Control in Generative Grammar: A Research Companion
Cambridge University Press, 2/21/2013
EAN 9781107016972, ISBN10: 1107016975
Hardcover, 298 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2 cm
Language: English
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.
1. Background
2. Control theories
a typology
3. Empirical arguments for PRO
4. Predicting the distribution of PRO
5. The phenomenology of OC
6. Adjunct control
7. Non-obligatory control
8. Conclusion.
'Professor Landau, already a leading contributor to the theoretical literature on control, provides here an incisive, accessible, balanced guide to what is known and what needs to be known: essential reading for anyone interested in this central area of inquiry.' Ken Safir, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, Rutgers University
'Landau has written authoritatively on the issue of control, showing that deep semantic factors such as partial control have a syntactic origin. He is one of the pre-eminent experts on this issue, and I have no doubt that those who read this work, regardless of theoretical perspective, will profit from his wide-ranging knowledge of and insight into this topic.' Mark Baltin, New York University