On the Interaction Between Raising and Focus in Sentential Complementation

Raising‐to‐subject (SpectAGRSP) verbs such as seem and so‐called ECM or raising‐to‐object (SpecAGROP) verbs such as believe display a semantic alternation that can be captured in the same way as in Freeze's (1993) and Kayne's (1994) analysis of have and be. With respect to the syntax of th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studia linguistica 1997-04, Vol.51 (1), p.1-49
Main Author: Rooryck, Johan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Descriptive studies and applied theories
Linguistics
Syntax
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Summary:Raising‐to‐subject (SpectAGRSP) verbs such as seem and so‐called ECM or raising‐to‐object (SpecAGROP) verbs such as believe display a semantic alternation that can be captured in the same way as in Freeze's (1993) and Kayne's (1994) analysis of have and be. With respect to the syntax of the sentential complement of these verbs, it is shown that analyses of raising and ECM in terms of a ‘reduced’ sentential complement are theoretically and empirically untenable. An analysis of raising is developed which requires two steps: in the embedded CP complement of seem/believe, AGRSP first moves to SpecCP before the subject in the embedded SpecAGRSP moves to the matrix SpecAGRS/OP (seem/believe) position. The first step is motivated as Focus‐movement, and allows for an explanation of the relation of seem type verbs to verbs of comparison in many languages. The presence of [+Focus] C° in the sentential complement of seem/believe also accounts for Focus‐related restrictions on the subject of the embedded complement of believe type verbs, which were observed by Postal (1974) for a subset of English ECM verbs (his DOC‐verbs) and by Kayne (1981) and Pollock (1985) for French ECM verbs.
ISSN:0039-3193
1467-9582
DOI:10.1111/1467-9582.00016