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Class 7 Notes C LSA Institute 2017/ July 28, 2017 class 7 notes c. The pizza was believed [ __ to have been devoured __]. 1. Passive meets ECM (continuation) d. The cat was considered [ __ to have been let __ out of the bag]. ... have exact counterparts with main-clause predicates that are syntactically active rather than As we noted at the end of the previous summery, when an ECM verb with an infinitival passive, and belong to a smallish (but not too tiny) class that includes the verbs seem and appear complement is passivized, the embedded subject must move: as well as adjectives such as likely and certain: (1) Passive of verbs with ECM and Small-clause complements (4) a. Mary was believed [ ø __ to have left the room]. CP b. *It was believed [CP ø Mary to have left the room]. a. Mary seems [ __ to have left the room]. As we also noted, the embedded clause in an ECM infinitival like (1a) may itself be passive: b. The shit appears [ ___ to have hit the fan]. (2) Passive of a verb with a passive ECM complement The food is believed [TP __ to have been devoured __ (by the lion)] c. The pizza is likely [ __ to have been devoured __]. And finally, we noted that if a full-sentence idiom (i.e. one in which the subject is part of the idiom) is embedded as an infinitival complement of an ECM verb, and the ECM verb is passivized, the subject of the idiom moves for case reasons, just as in (1a) — and, unsurprisingly, d. The cat is certain [ __ to have been let __ out of the bag]. the idiomaticity is preserved: Just as in the passive sentences in (3), it looks like the subjects of the main clauses in (4) are in (3) a. Sue believed [the shit to have hit the fan on Thursday]. their surface positions for entirely syntactic reasons. The verbs seem and appear and the b. The shit was believed to have hit the fan on Thursday (by John). adjectives likely and certain take only the embedded clause as arguments. They are single- ('The shit hit the fan.' = '<Contextually salient people> got in trouble.') argument verbs in these examples. Mary in (4a) is not doing any "seeming", the shit in (4b) is not doing any "appearing", and similarly for the other examples. (4) a. John believed [the tide to have turned]. b. The tide was believed to have turned (by John). What are the syntactic reasons that cause the subjects of the embedded clauses in (4) to raise to the subject position of the main clause? Recall the two properties of passive morphology that The preservation of idiomaticity in examples like (3b) and (4b) makes it clear that the movement explain the behavior of passive constructions, including those in sentences (3a-d), which look s of the embedded subject to form the main-clause specifier is "pure syntax" — motivated by case much like (4a-d): and EPP. Semantically, the shit in (3b) and the tide in (4b) belong entirely to the embedded clause, where they form an idiosyncratically interpreted unit with hit the fan and turned. The (5) Passive morphology main-clause verb believed takes only the infinitival clause and its optional by-phrase as semantic 1. suppresses assignment of accusative case; arguments. The syntactic subject of the main clause is part of the main clause only because it 2. suppresses normal assignment of external θ-role. moved there for syntactic reasons. Semantically it is plays no role whatsoever in the main clause. Let us call predicates like seem, appear, likely and certain in (4) Raising predicates. A natural hypothesis is that they have the properties in (6) 2. Raising predicates (6) Raising predicates Now notice that examples of movement to Spec,TP with a main-clause verb that is 1. do not assign accusative case; morphologically passive, like those in (3) below... 2. do not assign an external θ-role 3. subcategorize for an infinitival clause (of a particular type). (3) — where properties 1 and 2 of Raising predicates look an awful lot like the two properties of a. Mary was believed [ __ to have left the room] (by her friends). passive morphology in (5), except of course for the fact that the predicates in question are not morphologically passive (and fail to take an external θ-role in the first place, rather than suppressing one). In a sense, then, Raising predicates are active predicates with passive-like b. The shit was believed [ ___ to have hit the fan]. properties — which happen to take an clause as complement. LSA Institute 2017 It comes as no surprise now that if a Raising predicate subcategorizes for a finite CP (in addition to the possibility of an infinitival clause seen in (4), there is no Raising — since the subject of the But the big difference here is that in example (11a), Mary is doing something called trying, and in embedded finite clause does not move to the main clause to get case. It receives nominative case example (11b), Bill is doing something called promising or making a promise — while in Mary in its own clause. In the main clause, EPP can be satisfied by use of the dummy element it. seemed to leave the room, Mary is not doing something called seeming. Though in some sense Mary is the subject of both clauses in (11a), and Bill is the subject of both clauses in (11b), this is (7) Raising predicates with a finite CP complement not because the main-clause subject has moved from the embedded clause. Mary and Bill are not a. It seems [that Mary has left the room]. the subject of the main clauses for purely syntactic reasons in these examples. They actually b. It appears [that the shit has hit the fan]. receive a θ-role from the main-clause verb, and seem to control a silent copy of themselves, a c. It is likely [that the pizza has been devoured]. silent pronoun usually notated as PRO, in the embedded clause. For this reason, examples like d. It is certain [that the cat has been let out of the bag]. (11a-b) are called Control constructions, and verbs like try and promise are called "control predicates". Likewise it comes as now surprise that we cannot fail to raise the subject of the embedded clause when it is an infinitival, even if we satisfy EPP in the higher clause by using a dummy it — since (12) a. Mary tried [PRO to leave the room]. the embbed subject will not receive case, and will violate the case filter: b. Bill promised [PRO to read the book]. (8) Raising predicates with an infinitival complement but no raising of the subject It should come as no surprise now that the behavior of idioms in control constructions is a. *It seems [Mary to have left the room]. completely different from their behavior in Raising environments. The shit in (13a) cannot be b. *It appears [the shit to havr hit the fan]. understood as part of the idiom the shit hit the fan because it was never merged in the embedded c. *It is likely [the pizza to be devoured]. clause. Furthermore, unless one imagines a world in which...umm...excrement can have d. *It is certain [the cat to be let out of the bag]. intentions and perform actions, the sentence lacks even a non-idiomatic reading, since try takes an external argument to which the θ-role Agent is assigned (unlike Raising predicates like seem, Raising verbs are behaving just like the passive of ECM verbs in all these respects: which take no external argument at all). Likewise for the cat in (13b). Only in a world where cats can make promises is the sentence interpretable at all, and the idiomatic reading is (9) Passive of ECM predicates with a finite CP complement unavailable. a. It is believed [that Mary has left the room]. b. It believed [that the shit has hit the fan]. (13) a. *The shit tried to hit the fan. (no idiomatic reading) c. It is believed [that the pizza has been devoured]. b. *The cat promised to be let out of the bag. (no idiomatic reading) d. It is believed [that the cat has been let out of the bag]. In the fuller version of this class, we would also focus on verbs whose direct object controls PRO (10) Passive of ECM predicates with an infinitival complement (Mary persuaded John [PRO to leave the room]), which are the "false twins" of ECM predicates. but no raising of the subject But these are topics for another day. a. *It is believed [Mary to have left the room]. b. *It is believed [the shit to havr hit the fan]. c. *It is believed [the pizza to be devoured]. 4. VP-internal subjects once again d. *It is believed [the cat to be let out of the bag]. This is more or less a side remark, but I couldn't think of a better place to put it than this one, so here it is. 3. Raising vs. Control In Raising, a nominal subject of an infinitival complement that needs case moves to a higher In the longer version of this class... Spec,TP position where it can receive the case it needs. A very similar analysis can explain why the external argument generated as the specifier of VP must also move to Spec,TP in English: the ...we would spend lots of time on infinitival constructions that look like Raising constructions, but subject raises to receive case and satisfy EPP.
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