The next talk in our 2025-2026 McGill Linguistics Colloquium Series will be given by Mark Baker (Rutgers University) on Friday March 20th at 3:30pm at Leacock 232. The details of the talk are given below.
Title: Obligatory Control into Propositional Complements
Abstract: This paper considers three puzzles about obligatory control (OC) with so-called propositional verbs like claim in English (Chris claimed (to the judge) to be innocent). The first is why control is possible with claim, but not with many other propositional verbs like believe and say. The second is why in French control is possible with propositional verbs more broadly—with analogs of believe and say as well as claim. The third is why propositional verbs are strictly subject control predicates, even when an indirect object is also present. These facts can be explained by a theory in which OC is induced by thematic uniqueness: OC happens when the matrix clause expresses that one if its arguments bears a certain thematic role to a certain event, and the embedded clause expresses that its PRO subject bears the same thematic role to the same event. With desiderative verbs like decide, it is the agent (or holder) role that has this effect, but with propositional verbs it is the about-role. This analysis also accounts for other little-recognized properties of control with propositional verbs: it is disrupted by an overt about phrase in the matrix clause and by a topic phrase in the complement clause, it never shifts when the embedded clause is passive, and it is incompatible with the matrix verb being an impersonal passive. The result is a general theory of how OC with propositional verbs is and is not like OC with desiderative verbs.