Lingering Challenges to the Raising‐to‐object and Object‐control Constructions

Abstract

Abstract. This article provides an overview of the three main approaches to raising‐to‐object sentences likeCindy believes Marcia to be a genius. The article describes the strengths and challenges faced by these accounts, reaching a number of conclusions. First, the covert ‘‘LF’’ raising account, though successful at accounting for certain interpretational facts about the construction, does not provide an analysis of the word‐order facts. Second, the overt raising account, which can account for the word order facts, still faces two main challenges; there remain important open questions about verb placement, and though none of the current approaches to extraction can easily explain it, extraction and raising‐to‐object interact in complex ways that are still not well understood. Third, the movement theory of control, which treats object control in a way parallel to overt raising‐to‐object, faces not only the challenges to the overt raising account, but several others particular to object control. Finally, the article describes the HPSG analysis of raising‐to‐object, which can account straightforwardly for the word order facts, and with the appropriate constraints can be extended to account for the extraction facts discussed.