Argumentation Essay FINAL

7/29/2019 Argumentation Essay FINAL

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17292 English Language: G

ESTUDIOS INGLESES

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ammar II

ERB TYPES

ArgumentatiSergio Gonzlez de la Hi

Engl

Autonoma University

English Language:

Prof.: Ana ArDeadline:

1

n Exerciseguera Rojo

ish Studies

Of Madrid

rammar II

id Gumiel12/13/2011


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17292 English Language: Grammar II

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The verb can be regarded as the central item in the syntactic analysis. As pointed

out in Mendikoetxea (2003), the decision on how to analyze a verb necessary leads to

the analysis of different aspects of the sentence, such as phrase structure, -marking,

complementation, syntactic derivation and so forth. Thus, given a concrete verb, wemay also predict what will be the semantic and syntactic properties of the possible

sentences that can be built with the predicate in question. To put this paper into context,

we begin by giving a definition of what is understood by verb. Taking Crystal (2008:

510), Radford (2004: 483) and Bybee (1985) as references, we have three different sets

of properties to define a verb: morphologically, it can be inflected for valence, voice,

aspect, tense, mood and number, person and gender agreement; syntactically, it heads

the complement of inflexion, and semantically, it forms the lexical domain of the

sentences1. Thus in this paper I will show how the different types of verbs may vary the

grammaticality of sentences which in principle show the same linear structure. In order

to do so, I will take as evidences the sentences in (1) and (2). Firstly, I will start

describing the two pairs of utterances and providing a first hypothesis for the

ungrammaticality of (2a). Afterwards, I will continue applying different modifications

to the active counterparts of the sentences in (1) to see what the different properties of

the verbs given are. Finally, I will compare them with the different verb in (3) to see if it

could be in the same category as requestor believe.

(1) a. It is requested not to park hereb. It is believed to be missing

(2) a. *There was requested to be another worker at the siteb. There was believed to be another worker at the site.

(3) It is hoped to return to this issue.

1With respect to the semantic property, we have to exclude the so-called copula verbs, which have no

lexical content and hence its main function is to link the subject with a non-verbal predicate (Radford,

2004: 445).


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In (1) we have a pair of passive sentences which share the next superficial

structure: it in subject position, matrix verb (in passive form) and a subordinate

infinitival clause (the appearance of the negative adverb notin (1a) is irrelevant for our

argumentation). Since, as we said in the introductory paragraph, the verb is essential forthe structure of the sentence; let us look briefly at the properties of passivization. This

process can be seen as an arrangement of the arguments of the main verb due to the

change of its properties. We could say that the passive morphology absorbs the theta-

role of the external argument and that, as a consequence of Burzios generalization,

there is no case-marking (Bosque and Gutirrez-Rexach, 2009). Remember that

Burzios generalization proposes that a verb assigns case to its complement only if it

assigns a theta-role to the external argument. In other words: if there is no external

argument, there is no case assignment. In order to clarify this, consider the examples in

(4),

(4) a. I killed a manb. A man was killed (by me)

where (4a) is an example of an active sentences and (4b) the passive counterpart.

In the former example,Ioccupies the subject position, being given its -role (agent) by

the verb. The other argument, the theme, is merged with the verb in complement

position and given objective case. However, we see a different distribution of the

arguments ofkill in (4b). The internal argument of the verb has been raised to subject

position and the original agent is now syntactically realized as a by-phrase adjunct. The

reason for this raising is as follows: by being in the past-participle form, the verb kill

does not have any external argument and hence, as we said before, it has no case to

assign to its internal argument, that is, the complement a man. As the case-filter would

not allow a NP to be without case, the only way for a man to be given case is to raise to

spec-IP, where it would be given covert nominative case by the inflection, while

remaining its thematic role as theme. However, this is not the only possible case of

passivization that can be found in English. Taking the examples in (5), we find that this

process can affect to subordinate clauses as well.

(5) a. I understood John to speak Japanese.


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b. John was understood to speak Japanese.

As can be seen with these sentences, the NP that has raised to subject position is

not an argument ofunderstandbut the external argument of the verb in the subordinateinfinitival clause, that is, John. This process is sometimes called long-distance

passivization as a metaphorical way of describing the raising of the argument of the

subordinate clause. The reason for this constituent to occupy the subject position is in

essence the same to the example in (4b): given that the NPJohn cannot be given case in

that position (issue that we will discuss later in the paper); the case-filter forces it to

move into spec-IP. Having seen these characteristics of the passive sentences, lets

return to our first examples.

The first thing that could catch our attention is the fact that the infinitival clause

in both cases has no overt subject, that is, there is no element phonetically realized. At

first, this could seem to violate the EPP generalization, the abbreviation for Extended

Projected Principle. What this requirement posits is that every inflection head requires

expanding into a maximal projection which has a specifier, what we have been calling

the spec-IP position. In more traditional words, we can paraphrase this by saying that

every sentence must have a subject. However, since, as indicated above, both sentences

are totally grammatical, it must be the case that this requirement is fulfilled. The

possibility we have to account for both things, that is, the EPP and the non phonetic

realization of the subjects is to propose that we are dealing with two instances of cover

or null subject. Nonetheless, we have two different types of covert subjects, namely,

traces and PROs. The former can be seen as the covert copy of a moved constituent

while the latter is a covert pronoun, subject of infinitival clauses. A piece of evidence to

decide which kind of subject we have in these sentences might be given by the

examples in (2). In this case, we have a special kind of clause in the complement

position: an existential sentence. The main feature of this sort of construction is that the

subject position is occupied by an expletive, aka dummy there, to fulfill the EPP feature

of inflection. An obvious consequence of this insertion is that there will be always be

the subject of the sentence. Thus for the ungrammaticality of (2a) we could argue that

the raising of the subject of the existential clause is what causes the ill-formedness of

the sequence. However, as we saw when talking about long-distance passivization, this

should not be a problem. Actually, the example in (2b) shows that the subject of a


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subordinate existential sentence can be perfectly raised to fulfill the EPP of inflection in

the matrix clause.

At this point, we could posit that the problem concerning (2a) could be the actual

existence of the subject in the infinitival complement clause. However, we need moreevidence to take this as the reason for the ungrammaticality. This issue relates perfectly

with the problem that we mention on deciding which kind of null subject we have in (1),

since PRO subjects do not allow the appearance of overt expressions, whatever their

nature is. Hence in order to decide (i) which type of subject is used in the subordinate

examples in (1) and (ii) to explain the ungrammaticality of (2a) we are going to give the

properties of the verbs in the matrix clause and, for this purpose, we are going to turn

the examples in (1) into their active counterparts, shown in (6), and analyze their inner

structure to give a final reason for both problems.

(6) a. They request not to park thereb. They believe it to be missing.

An interested point is revealed when turning the previous examples into their

active counterpart. Although we said that in (1) the linear structure was shared by both

sentences, things are different in (6) as shown below:

(7) a. They request not to park hereNP Vmatrix ADV to VP

b. They believe it to be missing

NP Vmatrix DP to VP

In the second example we find that between the matrix verb and the infinitival

marker, there is a pronoun, it. However we may argue that this disparity can be

minimized because there may be an implicit pronoun, as the example in (8) seems to be

grammatical:

(8) A: What do they say to the guest?B: They request him not to park here


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Since the meaning of the verb is not changed2, the reason for the ellipsis of (7a)

in comparison to (8a) can be based on the idea of the generic reference (Bosque and

Guitirrez-Rexach, 2009: 367). While in the latter there is a concrete controller for thepronoun him (the NP the guests) given by the conversational context, in (7a) there is no

specific reference, thus we can say that there may be an indeterminate pronoun that,

although it is not present in the syntactic configuration of the sentence, is present in the

semantic representation. This can be further proved by inserting a generic overt

reference as we have done in (9). As can be seen, the meaning of the sentences is

exactly the same to that in (7a).

(9) They request everybody not to park hereHaving shown then that the superficial differences of (7) can be shrunk by the

overt realization of a pronoun, for the rest of the paper we will take the sentence in (8b)

since the contrasts when applying different modifications will be greater in this case,

because the linear structure is totally similar in both cases. Thus we part from the

sentences in (10) for our analysis.

(10) a. They request him not to park hereb. They believe it to be missing

In tune with what we saw previously about passivization, we may find it useful

to determine whether the pronouns in both cases are the complement of the matrix verb

or the external argument of the verb in the infinitival clause. In order to do so, we may

apply different constituency tests. The first test we can apply is substitution by the pro-

form that. The test consists on substitute the string of words him not to park here and it

to be missing by the pro-form that. If the resulting sentences are grammatical, that

would be that the words in question form a constituent. In case the result turns to be ill-

formed, that will be a reason to think that they do not form a syntactic unit.

2We refer to the meaning of the verb, not to the meaning of the sentence as a whole.


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(11) a. *They request thatb. They believe that

After this modification, we can see that the ungrammaticality of (11a) is givenby the fact that the pronoun him and the infinitival clause not to park here do not form a

constituent in (10). Things seem different in the example in (11b) since the result of the

insertion of the pro-form thatis totally viable. Hence this leads us to think that the NP,

to and the VP do form a constituent. To strengthen this hypothesis of constituency, we

turn to use a finite paraphrasing with a that-clause.

The difference between the subordinate sentences with the [+FIN] feature to the

infinitival ones that we have in (10) is that the verb is inflected for tense, number and

person. Another special feature of the finite clauses is there is agreement between

inflexion and the subject, the latter of which is also inflected in nominative case. If the

result of this paraphrase is grammatical, that would suggest that the sequence NP-to-VP

forms a constituency in any of the sentences. If it turns out to be ungrammatical, the

conclusion is that, again, the string of words we are dealing with is not.

(12) a. *They request that he does not park hereb. They believe that it is missing

With the application of this test we have reinforced the previous idea we had

concerning the phrase structure of the sentences. The example in (12a) shows that him

not to park here is not a constituent, since, were it the case, the sentence would be well-

formed. This case is exactly what we find in (12b), where the final grammaticality gives

strength to the fact that itand to be missing is a constituent. However, although these

two examples draw the same conclusion, we may still use one more test finally decide

on the constituent structure of the constructions. In this way, we apply now ordinary

coordination.

This syntactic process refers to the result of linking linguistics units equivalent

syntactically, e.g. clauses, phrases or words (Crystal, 2008: 115). Thus if the string of

words which are coordinated are a constituent and they are at the same level, the

sentence would be grammatical. If it is not grammatical, that would mean that the


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conjuncts are not of the same level and that they are not constituents. The test is

exemplified in (13).

(13) a. *They request him not to park here [and her to move her car away]b. They believe it to be missing [and that to be at home]

This test shows the same results as the two previous ones we have seen. The fact

that (13a) shows ungrammaticality is given by the fact that the sequences NP-to-VP is

not a proper conjunct to the parallel sequence in the sentence, and thus proves that they

do no form a constituent. The contrary evidence is given in (13b). We have to note here

that the sentence in (13b) would be more natural if there is a phonological stress in both

itand that, since the pragmatic use of this utterance would be more appropriate when

contrasting two different items. Leaving the phonological and pragmatic characteristics

of the sentence, it turns that it is perfectly grammatical, what suggests one more time

that the pronoun it and the sequence to be missing do form a constituent. So, having

applied these three tests, we may finally claim that there is a syntactic unit in the

example in (10b) but that the sequence NP-to-VP is not a constituent in (10a).

Apart from the phrase structure of the sentences, another claim may be implied

from the tests previously applied. Since the sequence him not to park here is not a

constituent, it suggests also that the pronoun him is not the syntactic subject of the

infinitival clause, since every subject must form a constituent with I. Besides, based on

it, we could also claim that it is the complement of the matrix verb request. The

contrary could be argued for the case of believe. It may be said to be the syntactic

subject of the to-phrase given that they do form a unit while it is not the internal

argument of believe. However, although this could be an implication from the data

given above, now we are going to provide three tests that would give us the precise

evidence we need to reinforce the hypothesis that we have just given.

The first test we can use is to change the sequence NP-to-VP by another of the

same superficial structure but with different meaning. If the final sequence is

grammatical and semantically normal, a part from strengthen the fact that they form a

constituent; it will concretely prove that the NP is the subject of the VP following to. If

the result is ungrammatical or semantically anomalous, that will prove again that the


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string of words in question is not a unit and that the NP is not the subject of the

infinitival verb.

(14) a. !! They request the vase to be brokenb. They believe the vase to be broken

The interested fact provided by this pair of sentences is that both sentences are

grammatical. However, the former is semantically anomalous whereas the latter is

grammatically and semantically normal. Besides, given that the sequences inserted, the

vase to be broken, is the same in both cases; the anomaly of (14a) suggests that the NP

following the matrix verb is not the syntactic subject of the infinitival verb but the

complement ofrequest. This can be accounted by the following reason: if the NP the

vase is the complement of the verb, it is likely to assume that requestimposes semantic

requirements to its complement. To be concrete, this verb requires that its complement

be [+HUMAN] since, as categorized in Bosque and Guitirrez-Rexach (ibid.), it can be

labeled as verb of human influence. The opposite result is shown in (14b). Since the

vase is not the complement of the matrix verb, this cannot impose any kind of semantic

requirement on it; actually it is the infinitival verb which imposes this requirement, as

can be seen in (15):

(15) !! They believe the air to be broken

What (15) and (14b) leads us to suggest is the fact that the NP is the subject of

the subordinate verb and has it has some impositions upon it. However, to have more

evidence we now turn to the passivization of the subordinate clause.

With these new pair of sentences what we want to see is if the meaning of the

whole utterance is the same or is changed by the passive voice in the infinitival clause.

If the sentence keeps its original meaning, then we can say that we are dealing with a

NP which is the external argument of the subordinate clause. However if the meaning is

different from the one of the active counterpart, that would lead us to suggest that the

NP in question is a complement of the main verb. The reason for this disparity is the

fact that if the NP is the subject of the to-phrase, when turned into a by-phrase, its theta-

role will remain the same, since it is given by the subordinate verb. However, if the NP


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is an argument of the matrix clause and it is changed into a by-phrase of the infinitival

verb, the meaning will change because now it will be -marked by a different predicate,

and hence the whole meaning will change.

(16) a. They requestJohn to call Peterb. They request Peter to be called by John

(17) a. They believeJohn to have called Peterb. They believe Peter to have been called by John.

These four examples help us to reinforce the hypothesis that we have foreseen:

The meaning of (16a) is different from the active correspondent. The so it is because in

the latter, the NPJohn is given its theta-role, goal, by the verb request. However, in the

passive sentences, the adjunct by John is the agent, since is -marked by call. The

reason for this disparity is again the fact that the NP after the to-VP sequence is the

complement of the verb. The contrary is found in (17b). Since bothJohn and Peterare

given their -role by the same verb, that is, call the passivization does not affect to the

meaning of the sentence. Finally, to ensure completely that him is not the subject of

park and that it is the subject of be missing, we are going to turn the subordinate

sentences into an existential clause.

If the existential sentence is allowed to appear in form of a subordinate

infinitival clause, it would mean that the element following the matrix verb is the

subject of the subordinate clause, since the expletive there must be a subject, remember

that its insertion was due to the EPP feature carried by inflection. However, the contrary

result in grammaticality will provide us with the last evidence for classifying the NP in

(10a) a complement of the matrix verb. The reason for this conclusion relates to the fact

that the NP following the verb cannot be the subject of the following infinitival sentence

and there has to be compulsorily the subject of the existential clause.

(18) a. *They request there to be waterb. They believe there to be water

These examples finally prove what we have been seeing with passivization and

the semantic restrictions. The fact that the request sentence turns out to be


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ungrammatical, helps us to conclude finally that him in (10) is the complement of the

matrix verb. Furthermore, our intuition about the status of it in (10) can be also

confirmed, since the three different tests provide us with enough evidence.

We may now recall the examples in (2), where the passive sentence in (2a) wasungrammatical. Previously we proposed that the ill-formedness of this sentence could

be given by the fact that there had to be obligatorily the subject of the infinitival clause

and this is not viable. If we turn the sentences in (2) into their active correspondents, we

see that the ungrammaticality remains in the case of the verb request:

(19) a.* They request there to be another worker at the siteb. They believe there to be another worker at the site

Having just applied the third test, we may conclude that the ungrammaticality of

sentence (2a) is given by the impossibility of being there the subject of the existential

clause, since an NP following the verb request must be the external argument of it.

However, this leads us to another problem that we foresee previously. If there is not the

subject of the subordinate infinitival clause, but the sentences in (9), (10a), (16a) and

(17a) are totally grammatical; the subordinate verb must have a subject, since the

violation of the EPP feature would give us ungrammaticality. This, of course, links with

one of the first question we saw in the paper: what kind of covert subjects do we have in

sentences (1a) and (1b)? In order to give an answer to these questions let us firstly take

a look at how the NPs that we have been considering get case.

As we say before, the case-filter prevents any NP to be without case. Besides,

there is more evidence that the pronouns in question have case. Examples (10a) and

(20a) below provide us with empirical evidence for the fact that those elements are

inflected for case, since we can see that the meaning of the sentences remains the same,

the only different is the appearance of an inflected pronoun instead of the content noun.

(20) a. They believeJohn to speak Japaneseb. They believe him to speak Japanese.

The case of the pronoun him in (10a) can be accounted for straightforwardly. It

gets case since the sentence fulfills the next two conditions: (i) firstly it is the


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complement of the verb request, as we have already proved, and hence it is given the

goal -role. Besides, in accordance to Burzios generalization, as the verb has an

external argument, it can assign case to its complement, in this case objective case.

Nonetheless, the things may seem more complicated with the verb believe, since thepronoun we have, it, is in objective case

3and, however, it is the subject of the

subordinate infinitival clause, that is, it is not the complement of the matrix verb as our

tests have previously shown. Besides, there arises another problem: in simple matrix

sentences, subjects are given nominative case by inflection, which is [+FIN].

Nevertheless, in the case of our complement clause we have a [-FIN] inflection, that is

not able to assign nominative case, but to can only assign null case. To see then how it

gets it case, we may find it useful to turn the sentences in (20b4) into passive.

(21) He is believed to speak Japanese.

This sentence shows that the previous objective pronoun him has raised to spec-

IP position in the matrix clause. This can be argued because it carries the theta-role that

is given by speak, that is, experiencer5, in more traditional words we can say that it is

the semantic subject ofspeak. We have to take it for granted that a given constituent can

be only -marked by the predicate whose valence it fulfills. Furthermore, if we look at

the lexical entry of the verb believe, in (22), we find that this verb only takes two

arguments: experiencer and theme. However, the one that is marked as experiencer is

absorbed by the passive morphology as we previously said. Then, the passive verb

believe is left only with one argument to which it can assign case. However, as

Burzios generalization claims, believe cannot assign it case for its passive form and

hence has to raise in order to fulfill the case-filter.

(22) Believe (x, y) x: experiencery: theme

3 Remember that the pronoun it, as the other content nouns, has covert case, that is, it is not realized

phonetically. As evidence for the fact that an element following the verb believe is in objective case is in

(20b).4

We use this concrete example instead of the original in (10b) because, by having the pronoun he

different overt form for different cases, the result is less abstract.5

We use the theta-role experiencer because the most salient sense of the sentence is that the subject has

the mental capacity of speaking Japanese, not that he is speaking at the moment.


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[ _ Sub. Clause6]

Y

As the lexical entry shows, the internal argument is the whole subordinate

infinitival clause, result that is reinforce by the fact that the string of words in question

form a constituent as previously proved. However, we see that him in (20b) is objective

and that it then raised in the passive sentence. The only way to account for these facts is

to say that him gets case from the verb believe, although it is the subject of the to-

phrase. That would explain why when the matrix verb cannot assign case, him has to

raise. This sort of verbs is known as ECM, aka Exceptional Case-Marking. The only

elements that can be able of mark thematically in these exceptional conditions are verbs

subcategorizing for an exceptional clause and the complementizerfor. An important fact

concerning this point is that the insertion of an overt complementizer is not viable, as

can be seen below:

(23) *They believeforhim to speak Japanese

The problem in this sentence is that it is a lexical requirement of the verb believe

that it is must have an exceptional clause as complement and the sentences shows a

common complement clause. These exceptional clauses we are talking about are

characterized by two facts: inflection is defective and they lack a complementizer

domain. The first characteristic is easy to see. Ordinary complement clauses have an

inflection which is able to assign null case to its subject. However, the only kinds of

pronoun that is able to carry this particular case are PRO subjects. The insertion of this

covert subject is not legitimate with the verbs of the ECM type as the next example

shows:

(24) *They believe to speak Japanese

6The type of clause the verb subcategorizes for will be dealt with later.


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The ungrammaticality of this sentence is given by the fact that a believe type

verb cannot allow an ordinary complement non-finite sentence. This now relates to what

we have just proved before: the fact that it is believe that gives case to the subject of the

infinitival clause. Be the non-existence of the complementizer domain, the verb canassign case to the pronoun that, otherwise, would be non-inflected and would violate the

case-filter. We finally can state that the kind of pronoun that is found in (1b) is a trace,

instead that a PRO, because of the syntactic derivation of the sentence, which is shown

in (26). We have to take into account that the only different between (10b) and (20b) is

the pronoun. Of course, it could be said that it in (1b) is an expletive, element that is

inserted to fulfill the EPP, as occurs with there. But this is not viable since it can be

substituted by a content noun phrase such as the bird, as the next example in (25)

shows, and the meaning is exactly the same.


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(25) The birdis believed to be missing(26) It is believed to be missingCP

C3

C IP

[+PROP] 3

NPsubject I4 3

It I VPaux

[+FIN]

is V3

Vaux VPlex

tbeV

3

Vlex IP

believed 3

NP I4 3

tit I VPaux

[-FIN]

to Vaux3

Vaux VPlexbe 3

NP Vlex4

tit Vlexmissing

Let us take a look at how the sentence in (25) is derived: the verb missing

expands into an intermediate constituent which in turns is merged with the pronoun it

before expanding into the lexical verbal phrase. In order to take this, we have to accept

the Internal Subject Hypothesis that suggests that subjects are originated within the VP

and then raised to be assigned case. Continuing with our derivation, the VP is then

merged with the auxiliary verb to be, which remains in its form because of the non-

finite character of inflexion. The VPaux then merges with I, which, due to the EPP

feature that it carries, triggers the movement of the external argument ofmissing, that is,

it. Therefore at this point in the derivation, as the pronoun cannot be assigned case


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because of the exceptional inflection and because the matrix verb, believe, is in its

passive form, it moves to the only place of the sentences where it can get case: spec-IP.

Here, it will be given a covert nominative case by the finite inflexion.

However, although we have resolved how the sentence in (1b) is derived andwhat kind of pronoun it has for the subordinate infinitival clause, we still have to known

what subject we have in the spec-IP position of the to-clause of (1a). First of all we need

to know if the itelement in this sentence is an expletive or a content pronoun. In order

to know it, we apply the same construction as in (25).

(27) a. !! The birdwas requested not to park hereb. !! The birdwas requested not to eat here

c. The birdeats here

Just in case someone would say that the anomaly of (27a) is given by the fact

that the noun phrase the birdcannot be the subject of the verb parksince this requires

the feature [+HUMAN]; we have proposed a similar sentences in (27b) with a verb that

can perfectly match the subject bird in a simple sentence, as in (27c). So, with this

simple test, we can prove that the element in subject position in (1a) is an expletive

instead of a content pronoun. However, the fact that the anomaly of (27a) is given by

the fact that Birds dont park cars is interesting from a syntactic perspective. If, as we

have shown previously with some tests, the NP following the verb require is the

complement of the verb and not the subject of the subordinate clause, why is it

understood as if it were its subject? Moreover, if the sentence is grammatical it follows

that there is a subject, in concordance with the EPP. Then the proposal we have to make

is that there is a PRO subject in this case, since itin (1a) is an expletive and not a raised

element7. This kind of element receives case from its inflection and theta-role from the

predicate in its clause, in our case it would be park. We assume that it has a case since

every pronoun has to fulfill the case-filter principle and we also take it for granted that it

is theta-marked since it has the semantic role of agent. However, as we can see from the

evidence above in (27a) and (27b), for instance; the controller of this pronoun is the

7We discard the option of being a content pronoun since it would be then grammatical to substitute it

with a singular, [-HUMAN] NP, the kind of element that itstands for. Besides, expletives are inserted to

satisfy the EPP, not by raising, since, were they so, they would have some semantic content.


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complement of the verb, reason why this sort of verb is named Obligatory Object

Control. Nevertheless, in our original sentence, things are a bit more complicated than it

is in (10a) since there seems to be no overt complement. In order to account for this

disparity, we provide the lexical entry for this verb in (28).

(28) Request(x, y) x: goaly: theme

[ _ Sub. Clause]

Y

As we can see thank to the lexical entry, the complement that we have been

introducing in the examples in order to make the similarity with the overt pronoun in

(10b) more significant can be omitted. If we take back the concept of generic reference,

we can posit that there is a semantic complement that is not present in the syntactic

derivation. By being generic and indefinite, it can be omitted, as proposes Fernandez

Soriano (1989) (quoted in Bosque and Guitirrez-Rexach (ibid.)). Furthermore, as we

have said that it is present in the semantic representation, we can argue that the PRO

element in the infinitival clause takes as reference this generic element and hence we

have a generic or arbitrary PRO (Bosque and Guitirrez-Rexach, 2009: 367). This can

be taken to more concrete spheres if we retake the sentences in (9) that we number hereas (29).

(29) They requested everybody not to park here.

Here the NP everybody is the complement of the matrix verb, as shown before

with the case ofhim, but it is also the referent for the PRO subject in the subordinate

clause. Moreover, with this evidence we can also argue that there is a CP domain, which

was not the case in the verb believe. We are able to propose this since the inflexion is

not defective, as we can see by the fact that it gives null case to its subject. However, we

still have one problem. If the subordinate sentence in question is a CP, we may try to

insert a complementizer, but the result would be ungrammatical, as the example in (30)

shows.


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(30) a. *They request itforit to be missingb. *They requestforit to be missing

These examples could prove that the sentence in (1a) is not a CP. However theungrammaticality of these utterances can be straightforwardly explained: if we propose

an overt complementizer that introduces the complement clause, it would lead to the

inclusion of an overt subject for the [-FIN] inflexion. However, this overt subject cannot

be found in a control predicate, since this is a lexical requirement of this type of verbs.

Therefore, if there is an overt subject there is no control and the sentences turns to be

ungrammatical. To have a more visual idea of what this all means, we represent the

syntactic derivation of the sentence in (1a) in (31).


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(31) It is requested not to park hereCP

C

3C IP

[+PROP] 3

NPsubject I4 3

It I VPaux

[+FIN]

is V3

Vaux VPlex

tbe V3

Vlex CP

requested C

3

C IP

[+PROP] 3

AdvP I4 3

not NP I

4 3PRO I VPlex

[-FIN] 3

to NP Vlex4 tp

TPRO Vlex AdvP4

park here

This tree diagram summarizes all that we have been showing with the tests and

the analysis. The P-marker shows that the element it is directly merged with the

intermediate constituent of the [+FIN] inflection, as it is characteristic of expletives.

Besides, it is important to note that we have not included a constituent for the omitted

argument of the verb. The debate on whether it should be placed or not in the syntactic

derivation is deep to be dealt with here, so we just take the proposal that it is relevant

for the semantic representation of the sentence, aspect that is shared by those who are

against of including the empty category and those who are in favor. By being of


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relevance in the semantic derivation, we then propose that the PRO, which raises from

the internal position within the VP to be assigned case, is controlled by this empty

category.

To conclude with this first of the paper let us revise the characteristics of theECM verbs and the Object control verbs. The formers take two arguments, one of which

is external and the other the internal argument, that is, the complement. This

complement is an exceptional clause, what means that it has no CP domain and its

inflection is incapable of assigning case to its subject. Therefore we find that the matrix

verb gives objective case to the subject of the IP, what is known as Exceptional Case-

Marking. The Object Control Verbs are categorized by the fact that they take three

arguments: one external and two complements. On the opposite of what we find with

ECM clauses, here we do have a CP domain. However, the complementizer cannot be

overtly realized, since it is a lexical requirement of these verbs that they do need a PRO

subject within the subordinate clause. The only way to have this concrete sort of subject

is to have a non-defective inflexion that can assign null case. The last characteristic of

these verbs is that the controller of PRO is not the subject as happens with the typical

control verbs, such as try. On the contrary it is the complement of the matrix verb which

imposes the semantic content to the PRO subject. However, we have to take into

account that some verbs may omit their complements, as in the case ofrequest. This is

only possible if the internal argument is generic and indefinite. Furthermore, though

omitted, it will play a role in the semantic derivation. Hence it is from this omitted

argument that PRO gets its content, reason why it is understood as generic also.

Moreover, we may also find that there are more kinds of verbs in English. Take

for example (3), which we number here as (32).

(32) It is hoped to return to this issue.

We may argue if the verb hope cab be said to belong to the same class ofrequest

or believe. In order to do so, we apply here two tests that will help us to develop the

answer: insertion of a non-finite existential clause in complement position and seeing if

there are semantic restrictions by the matrix verb. However, in order to proceed with

these modifications, we are going to start with the active counterpart of (32), as we did

with the first sentences.


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(33) They hope to return to the issue.

So we begin by the insertion of an existential clause. As we said before, if theresult is grammatical, that would be that the matrix verb allows a phonetic realization of

the subject in the subordinate clause. If the result is ill-formed, the direct suggestion is

that it is not possible to have realized the subject of the infinitival verb. The sentence is

given in (33).

(34) *They hope there to be water

As this example proves, the insertion of an existential clause is ungrammatical.

The reason for it to be so is that the expletive there has to be the subject of the verb be

and this causes ungrammaticality. This would lead us to classify the verb hope as

request, since both of them do not allow the existential clause. However, an interested

point is given in (35).

(35) They hopeforthere to be water

This example could be said to be in struggle with the one in (34). However, as

we said before, the over complementizer obligatorily forces to have an overt subject in

the subordinate sentences, so the grammaticality of the sentences can be explained. We

can conclude with this piece of evidence that with a for complementizer, the overt

subject of a subordinate non-finite clause is viable. However, we may also wonder what

we have in (33) since there seems to be no subject. As in the case ofpark, we may argue

that there is a PRO, which is controlled by the subject of the matrix verb. We assume

that it is the subject because the verb hope only subcategorizes for a complement which

has to be a subordinate clause, as the lexical entry shows in (36).

(36) Hope (x, y) x: experiencery: theme

[ _ Sub. Clause]

Y


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As this shows, since the verb in question does not have a complement, it is

therefore impossible to have an object control. The last option we have is that the matrix

subject is the reference for the PRO subject in the to-phrase. In order to prove so, weapply the second test we have mentioned before, to see if there are semantic restrictions.

The evidence is given in (37).

(37) !! I hope to melt.

This example shows that there is a semantic anomaly in the sentences. However,

it could be argue that it is given for two different ways: (i)Iis a raised element, whose

original position is in spec-IP of the verb meltor that (ii)Iis the controller of PRO and

hence this is the source of the anomaly. The decision among the two options can be

made if we take back the lexical entry we have previously provided. As it shown, hope

is a bivalent verb, that is, it requires two arguments. Since the grammaticality of the

sentence is taken for granted and it is not passive, we can argue that the two arguments

are present. Besides, I in the first example is understood as the experiencer of hope,

rather than the theme ofmelt, -role that actually has PRO. Note that we say that Iis

the experiencer, we are not making any reference to what the reference in the real world

is. Of course ifIis the controller of PRO, their reference in the real world would be the

same. However, semantically they have different theta-markings: experiencer and theme

respectively. A last argument to think that I is not raised is the theta-criterion. This

posits that: (i) an argument can only be assigned one theta-role and (ii) a theta-role

would only be assigned to a one argument. If, as we have just said, I and Pro have

different markings, it must be thatIis not a movement constituent, since it would have

been given two different theta-roles in the derivation of the sentences: first theme of

meltand secondly experiencer ofhope. WouldIhave been given these two, the theta-

criterion would have been violated and therefore the sentence would have been

ungrammatical. However, it is not, so we can claim that Icontrols the PRO subject in

the subordinate clause.

Having seen this behavior of the verb hope we are able to say that it belong to

the category known as FOR-TO verbs. The main property of this sort of verbs is shown

by hope: they do have a CP domain. The importance point to make is that when the


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subject of the infinitival clause is overtly realized, it is obligatory to have an overt

complementizer, as the example in (35) shows. This need is accounted for by the fact

that an overt pronoun cannot receive null case. Therefore foris needed to provide with

objective case so that it fulfills the case-filter. However, things are different if we have aPRO. Since this pronoun is the only that can carry null case, the appearance offor is

unnecessary and actually gives ungrammaticality, for the reason that we gave for the

verbpark: if the complementizer is present, then there is no control, which is a lexical

requirement of the verb.

Having just seen the properties of these verbs, we can take back the statement

made at the beginning of the paper. Using the verbs request, believe and hope as an

excuse, we can see how their nature and typology allows us to predict what the nature of

the possible sentences are, since they impose certain syntactic and semantic

requirements, which make the whole sentences ungrammatical or grammatical. Thus we

can understand why the importance of the study of verbs in syntax is such and where

their relevance resides.


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References

- Bosque, I. and Guitirrez-Rexach, J. 2009. Fundamentos de Sintaxis Formal.Madrid: Akal.

- Bybee, J. 1985. Diagrammatic Iconicity in Stem-Inflection Relations. InHaiman, J. (ed.)Iconicity in Syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing

Company.

- Crystal, D. 2008.A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonology sixth Edition).Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

- Fernndez Soriano, O. 1989.Reccin y Ligamento en Espaol: Aspectos delParmetro del Sujeto Nulo. PhD thesis: Autonoma University Of Madrid.

- Mendikoetxea, A. 2003. On the Intricate Relation between Theory andDescription: A Linguists look at The Cambridge Grammar of The English

Language. In Crculo de Lingstica Aplicada a la Comunicacin. 16: 3

41.

- Radford, A. 2004. Minimalist Syntax. Exploring the Structure of English.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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