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Non-Finite clauses
an infinitive
an -ing participle
an -ed participle
a gerund
The Infinitive
Adverbial Adjunct of Result (Often He returned home to find his wife gone.
showing an unwelcome or unexpected
result or state of affairs):
Subjects of Infinitives:
* PRO
* Explicit
(introduced
by
the
overt
complementizer
for
or
by
a
non‐overt
complementizer)
1. It is easy for me to do that. (for: overt complementizer)
2. I want [ø you to go].
-ing clauses
Time Subject
Driving along the main road, I Sleeping is necessary to life.
remembered I had to post the letter. Working in these conditions is a pleasure.
Manner DO
She spent the whole evening reading He promised to stop smoking.
poems. Your shoes need polishing.
Condition PC
Turning to the left, you will find the place The problem was climbing up the high
you want. heel.
What she said was cheating.
When a subject is not present in a non-finite or verbless clause, the normal attachment rule for
identifying the subject is that it is assumed to be identical in reference to the subject of the
superordinate or matrix clause:
Persuaded by optimism, he gladly contributed time and money to the scheme. [Since he was persuaded…]
Driving home after work, I accidentally went through a red light. [While I was driving home from work]
Confident of the justice of their cause, they agreed to put their case before an arbitration panel. [Since they were
confident…]
Sometimes the attachment rule is violated. The violation is considered to be an error, giving rise to the
Loose Participle (construction with PRO): The subject of the participle is not co-indexed with the
subject of the sentence. In other words, the subject of the participial clause is not the same as the
subject of the main or matrix clause; they refer to different entities.
Standing on the church tower, the whole village could be seen.
Being a nice day, we decided to go to the club.
Accepted Participles
The use of certain loose participles has become widespread and they are now acceptable and considered as
prepositions:
Considering Counting
Regarding Including
Talking of Concerning
Speaking of Supposing
There are some verbs that may be followed by an object and by either a present
participle or an infinitive. The meaning is different:
The present participle describes the The infinitive is used for a complete
action in progress (like a continuous activity.
tense)
I saw him crossing the road (on the way I saw him cross the road (from one side
to the other side) to the other)
I heard him singing in his bath (noticed I heard him sing at the concert (I heard
this act in progress) the whole performance)
Big PRO
The silent/ invisible/ empty/ covert/ not pronounced/ not manifested subject of non-
finite verbs
Ii want to PROi go to PROi driving along Ii like PROi reading Hei died PROi poor.
the cinema. the main road, Ii novels.
remembered I had to
phone my sister.
CONTROL THEORY:
It deals with the co-indexation between PRO and its antecedent (the relationship
holding between PRO and its antecedent).
PRO is controlled (i.e. If PRO gets it features When PRO refers to some
refers back to) by the from the object, it is said to entity within the domain of
grammatical subject of the be object-controlled. discourse but not directly
sentence. Controlled I told heri to PROi leave mentioned in the sentence,
means that PRO gets its the room. we say that PRO has a
person, number and I persuaded heri to PROi discourse controller. In the
gender features from the buy a new P.C. ff. examples, PRO has an
subject. arbitrary reference, and so
Ii want to PROi go to the denotes “any arbitrary
cinema. person you care to
Ii tried to PROi open the mention” and hence, has
door. the same interpretation as
“one”. PRO has arbitrary
control here.
To PRO smoke is bad for
Want is a control verb. Tell and persuade are also your health. [For everyone
control verbs. to smoke…]
Control Verbs
try, hope, want, like, prefer, decide, persuade, ask, tell, oblige, order,
plan, promise, manage PRO to do urge, promise somebody to do
something. something
Verbs of communication.
Peteri tried [CP Ø PROi to open the The teacher persuaded [usi] [PROi to
door]. study Chomskyan syntax].
(Subject controlled) (Object controlled)
Control Adjectives
Tom was not willing PRO to move into the house on the
shore.
Complement clause:
* SMALL CLAUSE
I consider [Mary wise]
* NON-FINITE CLAUSE
I want [Mary to do it]
Tom expected [me to help him]
The man made [us lie on the floor]
Notice that these verbs often occur in the passive construction. The subject moves out
into the Spec position of TP and leaves behind a trace or a copy of itself. The passive of
an ECM verb (like the passive of other verbs) does not assign accusative case. That is
why the embedded subject has to move.
Sue is believed [__ to have made up her mind.]
Nobody was considered [IP__ to be in the building.]
c. The new building is said [IP__ to impress the critics.]
Tom is expected t to arrive at noon.
The government is known t to be corrupt.
Susan was made t to laugh.
They were seen t to take the money / They were seen t taking the money
Note that some verbs can behave both as Control and ECM verbs:
I want [PRO to go home]
I want [them to go home]
The NP Tom cannot remain in that position because it doesnʼt receive case there. On
the other hand, all finite clauses must have an overt subject in English, so the NP Tom
rises to subject of seems, where it is assigned nominative case.
Tom seems [t to enjoy his lessons]
These verbs are called raising because the embedded subject always moves out of the
complement clause and raises to subject of the conjugated/finite verb.
The subject of the clause that contains the raising predicate does not receive theta role
from the raising predicate. It is not an argument of the raising predicate at all, but merely
a syntactically moved argument of a lower predicate.
seem, happen, turn out, begin, start, continue, likely, bound (one-place Mary is [t a pianist]
tend, appear + stop , tend, going to adjectives), sure, ___ is [Mary a pianist]
infinitival clause Tom is going [t to visit certain (two-place
us tomorrow] adjectives)
Mary is likely [t to win
the contest]
They are sure [t to
arrive on time]
One-place adjectives: We can have two possible sentences: one without argument movement (without raising) and
one with argument movement (with raising):
[It is likely that John will come].
[John is likely to come].
Two-place adjectives: which can occur with an omitted experiencer argument. With these adjectives we can have
three possible sentences:
[We are certain that John will come].
[It is certain that John will come].
[John is certain to come].
It is an expletive pronoun, a slot filler, because since English is a [–null subject] language, the subject slot has to be
filled in. It is not an argument, it has no theta-role (therefore, it has no meaning). It is not referential. It is not an empty
category because it has phonological content.
Syntactic analysis of the Adjectival Phrase likely that John will come:
Ø John
H (Det) C/Det (Proper Noun)
The sentence is a complex sentence, made up of a main clause and a finite subordinate clause.
Notice that the complement to the adjective likely is a TP and not a CP. Its subject John will move out of it to end up
as the grammatical subject of the main clause. John, however, is not an argument of likely, it is an argument of the
verb of the subordinate clause and it gets its theta-role from that verb (in this case come)
Ø John
H (Det) C/Det (Proper Noun)
to come (here)
H (Tense) IVIP C/V/ ADV C (Adv)
The sentence is a complex sentence, made up of a main clause and a non-finite subordinate clause.
They are similar in a way. There is no overt subject in the infinitival clause. The subject of the matrix
clause is somehow related to the subject of the embedded clause. But semantically, they are different.
Raising: Sue
seemed to be happy. Subject Control: Sue
tried to be happy.
John appeared to win a prize. John arranged to win a prize.
Paraphrasing:
Sue did things so that she would be happy.
[Sue is the argument of did things and she is the
argument of happy. There are two occurrences of an
NP referring to Sue, each with a theta-role]
John made arrangements so that he would win a
prize.
Raising is a situation in which the NP that gets its theta-role in one position must move
to get case -marked in another position. The position in which we hear a Raised NP is
due to syntax. Raising, in this sense, is ʻpure syntaxʼ.
Control is semantics. It is a situation in which a null pronoun PRO receive its
interpretation in one of a number of ways -from a subject, from an object, from the
object of a preposition or even from an unexpressed argument.
Null Determiner
Null Complementizers (Null Functor) * that [He said [null C he was fine].
* with/ without [He dived [null C head
first].
Null Tense (Null Functor) Tom null T said that he was tired.
Adj P
Adv P
PP
Full Phrase
Specifier H Complement