Control in English and Danish

Presentation at NAES ’04University of Aarhus, May 27th-29th

Torben Thrane[Aarhus School of Business]

Structure of the presentation

Control – what is it?

Two classic approaches to control

Types of control

Control in Danish

My approach to control

Jamie

with Jamie all night

Jamie loves to dancea.

b. Seeing dance is a sight for sore eyes

c. Jim thinks that dancing with Jamie is heaven

e. The party was given just to dance

Anyone

Anyone

?

d. Jim allowed Bill to dance with Jamie only once

EfterAfter

atto

havehave

drukketdrunk

det meste af dagen,the most of day-the,

blevbecame

ByskolenTown School-the

sidste stop for en 25-årig mandlast stop for a 25-year man

= Having been drinking for most of the day, the Town School became the last stop for a 25-year old man

Control is not always easy!

Politiken, Oh Danmark, 29th May 2004

- under the heading School swimming in booze

a. “The notion of control is invoked whenever the interpretation of a constituent involves an ‘understood (or missing) subject’ whose reference is determined by a NP which is not in the subject position of the constituent in question.” [Farkas, 1988:27]

b. “The classical province of the theory of control lies within what might be grouped together as the phenomena of understood reference for an argument position of a head, where a reference to a thing x is said to be understood with respect to a given position of a given head if there is no expression in that position referring to x, but one takes it that the position is appropriately related to x, either through another independent argument or position in the sentence or discourse in question, or as pragmatically supplied.” [Higginbotham, 1992:79]

c. “The control problem concerns how to determine the understood subject of infinitival and gerundive VPs that lack an overt local subject.” [Jackendoff & Culicover 2003:517]

- Therefore, syntactically, the embedded structure is clausal (CP)

- Therefore it has a syntactic subject (the Projection Principle)

• Semantically, an embedded control structure is propositional

• Referentially, the embedded subject is both anaphoric and pronominal

- Therefore, it is ungoverned (the PRO-theorem)

• PRO is controlled by either the subject, the dative, or the object of the matrix clause

The Syntactic (GB+) Theory of Control

• The controller is identified through co-indexation with PRO (not shown).

PRONPS V NPO [CP[IP ][VP (NPD)to INFGERUND ][VP ] ]

- Therefore it has a subject argument

The Semantic (Chierchia) Theory of Control

John promised Jamie to dance

• Syntactically, embedded structures are non-finite VPs

• Embedded non-finite VPs are nominalizations, hence arguments

• Control is a matter of lexical entailmant

• The controller is identified by theta-role and by ‘functional adjacency’

• Semantically, VP-arguments are either properties or propositions

Arg2V to INFGERUND ]1[VP

Arg3

promised Jamie, (to-dance, John)

Types of control

Obligatory

John hopes to win a fortunePROa.

SC

John wants to win a fortunePROb. Jim

OC

John gave to reada book PROc. Jim

DC

Non-obligatory

How about going for a swim?PROf.

Speaker/hearer control

John talked about winning a fortunePROe.

Free Arbitrary (anybody)

John hopes that winning a fortunePROd. will save you

Long-distance Backward

Types of control

Adjunct

SC

Jim left Jamie fire HarrytoPRO] [CP[IP[CP ]]

Cf. Jim left Jamie in order to fire Harry

Complement

OC

Jim left Jamie fire HarrytoPRO[CP[IP[CP ]]

Cf. Jim left it to Jamie to fire Harry

Jim left Jamie to fire Harry

Constituents

Obligatory

Optional

John his shoes in the bathroomput on

onConstitutional

+argumental -argumental

+necessary Complement Parasite

-necessary Argument Satellite

Typology of sentence constituents

+necessary = selected by V

-necessary = selected by V´

+argumental = available as subject/object

-argumental = unavailable as subject/object

VP

•

V´

•

V

S

A

C

P

put on

his shoes

John

in the bathroom∑

∏

∑ = situation type

Argument structure

Input to

Modalization

Structure

IP

Information

Structure

CP

∏ = proposition

Theses

Control is a semantico-syntactic phenomenon

The control domain is syntactically VP

Obligatory control is control from [+arg]-consituents– controlled structures are complements, parasites or satellites

In Danish, parasitic and satellite control is marked by prepositionswhile complement control typically is unmarked

The obligatory control domain is semantically ∏

Free control is control without a controller- controlled structures are satellites

Control structures are syntactically VP

P1: They lack explicit subjects

Jamie elskerloves

atto

dansedance

P2: Subjects are external to V´

C: Control structures are syntactically V´

The evidence of selv ( = self)

Jamie elskerloves

atto

dansedance

selvself[VP ]

SC

= Jamie loves to dance herself

So, selv is an emphatic realization of PRO

Jamie selv elsker at danse self loves to dance

Jamie elsker at danse selv loves to dance self

Could be an argument for raising rather than control, but --

Selv Jamie elsker at danse Self loves to dance

The obligatory control domain disallows tense and modality– tense and modality are assigned at the level of modalization

*Jamie elskerloves

atto

dansedance

måttemay-INF

a.

The obligatory control domain is semantically ∏

b. Jamie elskerloves

atto

dansedance

få lov tilget leave to

atto

- not because of the semantics of måtte

c. Jamie sigessay-PRES- PAS

atto

dansedance

måttemay-INF

i morgentomorow

- nor because måtte in general is barred from control

VP

V´

V

VP

DP

blev holdtwas given

festenthe party

for at danse med Jamieto dance with Jamie

Complement

Satellite

Free Control is control without a controller- controlled structures are satellites

JannieJamie

lovedepromised

atto

fyrefire

ArneHarry

*JannieJamie

lovedepromised

atto

fyrefire

ArneHarry

PREP

[ ]

[ ]

In Danish, parasitic and satellite control is marked by prepositionswhile complement control typically is unmarked

Control into complement

Satellite/Parasite

JanniJamie

lovedepromised

JensJim

en fridaga day off

a. atto

fyrefire

ArneHarry

for*for

OC

JanniJamie

lovedepromised

JensJim

en fridaga day off

b. atto

fyrefire

ArneHarry

til*to

SC

for = in order tofor = in exchange for

Cf. For at fyre Arne lovede Janni Jens en fridag *For to fire Harry promised Jamie Jim a day off

Cf. *Til at fyre Arne lovede Janni Jens en fridag *To to fire Harry promised Jamie Jim a day off

Cf. Jannie lovede Jens en kat til at fange mus Jamie promised Jim a cat *to to catch mice

Controlled satellites and parasites are marked by different prepositions

?OC

VP

VP

V

PP

DP

lovedepromised

JanniJamie

for (selv) at fyre Arnefor (self) to fire Harry

Satellite

Argument

V´

DP

JensJim

V´

DP

en fridaga day off

Complement

Complement

SC

Janni lovede Jens en fridag for selv at fyre ArneJamie promised Jim a day off for self to fire Harry

VP

V

PP

lovedepromised

for (selv) at fyre Arnefor (self) to fire Harry

VP

DP

JanniJamie

Argument

Satellite

V´

DP

JensJim

V´

DP

en fridaga day off

Complement

Complement

OC

Cf. Jens blev lovet en fridag for (selv) at fyre Arneblev lovetwas promised

VP

V´

V

DP

DP

lovedepromised

JanniJamie

til (?selv) at fyre Arne*to (self) to fire Harry

Argument

Complement

V´

VP JensJim

V´

DP

en fridaga day off

Parasite

Complement

?OC

JanniJamie

lovedepromised

JensJim

atto

hyrehire

SvendSven

a. atto

fyrefire

ArneHarry

for*for

SCOC

SC

JanniJamie

lovedepromised

JensJim

atto

hyrehire

SvendSven

SC

b. atto

fyrefire

ArneHarry

til*to

OC

for = in order tofor = in exchange for

Complement

[ ]Satellite

[ ]

[ ]

Complement Parasite

[ ]

VP

V´

V

DP

PP

lovedepromised

JanniJamie

til (*selv) at fyre Arne*to (self) to fire Harry

Argument

Complement

V´ PP

JensJim

V´

VP

at hyre to hire

Complement

SvendSven

DP

V´ DP

(selv)

V

Argument

Parasite

SCV´ C

Jannie lovede Jens (selv) at hyre Svend til at fyre ArneJamie promised Jim (self) to hire Sven *to to fire Harry

Complement

VP

V´

V

DP

DP

overtaltepersuaded

JanniJamie

ArneHarry

Argument

Complement

VP

JensJim

V´

PP

Parasite

P

DP

(selv)

OC

Jannie overtalte Jens til (selv) at fyre ArneJamie persuaded Jim *to (self) to fire Harry

tilArgument

V´

V DP

at fyreto fire

Complement

Conclusions

Control phenomena are difficult to generalize, but …

There is a tendency in Danish to distinguish argumental fromnon-argumental control by the use of prepositions for the latter

There is a tendency in Danish to use the preposition til to signalcontrol into parasites, other prepositions to signal control intosatellites

-- but there is a lot more to be said!