Idan Landau

Movement Out of Control

This article is a comprehensive critique of the reductionist view of control advocated in recent minimalist studies, most notably Hornstein 1999. The core of this view is the claim that obligatory control should be collapsed with raising, and nonobligatory control with pronominal coreference. I argue that Hornsteins theory (a) overgenerates nonexisting structures and interpretations, (b) fails to derive a wide range of well-known raising/control contrasts, and (c) involves unstated stipulations belying the appeal to Occams razor.

Possessor raising and the structure of VP

Abstract This paper investigates the Possessive Dative Construction (PDC) in Hebrew and Romance, and centers on the puzzling nature of the Possessor Dative (PD) — a semantic argument of the possessee which behaves like a syntactic argument of the verb. A variety of structural tests indicate that the possessee contains an empty category bound by the possessor, as previous researchers have concluded (Gueron, 1985; Borer and Grodzinsky, 1986); however, contrary to what the standard ‘thematic’ analysis of PDC maintains, it is argued that this is a genuine movement dependency. A case-driven possessor-raising account is developed, which explains the possessor-possessee co-occurrence restriction, and the interaction of PDC with extraction and control phenomena. The claim that PD raises to a specifier position projected by the verb further derives a significant cross-linguistic generalization — namely, that PDC is incompatible with non-agentive dyadic verbs. This generalization supersedes the ‘theme-affectedness’ condition, which is shown to be empirically false. The syntax of PDC proves a useful tool to probe into the structure of VP across various verb classes.

The Explicit Syntax of Implicit Arguments

Although they participate in control relations, implicit arguments are standardly viewed as unprojected ϑ-roles, absent from the syntax. I challenge this view and argue that implicit arguments are syntactically represented. The argument rests on the observation that implicit arguments can exercise partial control, and the claim that partial control must be encoded in the syntax (given plausible assumptions on the limits of lexical relations). I further argue that the syntactic constitution of implicit arguments is more impoverished than that of pro, explaining their differential visibility to various syntactic processes.

Movement-Resistant Aspects of Control

This paper is a contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature of obligatory control (OC) in recent syntactic theorizing.* Although the debate has seen many participants and approaches, I focus here on two opposing views in particular: The view represented in Landau 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004a, 2006, and the view represented in Hornstein 1999, 2001, 2003 and Boeckx and Hornstein 2004. According to the former, OC is formed by an abstract Agree relation, mediated by functional heads. On the latter view (the movement theory of control (MTC)), OC is formed by A-movement, an instance of raising. Landau 2003 provides numerous independent arguments showing that the MTC as developed in Hornstein 1999 fails to account for the most significant generalizations about OC and non-obligatory control (NOC). In response, Hornstein (2003) addresses a variety of empirical problems and offers novel, sometimes ingenious, analyses for them. It also criticizes key aspects of the proposal in Landau 1999. Boeckx and Hornstein 2004, in turn, claims that most of the arguments in Landau 2003 against the MTC do not survive upon closer scrutiny. These are welcome developments. As the debate proceeds, theoretical positions are continually sharpened, bringing to light more and more empirical consequences. The purpose of the present paper is threefold. It first examines Hornstein’s (2003) treatment of various empirical challenges to the MTC and evaluates how well his solutions meet these challenges. It next clarifies and defends certain aspects of Landau 1999 that are criticized (and misdescribed) in Hornstein 2003. Lastly, it shows why the reply in Boeckx and Hornstein 2004 fails to address the essence of the critique expressed in Landau 2003. The general organization of this paper more or less follows the discussion in Hornstein 2003 and then turns to some issues exclusively treated in Boeckx and Hornstein 2004. One cautionary note to the reader: Because this is an ongoing debate with a considerable history, it becomes increasingly cumbersome to elaborate this history on each new installment. Therefore, much material – both data and arguments – that is already well-represented in the previous stages of the debate has been omitted. The discussion to follow thus presupposes some familiarity with the relevant literature. It is my hope that the arguments below will be appreciated and judged against the background of this knowledge.

CONTROL AND EXTRAPOSITION: THE CASE OF SUPER-EQUI ?

Previous analyses of control in Super-Equi have failed to account forthe entire paradigm of relevant cases. A new generalization is stated:Obligatory Control (OC) obtains in extraposition only under psychologicalpredicates. It is argued that extraposition is driven by the requirement thatVP-internal clauses be peripheral at PF. This is satisfied by a causer infinitive which is projected below an experiencer DP, but not by one projected above a theme goal DP. Thus extraposition is blocked in the former case and licensed in the latter. Crucially, only when the infinitive is extraposed to an adjunct position (or intraposed to a subject position) can it give rise to Non-Obligatory Control (NOC); this is supported by a correlation between NOC and failure of extraction from the infinitive. It is claimed that in OC an Agree relation is established between the matrix functional head that licenses the controller and an anaphoric infinitival Agr, which raises to the embedded C as a ‘free-rider’ on T. Since Agree issensitive to islands, the distributional distinction between OC and NOC reducesto the CED. Failing syntactic identification, the infinitival Agr is licensed as a logophor, explaining some well-known properties of NOC in Super-Equi. Theproposed account unifies a wide range of phenomena unrelated under alternativeanalyses of control and Super-Equi.

Un)interpretable Neg in Comp

This article explores the possibility that the distinction between interpretable (valued) and uninterpretable (unvalued) features has grammatical manifestations beyond its role in feature checking. I argue that both selection and lexical insertion are sensitive to this distinction; thus, a head may determine not only which features its complement must bear but also whether they should be interpretableor not. Empirical consequences are explored in Hebrew, where infinitival complements to negative verbs (refrain, prevent) display a number of surprising syntax-semanticscorrelations.Those are tracedto the operation of negative features in the Comp position. The analysis also provides insight into the recalcitrant prevent DP from V-ing construction in English.

Psych-adjectives and semantic selection

A puzzling generalization, first noted by Faraci (1974), states that (non-causative) psychological adjectives tolerate at most a subject gap in their infinitival complement whereas non-psychological adjectives require exactly one gap (either subject or object). This paper argues that the generalization follows from the fact that the infinitive is a (propositional) argument of a psych adjective but a (predicative) modifier of a non-psych adjective. A series of tests (ellipsis, extraction, extraposition and P-stranding) confirms this asymmetry. A-bar binding is responsible for both subject-gap complements to non-psych adjectives and subject-gap infinitival relatives, explaining their crosslinguistic correlation. This strongly suggests that obligatory control does not fall under operator-abstraction, as argued by predicational treatments of control, but rather involves a different mechanism.

Against The Null Comitative Analysis of Partial Control

A growingly popular analysis holds that the plural interpretation of PRO in partial control arises from associating a singular PRO with a null comitative phrase. Three novel arguments are presented to demonstrate the inadequacy of this analysis.

Hierarchical structure in schematic representations: Aspects of meaning in the cinematic shot

Abstract The observation that the cinematic medium employs distinctive meaning-construction devices combined with the conviction that interpretation presupposes some preliminary cognitive processing, motivate attempts to explicate the former in terms of the latter. Focusing on one device - the cinematic shot - this paper examines such an attempt against some test cases from the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. The account proceeds in two stages: First, a hierarchical model of cinematic representation is developed, applying the ‘basic level’ analysis of categorial organization, proposed by Rosch et al. (1976), to the ‘script’ model of stereotyped schematic representations, proposed by Schank and Abelson (1977). Second, a scrutiny of ‘discourse-violations’ of the basic level in the cinematic exemplars is given a pragmatic account, shedding light on how these devices trigger meaning-construction in real-time viewing. A conclusion ensues, surveying some of the implications and consequences this study carries to both film criticism and cognitive theory.

Direct Variable Binding and Agreement in Obligatory Control

Standard semantic theories of Obligatory Control (OC) capture the obligatory de se reading of PRO but fail to explain why it agrees with the controller. Standard syntactic theories of OC explain the agreement but not the obligatory de se reading. A new synthesis is developed to solve this fundamental problem, in which the controller directly binds a variable in the edge of the complement. The associated semantics utilizes the idea that de se attitudes can be modelled as a special case of de re attitudes. The specific interaction of feature transmission and phase-based locality derives a striking universal asymmetry: Inflection on the embedded verb blocks OC in attitude complements but not in nonattitude complements. A semantic benefit is a straightforward account for “unexpected” binding between PRO and de re reflexives/pronouns.