Abstract
Control theory has received a lot of attention from syntacticians and semanticists on a par such as Chomsky (1965), Rosenbaum (1967), Hornstein (1997, 1999), Boeckx and Hornstein (2003), Landau (2003), Culicover and Willinks (1986) and Culicover and Jackendoff (2001) to name but some. We attempt to investigate the controversial phenomenon of control in Standard Arabic (SA). The paper sheds some light on Standard Arabic grammar and shows how Rosenbaum's Minimal Distance Principle is violated by the Arabic elaborate morphological system. We try to illustrate that control behaves differently depending on the language in question and that syntactic and semantic analyses cannot be employed in a language that is structurally different from English. One of these distinct differences is that Arabic syntax employs a silent element, viz., pro instead of the anaphoric PRO.
1. Laying the background
The striking superficial similarity between constructions cross-linguistically has always intrigued linguists to investigate and scrutinize such intriguing issues in the theory of syntax. A case in point is control theory which has received an ample amount of attention from syntacticians over the last four decades. For example, the sentences in (1) and (2) share identical surface structure (wording) but they have different syntactic analysis in generative syntax.
(1) | John seemed to understand the problem. | ||||
(2) | John tried to understand the problem. |
Now if we consider the sentences in (3) and (4), we again come across two similar strings which differ in having a distinct transitive matrix verbs.
(3) | John imagined his mother to have met his girlfriend. | ||||
(4) | John urged his mother to meet his girlfriend. |
The abbreviations used in glosses of data:
Comp = complementizer, du = dual, f = feminine, IMP = imperfective, m = masculine,
PERF = perfective, POSS = possessive, s = singular, 1 = first person, 2 = second person,
3 = third person.
1.1. Idiomatic meaning
It is a straightforward test that can be applied to differentiate between raising and control constructions. Raising constructions are known to maintain idiomaticity, whereas control construction obscures idiomaticity. This can be explained by the fact that the subject of the idiom must be close to the rest of it and this is true for raising but not for control as shown below:
(5) | The cat is out of the bag. | ||||
(6) | The cat feels that she is out of the bag. | ||||
(7) | The cat seemed to be out of the bag. (Idiosyncratic meaning) | ||||
(8) | ? The cat tried to be out of the bag. (Literal meaning) |
1.2. Thematic relations
As we have pointed out above that the raising predicate does not assign thematic role to its subject, this argument gets a thematic role from the embedded predicate. On the other hand, the control predicate assigns a thematic role to its subject (agent) and theme and proposition in case of object control, and agent to its subject and proposition to the clausal complement in case of subject control.
1.3. Selectional restrictions
Control predicate requires its agent to be sentient whether transitive or intransitive, whereas the semantics of embedded predicate determines the well-formedness of the raising construction.
(9) | The pencil seems to be wood. | ||||
(10) | #The pencil seems to comprehend the lesson. | ||||
(11) | #The pencil tried to be wood. | ||||
(12) | #The pencil tried to understand the problem. |
1.4. Pleonastic or (expletive) subjects
Expletives are allowed in non-thematic positions, which is a characteristic feature of raising constructions.
(13) | It seemed to be snowing. | ||||
(14) | *It tried to be snowing. | ||||
(15) | There seems to be a man in the backyard. | ||||
(16) | *There tried to be a man in the backyard. |
2. Early analysis of control
Chomsky's ‘Standard Theory’, Citation1965, and its components offered the first technique to derive control constructions. The principal components of this theory consisted of:
(1) | Phrase Structure Rules (subcategorization rules); | ||||
(2) | Lexicon Insertion Rules (semantic representation); | ||||
(3) | Transformational Rules. |
(4a) | John urged [np his mother] [s[np his mother]] meet his girlfriend Deep Structure | ||||
(4b) | John urged [np his mother] [s for [np his mother] to meet his girlfriend] Complementizer Insertion | ||||
(4c) | John urged [np his mother] [s for to meet his girlfriend] Equi | ||||
(4d) | John urged [np his mother] [s to meet his girlfriend] Complementizer Deletion |
3. PRO status
“There is an intrinsic fascination in the study of properties of empty categories” (Chomsky Citation1981: 55). We mentioned earlier that in (2) John is the agent of matrix verb and the experiencer of the embedded predicate understand and in (4) the postverbal argument his mother is the object of the matrix verb and the agent of the embedded verb meet. These are considered clear violation of ϴ-criterion: “Each argument bears one and only one ϴ-role, and each ϴ-role is assigned to one and only argument” (Chomsky Citation1981: 36). This means that a structure will be ruled out if it has more arguments than required, or if it has less arguments than required which leaves ϴ-roles unassigned. According to Chomsky, ϴ-roles are assigned at the LF to satisfy the subcategorization requirements of lexical items through all the syntactic levels of derivation.
It is clear then that ϴ-criterion will consider (2) and (4) ill-formed sentences. Therefore, there must be an argument in the embedded clause to get the experiencer role in the matrix clause in (2) and the agent role in the embedded clause in (4). This distinct argument will satisfy ϴ-criterion and the Extended Projection Principle (EPP). Chomsky (Citation1981) calls this special empty category PRO. He claims that PRO is null and silent because it appears in a caseless position. It is a DP that appears in the position of a specifier of non-finite TP.
What are the features of PRO? PRO is a base generated phonetically null DP and it is not a residue of movement like NP-traces. Chomsky and Lasnik (Citation1993) propose that PRO has a ‘null’ Case and it is the only argument that bears this special Case. In fact, PRO has the feature [+anaphor, +pronominal] depending on whether the control is obligatory or non-obligatory (arbitrary) (Williams Citation1980), see below. In obligatory control, PRO is controlled as it gets its meaning from another DP. In other words, PRO is bound by an antecedent that controls it and thus behaves like an anaphor as in (2) which is repeated here for convenience. As an anaphor, PRO must be bound in its binding category to satisfy Principle A of binding theory.
(17) | Johni tried [s’ [s PROi/*jTo Understand The Problem]]. |
(18) | [PRO arb to help the poor], visit this website. |
4. Control taxonomy
Two types of control have been proposed by Williams (Citation1980): Obligatory and Non-obligatory control (OC and NOC). He argues that there are some properties pertinent to OC and that cases lacking these properties are classified NOC. In OC there must be a local antecedent that precedes and c-commands PRO, PRO's position cannot be filled by any other NP. PRO must be grammatically or semantically related to its antecedent. Here are some examples to illustrate the difference between OC and NOC, adapted from Williams (Citation1980) and Hornstein (Citation1999).
(19) | *It is expected PRO to dress himself. (There is no antecedent) | ||||
(20) | *John believes that it was expected to dress himself. (The antecedent John is not local) | ||||
(21) | *John's campaign expects PRO to shave himself. (The antecedent does not c-command PRO) | ||||
(22) | *Johni told MaryjPROi+jto wash themselves. (OC cannot have split antecedents) | ||||
(23) | John expects PRO to win and Bill does too. (OC permits sloppy interpretation with ellipsis) |
(24) | It was believed that PRO shaving was important. (NOC does not require an antecedent) | ||||
(25) | Johni thinks that it is believed that PROi shaving himself is important. (Antecedent is not local) | ||||
(26) | John thinks that PRO getting his work done is important and Bill does too. (NOC does not allow sloppy reading with ellipsis) | ||||
(27) | Johni told Maryi that PROi+j washing themselves would be fun. (NOC permits split antecedents) | ||||
(28) | John'si campaign expects that PROi raising funds at this time would be inappropriate. (In NOC, the antecedent does not c-command PRO) | ||||
(29) | For John to stay would be our pleasure. (NOC permits lexical NP to appear in PRO position) |
5. Theoretical issues
According to Hornstein (Citation1999), the distribution of PRO is stipulated and the analysis of null Case in GB is not appealing: other null expressions such as wh-traces do not bear this ‘tailored’ null Case. In addition, this kind of Case is only assigned to PRO by one kind of T. Lightfoot (Citation1976) explains that NP-traces yield well-formed sentences with want to contraction whereas wh-traces do not as in (30–5). This indicates that Chomsky and Lasnik's (Citation1993) argument for null-Case-marked PRO from non-finite T is violable because this empty category does not behave like other null categories. In fact, PRO patterns much more like an NP-trace, and thus should be treated as one (i.e. an NP-trace without null Case).
(30) | Who do you want [t to go]? | ||||
(31) | *Who do you wanna go? | ||||
(32) | John is going [t to go]. | ||||
(33) | John is gonna go. | ||||
(34) | I want [PRO to go]. | ||||
(35) | I wanna go. |
(36) | John proved to be right and Bill did too (= the sentence is ambiguous: ‘John and Bill each proved to be right’ or ‘John and Bill proved that John was right’). |
(37) | We never expected [PRO1 to be foundt1] | ||||
(38) | *It is unfair [PRO1 to talk aboutt1] |
(39) | Johni washed (PROi/ himself). |
6. Control as movement and the opponents
In GB theory, the postverbal NP of control verbs was base generated as a sister of the matrix verb as in (40). Lasnik and Saito (Citation1991) propose that the NP his mother moves from the object position into Spec, Agro but still within the matrix clause, as shown in (41). This kind of analysis is analogous to that of raising with a difference lying in the kind of null category in question.
(40) | John urged his mother [to meet his girlfriend]. | ||||
(41) | John urged [agrop his mother i [vpti [PROi to meet his girlfriend]]]. |
Hornstein (Citation1999), within a minimalist approach, tries to draw on this distinction to establish a convergence correlation between OC and NP-traces to have a hybrid model that accounts for both raising and control in the same fashion. In his treatment of control, he considers ϴ-roles as morphological features on verbs (see Boskovic Citation1994 for similar proposal). By doing so, he allows NPs to move to a ϴ-position and receive a ϴ-role by checking the thematic features of the verb. It is worth noting that Chomsky (Citation1995) did not approve the idea of having ϴ-roles as features. Hornstein's proposal is not supporting the idea of grouping NPs as arguments, which have ϴ-roles by depending on their semantic identity. “It is that ϴ-roles are features that DPs accrete through movement” (Hornstein Citation2000: 134). He further states that “ϴ-roles are features and they can license movement” (135). On the contrary, verbs are grouped by their semantic identity, and thus it is legitimate for verbs to have ϴ-roles as features. The line of analysis he follows can be described in the following configurations which are chiefly regulated by Rosenbaum's (Citation1967) Minimal Distance Principle (MDP), the first is set to account for subject control and the second for object control. The MDP is responsible for choosing the closest potential antecedent to be the controller.
(a) | NPi [V [PRO…]] | ||||
(b) | NP [V NPi [PRO…]] |
Hornstein's treatment of control as movement has been criticized by both syntacticians and semanticists such as Brody (Citation1999), Landau (Citation2003), Culicover and Jackendoff (Citation2001), Jackendoff and Culicover (Citation2003). Landau (Citation2003) argues that Hornstein fails to clearly account for passivized control verbs. If Hornstein's movement theory of control (MTC) is tenable, (42) should be derivable just like (43) as suggested by Davies and Dubinsky (Citation2004). Hornstein (Citation2000) addresses this issue raised by Brody and Landau by exploiting Chomsky's (Citation1998) notion of ‘phase’. He propounds that CPs are phases and for movement to be possible, the complement cannot be a CP when that movement occurs for control verbs such as hope and try. He further assumes that “complementizer incorporation can void the CP phase derivationally” (137), but this operation is blocked by passive in (42).
(42) | * John was hoped to win the game. | ||||
(43) | John was expected to win the game. |
(44) | John fervently believes (that) there is a man here. | ||||
(45) | It's fervently believed?? (that) there is a man here. | ||||
(46) | It was alleged (that) he took bribes from customers. |
(47) | John expects [PRO to win]. | ||||
(48) | John expects himself to win. | ||||
(49) | John tried [PRO to win]. | ||||
(50) | *John tried himself to win. |
(51) | Johni got to shave himselfi/*oneself. | ||||
(52) | Johni got Fredj to shave himselfj/*i / *oneself. | ||||
(53) | Johni persuaded Fredj to shave himselfj/*i/*oneself. |
(54) | John flattered Mary without compromising himself/*herself. | ||||
(55) | John flattered Mary in order to vindicate himself/*herself. | ||||
(56) | John flattered Mary after (*Fred ('s)) injuring himself/*herself. | ||||
(57) | John flattered Mary while (*Fred ('s)) insulting himself/*herself. |
(58) | John promised to shave himself/*oneself. | ||||
(59) | Johni promised Fredj to shave himselfi/*j. | ||||
(60) | John promised Mary to leave. |
(61) | John's promise/vow/offer/guarantee/obligation/oath to Susan to take care of himself/*herself. | ||||
(62) | John's agreement/contract/arrangement with Susan to take care of himself/*herself. |
Hornstein's MTC would face another obstacle in accounting for verbs such as pray and plead and a large class of nominals such as invitation, instructions, order, reminder, and encouragement where the object of the preposition controls the subject of the infinitival clause as in (63). Davies and Dubinsky (Citation2004: 353) state that “the moved NP would presumably fail to c-command its original position within the complement clause”.
(63) | John prayed [to Athena] to take care of herself/*himself. |
7. Arabic and super Equi
After this concise introduction about control in English, we turn now to one of the Semitic languages. Before getting into control in Standard Arabic, a short account of how the grammar of this language works is in order. SA incorporates both SVO and VSO, but we shall adopt SVO throughout this work for the sake of consistency. For more details on this issue in Arabic, the reader is referred to El-Yasin (Citation1985), and in English to McCawley (Citation1970). With the VSO, the verb must be in the singular, even when the subject is in the plural or dual, whereas the SVO pattern requires full agreement with the subject. However, the verb always agrees in gender with the subject as shown in (64–73), for further discussion see Anshen and Schreiber (Citation1968).
(64) | ‘ʔal-muʕalɪm-u katab-a ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ The teacher 3.s.m writes PERF.3rd.s.m the lessons.m. The male teacher wrote the lesson. | ||||
(65) | ‘ʔal-muʕalimu-na katab-u ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ The teachers 3.pl.m write PERF.3rd.p.m the lessons.m. The teachers wrote the lesson. | ||||
(66) | ‘ʔa-lmuʕalima-tu katab-at ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ The male teachers 3.pl.f write PERF.3rd.p.f the lessons.m. The female teacher wrote the lesson | ||||
(67) | *‘ʔal-muʕalimu-na katab-a ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ The teachers 3.pl.m write PERF.3rd.s.m the lessons.m. The male teachers wrote the lesson. | ||||
(68) | ‘Katab-a ʔal-muʕalɪm-u ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ Write PERF.3.s.m. the teacher 3rd.s.m the lesson s.m. The male teacher wrote the lesson. | ||||
(69) | *‘katab-u ʔal-muʕalimu-na ʔ-aldarrs-a.’ Write PERF.3.pl.m the teachers 3rd.pl.m the lesson s.m The male teachers wrote the lesson. | ||||
(70) | ‘Katab-a ʔal-muʕalimu-na ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ Write PERF.3.s.m. the teachers 3rd.pl.m the lesson s.m The male teachers wrote the lesson. | ||||
(71) | ‘Katab-at ʔal-muʕalima-tu ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ Write PERF.3.s.f the teacher 3rd.pl.f. the lesson s.m The female teachers wrote the lesson. | ||||
(72) | *‘katab-na ʔal-muʕalima-tu ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ Write PERF. 3. pl.f. the teacher 3rd.pl.f. the lesson s.m The female teachers wrote the lesson. | ||||
(73) | ‘Katab-at ʔal-muʕalima-tan ʔa-ddarrs-a.’ Write PERF. 3. s.f. the teacher 3rd.du.f. the lesson s.m The two female teachers wrote the lesson. |
(74) | ‘Pro ʔa-qraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ 1. s.m/f read IMP the book I read the book. | ||||
(75) | ‘ʔana ʔa-qraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ I 1.s.m/f read IMP the book I read the book. | ||||
(76) | ‘Pro ta-qraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ 2. s.m read IMP the book You read the book. | ||||
(77) | ‘ʔanta t-aqraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ You 2.s.m read IMP the book You read the book. | ||||
(78) | ‘Pro ya-qraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ 3. s.m read IMP the book He reads the book. | ||||
(79) | ‘Huwa ya-qraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ He 3.s.m read IMP the book He reads the book. | ||||
(80) | ‘Pro ta-qraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ 3. s.m read IMP the book She reads the book. | ||||
(81) | ‘Hiya ta-qraʔ-u l-kɪtaab-a.’ She 3.s.f read IMP the book She reads the book. |
(82) | ‘Tawqaʕ-a ʕaliyy-un ʔan ja-fuz-a w- ʔaħmad-u ʔejḍan.’ Expect.PERF.3s.m. Ali Comp IMP. win3.s.m. and Ahmad too. Ali expected to win and Ahmad did too. | ||||
(83) | ‘Tawqaʕ-at Suaad-u ʔan ta-fuz-a w- ʔaħmad-u ʔejḍan.’ Expect.PERF.3s.f. Suaad Comp IMP.win3.s.f. and Ahmad too. Suaad expected to win and Ahmad did too. |
(84) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔaqnaʕ-a suʕaad-aj ʔan ja-Ɣtasil-a pro *i/*j/i+j.’ Ali persuade.PERF.3.s.m Suaad Comp IMP.wash.3.m.du. Ali persuaded Suaad to wash themselves. | ||||
(85) | ‘suʕaad-ui ʔaqnaʕ -at ʕaliyy-anj ʔan ja-Ɣtasil-a pro *i/*j/i+j.’ Suaad persuade.PERF.3.s.f Ali Comp IMP. wash. 3.m.du Suaad persuaded Ali to wash themselves. |
(86) | Johni saw Maryj without PROi/*j leaving the room. | ||||
(87) | Mary greeted every boyi without hisi knowing it. |
(88) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔanqaða suʕaad-anj min-duuni ʔan ta-ʕrif-a pro*i/j.’ Ali save.PERF.3.s.f Suaad without Comp IMP. know 3.s.f. Ali saved Suaad without (her) knowing it. | ||||
(89) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔanqaða suʕaad-anj min-duuni ʔan ja-ʕrif-a proi/*j.’ Ali save.PERF.3.s.f Suaad without Comp IMP. know 3.s.m. Ali saved Suaad without (him) knowing it. |
It is also noticed that antecedent choice for the embedded subject violates Rosenbaum's (Citation1967) MDP which proposes that the controller in obligatory control constructions must c-command the null subject of the clausal complement of the control predicate.
(90) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔɪttafaq-a maʕ ʔaħmad-aj ʔan ju-ṣawir-a-hui/j.’ Ali agree.PERF 3.s.m with Ahmad that IMP.3.m-photograph-him. Ali agreeed with Ahmad to photograph him (Ali or Ahmad). | ||||
(91) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔɪttafaq-a maʕ ʔaħmad-aj ʔan ju-ṣawir-a nafsa-hui/j.’ Ali agree.PERF 3.s.m with Ahmad that IMP.3.m-photograph self-him. Ali agreed with Ahmad to photograph himself (Ali or Ahmad). | ||||
(92) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔamar-a ʔaħmad-aj ʔan ju-ṣawir-a nafsa-hu*i/j.’ Ali order.PERF.3.s.m Ahmad Comp IMP.3.m.photograph self-him. Ali ordered Ahmad to photograph himself (Ahmad). | ||||
(93) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔamar-a ʔaħmad-aj ʔan ju-ṣawir-a-hui/*j.’ Ali order.PERF.3.s.m Ahmad Comp IMP.3.m.photograph-him. Ali ordered Ahmad to photograph him (Ali). | ||||
(94) | ‘ʕaliyy-uni ʔamar-a ʔaħmad-aj ʔan ju-ṣawir-a axa-hui/j.’ Ali order.PERF.3.s.m Ahmad Comp IMP.3.m.photograph brother-his. Ali ordered Ahmad to photograph his brother (Ali's or Ahmad's brother). |
(95) | ‘ʔittifaq-u ʕaliyy-in maʕ suʕaad-in ʔan ja-htamm-a bi-nafsi-hi/ *bi-nafsi-ha.’ Agreement-POSS Ali with Suaad Comp IMP.3.m-take care in-self-him in-self-her Ali's agreement with Suaad to take care of himself. | ||||
(96) | ‘ʔittifaq-u ʕaliyy-in maʕ suʕaad-in ʔan ta-htamm-a *bi-nafsi-hi/ bi-nafsi-ha.’ Agreement-POSS Ali with Suaad Comp IMP.3.f-take care in-self-him in-self-her Ali's agreement with Suaad to take care of herself. |
(97) | ‘Proħawal-a l-qitaal-a.’ Try PERF.3.s.m the fighting He tried to fight. | ||||
(98) | ‘Proħawal-a ʔan ju-qatil-a.’ TryPERF.3.s.m Comp IMP.3.m-fight He tried to fight. |
8. Concluding remarks
After applying most of William's (Citation1980) diagnostics, the examples have argued for NOC in SA. This can be attributed to (1) SA does not have non-finite clauses like those of English. The closest embedded clauses to English are the subjunctive ones and those are usually preceded by a complementizer similar to ‘that’. (2) SA has an intricate morphological system which inflects verbs, nouns, and adjectives for person, number, and gender. (3) Instead of PRO, SA has pro which occupies the position of the null subject in the embedded clause. Hornstein (Citation1999: 92) indicates that OC and NOC are in “complementary distribution”. The bottom line is that in order for control to survive, especially the proposed OC which involves A-movement, one should take into his account a broader framework; a hybrid framework which can saturate syntax, semantics, and sometimes pragmatics.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. El Khachab from York University for his comments on some Arabic examples. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their technical and editing comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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