Selected papers from the 46th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Stony Brook, NY
Edited by Lori Repetti and Francisco Ordóñez
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14] 2018
► pp. 279–292

Chapter 16
Against control by implicit passive agents

| The Pennsylvania State University

Landau (2010, 2013) and van Urk (2011, 2013) argue that the understood agent of a passive verb is syntactically projected as a weak implicit argument. As such, it participates actively in Agree and predication, the mechanisms they assume are responsible for antecedent determination in control structures. This article examines French data involving control and passivization and proposes an alternative explanation for the facts, one that makes the diametrically opposed assumptions that the implicit agent of a passive verb is syntactically unprojected and that the reference of PRO is determined post-syntactically.

Keywords: control, implicit arguments, passive, Visser’s Generalization, logophoricity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Landau (2000, 2010, 2013), van Urk (2011, 2013) and Reed (2014) : Some points of agreement and contention
  • 3.Further examining the interaction of control with passivization
    • 3.1Reconsidering Visser’s effects
    • 3.2A syntactic constraint on impersonal passivization
    • 3.3On an unexpected parallel between OC PRO and overt bound pronouns
    • 3.4On unexpected WIA control in indirect questions
  • 4.Against control by weak implicit passive agents
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 13 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.14.16ree
References
Bowers, John
2002 “Transitivity.” Linguistic Inquiry 33 (2): 183–224.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brame, Michael
1978 Base generated syntax. Seattle: Noit Amrofer.Google Scholar
Bruening, Benjamin
2013 “ By phrases in passives and nominals.” Syntax 16 (1): 1–41.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butler, Lindsay
2009 “Explaining logophoricity, with special reference to Aghem.” Ms., The University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna, and Ur Shlonsky
2004 “Clitic positions and restructuring in Italian.” Linguistic Inquiry 35 (4): 519–557.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam, and Howard Lasnik
1977 “Filters and control.” Linguistic Inquiry 8 (3): 425–504.Google Scholar
1995 “The theory of principles and parameters.” In The Minimalist Program, Noam Chomsky, 13–127. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Evers, Arnold
1975 “The transformational cycle in Dutch and German.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utrecht.Google Scholar
Hagège, Claude
1974 Les pronoms logophoriques. Bulletin de La Société de Linguistique de Paris 69: 287–310.Google Scholar
Hornstein, Norbert
1999 “Movement and control.” Linguistic Inquiry 30 (1): 69–96.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray, and Peter Culicover
2003 “The semantic basis of control in English.” Language 79 (3): 517–556.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, Lyle
1972 “Modality in English syntax.” Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Landau, Idan
2000 Elements of Control: Structure and meaning in infinitival constructions. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 “The scale of finiteness and the calculus of control.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22 (4): 811–877.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 “The explicit syntax of implicit arguments.” Linguistic Inquiry 41 (3): 357–388.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Control in generative grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lasersohn, Peter
1993 “Lexical distributivity and implicit arguments.” In SALT III, ed. by Utpal Lahiri and Adam Wyner, 145–161. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Montague, Richard
1974 “The proper treatment of quantification in ordinary English.” In Formal philosophy, ed. by Richard Thomason, 247–270. New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
O’Neil, John
1995 “Out of control.” In Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, Volume 1 (NELS 25), ed. by Jill Beckman, 361–371. Amherst: GLSA.Google Scholar
Parsons, Terence
1990 Events in the semantics of English. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul
1970 “On coreferential complement subject deletion.” Linguistic Inquiry 1 (4): 439–500.Google Scholar
Reed, Lisa
1992 “Remarks on word order in causative constructions.” Linguistic Inquiry 23 (1): 164–172.Google Scholar
2014 Strengthening the PRO hypothesis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2016 “Some notes on devoir, falloir, and the theory of control.” In Romance linguistics 2013. Selected papers from the 43rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), ed. by Christina Tortora, Marcel den Dikken, Ignacio L. Montoya, and Teresa O’Neill, 341–360, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi
1986 “Null objects in Italian and the theory of pro .” Linguistic Inquiry 17 (3): 501–557.Google Scholar
2001 “On the position ‘Int(errogative)’ in the left periphery of the clause.” In Current studies in Italian syntax, ed. by Guglielmo Cinque and Giampaolo Salvi, 287–296. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Roeper, Thomas
1987 “Implicit arguments and the head-complement relation.” Linguistic Inquiry 18 (2): 267–310.Google Scholar
Saab, Andrés
2014 “Syntax or nothing: Some theoretical and empirical remarks on implicit arguments.” Borealis: An international journal of Hispanic linguistics 3 (2): 125–183.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Safir, Kenneth
1985 Syntactic chains. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van Urk, Coppe
2011 “Visser’s Generalization: A window into the syntax of control.” Ms., MIT.Google Scholar
2013 “Visser’s Generalization: The syntax of control and passive.” Linguistic Inquiry 44 (1): 168–178.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Visser, Fredericus Theodoricus
1973 A historical syntax of the English language. Vol. III.2. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin
1985 “PRO and subject of NP.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3 (3): 297–315.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1987 “Implicit arguments, the binding theory and control.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 5 (2): 151–180.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1992 “Adjunct control.” In Control and grammar, ed. by Richard Larson, Sabine Iatridou, Utpal Lahiri, and James Higginbotham, 297–322. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

AKKUŞ, FARUK
2021. Variable embedded agent in Sason Arabic. Journal of Linguistics 57:2 ► pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Reed, Lisa A.
2020. On Single and Two-Tiered Approaches to Control. Languages 5:4 ► pp. 71 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.