Agreement and Flotation in Partial and Inverse Partial Control Configurations

Abstract

Traditional classifications of control distinguish two types: obligatory control (OC) and non-obligatory control (NOC). Recently, it has been demonstrated that OC should also be divided into two types: exhaustive and partial control (cf. Landau 2000). This more refined view of OC is taken to be evidence against the movement theory of control (MTC – cf. Hornstein 2001), the argument being that partially controlled PRO does not behave like a trace. In this paper, I contribute to advancing our understanding of control by looking at agreement and flotation in control configurations and developing an analysis for partial control that results from movement plus stranding. The paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses cases of past participle agreement in control configurations, showing that exhaustively and partially controlled PRO does not trigger φ-feature agreement independently of its controller. In view of this, section 3 evaluates the Movement and the Agree-based theories of control, concluding that partial control cannot be the result of Agree. Section 4 suggests that partial control involves movement plus stranding of an associative null pronoun. In section 5, inverse partial control in Spanish is introduced, and I show that it also fits a movement and stranding analysis. Section 6 is dedicated to the conclusion.