Advanced Syntax

Course Description

Constructions like `this book is tough to read’, where the matrix subject is construed as the object of the infinitival clause, have played a major role in syntactic theorizing; they raise challenges for many theories of syntax. How does the relationship between the subject of the clause and the object position of the infinitival clause obtain? Is there a direct movement from the infinitival clause to the matrix clause? Or is this relationship mediated through a combination of syntactic movement and semantic composition? In this class, we will use `tough’-movement as a starting point for explorations of a number of issues in contemporary syntax such as locality, intervention, reconstruction, the A/A-bar distinction, improper movement, and the syntactic/semantic basis for constructing derived predicates. In particular, we will center our discussion around the question of whether function composition is implicated in the analysis of tough constructions, and thereby needs to be available in the grammar. We will also address the issue of selection i.e. why do some predicates but not others participate in the `tough’ construction.

Area Tags: Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Frameworks

Instructors: Rajesh Bhatt & Winfried Lechner