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Adam Przepiórkowski and Alexandr Rosen: Obligatory, Optional and Impossible Case Transmission in Control Constructions

According to standard assumptions of most generative theories, both Chomskyan and non-Chomskyan, raising and so-called Exceptional Case Marking constructions, but not control constructions, should allow for case transmission, i.e., the identity of the grammatical case between the higher element (raised element, controller), and the lower element (trace/copy, controlled PRO). This prediction is not fulfilled for many languages, including Czech and Polish, where, e.g., case transmission is allowed from subjects, whether they are raised elements or controllers. Building on earlier observations by Hudson 1998 concerning similar facts in Icelandic and Ancient Greek, we propose an explicit and precise account of case transmission in control and raising constructions which builds on the standard (Pollard and Sag 1994) HPSG approach to control and raising and on an earlier independently motivated analysis of syntactic case assignment (Przepiórkowski 1999). It turns out that only minor additions to these two grammar modules are required to successfully account for the curious case transmission facts in Czech and Polish.


Maintained by Stefan Müller

Created: August 25, 2004
Last modified: March 10, 2008

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