Control, restructuring and temporal interpretation

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate whether there is a correlation between the temporal properties of control verbs and the possibility of restructuring with obligatory control predicates, taking clitic climbing as a diagnostic for restructuring. We review the findings of previous studies on earlier stages of Portuguese and on (non-)standard varieties of contemporary European Portuguese. Additionally, we perform an analysis of both diachronic and synchronic corpus data, as well as of data collected through an acceptability judgement task. Based on our findings, we argue against a correlation between temporal dependence and restructuring and suggest that restructuring depends on the selectional properties of verbs, occurring when a functionally defective infinitive is selected. Diachronically, there is a change in the selectional properties of control verbs, whereas, synchronically, there is variation both across varieties and across speakers in the set of restructuring control verbs. Factors like the type of clitic and the presence of proclisis triggers affect the acceptability of clitic climbing.