VP complements: evidence from Welsh
Robert D. Borsley · Journal of Linguistics · 1984
A major controversy in syntactic theory concerns the nature of control verbs, verbs like try, which govern equi-NP-deletion in classical transformational grammar. For recent versions of the extended standard theory and, in particular, the government-binding theory, such verbs take a sentential complement with a PRO subject. (Cf. Chomsky 1980, 1981, 1982 and Koster & May 1982.) On an alternative analysis, originating in Bresnan (1971) and Brame (1975, 1976), and developed by Bresnan (1978, 1982), Gazdar (1982) and others, they take VP complements. A similar dispute arises over raising verbs, verbs like seem, which govern subject raising in classical transformational grammar.