Prevalent treatments of Obligatory Control (OC) derive the distribution of PRO from either government or case theory. However, ample crosslinguistic evidence demonstrates that PRO is case-marked just like any other DP. The phenomenon of finite control in the Balkan languages and in Hebrew, where subjunctive complements exhibit OC, demonstrates that the licensing of PRO must be sensitive to the distribution of the features [Tense] and [Agr] both on I and C OC is conceived as an instance of Agree; a local calculus, interacting with feature checking and deletion, determines that PRO is in general the "elsewhere'' case of referential subjects. However, the two types of subjects may alternate in certain environments, an inexplicable fact for most existing accounts. The system proposed naturally extends to other types of complements, like inflected infinitives and obviative subjunctives. The resulting typology offers a systematic picture of the intricate ways in which finiteness and control interact in different languages.

This article is a comprehensive critique of the reductionist view of control advocated in recent minimalist studies, most notably Hornstein 1999. The core of this view is the claim that obligatory control should be collapsed with raising, and nonobligatory control with pronominal coreference. I argue that Hornstein's theory (a) overgenerates nonexisting structures and interpretations, (b) fails to derive a wide range of well-known raising/control contrasts, and (c) involves unstated stipulations belying the appeal to Occam's razor.

This article explores the possibility that the distinction between interpretable (valued) and uninterpretable (unvalued) features has grammatical manifestations beyond its role in feature checking. I argue that both selection and lexical insertion are sensitive to this distinction; thus, a head may determine not only which features its complement must bear but also whether they should be interpretable or not. Empirical consequences are explored in Hebrew, where infinitival complements to negative verbs (‘refrain’, ‘prevent’) display a number of surprising syntax-semantics correlations.T hose are traced to the operation of negative features in the Comp position. The analysis also provides insight into the recalcitrant prevent DP from V-ing construction in English.

Previous analyses of control in Super-Equi have failed to account forthe entire paradigm of relevant cases. A new generalization is stated:Obligatory Control (OC) obtains in extraposition only under psychological predicates. It is argued that extraposition is driven by the requirement that VP-internal clauses be peripheral at PF. This is satisfied by a causer infinitive which is projected below an experiencer DP, but not by one projected above a theme goal DP. Thus extraposition is blocked in the former case and licensed in the latter. Crucially, only when the infinitive is extraposed to an adjunct position (or intraposed to a subject position) can it give rise to Non-Obligatory Control (NOC); this is supported by a correlation between NOC and failure of extraction from the infinitive. It is claimed that in OC an Agree relation is established between the matrix functional head that licenses the controller and an anaphoric infinitival Agr, which raises to the embedded C as a ‘free-rider’ on T. Since Agree is sensitive to islands, the distributional distinction between OC and NOC reduces to the CED. Failing syntactic identification, the infinitival Agr is licensed as a logophor, explaining some well-known properties of NOC in Super-Equi. The proposed account unifies a wide range of phenomena unrelated under alternative analyses of control and Super-Equi.

This book offers a new outlook on the derivation and interpretation of control constructions. Bringing together novel data and observations, it argues that Obligatory Control comes in two varieties: Exhaustive or Partial Control, the latter obtaining when PRO properly includes the controller. This distinction, arguably universal, is tightly linked to the tense specification of the infinitive. Non-Obligatory control, on the other hand, is structurally conditioned, obtaining only in VP-external infinitives. A detailed investigation of how control interacts with Super-Equi constructions and psychological predicates sheds new light on issues such as extraposition, argument structure and semantic selection. This book clears off some common misconceptions about the nature of control, as well as sharpening the empirical challenges that face any comprehensive theory in this domain. Regardless of theoretical framework, scholars of syntax and semantics interested in these topics will find this book a major contribution to the field.

This paper investigates the Possessive Dative Construction (PDC) in Hebrew and Romance, and centers on the puzzling nature of the Possessor Dative (PD) — a semantic argument of the possessee which behaves like a syntactic argument of the verb. A variety of structural tests indicate that the possessee contains an empty category bound by the possessor, as previous researchers have concluded (Guéron 1985; Borer and Grodzinsky 1986); however, contrary to what the standard ‘thematic’ analysis of PDC maintains, it is argued that this is a genuine movement dependency. A case-driven possessor-raising account is developed, which explains the possessor-possessee co-occurrence restriction, and the interaction of PDC with extraction and control phenomena. The claim that PD raises to a specifier position projected by the verb further derives a significant cross-linguistic generalization — namely, that PDC is incompatible with non-agentive dyadic verbs. This generalization supersedes the ‘theme-affectedness’ condition, which is shown to be empirically false. The syntax of PDC proves a useful tool to probe into the structure of VP across various verb classes.

A puzzling generalization, first noted by Faraci (1974), states that (non-causative) psychological adjectives tolerate at most a subject gap in their infinitival complement whereas non-psychological adjectives require exactly one gap (either subject or object). This paper argues that the generalization follows from the fact that the infinitive is a (propositional) argument of a psych adjective but a (predicative) modifier of a non-psych adjective. A series of tests (ellipsis, extraction, extraposition and P-stranding) confirms this asymmetry. Ᾱ-binding is responsible for both subject-gap complements to non-psych adjectives and subject-gap infinitival relatives, explaining their crosslinguistic correlation. This strongly suggests that obligatory control does not fall under operator-abstraction, as argued by predicational treatments of control, but rather involves a different mechanism.

The observation that the cinematic medium employs distinctive meaning-construction devices combined with the conviction that interpretation presupposes some preliminary cognitive processing, motivate attempts to explicate the former in terms of the latter. Focusing on one device - the cinematic shot - this paper examines such an attempt against some test cases from the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. The account proceeds in two stages: First, a hierarchical model of cinematic representation is developed, applying the ‘basic level’ analysis of categorial organization, proposed by Rosch et al. (1976), to the ‘script’ model of stereotyped schematic representations, proposed by Schank and Abelson (1977). Second, a scrutiny of ‘discourse-violations’ of the basic level in the cinematic exemplars is given a pragmatic account, shedding light on how these devices trigger meaning-construction in real-time viewing. A conclusion ensues, surveying some of the implications and consequences this study carries to both film criticism and cognitive theory.