The case for fake partial control in French and German
Marcel Pitteroff, Michelle Sheehan
May 2018
 

We argue that in instances of what look like partial control, French shows a sensitivity to the embedded predicate rather than the matrix predicate, with PC being possible only where the embedded verb is comitative. Moreover, PRO behaves as if it is syntactically and semantically singular in these contexts in French, suggesting that French lacks 'True PC' and allows only 'Fake PC' arising from exhaustive control with a covert comitative, or some other equivalent mechanism. German, on the other hand, appears to have both Fake PC, limited to comitative contexts with non-attitude metric verbs, and True PC, observed with non-cogitative verbs where the matrix verb is an attitude predicate. As predicted, in Fake PC contexts PRO in German is syntactically and semantically singular, just as in French. In True PC contexts, however, it appears to be plural.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/004014
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Proceedings of NELS 48
keywords: comitative, reciprocal, experimental, control, semantics, syntax
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