Obligatory and Non-Obligatory Control in Irish and Polish

Abstract

This paper aims at establishing a typology of control in Irish and Polish non-finite clauses. First, seven classes of predicates taking non-finite complements in Irish and Polish are specified. They include: modal (e.g. must), aspectual (e.g. start), implicative (e.g. manage), factive (e.g. like), prepositional (e.g. say), desiderative (e.g. want) and interrogative verbs (e.g. ask). Whereas modals and aspectuals typically take raising complements, the remaining predicate classes require control complements. Control clauses in Polish always have a covert PRO subject, while in Irish their subject may be either the covert PRO or an overt DP. The PRO subject may be either obligatorily controlled or is controlled optionally. The criteria adopted in distinguishing obligatory control (OC) from non-obligatory control (NOC) are based on Landau (2000) and comprise the following: (1) a. Arbitrary Control is impossible in OC, possible in NOC; b. Long-distance control is impossible in OC, possible in NOC; c. Strict reading of PRO is impossible in OC, possible in NOC; d. De re reading of PRO is impossible in OC (only de se), possible in NOC. The validity of these criteria for establishing the OC/NOC contrast in Irish and Polish is scrutinised. Various contexts are examined where both these control types obtain in the two languages studied. Most notably, OC tends to occur in complement clauses, while NOC is often found in subject and adjunct clauses both in Irish and Polish. Within the class of OC, two subgroups are recognised, namely exhaustive control (EC) and partial control (PC). The former control type holds when the reference of PRO and its antecedent are identical, whereas the latter type of control is attested when the reference of PRO covers the reference of its antecedent, but is not entirely co-extensive with it, e.g.: (2) a. Maryᵢ managed [PROᵢ to win] = EC; b. Maryᵢ wanted [PRO + to meet at 6] = PC. EC and PC are found in analogous contexts in Irish and Polish. EC occurs in complements to modal, implicative and aspectual verbs, while PC is limited to complements to factive, desiderative, prepositional and interrogative predicates. It is argued that EC-complements lack independent tense specification, while PC-complements are marked for tense independent from the one expressed in the matrix clause. PC-complements both in Irish and Polish must contain a semantically plural predicate (cf. meet in (2b)), but they can never exhibit a syntactically plural element.