Control and Extraposition: The Case of Super-Equi
Idan Landau · ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 1999
The Problem 1bis paper investigates the distinction between obligatory control (OC) and nonobligatory control (NOC) as revealed in the Super-Equi construction.This construction, first studied (and named) by Grinder (1970), poses a non-trivial challenge to any syntactic account of control -the challenge of locality.The basic paradigm that Grinder observed is given below:(I) a. John said that making a fool of herself in public disturbed Sue.b.John said that making a fool of himself in public disturbed Sue.c.John said that it disturbed Sue to make a fool of herself in public.d.'" John said that it disturbed Sue to make a fool of himself in public.To facilitate discussion, let us refer to cases where the controller occurs in the clause immediately dominating the PRO-containing infinitive/gerund as local control, and cases where it does not long-distance (ill) control.Let us further refer tD the nonfinite clause in (la,b) as in intraposition and in (Ic,d) as in extraposition, taking these terms as strictly descriptive labels at the momenL Then Grinder's facts amount to the observation that if a local controller is available then it is obligatory in extraposition but optional in intraposition.'For nearly 30 years now, this asymmetry has been taken to constitute the fundamental empirical challenge facing any theory of Super-Equi 11lat is, the challenge was to formalize a locality principle that would be restrictive enough to rule out ill-control in extraposition with a potential local controller (Id) but not too stringent to rule it out in extraposition without a potential local controller or in intraposition (lb), It turns out that Grinder's paradigm is misleadingly partial; and that once the full paradigm is considered, the line between ill and local control ceases to correspond to the line between intraposition and extraposition.The relevant factor is the semantic class of the predicate governing the infmitive.The following examples present the full paradigm:I Some speakers find (ld) improved if the matrix tense is modal (would, mighJ, etc.).Yet for other speakers the example remains bad.I will assume the lauer judgment; however, to avoid controversy, I will use o)lly past teuse In this kind of examples.In section 5.3 I return to a possible reason for this effect.