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On the Interaction Between Raising and Focus in Sentential Complementation
Author(s) -
Rooryck Johan
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
studia linguistica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.187
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1467-9582
pISSN - 0039-3193
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9582.00016
Subject(s) - raising (metalworking) , complement (music) , linguistics , focus (optics) , subject (documents) , alternation (linguistics) , object (grammar) , syntax , computer science , mathematics , philosophy , complementation , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , physics , library science , optics , gene , phenotype
Raising‐to‐subject (SpectAGR S P) verbs such as seem and so‐called ECM or raising‐to‐object (SpecAGR O P) 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 , AGR S P first moves to SpecCP before the subject in the embedded SpecAGR S P moves to the matrix SpecAGR S/O P ( 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.