No Such Thing As “Defective Intervention”
Benjamin Bruening, University of Delawarerough draft, December 23, 2012; comments welcome
1
Introduction
A phenomenon that has received much attention in the recent Minimalist literature is what Chomsky has dubbed “defective intervention” (Chomsky 2000). This is a phenomenon where some head (usually finite T) seeks a matching NP to agree with or attract, but some other NP intervenes. This other NP is not itself eligible for agreement or movement, however, since it has already had its features checked by some other element, typically a preposition. The result is ungrammaticality: the lower NP is unable to check its features with the head, because the other NP is in the way. The paradigm case of “defective intervention” is subject-to-subject raising constructions in Romance languages, illustrated below for French:1
(1) French raising (McGinnis 1998) a. Jean
Jean
semble seems
avoir to.have
du of
talent. talent ‘Jean seems to have talent.’ b. ?? Jean
Jean
semble seems
à to
Marie Marie
avoir to.have
du of
talent. talent ‘Jean seems to Marie to have talent.’ c. Il
it
semble seems
à to
Marie Marie
[que that
Jean Jean a has
du of
talent]. talent ‘It seems to Marie that Jean has talent.’
A lower subject can raise to matrix subject position when there is no experiencer NP in the way (1a), but when there is one, raising is blocked (1b). There is no problem with an experiencer when there is an expletive and a finite clause rather than raising (1c).
The defective intervention effect in (1b) has been heavily discussed in the recent literature, with many publications trying to explain why experiencers intervene in some languages (like French) but not oth-ers (like English). A small sample of these publications includes McGinnis (1998), Boeckx (1999, 2008), Holmberg and Hróarsdóttir (2003), Hartman (2012). The pattern was first identified for Italian by Rizzi(1986), for Spanish by Torrego (1996), and for Icelandic by Sigurdsson (1996).
Important recent work by Hartman (2009, 2012) extends defective intervention beyond raising con-structions to tough movement and to ECM (exceptional case marking, also known as raising to object) constructions in various languages. Hartman argues that in these contexts, defective intervention manifests itself even in English. The claimed facts are laid out in sections 3 and 4.
1There is a large amount of speaker variation on this judgment. The two French speakers I have consulted find (1b) only mildly
degraded (“?”). Rouveret and Vergnaud (1980) cite a similar example as fully grammatical (their example 174a). Marc Authier (p.c.) points out that examples like (1b) can be found on the internet, produced by native speakers of French. See more on French below.
The purpose of this paper is to show that defective intervention, as it has been characterized in the literature, does not exist. The facts illustrated by French above are part of a completely different pattern. The actual phenomenon is not about experiencers, but about word order. Phrases of all types (adverbs, adjunct PPs) are banned in exactly the same positions as experiencers. Since these types of phrases do not interfere with agreement or A-movement, the problem cannot be intervention for A-movement or agreement. I suggest instead that constraints on rightward movement of infinitives are at work in all of these con-structions. Tough-constructions involve a null operator in the specifier of the CP selected by a tough-type predicate. Such null operators are clitics, and must cliticize onto the selecting head, but this requires PF adjacency. Thus, nothing may separate the non-finite CP from the selecting predicate. In raising, where the effect is much weaker and there is significant speaker variation, I suggest that speakers differ in how readily they permit movement of a raising TP rightward across an adjunct. ECM clauses are slightly more compli-cated, because they are ambiguous between an ECM parse, where the lower subject never leaves Spec-TP, and a raising parse, where the embedded subject moves into the matrix clause. In both cases, though, expe-riencer PPs pattern with adjuncts of all sorts. Whether the suggested account is accurate or not, it is clear that “defective intervention” has been mischaracterized in the literature.
I start with the Romance raising facts (section 2), then turn to tough constructions in English, French, and Italian (section 3). Section 4 examines ECM constructions in English, and shows that, despite significant variability, argument PPs again pattern with adjuncts.
2
Raising in French and Italian
The French raising paradigm is repeated and enlarged below. In addition to the data shown above, it is generally agreed that if the experiencer does not actually follow the raising verb, raising is allowed. For instance, if the experiencer is wh-moved (2d) or is a preverbal clitic (2e), there is no “defective intervention” effect:
(2) French raising (McGinnis 1998) a. Jean
Jean
semble seems
avoir to.have
du of
talent. talent ‘Jean seems to have talent.’ b. ?? Jean
Jean
semble seems
à to
Marie Marie
avoir to.have
du of
talent. talent ‘Jean seems to Marie to have talent.’ c. Il
it
semble seems
à to
Marie Marie
[que that
Jean Jean a has
du of
talent]. talent ‘It seems to Marie that Jean has talent.’ d. À
to qui whom
est-ce is-it
que that
Jean Jean
semble seems
avoir to.have
du of
talent? talent ‘To whom does Jean seem to have talent?’ e. Jean
Jean lui 3SgDat
semble seems
avoir to.have
du of
talent. talent ‘Jeans seems to him to have talent.’
Exactly the same holds of Italian. In both languages, simply putting the experiencer at the front of the sentence obviates the defective intervention effect (3e):2
2
As in French, I find speaker variation on this judgment. One of my two Italian consultants finds (3b) ungrammatical, while the other finds it acceptable.
(3) Italian raising (McGinnis 1998) a. Gianni Gianni sembra seems fare to.do il the suo his dovere. duty ‘Gianni seems to do his duty.’ b. ?? Gianni
Gianni sembra seems a to Piero Piero fare to.do il the suo his dovere. duty ‘Gianni seems to Piero to do his duty.’ c. Sembra seems a to Piero Piero [che that Gianni Gianni faccia does il the suo his dovere]. duty ‘It seems to Piero that Gianni does his duty.’ d. Gianni Gianni le her.Dat sembra seems fare to.do il the suo his dovere. duty ‘Gianni seems to her to do his duty.’ e. A to Piero, Piero Gianni Gianni sembra seems fare to.do il the suo his dovere. duty ‘To Piero, Gianni seems to do his duty.’ 2.1 New Data: Adjuncts
What has not been noted in the literature is that adjunct PPs pattern exactly like experiencers. The following illustrates with French (Philippe Schlenker and Marc Authier, p.c.):
(4) a. Il it a has
semblé seemed
au cours de during la the réunion meeting que that Jean Jean avait had du of talent. talent ‘It seemed during the meeting that Jean had talent.’
b. ? Jean Jean a has
semblé seemed
au cours de during la the réunion meeting avoir to.have du of talent. talent ‘Jean seemed during the meeting to have talent.’
c. Au cours de during la the réunion, meeting Jean Jean a has semblé seemed avoir to.have du of talent. talent ‘During the meeting, Jean seemed to have talent.’
Note that both French speakers I consulted only judge Jean semble à Marie avoir du talent (2b) to be mildly degraded (a single question mark), and both judge an adjunct to have the same level of deviance (4b).
The same holds in Italian: adjunct PPs may not occur between the raising verb and the lower clause when raising takes place, for speakers who find (3b) ungrammatical (Denis Delfitto, p.c.):
(5) a. Sembra seems in on alcune some occasioni occasions [che that Gianni Gianni faccia does il the suo his dovere]. duty ‘It seems on some occasions that Gianni does his duty.’ b. ?? Gianni
Gianni sembra seems in on alcune some occasioni occasions fare to.do il the suo his dovere. duty ‘Gianni seems on some occasions to do his duty.’ c. In on alcune some occasioni, occasions Gianni Gianni sembra seems fare to.do il the suo his dovere. duty ‘On some occasions, Gianni seems to do his duty.’
The other Italian speaker—see note 2—finds both (3b) and (5b) grammatical. I predict that this pattern will be fully general: speakers will either find both (3b) and (5b) grammatical, or they will find them both ungrammatical.
Given the clitic and dislocation facts above, it appears that there is a very simple word order general-ization: no element may come between the raising verb and the non-finite clause when raising takes place (with speaker variation in the strength of this constraint). There is nothing wrong with an experiencer, or any PP, so long as it comes somewhere else. Preverbal clitics appear in a different location, and fronting the experiencer also takes it out of the banned position.
This means that the problem with experiencer PPs is not that they intervene and block A-movement; adjuncts are banned in the same location, but they generally do not disrupt A-movement (e.g., Rizzi 1990). These same adjuncts cause no problems in the passive, for instance (see below for data). The conclusion is that there is no such thing as defective intervention, as it has been characterized in the literature. Experi-encers in particular do not block A-movement or agreement. They are simply part of a broader word order pattern.
2.2 An Account
Given that Italian and French are generally assumed to have V-to-T movement (Emonds 1976, Emonds 1978; Pollock 1989), there are two ways to get a phrase XP in between a raising verb and its nonfinite complement. One is to adjoin XP to the left of the VP, and move the verb across it to T. The other is to adjoin XP to VP on the right, and move the nonfinite complement rightward across it. However, the same word order constraint holds even in the presence of auxiliary verbs, where the main verb does not move to T (see 4). I therefore assume that these adjuncts (and arguments) only adjoin on the right, and the only way to derive the relevant word order is to move the nonfinite clause rightward across them.
If this is correct, then the constraint seems to be that some speakers of French and Italian do not readily permit a raising infinitive to move rightward across an argument or adjunct. As Rizzi (1990) showed, rais-ing infinitives differ from control infinitives in that they cannot be pseudoclefted or extraposed in various languages. I take this to mean that raising infinitives, as bare TPs, do not have the freedom of movement that control infinitives, which are CPs, do. However, I suggest that they are able to move a short distance to the right, but only marginally for some speakers of French and Italian. Suppose this is adjunction to the right side of VP:
(6) TP
NP Gianni1
T
T VP
VP
VP V sembra ‘seems’
TP
t2
PP in alcune occasioni ‘on some occasions’
TP2
t1fare il suo dovere ‘t to do his duty’
This derives the correct word order.
Suppose that there is a constraint to the effect that phrases that are not themselves phases in Chom-sky’s (2000) phase theory cannot move out of the phase they begin in. Then raising infinitives, which are not phases, can never move out of the VP (or vP) phase. This permits short movement of raising infini-tives within the phase, while still accounting for the fact that raising infiniinfini-tives do not have the freedom of movement that control infinitives, which are CP phases, do. Moreover, some speakers of Italian and French permit this short movement only marginally, and prefer to move the adjunct (or argument) instead. English speakers apparently permit the movement freely, since English allows both arguments and adjuncts to come between the raising verb and its nonfinite complement:
(7) a. Georg appears to Maria to be very cold and distant. b. Georg will appear tomorrow to be very cold and distant.
(8) a. Ruprecht seems to his subordinates to be a masterful commander. b. Ruprecht seems in meetings to be a masterful commander. 2.3 Summary: Raising
As shown above, the marginal status of experiencers in between raising verbs and their nonfinite comple-ments in French and Italian is not due to an intervention effect in A-movement. Adjuncts, which do not block A-movement, have the same effect. The problem seems to be word order: for some speakers, it is un-grammatical or marginal for anything to come between a raising verb and its nonfinite complement. I have suggested that this is due to the marginality of short rightward movement of the raising infinitive. Whether this account is correct or not, the characterization of defective intervention that has appeared in the literature is not accurate.
3
Tough Constructions
We saw above that in raising in Romance languages, there is significant speaker variation in the strength of the “defective intervention” effect. Hartman (2009, 2012) has shown that a similar effect obtains in several
different languages in tough constructions, including in English. In this case, there is no speaker variation, and the effect is much stronger.
3.1 Tough Constructions in English
Hartman (2009, 2012) shows that experiencers can appear with tough predicates in the expletive construction with a finite clause (the (a) examples), but not when there is a non-finite clause and tough movement (the (b) examples):3
(9) a. It is important (to Mary) to avoid cholesterol. b. Cholesterol is important (*to Mary) to avoid. (10) a. It is enjoyable (to John) to eat strawberries.
b. Strawberries are enjoyable (*to John) to eat. (11) a. It is annoying (to those boys) to talk to John.
b. John is annoying (*to those boys) to talk to. (12) a. It was very hard (on me) to give up sugar.
b. Sugar was very hard (*on me) to give up.
Hartman takes the problem here to be the same defective intervention effect as we saw above in French raising. He argues that tough movement must involve a step of A-movement, from the edge of the lower clause (so, tough movement involves improper movement, for Harman, first A-bar movement to the edge of the lower clause, then A-movement to the subject position).
However, the English facts, like the Romance raising facts, are actually part of a different pattern. In fact, not just experiencers but all kinds of adjuncts block tough movement:
(13) a. It will be tough tomorrow to get an audience with the pope. b. * The pope will be tough tomorrow to get an audience with. (14) a. It was very hard last year to give up sugar.
b. * Sugar was very hard last year to give up.
(15) a. It is always annoying at meetings to talk about the budget. b. * The budget is always annoying at meetings to talk about. (16) a. It is enjoyable in the summer to eat strawberries.
b. * Strawberries are enjoyable in the summer to eat.
Adjuncts in general do not count as “defective intervenors.” For instance, they do not disrupt movement to subject position in the passive:
(17) a. The pope has on more than one occasion been criticized for his actions regarding abuse by priests.
b. Calico should in the summer be substituted for flannel.
c. The spectacle of these personages, all scrambling for half-cooked flesh, would last year have been considered utterly disgusting.
3
In my own grammar, enjoyable cannot take an experiencer PP headed by to, but I present the example from Hartman for those who do allow it. In my grammar, only for is acceptable, but, as Hartman discusses, this preposition is ambiguous with the non-finite complementizer in English.
This means that the problem in (13–16) could not be the disruption of A-movement or agreement, since adjuncts do not disrupt A-movement or agreement (see Rizzi 1990).
As with Hartman’s experiencer cases (18), moving the “intervenor” to the front of the sentence fixes the problem (19):
(18) a. To Mary, cholesterol is important to avoid. (Hartman 2012) b. To those boys, John is annoying to talk to.
(19) a. Tomorrow the pope will be tough to get an audience with. b. Last year, sugar was very hard to give up.
c. At meetings, the budget is always annoying to talk about. d. In the summer, strawberries are enjoyable to eat.
Moreover, putting the experiencer where it still comes to the right of the surface subject, but not between the tough predicate and its nonfinite complement, is also permitted:
(20) a. Cholesterol levels are for most people difficult to lower. b. Sugar is for many people difficult to give up.
This shows quite clearly that experiencers do not interfere with A-movement. If they did, they should be ungrammatical in (20) as well, since in these examples they still come between the surface A-position of the subject and the position it is supposed to have moved from.
It appears that Hartman’s experiencer cases are part of a larger pattern. The generalization seems to be about word order again: nothing may intervene between the tough predicate and the nonfinite clause in tough constructions. When there is no tough movement and only an expletive, any sort of element (experiencer PP, adjunct) can intervene between the tough predicate and the non-finite clause. Whatever the nature of this restriction (see below), it is clearly not related to A-movement. Adjuncts do not block A-movement, and the experiencers do not in (20), either.4
3.2 Tough Constructions in French and Italian
Hartman (2012) also shows that defective intervention occurs in both French and Italian tough constructions (more strongly than in raising, and with no speaker variation). An experiencer can appear after the tough predicate if its subject is an expletive, but not if tough movement takes place:
(21) French tough constructions (Hartman 2012) a. Il
it est is
difficile difficult
(pour for
les the
chiens) dogs
de DE
voir to.see
cette this
couleur. color ‘It is difficult for dogs to see this color.’
b. Cette this
couleur color
est is
difficile difficult
(*pour (*for
les the
chiens) dogs)
à A
voir. see ‘This color is difficult (*for dogs) to see.’
4
This means that Hartman’s intervention effect does not show anything about A-movement, after all, and there is no reason to think that tough movement involves A-bar movement followed by a step of A-movement. Pesetsky (1987, (2012)) has claimed that tough-movement can involve reconstruction for binding, as in (ia):
(i) a. This aspect of herself is easy for Mary to criticize.
b. This aspect of herself was tough for Sarah Palin’s autobiography to present in a good light.
However, his examples all involve picture-NPs, which do not actually require a commanding antecedent (Pollard and Sag 1992), as (ib) shows. There is therefore no evidence that reconstruction can actually take place in tough-constructions (see also Hicks 2009).
c. Pour for les the chiens, dogs cette this couleur color est is difficile difficult à A voir. see ‘For dogs, this color is difficult to see.’
(22) a. Il it est is difficile difficult (pour (for les the étudiants) students) de DE comprendre understand le the problème. problem ‘It is difficult for the students to understand the problem.’ b. Le the problème problem est is difficile difficult (*pour (*for les the étudiants) students) à A comprendre. understand ‘The problem is difficult (*for the students) to understand.’ c. Ce this problème problem m’est me-is difficile difficult à A comprendre. to.understand ‘This problem is difficult for me to understand.’ d. Cette this opinion opinion lui him a has été been difficile difficult à A accepter. to.accept ‘This opinion was difficult for him to accept.’
Once again, putting the experiencer at the front of the sentence (21c), or expressing it as a preverbal clitic (22c–22d), gets around the ungrammaticality. Exactly the same holds for Italian:
(23) Italian tough constructions (Hartman 2012) a. È is difficile difficult (per (for i the cani) dogs) vedere to.see questi these colori. colors ‘It is difficult for dogs to see these colors.’ b. Questi these colori colors sono are difficili difficult (*per (*for i the cani) dogs) da DA vedere. to.see ‘These colors are difficult (*for dogs) to see.’
c. Per for i the cani, dogs questi these colori colors sono are difficili difficult da DA vedere. to.see ‘For dogs, these colors are difficult to see.’ (24) a. È
is impossibile impossible (per (for gli the studenti) students) capire to.understand questi these problemi. problems ‘It is impossible (for the students) to understand these problems.’ b. Questi these problemi problems sono are impossibili impossible (*per (*for gli the studenti) students) da DA capire. to.understand ‘These problems are impossible (*for the students) to understand.’
However, once again adjunct PPs are also ungrammatical between the tough predicate and the embedded clause when tough movement takes place, just as in English. The following illustrates adjuncts in French (Philippe Schlenker and Marc Authier, p.c.):
(25) a. Il it est is difficile difficult au at.the crépuscule twilight de DE voir to.see cette this couleur. color ‘It is difficult at twilight to see this color.’
b. * Cette this couleur color est is difficile difficult au at.the crépuscule twilight à A voir. to.see ‘This color is difficult at twilight to see.’
c. Au at.the crépuscule, twilight cette this couleur color est is difficile difficult à A voir. to.see ‘At twilight, this color is difficult to see.’
The same holds in Italian (Denis Delfitto and Guglielmo Cinque, p.c.): (26) a. È
is difficile difficult al at.the crepuscolo twilight vedere to.see questi these colori. colors ‘It is difficult at twilight to see these colors.’ b. * Questi
these colori colors sono are difficili difficult al at.the crepuscolo twilight da DA vedere. to.see ‘These colors are difficult at twilight to see.’
c. Al at.the crepuscolo, twilight questi these colori colors sono are difficili difficult da DA vedere. to.see ‘At twilight, these colors are difficult to see.’
This means, again, that the problem is not intervention in A-movement, since adjuncts do not block A-movement. The issue is word order: nothing is allowed to come between the tough predicate and the non-finite clause when tough movement takes place. Expressing the experiencer as a preverbal clitic or fronting it is part of the same generalization.
This point can be made even more strongly. As in English, above, simply putting the experiencer to the left of the tough predicate, but still to the right of the surface subject, substantially improves the sentence (Denis Delfitto, p.c.):
(27) a. * Questi these colori colors sono are difficili difficult per for i the cani dogs da DA vedere. to.see ‘These colors are difficult for dogs to see.’
b. Questi these colori colors sono are per for i the cani dogs difficili difficult da DA vedere. to.see ‘These colors are difficult for dogs to see.’
If experiencers intervened in A-movement (or agreement), the sentence in (27b) should be just as bad as that in (27a). In both sentences they come between the surface A-position of the subject and the position it has supposedly moved from.
Note that this fact rules out an account where both experiencer arguments and adjuncts interfere with A-movement. Neither does, as (27b) shows for experiencers. The problem is word order: nothing may intervene between a tough-predicate and its nonfinite complement.
In the next subsection, I outline a proposal that captures this word order restriction. Regardless of the success of this proposal, though, it is clear that the ungrammaticality of an experiencer PP in a certain location in tough constructions is not due to the blocking of A-movement.
3.3 An Account
As with raising, I suggest that the issue with tough constructions is rightward movement of the nonfinite clause. Finite clauses, as we saw, can move rightward across any adjunct or argument in tough constructions. Nonfinite ones may not. I suggest that this is related to the fact that relative clauses with null operators may not extrapose:
b. You’ll meet a man tomorrow *(who) you’ve seen before. (29) a. The best person to talk to is Mathilda.
b. * The best person is Mathilda to talk to.
Tough constructions have a null operator in the specifier of the non-finite CP (Chomsky 1977). Suppose that this null operator is a phonological clitic that must merge with the selecting tough predicate at PF (cf. Pesetsky 1992, Boškovi´c and Lasnik 2003). This phonological merger requires PF adjacency. If the nonfinite clause moves away (or the tough predicate does), so that they are separated, the null operator cannot merge with the tough predicate. Thus, nonfinite clauses in tough constructions can never be separated from the selecting tough predicate. The requirement that the null operator cliticize to the tough predicate is apparently inviolable and present in every language. The finite clause versions have no null operator, and so finite clauses are free to move to the right, across arguments and adjuncts.
3.4 Summary: Tough Constructions
English, French, and Italian all show the same word order constraint in tough constructions: the non-finite clause in a tough construction may not be separated from the tough predicate. This has nothing to do with the blocking of A-movement, since adjuncts that do not block A-movement are banned from the same position. I suggested that the restriction follows from the fact that the null operator in a tough construction is a clitic that must adjoin to the tough predicate at PF, and this adjunction requires adjacency. As stated above, whether this account is correct or not, the characterization of the restriction in tough constructions as defective intervention is not correct. The real restriction is about word order.
4
ECM Clauses
Hartman (2012)) also claims that defective intervention appears in ECM clauses in English. Following Hartman, I divide these into two categories, active and passive ECM clauses. I begin with passive ECM clauses, since they are the most straightforward.
4.1 Passive of ECM
Hartman (2012) claims that passivized ECM clauses are also subject to defective intervention by experiencer PPs. He offers the following examples:
(30) a. It was claimed (to Bill) that John had stolen the art. b. John was claimed (*to Bill) to have stolen the art. (31) a. It was said to me that John is guilty.
b. John was said (*to me) to be guilty.
(32) a. It will be demonstrated (to the jury) that the defendant is guilty. b. The defendant will be demonstrated (*to the jury) to be guilty.
I disagree with this judgment, although I do find (30b) marginal. The others are all acceptable. I find numerous examples of this kind on the internet; the following are a few examples:
(33) a. . . . and [flickering] was claimed to me to be “normal” by an Nvidia tech. (34) a. This was said to me to be a new Method, which had not yet been taken;. . .
c. I believe what was said to me to be true because I have done business with Payday Loan before. . .
(35) a. All cases in which the source of the photographs was clearly demonstrated to the jury to be the police files.
b. . . . and sincerely hope that the contrary may be demonstrated to them to be true:. . .
c. . . . indicate that the legislative measures have not been adequately demonstrated to them to be special measures necessary for their wellbeing. . .
Hartman appears to be wrong about experiencers in this context. Adjunct PPs in general pattern in the same way, being allowed to occur between the passivized ECM verb and the non-finite clause:
(36) a. John was claimed on Saturday to have stolen the art. b. John was said at the deposition to be guilty.
c. The defendant will be demonstrated at the trial to be guilty.
Note that passivized ECM verbs act like raising verbs in this respect. Adjunct PPs are allowed to occur immediately before the non-finite clause, as are experiencers. Experiencer PPs pattern with adjunct PPs generally, reinforcing the conclusion that they are part of the same pattern.
4.2 Active ECM Clauses
Hartman (2012) claims that defective intervention also rears its head in active ECM clauses. According to Hartman, active ECM clauses may not have experiencers intervening between the embedded subject and the nonfinite clause:
(37) (Hartman 2012)
a. Mary proved (to me) that John was a liar. b. Mary proved John (*to me) to be a liar. c. Mary proved John yesterday to be a liar.
(38) a. I declared (to the audience) that the competition was over. b. I declared the competition (*to the audience) to be over. (39) a. Mary demonstrated (to Bill) that the hypothesis was false.
b. Mary demonstrated the hypothesis (*to Bill) to be false.
An experiencer can appear between the same verb and a finite clause in the (a) examples.
Hartman (2012) takes the problem here to be A-movement, again. If the subject of a non-finite clause embedded under an ECM verb undergoes A-movement to an object position, then it seems that an interven-ing experiencer PP blocks this A-movement.
Hartman (2012) also offers (37c) to show that other things besides experiencers can come in this po-sition. In this he follows a long line of researchers, who have all claimed that adjuncts can appear be-tween an ECM object and the non-finite clause (e.g., Postal 1974, Kayne 1984, Authier 1991). For instance, Postal (1974) provides the following examples:
(40) (Postal 1974)
a. Jane believes Bob, if I am not mistaken, to be Hungarian. (146, (130b))
b. Jane proved Bob, unfortunately, to be a werewolf. (can understand as modifying the main clause; 146, (131b))
c. I believed Nixon, incorrectly, to be interested in ending the war. (146, (132b)) d. I have found Bob recently to be morose. (146, (133b))
e. I can prove Bob easily to have outweighed Martha’s goat. (147, (136b))
f. I expected John {quite without reason/ in spite of protests/ with my usual false optimism} to give the lecture. (text p.154)
However, there seems to be quite a bit of variation in acceptability with different adjuncts, and argu-ments. My own judgment is that PPs are degraded, unless they have significant pauses before and after them, as in Postal’s examples above. I find the following less than acceptable without heavy pauses, con-trasting with a finite clause:
(41) a. Mary proved with impeccable logic that John was a liar. b. Mary proved John (??with impeccable logic) to be a liar. (42) a. I declared in a loud voice that the competition was over.
b. I declared the competition (??in a loud voice) to be over.
(43) a. Mary demonstrated with pencil and paper that the hypothesis was false. b. Mary demonstrated the hypothesis (??with pencil and paper) to be false.
However, other speakers I have asked find the above perfectly grammatical, and some of them also allow the argument PPs that Hartman presented as ungrammatical (37b, 38b, 39b).
Moreover, at least for me, argument PPs improve dramatically in certain contexts: (44) a. I can prove him to ANY jury to be a con man.
b. We should demonstrate it to anyone who will listen to be flawed. As with adjunct PPs, heavy pauses can help:
(45) a. Mary proved John, to everyone present at the trial, to be a liar.
b. The MC declared the competition, to both the audience and the contestants, to be over. I therefore conclude that argument PPs and adjunct PPs do not really differ in this respect, just as we saw before with tough-constructions (both ungrammatical), raising (both grammatical), and passivized ECM constructions (both grammatical). With active ECM clauses, they both vary from acceptable to unacceptable, depending on the same sorts of factors, and with some speaker variation.
Interestingly, however, non-referential NPs as ECM objects do not permit any sort of adjunct or argument to follow them. This was noted by Kayne (1984), using the semi-idiomatic take advantage of and the expletive there:
(46) (Kayne 1984, 114–115, (70–73))
a. I’ve believed Gary for a long time now to be a fool.
b. * I’ve believed there for a long time now to be no solution to this problem. c. * I’ve believed advantage for a long time now to have been taken of me.
d. (?) There has been believed for a long time now to be no solution to this problem. e. ? Advantage has been believed for a long time now to be taken of the poor.
Note that active ECM contrasts strongly with passive ECM (see the last subsection), where adjuncts are fine in this position with there and advantage.
To add more data, the expletive there is ungrammatical in an active ECM clause if any material from the main clause follows it, whether that is a simple adverb like yesterday, a complex PP adjunct like with
(47) a. The prosecutor proved there to have been a conspiracy.
b. * The prosecutor proved there yesterday to have been a conspiracy.
c. * The prosecutor proved there with documented evidence to have been a conspiracy. d. * The prosecutor proved there to the jury to have been a conspiracy.
The same holds with the idiom the shit hit the fan: (48) a. I predicted the shit to hit the fan today.
b. * I predicted the shit yesterday to hit the fan today. c. * I predicted the shit in all seriousness to hit the fan today. d. * I predicted the shit to my colleagues to hit the fan today. This is true even for the speakers who permit (37b), (38b), (39b).
Note that the problem in (47–48) could not be intervention in A-movement, since adjuncts like yesterday and arguments like to the jury do not block A-movement, for instance in the passive. Additionally, as Kayne showed, the same adverbs and PPs are fine in passive ECM:
(49) a. ? There was proven to the jury to have been a conspiracy. b. The shit was predicted yesterday to hit the fan today.
The adjuncts that are degraded for some speakers in active ECM with referential NP objects also do not block passivization:
(50) a. She declared the slowest contestant (??with perfect seriousness) to be the winner.
b. These two contradictory positions can with perfect seriousness be held to at the same time. (51) a. One could demonstrate this hypothesis (??only in jest) to be viable.
b. He had what could only in jest have been referred to as a beard. The issue is not intervention in A-movement, then.
To summarize the data, idiomatic and expletive ECM objects permit nothing to come between them and the non-finite clause. Referential ECM objects like proper names do permit some adjuncts and arguments to follow them, but others are degraded for some speakers. Pauses help to make both acceptable for those speakers.
4.3 An Account of ECM Clauses
To explain this pattern, I suggest that ECM constructions are ambiguous between two different derivations. One is truly an ECM derivation: the verb simply selects a proposition, and the ECM object is the subject of the non-finite clause. It never moves to become the object of the ECM verb. Only this derivation is available to idiom chunks and the expletive there. The requirement of adjacency follows from case assignment: the verb assigns case to the embedded subject by the operation of Agree (Chomsky 2000), which requires c-command. If the non-finite clause were to move and adjoin high on the right, the verb could not Agree with the subject in Spec-TP of that clause. I assume that case assignment takes place at PF in English, so that c-command has to hold between the verb and the ECM object at PF.5Additionally, verbs do not move in English (at least not very far, see below), so there is no way to move the verb leftward across an adjunct
5
This actually has to be more complicated: c-command has to hold at PF between the verb and the highest A-position occupied
by the object. PF c-command does not need to hold when the object has undergone A-bar movement out of its highest A-position
(including heavy NP shift). In ECM, the highest A-position occupied by the ECM object is Spec-TP of the embedded clause, and so this position needs to be c-commanded by the verb at PF.
or argument. This derives the impossibility of matrix adjuncts or arguments following an idiom chunk or expletive in active ECM clauses.
The other derivation, available to other sorts of NPs besides idiom chunks and expletives, has the ECM object as a semantic argument of the ECM verb. On this interpretation, the ECM verb says that a property (the embedded clause) holds of an individual (the ECM object). So, for instance, if I declare Jerome to be the winner, I declare that the property of being the winner holds of the individual Jerome. This is truth-conditionally equivalent to declaring the proposition that Jerome is the winner (as with declare plus finite clause), but with a different discourse effect (attribution of a property to an individual). Expletives and idiom chunks cannot participate in this derivation because they are not the sorts of individuals that can have properties predicated of them. (For details of this proposal, see Bruening 2006.)
As for the syntax of this derivation, I hypothesize that the embedded subject moves into a matrix object position. When it does so, it abstracts over the embedded TP, turning it into a property (λx. . . ). The ECM
verb then combines with this property as its first argument, and the raised NP as its second argument, and predicates the property of the NP. The embedded nonfinite TP, containing the trace of the ECM object, may (under certain conditions, varying by speaker) move rightward across an adjunct or argument. Like a raising infinitive, the TP can move only a short distance to the right, since it is not a phase, but this is enough to cross a matrix adjunct or argument. The verb must move above the derived position of the ECM object in order to satisfy PF c-command for case assignment, but no adjuncts may adjoin below the highest position of the verb; only arguments may appear in these low projections. A tree with these properties is depicted below:
(52) VP
VP
VP
V believed
VP NP1 Gary
V V
tbelieved TP
t2
PP
for a long time now
TP2
t1to be a fool
No adjuncts are permitted to adjoin to the lower VP.6
This explains why expletives and idiom chunks may not precede matrix adjuncts or arguments: they never leave the embedded clause. Other sorts of NPs have an additional derivation available to them, one in
6
A note on semantic composition in this tree: the moving NP will abstract over the node labelled “V,” but if the trace of the verb is semantically vacuous, this is equivalent to abstracting over TP. The issue is how the verb can combine with the abstracted-over node and the NP separately, without the property simply being applied to the NP. In Bruening (2006), I proposed that semantic composition could take place by Agree. In this structure, V Agrees with the abstracted-over node (V) and with the NP, in two distinct Agree operations. Agree can look for semantic types: the V looks for a property argument to combine with, and with an individual argument. This permits the V to combine first with V, and then with the NP. The meaning of believe on this analysis is something like this:JbelieveK=λPλxλyλw.∀w’ compatible with what y believes in w, P(x)(w’). See Bruening (2006) for more on the semantics.
which they move out of the embedded clause, and that clause can then shift rightward across matrix adjuncts and arguments.
As for passive ECM clauses, I assume that the two derivations are both available again. Only now, the ECM object moves to the matrix subject position in both cases, either from the embedded Spec-TP, or via a matrix object position. In either case, the lower TP has a trace in its specifier. This TP can then undergo movement rightward across matrix adjuncts and arguments. Thus, expletives and idiom chunks may not be separated from the rest of the nonfinite clause in active ECM clauses, because they never move out of that clause; but in passive ECM clauses they do move out of the embedded clause, and so the embedded clause can move across matrix adjuncts and arguments (and in the passive, there is no issue of PF c-command between the verb and the NP it assigns case to, because the V does not assign case in the passive).
There is some evidence showing that, when the nonfinite clause follows a matrix adverb, it has moved to the right. This is that extraction from such a clause is degraded:
(53) a. How big a fool do you believe Gary to be?
b. * How big a fool have you believed Gary for a long time now to be?
It is well-known that phrases that have moved to the right (extraposition, heavy shift) are islands to extrac-tion.
4.4 Summary: ECM Constructions
Hartman’s (2012) claim that defective intervention can be observed with experiencer PPs in ECM construc-tions in English is not correct. There is no intervention effect in passive ECM clauses, and in active ECM clauses, experiencer PPs are no more grammatical or ungrammatical than other sorts of PPs and other ad-juncts. I suggested an account of the patterns that obtain in English, but again, regardless of the success of this account, the characterization of defective intervention in the literature is not correct. The issue is not A-movement, but word order.
5
Conclusion
So-called defective intervention has been a major issue in the Minimalist Program, where minimality and intervention effects are expected to hold in all areas of the grammar. The defective intervention paradigm in French and Italian motivated numerous proposals about the workings of the grammar, and numerous solutions were offered to the puzzle of why there was no defective intervention in English raising. All of these proposals were built on a foundation of sand. There is no such thing as defective intervention, and the “intervention” caused by experiencers is actually part of a word order restriction involving PPs and optional phrases of all kinds.7
I have suggested accounts of the various word order constraints: raising infinitives can only marginally shift rightward, for some speakers of French and Italian; tough constructions involve cliticization of a null operator, which requires PF adjacency in all languages; and ECM clauses are ambiguous, with the nonfinite lower clause able to shift rightward only in one derivation. Even if these accounts turn out to be incorrect, the most important point of this paper still stands: the empirical point that defective intervention does not exist.
I close this paper with a warning about methodology. If a researcher wishes to show that the ungrammat-icality of some sentence is due to factor X, then it is incumbent upon that researcher to show that minimally
7
In addition to French and Italian, defective intervention has also been described in Spanish and Icelandic. However, Spanish has been shown to involve something else (selection; see Torrego 1996, Anagnostopoulou 2003, 237–238). The facts of Icelandic are much more complex, but Holmberg and Hróarsdóttir (2003, 1009) note some data involving negation and adverbs that suggest that something else is going on, as was shown here for French, Italian, and English.
different sentences that do not involve factor X are grammatical. In the case at hand, if it were true that a sen-tence with an experiencer PP in a particular position was ungrammatical because experiencers, in particular, blocked A-movement in that position, then it is necessary to check that other things besides experiencers
can come in that position. That is, one must verify that that position is a position where things can appear,
so long as they are not interfering with A-movement. For instance, in Rizzi (1990), where Rizzi argued that minimality is all relative, he showed that things like heads, adjuncts, and A-bar specifiers do not interfere in A-movement. This basic control was never checked in the case of defective intervention, leading researchers down the wrong path entirely.
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Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716 (302) 831-4096
