On Visser’s Effects, Control, and Weak Implicit Agents
Lisa A. Reed · ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) · 2018
Landau (2013) and van Urk (2011, 2013) use data involving VisserÕs Generalization to argue that (a) the understood thematic subject of a passive verb is syntactically projected as a weak implicit argument (WIA) and (b) antecedent resolution in obligatory control (OC) structures is determined by the syntactic processes of Agree and predication. This paper further examines sentences involving control and passivization and provides five areas in which improved empirical coverage is achieved under an account that makes the opposing assumptions, namely, that the external argument of a passive is syntactically unprojected (only being interpretatively available via existential binding or meaning postulates, as argued in Parsons (1990), Lasersohn (1993), and Bruening (2013)) and that the reference of PRO is determined post-syntactically, by a Bare Output Condition, as most recently suggested, e.g., in Reed (2014: Ch. 7). 1