Examples
Standard instances of (obligatory) control are present in the following sentences: ::Susan promised to help us. - Subject control with the obligatory control predicate ''promise'' ::Fred stopped laughing. - Subject control with the obligatory control predicate ''stop'' ::We tried to leave. - Subject control with the obligatory control predicate ''try'' ::Sue asked Bill to stop. - Object control with the obligatory control predicate ''ask'' ::They told you to support the effort. - Object control with the obligatory control predicate ''tell'' ::Someone forced him to do it. - Object control with the obligatory control predicate ''force'' Each of these sentences contains two verbal predicates. Each time the control verb is on the left, and the verb whose arguments are controlled is on the right. The control verb determines which expression is interpreted as the subject of the verb on the right. The first three sentences are examples of subject control, since the subject of the control verb is also the understood subject of the subordinate verb. The second three examples are instances of object control, because theControl verbs vs. auxiliary verbs
Control verbs have semantic content; they semantically select their arguments, that is, their appearance strongly influences the nature of the arguments they take. In this regard, they are very different fromNon-obligatory or optional control
Control verbs (such as ''promise'', ''stop'', ''try'', ''ask'', ''tell'', ''force'', ''yearn'', ''refuse'', ''attempt'') obligatorily induce a control construction. That is, when control verbs appear, they inherently determine which of their arguments controls the embedded predicate. Control is hence obligatorily present with these verbs. In contrast, the arguments of many verbs can be controlled even when a superordinate control verb is absent, e.g. ::He left, singing all the way. - Non-obligatory control of the present participle ''singing'' :: Understanding nothing, the class protested. - Non-obligatory control of the present participle ''understanding'' :: Holding his breath too long, Fred passed out. - Non-obligatory control of the present participle ''holding'' In one sense, control is obligatory in these sentences because the arguments of the present participles ''singing'', ''understanding'', and ''holding'' are clearly controlled by the matrix subjects. In another sense, however, control is non-obligatory (or optional) because there is no control predicate present that necessitates that control occur. General contextual factors are determining which expression is understood as the controller. The controller is the subject in these sentences because the subject establishes point of view.Arbitrary control
Arbitrary control occurs when the controller is understood to be anybody in general, e.g. ::Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls is fun. - Arbitrary control of the gerund ''reading''. ::Seeing is believing. - Arbitrary control of the gerunds ''seeing'' and ''believing'' ::Having to do something repeatedly is boring. - Arbitrary control of the gerund ''having'' The understood subject of the gerunds in these sentence is non-discriminate; any generic person will do. In such cases, control is said to be "arbitrary". Any time the understood subject of a given predicate is not present in the linguistic or situational context, a generic subject (e.g. 'one') is understood.Representing control
Theoretical linguistics posits the existence of the null pronoun PRO as the theoretical basis for the analysis of control structures. The null pronoun PRO is an element that impacts a sentence in a similar manner to how a normal pronoun impacts a sentence, but the null pronoun is inaudible. The null PRO is added to the predicate, where it occupies the position that one would typically associate with an overt subject (if one were present). The following trees illustrate PRO in both constituency-based structures ofControl vs. raising
Control must be distinguished from raising, though the two can be outwardly similar. Control predicates semantically select their arguments, as stated above. Raising predicates, in contrast, do not semantically select (at least) one of their dependents. The contrast is evident with the so-called ''raising-to-object'' verbs (= ECM-verbs) such as ''believe'', ''expect'', ''want'', and ''prove''. Compare the following a- and b-sentences: ::a. Fred asked you to read it. - ''asked'' is an object control verb. ::b. Fred expects you to read it. - ''expects'' is a raising-to-object verb. ::a. Jim forced her to say it. - ''forced'' is an object control verb. ::b. Jim believed her to have said it. - ''believes'' is a raising-to-object verb. The control predicates ''ask'' and ''force'' semantically select their object arguments, whereas the raising-to-object verbs do not. Instead, the object of the raising verb appears to have "risen" from the subject position of the embedded predicate, in this case from the embedded predicates ''to read'' and ''to have said''. In other words, the embedded predicate is semantically selecting the argument of the matrix predicate. What this means is that while a raising-to-object verb takes an object dependent, that dependent is not a semantic argument of that raising verb. The distinction becomes apparent when one considers that a control predicate like ''ask'' requires its object to be an animate entity, whereas a raising-to-object predicate like ''expects'' places no semantic limitations on its object dependent.Diagnostic Tests
Expletives
The different predicate types can be identified using expletive ''there''. Expletive ''there'' can appear as the "object" of a raising-to-object predicate, but not of a control verb, e.g. ::a. *Fred asked there to be a party. - Expletive ''there'' cannot appear as the object of a control predicate. ::b. Fred expects there to be a party. - Expletive ''there'' can appear as the object of a raising-to-object predicate. ::a. *Jim forced there to be a party. - Expletive ''there'' cannot appear as the object of a control predicate. ::b. Jim believes there to have been a party. - Expletive ''there'' can appear as the object of a raising-to-object predicate. The control predicates cannot take expletive ''there'' because ''there'' does not fulfill the semantic requirements of the control predicates. Since the raising-to-object predicates do not select their objects, they can easily take expletive ''there''.Idioms
Control and raising also differ in how they behave with idiomatic expressions.Many syntax books discuss the way idioms are used to diagnose control and raising constructions. See Carnie (2007), Davies & Dubinsky (2008). Idiomatic expressions retain their meaning in a raising construction, but they lose it when they are arguments of a control verb. See the examples below featuring the idiom "The cat is out of the bag", which has the meaning that facts that were previously hidden are now revealed. ::a. The cat wants to be out of the bag. - There is no possible idiomatic interpretation in the control construction. ::b. The cat seems to be out of the bag. - The idiomatic interpretation is retained in the raising construction. The explanation for this fact is that raising predicates do not semantically select their arguments, and therefore their arguments are not interpreted compositionally, as the subject or object of the raising predicate. Arguments of the control predicate, on the other hand, have to fulfill their semantic requirements, and interpreted as the argument of the predicate compositionally. This test works for object control and ECM too. :a. I asked the cat to be out of the bag. - There is no possible idiomatic interpretation in the control construction. :b. I believe the cat to be out of the bag. - The idiomatic interpretation is retained in the raising construction.Notes
See also
* Dependency grammar *References
*Bach, E. 1974. Syntactic theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. *Borsley, R. 1996. Modern phrase structure grammar. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. *Carnie, A. 2007. Syntax: A generative introduction, 2nd edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. *Cowper, E. 2009External links
* List of English control verbs at Wiktionary {{DEFAULTSORT:Control (Linguistics) Verb types