Event control
Silke Fischer, Inghild Flaate Høyem · Linguistik aktuell · 2021
Abstract In this paper, we argue that a set of small clause adjuncts involves a control relation with the event in the main clause functioning as controller – we call this instance of control event control. First, we clarify the empirical picture by looking at data from German, Norwegian, and English. Second, we show that event control is obligatory control and therefore suggest that it should be syntactically licensed in the same way. Our theoretical account is based on ideas by Whelpton ( 1995 , 2002 ), Lohndal (2014) , Fischer (2018) , and Høyem ( 2018 , 2019 ), and we ultimately propose that event control is syntactically licensed under upward Agree with underspecified PRO as probe and a Davidsonian event argument in the main clause as goal.